Guild Wars 2

ShRNA.4376:

It is funny how OP can distort some simple facts.
GW2 sold over 2M within 2 weeks after release, despite the fact that their digital sale was halted just 1 week after release.
MOP sold 2.7 M 1 week after release. It is sold in many highly populated regions that GW2 is not, including Taiwan, south korea, etc.
Oh, and Activision Blizzard’s stock price just made a new 52 week low point today, 10.98$. Congratulations.

If anything, I found the halting of sales the most annoying as my better-half wanted to get into GW2, but sadly we had to wait 2 weeks or so before Amazon had restocked!

Eveningstar.6940:

Ooh, I want to play!

If Logan Thackeray doesn’t change his pants ASAP, then it will flop, just like Queensdale Map Chat. Me and my juice box all agree on this issue, and I bet that communist players share our sentiments.

Wow, this is fun.

Amazing. No words can describe; except the ones I am required to use in order to avoid infractions due to having too few.

MMO with 9mil subscribers to pool from and a massive non-stop on every channel ad campaign manages to sell 2.7 mil. copies.

I suppose that’s not bad.

ituhata.6830:

MMO with 9mil subscribers to pool from and a massive non-stop on every channel ad campaign manages to sell 2.7 mil. copies.

I suppose that’s not bad.

I found it quite amusing that Blizzard keep bragging about 10 mil subscribers while they claim 2.7 mil. sales. I am wondering where are the other 7.3 Mil subscribers? Are they all still paying to play at lvl 85 just to get facerolled by lvl 90s?

It has never mattered to me how successful the game is – that has zero to do with my enjoyment of the game and it’s ANet/NcSofts business.

Not being any endgame? WTH are you talking about? You DO understand what WvWvW is, right?

You DO understand that not all people PvP and even if they do that they don’t always like all forms of PvP, right?

WvW is a diversion to me. I like it, but it’s not something that would keep me interested in the game for ages. The concept of e-sport is nonsense to me. I’m disappointed in how the dungeons flow. I’m disappointed in the “endgame zones”, what few there are, they are not as described, have more bots than players, and are just not fun.

I like the game, the leveling, the content, I just think that they failed to hit their potential in some regards, and I think the complete lack of beta or player involvement with “end game” content shows, badly.

I’m also tremendously disappointed in the lame game economy, how many exploits and ways to cheese the game and content are constantly getting exposed and fixed, sick fo the fact that some players have got ahead thru dubious means, sick of bots in every zone I go to, sick of feeling like there are more bots and cheaters benefiting from bots than legit players.

My server feels dead compared to early on. Dunno if people are playing less, not playing at all, or are all somehow doing PvP when there’s limited room and that’s completely unlikely.

I had a bunch of people try and like this game but they’re logging in less and less already, some have gone panda, and considering how crappy WoW has become that’s pretty sad (although in some cases people just can’t handle any challenge and prefer ultra ez-mode, aka WoW).

Short answer: Yes, but could use some small tweaks/fixes in some area’s
(like every other mmorpg XD)

Yes, it’s pretty much exactly what I hoped in terms of success — somewhere between 2 and 3m is what I anticipated its market to be, and that’s where it is. Spot on, I think. The folks who were thinking it would “knock out WoW” were being silly — WoW has millions of progression-Skinner-conditioned addicts playing it, and they are all drawn back like moths to a flame, only to burn out with their endless grinding for BiS gear (and yes, Pandas is a grinding festival — go check out all of the long threads on WoW’s forums complaining about this).

For the people who want to know “why do people care about this” — it has to do with the psychology of the gamers in question. These are, per the Bartle Test, generally heavily, heavily skewed towards being achievement gamers, and they are obsessed with achieving “BiS” gear, the ultimate in min-max gameplay. Well, when you take a min-max, BiS approach to how you view games on a meta basis, you end up being obsessed as well with what game is “BiS”. Gamers like this tend to divide things into (i) BiS and (ii) worthless junk. From this overall mental orientation towards gaming is birthed a meta orientation towards games, and the obsession with finding and associating with the “BiS” game, and denigrating everything else as worthless junk. It’s a symptom of the very deeply sad state of affairs in the MMO gamer community, in my opinion. I have nothing against achievement gamers (I am not one), but I very much dislike the way that they have tried to crowd out everyone else in the MMO space as being inferior junk. It’s been an absolute disaster for the entire genre, and I am happy to support Anet and this game precisely because it takes a different line on that entire issue than the loud army of achievement/Skinner players wants.

GW2 is not for bad players. Bad players, for example, those who fail at dungeons and are easily frustrated are not fit for GW2. The game’s battle mechanics takes more skill than target>1>2>3>win.

That being said, yes, the game still has some flaws (not surprising considering how recently it was released). However, ANet is constantly working at it to improve in these areas. ANet does more updates and maintenance than I’ve seen any other previous games ever do. That to me is a company that cares about its playerbase and product.

DR can be irritating, but it is there for a reason…to promote a change in gameplay, and prevent too much botting. Some dungeons that were extremely frustrating and difficult with a PUG, has also been addressed.

Yes, high level areas have quite a few bugs. So what? Report it and continue playing. They’ll fix it. BWE’s didn’t promote playing in the high level zones. Therefore, there was always a lack of feedback for those zones.

The game’s still new, it takes time. If you don’t like it, you should leave. I personally will stick around. I’ve been waiting for this game since I quit GW1, and I’m quite satisfied with it, though I believe some areas should be looked at and improved.

To the FPS person:
Hey I run like 10-25 FPS and I wasn’t even suppose to play, My CPU and Vid card were below min. It’s still really fun.

Arenanet themselves said that they would not be happy with GW2 unless they were #1, meaning, dethroned WoW.

They clearly have come no where close to that, but they certainly did think it was going to happen, or at least hoped very strongly enough to make a public announcement about it.

Let’s be honest here…anyone who honestly thought this game would have any impact on WoW, with its well-established player-base, is kidding themselves. This is nothing more than some mouthpiece for the company doing his job and talking the game up…companies tend to do that in the name of competition, it doesn’t mean they actual believe a word of it themselves.

Just because the game didn’t kill WoW doesn’t mean it’s bound for massive failure.

Op, seriously?

I just am not sure what to type. So I will just say this. Arenanet has never said that they were trying to be a “wow killer.” It is people like you that put that out there.

Arenanet has already confirmed that their box sales to date have exceeded their expectations. The key here is “their” expectations – not yours, not mine. They have a financial model with forecasted levels. They are happy because their sales goals have been exceeded. My perception of their goals or personal expectations are irrelevant since I am not an investor nor an employee expecting a bonus.

My only expectation here is did Arenanet sell me a game that is fun. For me the answer is yes. Still fun 5 weeks post-launch. And a bigger yes, that I am looking to playing this game for a while. Arenanet is planning something for Halloween. I am getting excited even though I do not like that holiday. I am just pumped about what they plan to do.

Guild Wars 2 will probably outlast WoW at this point. In like 5 years, WoW will be pretty much as dead as Everquest.

Razamis.1062:

GW2 wanted to take the #1 spot for MMO games. It wanted to paint competition as stagnant, stale, dying, while at the same time showing everyone that it was the revolution in MMOs and would change the genre moving forward.

34 days later, Guild Wars 2 is roughly at 2 million boxes sold.

Sales figures for another certain unnamed games expansion pack alone after 7 days (not including china sales) are already at 2.7 million, nearly 50% above GW2.

Considering China doesn’t buy Warcraft or its expansions (they’re free and they pay for played time. “5 minutes played time? You’re a subscriber!” ), I think MoP will top out at 2.7-3 sold. GW2 still has tons of potential for sales.

“It was exactly like this in SWToR aswell. Most people that didnt have blindfolds on realizes quite quickittenhe faults of the game, while the fanboys posted stuff like you did to redicule the worried ones.

It didnt go to well for that game.

My guild has gone from 80 players to 16 logging in each day since launch. Most of them give the reason to the game beeing boring an repetative to levelup in, and there not beeing any endgame."

You’re comparing GW2 with SWTOR. Really? GW2 already succeeded whereas SWTOR already failed.

What does this mean to you? To me, it seems to hint at, although not for sure, that GW2 was not the revolution or genre changer that it had hoped, and that people still prefer the traditional style of MMO.

People prefer these traditional MMO’s because it’s imbedded into their brain. It’s like... you find a fast food restaurant that you really enjoy, and refuse to eat anywhere else because you’re not a fan of change. Other people’s different ideas as to how they make your Pizza or Burger won’t meet your standards so you just stick to the same old.

I’m like this with some things, including games or fast food joints.

However, every once in a while, if you actually go into it with an open mind, not expecting your traditional likes, some find that they enjoy something new now and again.

For me, GW2 is genre changing. It removed all the things I didn’t enjoy in other MMO’s: Tedious grinds, gear treadmill, unbalanced PvP, raid attitudes, etc. Then replaced this with quests that I can complete in multiple ways, a personal storyline I can actually get into as it played more like a solo-player story, nice open world feeling PvP, etc.

For some of us, this game changed how we play MMO’s. I left WoW months ago, and now, will probably never look back. I’ve found the game that I feel like I belong to.

GW2 was designed as a casual pick up and play game. I can go off and play swtor, secret world, or borderlands 2, etc for a while. Now here is the best part I can come back anytime and continue were I left off. Its how GW1 was and GW2 is no different.

Has GW2 lost players? Absolutely, its what happens with new mmos everyone buys it checks it out, and it just not might be the game for them, or they don’t want to commit to a sub.

We all have our opinions. However people need to realize the player base no matter if its in a decline or increase will always be at its highest during the first couple week after its launch. People take off from work, skip school, cough cough I’m not feeling to good. Then after the initial rush the player base will stabilize. Players will start to log in during peak hours and some might not log in until the weekend, and even then only might play 3-4 hours.

I agree with a lot of what everyone has said.

I do think that Anet should have chosen better wording for a lot of their promises and explanations of the game. Too many times I caught myself saying “Oh, well this isnt what I expected…I thought they had said that it would be THIS way, not THAT way”. Too many times… This is the first time playing an MMO where I felt this way.

I do think that the game was somewhat rushed, or maybe not beta tested properly. They did a lot of stress tests, fine. But content in later zones(past 30), was not tested enough. Too many bugged events, they didnt get a feel for Orr, or the higher level dungeons, etc. I know the reason behind this, that they wanted to keep things secret, but when you have a laundry list of issues, it becomes heavy. IMO, other than account issues, Tera had a smoother launch. Less bugs. I dont think I was aware of any, dont think I experienced any.

With that said, IMO, the game is still leaps and bounds ahead of WoW, rift, and Tera. For now. If by the holiday season(end of november/december) they are still spending their time fixing blocked events, taking down the trading post every other day for maintanance, etc..instead of adding meaningful content and updates to the game…I might be done with MMOs.

Oh, concerning the stats about sales.

At end of Quarter 2, I think, WoW dropped to 9.1 mil subs. Still thats more than any MMO in the market could dream of. But, I heared they just went up over 10mil again after the MoP expansion released.

That just shows that MoP only brought in maybe less than 1mil subs? Id venture that half of those people left the game previously for various reasons, and wanted to simply check mop out. The true test of MoP’s effectiveness will be quarter 1 2013. Let the sales die down, let all the gimmick deals die down. New quarter, look at the subs. Im predicting below 9 mil.

The reason people still buy WoW expansions is not because they like it, but because it’s hard for them to let go, they have so much invested in the game, they are ‘forced’ to buy the next, no matter how crappy, expansion. So the numbers mean nothing. Now, if you could prove me that the 2.7m were in fact, compeltely new players, who never played WoW before, then I’d agree. however it is far more likely, the majority of the 2.7M already has multiple max level characters, and just continues on the train to nowhere, hating the game, but playing it. I experienced the same with LOTRO, a game superior to WoW in all things that matter. But I quit that eventually.

It is too early to say if GW2 is the success it hoped to be, it all depends now how fast and how good ANet can update the game and expand the foundations. We should know by the end of this year.

Nostalgia.

Its not because the game is good…

Outdated graphics
Standstill static pewpew combat system
Scripted fights
No story telling
Very plain crafting system(compared to GW2s crafting, WoW is a joke!)
Alt-mania…which is a combo of people that like leveling alts and people that have
nothing else to do at max level.

The only thing they are the best at is raiding, and thats not even saying much considering how often they nerf their own kitten

I agree with zero spin.

I think the new year, give or take a week within January 1st 2013, is the deciding factor for people.

“Hmm, its a new year. Do I want to continue playing the game I have been playing or look elsewhere at new games this year…”

Roughly four months is enough time for a serious dev to get their act together and get rid of the bugs, and begin expanding

It is more successful than I had hoped? I wasn’t even planning on getting this game. I was sure that SWTOR was going to be my post-WoW MMO.

Well that didn’t happen and about a month before this game was released I cancelled SWTOR also. I decided to give this a shot and, so far, It’s exceeded my expectations (there weren’t many).

I hope ANet wasn’t hoping that GW2 would “beat” WoW in terms of # of subscriptions worldwide. That’s silly and I don’t think we’ll see a single game do what WoW did again.

The Sims Franchise rules them all.
But Facebook games such as Farmville kills all competition.

Don’t care about if it’s free or not, it still had 80 million players world wide. So how can WoW or Gw2 top that? No idea.

The MMO market has changed drastically over the last decade or more. It has grown immensly, but also in the context made people more fickle. Just like any other game genre.
Just seems people who paint doom n’ gloom haven’t changed along side it.

I did not hope for ‘success’ for GW2, didn’t even decide to play relative late in the processes, but don’t regret it one bit.
This game is already F2P (or B2P) – so …. well, got no more money invested in it, so frankly – as long as they can field 3 servers – there’s WvW for me.

The reason people ‘go back to WoW’ (for those that do) is quite obvious and very logical – it’s because they have history there, they have attachment.
The reason many people ‘go back to WoW’, is because there were so very many people that could do that to begin with. Most anybody that has played MMOs have played WoW. Many that play MMOs now started with WoW because MMO became mainstream around that time. Before WoW it was nerds and geeks. Blame or praise Blizzard for making the genre mainstream, but that’s really the only key issue.

This genre is mainstream now, with mainstream ‘problems’ and people need to just accept that most likely no other MMO will field WoW’s numbers and that it does not mean anything regarding the quality of the other games.

Nooooooooooooooooope, still needs alot of working to do, til then…it’s a good change from the typical MMO style of gameplay.

Razamis.1062:

GW2 wanted to take the #1 spot for MMO games. It wanted to paint competition as stagnant, stale, dying, while at the same time showing everyone that it was the revolution in MMOs and would change the genre moving forward.

34 days later, Guild Wars 2 is roughly at 2 million boxes sold.

Sales figures for another certain unnamed games expansion pack alone after 7 days (not including china sales) are already at 2.7 million, nearly 50% above GW2.

So the “dying” “stale” MMO is out selling the “revoluton” “genre changing” MMO by leaps and bounds, and maintaining a vastly greater population.

What does this mean to you? To me, it seems to hint at, although not for sure, that GW2 was not the revolution or genre changer that it had hoped, and that people still prefer the traditional style of MMO.

This is not to say that some features of GW2 are a great idea, and could likely be incorporated into the traditional MMO style, but I might say that GW2 possibly threw the baby out with the bath water with regards to just how much they changed, and it was not good for their success.

Thoughts?

Your conclusions are flawed.

you are comparing a brand new game to one that has been there for several years and already has an established following (what was last figures 8 million players)…

What you should really look at is why didn’t they sell 8 million Pandas..and only sold 2.7 out of their 8 million following?

If you want to compare success really, you have to go get the figures of that other unnamed game for 30 days from their own launch and compare the two…to make some more informed interpretations…which will still not be black on white conclusions and will still not mean much either way…but at least will be a more fare comparison.

Cheers!

I doubt any company cares about being a “wowkiller”. Companies care about profits and with the HUGE sales during the first month I am pretty sure they surpassed their break even point by far. About the players dropping after launch: Do you know any game that didn´t have that happen? a) There is a player type that simply burns through any content designed for months in days and leaves the game behind till the next expansion arrives b) people are on their fix for the first few weeks and then actually have to return to their normal living schedule.

It had a good initial hype train leading it to large day 1 sales, but I’m not sure how the lasting appeal will drive future sales of additonal content. Between the issues the game has and ArenaNet’s current policy of intentionally not fixing them, I don’t think it will last nearly as long as Guild Wars 1 has.

WoW only managed to sell their expac to 1/4 their playerbase?

That’s pretty sad.

Considering GW2 had to halt sales due to overwhelming response, I think the folks at ANet (and the playerbase!) are thrilled

They did great… I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us.

I’ve never seen any announcement that they want to dethrone WoW but you can’t blame a company for being a little bit more idealistic. Realism makes for bad advertisement.

As for whether it was a success? I guess it depends on what the company projected as sales and what their future projections are.

Both companies took a risk by the way, it was not very clear whether WoW would pull through as well. Also the Chinese model is different for WoW so the numbers are already representative but nothing to sneeze over anyway. It just shows that players have matured a little and don’t buy games with a blue logo blindly anymore.

I guess the questions are whether a) the goal of dethroning was missed which I think it was a non-sensical goal anyway and b) whether GW2 will go F2P in 3 months and die. The last one is a joke though but players like to sound the death knell if a game didn’t receive 120% satisfaction level nvm that in WoW that is still not the case until today and you can see that on the vast number of complaints already.

Yes, I am playing both games.

ShRNA.4376:

ituhata.6830:

MMO with 9mil subscribers to pool from and a massive non-stop on every channel ad campaign manages to sell 2.7 mil. copies.

I suppose that’s not bad.

I found it quite amusing that Blizzard keep bragging about 10 mil subscribers while they claim 2.7 mil. sales. I am wondering where are the other 7.3 Mil subscribers? Are they all still paying to play at lvl 85 just to get facerolled by lvl 90s?

Cataclysm sold 10+ million but who the hell wants to fight pandas after they just defeated the game’s version of Satan?

GW2 would have been #1 if it was more traditional. Too many radical changes with combat and roles. It sounded great theory, but in practice, it has been sub-par.

The elimination of Non-Trinity Roles gave us chaos in dungeons.
Target-of-target missing.
Enemy cast bars missing.
Missed skills/spells = Wasted Cooldowns.
Camera/Control mechanics sub-par and amateurish.
the list goes on.

nexxe.7081:

GW2 would have been #1 if it was more traditional. Too many radical changes with combat and roles. It sounded great theory, but in practice, it has been sub-par.

The elimination of Non-Trinity Roles gave us chaos in dungeons.
Target-of-target missing.
Enemy cast bars missing.
Missed skills/spells = Wasted Cooldowns.
Camera/Control mechanics sub-par and amateurish.
the list goes on.

You are listing WoW features and complaining the game doesn’t have them.

nexxe.7081:

GW2 would have been #1 if it was more traditional. Too many radical changes with combat and roles. It sounded great theory, but in practice, it has been sub-par.

The elimination of Non-Trinity Roles gave us chaos in dungeons.
Target-of-target missing.
Enemy cast bars missing.
Missed skills/spells = Wasted Cooldowns.
Camera/Control mechanics sub-par and amateurish.
the list goes on.

Totally agree.
Had a reason for things being as they were, and now we’re seeing why they were.

EnaiSiaion.8072:

nexxe.7081:

GW2 would have been #1 if it was more traditional. Too many radical changes with combat and roles. It sounded great theory, but in practice, it has been sub-par.

The elimination of Non-Trinity Roles gave us chaos in dungeons.
Target-of-target missing.
Enemy cast bars missing.
Missed skills/spells = Wasted Cooldowns.
Camera/Control mechanics sub-par and amateurish.
the list goes on.

You are listing WoW features and complaining the game doesn’t have them.

I never mentioned WoW. These are standard for more traditional MMOs.

nexxe.7081:

EnaiSiaion.8072:

nexxe.7081:

GW2 would have been #1 if it was more traditional. Too many radical changes with combat and roles. It sounded great theory, but in practice, it has been sub-par.

The elimination of Non-Trinity Roles gave us chaos in dungeons.
Target-of-target missing.
Enemy cast bars missing.
Missed skills/spells = Wasted Cooldowns.
Camera/Control mechanics sub-par and amateurish.
the list goes on.

You are listing WoW features and complaining the game doesn’t have them.

I never mentioned WoW. These are standard for more traditional MMOs.

the game does not promote chaos in dungeons – bad players do, just as in every “standard” mmo I ever played.

Algreg.3629:

nexxe.7081:

EnaiSiaion.8072:

nexxe.7081:

GW2 would have been #1 if it was more traditional. Too many radical changes with combat and roles. It sounded great theory, but in practice, it has been sub-par.

The elimination of Non-Trinity Roles gave us chaos in dungeons.
Target-of-target missing.
Enemy cast bars missing.
Missed skills/spells = Wasted Cooldowns.
Camera/Control mechanics sub-par and amateurish.
the list goes on.

You are listing WoW features and complaining the game doesn’t have them.

I never mentioned WoW. These are standard for more traditional MMOs.

the game does not promote chaos in dungeons – bad players do, just as in every “standard” mmo I ever played.

The mob mechanics target players randomly. What is random? Chaos. There are no threat mechanics that i know of (if anyone knows, please share). We cannot control the mobs threat. We can only “blind”, “root”, “stun”, etc. These are not control mechanics for threat, but control mechanics for movement and actions (such as skills).

It doesn’t matter if players are “dumb” or not. It only matters if they are “aware” of the next move from the boss and/or npcs. And with the exaggerated spell effects in game, it’s very hard to see what skill the boss/npc is going to do next.

nexxe.7081:

GW2 would have been #1 if it was more traditional. Too many radical changes with combat and roles. It sounded great theory, but in practice, it has been sub-par.

The elimination of Non-Trinity Roles gave us chaos in dungeons.
Target-of-target missing.
Enemy cast bars missing.
Missed skills/spells = Wasted Cooldowns.
Camera/Control mechanics sub-par and amateurish.
the list goes on.

I disagree because holy trinity initially had its flaws as well. It was only later when Blizzard introduced changes making these roles less rigid and its parameters less opaque. In that sense if GW2 is the first MMORPG to open up on this then this does mean it’s inception may not be perfect as well and may just as its predecessor require a few iterations to get somewhere. You don’t make progress if you don’t try or give up early on it. Also a lot of this chaos stems from the hulksmash mindset which some people (still) have.

The other issues mentioned while being there and mentioned a couple of times don’t seem to be issues which cannot be addressed over time. It was a different thing in SW:TOR with its choice of engine and its innate constraints.

Either way “sub par” would imply that there is already a nominal par but if something is new then it has no reference therefore no nominal par yet. Without going too defensive about GW2 I think even their best efforts would never have outdone WoW’s achievements and become #1 (in which terms actually?). That is realistically impossible and most likely neither a short- nor a long-term goal for any new MMORPG. Well maybe if they are really crazy and deluded about it.

nexxe.7081:

Algreg.3629:

nexxe.7081:

EnaiSiaion.8072:

nexxe.7081:

GW2 would have been #1 if it was more traditional. Too many radical changes with combat and roles. It sounded great theory, but in practice, it has been sub-par.

The elimination of Non-Trinity Roles gave us chaos in dungeons.
Target-of-target missing.
Enemy cast bars missing.
Missed skills/spells = Wasted Cooldowns.
Camera/Control mechanics sub-par and amateurish.
the list goes on.

You are listing WoW features and complaining the game doesn’t have them.

I never mentioned WoW. These are standard for more traditional MMOs.

the game does not promote chaos in dungeons – bad players do, just as in every “standard” mmo I ever played.

The mob mechanics target players randomly. What is random? Chaos. There are no threat mechanics that i know of (if anyone knows, please share). We cannot control the mobs threat. We can only “blind”, “root”, “stun”, etc. These are not control mechanics for threat, but control mechanics for movement and actions (such as skills).

It doesn’t matter if players are “dumb” or not. It only matters if they are “aware” of the next move from the boss and/or npcs. And with the exaggerated spell effects in game, it’s very hard to see what skill the boss/npc is going to do next.

then say you miss a reliable aggro control – which after 10 years of taunting/tanking stuff I am fed up with from the bottom of my heart – instead of calling it chaos. The monsters behave much more realistically in this game than in your standard MMO and I like it very much.

If a game has done well it’s simple to calculate it out.

Is it making profit after paying all expenses? Yes or No. If yes, then the game is successful. End of story. That’s literally all there is to IT. If the game is MAKING a profit for the developer – then the game is a SUCCESS. Who gives a rats kitten about how many subs or players another game has. As far as Investors go – they want to make sure there is a profit happening. That’s it. If there is profit and continues to profit – the game is successful.

everything else is extra fluff and icing on the cake.

nexxe.7081:

EnaiSiaion.8072:

nexxe.7081:

GW2 would have been #1 if it was more traditional. Too many radical changes with combat and roles. It sounded great theory, but in practice, it has been sub-par.

The elimination of Non-Trinity Roles gave us chaos in dungeons.
Target-of-target missing.
Enemy cast bars missing.
Missed skills/spells = Wasted Cooldowns.
Camera/Control mechanics sub-par and amateurish.
the list goes on.

You are listing WoW features and complaining the game doesn’t have them.

I never mentioned WoW. These are standard for more traditional MMOs.

I think it’s time for a new traditional. Or maybe an old one. Let’s bring back less WoW and more UO

The camera mechanics, though… yeah, fix that.

GW2 sales were good, for a new franchise. D3 sold over 6 million in the first week, Skyrim sold over 3.8 million in the first two days, MoP sold 2.7 in the first week. The thing here is that these games have a huge cult following. They already have a huge base of fans that will buy what they put out just because they are fans.

What will make GW2 stand out is how steady the sales are and how well expansions do.

Simple answer: Yes.

I like the game but it really falls short on some points. The combat system (in PVE) is really… not that great IMO.

1). Having skills locked to weapons and traits that really don’t require that much theorycrafting when creating a build is very; meeeh. “Change weapon” some of you might say but that won’t solve my issue with how the skill system works because even if I do swap weapons the skills are still locked to the weapon. Thus I am still forced to make use of a predefined palette of a handful of skills and it won’t get more fun because I swap weapons.

2). There isn’t (in PVE) that much theorycrafting around choosing skill setup, yes ofc there is “role-builds” but from what I’ve seen they seem very straight forward (I want to do this then I need these traits and these 2 weapons) there seem to be very little actually depth and problems when trying to figure this out and I think it was a shame that they didn’t invest more time in building a really robust skill system. Also Dodge should have been a choice of utility not a “you MUST dodge now!” mechanic.

3). Dodge system.Ofc I understand what they tried to do with the dodge system; having players more active in combat but the problem is that the game (in PVE) still works a lot like other MMO games where the basis is to defeat mobs in a linear way. Even as a newly rolled shield/sword warrior my gameplay isn’t that interesting because of the lack of shield related skills. My choice of weapons does fairly little difference in PVE at least that is my feeling. I can go GS or Axe/Axe for more damage but it doesn’t really change my playstyle from using sword/board that much.
One of my main gripes with the dodge system (in PVE) arises when you compare how the system of dodging works between the different classes in the game and how it seems to greatly favor low mobility classes (right-clickers if you will) more then some other classes.

4). Events Building the games PVE progression more or less around events are a risky thing IMO but it’s fun. However; It’s great now when everyone and their mother is playing but what will happen when the majority of players hit 80/ppl stop playing as much? Suddenly you might end up with new players being unable to complete events and progress through the PVE part of the game because of lack of ppl in low level zones.

Speaking of events; who bothers going melee in boss events? You can’t see the kitten that happens with all kittening aoes and flashy kitten everywhere so you just don’t bother with it in the first place and swap to your ranged weapon and only go with that when you fight event bosses/world bosses. Sorry but that is bad design.

5). Is it a success? I think it’s a solid game and it does a lot of things just right for me but at the same time GW2 lacks a lot of what made the 1st game+expansions original. There is instead a lot less choices then most of it’s competitors offers however the ”quest system” in GW2 is more then enough to keep me here.

6). IMO a lot of classes plays the same. There just seem to exist too few defining elements that really makes one class different from another more than the difficult level it takes to play them.

Playing a guardian vs a warrior is more or less the same experience, playing a ranged thief vs a engineer is more or less the same thing and so. The only thing that really seem to make a difference is that some classes are easier then others.
In one way I can applaud this as you try to make everyone self-sufficient but it also creates problems. Instead of having the ”mage class” and ”warrior class” you have 2 classes that is very similar but one is squishier while the other is tankier, one needs to make use of dodge more while the other don’t. That is my experience of the game so far. Classes lack own flavor and it’s a shame because the first GW+expansions didn’t have that problem.

GW1: playing a Dervish, a Paragon, a Ritualist and a Necro for ex. was 4 completly different experiences while in GW2 classes are so similiar that I’m not that hyped up on playing all my chars to 80.
Speaking of the expansions of GW1 why did Arenanet not make more use of Factions and Nightfall expansions (EOTN seem well implemented) in the character creator?

I understand why they decided to not add some classes since they would been hard to balance but actually not being able to use the appearances/details/cultural flavors of the different humans people fleshed out in the expansions of the first game when customizing your character is just kittening lazy IMO. You create a great world with different ethnicities, something that really makes your game different from other MMORPGS and then you just drop the ball on all that lore and all that flavor in the 2nd game? That is really kittening lazy.

GW2 is a great game in many ways but it saddens me that ArenaNet had so much more potential with this game and kinda dropped the ball halfway. It lacks flavor.

Yes it is, because it could have turned out like a plain dud, like a whole string of former big launches.

And it´s not a dud, it has great MMO fun in it.

What can be disheartening, is then again, all the MMO issues that has transfered over with the customers. The hacks, bots, and the technical limitations of the WvW engine.

Now we have grown accustomed to, that companies like Blizzard don´t do what the community is unhappy with, and what often is exactly what is needed. Well not untill they can see customers actually leave (Diablo III, yeah you doubled it, maybe triple it).

I hope, Arenanet is spot on when they get around do adressing issues. I know it´s a slow moving process, but I hope they do it right.

Just to add to my earlier reply; I am fully aware of that ArenaNEt said that GW2 wouldn’t be a 2nd GW1.
I look upon GW2 as it’s own game but still it has the same world, the same lore but it falls flat on actually make use and implement that lore and it also falls flat on a lot of technical related issues.

Personally, I don’t think it’s as successful as I had hoped.

In Guild Wars 1, the story led you through the landscape, and it was an enjoyable journey. In Guild Wars 2, the story is optional, and so difficult I’ve rerolled several characters because it was impossible to proceed, or change the choice I’d made. And, you end up grinding the same areas over and over to level up any character no matter what their race is, simply so you can level up to do your story. Not-to-mention the fact that after a while, your story is the same as everyone else’s.

In Guild Wars 1, you customize your character during character creation, then have endless options as to which armor to wear. In Guild Wars 2, you customize your character during character creation, even customize your personal story background, and then you wear the same armor everyone else has. Of course, once you’re high enough, you can get a cultural armor, or you can grind a dungeon armo, or try and farm one from the trading post. I really miss the 3 armorsmiths of Guild Wars1, and the Rune Vendors, and the Dye Vendors.

I though Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be an improved version of Guild Wars 1.

I’m truely disappointed.

This game has done amazing in my opinion. Everything about this game is good. Also the game is still pretty new and a lot of updating is going to happen in the next couple of months.

I was hoping it’d be the first game to grow in population, since WoW. Used to be the norm for MMOs to keep growing, reaching a population peak after a year or two. Doesn’t look like that’s what’s happening, though.

Maybe they can turn things around with post-launch content, and being B2P means lots more people will come back to check out anything they add.. but I don’t know if that’ll be enough. We’ll see.

So, the answer is no, not likely, but in all fairness, my hopes were pretty high.