Can we crowdfund Alliances to get it done faster?

Yeah, yeah.. I know .. development is hard. Mythical Man-Month and all that... but

Ideas:

• "War Bonds" in the gem store. These do absolutely nothing - maybe grant a title or something if you buy enough. They cost 500 gems. Alliances get firm release deadlines if enough are purchased.
• Literal crowd-funding. Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc. Bonus if it supports some way of funding more for each month a project is finished early.

Look. I don't spend much money on this game because there's basically nothing in the gem store I want, but I would 100% pay for wvw development - consider it a monthly subscription or whatever.

Would totally be willing to do the same for more frequent balance patches, etc.

Good idea. Because it's worked really well for another RvR game that missed its beta date yet again,..

crowdfund basically rebrand in a textbox name from servers to alliance??

NO.

tl;dr crowd funding isn't a good fit for existing businesses. And fans attempting to micromanage a studio's priorities ... that never ends well.

Crowd-funding is good for start-ups. They need capital to get things going in the first place and traditional investors traditionally like solid returns on investments, whereas the masses are less discriminating, more willing to pony up for labors of love. That can have stellar or simply good results, but more often results in a lot of unhappy people (which is the case for even most risky investments; it's not special for crowd funding). Crowd-funding is also good for one-off, short-term projects. Getting someone temporary housing after a fire, paying the permit costs of a new playground, getting a street cleaned up, helping a bookstore move to a cheaper location after a rent hike.

Crowd-funding is terrible for established businesses. It's also not that great for fans. It sets up reasonable expectations for investors that they get want they thought they paid for, that they get regular updates, and that they get consulted before major changes or delays. None of those things are good for the business, who needs to be able to adapt to circumstances, alter direction if needed, and generally run the business as they deem fit.

If you want to support ANet without strings attached, buy more gems. Get your friends and guildies to buy more gems. If you want to invest with strings attached, buy stock in NCSOFT. (And for that, a crowd-funding effort to create a new entity to influence the direction of gaming makes sense, even if it's unlikely to succeed... because business decisions are best made for business reasons, rather than passion alone.)

You can already 'crowdfund' ANET by buying gems as you suggested. It would be exclusionary to only crowdfund one game mode over another. Whether you like it or not GW2 isn't a single game mode. We have to assume ANET is spreading the money based on data for better or worse. If you want to affect their metrics invite more people to WvW and teach its joys. Then maybe find ways of supporting the company through purchases or critique...

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Good idea. Because it's worked really well for another RvR game that missed its beta date yet again,..

Besides, we've already dropped 80 bucks for one meh map and a pair of triat lines.. I figure we're due that big update that was promised after HoT was stable

@GDchiaScrub.3241 said:You can already 'crowdfund' ANET by buying gems as you suggested. It would be exclusionary to only crowdfund one game mode over another. Whether you like it or not GW2 isn't a single game mode

It's a single game mode to me. They'd get exactly zero dollars without WvW.

Why WvW player's money goes to make living story is a better question. It's said 10% of gw2 is WvW only, it's also said there's 200 devs (by MO) is there 20 devs working on WvW?

No way. Anet is a multi million dollar company and not some indie garage company

@Malediktus.9250 said:No way. Anet is a multi million dollar company and not some indie garage company

By what metric, because this live beta model says.....

@LetoII.3782 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Good idea. Because it's worked really well for another RvR game that missed its beta date yet again,..

@"GDchiaScrub.3241" said:You can already 'crowdfund' ANET by buying gems as you suggested. It would be exclusionary to only crowdfund one game mode over another. Whether you like it or not GW2 isn't a single game mode

Heh. I doubt a bunch of writers would help WvW...which is why I don't dare use 'devs' numbers like that. Lacks context. That and "developer" is a non-descriptive title to begin with.

Currently, it feels like, the Spvp/WvW have more or less consolidated. It would be nice if there was a dedicated programmer, and dedicated general artist to their efforts for content in those two modes each, but I don't know how they're arranged. Or if the programmers/artists are hopping between modes constantly (which I think is the case).

How much development time do you think your 500gems is going to buy? I’m in a wvw guild. I want alliances to be released ASAP but only if it’s done. Anet is only going to have one shot at a hard reset of wvw. Give them the time to do it right.

@coro.3176 said:Look. I don't spend much money on this game because there's basically nothing in the gem store I want

Feel free to buy gems, get items off the store, and gift them to players! (my tag is listed <------ )If it would help, I'll even send you a list of things I want :)

@GDchiaScrub.3241 said:

@LetoII.3782 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Good idea. Because it's worked really well for another RvR game that missed its beta date yet again,..

@GDchiaScrub.3241 said:You can already 'crowdfund' ANET by buying gems as you suggested. It would be exclusionary to only crowdfund one game mode over another. Whether you like it or not GW2 isn't a single game mode

I don't think there's many writers at all. I'm sure technical people hop around.. But yeah, artists. Most of the company would be artists.. What would artists do? What does WvW sorely lack, that artists do, that they're constantly cranking out for PvE in vast quantities?

@LetoII.3782 said:

@GDchiaScrub.3241 said:

@LetoII.3782 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Good idea. Because it's worked really well for another RvR game that missed its beta date yet again,..

@GDchiaScrub.3241 said:You can already 'crowdfund' ANET by buying gems as you suggested. It would be exclusionary to only crowdfund one game mode over another. Whether you like it or not GW2 isn't a single game mode

Map artist. Should have specified instead of an e-fashion artist Lol...

Not giving another cent till the games balance and class design starts to go in the right direction.

Yeah, we have the numbers from various Mike O'Brien posts.For every five pve maps WvW should get one. It seems outrageous, but if resources were distributed equitibly WvW would have map rotations.

Instead we have lots of living story to watch

Anet is owned by NCSoft. They don't need crowd funding. What they do need is someone who cares about WvW. We haven't had that since at least HoT.

@Blodeuyn.2751 said:Anet is owned by NCSoft. They don't need crowd funding. What they do need is someone who cares about WvW. We haven't had that since at least HoT.

I don't feel like WvW is where it needs to be however:

• Some of the skill split attempts have been a welcome direction, though I would like it to be more inclusive of more skills
• The balance changes, while all of us would say haven't been where we want them, I am glad they have tweaked vs hammered classes.
• Adding skirmishes and some long term 'rewards' while offering MOST of the items that others get through PvE through the WvW tracks was a welcome change.

All that being said, I hope alliances come sooner than what I anticipate, I hope that safeguards and willingness to adjust them are allowed, and I hope that their is NOT an increased reward for 'winning' a matchup.

Star Citizen has shown that crowdfunding with obscene amounts of money even surpassing the goals by a far really gets things done much quicker.

Really.

I’d rather crowdfund to hire a designer to redesign the WvW legendary armor. Complete makeover

@Dawdler.8521 said:Star Citizen has shown that crowdfunding with obscene amounts of money even surpassing the goals by a far really gets things done much quicker.

Really.

Over 160 million well spent at current xD

Though I gotta say, they'll get my 60 bucks if it ever launches, I enjoyed the wing commanders.