Guild Wars 2

After playing Dark Souls for the PC after many days of horror and trials trying to get Windows Live to work, I kind of realised something. The game was very skill based, yet revolved around how you built your character, however the way you built your character was not limiting, if you were a armor tank, you could always throw a few points into intelligence and cast a fireball in case you were in trouble, or if you were a mage type, you could always put a few points into dexterity to be able to use daggers well.

The way that “classes” could be intertwined and flow together seemlessly and compliment eachother kind of helped me figure out why I am not really into Guild Wars 2 as much as I was into Guild Wars 1. After playing Dark Souls a bit more, I could see more and more reasons why I liked GW1 for years, and got bored of GW2 in about 6 months.

Mind you, GW2 is an amazing game, the concepts and gameplay are all great, and the art and design of it all is breathtaking, and $60.00 for 6 months of entertainment is a godly deal. It is just that the game has walked away from so many of the concepts from the original that I loved.

The ability to have classes intermingle, have a Warrior/Monk, a Elementalist/Assassin, and so on, opening thousands of new builds and playstyles.
Mobs did not respawn in the area once you killed them, allowing for a feel of real progression within an area, and challenges to the player to vanquish all enemies in an entire area.
The attribute points that empowered weapons and skills, and class specific attributes that added flavor to a class, but was purely optional to put points into.
The class specific armors that were very unique and gave a distinct look to each type of profession within the game, you could tell which profession was which from across the map.

I guess I’m typing this because after playing Dark Souls, I realise now why I have no desire to play GW2 anymore, it just doesn’t have anything to offer me anymore. The original mechanics of GW1 seem to be thrown out, leaving only strange interpretations of what was. As of now, Dark Souls seems to be my online, and offline game of choice, and the funny thing is, I don’t really have any wanting to come back to GW2. I hope that one day I will come back though, because I love the story and the lore of the world, and I really want to enjoy it again.

I can’t share the sentiment for Dark Souls. But I have sort of had the same feeling about GW2. Im not sure what O’Brien meant when he said “We took everything you loved about GW1…”, because the history is pretty much the only thing that has carried over.

Perhaps Anet did not really understand what people actually loved about GW1 and what kept them playing for seven years.

And this is coming from a huge fan. Over 900 hours in GW2 already, thousands of hours logged in on GW, and who knows how much money I’ve thrown at them.

I don’t think its a bad game by any means. But I do think design decisions were catered towards more mass market appeal and speedy/low impact content generation than they were to fans of the franchise.

GW2 did some innovative things within the mmo genre, it extends the story of Guild Wars, but it doesn’t feel anything like an evolution of its predecessor.

Agree about Dark Souls and i played Demon’s Souls back in 09-10 pretty hardcore while playing gw1 and both were awesome and none were getting old after hundreds (gw1 after thousands) of hours. I have many hours in gw2 but its been over two months that i feel like playing just because its Guild Wars and i loved the hell out of the original. Pve here sucks for many reasons. For example, i miss farming on my 130hp derv/tera ele for certain skins that drop ONLY from certain zone. I miss having awesome pvp like FA/RA. I miss dungeons like The Deep. In gw2 i could stop playing it today and i won’t miss a single thing, nothing is memorable. I think that as of now if i stop playing gw2 the only thing i will remember the game by is nerfs. I have never played a game in 15y of gaming where devs spammed so many nerfs on absolutely everything just to bring you to their ********* gem store.

I want my hundreds of skills to chose for the build of my liking NOT FIVE SKILL.

When we are at it-when did Colin join ANet? He is not in the Faction credits. Maybe when work on GW2 started? Cuz I sure as hell don’t remember him from GW1-he just jumped out of nowhere and started talking nonsense. “We took everything you loved about GW1 and made it 3x better”-how would you know that Colin? Hell, I started playing before you arrived(at least I think so).

On topic: I feel GW1 within GW2. Faintly, but it is there. Sadly, it feels Like today’s ANet is totally different ANet from the GW1 heyday. Shame…

I wanted to toss in something, because I think a lot of GW1 vets have commented on how much we miss the Deck Building aspect of GW1. It was cool to sort through all the options and come up with unique builds, good synergies, and combinations that made you feel powerful and successful. It was cool to plan out group synergy in an outpost and walk out into a zone to do what you intended to do… and to make hard things easy because you figured it out. It was also painful to look at some people in your party and say WTF? Are you seriously doing that?

But, how many of us will also remember Izzy, frequently commenting on the dificulty of balancing skills in that environment? 10 professions, and every profession could take on a secondary to combine 2 complete professions worth of skills.

How often did we see the balance changes come down for something that had nothing to do with your own profession? Ele skills nerfed not because of the Ele, but because of Fast Casting Me/E? Splinter Weapon, not because of the Rit, but because of the R/Rt?

I think the current skill selection is a bit too pendulum swing in the other direction, and there isn’t enough synergy or uniqueness to build…. also a serious lack of elite skills that offer synergy with the rest of the skill bar…. but I understand where it came from.

The thing I also think is missing which isn’t noticed is the likes of shadow form the 55 monks the 600 smites . What do we have now ? Skills that don’t actually impact anything they are all just variations of dealing damage or survival skills that help you survive a split second longer aginst a boss that will kill you anyway . No one skill in any dungeon is honestly noticable nor does it make a big difference its just deal damage and survive. All skills feel numb and pointless vs certain situations. We need more exciting skills and less HP bosses maybe then will people really feel like they make a difference . Just look at the likes of fowsc that was a fantastic marry of builds and classes to finish a hard event . Such great teamwork that this game lacks the feel of.

CassieGold.7460:

I wanted to toss in something, because I think a lot of GW1 vets have commented on how much we miss the Deck Building aspect of GW1.

Ahhh I couldn’t really find a word for it, but deck building really nails it, thank you friend. But yeah, deck building is really great in RPGs, it’s like a card game, you build up your deck, and make it to your playstyle, or for the specific situation, and no matter how haphazard the outcome is, it is still YOURS. I think that a big part of GW1’s appeal for me was lost in GW2, since we can choose between only a few cookie cutter skills for one profession, which is really a letdown.
I think that they tried too hard to lose the trinity in this game, but I think they only really accomplished in making an action RPG, take a look at vindictus for example, same system really, kinda, well you get the point.
Back in GW1, there was no trinity really, any class could heal, some were just better at it than others, you could have Necro healers, Ritualist healers, Paragon healers, Ranger healers, every class COULD heal. So the whole “getting rid of trinity” thing just seems kinda redundant since GW1 never really did have a set trinity system.

arrownin.3128:

Back in GW1, there was no trinity really, any class could heal, some were just better at it than others, you could have Necro healers, Ritualist healers, Paragon healers, Ranger healers, every class COULD heal. So the whole “getting rid of trinity” thing just seems kinda redundant since GW1 never really did have a set trinity system.

That was more a side-effect of the dual profession system, not truly a characteristic of every profession. Additionally, only a few profession set-ups, mostly warriors but a couple others, could tank. It certainly was still a trinity, albeit a fun one due to the attribute re-allocation and vast list of skills.

synk.6907:

arrownin.3128:

Back in GW1, there was no trinity really, any class could heal, some were just better at it than others, you could have Necro healers, Ritualist healers, Paragon healers, Ranger healers, every class COULD heal. So the whole “getting rid of trinity” thing just seems kinda redundant since GW1 never really did have a set trinity system.

That was more a side-effect of the dual profession system, not truly a characteristic of every profession. Additionally, only a few profession set-ups, mostly warriors but a couple others, could tank. It certainly was still a trinity, albeit a fun one due to the attribute re-allocation and vast list of skills.

Well to be honest in any RPG one build will be tanky, and one will be damage-y, and one will be heal-y, that’s just how it is. And actually, I could probably say that every class in the game could tank, or damage, or etc, it just depended on which build you were running, When I was talking about the professions able to heal yeah I was talking about Dual Professions, but I feel like having this system created a unique feel for each mix, like a Warrior/Monk is much different than a Necro/Monk, each profession using specific abilities from the Monk tree, or etc to be able to be effective in combat.

I never managed to see all the content in original Guild Wars, the only dungeon I did was Fissure of Woe (I think it was named) and that’s it. I haven’t done Underworld, The Deep, Urgoz (or something) and the other ones.

I haven’t done much, and would love to do them, but I can’t really find any people for it :/

Never did I Vanquish a zone either, and never entered a hard mode mission.

I think it’s really sad, I have almost played original Guild Wars for 2 years only.

Farzo.8410:

I never managed to see all the content in original Guild Wars, the only dungeon I did was Fissure of Woe (I think it was named) and that’s it. I haven’t done Underworld, The Deep, Urgoz (or something) and the other ones.

I haven’t done much, and would love to do them, but I can’t really find any people for it :/

Never did I Vanquish a zone either, and never entered a hard mode mission.

I think it’s really sad, I have almost played original Guild Wars for 2 years only.

You might be able to find a group on some forums to help you out, but right now GW1 is dead, mostly due to GW2’s release, and that it’s kinda an old game, sorry

I pretty much agree with every post here, the skill caps, the hundreds of skills you could use, made the game have strategy a bit like chess (what skills counter this part of the game etc), made playing the game fun, the builds you could make the dual classes you could play, honestly if Guildwars 1 populations were like GW2 i’m probably just go back..

They really should have said " We took everything WoW players loved about WoW" but that wouldn’t go down well here in my opinion..as not much came over in my opinion..

I guess the future will decide, i must wait and see.

Dante.1508:

I pretty much agree with every post here, the skill caps, the hundreds of skills you could use, made the game have strategy a bit like chess (what skills counter this part of the game etc), made playing the game fun, the builds you could make the dual classes you could play, honestly if Guildwars 1 populations were like GW2 i’m probably just go back..

They really should have said " We took everything WoW players loved about WoW" but that wouldn’t go down well here in my opinion..as not much came over in my opinion..

I guess the future will decide, i must wait and see.

To be honest WoW really has almost no similarities to this game.

I did some weird things in Guild wars. Like Warrior/necromancer with adrenaline axe skills and “flesh Golem” Elite, which used all my mana to cast :P

I do agree that one of the best aspects of GW as been taken away and it gave you many more hours of entertainment and variety thinking of new builds than a few dungeons or a new area to play in can ever give you.

GW1 is a different game from 2. It’s a good thing though to me. The old system was very slow to me. it felt like a TBC game most of the time. That’s not to say it didn’t have it’s fast moments too (I played I’m just giving a perspective here.)

Gorwe.9672:

When we are at it-when did Colin join ANet? He is not in the Faction credits. Maybe when work on GW2 started? Cuz I sure as hell don’t remember him from GW1-he just jumped out of nowhere and started talking nonsense. “We took everything you loved about GW1 and made it 3x better”-how would you know that Colin? Hell, I started playing before you arrived(at least I think so).

On topic: I feel GW1 within GW2. Faintly, but it is there. Sadly, it feels Like today’s ANet is totally different ANet from the GW1 heyday. Shame…

Who are the GW1 devs who are still there? Jon Peters?

I’m hopeful elites will be changed back into powerful utilities, not blue moon button presses, and we’ll get more utilities in general.

I’m also hopeful that the existing weapons will be spread out across all classes, make a skill for every weapon for every class, I think that would bring back some of the cross class feel, without making a balance nightmare.

Still I think we should have 5 utility slots, let us equip 3 heals if we feel like having terrible utility but good survivability :P (with more good utilities this wouldn’t be a no brainer)

All round though I love gw2 (combat is so smooth and responsive), but the secret world does the dual class deckbuilding even better than gw1 did :P

I liked GW1 a lot. It was unique and I’m glad it did well.
But the mainstream is probably where the money is made.
Hopefully Anet makes enough off GW2 to think about going back and making a game similar to GW1.

Guild Wars 1 is the best. I agree 100% with OP.

Never played Dark Souls, but I played Demons Souls and could finish it 10 times through without a death. Barely ever invaded though, since I live in NZ, anyway, if Dark Souls still has that cheap kitten backstab then it doesn’t really take skill.

arrownin.3128:

got bored of GW2 in about 6 months.

But… gw2 isn’t even 5 months old!

PowerCat.5738:

arrownin.3128:

got bored of GW2 in about 6 months.

But… gw2 isn’t even 5 months old!

Lol sorry, I didn’t check the release date, but I’ve been playing since beta so I’m counting that too

morrolan.9608:

Gorwe.9672:

When we are at it-when did Colin join ANet? He is not in the Faction credits. Maybe when work on GW2 started? Cuz I sure as hell don’t remember him from GW1-he just jumped out of nowhere and started talking nonsense. “We took everything you loved about GW1 and made it 3x better”-how would you know that Colin? Hell, I started playing before you arrived(at least I think so).

On topic: I feel GW1 within GW2. Faintly, but it is there. Sadly, it feels Like today’s ANet is totally different ANet from the GW1 heyday. Shame…

Who are the GW1 devs who are still there? Jon Peters?

Basically no one, if that wasn’t blatantly apparent.

AcidicVision.5498:

I can’t share the sentiment for Dark Souls. But I have sort of had the same feeling about GW2. Im not sure what Colin meant when he said “We took everything you loved about GW1…”, because the history is pretty much the only thing that has carried over.

Perhaps Anet did not really understand what people actually loved about GW1 and what kept them playing for seven years.

And this is coming from a huge fan. Over 900 hours in GW2 already, thousands of hours logged in on GW, and who knows how much money I’ve thrown at them.

I don’t think its a bad game by any means. But I do think design decisions were catered towards more mass market appeal and speedy/low impact content generation than they were to fans of the franchise.

GW2 did some innovative things within the mmo genre, it extends the story of Guild Wars, but it doesn’t feel anything like an evolution of its predecessor.

Oh they knew at the very moment Jeff and Patrick walked out the door. Everyone always speaks of GW2 innovation what innovation? DE’s done before, combat system nope, scaling nope, the lack of the holy trinity rather the disquise of there not being a trinity dungeon system but there is, nope this has all been done before. So what innovation has GW2 done for the mmo genre I really would like to know.

Rukia.4802:

morrolan.9608:

Gorwe.9672:

When we are at it-when did Colin join ANet? He is not in the Faction credits. Maybe when work on GW2 started? Cuz I sure as hell don’t remember him from GW1-he just jumped out of nowhere and started talking nonsense. “We took everything you loved about GW1 and made it 3x better”-how would you know that Colin? Hell, I started playing before you arrived(at least I think so).

On topic: I feel GW1 within GW2. Faintly, but it is there. Sadly, it feels Like today’s ANet is totally different ANet from the GW1 heyday. Shame…

Who are the GW1 devs who are still there? Jon Peters?

Basically no one, if that wasn’t blatantly apparent.

Well, I don’t know which devs are still here and which aren’t, but I’m not saying this game is bad, I’m just saying it’s not really “guild wars-y”

arrownin.3128:

Dante.1508:

I pretty much agree with every post here, the skill caps, the hundreds of skills you could use, made the game have strategy a bit like chess (what skills counter this part of the game etc), made playing the game fun, the builds you could make the dual classes you could play, honestly if Guildwars 1 populations were like GW2 i’m probably just go back..

They really should have said " We took everything WoW players loved about WoW" but that wouldn’t go down well here in my opinion..as not much came over in my opinion..

I guess the future will decide, i must wait and see.

To be honest WoW really has almost no similarities to this game.

autoattack bwahahaha…ugg

Rukia.4802:

morrolan.9608:

Who are the GW1 devs who are still there? Jon Peters?

Basically no one, if that wasn’t blatantly apparent.

Not even Jon Peters?

morrolan.9608:

Rukia.4802:

morrolan.9608:

Who are the GW1 devs who are still there? Jon Peters?

Basically no one, if that wasn’t blatantly apparent.

Not even Jon Peters?

Lindsey Murdock is still here, she was on the GW1 live team and did a lot of the GW1 support while GW2 was in development. I see her mostly in discussions involving Crafting these days.

Isaiah Cartwright (Izzy) is also still around. GW1 skill balancer and the like… still fairly involved.

While she’s not a Dev, Gaile is still around, and obviously doing serious legwork in the support world, where she went after Regina came in as a community manager. (Remember the farewell Gaile party in GW1?)

There may be more that had less interaction with the community, but those are the ones I remember interacting with the most in GW1 that are still around.

OK just looked at the wiki and there are others like Jon Peters and Eric Flannum who worked on GW1.

Asglarek.8976:

arrownin.3128:

Dante.1508:

I pretty much agree with every post here, the skill caps, the hundreds of skills you could use, made the game have strategy a bit like chess (what skills counter this part of the game etc), made playing the game fun, the builds you could make the dual classes you could play, honestly if Guildwars 1 populations were like GW2 i’m probably just go back..

They really should have said " We took everything WoW players loved about WoW" but that wouldn’t go down well here in my opinion..as not much came over in my opinion..

I guess the future will decide, i must wait and see.

To be honest WoW really has almost no similarities to this game.

autoattack bwahahaha…ugg

yeah unless im useing my rifle i tend not to use auto attack as it tends to hurt more than help. I cant say that for WOW

Asglarek.8976:

AcidicVision.5498:

I can’t share the sentiment for Dark Souls. But I have sort of had the same feeling about GW2. Im not sure what Colin meant when he said “We took everything you loved about GW1…”, because the history is pretty much the only thing that has carried over.

Perhaps Anet did not really understand what people actually loved about GW1 and what kept them playing for seven years.

And this is coming from a huge fan. Over 900 hours in GW2 already, thousands of hours logged in on GW, and who knows how much money I’ve thrown at them.

I don’t think its a bad game by any means. But I do think design decisions were catered towards more mass market appeal and speedy/low impact content generation than they were to fans of the franchise.

GW2 did some innovative things within the mmo genre, it extends the story of Guild Wars, but it doesn’t feel anything like an evolution of its predecessor.

Oh they knew at the very moment Jeff and Patrick walked out the door. Everyone always speaks of GW2 innovation what innovation? DE’s done before, combat system nope, scaling nope, the lack of the holy trinity rather the disquise of there not being a trinity dungeon system but there is, nope this has all been done before. So what innovation has GW2 done for the mmo genre I really would like to know.

its true enough that other MMO game’s have done ONE of the’s things to some small dagree

GW2 is the first one to Try and utilize them all together and really PUSH it to the next level. making something that as a hole is over all unige to the genre.

Did it work? I and many others think so ((not all i know))

Dose it have problems? Yes it fix’s some old one’s and crate’s some new one’s to be solved. WoW and GW1 went through the same growing pains when they tryed to change things up years ago ((the market was less harsh back then. much less was expected from MMO’s))

Yeah, GW2 lacks the depth of GW1.

The engine and mechanics are far better, it just lacks depth to make “balancing easier”, which is a shame, but it is what it is.

What in the heck am I reading? I’ve played GW1 since its release and it has been the only game that I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of hours on. I’ve went through just about everything and the only thing I haven’t done (and regret not doing at this point) is killing Dhuum and getting that chest.

Anyways, I really am confused about your interpretations of GW1. For starters, the way I saw it, the game was very specific in builds. You either ran a specific build or you were neglected from groups for high-end farms – period. Hell, this even applied to just about anything. It was pathetic.

The entire endgame was nothing but a drive to see who could be the richest of them all. Who had the most geared characters with the 1mil bank and 100k stored on each toon, plus the 1k+ ectos and yada-yada ambraces. That was all the motivation – loot. That’s what I hated about it. Luckily I had friends and a guild, which is pretty much the only thing making me want to sign on after completing it all.

Guild Wars 2 took what I loved about GW1, the environment and sense of adventure! The exploration and discovery! Yes! Even after getting 100% map completion, the game is so kitten big that going back to areas I haven’t been in awhile still brings that sense of adventure. It’s so lively and beautiful, it’s far from getting old.

Then again, I don’t play just for loot… so I guess my opinion is irrelevant. =P Come on peeps, where’s your sense of adventure? Didn’t you ever have those childhood days where you could get completely lost in games like ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ or some FFVII? Just by comparison on graphics and content, GW2 is enormous and yet you fly by it without batting an eyelash.

arrownin.3128:

…and $60.00 for 6 months of entertainment is a godly deal.

And you can come back anytime in the future should there be functions and features that you find interesting or enjoyable.

Blackmoon.6837:

Then again, I don’t play just for loot… so I guess my opinion is irrelevant. =P Come on peeps, where’s your sense of adventure? Didn’t you ever have those childhood days where you could get completely lost in games like ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ or some FFVII? Just by comparison on graphics and content, GW2 is enormous and yet you fly by it without batting an eyelash.

The sense of adventure is a great point to bring up. Despite your criticisms of loot and the meta, GW was great about making that adventure last even through the same content. To really have a sense of adventure you need danger and rewards (rewards covering multiple philosophies). In GW: UW, FoW and the HM EoTn dungeons, Vanquishes, and Cartography were always dangerous. Even with experienced speed clear groups, one mistake could be disastrous to hours of effort.

For me, a lot of that sense of adventure is lost because you never really have the danger of failure. Even the most challenging content can be brute forced by waypointing and running in to it over and over again. “Best” loot is really subjective because of the stat plateau, but to give a direct example: after a long hard fight through Underworld and satisfying victory over Dhuum, you knew you would get some neat weapon skins, valuable mats, a novelty summoning stone that would come in handy eventually and maybe, just maybe, a gangster kittening scythe or bad kitten rare miniature. In the new dungeons you can count on vendor trash and tokens to buy something with after you do the dungeon at least three more times.

I don’t feel challenged, I don’t feel there is any danger, I don’t feel I was rewarded for overcoming significant obstacles. And that’s something I could never say about GW.

There is something to be said about the adventure in discovery, but you can only discover the same thing so many times. And it trivializes the discovery when there was nothing to challenge the path. The view from the top of a mountain is appreciated more by the person that climbed it than by the person that got a free ride to the top. In GW there were very few free rides, while GW2 gives you mobs that get disinterested in defending their territory after chasing you for ten yards and the waypoint express if you screw up. The latter isn’t adventure. Its tourism.

Edit: Let me reiterate, I am still not hating on the game. I didn’t put in hundreds of hours over four months because I couldn’t find things to enjoy. But I am still of the opinion this game is a sequel in name and fiction alone and doesn’t feel like a successor, spiritual or otherwise, to the game aspect and principles of the original. I don’t see the things GW1 players, by a large, loved and am not surprised to see some older fans not getting hooked by it like they did the first series.

Blackmoon.6837:

Anyways, I really am confused about your interpretations of GW1. For starters, the way I saw it, the game was very specific in builds. You either ran a specific build or you were neglected from groups for high-end farms – period. Hell, this even applied to just about anything. It was pathetic.

Not everyone did “high-end content” with PuGs.

95% of the game was doable with heroes and hench.

The other 5% was godawful DoA that the only reason for doing was for…I don’t know actually.

according to the wiki:

Colin Johanson leads the development team that is responsible for building the content for Guild Wars 2, driving the direction and production of the games event system, personal character story, and all other content types within the game. He has produced content for Guild Wars Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North and was the Lead Designer on the Guild Wars: Bonus Mission Pack campaign. A game industry veteran with more than 13 years of experience, Johanson worked for Mythic Entertainment (now EA Mythic), Zipper Interactive, Games Workshop, and Interworld Productions for America Online’s game channel prior to joining ArenaNet. Colin prefers not to swing a sword again and again.

it seems to me with better technological means at their hands they didn’t want to redo what gw1 was. the reason? maybe in order to compete against other mainstream mmo, such as wow, and get more people in.
dumbing down good design for masses is the first step of failure.

Nuka Cola.8520:

I want my hundreds of skills to chose for the build of my liking NOT FIVE SKILL.

Yes please.

CassieGold.7460:

I wanted to toss in something, because I think a lot of GW1 vets have commented on how much we miss the Deck Building aspect of GW1. It was cool to sort through all the options and come up with unique builds, good synergies, and combinations that made you feel powerful and successful. It was cool to plan out group synergy in an outpost and walk out into a zone to do what you intended to do… and to make hard things easy because you figured it out. It was also painful to look at some people in your party and say WTF? Are you seriously doing that?

But, how many of us will also remember Izzy, frequently commenting on the dificulty of balancing skills in that environment? 10 professions, and every profession could take on a secondary to combine 2 complete professions worth of skills.

How often did we see the balance changes come down for something that had nothing to do with your own profession? Ele skills nerfed not because of the Ele, but because of Fast Casting Me/E? Splinter Weapon, not because of the Rit, but because of the R/Rt?

I think the current skill selection is a bit too pendulum swing in the other direction, and there isn’t enough synergy or uniqueness to build…. also a serious lack of elite skills that offer synergy with the rest of the skill bar…. but I understand where it came from.

Yep, it was a nightmare to balance. Even after 7 years the game still has imbalances.

But god kitten it was worth it. It was so, so, so worth it, after seeing what GW2 combat turned out to be.

Blackmoon.6837:

What in the heck am I reading? I’ve played GW1 since its release and it has been the only game that I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of hours on. I’ve went through just about everything and the only thing I haven’t done (and regret not doing at this point) is killing Dhuum and getting that chest.

Anyways, I really am confused about your interpretations of GW1. For starters, the way I saw it, the game was very specific in builds. You either ran a specific build or you were neglected from groups for high-end farms – period. Hell, this even applied to just about anything. It was pathetic.

The entire endgame was nothing but a drive to see who could be the richest of them all. Who had the most geared characters with the 1mil bank and 100k stored on each toon, plus the 1k+ ectos and yada-yada ambraces. That was all the motivation – loot. That’s what I hated about it. Luckily I had friends and a guild, which is pretty much the only thing making me want to sign on after completing it all.

Guild Wars 2 took what I loved about GW1, the environment and sense of adventure! The exploration and discovery! Yes! Even after getting 100% map completion, the game is so kitten big that going back to areas I haven’t been in awhile still brings that sense of adventure. It’s so lively and beautiful, it’s far from getting old.

Then again, I don’t play just for loot… so I guess my opinion is irrelevant. =P Come on peeps, where’s your sense of adventure? Didn’t you ever have those childhood days where you could get completely lost in games like ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ or some FFVII? Just by comparison on graphics and content, GW2 is enormous and yet you fly by it without batting an eyelash.

pretty much on the same boat here… while i DO think GW2 has issues (not even counting bugs among them) it simply is fun to explore the world they created (enjoying the rest of the content along the way and helping others that require assistance)

i do hope they had more titles for us though (i miss Cartographer and i never gave up on that Legendary Defender of Ascalon)

Not to be an kitten, but this sounds like a “Im quitting, heres why” thread, which I am guessing is against the ToS.

I think what whey aimed at is to pull both audiences into their game. GW’s and others like WoW’s, but instead they ended up upsetting both sides. Seriously, GW players are the most to be affected because simply they were looking for a sequel to the original game that they fell in love with, not only the main story but in term of many other aspects as well (ex: skills, secondary profession, GvG, etc…)

GW1 vet here. I for one am glad this game is so drastically different than the first. While GW1 was great for its time, it was way out-dated in mechanics.

I remember running around in GW1 beta with my R/Mo and trying to use Orison of Healing. Yeah, funny memories.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Yep, it was a nightmare to balance. Even after 7 years the game still has imbalances.

But god kitten it was worth it. It was so, so, so worth it, after seeing what GW2 combat turned out to be.

From a development point of view, I’d argue that it wasn’t.

As players, I’ve no doubt that the GW1 system was great fun despite the popularity of certain builds tending to marginalise experimentation when it came to finding spots in groups. The ideas being it all were interesting, and I’m particularly fond of the concept of beating a boss to get a unique skill. And I’ve little doubt that the apparent decreased complexity of GW2’s skill system has put some GW1 players off.

However, both systems are/were modular, and there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that GW2 won’t be introducing new skills and perhaps even dual professions in the future. Starting from a simpler foundation, however, makes building upon it significantly easier; by adding new skills, or combining existing skills from more than one profession, you simply impact on far less with a more basic system and are more able to create balanced mechanics from a pure design standpoint.

TLDR: GW1’s system, even at release, was rather complex and easy to disrupt when building upon it. By contrast, GW2’s system encourages development through its relative simplicity. There’s nothing to say that what we have now is all that we’ll ever see.

I am a GW1 vet, and while there are things I miss about the old game (guild-centric stuff, skill caps, Fort Aspenwood, skimpier armor for dudes, sunglasses as armor), I love the way the new game has made the world more alive.

So, if they bring some of these things back, I will be extremely happy.

proxy.7963:

Gab Superstar.4059:

Yep, it was a nightmare to balance. Even after 7 years the game still has imbalances.

But god kitten it was worth it. It was so, so, so worth it, after seeing what GW2 combat turned out to be.

From a development point of view, I’d argue that it wasn’t.

As players, I’ve no doubt that the GW1 system was great fun despite the popularity of certain builds tending to marginalise experimentation when it came to finding spots in groups. The ideas being it all were interesting, and I’m particularly fond of the concept of beating a boss to get a unique skill. And I’ve little doubt that the apparent decreased complexity of GW2’s skill system has put some GW1 players off.

However, both systems are/were modular, and there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that GW2 won’t be introducing new skills and perhaps even dual professions in the future. Starting from a simpler foundation, however, makes building upon it significantly easier; by adding new skills, or combining existing skills from more than one profession, you simply impact on far less with a more basic system and are more able to create balanced mechanics from a pure design standpoint.

TLDR: GW1’s system, even at release, was rather complex and easy to disrupt when building upon it. By contrast, GW2’s system encourages development through its relative simplicity. There’s nothing to say that what we have now is all that we’ll ever see.

I seriously doubt many new skills will be introduced, and secondary professions won’t be for sure.

Besides, even if they add say a new weapon, it STILL would not provide variety because the watered down combat system does not allow for complexity. Every profession is almost the same, interrupts are the same, there are no penalties for failing to time your skills, the condition system disallows Mesmers, Necros and Thieves to have a distinguished and unique role in the game.

You will almost never see an enemy and say “oh kitten, that was a kitten awesome build, I have never seen X profession do that before, he must have put a lot of thought into his character”, simply because there is no thought needed when creating a character, and the professions are simply not unique at all.

Gorwe.9672:

On topic: I feel GW1 within GW2. Faintly, but it is there. Sadly, it feels Like today’s ANet is totally different ANet from the GW1 heyday. Shame…

Agree. I think this is where the crux of the problem lies. The communication is poor, and everything alluded to in the Manifesto is largely wrong.

Since it took waaaaaaaaaay to long for them to develop this, I’ve kind of got the feeling that somewhere in the middle of the process something really big changed. Management philosopy, for one. Other major aspects of the game as well.

Sadly, we’ll never really know. But I’m quite sure that the team that built Guild Wars and started GW2 is different than the one that finished GW2, both in (some) personnell, and in general philosophy.

All speculation, I know…

Gab Superstar.4059:

I seriously doubt many new skills will be introduced, and secondary professions won’t be for sure.

Why? It’s fine to doubt that something will happen, but I’ve yet to see any evidence that these areas won’t be built upon in the future. Presuming that no news means nothing will be done is more than a little defeatist.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Besides, even if they add say a new weapon, it STILL would not provide variety because the watered down combat system does not allow for complexity. Every profession is almost the same, interrupts are the same, there are no penalties for failing to time your skills, the condition system disallows Mesmers, Necros and Thieves to have a distinguished and unique role in the game.

You’re exaggerating. Of course all classes share the same core mechanics – this isn’t unusual for a game like GW2. Wanting complexity for the sake of complexity – for all classes to function in a fundamentally different manner – is unrealistic and likely to open up each individual class to even more issues than those currently identified by the community. It’s also inherently subjective to simply ask for systems that appeal to you based on preconceived ideas of how they should be. However, the act of designing of system with the ideal of promoting refined simplicity over complexity is not inherently wrong, and your dislike of the results is more down to your own preferences than anything else. There’s nothing wrong with liking different things.

Gab Superstar.4059:

You will almost never see an enemy and say “oh kitten, that was a kitten awesome build, I have never seen X profession do that before, he must have put a lot of thought into his character”, simply because there is no thought needed when creating a character, and the professions are simply not unique at all.

That’s largely because players tend to rely on other players to define builds for them for a variety of reasons, including the relative time needed to develop novel builds, a sense of community and their contribution to the wider metagame. GW2’s system may currently be more restrictive than some might like, and this generally promotes a more restricted pool of effective builds that players deem worthy of their time, but provided that ANet actually develops the game over the coming years, that will likely not remain the case. And there’s not much point in making predictions now because we’ve yet to see any fundamental changes to the game’s mechanics just yet, or given ANet or the community enough time to mature the game.