How Disposable are Guild Wars Players?

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