Reading between the lines

Since the announcement of the Guild Wars 2 expansion, Heart of Thorns, I've been involved in two discussions which have left me exasperated by the extent to which people wilfully over-interpret, mis-read and read-into the information provided by Arenanet.

As previously it might look like I'm picking on individuals but they're just convenient examples.  Sorry for picking you out.

The first was this:

"The entire hype of the announcement was pulling the RNG out of precursor acquisition."

I have no idea how you can interpret/extrapolate what Colin Johansen actually said to conclude that there would be no RNG involved in the new pre-cursor acquisition.  Personally, I think it will be very similar to how the luminescent armour is obtained which is VERY heavily affected by RNG.

What CJ said was this:

"The Mastery system will allow you to build out collections that send you on epic journeys across the world of Guild Wars 2, that once completed will reward you with pre-cursor weapons to set you on your journey to building your legendary."

Maybe I missed an additional announcement but there is not even a hint that the RNG has been "pulled out".

Next, Specialization. CJ said:

"The Specialization system will allow each profession to master a new specialization that grows there profession into something new."

The heart of Thorns website says:

"unlock access to a weapon previously unavailable to your profession"

In English "a [noun]" means one. "A choice of desserts" means there are many desserts but you can only choose one of them. If you went into a bar and asked for "a beer" and the bartender asked you how many you wanted you'd think he'd misheard you.

The announcement, and subsequent information, never mention there being a choice of new weapons per profession or a choice of Specializations.  "Each profession... a new specialisation." Yet it seems clarification was needed.

I can understand that if English isn't your first language these statements may not be as clear to you but they are actually quite explicit.

For me this is simply a personal annoyance but it's actually bad for the game.  This is exactly why Arenanet clammed up for the last, what, 6 months?  It was because they couldn't say anything without people wildly mis-interpreting what they said, forcing them to make clarifications that revealed more than they really wanted to.  The solution was to say simply nothing at all.

And we all paid the price.

I despise guessing games

The MMO community and predictions go together like pigs and tapeworms.  It's my least favourite aspect of the community.  That's mainly because a "prediction" is just a guess, which may or may not be well educated.  A prediction could prove to be right but for none of the reasons cited by the predictor.  Worst of all reasons and detailed explanations are seldom given by developers.  So it's all kind of fruitless, self-abuse...

So, to the poorly concealed elephant: the Guild Wars 2 expansion. In the past I poured (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) scorn on the widely discussed notion that ArenaNet must be working on an expansion because only 20 people were working on the Living World content.  In that post I said:

I am absolutely certain that a good portion of Anet's staff ARE working on things for the distant future and that MAY include an expansion.

So, yes, I myself have also "predicted" an expansion. In fact, anything that ANet do from this point on that isn't LW I've predicted. See how easy it is?

Anyway, in my last post, I flipped that LW team argument on it's head and asked the question: what is everyone else doing if not an expansion?  It was intended to be rhetorical but I want to consider that a bit more.

First, I will say that I don't think we're heading for a "boxed" expansion pack. Based on the announcement of the announcement ("a new framework for how an MMO can grow its universe") I think we're looking at self-contained, episodic content with a gem store fee, kind of like that other B2P game, The Secret World, does its updates.

My position has always been that we'll see more of the same.  In short, I believed ANet when they said very clearly a while back that the Living World was the future and they weren't working on an expansion pack. Admittedly that was nearly two years ago and they also said they'd certainly consider an expansion when the timing was right.

However, games like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us have shown that episodic content is a viable revenue option.  The current demand for "comicbook" TV shows (Agents of SHIELD, Gotham, Constantine) demonstrates that the LW release model is in keeping with the Zeitgeist. I like the model and I think it's working.

Maybe the future, story-wise, is similar to Guild Wars 1's self-contained campaigns.  But wait, aren't they generally referred to as expansion packs?  Well, hang on then. The last few Living World updates have added new zones, new content and expanded lore and some people have paid a fee.  Isn't that an expansion?  In writing this it occurs to me that whether GW2 has an expansion or not probably comes down to semantics (mega servers anyone?).

Ultimately, though, I think it's the size of these updates that decides whether they can be described as an expansion.  Since impact is proportionate to size if you want a big splash use a big rock and I think a large part of the pro-expansion lobby is concerned that GW2 needs to make a big psychological splash in the minds of gamers. They think an expansion in name will deliver that.

The fact is, though, that a big portion of GW2 players are from the US and the US is world renowned for being inward looking.  I have actually emailed Massively in the past and complained that they use the MMO term "the West" and "NA" interchangeably.  Well, newsflash, the EU is a Western market.  However, there is also a huge number of second world players that are lumped in as EU that maybe aren't exactly "the West"; there is a massive gamer population sat between "the West" and "the East" (in MMO terms).

I hear a lot of Guild Wars 2 players that want other people to play.  They're concerned that other people will stop playing and that means the game will die. So it follows that they want ANet to pull more people in.  The funny thing is they never talk about quitting themselves.  I'm not seeing people say: "we need an expansion or I'll quit".  They're saying "we need an expansion or everyone else will eventually quit". The psychology is interesting.

"Western" Guild Wars 2 players are thinking we need an expansion to pull people back from say ESO, Wildstar, Archeage or even WoW.  That's their mindset, the MMO market relevant to them.  However, Guild Wars 2 (and NCSoft) is in a global market place.

So, what are ArenaNet busy doing? I don't think they'd put all their eggs in the proverbial expansion basket.

Expansion into new territories is a major consideration, in my opinion.  That takes a lot of people.  I think the China release is what everyone was working on and why Season 1 sort of assumed a holding pattern.  Japan, Korea and Russia are all decent "top of my head" candidates for future expansion.  That's the best way to grow the player base.

Also, some of the promised changes will have deep structural impact on the game.  For example, the promised pre-cursor crafting needs to be handled extremely carefully in terms of the economy.  I don't think Legendary armour will be far behind.  Also, I see a lot of people speculate that people buy gems, to get gold, to buy pre-cursors.  If that's the case expect pre-cursor crafting to tie directly to the gem store to maintain that revenue stream.  Whether it's a legendary crafters license at 800 or 1600 gems or a 125 gem item needed for each of 10 components we'll see.

Legendary armour with swappable stats (aside from skin the only real benefit of a legendary weapon) would mean only needing one set of gear, which means less storage need, again impacting on gem store sales.

PvP has had an overhaul and that will continue.  PvP is the big thing in some markets.  I think changes to WvW are coming.  GvG too. These are all big changes that take a lot of research and development time before any coding even starts.  PvP balance is probably the biggest hindrance to the introduction of new classes and weapons.  Throw in the fact you have to balance across WvW and PvP and that there has been a new PvP mode discussed all adds to the complexity.

What about player housing? Surely someone is working on that?  How is that going to work? People want open world but can a non-sub game sustain the server infrastructure for that?  That would probably mean a gem cost, possibly rental; would people pay it? Research and focus grouping is required.

The overwhelming impression I get from ArenaNet, above most other MMO stables, is that they aren't making it up as they go along.  Developmentally and financially they run a very tight ship. Since launch they have adapted to run all of these development strands concurrently.  I think this will limit the amount of story/lore/zone updates, being just one of many streams. They can't afford to drop everything, work on an expansion for 18 months and then pick it up again.  Also, they avoided layoffs in the recent NCSOft cutbacks? Guild Wars 2 revenues are in decline but clearly there is not much fat to trim.

Having said that, a big benefit of a boxed expansion is you can place it anywhere in your financial year and watch your stock price soar.  Finish the year on a high, have a great end of year report and a fat dividend for your share holders. Make no mistake, this is a business and this is perhaps the most compelling case for a boxed product in stores.

I believe a lot of people think you need an expansion pack with new zones and new story to introduce new classes and races.  That's certainly how it's been done in the past.  My touch stone is Final Fantasy XI and these things formed the backbone of their releases.  Let's look at Seekers of Adoulin, the last expansion.  That added two new classes, new zones and a whole new story line.  But that story line was continued and concluded in subsequent updates over 21 months.  So, the "cost" of that storyline to the player was the expansion pack price + 21 months of sub time.  That's about $200.

Guild Wars 2 doesn't have that subscription business model.  It doesn't need to be sticky it just needs you to buy from the gem store.  So we might see new classes released without any story at all. 1600 gems, please.  A Season 3 season pass.  A 1000 gems, thanks.  Story and Class bundle. 2400 gems, and ta very much.  Some people might just want the classes or access to new weapons, especially for PvP, and I think ANet wants to cater to them.

In terms of AAA popular success, Guild Wars 2 has broken the mould with regard to business model, cadence (even if it isn't every two weeks, fifty-two weeks a year) and actual play style (active combat with no trinity).

Guild Wars 2 is a modern MMO in a global market place and I think we should expect bigger things.  Wildstar failed because it tried to cling to the past in terms of content and business model.  A boxed expansion would be a step backwards for Guild Wars 2.  ArenaNet will not make that mistake and it has two huge challenges.

Firstly, convincing players that content released through the gem store is not a "scam" to get money out of you.  Those sales keep the game going.  It's not double-dipping.  Also, it's a digital market place.  Are you reading this on a phone? Would you prefer to go to a store and buy a cardboard box containing each an every app you currently have on it? It's 2015.

The second, and biggest challenge, is selling their vision to a bunch of people predominantly fuelled by nostalgia for the halcyon days of MMO gaming where everyone came back for an expansion and stayed 'til the next one.  Those days are gone. Long, long gone.

Of course, I could be totally wrong.  It's just guesswork.

Pass the tinfoil

I've had a few ideas for posts knocking about in my head over the Christmas break.  I don't make New Year resolutions but I am resolved to writing short posts more often.

Here's the first.

While I don't agree that the size of the Living Story team, as previously discussed, means that the rest of ArenaNet must be working on an expansion, I am starting to wonder what they are doing.  With the same Halloween and Wintersday content pulled out of the cupboard for last year and the relative brevity of the more recent Living World episodes there really isn't much to show for that many employees.

I guess we'll find out at have more of an idea after PAX South.

Comments #nbi

I just want to throw this up in respectful disagreement with a fellow blogger.

To quote myself:

frankly I think binning the trolls and leaving the backslapping kudos is a bit... I dunno. Disable comments best way full stop.

And I stand by this. Let's be clear I'm not suggesting the blogger was doing that, but I know people do.

If you want a "critical" discussion on a topic are comments that say "Great post! Totally agree!" any more or less valuable than posts that say "What a load of shit, you're a moron"?

Obviously there is a HUGE variety of opinions between those two "binaries" and that's where your critical discussion comes from.

But if you bin all the flat out trolling and keep the empty meaningless platitudes (aka backslapping kudos) there's no balance and it invites more trolling because it looks like you're favouring positive commentary.

So, either delete the kudos too or keep the trolls and let them revel in their glory/be seen for the idiots that they are.

Or, if you post something controversial, just disable the comments.  Your blog is for expressing your opinion, it doesn't always have to be about discussion and criticism.

Tinfoil hat speculation abounds: what is Arenanet working on?!

I'm annoyed.

I'm annoyed that I am having to write this blogpost to set some things, which I feel are perfectly freaking obvious, straight.

There is a "theory" doing the rounds that goes a little something this:

Angel McCoy said 20 people work on the Living Story, what are the other 280 staff at Arenanet doing?

We had this conversation in our guild last week and Hunter's Insight wrote a post about it.  I'm sure the same question has been asked elsewhere too. It's a good question to ask but let's not be blinded by speculation, cloaked in hope, masquerading as fact.


Right, debunking trousers on.

Firstly, she said those 20 people "create the Living World content".  That could mean literally anything. It could mean they do every single thing: write every word of dialogue, construct every single character model, design mob abilities, code events, QA every second.  It could also mean they are the production team.  A team of people that come together, agree and oversee the work of all the other employees in creating each release.  It could be something in between.  You can interpret what she said in a multitude of ways: there's no facts here.  That's why they pay PR people.  So ambiguous facts don't creep out and confuse users and, much more importantly, shareholders.

Anyway, to quote Angel, assuming she is a "reliable narrator":

My responsibility as narrative designer for the team is to keep the lore in check, to ensure the dialogue for the iconic characters is in voice, and to guide us through the overarching storyline

She doesn't mention writing any dialogue.  A lot of the dialogue varies based on your race... just checking that all would be a big job, right?

Secondly, just where has this 300 staff number come from (possibly here)?  Regardless, let's break it down based on my experience of an organisation with well over 2,000 employees.

We know people at Arenanet.  There's a good 50 people we can probably name right now.  Teams that we know for a fact exist:

WvW - at least 5 people
PvP - at least 5 people
Community Team - at least 9 people
LS Team - at least 20 people
Random PR/Leads - about 5 people

OK, let's list the "other" teams they might have just as a typical business:

Admin
Helpdesk/ICT
Server/Infrastucture/Web
Marketing
Finance
Customer Services
Facilities Management
Recruitment
HR
Legal

They all sound OK?  Any number of those could be outsourced.  Notice I haven't listed any animators, artists, game programmers, designers, producers, composers, monetisation or QA.

Now lets look at their current vacancies:

• ArenaNet Programming Internship 2014
• Build Engineer
• Data Analyst
• Economic Systems Designer
• Gameplay Programmer
• General Programmer
• Marketing Designer
• Marketing Production Manager
• Motion Graphics Artist
• Physics Programmer
• QA - Software Development Engineer in Test
• Senior Animator
• Spanish Linguistic QA
• Technical Art Internship
• Tools Programmer
• Web Programmer

What does this tells us?  There are at least 4 different sorts of programmer.  And, oooh, Spanish QA.  So we need a QA team PER language so, that's at least 4. And, of course, we'll need a localisation team for each language too.

Are we getting the picture yet?

There is no way on Grenth's green earth, with that much specificity in each post, that a team of 20 people churn out a Living Story episode every two weeks while everyone else works on Cantha. OK?

I am absolutely certain that a good portion of Anet's staff ARE working on things for the distant future and that MAY include an expansion.  But since they have stated categorically that they are NOT working on an expansion right now.  I'm inclined to believe that designing, building and maintaining a game played by people all over the world takes more than 20 people.

Right? Get back to fucking work.

.:edit:.
I edited this post because it seemed overly critical of an individual and that wasn't intended. My posts are purposefully written with a slightly tongue-in-cheek, angry tone: that's my style.  As is comedic extrapolation.

The gamification of games

Gamification was recently all the rage but I get the sense that it's kind of on the wane; it's becoming a bit passé.  In case you don't know gamification "is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems."  Mostly gamification takes the form of points, bars, badges and achievements.  Foursquare and Codecademy are great examples.


In essence it's a great idea for user engagement.  I actually enjoy the game aspect of Foursquare so I am disappointed that it's (sort of) going away in the new Swarm app.  I might just stop using the app all together.  Anyway, bit off topic.

At this point you're probably thinking "Dibs writes about GW2, where is this heading?"  Well, we're into Season 2 now.  Episodes 1 and 2 have been very well received and many people agree that Season 2 feels right and is set to deliver what was intended all along.  I'm with them.  One of the most notable changes for me is the separation of the achievements from the story.  Previously it felt as if the story was almost built around the achievements and I did not enjoy grinding achievements to get rewards from "the story", especially as there was only a limited time to do them.  In essence they gamified the story.

Season 1 of the Living Story became a system designed to pull you into the game every two weeks to complete tasks and get your badge.  They were right to call them meta-achievements, they became a game within the game.  I was one of the many that fell for it.  From the business point of view gamification was a great idea for player retention in the absence of a subscription, it got people involved and "marketed" the latest cash shop goodies.  But what I think the gamification of Guild Wars 2 showed was a lack of confidence in the story itself as a draw for players.

Yesterday I read a great article about the creation of a game called Threes.  You may not have heard of it.  You will have heard of 2048, which is supposedly a Threes rip-off.  If you read the article you will see that the designers went through many iterations to make the game re-playable and rewarding.  I decided to buy Threes and when I went to the Play Store I saw it featured Leaderboards and Achievement support.  So, having done all that work to perfect the game itself (and games are complex things), they still gamified it.  Weird.

But then that's not actually surprising when you consider that Call of Duty is a one of the biggest entertainment franchises in history, rivalling Harry Potter, Star Wars and the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). Except CoD is unique from these in that, as we all know, CoD has no story.  Where many games tack on multi-player CoD tacks on story. Gamification is the game in CoD: unlocks, achievements and badges.  All of this adding to the further gamification of games: your gamer score, whether it be on XBL, PSN or Steam.  In short, gamification works.  With that in mind you can't blame Arenanet for gamifying Guild Wars 2.  It makes both your stakeholders (player concurrency, baby!) and your players (yay, badges!) very happy.

So, you have to appreciate just how clever the change in Season 2 is.  The gamification is still there but it's literally secondary: the story takes precedence.  Achievements have finally taken a back seat to The Lore.  Oh, and what Lore it is.

I never played GW1 and it's only recently become clear to me just how much of GW2 I don't appreciate because of that.  I have a guildie who frequently complains about pre-Searing music in Kryta.  I don't understand why that's a problem.  From GW2 I know what the Searing was but until recently I thought the Searing created the Ghosts of Ascalon... and we're off and running.

I believe that RPG players love story. You only have to give us a taste and we'll hunger for more.  When you have a story as deep and rich as Guild Wars you really are onto a winner.  With Episode 3 moving into Iron Marches I have realised I have a problem: never mind GW1, I haven't even finished World Completion!  I have only been to Iron Marches for Guild Challenge.  There is Lore splattered all over the countryside just waiting to me gobbled up and digested.  Oh, and the much maligned Personal Story?

I, like Bhagpuss, discovered there is Lore oozing out of the racial Personal stories.  Gorr's theories explain a great deal about why the Elder Dragons are bad and telegraphed just exactly what those vines we're seeking before Episode 2 was released.  The Living Story finally links to the Personal Story and you suddenly realise while we were all off achievement whoring, there was an actual plan for the narrative of GW2.  The dragon shaped "2" logo wasn't just a reference to Zhiatan, the Elder Dragons plural are at the heart of the story.  At least we think so.  Maybe.  But at the very least I now feel a strong urge to get the sylvari story done!

So, what does that tell us about the last 2 years?  Well, after a good start, the Arenanet ship started to list.  It listed towards players that value gamification and achievement points, over story.  Now it looks like the ship might be righting itself.  Admittedly, the QA is still deeply questionable on some releases (Episode 3 is still broken) and I am a bit concerned that Anet over-relies on people having played GW1 to appreciate a lot of what GW2 has to offer in terms of story.  Publishing core story in books and online ("What Scarlet Saw") was probably a mistake but could have been a forgiveable necessity.

People are saying that Season 2 harkens back to GW1's style and feel and, since GW1 was never marketed as an MMO, maybe what was needed all along was a little more RPG.

MMOs aren't dead and neither are you

So I read this and it annoyed me.  Honestly, I'd like to just call it pathetic self-pity but that seems harsh.  I'll try and keep it brief, I don't want to rant.

Simply, MMOs aren't dead.

This is the author's expectation:

The hype before a new game, or as somehow a game starts to get a critical mass of players. The feeling that this may be it, maybe this is the time that people stick with it and we can put down roots like we did before. Maybe this time we can play together. It’s happening! It’s happening!

Firstly, new game hype is for mugs.  It messes with your expectations. There is no need to get involved in betas, headstarts or any of that nonsense to enjoy an MMO. Generally it pays to avoid the first couple of weeks, which are buggy and blighted by queues.  Next you'll get the bot influx and exodus of the players who decided it wasn't for them.  Once that phase is over the MMO starts, you're left with the people who want to play.  

I am in a multi-game guild and there are people still playing ESO.  They. Love. It.

Secondly, the idea that ALL your MMO friends, that you have probably collected from many games, will all find a single game that they will love and settle down in for "life" is, frankly, hilarious.  Yes, there is an element of:

Maybe the target audience is just too old and has too many responsibilities to feel any obligation, however so minor, to a game.

But the main issue is you've drawn together a group of disparate people and banded together over a shared love and that doesn't last forever.  It doesn't last forever in anything, anywhere in life.  Age is a major change catalyst, you tend to increase your responsibilities whether that be a job or caring for someone (kids/parents).

I played MMOs to be social, to achieve things with friends, to be part of a community, but I’ve realized that these things don’t exist any more, or not for many of us.

The fact is MMOs are as social as they ever were, the problem is you have set boundaries and expectations.  If you arrive in a new game with a pre-formed guild then you are, in fact, deliberately isolating yourself from the "community".  If your guild all quit the game "de jour" you CAN still find people playing that share your interests and enjoyments.  The question is do you want to?  Is it that, really, you're not that social and making new friends is actually too much effort?

Lastly, and most importantly, MMOs aren't a lifestyle choice when you're an actual grown-up.  Anyone that started playing an MMO in their teens or twenties and, 8 years later, still expects to feel that exact same level of immersion is a fool.  That's eight more years of experience of the real world and that changes your perspective.

A simple confirmation of this is to go back and watch an episode of a hallowed 80s cartoon.  I'm pretty sure you'll think it's crappy.  It probably won't hold your attention.  Does that make it bad? No. Does it mean cartoons are dead? No.  It means your expectations are higher.

Or how about playing at school with your friends? I remember playing games where my imagination created an entire world that we inhabited (we liked D&D).  If I went outside and played like that right now people would think I was mentally ill*.  But if you go and watch some kids playing in a school yard (be circumspect) they don't look ill.  They look the total opposite.

So, the fact is, MMOs aren't dead and they probably haven't really changed that much but how you perceive these games, how you interact with others and your expectations change every single second of everyday.

MMOs cannot compete with real life.

* I don't think people who do LARP are mentally ill.