Guild Wars 2

i feel the same too…
and also i’m scared that with all this ascended gear after the time gate we will have gear gate… i know one day all bosses will spam agony just to give this gear sense (because fractals as fun as it can be, it has no meaning at all, it’s not that the more you go up the different the dungeon are and more story you uncover).
i guess they’ll see, i don’t know about me

Erasculio.2914:

DiogoSilva.7089:

What has this game turned into?

The game has turned into something that is not meant for you.

Have you played the original Guild Wars? I did. Once in a while, a new player would appear in one of the GW1 forums saying, “Why is the level cap so low? Why can’t we keep grinding for better gear? Why aren’t there mounts?”, and we would reply telling the player that Guild Wars was not the kind of game he was asking for.

Now, the table has turned. ArenaNet realized that, whatever definition of “success” they have, it’s easier to be successful through the farmers than through other players, like you and me.

So they have changed Guild Wars 2. You are not its target audience anymore. Neither am I. GW2’s target audience are the farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters who want every new content to be almost intolerable, so they can be one of the few who can endure going through it, in order to get some kind of reward and then try to show off; those players call this “dedication and effort”.

Other players are not really wanted; the kind of content they want is far more expensive and harder to make than easy mindless grind.

I couldn’t agree more, and sadly as long as the mmorpg community by in large stays content with “status quo” and keep spending their money these game design elements will likely never go away. Companies can not afford to be different in this market as much as they may want to be because the player base won’t allow it to happen. It’s a sad reality but it is what it is. From a business perspective I can’t blame a company for wanting to pay their bills and turn a profit in the easiest manner possible, it’s only when the majority of the players demand something different that the deviation from the boring usual methods will actually happen though.

This is the main reason I don’t play as often as I used to. Farming and zergs, I feel like I’m a treadmill doing repetitive stuff that just isn’t fun. It’s like a large chunk of the player base are mindless lemmings, following each other from one event to another…not even caring if they win the event or not as long as they get loot

Erasculio.2914:

DiogoSilva.7089:

What has this game turned into?

The game has turned into something that is not meant for you.

Have you played the original Guild Wars? I did. Once in a while, a new player would appear in one of the GW1 forums saying, “Why is the level cap so low? Why can’t we keep grinding for better gear? Why aren’t there mounts?”, and we would reply telling the player that Guild Wars was not the kind of game he was asking for.

Now, the table has turned. ArenaNet realized that, whatever definition of “success” they have, it’s easier to be successful through the farmers than through other players, like you and me.

So they have changed Guild Wars 2. You are not its target audience anymore. Neither am I. GW2’s target audience are the farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters who want every new content to be almost intolerable, so they can be one of the few who can endure going through it, in order to get some kind of reward and then try to show off; those players call this “dedication and effort”.

Other players are not really wanted; the kind of content they want is far more expensive and harder to make than easy mindless grind.

till yesterday, your adamant anti-farmer posts were kind of annoying to me, not untrue, but always with too much fanaticsm for my taste. This patch has changed that somewhat. It almost seems we had two insane farm LS events just to get on track with enough ressources to enter a new rat race for ascended gear. You run out of mats/money for your next exotic item to level up crafting, well, join the champion train. Or do the Scarlet dance once more, the event is still happening. I am still not convinced GW2 is a bad game, but personally, I notice unhealthy tendency in myself. I do no longer care what content I want to play, I can postpone that, farming i need NOW, I have to finish this, and this, and that. Admittingly, this is largely a fault of my personality, but I guess that kind of behaviour is found in many MMORPG players. At the moment, GW2 feels like a second job with a lot of meetings to prepare and attend to and quite frankly, I am wondering if my life would be a lot less stressful if I just gave up the game. And no, you can´t haz my stuff, not gone yet and much of it is account bound anyway.

Vlawde.1895:

This is the main reason I don’t play as often as I used to. Farming and zergs, I feel like I’m a treadmill doing repetitive stuff that just isn’t fun. It’s like a large chunk of the player base are mindless lemmings, following each other from one event to another…not even caring if they win the event or not as long as they get loot

That is exactly what is happening (many players don’t even realize it though), through the use of rng skinner box tactics. Companies figured out a long time ago if you randomize how frequently a “food pellet” is rewarded it will keep the “rats” pressing buttons indefinitely in response to a stimuli. Same exact principle behind slot machines, just a bit more cleverly disguised in mmorpg’s. It’s called “appealing to the human condition” and is touted as good game design by many in the industry.

and don’t forget to jump in 8bit for the new list of to do

I am really curious how the ‘average’ player can handle these zerg-fests that ANet has been putting in the game lately. The crown pavilion and invasions were designed to be zerg fests. The champ trains. The new tequatl requiring 80+ people.

I have a pretty decent computer, not the highest end machine. But my machine still struggles during things like ‘Kill Scarlet’ with around 100 people on screen.

How can people with computer specs less than mine be enjoying this type of gameplay?

Sure, some may turn down their graphic setting a lot to handle the load. But in such a beautifully designed game, that is really a bad solution to the problem.

Solo farming has been pushed out and discouraged while the huge zerg-fest farming is in season.

My desire to play this game is currently at an all time low. One good thing, at least for my honey-do list, is that is making it easier to just turn the game off and walk away.

Amen to that

As of this morning, I have deleted all my characters and uninstalled the game for good.

gg Anet

Erasculio.2914:

DiogoSilva.7089:

What has this game turned into?

The game has turned into something that is not meant for you.

Have you played the original Guild Wars? I did. Once in a while, a new player would appear in one of the GW1 forums saying, “Why is the level cap so low? Why can’t we keep grinding for better gear? Why aren’t there mounts?”, and we would reply telling the player that Guild Wars was not the kind of game he was asking for.

Now, the table has turned. ArenaNet realized that, whatever definition of “success” they have, it’s easier to be successful through the farmers than through other players, like you and me.

So they have changed Guild Wars 2. You are not its target audience anymore. Neither am I. GW2’s target audience are the farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters who want every new content to be almost intolerable, so they can be one of the few who can endure going through it, in order to get some kind of reward and then try to show off; those players call this “dedication and effort”.

Other players are not really wanted; the kind of content they want is far more expensive and harder to make than easy mindless grind.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

I am really curious how the ‘average’ player can handle these zerg-fests that ANet has been putting in the game lately. The crown pavilion and invasions were designed to be zerg fests. The champ trains. The new tequatl requiring 80+ people.

I have a pretty decent computer, not the highest end machine. But my machine still struggles during things like ‘Kill Scarlet’ with around 100 people on screen.

How can people with computer specs less than mine be enjoying this type of gameplay?

Sure, some may turn down their graphic setting a lot to handle the load. But in such a beautifully designed game, that is really a bad solution to the problem.

Solo farming has been pushed out and discouraged while the huge zerg-fest farming is in season.

My desire to play this game is currently at an all time low. One good thing, at least for my honey-do list, is that is making it easier to just turn the game off and walk away.

It doesn’t necessarily mean your computer can’t handle that kind of load when ANet has already admitted that their servers can’t.

Well written OP. The game is anything but what it was supposed to be:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Is_it_fun

Erasculio.2914:

DiogoSilva.7089:

What has this game turned into?

The game has turned into something that is not meant for you.

Have you played the original Guild Wars? I did. Once in a while, a new player would appear in one of the GW1 forums saying, “Why is the level cap so low? Why can’t we keep grinding for better gear? Why aren’t there mounts?”, and we would reply telling the player that Guild Wars was not the kind of game he was asking for.

Now, the table has turned. ArenaNet realized that, whatever definition of “success” they have, it’s easier to be successful through the farmers than through other players, like you and me.

So they have changed Guild Wars 2. You are not its target audience anymore. Neither am I. GW2’s target audience are the farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters who want every new content to be almost intolerable, so they can be one of the few who can endure going through it, in order to get some kind of reward and then try to show off; those players call this “dedication and effort”.

Other players are not really wanted; the kind of content they want is far more expensive and harder to make than easy mindless grind.

That is why i basically lol at people who waste their time on legendary and feel like they should be respected.So what?You got a legendary who cares?Some bought it off from tp and demand to be respected which is even worse.He gives a crap about gears and tiers.I wan fun gaming elements implemented.I want to have great experiences and they fail to deliver….

I feel your (plural) pain, I really do, but…

I consider myself and “average” player. By average, I mean I am not elite, I am not geared with BiS, and I am not by any means the best player in the game. Far from it, I would say…

I find myself playing as much today as I did the first weeks. Why? It’s really simple. I enjoy the game. I don’t have to farm, I don’t have to zerg, and I don’t have to have all the new shineys. On the other hand, I can join the nearest zerg, or I fan farm, or do anything else the game has to offer. Sometimes I log in just to say hi to friends and hang out to compare armor.

I can’t tell you that you “have to love the game” or that you have to hate it, but I can say that as long as I am having fun doing “whatever” I will still play.

My advice to the rest of you is simple: If you don’t enjoy it any more, there are tons of games out there that you might enjoy better.

Good luck to you all.

For the first time since I purchased this game (In April before headstart), I am feeling as though the game has gone in a direction I can’t follow. I have been disappointed by it in the past but this time is different.
You can’t blame it all on ascended either. For a game that was touted as horizontal progression based, glorified dress-up & customization, we had a tiny lot to choose from to do so.
People want to look unique. There were so many ideas in suggestions for this very thing. Monetization could have come from gem-store items that people ‘wanted’ to buy. Anet had some winners: convenience items, makeover kits, special skin tickets, quaggan/charr backpacks.
Why not expand this to special pets/seasonal pets for Rangers, weapon dye kits, kits to make items account bound if not completely unbound, functional minis (with small bonus like +5% karma) <—fix mini functionality first like equipping it and it stays out until unequipped or changed. The ideas I’ve read in suggestions are too numerous to mention and all would bring plenty of money to the company without this new tier of gear. There were a tonne of good ideas for gold sinks that would help stabilize the economy as well.
It just comes down to ease of implementation I guess. It’s more cost effective and easier to pull this out of their hat than to bring forth some novel and cash generating ideas.

It’s a great game that I’ll probably come back to from time to time but it has grown into something I’m not willing to put the time into anymore.

Infernia.9847:

For the first time since I purchased this game (In April before headstart), I am feeling as though the game has gone in a direction I can’t follow. I have been disappointed by it in the past but this time is different.
You can’t blame it all on ascended either. For a game that was touted as horizontal progression based, glorified dress-up & customization, we had a tiny lot to choose from to do so.
People want to look unique. There were so many ideas in suggestions for this very thing. Monetization could have come from gem-store items that people ‘wanted’ to buy. Anet had some winners: convenience items, makeover kits, special skin tickets, quaggan/charr backpacks.
Why not expand this to special pets/seasonal pets for Rangers, weapon dye kits, kits to make items account bound if not completely unbound, functional minis (with small bonus like +5% karma) <—fix mini functionality first like equipping it and it stays out until unequipped or changed. The ideas I’ve read in suggestions are too numerous to mention and all would bring plenty of money to the company without this new tier of gear. There were a tonne of good ideas for gold sinks that would help stabilize the economy as well.
It just comes down to ease of implementation I guess. It’s more cost effective and easier to pull this out of their hat than to bring forth some novel and cash generating ideas.

It’s a great game that I’ll probably come back to from time to time but it has grown into something I’m not willing to put the time into anymore.

Yep , lets wait for the next big free and shiny MMO at the meantime.

can you imagine somebody who start to play now? they won’t even have time to do their personal story once, let’s figure exploration… they will always feel left behind and every 2 weeks new achievement to collect… i miss the game as it was until january

It is not even the farming per se. I liked games with a lot of farming in the past. I even ran raids below my powerlevel solo to aquire some twink gear. I don´t mind raiding, repeating content and all those things that usually come with vertical progression. But GW2, it just shoves a million choires into your face at their schedule. Now I have to level crafting, oh, wood ran out, where were those nodes again, ah, off to orr, farm, come back, refine, oh, need more globs, what´s the world boss timer, done, oh, it´s past midnight, I haven´t done all dailies. And don´t forget that character you parked in front of the home instance. I mean, those celestial items are rubbish now, but who knows what they could be good for in the future? At some point, that is just too much for me (and yes, I had a full set of ascended jewelery and full exotic sets of armor/weapons, so not a casual gamer I guess).

So true, this game is not what it could have been because it was “streamlined” (i.e. stupidified) and is further degrading into just another uninspired generic theme park mmo, only with a parade and fireworks every 2 weeks.

That alone I could live with, but what really nags at me is that they were so close. Gw1 left a great heritage, and gw2 was just on it’s way to follow in its footsteps. Early footage made it look really great, it was going to have the interesting dual class system, more classes, swappable skills and traits that were not locked in tiers at all. Think about the diversity we could have had! But time and again, someone always said “nah, that’s too complicated for our target audience. Make it simpler.”

Of course they couldn’t admit that this is what happened, but I sincerely think that there is someone in charge at Anet, maybe it’s really just one guy, who deserves to get punched in the face for that.

Wonder if devs play wow

Junkpile.7439:

Wonder if devs play wow

wow, aion, jade dynasty and many others, too obvious not to see the similarities.

Ronah.2869:

Junkpile.7439:

Wonder if devs play wow

wow, aion, jade dynasty and many others, too obvious not to see the similarities.

I know what they don’t play. GW1.

Best post ever Dioga….You nailed it completely. Well played sir.

Copestetic.5174:

OH NOEZ1!!?!?!?11!?! Another post complaining about Guild Wars 2. It’s been a year. One. Year. To the next thread.

…. A year is a very long time, even for an mmorpg. Are you saying you can’t tell whether or not GW2 is a good game when you play for a year? I don’t understand what you’re saying here.

xephire.8324:

Infernia.9847:

For the first time since I purchased this game (In April before headstart), I am feeling as though the game has gone in a direction I can’t follow. I have been disappointed by it in the past but this time is different.
You can’t blame it all on ascended either. For a game that was touted as horizontal progression based, glorified dress-up & customization, we had a tiny lot to choose from to do so.
People want to look unique. There were so many ideas in suggestions for this very thing. Monetization could have come from gem-store items that people ‘wanted’ to buy. Anet had some winners: convenience items, makeover kits, special skin tickets, quaggan/charr backpacks.
Why not expand this to special pets/seasonal pets for Rangers, weapon dye kits, kits to make items account bound if not completely unbound, functional minis (with small bonus like +5% karma) <—fix mini functionality first like equipping it and it stays out until unequipped or changed. The ideas I’ve read in suggestions are too numerous to mention and all would bring plenty of money to the company without this new tier of gear. There were a tonne of good ideas for gold sinks that would help stabilize the economy as well.
It just comes down to ease of implementation I guess. It’s more cost effective and easier to pull this out of their hat than to bring forth some novel and cash generating ideas.

It’s a great game that I’ll probably come back to from time to time but it has grown into something I’m not willing to put the time into anymore.

Yep , lets wait for the next big free and shiny MMO at the meantime.

Aren’t they all the same, at least in this aspect? It’s a serious question. I assumed from the way this one is headed and what I’ve read that it’s all one great big gear grind. In which case, no thank you. I’ll crawl back into my single player cave.

Junkpile.7439:

Wonder if devs play wow

Anet is founded by Ex-WoW developers. They didn’t like the direction WoW was going so they formed Arena Net and started working on GW1. This took place before WoW was released. Do a google search for some early alpha GW1 Screenshots. They eerily look like WoW. It seems however that those developers are not working on GW2 or had very little input in it’s design. I believe this is the reason why GW2 is so vastly different from it’s extremely successful predecessor.

TooBz.3065:

Aren’t they all the same, at least in this aspect? It’s a serious question. I assumed from the way this one is headed and what I’ve read that it’s all one great big gear grind. In which case, no thank you. I’ll crawl back into my single player cave.

More or less you are right. It just depends what skin you prefer:

World of Warcraft skin (WoW)
Lord of the Rings skin (LOTRO)
Conan skin (AoC)
Star Wars skin (SWTOR)
No name skin (Rift)
Guild Wars skin (GW2)
Final Fantasy skin (FFXIV)
…
…
…
There are few that deviate but are niche and mostly very hardcore.

Amen brother.

I play GW2 because there’s nothing else. I’m going to jump on the next triple A MMO that comes out; even if it has a subscription fee. Anything other than a boring grind fest for casual noobs would suffice.

I wouldn’t mind spending a lot of time to get ascended gear as long as the experience was any fun and exciting.

It’s not the end that matters, but the journey

Anet put a new gear race upon old and exploitable content. They should have created or improved content to be more exciting first, and then add better rewards/ ascended farming alongside it. I wouldn’t mind farming for ascended, if the journey was a great experience. As it happens, though, auto-attacking swarms are not a great experience. They’re relaxing every once in a while, but when they dominate the entire game, it degenerates it into the worst kind of “kill x rats” generic mmo design.

The game has turned into something that is not meant for you.

Have you played the original Guild Wars? I did. Once in a while, a new player would appear in one of the GW1 forums saying, “Why is the level cap so low? Why can’t we keep grinding for better gear? Why aren’t there mounts?”, and we would reply telling the player that Guild Wars was not the kind of game he was asking for.

Now, the table has turned. ArenaNet realized that, whatever definition of “success” they have, it’s easier to be successful through the farmers than through other players, like you and me.

So they have changed Guild Wars 2. You are not its target audience anymore. Neither am I. GW2’s target audience are the farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters who want every new content to be almost intolerable, so they can be one of the few who can endure going through it, in order to get some kind of reward and then try to show off; those players call this “dedication and effort”.

Other players are not really wanted; the kind of content they want is far more expensive and harder to make than easy mindless grind.

Hey, Erasculio.

We’ll see if you’re right once Everquest Next is released. That game is pretty much following (and expanding upon) GW2’s original design manifesto (plus taking a bit from GW1 and Minecraft). I wonder: should EQN become a success, would you rethink your views on GW2’s current “need” to appeal to farmers? Would it really be the fault of the players?

DiogoSilva.7089:

Combat is streamlined and fluid, the art style and music are gorgeous, there’s plenty to do, and even more so, there was plenty of potential untapped.

Well said. If I had to say that Anet has done anything right, it would be that their combat is extremely fluid and in fact, this is probably the biggest retaining element for me when I compared it to many other games.

However, everything else is just heading down a direction which was not what I expected. I’m carefully observing how FFXIV is handling their current issues at the moment as well as their customer support before I say any permanent goodbyes.

mmo.RPG > MMO.rpg

the sad turn

a fellow guildie said it best: carrots are necessary in mmo’s.

however you interpret that is up to you. stats, skins, titles, ap…the list goes on.

a bit of perspective is needed as well.
i feel as if many of the negative comments are based around carrots being prohibitive of ‘fun.’ they aren’t obstacles unless you make them so.

wintermute.4096:

Ronah.2869:

Junkpile.7439:

Wonder if devs play wow

wow, aion, jade dynasty and many others, too obvious not to see the similarities.

I know what they don’t play. GW1.

LOL, this is so true. When people say “its only been 1 year” i just shake my head. No, they had 10 solid years before this making gw1 and they also had a solid 4-5 years making gw2. How they just forgot what made gw1 so good is mind bogiling.

A disheartening and absolutely spot-on essay on the subject, good sir (or madam).

It’s a fluffy-kitten shame just how incompetent ArenNet is about so many issues, considering they clearly wanted to do better and put a lot of effort into doing better (even if they’re now busy betraying those ideals as well).

For me, a graphics enthusiast, the biggest reminder of all the wrong decisions in this game is this little artsy brushstroke-like line at every edge of the screen.

Yeah. Most people don’t even know it has a name: it’s called “Vignette”, and it’s used as a framing device to draw people’s attention towards the center or side of the frame… and it gives an illusion that the world you’re looking at is smaller than it really is. What a wonderful way to ruin so many hours’ worth of environment design.

Oh, and it induces fatigue if used for long stretches of time. Good job there too.

DiogoSilva.7089:

The richer will become stronger faster, the poorer will have to work harder. The more skilled players will be forced to farm, as well, because unlike what was advertised to us at the beginning, being skilled in this game means zero.

I 100% agree. I was running around in the Gendarran Fields an this guy who was obviously a farmer came up and started stomping my character. I couldn’t fight back since he had a legendary weapon, legendary armor, an epic mount, etc… Obviously all farmed. I was dodge rolling, casting spells, everything, but my skill could not stop him from killing me.

No matter how skilled someone is, they will never beat a farmer and that is why they shouldn’t have open world PVP in this game anymore. They should do a different PVP mode where everyone is given the same gear, pre leveled up to 80, and you can’t farm your pvp equipment.

TorsoReaper.8530:

DiogoSilva.7089:

The richer will become stronger faster, the poorer will have to work harder. The more skilled players will be forced to farm, as well, because unlike what was advertised to us at the beginning, being skilled in this game means zero.

I 100% agree. I was running around in the Gendarran Fields an this guy who was obviously a farmer came up and started stomping my character. I couldn’t fight back since he had a legendary weapon, legendary armor, an epic mount, etc… Obviously all farmed. I was dodge rolling, casting spells, everything, but my skill could not stop him from killing me.

No matter how skilled someone is, they will never beat a farmer and that is why they shouldn’t have open world PVP in this game anymore. They should do a different PVP mode where everyone is given the same gear, pre leveled up to 80, and you can’t farm your pvp equipment.

lol

I miss quests and expansions at this point. I miss being able to do that new content when I wanted too, and I miss being able to help NPCs with interesting stories. But instead I get Grind Wars 2, I can either farm PvE zergs and LS for hours and get tons of profit or play WvW and get broke.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Only the rewards were truly improved.

they were? meh maybe gold for arah is nice, but this is still kitten -poor sorry

DiogoSilva.7089:

Hey, Erasculio.

We’ll see if you’re right once Everquest Next is released. That game is pretty much following (and expanding upon) GW2’s original design manifesto (plus taking a bit from GW1 and Minecraft). I wonder: should EQN become a success, would you rethink your views on GW2’s current “need” to appeal to farmers? Would it really be the fault of the players?

I think it was a bit ArenaNet’s fault, for adding features to the game that appealed to farmers even before release. Had they taken a firmer instance about this kind of thing, the farmers would have left quickly and then everyone else would have the game for ourselves. I’m not sure if Guild Wars 2 would have been a success then, though.

I’m actually extremely pessimistic about EQ Next. I think that yes, they will make a very innovative and unique online world, based on dynamic content and with relatively little grind… Only to have it filled with farmers, who will demand more and more grind or threaten to leave and significantly reduce the game’s population. I doubt any game that calls itself a MMORPG can escape this kind of thing.

But, “que será, será”, né?

Diago, what you’ve said is good enough to be published on a gaming site lol no kidding. What you said is exactly what is happening to this game and sadly most people that visit official forums completely ignore and accept what is given to them since its free so who should care, right? What is done with ascended weapon is inacceptable. You should never ever time gate a player because he may just say “f this im out”. Time gating a player (which isn’t even real time gating content) in an extremely rare drop which no one forces you to get is acceptable and been in all rpg’s since forever but do not, ever put a #@$&$*&@ 24h timer for me to craft an item for which i have the mats needed. Nerfs everywhere, time gated content batman, DR,,,, where are we going with this?

Erasculio.2914:

DiogoSilva.7089:

What has this game turned into?

The game has turned into something that is not meant for you.

Have you played the original Guild Wars? I did. Once in a while, a new player would appear in one of the GW1 forums saying, “Why is the level cap so low? Why can’t we keep grinding for better gear? Why aren’t there mounts?”, and we would reply telling the player that Guild Wars was not the kind of game he was asking for.

Now, the table has turned. ArenaNet realized that, whatever definition of “success” they have, it’s easier to be successful through the farmers than through other players, like you and me.

So they have changed Guild Wars 2. You are not its target audience anymore. Neither am I. GW2’s target audience are the farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters who want every new content to be almost intolerable, so they can be one of the few who can endure going through it, in order to get some kind of reward and then try to show off; those players call this “dedication and effort”.

Other players are not really wanted; the kind of content they want is far more expensive and harder to make than easy mindless grind.

You hit the nail on the head. For some reason more and more content needs to be as difficult to obtain as possible just so 5% of the community can feel unique. And everyone who complains about this is accused of feeling ‘entitled’. I’m so sick of that word.

Erasculio.2914:

Neither am I. GW2’s target audience are the farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters who want every new content to be almost intolerable, so they can be one of the few who can endure going through it, in order to get some kind of reward and then try to show off; those players call this “dedication and effort”.

You know, we rarely agree, but I was thinking of something similar. A lot of them pve elitists do pride themselves on doing intolerable, terrible content over and over again, and then use it as the sole criteria of player quality despite it having little to do with skill to put themselves above others. Because they can accept the game simply being the equivalent to a lever pulling one since it’s the reward at the end that matters. And once they reach that point, the cycle repeats

Unlike you, I don’t care about that mindset exclusively nor do I need to attach morally ambiguous labels to them. It’s when it’s imposed on everyone else, that’s the problem.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Diago, what you’ve said is good enough to be published on a gaming site lol no kidding. …

Diogo should consider writing for a living as it was an extremely well written forum post. With the possible exception of the first paragraph, it conveys every thought I have had about GW2 and the recent implementation of Ascended weapons.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I wouldn’t mind spending a lot of time to get ascended gear as long as the experience was any fun and exciting.

It’s not the end that matters, but the journey

Anet put a new gear race upon old and exploitable content. They should have created or improved content to be more exciting first, and then add better rewards/ ascended farming alongside it. I wouldn’t mind farming for ascended, if the journey was a great experience. As it happens, though, auto-attacking swarms are not a great experience. They’re relaxing every once in a while, but when they dominate the entire game, it degenerates it into the worst kind of “kill x rats” generic mmo design.

This … exactly. Grinds and “progression” are what devs who lack cleverness resort to. If we really had exciting and enjoyable content … in WvW or sPvP or PvE … we wouldn’t need all this other crap. A truly fun game will get played even without rewards at all. Nobody plays sandlot sports expecting to come home with better clothes, yet hundreds of thousands do it.

Even the Living Story isn’t so much a story as it is simply a repeating mechanism for putting carrots in front of donkeys. GW2 promised so much initially, but I doubt half of us would have switched to it from whatever we were previously playing if we had known it was going to be headed in this direction now.

Cactus.2710:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I wouldn’t mind spending a lot of time to get ascended gear as long as the experience was any fun and exciting.

It’s not the end that matters, but the journey

Anet put a new gear race upon old and exploitable content. They should have created or improved content to be more exciting first, and then add better rewards/ ascended farming alongside it. I wouldn’t mind farming for ascended, if the journey was a great experience. As it happens, though, auto-attacking swarms are not a great experience. They’re relaxing every once in a while, but when they dominate the entire game, it degenerates it into the worst kind of “kill x rats” generic mmo design.

This … exactly. Grinds and “progression” are what devs who lack cleverness resort to. If we really had exciting and enjoyable content … in WvW or sPvP or PvE … we wouldn’t need all this other crap. A truly fun game will get played even without rewards at all. Nobody plays sandlot sports expecting to come home with better clothes, yet hundreds of thousands do it.

Even the Living Story isn’t so much a story as it is simply a repeating mechanism for putting carrots in front of donkeys. GW2 promised so much initially, but I doubt half of us would have switched to it from whatever we were previously playing if we had known it was going to be headed in this direction now.

Surely there is a limit to “a lot of time” though.

I wouldn’t mind the farm if there was a end.

At least in GW1 there is a gold cap. In GW2 just when I thought I had enough to buy some Silver doubloons they are now 100g more then what they were. This isn’t just because of the current update, it’s been happening everyday with pretty much anything. Plus for something you need 250 of they don’t drop anywhere to begin with.

I really wanted to get a Legendary but I"m bored of the endless farm and consequentiality the game in general now. I thought I might be able to get some obby shards out of SAB but they removed it. Add in all the account bound this, soulbound that and it’s just lame. Why add a bunch of new mats to the loot table that can’t be sold or even given away to someone that might care. Why not add precursors to the table instead.

Guild Wars 2 is now does everything I hate about MMOs. Gates everything to only those who can spend their entire life on it.

Op, you missed something important here…

It is NOT an RPG (think I did a mistake here, sorry). You don’t roleplay in Guild Wars 2. Sure, you have choice A,B or C, but in the end, you are doing the same thing as John Smith next to you, and the end of it all will be the same. You know what could be nice ?

A real story.

Like, say, the Imperial Agent in SWTOR, or Dragon Age, or every other rpg which had a story…

Anyway, I find it reassuring to see I’m not the only one who deleted every character he had, kinda felt stupid for a while after doing it but…do I regret it ? No, because I think exactly like you. The game is just a race for the shiny stuff and sitting on your butt in Lion’s Arch all day long when you’re not doing the same dungeon for the million time over.

Erasculio.2914:

I’m actually extremely pessimistic about EQ Next. […]

Sounds like you’re more pessimistic about the MMORPG genre, than EQ Next specifically. It’s hard not to be, considering how quickly GW 2 abandoned its artistic vision. I hold out hope for EQ Next, but the comments on the “contested content” round table make me think the majority of MMO players are interested in more of the same, and not anything new for MMOs.

SirMoogie.9263:

Erasculio.2914:

I’m actually extremely pessimistic about EQ Next. […]

Sounds like you’re more pessimistic about the MMORPG genre, than EQ Next specifically. It’s hard not to be, considering how quickly GW 2 abandoned it’s rtistic vision. I hold out hope for EQ Next, but the comments on the “contested content” round table make me think the majority of MMO players are interested in more of the same, and not anything new for MMOs.

I have been saying this for some time now, we can blame developers partially but it is also players who hold a lion share of the burden for stagnating innovative ideas in the genre. The explosion in popularity in relatively recent years (post WoW) has a lot to do with it. We are at a point now where there are people who literally “grew up” (I put grew up in quotes not to mean age strictly speaking but also in terms of mmorpg experience.) knowing only one way of doing things in a mmorpg and as such they are conditioned to use that experience to determine their criteria for future endeavors as being “good” or “bad”. Many of these players became attracted to the genre partially because gaming and technology in general lost a lot of it’s social stigma as it gained in rapid popularity post 2000. Along with popularity also comes greater demographic diversity and as we all know trying to appease a wide demographic while it may make something commercially successful does not mean that it will actually be any “good”. You can look at a Hollywood summer blockbuster filled with flashy special effects but lacking substance and yet is wildly financially successful as a comparable. I realize this is a bit of a rant but I sorta miss the old days when computer games were for nerds only lol.