Guild Wars 2

This is my feedback on how I view what is going on with the Guild Wars 2 Development team. This is an impression that I was left the very first week I started playing this game, right at the release day. It might be completely wrong, but I have no other conclusion to make.

Basically, I feel that the content team behind guild wars 2 is completely rogue from the teams developing other areas of the game. They are just not in touch with it, making a game of their own that does not relate to the rest.

My first view of that was the dungeons, beginning with the “Story Mode” ones. I thought “what a waste of content for a MMO, to create something people will probably only play once or twice and never visit again since no point to it (reward wise)”. Felt like a waste of energy. 1 year after release date, I must have done story dungeons no more than two times each, so I guess I was right about that if that is the case for most players.

But ok, they want to tell a story inside them, and even if we don`t play them again, the story would always be a part of the game. So that is positive right? Except as soon as I entered my first dungeon, I saw myself having to skip all custcenes or getting kicked – and the community is right for doing so.

Nobody should have to sit and watch a cutscene they don`t want – or watch it again – because of someone else. They are right to kick. This is a group game. I was appalled that the cutscene-like feature even made to the final release. It is like the people that came up with it never played an MMO before, and had no idea how players behave on them. It is not even polite to keep others waiting so you can watch a cutscene, any emphatic person would skip them as soon as they poped up for the first time.

Second, it was the announcement that Arena net would not make a dungeon finder tool (thanks whoever made anet go back in that statement). My impression again was that someone, or a team (the content one), wanted the world or community to feel.. I don`t know the world.. “alive”. Like forcing people to go through akwward LFG spamming in the server map chat “brings the community together” and makes the game better somehow. All that it was doing is that we wasted time looking for people to actually play the game. One team designs bosses, challenges and dungeons, the other keeps people from trying to do them effectively.

Third, the events. Playing the game for the first time and seeing the events was nice, but that is 1%. Events are farmable. That is it. There is no “adventure” nor “aliveness” from them. It is farming over and over. That is the nature of video games: repetition.

Then, you added on most of them a 30 minute, or more, window so people don`t know when they should go and do them. I must have spent hours going back and forth trying to find people to do them, or missing one event because I thought it was already done (jormag was killed message except he was about to respawn 15 minutes after reading that). Like the dungeons, you try to hide when events will happen so people can actually play the game, for some misguided sense of making so it doesn`t feel like a video game.

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It is not working. The features designed in guild wars 2 do not support a world that feels any different than other MMOs, with the exception of Living Story which is nice. By not providing us interfaces to know where to go to do events and things like that, you are just preventing people from playing the game.

If GW2 had a monthly fee, people would just feel like they are wasting money for chasing events and failing to find people. Because the game has no monthly fee, we just waste time, but that is still less points on the GW2 score.

And now you have us actually have to do the events over and over for Dragonite. Again, the team behind the rewards/craft/go kill stuff system seems disconnected from the people that want to make the world feel alive and plaster a 30 minute window on those events the other team is forcing us to do.

In short, it feels like there is no unified vision of what is Guild Wars 2, and we the players have been suffering with that from day 1. Even if I am wrong about what goes on internally, it doesn`t matter. What matters is that this is how your customers may be seeing you. I am, and I don`t know if this thread will find others that agree with me or maybe have their eyes opened about the disconnection between content and gameplay in this game.

If you want the world to feel alive and like a MMO-RPG, and not just an MMO, you need to cram more features like living world. Things that are farmable (dungeons, events, dailies and so on) have a different purpose. They will always be “gamey”, and there is nothing wrong with that, and you should let us do those things effectively so we don`t waste time.

As a final thought, I remember reading somewhere that you may be doing some major rework on dungeons. If you are, I hope you get rid of the cutscene system for something that happens more naturally and players can learn a story without having to keep other players (that probably already know that story) waiting.

A remark on the cutscenes only: you can always write in a LFG party description something like (“Story mode, first run, want to watch movies”), and after some time people like you join you and you have the fun of seeing the story. Worked for me:)

Overall, I feel that with a current pay-once-play-forever model ANet focuses on the Personal Story and Story Mode dungeons to keep people new to MMOs feeling comfortable. It looks like an offline game a lot, and there’s enough of this content not to make people think they’ve wasted money, so like any other offline game, they focus more on attracting new players rather than keeping old players busy. Which is, in turn, the source of everlasting skill bugs, dungeon exploits, zerg disbalance and not very impressive Living Story updates.

“write in a LFG party description something like (“Story mode, first run, want to watch movies”)”

You can also watch the cutscenes on youtube

It just feels out of the way. Not an elegant system if people are just gonna skip by default.

Cut scenes were a thing in Guild Wars 1 missions too, and people had to watch them if everyone didn’t press skip. That’s nothing new to the genre. Story mode dungeons are some of my favorite dungeons in the game, because I don’t play specifically for reward. I’ve done each story mode dungeon multiple times. I’ve also done each explorable mode dungeon multiple times. Well far more. It doesn’t invalidate story mode dungeons.

Anet never said to my knowledge (and I pay a lot of attention) that there would never be an LFG tool. I have no idea where you got that from.

The comparison of events to say quests in other games well…quests in other games aren’t repeatable at all, and thus generally not farmable. You do a quest once, generally, and it goes away, except for certain daily quests in some games.

The dynamic event system makes the world feel more alive than traditional MMOs because there is a reason to go back to an early zone and when you do, stuff is already happening. You don’t have to wait to trigger a quest, or go into an area where there are no quests. You know those centaurs? They really are attacking outposts. NPC’s are dying. You can rez them and get involved or not. This is different from almost every other MMO out there, most of which have completely dead worlds.

You’re right in saying that Guild Wars 2 seems to have no real direction. That’s what happens when you have 300 people developing.

Guild Wars 2 probably needs someone with vision, a central director actually directing. I’m not feeling it has that.

But some of the specific complaints you’ve made are the very things that keep me playing this game.

Vayne.8563:

You’re right in saying that Guild Wars 2 seems to have no real direction. That’s what happens when you have 300 people developing.

No, that’s what happens when those in charge lack direction and/or leadership.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

You’re right in saying that Guild Wars 2 seems to have no real direction. That’s what happens when you have 300 people developing.

No, that’s what happens when those in charge lack direction and/or leadership.

So this line that I wrote doesn’t matter?

“Guild Wars 2 probably needs someone with vision, a central director actually directing. I’m not feeling it has that.”

You’re so intent on contradicting me that even when I say what you’re saying, you still contradict me. lol

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

You’re right in saying that Guild Wars 2 seems to have no real direction. That’s what happens when you have 300 people developing.

No, that’s what happens when those in charge lack direction and/or leadership.

So this line that I wrote doesn’t matter?

“Guild Wars 2 probably needs someone with vision, a central director actually directing. I’m not feeling it has that.”

You’re so intent on contradicting me that even when I say what you’re saying, you still contradict me. lol

I’m just underscoring the idea that strong leadership can keep 300 developers all moving as a cohesive unit. Don’t take things too personal.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

You’re right in saying that Guild Wars 2 seems to have no real direction. That’s what happens when you have 300 people developing.

No, that’s what happens when those in charge lack direction and/or leadership.

So this line that I wrote doesn’t matter?

“Guild Wars 2 probably needs someone with vision, a central director actually directing. I’m not feeling it has that.”

You’re so intent on contradicting me that even when I say what you’re saying, you still contradict me. lol

I’m just underscoring the idea that strong leadership can keep 300 developers all moving as a cohesive unit. Don’t take things too personal.

That’s why I said Guild Wars 2 needs someone a vision…a central director.

I don’t really take anything said on these forums personally, but there are a lot of people who want to contradict what I say pretty much immediately, just because I’ve said it. Happens all the time, here.

One of the reasons I post here a lot less. I’m getting a much better response elsewhere, where I don’t have the reputation I do here.

i don’t think there’s conflict between stuff and content teams. it’s just that they are providing stuff without hype, so nothing to talk about, with each little living world thing. new dungeon rewards, wallet, some other stuff – these things aren’t tied to “specific content”. while they are not perfect, i still love them.

in my opinion there’s two conflicts – story and design ones.

for story – almost everyone is hating on scarlet, although she’s just there to tease you with stuff, like joker in batman universe. everyone hates her, although, while i like her, i think it’s a great chance for an mmo game to introduce villain that has real character. stupid, but fun outcome.

and by design – there’s a lot to speak of but mainly – is gw2 skin or any other pink and fluffy and nice stuff hunter, or is it unique character building and chalenging Thing ?

i hope it’s second. anyways i love this game, would like to love it even more, but they are trying to keep me from it all the time

“Cut scenes were a thing in Guild Wars 1 missions too, and people had to watch them if everyone didn’t press skip. "

There was a huge difference in GW1. Either everyone skipped it and the game continued, or everyone was forced to watch it. That means nobody could identify who didn’t skip the cutscene, and nobody was banned. At least you could be selfish without consequences and watch the custcene in gw1, in 2 if you try that you get kicked.

But as I’ve said, it isn’t a good system anyway when it generates these kinds of problems.

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

You’re right in saying that Guild Wars 2 seems to have no real direction. That’s what happens when you have 300 people developing.

No, that’s what happens when those in charge lack direction and/or leadership.

So this line that I wrote doesn’t matter?

“Guild Wars 2 probably needs someone with vision, a central director actually directing. I’m not feeling it has that.”

You’re so intent on contradicting me that even when I say what you’re saying, you still contradict me. lol

I’m just underscoring the idea that strong leadership can keep 300 developers all moving as a cohesive unit. Don’t take things too personal.

That’s why I said Guild Wars 2 needs someone a vision…a central director.

I don’t really take anything said on these forums personally, but there are a lot of people who want to contradict what I say pretty much immediately, just because I’ve said it. Happens all the time, here.

One of the reasons I post here a lot less. I’m getting a much better response elsewhere, where I don’t have the reputation I do here.

LOL? is this a joke?

You think they don’t have a director? Isn’t Colin Johanson the director?

What is this thread about again? You think that Anet is just ran by monkies baning pans? Somehow I don’t think that’s how it works.

I’m about 100% sure there at least 2 or 3 people who have absolute say in what goes into GW2.

I’m not sure if you’re trying to troll the devs or just kidding around.

GW2 may have a central director, but Vayne is correct. GW2 does not have good coordination across the various functional entities, and there are many examples to prove it. Want a couple?

How about the radical differences in the style and substance of the difference racial personal stories? Or the differences in the sophistication of the animations and emotes of the different classes? The different classes had different development teams and the results show significant differences in cleverness.

Or how about the way minor patches/updates sometimes drop an hour or two after WvW reset? Clearly groups within ANet are not talking … or coordinating … with each other, at least not very well.

Besides, independent action by development groups was actually one of the things touted in a one hour PowerPoint presentation ANet made to various media and software gurus prior to launch. The video of it is still available on the internet if you want to dig it up (it’s not worth it for me to do it just for you), and in it the presenter describes how any developer can independently and on the fly make a change to the game in real time just by writing a script. Not much point in designing the game around such a capability if you don’t plan to use it.