Guild Wars 2

A little background first for those that are unaware of what I’m referring to. Some of us have been playing MMOs a long time dating back to the original Everquest era and beyond. Back then, EQ was the big kid on the MMO block and nothing was really close to it. Kind of like WoW is now but on a much smaller scale. A new game by a small developer hit the scene called Dark Age of Camelot. While still chock full of timesinks compared to today’s game, DAoC took a lot of the useless boring crap that everyone hated about EQ and threw it overboard. I wouldn’t say they broke the MMO mold but they definitely dragged it down the street a good ways. They became the most serious competitor to EQ in the market peaking at about 250k subscribers to EQ’s 400k+. They did things differently, PvP was a major part of their game and their was no endless gear grind (sound familiar?) This was circa 2001-2002 and things were going better than Mythic (the developer) could have ever hoped for.

Fast forward 2 years. DAoC has already has one successful expansion and is now set to release their latest expansion, Trials of Atlantis. Camelot players eagerly purchased the game but to their dismay, they found that rather than an expansion building on the game they had been playing, this was more like a whole new game with new powerful Artifact gear, a new progression system and new gated content.

Well it didn’t take long after the release of ToA before the population of DAoC started into a death spiral that it would never recover from. Some people argue that the spiral was caused by competition but as someone who was there, I can say that is only half of the story. I don’t know anyone that liked ToA in its release form and it was often referred to as Tedium of Atlantis. Mythic eventually came out with Classic servers that did not have ToA enabled in an effort to woo back players that had left and later on they basically removed all the grinding and gating in ToA and made everything soloable or doable with half a group and buffbots. Yes competition was a contributing factor as several new MMOs came out around the time DAoC started into it’s death spiral but the reason people were looking to jump ship is because they hated ToA! They figured if they were going to have to grind, they might as well do it in a game where the PvE was more polished and that’s what they did.

Fast forward to today and I see the same thing happening in GW2. They have completely set the game on it’s ear with this new dungeon and gear by introducing gated content and a gear treadmill. They’ve also effectively entered into the Pay to Win territory since some of the requirements for Ascended gear can be bought on the trade post. I don’t know how long it will take for the death spiral to start but I do know these things happen much faster these days (looking at you SWTOR.)

Mythic realized with hindsight that Trials of Atlantis was a huge screw up and tried to fix things but it was too little too late. GW2 can at least avoid that mistake. The question is, will they?

I left DAoC the moment the item upgrades were released.

I was in a large and top level RvR guild that has 150 members. 90% of us left without buying the expansion and without ever playing DAoC again until they added the legacy servers.

“They’ve also effectively entered into the Pay to Win territory since the requirements for Ascended gear can be bought on the trade post.”

Could you please elaborate on this claim, as it’s quite a controversial one unless it’s merely an opinion, which I feel you should state

I’ll be honest, I was going to play GW2 for years. Now I’m ready to jump ship. I don’t want a gear grind.

Excellent, very relevant post.

Osprey.6587:

GW2 can at least avoid that mistake. The question is, will they?

Unfortunately, we will just have to wait and see, because they sure aren’t telling us what’s going through their minds. It just seems like these recent events have echoed desperation from them, like flurrying attempts to get as many people to buy the game before it sinks.

I don’t want that to happen, I would love to keep playing this game. But Anet has to start trying, and they have to be more open to the community. We’ve got to stop now, before the snowball really gains momentum.

I was a DAoC player. Here’s the formula I thought killed it:

1. The Trials of Atlantis expansion added overpowered weapons that only the lifers could earn.

2. Coupled with the rampant radar hackers it was not worth the trouble to try to fight them (radar + one-shot win ability).

3. WoW came out and you didn’t have to anymore.

Hellkaiser.6025:

“They’ve also effectively entered into the Pay to Win territory since the requirements for Ascended gear can be bought on the trade post.”

Could you please elaborate on this claim, as it’s quite a controversial one unless it’s merely an opinion, which I feel you should state

Sure can. Here are the reported items necessary for making an ascended back item:

250 T6 mats
50 Ectos
24 skill points
1 Mists essense

T6 mats are the rare ones (ancient bones, blood etc.) Both those and the ectos are tradeable so once the recipe becomes widely known you can expect the prices on those items to skyrocket. Now as you know, the game allows you to effectively buy gold from the cash shop by allowing the conversion of gems to gold. That means if you have enough real life money to buy gold, those T6 mats and ectos are not an obstacle to you, hence pay to win.

edit: you may be tempted to counter that the person I describe could already do that with exotics but the difference is that exotics were 1) able to be obtained from multiple sources and 2) not that hard for even casual players to acquire so it’s not really an apples to apples comparison.

I think they’ll get away with it longer and more profitably than Mythic did (unfortunately) because they lack new competition with the polish and engine improvements that WoW had.

But in the end, yes, I think they will lose the business of those who were supposed to be the target audience in the first place and then they will lose their new targets when they perceive that GW2 isn’t as popular as whatever the next big release will be and/or when they get tired of going back and forth to the cash shop for gold to craft the latest greatest gear.

The premise that no gear treadmill has ever existed in this game is false when you consider legendary weapons. That being said there is no overwhelming advantage to getting a legendary other than bragging rights because the stats aren’t much better than exotics which are easy to obtain.

What will kill this game is the rampant amount of bugs and sloppy content releases that have either not been sufficiently play tested or planned. If Anet spent half as much time and effort into producing polished bug free content as they do promoting new patches the game might have a chance. The fact that they are offering free trials of the game just 2 months after it wen live is a bad sign. Free trials on a weekend where they drop a lag bomb of unplayable and buggy content is worse.

Corvindi.5734:

I think they’ll get away with it longer and more profitably than Mythic did (unfortunately) because they lack new competition with the polish and engine improvements that WoW had.

But in the end, yes, I think they will lose the business of those who were supposed to be the target audience in the first place and then they will lose their new targets when they perceive that GW2 isn’t as popular as whatever the next big release will be and/or when they get tired of going back and forth to the cash shop for gold to craft the latest greatest gear.

Time will tell but I think the PvE in this game is not really as good as most other games (I haven’t seen the new dungeon nor do I intend to) so if it’s vertical progression in PvE content you are after, there are many, many better alternatives to GW2.

Here’s the thing, DAoC servers are still up. The community looks back in retrospect and says “game is dead” and it is because when you play it you just know. A few years after release some players we’re calling it dead and detailing all its faults. Others would fight back and defend it, calling those who tried to point out its flaws as crying… Same song and dance with every MMORPG.

Yes OP the spiral for GW2 has started. Honestly it started about a month after launch. No parachute has launched in fact we’re gaining velocity. ETA on impact? I give it another three months before what I’m saying now is echoed across the press with titles like “What happened to GW2?”. Will the servers shut down? No. Will it still have a couple hundred thousand players (enough to keep new content flowing), sure!

The point of death for an MMORPG is a subjective thing. Server-shut down is not death. Death happens months, sometimes years before when zones are empty, bots are running rampant and over half the people you were playing with are no longer playing!

Oh course the press will know exactly what happened. They gave exceptionally positive reviews to a product based on a play experience with a very limited part of the game. They graded no just on quality of play but also on how well the game studio had treated them during the beta.

ArenaNet has always believed in their product. I don’t think they were trying to be deceitful, but blinders fit so easily after seven years of development. You begin to believe your own hype, even when the rest of the world sees right through it.

Cirroq.2531:

The premise that no gear treadmill has ever existed in this game is false when you consider legendary weapons. That being said there is no overwhelming advantage to getting a legendary other than bragging rights because the stats aren’t much better than exotics which are easy to obtain.

Actually you are wrong about this because you are confusing two terms that don’t necessarily mean the same thing; gear treadmill and item progression. Yes, the game has always had item progression that stopped at a point that was easily obtainable. It never had a gear treadmill however because think of what a real life treadmill does. It keeps turning and turning and never stops and if you stop walking, you fall off. Same thing with a gear treadmill. They keep adding gear and adding gear and if you take a break for even a month, you are going to have to play catch up. That did not exist in this game until last night.

Osprey.6587:

Corvindi.5734:

I think they’ll get away with it longer and more profitably than Mythic did (unfortunately) because they lack new competition with the polish and engine improvements that WoW had.

But in the end, yes, I think they will lose the business of those who were supposed to be the target audience in the first place and then they will lose their new targets when they perceive that GW2 isn’t as popular as whatever the next big release will be and/or when they get tired of going back and forth to the cash shop for gold to craft the latest greatest gear.

Time will tell but I think the PvE in this game is not really as good as most other games (I haven’t seen the new dungeon nor do I intend to) so if it’s vertical progression in PvE content you are after, there are many, many better alternatives to GW2.

Good point. For me there certainly are better options if I wanted to gear grind in dungeons since I like dungeon finders.

I do enjoy solo leveling alts in this game for the most part, except when a DE or skill point challenge is too difficult to solo on some classes. But I don’t enjoy doing that enough to do it much longer or to spend more money on character slots and bank space.

A lot of people seem to like the new dungeon hub, but it’s brand new, give it a week and I expect posts complaining of the grind will start to pop up.

*Exactly* what i was thinking. ToA was brilliant content but attached to a LOT of GEAR GRIND to the point it took ages to be ready for RvR. That, among other things, totally ruined the game. *To the point they had to make CLASSIC SERVERS where ToA wasn’t active.*

It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I’m not as apprehensive about the apparent gear-grind as others, but my philosophies on such things are different. I don’t necessarily think a gear grind is bad; It gives players something else to do with the goal being progression. Its’ not that different than what we’ve been doing from level 1 to 80, save that it is much easier to balance stat increases than it is to add levels and abilities, which is why its’ the favored tactic for developers. Not that developers necessarily care about balance, but that is a tinfoil hat discussion for another topic.

No, what is bad about the gear grinding endgame stage is that it often has the feeling of stalling, which is uncanny as that is exactly what it is. As much as people don’t like getting to level 80 and not having anything to do, I don’t think they like having one thing to do over and over again any better. You might keep on board for awhile, but you really sour the mood. Additionally, while levels have a sort of… accumulative effect, or at very least that is how most players perceive attaining levels, new equipment is only as good as long as you have it. The player is immediately persuaded that the equipment he spent so long acquiring is useless the second you introduce new equipment. That ugly experience he had grinding for the equipment is also wasted, and it all leaves him in a very unhappy mood. This is, pretty much verbatim, the problem with WoW and probably the primary reason everyone is so aprehensive that the same tactic is being used here.

Simply put, gear grinding is an effectual downward slope in mood an achievement. It doesn’t have to be, game developers are just very good at making sure that it is. A good way to go about adding a gear grind is to add content that remains fun and varied. Multiple dungeons that all work to the same goal (the goal being your new “level up” in equipment) are a good start to make sure things don’t stay stale. Solo things people can do on the side that work toward the goal. The less repetitive it feels the better it will be received.

In short, endgame is a tricky thing for game developers to add, and I’m not entirely sure that the benefits of it outweigh the cons anymore.

yes I do. Trials of Atlantis was the beginning of the end, and this ascendant dungeon nonsense is worse.

Cirroq.2531:

The premise that no gear treadmill has ever existed in this game is false when you consider legendary weapons. That being said there is no overwhelming advantage to getting a legendary other than bragging rights because the stats aren’t much better than exotics which are easy to obtain.

What will kill this game is the rampant amount of bugs and sloppy content releases that have either not been sufficiently play tested or planned. If Anet spent half as much time and effort into producing polished bug free content as they do promoting new patches the game might have a chance. The fact that they are offering free trials of the game just 2 months after it wen live is a bad sign. Free trials on a weekend where they drop a lag bomb of unplayable and buggy content is worse.

Legendary weapons had the same stats as exotics before this.

I loved DAoC, and from the start have seen how similar GW2 is, I love it! I am personally glad GW2 has grown from GW1, no gear progression means, hit max level and stop playing your level 80 toon. Gear progression means, you get to keep playing your main, and that is a good thing IMO.

DegoLocc.5976:

I loved DAoC, and from the start have seen how similar GW2 is, I love it! I am personally glad GW2 has grown from GW1, no gear progression means, hit max level and stop playing your level 80 toon. Gear progression means, you get to keep playing your main, and that is a good thing IMO.

Depends on how long an attention span you have. I can see yours is relatively short since you think hitting max level ended the game before this change. This just puts the carrot a little further out in front of you is all.

I personally do not equate seeing bigger numbers with progress and I would garner no satisfaction out of defeating someone I had a 15% gear advantage over either.

edit: Your use of commas borders on criminal. Please stop using them.

You guys have the experience I dont. My only other mmo is Tor and how bad that was.
Had they been honest with me and upfront about the change I might have cut them some slack and maybe given them a chance. However putting this in under the radar and stealth patching it was the last straw for me. Had I seen a post like below I would have understood because they were telling me something but now still nothing.

Due to a reduction in concurrent players and certain internal goals not being met when have had to re evaluate the situation.
The current trend in GW2 is not what we expected and we need to take some measure to balance this out.
After a vast amount feedback we have concluded that our original hypothesis is unsustainable and that we have need to make a significant change in direction.
We did not expect this however market conditions and player satisfaction deemed it necessary. We are sorry to those who disagree with this but we feel for the better of the game and player base this new direction is warranted.

You don’t really need Ascendant gear to have fun in PvE and and PvP. Acendant Gear is made more for the Fractals of the Mists.

In Fractals of the Mists you will be given a condition for not having any infusion gear called “Agony” where if you don’t have infusion then you’ll lose HP but if you have enough Infusion you’ll lose less HP.

Serious I remember the countless post of demanding a real endgame dungeon and some kind of gear worth grinding for before this who thing was announced it basically almost started a fourm war but now they given what what those hundreds of countless post demanded it back to ah we never wanted this.

Seriously when will you people learn there is no such thing as a Perfect MMO and a MMO will never satisfy everyone and every desire you want down to the nick and cranny of your abyss of darkness.

Osprey.6587:

DegoLocc.5976:

I loved DAoC, and from the start have seen how similar GW2 is, I love it! I am personally glad GW2 has grown from GW1, no gear progression means, hit max level and stop playing your level 80 toon. Gear progression means, you get to keep playing your main, and that is a good thing IMO.

Depends on how long an attention span you have. I can see yours is relatively short since you think hitting max level ended the game before this change. This just puts the carrot a little further out in front of you is all.

I personally do not equate seeing bigger numbers with progress and I would garner no satisfaction out of defeating someone I had a 15% gear advantage over either.

edit: Your use of commas borders on criminal. Please stop using them.

What do you want? To hit 80 and have nothing to do? You want to eat the carrot on the stick as soon as you roll your toon?! People like to feel like their character continues to grow past level cap, it’s called end game.
If you don’t like progression and time sink, MMO’s are clearly not for you.

And for the record, I’m not from WOW, in fact, I think WOW killed mmo’s.

Go ahead and have a hissy fit and leave because of some minor issue, you’ll be back. As far as MMO’s on the market today, this one is the best. Sure you can go play your personal niche’ MMO, but face it, you’d be lucky to find ppl still playing them.

I was ready to play GW2 instead of WoW. But now I’m not sure. Why not play WoW if I’m going to have to grind for gear anyway.

Wasselin.1235:

I was ready to play GW2 instead of WoW. But now I’m not sure. Why not play WoW if I’m going to have to grind for gear anyway.

because the grind in this game is a whole different animal….. and WOW sucks, it’s for kiddies, and it’s VERY dated.

That’s why, you’re welcome.

DAOC RvR was and is 1000% better than GW2’s. Its not even close. GW2 has no RP system and you cant even see peoples names (hello carebear!)

I played DAOC for 7 years, GW2..yea, not gonna happen

EdwinLi.1284:

You don’t really need Ascendant gear to have fun in PvE and and PvP. Acendant Gear is made more for the Fractals of the Mists.

In Fractals of the Mists you will be given a condition for not having any infusion gear called “Agony” where if you don’t have infusion then you’ll lose HP but if you have enough Infusion you’ll lose less HP.

Serious I remember the countless post of demanding a real endgame dungeon and some kind of gear worth grinding for before this who thing was announced it basically almost started a fourm war but now they given what what those hundreds of countless post demanded it back to ah we never wanted this.

Seriously when will you people learn there is no such thing as a Perfect MMO and a MMO will never satisfy everyone and every desire you want down to the nick and cranny of your abyss of darkness.

You need it to compete in wvwvw. sorry.

DegoLocc.5976:

Osprey.6587:

DegoLocc.5976:

I loved DAoC, and from the start have seen how similar GW2 is, I love it! I am personally glad GW2 has grown from GW1, no gear progression means, hit max level and stop playing your level 80 toon. Gear progression means, you get to keep playing your main, and that is a good thing IMO.

Depends on how long an attention span you have. I can see yours is relatively short since you think hitting max level ended the game before this change. This just puts the carrot a little further out in front of you is all.

I personally do not equate seeing bigger numbers with progress and I would garner no satisfaction out of defeating someone I had a 15% gear advantage over either.

edit: Your use of commas borders on criminal. Please stop using them.

What do you want? To hit 80 and have nothing to do? You want to eat the carrot on the stick as soon as you roll your toon?! People like to feel like their character continues to grow past level cap, it’s called end game.
If you don’t like progression and time sink, MMO’s are clearly not for you.

And for the record, I’m not from WOW, in fact, I think WOW killed mmo’s.

Go ahead and have a hissy fit and leave because of some minor issue, you’ll be back. As far as MMO’s on the market today, this one is the best. Sure you can go play your personal niche’ MMO, but face it, you’d be lucky to find ppl still playing them.

yes, hit 80 and go wvwvw to my heart’s content and create alts, not be forced to grind some dungeon to compete. get it now?

WoW was the icing on the cake that killed DAOC period. During that time not even a big name like Everquest 2 could stop WoW. Thats how I remember it.

Man that additional 30 points in stats I get in total from infusion and gear related nonsense sure turned the tide while I was button mashing my keyboard with my face. (note the sarcasm)

It’s rare for a game company to reverse something that has been implemented in-game, at least in a time-frame that avoids the loss of players. What is more common is they will first double-down on it telling you all the reasons they are right and you are wrong, compounding the problem. It’s sad to entertain this fate for GW2—in a short time I’ve invested a lot in this game with 2 level 80 characters and 11 character slots with characters to fill them. I just don’t have a good feeling about how this will turn out and it has completely changed how I feel about the game. Nothing would please me more than to see a reversal of their reversal of design philosophy.

Ostra.3927:

I left DAoC the moment the item upgrades were released.

I was in a large and top level RvR guild that has 150 members. 90% of us left without buying the expansion and without ever playing DAoC again until they added the legacy servers.

That’s great and all, But the games overall population increased by 25k after TOA was released, and was that way for an ENTIRE year before WoW was released.

TOA didn’t hurt DAOC, WoW did.. along with every MMO that was released at the time.

And if i see another person talk about how “Oh they released Classic servers and a bunch of people started playing again, that proves TOA is bad” I’m going to die of laughter.

Because people came back because they were new servers, That’s it….Everyone Dog piled onto those servers just like they did Mordred and Andred, and just like those two servers…After people got bored, they left those servers Husks of what they once were. That is why merged Classics into Regular Servers, there simply wasn’t enough people playing them to make them useful.

Only reason people cry about TOA items is they lost in a fight, and needed something to blame for being bad at DAOC.

Personally, what i see, is Star Wars Galaxies after the NGE.

‘What will kill this game is the rampant amount of bugs and sloppy content releases that have either not been sufficiently play tested or planned. If Anet spent half as much time and effort into producing polished bug free content as they do promoting new patches the game might have a chance. The fact that they are offering free trials of the game just 2 months after it wen live is a bad sign. Free trials on a weekend where they drop a lag bomb of unplayable and buggy content is worse.’

This right here. Couldn’t agree more. Now I enjoy the game and have fun, but every day it slips a little more. Mix A company that cant seem to tell the truth or really make up its mind in which direction it wants to go, with content that is unplayable.

I know the game is still young but I cant recall i game that had so many game breaking bugs in one of the primary feature of the game. Also I cant help but wonder if any of these people even played Rift. It is like watching the whole thing all over again. Hey lets focus on world events…We have level scaling but the rewards are so craptastic no one goes back. The old events become dead. And then this whole 1 time only event idea?? You know Rift did this too. You know what happened when they did it?? Sure you do, it just happened to you. They were smart enough not to do it again.

Osprey.6587:

They figured if they were going to have to grind, they might as well do it in a game where the PvE was more polished and that’s what they did.

Anet needs to read posts like these and think very hard about where they’re taking the game. The quote above is exactly why many of my friends and myself are considering going back to WoW. We quit WoW because of the manifesto and what Anet promised. Guild Wars 2 was better BECAUSE IT WAS DIFFERENT, not because it tried to compete with WoW. Now, by Anet’s own admission, they’re abandoning the manifesto and on the path toward gear progression based PvE.

WoW’s PvE is better than GW2. There is no denying that fact. Yes GW2 is much MUCH better looking, but if team/competitive PvE is what you’re looking for, WoW is the undisputed king. If I have to grind and get back on the gear treadmill in any way, I’ll do it in WoW. At least I’ll know what I’m signing up for.

RhysSebastian.7651:

Man that additional 30 points in stats I get in total from infusion and gear related nonsense sure turned the tide while I was button mashing my keyboard with my face. (note the sarcasm)

you mean the 20-30% higher stat totals? clearly not an advantage! It’s also pretty funny that people still claim that trials of atlantis didn’t affect rvr, lol.

Xsorus.2507:

Ostra.3927:

I left DAoC the moment the item upgrades were released.

I was in a large and top level RvR guild that has 150 members. 90% of us left without buying the expansion and without ever playing DAoC again until they added the legacy servers.

That’s great and all, But the games overall population increased by 25k after TOA was released, and was that way for an ENTIRE year before WoW was released.

TOA didn’t hurt DAOC, WoW did.. along with every MMO that was released at the time.

And if i see another person talk about how “Oh they released Classic servers and a bunch of people started playing again, that proves TOA is bad” I’m going to die of laughter.

Because people came back because they were new servers, That’s it….Everyone Dog piled onto those servers just like they did Mordred and Andred, and just like those two servers…After people got bored, they left those servers Husks of what they once were. That is why merged Classics into Regular Servers, there simply wasn’t enough people playing them to make them useful.

Only reason people cry about TOA items is they lost in a fight, and needed something to blame for being bad at DAOC.

Naaa – not really.
ToA did ruin DAoC for many of the RvR players, perhaps not so much for the PvE players which did exists in that game.
People did Artifacts, Master Levels, new gear tempaltes simply because they had to because PvE became the deciding factor for RvR.
And many people – myself inclusive – left only because of ToA and did it well before WoW came out.

ToA sunk DAoC like actual Atlantis.

And yes, with the seemingly lack of attention WvW is getting in GW2 versus the PvE and the new gear – I do start seeing similarities.

Played DAoC from about 6 Mo after release up to ToA

I could not commit the amount of time necissary to farm scrolls, the artifacts themselves, and level them up so they were better then my crafted set. Then the gated dungeons, after that came the underground with ANOTHER set of progression called “master levels” and all-in-all just was not there for me.

Now with my back story I will say I don’t see this as the same thing. If were were talking about competing for .0005% chances to drop an item you need and then have to fight the group for it. The gear seems like it is going to be readily available (with some effort ofc) and then be able to scale iteself up to take on an infinite dungeon…

I think its a good step if we can leave it there, at least for when the eventual expansion that levels up to 100 or w/e

I am amazed that Arenanet seems to have learned nothing from Dark Age of Camelot or Star Wars Galaxies. They seem to be following the playbook of both of those games, expecting that they are somehow special are won’t fail as those before them have.

Cirroq.2531:

The premise that no gear treadmill has ever existed in this game is false when you consider legendary weapons. That being said there is no overwhelming advantage to getting a legendary other than bragging rights because the stats aren’t much better than exotics which are easy to obtain.

Legendary stats were never better. It was a key marketing point. That is a FUTURE change.

I’m sick of being infracted for my harsh opinions so I will say this.

The game is going down a dark and narrow path with these unclear and radical changes.

Fortuna.7259:

Cirroq.2531:

The premise that no gear treadmill has ever existed in this game is false when you consider legendary weapons. That being said there is no overwhelming advantage to getting a legendary other than bragging rights because the stats aren’t much better than exotics which are easy to obtain.

Legendary stats were never better. It was a key marketing point. That is a FUTURE change.

correct. in a sleight of hand, they made legendaries better for the first time, then they manufactured this sudden gap between legendaries and exotics that they just created. lol.

Osprey.6587:

Hellkaiser.6025:

“They’ve also effectively entered into the Pay to Win territory since the requirements for Ascended gear can be bought on the trade post.”

Could you please elaborate on this claim, as it’s quite a controversial one unless it’s merely an opinion, which I feel you should state

Sure can. Here are the reported items necessary for making an ascended back item:

250 T6 mats
50 Ectos
24 skill points
1 Mists essense

T6 mats are the rare ones (ancient bones, blood etc.) Both those and the ectos are tradeable so once the recipe becomes widely known you can expect the prices on those items to skyrocket. Now as you know, the game allows you to effectively buy gold from the cash shop by allowing the conversion of gems to gold. That means if you have enough real life money to buy gold, those T6 mats and ectos are not an obstacle to you, hence pay to win.

edit: you may be tempted to counter that the person I describe could already do that with exotics but the difference is that exotics were 1) able to be obtained from multiple sources and 2) not that hard for even casual players to acquire so it’s not really an apples to apples comparison.

Beyond ridiculous. T6 mats are already spiking. A berserker’s ascendent with this formula is over 60 gold PLUS dungeon grinding.

Remember the legendary wall? It is now going to be 10 times thicker.

Well, ToA definitely killed Daoc. Many blame WoW but there was a whole year of ToA before WoW came along, all WoW did was deliver the killing blow to an already mortally wounded target.

I don’t see a direct parallel with Daoc’s demise and GW2 though, at least not yet. That’s not to say I agree with Ascended gear being put into GW2, I’m not in favour. But I don’t see it quite as mortally wounding as ToA was for Daoc.

SWG NGE comes to mind as well. Trying to trade your existing playerbase for a completely different group of players with completely different wants and needs. You know what happens in these circumstances? They will end up with neither.

Always amazes me at just how strange folks can be.

“Go ahead and leave, you’ll be back because there’s nothing better”

That’s not how it works… and I often find it almost borderline trolling to keep belittling the genuine feedback which isn’t always negative purely, and responding with a “don’t like it, then leave” responses. People are trying to AVOID leaving, they’re not threatening to leave because they’re deluded and feel they’re in the right about disputes over behavior or staff decisions on banning (League of legends) they’re threatening to leave because they’re concerned about the development directions the game seems to be taking. Statements about it have gone out recently and should have appeased some, but for many GW2 is still lacking a lil something.

i bought this game mainly for the pvp. i made it to rank 40 but seriously i cba to rank anymore… its what 500k till lvl 50 500k on a server that only has 5 maps and 1 gamemode.. i already saw those 5 maps and that same game mode over 400 times (2000+ games played) i’m sick and tired of it..

i thought this game had some meaningfull pvp… esports big pvp community now when i log in the mist most of the day theres like 2 people around.. and the 80+ pvp servers that used to be full has now degraded to 20.. if i wanted pve.. there were other alternatives out there..

Esturk.2183:

I’ll be honest, I was going to play GW2 for years. Now I’m ready to jump ship. I don’t want a gear grind.

Completely agree. I do not need another gear grind MMO with very limited customization.

Since finding out about Ascension gear and knowing how game companies are, I’ve logged on for maybe 10 minutes a day just checking my auctions. I tried logging on to my many alts but figured it just wasn’t worth it anymore.

DegoLocc.5976:

What do you want? To hit 80 and have nothing to do? You want to eat the carrot on the stick as soon as you roll your toon?! People like to feel like their character continues to grow past level cap, it’s called end game.
If you don’t like progression and time sink, MMO’s are clearly not for you.

And for the record, I’m not from WOW, in fact, I think WOW killed mmo’s.

Go ahead and have a hissy fit and leave because of some minor issue, you’ll be back. As far as MMO’s on the market today, this one is the best. Sure you can go play your personal niche’ MMO, but face it, you’d be lucky to find ppl still playing them.

I have 3 level 80s in GW2 and I had no problem finding something to do. For the record, the reason I made the 2nd two 80s wasn’t out of boredom but because I was looking for something different in WvW than what my first class offered. Every night I logged in and every night I had no problem finding something that held my interest. I never once said to myself, ‘this sucks, there’s nothing to do’ because I didn’t have some piece of gear with better stats to chase after. I just played and had fun and yes, it was fun because I knew my character was finished and I could do what I wanted and not what I HAD TO DO to get better stats. I feel sorry for you that you need bigger numbers on your gear to give yourself a reason to play. I truly do.

Xsorus.2507:

Ostra.3927:

I left DAoC the moment the item upgrades were released.

I was in a large and top level RvR guild that has 150 members. 90% of us left without buying the expansion and without ever playing DAoC again until they added the legacy servers.

That’s great and all, But the games overall population increased by 25k after TOA was released, and was that way for an ENTIRE year before WoW was released.

TOA didn’t hurt DAOC, WoW did.. along with every MMO that was released at the time.

And if i see another person talk about how “Oh they released Classic servers and a bunch of people started playing again, that proves TOA is bad” I’m going to die of laughter.

Because people came back because they were new servers, That’s it….Everyone Dog piled onto those servers just like they did Mordred and Andred, and just like those two servers…After people got bored, they left those servers Husks of what they once were. That is why merged Classics into Regular Servers, there simply wasn’t enough people playing them to make them useful.

Only reason people cry about TOA items is they lost in a fight, and needed something to blame for being bad at DAOC.

You have to look at things in context. There were basically three big MMOs in the US at the time of ToA release and that was DAoC, UO and EQ. Asheron’s Call was still around but it was in steady decline by then.

Many DAoC players including myself had played EQ and we knew that as bad as the grind in ToA was, it was worse in EQ. It wasn’t called Evercamp for nothing. UO was a 2D game that didn’t appeal to everyone.

Furthermore, you have to remember that a very large percentage of the playerbase in DAoC were PvPers that played for the RvR aspect of the game. If you were a PvPer, you certainly weren’t going to go to EQ, its PvP servers were a joke. UO was in its post Trammel era and while I never played the game, everyone I know that did said Trammel killed UO’s PvP. PvP in Asheron’s call meant playing on the ruthless Darktide free for all PvP server or trying to play as a PvP flagged player on an otherwise PvE server and it takes a special breed to thrive in a FFA PvP environment. There was no other game that offered large scale PvP like Camelot had so if that was something you liked, you really had nowhere else to go so people held their collective nose and tried to do the Atlantis crap. When the next gen MMOs hit, people left in droves but I contend that they would not have left in droves if they didn’t think ToA sucked. You didn’t exactly endorse it yourself with your reply.

As for what you said about the classic servers just being mobbed because they were new, that is not true either, not the way I saw it. My entire guild returned to DAoC to play on those and the only thing that brought us back was that there was no ToA on them. We certainly weren’t unique in that respect. There were many DAoC refugees that returned to the game they loved except for that kitten expansion pack to play on the classic servers.

I certainly see the similarities. Feeling all nostalgic, I miss Daoc