Never Fear - Things will get better
Sad to say, but while I agree with you spotting this as a likely outcome I think the direction Heart of Thorns took is directly because someone in NCsoft had a panic attack when Black Desert showed up.
We’re seeing the same behavior with Black Desert as NCsoft is doing with Blade & Soul. That game’s ancient now, but they’re just getting it over the US and EU. Pearl Abyss had some brains and threw it across the ocean just as fast as they reasonably could. There will be a market when it gets here. Unfortunately the Tamer is bimboed up pretty badly and won’t even be in the beta unless they do something quick. That leaves girls with a few boring slasher options and a quick gender-blocked deletion on the Wizard. Glad to see Korea has figured out there’s a gender besides men, but I think the skirt says a lot about where Black Desert is going to go.
Heart of Thorns definitely got rushed out of the house. Verdant Brink is a brains-on sort of map, but Auric Basin is deliriously bad. Tangled Depths was going somewhere, but the underground river portion starts at stops at the Skelk cave. Dragon’s Stand is just your typical Central Tyrian map with awesome at the end…
I don’t think it’s the poor testing that’s ruining the game right now. It’s what looks like a growing loss of faith in the devs to not force us into a gear grind. The best part about this game is exploration content. Combat’s always been touch and go. The raid was a dubious addition and now finding out it’s getting a year of dedicated creation… and that’s the only news on Heart of Thorns (the rest of it)… yeah. Bad day. Bad day.
The one MMO was looking forward to (Everquest Next) has been put on life support. It is a shame, though. Buildable and destructible environments looked fun. I mean, I hated that their whole “permanent changes to the world” thing would mean that the game could only break, but it would’ve been interesting.
That said, I’m fine with HoT. I like the maps, I like the enemies, I like the new specializations, I like masteries, I like the gear prefixes, I like the money I make, I like the music, and I like the new skins. Story is “meh” and I don’t plan on raiding anytime soon, and I haven’t done PVP/WvW stuff, but I find more good than bad in the game right now.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
I’m only playing <Insert MMO1 Here> until <Insert MMO2 Here> comes out!
“I care nothing for a festering industry that wantonly refuses to
provide a service that I’m willing to purchase.” – Fortuna.7259
provide a service that I’m willing to purchase.” – Fortuna.7259
Black Desert BETA in NA.
kitten poor testing on HoT ruined this game.
I don’t know anything about Black Desert to comment, but I absolutely love all the mighty Visual Noise the Witch class is displaying in this video:
Black Desert BETA in NA.
kitten poor testing on HoT ruined this game.
Worry not, Black Desert is a grind fest, many people will try it out and go back to GW2. Here atleast things takes less time.
(BD – 2 weeks to craft an armor that has different skin than any other armor, plus you have to know how to do it. Wich shops you need to buy, wich workers you need to hire, etc etc.)
Besides prettiness, I honestly am not convinced Black Desert has anything special to it-along with many possible cons I am very wary of. “Sandboxes” have appeal, but GW2 does definitely looks like the more complete game universe (no offense intended, it’s fine to like different things.) In fact, GW2 probably has no peers for what it does-that I know of-for better or worse.
I’m kind of interested in BDO, but not crazy about it. Similar to my feelings on Archeage, definitely some cool features, but also down sides (too much vertical power progression vs horizontal, for my tastes).
I’m mainly waiting for Crowfall (was into EQN until the whole SOE thing, ..still watching though). But seriously, Crowfall, ..anyone who was interested in EQN or WvW really needs to check it out. It’s still a year or so out, but I’d suggest keeping it on the radar. The devs are super transparent and open about their progress too (unlike certain companies I can think of, cough Anet cough).
This past week I’ve been playing the Albion Online closed beta and I expect to spend quite a lot of time on that game over the next year at least. It’s no Crowfall, but it’s a nice and approachable sandbox fix in the mean time.
Sandbox games just feel so much more free and satisfying vs themeparks. Story content is great and all, but outside of that, players should have ways of making their own story/history ..make an actual difference in the world and to each other. GW2 and other games like it, just feel kind of hollow. Pretty to look at, but short on actual substance. I’m not interested in mastering the Meta of predictable scripted instances and then doing it 100x for shiny epic lootz. This is a superficial experience.
I more want the freedom to make decisions and be involved in things that actually have some impact in the world. GW2 DEs might be better than traditional quests, but “dynamic”? No, that’s not what they’ve ever really been, and even less so in HoT. WvW had potential, but I feel it was somewhat squandered. It’s player-driven and that’s great, but they failed to give it much gravitas. 7 days is too short of time to care about anything. Castle-flipping is so trivial and their ownership so pointless. It’s all about the PPT and that’s lame. That’s not a “cause” worth caring about. And to top it off, WvW seems to have been dead since HoT (at least up until I stopped bothering to check). So when I log on and ask myself “what do I want to do today”, it’s increasingly hard to find an answer beyond clicking the daily chest.
I’ll always have an attachment to GW lore (GW1 mostly so far), but in terms of the Vision & Direction Anet seems intent on going toward, I’m not as confident that’s the path I want to be on. I don’t know if it’s because of NCSoft, or the “New Anet”, but they seem clearly more interested in looking backward toward games like WoW rather than leading the pack forward. They’re too afraid of being niche and too desperate to not miss out on all the hardcore Raider money they think is waiting for them.
I’m starting to feel smaller and stronger niche games are the way of the future, for me at least. Instead of trying to be generic and all things to all players, there is a lot to be said for just picking a direction and fleshing it out as much as possible. No game is going to appeal to everyone and that’s ok. Know what kind of audience you’re going for and throw all your efforts toward that rather than half-kittened efforts towards many different audiences.
Devs should define their Vision and make the most of it (and stick to it!!). I feel Anet did a good job there with GW1, but never really nailed that down with GW2 and they’ve just been trying to be all over the place, and because of that, nothing has ever been quite as good as it could have.
Guild: Everlasting Sacred Path [ESP]
Server: Tarnished Coast
Server: Tarnished Coast
Oh look it’s this thread again.
When we see you 2 weeks after BDO comes out, will you repeat the same comments shared by all those who said ESO, Wildstar, Age of Conan, Blade and Soul etc…. said before you ?
Black Desert BETA in NA.
kitten poor testing on HoT ruined this game.
I don’t know anything about Black Desert to comment, but I absolutely love all the mighty Visual Noise the Witch class is displaying in this video:
Lol. I watched it and what it reminded me was this game I have on my iPad where ant nests appear and you kill the ants by various ways (bombs, fire, ice, rain, etc). The ants in that game make a sound very similar to the noise on that video.
As to the combat, I noticed its rather static. No moving when casting. The mobs were all bunched up and stand there while being killed.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
ANet may give it to you.
Unless they’ve changed things crafting in there will probably make leveling scribe look dirt cheap.
If Black Desert counts ‘for the better.’
That’s just really depressing.
Black Desert was another game that seemed to have potential but they made it for some really hard core players. People complain about Guild Wars 2 being grindy. They’ll learn what grind really means.
Black Desert was another game that seemed to have potential but they made it for some really hard core players. People complain about Guild Wars 2 being grindy. They’ll learn what grind really means.
Exactly, having played BDO beta, ESO and skyforge. I experienced actual grind, yet people calling GW2 grindy, just wait until they play those games. Hopefully then they would stop slap the word grind on every aspect of the game just because they don’t understand what actual grind is like in mmos.
Some must fight so that all may be free.
The OP should totally play it so he’ll know what grinding with little content is.
I can’t really say bad thing about it, because grindy game actually do pretty well in Korea. Maybe that’s why people call those mmorpg Korean grinder.
Answer to thread title : Sorry, but the answer is no. Unless other developers pick up on what GW2 did right, this game still has no equal, even with its flaws. Other games may do certain things better, but tend to have so many more things worse that it’s not much contest.
Just watched some gameplay footage of Black Desert beta. The UI absolutely kills the appeal for me. Good looking game if you turn the UI off, it seems. Otherwise, yuck.
I’m very particular about UI design and visual appeal in general, and I can’t stand games that feel like one team designed the atmosphere (environment, characters, etc.) and then some random other team made a bland, generic UI and gave zero kittens about how it meshes with the atmosphere of the game.
Or words to that effect.
Black Desert BETA in NA.
kitten poor testing on HoT ruined this game.
I don’t know anything about Black Desert to comment, but I absolutely love all the mighty Visual Noise the Witch class is displaying in this video:
You call that visual noise? tsk tsk
Black Desert BETA in NA.
kitten poor testing on HoT ruined this game.
I don’t know anything about Black Desert to comment, but I absolutely love all the mighty Visual Noise the Witch class is displaying in this video:
You call that visual noise? tsk tsk
I’ll raise you FF14 Limit Breaks
(though granted that one appears to be constant in your vid)
Oh great..another dime a dozen crappy asian mmo i wont even try because i don’t want to listen to “HI-YAHHH” every three seconds. Asian mmo’s are like World War two first person shooters..they have been endlessly overplayed and just keep coming.
Boring!!
I play this game for two months, personally I like the environment in this game, different options to lvl up, but after I have reach now lvl 80, I quess I will play it for 1-2 weeks more, dynamic events are still funny to me, but I have to say, everything else is, huh. I noticed that ’’new’’ mmorpg’s all seems to be kinda rush, rush runners, from 0 to max. lvl in few weeks, with poor char development,unexciting classes… and as an end game is pvp. Fast food games. Years ago I had played SilkRoad Online, a hardcore grinder, but It was crazy fun for a very long time, until the arrival of bots.
Oh great..another dime a dozen crappy asian mmo i wont even try because i don’t want to listen to “HI-YAHHH” every three seconds. Asian mmo’s are like World War two first person shooters..they have been endlessly overplayed and just keep coming.
Boring!!
lmfao I can’t stop laughing at that sound. There’s so many of them it’s stupid repetitive.
Remember, it’s always the darkest just before it goes completely black. /jk
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes