Anet back in Silent Mode

[zealex.9410]

@Alyster.9470 said:Thanks everyone for their comments and opinions. I hope ANET will read these...The thing is, I love this game and I am sad about the status right now, I mean this game is awesome and it HAD so much potential and still has. But I dont understand how this game is not more widely known? How bad can the marketing/advertising? Most people have no clue about this game! Most of my friends ask what I play and when I say gw2 they just say “never heard that”. Not releasing an expansion this Summer was a big big mistake, as WoW BFA turned out to be really bad and most players quit and started searching for a new game. But guess what, they went for ESO, warframe etc. why? Because they are advertising the game everywhere! they are releasing an expansion and make sure everyone hears about it and they are growing SO FAST right now! But Anet decides to go for Living World season 5, how can a person be interested to start this game when they dont even know what Living World means and nothing is being advertised? Anet missed a great opportunity to gain insane amount of players and not only that.. they are losing us, at least most of my friends and me.

If you look around and take the info with a grain of salt, its speculated (with some x dev comments) that up until halfway se4 or smth the plan was for s4 to be the final one, the after that plans changed and se5 was a thing.

We can only speculate but i suspect they were basically biting time with lw until they had marketable progress on their other projects (whether those were diff games or a game and an expac (altho unlike with pof MikeZ refused to make any comment on whether an expac 3 was in production before the lay offs) its up to speculation). Then the layoffs happened and 2 unannounced projects got cancelled and according to a possible laid off dev only one person with knowledge of the code for the projects is still in the company. Ofc all this puts ane in a very tough spot and so with renewed focus on gw2 only startong post layoffs i think its safe to assume any possible expac 3 didnt enter development until after the layoffs.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I'm not sure why players are expecting information on content that would be released a year to 2 years from now (what's coming after Season 5). Other than (Core) Guild Wars 2 has ArenaNet ever announced their plans so far in advance?

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Bloodstealer.5978" said:Your missing the point.. QoL and feature updates are not something that keep players logging in long term to play the game.. it is playable content that does that.

I never said otherwise. Season 5 is coming, it was announced to be coming. And that's not just QoL or feature updates. We also have new playable content coming in the form of Festival of the Four Winds. They also mentioned that there will be a focus on more side stories as well.

We also just had Dragon Bash, which was brand new playable content even if it borrowed from a pre-existing theme. And just before that we had a raid, and just before that we had Vision, and just before that we had War Eternal and Skyscale collection.

How long do you think players appetites would stay wet if all they have to look forward to is another her WB rush or a buggy core swap feature in www. Yes when S5 commences we will get a few hours of new stuff, but perhaps now without even a new map to explore, who knows, but then there is another lull. Don't get me wrong I really enjoy LW it's pretty decent story expansion, but it's short time fun which is filled out with rotations of the same events, which grow old fast.. the game needs something that has genuinely more flesh on the bone that is going to keep players busy for much longer periods and that perhaps compliments all those QoL features and they have shared with us all whilst emessing it with LW .. but that just seems to not be on the cards else why not share some titbits to encourage player engagement.... where is the vision for their product??

So your argument is basically becoming "they told us we'll get new content, and we'll get new content, but that content won't be enough and I want more more more!"

I'm sorry, but that sounds nothing but spoiled. It will always take much longer to make new content than it will be to play through that content, and nothing will ever change that except creating feature updates that brings players back to that content.

Could Anet better manage how they create new content so that they can make more for less work? Maybe. But we cannot know without knowing how ArenaNet does their work and without knowing being someone in that field ourselves. Without that critical knowledge, all your posts effectively do is whine that you want more more more. You come off as nothing but a spoiled child because you want more when ArenaNet is trying to create means to make content more enjoyable longer.

@zealex.9410 said:Game really needs to talk about the bigger pieces of content down the line like expansion 3 or the next fractal, raid etc.

You are asking them to talk about something that is over a year away. Talking about that kind of stuff is ultimately pointless when there will be things coming sooner.

There is only one thing ArenaNet can talk to us about in regards to new non-festival playable content that would be meaningful to hear, and that's when Season 5 Episode 1 launches. Asking for more is like demanding for there to be breathable air on the moon.

[Erasculio.2914]

It's no wonder this topic is being talked about right after ArenaNet told us that the World Boss Rush event will return. They have exhausted everything they told us about when talking about new events (the boss rush, the meta events rush, the WvW core event, making a mining node appear after a meta event is done) and looks like they haven't had any new idea since then. Just repeating those few events over and over becomes only background noise.

Meanwhile, we haven't been told much about Season 5, other than that it will be different from the previous ones - which is by itself enough to inspire dread. How will it work? Any hint of what will it be about? Is the plan still to have "expansion-like features" added with Season 5? What are those features, exactly? New specializations? Something new like player housing? Or does that mean just new masteries? Will the idea of adding to old maps instead of adding new ones mean just more of the "press F to hammer signs" events like we got in Season 1? Does it mean another map being added little by little like Dry Top? Or what?

We are at a period of huge uncertainty around GW2 (and that's not to mention the layoffs, that have led a significant number of players to feel insecure about the future of the game). It would be expected that players are eager to get some hint about the future from the developers. The excuse of "but if they tell their plans to players and change them later, there is going to be an uproar" is not only patronizing, it's incoherent - they have already told us about small features that may or not actually see the light of the day.

It's time ArenaNet begins treating their fanbase as adults, and just talk to us about their plans for the future of the game's content.

[mauried.5608]

Maybe they have no plans for the future, or simply dont know themselves.Why dont you address all your concerns to the CEO of Ncsoft who are the games producer.

[zealex.9410]

@mauried.5608 said:Maybe they have no plans for the future, or simply dont know themselves.Why dont you address all your concerns to the CEO of Ncsoft who are the games producer.

ncsoft produces gw2? Wheres my skin tight over revealing heavy bikini armor!

[vyncius.6105]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:You probably should not lump all 'veteran' players into the same group. Many of us are 'veterans', and still have plenty to entertain us.

we are probably different veteran players. I am hardcore and you are probably casual.

What a silly differentiation... what makes your "hard-core "any more important than the "casual"...What makes you hard-core? The amount of time you play, how much gold you have acquired, how much real coin you spend or how awesome sauce you think yourself to be over others. Or is it cos you can speedrun a raid or dungeon or fractal a few seconds quicker than the next player.Yeah your veteran is worth so much more than my veteran status so ANET should panda to your silly season notions....

I dont think I am better than you or any other casual.But all the content I like to play is dead or too easy or just doesnt get enough content to keep me interested.I have over 800 LI, more than 200 fractal cm kp's. I've started playing WvW alot this year, but balance is awful and way too boring.I never enjoyed sPvP, because of balance issues, ive done my backpack and left.

This is how my guild feels like, mainly we are raiding guild, but no one is really playing anymore, not because its summer (I see ppl are online in discord), but simply because we have nothing to do.

[Vayne.8563]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:I dont see how anet can fix all the problems... slow raid/fractals release, bad pvp balance, alliances w/o proper balance will be trash. Xpac lvl content is probably going to be more new mounts, more armor skins etc.. but no proper actual content for ppl to get into for months.I dont think we will ever see new e-specs, race or weapon types... It will be just more story that like half of players dont even care about (atleast in my guild)

All the stuff you're listing to get into for months wouldn't interest me for minutes. It's like people who like challenging and competitive content think other people can't play the open world for years on end, and some of us do. I spend probably 90% of my time in either story instances or the open world and I'd wager I play quite a bit more than you do...nor am I alone. For every raider, I guarantee you there's a least one person who rarely leaves the open world. Just because content doesn't involve you and your demographic doesn't insure that demographic is some kind of majority.

While i agree with your point... it actually makes @vyncius.6105 point valid also.The game is not about any one demographic it has tried to cater for many... and we are approaching stalemate for all. There is only so long we can keep going back and playing out the same story content, much like some of us grow tired of running the samecraids over and over, the same fractals and the same.. anything.The game needs something that is going to keep us all intrigued, busy and willing to keep supporting it and piece meal LW and a some QoL I feel isn't going to suffice for too long.

Doesn't prove his point, because if there aren't enough of other demographics and there's a limited time on resources, then decisions have to be made on what to cut. Let's pretend you're a developer and you have resources to produce 2 different things. 10% the game's population are raiders. 50% play Living World stuff. 20 % do Fractals. 25% do WvW regularly. Now you have to make stuff to keep the PvE open world guys happen. There are more of them than any two groups. If you're even a day late with the living world, some guy is online calling you out about it. In fact, there's already threads talking about when is Season 5 coming and what date and will it be late. Those people are holding you to account.

If the 10% of the raiders all left, you'd lose 10% of your population. But you'd lose more than that if a significant group of PvE'ers left, and that's the issue. Anet probably doesn't have the resources and has never had the resources to keep it all going, because it takes a lot of resources. They have the resources to focus on what they perceive to be their strength which is what they've done. They haven't put the same energy into PvP or WvW as they have into open world PvE. It should be obvious to anyone watching, or anyone who reads those parts of the forum. My guess is they know which side their bread is buttered on and that's going to be their focus, with left over resources being put to stuff that they don't think there are enough people to cater to. It's like any business.

Given infinite resources, you'd be right. Also the numbers in this post are obviously pulled out of my kitten and don't represent anything approaching reality. The point is I don't have those numbers, but Anet does. I do believe there was a post by a dev a while back saying that 60% of the game were predominently PvEr's, 30% werre predominantly WvW'ers, and 10% were PvPers. To my knowledge there has never been any announcement about what percentage of the playerbase raids. The only time I've ever seen that sort of statement from any game was from a Lotro dev who left the company who said that only 10% of the Lotro population ever raided or PvPed, but those two demographics accounted for a full 50% of all forum posts.

You missed the point vayne... what content they choose to focus on at any one time is anets decision absolutely, but the game is multi faceted and caters for a range of player tastes aside from the core story/story arc.No one expects ANET to update everything at once or any specific facet all the time.... that's why some roadmap, some slice of their vision and directions would be useful right now because from what I see.. all those different demographics are starting to ask questions and getting restless.LW is now their core element but it's small piece meal content bulked out with rotational fillers and some QoL but beyond s5 there is no clear direction on any front or any facet of the game and that is the crux of it.

If they hadn't introduced raids in the first place, that demographic wouldn't even exist, which is my point. You see, originally the game was casual has hell, If you don't think they lost players by putting in harder core stuff all at once like HoT, I think you'd be in a minority. It's one of the biggest reasons HOT wasn't well received. The preperation for it wasn't good enough and too big a percentage of the player base was put off by it. I got your point, but you missed mine.

If you have a budget of X money to spend, you're going to buy food and pay rent first, because that's what keeps you alive. If you have money left over, then you can pay for cable or netflix. In this game, PvE is probably what's keeping the game moving forward and those who play that content. Those who play other content have the tendency to think everyone is bored with X because they're bored with it. That's not necessarily the case. At the end of the day Anet knows who plays what in what numbers. They're going to base their development on that. If they had infinite resources it would obviously be different, but they don't.

[mortrialus.3062]

@vyncius.6105 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:I don't understand the need to be spoken to every second by the developers. I've still got plenty of stuff to do and plenty of stuff to work on. We know they're working on new content. Like what can they say that's actually going to make a difference and change anything?

YOU have stuff to do, not veteran players. I have only 3k hours played and ive already ran out of things to do, unless you count brainless grind of gold for legendaries, as content.

I have over twice the time put into the game as you. I'm at 25k achievement points.I've got legendary armor, Aurora, 17 different legendary weapons. Legendary armor. An account value of 200k.

I've still got loads of stuff to do.

But go ahead, drop you 40kAP epeen on the table and show everyone you have indeed run out of things to do.

PvP is dieing because of bad balance.

SPvP was always niche, even at it's height.

WvW is dead because of bad balance, and alliances will not save that.more.

Good.I never like WvW.

[vyncius.6105]

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:I don't understand the need to be spoken to every second by the developers. I've still got plenty of stuff to do and plenty of stuff to work on. We know they're working on new content. Like what can they say that's actually going to make a difference and change anything?

YOU have stuff to do, not veteran players. I have only 3k hours played and ive already ran out of things to do, unless you count brainless grind of gold for legendaries, as content.

I have over twice the time put into the game as you. I'm at 25k achievement points.I've got legendary armor, Aurora, 17 different legendary weapons. Legendary armor. An account value of 200k.

I've still got loads of stuff to do.

But go ahead, drop you 40kAP kitten on the table and show everyone you have indeed run out of things to do.

PvP is dieing because of bad balance.

SPvP was always niche, even at it's height.

WvW is dead because of bad balance, and alliances will not save that.more.

Good.I never like WvW.

achievments is not a content. 2 leggie sets, aurora, vision, 7 gen 2 leggies, 1 gen 1 leggie, 2 backpiece leggies. Dont flex on me, mate.

[Gop.8713]

I would have liked to have seen comments on the skyscale rift cheeves and core swap exploits, and I'd also like to know if they're done with the mystic forge events and whether there will be a way for players who didn't finish those events to get the associated ap . . .

But idk why ppl are so eager to know what comes after ls5 when that hasn't even started yet . . .

As always, how you feel about anet's communication is going to be heavily influenced by what content you are interested in . . .

[mauried.5608]

@zealex.9410 said:

@mauried.5608 said:Maybe they have no plans for the future, or simply dont know themselves.Why dont you address all your concerns to the CEO of Ncsoft who are the games producer.

ncsoft produces gw2? Wheres my skin tight over revealing heavy bikini armor!

Do you actually understand what the producer of a game does?The producer of a game is the Company that provides the capital to allow the game to be made , and that company is NCsoft who are the sole owners of Anet.

[Dami.5046]

A few people have said they don't want an expansion, so we are doomed in that respect. They want to please everyone.
Edit : the rewards of the boss rush speak volumes.I really wish they would stop bowing down to every demand.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:I dont see how anet can fix all the problems... slow raid/fractals release, bad pvp balance, alliances w/o proper balance will be trash. Xpac lvl content is probably going to be more new mounts, more armor skins etc.. but no proper actual content for ppl to get into for months.I dont think we will ever see new e-specs, race or weapon types... It will be just more story that like half of players dont even care about (atleast in my guild)

All the stuff you're listing to get into for months wouldn't interest me for minutes. It's like people who like challenging and competitive content think other people can't play the open world for years on end, and some of us do. I spend probably 90% of my time in either story instances or the open world and I'd wager I play quite a bit more than you do...nor am I alone. For every raider, I guarantee you there's a least one person who rarely leaves the open world. Just because content doesn't involve you and your demographic doesn't insure that demographic is some kind of majority.

While i agree with your point... it actually makes @vyncius.6105 point valid also.The game is not about any one demographic it has tried to cater for many... and we are approaching stalemate for all. There is only so long we can keep going back and playing out the same story content, much like some of us grow tired of running the samecraids over and over, the same fractals and the same.. anything.The game needs something that is going to keep us all intrigued, busy and willing to keep supporting it and piece meal LW and a some QoL I feel isn't going to suffice for too long.

Doesn't prove his point, because if there aren't enough of other demographics and there's a limited time on resources, then decisions have to be made on what to cut. Let's pretend you're a developer and you have resources to produce 2 different things. 10% the game's population are raiders. 50% play Living World stuff. 20 % do Fractals. 25% do WvW regularly. Now you have to make stuff to keep the PvE open world guys happen. There are more of them than any two groups. If you're even a day late with the living world, some guy is online calling you out about it. In fact, there's already threads talking about when is Season 5 coming and what date and will it be late. Those people are holding you to account.

If the 10% of the raiders all left, you'd lose 10% of your population. But you'd lose more than that if a significant group of PvE'ers left, and that's the issue. Anet probably doesn't have the resources and has never had the resources to keep it all going, because it takes a lot of resources. They have the resources to focus on what they perceive to be their strength which is what they've done. They haven't put the same energy into PvP or WvW as they have into open world PvE. It should be obvious to anyone watching, or anyone who reads those parts of the forum. My guess is they know which side their bread is buttered on and that's going to be their focus, with left over resources being put to stuff that they don't think there are enough people to cater to. It's like any business.

Given infinite resources, you'd be right. Also the numbers in this post are obviously pulled out of my kitten and don't represent anything approaching reality. The point is I don't have those numbers, but Anet does. I do believe there was a post by a dev a while back saying that 60% of the game were predominently PvEr's, 30% werre predominantly WvW'ers, and 10% were PvPers. To my knowledge there has never been any announcement about what percentage of the playerbase raids. The only time I've ever seen that sort of statement from any game was from a Lotro dev who left the company who said that only 10% of the Lotro population ever raided or PvPed, but those two demographics accounted for a full 50% of all forum posts.

You missed the point vayne... what content they choose to focus on at any one time is anets decision absolutely, but the game is multi faceted and caters for a range of player tastes aside from the core story/story arc.No one expects ANET to update everything at once or any specific facet all the time.... that's why some roadmap, some slice of their vision and directions would be useful right now because from what I see.. all those different demographics are starting to ask questions and getting restless.LW is now their core element but it's small piece meal content bulked out with rotational fillers and some QoL but beyond s5 there is no clear direction on any front or any facet of the game and that is the crux of it.

If they hadn't introduced raids in the first place, that demographic wouldn't even exist, which is my point. You see, originally the game was casual has hell, If you don't think they lost players by putting in harder core stuff all at once like HoT, I think you'd be in a minority. It's one of the biggest reasons HOT wasn't well received. The preperation for it wasn't good enough and too big a percentage of the player base was put off by it. I got your point, but you missed mine.

If you have a budget of X money to spend, you're going to buy food and pay rent first, because that's what keeps you alive. If you have money left over, then you can pay for cable or netflix. In this game, PvE is probably what's keeping the game moving forward and those who play that content. Those who play other content have the tendency to think everyone is bored with X because they're bored with it. That's not necessarily the case. At the end of the day Anet knows who plays what in what numbers. They're going to base their development on that. If they had infinite resources it would obviously be different, but they don't.

This is nothing to do with resources this is to do with communication...As I said ANET make decisions on what best to develop based on their own data and their vision for the game. But that is not what we're discussing here it's about sharing some smidgen of their vision with us because beyond s5 we really have no idea where this game is heading.... so yes you missed the point and instead have chosen to go off and try to rationise what content should be coming and how ANET go about it's decision making process.I agree the game was never marketed as some "hardcore " all out raid assault and as for Hot I see nothing in that content to suggest it was a section to shift the game that way. Yeah that introduced raid wings... big deal, but it is neither forced on anyone to play or needed by anyone, it merely offers some additional choice in the game...not such a bad thing really imo.The focus has never been centred around such content but it now has a place in the game no matter if we like it or not... and if your notion of resource allocation to population demographic were in fact, fact then raids would likely never any in fusion let alone future updates... but 6-7 wings kinda disproves that considering the racing community is much smaller imo. - but I digress, this is about communication not allocation.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@vyncius.6105 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:You probably should not lump all 'veteran' players into the same group. Many of us are 'veterans', and still have plenty to entertain us.

we are probably different veteran players. I am hardcore and you are probably casual.

What a silly differentiation... what makes your "hard-core "any more important than the "casual"...What makes you hard-core? The amount of time you play, how much gold you have acquired, how much real coin you spend or how awesome sauce you think yourself to be over others. Or is it cos you can speedrun a raid or dungeon or fractal a few seconds quicker than the next player.Yeah your veteran is worth so much more than my veteran status so ANET should panda to your silly season notions....

I dont think I am better than you or any other casual.But all the content I like to play is dead or too easy or just doesnt get enough content to keep me interested.I have over 800 LI, more than 200 fractal cm kp's. I've started playing WvW alot this year, but balance is awful and way too boring.I never enjoyed sPvP, because of balance issues, ive done my backpack and left.

This is how my guild feels like, mainly we are raiding guild, but no one is really playing anymore, not because its summer (I see ppl are online in discord), but simply because we have nothing to do.

You never answered the question.. what makes you hard-core??

[vyncius.6105]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:You probably should not lump all 'veteran' players into the same group. Many of us are 'veterans', and still have plenty to entertain us.

we are probably different veteran players. I am hardcore and you are probably casual.

What a silly differentiation... what makes your "hard-core "any more important than the "casual"...What makes you hard-core? The amount of time you play, how much gold you have acquired, how much real coin you spend or how awesome sauce you think yourself to be over others. Or is it cos you can speedrun a raid or dungeon or fractal a few seconds quicker than the next player.Yeah your veteran is worth so much more than my veteran status so ANET should panda to your silly season notions....

I dont think I am better than you or any other casual.But all the content I like to play is dead or too easy or just doesnt get enough content to keep me interested.I have over 800 LI, more than 200 fractal cm kp's. I've started playing WvW alot this year, but balance is awful and way too boring.I never enjoyed sPvP, because of balance issues, ive done my backpack and left.

This is how my guild feels like, mainly we are raiding guild, but no one is really playing anymore, not because its summer (I see ppl are online in discord), but simply because we have nothing to do.

You never answered the question.. what makes you hard-core??

Someone who plays video games as a primary hobby. They tend to spend large amounts of time playing games, often in excess of two or three hours a day.

Ive played only gw2, all modes, speedrunning raids etc... but not anymore

[Vayne.8563]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:I dont see how anet can fix all the problems... slow raid/fractals release, bad pvp balance, alliances w/o proper balance will be trash. Xpac lvl content is probably going to be more new mounts, more armor skins etc.. but no proper actual content for ppl to get into for months.I dont think we will ever see new e-specs, race or weapon types... It will be just more story that like half of players dont even care about (atleast in my guild)

All the stuff you're listing to get into for months wouldn't interest me for minutes. It's like people who like challenging and competitive content think other people can't play the open world for years on end, and some of us do. I spend probably 90% of my time in either story instances or the open world and I'd wager I play quite a bit more than you do...nor am I alone. For every raider, I guarantee you there's a least one person who rarely leaves the open world. Just because content doesn't involve you and your demographic doesn't insure that demographic is some kind of majority.

While i agree with your point... it actually makes @vyncius.6105 point valid also.The game is not about any one demographic it has tried to cater for many... and we are approaching stalemate for all. There is only so long we can keep going back and playing out the same story content, much like some of us grow tired of running the samecraids over and over, the same fractals and the same.. anything.The game needs something that is going to keep us all intrigued, busy and willing to keep supporting it and piece meal LW and a some QoL I feel isn't going to suffice for too long.

Doesn't prove his point, because if there aren't enough of other demographics and there's a limited time on resources, then decisions have to be made on what to cut. Let's pretend you're a developer and you have resources to produce 2 different things. 10% the game's population are raiders. 50% play Living World stuff. 20 % do Fractals. 25% do WvW regularly. Now you have to make stuff to keep the PvE open world guys happen. There are more of them than any two groups. If you're even a day late with the living world, some guy is online calling you out about it. In fact, there's already threads talking about when is Season 5 coming and what date and will it be late. Those people are holding you to account.

If the 10% of the raiders all left, you'd lose 10% of your population. But you'd lose more than that if a significant group of PvE'ers left, and that's the issue. Anet probably doesn't have the resources and has never had the resources to keep it all going, because it takes a lot of resources. They have the resources to focus on what they perceive to be their strength which is what they've done. They haven't put the same energy into PvP or WvW as they have into open world PvE. It should be obvious to anyone watching, or anyone who reads those parts of the forum. My guess is they know which side their bread is buttered on and that's going to be their focus, with left over resources being put to stuff that they don't think there are enough people to cater to. It's like any business.

Given infinite resources, you'd be right. Also the numbers in this post are obviously pulled out of my kitten and don't represent anything approaching reality. The point is I don't have those numbers, but Anet does. I do believe there was a post by a dev a while back saying that 60% of the game were predominently PvEr's, 30% werre predominantly WvW'ers, and 10% were PvPers. To my knowledge there has never been any announcement about what percentage of the playerbase raids. The only time I've ever seen that sort of statement from any game was from a Lotro dev who left the company who said that only 10% of the Lotro population ever raided or PvPed, but those two demographics accounted for a full 50% of all forum posts.

You missed the point vayne... what content they choose to focus on at any one time is anets decision absolutely, but the game is multi faceted and caters for a range of player tastes aside from the core story/story arc.No one expects ANET to update everything at once or any specific facet all the time.... that's why some roadmap, some slice of their vision and directions would be useful right now because from what I see.. all those different demographics are starting to ask questions and getting restless.LW is now their core element but it's small piece meal content bulked out with rotational fillers and some QoL but beyond s5 there is no clear direction on any front or any facet of the game and that is the crux of it.

If they hadn't introduced raids in the first place, that demographic wouldn't even exist, which is my point. You see, originally the game was casual has hell, If you don't think they lost players by putting in harder core stuff all at once like HoT, I think you'd be in a minority. It's one of the biggest reasons HOT wasn't well received. The preperation for it wasn't good enough and too big a percentage of the player base was put off by it. I got your point, but you missed mine.

If you have a budget of X money to spend, you're going to buy food and pay rent first, because that's what keeps you alive. If you have money left over, then you can pay for cable or netflix. In this game, PvE is probably what's keeping the game moving forward and those who play that content. Those who play other content have the tendency to think everyone is bored with X because they're bored with it. That's not necessarily the case. At the end of the day Anet knows who plays what in what numbers. They're going to base their development on that. If they had infinite resources it would obviously be different, but they don't.

This is nothing to do with resources this is to do with communication...As I said ANET make decisions on what best to develop based on their own data and their vision for the game. But that is not what we're discussing here it's about sharing some smidgen of their vision with us because beyond s5 we really have no idea where this game is heading.... so yes you missed the point and instead have chosen to go off and try to rationise what content should be coming and how ANET go about it's decision making process.I agree the game was never marketed as some "hardcore " all out raid assault and as for Hot I see nothing in that content to suggest it was a section to shift the game that way. Yeah that introduced raid wings... big deal, but it is neither forced on anyone to play or needed by anyone, it merely offers some additional choice in the game...not such a bad thing really imo.The focus has never been centred around such content but it now has a place in the game no matter if we like it or not... and if your notion of resource allocation to population demographic were in fact, fact then raids would likely never any in fusion let alone future updates... but 6-7 wings kinda disproves that considering the racing community is much smaller imo. - but I digress, this is about communication not allocation.

So what if Anet is trying stuff with Season 5 to see if they can do it, or we'd like it, and they can't decide exactly where to go from there, because they don't yet know our reaction to it? It's just so amorphous.

Stephen King, when he writes, compared his writing to excavating a dinosaur. Piers Anthony outlines every single detail and rarely changes anything. When Piers Anthony submits an outline to a publisher, the book they get precisely matches the outline. The same can't be said for Stephen King, who like many creative people (including myself) discover as they go. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it both ways.

One way lends itself to communication up front, because you are sticking to a plan more or less rigidly. I have little doubt that Anet does nothing of the kind, and the futher out the plans we're talking about are, the less likely they are to come to fruition and bear fruit. Anet wrote an entire article once in their blog on how they're an interative company and they try different things and sometimes they have to discard entire systems.

If you're the type of person who goes by plan, sure it's easy to say this is coming in a year after we're done with this other thing. I think Anet tends to function more like I did when I was writing full time. My clients were usually quite happy...not always but usually. In the mean time, I couldn't have been more of an outline than I did. I always had to use a lot of this is what I'm going to try but it may not work and I may end up having to do something different.

At this point, I have to assume Anet operates the way I do. It doesn't work for people who think they should have a hard and fast plan, but hard and fast plans tend not to produce intuitive flashes that can make things much better. It's entirely possible that because I operate the way Anet seems to in my creative endeavors, I get why they can't speak to what's going to happen too far into the future.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:I dont see how anet can fix all the problems... slow raid/fractals release, bad pvp balance, alliances w/o proper balance will be trash. Xpac lvl content is probably going to be more new mounts, more armor skins etc.. but no proper actual content for ppl to get into for months.I dont think we will ever see new e-specs, race or weapon types... It will be just more story that like half of players dont even care about (atleast in my guild)

All the stuff you're listing to get into for months wouldn't interest me for minutes. It's like people who like challenging and competitive content think other people can't play the open world for years on end, and some of us do. I spend probably 90% of my time in either story instances or the open world and I'd wager I play quite a bit more than you do...nor am I alone. For every raider, I guarantee you there's a least one person who rarely leaves the open world. Just because content doesn't involve you and your demographic doesn't insure that demographic is some kind of majority.

While i agree with your point... it actually makes @vyncius.6105 point valid also.The game is not about any one demographic it has tried to cater for many... and we are approaching stalemate for all. There is only so long we can keep going back and playing out the same story content, much like some of us grow tired of running the samecraids over and over, the same fractals and the same.. anything.The game needs something that is going to keep us all intrigued, busy and willing to keep supporting it and piece meal LW and a some QoL I feel isn't going to suffice for too long.

Doesn't prove his point, because if there aren't enough of other demographics and there's a limited time on resources, then decisions have to be made on what to cut. Let's pretend you're a developer and you have resources to produce 2 different things. 10% the game's population are raiders. 50% play Living World stuff. 20 % do Fractals. 25% do WvW regularly. Now you have to make stuff to keep the PvE open world guys happen. There are more of them than any two groups. If you're even a day late with the living world, some guy is online calling you out about it. In fact, there's already threads talking about when is Season 5 coming and what date and will it be late. Those people are holding you to account.

If the 10% of the raiders all left, you'd lose 10% of your population. But you'd lose more than that if a significant group of PvE'ers left, and that's the issue. Anet probably doesn't have the resources and has never had the resources to keep it all going, because it takes a lot of resources. They have the resources to focus on what they perceive to be their strength which is what they've done. They haven't put the same energy into PvP or WvW as they have into open world PvE. It should be obvious to anyone watching, or anyone who reads those parts of the forum. My guess is they know which side their bread is buttered on and that's going to be their focus, with left over resources being put to stuff that they don't think there are enough people to cater to. It's like any business.

Given infinite resources, you'd be right. Also the numbers in this post are obviously pulled out of my kitten and don't represent anything approaching reality. The point is I don't have those numbers, but Anet does. I do believe there was a post by a dev a while back saying that 60% of the game were predominently PvEr's, 30% werre predominantly WvW'ers, and 10% were PvPers. To my knowledge there has never been any announcement about what percentage of the playerbase raids. The only time I've ever seen that sort of statement from any game was from a Lotro dev who left the company who said that only 10% of the Lotro population ever raided or PvPed, but those two demographics accounted for a full 50% of all forum posts.

You missed the point vayne... what content they choose to focus on at any one time is anets decision absolutely, but the game is multi faceted and caters for a range of player tastes aside from the core story/story arc.No one expects ANET to update everything at once or any specific facet all the time.... that's why some roadmap, some slice of their vision and directions would be useful right now because from what I see.. all those different demographics are starting to ask questions and getting restless.LW is now their core element but it's small piece meal content bulked out with rotational fillers and some QoL but beyond s5 there is no clear direction on any front or any facet of the game and that is the crux of it.

If they hadn't introduced raids in the first place, that demographic wouldn't even exist, which is my point. You see, originally the game was casual has hell, If you don't think they lost players by putting in harder core stuff all at once like HoT, I think you'd be in a minority. It's one of the biggest reasons HOT wasn't well received. The preperation for it wasn't good enough and too big a percentage of the player base was put off by it. I got your point, but you missed mine.

If you have a budget of X money to spend, you're going to buy food and pay rent first, because that's what keeps you alive. If you have money left over, then you can pay for cable or netflix. In this game, PvE is probably what's keeping the game moving forward and those who play that content. Those who play other content have the tendency to think everyone is bored with X because they're bored with it. That's not necessarily the case. At the end of the day Anet knows who plays what in what numbers. They're going to base their development on that. If they had infinite resources it would obviously be different, but they don't.

This is nothing to do with resources this is to do with communication...As I said ANET make decisions on what best to develop based on their own data and their vision for the game. But that is not what we're discussing here it's about sharing some smidgen of their vision with us because beyond s5 we really have no idea where this game is heading.... so yes you missed the point and instead have chosen to go off and try to rationise what content should be coming and how ANET go about it's decision making process.I agree the game was never marketed as some "hardcore " all out raid assault and as for Hot I see nothing in that content to suggest it was a section to shift the game that way. Yeah that introduced raid wings... big deal, but it is neither forced on anyone to play or needed by anyone, it merely offers some additional choice in the game...not such a bad thing really imo.The focus has never been centred around such content but it now has a place in the game no matter if we like it or not... and if your notion of resource allocation to population demographic were in fact, fact then raids would likely never any in fusion let alone future updates... but 6-7 wings kinda disproves that considering the racing community is much smaller imo. - but I digress, this is about communication not allocation.

So what if Anet is trying stuff with Season 5 to see if they can do it, or we'd like it, and they can't decide exactly where to go from there, because they don't yet know our reaction to it? It's just so amorphous.

Stephen King, when he writes, compared his writing to excavating a dinosaur. Piers Anthony outlines every single detail and rarely changes anything. When Piers Anthony submits an outline to a publisher, the book they get precisely matches the outline. The same can't be said for Stephen King, who like many creative people (including myself) discover as they go. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it both ways.

One way lends itself to communication up front, because you are sticking to a plan more or less rigidly. I have little doubt that Anet does nothing of the kind, and the futher out the plans we're talking about are, the less likely they are to come to fruition and bear fruit. Anet wrote an entire article once in their blog on how they're an interative company and they try different things and sometimes they have to discard entire systems.

If you're the type of person who goes by plan, sure it's easy to say this is coming in a year after we're done with this other thing. I think Anet tends to function more like I did when I was writing full time. My clients were usually quite happy...not always but usually. In the mean time, I couldn't have been more of an outline than I did. I always had to use a lot of this is what I'm going to try but it may not work and I may end up having to do something different.

At this point, I have to assume Anet operates the way I do. It doesn't work for people who think they should have a hard and fast plan, but hard and fast plans tend not to produce intuitive flashes that can make things much better. It's entirely possible that because I operate the way Anet seems to in my creative endeavors, I get why they can't speak to what's going to happen too far into the future.

I would like to think ANET plan their product development a bit better than your hap hazard approach. If they haven't planned s5 to it's completion yet then it's not giving the rest of the teams much of a chance at quality content delivery.Nah I am of the mind they plan a little more effectively than how you make out... they don't wait to see how s5 is received before jumping on the next light bulb brainstorm moment.Heck if I planned my business scheduling like that I never would of gotten past the first project delivery before panic set in. It takes a wee bit more than a click of the finger to keep the business moving.So yeah if ANET are smart, and i would like to think they really are, they will already have their development plans made or being made beyond where they are now and what we already know for the short term so What could be better than sharing some of that vision with its customers at a time when it is imo sorely needed to give players that little bit of impetus to stay the course a while longer maybe even keep supporting financially.

[Vayne.8563]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:I dont see how anet can fix all the problems... slow raid/fractals release, bad pvp balance, alliances w/o proper balance will be trash. Xpac lvl content is probably going to be more new mounts, more armor skins etc.. but no proper actual content for ppl to get into for months.I dont think we will ever see new e-specs, race or weapon types... It will be just more story that like half of players dont even care about (atleast in my guild)

All the stuff you're listing to get into for months wouldn't interest me for minutes. It's like people who like challenging and competitive content think other people can't play the open world for years on end, and some of us do. I spend probably 90% of my time in either story instances or the open world and I'd wager I play quite a bit more than you do...nor am I alone. For every raider, I guarantee you there's a least one person who rarely leaves the open world. Just because content doesn't involve you and your demographic doesn't insure that demographic is some kind of majority.

While i agree with your point... it actually makes @vyncius.6105 point valid also.The game is not about any one demographic it has tried to cater for many... and we are approaching stalemate for all. There is only so long we can keep going back and playing out the same story content, much like some of us grow tired of running the samecraids over and over, the same fractals and the same.. anything.The game needs something that is going to keep us all intrigued, busy and willing to keep supporting it and piece meal LW and a some QoL I feel isn't going to suffice for too long.

Doesn't prove his point, because if there aren't enough of other demographics and there's a limited time on resources, then decisions have to be made on what to cut. Let's pretend you're a developer and you have resources to produce 2 different things. 10% the game's population are raiders. 50% play Living World stuff. 20 % do Fractals. 25% do WvW regularly. Now you have to make stuff to keep the PvE open world guys happen. There are more of them than any two groups. If you're even a day late with the living world, some guy is online calling you out about it. In fact, there's already threads talking about when is Season 5 coming and what date and will it be late. Those people are holding you to account.

If the 10% of the raiders all left, you'd lose 10% of your population. But you'd lose more than that if a significant group of PvE'ers left, and that's the issue. Anet probably doesn't have the resources and has never had the resources to keep it all going, because it takes a lot of resources. They have the resources to focus on what they perceive to be their strength which is what they've done. They haven't put the same energy into PvP or WvW as they have into open world PvE. It should be obvious to anyone watching, or anyone who reads those parts of the forum. My guess is they know which side their bread is buttered on and that's going to be their focus, with left over resources being put to stuff that they don't think there are enough people to cater to. It's like any business.

Given infinite resources, you'd be right. Also the numbers in this post are obviously pulled out of my kitten and don't represent anything approaching reality. The point is I don't have those numbers, but Anet does. I do believe there was a post by a dev a while back saying that 60% of the game were predominently PvEr's, 30% werre predominantly WvW'ers, and 10% were PvPers. To my knowledge there has never been any announcement about what percentage of the playerbase raids. The only time I've ever seen that sort of statement from any game was from a Lotro dev who left the company who said that only 10% of the Lotro population ever raided or PvPed, but those two demographics accounted for a full 50% of all forum posts.

You missed the point vayne... what content they choose to focus on at any one time is anets decision absolutely, but the game is multi faceted and caters for a range of player tastes aside from the core story/story arc.No one expects ANET to update everything at once or any specific facet all the time.... that's why some roadmap, some slice of their vision and directions would be useful right now because from what I see.. all those different demographics are starting to ask questions and getting restless.LW is now their core element but it's small piece meal content bulked out with rotational fillers and some QoL but beyond s5 there is no clear direction on any front or any facet of the game and that is the crux of it.

If they hadn't introduced raids in the first place, that demographic wouldn't even exist, which is my point. You see, originally the game was casual has hell, If you don't think they lost players by putting in harder core stuff all at once like HoT, I think you'd be in a minority. It's one of the biggest reasons HOT wasn't well received. The preperation for it wasn't good enough and too big a percentage of the player base was put off by it. I got your point, but you missed mine.

If you have a budget of X money to spend, you're going to buy food and pay rent first, because that's what keeps you alive. If you have money left over, then you can pay for cable or netflix. In this game, PvE is probably what's keeping the game moving forward and those who play that content. Those who play other content have the tendency to think everyone is bored with X because they're bored with it. That's not necessarily the case. At the end of the day Anet knows who plays what in what numbers. They're going to base their development on that. If they had infinite resources it would obviously be different, but they don't.

This is nothing to do with resources this is to do with communication...As I said ANET make decisions on what best to develop based on their own data and their vision for the game. But that is not what we're discussing here it's about sharing some smidgen of their vision with us because beyond s5 we really have no idea where this game is heading.... so yes you missed the point and instead have chosen to go off and try to rationise what content should be coming and how ANET go about it's decision making process.I agree the game was never marketed as some "hardcore " all out raid assault and as for Hot I see nothing in that content to suggest it was a section to shift the game that way. Yeah that introduced raid wings... big deal, but it is neither forced on anyone to play or needed by anyone, it merely offers some additional choice in the game...not such a bad thing really imo.The focus has never been centred around such content but it now has a place in the game no matter if we like it or not... and if your notion of resource allocation to population demographic were in fact, fact then raids would likely never any in fusion let alone future updates... but 6-7 wings kinda disproves that considering the racing community is much smaller imo. - but I digress, this is about communication not allocation.

So what if Anet is trying stuff with Season 5 to see if they can do it, or we'd like it, and they can't decide exactly where to go from there, because they don't yet know our reaction to it? It's just so amorphous.

Stephen King, when he writes, compared his writing to excavating a dinosaur. Piers Anthony outlines every single detail and rarely changes anything. When Piers Anthony submits an outline to a publisher, the book they get precisely matches the outline. The same can't be said for Stephen King, who like many creative people (including myself) discover as they go. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it both ways.

One way lends itself to communication up front, because you are sticking to a plan more or less rigidly. I have little doubt that Anet does nothing of the kind, and the futher out the plans we're talking about are, the less likely they are to come to fruition and bear fruit. Anet wrote an entire article once in their blog on how they're an interative company and they try different things and sometimes they have to discard entire systems.

If you're the type of person who goes by plan, sure it's easy to say this is coming in a year after we're done with this other thing. I think Anet tends to function more like I did when I was writing full time. My clients were usually quite happy...not always but usually. In the mean time, I couldn't have been more of an outline than I did. I always had to use a lot of this is what I'm going to try but it may not work and I may end up having to do something different.

At this point, I have to assume Anet operates the way I do. It doesn't work for people who think they should have a hard and fast plan, but hard and fast plans tend not to produce intuitive flashes that can make things much better. It's entirely possible that because I operate the way Anet seems to in my creative endeavors, I get why they can't speak to what's going to happen too far into the future.

I would like to think ANET plan their product development a bit better than your hap hazard approach. If they haven't planned s5 to it's completion yet then it's not giving the rest of the teams much of a chance at quality content delivery.Nah I am of the mind they plan a little more effectively than how you make out... they don't wait to see how s5 is received before jumping on the next light bulb brainstorm moment.Heck if I planned my business scheduling like that I never would of gotten past the first project delivery before panic set in. It takes a wee bit more than a click of the finger to keep the business moving.So yeah if ANET are smart, and i would like to think they really are, they will already have their development plans made or being made beyond where they are now and what we already know for the short term so What could be better than sharing some of that vision with its customers at a time when it is imo sorely needed to give players that little bit of impetus to stay the course a while longer maybe even keep supporting financially.

Yes I'm sure Season 5 itself is planned. Not really what I'm talking about. Nor is are my projects haphhazard any more than Stephen Kings books are haphhazard. He does his prewriting in his head and it gels there for a long time before anything gets to paper. Obviously with a game's story you have to have ideas of where it's going. That said, as development happens other ideas arise, sometimes very good ones. When that happens, you have two choices. Move away from the old idea, or continue on with it. Sometimes, you do have to write by the seat of your pants if you really want a good book. You should check out Stephen King's book On Writing. It's a pretty good read.

At any rate, due to the possibly changing nature of the creative process, just because something is an idea, doesn't mean it's set in stone and therefore doesn't mean it should be announced.

[Obtena.7952]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:I dont see how anet can fix all the problems... slow raid/fractals release, bad pvp balance, alliances w/o proper balance will be trash. Xpac lvl content is probably going to be more new mounts, more armor skins etc.. but no proper actual content for ppl to get into for months.I dont think we will ever see new e-specs, race or weapon types... It will be just more story that like half of players dont even care about (atleast in my guild)

All the stuff you're listing to get into for months wouldn't interest me for minutes. It's like people who like challenging and competitive content think other people can't play the open world for years on end, and some of us do. I spend probably 90% of my time in either story instances or the open world and I'd wager I play quite a bit more than you do...nor am I alone. For every raider, I guarantee you there's a least one person who rarely leaves the open world. Just because content doesn't involve you and your demographic doesn't insure that demographic is some kind of majority.

While i agree with your point... it actually makes @vyncius.6105 point valid also.The game is not about any one demographic it has tried to cater for many... and we are approaching stalemate for all. There is only so long we can keep going back and playing out the same story content, much like some of us grow tired of running the samecraids over and over, the same fractals and the same.. anything.The game needs something that is going to keep us all intrigued, busy and willing to keep supporting it and piece meal LW and a some QoL I feel isn't going to suffice for too long.

Doesn't prove his point, because if there aren't enough of other demographics and there's a limited time on resources, then decisions have to be made on what to cut. Let's pretend you're a developer and you have resources to produce 2 different things. 10% the game's population are raiders. 50% play Living World stuff. 20 % do Fractals. 25% do WvW regularly. Now you have to make stuff to keep the PvE open world guys happen. There are more of them than any two groups. If you're even a day late with the living world, some guy is online calling you out about it. In fact, there's already threads talking about when is Season 5 coming and what date and will it be late. Those people are holding you to account.

If the 10% of the raiders all left, you'd lose 10% of your population. But you'd lose more than that if a significant group of PvE'ers left, and that's the issue. Anet probably doesn't have the resources and has never had the resources to keep it all going, because it takes a lot of resources. They have the resources to focus on what they perceive to be their strength which is what they've done. They haven't put the same energy into PvP or WvW as they have into open world PvE. It should be obvious to anyone watching, or anyone who reads those parts of the forum. My guess is they know which side their bread is buttered on and that's going to be their focus, with left over resources being put to stuff that they don't think there are enough people to cater to. It's like any business.

Given infinite resources, you'd be right. Also the numbers in this post are obviously pulled out of my kitten and don't represent anything approaching reality. The point is I don't have those numbers, but Anet does. I do believe there was a post by a dev a while back saying that 60% of the game were predominently PvEr's, 30% werre predominantly WvW'ers, and 10% were PvPers. To my knowledge there has never been any announcement about what percentage of the playerbase raids. The only time I've ever seen that sort of statement from any game was from a Lotro dev who left the company who said that only 10% of the Lotro population ever raided or PvPed, but those two demographics accounted for a full 50% of all forum posts.

You missed the point vayne... what content they choose to focus on at any one time is anets decision absolutely, but the game is multi faceted and caters for a range of player tastes aside from the core story/story arc.No one expects ANET to update everything at once or any specific facet all the time.... that's why some roadmap, some slice of their vision and directions would be useful right now because from what I see.. all those different demographics are starting to ask questions and getting restless.LW is now their core element but it's small piece meal content bulked out with rotational fillers and some QoL but beyond s5 there is no clear direction on any front or any facet of the game and that is the crux of it.

If they hadn't introduced raids in the first place, that demographic wouldn't even exist, which is my point. You see, originally the game was casual has hell, If you don't think they lost players by putting in harder core stuff all at once like HoT, I think you'd be in a minority. It's one of the biggest reasons HOT wasn't well received. The preperation for it wasn't good enough and too big a percentage of the player base was put off by it. I got your point, but you missed mine.

If you have a budget of X money to spend, you're going to buy food and pay rent first, because that's what keeps you alive. If you have money left over, then you can pay for cable or netflix. In this game, PvE is probably what's keeping the game moving forward and those who play that content. Those who play other content have the tendency to think everyone is bored with X because they're bored with it. That's not necessarily the case. At the end of the day Anet knows who plays what in what numbers. They're going to base their development on that. If they had infinite resources it would obviously be different, but they don't.

This is nothing to do with resources this is to do with communication...As I said ANET make decisions on what best to develop based on their own data and their vision for the game. But that is not what we're discussing here it's about sharing some smidgen of their vision with us because beyond s5 we really have no idea where this game is heading.... so yes you missed the point and instead have chosen to go off and try to rationise what content should be coming and how ANET go about it's decision making process.I agree the game was never marketed as some "hardcore " all out raid assault and as for Hot I see nothing in that content to suggest it was a section to shift the game that way. Yeah that introduced raid wings... big deal, but it is neither forced on anyone to play or needed by anyone, it merely offers some additional choice in the game...not such a bad thing really imo.The focus has never been centred around such content but it now has a place in the game no matter if we like it or not... and if your notion of resource allocation to population demographic were in fact, fact then raids would likely never any in fusion let alone future updates... but 6-7 wings kinda disproves that considering the racing community is much smaller imo. - but I digress, this is about communication not allocation.

So what if Anet is trying stuff with Season 5 to see if they can do it, or we'd like it, and they can't decide exactly where to go from there, because they don't yet know our reaction to it? It's just so amorphous.

Stephen King, when he writes, compared his writing to excavating a dinosaur. Piers Anthony outlines every single detail and rarely changes anything. When Piers Anthony submits an outline to a publisher, the book they get precisely matches the outline. The same can't be said for Stephen King, who like many creative people (including myself) discover as they go. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it both ways.

One way lends itself to communication up front, because you are sticking to a plan more or less rigidly. I have little doubt that Anet does nothing of the kind, and the futher out the plans we're talking about are, the less likely they are to come to fruition and bear fruit. Anet wrote an entire article once in their blog on how they're an interative company and they try different things and sometimes they have to discard entire systems.

If you're the type of person who goes by plan, sure it's easy to say this is coming in a year after we're done with this other thing. I think Anet tends to function more like I did when I was writing full time. My clients were usually quite happy...not always but usually. In the mean time, I couldn't have been more of an outline than I did. I always had to use a lot of this is what I'm going to try but it may not work and I may end up having to do something different.

At this point, I have to assume Anet operates the way I do. It doesn't work for people who think they should have a hard and fast plan, but hard and fast plans tend not to produce intuitive flashes that can make things much better. It's entirely possible that because I operate the way Anet seems to in my creative endeavors, I get why they can't speak to what's going to happen too far into the future.

I would like to think ANET plan their product development a bit better than your hap hazard approach.

I hope not ... the planning approach that brings that content is not flexible at all.

[kratan.4619]

There is pretty much nothing new that we didn't k ow already.... that roadmap (if that is what we want to call it) was nothing more than a PR headliner after the layoffs to help retain players through a tough patch.As for getting things every few weeks... WB and Meta rush events are not new content just some new loot boxes ... all of which was met with just as much silly RNG and glaringly obvious performance issues. Splashing a mail to our inbox and putting a UI note on the screen is not content when those same events are already in game. Yeah Dragon Bash was nice to see return and yeah it's made Hoelbrack seem busy again for a few weeks but it's nothing more than a grind fest pushed to try and keep players in game a bit longer and hopefully buy more gems in order to obtain those silly jorbreaker numbers.... newsflash - it's not been done for our benefit.And then we're back into summer season event rotations... ooh and the thrill a minute WWW core swap rubbish.To me ANET are seemingly preparing the game to run much like they did with GW1 on an autopilot hence nothing is being mentioned or announced beyond what we already know ... let's all hope that isn't all we can expect.

So, you're saying that people will stop playing a game because a company has layoffs and that they need to mitigate this loss by showing that they are still working on the game? I could care less if they have layoffs, or how well they are doing financially, or how they use their resources, or even if they ever communicate with the player base. As long as the game is fun for me, I will continue to play for as long as it is fun. Once it is no longer fun, or if it shuts down, I will find something better for me to play.

I have zero worries about the "health" of the game or if there will ever be any future content released. None of this has any effect on my enjoyment of the game as it is currently constructed.

[zealex.9410]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:You probably should not lump all 'veteran' players into the same group. Many of us are 'veterans', and still have plenty to entertain us.

we are probably different veteran players. I am hardcore and you are probably casual.

What a silly differentiation... what makes your "hard-core "any more important than the "casual"...What makes you hard-core? The amount of time you play, how much gold you have acquired, how much real coin you spend or how awesome sauce you think yourself to be over others. Or is it cos you can speedrun a raid or dungeon or fractal a few seconds quicker than the next player.Yeah your veteran is worth so much more than my veteran status so ANET should panda to your silly season notions....

I dont think I am better than you or any other casual.But all the content I like to play is dead or too easy or just doesnt get enough content to keep me interested.I have over 800 LI, more than 200 fractal cm kp's. I've started playing WvW alot this year, but balance is awful and way too boring.I never enjoyed sPvP, because of balance issues, ive done my backpack and left.

This is how my guild feels like, mainly we are raiding guild, but no one is really playing anymore, not because its summer (I see ppl are online in discord), but simply because we have nothing to do.

You never answered the question.. what makes you hard-core??

Someone who plays video games as a primary hobby. They tend to spend large amounts of time playing games, often in excess of two or three hours a day.

Ive played only gw2, all modes, speedrunning raids etc... but not anymore

So... self defined and kinda meanigless then as I thought, but ANET must bend to your demands else it's all just a dead donkey of a game - makes sense

Don't be such a hater, everyone has a right to complain. Some youtube content creators/streamers are quiting the game, because game is going full casual mode w/o any balanced, challenging. more frequant content.You people are complaining all the time how hard is that or this, how long it takes to get skyscale, how long it takes to get Vision, etc...We just want more frequent balance updates, more challenging raids (atleast harder cm's. VG is harder than wing 7 cm's), MORE RAIDS ATLEAST EVERY 6 MONTHS (it can be atleast 2 raid encounters), more fractal cm's (99 cm is just the best thing in this game). Fix WvW.

Lol why hater... you are just giving us a wish list of your demands for content... that is not what this thread is about... there are other threads better suited.BTW NEWSFLASH - GW2 was never marketed to be a hard-core raiding game they provided element later to cater for thosecwanting it and actually I think they have delivered it pretty well without pushing it down the mouths of the larger parts of the games community. Perhaps you just chose the wrong game to satisfy that self proclaimed hard-core gamer tag.... but I digress, this is about communication and what are the plans for the game longer term beyond what is already known.

Hardcore raoding mmo? No, but it wasnt either advertised as a casual game, it always catered to both.

[zealex.9410]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

@vyncius.6105 said:I dont see how anet can fix all the problems... slow raid/fractals release, bad pvp balance, alliances w/o proper balance will be trash. Xpac lvl content is probably going to be more new mounts, more armor skins etc.. but no proper actual content for ppl to get into for months.I dont think we will ever see new e-specs, race or weapon types... It will be just more story that like half of players dont even care about (atleast in my guild)

All the stuff you're listing to get into for months wouldn't interest me for minutes. It's like people who like challenging and competitive content think other people can't play the open world for years on end, and some of us do. I spend probably 90% of my time in either story instances or the open world and I'd wager I play quite a bit more than you do...nor am I alone. For every raider, I guarantee you there's a least one person who rarely leaves the open world. Just because content doesn't involve you and your demographic doesn't insure that demographic is some kind of majority.

While i agree with your point... it actually makes @vyncius.6105 point valid also.The game is not about any one demographic it has tried to cater for many... and we are approaching stalemate for all. There is only so long we can keep going back and playing out the same story content, much like some of us grow tired of running the samecraids over and over, the same fractals and the same.. anything.The game needs something that is going to keep us all intrigued, busy and willing to keep supporting it and piece meal LW and a some QoL I feel isn't going to suffice for too long.

Doesn't prove his point, because if there aren't enough of other demographics and there's a limited time on resources, then decisions have to be made on what to cut. Let's pretend you're a developer and you have resources to produce 2 different things. 10% the game's population are raiders. 50% play Living World stuff. 20 % do Fractals. 25% do WvW regularly. Now you have to make stuff to keep the PvE open world guys happen. There are more of them than any two groups. If you're even a day late with the living world, some guy is online calling you out about it. In fact, there's already threads talking about when is Season 5 coming and what date and will it be late. Those people are holding you to account.

If the 10% of the raiders all left, you'd lose 10% of your population. But you'd lose more than that if a significant group of PvE'ers left, and that's the issue. Anet probably doesn't have the resources and has never had the resources to keep it all going, because it takes a lot of resources. They have the resources to focus on what they perceive to be their strength which is what they've done. They haven't put the same energy into PvP or WvW as they have into open world PvE. It should be obvious to anyone watching, or anyone who reads those parts of the forum. My guess is they know which side their bread is buttered on and that's going to be their focus, with left over resources being put to stuff that they don't think there are enough people to cater to. It's like any business.

Given infinite resources, you'd be right. Also the numbers in this post are obviously pulled out of my kitten and don't represent anything approaching reality. The point is I don't have those numbers, but Anet does. I do believe there was a post by a dev a while back saying that 60% of the game were predominently PvEr's, 30% werre predominantly WvW'ers, and 10% were PvPers. To my knowledge there has never been any announcement about what percentage of the playerbase raids. The only time I've ever seen that sort of statement from any game was from a Lotro dev who left the company who said that only 10% of the Lotro population ever raided or PvPed, but those two demographics accounted for a full 50% of all forum posts.

You missed the point vayne... what content they choose to focus on at any one time is anets decision absolutely, but the game is multi faceted and caters for a range of player tastes aside from the core story/story arc.No one expects ANET to update everything at once or any specific facet all the time.... that's why some roadmap, some slice of their vision and directions would be useful right now because from what I see.. all those different demographics are starting to ask questions and getting restless.LW is now their core element but it's small piece meal content bulked out with rotational fillers and some QoL but beyond s5 there is no clear direction on any front or any facet of the game and that is the crux of it.

If they hadn't introduced raids in the first place, that demographic wouldn't even exist, which is my point. You see, originally the game was casual has hell, If you don't think they lost players by putting in harder core stuff all at once like HoT, I think you'd be in a minority. It's one of the biggest reasons HOT wasn't well received. The preperation for it wasn't good enough and too big a percentage of the player base was put off by it. I got your point, but you missed mine.

If you have a budget of X money to spend, you're going to buy food and pay rent first, because that's what keeps you alive. If you have money left over, then you can pay for cable or netflix. In this game, PvE is probably what's keeping the game moving forward and those who play that content. Those who play other content have the tendency to think everyone is bored with X because they're bored with it. That's not necessarily the case. At the end of the day Anet knows who plays what in what numbers. They're going to base their development on that. If they had infinite resources it would obviously be different, but they don't.

This is nothing to do with resources this is to do with communication...As I said ANET make decisions on what best to develop based on their own data and their vision for the game. But that is not what we're discussing here it's about sharing some smidgen of their vision with us because beyond s5 we really have no idea where this game is heading.... so yes you missed the point and instead have chosen to go off and try to rationise what content should be coming and how ANET go about it's decision making process.I agree the game was never marketed as some "hardcore " all out raid assault and as for Hot I see nothing in that content to suggest it was a section to shift the game that way. Yeah that introduced raid wings... big deal, but it is neither forced on anyone to play or needed by anyone, it merely offers some additional choice in the game...not such a bad thing really imo.The focus has never been centred around such content but it now has a place in the game no matter if we like it or not... and if your notion of resource allocation to population demographic were in fact, fact then raids would likely never any in fusion let alone future updates... but 6-7 wings kinda disproves that considering the racing community is much smaller imo. - but I digress, this is about communication not allocation.

So what if Anet is trying stuff with Season 5 to see if they can do it, or we'd like it, and they can't decide exactly where to go from there, because they don't yet know our reaction to it? It's just so amorphous.

Stephen King, when he writes, compared his writing to excavating a dinosaur. Piers Anthony outlines every single detail and rarely changes anything. When Piers Anthony submits an outline to a publisher, the book they get precisely matches the outline. The same can't be said for Stephen King, who like many creative people (including myself) discover as they go. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it both ways.

One way lends itself to communication up front, because you are sticking to a plan more or less rigidly. I have little doubt that Anet does nothing of the kind, and the futher out the plans we're talking about are, the less likely they are to come to fruition and bear fruit. Anet wrote an entire article once in their blog on how they're an interative company and they try different things and sometimes they have to discard entire systems.

If you're the type of person who goes by plan, sure it's easy to say this is coming in a year after we're done with this other thing. I think Anet tends to function more like I did when I was writing full time. My clients were usually quite happy...not always but usually. In the mean time, I couldn't have been more of an outline than I did. I always had to use a lot of this is what I'm going to try but it may not work and I may end up having to do something different.

At this point, I have to assume Anet operates the way I do. It doesn't work for people who think they should have a hard and fast plan, but hard and fast plans tend not to produce intuitive flashes that can make things much better. It's entirely possible that because I operate the way Anet seems to in my creative endeavors, I get why they can't speak to what's going to happen too far into the future.

I would like to think ANET plan their product development a bit better than your hap hazard approach.

I hope not ... the planning approach that brings that content is not flexible at all.

Flexibility matters alot more when what you are looking to do isbsolve problems (such as balance issues or big gamebreaking bugs). Have a clear vision for what they want the content tp be saves time and resources that would otherwise be wasted by throwing darts on the wall.

The development of anthem was a pretty good example of this (outside some questionable ethic, great crunch and flat out ignoring competition) the devs didnt know what the game was gonna be until the very end and that shows in the final product.

Flexibility in terms of content is usually seen in developing something new like a new game, the flexible part is knowing when to cancel it if its not turning out well.

[Mikkel.8427]

@mortrialus.3062 said:Like what can they say that's actually going to make a difference and change anything?

Saying ANYTHING changes EVERYTHING.

Communication is the foundation of any healthy relationship. Healthy relationships foster a greater sense of contentment. Happy people are going to have more positive perspective on the things they experience.

This is an MMO. Community and social engagement are important aspects of its longevity. It's up to the developers to create the tools, set the tone, and maintain the momentum of/for engagement.

Consistent communication from anet:-Puts names and faces to ideas and content. So, next time you run a raid, use a new skill, experience an interesting combat mechanic, stumble across beautiful scenery you never noticed before (etc...) there is a PERSON you think of and can thank. Having that feeling of connection enhances the feeling of appreciation for the work that's done in the game. AKA humanizes Anet.

-Has the potential to create HOURS of content/discussion through hype, speculation, theorycraft on the forums and through youtube/twitch responses. All at a very low investment of time/effort on Anets end. Which has cascading positive effects. More content being created about GW2 on outside platforms = more (and FREE) advertisement for the game.

-Gives people something to look forward to.

-Would make the community feel heard (despite the communication technically being one-directional)

The benefits are literally exponential. From a business perspective (and as a business owner), the lack of engagement with their consumers is simply absurd.

[Dami.5046]

I don't remember tons and tons of communication in the first game (apart from the pvp guys moaning quelle surprise) and I still enjoyed the game. Gods knows how some of you would of coped in 2005.