Guild Wars 2

I was one of the hundreds of thousands who played and loved the first GW series of games. I followed the development of the sequel intensely and then stormed the gates that pre-launch weekend. I put a lot of emotions into this game and in retrospect I had a lot of fun making it from 1-80 on my Guardian in three months. As I played the biggest letdown to me was the incredibly weak story (referring to personal story experience) and the broken state of the game. Even a month after release glitched events corrupted the high level maps, sPvP felt like a pre-beta product, exposing the games biggest weakness- horrible imbalance in the professions and core systems (e.g. paid tournaments) not in place at all. The WvW PvP suffered from game breaking hacks. Players were flying around using exports and the ranger bots were destroying the low level zones. Also the game engine that shipped needed a lot of optimization work. Culling techniques that were applied at the last minute were hurting PvP in general. Kid gloves off, that was the early days of GW2. It wasn’t pretty at all. For whatever reason the game shipped way too soon.

But under the broken mess, the innovation was still there. I was determined to not lay down a harsh judgement until I finished the final dungeon. That event came and went and I was so underwelmed I stopped recommending the game and then stopped trying to defend. I joined the voices of many others detailing specific things needed to be done to fix GW2. Things like getting rid of paid tournaments, fixing the culling problem in WvW, providing more things for guilds to do together, providing a better gear ladder. Providing some sort of ranking of PvP.

Here’s the interesting thing, ArenaNet listened.

Although I haven’t played in months, looking through all the patch notes I see they addressed most of the communities request. Some of these changes (e.g. the sPvP and hot-join pvp part of the game) are so drastic it seems they had no clear vision from the beginning. Colin Johansen said in recent interview “when you make an MMO you’re betting the company”. I think he’s right about that. I think it’s critical you get most of it right at launch and I think with all the changes that have gone in post launch, ArenaNet got more wrong than right.

I do hope the game survives. If get more free time in my schedule I’d like to give the PvP side a try again, but I honestly don’t think the game is doing as well as the core community may think. Some clear indicators to me would be the reduced cost of the game, the sale in the GEM store, the dramatic exchange rate increase in real currency to in game coin (real currency buys you 3x more in game coin than it did at launch, ArenaNet admits to using an algorithm they manipulate to keep the economy healthy- and bring in more micro-transaction dollars to help keep revenue stream coming in).

I don’t like they they are “focusing on the living world” and don’t even have an expansion on the drawing board. Although stand-alone add-ons like we saw with GW1 were never planned for GW2, expansions were always part of the plan! So to hear there are none on the drawing board six months after release should tell you what NCSoft thinks of GW2 (never forget what NCSoft did to Tabula Rasa. If one of their USA based studios produces a product that stops making a lot of money for them they tend to gut the company and destroy it. They don’t care what industry veterans they shame in doing so either).

There are many things an expansion typically bring. New playable races, New zones new professions, new skills, new armor, etc… Does ArenaNet really intend to make all of that available free in the coming months? If so I don’t see how it benefits them to hide that information. Honestly Colin sounded a bit bleak with some of his comments. If you try to judge popularity by searching the web (which has its merits) well, it’s not a pretty picture. Even Diablo 3 is getting more love on Twitch these days. That’s really not a good sign IMO.

Although it’s not critical to the future success of the game, I also wonder what happened to Eric Flannum and Ree Sosebee and Mike O’Brien. These three were high-profile ArenaNet employees and they completely disappeared from the Internet without a trace around September of last year. Do they still work at ArenaNet? If they do, it’s very interesting how their Public Relations department has chosen to hide/shield certain people.

GW2 was positioned to to become the new king of MMOs, but due to a very bumpy launch and initial unfinished design (e.g. aforementioned profession balance problems, incomplete PvP system at launch, broken events, no PvE content past 80) do you think all the hard work the company has put into making the game right will pay off -or- do you think MMO player bases in general refuse to circle around and give games a second chance?

Lol, I was curious about Eric too… who knows who still works at ANet, only a certain someone gets face time (Colin). . Ree is a loremaster I’m sure she’s still on somewhere.

They have abandoned GW2 pvp, and trust me with current design there is no way in hell it will ever achieve e-sport or even be half decent. Our only hope is for someone to take a team and hop back on GW1 and start the balance train so we can get some good old GvG up again.

I’m convinced they won’t add new skills to this game, which is vomit worthy imo but it is what it is. Never felt safe even in GW1 with NCsoft, I feel ya there. Surprised it’s even still on the servers.

I dunno though, I’ve pretty much lost all respect for any of the ANet devs. Dunno who you can trust now, ya know. Their whole 180 on design thing may make GW1 just as bad as GW2, I can see it now… removal of monks and stream lined 20 skills per class.

Oh and where the hell did John Stumme go? He was my hero a while back for taking some initiative on GW… that guy totally disappeared off the map.

If anything, the PVE game is more alive than ever. Queensdale has overflows again, which has to do with Behemoth. These 80s help out lower levels though. Even in mid-level zones it is normal to meet up people while Orr has been revitalized by rebalancing some mobs. GW2 is the best PVE MMO in the world, and only becomes better.

As far as PVP is concerned … d3 being more popular on twitch means d3 is more popular, but that “argument” doesn’t hold any merit. Soccer is more popular than Cyclocross yet we all know soccer is the most boring sport in the world. On the other hand, A.net can safely ignore sPVP in order to make the PVE world the best there is. This seems to be the course of action. Furthermore, WvW is the meat and bones of GW2 PVP so I hope they can really implement something cool in march. We’ll see in 2 weeks. However, broken PVP has no bearing on most PVE players.

My objective conclusion is that GW2, just like every MMO including big names like WoW, Eve and Everquest, was released as a beta product. Did you really expect anything different? The whole charm of joining a new MMO is riding the bug wave, and in GW2, it has been a relatively smooth ride thus far. I repeat this one truth: other games were virtually non-playable due to bugs, lag and queues in the first months. GW2 cleanly avoided all that, which was already a revolutionary improvement.

Sales: online stores have sales all the time. GW1 had year round sales too… No ground for a conspiracy. The daily sales coincides well with the daily laurels. People now have a reason to open the gem store every day. That drives revenue, whether or not the sale is relevant to the player.

this game needs more skills in the bar below whit 10 it feels so shallow epicly empty somehow and yes i enjoy in rich UI some of you dont but i would like mounts and housing in this game whic will incrise sales epicly

marnick.4305:

If anything, the PVE game is more alive than ever. Queensdale has overflows again, which has to do with Behemoth. These 80s help out lower levels though. Even in mid-level zones it is normal to meet up people while Orr has been revitalized by rebalancing some mobs. GW2 is the best PVE MMO in the world, and only becomes better.

True…it’s more active, but it’s less about 80’s wanting to help low levels out….it’s because Behemoth is now fixed after about 5 months of it being broken. It’s active because of Last Rest exotic and the crescent-moon blade(?) drops which have been absent from the game, ….because behemoth dropped it and it’d been bugged! And since you’re guaranteed a rare, when you weren’t before, everyone’s now doing the major events because they actually give something decent.

Sales: online stores have sales all the time. GW1 had year round sales too… No ground for a conspiracy. The daily sales coincides well with the daily laurels. People now have a reason to open the gem store every day. That drives revenue, whether or not the sale is relevant to the player.

Sales are verified by the marketing companies of the game. TERA went on a drastic sale well before news was announced it was loosing players and planning a transition to F2P. Steam also does this – it’s always based off the developer’s discretion. (Read up the Steam vs Origin stuff that happened a while back. EA said that steam basically sells off games at a cheap price point which devalues games….Steam came back at EA saying that actually, all games on sale are only on sale because of developer choice, not steam – Steam is simply a store-front for them) Ever wonder why that Mario Galaxy never went down in price in the space of 8 months but a dozen other games did? = Developer choice.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

…….
Some clear indicators to me would be the reduced cost of the game, the sale in the GEM store, the dramatic exchange rate increase in real currency to in game coin (real currency buys you 3x more in game coin than it did at launch, ArenaNet admits to using an algorithm they manipulate to keep the economy healthy- and bring in more micro-transaction dollars to help keep revenue stream coming in).
…..

Yes, the currency exchange uses an algorithm for “price discovery”. However there has never been an admission or any evidence that the algorithm is manipulated. Players exchanging gold for gems pushes the rate up, players exchanging gems for gold pushes the rate down. While I personally don’t like the system, accusing the developers of what would amount to fraud without any evidence is not objective.

Devs, add more skills, weapons and swappable weapon skills and jobs done everyone’s happy instead of building that laughable quest in which you talk to npcs…

Psientist.6437:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

…….
Some clear indicators to me would be the reduced cost of the game, the sale in the GEM store, the dramatic exchange rate increase in real currency to in game coin (real currency buys you 3x more in game coin than it did at launch, ArenaNet admits to using an algorithm they manipulate to keep the economy healthy- and bring in more micro-transaction dollars to help keep revenue stream coming in).
…..

Yes, the currency exchange uses an algorithm for “price discovery”. However there has never been an admission or any evidence that the algorithm is manipulated. Players exchanging gold for gems pushes the rate up, players exchanging gems for gold pushes the rate down. While I personally don’t like the system, accusing the developers of what would amount to fraud without any evidence is not objective.

They have said the algorithm used for currency exchange is confidential. It’s not as simple as you describe and they have also stated it’s not a “free market” system admitting they do manipulate it. Their revenue model is all box sells and micro-transaction based. They have said they retain the right to change prices as needed to help the economy of the game. Perhaps “manipulate” is too strong of a word. In the context of using the currency exchange rate changing with the value of in game coin dropping against real currency I think whatever word we use is arbitrary.

So I do believe watching the real world currency to in game coin exchange rate is something that could be looked at as a metric of the overall health of the game. If they value of in game coin increased against real currency that would be a sign as well.

Actually it is as simple as I describe and ‘not being a free market’ is not synonymous with the devs/pubs manipulating the exchange rate. A free market is a marketplace in which everyone can post/fill buy/sell orders. In the Tyrian currency exchange, only the BLTP can post buy/sell orders.

I’ll stop before it sounds like I am defending how the currency exchange works.

So what does the exchange rates history actually demonstrate? The exchange rate is going up because more and more Tyrian gold is being converted into gems. I would be hard-pressed to use that metric to make an unequivocal statement regarding the game’s general health.

Usually not much of a conspiracy theorist, but in this case I truly feel Gw2 was rushed to market because of the gap in the ‘big name’ mmo market currently. Releasing when it did it hit that sweet spot. Those bored with the last wave of big mmos, needed something. And as a bonus no major mmo was on the horizon for a year or more. Perfect. You get the bored, and they will stay and spend cause there is nothing else.

I think there are a lot like me out there, we wait hoping it will get better. The game has potential. Thinking it won’t. But with no where to go we wait. And hope

I’ll have to agree – 6 months after release, the most notable change is that the game now features lots of grind.

Other than that?

Dungeons have been slightly improved, but most of them are still an imbalanced mess. Boss chest drops were finally improved, but all other drops are still the same – now tons of players are just camping world bosses. Great. The trading post is still overloaded, because offers still don’t expire. Zerg vs Zerg is still Zerg vs Zerg, including the same culling issues. Instead of encouraging players to spread out, Anet will “fix” culling, which will likely just open a new can of worms. And sPvP still is… does anyone even bother with sPvP anymore?

People don’t do pvp because it doesn’t benefit them outside of pvp while wvw and pve benefit each other.

^

voila.

its the only reason for most people except the pvp chickens who dislike or fear it.

^

but oviously, anet doesnt get it.
like they dont get “the big picture” on a lot of endgame issues.

they have a great base, but their metathinking is quagganesque.

I like Pvp but if i spend 5 hours in it i’ve earnt nothing I can use outside of Pvp which makes it like earning nothing at all.

Also I want to go in with my party which isnt possible outside of tournaments

I wonder if they have considered Scrum if they are using agile, that way they would at least know what everyone else is working on.

Guild missions were terribly designed and added, the only reason i could figure for the weeks between missions is that they havent finished them yet so wanted to force us to wait 2 months to unlock them.

This WvW patch is pretty much make or break for a lot of people so I pray they put more focus into it :/

Lost shores wasn’t enjoyable for me personally and the final boss was just draining on my morale.

Halloween was fun and interesting but I was disappointed that they made the events disappear, why add fun content only once a year? even if it gives a very low reward I want to play the ghost hunt game now

wvw and pvp upgrades are make or break it for me too.

this game pve as a “farming” mmo isnt enjoyable for me.
pve is to lvl up alts single player style and doin some dungeon runs for gear.

Phoenix.3416:

I wonder if they have considered Scrum if they are using agile, that way they would at least know what everyone else is working on.

Guild missions were terribly designed and added, the only reason i could figure for the weeks between missions is that they havent finished them yet so wanted to force us to wait 2 months to unlock them.

This WvW patch is pretty much make or break for a lot of people so I pray they put more focus into it :/

Lost shores wasn’t enjoyable for me personally and the final boss was just draining on my morale.

Halloween was fun and interesting but I was disappointed that they made the events disappear, why add fun content only once a year? even if it gives a very low reward I want to play the ghost hunt game now

This adds to the feeling that the whole thing has changed hands. Almost everything they have added feels half done and rushed. When I have read about other mmo they talk about when the game launched they had all this stuff half done and it became what was released as time went by.

Here it seems like they had Halloween planned and then… Nothing. Like someone just said stop what you are working on, now we are going in the new direction. Here is the new ideas. Now go, you have a month. Good luck and Godspeed.

Wryscher.1432:

This adds to the feeling that the whole thing has changed hands. Almost everything they have added feels half done and rushed. When I have read about other mmo they talk about when the game launched they had all this stuff half done and it became what was released as time went by.

Here it seems like they had Halloween planned and then… Nothing. Like someone just said stop what you are working on, now we are going in the new direction. Here is the new ideas. Now go, you have a month. Good luck and Godspeed.

To speculate: It’s highly possible NCSoft laid off a lot of the high cost talent, perhaps not the superstars who got all the spotlight pre-launch but some of the lower-profile brains of the operations (although as mentioned I do wonder where Eric Flannum and Ree Sosebee have been hiding). Let’s just look at the technical aspect of the game from a development cost perspective. A Sr. Software Engineer in Korea makes an average of $40k a year. In the US that pay rate is double. Korea has a very strong talent pool and ArenaNet is wholly owned by Korean based NCSoft. It makes perfect sense to conceptualize and build the game with US talent but to shed some of that cost and maintain it largely with less expensive local talent.

So from a business stand point I would not be surprised at all if this were going on. NCSoft would be under no obligation to divulge this if it were true. In fact it would be something they would probably be wise to keep quite about.

The bottom line: When you release a product before its ready all the hype in the world won’t save you. When you’re constantly playing catch up, the quality of your updates will suffer. It’s kind of annoying now to think about the grandiose and luxury show-off pics of the ArenaNet office space. This was a very proud group pre-launch indeed. Almost seems Enron and Titanic-esque at this point… Almost.

Have I had my $60 worth…most definitely and the first time through to max level was really enjoyable despite the bugs. They are tolerable once and for a short time but…..

Unfortunately, despite their best ideological intentions, I think the bean counters got the best of the devs forcing releases before they are actually ready in an attempt to maximise the sale potential of the game.

At the moment I have the feeling that they are so overwhelmed with bugs and network issues they are having trouble seeing the “forest” so to speak and this is evidenced by their total silence on so many critical issues…especially game breaking ones like the lag and culling issues.

I have just put regular playing on hold to see how/if they can emerge from the depths they are currently in…..and I don’t know that that is a guaranteed outcome.

Personal opinion only.

Microtransactions are killing games in general. Selling content as dlc is fine. Basing an economy around microtransactions is always a mess and kills the game. GW2 is no exception.

Gohlar.3671:

Microtransactions are killing games in general. Selling content as dlc is fine. Basing an economy around microtransactions is always a mess and kills the game. GW2 is no exception.

I don’t agree at all. I think that the exact opposite is true in fact.

I would much rather spend money on micro transactions in the cash store vs. a paid subscription model. The problem is that there is nothing compelling whatsoever in the gem store besides bag and bank slots. It’s almost criminal that the same 3 ugly sets of armor are all we have to buy from them.

As a father of three who frequently travels internationally for work, I’m never going to farm up a legendary weapon. That kind of time investment is for halfhearted college students or teenagers working part time at Hot Topic. I’d gladly drop cash on something that looks as nice from the gem store, but Anet doesn’t seem to want the money.

Christopher.5813:

Gohlar.3671:

Microtransactions are killing games in general. Selling content as dlc is fine. Basing an economy around microtransactions is always a mess and kills the game. GW2 is no exception.

I don’t agree at all. I think that the exact opposite is true in fact.

I would much rather spend money on micro transactions in the cash store vs. a paid subscription model. The problem is that there is nothing compelling whatsoever in the gem store besides bag and bank slots. It’s almost criminal that the same 3 ugly sets of armor are all we have to buy from them.

As a father of three who frequently travels internationally for work, I’m never going to farm up a legendary weapon. That kind of time investment is for halfhearted college students or teenagers working part time at Hot Topic. I’d gladly drop cash on something that looks as nice from the gem store, but Anet doesn’t seem to want the money.

An example of a non intrusive, in my honest opinion BRILLIANT Cash shop that has gotten at LEAST the equivalent of 4 to 5 times the amount of cash from me as this game has, which is the price of the game itself.

League of Legends.

champions can be earned, and quite easily with many of the easiest champs being low ip cost (non rmt currency) and it’s really just skins that cost you real cash and with the exception of one or two minor issues there’s no actual difference in the effectiveness of the character with skins or not.

Guild Wars 2, completely fails as a Cash shop, and with such a successful system in place, instead opts to go for the types of items that players have complained about in other games, since their creation…

You’re right, the minute they hired someone from NEXON they clearly DIDN’T want our money.

Gele.2048:

this game needs more skills in the bar below whit 10 it feels so shallow epicly empty somehow and yes i enjoy in rich UI some of you dont but i would like mounts and housing in this game whic will incrise sales epicly

GW only had 8 skills available at any one time. However, the depth come from how these skills interacted with each other (as opposed to the number of skills that were available). For example, Glowing Ice would deal damage. However, you would be better off using it when the target had a Water Magic Hex on them, since it’d also return energy. Shatterstone > Glowing Ice was practically free damage that returned most of your energy back.

What GW2 needs is the ability to swap weapon skills for different skills, but keep the amount of skills available at any one time the same i.e. each weapon skill slot has a pool of 2 or 3 skills you can choose from. Skills also need additional effects when you fulfill a criteria, so you don’t just spam them as and when, but take up the time to set up for maximum effect.

TheDaiBish, I miss the complexity from GW1. I loved how you could adapt to anything. Maybe ANet secretly despised how players could solo content and do UW in 15 min; and “BY GOLLY WE’LL MAKE A GAME WHERE THAT ISN’T POSSIBLE!! THAT’LL SHOW EM!!”.

Honestly I think ANet was struggling with the direction they wanted the game, and I have a feeling they went through many many iterations. Then launch day started showing on the horizon, and they had to settle on something.

GW2 will never be an eSport, just accept that ANet and bring back more skills. I don’t care if it is PvE only skills. Give us the chance to be the bad*sses we were in GW1.

marnick.4305:

Soccer is more popular than Cyclocross yet we all know soccer is the most boring sport in the world.

Not truth, looks like you dont know the meaning of the word ’’world’’ (?) which is a lot more than USA…and even in USA soccer has got a nice/decent spot unlike old times.

I do believe them when they say they have kept selling copies even after launch, but I do not believe that the player base is increasing. Between the different guilds that I am in, a huge friends list from launch and other friends with their guilds and friends, I do not for one second feel as if the true active population is growing. I don’t think anyone believes that.

I think everyone has something to gripe about with this game. We can all find something. The lack of end game, no matter what some might say to justify this. The unbalanced classes. The broken SPvP. What passes as new content (living story). Blah blah blah, continue list.

The fact is that nothing else is coming out soon. So we are going to keep playing this until a new game comes and we jump ship.

Platypus.7831:

I do believe them when they say they have kept selling copies even after launch, but I do not believe that the player base is increasing. Between the different guilds that I am in, a huge friends list from launch and other friends with their guilds and friends, I do not for one second feel as if the true active population is growing. I don’t think anyone believes that.

I think everyone has something to gripe about with this game. We can all find something. The lack of end game, no matter what some might say to justify this. The unbalanced classes. The broken SPvP. What passes as new content (living story). Blah blah blah, continue list.

The fact is that nothing else is coming out soon. So we are going to keep playing this until a new game comes and we jump ship.

Exactly, cough ESO cough, they really aren’t doing much to stay competitive, which means they don’t care and are not worried about it. Even WoW is doing major balances right now, after community cried out for balance Blizz answered.

Sigh. How did I know before even opening the thread that it would be all doom and gloom and dire predictions for the game? Because apparently it’s only disgruntled people who are in the main motivated to create such topics, whereas I guess most of the contented players are off playing the game. But this is even worse than usual, a mega post from someone who hasn’t even played the game in months. News flash to OP: throwing in a couple lines like “I do hope the game survives” does not in any way, shape, or form make your rant seem “objective.” I think you got objective and prejudiced confused.

And I would guess that you didn’t find a better MMO to play, because if you had I don’t know why you’d be here wasting so much of your time. If you really felt compelled to come here and complain, you could have just chimed in on one of the thousand other threads going on about pretty much the same things. Seriously, we get it, you’re not impressed with the game, it let you down, and you moved on. You’re not doing anyone a favor by coming back here.

Ghanto.9784:

snip
You could have just chimed in on one of the thousand other threads going on about pretty much the same things.

It is funny you can in here to save us from the doom and gloom and all i got was, there are thousands of other post like this one, and you don’t think maybe he has some valid points?

Wryscher.1432:

Ghanto.9784:

snip
You could have just chimed in on one of the thousand other threads going on about pretty much the same things.

It is funny you can in here to save us from the doom and gloom and all i got was, there are thousands of other post like this one, and you don’t think maybe he has some valid points?

I didn’t come to “save” anyone, never made any claim to, either directly or implied, so that was just a stupid comment on your part. No, I got taken in by the use of the word “objective” in the subject line – and there’s nothing objective going on here.

as much as anet did some epic things, they are also shooting themselves in the foot with the whole thing starting to look like a bowl of raisin brand mixed with lucky charms.

its a weird taste.

some cohesion and direction is in order.

As someone that doesn’t pvp alot I finally succumbed to boredom after completing my personal story, all dungeons and doing a ton of scenarios. I started collecting for my legendary but casually. I love the game but I like raids and for me personally that’s whats missing to keep me engaged. Actual instanced raids. Maybe they could drop cosmetic items, Armor / Wep skins. Just my thoughts.

Being able to party in hotjoin would mean my guild would actually do it. Don’t want to fight the tournament people they are scary.

It’s nice to go into spvp when you don’t feel like making any pve progress :p

I think there’s a lot resting on the big pvp patch. Hopefully has more dungeon fixes too. Dungeon mobs should not leash (and reduce their hp by 20% or so). Sneaking past mobs is fine but just running past is dumb.

I loved GW1. Played it for years and years.

GW2 just feels
- half baked (so many bugs, glitches, imbalances …)
- sterile (I get no personal connection to the game whatsoever)
- rewardless (yay another blue drop for beating the final boss of a 3 hour dungeon)

It’s just another “Us too!” MMO that’s on the fast lane to death and being forgotten. Very sad after the high expectations and looking forward to this game for years.

“providing a better gear ladder”

I stopped reading, there. It’s a shame. It could have been a pretty good post, too.

I’d like to point out that searching the web for critisisms and popularity is NOT a good way to find it out. It’s what statistitions call a “voluntary sample”, which is a very bad and bias thing. In voluntary samples it’s usually negetive people, the people who have things to complain about, that post things or respond. Mostly because, what do content people have to say? Nothing, they’re too busy enjoying the game. I’m not saying your views are invalid, i’m only correcting you on the whole “searching the internet for popularity” thing. For example, on a news broadcasting station, a question may be asked, “call in and tell us how you feel about obamas new gun control” or w.e. Most calls will be against it, on average.