Why I'm most excited for Steam

[Ujaya.1925]

The move to Steam will allow ANet to tap into the thriving kitten community it hosts, so that's pretty exciting. If I was a gaming company, that's the kind of platform I would want to partner with.

[DexterousGecko.6328]

I'm kind of excited to see the steam forums rip apart GW2 if I'm being honest lol. It'll be a eat popcorn moment for sure.

Edited April 30, 2022 by DexterousGecko.6328

[Gibson.4036]

2 hours ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

I'm kind of excited to see the steam forums rip apart GW2 if I'm being honest lol. It'll be a eat popcorn moment for sure.

“11/10 Would swing a sword again”

[battledrone.8315]

12 hours ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

I'm kind of excited to see the steam forums rip apart GW2 if I'm being honest lol. It'll be a eat popcorn moment for sure.

swtor steam accounts starts with a companion, im guessing that they will do something similar.

perhaps a set OP armor and weapon. lets see how it turns out. 

[SlateSloan.3654]

Im not excited for steam release to be honest. The mmo market is fed.

I dont think that there are many thousands of players sitting on their steam accounts thinking "man there is no proper mmo available on steam so I cant play any." It's not that anyone is locked into only playing games via steam or any other plattform. Its not that steam users arent able to get information about games outside of steam.

GuildWars2 is 10 years old now and free to play so any people seeking for a new mmo will rather enter "mmo f2p" on google and have a look at the results then to try it them out already. So who wants to play an mmo will play them with or without any sales plattform underneath. There is no need to sit and wait until something gets on steam.

Same goes for wvw alliances. There are no players sitting infront their computer thinking "man I would play gw2 wvw but kitten it has no alliance system so I wont".

We need to be realistic here that the big community dream that any kind of actions will lead to a "renaissance of some golden age huge player influx" or such wont happen. MMO players are rather moving between different mmos these days when their main game gets them to boring.

Also GW2 got bad reputation in general gaming scene for being extremely grind and time consuming. Also everything in the game system is designed to be uncomfortable so people will at one point lose patience and swipe the credit card to either shorten things up or make something more comfortable.

As long this "ingame content must be cheap and loot must be unworthy" politics goes on it will always stay like it is.

When 50% of the playerbase owns 2 or more accounts to farm rewards there is someting to it.

[kharmin.7683]

24 minutes ago, SlateSloan.3654 said:

 Also everything in the game system is designed to be uncomfortable so people will at one point lose patience and swipe the credit card to either shorten things up or make something more comfortable.
 

Hey, I think you figured it out!

[Izzy.2951]

I dont know how Steam will do without a good rework on core game, teaching mechanics, gear stats, LFG rework too. I came back +6 months ago, and meh the amount of things i have to look outside of the game and the experience in core game wasnt the best.

[subversiontwo.7501]

5 hours ago, SlateSloan.3654 said:

GuildWars2 is 10 years old now and free to play so any people seeking for a new mmo will rather enter "mmo f2p" on google and have a look at the results then to try it them out already. So who wants to play an mmo will play them with or without any sales plattform underneath. There is no need to sit and wait until something gets on steam.

 

Same goes for wvw alliances. There are no players sitting infront their computer thinking "man I would play gw2 wvw but kitten it has no alliance system so I wont".

I think these two qoutes from your post go a long way to describe the situation.

Steam may not be some guarantee of multipled success. It is however another form of distribution and ongoing attention. It's also how people use that platform as googling for an MMO requires a very specific interest while clicking through Steam is how many of us buy games there in general, I'd imagine. The platform also collects and highlights scores and commentary in ways that simple googling don't keep itself updated on. Such things are usually only highlighted at releases in general while Steam keeps ongoing attention to them. That does not mean a slam dunk but if anything, this game has struggled with constant praises from critics but usually unfair views held with little knowledge among general populations. A place like Steam could help balance those things out: Reviews and perceptions.

Spoiler

Over the past year or so I believe some of that has been restored for GW2 among general consumers. I see people talking about its inventive fundamentals and its highlights much more now with WoW on the slump. All other games have gained more attention from WoW's misfortunes but for GW2 any open-minded attention is good given how perceptions may not have reflected fairly or accurately on the game; and it could help remedy how poorly this game has been marketed or, arguably, continue to be since the game is not marketed as a whole. In many ways the game is still very marketable but the development is not as marketable as some may believe.

For Steam (or any actual marketing, of the whole product) to be successful they also need to present the product in a good state as a whole and be able to market the things that the game does well in terms of playing, not just where it receives development and keeps its existing players most happy. Develop only one side of the game and listen only to players in that side of the game and you quickly get a warped view of how things will be perceived in a larger space. Things like Alliances for WvW is not a feature to sell on. It is however unfulfilled promises "not-to-sell on" . Marketing GW2 successfully includes marketing WvW and marketing WvW hinges on the mode to be in a good state and having players that speak well of it. If there is an influx of players who are met by three our of four playerbases (ie., three out of four game modes or MMO dimensions, not players) not having fun and not speaking well about the game then Steam may be pointless. If your product fits poorly into the platform where you market it, it will have problems and if you market air it will blow back. I'd wager that's how GW2 got its more or less inaccurate perceptions in the first place: Its initial successes and strengths not being developed and marketed as a pakage.

Spoiler

 

If this is the developer's own words about itself:
"Our communication regarding this feature over the last few years missed the mark. In the past, development priorities shifted away from WvW, and unfortunately both World Restructuring and our players suffered as a result."

Imagine what players say, what players will say on Steam reviews, what new players from Steam will be met with upon buying the game (if they buy it from an MMO section on the merits of an MMO) and what those players in turn will say on Steam reviews after their first few weeks of being met by that. So no, Alliances is not a feature to sell on Steam. Alliances is a feature to make sure your game can be sold on Steam.

 

Spoiler

Beyond that is the larger discussions of players and content not being the same thing and how to market the game on such a platform. It is widely known that single-player story and open but self-minded PvE is where most development go, most existing players are and where happiness is at its highest. However, that is what most other games are known for, where other genres exist and not necessarily where your own strengths or potential lie or where platform issues can jam you up. People looking solely for good story may not click for MMO. People going for MMO may not click for story. Other MMO may have even more appeal drawn to its story. Other MMO may better market their totals or gameplay systems. Your game may rather shine in its fundamental gameplay systems and have the most (untapped-) potential where those shine the best, in its unfullfilled promises (or in what you once gave up that earned you unfair perception or where you again have glimmers of fair reception: social gameplay systems like event- and combat systems - and the content where they can shine the best).

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[SlateSloan.3654]

49 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

I think these two qoutes from your post go a long way to describe the situation.

Steam may not be some guarantee of multipled success. It is however another form of distribution and ongoing attention. It's also how people use that platform as googling for an MMO requires a very specific interest while clicking through Steam is how many of us buy games there in general, I'd imagine. The platform also collects and highlights scores and commentary in ways that simple googling don't keep itself updated on. Such things are usually only highlighted at releases in general while Steam keeps ongoing attention to them. That does not mean a slam dunk but if anything, this game has struggled with constant praises from critics but usually unfair views held with little knowledge among general populations. A place like Steam could help balance those things out: Reviews and perceptions.

  Reveal hidden contents

Over the past year or so I believe some of that has been restored for GW2 among general consumers. I see people talking about its inventive fundamentals and its highlights much more now with WoW on the slump. All other games have gained more attention from WoW's misfortunes but for GW2 any open-minded attention is good given how perceptions may not have reflected fairly or accurately on the game; and it could help remedy how poorly this game has been marketed or, arguably, continue to be since the game is not marketed as a whole. In many ways the game is still very marketable but the development is not as marketable as some may believe.

For Steam (or any actual marketing, of the whole product) to be successful they also need to present the product in a good state as a whole and be able to market the things that the game does well in terms of playing, not just where it receives development and keeps its existing players most happy. Develop only one side of the game and listen only to players in that side of the game and you quickly get a warped view of how things will be perceived in a larger space. Things like Alliances for WvW is not a feature to sell on. It is however unfulfilled promises "not-to-sell on" . Marketing GW2 successfully includes marketing WvW and marketing WvW hinges on the mode to be in a good state and having players that speak well of it. If there is an influx of players who are met by three our of four playerbases (ie., three out of four game modes or MMO dimensions, not players) not having fun and not speaking well about the game then Steam may be pointless. If your product fits poorly into the platform where you market it, it will have problems and if you market air it will blow back. I'd wager that's how GW2 got its more or less inaccurate perceptions in the first place: Its initial successes and strengths not being developed and marketed as a pakage.

  Hide contents

 

If this is the developer's own words about itself:
"Our communication regarding this feature over the last few years missed the mark. In the past, development priorities shifted away from WvW, and unfortunately both World Restructuring and our players suffered as a result."

Imagine what players say, what players will say on Steam reviews, what new players from Steam will be met with upon buying the game (if they buy it from an MMO section on the merits of an MMO) and what those players in turn will say on Steam reviews after their first few weeks of being met by that. So no, Alliances is not a feature to sell on Steam. Alliances is a feature to make sure your game can be sold on Steam.

 

  Hide contents

Beyond that is the larger discussions of players and content not being the same thing and how to market the game on such a platform. It is widely known that single-player story and open but self-minded PvE is where most development go, most existing players are and where happiness is at its highest. However, that is what most other games are known for, where other genres exist and not necessarily where your own strengths or potential lie or where platform issues can jam you up. People looking solely for good story may not click for MMO. People going for MMO may not click for story. Other MMO may have even more appeal drawn to its story. Other MMO may better market their totals or gameplay systems. Your game may rather shine in its fundamental gameplay systems and have the most (untapped-) potential where those shine the best, in its unfullfilled promises (or in what you once gave up that earned you unfair perception or where you again have glimmers of fair reception: social gameplay systems like event- and combat systems - and the content where they can shine the best).

 

sure its a way of distribution but I will stand with my opinion that it wont bring what alot hope for and that is the "new huge player influx" and this influx golden age is not gonna happen. Its all the people here who believe of an new golden era which are totally wrong. Maybe steam leads to some try it out but people need to get that hype of a new huge population out of their head cause that will only turn into disappointment once again. The same will happen like with EoD big hype and then the expansion is actually a content disaster. Same will happen with alliances. Big hype but all will realise soon that its still the remaining few who will attend to wvw. big ogrewatch gaming... The only good move anet does is to bring the game to DX11 engine wise. Thats a service to veteran community to finally give us a tech update after 10 years... i repeat: 10 YEARS.

And steam reviews wont make a difference either. See how unpopular GW2 is on twitch already. the majority of streamers carve with like 20 viewers per evening, alot dont even reach that number.... The only one with somewhat worth to meantion viewer numbers is teapot and his viewer numbers are even rather low compared to streamers of other games. So actually we have 1 person out of a proclaimed "millions of player playerbase" who manages to get along on twitch... Any further infos needed to that?

And please stop to bring some kind of empty phrases like "fundamential game design" blah blah blah cant hear this empty words anymore cause these have never brought us any change or further action after.

I can lead any discussion with bringing empty hope seeding phrases but time already told us that is not gonna happen because a certain gaming studio never lets proper action follow to their words.

Cornerstone gamemodes wah wah wah. This kind of customer management is just one of the worst in gaming industry.

Its time the companies change their money farming attitude again and create games instead of all this fake kitten. and that goes not only towards anet but all of them who caused disasters in the past decade. From EA to UBI and whatever they call themselfes.

[subversiontwo.7501]

1 hour ago, SlateSloan.3654 said:

sure its a way of distribution but I will stand with my opinion that it wont bring what alot hope for and that is the "new huge player influx" and this influx golden age is not gonna happen. Its all the people here who believe of an new golden era which are totally wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it will be. I'm saying it could be rather useful but that hinges on getting at least some part of the raiding (dungoneering etc.) and PvP sides of the playerbase onboard beforehand and mending fences with them. If they can deliver on Strikes interesting enough to appeal across Raids, Fractals etc., and knock Alliances out of the ballpark, they are getting themselves into a position where launching on Steam would make sense. That's how Steam relates to those things. Even then it might not lead to some Golden age but it would at least make a Steam launch worthwhile and something to build from. Until then, all they can really market is story, and I sincerely don't think world/story alone is good enough to make a Steam launch worthwhile.

 

Quote

And please stop to bring some kind of empty phrases like "fundamential game design" blah blah blah cant hear this empty words anymore cause these have never brought us any change or further action after.

It's not meant to be hype phrases. It's simply a way to collectively point to that despite being 10 years old, the hearts- and events design of maps is still not really beaten by any other MMO. Despite some ups and downs with monetisation, the box-sales with MTX has still been handled well enough in this game to not kill it over 10 years. Even though large parts of it has been ignored by other changes over the years, the combat system in this game still has the best action/scale to fit an MMO (ie., it's not the best 1-player system, it's not the best 3-player system but once you start going above 5 players the combat system in GW2 is not really matched by any other MMO still). That is what leads to things like World bosses / Meta events and WvW being somewhat unique for GW2 while other things in this game are not as unique to it. That doesn't make them bad, just not, stand out to sell in competition.

That's the fundamental game design: the competitors have not yet caught up with that despite the game being 10 years old. Things like Mounts fundamentally are apart of the combat system (their appeal is the control ie., combat). That is 5 years old now and is still having competitors glaring at it. So, there are things that GW2 still, as objectively as possible, is the best at. It is also those things that should be taken advantage of when developing and marketing, if they are looking to market the game on a platform as broad as Steam.

Edited May 2, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[Kichwas.7152]

I've always felt Steam becomes an avenue for critics to attack.

 

I expect Steam numbers for GW2 won't be high, because most of us will have predated it. But this also means a whole army of YouTubers will make clickbait ad revenue by showing charts of GW2 Steam numbers side by side with the MMO of the week in titles like "Is Guild Wars Dead?"... All while we'll actually be in the #3 or #4 spot for MMOs outside of China. Maybe even #2 if the next WoW expansion tanks hard enough.

 

We've seen this pattern repeatedly were people use Steam Charts to claim a game is doing better or worse than it actually is by simply not showing how many players are still connecting to that game or to the compared against games outside of Steam.

 

I'm actually dubious about whether or not Steam will add enough new players to justify the costs and burdens of keeping that contract going.

 

[Jmv.1843]

On 3/27/2022 at 1:19 AM, Stx.4857 said:

Everything you just said, you can do without steam.  So yeah...   like people use steam because they don't want multiple game shortcuts on their desktop?  

in 2004 Valve released a game called Half Life 2. It came on multiple physical DVD discs. Upon installing, we were prompted to install a program called Steam in order to play the game. Even worse, we couldn't play the game without installing Steam. This was the first step in paving the way to what is now the industry standard for Digital Distribution Platforms. We have been indoctrinated to accept Steam, and all other DD platforms over the years. It was never about sensational customer service or quality of life, it was about money. These platforms in general impose DRM as well as a bunch of other terms and conditions on our purchases. When you hear the term "we don't buy games anymore, we buy the licence to use them", these platforms are the basis of that.

 

That being said, from a personal perspective, Steam is just what I grew up using. Most games are published for sale on the Steam store or one of the other big DDPs. It took me a while to accept the fact that physical media was long obsolete, and that I shouldn't fit a DVD drive into a new PC build..

 

As mentioned above, Steam can be a central hub for all purchased games, whether from the official Steam Store or third party  steam key resellers. Steam provides a decent refund policy (if purchased from the Steam Store), of being able to refund a product if playtime is < 2 hours, cloud saves, MFA, a per-game-basis mod community, social networking features, achievements, frequent sales (automated notification with the 'wishlist' feature), live broadcasting features, and automated library-wide game update management through the desktop client. That being said, the games I play (WoW/GW2) have always run through their own launchers, and for existing players I'd imagine the vast majority would not benefit from throwing their account progress away to switch over.

 

Finally, a spot-on response to somebodies question of whether the Steam release will benefit existing players;

On 3/26/2022 at 5:07 AM, Quench.7091 said:

I'd say that it does offer a second-wind to the player population.

 

[Jukhy.2431]

1 hour ago, Jmv.1843 said:

in 2004 Valve released a game called Half Life 2. It came on multiple physical DVD discs. Upon installing, we were prompted to install a program called Steam in order to play the game. Even worse, we couldn't play the game without installing Steam. This was the first step in paving the way to what is now the industry standard for Digital Distribution Platforms. We have been indoctrinated to accept Steam, and all other DD platforms over the years. It was never about sensational customer service or quality of life, it was about money. These platforms in general impose DRM as well as a bunch of other terms and conditions on our purchases. When you hear the term "we don't buy games anymore, we buy the licence to use them", these platforms are the basis of that.

 

That being said, from a personal perspective, Steam is just what I grew up using. Most games are published for sale on the Steam store or one of the other big DDPs. It took me a while to accept the fact that physical media was long obsolete, and that I shouldn't fit a DVD drive into a new PC build..

 

As mentioned above, Steam can be a central hub for all purchased games, whether from the official Steam Store or third party  steam key resellers. Steam provides a decent refund policy (if purchased from the Steam Store), of being able to refund a product if playtime is < 2 hours, cloud saves, MFA, a per-game-basis mod community, social networking features, achievements, frequent sales (automated notification with the 'wishlist' feature), live broadcasting features, and automated library-wide game update management through the desktop client. That being said, the games I play (WoW/GW2) have always run through their own launchers, and for existing players I'd imagine the vast majority would not benefit from throwing their account progress away to switch over.

Great post, thank you!

Just to add as a note that buying a licence to use the services also applies to GW2 as stated in section 1.3.1 of the User Agreement.

[Mungrul.9358]

On 3/26/2022 at 2:19 PM, Stx.4857 said:

Everything you just said, you can do without steam.  So yeah...   like people use steam because they don't want multiple game shortcuts on their desktop?  

I'm a heavy Steam user with an 18 year old account and over a thousand games on it.

 

Benefits of using Steam:

It's one of the cheapest ways to obtain games on PC, thanks to frequent sales.

 

For Linux users like myself, they have made the process of running Windows games almost completely seamless. This is how I currently run GW2 on Linux, and it's flawless.

And that ties in to another point: non-Steam games can be added to Steam to get many of the benefits, such as cloud-hosted screenshots and the Steam Overlay.

 

Probably the biggest one, if games support mods, Steam Workshop allows you to subscribe to mods for that game, automatically keeping them updated, and installing them automatically for you should you re-install after having uninstalled. Steam Workshop is a MASSIVE selling point for those of us who love modding our games, and again, for Linux users, streamlines the whole process. Modding a Windows game running in a Wine Bottle without Steam can be a massive headache.

 

And finally, it provides a lot of the community features of other apps, all hosted within Steam. Voice & text chat, streaming, community and group-based forums... it's very feature-rich.

 

Oh, and I don't use it much myself, but it allows you to stream games running on your PC to your smart TV (or even Steam Deck). As noted, not the best option for GW2, as the game has more inputs than are comfortable on a controller. But for controller friendly games like Elden RIng, it's fantastic.

 

As noted by others, Steam is nothing like Stadia. It is a library of games for you to download locally to your PC, whereas Stadia runs games in the cloud and streams them to you.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I have steam but I open it maybe once a month and I don't play a lot stuff on steam. Well some games for a couple of weeks in a year and then back to consoles.

[Danikat.8537]

I prefer GoG personally because once I've installed the games I don't have to start a second program to run them and can even play them offline if I want to. Obviously that last one isn't relevant to GW2, but in general it's nice to have the option because it means even if GoG stops supporting the game I've still got my copy and can still play it.

I only use Steam for games which I can't get any other way (and the ones I'm currently playing are down to Valheim and Total War).

I've never used the social features on either. Even when I was playing Among Us with my board game group during the pandemic we'd use Discord to arrange games and talk while playing (and yell at each other to stop talking because we were giving stuff away, but that was part of the fun).

I'm hoping GW2 does well on Steam because I think it's a good game and if there's people who would enjoy it who haven't yet discovered it I want them to be able to find out about it. But even if we had the option of running our accounts through Steam I wouldn't want to, so it doesn't bother me that I can't. If I could I'd use Steam strictly as a shop and only open it when I want to buy a game there.

[anyaeversong.2678]

On 5/2/2022 at 4:57 PM, SlateSloan.3654 said:

 

Also GW2 got bad reputation in general gaming scene for being extremely grind and time consuming. Also everything in the game system is designed to be uncomfortable so people will at one point lose patience and swipe the credit card to either shorten things up or make something more comfortable.

 

 

I seriously doubt that. Name one MMORPG that isnt grindy. GW2 is the most alt friendly MMO you'll find out there. There is also no gear treadmill because the max level of characters and gear never changes.