Curse

Kaylee Ann · Aug 02, 2005, 03:07 AM // 03:07

I actually had this conversation with a bunch of people in vent about the whole premise of why would Anet do this. If you look at it from a business point of view it technically 'could' make sense.

You make a decent game, and build up huge hopes of it. When it does go live it looks awesomely impressive, and gets rave reviews. Except to the alpha testers trying to fix issues within the game, no one really has a problem, and with no monthly fees people think they have hit the nail on the head. Everyone buys this game, and if for nothing else, buys it for the fact that it has no monthly fees. Anet sits back and makes millions.

Now here is where the fun part comes in. Why bother pleasing people from this point on? People leave the game because of the lack of improvements and update quality. Technically this benefits Anet because the less people playing the game after buying it already, means the less bandwidth and servers you have to dedicate to running the game. Anet already made their mark with reviews for the game, so their only threat would be from the alpha comunity of testers. Granted, the alpha community is a powerful one, but by far probably won't make an impact on the majority of potental customers towards the game (although they could make a lasting impression on the company and future games). Anet saves money.

Now comes the argument of future expansions. Hard core, die hard, gamers will always buy atleast the first expansion, hoping for something great and new. Anet will get business from that. The casual gamer can swing any way, and they will depend on word of mouth of how good the expansion is from others. If Anet were to release a major expansion, with huge changes to the game, they might even be able to get people that quit back (ie releasing content they should have been done in the first place). Anet also said that not having the expansion will not in any way 'gimp' you compared to the people who do. I find this impossible to believe (unless it was purely for PvE purposes), but that is for another topic. With a huge expansion release Anet may even be able to draw some people back to the game, making even more money. Anet wins again.

Anything after this really doesn't matter because the money was made, and profits can be used for future games, going in a big circle over and over.

I mean, yes it is of course just a humble theory of a few people (most of them probably drunk), but when you compare it to the dirty practices of most big business (which is exactly what this is remember, don't ever forget that), it starts to make alittle sense. Anet is paying a group of people to make the best solutions to this game to make money. Are they experts, only the number charts could tell, but never forget that you are a customer, and they are going to try and squeeze everything single penny out of you with the least amount of effort on their part.

Orochim4ru · Aug 02, 2005, 03:11 AM // 03:11

Buisness projections have stated that there has to be an expansion around every 6 months with most of the players buying it to cover the costs, thus retention of players has to be a priority for their continued survival.

Phades · Aug 02, 2005, 03:18 AM // 03:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaylee Ann

Now comes the argument of future expansions. Hard core, die hard, gamers will always buy atleast the first expansion, hoping for something great and new. Anet will get business from that. The casual gamer can swing any way, and they will depend on word of mouth of how good the expansion is from others. If Anet were to release a major expansion, with huge changes to the game, they might even be able to get people that quit back (ie releasing content they should have been done in the first place). Anet also said that not having the expansion will not in any way 'gimp' you compared to the people who do. I find this impossible to believe (unless it was purely for PvE purposes), but that is for another topic. With a huge expansion release Anet may even be able to draw some people back to the game, making even more money. Anet wins again.

This is the part where if you piss off the community prior to the expansion, can and have, crippled other games' growth over time. What usually get left over after that are the die hard fans and the botters, with the occasional new guy. This person may or may not walk away after asking questions and getting flamed by the die hard fans.

Aug 02, 2005, 03:18 AM // 03:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tigris Of Gaul

No, a guild member tested PvE aggressively. In fact, he tested whatever the hell ArenaNet wanted him too; ArenaNet wanted to test Tombs? He was there. Wanted to test PvE? He was there.

He can be pretty vocal, but what it boiled down to was he got kicked out for voicing his opinion. I definitely don't hold the same position on what he was directly arguing, but the underlying basis for why we have these problems was absolutely true in what he said.

Seems like you need to speak quietly to stay in alpha.

Well I guess they got tired of us telling them that PvP had issues. Ok well I see "whoever" kicked us all from the alpha's point: Whether or not we responded to that "choice" of the option to continue seems like bullshit and now I've seen why so many people have left the test. I dont really mind that I've been kicked out, but there were a bunch of pro PvP people there that spoke for the general PvP fanbase pretty well. Now I know why Rex and someothers quit the test in disgust.

Forget them and their "PvP" promises. It's been 10 months and they STILL dont want to listen to the people that actually played PvP in other games on how to fix stuff. So the alpha is currently a bunch of guys screaming Expertise sucks donkey nuts and Lingering Curse should be map wide. Great, I can hear Zerg Mutalisks and Terran Siege Tanks screaming my name and it's been getting louder month by month.

Phades · Aug 02, 2005, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

Great, I can hear Zerg Mutalisks and Terran Siege Tanks screaming my name and it's been getting louder month by month.

Very OT, but i played that game to death, along with its pre-cursors before much of the balancing took place. While it was fun for the time, the balance and gameplay became stale as it was the same set of tactics to win over and over again. In reflection, i was not a huge clicks per second fan either, but more of a quality over quantity person. This generally drove my fps style, but meh whatever. The old versions of those games left a bad taste in my mouth, which will prevent me from ever playing them again despite what changes have occured years later.

Kaylee Ann · Aug 02, 2005, 03:33 AM // 03:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orochim4ru

Buisness projections have stated that there has to be an expansion around every 6 months with most of the players buying it to cover the costs, thus retention of players has to be a priority for their continued survival.

Link please.

Vex · Aug 02, 2005, 04:14 AM // 04:14

I left TGH ( did say A.Net but I wouldnt leave A.net) a long time ago because of this kinda stuff. Please tell me that their nonsense isnt carrying over the Guru...please.

Yes, I understand that PvP dosnt have a UAS button and that people are pissed because the BWE isnt like the release, but thats because it was a Beta Test. The reason people got all those skills is because they needed testing. There was only 3 days to test and that is not nearly enough time to test all the skills in the game UNLESS they gave the option for UAS. I guess maybe they shouldnt have.

I dont think people would be complaing about UAS if they hadnt gotten the Privlage (sp?) of using it in the first place. I do like the faction though. I think they should raise it a bit cause it is tough to get enough faction for it to be worth anything. Also I think they should delete the guild ladder seasonally. That way people who should be at the top will be. Anyways just my opinion

Phades · Aug 02, 2005, 04:25 AM // 04:25

Those tests seem to be more about testing their bandwith and server capabilities opposed to testing the skills. You could also argue that they were also a marketing manuver used to have some near free advertising for the game under optimal conditions. 3 days of running numbers of skills could be done internally, while the conceptual argument for combinations could have happened at any point in time and did not require a player base.

Legendary Battousai · Aug 02, 2005, 04:51 AM // 04:51

if anyone has played Novaworld's Joint Operation: Escalation, that game seems to show what will happen to this game. Novaworld released a patch that severly made the game unfun, illogical and stupid. They finally said they would release a patch to fix it all. They said that about 1 year ago. They held beta tests and said the patch would be released in WEEKS. 1 year later, the patch hasnt happened. The community is in a uproar about everything wrong with the game, Novaworld ditched the Joint Ops' community when they made their new Black Hawk Down game.

For Arena.net's case. They have pissed off the crowds, say they will try and fix it and yet that hasnt came yet. They are going to make a new expansion. People will buy it thinking that it will fix everything. In a short while there will be people pissed, either on the PvE or PvP side and the game will die.

Also another example of this is Blizzard's [Battle.net's] Diablo 2: LoD. The players were split against hackers and legits. The Legits won, and a new patch came out fixing all that was wrong with the bugged items, but inorder to please the hackers, they made items similar to the hacked items. Eventually people missed all the hacked items that they had and all the fun it was, but eventually people moved to "Open Battle.net" where one can hack all they want. Eventually that got old. People still playing Diablo 2: LoD heard of a new game called Guild Wars. People from d2 all moved to GW in hopes that it would be better. The beta's were great compaired to the corrupted economy of D2. GW came out. GW thrived. A few months later, the economy was shot, patches did help, yet not enough and the people are pist. When another company makes a game, everyone will move to it, and then either it is great or it sucks. Whenever something with a game goes wrong, another game is made, people move to that game and then the process is repeated. Guild Wars seems to be heading down that path. But in a last ditch-effort for money, they decide to make a new expansion which will draw the crowds the false hope of it being the fix. The fix will do nothing, the creators will be richer and then the game will fail like all the others. Only a few will stay.

The game can be fixed even though it seems doomed, yet aparently they dont want to fix it. The only way to fix PvP is a drastic change. As said by Alex from gw even said it himself that there wasnt going to be a drastic change. If you dig a whole thats really big, it would seem that it would take just as much effort would be needed to get yourself out of that whole. By that one phrase, A.Net has just said they arent going to give the effort required. So theres a [email protected] good chance pvp will fail. Only the hardcore pve'rs will stay...

Kaylee Ann · Aug 02, 2005, 04:55 AM // 04:55

Yeah, pretty much. That was what I was trying to say. It is not about you people, it is about the money. And despite what you think, pleasing you does not necessarily mean more money. In big business the quick buck will always reign supreme.

Vex · Aug 02, 2005, 05:00 AM // 05:00

*edit*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Those tests seem to be more about testing their bandwith and server capabilities opposed to testing the skills. You could also argue that they were also a marketing manuver used to have some near free advertising for the game under optimal conditions. 3 days of running numbers of skills could be done internally, while the conceptual argument for combinations could have happened at any point in time and did not require a player base.

Yeah I suppose that may be true. I still think that people that are upset with how things are now opposed to how things were during the BWE's should relize it was a test and not a solid "This is how things will be when we will release the final game".

The reason I have such a hard time Believing(sp? lol dosnt look right to me..) that it was just a marketing tool is because I have beta and alpha tested many diffrent games and have made custom spells for NwN mods. Its alot faster if you have alot of people testing them and giving you feedback then it is to just have a few people test it to see if they are working correctly.

I know GW has been out awhile but sometimes I wonder if people understand that creating a spell or a system is not easy. Alot of the time it is a huge script with thousands of lines of nothing but code. Its not something that takes a day or two to do. I know people are prolly tierd of hearing that.

Also didnt the last update please alot of players at the beggining? Now all the sudden it seems to have pushed a button with the PvP community. Saying that they arnt working on fixing it is not really true. They had a full update that was nothing but fixing AoE and PvP things. If anything its a small step forward rather then a small step backwards.

Also.. the people who alpha tested the patch seemed to like it. Now that alot of them have been kicked off it seems it really sucks? Im not trying to start a fight with them but which is it? All the questions I ask are me seriously trying to understand what is going on and why everyone is so mad. Not to be an ass but I dont take anything serious from someone who was kicked off the alpha. Not because you are bad people or anything but your opinions may be a bit bias because you were removed...

Aracos79 · Aug 02, 2005, 05:08 AM // 05:08

So to make a long story short... play the game, or not play the game. You've already bought it, ANet has your money, the rest is inconsequential? Sorry, but I don't buy that. They need good sales on the first expansion to keep things going, and people bad mouthing the game on every gaming forum won't help. I have to believe they are at least trying. It might not be hard, and it might not be exactly what people want... but some effort has to be there.

Now about the hardcore PvPers... I hate to say this, but how self-centered can you be? I understand what you want, I've even sympathized with it. In response I was called condescending. How is that constructive? It's hard to generate sympathy with your position when all you do is lash out at people who offer their comments. I saw similar things directed at Aniewiel. There are more points of view than simply yours. You might want to consider what others have to say rather than dismissing it outright because it does not conform with your view of reality.

Kaylee Ann · Aug 02, 2005, 05:17 AM // 05:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aracos79

So to make a long story short... play the game, or not play the game. You've already bought it, ANet has your money, the rest is inconsequential? Sorry, but I don't buy that. They need good sales on the first expansion to keep things going, and people bad mouthing the game on every gaming forum won't help. I have to believe they are at least trying. It might not be hard, and it might not be exactly what people want... but some effort has to be there.

If there wasn't a reputation involved, Anet could just pull the plug right now and it would be no skin of their back. They have already made millions and millions of dollars off of the game. Anything after this is just milking it for what you can, stringing along people to buy the expansion, with little or no effort, getting what they can out of you as the customer.

That is business 101....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aracos79

Now about the hardcore PvPers... I hate to say this, but how self-centered can you be? I understand what you want, I've even sympathized with it. In response I was called condescending. How is that constructive? It's hard to generate sympathy with your position when all you do is lash out at people who offer their comments. I saw similar things directed at Aniewiel. There are more points of view than simply yours. You might want to consider what others have to say rather than dismissing it outright because it does not conform with your view of reality.

All I do is PvP, but that has to be the best thing said in this thread, and probably on these forums for awhile heh....

Legendary Battousai · Aug 02, 2005, 05:20 AM // 05:20

well aracos, its the fact that someone figured out they could "paint a picture" of evil arena.net by pasting their past said words with present and saying they are different. not that im saying that arena.net isnt shooting themself in the foot, but the hardcore pvpers wanted to play this game competitively, not play the rpg. i personally hate every second of rpg that i play. and yet thats all i do so i CAN play pvp. and when i make a miscalculation in my builds, i must start from scratch and play rpg more. I even created the Invincimonk Build by scratch so I could pvp, yet ended up using him for RPG so i could get gold to buy fissure armor to look good while i pvp, and also to pay for my new rpg chars i make to unlock skills. also the gold i get is used to actually BUY the [email protected] skills in the first place. another bonus is the exp gives skill points. and here i sit, bored with the game and more interested in the forums than the game which the forums are about because I cant try my good ideas because I dont have time for it or the patience because it would require massive ammounts of hours trying to skill cap, level etc. so really im pissed off at the grind that is screwing us over. the pvp'er are pist because arena.net said its a COMPETITIVE GAME meaning it was ment for pvpers. so dont say pvp'ers are self centered because they bought the game with their money and got less than they expected. they have a right to be pissed off....

yet still i agree with about pvp'rs lashing out at every comment, i see your point yet i belive both sides are wasting their time getting pist at eachother when a.net should be the ones that we are talking about... i guess... im just really tired right now

Aracos79 · Aug 02, 2005, 05:27 AM // 05:27

I never said they didn't have a right to be pissed off. I understand why they are, and I sympathize. If someone told me I couldn't play the game the way I wanted to, I would be pissed also. However... the attitude taken by the majority of the PvPers in this topic (and by extension their whole community) is NOT constructive to any sort of solution. They bad mouth ANet, call them liars, and then lash out at anyone else in the community that has a different perspective than they do. That's not going to help anything. It's not going to "win" you any support from the rest of the community, making it harder to apply to ANet for change. And if you all just threaten to leave... ANet has NO reason to do anything you say. So in the end... that approach is worthless.

I WANT ANet to fix PvP, I really do. I want this game to be successful long term, and for that to happen, everyone in the community has to feel like they are being heard. Personally I don't care if they give PvP characters UAS. It doesn't affect me at all. If they have to change skills around, so be it.

I'm willing to be part of the SOLUTION, not the problem. So let's have a constructive discussion about what can be, and needs to be done, not just flame away at anyone who's perspective differs from your own.

EDIT: Just saw your edit. We all get tired from time to time... even gamers.

varyag · Aug 02, 2005, 05:36 AM // 05:36

When I bought the game I was promised that it would level the playing field between the Casual gamers that are low on time, and those that can afford to waste their life on computer games.

Right now it still takes dozens of hours of repeating old content to get the skillpoints for a new builds. Right now Guilds sill have to spend hundreds of hours of unfun work to prepare for PvP.
Right now many of the basic PvP issues raised during beta are still ignored.

Casual gamers in GW are screwed, and those for whom the wasted hours mean nothing are praising ANet for a job well done.

Then we were promised a solution and recieved - Faction. A method that's even slower at gaining skill points and only really helps those that already have a working GvG build.

How can you expect people to remain calm and be constructive when ANet is doing everything to frustrate them into leaving?

How can you expect the people that already cleared the game once and don't want to do it again to calmly tolerate the grind that's being forced on them by the poor skillpoint balancing?

How can you expect people to remain calm when facing months of problems with the way the ToPK Tournament (tombs) is implemented? (and open invitation for abuse and ganking)

People have self-respect and dignity. Everyone speaks out, whether privately among the guild or on a public forum. People are gradualy losing patience.
It is natural that the more time is wasted, without even a RECOGNITION of the problems, the angrier people get.

=/

P.S. Here is the proof of the lies. Right in front of you.
http://www.ncsoft.com/eng/ncgames/gw_intro.asp

Quote:

Originally Posted by NCSOFT/ANET

- Develop a richly personalized character that can explore multiple professions and hundreds of unique skills
- Be rewarded based on your gaming skill, not hours played

Legendary Battousai · Aug 02, 2005, 05:39 AM // 05:39

yup :P yet its hard to say that protestors never win. thats practically whats happening. people said what they want, and now they are going to rant untill it happens :S and the amazing thing is- its 10:30pm and im tired

WTF! i stay up till 2am every day!

EDIT: and vayrag, thank you for saying EXACTLY what this whole thread is about... that was kinda like copying and pasting there....

Vex · Aug 02, 2005, 05:41 AM // 05:41

Quote:

Ok, because I have ended my GW exp, I have decided to let people know what is up. This may get me thrown out but whatever. Maybe even piss of the pvp community alittle more.

Behind closed doors there was a post about a week or two ago asking testers if they still wanted to continue testing or not. You were to tell them if you wanted to or not. If there was no response then they considered this inactive. They closed the accounts that they did not get a response to.

BUT, the reason most PVP accounts were closed is because they no longer played or tested, which is why they were kicked form it.

*****Here comes a UNOFFICIAL SPOILER for you people*****

The reason the cleaning up of accounts were done, is because they are started to work on Chapter 2 of GW.

So, this could be untrue but they may keep the game the way it is and continue to Chapter 2.

Sorry to **** on peoples corn flakes and maybe anets but just wanted to say a few words to clam things down or add to the fire.

Ouch. You know when you alphas post about what is going on and that you were kicked maybe should add the truth to the reason instead of trying to mask as its because you were vocal..cause obviously you wernt vocal enough? Atleast thats what the quote from an Alpha tester just said at TGH.

Hmm hopefully that part about them not realeasing as much because they are working on chapter 2 isnt totally true hopefully they will contenue to work on both.

Legendary Battousai · Aug 02, 2005, 05:43 AM // 05:43

if by wednesday, we see no patch or state of the game letter, then refer to my 1st post of the thread on page 3... they will be doing what Novaworld did...

Makkert · Aug 02, 2005, 05:47 AM // 05:47

The idea that a pve char should be able to compete with a pvp char is a weird one. Aftr all, is UAS would be introduced, then people with pve chars can also make PvP chars. Its open to everyone. That said, since they have taken a stand on it, it will not be introduced. case closed, unless an uproar appears.
The post screams 'give us some more time to work with'. Having read many, many posts by betaplayers I can understand they feel fooled by ANet. However it is true that they try to fix their mistakes. They have introduced a way to unlock through pvp, and have 'fixed' that a week later. Altough not with the figures some wanted to see, it was still progress. Progress comes slowly, and patience among gamers seems...non-existent. Sometimes I get the feeling a few of them bitch around in ways they would never have the balls to do so in real life, because who can really touch you online?
Is the grind big? you bet ya! Will they fix it soon? Probably not to the degree everyone hopes, but maybe to a certain level. And the grind is (probably, havn't played it) still better then WoW with their dorky level 60's.