Guild Wars 2

Inb4 vayne and the rest of the usual folk. Good post and I agree.

I feel with ya, OP. I still want the game to be great, I want to play it. But everytime I do, it feels hollow, like you said. It feels like all immersion is gone. Nostalgia incoming!

unfortunately for me its kinda the same, I like to explore around but now that everyone is lvl 80 or can get to lvl by crafting I feel alone everywhere.

I have joined the skins farm because thats pretty much what i have been reduced to, and even then Im struggling with t6 mats and gold and precursors and he sort….

The only thing keeping me here its the fact that im just waiting the next game from coming out and I dont have anything better to play, except LoL every now and then.

Yes, sadly, I have begun to feel the same way. I do not even always log in to do dailies anymore. I am currently waiting for another MMO to be released or for this one to be improved.

I get bored of farming easily so I don’t do it very much. A half hour here or there and I’ve had my fill.

One of the main reasons I love this game is there no gear treadmill so I can just jump in the game and do whatever I feel like doing that day – without guilt, without pressure, just pure unadulterated fun.

This week I have:

Played in the Eternal Battlegrounds jumping puzzle. We had about 25 players each world in there – a massive battle, it was glorious fun! We were all setting off the traps, laughing our kittens off, knocking each other off ledges, back and forth play all over the place. It was amazing fun. I gained much respect for the indominatable spirit of a certain charr necro/asura guardian team

Went to Queensdale, found some new players and answered questions, gave a budding elementalist a how-to on the profession, reveled in their wonder at this amazing world and made some new friends.

Found a couple peeps to run the Straits of Devastation event to get quaggan tonics. That Champ Risen Broodmother is haaaarrrddd! But we finally did it, got our tonics, sat by a WP and messed with people as they zoned in. Lots of laughs on all sides.

Showed someone the entrance to Troll’s End jumping puzzle. Lol, I always love people’s reaction to that.

Now I still jump in dragon fights now and then because I love them to death, but I don’t do them nearly as much as I use to. Honestly I think I liked them more when I would spend my play session dragon hunting before the timers existed. The scoping out of the pre-events and all that. Still, lots of fun, but I’m not banging on the Shatterer’s toe – I’m chasing down the adds which can really really hurt if I get careless. I’m much more likely to find a group to run some of the lesser known but spectacular event chains like opening the Font of Rhand or Hidden Garden or Zho’qafa Catacombs or the Dwayna events.

Gold has such little value in this game, and it comes so easily why chase it? I got my legendary this week, but I didn’t farm for it, I just accumulated stuff as I played. I only ran CoFpie a handful of times, just enough to get the tokens gift.

Another idea, since you have fun in WvW, do you jump in your server’s Teamspeak and join in the strategies? Maybe conduct workshops for new players and show them the incredible depth that’s there beyond the zerg? I don’t know, it sounds like you need to find some like-minded friends, people that are more interested in playing the game rather than farming it and you’ll find that freshness again

Actually, OP, I very much feel as you feel. You can’t change the MMO population, because the MMO population devolves into this in every game. They consume content fast, they look for the cheap hit, and they leave.

There are only two things I can tell you. The only real way to make a game like this last is to do it with like minded players. If you try to do it with the world as a whole, you’ll eventually be disappointed. It’s why I don’t pug dungeons. It’s why I don’t rush through content. There’s still plenty to do to keep me and my friends entertained..but I don’t randomly expect the MMO population to play that way. Why should I? They’ve been trained by WoW and WoW clones.

I also had question. How long did you play just Nightfall for.

Because I couldn’t have played Nightfall and just Nightfall for ten months.

You know what? I signed in on my forum account just to reply to this.

This whole post (or two) completely touched me, it’s exactly how I feel. When the game came out, it was glorious just running around as a low-level and thinking “Wow, I can’t wait until I get that armour” or “Holy crap, that guy’s level 65 already!”. But now I’ve reached the level cap and I have some more characters. I still don’t even make that much gold and yet still, the nostalgia has worn off for me.

I still spend hours on this game, but when I look back, what have I done? Akitten in Lion’s Arch and then done the daily and dragon events. It isn’t fun. I’m looking at legendaries thinking “Wow, they’re so cool” but then I think “It’s a least 500+ hours to get one, or a hell of a lot of gold” and I instantly get disappointed at that.

Perhaps it’s just because the novelty has worn off. We’ve explored all there is to explore and now the game become people wanting their tier 6 mats and all that crap. Actually, thinking about it, legendaries are basically a major cause of our issues. They cause people to farm and that’s it. I had a friend who played every day for months since release and when he finally made his legendary, after months and months of grinding, he rarely plays anymore. But this is the real question – would people still be playing if items that take a long time to get (such as legendaries) weren’t in the game?

Overall, it’s just such a difficult topic. Have a game where it’s just exploring and people will get bored when everything’s explored (lolrhyme). Have a game of full grinding and people will have nothing to work towards. As of yet, there’s no real answer.

It really is about finding people who share your play style and playing with them. I can’t stress this enough. No new MMO is going to have enough content to keep people playing indefinitely without some sort of “gimmick”. In most games that’s a raid and then a new raid, with the gearing up in between. That doesn’t work for me, and people like me.

Guild Wars 2 is doing it with temporary content and dailies. It’s not ideal but I’m not sure how they can do it better.

In six months to a year from now, they’ll have a bunch of new cool stuff that will bring back the fun to the game. I think the difference between me and others might be that I expected this phase and I’ll ride it out.

But it helps a whole lot to have like-minded people to share that time with.

Good post. Prepare to be attacked until it slides off the first page. The game has a lot of glaring problems right now that are being ignored or put on the back burner. Hopefully things will change, but I doubt the attitude of people will change any time soon. As of now sometimes I manage to log in to do the daily and WvW an hour or two. But it’s hard to even do that most of the time.

100% agree with the OP. The game has not progressed into a relaxed gaming environment. It’s just become a ‘second job.’

I REALLY hope Anet/NCsoft get their acts together, because Neverwinter is looking pretty good right now.

I agree too OP, in fact my boyfriend bought me Skyrim Legendary Edition, since I love exploring and moving about at my own pace with whatever character I want. I dont have to play a Zerker War/Guard/Mes. Think I lost my love of this game when the RNG boxes started churning out and every place that for the few hours I had to farm for Mats for a Legendary, keeps getting nerfed into the ground. Oh well, I got my moneys worth I suppose. They had a nice thing going but somewhere they lost it. :/

Insignya.8625:

And then it all went downhill. As if I’d missed something critical, everyone started to do what I most loathe in games – exploits. Not botting, hacking, or whatever – massive moments of “well, just another MMO….”. People stacking at the feet of a dragon, people shouting for Warriors in map chat, people pulling the boss into one corner, doing the same exact thing in every Fractal because of dumb AI (I’m not blaming the developer, these things happen in every game, but they’re usually addressed quicker) In short, it broke the immersion that I was playing something truly unique. In a moment’s notice, it was all about the grind, the whole thing had become a job, as any other MMO tends to do.

This isn’t going to change. The reason why everyone began doing the above is because that’s what MMO players want. It didn’t matter that ArenaNet was trying to make a MMORPG different from all the others, less focused on grind and more focused on having fun – not only the game design itself was ambivalent, but the community itself has been, from the beginning, dominated by farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters. The kind that jumps from MMO to MMO devouring content like a locust cloud, and who wants nothing more than to do exactly what you described above.

Since release, that’s the kind of content we have been given by ArenaNet. Fractals to be grinded, Ascension gear to give a gear treadmill feeling to the game, Dragon events giving one rare per day so they can reliably be farmed, Southsun event made by a very poor story but with 200% Magic Find so people would flock there, and so on.

That’s how ArenaNet has been designing the game because that’s what the GW2 community wants. Interesting dynamic events? Good storytelling? Better personal storyline mission designs? Who cares? Not MMO players. People like you and me, who would like to play a Guild Wars version of Skyrim, may care about that kind of thing; we may even have been the main target audience around release. But not anymore – the game failed to bring a large amount of players who were not MMO players, and all those want is a pretty Skinner box.

No MMO will ever be different than what you described. The MMO community won’t let it be.

Vayne.8563:

It really is about finding people who share your play style and playing with them. I can’t stress this enough. No new MMO is going to have enough content to keep people playing indefinitely without some sort of “gimmick”. In most games that’s a raid and then a new raid, with the gearing up in between. That doesn’t work for me, and people like me.

Guild Wars 2 is doing it with temporary content and dailies. It’s not ideal but I’m not sure how they can do it better.

In six months to a year from now, they’ll have a bunch of new cool stuff that will bring back the fun to the game. I think the difference between me and others might be that I expected this phase and I’ll ride it out.

But it helps a whole lot to have like-minded people to share that time with.

Now while I agree with the “finding people who share your play-style”… that can only last so long. I’ve been jumping between multiple guilds, both big and small because time after time, my “play-style” gets boring for those, who have more time than me to play, thus progressing forward, and considering that rewards are not very favorable for those who help newbies, there’s no incentive for them to even bother trying to guide me or even play things for the fun of just doing an activity together.

It’s the reason why I’ve never done COE/COF story. The reason why people aren’t willing (and i do mean a LOT of people) to let me join a fractal run at their level when i explain due to work and living in the real world, I have not had the time to gain the experience for doing higher fractal runs, which results in me asking them to drop down to my level, and them quickly declining.

Regarding the No new mmo will have enough content. Isn’t that where User Generated Content really comes into it’s own? Obviously GW2 doesn’t and is not likely to have it, but Neverwinter doesn’t and STO didn’t seem to have a problem on that front. I feel that the emphasis on temporary, will only garner temporary players. They will come and go in one swift motion.

I agree, that in six months time-a year they will have cool stuff, but will it be “living-story” kinds of cool – enough to pop your head in for another week, and then right back out the door again – or will it be enough to pull players away from any new mmo’s that may have released in that time?

Honestly, such posts never seize to amaze me.

You played this game for 2000 hours… what are you complaining about? That Anet can’t shove you a new content at the insane rate you consume it? You just nitpick really, any sensible person would see straight through your post, you are bored and you expect Anet to somehow magically revitalize your experience, despite you basically seeing every nook and cranny of their world.

You are done here, you won’t be getting expansion-worth of content every month (despite some Anet PR bullkitten), they can’t do it, especially not for people who fanatically play this game for hours upon hours every day and probably will finish whatever Anet throws at them short of a real expansion in half a day.

I now understand why all the content we’ve been seeing is temporary. It’s not a gift from A.net, it’s not the passionate work of designers who couldn’t care less about money – no, the sad truth is, it’s just an attempt to get people back in the game before the stuff expires. None of it is for the sake of lore or immersion, don’t let them bullkitten you – it’s the cold reality of a game that, like many, has turned rotten because of the desire of both developers and publishers to cash in on a product, rather than provide an experience worthy of remembrance.

Please… Are you really that naive? This game is not some sort of philanthropic project by NCsoft for kittened kids or something. This is business and NCsoft pays the bills and makes demand. And no, NCsoft is certainly not a bunch of passionate gamers. They are your usual bunch of people who want to make money.

Every game studio has their more passionate and less passionate crew, there are guys who are living and breathing with their “baby” game and there are those who just want to bring in paychecks home. In the end though, both of those cases need to get money from somewhere and this somewhere is an organization that wants to see profits and it’s their right, because as horrible as it may sound – you NEED them, without NCsoft, there would not be any Guild Wars as we know it.

This works both ways, on one hand people who do it for cash know that if the game fails – they will go down with it, but at the same time the passionate guys also realize that they can’t do whatever they want, because if it would be their way – the game would never come out to begin with and would have updates once in a millennium.

So yeah, this is the cruel reality and neither devs nor NCsoft can be blamed for it, because despite all their shortcomings they did pull out a great product with amazing value. And you can’t blame NCsoft for wanting to make money, that’s what they do and heck, in my opinion they do it in a good way, because they make stuff that let’s people have fun and does good.

Now banks on the other hand…

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

It really is about finding people who share your play style and playing with them. I can’t stress this enough. No new MMO is going to have enough content to keep people playing indefinitely without some sort of “gimmick”. In most games that’s a raid and then a new raid, with the gearing up in between. That doesn’t work for me, and people like me.

Guild Wars 2 is doing it with temporary content and dailies. It’s not ideal but I’m not sure how they can do it better.

In six months to a year from now, they’ll have a bunch of new cool stuff that will bring back the fun to the game. I think the difference between me and others might be that I expected this phase and I’ll ride it out.

But it helps a whole lot to have like-minded people to share that time with.

Now while I agree with the “finding people who share your play-style”… that can only last so long. I’ve been jumping between multiple guilds, both big and small because time after time, my “play-style” gets boring for those, who have more time than me to play, thus progressing forward, and considering that rewards are not very favorable for those who help newbies, there’s no incentive for them to even bother trying to guide me or even play things for the fun of just doing an activity together.

It’s the reason why I’ve never done COE/COF story. The reason why people aren’t willing (and i do mean a LOT of people) to let me join a fractal run at their level when i explain due to work and living in the real world, I have not had the time to gain the experience for doing higher fractal runs, which results in me asking them to drop down to my level, and them quickly declining.

Regarding the No new mmo will have enough content. Isn’t that where User Generated Content really comes into it’s own? Obviously GW2 doesn’t and is not likely to have it, but Neverwinter doesn’t and STO didn’t seem to have a problem on that front. I feel that the emphasis on temporary, will only garner temporary players. They will come and go in one swift motion.

I agree, that in six months time-a year they will have cool stuff, but will it be “living-story” kinds of cool – enough to pop your head in for another week, and then right back out the door again – or will it be enough to pull players away from any new mmo’s that may have released in that time?

You’re in the wrong guild. I never get tired of helping newbies, because I don’t play for rewards. Or, more importantly, I find helping newbies rewarding. I’m not the only person in my guild who feels this way.

Vayne.8563:

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

It really is about finding people who share your play style and playing with them. I can’t stress this enough. No new MMO is going to have enough content to keep people playing indefinitely without some sort of “gimmick”. In most games that’s a raid and then a new raid, with the gearing up in between. That doesn’t work for me, and people like me.

Guild Wars 2 is doing it with temporary content and dailies. It’s not ideal but I’m not sure how they can do it better.

In six months to a year from now, they’ll have a bunch of new cool stuff that will bring back the fun to the game. I think the difference between me and others might be that I expected this phase and I’ll ride it out.

But it helps a whole lot to have like-minded people to share that time with.

Now while I agree with the “finding people who share your play-style”… that can only last so long. I’ve been jumping between multiple guilds, both big and small because time after time, my “play-style” gets boring for those, who have more time than me to play, thus progressing forward, and considering that rewards are not very favorable for those who help newbies, there’s no incentive for them to even bother trying to guide me or even play things for the fun of just doing an activity together.

It’s the reason why I’ve never done COE/COF story. The reason why people aren’t willing (and i do mean a LOT of people) to let me join a fractal run at their level when i explain due to work and living in the real world, I have not had the time to gain the experience for doing higher fractal runs, which results in me asking them to drop down to my level, and them quickly declining.

Regarding the No new mmo will have enough content. Isn’t that where User Generated Content really comes into it’s own? Obviously GW2 doesn’t and is not likely to have it, but Neverwinter doesn’t and STO didn’t seem to have a problem on that front. I feel that the emphasis on temporary, will only garner temporary players. They will come and go in one swift motion.

I agree, that in six months time-a year they will have cool stuff, but will it be “living-story” kinds of cool – enough to pop your head in for another week, and then right back out the door again – or will it be enough to pull players away from any new mmo’s that may have released in that time?

You’re in the wrong guild. I never get tired of helping newbies, because I don’t play for rewards. Or, more importantly, I find helping newbies rewarding. I’m not the only person in my guild who feels this way.

Have to reiterate. I’ve been jumping around in Multiple guilds, I’m still jumping around as we speak. They start out with completely “all inclusive” intentions, but slowly devolve to “want to do fractals 20+?” or “want to farm xyz dungeon?”…
I personally am in the boat for helping newbies, running low level stuff for the hell of it, and keeping it fun in the long run, and it seems like you’re the same…the problem is, there’s so few of us.

PS: Are you EU? Would love to break out of the “TPWars” mentality and play the the game…well…like a game, If you’ve got a decent guild to join in on, or want to run some thing together?

I’ve semi quit a long time ago, the only reason i’m still here is to do the daily and maybe the odd dungeon on a rare occasion and then move on to do something else. I mean, for 10 months, I’ve got my moneys worth but if anet wants to get more support from me, they better start fixing things and giving me more reasons to keep supporting them.

2000 hours…. Take a break man, play some other games. Sounds like burnout

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

It really is about finding people who share your play style and playing with them. I can’t stress this enough. No new MMO is going to have enough content to keep people playing indefinitely without some sort of “gimmick”. In most games that’s a raid and then a new raid, with the gearing up in between. That doesn’t work for me, and people like me.

Guild Wars 2 is doing it with temporary content and dailies. It’s not ideal but I’m not sure how they can do it better.

In six months to a year from now, they’ll have a bunch of new cool stuff that will bring back the fun to the game. I think the difference between me and others might be that I expected this phase and I’ll ride it out.

But it helps a whole lot to have like-minded people to share that time with.

Now while I agree with the “finding people who share your play-style”… that can only last so long. I’ve been jumping between multiple guilds, both big and small because time after time, my “play-style” gets boring for those, who have more time than me to play, thus progressing forward, and considering that rewards are not very favorable for those who help newbies, there’s no incentive for them to even bother trying to guide me or even play things for the fun of just doing an activity together.

It’s the reason why I’ve never done COE/COF story. The reason why people aren’t willing (and i do mean a LOT of people) to let me join a fractal run at their level when i explain due to work and living in the real world, I have not had the time to gain the experience for doing higher fractal runs, which results in me asking them to drop down to my level, and them quickly declining.

Regarding the No new mmo will have enough content. Isn’t that where User Generated Content really comes into it’s own? Obviously GW2 doesn’t and is not likely to have it, but Neverwinter doesn’t and STO didn’t seem to have a problem on that front. I feel that the emphasis on temporary, will only garner temporary players. They will come and go in one swift motion.

I agree, that in six months time-a year they will have cool stuff, but will it be “living-story” kinds of cool – enough to pop your head in for another week, and then right back out the door again – or will it be enough to pull players away from any new mmo’s that may have released in that time?

You’re in the wrong guild. I never get tired of helping newbies, because I don’t play for rewards. Or, more importantly, I find helping newbies rewarding. I’m not the only person in my guild who feels this way.

Have to reiterate. I’ve been jumping around in Multiple guilds, I’m still jumping around as we speak. They start out with completely “all inclusive” intentions, but slowly devolve to “want to do fractals 20+?” or “want to farm xyz dungeon?”…
I personally am in the boat for helping newbies, running low level stuff for the hell of it, and keeping it fun in the long run, and it seems like you’re the same…the problem is, there’s so few of us.

PS: Are you EU? Would love to break out of the “TPWars” mentality and play the the game…well…like a game, If you’ve got a decent guild to join in on, or want to run some thing together?

Sorry I’m on Tarnished Coast (US). But I’m like you…I just play the game. I don’t think I’ve ever done a speed run, and I don’t remember kicking anyone from a dungeon run. I don’t think I have. Nor have I been kicked. Though that’s probably because I run with guildies about 90% of the time.

2000hrs / 10months
2000hrs ingame from total 7200
if you sleep at least 8hours/day – you were in game 2/5 of your all free time!
After that I wouldnt just dislike one game, but I would hate all games lol.
Which reminds me – South Park S10E08 =)

I’m not sure what the TC wants. The first few months of GW2 were trying to find out all sorts of mystic recipes, new content runs, which land spawns what boss, biggest dynamic events people can run…

And it has to dry up one day. Once people learn there are no new content, they are running to the biggest reward, attempting to fill their toons with skins. Content dried up. All the casuals finally left, and what is left are the players you described. What else can I write?

It takes years to create something as big as GW2, and the best I can see, is a new expansion coming out that creates 50% new content that the TC desires. As far I can see, gw2 is young, and there are plenty of things the team is learning (with a lot of interference behind the scene, I’m sure.), but there is no going back to the state when gw2 was released.

Maybe one day their living story will be higher in quality and satisfy more people. Maybe.

A lot of this sounds like burn out to me. Something which every single gamer out there experiences at some point. I tend to find it in every game I play. There will just be a point where I am.. done.

What has kept me in this game specifically is without a doubt WvW (or dubveedub to the initiated :P ). If I was not playing that, I dont think I would still be playing this game, at least not on any sort of consistent basis. I am just not that interested in other parts of the game, except as a means to an end (getting a new character to level 80 to better dubveedub, of course!).

That said, I love WvW and the stark contrasts of experience that it can provide.

OP, notice that your problems started not with a shift in design goals or game mechanics, but with a shift in the way the community consumed content. I agree that certain recent additions to the game have felt….well, not quite up to par, but these changes strike me as reactionary.

*People complain about no endgame progression: add Fractals.
*People complain about no reason to go back to old areas: Add rewards for dailies in those areas.
*People complain about missing out on the big one time events: change to month long mini-events.
*People complain about there not being enough armor and weapon sets, and seeing them all all the time because they are so easy to get: add new weapon skins with each update that are temporary and hard to get, keeping them rare.

I agree with you that Arena Net has strayed from the path we all hoped it would follow, but I disagree that it was due to greed. No; I think it was due to necessity. A necessity that we created.

tigirius.9014:

Uruz Six.6594:

Gasoline.2570:

Inb4 vayne and the rest of the usual folk. Good post and I agree.

In after Gasoline QQing about Vayne.

As for OP, not sure what I can tell you. Maybe the next MMO will be able to keep that glow after all the paths of least resistance have been discovered, I’m not entirely sold on that possibility.

In b4 Uruz jumps on the Vayne bandwagon and helps keep the clear objectivity at bay with blind fandom.

The OP is absolutely correct. Something happened around November 2012 that changed everything and it’s been downhill ever since. Most titles would have had a massive ui rebuilding system update but here we are almost at the anniversary and we haven’t seen that yet. They wanted to bring people into the open world, but focus everyone in one spot on the map with every LS update. They want people to be interested in legendaries but fail to provide any method other than farming to get one but continue to nerf viable farming locations every month.

Something is very wrong, has been for a while.

I don’t have burnout and even I can see it. I’m presently playing three other mmo’s and in none of those do i have the issues seen in this game.

Since I agreed with the OP, I haven’t the foggiest what you’re talking about. Maybe you need to learn to read, or be a bit less close-minded.

I didn’t contradict a single word the OP said.

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

I think you just need to find a group of people who play the way you want to play and try and ignore the people exploiting and ‘grinding’. This isn’t easy, but they’re out there.

Gaidax.7835:

Honestly, such posts never seize to amaze me.

You played this game for 2000 hours… what are you complaining about? That Anet can’t shove you a new content at the insane rate you consume it? You just nitpick really, any sensible person would see straight through your post, you are bored and you expect Anet to somehow magically revitalize your experience, despite you basically seeing every nook and cranny of their world.

You are done here, you won’t be getting expansion-worth of content every month (despite some Anet PR bullkitten), they can’t do it, especially not for people who fanatically play this game for hours upon hours every day and probably will finish whatever Anet throws at them short of a real expansion in half a day.

I now understand why all the content we’ve been seeing is temporary. It’s not a gift from A.net, it’s not the passionate work of designers who couldn’t care less about money – no, the sad truth is, it’s just an attempt to get people back in the game before the stuff expires. None of it is for the sake of lore or immersion, don’t let them bullkitten you – it’s the cold reality of a game that, like many, has turned rotten because of the desire of both developers and publishers to cash in on a product, rather than provide an experience worthy of remembrance.

Please… Are you really that naive? This game is not some sort of philanthropic project by NCsoft for kittened kids or something. This is business and NCsoft pays the bills and makes demand. And no, NCsoft is certainly not a bunch of passionate gamers. They are your usual bunch of people who want to make money.

Every game studio has their more passionate and less passionate crew, there are guys who are living and breathing with their “baby” game and there are those who just want to bring in paychecks home. In the end though, both of those cases need to get money from somewhere and this somewhere is an organization that wants to see profits and it’s their right, because as horrible as it may sound – you NEED them, without NCsoft, there would not be any Guild Wars as we know it.

This works both ways, on one hand people who do it for cash know that if the game fails – they will go down with it, but at the same time the passionate guys also realize that they can’t do whatever they want, because if it would be their way – the game would never come out to begin with and would have updates once in a millennium.

So yeah, this is the cruel reality and neither devs nor NCsoft can be blamed for it, because despite all their shortcomings they did pull out a great product with amazing value. And you can’t blame NCsoft for wanting to make money, that’s what they do and heck, in my opinion they do it in a good way, because they make stuff that let’s people have fun and does good.

Now banks on the other hand…

^ I pretty much agree with the points made here. That seems to be the reality of the situation.

Stop thinking of GW2 like other MMO’s. You don’t feel like doing your daily? Then don’t. There’s no monthly sub, so you can play as little or as much as you want. If you think you’ve played enough to get your moneys worth out of the original buy price, then any more time you spend playing and enjoying yourself is an extra bonus. But there’s literally no reason you have to log in and play. You can take a break as long as you like, and everything you have will just be there again, waiting for you, when you feel like it.

You’re getting bored of dragon events or CoF? Don’t do them. People complain that they’ve basically got all the things they want… then spend all their time trying to farm gold as efficiently as possible. As others in the thread have said, find a group of friends who enjoy doing the same stuff as you; or else vary things up a bit. If you think you need gold for a legendary just because everyone else wants a legendary then you’re doing it wrong.

Arkham Creed.7358:

OP, notice that your problems started not with a shift in design goals or game mechanics, but with a shift in the way the community consumed content. I agree that certain recent additions to the game have felt….well, not quite up to par, but these changes strike me as reactionary.

*People complain about no endgame progression: add Fractals.
*People complain about no reason to go back to old areas: Add rewards for dailies in those areas.
*People complain about missing out on the big one time events: change to month long mini-events.
*People complain about there not being enough armor and weapon sets, and seeing them all all the time because they are so easy to get: add new weapon skins with each update that are temporary and hard to get, keeping them rare.

I agree with you that Arena Net has strayed from the path we all hoped it would follow, but I disagree that it was due to greed. No; I think it was due to necessity. A necessity that we created.

• People complained about not enough variance on the matches in WvW. ArenaNet Acknowledges that it is a problem and introduce a random roll.

Funny thing is all of these changes are for the better and welcomed by the player base. A lot of them are also really better for the game in it’s longevity. If you were a new player coming into the game you would not have high population numbers in the lower zone areas so you would have missed out on that. However you will find that there is even more content then ever before to play getting not only 3 but 4-5 times your money’s worth. The core problem is still the same. Me Gimie Gimie and straying away from what the game really is. A wonderful land full of adventure and story and wonderful environment. The game has changed a bit. ArenaNet does listen and give players what they want. It is just not always in the way that they want it. I think that is where they have not strayed from their path. They have a vision of how they want the game to be.

I don’t think that it is necessarily the game or ArenaNet that has changed though I think it is the community that has changed. The community seams a bit more demanding and inpatient. Any any Massively Multiplier type game runs into this issue. Guild Wars 1 Ran into that issue it was just not as popular so it had a more tight nit community.

ArenaNet has always known that they can not develop enough content to keep all the player base happy. I would argue they do a good enough job that people who don’t go all crazy are happy. If you look in some areas you will find that the game is actually teaching you how to do WvW and sPvP. The reason why WvW and sPvP exist is so the players can make their own content.

After decking several alts in exotics, full arah etc etc … you’re surprised with a burn out? What did you expect?

My main has 5/6 ascended and no alt has full exotic.

That said, every game has a point like this, and it being 10 months in is nothing less than spectacular. I was burned out on GW1 in less than 3 months after release, it was only with expansions that it became a brilliant game.
Same vein, GW2 has a solid foundation and a very good core experience. Steady growth and expansions will make it into a pristine gem.

TL;DR: take a break, take some time. Everything gonna be alright. Don’t you lose it, remember to take … time out for fun.

Mirta.5029:

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

Wrong.
There can be and there is, it´s called EVE Online and the content is created by the players.
That is the only way to create lasting content.

The grind that typical Themepark MMO developers are so fond of, is just a pale facsimile of true player created emergent gameplay.

OP has lots of good points and I definitely +1 them all. But I also think he´s just too jaded ATM because he grinded the kittendropings out of the game these last months.
Or maybe approached the game with much too rose tinted glasses.

But I fear he´s not alone in this. The ANet leadership seems to still believe their own hype too, and that´s the main reason for most of the games problems.

Also the “exploiting” and grind isn´t just some stupid hivemind defect that we “the elite smell-the-pixels players” just can´t abide.
It´s actually a healthy and natural reaction(true emergent gameplay) to overly tedious and outright broken or lazily programmed game mechanics.
Or do YOU have a frikken idea how to kill that one bell in the bound-giant fractal without standing in the one spot free of those ridiculous AOEs while the adds constantly spawn.

Polish > Hype

/shrug I just follow whatever’s interesting atm. I have 8 80s all with at least one set of exotics and about 8-10 ascended pieces strewn throughout them. I don’t WP to events and I still follow NPCs around to see what happens behind the scenes and if they say something funny.

A friend and I have been doing fractal dailies (not even really bothering to level past 11 yet so we’re only doing 1 set a day) and we’ve found that mentioning, ‘friendly’ or ‘nub’ in the GW2LfG description gets us fun groups that work together and use less cheap mechanics. I just did Arah p4 tonight with a group who hadn’t done it before (one guy made it to Dwayna but his group rage-quit) and it was fun as hell.

I make my own projects (several 80 alts means easy truffle farming without feeling like farming) and never focusing one project down means that nothing feels like grinding.

Maybe it’s just break time for you. I played the first GW since beta weekends and often took months off at a time. I haven’t gotten to that point here but if it does I can go play ESO or WS or w/e is coming out next a little without having to play catchup in my main game when something catches my attention.

HawkMeister.4758:

Mirta.5029:

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

Wrong.
There can be and there is, it´s called EVE Online and the content is created by the players.
That is the only way to create lasting content.

And it’s a different sub-genre. Unfortunately it’s not popular enough for big companies to want to invest, meaning that EVE is the only new sandbox out there, which is a pity, because I’m all for sandbox. The thing is GW2 is theme-park and all theme-park MMOs go like this.

I feel your pain OP, but I don’t think we should blame it on the devs. I blame it on the huge chunk of the playerbase that seems only interested in doing whatever is the fastest way to get money to buy skins (lol?). And don’t start bullkittenting me on "challenging " or “interesting” content because there’s loads of it left untouched by most. I know two guildies whose entire playtime last month has been spent porting from meta-event to meta event and completing dailies with the occasional cof p1…

Devs certainly pandered a little to this mentality, but we are the ones to blame.

On a positive note though, you can still do whatever you want with like-minded people, you just gotta find them. Yesterday me and a bunch of my friends explored Divinity’s Reach ( I had never done that properly in 9 months of playing! ) for almost 2 hours, being rewarded with nothing but the beautifull view of the Elonian district and some interesting lines from nearby NPCs. We were totally fine with that, and had fun while doing it. =)

HawkMeister.4758:

Also the “exploiting” and grind isn´t just some stupid hivemind defect that we “the elite smell-the-pixels players” just can´t abide.
It´s actually a healthy and natural reaction(true emergent gameplay) to overly tedious and outright broken or lazily programmed game mechanics.
Or do YOU have a frikken idea how to kill that one bell in the bound-giant fractal without standing in the one spot free of those ridiculous AOEs while the adds constantly spawn.

Polish > Hype

That’s not really exploiting, I believe it’s intended for us to fight in those spots. I think the OP is refering to stupidly cheap tactics like bugging bosses that could be 2-manned ( Mossman anyone? ) because you can’t be bothered to actually fight them and would rather get to the sweet sweet rewards as fast as possible.

Mirta.5029:

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

Wrong, UO had effectively infinite content; EVE has effectively infinite content. Both games are still around, and in fact, EVE is 10 years old and it is still gaining subs.

What rewards? Drops don’t matter, the stats have very little influence. Some easily obtained gear will do the job. There is no real gear grind to keep people playing. If you don’t gear grind then you need content. The living story seems nothing to me, better they add to the personal story with indicator on where to go & cutscenes to reward you completing a story step.

mjharrison.3209:

Mirta.5029:

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

Wrong, UO had effectively infinite content; EVE has effectively infinite content. Both games are still around, and in fact, EVE is 10 years old and it is still gaining subs.

Eve is a nich game. Even the company knows it’s a niche game. It’s finally up to half a million subscribers. That’s NOT mainstream.

Not to say it isn’t doing well, but you can’t compare the number of people playing sandbox MMOs to the number of people playing themepark MMOs.

And you know, that doesn’t make those games any worse than a themepark. But they tend to require more of a commitment to get anything done in them. I don’t know anyone who plays Eve casually. You either play it, or you don’t. It’s not a casual game.

By the same token, theme park MMOs appeal to the masses, because the masses can’t always live, eat and breathe a game.

No one is saying sandbox MMOs are inferior to theme parks, but they’re definitely less popular.

mjharrison.3209:

Mirta.5029:

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

Wrong, UO had effectively infinite content; EVE has effectively infinite content. Both games are still around, and in fact, EVE is 10 years old and it is still gaining subs.

going to quote myself here. In regards to EVE:

Mirta.5029:

And it’s a different sub-genre. Unfortunately it’s not popular enough for big companies to want to invest, meaning that EVE is the only new sandbox out there, which is a pity, because I’m all for sandbox. The thing is GW2 is theme-park and all theme-park MMOs go like this.

In regards to UO:
It’s a very grindy MMO mixed with sandbox elements.

Insignya.8625:

I now understand why all the content we’ve been seeing is temporary. It’s not a gift from A.net, it’s not the passionate work of designers who couldn’t care less about money – no, the sad truth is, it’s just an attempt to get people back in the game before the stuff expires. None of it is for the sake of lore or immersion, don’t let them bullkitten you – it’s the cold reality of a game that, like many, has turned rotten because of the desire of both developers and publishers to cash in on a product, rather than provide an experience worthy of remembrance.

This sums up pretty much everything.

Now, I just want to add that while I agree with Gizmo – who said that NCsoft in not a philanthropic project, and they have their bills to pay, and their money to earn – there is also something that I want to point out :
I have done every beta week end of GW2. And my thought was “They have done an amazing job. I never saw a beta with so few bugs.”
And then there was the release. And all the bugs. And then there were patches. And all the bugs. And every time there’s an update, they correct bugs, and they create new ones. And every time they add content, their content is rigged with bugs (Karka Queen, anyone ?).

I stopped playing between november and march, because one of my main interest is WvW, and the culling and lag was atrocious. In march, they patched the culling (finally !) and I found a good VPN to get rid of the lag. But still, there’s so much bugs everywhere, so much things that you would expect to be fixed since then, but are not.

So now, I just play few hours a day, sometimes none. And I know I will go on like that, until the first expansion. And then I will stop, because I won’t pay a dime as long as so many bugs persist in this game, period.

So the “not a philanthropic project” argument is completely true. But, if they deserved money for such a good job they made at first, since then they don’t deserve a penny.

Mirta.5029:

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

No but there are mmo’s that delivered what they told their players they would, in this case they didn’t deliver permanent DEs and permanent metas per month rather than LS and temporary dungeons, as well as many much better rewards systems instead of RNG everything like this is 2004 or something.

Deleted message

tigirius.9014:

Mirta.5029:

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

No but there are mmo’s that delivered what they told their players they would, in this case they didn’t deliver permanent DEs and permanent metas per month rather than LS and temporary dungeons, as well as many much better rewards systems instead of RNG everything like this is 2004 or something.

When did Anet say they were going to add permanent DEs every month? I must have missed that day. They did add 30 dynamic events and 3 jumping puzzles in November. They added a new meta event just recently as well.

There’s plenty of other content, including the Fractals and guild missions, neither of which were advertised at all.

I think you’’re stretching when you say we didn’t get what we were told we were getting. The only thing you can really point to is the addition of ascended gear to the game, but aside from that, this game is pretty much what Anet said it would be.

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Mirta.5029:

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

No but there are mmo’s that delivered what they told their players they would, in this case they didn’t deliver permanent DEs and permanent metas per month rather than LS and temporary dungeons, as well as many much better rewards systems instead of RNG everything like this is 2004 or something.

When did Anet say they were going to add permanent DEs every month? I must have missed that day. They did add 30 dynamic events and 3 jumping puzzles in November. They added a new meta event just recently as well.

There’s plenty of other content, including the Fractals and guild missions, neither of which were advertised at all.

I think you’’re stretching when you say we didn’t get what we were told we were getting. The only thing you can really point to is the addition of ascended gear to the game, but aside from that, this game is pretty much what Anet said it would be.

Nope, like others who went thru and paid attention to every interview i could find (all of which were audio/video recordings not text), on multiple occasions people spoke to the devs about why they had such a focus on DE’s and the open world (this was pre november btw) and they stated that not only would this not be a dungeon focused game but that they’re focus would be to add permanent DE’s and metas monthly post launch because it was very fast easy and cheap for them to push them out, and because they wanted us to explore Tyria and be in every zone and to expect that. If you look on these forums early on people were complaining because they didn’t deliver that they just kept putting in temporary content for the holidays instead of new perm content in the open world so their response to that and to the problems of keeping the hardcore crowd was ascended and fractals.

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Mirta.5029:

Just going to point this out – there are no MMOs with infinite content. There simply can’t be.

No but there are mmo’s that delivered what they told their players they would, in this case they didn’t deliver permanent DEs and permanent metas per month rather than LS and temporary dungeons, as well as many much better rewards systems instead of RNG everything like this is 2004 or something.

When did Anet say they were going to add permanent DEs every month? I must have missed that day. They did add 30 dynamic events and 3 jumping puzzles in November. They added a new meta event just recently as well.

There’s plenty of other content, including the Fractals and guild missions, neither of which were advertised at all.

I think you’’re stretching when you say we didn’t get what we were told we were getting. The only thing you can really point to is the addition of ascended gear to the game, but aside from that, this game is pretty much what Anet said it would be.

Nope, like others who went thru and paid attention to every interview i could find (all of which were audio/video recordings not text), on multiple occasions people spoke to the devs about why they had such a focus on DE’s and the open world (this was pre november btw) and they stated that not only would this not be a dungeon focused game but that they’re focus would be to add permanent DE’s and metas monthly post launch because it was very fast easy and cheap for them to push them out, and because they wanted us to explore Tyria and be in every zone and to expect that. If you look on these forums early on people were complaining because they didn’t deliver that they just kept putting in temporary content for the holidays instead of new perm content in the open world so their response to that and to the problems of keeping the hardcore crowd was ascended and fractals.

Sorry but you’ll have to find a quote for the monthly. I watched/read all the same interviews.

What I DO remember being said is that almost immediately, Anet would be working on new DEs, which would be added to the game. I don’t remember them saying new DE’s monthly…I’m pretty sure they didn’t. But memory is a funny thing. I guess I’ll go look and see what I can come up with.

However, I do remember them adding, as I said 30 new DEs in November and no one commented or cared about them AT ALL.

I hardly saw any comments on the new DEs…with one exception. The skritt burglar.

You don’t think it’s possible that Anet didn’t put more DEs in because people didn’t seem to care much about them.

Try to remember the time. Everyone was in Orr, because it wasn’t worth going back to earlier zones. Even in January, when they changed the loot structure, people still didn’t really go back to earlier zones…not nearly as much. It’s why Anet changed the daily. It’s why Anet changed the loot for meta events.

But in the end, what would adding more events actually do for the game? Do you deny that DEs once people have leveled were superfluous to the bulk of the playerbase?

I stopped playing early April. I really can’t get myself to play this game, and it’s just such a sad thought. I played GW1 in preparation for 2’s release, merely for the lore alone. I pre-ordered and had a ball during the beta weekends.

Like you OP I played for the world. A month after release all my friends left, but I kept pushing on, exploring, gearing my characters in dungeon exotics — cosmetically mostly, because finding the right look meant more to me than the number crunching did. I defended keeps in WvW, which was great fun. I PvP’d to rank ten, an oddity for me since I never do PvP. I’ve bought a few thousand gems to upgrade my bank and bag space, to buy new character slots, and acquire some snazzy fashion accessories. Thought mostly I wanted to spend my money, because I believed ANet deserved it.

For me the game also had then freshness, an seeing all the world has was what it was all about. Two things killed the game for me.

1. Temporary content is the worst idea. Festivals are one thing, but having something pop-up, and throwing some exclusive items its way to lure people in, then close it off is just moronic. Why would developers choose to take content away after introducing it? It really makes absolutely no sense. Why not add content, and instead of taking it away place it elsewhere, or let it evolve in a sense? The world is supposed to expand and grow, that’s the point of it all. But slapping something on just to tear it off after a while is a seriously flaw in my opinion.

2. The empty repetition became too much. At a stage, near the end, I only logged in to complete the dailies, then logged back out. Now, this can become a point of contention as people may see this point in different shades, but to me it removed some of the games charm.

The idea is that you can play the game your way. At first I loved the idea of diversified dailies and monthlies, but the day I stopped playing I logged in, chose the dailies I could finish the fastest, then logged out. Then it struck me, it wasn’t actually fun. It made me pause and consider the entire game, ascended gear, tokens, legendaries, dailies, monthies, daily world chests, even the living story, it has all devolved into a huge “shopping list” of ticks that begged to be completed so you can move on.

Some may not mind, but for a game that promoted you can play your way, and that it emulates a living world, that’s not alright for me. The magic died. I can’t help but think there are more clever ways for people to be a part of the world, for people to have more to see and experience, and become part of the world. Gear is becoming more important, and the world feels like a cheap trick that needs to fool you into playing.

Well, that’s what the once enchanting game has become to me. It was a sad feeling for me, it was like the realization that I lost a friend.

OP, I understand your frustration, but as someone who has only been playing a few months I have to say you don’t have to see the game this way. I’ve been having a blast with the parts of the game I love. The community is friendlier than so many places I’ve tried before, and when people in my guild start stressing about their daily Fractal etc I just ignore it and continue doing what I love. There’s a lot of great content in this game, and although I understand how easy it is to go along with everyone else and do the things you don’t like because they are, it is honestly not required.

Maybe in eight months I’ll feel the same as you do now. I’m not discounting how you feel right now.

As in real life one of the biggest problems in these games are a vast amount of unsociable players or players not able to socialise maybe if they have distractions around them. You can’t avoid distractions that need to be dealt with but just joining in with other players when exploring, have a chat etc isn’t much to ask. And the game needs a proper endgame which right now WvW isnt really right now.