Guild Wars 2

When I think of GW1, although I mostly soloed the game and had a lot of fun doing so, there are certain key features that every GW1 player would expect from the GW franchise.

- When it comes to improving GW2 I don’t think it is as far on the horizon, provided that the devs are not looking over at said horizon.
- Look at GW1. GW2 was supposed to take everything we loved about GW1 and put it into a more persistent world with more active combat, dynamic events and a living story.

Already there we expected more active combat (which we got), dynamic events (which we got), and living story (which we got) from GW2.
- So the core of GW2 have been set, and all of these needs improvement in their own right, but what of GW1?

Key Features of the GW franchise
- When I think of GW1 the first things to pop into my mind are one specific Guild that is your community, that you represent.
- There would/should be:
Capes: (cloth simulations are not that hard to make, ANet, you already have some in GW2 already so tinker with those). We represented our guild not only in PvP but also in PvE, although it was limitted to outposts and towns.
Guild Halls: This would be your home, where you’d join up with your community, your guild.
GvG: Guilds would battle each other for supremacy. There were Guilds which name you knew, respected and/or feared.

- The Guild you joined would become your community. It made it Massive and Multiplayer at the same time, and with a Guild Hall it would also be your home.
- These people meant a lot, supposedly you’d have a couple of real life friends joining you, and the MMO as a genre thrives when people get together to play.

Challenges: Like REAL challenges? The Hall of Heroes were a lot harder (yeah, they were soloable if you had the right skill set, but it was a real challenge when I tried it the first time).
- GW2’s challenges simply don’t do when compared. Simply improve the mechanics. You had some great encounters in GW1. Look into what made them great and improve on that.
You should do more than just dodge some “one shot” skills. Anyone should be able to do that. Using your skills correctly, however, seperates the good from the great.

So what am I proposing? / tl;dr
- Take what we loved from GW1 and implement it into GW2.
Guilds should be able to represent themselves (not only in PvP), they should be able to get together in Guild Halls, where they can practice against each other, have tournaments or other kind of content like that. Maybe the Guild Master could make uniforms out of the armor sets already there (mix’n match or use a complete set) that would show your rank and which you had to gain Guild Points in matches against other Guilds or guild members – anyhow, I’m ranting off here.

More challenging content (not annoyingly, but challenging in that we must use the skills we have to help each other and combine to deal max amount of damage. We have to use what we’ve learned up to that point and utilize that to overcome a challenge).

As to improving GW2 game designs
- When it comes to stuff that needs improving in GW2, look at the core gameplay of GW2. Combat and Dynamic events were probably the two most biggest changes you made to your MMO, but they need to be expanded and improved. Heck, when people complain about the Quest system, I get kinda ticked off because it has improved over the years with phasing, scenarios, more conclusions to a single quest (SWToR pops to mind here) and the Dynamic Event system and skill system you use can definitely improve as well. Reach for the peaks of this game’s potential!
- Dungeons have begun improving as well. As far as I know, you’re headed in the right direction there, ANet.

And add what “we all loved” from GW1 and improve your core gameplay (more PvP modes, more Dynamic events in each zone to add variation and not spawning the same Dynamic Event over and over, it gets repetitive, really. Probably the skill system too. First few levels are great, because our character progresses but it just grows stale towards the end. Definitely needs some tweaking and improving, but yeah, I trust that you as game developers know where to look and what to improve. You, ANet, have already stated that you want to improve the mechanics of world bosses and such. I’m excited for it and looking forward to, hopefully, many great years in GW2).

I except this will end up like City of Heroes (NCSoft) minus years of gameplay.

I played Guild Wars 1 and I have a completely different list of what I expect from the Guild Wars franchise. For one thing, though the game started PvP heavy, it ended up being PVe heavy. That is to say the PvP community kept shrinking and the PVe community kept growing…one of the reasons Anet started putting less time/energy and updates into PvP by comparison to PvE. In fact Nightfall and Eye of the North, the last two products released didn’t do much for PvP at all. They were both PvE games.

In my five years of playing Guild Wars 1, I never GvGs. I did do a few forms of PvP (random arenas, Jade Quarry, Alliance Battles) but no GvG. Guild Halls to me, at least as they were done in Guild Wars 1, were pretty much a waste. A convience place to go and sell a few things, but little more.

So yeah, not sure I agree with your list of what to expect from the Guild Wars franchise.

Well, Vayne (you are also very active on the forums. Very interesting views and with many that I can agree on. I don’t think we are all that different), maybe they should go for making the Guilds more attractive in GW2.
- You know, like tournaments in the Guild Hall between members.
- Guild Armor sets that the Guild Master can design for each rank (Designing them from already existing armor’s. And if dungeons armor skins seems like the choice, have players earn the dungeon gear before they can get the special Guild Armor design for the particular set.)

I find the guild my main source of finding people to do multiplayer content with. And that kinda goes with any MMO I play.

GW2 right now seems like a solo experience to me. I can join various Guilds that would all expect me to represent them. Who to choose and why? I have a small guild with some friends and there is nothing for our guild to strive for. They haven’t played for some time, many of them besides one or two others than me, and with all the complaints about Guild Activities they are not interested as of yet, which I find to be a shame.

- As of what I’ve heard a majority of GW1 players say, Guild Halls and GvG is a huge deal to get in. As a PvE player I’d just like the cape as a means to represent the Guild and the aesthetic value of it, of course.
- I’m more of a casual player. Like you, I never really did GvG in the first game and all that, but it was more like a single player game with a multiplayer option, the way I see it (it was also argued amongst, and I’ll not say that mine is the correct one but I won’t exactly call it wrong either) where GW2 is a huge open world. Anyhow, many players enjoyed the content that Guilds had, I would’ve loved to get more into the guild as a community to do dungeons or get titles with, to spar against and all that sort of things in the first game, but I had very few friends playing it, and WoW was the “Big Daddy” back then, which many of them played (I did too, and actually, as long as there is stuff to do together with my friends, then I’m probably very likely to be joining up with them. I think GW2 has a tremendous amount of potential for multiplayer content, the combat system with combo fields have provided much fun and variety when playing together with my friends, I really like that, but yeah, the game still needs improving).

- Basically, I’d just like to see the multiplayer options expand, and since the guild should be the community which you would be part of, I think that adding more content there would be a nice start (and yeah, I do know of the Guild Missions and such, but I’m talking activities that the whole Guild can enjoy together and not just a bunch at a time). Hope you can agree with at least that, but if your experience with what makes an MMO great, I hold nothing against you disagreeing with me, I really don’t.
- But, just out of curiosity, what is your list of things to expect from the Guild Wars franchise?
I just remember hearing a lot about GvG, Guild Halls, Guild Capes and all that (the lore was my personal favorite of the first game. I don’t think that GW2 lives up to that with the Personal Story as of yet, but that is, again, just my opinion).