Guild Wars 2

KarlaGrey.5903:

Vayne.8563:

Because it required people to think to play it.

Nah, it was mostly the strong focus on pvp and being, as a pioneer of esports (see GWWC), way ahead of its time (its peak pvp period is dated quite a few years before streaming and twitch became the norm). But that is all the more reason to love it and give it the credit it rightfully deserves.

Vayne.8563:

They didn’t know or understand how to play the game.

Yet dumbing the game down in terms of build-making apparently wasn’t enough to fix that. (see NPE)
What you don’t understand is there will always be players who won’t know or understand how to play, and bad builds will always be a thing in such games (to varying degrees). But searching for the lowest common denominator to fix that issue instead of implementing proper tutorials and making the game as intuitive and engaging as possible is a fool’s errand, and not something that ensures game longievity. It is actually quite the opposite.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 suited people like me, who love to think

Made me chuckle for real. Aren’t we humble!
#locking self into first-person view
#zaithan managerie

Vayne.8563:

The idea of tying skills to weapons, combined with forcing everyone to take a healing skill, means everyone basically has at least a usable build. That’s why the open world is so easy.

I seriously question your ability to think, if you actually believe any of that. And worse, if you believe it is actually still believe dumbing down games is the way to go cuz ‘popularity’ and ‘accessibility’.

Again with the personal insults. I bet you’re really proud that you can insult people who disagree with you.

Dumbing down games is good if you’re trying to get more people playing them. That’s just simple logic.

If you make a game for the top 20% of the people, at most you’ll get 20% of the people to play it. People are always talking about how popular WoW is, and often they say it’s because it’s a great game. But it also dumbed down what EQ and on top of that, you could pretty much play it on a toaster.

If you take away barriers from people playing your game, more people will play your game. That’s simple business logic.

Will that make it a better game for the top 5%. Undoubtely the answer is no. Will the top 5% pay you enough money to really grow your game? Maybe…maybe not.

Businesses don’t completely make decisions on whether Karla thinks a game is better. They make decisions for all sorts of reasons.

I’m a pragmatist at heart…not an idealist. You think it’s stupid that I look at a business and see why they did what they did. I think it’s smart.

There is nothing insulting when I question your ability to think, especially when reading such illogical posts.
Are sports such as football, basketball, tennis, SC2, LoL ‘dumbed down’ to be more accessible? No. They’re easy to pick up but hard to master. Your ‘logic’ is anythnig but logical, but it is also extremely faulty because many, if not every successful game out there has done exactly the opposite you seem to be advocating. Many, many posters have stated that repeatedly already, yet it flies over your head, as you conveniently ignore it so your make-believe theory doesn’t fall apart while repeatedly proven incorrect.

You speak of taking barriers away, yet not only had the game started off with plenty of barriers already (build-making limitations, limitations of stat-based gear, (un)replayability of dungeons, pve design limitations [dps is king, rest can go home; formulaic and lacklustre mob/dungeon design] …), but is even adding more as time goes by (e.g. NPE, trait system changes).

p.s. Being able to play a particular game on a toaster is an advantage rather than a minus.

KarlaGrey.5903:

There is nothing insulting when I question your ability to think, especially when reading such illogical posts.
Are sports such as football, basketball, tennis, SC2, LoL ‘dumbed down’ to be more accessible? No. They’re easy to pick up but hard to master. Your ‘logic’ is anythnig but logical, but it is also extremely faulty because many, if not every successful game out there has done exactly the opposite you seem to be advocating. Many, many posters have stated that repeatedly already, yet it flies over your head, as you conveniently ignore it so your make-believe theory doesn’t fall apart while repeatedly proven incorrect.

You speak of taking barriers away, yet not only had the game started off with plenty of barriers already (build-making limitations, limitations of stat-based gear, (un)replayability of dungeons, pve design limitations [dps is king, rest can go home; formulaic and lacklustre mob/dungeon design] …), but is even adding more as time goes by (e.g. NPE, trait system changes).

p.s. Being able to play a particular game on a toaster is an advantage rather than a minus.

I don’t know…cricket has been dumbed down at least twice that I know of. It went from test matches to one day internationals to 20-20 matches, the shortest/fastest form of the game. Made to appeal to a younger audience. It’s working and bringing in a lot of money.

I’ve always said I thought you were an intelligent person. Trying to imply I’m not makes me question that assessment.

I’m neither playing it nor have I >ever< read or heard anything about it in the news, so it appears it’s not as popular as you perhaps believe it to be.

It’s what happens when your judgement is clouded by overly affectionate sentiments for the game, really. Perhaps in 2 years time, you will be seeing things from a different, more logical, perspective, possible one that will be more similar to that of a player who had long since quit the game.

KarlaGrey.5903:

I’m neither playing it nor have I >ever< read or heard anything about it in the news, so it appears it’s not as popular as you perhaps believe it to be.

It’s what happens when your judgement is clouded by overly affectionate sentiments for the game, really. Perhaps in 2 years time, you will be seeing things from a different, more logical, perspective, possible one that will be more similar to that of a player who had long since quit the game.

Oh, I see, you’ve never heard of it in the news, so it’s not popular. Because you’ve never heard of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty20

Specifically from that article:

Since its inception the game has been very successful resulting in its spread around the cricket world. On most international tours there is at least one Twenty20 match and all Test-playing nations have a domestic cup competition. The inaugural ICC World Twenty20 was played in South Africa in 2007 with India winning by five runs against Pakistan in the final.¹ Pakistan won the second tournament in 2009,² and England won the title in 2010. Sri Lanka are the reigning champions after winning the 2014 competition.

Apparently, it must have been on the news somewhere. Why is it that intelligent people like you think you’ve never heard of it so it must not be a thing. The money being thrown at this compared to traditional modes of the game is truly staggering.

KarlaGrey.5903:

I’m neither playing it nor have I >ever< read or heard anything about it in the news, so it appears it’s not as popular as you perhaps believe it to be.

It’s what happens when your judgement is clouded by overly affectionate sentiments for the game, really. Perhaps in 2 years time, you will be seeing things from a different, more logical, perspective, possible one that will be more similar to that of a player who had long since quit the game.

Perhaps you’re just not from a place that has a big cricket following. I’m UK based and we love cricket. Vayne is Australia based. They also love cricket. India, Pakistan and South Africa are also big cricket countries. I’m guessing if you’re based in somewhere like the US or a central European county then cricket will be rather meaningless to you.

But yes he is right. 20 – 20’s do seem to be quite popular.

You know what I actually did there? I provided the kind of quasi-argument you usually provide. I’m sort of disappointed you didn’t recognise yourself in it.

I couldn’t care less if cricket is popular, because I am rather certain the sports I listed are more popular overall (in rl and ig world, respectively). The publicity and especially profits associated with them dwarf that of cricket, yet not a single one of them has, to my knowledge, been dumbed down to boost their popularity or improve their accessibility, and I would go so far as to argue some can actually be hard to pick up if you’re not in a particularly good shape, but that didn’t stop them from becoming some of the most successful sports on this planet.

At adaephon, you’re correct how it’s rather meaningless to me.

KarlaGrey.5903:

At adaephon, you’re correct how it’s rather meaningless to me.

Eh you should try it. It can be quite fun. Especially after your 4th or 5th trip the bar :-P

KarlaGrey.5903:

You know what I actually did there? I provided the kind of quasi-argument you usually provide. I’m sort of disappointed you didn’t recognise yourself in it.

I couldn’t care less if cricket is popular, because I am rather certain the sports I listed are more popular overall (in rl and ig world, respectively). The publicity and especially profits associated with them dwarf that of cricket, yet not a single one of them has, to my knowledge, been dumbed down to boost their popularity or improve their accessibility, and I would go so far as to argue some can actually be hard to pick up if you’re not in a particularly good shape, but that didn’t stop them from becoming some of the most successful sports on this planet.

At adaephon, you’re correct how it’s rather meaningless to me.

Well baseball has been the equivalent of dumbed down a number of times. Ask any baseball historian if you don’t believe me. Changes have been made to make games faster and more exciting in most sports, but you really have to follow the sports to know about them.

As for making more money or not, it’s irrelevant. Baseball in most of the world makes no money at all…only really in the US, Japan and Canada is Baseball really popular. American football isn’t as popular as soccer. But none of this is relevant to video games anyway.

Video games NOT being sports have been constantly dumbed down over the years, with reason. It’s because you get more people playing your game when you dumb it down. Even WoW, which is a dumbed down version of EQ, was dumbed down after vanilla WoW, so much so that many people who used to play it left, because it had been dumbed down. Didn’t seem to hurt the game much at the time, however.

WoW redid their starting zones to streamline them and make them more cohesive and accessible to new players. This was in a game already dumbed down.

Could you really imagine people playing adventure games today playing Ultima 4…because I can’t. I can’t even see most people having the patience to play an Infocom game.

AdaephonDelat.3890:

KarlaGrey.5903:

At adaephon, you’re correct how it’s rather meaningless to me.

Eh you should try it. It can be quite fun. Especially after your 4th or 5th trip the bar :-P

(Mental note to self, do NOT bring up the Ashes Test lol)…yeah cricket is a lot of fun. But making it faster and flashier is definitely going to give it a future. I think it was a very clever marketing move.

You say money/protif is irrelevant, yet you repeatedly invoke the ‘business strategy’ card when someone advocates and arguments how removing depth at the expense of availability is a bad decision. So do you think gems tore profit matters then or not? (that was rhetorical question, mind you)

Even if a game that has been dumbed down happens to receive a greater influx of players, the retention might actually be lower simply because the longivety – the long-term aspect of the game – was butchered in favour of immediate profit (given the game is not f2p, that is).

KarlaGrey.5903:

You say money is irrelevant, yet you repeatedly invoke the ‘good for business, cuz more moneyz’ card when anyone advocates how removing depth at the expense of availability is bad.
Even if a game that has been dumbed down happens to receive a greater influx of players, the retention might actually be lower simply because the longivety – the long-term aspect of the game – was butchered in favour of immediate profit (given the game is not f2p, that is).

But WoW is the most successful MMORPG of all time, undeniably and it keeps getting dumbed down.

When I said money wasn’t important, I meant it’s not the only barometer. Obviously America pays atheletes more than most other country’s, but that’s not really what we’re talking about here. Soccer probably has as many fans as any American sport…you just don’t realize it because you’re in America. There’s a whole big wide world out there. You shouldn’t dismiss it so readily.

The saddest thing is actually that GW2 was advertised to be different from other games, yet it adopts the very same attitude than other games…

Vayne.8563:

AdaephonDelat.3890:

KarlaGrey.5903:

At adaephon, you’re correct how it’s rather meaningless to me.

Eh you should try it. It can be quite fun. Especially after your 4th or 5th trip the bar :-P

(Mental note to self, do NOT bring up the Ashes Test lol)…yeah cricket is a lot of fun. But making it faster and flashier is definitely going to give it a future. I think it was a very clever marketing move.

Yup I can’t disagree. Don’t get me wrong I really enjoy following some of the big tests (like the Ashes!) but I honestly can’t see me sitting in the ground for 5 days (assuming I could get the gorram tickets!). A 20 – 20 I can do. 5 or 3 day test I’d rather have highlights and flicking between whatever I’m doing and BBC sports page.

To counter the WoW part, GW is the most successful ‘corpg’ out there (well, I myself did not notice any difference to a regular mmo) but regardless of how you classify it, I barely realized it wasn’t a true MMO, and that is quite an accomplishment on ANet’s part. Moreover, it is the one and only game that truly pioneered the level-playing field concept in both pve and pvp. So in a way, if we judge a game on other things rather than just raw profits, GW can easily be the most successful game in how it achieved things no other game in its genre managed to.

If you do not consider money as the only measurement, you ought stop using it as the main argument (calling it ‘business strategy’) against what are often perceived as negative changes to the game.

Moreover, good games will always require a certain amount of thought one way or the other. The key is to capture just the right amount of it and also to have properly designed teaching mediums (tutorials, risk vs reward) at early game stages in particular.

KarlaGrey.5903:

And GW is the most successful ‘coorpg’ out there (well, to me it was always an mmo and played like one too, which is why I probably cannot stand any other ‘more genuine’ mmos), and the one and only game that truly pioneered the level-playing field concept in both pve and pvp.

If money is not the only measurement (it is), you ought stop using it as the main argument against what are often perceived as negative changes to the game (e.g. NPE – a method applied in order to increase player retention with the aim of boosting dwindling playerbase figures and indirectly also improving the associated gem sale revenues).

Moreover, good games will always require a certain amount of thought one way or the other. The key is to capture just the right amount of it and also to have properly designed teaching mediums (tutorials, risk vs reward) at early game stages in particular.

Just because money isn’t the only concern doesn’t mean it’s not a major concern. I’m assuming you didn’t invest huge amounts of money to make this game, and therefore you stand less to lose making changes that make more money even if they’re not always popular. There’s always a balance in business and games ARE business. They require a high overhead, they require a large investment…particularly MMORPGS…and they take a lot of time to make. So you know, millions of dollars invested, you need to protect your investment. That’s all. Whether or not it’s the sole concern it has to be looked at. You can say otherwise, but you’d be wrong. You have to look at the money.

So in the opinion of some people, the changes Anet made will yield them less money. People said the same thing about WoW when WoW made a lot of the changes it made. Years later, WoW is still going strong, and even though they lost subs recently, they gained quite a few subscribers in the past when those changes were originally made. You can’t please everyone but you can go crazy trying to. Anet is pleasing the people it needs the most to stay in the game. At what point do you think that’s bad business?

The problem is you assume that if they add the stuff you like, it’ll stop people from leaving the game. There’s zero evidence that that’s true…if there was, I’m sure Anet would be doing it. Why wouldn’t they?

p.s. Might want to re-read my previous post, as I had made some edits inbetween.

The problem is also YOU seem to be asuming that dumbing things down further will magically improve the game, when history and examples in other games teach almost the polar opposite.

KarlaGrey.5903:

p.s. Might want to re-read my previous post, as I had made some edits inbetween.

The problem is also YOU seem to be asuming that dumbing things down further will magically improve the game, when history and examples in other games teach almost the polar opposite.

I never said dumbing down the game further will improve the game. That’s your words in my mouth (yet again).

What I said was the dumbing down happens in the genre all the time and it’s done to make the game more accessible to a larger player base. But I never actually said I think the game is particularly dumbed down…it is changed in such a way that it offers a slower entrance to the game.. Not really dumbing it down in my books.

What Colin said, and I agree with, is that the game has been changed to offer a friendlier experience to new players, including changed pacing and rewards. That’s what I’ve said all along.

It’s not just about dumbing it down. It’s about changing the reward structure. I’ve also said all along that giving everyone the same skill point/trait point every level ceased to be exciting to me personally. There were times I went up two or three levels and didn’t even notice, because it didn’t matter. I was saving up skill and trait points at those points anyway, and so those levels were effectively dead levels. There are far fewer dead levels now and by mixing up what you get on each level, you actually create an excitment. No matter how much I like wine (not that I like wine), getting another bottle at Christmas every year wouldn’t excite me. Getting different stuff that I didn’t expect would. I suspect most people are wired that way.

Hmm, funny discussion you guys have

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Utopia

What could have been…

A change you perceive as positive means it will help make the game better (which can be understood in different ways ranging from a purely monetary PoW to the actual player experience and all the way to retention figuers), in other words, it will help improve company profits, improve the player experience …let’s not argue semantics yet again.

What difference does it make what Colin or anyone else said? You yourself argued numerous times how past statements are irrelevant to current business decisions, so please don’t fall back on the same PR talk you yourself attempted to discredit (most notably the manifesto, but also any other statements the current game development went back on).

KarlaGrey.5903:

A change you perceive as positive means it will help make the game better (which can be understood in different ways ranging from a purely monetary PoW to the actual player experience and all the way to retention figuers), in other words, it will help improve company profits, improve the player experience …let’s not argue semantics yet again.

What difference does it make what Colin or anyone else said? You yourself argued numerous times how past statements are irrelevant to current business decisions, so please don’t fall back on the same PR talk you yourself attempted to discredit (most notably the manifesto, but also any other statements the current game development went back on).

I said that a four year old statement isn’t relevant to the game today. Colin made that statement like last week. So I’m pretty sure it’s relevant to the game.

He made that statement, not as a form of publicity, but as a response to a question.

Edit: I should add that I leveled a character to 65 since the 9/9 update and so far, the experience has been improved for me. I’m not just trusting Colin in this. I like this experience better than the original experience.

Vayne.8563:

(Mental note to self, do NOT bring up the Ashes Test lol)

Ashes? Ashes…

Oh, yeah!

Alas, poor Althea! Prince Rurik wanted to haul her ashes, but the charr, uh, ash-blocked him, big time! Then we wound up hauling her ashes instead. What a twisted tale, what bitter irony, what… ooh, coffee’s ready!

/e coffee

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 2 has two less professions now than Guild Wars 1 did it it’s whole life. That’s 20% less professions for those counting.

Guild Wars 2 has five times the races Guild Wars 1 has ever had. That’s 500% more races.

Guild Wars 2 has more variety in this manner than Guild Wars 1…and did so from launch.

And each of Guild Wars 2’s professions has what… 20% of the skills of a Guild Wars 1 profession? That’s about 80% less skills.

Guild Wars 2’s non-human races all suffer from rampant proportion and clipping issues that kill their armor variety. Additionally, the extra races lower the number of total armor sets per race by increasing development time. It’s a poor tradeoff.

And let’s not ignore the fact that ALL Guild Wars 1 content was endgame viable, thanks to hard mode and much more effective rewards distribution.

We’re also dealing with about 80% less PvP modes.

Baseball has been, “dumbed down,” over the course of its existence (particularly as an organized/professional sport). It started off essentially as a, “dumbed down,” version of cricket.

Football has been dumbed down over the course of its existence (particularly as an organized/professional sport).

WoW has been dumbed down over the course of its life.

GW1 was dumbed down over the course of its life.

Video games in general have been dumbed down in order to draw in a larger audience.

From what I have seen pretty much every large scale form of entertainment has been dumbed down over time in order to draw in larger numbers of paying customers.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

ALL Guild Wars 1 content was endgame viable, thanks to hard mode

Very important point (to me).

Vayne.8563:

Absolutely intentional on the part of the devs. Do you know why Guild Wars 1 remained a niche game, good as it was, for pretty much it’s entire existence?

Because it required people to think to play it. Those who are more hard core about how they play games think in terms of going to a site and getting builds. But I’m sure a huge percentage of players tried Guild Wars 1 and walked away because they couldn’t figure out what to do with builds at all. They didn’t know or understand how to play the game.

Guild Wars 1 suited people like me, who love to think and play with skill sets and try to figure out how to build a better mouse trap, but I can assure you, I’m not any kind of majority. For players like me, the game worked. It even worked for my friends who were more casual, because I could always give them the builds I worked out.

But for a lot of people, that game was completely overwhelming. Hell there were people who played and were overwhelmed by Guild Wars 2, so just imagine how much magnified that problem was in Guild Wars 1?

The idea of tying skills to weapons, combined with forcing everyone to take a healing skill, means everyone basically has at least a usable build. That’s why the open world is so easy. To not chase people off who just want to run around and kill stuff and feel like they’re doing something relatively challenging. And for some people, parts of the open world are challenging.

This unfortunate but true.

It’s the new state of the industry – so many casual “neverplayedgamesbeforebutthislooksfun” people joining in now that games have been watered down to the extreme just to make them approachable by this type of player.

It’s sad – and it’s happening all over the gaming industry. Everything is becoming more " streamlined " and “user-friendly” in order to practically reduce every game mechanic and game type down to bite sized chunks that this sort of audience can manage to digest.

@Karla Grey – unfortunately you’re the one who’s in the wrong. Apparently “dumbing games down” is the way to go because the gaming industry as a collective has been doing it for years now.
Do you know why? Because there’s far more of these “casual players” that are bad than there are hardcore players that are good. But that doesn’t matter – because in the end casual money is still money.

And you can make more money making a game that will sell to casuals than to hardcore players.

I’ll just leave this here.

GW2 Manifesto Transcript:

Mike O’Brien: “We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that’s got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees.”

Daniel Dociu: “The look of Guild Wars 2 is stylized. We’re going for a painterly, illustrated aesthetic. Everything in our world feels handcrafted and artisanal. We treat our environments as if they are characters themselves.”

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Ree Soesbee: “As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Colin Johanson: “You’ll get quest text that tells you ’I’m being attacked by these horrible things,’ and it’s not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says ‘Go kill ten centaurs.’ We don’t think that’s OK. You see what’s happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants.”

Ree Soesbee: “We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building, and in Guild Wars 2, it’s your world. It’s your story. You affect things around you in a very permanent way.”

Colin Johanson: “Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.”

Ree Soesbee: “You’re meeting new people whom you will then see again. You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”

Prophet.6257:

I’ll just leave this here.

GW2 Manifesto Transcript:

Mike O’Brien: “We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that’s got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees.”

Daniel Dociu: “The look of Guild Wars 2 is stylized. We’re going for a painterly, illustrated aesthetic. Everything in our world feels handcrafted and artisanal. We treat our environments as if they are characters themselves.”

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Ree Soesbee: “As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Colin Johanson: “You’ll get quest text that tells you ’I’m being attacked by these horrible things,’ and it’s not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says ‘Go kill ten centaurs.’ We don’t think that’s OK. You see what’s happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants.”

Ree Soesbee: “We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building, and in Guild Wars 2, it’s your world. It’s your story. You affect things around you in a very permanent way.”

Colin Johanson: “Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.”

Ree Soesbee: “You’re meeting new people whom you will then see again. You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU1JUwPqzQY

Thanks, I agree. They almost nailed it perfectly. It’s 90% right.

Vayne.8563:

Prophet.6257:

I’ll just leave this here.

GW2 Manifesto Transcript:

Mike O’Brien: “We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that’s got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees.”

Daniel Dociu: “The look of Guild Wars 2 is stylized. We’re going for a painterly, illustrated aesthetic. Everything in our world feels handcrafted and artisanal. We treat our environments as if they are characters themselves.”

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Ree Soesbee: “As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Colin Johanson: “You’ll get quest text that tells you ’I’m being attacked by these horrible things,’ and it’s not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says ‘Go kill ten centaurs.’ We don’t think that’s OK. You see what’s happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants.”

Ree Soesbee: “We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building, and in Guild Wars 2, it’s your world. It’s your story. You affect things around you in a very permanent way.”

Colin Johanson: “Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.”

Ree Soesbee: “You’re meeting new people whom you will then see again. You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU1JUwPqzQY

Thanks, I agree. They almost nailed it perfectly. It’s 90% right.

Reading it now, it seems it matches Guild Wars 1 more than it does GW2… lol

Furesy.6935:

Vayne.8563:

Prophet.6257:

I’ll just leave this here.

GW2 Manifesto Transcript:

Mike O’Brien: “We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that’s got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees.”

Daniel Dociu: “The look of Guild Wars 2 is stylized. We’re going for a painterly, illustrated aesthetic. Everything in our world feels handcrafted and artisanal. We treat our environments as if they are characters themselves.”

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Ree Soesbee: “As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Colin Johanson: “You’ll get quest text that tells you ’I’m being attacked by these horrible things,’ and it’s not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says ‘Go kill ten centaurs.’ We don’t think that’s OK. You see what’s happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants.”

Ree Soesbee: “We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building, and in Guild Wars 2, it’s your world. It’s your story. You affect things around you in a very permanent way.”

Colin Johanson: “Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.”

Ree Soesbee: “You’re meeting new people whom you will then see again. You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU1JUwPqzQY

Thanks, I agree. They almost nailed it perfectly. It’s 90% right.

Reading it now, it seems it matches Guild Wars 1 more than it does GW2… lol

The problem with quoting a four year old video…and it is four years old…is that it loses context. For example, almost immediately after this video came out, due to questions about it, Anet clarified something. Ree is talking about the personal story and Colin is talking about dynamic events.

They other thing people usually take out of context (and that’s why I’m glad the whole text is pasted here), is the line about grind. To older MMO players, grind almost always meant killing stuff to level. Which you had to do in many games (if not most) because you always seemed to run out of quests. Today grinding has a completely different definition but if you look at the paragraph, starting and ending on combat, I think it’s pretty logical he wasn’t talking about grinding for gear, which is what people are talking about these days. He was talking about grinding to level.

And you know, I’m leveling a character since the 9/9 patch…and I’m not grinding to level. Leveling is pretty fast and smooth.

Vayne.8563:

Thanks, I agree. They almost nailed it perfectly. It’s 90% right.

I wouldn’t say 90%, but some things are there while others not at all.

Mike O’Brien: “We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that’s got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees.”

The game tends to copy the format of other games, which doesn’t rely define “against conventions”. But that’s just a simple example
The game, for most people, does not have the most beloved parts of GW1. Beside the name and some classes (and somehow the lore, but barely), the game is pretty different. People want build templates like in GW1, they have been asking for 2 years. Yet nothing. But that’s just an example against. So let’s say this point is mixed ^^

Daniel Dociu: “The look of Guild Wars 2 is stylized. We’re going for a painterly, illustrated aesthetic. Everything in our world feels handcrafted and artisanal. We treat our environments as if they are characters themselves.”

Absolutely right.

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Unfortunately, most content becomes this way thanks to the meta. After all, why bother finding a specification for a class while zerg is the thing that gets all the glory? Also, some parts (key farming, gold farming to make gems, etc.) are really onto the grinding side.
Edit: I do agree than you don’t have to grind for levels, but at some point it becomes a bit more interesting

Ree Soesbee: “As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

That’s just personal, but I don’t feel like a hero, just a random bloke following a gang in which I’m called boss.
And about bosses… They do respawn quite fast.

Colin Johanson: “You’ll get quest text that tells you ’I’m being attacked by these horrible things,’ and it’s not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says ‘Go kill ten centaurs.’ We don’t think that’s OK. You see what’s happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants.”

That’s true.

Ree Soesbee: “We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building, and in Guild Wars 2, it’s your world. It’s your story. You affect things around you in a very permanent way.”

Well, if it were my story, I would have taken the Pact airship and gone to find Mordremoth. But no, I gotta play in sand first. It is the impression it’s our own personal world, while we are just one in a million.

Colin Johanson: “Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.”

Rather true.

Ree Soesbee: “You’re meeting new people whom you will then see again. You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”

I don’t remember people remembering me after I saved them… But it must be quite hard to implement, I assume.

IMHO 60% of the manifesto is respected. The most appealing things, however, seem not to have made it. The game was good, but the changes didn’t make it better, that’s the problem: the game somehow stagnates rather than advances.

They didn’t have time.

I’m willing to bet you money GW2 should have been in development for at least another year or so.

If that had been the case – I doubt the game would have come out in such an unpolished state.

They rushed it – and this was the result – they’re still patching up things that should have been fixed on day one.

“Casual gamers are killing the industry” mindset I believe is false. Sure I don’t like how games are becoming impossible to loss
and there is no challenge to them but in a way “casual gamers” are like life support for the video game industry that could have died out a while back.

Back in the day game companies could only make hardcore extremely difficult games and still make money but in today’s market one big name release that fails could now drive a company under. So they know they can’t make a type of game that’s only aimed at a very small fan base. They have to bring in as many sells as possible *hints the dumbing down to make it more “friendly” to a wider audience.

Which brings GW2 into this. GW1 was a deeper experience that really drew you into the game but many people were driven away because of the complexity of it all. It might have been easy for you to jump in and understand but the double professions and huge amount of skills is what may have drove people away.

Look at what we got from Gw1 in the way of new stuff. Years of nothing because the profit was based solely on game sales.

@VergilDeZaniah.3295

This game does DEFY existing conventions. Or did you think having no trinity is common in the MMO world. Or anyone can rez anyone without using a skill slot. Or not competing for nodes and kills. This is all stuff that defies existing conventions. That line doesn’t actually say we’ll defy every single existing convention. I don’t know a lot of MMOs that have two human warriors that can have different personal stories. That’s defying an existing convention.

I’ve explained what he meant by grinding in an earlier post. You should probably read it. Also you can look up grind on Wikipedia. Over the years that word has changed meaning a lot. In the old days we pretty much only used it with regard for grinding for levels. Killing creatures to level up because we ran out of stuff to do. That’s what he was talking about and that’s the definition still most often used according wikipedia. It’s one of the problems with looking at a four year old video. Four years is a long long time in this industry.

When Ree says “it’s your story”, it’s because you can choose a path that someone else makes different. There’s no way anyone could imagine it would mean you can do absolutely anything you want.

You see in WoW, all human warriors…same story. No difference. You do what everyone else does. Guild Wars 2 changed that so two human warriors could have different stories.

The problem with literal interpretation of a five minute video, particularly a video that was a clearly clarified as this one in the two years after the game, means that you’re taking something that was very public knowledge and trying to twist it in a way to make a point. Did you actually think you could do anything,. just because it’s your story? Because I didn’t…and I don’t know a whole lot of people who did.

The only like I really have a problem with from the entire manifesto is “taking everything you love from Guild Wars 1”. Well yes, they surely didn’t do that. That’s the one line.

Unfortunately even that would have been 100% impossible, unless everyone loved the same thing. There are no heroes in Guild Wars 2 and some people loved heroes. But some people hated heroes and thought they ruined the game.

Shrugs. Without playing silly word games, it’s mostly true. No one could explain the entire game in 5 minutes. That’s why they provided huge amounts of detail afterward.

I could do this with any piece of writing. Analayze it word by word, statement by statement and ignore common sense and context and make it look wrong. It’s what lawyers and politicians do. Which is why people don’t trust them.

Vayne.8563:

Ree is talking about the personal story

Are you sure? Some of the things she says make me look around for a blue pencil. And I’m not even an editor.

“The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Well, first, why should it care that she’s there, and second, what the heck is she doing there in the first place?

“You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you.”

Um. Uh. Okay!

I still maintain Colin is talking about how combat looks with the opening sentence of that paragraph stressing the ‘never seen that before’ aspect of combat and the final sentence bringing it home with the ‘change the way people view combat’ closer.

“Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad.” ~ Spock

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Ree is talking about the personal story

Are you sure? Some of the things she says make me look around for a blue pencil. And I’m not even an editor.

“The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Well, first, why should it care that she’s there, and second, what the heck is she doing there in the first place?

“You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you.”

Um. Uh. Okay!

I still maintain Colin is talking about how combat looks with the opening sentence of that paragraph stressing the ‘never seen that before’ aspect of combat and the final sentence bringing it home with the ‘change the way people view combat’ closer.

“Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad.” ~ Spock

I believe you’re quoting the episode “I Mudd”.

And yes, I’m sure. Thanks for asking.

The Manifesto came off to me like listening to what kind of magical and wondrous game Fable was going to be like. “Chop down a tree and it grows back in real time!”

I wasn’t holding my breath so I wasn’t disappointed when the events re-spawned every 10 mins or so. I was more confused how the game would be fun if players completed an event where the effects lasted a week or longer.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 2 has two less professions now than Guild Wars 1 did it it’s whole life. That’s 20% less professions for those counting.

Guild Wars 2 has five times the races Guild Wars 1 has ever had. That’s 500% more races.

Guild Wars 2 has more variety in this manner than Guild Wars 1…and did so from launch.

i take 1 race and 10 professions above 5 races and 8 professions from launch all day long.

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Ree is talking about the personal story

Are you sure? Some of the things she says make me look around for a blue pencil. And I’m not even an editor.

“The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Well, first, why should it care that she’s there, and second, what the heck is she doing there in the first place?

“You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you.”

Um. Uh. Okay!

I still maintain Colin is talking about how combat looks with the opening sentence of that paragraph stressing the ‘never seen that before’ aspect of combat and the final sentence bringing it home with the ‘change the way people view combat’ closer.

“Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad.” ~ Spock

I believe you’re quoting the episode “I Mudd”.

And yes, I’m sure. Thanks for asking.

That’s the one. The androids’ oft-recurring statement ‘I am not programmed to respond in that area’ in response to certain questions is uncannily similar to anet’s current non-disclosure policy.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Ree is talking about the personal story

Are you sure? Some of the things she says make me look around for a blue pencil. And I’m not even an editor.

“The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Well, first, why should it care that she’s there, and second, what the heck is she doing there in the first place?

“You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you.”

Um. Uh. Okay!

I still maintain Colin is talking about how combat looks with the opening sentence of that paragraph stressing the ‘never seen that before’ aspect of combat and the final sentence bringing it home with the ‘change the way people view combat’ closer.

“Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad.” ~ Spock

I believe you’re quoting the episode “I Mudd”.

And yes, I’m sure. Thanks for asking.

That’s the one. The androids’ oft-recurring statement ‘I am not programmed to respond in that area’ in response to certain questions is uncannily similar to anet’s current non-disclosure policy.

I watched waaaaaaaaay too much Star Trek in my misspent youth.

Vayne.8563:

@VergilDeZaniah.3295

This game does DEFY existing conventions. Or did you think having no trinity is common in the MMO world. Or anyone can rez anyone without using a skill slot. Or not competing for nodes and kills. This is all stuff that defies existing conventions. That line doesn’t actually say we’ll defy every single existing convention. I don’t know a lot of MMOs that have two human warriors that can have different personal stories. That’s defying an existing convention.

As I said, I put an example, of course there are also things that defy conventions. Yet some updates tend close the gap between GW2 and the said conventions, and as I said it’s just an example against.

I’ve explained what he meant by grinding in an earlier post. You should probably read it. Also you can look up grind on Wikipedia. Over the years that word has changed meaning a lot. In the old days we pretty much only used it with regard for grinding for levels. Killing creatures to level up because we ran out of stuff to do. That’s what he was talking about and that’s the definition still most often used according wikipedia. It’s one of the problems with looking at a four year old video. Four years is a long long time in this industry.

And I edited my post regarding that point.

When Ree says “it’s your story”, it’s because you can choose a path that someone else makes different. There’s no way anyone could imagine it would mean you can do absolutely anything you want.

You see in WoW, all human warriors…same story. No difference. You do what everyone else does. Guild Wars 2 changed that so two human warriors could have different stories.

The problem with literal interpretation of a five minute video, particularly a video that was a clearly clarified as this one in the two years after the game, means that you’re taking something that was very public knowledge and trying to twist it in a way to make a point. Did you actually think you could do anything,. just because it’s your story? Because I didn’t…and I don’t know a whole lot of people who did.

You can choose a path up to a certain point, the rest is just going from point A to B, just decide which way to take. I do admit it creates new views on the game, but nothing mind blowing, don’t you think?
Also, it’s my story, why do I end up as casting a favorable light on Trahearne and DE2.0? I have barely done anything in the story, I simply kept my mouth shut and followed (most of the time) the people I was forced to follow.

The only like I really have a problem with from the entire manifesto is “taking everything you love from Guild Wars 1”. Well yes, they surely didn’t do that. That’s the one line.

Unfortunately even that would have been 100% impossible, unless everyone loved the same thing. There are no heroes in Guild Wars 2 and some people loved heroes. But some people hated heroes and thought they ruined the game.

Shrugs. Without playing silly word games, it’s mostly true. No one could explain the entire game in 5 minutes. That’s why they provided huge amounts of detail afterward.

I could do this with any piece of writing. Analayze it word by word, statement by statement and ignore common sense and context and make it look wrong. It’s what lawyers and politicians do. Which is why people don’t trust them.

Of course I don’t want a copy and paste of something that was released ages ago. But the way they put it was like “this is the heir of GW1” and we end up with a few references and barely anything comparable. It’s like I’m saying “I baked a Pavlova” but I present a chocolate cake: I tell you something and the result is way too far from the statement to be considered related to it.

Also, we have had many disappointments with the game. What’s the part I hate most? Their silence. It’s ok for something not to work as intended, or for plans to change during the creation of the game. I keep having faith in the devs (I’m too optimistic just like the way I’ve been with other games that ended up total failure), but some people don’t even want to wait anymore, and the idea is that if they can’t even respect something that was supposed to be the keystone of their game, why would they respect the lore that was given to them years ago?

I know we all are arguing about different points of view and tastes, some do support the team, others don’t, and others are mixed. But I assume what everyone wants, and that would resolve the conflict in our community, is just some words.

“We are working on something big”, everyone is happy!
“Something didn’t work as intended, we’ll take a break to offer new content”, everyone is sad but happy they said it.

So if they want us to move away from the manifesto, it’s up to them: they have to update their ideas if they want us to advance with them.

@VergilDeZaniah.3295

I get the disappointment thing, but you have to understand something. This was one single line from one single video. “Everything you loved about Guild Wars 1”. There was a huge amount of information that followed the production of this video. I mean two years worth. This video game out two years before the game did. During that time we knew the following for sure:

1. There would be no GvG
2. There would be no guild halls at launch
3. There would be only one single PvP mode
4. There would be no hereos
5. There would be less skills
6. Skills would be tied to weapons
7. The level cap would be raised.
8. There would be no dedicated healers and tanks.
9. There would be no “stand-alone” expansions, like Cathan and Elona.
10. The cash shop would be different.
11. There would be no traditional quests.
12. There would be no skills that targeted allies.

I could go on if I wanted but I think you get the point. No one paying attention in the two years that followed that video could possibly believe that the game would have everything you loved about Guild Wars 2 in it.

If you were disappointed, at least in part, it’s because you allowed yourself to focus on a single line instead of two years worth of information.

And yes, Anet did change the game when the brought ascended gear into the game..but they didn’t add another tier of gear after that.

I played Guild Wars 1 for six years and I’m pretty sure 99% of the playerbase never amassed the hours playing that game I did. I got my 50/50 and my GWAMM title.

I’m not disappointed in Guild Wars 2 because I was paying attention and because I know for a fact that MMOs change and evolve. I knew going in not every change would necessarily be to my liking.

Vayne.8563:

snip

Of course I did like GW1 so much I was thrilled, as well as I was thrilled about the new things they were presenting. The game changed a lot (at first you had a companion, then you could choose not to have one, then we don’t have any).

What I find mostly disappointing is that most of time, and not only in the manifesto, they say something and end up far away from what we have been told. kitten happens during development, but they just pretend nothing happened or was said at all. The fact they don’t keep their message up to date gives me the impression they are in a bubble.

I was not disappointed in GW2 at release (and let’s say for around a year), reason why I played nearly everyday since release. They just don’t seem to provide what they did in GW1: content. Let me be clear, I know they released many many many things, but most were temporary, which is a loss yet the idea of their living world. I can’t deny the fact there was the wonderful battle against the marionette, for example. Yet, most “goodies” were not aimed at casual gamers, even if the new system seems to be aiming at them, but rather at paying people/players with lot of IG money.

The disappointment does not come from the game per se, but rather what happened around during these two years: almost nothing. Any explanation to what did not make the cut? Silence. The team needs some kind of riot to work with us.

I was told we were a community, but most problematic points are not heard, and we are sometimes given the impression we are cash cows.

Do I like the game? I surely do. Will it be like that for a long time? Only time will tell me, but if the game keeps stagnating, I guess most of us will leave.

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

Vayne.8563:

snip

Of course I did like GW1 so much I was thrilled, as well as I was thrilled about the new things they were presenting. The game changed a lot (at first you had a companion, then you could choose not to have one, then we don’t have any).

What I find mostly disappointing is that most of time, and not only in the manifesto, they say something and end up far away from what we have been told. kitten happens during development, but they just pretend nothing happened or was said at all. The fact they don’t keep their message up to date gives me the impression they are in a bubble.

I was not disappointed in GW2 at release (and let’s say for around a year), reason why I played nearly everyday since release. They just don’t seem to provide what they did in GW1: content. Let me be clear, I know they released many many many things, but most were temporary, which is a loss yet the idea of their living world. I can’t deny the fact there was the wonderful battle against the marionette, for example. Yet, most “goodies” were not aimed at casual gamers, even if the new system seems to be aiming at them, but rather at paying people/players with lot of IG money.

The disappointment does not come from the game per se, but rather what happened around during these two years: almost nothing. Any explanation to what did not make the cut? Silence. The team needs some kind of riot to work with us.

I was told we were a community, but most problematic points are not heard, and we are sometimes given the impression we are cash cows.

Do I like the game? I surely do. Will it be like that for a long time? Only time will tell me, but if the game keeps stagnating, I guess most of us will leave.

Yes the temporary stuff was a mistake. If you’re a fan of the company and know they try stuff, you say okay, the mistake set them back and you understand…at least I do. If they wasted a year making stuff that’s not in the game, it’s hard to say well I don’t care they should have new stuff anyway. That new stuff takes time to make and they’ve been working on it. We’ll see it as it’s ready.

The other thing is that Anet has learned what demogrpahic likes and plays the game after launch. Before they couldn’t really know. An MMO is always going to be adjusted on the fly because of that.

Maybe it’s adjusted in a way you like it and maybe it’s adjusted in a way you don’t like it, but the bottom line is, there’s no guarantees in an MMO. It’s just not possible. Everything can and does change.

The sooner you learn that, the happier you’ll be.

Vayne.8563:

Yes the temporary stuff was a mistake. If you’re a fan of the company and know they try stuff, you say okay, the mistake set them back and you understand…at least I do. If they wasted a year making stuff that’s not in the game, it’s hard to say well I don’t care they should have new stuff anyway. That new stuff takes time to make and they’ve been working on it. We’ll see it as it’s ready.

The other thing is that Anet has learned what demogrpahic likes and plays the game after launch. Before they couldn’t really know. An MMO is always going to be adjusted on the fly because of that.

Maybe it’s adjusted in a way you like it and maybe it’s adjusted in a way you don’t like it, but the bottom line is, there’s no guarantees in an MMO. It’s just not possible. Everything can and does change.

The sooner you learn that, the happier you’ll be.

Of course I do understand that, and indeed I cannot deny they’ve put a lot of work in LS1, even if it was not that good.

All I can say is that I’m a passionate gamer, if something changes to something I don’t like, I say it, and after some days I accept somes changes, but others not. As you said, I don’t have to like everything, and I don’t.

The other mistake they make, IMHO, is making everything money-related. This is what disappoints me most in this game: money is power. A new armor? Buy it! A new weapon? Buy it! Ok, they have to make money, but new things have appeared in the gem store and… The game still lags in many parts of the world, making it unplayable. Many bugs and performances are to be fixed ASAP, we see changes every month (with more bugs and others not even fixed) yet the GS is still being uploaded. Do you think it’s normal to make money the priority while a big part of the community suffers from unplayable lags?

ANet has three majors issues to me: lack of/bad communication (too vague and elusive, just blowing hot air), removed content (way too often), and GS as a top priority.

At first I didn’t give a quaggan about that, but now it has become my daily struggle, I have to stand for it.

joshc.3129:

“Casual gamers are killing the industry” mindset I believe is false. Sure I don’t like how games are becoming impossible to loss
and there is no challenge to them but in a way “casual gamers” are like life support for the video game industry that could have died out a while back.

Back in the day game companies could only make hardcore extremely difficult games and still make money but in today’s market one big name release that fails could now drive a company under. So they know they can’t make a type of game that’s only aimed at a very small fan base. They have to bring in as many sells as possible *hints the dumbing down to make it more “friendly” to a wider audience.

Which brings GW2 into this. GW1 was a deeper experience that really drew you into the game but many people were driven away because of the complexity of it all. It might have been easy for you to jump in and understand but the double professions and huge amount of skills is what may have drove people away.

Look at what we got from Gw1 in the way of new stuff. Years of nothing because the profit was based solely on game sales.

The industry wouldn’t have died. Even without casuals jumping on board there’d be enough people playing games.
It simply would have been a different thing altogether.

It’s all PvE semantics anyway…in a game called Guild Wars….without any actual Guild Wars.

The majority of debate here is recently focused on the NPE and LS.

The complete disservice to small scale based PvP has to be brought up here at some point else it seems completely ignored. 2 years in and it’s pretty much AB tourney or hot-join….which was slanted in GW1……“AB…lol nub”……with nothing outside map and server state changes.

No new formats. No GvG. No nothing.

Esmee.1067:

Guild Wars had 5 challenging and long end-game areas; Fissure of Woe, the Underworld, Urgoz, the Deep, Domain of Anguish. Each could take an inexperienced group a few hours (and a speedclear group less than half an hour.) Guild Wars 2 has 14 different Fractal Instances, varying in time they need to be completed, 8 dungeons with 3 paths each, some take long than others, but it’s a considerable amount of content nonetheless, even though we chose to avoid any slow/challenging paths on a daily basis, such as TA Aether and Arah p4 and the community has adapted the Speedclear meta much more than in Guild Wars.

I’m just going to quote this because it’s blatantly false.

Guild Wars 1 had 18 dungeons in Eye of the North alone – most of which were longer than GW2 dungeon paths and ALL of which were more challenging than most GW2 dungeon paths.

Guild Wars 2 has 24 dungeon paths, most of which can be finished within 10-15 minutes.

Guild Wars 1 had 6 endgame “raids” (here being used as a term for elite dungeon). These are Sorrow’s Furnace, The Underworld, The Fissure of Woe, Urgoz Warren, The Deep, and The Domain of Anguish.

Guild Wars 2 has one equivalent – high end Fractals. Certain Arah paths could possibly count, but they were clearly not designed to match these elite dungeons, nor do they reward on par with them. Aetherpath is nowhere near an elite dungeon, and it certainly doesn’t reward on the level of one.

For those who wish to understand more about how the design of GW1, as a lobby game, influenced content design and monetization, please refer to http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130683/social_game_not_social_life_.php

It’s a very old but interesting article between Jeff Strain and Gamasutra about some of the design philosophies of GW1. Some key points I wanted to point out:

On pve design:
JS: We channel communities into common areas, so there’s always people to play with. We also talk a lot about mission flow, in that it’s a lot better to have four 30-minute missions, rather than one 2-hour one, as you want people constantly cycling back to the public areas to have a chance to hook up with someone else.

On the subject of grind in modern mmos:
JS: You’ll often hear us say that Guild Wars is a game without the grind. However, if you want to spend 100 hours trying to get a specific upgrade for an item, like a dragon-tooth hilt and a wyvern skill scabbard for your sword, that’s fine. You have a specific goal in mind, and you want that item. What’s not fine is “at level 20 I can access this dungeon, and at level 30 I can access that dungeon and there’s a 1000 hours between them”.

Honestly, a lot of the same core philosophies that are espoused in the article exist in GW2. Especially, when talking about grind. What has changed is that GW2 is no longer a lobby game and the economics behind moving away from the model shifted the lines of what is an acceptable pve experience, how it is monetized, and even timetables for content design. Even if you don’t like what GW2 is now, I think if you read the article you will find enough similarities to realize that the core message of GW has remained the same even though it is definitely a different game in many respects.

Work simulators….with wizards.