Really disappointed with Arena Net - PR

[Torais]

My feelings are much the same as the OP. I loved GW2 in beta and had high hopes for the game. It hit launch with massive potential...but post launch? Yeah little but disappointment.

Development is amazingly sluggish at best and outright bewildering at worst. Communication and customer service is close to completely non-existent. Then you got mind-boggling choices like leaving free transfers open which is absolutely ripping WvW balance and the community from the inside out. These points and more are bought up time and time again on the official channels and all that is offered is maybe a vague claim if you're lucky. Usually it's complete disregard.

A crying shame really. AN had a real winner on their hands and so far are letting it slip between their fingers with a lethargic development team and shameless penny-pinching with the QA and customer service. That said, the last thing AN needs is "a Ghostcrawler". One of them is bad enough.

[Awe]

My feelings are much the same as the OP. I loved GW2 in beta and had high hopes for the game. It hit launch with massive potential...but post launch? Yeah little but disappointment.

Development is amazingly sluggish at best and outright bewildering at worst. Communication and customer service is close to completely non-existent. Then you got mind-boggling choices like leaving free transfers open which is absolutely ripping WvW balance and the community from the inside out. These points and more are bought up time and time again on the official channels and all that is offered is maybe a vague claim if you're lucky. Usually it's complete disregard.

A crying shame really. AN had a real winner on their hands and so far are letting it slip between their fingers with a lethargic development team and shameless penny-pinching with the QA and customer service. That said, the last thing AN needs is "a Ghostcrawler". One of them is bad enough.

For what it is worth, I suspect their largest man-power goes into developing new content rather than fixing bugs and balance issues as well as providing support. This comes from a simple fact that as a pay-to-play MMO it is in their best interest to keep tossing new things for people to pay for them. Subs MMO-s need a high retention of active subscribers on the regular basis so rushing new content is not as important as long as people are willing to grind whatever is already there. And this requires more work on polishing and balancing. While GW1 was still supported by the main force of AN, their tempo of developing and shipping new expansions was very impressive to say the least. In fact considering that they could create and launch Factions or Nightfall in less than a year each gives a perspective on things like Blizzard claiming they needed half year to finish Karazhan instance alone. We are still about to see how things will go with GW2 but giving what I said above my current bet is for the "less patching/support, more content" scenario. I dont know which one is better in the long run. Just noting.

[Abstieg]

I feel quite content with customer service so far.

[VibrantViolet]

My personal story in GW2 bugged several times. I never got a response to any of the tickets I sent in. Never finished PS to this day.

My character as well as my sister's were locked out of the game for 2 days. Never got a response to our tickets. We played alts till our mains were unstuck. Which coincided with a patch.

In GW1, my hubby had several of his account stolen 3 or so times. IT always took weeks to get his accounts back.

When my character was stuck in Rift, a GM showed up to unstick me within 10 mins of sending the ticket. When I bought the wrong item, a GM refunded me and equipped the proper item for me while I was tanking a raid boss. He sent me a little note that said good luck and "didn't want to disturb you". This was within the hour of sending in a ticket.

I can call Trion and speak to developers at the Trion offices directly. I've done it. There is zero bullshit with these guys.

Not all companies are the same. Sometimes you do get what you pay for.

That's weird, because I had my account stolen in GW1, and I got it back within an hour. :/

---------- Post added 2012-10-18 at 01:10 PM ----------

I never had a problem in GW1 so didn't have to deal with their customer service but I have heard mixed reactions with them. My only encounter with NCSoft was in Aion and I was pleasantly surprised by their customer service considering all of the bad press I had heard prior to putting in a ticket there.

The worst company I have encountered in customer service? EA, by a long shot. Across several games there too so it wasn't just a freak one time occurrence. I find them so bad that I really hesitate buying a game that EA is involved in.

Yeah, I had a good experience with NCSoft during GW1. My worst customer service experience as far as gaming has been Blizzard. I did have a few excellent experiences with them during WoTLK, but during Cata, it was terrible.

[Fencers]

I just use Trion as an example because I don't really play Warcraft. So whatever Blizzard are doing in the years since I stopped playing their game- no clue. But Blizz's support for me was mostly meh.

Support was pretty okay in SWTOR for me. At least they responded but the devs were full of such hubris. I was in F&F and alpha testing for SWTOR. The devs were sorta a-holes and never listened.

En Masse were wonderful too. Etc.

Again, sometimes you do get what you pay for.

[VibrantViolet]

I just use Trion as an example because I don't really play Warcraft. So whatever Blizzard are doing in the years since I stopped playing their game- no clue. But Blizz's support for me was mostly meh.

Support was pretty okay in SWTOR for me. At least they responded but the devs were full of such hubris. I was in F&F and alpha testing for SWTOR. The devs were sorta a-holes and never listened.

En Masse were wonderful too. Etc.

Again, sometimes you do get what you pay for.

I've never played Rift, but I have heard good things. I'd honestly try it if it didn't have a sub fee. I can't justify a sub fee anymore with having a toddler, a husband, and looking for a job. I wouldn't have the time to make it worthwhile. Yeah, sometimes you do get what you pay for, and other times you wonder, "What am I paying for?!" That was my last few months in WoW.

[Fencers]

Yeah, sometimes you do get what you pay for, and other times you wonder, "What am I paying for?!"

I think this is one of the most important questions to ask ourselves as customers; "What am I getting for my $ that I can't get better &/or cheaper elsewhere?"

If collectively more were willing to ask and evaluate that question objectively I think the industry & customers would be better off. People tend to let a lot of stuff go in justification of time invested or time already purchased. It is an odd kind of buyer's remorse or justification. Not even unique to MMOs but like game franchises, consoles, etc.

It's not really about Trion or Rift- just I am familiar with them. Because it could be applied to a number of games w/ a sub fee too. My Tera experience was absolutely wonderful. Felt I was supporting a company that gave a flip about their game & customers. Just another example, using En Masse this time. Natch.

The inverse of that would SWTOR for me. Terrible support, developers that give the impression of arrogance, slow content, poor quality content, incomplete game systems- was that value for my $15/monthly? Probably not. I unsub months ago despite enjoying the basic gameplay of SWTOR. It was not worth support as a game or service.

The last bit about service is def. worth reflection as customers.

[Deleted]

Problem is with service, it's generally poor at release for many games. Some games it's great, but others they're still working out what people are asking for, what problems people are having, in some cases they're understaffed and ticket waits are atrocious. In the worst cases, the staff don't even care!

I think that service matters less, but still does matter, in a B2P / F2P MMORPG since you can just quit and come back when the service is better. Not to say it isn't important, it just isn't costing you anything. Now, a sub based MMORPG is when it becomes a problem. Like you said, Fencers, SWTOR charging a sub fee was simply not worth the quality of service they provided and so you quit.

I've had similar problems in other video games, but if that game was free or B2P, even though they're losing a potential customer, they're not actually losing any solid profit. If, for example, I had quit World of Warcraft because of poor service - which isn't the case because comparatively I find WoW's service quality to be one of its redeeming features - then they would have lost £9 a month off of me.

Games that could potentially undergo large financial losses need to look at service as a factor almost as important as the gameplay, and I'm finding anet's service to be fairly poor recently.

[draykorinee]

My only contact with support team from anet was trying to get a refund before release, despite giving repeated emails they couldnt find my account, even witbhtmy log in details. The speed was average, i dont think blizzard offer much better but i did have to phone them twice, which is nice to do.

[Nehezbegar]

I just use Trion as an example because I don't really play Warcraft

When was it? Because now RIFT has like 300k-400k subs? I've played RIFT recently on high english server and there was not a lot of ppl and most servers are medium-low. They have less ppl to take care of than GW2 had at the launch (400k ppl at the same time(its called CCU or sth) on all servers and 2mln copies sold).

Personally, i did not encounter any issue with GW2. My account has never been stolen in any game, including GW2 (i can protect my PC and stuff). Well tbh in past 2 months i have no reason to submit a ticket. I'm really lucky guy.

I've seen that some guy said that "Some game can't maintain their low pop servers" and it's true, i don't know why u are mad at him. Atm im struggling on the medium server, Saurfang-EU, where the ratio is like 5:1(Alliance:Horde).I'm playing Horde and recently we've lost 4 mainteam ppl, cuz they decided to transfer etc. Till now we cant find proper replacements due to the lack of ppl on our side, on this realm...and company managing this game does NOTHING, literaly NOTHING about that. FCM does shit, because when players transfer into low pop and see the situation, they transfer back to the better balanced and populated servers. I don't even mention in what condition Sporeggar-EU is...like 300 ppl in primetime(on the whole server, including alliance and horde). Don't tell me "stop playing", "transfer somewhere else", cuz i don't want to. I like WoW, i like my realm and i'm paying fuckin monthly fee, so why they charge additional money for transfering to finally play the real MMO where the "Massive" word has a meaning?

I can get warning or whatever, but i had to say it. It's not the WoW sucks post, cuz i love this game as much as GW2, but the Blizzard's server managing just sucks.

[Daarksoul]

Well, obviously wow is way less buggy and far more polished than GW2, it's been out for 10 years.
GW2 is doing about the same as wow was when it first came out 10 years ago, people forget that wow was full of all kinds of bugs and almost unbearableto play at times - just like GW2 is now.
Give it some time!

Besides, you can play both games. When you want something new, maybe lots of lag and slow and buggy and everything, but new! Play GW2. When it crashes, or becomes unplayable go back to wow for a while. Both games are good.

[Valeron]

Hmm, GW2 has never been unplayable. Bugs? For sure. But always playable.

[Deleted]

Yeah, the bugs are irritating but I have to say I've experienced worse kinds of bugs in other games - falling through the floor, for example.

I remember when WoW's teleport: Moonglade spell was bugged and I teleported underneath Winterspring and had to resurrect there as a level 10 and run to somewhere the mobs didn't want to kill me so I could use my Hearthstone without being killed by a stray level 55 mob.

Funny in retrospect - Fucking irritating at the time.

[malbojia]

So being a condenscending douche bag is consider good communication...ok thanks for the heads up.

[Deleted]

So being a condenscending douche bag is consider good communication...ok thanks for the heads up.

Like lashing out to random people that made a bump on the forum ?

[Salech]

Now I know why I have you on ignore, its dumb comments like this, I dont want to turn this in to a wow v gw2 debate like your trying. I said more bang for your buck, ie you get more rewards for running orr, only completionists will want to run downlevelled zones, no one with a brain will go back to a level 10 zone to get rewards if they have 100% in there.
Your last comment is the biggest load of drivel Ive read from you and isnt worth me defending, if you think that the majority of players raid your a bigger fool than i thought, to defend it would just descend in to inane wow vs gw2.

orr being 1 zone/3zones symantics not a defense.

So us who do meta events in places we have done 100% are stupid now?, guess what, meta events gives a chest with level 80 items in them, it does not happen only in Orr.

your lack of imagination of what to do in GW2 doesn't make it stupid, it makes you look stupid.

[Deleted]

Hmm, GW2 has never been unplayable. Bugs? For sure. But always playable.

I'd call being stuck in story mode 3 times for almost 3 weeks as unplayable.

[draykorinee]

So us who do meta events in places we have done 100% are stupid now?, guess what, meta events gives a chest with level 80 items in them, it does not happen only in Orr.

your lack of imagination of what to do in GW2 doesn't make it stupid, it makes you look stupid.

Your talking about meta events, not once have I said meta events arent viable, however as hjla said :-

Unfortunately, these DE chains are limited to certain zones that have the large DE chains - this kind of defeats the object because now instead of being funneled into one zone - Orr - you're now being funneled into one other zone, which is the one with the large DE chains.

Currently it doesn't actually seem worth it unless you like the zone or have a chain event / rotation farm organised plan going.

I said going to do low level content to get rewards is ineffecient and noone with a brain would do it, meta events is not something I ever mentioned
Alot of content in a lot of mmo's is dead and useless the minute you out level it, GW2 has the opportunity to make all content relevant, but, imo, it fails to do so because Anet failed to tune downlevelling right, if they did that, then 100% of content is relevant, as of right now, you can smash lowever level content as easy as a level 80 mage fireballing level 1 trolls. Please read the thread and offer proper rebuttals to my posts.

[VibrantViolet]

I'd call being stuck in story mode 3 times for almost 3 weeks as unplayable.

Did you bring it to their attention? Did you search for possible ways to get around the bug? I had a bug in my story mode, but I Googled it, and found a way to get around the bug to complete that part of the story. Annoying, yes, but unplayable? No.

[draykorinee]

I'd call being stuck in story mode 3 times for almost 3 weeks as unplayable.

Technically due to that bug, only that part is unplayable, the rest of the game was playable, at least I think thats what dooze is saying :S