"As is traditional, we’ll also have a wide range of Gem Store sales to celebrate the anniversary"

[erapago.4387]

So, back in the August studio update, we heard about sales coming alongside the freebies (yay, thanks for those!).

But when are these sales going to happen, exactly? I'm comparing the 2022 anniversary sales to every year prior and... this doesn't seem traditional.

[RadiantWolf.2058]

Yeah, I've been wondering about this too. There have been sales but they haven't struck me as any different than the rotating weekly discounts we always get.

 

One would think for a milestone like the tenth anniversary we'd be seeing more fanfare. (I mean, Steam release was a long time coming and the world tour for the decade armor is awesome so it's not like we got NOTHING but it still feels slim).

[Mungo Zen.9364]

2022 is not going well for Anet it appears.  Can't balance their professions or game modes, can't release content that is engaging or even to the standards of prior expansions, and now can't even put their own products on sale reliably.  The company is changing and they don't seem to care about the perceived value of what they are offering to customers.

They have a Wiki where we can easily see that the selection of items offered has reduced and the discounts have generally gone from 30-35% down to 20-25% over the past 3-4 years.  That probably wouldn't be an issue if they communicated some things like the Sale Start and End Dates, the Items that they will be Discounting, Unique Items created for this sale (like the Supply Drops or the new Account Bumps for Steam).  That last point even, they created new skin packs for gliders, mounts and outfits but didn't promote them in any manner I saw.  Why not?

Perhaps this is an issue of having multiple platforms to share content over and we just don't see where they are posting it.  Perhaps it is an issue of poorly supported community managers not getting the right info to share.  Perhaps the company just doesn't want to spend the money advertising to us.

Whatever it is, I am sitting on several thousands of gems converted from gold over the past 8 months and not buying items from the Gem Shop since they have yet to offer items I care about at discounts I feel are good value.  It isn't that hard really, like I am not buying more shared slots at 20% discount when I bought most of mine at 35% discount.  Same with Character slots, Bank and Bag tabs and a selection of Mount Skins and Outfits.  I will agree that they have continued to put Unbreakable Gathering Tools on some very good deals this year however.

Ultimately I hope that Anet reads posts like these and considers finding ways to communicate with the players/fans/customers so we feel like we are getting good value.   Foe example; I potentially would have been more excited if they has spent a few days hyping the new Skin packs and the deep discounts for buying the 10 select versions.  Something as simple as 'want skins but not sure what to get?  blammo, skin packs are coming with 50% off when you buy 10'.  Dropping teasers and details the week before they go on sale would build hype and interest in what was a new way for players to collect skins.  If I am hyped, I usually feel that my purchases are good value.

The flipside of that is, I didn't spend Gems cause I was waiting for the Supply drop that never came.  I would have invested into some of the Skin packs if they had been up front 'hey these are the items we are putting on sale, if you don't see it, it won't be available'.  I am sure others were waiting for LW or other items to go on sale and not buying other cosmetic or convenience items since we didn't know what would or wouldn't be on sale.

TL;DR

Anet, communicate better please.  Asking players to navigate your sales blind leads to posts like these.

[Gorem.8104]

Its honestly really funny like, we just had the games decade anniversary and honestly feels like its already forgotten/forgettable as almost nothing happened besides doing old repeated content and we were all left disappointed with the tenth birthday gift. No giant sale? Its the games tenth birthday, it should have been huge! Instead they focused on the pointless steam release. 

Is the game not making money anymore? Is there higher up people pushing for this and that's why we can't have the nice things we should have had? (Seriously though, surely the only time people spend is during a sale these days, which means a giant sale should theatrically bring in money, right?) 

Why was there not a weekly supply drop? It could have been massive! Why does the steam package not have mistlock? Because you still want people to buy that lounge separate to make more moolah? There's even a utility station that exists, all you needed to do was give it perm to people with 10 year accounts and that would have been fine and enough. Instead we got nothing. 

I mean, for the tenth, we should have gotten 50-60% Black lion keys and just let people have wild fun opening chests or something, gifted everyone 10-20 keys. Something fun! Its the DECADE Anni! it should have been HUGE!. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[A Hamster.2580]

I mean it's not hard to understand. There was a large wave of new players with the steam release so a decision was made to not have the usual sale in order to maximize revenue at the expense of existing players. I would not be surprise if we do not see the typical 30-40% off on popular stuff like account upgrades for a while (2-3 years) due to the steam release.

Edited September 11, 2022 by A Hamster.2580

[vanfrano.1325]

Since EoD I don't think the game is in as good a state as they pretend it is.

[Gorla.8627]

Speaking of miscommunication, the Returning this Week section of the latest post peaked my interest as the Maguuma skin (why only the treads skin though? 😕) was available almost exactly a year ago. None of the mentioned skins were on sale Friday...

[Labjax.2465]

53 minutes ago, vanfrano.1325 said:

Since EoD I don't think the game is in as good a state as they pretend it is.

I keep getting that feeling too, every so often. I want to believe the hype, that it's growing and so on, but missing on basic stuff like this or the friday sale thing people have pointed out isn't exactly reassuring. Like when of all things their shop isn't being tended to well, the part of the product they most rely on for income, I can't help but be concerned.

[Cyninja.2954]

Less sales, which are often used to increase revenue short term, and the logic of some players:"OMG THE GAME IS DYING!".

Even if the reasonable reaction could have been:"game must be doing well enough to not have to do sales and push short term revenue."

Never change forums...

Edited September 11, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Gorem.8104]

6 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I keep getting that feeling too, every so often. I want to believe the hype, that it's growing and so on, but missing on basic stuff like this or the friday sale thing people have pointed out isn't exactly reassuring. Like when of all things their shop isn't being tended to well, the part of the product they most rely on for income, I can't help but be concerned.

Well I mean, before EoD dropped there felt like there was more people playing, though that might be because they messed up EoD zones so that they felt dead at launch by having low player caps. But now yes for sure there is less people playing then the end of last year, where for the first time in my guess is a very long time they had to increase the size of servers because every server was being locked for wvw purposes. Usually they have always made them smaller. 

Return too was the greatest idea they ever had and most likely ever will have. The entire achievement line was done really well and did better for the game then the expansion did by far. Better for the game then the steam release by even more so. Now they just need to reign in their balance team which they appear to be doing and that should bring back a bunch of people. 
As long as we all avoid Cantha, then the games fun. Its fortunate it does have an entire game outside of a failed expansion. Just really really hope we do get a good surprise sale, just something to celebrate the game existing for 10 years. 

 

Also Cyan, where did that come from? No one here is saying the game is dying, this is more about expressing disappointment and opinions. No need to be that hyperbole. 🙂

[Silent.6137]

16 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

But now yes for sure there is less people playing then the end of last year, where for the first time in my guess is a very long time they had to increase the size of servers because every server was being locked for wvw purposes.
 
As long as we all avoid Cantha, then the games fun. Its fortunate it does have an entire game outside of a failed expansion.

You source for the lesser number of people playing now as opposed to last year?

Failed expansion according to a few haters like you. There are many who enjoy the new expansions and visit them daily to farm events and nodes.

Don't you get tired of repeating the same thing all the time about how bad EoD is?

[Cyninja.2954]

24 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Also Cyan, where did that come from? No one here is saying the game is dying, this is more about expressing disappointment and opinions. No need to be that hyperbole. 🙂

Easy, the opinions shared in this thread are not reflected in any official communication OR any official data (hint: Q2 Revenue is out and it is the highest GW2 has seen in many years). For what we know: GW2 is doing incredibly well even before the Steam launch, and that is even reflected in the revenue numbers.

GW2 is literally the reason NCSofts qoq is in the positive, but yes, let's lament on how bad the game is doing based around the amount of sales (again, something companies do to push short term revenue) provided during the anniversary.

I get it, some of the posters in this thread love to be the continuous doom and gloomers, it's just not really reflected in any data we have access to atm. Could this change in the future? Sure and it most likely will. Until then, shoo, back under your bridges.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Labjax.2465]

35 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Well I mean, before EoD dropped there felt like there was more people playing, though that might be because they messed up EoD zones so that they felt dead at launch by having low player caps. But now yes for sure there is less people playing then the end of last year, where for the first time in my guess is a very long time they had to increase the size of servers because every server was being locked for wvw purposes. Usually they have always made them smaller. 

Return too was the greatest idea they ever had and most likely ever will have. The entire achievement line was done really well and did better for the game then the expansion did by far. Better for the game then the steam release by even more so. Now they just need to reign in their balance team which they appear to be doing and that should bring back a bunch of people. 
As long as we all avoid Cantha, then the games fun. Its fortunate it does have an entire game outside of a failed expansion. Just really really hope we do get a good surprise sale, just something to celebrate the game existing for 10 years. 

 

Also Cyan, where did that come from? No one here is saying the game is dying, this is more about expressing disappointment and opinions. No need to be that hyperbole. 🙂

Good points. Yeah, I mean, there is plenty about the game that is great and clearly thriving still, even if not as much as in some points in the past. Where I get most concerned is in the department of quality and followthrough. EoD has a lot of issues (granted some of it being down to opinion), but in fairness, LW1 turned into forever content seems pretty well-crafted so far. Then there are other things like the topic of this thread, or the changes to world bosses, that seemed rushed or like something is getting miscommunicated internally. It's not all one way or the other, so I go back and forth on how I feel about it. The way they have taken to fixing the major issue that was the balance changes seems pretty on point so far, I give them credit for that. That said, I don't want to be thinking that things slipping through the cracks and then not being acknowledged is a habit, regardless of how "minor" the issue is in relation to the game as a whole. It took a lot of outrage across multiple platforms to get them to address balance problems people have had for a while. I don't want people to feel like they need that level of outrage to get any old thing addressed.

A little "we're looking into this" followed by "here's what we found out" goes a long way, in my book. Where there is radio silence, imaginations run wild and we end up speculating at each other, which often leads to unproductive arguing (we meaning forum posters, idk if you do that 😛)

[Gorem.8104]

3 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Good points. Yeah, I mean, there is plenty about the game that is great and clearly thriving still, even if not as much as in some points in the past. Where I get most concerned is in the department of quality and followthrough. EoD has a lot of issues (granted some of it being down to opinion), but in fairness, LW1 turned into forever content seems pretty well-crafted so far. Then there are other things like the topic of this thread, or the changes to world bosses, that seemed rushed or like something is getting miscommunicated internally. It's not all one way or the other, so I go back and forth on how I feel about it. The way they have taken to fixing the major issue that was the balance changes seems pretty on point so far, I give them credit for that. That said, I don't want to be thinking that things slipping through the cracks and then not being acknowledged is a habit, regardless of how "minor" the issue is in relation to the game as a whole. It took a lot of outrage across multiple platforms to get them to address balance problems people have had for a while. I don't want people to feel like they need that level of outrage to get any old thing addressed.

A little "we're looking into this" followed by "here's what we found out" goes a long way, in my book. Where there is radio silence, imaginations run wild and we end up speculating at each other, which often leads to unproductive arguing (we meaning forum posters, idk if you do that 😛)

Oh I agree entirely, that's why its good to see them announce the new balance lead. You know, tell us stuff is happening. Cause it has been pretty hard to get changes in all things considered with recent events, look at the sheer amount of posts/backlash the turtle mount and DE caused before they did anything, and now with the balance changes actually finally being looked at, once again it took so many of us to get it through to them to do something about it. 

It would indeed be nice to need much less of an uproar for communication. Same deal as say, the new adventure guide for new players, which has removed the old achievements entirely, meaning old and new players are now locked out of 125 AP forever if they never earnt them. Not much uproar, will anything be done about that? Its really a choice by Anet at this point if they decide to really get into the nitty gritty and make GW2 into the best game it can be, what we all want it to be. My wonder is the effort required to do this might not be an option with the current studio size, and the higher ups not allowed the team to grow. 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[Blue D Phoenix.7260]

10 hours ago, Silent.6137 said:

Failed expansion according to a few haters like you. There are many who enjoy the new expansions and visit them daily to farm events and nodes.

It seems to me that you only look for ways to mindless farms in expansions? If so good for you, I guess.

 

But comparing with its predecessors, EoD is the worst. It didn't bring any QoL changes in game, fishing is mainly for achievement or farming, like random ore nodes with rng, Skiff is used like a floating log for platform in middle of water, jade bot is glorified revive orb+teleport to a friend, turtle is a good combat mount, only good if two players not much for solo players.

 

 The story was worst, the great dragon soo won wasn't even shown in a great light, the people of cantha were worried about their political problem mroe than their dragon (which gave them cool tech and made them rich)disappearing. Atleast the script could have been done better.

 

Maps are awesome but too big for small players, there should've been a lot of npcs atleast, would've made new kaieng look like an actual city instead of a dead town.

 

Unlike pof/hot you can skip this expansion and don't miss much.

[Silent.6137]

24 minutes ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

It seems to me that you only look for ways to mindless farms in expansions? If so good for you, I guess.

When you use mindless farms, I stopped reading what you have to say. Farming events include doing the strikes, the meta, etc on those maps. Many positive things about the expansion but pointless to rehash and debate them again and again.

[LSD.4673]

There's an expanse between the development team and the community team -- and i'm sure the management sits on an island between the two.

The freebie mount select things got loads of flak for being advertised on their Twitter with...a mount that's unavailable from that freebie.

The "sales" will be more of the same.

[Razadune.9260]

21 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

But now yes for sure there is less people playing then the end of last year,

I haven't gotten that impression that all. The opposite seems true, really...with the exception of the new EoD zones. If those are what you frequent, there's rarely many people around, to the point that if you're not using the group finder to do zone metas you're probably not going to do them at all. That's something I've never experienced anywhere else in the game, and I generally play at odd hours of the day when there's less people around.    

22 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Even if the reasonable reaction could have been:"game must be doing well enough to not have to do sales and push short term revenue."

It's worth noting that the sales aren't just discounted items, but they tend to feature items that are rarely for sale otherwise. The black lion outfit, weapon, and glider vouchers that did go on sale were a good example, since they're pretty much never available outside of these sale periods. There's usually more to choose from than just a few vouchers, though. 

[Blue D Phoenix.7260]

11 hours ago, Silent.6137 said:

When you use mindless farms, I stopped reading what you have to say

 Lol, i guess it was my bad trying to have a debate with a person who only looks for ways to do same repetitive farming in a new expansion than other things.

 

Its not bad to enjoy those things, but to judge an expansion based on only it, is wrong.

[Silent.6137]

3 minutes ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

 Lol, i guess it was my bad trying to have a debate with a person who only looks for ways to do same repetitive farming in a new expansion than other things.

 

Its not bad to enjoy those things, but to judge an expansion based on only it, is wrong.

You just assumed because I said "There are many who enjoy the new expansions and visit them daily to farm events and nodes." , that that's the only place these people and myself farm at. Do you seriously believe because someone likes some new content, that they'd forget or start to hate the older content that they'd enjoyed for years? Sheeesh!

And judge an expansion based on what exactly? I'm at a loss as to what you had assumed...yet again.

Would be pointless anyways to discuss anything with someone who starts off every post by being antagonostic and jumping to conclusions based on some little snippet of comments.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

17 hours ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

the people of cantha were worried about their political problem mroe than their dragon (which gave them cool tech and made them rich)disappearing

You keep accusing the other fellow of only wanting "mindless farms" and yet somehow you managed to miss the huge story point of how Soo-Won being actually the centerpiece of Joon's reactor was a state secret that nobody was not willing to even mention her involvement with the tech at all, until we have figured ourselves that jade tech is powered by "pure dragon magic"?

The people of Cantha wouldn't even know the dragon had anything to do with that cool tech.

Also of people whom were sure to know about origin of energy in jade batteries, all of them were greatly concerned about her going missing, with only person whom could have known that didn't care was literally leader of purist movement, whom was openly hostile to all Joon's creations in the first place.

So I think that next time, before you go on accusing anyone else of mindlessness, make sure that you didn't skip a big plot points while putting out critique of story content.

(Personally I would rank EoD story as better quality writing and narration compared to PoF)

[Blue D Phoenix.7260]

4 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

You keep accusing the other fellow of only wanting "mindless farms" and yet somehow you managed to miss the huge story point of how Soo-Won being actually the centerpiece of Joon's reactor was a state secret that nobody was not willing to even mention her involvement with the tech at all, until we have figured ourselves that jade tech is powered by "pure dragon magic"?

The people of Cantha wouldn't even know the dragon had anything to do with that cool tech.

Also of people whom were sure to know about origin of energy in jade batteries, all of them were greatly concerned about her going missing, with only person whom could have known that didn't care was literally leader of purist movement, whom was openly hostile to all Joon's creations in the first place.

So I think that next time, before you go on accusing anyone else of mindlessness, make sure that you didn't skip a big plot points while putting out critique of story content.

(Personally I would rank EoD story as better quality writing and narration compared to PoF)

 

You say no one knew about soo won and yet somehow a huge army of people came in aiding the commander to fight soo won. So they'd made them know about soo won after her disappearance, and yet the commander was called to fix some political problem.

Besides, why are they asking commander, the person who's involved in subsidising several elder dragons and a god to fight for their dumb political problem, more over the commander is also an outsider who only recently came to cantha, getting involved in internal political affairs of a country is not something the commander should do, hell commander is a most powerful ally any side they are in, it wins, that's one more big reason why the commander shouldn't be bothered with other country politics.

 

PoF + lws4 writing was the best of all, you and your allies fail at fighting a god, you realised how powerful it is, you fight joko King of all the dead, you meet a whole fraction of people who are brainwashed by joko, you fight joko and take his army , you come back to fight the god with help from several fractions and win, then a crystal dragon sweeps in to steal the thunder, you goto fight the dragon.

 

Everything was perfect, each episode ending made me want to play the next quickly, heck it made me spend rl money to buy lws4. 

 

Eod wasn't at all intriguing, mai trin character development was good, but soo won wasn't, didn't feel like a great elder dragon at all. If it'd been stretched to lws6, maybe it might be good. Would've been also good if there was a purist place which got affected by the void and we came to help them, which kinda changes their mind, like joko's army.

[Pheex.8932]

 "For this incredible milestone of 10 years of Guild Wars 2, which you, the fans, made possible by your undying support and financial and time investment, we decided to celebrate with-" "Sir?" "Excuse me, Sir, the higher ups wanted you to know they demand bigger profits." "Yeah just put a skeleton crew on the game and scrap the discounts"

[Blue D Phoenix.7260]

10 hours ago, Silent.6137 said:

You just assumed because I said "There are many who enjoy the new expansions and visit them daily to farm events and nodes." , that that's the only place these people and myself farm at.

You literally said it isn't a failed expansion because there are people who do the metas or farming, that's the same for all other expansions and even lw, that doesn't make it a successful expansion.

 

10 hours ago, Silent.6137 said:

Do you seriously believe because someone likes some new content, that they'd forget or start to hate the older content that they'd enjoyed for years? Sheeesh!

when did I say that or Imply that?

 

10 hours ago, Silent.6137 said:

Would be pointless anyways to discuss anything with someone who starts off every post by being antagonostic and jumping to conclusions based on some little snippet of comments.

You literally skipped every point I made about eod not being a successful expansion because I said repetitive farming is mindless, well it is. Same events, same moves, repeating it over and over again to maybe get valuable reward, is mindless, as I said nothing wrong in liking it or doing it more times. 

[Gibson.4036]

When it gets to the point where the argument is largely about quoting your opponent back to them, it's probably time to walk away.