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EoD expansion should have new RAID


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@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Asum.4960 said:And you don't think there is a correlation between dedication, investment and community to player retention and with that spending at all?

If there is, neither you, I or anyone else knows what it is ... so any argument someone is going to make with it is highly questionable in the first place. I do know one thing ... players don't need to be part of a 'nice, dedicated community' to buy gems ... so that's definitely a ridiculous relation.

There is a difference between acknowledging something but not being able to quantify it and strait out claiming it has no relevance. You might want to reevaluate where your stance is on this.

my stance doesn't change what I'm saying ... if raids were making Anet money to make their development worth it for Anet, we would have raids. No one should be trying to claim people in 'nice, dedicated communities' buy gems at a higher rate than those that aren't to justify a game element they want. That's about as biased an argument you can find on the forums.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:This game type can't be ignored? I beg to differ SIGNIFICANTLY given that it's been ignored for years and there have been nothing remotely catastrophic happen because of it.

I don't know what you classify a >40% yearly revenue drop since HoT days and layoffs of ~1/3rd the company over those same years as, but catastrophic seems extremely fitting to me.Do I entirely attribute that to the abandonment of endgame content, no absolutely not, that would be foolish.Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.See, the key part here would be
not wasting resources on side projects that didn't pan out
. And spending those resources not on "maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community", but on
doing the next expansion
. It was the cancelling 3rd expac act that almost drove them under, not abandoning raids. Which can be clearl shown by the fact that as soon as they announced that they
will
be doing the expansion, their finances suddenly recovered. Even though raids were still abandoned, with no sign it's going to change.

The lack of expansion was a major factor, but the blip back also comes in what an expansion represents. Look anywhere outside of the forums (and to some extend here too), and what you will read, hear and see is a substantial amount people having hope for the expansion, for Anet to return to Raids, to release Alliances, to turn the ship around with more longterm engaging content.That is why many are excited (as well as content such as elite specs always refreshing old hardcore content to some degree ofc).And yes, revenue is going to spike with it's release regardless, but as I said, I'm pretty sure it will be just another flash in the pan if it can't sustain players.It really doesn't take much to realise that if it's mostly a single player experience that players play through once without engaging much with other players, forming communities, and getting into more engaging long term content, that a vast majority of them will soon be gone again after, and revenue along with them.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

Yes, decline between expansions is natural, the speed and amount of which isn't. It's like you are mixing up climate with weather/seasons.HoT was followed by some of, if not the worst content draught in the game's history, yet revenue didn't decline nearly as low. Why is that? Because HoT launched with and provided more engaging long term, community building and endgame content, sustaining a broader amount of players and allowing players to sustain each other via communities.PoF was directly followed by yet more open world/Story content with LW, as well as releasing arguably the biggest cash cow in the games history, mount skins. Yet with more and more broadly appealing content, peaked lower and dropped down much lower.At that time the massive exodus of hardcore players was palpable, Guilds falling apart/dead, communities giving up, Raids groups merging/falling apart, static members leaving faster than newcomers could be recruited, LFG's becoming more and more hostile and limited (and seemingly more gating) as only the absolute diehard hardcore players still stuck around while the average hardcore player largely fell away, and so on.This is not a healthy or sustainable place for the game, and even Anet has made the rare public statement on the forums that they realise that they need to cater more to the dedicated hardcore audience niches following this time, along the expansion announcement.

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Asum.4960 said:And you don't think there is a correlation between dedication, investment and community to player retention and with that spending at all?

If there is, neither you, I or anyone else knows what it is ... so any argument someone is going to make with it is highly questionable in the first place. I do know one thing ... players don't need to be part of a 'nice, dedicated community' to buy gems ... so that's definitely a ridiculous relation.

Industry data at least shows that the overwhelming majority does not spend much or even any at all on free to play/buy to play games, save for the very dedicated and a handful of so called whales.Additionally it doesn't take much to recognize that players who are highly engaged/part of communities and constantly engage with the game for sometimes up to hours daily have much more opportunity to be engaged by the gemstore than players casually checking in every few months for more story.Sure, catering to that as well is important too, since while it likely is incredibly low per player spending, the mass of that absolutely is relevant, but if the last years have taught us anything, it's that GW2 isn't some magical exception where that alone is enough.

@Obtena.7952 said:

Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.

Maybe ... but who's to say those future side projects must be raids?

It's nonsense to identify all the bad stuff happening and making baseless claims it has something to do with a lack of raid development. If raids were worth the return on Anet's investment ... they wouldn't have gone away ... if anything they would have pushed that content more if it's as wildly successful as proponents continue to proclaim they were. It's that simple. Raids simply were not worth their effort to continue making.

The side projects referred to are their since cancelled other game projects.

As for maintaining GW2, I'm not saying it has to be Raids, Raids just happen to fit the bill on almost all fronts, from being community building, highly engaging and satisfying to a currently not catered to at all consumer, while already being established as system in the game.Fractals, more, and more, hardcore Guild Systems and activities, Alliances and the like fit the bill too in many ways. I'd even say it can't just be one of those at this point.

Raids are not a magic pill that Anet could release and all will be fine. I don't think anyone is arguing that.That it's lack is a contributing factor for the decline along other community building and long term content is hard to deny though, especially in the face of the design and content variety of all successful MMO's, which are games so big that they live and die by their variety of content and how many different niches of players they appeal to.

We do not have no Raids (Fractals, Guild Activities, WvW, PvP, Stronghold, Dungeons, Bounties, Adventures, Strikes etc.) not because they didn't make Anet money, but because Anet thought they could get by with just LW while transitioning to other (since largely cancelled) properties.You do know that Season 4 was internally at times considered the end of GW2's story with Aurene's ascend, right? That no expansion, non of all of that content and then Icebrood wasn't necessarily a conscious choice, but scrambling for time after the things they had shifted all those developers and resourced to didn't work out, resulting in them being layed off?

Is that still just not common knowledge in the community, or why do people keep making these points as if Anet wilfully abandoned all this content for just not working out, while being focused on GW2 longterm?

The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:This game type can't be ignored? I beg to differ SIGNIFICANTLY given that it's been ignored for years and there have been nothing remotely catastrophic happen because of it.

I don't know what you classify a >40% yearly revenue drop since HoT days and layoffs of ~1/3rd the company over those same years as, but catastrophic seems extremely fitting to me.Do I entirely attribute that to the abandonment of endgame content, no absolutely not, that would be foolish.Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.See, the key part here would be
not wasting resources on side projects that didn't pan out
. And spending those resources not on "maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community", but on
doing the next expansion
. It was the cancelling 3rd expac act that almost drove them under, not abandoning raids. Which can be clearl shown by the fact that as soon as they announced that they
will
be doing the expansion, their finances suddenly recovered. Even though raids were still abandoned, with no sign it's going to change.

The lack of expansion was a major factor, but the blip back also comes in what an expansion represents. Look anywhere outside of the forums (and to some extend here too), and what you will read, hear and see is a substantial amount people having hope for the expansion, for Anet to return to Raids, to release Alliances, to turn the ship around with more longterm engaging content.That is why many are excited (as well as content such as elite specs always refreshing old hardcore content to some degree ofc).And yes, revenue is going to spike with it's release regardless, but as I said, I'm pretty sure it will be just another flash in the pan if it can't sustain players.It really doesn't take much to realise that if it's mostly a single player experience that players play through once without engaging much with other players, forming communities, and getting into more engaging long term content, that a vast majority of them will soon be gone again after, and revenue along with them.

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

Yes, decline between expansions is natural, the speed and amount of which isn't. It's like you are mixing up climate with weather/seasons.HoT was followed by some of, if not the worst content draught in the game's history, yet revenue didn't decline nearly as low. Why is that? Because HoT launched with and provided more engaging long term, community building and endgame content, sustaining a broader amount of players and allowing players to sustain each other via communities.PoF was directly followed by yet more open world/Story content with LW, as well as releasing arguably the biggest cash cow in the games history, mount skins. Yet with more and more broadly appealing content, peaked lower and dropped down much lower.At that time the massive exodus of hardcore players was palpable, Guilds falling apart/dead, communities giving up, Raids groups merging/falling apart, static members leaving faster than newcomers could be recruited, LFG's becoming more and more hostile and limited (and seemingly more gating) as only the absolute diehard hardcore players still stuck around while the average hardcore player largely fell away, and so on.This is not a healthy or sustainable place for the game, and even Anet has made the rare public statement on the forums that they realise that they need to cater more to the dedicated hardcore audience niches following this time, along the expansion announcement.

@Asum.4960 said:And you don't think there is a correlation between dedication, investment and community to player retention and with that spending at all?

If there is, neither you, I or anyone else knows what it is ... so any argument someone is going to make with it is highly questionable in the first place. I do know one thing ... players don't need to be part of a 'nice, dedicated community' to buy gems ... so that's definitely a ridiculous relation.

Industry data at least shows that the overwhelming majority does not spend much or even any at all on free to play/buy to play games, save for the very dedicated and a handful of so called whales.Additionally it doesn't take much to recognize that players who are highly engaged/part of communities and constantly engage with the game for sometimes up to hours daily have much more opportunity to be engaged by the gemstore than players casually checking in every few months for more story.Sure, catering to that as well is important too, since while it likely is incredibly low per player spending, the mass of that absolutely is relevant, but if the last years have taught us anything, it's that GW2 isn't some magical exception where that alone is enough.

Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.

Maybe ... but who's to say those future side projects must be raids?

It's nonsense to identify all the bad stuff happening and making baseless claims it has something to do with a lack of raid development. If raids were worth the return on Anet's investment ... they wouldn't have gone away ... if anything they would have pushed that content more if it's as wildly successful as proponents continue to proclaim they were. It's that simple. Raids simply were not worth their effort to continue making.

The side projects referred to are their since cancelled other game projects.

As for maintaining GW2, I'm not saying it has to be Raids, Raids just happen to fit the bill on almost all fronts, from being community building, highly engaging and satisfying to a currently not catered to at all consumer, while already being established as system in the game.Fractals, more, and more, hardcore Guild Systems and activities, Alliances and the like fit the bill too in many ways. I'd even say it can't just be one of those at this point.

Raids are not a magic pill that Anet could release and all will be fine. I don't think anyone is arguing that.That it's lack is a contributing factor for the decline along other community building and long term content is hard to deny though, especially in the face of the design and content variety of all successful MMO's, which are games so big that they live and die by their variety of content and how many different niches of players they appeal to.

finally someone who makes sense here

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also, even for strikes and new DRMs ppl ask for LI/LD, raid currency has become an equivalent of proving you are not a CASUAL who auto attacks and understands the combat. The combat of gw2 can best be experienced in raids, but sure, if you are telling me they make money from a story then it says enough about the community

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@"yukarishura.4790" said:also, even for strikes and new DRMs ppl ask for LI/LD, raid currency has become an equivalent of proving you are not a CASUAL who auto attacks and understands the combat. The combat of gw2 can best be experienced in raids, but sure, if you are telling me they make money from a story with poor voice acting then it says enough about the community

I don't think us vs them rhetoric is productive from either side tbh.

GW2 is a wonderful game that can cater to a great many audiences, and that's what GW2 needs to do to have a future.Not a community squabbling over who gets all the shinies.

Having LW is okay, having Raids is okay too. So are Alliances/WvW, PvP, Fractals, Guild Missions and so on. There is a reason these different types of content exist. Anet just needs to use them if they want to keep going with this.

An MMO doesn't work as an "on the side thing". I agree Anet needs to eventually branch out into other properties to secure their company for the future, they just way overcommited.

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@"yukarishura.4790" said:also, even for strikes and new DRMs ppl ask for LI/LD, raid currency has become an equivalent of proving you are not a CASUAL who auto attacks and understands the combat. The combat of gw2 can best be experienced in raids, but sure, if you are telling me they make money from a story with poor voice acting then it says enough about the communityAnd what's your point here? You disliking how some players like to play is not going to change their habits in the slightest. Just like them disliking the content you play will not impact the fact you like it.

The fact that someone, or a group of someones "plays the game wrong" (according to you) does not interest anyone (again, besides you) you in the slightest - and Anet the least. Developer's primary concern will always be "how much money that group of players costs to retain, and how much money will they bring us back".

So, apparently, casuals either are cheaper to satisfy than hardcores, bring more money to the table, or both. And your opinion on them is not going to affect that at all. As long as casuals are bringing enough income, Anet is not going to stop to cater to that part of the community.

Notice, btw, that Anet dropping Raids means they considered them to be too costly for the income they brought back. So, maybe instead of blaming casuals you should have been voting with your wallet more.

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I just want 2 raids, Urgoz and Kanaxai. If Anet is going full member berries, at least make it enjoyable. Again, I would also want to them go back to dungeons as well. Two instance clusters with 3 five man dungeons and 1 ten man raids each, one being centered on the Warden and purifying Urgoz and another centered round the Oni and finally banishing Kanaxai.

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@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:This game type can't be ignored? I beg to differ SIGNIFICANTLY given that it's been ignored for years and there have been nothing remotely catastrophic happen because of it.

I don't know what you classify a >40% yearly revenue drop since HoT days and layoffs of ~1/3rd the company over those same years as, but catastrophic seems extremely fitting to me.Do I entirely attribute that to the abandonment of endgame content, no absolutely not, that would be foolish.Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.See, the key part here would be
not wasting resources on side projects that didn't pan out
. And spending those resources not on "maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community", but on
doing the next expansion
. It was the cancelling 3rd expac act that almost drove them under, not abandoning raids. Which can be clearl shown by the fact that as soon as they announced that they
will
be doing the expansion, their finances suddenly recovered. Even though raids were still abandoned, with no sign it's going to change.

The lack of expansion was a major factor, but the blip back also comes in what an expansion represents. Look anywhere outside of the forums (and to some extend here too), and what you will read, hear and see is a substantial amount people having hope for the expansion, for Anet to return to Raids, to release Alliances, to turn the ship around with more longterm engaging content.That is why many are excited (as well as content such as elite specs always refreshing old hardcore content to some degree ofc).And yes, revenue is going to spike with it's release regardless, but as I said, I'm pretty sure it will be just another flash in the pan if it can't sustain players.It really doesn't take much to realise that if it's mostly a single player experience that players play through once without engaging much with other players, forming communities, and getting into more engaging long term content, that a vast majority of them will soon be gone again after, and revenue along with them.

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

Yes, decline between expansions is natural, the speed and amount of which isn't. It's like you are mixing up climate with weather/seasons.HoT was followed by some of, if not the worst content draught in the game's history, yet revenue didn't decline nearly as low. Why is that? Because HoT launched with and provided more engaging long term, community building and endgame content, sustaining a broader amount of players and allowing players to sustain each other via communities.PoF was directly followed by yet more open world/Story content with LW, as well as releasing arguably the biggest cash cow in the games history, mount skins. Yet with more and more broadly appealing content, peaked lower and dropped down much lower.At that time the massive exodus of hardcore players was palpable, Guilds falling apart/dead, communities giving up, Raids groups merging/falling apart, static members leaving faster than newcomers could be recruited, LFG's becoming more and more hostile and limited (and seemingly more gating) as only the absolute diehard hardcore players still stuck around while the average hardcore player largely fell away, and so on.This is not a healthy or sustainable place for the game, and even Anet has made the rare public statement on the forums that they realise that they need to cater more to the dedicated hardcore audience niches following this time, along the expansion announcement.

@Asum.4960 said:And you don't think there is a correlation between dedication, investment and community to player retention and with that spending at all?

If there is, neither you, I or anyone else knows what it is ... so any argument someone is going to make with it is highly questionable in the first place. I do know one thing ... players don't need to be part of a 'nice, dedicated community' to buy gems ... so that's definitely a ridiculous relation.

Industry data at least shows that the overwhelming majority does not spend much or even any at all on free to play/buy to play games, save for the very dedicated and a handful of so called whales.Additionally it doesn't take much to recognize that players who are highly engaged/part of communities and constantly engage with the game for sometimes up to hours daily have much more opportunity to be engaged by the gemstore than players casually checking in every few months for more story.Sure, catering to that as well is important too, since while it likely is incredibly low per player spending, the mass of that absolutely is relevant, but if the last years have taught us anything, it's that GW2 isn't some magical exception where that alone is enough.

Do I think that would have been significantly lessened though if Anet had instead focused on maybe just one or two future/side projects while dedicating the remaining resources on maintaining some of the most dedicated and engaged parts of the community via the content that also by far gets the most eyes on it from outside of the game (and community building content in general)? Without a doubt.

Maybe ... but who's to say those future side projects must be raids?

It's nonsense to identify all the bad stuff happening and making baseless claims it has something to do with a lack of raid development. If raids were worth the return on Anet's investment ... they wouldn't have gone away ... if anything they would have pushed that content more if it's as wildly successful as proponents continue to proclaim they were. It's that simple. Raids simply were not worth their effort to continue making.

The side projects referred to are their since cancelled other game projects.

As for maintaining GW2, I'm not saying it has to be Raids, Raids just happen to fit the bill on almost all fronts, from being community building, highly engaging and satisfying to a currently not catered to at all consumer, while already being established as system in the game.Fractals, more, and more, hardcore Guild Systems and activities, Alliances and the like fit the bill too in many ways. I'd even say it can't just be one of those at this point.

Raids are not a magic pill that Anet could release and all will be fine. I don't think anyone is arguing that.That it's lack is a contributing factor for the decline along other community building and long term content is hard to deny though, especially in the face of the design and content variety of all successful MMO's, which are games so big that they live and die by their variety of content and how many different niches of players they appeal to.

finally someone who makes sense here

What makes sense is the relationship between content and revenues ... and acknowledging that if raids was content that made lots of revenue, we would have lots of raids. The opposite is also true. The fact that we have had negative raid development statements directly from Anet should REALLY give you MASSIVE hints as to how little raids contributed to Anet's revenue.

The ridiculous part is the way you make casual players the scapegoat for the lack of raids, while making no acknowledgement that the real culprit is related to how raiders interact with the game and how they contribute to revenues.

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@Asum.4960 said:The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

Obviously not with new raids. That was an experiment that failed horribly for them. Any calls to try that experiment again are just insane.

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@yukarishura.4790 said:also, even for strikes and new DRMs ppl ask for LI/LD, raid currency has become an equivalent of proving you are not a CASUAL who auto attacks and understands the combat. The combat of gw2 can best be experienced in raids, but sure, if you are telling me they make money from a story with poor voice acting then it says enough about the community

While i agree with the statement that some new raids will be healthy for the game. Your arguments for them are pretty horrible, and probably make people less likely to agree with you. I would suggest going more with cynthias and Asums approach. No discussion can be productive if one doesn't acknowledge the other sides of the argument.

I hope this helps with further debate.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

@maddoctor.2738 said:With Q4 2019 being the worst quarter and Q1 2020 being the 2nd worst. So it was there at the end of 2019/start of 2020 that we saw a great decrease in revenue.Isn't that because it was the announcement for the IBS (30th of August, 2019, iirc) that finally made people realize that the earlier hints about expansion being cancelled are not just hints, but a reality? Is it accident that the revenue started to get better shortly after they announced that there
will
be an expansion after all?

Of course, there were a few other things that undermined people's trust in the game around that time - MO leaving (and then MZ ninja leaving shortly after) certainly didn;t help either. Until expansion announcement a lot of people honestly didn't believe this game had any future beyond LS5, and talks about maintenance mode were a daily occurence. Which definitely wasn't helping revenue at all.

Isn't the discussion about raids not about gaining new people during the decay. But to slow the decay down.As far as i know nobodies claiming that with raids no decay would happen, just that it would be slower.

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@yann.1946 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

@maddoctor.2738 said:With Q4 2019 being the worst quarter and Q1 2020 being the 2nd worst. So it was there at the end of 2019/start of 2020 that we saw a great decrease in revenue.Isn't that because it was the announcement for the IBS (30th of August, 2019, iirc) that finally made people realize that the earlier hints about expansion being cancelled are not just hints, but a reality? Is it accident that the revenue started to get better shortly after they announced that there
will
be an expansion after all?

Of course, there were a few other things that undermined people's trust in the game around that time - MO leaving (and then MZ ninja leaving shortly after) certainly didn;t help either. Until expansion announcement a lot of people honestly didn't believe this game had any future beyond LS5, and talks about maintenance mode were a daily occurence. Which definitely wasn't helping revenue at all.

Isn't the discussion about raids not about gaining new people during the decay. But to slow the decay down.As far as i know nobodies claiming that with raids no decay would happen, just that it would be slower.

I think the point is that decay rate is irrelevant if raids were not worth the investment to create and maintain to begin with. I mean, we see this often in this game; quests for precursors? They got THREE gen 2 legendaries with questable precursors ... and dropped the whole idea. It simply wasn't worth the effort for the engagement it offered players. That engagement is what encourages players to spend. Bottomline is that raids were just not implemented in a way to encourage enough spending from the players that did them.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

@maddoctor.2738 said:With Q4 2019 being the worst quarter and Q1 2020 being the 2nd worst. So it was there at the end of 2019/start of 2020 that we saw a great decrease in revenue.Isn't that because it was the announcement for the IBS (30th of August, 2019, iirc) that finally made people realize that the earlier hints about expansion being cancelled are not just hints, but a reality? Is it accident that the revenue started to get better shortly after they announced that there
will
be an expansion after all?

Of course, there were a few other things that undermined people's trust in the game around that time - MO leaving (and then MZ ninja leaving shortly after) certainly didn;t help either. Until expansion announcement a lot of people honestly didn't believe this game had any future beyond LS5, and talks about maintenance mode were a daily occurence. Which definitely wasn't helping revenue at all.

Isn't the discussion about raids not about gaining new people during the decay. But to slow the decay down.As far as i know nobodies claiming that with raids no decay would happen, just that it would be slower.

I think the point is that decay rate is irrelevant if raids were not worth the investment to create and maintain to begin with.

That might depend more on the general population levels though. In that case raids might be worth after a new expac is released.

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@yann.1946 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

@maddoctor.2738 said:With Q4 2019 being the worst quarter and Q1 2020 being the 2nd worst. So it was there at the end of 2019/start of 2020 that we saw a great decrease in revenue.Isn't that because it was the announcement for the IBS (30th of August, 2019, iirc) that finally made people realize that the earlier hints about expansion being cancelled are not just hints, but a reality? Is it accident that the revenue started to get better shortly after they announced that there
will
be an expansion after all?

Of course, there were a few other things that undermined people's trust in the game around that time - MO leaving (and then MZ ninja leaving shortly after) certainly didn;t help either. Until expansion announcement a lot of people honestly didn't believe this game had any future beyond LS5, and talks about maintenance mode were a daily occurence. Which definitely wasn't helping revenue at all.

Isn't the discussion about raids not about gaining new people during the decay. But to slow the decay down.As far as i know nobodies claiming that with raids no decay would happen, just that it would be slower.

I think the point is that decay rate is irrelevant if raids were not worth the investment to create and maintain to begin with.

That might depend more on the general population levels though. In that case raids might be worth after a new expac is released.

Maybe ... but speculation isn't a good basis to justify re-establishing failed content. Do you think it's a good bet for Anet to anticipate the people that come back for EoD will have increased interested in raiding to the point they create new ones? Why would we think it would be any different than expansion 2? IIRC, raid development dropped significantly AFTER PoF ... so my bet says raiding interest based on general population increases isn't enough.

This debate has been had multiple times. Raiding in this game is a niche ... and clearly that niche can't sustain the development of that kind of content. Raids in their format simply does not appeal to enough people. OP has some correct indirect insights ... game is for casuals ... but raids are not for them. But make no mistake, no amount of false claims and scapegoating the OP can do will change the data that tells Anet raids aren't worth the investment to create.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Asum.4960 said:The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

Obviously not with new raids. That was an experiment that failed horribly for them. Any calls to try that experiment again are just insane.

The experiment failed due to the low attention it got from the developers. Nobody knows what would've happened if the experiement got the proper attention it deserved. But at this point in time, yes revisiting Raids would be pointless, although some new form of instanced content gameplay might be introduced to bring back Urgoz/Deep, I'm sure many old Faction players would like those two places to come back in some form.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Asum.4960 said:The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

Obviously not with new raids. That was an experiment that failed horribly for them. Any calls to try that experiment again are just insane.

The experiment failed due to ...

OK ... I'm not debating why it failed because it's irrelevant. If the players interest isn't there, NO amount of dev attention will make raids interesting to enough players for raids to be a good business decision. Still trying to claim players and the way the game appeals to them aren't a factor in raids being successful content ay? If the development declined ... it was clearly because of the revenues it was generating. Again ... if raids were making Anet massive amounts of revenue ... we would have raids being developed ... LOTS of raids.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@"yukarishura.4790" said:also, even for strikes and new DRMs ppl ask for LI/LD, raid currency has become an equivalent of proving you are not a CASUAL who auto attacks and understands the combat. The combat of gw2 can best be experienced in raids, but sure, if you are telling me they make money from a story with poor voice acting then it says enough about the community

I don't think us vs them rhetoric is productive from either side tbh.

GW2 is a wonderful game that can cater to a great many audiences, and that's what GW2 needs to do to have a future.Not a community squabbling over who gets
all
the shinies.

Having LW is okay, having Raids is okay too. So are Alliances/WvW, PvP, Fractals, Guild Missions and so on. There is a reason these different types of content exist. Anet just needs to use them if they want to keep going with this.

An MMO doesn't work as an "on the side thing". I agree Anet needs to eventually branch out into other properties to secure their company for the future, they just way overcommited.

Yeah I agree, I play all types, including WvW, I just miss the attention to raids, but Im engaging with alll content anyways

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Asum.4960 said:The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

Obviously not with new raids. That was an experiment that failed horribly for them. Any calls to try that experiment again are just insane.

The experiment failed due to the low attention it got from the developers. Nobody knows what would've happened if the experiement got the proper attention it deserved. But at this point in time, yes revisiting Raids would be pointless, although some new form of instanced content gameplay might be introduced to bring back Urgoz/Deep, I'm sure many old Faction players would like those two places to come back in some form.

OK ... I'm not debating why it failed because it's irrelevant. If the players interest isn't there, NO amount of dev attention will make raids interesting to enough players for raids to be a good business decision. Still trying to claim players and the way the game appeals to them aren't a factor in raids ay?

Why it failed is exactly the issue with Raids. Player interest was fine as long as attention was given, even confirmed by the developers themselves that Raids exceeded their expectations. It's when that attention stopped and the content was semi-abandoned, that participation was also lowered. Is that even under debate? Raids were murdered and is anyone's guess what kind of population they'd have without all the mismanagement, miscommunication and misuse that happened during their existence.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Asum.4960 said:The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

Obviously not with new raids. That was an experiment that failed horribly for them. Any calls to try that experiment again are just insane.

The experiment failed due to the low attention it got from the developers. Nobody knows what would've happened if the experiement got the proper attention it deserved. But at this point in time, yes revisiting Raids would be pointless, although some new form of instanced content gameplay might be introduced to bring back Urgoz/Deep, I'm sure many old Faction players would like those two places to come back in some form.

OK ... I'm not debating why it failed because it's irrelevant. If the players interest isn't there, NO amount of dev attention will make raids interesting to enough players for raids to be a good business decision. Still trying to claim players and the way the game appeals to them aren't a factor in raids ay?

Why it failed is exactly the issue with Raids. Player interest was fine ...

It's not about player interest ... it's about revenue. Again ... if raids were making Anet massive amounts of revenue, their raid development would reflect that. LIKEWISE ... if raids were not making Anet the revenue to justify the development ... THAT ALSO reflects the amount of raid development we currently get.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Asum.4960 said:The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

Obviously not with new raids. That was an experiment that failed horribly for them. Any calls to try that experiment again are just insane.

The experiment failed due to ...

OK ... I'm not debating why it failed because it's irrelevant. If the players interest isn't there, NO amount of dev attention will make raids interesting to enough players for raids to be a good business decision. Still trying to claim players and the way the game appeals to them aren't a factor in raids being successful content ay? If the development declined ... it was clearly because of the revenues it was generating. Again ... if raids were making Anet massive amounts of revenue ... we would have raids being developed ... LOTS of raids.

your arguments are irrelevant, if there was no interest in making raids, why would it be different to releasing stories that btw, are not making money and are not incentive enough for players? it's not just raids that are abandoned anyway, pvp, wvw and dungeons are as well. At this point, it is only casuals who log in once in a blue moon and spend some money on gems, whilst raiding even has a Raiding League. The most watched content on Twitch from this game is raiding.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

@maddoctor.2738 said:With Q4 2019 being the worst quarter and Q1 2020 being the 2nd worst. So it was there at the end of 2019/start of 2020 that we saw a great decrease in revenue.Isn't that because it was the announcement for the IBS (30th of August, 2019, iirc) that finally made people realize that the earlier hints about expansion being cancelled are not just hints, but a reality? Is it accident that the revenue started to get better shortly after they announced that there
will
be an expansion after all?

Of course, there were a few other things that undermined people's trust in the game around that time - MO leaving (and then MZ ninja leaving shortly after) certainly didn;t help either. Until expansion announcement a lot of people honestly didn't believe this game had any future beyond LS5, and talks about maintenance mode were a daily occurence. Which definitely wasn't helping revenue at all.

Isn't the discussion about raids not about gaining new people during the decay. But to slow the decay down.As far as i know nobodies claiming that with raids no decay would happen, just that it would be slower.

I think the point is that decay rate is irrelevant if raids were not worth the investment to create and maintain to begin with.

That might depend more on the general population levels though. In that case raids might be worth after a new expac is released.

Maybe ... but speculation isn't a good basis to justify re-establishing failed content. Do you think it's a good bet for Anet to anticipate the people that come back for EoD will have increased interested in raiding to the point they create new ones? Why would we think it would be any different than expansion 2? IIRC, raid development dropped significantly AFTER PoF ... so my bet says raiding interest based on general population increases isn't enough.

This debate has been had multiple times. Raiding in this game is a niche ... and clearly that niche can't sustain the development of that kind of content. Raids in their format simply does not appeal to enough people. OP has some correct indirect insights ... game is for casuals ... but raids are not for them. But make no mistake, no amount of false claims and scapegoating the OP can do will change the data that tells Anet raids aren't worth the investment to create.

But apparently their was enough attention just after Pof to create more raids. I'm not arguing that it isn't a niche activity. I'm arguing that right after an expac their might be enough people playing the game such that the niche is worth it for some time.

To demonstrate by example presume that gw2 has 2500 people playing and 2 percent are raiding. That would be 50 people. Now imagine their needs to be 100 people to raid to make it word it, and an expac brings the population to 10000. then with a 2percent participation raid we would have 200, twice as much as would be worth it.

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@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Asum.4960 said:The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

Obviously not with new raids. That was an experiment that failed horribly for them. Any calls to try that experiment again are just insane.

The experiment failed due to ...

OK ... I'm not debating why it failed because it's irrelevant. If the players interest isn't there, NO amount of dev attention will make raids interesting to enough players for raids to be a good business decision. Still trying to claim players and the way the game appeals to them aren't a factor in raids being successful content ay? If the development declined ... it was clearly because of the revenues it was generating. Again ... if raids were making Anet massive amounts of revenue ... we would have raids being developed ... LOTS of raids.

if there was no interest in making raids, why would it be different to releasing stories that btw, are not making money and are not incentive enough for players?

It wouldn't be different ... except you don't know if that claim is correct.

The most watched content on Twitch from this game is raiding.

If that was related to revenues raiders generated ... that might be a relevant point.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

Obviously not with new raids. That was an experiment that failed horribly for them. Any calls to try that experiment again are just insane.

Failed horribly? For someone who is reading arguments very selectively and shutting everything, no matter how well argued or founded, down due to lacking impossible insider hard data, you sure throw around very harsh, but equally if not more so unfounded points.

How did Raids fail "horribly", in engaging as much as 30% of the observable community, bringing thousands together into communities for hours of weekly play, likely splashing into all other modes beyond that. Providing some of the most engaging, and for many best Anet has ever done, content. Creating some of the most viewed community events in the games history?

A horribly failure to me implies that they died on arrival and nothing ever came of it.

And how is the decline of Raids different to basically everything else?Did Dungeons Fail horribly? Guild Missions? Fractals? Strikes? Bounties? Legendary Crafting? WvW? PvP? and on and on, or could there, as argued but ignored, be a very well founded other explanation for why all that content got tossed aside, and that there was a bigger undelaying problem in place?

What, according to you, didn't fail horribly? LW? just because it's the one thing still developed? And if so, why is revenue in record lows then?

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@yann.1946 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:Which explains the sever drop in revenue, but not the continuous decline before.

Careful with those "recovery" explanations. The revenue "recovered" during a pandemic to before announcement levels, which were still in constant decline. Hardly a strong foundation for an argument. Meanwhile the "recovered" revenue has been on a constant decline too, which mirrors pre announcement revenue shrinkage.Notice that the same shrinkage happened during raids "peak time" as well. It is just something that seems to happen in-between expansions. It's the expansions, not raid releases, that cause population/revenue spikes.

This happens in practically any MMORPG, btw - the content in-between expansions is mostly there to slow/delay the decay. It does not bring in new players, nor it brings back old players that temporarily stopped playing. It's always expansions that mark the point at which new players come/old players return. Why is that so, i won't speculate here (as it is big enough a topic to be worth a completely separate thread), but that's how it is. GW2 is not an exception.

@maddoctor.2738 said:With Q4 2019 being the worst quarter and Q1 2020 being the 2nd worst. So it was there at the end of 2019/start of 2020 that we saw a great decrease in revenue.Isn't that because it was the announcement for the IBS (30th of August, 2019, iirc) that finally made people realize that the earlier hints about expansion being cancelled are not just hints, but a reality? Is it accident that the revenue started to get better shortly after they announced that there
will
be an expansion after all?

Of course, there were a few other things that undermined people's trust in the game around that time - MO leaving (and then MZ ninja leaving shortly after) certainly didn;t help either. Until expansion announcement a lot of people honestly didn't believe this game had any future beyond LS5, and talks about maintenance mode were a daily occurence. Which definitely wasn't helping revenue at all.

Isn't the discussion about raids not about gaining new people during the decay. But to slow the decay down.As far as i know nobodies claiming that with raids no decay would happen, just that it would be slower.

I think the point is that decay rate is irrelevant if raids were not worth the investment to create and maintain to begin with.

That might depend more on the general population levels though. In that case raids might be worth after a new expac is released.

Maybe ... but speculation isn't a good basis to justify re-establishing failed content. Do you think it's a good bet for Anet to anticipate the people that come back for EoD will have increased interested in raiding to the point they create new ones? Why would we think it would be any different than expansion 2? IIRC, raid development dropped significantly AFTER PoF ... so my bet says raiding interest based on general population increases isn't enough.

This debate has been had multiple times. Raiding in this game is a niche ... and clearly that niche can't sustain the development of that kind of content. Raids in their format simply does not appeal to enough people. OP has some correct indirect insights ... game is for casuals ... but raids are not for them. But make no mistake, no amount of false claims and scapegoating the OP can do will change the data that tells Anet raids aren't worth the investment to create.

But apparently their was enough attention just after Pof to create more raids. I'm not arguing that it isn't a niche activity. I'm arguing that right after an expac their might be enough people playing the game such that the niche is worth it for some time.

To demonstrate by example presume that gw2 has 2500 people playing and 2 percent are raiding. That would be 50 people. Now imagine their needs to be 100 people to raid to make it word it, and an expac brings the population to 10000. then with a 2percent participation raid we would have 200, twice as much as would be worth it.

Maybe ... that just goes back to my point ... Anet has whatever data they need to convince themselves raids aren't good in GW2. We don't. There is nothing to suggest for a short amount of time after a new expansion, it will be 'good' to make a new raid for Anet because the people that are coming back aren't doing it for a couple of new raids until Anet drops them again like they did after POF. Raids are just NOT sustainable content in this game ... if it was, we would STILL have them.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Asum.4960 said:The question now is though, how do they move forward with the game, especially if long term success is the goal - something I'd very much would like to see for GW2 and ArenaNet.

Obviously not with new raids. That was an experiment that failed horribly for them. Any calls to try that experiment again are just insane.

Failed horribly? For someone who is reading arguments very selectively and shutting everything, no matter how well argued or founded, down due to lacking impossible insider hard data, you sure throw around very harsh, but equally if not more so unfounded points.

How did Raids fail "horribly", in engaging as much as 30% of the observable community, bringing thousands together into communities for hours of weekly play, likely splashing into all other modes beyond that. Providing some of the most engaging, and for many best Anet has ever done, content. Creating some of the most viewed community events in the games history?

A horribly failure to me implies that they died on arrival and nothing ever came of it.

And how is the decline of Raids different to basically everything else?Did Dungeons Fail horribly? Guild Missions? Fractals? Strikes? Bounties? Legendary Crafting? WvW? PvP? and on and on, or could there, as argued but ignored, be a very well founded other explanation for why all that content got tossed aside, and that there was a bigger undelaying problem in place?

What, according to you, didn't fail horribly? LW? just because it's the one thing still developed? And if so, why is revenue in record lows then?

If raids were worth it for Anet to continue developing, we would still be getting new raids. I'm just going to keep bringing you back to this FUNDAMENTALLY TRUE statement. Will a new expansion make it worth it? What would make you think so?

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