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

[Blue D Phoenix.7260]

8 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

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.

you're right, I said what I wanted to. I'm out.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

1 hour ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

You say no one knew about soo won and yet

I said they didn't know about Soo-Won's involvement with the Xunlai Jade main reactor....

1 hour ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

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.

Firstly, there is not actually that much of an army participating in Battle of the Jade Sea. There is very limited Ministry of security presence, and then we have to rely on Jade Brotherhood, Kestrels, AND Speakers support for beginning stages, right until main Pact forces arrives.

Moreso, The battle happens on the edge of the Empire - where most of people being in there in the first place were miners employed by the Xunlai Jade.

Even moreso, Commander is not "called to fix some political problem", commander is literally wanted as a criminal, on charges of sabotaging Xunlai Jade main reactor, and is going out of their way, to get the proof of their innocence to the correct people to fix that little issue. "some political problem" shows it's head, because "outsiders" being proven innocent of the sabotage does not align with Purist goals. Purists, whom do not care (or even like) all that new fancy Jade Tech, and leader of which happens to be the main guy in charge of ministry of security.

1 hour ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

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.

Because as I have mentioned, not only they are not asking commander to deal with their politics, commander happens to stumble into their internal little affair on their way to get's cleared of charges of sabotaging reactor that was powerifn the city.

1 hour ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

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.

LWS4 indeed did feature alot of good writing, but it was in the end too rushed and too squished to really be "best", and PoF story was definitelly not "best of all", it's easilly beaten by HoT alone.

Not to mention it literally rehashed Factions story step of "you die, but the higher power lets you live because you have world to save".

Also to point out how much attention you are paying to the story - crystal dragon does NOT sweep in to steal the thunder, you are literally interrupting Balthazar's fight with the dragon in the first place.

1 hour ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

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

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, oh wait, you are serious? Let me laugh even harder: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

LWS4 is very far from perfect. it opens strongly, but then it drops a number of eyebrow raisers (inquest being virtually everywhere apparently, having silly amount of manpower, with base rivaling literal capital city of Asura race in scale, pacifist charr that somehow managed to get past alot of interesting place to settle on their island right next to the Joko's shores, just to name a couple), with neither of arcs even taking most interesting route they could, and being robbed of their potential by being squished into half-season each. With crowning achievement of All or Nothing, which checks out a bingo on the "bad writing practices" card. It virtually should be taken as a study how to NOT write an episode. And then War Eternal, which does not features anything eternal in it's story study, and was probably a decent save from the absolute wreck of all for nothing, but it does not really work when played back-to-back - it is one of the cases where it could only ever work when you have a couple months of wait in between these two.

1 hour ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

Eod wasn't at all intriguing

I definitelly found it more intriguing than venturing into the desert in search of a mad god of war.

1 hour ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

mai trin character development was good, but soo won wasn't, didn't feel like a great elder dragon at all.

mai trin getting actual character development, with a different light shown on her involvement with scarlet was indeed quite nice, Soo-Won... I don;t recall her having much of character development at all, but as a last ED she was not bad. Her not being "evil" as opposed to rest of elder dragons was iffy move, that when proposed as player theory I did not found likely (mostly due to movement of the world contradicting that), but they have managed to address core issues I'd have with it, so they managed it fine.

The final fight - both in terms of the meta event, and last instance, was actual masterpiece of a spectacle. The visuals, the music, and general design was top notch if you paid attention to anything, and saying that it didn't feel like a "great elder dragon at all" sounds very weird. She got much better both meta event and final instance than Kralkatorrik - whom you have just called "perfect".

1 hour ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

If it'd been stretched to lws6, maybe it might be good.

personally I do not see much of room to stretch that story arc into whole next season, without compromising pacing, and slapping in arbitrary slog into the late acts. You know what would be good tho? if LWS4 story arc was told over two seasons.

1 hour ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

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.

there is no point at which "changes mind" of "Joko's Army" about commander in particular. There is one side story where we deal in awakened victim learning that awakened are people too, and a bunch of awakened structures that do not mind not being mind controlled by an Elder Lich.

Also, purists can still be deeper explored with LWS6 - since we have cancelled yet another apocalypse, we can now focus on the cultural fallout of it.

So yeah, you calling other people that they only like "mindless farming" is still very ironic.

[Silent.6137]

2 hours ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

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.

Ok, how do you define a failed expansion? Do you have the stats to back up your assertions? I don't but I always see all EoD Metas always fill up very rapidly. I can tag any meta at any time (when I'm awake and playing, of course) and will always get a full squad. And there's always multiple squads at EoD metas. To me, if there's that many always doing the meta, that's not a failed expansion.

2 hours ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

when did I say that or Imply that?

It seems to me that you only look for ways to mindless farms in expansions?  I think that statement pretty much imply that.

2 hours ago, Blue D Phoenix.7260 said:

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. 

By your definition, all raids, strikes, meta...in fact everything about GW2 is mindless then since they are all repetitive.

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

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.

No arguments there. Time to walk away from this thread.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Silent.6137

[RadiantWolf.2058]

Anyway, back on the topic of the sales.

 

Is it safe to say we are past the point now of any anniversary sale happening? They don't seem to happen this late into September based on the wiki

[Gorem.8104]

2 hours ago, Pheex.8932 said:

 "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"

Pretty much, which was my worry. I'd have figured the game might be in one of its best positions in years, considering what happened last year before EoD came out with how popular the game became. Thought the tenth anni would be the perfect time for something big, something fun for all of us, but nope. 

[William.3871]

The only worth mentioning thing on sale was Inventory slots (pre-steam release, so not really for 10th anniversary) and the outfit voucher.

 

No character/bank/build slots, EoD prep pack, or actually useful things. I just saw this month useless shiny mount skins in the store 24/7.

[Vayne.8563]

I'm disappointed with the lack of sales too. I usually look forward to the supply drop on the anniversary but there was none this year. I bought gem cards for me and my wife to be ready for the sale, and I still have them. They won't go to waste. I just won't have to buy gem cards for a long time now, but regardless it was disappointing.

But those people trying to translate this into the game not doing well, or people not like EOD is silly. Everyone loved mounts but a month after launch a lot of people were done with PoF.   Some people do like fishing. I know because I see them in my guild. They even have fishing parties on boats sometimes.

At the end of the day, the sales issue, even the anniversary issue in general doesn't really have anything to do with the state or health of the game, because you can see that in quaterly reports which are fine.  I'm not sure where this tendency comes from to connect one thing people don't like with a bunch of other unrelated stuff, almost like people say I'm mad about the sales so the game isn't doing well as a form of punishment.

 

If you want to know how the game is doing, read the quarterly reports. Making stuff up isn't helping anyone. 

[casualkenny.9817]

Btw, it happened awhile back, but when they first started experimenting with those vouchers, I vaguely remember it was to replace the old discount model for those categories of skins.

 

The voucher model allows greater flexibility (u choose what u want discounted, and u use when u want it so u can decide later, and the discount varies with qty), at the cost of consumer manipulation to buy more at 1 go and effectively diminishing returns on usage rate per skin. (I vastly preferred the voucher model as it suited me more, personally, so I ain't complaining)

 

The other type of items (that players want) are account utilities. Some hamster already pointed it out on the first page, and it is as obvious as he said. Too bad about the 5 confused emojis his post got, it's like shooting the messenger or something.

 

As for supply drops, I'm guessing they want to wait for the steamers to get settled down first, before rolling out such big expenditure packages, so that it won't be in direct competition for their gems. Mebbe they'll slip it in during a content dead space like Nov or something.

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by casualkenny.9817

[Linken.6345]

59 minutes ago, casualkenny.9817 said:

Btw, it happened awhile back, but when they first started experimenting with those vouchers, I vaguely remember it was to replace the old discount model for those categories of skins.

 

The voucher model allows greater flexibility (u choose what u want discounted, and u use when u want it so u can decide later, and the discount varies with qty), at the cost of consumer manipulation to buy more at 1 go and effectively diminishing returns on usage rate per skin. (I vastly preferred the voucher model as it suited me more, personally, so I ain't complaining)

 

The other type of items (that players want) are account utilities. Some hamster already pointed it out on the first page, and it is as obvious as he said. Too bad about the 5 confused emojis his post got, it's like shooting the messenger or something.

 

As for supply drops, I'm guessing they want to wait for the steamers to get settled down first, before rolling out such big expenditure packages, so that it won't be in direct competition for their gems. Mebbe they'll slip it in during a content dead space like Nov or something.

 

You do know steam editions dnt come with gems included right?

[casualkenny.9817]

3 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

You do know steam editions dnt come with gems included right?

 

Yup I heard about it from another thread, but a new customer who isn't patient comes in ready to spend a certain amount of gems for basic qols. You want them to spend that ready money first, then put up a good deal at a later date to get them to spend more (especially once they are more emotionally invested into the game and a good deal looks a lot more enticing), while also netting the new customers who are patient. Either during Christmas or march sales or staggered random dates.

 

Every QoL upgrade sold at non-discounted price is maximised profit. 

 

Edit: esp when any purchases made thru steam effectively means anet only earns an amount roughly equivalent to if they had sold it at discounted price to their direct customers

Edited September 14, 2022 by casualkenny.9817

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

So, you are saying the new Steam players buy the bundle or separate expansions and then spend more money buying Gems in the Gem Store?  How do these brand new players even know what are the 'needed' QoL items?  Seems they would play the game a bit before learning they 'need' this or that. Thus, there are no 'ready money' Gems to be spend right away. 

[costepj.5120]

On 9/12/2022 at 9:32 PM, William.3871 said:

No character/bank/build slots, EoD prep pack, or actually useful things. I just saw this month useless shiny mount skins in the store 24/7.

Character slots are on sale currently.

[casualkenny.9817]

2 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

So, you are saying the new Steam players buy the bundle or separate expansions and then spend more money buying Gems in the Gem Store?  How do these brand new players even know what are the 'needed' QoL items?  Seems they would play the game a bit before learning they 'need' this or that. Thus, there are no 'ready money' Gems to be spend right away. 

 

I guess I wasn't clear. I meant ready irl wallet. I seldom converted gold to gems back when I was actively playing, and it was more to make up for shortfall of 50gems or so.

 

As for how to know what the basic QoLs are, you ask the players around you. You play the game for a week and experience inconveniences. You run out of space, want to try new chars, whatevers. You keep having to replace your tools and kits. A better way to share things among your characters. Maybe a nice skin or 2 so you don't look so generic. Those are all things that usually come out in the last week of the anniversary sales. It doesn't take long, right? 2 weeks is more than enough to start growing a wishlist of things to make the game less annoying. In fact, that's why they need to wait for most of the new players to reach 80 (they're probably tracking the progress) and play for awhile to like the game and want the Qols.

 

Or how about this. You are a new player from steam, you've played for awhile and you don't know what QoLs there are to want yet, something like copperfed or unbreakable tools comes on discounted sale, you ask players around you if its worth buying, and they say yea.

 

Tbf, I don't even know why you are bothered with that part of my post. I don't even care about that part. I only found out about it either today or late yesterday from forums, but even if I thought steam had an ultimate edition with gems, it wouldn't change my argument.

 

Furthermore, the time scale I'm thinking of is 3(christmas) to 6(marchsales) months. That's more than enough time for new players (from the first group I mentioned) to discover what QoLs they would like and buy them undiscounted. I'm actually expecting them to be released piecemeal every month or so.