hutsefukehrs

Withholding opinion until I see reality also.

Observation: for each game, the developer makes choices.  Without those choices, there is no game.  Each choice alienates a potential segment of the market (for example, combat or competitive play will alienate those who want a Sims game).  The absolute way to kill a game is to flail on those choices so in sequence every possible customer is alienated.  When game developers do that, the games die.

Moral of the story: make the choices thoughtfully, accept the consequences of each choice, and *do not look back*.  Going back and reversing choices makes no business sense -- you lost half the possible customers and want to recover that by losing the other half?

I have over 3,000 hours in Guild Wars 1 which was my first real MMO (for as much of one as it was with instances and all) and enjoyed every minute of it. Even after 7 years I still found myself pushing other characters through the stories and revisiting locations just because they were fun or interesting. I did alot of Heroes' Ascent PvP and elite areas, never speedran anything and had fun.

Sure Anet did did not build up a good reputation with all the speedrun and skill nerfs fromt he players that abused it but they overall did not affect me as a normal player. Sure major changes happened to classes I played but I was able to adapt and never complained like many.

With Guild Wars 2 I think they lost touch with their players which in my opinion has been happening more and more since Factions. With Factions and beyond grinding starting becoming more and more of the game, alliance battles were optional but then Nightfall and Eye of the North required it to progress the story at all. That was fine because areas that were interesting helped to facilitate this and even with a huge requirement it was not that burdensome.

Bugs got reported and things got addressed in a timely manner, even if some were delayed. But now it seems with the introduction of the gem store (and whose fault this is really Anet or NCSoft I am not sure) but I think that is now guiding decisions. I have never even stepped foot in Cathedral of Flames but now I am punished for those who did. Say I am playing in Orr, which I have issues with I will go into later, events are everywhere, just playing the areas normally equals heavily reduced rewards if any even though it isn't farming. In Orr I get frustrated as it is by the high density of enemies and low respawn time. I will kill one enemy, get up to use the bathroom for not even a minute and I am under attack again, or running through an area just to get pulled out of nowhere. This is not fun.

I understand MMOs have grind but when they repeatedly said it was not required outside of costmetic items I believed it. But then they gave exotics and legendary weapons better stats, this is not cosmetics only, sure you don't need the extra bonuses to play but it had led to people only forming dungeon groups with those who are "properly equipped" meaning all exotics. So I am stuck not being able to experience content because I do not farm or waste cash in the gem store for exotics.

This is not to say I want to even do dungeons. I have done all paths of Caudacus Manor and did not enjoy it one bit, same with Catacombs story mode. They are not fun. I would rather have longer dungeons than overpowered enemies that cause me to spend more time respawning and running back to where I was (along with my team) than doing the actual content. The rewards also are not worth it without a huge time investment working on goals that are not fun to even reach. Another point to make is all the groups are speedrun groups that I see in areas spamming map chat. For people like me who want to actually experience the content this again makes doing it impossible. Sure guilds could help or friends but we all know this is not always possible.

I have just under 200 hours in and am losing interest since there is being less reason to play or stay interested. I am fine with how dynamic events are, peopel say it isn't what was promised but I have no issue with them. same with story and level progression. But when they start sucking the fun out of the game and almost requiring gems to be purchased I have to say no. I stuck with Guild Wars because of the no monthly fee and this was a sneaky way to get it in there.

I also find the lack of bugs being fixed disheartening as if they do not care about the game. They spent so long fixing the trading post initially and now nerfing drop rates (which I had issue with since the start) that bugs like a skill point in Malchor's Leap and other areas go unfixed. Granted they may not know the cause or cannot fix it easily but at least attempt and more specific patch notes is in order. There is a lack of communication now between Anet and the players.

On the subject of PvP here is also my opinion. With all the types of PvP from the first game there was enough variety to keep it interesting. In Guild Wars 2 I find world vs world to not be fun at all, it does not appeal to me. I am left with sPvP which has the same few maps with the same goal, the variations are so small it isn't even worth mentioning so it is not as viable as a game mode in my opinion as the PvP from the original Guild Wars.

Overall I find the lack of care on Anet (or NCsoft if they pull the strings), unfun content, limited rewards with a major selling point (dyanmic events) to be making me lose faith in Anet and not want to play or purchase more of their games and I am sure others feel the same.

I can see farming and botting being handled by Anet properly (anti-farm code, bans, etc) but is affecting too many legitimate players. I think that since many posts I have read here and on the official forums say very similar things that Anet/NCsoft should take notice. The game should not be easy but it should be fun. If they think playing normally should be penalized it would be nice for someone to come forward and officially anounce how we should be playing the game we all purchased with our hard earned money. At least then there is a base to work off of rather than nerfs and restrictions just being thrown around half thought out. But if they do this will more people leave thus making the game a failure? Who knows but it would be nice to hear something official about the issues that so many people with legitimate reasons are complaining about.

Velidor, on 09 August 2012 - 12:09 PM, said:

Yes, they do ask for serial number.  I forgot my login/password to GW1 after half a decade, and they asked for this information first and foremost.

This isn't some phishing email.  Your key is invalid - I'd get on top of having this issue rectified as quickly as possible, or you know... drop another $60.

Best thing you can do is call them

I called blizzard once, back when I was playing WoW. It seems people are genuinely more helpful on the phone then via E-mail.

EDIT: Also, don't be afraid to call them. I know some people have a hard time convincing themselves to call the developers (or technical support). But those people are payed to answer your calls. Don't worry. Calling them is the best thing you can do.

Velidor, on 09 August 2012 - 12:26 PM, said:

One CAN be paranoid though...
When HE mailed to support@ncsoft.com (and didn't open the New Mail think from any link, but simply clicked "New EMail" and typed in support@ncsoft.com, then this Email reached NCSoft, and not some dubious hacker site. Faking Mail-Adresses only fakes the DISPLAY of the received mail, it doesn't suddenly enable you to stealth-send and receive Mails from the REAL support@ncsoft.com adress...

Velidor, on 09 August 2012 - 12:26 PM, said:

The official ArenaNet DO ask for you to send your game keys if you want to recover your account. People have sent them photocopies before and I've recovered my NCSoft account with my Guild Wars 1 keys.

So yes. They do ask. Yes. It is legitimate. Yes. You have to be careful not to send them to a complete stranger when they ask you out the blue. But I initiated the NCSoft support just as the OP did.

If you sent an email to support@ncsoft.com, then a legitimate employee received the email. As Elgareth pointed out, while you can fake where an email comes from, you can't easily intercept an email sent to a specific address. Think of it like real mail. You can write anything you want for the return address, and fool the recipient into thinking a letter came from anywhere. But once you write a destination address on an envelope and put it in the mailbox, it would be very difficult for anyone to take that letter.

Anyways, I don't think a serial number is personal information (like a password), and so I can understand if a support representative asked for it. First of all, it verifies whether or not your really have a legitimate code and aren't just trying to commit fraud for a free serial key. Second of all, if there is a problem with a certain batch of codes, they're going to need your serial number to track which retailer they gave the code to, etc. They'll want to know the pathway between them generating the code and you receiving the code, so that they can figure out where the problem is.

Especially if you already registered the key to your account, the key would now be useless to anyone else anyways. I see no harm in sharing the information with the support representative (just double-check to make sure the email is being sent to support@ncsoft.com.

A trial system normally appears sometime after the initial launch. I've even had games ship with buddy passes that specifically said they were valid only 14 days after the launch date.

Makes sense, launches are never entirely smooth so why make it harder with extra players who haven't even paid.

Trials are also best restricted, as dawnmist has explained.

And game mechanics would make a buddy or refer-a-friend system much easier than in most games so I can imagine something like that soon enough.

In GW1 expansions, there were trial/buddy keys in the expansion packs - at least there was in the CEs because I gave one to a friend at work.

Later there was a "14 days or 10 hours play" free trial on the GW1 website - enough to test it out, and the account created for the trial could then be upgraded to full by adding a full key (whether bought from ArenaNet directly, or from a store-bought package didn't matter) and you'd keep your chars/items from the trial into the full game.

The restrictions on trial stuff was that you couldn't trade AT ALL, and I think there were also whisper/chat restrictions. The no-trade restriction stuck around for (24? 48?) some hours after applying the codes for the full game to upgrade the account (as an anti-fraud measure to prevent gold sellers from passing their farmed stuff across to a legitimate account before the account bought with fake CC details could be closed - at least, that's the reasoning that AreneNet gave).

Maybe in future, no plans on Trial/Buddy key on launch.

In GW1, there was a trial, introduced after the release.

There is no inspect, so no one will know your stats. Even by looking at what your gear looks like, they can't tell, since for all they know you could have transmuted lvl 80 stats on to a lvl 1 item.

They get your name, the tag of your represented guild, and... Your level, if you've been scaled down, and your class.