Enthusiastic Players Stay Silent

[Alsandar.7420]

The GW2 community is significantly nicer than other mmo’s… It’s true…

And there are tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of players who are really hyped for Soto. Many loved EOD as well.

But these players often stay silent because the forums, Reddit, YouTube = full of angry, mean people, who insult and bully anyone who likes the game. 
 

So Anet, please know a lot of us are excited!! And we love what you do!! 

[Alin.2468]

Congratulations for your excitement. I hope you are really happy for PvE only, since PvP and WvW got no content with EOD, and will likely get no content with SoTO.

On a positive note: some players seem to be really happy. This positive attitude is great for the partial content we get in the coming expansion at release.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Hyped over what?

A-net has shown next to nothing in terms of stuff that generally hypes majority of playerbase.
New weapons? Not at launch.
Legendary armor? Concept art. Real deal not at launch.
New maps? Barely got a glimpse. Fair part of very short trailer was Kessex hills..
New feature (aerial combat) - Nadda.
Relics - again we saw very little and they're already super controversial.

Compare all that to HoT hype during it's pre-launch and all the features that were made very clear.
We saw elite specs in their full glory, got betas in the jungle, saw new enemies in action (not just art),
saw gliding, had an EPIC announcement trailer.

Hype doesn't run on fumes. It's not us being jerks, it's how it works.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

1 hour ago, Alsandar.7420 said:

The GW2 community is significantly nicer than other mmo’s… It’s true…

And there are tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of players who are really hyped for Soto. Many loved EOD as well.

But these players often stay silent because the forums, Reddit, YouTube = full of angry, mean people, who insult and bully anyone who likes the game. 
 

So Anet, please know a lot of us are excited!! And we love what you do!! 

You must be new to the forums if you think that people will insult and bully anyone who likes the game, even Reddit's burying the negativity regarding Soto. 

[solzuul.6294]

People who quit do it silently too. 

[Gibson.4036]

2 hours ago, Alsandar.7420 said:

The GW2 community is significantly nicer than other mmo’s… It’s true…

And there are tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of players who are really hyped for Soto. Many loved EOD as well.

But these players often stay silent because the forums, Reddit, YouTube = full of angry, mean people, who insult and bully anyone who likes the game. 
 

So Anet, please know a lot of us are excited!! And we love what you do!! 

I'm not sure that it's entirely about staying silent.

I do know from experience if you start a thread on the forums about something you like, if it's not controversial enough to start an argument, you'll get a handful of positive emojis, one or two agreement posts, and then it quietly floats off page one.

This is the issue with all social media. Arguments sticky themselves and so page one is destined to look like a whole lot of ranting and raving.

[ArchonWing.9480]

The silent masses are many.

But for some reason the silent masses also conveniently agree with whoever's making the post.

I wonder why.

[Zephyrus.9680]

Silent majority. If you're okay with something there's no reason to comment on it. Also, I agree. This expansion is looking great from what I've seen. Main thing I'm exited about is spec-unlocked weapons. They could do everything else wrong but if they get that right, I won't even mind. 

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

6 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

The silent masses are many.

But for some reason the silent masses also conveniently agree with whoever's making the post.

I wonder why.

The many people are always with the post's maker, that's basics of internet posting. 

[Zephyrus.9680]

3 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

The many people are always with the post's maker, that's basics of internet posting. 

It has nothing to do with the OP saying it but with it being true. Maybe you can understand it this way: A lot more GW2 players are a lot happier about this game than other MMO players. Still one of the best rated MMOs. E.g. 88% on Steam, including recent reviews. Fact. Not opinion. 

So it's easy to observe the negativity bias on the forums, even compared to the subreddit where we see the same. Because people who are unhappy about something are much more vocal about it. That's okay, it's part of why these forums exist. To make the game even better. As long as the vocal complainers aren't contradicting what the actual majority want. 

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

1 minute ago, Zephyrus.9680 said:

It has nothing to do with the OP saying it but with it being true. Maybe you can understand it this way: A lot more GW2 players are a lot happier about this game than other MMO players. Still one of the best rated MMOs. E.g. 88% on Steam, including recent reviews. Fact. Not opinion. 

So it's easy to observe the negativity bias on the forums, even compared to the subreddit where we see the same. Because people who are unhappy about something are much more vocal about it. That's okay, it's part of why these forums exist. To make the game even better. As long as the vocal complainers aren't contradicting what the actual majority want. 

Steam ratings alone aren't exactly the best considering games like War Thunder are 75% and there's a massive difference in quality.

I could use Metacritic and say WoW's better, because GW2(and expansions) hover around 85/100 while WoW's in the high 80s/low 90s(though seeing them rate WoD over DF is kinda proof it's a joke of a site) or use GameSpot for the same reason.  Using ratings from sites or Steam or anywhere is pointless, because both of us can use a site that favors the game we'd want to paint as better. 

It would be also worth reading OP again, since my main point was how the claim that people on the forum/Reddit insult and bully people for liking the game holds about as much truth as me saying Champions was a masterpiece.

[enigmatic.3576]

2 hours ago, Alsandar.7420 said:

The GW2 community is significantly nicer than other mmo’s… It’s true…

And there are tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of players who are really hyped for Soto. Many loved EOD as well.

But these players often stay silent because the forums, Reddit, YouTube = full of angry, mean people, who insult and bully anyone who likes the game. 
 

So Anet, please know a lot of us are excited!! And we love what you do!! 

And a lot of those players do not read patch notes and are also unlikely to to read the blog posts as well.  They are oblivious to what's going on with the game and are probably excited for the game getting an expansion but have absolutely no idea beyond that.

[Westenev.5289]

It takes a lot of damage to hurt casual customer loyalty, because casual customers don't care about behind the scenes like blogs, company dramas or patch notes.

[ArchonWing.9480]

23 minutes ago, Zephyrus.9680 said:

It has nothing to do with the OP saying it but with it being true. Maybe you can understand it this way: A lot more GW2 players are a lot happier about this game than other MMO players. Still one of the best rated MMOs. E.g. 88% on Steam, including recent reviews. Fact. Not opinion. 

So it's easy to observe the negativity bias on the forums, even compared to the subreddit where we see the same. Because people who are unhappy about something are much more vocal about it. That's okay, it's part of why these forums exist. To make the game even better. As long as the vocal complainers aren't contradicting what the actual majority want. 

OP made unsubstantiated claims about "tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of players" which may or may not exist.

Steam is notably a smaller portion of the gamer's base due to it being recent, but at least that's a real statistic. So that part may be fact. However, the conclusions drawn from the facts are not necessarily facts. And regardless,  there are no facts in OP's post; only speculation.

Edited August 2, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[Zephyrus.9680]

9 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Steam ratings alone aren't exactly the best considering games like War Thunder are 75% and there's a massive difference in quality.

I could use Metacritic and say WoW's better, because GW2(and expansions) hover around 85/100 while WoW's in the high 80s/low 90s(though seeing them rate WoD over DF is kinda proof it's a joke of a site) or use GameSpot for the same reason.  Using ratings from sites or Steam or anywhere is pointless, because both of us can use a site that favors the game we'd want to paint as better. 

It would be also worth reading OP again, since my main point was how the claim that people on the forum/Reddit insult and bully people for liking the game holds about as much truth as me saying Champions was a masterpiece.

Steam ratings tell you what players on Steam (i.e. PC gamers) think about the game. I don't use Metacritic but I believe it has a bigger console gamer overlap, i.e. younger demographic but exactly the same thesis. They gave it 3% lower than Steam and still far higher than most MMOs, and?

It is worth re-reading the quote you made that I responded to. Because in fact, this is "the many" (your phrase). 

But since we're also pretending opinions are facts, I'll add that War Thunder is an objectively worse game than GW2 so I'm glad Steam users recognized that. Now back to facts. User ratings tell you what the users on that platform think and in these cases are huge (10,000+) statistical representations of the player base. "The Many"

[Zephyrus.9680]

31 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

OP made unsubstantiated claims about "tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of players" which may or may not exist.

Steam is notably a smaller portion of the gamer's base due to it being recent, but at least that's a real statistic. So that part may be fact. However, the conclusions drawn from the facts are not necessarily facts. And regardless,  there are no facts in OP's posts.

10,593 steam users with 88% positive is pretty big substantiation. Is there any other MMO on Steam that is higher? Because I'll be honest. Having spent some time on these forums, I wasn't expecting anywhere near that level of reception when they launched it on Steam. That is the "silent majority" as opposed to the vocal forum complainers that we are. Doesn't mean the game can't be improved or isn't flawed in some areas, but it gives some perspective.  

And now I'm off to complain about elementalist getting pistol as opposed to, say, any other weapon (greatsword or longbow).

Edited August 2, 2023 by Zephyrus.9680

[ArchonWing.9480]

2 minutes ago, Zephyrus.9680 said:

10,593 steam users with 88% positive is pretty big substantiation. Is there any other MMO on Steam that is higher? Because I'll be honest. Having spent some time on these forums, I wasn't expecting anywhere near that level of reception when they launched it on Steam. That is the "silent majority" as opposed to the vocal forum complainers that we are. Doesn't mean the game can't be improved or isn't flawed in some areas, but it gives some perspective.  

And now I'm off to complain about elementalist getting pistol as opposed to, say, any other weapon (greatsword or longbow).

Of the Steam part of the userbase, sure. Except we know it's not the majority of the userbase. As for other MMOs, there's Final Fantasy 14:

Recent Reviews: Very Positive (853) - 82% of the 853 user reviews in the last 30 days are positive. All Reviews: Very Positive (61,742) - 88% of the 61,742 user reviews for this game are positive.

Final Fantasy 14 also peaks at 33k users

https://steamdb.info/app/39210/charts/

Gw2 has 4200

https://steamdb.info/app/1284210/charts/

In other words FF14 does so, with an extra dight. That is how tiny your segment you're picking really is.

See even we were to take everything you said at face value, and that everyone loves the game, it still doesn't mean they're hyped for the expansion. If you want real hype, just look at Diablo 4.

When I went on battle.net before D4 came out,. almost everyone I talked to was hyped. But that's just anecdotes. In reality....

61.2 million hours in 6 days of beta.

9 million copies sold.

And a healthy #19 on Twitch

https://twitchtracker.com/games

That's hype.

Oh btw try finding Gw2 in that list.

 

[wolfof.1842]

12 minutes ago, Zephyrus.9680 said:

10,593 steam users with 88% positive is pretty big substantiation. Is there any other MMO on Steam that is higher? Because I'll be honest. Having spent some time on these forums, I wasn't expecting anywhere near that level of reception when they launched it on Steam. That is the "silent majority" as opposed to the vocal forum complainers that we are. Doesn't mean the game can't be improved or isn't flawed in some areas, but it gives some perspective.  

And now I'm off to complain about elementalist getting pistol as opposed to, say, any other weapon (greatsword or longbow).

when you filter reviews for gw2 by playtime you can see:

10,593 reviews
but 45% of reviews have under 10 hour playtime (4,741)

how much can you say about large MMO with 10 hours played only? 
Don't believe all rating and reviews for product are real, no matter if is game or book or movie

[notebene.3190]

shhhh... I'm enthusiating... 

[Zephyrus.9680]

2 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Of the Steam part of the userbase, sure. Except we know it's not the majority of the userbase.

Statistics doesn't care about that, like at all. For the sake of argument, let's say the total playerbase is 1 BILLION (not million). We want a confidence interval of 2 (+/-2%). And confidence level over 99% (99% chance of +/- 2% of 88% positive representing the entire population). In that case the min sample size needed is 4160. Our sample size in this case is 10,593, over double. The way statistics works, it basically doesn't matter even if the sample is 0.001%. If it is large enough, it becomes statistical certainty. 

The only way this changes is if there is a bias in the sample. So if you want to make an argument about it not being the whole playerbase, it needs to be about steam user bias, not sample size. Otherwise 10,593 is statistical certainty. 

Next, you're confusing player base which is completely different from user review. So for instance generally the games I enjoy are Not popular mainstream games (but still highly reviewed).  Why is that? It's because different players prefer different types of games. GW2 is certainly not a lowest-common-denominator game and if it was, I would almost certainly not be playing it myself as it would probably be too simple for my tastes, like most other MMOs. Combatwise. 

[Zephyrus.9680]

31 minutes ago, wolfof.1842 said:

when you filter reviews for gw2 by playtime you can see:

10,593 reviews
but 45% of reviews have under 10 hour playtime (4,741)

how much can you say about large MMO with 10 hours played only? 
Don't believe all rating and reviews for product are real, no matter if is game or book or movie

This is because you can't connect steam to your existing GW2 account. I don't have the game on steam either. So 0 hours, and yet I have 4000+ hours. If your conspiracy is that the reviews are that high because they are fake, I can't help you because there's nothing to argue. 

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

2 hours ago, Zephyrus.9680 said:

Main thing I'm exited about is spec-unlocked weapons. They could do everything else wrong but if they get that right, I won't even mind. 

The fact that they're unlocking them is doing it wrong on it's own.
They're locked behind elite specs for a reason.

[ArchonWing.9480]

28 minutes ago, Zephyrus.9680 said:

Statistics doesn't care about that, like at all. For the sake of argument, let's say the total playerbase is 1 BILLION (not million). We want a confidence interval of 2 (+/-2%). And confidence level over 99% (99% chance of +/- 2% of 88% positive representing the entire population). In that case the min sample size needed is 4160. Our sample size in this case is 10,593, over double. The way statistics works, it basically doesn't matter even if the sample is 0.001%. If it is large enough, it becomes statistical certainty. 

The only way this changes is if there is a bias in the sample. So if you want to make an argument about it not being the whole playerbase, it needs to be about steam user bias, not sample size. Otherwise 10,593 is statistical certainty. 

Next, you're confusing player base which is completely different from user review. So for instance generally the games I enjoy are Not popular mainstream games (but still highly reviewed).  Why is that? It's because different players prefer different types of games. GW2 is certainly not a lowest-common-denominator game and if it was, I would almost certainly not be playing it myself as it would probably be too simple for my tastes, like most other MMOs. Combatwise. 

I mean even conceding that point, did you ignore the bit where I posted another MMO with just as good reviews?

And conceding the point, that still doesn't correlate to enthusiasm towards the expansion, which is the point of the  entire thread.

Regardless, Steam reviews are a tangent at best. Especially when some other MMOs are not on Steam! And reviews are inherently biased, aren't they? The silent majority doesn't review. 🤣

Edited August 2, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[enigmatic.3576]

1 hour ago, Zephyrus.9680 said:

Statistics doesn't care about that, like at all. For the sake of argument, let's say the total playerbase is 1 BILLION (not million). We want a confidence interval of 2 (+/-2%). And confidence level over 99% (99% chance of +/- 2% of 88% positive representing the entire population). In that case the min sample size needed is 4160. Our sample size in this case is 10,593, over double. The way statistics works, it basically doesn't matter even if the sample is 0.001%. If it is large enough, it becomes statistical certainty. 

The only way this changes is if there is a bias in the sample. So if you want to make an argument about it not being the whole playerbase, it needs to be about steam user bias, not sample size. Otherwise 10,593 is statistical certainty. 

Next, you're confusing player base which is completely different from user review. So for instance generally the games I enjoy are Not popular mainstream games (but still highly reviewed).  Why is that? It's because different players prefer different types of games. GW2 is certainly not a lowest-common-denominator game and if it was, I would almost certainly not be playing it myself as it would probably be too simple for my tastes, like most other MMOs. Combatwise. 

You cannot blindly use statistics regarding sample size without taking into account the population you are sampling compared to the overall population.  Yes you can be factually correct about statistics and calculations but all of that means little if it's not representative.  I could sample GW2Effficiency and make the exact same post as you, but my results would not be representative of the entire playerbase.

Edited August 3, 2023 by enigmatic.3576
swapped out applicable with representative

[ArchonWing.9480]

41 minutes ago, Zephyrus.9680 said:

This is because you can't connect steam to your existing GW2 account. I don't have the game on steam either. So 0 hours, and yet I have 4000+ hours. If your conspiracy is that the reviews are that high because they are fake, I can't help you because there's nothing to argue. 

They didn't say anything about fake reviews.