Guild Wars 2

I am a fan yes. And I am a gamer. And I am a professional Software Engineer II. I make military simulations. Not very much different from video games. We actually use the same technologies. And from your posts, I and any one else in here with a clue about programming, bug fixes, hot patches, or even basic architecture…can see you have no idea what you are talking about.

There is no bias. There is no fallacy. There is just you not knowing what you are talking about and imagining that bias because you can’t see how you could be wrong.

Thank you for the demonstration. I think our interaction has proven the point of this entire thread.

Birdy.4816:

Tradewind.6913:

Raf.1078:

Its an unfortunate occurrence in all forums in all games where the naysayers dominate the conversation, while those people that like the game rarely post or even bother with forums.

Which gives the illusion that “everyone” is horribly dissatisfied with the game. When its really a pretty small percentile.

It’s definitely the outspoken minority vs the silent majority, which makes sense. People are going to be less inclined to voice opinions if they’re positive as opposed to soap-boxing inane issues.

This “Vocal Minority” ends up being the majority like most failed MMOs, this is the same defence rubbish you get it every one of these forums.

Reality here is this game is missing a gigantic element of what makes an MMO so good in the more popular ways of the genre.

The reality is also that there is no reason for it really not to exist in this game either.

So we are fighting for it.

Its you people that say “its fine, let them leave in droves” that are going to long term harm this game.

What exactly is this gigantic missing element you speak of?

FarFarAway.6579:

Debsylvania.7396:

You’d think, after “chewing through” all of those formerly monthly subscription based MMOs, (I assume you played them then, as Aion and SWTOR have only recently gone free to play) you’d realize that NO game can meet the expectations that you have. You suggest “all it would take…” when those other games couldn’t meet those demands, either. What makes you think this or any game could keep up?

Don’t you think it’s unfair to foist your unreasonable expectations on a game that, from the beginning, said it was going to have no subscriptions and was going to be nontraditional in terms of endgame?

I only mentioned the games that failed, not the ones that succeeded. The same players who quit all those games played DAoC for many years. The reason is because of the endgame RvR progression. It took years to get the highest realm rank in DAoC. Not to mention that the RvR was insanely fun, but without the realm ranks, wouldn’t have been so addictive.

Players continue to play WoW (or did for many years) because of the endgame progression.

I’ve yet to see an MMO succeed long-term that did not offer continual progression. If you know of one, go ahead and share it.

It might be a stretch on the definition of “continual progression” but I’d say EVE is up there on that list. The progression curve in that game will make your head spin if you find GW2 to be flat. But that game has been around and profitable for 9.5 years.

Scourge.4317:

What exactly is this gigantic missing element you speak of?

He wants 25 man grinding for a belt buckle that makes characters with it 0.05% slipperier than characters without it. But not for himself. He wants it for his guild-mates.

This is directed to FarFarAway. The forum’s software won’t let me quote your last response:

WoW’s forums have been plagued for months with posts complaining about lack of new content. They are complaining today, rather bitterly, that the Theramore event is “lackluster”. These barrages of complaints happen routinely, about a year into every new expansion.

GW2’s progression has always been described by the developers as nontraditional. It’s not supposed to fit the model you are describing. You are comparing apples to pomegranates.

Where does this myth that endgame is the “most loved” feature of MMOs come from?

Endgame progression has always been a minority taste. Most of WoW’s vast army of players will never see the endgame – they’re mostly casuals who stop about 3/4 way through the levelling game. (Hence, a high “churn” rate of susbcribers, as they call it.)

Although endgame is a minority taste, it has quite high retention. People who like endgame are the people who stick with the game, subscribing for a long time. They are the “loyal” playerbase, and also free viral marketing, so worth cultivating in that sense.

But note that a non-subcription game doesn’t really need them. Once you’ve paid for GW2, and/or its expansions, Anet have your money. (Incidentally, if they were keen on making money through the gem store, they haven’t done a very good job of selling anything there that’s terribly interesting.)

But endgame-lovers are not the majority, and the endgame is not the attraction for the majority. A pleasant levelling experience is the biggest attraction for the majority, who will generally leave after a few months at the most anyway, and have no interest in the gear treadmill; they may come back later for a refresher though (maybe on an alt).

Especially if it’s costless to do so.

Another point of history that bears remembering: “raids” were invented pretty late in the day by EQ/WoW. What happened in UO and EQ was that developers found that people would naturally combine into big groups to take down the biggest monsters in the game (originally meant to be “unbeatable”). THIS WASN’T DONE FOR ANY SORT OF IN-GAME REWARD BUT JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT.

Developers took notice of this and though to take advantage of the instinct of people to zerg. Later such encounters became more complex and offered substantial reward. WoW did it in the forum of an absurd gear inflation (absurd because it’s always nullified by the next expansion – hence “hamster wheel”).

It’s the subscription business model that’s been the very devil in this whole process – that’s cheapened and made monocultural the whole MMO genre. (And I believe that it is in fact Blizzard’s cynical willingness to take advantage of people via hamster wheels, just to keep them subscribing, and a premonition of the dire consequences this would lead to for the genre, that – at least partly – led the founders of Arenanet to split from Blizzard.)

Hey I was pretty put off from no tanks no healers and such. But it not destroy the fun of the game. I was pretty put off by some of the dungeon difficulty and really bad mechanics like one shotting. But the fun was still kinda there.

However after this new patch and the “buffing” of CM, and I assume other dungeons the fun is no longer there. The dungones are a chore to play. All those annoying game mechanics are there in overdrive, one shotting and now spamable CC….trash mobs spamming it. That is no fun, they crossed a line, where they deserve some serious criticism. They are clueless..PVE needed some help, yet they went 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

I demonstrates a complete inability to even understand what makes gameplay fun. Challenging is fun, really fun when the gameplay is there.