“If you keep getting hit, you’re playing the Thief wrong!” -Bassman
An honest question
Hence the problem with horizontal progression. Going after different “skins” is great, but you can only wear one set of armor at the time. Eventually you’re going to settle on what you like, and then what? There’s nothing else to do on a character.
Except play the game. That is what GW is supposed to be all about. You level, outfit your toon, then just play. It worked in GW1 for 7 years.
GW2 was created as a game with horizontal progression, it was advertised as a game with horizontal progression and it was sold as a game with horizontal progression.
Players coming in now and complaining that they don’t like horizontal progression really have nothing to complain about. The arguments that “the other games has this, the other game has that” are not valid and meaningless. This is not the other game.It did work for Guild Wars 1 for 7 years…but Guild Wars never went mainstream. It had a core group of players who adored it, including me, but everyone I knew was off playing WoW.
Guild Wars 1 sold 7 million copies over 7 years or a million copies a year. WoW has ten million active subs at the moment. Sure it was successful, but the devs want to do something “big” and to do that they need numbers. Far more numbers that Guild Wars 1 provided them. For that matter, of the 7 million people, just about everyone I know had multiple accounts, because it was cheaper to do that than buy character slots. Between my wife and I we have five accounts. So it wasn’t necessariliy 7 million people who own the game.
Guild Wars 1 had a staff of 50 people. The staff making Guild Wars 2 is five times the size. That’s a huge difference. In order for Anet to make the game they envision they need more people to play it.
I was absolutely fine with the way things were in Guild Wars 1, and I wish more people could be fine with it too…but I strongly suspect that’s not the case.
There are people who came to GW2 from WoW to escape the grind. I was one of those. There is a growing niche of players who realize the emperor is wearing no clothes. The treadmill goes nowhere; it’s simply a time-sink to entertain the simple. I would like more. Something along the lines of the GW2 pre-release marketing.
As I’ve said, you can’t compare those games with gw2/mmos in general. It’s like comparing Street Fighter to Final Fantasy 7. Both games are games that people play. SF has no progression but FF has. Apples and oranges.
Oh no, you can! They are all games. Games are all about having fun, which usually means doing what you like. GW2 is simply an MMO with easier progression.
Comparing oranges to apples would be like comparing football to games and how “progression” is on football and how progression is on games. And no, Counter-Strike and StarCraft have no progression at all, not any form of progression.
Some people like progression because they need an incentive. These people like to turn games into a job and do it like an obligation. It is fine if you like it, but please go find another MMO to do it (there are many). Others like it because they like comparing the size of their p****es with others. It is funny how even Blizzard itself mocked those guys on a game where gear progression is like a drug.
(edited by Rash.6514)
Hence the problem with horizontal progression. Going after different “skins” is great, but you can only wear one set of armor at the time. Eventually you’re going to settle on what you like, and then what? There’s nothing else to do on a character.
Except play the game. That is what GW is supposed to be all about. You level, outfit your toon, then just play. It worked in GW1 for 7 years.
GW2 was created as a game with horizontal progression, it was advertised as a game with horizontal progression and it was sold as a game with horizontal progression.
Players coming in now and complaining that they don’t like horizontal progression really have nothing to complain about. The arguments that “the other games has this, the other game has that” are not valid and meaningless. This is not the other game.It did work for Guild Wars 1 for 7 years…but Guild Wars never went mainstream. It had a core group of players who adored it, including me, but everyone I knew was off playing WoW.
Guild Wars 1 sold 7 million copies over 7 years or a million copies a year. WoW has ten million active subs at the moment. Sure it was successful, but the devs want to do something “big” and to do that they need numbers. Far more numbers that Guild Wars 1 provided them. For that matter, of the 7 million people, just about everyone I know had multiple accounts, because it was cheaper to do that than buy character slots. Between my wife and I we have five accounts. So it wasn’t necessariliy 7 million people who own the game.
Guild Wars 1 had a staff of 50 people. The staff making Guild Wars 2 is five times the size. That’s a huge difference. In order for Anet to make the game they envision they need more people to play it.
I was absolutely fine with the way things were in Guild Wars 1, and I wish more people could be fine with it too…but I strongly suspect that’s not the case.
There are people who came to GW2 from WoW to escape the grind. I was one of those. There is a growing niche of players who realize the emperor is wearing no clothes. The treadmill goes nowhere; it’s simply a time-sink to entertain the simple. I would like more. Something along the lines of the GW2 pre-release marketing.
As I’ve said countless times on these forums, there is no way for any MMO to produce content faster than people devour it.
When you buy most games you play them for 15 or 20 hours. You might get an exceptional game like Skyrim which has a million mods and play it for a couple of hundred hours. MMOs are unique in that people play them for hundreds of hours and expect stuff to do.
Well, stuff comes eventually. Guild Wars 1, when Prophecies released, is a shadow of what Guild Wars 1 was to become in the years ahead. You could finish all the content in Prophecies in a couple of months. Guild Wars 2 has much more content at launch than Prophecies did, but it’s not infinite content.
All MMOs, because of the amount of play people expect to get out of them, need some sort of artificial way to slow down progress. Different MMOs do different things, but they all do it. Why do they ALL do it. Because there is no way to make enough content, not by launch time. Not even if you built the MMO for ten years instead of five. People would still go through the content and have nothing to do.
If you don’t accept this basic fact about MMOs, you’re not going to like most MMOs. Anet is doing it differently than most other games, but they’re still doing it. Slowing the game down until the can produce more quality content.
It won’t be fast enough for everybody and some people will leave. Some of those people will come back when new content comes out.
Time will tell what happens but it’s my guess that this game will still be going strong a couple of years from now.
Looks like the cargo cult of game design is out in full swing in this thread. Gear grind bad. Trinity bad. Large group content bad. So sayeth a manifesto from years ago!
I’ve yet to see the grand developer vision in action in providing a revolutionary alternative to the status quo.
That is ironic because I very much see it in action- it is called GW2 and yes, it is kind of revolutionary when you look at the status quo of gear progression, raids, and trinity.
As far as I can tell, the Emperor is naked.
The emperor of MMOs at the moment is still WoW, and as far as you and I can tell, it’s indeed a naked and bland game.
If I can’t play Guild Wars 2 at work, I won’t work in Guild Wars 2 either.
Delayed content is eventually good. Rushed content is eternally bad. ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
Delayed content is eventually good. Rushed content is eternally bad. ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
Hence the problem with horizontal progression. Going after different “skins” is great, but you can only wear one set of armor at the time. Eventually you’re going to settle on what you like, and then what? There’s nothing else to do on a character.
Except play the game. That is what GW is supposed to be all about. You level, outfit your toon, then just play. It worked in GW1 for 7 years.
GW2 was created as a game with horizontal progression, it was advertised as a game with horizontal progression and it was sold as a game with horizontal progression.
Players coming in now and complaining that they don’t like horizontal progression really have nothing to complain about. The arguments that “the other games has this, the other game has that” are not valid and meaningless. This is not the other game.It did work for Guild Wars 1 for 7 years…but Guild Wars never went mainstream. It had a core group of players who adored it, including me, but everyone I knew was off playing WoW.
Guild Wars 1 sold 7 million copies over 7 years or a million copies a year. WoW has ten million active subs at the moment. Sure it was successful, but the devs want to do something “big” and to do that they need numbers. Far more numbers that Guild Wars 1 provided them. For that matter, of the 7 million people, just about everyone I know had multiple accounts, because it was cheaper to do that than buy character slots. Between my wife and I we have five accounts. So it wasn’t necessariliy 7 million people who own the game.
Guild Wars 1 had a staff of 50 people. The staff making Guild Wars 2 is five times the size. That’s a huge difference. In order for Anet to make the game they envision they need more people to play it.
I was absolutely fine with the way things were in Guild Wars 1, and I wish more people could be fine with it too…but I strongly suspect that’s not the case.
We get that Anet decided the big business was in letting go of horizontal progression, but can you see how the people that bought the game because Anet promised something that they failed to deliver? And not in passing mind you – it was relentless advertising on their position to NOT fall into the same conventions of the gear treadmill.
The harsh reality is that Anet deemed their initial target audience insufficient, and in order to appeal to a broader audience, completely axed the core aspect that set their game apart from everyone else’s.
Can you understand why so many people are disgruntled with this situation? We were lied to.
MMOs are an investment of both time and money. They are a commitment.
That lie cost us 60 bucks and however much time we wasted in this game up to the point where it was made clear (after they finally stopped avoiding the question) that yes, new and stronger tiers of gear would continue to get released in the future.
>Advertise game’s primary aspect as lack of vertical progression
>Sell tons of copies during the first month
>Dissatisfied with number of active players
>Abandon the highly advertised direction they initially chose to take
>Players rage
>Anet covers their collective ears and pretends this isn’t a problem
I now quite simply don’t trust Anet and will not buy any possible expansions or future games. I also haven’t played the game for 6 months and sincerely doubt I will ever pick it up again.
@ Space Cow
Sorry, mate, I don’t feel lied to. You might feel that way…I don’t.
Point 1. MMOs change all the time. It’s a fact of life. And things change for a reason. You might not like the reason. You might not understand the reason, but obviously Anet felt there was a reason.
Point 2. Lie implies intent. Like Anet said something knowing all along it wasn’t true. I don’t believe that’s the case. Whatever was said was probably said in good faith even if it did later change.
Point 3. There are people who definitely feel lied to and people who don’t. I don’t feel lied too. Other people have posted that they don’t feel lied to.
A lot of this is a matter of perception, but there really isn’t any proof that anyone was lied to. There’s only this feeling that you expected something to happen a certain way and it had to change for reasons you either don’t see, or don’t believe.
I played Guild Wars 1 too. I watched the same videos, listened to the same interviews as everyone else.
I don’t feel lied to.
“They lied to us about vertical progression” is exactly the reason why we no longer get posts from developers telling us what’s coming down the pike.
“They lied to us about vertical progression” is exactly the reason why we no longer get posts from developers telling us what’s coming down the pike.
There were two quotes in two interviews that talked about vertical progression. At the time of those interviews, there was no vertical progression in the game, and very likely no real plan to put vertical progression in the game.
The game launched, it did well at first, but people burned through the content much faster than Anet expected them too. Content takes time. If you were around on the forums them, all you saw were posts about nothing to do at 80. There are still posts like this, but far less by my reckoning.
So Anet did what they had to do for the viability of the game. There’s a major difference between a lie and a changed circumstance.
If I told my kids I’d take them to the movies, and suddenly I got a call from work saying I had to go in…I didn’t lie to them. When I told them that I was going to take them to the movies, I didn’t have to work. Something came up. That’s what happened in this game. Something came up.
Anet really believed that most people would be fine going for exotic gear…but they found out otherwise. Too big a portion of the game will walk away if there’s no gear progression. I actually blame the profusion of WoW clones for this.
So if you were a business, and you saw a huge problem, and that problem had to be corrected fast, what would you do? Let the game fade away? Stay with your principles even if it meant down scaling your company and possibly laying people off.
Anet spoke about no vertical progression in a couple of interviews, that’s it. And the vertical progression offered as a compromise. It’s a fairly minimal bit of vertical progression.
So you can either say you were lied to, or you can believe, as I do, that Anet never intended to put vertical progression in, but in the end had to.
Choose to believe what you want, but there’s no evidence in my mind that Anet lied, even if they did make changes to what they’d planned.
Did you notice in the beginning they said there’d be energy and energy potions and they later took them out? They’ve said all along they’re a iterative company. They work on iteration. They try things until they find what works. What they had before wasn’t working for enough people, so Anet iterated.
Not quite the same thing as a lie.
“They lied to us about vertical progression” is exactly the reason why we no longer get posts from developers telling us what’s coming down the pike.
There were two quotes in two interviews that talked about vertical progression. At the time of those interviews, there was no vertical progression in the game, and very likely no real plan to put vertical progression in the game.
The game launched, it did well at first, but people burned through the content much faster than Anet expected them too. Content takes time. If you were around on the forums them, all you saw were posts about nothing to do at 80. There are still posts like this, but far less by my reckoning.
So Anet did what they had to do for the viability of the game. There’s a major difference between a lie and a changed circumstance.
If I told my kids I’d take them to the movies, and suddenly I got a call from work saying I had to go in…I didn’t lie to them. When I told them that I was going to take them to the movies, I didn’t have to work. Something came up. That’s what happened in this game. Something came up.
Anet really believed that most people would be fine going for exotic gear…but they found out otherwise. Too big a portion of the game will walk away if there’s no gear progression. I actually blame the profusion of WoW clones for this.
So if you were a business, and you saw a huge problem, and that problem had to be corrected fast, what would you do? Let the game fade away? Stay with your principles even if it meant down scaling your company and possibly laying people off.
Anet spoke about no vertical progression in a couple of interviews, that’s it. And the vertical progression offered as a compromise. It’s a fairly minimal bit of vertical progression.
So you can either say you were lied to, or you can believe, as I do, that Anet never intended to put vertical progression in, but in the end had to.
Choose to believe what you want, but there’s no evidence in my mind that Anet lied, even if they did make changes to what they’d planned.
Did you notice in the beginning they said there’d be energy and energy potions and they later took them out? They’ve said all along they’re a iterative company. They work on iteration. They try things until they find what works. What they had before wasn’t working for enough people, so Anet iterated.
Not quite the same thing as a lie.
I think you misunderstood the point of my post. I’m not saying “they lied”. I’m saying that they don’t tell us what they’re working on because things often change for a variety of reasons (as you pointed out, or as the account-wide dyes change aptly illustrates). If they’re going to be accused of lying every time something in the development stages is changed for whatever reason it’s better for them just to keep quiet.
“They lied to us about vertical progression” is exactly the reason why we no longer get posts from developers telling us what’s coming down the pike.
There were two quotes in two interviews that talked about vertical progression. At the time of those interviews, there was no vertical progression in the game, and very likely no real plan to put vertical progression in the game.
The game launched, it did well at first, but people burned through the content much faster than Anet expected them too. Content takes time. If you were around on the forums them, all you saw were posts about nothing to do at 80. There are still posts like this, but far less by my reckoning.
So Anet did what they had to do for the viability of the game. There’s a major difference between a lie and a changed circumstance.
If I told my kids I’d take them to the movies, and suddenly I got a call from work saying I had to go in…I didn’t lie to them. When I told them that I was going to take them to the movies, I didn’t have to work. Something came up. That’s what happened in this game. Something came up.
Anet really believed that most people would be fine going for exotic gear…but they found out otherwise. Too big a portion of the game will walk away if there’s no gear progression. I actually blame the profusion of WoW clones for this.
So if you were a business, and you saw a huge problem, and that problem had to be corrected fast, what would you do? Let the game fade away? Stay with your principles even if it meant down scaling your company and possibly laying people off.
Anet spoke about no vertical progression in a couple of interviews, that’s it. And the vertical progression offered as a compromise. It’s a fairly minimal bit of vertical progression.
So you can either say you were lied to, or you can believe, as I do, that Anet never intended to put vertical progression in, but in the end had to.
Choose to believe what you want, but there’s no evidence in my mind that Anet lied, even if they did make changes to what they’d planned.
Did you notice in the beginning they said there’d be energy and energy potions and they later took them out? They’ve said all along they’re a iterative company. They work on iteration. They try things until they find what works. What they had before wasn’t working for enough people, so Anet iterated.
Not quite the same thing as a lie.
I think you misunderstood the point of my post. I’m not saying “they lied”. I’m saying that they don’t tell us what they’re working on because things often change for a variety of reasons (as you pointed out, or as the account-wide dyes change aptly illustrates). If they’re going to be accused of lying every time something in the development stages is changed for whatever reason it’s better for them just to keep quiet.
Apologizes, I did indeed miss the point of your post.
It took me about 6 months of playing GW1 to get past the progression mindset — past believing that my character’s numbers needed to go up for me to be getting somewhere in the game. But all during that time I was gaining skill, knowledge, experience (not a number but a deep down understanding of the game, what was needed, and why); I could decide to go and pick up this elite, or that 2nd profession or move some attribute points to the Tactics line even though I was a monk and Tactics was a warrior’s attribute line… That’s when the epiphany of the true beauty of horizontal progression struck. It wasn’t just about looking pretty or having shiny armor. It was about becoming a better player and consequently knowing how to make your character better.
That’s the problem that I’m having now with GW2. The skills are on the weapons or in the trait lines, there is no new elite skill to go capture, there’s no sense of learning or understanding… I don’t want gear progression, I want mental challenge. Gear progression is like buying a new set of MtG cards and getting lucky with several ultra powerful cards compared to learning the tricks and finesse of Bridge with the same old 52 card deck that everyone else uses. I want the subtleties of GW1 back, because this game doesn’t have them; or if it does I haven’t found them yet. Sure, there’s twitch talent — knowing when to dodge or hit F4 for that second of invulnerability, and perhaps that’s the deeper skill that the devs are hoping that we’ll find.
This game is so beautiful, the combat is visceral and dynamic, the organic grouping is absolutely amazing; but still, for me, something is lacking. Personally, I’d love to have the layers of knowledge that GW1 demanded somehow placed into GW2. That’s the “progression” that I’m missing.
www.AlchemyIncorporated.net
Sorrows Furnace
Sorrows Furnace
After I posted yesterday I took some time to think what would keep me playing if new gear was not introduced.
- New Zones
- New Story
- New Skins
- New Profession
- New Race
- New Utility/Elite/Race Skills
- New Weapons w/new skills to go with it
- New Dungeon(s)
What I wish they would add:
- Achievement vendor that has new skins for weapons and armor. What I envision is you would have to have so many achievement points to buy and item with gold. Example you need over 4000 total achievement points and 5 gold to buy a weapon. So basically things would unlock to you as you progressed farther. This would drive people to go out and find things to do that they normally would not.
- They said they would eventually add ascended weapons into the game so based off of that statement. Make it so each dungeon has a part of each weapon. So people will have to run each dungeon and use the mystic forge to put their weapon together. This would make all dungeons more active other than CoF. Example of how the use of the forge would come into play. One Part of a Great sword from AC and One Part of a Great sword from CoF, 1 glob of ecto, 1 mystic coin would make Part 1 of an Ascended great sword. Once you had all four parts you throw it into the forge to make a Complete ascended great sword.
| 80 (Guardian) Rusty Tooth | 80 (Warrior) Razer Tooth | 80 (Ranger) Eir Stegallkin |
| 80 (Mesmer) Brook Envision | 80 (Thief) Kuro Rin |
| 80 (Mesmer) Brook Envision | 80 (Thief) Kuro Rin |
After I posted yesterday I took some time to think what would keep me playing if new gear was not introduced.
- New Zones
- New Story
- New Skins
- New Profession
- New Race
- New Utility/Elite/Race Skills
- New Weapons w/new skills to go with it
- New Dungeon(s)
South shore
Flame and Frost
Super Adventure Box
New minis, skins, harvestables, recipes
Leaderboards
WvW experience and unlocks
Costume brawling
And that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head typing on my phone.
Which circles back to the point that I and others make every time a topic like this comes up. Developers will never be able to generate content fast enough to please dedicated (hard core isn’t really the word I want here) players who don’t have fun designing their own goals.
Don’t ever think you know what’s right for the other person.
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
South shore
Flame and Frost
Super Adventure Box
New minis, skins, harvestables, recipes
Leaderboards
WvW experience and unlocks
Costume brawlingAnd that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head typing on my phone.
Which circles back to the point that I and others make every time a topic like this comes up. Developers will never be able to generate content fast enough to please dedicated (hard core isn’t really the word I want here) players who don’t have fun designing their own goals.
I don’t pvp mainly because I dislike pvp in anything but shooters. I’ve finished up the shore and completed everything thus far in flame and frost. Neither of which took that much time to do. On the second to last tier in achievements for costume brawl. Super adventure box was fun for a play through but got old quick. My point is that everything they have released takes little to no time to complete. Content is content yes but I would like something that keeps me playing day after day not for just a few hours.
| 80 (Guardian) Rusty Tooth | 80 (Warrior) Razer Tooth | 80 (Ranger) Eir Stegallkin |
| 80 (Mesmer) Brook Envision | 80 (Thief) Kuro Rin |
| 80 (Mesmer) Brook Envision | 80 (Thief) Kuro Rin |
Which circles back to the point that I and others make every time a topic like this comes up. Developers will never be able to generate content fast enough to please dedicated (hard core isn’t really the word I want here) players who don’t have fun designing their own goals.
(snip). My point is that everything they have released takes little to no time to complete. Content is content yes but I would like something that keeps me playing day after day not for just a few hours.
Which is exactly my point. ANet can’t generate new content for you faster than you can consume it. I’m not judging. I think you need to have a rotation of games to keep you engaged. What you should be arguing for are more B2P MMOs that don’t penalize you for game hopping.
Don’t ever think you know what’s right for the other person.
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
(edited by Pandemoniac.4739)
Gear progression is bad and unnecessary buy nature. It forces players to do something they don’t want in order to reach content that easily could have been implemented without the requirement of an additional tier of gear.
But these guys want it. Many others have asked for it.
- I agree that it makes it easier for us people with less time to dedicate ourselves to a game. We have easy access to all the content.
- But really… if I may give my honest opinion, I think that gamers that want it this way are spoiled. I like the thought of really having worked to get my awesome set of gear.
There is no real gear progression, just a lot of gear from dungeons that you can have your pick of. And it is fairly easy to get.
- I think that if ANet can come up with a way of implementing more gear progression (as in more awesome looks, not necessarily stats) in a way that suits the game and their game designs and concepts, then it has my vote.
Apologizes, I did indeed miss the point of your post.
Blasphemy! There is no room for civility on the internets!
The funny thing about raids is:
Most raids are actually only really played by 5-7 people per raid while the remainig 18-35 slots could easily be filled by dps- or healbots with no real AI. Most people don’t like raids because of the content, they like it because of the social aspect.
. . . I’ve seen it done in old EverQuest. It was sort of a big concern of mine that without the GMS going after people using automation it was possible for one group of six to completely waste things with multiple “AI-run” characters each. Primarily for healing, consistent DPS (but not to the point of pulling agro) and one even had a tank who would use high-DPS weapons and taunt with very little variation.
About there I lost my interest in raids. Actually, I lost interest when the boss would drop 2-6 items for the 40 characters (not people) who were in the area and thus some people were going to get lucky. Boy do I NOT miss that.
Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.
The WvW Ranking system isn’t gear progression, but it felt like progression (in a good way) to me.
Not only do they change my name from Invader→Assaulter etc… and see my rank, but I can also purchase some skills that would make me better (in a small amount~ish) in only WvW . I like the fact that the progression just affects one area, and not the entire game.
Sorry for the typos….
I’m usually typing on my phone
I’m usually typing on my phone
Guild Wars 1 sold 7 million copies over 7 years or a million copies a year.
Wrong on so many levels…
Guild Wars 1 sold 7 million copies over 7 years or a million copies a year.
Wrong on so many levels…
On average…I was averaging it out. Why must you take everything literally? That’s how things actually get averaged out over time.
Of course it sold more during the periods when the games came out. I wasn’t trying to say otherwise. Sometimes I think your the biggest challenge to your understanding is that you don’t look at what the author of something is actually saying, you just look at words. That’s not really how this whole communication thing works.
hmm. I simply want GW2 to add things that me and my mates can continue to do to make our characters better – better looking, better playing, more powerful. What’s wrong with that? Nothing I say.
Getting rewarded for doing things and achieving greater things above and beyond what others may do is part of the human spirit.
hmm. I simply want GW2 to add things that me and my mates can continue to do to make our characters better – better looking, better playing, more powerful. What’s wrong with that? Nothing I say.
Getting rewarded for doing things and achieving greater things above and beyond what others may do is part of the human spirit.
Inherantly, there is nothing really wrong with that. Everyone wants progress on some level. But when you take into consideration one specific viewpoint as you apply it to the entire population, you now see problems arising, and it is these problems that one must be careful and take into consideration.
For example, changing one aspect of the game might be more rewarding to you, but it might screw with 90% of the population. Once you have this macroperspective viewpoint of your opinions and its impact to the community, you get to make better reasons/arguments for/against the game.
Don’t disturb me, I have a cat in me at the moment.
I should be able to make comments about the game without having played MMOs in the past. I did play GW1 longer than any other game ever, so I know what GW1 did better than GW2 in my opinions. Just saying that GW2 in an MMO and should stick to some special set of rules is a weak argument.
Everyone has a reference point, let’s not demand of other people to have one judged by an own checklist. Instead, let us listen to their views and opinions as humble human beings.
Prince Rurik and Lady Althea. Anyone else see the incompatibilty here?
penatbater, that is obviously a strawman you have put out there so let’s leave it at that, completely irrelevant.
It’s easy to correct an opinion you deem as uninformed or uneducated. Just state the relevant facts, that’s all, mkay?
Prince Rurik and Lady Althea. Anyone else see the incompatibilty here?
Remember that GW2 is still a baby in MMO terms, not even a year old. The game is still growing. Plus no sub fee so if you want you can shuffle away and come back when you please.
The game launched, it did well at first, but people burned through the content much faster than Anet expected them too. Content takes time. If you were around on the forums them, all you saw were posts about nothing to do at 80. There are still posts like this, but far less by my reckoning.
I was around then, and I really don’t remember seeing any hue and cry here over a lack of what ascended gear represents. I do, however, remember seeing mass quantities of hueing and crying over the addition of ascended gear to the game and what that addition represents.
The table is a fable.
The game launched, it did well at first, but people burned through the content much faster than Anet expected them too. Content takes time. If you were around on the forums them, all you saw were posts about nothing to do at 80. There are still posts like this, but far less by my reckoning.
I was around then, and I really don’t remember seeing any hue and cry here over a lack of what ascended gear represents. I do, however, remember seeing mass quantities of hueing and crying over the addition of ascended gear to the game and what that addition represents.
That’s because Vayne wants you to believe that Ascended Gear came from people asking for it in the forums. It didn’t. It was part of ANet’s plan all along. They have said that many times.
I should be able to make comments about the game without having played MMOs in the past. I did play GW1 longer than any other game ever, so I know what GW1 did better than GW2 in my opinions. Just saying that GW2 in an MMO and should stick to some special set of rules is a weak argument.
This has nothing to do with rules. This has to do with reality. It’s not a rule that MMOs will launch incomplete….it’s a set of circumstances surrounding a genre that is altogether misunderstood until you’ve actually followed it.
It’s much easier to make single player or even coop games than MMOs. Over the years, after seeing dozens if not hundreds of interviews with devs, they all say the same thing. MMOs are the single hardest thing you can aspire too. They carry the highest cost of any time of video game, the highest risk, the most complicated programming processes. They all require money and they all eventually run out of funding. You have to start making money at some point. It’s just business. No one can afford to keep investing in something indefinitely without getting money back in to pay for it. Simple, plain, business logic.
And with programming, everything takes longer than you think. Bugs creep up that you never thought of, because you’ve never done that before. So you think, I can do this in two years, and two becomes three, and three becomes four. The bills mount up…but no income. So you get to a point where you eventually have to release the game. You try to judge it right, gear it so that the game is playable but most of the time it’s only barely so…despite the best intentions of devs. They all have the same story, not because they’re lazy, but because of the complexity of the project.
You’re entitled to say anything you want, of course. I never denied that. Just as I’m entitled to disagree with your opinion.
The game launched, it did well at first, but people burned through the content much faster than Anet expected them too. Content takes time. If you were around on the forums them, all you saw were posts about nothing to do at 80. There are still posts like this, but far less by my reckoning.
I was around then, and I really don’t remember seeing any hue and cry here over a lack of what ascended gear represents. I do, however, remember seeing mass quantities of hueing and crying over the addition of ascended gear to the game and what that addition represents.
I remember seeing quite a lot of hue and cry over not having anything to do at 80. Much more than exists today and quite a lot of it still exists today. A lot of people who didn’t feel they had anythign to work for were satisified, at least to some degree, by the fractals. And the nothing to do posts died down quite a bit.
I love how everything thinks they know more than the developer about what’s going on in the game. Do you really think that Anet made the decision to put ascended gear in the game without knowing there’d be mass protests. By comments we’ve seen, their own testers complained about it, but they did it anyway. You have to ask yourself why that is. It’s not like a cash grab, because you can’t buy ascended gear with gold. What you’re suggesting would seem almost suicidal. Is Anet stupid? Are they crazy? Are they interested in doing nothing more than sinking their own game?
Of course not. You don’t know their sources or where they get their information from. Neither do I. But I can guarantee you they have far more data and metrics than you or I have. They have to. It’s their business. They invested money and time and heart to make this game. They didn’t just put ascended gear in for no reason.
You may not agree with the reason. You may not even know the reason but logic has it that there was a reason. And if it’s not the cash shop, the only thing I can think of is that they thought it would be better for the over all health of the game.
And I think they were right about that.
@Vayne
So how come some MMOs are able to ship with better combat, better balance, more strategy, better PvP, more interesting content, etc etc?
You seem to think that there is something inherently impossible about releasing an MMO with that things I have problems with, but others have done it, right?
My biggest problem with this game is that combat lacks anywhere near the depth GW1 did and that PvP is really quite terrible.
I’m pretty sure those things could have been released from the beginning. I mean, GW1 had amazing balance at perhaps the single best RPG PvP ever. I don’t think one being a CORPG and one being an MMO have that much to do with the combat and PvP being atrocious in GW2 but perhaps the single best thing about GW1.
The game launched, it did well at first, but people burned through the content much faster than Anet expected them too. Content takes time. If you were around on the forums them, all you saw were posts about nothing to do at 80. There are still posts like this, but far less by my reckoning.
I was around then, and I really don’t remember seeing any hue and cry here over a lack of what ascended gear represents. I do, however, remember seeing mass quantities of hueing and crying over the addition of ascended gear to the game and what that addition represents.
That’s because Vayne wants you to believe that Ascended Gear came from people asking for it in the forums. It didn’t. It was part of ANet’s plan all along. They have said that many times.
They said they were always going to put a new tier of gear into the game. That is absolutely correct. That doesn’t mean that gear took the form they were originally going to use it in. That’s an assumption on your part.
You can’t possibly know what Anet knows. Maybe Anet didn’t just look at this forum, but they looked at other gaming forums too. Maybe they talked to gaming reviewers and professionals. Maybe they talked to some of their own test players.
Anet may have had plans to put another tier of gear in, but that in and of itself tells us nothing. Maybe, originally, that tier of gear was going to be cosmetic only and they decided that wouldn’t work. We simply don’t know.
We do know one thing, though it’s just by logic. Without having an actual reason to raise stats, they wouldn’t have done it.
@Vayne
So how come some MMOs are able to ship with better combat, better balance, more strategy, better PvP, more interesting content, etc etc?
You seem to think that there is something inherently impossible about releasing an MMO with that things I have problems with, but others have done it, right?
My biggest problem with this game is that combat lacks anywhere near the depth GW1 did and that PvP is really quite terrible.
I’m pretty sure those things could have been released from the beginning. I mean, GW1 had amazing balance at perhaps the single best RPG PvP ever. I don’t think one being a CORPG and one being an MMO have that much to do with the combat and PvP being atrocious in GW2 but perhaps the single best thing about GW1.
Which MMO shipped with better PvP? SWToR? Rift? WoW? Warhammer Online? AoC? Come on. Which of these games shipped with less bugs or problems. Probably only Rift of all of them, and that was a small small game by comparison. Make a tiny game and yes, you can polish it a lot more and guess what? Two months after launch the forums were filled with there’s nothing to do at end game. Honest.
This is where your lack of experience comes in. You say MMOs have/can ship like that. Where are they? Name some of them.
The game launched, it did well at first, but people burned through the content much faster than Anet expected them too. Content takes time. If you were around on the forums them, all you saw were posts about nothing to do at 80. There are still posts like this, but far less by my reckoning.
I was around then, and I really don’t remember seeing any hue and cry here over a lack of what ascended gear represents. I do, however, remember seeing mass quantities of hueing and crying over the addition of ascended gear to the game and what that addition represents.
That’s because Vayne wants you to believe that Ascended Gear came from people asking for it in the forums. It didn’t. It was part of ANet’s plan all along. They have said that many times.
They said they were always going to put a new tier of gear into the game. That is absolutely correct. That doesn’t mean that gear took the form they were originally going to use it in. That’s an assumption on your part.
You can’t possibly know what Anet knows. Maybe Anet didn’t just look at this forum, but they looked at other gaming forums too. Maybe they talked to gaming reviewers and professionals. Maybe they talked to some of their own test players.
Anet may have had plans to put another tier of gear in, but that in and of itself tells us nothing. Maybe, originally, that tier of gear was going to be cosmetic only and they decided that wouldn’t work. We simply don’t know.
We do know one thing, though it’s just by logic. Without having an actual reason to raise stats, they wouldn’t have done it.
This might be the worst argument you have ever made to try and make yourself look right and others look wrong. They said they wanted to add a new tier. They added a new tier. You do know what tier means right? It kinda implies something better, which means better stats.
Sometimes you really try way too hard to be right.
Hence the problem with horizontal progression. Going after different “skins” is great, but you can only wear one set of armor at the time. Eventually you’re going to settle on what you like, and then what? There’s nothing else to do on a character.
Except play the game. That is what GW is supposed to be all about. You level, outfit your toon, then just play. It worked in GW1 for 7 years.
GW2 was created as a game with horizontal progression, it was advertised as a game with horizontal progression and it was sold as a game with horizontal progression.
Players coming in now and complaining that they don’t like horizontal progression really have nothing to complain about. The arguments that “the other games has this, the other game has that” are not valid and meaningless. This is not the other game.It did work for Guild Wars 1 for 7 years…but Guild Wars never went mainstream. It had a core group of players who adored it, including me, but everyone I knew was off playing WoW.
Guild Wars 1 sold 7 million copies over 7 years or a million copies a year. WoW has ten million active subs at the moment. Sure it was successful, but the devs want to do something “big” and to do that they need numbers. Far more numbers that Guild Wars 1 provided them. For that matter, of the 7 million people, just about everyone I know had multiple accounts, because it was cheaper to do that than buy character slots. Between my wife and I we have five accounts. So it wasn’t necessariliy 7 million people who own the game.
Guild Wars 1 had a staff of 50 people. The staff making Guild Wars 2 is five times the size. That’s a huge difference. In order for Anet to make the game they envision they need more people to play it.
I was absolutely fine with the way things were in Guild Wars 1, and I wish more people could be fine with it too…but I strongly suspect that’s not the case.
There are people who came to GW2 from WoW to escape the grind. I was one of those. There is a growing niche of players who realize the emperor is wearing no clothes. The treadmill goes nowhere; it’s simply a time-sink to entertain the simple. I would like more. Something along the lines of the GW2 pre-release marketing.
I agree. I’d like it too. The ascended gear was a stop gap measure, because making actual content takes time. They ran out of content. Happens to every MMO. People play the content, run out of it, and the company is left with a choice. Either they fill the gap and provide SOMETHING, or they lose players.
What would you have done? Assuming you invested your money, your time, your energy into making a game, the content is gone, the new content isn’t ready, people are getting to 80 and leaving…what would you have done?
It’s so easy to judge what companies do, but really, they did what they felt they had to to keep people in the game. I don’t find this hard to understand.
It’s not that they’re not working on more content. It’s that the kind of content you’re asking for takes a long long time to program…at least compared to throwing in a slight gear progression.
The game launched, it did well at first, but people burned through the content much faster than Anet expected them too. Content takes time. If you were around on the forums them, all you saw were posts about nothing to do at 80. There are still posts like this, but far less by my reckoning.
I was around then, and I really don’t remember seeing any hue and cry here over a lack of what ascended gear represents. I do, however, remember seeing mass quantities of hueing and crying over the addition of ascended gear to the game and what that addition represents.
That’s because Vayne wants you to believe that Ascended Gear came from people asking for it in the forums. It didn’t. It was part of ANet’s plan all along. They have said that many times.
They said they were always going to put a new tier of gear into the game. That is absolutely correct. That doesn’t mean that gear took the form they were originally going to use it in. That’s an assumption on your part.
You can’t possibly know what Anet knows. Maybe Anet didn’t just look at this forum, but they looked at other gaming forums too. Maybe they talked to gaming reviewers and professionals. Maybe they talked to some of their own test players.
Anet may have had plans to put another tier of gear in, but that in and of itself tells us nothing. Maybe, originally, that tier of gear was going to be cosmetic only and they decided that wouldn’t work. We simply don’t know.
We do know one thing, though it’s just by logic. Without having an actual reason to raise stats, they wouldn’t have done it.
This might be the worst argument you have ever made to try and make yourself look right and others look wrong. They said they wanted to add a new tier. They added a new tier. You do know what tier means right? It kinda implies something better, which means better stats.
Sometimes you really try way too hard to be right.
Actually, I am right in saying you don’t know. I don’t either. They used the word tier AFTER the fact. They were always going to have ascended items. After it became a new “tier”, of course they were going to use the word tier. Doesn’t mean it was originally going to be an actual tier.
And what else would they say. People were objecting to it being in the game, so they used the words they thought would mitigate the most damage. Like any company would. I think you said you knew something about business.
There’s reality, and there’s the language of marketing. They’re not always going to be the same thing…not in any industry.
No they didn’t. They said that they always had gear progression in mind.
No they didn’t. They said that they always had gear progression in mind.
Quote please, because that’s not how I remember what they said at all.
Wel the same 5 guys that always post wehen it comes to “we want more gear” are here again. Mybe you should take a close look at the past. When Anet came along with ascended gear the forums expoded with rage as the clear and obvious majority of Posters didn´t want a gear treadmill. When they added coll and fun stuff with only cosmetics aka the Super adventure box the dorums whree full of praise.
Take a guess which direction they will be going in the future
Very cool and even better. So if they always had gear progression in mind, but a gentle gear progression that isn’t a gear grind, then I don’t really see the problem with that progression.
But I’d also heard prior to that that they were going to up the level cap in an expansion and that could certainly be the gear progression they had in mind. There’s nothing specific in this interview, at least that I saw, that said they were going to raise the gear progression with ascended gear specifically.
You’re putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5.
No they didn’t. They said that they always had gear progression in mind.
Quote please, because that’s not how I remember what they said at all.
Read my sig. From O’Brien.
Here’s what people thought of GW1 when it first came out: http://tinyurl.com/bntcvyc
“A release is 7 days or less away or has just happened within the last 7 days…
These are the only two states you’ll find the world of Tyria.”
“A release is 7 days or less away or has just happened within the last 7 days…
These are the only two states you’ll find the world of Tyria.”
No they didn’t. They said that they always had gear progression in mind.
Quote please, because that’s not how I remember what they said at all.
Read my sig. From O’Brien.
Yep this was my understanding too. Originally they hadn’t really planned to have vertical progression…though they did talk about raising the level cap as well. I guess we now have to ask what is meant by vertical progression in the first place.
My understanding was that anything better would be cosmetic at launch. My understanding was also that they changed it because too many people wouldn’t work just for cosmetic gear.
I guess we now have to ask what is meant by vertical progression in the first place.
Anything that increases your stats without lowering others for balance. Levels, gear, skill affecting title tracks, like Kurzick/Luxon allegiance titles and pve only skills in GW1.
Not so long, I was playing Wow, proof: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/kiljaeden/Poplolita/simple
And then, I got tired to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again…. And then gw2 came out. Exactly what I was looking for for years! Because it lacks what I hate the most in wow.
Being forced to:
Pve:
1. do daily quests to get into normal dungeons,
2. do normal dungeons to get into heroic dungeons,
3. do heroic dungeons to get into the real content: raid.
4. Repeat after each patch release.
5. Burn out.
PvP
1. Random battleground during 72 hours to not get one shot in competitive pvp: Arena/rated battleground
2. Farming conquest points during 2-3 months in arena/rated battleground just to stay on the competitive fiel, if you misssed 2 weeks of farm, you were pretty much screwed
3. Repeat after each patch release.
4. Burn out.Was just not fun.
I hear you. And the best part is, we were paying them to be put on this hamster wheel.
So glad to be out of that!
Tarnished Coast Engineer and… general alt-o-holic.
For the toast!
For the toast!
If GW2 philosophy is to make a game so a player who plays the game for 5-10 hours a week can have the same gear, look, and capabilities as someone who invests 30 hours a week – then GW2 will FAIL.
This is my idea of the perfect MMO.
Bonus: immature and elitist kids have a kitten because they can’t be better than everyone else just because they spend 12 hrs a day pressing buttons and leave.
" Arena has lost a huge amount of its player base since launch – and yes almost all MMOs these days do – but just because something is common place doesn’t mean we have to accept it."
I see this quite often when someone want´s to back up his opinion but I have not jet seen any evidence for that. Actually quite the oposite seems to be true
You lost 90% of this forum with the words we need gear progression. That’s all I’ll say on the subject. Good luck, mate. The kittenstorm approaches.
It’s kinda stupid to complain about progression in a game where you go through 80 levels of it. Especially seeing as how, once you get to the end, there’s nothing left to do but reroll and go through it all again.