Guild Wars 2

Guildwars 2 and its updates have been a hodgepodge of hit or miss experimentation, leading to this idea that the game is constantly going 2 steps forward when an experiment is successful (e.g. collections, wardrobe) and 2 steps back when some kind of innovation fails (e.g. Living Story S1, some NGE elements). This leads to the feeling of the game being stuck in limbo.

While I don’t think you should ever stop innovating, there is some point in every scientist’s career where there is an expectation to deliver hard, working product instead of formulas and theorim.

I don’t feel that Guildwars 2 has ever reached that level of delivery, and I hope it does.

Failures are part of what makes us move forward. Season 2 is better then Season 1 not because of magic but because Season 1 thought Arenanet Lessons on how to do Living story better.

So if you feel that Living story S1 was a “failed experiment” While Season 2 was somewhat better or perhaps even hit the mark of what you were expecting would you still consider that S1 was a step back for Gw2 and S2 just a step forward? or was it more like the saying case taking 1 step back only to take 2 more forward?

Galen Grey.4709:

Failures are part of what makes us move forward. Season 2 is better then Season 1 not because of magic but because Season 1 thought Arenanet Lessons on how to do Living story better.

So if you feel that Living story S1 was a “failed experiment” While Season 2 was somewhat better or perhaps even hit the mark of what you were expecting would you still consider that S1 was a step back for Gw2 and S2 just a step forward? or was it more like the saying case taking 1 step back only to take 2 more forward?

I think that overall success is partway innovation and partway using what is KNOWN to work.

So far Guildwars 2 has been rampant with innovation and has very rarely employed previous known to work models from the industry.

There are alot of matchmaking elements that could have been stripped and taken from League of Legends (such as their matchmaking algorithm) and applied to SPVP to make it more successful.

There are other standard items from other MMOs/non-MMOs (such as WoW’s bi-annual expansion model) that could have been used to prevent stagnation.

The point that I am getting at is there is too much experimentation, even if the playerbase has had enough guinea pigging of new systems and just wants something that works.

I feel that a balance needs to be reached and more outside research needs to be done to employ both known to work components and innovative components into Guildwars 2 instead of allowing the game to be one giant beta test forever.

Thats not really true. Sure Gw2 tried to innovate and tried a lot of experiments which is actually a really good thing, last thing we want is for every Game to be exactly the same. That being said they didnt really try to innovate on everything. Case in point you mentioned matchmaking and how they should have copied LoL’s algorithm. I am not sure if you’re aware but stictly speaking they have. Gw2 uses and algorithm called Glicko which is actually an improved version of another algorithm called Elo which is what League of Legend uses. They didnt just invent their own implementation.

With regards to expansions, we just dont know if we’re getting an expansion or not yet.
Could be we are and they still havent finished working on it yet.
Besides 1 might argue that waiting 2 years inbetween content is more stagnating then having something new even though small every 2 weeks. It would definitely be true for me for example.

I feel the opposite. though. Having lost of experiments means that finally I get something thats actually different rather then a simple reskin of an existent formula which is why I chose this over a truckload of other options as my main mmo.

lordhelmos.7623:

I think that overall success is partway innovation and partway using what is KNOWN to work.

I disagree with this.

Rift did this. They tried to innovate with their dynamic events, but they kept also the tried and true quest hub/traditional questing system. Which meant people who wanted to level the old way often disliked the disruption events caused and people who wanted to level the new way couldn’t, because the game was still designed around the quest hub system.

The problem is, each feature of an MMO isn’t a separate individual thing, but it’s a combination of things that work well together.

You can’t mix and match innovation while being leashed from behind and really move ahead. You end up taking baby steps.

I think trial and error, the way Anet does it, is more painful in some ways, yes…but I think it’s more freeing in other ways.

People just don’t have patience and don’t want to pay the price to be at the forefront. They’d rather have something they know that worked.

The problem is, something they know that worked is what everyone is doing and no matter how well you do it, you’ll still have the issues of the fact that a lot of people really are tired of the old format.

And when Anet added a bit of tried and true gating, or tried and true gear progression, these forums weren’t exactly supportive.

Guild Wars 2 needs to go where other MMOs haven’t, because no one else is.

Innovation is necessary and awesome, we all have played games that were technically developed successful but also wholly derivative. (think the whole WoW Clone Memes, etc.)

But, the problem with reinventing wheels, is that it still very much needs to be a wheel when your are through with it.

Breaking genres, expanding the envelope and broadening the possibilities is always a risky endeavor but very rewarding if successful.

An example:

The Secret World is very innovative, but it’s innovations have held it back from being hugely appealing and, so to GW2. (but GW2 actually deviates less from the conventional model than Secret World, thus retains a broader range of appeal.)

The biggest issue I have with ANet’s development approach is that the company tends to treat the released game a bit too much like a test-bed.

When I recall how Blizzard pulled off some quite amazing things with WoW over its life span and compare it to ANet’s style, there are distinct differences in the final results.

Blizzard focused on longer periods of development, being more procedural aiming for a polished outcome with a well planned execution; ANet tends to be far more organic in their productions. Now, organic is fine, it’s very liberating and creative, but it can also lead to more missteps than the more structured development efforts of companies like Blizzard.

Blizzard’s strengths play to improving or expanding upon time tested concepts, where as ANet devises new systems (often) from scratch and this can result in more frequent peaks and valleys of successes and failures compared to the more methodical approach.

Leave polishing games to Blizzard and innovation to Anet, that’s how the industry should work, with different companies doing different things.

There is alot of companies, including Blizzard, who have a superior budget and who have decided to go with the module of creating games based on ‘’already successsful concepts’’ with some additional tweaks here and there to make the experience more polished. Anet won’t be able to suddenly enter that field of the MMO-market and compete with gigantic companies.

Anet is good at innovating and comping up with crazy concept and sometimes does work and sometimes not. The result is GW2 which, despite the hate on the forums, is one of the most successful MMOs in the western industry since WoW’s release. It is also, one of the most popular titles overall. There is simply no need to change the formula when it is already working for Anet.

Do you find a game to be immersive when it treats you like a guinea pig in an experimental lab?

Innovation is interesting, but quality and polish should still have the highest priority. I want to be immersed in a RPG game, like a normal reader who wants to enjoy a fun book, not like an academic who wants to review an essay.

There’s also two different types of innovation, based on my observation.

• Innovation for the sake of innovation, or “trying to re-invent the wheel”, where there’s a high risk of failure (an innate characteristic to all attempts of being innovative) for little gain (when it works, chance sare, it’s not going to be any better than what other games already offer, just a bit different).
• Innovation as an evolution, when the developers and the playerbase want to move away from old, archaic and flawed mechanics in an attempt to bring something better. It’s the kind of innovation that strives not only to be different, but to be superior.

I see something like guild missions to be placed in the first kind: an attempt to offer “endgame” content that is different than what other games offer. It was underwhelming, and would require a huge amount of resources to evolve it to the level of already existing and evolved models in the market.

I see something like dynamic events and lack of trinity to be placed in the second kind of innovation: even though dynamic events have several flaws that traditional quests do not, and even though the removal of the trinity has failed, they were born out of the desire to change things for the better (a more seamless exploration, a more dynamic combat), and players will keep requesting them until a game successfully pulls them off.

The game is over two years old, why does it feel like we’re perpetually in beta? Lets try this, oh lets try this!

I feel like sometimes Anet’s dedication to their iterative design process is so strong, it prevents them from pursuing really good ideas. Anet dogmatically refuses to consider things like GvG because they don’t fit within the scope of the current iteration of the game which is centered around living story.

Togashi Jack.9531:

The game is over two years old, why does it feel like we’re perpetually in beta? Lets try this, oh lets try this!

what makes you feel this is beta exactly?
I dont really see any issues you typically have in Betas at all.

some people expect too much from a buy-once-play-forever game….