Guild Wars 2

…and I’m writing in suggestions, because I have no idea where to put it. Well, maybe to trash.

First things first. Sorry for my english – not my first language, but still – I hope it’s not that bad. And sorry for wall of text – it’s one of those posts. Second – I will call to other games I know, so embrace it (I’ll try to keep it at minimum). I wanna write a little bit about dangers I see on the GW2 path. I do not claim, that I am original or I saw it first – probably Anet knows about it all and is getting ready. Or I hope it is. So why am I writing this (and You can skip that part)? Because I think any chunk information can be useful. I love Guild Wars series and I wish it best, so if my perspective is different than Anet and if I saw something they didn’t – why not to share it? Or just try. There is no harm in trying. And above all – I’m not the oracle, I don’t know everything and what I write is based on my opinions (You don’t have to agree) and observations (and that can be misleading), so keep it civil.
I see GW2 game mechanics as a tripod and will address them as such. Said that, I will address both current state from fanboy-gamer eyes and the danger I can see or smell from upcoming future.
PvE
Crown jewel and gem of Guild Wars 2. It’s my thing, it’s what I understand. Flat progression – is something that bought me in GW1 and is still working for me in GW2.
Just short jump towards the “no endgame” phrase, that all of us heard billion times. While I disagree, I still believe that Anet can do better. There are tons of ways of giving players endgame, excluding gear-trademill and constant chase after higher level cap in PvE. I see problem within “not trying” to find other way. Living Story is a great thing, but it’s not for all of us out there and while I’m the one who really enjoys it, I understand why some players don’t. There’s no need for raiding, while You can create new things. My friend gave me example of what have been done for Rift – but hey, I can’t repeat that – I didn’t played more than 3 hours of Rift, so I can’t judge. But with or without this knowledge, I am sure there are other ways to improve endgame as we know it.
Now is time for Living Story and the danger I see with it. There is this little game called Neverwinter Online, that I saw. I can’t say I like it, because between unappealing (to me) graphic style, crappy controls and uninspiring game mechanics, the fun from gaming is lost for me. What I do notice is “forge”. I heard people discussing, “if the forge have a chance to stand against Anets Live Team”. I think it’s the wrong question. The real one is – do Live Team have any chance against thousands of players doing their best to shine in creative environment. What made games like Skyrim, NWN1&2, WC3 really special? Moders. Anets Live Team is big, biggest thing of that kind I ever saw, but it’s nothing compared to all those moders, who will cast their magic “without” any restrictions. It’s hard to forget how DotA started, or what was the beginning of Counter Strike. Licentia Poetica at its finest. Immersion breaking? Well – do not let this slip into canon. But to let players try? You can’t do a skritt without trying. You try, You fail, You improve. You try, You win – heck, You won already! I think there is a great battle before GW2 and Live Team is in disadvantage (outmanned and outpowered). The only hard ground that Anet have to stand on, is the fact, that they are not bound by limitations of creators kit (so much fo “without” any restrictions in “forge” :P). If Live Team have idea that cannot be implemented with current GW2 build? They can add new mechanics with update, just for sake of doing something cool (and I’m not talking about crab tossing cool…). How can this battle be won? I have no idea. I don’t think that copy&paste of “forge” concept could be solution, but hey – idea of every player making they own “stories” in depth of mists is really tempting.

More about Living Story? I’m not satisfied – it’s good, but can be great. Anet have these amazing writers and I’m saying this as a person, who did some writing-for-living stuff. There is not enough (not even close) immersion. Not enough fraternization or even exposure with main characters of this stories. I know that Anet wants players to dig into story to find things, but hey – they are making casual gamers friendly product. So make casual friendly content, and leave this hidden underneath relish as a bonus for more hardcore players. Make some movie like scenes, where we (as a players) could really sense this iconic characters. Because now, they are lot of things, but not iconic. Don’t let me even start on Magister Sieran, Trahearne or rest of personal story characters. Lets the commentary for their “complexity” be the fact, that my buddy Lord Faren has amnesia, and don’t know me anymore. Simple idea to solve it? In Living Story? Make those NPC useful even out of those short story arcs. Example? Nicholas from GW1 – make this new guy (or at least I think he is new, I never met him before, or he was soooo memorable I can’t recall him) Canach more open to players. Throw around some evidence about evilness of Consortium, that player can pick up and return to him on map – before he will be useful to players. Before he will mean something in story. Like Whomping Willow in Potter series – it’s great, even if it’s reused concept, because the story takes us inside, by the things we knew before. Give this guy funny and interesting things to say, every time he interact with player – from really neutral “hey I need Your help, I’ll give You some karka shell if You fetch me this thingy I ‘forgot’ from Consortium camp!”, through “whaaa? What do You mean You’ve stolen this thingy for me? It always was ‘mine’ thingy” and “I don’t like those Consortium guys, come on – I’ll show You what they did…” into really conspiracy theory that could mark him as a character having well… character. Personality. Depth. Throwing another half baked guy into game and telling us who he is and how he is (look at Bram or Rox – are they what we heard they are? Because there is not enough of them in action to prove it – dialogues in Molten Facility was step in good direction, but it was final step at the same time) will not make him that person if he won’t prove it. And based my statement on knowledge, of how long this Living Story arch is going to take – there is very small chance he could pull this off. 10 dialogues, 2 events, 3 cut scenes ain’t enough. Especially finished with “puff I’m off and out” act, that was sold to us on every other occasion, by every other character.
Above that? I’m still waiting for all this promised stuff. Housing, “my story” – maybe some of those stuff was crossed out in meantime, but I really hope they wasn’t (I’m thinking about character story development). If I have to wait a little longer? Well, I can do that. PvE have it share of love with every update, so no complaining here.

WvW
The World vs World is some strange kind of endgame for me. Don’t get me wrong – it’s personal. It’s the place I go, when my guild is online and no one have any better idea on how to spend our time. I’m not even sure on what tier my server is – not that low I think, maybe T3 or T4. Most of players sit in PvE, but WvW have a healthy community. There is always something going on, there are always dolyaks to kill, enemy corps to profane etc. But it’s not my thing. I’m the lore guy, spending my time in PvE. So some parts of this will be based on what I’ve heard. And what I’ve heard is, that GW2 WvW is best that there is at the moment… but other games are coming. WvW may be fun, but have some problems with boring maps concepts (or so I heard, can’t really tell), too slow improvement implementation with updates – things that doesn’t concern me… yet. There are 2 big games coming, to challenge GW2 WvW. The Elder Scrolls Online and Camelot Unchained. While I don’t have much hope in tESO (ZeniMax is not the company I will cross my fingers for) I could be wrong. Heck, but I still don’t trust companies making game on popular IP only because the IP alone could sell the game. The Camelot Unchained is different story. The game is literally WvW (or RvR, whatever – I don’t care) game, so 100% horsepower will go into this. To be or not to be of this game will be dependent on “is it better than GW2 WvW?” (keep tESO out of the equation of eternal alchemy for now). And it has to be at least “much better”, because GW2 gives us more than WvW. So City State Entertainment (guys behind Camelot) do understand it well I believe. And while everyone can buy GW2 and try it – I think they know really well all weak points and strong points of Anets game. If both of this games (tESO and Camelot I mean) will be released in unfortunate (for GW2) time, it could suck GW2 WvW dedicated players in such doses, that whole WvW would starve. Even if the GW2 would be the best game at the end – it wouldn’t matter. How to counter that? Only 2 ideas – make WvW a lot more interesting for players (both to lure newcomers and to reward hardcore WvWers) and… release box add on in right time. People will buy it (because why not? They already have GW2, and it was at least “fun”, so let check what new stuff they made for us), try it and if WvW will have shiny chunk of content in this add on, it should suffice. And I really don’t believe that tESO and Camelot will be released in perfectly hurting for GW2 timing, because they will need to clash between themselves at the same time, which will bring both of them less profit. So fingers crossed, if creators of those games don’t have zerg mentality, it will be ok.

PvP
Erm… yeah. PvP is dying. Well – it is dead, but it doesn’t know it yet. GW2 PvP had amazing chance to be e-sport. Lot of stuff to overcome, but it had it chance. Now, when the momentum is gone, we can say “farewell it was nice when it lasted”. Do PvP have a chance to rise? Sure. But I don’t have my hopes high. Don’t get me wrong – I like it. I like the way of character controls and class balance with no trinity working together. But PvP have some issues – oh boy, how many issues PvP have.
First thing – new map won’t save it. 10 new maps wont. 6 maps already and I think Anet is adding new too fast. Game needs something fresh to have another shoot of greatness. People didn’t came here to play Conquest and Conquest only. They want 1vs1 and 2vs2. Yeah – I know game is not balanced for those game types. But really – shout as loud as You can that You giving them early beta access to those game types, because duels is a big part of PvP community. You’ve ignored it for more than a half of year, and guess what – there is almost no community to save. So add those skritt duels (not that I want that personally – I don’t like PvP much, but it’s hard not to notice where the problem lies) and repeat 100 times per minute, that You do it only because You want to gather data, to make it shiny feature in the future. And pray for it to work, because probably it is already too late. That is one thing, the other (even bigger) is GvG. I know that the name of game – Guild Wars – comes from the GW history (war of guilds from before Prophecies) yadda yadda yadda. But really, come on – people do expect this game to have GvG, and they expect it to have in day one. It supposed to be included from game launch if You ask any unaware player out there. And You know what? Probably it is too late for GvG as well. Most of PvP guilds I know left some time ago. Come on – PvP is begining to look like a ghost town more and more with every single day. The time to act passed already, and as You can tell from things like changes in daily achievement routine – it’s time for desperation.
I won’t call for any game here that can bully GW2 PvP, because PvP in this game is bullied from inside. The word is, that resources for PvP was cut down to minimum, because it’s not winning players attention. Skritt – it won’t win any without a lot of resources.
PvP need boost, great boost and it needs it for yesterday. If not for last month, or moth before that. Or maybe even month before – I’m not sure when it was too late to save GW2 PvP, but I’m afraid it really is too late already.
Do I have idea how to save PvP? Yeah I do. If Anet wants to know, they can always write to me, but I think they hired better people already. Still, my idea is about bringing new players into PvP – which is nice change, from scaring off those who still play (I’m looking on daily achievements changed into chores that we had some time ago – fortunately changed back into uninspiring, but easy to finish simple daily). I can’t and I won’t cover changes for PvP hardcore players… because I’m not one of them and I can’t understand them. Casual players, newcomers from PvE, newbies – they need different thing that hardcore players and my advice is to make 2 PvP teams working side by side. Let one team do things to herd more players into PvP, while second team please PvP veterans, because they need at least cool beer for sticking in game till now.

Where it leaves me, as a “fanboy”? In the middle. Till now, GW2 was great experience. Amazing PvE (in my taste), nice WvW and a bit broken PvP. GW2 had great run and is still running. Playerbase is bigger than most games I tried had after 3 months, so it’s a huge positive. There are clouds in future, but there is also a lot of sunshine and I don’t believe that combined power of Neverwinter&tESO&Camelot can take down whole game in one blow, if Anet will be ready. None the less I do notice the danger. If I can help in any way? Sure – I will if I can. Can I? Well, I worked a bit in show business (at the end of the world), I spend lot of my time on writing fantasy stories (skritt those language barriers XD ), I was betatesting so many games I can’t even remember half of them, since the times that internet connection was luxury in my country (ah the 90ties, and You had to go to internet cafeteria to go with all the testing to even see some change money for it XD – sweet memories). I have so many ideas that can add something to this game… and You know what? I think it’s same with most of You, who were so brave and bored to read up to this point. That’s why we are here. And I don’t think Anet needs any of what I can offer to pull another amazing months of gaming for us, but it’s not why I wrote this text wall above. If any of this would throw different light on what is happening, I’m glad. Don’t fix what is not broken (that is why I still wait for a lot of fixes in PvE XD ) but there is always space for improvement. So improve!
Theeee end.