Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Ah, you’re talking about features. My bad completely. Stuff like an auction house, an account wallet, a format of PvP like WvW, a personal story, an actual LFG tool, multiple races to play. Those are all features too. And then there’s stuff like overflow servers and guesting (something most MMOs don’t have). For that matter crafting is a feature that Guild Wars 2 has that Guild Wars 1 doesn’t.

Because there’s no Guild vs Guild in this game (the main feature guild halls were used for in Guild Wars 1), the work that would have went into that went instead into WvW, which is another feature. You may not like it, but I think WvW is better on the whole than most of the PvP available in Guild Wars 1.

In other words you’ve mentioned a couple of things you’d like to see in the game (fair enough by all counts), while ignoring the features that are already in the game as if they’re not already there.

1) WvW is just a PvP mode, of which GW1 had more, not a separate feature.

2) Personal (everyone shares the same ones so the name is merely a proper noun not an actual descriptor) Story is just a series of PvE quests/missions, not a separate game feature.

3) Account wallet is a place to store currencies that is available to all characters on an account…something which existed in GW1.

4) Overflow servers…you mean being forcibly separated from those you wanted to play with ? That is a feature ? and guesting….In GW1 you could play on any server you wanted, without being limited to a certain number per day, at any time.

5) Crafting: GW2…walk to a location where there is an interact option and click buttons to generate useable items from raw materials. GW1…walk to a location where there is an interact option and click buttons to generate useable items from raw materials. More options of useable items to generate in GW2 though.

6) I GvG’d in GW1, even so the main use of Guild Halls was as a social hub for guilds and alliances (and for dueling) in my experience.

7) I am glad that they added an AH, too bad they felt the need to remove a feature (direct trading)that existed in GW1, and pretty much every other multiplayer game of this sort ever created, to bring it in.

Response to Ashen:

1-2) So now you’re separating game types from features. Which means you’re only talking about very specific quality of life upgrades and nothing else? And that’s somehow more important than this giant WvW mode? Because ultimately, time spent in development requires content and quality of life things and you often have to choose between them. The personal story is a game feature. It’s a feature of the game. Everyone who played Prophecies has the exact same story and same missions as everyone else. The only difference was a few (very few) profession specific quests that frankly weren’t all that enthralling. Other than that, a million people playing Prophecies all did the exact same thing. So Anet only had to develop for them 25 missions for everyone. That’s it. We’re talking about the creation of features here, and I’m saying that making something like that is a huge amount of resources, which might otherwise be directed to other quality of life updates if it didn’t exist…but it does exist.

3) The account wallet is a bit different than a place to store currencies. For example, if I had a character that had 5 gold on him and I needed 10 gold and that gold was on another character, I’d have to log into the second character, get to a chest and deposit the money, then log in on back in on the second character and take the money out again. And there was no way at all to transfer money between a pre character and a character not in pre. This goes along with what the OP is saying. People don’t remember how cumbersome it was. It’s the same with when you get lunar tokens on 10 different characters and you have to go to the chest for each one and put them all in and take them out on the character you want to buy fortunes with. Or any of the other currencies that existed.

4) Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO and the entire game was instanced. Since that architecture is competely different from Guild Wars 1, you’d do better to compare this to other actual MMOs like Rift and SWToR. Those who spent hours waiting in queues for those games might say that overflow servers are a good thing. Those who couldn’t play with their friends on other servers in those games, well, they might say these were good things. These are quality of life features that are by no means standard in the MMO space, and I think most people probably forget that.

5) I’ll give you this one, even though “crafting” in Guild Wars 1 was a pale thing compared to crafting in Guild Wars 2. And that crafting was severely limited. Armor and weapons only, a few consumables. It wasn’t what I’d call a robust system, by any means. And as long as we’re on quality of life features, if you’re crafting in Guild Wars 2, you have access to all your crafting mats and your bank right there at the crafting station. How many times in Guild Wars 1 did I go to a crafter, forget something, have to run back to my bank, realize I didn’t have enough gold, forget something else, have to run back? That’s exactly the kind of quality of life feature that Guild Wars 2 has that was completely missing from Guild Wars 1.

6) While some Guilds did socialize in the Guild Hall, I was in a number of Guilds in my time in Guild Wars 1, and I didn’t see any of them. Most of us socialized in the world while we played. If you didn’t GvG and I didn’t, the Guild hall was a convenience place to get some stuff you might have needed. Of course, the skills guy there only had the most basic skills and if you wanted other skills, you’d have to teleport all over the world to buy them. Remember when you were making a new build you saw mentioned and you had to hit five outposts to get all the skills you needed?

7) The direct trading feature was something that was hit and miss with me. It was convenient for friends and guildies, but I didn’t love finding a single guy in Kamadan standing around, and having to run over to him. Remember, Guild Wars 1 didn’t have mail. Direct trade could only be done by standing next to someone. In Guild Wars 2 we have a mail system which allows you to send something to a guildie without being in the same zone.

This is what I think the OP is talking about. You mention some things from Guild Wars 1 as if they were finished products that worked perfectly. Would you really go back to having to be next to someone to send them something? Is that really a feature that is so lacking that mail doesn’t suffice to replace it?

The OP is trying to say that people are forgetting just how “primitive” (for lack of a better word) Guild Wars 1 was.

I don’t think I’d like to play a game with no marketplace or mail system again, or a game that forced me to run back to the bank every time I wanted to get a currency on a different character.

I’m not saying Guild Wars 1 wasn’t a great game…but it’s not the kind of feature-rich perfection that people seem to remember it as being.

I think that’s the OP’s point.

Lookit all these splithairs!

Anyways: GW1 was definitely rough, and GW2 could’ve rounded those edges out. It didn’t, they just made a new game instead.

Smith.1826:

Lookit all these splithairs!

Anyways: GW1 was definitely rough, and GW2 could’ve rounded those edges out. It didn’t.

Not sure if you’re missing my point or not. Guild Wars 2 is, all around, a more ambitious and larger project than Guild Wars 1 was. And by adding things like mail and a marketplace, it did indeed round some of the edges..but each of those systems is brand new and has edges of its own.

The OP is trying to make a very specific point…which is people forget. They look back at Guild Wars 1 8 years in and think about how good it was…and you know…for it’s time it was good.

But it was also lacking in a lot of ways that people seem willing to forgive…where as if something is missing from Guild Wars 2, it’s a major oversight and how can a game possibly release without these must-have features.

I think the OP is right in suggesting just how many features this game did launch with, and how much work has been done improving those core features since launch.

I don’t think anyone here is saying the game has no faults or deficiencies. All that’s being said is that progress HAS been made since Guild Wars 1.

Vayne.8563:

Not sure if you’re missing my point or not. Guild Wars 2 is, all around, a more ambitious and larger project than Guild Wars 1 was. And by adding things like mail and a marketplace, it did indeed round some of the edges..but each of those systems is brand new and has edges of its own.

My point in regards to these improvements is that they came with a game that was a sequel in name and lore only. An auction house and LFG would’ve been awesome in GW1, now I just want my unique GW1 gameplay back.

The OP is trying to make a very specific point…which is people forget. They look back at Guild Wars 1 8 years in and think about how good it was…and you know…for it’s time it was good.

But it was also lacking in a lot of ways that people seem willing to forgive…where as if something is missing from Guild Wars 2, it’s a major oversight and how can a game possibly release without these must-have features.

I think it’s understandable when it was a feature that the predecessor had at its release, or close to it. A year after release and I still can’t edit the UI nor go in first-person? And I needn’t day anything about those particle effects

Hence splitting hairs, because they’ve also done some cool things, and debating over that is going to result in more painful-to-read walls of text.

Amusing Vayne. You always resort to comparing to GW only. Apparently ANET did as well.

Overflows, no. In EQ2 at the zone in I get a list of instances if there is overflow. I pick one. I don’t get sent randomly to some mysterious “overflow” . All copies of a full zone are localized, on the same clock, and same event timer.

Crafting.. laugh. out. loud. Vanguard, Everquest2 have “crafting”. This game has harvesting with a 1 click button to make something.

Every single thing that you mentioned GW not having, and GW2 having are part and parcel of every other MMO I have played, have been for years. Features GW2 are missing also happen to be found in other major MMOs, have been for years. Features that are popular, add to all gameplay, and things ANET should have been aware of when releasing a new MMO to the MMO market.

Things like UI customization, particle control, guild functionality, guild halls that are GUILD HALLs, not pvp zones. Even first person being missing have nothing to do with GW and a lot more with actually stepping up to the plate in a bigger market.

It is a year later, Vayne. The honeymoon is over. If you insist on comparing GW2 to GW the amount Anet accomplished in a year improving the launched game there was far greater than here, and to me didn’t have the desperate sense of floundering around in search of direction I see here.

And it is funny. I went from a game, Everquest 2, to GW1. In spite of EQ2 having more content, more features than GW2 has now. It had.. and has.. unique gameplay good enough to overlook lack of amenities. And now, that is reversed, as I’m back to Everquest2 and only playing GW2 sporadically, because of those features EQ2 has and GW2 lacks, with no indication they will ever come.

Vayne.8563:

Response to Ashen:

1-2) So now you’re separating game types from features.

PvP is a feature. If you count every map as a separate feature does that mean that you have to count every quest in PvE as a separate feature ?

Vayne.8563:

3) The account wallet is a bit different than a place to store currencies..

It is exactly a place to store currencies. It is implemented in a fashion that makes withdrawing easier though. I was not debating the merits of each game’s approach to an account wide currency storage, merely pointing out that both had them. I find the GW2 currency wallet to be superior, but that does not mean that it represents a feature included in GW2 but not in GW1.

Vayne.8563:

4) Those who spent hours waiting in queues for those games might say that overflow servers are a good thing.

I’m not forgetting anything there, just wanted to make the point that the specific elements mentioned here were included in GW1 (in a superior fashion).

Vayne.8563:

5) I’ll give you this one, even though “crafting” in Guild Wars 1 was a pale thing compared to crafting in Guild Wars 2.

Agreed. Crafting in GW2 is superior to crafting in GW1 if you like crafting. As a caveat I would like to beat a dead horse and point out that gating the best gear behind crafting makes the crafting system in GW2 worse for some people.

Vayne.8563:

6) While some Guilds did socialize in the Guild Hall, I was in a number of Guilds in my time in Guild Wars 1, and I didn’t see any of them. Most of us socialized in the world while we played. If you didn’t GvG and I didn’t, the Guild hall was a convenience place to get some stuff you might have needed. Of course, the skills guy there only had the most basic skills and if you wanted other skills, you’d have to teleport all over the world to buy them. Remember when you were making a new build you saw mentioned and you had to hit five outposts to get all the skills you needed?

Perhaps your guilds were small (max team size being 8 for most of the world) or perhaps your guilds did not prefer to socialize “in person ?” But, even so, PvP (even in a game where that was the developers’ focus initially) was a fraction of the focus for the playerbase and GvG an even smaller fraction of PvP.

Yes a new character might have to seek out skills that they wanted. Then again skills were part of the horizontal progression of the game. I am pretty sure that you cannot sit in LA in GW2 and get all of the rewards from all of the game’s content either.

Vayne.8563:

7) The direct trading feature was something that was hit and miss with me. It was convenient for friends and guildies, but I didn’t love finding a single guy in Kamadan standing around, and having to run over to him. Remember, Guild Wars 1 didn’t have mail. Direct trade could only be done by standing next to someone. In Guild Wars 2 we have a mail system which allows you to send something to a guildie without being in the same zone.

Mailing someone something and hoping that they mail the agreed upon trade back is not an improvement over meeting them face to face with a trade interface IMO. Mail in GW2 is definitely an improvement for gifting things though.

Vayne.8563:

This is what I think the OP is talking about. You mention some things from Guild Wars 1 as if they were finished products that worked perfectly. Would you really go back to having to be next to someone to send them something? Is that really a feature that is so lacking that mail doesn’t suffice to replace it?

I did not mention things in GW2 as if they are finished products. I did mention their existence though. Were you mentioning things like the TP in GW2 as if it were finished and working perfectly (error attempting to trade sound familiar ?). Yes the ability to trade directly with someone with an actual trade window is a feature whose lack cannot be overcome with mail.

Vayne.8563:

The OP is trying to say that people are forgetting just how “primitive” (for lack of a better word) Guild Wars 1 was.

I don’t think I’d like to play a game with no marketplace or mail system again, or a game that forced me to run back to the bank every time I wanted to get a currency on a different character.

I’m not saying Guild Wars 1 wasn’t a great game…but it’s not the kind of feature-rich perfection that people seem to remember it as being.

I think that’s the OP’s point.

My post merely pointed out that some features you seemed to be claiming to exist in GW2 but not in GW1 were actually present in GW1. In some cases they were implemented in a superior fashion in GW1, and in some cases GW2 does a better job.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Amusing Vayne. You always resort to comparing to GW only. Apparently ANET did as well.

Overflows, no. In EQ2 at the zone in I get a list of instances if there is overflow. I pick one. I don’t get sent randomly to some mysterious “overflow” . All copies of a full zone are localized, on the same clock, and same event timer.

Crafting.. laugh. out. loud. Vanguard, Everquest2 have “crafting”. This game has harvesting with a 1 click button to make something.

Every single thing that you mentioned GW not having, and GW2 having are part and parcel of every other MMO I have played, have been for years. Features GW2 are missing also happen to be found in other major MMOs, have been for years. Features that are popular, add to all gameplay, and things ANET should have been aware of when releasing a new MMO to the MMO market.

Things like UI customization, particle control, guild functionality, guild halls that are GUILD HALLs, not pvp zones. Even first person being missing have nothing to do with GW and a lot more with actually stepping up to the plate in a bigger market.

It is a year later, Vayne. The honeymoon is over. If you insist on comparing GW2 to GW the amount Anet accomplished in a year improving the launched game there was far greater than here, and to me didn’t have the desperate sense of floundering around in search of direction I see here.

And it is funny. I went from a game, Everquest 2, to GW1. In spite of EQ2 having more content, more features than GW2 has now. It had.. and has.. unique gameplay good enough to overlook lack of amenities. And now, that is reversed, as I’m back to Everquest2 and only playing GW2 sporadically, because of those features EQ2 has and GW2 lacks, with no indication they will ever come.

Thanks. I am amusing.

As for the rest of it, the OP mentioned Guild Wars 1 and other people have commented on Guild Wars 1, so I was replying to those people. However, in my replies, I also talk about the latest MMOs. MMOs like SWToR and Rift and TSW to name three, none of which had LFG tools at launch. I’m very happy that EQ 2 does have an LFG tool, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t have it at launch. In fact, I’m pretty sure EQ2 didn’t have a lot of things at launch and it added them over time.

No one is saying, at least I’m not, that Guild Wars 2 has every feature in the world. But then, you’re saying the game is a year old like a year in MMO terms is such a long time. It’s really not.

As I’ve said countless times, I believe this game launched early. It’s only new getting up to where it should have been at launch. Are you saying Rift and SWToR, two of the newer and more popular MMOS (certainly more popular than EQ 2) didn’t have queues and waits to get into the game?

I’m comparing Guild Wars 2 to both Guild Wars 1 and the most recent generations of MMOs, but I’m mostly commenting on Guild Wars 1, since the OP is about Guild Wars 1 patch notes and I’m trying to stay on topic.

What I am saying is, it launched 8 years ago with advanced graphical options, particle adjustments, and a configurable interface. And that is a fact, and not a “guess”. I will repeat, you did not play the game, know nothing of it, and shouldn’t comment in ignorance of it.

That “Dead Dinosaur” of an “ok” franchise is releasing another major expansion, as they have done every year of its existence. The 3rd Game of the franchise is coming. Seems the “dinosaur” generates enough income for a lot of things, eh?

And yeah, after a year, this game missing often requested features that a “dinosaur” launched with 8 years ago is MY point. And I am very much comparing GW2 to EQ2 a year after, in case you missed that. 2 adventure packs and a full expansion, to be specific.

But debating with you is like debating a GW2 splash screen, and I’m done.

I would like people, in 8 years, to be bragging about GW2 in spite of it being “a dinosaur” by then as well. You don’t get there floundering around, directionless, asking people what TV show they like, and ignoring basic improvements to playability that a lot of people are begging for, and have begged for since Beta.

As I’ve said and said again (and this goes along precisely with what the OP is saying), in order for your observations about EQ 2 to be relevant to this conversation, we’d have to look at the forums and comments from players about a year after launch.

I’m pretty sure if you did that, you’d find people complaining about all sorts of missing things, bugs that have been there since launch, and various other tidbits.

I’ve been to dozens of MMO forums for relatively new games…they all look pretty much the same. I’m sure EQ 2 was not any different.

I looked at the OP. Those appear to be patch notes. Not player complaints.
I would wager that some of those patch notes are in response to player complaints.

Have you actually played other games, or just read forums?

All games have complaint threads. However, I’ve not seen one asking for fewer features, myself. EQ2 forums were full of complaints, but.. none were complaining about the ability to move the UI around, and I don’t recall any asking to remove the particle control settings. I didn’t see any asking for a simpler, smaller, guild interface with less features either.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I looked at the OP. Those appear to be patch notes. Not player complaints.
I would wager that some of those patch notes are in response to player complaints.

Have you actually played other games, or just read forums?

All games have complaint threads. However, I’ve not seen one asking for fewer features, myself. EQ2 forums were full of complaints, but.. none were complaining about the ability to move the UI around, and I don’t recall any asking to remove the particle control settings. I didn’t see any asking for a simpler, smaller, guild interface with less features either.

Your’e still missing my point. EQ launched with certain features and added features as time went on. It was missing stuff when it launched. It didn’t have everything. I don’t even have to have played it to know that that’s the case.

No game company has enough money to launch a big, open world MMO with lots of content and all the bells and whistles. People keep expecting them to, but no one has done it so far. At some point, the cost becomes prohibitive and they have to launch.

Every MMO could use another year or two in development, but they don’t get that time.

So if EQ 2 had some features that were in game and worked right, it lacked others that came later.

If you can name an MMO that launched with all the features players wanted, with a big world and tons of end game content, I’d love to hear about it.

Haven’t missed your derail attempts at all. I posted in regard to configurable UI, Particle adjustments, Guild management, etc. Things players noticed were missing in Beta, and brought up then. Features, a year later, that don’t even appear to be “under consideration”. Features that I have yet to see people complain about having in games that have them.

Note that I’m not talking about features like “mounts” or “housing” because they don’t effect the whole in a positive way. When a poster here asks for Configurable UI, I’ve yet to see the “OMG go back to WoW, just cause they have one doesn’t mean we want one here” response.

And that is still what I am posting about.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Haven’t missed your derail attempts at all. I posted in regard to configurable UI, Particle adjustments, Guild management, etc. Things players noticed were missing in Beta, and brought up then. Features, a year later, that don’t even appear to be “under consideration”. Features that I have yet to see people complain about having in games that have them.

Note that I’m not talking about features like “mounts” or “housing” because they don’t effect the whole in a positive way.

And that is still what I am posting about.

I am not derailing this thread. The OP posted about people having short memories. They don’t remember what games were like a year after launch. That’s exactly what he’s talking about.

You’re trying to make it sound like the features missing from this game aren’t missing from other games a year after launch. You’re actually proving the OP’s point.

I’m simply agreeing with him.

Not to derail the debate between Teofa and Vayne, but…

I played Aion from beta until GW2…

Not present at release, but instituted much later: certain legion (guild) tools, player housing (which was implemented with horridly temporary, expensive content,) more territory (extremely small maps,) mounts (which were initially temporary purchases) and massive RNG (GW2 got nothing on Aion!)

Crafting was a joke, and still is, from what I understand. Lots of servers condensed into 3 (yes, 3) by the end of the time I spent there. Lag, OP classes, and exploits, not to mention more spam than a grocery store and gold sellers galore.

Yes, I enjoyed playing for a very long time, but, I went back to see how it was about 6 months ago, and ran like hell for the nearest exit.

I will take GW2’s issues over some of the other ones I have seen ANY DAY OF THE YEAR!

Derail all you wish, the debate is done. I’m still having a very hearty chuckle over the ending of it, last word by “other means”.

Bravo!! Well Played. I have to say, laughter brightened my day.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ah, you’re talking about features. My bad completely. Stuff like an auction house, an account wallet, a format of PvP like WvW, a personal story, an actual LFG tool, multiple races to play. Those are all features too. And then there’s stuff like overflow servers and guesting (something most MMOs don’t have). For that matter crafting is a feature that Guild Wars 2 has that Guild Wars 1 doesn’t.

Because there’s no Guild vs Guild in this game (the main feature guild halls were used for in Guild Wars 1), the work that would have went into that went instead into WvW, which is another feature. You may not like it, but I think WvW is better on the whole than most of the PvP available in Guild Wars 1.

In other words you’ve mentioned a couple of things you’d like to see in the game (fair enough by all counts), while ignoring the features that are already in the game as if they’re not already there.

4) Overflow servers…you mean being forcibly separated from those you wanted to play with ? That is a feature ? and guesting….In GW1 you could play on any server you wanted, without being limited to a certain number per day, at any time.

I’m just gonna say that overflow was actually a system designed to overcome something even more frustrating: being stuck in a waiting queue.

Not sure if I want that instead.