Guild Wars 2

Hi,
With summer winding down and outdoor projects coming to an end, I had a little bit of time to check out GW2 again. I haven’t really played in months, the ocassional 10-15 minute stint to mess around with a few things here and there, logged in to flag my account for the dreadful LS…but I haven’t traversed my usual areas of gameplay in a long time.

I checked out some areas yesterday and what I noticed was sad. All I saw in Cursed Shore were a few zergs of 50+ people blobbing around, instead of a handful of people completing events with eachother. I saw people typing in chat, presumably from other servers due to megaserver, telling everyone to pro long the event as much as possible, scale it up as much as possible, etc. I stopped and just looked at what people were doing. I saw rangers just auto attacking. Thieves standing there with dual pistols auto attacking. Other than the Guardians that were dropping banners to rez(thanks!), there was no team work. It was just a huge zerg of players from many servers auto attacking and scaling up an event(it was one of the simple dolyak escort quests).

Is this what everyone enjoys doing? I know I know, there are many areas where there are small pockets of people playing the game. But in more popular zones such as Cursed Shore, its zergs every where for the sake of farming materials, not playing the game.

Is this the vision arenanet had for its open world dynamic content?

Have to say sounds unlucky. I never see that in Orr. There aren’t many ppl there, but what I do see is usually well coordinated.

Also, most people will be in Dry Top, since the currently desired rewards are largely there.

A lot of people were in the new zone… not sure now though.

As far as zerging goes, yeah. Maybe it will change a little with the new profession balancing. idk

Prophet.6257:

A lot of people were in the new zone… not sure now though.

As far as zerging goes, yeah. Maybe it will change a little with the new profession balancing. idk

How would profession balancing fix people from zerging up and scaling events?

It feels like this game has become wack-a-mole…the mmo version of a hack and slash(diablo 3 style). Just mow down lots of baddies for crumbs of loot.

Well this is the result of megaservers. Orr used to be dead. Now it is usually full. People (level 80 people) go there because everything in this game costs tons of gold, and there’s nowhere else to make the gold other than dungeons. Speaking personally, I don’t do dungeons because I can’t be relied upon by my party to stay for the whole time, as I have life going on around me. World bosses are usually too hard to get to on my play schedule. So, Cursed Shore is my new home, as I’m sure it is for many, many other high level players. I’m trying to get the materials needed to make The Dreamer (since I finally got my first precursor out of the Mystic Forge). I need gold. I need T6 mats. Where else to go??

cesmode.4257:

Prophet.6257:

A lot of people were in the new zone… not sure now though.

As far as zerging goes, yeah. Maybe it will change a little with the new profession balancing. idk

How would profession balancing fix people from zerging up and scaling events?

It feels like this game has become wack-a-mole…the mmo version of a hack and slash(diablo 3 style). Just mow down lots of baddies for crumbs of loot.

Well on this I have to say that ANet feeds the mob mentality with their huge world events. The Scarlet/Aetherblade/Invasion zergfest, the Queens Pavilion zergfest, the WvW zergfest…. the list goes on. This is the way they intend the game to be played.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Well this is the result of megaservers. Orr used to be dead. Now it is usually full. People (level 80 people) go there because everything in this game costs tons of gold, and there’s nowhere else to make the gold other than dungeons. Speaking personally, I don’t do dungeons because I can’t be relied upon by my party to stay for the whole time, as I have life going on around me. World bosses are usually too hard to get to on my play schedule. So, Cursed Shore is my new home, as I’m sure it is for many, many other high level players. I’m trying to get the materials needed to make The Dreamer (since I finally got my first precursor out of the Mystic Forge). I need gold. I need T6 mats. Where else to go??

I hear you about the RL stuff that might take you out of a dungeon. Sucks

I think they could have gone a different way to get people into open world and playing rather than smushing us all together into zergs.

You found the one event chain in the game the farmers exploit. That’s what you found. There are people zerging, there are people not zerging.

I’m not sure why it would surprise anyone that some people play just to get rich no matter how they do it. The easiest way possible preferably.

But that’s only a small percentage of the playerbase.

I think one or two people in my guild do that, out of 150.

How is Wildstar working out for you OP?

Vayne.8563:

You found the one event chain in the game the farmers exploit. That’s what you found. There are people zerging, there are people not zerging.

I’m not sure why it would surprise anyone that some people play just to get rich no matter how they do it. The easiest way possible preferably.

But that’s only a small percentage of the playerbase.

I think one or two people in my guild do that, out of 150.

Let’s not mention the fact that doing the same content over and over and over for 2 years gets a little boring. If someone is going to be doing something mindlessly out of boredom, might they not at least want to make a little profit?

With many people having many, many level 80 characters and world completion many times over, I don’t doubt that at this point, they want to at least just make some gold to feel like their time in game is worthwhile.

Just my thoughts, my opinions. I’m not saying that should be the only thing they do, I’m just trying to explain why some people might play this way.

I don’t think developers ever really plan for players to devolve into mindless farmers, but show me an MMO where farming doesn’t exist anywhere and I’ll eat my hat. If I were wearing one. Some people actually enjoy farming. I know I do on occasion. I find it relaxing on some level, but I think that’s because I’m from the UO days.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Vayne.8563:

You found the one event chain in the game the farmers exploit. That’s what you found. There are people zerging, there are people not zerging.

I’m not sure why it would surprise anyone that some people play just to get rich no matter how they do it. The easiest way possible preferably.

But that’s only a small percentage of the playerbase.

I think one or two people in my guild do that, out of 150.

Let’s not mention the fact that doing the same content over and over and over for 2 years gets a little boring. If someone is going to be doing something mindlessly out of boredom, might they not at least want to make a little profit?

With many people having many, many level 80 characters and world completion many times over, I don’t doubt that at this point, they want to at least just make some gold to feel like their time in game is worthwhile.

Just my thoughts, my opinions. I’m not saying that should be the only thing they do, I’m just trying to explain why some people might play this way.

Not really relevant to what I was saying, mate.

The OP was distressed that everyone was doing this…but everyone isn’t. He saw a small group of people by percentage of the actual playerbase doing something extremely profitable.

It doesn’t matter why they do it. I’m playing more hours than most of them, I can almost guarantee it, and I intentionally choose not to do it. I don’t particularly care if other people do, however.

OK Vayne, I get what you’re saying. Thanks for clearing it up for me

ozmaniandevil.6805:

OK Vayne, I get what you’re saying. Thanks for clearing it up for me

Hey we Aussies have to stick together. Oi Oi Oi!

Yargesh.4965:

How is Wildstar working out for you OP?

Wildstar is very very fun Dungeons are sickly difficult which weeds out the baddies. Story and lore is rich. Combat is very fun. Build diversity is pretty decent. Taking a break while I figure out if I want to invest my time into raiding in wildstar or stay casual with Warframe and a mix of diablo 3 / guild wars 2 / anything else.

Draknar.5748:

I don’t think developers ever really plan for players to devolve into mindless farmers, but show me an MMO where farming doesn’t exist anywhere and I’ll eat my hat. If I were wearing one. Some people actually enjoy farming. I know I do on occasion. I find it relaxing on some level, but I think that’s because I’m from the UO days.

Oh I agree completely. I remember back in TBC days in WoW, farming motes and all in…that zone with black temple. Forgot the name. I would spend hours every afternoon farming it. All the glares wifey gave me at that time.