Guild Wars 2

It’s a tad old, and I’m not sure if it’s been posted before, but..

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/08/29/guild-wars-2-a-grind-by-any-other-name/

Pretty much sums it up, I mean there is grind, I dont mind if Anet had been honest with it there will still be grind but whether I find the grind enjoying or not is what makes it less grindy, for a while I enjoyed doing dungeons they were fun you get to know your teammates learn the styles that other professions bring to the table, until that one day they decided to put in DR into dungeons and mess it up for a whole lot of people.

That turned a fun activity into a grind, luckily they’ve more or less fixed this issue.
But yeah the game isnt as revolutionary as it claimed to be, its just streamlining a lot of aspects found in other MMORPGs, Guildwars that was revolutionary.

Levels 1 – 20 were “tutorial” stages where you learn about the game mechanics and after that, you get your base line gear and enjoy the rest of the story, that’s what they should have done with Guildwars2, not the 1 – 20 but make it so the max level is at the end of your “tutorial” stage and allow weapons to have different skills that are swapoutable.

The game is still good for me, but in terms of being revolutionary…. meh.
Its actually the only game I enjoy dungeoneering as it takes out the long wait for specific role classes.

There has got to be some grind, something to work for. But in the wider scope, it’s nowhere near as much grinding as other MMO’s.

@Rizzy, I don’t think the game is regarded as revolutionary, but instead evolutionary in some cases.

Saw that article some time ago. The author doesn’t have much of a clue: The term grind has different meanings to different people and this guys meaning is way out of the normal box. Guild Wars 2 released with a lot of varied content that for many is fun to do, especially the hearts and events – that isn’t “grind”. Grind or at least the most sensible usage of the word is when you do something you don’t actually like doing purely for some long term objective or reward.

Regarding the Manifesto video reference: Let’s be honest about the manifesto video, it was a marketing idea. The making of book that comes with the CE confirms this. Yes, there was a passionate vision behind GW2 (this is true of every MMO) but that video was selling hype as much as it was selling vision. That’s just a group of people at ArenaNet doing their job.

It’s already been dissected point by point in another thread… The dynamic world is questionable because the events cycle and do not make long term changes to the world. I was envisioning dynamic events would leave effects that last at least a few days hopefully weeks and that’s just not the way they designed it. I feel like that aspect was over sold in the manifesto.

Grind… Yeah, there is grind. It’s less noticeable until you cap then for legendaries it’s 100% grind. There are dynamic events where you are going to gather item X and return it to NPC Y so that’s in plenty as well and was promised not to be.

Personal Story is a neat idea but is also not without its flaws. Namely, it’s designed as the primary vehicle for story delivery but at the same time it’s designed to be a.) played entirely solo and b.) designed so there is no consequence of avoiding it altogether. A play can wonder through the world doing only dynamic events and hearts, eventually make their way to the final dungeon beat Zhitan and have no emotional connection with it at all. I have a problem with that.

Not a perfect game, but could have been made a lot better with some minor tweaks… Hopefully those will come in time.

@roqoco.4053: GW2 doesn’t contain something you don’t actually like doing purely for some long term objective or reward? Then what the hell are legendary weapons?

Heart quests are no more and no less a grind that quests in any other MMO. Grinding for faction and dungeon gear is no different than any other MMO. But crafting legendary weapons is just about the epitome of grinding.

[continued] … The large scale meta events like Claw of Jormag also feel grindy. Where is the team strategy in these events. You’re following a pattern without strategy, that’s grind.

This is no more an authority than some random post here on the forums, it just happened to have been published by Forbes… which is not the most respectable journalistic organization out there.

OK fellow fanboys, gather round, there’s work to be done.

The review is long and thought out, we need a plan…

First, someone look up who wrote this and find some other reviews from them and explain how it shows the person is bias and not reliable. Second, we need people in here to nitpick his wording, really try and derail the topic. They said grind a lot, what does that even mean? Also, he mentioned WoW once or twice, lets harp on that, don’t let them get away with having played WoW. Third, keep repeating that the game just came out so we need to give it more time. Patches, there are always future patches, time is on our side. Last but not least, we need to make it clear they don’t get it like we do, and that they’re not play the game right or the way Anet intended.

Alright, now get out there and defend this company!
Goooooo Anet!

Seriously though, I have actually never seen a largely negative review before. Not that I was looking. Anyway, good read, nothing new, but then again its not new. I agreed with some of parts, not others, blah blah blah. I’m gonna go back to imagining my fanboy huddle.

Simple solution to the lack of connection with Zhaitan – Arah is locked until you a) reach it in your story and b) have done the story mode for the previous dungeons.

You want grind? How about this?

Three 3-man dungeons that give a total of 15 account bound tokens per day.
Three 6-man dungeons that give a total of 30 tokens every three days.
Each of the six pieces of armour costs 300 tokens and an account bound raid token.
Each of the six raid tokens drop once per raid.
Raid can only be done once per week.
12 people in the raid.
Two weeks after people actually started to complete their sets, the sets were made redundant by an expansion with accompanying increase to level cap and a re-working of almost all skills.
LotRO 2011.

At least working for a Legendary in GW2 isn’t that bad, you can even buy a lot of the ingredients on the TP (if you’re ridiculously rich).

PS: My numbers may be a little off, it was over a year ago.

Heart quest, Traditional WoW quests, or DE’s aren’t much of a “grind” in the real word. DE’s come the close but are more closely aligned with farming which isn’t necessarily the same thing. Dungeons are definitely a grind even if it isn’t much of one.

Grind has always been doing the same thing over a long period of time to earn “X”. If your getting new objectives in new zones (Kill 10 Centaurs vs Kill 10 Flame Shamans / Kill 10 Hellfire board vs Kill 10 Boars) that isn’t grind. It is just a new quest.

Typical older games (that WERE based on grind) like Everquest required you to kill “X” many mobs with no objective till you leveled to do that in another area. This is where WoW shinned as they took that same idea, but masked it under quests. You do the same thing, but it feels more rewarding in the end.

Grind is in your head, people. For the post part, I can do most activities in the game relaxed, without clinging to some artificial schedule or plan. It’s a relief after day’s work. I suggest you rethink why you play games, and this one in particular if it’s not enjoyable. No need handicapping yourselves if there are more fitting titles for your time.

Fivelakes.3985:

OK fellow fanboys, gather round, there’s work to be done.

The review is long and thought out, we need a plan...

First, someone look up who wrote this and find some other reviews from them and explain how it shows the person is bias and not reliable. Second, we need people in here to nitpick his wording, really try and derail the topic. They said grind a lot, what does that even mean? Also, he mentioned WoW once or twice, lets harp on that, don’t let them get away with having played WoW. Third, keep repeating that the game just came out so we need to give it more time. Patches, there are always future patches, time is on our side. Last but not least, we need to make it clear they don’t get it like we do, and that they’re not play the game right or the way Anet intended.

Alright, now get out there and defend this company!
Goooooo Anet!

Seriously though, I have actually never seen a largely negative review before. Not that I was looking. Anyway, good read, nothing new, but then again its not new. I agreed with some of parts, not others, blah blah blah. I’m gonna go back to imagining my fanboy huddle.

I’m sorry to say, but that does sound like persecutory delusional disorder.

You believe others are ready to jump on your throat and cricitize you for criticizing the game, and then to keep up this illusion behave like a persecuted person chased by an imaginable gang of fanboys.

That is not enough, obviously, so you subconsciously stylise your post in such a manner that it will produce aggravating and hostile responses, to feed into your confirmation bias and paranoiac tendencies.

@Sokar Rostau.7316: “At least working for a Legendary in GW2 isn’t that bad, you can even buy a lot of the ingredients on the TP (if you’re ridiculously rich).”

That’s worse, in my opinion. It favors people who have more money in real life instead of favoring those who put more effort into the game. I’d rather a tedious grind like GW2 legendary weapons without the ability to short-circuit most of it with money.

Kwami.4356:

@Sokar Rostau.7316: “At least working for a Legendary in GW2 isn’t that bad, you can even buy a lot of the ingredients on the TP (if you’re ridiculously rich).”

That’s worse, in my opinion. It favors people who have more money in real life instead of favoring those who put more effort into the game. I’d rather a tedious grind like GW2 legendary weapons without the ability to short-circuit most of it with money.

But it has NOTHING to do with you. If I go and buy a bunch of stuff using real money, it doesn’t matter because it’s none of your business. The weapons are not, in practice, better than what you can get in very little time.

Fozee.1083:

Kwami.4356:

@Sokar Rostau.7316: “At least working for a Legendary in GW2 isn’t that bad, you can even buy a lot of the ingredients on the TP (if you’re ridiculously rich).”

That’s worse, in my opinion. It favors people who have more money in real life instead of favoring those who put more effort into the game. I’d rather a tedious grind like GW2 legendary weapons without the ability to short-circuit most of it with money.

But it has NOTHING to do with you. If I go and buy a bunch of stuff using real money, it doesn’t matter because it’s none of your business. The weapons are not, in practice, better than what you can get in very little time.

Nonsense. Since there is no stat progression in this game, the only form of character progression available after reaching level 80 and completing the map is the hunt for your favorite skins. If you can buy those skins with real money, then it’s a pay-2-win system.

That aside, it affects me in a more tangible way, too. The cost of buying materials in the game goes up when players buy gold instead of farming for materials themselves.

I’m full exotics on 2 characters and never grinded anything or played the market or bought gems.
I just played the game normally and went through its whole content (I actually skipped most crafting).

This is the ultimate proof to me there is no grind unless you want it.

Kawami says: "roqoco.4053: GW2 doesn’t contain something you don’t actually like doing purely for some long term objective or reward? Then what the hell are legendary weapons?
Heart quests are no more and no less a grind that quests in any other MMO. Grinding for faction and dungeon gear is no different than any other MMO. But crafting legendary weapons is just about the epitome of grinding."

Noone said you can’t grind if that’s what you “enjoy” doing – of course you can. My point is that the content in Guild Wars 2 is (arguably according to personal taste) more fun than in other MMOs and the Forbes article describing that as grind is just a misuse of the word. There are only so many things that you can do with combat and questing in a game, but GW2 does them rather well, I think.

As for legendary weapons, they aren’t a grind in themselves either. Maybe I’ll even get one in a year or two just by playing the game normally with multiple alts. But I’m not that bothered if I don’t. GW2 is a work in progress and hopefully Arenanet will expand the game and maybe make it so that the stuff you need for legendaries isn’t just something that is restricted to a few locations and events, but more something you can progress over the whole game.

I am not a fanboy, and I do admit that the game has faults. That being said, the author of this article appears to be completely stuck in the mindset that the game has to hold your hand and and lead you from task to task like a child. When there are no dynamic events or quest hearts immediately visible he calls it a ‘content drought’, whereas in fact there are tons and tons of things sitting there waiting for him if he bothered to go look.

I used to feel the same way when I was running through empty lvl 25 zones complaining that there were no DEs on my map. Then I started talking to every named NPC I come across, and following every moving NPC, and lo and behold I end up finding chain after chain of quests, all of which are far far more interesting than the heart quests.

I guess it is just going to take time for people to lose the bad habits of the past.

roqoco.4053:

Noone said you can’t grind if that’s what you “enjoy” doing – of course you can.

Well, diminishing returns. But in theory, right.

roqoco.4053:

My point is that the content in Guild Wars 2 is (arguably according to personal taste) more fun than in other MMOs and the Forbes article describing that as grind is just a misuse of the word. There are only so many things that you can do with combat and questing in a game, but GW2 does them rather well, I think.

OK. I don’t really understand how GW2 is different than WoW, SW:TOR, or others. But, if you feel that GW2 is somehow different, then I guess that’s a good thing.

roqoco.4053:

As for legendary weapons, they aren’t a grind in themselves either. Maybe I’ll even get one in a year or two just by playing the game normally with multiple alts. But I’m not that bothered if I don’t. GW2 is a work in progress and hopefully Arenanet will expand the game and maybe make it so that the stuff you need for legendaries isn’t just something that is restricted to a few locations and events, but more something you can progress over the whole game.

Unlikely. The developers have made posts in the past suggesting that they’re OK with only a small percentage of players even obtaining a legendary weapon.

Regardless, you can apply the same argument to a game like WoW. With Tier 15 is released, Tier 14 armor becomes available with dungeon points and is generally much easier to get than it was previously. However, I rarely see anyone claiming that WoW raid system isn’t a grind. :P

@Kwami – I think that you have to appreciate that when you have had your fill of the content in a game, that’s really all it has to offer on the PvE side (if you find that sPvP or WvW is more repeatable thats a thing you can do too). Personally, I like Guild Wars 2 sufficiently that I’m happy to play some of the areas multiple times with alts. Some people’s playstyle, OTOH is to rush up to level cap as quickly as possible, ignoring much of the content, and then ask what it is they are meant to do next. There isn’t anything next… at least not yet. How could there be?

roqoco.4053:

@Kwami – I think that you have to appreciate that when you have had your fill of the content in a game, that’s really all it has to offer on the PvE side (if you find that sPvP or WvW is more repeatable thats a thing you can do too). Personally, I like Guild Wars 2 sufficiently that I’m happy to play some of the areas multiple times with alts. Some people’s playstyle, OTOH is to rush up to level cap as quickly as possible, ignoring much of the content, and then ask what it is they are meant to do next. There isn’t anything next… at least not yet. How could there be?

I didn’t rush to the level cap. I haven’t finished the map, yet. In fact, I still have plenty to do. When did I say anything to the contrary? I simply pointed out that GW2 is as much a grind as other major MMOs. I stand by that.

And how could there be more content? Well, what about raids? Player housing? Collectable trophies? New zones every 1-2 months? New PvP options (e.g. duels, new maps)? There are any number of things that ArenaNet could have implement to keep players entertained at level 80. And anyway, it’s not really our job to come up with ideas. :P

@Kwami – I was just answering your questions – not implying that you played like that, but many people do. And give them a chance, I’m pretty sure there is some new stuff in the pipeline, but the game has only been out just over a month and I’m sure the devs aren’t short of things to do right now, just tweaking the initial content and fixing things up.

Kwami.4356:

@Sokar Rostau.7316: “At least working for a Legendary in GW2 isn’t that bad, you can even buy a lot of the ingredients on the TP (if you’re ridiculously rich).”

That’s worse, in my opinion. It favors people who have more money in real life instead of favoring those who put more effort into the game. I’d rather a tedious grind like GW2 legendary weapons without the ability to short-circuit most of it with money.

All I need to finish my legendary is 200,000 more karma. I’ve never bought gold. I’ve talked to plenty of other legendary seekers as well and none of them have bought gold either. I think people greatly overestimate the number of legendary seekers who buy gold. Everyone I talk to just gets their gold from trading on the trading post.

@Strill.2591: I object to the idea that a player can short-circuit the system. I never said that everyone was doing it or that legendary weapons weren’t possible to obtain without buying gold.

Fivelakes.3985:

OK fellow fanboys, gather round, there’s work to be done.

The review is long and thought out, we need a plan…

First, someone look up who wrote this and find some other reviews from them and explain how it shows the person is bias and not reliable. Second, we need people in here to nitpick his wording, really try and derail the topic. They said grind a lot, what does that even mean? Also, he mentioned WoW once or twice, lets harp on that, don’t let them get away with having played WoW. Third, keep repeating that the game just came out so we need to give it more time. Patches, there are always future patches, time is on our side. Last but not least, we need to make it clear they don’t get it like we do, and that they’re not play the game right or the way Anet intended.

Alright, now get out there and defend this company!
Goooooo Anet!

You forgot the standard, “If he is so smart then he should make his own MMO” and my favourite, "An MMO is extremely complex that’s why . . . ".

Usually when things like the described above happen the game is doomed in the long run. The reason being that the real concerns are drowned in a flood of a few (usually 10-20) religious followers, derailing all threads into bickering, name calling and pointless arguments.

Well done Sir!