Guild Wars 2

MikaHR.1978:

jayb.1329:

so….you want the strongest gear possible and you want it to be easy to get.

sounds like the typical complainer on these forums

Read my signature.

If I’d had time, I’d make a signature that says all MMOs evolve and change and Guild Wars 2 is no exception.

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Your signature is meaningless.

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

jayb.1329:

so….you want the strongest gear possible and you want it to be easy to get.

sounds like the typical complainer on these forums

Read my signature.

If I’d had time, I’d make a signature that says all MMOs evolve and change and Guild Wars 2 is no exception.

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Your signature is meaningless.

So, everyone bullkittens so its ok for ANet to bullkitten too.

rofl

And yes, read my signature.

And gear treadmill is not evolution its devolution.

Vayne.8563:

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Honest question:

Would those dev quotes you find include statements that essentially claim that the previous statement was never true ?

jayb.1329:

So you put several hundred hours into the game, beat every dungeon and most of the hard content……you sound skilled, so skilled in fact that you should be able to get ascended gear just like all the characters in the zerg train that you’re worried about.

The main problem is that ascended are not about skill but time sink and grind. I’m sorry you aren’t able to understand this concept, although OP has explained it superb

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

jayb.1329:

so….you want the strongest gear possible and you want it to be easy to get.

sounds like the typical complainer on these forums

Read my signature.

If I’d had time, I’d make a signature that says all MMOs evolve and change and Guild Wars 2 is no exception.

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Your signature is meaningless.

So, everyone bullkittens so its ok for ANet to bullkitten too.

rofl

And yes, read my signature.

And gear treadmill is not evolution its devolution.

No, everyone doesn’t bullkitten. Every business reacts to the needs/desires of the largest share of their customer base…of they’re out of business before you know it.

If I opened up a vegetarian restaurant and I had 10 good customers and on one else, I’d go out of buiness. If I started serving meat, I’d lose those 10 good customers. They’d get mad at me, they’d curse me, they’d say I betrayed them, they say I lied.

Of course, those ten good customers weren’t about to volunteer to pay all my bills. So the can say anything they like and from their perspective it would be true, if ungenerous. From my perspective, I’d have a viable business, that was there for other people who might enjoy my style of cooking.

I think they are great addition to the game, exotic really were too easy to acquire.

These however require a little effort, and i mean it, very little, just do your daily things, and craft your time gated items until you can craft. Seriously, the material required are easy to get, and you don’t need much of them.

The only complain I have right now is getting your crafting to 500, after 475, refining ascended material no longer gives exp, and you have to craft tons of exotic to get it up to 500.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Honest question:

Would those dev quotes you find include statements that essentially claim that the previous statement was never true ?

I don’t know. Simple enough answer.

Communication in language is always fraught with difficulty. You could say something directly that you understand 100% and think no one else could possibly misunderstand…and then find out people have misunderstood. The manifesto line about grind is by far the best example of this.

Grind has 2 different possible meanings. Traditionally in MMOs you grind for levels…everything you farmed. Gear grind is a relatively new term in MMO terms. Now in the paragraph where Colin said, “we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2”, a lot of people took that to mean grind for gear. Yet there’s nothing in that paragraph at all to support that. Colin is talking about combat. He’s talking about killing the same boss over and over again to level, like we had to do in Aion. I understand this because that’s how I’ve always used the word grind. At no time did I ever think that there wouldn’t be some grind in the game…just not a grind to level.

It’s like when Anet said you can “play your own way”. They meant everyone can get to max level doing different stuff. You can level most of the way in WvW, or through crafting or just doing dynamic events in Queensdale without ever doing anything else.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure that what people hear is what is being said. Certainly a number of statements that have been called lies, I’ve interpreted differently than those who have claimed Anet was lying.|

And things DO change in MMOs. Anet went through great time and effort to talk about their iterative style and how they iterate and sometimes they go back and change entire systems. Taken with everything else, that seems to me to say they’re trying stuff and changing stuff all the time.

So the stuff that are statements that people take as promises are just that. Statements of intent. Everything else is something to play around with.

Basically anyone who thinks anything about an MMO is written in stone is likely to be disappointed.

MikaHR.1978:

I would like to point out little phrase “vote with your wallet” but since you cant do that, vote with not playing, not logging in.

Of course you can vote with your wallet. Do you think they are running the game with holy spirit? Thousands and thousands of people are spending money on the gem store every day.

I have so far spent at least 150€ on this game, including the box. I have made a decision I will not spend any more until they fix the skill lag in WvW. Thus I have voted with my wallet.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Honest question:

Would those dev quotes you find include statements that essentially claim that the previous statement was never true ?

I don’t know. Simple enough answer.

Communication in language is always fraught with difficulty. You could say something directly that you understand 100% and think no one else could possibly misunderstand…and then find out people have misunderstood. The manifesto line about grind is by far the best example of this.

Grind has 2 different possible meanings. Traditionally in MMOs you grind for levels…everything you farmed. Gear grind is a relatively new term in MMO terms. Now in the paragraph where Colin said, “we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2”, a lot of people took that to mean grind for gear. Yet there’s nothing in that paragraph at all to support that. Colin is talking about combat. He’s talking about killing the same boss over and over again to level, like we had to do in Aion. I understand this because that’s how I’ve always used the word grind. At no time did I ever think that there wouldn’t be some grind in the game…just not a grind to level.

It’s like when Anet said you can “play your own way”. They meant everyone can get to max level doing different stuff. You can level most of the way in WvW, or through crafting or just doing dynamic events in Queensdale without ever doing anything else.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure that what people hear is what is being said. Certainly a number of statements that have been called lies, I’ve interpreted differently than those who have claimed Anet was lying.|

And things DO change in MMOs. Anet went through great time and effort to talk about their iterative style and how they iterate and sometimes they go back and change entire systems. Taken with everything else, that seems to me to say they’re trying stuff and changing stuff all the time.

So the stuff that are statements that people take as promises are just that. Statements of intent. Everything else is something to play around with.

Basically anyone who thinks anything about an MMO is written in stone is likely to be disappointed.

I am not speaking of vague or open to interpretation statements whose wording can be taken to mean different things.

characters are intended to have max stat gear by level 80
vs
characters were not intended to have max stat gear that quickly.

There is a huge difference between having to adapt to unexpected realities of a post launch game and claiming now that they never meant what they claimed back then.

I would not blame you for changing from a vegan restaurant to one that serves meat due to the needs of the business. But if you sold people a life time membership to your restaurant, which you advertised to them as vegan, for a one time fee and then changed your menu while claiming that you never intended it to be a vegan restaurant I would.

Trice.4598:

I think they are great addition to the game, exotic really were too easy to acquire.

These however require a little effort, and i mean it, very little, just do your daily things, and craft your time gated items until you can craft. Seriously, the material required are easy to get, and you don’t need much of them.

This is an absolute lie. The ascended material is easy to get by doing Temples and dungeons but it will take you a lot of time to accumulate mats for one ascended weapon not including the crafting and other materials. And if you are just doing a daily, probably in a year you would get your first ascended weapon.

Khal Drogo.9631:

And if you are just doing a daily, probably in a year you would get your first ascended weapon.

If you are just doing dailies you have absolutely zero reason to get an ascended weapon, ever.

Irrodesia.3907:

This, this very thing, is what they do. They rush everything that is thrown at them and if obtaining an item or reaching a goal can’t be reached fast enough by standard terms they find an alternative means of getting it.

Time-gating was never going to stop anyone from getting the weapon in the first five days.
…
By that alone, people already had their Ascended weapons on day one when the patch went live.
…
People that stockpile materials and gold like people on an episode of Doomsday Preppers or sit in town and play Virtual Wall Street: Black Lion Trading Edition all day aren’t exactly the average player base. Is there anything wrong with people that do that? No. In a situation like this will they realistically obtain something faster than the rest of the player base because of it? Yes.
…
The target group you have turned your attention to will always surpass your expectations.

Every. Single. Time.

They don’t want just ‘one more tier’ with ‘slightly better stats’. They are content for the time being, until they finished the entire Ascended gear set then it’s back the square one; now they need a new tier of gear with higher stats so they can feel like they are accomplishing something.

That target group isn’t one you can realistically keep happy. They came to Guild Wars 2 and couldn’t wrap their mind around the fact that, once you hit the final tier you never have to worry about BIS gear again. They never had that before, many couldn’t handle it and their brains went in to meltdown and they rejected that very concept.

So…. What ARE you going to do now?

This is a GREAT POST!!!!

Some people like me are screaming all the time that average players are letf behind and in disadvantage all the time.
Ascended gear crafting made that even worse for those people, really.
Now those who were rich invested money and made much more and those who were poor now have even less cause they don’t even have equal gear not to mention money for transmutation or skins.

GREAT WORK. This is SO STUPID!!!

So many of my friends left. It wasn’t cause they were bored. It was all because they didn’t wanted to be rushed to do everything in 2 weeks, cause grind was too much for them and now it’s worse and I’m thinking about living also. Thank you ANet.
GW2 just turned from being nice to play game into some kind of race system in which if you stop for a day you will be left behind.

I’m more and more sick of it and what now?
If I stop playing after a month or few month I won’t probably ever come back cause I will know how much I missed and it will make me resign before I even start playing the game. (Just like I heard from friends).

Tom Gore.4035:

If you are just doing dailies you have absolutely zero reason to get an ascended weapon, ever.

Playing a character at max level with BiS gear is fun for me. It makes me want to financially support the company that produces the game. Even if all I was doing was dailies.

Having fun and wanting to financially support the company is greater than zero reasons.

TwoBit.5903:

stof.9341:

Actually, I want the Ascended gear out of this game :o That or they remove the extra stats compared to Exotics.

Pretty much this. The tier does more harm than good.

What hurts hame the most is Asceended being BTAccount and the number of mats you need to consume to craft to 500. That leveled prices to unreachable for normal players and thus mare ascended only for rich guys (mostly daily doing nothing except dailies and TP farming.

Irrodesia.3907:

.5% damage increase to 13% damage increase or higher, the point is even if the increase is small it is indeed an increase. If you can do just a small amount more damage, even if it only effects a fight by killing something three seconds faster, you know that it aids in some way shape or form.

Thus which led to the example and the point that it makes, no matter how small an improvement, it is an improvement. So saying that it doesn’t matter is void.

Totaly agree.

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

jayb.1329:

so….you want the strongest gear possible and you want it to be easy to get.

sounds like the typical complainer on these forums

Read my signature.

If I’d had time, I’d make a signature that says all MMOs evolve and change and Guild Wars 2 is no exception.

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Your signature is meaningless.

So, everyone bullkittens so its ok for ANet to bullkitten too.

rofl

And yes, read my signature.

And gear treadmill is not evolution its devolution.

No, everyone doesn’t bullkitten. Every business reacts to the needs/desires of the largest share of their customer base…of they’re out of business before you know it.

If I opened up a vegetarian restaurant and I had 10 good customers and on one else, I’d go out of buiness. If I started serving meat, I’d lose those 10 good customers. They’d get mad at me, they’d curse me, they’d say I betrayed them, they say I lied.

Of course, those ten good customers weren’t about to volunteer to pay all my bills. So the can say anything they like and from their perspective it would be true, if ungenerous. From my perspective, I’d have a viable business, that was there for other people who might enjoy my style of cooking.

Nope.

If you had a vegan restaurant and 10 good customers but somehow think that by putting “just a bit of meat” in the food you will get another 5 customers=stoopid.

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

I would like to point out little phrase “vote with your wallet” but since you cant do that, vote with not playing, not logging in.

Of course you can vote with your wallet. Do you think they are running the game with holy spirit? Thousands and thousands of people are spending money on the gem store every day.

I have so far spent at least 150€ on this game, including the box. I have made a decision I will not spend any more until they fix the skill lag in WvW. Thus I have voted with my wallet.

As long as they can show good concurrency/login numbers they will not care.

MikaHR.1978:

As long as they can show good concurrency/login numbers they will not care.

Hah! You think that’s how they really measure how well the game is doing? That’s just something to brag about and hopefully to attract more customers. Think about it for a second before blurting out stuff like that.

“Over 450000 concurrent users!”

vs.

“Over 20 million USD spent on our Cash Shop”

Now which one will attract more customers?

No, the day their revenue starts going signifigantly down they will have our attention. OUR attention who still play the game, but are no longer giving them any money. We are still spending their resources but somehow we don’t feel like the game is worth any of our hard earned cash anymore.

Only then they start asking us “Ok what do you want to make you pay for the game again?” and really caring about what we answer.

Everyone that posts things like this doesn’t realize because ArenaNet chose a free to play model, they have to design monetization tactics into the gameplay… that is quite simply what you are seeing with so much grind (and ways around it – the cash shop.)

MikaHR.1978:

As long as they can show good concurrency/login numbers they will not care.

They will not tell us… if it’s so great, why not put a live page up that shows, at all times, how many players are logged in at any given time?

Of course, they could just define what an “active” player is and tell us how many there are, but they don’t seem to want to do that either…

Zeldain.5710:

Everyone that posts things like this doesn’t realize because ArenaNet chose a free to play model, they have to design monetization tactics into the gameplay… that is quite simply what you are seeing with so much grind (and ways around it – the cash shop.)

Interestingly enough the cash shop will not help you in collecting the 500 pcs of ascended materials. It can help you to skip the other parts by converting to gold, but the ratio sucks.

For whatever faults I could attribute to ANet for not fixing the skill lag or introducing gear grind, I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be: People spend money on it because they want to support the game.

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

The whining is incredible. I suggest you all get jobs/lives outside of the game and then maybe you won’t feel compelled to “grind” out an ascended version of every weapon you have immediately.

“You mean I have to PLAY this game more to get a better item?! This is unacceptable, Anet is screwing me.”

To Anet: thank you for introducing some more progression I can work towards on my character, I like the fact that the materials for ascended weapons come from a variety of different game elements. I’m sorry for all the entitled children on this forum, but I’m sure you know they don’t represent the majority of players.

Why are Ascended Account bound?

Initially they wanted YOU to run the Fractals of the Mists and experience this “endless” dungeon tower. So by having them be account bound they were hoping that would be enough incentive to get the majority of the population to run these dungeons regularly. But the overall reward of fractals was below community expectations for the investment needed.

So instead of wasting this planned cycle of gear, they eventually added the exclusive Fractal rewards to the Laurel Merchant. This is an obvious daily Unique Users boosting system. MMORPGs are built on interlocking incentives and reward systems to encourage players to return day after day. By providing another way to get accessories that the majority of the community thought weren’t worth the trouble of doing fractals, they managed to kill two birds with one stone. If at this point they made Ascended Accessories that dropped from fractals Soulbound on Equip, that would have removed the major selling point of their Daily Login attraction.

The Ascended Cycle was designed to encourage repeat daily user logins over a long duration of time.

We have the same pattern for the ascended weapons, but instead of being tied to dailies and monthlies, the returning user gimmick is daily crafting. At this point in time most regular players through guild missions, WvW, and laurels, should have one or multiple character in at least one full ascended accessory set. Thus in their minds, as users our options are; make alts and gear them, get bored and quit, or continue playing the game. So we get the timely release of the Ascended Weapon sets. The account bound boxes that drop the weapons are a nod at attempting to satisfy us, but the random nature of the stats and their account bound status makes sense when you consider that the entire ascended concept was built to boost Unique User counts by encouraging daily repeat logins. You can think of it as a casino comps. Sure free drinks and a free room are nice, but you wanted to win the jackpot, at least it’s something and you can always try again tomorrow. Just login, you might get it tomorrow. It’s all about feeding the addictive nature of players tied to probability reward systems.

When we the user base exhaust and complete our ascended weapon sets, we’ll get the next release in this account bound daily user cycle.

And then the question becomes: What happens when we exhaust the entire Ascended Armor, Weapon, and Accessory Set?

You can see why long term this design is dangerous.

I can safely say at this point, we will never see non-account bound ascended items and the drop rates and acquisition rates of these items will be kept intentionally low. They designed this system to encourage us to want to login and continue playing the game everyday. Like what many of us were doing before the creation of Ascended.

Joonks.7501:

The whining is incredible. I suggest you all get jobs/lives outside of the game and then maybe you won’t feel compelled to “grind” out an ascended version of every weapon you have immediately.

“You mean I have to PLAY this game more to get a better item?! This is unacceptable, Anet is screwing me.”

To Anet: thank you for introducing some more progression I can work towards on my character, I like the fact that the materials for ascended weapons come from a variety of different game elements. I’m sorry for all the entitled children on this forum, but I’m sure you know they don’t represent the majority of players.

Try reading the post before you reply. But then I don’t think you are really interested in understanding what other people are thinking.

100% agree with OP. I always was against ascended gear, but never was too worried about it, since somehow i thought AN wouldn’t go too far with it. That was before this ascended weapons bs came out. I’am still not worried, because it’s no use now, it’s already happened, they did go way too far with it, it’s an epic fail in my book, it is an utterly boring chore, as this whole game slowly becomes one sadly. Then will come armor etc. Bleh, just thinking of what you will need to go through with to make different sets of armor and weapons only for 1(!) of your lvl80 toons makes me sick, and i have 4. F. it. Mr. Colin can go and play this bs himself, no ty.

Tom Gore.4035:

Interestingly enough the cash shop will not help you in collecting the 500 pcs of ascended materials. It can help you to skip the other parts by converting to gold, but the ratio sucks.

For whatever faults I could attribute to ANet for not fixing the skill lag or introducing gear grind, I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be: People spend money on it because they want to support the game.

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

Oh, but the cash shop isn’t there to help you at all. Economic tip: monetization is never in favor of the spender

The fact is, time is the only finite currency we have. So while there may not be direct ways to “buy” all you need for an Ascended item, the time you spend doing it leads you conveniently to the cash shop for other items… wether that’s as benign as a “convenience” item to make up your lost time or not.

It’s all part of the grand design, my friend. There is psychology at work here that goes far beyond what most workaday players understand.

Power should not be sold (and it isn’t, directly.) Convenience should not be sold (but it is, directly.) Only cosmetics should be sold… things that you cannot get in-game anyway. Then you are not trading money for time, you are only trading money for goods. Further, there should be no random elements to cash shop purchases (mini pets.)

Joonks.7501:

The whining is incredible. I suggest you all get jobs/lives outside of the game and then maybe you won’t feel compelled to “grind” out an ascended version of every weapon you have immediately.

“You mean I have to PLAY this game more to get a better item?! This is unacceptable, Anet is screwing me.”

To Anet: thank you for introducing some more progression I can work towards on my character, I like the fact that the materials for ascended weapons come from a variety of different game elements. I’m sorry for all the entitled children on this forum, but I’m sure you know they don’t represent the majority of players.

The problem is there’s nothing creative or interesting about grind-based gameplay. There’s no narrative… there’s no teamwork… there’s just a list of repetitive chores in front of you (or a visit to the cash shop.)

So, yeah. Feel free to defend it but more and more I’m convinced GW2 was not designed as a game at all, but rather a monetization vehicle completely.

With all the quotes from Anet about anti-grind, the irony couldn’t be thicker.

The majority has spoken.

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

As long as they can show good concurrency/login numbers they will not care.

Hah! You think that’s how they really measure how well the game is doing? That’s just something to brag about and hopefully to attract more customers. Think about it for a second before blurting out stuff like that.

“Over 450000 concurrent users!”

vs.

“Over 20 million USD spent on our Cash Shop”

Now which one will attract more customers?

No, the day their revenue starts going signifigantly down they will have our attention. OUR attention who still play the game, but are no longer giving them any money. We are still spending their resources but somehow we don’t feel like the game is worth any of our hard earned cash anymore.

Only then they start asking us “Ok what do you want to make you pay for the game again?” and really caring about what we answer.

And now i encourage you to go through their PR since launch and count how many times concurrency/logins/number sold were used and how many times amount of money spent/earned was used.

And those numbers, in this particular case, are not really for you or players or potential players, they are for those who make decisions in NCSoft.

MikaHR.1978:

And now i encourage you to go through their PR since launch and count how many times concurrency/logins were used and how many times amount of money was used.

And those numbers are not really for you or players or potential players, they are for those who make decisions in NCSoft.

PR (public relations) is not for the decision makers of your own company (or its parent company). It is for the, hence the name, public. NCSoft’s decision makers have access to financial information that will not likely ever be included in a PR statement.

Even so both number of players and amount of money being spent are useful to Anet/NCSoft. The combination of the two allow them to make predictions about future revenue.

Ashen.2907:

MikaHR.1978:

And now i encourage you to go through their PR since launch and count how many times concurrency/logins were used and how many times amount of money was used.

And those numbers are not really for you or players or potential players, they are for those who make decisions in NCSoft.

PR (public relations) is not for the decision makers of your own company (or its parent company). It is for the, hence the name, public. NCSoft’s decision makers have access to financial information that will not likely ever be included in a PR statement.

Even so both number of players and amount of money being spent are useful to Anet/NCSoft. The combination of the two allow them to make predictions about future revenue.

Yes, and now a big question:

what would you do about high concurrency/login number and low revenue from it?

MikaHR.1978:

Yes, and now a big question:

what would you do about high concurrency/login number and low revenue from it?

An interesting hypothetical situation. The implication there is that plenty of people find the game worth playing, but little in the gem shop worth paying for. My own experience is not in the realm of online entertainment, but in a brick and mortar setting experiencing high traffic with low sales I would look into product selection and demographic analysis.

I suppose that could translate into better tuning the gem shop to meet the “needs” of the player base. This could take the form of expanding the gem shop’s selection. It could also take the form of introducing in game elements to make existing gem shop items more enticing. The latter is a dangerous option because it has the potential to drive existing players, and potential paying customers, away.

Tom Gore.4035:

I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be

Except it’s not. The so-called “convenience” items give economic power, at the very least.

Revive Orbs, as an example (not worth the effort to go down the entire list and detail how every item increases your power – even if it’s not direct stat power), mean you don’t have to abandon events, lowering your XP, karma, and gold rewards or incur transit costs from normal revival (which can easily wipe out the gold you would gain from an event, especially tougher ones where you might die several times). And, of course, for less populated events or dungeons, being able to get up instantly without another player having to become vulnerable can prevent a wipe, benefitting everyone involved.

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

Crafting Boosters save you a crapton of gold buying the materials needed to reach 500, a clear shortcut to Ascended (ie, Best in Slot) gear. Guess you’re out for good. Have fun with whatever game you’re going to next.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Honest question:

Would those dev quotes you find include statements that essentially claim that the previous statement was never true ?

I don’t know. Simple enough answer.

Communication in language is always fraught with difficulty. You could say something directly that you understand 100% and think no one else could possibly misunderstand…and then find out people have misunderstood. The manifesto line about grind is by far the best example of this.

Grind has 2 different possible meanings. Traditionally in MMOs you grind for levels…everything you farmed. Gear grind is a relatively new term in MMO terms. Now in the paragraph where Colin said, “we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2”, a lot of people took that to mean grind for gear. Yet there’s nothing in that paragraph at all to support that. Colin is talking about combat. He’s talking about killing the same boss over and over again to level, like we had to do in Aion. I understand this because that’s how I’ve always used the word grind. At no time did I ever think that there wouldn’t be some grind in the game…just not a grind to level.

It’s like when Anet said you can “play your own way”. They meant everyone can get to max level doing different stuff. You can level most of the way in WvW, or through crafting or just doing dynamic events in Queensdale without ever doing anything else.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure that what people hear is what is being said. Certainly a number of statements that have been called lies, I’ve interpreted differently than those who have claimed Anet was lying.|

And things DO change in MMOs. Anet went through great time and effort to talk about their iterative style and how they iterate and sometimes they go back and change entire systems. Taken with everything else, that seems to me to say they’re trying stuff and changing stuff all the time.

So the stuff that are statements that people take as promises are just that. Statements of intent. Everything else is something to play around with.

Basically anyone who thinks anything about an MMO is written in stone is likely to be disappointed.

I am not speaking of vague or open to interpretation statements whose wording can be taken to mean different things.

characters are intended to have max stat gear by level 80
vs
characters were not intended to have max stat gear that quickly.

There is a huge difference between having to adapt to unexpected realities of a post launch game and claiming now that they never meant what they claimed back then.

I would not blame you for changing from a vegan restaurant to one that serves meat due to the needs of the business. But if you sold people a life time membership to your restaurant, which you advertised to them as vegan, for a one time fee and then changed your menu while claiming that you never intended it to be a vegan restaurant I would.

Yes, that’s a big difference. As big as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant.

Anet saw the uptake of legendaries wasn’t working. They saw what people were saying. Believe it or not, they have many ways to judge who is doing what. My son, as I’ve said before, got his legendary and stopped playing. Now that ascended is back so is he, working on his ascended. For every guy like me, there’s a guy like him.

Anet made a decision before the game launched, saw that decision wasn’t quite working as they intended and changed the way they did business, kitten ing off the people who bought the game thinking it would be one way in the process. Anet did the same thing as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant. There’s no real difference here.

What Anet tried to do was compromise. Not everyone is happy with the compromise and some people can’t live with it, but I’m wagering the bulk of players can….certainly the bulk of players that are playing now.

Which leaves a small, vocal disenfranchised group who aren’t going to stop complaining until the game loses money. There’s a whole lot of people playing the game right now. I’m not sure that would be true if ascended gear hadn’t been introduced.

Ashen.2907:

MikaHR.1978:

Yes, and now a big question:

what would you do about high concurrency/login number and low revenue from it?

An interesting hypothetical situation. The implication there is that plenty of people find the game worth playing, but little in the gem shop worth paying for. My own experience is not in the realm of online entertainment, but in a brick and mortar setting experiencing high traffic with low sales I would look into product selection and demographic analysis.

I suppose that could translate into better tuning the gem shop to meet the “needs” of the player base. This could take the form of expanding the gem shop’s selection. It could also take the form of introducing in game elements to make existing gem shop items more enticing. The latter is a dangerous option because it has the potential to drive existing players, and potential paying customers, away.

Exactly, with “play but no pay” you wont get desired reaction, in fact reaction will 100% be on cash shop and “expanding its attractivness”

Pretty much the only way to have gameplay change is to – stop logging in.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Honest question:

Would those dev quotes you find include statements that essentially claim that the previous statement was never true ?

I don’t know. Simple enough answer.

Communication in language is always fraught with difficulty. You could say something directly that you understand 100% and think no one else could possibly misunderstand…and then find out people have misunderstood. The manifesto line about grind is by far the best example of this.

Grind has 2 different possible meanings. Traditionally in MMOs you grind for levels…everything you farmed. Gear grind is a relatively new term in MMO terms. Now in the paragraph where Colin said, “we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2”, a lot of people took that to mean grind for gear. Yet there’s nothing in that paragraph at all to support that. Colin is talking about combat. He’s talking about killing the same boss over and over again to level, like we had to do in Aion. I understand this because that’s how I’ve always used the word grind. At no time did I ever think that there wouldn’t be some grind in the game…just not a grind to level.

It’s like when Anet said you can “play your own way”. They meant everyone can get to max level doing different stuff. You can level most of the way in WvW, or through crafting or just doing dynamic events in Queensdale without ever doing anything else.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure that what people hear is what is being said. Certainly a number of statements that have been called lies, I’ve interpreted differently than those who have claimed Anet was lying.|

And things DO change in MMOs. Anet went through great time and effort to talk about their iterative style and how they iterate and sometimes they go back and change entire systems. Taken with everything else, that seems to me to say they’re trying stuff and changing stuff all the time.

So the stuff that are statements that people take as promises are just that. Statements of intent. Everything else is something to play around with.

Basically anyone who thinks anything about an MMO is written in stone is likely to be disappointed.

I am not speaking of vague or open to interpretation statements whose wording can be taken to mean different things.

characters are intended to have max stat gear by level 80
vs
characters were not intended to have max stat gear that quickly.

There is a huge difference between having to adapt to unexpected realities of a post launch game and claiming now that they never meant what they claimed back then.

I would not blame you for changing from a vegan restaurant to one that serves meat due to the needs of the business. But if you sold people a life time membership to your restaurant, which you advertised to them as vegan, for a one time fee and then changed your menu while claiming that you never intended it to be a vegan restaurant I would.

Yes, that’s a big difference. As big as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant.

Anet saw the uptake of legendaries wasn’t working. They saw what people were saying. Believe it or not, they have many ways to judge who is doing what. My son, as I’ve said before, got his legendary and stopped playing. Now that ascended is back so is he, working on his ascended. For every guy like me, there’s a guy like him.

Anet made a decision before the game launched, saw that decision wasn’t quite working as they intended and changed the way they did business, kitten ing off the people who bought the game thinking it would be one way in the process. Anet did the same thing as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant. There’s no real difference here.

What Anet tried to do was compromise. Not everyone is happy with the compromise and some people can’t live with it, but I’m wagering the bulk of players can….certainly the bulk of players that are playing now.

Which leaves a small, vocal disenfranchised group who aren’t going to stop complaining until the game loses money. There’s a whole lot of people playing the game right now. I’m not sure that would be true if ascended gear hadn’t been introduced.

“Vegan meal” with “a bit of meat” in it is not vegan meal any more.

Your spin aint working.

Ascended gear probably did more damage than good, and in the long run it will deal even more damage.

And it is ESPECIALLY bad if you were the only vegan restaurant around and theres crapton of meat ones that barely survive.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Honest question:

Would those dev quotes you find include statements that essentially claim that the previous statement was never true ?

I don’t know. Simple enough answer.

snip

It’s like when Anet said you can “play your own way”. They meant everyone can get to max level doing different stuff. You can level most of the way in WvW, or through crafting or just doing dynamic events in Queensdale without ever doing anything else.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure that what people hear is what is being said. Certainly a number of statements that have been called lies, I’ve interpreted differently than those who have claimed Anet was lying.|

And things DO change in MMOs. Anet went through great time and effort to talk about their iterative style and how they iterate and sometimes they go back and change entire systems. Taken with everything else, that seems to me to say they’re trying stuff and changing stuff all the time.

So the stuff that are statements that people take as promises are just that. Statements of intent. Everything else is something to play around with.

Basically anyone who thinks anything about an MMO is written in stone is likely to be disappointed.

I am not speaking of vague or open to interpretation statements whose wording can be taken to mean different things.

characters are intended to have max stat gear by level 80
vs
characters were not intended to have max stat gear that quickly.

There is a huge difference between having to adapt to unexpected realities of a post launch game and claiming now that they never meant what they claimed back then.

I would not blame you for changing from a vegan restaurant to one that serves meat due to the needs of the business. But if you sold people a life time membership to your restaurant, which you advertised to them as vegan, for a one time fee and then changed your menu while claiming that you never intended it to be a vegan restaurant I would.

Yes, that’s a big difference. As big as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant.

Anet saw the uptake of legendaries wasn’t working. They saw what people were saying. Believe it or not, they have many ways to judge who is doing what. My son, as I’ve said before, got his legendary and stopped playing. Now that ascended is back so is he, working on his ascended. For every guy like me, there’s a guy like him.

Anet made a decision before the game launched, saw that decision wasn’t quite working as they intended and changed the way they did business, kitten ing off the people who bought the game thinking it would be one way in the process. Anet did the same thing as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant. There’s no real difference here.

What Anet tried to do was compromise. Not everyone is happy with the compromise and some people can’t live with it, but I’m wagering the bulk of players can….certainly the bulk of players that are playing now.

Which leaves a small, vocal disenfranchised group who aren’t going to stop complaining until the game loses money. There’s a whole lot of people playing the game right now. I’m not sure that would be true if ascended gear hadn’t been introduced.

“Vegan meal” with “a bit of meat” in it is not vegan meal any more.

Your spin aint working.

Ascended gear probably did more damage than good, and in the long run it will deal even more damage.

When you’re done with your crystal ball, you must lend it to me. Because I think you’re wrong. I think ascended gear will be a storm in a tea cup.

A year ago people on these forums said the game is dying. That’s less true now than it is then. Maybe Anet knows something you don’t. Maybe what they’re doing is actually working for them.

It may not be working for you, which is another issue altogether.

In the meantime, I think this game is gaining popularity, not losing it.

Zeldain.5710:

Tom Gore.4035:

Interestingly enough the cash shop will not help you in collecting the 500 pcs of ascended materials. It can help you to skip the other parts by converting to gold, but the ratio sucks.

For whatever faults I could attribute to ANet for not fixing the skill lag or introducing gear grind, I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be: People spend money on it because they want to support the game.

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

Oh, but the cash shop isn’t there to help you at all. Economic tip: monetization is never in favor of the spender

The fact is, time is the only finite currency we have. So while there may not be direct ways to “buy” all you need for an Ascended item, the time you spend doing it leads you conveniently to the cash shop for other items… wether that’s as benign as a “convenience” item to make up your lost time or not.

It’s all part of the grand design, my friend. There is psychology at work here that goes far beyond what most workaday players understand.

Power should not be sold (and it isn’t, directly.) Convenience should not be sold (but it is, directly.) Only cosmetics should be sold… things that you cannot get in-game anyway. Then you are not trading money for time, you are only trading money for goods. Further, there should be no random elements to cash shop purchases (mini pets.)

Their grand design sucks, then. The introduction of this new grind and doing nothing about skill lag has made me stop purchasing stuff from the gem store.

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Honest question:

Would those dev quotes you find include statements that essentially claim that the previous statement was never true ?

I don’t know. Simple enough answer.

snip

It’s like when Anet said you can “play your own way”. They meant everyone can get to max level doing different stuff. You can level most of the way in WvW, or through crafting or just doing dynamic events in Queensdale without ever doing anything else.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure that what people hear is what is being said. Certainly a number of statements that have been called lies, I’ve interpreted differently than those who have claimed Anet was lying.|

And things DO change in MMOs. Anet went through great time and effort to talk about their iterative style and how they iterate and sometimes they go back and change entire systems. Taken with everything else, that seems to me to say they’re trying stuff and changing stuff all the time.

So the stuff that are statements that people take as promises are just that. Statements of intent. Everything else is something to play around with.

Basically anyone who thinks anything about an MMO is written in stone is likely to be disappointed.

I am not speaking of vague or open to interpretation statements whose wording can be taken to mean different things.

characters are intended to have max stat gear by level 80
vs
characters were not intended to have max stat gear that quickly.

There is a huge difference between having to adapt to unexpected realities of a post launch game and claiming now that they never meant what they claimed back then.

I would not blame you for changing from a vegan restaurant to one that serves meat due to the needs of the business. But if you sold people a life time membership to your restaurant, which you advertised to them as vegan, for a one time fee and then changed your menu while claiming that you never intended it to be a vegan restaurant I would.

Yes, that’s a big difference. As big as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant.

Anet saw the uptake of legendaries wasn’t working. They saw what people were saying. Believe it or not, they have many ways to judge who is doing what. My son, as I’ve said before, got his legendary and stopped playing. Now that ascended is back so is he, working on his ascended. For every guy like me, there’s a guy like him.

Anet made a decision before the game launched, saw that decision wasn’t quite working as they intended and changed the way they did business, kitten ing off the people who bought the game thinking it would be one way in the process. Anet did the same thing as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant. There’s no real difference here.

What Anet tried to do was compromise. Not everyone is happy with the compromise and some people can’t live with it, but I’m wagering the bulk of players can….certainly the bulk of players that are playing now.

Which leaves a small, vocal disenfranchised group who aren’t going to stop complaining until the game loses money. There’s a whole lot of people playing the game right now. I’m not sure that would be true if ascended gear hadn’t been introduced.

“Vegan meal” with “a bit of meat” in it is not vegan meal any more.

Your spin aint working.

Ascended gear probably did more damage than good, and in the long run it will deal even more damage.

When you’re done with your crystal ball, you must lend it to me. Because I think you’re wrong. I think ascended gear will be a storm in a tea cup.

A year ago people on these forums said the game is dying. That’s less true now than it is then. Maybe Anet knows something you don’t. Maybe what they’re doing is actually working for them.

It may not be working for you, which is another issue altogether.

In the meantime, I think this game is gaining popularity, not losing it.

And the only thing that changed since last year is ascended gear, amirite?

rofl

game is not gaining popularity, unless you redefined gaining popularity to mean: you sell 5% of what you sold before.

JDGumby.7685:

Tom Gore.4035:

I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be

Except it’s not. The so-called “convenience” items give economic power, at the very least.

Revive Orbs, as an example (not worth the effort to go down the entire list and detail how every item increases your power – even if it’s not direct stat power), mean you don’t have to abandon events, lowering your XP, karma, and gold rewards or incur transit costs from normal revival (which can easily wipe out the gold you would gain from an event, especially tougher ones where you might die several times). And, of course, for less populated events or dungeons, being able to get up instantly without another player having to become vulnerable can prevent a wipe, benefitting everyone involved.

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

Crafting Boosters save you a crapton of gold buying the materials needed to reach 500, a clear shortcut to Ascended (ie, Best in Slot) gear. Guess you’re out for good. Have fun with whatever game you’re going to next.

Do you even play this game? If you do, you are either trolling or dumb.

Revive orbs don’t save you any money, ever, if you buy them from the gem store. Their only use is to revive yourself in a tough dungeon encounter and only then if one of the party members can kite the boss long enough, or to revive yourself at a tough place of a long jumping puzzle. Instantly? LOL! You have never used one have you? Eliminate transit cost? ROFL! That 1-2 silver versus the cost of the orb? You still get equipment damage and the orb does not prevent that.

Crafting booster for saving money when crafting? Hah! With the gems you spend buying them you can get enough gold to cover the savings and have plenty left over.

I ask you again. Do you even play this game? Have you ever bought gems?

Tom Gore.4035:

JDGumby.7685:

Tom Gore.4035:

I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be

Except it’s not. The so-called “convenience” items give economic power, at the very least.

Revive Orbs, as an example (not worth the effort to go down the entire list and detail how every item increases your power – even if it’s not direct stat power), mean you don’t have to abandon events, lowering your XP, karma, and gold rewards or incur transit costs from normal revival (which can easily wipe out the gold you would gain from an event, especially tougher ones where you might die several times). And, of course, for less populated events or dungeons, being able to get up instantly without another player having to become vulnerable can prevent a wipe, benefitting everyone involved.

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

Crafting Boosters save you a crapton of gold buying the materials needed to reach 500, a clear shortcut to Ascended (ie, Best in Slot) gear. Guess you’re out for good. Have fun with whatever game you’re going to next.

Do you even play this game? If you do, you are either trolling or dumb.

Revive orbs don’t save you any money, ever, if you buy them from the gem store. Their only use is to revive yourself in a tough dungeon encounter and only then if one of the party members can kite the boss long enough, or to revive yourself at a tough place of a long jumping puzzle. Instantly? LOL! You have never used one have you? Eliminate transit cost? ROFL! That 1-2 silver versus the cost of the orb? You still get equipment damage and the orb does not prevent that.

Crafting booster for saving money when crafting? Hah! With the gems you spend buying them you can get enough gold to cover the savings and have plenty left over.

I ask you again. Do you even play this game? Have you ever bought gems?

Selling gold with which you can buy legendary weapons. They do sell power and advantage.

MikaHR.1978:

Tom Gore.4035:

JDGumby.7685:

Tom Gore.4035:

I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be

Except it’s not. The so-called “convenience” items give economic power, at the very least.

Revive Orbs, as an example (not worth the effort to go down the entire list and detail how every item increases your power – even if it’s not direct stat power), mean you don’t have to abandon events, lowering your XP, karma, and gold rewards or incur transit costs from normal revival (which can easily wipe out the gold you would gain from an event, especially tougher ones where you might die several times). And, of course, for less populated events or dungeons, being able to get up instantly without another player having to become vulnerable can prevent a wipe, benefitting everyone involved.

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

Crafting Boosters save you a crapton of gold buying the materials needed to reach 500, a clear shortcut to Ascended (ie, Best in Slot) gear. Guess you’re out for good. Have fun with whatever game you’re going to next.

Do you even play this game? If you do, you are either trolling or dumb.

Revive orbs don’t save you any money, ever, if you buy them from the gem store. Their only use is to revive yourself in a tough dungeon encounter and only then if one of the party members can kite the boss long enough, or to revive yourself at a tough place of a long jumping puzzle. Instantly? LOL! You have never used one have you? Eliminate transit cost? ROFL! That 1-2 silver versus the cost of the orb? You still get equipment damage and the orb does not prevent that.

Crafting booster for saving money when crafting? Hah! With the gems you spend buying them you can get enough gold to cover the savings and have plenty left over.

I ask you again. Do you even play this game? Have you ever bought gems?

Selling gold with which you can buy legendary weapons. They do sell power and advantage.

Yeah they do, don’t they. The amount of players spending ~550-600€ to get one legendary weapon must really upset the balance.

Nice try, though.

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

Tom Gore.4035:

JDGumby.7685:

Tom Gore.4035:

I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be

Except it’s not. The so-called “convenience” items give economic power, at the very least.

Revive Orbs, as an example (not worth the effort to go down the entire list and detail how every item increases your power – even if it’s not direct stat power), mean you don’t have to abandon events, lowering your XP, karma, and gold rewards or incur transit costs from normal revival (which can easily wipe out the gold you would gain from an event, especially tougher ones where you might die several times). And, of course, for less populated events or dungeons, being able to get up instantly without another player having to become vulnerable can prevent a wipe, benefitting everyone involved.

Tom Gore.4035:

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

Crafting Boosters save you a crapton of gold buying the materials needed to reach 500, a clear shortcut to Ascended (ie, Best in Slot) gear. Guess you’re out for good. Have fun with whatever game you’re going to next.

Do you even play this game? If you do, you are either trolling or dumb.

Revive orbs don’t save you any money, ever, if you buy them from the gem store. Their only use is to revive yourself in a tough dungeon encounter and only then if one of the party members can kite the boss long enough, or to revive yourself at a tough place of a long jumping puzzle. Instantly? LOL! You have never used one have you? Eliminate transit cost? ROFL! That 1-2 silver versus the cost of the orb? You still get equipment damage and the orb does not prevent that.

Crafting booster for saving money when crafting? Hah! With the gems you spend buying them you can get enough gold to cover the savings and have plenty left over.

I ask you again. Do you even play this game? Have you ever bought gems?

Selling gold with which you can buy legendary weapons. They do sell power and advantage.

Yeah they do, don’t they. The amount of players spending ~550-600€ to get one legendary weapon must really upset the balance.

Nice try, though.

there you go, your own words.

Tom Gore.4035:

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

MikaHR.1978:

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

Tom Gore.4035:

JDGumby.7685:

Tom Gore.4035:

I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be

Except it’s not. The so-called “convenience” items give economic power, at the very least.

Revive Orbs, as an example (not worth the effort to go down the entire list and detail how every item increases your power – even if it’s not direct stat power), mean you don’t have to abandon events, lowering your XP, karma, and gold rewards or incur transit costs from normal revival (which can easily wipe out the gold you would gain from an event, especially tougher ones where you might die several times). And, of course, for less populated events or dungeons, being able to get up instantly without another player having to become vulnerable can prevent a wipe, benefitting everyone involved.

Tom Gore.4035:

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

Crafting Boosters save you a crapton of gold buying the materials needed to reach 500, a clear shortcut to Ascended (ie, Best in Slot) gear. Guess you’re out for good. Have fun with whatever game you’re going to next.

Do you even play this game? If you do, you are either trolling or dumb.

Revive orbs don’t save you any money, ever, if you buy them from the gem store. Their only use is to revive yourself in a tough dungeon encounter and only then if one of the party members can kite the boss long enough, or to revive yourself at a tough place of a long jumping puzzle. Instantly? LOL! You have never used one have you? Eliminate transit cost? ROFL! That 1-2 silver versus the cost of the orb? You still get equipment damage and the orb does not prevent that.

Crafting booster for saving money when crafting? Hah! With the gems you spend buying them you can get enough gold to cover the savings and have plenty left over.

I ask you again. Do you even play this game? Have you ever bought gems?

Selling gold with which you can buy legendary weapons. They do sell power and advantage.

Yeah they do, don’t they. The amount of players spending ~550-600€ to get one legendary weapon must really upset the balance.

Nice try, though.

there you go, your own words.

Tom Gore.4035:

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

I’m starting to run out of steel wire, but I’ll try once more.

No one uses that shortcut because the cost is ridiculous. It is not splitting the community into “P2W” and “TooPoorToWin”.

You either don’t understand or pretend not to, to emphasize your own skewed point.

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

Tom Gore.4035:

JDGumby.7685:

Tom Gore.4035:

I still have to take my hat off when looking at the gem store. They still don’t sell power or even measurable shortcuts. It’s still mainly cosmetics and convenience, just as it should be

Except it’s not. The so-called “convenience” items give economic power, at the very least.

Revive Orbs, as an example (not worth the effort to go down the entire list and detail how every item increases your power – even if it’s not direct stat power), mean you don’t have to abandon events, lowering your XP, karma, and gold rewards or incur transit costs from normal revival (which can easily wipe out the gold you would gain from an event, especially tougher ones where you might die several times). And, of course, for less populated events or dungeons, being able to get up instantly without another player having to become vulnerable can prevent a wipe, benefitting everyone involved.

Tom Gore.4035:

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

Crafting Boosters save you a crapton of gold buying the materials needed to reach 500, a clear shortcut to Ascended (ie, Best in Slot) gear. Guess you’re out for good. Have fun with whatever game you’re going to next.

Do you even play this game? If you do, you are either trolling or dumb.

Revive orbs don’t save you any money, ever, if you buy them from the gem store. Their only use is to revive yourself in a tough dungeon encounter and only then if one of the party members can kite the boss long enough, or to revive yourself at a tough place of a long jumping puzzle. Instantly? LOL! You have never used one have you? Eliminate transit cost? ROFL! That 1-2 silver versus the cost of the orb? You still get equipment damage and the orb does not prevent that.

Crafting booster for saving money when crafting? Hah! With the gems you spend buying them you can get enough gold to cover the savings and have plenty left over.

I ask you again. Do you even play this game? Have you ever bought gems?

Selling gold with which you can buy legendary weapons. They do sell power and advantage.

Yeah they do, don’t they. The amount of players spending ~550-600€ to get one legendary weapon must really upset the balance.

Nice try, though.

there you go, your own words.

Tom Gore.4035:

The day they introduce clear shortcuts to BiS gear or blatantly start selling it, I’m out, for good.

I’m starting to run out of steel wire, but I’ll try once more.

No one uses that shortcut because the cost is ridiculous. It is not splitting the community into “P2W” and “TooPoorToWin”.

You either don’t understand or pretend not to, to emphasize your own skewed point.

Its like watching fish out of water

And: dont do the talk if you if you wont do the walk.

Kinda same advice fits ANet.

MikaHR.1978:

Its like watching fish out of water

And: dont do the talk if you if you wont do the walk.

Kinda same advice fits ANet.

I’m getting the feeling you’re exactly the kind of person who likes to watch living things die slowly and painfully.

@Vayne – For me you hit the nail on the head, so to speak. It is my playstyle that is no longer supported. It is the original vision of the game that I clung to and not what it has become. The direction has changed and to me is convoluted, sometimes confusing, full of chores and check lists, etc. (Like too many authors writing the same book without collaboration)
I log in and the majority of players are doing a handful of things. The very things that I didn’t participate in except on occasion. It is why I was left behind in all this. I was never really a farmer even if I wished I could be.
I think this thread is representative of the portion of the player base that stuck it out after the November announcement. I stayed in hopes that the implementation would be done well. We are two thirds of the way through ascended integration and it is painful to me. I am part of the disenfranchised and I doubt that the introduction of the ascended armor will make it any better. Unlike others you speak of, I do not wish Anet to fail because every industry needs competition to be innovative.
Your example of you v/s your son’s playstyle was spot on. For every diehard horizontal progression loving player there is one or more that want vertical progression.
It’s possible that because of November the largest part of the player base that loved horizontal progression, left. And now Anet needs to cater to the player base that is still playing on a daily basis. Maybe that player base is more concerned with vertical progression than the original. There is no way to know except to watch the direction of the game’s updates and additions.

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

Its like watching fish out of water

And: dont do the talk if you if you wont do the walk.

Kinda same advice fits ANet.

I’m getting the feeling you’re exactly the kind of person who likes to watch living things die slowly and painfully.

No, just the ones that deserve it….for a bit…for being a wise-fish ;P

MikaHR.1978:

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

Its like watching fish out of water

And: dont do the talk if you if you wont do the walk.

Kinda same advice fits ANet.

I’m getting the feeling you’re exactly the kind of person who likes to watch living things die slowly and painfully.

No, just the ones that deserve it….for a bit…for being a wise-fish ;P

Oh now I am the wise-“fish” and not the one who purposefully twists meanings to make his point?

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

Tom Gore.4035:

MikaHR.1978:

Its like watching fish out of water

And: dont do the talk if you if you wont do the walk.

Kinda same advice fits ANet.

I’m getting the feeling you’re exactly the kind of person who likes to watch living things die slowly and painfully.

No, just the ones that deserve it….for a bit…for being a wise-fish ;P

Oh now I am the wise-“fish” and not the one who purposefully twists meanings to make his point?

Yes, you are the wise-“fish” ;P

@Irrodesia, Thank you for posting your toughts. They eerily mirror that of my entire (though admittedly very small) guild.

Ascended is just not enough for the gear grind crowd and too much for the horizontal progression crowd. Leaving no one truly happy in the long term.

People are saying all the time that gear isn’t needed. That you can do naked runs of dungeons. So why add higher stats at all then?

Yet we needed to have magic find by account. Those MF leechers weren’t bringing their ‘A’ game and contributing enough so we changed MF. But its so easy you can do it naked, but don’t dare wear MF gear…

Some people keep saying the game is ‘too easy’, and that there is no PvE ‘challenge’. Ascended will only make things easier for them. If they rebalance for ascended, due to the time gating nature of it compared to exotics, those without it will be overly challenged and discouraged with thier inequal contributions to the group. Or just get wrecked solo.

What happens when the people who asked for a new gear tier are done collecting ascended? Add another tier or upset them by not adding one?

What is going to happen? Is there a plan in place for all of these contridicting opinions? Or will it just be reactive change after reactive change until the whole things spins wildly out of control?

We’ll just have to wait and see I guess. I really don’t think anyone from anet will ever post in this thread, so our only option is too wait and hope the game goes in a direction that each player agrees with, else choose a new game.

I agree with the OP nearly 100%. He is spot on with everything.

You can still say a skilled player with greens will outperform a skilled player with ascended. I can say that a skilled player in ascended will outperform a skilled player in greens.

You can say "no one is forcing you to do this’. I say that no one forces you to do anything in other MMOs either. Whats your point?

You can say that “every MMO is about adapting, re-inventing itself, changing, etc”. I’ll say why? Why can’t a developer have a set of principles and adhere to them. Yes, you make money, but I would imagine you would be a much more liked game if you adhered to those principles and let the hardcore elitists leave the game. You’ll be left with a more dedicated and happy community. And you’ll see less negativity on these forums as well as fansites where people say..all-the-time.. that Arenanet has abandoned its core principles.

I agree OP, I agree. I approached the game the same way and it all sank with the Lost Shores patch.