Guild Wars 2

champ.7021:

BlueZone.4236:

fellyn.5083:

Except for it didn’t take that much effort to get into a full set of exotics.

I’ve been playing since day -3 and it took me less than 2 weeks of play to get to 80 and into a full set of exotic gear.

2 weeks is easy for the average gamer, right?

fellyn.5083:

What this guy says is true. I’m 85% give or take map completion with full CoF set + greatsword + axe/sword and I have around 280 hours played (sad).

Dated 18/09/2012, equating to about 11 hours per day.

fellyn.5083:

So 30+ hours and around 100 runs in a dungeon wasn’t enough of an investment in a dungeon to get gear before? They want it to take longer and be more tedious?
…
Good thing I already farmed everything I needed from CoF.

Hmm…..

Quoting For Justice!!!

Yup, farmers paradise!

fellyn.5083:

Where did they ever say they would never add new armor tiers right from the start?

I followed news of GW2 pretty closely before it came out and I don’t remember them saying anywhere that what the game launched with as far as equipment tiers go would be what we’d have forever.

I think a lot of people assumed that would be the case because of GW1 but assumptions do not equate to broken promises.

They explained why they did what they did and it was 100% needed. All of a sudden we have use for the hundreds of thousands of low to mid level crafting materials that literally served no purpose other than leveling up crafting professions before. They also said they had no plans to add more.

I’m not seeing how it’s a problem if you’re actually interested in playing the game and aren’t impatient.

Do you know how to READ?

Well, READ……MY……SIG

TooBz.3065:

This is not just a game it’s an MMO. In an MMO you must work, do chores, strive, stand around bored for an hour waiting for Teq, buy gems, envy those with better luck than you, and above all you must grind. What does fun have to do with it?

Apparently you don’t understand the kind of game you are playing.

/sarcasm

I thought this game was advertised as the MMO that does away with all the standard MMO traditions? No?

BlueZone.4236:

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

fellyn.5083:

Except for it didn’t take that much effort to get into a full set of exotics.

I’ve been playing since day -3 and it took me less than 2 weeks of play to get to 80 and into a full set of exotic gear.

2 weeks is easy for the average gamer, right?

fellyn.5083:

What this guy says is true. I’m 85% give or take map completion with full CoF set + greatsword + axe/sword and I have around 280 hours played (sad).

Dated 18/09/2012, equating to about 11 hours per day.

fellyn.5083:

So 30+ hours and around 100 runs in a dungeon wasn’t enough of an investment in a dungeon to get gear before? They want it to take longer and be more tedious?
…
Good thing I already farmed everything I needed from CoF.

Hmm…..

Hey! Those are things I said a year ago. Wow!

Game has changed quite drastically since then and so has the time I’m able to invest in playing the game. Not sure how it’s relevant.

It’s relevant to the first quote. You claimed it’s not much effort, so I’m putting perspective for any readers just how much effort that 2 weeks really was.

This kind of “effort” is exactly why you’re finding everything so effortless now:
“Good thing I already farmed everything I needed”

If anything, all this grind (or “grind”), loot nerfs, time gating, etc, are targeted specifically for players such as yourself, only anet, in their infinite wisdom, only “fix” these issues after players like yourself took advantage of the situation, rendering their solution useless.

So sorry that I didn’t put the word now at the end of the sentence.

Did you play the game back then? And if you were playing did you do dungeons? Because not only were they much harder and people weren’t as efficient at running them but they were extremely less rewarding than they are now.

Back then it took anywhere from 9 to 19 runs of a dungeon path just for one piece of armor or weapon. Now you can get a piece of armor in 3 runs. The effort to get all of that was massive compared to what it is now.

And I wasn’t even talking about dungeon armor.

I played the game back then. I was still exploring the outside world in those 2 weeks (can’t remember if I was level 80 by that point or not, most likely not).
Once I hit level 80, I was nowhere near a single exotic.
I’m pretty sure half my equipment was still in greens. Open world loot was terrible back in the day.
I have zero idea on what went on with the dungeons and its rewards. The only thing I do know is the worth of the rewards have been all flipping back and forth because the devs could not make up their minds (and they still can’t at this point in time).

In any case, this is starting to get off topic. I was trying to place into perspective into any readers why you claim it’s all near effortless work by showing them your type of game play style.

FYI, I have farmed a lot these past few patches (pav, scarlet invasion) to the point of mindless grinding so yes, I, too, found it easier to get an ascended weapon because of that.
Guess which one hadn’t been nerfed after it’s first appearance? Answer: None.
I won’t claim it’s little effort, just because I managed to take advantage of these events despite how boring/mindless they all ended up becoming.
Without all that mindless farming, I would not have my ascended weapon today. Also, it wasn’t a satisfying experience or achievement.

I should also say world exploration isn’t very rewarding in terms of loot either (unless there’s been a massive revamp in the past few months), unless you actively go out of your way to collect every mine/tree/event on the way…multiple times.

Funny enough, I still don’t have enough tier 6 mats for a legendary, despite all that farming and roaming! (yes, I’m aware of the TP…)
Not enough hours put in, I guess?

I never said it took little effort. I said players shouldn’t go out of their way to get one if they don’t want to grind for it. I also said that most people extremely exaggerate how much it takes to make one to make their argument sound more appealing to convince others.

Also I don’t have a legendary either.

Kaizer.7135:

TooBz.3065:

This is not just a game it’s an MMO. In an MMO you must work, do chores, strive, stand around bored for an hour waiting for Teq, buy gems, envy those with better luck than you, and above all you must grind. What does fun have to do with it?

Apparently you don’t understand the kind of game you are playing.

/sarcasm

I thought this game was advertised as the MMO that does away with all the standard MMO traditions? No?

Yes it was, in fact it became “fastes selling MMO of all times”*(first 9 months) based on exactly what they advertised. Too bad they did 180 2 months after launch.

Coffee.7058:

Yep, not for you.

So according to you a genre can’t change and should go stale? Saying “MMOs are not for you if you don’t like grind” is kind of the same as saying “platformers are not for you if you don’t like 2D”.

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

fellyn.5083:

Except for it didn’t take that much effort to get into a full set of exotics.

I’ve been playing since day -3 and it took me less than 2 weeks of play to get to 80 and into a full set of exotic gear.

2 weeks is easy for the average gamer, right?

fellyn.5083:

What this guy says is true. I’m 85% give or take map completion with full CoF set + greatsword + axe/sword and I have around 280 hours played (sad).

Dated 18/09/2012, equating to about 11 hours per day.

fellyn.5083:

So 30+ hours and around 100 runs in a dungeon wasn’t enough of an investment in a dungeon to get gear before? They want it to take longer and be more tedious?
…
Good thing I already farmed everything I needed from CoF.

Hmm…..

Hey! Those are things I said a year ago. Wow!

Game has changed quite drastically since then and so has the time I’m able to invest in playing the game. Not sure how it’s relevant.

It’s relevant to the first quote. You claimed it’s not much effort, so I’m putting perspective for any readers just how much effort that 2 weeks really was.

This kind of “effort” is exactly why you’re finding everything so effortless now:
“Good thing I already farmed everything I needed”

If anything, all this grind (or “grind”), loot nerfs, time gating, etc, are targeted specifically for players such as yourself, only anet, in their infinite wisdom, only “fix” these issues after players like yourself took advantage of the situation, rendering their solution useless.

So sorry that I didn’t put the word now at the end of the sentence.

Did you play the game back then? And if you were playing did you do dungeons? Because not only were they much harder and people weren’t as efficient at running them but they were extremely less rewarding than they are now.

Back then it took anywhere from 9 to 19 runs of a dungeon path just for one piece of armor or weapon. Now you can get a piece of armor in 3 runs. The effort to get all of that was massive compared to what it is now.

And I wasn’t even talking about dungeon armor.

I played the game back then. I was still exploring the outside world in those 2 weeks (can’t remember if I was level 80 by that point or not, most likely not).
Once I hit level 80, I was nowhere near a single exotic.
I’m pretty sure half my equipment was still in greens. Open world loot was terrible back in the day.
I have zero idea on what went on with the dungeons and its rewards. The only thing I do know is the worth of the rewards have been all flipping back and forth because the devs could not make up their minds (and they still can’t at this point in time).

In any case, this is starting to get off topic. I was trying to place into perspective into any readers why you claim it’s all near effortless work by showing them your type of game play style.

FYI, I have farmed a lot these past few patches (pav, scarlet invasion) to the point of mindless grinding so yes, I, too, found it easier to get an ascended weapon because of that.
Guess which one hadn’t been nerfed after it’s first appearance? Answer: None.
I won’t claim it’s little effort, just because I managed to take advantage of these events despite how boring/mindless they all ended up becoming.
Without all that mindless farming, I would not have my ascended weapon today. Also, it wasn’t a satisfying experience or achievement.

I should also say world exploration isn’t very rewarding in terms of loot either (unless there’s been a massive revamp in the past few months), unless you actively go out of your way to collect every mine/tree/event on the way…multiple times.

Funny enough, I still don’t have enough tier 6 mats for a legendary, despite all that farming and roaming! (yes, I’m aware of the TP…)
Not enough hours put in, I guess?

I never said it took little effort. I said players shouldn’t go out of their way to get one if they don’t want to grind for it. I also said that most people extremely exaggerate how much it takes to make one to make their argument sound more appealing to convince others.

Also I don’t have a legendary either.

I should first apologize. This isn’t a personal attack on you specifically. Unfortunately, you didn’t cover your tracks well
I’d like to argue that people exaggerate how little it takes to make one, as well.
There are many posters here (the forums, not this thread, specifically) that claim “this is easy, I got it in 2 days/weeks, etc”, without specifically getting into the any details. Omitting things like 11 hours a day, farm a dungeon X amount of times are exactly the things that make such bold claims important.

BlueZone.4236:

I should first apologize. This isn’t a personal attack on you specifically. Unfortunately, you didn’t cover your tracks well
I’d like to argue that people exaggerate how little it takes to make one, as well.
There are many posters here (the forums, not this thread, specifically) that claim “this is easy, I got it in 2 days/weeks, etc”, without specifically getting into the any details. Omitting things like 11 hours a day, farm a dungeon X amount of times are exactly the things that make such bold claims important.

I wasn’t aware I needed to cover my tracks. I don’t see the merit of pulling up quotes from me that were on the state of the game around a year ago which is completely different from the state of the game now.

You’re also ignoring the fact that in the same post I talked about how I kitted out a brand new character in more or less 2 weeks in full exotics and ascended stuff (granted the laurels took a bit of time to get) around a month ago. It took less than half the time to achieve that than my first character which is the one I was using back then.

I didn’t craft any gear for it and I didn’t use dungeon tokens to get gear for it that I didn’t obtain on that specific character which was a combination of gear from CoF and CoE.

It took around 50 hours. For further comparisons sake my first character took 90 hours just to hit level 80. All that being said I don’t get the point of cherry picking some quotes from me on the state of the game a year ago and trying to use that in your argument against me now.

I also never said it took little effort to get an ascended that I remember. You’ll have to find quotes of me saying that which you seem to be good at. I believe that I’ve always said people are too impatient and think they should be able to get them instantly or with very little effort. Also I’ve always encouraged people to take their time with it and not go out of their way to get them because that does make it into a chore.

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

I should first apologize. This isn’t a personal attack on you specifically. Unfortunately, you didn’t cover your tracks well
I’d like to argue that people exaggerate how little it takes to make one, as well.
There are many posters here (the forums, not this thread, specifically) that claim “this is easy, I got it in 2 days/weeks, etc”, without specifically getting into the any details. Omitting things like 11 hours a day, farm a dungeon X amount of times are exactly the things that make such bold claims important.

I wasn’t aware I needed to cover my tracks. I don’t see the merit of pulling up quotes from me that were on the state of the game around a year ago which is completely different from the state of the game now.

You’re also ignoring the fact that in the same post I talked about how I kitted out a brand new character in more or less 2 weeks in full exotics and ascended stuff (granted the laurels took a bit of time to get) around a month ago. It took less than half the time to achieve that than my first character which is the one I was using back then.

I didn’t craft any gear for it and I didn’t use dungeon tokens to get gear for it that I didn’t obtain on that specific character which was a combination of gear from CoF and CoE.

It took around 50 hours. For further comparisons sake my first character took 90 hours just to hit level 80. All that being said I don’t get the point of cherry picking some quotes from me on the state of the game a year ago and trying to use that in your argument against me now.

I also never said it took little effort to get an ascended that I remember. You’ll have to find quotes of me saying that which you seem to be good at. I believe that I’ve always said people are too impatient and think they should be able to get them instantly or with very little effort. Also I’ve always encouraged people to take their time with it and not go out of their way to get them because that does make it into a chore.

You are right, beside few delusinal people noone denies its gear grind treadmill.

I share some of OP’s feeling. The introduction of ascended gear was unnecessary. The trinkets weren’t that bad because you can get them easily in a lot of different ways (backpacks excluded). But weapon crafting? I have crafted an ascended greatsword. It was expensive and cumbersome to do. It was not fun. I don’t think I will ever craft an ascended weapon again. The only positive thing is that I didn’t recognize that much of a difference to my exotic greatsword I used before.

My greatest fear is how they introduce ascended armors. If we have to craft them the same way, that would be awful.

And if they ever introduce a higher tier I am out of here. And no, you won’t get my stuff. Most is soul- or accountbound anyway.

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

I should first apologize. This isn’t a personal attack on you specifically. Unfortunately, you didn’t cover your tracks well
I’d like to argue that people exaggerate how little it takes to make one, as well.
There are many posters here (the forums, not this thread, specifically) that claim “this is easy, I got it in 2 days/weeks, etc”, without specifically getting into the any details. Omitting things like 11 hours a day, farm a dungeon X amount of times are exactly the things that make such bold claims important.

I wasn’t aware I needed to cover my tracks. I don’t see the merit of pulling up quotes from me that were on the state of the game around a year ago which is completely different from the state of the game now.

You’re also ignoring the fact that in the same post I talked about how I kitted out a brand new character in more or less 2 weeks in full exotics and ascended stuff (granted the laurels took a bit of time to get) around a month ago. It took less than half the time to achieve that than my first character which is the one I was using back then.

I didn’t craft any gear for it and I didn’t use dungeon tokens to get gear for it that I didn’t obtain on that specific character which was a combination of gear from CoF and CoE.

It took around 50 hours. For further comparisons sake my first character took 90 hours just to hit level 80. All that being said I don’t get the point of cherry picking some quotes from me on the state of the game a year ago and trying to use that in your argument against me now.

I also never said it took little effort to get an ascended that I remember. You’ll have to find quotes of me saying that which you seem to be good at. I believe that I’ve always said people are too impatient and think they should be able to get them instantly or with very little effort. Also I’ve always encouraged people to take their time with it and not go out of their way to get them because that does make it into a chore.

Of course you can deck out an alt faster than your first. The main had earned all the gold, mats, badges, laurels, which funded your alt’s gear.

Also, here you go. This is in this thread, by the way, no detective work required:

fellyn.5083:

Just playing the game you should easily be able to gather materials to make ascended stuff.

I will give you the same advice (as far as I can remember what I said) as I gave another poster (who probably disregarded the advice):
Whatever estimate you’ve got in your head, triple or quadruple that estimate.

In any case, this is becoming off topic. I only wanted to clarify to any readers what easy/little effort meant from your perspective.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Sykper.6583:

It has been a very long time since I was so refreshed playing an MMO, it doesn’t matter really people what you or your friends want to invest in this game, it is quite apparent Arenanet is at least trying to put effort hitting all the potential audiences to get them to play.

- Jornosh, Suicidal Warrior of [One].

And that’s where the failure is.

You aren’t ever going to please everyone. Ever. It doesn’t happen. When I played GW1 back in 06/07, EVERYONE I knew, besides my dad who gave me his account, told me GW1 was crap, was garbage, was the worst MMO ever. Of course. That was Gw1. But my point should be more than obvious.

Look at WoW. Most popular MMO right now, still strong after a decade and.. Not everyone likes it. Hell, the playerbase doesn’t like many aspects of it. Agreed to be the most successful, yes. By numbers, the most popular. But not necessarily by positive opinion. If arena net intends to succeed, they need to niche-market. Or they can enjoy sinking like a stone. That works too.

I don’t know where you get your information from. Most niche MMOs fail too. Very few MMOs success at all, in the big sense of the word.

Guild Wars 1 was more niche than Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 probably has more players than Guild Wars 1 had in its heyday. I’m relatively sure Guild Wars 2 is more successful than Guild Wars 1.

I think there are plenty of people who like enough of the game to keep it going strong indefinitely. That’s not because the game is great mind you, but because they did find a niche audience. A niche audience of achievement hunters. As long as they continue to give those people more achievements, those people will keep playing.

Me, I don’t need or want all those achievements. I do most of them anyway, because that’s what the game has become, but it’s not my preferred play style.

But saying the game will go about of business because it’s doing what it’s doing is probably not true.

You don’t need to know 8D it’s not of your business in the slightest!

And for the record, I can’t see where you’ve conflicted with me to really try and rule me out in any way or shape or form, to that end. GW1 was niche, yes. GW2 is more successful.. Discussable, but yes. People like the game? Yes. People don’t like the game? Yes. ANet has a niche? A few, yes. You have your own playstyle? Okay I guess. Last line makes no sense.

All I said was they shouldn’t go around opening doors to everyone. Because they’re better of focusing on 100 people who actually love and care about the game, than 1000 people who are just playing till the next big MMO becomes their new candle flame to fly over to. Which. Always. Happens. People did it with Gw2 (they left the MMO they played) – some stayed, some returned, and some did both, or neither. I honestly don’t know what you’re trying to contest.

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

BlueZone.4236:

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

I should first apologize. This isn’t a personal attack on you specifically. Unfortunately, you didn’t cover your tracks well
I’d like to argue that people exaggerate how little it takes to make one, as well.
There are many posters here (the forums, not this thread, specifically) that claim “this is easy, I got it in 2 days/weeks, etc”, without specifically getting into the any details. Omitting things like 11 hours a day, farm a dungeon X amount of times are exactly the things that make such bold claims important.

I wasn’t aware I needed to cover my tracks. I don’t see the merit of pulling up quotes from me that were on the state of the game around a year ago which is completely different from the state of the game now.

You’re also ignoring the fact that in the same post I talked about how I kitted out a brand new character in more or less 2 weeks in full exotics and ascended stuff (granted the laurels took a bit of time to get) around a month ago. It took less than half the time to achieve that than my first character which is the one I was using back then.

I didn’t craft any gear for it and I didn’t use dungeon tokens to get gear for it that I didn’t obtain on that specific character which was a combination of gear from CoF and CoE.

It took around 50 hours. For further comparisons sake my first character took 90 hours just to hit level 80. All that being said I don’t get the point of cherry picking some quotes from me on the state of the game a year ago and trying to use that in your argument against me now.

I also never said it took little effort to get an ascended that I remember. You’ll have to find quotes of me saying that which you seem to be good at. I believe that I’ve always said people are too impatient and think they should be able to get them instantly or with very little effort. Also I’ve always encouraged people to take their time with it and not go out of their way to get them because that does make it into a chore.

Of course you can deck out an alt faster than your first. The main had earned all the gold, mats, badges, laurels, which funded your alt’s gear.

Also, here you go. This is in this thread, by the way, no detective work required:

fellyn.5083:

Just playing the game you should easily be able to gather materials to make ascended stuff.

I will give you the same advice (as far as I can remember what I said) as I gave another poster (who probably disregarded the advice):
Whatever estimate you’ve got in your head, triple or quadruple that estimate.

In any case, this is becoming off topic. I only wanted to clarify to any readers what easy/little effort meant from your perspective.

Unless you avoid every area of the game but spvp what I said is not untrue. Just go out and play the game without trying you should get the materials to make an ascended weapon. Explain how what I said is wrong please.

Once you make getting ascended or legendary a goal it becomes grindy and tedious. Just play the game and you’ll get there eventually which is how anet has always they wanted people to do it.

If you want ascended weapons for all of your characters in a reasonable amount of time it will take alot of grind. You have to do temples and world bosses whenever you can as well as grinding dungeon paths. I dont know how many alts you have or whether you have made an ascended weapon but i dont think you understand how much of a pain it really is. Even people with tons of gold who do nothing but dungeons temples and world bosses everyday still end up short of emperyeal fragments and dragonite ore.

To get the best in stat gear should not be a grind. as vayne (i think he did or it might have been someone else) explained once grinding in games was where you had to grind the same thing over and over again in order to get the gear for the next level (sound familiear…cough…fotm…cough). Thats the one thing they really did promise and i know it was a year ago, but in terms of mmo game life one year isnt that long of a period especially for a company to do a 180 on many things. Ascended weapons are another way that gw2 is like other mmo models (not entirely) where you have to grind to get bis gear.

champ.7021:

If you want ascended weapons for all of your characters in a reasonable amount of time it will take alot of grind. You have to do temples and world bosses whenever you can as well as grinding dungeon paths. I dont know how many alts you have or whether you have made an ascended weapon but i dont think you understand how much of a pain it really is. Even people with tons of gold who do nothing but dungeons temples and world bosses everyday still end up short of emperyeal fragments and dragonite ore.

Its fine, if you play 12 hours/day and grind for it you will get those….in reasonable time.

But…..armor is coming very soon and still there are infusions, lets not forget runes/sigils…and well trinkets.

AND a matter of no new content. You have to grind LAUNCH content for it. In other games you at least get something new to grind.

Vayne.8563:

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

And yet, having a niche game kept GW1 afloat for 7 years. Having a successful niche game can be successful if you’re good at your niche. No one except WoW managed to be successful without having a niche to settle in.

champ.7021:

If you want ascended weapons for all of your characters in a reasonable amount of time it will take alot of grind. You have to do temples and world bosses whenever you can as well as grinding dungeon paths. I dont know how many alts you have or whether you have made an ascended weapon but i dont think you understand how much of a pain it really is. Even people with tons of gold who do nothing but dungeons temples and world bosses everyday still end up short of emperyeal fragments and dragonite ore.

I’ve made 2 weapons and have enough materials for a third if I choose to make one. I am short on empyreal but that’s only because I haven’t really played all that much in the last few days. But I’ve got 3 and a half stacks of dragonite. And I play far far less these days than the 12 hours a day like some people claim is required.

And I don’t get the second complaint. When you decide that you want to make multiple character you should accept the fact that it’s going to take a bit more effort to get them geared up.

I think it makes perfect sense that it takes a little bit of effort to get ascended stuff for multiple character.

Even in GW1 the game people love drawing comparisons to it took a lot of effort to get all the prestige armors for each class. I’m not entirely sure why it should be different here.

“But fellyn that was cosmetic only!” Yeah whatever.

marnick.4305:

Vayne.8563:

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

And yet, having a niche game kept GW1 afloat for 7 years. Having a successful niche game can be successful if you’re good at your niche. No one except WoW managed to be successful without having a niche to settle in.

Yup, but WoW is falling, lost 5+ million players.

And its funny at the same time, every WoW clone had to settle with a niche, usually those who like the setting (Star Wars, LOTR, Conan world) and who mostly dont give a kitten about gear treadmill.

Of course, they had to do sanctions which were direct result of their failure.

Vayne.8563:

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

I think you need to do some serious research.

GW2 disproves your point entirely. If GW1 wasnt a successful niche GW2 would never have been made. You do not retain players by watering down your game to please everyone. In fact you get the opposite result.

Ask any successful person in the entertainment industry what you get if you try to please everyone. You loose our identity/brand and you are no longer recognizable.

Instead you start with a niche and build on it as GW2 did till nov 15th. But then they abandoned the core principles and now here we are a year later. GW2 is now just another MMO with progression, dailies, grind… why would people want to play GW2 instead of the next best thing coming out soon?

marnick.4305:

Vayne.8563:

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

And yet, having a niche game kept GW1 afloat for 7 years. Having a successful niche game can be successful if you’re good at your niche. No one except WoW managed to be successful without having a niche to settle in.

It was a different time, with different overheads, different investment. Sure, if they want to sack half their staff, cut back on updates, and just sort of coast, they can become niche. But there’s a staff of 300, not 50…and an MMO isn’t the same as a lobby game anyway.

Honestly how many multiplayer fantasy games existed when Guild Wars 1 came out? How many were free?

This is a whole different time. There are free to play MMOs pretty much everywhere. There’s the still dominant WoW sitting there.

Do you really think a niche game today can survive the same way a niche game did 8 years ago?

SonicTHI.3217:

Vayne.8563:

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

I think you need to do some serious research.

GW2 disproves your point entirely. If GW1 wasnt a successful niche GW2 would never have been made. You do not retain players by watering down your game to please everyone. In fact you get the opposite result.

Ask any successful person in the entertainment industry what you get if you try to please everyone. You loose our identity/brand and you are no longer recognizable.

Instead you start with a niche and build on it as GW2 did till nov 15th. But then they abandoned the core principles and now here we are a year later. GW2 is now just another MMO with progression, dailies, grind… why would people want to play GW2 instead of the next best thing coming out soon?

I think you should do some serious research, staring with competition.

As I said elsewhere, when Guild Wars 1 released, how many multiplayer fantasy games existed that didn’t charge a monthly fee? How about now?

You can’t compare what a company did 8 years ago in this industry with the situation today. You can’t compare a company with a staff of 50 to a company with a staff of 300.

It’s a different type. The genre has changed. The player base has changed. Games that try to do that, will perish into obscurity, because unlike 8 years ago, there are dozens of free to play MMOs…and that’s the problem.

Anet tried to use a similar strategy at launch and found it wasn’t working. That’s why they introduced ascended gear in the first place in my opinion. To stop the flood of people who simply stopped logging in because they had nothing to do.

Hell there were no sites like Dulfy 8 years ago either, where you basically could get a walk through for everything the day before it was out. So you need more content today than back then, because people finish it faster.

I was in this business for a long time, buying games for a computer store in NYC. I started in computers in 1983. There are very very few fields that change as fast as this one does.

Convention wisdom doesn’t necessarily continue to apply, because circumstances change so rapidly.

I left WoW because I was tired of the grind. I realized that the treadmill really went nowhere. I remember a time when my main in WoW was like 10k HP. Now, he’s close to 400kHP and there is really no difference in gameplay, I just did a godawful number of laps on a treadmill, and for what?

That said, I’ve come to prefer WoW’s short/steep treadmill to GW2’s long/slow one. Everyone knows about how long it takes for them to gear up in WoW. For me, it was about two months for for PvE and PvP (honor set). Then I could just relax and enjoy the game. In GW2, there is never an end to the treadmill. Vertical progression, on a low power curve, is the cruelest task master of them all. There is never an end to it. I spent far less time grinding gear in WoW than I do in GW2.

Vayne.8563:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know where you get your information from. Most niche MMOs fail too. Very few MMOs success at all, in the big sense of the word.

Guild Wars 1 was more niche than Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 probably has more players than Guild Wars 1 had in its heyday. I’m relatively sure Guild Wars 2 is more successful than Guild Wars 1.

I think there are plenty of people who like enough of the game to keep it going strong indefinitely. That’s not because the game is great mind you, but because they did find a niche audience. A niche audience of achievement hunters. As long as they continue to give those people more achievements, those people will keep playing.

Me, I don’t need or want all those achievements. I do most of them anyway, because that’s what the game has become, but it’s not my preferred play style.

But saying the game will go about of business because it’s doing what it’s doing is probably not true.

You don’t need to know 8D it’s not of your business in the slightest!

And for the record, I can’t see where you’ve conflicted with me to really try and rule me out in any way or shape or form, to that end. GW1 was niche, yes. GW2 is more successful.. Discussable, but yes. People like the game? Yes. People don’t like the game? Yes. ANet has a niche? A few, yes. You have your own playstyle? Okay I guess. Last line makes no sense.

All I said was they shouldn’t go around opening doors to everyone. Because they’re better of focusing on 100 people who actually love and care about the game, than 1000 people who are just playing till the next big MMO becomes their new candle flame to fly over to. Which. Always. Happens. People did it with Gw2 (they left the MMO they played) – some stayed, some returned, and some did both, or neither. I honestly don’t know what you’re trying to contest.

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

But that depends on the other comapny’s excecution of their concept, aswell as the concept aswell, and finally, the polish of the concept (Lore, class names, blah blah blah).

Like, okay. Assume another MMo comes along with that niche. If they don’t do it well, they’re screwed. Again, you can see this already in many gaming industries – LoL/Dota, Xnumberofmmos/WoW. The evidence doesn’t even need to explained because of can see that one does something that’s great, and other either did the same thing, Except better (My opinion of LoL, at least) or, took that concept and failed with it (As we can see with many MMOs between the time of WoW and GW2). Now, of course, this is not to say that they failed in that they crashed down (at least not immediately) or they were kittenuch. But they certainly failed/passed against their competition respectively, irrespective of popular opinion vs actual results. We can all talk about how Tera was great and GW2 sucks and Smite is fun and LoL is dull and lame, but where’s the money going? Who’s expanding? Who’s progressing? Who’s going forward faster than the others? That’s what you measure success by, at least in my eyes – the company’s progression in what they’re doing.

So I mean, your argument, whilst right by principal, like mine actually is conditional. Alot of people say FF14 is great, but visiting game stores, I find alot of staff who played the game after GW2 and other games, say it’ll go f2p soon. Now how soon? No idea. Are they infallible? Obviously not. But given you have someone who sells the games, plays the game, speaks to people who play the game, sells the game cards of the game – they’re at very least observing something. Then you have to factor in things like Sales for extra objects, like Gem cards or RP (Im using LoL based example because I’m most familiar with it). Some companies succeed on whatever they’re selling outright, but micro transactions are ignored.

And just as well, GW1 largely did exactly that, it didn’t really change from Prophecies to EotN. You did have major changes like for example, they introduced the Luxon-Kurzick system for PvP, giving it a new dimension. But if you look at Armor, for almost a decade there was NO vertical progression, whilst every other kind of MMO-esque game aspired for exactly that. Can you contest that GW1 is successful independant of comparison to any other game of its time?

Here we are at risk for @Vayne to suggest that skill/ability progression, as in GW1, was actually vertical progression. I have seen him make this argument twice even when corrected. So, preemptively, I’m reminding him that just as Mike O said, GW had no vertical progression, ever, and that skill/ability progression is a fundamental element of horizontal progression.

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

fellyn.5083:

BlueZone.4236:

I should first apologize. This isn’t a personal attack on you specifically. Unfortunately, you didn’t cover your tracks well
I’d like to argue that people exaggerate how little it takes to make one, as well.
There are many posters here (the forums, not this thread, specifically) that claim “this is easy, I got it in 2 days/weeks, etc”, without specifically getting into the any details. Omitting things like 11 hours a day, farm a dungeon X amount of times are exactly the things that make such bold claims important.

I wasn’t aware I needed to cover my tracks. I don’t see the merit of pulling up quotes from me that were on the state of the game around a year ago which is completely different from the state of the game now.

You’re also ignoring the fact that in the same post I talked about how I kitted out a brand new character in more or less 2 weeks in full exotics and ascended stuff (granted the laurels took a bit of time to get) around a month ago. It took less than half the time to achieve that than my first character which is the one I was using back then.

I didn’t craft any gear for it and I didn’t use dungeon tokens to get gear for it that I didn’t obtain on that specific character which was a combination of gear from CoF and CoE.

It took around 50 hours. For further comparisons sake my first character took 90 hours just to hit level 80. All that being said I don’t get the point of cherry picking some quotes from me on the state of the game a year ago and trying to use that in your argument against me now.

I also never said it took little effort to get an ascended that I remember. You’ll have to find quotes of me saying that which you seem to be good at. I believe that I’ve always said people are too impatient and think they should be able to get them instantly or with very little effort. Also I’ve always encouraged people to take their time with it and not go out of their way to get them because that does make it into a chore.

Of course you can deck out an alt faster than your first. The main had earned all the gold, mats, badges, laurels, which funded your alt’s gear.

Also, here you go. This is in this thread, by the way, no detective work required:

fellyn.5083:

Just playing the game you should easily be able to gather materials to make ascended stuff.

I will give you the same advice (as far as I can remember what I said) as I gave another poster (who probably disregarded the advice):
Whatever estimate you’ve got in your head, triple or quadruple that estimate.

In any case, this is becoming off topic. I only wanted to clarify to any readers what easy/little effort meant from your perspective.

Unless you avoid every area of the game but spvp what I said is not untrue. Just go out and play the game without trying you should get the materials to make an ascended weapon. Explain how what I said is wrong please.

Once you make getting ascended or legendary a goal it becomes grindy and tedious. Just play the game and you’ll get there eventually which is how anet has always they wanted people to do it.

I never encountered any of the world bosses on my first play through. Only some random champs on a few low/mid level dynamic events but that’s it.
It was only until I did some research on the game (in fact some time after I quit then came back), and learned you had to camp the places in order to encounter them (before all the timers came about).
They are easy to miss (oops, you had 11 hours per day, can’t miss them then).

I have “played” the game. Personal story done, 100% world exploration, a few dungeons, a few fractals, played some WvW. I’m allowed to pick and choose what I like, right?
I don’t like dungeons/fractals. WvW is hit and miss.
If you, and the devs want me to repeat everything 100 times, I say, “no thanks, that’s a grind”.
Correct me if I’m wrong, you can’t get any emp shards/dragonite ores except on a level 80 character (I definitely know you can’t get emp shards from jumping puzzle chests on a low level character).
Many of the stuff does require you to go out of your way to find/collect them.
I’ve written down on a piece of paper the circuit routes to collect my emp shards. I certainly would not stumble upon them through a normal play through.
The only “normal” play through I’m doing now is world boss “hunting”, which is no different than a daily under a different disguise. Is there anything new and exciting today that was different than yesterday? No.
Well, I lie a bit. I was entertained last weekend with soloing (for a good 4 minutes or so) Golem Mark II. Got him about 25% before some 5 or so players joined in. Zero deaths. Beyond that…yeah, not much else is new.
Just wishing for an expansion, like a few others, or a new game.

funkylovemonkey.3097:

It’s not a wishlist I would like to see in the future. It’s a wishlist of what I wish Anet had been working on for the last year instead of weapon and armor tiers and temporary content and celebrations. At the one year mark in GW1, Factions was released. With a considerably smaller team working on the game back then as well. Six months after that we had the release of Nightfall. Two full continents, four new professions, thousands of skills, missions and quests. Do you think we’re going to have close to that with GW2 in six months? And that’s despite the fact that GW2 is quite a bit more popular then GW1 was, with a far more extensive gem shop.

My problem is that in the last year of updates, they’ve invested a lot of time on temporary content, a rather threadbare living story, and vertical progression. And it appears the philosophy of Anet has changed from what it was in GW1 and now is like every other MMO on the market; a focus on cheap tricks of vertical progression and an insistence on grinding.

Quoted for truth.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know where you get your information from. Most niche MMOs fail too. Very few MMOs success at all, in the big sense of the word.

Guild Wars 1 was more niche than Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 probably has more players than Guild Wars 1 had in its heyday. I’m relatively sure Guild Wars 2 is more successful than Guild Wars 1.

I think there are plenty of people who like enough of the game to keep it going strong indefinitely. That’s not because the game is great mind you, but because they did find a niche audience. A niche audience of achievement hunters. As long as they continue to give those people more achievements, those people will keep playing.

Me, I don’t need or want all those achievements. I do most of them anyway, because that’s what the game has become, but it’s not my preferred play style.

But saying the game will go about of business because it’s doing what it’s doing is probably not true.

You don’t need to know 8D it’s not of your business in the slightest!

snip

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

But that depends on the other comapny’s excecution of their concept, aswell as the concept aswell, and finally, the polish of the concept (Lore, class names, blah blah blah).

Like, okay. Assume another MMo comes along with that niche. If they don’t do it well, they’re screwed. Again, you can see this already in many gaming industries – LoL/Dota, Xnumberofmmos/WoW. The evidence doesn’t even need to explained because of can see that one does something that’s great, and other either did the same thing, Except better (My opinion of LoL, at least) or, took that concept and failed with it (As we can see with many MMOs between the time of WoW and GW2). Now, of course, this is not to say that they failed in that they crashed down (at least not immediately) or they were kittenuch. But they certainly failed/passed against their competition respectively, irrespective of popular opinion vs actual results. We can all talk about how Tera was great and GW2 sucks and Smite is fun and LoL is dull and lame, but where’s the money going? Who’s expanding? Who’s progressing? Who’s going forward faster than the others? That’s what you measure success by, at least in my eyes – the company’s progression in what they’re doing.

So I mean, your argument, whilst right by principal, like mine actually is conditional. Alot of people say FF14 is great, but visiting game stores, I find alot of staff who played the game after GW2 and other games, say it’ll go f2p soon. Now how soon? No idea. Are they infallible? Obviously not. But given you have someone who sells the games, plays the game, speaks to people who play the game, sells the game cards of the game – they’re at very least observing something. Then you have to factor in things like Sales for extra objects, like Gem cards or RP (Im using LoL based example because I’m most familiar with it). Some companies succeed on whatever they’re selling outright, but micro transactions are ignored.

And just as well, GW1 largely did exactly that, it didn’t really change from Prophecies to EotN. You did have major changes like for example, they introduced the Luxon-Kurzick system for PvP, giving it a new dimension. But if you look at Armor, for almost a decade there was NO vertical progression, whilst every other kind of MMO-esque game aspired for exactly that. Can you contest that GW1 is successful independant of comparison to any other game of its time?

It’s still a different market. You say do something well. Today don’t something well for how many people…and what are the odds some other company with more money won’t come along in a year and do it better, the same thing, and take away your player base.

Diversity can equal security. That’s why most big companies end up diversifying. It’s why supermarkets end up developing film. They don’t develop film better, faster or cheaper than anyone else, but they do get a percentage of that market share.

Spiral Architect.6540:

funkylovemonkey.3097:

It’s not a wishlist I would like to see in the future. It’s a wishlist of what I wish Anet had been working on for the last year instead of weapon and armor tiers and temporary content and celebrations. At the one year mark in GW1, Factions was released. With a considerably smaller team working on the game back then as well. Six months after that we had the release of Nightfall. Two full continents, four new professions, thousands of skills, missions and quests. Do you think we’re going to have close to that with GW2 in six months? And that’s despite the fact that GW2 is quite a bit more popular then GW1 was, with a far more extensive gem shop.

My problem is that in the last year of updates, they’ve invested a lot of time on temporary content, a rather threadbare living story, and vertical progression. And it appears the philosophy of Anet has changed from what it was in GW1 and now is like every other MMO on the market; a focus on cheap tricks of vertical progression and an insistence on grinding.

Quoted for truth.

Quoted for a deviation of truth.

What you neglected to mention was that the total content of Factions and Prophecies TOGETHER, aren’t as big as Guild Wars 2 was at launch.

2 starting zones (compared to 5).

Quests that number about a third of the number of dynamic events. 38 missions (compared to how many personal story installments?). 8 dungeons, with multiple paths, compared to Five elite areas. Fractal, of course, added an elite area.

Not including minigames, not including living story, not including temporary dungeons….sure they came out with Factions, the smallest, fastest Guild Wars game, which they sold to you.

But you paid twice for a game will less content than existed in Guild Wars 2 at launch.

Vayne.8563:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

Snip

You don’t need to know 8D it’s not of your business in the slightest!
snip

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

But that depends on the other comapny’s excecution of their concept, aswell as the concept aswell, and finally, the polish of the concept (Lore, class names, blah blah blah).

Like, okay. Assume another MMo comes along with that niche. If they don’t do it well, they’re screwed. Again, you can see this already in many gaming industries – LoL/Dota, Xnumberofmmos/WoW. The evidence doesn’t even need to explained because of can see that one does something that’s great, and other either did the same thing, Except better (My opinion of LoL, at least) or, took that concept and failed with it (As we can see with many MMOs between the time of WoW and GW2). Now, of course, this is not to say that they failed in that they crashed down (at least not immediately) or they were kittenuch. But they certainly failed/passed against their competition respectively, irrespective of popular opinion vs actual results. We can all talk about how Tera was great and GW2 sucks and Smite is fun and LoL is dull and lame, but where’s the money going? Who’s expanding? Who’s progressing? Who’s going forward faster than the others? That’s what you measure success by, at least in my eyes – the company’s progression in what they’re doing.

So I mean, your argument, whilst right by principal, like mine actually is conditional. Alot of people say FF14 is great, but visiting game stores, I find alot of staff who played the game after GW2 and other games, say it’ll go f2p soon. Now how soon? No idea. Are they infallible? Obviously not. But given you have someone who sells the games, plays the game, speaks to people who play the game, sells the game cards of the game – they’re at very least observing something. Then you have to factor in things like Sales for extra objects, like Gem cards or RP (Im using LoL based example because I’m most familiar with it). Some companies succeed on whatever they’re selling outright, but micro transactions are ignored.

And just as well, GW1 largely did exactly that, it didn’t really change from Prophecies to EotN. You did have major changes like for example, they introduced the Luxon-Kurzick system for PvP, giving it a new dimension. But if you look at Armor, for almost a decade there was NO vertical progression, whilst every other kind of MMO-esque game aspired for exactly that. Can you contest that GW1 is successful independant of comparison to any other game of its time?

It’s still a different market. You say do something well. Today don’t something well for how many people…and what are the odds some other company with more money won’t come along in a year and do it better, the same thing, and take away your player base.

Diversity can equal security. That’s why most big companies end up diversifying. It’s why supermarkets end up developing film. They don’t develop film better, faster or cheaper than anyone else, but they do get a percentage of that market share.

How is it a different market? WoW, Tera, SWTOR, GW2, TSW – they’re all MMOs. Unless they’ve got a different label for GW2 provide me the proof and Ill gladly accept my misunderstanding.

You’re right in saying diversity can be secure, but you’re looking at it from the direct opposite from myself. If you have lots of avenues to work, around, great, but the more avenues you have, the higher the maintainence. ANet is hardly a poor company. They have the funds, and resources, and are catering to several branches already, but the further thin you spread your resources, the harder it is to manage them, and the more taxing the effort is. If you have 5 niches you’re targeting with $50,000,000, you can divide those funds more effectively into those nix he’s demands than 50 Niches with the same funds. And lets face it – sloppiness is toxic for a game. If ANet is not actually Implementing things properly, people are going to leave. People are going to leave with a bad taste, and their opinion of Anet isn’t going to be 100% good if the game hasn’t been done correctly.

More importantly than that, Anet should stick to its own convictions, but that’s anothe topic all together.

Vayne.8563:

marnick.4305:

Vayne.8563:

I’m contesting your premise that they’re better off focusing on a niche market instead of trying to appeal to everyone…in other words, you’re entire premise.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say Anet changes and focuses on a niche. What if another game comes along that suits that niche as well or better. They’re completely screwed. The idea of player retention is to retain players…as many as possible. Not five guys who might still be playing in five years.

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

And yet, having a niche game kept GW1 afloat for 7 years. Having a successful niche game can be successful if you’re good at your niche. No one except WoW managed to be successful without having a niche to settle in.

It was a different time, with different overheads, different investment. Sure, if they want to sack half their staff, cut back on updates, and just sort of coast, they can become niche. But there’s a staff of 300, not 50…and an MMO isn’t the same as a lobby game anyway.

You know that false dichotomy doesn’t fly. The MMO landscape has changed indeed, development has become cheaper overall, server costs have gone down. If GW2 is to succeed long term, they’ll need a loyal fanbase supportive of their niche and willing to spend the money for good content. That’s the beauty of niche games, they’re sustainable for extremely long times regardless of games like WoW.

Honestly how many multiplayer fantasy games existed when Guild Wars 1 came out? How many were free?

Can I counter that with another question?

Without counting failed p2p games, how many AAA fantasy MMOs are currently free?

This is a whole different time. There are free to play MMOs pretty much everywhere. There’s the still dominant WoW sitting there.

Every successful MMO, whether free or not, fits into a niche or fails. Being a mere WoW clone doesn’t cut it in this industry.

Do you really think a niche game today can survive the same way a niche game did 8 years ago?

Absolutely. In fact, there’s no other way.

Vayne.8563:

Spiral Architect.6540:

funkylovemonkey.3097:

It’s not a wishlist I would like to see in the future. It’s a wishlist of what I wish Anet had been working on for the last year instead of weapon and armor tiers and temporary content and celebrations. At the one year mark in GW1, Factions was released. With a considerably smaller team working on the game back then as well. Six months after that we had the release of Nightfall. Two full continents, four new professions, thousands of skills, missions and quests. Do you think we’re going to have close to that with GW2 in six months? And that’s despite the fact that GW2 is quite a bit more popular then GW1 was, with a far more extensive gem shop.

My problem is that in the last year of updates, they’ve invested a lot of time on temporary content, a rather threadbare living story, and vertical progression. And it appears the philosophy of Anet has changed from what it was in GW1 and now is like every other MMO on the market; a focus on cheap tricks of vertical progression and an insistence on grinding.

Quoted for truth.

Quoted for a deviation of truth.

What you neglected to mention was that the total content of Factions and Prophecies TOGETHER, aren’t as big as Guild Wars 2 was at launch.

2 starting zones (compared to 5).

Quests that number about a third of the number of dynamic events. 38 missions (compared to how many personal story installments?). 8 dungeons, with multiple paths, compared to Five elite areas. Fractal, of course, added an elite area.

Not including minigames, not including living story, not including temporary dungeons….sure they came out with Factions, the smallest, fastest Guild Wars game, which they sold to you.

But you paid twice for a game will less content than existed in Guild Wars 2 at launch.

Straw man argument. You’re discussing about two completely different ages of gaming, and gaming content, and gaming inclusions. You didn’t even have crafting in Gw1. It’s exactly the same as telling someone, “Lol you bought Word2007 for twice as much and it lacked the features word 2010 had and I got it for the same price”.
You can’t compare apples to apples when one set of apples is ten years older and the farming techniques and methods of growing those apples were from a preceding decade.

Vayne.8563:

I think you should do some serious research, staring with competition.

As I said elsewhere, when Guild Wars 1 released, how many multiplayer fantasy games existed that didn’t charge a monthly fee? How about now?

You can’t compare what a company did 8 years ago in this industry with the situation today. You can’t compare a company with a staff of 50 to a company with a staff of 300.

It’s a different type. The genre has changed. The player base has changed. Games that try to do that, will perish into obscurity, because unlike 8 years ago, there are dozens of free to play MMOs…and that’s the problem.

Anet tried to use a similar strategy at launch and found it wasn’t working. That’s why they introduced ascended gear in the first place in my opinion. To stop the flood of people who simply stopped logging in because they had nothing to do.

Hell there were no sites like Dulfy 8 years ago either, where you basically could get a walk through for everything the day before it was out. So you need more content today than back then, because people finish it faster.

I was in this business for a long time, buying games for a computer store in NYC. I started in computers in 1983. There are very very few fields that change as fast as this one does.

Convention wisdom doesn’t necessarily continue to apply, because circumstances change so rapidly.

Yes, competition is strong and that s exactly why you need to stand out. And you dont stand out by making WoW. Just look at all the MMOs in the last 9 years that tried to do that.

You argue that making more games like WoW is a good thing when the opposite is clearly the proven case.

You argue that competition is stronger for niche titles when again the opposite is clearly the proven case.

What direct competition does EVE have?
How many MMOs have tried to fill the same niche in the last 9 years?
How many have succeeded?

What direct competition does WoW have?
How many MMOs have tried to compete with it in the last 9 years?
How many have succeeded?

Now look at GW2. It was supposed to be a niche. Look at it now. What does it fill? Before it had no competition in its own niche. Now its competing against every other MMO.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

Snip

You don’t need to know 8D it’s not of your business in the slightest!
snip

snip

No big business and MMOs have become big business, can function that way. It’s not realistic.

But that depends on the other comapny’s excecution of their concept, aswell as the concept aswell, and finally, the polish of the concept (Lore, class names, blah blah blah).

snip

So I mean, your argument, whilst right by principal, like mine actually is conditional. Alot of people say FF14 is great, but visiting game stores, I find alot of staff who played the game after GW2 and other games, say it’ll go f2p soon. Now how soon? No idea. Are they infallible? Obviously not. But given you have someone who sells the games, plays the game, speaks to people who play the game, sells the game cards of the game – they’re at very least observing something. Then you have to factor in things like Sales for extra objects, like Gem cards or RP (Im using LoL based example because I’m most familiar with it). Some companies succeed on whatever they’re selling outright, but micro transactions are ignored.

And just as well, GW1 largely did exactly that, it didn’t really change from Prophecies to EotN. You did have major changes like for example, they introduced the Luxon-Kurzick system for PvP, giving it a new dimension. But if you look at Armor, for almost a decade there was NO vertical progression, whilst every other kind of MMO-esque game aspired for exactly that. Can you contest that GW1 is successful independant of comparison to any other game of its time?

It’s still a different market. You say do something well. Today don’t something well for how many people…and what are the odds some other company with more money won’t come along in a year and do it better, the same thing, and take away your player base.

Diversity can equal security. That’s why most big companies end up diversifying. It’s why supermarkets end up developing film. They don’t develop film better, faster or cheaper than anyone else, but they do get a percentage of that market share.

How is it a different market? WoW, Tera, SWTOR, GW2, TSW – they’re all MMOs. Unless they’ve got a different label for GW2 provide me the proof and Ill gladly accept my misunderstanding.

You’re right in saying diversity can be secure, but you’re looking at it from the direct opposite from myself. If you have lots of avenues to work, around, great, but the more avenues you have, the higher the maintainence. ANet is hardly a poor company. They have the funds, and resources, and are catering to several branches already, but the further thin you spread your resources, the harder it is to manage them, and the more taxing the effort is. If you have 5 niches you’re targeting with $50,000,000, you can divide those funds more effectively into those nix he’s demands than 50 Niches with the same funds. And lets face it – sloppiness is toxic for a game. If ANet is not actually Implementing things properly, people are going to leave. People are going to leave with a bad taste, and their opinion of Anet isn’t going to be 100% good if the game hasn’t been done correctly.

More importantly than that, Anet should stick to its own convictions, but that’s anothe topic all together.

It’s a different market because when Guild Wars 1 came out, IE when it made most of its sales and money, there were NO free to play MMOs. How can you say that’s not a different Market. Do you know how old Guild Wars 1 was when Rift released? SWToR? It was already pretty much dead by then, certainly by comparison. Far fewer people playing it. It’s heyday had nothing but MMOs with monthly fees.

But today you have DDO, AoC, TSW, SWToR, Lotro, Star Trek, Champions Online, Allods, Perfect World, hell so many free to play MMOs that didn’t exist when Guild Wars 1 made a name for itself.

How can you possibly compare a market that had no competition at all to a market that has tons of competition. At the time, Guild Wars 2 was the only fantasy multiplayer game without a monthly fee.

Vayne.8563:

Do you really think a niche game today can survive the same way a niche game did 8 years ago?

EvE says hi and tells you its 10 years and still going strong and growing.

Opposed to every EQ/WoW clone and….WoW itself.

Serophous.9085:

cesmode.4257:

I agree and disagree with the OP.

He does sound like he is one of those “please hand me everything for free, no work required”..entitelements, etc.

But at the same time, the whole purpose of the thread is to illustrate the fact that yet another customer fell to the bait and switch. He bought Colin J’s line of “At max level we want everyone to be on equal footing”(not quoted verbatim) and is now upset. I totally hear his point.

I just want to know, what content is he unable to do because he doesnt have ascended gear?

Not agreeing with that portion of his post and in any thread about this topic, I never say I am excluded from content. But like most people, I want BiS gear and then I want to enjoy the game on my own time. I had that BiS gear until ascended was introduced into the game. So now my playstyle changed, for the worse. This is a topic Im not getting into a debate about because it is slightly off topic in this thread.

Point is: The OP feels like he was bait and switched. I simply agree with that. I feel the same way.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Straw man argument. You’re discussing about two completely different ages of gaming, and gaming content, and gaming inclusions. You didn’t even have crafting in Gw1. It’s exactly the same as telling someone, “Lol you bought Word2007 for twice as much and it lacked the features word 2010 had and I got it for the same price”.
You can’t compare apples to apples when one set of apples is ten years older and the farming techniques and methods of growing those apples were from a preceding decade.

And yet these ten year old apples are still delicious! I love analogies!

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Do you really think a niche game today can survive the same way a niche game did 8 years ago?

EvE says hi and tells you its 10 years and still going strong and growing.

Opposed to every EQ/WoW clone and….WoW itself.

You mean Eve came out today? Who knew?

Because that was the premise.

The premise wasn’t a game that came out ten years ago and built a niche following. The premise is if those games came out today and didn’t have years in a competition free environment to build their reputation.

Thus you didn’t answer my question.

Coffee.7058:

It doesn’t seem like MMO’s fit you — try another style of game because <<O=grinding something ALWAYS, that’s half the fun for many.

You’re joking, right…… I mean it’s sometimes hard to tell in forums. Why does every game need to become like WoW? Is that game that boring?

Yes op, there are actual mmo’s that don’t do this junk. It’s a big reason I didn’t play that game for long, the one you didn’t mention. About 4 months, quickly realized it’s one of the worst mmo’s I ever played, mostly populated by hive minded players that are bored to tears of it but only play because it’s “popular” and thus think they are nuts if they don’t like it. Sadly, Anet seems to be trying to re-invent the clone, I guess they couldn’t resist in the end, not if the money promises are good.

Yes same feeling about wvw. Big reason I bought gw2 was for wvw. Played a lot, up until they started adding dailies, rank grind and skill boosts etc. Now with ascended, doubt I’ll hardly go into wvw any longer.

I expect they will keep going in this new re-design direction, and will count me as an active player looong after I’ve uninstalled, for marketing purposes. I’m not there yet though, just watching and waiting, since it all hasten been fully implemented yet. I play less now though, and have seen a lot of people leave. But hey, maybe they can lure in people from that other game… like many clones have tried, though failed, since they all return there at the dawn of a new expansion for relief to their boredom if only for a few months. But maybe this time it will be different… uh-huh

Dear OP,

1) Legendary weapons aren’t necessary for anything.

2) If you have Laurels to buy trinkets but don’t want to buy them it’s not Anet’s fault.
Zerk stats will never get old, just buy zerk trinkets for your main char.

3) Ascended weapons will get to you naturally if you simply play the game.
Fractals reward them, world bosses reward them, champions reward them.
If you don’t do any of the above I wonder what you’re doing in GW2 at all.

4) That’s simply ignorant to say, since we don’t even know what will be needed for Ascended armor.

5) GW2 fortunately is a game where items indeed make you a tad stronger, but nowhere near dictate the outcome of pvp nor are required for content (beside AR trinkets for high-end fractals).
I wvw with exotics on 4 classes and I never felt weaker than anyone.

Finally, you’re not required to “do chores” at all to get geared.
You play the game normally and get rewarded with endgame gear.
You only do chores if you want to.

There was never a “you get everything handed to you without doing absolutely anything at all” sign on the game’s box.
GW2 allows you to either get stuff naturally by playing or to grind for it; either way you still get the best items.

Coffee.7058:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

1. I will probably never have a legendary, now that you’ve nerfed karma. I toyed with the idea pre nerf, but imagine my surprise when I started getting karma vials from completing dailies a few days after I spent most of my karma on temple armor. I will not grind 2000+ events and/or dungeons. I left that other MMO precisely because of this type of treadmill/grind.

2. I will never have ascended trinkets. I’m sitting on 62 laurels, but I am loath to spend them because I have multiple characters and I never know what wonderful changes you will implement next. I don’t want to be caught in a situation like I was with karma points, where I spend most of laurels and then you implement some change that makes them more difficult to get or they become necessary to obtain even better items. In addition to this, I only do dailies if they correspond to whatever I’m doing that day. I don’t log in to do chores, ANet.

3. I will never have ascended weapons. That is, unless the required mats build up in my bags through daily activity and leveling crafting isn’t cost prohibitive. As it stands now, leveling that one crafting discipline is cost prohibitive for me.

4. I will never have ascended armor, for reasons stated in point 3.

5. And because of 1-4, I will never participate in WvW because being at a constant disadvantage when playing against other people isn’t fun.

I log in to have fun, ANet. Not to do daily chores, not to grind, not to chase more powerful, and required gear…I log in to have fun. When I bought your game, you led me to the impression that the best gear would be easy to get at level 80, so I could spend my time doing whatever I wanted. Looks like I was wrong.

Has your philosophy regarding the type of player you’d like to retain, changed as well?

It doesn’t seem like MMO’s fit you — try another style of game because <<O=grinding something ALWAYS, that’s half the fun for many.

I don’t know that it’s half the fun. It’s half the reason they haven’t quit yet maybe, chasing the carrot.

So by “just playing” I have 300 dust, 10 dragonite ore, 20 fragments, and 15 dark matter. I’ll have an ascended weapon by October 2014 at this rate.

I went ahead and tried to get dragonite ore. I found that I had to sit around and watch timers in addition to getting to an area early in order to avoid being dumped into overflow. Then I got to mill around, bored, while waiting for the world boss/event and then I got to fail along with everyone else in the group and got nothing.

Enthralling game design right there.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

So by “just playing” I have 300 dust, 10 dragonite ore, 20 fragments, and 15 dark matter. I’ll have an ascended weapon by October 2014 at this rate.

I went ahead and tried to get dragonite ore. I found that I had to sit around and watch timers in addition to getting to an area early in order to avoid being dumped into overflow. Then I got to mill around, bored, while waiting for the world boss/event and then I got to fail along with everyone else in the group and got nothing.

Enthralling game design right there.

Yes and no. Up until recently you weren’t really missing anything by not attending boss events. Therefore you argument would be invalid about having to camp in zones to beat overflows and stand around bored. However now that we have dragonite from world bosses it’s validated. Sure you CAN get it elsewhere, but expect to have enough by Christmas if you are just getting it from world chests a few at a time.

WvW seems to be a good way to get the mats. I don’t do WvW though. However I have also made two ascended weapons as of last night so it’s not a challenge for me. I do empathize with you though and understand the frustration.

Poledo.3256:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

So by “just playing” I have 300 dust, 10 dragonite ore, 20 fragments, and 15 dark matter. I’ll have an ascended weapon by October 2014 at this rate.

I went ahead and tried to get dragonite ore. I found that I had to sit around and watch timers in addition to getting to an area early in order to avoid being dumped into overflow. Then I got to mill around, bored, while waiting for the world boss/event and then I got to fail along with everyone else in the group and got nothing.

Enthralling game design right there.

Yes and no. Up until recently you weren’t really missing anything by not attending boss events. Therefore you argument would be invalid about having to camp in zones to beat overflows and stand around bored. However now that we have dragonite from world bosses it’s validated. Sure you CAN get it elsewhere, but expect to have enough by Christmas if you are just getting it from world chests a few at a time.

WvW seems to be a good way to get the mats. I don’t do WvW though. However I have also made two ascended weapons as of last night so it’s not a challenge for me. I do empathize with you though and understand the frustration.

I’m not doing WvW without ascended weapons/trinkets because I refuse to be at a 15% disadvantage (math in threads on this forum). This also deviates from what was promised.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I’m not doing WvW without ascended weapons/trinkets because I refuse to be at a 15% disadvantage (math in threads on this forum). This also deviates from what was promised.

Lots of people do WvW with upleveled characters. I’m in a similar situation as you (I’m nowhere close to having an ascended weapon) but I do WvW regularly. You can also do PvP if you’re looking for perfectly even fights. Those happen so rarely in WvW that I don’t think you’ll ever really notice stat disparity. Perhaps at some point in the future, there might be content so hard that you’ll almost have to have ascended gear, but I’m not seeing it so far.

Obsession with max gear seems similar to the playstyles you’re condemning.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I’m not doing WvW without ascended weapons/trinkets because I refuse to be at a 15% disadvantage (math in threads on this forum). This also deviates from what was promised.

Well yeah, you will be more or less forced to zerg. I have one character built as a wall defender (8-80’s in total) so this effect won’t be too bad there. But my offensive roaming character (another class/build) which I play far more, will be at a clear disadvantage to others equipped in ascended trinkets, weapons and armor which will all add up to quite a bit. Oh yeah, then add in all the cash needing to be spent on gems to buy transmutation stones for multiple sets (whether you buy them or someone else does) Big ching-ching for Anet. Anet said long ago that they were not going to do this, but they did anyway. So whether people argue in favor of it or not, bottom line remains that the game was sold on a false promotion/adverts. Pretty much breaks trust.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I’m not doing WvW without ascended weapons/trinkets because I refuse to be at a 15% disadvantage (math in threads on this forum). This also deviates from what was promised.

Lots of people do WvW with upleveled characters. I’m in a similar situation as you (I’m nowhere close to having an ascended weapon) but I do WvW regularly. You can also do PvP if you’re looking for perfectly even fights. Those happen so rarely in WvW that I don’t think you’ll ever really notice stat disparity. Perhaps at some point in the future, there might be content so hard that you’ll almost have to have ascended gear, but I’m not seeing it so far.

Obsession with max gear seems similar to the playstyles you’re condemning.

First, I understand that people do WvW with upleveled characters. The thing is that this has always been possible and people accept that they will be weaker. Because they get stuff out of it and they get to level.

The only reason I’m concerned about max gear is that it will very quickly become necessary if ANet continues on its current path. Wait until you come across someone with full ascended weapons and trinkets, who is doing 15-20% more damage to you. Sounds like it’ll be a fun and fair fight, lol.

Oh wait. WvW will never be balanced so it’s okay to have ascended gear. Carry on.

Daywolf.2630:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I’m not doing WvW without ascended weapons/trinkets because I refuse to be at a 15% disadvantage (math in threads on this forum). This also deviates from what was promised.

Well yeah, you will be more or less forced to zerg. I have one character built as a wall defender (8-80’s in total) so this effect won’t be too bad there. But my offensive roaming character (another class/build) which I play far more, will be at a clear disadvantage to others equipped in ascended trinkets, weapons and armor which will all add up to quite a bit. Oh yeah, then add in all the cash needing to be spent on gems to buy transmutation stones for multiple sets (whether you buy them or someone else does) Big ching-ching for Anet. Anet said long ago that they were not going to do this, but they did anyway. So whether people argue in favor of it or not, bottom line remains that the game was sold on a false promotion/adverts. Pretty much breaks trust.

And it’s too bad I don’t enjoy zerg play. I prefer small groups or solo.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I’m not doing WvW without ascended weapons/trinkets because I refuse to be at a 15% disadvantage (math in threads on this forum). This also deviates from what was promised.

Lots of people do WvW with upleveled characters. I’m in a similar situation as you (I’m nowhere close to having an ascended weapon) but I do WvW regularly. You can also do PvP if you’re looking for perfectly even fights. Those happen so rarely in WvW that I don’t think you’ll ever really notice stat disparity. Perhaps at some point in the future, there might be content so hard that you’ll almost have to have ascended gear, but I’m not seeing it so far.

Obsession with max gear seems similar to the playstyles you’re condemning.

First, I understand that people do WvW with upleveled characters. The thing is that this has always been possible and people accept that they will be weaker. Because they get stuff out of it and they get to level.

The only reason I’m concerned about max gear is that it will very quickly become necessary if ANet continues on its current path. Wait until you come across someone with full ascended weapons and trinkets, who is doing 15-20% more damage to you. Sounds like it’ll be a fun and fair fight, lol.

Oh wait. WvW will never be balanced so it’s okay to have ascended gear. Carry on.

20% more damage because of +4 power on an ascended item? nope sorry. I’ve 1v1 against multiple characters wielding ascended weapons (i have none) and i will assume if they put in the effort for weapons that they had jewelry as well. Yet i defeated them as easily as I always have. Not to mention you can get ascended weapons IN wvw for FREE without crafting. Its strange how your so obsessed with max gear yet simply expect it to be handed to you (spvp says hi)

BlueZone.4236:

I never encountered any of the world bosses on my first play through. Only some random champs on a few low/mid level dynamic events but that’s it.
It was only until I did some research on the game (in fact some time after I quit then came back), and learned you had to camp the places in order to encounter them (before all the timers came about).
They are easy to miss (oops, you had 11 hours per day, can’t miss them then).

I have “played” the game. Personal story done, 100% world exploration, a few dungeons, a few fractals, played some WvW. I’m allowed to pick and choose what I like, right?
I don’t like dungeons/fractals. WvW is hit and miss.
If you, and the devs want me to repeat everything 100 times, I say, “no thanks, that’s a grind”.
Correct me if I’m wrong, you can’t get any emp shards/dragonite ores except on a level 80 character (I definitely know you can’t get emp shards from jumping puzzle chests on a low level character).
Many of the stuff does require you to go out of your way to find/collect them.
I’ve written down on a piece of paper the circuit routes to collect my emp shards. I certainly would not stumble upon them through a normal play through.
The only “normal” play through I’m doing now is world boss “hunting”, which is no different than a daily under a different disguise. Is there anything new and exciting today that was different than yesterday? No.
Well, I lie a bit. I was entertained last weekend with soloing (for a good 4 minutes or so) Golem Mark II. Got him about 25% before some 5 or so players joined in. Zero deaths. Beyond that…yeah, not much else is new.
Just wishing for an expansion, like a few others, or a new game.

So if I get what you’re saying correctly is that you want to continue playing the game never having to repeat any content? Lets be honest here, what you’re asking for is completely unrealistic. No game has ever had an endless amount of content to play so the players will never have to repeat anything.

And I never said you should replay everything 100 times. I believe I said you should play what you enjoy and eventually you’ll have the materials to make an ascended weapon or two. If you’re not doing dungeons, fractals, or wvw, I’m not sure why it matters what gear you’re using anyways.

I’ll give you one more suggestion. Take a break from the game for a few weeks, or hell, even a few months if you’re bored with the things we have to do right now. You’re not paying a sub fee so there is no obligation to play every day to get the most out of it.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Poledo.3256:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

So by “just playing” I have 300 dust, 10 dragonite ore, 20 fragments, and 15 dark matter. I’ll have an ascended weapon by October 2014 at this rate.

I went ahead and tried to get dragonite ore. I found that I had to sit around and watch timers in addition to getting to an area early in order to avoid being dumped into overflow. Then I got to mill around, bored, while waiting for the world boss/event and then I got to fail along with everyone else in the group and got nothing.

Enthralling game design right there.

Yes and no. Up until recently you weren’t really missing anything by not attending boss events. Therefore you argument would be invalid about having to camp in zones to beat overflows and stand around bored. However now that we have dragonite from world bosses it’s validated. Sure you CAN get it elsewhere, but expect to have enough by Christmas if you are just getting it from world chests a few at a time.

WvW seems to be a good way to get the mats. I don’t do WvW though. However I have also made two ascended weapons as of last night so it’s not a challenge for me. I do empathize with you though and understand the frustration.

I’m not doing WvW without ascended weapons/trinkets because I refuse to be at a 15% disadvantage (math in threads on this forum). This also deviates from what was promised.

I’m not sure where you’re getting your numbers from. An ascended weapon provides a rounded up 3% stat bonus over an exotic weapon.

I have an ascended axe and shield and I’m being completely honest here. I don’t notice a single bit of difference in the damage I do from when they were exotic.

What kind of boons you and the people around you bring to the table affect that far far far more than the gap between exotic and ascended.