Oh, I know (and I've even pointed that out myself, too), and I don't have any problems with a new level of gear that is identical in stats, but rarer than exotics and less rare than legendaries, and has its own unique skins. It's the stat increases that I do not agree with, as those will make this gear 'mandatory' in the eyes of many players.
On a sidenote... here's a great youtube video on the gear issue:
Yeah I get it. I really do. I don't think there's anything anyone can say to fix it.Originally Posted by Centaur
And I get how GW1 did it's aesthetic only thing. But heres the problem... GW1 was tiny. People say how successful it was and how great it was, and how it does a lot of things right. And I don't disagree with that. But it was literally like, it came out and a lot of people jumped in it and then most of them quit.
Like I heard about other random games far more. I didn't even know when GW1 expansions came out despite owning the game myself until friends told me about them, you just never heard about GW1 unless you were following it, that game had such a small population compariatively to almost everything else on the market.
I mean it sucks but this is the same reason why I don't have a new StarFox game to play. Or a new Fire Emblem that's not a remake of an older version. Or another true sequel to Devil May Cry instead of the weird version coming out next year. Or a true sequel to Sonic 3 and Knuckles that's not a half-assed game that was released in parts. So I really do understand why everyone is pissed.
But this change is no where near as bad as most of the changes that have affected other series that I've grown to love.
You forget one thing: GW1 sold over 7 million copies. At the time being, I don't even think that GW2 has crossed the 3 million border. So as of this moment, GW1-type success is what ArenaNet can only dream of. And they're not going to get any closer if they p*ss off the players who liked GW1's style of progression.
Let's look at the reality:
Last week around this time (ie before the controversial announcement, in European prime time), 8 to 10 (I can't remember the exact amount) of the European worlds were "full". Right now, this number has dropped to only 1. The others have dropped down to "high". So for the time being, it looks like this last patch is actually chasing players away, and not attracting more players.
Yes. 7 million one time cost, no monthly fee. Console games sell better than that. Singleplayer RPG's sell better than that. I mean ****, CoD puts that number to SHAME. And this is a game that has servers constantly running where they have to make sure everything works, keep it balanced, AND release new content on a shceduled basis.
Compared to pump out generic FPS with some new shinies in it and new maps for waayy more of a profit than GW1 ever made over the years.
Last edited by Fey; 11-19-2012 at 02:07 PM.
Also.. that number is over a 7 year span and includes the sales of Expansions.
Comparing Apples to Oranges.
More about production cost and cost to keep a game running over the profits said game brings in.
WoW went up to over 10million subs again, and GW2 went up to over 2million players and then started to drop. They chose to play with the big leagues, that's what they're getting. They can't wait months to see if new content brings people back they have to make changes.
Whether or not people agree with those changes is another thing entirely. But if people would put themselves in the developers shoes instead of being mad that an MMO is doing MMO things, it'd be different. They chose to bite the bullet and piss off a chunk of their player base in hopes of keeping the rest of them. We'll just have to wait and see.
Oh, I know they have to make changes. I want them to make changes, as the game has many issues, and lacks long term purpose. But this isn't the kind of change that most of their players want, and from the looks of it, this is actually a change that is chasing more players away than it's bringing in new players (or bringing back those who walked away earlier).
And btw, if you start comparing MMO's to FPS games or console games, then even WoW is doing quite bad.
And server upkeep isn't such a big component of costs anymore as it was back in the days of GW1.
Last edited by Centaur; 11-19-2012 at 02:53 PM.
Right, but fixing problems isn't the only thing that will keep them. And I honestly don't think that you're in the majority. I actually think you're all the minority. The smallest percent of the community with the loudest voice works both ways.
See what I said above... it definitely looks like, over the past week, the population on the European servers has dropped, and not increased. ArenaNet are losing players, not gaining them (despite the patch and the free trial). Which means this change failed to achieve its goal.
Judging by XFire (which as we know is a horribly flawed tool) the playtime comparison between WoW and GW2 at their recent peaks (after MoP was released and after GW2 was released) are roughly comparable. GW2 had a higher but sharper peak, but both declined fairly rapidly afterward. GW2 has been hanging around at about half of what WoW is, until this weekend when it jumped up.
It's difficult to judge by current WoW subscriptions, as they have a lot of people that don't really play much, as well as the inflated numbers from those that bought a yearly sub to get Diablo 3.
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