Guild Wars 2

To everyone complaining about how Ascended gear conflicts with the manifesto video, I must say that isn’t really fair. Ascended gear has nothing to do with the manifesto; it was added later. It wasn’t even a shadow in the minds of Arena Net when that video was recorded. So it isn’t really fair to say Arena Net lied to us, as I’ve seen some doing, because they didn’t; they were forced to change their tactics. Can you blame them for wanting to save their game? Can you blame them from trying to stop the endless complaints and players leaving in droves? Can you blame them for giving us what we asked for?

And that is really the core of this issue. As a community we’re suddenly faced with something we’ve rarely had in the past; a developer who listens. Arena Net actually pays attention to these forums and guru before them. They actually pay attention to twitter and facebook. And even though they don’t always reply to us, they often react in some small away.

Blizzard didn’t care what we thought. Not really.
BioWare didn’t care what we thought. Not really.
None of the other big MMO developers cared what we thought.
Arena Net does care what we think, and they do react.

So that is our challenge now; properly contextualizing our forum tantrums and being sure that what we demand is what we actually want. Yes Ascended gear was a bad idea, yes it was implemented poorly, and yes it conflicted with the manifesto. And yes; we asked for it.

Arena Net released an MMO with no vertical progression. Can you understand how huge that was? The community couldn’t at first. Oh in theory we thought we would love it instantly, but few of us were really ready for the reality of what that meant in terms of content and game design. So, shocked and reeling, we rushed to our forums and began to rant and rave. To vent. To speak of how we missed progression, how without it there seemed to be no endgame, and how we wished it was there –in a small way- just so we could recapture something familiar about the MMOs we came here from.

Normally that wouldn’t have matter. It would just be venting. But Arena Net listened. Arena Net saw the posts, and the trends, and the thumbs up, and the players abandoning their game, and they reacted. They rushed themselves to give us what we wanted, and now we can only complain and condemn them for it. It is a perfect example of that old saying.

Be careful what you wish for, because you may get it.

The problem with Ascended Gear is when it was released, players were forced to do content (Grind the crap out of Fractals). However with the latest introductions of Ascended Gear trough dailies, guild events and WvW, there is more than one viable option to get them. Therefor, i believe that now it don’t contradicts with the original ideas shown in the Manifesto!

There is no “we”, the whole community is and has never been united on this particular point as well as any other point. There are hardcore players asking for more content and vertical progression but there’s also casuals who have not the possibility nor the will to follow any gear trendmill that could appear.

You can’t appeal to everyone and whatever you do there will still be people who will feel aggrieved. The only thing Anet, and other MMO’s developper by extension, can do is trying to appeal to the majority. But what is the majority ? Is the vocal minority we see on the forums representative of the majority of gamers ? I don’t know. However, judging by the audience Anet targeted by his marketing before the game launch I seriously doubt they want to frustrate the casual part of the gamer population.

@LHound
We aren’t forced to grind Fractals however. I’ve never set foot in the first instance. Never wanted to. And do not have a single piece of ascended gear on any of my characters. And have I been hurt by this or put at a disadvantage? No. As long as I avoid those ‘zerkers and the one instance they’ve all decided to grind I don’t heakitten ep about needing ascended gear. And we all know those ‘zerkers are a….special case.

@Minos

You’re right and you’re not. While I am a part of the community, have been since the original Guild Wars, I certainly never came on here and demanded progression or complained about needing endgame grind. But that doesn’t matter; the community is more than the sum of its parts. It is more than some divided or united opinion. Or rather it is less than those things, it is something different, something…undignified. Some of us may be the exception to what I said above, but the community as it exists to Arena Net; as trending posts and analytics, as wave after wave after wave of new threads, that community demanded progression is not. And that community, that deafening shriek, has always drown out the few clam and rational voices.

A vocal minority has more power than a silent majority. This is true of everything in life.

As you said, ascended was a bad idea.

I never asked for it, and I still think it contradicts their manifesto—not that it matters anymore.

I appreciate what you are trying to do, but Anet is the one who needs to be responsible for following the original vision of this game despite the fickle whims of some of its players.

But that is over now. I am waiting to see if they up the level cap and gear progression. If they do…well, let’s just say that if I want gear grind, there are many other games out there that do it better.

Arkham Creed.7358:

@LHound
A vocal minority has more power than a silent majority. This is true of everything in life.

I disagree. Because the whole community is, on ArenaNet side, nothing but customers the only things that matters here is the numbers.
Of course there is no way to know what does think the silent majority because, well, they are silent. But keep in mind that people tend to be much more talkative on the forum about things they disagree with than things they are keen on.

The only things that matters is that the majority of players -customers- are satisfied. Them being talkative or not is no matter here as long as they keep buying gems.

Arkham Creed.7358:

@LHound
We aren’t forced to grind Fractals however. I’ve never set foot in the first instance. Never wanted to. And do not have a single piece of ascended gear on any of my characters. And have I been hurt by this or put at a disadvantage? No. As long as I avoid those ‘zerkers and the one instance they’ve all decided to grind I don’t heakitten ep about needing ascended gear. And we all know those ‘zerkers are a….special case.

Arkham,

This is where you get it wrong. To get ascended you were forced to grind fractals. Just to reach lv10 you need to do 5*4+5*3=35 fractals (rooms). This was clearly against the Manifesto, and cause the rage against Anet.

No one is discussing if the Ascended gear is better or not than others, and if it makes difference having Ascended gear.

Now, there is more than one way to get ascended gear. Quite different, no?

Please note that i don’t like fractals, reason that my main character is only at fractals lv2.

OP: You are wrong. Flat out wrong. Chris Whiteside stated that ascended gear was always meant to be in game, they just didnt release with it. And they knew that there would be backlash releasing it after launch. This was stated in his AMA. Scour Reddit for it. You’ll find his quote, actually it is a respone from him to my personal question.

So yes, they always intended to have ascended gear, according to him. It wasnt an after thought.

Arkham Creed.7358:

To everyone complaining about how Ascended gear conflicts with the manifesto video, I must say that isn’t really fair. Ascended gear has nothing to do with the manifesto; it was added later. It wasn’t even a shadow in the minds of Arena Net when that video was recorded. So it isn’t really fair to say Arena Net lied to us, as I’ve seen some doing, because they didn’t; they were forced to change their tactics. Can you blame them for wanting to save their game? Can you blame them from trying to stop the endless complaints and players leaving in droves? Can you blame them for giving us what we asked for?

Yes, because:
1. I have never asked for it. Horizontal progression all the way.
2. They never admitted that they changed their tactics. In fact, by their own claim they wanted to introduce ascended (and go vertical) from the very beginning.

While it’s doubtful that last claim is true (ascended eq certainly didn’t look like anything that was well-prepared), work on it must still have started very shortly after game launch, which suggests that devs were never too strongly dedicated to their promises. And even then they keep continuing to claim that nothing has really changed, thet it is indeed the same game and the same idea they first advertised (even though it’s rather obvious it’s not).
No, i cannot blame them for changing their tactics when necessary (*), but i can (and do) blame them from doing this at the drop of a hat. I can blame them for trying to deceive people about the real direction the game is going. And i definitely can blame them for the fact that all the manifesto and surrounding ideology turned out to be nothing more than a marketing trick.

(*) assuming it was necessary, which i still find highly doubtful

Guns and Giblets.9308:

[…] I appreciate what you are trying to do, but Anet is the one who needs to be responsible for following the original vision of this game despite the fickle whims of some of its players. […]

The potential problem is that statement could very well understate the scope of the problem that faced Arenanet in the first few months. It is the idea that Arenanet came unprepared for the rate at which a material portion of the player base consumed content, acquired the ‘BiS’ exotics and with it spend increasingly less time playing GW2 due to the growing lack of anything reasonable to work towards. Let’s be honest, this is an undesired state for Arenanet since there is likely to be a reasonably strong correlation between the likelihood of an individual purchasing, directly or indirectly, gems and their level of in-game activity.

If I was to put on my ‘feathered unsubstantiated speculation cap’ – looks rather swish if I say so myself – I ponder whether the rate at which the ‘Ascended’ item was implemented was a reaction to their own perceived screw up regarding ‘rare’ and ‘exotic’ item acquisition. I have vague recollections of early beta rumours that suggested trying to obtain full exotic dungeon armour set was going to require a veritable marathon number of runs. Couple this with Tier 6 crafted exotics requiring a hitherto new rare crafting material in the form of ecto and GW2 had significant opportunity to time gate the acquisition of ‘exotic’ over ‘rare’.

In the end, I can shamelessly speculate the notion that Arenanet panicked concerned by the public relations fallout if it went live with perceived ‘gear grind’ when their manifesto implied the opposite. Arenanet was concerned about the potential reputation damage from ‘exotic’ gear grind even though ‘exotics’ were not actually a necessity to play GW2. After all, I have read numerous posts both here and on other forums stating that GW2 can be ‘easily’ completed with even just ‘rare’ items, which to me was the original intention. It is the notion that the game was designed around ‘rare’ items being more common with players gradually working towards ‘exotic’ over a period of months.

In my opinion, Arenanet was being entirely genuine with their comments regarding the planned implementation of ‘Ascended’ items but I am also suspicious of them stretching the truth. Just consider the name – ‘Ascended’ – it literally sounds like there should be lore behind it, a full blown story and with it new amazing content. ‘Ascended’ to me sounds like something that should of and was originally intended to be implemented in a full blown content expansion.

There was a HUGE amount of people leaving pre November, because they didn’t have anything to do at 80. A lot of people also left when Anet brought in the fractals. It was a lose/lose situation for Anet.

They lose the original fans who are dead set against progression or they lose everyone else. Which group was bigger? Who cared more?

Clearly the original fans had a bigger stake in the game and they were massively vocal about the change. I was personally skeptical about it, but I was also willing to wait and see. I don’t really see that ascended gear is that big a deal. It’s not like other games where three or four times a year there’s a whole new tier of gear. I don’t really mind a gentle acquistion curve. It gives me something to do.

But I completely understand why Guild Wars 1 players were frustrated by the change. I still think it’s not that bad and many people over-reacted.

They may have invested years following this game, but it’s not their livlihood. It’s not their game, it’s Anets. Anet made the game, NcSoft invested the money to make the game, and they saw people leaving the game. The game was far deader in December than it is now. There are more people playing now (at least it seems that way on my server) than there were in December.

I think Anet made the right choice even though I feel for the people who lost out because of it. But since those people neither invested the hours and years to make the game or the dollars necessary to produce the game, it’s really not their call.

Business make uncomfortable decisions all the time. That couldn’t have been an easy decision for Anet, but they made it for what they saw as the good of the game.

It takes a brave person to say they know more than the developer about that subject.

Vayne.8563:

There was a HUGE amount of people leaving pre November, because they didn’t have anything to do at 80.

For a newly launched MMO that was completely normal – those people would have left anyway. While fractals likely helped retain some people, I sincerely doubt that those stayed in this game due to introduction of ascended gear were more than a handful. Ascended eq introduced offered too small advantage for vertical progress crowd – but it was big enough to seriously discourage those that didn’t want to see gear treadmill here. There was no gain to be had here from the very beginning.

But once the grind gates were opened, the rest of the game started to follow. As many of us predicted in November.

Vayne.8563:

Business make uncomfortable decisions all the time. That couldn’t have been an easy decision for Anet, but they made it for what they saw as the good of the game.

The timetable suggests they had to make that decision either around the launch, or no more than few weeks later. Possibly even before launch. Long before there was any reliable data on player behaviour. So either they were fully intending to run the hype without keeping promises from the very beginning, or they didn’t care about them and the decision to change course was an easy one.
The fact that they didn’t inform the players about that until after it hakitten, while still raking sales on original hype suggests many other things, none of them pleasant.

@Vayne.

I agree (re population), but in all fairness, TC has had an ongoing campaign to lure new people to our server (unofficial RP server, WvW bandwagon, etc…). So the experience on TC may not be indicative of the experience everywhere else.

I never played GW1, but I understand that people still had to grind for skills. So there was almost always something to work toward. I think the GW2 design made a mistake in not including something like this. (besides Legendaries, which are so gated behind RNG as to not really be an incentive for many of us (at least not for me))

I don’t mind ascended trinkets, but I’m not looking forward to ascended armor and weapons. Even if I could pick a single main, I still like playing around with different builds, and I think ascended gear stagnates that.

For example, I saw the meta in WvW migrate from all-damage-zerker-we-are-the-champions to Knights-gear-can’t-touch-this. I suspect that the meta will migrate to conditions-burning-down-the-house. However, ascended gear could slow or stagnate that shift, because it’s too hard to gear up and change play styles.

I absolutely understand why ANet introduced ascended gear, I also understand why they did it. However, I think the introduction of a relatively grindier gear set (only compared to exotics, I’m not comparing this to MMOs I haven’t played) has some reprecussions.

Vayne, hi

I look at ascended gear, and the frequency of its release like this(assuming GW2 releases an expansion and increases level cap):

WoW/Rift raiding and gear treadmill:
-Gain Tier 1 set (takes approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-3-5 months later Tier 2 is released
-Gain Tier 2 set (takes approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-3-5 months later Tier 3 is released
-Gain Tier 3 set (takes approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-Expansion is released, level cap increased
-Level up to new level cap, all gear acquired in previous expension rendered useless.

GW2 Ascended gear:
-Gain Ring/Back slot ascended gear (approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-2 months later amulets are released (I think this was next)
-Gain Amulets (One month of laurels?)
-1 month later accessories are released
-Gain Accessories (One month of Laurels + ecto?)
-Expansion released level cap increased rendering all previously acquired ascended gear useless.

In both scenarioes you now re-start the grind.

So if you compare the two styles, its the same thing. Every few months a new tier, or new ascended slot, is released. It takes approx 1-2 months to acquire the gear in either scenario. This process is repeated several times over the course of a year or 1.5 years. Eventually, expansions are released, level caps are increased. All gear in both scenarios are useless (unless ascended gear scales with level at that point).

Its the same thing in my view. Arenanet just masked it differently.

The determining factor to me is how much better tier 2 was from tier 1 and tier 3 was from tier 2.

The ascended items to date have increased the effective power (from gw2buildcraft website) by 6.5% which is significant, but not overwhelming.

Fyrehawk.1674:

The potential problem is that statement could very well understate the scope of the problem that faced Arenanet in the first few months.

If I’m reading it correctly, I don’t really disagree with anything you wrote (nice style, by the way). I think the population bleed was obvious. What’s not obvious is whether they could have done something better than Ascended to retain players—not all of them, but enough to make a decent profit.

If they couldn’t, and it really was the best option available, then there’s no hope for this game being horizontal progression based. Basically it means this genre needs to be grind-based to survive. (Which is just sad. I already grind all day at work. I don’t need more grind when I have a few hours to play here and there.)

I’m curious as to the extent NCSoft bookkeepers were pulling the chain of the developers on this one.

Let’s be honest, this is an undesired state for Arenanet since there is likely to be a reasonably strong correlation between the likelihood of an individual purchasing, directly or indirectly, gems and their level of in-game activity.

Oh, yes, many fans and followers of GW2 have understood this from the beginning. It’s also why the game is obviously designed to make you pay for quality of life upgrades. The need to make money is fine and I understand they need to keep players in the game to do it. I just hope gear tiers isn’t “the” answer to after all this RNG-skin-box kitten is over with.

As a long time WoW player I can say that no you are wrong on many levels.

Altho Blizzard didn’t listen to what we wanted on the Engineer profession for years (until most recently in their previous expansion) and they didn’t listen to us on how to handle the balance thing so it wouldn’t affect PVE, they did a TON of stuff that we did request over the years.

Transmog, pet redesign for hunters, currency for dungeons, less speshal crafting items from dungeons, raid finder, the list is long for things we did want and didn’t want to hassle with.

GW2 isn’t living up to it’s prelaunch promises so far. (I say so far because they haven’t done a kitchen sink or rewards revamp update yet so I’m waiting to see what that is exactly) it’s not just the manifesto we’re talking about when we say that, we’re talking about 7 years of game design and content patch promises here.

For one thing, originally all gear was supposed to be cosmetic only. no stats of any kind, no power creep of any kind. They changed that months before getting to the closed beta stage. That’s an example of what we’re talking about. What happened?

More importantly what happened in November? It’s no secret that they suddenly became dungeon focused about that time and abandoned the open world until enough of us complained long enough they decided to do LS, and some of us rightly believe to this day that LS was just an appeasement.

One of the videos talks about how our actions matter, they don’t they are just all on timers. Another talks about how we swing our sword and we swing it again how boring is that well, #1 skills seem to be the most important skills the rest of the skills don’t do enough damage to compensate and often don’t matter so we use the #1 skills the most. Or sometimes the #1 skills are weak and the rest of the skills in that same weapon don’t do much of any damage at all or have a tremendous cooldown on them so we’re stuck with a gimpt system of fighting (like the longbow on the ranger only useful for the AOE attack and nothing else).

Anyways all we want is for them to do what they said they’d do in the countless footage of prelaunch videos when they talked about how open world PVE content was fast easy cheaper than any dungeon design so why haven’t we seen more than the LS content? you have to wonder that yourself don’t you?

They are also using the same tactics that Sub only games have used for years, progress delays. It’s definitely not Alt friendly at ALL. The same exact cost per toon for gear, the laurel daily being 1 per account, no options for runes/sigils from Karma, no heirloom gear to help people level alts faster.

The gear grind is alive and well trust me.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne, hi

I look at ascended gear, and the frequency of its release like this(assuming GW2 releases an expansion and increases level cap):

WoW/Rift raiding and gear treadmill:
-Gain Tier 1 set (takes approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-3-5 months later Tier 2 is released
-Gain Tier 2 set (takes approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-3-5 months later Tier 3 is released
-Gain Tier 3 set (takes approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-Expansion is released, level cap increased
-Level up to new level cap, all gear acquired in previous expension rendered useless.

GW2 Ascended gear:
-Gain Ring/Back slot ascended gear (approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-2 months later amulets are released (I think this was next)
-Gain Amulets (One month of laurels?)
-1 month later accessories are released
-Gain Accessories (One month of Laurels + ecto?)
-Expansion released level cap increased rendering all previously acquired ascended gear useless.

In both scenarioes you now re-start the grind.

So if you compare the two styles, its the same thing. Every few months a new tier, or new ascended slot, is released. It takes approx 1-2 months to acquire the gear in either scenario. This process is repeated several times over the course of a year or 1.5 years. Eventually, expansions are released, level caps are increased. All gear in both scenarios are useless (unless ascended gear scales with level at that point).

Its the same thing in my view. Arenanet just masked it differently.

Grinding for one piece at a time is quite different from grinding or all the pieces at the same time, but there’s another vitally important difference.

I’m not locked out of dungeons or anything but high level fractals by not having ascended gear. Can I do Arah explorable modes without any ascended gear at all? Yes. Can I do every fractal up to level 20 without ascended gear…yes.

Can I do WvW and SPvP and everything in the open world without ascended gear…yes.

That’s the difference between the real gear grind games and Guild Wars 2. You may THINK/FEEL you need ascended gear, but in reality the content doesn’t gate you.

When I played Rift, there was a stat for my cleric called focus. If I didn’t have 100 focus, I couldn’t QUEUE for the dungeon. The game itself wouldn’t let me get into that dungeon without that level of focus. And each subsequent dungeon and raid raised the requirement. My content was gated by gear. I couldn’t even SEE the content, walk in take a look around and take my chances.

Without X about of focus in Rift, I was completely 100% unable to damage the targets in dungeons.

That’s the difference between what Guild Wars 2 has done and most other MMOs.

I have to say that I felt out of love with GW2 on Nov. 15th. This coming from someone who got 50/50 HoM points in anticipation of the game, read both books beforehand, and watched every single stream of guildcast prior to launch. I really thought that GW2 was going to be revolutionary and be a giant leap forward from the 8 years of WoW-clones that companies have been feeding us. Finally a game that concentrates on fun rather than chasing carrots (for people that like this sort of thing, there are plenty of options already available). Ascended gear proved that ArenaNet really isn’t looking to think outside the box.

I absolutely agree that GW2 needed (and continues to need) more venues of progression for players…but ArenaNet took the easiest, dullest, and most alt-unfriendly way possible to address the problem: tossing out gear with bigger numbers. Nothing about the way Ascended gear was implemented suggests that it was premeditated…despite a quote from a single dev that say that it was.

I’ve still been playing the game simply because I have guildmates playing that I want to keep in touch with (we have a moderate amount of fun in WvW), and GW2 launched in kind of a dead space for MMOs. But the lack of competition for the game is only temporary, and I don’t think it has the stickiness it needs to survive the MMOs that are on the horizon (Wildstar, FF14 2.0, ArcheAge, TESO, etc.)

Guns and Giblets.9308:

[…]What’s not obvious is whether they could have done something better than Ascended to retain players—not all of them, but enough to make a decent profit. […]

In certain respects I wish I could answer despite the fact I initially believed – wished for – a more horizontal gear progression system. That conceptual idea of a long term goal of working towards multiple cosmetic gear sets that emphasise certain build styles such pure offensive, pure defensive or balance of both, conditional damage orientated and even magic find for the easy stuff.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

[…]If they couldn’t, and it really was the best option available, then there’s no hope for this game being horizontal progression based. Basically it means this genre needs to be grind-based to survive. (Which is just sad. I already grind all day at work. I don’t need more grind when I have a few hours to play here and there.) […]

There is a certain expression here that echoes a personal sentiment that seriously questions the long-term sustainability of MMORPGs – whether that is subscription or cash shop based – from an individual gameplayer’s perspective. It is understandable why ‘themepark’ orientated MMOs pursue some form of artificial mechanic that tries to enhance the natural lifespan of residing game content despite the personal opinion this leads to increased individual intolerance to such mechanisms.

In brief, GW2 constitutes my personal wall of intolerance and non-sustainability. I hold nothing specific against GW2 or the up & coming releases like of WildStar, ESO, Archage or EQNext which I am sure will acquire their own proponents and opponents. In the end none of these games really have me in mind which is perfectly reasonable as I sit here sporting the proverbial ‘Been there! Done that!’ t-shirt. Once I am done with GW2 it will likely be well overdue to step aside and allow a new generation to support or pour scorn over the next wave of MMOs.

Fortunately for me after seeing E3, there may be some new appealing stuff on the horizon with the likes of Tom Clancy’s ‘The Division’ which I seriously hope will land up being as good as the jaw dropping footage showed. Reckon I could play something like that for an age. ;D

Didn’t we get this all out of our system back in November?

Rising Dusk.2408:

Didn’t we get this all out of our system back in November?

Well, thats what I thought when I saw this thread. But if people are speaking pro ascended gear, I must voice my opposite opinion.

Vayne,
I could still raid in blues if I wanted to(other than LFR).

In WoW I could level to max level and regardless of what gear I had, I could run any dungeon or heroic(up until cataclysm when the dungeon finder placed ilvl requirements on dungeons). I could experience every dungeon in whatever shoddy greens and blues I had. Much like GW2 where you can experience every dungeon with whatever gear you have on.

If I wanted to raid, I could still go to these raids. Much like Fractals in GW2….provided I have the appropriate fractal level and my group accepts that, I can go into those fractals. In either scenario, you would be one shotted by a boss mechanic in WoW or the lazy-agony mechanic in GW2. And only THEN is when gear really comes into play. Proper gear to be able to stand up in raids vs a certain agony resist to be able to stand up in fractals.

In both games, you are able to do all content until you get to the raids/fractals. (This is also speaking of every expansion up until cataclysm when ilvl requirements were in place..which was what..5 years of WoW without gear/ilvl requirements to experience all of the content?)

My arguement is still valid.

LHound.8964:

The problem with Ascended Gear is when it was released, players were forced to do content (Grind the crap out of Fractals). However with the latest introductions of Ascended Gear trough dailies, guild events and WvW, there is more than one viable option to get them. Therefor, i believe that now it don’t contradicts with the original ideas shown in the Manifesto!

No one was forcing people to do Fractals or to get ascended gear at all. Exotics are perfectly adequate for all parts of the game except for Fractals 20+. People felt entitled to rewards yet did not want to do the content, which is a silly notion. Would you pay an employee if they didn’t do any work for you? Do you give the Olympic gold medal to the guy who didn’t feel like training or competing at all?

Another reason people exploded the issue out of proportion was they thought Anet was trying to introduce stat creep. They heard the word “tier” and thought that meant every few months Anet would release a wave of rare, exotic, and ascended gear with higher stats than previous versions of the same gear. This was completely false. Nothing will ever be stronger than the current version of ascended gear.

cesmode.4257:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Didn’t we get this all out of our system back in November?

Well, thats what I thought when I saw this thread. But if people are speaking pro ascended gear, I must voice my opposite opinion.

Vayne,
I could still raid in blues if I wanted to(other than LFR).

In WoW I could level to max level and regardless of what gear I had, I could run any dungeon or heroic(up until cataclysm when the dungeon finder placed ilvl requirements on dungeons). I could experience every dungeon in whatever shoddy greens and blues I had. Much like GW2 where you can experience every dungeon with whatever gear you have on.

If I wanted to raid, I could still go to these raids. Much like Fractals in GW2….provided I have the appropriate fractal level and my group accepts that, I can go into those fractals. In either scenario, you would be one shotted by a boss mechanic in WoW or the lazy-agony mechanic in GW2. And only THEN is when gear really comes into play. Proper gear to be able to stand up in raids vs a certain agony resist to be able to stand up in fractals.

In both games, you are able to do all content until you get to the raids/fractals. (This is also speaking of every expansion up until cataclysm when ilvl requirements were in place..which was what..5 years of WoW without gear/ilvl requirements to experience all of the content?)

My arguement is still valid.

Well, I have less experience of raiding in WoW and more of raiding in Rift and as I said, in Rift, I literally couldn’t queue for a dungeon without the proper gear. And of course, WoW has those DPS checks because of the enrage timer which means you do need to have certain gear to attain the DPS needed. That’s not true in 99% of Guild Wars 2.

Those people who want to see what’s in the fractals without playing it hundreds of times to get to high level fractals can. That’s something most MMOs don’t give you either.

In the end, that makes a difference…whether or not it makes a difference to you. And surely enough people see the difference, because there are people who agree with me, just like there are people who agree with you.

What I think we’re talking about here is a difference in play style, and that’s really it. If you must have BIS gear, and that’s how you play, this game is probably going to be more annoying to you than if you don’t.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne, hi

I look at ascended gear, and the frequency of its release like this(assuming GW2 releases an expansion and increases level cap):

WoW/Rift raiding and gear treadmill:
-Gain Tier 1 set (takes approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-3-5 months later Tier 2 is released
-Gain Tier 2 set (takes approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-3-5 months later Tier 3 is released
-Gain Tier 3 set (takes approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-Expansion is released, level cap increased
-Level up to new level cap, all gear acquired in previous expension rendered useless.

GW2 Ascended gear:
-Gain Ring/Back slot ascended gear (approx 1-2 months to acquire)
-2 months later amulets are released (I think this was next)
-Gain Amulets (One month of laurels?)
-1 month later accessories are released
-Gain Accessories (One month of Laurels + ecto?)
-Expansion released level cap increased rendering all previously acquired ascended gear useless.

In both scenarioes you now re-start the grind.

So if you compare the two styles, its the same thing. Every few months a new tier, or new ascended slot, is released. It takes approx 1-2 months to acquire the gear in either scenario. This process is repeated several times over the course of a year or 1.5 years. Eventually, expansions are released, level caps are increased. All gear in both scenarios are useless (unless ascended gear scales with level at that point).

Its the same thing in my view. Arenanet just masked it differently.

The one thing that will throw a wrench in your argument is that Anet might not raise the level cap at all. They never did in GW1. An expansion doesn’t necessarily have to have a level cap increase, it’s just a popular practice in other games. Anet have stated many times that there will not be stat creep. The currently released “tier” of ascended gear is the first and last “tier” that will ever be released.

@xenon: Im willing to bet that they are going to increase the level cap. Even though they didn’t in GW1, Colin (as well as other devs) have pubically stated(even in the forums here), that GW2’s design allows them to do this while GW1 design did not. Therefor they said they are open to increasing the cap which would negate all of your gear when you hit that new cap unless ascended gear scales.

With the way the game is going, I would bet the gear doesn’t scale so we have progression to look forward to.

Xenon.4537:

The one thing that will throw a wrench in your argument is that Anet might not raise the level cap at all. They never did in GW1. An expansion doesn’t necessarily have to have a level cap increase, it’s just a popular practice in other games. Anet have stated many times that there will not be stat creep. The currently released “tier” of ascended gear is the first and last “tier” that will ever be released.

They’ve made statements to the effect that they ‘absolutely’ will raise it.

Whether they stick with this or not is to be seen. But I expect an expansion to raise the level cap. You’re right that this would not be stat-creep. It would be another tier altogether.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Xenon.4537:

The one thing that will throw a wrench in your argument is that Anet might not raise the level cap at all. They never did in GW1. An expansion doesn’t necessarily have to have a level cap increase, it’s just a popular practice in other games. Anet have stated many times that there will not be stat creep. The currently released “tier” of ascended gear is the first and last “tier” that will ever be released.

They’ve made statements to the effect that they ‘absolutely’ will raise it.

Whether they stick with this or not is to be seen. But I expect an expansion to raise the level cap. You’re right that this would not be stat-creep. It would be another tier altogether.

Ah, I stand corrected. However, I have seen devs post right here on these forums (during the ascended gear drama explosion) that they will not introduce stat creep or gear treadmill or have any kind of ever-increasing gear-tiering system. So Either they changed their minds since that interview with Colin, or they have ideas in place to have increased level cap without introducing new gear levels. Here, I dug all the way back and found the relevant post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

“Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.”

To be fair, this is probably a good example of Anet’s capacity to make statements that are not perfectly clear and are somewhat open to interpretation. I think people read this quickly and see words like “progression” and “We will slowly add..” and assume the worst. I believe the proper interpretation of this post is a literal interpretation of the last sentence of that paragraph. They will not be adding tiers. Period.

If it makes people feel better, they can keep the link to that post and use it to hold Anet to their word. Personally I’m not worried about it.

Xenon.4537:

I believe the proper interpretation of this post is a literal interpretation of the last sentence of that paragraph. They will not be adding tiers. Period.

The critical modifier is “every 3 months.” (The other question is how they interpret the term “tiers.”) I don’t take that to mean exactly “every 3 months,” but the wording of that sentence and the surrounding paragraph does not exclude an expansion increase—not that it matters all that much. If they change their mind, there’s nothing we can do about it.

I’m wait-and-see at this stage. I certainly won’t be pre-ordering an expansion, however.

Ascended gear was for fractals. Since fractals have been pretty much abandoned by anet most people forget that, and/or are too new to know.

Then people cried, and anet implemented other ways to get fractal gear. Of course the last few pieces couldn’t be infused because they want to keep the cap on FOTM level for whatever reason.

The bottom line is, that GW2 was marketed for years as a game that would NOT have a heavy gear grind, must-have classes for dungeons (trinity) and stat-based vertical progression. It matters NOT the degree in which these elements were explicitly stated or implied. Because through forum posts, feedback and pre-release write-ups – the game company fully understood what the overwhelming majority of people believed these things.

Pre-release there were a great many assumptions made about the game, and when these assumptions became widespread, but were flat out wrong, Anet would often release a statement that cleared things up. That this game would have a power/gear plateau once you achieved lvl 80 and a full set of exotics was a clearly understood fact by the vast majority of people – and in this regard, at NO time did Anet feel they needed to “clear things up” with a statement. Funny that …

And to those that love to talk about how little the Ascended gear stat increases actually means, I say two things: 1. speak for yourself ONLY, for there are folks here whose style of play in WvW, and success or failure, is often determined by the smallest of margins. And 2. Stat based vertical progression has to begin somewhere, and of course when first introduced it will have a smaller effect than it will overtime.

Rooks Zaer.5846:

I have to say that I felt out of love with GW2 on Nov. 15th. This coming from someone who got 50/50 HoM points in anticipation of the game, read both books beforehand, and watched every single stream of guildcast prior to launch. I really thought that GW2 was going to be revolutionary and be a giant leap forward from the 8 years of WoW-clones that companies have been feeding us. Finally a game that concentrates on fun rather than chasing carrots (for people that like this sort of thing, there are plenty of options already available). Ascended gear proved that ArenaNet really isn’t looking to think outside the box.

I absolutely agree that GW2 needed (and continues to need) more venues of progression for players…but ArenaNet took the easiest, dullest, and most alt-unfriendly way possible to address the problem: tossing out gear with bigger numbers. Nothing about the way Ascended gear was implemented suggests that it was premeditated…despite a quote from a single dev that say that it was.

I’ve still been playing the game simply because I have guildmates playing that I want to keep in touch with (we have a moderate amount of fun in WvW), and GW2 launched in kind of a dead space for MMOs. But the lack of competition for the game is only temporary, and I don’t think it has the stickiness it needs to survive the MMOs that are on the horizon (Wildstar, FF14 2.0, ArcheAge, TESO, etc.)

Once again, RooksZaer, another well stated post. Thanks.

But don’t bother engaging any of the “self-appointed” spokesmen for Anet that pollute nearly every single thread. These types are easily spotted because they spend most of their time lecturing others on nearly every topic imaginable. Always at pains to give the impression they actually know why the game company’s developers made certain decisions or changes, truth be told, they haven’t a clue. Unfortunately, these types have become more common in MMO forums; usually polite, but always pretentious, these creeps are nothing more than dedicated reverse-trolls. However, you do need to be careful when engaging them, because reverse trolls adore the report option.

Ision.3207:

The bottom line is, that GW2 was marketed for years as a game that would NOT have a heavy gear grind, must-have classes for dungeons (trinity) and stat-based vertical progression. It matters NOT the degree in which these elements were explicitly stated or implied. Because through forum posts, feedback and pre-release write-ups – the game company fully understood what the overwhelming majority of people believed they were saying.

Pre-release there were a great many assumptions made about the game, and when these assumptions became widespread, but where flat out wrong, Anet would release a quick statement that cleared things up. That this game would have a power/gear plateau once you achieved lvl 80 and a full set of exotics was a clearly understood fact by the vast majority of people – and in this regard, at NO time did Anet feel they needed to “clear things up” with a statement. Funny that …

No one is arguing your point, but you are completely ignoring mine. It is one thing to assume you’ll like something because of the way it looks on paper, but once you actually have it you may feel differently. Liking something in theory and genuinely liking something are two very different things.

A perfect example happened to me today at work. I work at a Mexican restaurant, and I’ve been eying the taco salad for a few days now. Looks good. Smells good. I like tacos. I like salads. Sounds great. But once I had one on my lunch break…….not so great. Kind of disappointing really.

My point is that most of the time people don’t actually know what they want until they have it. People thought they wanted Guild Wars 2 without grind and progression. They thought they were okay about “the whole game is endgame.” But once they actually got in, got to play, and were faced with the reality of what a MMO without gear grind and progression and traditional endgame actually was….just look around. People still complain about endgame, still ask for raids, practically demanded progression (only to complain once they got it), and started grinding and farming to the point that loot drops throughout virtually the entire freaking game have been nerfed, re-nerfed, and nerfed a few more times. And that’s in spite of the fact that there isn’t really anything to grind for.

I think the best way for Anet to have done the new RNG skins would have been to add them to World Bosses like the did the greens in GW. Everyone who played GW will remember when they release the Stone Summit update in Prophecies and we got the first of the “perfect” green weapons. People farmed those bosses continually until they had all the greens. And once they had all of them they farmed them more to sell to other players in LA. It was still RNG because you didn’t have a guarentee that you’d get it, but it kept us playing until Factions and new content.

If Anet were to implement this type of “farming” with the World bosses, not only would it keep people playing but it would bring people back to less played zones in Tyria.

Galphar.3901:

I think the best way for Anet to have done the new RNG skins would have been to add them to World Bosses like the did the greens in GW. Everyone who played GW will remember when they release the Stone Summit update in Prophecies and we got the first of the “perfect” green weapons. People farmed those bosses continually until they had all the greens. And once they had all of them they farmed them more to sell to other players in LA. It was still RNG because you didn’t have a guarentee that you’d get it, but it kept us playing until Factions and new content.

If Anet were to implement this type of “farming” with the World bosses, not only would it keep people playing but it would bring people back to less played zones in Tyria.

My first thought was that you were a little off-topic for this thread, but after reading your post I have say I like where you’re going. Ascended gear (most of it anyway) is already named after characters from the original game, so having ascended gear drop from specific mobs and events, putting more focus on the lore behind each item, and normalizing their stats would go a long way to solving a lot of issues. I don’t see why you can’t have infusion slots without buffing stats.

Xenon.4537:

Ah, I stand corrected. However, I have seen devs post right here on these forums (during the ascended gear drama explosion) that they will not introduce stat creep or gear treadmill or have any kind of ever-increasing gear-tiering system.

This year. They also said, that they intend to “continue with the low curve item progression” in the future. Yes, according to devs it won’t be stat creep or gear treadmill – it will be “item progression”. Which is the same thing, just named differently.
Also, all of the above is completely separate from the simple effect of raising level caps. Level 100 ascended would be in reality a new tier, even if in theory no new tier was introduced. There supposedly will be also new infusions, with better stats than the current 4/5 ones. Those are the lowest level (compare tier 1 gems to orbs and their ascended slot equivalent, if you want to understand what that can mean).

Astralporing.1957:

Xenon.4537:

Ah, I stand corrected. However, I have seen devs post right here on these forums (during the ascended gear drama explosion) that they will not introduce stat creep or gear treadmill or have any kind of ever-increasing gear-tiering system.

This year. They also said, that they intend to “continue with the low curve item progression” in the future. Yes, according to devs it won’t be stat creep or gear treadmill – it will be “item progression”. Which is the same thing, just named differently.

Link or it didn’t happen.

Sarcasm aside, I would be very interested to see that…

Arkham Creed.7358:

My point is that most of the time people don’t actually know what they want until they have it. People thought they wanted Guild Wars 2 without grind and progression. They thought they were okay about “the whole game is endgame.” But once they actually got in, got to play, and were faced with the reality of what a MMO without gear grind and progression and traditional endgame actually was….just look around. People still complain about endgame, still ask for raids, practically demanded progression (only to complain once they got it),

Many of the people drawn to the game initially wanted horizontal progression, ascended items was not the answer as many people have said. A good example of horizontal progression was the settlers armor released during the southsun event. I liked the stats so I did the southsun event to get the currency to buy 2 sets of it. If I had a complaint it would be over the look of it which is just a rehash of other armors.

morrolan.9608:

Arkham Creed.7358:

My point is that most of the time people don’t actually know what they want until they have it. People thought they wanted Guild Wars 2 without grind and progression. They thought they were okay about “the whole game is endgame.” But once they actually got in, got to play, and were faced with the reality of what a MMO without gear grind and progression and traditional endgame actually was….just look around. People still complain about endgame, still ask for raids, practically demanded progression (only to complain once they got it),

Many of the people drawn to the game initially wanted horizontal progression, ascended items was not the answer as many people have said. A good example of horizontal progression was the settlers armor released during the southsun event. I liked the stats so I did the southsun event to get the currency to buy 2 sets of it. If I had a complaint it would be over the look of it which is just a rehash of other armors.

Oh I completely agree that ascended gear was….mishandled, to say the least. But it is what it is, its what we got, and if we wanted something more specific then we should have been more specific when we (the general “we” as in the community, not us as individuals) demanded it.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Can you blame them from trying to stop the endless complaints and players leaving in droves? Can you blame them for giving us what we asked for?

Yes.

Of course, in fact. It was obvious that a lot of players would leave the game a few months after release. That’s what has happened to every other MMORPG released recently, and it’s what will happen with the next MMORPGs as well. You can even see how it’s more or less the same numbers – if you look at how many players Age of Conan had right after release and how many players it lost, you will notice the similarities with how many players The Old Republic had at release and how many players they lost.

There is a locust cloud of MMORPG players who are eternally seeking a MMORPG that manages to be a better WoW than WoW, and thus keep jumping from MMO to MMO looking for something they will never find. Those are the players seeking all the “classic” MMOs features (raids, gear progression, the holy trinity, and so on). Those are the great majority of the one million players who jump to a big MMO as soon as it’s released and leave soon after.

In other words, those were the players who were going to leave Guild Wars 2 anyway, regardless of what ArenaNet did. ArenaNet should have known better than to panic when they saw players leaving the game, and they should have known better than to cater to those players.

Do you know who ArenaNet should have catared to? They know, they have stated it themselves in the Manifesto. “If you like MMOs, you should check Guild Wars 2; if you don’t like MMOs, you REALLY should check Guild Wars 2”. This should have been their target audience – everyone looking for a good RPG that they could play once in a while with their friends, but who was not so easily deceived by the tasteless time sinks found in classic MMOs.

ArenaNet failed to accomplish that. Just read this forum – the Guild Wars 2 community is not made by people who didn’t like MMOs, it’s made by the same grind-addicted and loot-focused players found in any other MMORPG. Those players will leave as soon as the next big thing is released.

So can I blame ArenaNet for listening to the wrong side of the community? Yes. They should have know better.

Arkham Creed.7358:

People thought they wanted Guild Wars 2 without grind and progression. They thought they were okay about “the whole game is endgame.” But once they actually got in, got to play, and were faced with the reality of what a MMO without gear grind and progression and traditional endgame actually was….just look around. People still complain about endgame, still ask for raids, practically demanded progression (only to complain once they got it), and started grinding and farming to the point that loot drops throughout virtually the entire freaking game have been nerfed, re-nerfed, and nerfed a few more times. And that’s in spite of the fact that there isn’t really anything to grind for.

There is a lot to grind for. But the flaw in your entire argument is that you are assuming it has been the same players complaining about the lack of raids and about the excess of grind. I doubt very much that anyone who has been following GW2 since the original announcement of GW:EN and who kept up to date with the news about the game would now be asking for more grind. It’s the other side of the community – the MMO locusts I mentioned above – who has been complaining about the “lack” of endgame. It’s also the side of the community ArenaNet decided to listen to.

On raising the level cap…I’m in principle against this. HOWEVER, the way that this works in other games (WoW, Rift, etc) might be completely different in a game like Guild Wars 2. I mean how hard was the last ten levels to get in the first place?

I think it took less time to get from 70-80 than it did to get from 20-30. You could do it in an evening. So if they make the level cap 100 you have a couple of evenings.

Might be interesting if we can get extra attribute points out of it. lol

Arkham Creed.7358:

Oh I completely agree that ascended gear was….mishandled, to say the least. But it is what it is, its what we got, and if we wanted something more specific then we should have been more specific when we (the general “we” as in the community, not us as individuals) demanded it.

There’s no “we” in this – the people that demanded it were mostly already gone by the time first ascended items were introduced, and thus didn’t really care whether they were understood well or not. And as Erasculio said – they would have left anyway. We are left now with something completely other people wanted.

Vayne.8563:

I think it took less time to get from 70-80 than it did to get from 20-30. You could do it in an evening. So if they make the level cap 100 you have a couple of evenings.

It’s not the levelling that is a problem. You are right, that getting from 80 to 100 will likely be quite easy.

What you forgot to mention is that raising level cap will instantly invalidate all your equipment. All that exotic gear you have? It will require quite a time or some cash to replace. No worries, though, it’s not that much time or cash, you say…. And you will be likely right again.
Now, replacing ascended gear, that is going to take an insanely long time. For whole gear set (once it’s out) – at least several months per character for a tiny minority of hardcore players. A Year or more for those less hardcore. Never for most casuals.

Sounds like fun, right? [/sarcasm]

The big difference as I see it is that ascended gear isn’t comparable to tiered gear in earlier MMOs. In WoW, a tier was like taking an elevator to a whole new floor. In GW2, ascended gear is like putting on high heels. Yes, you’re a couple inches higher, but Tonya Harding can still equip a main-hand baseball bat and take you out at the kneecaps.

Astralporing.1957:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Oh I completely agree that ascended gear was….mishandled, to say the least. But it is what it is, its what we got, and if we wanted something more specific then we should have been more specific when we (the general “we” as in the community, not us as individuals) demanded it.

There’s no “we” in this – the people that demanded it were mostly already gone by the time first ascended items were introduced, and thus didn’t really care whether they were understood well or not. And as Erasculio said – they would have left anyway. We are left now with something completely other people wanted.

Vayne.8563:

I think it took less time to get from 70-80 than it did to get from 20-30. You could do it in an evening. So if they make the level cap 100 you have a couple of evenings.

It’s not the levelling that is a problem. You are right, that getting from 80 to 100 will likely be quite easy.

What you forgot to mention is that raising level cap will instantly invalidate all your equipment. All that exotic gear you have? It will require quite a time or some cash to replace. No worries, though, it’s not that much time or cash, you say…. And you will be likely right again.
Now, replacing ascended gear, that is going to take an insanely long time. For whole gear set (once it’s out) – at least several months per character for a tiny minority of hardcore players. A Year or more for those less hardcore. Never for most casuals.

Sounds like fun, right? [/sarcasm]

That’s a pretty kittenumption on your part. We don’t know how hard it will be in an update to max out ascended gear, because it’ll be an update. I’m guessing that it won’t be nearly as hard as it is now.

And again, plenty of casual players neither need nor care about ascended gear even now. It’s like you’re playing some other MMO and you just accidentally happen to log into Guild Wars 2 where the content isn’t gated by that.

I mean sure, if you’re casual, you’re probably not doing level 40 plus fractals anyway, no?

Adding vertical progression systems into the game just indicates to me that ANet does not want to spend the time and resources to think of alternate ways to make a horizontal progression system better.

Also, I don’t care how/why ascended gear affects gameplay. As I have stated above, the very fact that they would add a vertical progression system into the game screams “LAZY!” to me.

stayBlind.7849:

Adding vertical progression systems into the game just indicates to me that ANet does not want to spend the time and resources to think of alternate ways to make a horizontal progression system better.

Also, I don’t care how/why ascended gear affects gameplay. As I have stated above, the very fact that they would add a vertical progression system into the game screams “LAZY!” to me.

I’m not sure it was lazy…it was fast. They wanted a fast solution. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on/considering other solutions.

Everyone thinks using a more “experimental” solution would have been better. I wonder if you still think it would have been better if it were your millions of dollars invested in a project that wasn’t working out for you.

Vayne.8563:

stayBlind.7849:

Adding vertical progression systems into the game just indicates to me that ANet does not want to spend the time and resources to think of alternate ways to make a horizontal progression system better.

Also, I don’t care how/why ascended gear affects gameplay. As I have stated above, the very fact that they would add a vertical progression system into the game screams “LAZY!” to me.

I’m not sure it was lazy…it was fast. They wanted a fast solution. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on/considering other solutions.

Everyone thinks using a more “experimental” solution would have been better. I wonder if you still think it would have been better if it were your millions of dollars invested in a project that wasn’t working out for you.

I wouldn’t invest millions of dollars into a project that wouldn’t work out for me.

stayBlind.7849:

Vayne.8563:

stayBlind.7849:

Adding vertical progression systems into the game just indicates to me that ANet does not want to spend the time and resources to think of alternate ways to make a horizontal progression system better.

Also, I don’t care how/why ascended gear affects gameplay. As I have stated above, the very fact that they would add a vertical progression system into the game screams “LAZY!” to me.

I’m not sure it was lazy…it was fast. They wanted a fast solution. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on/considering other solutions.

Everyone thinks using a more “experimental” solution would have been better. I wonder if you still think it would have been better if it were your millions of dollars invested in a project that wasn’t working out for you.

I wouldn’t invest millions of dollars into a project that wouldn’t work out for me.

If this were the case, there would be NO new MMOs. It just doesn’t work like that.

People have a vision of what they want a game to be. Then they try to make the game to match that vision. If the vision of the game doesn’t work with the public, or they can’t produce the game close enough to the vision, the game flounders.

There are no guarantees in the gaming world. Many games that “should have been” a hit failed abysmally.

So whether or not you would do that is largely irrelevant.

I’m not sure it was lazy…it was fast. They wanted a fast solution. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on/considering other solutions.
Everyone thinks using a more “experimental” solution would have been better. I wonder if you still think it would have been better if it were your millions of dollars invested in a project that wasn’t working out for you.

Vayne.8563:

stayBlind.7849:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure it was lazy…it was fast. They wanted a fast solution. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on/considering other solutions.
Everyone thinks using a more “experimental” solution would have been better. I wonder if you still think it would have been better if it were your millions of dollars invested in a project that wasn’t working out for you.

I’m not sure it was lazy…it was fast. They wanted a fast solution. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on/considering other solutions.

Everyone thinks using a more “experimental” solution would have been better. I wonder if you still think it would have been better if it were your millions of dollars invested in a project that wasn’t working out for you.

I wouldn’t invest millions of dollars into a project that wouldn’t work out for me.

If this were the case, there would be NO new MMOs. It just doesn’t work like that.

People have a vision of what they want a game to be. Then they try to make the game to match that vision. If the vision of the game doesn’t work with the public, or they can’t produce the game close enough to the vision, the game flounders.

There are no guarantees in the gaming world. Many games that “should have been” a hit failed abysmally.

So whether or not you would do that is largely irrelevant.

I would rather invest in lower-budget games that put the money towards developing unique design features (GW1) than in AAA titles that invest as much funding into advertising and graphics engines than into the building of the game mechanics themselves.

I would rather invest in lower-budget games that didn’t have to implement features that don’t build upon how the game was designed simply because not enough time/money was put into designing said features.

stayBlind.7849:

I’m not sure it was lazy…it was fast. They wanted a fast solution. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on/considering other solutions.
Everyone thinks using a more “experimental” solution would have been better. I wonder if you still think it would have been better if it were your millions of dollars invested in a project that wasn’t working out for you.

Vayne.8563:

stayBlind.7849:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure it was lazy…it was fast. They wanted a fast solution. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on/considering other solutions.
Everyone thinks using a more “experimental” solution would have been better. I wonder if you still think it would have been better if it were your millions of dollars invested in a project that wasn’t working out for you.

I’m not sure it was lazy…it was fast. They wanted a fast solution. That doesn’t mean they’re not working on/considering other solutions.

Everyone thinks using a more “experimental” solution would have been better. I wonder if you still think it would have been better if it were your millions of dollars invested in a project that wasn’t working out for you.

I wouldn’t invest millions of dollars into a project that wouldn’t work out for me.

If this were the case, there would be NO new MMOs. It just doesn’t work like that.

People have a vision of what they want a game to be. Then they try to make the game to match that vision. If the vision of the game doesn’t work with the public, or they can’t produce the game close enough to the vision, the game flounders.

There are no guarantees in the gaming world. Many games that “should have been” a hit failed abysmally.

So whether or not you would do that is largely irrelevant.

I would rather invest in lower-budget games that put the money towards developing unique design features (GW1) than in AAA titles that invest as much funding into advertising and graphics engines than into the building of the game mechanics themselves.

I would rather invest in lower-budget games that didn’t have to implement features that don’t build upon how the game was designed simply because not enough time/money was put into designing said features.

I’m sure everyone would rather do that…but in reality, intent and execution are always two different things.