Fansite Friday

Here is some other tips of where they are working on:
discuss, but keep it flame free please.

Let's all give James Phinney a big hug!!

Uhh, why?

It all sounds well and good, but we've been hearing of promised additions and changes since release, and still they refuse to even give rough estimates of when any of these PvP and PvE changes will stream in. The guild hall additions are nice, but it sounds like many of the new upgrades and changes won't make it till right before or in chapter 2, which is pretty lame, imo.

I thought the dev would go more in detail, or discuss actual things being tested that we could discuss and form feedback for Anet, but instead they were as vauge and discreet as possible, as if they have something to hide. This sounds more like a PR post from Gaile, then a developer talking about what he's programming or testing in the game right now. I guess I thought he'd be more technical, and throw out a few hints of what's changing, or share his thoughts at what complaints and issues he has with the game personally, and what his goals are for the near future (besides the Summer content update obviously).

I'll still keep up hope the game will turn around, but for now Morrowind and WoW are getting more attention then usual. I'll play hardcore when the new content update arrives, but the PvP issues are frustrating me, to be honest.

Let's all give James Phinney a big hug anyways!!

I'm now down to a 20 cents p/hour played ratio and they are still adding free content! Haven't had this value for money since BGII!

[We're currently reviewing balance on all the Chapter 1 skills ]

Yahoo, good bye spirit spamming, good bye NR, hello nerf bat. hehe

We can only hope.

Personally I think the questions which were answered were the least pressing out of all the ones I've seen listed, i mean the bonus question was a joke! I'd much rather known whether I will be able to switch my cape off in future! (Which incidentally, I dont really care about either!)

The other things, are just the same sugar coated shit we've had for god knows how long, with empty promises and tidbits of information.

Im rapidly losing faith in Anet, yes we are getting this for free, and thats fair enough but addressing problems with nothing but promises is rubbish. I'd much rather be told that they cant be bothered and we got what we paid for. So that i dont waste my money on the expansion which isnt going to address the main problems either.

Im getting bored, the PvP is all the same, theres no additional game types been added since WPE!! Feels to me like we are playing the same beta game (which is good) but with GRIND to get to what we had in beta, i mean GOD! skill point acquisition is a JOKE! Specifically for a mesmer like me, who cant go and farm up XP and with the current trends in PvP mesmers are practically a non-entity, because all there skills are SCREWED by a single ritual. So I cant earn faction either.

Stop ignoring the issues, the game has become a grind for anyone who has played it through once already! Beta players such as myself had finished 70% of the missions anyway, so it was a walk over and becomes even more so the second, third, fourth and fifth times! We have to do it though, if we want to be able to try different combinations in PvP because Faction is a band-aid job for a cut that needs 20 stitches! It just doesnt cover it.

I watched GW preview video by jeff strain (HERE) how much of what he said actually feels present in this game? "No grind"...."No Fedex"...."Jump in and play"...."escort supply train while another team is trying to stop you"..... Where is that game, cos it sounds like fun and thats what I want to play!!

Heads up Anet, people are going to stop playing LONG before the expansion so noone will be buying it.

Hmmm... it seems like the fansite people took all the various important questions we all asked, and then glommed it all into some very general ones... which received very general answers.

I really wish they had picked 4 very specific, hard-hitting, critical questions (any 4) and asked them instead. That way, instead of hearing not very much about a lot of things, we'd hopefully get some real answers for a couple of things.

Oh well, here's to hoping they do this again sometime, at least the discussions when we were suggesting questions were good.

You were honestly expecting they would pick the hard question ... this is exactly what I expected to be picked, general questions of things they wanted to talk about in the most generalist way.

Guild Storage ... how long have we hearing about that?

You could change guild halls since day 1. I know this because I sold multiple sigils to people who kept changing them. *yes I always told them you didn't have to buy them when the ferry captain took you there*

All the above just made me a very happy person.

A lot of these are suggestions I've seen throughout the community and have fully supported, such as the mailing system, a LFG option, and more guild options. I know they can't promise a timeline as to when these things are coming, but by "near future", I hope they mean sometime really soon.

I'm definitely looking forward to more guild options and such, as the guilds definitely need something to do other than GvG over and over.

I remember looking at the thread the mods made and the most common things I could remember being asked the most were about toggable capes, gwen, and droknar's rushers. Not a single thing was answered about them. With the exception of the droknar problem, those weren't big questions and could have been answered quickly and easily.

Shall we shrug it all off as a PR stunt then? :P

But seriously, it doesnt feel like much new information has been imparted there. Most of the "things to come" feels like they have been mentioned before. Nor have we gotten any real idea where the devs stand on certain divisive controversial topics where the options are mutually exclusive. They've mostly gone "Sure! We'll have XX and XX and XX, just when we can get around to it." on things which noone will complain about. Which is good, but we dont need reassurance on those things, we need them for the things we Fear Will Come To Pass :P

Telling us the names of future classes, weapons, skills, monsters would have been better. Perhaps even some basic sketches.
It would give us some things to ponder and get excited about.

Let's just hope "soon" means "soon" and not "late next year".

I hate to be pessimist, but that whole article felt like a total DODGE on ANet's part. As an earlier poster alluded to, they did not answer our direct questions. They took a few topics they thought occured frequently, lumped them together into VERY general questions, and gave them very glossy "PR" type responses.

As an active member of this community, I feel like we were used. They asked for our input (so now they can say they did) but failed to address the direct questions we wanted answered. I hate to sound so negative, especially since I love this game so much. But this just screamed "PR scam" to me.

No, they did not answer our direct questions. The point of fansite friday this week, from what I gathered, was to take what each elite fansite had sent them via their forum and then answering a slight few.

I don't recall anyone saying this interactive fansite friday would be diffrent from the previous ones... I didn't hear you guys getting upset when THX wasted some time by saying something about a character that growns stuff on it's body instead of leveling up and getting skills. >.>

Hmm, I didn't actually read anything that hasn't already been said, or wasn't blatantly obvious that it was something they had to do eventually before the game because massively surpassed by its peers.
There are no other CORPG games true, but there are games where you can host servers with 64 players due very soon, and how many people actually have 64 people on their friends list that they play often with? On a server with 64 people it is just as easy to get a PuG, party with friends for a PvE or PvP game.
The every statement was PvP, but they actually want people to play the RP game with the aim to PvP in the end, but the RP part falls short and is soon to be over shadowed by vairious released that don't have monthly fees either, DS2, Morrowind IV, Gothic 3, they may not all offer online, but they will offer far more comprehensiable RP worlds to play within.
This is not a dooms day post, even if it sounds like it, merely pointing out that for a NEW Style FANSITE FRIDAY, where they address the concerns of the gaming public, they have not actually said anything that they haven't already said, they did nothing new other than blow their own PR trumpet about how we are going to get these wonderful things to you like they have done for over 2 months now.
I hope they do add these features, they are good features to add, just that every other MMOG with a RP focus already has these features has nothing to do with it, Honest

Yeah I was really excited to read the "state of the game" and this fansite friday thing, unfortunately both were total letdowns.

Anets definately mastered the art of duck and dodge...

I'm glad that many of you enjoyed the Fansite Friday interview, and sorry that some of you did not. The questions were compilations because so many of the fansites sent related questions, and choosing one "hard hitting" question at the expense of 10 related questions didn't appear to be a good or equitable choice. As a gamer I'd rather have more information than paragraphs on somebody else's idea of the perfect question, but obviously others feel differently.

The interview wasn't intended to be a "Let's tell players all about upcoming new content." Do you see that from other companies? Honestly? I can't think of a studio that gives an outline of chapter and verse in their upcoming products; it would be sort of foolish to do so. We'll talk about it in a general sense, and we'll give information as we are able, but putting everything on a platter really isn't in our best interest. I'm reminded of a classic Rolling Stones song, "You can't always get what you want." Sure, as a fan, I would have wanted to know every skill that was coming in Diablo II, but I knew that it wasn't in the best interest of the developers to reveal that, so we enjoyed the info as we got it, and enjoyed speculating about it without expecting "full disclosure" about all the details.

If anyone thinks we're ignoring the issues, please do feel free to think again. The SotG letter and the FF interview weren't intended to be an exposition on "Here are the stats and figures on exactly what we plan in the next skill balance update." I'm aware -- very aware -- that this is something that a ton of people would like to know, but please step back and consider that the development and testing needs to proceed before we make this information public. Design teams are subject to a lot of scrutiny, and that's perfectly ok, but the process need not be put to a microscope every step of the way but is best left to a reasonable step-by-step procedure and then release. (I can hear the "But we can help you" comments already. Thanks, you can, but not yet.)

In the meantime, we continue to read your thoughts and your input on the game on a daily basis. If we don't jump into a lot of threads, that's ok. We're truly actively reading and considering your concerns, complaints, praise, questions, and forward-looking suggestions. So thanks for those, and keep 'em coming!

I don't understand what's wrong with you people. He says that you'll be getting all these interface updates and skill and balance updates and guild updates FOR FREE, when most games would make you buy an expansion pack (Yes, even Blizzard games) for them.

Duck and Dodge? What? They gave all the answers you could possibly want. They can't just toss off the top of their hat what day it will all be done. Can the company that you work for do that all the time, espcially on large scale projects? I doubt it.

I don't WANT to know what's coming in Chapter 2. I don't want a list of new classes and skills, or an exact picture of what's coming down the pipe. Please do keep all that under wraps. People who are looking for that really are nuts.

My concern was more along the lines of how our input was requested, and what ANet did with that input.

OT: I wish I was playing Guild Wars instead of talking about it, but my internet connection hates me this morning.

EDIT: I was thrilled with the mention of new PvP concepts like the old Siege of Fort Koga though. If anyone here plays UT2004... Assault is easily my favorite game type. I would LOVE to see objective style PvP in this game. I'll name my children after ANet devs if we get that.

Thanks, Gaile for your thoughts. I've been sitting here all day trying to sort out what I wanted to say about the FF and SotG. Like Sagius, I don't have a problem with generalities. I think that, actually, quite a bit of information was given in the FF and I agree with you 100% that the needs of the developers and the testing that MUST go into new content are paramount to ANet. If ANet sent out a buggy, half-finished update, the hue and cry would be long and loud....not that that's anything unusual.

The gaming business generally, and the MMO side, specifically, are cutthroat. I can understand completely why ANet -wouldn't- toss out specifics, though I beg to differ with people saying nothing new was given out.

ANet and its employees have been taking it in the shorts for weeks now. You have all handled yourselves with grace and aplomb. You all must truly wear Underworld armor on a daily basis to continue to take the personal and corporate assaults that you do.

Thanks again, Gaile. I look forward to the updates coming later this month.

5 years ago when people didn't have PS2, GameCubes, xbox's and PC's where for the wealth then sure games designers could get away with it, but to day with the sheer amount of competition in the industry, it simply doesn't happen, the point is, you either market your game as a One off, don't host servers and hope people by the expansions because they enjoyed your first game or you host servers actively seekout the market and make your game as competitive as possible, and that means having a user friendly interface, having features that are standard far in other MMOG with RP, taking the best that other games have and adding them to your own. Gamebalance is addressed and updated in every game you buy that has good enough sales as companies want to continue selling the game with good sales and launch a expansion to capitalise on the games success. Just because some games only get 1 update doesn't mean that a game with 500 updates is better, in fact I would say that a game that needs 500 updates actually either extremely buggy and out of balance. Fortunately GW is neither in a major way. You don't pay a monthly so updates are a bonus, but some of the updates could simply be argued that they where an over sight and should have been included in the original game.
One could even argue that all the Free updates are actually the stuff that the devs wanted to include in the original game on release, but did not have , a/ enough time, b/ didn't have the funds to do so. Hence the game was actually released in a basic functional for without whistles and bells, then with the money coming in they where then able to add the extras. You could even argue that the retail is actually a polished Beta that we actually paid for, which will be finished before they release the next expansion.

Or you could argue that every single patch which we have had streamed to us has been purley at the request/complaint/best wishes of the playerbase.

That has nothing to do with what I'm saying. What I was getting at was, they will obviously release these updates at some time. You should not be so hastey, becuase they could just sit back and legaly not release them at all if they wanted to, yet they are

By the way, there have been alot of unfinished games released lately. Take, for example, Knights of the Old Republic 2. A game released with an improvised ending that was never patched into the game

Hmm wtf happened?!

I mean really.....

They pick the LAMEST questions, Phinney gave the LAMEST responses I've ever heard.

Well guess what, I"m tired of this. I understand that this is "free" which I really don't agree with since the game was bugged from the beginning and did not have nearly 1/2 of the features promised. So the $50 I paid for this game....is that free?!?

Secondly, if you decided to innovate something such as not charge people $15 a month to play, that is a GREAT idea, however you have to make sure you can actually uphold your promises, which is not happening right now..

Anet quickly realized that WOW, that's why they charge $15 a month for games like these.......

So all serious development stopped, we're getting weak bug-fixes and empty promises.

So here's a lame response from me, a consumer:

Q: Dear consumer, so when are you planning to buy the next chapter of the award winning Guild Wars?

Consumer: Oh well that's all been discussed in the past. I'm definetly working on it and I think sometime in the near future.

You know, I just realized the uselessness of most of the stuff being said about the game and ANet here, myself included. So here's my New (school) Year's resolution:

No more complaining... just play the game. I'm going to take ANet at their word when they say they are trying, and just leave it at that.

Besides, I've still got things on my shopping list. Only 65 more shards to go until I can buy my first set of Fissure armor. Anyone need a tank or a smiting ele for their Fissure group?

There was nothing in that fansite thing that we didn't already know, if it was something we didn't know it was very very minimal. Of all the hundreds or thousands of questions they probably got what do they do? Repeat 90% of whats already been said.

They didn't even take a stab at one single hard hitting question. That was a duck and dodge, get people all excited about maybe getting some good info into the future and the we get THAT? Next time if thats what we're going to get they should go home early on friday.

I really like the second question and answer, We need tomb maps to be balanced, and I think that's what the question was getting at, and phinney answers with "Oh well we're increasing the diversity in arena maps!" You sure can tell that the hardcore PVP crowd is cared about by arenanet.

I think many people misunderstand that SURROW'S FURNACE and GRENTH'S FOOTPRINTS are the free updates. Sure, the interface upgrades are free but they are patches, correct me if I'm wrong.

Sorrow's Furnace and Grenth's Footprints were not meant to be included in the original game.

Ok, I'll take a stab at it, the game was released with an UI that worked, didn't have many bugs(that I'm aware of). So now they decide that it needs a facelift, an improvement(i.e. upgrade). If you aren't sure those changes are upgrades then you need to learn the definition of upgrade.

Gaile, the questions were okay, but I think people where hoping for a little more. It seems like the 3 question got the most answered.

Again, I don't think people were wanting or expecting to see the whole platter. But a little more communication would be nice. I remember testing several games and we never really knew what the developers were doing next, what ideas they were and weren't listening to, what was being worked on, etc. Then when an update came out and it fixed a few things and didn't touch what people said needed to be altered, people were left in the dark why. So it gets really fusterating espically when you can't tell if the devs are too busy to reply, too tight-lipped about things, or if your suggestions were falling on deaf ears.

This isn't excatly a "we can help you thing", it's more of a "what's up" thing.

Take the Droknar Rushers. For people that want to PvP in the earlier arenas like Yak's and Ascalon, these people are a major headache. How would you like to be a newbie first PC, and you go into the ascalon arena and you meet a warrior with 1.5K armor that you can't do any damage to and a monk that does 40 damage a second to you thanks to zealot's fire and Balth's aura? You get killed by a monk in about 5-7 seconds. That'd fusterate anyone. I'm sure it might also give people second thoughts about playing the game, espically if they don't know if it's a high priority fix or not. See what I mean about wanting to know "what's up"?

What made the "ask a dev" thing exciting was that it seemed like the chance to get into the devs' heads, to engage in a sort of personal conversation with them about the things that we currently debating about.
I guess a lot of us were secretly hoping for some answers that will settle a few long-running arguments here in the forums Instead we got a "here's some stuff coming soon", which really belongs in the State Of Game letter, or as part of a "upcoming updates" sort of thing.

I dearly hope that we get more similar sessions tho. As they run out of press releases we might start getting some juicier responses

You will never see that, games today are driven by hype.

Interplay logo was "by gamers for gamers" and Interplay is no more, destroyed by a incompetent CEO that never understand what that logo meant.

The days of "by gamers for gamers" are gone, these days are "by money for money".

Which is why ArenaNet is charging a monthly fee for their game, like every other online game.

Oh wait...

A whole lot of services available? Such as....?

Ways to upgrade your guild and guild hall? Such as.....?

James is optimistic that they'll be able to make the guild storage feature available within 6 months? Seriously?

Excuse my sarcasm. I just wish they'd be a *little* bit more specific.

Daaaang! Drakon got burned!!!

Unless of course you take into consideration how many people have bought guild wars only due to the fact that it wasn't pay per month... so even though this game can be considered a game by the players for the players, it can also be interpreted as a game which was insidiously commercialized.

I am not even sure why this game would ever become pay per month... but that just my opinion.... Except that they are holding everyone's accounts on one big server in order to prevent certain types of hacking. Plus im pretty sure the server isn't as expensive as the WoW servers since those have to deal with a lot more players fighting within one area and yet doesn't have as much lag as in guild wars...

Can neone tell me why people think they are getting a deal buying this game?

Gaile... in my opinion, the economy is the #1 most serious issue. I'd been gone for the last couple of weeks, and upon logging back in this weekend with my new character, was so utterly discouraged and disappointed that I didn't even want to play and almost unistalled the game altogether. It's really a shame because I used to love this game... but it's getting hard to maintain that feeling.

I guess for me, the biggest thing I'd like to hear about is what, if anything, Anet has planned to fix the GW economy? This new ascended content stuff is great of course... but it doesn't really help out new players/characters early in the game that are flat broke with prices for everything climbing through the roof, while the traders won't offer anything worthwhile in exchange and the drops don't give us anything worth selling.

It's like Anet is encouraging players to farm, bot and buy off of ebay, rather than the other way around. I just don't get what's going on at all.

Trust me, I love the fact that Guild Wars has no monthly fee, but don't pretend that you are NOT making money! The idea of two updates a year for 50 bucks each is about the same!

Allright,

time for my view on this matter:
- The info is great. All the remarks made sound great and indeed prove that ANet listens to community. For the simple reason that all points i've read somewhere on forum also. But to me, this is no news. I'd just like to point it out again to the notorious forumposters that seem to drink acid for breakfast.

- The info is blunt. It is vague. Now the details can't be reviewed for obvious reasons. But I got the feeling this was a sort of overview of things to come till chapter 2. It makes me wonder: so what could i expect next week/month/2th month/year? I find it hard to find an order in this, some sort of ETA. It feels like a mist is drawn up, leaving us guessing if our problems will be addressed next week or next year...

as a long time Magic the Gathering player, i recognise this structure. It has the plusside of knowing when to expect changes. There is one big disadvantage: if the environment gets 'broken' in the start of the cycle, then gamers will have 3 months of a non fun environment. ...

NwN (for example) is completly free, some years ago we got the "multiplayer crazy" were if a game did not had some type of multiplayer then it was not worth players time ... as absurd it might be that reasoning multiplayer options are common in today games because its expected.

The gaming industry is moved by fads as all other industries.

Guild Wars not having a monthly fee is part of the game stategy to attract players that are inclined to play a online game but not willing to pay a fee, the fact that "no fee EVER" was one of the most advertised parts of Guild Wars says a lot.