So, if there actually is endgame content in the form of a dungeon/lair/raid and Funcom is not telling us at this point, would you attribute that to malice or incompetence ?
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Asking for more group endgame content is itself endgame group content.
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I just cried a bit inside… ;-;
It’s anecdotal from every endgame player I’ve spoken with. We all see friends leaving steadily for the same reasons - there’s not enough to do.
Is this offset by an influx of new players? Possibly - but it’s still bad to have poor retention in your game.
I’ve rebutted that several times, but even calling it a “shared world RPG” still means Massive (or Moderate) Multiplayer Online… something. It’s modeled on an MMO and monetized like an MMO, so despite the hand-flapping protests of those saying otherwise, it’s disingenuous to claim it’s not an MMO at all.
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The way people repeat the SWL marketing BS like that’ll somehow turn it into a truism never seizes to amaze me.
Funcom could’ve gone with a gear system that’s actually similar to [insert your favorite single-player RPG here], instead of one that is similar to and only similar to certain obnobnoxiously grindy MMOs.
Funcom could’ve reworked story dungeons to flat-out be a single-payer experience instead of keeping the forced group content integral to seeing the full story like any other MMO.
Funcom could’ve bloody not reworked Agartha into an MMO hub and ruined its atmosphere, but they did. They made it a proper one-stop MM-F’n-O hub.
SWL might actually be a better game if Funcom had fully delivered on what their marketing label promises, instead of relaunching as, factually, a MMO.
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I sincerely hope they don’t plan to work on brand new group content. The missing elite dungeons are on the backlog with assets ready to go, so it would be more efficient to work those into SWL rather than creating completely new group content. So many of us miss those dungeons and would appreciate having them back.
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For most players, the Manufactories would be completely new, too.
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Game genres are entirely whimsical and largely meaningless and who cares what the marketing people decided to classify it as? If they had called it an mmo, we’d be here today with someone arguing that they shouldn’t call it that because a true mmo wouldn’t use instancing or some such. 
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Wouldn’t attribute it to anything dear. 
I’m not that type of person to think that way.
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I’ve been wondering about this statistic, is it looking at characters or highest character on the account? Totally fair if you can’t answer that just wondering =P
I guess the actual statistics and what players see is likely different. The end game portion of players are more likely to be communicating in the global chats i could imagine. Was just curious if you count players or chars (sounds like it is players, and i hope it is).
Personally very excited for the new story, and story is my fav part of the game. New group content in the think tank doesn’t sound bad at all either though xD.
I recently read of the 5-20-80 rule/priciple.
Basically 80% of the playerbase never really interact with the community much and just play the game, 20% read but don’t actively post, 5% are we, people that post in forums, discords, reddits and of those 5% the people that bang there head against the endgame and get bored of repition are an niche…
Satisfying this percentage of the game population is while positive for the game, negative in terms of priorities. You wanna satisfy the big chunks before satisfying the smaller parts of a community. That doesn’t mean not care but care equally to their “weight”/percentage they hold in the community and the avaidable resources and given that since the start of SWL funcom has been tight in it’S dev-resources there is not that much one can do.
It’s at this point not wrong to poll ideas for endgame content but one has to stay realistic and see that some things just won’t happen. As much as it hurts and one would love to rage against the system.
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All the above sounds very plausible.
That sounds right. And even amongst the “vocal 5%”…you know what happened when Funcom released an issue entirely dedicated to end game players for TSW? Endless arguing about how it wasn’t catering to the vocal story people. It sold poorly because, partly, many people were convinced it either had no story or didn’t further the story of The Secret World. Which…if one thinks of “advance the story” as purely light blue missions, it didn’t, but by God the Manufactories were packed full of story directly related to the main themes of TSW. It remains one of my disappointments with SWL that all the story people who wouldn’t touch issue 12 don’t have Story Mode Manufactories to see what they were missing, though I understand why those dungeons aren’t in game. The work required to adapt them is, I think rightly, pointed at making new stuff. I do hope they can come back sometime, though.
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Focusing on those 99% story eager people would be fine too 
I seem to recall a lot more “casuals” in TSW nightmare dungeons. Those that primarily were interested in story and RP yet dabbled in dungeons. I knew full cabals with those people who wrote their own fan fiction, hunted down TSW-themed music, yet still did Kaidan, NY and other raids.
If Funcom considers E1 and up as endgame, then endgame could, and should, be design-targeted to more than just the 1% “endgame bros” population. It behooves their bottom line to do so.
Most people aren’t playing SWL specifically for one aspect. It’s not that type of game. Maybe there’s a way for you to see that with your user data, but that’s my anecdotal experience.
Also PS that at least two of the last handful of NM raid leaders in TSW were women…just sayin, bro.
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I watched the latest Funcom quarterly report. The CEO says something like “further development of SWL depends on the success of the Season 2 launch”. So my take is, they probably saved those existing assets to make easy “new content” if Season 2 went well. If so, then they would have enough resources to do a little bit more than maintenance mode.
Thank you very much for the response. Knowing that stuff in the works helps immensely - timelines to perk optimism always are nice, but I know y’all are doing a lot with a little.
(If I could offer any one suggestion to help with SWL, even before my personal lusts, it would be to streamline the cash shop. You have an incredible fashion selection buried away and oddly priced. Remember WalMart; sell for less to more and take over the world. For instance, 10x as many people would buy Bingo Blast at 300au as 1k - or offer real cash deals for fashion packs of outfits, cache key and a couple potions at discount on rotation. It’s miles better already, now that more is visible and tabbed, but I’d seriously suggest keeping it as a focus for resources.)
So basically, the answer is the second Tuesday after Never. That’s when we get more endgame content.
But…this is not nice.
It’s ok to “lol” as Tron.
But, as marked as a developer, it can be questionable. 
It’s like…
It’s fairly reasonable for people to have questions to the statistic data. Thus, by what right does someone like a government officer to “lol” at those people?
[This post is a side effect of my law study and fighting against government power in China. 
]
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