Originally posted by Vutar When a company has to make a statement saying "don't count us out yet," it is time to count them out. GW2 must be doing even worse than most people thought.
I'll say this again for all the people who were calling me and others "BitterVets" for calling out GW2 for exactly what it was, last year: Told Ya So.
These games HAVE NO LEGS. They cannot last for longer than 3 months for many people, and maybe 6 months for people taking their time. ANET was smart enough that they should have planned for horizontal gameplay / progression, but they didn't, so here you have yet another theme park that people are walking away from. Don't even get me started on the temporary content thing...
Furthermore, one of the main things people want these days is character customization; a way to make yourself stand out. There's *nothing* in this game for that either. They didn't even try relatively simple things like pet visual customizations.
As a huge fan of GW1, which had and still has far more soul than GW2, I walked away from this game after two months of casual play. It was immediately apparent how lifeless the whole thing was, even if it was pretty.
Only took my wife and I 3 weeks to walk away from that trash heap
I played WoW. I played GW2. I didn't like GW2. Don't tell me what my opinion should be.
I thought the quest system was childish and the combat was weak. And the monetization scheme really turned me off. I tried to get into crafting and ran out of inventory space very quickly. To get more, I had to pay for it. I don't mind paying a sub for a game. I don't mind DLCs. I know how much I'm paying and if I don't feel it's worth the cost, I stop paying. With GW2, I had no idea what or when I would be charged until I ran up against a wall in-game. I don't like the lack of transparency. I don't like being nickle and dimed to death.
Wait... what? How did you run out of inventory space while crafting? The only craft I can think of where that's an issue is cooking.
I ran out of inventory space in WoW. I did it in FFXI. I did it in Champions Online. Actually, it happens to me in EVERY MMO. In GW2 it just happens that the way of least resistance is to buy more space, rather than to learn how to be efficient (Many MMOs force you to throw things away, or learn how to get only what you need). But you can actually use the exact same skills you have in other MMOs to keep your inventory tidy. There's also some extremely cheap in-game methods of increasing your storage.
A popular method is creating guild banks. For just a few gold you can add 50 slots of storage. You can do this multiple times as well. I have 200 slots worth of storage between my two guild banks. Increasing your bag size also helps a lot.
Not that I think this'll make you go back to the game, but there's actually lots of VERY cheap (In game money) methods of having ridiculous amounts of storage.
It's also possible you quit before some of the quality of life changes they made (100% free), such as making fine materials deposit to collectibles, and taking almost every single type of currency (Such as dungeon tokens) and making those go into your wallet. It freed up large amounts of space in most people's inventory's.
I'm sure I quit before those quality of life changes. The amount of inventory space to start was very small. Between gear and crafting mats, I ran out quickly. And yes, I was doing cooking.
That by itself isn't the problem. It's a systematic problem of hiding charges behind content rather than being transparent about the costs. Maybe somewhere they have a list of everything that you need to spend money on, but I'd venture to guess that most players don't know they have to pay for something until they encounter it in the game. I'm just not a fan of that and I won't play games that are monetized in that way. Tell me what you want me to pay to play your game and then leave me the *@#&; alone.
That by itself isn't the problem. It's a systematic problem of hiding charges behind content rather than being transparent about the costs. Maybe somewhere they have a list of everything that you need to spend money on, but I'd venture to guess that most players don't know they have to pay for something until they encounter it in the game. I'm just not a fan of that and I won't play games that are monetized in that way. Tell me what you want me to pay to play your game and then leave me the *@#&; alone.
What are you even going on about? There's nothing you have to spend money on at all. They expanded everyone's inventory by a huge amount with the free collectibles tabs they added for foods and other materials too. You don't need to spend a dime if you wish, and you also have the option to convert in game gold into gems to purchase fluff items if you wish. There is no mandatory spending beyond the cost of the box, period.
I played WoW. I played GW2. I didn't like GW2. Don't tell me what my opinion should be.
I thought the quest system was childish and the combat was weak. And the monetization scheme really turned me off. I tried to get into crafting and ran out of inventory space very quickly. To get more, I had to pay for it. I don't mind paying a sub for a game. I don't mind DLCs. I know how much I'm paying and if I don't feel it's worth the cost, I stop paying. With GW2, I had no idea what or when I would be charged until I ran up against a wall in-game. I don't like the lack of transparency. I don't like being nickle and dimed to death.
Wait... what? How did you run out of inventory space while crafting? The only craft I can think of where that's an issue is cooking.
I ran out of inventory space in WoW. I did it in FFXI. I did it in Champions Online. Actually, it happens to me in EVERY MMO. In GW2 it just happens that the way of least resistance is to buy more space, rather than to learn how to be efficient (Many MMOs force you to throw things away, or learn how to get only what you need). But you can actually use the exact same skills you have in other MMOs to keep your inventory tidy. There's also some extremely cheap in-game methods of increasing your storage.
A popular method is creating guild banks. For just a few gold you can add 50 slots of storage. You can do this multiple times as well. I have 200 slots worth of storage between my two guild banks. Increasing your bag size also helps a lot.
Not that I think this'll make you go back to the game, but there's actually lots of VERY cheap (In game money) methods of having ridiculous amounts of storage.
It's also possible you quit before some of the quality of life changes they made (100% free), such as making fine materials deposit to collectibles, and taking almost every single type of currency (Such as dungeon tokens) and making those go into your wallet. It freed up large amounts of space in most people's inventory's.
I'm sure I quit before those quality of life changes. The amount of inventory space to start was very small. Between gear and crafting mats, I ran out quickly. And yes, I was doing cooking.
That by itself isn't the problem. It's a systematic problem of hiding charges behind content rather than being transparent about the costs. Maybe somewhere they have a list of everything that you need to spend money on, but I'd venture to guess that most players don't know they have to pay for something until they encounter it in the game. I'm just not a fan of that and I won't play games that are monetized in that way. Tell me what you want me to pay to play your game and then leave me the *@#&; alone.
Everyone starts with storage for materials that can store 250 of each material. Also materials can stack up to 250 in your inventory.
Everyone starts with 20 slots inventory + 4 bag slots. Each bag slot can have up to 20 spaces.
Everyone starts with a bank tab that has 30 slots.
If you are going to play the game just to level up a couple character (lets say 250 hours) you do not need to spend any money over the game price.
If you are going to sink thousands upon thousands of hours, having extra storage, having extra bags, having your material collection hold up to a 1000, is useful and improves quality of life.
Even then you can turn in game gold into the gems that allow you to buy this.
The fact is that there is no MMORPG with infinite storage.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
I played WoW. I played GW2. I didn't like GW2. Don't tell me what my opinion should be.
I thought the quest system was childish and the combat was weak. And the monetization scheme really turned me off. I tried to get into crafting and ran out of inventory space very quickly. To get more, I had to pay for it. I don't mind paying a sub for a game. I don't mind DLCs. I know how much I'm paying and if I don't feel it's worth the cost, I stop paying. With GW2, I had no idea what or when I would be charged until I ran up against a wall in-game. I don't like the lack of transparency. I don't like being nickle and dimed to death.
Wait... what? How did you run out of inventory space while crafting? The only craft I can think of where that's an issue is cooking.
I ran out of inventory space in WoW. I did it in FFXI. I did it in Champions Online. Actually, it happens to me in EVERY MMO. In GW2 it just happens that the way of least resistance is to buy more space, rather than to learn how to be efficient (Many MMOs force you to throw things away, or learn how to get only what you need). But you can actually use the exact same skills you have in other MMOs to keep your inventory tidy. There's also some extremely cheap in-game methods of increasing your storage.
A popular method is creating guild banks. For just a few gold you can add 50 slots of storage. You can do this multiple times as well. I have 200 slots worth of storage between my two guild banks. Increasing your bag size also helps a lot.
Not that I think this'll make you go back to the game, but there's actually lots of VERY cheap (In game money) methods of having ridiculous amounts of storage.
It's also possible you quit before some of the quality of life changes they made (100% free), such as making fine materials deposit to collectibles, and taking almost every single type of currency (Such as dungeon tokens) and making those go into your wallet. It freed up large amounts of space in most people's inventory's.
I'm sure I quit before those quality of life changes. The amount of inventory space to start was very small. Between gear and crafting mats, I ran out quickly. And yes, I was doing cooking.
That by itself isn't the problem. It's a systematic problem of hiding charges behind content rather than being transparent about the costs. Maybe somewhere they have a list of everything that you need to spend money on, but I'd venture to guess that most players don't know they have to pay for something until they encounter it in the game. I'm just not a fan of that and I won't play games that are monetized in that way. Tell me what you want me to pay to play your game and then leave me the *@#&; alone.
Everyone starts with storage for materials that can store 250 of each material. Also materials can stack up to 250 in your inventory.
Everyone starts with 20 slots inventory + 4 bag slots. Each bag slot can have up to 20 spaces.
Everyone starts with a bank tab that has 30 slots.
If you are going to play the game just to level up a couple character (lets say 250 hours) you do not need to spend any money over the game price.
If you are going to sink thousands upon thousands of hours, having extra storage, having extra bags, having your material collection hold up to a 1000, is useful and improves quality of life.
Even then you can turn in game gold into the gems that allow you to buy this.
The fact is that there is no MMORPG with infinite storage.
Does that include enough room to store all the chests you won't have the keys to open because you don't buy them off the Gem store?
I am just laughing at the naysayers. Many of them said, 'We want a living World'. Well the Living Story is an attempt to try and give that. Then they say, we don't wont that now, we want what we want. The problem is, they don't know what they want. FF game? NastyWinter? I tried both and they were awful waste of code. Nothing coming out is piquing my interest.
Complaining is a common part of the human condition, it is so funny that people make it seem A.Net stole their milk money or something like that.
The game is B2P, like the games of old. That is a tried and true business model.
Does that include enough room to store all the chests you won't have the keys to open because you don't buy them off the Gem store?
The Black Lion chests? They stack to 250 as well and you can sell them on the Trading Post if you don't want them, so yes, yes it does. You may want to keep a few around though, I've gotten my share of keys as drops in the game or rewards for map completions and the like.
I played WoW. I played GW2. I didn't like GW2. Don't tell me what my opinion should be.
I thought the quest system was childish and the combat was weak. And the monetization scheme really turned me off. I tried to get into crafting and ran out of inventory space very quickly. To get more, I had to pay for it. I don't mind paying a sub for a game. I don't mind DLCs. I know how much I'm paying and if I don't feel it's worth the cost, I stop paying. With GW2, I had no idea what or when I would be charged until I ran up against a wall in-game. I don't like the lack of transparency. I don't like being nickle and dimed to death.
Wait... what? How did you run out of inventory space while crafting? The only craft I can think of where that's an issue is cooking.
I ran out of inventory space in WoW. I did it in FFXI. I did it in Champions Online. Actually, it happens to me in EVERY MMO. In GW2 it just happens that the way of least resistance is to buy more space, rather than to learn how to be efficient (Many MMOs force you to throw things away, or learn how to get only what you need). But you can actually use the exact same skills you have in other MMOs to keep your inventory tidy. There's also some extremely cheap in-game methods of increasing your storage.
A popular method is creating guild banks. For just a few gold you can add 50 slots of storage. You can do this multiple times as well. I have 200 slots worth of storage between my two guild banks. Increasing your bag size also helps a lot.
Not that I think this'll make you go back to the game, but there's actually lots of VERY cheap (In game money) methods of having ridiculous amounts of storage.
It's also possible you quit before some of the quality of life changes they made (100% free), such as making fine materials deposit to collectibles, and taking almost every single type of currency (Such as dungeon tokens) and making those go into your wallet. It freed up large amounts of space in most people's inventory's.
I'm sure I quit before those quality of life changes. The amount of inventory space to start was very small. Between gear and crafting mats, I ran out quickly. And yes, I was doing cooking.
That by itself isn't the problem. It's a systematic problem of hiding charges behind content rather than being transparent about the costs. Maybe somewhere they have a list of everything that you need to spend money on, but I'd venture to guess that most players don't know they have to pay for something until they encounter it in the game. I'm just not a fan of that and I won't play games that are monetized in that way. Tell me what you want me to pay to play your game and then leave me the *@#&; alone.
Everyone starts with storage for materials that can store 250 of each material. Also materials can stack up to 250 in your inventory.
Everyone starts with 20 slots inventory + 4 bag slots. Each bag slot can have up to 20 spaces.
Everyone starts with a bank tab that has 30 slots.
If you are going to play the game just to level up a couple character (lets say 250 hours) you do not need to spend any money over the game price.
If you are going to sink thousands upon thousands of hours, having extra storage, having extra bags, having your material collection hold up to a 1000, is useful and improves quality of life.
Even then you can turn in game gold into the gems that allow you to buy this.
The fact is that there is no MMORPG with infinite storage.
Does that include enough room to store all the chests you won't have the keys to open because you don't buy them off the Gem store?
You can have a stack of 250 chest occupying only 1 slot.
If you don't like the chests, sell them in the TP or destroy them
If you really want to open the chests make a human character, choose commoner and do the personal story. 25-30 minutes later you have a black lion key. Open your chest.
Delete the character. Repeat.
You can also some of your in game money, buy gems and use them to get keys.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
What are you even going on about? There's nothing you have to spend money on at all. They expanded everyone's inventory by a huge amount with the free collectibles tabs they added for foods and other materials too. You don't need to spend a dime if you wish, and you also have the option to convert in game gold into gems to purchase fluff items if you wish. There is no mandatory spending beyond the cost of the box, period.
Yeah, I have a guild that seems to be about 90% poor people for some reason, and they've all managed to deal with their storage without spending a dime. Some of whom are even worse hoarders than me. The simple fact is that the CHEAPEST (Since gold and gems are interchangeable, you can actually make this statement and have it make sense) method of expanding storage is in order, 1. Alts up to your 5th character, 2. Bigger bags, 3. Guild banks. 4. Additional alts.
Buying bank tabs would be 5, and bag slots at 6. If you're buying bank tabs with gems, you're going with one of the least efficient methods of expansion. Note that the most efficient way is actually free, and 2 and 3 are best spent using gold rather than gems (Since you lose value on a gem to gold conversion). Only the least efficient ways use gems.
People have broken down the exact cost-value of this sort of thing, it's not even very hard.
I will admit that at this point in time I have several bank tabs, but it is because I am LAZY (Yes, I admit it. Lazy.) and budget myself around 15 dollars a month in gems for pure convenience.
With some of the recent changes I've found I don't even need that many bank tabs, so I'm in the curious position of having a few EMPTY bank tabs.
I think the basis of the problem is that because spending money is an OPTION, when it is a possible solution, people tend to go "AHA. This it the solution to the problem! Arenanet is making you spend money!', while in an MMORPG where you hit the same problem (But WITHOUT the option of spending money), you would simply learn to throw things away and stop being such a horrible hoarder.
(edit: Looking back I was like 'why the heck am I saying this?', and then I realized that I just like explaining things to people. TWo days ago I had one of my friends give me screenshots of her inventory/bank so I could explain to her how to tidy it up (#1 hint: See all that food? Eat it and get fat. Stop hoarding all that food you don't need. Alternatively, put it in our guild bank. Every cook in our guild puts food into the bank as a communal thing for all players). Then earlier today I was teaching two level 20s how to play for the first time and introducing them to the wonders of the 'deposit collectibles' button. As a Demon Lord Hoarder of the first order, I am surprisingly expert at cleaning up inventories and teaching others what is actually important. (See that wig? Throw it away. Throw it away now. Stop carrying around that wig. < Also, eat that magic find item. EAT IT). Is this my new hobby, explaining how to keep a beautiful inventory? )
I also traded some gold for gems and bought two of the collectibles expanders which increased my stack size to 750 so far and will probably kick it to 1000 in the near future if it ever looks like I'll need it. In game gold = more storage space, hard to argue with that being a good system.
Wheres the poop? I smell something, and I see a lot of deflecting and defending going on, but I don't see a lot of action. Where is the PROOF that population is healthy? If its so great, why do they hide the numbers behind fake population levels?
Arent we going to be right back here in a year saying nothing has really changed?
Does that include enough room to store all the chests you won't have the keys to open because you don't buy them off the Gem store?
You can have a stack of 250 chest occupying only 1 slot.
If you don't like the chests, sell them in the TP or destroy them
If you really want to open the chests make a human character, choose commoner and do the personal story. 25-30 minutes later you have a black lion key. Open your chest.
You can also some of your in game money, buy gems and use them to get keys.
And that's what I hate about cash shop games. They make you pick and choose between doing the activities you enjoy and spending money. With a Sub game and I mean a true sub game not these hybrid messes you don't ever have to make these choices. If I wanted to create a human character because I though it was fun I would but I would never do it as a way to bypass the cash shop. I don't play games to make those kinds of financial based choices, I play them to have fun. The only financial choice I should have to make is every 30/90 days or so deciding if I want to renew my sub or not.
GW2 isn't as bad as most of it's peers. It's not as good as TSW which doesn't do lock boxes (gambling) or real money in game currency (GEM's) but it's a step up from most. If they got rid of the lock boxes and GEM exchange it could be a great game but they won't do that because those two things makes way more money than charging for the occasional DLC would ever be able to.
Originally posted by Joriel idk wtf is wrong with you guys, i never played gw1, i was never a fan, i never followed gw2 hype train, (i was a hater tbh cuz i thought RIFT would be better) and now i'm with 1350+ hours of gw2 and still enjoying it... WvW mainly but still...
And you aren't disappointed by the unfulfilled promises made to wvw? The inability to adapt any of the thousands of suggestions for improvements?
Seriously? people wanting Faction vs Faction on GW2 just need to go home.
Gw1 was Humans Vs Human cause the guilds (lore) that torn the lands.
GW2 theme is unity, the dragons appeared now we all (human, chars, salad,) must put their differences behind and fight these enemies together.
I like that GW2 is trying to do something different than the others, someone needs the balls to do it, not that they get it 100% of the time, but they are trying, someone on this stale market is trying.
But thats your MMORPG forums: "Do something new! wait i mean do exactly like that old mmo"
So why is it called Guild Wars? Shouldn't it be Dragon Wars?
Wheres the poop? I smell something, and I see a lot of deflecting and defending going on, but I don't see a lot of action. Where is the PROOF that population is healthy? If its so great, why do they hide the numbers behind fake population levels?
Arent we going to be right back here in a year saying nothing has really changed?
All games obfuscate their numbers to a certain extent. All the numbers actually shown are partially lying anyway.
You know what's weird? Looking at my Civ 5 achievements on Steam, comparing to other players and realizing that almost a third of the players have =never even started a city=. That's crazy. Are they ever going to come and announce 'We sold this many copies, but actually, this significantly smaller number is the amount who've played the game even 5 minutes'? Doubt it.
Here's the only things really important in a game population:
1. Can I find people to play with.
2. Does it have enough people that it's able to continue as a functioning game and not close down.
The problem with 1. is that all day long you're going to fill the thread with people saying 'I play the game and there's nobody anywhere. All I could find was tumbleweeds in every city.' and 'I play the game and there's a TRILLION people, standing right where I am. I'd take a screenshot but my computer just EXPLODED'. It's a 'he said' 'she said' situation, and I'm not going to get into it because it's silly, it's mostly people saying 'I experienced this' and other people saying 'no you didn't'.
2. can be measured by looking at the health of the company and the gaming infrastructure and releases, so that isn't purely opinions and personal experience batling it out. Here's what we DO know.
2a: Arenanet currently has more employees than it did at release. If the game is failing, this state OBVIOUSLY cannot last much longer, unless you are willing to propose that NCSoft is actually running GW2 as a charity, out of the kindness of their hearts and goodwill towards man.
2b: They still have the same amount of servers, and they have not changed their payment model. The first one doesn't necessarily mean much (See: Obfuscating numbers), but that pushes this into the same personal opinion category. The payment model hasn't changed, and if the game isn't doing well enough, this is often one of the solutions used. (See: SWTOR, RIFT, TSW, and many other games slightly less recent)
2c: Releases. They claim to be working on more. If nothing happens in March/April, after the close of the current Living Story season, this could definitely be a sign of growing problems. On the other hand, if there ARE major releases, and it keeps their monetary stream healthy, then apparently they're still doing fine. A lot hinges on this point, actually, if they can show that they can continue to release things, and get the desired response (Customers) (Or to put it more cynically, money)
Seriously? people wanting Faction vs Faction on GW2 just need to go home.
Gw1 was Humans Vs Human cause the guilds (lore) that torn the lands.
GW2 theme is unity, the dragons appeared now we all (human, chars, salad,) must put their differences behind and fight these enemies together.
I like that GW2 is trying to do something different than the others, someone needs the balls to do it, not that they get it 100% of the time, but they are trying, someone on this stale market is trying.
But thats your MMORPG forums: "Do something new! wait i mean do exactly like that old mmo"
So why is it called Guild Wars? Shouldn't it be Dragon Wars?
Because they started they lore with conflict between humans...
"Throughout the centuries, the continent of Tyria found itself in constant warfare. The multiple Guild Wars raged across human lands - constantly ending and starting again, creating a series of wars between Humans."
..and now are bringing the theme of unity(which MMOs need).
That would be like changing the name of a book series just because the 2nd book focus in other aspect(even though all the juice is there).
Now we are going way off-topic :x
now: GW2 (11 80s). Dark Souls 2. future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord. "Bro, do your even fractal?" Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
Everyone starts with storage for materials that can store 250 of each material. Also materials can stack up to 250 in your inventory.
Everyone starts with 20 slots inventory + 4 bag slots. Each bag slot can have up to 20 spaces.
Everyone starts with a bank tab that has 30 slots.
If you are going to play the game just to level up a couple character (lets say 250 hours) you do not need to spend any money over the game price.
If you are going to sink thousands upon thousands of hours, having extra storage, having extra bags, having your material collection hold up to a 1000, is useful and improves quality of life.
Even then you can turn in game gold into the gems that allow you to buy this.
The fact is that there is no MMORPG with infinite storage.
As I said, I quit playing pretty early. I have no idea how it works now, only that when I started, I had very limited storage space. I don't expect infinite storage space. You guys are focusing on the wrong thing.
I don' t like games that hide their costs behind the content. You say I can play the entire game without ever needing to spend a dime beyond the box cost, I'm sure that's true. Though how much spending money improves quality of life is another question.
Even all of that aside, I didn't like the quest system or the combat. If you like those things, and you like the game, that's great. It just didn't work for me because of the reasons I stated.
Wheres the poop? I smell something, and I see a lot of deflecting and defending going on, but I don't see a lot of action. Where is the PROOF that population is healthy? If its so great, why do they hide the numbers behind fake population levels?
Arent we going to be right back here in a year saying nothing has really changed?
All games obfuscate their numbers to a certain extent. All the numbers actually shown are partially lying anyway.
You know what's weird? Looking at my Civ 5 achievements on Steam, comparing to other players and realizing that almost a third of the players have =never even started a city=. That's crazy. Are they ever going to come and announce 'We sold this many copies, but actually, this significantly smaller number is the amount who've played the game even 5 minutes'? Doubt it.
Here's the only things really important in a game population:
1. Can I find people to play with.
2. Does it have enough people that it's able to continue as a functioning game and not close down.
The problem with 1. is that all day long you're going to fill the thread with people saying 'I play the game and there's nobody anywhere. All I could find was tumbleweeds in every city.' and 'I play the game and there's a TRILLION people, standing right where I am. I'd take a screenshot but my computer just EXPLODED'. It's a 'he said' 'she said' situation, and I'm not going to get into it because it's silly, it's mostly people saying 'I experienced this' and other people saying 'no you didn't'.
2. can be measured by looking at the health of the company and the gaming infrastructure and releases, so that isn't purely opinions and personal experience batling it out. Here's what we DO know.
2a: Arenanet currently has more employees than it did at release. If the game is failing, this state OBVIOUSLY cannot last much longer, unless you are willing to propose that NCSoft is actually running GW2 as a charity, out of the kindness of their hearts and goodwill towards man.
2b: They still have the same amount of servers, and they have not changed their payment model. The first one doesn't necessarily mean much (See: Obfuscating numbers), but that pushes this into the same personal opinion category. The payment model hasn't changed, and if the game isn't doing well enough, this is often one of the solutions used. (See: SWTOR, RIFT, TSW, and many other games slightly less recent)
2c: Releases. They claim to be working on more. If nothing happens in March/April, after the close of the current Living Story season, this could definitely be a sign of growing problems. On the other hand, if there ARE major releases, and it keeps their monetary stream healthy, then apparently they're still doing fine. A lot hinges on this point, actually, if they can show that they can continue to release things, and get the desired response (Customers) (Or to put it more cynically, money)
Sounds like excuses. The only possible reason they cant tell us exactly how many people are logged into a given server at a given time is that some people would think it looks bad, thus hurting their sales.
AFAIK EVE is the only MMO out there that isn't scared.
... Even all of that aside, I didn't like the quest system or the combat. If you like those things, and you like the game, that's great. It just didn't work for me because of the reasons I stated.
Now this is a completely honest and valid reason for not liking the game and one I can respect. No BS, no lies, nothing made up, it simply wasn't done in a way you liked. I wish everyone could be this clear and honest.
Personally I love the event system and the combat and am hooked on both. Different people, different likes.
Does that include enough room to store all the chests you won't have the keys to open because you don't buy them off the Gem store?
You can have a stack of 250 chest occupying only 1 slot.
If you don't like the chests, sell them in the TP or destroy them
If you really want to open the chests make a human character, choose commoner and do the personal story. 25-30 minutes later you have a black lion key. Open your chest.
You can also some of your in game money, buy gems and use them to get keys.
And that's what I hate about cash shop games. They make you pick and choose between doing the activities you enjoy and spending money. With a Sub game and I mean a true sub game not these hybrid messes you don't ever have to make these choices. If I wanted to create a human character because I though it was fun I would but I would never do it as a way to bypass the cash shop. I don't play games to make those kinds of financial based choices, I play them to have fun. The only financial choice I should have to make is every 30/90 days or so deciding if I want to renew my sub or not.
GW2 isn't as bad as most of it's peers. It's not as good as TSW which doesn't do lock boxes (gambling) or real money in game currency (GEM's) but it's a step up from most. If they got rid of the lock boxes and GEM exchange it could be a great game but they won't do that because those two things makes way more money than charging for the occasional DLC would ever be able to.
If you want to open the black lion chests you have several options.
Using human commoner is the fastest. You can delete it and get 2 keys in a hour.
If you don't like humans, every race gets a free key at personal story level 10. It will just take longer depending on the race and particular path chosen.
You don't want keys this way?
Well you spend in game money to buy one.
You can spend real life money.
You can safely ignore them and just open them when you get a key from a random drop (very very rare I've only seen one in 1500 hours and my GF got one as well) or when you get one from completing a zone, certain PS missions (10, 30 or 31 and 50) or daily reward.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Comments
Only took my wife and I 3 weeks to walk away from that trash heap
I'm sure I quit before those quality of life changes. The amount of inventory space to start was very small. Between gear and crafting mats, I ran out quickly. And yes, I was doing cooking.
That by itself isn't the problem. It's a systematic problem of hiding charges behind content rather than being transparent about the costs. Maybe somewhere they have a list of everything that you need to spend money on, but I'd venture to guess that most players don't know they have to pay for something until they encounter it in the game. I'm just not a fan of that and I won't play games that are monetized in that way. Tell me what you want me to pay to play your game and then leave me the *@#&; alone.
What are you even going on about? There's nothing you have to spend money on at all. They expanded everyone's inventory by a huge amount with the free collectibles tabs they added for foods and other materials too. You don't need to spend a dime if you wish, and you also have the option to convert in game gold into gems to purchase fluff items if you wish. There is no mandatory spending beyond the cost of the box, period.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Everyone starts with storage for materials that can store 250 of each material. Also materials can stack up to 250 in your inventory.
Everyone starts with 20 slots inventory + 4 bag slots. Each bag slot can have up to 20 spaces.
Everyone starts with a bank tab that has 30 slots.
If you are going to play the game just to level up a couple character (lets say 250 hours) you do not need to spend any money over the game price.
If you are going to sink thousands upon thousands of hours, having extra storage, having extra bags, having your material collection hold up to a 1000, is useful and improves quality of life.
Even then you can turn in game gold into the gems that allow you to buy this.
The fact is that there is no MMORPG with infinite storage.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
"We are in a death spiral mates! Lets expand our staff by 50 people! It is ok isn't it NCSoft? It is just another $500K a month!".
NCSoft the world most renowned publisher for being charitable...
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Does that include enough room to store all the chests you won't have the keys to open because you don't buy them off the Gem store?
I am just laughing at the naysayers. Many of them said, 'We want a living World'. Well the Living Story is an attempt to try and give that. Then they say, we don't wont that now, we want what we want. The problem is, they don't know what they want. FF game? NastyWinter? I tried both and they were awful waste of code. Nothing coming out is piquing my interest.
Complaining is a common part of the human condition, it is so funny that people make it seem A.Net stole their milk money or something like that.
The game is B2P, like the games of old. That is a tried and true business model.
The Black Lion chests? They stack to 250 as well and you can sell them on the Trading Post if you don't want them, so yes, yes it does. You may want to keep a few around though, I've gotten my share of keys as drops in the game or rewards for map completions and the like.
Oderint, dum metuant.
You can have a stack of 250 chest occupying only 1 slot.
If you don't like the chests, sell them in the TP or destroy them
If you really want to open the chests make a human character, choose commoner and do the personal story. 25-30 minutes later you have a black lion key. Open your chest.
Delete the character. Repeat.
You can also some of your in game money, buy gems and use them to get keys.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Yeah, I have a guild that seems to be about 90% poor people for some reason, and they've all managed to deal with their storage without spending a dime. Some of whom are even worse hoarders than me.
The simple fact is that the CHEAPEST (Since gold and gems are interchangeable, you can actually make this statement and have it make sense) method of expanding storage is in order, 1. Alts up to your 5th character, 2. Bigger bags, 3. Guild banks. 4. Additional alts.
Buying bank tabs would be 5, and bag slots at 6. If you're buying bank tabs with gems, you're going with one of the least efficient methods of expansion.
Note that the most efficient way is actually free, and 2 and 3 are best spent using gold rather than gems (Since you lose value on a gem to gold conversion). Only the least efficient ways use gems.
People have broken down the exact cost-value of this sort of thing, it's not even very hard.
I will admit that at this point in time I have several bank tabs, but it is because I am LAZY (Yes, I admit it. Lazy.) and budget myself around 15 dollars a month in gems for pure convenience.
With some of the recent changes I've found I don't even need that many bank tabs, so I'm in the curious position of having a few EMPTY bank tabs.
I think the basis of the problem is that because spending money is an OPTION, when it is a possible solution, people tend to go "AHA. This it the solution to the problem! Arenanet is making you spend money!', while in an MMORPG where you hit the same problem (But WITHOUT the option of spending money), you would simply learn to throw things away and stop being such a horrible hoarder.
(edit: Looking back I was like 'why the heck am I saying this?', and then I realized that I just like explaining things to people. TWo days ago I had one of my friends give me screenshots of her inventory/bank so I could explain to her how to tidy it up (#1 hint: See all that food? Eat it and get fat. Stop hoarding all that food you don't need. Alternatively, put it in our guild bank. Every cook in our guild puts food into the bank as a communal thing for all players). Then earlier today I was teaching two level 20s how to play for the first time and introducing them to the wonders of the 'deposit collectibles' button. As a Demon Lord Hoarder of the first order, I am surprisingly expert at cleaning up inventories and teaching others what is actually important. (See that wig? Throw it away. Throw it away now. Stop carrying around that wig.
< Also, eat that magic find item. EAT IT). Is this my new hobby, explaining how to keep a beautiful inventory? 
)
Oderint, dum metuant.
Wheres the poop? I smell something, and I see a lot of deflecting and defending going on, but I don't see a lot of action. Where is the PROOF that population is healthy? If its so great, why do they hide the numbers behind fake population levels?
Arent we going to be right back here in a year saying nothing has really changed?
And that's what I hate about cash shop games. They make you pick and choose between doing the activities you enjoy and spending money. With a Sub game and I mean a true sub game not these hybrid messes you don't ever have to make these choices. If I wanted to create a human character because I though it was fun I would but I would never do it as a way to bypass the cash shop. I don't play games to make those kinds of financial based choices, I play them to have fun. The only financial choice I should have to make is every 30/90 days or so deciding if I want to renew my sub or not.
GW2 isn't as bad as most of it's peers. It's not as good as TSW which doesn't do lock boxes (gambling) or real money in game currency (GEM's) but it's a step up from most. If they got rid of the lock boxes and GEM exchange it could be a great game but they won't do that because those two things makes way more money than charging for the occasional DLC would ever be able to.
And you aren't disappointed by the unfulfilled promises made to wvw? The inability to adapt any of the thousands of suggestions for improvements?
So why is it called Guild Wars? Shouldn't it be Dragon Wars?
All games obfuscate their numbers to a certain extent. All the numbers actually shown are partially lying anyway.
You know what's weird? Looking at my Civ 5 achievements on Steam, comparing to other players and realizing that almost a third of the players have =never even started a city=. That's crazy. Are they ever going to come and announce 'We sold this many copies, but actually, this significantly smaller number is the amount who've played the game even 5 minutes'? Doubt it.
Here's the only things really important in a game population:
1. Can I find people to play with.
2. Does it have enough people that it's able to continue as a functioning game and not close down.
The problem with 1. is that all day long you're going to fill the thread with people saying 'I play the game and there's nobody anywhere. All I could find was tumbleweeds in every city.' and 'I play the game and there's a TRILLION people, standing right where I am. I'd take a screenshot but my computer just EXPLODED'. It's a 'he said' 'she said' situation, and I'm not going to get into it because it's silly, it's mostly people saying 'I experienced this' and other people saying 'no you didn't'.
2. can be measured by looking at the health of the company and the gaming infrastructure and releases, so that isn't purely opinions and personal experience batling it out. Here's what we DO know.
2a: Arenanet currently has more employees than it did at release. If the game is failing, this state OBVIOUSLY cannot last much longer, unless you are willing to propose that NCSoft is actually running GW2 as a charity, out of the kindness of their hearts and goodwill towards man.
2b: They still have the same amount of servers, and they have not changed their payment model. The first one doesn't necessarily mean much (See: Obfuscating numbers), but that pushes this into the same personal opinion category. The payment model hasn't changed, and if the game isn't doing well enough, this is often one of the solutions used. (See: SWTOR, RIFT, TSW, and many other games slightly less recent)
2c: Releases. They claim to be working on more. If nothing happens in March/April, after the close of the current Living Story season, this could definitely be a sign of growing problems. On the other hand, if there ARE major releases, and it keeps their monetary stream healthy, then apparently they're still doing fine. A lot hinges on this point, actually, if they can show that they can continue to release things, and get the desired response (Customers) (Or to put it more cynically, money)
For the same reason why the first game got this name. A lore event.
You should look it up.
Because they started they lore with conflict between humans...
"Throughout the centuries, the continent of Tyria found itself in constant warfare. The multiple Guild Wars raged across human lands - constantly ending and starting again, creating a series of wars between Humans."
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lore
..and now are bringing the theme of unity(which MMOs need).
That would be like changing the name of a book series just because the 2nd book focus in other aspect(even though all the juice is there).
Now we are going way off-topic :x
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
"Bro, do your even fractal?"
Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
As I said, I quit playing pretty early. I have no idea how it works now, only that when I started, I had very limited storage space. I don't expect infinite storage space. You guys are focusing on the wrong thing.
I don' t like games that hide their costs behind the content. You say I can play the entire game without ever needing to spend a dime beyond the box cost, I'm sure that's true. Though how much spending money improves quality of life is another question.
Even all of that aside, I didn't like the quest system or the combat. If you like those things, and you like the game, that's great. It just didn't work for me because of the reasons I stated.
Sounds like excuses. The only possible reason they cant tell us exactly how many people are logged into a given server at a given time is that some people would think it looks bad, thus hurting their sales.
AFAIK EVE is the only MMO out there that isn't scared.
Now this is a completely honest and valid reason for not liking the game and one I can respect. No BS, no lies, nothing made up, it simply wasn't done in a way you liked. I wish everyone could be this clear and honest.
Personally I love the event system and the combat and am hooked on both. Different people, different likes.
Oderint, dum metuant.
If you want to open the black lion chests you have several options.
Using human commoner is the fastest. You can delete it and get 2 keys in a hour.
If you don't like humans, every race gets a free key at personal story level 10. It will just take longer depending on the race and particular path chosen.
You don't want keys this way?
Well you spend in game money to buy one.
You can spend real life money.
You can safely ignore them and just open them when you get a key from a random drop (very very rare I've only seen one in 1500 hours and my GF got one as well) or when you get one from completing a zone, certain PS missions (10, 30 or 31 and 50) or daily reward.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders