Just feedback from new player, and why this game never becomes AAA mmo.

[TheRandomGuy.7246]

@Laken.4056 said:You played for 3 months and think that you have an informed opinion on the games design?

You don't need to play for 3 months and 1 day to realize that UI is bad and telegraphs are only remotely useful.

@Mewcifer.5198 said:". track of objectives are awful - why i need to know completion percent’s? just put there usefulinformation like 1 of 4 plants gathered, or 6 of 12 components of collection done and list of undone objectives."I am not sure what you are saying here.

When you track an achievement in the top right corner it will not show you 1/4 and instead it will show 25% complete. On top of that if achievement has tiers it will show the % of the tier. Which leads to very useful stuff like "kill 1000 mobs - 98%" when you killed 16.

@Mewcifer.5198 said:". more than 1 mark on map, building route paths with checkpoints?"Again, not sure what you are saying.

You can only place 1 mark on the map. You can't place 15 and then navigate between them like checkpoints.

[Mewcifer.5198]

@TheRandomGuy.7246 said:

@Laken.4056 said:You played for 3 months and think that you have an informed opinion on the games design?

You don't need to play for 3 months and 1 day to realize that UI is bad and telegraphs are only remotely useful.

@Mewcifer.5198 said:". track of objectives are awful - why i need to know completion percent’s? just put there usefulinformation like 1 of 4 plants gathered, or 6 of 12 components of collection done and list of undone objectives."I am not sure what you are saying here.

When you track an achievement in the top right corner it will not show you 1/4 and instead it will show 25% complete. On top of that if achievement has tiers it will show the % of the tier. Which leads to very useful stuff like "kill 1000 mobs - 98%" when you killed 16.

@Mewcifer.5198 said:". more than 1 mark on map, building route paths with checkpoints?"Again, not sure what you are saying.

You can only place 1 mark on the map. You can't place 15 and then navigate between them like checkpoints.

Just click on the achievement to open it and look. Dear god. It's not that hard. Also you can choose whether it shows tier or total completion.

Also why on earth would you ever need to put a bunch of markers on your map? Seems really weird. If you REALLY feel like you need the markers, buy a commander tag, you'll get 8 markers you can place down if you are using your tag. You might get a few moths thinking you are running an event but just make your squad invite only.

But seriously for the life of me I can't see why you would need to put a bunch of markers on your map, it's bizarre.

[LSD.4673]

@pah.4931 said:Just a couple comments (couldn't finish the list, full transparency).

GW2 is AAA. It had tons of money behind it and still does pretty well...

Having to go to a 3rd party website. You really don't HAVE to. You jsut want information quick because you've been conditioned by other games that hol dyour hand through everything. If you played EQ or early WoW, you would know all about 3rd party websites ;)

He means AAA in terms of being up there with the other big MMOs. GW2 had so much talk pre-release, then fell completely off the radar -- and it really isn't that hard to see why.

Speaking of "why", it's got a lot to do with the exceptionalist viewpoint of the hardcore playerbase, which lets the devs brush over all the major issues with the game. Check out posts from back in 2012. "What do i do at endgame?" followed by a tide of "all of game is endgame!!! play Queensdale again!!!"

The game really does do a terrible job of explaining what's going, especially so in events. My first "what the fuck is going on" moment was Kessex Hills. Toxic Spider. Break Bar. None of it is ever actually explained in any way, at any point in the game.From the Wiki, it's clear it's from half a decade ago, when the game had an actual "living world"...but now it's still there in the world, and isn't explained in any way at all.If you want to understand the story at all, you have to fork over a lot of gold for the seasons packs. I'd rather have my information "quick" than have to farm for it.

[Sifu.9745]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Sifu.9745 said:That's why this game is free to play, you don't need to pay monthly: that means not enough money for developers = no work :) In World of Warcraft there is a monthly fee, the game is more casual friendly = way more players, more money = more developers, better results, faster bug fixes.GW 2 is very casual unfriendly game, so i guess people give up quickly if they can't play on more relaxing way. You come from job, you are tired you wanna do some pve or PvP to relax a bit, you don't want to be max focused 24/7. But then you don't doge ONCE and you are in downed state lol, or in PvP you wanna play some "casual" unranked arena. No way, you don't dodge or you don't use one of your defensive ability at the right time and 17k health is gone in 2 seconds.Casual players represent majority in almost every mmo, but GW2 just doesn't support that kind of playstyle. Obviously they only do care about very skilled elitists.

lol what? GW2 is the most casual friendly AAA mnmorpg out and the majority of players in GW2 are in fact casual - if the word 'casual' was still a thing in 2017. The average GW2 player is around about 30 and that was a few years ago. Players didnt live in a vacuum before GW2 hence they know how to play games. If you have a doubt go join PVP in WOW or ESO without top gear and see exactly how a casual unfriendly game works.

Well, you are right about the gear part: in GW2 is super easy to get Exotic gear, which falls behind Ascended only for about 5%. That indeed is a friendly way how to gear up your char :)But i was talking about the game mechanics, when you need super fast reactions if you wanna survive: In WoW i can equip the average (green) gear and go afk in instanced PvP vs top geared (purple, legendary) player and i can guarantee you that i will live for at least 7 seconds (depends on class and spec, some specs can live 20+ seconds going afk) while doing absolutely nothing, no matter who my opponent is. 7 seconds, that means a lot, that allows me to play more casually, no way that opponent can one or two shot me which is the case in GW2 (yesterday in unranked Deadeye instant deleted my 17 k hp elementalist from stealth, from safe distance, lol). As you can see gear means nothing in GW2 PvP, if you can so easily get one or two shoted.And about pve part: GW2 pve is friendly only in open world (HoT maps excluded), while raids and fractals are meant for top players only. In WoW you have difficulty levels: you can raid as a total noob, just be sure you join for looking for group, the easiest way to complete raids. If you want to push harder content, you can try raids on normal difficulty, then step to Heroic ones and for top players there is an Mythic option.In GW2 the only easy instanced kind of pve are dungeons (they are not nearly as easy as wow dungeons on normal mode) but it takes ages to find a group.Don't get me wrong, i still am a fun of GW2, just like to see more options, difficulty levels, for instanced pve and dmg reduction in PVP for at least 50%.

Oh, and you are right op, Tailoring is really too expensive compared to any other crafting professions: i can craft 10 heavy armored pieces or weapons for the price of 2 or 3 light armor pieces. Have no idea why Tailoring is so expensive.Sorry for English ...

[Sylvari.2953]

Bad news, man: GW2 has been an AAA MMO since release. /thread

[maddoctor.2738]

Although I agree with some of your points, I disagree with the title

[Menadena.7482]

@Healix.5819 said:

@Menadena.7482 said:There is a "special sell tab" now? I just rt click on something and select to sell it, is there some super-sekrit way I do not know about?

In order to sell items to a merchant, you have to have their sell tab selected. You can then sell items from the tab or by right clicking an item in your inventory to open a menu and selecting to sell it. For comparison, in other games they usually override that right click menu to simply sell the item while the merchant is open.

Something I always found a feature rather than a bug. Stuff I do not want to vendor is not always in an invisible bag so prefer not to be able to sell by accident. Plus most of the time when I am selling it is on the marketplace anyway.

[Menadena.7482]

@Sifu.9745 said:That's why this game is free to play, you don't need to pay monthly: that means not enough money for developers = no work :) In World of Warcraft there is a monthly fee, the game is more casual friendly = way more players, more money = more developers, better results, faster bug fixes.GW 2 is very casual unfriendly game, so i guess people give up quickly if they can't play on more relaxing way. You come from job, you are tired you wanna do some pve or PvP to relax a bit, you don't want to be max focused 24/7. But then you don't doge ONCE and you are in downed state lol, or in PvP you wanna play some "casual" unranked arena. No way, you don't dodge or you don't use one of your defensive ability at the right time and 17k health is gone in 2 seconds.Casual players represent majority in almost every mmo, but GW2 just doesn't support that kind of playstyle. Obviously they only do care about very skilled elitists.

LOL! Are you talking about the right game? I was sold on GW2 because of how casual friendly it is. Almost everywhere in core is practically built for casuals.

[Menadena.7482]

@TheRandomGuy.7246 said:

@Mewcifer.5198 said:". more than 1 mark on map, building route paths with checkpoints?"Again, not sure what you are saying.

You can only place 1 mark on the map. You can't place 15 and then navigate between them like checkpoints.

I always saw them a thing for parties like 'this is where we are going, over here'. I never use them myself.

[Zaltys.7649]

@STIHL.2489 said:Truth is, GW2 is an AAA MMO--Is it? I haven't seen exact figures.AAA doesn't have much to do with the quality of the product. It's defined by the development costs, and from what I've heard, the budget for GW2 was only $15M, which (if true) would mean that it's AA.

Whereas SWTOR, with its ~$200M budget, is solidly AAA.

And if we look outside of the MMO genre, games such as Undertale are popular, but definitely not AAA. So I'm not sure what the OP is talking about. Games do not 'become' AAA.

[Samnang.1879]

You came at a better time than when this game was just released... so I wouldn't be complaining...I remember a time where we have to manually pick up loot bag... and u end up dying in wvw cuz of that or u can't pick it up because the enemies around the loot bags.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

@Mewcifer.5198 said:

@TheRandomGuy.7246 said:

@Laken.4056 said:You played for 3 months and think that you have an informed opinion on the games design?

You don't need to play for 3 months and 1 day to realize that UI is bad and telegraphs are only remotely useful.

@Mewcifer.5198 said:". track of objectives are awful - why i need to know completion percent’s? just put there usefulinformation like 1 of 4 plants gathered, or 6 of 12 components of collection done and list of undone objectives."I am not sure what you are saying here.

When you track an achievement in the top right corner it will not show you 1/4 and instead it will show 25% complete. On top of that if achievement has tiers it will show the % of the tier. Which leads to very useful stuff like "kill 1000 mobs - 98%" when you killed 16.

@Mewcifer.5198 said:". more than 1 mark on map, building route paths with checkpoints?"Again, not sure what you are saying.

You can only place 1 mark on the map. You can't place 15 and then navigate between them like checkpoints.

Just click on the achievement to open it and look. Dear god. It's not that hard. Also you can choose whether it shows tier or total completion.

Also why on earth would you ever need to put a bunch of markers on your map? Seems really weird. If you REALLY feel like you need the markers, buy a commander tag, you'll get 8 markers you can place down if you are using your tag. You might get a few moths thinking you are running an event but just make your squad invite only.

But seriously for the life of me I can't see why you would need to put a bunch of markers on your map

, it's bizarre.

It would be useful, I think, for many people in maps such as the HoT maps. Laying a string of markers to note the path turn off points and path splits would help those who get lost on those maps when trying to run to a place unfamiliar to them.

[Obtena.7952]

I've yet to play a triple A MMO that you couldn't make a list of deficiencies for ...

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

@Zaltys.7649 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:Truth is, GW2 is an AAA MMO--Is it? I haven't seen exact figures.AAA doesn't have much to do with the quality of the product. It's defined by the development costs, and from what I've heard, the budget for GW2 was only $15M, which (if true) would mean that it's AA.

Whereas SWTOR, with its ~$200M budget, is solidly AAA.

And if we look outside of the MMO genre, games such as Undertale are popular, but definitely not AAA. So I'm not sure what the OP is talking about. Games do not 'become' AAA.

AAA is defined by more than development costs. Thats far too narrow a benchmark. According to this article it’s development costs, sales, how well the game is constructed and also the metacrit rating. (GW2 metacrit rating was 90/100, where the cutoff is 88/100) and the sales cutoff is about 1 million, which gw2 far exceeds. So using that articles definition of AAA vs AA, this game is an AAA game.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

The OP makes some good points, misunderstands some issues (or how they might be addressed), over-exaggerates others, but misses the big picture: there are no perfect games and it's unlikely that there ever will be. ANet's changed an enormous number of things along the same lines as the ideas raised here, hasn't acknowledged some criticisms, and has doubled-down on other 'flaws' that they see as useful mechanics/features. That doesn't make the game 'bad' or 'not ready for prime time'; it just it flawed, like any other game, including so-called 'AAA' games.

So offer constructive criticism, in bulk, or a few issues at a time. But don't expect that they are necessarily the most important issues to be fixed, even in the context of "death by 1000 cuts" being an important thing to worry about. And definitely don't expect that everyone will agree that any one or 20 of these things will make everyone enjoy the game enough to make it worth diverting resources.

---

To rephrase: I really like that the OP has taken the time to make a solid list of frustrations; veterans such as myself sometimes take these sorts of things for granted and ANet should keep getting reminded of what new players see. The problem is the OP wasn't content to stop at making the list and trying to imbue more importance to this particular list over any other list made by any other player. It's not debatable whether anvils force a dialogue; that's a matter of fact. It's entirely debatable (and unlikely) that that fact has anything to do with whether this game's appeal will languish or not — the OP digresses from their own (important) topic by trying to make the discussion about whether the game is or isn't AAA.

[Sobx.1758]

@Noise.1824 said:. Lack of information about items, events, quests, ar just about game itself, if i need to minimize game and go to 3rd party website to get info what this item needed for at all?it screams game have huge problems in user interface.

I disagree, the fact that you got used to being "hand held" by the game at every occasion doesn't mean every game has to follow that concept to be good.

. anvil - dialog box? why it's there, just repair me on use.

Meh, is this really a problem? :D

. exclusive sell tab, to sell thing i need to switch to "special sell tab" this is really awful design.

See, that's just another case of "opinion", not "a problem that needs to be solved". It can actually help you with not accidentally selling something by missclicking.

. move items in bank only by drag and drop them? really?

You can double click too. How else would you like to do it?

. do something with "red zones" where i can be killed, they are too flat and a lot of times they same color as terrain under them(for example make them also a bit vertical, add height), also would be awesome if we got separate colors for zones where i can be killed instantly, where i be knocked off, or where i just get some damage.

Honestly I don't think I ever had a problem with seeing them...?And giving away too much information just by "coloring the danger zone" is kind of meh, because you might as well stop paying attention to your opponent. Not to mention actually knowing their kit.

• about red zones, combat mechanics all about red zones looks weird and boring, there also many situations you overdo this thing and it become japan "bullet hell" game, not fun at all for non hardcore players.

If anything, it helps "non hardcore players" more than it does the "hardcore" ones...

yes I am noob and maybe just bad, i found popular pve build for class with proper gear, found rotation videos and overall guide to class. it helped a bit, but i still die almost on every pack in ls3, so i think this wasn't really tested with all classes and how it feels with class without defense.

What did you play? I don't think the classes are problem here, it's most certanly the player. You can't just make things too easy or people on the other side of spectrum will come and complain that all the story quests are too easy/pointless. This is not an interactive story movie, it's an mmorpg.

. track of objectives are awful - why i need to know completion percent’s? just put there usefulinformation like 1 of 4 plants gathered, or 6 of 12 components of collection done and list of undone objectives.

What? One time you're complaining about "not enough information about quests" and now you complain about... too much information?Track of objectives is fine. And it's useful.

. why we see skills we get in timed events only after we start it? Let's take a look at very bad designed event like "beetle feast" you only see skills you can use after you pick up mushrooms, then you need to stop, hover mouse over it and read what they really do? Suggestion? place all skills with description on screen where you start it.

You can repeat it indefinitely, so how's that a problem? Do a test run, check the skills and restart.

. combat log more info(mark incoming/outgoing with completely different colors) and filters to show only incoming or outgoing damage? so many times i die and i don't even know how it happened.

True.What might help you is making a new tab with only combat logs, which you can check after the combat if you want to know how or why you died.

. id say its low priority for me, but would be awesome if we got some sort of wardrobe, where we can save build + gear for it. another way just save multiple builds somewhere inside "H" menu.

True and people wanted it for a loooong time.

. repeatable hearts and hero points ( can we get good icons where i can clearly see if i done it once already or not).

Those icons already exist and are in the game.

• achievements placement on buff bar only when combat starts, i need to stop in the middle of the battle and read what they are? (they should be on the bottom of story mission tracking window)

You can check achievements (unless it's one of the 'hidden' one) before even starting the story missions if that's what you mean.

. removing all party chat messages when you leave party chat, why?

Yup, that's stupid.

. popups with ok button, its really annoying when you need to press it, and for it you need to use mouse, for some reason you cant press ok with keyboard, also there no any good reason to have this window usually instead of it just make, some color notification in chat.

I mean you're using the mouse anyways, so how's that a problem? :D

. a lot of over tuned monsters especially in HoT expansion, monsters just have insane amount of crowd control, i die sometimes from full hp in chain control. There seems no any diminishing return for it, also it don’t break from amount of damage i receive.

That's kind of the point. It's more challenging than core zones, you need to get used to it.

   + all damage from monsters should be converted from flat numbers to % of target hp, it would be more fair i think.

xDNo. Just no. That's a terrible idea and how can you put it as any kind of "improvement" for an mmorpg with a variety of classes and builds is beyond me.

. sometimes i play from slow pc with low settings, and game drastically drops brightness and contrast on low settings, there almost nothing is visible on low settings in dark rooms, yes there is gamma slide bar but it ruins all colors.

It depends what you mean, but some of the "dark rooms" ARE supposed to be that dark. There are ways to get light in there though.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

Some good points OP.. there are issues for sure and some have dogged the game right out of the box, but much of those thngs are QoL that you do get used to or at worst learn to circumnavigate them.Things like Anvil dialogue.. its just a early learning tool and a non issue for 99% I would guess.Bank Tab.. I am guessing you mean the Guild Bank -yes that is such a poor mechanic having to take items out combine them then put back , but hardly game breaking or stopping GW2 from becoming a AAA.Generally there are many things that could be better.. LFGis one of the worst I've come across imo but you simply get used to it. Show me an MMO that has everything nailed down just the way everyone likes it and I will eat my hat.

That said, I agree there are things that could and should of been fixed a long time back and QA has never been this games strong point imo.

[Yamazuki.6073]

Some of the concerns are a little nit-picky and not really much of an issue in terms of large games. A lot of the large games requires you to see a wiki to get all the information, and that didn't seem to have an impact on their success. This is just one example though.

Gw2 is just lacking a few basic things, such as the ui could be improved. They also need to put more work into effects and colors chosen in the game. PoF for example had complaints about how mounts had physical effects on them, and the sand trails in the sky also messes with some people's head/eyes, the bounties with the bright blue glows and circles along with loud and obnoxious sound that serves no purpose. Then any indicators that are easily covered by a million effects making said indicators useless.

Although, in terms of GW2 being AAA or not, the game has a relatively low budget and little marketing. Other games see higher budgets for initial development and further deverlopment as well as a lot of resources for marketing the game. Blizzard for example now has movies/videos, advertisements even on TV, etc for their games. Riot has their game in an e-sport setting and they reported almost all their shows they had on the side before the game was super popular operated on a loss in order to maintain its population and high interest, the game even got put on TV. AAA games are high risk, a lot of money is put into them, but that money can either be brought back in high numbers or it fails. Not sure how many heard of the Shooter RPG Firefall, but they had a lot of money put into the game, and it never even managed to fully release even after multiple years of beta phases.

GW2 was a lower risk game, and as with all lower risk games, they lack the ability to do what a lot of the higher risk games can afford to do, everything costs money.

[Zedek.8932]

Excelsior.

I often read Final Fantasy 14 is claimed to be a "AAA" MMORPG. It sucks on so many levels but still people claim it's awesome.No voice acting, heavilly instanced gameplay, cash shop in a subscription game, ugly and unnecessarily confusing menus, no real new ideas (Final Fantasy fan service), boring gameplay, story as dumb as an afternoon telenovela, gear threadmill chore, dumbed-down gameplay and instant-wipe mechanics all over the place as if this Gran Tourismo. But, as said, people claim it's a AAA MMO. All of the problems mentioned before were also blending into each other to create a big pile of "Nope".

GW2 has many problems, but mostly and for me, it's the performance of the engine. First I expected the game engine to be old and sluggish, but when I saw the shiny shards of the raptor and all that in PoF and the huge maps of HoT, I knew it is not. Else, everything is great here, and for me - my very personal opinion - it's the best MMO out there. It also matches many subjective points (art style, the playable "races", story, buy to play etc.).

I am aware my post is more a "whataboutism" reaction, but when I see what standards are for AAA titles, then I am sure GW2 was and still is a AAA title.

[Kichwas.7152]

AAA MMO?

Firs the OP has a lot of good ideas. SOme bad ones, but the general theme is well thought out and most of the points made are well known and agreed on in the community here.

But AAA MMO...

By the numbers this is a AAA MMO.

I would say in the USA, that AAA set is basically WoW, GW2, FFXIV, and ESO... and ESO only got into this camp recently (it's been growing since it's One Tamriel update).

If you judge this by 'how good is it'... none of us will agree. I wouldn't even list WoW in there (and I still have an active sub too), but I would put FFXIV as #2, right behind ESO, and this as number 3)... After all "how good is it" is really just "how much do you yourself like it?" - and that's too subjective a measurement.

The only fair judgement is 'how popular and 'financially stable / likely to survive' is it?

• By that judgement, globally, the ONLY AAA MMO is probably 'Perfect World'... which I suspect most of us have never even played or seen... but it's a massive beast in Asia with a number of subs equal to the population of the average European nation...

So if we just say "in the western market..."

Then you have my list again: WoW, FXIV, GW2, ESO - probably in that order too.

• I hear unreliable info on Neverwinter. It might be in there too. Some reports say it's huge, others say it's dead. I see massive crowds in there when I try it, but it's F2P... then again I see about half those crowds are not low level toons... But this is just my own observation and could be highly flawed. However the 4 in my list, have all been reporting huge numbers from multiple sources.

[Brimstone.3807]

@Sifu.9745 said:That's why this game is free to play, you don't need to pay monthly: that means not enough money for developers = no work :) In World of Warcraft there is a monthly fee, the game is more casual friendly = way more players, more money = more developers, better results, faster bug fixes.GW 2 is very casual unfriendly game, so i guess people give up quickly if they can't play on more relaxing way. You come from job, you are tired you wanna do some pve or PvP to relax a bit, you don't want to be max focused 24/7. But then you don't doge ONCE and you are in downed state lol, or in PvP you wanna play some "casual" unranked arena. No way, you don't dodge or you don't use one of your defensive ability at the right time and 17k health is gone in 2 seconds.Casual players represent majority in almost every mmo, but GW2 just doesn't support that kind of playstyle. Obviously they only do care about very skilled elitists.

Um....This game is extremely casual, if not the most casual in it's genre on the market. The fact that there is a downed state at all....points to it's casualness.

[Zaltys.7649]

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:AAA is defined by more than development costs.No, that's exactly how it is defined. See http://tinyurl.com/obzyche.Indie at the low end of the scale (except for rare Triple-I), and AAA for top-funded and advertised major studio projects. Ratings and popularity have absolutely nothing to do with it; there's plenty of AAA games that score lower than 70 on Metacritic.

As far as I know, there's currently no AAA MMOs in development. Most investors have realized by now that it's not a good investment.

GW2 had relatively low budget, closer to AA. Goes to show that you don't need massive budget to make a good game.

[Conncept.7638]

No mention of the games biggest flaw? The fact that buildcraft ranges from minimal to effectively removed (depending on gamemode) because of the dodge system being almost completely separated from the entire buildcraft system. Not to mention that lately they've stated they intend to worsen the problem by making power vs condition damage a matter of effectiveness per content type and game mode rather than effectiveness per play style.

Personally I think this game, at launch, had the steam to be a triple-A title, and then the devs flubbed it by going in wildly different directions from the original content and system everyone loved, instead of improving upon and continuing that content and those systems.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

@Zaltys.7649 said:

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:AAA is defined by more than development costs.No, that's exactly how it is defined. See

http://tinyurl.com/obzyche

.Indie at the low end of the scale (except for rare Triple-I), and AAA for top-funded and advertised major studio projects. Ratings and popularity have absolutely nothing to do with it; there's plenty of AAA games that score lower than 70 on Metacritic.

As far as I know, there's currently no AAA MMOs in development. Most investors have realized by now that it's not a good investment.

GW2 had relatively low budget, closer to AA. Goes to show that you don't need massive budget to make a good game.

From your link

An AAA game (usually pronounced "triple A game") is an informal classification used for video games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion....

1) it’s an informal classification which means there is no formal classification or definition, which means my link is as valid as yours2) it says budget but gives no cutoff3) you (and I) don’t know what this games developement budget was or if it falls below the level of this “informal classification”

[Ashen.2907]

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:

@Zaltys.7649 said:

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:AAA is defined by more than development costs.No, that's exactly how it is defined. See

http://tinyurl.com/obzyche

.Indie at the low end of the scale (except for rare Triple-I), and AAA for top-funded and advertised major studio projects. Ratings and popularity have absolutely nothing to do with it; there's plenty of AAA games that score lower than 70 on Metacritic.

As far as I know, there's currently no AAA MMOs in development. Most investors have realized by now that it's not a good investment.

GW2 had relatively low budget, closer to AA. Goes to show that you don't need massive budget to make a good game.

From your link

An AAA game (usually pronounced "triple A game")

is an informal classification

used for video games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion....

1) it’s an informal classification which means there is no formal classification or definition, which means my link is as valid as yours2) it says budget but gives no cutoff3) you (and I) don’t know what this games developement budget was or if it falls below the level of this “informal classification”

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:

@Zaltys.7649 said:

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:AAA is defined by more than development costs.No, that's exactly how it is defined. See

http://tinyurl.com/obzyche

.Indie at the low end of the scale (except for rare Triple-I), and AAA for top-funded and advertised major studio projects. Ratings and popularity have absolutely nothing to do with it; there's plenty of AAA games that score lower than 70 on Metacritic.

As far as I know, there's currently no AAA MMOs in development. Most investors have realized by now that it's not a good investment.

GW2 had relatively low budget, closer to AA. Goes to show that you don't need massive budget to make a good game.

From your link

An AAA game (usually pronounced "triple A game")

is an informal classification

used for video games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion....

1) it’s an informal classification which means there is no formal classification or definition, which means my link is as valid as yours2) it says budget but gives no cutoff3) you (and I) don’t know what this games developement budget was or if it falls below the level of this “informal classification”

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:

@Zaltys.7649 said:

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:AAA is defined by more than development costs.No, that's exactly how it is defined. See

http://tinyurl.com/obzyche

.Indie at the low end of the scale (except for rare Triple-I), and AAA for top-funded and advertised major studio projects. Ratings and popularity have absolutely nothing to do with it; there's plenty of AAA games that score lower than 70 on Metacritic.

As far as I know, there's currently no AAA MMOs in development. Most investors have realized by now that it's not a good investment.

GW2 had relatively low budget, closer to AA. Goes to show that you don't need massive budget to make a good game.

From your link

An AAA game (usually pronounced "triple A game")

is an informal classification

used for video games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion....

1) it’s an informal classification which means there is no formal classification or definition, which means my link is as valid as yours2) it says budget but gives no cutoff3) you (and I) don’t know what this games developement budget was or if it falls below the level of this “informal classification”

To be fair, with 300-350 employees, in an area with an average salary for the industry of 70-80k per year and an average cost to employ of between 1.2 and 1.3, and a development time of 10 years...

300 70,000 1.2 * 10 = $252,000,000 in payroll since development began in 2007.

That said, I don't know how soon in development they ramped their staffing up to 300, and it has been significantly higher. I would say that if you are spending hundreds of millions of dollars, on staffing alone, developing your game, it should qualify for AAA status.