Give ArenaNet a Break...

I keep seeing so many threads about general discussions that keep turning ArenaNet into terrible people for neglecting GW, saying that they don't care about this game anymore and are solely preoccupied with getting GW2 out the door. I've mainly seen these comments in the 7th year birthday presents, duping and JQ botting threads.

The thing is, they haven't completely disregarded this game. The servers are still running, updates are still happening, and support is still answering emails.

Yes, they are trying to get GW2 ready. They pushed it back many times and have made us wait for it, so I'm sure they were tired of listening to some people constantly bitch about it.

ArenaNet isn't like Blizzard. They don't have thousands of employees to work on three new games simultaneously and keep an already huge, existing game up and running. ANet a relatively small company, and always has been. They're working on a new game that's huge and different and I'm sure requires a lot of resources and manpower, so naturally, the GW1 team isn't as big or busy as it used to be.

I've always liked ArenaNet as a company. Hell, they're better than the company I work for. So I just want to know other people's beef with them. I understand if there was a legitimate problem but complaining because they recycled minipets? No.

Thank you! I have played this game for 6 years. And have more than got my money's worth. People who complain about Anet don't understand business, dont understand MMO's, or Think that they know better than the Pro's who made/keep GW running. If you dont like the game then please quit. That is all

I'd rate duping and botting as "legitimate" problems.

Agreed. However, though the duping fix is squarely in the ANet developers' court, aren't ban hand-outs the responsibility of NCSoft support?

Well said, thank you.

I agree totally with the sentiments they do an amazing job too keep this game going for the last 7 years.i do have 1 suggestion to make to anet, since they are working so hard on gw2 maybe they could look at using Rcons like we do in bf3. Buy allowing a select trusted few ' like the people that run this site, to become rcons and handle some of the in game botting and duping problems.

This might achieve some of the comunties complaints and also allow anet to focus on there development of gw2.

cheers phab

That is because they are almost "solely preoccupied with getting GW2 out the door". What is the percentage of resources thrown at GW2 versus GW1? Do you really think that ANet spends equal attention to BOTH? Of course not, if they have, our GW1 Live Team would still be busy working on GW1 updates and our ele update part2 would have been live by now.

So you are saying that the duping and botting problems are not important and should just be totally ignored?

The 7th year birthday presents kind of suck but I couldn't care less because I have already resigned GW1 to repeating birthday presents since most of GW1 resources got sucked into the black hole of GW2 release priorities.

Just ask any manager in any game company if they can do better with more resources and the answer would most probably be "YES"! All of them are just doing the best they can with the resources that they have using the process called PRIORITIZATION - Ignore the low priority stuff and focus on the high priority stuff first! If they think that GW2 is more important than GW1 then they would tend to ignore GW1 customers and pay more attention to GW2. That would be just like any other profit-seeking organization that I know of.

so could you guys clarify between ArenaNet and NCSoft? are they 2 seperate companies and how do they come together when it comes to GW? sorry if these seem like noob questions i just dont know. thanks

Short answer: ArenaNet is part of NC Soft Corp. They are the actual developers of Guild Wars, where NC Soft is the marketer and owner. NC Soft also owns Lineage, Aion, City of Heroes, etc. NC Soft manages "linked" accounts, such as when you tie your GW1 account to a specific email when purchasing, say, extra character slots or storage panes.

On-topic, I won't give ArenaNet a break until they start paying attention to their PvPers again. Not "throw 'em a bone" like this AB update, but actually give PvP life again. PvPers have long memories though and aren't as forgiving (hence why most of the hardcore players have moved on to other games, namely League of Legends).

If GW after 7 years out isn't perfect and need the same resources as GW2 to be a good product, then it is another problem altogether.

More Anet wouldn't be investing whatever millions they are investing on GW2 on GW anyway - those resources are being invested because they are expecting GW2 to be a bigger title than GW in terms of sales. GW already peaked.

Additionally I'm a costumer of Anet GW and GW2 products and I got my return of my money invested on GW already. And I'm not the only one on that situation.

I definitely know that duping and botting are problems. I was just pointing out the specific threads I saw these discussions in so it didn't seem like I was pulling stuff out of thin air.

I'm not too familiar with some of the duping problems the game had, but from what I've read, there were many bans and such. As for botting, that's really my only issue with the game right now in terms of ANet's care and attention to it (the players are a different story entirely.)

Some people, if you gave them free gold would complain about the weight

Some people, if you gave them a bag of feces. would say thank you and use it as fertilizer.

moral: some folks are never happy, some folks can make lemonade no matter what lemons life throws at them

I love how everyone just assumes that A-net isn't doing anything. We have absolutely no idea what they are up to in regards to duping. As mentioned numerous times I think manpower is an issue but also don't you think they want to be cautious with GW2 coming out? If I was them I would like to make sure all my ducks were in a row before items were deleted or the banning starts. For all we know they have a list of names and are checking everything out. They are a business and need to take that into account before making poor decisions.

I couldn't be happier with how A-net has done. The game is 7 years old. They release free content, it is free to play, there are very limited interruptions in service, I can't name another game I played consistently that I have owned for 7 years.

My sentiments exactly.

Anet have done a relatively good job over the span of GW's lifetime, I agree with that.

HOWEVER, the reason for the majority of the recent threads and complaints is totally legitimate. Both Duping and Botting are causes for concern, and it shows a lack of progress made by Anet in clearing them up. Bots have been running unchecked in JQ for ages now, and duping is yet to be officially recognised unless it was patched secretly in the last update.

I don't have any beef with anet, lets face it the game is 7 years old. We all got out moneys worth from this game, and its almost time to move on. Its a business, they need something new. Hence GW2, its all hands on board for GW2.
Quit whining, you guys here complaining, why they taking so long to release GW2, well they are working on it. At the same time, you guys also bitch about these bots and dupers, and why haven't they fixed it yet. They don't have enough resources to deal with both. I'm sure Anet cares to some extent about these bugs, but GW2 is their number 1 priority, and their big ticket item. Keep in mind, its also the most anticipated MMO of 2012, thats a lot of pressure on them.

And sometimes they throw feces at us and tell us it was gold. To most of the longtime players we feel like this has happened more than once.

Heres my 10 cents worth
Anet`s support is probably having a crap time due to gw2 client affecting gw login ( seen that mentioned somewhere and i assume its quite a few ppl ) , players returning after year+ and forgetting login details etc , dupes , botters , pvp reports.
Every problem that arises anet has to investigate - otherwise we`d have complaints on here xxx was banned for leeching because anet never checked.
We have also to assume each time certain complaints arise like errors/bugs/glitches support has to log it and pass it onto the techs to check out and this itself may take time - we all know something could affect 10% of the players and 90% thats left dont have the problem and trying to recreate the instance it happened may not be that easy.
Remember Anet isnt 1 person but several teams in different areas - otherwise id be hating anet for constantly having incorrect event starts on login and failing to announce events - i just hate the ppl who are meant to put the info up and seem to be unable to for unknown reasons.

If someone did that to me (6 year player here) I wouldnt stand around asking them to stop or to change their ways...I would leave.

I dont feel this has been the case. Its a great game...ANET's game. Bots and Dupers are people who RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO with the game and ANET has done more than most company's would have after this long (imo). There has always been and will continue to be bots and dupers...at this point if YOU feel ANET is to blame then its deal with the "feces" or leave.

Far as im concerned thats gold being thrown my way and Ill hang out and collect.

I agree with all of your statements, but I just had to LOL at this one, in light of Blizzard's recent nearly complete crash of their servers (for ALL games) due to being really stupid at the launch of d3 (a game that took 12 years, as opposed to GW2's 5 or so). In all the years I've played GW (coming on 7 now I think), I've NEVER seen a downtime of more than like, half a day. They're surprisingly quick about fixing stuff, and frankly my GW2 experience so far has made me pretty willing to forgive them for being preoccupied on it and not "fixing" gw1.

As they say though, haters gonna hate: the recent release of this Xunlai Baker NPC was of course met with a number of people whining because it made titles too easy, or because they'd already given away their trade-able items.

Yes, it's a 7 year old game, but the fact that I'm still enjoying it after 7 years kinda says something.

And some people tell life to take the lemons back! They get mad! I don't want your **** lemons!

Fair enough, but "more than once" does not equal "often". Sure, I feel that sometimes updates aren't wonderful - the Energizing Wind nerf back in 2007 that made it almost useless for trap farming comes to mind - I don't think this is the norm for ANet. In fact, other than the rare skill update that makes a certain build (or class of builds) unworkable, I can't really think of any MAJOR update that has caused be to think "wow, ANet's idea of a good game has really gone to seed".