Guild Wars 2

Hi Arenanet if you’re listening….

I think the difficulty in the dungoens is fantastic and can only look forward to the challenge mode. Bring it on!

However, there’s a real problem. GW2 prevents proper “Team” gaming, contrary to its primary intention of “community”. This really isnt just a whinge, it’s a hard fought but reluctantly accepted disappointment having invested so much time and effort into the game and the run up to it. More alarmingly its very bad portents for the future and sadly (very sadly) it looks like you’ve missed the fundamentals of what keeps major MMOs going. And woe, I actually dont think there is anything you can do about it – the failings are fundamental and structural. As follows:

No large-team, end-game content.
The capacity to play and run with a team of 10-25 people through strategic team instances is probably the most compelling and stimulating gaming that 80% of MMO players live for. Its the major factor that keeps people playing and keeps them teamed and focussed together. In GW2 large team instances are absent. They do not exist and there are no plans for it – quite the opposite.

No large team access to WvW.
The party size entry to WvW is limited to 5. The only way around this is to pay 100G for a Guild to enter as a team. This amount of Gold is unthinkable for many months to come. Instead we are restricted to 5 people in party at a time (assuming you can get a spot in WvW anyway with the excessivly long queues)

Tournament events with restricted entry.
There is the option for structured PVP and even 8 v 8 teams. However, a special ticket is required to enter and if willing particpants dont have the ticket you cant get into the event. It’s hard to see why on every level GW2 is trying to prevent, limit, restrict or even eliminate large team/party gaming

Multiple Guild membership.
The glue that holds other games together is a combination of adherents. Large team instances to stimulate plus Guild community, friendship, loyalty and bonding. With the capacity for players to jump from Guild to Guild at the flcik of a switch the opportunity to build a proper game sustaining environment is seriously inhibited and perhaps permanently damaged.

Many other games have tried to lead the way in a new modern era of MMO. All have failed to make a major impact becuase of some of the reasons above. GW2 has all of the shortcomings above – depsite having been by far the most promising, the most stimulating and the perhaps the last opportunity in along line of attempts. It’s hard to see how the community and the gaming stimulus can be maintained in this fashion. If GW2 fails this wil be the one that hurts most of all. Why oh why did GW2 miss the basic but critical fundamentals of what keeps a major MMO going. How is it possible to miss ALL of them?

I will press on in the hope that something appears somewhere, sometime to bring people together but I have a sinking feeling already that this can only end one way. It may be back to WOW MOP in weeks time (please no!) which even though it looks like the Flinstones, has all the elements required to keep people playing and teamed together. In the meantime I’ll eandeavour to find ways to sustain the hopes, aspirations and disappointments of our 75+ Guild members so far. At the moment there is little they can do to play together, except huddle all over the place in small fractured teams of 5, in short-term unstimulating activity. It doesnt bode well.

Please, please, please I hope that your listening Arena, though I doubt there is much you can do now. I guess we wont get any feedback anyway since even crtitical and frustrating support calls only ever get an unhelpful auto-reply. However, I did see the News on the log-in page explaining that the end-game content is in fact before our very eyes, its just that we’re too daft to see it This announcement only shows by its existence the amount of negative feedback surrounding the end-game content that there must have been already – and most people dont even realise yet!

I remain scratching my head and wondering how on earch, with the one shot golden opportunity you had you could have missed the very core componenets for sustainable and stimulating long-term MMO. In the end its not my opinion that counts, its everyones. However, sadly I believe that what’s obvious to the gamer (myslef included) has just not been seen at all by Arenanet. I’m dumbfounded!

If only there was a way you could sort it out.

Thanks for trying though.

Cheers
Simon

There is the squad ability. We have a couple books already. Get your guildmates to cooperate and contribute.

I have to disagree with most of what you’ve said here.

First of all, the “large team end-game content” comes in the form of the large dynamic events. Also, the raiding setups of other MMOs requiring you to schedule times to gather 10-40 people is just not fun. I don’t want to have to schedule my play times, I want to just hop in and have fun. The dungeons are plenty good enough for that. Also, trying to get together 10-40 people can be a huge pain, and once you do I don’t think the payoff is worth it. And this is coming from a top raiding guild leader from a previous game.

As for tournament tickets… aren’t there free tournaments? I’m pretty sure I saw those listed. Yes, there are the “paid” tournaments, but what is wrong with that? Also, you can get tournament tickets just from playing the hot join pretty easy.

And as for multiple guilds… I love it. I have a few groups of friends I play with and being able to coordinate with all of them is great. If your guild has people jumping representing other guilds constantly then that means you need to do more to keep them engaged. Most of the people in my primary guild (the one I run) are always representing, but I’m always talking to people and starting up group events and stuff.

As for WvW… 100g seems like a lot now, but I’ve been getting gold pretty quick these days. I’m also noticing a trend of the top end items on the trading post continuously going up in value to the point where the top end items used to be about 3-4g and now they are more like 50g. Right now there might not be many commanders, but it’ll become a lot more common soon enough. I think the big problem right now is just the queues and being able to get everyone in to WvW together.

No, thanks. I like being able to do anything with a small group of friends in this game instead of having to wait ages to form some raid group. This is not WoW.

Scunge.3219:

it looks like you’ve missed the fundamentals of what keeps major MMOs going.

Sorry, I don’t want to mock your opinion, but this is hilarious. Do you seriously know anything about Arenanet or the game you’re playing? :P

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the replies. Some of the advice is really helpful and I’m glad there is a forum to raise these issues. No I dont know what Arenanet really is all about, thats what we’re here to find out. Maybe its not for me – or anything close to what our (WOW) people are used to. But the WOW swapout market is a very big audience to ignore the needs of – and there are probably several hundred thousand of us trying to understand and see if we can switch. Maybe miilions.

I would say we need to see how “team play” can be stimulated in GW2. And yes, organising raids and having set times and comittments is a chore, very hard work indeed. It would be great to avoid this.

Very many thanks for the comments on Squads – we’ll look into this. Please help us out guys we really want to “get” this game – but we dont want to lose the team spirit and the thrill of orchestrated team success.

Thanks again for all your comments. Please keep your help and guidance coming, its much appreciated and we need guidance for our Guild spirit and future.
Cheers
Skungey