HoT = Dark Souls ? Casual Gamer perspective.

[battledrone.8315]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:orr isnt particular hard anymore, but it is simply not a fun place to be. i know the reasons for that, but it will never get popular.

I'd like to see the patch notes with new changes to Orr because all the old ones didn't really make Orr easier, so saying that Orr isn't particularly hard anymore requires some patch notes (that I missed all these years)Second, Orr was the ONLY popular place in the game with hundreds of overflow maps doing Plinx, Magil and Penil/Shelter farms, that's where this game's playerbase was congregating, making the rest of the game (before the August 2013 update) seem empty and devoid of life. Just because you didn't like Orr, doesn't mean the playerbase didn't like Orr. You are NOT representative of this game's playerbase so you need to stop projecting your case on the playerbase about either popularity or difficulty.

only takes 200-300k players to do that. meaning, that the remaining 2.5-3 mio players werent there. wanna talk about representation and popularity again?

[yann.1946]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:orr isnt particular hard anymore, but it is simply not a fun place to be. i know the reasons for that, but it will never get popular.

I'd like to see the patch notes with new changes to Orr because all the old ones didn't really make Orr easier, so saying that Orr isn't particularly hard anymore requires some patch notes (that I missed all these years)Second, Orr was the ONLY popular place in the game with hundreds of overflow maps doing Plinx, Magil and Penil/Shelter farms, that's where this game's playerbase was congregating, making the rest of the game (before the August 2013 update) seem empty and devoid of life. Just because you didn't like Orr, doesn't mean the playerbase didn't like Orr. You are NOT representative of this game's playerbase so you need to stop projecting your case on the playerbase about either popularity or difficulty.

only takes 200-300k players to do that. meaning, that the remaining 2.5-3 mio players werent there. wanna talk about representation and popularity again?

Could you please post any links that support you're numbers please.

[maddoctor.2738]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:orr isnt particular hard anymore, but it is simply not a fun place to be. i know the reasons for that, but it will never get popular.

I'd like to see the patch notes with new changes to Orr because all the old ones didn't really make Orr easier, so saying that Orr isn't particularly hard anymore requires some patch notes (that I missed all these years)Second, Orr was the ONLY popular place in the game with hundreds of overflow maps doing Plinx, Magil and Penil/Shelter farms, that's where this game's playerbase was congregating, making the rest of the game (before the August 2013 update) seem empty and devoid of life. Just because you didn't like Orr, doesn't mean the playerbase didn't like Orr. You are NOT representative of this game's playerbase so you need to stop projecting your case on the playerbase about either popularity or difficulty.

only takes 200-300k players to do that. meaning, that the remaining 2.5-3 mio players werent there. wanna talk about representation and popularity again?

Next time you post numbers, try to copy the link where you get them from, then paste it in your post, that will help with your credibility.Here, I'll demonstrate how to post valid and well backed up arguments:

Even before the launch, more than one million fans had paid for the game in full to enjoy a three day headstart. Additionally, demand for the game during this headstart has been record-breaking, with a peak concurrency of more than 400,000 players online at once.Source: https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/guild-wars-2-hits-400000-concurrent-players-during-headstart-3606983.html

Arenanet told us that at its absolute best, the game had 400k concurrent players, out of 1 million sales during headstart. If 200-300k players are "needed" to populate Orr, as you claim, then that leaves us with 100-200k players playing outside Orr for any given day and not 2.5-3million as you claim. Furthermore, since Arenanet never revised the number and we all know that the peak of popularity for a game is on release, this means the concurrent numbers during the rest of 2012 and 2013 went significantly down. This means, again using your own data of "only takes 200-300k to do that" players playing outside Orr were actually a small minority.

Wanna talk about representation and popularity again?

[kharmin.7683]

@maddoctor.2738 said:Furthermore, since Arenanet never revised the number and we all know that the peak of popularity for a game is on release, this means the concurrent numbers during the rest of 2012 and 2013 went significantly down.While this might be true, there is no hard evidence to support that assumption.

[maddoctor.2738]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:Furthermore, since Arenanet never revised the number and we all know that the peak of popularity for a game is on release, this means the concurrent numbers during the rest of 2012 and 2013 went significantly down.While this might be true, there is no hard evidence to support that assumption.

The fact that they never announced 500k concurrent players should be more than enough. The fact that they added Megaserver design in April 2014 is another piece of hard evidence. The revenue reports are another piece, showing a rather clear decline. Finally we have @"Healix.5819" graphs about player activity on forums/reddit, also showing a decline in popularity. So I think there is more than enough hard evidence to support that "assumption", while we can't find anything to support that the game ever was more popular than on release day.

[Atomos.7593]

It would help if wherever large numbers are used in arguments definitive sources are referred to. It's fine to claim that you don't like it or the people you know don't like it, but huge numbers without sources seems misleading because it is highly unlikely that you are able to personally sample that many people for their opinion. Otherwise for example, I could say things like 1 billion people hated the core game and PoF, but 4 billion people loved HoT, if I wanted to push an agenda of HoT being better.

[battledrone.8315]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:orr isnt particular hard anymore, but it is simply not a fun place to be. i know the reasons for that, but it will never get popular.

I'd like to see the patch notes with new changes to Orr because all the old ones didn't really make Orr easier, so saying that Orr isn't particularly hard anymore requires some patch notes (that I missed all these years)Second, Orr was the ONLY popular place in the game with hundreds of overflow maps doing Plinx, Magil and Penil/Shelter farms, that's where this game's playerbase was congregating, making the rest of the game (before the August 2013 update) seem empty and devoid of life. Just because you didn't like Orr, doesn't mean the playerbase didn't like Orr. You are NOT representative of this game's playerbase so you need to stop projecting your case on the playerbase about either popularity or difficulty.

only takes 200-300k players to do that. meaning, that the remaining 2.5-3 mio players werent there. wanna talk about representation and popularity again?

Next time you post numbers, try to copy the link where you get them from, then paste it in your post, that will help with your credibility.Here, I'll demonstrate how to post valid and well backed up arguments:

Even before the launch, more than one million fans had paid for the game in full to enjoy a three day headstart. Additionally, demand for the game during this headstart has been record-breaking, with a peak concurrency of more than 400,000 players online at once.Source:

https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/guild-wars-2-hits-400000-concurrent-players-during-headstart-3606983.html

Arenanet told us that at its absolute best, the game had 400k concurrent players, out of 1 million sales during headstart. If 200-300k players are "needed" to populate Orr, as you claim, then that leaves us with 100-200k players playing outside Orr for any given day and not 2.5-3million as you claim. Furthermore, since Arenanet never revised the number and we all know that the peak of popularity for a game is on release, this means the concurrent numbers during the rest of 2012 and 2013 went significantly down. This means, again using your own data of "only takes 200-300k to do that" players playing outside Orr were actually a small minority.

Wanna talk about representation and popularity again?

400k is still less than half of the mio headstart sales. not a majority. and the guys, who are at END GAME so soon, are practically done with the game,before it even has fully launched. trying to please them even more will only waste resources.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"battledrone.8315" said:400k is still less than half of the mio headstart sales. not a majority.

You need to understand the difference between concurrent players and sales. There is also a thing called a timezone, players from different timezones are usually not online at the same time. 400k were players playing at the same time on release date, while 1 million were the headstart sales, not all of those were online at the same time. I hope this clears things up for you.

Back during beta Arenenet showed us a "Heatmap" of Queensdale, which showed where online players were actually spending their time, brighter areas showed lots of players, dark areas showed low activity. It's safe to say that they based their future business decisions and direction of the game on where their players were playing / spending most of their online time.

This is why what "the majority" does in a game isn't a very useful metric on its own. Because if you focus your game on what those that play 1 hour every month do, you will reach the point when nobody can play with others anymore. Having lots of sales, but no activity in the game isn't healthy.

[Healix.5819]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:Who could have predicted that an expansion wouldn't sell as many copies as an original release?

Per quarter, and it was very predictable.

Serious question here: Has that ever been a thing for any game?

An expansion selling more copies at launch than the original game at launch? WoW. Any game that grows will see that. GW1 saw a return to their original sales with each campaign, but that was selling multiple campaigns and they were releasing them yearly.

@"maddoctor.2738" said:You are still insisting that players that quit a game after finishing the tutorial, or quit a game mid-way through, are still a responsibility of the expansion to convert.

I was never including them, but yes, if HoT had a bigger draw, it could have helped with that. It's simple business.

So either X isn't as high as projected OR X wasn't reduced, because both at the same time are ruled out by mathematics.

You're only looking at the end result. Is it possible to lose paying customers without affecting sales?

Casuals make up the majority, and as a whole they pay the bills, but most don't spend anything and the 1% whales can easily rival them.

By the way, I'm interested to know where are your sources for this.

Is it not common knowledge? That's how WoW started - they made MMOs accessible, beginning the rise of MMOs. Naturally most people play casually, thus the market is huge and why mobile gaming is so ridiculous. Casual vs whale spending? It varies heavily by game and what's offered, like cosmetics/conveniences vs lootboxes/p2w. The common occurrence of micro transactions also made people more willing to spend money, when previously it was primarily whales. You should have no problem finding this stuff on Google (example).

Casual in this context are the people who simply pick it up and play, generally doing their own thing - the average player.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Healix.5819 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:You are still insisting that players that quit a game after finishing the tutorial, or quit a game mid-way through, are still a responsibility of the expansion to convert.

I was never including them, but yes, if HoT had a bigger draw, it could have helped with that. It's simple business.

HOT had a draw of 2 million new accounts in 2 months, THAT was the draw of HOT and created NCSoft's expectations that a portion of those would turn into paid customers. Then it was up to Core to finish that, but Core destroyed all that initial draw.

So either X isn't as high as projected OR X wasn't reduced, because both at the same time are ruled out by mathematics.

You're only looking at the end result. Is it possible to lose paying customers without affecting sales?

But the sales of the game were indeed affecting the revenue. In game purchases did not.

Is it not common knowledge?

No it's not which is why I expected a link to verify it.

You should have no problem finding this stuff on Google (example).

Where in that link is it verified that casual players are the majority or that they pay the bills? You need to try a bit harder.

Did you just read the word "casual" and assumed it was something else? It's my only explanation.

Where F2P games used to rely on a small percentage of whales or power spenders to drive the majority of the revenue, games now have a much greater number of casual spenders alongside the whales and this is creating much more balanced monetization.

It says that non whale, casual spenders, contribution to revenue has increased. That's not the same as saying "casual player contribution has increased". A player being a "Casual spender" has no correlation with either what type of content they play, nor how much time they invest playing.

Also, that talk about casino and puzzle games... really it looks to me they are mostly talking about mobile games. Mobile cash grab games that allow players to pay money in order to skip grind/annoying parts of the game have no common ground with mmorpgs, especially those like Guild Wars 2.

You need to try harder to find links confirming that in actual MMORPGs (not mobile F2P games) casual players are the majority and they spend more money. Until then you have no argument.

Casual in this context are the people who simply pick it up and play, generally doing their own thing - the average player.

No. A casual spender is the opposite of a whale. It has absolutely nothing to do with the average player or what they do in a game.

[WorldofBay.8160]

@Healix.5819 said:Is it not common knowledge? That's how WoW started - they made MMOs accessible, beginning the rise of MMOs.

WHAT?

guild wars 2 owner NCSoft made MMOs rise far earlier than WoW with the game Lineage. EverQuest and Ultima Online also were far earlier

[battledrone.8315]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"battledrone.8315" said:400k is still less than half of the mio headstart sales. not a majority.

You need to understand the difference between concurrent players and sales. There is also a thing called a timezone, players from different timezones are usually not online at the same time. 400k were players playing

at the same time

on release date, while 1 million were the headstart

sales

, not all of those were online at the same time. I hope this clears things up for you.

Back during beta Arenenet showed us a "Heatmap" of Queensdale, which showed where online players were actually spending their time, brighter areas showed lots of players, dark areas showed low activity. It's safe to say that they based their future business decisions and direction of the game on where their players were playing / spending most of their online time.

This is why what "the majority" does in a game isn't a very useful metric on its own. Because if you focus your game on what those that play 1 hour every month do, you will reach the point when nobody can play with others anymore. Having lots of sales, but no activity in the game isn't healthy.

your own numbers prove its failure, you still have only 200k players ever finishing itand beta numbers are exctly that, the "normal "population is completely different from beta playersyep, hot had decent sales, but very few people actually finished itit did the the same to core, as TLJ did to star wars, you can build anything good on that experienceoddly enough, wow never had any problem with filling the servers with the ultra casuals either....weird, isnt it?having lots of sales gives them resources to make new content and to pay the bills, so they are necessaryhaving low sales has the opposite effect, then the suits will start looking for ways to "optimize performance"

[battledrone.8315]

@WorldofBay.8160 said:

@"Healix.5819" said:Is it not common knowledge? That's how WoW started - they made MMOs accessible, beginning the rise of MMOs.

WHAT?

guild wars 2 owner NCSoft made MMOs rise far earlier than WoW with the game Lineage. EverQuest and Ultima Online also were far earlier

but none of them had over 10 mio players, and became a social phenomenon. wow made them rich AND funded the next 2 games,starcraft 2 and overwatch. they even had the money to scrap a 8 year project, because it wasnt "good enough"10 mio subs is roughly 100 mio clams EVERY MONTH. no wonder it made all the other companies rally around the mmo banner

[maddoctor.2738]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:400k is still less than half of the mio headstart sales. not a majority.

You need to understand the difference between concurrent players and sales. There is also a thing called a timezone, players from different timezones are usually not online at the same time. 400k were players playing

at the same time

on release date, while 1 million were the headstart

sales

, not all of those were online at the same time. I hope this clears things up for you.

Back during beta Arenenet showed us a "Heatmap" of Queensdale, which showed where online players were actually spending their time, brighter areas showed lots of players, dark areas showed low activity. It's safe to say that they based their future business decisions and direction of the game on where their players were playing / spending most of their online time.

This is why what "the majority" does in a game isn't a very useful metric on its own. Because if you focus your game on what those that play 1 hour every month do, you will reach the point when nobody can play with others anymore. Having lots of sales, but no activity in the game isn't healthy.

and beta numbers are exctly that, the "normal "population is completely different from beta players

It wasn't beta, it was headstart, the most activity the game ever had in its entire lifetime. Obviously normal population is gonna be different as far less players will be playing.

yep, hot had decent sales, but very few people actually finished it

HOT did NOT have decent sales, NCSoft said so. It had a decent draw, in fact it drew in more players than the Core game did. Core game sold 1 million in pre-sales and headstart, then another 2 million until December 2012, so 2 million in 4 months. The announcement of HOT and going free to play drew in 2 million players in 2 months, that's a better performance than the Core game had on release. That crazy performance did create some expectations, which were shattered when not enough players converted into paying customers.

It wasn't that few people finished HOT, that is NOT verified anywhere, however, the lack of conversions after drawing in so many players could easily be attributed to the low amount of people that actually finished CORE. HOT drew them in. Core failed to convert them.

having lots of sales gives them resources to make new content and to pay the bills, so they are necessary

That depends on how someone monetizes their game. If you go with constant expansions (every 2 years) then yes, sales will be the driving force of revenue. However for a game that focuses heavily on cash shop purchases that's not the case. What pays the bills in that case are happy customers willing to buy, not catering to random nobodies that log in for 1 hour every month. Look at it this way, if you create content for someone that plays 4-5 hours every day instead of content for someone that plays 1 hour every month, you will keep the active players happy, which will fill the servers, and also pay the bills. On the other hand, if you focus on very rarely active players, you run the risk of emptying your game world, alienating your most active players and in the end killing your revenue.

Having tons of sales on players that rarely play, while alienating active players, means a dead game. WOW is different because it has a subscription, I know quite a lot of players that remained subbed in WOW for months, even after stopping playing actively. This happened to me in Aion on release, when I bought a 6-month subscription (because it had a discount) but ended up playing only 1 month of it because I got bored and quit. No refunds, NCSoft got my money. This is the "Beauty" of subscriptions, you pay before you know if you will play enough to justify it.

[battledrone.8315]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Healix.5819 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:You are still insisting that players that quit a game after finishing the tutorial, or quit a game mid-way through, are still a responsibility of the expansion to convert.

I was never including them, but yes, if HoT had a bigger draw, it could have helped with that. It's simple business.

HOT had a draw of 2 million new accounts in 2 months, THAT was the draw of HOT and created NCSoft's expectations that a portion of those would turn into paid customers. Then it was up to Core to finish that, but Core destroyed all that initial draw.

So either X isn't as high as projected OR X wasn't reduced, because both at the same time are ruled out by mathematics.

You're only looking at the end result. Is it possible to lose paying customers without affecting sales?

But the sales of the game were indeed affecting the revenue. In game purchases did not.

Is it not common knowledge?

No it's not which is why I expected a link to verify it.

You should have no problem finding this stuff on Google (

example

).

Where in that link is it verified that casual players are the majority or that they pay the bills? You need to try a bit harder.

Did you just read the word "casual" and assumed it was something else? It's my only explanation.

Where F2P games used to rely on a small percentage of whales or power spenders to drive the majority of the revenue, games now have a much greater number of

casual spenders

alongside the whales and this is creating much more balanced monetization.

It says that non whale, casual spenders, contribution to revenue has increased. That's not the same as saying "casual player contribution has increased". A player being a "Casual spender" has no correlation with either what type of content they play, nor how much time they invest playing.

Also, that talk about casino and puzzle games... really it looks to me they are mostly talking about mobile games. Mobile cash grab games that allow players to pay money in order to skip grind/annoying parts of the game have no common ground with mmorpgs, especially those like Guild Wars 2.

You need to try harder to find links confirming that in actual MMORPGs (not mobile F2P games) casual players are the majority and they spend more money. Until then you have no argument.

Casual in this context are the people who simply pick it up and play, generally doing their own thing - the average player.

No. A casual spender is the opposite of a whale. It has absolutely nothing to do with the average player or what they do in a game.

i could buy some gold , and pay a mesmer to port me through all the JPS. that fits your own definition of P2Wnevermind the fact, that i could buy the best runes and enhancements the same way, giving me an ACTUAL power boost

[AliamRationem.5172]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Healix.5819 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:You are still insisting that players that quit a game after finishing the tutorial, or quit a game mid-way through, are still a responsibility of the expansion to convert.

I was never including them, but yes, if HoT had a bigger draw, it could have helped with that. It's simple business.

HOT had a draw of 2 million new accounts in 2 months, THAT was the draw of HOT and created NCSoft's expectations that a portion of those would turn into paid customers. Then it was up to Core to finish that, but Core destroyed all that initial draw.

So either X isn't as high as projected OR X wasn't reduced, because both at the same time are ruled out by mathematics.

You're only looking at the end result. Is it possible to lose paying customers without affecting sales?

But the sales of the game were indeed affecting the revenue. In game purchases did not.

Is it not common knowledge?

No it's not which is why I expected a link to verify it.

You should have no problem finding this stuff on Google (

example

).

Where in that link is it verified that casual players are the majority or that they pay the bills? You need to try a bit harder.

Did you just read the word "casual" and assumed it was something else? It's my only explanation.

Where F2P games used to rely on a small percentage of whales or power spenders to drive the majority of the revenue, games now have a much greater number of

casual spenders

alongside the whales and this is creating much more balanced monetization.

It says that non whale, casual spenders, contribution to revenue has increased. That's not the same as saying "casual player contribution has increased". A player being a "Casual spender" has no correlation with either what type of content they play, nor how much time they invest playing.

Also, that talk about casino and puzzle games... really it looks to me they are mostly talking about mobile games. Mobile cash grab games that allow players to pay money in order to skip grind/annoying parts of the game have no common ground with mmorpgs, especially those like Guild Wars 2.

You need to try harder to find links confirming that in actual MMORPGs (not mobile F2P games) casual players are the majority and they spend more money. Until then you have no argument.

Casual in this context are the people who simply pick it up and play, generally doing their own thing - the average player.

No. A casual spender is the opposite of a whale. It has absolutely nothing to do with the average player or what they do in a game.

i could buy some gold , and pay a mesmer to port me through all the JPS. that fits your own definition of P2Wnevermind the fact, that i could buy the best runes and enhancements the same way, giving me an ACTUAL power boost

Yeah, but you wouldn't have to do that if you actually played the game because the cost in gold of doing these things is trivial. GW2 can not remotely be considered P2W. This term does not mean what you think it means. But you knew that already. You're just trolling as usual.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

@battledrone.8315 said:nope, orr has to go from the main storyline too, if they ever want it to be truly casual. they have already nerfed it twice, so the mobs arentthe big issue anymore, it is the maps and the content.they can make hard content if they want, i am even willing to pay my share of it.but dont expect me to pay unless they make some new casual content tooand LW is not casual. not at all.

Uh, how is LW not casual when it's literally impossible to fail the new metas on the new maps and literally impossible to fail in the story if you pay any amount of attention?

[battledrone.8315]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Healix.5819 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:You are still insisting that players that quit a game after finishing the tutorial, or quit a game mid-way through, are still a responsibility of the expansion to convert.

I was never including them, but yes, if HoT had a bigger draw, it could have helped with that. It's simple business.

HOT had a draw of 2 million new accounts in 2 months, THAT was the draw of HOT and created NCSoft's expectations that a portion of those would turn into paid customers. Then it was up to Core to finish that, but Core destroyed all that initial draw.

So either X isn't as high as projected OR X wasn't reduced, because both at the same time are ruled out by mathematics.

You're only looking at the end result. Is it possible to lose paying customers without affecting sales?

But the sales of the game were indeed affecting the revenue. In game purchases did not.

Is it not common knowledge?

No it's not which is why I expected a link to verify it.

You should have no problem finding this stuff on Google (

example

).

Where in that link is it verified that casual players are the majority or that they pay the bills? You need to try a bit harder.

Did you just read the word "casual" and assumed it was something else? It's my only explanation.

Where F2P games used to rely on a small percentage of whales or power spenders to drive the majority of the revenue, games now have a much greater number of

casual spenders

alongside the whales and this is creating much more balanced monetization.

It says that non whale, casual spenders, contribution to revenue has increased. That's not the same as saying "casual player contribution has increased". A player being a "Casual spender" has no correlation with either what type of content they play, nor how much time they invest playing.

Also, that talk about casino and puzzle games... really it looks to me they are mostly talking about mobile games. Mobile cash grab games that allow players to pay money in order to skip grind/annoying parts of the game have no common ground with mmorpgs, especially those like Guild Wars 2.

You need to try harder to find links confirming that in actual MMORPGs (not mobile F2P games) casual players are the majority and they spend more money. Until then you have no argument.

Casual in this context are the people who simply pick it up and play, generally doing their own thing - the average player.

No. A casual spender is the opposite of a whale. It has absolutely nothing to do with the average player or what they do in a game.

i could buy some gold , and pay a mesmer to port me through all the JPS. that fits your own definition of P2Wnevermind the fact, that i could buy the best runes and enhancements the same way, giving me an ACTUAL power boost

Yeah, but you wouldn't have to do that if you actually played the game because the cost in gold of doing these things is trivial. GW2 can not remotely be considered P2W. This term does not mean what you think it means. But you knew that already. You're just trolling as usual.

i dont HAVE to do anything related to this game anymore. and how are better stats without ANY effort in game NOT p2w?it is literally the DEFINITION of it

[battledrone.8315]

@Sir Alymer.3406 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:nope, orr has to go from the main storyline too, if they ever want it to be truly casual. they have already nerfed it twice, so the mobs arentthe big issue anymore, it is the maps and the content.they can make hard content if they want, i am even willing to pay my share of it.but dont expect me to pay unless they make some new casual content tooand LW is not casual. not at all.

Uh, how is LW not casual when it's literally impossible to fail the new metas on the new maps and literally impossible to fail in the story if you pay any amount of attention?

not true, it is more casual though. you still have all the previous LWS before that. and i dont care about metas anywayit is also a new form of LW, the reduction in difficulty is prolly the only reason for the name change

[battledrone.8315]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:400k is still less than half of the mio headstart sales. not a majority.

You need to understand the difference between concurrent players and sales. There is also a thing called a timezone, players from different timezones are usually not online at the same time. 400k were players playing

at the same time

on release date, while 1 million were the headstart

sales

, not all of those were online at the same time. I hope this clears things up for you.

Back during beta Arenenet showed us a "Heatmap" of Queensdale, which showed where online players were actually spending their time, brighter areas showed lots of players, dark areas showed low activity. It's safe to say that they based their future business decisions and direction of the game on where their players were playing / spending most of their online time.

This is why what "the majority" does in a game isn't a very useful metric on its own. Because if you focus your game on what those that play 1 hour every month do, you will reach the point when nobody can play with others anymore. Having lots of sales, but no activity in the game isn't healthy.

and beta numbers are exctly that, the "normal "population is completely different from beta players

It wasn't beta, it was headstart, the most activity the game ever had in its entire lifetime. Obviously normal population is gonna be different as far less players will be playing.

yep, hot had decent sales, but very few people actually finished it

HOT did NOT have decent sales, NCSoft said so. It had a decent draw, in fact it drew in more players than the Core game did. Core game sold 1 million in pre-sales and headstart, then another 2 million until December 2012, so 2 million in 4 months. The announcement of HOT and going free to play drew in 2 million players in 2 months, that's a better performance than the Core game had on release. That crazy performance did create some expectations, which were shattered when not enough players converted into paying customers.

It wasn't that few people finished HOT, that is NOT verified anywhere, however, the lack of conversions after drawing in so many players could easily be attributed to the low amount of people that actually finished CORE. HOT drew them in. Core failed to convert them.

having lots of sales gives them resources to make new content and to pay the bills, so they are necessary

That depends on how someone monetizes their game. If you go with constant expansions (every 2 years) then yes, sales will be the driving force of revenue. However for a game that focuses heavily on cash shop purchases that's not the case. What pays the bills in that case are happy customers willing to buy, not catering to random nobodies that log in for 1 hour every month. Look at it this way, if you create content for someone that plays 4-5 hours every day instead of content for someone that plays 1 hour every month, you will keep the active players happy, which will fill the servers, and also pay the bills. On the other hand, if you focus on very rarely active players, you run the risk of emptying your game world, alienating your most active players and in the end killing your revenue.

Having tons of sales on players that rarely play, while alienating active players, means a dead game. WOW is different because it has a subscription, I know quite a lot of players that remained subbed in WOW for months, even after stopping playing actively. This happened to me in Aion on release, when I bought a 6-month subscription (because it had a discount) but ended up playing only 1 month of it because I got bored and quit. No refunds, NCSoft got my money. This is the "Beauty" of subscriptions, you pay before you know if you will play enough to justify it.

if hot drew them in, they could had bought the game and used the lvl boost to avoid core completely...that didnt workthose 2 mio players only came , because it went F2P. and if they didnt, then it proves my point: core and hot are too far apartsubscription is still the superior model, but it only works so long ,as they have the trust of their customerscurrently have 2 subs running, dcuo and swtor. swtor is only temporaryand if you truly believe, that 2 mio F2pers are BETTER than 2 mio PAYING customers, then you need to get your head examined

[maddoctor.2738]

@battledrone.8315 said:if hot drew them in, they could had bought the game and used the lvl boost to avoid core completely...that didnt work

Sigh... the level 80 boost was added in April 2016, quite a long time after our release time frame, so it was impossible for a free player that joined the game at that time to use it to skip core to play HOT. Though, maybe it contributed to POF having higher revenue than HOT? Also, the game went free to play 2 months before the launch of HOT, ample time for a player to not like the Core game at all and quit.

those 2 mio players only came , because it went F2P.

Guild Wars 2 went free to play three times during 2013, one in April (Guild Wars 1 anniversary), one in August (Guild Wars 2 anniversary) and one in September/October. I guess just the core game becoming free didn't attract many players. But combined with the announcement of an expansion did wonders.

and if you truly believe, that 2 mio F2pers are BETTER than 2 mio PAYING customers, then you need to get your head examined

I said HOT was better at drawing in players than the Core game, not that 2 million f2p are better than 2 million paying players.

[battledrone.8315]

this thread also has more activity, than the expansion thread. that should show the magnitude of the problem. keep em coming...

[lare.5129]

@AdamWarlord.6782 said:

1. Its very hard to see, hate the map design and how dark it is in 70% of the places.use option to make more light if you need it.

2. Lags way too much on my mid end laptop.this is OK. You should have lag. Buy hi-end PC.

3. Floor mobs are wayy too overpowered and feel like boss mobs.yes, some people like some challenge - this gift for them

4. Hence because of the same reason above, VERY hard to level up the masteries.same, some people like some challenge - this gift for them

5. Why do masteries you ask? Because there are wayy too many hero points and other aspects of the completion of HoT, which require doing them. Which sucks.you don't need all masteries, I have 51 unused HoT mastery, and learn everything

6. I can't Solo 50% of the hero points, being a max reaper.you you can't. And this is ok too. This is mmo. Ask giuld mates, or open lfg and do something another, and wait hero poin run.

7. WAIT, I NEED TO DO A ADRENALINE MASTERY TO DO A HERO POINT WHICH CONSUMES MY LIFE WHEN I EAT BACON? WHEN MY LIFE POOL IS 22k??no you don't need. But if you want you can do it.

8. And due to the above reasons i mentioned above, I actually can feel better playing DARK SOULS than HoT.and this is great. You need play another games some time , for more understanding how is GiudlWars2 is great. I switch game few times, and always back to GW2. This is very cool.

i'm a casual.yes, you are. So need hp ? wait hp blob run. Don;t try do meta solo.

[battledrone.8315]

@Linken.6345 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Healix.5819 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:

According to Ncsoft

the reason lies in the conversion from play for free to the paid expansion. This conversion rate is not as high as expected/hoped by NCsoft

. The amount of gem sales and item sales versus active players is ok. “ but it is more the issue of the conversion to the paid expansion pack that we have not seen the level (of sales) we have hoped

They blame the conversion rate for their lack of revenue in Q4 2015, which means the core game going free hurt the game's revenue as I was saying all along. It's up to the CORE game to make conversions, not HOT.

And why weren't people buying the game? Of course making it free would lower sales, but HoT was expected to sell a lot more than that. Who could have predicted that the core game would end up selling better.

2 million people joined between going free and HoT. 20% of that would have met expectations.

This reinforced my earlier argument about casual players and that the two phrases are mutually exclusive:Casuals pay the billsCasuals left due to HOTThese two cannot be accurate at the same time, as I was saying all along, thanks for proving it. Saving those links.

Both are true, unless you're trying to say 100% of casuals quit - only some would have, while others had no problem and some never left core. Casuals make up the majority, and as a whole they pay the bills, but most don't spend anything and the 1% whales can easily rival them.

Judging by the revenue drop when they made HOT free, it wasn't selling badly, they lost almost 1/3 of their revenue in Q4 2019, from 15k to 11k, when HOT went free.

It went back up to what it was.

Expansion announcements do that.

A simple acknowledgement and image of Cantha ended up being bigger than HoT's big event and rivaled PoF's pre-purchases.

That was their reason for bundling it, but if HoT was actually selling well enough to cause a 25% drop in sales, they could have waited a lot longer and made a lot more off of Steam.

They weren't going to launch on Steam at that point. Remember when Icebrood Saga launched they were saying how they are fully committed to it, no expansions on the horizon. They expected the Icebrood Saga to be expansion-level revenue. They made HOT free so it would be easier for new players to join the Icebrood Saga. It obviously didn't work very well.

Steam was just a bonus. They would have known exactly what HoT was making at the time. The 25% drop is 3.2 million USD, which is nearly double the units HoT was selling after launch.

Who could have predicted that an expansion wouldn't sell as many copies as an original release? Serious question here: Has that ever been a thing for any game? Further, they waited 3 years to release that expansion while providing no proper PvE endgame with which to retain long-term players. Who with any sense would have expected the expansion to sell well when you basically murder your own product with poor decisions like that?

the "long term" players had already FINISHED THE GAME. THEY HAD GOTTEN, WHAT THEY PAID FOR.listening to them is simply wrong on every level. and only a total noob would ever log into a new mmo for "endgame" contentif it even exists, then it isnt properly optimized yet

You dont finish mmorpgs they are not single player games and are instead endlessly expanded upon.Untill they are not profitable anymore and slowly go into oblivion.

yep, but that wasnt the issue. if they have played all the content the game offers, then they have received more than enough.we are talking many hours of entertainment for a very low price. giving them even more is only going to hurt in the long run.its not like we havent seen this development before.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Sir Alymer.3406 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:nope, orr has to go from the main storyline too, if they ever want it to be truly casual. they have already nerfed it twice, so the mobs arentthe big issue anymore, it is the maps and the content.they can make hard content if they want, i am even willing to pay my share of it.but dont expect me to pay unless they make some new casual content tooand LW is not casual. not at all.

Uh, how is LW not casual when it's literally impossible to fail the new metas on the new maps and literally impossible to fail in the story if you pay any amount of attention?

not true, it is more casual though. you still have all the previous LWS before that. and i dont care about metas anywayit is also a new form of LW, the reduction in difficulty is prolly the only reason for the name change

Look, I was super casual when season 2 came out. (I used a shout heals warrior in full clerics, then a interrupt warrior with hammer/greatsword in cavalier's when unsuspecting foe was still a thing.) I was a bit less casual when season 3 came out (Utilizing meta builds and rotations) and my skill basically plateaued for a while there so it was about the same in Season 4 as I stopped caring about personal improvement. The only time I had any sort of problem with any of the content was going after the achievements and that's mostly because they require you to do very specific things or actually be good at fighting a boss (Kill x in 40 seconds or avoid this attack from this boss). None of the content outside of the achievements has actually been difficult or put up a challenge against the skillset one would develop by doing Fractal/Raid CMs, Raids, Strikes, Fractals, or Dungeons (pre HoT). It's literally impossible to fail any of the personal story. There's no failure state, you retry from checkpoint and go again.