Zubon’s description of GW2 updates since release are nightmare fuel for me in terms of an MMO. It’s basically all of the bad aspects of launch (bugs, everyone in one spot) without the good (playing a foundation towards something more). Place that into GW2, by far the most bla and forgettable MMO I’ve ever played, and yea, I’m not exactly itching to return.
GW2-specifics aside, just going off that post and other KTR GW2 posts (they cover the game well), I’d have to say I strongly disagree with how Anet is approaching updating the game. If a new player picks up the game today, how much better is GW2 today than it was at launch? Some, yes (minus whatever the current buggy content is that everyone is doing, of course), but the level doesn’t match the amount of time/effort put in by Anet. A lot of that was one-off, here today gone tomorrow stuff. If you are new, that means nothing for you, other than knowing you missed out on something and can’t revisit it.
Current plays also suffer from this whenever they roll an alt. Now maybe they wouldn’t want to run all of that one-off content again, but in GW2 they don’t even have that choice; they can’t. Furthermore, they fully know they can’t and have context, so if something was up for two weeks that they loved, they KNOW they are missing out on that.
Now the GW2 business model doesn’t rely on players getting sucked in and really committed. The big payday is up front (the box), and if they get a few bucks off you from gems, great. But in terms of building an MMO, Anet isn’t really building much here, rather they are mostly spinning in place, every two weeks removing something to add something else. That they have kept this up for a year is surprising. If they can keep going like this it will be really surprising.
Hardcore Casual 
Yeah, it’s been about a year since I stopped playing, and anytime I think about going back (because hey, no sub right?) I wonder what exactly would be different. As far as I know, it’s Fractal dungeons and… what? The Adventure Box stuff looked interesting, but that’s been over for months. A whole year of content just evaporated into the ether.
I don’t think anyone who plays GW2 can ever complain about obsolete WoW content ever again.
Now the GW2 business model doesn’t rely on players getting sucked in and really committed. The big payday is up front (the box), and if they get a few bucks off you from gems, great. But in terms of building an MMO, Anet isn’t really building much here, rather they are mostly spinning in place, every two weeks removing something to add something else.
Couple dozen blog post back, you wondered out loud why MMO devs don’t have a premium offering. Perhaps the sub model at box price + $15/mo is ALREADY the premium offering?
Its only premium over GW2-style games. I expect more.
If you recall that blog post, I said that I didn’t think a $50/mo subscription could be supported because MMOs are already too fragmented and niche.
I don’t expect us to agree here, I’m just commenting that if you step back and look at it with a broader perspective, your observation about GW2 could be argued as evidence that the sub model is already the “premium” product in this segment of the market.
I play regularly, and I agree with you. Some of the living story stuff is really fun. The Marionette that was available a little over a month ago was fantastic. It was open world, required 100+ people to complete successfully, but forced everyone to split up in a clearly defined way (there were 5 paths that had to be defended), then periodically split each of those 5 medium size groups into small party size groups to accomplish other clearly defined tasks. This made for an epic feeling encounter, where your individual contribution was still important for success. There was also room for some failure built in, so even if not everyone knew what they were doing, it was still possible to succeed, but there was no way for a small group to just carry the whole thing. That was available for 2 weeks. There have been 2 more Living story updates since then, one was decent, the other, kind of a buggy mess. Meanwhile, one of my main attack skills has been bugging out and not working about 50% of the time since… November?
Can’t be helped, they’ve read some kind of ‘how to make money from cash shop’ guide that says “PLAYERS LIKE EVENTS. HAVE ONE EVERY MONTH.”
I thought hats were the secret to success…
http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Towering_Pillar_of_Hats
“GW2, by far the most bla and forgettable MMO I’ve ever played”
lol that is so fitting!!
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