Guild Wars 2

OnizukaBR.8537:

Doam.8305:

jihm.2315:

no body is forcing you to do raids stop complaining the game has to appeal to a lot of types of people

Dungeon, Pvp, and Fractal rewards were all nerfed I’d mention WVW but they didn’t have anything to nerf.

Dungeons were indeed to push people into raids and raids were exempt from the so called changes to normalizing gear aquisition.

It’s not that people are forced to do raids but the things people like to do are getting nerfed in an attempt to shovel those people into a mode they have no interest.

Raids are the teachers pet never getting into trouble and getting free passes in life while the others are in a corner with those cone hats. So of course people will be resentful in regards to raids. Probably could have used a better example but meh..

Tell me how fractals rewards are nerfed? T4 fractals daily give the best reward fractals ever had add the 3 daily T4+the daily 100 CM and you get rewards better then raids.
In 1 week, raids give you 150 MS, and a chance of ascended from each boss ( its not rare to get 0 ascended after all the bosses ).
In 1 week, fractals give 21 Master Chest and 21 of other chests, that have a good chance of ascended, and liquid gold, and infusions. More relics that you can get 20 slot bags, some skins, stat infusions….
Dungeon were nerfed, but then they buffed it back, its profitable to run for the achiev of 5 gold.
So yeah, Fractals and Dungeons, are rewarding, even more then raids by the effort you need to do them.
And pvp got the ascended weapons/armor on top of the already good track rewards.
So stop lying about rewards.

Please oh wise one tell me how the acquisition of ascended gear in fractals and pvp became so much more easier and so much more intuitive by tying it to pve crafting. To buff something is to make it easier of course so how did these changes make it easier??

Why of why or great wise one on the mountain weren’t raid ascended items tied to pve crafting like the other modes then? If it such a great buff then surely raids would only be improved to receive such a gift.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Again, box sales are lacking; Gem Store sales are relatively even.

AFAIK they stated that in the financial reports for the quarter when HOT launched in Q4 of 2015. I can’t recall a statement to that effect for the most recent reports.

Doam.8305:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Doam.8305:

jihm.2315:

no body is forcing you to do raids stop complaining the game has to appeal to a lot of types of people

Dungeon, Pvp, and Fractal rewards were all nerfed I’d mention WVW but they didn’t have anything to nerf.

Dungeons were indeed to push people into raids and raids were exempt from the so called changes to normalizing gear aquisition.

It’s not that people are forced to do raids but the things people like to do are getting nerfed in an attempt to shovel those people into a mode they have no interest.

Raids are the teachers pet never getting into trouble and getting free passes in life while the others are in a corner with those cone hats. So of course people will be resentful in regards to raids. Probably could have used a better example but meh..

Tell me how fractals rewards are nerfed? T4 fractals daily give the best reward fractals ever had add the 3 daily T4+the daily 100 CM and you get rewards better then raids.
In 1 week, raids give you 150 MS, and a chance of ascended from each boss ( its not rare to get 0 ascended after all the bosses ).
In 1 week, fractals give 21 Master Chest and 21 of other chests, that have a good chance of ascended, and liquid gold, and infusions. More relics that you can get 20 slot bags, some skins, stat infusions….
Dungeon were nerfed, but then they buffed it back, its profitable to run for the achiev of 5 gold.
So yeah, Fractals and Dungeons, are rewarding, even more then raids by the effort you need to do them.
And pvp got the ascended weapons/armor on top of the already good track rewards.
So stop lying about rewards.

Please oh wise one tell me how the acquisition of ascended gear in fractals and pvp became so much more easier and so much more intuitive by tying it to pve crafting. To buff something is to make it easier of course so how did these changes make it easier??

Why of why or great wise one on the mountain weren’t raid ascended items tied to pve crafting like the other modes then? If it such a great buff then surely raids would only be improved to receive such a gift.

How was that a nerf? Obviously you don’t know how expensive buying ascended gear was before this “nerf”.
Fractals are still the best content to get ascended drops.
I have been raiding for about 6 months and had four ascended drops. In that same time I had a full bank tab with different kind of ascended stuff drop in multiple levels of fractals.

You could argue getting ascended stuff in PvP was nerved – but I think everyone can agree it was too ridiculously easy.

Vayne.8563:

I just feel like there’s a new breed of dev at Anet who thinks dying repeatedly and running back or trying again and again is fun for most people, because they themselves find it fun. They’ve even bragged about it. They find it fun to die and bang their heads against those kinds of walls.

That’s how dungeons were supposed to be. Remember at release you could even use a waypoint even while your party was in combat, to return to a fight, once you died.
That was removed from the game because it cheapened the dungeon experience.

They expected us to have a very hard time in dungeons, especially explorable modes.
They expected us to have a hard time coordinating the Orr temple events.

It’s not a new breed of dev, it’s the release/original dev idea being brought back.

Doam.8305:

Please oh wise one tell me how the acquisition of ascended gear in fractals and pvp became so much more easier and so much more intuitive by tying it to pve crafting. To buff something is to make it easier of course so how did these changes make it easier??

Getting Ascended gear from Fractals costs half of what it did before the change. From 550-600g to ~350g, how is that not “easier”? Even if you include the cost of leveling crafting to 500, it is still way cheaper than the old version. You also need less fractal pages, so less days, less grind, to get it.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

I just feel like there’s a new breed of dev at Anet who thinks dying repeatedly and running back or trying again and again is fun for most people, because they themselves find it fun. They’ve even bragged about it. They find it fun to die and bang their heads against those kinds of walls.

That’s how dungeons were supposed to be. Remember at release you could even use a waypoint even while your party was in combat, to return to a fight, once you died.
That was removed from the game because it cheapened the dungeon experience.

They expected us to have a very hard time in dungeons, especially explorable modes.
They expected us to have a hard time coordinating the Orr temple events.

It’s not a new breed of dev, it’s the release/original dev idea being brought back.

Maybe it was how it was supposed to be, but it was also supposed to be any group of people could beat a dungeon. You didn’t need a healer, or a tank.

As far as I know, it’s not like it’s supposed to be. That is to say even ages ago, near the beginning, me and my casual guild could beat dungeons. They took a while and we died a lot, but we could rez each other when we went down.

In fact, before the change to rezzing, you could rez rush certain bosses and that was a strategy for people who weren’t as good, but you could still get through the content.

The second it goes to you can’t rez anyone and you’re always in combat and you can’t even use a revive orb, it becomes something else, that’s very unlike the dungeons at launch.

Vayne.8563:

In fact, before the change to rezzing, you could rez rush certain bosses and that was a strategy for people who weren’t as good, but you could still get through the content.

That wasn’t intended however. Dungeons were originally revealed as challenging group content for coordinated groups. I remember them talking about the unique dungeon skins as being prestigious rewards to show off.

The devs have always wanted the game to be more challenging, as they’ve always been for the gamers rather the majority like other MMOs. In BWE1, enemies could kill you within seconds, much like HoT, but had higher health. It was all heavily nerfed however for obvious reasons, as the traditional crowd would facetank and get instantly killed.

Obtena.7952:

I find this thread very odd … I can’t understand how it appears like the OP associated the evolution of the game with it losing it’s identity, implying that having a game that evolves is a bad thing? Perhaps I haven’t played enough MMO’s but … I’ve yet to play an MMO where the devs don’t tries to change a bit to keep the game interesting to it’s veteran players.

Moving forward is not always a good thing. It depends on what’s ahead of you.

That old quote “We’ve stood on the brink of a cliff, but now we’ve made a great leap forward” comes to mind here.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Again, box sales are lacking; Gem Store sales are relatively even.

So NCSoft says. And yet the sale numbers show the totals (box and gem sales) in the last 2 quarters are lowest in the game history.
Make your own conclusion.

maddoctor.2738:

Remember that explorable mode of dungeons was supposed to be their RAIDS?
Remember how the event chains in Orr were supposed to be their RAIDS?

Again, you misinterpret what they were saying then. What that quote meant (there were other posts duing that time) was that in place of raids the game would have explorable dungeons. This never meant that those two things were supposed to fulfill exactly the same role. Quite the opposite – it meant, that the GW2 equivalent of raids was from the beginning meant to be more open than raids.

maddoctor.2738:

Well a few months after release it was evident that neither dungeons nor the event chains in Orr were anything like Raids at all. That led to a mass exodus with the argument “there is no endgame”

Nah, the “mass exodus” was just the content locust leaving. This happened to every MMO game for the past many years. Those people would have left anyway.

OnizukaBR.8537:

He was being sarcastic asking how all those things were nerfed, because just like me, he knows that all those things the other person claimed was nerfed ( dungeons, fractals, pvp rewards) are not nerfed, but buffed.

Dungeons, even with that buff you mentioned, are still at lower reward level than prenerf, so no, you are factually wrong here.

Sartharina.3542:

Ayrilana.1396:

2) The title is not based on actual player guilds fighting with each other.

Yes it was. “The Guild Wars” lore event is merely justification for the game’s title, and an out for when they did start focusing more on PvE content as its own reward instead of stepping stones/training for the GvG endgame.

That is technically true. The name is because GW was originally meant to be a primarily pvp game. What you fail to mention is that this path has been abandoned somewhere around (or even before) launch of the very first campaign for GW1. By the time even idea of GW2 came along any meaning that might have been intended for that name was long, long gone.

maddoctor.2738:

Doam.8305:

Please oh wise one tell me how the acquisition of ascended gear in fractals and pvp became so much more easier and so much more intuitive by tying it to pve crafting. To buff something is to make it easier of course so how did these changes make it easier??

Getting Ascended gear from Fractals costs half of what it did before the change. From 550-600g to ~350g, how is that not “easier”? Even if you include the cost of leveling crafting to 500, it is still way cheaper than the old version. You also need less fractal pages, so less days, less grind, to get it.

Is that the number for all items purchased or is it one of the ones that take into account farming for mats. Not just increasing it 500 but time is also a factor for instant daily gated crafting in addition to ripping people out of their preferred mode of play into another to make some end game progress in that mode. You don’t need ascended to start but you do once you need to stack AR.

More importantly is that PvP a mode that a player can start and play a character at lvl 1 with the only PVE requirement is the game intro and entering the pvp lobby now have to do other modes. If your one of these pvp born players who for over four years never had to do any content in any other mode to be successful how would you take this change?

The only major change to how the modes operate since raids were implemented were the changes to ascended gear.

Doam.8305:

maddoctor.2738:

Doam.8305:

Please oh wise one tell me how the acquisition of ascended gear in fractals and pvp became so much more easier and so much more intuitive by tying it to pve crafting. To buff something is to make it easier of course so how did these changes make it easier??

Getting Ascended gear from Fractals costs half of what it did before the change. From 550-600g to ~350g, how is that not “easier”? Even if you include the cost of leveling crafting to 500, it is still way cheaper than the old version. You also need less fractal pages, so less days, less grind, to get it.

Is that the number for all items purchased or is it one of the ones that take into account farming for mats. Not just increasing it 500 but time is also a factor for instant daily gated crafting in addition to ripping people out of their preferred mode of play into another to make some end game progress in that mode. You don’t need ascended to start but you do once you need to stack AR.

More importantly is that PvP a mode that a player can start and play a character at lvl 1 with the only PVE requirement is the game intro and entering the pvp lobby now have to do other modes. If your one of these pvp born players who for over four years never had to do any content in any other mode to be successful how would you take this change?

The only major change to how the modes operate since raids were implemented were the changes to ascended gear.

Dude you are totally derailing this thread.
Pvp ascended gear was just introduced – changing how you aquire it can not be considered identity changing.
Also ascended armor is only needed for pve and wvw NOT for pvp. Pvp has its own armor stats that are not affected by the kind of armor you wear.

Astralporing.1957:

This never meant that those two things were supposed to fulfill exactly the same role.

They said that explorable dungeons and the temples of Orr would be this game’s Raids. They were supposed to be the hard and challenging content that we were used to from other games. And for a couple of months they were, while the game was new and we (as a community) didn’t know how to play.

Example:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1185945-Dungeons-Explorer-Mode-

Nah, the “mass exodus” was just the content locust leaving. This happened to every MMO game for the past many years. Those people would have left anyway.

Not really. If there was interesting end-game at release a lot of them wouldn’t leave. You can easily verify this by the amount of players who left GW2 after the first few months and now they are coming back because of Raids. These players would’ve never left the game if Raids were in the game at release, or their “Version of Raids” was what was advertised and expected.

Doam.8305:

More importantly is that PvP a mode that a player can start and play a character at lvl 1 with the only PVE requirement is the game intro and entering the pvp lobby now have to do other modes. If your one of these pvp born players who for over four years never had to do any content in any other mode to be successful how would you take this change?

I fail to see how Ascended stat gear helps a pvp born player in being “successful”.
Let’s not pretend that adding Ascended to pvp happened to help pvp players. Same way that adding dungeon reward tracks in pvp didn’t happen to help pvp players get dungeon gear. Dungeon skins were ALREADY available to pvp players with the old system, but it required a high enough rank to get dungeon skins.

Both changes happened so pve players that cannot run dungeons or cannot get ascended in their preferred mode can get it with an easy mode pvp system. Both systems aimed at pve players to drag them into pvp and less about giving new and interesting rewards to pvp players. The glory system was far superior to the current system for pvp players, the reward track system is for pvers to get from pvp what they can’t get in their own mode.

Doam.8305:

More importantly is that PvP a mode that a player can start and play a character at lvl 1 with the only PVE requirement is the game intro and entering the pvp lobby now have to do other modes. If your one of these pvp born players who for over four years never had to do any content in any other mode to be successful how would you take this change?

Why exactly would a pure pvp only player with low-level characters want to go to all the expense of getting ascended equipment? Equipment doesn’t do a thing for you in pvp in this game (aside from giving skins, and you honestly can’t expect some of the hardest to get pve skins to be given out for (almost) free in pvp).

Healix.5819:

Vayne.8563:

In fact, before the change to rezzing, you could rez rush certain bosses and that was a strategy for people who weren’t as good, but you could still get through the content.

That wasn’t intended however. Dungeons were originally revealed as challenging group content for coordinated groups. I remember them talking about the unique dungeon skins as being prestigious rewards to show off.

The devs have always wanted the game to be more challenging, as they’ve always been for the gamers rather the majority like other MMOs. In BWE1, enemies could kill you within seconds, much like HoT, but had higher health. It was all heavily nerfed however for obvious reasons, as the traditional crowd would facetank and get instantly killed.

But it wasn’t challenging, whatever they wanted. And people grew used to the game as it was, rather than as it was intended.

If I open up a restaurant and say the food is spicy and it’s not spicy and suddenly I make it really spicy I’m going to lose people.

Anyway, what’s really challenging to most devs is not always really challenging to good players. They can say challenging and mean something completely different from a decent raider.

Anet delivered a game that was one way and now it’s another way and people wonder why some people think it’s lost it’s identity. I guess I just don’t see any mysteries here.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

This never meant that those two things were supposed to fulfill exactly the same role.

They said that explorable dungeons and the temples of Orr would be this game’s Raids. They were supposed to be the hard and challenging content that we were used to from other games. And for a couple of months they were, while the game was new and we (as a community) didn’t know how to play.

Example:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1185945-Dungeons-Explorer-Mode-

Nah, the “mass exodus” was just the content locust leaving. This happened to every MMO game for the past many years. Those people would have left anyway.

Not really. If there was interesting end-game at release a lot of them wouldn’t leave. You can easily verify this by the amount of players who left GW2 after the first few months and now they are coming back because of Raids. These players would’ve never left the game if Raids were in the game at release, or their “Version of Raids” was what was advertised and expected.

They also said you wouldn’t need a dedicated healer. They’ve said lots of things. Some of those things have come to pass and others haven’t.

People don’t care about what’s said, so much as what they experience. If I say I’m not going to hurt someone and I poke him in the eye, he’s not going to trust me the next time, no matter what I say.

Dungeons are nothing like raids in reality, no matter what was said. And again, challenge to developers is often very different from challenges to players.

Developers have very little time to test and play their own game compared to players. They don’t have the benefit of dulfy or youtube starting out. They don’t have a million people trying something to find the easy way.

So of course, dev-challenge, doesn’t necessarily mean the kind of challenge you’re thinking of.

After all, they ended up nerfing Orr. Thinned out mobs and made other changes to make it more friendly. So if they intended it to be that hard, they later changed their minds.

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

This never meant that those two things were supposed to fulfill exactly the same role.

They said that explorable dungeons and the temples of Orr would be this game’s Raids. They were supposed to be the hard and challenging content that we were used to from other games. And for a couple of months they were, while the game was new and we (as a community) didn’t know how to play.

Example:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1185945-Dungeons-Explorer-Mode-

Nah, the “mass exodus” was just the content locust leaving. This happened to every MMO game for the past many years. Those people would have left anyway.

Not really. If there was interesting end-game at release a lot of them wouldn’t leave. You can easily verify this by the amount of players who left GW2 after the first few months and now they are coming back because of Raids. These players would’ve never left the game if Raids were in the game at release, or their “Version of Raids” was what was advertised and expected.

They also said you wouldn’t need a dedicated healer. They’ve said lots of things. Some of those things have come to pass and others haven’t.

People don’t care about what’s said, so much as what they experience. If I say I’m not going to hurt someone and I poke him in the eye, he’s not going to trust me the next time, no matter what I say.

Dungeons are nothing like raids in reality, no matter what was said. And again, challenge to developers is often very different from challenges to players.

Developers have very little time to test and play their own game compared to players. They don’t have the benefit of dulfy or youtube starting out. They don’t have a million people trying something to find the easy way.

So of course, dev-challenge, doesn’t necessarily mean the kind of challenge you’re thinking of.

After all, they ended up nerfing Orr. Thinned out mobs and made other changes to make it more friendly. So if they intended it to be that hard, they later changed their minds.

By now you have to have realized that nerfing and simplifying the parts of the game that were intended to be hard didn’t help the game in the least.

Vayne.8563:

After all, they ended up nerfing Orr. Thinned out mobs and made other changes to make it more friendly. So if they intended it to be that hard, they later changed their minds.

They actually ended up buffing Orr. They nerfed it at first to make it easier to walk around, but they later added new, far stronger attacks to counter the zerg. I solo’d the temples back then, which was far easier pre-buff, and remember doing it in front of groups because they thought 10+ was required, which is still a problem today. Orr is far easier today however due to vertical progression.

Vayne.8563:

Dungeons are nothing like raids in reality, no matter what was said. And again, challenge to developers is often very different from challenges to players.

Yes but for a limited time they were. Dungeons weren’t this all inclusive content that we know now and for some time the dungeons of Guild Wars 2 were considered some of the hardest dungeons in an mmorpg.

You are right about the challenge to the developers being different than the challenge to the players. The pace of community improvement surprised the raid developers who said they didn’t expect the community to get so good so quickly.
In a very similar situation they added the Ascended gear tier because they didn’t expect the community to get so fast at acquiring Exotic gear.

OniGiri.9461:

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

This never meant that those two things were supposed to fulfill exactly the same role.

They said that explorable dungeons and the temples of Orr would be this game’s Raids. They were supposed to be the hard and challenging content that we were used to from other games. And for a couple of months they were, while the game was new and we (as a community) didn’t know how to play.

Example:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1185945-Dungeons-Explorer-Mode-

Nah, the “mass exodus” was just the content locust leaving. This happened to every MMO game for the past many years. Those people would have left anyway.

Not really. If there was interesting end-game at release a lot of them wouldn’t leave. You can easily verify this by the amount of players who left GW2 after the first few months and now they are coming back because of Raids. These players would’ve never left the game if Raids were in the game at release, or their “Version of Raids” was what was advertised and expected.

They also said you wouldn’t need a dedicated healer. They’ve said lots of things. Some of those things have come to pass and others haven’t.

People don’t care about what’s said, so much as what they experience. If I say I’m not going to hurt someone and I poke him in the eye, he’s not going to trust me the next time, no matter what I say.

Dungeons are nothing like raids in reality, no matter what was said. And again, challenge to developers is often very different from challenges to players.

Developers have very little time to test and play their own game compared to players. They don’t have the benefit of dulfy or youtube starting out. They don’t have a million people trying something to find the easy way.

So of course, dev-challenge, doesn’t necessarily mean the kind of challenge you’re thinking of.

After all, they ended up nerfing Orr. Thinned out mobs and made other changes to make it more friendly. So if they intended it to be that hard, they later changed their minds.

By now you have to have realized that nerfing and simplifying the parts of the game that were intended to be hard didn’t help the game in the least.

Why would I realize that? How can it even be proven, one way or another.

I certainly thing the changes made to the open world HOT zones were an improvement.

Ayrilana.1396:

Balthazzarr.1349:

Obtena.7952:

I find this thread very odd … I can’t understand how it appears like the OP associated the evolution of the game with it losing it’s identity, implying that having a game that evolves is a bad thing? Perhaps I haven’t played enough MMO’s but … I’ve yet to play an MMO where the devs don’t tries to change a bit to keep the game interesting to it’s veteran players.

Sure, Anet has made some errors during this evolution but I don’t think this is very relevant; any expectation that Anet just scores homeruns is unreasonable. I wouldn’t want to waste a single minute in a game where a developer would just pump out the same old, just to maintain game identity. Frankly, I think the whole idea that a game’s identity is the sum of it’s content and lore is wrong; it’s identity is how the dev team implements the game and interacts with players.

I think that a lot of angst, (although it’s not mentioned much in these forums), is that this game is called: Guild Wars 2

Where are the guild wars? The WvW in gw2 is Server Wars, it’s certainly not Guild Wars. There really isn’t any incentive to have guilds battle although you see guild groups roaming around looking for fights here and there.

This is what makes me “chuckle”. I play a game called “Guild Wars” (2), and it’s a name that doesn’t represent what you do in this game in any way that I can see.

My understanding of the original guild wars was that you had actual guild alliances (I don’t know how they worked since I didn’t play it), and I assume guild battles? GW2 moved away from those things, although they did bring back the guild halls finally.

This game has LOTS of variety between mapping, story, bosses, raids, pvp, wvw… Enough to keep people busy for ages. But to me I don’t see what it has to do with guild wars.

1) This really has nothing to do with the thread nor many of the complaints.
2) The title is not based on actual player guilds fighting with each other.

1. The complaints/comments in this thread are all over the map.

1. That might be true but that’s not what the title implies. The subject of this thread is “Did GW2 lose its identity”. If it’s identity wasn’t for guilds to be at war based on the name of the game alone then tell us what the identity of guild wars was supposed to be. Telling me what is ‘not’ doesn’t help me or anyone understand what ‘is’.

Balthazzarr.1349:

Ayrilana.1396:

Balthazzarr.1349:

Obtena.7952:

I find this thread very odd … I can’t understand how it appears like the OP associated the evolution of the game with it losing it’s identity, implying that having a game that evolves is a bad thing? Perhaps I haven’t played enough MMO’s but … I’ve yet to play an MMO where the devs don’t tries to change a bit to keep the game interesting to it’s veteran players.

Sure, Anet has made some errors during this evolution but I don’t think this is very relevant; any expectation that Anet just scores homeruns is unreasonable. I wouldn’t want to waste a single minute in a game where a developer would just pump out the same old, just to maintain game identity. Frankly, I think the whole idea that a game’s identity is the sum of it’s content and lore is wrong; it’s identity is how the dev team implements the game and interacts with players.

I think that a lot of angst, (although it’s not mentioned much in these forums), is that this game is called: Guild Wars 2

Where are the guild wars? The WvW in gw2 is Server Wars, it’s certainly not Guild Wars. There really isn’t any incentive to have guilds battle although you see guild groups roaming around looking for fights here and there.

This is what makes me “chuckle”. I play a game called “Guild Wars” (2), and it’s a name that doesn’t represent what you do in this game in any way that I can see.

My understanding of the original guild wars was that you had actual guild alliances (I don’t know how they worked since I didn’t play it), and I assume guild battles? GW2 moved away from those things, although they did bring back the guild halls finally.

This game has LOTS of variety between mapping, story, bosses, raids, pvp, wvw… Enough to keep people busy for ages. But to me I don’t see what it has to do with guild wars.

1) This really has nothing to do with the thread nor many of the complaints.
2) The title is not based on actual player guilds fighting with each other.

1. The complaints/comments in this thread are all over the map.

1. That might be true but that’s not what the title implies. The subject of this thread is “Did GW2 lose its identity”. If it’s identity wasn’t for guilds to be at war based on the name of the game alone then tell us what the identity of guild wars was supposed to be. Telling me what is ‘not’ doesn’t help me or anyone understand what ‘is’.

Not having a common ground on what the identity of gw2 is/was is the reason why this thread is now eleven pages long. Different people interpret the games identity differently – which would be fine. The conflict begins where some people demand reverting something (that others again don’t want to be reverted) to restore an lost identity (which again only a subset of the people agree on)

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

Dungeons are nothing like raids in reality, no matter what was said. And again, challenge to developers is often very different from challenges to players.

Yes but for a limited time they were.

Only because people weren’t fully geared and levelled up yet. Try to run dungeons with a pug of level 40 players in blues and greens, and they won’t be all that easy even now.

Balthazzarr.1349:

Ayrilana.1396:

Balthazzarr.1349:

Obtena.7952:

I find this thread very odd … I can’t understand how it appears like the OP associated the evolution of the game with it losing it’s identity, implying that having a game that evolves is a bad thing? Perhaps I haven’t played enough MMO’s but … I’ve yet to play an MMO where the devs don’t tries to change a bit to keep the game interesting to it’s veteran players.

Sure, Anet has made some errors during this evolution but I don’t think this is very relevant; any expectation that Anet just scores homeruns is unreasonable. I wouldn’t want to waste a single minute in a game where a developer would just pump out the same old, just to maintain game identity. Frankly, I think the whole idea that a game’s identity is the sum of it’s content and lore is wrong; it’s identity is how the dev team implements the game and interacts with players.

I think that a lot of angst, (although it’s not mentioned much in these forums), is that this game is called: Guild Wars 2

Where are the guild wars? The WvW in gw2 is Server Wars, it’s certainly not Guild Wars. There really isn’t any incentive to have guilds battle although you see guild groups roaming around looking for fights here and there.

This is what makes me “chuckle”. I play a game called “Guild Wars” (2), and it’s a name that doesn’t represent what you do in this game in any way that I can see.

My understanding of the original guild wars was that you had actual guild alliances (I don’t know how they worked since I didn’t play it), and I assume guild battles? GW2 moved away from those things, although they did bring back the guild halls finally.

This game has LOTS of variety between mapping, story, bosses, raids, pvp, wvw… Enough to keep people busy for ages. But to me I don’t see what it has to do with guild wars.

1) This really has nothing to do with the thread nor many of the complaints.
2) The title is not based on actual player guilds fighting with each other.

1. The complaints/comments in this thread are all over the map.

1. That might be true but that’s not what the title implies. The subject of this thread is “Did GW2 lose its identity”. If it’s identity wasn’t for guilds to be at war based on the name of the game alone then tell us what the identity of guild wars was supposed to be. Telling me what is ‘not’ doesn’t help me or anyone understand what ‘is’.

This thread is pretty much another raids complaint thread in a thinly veiled disguise. Your post about the title being “misleading” really has nothing to do with this thread. Read the linked thread(s) if you want answers to those questions.

Ayrilana.1396:

This thread is pretty much another raids complaint thread in a thinly veiled disguise. Your post about the title being “misleading” really has nothing to do with this thread. Read the linked thread(s) if you want answers to those questions.

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. I personally haven’t been around long enough to know what the game looked like at launch, but the things I hear about the “old” GW2 seem remarkably similar to what I hear about the current game.

I pug 8 to 16 dungeon paths daily for 1 or 2 frequenter pops. I do it mostly as a place to practice some of my more group-oriented rotations in a setting slightly less meaningless than an open-world mob (as in I can actually observe if a specific party member is too far to get a certain buff, etc).

In those 8 to 16 paths, I’d say a solid majority (at least 3 out of 5 players in the party) either

(1) proudly run some sort of non-meta build and insist on letting everyone know, or
(2) are brand new and have no clue how to read tooltips, and their “build” is just a hodgepodge mess of abilities and non-synergetic traits.

Most of the players in category (1) seem to be seasoned vets, or at least are committed enough to the game to be sick of the meta concepts. I actually add many players of type (2) to my friends list, and surprisingly many stick around and make it to be solidly experienced players.

This makes me assume that for the vast majority of content, people are still doing whatever the hell they want, using whatever weapons they want, and doing fine.

This, to me, is what GW2 was. I don’t think that’s changed. I’m frankly amazed at the effort some posters seem to put forth in casting raiding as a threat to this. To me, it just sounds like “raids are too hard for me, and I don’t like that such a thing exists in my favorite game.”

Sylent.3165:

I used to love this game with a passion up until hot release. The game went a completely different direction some loved some hated. Truth is we just need to wait for next expansion and see what we get. I just hope they stop wasting time on raids for such a small player base. Anyone who actually plays this game for raids is simply wrong because if you like raids you should be playing WoW or ff14. We need better content for people who left those games or don’t play those games to not have the companies dedication going three

Exactly what I’ve been saying for a long time. Need something unique to gw2. Not crap that’s been taken from other mmo’s. If i wanted to raid or w/e I’d go play wow or some other grind game. The only thing gw2 has going for it that no other mmo had is WvW. and anet is completely ignoring wvw now and other games are coming up with the same thing. all its going ot take is a game to come out with something completely unique and gw2 is dead.

voltaicbore.8012:

This, to me, is what GW2 was. I don’t think that’s changed. I’m frankly amazed at the effort some posters seem to put forth in casting raiding as a threat to this. To me, it just sounds like “raids are too hard for me, and I don’t like that such a thing exists in my favorite game.”

Nah. I don’t imagine raids are all that “hard”. Just coordinated. And even then, the hardest part of that is getting a group of 10 people together who aren’t going to be kittenfaces to each other. No one wants to meet in the middle.

The “200+li arcdps or kick” group is so sick of grinding raids that they just want their loot, as fast as possible. For them, there’s no room for a minute’s delay within the raid, even though they’ll wait an extra 15 for someone who fits their elitist description. They no longer want to explain fights, entitled to the belief that YouTube should be everyone’s mentor, instead of having a copy-paste set of instructions that could easily be used. That’s not the GW2 most of us know.

On the other side, there are some very ardent soloists who insist on doing things in an environment that may not be suited for them, because it’s different from the rest of the GW2 experience. They’re not really prepared to break out of the trappings of their build (nevermind that gear sets are expensive) or their playstyles, and they may not realize that their performance can threaten the success of a group endeavor. They might be able to break out, if someone guides them, but there are too many people in that salt-filled valley that they don’t really get the chance.

Granted, that’s just a looming, shadowy thing coming from a corner of the game. It’s usually not a big deal. And it’s not the only way that GW2 seems to have changed over the years, whether that’s desired or not.

Rauderi.8706:

The “200+li arcdps or kick” group is so sick of grinding raids that they just want their loot, as fast as possible. For them, there’s no room for a minute’s delay within the raid, even though they’ll wait an extra 15 for someone who fits their elitist description. They no longer want to explain fights, entitled to the belief that YouTube should be everyone’s mentor, instead of having a copy-paste set of instructions that could easily be used. That’s not the GW2 most of us know.

You must not have ever been in WvW. metabattle.com is the worst thing to happen to this game besides the implementation of overpowered conditions and the removal of a skill based game.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

Dungeons are nothing like raids in reality, no matter what was said. And again, challenge to developers is often very different from challenges to players.

Yes but for a limited time they were.

Only because people weren’t fully geared and levelled up yet. Try to run dungeons with a pug of level 40 players in blues and greens, and they won’t be all that easy even now.

That’s not true at all. If that “pug” level 40 player is someone with experience (has other level 80 characters) then it’s still very easy to run the dungeons. Dungeon running is purely about having experience to run them, once you know what to do and how to play the game you can run them without issues on next characters regardless of your gear. If they are fresh level 40s then yes it will be hard even now.

Yet when Fractals were released in November they were still hard for a great deal of players. Posts about nerfing dungeons, adding easy mode for dungeons didn’t stop appearing and players had more than enough time to gear up and get to level 80. Gear and level is irrelevant here.

You can also see it very clearly in Raids now. With the best gear, build or team composition teams struggle and many of them can’t beat the Raid. Yet some of the teams get better and better and once they get enough experience, without changing anything in their build or composition, they faceroll the Raid encounters.

Given enough time, lots of players will be able to clear the Raids

Nocturnal Lunacy.8563:

Rauderi.8706:

The “200+li arcdps or kick” group is so sick of grinding raids that they just want their loot, as fast as possible. For them, there’s no room for a minute’s delay within the raid, even though they’ll wait an extra 15 for someone who fits their elitist description. They no longer want to explain fights, entitled to the belief that YouTube should be everyone’s mentor, instead of having a copy-paste set of instructions that could easily be used. That’s not the GW2 most of us know.

You must not have ever been in WvW. metabattle.com is the worst thing to happen to this game besides the implementation of overpowered conditions and the removal of a skill based game.

I have been. It just bores me. 90% walking, 10% action that almost never happens.
Hiding the Gift of Battle behind the Walk v Walk reward track was a horrid decision that I will spite until the servers shut down.

Which just adds to my perception of GW2’s identity struggle. WvW is in such a desperate state (and given DAoC as a case study, it was destined to be), they had to force participation for rewards.

At release, and for a good time after, participation was required to get the gift. Unless, of course, you just farmed the jumping puzzles.

Ayrilana.1396:

At release, and for a good time after, participation was required to get the gift. Unless, of course, you just farmed the jumping puzzles.

I got a Gift of Battle bought from medals mostly from Achievement Chests,

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Ayrilana.1396:

At release, and for a good time after, participation was required to get the gift. Unless, of course, you just farmed the jumping puzzles.

I got a Gift of Battle bought from medals mostly from Achievement Chests,

Which happened a good time after release (around July 2013).

Ayrilana.1396:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Ayrilana.1396:

At release, and for a good time after, participation was required to get the gift. Unless, of course, you just farmed the jumping puzzles.

I got a Gift of Battle bought from medals mostly from Achievement Chests,

Which happened a good time after release (around July 2013).

But there was that blissful period in between, 2013-2016, most of the game’s life, where Gift of Battle was available for badges. There were some moving goalposts, settled at Rank 14, which was easy to get.

Now? Eh, I have no desire to go through that track the first time, let alone the 4+ times I’ll need for the legendaries I’m targeting. 40 track levels is a long time to spend bored.

Ayrilana.1396:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Ayrilana.1396:

At release, and for a good time after, participation was required to get the gift. Unless, of course, you just farmed the jumping puzzles.

I got a Gift of Battle bought from medals mostly from Achievement Chests,

Which happened a good time after release (around July 2013).

Yep, it was after launch and it was a good time after launch and it didn’t require me to participate in WvW. I did some, mapping mostly.

Vayne.8563:

Obtena.7952:

Hey call it whatever … it’s change. People might not appreciate the fact that games that don’t change enter ‘maintenance’ mode VERY quickly.

Change is neither good nor bad. But saying a game changes and that’s okay doesn’t work if people don’t get behind the change. Games have survived because of change and games have been killed by change. Change is not necessarily a good thing.

Saying games that don’t change eventually are going to die is probably true. Which doesn’t mean that the wrong changes won’t kill a game even faster. Ask the people who played Star Wars Galaxies about how change affected that game.

Sure, some change is good and sure Anet has made some good changes. But Anet also tends to make a lot of changes that aren’t well received.

Nerfing the dungeon rewards was a change. I don’t think it helped this game at all…even if they were later fixed.

It’s not my intent to argue on the merits of specific changes. I’m simply saying that the identity of a game isn’t the level of success of it’s content; it’s the way that the dev approach the game as a living and evolving thing. So far, for my money, Anet has been pretty consistent in their approach and rather open to adjustments when they screw up. THAT’S what I identify to this game. Anyone that is associating content and lore to the identity of the game is making a very shallow assessment.

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Ayrilana.1396:

At release, and for a good time after, participation was required to get the gift. Unless, of course, you just farmed the jumping puzzles.

I got a Gift of Battle bought from medals mostly from Achievement Chests,

Which happened a good time after release (around July 2013).

But there was that blissful period in between, 2013-2016, most of the game’s life, where Gift of Battle was available for badges. There were some moving goalposts, settled at Rank 14, which was easy to get.

Now? Eh, I have no desire to go through that track the first time, let alone the 4+ times I’ll need for the legendaries I’m targeting. 40 track levels is a long time to spend bored.

Doesn’t matter as my entire point was that the game started off with requiring WvW in order to get badges. The game “changed its identity” when it included them with achievements chests and then went back to its “original identity” with the reward track.

Obtena.7952:

Vayne.8563:

Obtena.7952:

Hey call it whatever … it’s change. People might not appreciate the fact that games that don’t change enter ‘maintenance’ mode VERY quickly.

Change is neither good nor bad. But saying a game changes and that’s okay doesn’t work if people don’t get behind the change. Games have survived because of change and games have been killed by change. Change is not necessarily a good thing.

Saying games that don’t change eventually are going to die is probably true. Which doesn’t mean that the wrong changes won’t kill a game even faster. Ask the people who played Star Wars Galaxies about how change affected that game.

Sure, some change is good and sure Anet has made some good changes. But Anet also tends to make a lot of changes that aren’t well received.

Nerfing the dungeon rewards was a change. I don’t think it helped this game at all…even if they were later fixed.

It’s not my intent to argue on the merits of specific changes. I’m simply saying that the identity of a game isn’t the level of success of it’s content; it’s the way that the dev approach the game as a living and evolving thing. So far, for my money, Anet has been pretty consistent in their approach and rather open to adjustments when they screw up. THAT’S what I identify to this game. Anyone that is associating content and lore to the identity of the game is making a very shallow assessment.

I couldn’t disagree with this statement more. For one thing the very idea of “the devs” is something that doesn’t really exist. Because there are 300 or so devs and I’m pretty sure they don’t have the same goals or the same ideas all the time. And some key devs have left and they’ve been replaced by other devs.

For a long time, we were told that the game would have few new zones because they were scared of dividing the community. Now they’re adding a new zone every single living story episode. The point is if the devs adapt and continue to adapt and you’re basing your sense of the games identity on that, and what they say changes, then you’re basing the games identity on 1. Your understanding of what the devs want for the game (which is half advertising and half just people talking about what they want) and 2. The random chance that something will or won’t work out. That actually gives the game no identity and no identity for a game is pretty dangerous.

The same is true for books in publishing, which is my area of expertise. Authors that tend to sell best are the ones who repeat the same stuff over and over to gain an audience. People like Robert Ludlum wrote essentially the same type of book again and again, with very very few exceptions. Danielle Steele wrote the same books. It’s easier to market and you’re keeping an audience you know who likes what you’re doing. That’s the very essence of an identity.

Very often authors writing something different or in another genre would write under a different name. I’ve done it myself.

It’s not shallow to base your concept of an identity on something like the manifesto if the manifesto in fact “called to you”. That’s what drew you to the game and when you get into the game, that’s what you’re going to look for. That’s why so many people who interpreted the manifesto one way felt that the game didn’t live up to those expectations. I had a different view of the manifesto and based on that and what was said around those times, I wasn’t disappointed by the product, but my sense of the game’s identity came from what essentially a piece of advertising. Playing backed that up, but in all likelihood, it was a case of confirmation bias. I saw what I expected to see, because there was little enough that didn’t fit into my spectrum of acceptability for what matched what I wanted.

That’s slowly changing. What I like and I enjoy happens less and what I don’t like and enjoy happens more. In that sense, I don’t feel my understanding of the game’s identity is shallow. I think it’s realistic.

Did GW2 lose it’s identity?
Absolutely not. This is just my opinion but GW2 has always appealed to me because of its
identity. It’s identity is that is an ever changing, growing and evolving living world.
The game would not be what it is today if it just stayed the same as it was 5 years ago.

The fact that things change whether good or bad keeps things fresh and interesting.
Arena Net can’t please everyone with every update but it seems they sure do try.

Esquilax.3491:

I raided for years in another game when I was younger and had the time and energy for it. It got old…

Then I found GW2, which sadly became infected with raids after HoT.

I get it, it’s fun to be part of the exclusive club. But the rest of the community who doesn’t join it because they aren’t good enough, don’t have the time or just plain don’t want to, that part of the community feel left out.

No matter which way they try to spin it, they are using dev resources on these raids that could be spent in other areas of the game that a larger percentage of the game population can experience and enjoy. It’s wasted resources in our eyes.

I can let this slide and try to ignore raids as they currently stand, because they don’t really provide anything provocatively rewarding. But legendary armor is where I draw the line. That is flat out spitting in the face of every person who doesn’t enjoy raiding, I consider it being a personal insult to the non raiding community “haha, this is the fanciest armor in the game, and you will never have it!”.

The moment when I am standing in a city and see a player fully clad in the most intricately crafted, fantastic armor the devs have ever created and knowing it is gated behind RAIDS, this is probably where I’ll uninstall the game.

Could you please refrain yourself from speaking as the spokesman of the casual community. I am casual, I have no interest in raiding and yet I see no harm in it. Having played the original guild wars, legendary armor being gated behind raids is to me the same as fow armor gated behavior fow. It is there, you can get your group to complete the content multiple times and yet you will never feel compelled to do so. The game mode provides a fancy armor skin and yet you can’t say that everyone will want to get it because “fancy” is such a highly subjective word. Really I see no harm in it because stat swap is such a very optional feature. In the same way I don’t have a legendary backpiece because I just don’t enjoy fractals or PvP that much.

Esquilax.3491:

I raided for years in another game when I was younger and had the time and energy for it. It got old…

Then I found GW2, which sadly became infected with raids after HoT.

I get it, it’s fun to be part of the exclusive club. But the rest of the community who doesn’t join it because they aren’t good enough, don’t have the time or just plain don’t want to, that part of the community feel left out.

No matter which way they try to spin it, they are using dev resources on these raids that could be spent in other areas of the game that a larger percentage of the game population can experience and enjoy. It’s wasted resources in our eyes.

I can let this slide and try to ignore raids as they currently stand, because they don’t really provide anything provocatively rewarding. But legendary armor is where I draw the line. That is flat out spitting in the face of every person who doesn’t enjoy raiding, I consider it being a personal insult to the non raiding community “haha, this is the fanciest armor in the game, and you will never have it!”.

The moment when I am standing in a city and see a player fully clad in the most intricately crafted, fantastic armor the devs have ever created and knowing it is gated behind RAIDS, this is probably where I’ll uninstall the game.

And what about WvW and sPvP players that absolutly hate open world? You are also part of an exclusive club with all legendary weapons with and after HoT.
But those things only matter if you are excluded from something, the rest doesn’t matter…

Miellyn.6847:

Esquilax.3491:

I raided for years in another game when I was younger and had the time and energy for it. It got old…

Then I found GW2, which sadly became infected with raids after HoT.

I get it, it’s fun to be part of the exclusive club. But the rest of the community who doesn’t join it because they aren’t good enough, don’t have the time or just plain don’t want to, that part of the community feel left out.

No matter which way they try to spin it, they are using dev resources on these raids that could be spent in other areas of the game that a larger percentage of the game population can experience and enjoy. It’s wasted resources in our eyes.

I can let this slide and try to ignore raids as they currently stand, because they don’t really provide anything provocatively rewarding. But legendary armor is where I draw the line. That is flat out spitting in the face of every person who doesn’t enjoy raiding, I consider it being a personal insult to the non raiding community “haha, this is the fanciest armor in the game, and you will never have it!”.

The moment when I am standing in a city and see a player fully clad in the most intricately crafted, fantastic armor the devs have ever created and knowing it is gated behind RAIDS, this is probably where I’ll uninstall the game.

And what about WvW and sPvP players that absolutly hate open world? You are also part of an exclusive club with all legendary weapons with and after HoT.
But those things only matter if you are excluded from something, the rest doesn’t matter…

Exactly this, there was always exclusive stuff. But seems the moment some people want something and cant get it the way they want to get it , its a game problem. Talk about entitlement.

Esquilax.3491:

legendary armor is where I draw the line. That is flat out spitting in the face of every person who doesn’t enjoy raiding, I consider it being a personal insult to the non raiding community “haha, this is the fanciest armor in the game, and you will never have it!”

Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is how gaming works. Raid loot is always much better than anything else and it should be. People dedicate a lot of time and effort to raiding and they should be rewarded for that.

There are many game rewards in GW2 that I will never get. Any Holiday JP rewards, PvP rewards, SAB rewards, etc.

I am fine with not getting rewards for activities I am not good at and that I don’t want to grind to become good at.

jihm.2315:

i will never have a bifrost my self cause i dont have the spine to craft it that means arena net should give it to me for free?

If you are truly trying to make a good argument for your side, why ruin it by making a statement like this? No one is asking for anything for free.

Djinn.9245:

jihm.2315:

i will never have a bifrost my self cause i dont have the spine to craft it that means arena net should give it to me for free?

If you are truly trying to make a good argument for your side, why throw it in the garbage by making a statement like this? No one is asking for anything for free.

they want the rewards of raiders without raiding its like me wanting bifrost without crafting it

and tell me what gear advantage raiders have over the ones that dont do raids ascended is the best gear in the game and everyone can have it

GW2’s “identity” was always a mixed bag. AT first they did a pretty good job of keeping the most important aspect of GW1 which was being able to play and have fun without the ugly grind most mmo’s have. But the loss of the trinity wasn’t done well imo.

GW2’s story was never as engaging as GW1’s. GW2’s story is long winded and tedious. The boring cut scenes are an invitation to just skip it. I looked forward to GW1’s cut scenes and story.

The search for skills in GW1 was a great way to pass the time. While in GW2 it’s all handed to you and there isn’t any variation or experimentation in skill sets.

And HoT was a disaster. I loved the zones and flying, but they introduced a grind that is mind numbingly boring. I don’t raid in GW2 so don’t really have any opinion on it other than it’s optional and that is a good thing.

GW2 did a lot very well and I played it a ton over the years. So it’s a success. But I always felt GW1 was a better game (before they nerfed the difficulty). And HoT killed a lot of early GW2’s fun factor.

I do too believe this game lost its identity. They should sit down and think about what they want with this game.

There are some core issues Ive noticed over the year this game has, comparing to others.

1. Duelling in PvE. This is the only MMO which doesn’t have duel option. There is no reason not to implement it. Its been beaten to death over many topics already and there are only excuses not to implement it.

2. WvW maps are far too gigantic. This mode is failure for high tier servers. In WoW, Ashran is really small which makes it great. You don’t need 2 hours to roam the map to find opponents. They are waiting you 10 seconds away from base.
Make maps 3-4 times smaller and something might change.

3. Bug fixing. Just look at revenant. 1 year later and nothing has been fixed. I wanted to main it for far too long, but I cant as it feels like in early alpha.

4. Lack of stability. Makers of this game are rushing to bring out new content without previously stabilising old one. Good examples are racial skills and build trees. Revenants state confirms this boldly. Why not firstly take your time to reflect at what you want with classes? Their kit shouldn’t be changed, but rather expanded. What you guys do is expanding something that is not previously stable and polished.

5. Build templates. This could be considered under 4, but its been asked for so long that its issue itself! For unknown reason, developers keep refusing to bring us this feature, which is considered as essential in most modern MMOs.

6. Maps. I strongly believe PvE maps should be released with each expansions and not otherwise. Main focus in between expansions should be PvP maps and PvP modes.
I kinda want to see many PvP maps available, which keeps people entertained faaar longer. Skills can be polished and stabilised alongside PvP map releases, which is great organisation imo.

Their financial reports are showing this to be correct. And I think I am very realistic because Im huge gamer myself and hopefully game dev soon. And yes, I really love this game, but I can’t bring myself to play it in this state.

I am still taking a look occasionally in hope things will change, especially now that Colins gone.

I sincerely hope devs can take something out of this from the heart and make the the game better

^Sounds like you want to change Guild Wars 2’s identity.

I can’t really agree to some of the content you want added. Remember, one player’s ‘better’ is another player’s worse.

Good luck.

Djinn.9245:

Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is how gaming works. Raid loot is always much better than anything else and it should be. People dedicate a lot of time and effort to raiding and they should be rewarded for that.

So, at first people were asking for challenging content and rewards to show off. Now there is “I’m entitled not for just exclusive, but for the best rewards because I’m doing content I asked for”. And then some people are wondering why raid community have such reputation.

GW2 never had an identity since they pretty much dumped the idea of guild wars and made a game that has nothing to do with guild wars, i am surprised you never noticed.

sorudo.9054:

GW2 never had an identity since they pretty much dumped the idea of guild wars and made a game that has nothing to do with guild wars, i am surprised you never noticed.

Maybe because the title wasn’t based on player guilds fighting each other? People keep claiming otherwise and yet I’m unable to find anything that supports their claim but have found sources from a year before launch that despite’s those claims. How could GW1 (and GW2) not have an identity because they lack something that never existed and never were?