maddoctor.2738

> @"LucianDK.8615" said: > There is nothing wrong with the agro range in pof. People are just overreacting. What's "wrong" is that **new** mobs in POF and onwards have 1000 units range, while the rest of Tyria is at 500, with the exception of starter areas which are at 450 units. To further complicate things old school mobs appearing in new zones have a range of 500. I wouldn't say it's wrong, but honestly it's inconsistent and for no reason, at least all mobs in a zone should have the same range. and maybe mobs with certain unique aspects (like stationary laser turrets and flesh wurms) go beyond the normal range. But seeing an Awakened Inquest at 500 range (because they use regular inquest code from core tyria) next to an Awakened Archer (POF mob) at 1000 range is really confusing.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said: > And then you end up with 9 other inexperienced dps roles, no healer, tank and support. Or you will have to make sure all required roles are covered, everyone knows what they need to do, and specific players take some specific roles if those are present in encounter (like mushrooms in Sloth) To be fair though, if those players looking to Raid took the time to play through the earlier instanced content available in the game, dungeons, strike missions and more importantly fractals, especially higher level ones, they shouldn't have a problem filling most of those roles. Even dungeons, which are much simpler, can teach you how to dps, at least if you want to succeed at them without trouble. Yes I know you can cheese dungeons by pulling mobs aside and reviving dead people, but that's no longer a chill run either, is it? If you manage a chill, no wipe, no hassle, dungeon/fractal/strike mission run, then it will be much more possible to do the same in Raids. But most often than not, and I experienced it a lot personally in Raids, there are players who want to Raid, yet have never run a single dungeon, or done a single fractal (not even T1 level) yet demand Raids to be nerfed, become easier and the like, or ask for ways to have "chill runs". This I think is the most important negative part of Raids in this game, how accessible they are. Accessible in terms of "I walk to a portal and can enter the Raid in green gear as a fresh level 80", not difficulty wise.

> @"battledrone.8315" said: > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > How does people who worked on other projects unrelated to GW2 mean missing content from GW2 when they were laid off? Those same people working on other projects were likely doing that during LS4 too. > > > > > > As GW2's is Arenanet primary source of income (if not their only source), it means those side projects were financed with GW2 money. > > > This means, money that had been made with GW2 had not been used to make content or other things for GW2. > > > > > > Imagine these people had worked on GW2 instead of the now-cancelled side projects (which resulted in loss of the GW2 money spent on them). > > > One can easily consider that "missing content". > > > > > > > If the side projects were financed directly by Arenanet then NCSoft wouldn't force them to lay off those people. Or at the very least tell them to allocate them back into Guild Wars 2. It's more likely that NCSoft financed those projects, at least in part, and when they saw they were going nowhere they ordered Anet to scrap them. It's how Guild Wars 2 itself was funded with money from other NCSoft games. GW1 stopped earning "good" money YEARS before the release of Guild Wars 2, so it's unlikely GW2 was funded by GW1 earnings. > > the problem still remains, you have people , that arent working on the game= missing content. That's like saying all the thousand developers that are working on other companies and aren't working for Arenanet = missing content. Also, you do understand that there are people working at Arenanet that aren't directly involved in making content right? > and if ncsoft were paying them, what happened to the rest of the money? What rest of the money? NCSoft gets all the money, including what money Anet is making, then invests the money back on their projects. They were paying the Guild Wars 2 development team for almost 6 years, with very little return, that's how investment in games works. Then when they saw the new projects of Anet weren't progressing as fast as expected, they ordered them cancelled.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > How does people who worked on other projects unrelated to GW2 mean missing content from GW2 when they were laid off? Those same people working on other projects were likely doing that during LS4 too. > > As GW2's is Arenanet primary source of income (if not their only source), it means those side projects were financed with GW2 money. > This means, money that had been made with GW2 had not been used to make content or other things for GW2. > > Imagine these people had worked on GW2 instead of the now-cancelled side projects (which resulted in loss of the GW2 money spent on them). > One can easily consider that "missing content". > If the side projects were financed directly by Arenanet then NCSoft wouldn't force them to lay off those people. Or at the very least tell them to allocate them back into Guild Wars 2. It's more likely that NCSoft financed those projects, at least in part, and when they saw they were going nowhere they ordered Anet to scrap them. It's how Guild Wars 2 itself was funded with money from other NCSoft games. GW1 stopped earning "good" money YEARS before the release of Guild Wars 2, so it's unlikely GW2 was funded by GW1 earnings.

First: welcome to the game. Second: to answer the OP question, yes it's worth playing this game Third: there are numerous builds in the game that can provide healing, but healing isn't really useful in the game until you reach the expansion. Especially while leveling all that matters is killing things fast, so you level fast. Plus core game mobs tickle even if you use under-level full offensive gear. The dungeons in the game are core content, meaning healing isn't really necessary there, all you need is burst dps to kill bosses before they have a chance to do their abilities. Do keep in mind that in this game everyone can heal, which eliminates the need for a dedicated healer in the majority of content. That said, the content where healing is good is Fractals of the Mists at higher levels (they are like dungeons but their difficulty goes up the higher you go, they have 100 tiers to go through), some Strike Missions (which are 10-man instanced content) and of course Raids (also 10-man content but much harder and takes way more time than Strike Missions). You can also play a healing build on many expansion meta events to keep your allies and key npcs alive, which will give you participation in the event (so access to the rewards). In general, if you want to be a healer, you need to go past the core game. Since you are posting here, you own the expansions, so all I can say is blast through core and you will reach the more intense, more challenging, and more fun parts of the game where team composition can matter.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said: > "Getting help from your guild" would be a solution, sure, but is the _exact opposite_ of what @"Sobx.1758" suggested. That would be exactly the case of putting the weight of organizing this on other players (guild mates, in this case). Which generally is the only option of having a chill experience available for first timers. I know and I agree. My answer to the "If you want a chill, no req group of first timers" argument, is "get help from your guild" and will always be. In my opinion the LFG isn't a place for first timers anyway, it's more for already organized groups to fill their last spots, or for experienced players to look for quick runs. > Learning completely from zero may be fun for some types of players, but even for them is hardly chill. Raids are a content of such difficulty, that it's hard to be laidback unless you are either completely fine with getting absolutely nowhere, or have a group that is well overqualified for the content already. That depends on the raid boss/wing. If you think in binary success/failure then you'll feel like you are getting nowhere, but the best raid bosses out there consist of enough phases to make you feel the progress as you go through them. Now obviously not every boss is well designed like that, but first timers can start from those (and should start anyway) > So, again, telling _**first-time** would be raiders_ that they should "just organize a chill raid themselves" is not a good advice, and cannot rightly be considered as something offered in good faith. Yes, organize a chill run on LFG is not good advice, as I said above the LFG isn't a first time user tool anyway. But first timers organizing a chill raid themselves (using their guild) is very useful advice. When I started raiding with my guild that's what we did and I'm sure most other people started that way. After all, nobody was born Raid-ready. Sure there are those that first did runs using the LFG and then went back to lead their guilds, but I think those were a minority, especially during the first raid releases. So the idea of first timers to form teams among themselves and play the content with each other is a very good one.

> @"avey.4201" said: > If pvp wasn't sabotaged more people would play, and more people would make there way there. What does PVP have to do with DRMs? (Dragon Response Missions)?

> @"Sobx.1758" said: > If you want a *chill, no req group of first timers* then by all means: create the squad in lfg and wait for the people with similar goals to join you. For some reason there are people that seem to think the weight of organizing their time should be on other players or anet. Or better yet, get help from your guild. Raids were always supposed to be guild activities anyway. > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > Because, yes, it is impossible for such people to organize a chill raid run. I'm curious, do "chill guilds" not organize anything?

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > > @"Obtena.7952" said: > > > OK ... but I'm not talking about people's levels of enjoyment. You continue to misinterpret and it's getting old. > > > > But I **am** talking about what players enjoy or find fun ... > > OK ... but you are the one that started the discussion with ME based on what I said. If you are going to be disagreeable to what I'm saying, fine. But if you are going to be disagreeable because you decide to make the discussion about what YOU want to talk about and not about what I said, you are being disingenuous. I'm not going to debate with you about content players enjoy and it's impact on revenue ... and that's NOT the first time I'm telling you this ... so _take a hint_ buddy. > > People are NOT doing content they don't have a reason to like doing at the expense of doing content they DO have a reason to like doing. That's not debatable. That's the premise of what I'm telling you. If you disagree with that, you don't understand what you are reading. Actually you are the one being disingenuous here. I specifically mentioned Thunderhead Keep meta (nothing to do with game modes): > I'm curious about your sample size for your interviews and which platform you used for it to get varied data from as many people as possible. I did a small exercise today, asking during a Thunderhead Keep meta how many players in the squad are actually buying gems, got no answer. So... meta players don't pay gems? and you responded (and started this entire debate) turning the narrative to game modes: > We don't need interviews with players to figure out what game modes make money ... we know based on where Anet focuses development of the game. I was simply getting the argument back to what it was, which you misinterpreted, misunderstood and started changing to suit your own agenda. You started the discussion with me based on what I said and changed the narrative. It's funny that you mention: > YOU want to talk about and not about what I said, you are being disingenuous Which is exactly what you've been doing since your very first response to me.

> @"Mungo Zen.9364" said: > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > I have plenty of data to support the idea that players play content they don't enjoy, it's in what you quoted above. Notice how all of those were over-populated (even Anet said so) and once their rewards were gone, so did their popularity. I guess it just happened for thousands of players to lose interest in those activities at the same time when their rewards were nerfed, it was just a coincidence. > > I do understand the correlation you are trying to make here, that players do not like specific content once it had it's rewards nerfed. Or that players will play content with better rewards even if they don't necessarily enjoy it. > > I agree that in some cases players will engage content that they don't like as much as other content (hello Gift of Battle and Exploration) but that typically is a stepping stone to get to something they do enjoy, be it owning a legendary or new skins, AP, or whatever. > > You noted a large number of nerfed farms, but I do not think players taking advantage of one system means they were not enjoying the content. What one could deduce is that a large number of players will go to the most efficient content to farm. The fact that the content that was farmed is still being played daily (at least in NA) let's us know that the content is enjoyable enough without the rewards. > > Have a look at Drizzlewood, this was a farm built by Anet, and it has generally speaking, been very successful. Loads of players have gone there and still do, the rewards are pretty good, and they have slowly nerfed the challenge and made collecting rewards easier. > > I anticipate over time that less players will go to DW even though it is technically getting easier. At some point new content will appear and draw players towards it, regardless of what happens to DW or other existing content. This doesn't mean that DW was bad or that players didn't enjoy it, anymore than AB is bad or unenjoyable. > > What it means is there are a great many variables that affect player engagement with content and replay-ability, rewards are just one piece of this. > Of course there are many variables, the question is about what to use to base future content development on. Although the nerfed content is still being played (some of it at least, some are officially dead) it's a far cry from how popular it used to be. Which is why I gave the examples in the first place, if Anet based future development on the inflated versions they would be over-represented.

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > OK ... but I'm not talking about people's levels of enjoyment. You continue to misinterpret and it's getting old. But I **am** talking about what players enjoy or find fun and have been since the start, not sure how YOU are misinterpreting that. You are saying they should focus their attention on content based on how much time is spent on it by the players, I'm saying they should focus their attention on content that is the most enjoyable by the players. I focus on the why, you focus on the what, and believe they can infer the why using the what. Do note that since my initial response to you: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/121241/why-waste-resources-on-this-unwanted-game-mode-that-is-living-world/p1 I was talking about content, not entire game mode, because talking about entire game modes is silly, since most of the so called "game modes" consist of dozens of different types of content. Same goes for every single example I gave to you.

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > I'm gonna repeat the examples of CoF P1 farm, Penit/Shelter farm, Silverwastes Chest farm, Auric Basin ML farm, Istan Farm, Fractal 40 farm, Swamp of the Mists farm, and all the other activities that over the years gathered a gigantic segment of the playerbase "enjoying" them. With your point of view, they did it because it was the most enjoyable/fun content the game ever had. I find that entirely absurd. > > You find it absurd because it's based on your own misunderstanding of what I'm saying. In addition, you don't have any ACTUAL data to support the idea that players didn't like playing in the game mode where those content examples exist. It doesn't disprove ANY of what I have said, which is based on a very reasonable assumption that players do content they like and those content are associated with specific game modes. Again, an example of how you are not understanding what I'm saying. I have plenty of data to support the idea that players play content they don't enjoy, it's in what you quoted above. Notice how all of those were over-populated (even Anet said so) and once their rewards were gone, so did their popularity. I guess it just happened for thousands of players to lose interest in those activities at the same time when their rewards were nerfed, it was just a coincidence. Not sure why you bring "game modes" in the discussion at this point in time but sure whatever.

They announced new security implementations?

> @"Infusion.7149" said: > You have to realize Unreal Engine 4 requires a 5% royalty. I'm quite certain that 5% royalty is far less than having an in-house engine team working on your game, especially if said engine team is large enough to make big changes to a game, like adding ray tracing, or developing a directx 12 version for the engine. Meanwhile, you get all those upgrades for free by using Unreal Engine. In the end that fee depends on how cutting edge you want a game to be, as developing cutting edge technology on your own would require a lot more money than a 5% royalty fee.

> @"zealex.9410" said: > Speaking of other ncsoft titles, both l2 and bns are getting engine upgrades. in the case of l2 i think the game is moving from unreal 2.5 to unreal 4 which is a huge leap in visual fidelity and performance. Korean mmos invest a lot in their graphics, they are built to attract audiences that are after highly detailed characters and environments. So for them it makes sense to upgrade their engines, plus they go from one version of unreal engine to another, there is a "porting" process available. Although I wouldn't call Guild Wars 2 graphics bad, graphics is not any kind of reason high on the priority list to start playing it.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > If they do make a GW3, I hope they build it for actual MMO players this time around. I'm curious what do "actual MMO players" want from a game

Why would they add ray-tracing in Guild Wars 1? What is it gonna offer the game? Or DirectX 12 for that matter. Guild Wars 1 is a well optimized game, for its time, running very well even on terrible PCs of the era. And obviously it runs flawlessly on current hardware, even with the rather recent graphic updates.

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > A few examples you have simply show that time spent isn't a 100% indicator of what people want and like. But even if it's not a 100% correlation, it's still going to be very high and a reasonably good estimate because it's very reasonable to assume most people are spending time in game modes that they want and like to play in. Well that's obviously your opinion and I can't change that. But since it's not player choice that prevents them from spending more time in what they actually like/enjoy I beg to differ. The game is full of lockouts in a lot of its content. > That's not true ... The WHAT can be objectively measured and if we assume (reasonably) that most people are doing things they like and want, then that covers the WHY as well. Again, that's your opinion, which I find entirely flawed and completely absurd. Also gave examples on why. Yes, the WHAT can be objectively measured but you cannot infer the WHY from the WHAT. I'm of the opinion that they should focus development on what the players actually like, not what gets the most attention and playtime. > See, you aren't going to escape the absurdity of the contrary point here which you seem to be arguing for since you disagree so vehemently ... because even you can't be so unreasonable to think that most people playing a game are mostly doing content they don't want to do or don't like to do to the level where measuring time played in various game modes isn't reflective of people's want's and likes. That's just crazy. If you disagree that time spent ingame isn't a good indicator of what most people want and like ... then you MUST be of the opposite _and absurd_ point of view. What's crazy about it? Do you acknowledge that dungeons, fractals, meta events, jumping puzzles have daily lockout timers or not? . How is a player that enjoys any of those going to spend most of their time there if they cannot physically do so, as they are prevented by the game's design? Are you proposing that a player that likes a particular meta design will go and repeat that all day, even after they get the daily reward, simply to inflate the numbers and tell Arenanet that they like that specific piece of content more than others? The absurd part here is you ignoring actual facts, and then calling the sensible argument "absurd". > The best part is that if you actually believe this opposing POV where most people are just doing ANYTHING whether they want/like it or not No. It's about where they spend most of their time. I'd wager a player does indeed play what they find the most enjoyable, first, or when it's time is up (for a particular meta for example or PVP tournament or whatever), and then play the game in parts they don't find in any way equally enjoyable. > ... then the argument can be made we don't need any new OR good content ... just pump out more shinies in the GS because the whole argument is based on the fact that people don't care about what they want or like. That too is absurd. I never claimed any of this. Players DO care about what they want or like, in fact this has been my entire point since the start. Where we disagree is that I believe the content players enjoy/like can be a lot different than the content they spend **most** of their time in, for external reasons that have nothing to do with the content itself. > The fact that people are VERY vocal about things they like/want or not is PROOF that the time they spend in the game is mostly doing things they choose to do based on what they like/want. Actually it's not proof of that at all as what someone likes the most isn't necessarily what they spend most of their time on. The only way to know exactly what the playerbase LIKES is to poll them. No kind of data can give you that information, and especially not something like time spent on an activity. > Any path you want to take down this "_time spent is not indicative of what players want/like_" is fully of absurd contradictions. It's the opposite, anyone that goes down the path of "_time spent is indicative of what players want/like_" is full of absurd contradictions. I'm gonna repeat the examples of CoF P1 farm, Penit/Shelter farm, Silverwastes Chest farm, Auric Basin ML farm, Istan Farm, Fractal 40 farm, Swamp of the Mists farm, and all the other activities that over the years gathered a gigantic segment of the playerbase "enjoying" them. With your point of view, they did it because it was the most enjoyable/fun content the game ever had. I find that entirely absurd. You cannot possibly convince me that those mass farms where the best this game had to offer at the time of their prime. And the simple proof about that is that when they were nerfed, they died out. So much the most time spent being what players find enjoyable/fun.

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > Focusing development on content people want and like is a smart move to increase revenues ... but that's not a guarantee. Revenue depends on lots of things. Focusing development on content people want and like is a smart move. There is no debate there. But what people want and like isn't showing on time spent on particular content. Examples already provided on why. > >You claim they base the future development of this game based on how much time played is spent on content, _disregarding the quality of said content and how much players like it or not._ > > See that part in intalics ... that's the part YOU are inventing I'm saying just to argue. I said nothing of the sort and I keep TELLING you you are arguing in this manner in bad faith as well. Of course you said nothing of the sort, if you did we wouldn't be having this discussion. Your words here (and the rest of your posts, but this is a prime example): > I do know that Anet can measure what people are doing and what they spend money on though. That will tell them where to focus development. You are focusing on the _what_ players are doing and completely disregard the _why_ they are doing it. Btw where, in which post specifically, did you take into account the quality of content and what players enjoy/like in the game as what should drive future development, instead of where players are spending their time on.

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > I'm simply saying Anet can link revenues to content played time. If they are focusing on content that is supposed to be "making money" and ignoring the bad content that doesn't making them money, why is their revenue struggling? And you failed to answer the simple question of what "making money" mean. > I'm making NO claims about how much people like that content or not. Never said you did. In fact my problem is that you didn't. You claim they base the future development of this game based on how much time played is spent on content, disregarding the quality of said content and how much players like it or not. > Nevertheless, I am going to say it's very reasonable to think that most people are going to spend most of the time ingame doing things they like doing the most. Even when what they enjoy the **most** is locked behind a daily or weekly lockout. Gotcha. So only content that can be repeated constantly has any chance of being developed. Oh wait that's not what is happening. > Therefore there is nothing absurd in making the assumption that played time has some meaningful measure of what people want to do in the game. Your examples don't invalidate that. Actually my examples do invalidate that because what people "want" to do in the game can be impacted by external factors. Rewards, daily/weekly lockouts, and one-time content being a few of them, as provided in the examples above. And to provide one more example: When Auric Basin Multi-loot was a thing, there were 25-30 instances open at a time. After it was nerfed, you are probably gonna see 1 during meta, and not all the time. What happened to the content there, did it lost its excitement and became unenjoyable when the loot was nerfed? Meanwhile, interviews with players would tell Anet all the relevant info (to go back to the original post). I play another game and the developers offer questionnaires to every player after every new event or game release they make, asking players how they enjoyed particular aspects of a patch/event. In order to focus their efforts on what their playerbase actually enjoy in their game. It has rather interesting results. Anet used to do something similar back in beta, but stopped shortly after, relying on flawed data like "time spent" to give them insight on what's enjoyable or not, and the results are in front of us.

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > OK ... that doesn't have anything to do with being able to attribute revenues to played time categorized by game mode (or anything else they want to track) You cannot attribute revenue to where they focus, but you can say what is making them the most money by where they focus? How does that work exactly? You didn't answer the question I asked earlier, what does "make the most money" mean? > I'm making NO claim about the quality of the content and how it relates to revenue at all. Of course you aren't and that's the problem, you are simply saying that the content players are spending the most time on, is the content Anet should focus on. > I'm simply saying Anet can attribute revenues to time played in whatever way they want to categorize the content. I already provided examples on why attributing revenue based on time played is meaningless. > I mean, I don't think it's a huge stretch of the imagination to think that if most of the time spent ingame is a specific game mode ... then that's the game mode of most interest to the current population of players. Again, I already examples on why where the most time is spent is a useless metric for any kind of comparison. And why spending time on specific mode means nothing about what is the most interesting for the current population of players. > Somehow you dispute that ... but the contrary is absurd ... that customers spend the most time in the game modes that are LEAST interested in. So the only other option is that you want us to believe that the game modes customers spend time is somehow _completely random_ then? Sure ... Maybe I need to repeat the examples from my earlier post? Here, I will repeat them for easy reference: > Let's say a player spent 200 euro in 2020 on Guild Wars 2. Let's also say that same player spent most of his time farming Silverwastes, does that mean that player LIKES Silverwastes the most? No. He might enjoy completing jumping puzzles instead, while spending so many hours in the Silverwastes to earn gold. Basing any kind of argument, and worse claiming that the developers base the game's further development, on how much time is spent on various activities is faulty. and >And this becomes even more important when we consider that many parts of the game are daily or weekly locked. How many times can I finish the Thunderhead Keep meta to be rewarded (something that I do a lot lately)? Once. Then I'll spend the rest of my playtime elsewhere, like spending time on Wintersday activities. What kind of marvelous information does this give Anet? The idea that time spent on content is a metric to what players find exciting is absurd. Content can be very rewarding, but not enjoyable, so someone spends more time in content they don't find particularly exciting for the rewards. OR content simply has daily/weekly lockout timers disallowing re-running it in the first place. In your logic, any content that has a daily/weekly lockout is meaningless and shouldn't exist, because by its nature it won't have much time spent on by the playerbase. And we can also discuss the most useless content of all, story. How much time do you think players spend playing the story of every episode? Oh right, Anet shouldn't create anymore story because it's a waste of resources, since players don't re-play the story parts of an episode daily, or even weekly.

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > For example, if all revenues come from players and total playing time in PVE and WvW is 80% and 20% respectively ... it's pretty obvious where Anet should focus development. But Anet's revenues are dropping based on what they are currently focusing on, compared to what they had before. > Yes ... Anet can measure played time each player spend in various game modes and can track how much each one of those players spend in the game. Do that for every player and add up the results. Done. You are saying that time spend in various game modes is how we can figure out how much money a player is spending? This is ridiculous, as time spent on any content doesn't prove that content is successful (or good) in the first place. Let's say a player spent 200 euro in 2020 on Guild Wars 2. Let's also say that same player spent most of his time farming Silverwastes, does that mean that player LIKES Silverwastes the most? No. He might enjoy completing jumping puzzles instead, while spending so many hours in the Silverwastes to earn gold. Basing any kind of argument, and worse claiming that the developers base the game's further development, on how much time is spent on various activities is faulty. And this becomes even more important when we consider that many parts of the game are daily or weekly locked. How many times can I finish the Thunderhead Keep meta to be rewarded (something that I do a lot lately)? Once. Then I'll spend the rest of my playtime elsewhere, like spending time on Wintersday activities. What kind of marvelous information does this give Anet? And this "time spent" argument becomes even worse, considering where this community has been spending their time. From CoF P1, Penit/Shelter farm, SW CF, Auric Basin ML, Istan ML the "farms" of this game were a gigantic number of players congregated and played for hours every day are well known. Time spent on content is meaningless.

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > I do know that Anet can measure what people are doing and what they spend money on though. What I'm saying is that content is -usually- not monetized, unless we are talking about an expansion. Meaning, what I spend my money on has very little to do with what content I play. As for my question, you claim that revenue is complicated > Revenue is a much more complicated function of many things. yet you also claim that we can figure out which game modes make more money. > We don't need interviews with players to figure out what game modes make money ... we know based on where Anet focuses development of the game. "Make more money" means "higher revenue", otherwise what do you think "make more money" mean? If you have a choice between A and B, and you pick A because it makes more money than B, then isn't it obvious that revenue would also go up?

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > > @"Obtena.7952" said: > > > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said: > > > > > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > > > > > > @"Hypnowulf.7403" said: > > > > > > > I've interviewed PvPers and raiders, even casual raiders, and there's one conceit that I found quite commonly—they don't buy gems, they convert gold. So what of PvE players and roleplayers alike? They buy gems. I buy gems and I am of that latter group! There are things I wish they would add as well to profit upon their most profitable users, since what their data can't tell them is what we want to _buy_. > > > > > > > > > > > > I'm curious about your sample size for your interviews and which platform you used for it to get varied data from as many people as possible. I did a small exercise today, asking during a Thunderhead Keep meta how many players in the squad are actually buying gems, got no answer. So... meta players don't pay gems? > > > > > > > > > > > > > They killed City of Heroes because it wasn't profitable, they killed off WildStar for the same reason. They've been good about Guild Wars 2, but I can only guess that's because thus far it's managing to be profitable. So that's something we can feel fortunate for. > > > > > > > > > > > > Guild Wars 2 in its WORSE quarter so far, Q4 2019, made more money than City of Heroes or Wildstar did in an entire year at the time of their closure. > > > > > > > > > > We don't need interviews with players to figure out what game modes make money ... we know based on where Anet focuses development of the game. > > > > > > > > What you are saying is that they are focusing their development on what makes money and not on what doesn't make money. That doesn't explain why their revenue is on a downward spiral though. > > > > > > That's true it doesn't ... but it doesn't make what I said any less true. Anet focusing development on parts of the game that make them money doesn't say anything about what direction revenues will go. > > > > > > > If they indeed are focusing on what -content- makes them money then their revenue would go up. > > That's not necessarily true. Revenue is a much more complicated function of many things. > Revenue is complicated but what is making them money is not. How exactly does that work?

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > > @"Obtena.7952" said: > > > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > > > > @"Hypnowulf.7403" said: > > > > > I've interviewed PvPers and raiders, even casual raiders, and there's one conceit that I found quite commonly—they don't buy gems, they convert gold. So what of PvE players and roleplayers alike? They buy gems. I buy gems and I am of that latter group! There are things I wish they would add as well to profit upon their most profitable users, since what their data can't tell them is what we want to _buy_. > > > > > > > > I'm curious about your sample size for your interviews and which platform you used for it to get varied data from as many people as possible. I did a small exercise today, asking during a Thunderhead Keep meta how many players in the squad are actually buying gems, got no answer. So... meta players don't pay gems? > > > > > > > > > They killed City of Heroes because it wasn't profitable, they killed off WildStar for the same reason. They've been good about Guild Wars 2, but I can only guess that's because thus far it's managing to be profitable. So that's something we can feel fortunate for. > > > > > > > > Guild Wars 2 in its WORSE quarter so far, Q4 2019, made more money than City of Heroes or Wildstar did in an entire year at the time of their closure. > > > > > > We don't need interviews with players to figure out what game modes make money ... we know based on where Anet focuses development of the game. > > > > What you are saying is that they are focusing their development on what makes money and not on what doesn't make money. That doesn't explain why their revenue is on a downward spiral though. > > That's true it doesn't ... but it doesn't make what I said any less true. Anet focusing development on parts of the game that make them money doesn't say anything about what direction revenues will go. > If they indeed are focusing on what -content- makes them money then their revenue would go up. The only parts of the game that make them money are expansions and gem store items and yes they've been focusing a LOT on gem store items for a long time now.