Colin Johanson - Jan/Feb/March Releases

[Vayne]

Yeah, you and I and other people get what they mean. But the rest of their consumer base doesn't. When the MMO population sees "Expansion", they're going to take it literally. This is why I keep saying ArenaNet seems to have no idea how the internet actually functions.

Every time they announce a big change they're extremely vague and leave key details out and don't tell us about them until much later leaving the community wayyy too much time to speculate and argue and get their hopes up and etc etc. It's a freaking nightmare.

They need to just bite their tongue and give us the actual details instead of these extremely vague summaries.

I still say this is a lose/lose situation, no matter what they do. And it happens with every game out there, it's not just Anet. If you say exactly what you're going to give, and for some reason you can't give it, you're screwed. If you don't say anything and people think nothing is happening behind the scenes, you're screwed. If you say something vague without enough details, hoping that that will let people know something is coming out, but not locking yourself down to making a promise, you're screwed.

It's like every game board I've seen for every game I've seen. Everyone goes through it. They either reveal too much and can't deliver, or they don't reveal enough and people say they're not doing anything. There really is no win for a game developer, for a percentage of people.

The question is what percentage of people are savvy enough to see what's being said, and just take it as a general comment instead of either a promise or a guarantee, without attaching too much weight to it. Probably not as many as there should be. lol

[Fey]

I still say this is a lose/lose situation, no matter what they do. And it happens with every game out there, it's not just Anet.

Naaah. ANet has been the worst at it by a long shot. At least compared to everything else I've seen.

That doesn't mean the worst in terms of bad news, because when things actually release people are fine with it (for the most part). But as far as telling us about updates, they're terrible at it haha. They always have to come back and clarify because the forums explode with soo much more speculation than normal.

It has nothing to do with what they're revealing. It's literally just their wording that's bad.

[Vayne]

Naaah. ANet has been the worst at it by a long shot. At least compared to everything else I've seen.

That doesn't mean the worst in terms of bad news, because when things actually release people are fine with it (for the most part). But as far as telling us about updates, they're terrible at it haha. They always have to come back and clarify because the forums explode with soo much more speculation than normal.

It has nothing to do with what they're revealing. It's literally just their wording that's bad.

Okay...not my experience, but everyone has their own. I've seen the problem in Rift on their forums, in Aion, in AoC, in TSW...there are a lot of places that I've seen devs say stuff that has the forums up in arms.

With Guild Wars 2 they have the added problem of the five year wait for the game, so people were really dissecting everything and people still do. It's the whole die hard fan thing. I still don't think Anet can win, no matter what they say.

[Fey]

Okay...not my experience, but everyone has their own. I've seen the problem in Rift on their forums, in Aion, in AoC, in TSW...there are a lot of places that I've seen devs say stuff that has the forums up in arms.

With Guild Wars 2 they have the added problem of the five year wait for the game, so people were really dissecting everything and people still do. It's the whole die hard fan thing. I still don't think Anet can win, no matter what they say.

Aion, AoC, and TSW are all basically failing games though. Aion had an okay run but it wasn't exactly successful. Rift set themselves up for a PR nightmare to begin with, their advertising campaign "we're not in Azeroth anymore", they were gunning for that to begin with. So yeah, if you really wanna throw ANet in that lot that's fine I suppose.

I'm speaking more in general from all genres of gaming and how bad communication is easily avoidable. They don't have to reveal all of their trade secrets, but when they say they're giving us "an expansions worth of content" and then rephrase it later, they may as well have just not said it and given us the revision to begin with.

It really is just common sense.

[Vayne]

Aion, AoC, and TSW are all basically failing games though. Aion had an okay run but it wasn't exactly successful. Rift set themselves up for a PR nightmare to begin with, their advertising campaign "we're not in Azeroth anymore", they were gunning for that to begin with. So yeah, if you really wanna throw ANet in that lot that's fine I suppose.

I'm speaking more in general from all genres of gaming and how bad communication is easily avoidable. They don't have to reveal all of their trade secrets, but when they say they're giving us "an expansions worth of content" and then rephrase it later, they may as well have just not said it and given us the revision to begin with.

It really is just common sense.

Creative people don't often have common sense though. I know this is a generalization, but it seems to be true. The more creative you are, the harder it is to think in terms of common sense. Anet is a company made up of artists and creative people...they are living in their own worlds. Even writers I know, and I know a lot of them, tend to be very smart, but not in the common sense term. In fact, most writers are know are totally neurotic, bordering on whackos, self-included.

But with other genres of games, they don't change as fast as MMOs and they don't get stuff added as fast or often as MMOs, so I'm not sure you can compare. It's apples and oranges.

[Fey]

Creative people don't often have common sense though. I know this is a generalization, but it seems to be true.

I suppose that's a good point in some cases. But still, usually the development team is educated in proper business practices since they are a business at the end of the day.

I still think they might be doing it on purpose. That ridiculous announcement for the new tier of gear caused so much chatter about the game, even if it was negative. Bad PR is still PR. Some companies consider controversial topics to be the best types of discussions.

[Vayne]

I suppose that's a good point in some cases. But still, usually the development team is educated in proper business practices since they are a business at the end of the day.

I still think they might be doing it on purpose. That ridiculous announcement for the new tier of gear caused so much chatter about the game, even if it was negative. Bad PR is still PR. Some companies consider controversial topics to be the best types of discussions.

It's not impossible...it's just not necessarily true either. I suspect that there's more than one faction on the staff though that doesn't agree with everything being done, and those people might not mind stirring the pot, even intentionally. I just think it's too little to go on to assume.

[meglobob]

I think saying we are adding a expansions worth of content is a bad move full stop. They should never, ever use the word expansion, it creates problems, in the form of high expectations, hence why they had to clarify with no new characters classes, zones etc...

A true expansion one that you pay for, would include new characters classes, multiple new zones and lots of other stuff...

Using the word, 'expansion' is misleading, better to use update or additional free content.

It should also be noted the Lost Shores event they used the same phrasing, saying it was the equivilent of a expansions worth of content. Errrm...if I paid for a expansion and all I got was a new island zone plus the fractal dungeon, I think I would complain and ask for a refund...

Having said that, the 3 events so far overall have impressed me alot and all that new content for free (not really, the money from the gemstore has funded it) speaks for itself and leaves a positive impression. Just let the content speak for itself, advertise it by all means but don't say things that mislead, create high expectations...

[JHCinSC]

Great discussion. I am taking a wait and see stance. I set my expectations low and am looking forward to being awed by the new updates. I'd be happy with them fixing bugs and undoing some of their previous nerfs (like to my Ranger's short bow). Hopefully we'll get an improvement in the PVE loot system as much of the world is dead and you rarely see a couple of people in entire zones. Everyone is doing Fractals for the loot because there are no rewards for doing playing the rest of the game (which is a shame as I enjoy the rest of the world more than fractals). Making it rewarding for people to play in that big beautiful world Anet created would be appreciated.