Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

And who the hell is TC?

First TC I thought of was Theodore Calvin. Former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, used to run a tourist charter business called Island Hoppers back in the 80s. Haven’t seen him in a while.

Never seen ‘Topic Creator’ before. Why not TW? ‘Thread Weaver’. Yeah. I like the sound of that.

Carry on.

I see the definition of grind is up for grabs again. I think it’s pretty clear what they were communicating in the manifesto and associated marketing documents prior to the release of GW2. All you have to do is consider the context and the intended audience of the communications. They weren’t attempting to break new ground in the understanding of ‘grind’. They were, in fact, relying on the commonly held definition held by the common reader of the documents. Who was this common reader? The intended audience was former GW1 players and other gamers who may be looking for a new kind of MMO that, in this case, was not grindy.

For GW players they were quite familiar, for the most part, with how their game differed from common MMO’s out there. Anet let us in on their definition with the qualification about grinding “for a future fun reward”. How are they attempting to make the distinction here? Well, against other games which are grindy. How about the current reigning king of MMO’s? There you are doing dungeon after dungeon trying to get upgraded weapons, upgraded armor, upgraded trinkets, etc. You are always playing to get “a future fun reward”. This is what they were talking about when they used the word ‘grind’ in the marketing literature. They said their MMO would be different.

As Vayne says, English is English. And I will add that context is king when attempting to interpret something where there is disagreement as to the plain meaning. It’s clear that they were using the common negative meaning of grind and were stating that their game would not be grindy in the ways that people commonly understand existing MMO’s to be grindy. I think the definition of grind is plain here. The question remains, however, as to where they succeeded in producing a game that was not grindy in the same way that other MMO’s are grindy.

Devata.6589:

Then:
B2P game (focus on box-sales)
Now
F2P game? (focus on gem-store)

then a CORPG requiring less resources to run, now a full blown MMORPG. Also a store is not limited to F2P games (is found even in subscription games) and then is not a bad business model as long as it’s not pay to win.

The main problem.

If they stuck to their guns as they did with GW1 to provide something different to the traditional MMO GW2 while maybe not getting the huge initial flux of players would probably had the same lifespan of GW1 which actually increased its player base over the first 5 years.

Now they have made GW2 so close to the MMOs already out and the few things that are separating it out are being copied.

I am not convinced in Nerverwinter Nights and TESO. However GW2 does not have the staying power that it had as a potential. They sacrificed long term for the short term and are playing catchup trying to make sure people still log in by placing these temp PvE things that are one time only.

Rather then actually creating a balanced and fun game for the long term… theya re just trying to hold on as long as they can by saying “if you do not keep logging in you will miss something forever!”

Sadly… the game I wanted to play for 7-8 years… might last a year and a half at most. I have already taken a 5 month break… and only FINALLY fixing culling for WvW brought me back… it sure as hell wasnt the PvE or the Ascended gear treadmill.

Nurvus.2891:

I really like alot of things about Guild Wars 2.
I believe it managed to successfully stand out amidst the concept of MMO.
I particularly like the style of the world, art and UI.
I like the semi-targetless system and dodge.

Still, alot of it feels unpolished, but I won’t get into details here.
Instead, I want to voice my concerns on ANet’s current design philosophy, comparing to their claims in the Guild Wars 2 Manifesto Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

Everything ANet said in the Manifesto was spot on what I wanted to see in an MMO, but they seem to have gone the opposite direction on some of it.
a) “Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1, and puts it into a persistent world.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=0m48s
I greatly disagree here. Apart from the world, Lore and nomenclature of game systems, most of GW1 is gone.
GW1 was greatly renowned for its extreme customizability.
You could effectively build your equipment exactly the way you wanted; you could play around with builds anytime; there was no gear treadmill and no one missed it.
There was very little randomness in combat.
There was no trash loot – everything was either useful for crafting, or for collectors.
Your superiority over someone else was mostly defined by your skill and strategy, not gear.
GW2 threw away alot of great, solid concepts from GW1 to – apparently – meet halfway with popular MMO standards.

b) “In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks – occasionally – that you need to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, hey, I swung it again, that’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in GW2.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=1m26s
Isn’t that exactly what we do when we get to max level?
We repeat the same content endlessly for the sake of obtaining certain items.
In fact, isn’t the Magic Find stat proof that you intend players to grind?

c) “As a structure, the MMO has lost its ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you’re doing, the boss you just killed respawns 10 minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=1m46s
Isn’t this precicely what happens throughout the whole game?
The same enemy, boss or event repeating every 5-20 minutes?
The process of retaking or defending a point should take longer, last longer and be alot more worthwhile.

Furthermore, the personal story makes you feel like something of a hero for a little while, but in the end the true Hero is Trehearne.
He’s the one who does everything worth mentioning, and then just tells you “he couldn’t have done it without you.”
I didn’t feel like a hero at all in the last half of the personal story.
—-

I think the game has a great potential and I hope ANet keeps up at full steam.

I have to agree, they said they wanted to make a game not focused on grinding and we got just that, a game were we have to grind to get gear, which is really the only real reward in the game.

They said they got rid of the traditional side quests where a npc has a ! over their head because they usually follow, go kill a certain amount of enemies, go collect a certain amount of whatever or do the same action over and over again. What we got in it’s place was the Renown Hearts npc that make you do just that, go kill a certain amount of enemies, go collect a certain amount of whatever or do the same action over and over again. Only difference is instead of a ! over their head it’s a heart.

Dynamic events you complete will cause npcs to remember you and will change the game world for a few hours, a day, days or longer. Honestly when I heard that it sounded to far out there, it was like listening to Peter Molyneux talk about Fable. Dynamic events don’t change anything in the game world since they reset every 10 to 15 mins.

I can go on.

Lots of posters mention WoW dungeons as grindy.

Personally I felt as if they were a lot more fun than the dungeons located in this game, and many people who played WoW would often return and play through older content at an appropriate level simply because they enjoyed it. WoW’ers played for fun, did dungeons for fun, did content for fun, logged in for fun, and did more than spend every waking minute of every day grinding.

With the introduction of Cata, and to some extent, WotLK much of this grind people seem to lay at the feet of WoW was greatly reduced. Most of the grind was for reputation, much like the laurels are implemented here. Some of it was genuinely fun, some of it was mind numbingly boring. But in actuality, it was never actually needed. There was more than enough content in WoW, even in Vanilla, that you never had to step inside of a dreaded Raid instance in order to have fun with the game.

People constantly want to hold WoW up as the epitome of grind culture in MMO’s, when it’s not actually true, and none of the arguments based on it hold water. You could do the same things in WoW that you can do here, it just doesn’t tell you to do them, or hold your hand and direct you to the lore bits, or vistas, or jumping puzzles, or riddles. You had to go look for them, and finding those out of the way quests, or long lore chains were sometimes more fulfilling than joining your friends and guildmates to take on the newest raid.

And even getting geared for raids and higher content was fun, simply because they made the process enjoyable to a large extent. The dungeons all mattered, they had fun enemies, enjoyable bosses, interesting secrets, and complex mechanics in some cases. Gearing wasn’t just about mindlessly beating your head against a wall, but consistently contained enjoyable content. I learned more about the world of Azeroth in Vanilla than I have learned about the world of Tyria in GW2.

GW2 has grind, so did WoW, so do many games. What GW2 has yet to learn is how to mask that grind behind enjoyable content.

Vayne.8563:

Unfortunately I’ve edited for a living. I know a thing or two about English. When we had this argument originally on the forums I talked to other editors. Every single one of them agrees with me.

Irrelevant. You are claiming to have an expertise we have no evidence of, plus talking to people that as far as we are concerned don’t even exist. What we do have plenty of evidence about is your strong bias regarding Guild Wars 2.

It’s easy to try to twist words around to claim that the Manifesto is 100% correct. It’s also easy to twist words around and “prove” that the Manifesto is 100% wrong. The intention behind the Manifesto was very clear, though, making it rather obvious that the goals stated in it have not been accomplished. Trying to discuss minutiae of semantics won’t change that.

And does the Manifesto matter? Of course. Even ignoring how two years is next to nothing, it was how ArenaNet described what they intended to do with GW2. Go to your wife and tell her, “Do you know when I said I wanted to marry you? Actually, that was a long time ago so it doesn’t matter anymore, bye”, and see if she replies by telling you that statement makes any sense at all.

killcannon.2576:

People constantly want to hold WoW up as the epitome of grind culture in MMO’s

Because that’s exactly what it is. Blizzard’s greatest achievement was fooling gullible people into believing that all this grind was actually a good thing, hence all the “WoW was SO great!” comments we have today. But WoW’s model, to reward time spent more than skill, and continuosly add more time sinks to keep people p(l)aying the game forever doing little more than raw grind, is one of the main reasons why MMORPGs are almost always very mediocre games.

Sorry to say, someone is demonstrably wrong. I love how people have zero experience with MMO’s but feel free to comment on them like they have some sense of innate knowledge.

They loved a single player, sometimes cooperative RPG. They simply lack any kind of real experience for what makes an MMO an MMO. They want their co-op rpg experience back. Sorry to say, that genre died. No one wanted to play it. That’s why they didn’t make GW2 like GW1. If it was sooo popular and soooo great, why isn’t it still relevant? Because it wasn’t. It was niche. Niche can be great, and GW1 had a passionate following. But it’s time is gone. There is a reason those types of games aren’t being made by the dozens.

People can stoke that little flame of nostalgia as much as they want, they can pine away moaning that this game isn’t some mediocre co op rpg that belongs to an age long past, they can attempt to sound knowledgeable by spouting catch phrases and jingoism, but it doesn’t change anything.

This game isn’t and will never be GW 1.5

Be as bitter about it as you want. Try to tear it down, not because it’s a bad game or has flaws, but simply because it doesn’t live up to the precious ideal of a game that lived past it’s time. I’m glad GW2 didn’t follow the tired mechanics of the past. I’m glad it has become it’s own game.

Accept it or don’t. Try to blame others because you don’t enjoy it. Try to blame marketing for your own shortcomings. It’s an MMO, and it’s here to stay.

killcannon.2576:

Accept it or don’t. Try to blame others because you don’t enjoy it. Try to blame marketing for your own shortcomings. It’s an MMO, and it’s here to stay.

Not really. Some people are happy to be completely oblivious to how MMO after MMO has failed, but those paying attention can see a very obvious trend. MMOs are a dying trend – they require people foolish enough to buy the idea that “time spent” is the greatest achievement one can have, and fortunatelly there aren’t that many gullible players in the world. Watching all recent MMOs shows more or less the same numbers – between 1.5 and 2 million players begin playing after release, most leave after a few months, and either jump back to their first MMO or hop to the next big thing. The MMO market is not growing – it’s just dying, as seen on how almost all MMORPGs have been forced to move to free to play (a format in which they are fortunate enough to avoid describing how many active players they have, unlike in subscription models).

In the end, the conclusion is obvious – MMOs are going away. Fortunatelly, they are not here to stay.

Erasculio.2914:

killcannon.2576:

Accept it or don’t. Try to blame others because you don’t enjoy it. Try to blame marketing for your own shortcomings. It’s an MMO, and it’s here to stay.

Not really. Some people are happy to be completely oblivious to how MMO after MMO has failed, but those paying attention can see a very obvious trend. MMOs are a dying trend – they require people foolish enough to buy the idea that “time spent” is the greatest achievement one can have, and fortunatelly there aren’t that many gullible players in the world. Watching all recent MMOs shows more or less the same numbers – between 1.5 and 2 million players begin playing after release, most leave after a few months, and either jump back to their first MMO or hop to the next big thing. The MMO market is not growing – it’s just dying, as seen on how almost all MMORPGs have been forced to move to free to play (a format in which they are fortunate enough to avoid describing how many active players they have, unlike in subscription models).

In the end, the conclusion is obvious – MMOs are going away. Fortunatelly, they are not here to stay.

Yeah…30 million plus gamers and growing, and the genre is dying. Do you research this stuff, or just pull phrases out of a hat at random?

killcannon.2576:

Yeah…30 million plus gamers and growing, and the genre is dying. Do you research this stuff, or just pull phrases out of a hat at random?

I’m simply not naive enough to take MMORPG’s developers claims of “30 million registered players” at face value, considering how most of those have left their games. Although I guess people gullible enough to believe grind is a good thing are going to fall for anything.

Erasculio.2914:

killcannon.2576:

Yeah…30 million plus gamers and growing, and the genre is dying. Do you research this stuff, or just pull phrases out of a hat at random?

I’m simply not naive enough to take MMORPG’s developers claims of “30 million registered players” at face value, considering how most of those have left their games. Although I guess people gullible enough to believe grind is a good thing are going to fall for anything.

And luckily, I’m not naive enough to take a forum soapboxer at face value simply because they have an axe to grind about an entire genre of gaming and like to pull “facts” from thin air.

Grind is everywhere, in all games, in all forms of existence, and it’s all subjective.

killcannon.2576:

Grind is everywhere, in all games, in all forms of existence, and it’s all subjective.

I’m sure Blizzard and Burrhus Skinner must be very proud of you. Congrats :-)

Erasculio.2914:

killcannon.2576:

Grind is everywhere, in all games, in all forms of existence, and it’s all subjective.

I’m sure Blizzard and Burrhus Skinner must be very proud of you. Congrats :-)

lol, the skinner box argument.

Life is a skinner box, society conditions you every day. You may want to start living in a van…down by the river. That way, you can be free!!!! Rage on my brother!!!

I don’t know why Blizz would be proud of me, after all…I’m not playing their game.

http://tinyurl.com/9lcsr8c

@Erasculio

I’m not saying the manifesto is 100% correct though, so your whole theory falls apart. I’m saying there is one definite line in there that I don’t feel is correct. Based SOLELY ON ENGLISH, the paragraph with grind can only be interpreted one way. People can bring their own interpretations all the want, but it doesn’t make it what that paragraph says.

And the part about Ree talking about story and Colin talking about DE isn’t my opinion it’s a matter of fact, clarified by Anet themselves.

You have a problem because you PERCEIVE me to a be blind fan boy, when even killcannon has noticed that not all my posts are positive.

But I’ll continue to speak up when I see things that misquoted, or exaggerated beyond all reason.

My issue isn’t with those who put Guild Wars 2 down. It’s with those who invent stuff to put it down. It comes from years of arguing with teenagers who over-emphasize everything to try to make a point, even when there’s no point to be made.

And I argue this line of thought on every forum on every topic you can name. It’s not about Guild Wars 2. It’s about integrity.

Off topic, but Vayne, you’re about the only person I see on this forum with a consistent, respectable degree of logic.

I for one am glad you’re still here.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

And who the hell is TC?

First TC I thought of was Theodore Calvin. Former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, used to run a tourist charter business called Island Hoppers back in the 80s. Haven’t seen him in a while.

Never seen ‘Topic Creator’ before. Why not TW? ‘Thread Weaver’. Yeah. I like the sound of that.

Carry on.

You just won the thread lol

Vayne.8563:

@Erasculio

I’m not saying the manifesto is 100% correct though, so your whole theory falls apart. I’m saying there is one definite line in there that I don’t feel is correct. Based SOLELY ON ENGLISH, the paragraph with grind can only be interpreted one way. People can bring their own interpretations all the want, but it doesn’t make it what that paragraph says.

And the part about Ree talking about story and Colin talking about DE isn’t my opinion it’s a matter of fact, clarified by Anet themselves.

You have a problem because you PERCEIVE me to a be blind fan boy, when even killcannon has noticed that not all my posts are positive.

But I’ll continue to speak up when I see things that misquoted, or exaggerated beyond all reason.

My issue isn’t with those who put Guild Wars 2 down. It’s with those who invent stuff to put it down. It comes from years of arguing with teenagers who over-emphasize everything to try to make a point, even when there’s no point to be made.

And I argue this line of thought on every forum on every topic you can name. It’s not about Guild Wars 2. It’s about integrity.

If it takes a technical argument over semantics to mount a defense of the Manifesto, then I’d say the glove fits.

Sure, some people here are just kittening, but many are also onetime fans who really feel left out in the rain by some of ANet’s decision-making. And you know it. Everybody knows it.

I can say that from the announcement of GW2 back in the EotN days, following what tidbits came out during the deveolopment process, and getting beyond excited over that manifesto – I expected something completely different. Something that had a bit more meaning than what we got.

From what I can tell, so did many others. THIS is why we feel let down by the Manifesto. It doesn’t matter what it technically says in perfect English in the fine print – the spirit of the thing tells us one thing, and what we got in GW2 is something so different it feels like a betrayal.

I think enough people are disappointed over this that, even though they might actually wind up making a pretty good game, it will never have the chance to be the great thing it could have been. Too many old GW fans have left, stopped believing, and don’t care anymore.

I don’t think there’s any getting that back.

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

@Erasculio

I’m not saying the manifesto is 100% correct though, so your whole theory falls apart. I’m saying there is one definite line in there that I don’t feel is correct. Based SOLELY ON ENGLISH, the paragraph with grind can only be interpreted one way. People can bring their own interpretations all the want, but it doesn’t make it what that paragraph says.

And the part about Ree talking about story and Colin talking about DE isn’t my opinion it’s a matter of fact, clarified by Anet themselves.

You have a problem because you PERCEIVE me to a be blind fan boy, when even killcannon has noticed that not all my posts are positive.

But I’ll continue to speak up when I see things that misquoted, or exaggerated beyond all reason.

My issue isn’t with those who put Guild Wars 2 down. It’s with those who invent stuff to put it down. It comes from years of arguing with teenagers who over-emphasize everything to try to make a point, even when there’s no point to be made.

And I argue this line of thought on every forum on every topic you can name. It’s not about Guild Wars 2. It’s about integrity.

If it takes a technical argument over semantics to mount a defense of the Manifesto, then I’d say the glove fits.

Sure, some people here are just kittening, but many are also onetime fans who really feel left out in the rain by some of ANet’s decision-making. And you know it. Everybody knows it.

I can say that from the announcement of GW2 back in the EotN days, following what tidbits came out during the deveolopment process, and getting beyond excited over that manifesto – I expected something completely different. Something that had a bit more meaning than what we got.

From what I can tell, so did many others. THIS is why we feel let down by the Manifesto. It doesn’t matter what it technically says in perfect English in the fine print – the spirit of the thing tells us one thing, and what we got in GW2 is something so different it feels like a betrayal.

I think enough people are disappointed over this that, even though they might actually wind up making a pretty good game, it will never have the chance to be the great thing it could have been. Too many old GW fans have left, stopped believing, and don’t care anymore.

I don’t think there’s any getting that back.

People are kitten off specifically because of the addition of ascended gear (having zero to do the manifesto). The manifesto didn’t talk about vertical progression it talked about fun.

There were other interviews where other things were said, but really the manifesto itself is Guild Wars 1 players reading stuff into it that’s simply not there. It’s NOT a battle of semantics, it’s people hearing what they want to hear, an entirely different thing.

The manifesto, as worded, was confusing, with regards to what Ree and Colin were talking about and that was clarified after. The line about everything you love about Guild Wars 1 was clearly wrong, but the most often picked on line simply doesn’t mean what people say it means.

People read into stuff all the time. But it’s actually crystal clear what Colin is saying and anyone approaching it with an open mind can see this.

It’s not an illusion. He makes a statement about grind, defining the kind of grind he’s talking about, then comes back and says we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2, harkening back to the first line he’s talking about. THere were interviews after where devs said there would be stuff to grind for but there wouldn’t be mandatory grind. And to me, and to many others, they’ve achieved exactly that.

Even Guild Wars 1 players can’t deny there was grind in Guild Wars 1.

As for vertical progression, as killcannon is fond of pointing out, it’s been in the game since day 1. Literally. Having 80 level masterwork, rare and exotic is a vertical progression. You can get rares and then you can get exotics. It’s not like they didn’t have vertical progression in the game.

But the whole grind thing is ridiculous. Anyone who’d ever gotten GWAMM knows that Guild Wars 1 had tons of grind. The thing is it was always optional grind.

So the debate becomes about whether ascended gear is required or optional. Those who think it’s required will insist we have grind and those who think it isn’t required will insist there is no required grind.

You never fail to surprise me killcannon.

killcannon.2576:

Sorry to say, someone is demonstrably wrong. I love how people have zero experience with MMO’s but feel free to comment on them like they have some sense of innate knowledge.

They loved a single player, sometimes cooperative RPG. They simply lack any kind of real experience for what makes an MMO an MMO. They want their co-op rpg experience back. Sorry to say, that genre died. No one wanted to play it. That’s why they didn’t make GW2 like GW1. If it was sooo popular and soooo great, why isn’t it still relevant? Because it wasn’t. It was niche. Niche can be great, and GW1 had a passionate following. But it’s time is gone. There is a reason those types of games aren’t being made by the dozens.

People can stoke that little flame of nostalgia as much as they want, they can pine away moaning that this game isn’t some mediocre co op rpg that belongs to an age long past, they can attempt to sound knowledgeable by spouting catch phrases and jingoism, but it doesn’t change anything.

This game isn’t and will never be GW 1.5

Be as bitter about it as you want. Try to tear it down, not because it’s a bad game or has flaws, but simply because it doesn’t live up to the precious ideal of a game that lived past it’s time. I’m glad GW2 didn’t follow the tired mechanics of the past. I’m glad it has become it’s own game.

Accept it or don’t. Try to blame others because you don’t enjoy it. Try to blame marketing for your own shortcomings. It’s an MMO, and it’s here to stay.

Vayne.8563:

So the debate becomes about whether ascended gear is required or optional. Those who think it’s required will insist we have grind and those who think it isn’t required will insist there is no required grind.

To take your example, if it’s a stat increase, however large or small, it doesn’t matter if it’s actually optional. It doesn’t LOOK optional. And people then are going to feel like they’re being forced to grind fractals if they want to stay competitive in WvW or dungeons. ArenaNet should have known that. I think a LOT of people DID know that, but for some reason they’re not telling us, they made the decision anyway. It was a huge mistake, and we’re all left wondering why they made such an obvious one. What was their real motive? It’s about PERCEPTION.

But that is only one thing of many. And I am not arguing any of them here. That wasn’t the point of my earlier post. My point is: we all believed one thing, and APPARENTLY got another. Perception. Marketing 101.

Celestina.2894:

Off topic, but Vayne, you’re about the only person I see on this forum with a consistent, respectable degree of logic.

I for one am glad you’re still here.

Thanks for this. I’m sure just as many people would be happy if I vanished into thin air, though. lol

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

So the debate becomes about whether ascended gear is required or optional. Those who think it’s required will insist we have grind and those who think it isn’t required will insist there is no required grind.

To take your example, if it’s a stat increase, however large or small, it doesn’t matter if it’s actually optional. It doesn’t LOOK optional. And people then are going to feel like they’re being forced to grind fractals if they want to stay competitive in WvW or dungeons. ArenaNet should have known that. I think a LOT of people DID know that, but for some reason they’re not telling us, they made the decision anyway. It was a huge mistake, and we’re all left wondering why they made such an obvious one. What was their real motive? It’s about PERCEPTION.

But that is only one thing of many. And I am not arguing any of them here. That wasn’t the point of my earlier post. My point is: we all believed one thing, and APPARENTLY got another. Perception. Marketing 101.

I disagree that if something has higher stats it looks mandatory. I don’t feel that way. Others besides me don’t feel that way. Those who feel as you do might not understand this…but as long as the content itself isn’t gated by gear, it shouldn’t matter.

And since the fractals provides the gear you need to progress, that cancels itself out. It was designed for those who like to grind. Those players like me, can still experience them all without ascended gear.

I can also remember how they said the events would be more fun then the traditional quest because many of those quest where just kill x of that find x of that.

Back then I already did not like the idea that traditional quest would be gone as they make for a bound with the world.

But if you look at the hearts now they are all that sort of ‘quest’. The small farm quest basically. MMO’s thet had quest would indeed have about 75% of such quest but they would also have real fun interesting quest with a nice story and so on. I really mis that in GW2 and the hearths all feel like a grind.. kill x this, heal x that, research x of that and find x of that.

Devata.6589:

I can also remember how they said the events would be more fun then the traditional quest because many of those quest where just kill x of that find x of that.

Back then I already did not like the idea that traditional quest would be gone as they make for a bound with the world.

But if you look at the hearts now they are all that sort of ‘quest’. The small farm quest basically. MMO’s thet had quest would indeed have about 75% of such quest but they would also have real fun interesting quest with a nice story and so on. I really mis that in GW2 and the hearths all feel like a grind.. kill x this, heal x that, research x of that and find x of that.

Oh brother. Do you know why the hearts were added? To keep people at the places where dynamic events spawn. That’s it. They’re a relatively late addition to the game and were never meant to be the meat of the game. That’s why most hearts can be finished by doing dynamic events in those areas.

There are 301 hearts in this game and over 1500 dynamic events. And events are more satisfying to most people than the static quests in most games.

Not to mention the fact that most games only ship with about 500 quests and no personal story. There’s so much more content here then most MMOs, and you bring up the 300 hearts?

If you grind the hearts, or force yourself to do them, they’ll definitely feel like a grind. If you just go through areas doing events, most of the hearts will be mostly filled in, and then you can finish them off at your leisure.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

I can also remember how they said the events would be more fun then the traditional quest because many of those quest where just kill x of that find x of that.

Back then I already did not like the idea that traditional quest would be gone as they make for a bound with the world.

But if you look at the hearts now they are all that sort of ‘quest’. The small farm quest basically. MMO’s thet had quest would indeed have about 75% of such quest but they would also have real fun interesting quest with a nice story and so on. I really mis that in GW2 and the hearths all feel like a grind.. kill x this, heal x that, research x of that and find x of that.

Oh brother. Do you know why the hearts were added? To keep people at the places where dynamic events spawn. That’s it. They’re a relatively late addition to the game and were never meant to be the meat of the game. That’s why most hearts can be finished by doing dynamic events in those areas.

There are 301 hearts in this game and over 1500 dynamic events. And events are more satisfying to most people than the static quests in most games.

Not to mention the fact that most games only ship with about 500 quests and no personal story. There’s so much more content here then most MMOs, and you bring up the 300 hearts?

If you grind the hearts, or force yourself to do them, they’ll definitely feel like a grind. If you just go through areas doing events, most of the hearts will be mostly filled in, and then you can finish them off at your leisure.

I was talking about the hearths and the events at the same time. Maybe that was not very clear but both the hearths and the events are similar in the way that it is kill this or research that. The main difference is that hearths are always there while events just spawn. Both have a relative short ‘story’ and are not to be compared to some of the traditional quest we know from other MMO’s. And like I said.. yes 75% of those traditional quest in those games are also like that but then there are also some really nice quest with a nice story that lets you ‘befriend’ the quest-giver, send you all over the world and so on.

If they would ever come with an expansion I would hope they would also reintroduce traditional quest again.

I did not force myself to do the hearths but to level the alts I now do not really have another choice then forcing myself to do them. Because me not forcing myself to do them resulted in a lot of low level alts.

About the personal story.. If I wanted to play a single-player game I would go for a single player game. I still need to force myself to complete 3 personal story’s. So far I have yet to complete one. But I do not complain about the personal story.. I guess some people will like it and it does not really bother me that it’s there. Aldo I think the name is totally wrong.. It’s the least personal story part of the whole game.. “My personal story” in an MMO is whatever I do in the game.. not a scripted single-player (with multiple paths) story I do.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

I can also remember how they said the events would be more fun then the traditional quest because many of those quest where just kill x of that find x of that.

Back then I already did not like the idea that traditional quest would be gone as they make for a bound with the world.

But if you look at the hearts now they are all that sort of ‘quest’. The small farm quest basically. MMO’s thet had quest would indeed have about 75% of such quest but they would also have real fun interesting quest with a nice story and so on. I really mis that in GW2 and the hearths all feel like a grind.. kill x this, heal x that, research x of that and find x of that.

Oh brother. Do you know why the hearts were added? To keep people at the places where dynamic events spawn. That’s it. They’re a relatively late addition to the game and were never meant to be the meat of the game. That’s why most hearts can be finished by doing dynamic events in those areas.

There are 301 hearts in this game and over 1500 dynamic events. And events are more satisfying to most people than the static quests in most games.

Not to mention the fact that most games only ship with about 500 quests and no personal story. There’s so much more content here then most MMOs, and you bring up the 300 hearts?

If you grind the hearts, or force yourself to do them, they’ll definitely feel like a grind. If you just go through areas doing events, most of the hearts will be mostly filled in, and then you can finish them off at your leisure.

I was talking about the hearths and the events at the same time. Maybe that was not very clear but both the hearths and the events are similar in the way that it is kill this or research that. The mean difference is that hearths are always there while events just spawn. Both have a relative short ‘story’ and are not to be compared to some of the traditional quest we know from other MMO’s. And like I said.. yes 75% of the quest in those games are also like that but then there are also some really nice quest with a nice story.

If they would ever come with an expansion I would hope they would also reintroduce traditional quest again.

There are only X number of quest types, no matter what game you’re playing. Kill, capture, defend, gather make up 99% of quests in all games.

The difference in Guild Wars 2 is you don’t have to walk up to someone, get information, read a wall of text (most of which are terrible or routine), go out and get stuff and then go back to the guy for a dubious reward. You do some stuff, whatever it is, it all counts to unlocking the heart, getting you karma, you can then talk to each heart vendor and buy what you want, or skip it if you want.

And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off. This may be a subtle different to some, but it makes a world of difference to others…including me.

Normally in most games, when you kill ten centaurs, there are still more centaurs right there. In Guild Wars 2, at least in most DEs, if the centaurs are attacking they get driven off. The the ogre quest with the harpies, if you defeat the harpies, a different creature inhabits the pond, until the harpies come back. Sure they come back. We’ve always known DEs would be cyclic, but it’s still a lot better than the old quest system for a whole lot of people.

Erasculio.2914:

I’m simply not naive enough to take MMORPG’s developers claims of “30 million registered players” at face value, considering how most of those have left their games. Although I guess people gullible enough to believe grind is a good thing are going to fall for anything.

They have to present numbers of box sales, of active subscribers and of gem store sales. They can’t go out there and claim, because every MMO developer has to answer to investors.
The fact that we DO see an increased amount of MMOs alone shows that the genre is profitable enough to develop for. If it was suicide for the company nobody would do it.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

…

Oh brother. Do you know why the hearts were added? To keep people at the places where dynamic events spawn. That’s it. They’re a relatively late addition to the game and were never meant to be the meat of the game. That’s why most hearts can be finished by doing dynamic events in those areas.

There are 301 hearts in this game and over 1500 dynamic events. And events are more satisfying to most people than the static quests in most games.

Not to mention the fact that most games only ship with about 500 quests and no personal story. There’s so much more content here then most MMOs, and you bring up the 300 hearts?

If you grind the hearts, or force yourself to do them, they’ll definitely feel like a grind. If you just go through areas doing events, most of the hearts will be mostly filled in, and then you can finish them off at your leisure.

I was talking about the hearths and the events at the same time. Maybe that was not very clear but both the hearths and the events are similar in the way that it is kill this or research that. The mean difference is that hearths are always there while events just spawn. Both have a relative short ‘story’ and are not to be compared to some of the traditional quest we know from other MMO’s. And like I said.. yes 75% of the quest in those games are also like that but then there are also some really nice quest with a nice story.

If they would ever come with an expansion I would hope they would also reintroduce traditional quest again.

There are only X number of quest types, no matter what game you’re playing. Kill, capture, defend, gather make up 99% of quests in all games.

The difference in Guild Wars 2 is you don’t have to walk up to someone, get information, read a wall of text (most of which are terrible or routine), go out and get stuff and then go back to the guy for a dubious reward. You do some stuff, whatever it is, it all counts to unlocking the heart, getting you karma, you can then talk to each heart vendor and buy what you want, or skip it if you want.

And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off. This may be a subtle different to some, but it makes a world of difference to others…including me.

Normally in most games, when you kill ten centaurs, there are still more centaurs right there. In Guild Wars 2, at least in most DEs, if the centaurs are attacking they get driven off. The the ogre quest with the harpies, if you defeat the harpies, a different creature inhabits the pond, until the harpies come back. Sure they come back. We’ve always known DEs would be cyclic, but it’s still a lot better than the old quest system for a whole lot of people.

Well I say 75% you say 99% anyway then there is still that 1% and thats missing here where the design philosophy (thats what we are taking about here right) what to only have that those sort of events.

“And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off.” Really????
You do understand that thats also just based on a number? Sure you don’t see the number and it changes depending on the number of people but it is still just kill x of this. You could do exactly the same in traditional quest.. ‘breaking their morale’ and then don’t give a number but a bar. You say it’s a subtle different but in reality it’s no difference at all.

And let me also stat that I do not hate events.. Now it’s not really like you say that they make a difference.. thats yet another thing of the Design Philosophy make a difference and change the world.. like you describe but the reality now is that I complete an event, scare away the centaurs and when I walk by that place 10 min later centaurs are ruling it because 5 min after I left the event spawned again.

But I do not have anything against hearths, events or whatsoever. The question was the Design Philosophy then and the result now.

They then said the events would be less of a grind and more of a world changing event / story whatever..

But now the events feel like a grind and I miss the quest with a story.. The 1% quest you refer to when you see 99% are of this type.

I do not ask them to remove the events.. I would ask them to make them really have an impact on the world.. Let centaurs attack a map and if we defeat them they will be gone for at least a month,, if we lose they will be there for at least a month and the events or quest or whatever then also changes in that time.
Such events should also result in a good reward else people would not bother and the bad guys would be ruling Tyria.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

…

Oh brother. Do you know why the hearts were added? To keep people at the places where dynamic events spawn. That’s it. They’re a relatively late addition to the game and were never meant to be the meat of the game. That’s why most hearts can be finished by doing dynamic events in those areas.

There are 301 hearts in this game and over 1500 dynamic events. And events are more satisfying to most people than the static quests in most games.

Not to mention the fact that most games only ship with about 500 quests and no personal story. There’s so much more content here then most MMOs, and you bring up the 300 hearts?

If you grind the hearts, or force yourself to do them, they’ll definitely feel like a grind. If you just go through areas doing events, most of the hearts will be mostly filled in, and then you can finish them off at your leisure.

snip

There are only X number of quest types, no matter what game you’re playing. Kill, capture, defend, gather make up 99% of quests in all games.

The difference in Guild Wars 2 is you don’t have to walk up to someone, get information, read a wall of text (most of which are terrible or routine), go out and get stuff and then go back to the guy for a dubious reward. You do some stuff, whatever it is, it all counts to unlocking the heart, getting you karma, you can then talk to each heart vendor and buy what you want, or skip it if you want.

And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off. This may be a subtle different to some, but it makes a world of difference to others…including me.

snip

Well I say 75% you say 99% anyway then there is still that 1% and thats missing here where the design philosophy (thats what we are taking about here right) what to only have that those sort of events.

“And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off.” Really????
You do understand that thats also just based on a number? Sure you don’t see the number and it changes depending on the number of people but it is still just kill x of this. You could do exactly the same in traditional quest.. ‘breaking their morale’ and then don’t give a number but a bar. You say it’s a subtle different but in reality it’s no difference at all.

And let me also stat that I do not hate events.. Now it’s not really like you say that they make a difference.. thats yet another thing of the Design Philosophy make a difference and change the world.. like you describe but the reality now is that I complete an event, scare away the centaurs and when I walk by that place 10 min later centaurs are ruling it because 5 min after I left the event spawned again.

But I do not have anything against hearths, events or whatsoever. The question was the Design Philosophy then and the result now.

They then said the events would be less of a grind and more of a world changing event / story whatever..

But now the events feel like a grind and I miss the quest with a story.. The 1% quest you refer to when you see 99% are of this type.

I do not ask them to remove the events.. I would ask them to make them really have an impact on the world.. Let centaurs attack a map and if we defeat them they will be gone for at least a month,, if we lose they will be there for at least a month and the events or quest or whatever then also changes in that time.
Such events should also result in a good reward else people would not bother and the bad guys would be ruling Tyria.

First of all, I don’t completely disagree with you. I’ve often said this game needs longer and more complex quest chains. However, I don’t think those chains need to be done as traditional quests. I think they can do them as events…just different types.

As for how different the DEs are without the numbers, even Total Biscuit talked about it in a commentary of how different it was for him. This is massively different for a whole lot of people. I’m sorry it’s not different enough for you but it makes a huge, huge difference.

Because that’s how battles work in real life anyway. Two sides come together, one suffers enough losses and eventually withdraws. This is far more plausible than killing ten of them to drive them off.

Furthermore, the number isn’t a constant like it is in most MMOs. It changes. It goes up as people show up and down as people leave. It adjusts on the fly. I’m actually amazed you can’t see just how advantageous this is and what a huge improvement to the MMO scene. You can bet a lot more games moving forward will use this (for good reason).

Vayne.8563:

Normally in most games, when you kill ten centaurs, there are still more centaurs right there. In Guild Wars 2, at least in most DEs, if the centaurs are attacking they get driven off. The the ogre quest with the harpies, if you defeat the harpies, a different creature inhabits the pond, until the harpies come back. Sure they come back. We’ve always known DEs would be cyclic, but it’s still a lot better than the old quest system for a whole lot of people.

One might say the ‘old quest system’ is Aix sponsa while Dynamic Events are Aix galericulata.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Normally in most games, when you kill ten centaurs, there are still more centaurs right there. In Guild Wars 2, at least in most DEs, if the centaurs are attacking they get driven off. The the ogre quest with the harpies, if you defeat the harpies, a different creature inhabits the pond, until the harpies come back. Sure they come back. We’ve always known DEs would be cyclic, but it’s still a lot better than the old quest system for a whole lot of people.

One might say the ‘old quest system’ is Aix sponsa while Dynamic Events are Aix galericulata.

One certainly might say that if one spoke latin. lol

The manifesto: What Arenanet wanted for Guild Wars 2 before particular NCSoft employees moving over to the company. Once those employees moved, a lot of stuff started changing.

The manifesto really isn’t so much of the bait and switch that folks think it is, but rather just the over optimistic and rather unrealistic hopes and dreams of developers who hadn’t had an opportunity to sit down with people like monetization producers and find out what really brings in money. Seriously, watch the manifesto video- see how excited and into it the devs are as they describe what is likely their dream MMO… OUR dream MMO. But if it were that easy just to push out content that everyone loves and still be able to make money, we wouldn’t have so much crap all over the market, would we? At the end of the day, games need funding and thus have investors. And those investors expect to be kept happy. :-\

Yes, GW2 is completely different from the manifesto. There are a handful of apologists on here that have to reach grandly to find ways to say that it isn’t, but the illusion they try to create is hardly convincing. That said… I doubt anyone was as hurt by that difference as much as the devs. Game making isn’t all fun and playing. There is a business side to it, and even the devs themselves are slaves to it.

Mirta.5029:

The fact that we DO see an increased amount of MMOs alone shows that the genre is profitable enough to develop for. If it was suicide for the company nobody would do it.

Ignoring how many companies have comitted suicide by developing MMOs, failing, and then going bankrupt. Even big companies have been suffering – see what The Old Republic did to Bioware, or how Square Enix mentioned that another failure like Final Fantasy XIV could cost them the entire company.

It’s not only some people that have rose colored glasses and are unable to grasp reality. Game developers can also look at WoW and think they are going to get a piece of that pie too, believing all the many MMO failures are because those other companies weren’t as smart or innovative or whatever. Typical “it’s never going to happen to me!” mentality, only in the end it does.

MMORPGs are dying. It’s a deserved death, actually. MMORPG players deserve those games to die, too, to get rid of their addiction.

Vayne.8563:

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Now context means reading the first part and associating with with the second part. Colin is DEFINING what he means by grind in this pargraph. In most games there’s this boring grind to get to the fun stuff…when he says we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2, and then says three sentences later we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2, it’s obviously liked to what he said in the first instance of the use of the word grind.

In MMO parlance, grinding orginally meant killing mobs to gain experience to level. It’s come to mean other things which is WHY Anet took the time to define it within the manifesto. You can ignore if if you like but don’t complain when you take a single sentence out of context and try to assign a different context to it.

Even allowing that you are correct. Here is the real meat and potatoes of the statement: “In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2.”

How is there not a boring grind to get to “the fun stuff”. If you want to do dungeons you must “grind” to get to the requisite level to enter said dungeon. If you want to do fractals, then you can do them from level 1…good luck with that. If you want to do fractals over level 15 or so you will need agony resist which means you must “grind” until you get to level 80. If you consider the “fun stuff” to be gathering weapon skins you must “grind” until your will to live falls out of your ears.

I guess it depends on what you consider the “fun stuff” right?

“I swung a sword, I swung it again.” Where is this fun stuff that is not about “swinging a sword again and again”? Is it the bit where you must hammer in a fence post again and again? Is it dungeons with HP Sponge bosses? Is it attempting to gather enough mats to make something you would like? Because the whole game is about swinging a sword (or whatever other weapon you are carrying) again and again. If not…tell me where?

So even assuming that your analysis of Colins statement is true. It is still, to a lot of people, wrong. You are not one of these people clearly, but they are out there, they are in high numbers and they are bored.

I can’t wait to find out what the 9th introduces because having once again gone from having gold to having none attempting to get a precursor, if it more of the same I am finally going to delete the game and my account and go back to a game where it does exactly what it says on the box.

Mirta.5029:

The fact that we DO see an increased amount of MMOs alone shows that the genre is profitable enough to develop for. If it was suicide for the company nobody would do it.

I would bet money we will see a decrease. Remember: MMOs take a LONG time to make. Not one or two years, but four to six years. So the number of MMOs coming out today is a reflection of the market back in 2007-2009, NOT today. With the horrendous failure of extremely high investment games like SWTOR, it makes the market less of the guarantee that it was back in those days. That will have game makers thinking twice about pushing out as many MMOs.

In 3-4 years, I would be exceptionally surprised if we saw as many MMOs being released each year as we do today.

Erasculio.2914:

Ignoring how many companies have comitted suicide by developing MMOs, failing, and then going bankrupt. Even big companies have been suffering – see what The Old Republic did to Bioware, or how Square Enix mentioned that another failure like Final Fantasy XIV could cost them the entire company.

It’s not what Old Republic did to Bioware, but what Bioware did to games. Ever since they started listening to EA they’ve been heading the suicide road.
Old Republic had false advertisement, was launched beyond buggy and had a sub model.
Mass Effect 3 was a fail.
The last Dragon Age threw logic out of the window.
For example Ubisoft is doing great with Tera. Dragon’s PRophet is not even out of beta and it’s doing fine. Hell even Crytek want to create an MMO-ish F2P shooter. There is also a reason why Perfect World entertainment was able to survive off not very popular F2P MMOs and why it is still alive.
Also on the same regard lots of companies have committed suicide by creating single player games. Normally it’s all about 1. The quality of the game 2. The market at that year (see vampire the masquerade bloodlines – the game wasn’t bad, but the company died shortly after releasing it. Which is funny because the game sold great a few years after the release when the company was dead already).

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

…

Oh brother. Do you know why the hearts were added? To keep people at the places where dynamic events spawn. That’s it. They’re a relatively late addition to the game and were never meant to be the meat of the game. That’s why most hearts can be finished by doing dynamic events in those areas.

There are 301 hearts in this game and over 1500 dynamic events. And events are more satisfying to most people than the static quests in most games.

Not to mention the fact that most games only ship with about 500 quests and no personal story. There’s so much more content here then most MMOs, and you bring up the 300 hearts?

If you grind the hearts, or force yourself to do them, they’ll definitely feel like a grind. If you just go through areas doing events, most of the hearts will be mostly filled in, and then you can finish them off at your leisure.

snip

There are only X number of quest types, no matter what game you’re playing. Kill, capture, defend, gather make up 99% of quests in all games.

The difference in Guild Wars 2 is you don’t have to walk up to someone, get information, read a wall of text (most of which are terrible or routine), go out and get stuff and then go back to the guy for a dubious reward. You do some stuff, whatever it is, it all counts to unlocking the heart, getting you karma, you can then talk to each heart vendor and buy what you want, or skip it if you want.

And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off. This may be a subtle different to some, but it makes a world of difference to others…including me.

snip

Well I say 75% you say 99% anyway then there is still that 1% and thats missing here where the design philosophy (thats what we are taking about here right) what to only have that those sort of events.

“And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off.” Really????
You do understand that thats also just based on a number? Sure you don’t see the number and it changes depending on the number of people but it is still just kill x of this. You could do exactly the same in traditional quest.. ‘breaking their morale’ and then don’t give a number but a bar. You say it’s a subtle different but in reality it’s no difference at all.

And let me also stat that I do not hate events.. Now it’s not really like you say that they make a difference.. thats yet another thing of the Design Philosophy make a difference and change the world.. like you describe but the reality now is that I complete an event, scare away the centaurs and when I walk by that place 10 min later centaurs are ruling it because 5 min after I left the event spawned again.

But I do not have anything against hearths, events or whatsoever. The question was the Design Philosophy then and the result now.

They then said the events would be less of a grind and more of a world changing event / story whatever..

But now the events feel like a grind and I miss the quest with a story.. The 1% quest you refer to when you see 99% are of this type.

I do not ask them to remove the events.. I would ask them to make them really have an impact on the world.. Let centaurs attack a map and if we defeat them they will be gone for at least a month,, if we lose they will be there for at least a month and the events or quest or whatever then also changes in that time.
Such events should also result in a good reward else people would not bother and the bad guys would be ruling Tyria.

Furthermore, the number isn’t a constant like it is in most MMOs. It changes. It goes up as people show up and down as people leave. It adjusts on the fly. I’m actually amazed you can’t see just how advantageous this is and what a huge improvement to the MMO scene. You can bet a lot more games moving forward will use this (for good reason).

GW2 was not the first to use it. I did already see it in Rift and like I said I do not dislike events I do miss the quest especially because the events and hearths are all short grind ‘events’ while quest have the possibility to go more in depth. When releasing the game Anet acted like if it was the other way around.. Events would be no grind while all quest where grinds.

Quoting you “Furthermore, the number isn’t a constant like it is in most MMOs. It changes. It goes up as people show up and down as people leave.” quoting me from the comment before that “Sure you don’t see the number and it changes depending on the number of people”

Tolmos.8395:

Mirta.5029:

The fact that we DO see an increased amount of MMOs alone shows that the genre is profitable enough to develop for. If it was suicide for the company nobody would do it.

I would bet money we will see a decrease. Remember: MMOs take a LONG time to make. Not one or two years, but four to six years. So the number of MMOs coming out today is a reflection of the market back in 2007-2009, NOT today. With the horrendous failure of extremely high investment games like SWTOR, it makes the market less of the guarantee that it was back in those days. That will have game makers thinking twice about pushing out as many MMOs.

In 3-4 years, I would be exceptionally surprised if we saw as many MMOs being released each year as we do today.

I dont believe this to be true actually. I think if this game WAS the game that the manifesto set out and the developers had retained that level of enthusiasm and innovation, this would be an excellent game. But the money took over.

Someone, eventually will make that game, maybe technological advances will make it possible to have a persistent world when you can truly be a unique character with a unique personality. And more importantly maybe someone who is putting up the cash will put artistic and programming integrity before “the quick buck” in the hope that doing this will provide “the long buck”.

pricer.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Now context means reading the first part and associating with with the second part. Colin is DEFINING what he means by grind in this pargraph. In most games there’s this boring grind to get to the fun stuff…when he says we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2, and then says three sentences later we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2, it’s obviously liked to what he said in the first instance of the use of the word grind.

In MMO parlance, grinding orginally meant killing mobs to gain experience to level. It’s come to mean other things which is WHY Anet took the time to define it within the manifesto. You can ignore if if you like but don’t complain when you take a single sentence out of context and try to assign a different context to it.

Even allowing that you are correct. Here is the real meat and potatoes of the statement: “In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2.”

How is there not a boring grind to get to “the fun stuff”. If you want to do dungeons you must “grind” to get to the requisite level to enter said dungeon. If you want to do fractals, then you can do them from level 1…good luck with that. If you want to do fractals over level 15 or so you will need agony resist which means you must “grind” until you get to level 80. If you consider the “fun stuff” to be gathering weapon skins you must “grind” until your will to live falls out of your ears.

I guess it depends on what you consider the “fun stuff” right?

“I swung a sword, I swung it again.” Where is this fun stuff that is not about “swinging a sword again and again”? Is it the bit where you must hammer in a fence post again and again? Is it dungeons with HP Sponge bosses? Is it attempting to gather enough mats to make something you would like? Because the whole game is about swinging a sword (or whatever other weapon you are carrying) again and again. If not…tell me where?

So even assuming that your analysis of Colins statement is true. It is still, to a lot of people, wrong. You are not one of these people clearly, but they are out there, they are in high numbers and they are bored.

I can’t wait to find out what the 9th introduces because having once again gone from having gold to having none attempting to get a precursor, if it more of the same I am finally going to delete the game and my account and go back to a game where it does exactly what it says on the box.

I can’t believe this is so hard to understand. Dungeons are not the only fun stuff in the game, even if they’re the only fun stuff TO YOU.

He’s talking about most games (which I think most people would take to mean most MMOs). At the time this was made, just about every MMO on the market had people leveling as fast as they could to get to raiding. The big exciting stuff was all at the end.

This was even explained by Anet after the manifesto. I mean why does Anet put the Shadow Behemoth in a 1-15 zone. Because you can have exciting stuff all the way throughout. And before the free yellows, it was an exciting encounter. Maybe you don’t remember that, but I do.

That’s the same thing they were saying when they said there was no end game. They said basically you’d be doing the same sorts of thing at end game that you do leveling up, which for some of us is refreshing. I don’t buy games to play one game for leveling and then a raiding game after. I don’t like or desire raiding. I don’t even particularly like dungeons.

So for me, for players like me, this statement holds completely 100% true. I’ve never had a better leveling experience than I had in this game, and I continue to visit old zones and do events and enjoy them at max level.

The crux of that statement is 100% true for me.

I didnt say I found dungeons “fun stuff”. In fact I havent found any “fun stuff”. And Shadow Behemoth? Really? If that isn’t “swinging a sword again and again” then I really dont know what game you are playing. I killed it literally hundreds of times by standing in the same spot, pressing one and not moving. “Fun stuff”? Really?

To me, there is literally nothing in this game that isn’t “swinging a sword again and again”. If its different for you….I’m really happy for you.

pricer.5091:

I didnt say I found dungeons “fun stuff”. In fact I havent found any “fun stuff”. And Shadow Behemoth? Really? If that isn’t “swinging a sword again and again” then I really dont know what game you are playing. I killed it literally hundreds of times by standing in the same spot, pressing one and not moving. “Fun stuff”? Really?

To me, there is literally nothing in this game that isn’t “swinging a sword again and again”. If its different for you….I’m really happy for you.

Again, what those meta events became later was NOT what those meta events were at launch. When you visited the fire elemental in Metrica, all you saw were dead players everywhere. It was HARD.

And a lot of people didn’t find that particularly fun, so Anet changed it. But until the guaranteed rare for meta events, those events were fun.

Now if you don’t personally find the game fun, that’s fair enough. Go find a game you do have fun, but this game and those encounters as they were at launch were fun for a whole lot of people. And while the meta events are no longer fun, there are plenty of other events that are fun for me.

Because I’m not standing in one place swinging a sword. I’m swinging a sword, I’m using an off hand weapon, I’m swapping weapons, I’m using my profession mechanic, I’m using utility skills, I’m using environmental weapons.

To me, and many others, the combat system is better and more fun than most MMOs. If it’s not better and more fun to you, I’m sure you can find an MMO to play that you like.

The fanboi is strong with this one lol. I don’t care who you talk to Vayne, I aced English and Colin said what he said, you just throw your own silly interpretation in there and call it fact. I want whatever pixie dust you’re on.

I’ll give you an example of how ludicrous you sound. Colin: “I like potatoes.” Vayne: “Clearly he meant cherries, trust me I studied English and I talk to news reporters”

Whatever was said in that manifesto is 100% lies and deceit. End of story. GG no re

Vayne.8563:

And a lot of people didn’t find that particularly fun, so Anet changed it. But until the guaranteed rare for meta events, those events were fun.

They are not fun now. We are discussing the game now.

Because I’m not standing in one place swinging a sword. I’m swinging a sword, I’m using an off hand weapon, I’m swapping weapons, I’m using my profession mechanic, I’m using utility skills, I’m using environmental weapons.

Let me guess? Because Colin said “swinging a sword” this does not count if you are swinging a scepter and focus?

To me, and many others, the combat system is better and more fun than most MMOs.

Good Im happy for you, although what it has to do with the failure of the game to live up to its promises I have no idea. To me and many others it isn’t. Are we going to next argue about whether someones failure to like cheese is a failure of the cheese designer?

If it’s not better and more fun to you, I’m sure you can find an MMO to play that you like.

I can and will. Sadly, this doesn’t prevent me being entitled to have an opinion on this one.

Mathias.9657:

The fanboi is strong with this one lol. I don’t care who you talk to Vayne, I aced English and Colin said what he said, you just throw your own silly interpretation in there and call it fact. I want whatever pixie dust you’re on.

I’ll give you an example of how ludicrous you sound. Colin: “I like potatoes.” Vayne: “Clearly he meant cherries, trust me I studied English and I talk to news reporters”

Whatever was said in that manifesto is 100% lies and deceit. End of story. GG no re

Acing English doesn’t make you a professional editor. Address what I’ve said. If Colin says, in most games you get THIS boring grind to get to the fun stuff and MOMENTS later he says, we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2, on what planet do you not associate those two things.

I know a whole lot of people who aced English who don’t know how to read.

pricer.5091:

Vayne.8563:

And a lot of people didn’t find that particularly fun, so Anet changed it. But until the guaranteed rare for meta events, those events were fun.

They are not fun now. We are discussing the game now.

Because I’m not standing in one place swinging a sword. I’m swinging a sword, I’m using an off hand weapon, I’m swapping weapons, I’m using my profession mechanic, I’m using utility skills, I’m using environmental weapons.

Let me guess? Because Colin said “swinging a sword” this does not count if you are swinging a scepter and focus?

To me, and many others, the combat system is better and more fun than most MMOs.

Good Im happy for you, although what it has to do with the failure of the game to live up to its promises I have no idea. To me and many others it isn’t. Are we going to next argue about whether someones failure to like cheese is a failure of the cheese designer?

If it’s not better and more fun to you, I’m sure you can find an MMO to play that you like.

I can and will. Sadly, this doesn’t prevent me being entitled to have an opinion on this one.

As I said THOSE events are not fun now, but many OTHER events are fun. Did you somehow get from the manifesto that every single second you play will be fun or equally fun? Because you’re losing credibility by the second.

The combat system isn’t just swinging a sword, since you can dodge in this game (and you can’t in most others). So dodging isn’t swinging a sword. Using environmental weapons isn’t swinging a sword either. He’s talking about making combat fun, and whether you personally like it or not, enough people think the combat in this game is fun, compared to the combat in most MMOs.

Colin (paraphrased): We want people to have fun with the combat. We want them to start having fun earlier in the game instead of grinding to get to the fun stuff. We want to change the way people view combat.

You personally may not like the combat, but that’s not a broken promise on the part of the devs. That’s a matter of personal taste.

This is the only game I have ever been a part of where there is this small percentage of the community that doesn’t take the game for what it is, but tries to interpret this manifesto, and comes to the forums crying ‘breech of contract’.

Any plan or intent no matter how well thought out is rubbish once it hits the battlefield, most people know this.

GW2 is a very young game and for what it has done and how it has improved so far they are doing a great job. I hate to break this to everyone who printed off the manifesto and are using like a pass/fail check list, but that document doesn’t mean anything anymore. It was a statement of intent and to put it simply, things change.

Sure there are a few spots in there that can be interpreted different ways, but as I said above, it is pretty futile at this point to argue back and forth what you think that document means. A net isn’t looking at it anymore, and neither should you be.

The other side of the coin is that there are a lot of MMO players here that have completely unrealistic views of what this game was suppose to look like, or for that matter, what it was even capable of.

There seem to be quite a few people that thought they were going to be playing an MMO with zero grind. This boggles my mind. It is actually impossible to develop MMO content fast enough to keep ahead of the fastest player or even the average players consumption rate. So what does this necessitate? Repeatable content.

For those of you that are calling any repeatable content a grind well theree you have it. You can’t create an MMO that plays like a single player story with a continuous story line because those games have something an an MMO can not, an End.

I find a lot of posters on this form complain about the current state of the game, yet they can offer nothing in the way of a solution or even a viable suggestion.

I have not seen one viable solution from these nay sayers as to how to design and MMO with out repeatable content.

Just like the people the complain about the current Legendary system. When asked how they design I can paraphrase each response down to “Make it easier.” or “Give me naow.”

I see a lot of people coming to these forums with nothing but threats involving them moving to the ‘next great MMO’ which I am sure they could basically copy and paste off the forum of their previous MMO. My only advise is to save that file on your desktop because you’ll be needing it again.

CryxTryx.9208:

GW2 is a very young game and for what it has done and how it has improved so far they are doing a great job. I hate to break this to everyone who printed off the manifesto and are using like a pass/fail check list, but that document doesn’t mean anything anymore. It was a statement of intent and to put it simply, things change.

That sounds more like an excuse to accept subpar content. Two years is nothing; it’s the same thing as if Marvel announced they are going to release a movie about Iron Man, and two years later when the movie is released people learn that, despite being called “Iron Man”, it’s about Ant Man.

If ArenaNet promised in their Manifesto more than they could deliver, it’s still their fault for not being careful enough with their promises. There is no amount of fanboysm that can change how they simply couldn’t achieve what they stated as their goals.

CryxTryx.9208:

There seem to be quite a few people that thought they were going to be playing an MMO with zero grind. This boggles my mind.

Ah, that explains it. Try reading here. And read my other posts to see how you are wrong when you claim there hasn’t been “one viable solution” to the issues currently afflicting MMORPGs.

Erasculio.2914:

CryxTryx.9208:

GW2 is a very young game and for what it has done and how it has improved so far they are doing a great job. I hate to break this to everyone who printed off the manifesto and are using like a pass/fail check list, but that document doesn’t mean anything anymore. It was a statement of intent and to put it simply, things change.

That sounds more like an excuse to accept subpar content. Two years is nothing; it’s the same thing as if Marvel announced they are going to release a movie about Iron Man, and two years later when the movie is released people learn that, despite being called “Iron Man”, it’s about Ant Man.

If ArenaNet promised in their Manifesto more than they could deliver, it’s still their fault for not being careful enough with their promises. There is no amount of fanboysm that can change how they simply couldn’t achieve what they stated as their goals.

CryxTryx.9208:

There seem to be quite a few people that thought they were going to be playing an MMO with zero grind. This boggles my mind.

Ah, that explains it. Try reading here. And read my other posts to see how you are wrong when you claim there hasn’t been “one viable solution” to the issues currently afflicting MMORPGs.

I consider very little in GW2 sub par content, so I not making excuses for; or accepting nothing of the sort.

I agree with you that if GW2 promised more then they could deliver it would be their fault. I disagree that we are at that point yet. Correct me if I am wrong but Guild Wars 2 is barely a year old. It is not 2 years old.

As to your movie anaolgy, it is poor, very poor.

As for the link I’ll read through it, but judging from your input in this thread so far my hopes are not high for what you consider viable solutions.

Vayne.8563:

Celestina.2894:

Off topic, but Vayne, you’re about the only person I see on this forum with a consistent, respectable degree of logic.

I for one am glad you’re still here.

Thanks for this. I’m sure just as many people would be happy if I vanished into thin air, though. lol

I, personally, would hate to see you vanish from the forums. On every subject except this one you show a high degree of thoughtful, critical analysis with even-handedness throughout. You are a valuable member of the forum community. I would not like to see GW2 forums without Vayne as they would be all the poorer for it.