May 2009 XTH distribution

To be frank, I am extremely disappointed that the XTH will not be coming back. I had a lot of fun every month actually getting into the PvP scene as a spectator and rooting for this team or that team because I, let's be honest, wanted to make the most money or the most Z-keys. But in the end, it was actually fun to use the XTH, not entirely because of the money, but because it built a bridge that allowed me to feel in the tiniest way that I was involved in PvP, at least as a fan. I'll never be able to PvP, and I don't really have any interest in it. But, in a way, it was like discovering a whole other half of the game. Whats more, I am especially disappointed that it's not coming back after we were told it was being worked on and that it would return. And that it seems to be a flagship case, and precedence dare I say, for many such additions and fixes that were, or still are, severely delayed.

BUT I understand the amount of work that is going into GW2, the limited man power that Arenanet has, and especially the limited team assigned to GW1. At this point I realize that GW1 is in maintenance mode, and that pretty much all effort at Arenanet is being shunted towards making GW2 a great game.

To that end, I applaud the GW1 team and Arenanet for not simply dropping the XTH and leaving it at that, but instead giving all the players a compensation gift of HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF TOURNAMENT POINTS! *crosses fingers*

Seriously though, it is nice that they are compensating the players for the trouble associated with the XTH when they really don't have to.

@Magma, jeez. I mean, come on. For one thing, as others have pointed out, it's a game. I realize that there are people who were unduly screwed out of a nice big pot of points for May, I think I might have been one of them for that matter. But how many people remember how many points they got now that it's nearly a year later? At this point, I'd be happy... no, actually I AM happy to simply be receiving anything, especially if they do give everyone a big bunch of points instead of a small, paltry sum. And your factory analogy is just... really bad. No one is starving because they didn't get the points (as your analogy to real world money implies), at the very worst they might have been slightly inconvenienced for not getting a few K or so on top of their usual income for almost no work. It was basically free cash in the first place.
I don't see why it is such a bad thing that Arenanet is compensating the entire playerbase for the troubles with the XTH. That is, after all, what this is about. It's not about distributing the points to those that got them, it's about compensating the player base.

At least wait to see the reward. If those people who would have won hundreds and hundreds of points because of the XTH are given, say, 20 points, then fine, you'll have grounds to say they were screwed over, I'll join you in that sentiment. But my vote is to wait and see how it's actually handled before we grab the pitchforks.

Those excuses are supplimented by the fact that they aren't recieving a monthly principal for any of their efforts [unlike games like WoW or Aion..]; it's all free. So, I for one don't blame them. Just be grateful they still give us anything, tbh..

I'd rather noone gets zkeys than having my zkeys worth 2 plat

Who doesn't like free money? This is free money, therefore I like it.

Still lulz though.

mmm thanks regina, so i remember first Claiming your Winterfest Tournament 2006 when xth start, lets claim wintergreen weapons in the end of xth now plx.
soz imn english.

OK so I have 2 accounts. Each account was owed 120rp. As I got 0 points rewarded at all. So I may be lucky to get a couple of rp out of this but nowhere near what im owed.

Where as someone who got every point they should have. is now gonna get free points?

Nice job.....

The person who wrote the code can decipher Kun Shao. Pull him off of GW2 just for a week. I would bet ectos that he could do the job. It's all programming/code anyway.

Guild Wars 2 >>>>> Xunlai Tournament House

It's understood that GW1 is a free-2-play, and ya'll don't have any incentive to continue investing time into coding everything for $0. Resources are a product of money and time, and ya'll don't make enough money from GW1 to support it. It's only logical after all. Just be blunt and honest about it. I certainly wasn't born yesterday; I understand F2P's business on the surface at a very minimum. No $$$ = Little --> No Coding. We're appreciative for just about anything ya'll hand us nowadays. ._.

bear in mind, this is by their choice. they're choosing not to receive any principal by deviating from their original business model.

if the distribution itself is not a problem (as was stated and as is evident by them injecting accounts with rp's) then the problem is calculating X, injecting X and having X remain X once injected. i'd have to agree with above, i'm not an advanced coder by any means but it doesnt sound so "gw2-shatteringly" difficult to fix.

amagad free gw cash! make me rlly happy

btw what are you all going to spend it on?

Its their idea of saying 'sorry' to the GW playerbase for their screwup with the XTH.

They are saying, "Unfortunately we could not fix the XTH without pulling valuable resources from the production of GW2 so we decided to make it up to the XTH fans and the GW playerbase for stuffing up by giving everyone free Zkeys to show we care about them and about their game."

It's gift, take it or leave it.

This, which could be paraphrased as "You guys are annoying and never pleased"

I can't believe it, you people act like little children... Is there ANYTHING they can do not leading to all this ridicolous and deliberate moaning?

If "economy" is what you care about, the answer is simple: DON'T get keys with TRPs, or use your keys instead of selling them for gold.

Same with "fairness": you feel like you don't deserve those TRPs? Don't use them, or be happy with this gift given as an apology for the whole XTH fiasco.

Is anyone going to do this? Guess not, so please, get a grip and don't pretend you care.

+1
we can easily imagine that those who hasn't played in xth in may would have played later, in the following months. so yes, giving every account the same value of points, maybe even top one, is the best option if they don't intend to fix the xth. and as it seems they can't spare the resources on that, they have finally made up their minds and chose this way to deal with the xth.


the beautiful part of this is that everyone's keys are going to get spiked down for some time, but they eventually will get back up.

give us 20zkeys and just change them all to non tradable from now on

Holy F@$% people!!! First everyone was unhappy with not getting the points from May. ANET comes up with a solution to correct that, keeping their word as much as possible given the circumstances. Now people are unhappy with that solution for whatever reason. Seriously???

So many people were pissing and moaning about how not keeping the promise of distributing the points was horrible for the companies image and would affect GW2 sales. Just for fixing this I think I will buy 3 [email protected] copies of GW2!!!

I am happy that my initial loss of some keys is causing EVERYONE to get keys! If my loss equals a gain for all that rocks! Especially when in the end it is not really a loss.

Rock on ANET appreciate the fix

From FAIL into even more FAIL... Bad move here, it should just have died and be forgotten, but instead it gives out one last huge burst of fail... Making promises was wrong and this kind of 'solution' is even more wrong. Because who will benefit from it? Ofcourse either the holders of lots of accounts or 'nubs' who would never get even 1 ZKey in any other way. But for everyone who earns ZKeys regularily through normal gameplay the free ones will barely balance out their VALUE LOSS.

I was always against giving out any free meaningful stuff and this case is a perfect example of what I hate. Good to see I'm not the only one.

/agree.... though if ppl in gw REALLY cared about the economy they'd have stopped ruining it by doing all speed clears.

KEYS WILL NOT DROP THAT FAR IN PRICE FOR THAT LONG. PERIOD.

the xth was distributing keys for a freaking eternity before it got taken down, and being exploited by the hundreds that have all the accounts. BUT the price barely shifted under 4k for keys so long as the title was around. so ONE month isn't going to have an effect lasting longer than probably a week considering all the people that either
A. Wont get the keys cuz they hadn't logged in the time given.
B. Will use all their keys
C. Yet another 300 z-services pop up and suck all the keys in anyways.
D. Be honest... for all the people that have like 30+ accounts... who the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO is going to remember the character names on the damn accounts to get past the security question to begin with?

This issuing of keys wont be around for that long... at least not long enough to RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO the economy. now stop bitching and take your FREE present that you've bitched about not getting for 8-9 months now and be happy plz.

Their drastic tone-down of quality support should come as no surprise to ya'll. "No money, no honey" is applicable to almost any type of interest in life. The "honey" in this case is "content/updates", which we really haven't paid for if you think about it. We paid for the the game itself, but support is not something a "one-time" fee can ever realistically cover. The microtransaction market they have up is kind of weak to sustain support, too. I mean, who in their right mind's going to buy makeovers or name changes?! Those things should be FREE, not for a quarter of the price of an actual game. Maybe there're alot of rich kids that can afford to splurge on those lame offers, but I for one would never bother with those offers because they're downright garbage. Dipping into Aion's money market takes away resources from Aion, and it would only work for so long anyways.

It's no use crying about, or demanding support and content [or the lack thereof]. I insist that we all just save our breath, jump into some other MMOs and wait it out until GW2, or even D3, is here. Wasting time beating the same dead horse won't achieve a thing. So get over it.

*waves @ XTH [reason(s): GW2, and coding for no monies iz baed].*

I never got any of my reward points from may 2009 prediction so I'm happy becasue I'm going to get some now.

But I still dont like the idea of giving to everyone a fixed amount of points. At least give to those accounts that were registered at tolkano before may 2009 or accounts that were created before may 2009...That shouldn't be hard to filter.

i like the idea of basing it on the accounts registered from then or made before that... now tbh i dunno how difficult that would be but it doesn't seem like it'd be hard.

i think they want to be fair with the whole community and repay somehow for leaving the xth broken for so long. they may just want to fill the 'hole' made for those nine months and as well reward people that might have joined the xth during that period rather than paying out only may predictions.
even though i was there in may to place my bets, i don't see it anyhow faulty.

I agree with your first sentence, but not the rest. This was a smart move.

Honestly, I always just assumed that Anet lied about having an accurate count of the points just to tide us over. And whether or not they did, this is still a nice gesture considering all the problems and the wait.

''After much analysis and discussion, we’ve decided to permanently retire the Xunlai Tournament House. ''


end of discussion thank god, one down after a year 4 to go...close thread ^^

Is an egalitarian one-time distribution really worth this much vitriol?

I seem to remember one-time tax refund checks being popular, and those have negative long-run consequences...

Whoa. You mean you can't stimulate an economy by dumping money into a temporarily savings minded populace and still expect to cause the rebound of the economic value of materialism? Mind = blown.

While I'm glad that I will at least be getting something for my participation in May, it definitely is undermined by knowing that those who didn't even participate will be getting this boon as well as multiple account holders getting the reward on all their accounts regardless of participation.

I never say no to free gifts if I really get something ( did not submit a prediction)
But from the very beginning i thought it ridiculous that you could get gifts worth 10-20-30k just from random clicking. Or free gifts much bigger just for having some knowledge about who are tops in pvp. Its only the fact that this made ppl buy more accounts expecting to get something in return that is a problem. Anet cashed in the dollars and then failed to give the return. I was about to buy an extra account when I realised that xtc was about to be messed up forever, and then I realised that I actually bought this game because its fun to play. Not as some kind of economic investment. The free gifts were out of proportion and too big compared to other freebies in GW like CNY gifts etc.
I fully understand that they dont want to spend resources rebuilding this concept that should never have been there from the beginning.

Enjoy the last freebies from this dead carcass and move on.

1) If you think the general populace had an understanding of the implications (both short and long run), you're crazy. Death of the American educational system, blah blah blah.

2) Basic principles in both cases are the same: small quantity of free stuff => you're really quibbling over minor distributional effects?

This is a waste of electricity.

1 time distribution to all accounts, less work, go

A couple of friends and I went to a pizza place for lunch buffet. We paid our 10 dollars each and grabbed a plate. I was last in line. The first guy had a plate stacked with pizza. The second guy only got a couple of pieces because there wasn't much left on the buffet. I didn't get any but the manager said they would be bringing out more pizzas so I went and had a seat and drank my soda while patiently waiting. After an hour and a half the assistant manager came out and said there were some problems in the kitchen and that I should just come back at a later date. I was upset... Then some guy standing beside me said, "You should stop complaining about not getting free pizza."

Pizza = reward points
Buffet = XTH
Pizza Place = ANet
$10 = $40 I spent on my account

The whole "stop complaining, it's free" statements are just plain stupid. If you want to get technical, EVERYTHING in GW is "free stuff" once you've purchased your account. The game is in death throes. Let it die gracefully.

ANet... If you don't have the personnel needed to maintain existing features, then stop adding new ones. And please, please, please stop posting inadequate/untrue information. I can't speak for everyone else but I would prefer that you just say, "We're going to do our best to maintain the game in it's current state." than to read conflicting and sporadic information. It makes you look incompetent. Just shoot it to us straight.

That analogy is completely faulty. It would be more accurate to say something extra that was not pizza was added to the buffet, but they ran out. And then their supplier could no longer provide the ingredients. You can still get the pizza. Analogies are bad.

Pizza = Game content
Buffet = Guild Wars
Menu item that is not pizza = XTH
Ingredients for non-pizza = points

Everyone that is angry about this issue just needs to calm down...were playing a game that first doesn't have a monthly subscription. Second if they have an issue with the game and are willing to fix and give everyone a little reward for our time, even if it isnt the full reward you were supposed to get, you should be grateful . After all its just a game you know...

I'm not sure if this might be an age thing or not. Growing up had someone offered me something for free.....I'd be lucky to get it. If I complained, my parents would have made sure I did not get it and them smack me upside the head for complaining. In this manner I learned not to complain about free things. The whole mindset of "I'm owed something for nothing" is completely lost on me. Guess it might have to do with how ppl were raised, maybe not. I just know my parents would nvr allow me to act in such a manner when I was growing up.

Just have to be grateful for the things you have.

I bet someone at Anet predicted just these responses... I mean I could do it easily. The History of the XTH goes as follows;

a) Playerbase X is happy that free RP are distributed. Playerbase Y however is unhappy that playerbase X is getting free stuff which they had to "work hard" for.

b) XTH goes down. Playerbase X throws a shitfit because their free stuff deliveries dissapeared. Playerbase Y laughs.

c) Anet says they are working on re-establishing the XTH. Playerbase X splits into Xa and Xb. Xa is extatic because their free stuff is comming back. Playerbase Xb is realistic and says it wont happen. Playerbase Y splits into Ya and Yb. Ya throws a shitfit because the free stuff is comming back, Yb is realistic and says that wont happen.

d) Anet state that the XTH wont come back but they will distriute free stuff to all. Xa throws a shitfit because the XTH isnt comming back. Xb throws a shitfit because its only a one time thing and Anet are taking the easy way out. Ya throws a shitfit because the players Are getting something they had to "work" for. Yb throws a shitfit because they feel like it and then continue to throw a shitfit at Xa, Xb and Ya because the free stuff is something they didnt deserve at all and on one else "Worked as hard as they did"

While all this is happening Playerbase Z is having a royal merry time, because we coudlnt care less, are das that the XTH dissapeared but wouldnt loose a nights sleep over it. However we have had a blast seeing all the kids kicking and screaming the whole time due to various reasons.

Alright, guess I'll go sell those left-over zkeys while they're still in the 5k range.

It's free, so I'll gladly take whatever's on offer. Can't see the downside myself.

hahahah

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uhhh, I don't think anyone is getting anything.

Like I been saying since the XTH broke... it should stay broke... because its is basically printing more of a secondary guild wars currency and giving it away for free...which is really bad for the guild wars economy.

As for all those people that said there entitled to free keys because that is why you purchased accounts....

I told you.....