Guild Wars 2

http://gw2.onlinewelten.com/articles,id257,2,interview_guild_wars_2_lead_designer_isaiah_cartwright.html

Seeing this the fractals type of content makes sense to me now. It’s difficult to find players for a specific dungeon out of 32, not so difficult to find one for 1 dungeon (fractals). (if you ignore the level-gating which gets much better in the upcoming patch)

Guild-Wars2.info: Most of the players expected that home instances would be something like the Hall of Monuments or player housing. Currently, there is no reason to visit your home instance beyond your personal story line. Are there any plans to create special merchants, quests, mini-games, events, daily activities, etc. in the home instance?

Izzy: Yes, we do have some plans to improve these but we’re not actively working on this right now.

Makes me a little bit sad.

If you don’t want to read the article, just apply this to any questions you may have about anything ever.

“Soon… maybe or maybe not.”

^mostly agree, I wonder why Izzy takes his time to write all those answers if they basically say… well not much.

To be fair to Izzy, wasn’t exactly a probing interview..

I can kinda see their logic on capes vs backpacks. I like the backpacks and also the guild armor and weaps, but the fact that so few wear them shows how little attachment the community at large has for them Vs the old capes.

I’m actually quite happy that there are no capes in GW2… I can’t stand those dikittenowels in GW1. Love what they did with the Guild-Logo on guild-weapons and -armor.

btw, I wonder why so much people have a problem with the information-policy in this game, haven’t experienced this in other games; or am I wrong about this? Perhaps a more transparent policy would do more good than bad…

I heard Rift is very transparent in their forums and very talky; Those devs have a pretty decent reputation there. Would love to see this here too.

We kinda need more straight answers so bad.
Their(seems like thats new anet’s feature) way to give us information is thrilling in a bad meaning, ppl are already angry about lack of ETAs patchnotes and things like it.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’m actually quite happy that there are no capes in GW2… I can’t stand those dikittenowels in GW1. Love what they did with the Guild-Logo on guild-weapons and -armor.

btw, I wonder why so much people have a problem with the information-policy in this game, haven’t experienced this in other games; or am I wrong about this? Perhaps a more transparent policy would do more good than bad…

Well, let’s say, WoW(yeah again) is transparent as kitten, like i know what would be the last boss of pandaria, and i saw deathwing spine in early 4.2 etc.
Yeah, GWII is better then many many others mmog but there are some things that they just should ctrl+c\ctrl+v

I hated the capes in GW1. Its not that i hate capes in general, but they needed the better looking long flowing ones. the ones that touched the ground and have good physics engine backing it up

do you know this quote:

Question from User: Can you give us a hinty hint hint with what you are gonna do with …bla… ? Pretty please? puppy dog eyes
Dev.-Answer: Love to, but we’ve learned to be cautious since some players can’t differentiate work in progress vs. broken promises.

it sounds like coming from an Anet-Dev but actually this is from Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street (WoW). They have the same problems Anet (and others) have. Quite funny.

In my personal opinion, while the answer itself disappoints me, I’m actually pleased that he came out and said “We’re not working on home instances at this time.” Just flat out said it.

Do I wish they were? Absolutely. But I know GW2 needs a lot of work to improve, and some things can’t just be relegated to “we’ll get to it when we get to it” status. This, unfortunately, is one of the things that can. So I’m cool with him just coming out and saying they’re not working on it atm. I believe that’s good because the more people who read this, the more realistic expectations will be in any near patches. People will know not to expect Home Instance upgrades so there will be fewer gripes when the patch comes.

ArenaNet, you’re always going to get flak. You’re never. Ever. EVER going to satisfy your whole community at the same time. Withholding information and being vague and mute doesn’t settle us down; it frustrates us. Yeah, you’re going to get complaints from people when you say “We’re not working on [subject] at the moment. We want to, but we feel other things take priority”, but they’re going to amount to far less than your current/usual behavior of say-nothing-and-then-avoid-the-forums-when-the-patch-hits. Man up.

All that said, however. Start using the fking forums more. Don’t release all your info to Reddit. Or news sites. Stop being run by your fking marketing division. Give us information. Some of us can survive off that alone…

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

do you know this quote:

Question from User: Can you give us a hinty hint hint with what you are gonna do with …bla… ? Pretty please? puppy dog eyes
Dev.-Answer: Love to, but we’ve learned to be cautious since some players can’t differentiate work in progress vs. broken promises.

it sounds like coming from an Anet-Dev but actually this is from Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street (WoW). They have the same problems Anet (and others) have. Quite funny.

Whats funny about it? Let me get this straight you’re justifying AN’s lack of communication by using an out of context Q&A from a pre-alpha testing phase for a then upcoming expansion and some how thats funny to you.

I not sure why they had that interview, basically it says can’t tell you anything sorry…what a wasted effort and read.

Asglarek.8976:

Whats funny about it? Let me get this straight you’re justifying AN’s lack of communication by using an out of context Q&A from a pre-alpha testing phase for a then upcoming expansion and some how thats funny to you.

nah I’m justifying nothing. Blizzard is more transparent and talky to their community despite having the same problems.

I checked it, in the hopes of…. but sadly yet again all the answers are :
“We want that but we’re not working on it atm./ We can’t talk about this atm.”

That’s pretty much his answer on every question.

Yep, don’t even bother reading honestly. The answers are more disappointing than anything and it truly shows just how far back they are in development. Pretty much nothing noteworthy is even in the works atm.

This one specifically made me laugh, and cry at the same time. How stupid can they be?

Mainly one of the big issues we wanted to avoid with Guild Wars 2 was creating too many games types, which leads to a fragmented player base and adds a lot of complexity when balancing. This tends to lead to many game-types being left out as it’s impossible to develop new content and features for all of them in a timely manner.

Which was a response to this

Certain PvP game types in the original Guild Wars, like Heroes’ Ascent and GvG, were favorites amongst PvP players. Can you discuss why these game types did not make it into Guild Wars 2?

So… they don’t even want to add more game types? Awesome. Looks like GW2 will never get decent pvp, sorry guys! Again they are focusing too much on content because they made their silly game too boring with zero skill and build diversity.

Look at WoW and how long WSG and AB have lasted with no content updates, YEARS.

Look at GW1 and how long RA/AB/TA/FA/JQ/HA/GvG lasted with no content updates, YEARS. Until of course ANet removed TA for no apparent reason kitten a lot of the community off and adding lolcodex possibly the worst arena ever to be seen in a video game.

Enjoy your crappy pve because that’s all that is in store from the looks of it.

Edited for clarification: They are focusing on the wrong content (thinking they have to regularly update a BG/arena) as long as it is working fine with no major issues, let us do the rest.

I want old ANet back.

WOOOT no GvG the point of the kittening titel is that and this guy seying no GVG WOOOOOW

Meh, Izzy’s contribution to GW1 never amazed me, all those questionable skill balance changes, I almost died when I heard he became lead designer for GW2. But now I’ve come to not expect much from him or Arenanet anymore anyways.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

http://gw2.onlinewelten.com/articles,id257,2,interview_guild_wars_2_lead_designer_isaiah_cartwright.html

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Guild-Wars2.info: Certain PvP game types in the original Guild Wars, like Heroes’ Ascent and GvG, were favorites amongst PvP players. Can you discuss why these game types did not make it into Guild Wars 2?

Izzy: Mainly one of the big issues we wanted to avoid with Guild Wars 2 was creating too many games types, which leads to a fragmented player base and adds a lot of complexity when balancing. This tends to lead to many game-types being left out as it’s impossible to develop new content and features for all of them in a timely manner.

Seeing this the fractals type of content makes sense to me now. It’s difficult to find players for a specific dungeon out of 32, not so difficult to find one for 1 dungeon (fractals). (if you ignore the level-gating which gets much better in the upcoming patch)

Well if you use that argument they never should have added yet another dungeon, they should have stuck with meta DE’s as was the plan prelaunch according to every interview.

They say a politician is someone who can speak for hours and never actually say anything. Izzy should run for president.

Derk.3189:

Meh, Izzy’s contribution to GW1 never amazed me, all those questionable skill balance changes, I almost died when I heard he became lead designer for GW2. But now I’ve come to not expect much from him or Arenanet anymore anyways.

What do you mean, Izzy’s skill balances were top notch and he listened to community feedback!

sarcasm

I was also very sketchy but I had no idea they would only have 2, yes TWO people working on balancing skills. Do they even have a test krewe anymore? Lol I doubt it.

I’ll be honest I don’t know what the normal amount is for a balance team but 2 seems way too small. 5 at least to collaborate idea’s and bounce off each other then having a test krewe try the changes and give feedback but no all we’ve seen so far is kneejerk nerfs.

Man they have really gone down hill. Don’t get me wrong, GW1 had its fair share of WTH moments, but I expected much more with a bigger team this time around.

So far they have ignored balance completely. I can hear it now, the faint whispers of e-sports, lawl gimme a break. Even WITH skill balance you will never balance a game where you can just loldodge out of everything and no healers… bunkers… ugh not even gonna rant right now.

Let’s just counter Izzy by saying create to few gametypes and people get bored fast. See sPvP for proof.

When you create interesting content people will play it and keep playing. That’s what isn’t happening here. They are only creating grind and more grind. That is not something that will keep people playing long run if the content s not diverse. So Izzy simply does not get it at all.

Conner.4702:

That is not something that will keep people playing long run if the content s not diverse. So Izzy simply does not get it at all.

that’s why so many people still play LoL… sigh The game has 1 map and because of good gameplay (which GW2 definitely has) people still play it.

And technically GW2 has quite different modes in those capture-point maps. Trebuchets, Mantras, Underwater-Maps,… Just respect their decision that they are convinced that GvG would play out bad in GW2.

I can’t say that I’m bored with sPvP at all. In my opinion a few important things are missing, but they are working on those.

There were many formats that were popular for years in GW1, as time goes on these were less popular due to natural decline or Anet making other areas more rewarding like Jade Quarry or FA over AB which basically killed AB.

I and others played lots of formats which kept the game interesting for us. Izzy and anet really show they do not care about customers – they just want an easy game to maintain and manage as they did not have enough resources the first time round or made kitten decisions on balance, formats like costume brawl, removing TA/HB.

I have not been impressed by this so called lie-efesto (referring to their ‘manifesto’) and innovation.

Dont get me wrong I enjoy playing the game with the new friends I have made in the guild I am in, if it were not for these I would have quit.

Silver

I remember the old radio interviews Izzy use to do and I was pretty impressed by what he use to say. Philosophically he was on the money, people were just frustrated with the implementation approach which was small changes, watch what happens, make further small changes.
But over the course of GW1 that approach was proven to be correct. Kept longevity in the game and allowed the players to work through the next meta.
Difference here is that the skill system is much much smaller and thus meta is very hard to change without large scale changes which Izzy/John Sharpe aren’t in the habit of doing.

Still find it staggering that GvG or at least HA isn’t in the game. I mean, if they had implemented HA instead of FOTM I know where I’d be right now.

“Guild-Wars2.info: Certain PvP game types in the original Guild Wars, like Heroes’ Ascent and GvG, were favorites amongst PvP players. Can you discuss why these game types did not make it into Guild Wars 2?

Izzy: Mainly one of the big issues we wanted to avoid with Guild Wars 2 was creating too many games types, which leads to a fragmented player base and adds a lot of complexity when balancing. This tends to lead to many game-types being left out as it’s impossible to develop new content and features for all of them in a timely manner."

It is just that, there’s only ONE type right now. Adding something like Capture the Flag and Team death match would not be too many types, in my opinion. Variation is always good to keep things interesting.

arjeidi.2690:

All that said, however. Start using the fking forums more. Don’t release all your info to Reddit. Or news sites. Stop being run by your fking marketing division. Give us information. Some of us can survive off that alone…

QFT (though I’d have chosed slightly different words).

I just DO NOT get why information (such that it is – dear whatever-in-heaven-above, please be a bit more open and transparent with the information flow!) has to be dispersed to Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Insert-some-other-non-ANet-controlled-webspace-here.

You have forums. Use them. All your customers have a login for them. They WILL learn to use them if they want information. Reasonable, sane, thinking, sentient life forms, such as humans, would reasonably expect a game’s official forums to at least be a REPLICA of all information flows about that game.

Hadson.5024:

We kinda need more straight answers so bad.
Their(seems like thats new anet’s feature) way to give us information is thrilling in a bad meaning, ppl are already angry about lack of ETAs patchnotes and things like it.

Yeah, I can’t stand these PR infested interviews.

When did saying “NO” become a crime?

Guild-Wars2.info: Are there any plans to create special merchants, quests, mini-games, events, daily activities, etc. in the home instance?

Izzy: Yes, we do have some plans to improve these but we’re not actively working on this right now.

This is actually a bit insulting. They were among the things advertised as best features in the early works of the game. They were also once claimed to ´not be ready on release but added soon´.

Now we hear they´re not even working on them? What a slap in the face.

The personal home instance was in fact one of the reasons I picked this game…

ThiBash.5634:

Guild-Wars2.info: Are there any plans to create special merchants, quests, mini-games, events, daily activities, etc. in the home instance?

Izzy: Yes, we do have some plans to improve these but we’re not actively working on this right now.

This is actually a bit insulting. They were among the things advertised as best features in the early works of the game. They were also once claimed to ´not be ready on release but added soon´.

Now we hear they´re not even working on them? What a slap in the face.

The personal home instance was in fact one of the reasons I picked this game…

Agree. The only mini-game that made it into the beta and through launch is Keg Brawl. All the other things they talked about are nowhere to be seen. =/