Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone,
Does anyone remember Anet’s MMO Manifesto?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he3jqbDq5hA
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/
Looking at that makes me feel I’m playing a different game when I log in Guild Wars 2 because it’s almost nothing of what they said it would be.
First of all let’s start with grinding and farming. It is true you don’t have to grind to beat the game but, let’s say, you wanna do some fractals (and you want to progress through the levels and play your effective fractal level) you have to grind. You need ascended stuff to have infusion so you can play higher levels of fractals. You get that stuff by grinding or just farming bosses hoping for ascended chests. Farm and grind are two key factors that Arena Net said they wouldn’t have people do. "(…)Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…) – Mike O’Brien.
About the video, Colin Johanson says something promising for Guild Wars 2: “(…)I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, heey I swung it again, we just don’t want players to grind in GW2, no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun(…)”. He was right, most people swing Greatswords instead of regular swords, or just spam fireballs in case they are elementalists. Even though I don’t spam auto-attacks I do not judge those who do it, PVE content is easy when compared to Guild Wars 1, very easy to be honest. And there’s another topic I would like to talk.
In Arena Net’s MMO Manifesto Mike O’Brien says: “(…) GW2 takes everything you love about GW1”. In my opinion that is not completly true. I know it is important to Gw2 to step out of the shadow of Gw1 because there are players that never played the first game and might not find interesting to have alot of content from Gw1 in Gw2 but, as a player of Gw1, I feel there is a lot of stuff taken AWAY from Gw1 to Gw2, one of them is challenging experiences and not just easy killing monster routine to keep people playing.
Before ending I would like to mention just one more thing or two:
- When creating a character the choices of your personal story (and your personal story itself) doesn’t have any impact throughout the game (they even removed the option of certain answers you could give to npcs depending in your personality choice)
- Completing events doesn’t make it feel unique or important because ten minutes later it will happen again and what you character did is completly forgotton
- Collecting armors, weapons or even collecting legendary weapons shouldn’t be the focus of the game (once again, grinding and farming).
I do love Gw2 and I know it is the best or one of the best MMO’s out there but that doesn’t mean I am satisfied with the current state of the game.
This is not a rant, just a way to express what I feel about the game at this moment, what I thought it would be and in what it is actually turning into.
Thank you guys for reading this, let me know what you think and feel about the game.

Part of the problem is that people took the manifesto, and other comments, out of context and read them as, and I’m going to paraphrase this, “the word of god from the mouth of god.” A very good example is just how much people improperly assumed things regarding a precursor “scavenger hunt” and basically would riot every time a patch came out with no info.

Basandra Skye.4031:

Part of the problem is that people took the manifesto, and other comments, out of context and read them as, and I’m going to paraphrase this, “the word of god from the mouth of god.” A very good example is just how much people improperly assumed things regarding a precursor “scavenger hunt” and basically would riot every time a patch came out with no info.

Yup, pretty much this.

Sigh. Not this again.

Even the Devs explained what was meant by those phrases you take out of context.

If you are unhappy with the game and its manifesto, don’t feel obligated to purchase any expansions, support the game through Gem purchases, or even play the game.

Good luck.

[insert beating dead horse.gif here]

Oh yeah I remember this. This was the reason I even got GW2 thinking it was going to be different. And about the only thing I remember is we got a beautiful game and the dodge feature out of it. Sadly it lays as a forgotten reminder of what the game could be closer to (I don’t expect the perfect game exactly as they put in that manifesto, but it doesn’t feel anywhere close besides being beautiful)

You’ve misunderstood several quotes or put them in the wrong context and this whole thing has been hashed over too many times already.

I’m beginning to feel some sympathy for the guy who suggested, if a post comes on with the same tired, wrong remarks, let’s just delete it right off the bat.

A manifesto is a statement of intent, not a guarantee of delivery. The manifesto was created almost five years ago now. Do you know ANY MMOs that haven’t drastically changed in 5 years.

Some of the stuff in the MMO was clarified in the days immediately after, that most people seem to have forgot. For example, Anet published a clarification saying that Colin was talking about dynamic events and Ree was talking about the personal story.

In fact, much of what was said was discussed in great detail after the manifesto, but people seem to ignore that. The manifesto is a five year old five minute promo. That’s what it is.

If you want to look for significance in it, go ahead. But your’e a day late and a dollar short.

Ignoring all the fanboys here to whiteknight Anet, yes I remember the manifesto and I am as disappointed as well. Anet can backtrack and pretend they meant something else all they want but it won’t change the reality that this isn’t the game we were promised.

Wow .. this again .. long time since somebody revived that topic.

If you love GW1 so much .. play it .. its still there .. and else :

Dinks.2478:

Ignoring all the fanboys here to whiteknight Anet, yes I remember the manifesto and I am as disappointed as well. Anet can backtrack and pretend they meant something else all they want but it won’t change the reality that this isn’t the game we were promised.

ANet doesn’t need to backtrack: they didn’t say what people think they did. People tend to see what they want in a manifesto, which is why Marx wouldn’t be considered a Marxist or even much of a Communist, despite him having written the document that started both movements.

If you want to be disappointed in the game, that’s your right. Personally, I prefer to decide if I enjoy the game that was actually delivered, not as I thought it should have been. As it turns out, I do enjoy this game (even as I wish that ANet would adjust or completely re-do some aspects of it).

tl;dr I don’t care what they said or didn’t say in the manifesto. I care about the game itself.

That’s a reason you’re hearing a lot of silence now. Players tend to take such statements out of context and use it like a sword. And, in some cases, rightly so.

ANet doesn’t want to get jabbed with its own words.

This is why the forum needs a working search box… sigh

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

This is why the forum needs a working search box… sigh

So much this…

Google does a better job if you specify “site:forum-en.guildwars2.com”

And I think we all remember the manifesto, but as we all know now, nothing is set in stone and nothing is off/on the table.

The one thing I do not understand after 5 years is, why the kitten is the manifesto still on the main page?

People say that the manifesto was misinterpreted, Dev’s said, that they have made decisions that made them move away from the manifesto. Others say it was false advertising.

What I say is that watching the manifesto simply shows, how little the Dev’s could actually get in the real game from what they originally wanted there to be.

It is a truely sad story, they should delete the video from the media page.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The one thing I do not understand after 5 years is, why the kitten is the manifesto still on the main page?

People say that the manifesto was misinterpreted, Dev’s said, that they have made decisions that made them move away from the manifesto. Others say it was false advertising.

What I say is that watching the manifesto simply shows, how little the Dev’s could actually get in the real game from what they originally wanted there to be.

It is a truely sad story, they should delete the video from the media page.

Actually that’s a good question. Since they were so quick with the FAQ after the pre-purchase announcement, suprised they haven’t modified/deleted that page yet.

The manifesto was a marketing tool used to open up your wallet, get over it. It’s their game, they will do whatever they’d like with it.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Dinks.2478:

Ignoring all the fanboys here to whiteknight Anet, yes I remember the manifesto and I am as disappointed as well. Anet can backtrack and pretend they meant something else all they want but it won’t change the reality that this isn’t the game we were promised.

ANet doesn’t need to backtrack: they didn’t say what people think they did. People tend to see what they want in a manifesto, which is why Marx wouldn’t be considered a Marxist or even much of a Communist, despite him having written the document that started both movements.

If you want to be disappointed in the game, that’s your right. Personally, I prefer to decide if I enjoy the game that was actually delivered, not as I thought it should have been. As it turns out, I do enjoy this game (even as I wish that ANet would adjust or completely re-do some aspects of it).

tl;dr I don’t care what they said or didn’t say in the manifesto. I care about the game itself.

They do need to backtrack because they said those things. The manifesto might be vague, but the events they attended and held Q&A/Discussions/presentations/interviews aren’t so much.

This is what Mike O’Brien, a founder of ArenaNet said about GW2 prior to launch,

Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.

They backtracked on that within months of launch and then had to gall to say that ascended was always intended to be in the game even though absolutely everything in the game was balanced around exotics. The same was true with grinding and farming yet they consistently put in things that require exactly that. I’m not going to go through every thing they ever advertised the game as to find the lies, there is just no point in it anymore. I really feel bad for those that still trust ArenaNet’s words. There are just too many times where they have been caught in either an outright lie or backtracking on something they said.

Even if the Manifesto didn’t mean what we thought it meant, ArenaNet NEVER corrected anyone on it. They allowed misinformation to be spread in order to profit from it. Keep in mind that the manifesto was dissected by every major MMO news site, there were interviews about it, never once was there a correction or clarification. ArenaNet let those misconceptions drive their hype train and thus have to take responsibility for them. The problem is that ArenaNet never admits they were wrong, they always backtrack, make excuses, and/or offer the bare minimum to make people go away. Just look at the expansion debacle. They did the bare minimum of offering players an extra character slot.

Wow, going all the way back to November 2012 with all the ascended hate. The gruntled are really bored if they come back to troll the forums about this all over again.

The only thing i am a bit sad about is the whole “Our Monsters will not be standing around picking flowers”, while there are definately many many Monsters that do exactly that.

Behellagh.1468:

Wow, going all the way back to November 2012 with all the ascended hate. The gruntled are really bored if they come back to troll the forums about this all over again.

It was an obvious break of trust, probably the most visual one too. And it happened really close after release, like less than three monthes after release. Of course people will look back on impacts like this as long as GW2 is around.

To be honest, it still stings me a bit too. Even now I still think it was the wrong decision. I really hope they will hand out free ascended stuff like candy in the expansion to even out the imbalance they created back in the days.

Then again, this game is B2P, which will pretty much stop ANet from doing so, because monetization and stuff.

I never tackled this topic so far, but i want to write this down, in bullets so you can easly understand:

• manifesto = intents, and you can’t always deliver what you want;
• things changed at release because they had to, not because they wanted to troll us saying A then doing B after a month for the sake of it
• an example is ascended gear, implemented because people didn’t have a goal to GRIND, now they cry about the grind. LOL
• i’m not whiteknighting anybody, but being a dev myself i know that sometimes you have to change what you dream to program, because kitten happends
• they addressed the grind issue saying they do no want people to grind to enjoybevery aspect of the game, and THIS IS TRUE, and do not philophize about fractal 50 not available because of ascended because you’d look dumb. That’s progression, not gear check in a WoW sense. Because look, some dungeons or world bosses require coordination and knowledge to complete, are you saying is bad because you have to grind the “skill” to make them? LOL because to become skillful you have to repeat the content over and over to be good.
  If everything is handed over and doesn’t require some sort of work/time spent, the game would cleared and dead in 1 month…no exceptions, because that’s how it works. Get over it.

Didn’t start like a ranted but i got carried. Sorry. Peace&loot.

Dinks.2478:

Ignoring all the fanboys here to whiteknight Anet, yes I remember the manifesto and I am as disappointed as well. Anet can backtrack and pretend they meant something else all they want but it won’t change the reality that this isn’t the game we were promised.

Smart people buy games for what they are, instead of pre-buying them on hype.

But I think that ship sailed years ago, given modern sales tactics. GW2 is now what it was at release. Anyone saying they’re disappointed got only themselves to blame for shelling out money for it, IMO.

That’s independent of whether ANet delivered on what they promised or not, mind you. Independent of that you still should not be disappointed as a paying customer (only from afar, as someone who hasn’t bought the game but wishes it came out as something worth buying), as you shouldn’t have bought it then.

Gaaroth.2567:

I never tackled this topic so far, but i want to write this down, in bullets so you can easly understand:

• manifesto = intents, and you can’t always deliver what you want;
• things changed at release because they had to, not because they wanted to troll us saying A then doing B after a month for the sake of it
• an example is ascended gear, implemented because people didn’t have a goal to GRIND, now they cry about the grind. LOL
• i’m not whiteknighting anybody, but being a dev myself i know that sometimes you have to change what you dream to program, because kitten happends
• they addressed the grind issue saying they do no want people to grind to enjoybevery aspect of the game, and THIS IS TRUE, and do not philophize about fractal 50 not available because of ascended because you’d look dumb. That’s progression, not gear check in a WoW sense. Because look, some dungeons or world bosses require coordination and knowledge to complete, are you saying is bad because you have to grind the “skill” to make them? LOL because to become skillful you have to repeat the content over and over to be good.
  If everything is handed over and doesn’t require some sort of work/time spent, the game would cleared and dead in 1 month…no exceptions, because that’s how it works. Get over it.

Didn’t start like a ranted but i got carried. Sorry. Peace&loot.

So…

• Intents? Really? Check this out: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/manifest

• How about inform people at first sight of such changes?

• Ascended – Weak example showing only that devs do not have imagination for more. Right? Or you find smth else to support this already lost affair?

• Some? Yeah right: triple trouble and Tequatl and THAT’S IT! In dungeons there is a simple thing like stack or run and kite. TWO! Seems like ANet likes that number. =) And as for “skill” term there is no skill in GW2 in true sense of it (mayb in SPVP, but tanky mandatory builds come to mind). You can open any guide, look for some high regen build for ANY class and you are done. For everything PVE wise. And you can F*** up as much as you want. So since when does build and gear composition = skill? BTW repeating content does NOT make you skillful – it trains your memory – thats it. You remember just a simpleton pattern to follow. Nice! Skill at its finest! sarcasm

So no matter how much time and effort this product has gotten it still lacks. Goals, skill gradation, boring quest system, unimaginative world events that are shallow. Seems like the dev team can’t do better. Get over it and stop whiteknighting obvios things!

Ihrga.8325:

Gaaroth.2567:

I never tackled this topic so far, but i want to write this down, in bullets so you can easly understand:

• manifesto = intents, and you can’t always deliver what you want;
• things changed at release because they had to, not because they wanted to troll us saying A then doing B after a month for the sake of it
• an example is ascended gear, implemented because people didn’t have a goal to GRIND, now they cry about the grind. LOL
• i’m not whiteknighting anybody, but being a dev myself i know that sometimes you have to change what you dream to program, because kitten happends
• they addressed the grind issue saying they do no want people to grind to enjoybevery aspect of the game, and THIS IS TRUE, and do not philophize about fractal 50 not available because of ascended because you’d look dumb. That’s progression, not gear check in a WoW sense. Because look, some dungeons or world bosses require coordination and knowledge to complete, are you saying is bad because you have to grind the “skill” to make them? LOL because to become skillful you have to repeat the content over and over to be good.
  If everything is handed over and doesn’t require some sort of work/time spent, the game would cleared and dead in 1 month…no exceptions, because that’s how it works. Get over it.

Didn’t start like a ranted but i got carried. Sorry. Peace&loot.

So…

• Intents? Really? Check this out: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/manifest

• How about inform people at first sight of such changes?

• Ascended – Weak example showing only that devs do not have imagination for more. Right? Or you find smth else to support this already lost affair?

• Some? Yeah right: triple trouble and Tequatl and THAT’S IT! In dungeons there is a simple thing like stack or run and kite. TWO! Seems like ANet likes that number. =) And as for “skill” term there is no skill in GW2 in true sense of it (mayb in SPVP, but tanky mandatory builds come to mind). You can open any guide, look for some high regen build for ANY class and you are done. For everything PVE wise. And you can F*** up as much as you want. So since when does build and gear composition = skill? BTW repeating content does NOT make you skillful – it trains your memory – thats it. You remember just a simpleton pattern to follow. Nice! Skill at its finest! sarcasm

So no matter how much time and effort this product has gotten it still lacks. Goals, skill gradation, boring quest system, unimaginative world events that are shallow. Seems like the dev team can’t do better. Get over it and stop whiteknighting obvios things!

Not saying i agree with some decisions, i honestly do not. Heck i’m really kittened off by some of them (ascended is prime example). And don’t make me speak about comunications, because i could make rain fire

What I do not get is all this anger towards a good
type of grind (yeah that exists) that keeps people playing. It’s totally different from any othet game, you pick a goal, you work for it, for the sake of the goal. It’s a GOOD thing, you do not do chores in order to make raid A to get gear to get to raid B and so on. THAT is kittened grind, and THAT IS NOT in the game. That’s all i’m saying.

:)

Fractals is a bad example to use because it was created specifically for people who didn’t like the lack of vertical progression grind after level 80.

Here’s a post I made back in February 2013 entitled “IMO Anet went against their Manifesto and I’m glad” which explains my feelings on the manifesto and content added since then: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/IMO-Anet-went-against-their-manifesto-I-m-glad/first

My opinion remains much the same. Since then I have played Fractals twice and I’ve got some ascended equipment on my main character (trinkets and the medium coat and the Dreamer, both of which I made for the skins) but apart from 1 Living Story achievement which required you to go into a fractal I’ve never encountered a situation where you had to play Fractals or had to have ascended equipment, so it’s still the case that if you don’t like it you can simply ignore it and play the stuff you do like.

And the same goes for pretty much everything else in the game. Considering there are people who only ever play WvW or PvP or specific parts of PvE like dungeons (or Fractals) I think you’d have a hard time finding many things you absolutely have to do whether you like them or not. Especially compared to most MMOs.

I know and still believe in Anet’s Manifesto, which they still uphold to this day. Sure the game is not without flaws. The continual class balance or imbalance, the choice to grind or play with the odds of the ridiculous RNG, but let us be reminded of the things we no longer have to worry about. (Mind you I been playing MMO’s since 1997)

-Waiting for a Tank or Healer before you can start a Dungeon.
-People inspecting your gear, and basing your effectiveness off it (Gear Score also)
-Going toe to toe as a cloth class against a Mob and not being killed in two hits.
-Camping named mobs for rare drops.
-Retrieving your corpse after dying.
-Corpse Camping in PVP.
-Experience penalty for dying.
-Having to roll/transfer to another server to play with friends/guilds.
-Re rolling because you picked the wrong spec/stats.
-Drowning.
-Only able to play certain classes because of Racial restrictions.
-Kill Stealing
-Ninja Looting
- ! Endless Kill/Fetch Quests
-End Game Epic Raiding Elitism
-Subscription fees/services
-Moving interrupts spells
-Forced to play either “Good” or “Evil” race
-Limited access to areas based off Race/faction/Alignments.

And many, many more.

Sure some of you never had to experience some of the above, or took for granted those mechanics are in not Guild Wars 2, but I never forget. I am not a fan boi, and GW2 is not perfect, but the people behind the game are just like you and I: Gamers. Who want this game to be continually successful for years to come, and to continue to break every mold out there. kudos to them.

^ those guys also made good points

Like its been pointed out already a manifesto is a statement of intent, they call it a statement of intent for a reason being that its impossible to say what will turn out to be practical and what will need changing. That being said Anet didnt deviate from their manifesto as much as people like to believe.

The biggest issue people have with the manifesto from what I can see is that people often mistaken what is an alternative solution to their expected solution as no solution at all. IE say a manifesto said you will not have to drive to work, people expected that to mean from now on they’ll be able to work from home, work place implement work transport system and thats considered a lie for some reason.

going into specifics… OP mentions fractals but even though fractals may seem counter to the manifesto, it actually enforces it. Fractals were created post release (IE years after the manifesto) specifically for people who just found horizontal progression unsatisfactory. It was designed for people who want never ending vertical progression and they were vocal enough and there were enough of them that Anet felt they had to be catered for. Other games would have introduced game wide vertical progression there by forcing endless mandatory grind on everyone. Fractals on the other hand limited that on people who wanted vertical progression at all. In keeping with the manifesto though it didnt lock out people who dont care about vertical progression out of the content though, even using nothing more then gear that dropped in the game you can still experience all that fractals have to offer. Seems pretty true to the manifesto to me.

The I swung a sword comment. Sure if you want to swing a sword over and over again you can. But what people choose to do is not the same as what the game allows you to do. Every character in Gw2 has a vast kitten nal of tools. At one point you may be swinging a sword, then you could immediately switch to casting regen on allies in trouble, or fearing away enemies so they get some breathing time. etc.. In Gw2 unlike most other MMOs its not about sticking to a skill rotation, its about what skills the situation calls for. If all you do is autoattack its because you choose to, not because thats all the game does and the deceleration of intent was never you will not be able to swing a sword, it was always you will be able to do other things to which is true.

Everything you love was indeed a bit of an exaggeration, its impossible to hit everything naturally but lets not be too literal. yes some crucial parts like hard content like you correctly state has been omitted but a lot of good has also been included like character versatility, lack of focus on gear power and awesome story telling.

There are two separate “realities” in Gw2. The personal story and the open world. The personal story happens in instances and every choice you do there matters and evolves the story that way. This is especially true in the beginning were singular choices take you on totally different storylines but even later on some choices still have world defining impacts (in that instanced storyline) Example (spoilers from the personal story) some choices in the beginning of the sylvari personal story can lead you to save an ancient orrian mirror. In a late missions that same artifact is used to destroy the eye of zaithan. Of course none of this is reflected in the open world but there is no way to do that. In several points of your personal story you decide to help one group of people and not the other. With so many people playing the game its likely every possible combination has been played at least once which means all villages / people have been saved and lost at the same time. hard to project that in the open world.

I disagree with your assessment of events. Sure some make sense more then others (Centaurs are trying to conquer human land naturally they’re not going to give up after one failed assault, makes perfect sense to repeat that). (charr cubs love to hang out at Bria’s manor. Sure I can see it happening a couple of times but at some point you’d expect adults to permanently ground all the cubs, then again they’re charr perhaps the adults secretly encourage it) You’re also wrong about no one remembering our exploits. Just finish a map and talk to the scouts. Instead of telling you about whats around like before they’ll thank you for your exploits instead.

collecting skins isnt the focus of the game, the game has no such focus which is the point. you do what you feel like doing and you pursuit what you feel like pursuiting. Thats actually the only way to deal with grind. It takes a lot of effort to get a legendary weapon sure but because it has no stat advantage it doesnt matter if it takes long to get and that in turn means you can play any content you feel like in its pursuit which is exactly how Anet went about to deliver on their no grind intent.

smh

Really? This kitten again?

Call me a “fanboi” or a “white knight” all you like, but guess what. The very simple fact of the matter is that if you don’t like the way Anet is designing thier game, then you are always free to go play something else. No one is forcing you to be here.

“But I paid…” yeah yeah. People pay for concert tickets, go, and the singer ends up being kitten live. People buy console games, start playing them, realize they aren’t as enjoyable as they thought they would be and get stuck with a game they’ll never play. People purchase tickets and attend a movie only to find that the best scenes where in the trailers. In some of these cases you might be able to get a refund; however, not in the majority of them. Life doesn’t come with refunds, ladies and gentlemen. Sometimes we take a chance, make a gamble, and it doesn’t pay off. If you purchased GW2 and you don’t like it, well, you took a chance and it didn’t pan out. It’s not the end of the world.

I am not, in any way, telling people not to voice their opinions regarding what they like or don’t like. About what they might like to see changed or things they might like to see come into the game. That’s normal and healthy. It also helps Anet get a feel for what their players want; however, keep in mind that person A and person B might not necessarily desire the same things. So Anet has to make decisions regarding what the players want versus what they already have planned. We might not always agree with their decisions, the gods know that I sure as hell don’t, but it’s not our call to make in the end. We are not the ones in charge. We never were.

Edit: @Galen, very well said

Manifestos are written by gamers long before the publishers get involved.

The only purpose they serve once the game is out is to show you what the original intent was.

Basandra Skye.4031:

Part of the problem is that people took the manifesto, and other comments, out of context and read them as, and I’m going to paraphrase this, “the word of god from the mouth of god.” A very good example is just how much people improperly assumed things regarding a precursor “scavenger hunt” and basically would riot every time a patch came out with no info.

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)”

how is this possibly taking things out of context? it says what it says. You can argue that the context was anet trying to sell us the game, so they are hyping the product as much as possible, deviating from the real game as much as possible, but they still said what they said and they fed us so much BS before the game was launched, that their credibility is zero at this time.

I guess that the context you refer to is: “they are a company trying to sell the game so of course everything they say will be a lie”

Oh man, haven’t seen one of these in a while.

Still the same stuff:
“omg look at the manifesto, they said X!”
“uhm, that is out of context, they even clarified it shortly after release”
“pffft, anet fanboi whiteknight, always defending anet no matter what, anet is a bunch of terrible liars, nothing will convince me otherwise puts fingers in ears lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala”

Aenesthesia.1697:

Basandra Skye.4031:

Part of the problem is that people took the manifesto, and other comments, out of context and read them as, and I’m going to paraphrase this, “the word of god from the mouth of god.” A very good example is just how much people improperly assumed things regarding a precursor “scavenger hunt” and basically would riot every time a patch came out with no info.

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)”

how is this possibly taking things out of context? it says what it says. You can argue that the context was anet trying to sell us the game, so they are hyping the product as much as possible, deviating from the real game as much as possible, but they still said what they said and they fed us so much BS before the game was launched, that their credibility is zero at this time.

I guess that the context you refer to is: “they are a company trying to sell the game so of course everything they say will be a lie”

No, that particular passage isn’t taken out of context, nor is it false.

However, there are other things taken out of context from the manifesto repeatedly, which where clarified. The line about killing a boss only to have it respawn 10 minutes later is one such line. It was clarified that Ree was talking about the personal story, not the open world; however, people still misuse it regarding respawns in the open world.

Aenesthesia.1697:

Basandra Skye.4031:

Part of the problem is that people took the manifesto, and other comments, out of context and read them as, and I’m going to paraphrase this, “the word of god from the mouth of god.” A very good example is just how much people improperly assumed things regarding a precursor “scavenger hunt” and basically would riot every time a patch came out with no info.

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)”

how is this possibly taking things out of context? it says what it says. You can argue that the context was anet trying to sell us the game, so they are hyping the product as much as possible, deviating from the real game as much as possible, but they still said what they said and they fed us so much BS before the game was launched, that their credibility is zero at this time.

I guess that the context you refer to is: “they are a company trying to sell the game so of course everything they say will be a lie”

And it’s not a lie. It doesn’t suck your life away because you absolutely don’t need ascended gear to do 99% of the content. The only thing REALLY gated by ascended gear is the very very top level fractal, that is level 50.

You can do fractals without ascended gear. And by doing fractals you’ll very quickly receive enough to get to Fractal level 20.

Laurels will buy you an amulet and guild missions will get you accessories and you can do fractals. Nothing else requires you to have ascended gear.

Anet released this in the climate of the day, where just about every MMO made you level to PvP. Guild Wars 2 really doesn’t.

And the very specific example Anet gave at the time at cons they attended was the Shadow Behemoth. Keeping in mind at the time it was far more of a challenge than it is in this day of the megaserver. They say that event occurs in a starting zone. The Great Jungle wurm occurs in a starting zone. You can do jumping puzzles in starting zones.

What they said, at the time, was that in most games you have to level to get to the fun stuff, and here you really don’t. The game doesn’t magically change at max level and suddenly you’re doing stuff you couldn’t do before, ie raids. It’s just not like that here.

Of course if you ignore the stuff Anet said at the time, and try to bring it up 5 years later, people will have forgotten.

Linfang.1087:

I know and still believe in Anet’s Manifesto, which they still uphold to this day. Sure the game is not without flaws. The continual class balance or imbalance, the choice to grind or play with the odds of the ridiculous RNG, but let us be reminded of the things we no longer have to worry about. (Mind you I been playing MMO’s since 1997)

-Waiting for a Tank or Healer before you can start a Dungeon.
-People inspecting your gear, and basing your effectiveness off it (Gear Score also)
-Going toe to toe as a cloth class against a Mob and not being killed in two hits.
-Camping named mobs for rare drops.
-Retrieving your corpse after dying.
-Corpse Camping in PVP.
-Experience penalty for dying.
-Having to roll/transfer to another server to play with friends/guilds.
-Re rolling because you picked the wrong spec/stats.
-Drowning.
-Only able to play certain classes because of Racial restrictions.
-Kill Stealing
-Ninja Looting
- ! Endless Kill/Fetch Quests
-End Game Epic Raiding Elitism
-Subscription fees/services
-Moving interrupts spells
-Forced to play either “Good” or “Evil” race
-Limited access to areas based off Race/faction/Alignments.

And many, many more.

Sure some of you never had to experience some of the above, or took for granted those mechanics are in not Guild Wars 2, but I never forget. I am not a fan boi, and GW2 is not perfect, but the people behind the game are just like you and I: Gamers. Who want this game to be continually successful for years to come, and to continue to break every mold out there. kudos to them.

I totally agree to this. People are ungrateful human beings, who forget all too quickly the best things they have been given.

Aenesthesia.1697:

Basandra Skye.4031:

Part of the problem is that people took the manifesto, and other comments, out of context and read them as, and I’m going to paraphrase this, “the word of god from the mouth of god.” A very good example is just how much people improperly assumed things regarding a precursor “scavenger hunt” and basically would riot every time a patch came out with no info.

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)”

how is this possibly taking things out of context? it says what it says. You can argue that the context was anet trying to sell us the game, so they are hyping the product as much as possible, deviating from the real game as much as possible, but they still said what they said and they fed us so much BS before the game was launched, that their credibility is zero at this time.

I guess that the context you refer to is: “they are a company trying to sell the game so of course everything they say will be a lie”

I rarely grind and I dislike grinding. I have never fealt forced to grind in this game to enjoy every part of it, even all fractals levels can be enjoyed without grinding. Some people grind becouse they want stuff now now now now now but most stuff you can get by just playing every part of the game and some day you got what you want, It has worked for me. But what it is about is not having to grind to have fun and that you can in this game and you have always been able to since release of the game. So offcourse you cant take that out of context when it is so “Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)” is perfectly true.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Aenesthesia.1697:

Basandra Skye.4031:

Part of the problem is that people took the manifesto, and other comments, out of context and read them as, and I’m going to paraphrase this, “the word of god from the mouth of god.” A very good example is just how much people improperly assumed things regarding a precursor “scavenger hunt” and basically would riot every time a patch came out with no info.

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)”

how is this possibly taking things out of context? it says what it says. You can argue that the context was anet trying to sell us the game, so they are hyping the product as much as possible, deviating from the real game as much as possible, but they still said what they said and they fed us so much BS before the game was launched, that their credibility is zero at this time.

I guess that the context you refer to is: “they are a company trying to sell the game so of course everything they say will be a lie”

I rarely grind and I dislike grinding. I have never fealt forced to grind in this game to enjoy every part of it, even all fractals levels can be enjoyed without grinding. Some people grind becouse they want stuff now now now now now but most stuff you can get by just playing every part of the game and some day you got what you want, It has worked for me. But what it is about is not having to grind to have fun and that you can in this game and you have always been able to since release of the game. So offcourse you cant take that out of context when it is so “Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)” is perfectly true.

And monkey behind a typewriter will eventually replicate entirety of Shakespear’s writings. Unlike eternal cosmic monkey we have limited time on this planet and some of us would like to have fun when we give portion of our time to this game.

Entirety of the game has come down to SW chest farm DT chest farm and champ trains. The rest of it is barren.

Zergs.9715:

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Aenesthesia.1697:

Basandra Skye.4031:

Part of the problem is that people took the manifesto, and other comments, out of context and read them as, and I’m going to paraphrase this, “the word of god from the mouth of god.” A very good example is just how much people improperly assumed things regarding a precursor “scavenger hunt” and basically would riot every time a patch came out with no info.

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)”

how is this possibly taking things out of context? it says what it says. You can argue that the context was anet trying to sell us the game, so they are hyping the product as much as possible, deviating from the real game as much as possible, but they still said what they said and they fed us so much BS before the game was launched, that their credibility is zero at this time.

I guess that the context you refer to is: “they are a company trying to sell the game so of course everything they say will be a lie”

I rarely grind and I dislike grinding. I have never fealt forced to grind in this game to enjoy every part of it, even all fractals levels can be enjoyed without grinding. Some people grind becouse they want stuff now now now now now but most stuff you can get by just playing every part of the game and some day you got what you want, It has worked for me. But what it is about is not having to grind to have fun and that you can in this game and you have always been able to since release of the game. So offcourse you cant take that out of context when it is so “Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)” is perfectly true.

And monkey behind a typewriter will eventually replicate entirety of Shakespear’s writings. Unlike eternal cosmic monkey we have limited time on this planet and some of us would like to have fun when we give portion of our time to this game.

Entirety of the game has come down to SW chest farm DT chest farm and champ trains. The rest of it is barren.

As I said, that is something you choose to do since you feel like you don’t have enough time on the earth to get “that” stuff. You are not forced to farm or grind it to get to another content in the game that is what “Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)” means. You can farm and grind if you want, but you don’t have to. SW is alot of fun and I do SW now and then becouse I enjoy it, I do not go there to get a few goldz or whatever, I go there to enjoy the game and I can do that without any grinding at all.

It’s called marketing. They sell their customer one thing and give them something completely different. They already have your money.

The first thing that needs to be understood here is what a manifesto really is. Because funny enough had Arenanet stated one thing in their manifesto and then did exactly the perfect opposite, provided they did genuinely try to implement the manifesto but ended up doing the exact opposite because it turned out their original vision was not doable it still wouldnt be considered lying / being manipulative. For the billionth time a manifesto is a statement of intend not a check list of promises.

Luckly Arenanet didnt have to do everything the opposite way so we’re safe there.

Another thing people need to understand is an intent is just that, an intent. It can be implemented in a gazillion number of ways and all of them count. Zergs mentions “Specifically made grind maps with dedicated farm guild sprouting all over the place.” but guess what even had they really done specific grind maps (which they didnt) it wouldnt invalided their non grind policy as long as there was a way to avoid the grind and there are plenty of ways to avoid that grind. Gold is not something you get only if you do champ trains or farm chests in SW. Nothing that drops in those two examples mentioned by Zergs cant be gotten doing any content you enjoy doing.

You dont beat grind by putting in no rewards in a game. You dont beat grind by making every reward attainable in a short period of time. Both those things will result in a very boring game. The only way to beat grind is to let people play what they feel like playing to earn their reward.

My response to a similar thread from a year and a half ago, nothing has changed.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-happened-to-the-manifesto-2/page/12#post3504027

Fiddlestyx.9714:

It’s called marketing. They sell their customer one thing and give them something completely different. They already have your money.

Manifesto came out 2 years before you could even pre-order gw2. Besides anyone buying stuff based on manifesto is doing it wrong essential. You dont buy an idea, you buy the implementation of that idea.

Imagine buying a car based on its concept.

Thing is and this is key, an idea can translate in a million ways to reality and why you like the idea there is no guarnatee you’ll like the way its implemented.

Example No Grinding
The way Anet implemented it? nearly everything is attainable playing whatever you
enjoy. you can at least get something equally powerful for the few exceptions that limit you on how you can acquire them.

For some that implementation works (you’ll find plenty of people who state they dont grind in Gw2 myself included)
for some that implementation doesnt work. (You’ll find also plenty of people who’ll swear this is the grindiest MMO they have ever played)

in this example at least, its not that Anet twisted their vision for marketing reasons but rather their implementation unfortunately doesnt work for everyone. That however doesnt mean they were not true to their stated ideal !

Dinks.2478:

Ignoring all the fanboys here to whiteknight Anet, yes I remember the manifesto and I am as disappointed as well. Anet can backtrack and pretend they meant something else all they want but it won’t change the reality that this isn’t the game we were promised.

To all of you who use terms like “fanboy” and “white knights”, do you really think it does anything but make you look like you more than name callers? It doesn’t.

If you have to resort to calling people names because they don’t agree with you to justify your position, then your position is poor to begin with.

This situation is a perfect example. A manifesto is not a promise or the word of god. It is intent. This has been addressed by the community and ANet ad nauseam.

For those of you reflecting on the words ANet devs and brass said before release, they also were not promises of drops at release. Many of those things could drop 7 years after release and still be a promise kept.

Also even a person with a sliver of wisdom knows that things change. If you are so rigid in that you think every word said by someone else is an iron clad promise of truth, then I suspect that you probably don’t hold yourself to the same standard. I cannot think of one person I have ever known that has not said they have intended to do one thing and it did not happen. That’s life.

Let’s say everything that people accuse ANet of doing is true: they were manipulative, they lied about the manifesto, they cheated, they stole candy from babies. (Well, maybe not the last two.)

What possible difference does it make today in whether any of us enjoy playing the game?

Sure, I’d prefer to deal with a completely ethical company, but my choices are limited to AT&T or Comcast (or companies that lease their bandwidth), so… oh wait, we’re talking about a gaming company. Here, the only two important metrics are:

• Is the game fun?
• Does the company’s practices interfere with my ability to have fun?

For me, the answer is yes, the game is fun and no, their practices have zero impact on my ability to have fun. Maybe the answer is different for the OP.

(ignoring the argument over the manifesto itself)

I like a few of the points the OP posted. Would love to see less grind/farming, and especially to see that the pve zones aren’t super easy ZZZzzzz zones. Something to make combat feel interesting and full-filling in PvE zones would be great, don’t know if a "hard mode" of a map or something would be possible (It was easier in GW1 because of the Instancing tech used). But as it is right now, I have more fun doing PvE in WvW because at least the camp and tower guards fight back.

My biggest gripe is that come end game, everything comes down to gold. If you want that amazing ascended set or some other pieces you’ve been hoping for, you don’t go out and slay this creature and barter with that merchant; you go grind SW, or get your magic find up and grind mobs, etc and sell whatever you get. Or you stop playing for a while and just wait until your daily rewards build up, buy mats, and sell those to get your gold. That is the worst part of their failure, that the grind for gold is the standard for “achieving” what you want for your character. They literally have the worst system of any MMO that I’ve played in that you cannot even grind specific mobs for what you want in some cases, it’s simply most lucrative to hope you get high dollar drops that can be sold or dismantled for money in order to buy what you really want.

Anet themselves acknowledged this back in 2013 with their planned changes for Legendary Weapons, which will be coming to fruition with HoT. I hope that they incorporate a similar system for Ascended armor, and for the ability to unlock at least one cosmetic set this way as well. The grind that’s in place now is to me one of the worst failures of this game and its Devs’ original intent.

Zergs.9715:

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Aenesthesia.1697:

Basandra Skye.4031:

Part of the problem is that people took the manifesto, and other comments, out of context and read them as, and I’m going to paraphrase this, “the word of god from the mouth of god.” A very good example is just how much people improperly assumed things regarding a precursor “scavenger hunt” and basically would riot every time a patch came out with no info.

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)”

how is this possibly taking things out of context? it says what it says. You can argue that the context was anet trying to sell us the game, so they are hyping the product as much as possible, deviating from the real game as much as possible, but they still said what they said and they fed us so much BS before the game was launched, that their credibility is zero at this time.

I guess that the context you refer to is: “they are a company trying to sell the game so of course everything they say will be a lie”

I rarely grind and I dislike grinding. I have never fealt forced to grind in this game to enjoy every part of it, even all fractals levels can be enjoyed without grinding. Some people grind becouse they want stuff now now now now now but most stuff you can get by just playing every part of the game and some day you got what you want, It has worked for me. But what it is about is not having to grind to have fun and that you can in this game and you have always been able to since release of the game. So offcourse you cant take that out of context when it is so “Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun(…)” is perfectly true.

And monkey behind a typewriter will eventually replicate entirety of Shakespear’s writings. Unlike eternal cosmic monkey we have limited time on this planet and some of us would like to have fun when we give portion of our time to this game.

Entirety of the game has come down to SW chest farm DT chest farm and champ trains. The rest of it is barren.

You should look up barren in the dictionary. I don’t think it means what you think it does. Because I find people playing pretty much everywhere I go.

Someone re-posts this video every 6 months and whines about how it’s not anything like what they proposed. Even though some of it is contextually true they still made a game better than I imagined. Furthermore this is the only game that I log into and abruptly think wow kitten this is a pretty kitten game.

Prototypemind.4026:

My biggest gripe is that come end game, everything comes down to gold. If you want that amazing ascended set or some other pieces you’ve been hoping for, you don’t go out and slay this creature and barter with that merchant; you go grind SW, or get your magic find up and grind mobs, etc and sell whatever you get. Or you stop playing for a while and just wait until your daily rewards build up, buy mats, and sell those to get your gold. That is the worst part of their failure, that the grind for gold is the standard for “achieving” what you want for your character. They literally have the worst system of any MMO that I’ve played in that you cannot even grind specific mobs for what you want in some cases, it’s simply most lucrative to hope you get high dollar drops that can be sold or dismantled for money in order to buy what you really want.

Anet themselves acknowledged this back in 2013 with their planned changes for Legendary Weapons, which will be coming to fruition with HoT. I hope that they incorporate a similar system for Ascended armor, and for the ability to unlock at least one cosmetic set this way as well. The grind that’s in place now is to me one of the worst failures of this game and its Devs’ original intent.

I guess it’s all a matter of time. I’m working on Ascended Armor, and I haven’t purchased a single mat (for anything). I collect all my mats by playing here and there. Mostly wherever the Dailies send me, lol. It’s not the fastest way, I’m sure, but I neither farm nor grind…ever.

Each to their own.

Clever marketing