Guild Wars 2

Hello, before I begin I want to state that this is in no way a quit thread or whine thread, this is intended entirely as information in order to improve the game from my point of view.

I like many played the beta for guild wars 2, and then quit not long after becuase of feeling the game lacked a sort of “end game”. Out of boredom, I decided to re-try the guild wars 2 experience about a month ago. My attitude was different this time, not treating the game as an obsession I played with exploration in mind and a positive outlook, and I have found the game to be quite enjoyable.

So then, what is the problem you might ask? Well, that first time I played I did not get to see the level of detail and enjoyment from the game due to the fact that much of it is entirely unknown.

The dungeons for starters, are amazing, and involve very cool cinematic that are not really seen outside of the personal story. The dungeons are also very inaccessible, not because of difficulty, but rather because they come so much farther in the game, with the beginning one being in a zone that most players have not discovered. Dungeons are an area that I would really like to see expanded. Living story would be a great opportunity to introduce a dungeon to a lower level area that might help players understand that there are dungeons and where to find them without resorting to outside the game help; eventually a dungeon finder would be ideal, though I have heard that is in the works.

Second, is the living story. I very much enjoy the game, but the living story needs more information. Much like the dungeons, one knows that there is content coming, but nothing really further than that. With other games and MMOs in particular, there is a hyped up expansion that has loads of new content and information that is accessible long before the expansion releases. This creates a drive for many to continue to play, because they know what greatness is coming. Much like the first time I played, I have no idea what is coming, and each story that is released seems very incomplete.

To summarize then: Players need to know what is out there, both what currently exists such as neat dungeons (dungeon finder) as well as what is coming to be genuinely excited for (things such as new professions or weapons) – things normally provided by expansions and their hype.

Sorry for the long post, please try to read it and give your inputs!

I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say. Getting to the dungeons is pretty trivial. The first dungeon (Ascalonian Catacombs) is in the beginning Charr area, meaning any character capable of going into that dungeon will not have an issue getting to that dungeon. There is plenty of information about getting to that dungeon provided in an email you receive when you turn level 30. It will even show you where it is located so you can find it.

As far as what’s coming, a lot of discussion is done by the devs to let us know what’s coming. You just have to pay attention and stay on top of these things.

So, I’m not sure what it is you want.

The releases page tells us what’s coming every two weeks. Some people are concerned that there is too much pre-release information for each patch. There is a whole sub-forum created just to discuss each new releases upcoming content. I, too, did not understand the part about the first dungeon being difficult to locate. All of the dungeons are marked on the World map, as well as letters sent, at each appropriate level. What are your suggestions for both of these issues? =)

I am not saying that this information is not there. I believe you have both helped me pinpoint what it is I mean. Most players will play a character to around 20, and make their opinions about the game. For many, the game will be lacking because information is not provided at that point to explain what is out there for them to continue playing for.
I use the dungeons as the example because when I first began I had no idea they were such a neat feature of the game-due to the fact that leveling to 35 is a bit high to encounter the very first dungeon of the game. I hate to use warcraft as an example, and in no way am I saying warcraft is a better game, but warcraft does provide a solid dungeon experience at level 15, and further has a dungeon finder that becomes available very early in the game which allows people to quickly experience one of the major features of the game.

I think players who are actually interested in specific types of game play (e.g., dungeons), would ask questions or look online.

Eventually I did, the thing is this is not some scenario that doesn’t play out. It played out for my brother and I and we both quit the game in 2 months. The only reason we decided to come back and give it a solid try was because there was nothing to do over the summer.

I think you’re a very specific type of player OP. I think most people come into the game doing at least minimal research and know there are dungeons in the game.

I don’t think most people got to level 20 and quit, because level 20 takes about 10 hours, maybe four to reach…even if you’re not trying very hard. So if you only give an MMO 10 hours and decide you know what comes later…I’m not sure what to say about that.

I don’t think there’s a huge problem with dungeons.

I do, however, thing the living story could be told better than it is.

I don’t understand- you say you stopped playing because there was no end game and at the same time you say that most people play until level 20 to decide if they like a game.
This sounds like a complete contradiction to me.

I would think that most people would play at least one character to max level, in addition to maybe trying out different professions and races.

In which case you would know all about dungeons, since I can think of 3 in starter zones- (Plains of Ashford, Caledon Forest, Queensdale) at the very least even if you are not high enough level you would have come across the entrance or have seen people looking for groups.

For a lot of people finding out what neat things there are instead of reading it somewhere is the point.
I will never forget the sheer overwhelming awe i felt when I started this game.
often finding out cool things is as simple as just heading over that hill or poking your head in that interesting cave.
Living Story- while fun is too much on rails for me- you get a mail that tells you what is up, you get a notification, you get a marker on your map- arrgh- I would much rather go find out myself.

Most people have never been to the Plains of Ashford? Huh… Me and the whole of the Charr race have definitely been there!

On a side note, yes wow’s dungeons are a solid experience from lv15 BUT theya re pretty much the same from there. Guild Wars 2’s dungeons are all varied with different mechanics. People also misunderstood the mechanics of dungeons when they saw or was introduced by the Ascalonian Catacombs because it is a pretty rough dungeon to start players off on. The big groups of ghosts, people said it looks like a zergfest, no. You need to take out specific types first. This was completely irrelevant of course but never mind.

Lately my wife started to play GW2. And I am pretty sure that she wouldn’t have stayed long if I weren’t there to answer her “stupid” newbie questions. Which weren’t stupid at all. Most people here have played at least one other MMO. My wife hasn’t. Yeah, she could have read about the game before. But other than stumbling about it in a chat with her female friends she had no information – not even that she had to care for information before starting to play. She assumed that she would be guided by a tutorial as in every modern she played before.

GW2 clearly lacks in conveying the depth of the game to new unexperienced players.

Note: As you might have figured out I didn’t lure her into the game because I did assume she would not like it. Boy, was I wrong…

Unsure what logistics has to do with your post.

That aside:

• When you get to level 30, you receive mail letting you know about the first dungeon (the name and location). As for no-one exploring that place, the same could be said for the other locations of dungeons as well; not everyone would have explored Queensdale, or Caledon Forest.
• There are also a number of mini-dungeons in the world before this. Since the main focus would be exploration, these aren’t made widely known.
• Anet have said that they don’t release information about anything until they’re sure it’ll be going in game. Hyping something up just to have it not appear then just frustrates players. For example, the precursor scavenger hunt. One passing mention of this and lots of players were asking for months. When players were told that it wasn’t something being actively worked on, people still asked. Thus the only info we get is what they know is going to be implemented, and even then they don’t give a specific timeframe until they know it’s done.

I honestly do not understand what you are aiming at regarding dungeons. Players even get a very noticeable notification complete with map zoom once they hit a reasonable level for a dungeon – or has that been changed at some point?

Dunno if it’s realy on topic but, this weekend I announced about GW2 free-trial to my old guild friends from another MMO and I got one (That I know of) to play.

I let him play alone for a while to carefully get to know the game mechanics and after he reached level 5 I told him that if he needs help or just wan’t to play together he just have to ask me, but I got the aswer something like ‘This game isn’t realy fun’, so I asked ‘why is that?’ and the answer I got was ‘It isn’t dynamic’.

I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t want to start an agrue with him since I think this game is more Dynamic than any other MMO I have played but then I realized that he has made his opinion at level 5, he havent even done one part of the personal story after the first Task, he haven’t played a Dungeon, he havent played a different race or class, he haven’t gotten to another map, he didn’t even know that he could store crafting materials in a specific bank slot, c’mon he havent even been able to get the 7,8,9 skills!

C’mon! Some people make their decission about a game to fast, it doesn’t matter if we have a dungeon at level 5, those who don’t give more time to judge a game has already made up their mind.

Picking a random point… no end game… I think this is the biggest critical flaw. Not so much that there aren’t “raids” but in so much as you’re doing the same thing the entire game… there’s nothing you “graduate” to.

Even professional sports have a regular season, then they have the playoffs…

Zeldain.5710:

Picking a random point… no end game… I think this is the biggest critical flaw. Not so much that there aren’t “raids” but in so much as you’re doing the same thing the entire game… there’s nothing you “graduate” to.

Even professional sports have a regular season, then they have the playoffs…

There is a huge difference between no endgame- and the whole game is endgame.

I realize to some that means there is nothing to ’graduate" to but to me that means that at endgame the whole game is there for me to experience. I do that on all 3 my max level characters and I find it very very liberating.

As for the trial: I played the trail with a friend this weekend and it was really hard to get some concepts across to her- she has played many MMO’s and i think this contributes to the problem.
People who are from other MMO’s make assumptions about how things work in GW2 that are not correct.

I walked her through everything, from weapon skills, skills, traits, bank tabs, crafting, the trade post, personal story etc. We played several races, zones and classes so that she can get a good overview of the game.

She decided to buy it because she had a fun time.
She still doesn’t understand how hearts or Dynamic Events work and dodge seems to be a concept that looks cool but doesn’t apply to her.
I figured there will be more than enough time for her to come to grips with everything later on
That said I still don’t understand what the OP was about exactly.

I obviously need to clarify a bit here. I used the term lack of logistics to refer to the effort required of the player in order to get into the game. More specifically, arena net lacks the logistical delivery system that explains any sort of details the purpose of the game, and where you as a player are heading. Yes, you receive a random in game mail about a dungeon at level 25 or 30, but that’s it. Rather than stumbling on a dungeon skyrim style, or being directed by a dungeon finder you end up researching on an external website what is offered. This is a very poor delivery system that does not let newer players understand how great the game is. Living story fits in as well, many players like myself do not quite understand the “point” of it, due to the fact that it is very vague and so far a lot of it is not accessible to those who are not 80.

The key term I would say is – delivery method. That is by far the thing that could be improved to let players know what is what. (side note about delivery, stop putting character stories outside of the game on the website.)

Morrigan, your experience with her is EXACTLY the type of thing I am talking about, there is no explanation or introduction what so ever about what the game offers. Lack of a proper information delivery system, UNLESS you look everything up online, which many will not bother with.

I wouldn’t call this logistics, as much as a lack of accessible information.

Like, a lot of people on the forums have been following the game since before beta, they’ve read the manifesto, the various hype posts being made during development, so they entered the game knowing what to expect.

Players entering the game without having read all of that pre-release stuff can easily get lost because the game doesn’t really provide enough information about what they could be doing.

Yeah, that information is accessible outside of the game, but that’s not really good enough. Maybe the Asian market release will set a more comprehensive tutorial. It took multiple tries for GW1 as well, if you look at the opening sequences for Prophecies, compared to Factions, and then finally compared to the fantastic tutorial area for Nightfall.

If anything needs to be added to the LS, it’s impact and lore.

I posted a thread-rant about this. As it stands when a living story event happens, Noone besides the directly involved NPCs seem to give a flying kitten about what’s going on. If you to DR, Noone seems to have realised that a Sylvari Engineer named Scarlet lead the Aetherblades into the Crown Pavillion and proceeded to eff stuff up. That’s. pretty dam major thing, even if the Seraph and Shining Blade tried to keep it hush hush. Also, that short story for example? That should’ve been in the game, kind of how they did that with Mad King Thorne last year.

Barring that, I don’t think anything I want to say hasn’t been said already. So yeah..