Grouch's New Q&A Interview

[Elena.8734]

13 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

At the amout of money you spend, you aren't even a fish, not to mention a dolphin or whale. That's where the big money comes in. Dolphins and whales, except for the most degenrate spontaneous gamblers, spend money on things they are invested in.

I was talking about my spending in the context of this:

''It’s worth noting that the GW2 team is fairly small compared to many of our direct competitors – in some cases, we’re less than half the size of other studios. We’re scrappy! This isn’t new for us – our player-friendly monetization philosophy and lack of subscription fees create some tight constraints for us to work within that others don’t necessarily have to contend with. But this is a trade-off we’re happy to make.''

That's also why i compared it to Wow. Of course, i know that some are spending stupid amount of money on loot boxes and i'm far from being a real spender.  Still, i'm spending about the same on GW2 than on Wow in a year.

This said, i maintain it, if i was to be a regular player, i would only buy my expac, which means i would be less worth for Anet in terms of revenue. Those who pay for gold are most likely casual who don't know where to get gold and want their stuff immediately. And as you said, there's so many people buying gold that the trade rate stay pretty much stable. How would you justify anyone engaged with the game buying gold when it's such a noob trap?

[Cyninja.2954]

9 minutes ago, Elena.8734 said:

How would you justify anyone engaged with the game buying gold when it's such a noob trap?

Simple: any middle aged gamer where time is a far greater value than gold or disposable income.

For example myself. I don't buy gems to convert to gold, but I do buy gems when I want something from the gem store because my time is to valuable to grind gold at far below minimum wage in my country.

There are a lot of players in that boat and that's the customer you want to tap. The 14-18 y/o highschool or 20+ uni student isn't your target audience here (they are the ones which can convert gold to gems. No value judgmenet here, I was young too once). They are also not the ones with large summs of disposable income.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Ashantara.8731]

12 hours ago, KindredPhoenyx.8976 said:

I am gonna bang the drum of S4 was good storywise (at least to me, this is a subjective opinion ofc), but I don't miss the achievement bloat that S3 and S4 had.

At least, I don't recall most of those achievements boring the heck out of me like all the "Kill [x] of [y], twice!" achievements in EoD and the similarly boring grind that is SotO achievements (especially in Update 1).

I have had little fun with SotO and EoD achievements (except for those rare EoD gems that had a story of their own and beautiful instanced content attached to them).

[AliamRationem.5172]

46 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

I'm unhappy with SotO for different reasons. The instanced content is not quality wise where it should be imo and given we are getting so little of it, it has to be better (unlike say WoW or FF14, which get dozens of dungeons/raids and it doesn't matter if half of them are kitten).

I couldn't care less about open world content. That's what I do inbetween the stuff which actually matters to me (WvW, instanced content).

Release wise, predictabilty wise and content amount wise, SotO is pretty much what I expected what the studio can deliver for a reliable period of time. Then again I also went in with my eyes open and double checking how much content we got in the past and once you factor for content drought, there were very few moments where it was significantly more than SotO. At best 1 episode more per year, without working on larger content drops (aka mini expansions).

Pretty much across the board for me.  Strikes were really low-effort and only 2 of them.  Story was okay for the initial release but the Nayos followup was pathetic.  Open world was the same. 

Feature-wise its weak as well.  The weapon mastery is the major addition, but it's not much compared to elite specs and has really proven more trouble than it's worth for class balance and build diversity.  A couple of the masteries were welcome additions.

Worth $25?  Sure.  I'd rather SotO than order pizza.  But is it enough content and is it quality?  Not for me.  And that's what matters to me.

[Ashen.2907]

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

For example myself. I don't buy gems to convert to gold, but I do buy gems when I want something from the gem store because my time is to valuable to grind gold at far below minimum wage in my country.

Myself as well.

[ericpeggy.8206]

I glad Anet treat kindly to their staffs, but I worry we will get another SotO next year.

I don't think Anet can maintain this game better and make new contents at the same time.

[James Saulot.4851]

That it seems like we won't be getting new elite specs in the next expac is a massive letdown for me.

[loonatic.1689]

On 12/23/2023 at 8:10 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Worth $25?  Sure.  I'd rather SotO than order pizza.  But is it enough content and is it quality?  Not for me.  And that's what matters to me.

So well put. I wish they would charge more and up the quality/quantity, but I think they will stick to monetizing things like hero points. 😭