Guild Wars 2

(1)Unlike the popular MMOs that came before, Guild Wars 2 does not depend on progression. You do not feel obligated to play, as you have no reason at all to sign in, unless you are signing in to get into the temporary content before it vanishes. No obligations, no responsibilities, and as much incentive to log into the game as there is to log into Farmville (actually, maybe less obligation/responsibility to sign into GW2 as there is to sign into Farmville).

Play when you want, as long as you want, take as long of a break as you want, and you miss out on nothing important.
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(2)Guild Wars 2 is easy. Because Guild Wars 2 lacks the ‘holy trinity’, there is much less responsibility in GW2’s PvE. Essentially, everyone is responsible for themselves, similar to how DPS classes play in other MMOs.

Save for the small handful of abilities, boons, etc that effect your party, unless you are going for a world record speed clear, PvE groups are more than capable bringing full Berserker geared, high-damage traited professions and literally faceroll through any dungeon in the game.

There are very little mechanics in PvE to worry about. Most of it consists of simply dodging in the right direction at the right time, or standing in the right place so the boss bugs out and can’t hit you, or simply running past a pack of mobs to leash them and therefore bypass multiple groups of mobs, and at times, huge chunks of the dungeon (Arah path 3, CoF path 1, various fractals, amongst others).
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(3)Remember when you were a kid, and everything was new, big, awesome, and wonderous? Guild Wars 2 is filled with wonder. Bright colors, flashy particles, scantily-clad fantasy armor, and huge raids of players all smacking one champion mob. The feeling is epic, and you definitely get lost in that sense of wonder.
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(4)Repetitive, easy-to-follow content. As stated in reason #2, Guild Wars 2 demands very little skill and thought, and mostly relies on fast reflexes (dodging, mob avoidance i.e. ‘running past’). Also as stated in reason #3, recent (and all foreseeable future) content is based around big zergs of people all smacking the same big zergs of mobs. Zero strategy, zero thought, zerg after zerg, hour after hour of farming and farming, and little to no responsibility, save for dodging at the right time.
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To summarize: Guild Wars 2 appeals very much to the ‘casual kid’ in all of us due to:
-Little responsibility (see last bulletpoint below)
-Little to no obligation to play (not missing out on content or any meaningful sort of reward)
-Lots of flashy colors and particles
-Huge epic zergs
-Easy mechanics for PvE (and drop in, drop-out system for PvP, which I didn’t get a chance to mention)

Hopefully that answers questions from people as to why GW2 is appealing to some people, and why people continue to play it! Thanks for reading :)

Waiting for you to elaborate on how zergs are “epic”.

Insignya.8625:

Waiting for you to elaborate on how zergs are “epic”.

I’d say he means in a visual sense.

Although game-play wise, it is lacking.

Question to the OP; how are you defining casual? I’d have guessed from the context of the post you’re referring to the content, not the individual’s play-style.

I can sort of see where you’re coming from, but at the same time, I somewhat disagree.

If a player is interested in the game, they won’t mind challenging content. In fact, I feel the ‘put down when you like’ aspect would lend itself well to adding challenging content, since you can always walk away to relax if you start getting stressed, as opposed to, say, a sub game, where a lot of people feel the need to get their money’s worth.

Look at kids, they can be determined little kittens when they’re interested in something. For example, me when I started Karate. I went 5 times a week for a good 8 years from the age of 4, and when I wasn’t there, I’d practice at home, constantly working to improve my techniques and build my strength. After 7 years of hard work (and this was back when you’d get smacked with a Shinai if you weren’t in a proper stance, and children trained with the adults), I got my black belt. kitten , was I proud of it; not even the belt itself, but the accomplishment behind it.

I think that’s the key thing; then game needs to hold interest, and the best way to do that is to provide mentally stimulating content (i.e. thinking) as well as execution challenge. Make the player think, if they fail, “how should I approach him this time / what skills should I swap out / maybe this Trait would be better”.

I like how you use the word ’Kid’.

MMOs morphed into a more casual style because of adults with busy lives and less time to play, not kids.

I dislike the TC’s usage of the terms “casual” and “kid” and what’s appealing to them. It’s rather demeaning. For instance, my little brother plays Pokemon, a game that in where the problem solving mechanics and progression are far more demanding, but he won’t touch Guild Wars 2.

I dont’ know….
the living story line talks about torturing people by cooking them in a pot.

I’m not sure that is meant for young kid.

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ know….
the living story line talks about torturing people by cooking them in a pot.

I’m not sure that is meant for young kid.

Cooking people in a pot is a classic feature of bedtime stories for young kids.

AntiGw.9367:

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ know….
the living story line talks about torturing people by cooking them in a pot.

I’m not sure that is meant for young kid.

Cooking people in a pot is a classic feature of bedtime stories for young kids.

The average 8-12 year old plays CoD/GTA, knows every single curse/racist slur in the book, and is probably no stranger to pornography. I severely doubt a mention of someone getting cooked alive with corrupt their pure souls. Welcome to 2013.

Zepidel.5349:

AntiGw.9367:

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ know….
the living story line talks about torturing people by cooking them in a pot.

I’m not sure that is meant for young kid.

Cooking people in a pot is a classic feature of bedtime stories for young kids.

The average 8-12 year old plays CoD/GTA, knows every single curse/racist slur in the book, and is probably no stranger to pornography. I severely doubt a mention of someone getting cooked alive with corrupt their pure souls. Welcome to 2013.

That ain’t no joke. Everyone should read your comment slowly, and give it time to sink in. It’s kittening sad.

Yeah, someone being cooked alive hardly phases kids these days when they’re seeing people get blown to bits by their grenades in CoD and banging prostitutes in GTA.

Saying that the lack of trinity makes the game easier is incredibly stupid. The rules of a fight still apply, healing, taking damage, and outputting it. But to do all three in the more harder areas of the game, you need teamwork. If everyonr fights for himself, you will die in the more hardcore content.

Oxstar.7643:

Saying that the lack of trinity makes the game easier is incredibly stupid. The rules of a fight still apply, healing, taking damage, and outputting it. But to do all three in the more harder areas of the game, you need teamwork. If everyonr fights for himself, you will die in the more hardcore content.

No I’m pretty sure 5 zerker geared whatever can speed clear through all the content in this game. Teamwork in this game means being competent enough to not drag down your teammates.

Brutal Arts.6307:

Oxstar.7643:

Saying that the lack of trinity makes the game easier is incredibly stupid. The rules of a fight still apply, healing, taking damage, and outputting it. But to do all three in the more harder areas of the game, you need teamwork. If everyonr fights for himself, you will die in the more hardcore content.

No I’m pretty sure 5 zerker geared whatever can speed clear through all the content in this game. Teamwork in this game means being competent enough to not drag down your teammates.

Mhm, just try it amigo.

Oxstar.7643:

Brutal Arts.6307:

Oxstar.7643:

Saying that the lack of trinity makes the game easier is incredibly stupid. The rules of a fight still apply, healing, taking damage, and outputting it. But to do all three in the more harder areas of the game, you need teamwork. If everyonr fights for himself, you will die in the more hardcore content.

No I’m pretty sure 5 zerker geared whatever can speed clear through all the content in this game. Teamwork in this game means being competent enough to not drag down your teammates.

Mhm, just try it amigo.

But I already have. From AC to Arah, 1 mesmer/guard and 4 warriors. It’s very hard for things to hurt you when they’re being pummelled to death in seconds. But don’t take my word for it, look around at any speed clear vids.

(4)Repetitive, easy-to-follow content. As stated in reason #2, Guild Wars 2 demands very little skill and thought, and mostly relies on fast reflexes (dodging, mob avoidance i.e. ‘running past’). Also as stated in reason #3, recent (and all foreseeable future) content is based around big zergs of people all smacking the same big zergs of mobs. Zero strategy, zero thought, zerg after zerg, hour after hour of farming and farming, and little to no responsibility, save for dodging at the right time.

I really want that they implement a new type of PvP that involves strategy and cooperation, but you are allowed to bring you equipament with you. Something between WvW and sPvP (with different objectives).

The zerging is nice sometimes, but strategy is always better.

Brutal Arts.6307:

Oxstar.7643:

Brutal Arts.6307:

Oxstar.7643:

Saying that the lack of trinity makes the game easier is incredibly stupid. The rules of a fight still apply, healing, taking damage, and outputting it. But to do all three in the more harder areas of the game, you need teamwork. If everyonr fights for himself, you will die in the more hardcore content.

No I’m pretty sure 5 zerker geared whatever can speed clear through all the content in this game. Teamwork in this game means being competent enough to not drag down your teammates.

Mhm, just try it amigo.

But I already have. From AC to Arah, 1 mesmer/guard and 4 warriors. It’s very hard for things to hurt you when they’re being pummelled to death in seconds. But don’t take my word for it, look around at any speed clear vids.

Try some WvW 5 man havok group with all zerker – you might be able to destroy npc’s but not real players (not fair weathers or uplevels).

Peetee.9406:

I like how you use the word ‘Kid’.

MMOs morphed into a more casual style because of adults with busy lives and less time to play, not kids.

I would think that adults want something worthwhile to do, something that makes them feel good or accomplished for however much time they’re putting in, not smack 50 things for 20 times for some achievement points and a mini

Also why would time gated content appeal at all to people with less time to play?

Peetee.9406:

I like how you use the word ‘Kid’.

MMOs morphed into a more casual style because of adults with busy lives and less time to play, not kids.

my theory is different

MMOs morphed into a more casual style because adults dont look after their kids anymore. Parents today just open their wallets and buy their children all they ask, as long as they shut their mouths afterwards

and then, you have loads of kids with disposable income, an IQ that matches their shoe sizes and below-zero standards for quality…they never experienced the good games of old….

so the MMO industry turned predatory and now feeds on this new target audience

Brutal Arts.6307:

Oxstar.7643:

Saying that the lack of trinity makes the game easier is incredibly stupid. The rules of a fight still apply, healing, taking damage, and outputting it. But to do all three in the more harder areas of the game, you need teamwork. If everyonr fights for himself, you will die in the more hardcore content.

No I’m pretty sure 5 zerker geared whatever can speed clear through all the content in this game. Teamwork in this game means being competent enough to not drag down your teammates.

Actually that’s not true. Teamwork in this game means playing with a team..based on the rules agreed to by the team.

If your goal is efficiency, then you’d be dragging your team down. If your goal is to have fun, then doing something in 5 minutes isn’t necessarily significantly more fun than doing it in 15 or even an hour. In fact, if I run a dungeon and it takes an hour and I’m having fun, I’m having more fun running it in an hour..because if I run it in 15 minutes my fun ends sooner.

I have a guild full of people and very few people play warriors in that guild. We do dungeons all the time. Every day. And we beat every dungeon…at our own pace. And yes, it requires teamwork.

If you want to trivialize content by thinking that’s how Anet meant people to play this game..go right ahead.

But I think you missed the whole point.

Thanks for the feedback all! Quite interesting discussions, keep it coming

number 3 goes out really really fast.

Basically i know the OP means well, and i’m glad he enjoys everything he said, but…

Everything in his post is what i dislike in GW2 and he’s basically showing every bad example of Guildwars 2 to me and saying its good…

This game needs the opposite of what he likes..

Well, I always felt GW2 was too childish. It don’t mind so much that the game has a generally casual approach. I can play other games for the challenge, but I do find it a shame that the game itself feels so childish.

Characters all look too young
Voice acting is childish
It’s one party after another
The world doesn’t feel threatening, even in Orr
A bow that shoots rainbows and unicorns

See, people can like what they want, but for me, I need to stay away from that stuff, to be able to get something out of this game at all.

Superfast.5901:

(1)Unlike the popular MMOs that came before, Guild Wars 2 does not depend on progression. You do not feel obligated to play, as you have no reason at all to sign in, unless you are signing in to get into the temporary content before it vanishes. No obligations, no responsibilities, and as much incentive to log into the game as there is to log into Farmville (actually, maybe less obligation/responsibility to sign into GW2 as there is to sign into Farmville).

Play when you want, as long as you want, take as long of a break as you want, and you miss out on nothing important.

Which is good. Games should be like that. Taking a break isn’t a bad thing.

(2)Guild Wars 2 is easy. Because Guild Wars 2 lacks the ‘holy trinity’, there is much less responsibility in GW2’s PvE. Essentially, everyone is responsible for themselves, similar to how DPS classes play in other MMOs.

Untrue. In other MMOs DPS doesn’t even have to be responsible for themselves. That’s up to the healer and tank. This means that bar for those two, everyone has MORE responsibilities. As such, DPS in this game is already vastly more complex than other games.

(3)Remember when you were a kid, and everything was new, big, awesome, and wonderous? Guild Wars 2 is filled with wonder. Bright colors, flashy particles, scantily-clad fantasy armor, and huge raids of players all smacking one champion mob. The feeling is epic, and you definitely get lost in that sense of wonder.

Which is good. I love epic gameplay and GW2 provides it. I’m a big kid.

(4)Repetitive, easy-to-follow content. As stated in reason #2, Guild Wars 2 demands very little skill and thought, and mostly relies on fast reflexes (dodging, mob avoidance i.e. ‘running past’). Also as stated in reason #3, recent (and all foreseeable future) content is based around big zergs of people all smacking the same big zergs of mobs. Zero strategy, zero thought, zerg after zerg, hour after hour of farming and farming, and little to no responsibility, save for dodging at the right time.

How’s that different from the default 25man zergy tank-and-spank raid without any responsibilities in other games?

To summarize: Guild Wars 2 appeals very much to the ‘casual kid’ in all of us due to:
-Little responsibility (see last bulletpoint below)
-Little to no obligation to play (not missing out on content or any meaningful sort of reward)
-Lots of flashy colors and particles
-Huge epic zergs
-Easy mechanics for PvE (and drop in, drop-out system for PvP, which I didn’t get a chance to mention)

Hopefully that answers questions from people as to why GW2 is appealing to some people, and why people continue to play it! Thanks for reading

You’re trying to frame that as a bad thing but I’m a casual and a big kid. I don’t complain. If you’re a hardcore raider wishing for frustrating content … WoW’s that way.

The last thing I want when getting home from work is 30 "hardcore"people screaming in my ear while I roll a boring rotation against a generic raid boss for 4 hours straight. I just want to roll in, have fun and alt+f4 when my wife shouts dinner’s ready. I couldn’t in WoW and can in GW2.

Gehenna.3625:

Well, I always felt GW2 was too childish. It don’t mind so much that the game has a generally casual approach. I can play other games for the challenge, but I do find it a shame that the game itself feels so childish.

Characters all look too young
Voice acting is childish
It’s one party after another
The world doesn’t feel threatening, even in Orr
A bow that shoots rainbows and unicorns

See, people can like what they want, but for me, I need to stay away from that stuff, to be able to get something out of this game at all.

Yeh its pretty sad.Its build like this so people below the age group of 15 can play.Lill girls and boys will go awwwwwww over “A bow that shoots rainbows and unicorns”.Can.t blame Anet though,they make this game for money they couldn’t careless if its childish.They just want to keep churning out temp content so they can put those temp items in the gem shop to sell later.

xephire.8324:

Yeh its pretty sad.Its build like this so people below the age group of 15 can play.Lill girls and boys will go awwwwwww over “A bow that shoots rainbows and unicorns”.Can.t blame Anet though,they make this game for money they couldn’t careless if its childish.They just want to keep churning out temp content so they can put those temp items in the gem shop to sell later.

What’s your age? Because I have a strong feeling you’re too young to properly enjoy games like GW2. Maybe in 10 years, once you’re 26 or older, maybe with responsibilities such as a job or your own kid, maybe then you’ll appreciate a game like this.

People who call Guild Wars 2 childish are probably misusing the word. A bow the shoots unicorns isn’t childish…there may be another adjective you’re looking for, but childish isn’t it. I’d call it creative…maybe artistic. My son is 25, and he liked the Dream enough to get it. He’s many things, but he’s not childish.

I think you might be confusing a style decision with what constitutes maturity. I assume some people feel unicorns are for children. I know quite a few grown people who like unicorns too.

Light be be for grown ups too. And I can also point out that many of those who crave darkness all the time are teenagers anyway.

marnick.4305:

xephire.8324:

Yeh its pretty sad.Its build like this so people below the age group of 15 can play.Lill girls and boys will go awwwwwww over “A bow that shoots rainbows and unicorns”.Can.t blame Anet though,they make this game for money they couldn’t careless if its childish.They just want to keep churning out temp content so they can put those temp items in the gem shop to sell later.

What’s your age? Because I have a strong feeling you’re too young to properly enjoy games like GW2. Maybe in 10 years, once you’re 26 or older, maybe with responsibilities such as a job or your own kid, maybe then you’ll appreciate a game like this.

I did not say i didnt appreciate the game,its you who think otherwise.I think its you who have got a problem with people saying stuff about gw2 they aren’t positive.

for me this game feels like “Diablo 3d”

run around and spam as much aoe as you can on everything and loot
and the loot is most time useless crap not even 1% from it usefull for you

dont know how someone can design a game like this where its most effective to run around as a staffguardian spamming 1 and aoe loot

and this event atm? seriously?
ye we know soon china relase but plz stop to make this game for farm-chineses

thx

edit: and they said they will remove magicfind so i guess soon we get pargaon lvls ey?

best content i saw so far
*queen jubilee
*the pirate thing before
*fractals (but gets boring very fast – here they should bring new fractals per month)

all others is just a zerg/spamfest or run around click stupid things all day

Vayne.8563:

People who call Guild Wars 2 childish are probably misusing the word. A bow the shoots unicorns isn’t childish…there may be another adjective you’re looking for, but childish isn’t it. I’d call it creative…maybe artistic. My son is 25, and he liked the Dream enough to get it. He’s many things, but he’s not childish.

I think you might be confusing a style decision with what constitutes maturity. I assume some people feel unicorns are for children. I know quite a few grown people who like unicorns too.

Light be be for grown ups too. And I can also point out that many of those who crave darkness all the time are teenagers anyway.

People can call GW2 childish or anything they want.They are not misusing the word in anyway.Nobody called your child childish.

yea this game is definitely casual, and back when it was my main game I really hated how casual it is. But I guess it is kinda nice having an mmo I own and can just check in whenever to see whats up without having to pay any more money. The downside to this is I just get bored really fast. I’ve logged maybe 4 hours this entire month mostly because I just can’t find anything to keep me actively engaged. Most of that time is just running around with the zerg in WvW, the only thing that seems to be able to keep me online for a bit.

The thing I liked about GW2 is the first – It doesn’t depend on progression. I took a 3 month hiatus due to me being assigned to a different country, and the only thing I missed are some achievements and skins – which I really don’t mind.

GW2 is also farm-friendly. You farm on your own pace. You don’t feel obligated to farm to be competitive (although you might look trash – but still, stat-wise, not much difference…)

Vayne.8563:

People who call Guild Wars 2 childish are probably misusing the word. A bow the shoots unicorns isn’t childish…there may be another adjective you’re looking for, but childish isn’t it. I’d call it creative…maybe artistic. My son is 25, and he liked the Dream enough to get it. He’s many things, but he’s not childish.

I think you might be confusing a style decision with what constitutes maturity. I assume some people feel unicorns are for children. I know quite a few grown people who like unicorns too.

Light be be for grown ups too. And I can also point out that many of those who crave darkness all the time are teenagers anyway.

Appeal to all ages may be more like it. Like a good Disney movie. Even adults can enjoy them. Nintendo games are some of the best games despite their “childish” art style. It takes a sour teenager to not appreciate the superior gameplay of Super Mario 3D or The Legend of Zelda.

One can have complaints about the art style, because naturally nudity, gore and %^&# constitutes mature gameplay (sarcasm).

Copestetic.5174:

That ain’t no joke. Everyone should read your comment slowly, and give it time to sink in. It’s kittening sad.

Yeah, someone being cooked alive hardly phases kids these days when they’re seeing people get blown to bits by their grenades in CoD and banging prostitutes in GTA.

It isn’t any different from how the world used to be.
In my opinion it’s better for someone to have an understanding of sex and violence than to be horribly shocked at 18 because they were sheltered their whole life.

Mirta.5029:

Copestetic.5174:

That ain’t no joke. Everyone should read your comment slowly, and give it time to sink in. It’s kittening sad.

Yeah, someone being cooked alive hardly phases kids these days when they’re seeing people get blown to bits by their grenades in CoD and banging prostitutes in GTA.

It isn’t any different from how the world used to be.
In my opinion it’s better for someone to have an understanding of sex and violence than to be horribly shocked at 18 because they were sheltered their whole life.

No doubt. I’m not really saying one should shelter their kids, God knows I wasn’t, but I do believe there should be some limitation on just what kids are watching/playing.

Copestetic.5174:

No doubt. I’m not really saying one should shelter their kids, God knows I wasn’t, but I do believe there should be some limitation on just what kids are watching/playing.

I don’t think that we should limit that, however we should most definitely teach kids to be mature about it, and if they can’t then take it away from them until they can.
A lot of people use CoD and battlefield to blow off steam. Some kids do it too. However there’s a difference between understanding that it’s just a video game, blowing off steam without screaming insults at everyone and playing how some kids play it – swearing their head off every time they don’t win.

Copestetic.5174:

Mirta.5029:

Copestetic.5174:

That ain’t no joke. Everyone should read your comment slowly, and give it time to sink in. It’s kittening sad.

Yeah, someone being cooked alive hardly phases kids these days when they’re seeing people get blown to bits by their grenades in CoD and banging prostitutes in GTA.

It isn’t any different from how the world used to be.
In my opinion it’s better for someone to have an understanding of sex and violence than to be horribly shocked at 18 because they were sheltered their whole life.

No doubt. I’m not really saying one should shelter their kids, God knows I wasn’t, but I do believe there should be some limitation on just what kids are watching/playing.

Yes,we shall haz more tv shows like teletubbies and play games with weapons that show rainbow effects for da kidz.

Vayne.8563:

People who call Guild Wars 2 childish are probably misusing the word. A bow the shoots unicorns isn’t childish…there may be another adjective you’re looking for, but childish isn’t it. I’d call it creative…maybe artistic. My son is 25, and he liked the Dream enough to get it. He’s many things, but he’s not childish.

I think you might be confusing a style decision with what constitutes maturity. I assume some people feel unicorns are for children. I know quite a few grown people who like unicorns too.

Light be be for grown ups too. And I can also point out that many of those who crave darkness all the time are teenagers anyway.

It’s still childish, but that doesn’t make it bad necessarily. We all get stuck in our youth nostalgia to some degree, but to me there’s just too much in this game.

If you prefer terms like frivolous or happy happy joy joy…really I don’t care what you want to call it. I find all this stuff ideal for kids and hence childish.

I like engaging story and atmosphere. When I play a game where the human world has been driven from Ascalon and fighting to hold on while various dragons come alive and threaten the very existence of all living things, then that’s what I want the game to breathe.

The game isn’t dark at all, it doesn’t breathe threat in Orr even and all we get is shooting rainbows and party all day. It’s just like children’s movies where the bad guys are all dumb and can be defeated by children and everything is still upbeat and all’s well that ends well. Adults can also enjoy a movie like that, but that’s because we can still appreciate some childish things and I imagine it’s because we were kids at one point.

But again this game’s story and background is too grim and dark for the game as it is. It makes no sense to me this way. You may not care about that difference, but I do.

And yes, to me it feels like the game is too childish. That bow wouldn’t even have been an issue if it was just that. My problem is that on the balance there’s too much of it, for me to really get engaged into the game’s story and happenings.

Even Harry Potter is darker than GW2 really and there’s lots of childish things in there also, but that’s ok. Maybe Anet should’ve kept the background story a lot lighter…would’ve made more sense to me then.

Omg there is Zaitan!!!! One shot Zhaitan with a bow that shoots rainbow unicorn.Thus,a new hero and legend is born.Zhaitan was slained by a bow that shoots rainbow unicorn!

Much of GW2 comes across as a Saturday morning cartoon version of a fantasy story to me. That is not a terrible thing, I hear that that rascal Skeletor has a new plot in the works !

I would not mind a bit more of a serious tone and delivery. I would love for GW2’s writers to read a little David Drake, David Gemmell, Moorkitten, or even (one can hope) Glen Cook.

I am not looking for all dark and gloomy here, but a bit more grit in the story telling would be nice IMO.

Romek.4201:

edit: and they said they will remove magicfind so i guess soon we get pargaon lvls ey?

It’s actually exactly what we’ll get. Only instead of leveling it like paragon, you’ll level it by consuming some items.

Superfast.5901:

(1)Unlike the popular MMOs that came before, Guild Wars 2 does not depend on progression. You do not feel obligated to play, as you have no reason at all to sign in, unless you are signing in to get into the temporary content before it vanishes. No obligations, no responsibilities, and as much incentive to log into the game as there is to log into Farmville (actually, maybe less obligation/responsibility to sign into GW2 as there is to sign into Farmville).

Play when you want, as long as you want, take as long of a break as you want, and you miss out on nothing important.
—————————————————-
(2)Guild Wars 2 is easy. Because Guild Wars 2 lacks the ‘holy trinity’, there is much less responsibility in GW2’s PvE. Essentially, everyone is responsible for themselves, similar to how DPS classes play in other MMOs.

Save for the small handful of abilities, boons, etc that effect your party, unless you are going for a world record speed clear, PvE groups are more than capable bringing full Berserker geared, high-damage traited professions and literally faceroll through any dungeon in the game.

There are very little mechanics in PvE to worry about. Most of it consists of simply dodging in the right direction at the right time, or standing in the right place so the boss bugs out and can’t hit you, or simply running past a pack of mobs to leash them and therefore bypass multiple groups of mobs, and at times, huge chunks of the dungeon (Arah path 3, CoF path 1, various fractals, amongst others).
—————————————————-
(3)Remember when you were a kid, and everything was new, big, awesome, and wonderous? Guild Wars 2 is filled with wonder. Bright colors, flashy particles, scantily-clad fantasy armor, and huge raids of players all smacking one champion mob. The feeling is epic, and you definitely get lost in that sense of wonder.
—————————————————-
(4)Repetitive, easy-to-follow content. As stated in reason #2, Guild Wars 2 demands very little skill and thought, and mostly relies on fast reflexes (dodging, mob avoidance i.e. ‘running past’). Also as stated in reason #3, recent (and all foreseeable future) content is based around big zergs of people all smacking the same big zergs of mobs. Zero strategy, zero thought, zerg after zerg, hour after hour of farming and farming, and little to no responsibility, save for dodging at the right time.
—————————————————-
To summarize: Guild Wars 2 appeals very much to the ‘casual kid’ in all of us due to:
-Little responsibility (see last bulletpoint below)
-Little to no obligation to play (not missing out on content or any meaningful sort of reward)
-Lots of flashy colors and particles
-Huge epic zergs
-Easy mechanics for PvE (and drop in, drop-out system for PvP, which I didn’t get a chance to mention)

Hopefully that answers questions from people as to why GW2 is appealing to some people, and why people continue to play it! Thanks for reading

While everything you said is true, the irony is that it’s built around a combat system designed for hardcore pvpers.

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

People who call Guild Wars 2 childish are probably misusing the word. A bow the shoots unicorns isn’t childish…there may be another adjective you’re looking for, but childish isn’t it. I’d call it creative…maybe artistic. My son is 25, and he liked the Dream enough to get it. He’s many things, but he’s not childish.

I think you might be confusing a style decision with what constitutes maturity. I assume some people feel unicorns are for children. I know quite a few grown people who like unicorns too.

Light be be for grown ups too. And I can also point out that many of those who crave darkness all the time are teenagers anyway.

People can call GW2 childish or anything they want.They are not misusing the word in anyway.Nobody called your child childish.

When someone uses a word in a way that belies the definition of the word, they are misusing the word. The whole point of language is to communicate. Childish points to immaturity, but a unicorn bow isn’t immature.

Unfortunately language isn’t a perfect communicator, but with the stigma attached to being childish (which is negative unlike child-like), I am perfectly within my rights to say the word was misused. If you don’t agree, that’s fine. I’m still within my rights to say it.

You should probably try to stick to discussing stuff instead of trying to edit my topics.

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ know….
the living story line talks about torturing people by cooking them in a pot.

I’m not sure that is meant for young kid.

Hansel and Gretel?

The witch lures kids to eat, after cooking them in her oven.

The kids ‘sort’ her ‘out’ by cooking the witch alive instead.

How old is this fairytale which is read to kids 4+ years and up?

A lot of adults have a ‘inner’ child more especially males…whats new?

Nothing wrong in it…all the deadly serious people are lawyers, politicians, mad dictators etc…I think they need a inner child…

There’s nothing quite relly innovative about gw2 is doing here.Heart quest makes me LOL!They just replaced the godkitten exclamation mark or question marks with hearts.Dungeons….meh every mmo has tha.Living story and events……..Every mmos has those just that they don’t churn it out every 2 weeks.WvW just like any pvp in any game just that is whose side has a bigger zerg wins.Spvp….Yawn.Crafting they dumbed it down.Resource gathering like finding nodes,trees and stuff are annoying.Story quests and instance at the first few levels are great until Mr.Salad head turns up.Underwater fights those are new but still yawn!!! If they add an underwater city as a next major expansion that would be great.Events……just another npc quest where you activate it by standing close to the quest/event area.

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

People who call Guild Wars 2 childish are probably misusing the word. A bow the shoots unicorns isn’t childish…there may be another adjective you’re looking for, but childish isn’t it. I’d call it creative…maybe artistic. My son is 25, and he liked the Dream enough to get it. He’s many things, but he’s not childish.

I think you might be confusing a style decision with what constitutes maturity. I assume some people feel unicorns are for children. I know quite a few grown people who like unicorns too.

Light be be for grown ups too. And I can also point out that many of those who crave darkness all the time are teenagers anyway.

People can call GW2 childish or anything they want.They are not misusing the word in anyway.Nobody called your child childish.

When someone uses a word in a way that belies the definition of the word, they are misusing the word. The whole point of language is to communicate. Childish points to immaturity, but a unicorn bow isn’t immature.

It doesn’t belie it’s meaning. That’s your opinion at best and I disagree with it. Childish has multiple meanings as it is and if one particular one stands out to you, then that’s your perception.

But even following your reasoning, I do actually think this game is immature in many ways. Because that is my opinion, it’s perfectly natural that I use the world childish. It makes sense because of my opinion on the matter. You simply have a set meaning for words and don’t get that other people have their versions of what something mean. There are no absolute truths here.

You may not agree that something is childish but that doesn’t mean I used the word incorrectly. Now if a car was red and I called it blue, then you have a factual misrepresentation. There it’s clear.

But what’s childish to one person, may not have to be to another. Therefore I accept that you don’t call it childish but I still do. But I also say that childish or immature is not always a bad thing and that’s your assumption that it would be.

What bothers me here is that there’s too much of it. Good or bad, even too much of a good thing is too much.

Oh and just to be 100% clear. I do think that a bow shooting rainbows and unicorns is childish and I do think it’s immature. Make no mistake, I stand by that. Just realise that it’s opinion and not fact.

What really derails all these conversations is actually you attacking opinions as if they were facts. They’re not.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

People who call Guild Wars 2 childish are probably misusing the word. A bow the shoots unicorns isn’t childish…there may be another adjective you’re looking for, but childish isn’t it. I’d call it creative…maybe artistic. My son is 25, and he liked the Dream enough to get it. He’s many things, but he’s not childish.

I think you might be confusing a style decision with what constitutes maturity. I assume some people feel unicorns are for children. I know quite a few grown people who like unicorns too.

Light be be for grown ups too. And I can also point out that many of those who crave darkness all the time are teenagers anyway.

People can call GW2 childish or anything they want.They are not misusing the word in anyway.Nobody called your child childish.

When someone uses a word in a way that belies the definition of the word, they are misusing the word. The whole point of language is to communicate. Childish points to immaturity, but a unicorn bow isn’t immature.

It doesn’t belie it’s meaning. That’s your opinion at best and I disagree with it. Childish has multiple meanings as it is and if one particular one stands out to you, then that’s your perception.

But even following your reasoning, I do actually think this game is immature in many ways. Because that is my opinion, it’s perfectly natural that I use the world childish. It makes sense because of my opinion on the matter. You simply have a set meaning for words and don’t get that other people have their versions of what something mean. There are no absolute truths here.

You may not agree that something is childish but that doesn’t mean I used the word incorrectly. Now if a car was red and I called it blue, then you have a factual misrepresentation. There it’s clear.

But what’s childish to one person, may not have to be to another. Therefore I accept that you don’t call it childish but I still do. But I also say that childish or immature is not always a bad thing and that’s your assumption that it would be.

What bothers me here is that there’s too much of it. Good or bad, even too much of a good thing is too much.

Oh and just to be 100% clear. I do think that a bow shooting rainbows and unicorns is childish and I do think it’s immature. Make no mistake, I stand by that. Just realise that it’s opinion and not fact.

What really derails all these conversations is actually you attacking opinions as if they were facts. They’re not.

In writing, nuance is everything. Using a word with multiple meanings to try to communicate something, particularly when the most common usage of that word (and yes words have most common usage) means something you’re not trying to say is misusing a word, and I don’t care if you disagree with me or not on that. It IS misusing the word. Because it’s not communicating, necessarily, what you’re trying to say.

In the case of the OP he have several examples of what he meant by childish, but the most common usage of the word doesn’t support his examples. In which case, he might have found a better word to use.

You can argue words with me all day if you like. It doesn’t change English.

xephire.8324:

There’s nothing quite relly innovative about gw2 is doing here.Heart quest makes me LOL!They just replaced the godkitten exclamation mark or question marks with hearts.Dungeons….meh every mmo has tha.Living story and events……..Every mmos has those just that they don’t churn it out every 2 weeks.WvW just like any pvp in any game just that is whose side has a bigger zerg wins.Spvp….Yawn.Crafting they dumbed it down.Resource gathering like finding nodes,trees and stuff are annoying.Story quests and instance at the first few levels are great until Mr.Salad head turns up.Underwater fights those are new but still yawn!!! If they add an underwater city as a next major expansion that would be great.Events……just another npc quest where you activate it by standing close to the quest/event area.

This shows how little you know about the game. Heart quests are nothing. There are 300 of them in the game, compared to 1500 dynamic events. Heart quests were added for one reason only..to keep people in the area where events spawn. That’s it. Saying that they’re like traditional quests is missing the point. And even then they’re STILL not like traditional quests. First, there are multiple ways to finish them and second they’re often finished incidentally when doing events in the areas around them.

Dynamic events are most certainly not like traditional quests. For one thing, you don’t have to talk to someone to start them. Many will start without anyone around. So not like a traditional quest. Many of them have different events that spawn out of them, depending upon whether an event is failed or if it succeeds. Again, different from a traditional quest.

In traditional quests in most games, you have a static situation during which you get a quest. That situation never changes. There’s a burning town in Rift, and that down is always burning. It’s never not burning. You can’t stop the town from burning. In Guild Wars 2, you can be in a perfectly normal town, selling, and it can be invaded and burned down. After which you can take it back and it will be rebuilt. If you can’t see the difference between this and a traditional quest, I guess there’s not much more to say.

xephire.8324:

There’s nothing quite relly innovative about gw2 is doing here.Heart quest makes me LOL!They just replaced the godkitten exclamation mark or question marks with hearts.

Main thing about hearts – you don’t have to backtrack to hand them in. In an industry that was stale for 10 years even such a minor upgrade is considered a great jump. It might be less of an achievement in the future if we will finally see more unique MMOs with lots of different features to each other.

xephire.8324:

Living story and events……..Every mmos has those just that they don’t churn it out every 2 weeks.

Almost no MMO provides temporary content that changes the world. In the whole lifetime of WoW I can only remember perhaps 3 of these kind events, so no, you’re wrong here.

xephire.8324:

Crafting they dumbed it down.

Not really. Tried to do cooking without a guide? You have about 80 ingredients and like a million that you could have for your level, but don’t have because you didn’t buy them from hearts for karma. You’re sitting there in the discover screen, clicking every single one of them to desperately try and find a combination.

xephire.8324:

Resource gathering like finding nodes,trees and stuff are annoying.

So essentially you don’t like this part of the game, therefore resource nodes being personal you don’t count that as an innovation, though really, if you played any other MMO and was interested in this kind of content you would see that it is.

xephire.8324:

Story quests and instance at the first few levels are great until Mr.Salad head turns up.Underwater fights those are new but still yawn!!!

Innovative normally means new and different, rather than what you personally find enjoyable or not.

Vayne.8563:

You can argue words with me all day if you like. It doesn’t change English.

You don’t get how language works, that much is clear. Languages are living things and meanings of words change constantly. If you treat a dictionary like a law book, then you will have lots of misunderstandings yet.

Besides, the dictionary doesn’t specify the boundaries of what is or isn’t childish as you seem to imply.

But really, back to the OP. You said he has several examples of what he calls childish…well guess what, the word childish is NOT in the OP.

Did you get that? He did not use the word childish at all. NOT ONCE

HE DID NOT USE IT.

See, I was being childish here, but I think it’s the only way you actually pay attention.

The OP talks about the casual kid but I don’t see him being negative about it. You could make an argument to check with him if he was being sarcastic or not but I couldn’t judge that. I’d have to ask.

So please, tell us where he called anything childish in the OP

I interpret the OP as subtle criticism and have to agree.

He definitely is hitting the nail on the head for most things, particularly the lack of difficulty in PvE compared to other games as well as depth. People “speed rush” things, because there is generally no challenge in completing them with an ordinary group, i.e. most people can do it on their first try.

In some games people had to use spreadsheets to find the optimal DPS spec, here it’s merely labeled “berserker”.

The lack of a healer means the hectic job of a healer of managing his resources and watching health bars along with dodging whatever AoE the boss threw at him is completely lost. Similarly the role of watching aggro meters and positioning boss mobs that was often the duty of tanks is gone. DPS has always been a mindless position, but it seems like everybody has been brought down to that level instead of making it much more interesting.

Speaking of resources, there is almost nothing to manage. There is hardly any weight on making mistakes with respect to the resources that you can manage (e.g. clones, life force).

GW2 has pretty much taken the aspects of WoW/EQ and made them palatable to the average console action gamer, although there are some action games that are much more complex, so that isn’t meant to disparage all people who enjoy action games.

I think GW2 is a very fun, but very shallow and short-lived experience compared to the older games in the genre.

I got my moneys worth, so I can’t complain and I think that’s why people regard it as a good game: you get great graphics and enough content to keep you sitting for 100+ hours.