Guild Wars 2

Shifty.5187:

Esplen.3940:

You have monthlies. They give 10 laurels.

Voila, now you only need to play 10 days a month (do 10 dailies and finish the monthly in those 10 days).

There are 4 weeks in a month.

There are 4 weekends in a month.

There are 2.5 days in a weekend.

There are 10 days you can play during the weekends of every month.

You only need to play 10 days to get 20 Laurels.

WOAH LOGICKALIMAGICXKZ

Thank you for the lack of sympathies.

10 days to get 20 laurels is technically correct, except that it takes you a month each time. I guess that’s what they call time logic?

40 laurels a month actually.

But still GW2 progression is more of a time sink then WoW at this point in time. For those that want a legendary, want ascended gear, want achieve gear. GW2 is the grindiest game ive played in a long time in that regard. And this is due to very very heavy time gating.

It’s lame really. They could have come up with a better system then making you do the same thing every day for months to get some accessories lol.

Esplen.3940:

So then what should players work for? What should differentiate the player who plays for 8 hours a day versus the player who plays for 10 minutes a day

Nothing.

Let’s take a look at real life: a Chinese factory worker works 12 hours per day 6 days a week. He gets a very small salary. Steve Jobs, in other hand, worked less hours per week, but he received a very higher salary.

What does that example show us? How time spent, by itself, is not worth a reward. The idea that grinders deserve a reward, for doing easy and mindless content over and over (aka “dedication”), comes from classic MMORPGs, in which developers wanted people to keep playing, and thus paying, every day.

If ArenaNet were to reward something, it should be skilled play, not time spent.

Vayne.8563:

Like taking a line out of the original manifesto or a SINGLE WORD out of that article. This is an argument you’ve already lost. I don’t know why you can’t see it.

Vayne, I’m not sure you are following Esplen’s advice. You are the one pretending you didn’t see the line from the Manifesto in which Colin said, “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun”. Saying that no one enjoys grind and then saying gear grind is fine, which is your argument, is nonsensical at best, hypocritical at worst. Especially in the context of the Manifesto, with that statement coming right after “I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again”; it’s rather obvious how the “swung a sword” comment is portraying grind, the act of mindlessly repeating a given action, which we see both in gear grind and in level grind.

Your entire reasoning about the level grind claim (and, for the records, the Manifesto never mentions level grind) stands on the assumption that the statement “this boring grind to get to the fun stuff” meant end game content (despite how said statement has no footing on anything said on the Manifesto. Or in reality, for the records). The clarification of the Manifesto proves you are wrong by stating how “the fun stuff” includes “fun rewards” – which means, your interpretation was wrong. It’s simple English, really.

So now we have established, beyond doubt, that your interpretation was 100% wrong. When ArenaNet said they didn’t want players to grind, they were talking about all grind. With that fact behind us, what else can we learn?

That ArenaNet changed their mind. While still claiming that the Manifesto was the intent behind GW2, they changed the game so it would be rather grindy. What do we call, again, when someone claims to have an intention that he/she does not really have? C’mon, that question isn’t hard.

Really, now. Your adamant defense of ArenaNet’s infallibility is nice and all, but it’s far from convincing.

Erasculio.2914:

If ArenaNet were to reward something, it should be skilled play, not time spent.

Which is why Arah is far more profitable than CoF right? NOTHING in this game rewards skill over grind.

Same problem here. I have 3 80s because I can’t do anything else (other than cof p1). I want a dueling system to wager gold and have fun (a dueling place like runescape has would be PERFECT) because nothing interests more.

One more thing. I hate when my character looks kitten as kitten from all my hours of grinding for a cool set then I go into spvp and I look like a kitten.

Time… It makes you play the game longer and keep you updated on the new changes and maby you will spend a little $ in the store.
That’s a good reason to why some stuff is gated per day, like laurels, dungeons (soon) and other stuff and you don’t have to farm them to accomplish them, you don’t have to farm to have fun in this game, the picture people have of having fun is bragging rights! ‘When I get my Legendary I have got everything!’ and the it will sound like this ‘This game is so booring, there is nothing new and I got everything in just a week!’.

When things are timegated or takes a long time to do it is meant for you to compleate it by keep on playing the game, not to grind it as fast as possible to reach your goal so you are content and can brag for an hour and then put the game away.

It’s not A-net that makes the content to be grinded or farmed it is the players mind.

No matter what they will do there will always be people who want’s it all and start to grind, to get rid of grind they should remove progress from the game and only focus on skills and story. No levels, no gear, no rewards, no score, nothing only plain old hack and slash with a story.

I don’t feel forced to farm, and I don’t feel like I farm though I honestly can say I have done some grinding in Southsun during that living story… ye know… :P
I got 89 Laurels atm and I have spent over a hundred and I have never ever done a Daily without doing something else too, maby just one of those 5 ones could be ‘I am almost done with the daily but I need one more, oh, crafting daily’ I go craft ten logs.

Legendary is marely fluff and most of them are ugly imo and I wouldn’t care at all for them if it wasn’t for a little chest in the main menu, but I am cerntanly not playing the game to get the Legendary I am playing the game becouse I like it, I like the story, I like the engine, I like the players, I like the community, I like the Living Story, I like most of it.

Vayne.8563:

It’s not quite level grind. Colin as talked about, on more than one ocassion, how in most games you have to hit max level before you get to the fun stuff. In other words, you grind as fast as you can to get to max level to raid. You don’t do fun stuff till the top level. That’s what he’s talking about. That’s what I’ve said repeatedly. Your refusal to acknowledge not only that I’ve said this, but that Colin has, just shows how far you’re try to go to prove your point.

Like taking a line out of the original manifesto or a SINGLE WORD out of that article. This is an argument you’ve already lost. I don’t know why you can’t see it.

Take the dye system. You take that out of context too. Look at you pointing out that they changed the dye from account unlocked to single character unlocked. You know, that’s absolutely 100% true. But what you ignore, against taking it out of context, is the accompanying changes that made that dye collection far more of a grind in the first place. A dye seed, which you could only grow once per day, taken to an NPC in your home instance. And if you want to see more than one dye per day, you have to spend money on the cash shop on plant food. And the dyes were account locked but also couldn’t be sold on the trading post. Anet didn’t JUST change the dye to make it character bound, they changed the entire dye system and the new system is less greedy than the old one and makes it easier to get dyes.

I think maybe you should stop taking stuff out of context to try to prove points that are clearly not true.

It’s seems a bit delusional to defend the dye system being character bound. It’s obvious that it was changed to create a significantly larger gold sink. It doesn’t even matter if they left the old dye system, most people don’t want every single dye color, they just want to be able to easily preview every single color (whether they have it or not) and get the few ones they like. Now most people have to get the ones they like multiple times, once for each character.

Vayne, if it was so obvious that their only marketing intent when referring to grind was to communicate you don’t have to grind to get to the fun content, then why do we see new people continuing to pop up in threads (people I’m not familiar with bringing it up before either) referring to the manifesto with the understanding that people like Erasculio are communicating?

It’s because of a number of items, some of which Erasculio references, and the impressions ANet left on people from interviews and articles leading up to release. Telling us all the things we loved about Guild Wars would be in Guild Wars two, we loved grind only impacting Titles and Aesthetics, yet that’s not the case. How can people not understand that one of the biggest draws of Guild Wars was that there was no focus on vertical progression, the focus was on horizontal progression. Saying these things should have been understood by people, means we should have disregarded everything they gave us in Guild Wars and not trusted them. You’re saying people should have seen it coming that ANet was going to cater towards a very different crowd and not the market share they had. You’re saying we should have either A) understood they were going to abondon their previously ideologies or B ) understood they were going to use deceitful marketing involving the developers (who have the most insight into the game and were familiar with the previous game). But if this is not what you’re trying to say in any way at all, it sure comes across like it is.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

It’s not quite level grind. Colin as talked about, on more than one ocassion, how in most games you have to hit max level before you get to the fun stuff. In other words, you grind as fast as you can to get to max level to raid. You don’t do fun stuff till the top level. That’s what he’s talking about. That’s what I’ve said repeatedly. Your refusal to acknowledge not only that I’ve said this, but that Colin has, just shows how far you’re try to go to prove your point.

Like taking a line out of the original manifesto or a SINGLE WORD out of that article. This is an argument you’ve already lost. I don’t know why you can’t see it.

Take the dye system. You take that out of context too. Look at you pointing out that they changed the dye from account unlocked to single character unlocked. You know, that’s absolutely 100% true. But what you ignore, against taking it out of context, is the accompanying changes that made that dye collection far more of a grind in the first place. A dye seed, which you could only grow once per day, taken to an NPC in your home instance. And if you want to see more than one dye per day, you have to spend money on the cash shop on plant food. And the dyes were account locked but also couldn’t be sold on the trading post. Anet didn’t JUST change the dye to make it character bound, they changed the entire dye system and the new system is less greedy than the old one and makes it easier to get dyes.

I think maybe you should stop taking stuff out of context to try to prove points that are clearly not true.

It’s seems a bit delusional to defend the dye system being character bound. It’s obvious that it was changed to create a significantly larger gold sink. It doesn’t even matter if they left the old dye system, most people don’t want every single dye color, they just want to be able to easily preview every single color (whether they have it or not) and get the few ones they like. Now most people have to get the ones they like multiple times, once for each character.

Vayne, if it was so obvious that their only marketing intent when referring to grind was to communicate you don’t have to grind to get to the fun content, then why do we see new people continuing to pop up in threads (people I’m not familiar with bringing it up before either) referring to the manifesto with the understanding that people like Erasculio are communicating?

It’s because of a number of items, some of which Erasculio references, and the impressions ANet left on people from interviews and articles leading up to release. Telling us all the things we loved about Guild Wars would be in Guild Wars two, we loved grind only impacting Titles and Aesthetics, yet that’s not the case. How can people not understand that one of the biggest draws of Guild Wars was that there was no focus on vertical progression, the focus was on horizontal progression. Saying these things should have been understood by people, means we should have disregarded everything they gave us in Guild Wars and not trusted them. You’re saying people should have seen it coming that ANet was going to cater towards a very different crowd and not the market share they had. You’re saying we should have either A) understood they were going to abondon their previously ideologies or B ) understood they were going to use deceitful marketing involving the developers (who have the most insight into the game and were familiar with the previous game). But if this is not what you’re trying to say in any way at all, it sure comes across like it is.

The older dye system was far more greedy than the current one. They didn’t change one aspect of the system, they changed the entire system. They made it less greedy.

Anyone who says otherwise didn’t look at the whole picture. The way things were would have cost players a whole lot more real money or a whole lot more time.

Imagine having to wait 24 hours to see if you have a dye already, only to find out you do…and you can neither sell it, nor do anything else with it.

Erasculio.2914:

Esplen.3940:

So then what should players work for? What should differentiate the player who plays for 8 hours a day versus the player who plays for 10 minutes a day

Nothing.

What does that example show us? How time spent, by itself, is not worth a reward. The idea that grinders deserve a reward, for doing easy and mindless content over and over (aka “dedication”), comes from classic MMORPGs, in which developers wanted people to keep playing, and thus paying, every day.

If ArenaNet were to reward something, it should be skilled play, not time spent

So we should all just sit in a corner and dance because time spent doesn’t give us anything. The best player in the game can play for 1 minute a day and get rewarded just as much as the worst player who plays for 16 hours a day. The worst player who plays for 1 minute a day will get rewarded just as much as the best player who plays for 16 hours a day.

Grumpdogg.6910:

Erasculio.2914:

If ArenaNet were to reward something, it should be skilled play, not time spent.

Which is why Arah is far more profitable than CoF right? NOTHING in this game rewards skill over grind.

Thats changing in 4 days though

Vayne.8563:

The older dye system was far more greedy than the current one. They didn’t change one aspect of the system, they changed the entire system. They made it less greedy.

Anyone who says otherwise didn’t look at the whole picture. The way things were would have cost players a whole lot more real money or a whole lot more time.

Imagine having to wait 24 hours to see if you have a dye already, only to find out you do…and you can neither sell it, nor do anything else with it.

This times the largest prime number discovered so far…

I just cannot understand how anyone views the change in the dye system as a greedy move.

you could only discover 1 dye per day and you couldnt trade dyes meaning if you wanted a particular colour you had to gamble once per day hoping thats the right one over and over until you got it or just pay for 3x the chance.

The system we have now is character bound while the other was account bound sure but do you want colour x for your armor, go on tp and buy it. 5 seconds and done. compared with the old system that could potentially have you waiting for months until you found it.

IndigoSundown.5419:

If you think Blizzard is going to carry the subscription spear, this is a warning that you might need to prepare yourself otherwise.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/01/blizzards-titan-unlikely-to-be-a-subscription-based-mmorpg/ .

I said only a company like Blizzard would be able to do it successfully. I never said I expect them to do it again. In the end sub games are cheaper for players. The biggest irony is that cash shops bring in more cash than subs. So it’s more expensive on average for players but that’s ok for people…a sub however, that’s robbing people? Seriously, you people don’t actually see how expensive f2p is when you want to get the full experience of the game. People have this amazing ability to pay 150 bucks in one year for a sub and complain about how expensive it is, but when it’s f2p and they don’t watch their expenses and end up paying 200 or 300 bucks in that same year, then it’s not robbing people. We’ve done it to ourselves and I am sure companies are happy to oblige us. I guess most people feel more comfortable spending 300 bucks unknowingly than spending 150 bucks knowingly. Ignorance is bliss they say.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I dislike sub-based MMO’s intensely. I view every anti-fun attempt to slow me down, from ten minute flight paths, through mobs applying 20 second cripples 2 seconds before the fight ends, needing to stop and “eat/drink” and time gated progression “content” as ways for the company to keep its hand in my wallet. .

And what have all these examples to do with sub games? I play SWTOR for example and pay a sub gladly and I don’t recognise this stuff you talk about….oh wait or are you saying all subs must be like this because you had a sub in one game where they did this?

Me, I hate f2p games that make you pay ridiculous amounts for inventory space and movement buffs/mounts that purposefully make huge worlds so walking around is horrible and lots of crap loot so you need more inventory space. Please note that I say f2p games that do this, not all f2p games. I can’t say that because I haven’t played all of them. I have played about 5 of them and found out that every single one was lesser quality and cost me more than a sub to get the game experience I wanted from it.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I can tolerate a little bit of this crap, so dailies in GW2 didn’t bother me that much, but the upcoming crafting daily is probably going to send me over the edge with ANet.

Interesting turnaround. Truth is that this game does lack a certain amount of quality to it, probably because there is no sub involved. And I don’t even blame them. As I said above, it is my view that the players have been extremely dumb and allowed developers to take a new direction…less quality and more income and it’s the players that are going to pay for that income.

Because guess what…if the cash shop doesn’t do the trick, the game developer doesn’t have the necessary income. Another thing I hate is pervasive marketing in game. All the f2p games I played advertise in game (in chat and in the middle of your screen), telling you of all the discounts in the cash shop. Is that a direction you want for games? I certainly don’t.

@ Gehenna:

I want to pay for games. I don’t want to rent them. I also don’t want to pay piecemeal for features that make the basic game playable. That’s why B2P looked good to me. I did buy a few storage tabs because it was a one-time purchase that looked like a good value. I’ve not bought extra bag space. Sub games may be cheaper for some players, but not for me. If GW2 had been P2P my monetary outlay would have meant I’d have stopped playing at the end of January.

The games my examples were based on? WoW and Rift, mostly.

I remember trying ToR after it went F2P and getting slapped in the face with the realities of Freemium. Want to enjoy more than two stories? Sub, because they didn’t even sell extra slots in the store. Want to use all the skills the game gives you? Buy extra quick slots or live with the skill UI blocking your view. And I tripped over, “You could have x if you subbed!” messages every time I opened a menu.

You’re right about one thing. Developers have to make money or there will be no games. I just don’t think that subs are any better than other models at providing fun content.

To me, GW2’s launch content was more fun than any other game I’ve played except GW (I’m not including the Personal Story). Since then, the Ascended mess, too much time gating and the bread and circuses of the Living Story (at least so far) have been a giant step backwards as far as I’m concerned.

Esplen.3940:

Erasculio.2914:

What does that example show us? How time spent, by itself, is not worth a reward. The idea that grinders deserve a reward, for doing easy and mindless content over and over (aka “dedication”), comes from classic MMORPGs, in which developers wanted people to keep playing, and thus paying, every day.

If ArenaNet were to reward something, it should be skilled play, not time spent

So we should all just sit in a corner and dance because time spent doesn’t give us anything. The best player in the game can play for 1 minute a day and get rewarded just as much as the worst player who plays for 16 hours a day. The worst player who plays for 1 minute a day will get rewarded just as much as the best player who plays for 16 hours a kitten

… I know its hard for MMO diehards to understand the idea of playing a game because it is fun to play. What you are actually implying here is that sitting in a corner and dancing is preferable to anything else GW2 offers, and you need a carrot to make the other stuff worth bothering with. Not to mention, if a game rewards skill, I don’t think you are getting any more skilled by dancing in the corner. Just a thought…

Esplen.3940:

The best player in the game can play for 1 minute a day and get rewarded just as much as the worst player who plays for 16 hours a day

Yep. He’s the best player in the game, he deserves it.

Esplen.3940:

The worst player who plays for 1 minute a day will get rewarded just as much as the best player who plays for 16 hours a day.

Nope. If we reward skill, the worst player in the game won’t get nearly as many rewards as the most skilled player, much less in a shorter time.

What happens today is that the game ignores skill. The worst player in the game will always get far more rewards than the best player in the game, as long as he plays slightly more. The most rewarding kind of content also happens to be the easier – CoF1 is arguably the easiest dungeon in the game, just to give one example.

This works very well for pay to play MMOs. It tells players, “Do you want to be great? To get a lot of rewards? You don’t have to worry that you are a bad player, and you don’t have to bother in even trying to become better, just play more! And pay us more while you’re there, too!”.

Guild Wars 2 is not a pay to play MMO.

Ergo… A long time ago, ArenaNet told us that they were concerned that their games would follow a “skill > time spent” mentality. Truth be said, they began moving away from this at the end of the original Guild Wars, but it’s sad that they completely threw the concept out of the window with GW2.

Erasculio.2914:

Ergo… A long time ago, ArenaNet told us that they were concerned that their games would follow a “skill > time spent” mentality. Truth be said, they began moving away from this at the end of the original Guild Wars, but it’s sad that they completely threw the concept out of the window with GW2.

Threw it out the window. The question was, how far will it fall? Then they started making daily grinds. I’d say that the window is at least 100 stories high, and the idea of rewarding challenge is still in free fall. This stuff isn’t challenging for a typical 8 year-old. Why would I want to spend 30 minutes a day on it?