Guild Wars 2

Having a flat line on gear progression at 80 means there’s no further progression for your character.

There’s no sense of “getting more powerful”, which leads to a meh game, hence rapid lost in interest.

You “get more powerful” by getting better at playing your character.

Not sure why this is such a difficult concept to grasp for people.

Gear isn’t the only possible form of progression. I can understand though, how alien that might feel, after being on that hamster wheel for so long.

To me, this is just a case of different players having different motivations. I think all players enjoy the sense of becoming more powerful, but too many MMOs have fallen prey to systems where the ONLY sense of progression is making players more powerful, so then they have to make enemies more powerful, and then they make players more powerful, and so on ad infinitum until the numbers flashing all over the screen are 6 and 7 figures long. Personally, I think it’ll be refreshing to get away from that.

In my experience, a lot of players don’t necessarily care about becoming endlessly more powerful, so long as there is SOME kind of bar going up that tells them they are working toward something. If power was all any player wanted, Call of Duty players wouldn’t prestige and lose all their unlocks…they do it because they lose that carrot on a stick when that XP bar stops going up, and because they get a little badge telling other people how awesome they are. If a game has that, plenty of players will keep coming back.

Yeah, because Guild Wars wasn’t exactly like that and didn’t manage to survive perfectly fine throughout the years, right?

Shootsfoot.9276:

You “get more powerful” by getting better at playing your character.

That’s fine, but to do that you need a constant flow of content. You can;t be expected to repeat the same.

So it’s a double-edged sword.

Phoonie.9704:

Having a flat line on gear progression at 80 means there’s no further progression for your character.

There’s no sense of “getting more powerful”, which leads to a meh game, hence rapid lost in interest.

The success of Guild Wars (1) speaks in contrast to this statement. You are wrong. Lots of us do not want to be on a gear treadmill.

(Guild Wars sold 6 million copies and had a similar system)

Lost in interest for nolifers maybe, yeah. But definitely a thumbs-up for casuals, semi-hardcore players and others.

Being a semi-hardcore -sometimes hardcore- player myself, it is good to see that casual players don’t feel like they are useless, noobs in the game so this keeps them playing.

Also, you can craft legendaries to feed your ego if you’re nolifer as well. Nice feature Guild Wars 2 has.

I play to have fun, it’s pretty much the only reason.

Actually, dopamine production in my brain is pretty much the motivation for everything I do in life.

Gear progression is often what makes me stop playing an MMO, while I will dump 1000 hours into a shooter with zero progression because it’s a) fun and b) I’m always competitive, never behind the curve due to there being no curve.

That’s the best part of GW2. It realizes normal MMO progression iskitten and instead goes for something more akin to a shooter, MOBA, or RTS which people play for YEARS with zero progression.

People played Starcraft for over a decade with no new content, no progression, nothing.

People still play CS 1.6 even though 2 new CS games have been released since.

Gear progression systems kill games, good games without them last for decades.

I could care less about getting more powerful. Or at least, I don’t actively seek it beyond what happens naturally as I explore. If you want to be uber, then pvp is there for you…be as uber as you want. Along with everyone else, lol.

The game, to me, is more about exploring and investigating all the various weapon sets and skills of each othe classes. Got 5 now classes up and running now…will have the other 3 as soon as I get around to buying more slots.

Plus the 5 crafts I’m leveling up to feed all those alts.

Like Fleshgrinder says…its about having fun.

Lethality.1634:

Shootsfoot.9276:

You “get more powerful” by getting better at playing your character.

That’s fine, but to do that you need a constant flow of content. You can;t be expected to repeat the same.

So it’s a double-edged sword.

Repeat the same what?

Fleshgrinder.6724:

I play to have fun, it’s pretty much the only reason.

Actually, dopamine production in my brain is pretty much the motivation for everything I do in life.

Gear progression is often what makes me stop playing an MMO, while I will dump 1000 hours into a shooter with zero progression because it’s a) fun and b) I’m always competitive, never behind the curve due to there being no curve.

That’s the best part of GW2. It realizes normal MMO progression iskitten and instead goes for something more akin to a shooter, MOBA, or RTS which people play for YEARS with zero progression.

People played Starcraft for over a decade with no new content, no progression, nothing.

People still play CS 1.6 even though 2 new CS games have been released since.

Gear progression systems kill games, good games without them last for decades.

Gear Progression is in truth an almost immoral behavioral trick to keep people playing, it is almost hilarious and sad that they’re asking for more.

In this game the progression comes from skill , not from gear. Without the gear crutch some people will be able to adapt, while others won’t be able to.

Eochaidh.4106:

Yeah, because Guild Wars wasn’t exactly like that and didn’t manage to survive perfectly fine throughout the years, right?

Yes, but how many people were totally baffled when they hit 20 so quickly in the original Guild Wars? We have to be patient with folks while we deprogram them. Some we won’t be able to save.

My mother told me once “There’s a butt for every chair”. Some people have fun playing Progress Quest. I seriously doubt that they will be able trick Arena Net into turning GW2 into a WoW clone, and they will eventually wander off to a game that suits them better.

I am here because im sick and tried of the gear requirements to do anything . and as soon as new content comes here comes new gear sigh.

im here to enjoy myself and thats what i am doing here

Lol, this joke of skill, you should know how to play your class once you reach 80 and all the inner tweaks, combos and such by the time you reach 80. You don’t hit 80 and then have no idea how to play your class then tell yourself “well, I gotta work on my skillz now”.

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore. People like to invest their time into one character to see it get better and better and also to compete with others as well. The gear grind is just a form of competition with other players.

I’m guessing that you come from an another MMO?
I don’t like most MMOs because they base too much on how much patience you have to grind for better items as opposed to how good you’ve gotten at making builds and playing the game.

Gear grind CAN be fun if it’s done right (Diablo 2, Borderlands) but MMOs are long term games and many of them just mask average or bad gameplay by making you get better and better gear.

I understand that some people will always prefer the gear based MMOs, but GW2 isn’t one nor it ever will be.
For people who like those I’m sure that there are still plenty of games like that out there!

People play sports like football or baseball for years upon years. They never receive any mystical “football helmet of touchdowning” that magically makes them better, yet they continue to play and they actually do improve.

Same can happen with GW2. Instead of trying to improve by getting an item that just makes you better…try to improve by becoming a better / more skillful player.

SlimeA
HP: 100
MP: 0
ATK: 10

HeroA
HP: 200
MP: 20
ATK: 20

Yesterday:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Today:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Tomorrow:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

1 Year from now:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Taking aside the perception of skill, HeroA may have slain many slimes throughout time, but every encounter ends the same. He does not kill it any faster or any better today than he did yesterday or in the future.

There’s no sense of growth in the character and no reason for attachment. They could have just done away with leveling of the characters like they do for PvP.

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Lol, this joke of skill, you should know how to play your class once you reach 80 and all the inner tweaks, combos and such by the time you reach 80. You don’t hit 80 and then have no idea how to play your class then tell yourself “well, I gotta work on my skillz now”.

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore. People like to invest their time into one character to see it get better and better and also to compete with others as well. The gear grind is just a form of competition with other players.

In most shooters, everyone has access to the same gear and abilities, and yet kill/death ratios vary wildly according to player skill. When I first played TF2, I struggled to maintain a 1:1 K/D ratio; now I can consistently maintain 4:1, and often much higher, depending on class and the skill/makeup of the other team.

That’s what endgame progression looks like when you take away the crutch that is gear.

Phoonie.9704:

SlimeA
HP: 100
MP: 0
ATK: 10

HeroA
HP: 200
MP: 20
ATK: 20

Yesterday:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Today:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Tomorrow:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

1 Year from now:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Taking aside the perception of skill, HeroA may have slain many slimes throughout time, but every encounter ends the same. He does not kill it any faster or any better today than he did yesterday or in the future.

There’s no sense of growth in the character and no reason for attachment. They could have just done away with leveling of the characters like they do for PvP.

Holy slippery slopes. The fact that they have avoided ad infinitum endgame progression means that there has never been a sense of growth or reason for attachment?

You get the sense of growth and reason for attachment from 1-80. That’s the point.

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Lol, this joke of skill, you should know how to play your class once you reach 80 and all the inner tweaks, combos and such by the time you reach 80. You don’t hit 80 and then have no idea how to play your class then tell yourself “well, I gotta work on my skillz now”.

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore. People like to invest their time into one character to see it get better and better and also to compete with others as well. The gear grind is just a form of competition with other players.

Those people should probably find a different game, then.

Phoonie.9704:

SlimeA
HP: 100
MP: 0
ATK: 10

HeroA
HP: 200
MP: 20
ATK: 20

Yesterday:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Today:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Tomorrow:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

1 Year from now:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Taking aside the perception of skill, HeroA may have slain many slimes throughout time, but every encounter ends the same. He does not kill it any faster or any better today than he did yesterday or in the future.

There’s no sense of growth in the character and no reason for attachment. They could have just done away with leveling of the characters like they do for PvP.

That is right. If the hero does the same thing again and again, this will be the result.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

If the hero decides to mix it up and change what he is doing (not what he is wearing) hen maybe he will kill the slime faster.
Or he might die. Who knows.
It will certainly be more interesting.

I do understand where you guys are coming from.
You like feeling that you get better when your character gets better stats.
But that is usually not that case, in effect the monsters just gets easier.

This have been discussed again and again and bottom-line is that GW2 aimed to be different, to cater to a different crowd.
It might not be you, but we are here and we are playing the game. And we are having fun.

To the OP: No I do not play to be average: I play to be as good as I can get
Gear doesnt make me better

Phoonie.9704:

SlimeA
HP: 100
MP: 0
ATK: 10

HeroA
HP: 200
MP: 20
ATK: 20

Yesterday:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Today:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Tomorrow:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

1 Year from now:
After 5 round, HeroA is victorious.

Taking aside the perception of skill, HeroA may have slain many slimes throughout time, but every encounter ends the same. He does not kill it any faster or any better today than he did yesterday or in the future.

There’s no sense of growth in the character and no reason for attachment. They could have just done away with leveling of the characters like they do for PvP.

You’ve forgot about player growth.

The first time I beat Prince of Persia, Sands of Time it probably took me 15 to 20 hours.

Today I could do it in a little over 2.

I received no stat boosts, no additional gear, nothing changed between my first play through and my most recent other than my skills as a player.

That’s the only progression that actually matters.

Gear ’progression’ is just an illusion of getting better.

If they do not add gear progression this game will go the way of D3. Great game until 80

But D3 has gear progression.

Lethality.1634:

Shootsfoot.9276:

You “get more powerful” by getting better at playing your character.

That’s fine, but to do that you need a constant flow of content. You can;t be expected to repeat the same.

So it’s a double-edged sword.

If the content expanded like it did from the original GW1 to the end of their last expansion – Eye of the North, then we could expect 3 to 4 times the land mass we currently have. There are plenty of ways for this game to branch out in content trust me. The original game (including expansions) had over 75 missions/dungeons.

GW1 is a massive game and I expect that GW2 will develop into a massive one as well.

Just look at all the people that put 5000+ hours into GW1. There will be tons to do beyond what we currently see right now. The future is looking good as far as I am concerned.

There’s no illusion about it, the character is getting better with better gear. Doing more damage and having more HP is tangible. The character is improving with each upgrade.

There’s seems to be a confusion between player and character.

As the poster who stated his progression and timing through Prince of Persia stated, his timing for completion did improve as a player, but his character may not have.

Normal FPS has no character progression, so it’s solely based on player skills. K/D ratio is a nice metric for keeping track of one’s progression as a player, but this is variable depending on opposition.

Trying to compare an MMORPG with a FPS and single player game doesn’t really work when talking about player skills. The variables for Profession/Skill/Traith balance can and will skew the results over time towards some OP class. No game has perfect balance besides Paper Rock Scissor. They may strive for this, but it’s a very tight balancing act. But this is besides the point.

The best any character can try to achieve is being average in this game. To hit 80 and acquire an exoctic set. Other than that character progression becomes stagnant.

And the values of different gun load outs create a wide variety of balance issues in FPS the same as it can in an MMO.

The bottom line is that genre is meaningless, it’s a game.

That’s the important thing, game. Doesn’t matter what genre of game.

A good game is a good game. A came can’t be a good “X” game and be a bad “Y” game. A good game is a good game.

FPS, RTS, MOBA. These genres survive with little to no progression. Not only do they survive, but some of the games thrive for years and years with zero progression and zero new content.

MMOs for a long time have stood in the shadow of these superior game systems. Superior in any game, regardless of genre.

Now Anet has brought GW2 into the light. They have thrown away the anchors of bad game design (gear progression in a competitive game. There should never be a power reward for time played in a competitive game, ever. It’s bad, always).

Now the MMO genre can finally evolve into good, long lasting, real games that do not require time investments. Instead of being second jobs like they have been for over a decade.

This is the beginning of the end of the old MMO way of doing things.

It’s time to end the insanity of the gear treadmill forever.

I just dont know why people have to try and turn this game into some other game. There are tons of games that rely on gear progression why does this one need to be changed to that? If you’re not happy with this style of play then why play this game? I dont care for the gear treadmill therefore I dont play those games anymore.

The problem I have, when people bring up the whole “No gear progression, no game,” is that there are many, many genres where gear progression is nonexistent, and yet people play those all the time. For example, I played GW1 for 7 years, and there was exactly no gear progression the entire time. I had more fun in that one game than I have in the 8-9 other MMO’s that I have tried.

Plus, I sort of enjoy the fact that you’re an adventurer, a soldier in an epic war. Not everyone can be the absolute hero of the world, only those with great distinction. You have to earn it, not be given it.

Gear progression isn’t the point. Playing is the point. If you don’t like playing, then stop playing. If you enjoy the game for the game’s sake, then keep playing.

I know I will.

DirtyHoudini.2917:

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore.

Makes sense, considering this game clearly isn’t for them.

Seriously, this whole “there should be a gear treadmill” argument is completely opposite to everything ANet has been saying regarding gear progression in GW2 for years, so if you bought this game thinking it was going to have that same stupid gear treadmill crap from every other MMO out there, congratulations! You’re an uninformed consumer of your own accord.

I’m grateful that there’s no pointless gear treadmill to build your character past 80. Making it purely cosmetic was a desperately-needed breath of fresh air, and it puts a heavier emphasis on player skill. You want “competition with other players” in PvE? Go run explorable dungeons a bunch and save up for one of the unique sets of armor or a new sweetkitten weapon. Basically the same thing as running the same raid over and over and over again, only instead of gear-treadmilling and having nothing but higher stats to show off how much time you sunk into a game, you have a kitten set of armor to show that you’re actually good.

If that’s not your speed and you’d rather replace the time factor with skill factor to bring up some arbitrary numbers, there are plenty of games in that vein. This one isn’t one of them. Deal with it.

Shootsfoot.9276:

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Lol, this joke of skill, you should know how to play your class once you reach 80 and all the inner tweaks, combos and such by the time you reach 80. You don’t hit 80 and then have no idea how to play your class then tell yourself “well, I gotta work on my skillz now”.

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore. People like to invest their time into one character to see it get better and better and also to compete with others as well. The gear grind is just a form of competition with other players.

Those people should probably find a different game, then.

You all seem to forget that a lot of us are all old school MMO players. I myself never played GW I hated how everything was instanced, but have been playing MMO’s since EQ1.

Times change, and with them games change and what gamers want change as well. Anyone who sits here and denies the fact that WoW was probably one of the most successful MMO’s to date is a moron plain and simple. As games change and the expectancy of the people who play them change any company trying to make a popular and long time running game has to learn to change with them as well or they’ll just fade away.

What may have worked in the first GW might not work now, yes the first one will always have it’s loyal fans as will any game, but the number of people who played GW does not come close to the number of people who played WoW or some other MMO. It is a new audience and a new breed of gamer playing this. and Anet will have to adapt with this or possibly face the same fate as a lot of the other recent MMO’s.

Leveling up to 80 and getting my exotic set didn’t give anywhere near the “sense of becomeing powerful” than my first attempt at AC explorable.

With every boss that we worked on, thinking up strategies, excecuting plans and finally downing them made me feel like I was truly becoming a stronger player and a benefit to my team.

I’ll take that over gear grind any day.

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Lol, this joke of skill, you should know how to play your class once you reach 80 and all the inner tweaks, combos and such by the time you reach 80. You don’t hit 80 and then have no idea how to play your class then tell yourself “well, I gotta work on my skillz now”.

You mean, besides the first guy to hit 80, who did it all crafting? There’s more ways to 80 in GW2 than the linear path other games force you down.

DirtyHoudini.2917:

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore. People like to invest their time into one character to see it get better and better and also to compete with others as well. The gear grind is just a form of competition with other players.

So you’re saying that those players bought a game that was fully explained to as not being that kind of game, and now it’s really turning them off because they got exactly what they were told they were getting?

I don’t understand it. It’s like reading a menu, ordering a dinner, getting exactly what you ordered, and then complaining because you got exactly what was on the menu.

Dedish.7923:

Shootsfoot.9276:

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Lol, this joke of skill, you should know how to play your class once you reach 80 and all the inner tweaks, combos and such by the time you reach 80. You don’t hit 80 and then have no idea how to play your class then tell yourself “well, I gotta work on my skillz now”.

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore. People like to invest their time into one character to see it get better and better and also to compete with others as well. The gear grind is just a form of competition with other players.

Those people should probably find a different game, then.

You all seem to forget that a lot of us are all old school MMO players. I myself never played GW I hated how everything was instanced, but have been playing MMO’s since EQ1.

Times change, and with them games change and what gamers want change as well. Anyone who sits here and denies the fact that WoW was probably one of the most successful MMO’s to date is a moron plain and simple. As games change and the expectancy of the people who play them change any company trying to make a popular and long time running game has to learn to change with them as well or they’ll just fade away.

What may have worked in the first GW might not work now, yes the first one will always have it’s loyal fans as will any game, but the number of people who played GW does not come close to the number of people who played WoW or some other MMO. It is a new audience and a new breed of gamer playing this. and Anet will have to adapt with this or possibly face the same fate as a lot of the other recent MMO’s.

Arenanet doesn’t have to adapt to anything. 2 million boxes sold.

No subscription fees to work hard to retain.

Their game design philosophy and their business model sets them apart from the other MMORPG companies. They don’t need to constantly dangle the carrot to keep you subbed. Their success is measured in box sales, not in how many current subs they’re carrying.

This gives them significant latitude in design, and what they’ve done with that latitude in the franchise’s history is to NOT BE WOW. No one denies it was a successful RPG, but many of us will deny it was a good one.

Guild wars has always very clearly NOT been about the gear grind. It’s not the type of game it is.

There is gear in this game anyway, it’s just all about how it “looks” and not so much about the stats.

Dedish.7923:

Shootsfoot.9276:

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Lol, this joke of skill, you should know how to play your class once you reach 80 and all the inner tweaks, combos and such by the time you reach 80. You don’t hit 80 and then have no idea how to play your class then tell yourself “well, I gotta work on my skillz now”.

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore. People like to invest their time into one character to see it get better and better and also to compete with others as well. The gear grind is just a form of competition with other players.

Those people should probably find a different game, then.

You all seem to forget that a lot of us are all old school MMO players. I myself never played GW I hated how everything was instanced, but have been playing MMO’s since EQ1.

Times change, and with them games change and what gamers want change as well. Anyone who sits here and denies the fact that WoW was probably one of the most successful MMO’s to date is a moron plain and simple. As games change and the expectancy of the people who play them change any company trying to make a popular and long time running game has to learn to change with them as well or they’ll just fade away.

What may have worked in the first GW might not work now, yes the first one will always have it’s loyal fans as will any game, but the number of people who played GW does not come close to the number of people who played WoW or some other MMO. It is a new audience and a new breed of gamer playing this. and Anet will have to adapt with this or possibly face the same fate as a lot of the other recent MMO’s.

And you seem to think that many of us on the side of “no gear progression” are not old school MMO players.

I’ve been in the MMO game off and on since UO, what always drove me out of a game was the reliance on time played to get ahead.

I have been waiting for an MMO like GW2 for a decade.

I also didn’t like GW1, GW2 to me is the perfect hybrid of all the good stuff from GW1 mixed with all the good stuff from DAOC/WAR.

That’s GW2, it’s Dark Age of Guild Warhammer 2, and it’s aboutkittentime.

Phoonie.9704:

Having a flat line on gear progression at 80 means there’s no further progression for your character.

There’s no sense of “getting more powerful”, which leads to a meh game, hence rapid lost in interest.

For many players, feeling superior to other players isn’t why they log into an MMOG, which is what the title of your thread suggests – that people play MMOGs to be better than average (which requires a majority of players to be “less than you” for you to be “better than average”).

I think that a whole lot of people play MMOGs for a whole lot of reasons that have nothing to do with being able to consider themselves “better”, in some way, than the next guy. That may be the reason you play, and that may be the reason a lot of people play games, but that’s certainly not the reason everyone (or probably even most people) play MMOGs

I played WoW on and off since the tail end of BC up to mid Cata (yes, I’m ashamed.) Every single time I quit, it was because I was tired of progressing at my own rate only to be a full patch behind every other player in terms of end game gear. It wasn’t that I was bad – I just didn’t race through the material. I finally finished my t10 set in Wrath, only to have Cata come out and render it scrap metal. This pattern just kept repeating, so I gave up on the game entirely. That, and the game just wasn’t even ok anymore.

Phoonie.9704:

Having a flat line on gear progression at 80 means there’s no further progression for your character.

There’s no sense of “getting more powerful”, which leads to a meh game, hence rapid lost in interest.

Except there was no sense of getting more powerful in the average WoW clone either.. you got better gear to fight a guy you weren’t powerful enough to fight yet, to get more gear to fight a guy you weren’t powerful enough to fight yet, to get more gear to fight a guy you weren’t powerful enough to fight yet, to get more gear to fight ……

when am I “more powerful” in that scheme?.. sounds like you’re ALWAYS behind to me.

The whole idea of infinitely increasing rewards & infinite content lack any connection to reality. IT’S NOT POSSIBLE.

GW1 got you to the end really quickly & it was great. It was all about “how do I take down these foes?” not, “I can’t wait to grind for the sake of getting gear to grind!”

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Shootsfoot.9276:

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Lol, this joke of skill, you should know how to play your class once you reach 80 and all the inner tweaks, combos and such by the time you reach 80. You don’t hit 80 and then have no idea how to play your class then tell yourself “well, I gotta work on my skillz now”.

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore. People like to invest their time into one character to see it get better and better and also to compete with others as well. The gear grind is just a form of competition with other players.

Those people should probably find a different game, then.

You all seem to forget that a lot of us are all old school MMO players. I myself never played GW I hated how everything was instanced, but have been playing MMO’s since EQ1.

I played MMORPGs when they one paper & were called Dungeons & Dragons. RPGs have nothing to do with “progression” they have to do with character. The reason we got “progression” was to simulate character growth & experience in a computer game. It’s a poor simulation & it has no purpose on it’s own. The point was always to have fun playing as another character. having your armor get thicker is just about the cheapest, emptiest way to simulate that. but it’s all we had at the beginning. To say that that was always the goal is to miss the point entirely. If you like bar filling there are a ton of facebook games that will suit your tastes more.

Shootsfoot.9276:

You “get more powerful” by getting better at playing your character.

Not sure why this is such a difficult concept to grasp for people.

Haha, it is for someone coming from WoW. He is also probably correct if he was talking about WoW. But this is Guild Wars 2. A set max level ensures that the ultimate deciding factor will be skill, not someone who can grind away for hours to get better gear and higher levels.

Yzen.1256:

Dedish.7923:

Shootsfoot.9276:

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Lol, this joke of skill, you should know how to play your class once you reach 80 and all the inner tweaks, combos and such by the time you reach 80. You don’t hit 80 and then have no idea how to play your class then tell yourself “well, I gotta work on my skillz now”.

There doesn’t have to be a grind for gear but there certainly is a wall of no progression once you hit 80 and it’s really turning people off from even logging on anymore. People like to invest their time into one character to see it get better and better and also to compete with others as well. The gear grind is just a form of competition with other players.

Those people should probably find a different game, then.

You all seem to forget that a lot of us are all old school MMO players. I myself never played GW I hated how everything was instanced, but have been playing MMO’s since EQ1.

Times change, and with them games change and what gamers want change as well. Anyone who sits here and denies the fact that WoW was probably one of the most successful MMO’s to date is a moron plain and simple. As games change and the expectancy of the people who play them change any company trying to make a popular and long time running game has to learn to change with them as well or they’ll just fade away.

What may have worked in the first GW might not work now, yes the first one will always have it’s loyal fans as will any game, but the number of people who played GW does not come close to the number of people who played WoW or some other MMO. It is a new audience and a new breed of gamer playing this. and Anet will have to adapt with this or possibly face the same fate as a lot of the other recent MMO’s.

Arenanet doesn’t have to adapt to anything. 2 million boxes sold.

No subscription fees to work hard to retain.

Their game design philosophy and their business model sets them apart from the other MMORPG companies. They don’t need to constantly dangle the carrot to keep you subbed. Their success is measured in box sales, not in how many current subs they’re carrying.

This gives them significant latitude in design, and what they’ve done with that latitude in the franchise’s history is to NOT BE WOW. No one denies it was a successful RPG, but many of us will deny it was a good one.

Big deal 2 million copies sold is there a point? SWTOR sold over 2 million copies months before it went live, sure the game flopped but 2 million copies means nothing.

I myself love GW2 and how it was /is done, although for a game to be truly successful in it’s genre it has to have appeal to the people who buy and play that genre. A games success is based more on word of mouth than anything else and like everything else in life you must learn to adapt or fail.

For a company to say we don’t care what consumers want and we’ll do what we please is business suicide.

I’m not bashing the game in any means and as I said I love GW2 and couldn’t even tell you how many hours I’ve put in since early game access, but there is a much larger number of MMO players than the old GW die hards. That is the point I am trying to make.

Dedish.7923:

Big deal 2 million copies sold is there a point? SWTOR sold over 2 million copies months before it went live, sure the game flopped but 2 million copies means nothing.

I myself love GW2 and how it was /is done, although for a game to be truly successful in it’s genre it has to have appeal to the people who buy and play that genre. A games success is based more on word of mouth than anything else and like everything else in life you must learn to adapt or fail.

For a company to say we don’t care what consumers want and we’ll do what we please is business suicide.

I’m not bashing the game in any means and as I said I love GW2 and couldn’t even tell you how many hours I’ve put in since early game access, but there is a much larger number of MMO players than the old GW die hards. That is the point I am trying to make.

I disagree that a game has to appeal to people who were already fans of the genre.

Every genre can have cross-over hits.

Look at games like Halo, CoD, WoW.

These games brought in massive amounts of people who had not been interested in FPS or MMOs before.

For a good chunk of today’s MMO community, WoW was their first MMO.

CoD brought military FPS into the mainstream of gaming.

Halo brought shooters to consoles in a big way.

A lot of these games and series are now considered stale by people who are fans of the genre, but when they hit their peak they brought millions of new players into the fold.

Nothing says GW2 cannot be the same type of game. A game that breaks down barriers and brings in people who’ve not played many MMOs, or any MMOs, before.

Having no sub fee is a huge deal for a lot of people, enough to bring people who’ve traditionally avoided MMOs.

Dedish.7923:

Big deal 2 million copies sold is there a point? SWTOR sold over 2 million copies months before it went live, sure the game flopped but 2 million copies means nothing.

I myself love GW2 and how it was /is done, although for a game to be truly successful in it’s genre it has to have appeal to the people who buy and play that genre. A games success is based more on word of mouth than anything else and like everything else in life you must learn to adapt or fail.

For a company to say we don’t care what consumers want and we’ll do what we please is business suicide.

I’m not bashing the game in any means and as I said I love GW2 and couldn’t even tell you how many hours I’ve put in since early game access, but there is a much larger number of MMO players than the old GW die hards. That is the point I am trying to make.

WoW spent its entire lifespan doing nothing but cowtowing to whatever group of people was whining the most at the time. What got created by that is a big hot mess of imbalance, unpredictability, cycles of classes being alternately overpowered and not worth playing, and PvP and PvE constantly stepping on each other’s toes in terms of skills/buffs/debuffs.

So far GW2 is literally listening to our suggestions and implementing them quickly, such as the option to leave the que for overflow permanently. The key element here is that they don’t listen to every single suggestion and implement it, or they’d end up like WoW.

Dedish.7923:

For a company to say we don’t care what consumers want and we’ll do what we please is business suicide.

It appears to be working very well for Activision.

Fleshgrinder.6724:

Dedish.7923:

Big deal 2 million copies sold is there a point? SWTOR sold over 2 million copies months before it went live, sure the game flopped but 2 million copies means nothing.

I myself love GW2 and how it was /is done, although for a game to be truly successful in it’s genre it has to have appeal to the people who buy and play that genre. A games success is based more on word of mouth than anything else and like everything else in life you must learn to adapt or fail.

For a company to say we don’t care what consumers want and we’ll do what we please is business suicide.

I’m not bashing the game in any means and as I said I love GW2 and couldn’t even tell you how many hours I’ve put in since early game access, but there is a much larger number of MMO players than the old GW die hards. That is the point I am trying to make.

I disagree that a game has to appeal to people who were already fans of the genre.

Every genre can have cross-over hits.

Look at games like Halo, CoD, WoW.

These games brought in massive amounts of people who had not been interested in FPS or MMOs before.

For a good chunk of today’s MMO community, WoW was their first MMO.

CoD brought military FPS into the mainstream of gaming.

Halo brought shooters to consoles in a big way.

A lot of these games and series are now considered stale by people who are fans of the genre, but when they hit their peak they brought millions of new players into the fold.

Nothing says GW2 cannot be the same type of game. A game that breaks down barriers and brings in people who’ve not played many MMOs, or any MMOs, before.

Having no sub fee is a huge deal for a lot of people, enough to bring people who’ve traditionally avoided MMOs.

Clearly you missed the point of what I was saying, why would they need to appeal to people who were already fans of the game to begin with? I was talking about people who were not fans of the first game.

And I am in no way saying WoW is the better game, blizzard ruined it years ago caving into noobs by making it a faceroll and selling out to Activison.

But there are way more new mmo players than those of us who have been playing these types of games 15+ years or more. And well WoW may not be or is not the better game ( and I only use wow as a example ) it has become the standard that MMO’s are judged by now.

As a after thought who cares about a sub fee? 15 dollars a month is chump change, in fact I give twice that amount to homeless people a month. The only people who can’t pay 15 a month in subs fee’s are kids, who imo shouldn’t be playing MMO’s to begin with. Seriously if paying a 15 dollar per month sub is to much for someone perhaps you should stop playing MMO’s and invest your time in finding a job or a better paying one.

I’ve played TF2 for years without getting better weapons and without needing constant new content. Do you know why? Because it is fun. “Progression” is a skinner box covering up kitten gameplay. If a game is good you can play it for years.

Most people these days do use WoW as the standard – of what to not do. Wildly successful and still getting subs? Yes. Attracting/keeping people up to present day? Not really. They’re bleeding accounts. To me, WoW is at least dying, if not dead on its feet.