User:Arual/Thoughts Zaishen

My Thoughts on the Zaishen Title
There are two reasons why I dislike the new Zaishen Title Track and have decided to write this 'rant'.

'PvP' title - yeah right
First off is that this new 'PvP' title can be bought. If Anet truly wanted to create a new PvP title track related to Balthazar faction they should have created it so that the 5k Balthazar points automatically opened the chest. This would remove the ability to transfer the chest openings and title to a different account, except through the use of (Golden) Flames of Balthazar. If Anet truly wanted to reward past PvP players they could have retroactively credited accounts with points based on their past accumulation of Balthazar Faction, which the game does log. Admittedly I can understand the reason why they didn't retroactively give people points for opening chests (previously this action wasn't recorded and logged) and why they don't just give players keys (that would lead to even more depreciation of the high-end items which drop from the chest, which has suffered enough as it is).

Unnecessarily Large Values
I have always had a pet hate for games which purposely do not use the lowest possible common factor. I've always been impressed with Guild Wars in that whilst you need say 10,000,000 Luxon/Kurzick Allegience for the max Allegience rank - 1 Faction does exist within the game and can be earnt. Fame can be earnt one at a time, Un/Lucky points can be earnt one at a time... so why is this one Title the exception? Even with other aspects of the game such as damage and armour the lowest possible attainable value exists within the game, and is useful. So why after three years did they finally fail and create a title that is needlessly multiplied to make it bigger? It would be alot simpler and within what I consider as the ethos of the game if it was 1 point per Key used. It is entirely possible that they have an event or update planned whereby it will be possible to get a single point - untill that happens I can only think that Anet failed on the this one.

Just a Couple More Thoughts
The title isn't all bad, I'll stick with my general dislike of it though, especially considering the few tweaks that could have been made to it for me to like it (although admittedly I might find even more holes in it then). I fully understand that this title was created not just for the veteran PvP players but for new players. I also understand the economics ramifications of the title - which I am adament was a major reason for introducing the title as they did. Games need change to survive - this is a change which encourges players to join and makes it more fun for new players (since the new casual PvP players will have an equal footing with the veteran PvP players).

Economy
Whilst I don't pertain to be a guru on such issues I can make some guesses as to how this was affected. First off all those rare-skinned items and everlasting tonics just dipped in price, as a result of a demand shock, presumably permanent. This makes the rich people who typically own these items a little bit 'poorer' (although only should they decide to sell such items) and also these rare-skinned items become that little bit more affordable for your casual player. Not to mention that those people that do alot of PvP or had Zaishen Keys stockpiled just witnessed a jump in their revenue and wealth respectively - although in my opinion those that do alot of HoH and win it are rich enough as it is anyway (damn the HoH unique skins). Generally speaking though, from my 'poor' perspective the economic changes are/were beneficial - I at least have the option to sell my Zaishen Keys from my infrequent PvP.

Anet wanting more money
NCsoft/ArenaNet wants to earn money, not just to pay for the servers but also because it is a company with shareholders. This is a fact and I don't even mind it - Anet host GW on their servers and we need them to keep those servers up. Since we don't pay subscription fees they have to rely on people making the one-off payment of either buying the games or puchasing more characters slots etc. I love this idea, I've so far paid about ~3.6p for every hour that I have played Guild Wars, this is much more economical than say a DVD or going to the cinema. So yes, they need to make money - this title helps them do that in two ways. First off they increase their revenue by attracting new players and persuading existing players to buy new campaigns. Now this next one might be going out on a limb but it makes sense; they cut their costs by persuading people to play PvP which requires less updates (minus skill balances) and bug fixes than general PvE. Obviously some people might disagree with this since Anet is constanly tinkering with GvG and HA etc but the PvE world is much bigger and needs more fixing, just remember that not all of it logged unlike PvP changes. As you can imagine Anet will be focusing less on GW when GW2 comes out and this probably means a smaller team of people involved with it, which means fewer wages and higher profit.