How Disposable are Guild Wars Players?

[Disclaimer : NOT a complaint thread.]


I am merely curious what our individual worth actually IS to A-Net these days. How far along the chain from individual personages to the error-margin on a statistic have we become by now?

One tends to notice in smaller communities that individuals do have some measure of worth, since loss of an individual will significantly deplete the community... and when one does something disapproved of, there tend to be measures taken to reindoctrinate the individual.
In larger communities like this one (yes, Guru) and as is becoming the trend in online games, it becomes gradually easier to just get rid of the folk who act against the social norms or make a mistake here and there.... as they will easily be replaced by new users within a short space of time, and their loss won't make the slightest dent in the community. People gradually become as itchy skin cells to merely be scratched off and replaced with new ones.


So just how far along this line of thinking ARE A-Net now?
Is it getting as extreme as it had at Neopets for example: a site where, due to a minor infraction on the part of my ex-wife's younger sister, both of their accounts AND several of mine were permanently banned (and I'd been playing it since the very beginning)?

How much of its player-base will A-Net quite willingly ostracise or eradicate in the course of progress?



I cling to the game presently, and actually forcibly control myself to a level of discomfort in order to just play the game... but I have no doubt it is just a matter of time until I am flicked aside as if I'd never existed.

Eh?
Sorry but I lost you there ...
Is your question about Anet's policy on banning accounts?
About the EULA?

Do you phrase your question about "individual worth" from an ethical or financial point of view?

What the hell do you mean by "control myself ... in order just to play the game"? What else should you do with a computer game?

Is this what people call trolling?

Does this make any sense to somebody out there?

It's just a game. There are more important things you can do, like find a cure for cancer, or plant 1000 trees.

Your individual worth to Anet = merch value.

Already paid when we bought the game so we're not worth anything to them

$50 minimum, $200 maximum.

It's not a question of disposablity, it a question of what an indiviual impact one person could have?

Answer would be nothing, not one, two, or even ten customers really mean anything.

For one person to really make a difference, that one person would have to reach out to a new audience of consumers not biased by GW already, and explain to them all the negative reasons Anet's product, Guild Wars is not a smart investment, and if you do it right, then and only then will you impact them to a point of responce.

Anet is a company and a business and its profit and money comes above anything else. Including its customers and those who play their games.

Yes they need to maintain a certain degree of PR and to keep ther customers happy, but at the end of the day.. profit is more important. Any PR relations are purely to ensure they dont get a bad name.

The Cheif Execs at Anet arent sitting in their Office worried about whether the last 100 people who bought one of their games are enjoying it and will stick around for the next 2 years.

Their enjoying the fact they just made another wod of money and couldnt care less whether you play it or not.

It might be a different story if a game was subscription, but even then... its simply about keeping you hooked and nothing to do with caring about the player.

But im sure some Anet staff are extremely dedicated to making the gaming experience fun and enjoyable and like to think people stick around, but unless they know you personally, their not going to give 2 hoots to whether Joe Blog leaves tomorrow.

They still have another 1000+ players to keep happy.

But I dont understand why your connectin the guru to Anet?

If people leave or join the guru, its no concern of Anets. There are dozens of GWs fan-sites online and hold 100s of players. Guru isnt the only one and how guru conducts its business is not Anets concern either.

Aslong as the guru doesnt break copy-write issues or posts anything illegal, that is all Anet is bothered about.

Even Gail posting every now and again is purely PR. It not because she has any huge love affair with every single player ingame or member of guru. Its purely to give this impresson the Anet staff listen to us.

So the simple answer is no, we dont matter to Anet. Atleast not the chief execs and the share holders who only want a quick profit.

We might matter to the odd game developer or mayb Gail, but not on a personal level. No offenc, but I doubt the CE or Gail would break down in tears if you or I left the game.

Aslong as they continue to sell copies and they get new customers, their happy.

All these updates we get arent just to make the game better, their to keep us interested. Not because we necessarily need them, or because Anet wants to impliment them. But because they want to keep us relatively happy.

The weekend events being a perfect example. Their hardly well thought out, but they do the job of pulling people back in for the weekend atleast.

The same for festivals. Anet only does that to get us back into playing, not because its a nice thing to do! Its all advertising and keeping the customer happy.

I expect alot of Anet staff scream blue-murder at some of the stuff we ask for and the way some poeple behave, but they have to keep smiling and do as we ask... to a degree.

You forgot "or at least step outside and get your annual dose of sunshine", hra-hahahaha.

Hahaha, omg... why is it the first thing that came to my mind after reading that was of a someone in LA/KC/or wherever spamming "WTB player for 400g or best offer"

Your disclaimer made me curious about your post. After reading it I concluded that the disclaimer and the content of your post do not match.

QFT, i dont understand what u want to accomplish with this thread

Soticoto, take a break man, get out of London for awhile.

Hey! you never know, she might has a hot for one of the mod here.

Anet is your best friend until you buy their product. I was sold when they said that we would get to level 25. Then as I was a few hours into the game, I asked my guildmates on coms where my levels are and they said that anet changed their minds just before the game release. I felt I was scammed at that point.

All publicity is publicity, no matter if it's good or bad. If someone rants about a game, other people will go and check it out. If you make a rant about the game and how from the start up to date how it's gotten worse, skills messed up, ect and 20 people read it, half of those go and check out the game and they all like it. Anet lost you but gained 10 new players, They have your money so it doesn't really matter if you stay or leave.

I reckon GW players are as disposable as WoW players that pay $13/month.

One one hand, they can be worth pocket change after they hand over their money, on the other hand, they might be worth the whole company.

Sorry, but you have shown in the past that do not understand the limits, are not willing to compromise, and will push forward to the degree that breaks every single rule there is for starters, and gets even further to a personal degree.

Sorry, but this isn't true. You don't get mass banned anywhere of "minor infraction". If you rob a bank, but only steal $17, that counts just as much as robbing $17 million. It's the nature of violation within the context.

When you say "almost as bad", then realize that mods here are surprisingly reasonable. With the degree of violations gwguru faces daily (just against the rules of the site), people really don't get banned often. You really need to break something in a very blatant fashion.

When people cry about "they don't care", they don't realize what it looks like on the other side.

Who should I care about? A fish? A freaked out fish? Well, it makes me chuckle to image a fish freaking out. But that's it.

There is no face behind the forum handle, not a person. There is nothing I could touch and relate to.

To establish any kind of relation, one must first have a face next to a name, as well as history. This is why people love grind and titles. Those give an anonymous character history. Something that defines them.

Or better yet: Do you matter to every person you meet on the street? Would you notice if one of them vanished? If you simply wouldn't meet one of them anymore?

People too often mistake what $40 buys. It buys a product. And company develops a product. They have demographic analysis, user feedback, long-term strategy, costs, and all that stuff, which is then used to develop a product.

But ultimately, the product is on the shelf. At that point, people will buy the product for the product - not the company that makes it.

MMOs are quite dangerous, since they toy around with certain social aspects which can cause certain side-effects. Or perhaps, due to social nature, they just bring those in plain sight.

Ultimately, how much do you matter to a coal miner that is responsible for providing heat to your house? Or the oil miner that supplies you with fuel for car? Or the farmer, that sows wheat that makes your bread? The question is irrelevant - they make a product, and try to improve the product.

Same thing here, things are just more compact, and the distance between producer and consumer is much shorter.

I'd buy a few pre-nerf players for 1 ecto each. It could improve both PUGs and PvP.

Boy, this thread is really a testament to how great a game Guild Wars really is! Several people here have expressed what I would precieve as great hatered and distrust of Anet, yet the product they have produced is of such great quality these people cant bring themselves to leave the game or community. In fact, several of these "haters" are very active posters here at Guru!

Today's world seems to have developed a deep mistrust of any business. I don't blame people considering the decade of corprate corruption and scandle we have had. But I tend to trust small companies much more, and Anet, with under 1,000 employees, is a small company. A small company's prioritys need to be 1)Employees 2)Customers 3)Profit, because without good employees, you wont keep your customers, and without customers theres no profit.

Now Anet may be put in a slightly diffrent position being owned by NCSoft, a large international corparation you can mistrust all you like, but I belive their core values are still that of a small company.

But to end this rant before I go on forever; to answer the OPs question, check my list of priorities of a small company...that is how the individual is valued by Anet.

Anet's business plan is built around getting customers to buy the game and then getting them to stay and keep buying more expansions/chapters. They require players to become attached and actually LIKE the game and become interested in the other chapters.

---------------------

If you want to make a profit, you need customers. If your business plan requires REPEAT buyers, YOU DONT DRIVE THEM AWAY.

The fact that Anet bends over backwards to please this community (who is never happy with anything they do anyway) is proof of that.

Each player is valuable to Anet because we are all potential repeat buyers.

I think I actually agree with the general scope of what you're saying (a sign of the Apocalypse, I know), but I just had to point out the fallacy in this concept that just keeps coming up.

Subscription or not, all games companies have an interest in keeping their customers happy: Because they want their customers to keep buying new product. In ANet's case, they want people to buy GW2, and then the expansions that follow. In the case of a subscription-based game, they want people to renew their subscription.

Either way, they both have an interest in keeping their customer base happy enough to continue buying product - but if given the choice of, say, gaining a million new players at the cost of engine goreding off a hundred thousand old players enough to make them quit, the difference between a subscription-based model and a non-subscription-based model isn't going to change their decision.

In short, there is no intrinsic reason why a subscription-based model encourages the company to care more about its existing players. At best, a subscription-based model just makes them a little more sensitive to those players they do lose - but I'm sure most companies with non-subscription models realise that just because they already have the money for game X doesn't mean they're not at risk of losing sales for game Y if they get a bad reputation. It just means they'll feel the difference a year or so down the track rather than in the next month.

Trees plant themselves, and I don't give a toss about cancer. Thanks anyway, but I'd rather play Guild Wars.... even if it is until I invariably end up on the wrong end of someone's itchy report-finger.


Some people / companies will ban for any infraction, no matter how minor. Just because you don't think it happens doesn't mean it doesn't. Many things happen that some of us just haven't ran into yet.

I'm not saying A-Net do it yet.... but I'm suspecting that is the direction they're headed in.

I look at it this way the people from A-net that have there hand in design, maintenance, implementation, and community relations. They take the time to look in the forums and communicate with the people. These are the ones that care about the game to the degree they believe in it and wish for it to grow. We are very important to them. Then there is the flipside the financial side the people who look at the numbers they are the investors. They are the ones that worry about financial aspect more that anything else. This is where people change from important to percent. Whenever money is involved it always seems this way. Are you a Believer or an Investor?

From what I have seen of Anet:

Anet's primary concern is to maintain a good name as the creator of a certain type of game. They create quality games, they maintain these games, and they do their best to make these games as attractive as possible to as many players as possible.

If Anet sees that something is too hard to do, they make it easier to do (for example, the EotN faction changes of the last patch). If they see somethig is overpowered, they will lower its power to maintain balance.

They may not be perfect at it. Some changes may not be the ideal ones. However, in general terms, Anet has managed to improve the game with the changes they made.

The last post by the OP seems to suggest the core issue is the problem of getting reported. Think of this:

(note that "you" is used as a general term here, and does not apply to any individual). The report itself is still only a report for Anet to review. The only case of automatic consequences is if you get reported by several people, which leaves only a minor negative effect.

If, however, you want to play the game in a way that disturbs others playing the game (leeching faction, generally griefing gamers etc.), then you are making the game less pleasurable for others. In this case, you are a negative asset for Anet, as you drive people away and effectively tarnish Anet's reputation.

Huh, according to another thread, Anet listens too much to their customers...

The same as any company that wants repeat business.

Hmm. Fril Estelin made some really good points. The problem is it's hard to see from our point of view, because the more of us that play the game the more of us will complain about it.(and praise it) It may still be the same 1.5% that complained at the beginning but WE think it's the end of the world because there were a whole 100 people that revolted on the forums. (out of the 100s of thousands/millions that play)
In reality it may be exactly the same % that we all called n00b at the get-go.

Anet can look a play data from ALL it's customers and see what it is that people tend to do or stay away from etc.. It IS possible that more players enjoy the changes they make than dislike, weather the forums accurately reflect that or not.

To try to get this "on-topic" (if there is such a thing):

Is the main point of this thread how much power Anet should have to ban people?

Well, that power should be absolute. After all, they make the game, they decide what actions are deserving banning or not. It's not a democracy, it's not up to this forum to decide.

That said, obviously, if Anet bans everyone then the game fails. The fact they haven't done that, leads me to believe that Anet is somewhat fair in it's decisions.

A-Net has a responsiblity to the entire GW community. And sometimes the needs of the entire community will not align with the desires of individuals. I'm very happy to see that they've finally realized that they need to improve the community aspect of the game:

1. A-Net finally saw the light about people spamming trade messages in local chat and what it did to the community and took action to rectify it. Many individuals complained about it. But the end result is that there are more conversations going on in places like Kamadan and LA and the sense of community has improved (a bit, there's still lots of room for improvement), and trade goes on just as well as it did before.

2. A-Net finally took steps to deal with leachers & leavers and other obnoxious persons in-game by adding the /report feature. This is another step in repairing the fractured community. As easy as it is to use, people won't be so quick to act like perfect little twits. Compared to the old system of reporting bots, spammers, gold sellers, leachers, leavers and all that, it rocks!

Are they leaving the individual behind for the sake of their own selfish desires or the collective community? No, they're taking care of the type of patrons that they want to attract while discouraging the type of behavior they don't want messing up their product.

Think about it: As a company, does A-Net want to keep the 5 or 6 honest players upset because they allow 1 person to leach away in a AB, or do they satisfy the 5 or 6 players by dealing with the 1 selfish jerk?

If you really want an example of poor customer service, just look on the codemasters forum for archlord. They were a subscription based game, then went free to play due to poor development and poor customer service. It really makes you appreciate what A-net do.

Opinion of what?

Guild Wars is a product. You either buy it or don't. That's all there is. There is no philosophy, or deeper meaning, or anything.

But constantly repeating the same old mantra gets old, especially when it doesn't make any point beyond what everyone who ever bought something with money knows already - you get what you pay for, and you are free not to buy anything.

It's not rocket science, it's by far the simplest and most common transaction in everyday life.

And when dozens, even hundreds of your posts get deleted, that's a hint, that some topics, views, or other issues are irrelevant to this forum.

There's other GW forums. Perhaps those would be better suited for moralization about the ethical complexities over metaphysical existence of Anet's relation to the ether in which customers exist.

It's a game for $49.95 for Pete's sake. What do you expect? Royal treatment? Butlers, body guards, masseuse, '76 Pinot?

It's a game you buy, play, and leave. And buy another one. That's all games are. And looking into anything more, including "I quit", "Anet lies", "OMG A NERF" is simply usual forum nonsense that some people feel is necessary. The problems start when people start believing what's written in such forums, and actually develop emotional relation to the company and the product.

C'mon - do you also ponder the relation of Shell towards its customers, and how much you are worth to them?

There is no relation - it's a mutually beneficial relation with no emotional involvement. The second one party perceives the benefits as insufficient, the relation is terminated.

Only Sith deal in absolutes. Banning everyone is nonsense.

That line is a great lesson in irony.

Well, the choice to buy or not to buy & your reasons for doing so are totally based on your philosophy & your ideas of worth. Some people choose not to think when they buy (and can afford not to) others have great intention & deliberation on how they use their money.

You don't always get what you pay for(that's why there are so many business ethics issues & laws defining them), and the reasons behind not buying or buying are based on an individual's idea of what is right or allowable. Also, how dose one make a product (that they endorse, but have specific issues with) better if the only options are buy & not buy? These ideas can go through people's minds in a split second, days or they can ignore them entirely. It doesn't mean they aren't actual issues.

Here it might just be a game, but because it's a product & the same ideas that exist on more urgent matters do apply, people apply them. It's really not that simple Antheus.

The community is only as good as the moderators of the community.

So if a game is plagued by spam (not ingame spam but spam for pron, and off game services and products), or if a game is plagued by cheaters, or griefers, or racists or other abusers of language, then the value of the individual's account is less than the damage done to the community. MMO customers have come to demand the banstick to keep communities from degrading.

Funny story, I was playing in a mostly unregulated game and a community of high level griefers (who achived high levels and top gear before the rest of the server by running bots) would hang out killing low levels (basically players who didnt bot) 24/7 and they would target specific individuals and just folllow them killing them and taunting them with racial slur until they quit... this happend to a friend of mine and he was only able to stop the griefing and racial slurs by responding with crude gay sex come ons...

I hope you dont have to ask "should Guild wars be like this?" because its pretty obvious that the devs have not targeted Guild wars to be like that. Proper use of the banstick has its place.

Lets face it, you need to turn away some customers, the griefers, ragers, racists, and cheaters or the rest of the players will leave in droves. Just like AAA restaurants may not like to serve that homeless person who smells like the sewer (alienating the rest of the patrons with the odor), It is not worth the business of players who cant follow the rules and function in society.

I dont know why you got a mass ban in Neopets, but if it was for breaking the rules you really cant complain.

Ok, I'll try to stay on topic here (although, personally I predict that it's a lost cause and this thread will be locked before the end of the day).

Arena Net cares about the quality of the "neighborhood" in game. They want Lion's Arch to be a city that people want to visit. For example, let's say that you have been elected mayor of a real life city. This city is a tourist town and most of the city's revenue comes from tourists. You will then spend your time and effort making the city a beautiful place to visit. You'll try to clean up the slums, plant nice ornamental trees, install spacious sidewalks, entice businesses to open in the area, etc.

If a citizen in your nice tourist town is running rampant around town committing crimes and scaring away the tourists you are going to put a stop to him. If you don't, your town will get a reputation for being a seedy place and only seedy people will visit. Perhaps this is the type of tourism you are trying to attract? Some cities do. If you instead want a reputation as a great place to plan your family vacation you get rid of the trouble makers.

Game worlds are no different. As a gamer you know that certain games have bad reputations. Your buddy talks about such and such a game and you say, "nah, I don't like that game. It's full of cheats and hacks. Don't waste your money." or "Only 8-9 year olds play there. The towns are full of rubbish. It's boring."

Arena Net has an investment in GW and they want to protect their investment. They want gamers to come to their world and enjoy their time there. Most gamers do not enjoy games that are "full of cheats and hacks" so A-Net will do their best to stop cheats. Most gamers also do not enjoy themselves if they have to put up with immature players being a nuisance in town. There will always be immaturity and profanity in town, but if you are constantly causing trouble then you'll eventually find yourself on the wrong side of a banstick.

It's all about protecting the community as a whole. If you come to a real life tourist town, you'll encounter the following folks:
1. Other tourists (casual gamers)
2. Residents (hard core gamers)
3. Business owners and workers. (Folks like the guru mods and GMs that try to build and contribute to the community)
4. Muggers (players in danger of being banned.)
5. City employees (Arena net employees. Some of them have ban power like police and some are simply garbagemen that are there to clean up the database and keep the code straight. Others are city planners that build new quests and places for us to explore.)

A-net needs to find the perfect balance between making their city a nice place to visit and crossing over into a police state. Just as nobody wants to take their family to a seedy lawless wild west town they also don't want to visit the police state where their car is stopped and searched on each street and they are in danger of prison for the slightest infraction.

So far, I think they are doing a good job maintaining this balance.

True, and not true also. One of the reason I kept playing GW is that it's actually a little bit more than a "game" (as in the fantastic "Half life 2" or my oldie "Magic the Gathering" or the fun "Civilisation IV"), it's little services like the Holiday events, a community that is sometimes very helpful and thoughtful, cool and fun stuff alongside very annoying stuff (but well, I often-but-not-always blame myself, I should get into a guild, change more often my build, farm a bit).

I DO think Anet cares about "us", but I'm not sure what "us" it is. I simply feel I'm in it and the OP feels the contrary (or the trend to push him out, which may only a feeling and not a fact). I often try to put myself in Anet shoes and I feel that they're doing a amazing job, trying to please so many people with so many views and "needs", keeping to unpopular (in the very general sense, meaning the whole gaming population, as for the no-monthly-fee decision, or the realistic-beautiful-art take on MMO) but bold moves.

In NO WAY I feel disposable, and apart from people complaining on forums (and even then it's not the whole lot!) I don't think many people feel the same (gathered from what people say). Gaile may be critised for being PR, but which game offers you such a close contact to the company? I don't feel disposable, I feel almost part of the "Anet family" (though a long distance cousin ), one that will stay in the family even after GW2 and will support a fantastic team of devs, artists and people!

This is a quote from the first page, and I haven't read the rest of the thread yet, but I had to comment on this...

People who say things like this need to understand something very important: even though we've already bought the game, we are still worth a lot to Anet. Why? If we like the game enough, we'll tell our friends to buy it, we'll spread the word about how great a game GW is (hypothetically). So our worth to Anet is the amount of new players we bring to the game.

People who act in an anti-social manner create negative value within a community. For every one of them you allow to remain, you lose a number of others, enable the creation of ill will and a fractured community, and prevent the gain of a number of new members. One bad apple can spoil hundred of others. By contrast a good apple, barring some unusual factor, tends to improve only a small nexus around itself.

Tossing out bad apples does not hurt the community by their loss, it helps the community grow.

So the answer to the OP's question is that disposability of a player depends upon what kind of apple they are.

Does Anet care? You bet they want to sell games. Will they miss you or I if we rage the game? Nope. Will they like any company try to keep the MAJORITY happy so they stay in business? Yes. This is basic business .. can't make them all happy but you damn sure better keep the bulk of them happy or plan on chapter 11.

This is not a thread about Soticoto. Sorry. Please keep on topic.

GW doesn't have a monthly fee. Once you bought the game, ANet has gotten everything out of you they are going to get (barring more chapters/expansions). After the initial purchase, ANet probably doesn't really care about whether or not you are completely satisfied because there is no monetary incentive in keeping you happy (once again, barring future chapter/expansions). As long as a plurality of GW players are content and there is more "GW - Yay!" than "GW - Boo!" going on in the gaming world, is it probably safe to assume that some players could indeed be considered disposable.

To the OP I think the bottom line is if you do not find Guild Wars enjoyable anymore then do not play. It is as simple as that. For all the complaining about the lack of monthly fees leading to a lack of concern over player happiness, you are neglecting to mention the one glaring bonus of a lack of monthly fees. That bonus is that you can quit any time you like. Go out and get laid or whatever you want to do in the meantime,hell play WoW if you want to but Guild Wars will be there when you want to play again. All your loot and characters will be intact and everything.

It never ceases to amaze me the number of people that say something similar to you here; It is as if the option to quit for awhile never occurred to you. Why not take a break? What do you have to lose by doing so? the only conceivable reason for you to stick around in a game that you plainly state causes you discomfort to play is if you have some sort of twisted martyr complex or are a masochist. Any reasonable and intelligent human being would cease the discomforting activity.

In the end you are complaining in this thread despite your disclaimer and, like so many others before you, your complaints are baseless since you have the ability to quit at any time and yet you choose not to. A Net is not to blame for this. You are. Complain about yourself if you want to moan about your discomfort.

Paranoia: baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others