Guild Wars 2

Snowy.9580:

Xenon.4537:

Mickey.4207:

One of my favorite lines from Manifesto..
“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, Hey! I swung a sword AGAIN!…….We just don’t want players to grind”

Even after such a long time it still cracks me up. Now people like OP can try and clarify what devs actually meant by things they said in manifesto but one can not change the fact that it was pure exaggeration and nothing but a tool to create hype to the point where it was completely dishonest.

Ok, yes it was a tool to create hype, you’re absolutely right about that, but backhanding it by saying it’s dishonest is just silly. Point me to any advertizement that is 100% honest. I think the problem is people approaching the manifesto with the same attitude as approaching a dictionary or encyclopedia. This was just a video of some human beings trying to hype up their product that they were very excited about, not scientific documentation to be analyzed. People take the manifesto way too seriously, and take this perceived “betrayal” way too personally.

So what you are saying is: They lied, plain and simple! They made something up to “fool” us out of our cash by lying and saying the game was something it wasn’t.
Thank you, thank you so much.
Now, if these other blinded by the light players could only see this, but alas I fear they are to far gone, I blame the water, there is something in it in some countries! /honest

They didn’t lie. And I didn’t agree to the fact that it was JUST advertising. But it was advertising…it was promotion. Everything a company puts out is promotion. That’s logical.

But there’s a difference between lying and putting something in the best light. And in any event, I still say that people misintepreted the gist of what was being said. There’s plenty of evidence to support it.

If you choose to ignore that evidence, it doesn’t cease to exist.

Pawstruck.9708:

Do people really think we’re all just making it up? That the people who take “we don’t want you to grind” as being true for this game are just fanboys or work for Arenanet? Is that a joke? Really? If so, I’ll just leave these forums and not come back, because at this point language and conversation are dead. Conversely, it needs to be acknowledged that the people who feel lied-to or cheated have a valid perspective in some ways and make some good points.

I have the feeling that most people (other than Vayne) realize that the game we got isn’t exactly what the Manifesto offered. In your topic, for example, didn’t you mention how ArenaNet had adapted their game to the idea that there are players who are seeking grind, and mentioned you grind a bit yourself?

This topic is a bad example of the discussions about the Manifesto, since it’s mostly Vayne pretending he’s right while ignoring the evidence proving otherwise. But I think the real conflict isn’t whether the Manifesto was right or wrong, rather if the Manifesto should have been right or not – if a GW2 without grind would have been better than what we currently have. Those who seek the grind are happy with it being a part of GW2, so they don’t really care about the Manifesto. Those who wish GW2 had no grind are obviously unhappy with the way the game is, and so they care about how the Manifesto is not true.

Erasculio.2914:

Pawstruck.9708:

Do people really think we’re all just making it up? That the people who take “we don’t want you to grind” as being true for this game are just fanboys or work for Arenanet? Is that a joke? Really? If so, I’ll just leave these forums and not come back, because at this point language and conversation are dead. Conversely, it needs to be acknowledged that the people who feel lied-to or cheated have a valid perspective in some ways and make some good points.

I have the feeling that most people (other than Vayne) realize that the game we got isn’t exactly what the Manifesto offered. In your topic, for example, didn’t you mention how ArenaNet had adapted their game to the idea that there are players who are seeking grind, and mentioned you grind a bit yourself?

This topic is a bad example of the discussions about the Manifesto, since it’s mostly Vayne pretending he’s right while ignoring the evidence proving otherwise. But I think the real conflict isn’t whether the Manifesto was right or wrong, rather if the Manifesto should have been right or not – if a GW2 without grind would have been better than what we currently have. Those who seek the grind are happy with it being a part of GW2, so they don’t really care about the Manifesto. Those who wish GW2 had no grind are obviously unhappy with the way the game is, and so they care about how the Manifesto is not true.

I think that’s probably right. Vayne is hung up on what the manifesto actually said. Which is probably not what most people inferred from reading it.

For example, does this statement “It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment” located at the end of the “rethinking combat” section mean only that this “basic design philosophy” applies just to combat or does it imply something broader?

I think we need another 5 pages on what they implied.

Snowy.9580:

Xenon.4537:

Mickey.4207:

One of my favorite lines from Manifesto..
“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, Hey! I swung a sword AGAIN!…….We just don’t want players to grind”

Even after such a long time it still cracks me up. Now people like OP can try and clarify what devs actually meant by things they said in manifesto but one can not change the fact that it was pure exaggeration and nothing but a tool to create hype to the point where it was completely dishonest.

Ok, yes it was a tool to create hype, you’re absolutely right about that, but backhanding it by saying it’s dishonest is just silly. Point me to any advertizement that is 100% honest. I think the problem is people approaching the manifesto with the same attitude as approaching a dictionary or encyclopedia. This was just a video of some human beings trying to hype up their product that they were very excited about, not scientific documentation to be analyzed. People take the manifesto way too seriously, and take this perceived “betrayal” way too personally.

So what you are saying is: They lied, plain and simple! They made something up to “fool” us out of our cash by lying and saying the game was something it wasn’t.
Thank you, thank you so much.
Now, if these other blinded by the light players could only see this, but alas I fear they are to far gone, I blame the water, there is something in it in some countries! /honest

They didn’t lie. As someone above said, they were simply ambiguous. You’re implying they had some insidious motive to deceive people. They were just trying to hype up and promote their product, same as any other company, in any other industry, selling any other product. This doesn’t mean that businesses have a masterpiece conspiracy to pull the wool over consumer’s eyes for sick pleasure and profit. All it means is you should use a little common sense and take things with a grain of salt. Don’t read in to things that aren’t there.

Erasculio.2914:

This topic is a bad example of the discussions about the Manifesto, since it’s mostly Vayne pretending he’s right while ignoring the evidence proving otherwise.

This statement is a prime example of how useless manifesto threads are. There is no good example of a manifesto discussion, because they are always the same. There’s #TeamManifesto and #TeamAnetLied and neither one of them give two kittens what the other has to say.

#TeamManifesto tries to put the often-quoted lines of the manifesto into context, and defend the game’s design as not requiring grind to reach the “fun” parts. Their problem is that they look too much like fanboys, and is obsessed with finding flaws in #TeamAnetLied’s logic (thus kitten ing them off).

#TeamAnetLied tries to point out that certain lines are misleading out of context and is generally unhappy with the state of the game. Their problem is that they are intolerant of other opinions, and take things out of context. They take #TeamManifesto’s analysis as a personal attack, and react accordingly.

Either way, discussion is useless because no one wants to be wrong.

Vayne.8563:

They didn’t lie. And I didn’t agree to the fact that it was JUST advertising. But it was advertising…it was promotion. Everything a company puts out is promotion. That’s logical.

But there’s a difference between lying and putting something in the best light. And in any event, I still say that people misintepreted the gist of what was being said. There’s plenty of evidence to support it.

“Putting things in the best light” is going to be associated with “spin” in this day and age. Spin is seen as something negative, unless you’re the one doing the spinning. Is it lying? Well, spin doctors are going to avoid the outright lie if there is a potential to be caught lying. However, the recipient of the spin is going to feel lied to, whether that was the case or not.

Take Mike O’Brien’s statement that, “Ascended gear was planned before launch.” Is this true? We’ll probably never know. Was it spin? We can infer the statement came as a result of accusations that Ascended was a knee-jerk reaction to the complaints about “nothing to work for,” but we are unlikely to ever know if this statement was spin — which, if it is, makes it a perfect example of what spin can do.

IndigoSundown.5419:

a perfect example of what spin can do

“Meanwhile, back in Divinity’s Reach, Logan Thackeray and his band, Logan’s Runners, were joined onstage by a jubilant Ellen Kiel who performed a blazing rendition of asuran singing sensation Sylvvya’s cross-cultural hit Brand New Golem. To everyone’s surprise Ms. Kiel sang like a bird. Her amazing performance literally brought the entire crowd to its feet!”

All true! Every word!

jubilant = drunk out of her mind
blazing = she knocked over a torch and set Logan’s guitar on fire
sang like a bird = the bird was a turkey vulture
amazing = that she didn’t fall off the stage
brought the entire crowd to its feet = as they ran for the exits

Tachenon.5270:

IndigoSundown.5419:

a perfect example of what spin can do

“Meanwhile, back in Divinity’s Reach, Logan Thackeray and his band, Logan’s Runners, were joined onstage by a jubilant Ellen Kiel who performed a blazing rendition of asuran singing sensation Sylvvya’s cross-cultural hit Brand New Golem. To everyone’s surprise Ms. Kiel sang like a bird. Her amazing performance literally brought the entire crowd to its feet!”

All true! Every word!

jubilant = drunk out of her mind
blazing = she knocked over a torch and set Logan’s guitar on fire
sang like a bird = the bird was a turkey vulture
amazing = that she didn’t fall off the stage
brought the entire crowd to its feet = as they ran for the exits

Well played! There’s a future for you in public relations.

Xenon.4537:

This statement is a prime example of how useless manifesto threads are. There is no good example of a manifesto discussion, because they are always the same. There’s #TeamManifesto and #TeamAnetLied and neither one of them give two kittens what the other has to say.

Again, that doesn’t really matter. The issue isn’t whether the Manifesto has been shown to be false or not – it has, but I have no idea why Vayne has taken such a keen interest on this.

The more important issue is of why. And if it has been worth it.

Vayne has a much more interesting argument, in which he claims (paraphrasing him a bit) that it’s a pity there is grind in the game, but ArenaNet’s choices were either to add grind or to see their game fail. Using the original Guild Wars as an example of a successful MMORPG without grind can be counter argumented by mentioning how today’s MMORPG landscape is very different from what it was 6 years ago, and how even the GW:EN expansion had a lot of grind.

That, IMO, is a much more nuanced discussion, in which there isn’t really a “right” or a “wrong”. Would GW2 have been as successful as it is if it had been a MMORPG completely without grind, similar to what the original Guild Wars was? Does the fact the “grind” wasn’t for more powerful gear make the current grind acceptable? But, if we assume the gate grind is bad, isn’t doing that grind the same as doing the gear grind, so both would be bad?

I’m not sure if grind isn’t simply accepted for the sake of complacency. Like your comment here:

Xenon.4537:

Ok, yes it was a tool to create hype, you’re absolutely right about that, but backhanding it by saying it’s dishonest is just silly. Point me to any advertizement that is 100% honest.

You are saying that the Manifesto was not honest, when you claim it was an advertizement and that no such thing is 100% honest – ergo, you are claiming the Manifesto is dishonest. But you are willing to accept that since it’s how all advertizements are, even if it’s a bad thing.

Isn’t it more or less the same with grind? I’m not sure people enjoy it, and it’s undeniable that GW2 has grind, but people accept it, often with the reason that no MMORPG is 100% grind free.

Erasculio.2914:

…

I think the real conflict isn’t whether the Manifesto was right or wrong, rather if the Manifesto should have been right or not – if a GW2 without grind would have been better than what we currently have. Those who seek the grind are happy with it being a part of GW2, so they don’t really care about the Manifesto. Those who wish GW2 had no grind are obviously unhappy with the way the game is, and so they care about how the Manifesto is not true.

I think this is an excellent point that should be received by all in the discussion.

The Manifesto kind of promised the moon, without realizing that nobody wants the moon anyway because it’s a big hunk of rock.

An MMORPG without a “grind” is one without progression. The genre is defined by working towards becoming more powerful, more unique, more beautiful, and etc. RPG’s without this sort of thing have no sense of character growth, and are really just adventure games.

With growth comes spikes and dips in progression. For instance, I want my T3 Cultural Armor on my Sylvari Thief. I think it looks awesome. I also think 100g is crazy for that armor set! But I recently purchased the shoulders, and they look great; in fact, it’s strange how much they change the silhouette of my character. I notice them all the time. Now, if I’d sat back and counted each gold piece, or run CoF 20 times to get it, then yes: I’d be bored. That would be a grind. But I get gold from all sorts of places, and I don’t sit there thinking “OMG 18g TO GO.” That’s silly. I just have, in the back of my mind, the idea that I’d like to save some gold to eventually buy the T3 set. When I buy a piece, that’s a spike. When I’m put back to 5g and have to earn more, that’s a dip. That’s how growth works.

What did people expect the game to look like, I wonder? A single-player game with infinite content? That’s unrealistic. To me, the Manifesto built up excitement for a game that was consistently and constantly fun (it is) with interesting dynamic events (they are) revolutionary combat (…meh, mostly) and a great story (total failure here!).

Everyone had different expectations, I think, but I wasn’t naive enough to think that this game would be KOTOR’s storyline + God of War’s combat + Uncharted’s atmosphere + World of Warcraft’s infinite content model.

Tachenon.5270:

IndigoSundown.5419:

a perfect example of what spin can do

“Meanwhile, back in Divinity’s Reach, Logan Thackeray and his band, Logan’s Runners, were joined onstage by a jubilant Ellen Kiel who performed a blazing rendition of asuran singing sensation Sylvvya’s cross-cultural hit Brand New Golem. To everyone’s surprise Ms. Kiel sang like a bird. Her amazing performance literally brought the entire crowd to its feet!”

All true! Every word!

jubilant = drunk out of her mind
blazing = she knocked over a torch and set Logan’s guitar on fire
sang like a bird = the bird was a turkey vulture
amazing = that she didn’t fall off the stage
brought the entire crowd to its feet = as they ran for the exits

Sounds like Monsters Inc.

TV Anchorman: If witnesses are to be believed, there has been a child security breach for the first time in monster history.

CDA Agent: We can neither confirm nor deny the presence of a human child here tonight.

Witness #1: Well the kid flew right over me and blasted a car with its laser vision.

Witness #2: I tried to get away from it, but he picked me up with his mind powers and shook me like a doll.

Witness #3: [has many eyes] It’s true! I saw the whole thing!

lol.

The Manifesto 1.0 holds true up until the point of sale on its initial release date. Everything else that happened after that have diverted away from Manifesto 1.0.

If we are to look at the recent game updates, one can loosely conclude that Anet is following a Manifesto 2.0.

Xenon.4537:

Snowy.9580:

Xenon.4537:

Mickey.4207:

One of my favorite lines from Manifesto..
“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, Hey! I swung a sword AGAIN!…….We just don’t want players to grind”

Even after such a long time it still cracks me up. Now people like OP can try and clarify what devs actually meant by things they said in manifesto but one can not change the fact that it was pure exaggeration and nothing but a tool to create hype to the point where it was completely dishonest.

Ok, yes it was a tool to create hype, you’re absolutely right about that, but backhanding it by saying it’s dishonest is just silly. Point me to any advertizement that is 100% honest. I think the problem is people approaching the manifesto with the same attitude as approaching a dictionary or encyclopedia. This was just a video of some human beings trying to hype up their product that they were very excited about, not scientific documentation to be analyzed. People take the manifesto way too seriously, and take this perceived “betrayal” way too personally.

So what you are saying is: They lied, plain and simple! They made something up to “fool” us out of our cash by lying and saying the game was something it wasn’t.
Thank you, thank you so much.
Now, if these other blinded by the light players could only see this, but alas I fear they are to far gone, I blame the water, there is something in it in some countries! /honest

They didn’t lie. As someone above said, they were simply ambiguous. You’re implying they had some insidious motive to deceive people. They were just trying to hype up and promote their product, same as any other company, in any other industry, selling any other product. This doesn’t mean that businesses have a masterpiece conspiracy to pull the wool over consumer’s eyes for sick pleasure and profit. All it means is you should use a little common sense and take things with a grain of salt. Don’t read in to things that aren’t there.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but what your saying is… that if someone, be it a company, dev, and/or player says something that turns out to be fake, or false and turns out to be untrue, then it is hype? Wow, next time the wife asks if I ate all the cake, I’m just gonna say “Well the cake was MASSIVE! It had chocolate, and cream and… You should have tried it! I licked the cream, I licked it again! HEY, I licked it again! The cake was awesome!”
Wife: Did you eat it? Me: Yes. Wife: Slaps me around the head!
You see what I did there?
Have fun!

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

They didn’t lie. And I didn’t agree to the fact that it was JUST advertising. But it was advertising…it was promotion. Everything a company puts out is promotion. That’s logical.

But there’s a difference between lying and putting something in the best light. And in any event, I still say that people misintepreted the gist of what was being said. There’s plenty of evidence to support it.

“Putting things in the best light” is going to be associated with “spin” in this day and age. Spin is seen as something negative, unless you’re the one doing the spinning. Is it lying? Well, spin doctors are going to avoid the outright lie if there is a potential to be caught lying. However, the recipient of the spin is going to feel lied to, whether that was the case or not.

Take Mike O’Brien’s statement that, “Ascended gear was planned before launch.” Is this true? We’ll probably never know. Was it spin? We can infer the statement came as a result of accusations that Ascended was a knee-jerk reaction to the complaints about “nothing to work for,” but we are unlikely to ever know if this statement was spin — which, if it is, makes it a perfect example of what spin can do.

I’m not saying they don’t spin stuff. But spin doesn’t have to be lie either. There are many reasons to spin things, and spin is something EVERYONE does.

If you want to see a movie and you want your wife to go with you, you put the movie in its best light. You sell it to her based on something she might like about the movie. I’ve done this before and she’d liked the movie. I didn’t lie about it. I simply sold it. In fact, we all sell stuff all the time. We call out sick to work and make ourselves sound worse than we actually feel so the boss thinks we’re more dedicated than we are. Does that mean we’re not dedicated.

Just because the word spin has developed a bad connotation, doesn’t mean spin is wrong. There are a lot of reasons why a company would use spin. For example, if you had to sell something to a jaded, non-reactive audience that is used to specific things in the genre, you’d almost have to spin stuff in order to make your point. This is particularly true in a 5 minute video. You can’t have any kind of depth in a 5 minute video. It’s called a teaser. It’s what movies do when they show coming attractions.

If a movie shows all the best stuff in the coming attractions and you go and see the movie and it’s not what you thought it was, those things are still in the movie. A bit of common sense is something people need to grow.

The manifesto showed the best side of things, because it would be stupid for Anet to make a video saying, yes we have these events, but they keep repeating. Anet, however, did say that later on, frequently and loudly.

Their intent in the manifesto was to entice. Their intent with everything that came after the manifesto was to educate.

In order to get someone to buy your merchandise you first have to get them through the door. In this case, through the door means getting you to look at more of what they’re talking about/showing.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Tachenon.5270:

IndigoSundown.5419:

a perfect example of what spin can do

“Meanwhile, back in Divinity’s Reach, Logan Thackeray and his band, Logan’s Runners, were joined onstage by a jubilant Ellen Kiel who performed a blazing rendition of asuran singing sensation Sylvvya’s cross-cultural hit Brand New Golem. To everyone’s surprise Ms. Kiel sang like a bird. Her amazing performance literally brought the entire crowd to its feet!”

All true! Every word!

jubilant = drunk out of her mind
blazing = she knocked over a torch and set Logan’s guitar on fire
sang like a bird = the bird was a turkey vulture
amazing = that she didn’t fall off the stage
brought the entire crowd to its feet = as they ran for the exits

Sounds like Monsters Inc.

TV Anchorman: If witnesses are to be believed, there has been a child security breach for the first time in monster history.

CDA Agent: We can neither confirm nor deny the presence of a human child here tonight.

Witness #1: Well the kid flew right over me and blasted a car with its laser vision.

Witness #2: I tried to get away from it, but he picked me up with his mind powers and shook me like a doll.

Witness #3: [has many eyes] It’s true! I saw the whole thing!

lol.

The Manifesto 1.0 holds true up until the point of sale on its initial release date. Everything else that happened after that have diverted away from Manifesto 1.0.

If we are to look at the recent game updates, one can loosely conclude that Anet is following a Manifesto 2.0.

Based on what? What part of the manifesto has changed.

The only argument people can/will come up with (after the clarification) is that the game does in fact have grind. In spite of the fact that Anet said pre launch there was stuff to grind for and there was stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1. It’s still voluntary grind.

And the lines about grind in the manifesto don’t refer to gear grind. As long as people think it does (with no evidence whatsoever) they’ll continue to be incorrect.

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

TheDaiBish.9735:

http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/anet-blog-mmo-manifesto-reactions/

Partial interview

TL:DR – When they were talking about bosses not returning 10 mins later, they were referring to Personal Story bosses.

Which makes their point pointless because there are plenty of other games out there where storyline bosses don’t respawn either. Somthing called instancing, which is how it’s done in GW2 and also in many other games. No wonder people read more into it since they were being all excited about an exciting new thing, which was in fact already commonplace in newer games.

It’s not pointless, you’re simply missing the point.

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story. What does that mean?

In WoW, a human warrior is a human warrior. All human warriors start in the same place and run through the same quests. You’re not a poor human warrior or a rich one. You don’t have a personal story. All MMOs have stories. Not all of them have YOUR story. It’s pretty simple.

All Humans start in the same place in GW2 too. There aren’t many different options in the personal story, either. The combination of the personal story’s choices are many, but I think it was summed up to 33 roads to take, more or less.

- Ree Soesbee, when saying that “Everyone around you is doing the same thing you’re doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later…” was she not referring to quests and the Open World content of other MMO’s? Yes, I believe she were.
- Of course the bosses don’t respawn in the Personal Story. It’s not replayable and it’s instanced so everything in there isn’t respawning.
- The Open World content should not be compared to the instanced Personal Story. And I mean Open World content of any MMO.
- Even when playing an MMO, at least to me, the quests have been a personal story to me. Didn’t care that everyone else was doing the same thing I was (in GW2 they just removed the players through instanced content. Now you can’t see that everyone else is doing the same thing you are). It was a personal story still, or it was a compelling story (not so much for GW2. Still love the game though, but PS needs an overhaul).

Sinifair.1026:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

TheDaiBish.9735:

http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/anet-blog-mmo-manifesto-reactions/

Partial interview

TL:DR – When they were talking about bosses not returning 10 mins later, they were referring to Personal Story bosses.

Which makes their point pointless because there are plenty of other games out there where storyline bosses don’t respawn either. Somthing called instancing, which is how it’s done in GW2 and also in many other games. No wonder people read more into it since they were being all excited about an exciting new thing, which was in fact already commonplace in newer games.

It’s not pointless, you’re simply missing the point.

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story. What does that mean?

In WoW, a human warrior is a human warrior. All human warriors start in the same place and run through the same quests. You’re not a poor human warrior or a rich one. You don’t have a personal story. All MMOs have stories. Not all of them have YOUR story. It’s pretty simple.

All Humans start in the same place in GW2 too. There aren’t many different options in the personal story, either. The combination of the personal story’s choices are many, but I think it was summed up to 33 roads to take, more or less.

- Ree Soesbee, when saying that “Everyone around you is doing the same thing you’re doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later…” was she not referring to quests and the Open World content of other MMO’s? Yes, I believe she were.
- Of course the bosses don’t respawn in the Personal Story. It’s not replayable and it’s instanced so everything in there isn’t respawning.
- The Open World content should not be compared to the instanced Personal Story. And I mean Open World content of any MMO.
- Even when playing an MMO, at least to me, the quests have been a personal story to me. Didn’t care that everyone else was doing the same thing I was (in GW2 they just removed the players through instanced content. Now you can’t see that everyone else is doing the same thing you are). It was a personal story still, or it was a compelling story (not so much for GW2. Still love the game though, but PS needs an overhaul).

Anet has said straight out, right after the manifesto came out, that Ree was talking about the personal story. Period. There’s no way you can argue this, because it was clarified. It’s why Anet published their clarification.

And yes, humans start in one place, but not everyone has to play a human and humans have 3 starting options by 3 starting options. In other words, there are 3 level 1-10 personal story paths for humans and 3 12-20 personal story paths for humans.

More than any other game gives you as far as I know anyway. And certainly more than any other game when the manifesto was published.

Nothing you’ve said here changes what Ree was talking about. Why was it news 3 years ago? Because no one had different instanced progression in ANY MMO prior to it.

Vayne.8563:

Unless of course you can explain why the paragraph with grind ends with the words “we want to change the way people view COMBAT” and starts with a description of the kind of grind they talk about.

Yeah, and when he throws that in at the end, it jars. It clashes. It derails. It doesn’t fit. Why? Because he starts off talking about aesthetics, (look at the art, play the combat = never seen anything like that) but then he goes off on a tangent about fun tasks and swinging swords (too bad he didn’t mention a juke box, that would have been cool) and boring grind to get to the fun stuff, and then BAM: we want to change the way people view combat. One could just as easily (and adamantly) argue, I suppose, that he is talking about how combat looks, since he says specifically ‘view combat’ and earlier he was talking about how when you play it you’ll say you’ve never seen anything like that.

It’s really quite simple: they are devs, not spokesmodels, and they really need new copywriters.

“You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you.”

You say you’re a writer and editor. Does that sentence not make you cringe?

“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.”

Egad! Strunk & White are rolling over in their graves.

Vayne.8563:

Sinifair.1026:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

TheDaiBish.9735:

http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/anet-blog-mmo-manifesto-reactions/

Partial interview

TL:DR – When they were talking about bosses not returning 10 mins later, they were referring to Personal Story bosses.

Which makes their point pointless because there are plenty of other games out there where storyline bosses don’t respawn either. Somthing called instancing, which is how it’s done in GW2 and also in many other games. No wonder people read more into it since they were being all excited about an exciting new thing, which was in fact already commonplace in newer games.

It’s not pointless, you’re simply missing the point.

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story. What does that mean?

In WoW, a human warrior is a human warrior. All human warriors start in the same place and run through the same quests. You’re not a poor human warrior or a rich one. You don’t have a personal story. All MMOs have stories. Not all of them have YOUR story. It’s pretty simple.

All Humans start in the same place in GW2 too. There aren’t many different options in the personal story, either. The combination of the personal story’s choices are many, but I think it was summed up to 33 roads to take, more or less.

- Ree Soesbee, when saying that “Everyone around you is doing the same thing you’re doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later…” was she not referring to quests and the Open World content of other MMO’s? Yes, I believe she were.
- Of course the bosses don’t respawn in the Personal Story. It’s not replayable and it’s instanced so everything in there isn’t respawning.
- The Open World content should not be compared to the instanced Personal Story. And I mean Open World content of any MMO.
- Even when playing an MMO, at least to me, the quests have been a personal story to me. Didn’t care that everyone else was doing the same thing I was (in GW2 they just removed the players through instanced content. Now you can’t see that everyone else is doing the same thing you are). It was a personal story still, or it was a compelling story (not so much for GW2. Still love the game though, but PS needs an overhaul).

Anet has said straight out, right after the manifesto came out, that Ree was talking about the personal story. Period. There’s no way you can argue this, because it was clarified. It’s why Anet published their clarification.

And yes, humans start in one place, but not everyone has to play a human and humans have 3 starting options by 3 starting options. In other words, there are 3 level 1-10 personal story paths for humans and 3 12-20 personal story paths for humans.

More than any other game gives you as far as I know anyway. And certainly more than any other game when the manifesto was published.

Nothing you’ve said here changes what Ree was talking about. Why was it news 3 years ago? Because no one had different instanced progression in ANY MMO prior to it.

I know how GW2 works, and we have all heard what you said about Ree.
- What I’m saying is that it was a stupid move to compare instanced Personal Story with quests and Open World content of other MMO’s.
Clarify this, then: When Ree said that people we meet in the personal story, who remembers us and whom we’ll meet again… where in the Personal Story is that? Our buddy in the start of humans’ story suddenly disappears, charrs’ warband disappears, etc.

I’m just yankin’ ya right now, but seriously, they said a lot of things in the manifesto that was make belief.

Personally, I’d rather have one well thought out storyline with characters that were serious and a story that would be serious, sometimes amusing and other times sad like they did in GW1. I enjoyed the story of GW1, even though some people say that there were crappy storylines, I enjoyed it all the way.
- GW2 does not do that at any rate, and I wonder why they are having a hard time making compelling storylines when it seemed so easy for them in GW1.

When it comes to clarification on the Manifesto, I believe they should’ve thought a lot of things through before stating them as they did.
- I agree with you, though, that it is pointless to discuss the manifesto at this point.
I hope, however, that they go back to it and look at what their goals were when they made it, sort of as a guideline to what they should do next or how they can improve the aspects there were supposed to provide certain aspects of the manifesto.

- Wouldn’t you like them to do that yourself, go back and try to fulfill their manifesto? It was what made me want to play it, because the mindset behind the manifesto seemed awesome.

Vayne.8563:

Sure we’ve had this conversation in previous threads. End of the world time. The problem is, most of the forums are repeat threads. A good percentage anyway. So saying that this thread is repeating what was said before means little.

In fact, most forum threads are repeat threads from other forums from other games. We should have open world dueling was a thread in every game forum that didn’t have it I can think of. Same with open world PvP. Same was imbalance of professions. Some with not enough end game content.

Maybe we should ban every thread the repeats stuff and have like one post. Because that’s what you’d end up with.

As for the rest of it, it’s clear to me you don’t get me and frankly that’s fine. You think that you have the moral high ground because you don’t like the way I say things. Well, I dont’ particularly like the way you say things either. The difference is, I’m not the one complaining about it, or singling you our, or anyone else.

What I see on these forums is more akin to bullying than it is to constructive criticism. And it’s okay if you all want to gang up on me, because you can’t affect me in any significant way.

And lest you think this is just my opinion, there are quite a few people who think I’m bullied on these forums and wonder why I put up with it. I always tell them the same thing.

Because forum posters can’t hurt me.

My stance here has nothing to do with moral high grounds. The problem I have is not the actual opinion you have (different as it may be) but the way you present it. You wield terms like truth and majorities as if you could claim them….but you cannot. You quote generalities to avoid specifics. Each time I call you on a specific item you do this. You never actually answer something, you just retort, deflect or whatever. I actually really wanted to know what you meant with some stuff, but you can’t stop hiding behind those deflections.

“Quite a few people” think you’re being bullied? How many is quite a few? This is my point. What does that mean? It’s such a vague reference, that it could mean 5 as well kitten.

I just don’t like you talking as if you know something that you cannot actually know. And again you’ve clearly avoided that point of it yet again. That tells me enough.

Suppose I wished you were just honest about your opinion instead of wrapping it in all kinds of vague, unsubstantiable references. Nobody’s perfect and it can’t always be helped but I a do not care for people who make a sport out of it, intentionally or not.

I’ve just thrown stuff you said yourself against you and you simply dodge. If you dodge your own statements, that tells me something.

If you get the feeling that I am singling you out, perhaps you shouldn’t account for half the posts in this forum (yes that’s an exaggeration), because you do post a heck of a lot…it’s kinda funny that you think people single you out when you post that much. By the time I get to my next reply you’ve already made multiple posts in the same thread or something like that.

After all is said and done, notwithstanding your efforts, I still think the manifesto was a rather deceitful piece of marketing. Clarifications of any kind do not change that.

Vayne.8563:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The Manifesto 1.0 holds true up until the point of sale on its initial release date. Everything else that happened after that have diverted away from Manifesto 1.0.

If we are to look at the recent game updates, one can loosely conclude that Anet is following a Manifesto 2.0.

Based on what? What part of the manifesto has changed.

The only argument people can/will come up with (after the clarification) is that the game does in fact have grind. In spite of the fact that Anet said pre launch there was stuff to grind for and there was stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1. It’s still voluntary grind.

And the lines about grind in the manifesto don’t refer to gear grind. As long as people think it does (with no evidence whatsoever) they’ll continue to be incorrect.

Fractal of the Mist did not exist in Manifesto 1.0 and this is the main source of grinding for gear, Ascended gears to be exact.

Living Story did not exist in Manifesto 1.0 and this one brought forth a lot grinding most of which under the 2-4 weeks deadlines.

Achievement reward did not exist in Manifesto 1.0 either, also a source of gear grinding because reaching certain point in the achievements grants Badges that you can exchange for gears in WvW.

Champion dropping exotics did not exist in Manifesto 1.0 and now I see players camping champions because they either want the gear or the skin of the weapon. In my server, there’s a whole bunch of players camping the Bandit Champion for a chance to pick up the new Rapier skin.

As I said in my previous post;

If we are to look at the recent game updates, one can loosely conclude that Anet is following a Manifesto 2.0.

Traditional MMOs has grinding that GW2 now also have. Tradition MMO has spawn camping that GW2 now also have.

If the Manifesto 1.0 is to be believe now, then Anet is diverting from their own philosophy. Manifesto 1.0 is only true when they were describing GW2 before launch. Everything else that is happening after launch follows a different set of beliefs, so it’s hard to believe that Anet still hold on to the philosophy shown in Manifesto 1.0.

What part of the Manifesto 1.0 that is no longer true now?

Colin Johanson: “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.”

Per my examples above, this is no longer true. One example that completely falsified this statement from Colin is the recent boss fights starting from Molten Facility. These boss fights are grindy because these boss has the ability to insta-kill players and most of them are based on luck.

Are the boss fights grindy? Yes.
Is it enjoyable and fun? No.

Ree Soesbee: “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.”

In the Personal Story, it is arguable who the real “hero” is. Sure other players are not there to take the glory from me but Traherne and the Destiny’s Edge was there and has taken the glory. I was simply Traherne’s personal bodyguard. Even in the core structure of the game Ree has described something that did not came true in the Personal Story.

Probably the extent of my heroic deeds are only up until I was branded the “Hero of Shaemoor” :/

Ree Soesbee: “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. You affect things around you in a very permanent way.”

This is true in Manifesto 1.0 but no longer true today. As I have written above, GW2 now has grind and spawn camping just like the “MMO everyone else” had built.

Ree Soesbee: “…The most important thing in any game should be the player…”

In Manifesto 1.0, I can believe this to be true, but the recent updates seems to suggest that other things are more important that the players.

ANet’s philosophy has shifted and evolved. Manifesto 1.0 was a good starting point but it’s evident looking at the recent updates that they no longer hold on to many of those beliefs.

Vayne.8563:

Except that the manifesto didn’t mention progression at all. It’s incorrect to suggest that it did. Nor did it mention vertical or horizontal progression.

There were dev mentions about all grind being only for looks, never for stats. Devs tried to get out of it later by claiming that the “1000 hours” mentioned should be taken literally, and not figuratively. The same approach has been taken to everything else in the Manifesto and previous dev statements – twisting the wording, or going for strictly literal interpretation, while fully abandoning the spirit of what has been said.

All your defence of Manifesto is also based on those methods, by the way. You keep saying that there’s nothing wrong with Manifesto, as long as the words used can be creatively redefined to match the new situation, even if the spirit of original message is long lost. And it is lost, no matter how hard you might try to twist the wording.

Astralporing.1957:

There were dev mentions about all grind being only for looks, never for stats. Devs tried to get out of it later by claiming that the “1000 hours” mentioned should be taken literally, and not figuratively. The same approach has been taken to everything else in the Manifesto and previous dev statements – twisting the wording, or going for strictly literal interpretation, while fully abandoning the spirit of what has been said.

All your defence of Manifesto is also based on those methods, by the way. You keep saying that there’s nothing wrong with Manifesto, as long as the words used can be creatively redefined to match the new situation, even if the spirit of original message is long lost. And it is lost, no matter how hard you might try to twist the wording.

Developers on Guild Wars 2 Endgame 8 min in they start talking about legendaries at 10 min they explicitly state you get no game play advantage and its just for prestige

The earliest date I can find for the manifesto is Aug 10, 2010. The clarification on the blog was Aug 13, 2010. So why do people keep claiming that the manifesto means one thing when those points were clarified only 3 days later nearly 3 years ago as to what they meant?

It’s like the trailer to Iron Man 3. Wow Warren Ellis’s Extremis and The Mandarin in one movie. It’ll be AWESOME! And a mighty Nelson Ha ha! to you all. So we ended up with a movie that had very little to do with what we thought it was going to be like. And who’s fault was that? US for assuming anything other than the Extremis story as nothing but an outline and let’s not even go there with what was done to The Mandarin. While I’m at it the new X-Men movie will not be as epic as the comic arc and the Superman/Batman movie won’t be as epic as The Dark Night Returns.

Your problem is taking a piece of edited down marketing fluff and interpret it though your wants and desires and then become angry when reality disagrees with your fantasy.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Sure we’ve had this conversation in previous threads. End of the world time. The problem is, most of the forums are repeat threads. A good percentage anyway. So saying that this thread is repeating what was said before means little.

In fact, most forum threads are repeat threads from other forums from other games. We should have open world dueling was a thread in every game forum that didn’t have it I can think of. Same with open world PvP. Same was imbalance of professions. Some with not enough end game content.

Maybe we should ban every thread the repeats stuff and have like one post. Because that’s what you’d end up with.

As for the rest of it, it’s clear to me you don’t get me and frankly that’s fine. You think that you have the moral high ground because you don’t like the way I say things. Well, I dont’ particularly like the way you say things either. The difference is, I’m not the one complaining about it, or singling you our, or anyone else.

What I see on these forums is more akin to bullying than it is to constructive criticism. And it’s okay if you all want to gang up on me, because you can’t affect me in any significant way.

And lest you think this is just my opinion, there are quite a few people who think I’m bullied on these forums and wonder why I put up with it. I always tell them the same thing.

Because forum posters can’t hurt me.

My stance here has nothing to do with moral high grounds. The problem I have is not the actual opinion you have (different as it may be) but the way you present it. You wield terms like truth and majorities as if you could claim them….but you cannot. You quote generalities to avoid specifics. Each time I call you on a specific item you do this. You never actually answer something, you just retort, deflect or whatever. I actually really wanted to know what you meant with some stuff, but you can’t stop hiding behind those deflections.

“Quite a few people” think you’re being bullied? How many is quite a few? This is my point. What does that mean? It’s such a vague reference, that it could mean 5 as well kitten.

I just don’t like you talking as if you know something that you cannot actually know. And again you’ve clearly avoided that point of it yet again. That tells me enough.

Suppose I wished you were just honest about your opinion instead of wrapping it in all kinds of vague, unsubstantiable references. Nobody’s perfect and it can’t always be helped but I a do not care for people who make a sport out of it, intentionally or not.

I’ve just thrown stuff you said yourself against you and you simply dodge. If you dodge your own statements, that tells me something.

If you get the feeling that I am singling you out, perhaps you shouldn’t account for half the posts in this forum (yes that’s an exaggeration), because you do post a heck of a lot…it’s kinda funny that you think people single you out when you post that much. By the time I get to my next reply you’ve already made multiple posts in the same thread or something like that.

After all is said and done, notwithstanding your efforts, I still think the manifesto was a rather deceitful piece of marketing. Clarifications of any kind do not change that.

You’re entitled to your opinion. But English is English. It was my profession. And grind DOES mean to a whole lot of people, killing stuff to gain levels. That’s the first thing wikipedia says about it. That’s what a lot of people use it to mean.

Certainly saying gear grind from the manifesto is an impossible place to reach from the words there. In order to get that definition of grind, you literally have to ignore all the sentences around it. And that is NOT how English works.

As for how I present things, unless you’ve been here for the long haul, and seen the way things have deteriorated on these forums with regards to what people say, you’d perhaps understand my attitude a bit better.

It doesn’t matter that you don’t. But I’ve been fighting an uphill battle for a long time, and I’m still far less offensive than many who continue to post about me.

Shadow Blade.1324:

Astralporing.1957:

There were dev mentions about all grind being only for looks, never for stats. Devs tried to get out of it later by claiming that the “1000 hours” mentioned should be taken literally, and not figuratively. The same approach has been taken to everything else in the Manifesto and previous dev statements – twisting the wording, or going for strictly literal interpretation, while fully abandoning the spirit of what has been said.

All your defence of Manifesto is also based on those methods, by the way. You keep saying that there’s nothing wrong with Manifesto, as long as the words used can be creatively redefined to match the new situation, even if the spirit of original message is long lost. And it is lost, no matter how hard you might try to twist the wording.

Developers on Guild Wars 2 Endgame 8 min in they start talking about legendaries at 10 min they explicitly state you get no game play advantage and its just for prestige

And when they said that it was absolutely true. In fact, it’s still absolutely true to this day. You have the same stats on a legendary as you do on an exotic. It will only not be true when ascended weapons come out, or when they somehow modify them.

True doesn’t mean true forever. It was true when they wrote it. Every game changes. Can you name one MMO that hasn’t changed and evolved. What about the stuff that they said one thing and was later changed on a positive note. Anet said there would be no way to change eye color…said it straight out…and there is. But no one claims they lied about it. The game evolved.

So a three year old document says something, that may not be 100% true 3 years later….it still doesn’t mean Anet lied.

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Sure we’ve had this conversation in previous threads. End of the world time. The problem is, most of the forums are repeat threads. A good percentage anyway. So saying that this thread is repeating what was said before means little.

In fact, most forum threads are repeat threads from other forums from other games. We should have open world dueling was a thread in every game forum that didn’t have it I can think of. Same with open world PvP. Same was imbalance of professions. Some with not enough end game content.

Maybe we should ban every thread the repeats stuff and have like one post. Because that’s what you’d end up with.

As for the rest of it, it’s clear to me you don’t get me and frankly that’s fine. You think that you have the moral high ground because you don’t like the way I say things. Well, I dont’ particularly like the way you say things either. The difference is, I’m not the one complaining about it, or singling you our, or anyone else.

What I see on these forums is more akin to bullying than it is to constructive criticism. And it’s okay if you all want to gang up on me, because you can’t affect me in any significant way.

And lest you think this is just my opinion, there are quite a few people who think I’m bullied on these forums and wonder why I put up with it. I always tell them the same thing.

Because forum posters can’t hurt me.

My stance here has nothing to do with moral high grounds. The problem I have is not the actual opinion you have (different as it may be) but the way you present it. You wield terms like truth and majorities as if you could claim them….but you cannot. You quote generalities to avoid specifics. Each time I call you on a specific item you do this. You never actually answer something, you just retort, deflect or whatever. I actually really wanted to know what you meant with some stuff, but you can’t stop hiding behind those deflections.

“Quite a few people” think you’re being bullied? How many is quite a few? This is my point. What does that mean? It’s such a vague reference, that it could mean 5 as well kitten.

I just don’t like you talking as if you know something that you cannot actually know. And again you’ve clearly avoided that point of it yet again. That tells me enough.

Suppose I wished you were just honest about your opinion instead of wrapping it in all kinds of vague, unsubstantiable references. Nobody’s perfect and it can’t always be helped but I a do not care for people who make a sport out of it, intentionally or not.

I’ve just thrown stuff you said yourself against you and you simply dodge. If you dodge your own statements, that tells me something.

If you get the feeling that I am singling you out, perhaps you shouldn’t account for half the posts in this forum (yes that’s an exaggeration), because you do post a heck of a lot…it’s kinda funny that you think people single you out when you post that much. By the time I get to my next reply you’ve already made multiple posts in the same thread or something like that.

After all is said and done, notwithstanding your efforts, I still think the manifesto was a rather deceitful piece of marketing. Clarifications of any kind do not change that.

You’re entitled to your opinion. But English is English. It was my profession. And grind DOES mean to a whole lot of people, killing stuff to gain levels. That’s the first thing wikipedia says about it. That’s what a lot of people use it to mean.

Certainly saying gear grind from the manifesto is an impossible place to reach from the words there. In order to get that definition of grind, you literally have to ignore all the sentences around it. And that is NOT how English works.

As for how I present things, unless you’ve been here for the long haul, and seen the way things have deteriorated on these forums with regards to what people say, you’d perhaps understand my attitude a bit better.

It doesn’t matter that you don’t. But I’ve been fighting an uphill battle for a long time, and I’m still far less offensive than many who continue to post about me.

I see where Gehenna is coming from, Vayne does have a lot of endurance available in these forums. He’s like a thief with perma vigor, feline grace, withdraw, and roll for initiative.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Sure we’ve had this conversation in previous threads. End of the world time. The problem is, most of the forums are repeat threads. A good percentage anyway. So saying that this thread is repeating what was said before means little.

In fact, most forum threads are repeat threads from other forums from other games. We should have open world dueling was a thread in every game forum that didn’t have it I can think of. Same with open world PvP. Same was imbalance of professions. Some with not enough end game content.

Maybe we should ban every thread the repeats stuff and have like one post. Because that’s what you’d end up with.

As for the rest of it, it’s clear to me you don’t get me and frankly that’s fine. You think that you have the moral high ground because you don’t like the way I say things. Well, I dont’ particularly like the way you say things either. The difference is, I’m not the one complaining about it, or singling you our, or anyone else.

What I see on these forums is more akin to bullying than it is to constructive criticism. And it’s okay if you all want to gang up on me, because you can’t affect me in any significant way.

And lest you think this is just my opinion, there are quite a few people who think I’m bullied on these forums and wonder why I put up with it. I always tell them the same thing.

Because forum posters can’t hurt me.

My stance here has nothing to do with moral high grounds. The problem I have is not the actual opinion you have (different as it may be) but the way you present it. You wield terms like truth and majorities as if you could claim them….but you cannot. You quote generalities to avoid specifics. Each time I call you on a specific item you do this. You never actually answer something, you just retort, deflect or whatever. I actually really wanted to know what you meant with some stuff, but you can’t stop hiding behind those deflections.

“Quite a few people” think you’re being bullied? How many is quite a few? This is my point. What does that mean? It’s such a vague reference, that it could mean 5 as well kitten.

I just don’t like you talking as if you know something that you cannot actually know. And again you’ve clearly avoided that point of it yet again. That tells me enough.

Suppose I wished you were just honest about your opinion instead of wrapping it in all kinds of vague, unsubstantiable references. Nobody’s perfect and it can’t always be helped but I a do not care for people who make a sport out of it, intentionally or not.

I’ve just thrown stuff you said yourself against you and you simply dodge. If you dodge your own statements, that tells me something.

If you get the feeling that I am singling you out, perhaps you shouldn’t account for half the posts in this forum (yes that’s an exaggeration), because you do post a heck of a lot…it’s kinda funny that you think people single you out when you post that much. By the time I get to my next reply you’ve already made multiple posts in the same thread or something like that.

After all is said and done, notwithstanding your efforts, I still think the manifesto was a rather deceitful piece of marketing. Clarifications of any kind do not change that.

You’re entitled to your opinion. But English is English. It was my profession. And grind DOES mean to a whole lot of people, killing stuff to gain levels. That’s the first thing wikipedia says about it. That’s what a lot of people use it to mean.

Certainly saying gear grind from the manifesto is an impossible place to reach from the words there. In order to get that definition of grind, you literally have to ignore all the sentences around it. And that is NOT how English works.

As for how I present things, unless you’ve been here for the long haul, and seen the way things have deteriorated on these forums with regards to what people say, you’d perhaps understand my attitude a bit better.

It doesn’t matter that you don’t. But I’ve been fighting an uphill battle for a long time, and I’m still far less offensive than many who continue to post about me.

I see where Gehenna is coming from, Vayne does have a lot of endurance available in these forums. He’s like a thief with perma vigor, feline grace, withdraw, and roll for initiative.

Yep, I post a lot. True story. It doesn’t excuse the behavior of some (not most but some) forum members to me.

If my attitude has deteriorated it’s because I’ve been consistently attacked for a long time.

If you put yourself out there to be a target, you’re going to get shot.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

If you know where to look, it does, actually, exist. (Uses mentioned time machine.)

Here you go, those that want to read it for yourselves:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130201031636/http://www.arena.net/blog/mmo-manifesto-reactions

In case some people missed it, Inculpatus already linked the blog post missing from the guildwars2guru.com forum post.

Villious.8530:

If you put yourself out there to be a target, you’re going to get shot.

I agree. So people shouldn’t be surprised when I shoot back. I’m not really complaining people are shooting at me. That I expect. I’m complaining that people are judging me based on the fact that I’m in defense mode.

Before you judge someone you should walk a mile in their shoes. This way, if they’re kitten ed off at you, they’re a mile away and barefoot.

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. It starts off with Colin talking about this annoying grind before getting to the fun stuff. What are the odds that fun stuff is talking about gear. The game has always been activity based, rather than gear based. The other stuff in the manifesto they’re talking about, combat, events, personal story. They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

Everything was about the experience. That’s why everyone complains about rewards. It’s not the way the company thinks.

He says “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff” and he says “we want to change the way people view combat”. There’s nothing here about gear grind at all. People who claim there is have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. What they have is their own opinion of what grind means from outside the manifesto.

The language of the manifesto itself doesn’t support that grind means gear grind. You can argue this till the cows come home but the language itself isn’t there.

The other complaints, with the exception of “everything you love about Guild Wars 1” are generally covered by the clarification.

And the two years that followed the manifesto, where Anet went into great detail about every aspect of them game shouldn’t be ignored either.

There’s only so much detail ANYONE can go into in a five minute video. One would think that general overviews are just that…general overviews. When you want to learn about something you have to follow it further to go deeper to understand it.

I don’t know why people would watch a five minute video and think they know everything they need to know about the game to buy it. That’s what I don’t get.

Vayne.8563:

You’re entitled to your opinion. But English is English. It was my profession. And grind DOES mean to a whole lot of people, killing stuff to gain levels. That’s the first thing wikipedia says about it. That’s what a lot of people use it to mean.

It’s a bit ironic to say English was your profession and use wikipedia as a source. Just saying.

In fact, you support my point, because that’s exactly what happens in this game: you have to kill stuff to advance. So GW2 is grindy. What I mean with my comments is that generally the feeling of it being a lot or repetitive is subjective and therefore the definition of grind changes depending on the person.

Vayne.8563:

Certainly saying gear grind from the manifesto is an impossible place to reach from the words there. In order to get that definition of grind, you literally have to ignore all the sentences around it. And that is NOT how English works.

You’ll excuse me if I don’t accept you as an authority on how English works. Also that is subjective as language is a living thing and changes along with its users…for better or for worse.

Still, in the way I experience GW2 just leveling a toon is that it is a grind. It gets boring as each new zone has the same activities. Don’t care what other games are like, in GW2 leveling bores me as it’s repetitive. So to reach my goal of getting to level 80 it certainly feels like grind to me. Then at 80 getting legendary weapons and ascended items also constitutes grind in my view. So yes GW2 is grindy to me, unlike what was implied in the manifesto. See, this is not a legal battle in court where the letter of the law is what matters. What matters is the impression something gives. Anet either was too dumb to realise this would backfire or they did it on purpose because they knew it would give an impression that would disappoint people…but after they’d have bought the game.

Vayne.8563:

As for how I present things, unless you’ve been here for the long haul, and seen the way things have deteriorated on these forums with regards to what people say, you’d perhaps understand my attitude a bit better.

You don’t get to set the parameters for me. When I started playing the betas and the game was just out the forums were just as bad. Maybe it comes and goes but it’s not a deterioration over time. All this stuff has happened before and on this forum even.

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t matter that you don’t. But I’ve been fighting an uphill battle for a long time, and I’m still far less offensive than many who continue to post about me.

See and this is not true. You’ve chosen to put yourself in this position. You act like a martyr (shame on you) but you put youself there. You saw the fire and decided to stand in it and you basically encourage people to be offensive to you by your rigidity, arrogance and twisting and turning.

The funniest thing is that in fact you are perpetuating, enabling people to behave like this and to continue to do so, even if just by giving them a target that is always there.

In essence your presence here is part of the problem that you want to solve and you even think you’re successful to a degree because you have a handful of yay-sayers. How sad…the reality is that it you only cause people to get entrenched and increase the traffic on this forum…negative traffic of course, because say what you want but discussions with you are not about how great the game is but about why other people are wrong according to you. I’ve never called you a white knight because I don’t think you are a positive force….you’re basically an apologetic.

You want to defend Anet and their statements as if it’s a court of law, looking at the letters and trying to sell your interpretation as truth as if you work for them by hiding behind the intricacies of the English language….sorry still not buying it.

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition

Are we now supposed to believe that the dev was referring to crushing or pulverizing ?

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. It starts off with Colin talking about this annoying grind before getting to the fun stuff. What are the odds that fun stuff is talking about gear. The game has always been activity based, rather than gear based. The other stuff in the manifesto they’re talking about, combat, events, personal story. They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

Everything was about the experience. That’s why everyone complains about rewards. It’s not the way the company thinks.

He says “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff” and he says “we want to change the way people view combat”. There’s nothing here about gear grind at all. People who claim there is have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. What they have is their own opinion of what grind means from outside the manifesto.

Not even a year out since it’s official release and we can already see them starting to backpedal on “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff”.
Case in point: Queen’s Gauntlet.
Sure, we get a free sample, but what a shame if you want to play it a lot.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

You’re entitled to your opinion. But English is English. It was my profession. And grind DOES mean to a whole lot of people, killing stuff to gain levels. That’s the first thing wikipedia says about it. That’s what a lot of people use it to mean.

It’s a bit ironic to say English was your profession and use wikipedia as a source. Just saying.

In fact, you support my point, because that’s exactly what happens in this game: you have to kill stuff to advance. So GW2 is grindy. What I mean with my comments is that generally the feeling of it being a lot or repetitive is subjective and therefore the definition of grind changes depending on the person.

Vayne.8563:

Certainly saying gear grind from the manifesto is an impossible place to reach from the words there. In order to get that definition of grind, you literally have to ignore all the sentences around it. And that is NOT how English works.

You’ll excuse me if I don’t accept you as an authority on how English works. Also that is subjective as language is a living thing and changes along with its users…for better or for worse.

Still, in the way I experience GW2 just leveling a toon is that it is a grind. It gets boring as each new zone has the same activities. Don’t care what other games are like, in GW2 leveling bores me as it’s repetitive. So to reach my goal of getting to level 80 it certainly feels like grind to me. Then at 80 getting legendary weapons and ascended items also constitutes grind in my view. So yes GW2 is grindy to me, unlike what was implied in the manifesto. See, this is not a legal battle in court where the letter of the law is what matters. What matters is the impression something gives. Anet either was too dumb to realise this would backfire or they did it on purpose because they knew it would give an impression that would disappoint people…but after they’d have bought the game.

Vayne.8563:

As for how I present things, unless you’ve been here for the long haul, and seen the way things have deteriorated on these forums with regards to what people say, you’d perhaps understand my attitude a bit better.

You don’t get to set the parameters for me. When I started playing the betas and the game was just out the forums were just as bad. Maybe it comes and goes but it’s not a deterioration over time. All this stuff has happened before and on this forum even.

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t matter that you don’t. But I’ve been fighting an uphill battle for a long time, and I’m still far less offensive than many who continue to post about me.

See and this is not true. You’ve chosen to put yourself in this position. You act like a martyr (shame on you) but you put youself there. You saw the fire and decided to stand in it and you basically encourage people to be offensive to you by your rigidity, arrogance and twisting and turning.

The funniest thing is that in fact you are perpetuating, enabling people to behave like this and to continue to do so, even if just by giving them a target that is always there.

In essence your presence here is part of the problem that you want to solve and you even think you’re successful to a degree because you have a handful of yay-sayers. How sad…the reality is that it you only cause people to get entrenched and increase the traffic on this forum…negative traffic of course, because say what you want but discussions with you are not about how great the game is but about why other people are wrong according to you. I’ve never called you a white knight because I don’t think you are a positive force….you’re basically an apologetic.

You want to defend Anet and their statements as if it’s a court of law, looking at the letters and trying to sell your interpretation as truth as if you work for them by hiding behind the intricacies of the English language….sorry still not buying it.

Killing stuff to advance doesn’t make Guild Wars 2 grindy. In fact, killing stuff is the least efficient way to level your character.

Give me a break with the shame on me nonsense. You’re not my mother. See you’ll say something about how I express myself, but you’ll give a free pass to those who say much worse to me. This, more than anything else, shows your bias.

If you want to talk about how I talk about things from now on, instead of the topic, I’ll be reporting those posts. Because you are biased and I don’t need you judging me. You won’t change my behavior and I find your behavior toward me completely offensive.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. It starts off with Colin talking about this annoying grind before getting to the fun stuff. What are the odds that fun stuff is talking about gear. The game has always been activity based, rather than gear based. The other stuff in the manifesto they’re talking about, combat, events, personal story. They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

Everything was about the experience. That’s why everyone complains about rewards. It’s not the way the company thinks.

He says “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff” and he says “we want to change the way people view combat”. There’s nothing here about gear grind at all. People who claim there is have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. What they have is their own opinion of what grind means from outside the manifesto.

Not even a year out since it’s official release and we can already see them starting to backpedal on “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff”.
Case in point: Queen’s Gauntlet.
Sure, we get a free sample, but what a shame if you want to play it a lot.

Except that before Launch, in interviews, Eric Flannum said straight out there would be stuff to grind for for people who enjoy grinding. This isn’t something they added just now.

Again, the manifesto was talking about grinding to level. That’s it. That’s what grinding used to mean. It didn’t mean grinding for gear or tickets.

This was said again and again after the manifesto. They gave you fun things to do early on. I’m not sure in what world that equates to there would never be anything to work for in this game. These are not congruent statements.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition

Are we now supposed to believe that the dev was referring to crushing or pulverizing ?

No, but since there’s zero in the manifesto to say he was talking about gear grind, I don’t know why anyone would choose to believe that’s the case. There’s simply nothing in the language to support that conclusion.

Aaaannnndddd thanks to this specific argument, there are now many people that know what the word “Manifesto” means.

Trajan.4953:

Aaaannnndddd thanks to this specific argument, there are now many people that know what the word “Manifesto” means.

True story. lol

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. It starts off with Colin talking about this annoying grind before getting to the fun stuff. What are the odds that fun stuff is talking about gear. The game has always been activity based, rather than gear based. The other stuff in the manifesto they’re talking about, combat, events, personal story. They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

Everything was about the experience. That’s why everyone complains about rewards. It’s not the way the company thinks.

He says “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff” and he says “we want to change the way people view combat”. There’s nothing here about gear grind at all. People who claim there is have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. What they have is their own opinion of what grind means from outside the manifesto.

Not even a year out since it’s official release and we can already see them starting to backpedal on “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff”.
Case in point: Queen’s Gauntlet.
Sure, we get a free sample, but what a shame if you want to play it a lot.

Except that before Launch, in interviews, Eric Flannum said straight out there would be stuff to grind for for people who enjoy grinding. This isn’t something they added just now.

Again, the manifesto was talking about grinding to level. That’s it. That’s what grinding used to mean. It didn’t mean grinding for gear or tickets.

This was said again and again after the manifesto. They gave you fun things to do early on. I’m not sure in what world that equates to there would never be anything to work for in this game. These are not congruent statements.

Dressing the same thing in a slightly different manner really doesn’t make it different.
It is irrelevant that the old method was to restrict “fun stuff” via levels. The “fun stuff” here requires grind to get access. Same difference.

Vayne.8563:

Again, the manifesto was talking about grinding to level. That’s it. That’s what grinding used to mean. It didn’t mean grinding for gear or tickets.

Vayne.8563:

They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

For those just tunning in, proof that Vayne is wrong: in the Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto, the blog entry made to clarify the Manifesto video, ArenaNet mentions: “Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward”. Thus, the Manifesto wasn’t talking about grinding for levels (which is easy to see, it doesn’t mention levels anywhere), rather about grinding for fun rewards (hence the “fun stuff”); and Vayne’s comment about ArenaNet not talking about rewards is rather obviously wrong, considering the ArenaNet quote is specifically about rewards (and grinding for them).

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition

Are we now supposed to believe that the dev was referring to crushing or pulverizing ?

No, but since there’s zero in the manifesto to say he was talking about gear grind, I don’t know why anyone would choose to believe that’s the case. There’s simply nothing in the language to support that conclusion.

From the:

“Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto
by Mike O’Brien on April 27, 2010

It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.

- Mike O’Brien"

So, what future fun reward is this referring to? The optional rewards like titles and achievements all required a ton of grind in GW. Most of the unique skins were gated behind RNG so severe that most people who tried to farm them devised solo farming builds to remove the chances someone else might get the drop. The only exception came with the chests implemented in EotN and added to UW and FoW, and those were still low chance RNG. Mini-pets? Those were time gated in GW. By extension, one can infer that “our games aren’t about grinding for a future fun reward” cannot be referring to any of the above.

What do other games offer as fun rewards that people grind for? What are people going to think of when they read this paragraph? What could he be referring to if it’s not better gear?

Vayne.8563:

No, but since there’s zero in the manifesto to say he was talking about gear grind, I don’t know why anyone would choose to believe that’s the case. There’s simply nothing in the language to support that conclusion.

I have to agree with Vayne on this.
- Colin says: “In most games, you go out and you get fun tasks occassionally that you get to do and the rest of the game is just this one long boring grind to get to the fun stuff.”
- He is specifically talking about the getting from the grind to the “fun stuff” which can be interpreted as getting from the quests to the dungeons and raids. And they wanted the stuff in between to be just as fun an experience as the end game content.

- That was how I understood it, I wasn’t in any doubt that he meant occassional fun tasks/quests, because he doesn’t talk about gear grind and/or dungeons and raids, he talks about questing in the open world.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition

Are we now supposed to believe that the dev was referring to crushing or pulverizing ?

No, but since there’s zero in the manifesto to say he was talking about gear grind, I don’t know why anyone would choose to believe that’s the case. There’s simply nothing in the language to support that conclusion.

From the:

“Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto
by Mike O’Brien on April 27, 2010

It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.

- Mike O’Brien"

So, what future fun reward is this referring to? The optional rewards like titles and achievements all required a ton of grind in GW. Most of the unique skins were gated behind RNG so severe that most people who tried to farm them devised solo farming builds to remove the chances someone else might get the drop. The only exception came with the chests implemented in EotN and added to UW and FoW, and those were still low chance RNG. Mini-pets? Those were time gated in GW. By extension, one can infer that “our games aren’t about grinding for a future fun reward” cannot be referring to any of the above.

What do other games offer as fun rewards that people grind for? What are people going to think of when they read this paragraph? What could he be referring to if it’s not better gear?

I think, and I may be wrong, but that A-Net is trying to design their game around the actual experience of the game to get to the reward. The problem, inherently is that most MMO players have been trained that the reward, and only the reward, is what’s important, and the best way to get said reward is by the fastest most efficient means possible.

jmho.

This has truly been the very most entertaining thread on these forums.

My two cents:

1) I cannot fathom why someone (I won’t name names but I bet you could guess who in one try) would work so hard to defend a company that’s not paying them to do so. So either they’re getting paid under the table to be that “voice of reason”, or they’re a bit weirdly obsessive over the game. Basically, something going on is either a little creepy, or a lot dishonest. Either way, I’m inclined to gently disregard much of what that person says.

2) You can lawyer the nitnoid details of the Manifesto all you want. It’s pretty kitten clear that many, many, many people read that thing and interpreted it to mean something very different from what we got in GW2. To me, a Manifesto is the source document, and after-the-fact interviews with the people involved saying “well, what we really meant was…..” do not qualify as meaningful in this context. See below.

3) Add what I said above to the fact that ArenaNet have been hyping the hell out of each new content release since launch, and overall the quality has been very disappointing. The stories (which are improving lately, I’ll concede) have been pretty “meh” and the content itself just mindless, repetitive collecting X number of widgets or doing the same dungeon or game over and over and over for some achievement.

What this adds up to is the feeling that all the Manifesto ever was is hype. That, or something happened at ArenaNet since it came out, and they changed direction, and are trying to pretend that they didnt.

4) Moreover, the 180 degree shift they did in November by adding Ascended gear was a bad decision, but even worse was them saying “they intended it all along” – as if we were all supposed to think that we just missed that somewhere. If anyone can find a reference to adding gear tiers, Ascended gear, or anything similar prior to that initial announcement in late October/early November, I’d be curious to see it. I haven’t found any such thing.

So when you put that together with the other things I mentions, I look at the result and start to feel like I’m being taken for a ride here. I get the feeling that this is a company that will say whatever it thinks it needs to in order to try and convince customers to keep buying the product, and will backpedal when called on it and try to explain that “that’s not what we meant”. Then they’ll make comments about how players “come after us with torches and pitchforks” (look elsewhere in the forums – a Dev said this, and I cbf dealing with the poor search function here) when said players try and get them to either clarify, or simply call them on not doing what they said.

So yea. Why all the time and effort defending the thing? Maybe you like the game, and that’s fine, but it’s simply not the game described in the Manifesto – and never will be. ArenaNet have made what they’ve made, and no doubt are rolling in money now, but they’ve lost most of my respect as a company that strives for quality, and one that mans what it says. I don’t believe them any more – they’ve over-hyped and under-delivered far too often, and then tried to explain everything away. I don’t feel that they have an interest in being up front with their players, nor in putting any more effort than necessary into quality – just enough to keep a few big spenders in the gem store.

To me, ArenaNet was that special company that was willing to be different and innovative, and most especially, imaginative. To me, they’re no different than any other studio now. So I treat this game the same as any other now. I log on occasionally, putz around, maybe do something if a friend is on, and log off. There’s no way it’s come anywhere near capturing my imagination like Guild Wars did.

It could have – but I don’t trust this company any more. Enjoy your gear grind. I just don’t see the point in it.

Edit: typo

Chuo.4238:

This has truly been the very most entertaining thread on these forums.

My two cents:

1) I cannot fathom why someone (I won’t name names but I bet you could guess who in one try) would work so hard to defend a company that’s not paying them to do so. So either they’re getting paid under the table to be that “voice of reason”, or they’re a bit weirdly obsessive over the game. Basically, something going on is either a little creepy, or a lot dishonest. Either way, I’m inclined to gently disregard much of what that person says.

2) You can lawyer the nitnoid details of the Manifesto all you want. It’s pretty kitten clear that many, many, many people read that thing and interpreted it to mean something very different from what we got in GW2. To me, a Manifesto is the source document, and after-the-fact interviews with the people involved saying “well, what we really meant was…..” do not qualify as meaningful in this context. See below.

3) Add what I said above to the fact that ArenaNet have been hyping the hell out of each new content release since launch, and overall the quality has been very disappointing. The stories (which are improving lately, I’ll concede) have been pretty “meh” and the content itself just mindless, repetitive collecting X number of widgets or doing the same dungeon or game over and over and over for some achievement.

What this adds up to is the feeling that all the Manifesto ever was is hype. That, or something happened at ArenaNet since it came out, and they changed direction, and are trying to pretend that they didnt.

4) Moreover, the 180 degree shift they did in November by adding Ascended gear was a bad decision, but even worse was them saying “they intended it all along” – as if we were all supposed to think that we just missed that somewhere. If anyone can find a reference to adding gear tiers, Ascended gear, or anything similar prior to that initial announcement in late October/early November, I’d be curious to see it. I haven’t found any such thing.

So when you put that together with the other things I mentions, I look at the result and start to feel like I’m being taken for a ride here. I get the feeling that this is a company that will say whatever it thinks it needs to in order to try and convince customers to keep buying the product, and will backpedal when called on it and try to explain that “that’s not what we meant”. Then they’ll make comments about how players “come after us with torches and pitchforks” (look elsewhere in the forums – a Dev said this, and I cbf dealing with the poor search function here) when said players try and get them to either clarify, or simply call them on not doing what they said.

So yea. Why all the time and effort defending the thing? Maybe you like the game, and that’s fine, but it’s simply not the game described in the Manifesto – and never will be. ArenaNet have made what they’ve made, and no doubt are rolling in money now, but they’ve lost most of my respect as a company that strives for quality, and one that mans what it says. I don’t believe them any more – they’ve over-hyped and under-delivered far too often, and then tried to explain everything away. I don’t feel that they have an interest in being up front with their players, nor in putting any more effort than necessary into quality – just enough to keep a few big spenders in the gem store.

To me, ArenaNet was that special company that was willing to be different and innovative, and most especially, imaginative. To me, they’re no different than any other studio now. So I treat this game the same as any other now. I log on occasionally, putz around, maybe do something if a friend is on, and log off. There’s no way it’s come anywhere near capturing my imagination like Guild Wars did.

It could have – but I don’t trust this company any more. Enjoy your gear grind. I just don’t see the point in it.

Edit: typo

So why, on Earth, are you still? So much hate, one would think you would find somewhere that makes you happy?

Please explain to me why you, and several others still haunt these forums with rage and vitriol even though you have said time and again you have left the game?

I really want to understand, not trolling.

Trajan.4953:

Chuo.4238:

This has truly been the very most entertaining thread on these forums.

My two cents:

1) I cannot fathom why someone (I won’t name names but I bet you could guess who in one try) would work so hard to defend a company that’s not paying them to do so. So either they’re getting paid under the table to be that “voice of reason”, or they’re a bit weirdly obsessive over the game. Basically, something going on is either a little creepy, or a lot dishonest. Either way, I’m inclined to gently disregard much of what that person says.

2) You can lawyer the nitnoid details of the Manifesto all you want. It’s pretty kitten clear that many, many, many people read that thing and interpreted it to mean something very different from what we got in GW2. To me, a Manifesto is the source document, and after-the-fact interviews with the people involved saying “well, what we really meant was…..” do not qualify as meaningful in this context. See below.

3) Add what I said above to the fact that ArenaNet have been hyping the hell out of each new content release since launch, and overall the quality has been very disappointing. The stories (which are improving lately, I’ll concede) have been pretty “meh” and the content itself just mindless, repetitive collecting X number of widgets or doing the same dungeon or game over and over and over for some achievement.

What this adds up to is the feeling that all the Manifesto ever was is hype. That, or something happened at ArenaNet since it came out, and they changed direction, and are trying to pretend that they didnt.

4) Moreover, the 180 degree shift they did in November by adding Ascended gear was a bad decision, but even worse was them saying “they intended it all along” – as if we were all supposed to think that we just missed that somewhere. If anyone can find a reference to adding gear tiers, Ascended gear, or anything similar prior to that initial announcement in late October/early November, I’d be curious to see it. I haven’t found any such thing.

So when you put that together with the other things I mentions, I look at the result and start to feel like I’m being taken for a ride here. I get the feeling that this is a company that will say whatever it thinks it needs to in order to try and convince customers to keep buying the product, and will backpedal when called on it and try to explain that “that’s not what we meant”. Then they’ll make comments about how players “come after us with torches and pitchforks” (look elsewhere in the forums – a Dev said this, and I cbf dealing with the poor search function here) when said players try and get them to either clarify, or simply call them on not doing what they said.

So yea. Why all the time and effort defending the thing? Maybe you like the game, and that’s fine, but it’s simply not the game described in the Manifesto – and never will be. ArenaNet have made what they’ve made, and no doubt are rolling in money now, but they’ve lost most of my respect as a company that strives for quality, and one that mans what it says. I don’t believe them any more – they’ve over-hyped and under-delivered far too often, and then tried to explain everything away. I don’t feel that they have an interest in being up front with their players, nor in putting any more effort than necessary into quality – just enough to keep a few big spenders in the gem store.

To me, ArenaNet was that special company that was willing to be different and innovative, and most especially, imaginative. To me, they’re no different than any other studio now. So I treat this game the same as any other now. I log on occasionally, putz around, maybe do something if a friend is on, and log off. There’s no way it’s come anywhere near capturing my imagination like Guild Wars did.

It could have – but I don’t trust this company any more. Enjoy your gear grind. I just don’t see the point in it.

Edit: typo

So why, on Earth, are you still? So much hate, one would think you would find somewhere that makes you happy?

Please explain to me why you, and several others still haunt these forums with rage and vitriol even though you have said time and again you have left the game?

I really want to understand, not trolling.

First off, no rage and vitriol here. Just disappointment.

The years-long love affair with Guild Wars. We’ve awakened to find a different company, and have been hoping to voice our opinions, be heard, and maybe see ArenaNet move back towards what they used to be.

We’re slowly giving up on it, now, though. I think you’ll find that posts from people like us are becoming fewer and fewer as we log in less and less. What I posted up there was pretty much my “I give up” statement, I suppose.

I had years of fun with ArenaNet. I’m saddened that it’s probably time to move on, but I guess nothing lasts forever.

[/quote]First off, no rage and vitriol here. Just disappointment.

The years-long love affair with Guild Wars. We’ve awakened to find a different company, and have been hoping to voice our opinions, be heard, and maybe see ArenaNet move back towards what they used to be.

We’re slowly giving up on it, now, though. I think you’ll find that posts from people like us are becoming fewer and fewer as we log in less and less. What I posted up there was pretty much my “I give up” statement, I suppose.

I had years of fun with ArenaNet. I’m saddened that it’s probably time to move on, but I guess nothing lasts forever.[/quote]

I can understand this. Breaking up is hard, so to speak. Thank you for the insight, sincerely.

I’m not reading this entire bible sized thread to find out, but has anyone considered that by fun rewards, he meant the reward of fun? As in you grind until you get your reward, fun being what you get. Cause that’s what WoW always felt like it was keeping from me, was the fun.

ducks and covers

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

The real issue here is those that choose to define grind by it’s “modern” definition as opposed to its original definition have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. It starts off with Colin talking about this annoying grind before getting to the fun stuff. What are the odds that fun stuff is talking about gear. The game has always been activity based, rather than gear based. The other stuff in the manifesto they’re talking about, combat, events, personal story. They’re not talking about gear at all. That’s a reward based mentality that Anet has never shared.

Everything was about the experience. That’s why everyone complains about rewards. It’s not the way the company thinks.

He says “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff” and he says “we want to change the way people view combat”. There’s nothing here about gear grind at all. People who claim there is have nothing in the manifesto itself to support them. What they have is their own opinion of what grind means from outside the manifesto.

Not even a year out since it’s official release and we can already see them starting to backpedal on “annoying grind before you get to the fun stuff”.
Case in point: Queen’s Gauntlet.
Sure, we get a free sample, but what a shame if you want to play it a lot.

Except that before Launch, in interviews, Eric Flannum said straight out there would be stuff to grind for for people who enjoy grinding. This isn’t something they added just now.

Again, the manifesto was talking about grinding to level. That’s it. That’s what grinding used to mean. It didn’t mean grinding for gear or tickets.

This was said again and again after the manifesto. They gave you fun things to do early on. I’m not sure in what world that equates to there would never be anything to work for in this game. These are not congruent statements.

Dressing the same thing in a slightly different manner really doesn’t make it different.
It is irrelevant that the old method was to restrict “fun stuff” via levels. The “fun stuff” here requires grind to get access. Same difference.

There’s a logical fallacy in your argument.

We don’t want you to have to grind to get to the fun stuff. Therefore, if there’s fun stuff to do BEFORE you grind, you’ve already gotten to the fun stuff. It’s not saying there’s nothing in the game to grind for. That’s the logical fallacy.

Guild Wars 1 had tons of stuff to grind for…it’s just that that stuff wasn’t required. More to the point, Guild Wars 2 is talking about how other games are. Leveling is one experience and playing after level cap something else. You speed level/power level to do raids. That’s how this game is different. The fun stuff, the stuff you do in the beginning, is the stuff you do later on.

I’ve lost count of how many times Anet has said this and it remains true.