Playerbase quality

[tanithryudo]

You know, say what you will about GW's playerbase, but I have noticed that they are generally quite... anally hardcore? :-p Yeah, even...especially the PvE folks.

I don't know how other pay-to-play games like WoW has it, but I've been reading some general whining on the PWI/STO forums about grab bag items and how the players demand transparency from the devs on the percentages of certain rewards.

And I can't just help but compare it to the Guild Wars fan base, which instead of demanding hard numbers...start tallying up the #'s themselves across large numbers of people, and then estimate a drop rate/spawn rate/etc. from there which then gets posted to the wiki or wiki discussion page. Now, yes, I do get that there is a difference here in that the GW players are crunching numbers on largely non-purchased stuff (drop rates, spawn rates, holiday mystery box rates, etc.) But given how fast the grab boxes in STO/PWI sell (only the keys need to be purchased with $$), I don't think there are any less sources of datapoints there either; just no one getting together to crunch some numbers.

Even in general, the GW wiki (and related wikis like PvX) is a pretty awe-inspiring place. Quick updates, complete records of every bit of minutae in the game, strategy suggestions that get updated according to game/skill balance, statistical analysis of all sorts of stuff...

They're all free-to-play games. But what's so unique about the GW crop of players?

Comments

[cashew.insanejournal.com]

I'd argue Kingdom of Loathing has a pretty hardcore group of players, too. Especially those who make spading multis, just sayin'. XD

I think GW playerbase has to crunch the numbers on their own because the devs made it clear they are not going to sit there and give drop rates. They refuse to be transparent about it, so players get around it. I know WoW started off as an RTS, so maybe that's why the devs are more willing to make percentages transparent? Y'know, what with needing to know %s to make competitive decisions, while RPGs have a lot more wiggle room. Not sure about STO.

[tanithryudo.insanejournal.com]

No dev of any game will give out drop rates. I don't think KoL does either. Nor does PWI or STO or GW... Does WoW really?

[cashew.insanejournal.com]

I don't know about WoW, but Warcraft is an RTS, so all the percentages are transparent. I imagine some of that followed over into WoW. Of course, never having played it, I don't know.

Maybe STO has a more demanding fanbase because it started off as pay-to-play and only recently converted to f2p? So the community mentality still hasn't completely turned around yet in terms of demanding more from developers? I don't know.

Although, weren't there threads that demanded devs to answer drop rate questions back when GW had a lot of farming regarding the loot distribution (if I recall, it was debate over is it better to solo or go with a full group of hench). It kinda died down, but I think that's because farming became so much less profitable over time.

[tanithryudo.insanejournal.com]

There has *always* been demands on the DE's to be transparent about drop rates and other hidden stats stuff, now that I think about it. I've seen it on the KOL forums, the GW forums, STO forums, and I'd bet you they'd be around on WoW forums too.

I think the main difference between a good and bad community is that in the good ones, there would actually be people who'd take the initiative to find out the stats themselves.