Guild Wars 2

Harper.4173:

Vayne.8563:

You know what? You explaining it more simply does nothing but prove my point.

You buy a car. You like it. Years later the same manufacturer comes out with another car, and you see one commerical and buy it without doing research?

There’s a list of things different about this game from Guild Wars 1, and almost every single one of them has been known before launch.

Before launch I knew there’d be no Guild vs Guild. Before launch I knew there’s be one structured PvP type. Before launch I knew there’d be no heroes. I knew the level cap would be higher. I knew that there would be less skills and they’d be tied to weapons.

So again, if you bought this game and didn’t pay attention to what was actually said, simply because you had faith in the developer, that’s your own problem.

I played Guild Wars 1 as well, knew pretty much what I was getting into and so I’m satisfied with what I got. Because I listened to what was said. I knew it wasn’t going to be the same game. It logically couldn’t.

The only real issue that I see, and it’s a big one, is the ascended items debacle, which people couldn’t have known. At that time, Anet gave refunds to people who were playing the game for months, which they didn’t have to do. People who didn’t like that change were entitled to get a refund.

Many chose to stay and complain instead of getting a refund. That’s not Anet’s fault either. I don’t like ascended gear, but I sure understand why Anet felt they had to put it in.

You make a good point but let me make one too.

I expected the company that allowed us to respec skills and skill points in any city to give us easy trait respect and trait templates on launch.

I expected a LFG tool to be here at launch ( given that the lack of one was often brought up in GW1).

I expected the process of getting a legendary to actually mean something other than getting money and buying the stuff.

I expected the story quality to be at least somewhat similar to GW1.

I expected Guild “last online” feature to be there at launch.

He made a good point, and you made a good point too.

The point is this – a lot of us are disappointed because the “new car” – while advertised as new – was never advertised to have certain features from the “old car” missing.
So one might wonder why they didn’t put these features in the “second car” to begin with considering they knew about them and had used them before.

Well, you know that is a good point. The problem is, I recognized pretty early that the game launched too early and probably did so to get out before MoP. Because if MoP was successful, it could have seriously cut into revenue.

I knew the game that launched wasn’t the game I was getting and that it would be a year before it was. It was more like two years.

This is really launch time. I’ve been saying it almost since launch. I maintain it to this day.

If the game had launched two years later, you’d probably have been happier…but the game might not have had enough money to come out if that was the case.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Not just that. The world bosses aren’t even a threat anymore. With the coming of the schedule AND mega servers, it just makes the whole experience a spamfest. Its literally a bus schedule imo. Wait at each spawn location hit 1 rush the events, and go to the next.

I loved that the world was spontaneous, but by making it like this, because of the economical reason of the rares or what not, it just playing into the hands of the farmers and making it easier to mindlessly grind.

The first event that they changed that I actually liked was the Nebo Terrace one because people actually get trampled and actually feel like it’s challenging and exciting.
It actually feels like a fight. Though people avoid it, because it’s not spam 1 and win, I’m completely fine with that. It was the first time in ages where I thought the centaurs were fighting back.

The event chain system was pretty great and I felt like they could’ve exploited the system more creatively. Except also regarding the world boss chains, which apparently needed extra rewards to it, they moved it more and more into a territory where it just screams to be mindlessly repeated, rather than giving more meaningful and daring event changes, that would actually matter in a sense that you would feel like you needed to not fail an event or you would lose an valuable asset in some sort of war.

Instead event chains were mostly linear, with the exception of the three way event chain in Straits of Devastation, two way events in Iron Marches and such scarce event chains which felt like a step up in the system.

Dry Top seems to be an step in the right direction, even though it still seems rather off since all the events seem hardly connected, even though there is a common goal in it. And it does actually spread people out. But the events ..in my opinion… lack coherence with the world around them. They are very localized and don’t seem to have a broad impact on success or failure.

The game just seems to improve rather slowly, though. So I’m feeling like it’s become more a wait and see, than anything else.

This is why I really enjoy the Tequatl world boss. Its far, FAR, more involved and difficult than “Run in blob and spam 1”, to the point where bad strategy, or one too many people refusing to listen to orders, can make the whole thing fall apart. It gives it an actual challenge. Sure, it can be frustrating if its the last tequatl of the day, and you haven’t gotten your rewards from it yet, but I still would love it if more world bosses ended up reworked in the same manner. Not so much a “kill the zerg” thing, as it is a “Put it to better use and add more roles” thing.

The reality is – for many of us (this is very much opinion) – Guild Wars 2 is still the best MMO currently on the market. I know some of the more reactionary and antagonistic posters on these forums will immediately label me fan boy for that (even though I have no problem criticizing the game), but that is what I believe regardless of what they want to think or label.

I think the publicity for game has died down for a few simple reasons. First, ArenaNet recognizes the reactionary nature of a VERY LOUD subset of player who immediately have to dominate all conversations with “the sky is falling comments.” They dont understand how development – or business – works and therefore misinterpret many announcements.

The second, and more important, is that I think ArenaNet is experiencing some growing pains. There was some negative backlash to Season One of the living story (some justified, some not) that caused them to shift directions in the development of the game. Whenever you shift directions like that, it takes times to get back into a good cadence. I think that is what were seeing now.

Unfortunately, it comes at a bad time – and Im sure Anet sees that. Theyre trying to find there footing on a new path around the 2 year anniversary of the game – a time when a lot of their veteran players are starting to bore of the original game activities/fights/etc.

This has led to an identity crisis for the game and its developers.

Personally, I still hold out hope that, before the end of 2014, they will provide us with a better understanding of where the game is heading – development wise – in the next 12-24 months. It is something they really need to do to stem some of the bleeding/ampathy they are probably seeing right now.

I’ve just gotten around to leveling my second char, a Guard, only to find out how insanely tedious it is — each level you unlock certain points of progression, such as the personal story, new skill points, etc. But the way it works (I’m hitting level 43 now) is that you are given these things piecemeal, almost as if the developers don’t even give a kitten if you’ve played before or have even progressed, gear or skill-wise, past the profferred story, trait, or skill level that you are currently at.

Again, I have just hit level 43. I don’t even want to imagine what it’s like to go from 1-40, because whatever yall (Anet) thought was right for the Chinese release, it ain’t for the western release. Why did you change it? Why did you level gate simple things like the personal story? Why did you make us go all over points of the map that we can’t even work within due to being outleveled by mobs to achieve various traits? Why would you handicap the leveling system at all?

I remember, long, long ago, when GW was advertised as the “game without grind”.

Here’s the fun part: that was Guild Wars 1. And, perhaps unironically, it was true. GW1 had a level 20 cap that could be attained within days, which allowed the player infinite amounts of freedom to explore the rest of the world.

In Guild Wars 2, Anet has decided that you are only allowed to explore the world within its finite rules as governed by levels, and if you are not within those requirements, you are simply left to… grind. Yep. Now we have to level grind.

kitten’s broken. Fix it. We don’t want the Chinese system. It was fine the way it was. Here is my suggestion: dig the biggest landfill you can in the desert, and throw every single code revision of the game you can possibly fit into it since what I estimate to be the great divergence of mid-2013. Then set it on fire. Throw rubber tires onto it to make sure it stays on fire for the next 3 decades. And if that’s not enough, salt the earth. Make it so that no human being can go anywhere near those pieces of code for the next epoch, and then you’re getting back on the right track.

Stop killing the game I love. Stop fixing what wasn’t broken. Stop breaking what was already working. Stop making us wish for 2012 — hell, stop making us wish for 2004. Just Stop JUST. STOP!

GW2 is still regarded as quite a cool MMO, but certainly not something the mass media dog-sniff for news about.

It’s become a bit stale at this point due to a lack of meaningful new content.

If I were to find a phrase for the internet’s opinion on GW2, it would be ‘definitely try, but it won’t last for the long-term’.

I don’t believe ANY “hype” anymore, no matter who’s spewing it out. Every MMO that I’ve seen since vanilla WoW has hyped their product as being the most awesome thing since sliced bread but don’t live up to any of it. They’re all intended to get a fast profit, and keep few, if any, of their promises. TESO is a great example of this.

Many of them, especially the ones run (ruined) by Electronic Arts, wind up destroying their own game. Anet’s falling into this category.

Vayne.8563:

The only real issue that I see, and it’s a big one, is the ascended items debacle, which people couldn’t have known. At that time, Anet gave refunds to people who were playing the game for months, which they didn’t have to do. People who didn’t like that change were entitled to get a refund.

Many chose to stay and complain instead of getting a refund. That’s not Anet’s fault either. I don’t like ascended gear, but I sure understand why Anet felt they had to put it in.

Actually, refunds were (are?) available for six months from one’s purchase of the game. I saw no announcement that that grace period was extended due to Ascended. The game became available for purchase in early April of 2012, and Ascended was announced in early November, 2012 — seven months later. So, some players might have been able to get a refund over Ascended…