Guild Wars 2

Disclaimers:
-This post contains personal story spoilers.
- I will try to be as objective as possible in my presentation of what the manifesto promised vs. how it turned out. If at times I may seem subjective, I apologize in advance.

Seeing so many posts in which people say we shouldn’t try to change the game because it delivered everything it promised, I will try to outline certain differences between what was perhaps the most clear statement of their philosophy and what the game actually turned out to be like.

We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2.
This is the introduction. I believe we can all agree that Guild Wars 2 is different from other MMOs and that on this part, it delivered.

Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that’s got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees.
Now, let’s analyze this part:
- persistent world: check;
- active combat: check; definitely a big improvement from the usual “stand in one place pressing buttons” MMO combat;
- a fully-branching, personalized storyline: false. The storyline starts out as a diversity of choices and possibilities, then it adds up into 3 paths and finally into 1. You still get to choose between 2 missions at times, but these choices have no impact in the end. Everybody still kills the Eye of Zhaitan; everybody still helps Trahearne purify Orr, despite their choices. So, the story is not branching, but converging;
- event system: check;
- no monthly fee: check.

The look of Guild Wars 2 is stylized. We’re going for a painterly, illustrated aesthetic. Everything in our world feels handcrafted and artisanal. We treat our environments as if they are characters themselves.
Nothing to comment here. It is commonly agreed that the art team more than delivered.

When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’
Again pretty much the same thing as before. The combat part is too subjective to discuss – note: this doesn’t contradict my above statement as to how combat is active. It is active, but it depends on whether you like being restricted to 5 skills and some utilities or not.

In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great.
Again, this is a part that requires too much subjectivity to discuss, but I think we can all agree they’ve done a great job of distributing fun heart quests all over the world. Of course, that doesn’t meant everyone’s supposed to enjoy every single heart quest.

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.
This is a part which has been subject to a lot of debating. Some people say there shouldn’t be any grind, while others say the grind is entirely optional. Yet, we have this statement from ArenaNet which says they don’t want players to grind. To my understanding (and I’m not claiming my understanding can’t be erroneous), that means there shouldn’t be any grinds at all. However, there are:
-karma armor: the cost of a karma armor set is equivalent to the reward of 666 level 80 Dynamic Events; it’s simple math: 42000/378~111; 111*6=666. I can understand they might have meant it as a long term goal, but after some time, doing the same events over and over again can get tedious. Of course, there is always the possibility of farming lower level events so as not to get bored with them, but for the math part, I used the reward numbers of the most efficient way of farming the karma.
-dungeon armor: even after the changes to the token system (which are currently not working properly), it would still require roughly 20 runs of the same dungeon to get a dungeon armor set, meaning at least 6 runs per path. This might have been thought of as a long term reward as well, but doing the same dungeon over and over again, especially with the number of bugs and issues encountered, can prove tedious. There are also people who claim that the dungeons are badly designed, which makes it even worse to them.
-cultural armor: also could have been considered a long term reward, but the cost is high anyway. Take into consideration the fact that it was increased tenfold since beta.
-gold sinks: another thorn in the side for those looking to explore the world at higher levels. There’s a high chance that if you simply went from waypoint to waypoint simply having fun, you’d be broke. Thus, there is a certain amount of farming required to keep your gold pool steady.
-legendary weapons: these were clearly meant for the most devoted for players, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re a grind to get. You simply cannot get them just by “playing for fun”.
Obviously, you may be doing all these grinds while also having fun, so you won’t feel like you’re “grinding”. However, that doesn’t nullify the sheer number of times you’re required to do the same action in order to attain these rewards.
To conclude, I’d like to say that, for this part I did not try to debate whether these grind are optional or not, or justifiable or not. I simply pointed out their existence, contrary to Colin Johanson’s statement in the manifesto.

As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.
Even with the instanced personal story, most of the time you’ll still be doing the same thing that others are doing: doing the same heart quests, the same Dynamic Events, the same puzzles etc. However, from levels 1 to 80, they have done a good job of hiding this, because most of the time you’re not following a linear path, so everyone in the area is running around for their own purpose. At level 80 however, and especially in the Orr zones, everybody is just zerging the same Dynamic Events.
The personal story does a good job of making you feel like a hero up until level 50-60, when it simply gets hijacked by Trahearne, a fact which is pretty commonly agreed upon. Another issue that some people have is that your character has no choice but to like Trahearne. Nobody expects the possibility of killing him, because that’s unrealistic, but the occasional “I don’t like you” which exists in SWTOR’s story wouldn’t have been hard to implement.

You’ll get quest text that tells you ’I’m being attacked by these horrible things,’ and it’s not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says ‘Go kill ten centaurs.’ We don’t think that’s OK. You see what’s happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants.
Nothing much to comment here. There clearly is no quest text and with the exception of Orr, there aren’t many areas where “there are actually centaurs standing around in a field”. Thus, we could say that Orr is the only area that doesn’t follow this part of their philosophy, due to the huge amounts of mobs standing around doing nothing.

We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building, and in Guild Wars 2, it’s your world. It’s your story.
We can all agree they have not built the same MMO as everyone else. Whether it’s for better or for worse, is up to everyone to decide. The story part was discussed above.

You affect things around you in a very permanent way.
Your completion of a dynamic event has a temporary effect, up until the event or the servers reset. Furthermore, we have seen how the cleansing of Orr doesn’t have any noticeable effect outside the instance. This was impossible to do and was probably an exaggeration on their behalf.

Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.
Again, untrue. The only choice a player can make concerning certain events is whether to start them or not. There aren’t choices like the ones in the personal story, where you can pick what quest to do, at least none that I have experienced while doing 100% completion.

You’re meeting new people whom you will then see again. You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.
The village will stay rescued until the event resets; however, it was impossible for it to be any other way. The fact that the NPCs remember you is also true; there are certain events where are you are thanked for helping even after the event has passed.

All in all, I hope I didn’t seem too subjective while writing this post. As you can see, I’ve tried presenting both sides of the coin as much as I could. This was my experience while taking 3 characters to most of the world, with one of them having 100% completion.

Please god no. That’s what Legendaries are for, so you have to grind for them, same with cultural weapons. I don’t get what people want form this game. You want a full armor set of exotics/ legendaries at lvl 80? You don’t need ot get the cultural, you don’t need ot get the legendaries, heck just play with blues/ greens. They don’t add much power, you can complete the game without problem with those. I personally love to go for the legendaries, because it’s a challenge. You can’t eliminate grind from an MMO, not with the current setup MMos follow at least.

Fayel.7589:

Please god no. That’s what Legendaries are for, so you have to grind for them, same with cultural weapons. I don’t get what people want form this game. You want a full armor set of exotics/ legendaries at lvl 80? You don’t need ot get the cultural, you don’t need ot get the legendaries, heck just play with blues/ greens. They don’t add much power, you can complete the game without problem with those. I personally love to go for the legendaries, because it’s a challenge. You can’t eliminate grind from an MMO, not with the current setup MMos follow at least.

Once more, I did not say whether the grind was justifiable or not, I just pointed out there are grinds, contrary to their statements in the manifesto. No serious company should boldly name one of their presentations a manifesto without actually making sure the points they have nailed down will never be changed.

“We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2.
This is the introduction. I believe we can all agree that Guild Wars 2 is different from other MMOs and that on this part, it delivered.”

I completely disagree. You still run around killing 20 rats. The questing is actually much worse than normal mmos imo due to the fact that there is no presentation. Imagine if you got a quest in another mmo and all it said was “Kill 20 rats”. That’s GW2.

In terms of character development and progression, GW2 is inferior to every other mmo I have ever played. This is a HUGE step backwards from the 1st game. I can’t imagine what the thought process was making classes so shallow, but it’s terrible imo.

GW2 is very much just another theme park mmo. Shallow interface changes do not equal innovation.

When people asked about endgame activities (challenging, group oriented content) Anet had the audacity to say “You’ve been playing it this whole time! Everything is endgame!”. This was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen a game developer say (outside of Jay Wilson).

The only innovation GW2 really did was virtually remove character progression and meaningful things to do with a capped character.

I’d like to further address the (1) “Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1” and (2) “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2.” statements.

1) GW2 did not take a lot of things I love about GW1. Firstly, the Monk. It’s such a fun profession to play. I found the decision to remove the Monk because they didn’t want to force players into playing something they don’t enjoy very offensive and arrogant on their part. Thousands of us that love to monk were just deleted from collective memory. Secondly, different ways to play. Compared to GW1, GW2 has too many restrictions on builds and playstyles. Lastly, storyline. Prophecies alone outshines GW2 storyline. There were twists and turns; friendships and betrayals; friends turning into enemies with little or no warning. GW2 is like “let’s go gank us a dragon”. Meh.

2) I wasn’t expecting magic find gear in Guild Wars. Had I wanted to play a magic find game, I would have bought something made by Blizzard. Can’t make any sense of the “no grind” policy while there’s “+% magic find” equipment in the game.

In the end, I must admit that my high expectations (based on GW1) resulted in my near-total disappointment with GW2. Only two positive things so far: casting select spells while moving and graphics. Sadly, no MMO revolution here. :-(

I think that “manifesto” was more of an advertisement considering how inaccurate it was.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you talked to the heart NPCs, you would actually find out why they needed you to kill 20 rats.

Then again, there are more things that make it not worth playing, which is precisely the reason why I feel no urge to log in anymore. The basics such as combat, being able to revive NPCs and players are fine. Things like personal story and dungeons are the ones who didn’t live up to the hype. The endgame didn’t live up to the hype. Just because they say endgame starts at level 1 doesn’t mean it’s true. Once you’ve hit level 80 it’s either grind or stop playing.

I stand by my first statement, it’s different from other MMOs, but in most aspects not in a good way. Keep in mind that I tried to keep the post as objective as possible. Perhaps I was wrong in speaking in the name of others.

Edit: I also wanted to say I played the devil’s advocate on the first post, giving them the benefit of the doubt. It’s obvious they didn’t stick to many of their design philosophies. The purpose of the post was to educate that part of the playerbase who thinks ArenaNet kept to their philosophy, without actually knowing what that philosophy was. As such, it had to be written in a manner which, to them, did not mark me as a “hater”.

I agree with the OP for the most part, especially about Orr being so different than the rest of the game – in a negative way.
It is as though Orr was designed so that just traveling/exploring/finding DE action is much harder than in the rest of the game, thus reintroducing hindrances to PvE multiplayer that the rest of the game has resolved. Forcing people to look for others to team up with doesn’t work, having people run into each other out in the world (as it happens at lower levels) does work.

I think when they said that they don’t want to require grinding for gear I believe they have achieved that. I have been able to do many (I haven’t done all of them yet) explorable dungeons using rare crafted lvl 80 armor. They are doable and it’s not a graveyard rush zergfest if you know what you are doing.

Exotics are not required to clear explorables. Therefore that billion karma you say you have to farm up is not needed, but it’s by choice. I’ll admit that the level 80 crafted armor I wore looked so bad that I wanted my dungeon exotics ASAP. But other than that if I was happy with the way they looked I could have taken my sweet time.

This idea that the top tier gear is needed to complete top tier content is something players have dragged over from other games. But in other games you don’t have ways to easily and frequently dodge damage, you don’t have debuffs that reduce boss damage by 50% which is huge btw. Can you stun bosses in other mmo’s? Can you knock them down or knock them back. I’ve had runs where we have been able to chain stun bosses frequently.

I say they delivered on the no grind is necessary promise, but players have interjected grind by making the gear that is meant for the more dedicated players (dungeon and karma) a necessity and not a prestige or badge of honor like it was meant to be.

Swagman.9013:

I think when they said that they don’t want to require grinding for gear I believe they have achieved that. I have been able to do many (I haven’t done all of them yet) explorable dungeons using rare crafted lvl 80 armor. They are doable and it’s not a graveyard rush zergfest if you know what you are doing.

Exotics are not required to clear explorables. Therefore that billion karma you say you have to farm up is not needed, but it’s by choice. I’ll admit that the level 80 crafted armor I wore looked so bad that I wanted my dungeon exotics ASAP. But other than that if I was happy with the way they looked I could have taken my sweet time.

This idea that the top tier gear is needed to complete top tier content is something players have dragged over from other games. But in other games you don’t have ways to easily and frequently dodge damage, you don’t have debuffs that reduce boss damage by 50% which is huge btw. Can you stun bosses in other mmo’s? Can you knock them down or knock them back. I’ve had runs where we have been able to chain stun bosses frequently.

I say they delivered on the no grind is necessary promise, but players have interjected grind by making the gear that is meant for the more dedicated players (dungeon and karma) a necessity and not a prestige or badge of honor like it was meant to be.

“We don’t want players to grind” is different from “No grind is necessary”. The first implies that there is no grind, whereas the second suggests that there is a grind, but you’re not required to do it. That’s not what they promised.

Good read but you clearly hate the BLTC.
You need to give the reader more than just the BLTC.
Add in sections about how Anet puts a patch out and breaks 100 other things.
Talk about why there is no test server or the lack of communication between Anet and the players.
Add in how PvE is being nerfed every patch because they will not ban bots.

Gauradan.8361:

“We don’t want players to grind” is different from “No grind is necessary”. The first implies that there is no grind, whereas the second suggests that there is a grind, but you’re not required to do it. That’s not what they promised.

not really.

the fact is, every single activity at endgame IS a grind

Every-single-thing that adds some kind of progression is a grind, be it vertical, horizontal, or plain cosmetic. and of the worst kind, I might add, its all “horribly boring action repeated ad infinitum for a looooooooong term goal”

so your statement

Gauradan.8361:

the second suggests that there is a grind, but you’re not required to do IT.

only becomes true if with “it”, you mean playing the game.

I can see where this point comes from. It was based around the idea that farming for the best gear is not required. which is something I welcome.

the problem is that they have managed to make everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, as grindy, boring and unnapealing, as it was farming for the best gear in other games

It’s a mmo that focuses on gear looks, that’s why legendaries don’t have ridiculous stats but look amazing.

The grind isn’t there unless you want it to be, your argument is the same as the people that complain jump puzzle chests don’t give a good enough reward for spending 30 minutes getting to it. Don’t do jump puzzles if you don’t like the reward then, they aren’t necessary. But it’s there so I have to do it.

Makes as much sense as

This gear needs a billion dungeon tokens it’s such a grind, they said no grind.
But you don’t have to get that gear so just don’t get the gear and there is no grind.
But it’s there so I have to get it now, and they said no grind, why would they say no grind if they are going to add an optional grind?
Well maybe it’s for the people that will grind to get that reward.

Can I haz your stuff?

The thing that struck me is the manifesto was a lot more true in lower levels than higher. In your newbie area, combat was quick and interesting. In higher area, particularly with risen, you can dump 2 whole skill bars on a mob and it’s still coming.

The higher we got, the more sluggish and bogged down it feels. I jump down on an alt and it feels a lot fresher.

Swagman.9013:

It’s a mmo that focuses on gear looks, that’s why legendaries don’t have ridiculous stats but look amazing.

The grind isn’t there unless you want it to be, your argument is the same as the people that complain jump puzzle chests don’t give a good enough reward for spending 30 minutes getting to it. Don’t do jump puzzles if you don’t like the reward then, they aren’t necessary. But it’s there so I have to do it.

Makes as much sense as

This gear needs a billion dungeon tokens it’s such a grind, they said no grind.
But you don’t have to get that gear so just don’t get the gear and there is no grind.
But it’s there so I have to get it now, and they said no grind, why would they say no grind if they are going to add an optional grind?
Well maybe it’s for the people that will grind to get that reward.

but the problem is that they made everything a grind of the same dimensions and unappeal-ness

so….
its a grind but you are not required to do this
its a grind but you are not required to do that
its a grind but you are not required to do these
its a grind but you are not required to do those either

is kind of nice

but when you stop and think for a second, you realize that if you remove “this”, “that”, “these”, and “those”….there is nothing else to do that isnt a huge grind

so basically what they are telling you is “you are not required to keep playing”

If you want gear you need to grind the instance that dropps tokens for that gear. If you want the karma set you need to grind WvW or events and if you farm events you get slapped with the anti bot code.

Or you run an instance and you get less and less and less reward. thats if you even get the correct reward the first time you run it.

Good read but you clearly hate the BLTC.
You need to give the reader more than just the BLTC.
I hate the grind. I don’t hate the concept of a cash shop, so long as it isn’t as intrusive as this one. Moreover, I don’t think I even mentioned the BLTC even once.

Add in sections about how Anet puts a patch out and breaks 100 other things.
They never promised they would have perfect patches in the manifesto. I was just talking about design philosophies in the OP. Sure, they promised they would only release the game when it was ready and it wasn’t as smooth as we would have expected, but they didn’t say this in the manifesto. This is a legitimate complaint, but it simply wasn’t related to the topic.

Talk about why there is no test server or the lack of communication between Anet and the players.
Communication has been lacking for the past year, if you asked me. They changed things without telling the playerbase, then, when we reacted to those changes, they did not care enough to revert them. Dyes becoming character bound and transmutation stones disappearing from karma vendors are two such examples. About the t-stones, they said they were looking into redistributing them in-game, but as it is right now the only reasonable way of getting fine stones is by buying them with gems.

Add in how PvE is being nerfed every patch because they will not ban bots.
Again, this issue was not talked about in the manifesto. It is indeed a most severe one, especially since the players are the ones being affected. Crafting materials get harder and harder to obtain, while the prices are still dropping. How are you supposed to make gold?

The game might turn out to be successful or it may fail, but to me it’s just another MMO flop.

Anet: hey player 1, do you want grind in your mmo?

Player 1: heck no I hate grinding.

Anet: well good news player 1 all our content can be done in easily obtainable rares!

Player 2: well wait a second I like grinding for difficult to obtain rewards.

Anet: well fantastic news player 2 we added some gear for you to obtain by grinding your eyes out and since you will most likely play our game longer to obtain those rewards we made them look extra cool!

Player 1: hey but wait I want that gear too

Anet: well that gear is for player 2 only cause he doesn’t mind grinding, but don’t worry both of you guys will see the same amount of content.

Player 1: no that’s not fair I want his gear too but I don’t want a grind, give me his gear without the grind.

“you are not required to keep playing”

This man has figured out video games, yes that is exactly what it means, and it doesn’t matter since there is no sub fee! Strange how when you boil it down it’s like the complete opposite of blizzards business model.

Gw1 has existed for several years I feel confident Anet knows what they are doing in this regard.

Swagman.9013:

Anet: hey player 1, do you want grind in your mmo?

Player 1: heck no I hate grinding.

Anet: well good news player 1 all our content can be done in easily obtainable rares!

Player 2: well wait a second I like grinding for difficult to obtain rewards.

Anet: well fantastic news player 2 we added some gear for you to obtain by grinding your eyes out and since you will most likely play our game longer to obtain those rewards we made them look extra cool!

Player 1: hey but wait I want that gear too

Anet: well that gear is for player 2 only cause he doesn’t mind grinding, but don’t worry both of you guys will see the same amount of content.

Player 1: no that’s not fair I want his gear too but I don’t want a grind, give me his gear without the grind.

That is utterly irrelevant. They promised there would be no grind and they didn’t deliver. That is all that matters. Also, as Konrad pointed out everything in the endgame is a grind. Doing stuff for fun doesn’t even cover the waypoint costs.

The game offers two choices if you’re not a PvP player: get to level 80 and grind or get to level 80 and stop playing. There’s nothing else to do. Dungeons aren’t fun. You don’t feel like a HERO when a zombie in Arah which can barely hold its flesh together knocks you out in two hits, when in the books, Destiny’s Edge were slaughtering dragon minions with one hit. You don’t feel like a HERO when Trahearne comes into your story and despite being annoying, incompetent and, above all, arrogant everyone loves him. You don’t feel like a HERO when you have to defend the same camps and collect the same items dozens of times in order to get a piece of armor or a weapon, while Trahearne gets Imba Sword of Uberness, just because he is Trahearne.

True they promised no farm. When have you known of a company, trying to make money, not to Lie?

Spawn.7014:

True they promised no farm. When have you known of a company, trying to make money, not to Lie?

Never. However, it’s disheartening to see that, despite the fact that the grind is far worse than in the MMOs they were so openly criticizing, people still defend them saying it’s not required. They might just as well say there’s no need to play the game after hitting level 80, because grind is all that level 80 is about. Then, if I’m not required to play the game, whatever did I buy it for?

How did they not deliver guardian? There is only an optional grind, you arekitten cause they said there is no grind but they offered a grind for those who choose it.

It’s like a mall that proclaims “we don’t want our mall shoppers to climb stairs” so they have escalators for every single floor, you can get anywhere you need to by using an escalator, but then you see a stairwell and become enraged?! What is this bull&@$! you said you don’t want us climbing stairs?!
Well those are for people who prefer to take the stairs, but they are optional
No you said no stairs and I see stairs I don’t care if it’s optional I’mkitten and you are liars.

The manifesto talks about innovation.

GW1 was and is a unique game. With GW2, Anet has taken a large step towards the traditional theme park MMO.

Anet have innovated in the context of some MMO features and activities seen in GW2, but if you compare GW1 and GW2 – which is the closer to the Everquest/WoW model?

In what way is it innovative to move away from the unique and towards the standard?

GW2 is nearly the same as Warhammer Online. Dynamic events, players have a huge health pool and do little damage. Realm versus realm.

I don’t see much innovation other than you no longer have to visit a quest giver.

I think you didn’t have to visit a quest giver in Warhammer either if memory serves.

Dam good artwork in GW2 though. It’s much better than the rest of the game. I hope they paid their art people well.

From the manifesto, “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

I agree that they have not met the goal of what the first sentence is saying.

While I agree that they haven’t met the goal, I’m totally with Swagman here. The grind isn’t required, and I think it’s fantastic that the grind is still there for players that do like the grind.

And what gets my gizzard about threads like this one, is how few people acknowledge that yes there ARE players that love grinding for unique and cool as hell items! So while anet didn’t meet that particular sentence of their manifesto, I’m really happy it turned out the way it did.

Swagman.9013:

How did they not deliver guardian? There is only an optional grind, you arekitten cause they said there is no grind but they offered a grind for those who choose it.

It’s like a mall that proclaims “we don’t want our mall shoppers to climb stairs” so they have escalators for every single floor, you can get anywhere you need to by using an escalator, but then you see a stairwell and become enraged?! What is this bull&@$! you said you don’t want us climbing stairs?!
Well those are for people who prefer to take the stairs, but they are optional
No you said no stairs and I see stairs I don’t care if it’s optional I’mkitten and you are liars.

First of all, it’s Gauradan. Very different from Guardian.

Secondly, they didn’t deliver because the only thing to do at level 80 is the grind. Legendary weapons were enough of a grind to keep the really hardcore players busy. They needn’t have made the dungeon and karma armors the same. Also stop it with the analogies, games work nothing like real life situations. That has been proven time and time again by how many people are willing to accept a game not delivering what it promised, whereas if it were any other object/service they would probably have taken the issue to court.

Mura.8673:

And what gets my gizzard about threads like this one, is how few people acknowledge that yes there ARE players that love grinding for unique and cool as hell items! So while anet didn’t meet that particular sentence of their manifesto, I’m really happy it turned out the way it did.

And those items should have been the legendary weapons. As it is right now, there’s more content for the hardcore special snowflakes than for the average player who just wants to get the look they like without being knocked into the dust every time they try to do so.

Gauradan.8361:

If you talked to the heart NPCs, you would actually find out why they needed you to kill 20 rats.

Unless you stumble upon a dynamic event consisting of killing rats and end up finishing the heart without ever going near it.

This is not a MMO revolution. It’s finishing quests and getting the reward without even talking to a quest giver NPC. I don’t find it one bit player-friendly. I find it detrimental to overall gameplay experience. While remote reward delivery via in-game mail is nice and saves you the trouble of walking back to pick it up, activation of quests without asking and providing background info is bad.

@slafko
Each to their own I guess.

Anyway, it’s kind of sad to see the game I’ve been waiting for since I bought GW1 in 2008 turning out to be such a disappointment. I know 3 people besides myself who have quit so far: my friend (who didn’t even get past level 40), my brother and the leader of the guild I was in at release.

What’s even worse is that all these issues could be easily fixed, but ArenaNet just doesn’t seem to care. They have their own schedule about the game and it doesn’t take into account the players’ concerns and complaints.

Filename.

Also, as an experiment, would anyone (that defends ArenaNet) care to remember how many times you’ve told people to go back to World of Warcraft when they criticize Guild Wars 2, because you don’t want people that work towards new gear to play your game?

This whole thing is extremely ironic. Nothing in Guild Wars 1 or World of Warcraft comes close to this ‘end game’ dungeon design.

Picture speaks a thousand words.

The only reason you say there’s nothing to do at 80 but grind is because you have put some goal that you want to reach that is beyond clear all explorables. And that is exactly like what I said before.

All the games content ALL of it is doable with 0 grind. You can complete all story modes, you can complete all explorables, you can discover every zone, with never having to equip an exotic.

But because you have chosen a goal, let’s say it’s a certain dungeon armor set, you now want what is meant for players that you are not. That stuff is not for players like you. The entire game is available to you but these aesthetic items and weapons are not put in the game for everyone.

So don’t complain about a grind when you are willingly, of your own free will, choosing to get something that is meant to be grinded for.

Swagman.9013:

The only reason you say there’s nothing to do at 80 but grind is because you have put some goal that you want to reach that is beyond clear all explorables. And that is exactly like what I said before.

All the games content ALL of it is doable with 0 grind. You can complete all story modes, you can complete all explorables, you can discover every zone, with never having to equip an exotic.

But because you have chosen a goal, let’s say it’s a certain dungeon armor set, you now want what is meant for players that you are not. That stuff is not for players like you. The entire game is available to you but these aesthetic items and weapons are not put in the game for everyone.

So don’t complain about a grind when you are willingly, of your own free will, choosing to get something that is meant to be grinded for.

You know, I’m dead sick of being told something is not for me just because I’m not the right player. That’s a mentality specific to WoW. You’re not a hardcore raider so no purples for you. How about no? How about you take that mentality back where it belongs and stop picking on me just because I want Guild Wars 2 to be the game that they promised it would be?

The thing one must always remember about game developers – and I mean all game developers, everywhere – is that while they may truly, sincerely, honestly mean what they are saying about their game while they are in the actual physical process of saying it, once it has been said all bets are off.

If, by way of example, a game developer assures the players that there will be nothing whatsoever in the game that is blue, and upon the launch of the game three minutes later there is nothing in the game that is not blue, it is not that the game developer lied. It is just that the situation changed in the interim and adjustments had to be made.

Reality is thermoplastic, not thermosetting.

It is the nature of the beast. Know this, embrace it, and it may help to assuage the inevitable sting of future game-related disappointment.

Gauradan.8361:

- a fully-branching, personalized storyline: false. The storyline starts out as a diversity of choices and possibilities, then it adds up into 3 paths and finally into 1. You still get to choose between 2 missions at times, but these choices have no impact in the end. Everybody still kills the Eye of Zhaitan; everybody still helps Trahearne purify Orr, despite their choices. So, the story is not branching, but converging;

That’s just nitpicking. Compared to just about any game, there’s a lot more diversity to the ‘main story line’. In World of Kittencraft for example, the main story is exactly the same for every single character. In Guild Wars 2, you can make 2 identical characters and still have a main story that’s about 75% different. That’s a huge change to the MMO standard that has just a single, non varying main story. So wheter it’s branching, converging or some other literary term is really just arguing semantics.

Player choices do matter to the story, and though it may not be as huge as people were hoping for, but at least the difference exists. That in itself is a new thing.

Gauradan.8361:

To conclude, I’d like to say that, for this part I did not try to debate whether these grind are optional or not, or justifiable or not. I simply pointed out their existence, contrary to Colin Johanson’s statement in the manifesto.

Except in this particular case, you misunderstand the statement. A grind is, according to wikipedia definition, a ‘repetitive and boring series of simple actions’. The fact that most players define grinds as ‘anything that has to be repeated more than once or twice’ doesn’t mean that this game is in fact, much less grindy than similar games.

For example, sure, you need a lot of Karma…but you don’t have to do the same event hundreds of times. You can travel across the world of Tyria and do a hundred different events a day. So if you want to grind that one event, you can…but you’re in no way obligated to do so.

The same thing with dungeons. Rather than having to go through a specific sequence of events, ArenaNet added 3 different paths you can choose when doing the dungeon. That’s combatting the grind right there.

You can gather all types of crafting materials on any of your alts, in many different areas. Instead of having to stick to a particular zone on your ‘only character with mining’.

And last but not least, you’re not in any way required to do any of it. You don’t NEED exotic armor to participate in any part of the game (PvP just grants you a set that equalizes all players). And even if you do want it, there’s various ways to get it, be it crafting, karma, dungeons or questing.

The key difference with grinding in Guild Wars 2 is that where in other games, you’re limited to a a single thing, in this game you can actually choose how you’re going to the top. And they’ve tried to make every path as much fun as they could, reducing the grind by as much as they could manage without ruïning the game.

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. "

Did they even play their own dungeons or are they just omitted from this statement? They are as absolute a grind fest as grind fests come.

Ok let’s give you your game. Every DE gives you 45k karma, each dungeon run gives you 500 tokens and 30g reward. Everyone’s happy now Yay we get our dungeon set we wanted, yea I crafted that thing I wanted or I have my full karma set.

Alright now what’s your answer when a week later the forums are filled with, games too easy, no reason to rerun dungeons, I have every set of gear and I’m bored, why should I still play if I have everything.

“well obviously you exaggerated those rewards I wouldn’t give 500 tokens a run only 200.”

So that delays the scenario by an extra week? What timeframe is preferable to YOU to have a full exotic set of gear? And then what are you going to do?

“well obviously Anet needs to be updating content”

Ok so adding in completely grind free content, Hrmm that should help for about 3 days before everyone chews it up and is asking for more.

“well the should release more”

Boy that’s a lot of work to be giving out new updates every week or so, guess they will have to add a sub fee to pay their devs for all that work

“well gg just like every other greedy kitten company out there wanting me to pay for everything”

ThiBash.5634:

That’s just nitpicking.

No it isn’t.

Everyone in GW2 has the same story. It starts out different, you meet different NPCs, and then suddenly the game turns in to Trahearne’s personal blog, and none of your story mattered, there is no reason to go and hang out in your personal instance to see if anything has changed, none of the people you rescued or talked to matter any more and the 1-mission-NPCs that come along and ‘bravely die’ are forgotten. I don’t even remember who half of the NPCs were, the ones from the Vigil who got turned in to zombies. They didn’t leave a lasting impression on me enough to remember who they are 5 minutes later. Now everyone has killed the elder dragon, and all we are doing is trying to farm millions of karma getting 300 per event doing the stuff that they mocked in other MMOs.

Ree: The boss respawns 10 minutes later, the game doesn’t care that you’re there
Guild Wars 2: The event restarts 10 minutes later, the game doesn’t care that you’re there

@Swagman Why are you putting words into my mouth? I never said it should be that easy. However, 100 runs per piece of karma armor is absurd. 20-30 would have been more acceptable. That way you’d have felt that you were working towards a reachable goal.

What if “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2” talks about this grind: " — the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff."

We really can’t know IMO. There’s this possibility they did not say that there would be no grind at all.

Zen

No it isn’t.

Yes it is. That’s like saying the main characters of Lord of the Rings all experienced the same story because they all ended up in Mordor.

Of course the ending is the same. That’s the whole point. They never said the whole story should be different, and it doesn’t have to be.

And at the very least, you have much more influence on things than you did in World of Kittencraft.

There is no grind required. You can have the same abilities and stats as everyone else without grinding anything.

Shard.4791:

What if “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2” talks about this grind: " — the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff."

We really can’t know IMO. There’s this possibility they did not say that there would be no grind at all.

Even if it was meant that way, what was it that they innovated? That would mean they simply swapped the grinds between them.

Gauradan.8361:

They might just as well say there’s no need to play the game after hitting level 80, because grind is all that level 80 is about. Then, if I’m not required to play the game, whatever did I buy it for?

There’s alts, there are jumping puzzles. There’s PvP, there is going out to experience all Dynamic events. There’s even Keg Brawling, upcoming content, Polymock and who knows what else is in the works. Max level isn’t the end of the game, it’s the beginning. It was that way in Guild Wars 1 and it’s still that way in Guild Wars 2.

The game has just begun. If you can only grind because you have nothing else to do, then maybe you should spend less time ingame.

Ok 20 to 30 runs you just gave the game life roughly 2 weeks (and thats being generous) before everyone has their whatever they want.

What’s your solution for after those 2 weeks when every player is standing around LA in their fancy gear and talking about how bored they are and that they don’t want to pvp.

Porky.5021:

There is no grind required. You can have the same abilities and stats as everyone else without grinding anything.

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2, no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun.”

Can I have the dungeon armor that I like without grinding? No.
Why are dungeons a grind? Because they’re not fun.
Why aren’t they fun? Because they’re poorly designed.
Why are they poorly designed? Because the difficulty is artificially created via huge health pools and huge damage on mobs, instead of clever mechanics.

Oh, so I can’t have that dungeon armor then? Nope.

You can’t just say that to people. ArenaNet need people to buy their expansions to keep the game going. How do you get people to buy expansions? By making the previous content entertaining.

ThiBash.5634:

Zen

No it isn’t.

Yes it is. That’s like saying the main characters of Lord of the Rings all experienced the same story because they all ended up in Mordor.

Of course the ending is the same. That’s the whole point. They never said the whole story should be different, and it doesn’t have to be.

And at the very least, you have much more influence on things than you did in World of Kittencraft.

In WoW, starting with WotLK, different stages of a quest meant you saw the world differently.

Here, when I entered Orr, my story quest was on the stage where the Pact was just forming. How then was it that Fort Trinity was already built? So how exactly do my choices and personal story affect the world?

At least learn about question progression in WoW before saying you have less influence there than here.