Re: [Feedback] Support Feedback On The PvZ Series Going Forward
Here's my take on this.
The game also experienced a surge when it was first offered on Steam, but it didn't last. Lack of updates and rampant cheating drove a lot of people away, though likely the latter more than the former. They even drove me away as a veteran, time and again, because it's not an enjoyable experience when halfway through your match, some brain-dead skid comes along and starts activating obnoxious scripts that screw with everyone, or goes around with invulnerability and damage cheats. This is an issue that's been going on for years, and EA only bothered to *finally* attempt to address it when it got to a point of severity where players were able to soft-ban other players (which was an enormous failure that largely just made game performance worse).
Check back on those player numbers a month or so from now and it's a fair bet to say they'll be substantially lower. Add on top of that the poor reception and performance of PvZ 3, and executives that have the decision-making power for updating GW2 or going forward with a GW3 aren't going to be inclined or easily persuaded to greenlight a new project, especially when the team that used to do the work is now gone. Shepard's initial impressions of the low chance (if any) are most likely to be correct.
No idea if this will be noticed, but if you *really* want to get the series back on its feet, you have to present a LOT more than just stats for current player traffic. You essentially have to do something I've been toying with off-and-on, which is putting together significantly more details and at least a rough "plan of action", so-to-speak. Proper justification and pre-planned details that can provide new confidence and save time going forward.
Even if all that works...
You're then still looking at all the other details. Getting a new team together, planning things out (how similar to any of the 3 other games, new features, balancing, story, etc.), new marketing, actually coding a new game (or updating the current one, which won't happen because it's nowhere near as profitable as a brand new title that can be sold for $30 - $40 a pop, and a new one is really needed because of the amount of flaws in GW2; I won't even get into how poorly BfN did and why that's a lost cause) competently, and so on.
Then there's also core issues with EA's management of different titles, including the GW series, as well as EA's very poor reputation in the gaming community. Popcap is technically to blame for direct issues with matters like gameplay, for instance, but EA is also to blame being the company that owns Popcap, with full authority to manage them as needed. I could go on for a fair while on this topic, but I'll end off here so as not to overwhelm people with a massive wall of text.
If you ever see this Shepard, I'd be more than happy to go into more detail and have a proper discussion on this topic. I personally want to see a GW3 made, and even have theoretical work done for it. But I highly doubt it's actually going to happen, at least while EA owns and controls the franchise.
