Guild Wars 2

Well, it didn’t take these forums long to suffer from, “WoW syndrome”, where the game is ruined forever and that the end times have come, only for everyone to completely forget about the issue and move onto something else to complain about.

TommyProvolone.3715:

Well, it didn’t take these forums long to suffer from, “WoW syndrome”, where the game is ruined forever and that the end times have come, only for everyone to completely forget about the issue and move onto something else to complain about.

Or, I don’t know, it might not be the same people complaining about something new, but new people complaining about something new. At some point people that have issues with a certain feature will simply move on and let whatever company they have issues with to simply go down the drain until they are no more.

Anet delivered a somewhat flawed product in relation to their Manifesto. For instance, the “all the game is the endgame” concept was weakly implemented as escalation still trivialized the low level content – I think they made a fatal mistake in this sense when they nerfed the difficulty in the Betas. In essence, we were promised a persistent open world with free-form progression where Prestige was to be the indicator to measure a player’s stature – which I think is possibly the most realistic way to indicate a player’s talent in a MMORPG, as “it’s not the sword you wield but the hand that wields it”. By the way it was marketed I was expecting a sort of combination between the sandbox and themepark styles.

The saddest thing is they had million of possibilities to build upon the “prestige based” concept, ie:

- More elaborated skins, would especial effects (fire, lighting, poison…) and rare combination of stats
- Improve on escalation (challenging combat in low level areas, especial skins for Champs, low level mats required for top lvl items…)
- Extension of current DEs, arcs and sagas quests in the open world.
- Titles, hall of heroes, statuettes of the top players in cities, special decorations once housing was implemented…Basically: mechanics to make the top players famous in the world.
- Skill based progression (i.e. the combination of some skills produce more powerful effects), more abilities that would would unlock for every weapon depending on how much you use them…

My idea was to give them time to improve on the flaws, with the hope that someday the current game would be aligned with the points stated in their Manifesto. But no…

Instead, they cater to a public the game wasn’t directed to in the first place – a public which is composed of unimaginative power creeps that think WoW is the standard MMORPGs should follow and whose impulse to play is not far too different from a junkie looking for his next fix; Skinner’s Box and, consequently, tunneled content in its maximum expression. Basically, now all the open world concept and escalation are going be trivialized, officially killing the “all the game is endgame concept”.

This is what happens when you introduce “stats addition based progression”: the persistent, open world game turns into a linear arcade. Then, it implies a change from a “I want to” mentality to a “I need to” one. Also, there is not such progression in the “stats addition based” paradigm, it’s all an illusion, smoke and mirrors. This video by “Extra Credits” explaining the fatal consequences of “power creep” implementation is a must and hasn’t been posted enough:

So, no need to say I’m done with this game. Not gonna ask for a refund as I enjoyed it for 3 months, just uninstalled it and stop playing. No need to say I won’t support ANet/NCSoft/Nexon in any way, shape or form.

For now on, my course of action is going to be to avoid linear themeparks like the pest. I look forward to World of Darkness, Arche-Age, The Re-Population and Everquest Next, they look to retake some of the complexity, free-form progression and “virtual world concept” of classics like UO and SWG. By the way, I have activated my UO online account – prefer to play a 15 year old game with realistic, freeform progression and complex mechanics than a dumbed-down, linear new MMORPG.

Just to finish, I’m gonna wear the tin-foil hat on this one: I have the suspicion that ANet is not running the show any more, my guess is that this change has been directed from the suits at NCSoft or Nexon. Wouldn’t be a surprise if there had been a lot of frustrated screaming behind the curtains this last week. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we saw Colin Johanson or Mike O’Brien leaving the company in less than 3 months from now. Their silence, the way this has been communicated and some “eastern eggs” are quite eloquent in this regard…

((Edit: Typos))

There is no real reason to “quit” since you’re not paying a sub.

I have lost a lot of interest since “buying in” back in presale/beta days. I’m not happy with the course ANet has taken that’s gone against a lot of their early design promises and intent and agree with a lot of the other criticisms going around about how GW2 is lacking.

I’ve always been a big supporter of this game and got 10-15 people to play it back then, more than half of whom have already lost interest for various reasons. I’m not a blind fanboi though and IMO ANet deserves a fair amount of criticism for many things along with praise for many other things that are GOOD about the game.

Things change and they will. That is the only constant whether it may be by intent or forced by circumstances.

Just check back in from time to time and see how it develops. At current moment, it is cost-free to come back if you shall decide to leave this game for ‘greener pasture’. No need to uninstall (unless you need the HDD space), throw away your registration code or resell your game because you may like this game in future when it changes ‘for the better’. You may never know. Nobody knows.

I’m not “quitting” GW2, but I am going to play it less. While I don’t agree with the direction of ascended gear what has really made me reduce my play time is the bugs and lack of quality systems. Despite their claims the devs just don’t seem to value their players time. Since launch I’ve been playing with the thought “It’ll get better, this is just the beginning” but I’ve come to the realization that I don’t have to play this game while waiting for it to get better. I can just come back when it does.

So I’m keeping my foot in the door so to speak, and just waiting for the devs to address class balance, bugs, events, and adding new features like a dungeon finder.

u mad about a game.

TSLlol.4879:

This has been the breaking point for me too.

I can tolerate most of the things OP posted but the breaking point for me is this:

-Luck gets rewarded, not effort

I’ve spent most of my play time (800 hours from headstart to today. also played betas.) on trying to make a profit so I can afford to forge the Dreamer. I just wanna shoot rainbows that’s all. I’ve made 100g during that time with a lot of effort. (I still don’t have the precursor) Now random people who spent even less than half of my playtime get rewarded double the money that I’ve worked up from headstart ’till today just for participating in a 2 hour long event, while I got 2.5g for the same event. Yeh. Thanks but no thanks.

And this isn’t just about todays event. That was just the breaking point for me. It’s been like this all along, I just was able to tolerate it up till now. How could you make a fortune? Get lucky with a precursor drop or get it reforged from the MF, or find an exploit and abuse it. (side note: I’ve reforged 216 exotic shortbows. nothing.) … or be a mastermind on economy I guess.

One thing an engaging game will always have is reward for playing it. I’ve never had an omg, wow moment with anything in the game so far and I have over 500 hours. With that much time played I realize only how much is placed out of the players reach. The addition of vertical gear progression just makes it worse as it is a grind that dwarfs WoW’s grind. Heck, I can’t even grind out the common stuff now. If it weren’t for the gem store I wouldn’t have anything for my time in-game. A game has to reward a player for playing it. If that doesn’t happen, players will simply leave.