Let’s Talk About Marketing...

[aikatara.3462]

@"The Last Hobbit.6492" said:MMOs are about communities. If you want to show how players enjoy the game, you need to include gameplay and players discussing the game.

Nothing made me more excited about an MMO than this video for EVE:

There's videos of streamers and content creators talking about the game and it gets people excited.

I mean, hell, what did Leeroy Jenkins do for WoW. xD

Examples: Organized World Bosses (TT usually), WvW raids, Raids like the Musician Guild that shows how fun it is to fail.

If you want to show how, we the players, enjoy the game then just SHOW us enjoying the game. (And yeah, edit out all the swearing xD)

Many important things have been already said in this thread, so I will not repeat that. But I watched the other posted examples of game promo videos and I found it interesting what I liked about them. So I will post that, maybe it is of interest to somebody.

The EVE online trailer is great, even if it is not my type of game. It transports why it is exiting for players to play this game in a far stronger way than the GW2 promotional video does it with the quotes. What I also really liked is that it showed the user interface, maps etc (at the end of the video). For me as a potential buyer of a new video game this is really really useful and important information and video promotional materials in general don't show ui-related things and actual gameplay often enough, IMO. Usually you have to go to youtube to get these information.

The WoW promo video (I don't play WoW) is actually not bad either. Due to the voice over narrator it reminds me - as a fantasy lover - of great, epic fantasy stories and it feels like this game (or this dlc) will provide that.

The "Welcome to Tyria" Fan Trailer uses footage of actual players too, which is great and shows things like the character customization.

That aside the posted old GW2 promo video had a great, emotional start by using the piano version of "Fear not this night" :-).

It feels to me that there are two types of promotional videos for games: The ones that deliver actual information about the game play (like the EVE-vid seems to do) and those who speak solely to the watcher's emotions. The discussed new GW2 video seems to fall into the latter category. Ideal of course would be to trigger emotions while using - among other things - actual gameplay footage - or at least scenes that show player characters ^^.

(edit: I would love to hide the quoted post behind "show previous posts" as others have done it with quoted posts but I don't know how :-( )

[Tulki.1458]

Testimonials from anonymous players makes it sound like you're cherry-picking.

At the end of the day, you guys need to advertise content. Advertising just the story is not going to work.

The one issue common among almost all GW2 marketing is that it's advertising the story. For existing GW2 players and those who have been invested in the franchise, story trailers are what we want. But story trailers do nothing to attract new players.

To put it bluntly, people outside the GW2 community have no idea what content was added with LWS3. Nobody aside from current players know that LWS3 added six zones, or the fractals or raid wings. Almost all of them assume LWS3 is just story instances in existing places, because the trailers don't tell them otherwise.

Every time you put out a living world release from now on, you should really be clear what it contains. You need to show footage of the new map each time one comes out. When you make a new fractal, it needs to be in the trailer. When you make a new raid wing, it needs to be in the trailer. And you need to tell everyone exactly what these things are in terms that new players will understand. AND you need to tell everyone what the rewards are for this content. Yes, this spoils things somewhat, but it's absolutely essential to sell the product to new players.

The last point is unfortunate, since rewards are often stingy, and it's rare that new armour sets are released through gameplay. You may be SOL on that point but you still need to take the rest of the points seriously.

Tell everyone exactly what's being released every time.Tell it in terms that players new to GW2 but familiar with MMOs or RPGs will understand.Tell everyone what rewards they can receive from playing the content.

Feature lists. People need feature lists.FEATURE LISTS.

--

My last point is sort of about marketing and sort of about monetization. I don't know your finances so it's worth keeping this separate, but you may need to consider biting the bullet and bundling living story seasons with the expansions. As in, if you own HoT you get season 3, and if you own PoF you get season 4, full stop. I've shown people the game and gotten them interested enough to buy the expansions, but not being able to participate in the living world zones that were released in the past is a huge deterrent. To put it bluntly, it sucks to see people buy Heart of Thorns and then be disappointed that they can't visit Bloodstone Fen, any of the Ring of Fire island chain, or return to Orr. These things were a continuation of the Heart of Thorns story and are a requirement for Path of Fire to make any sense whatsoever. It's not good to have those content gaps behind additional upsells. I know the original intent was to get people to log in, but it feels more like a punishment for joining too late than it does a reward for being active.

[nehezbegar.1065]

I also must admit that i prefer the narrated videos :)

I remember how much hype i got on the Cataclysm, this was the most exciting and best expac reveal to date imo, despite how it turned out (well most of the expac was great, the final raid was awful sadly :( ). Take some notes from Blizz as they do from other games and put some stuff into their games, its nothing bad to learn from others. You can clearly see what expac has to offer for the new and existing players. Just go wild, make more than a one minute video, show the strengths of Your game, keep Your head high, because GW2 is a great game and it can stand proudly in the same line of awesomeness as other games out there!

[Ricky.4706]

another point to consider, especially from reading this thread, is that Guildwars 2, is kind of like a sandbox, play as you want - non linear questing, or you don't even have to quest at all and go to pvp, wvw, raids, fractals, or none of the above and role play with the latest fashions in lions arch while focusing on crafting, i've met players whose whole end game was simply making all the legendaries........there are so many ways to play Guildwars that focusing on one aspect is missing out on 20 others ......and that one aspect may leave most new viewers saying, - Nah, pvp isn't for me, or ...nah, I hate role play, or Nah, beautiful scenes and stories bore me, I want massive RVR, or nah, I hate grinding for gear ..........Point being the themes of ads should be, along the lines of "you can do this, or this, or even this, some people even like that, it's a living world and how you want to play is in there" - but don't talk about it, show people having fun playing gw2 "their way" - lots of great suggestions in this thread.

and that eve video, did make me want to pick up eve now that it's on sale lol

ps - personal housing is a thing! - i saw a lot of people make a big deal of it when comparing gw2 to other games...it was a major selling point that few denied.

[Jaken.6801]

I think some things have been said allready, but ehre are my two cents (By the way, did you just really plaster some quotes over an old video? If that is final, then it is lazy and doesn't reflect what the game is about. This was teaser material):

• You need to advertise the actual content that get's into the game and not only tease the type of content (you don't have to reveal the whole hand, but get people excited by showing gameplay is much better than showing some sweeping shots). You can also hide (like in the past) new rewards in the backgrounds (like weapons. The Scythe weapon would have been awesome for the last release)
• You need to differenciate between teaser and trailer. So far the recent trailers were close to teasers, or movie trailers, but not game trailers. A game needs interaction, so show the game beeing played.
• don't obfuscate by special dev angle shots. It is great to show off art and enviroment, but also show the same area of the game in normal play
• If you want to jump on the (in my eyes boring, because self inflating) acolades trend, then do two versions: The Player and the Critic version. It's more genuine. For the fan version allow more than "It's so awesome", but also "I am not a fan of this, but I abusolutely love that", because it shows you are aware of different peoples likes and not only bathing in praise.

As for future marketing:

• Create a place, where people can see the biggest changes to the game, since release and keep it up to date. Things like the Wardrobe, Fractals, Archievments, Mastery system, Mounts, PvP overhaul, with new maps, details, leagues, etc., WvW overhaul with new maps, features, etc., Legendary Weapons, New Maps, new rewards, etc. There has so much changed since release, that no one who saw the initial game might be aware of. Ignore balance, but highlight things "no more rep costs, because it was in the way of fun" (Add to that a simple coding to which part is part of which expansion and you are golden)
• Link to that place if you put out an update, to see what people can get for free and with an investment of 30$ for a lifetime
• Make a video that highlights this content. Or three videos. One for general changes that are part of all gametypes. One for PvE and one for PvE and WvW (I was personal working on making something like that, but life got in the way and I wasn't even able to transcribe the patchnotes so far, but there was another reddit user who made a compelling list)
• Overhaul your website. If I go to GW2, I mostly see GW2 and info regarding the base game. It would be much better if it would incorporate the expansions as well. On one hand it is great beeing so simple but on the other hand it is very barren. I get info about races, the normal classes and lot's of outdated info. It would do good for the game to adress these things and add the beforementioned contentupdates to the mainpage. People who played in the past or only knew the reviews of old don't know about awesome features like the wardrobe, LFG, Elite-Classes, Guild Halls, Guild Missions, etc. UPDATE THE FRONTPAGE TO REFLECT CONTENT CHANGES THAT APPLY TO EVERY USER

[CHAO.7956]

It's really cool to see you guys reaching out to the player base on this. I think we all agree that it benefits all of us to see the player base increase and it looks like this generated a lot of constructive criticism. Hope to see more back and forth between the devs and the player-base in the future.

PS. If I come up with anything to add to this I will.

[Cyninja.2954]

Wow, a lot of good feedback so far (and I actually read through every post even though I'm often lazy :s ). First off, the trailer is okay-ish. As many have said, it's nice, the music is okay and there is some issues with the quotes. But is okay good enough? Does the trailer convey this passion which we get when we see arenanet developers talk about their game? Now this is might give people some eyebrow wrinkles but Paul Barnett did for Warhammer Online what you guys should be doing for GW2. Likely won't fit in a 1 minute video, but for bigger trailers or any type of developer interaction in the future, make sure you are beaming with passion about your product. You have every right to which should make it easier.

Now on to trailers, I have to second (or third) what people have said about Eve trailers. Man do they get you involved without multiple lines of text. The This is Eve video does this with 1 line of text:"All voices recorded by even online players during actual gameplay". Genius. You might not understand a thing about what their are talking about, but you get the message: here is a group of people coming together in a game to enjoy themselves. Might I recommend the youtube series:"A Music Guild Tries to Raid". Not sure if raids should be an integral part of a 1 minute video and even less so for GW2 where raiding is not reflective of what the majority of the game is about, but I think you get my drift. (for reference:

)

The same goes for another amazing Eve Online trailer:"Eve Online Citadel: Wreck their Dreams" (honestly a lot of Eve trailers are great, this one just combines a lot of aspects people have been talking about nicely). The first half sets up this calm relaxing mood with great visuals and then turns around into a fast paced orgy of destruction. The choice of music fits both aspects of the movie perfectly and you might notice how the usage of player chatter again enhances the message. Will the trailer draw in everyone? Absolutely not, I have friends who immediately said:"Wait, they can blow your stuff up. No way I'm going to play that." But here is the essential part, it will appeal to players which would enjoy Eve. My recommendation, reflect on which type of player GW2 is made for and work with that. Remember each message (even no message is a message) will divide your audience. Don't go to broad. (for reference, the trailer:

)

Finally consider where the trailer is going to get shown and via which medium (there is nothing wrong with making a great 3-4 minute youtube trailer on the official channel and hope it gets shared a lot. 4 minutes as ad though will definitely turn a lot of people off). The duration was already mentioned with approximately 1 minute length, this offers certain challenges:

• I love the logo at the start and end. It's an integral part of the brand recognition, for returning players. But, when the first 8 seconds of your video and the last 15 seconds of your video (total of 23 seconds) for a video of 1 minute 10 seconds are occupied by logos, you are losing valuable promotional time. That's over 30% of your video promotion dedicated to logos. Who is the main audience, returning players or new players? For one of both groups the logos do nothing.

• with a message this short, you might want to invite people to get more information. Something along the lines of:"more at xyz" or if using text messaging and in game footage or voices, make sure to incorporate which guild this footage was taken from. Obviously where ever you send viewers needs to be well designed and interesting. A typical place would be a promotional site like say https://www.guildwars2.com/en/path-of-fire/

[Seffen.2875]

I watched the trailer. I absolutely loved the music and the video. it is on point.However i am not content with the writings.Unlike the others, i do not think that players opinion is not that important and does not mean that much for others. I think all in all it is just too much happening at one time on the screen. You have to watch the pictures and read the text which is maybe too much at once for some.

I just came up with an idea i really like (yeah, a good start if it's yours) so i thought i'd give it a shot and will share it with you.

So you keep the trailer.The moment balthazar appears (after those lonely dessert pictures)Male Voice: So. Fighting for a dessert. Are we?(That black dude riding)Female Voice (FV): It is not just a dessert,(black dude riding at the tree)FV: It's a place to explore.(the wind palace)FV: A place of beauty.(Black dude engaging the fire dude)FV: it's a place of adventure.(Our group with rytlock)FV: a living World.(Guild Wars 2 Logo)FV: It's a home.(End)

One can add some more. That are just the first one i came up with. It shows all the things you want to show and may sound cool. I like it.

[Diruuo.6314]

I have only one thing to add to the already existing feedback - use the sound quip that goes with the end slate logo. You do use the one at the start, but not the end.

Example:

The animated logos for each expansion are unique and tap into the art style of the game incredibly well, and they're all made with sound.

[Turin.6921]

People have mentioned this but i will as well to emphasize. The video has great footage and great music. But:

1. The quote format for player feedback never works. People will just think you are cherry picking fan of the game and immediately think its dishonest. If you want to use quotes use actual reviews. PoF is reviewed quite well on the MMO world so that would be easy.
2. The video is short. It feels like a climax without build up. Make sth closer to 2-3 minutes. Maybe even more. The game has scale and such a short video does not do its scale justice.
3. If you wish to show how much players love this game then show do not tell. Start the trailer with actual game play from streamers, youtubers, or just pieces from voice chat synqed to gameplay. Show ppl actually enjoying themselves inside the game. And show pieces from multiple game modes open world, raids, fractals, PvP. If you ask ppl will definitely provide you with things you can use. There is nothing more powerful than that to attract new people and make players return. And use as much recent footage as possible. You want to bring home that GW2 is alive and well and players still are having fun NOW. Make a build up using that footage and finish with what you have here.

[mia.8209]

Just seconding some comments I've seen: show more actual game play, landscapes/maps (GW2 is gorgeous and that's a huge selling point - it's one of the reasons I prefer it over ESO or WoW). Show how much content - especially endgame - there is, show the massive player zergs in map metas and WVW (when I played WoW I never stopped hearing people lament the end of 40 man raids and huge PVP battles - things that actually happen in some form in GW2 on a daily basis!).

Also font, font is everything - if I saw a video with that font I probably wouldn't be interested, it looks unprofessional and cheap.

[hgkmaxymus.9321]

Some players already said this, but I would like to say it again, improve the scene with the mount engaging combat.

For instance, maybe a side shot(I don't know if full scene or just the engage part), showing a running, with a calm music but then the mount jumps, the music starts to change to a more action/combat theme, the scene starts to go slow motion, zooming the mount and a huge mob/boss/a creature who appears to be deadly (not a random small forged mob), as the raptor gets near it and the scene starts to blink (yeah, more than once :P) and won't show what was the end of it (just like a lot of action movie trailers), but it probably made you somewhat interested to check what you just saw, "The mount attacked the mob? But then, the guy will still be mounted after that? What just happen?", I don't know :P .

Another point, new players have no idea who those characters on the trailer are. "That's a random npc? That's an enemy? That's my character? That's someone will be on my side throughout the story?". So, if you gonna show them, better say something. Balthazar appears there but he can be mistaken by a random mob. He doesn't seem menacing or anything, cause to a non-GW2 player, he is a normal human with a nice outfit and that's it. He appears to be somewhat evil/enemy, but since they don't know the story, it is "meh".

And yeah, we need VOICES, narrators, devs showing up like the first GW2 trailer, anything! It is a shame we only have 1 music with lyrics (I can only recall the Fear Not This Night... - it is awesome, btw :) - if there are others, please, correct me, I would love to check them), because someone singing might touch the viewer even further.

[Torolan.5816]

In my opinion GW2 needlessly gave away it´s strongest points: To be that other game where you are not just grinding or being forced in a group for raiding and being the spritual successor of DAOC with wvw.

I don´t know if that damage can be reversed with a one minute trailer when you try to get old players back. The distribution of legendary armor to other game modes was a nice start. To get this kind of players back, you have to tell them that they are welcome again with their knight armor and their come as you are attitude. This would on the other hand mean that there would have to be more mobs than karka who actively punish damage spikers.

As a band aid or for some short term hype, it is not bad, especially the slow motion jackal. But the march of Balthasar looks awfully familiar, it should not be used too often.

[PopeUrban.2578]

You could do like other games and lay out the breadth of the content numerically. Lots of games brag about how big their new expansion's world is, or all the new gear it contains, or all the new monster types, stuff like that.

Advertise how grand the expansion is to show potential customers the value of it and why now is the time to get in to or come back to GW2 because of all the new stuff. That tends to be more effective because its an objective statement that is inherently trustworthy rather than subjective statements from random players that for all they know you made up or random reviewers they may not have heard of or don't trust.

[Linki.7246]

I have not read through all of the comments yet so sorry if i repeat what anyone else sais, but these are my thoughts.

If this is supposed to be a video to entice new players, i think you should get rid of the player quotes, use the text space to list the features this game has along with gameplay for each category. There is so much more than only story to show for.

WvW / PvP show some siege footage from wvw or cluth pvp fights from a tournament of something, maybe even include a few seconds of casting from that moment.

We have fractals and raids which i guess most of the players who havent tried this game or left soon after launch don't even know about, i still see a lot of people think GW2 has no end game.

None of the people who dont play this game knows who balthazar is so just showing him off in the trailer doesnt do anything more than if you had shows some random humans run around in queensdale. Instead showcase the beauty of the world instead of "semi spoilerish" cinematics. (depends how you look at it.)

• Also this is a second point here and i understand you ned to make money in this game, but i have always felt that locking the story out from people is a bad thing, even though active players get it free. One of the biggest issues i have getting people back is telling them that if they actually want to play the story now they need to buy it seperatly from the expansions or play it through my character which is kind of a downer. Why not make it so they can at least play through every story chapter ONCE, and none of the achievements are unlocked, and once they finish, the chapter is unavailable for replay/rewards unless they buy them.

And lastly show mounts in action instead of only passive running, almost every MMO has running mounts, gw2 have made a good thing here with their mounts, showcase that! Griffon swooping across the world, jackal/raptor leaping across gaps, skimmer sliding across the ocean, and the bunny leaping up cliffs. All of this should be shown to a new player to show that this is is a different game.

Random player quotes don't sell this game, your game sells your game.

Thanks.

[Danikat.8537]

My first thought is that if I knew nothing about GW2 I'd assume all this footage came from cutscenes and we weren't getting to see the in-game graphics at all. Admittedly that's less of an issue these days when it's rarer for cut scenes to use totally different graphics, but it would impress me much more if I knew that's what the game actually looked like all the time. If there's going to be some kind of intro/disclaimer to explain the quotes I think it would be helpful to explain that too.

Other than that it does look very cool. The jackal would definitely interest me and so would the shot of Rytlock (since the charr are one of the things that interested me in the original GW) and the skimmers. The footage of Balthazar is also pretty cool but wouldn't mean much, it's just some guy in flaming armour (or possibly someone whose caught on fire? I'm not sure it'd be clear if I didn't recognise it).

I also showed it to my husband who has played GW2 but not for quite a while, and he said it "looks pretty epic" and if he didn't know about the game he would want to find out more.

In a general sense I'm indifferent to the quotes - regardless of whether it's a player or a professional critic or someone with a youtube channel or whatever it's just 1 person's opinion. Without knowing them and how their taste in games compares to mine the fact that they'd rate it 10/10 or say it's great is totally meaningless to me.

On the other hand some of the things they said did interest me. In particular the comments "so many hidden little treasures" and "So much to do and see!" because that actually tells me something about the game - that there's more to this game than simply the story and killing a lot of things to increase your stats. That's when it becomes important to me that these comments are from players and not critics, because it then tells me the game attracts people who are interested in that sort of thing - people who sound kind of like me.

(I'm not sure how much of this I'd have realised if I'd watched it once randomly instead of watching it through 3 times paying close attention, but even so I think my first impression would be that it looks interesting but, as is inevitable with a short trailer, it hasn't really told me anything, just hinted that there might be things I'd be interested in. So I wouldn't go and buy the game (or even download the free version) but I might look into it, especially if this was part of a marketing campaign that kept reminding me about it.)

[Zedek.8932]

Excelsior.

I've said the following in a previous thread (about CGI cutscenes) and I will repeat it here, but one of the reasons I like GW2's advertising/marketing is that is has been very tasteful so far. No incredible, pseudo-epic, multi-million Dollar productions for 2:30 minutes of footage of something that is not even remotely happening ingame. Each time in FF14, there was a new super-duper epic CGI trailer for the next super-duper epic enemy, every 2 years.

My first impression about GW2, despite being a top notch MMORPG, was, that it did not rely on praise from the past. It's not "Hurr, we are Blizzard or Square Enix", no, it was tasteful artwork, splatter art all over the game (to this day), even behind the portrait next to the healthbar ingame, every menu is different, even the confirmation boxes, the website has suble splatter art and "brush strokes", the forums use the same colours as described in the asset kit's PDF file since 2012 (consistency), use the same clear and mature fonts since then (when I see more of LoL's or Blizzards "ITC Quadrata" font family anymore my eyes explode).

The website and forum clearly are connected visually (unlike FF14 which is an ugly BulletinBoard) and clear, moderated, tidyed up. The time for flashy colours like in that Barney TV kids show is over, I am 27 years now and expect some "seriousness" behind the company that offers me my favourite MMO.

The only thing I'd like is to stop reddit. I really dislike that place. It's an unsupervised playground and that "discussion" style that clocks up 50+ answers to one stupid post so I have to scroll down 20 times with my mousewheel is awkward to read trough, and in general, the responses are of very low quality there. I guess the overall IQ is lower by 30 at reddit compared to the forums. I collected 6 infractions since I am here but I would never ever take anything said on reddit for real, even if it comes from a developer, often feeling they have to cover reddit too, else it might be the epicentre of false accusations and speculations. Marketing over Reddit - NoGo.

[OmskCamill.6412]

Hi Mike.

It is amazing that you chose this way of communication with the community. Thank you for that. It looks like a step in the right direction, and I hope more steps will come.

Now to the trailer. It is beautiful, but as almost anything produced by the team so far, it is aimed at already existing playerbase. If you want to show it to the people who never playerd GW2, it falls flat in the core premise for those reasons:

1) If people don't know much about GW2, they need at least some introduction or reminder about the strongest points of the game. Yes, Crystal Desert is gorgeous - but people who never played GW2 don't know what Crystal Desert is. You need to make at least some token introduction - "A game showered with praises for its great dynamic combat, gorgeous style, deep system, fair progression system and 50 (or how many is there) vast and unique maps to explore, yada yada, now receives an expansion: kick asses in Crystal desert while riding a raptor!" - all with the according sequence of scenes, if possible.

2) Who is Amsel Diabolic? Why should I care what they think? Who are all those other people?

3) When we talk about how gorgeous the view is, it would be probably a good idea to not obstruct the view with the text. Let the view speak for itself.

4) To a non-player, "The mounts are best addition to the game" tells nothing. What if the game is bad? Don't be shy, there are plenty of quotes from mount appreciation treads on Reddit how mounts are the best of all MMOs. Use those.

5) Why behind the "hidden treasure" quote, instead of something treasure-like we see some architecture that doesn't look like it's neither hidden, nor little?

Overall sequences of the scene is boring. Okay, we got desert, now a flame guy in weird helm walks over it in slo-mo, then some other guys rides a jackal in slo-mo, then slo-mo again... it fails to show what is actually happening.

Some hints from a new-players perspective:

1) When you show someone riding a jackal, and then camera pans to a Charr running in the distance, it's hard for people to tell the difference, because running Charr resembles a Jackal. It almost looks like a joke.

2) When you show Skimmer from the bottom, non-players will not understand that it is a mount, because you can't see a player on its back. All people see is some flying Manta Ray.

3) Raptor makes long jumps over canyons. Skimmer flies gracefully and makes a barrel roll. Jackal teleports and goes through portals. Griffon swoops. Each mount is unique and has its own niche. None of it is shown in the trailer, the mounts look like what they are in the other games - a reskin of each other. Show and tell about uniquiness of the mounts from other games and from each other. Show their abilities and Raptor idle animation. Don't show the Rabbit.

Overall, it will be good idea to get some people that are not acquainted with the game and ask them to describe what they see. Their responses will surprise you.

P.S. I still don't get what you are trying to accomplish with this video. But to "spread the word" to my friends, I would very much like some kind of trailer that would clearly state why the game is unique and what PoF brought to the game together with the first LS episode - mounts, big huge beautiful maps, fractal, raid wing, legendary weapon, new epic story, etc. The video in question is not promotional, it looks like it is aimed at Anet employees more than at the players.

[Scary.8034]

So I don't know anything about marketing so i'm not going to tell how you how to do your job, so all that's following will be just based on emotions.

First I really want to say that I really appreciate the fact that you're communicating with the community and are actively looking for feedback, Thank you.

These random comments that I know are cherry picked have never and will never convince me to try a product especially if they are from people that I don't even know, and written in a base font out of Microsoft Word ( that's really low effort if you ask me ).

One thing that you did for the Path of Fire launch stream is that you showed videos of Guild Wars 2 content creator, that was a lot more impactful, than what I'm seeing here.

The gameplay in the background as been used and reused so many times already, everyone and their mother has seen it already.

I'm one of those people that puts gameplay at the top, you can have the best features in the world if I don't enjoy the gameplay of your game I won't play it, and Guild Wars 2 has the best gameplay of any MMO out there in my opinion, so it's makes me sad that you aren't showcasign any of that in almost all the promotional videos you have put out, an example where you did great on that front was the Nightmare Fractal trailer, where seeing the mechanics of the boss got me insanely excited.

You have quotes about how amazing the mounts are, and I think most people i've already heard about that with the posts the community already made, but not many people have actually seen what people meant, so showing footage of mounts actually beeing used in a cool way would be a lot better.

[Junuve.2761]

I love GW2 but that video was... painful. No REAL gameplay. And those quotes... yikes. I know it's blunt, but it's the truth. Nobody cares about some comment a player makes. I don't, and I play the game. They're very distracting, honestly, and detract from the footage running in the background. If I were new, I'd be miffed that some random was taking up screen real estate to share an opinion as I'm trying to formulate my own.

What got me into GW2 was that when I went on an MMO hunt I found some game play videos. GAME PLAY. I saw a person, rather ambivalent to GW2 an quiet, create a female charr and start, well, playing the game. Needless to say, I was hooked by what I saw.Now, that takes WAY too long for a 1 minute trailer. But it is the essence of what will hook someone in. What are they ACTUALLY going to be playing? What kind of game is it? What's different? What's special about it? Why is it worth their precious leisure time? Is it just another grindfest? Do real people, not comments, play this game?Show these new folks that they're going to be playing an excellent game that values their time and efforts with epic rewards. There's a reason it's considered an outstanding MMO (by people outside of GW2, believe it or not). It has free* and consistent content drops in addition to a free base game and reasonable expansions. It has a heartwarming community that's been encouraged by the cooperative nature of the game itself. Oh, and don't forget the "play how you want, when you want" ideal.Actual footage of the game in motion, of real people streaming through large-scale events, raids, and fractals, even WvW and PvP, is going to make new people want to jump into the fray!

TL;DR Show, don't tell!

(I know most of what I'm saying has been said before and probably articulated in a better fashion, but I just had to put it in my own words. Hope you and everyone else at ArenaNet have happy holidays! And thanks for communicating with us players!)

[Raizel.8175]

Haven't read all the comments, so this may be redundant: I really think you need to add actual gameplay, especially combat. I play/have played several MMORPGs and combat is the most fundamental part of them. Combat is your everyday-business and GW2 actually has a really good combat-system. Show that. Else people may think that GW2 is just another generic MMO.

[Ixillius.5768]

If you want to do marketing right you have to try to get people from the outside, not the fanbase. Which is what you have been doing from my perspective. It's incredibly hard to get people into gw2 with the material you put out. Take a page from WoW's book. the one thing they did incredibly well were their trailers And HoT managed a pretty decent one aswell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9eFopGyDDQ). We need more wow-factor (get it) in marketing. It may be expensive but the trailers we have atm are using the same clunky cutscenes as the game itself. They need to be more to get people to give it a chance. Maybe emphasis the Core game free aspect.

[fizzypetal.7936]

I agree with a lot of the comments that have been made so far and thank you for asking the community for their input. I'm a veteran - playing since Beta. There is so much about this game that sees me logging in nearly daily - impossible to cover in a 60 second video.

I think trailers similar to what we saw in vanilla GW2 that show combat is definitely important. Showing the mounts as they are dismounted in the middle of mobs - shows they are not just purely quality of life but do give a sort of 'opening strike' which is different to mounts in other MMOs that I have played (e.g WoW & Rift).

Quotes from players - those don't carry any weight at all with me. Quotes from well known established streamers that not only stream GW2 but other games as well - that in my humble opinion carries a bit quite a bit more weight. Quotes from well known and well circulated gaming publications - that would carry more weight with me too.

Something that includes 11 million players in the mention...shows that it is a game very much alive and well over 5 years later.

Perhaps a fast moving montage from the GW2 beginnings through to the evolution of the game into the present day...ending with the various purchase options - F2P for original, etc.

[Sicay.3672]

The random player quotes needs to be removed completely. PoF got a lot of good reviews from credible sources, use some of them. If I saw a trailer with the player quotes I would think there were no serious gaming papers/sites that gave the expansion favorable reviews.

Take a look at the awesome trailer you released for the nightmare fractal:https://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2/videos/10154268476749209/

And the behind the sceenes you also released back then:

Both these old trailers SHOW, for both potential and existing players, awesome encounters and how fun the game actually is. Returning to present day, GW2 just had a tripple release with a lot of awesome content. Was it merketed? Nope! There was a low resolution screenshot for the new raid and a 4 second video showing a cliff wall for the fractal. This just blows my mind. I love the game and want to see it succeed in the future so please help the playerbase build some hype for it.EDIT: Spelling

[KiLLiAN.5629]

First thought: WTF is Amsel Diabolic? ;) I like the scenes chosen for the video, but I'm not a fan of quotes from other players. Sure it's meant to look genuine that these are opinions from regular players, but somehow it resonates with me in an opposite way. It's like - probably no one in the media covered that expansion and no one ever heard about it so they had to resolve to that. Don't get me wrong, I love PoF, but that would be my impression if I didn't know the game. I also don't like the font.

Other than the cool scenes that you've chosen, I didn't learn anything about Guild Wars 2 or it's expansion from this video. I know literally nothing other than that there's a guy with afro running around the desert and there's also an old geezer with a beard who probably is the evil guy we need to beat. If people don't know the GW2 franchise I really think you should tell them why it's unique and don't just focus on the expansion. The video could be longer and you could prepare a "Guide to Tyria" and put a lot of focus on why we all love the game so much:

• Beautiful art style and the beauty of Tyria in general. I mean how many MMOs with this kind of visuals have you ever seen?
• Great plot (every race has different 6 base plots to choose from just in the base game itself which is available for FREE now)
• Free Living story every couple of months = new maps, new story, new content for FREE
• No grinding and gear treadmill.
• Great community! A lot of content which can be played together. You never fight for mob kills for quests etc. Whenever you meet someone in the game, you don't lose anything, but you might gain something.
• The joy of movement: Gliding and Mounts give and incredible feeling of joy while traveling through Tyria.
• Masteries as a method to grow your characters without constant higher level thresholds with each expansion.
• Unique WvW mode
• Great raids
• PvP
• So many Festivals with their own flavor, mini-games, rewards.
• Character classes with their unique elite specs that allow them to serve different purposes and take on various roles.
• Fashion wars = lots of great skins, dyes, wardrobe system = rich character customization.
• No Pay 2 Win! Only cosmetic stuff in the gem store.
• 5 distinctive races unseen in other MMOs.
• Adventures, hearts, vistas, mini-games, races, griffon challenges - lots of unique stuff in the maps!
• Unique meta event maps like the ones in HoT where the whole map is working together towards a common goal.
• Incredible combat system taken from an action RPG game. So much better than the static combat of other MMOs! Combos and dodges, great animations.
• Dungeons! AND aside form them - 100 FRACTALS!
• Incredible LEGENDARY weapons and armor.
• Jumping Puzzles! So many great ones!
• Guild halls and guild missions!
• Action camera
• Mega server = there are always ppl to play with, don't have to pay for transfer to play with your friends!
• Huge World Bosses in the open world like Tequatl, Claw of Jormag, Shadow Behemoth and more.
• End-game. You need to tell MMO fans what the end-game is in your MMO - here we have Fractals, Raids, PvP, WvW, constant free updates and new maps, new legendaries to pursue. There is something for everybody!

There's so much to tell about Guild Wars 2 to people who don't know the game!

There were no features mentioned in the entire video. I think there's a lot to be learned from WoW's trailers (not the cinematic ones which are amazing in a whole different way). They always do a great job of showing the story, features and getting you hyped for the game in one video. They don't have GW2 graphics to back that up and still they are doing a better job at this. If the video is meant to last 1 minute and you'd show me the one you posted, I'd say - "Sure, looks cool. But where's the gameplay? What are the features? I don't know what GW2 is. Well, maybe some other time..."

To be honest I don't think a 1 minute video will do to show all those aces you have in your sleeves. Sure, there can be some shorter additional videos to supplement the main one, but I really think it's time for Guild Wars 2 to have a new honest at least 5 minutes long official trailer which shows everyone what the game really is right now after 5 years and what you can expect from it. And I really think it's a good thing, cause the game is simply amazing and the only thing you need to do is to tell other people about it. We will help, by sharing the videos, just give us something to work with! :) Oh and someone charismatic should narrate the video like Rytlock for example. He's a character who's voice is recognizable for all GW2 players and he is both a tough guy and can be funny/sarcastic in interesting ways when needed.

Here's a good example how WoW does it: