What is happening to this community?

Here's my take on it; I'd thought of starting a new thread, but this seems like a great place to put it.

Developing software is not exactly a cakewalk. The process can be very complicated, and you can never account for every single thing your end user is going to do.

ANet lists 9 QA engineers. 9 QA engineers will *never* find all the bugs that 1 million+ users will. It's just the way of it, and I speak *as* a QA engineer on a product that is very widely distributed myself. We do our best here where I am, but we will never catch all the issues that a user out in the "wild" might come across. Users are part of the process - users do all kinds of things, users find good issues, and users also need to be patient with the process. For 9 QA engineers? They've rocked the freaking house!

Software development can be a rough road, and something like GW has it's own particulars. On one hand, because of it's online nature, bugs can be addressed quickly. On the downside, you can have thousands of people freaking out about it in the meantime because they expect the solution now. It's not that easy, folks. Just because there's a "bug" does not mean that the dev team looks at it and goes, "Oh yeah that's right here in the code." Often times, an in house repro is needed to debug. Other times, it's not a matter of being something that can even be debugged. Then you need to create the fix, then test the fix to make sure it break anything ELSE. This can take days or longer - it isn't always a 24 hour turnaround.

There's non-disclosure agreements where, as much as the staff would like to tell you something, they simply can't until they're released to do so. Deadlines, schedules, the list goes on and on. This is hard work, there's a lot of pressure to deliver.

I've also been in Gaile's shoes, where I've had to deliver bad news about an issue to the customer. I've also had the pleasure of telling a customer that the issue that's been bugging them for years is now finally fixed, and get the according "You rule!" and get to do a dance down the hallway. I doubt there's one person in my division that could say they've never seen a bit of bad communication cause issues. These things happen; software is a very fluid beast, it's always changing. And one of the first things you learn in software: you can never, ever make everyone happy. ANet listens better than most companies out there.

The bottom line for me is that I appreciate GW a lot more for knowing how the process can go. It's not easy, and I personally appreciate the ANet staff *a lot* for doing a great job delivering us a beautiful and fun game. The work put into it is stunning, the artistic quality is top notch, I love the character options, all the new and interesting aspects and goodies, and the fact is, the game shows that everyone that was involved loves it, too, that they wanted to make something that we'd go "oohhh" over. Trust me, they go oohhh right along with us, and there's nothing better than knowing at the end of the day that people appreciate the work you do.

THANK YOU ANET for a fabulously beautiful game that I don't want to put down.

Heck if I was motavated enough I'd go bake the biggest batch of brownies ever and take it down to their office. But then they'd probably think I was stalking them.

-Eli/Kel

No, but they should find the ones that are apparent after playing certain areas of the game for five minutes (hint: try playing with henchies in the city). I can understand niggles or bugs resulting from unanticipated user actions slipping through. The obvious stuff, though...

Perhaps it's because I've been frequenting GW-related forums, but it does seem to me that the GW player base is a lot whinier than usual. People literally complain about everything.

Stop being so cheap man, $50 is nothin. That boils down to $2.50 an hour just to beat the game if you do it in 20 hours. Thats not including the countless hours you will probably spend on challenge missions/quests or pvp. If you played prophecies for a year you probably racked up close to 1000+ hours at about .5 cents per hour.

Just go buy the game or start playing another game.

people complain about everything. it's not just the GW community -- people just like to complain. They complain about stuff they pay for. They complain about stuff that's free. Everything. It's the nature of people. We just see a lot more of it here because, after all, it is a forum.

I agree, but some of the obvious bugs should have been addressed in the month following the BWE. The henchies getting stuck on NPC or on corners and what not, should not be an issue. I don't have the skinny on the game engine for GW, but it seems to be basically the same game engine with the same type of code that Anets been familiar with for the past year.

Hmmmm, hire 10 QA engineers if 9 doesn't cut the mustard. I personally think that more of the issues could have been fixed if they had more BWE's leading up to the release of factions. Prophecies had several BWE's.

I have 2 copies of factions, but really haven't had time to play it much yet. I have no doubts that I will get my moneys worth once I start playing. Time that I did get to play, I saw some of the same issues with getting a group. I started a rit and an assasin and had difficulties forming groups. I had to hench most of the time.

Its a huge community, with a lot of differend opinions. We call it a community because we all play the same game. But gamers are just individuals hoping for some hours of fun a day. They may launch ideas others don't like. Thats no problem as long as reactions are trying to counter those ideas with respect. But that's a little bit too much asked in such a huge community

Another thing is paternalism:

-"you should have read the box..."
-"Go play PvP..."
-"Its called GUILD wars..."
-"12 year old kids don't belong on high levels" (I'm so good)
-"Finally they made it too difficult for those pugs" (I'm so good)
-"Finally only skilled players can beat missions" (I'm so good)
-"Hey, show here how GOOD you find the game guys " (money, money, money)
-"Ban all runners"
-"Glad this is finally nerfed"
.........

To me somehow this FEELS wrong, creepy, eerie... The community of respectables, of obedience. Yes I'm glad there are still people who raise their voices, sometimes in a way thats not much appreciated. I think there's nothing wrong with that!

Lmao, your Guru name says it all!

Hey, they could hire me as their 10th! :: laugh :: I might have a different view on it because of the massive amount of testing that I know I have to put into my product - a product cycle is only so long, and you do what you can, but it's a very challenging job, and with the potentially high churn on a game, stuff can slip through. And testing a game is funky; most QA engineers don't just sit around playing a game all day as there's a lot more to it than that, although I can't speak for ANet's specific team because everyone approaches QA differently.

I think the more BWE idea would be an ideal solution - it's like free testing. And as we all know... free is a good price.

Good post. Paternalism is a HUGE pet peeve for me. We all pay the same price for the game, and play in whatever manner we choose. I may voice my comments here on guru, point out things I dislike, what have you, but I always try and make the point that it is just my opinion, based on MY style of gameplay. Regardless of what the box says, etc... we each have a choice of how to play, and everyone should respect that.

I occasionaly PvP. It is nothing interesting. It has no value. There is no chivalry at all or maturity in more than small doses in these areas. I know a few PvP players that I do respect - very few. The muchacho machismo held by so many makes it not worth my time. I occassionally take a ranger into RA to spike up a few points to open something for my skills traders. Beyond that I get nothing for PvP. I can foresee nothing to gain for putting up with the mentality of the majority.

Every PvP match should begin with a meeting to salute one another out of respect. Every PvP match should end with a meeting to salute one another out of respect. This would serve two purposes - without the salute from each player the event would not start. All players would load before returning to their station for lock down before the bell rings to begin. Further, an player being disrespectful to the defeated or victorious could then be banned (from PvP or game) and learn something about manners and what was once called gentlemanly competition. Currently we are not even given the opportunity to respect our opponents.

It is not possible to find this the case when you got a few days on the Pre-order only and then must wait until potentially mid-July to play again. Nerfing done to MM skills is across the board in both campaigns, but new skills to balance out the tree are all in Cantha and unavailable to Prophecies MM's. Nor am I one to ever accept apathy as a viable option. Determinining something is fun requires access, which a great many do not have because of the fiasco of bad marketting and worse production and distribution.

I am always going to be paternalistic, but I do not think in the sense you mean. I will always consider it my sacred and patriotic duty worth the cost of my life to stand against any wrong and any injustice. For this reason:

1) I oppose the failure of ANet, NC Soft, and their retailers to coordinate more efficiently and do the job needed to provide the products promised and paid for in a timely manner.
With today's technology, access to forums, ability to obtain order reports from retailers, etc. there was no excuse for this failure.

2) I vehemently oppose any attitudes, policies, rules, regulations, etc. which neglect the flexibility necessary to consider the real lives of people who play the game.
The Favor system, which allows access to certain areas of the game, is only for those who live a certain schedule and denies opportunites for more casual players or those with alternate life schedules to their region. The attitude of if you want it go win it means nothing, as once you have won it and map out to get ready, it can be lost before you have a group assembled to go in. And this still does not support the casual or some disabled players who can function well in a group of familiar friends but will never have the time to create the tallent needed for HoH.

3) I adamantly oppose any attitudes, policies, rules, regulations, etc. which restrict non-malicious personal expression.
The attitude of one must be in a guild, the largest, biggest most powerful guild in order to play, have complete access, acquire things desired, etc. or should get less for their investment than non-casual players etc. is not acceptable nor ethical behavior.

4) The current system is exclusive by region and assumes a few things inappopriately:
A) We are not in a global community where friendships will be fostered without regard to nationality, native language, and borders; thus preventing friends from playing with and supporting one another, inspite of artificial divisions of region, is considered acceptable.
B) All players will be adequately supported by the peak hours of their region; thus they need no alternatives to allow access of play for their regions in off-peak hours.
C) Setting up and fostering regional opposition and animosity without providing for and supporting chivalry to undermine that animostiy is acceptable. (They forget it is easy to hate the faceless person behind the toon whom one can label as a Euro, Yankee, D**n _____, and 10,000 more pejorative terms and then carry that seed into or reinforce it in adulthood.)

Fitz

Even though Factions offers a lot of new content, it has MANY problems.

1)There are countless bugs and glitches. Some are bad enough to make ppl restart a mission.
I dont like the increased gold drop rate. -- Now ppl are goint to flame me, and say that it is good to eliminate grinding, and so on... BUT. If you want everything to come easy, why not make every gold weapon avalable for free to every player? - This should solve your grinding problems permanently.

2)Quests are way too damn long. (Example: Naphui Quarter)
Apparently Anet assumes that GW players have absolutely no life, and can spend 2-3 hours on a mission. Well, even though I have no life, I am at least trying to do something about it, and these loooong quests are not helping.
Please dont tell me to stop playing GW and get a life. That's a lame thing to say. I still enjoy GW and want to play it, but spending so much time on missions is ridiculous.

3)Many people talk about how much they love the new weapons and items.... but did you notice how many of these new weapon skins are simply LAME??
Yes, some new skins are awesome, but a good part looks like it was quickly put together and stuck in the game just for the heck of it.
Some examples: Dadao sword, kockatrice staff, wolf hammer, grining dragon axe... I can name many more.
C'mon Anet... I know you were trying to get the game to us as soon as possible, but if you couldnt finish some weapons, or didnt feel like doing a good job on them, you might have as well not bothered with those at all.

3)I dont like the whole plague/mutilated bodies/mutation theme.... What's up with everyone's obscession with blood, gore, horror, desease themes these days?? (This is just my opinion, if you like that, good luck to ya)

4)Many armors are nice, but many are lame. Most helms are lame... Where is the samurai helm/mask?(like the one in "Last Samurai")
C'mon.. this is asian inspired game!

5)Assasin looks anorexic... Their armor looks like it was rushed. Even the Fow Assasin armor looks like crap.

I can go on and on about the many things that are wrong with Factions....


In the end, I'd like to say that no matter what, I still like GW, and I will play it, but I feel like I should give my 2 cents in hope that Anet will read this and take notice for the future.

I think part of the reason is that the original game was so good (pretty much from the get-go) that now people are expecting A LOT. Prophecies had many changes for the better to make it what it is now an excllent, pretty much bug-free game. But when Factions came out, everyone is still expecting the SAME amount of excellence that Anet delivered 1 year ago, and apparently it can't be done from the first week of Factions being released. I say, have faith in the developer that you have known to love because of Prophecies, and just wait for fixes to come.

lol for one pandora, every mission except last can be pwnt with henchies
for 2, this is not a rant, im just worried about what will happen to the pve'ers after they beaten all the MONSTROUS 9 missions for their side, and cant access elite missions cuz they are not in a wtfpwnage guild
for 3, i agree, just wait a while then !!!LET THE BITCHING BEGIN!!!

If your idea of the GW "community" is just the forum community, I'd say that's where the problem lies. Of course the extreme ends of the spectrum will be more vocal.

I think this just about sums it up. Are there problems? Sure. Will Anet address them? Absolutely.

Whats my one thing I don't particularly like? The looooong quests, not just the missions, I mean just the side quests. Sometimes I start on one and just plain don't have the time to finish it. Then I dread coming back to it because I know it will consume ALL the time I had set aside to play for the night.

Does it piss anyone else off when you see PvE scrubs invading a game that was always meant to be a PvP game?
Sure, GW has some decent PvE, but let's not forget the reason why most gamers were anticipating it oh so long ago '04.

Yeah, getting a Vizuneh Square group sure is a lot of fun as an assassin..

err, NOT.

Come to think of it getting any group as an assassin is a royal pain in the assassin.

That is relative. It may be nothing for you, but it may be a lot for someone else. Stop making these false declarations, downplaying the cost.

It's because of lovely people like this poster that I (and many other people) get turned off PvP after initial experimenting.


Thanks for proving a point.

Fitfty dollars accoounts for a little over 7% of my allowed monthly income. The seventy-five dollars for the Colectors Edition accounts for almost 11% of my allowed monthly income. The state I live in has determined no single person on social security/disability needs more than $693.00 per month for groceries, fees, licenses, rent, electircity, water/sewage, propane, vehicle insurance, gasoline for vehicle and lawn mower, vehicle maintenance, phone, emergencies, dental (which medicaid/medicare do not cover except for minors), etc. Some elderly in homes have been reduced to an allowance of $30/month. (Believe it or not there are people over 20 that play, most I play with are at least over 40.) Even the public transportation for the elderly and disabled was over $16 to get to and from town before the gas hikes. You may wish to reconsider the value of a single dollar. Or are you saying these people have no right to be entertained because they trusted in Social Security for retirement, are disabled, or are widowed/abandoned mothers trying to raise their children with some of the experiences other children have? I doubt you feel that way, or I would hope not.

Are you familiar with adaptibility to the market? You have an option, meet PvE demands or watch the profits and support of the game plummet. The bulk of the population of gamers are looking for something a little more advanced than Tekken or Soul Calibuk with prettier graphics. The game is and needs to be more than a quarterless arcade game.

If you want GW to fail for lack of interest then continue to promote a PvP only game. As it is PvP has way to much control over PvE. Your option to PvP is not determined by whether or not 8 PvE players happen to complete Hell's Precipice faster than the last team from a different region. (And you eventually reach a point where there is a maximum time on how fast it can be done just because of internet response time and recharge rates of skills; then only one region would ever have access to PvP at all.) Yet, elite/near professional PvP players have total control over whether or not PvE charcters have access to certain areas that are PvE only content.

The game has the unique oportunity to provide a variety of people the experience they want to have without having to force them to have experiences they detest, don't like, or for which they do not care. ANet continually attempts to hammer the different personalities together with force. Instead they should allow persons to be inspired when they are ready for a different approach to a different sector of the game. The ''Na-nana-na-na'' you can't play the next mission if you won't conform to PvP attitude is the enemy of everything for which a free-market and democratic nation stands.

Fitz

Nice attitude....
Now you know why so many PvE players play PvE, and don't try PvP. When you come off with an attitude like this, what would be my incentive to try PvP?
This sort of sums up what I've come across when I've attempted PvP play at any level in this game.
Guess it never occurred to you that PvE players may look at PvP players like this by now...

Quoted with an Amen and Hallelujah. This is why so many sequeled games fail. I have watched so many fall to shreds and burn in a horrible death because the developers failed to step back and admit that regardless of what their original vision of the game was, that is not what all consumers want.

The other reason sequels often fail is that developers screw with a design that worked. I've never understood that. "Wow, we have a million people playing this. So let's change everything in the sequel!" Wah! Should be more of the same. If something works, don't "fix" it.

My statement was not directed towards you, however since you decided to give your 2 cents, then I'll give you mine.

If your having money issues that's not my problem man, you should have planned better for retirement. If you can't afford to buy Factions, then don't buy it! Save your money and get it next month or when it goes on sale.

I do value my money, and that's why I save it. This allows me to splurge from time to time on things that I want, but don't necessarily need. Yes, everyone has the right to be entertained as long as it's not hurting others, but trusting in Social Security for retirement is foolish, and if you did that then you have only yourself to blame. If your disabled, widowed, abandoned by your spouse trying to raise children, these are things that are beyond your control, but you must get your priorities straight. Business before pleasure. By the way man, I'm not 20 years old if thats what you think. I'm 36 with a wife and 2 kids and I have responsiblities and problems just like everyone else in life.

I'm not saying GW pve'ing is to be shunned, I do quite a bit myself.
But when you complain and whien and moan(no one in particular) it makes me verry angry. What right do YOU have to complain daily and bitch about the most unimportant things? Don't give me that "I'm a customer" bs. ANet sees and listens, they'll get around to it.

As to pvp naysayers, personally i can't stand you because you whine too much about PvE "problems". So when you come into PvP arenas with your elitist attitudes, yeah, I'm gonna break you down.

People shoudl stop ranting on things other people are ranting about, people's opinions differ, deal with it, if they dont like it too bad, if u like it play with others that like it