Guild Wars 2

The story is a bit content weak in gw2 admittedly and the replay value is somewhat limited once story ends, but I was in GW1 in the early days and after a while you got sick of tyria, but anet will give us new and better things to do.

Keep perspective its not even a year old yet.

And I agree with vayne, the skill system was my favourite part of guild wars 1 as well, but in time I’m sure the current system will be upgraded with the arrival of new content. But I do miss the depth of the old one.

To Vayne.8563

Guild wars destroyed? When? By whom?

Joke apart,

" So why compare four games, to a single game ?"

build crafting, second profession, body blocking, e-management, mesmer, ranger and 4 pvp instance : all in the first chapter

But anyways, reasons why they added/removed/tweaked things in gw2 are irrelevant to the discussion.

Problem is Arenanet pretending most gw features are in gw2 to sell the game to guild wars players.

GW1 :

• played for 5 years
• ~stopped (not because I am bored, but people went to GW2, so not much in PvP, JQ)
• Finished 4 stories (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and EotN) on 3 characters (1 from each continent)
• Few weeks ago made new Nightfall Ele (original was from Prophecies)

after 5 years … STILL NOT BORED (and still playing more often then GW2)

GW2:

• I would like to say that I got bored after 5 months/weeks/days for dramatic effect ..but that isn’t true …
• I didn’t prepurchase the game so I went trough hell to get that beta key for 3rd Beta

I played Friday night, most of the Saturday (tried everything SPvP, WvW, Fire Elemental, AC, Jumping… etc etc)… on Sunday i didn’t even TURN IT ON

I got bored of GW2 after two days

When game came out, I purchased it because I loved GW1 and I wanted to give it a fighting chance …

I have it for 7~8 months now… 2 lvl 80
My main Ele … 5x full Exotic sets of armors/weapons …still haven’t finished story …. (quest lvl 72~73 ) … (oh, and never purchased Tornado skill XD …kinda proud of it )

To me …there is no real competition between those 2 …. :/
GW1 = 4~5 GB
GW2 = 25~30 GB

GW1 still wins

I agree with many of the OP’s points. The storyline is weak and the challenge, sense of purpose and that sense of fun just isn’t in GW2 for me. GW1 really took off after max level and there was always a huge amount to do titles, vanquising, armour sets, skill captures, hidden treasure hunts, rep grindsthat actually had a purpose, new storylines and events and skill decks were awesome. Not much to do here at 80 and alts are pointless.

Sure it looks prettier we have beautiful, huge and empty cultural cities that are deserted in favour of sitting in LA busy doing nothing. We’re just being pushed down narrowing alleyways to all play the game just one way Fractals, Ascended, forced into big guilds and slipping increasingly closer to the old and tired MMO format of other games. The news that they aren’t working on expansions and have dumped any plans of ever adding Cantha gives me little hope there will be any improvement.

The lvl 40 max level idea is amazing.. it would make so much sense.

I agree 100% with orignal post. A lot of my freinds wont even consider playing gw2 because lack of accomplishments.

Vayne.8563:

I’m another long time Guild Wars 1 player, who likes Guild Wars 2 more.

First of all, you can only really compare Guild Wars 2 to Prophecies at launch. At this point in it’s development, Factions wasn’t out yet. And a lot of people seem to be comparing four games with one. Take away professions like the Rit, sin and dervish and see how many people are still saying Guild Wars 1 was much better. Certainly not as many PVe people.

25 missions, no hard mode. That’s what you had. And the mission bonuses were annoying and story breaking in some cases. Many were badly done (particularly in Nightfall).

Sorrow’s Furnace and hard mode weren’t there at launch. There weren’t 8 dungeons. There wasn’t five races and starting areas. And though the personal story is uneven, some of them are pretty good (while others are not). That being said, there are only so many times I could play through pre, even though some people loved it. At least here I have five zones to play around in.

I did like the skill system in Guild Wars 1 and loved making builds. It was my favorite part of the game. But it wasn’t enough to compensate for the incredible lack of necessary game functions, like marketplaces and jumping. The last thing I wanted to do was stand around Spamadan all day, trying to sell a bunch of stuff, instead of playing.

There was plenty wrong with Guild Wars 1. It was still one of the best games of its time but I think too many people remember it with rose-colored glasses on, and even more, many are comparing the full range of games that appear over a couple of years with what we’re seeing in Guild Wars 2 after six months.

In two years, I think this game is going to rock.

First, you say, you have to look at prophecies only, then you cry about kamadan… i don’t get it. All in all, i loved prophecies, because back then, there was something they called “runners”. And there were soooo many runs to do back then, some of them were pretty hard to do like droknar run with warrior. This all died when factions came out. Solo farming existed before factions. The 2 most played dungeons FoW & UW are from prophecies. Prophecies was AWESOME!

At the end of the day, GW1 had also issues when it launched and became better bit by bit. The only difference is that i don’t see it happening for GW2. I’m waiting for more skills since launch. Without build crafting there is no point in changing your skills ever, you just take the best ones and role with it. And that’s just boring. Remember the anet quote?? “We took everything you loved about GW1 and putted into a persistent world”, well that’s just talking BS to get more buyers for your game. I’m still waiting for the day that GW2 will be like how anet told us how it was going be like.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

First: Not having to have someone mail me payment for crafting them armor before I send it to them, or sending the armor and hoping they send me payment

Actually, yeah, there’s definitely a hole here in the current system for crafters making stuff on contract. I’m not sure whether the trading window would be the optimal answer, but at least you could hold onto the goods and sell them to someone else if the deal fell over.

GW1 launched in April. Five months later we got Sorrow’s Furnace and unique (green) items.
GW2 launched in August. Five months later we got… what? Flame and Frost: Prelude?

Yeah. Kinda bleh.

Ricky Da Man.5064:

Not just that but the difficulty of the content once you hit 80 is a bit meh too.

Yeah, Guild Wars 1 was WAY harder.

Vayne.8563:

First of all, you can only really compare Guild Wars 2 to Prophecies at launch. At this point in it’s development, Factions wasn’t out yet…

GW2 has been in development for 6 years. It was less than 5 years from the start of development on GW1 until the release of EotN.

Also, the developers haven’t had a brain wipe in between developing GW1 and GW2. If the things that made GW1 great are not in GW2, it is because they chose not to put them in, not because they haven’t thought of it yet on some hypothetical development timeline.

Tachenon.5270:

GW1 launched in April. Five months later we got Sorrow’s Furnace and unique (green) items.
GW2 launched in August. Five months later we got… what? Flame and Frost: Prelude?

Yeah. Kinda bleh.

Seriously? Now that’s just unfair.

We got fractals – and you gotta admit that the fractals dungeon itself is well-designed and better balanced than most existing dungeons. Hats off to everyone who designed that dungeon.

But at the same time, fractals are a good example of what is wrong with the development of GW2. While the dungeon itself was great, Anet introduced an idiotic, grindy difficulty scaling system along with. Pugging turned into a total chore within a week. How could Anet not see this coming? Why did it take 2-3 months to finally fix it? Imo having to grind the difficulty up was a chore in itself. Agony is a pointless grind-mechanic. Ah yes, and then we also had new fractals-only RNG ascended items… yeah… everybody loved those.

derLoko.2185:

Tachenon.5270:

GW1 launched in April. Five months later we got Sorrow’s Furnace and unique (green) items.
GW2 launched in August. Five months later we got… what? Flame and Frost: Prelude?

Yeah. Kinda bleh.

Seriously? Now that’s just unfair.

We got fractals – and you gotta admit that the fractals dungeon itself is well-designed and better balanced than most existing dungeons. Hats off to everyone who designed that dungeon.

But at the same time, fractals are a good example of what is wrong with the development of GW2. While the dungeon itself was great, Anet introduced an idiotic, grindy difficulty scaling system along with. Pugging turned into a total chore within a week. How could Anet not see this coming? Why did it take 2-3 months to finally fix it? Imo having to grind the difficulty up was a chore in itself. Agony is a pointless grind-mechanic. Ah yes, and then we also had new fractals-only RNG ascended items… yeah… everybody loved those.

I actually forgot about the Fractal thing, mostly because no one I know ever does it, I’m not keen on pugging, and the few times I’ve tried it solo it was pretty funny. Well. It would have been funny to anyone watching. I myself was more like kitten kitten kitten kitteny kitten!

WTB heroes/henchies and/or Ritualist.

If anything, I hope they don’t add extra levels to the cap. It wouldn’t do anything other than add a chore for a week, but it would be a balance nightmare.

Just look at what happened in World of Kittencraft. At some point, the number of skill points gained per level had to be reduced because players got too close not having all skills instead of a build. And then they made levelling faster because getting up there took too long…

…seriously, it won’t do anyone any favors. It only creates an illusion of progress and a stupid bunch of problems.

Guild Wars 2? There’s almost nothing in this game other than the setting which evokes the feel of the first game. I played GW1 for five years, came here super excited, expecting the same design ideas and a graphical update.

Well I got the graphics update, and a Z-axis that routinely screams at me that the mob I’m trying to kill is INVULNERABLE.

None of the mechanics, none of the difficulty, just a cookie-cutter MMO (without an LFG system) designed for the WoW crowd.

Thanks ANet, guess I’m out. Now I see why people left GW2 for GW1.

ThiBash.5634:

If anything, I hope they don’t add extra levels to the cap. It wouldn’t do anything other than add a chore for a week, but it would be a balance nightmare.

Just look at what happened in World of Kittencraft. At some point, the number of skill points gained per level had to be reduced because players got too close not having all skills instead of a build. And then they made levelling faster because getting up there took too long…

…seriously, it won’t do anyone any favors. It only creates an illusion of progress and a stupid bunch of problems.

There is a lot of not quite accurate there… just saying.

I think many players are (in a lot of cases) really suffering from Nostalgia, I loved Hero Quest back a very long time ago (by Sierra) – however I can assure you I don’t accurately remember how much time and pain I put in to get those very warm memories.

Actually now I think about it there was a lot of things HQ1 handled much better than GW2 and it was definately more fun… I might start a thread.

I thought I would try to give my feedback here. (previous post i made was in a thread that was old [didn’t notice the age tbh] wshich got me a warning!)

I want to like GW2 but its PvE is a grind for the simple reason that the monsters respawn so quickly it makes it seem pointless to do any of the tasks of fighting them for them to magically teleport back in mere minutes
That just leaves you with the crafting & traditional grinding outlets..

So yeah I feel very BLeh playing GW2.

ThiBash.5634:

If anything, I hope they don’t add extra levels to the cap. It wouldn’t do anything other than add a chore for a week, but it would be a balance nightmare.

Too late.

The devs already said that they designed the game with level cap increases fully in mind for when they started looking at expansions.

There are some valid points here but I would just like to add that I am a GW1 player, enjoyed that game and am also loving GW2 and I definitely would say I think they are heading in the right direction with it.

Ben Glover.2790:

Lets face it, ANET sold out.

Everything that was unique about GW1 they decided to change to make it more ‘WoW like’ because they want more money.

Completely ruined the skill system
Nothing like FoW/UW/DoA in the game which was the most popular endgame
No second profession
Removed the instances
Auction house (would much rather spamadan)
Obsidian armour was the most sought after thing and kept me and many others playing for years, having one weapon with an animation is no where near as good
No energy
No guild halls (seriously…)

They decided to cater for the ex wow players as they knew it would make more profit.. good job anet

Yeah i have to agree with this, if Guildwars 2 dropped the Guildwars tag and renamed itself to some other random Fantasy name i’d have dealt, but this is far from Guildwars i played for so many years..

I see two possibilities in current situation; devs don’t care and keep doing what they like and the Gem revenue disappears with players leaving OR they fix their game.

Number 2 is highly improbable.

leman.7682:

I see two possibilities in current situation; devs don’t care and keep doing what they like and the Gem revenue disappears with players leaving OR they fix their game.

Number 2 is highly improbable.

Fairly sure the money they got from my purchase has long disappeared into the ether. Guess they’ll be releasing skins like they did today a lot more often so they can actually have a revenue stream.

The reason I feel bleh?

This is not “GUILD WARS” 2.

This is a fantasy MMO that just happens to take place in Tyria.

Never before have I felt so disappointed with a game.

Please speak for yourself and not me. I am a long time GW1 player, and I dont feel “bleh” as the op describes it. Only thing I see is a shortfall in content for post story (ie end-game). Fractals goes somewhere towards this, but imo a few more things like it are required for players to contend with after they reach level 80.

And that in no way spoils my enjoyment of GW2 as it is now.

Tasty Pudding.3764:

GW2 has been in development for 6 years. It was less than 5 years from the start of development on GW1 until the release of EotN.

Apples to oranges…Guild Wars is a co-op rpg, Guild Wars 2 is a full-fledged mmorpg.

CoRtex.2157:

Vayne.8563:

I’m another long time Guild Wars 1 player, who likes Guild Wars 2 more.

First of all, you can only really compare Guild Wars 2 to Prophecies at launch. At this point in it’s development, Factions wasn’t out yet. And a lot of people seem to be comparing four games with one. Take away professions like the Rit, sin and dervish and see how many people are still saying Guild Wars 1 was much better. Certainly not as many PVe people.

25 missions, no hard mode. That’s what you had. And the mission bonuses were annoying and story breaking in some cases. Many were badly done (particularly in Nightfall).

snip

I did like the skill system in Guild Wars 1 and loved making builds. It was my favorite part of the game. But it wasn’t enough to compensate for the incredible lack of necessary game functions, like marketplaces and jumping. The last thing I wanted to do was stand around Spamadan all day, trying to sell a bunch of stuff, instead of playing.

There was plenty wrong with Guild Wars 1. It was still one of the best games of its time but I think too many people remember it with rose-colored glasses on, and even more, many are comparing the full range of games that appear over a couple of years with what we’re seeing in Guild Wars 2 after six months.

In two years, I think this game is going to rock.

First, you say, you have to look at prophecies only, then you cry about kamadan… i don’t get it. All in all, i loved prophecies, because back then, there was something they called “runners”. And there were soooo many runs to do back then, some of them were pretty hard to do like droknar run with warrior. This all died when factions came out. Solo farming existed before factions. The 2 most played dungeons FoW & UW are from prophecies. Prophecies was AWESOME!

At the end of the day, GW1 had also issues when it launched and became better bit by bit. The only difference is that i don’t see it happening for GW2. I’m waiting for more skills since launch. Without build crafting there is no point in changing your skills ever, you just take the best ones and role with it. And that’s just boring. Remember the anet quote?? “We took everything you loved about GW1 and putted into a persistent world”, well that’s just talking BS to get more buyers for your game. I’m still waiting for the day that GW2 will be like how anet told us how it was going be like.

Build crafting is one thing you likely won’t get here….at least not build crafting the way it was in Guild Wars 1. It was too hard to balance. For PvP, that’s a bad, bad thing, but it even affected PvE. Once they changed the rit signet of spirits, PVe in Guild Wars 1 became laughably easy. A necro and a couple of rits in your party, and you could do pretty much anything in the game solo with heros and henchmen. This very thing which a lot of GW 1 players loved, would be hated by a lot of the MMO world.

I say you have to compare Prophecies with Guild Wars 2, and bring up Kamadan because that’s where people sold stuff. I could have said Lion’s Arch but my point was that Guild Wars 1 at no point had a marketplace to sell stuff. Doesn’t matter what city I named where you had to go and sell stuff. The point is the same. No marketplace in Guild Wars 1, marketplace in Guild Wars 2. From launch. That’s comparing Prophecies to Guild Wars 2 at this stage, no matter what city I happened to name. I said Kamadan because that’s where everyone eventually sold stuff. So many peoiple hated going there, I used it to make a point…but that point was still valid for Prophecies.

Prophecies was a decent game if you had live people to play with or you liked pugging. It was a terrible game for soloers, because there were no heroes and some of that stuff you weren’t going to do with henchmen, at least not without becoming frustrated to the nth degree.

So yeah, people who don’t want to group would find Guild Wars 2 at this point better than Guild Wars 1 at the Prophecies stage. People who don’t want to stand around trying to sell stuff in chat would find that aspect better as well. People who like a more active combat might like Guild Wars 2 better. People who want a world that’s not pathed, so my ranger could like you know, go over a log instead of around it might like Guild Wars 2 better.

There were great things in Prophecies for some people but some of those things were the very things that prevented the game from going mainstream…like the builds. It was neither intuitive, nor new player friendly. Those who loved making builds, and there were many of us, enjoyed it. Everyone else, which was most people, went and got builds offline because it as too hard for them to figure out.

I think you overestimate how many people would want that kind of complexity in their build system.

I abhor the ‘its too hard to do .’. we streamlined it’ approach developers take these days. God forbid setting challenges for yourself and following through with them.

kKagari.6804:

I abhor the ‘its too hard to do .’. we streamlined it’ approach developers take these days. God forbid setting challenges for yourself and following through with them.

Is it that it’s too hard to do, or is it that every time they do something, half the people in the game complain?

A lot of things people want done, that makes perfect sense to them, would completely turn off another segment of the population. When you invest your money into a game development company, and you see that a majority of players are very casual, how would you go about programming?

A lot of stuff isn’t hard to do, but is more accurately translated into it would take too much time (read money) to put this in while we have other things to work on. It’s a developers nightmare. The game Anet really wanted to make they had to change several times. There would have been a whole lot less hand-holding in the game for example, if they didn’t have problems during early play-testing with people that just ran by events and did nothing. It’s why they added hearts, as one example.

Developers aren’t free to do anything they want to a game. They have to make sure people play the game. And sure sometimes they get that wrong. But it’s not just about something being too hard to do. It’s about how much it costs to do.

critickitten.1498:

The devs already said that they designed the game with level cap increases fully in mind for when they started looking at expansions.

You can add in an advancement system without the need to increase character level caps. City of Heroes did this exact thing, all characters got to level 80 as “max”. However skills could be gained and advanced through “levels” to increase a players ability and statitics. It would not be far fetched to conclude the same system could be implemented here, especially as both titles are NcSoft IP.

Vayne.8563:

kKagari.6804:

I abhor the ‘its too hard to do .’. we streamlined it’ approach developers take these days. God forbid setting challenges for yourself and following through with them.

Is it that it’s too hard to do, or is it that every time they do something, half the people in the game complain?

A lot of things people want done, that makes perfect sense to them, would completely turn off another segment of the population. When you invest your money into a game development company, and you see that a majority of players are very casual, how would you go about programming?

A lot of stuff isn’t hard to do, but is more accurately translated into it would take too much time (read money) to put this in while we have other things to work on. It’s a developers nightmare. The game Anet really wanted to make they had to change several times. There would have been a whole lot less hand-holding in the game for example, if they didn’t have problems during early play-testing with people that just ran by events and did nothing. It’s why they added hearts, as one example.

Developers aren’t free to do anything they want to a game. They have to make sure people play the game. And sure sometimes they get that wrong. But it’s not just about something being too hard to do. It’s about how much it costs to do.

I’d argue that removing an aspect of the game that was extremely well received actually hurts your pockets more. People complaining hasn’t deterred them this far, i.e. they completely ignore the people anyways.

kKagari.6804:

Vayne.8563:

kKagari.6804:

I abhor the ‘its too hard to do .’. we streamlined it’ approach developers take these days. God forbid setting challenges for yourself and following through with them.

Is it that it’s too hard to do, or is it that every time they do something, half the people in the game complain?

A lot of things people want done, that makes perfect sense to them, would completely turn off another segment of the population. When you invest your money into a game development company, and you see that a majority of players are very casual, how would you go about programming?

A lot of stuff isn’t hard to do, but is more accurately translated into it would take too much time (read money) to put this in while we have other things to work on. It’s a developers nightmare. The game Anet really wanted to make they had to change several times. There would have been a whole lot less hand-holding in the game for example, if they didn’t have problems during early play-testing with people that just ran by events and did nothing. It’s why they added hearts, as one example.

Developers aren’t free to do anything they want to a game. They have to make sure people play the game. And sure sometimes they get that wrong. But it’s not just about something being too hard to do. It’s about how much it costs to do.

I’d argue that removing an aspect of the game that was extremely well received actually hurts your pockets more. People complaining hasn’t deterred them this far, i.e. they completely ignore the people anyways.

What part is that?

Vayne.8563:

kKagari.6804:

Vayne.8563:

kKagari.6804:

I abhor the ‘its too hard to do .’. we streamlined it’ approach developers take these days. God forbid setting challenges for yourself and following through with them.

Is it that it’s too hard to do, or is it that every time they do something, half the people in the game complain?

A lot of things people want done, that makes perfect sense to them, would completely turn off another segment of the population. When you invest your money into a game development company, and you see that a majority of players are very casual, how would you go about programming?

A lot of stuff isn’t hard to do, but is more accurately translated into it would take too much time (read money) to put this in while we have other things to work on. It’s a developers nightmare. The game Anet really wanted to make they had to change several times. There would have been a whole lot less hand-holding in the game for example, if they didn’t have problems during early play-testing with people that just ran by events and did nothing. It’s why they added hearts, as one example.

Developers aren’t free to do anything they want to a game. They have to make sure people play the game. And sure sometimes they get that wrong. But it’s not just about something being too hard to do. It’s about how much it costs to do.

I’d argue that removing an aspect of the game that was extremely well received actually hurts your pockets more. People complaining hasn’t deterred them this far, i.e. they completely ignore the people anyways.

What part is that?

We’re talking about the streamlining of the skill bar here, I believe.

Good points brought up. I think many guild wars 1 players are looking at gw2 with 7 year old gw1 glasses. I do it sometimes myself. “Come on.. get to the war for kryta bounalready….”. Completely forgetting they were added years after the launch. I do miss many of the features we had in gw1 but we have to give gw2 time to grow and develope its own features.

Sure some of the sliders in gw2 changed. Allowing higher caps and harder baddies, but they are in relation to one another. A lot of the stuff we got to do after level 20 in gw1 were ablility unlocks. Change secondary professions, or be ableto fight Mursaat or enter hard mode or the mysts. I agree that gw2 is missing some of those after max level ablity unlocks but…. You have to give them time to see how the game is going and add them in later if needed. I know I want to be able to join another order and get daily/weekly missions from my order… Or even retrain my character as a different profession. Same character but can swap professions. Not dual but change my ranger into a starter engineer. LIke I can have two crafting disciplines but two professions….but 6 months in…vs a 7 year old game… It’s not comparing apple’s to apple’s…. Bring back tibbalt, kill trahearn

Resonance.4216:

The reason I feel bleh?

This is not “GUILD WARS” 2.

This is a fantasy MMO that just happens to take place in Tyria.

Never before have I felt so disappointed with a game.

You realize Prophecies was a cliche storm of epic proportions, and very much a “standard fantasy realm” until it got some legs to develop, right? Seriously, if it weren’t for the lack of orcs and elves it would have blended right in.

I’m honestly sceptical with some arguments setting GW2 against GW1 how much of the argument is coloured by nostalgia for something that was doubtless quite influential during many years of the person’s life. Trying to argue that certain mechanical choices were just ‘better’ in one version over the other, for example; of course you feel that they were better – you engaged with them for years. You’re bound to identify with them. If you’re attempting to objectively argue something you’ve invested so much of yourself into, it’s very difficult to do it without inherent bias from a subjective standpoint. Managing that means that you’re being self-critical as much as you are defending your viewpoint, because you’re attempting to look at something unclouded by preconceptions that may be distorting your view.

People prefer one thing over another – that’s fine. Simply saying that you like a thing so that makes it better – and even trying to justify your view without sufficiently addressing opposing views – doesn’t make a constructive argument. You’re not taking part in discussion at that point, you’re attempting to make a statement and things just become confused when someone decides to disagree with that statement. Or you’re ‘stating an opinion’ that you actually consider to be either fact or more valid than opposing opinions.

There’s an irony in that I’m saying all that as though it were fact, and I understand that some might not agree. But I see more arguments here (EDIT: On the forums) than discussion – more attempts to debunk people than understand them. And I don’t feel that we benefit from these at all.

proxy.7963:

People prefer one thing over another – that’s fine. Simply saying that you like a thing so that makes it better – and even trying to justify your view without sufficiently addressing opposing views – doesn’t make a constructive argument. You’re not taking part in discussion at that point, you’re attempting to make a statement and things just become confused when someone decides to disagree with that statement. Or you’re ‘stating an opinion’ that you actually consider to be either fact or more valid than opposing opinions.

“In my opinion” most of the comments in this thread, particularly on the first page and starting with the OP, have been very thoughtful and constructive, even when I don’t agree with everyone. I’m not sure this thread needs a lecture on positive discourse.

I didn’t like Guild Wars 1 very much. It was a pretty game for its time, but I never felt like I was really in control of things; I was leading a bunch of NPCs around that did stuff for me.

GW2 is a lot closer to exactly what I wanted in a game without even knowing it.

Give me an instanced CORPG over a persistent MMORPG every day.

Also, throw in a better way to heal, so that content isn’t boring and stale.

I feel like I’m playing a single player FPS with a bunch of other people in GW2.

In GW1 I felt like I was actually part of something.

Meret.5943:

“In my opinion” most of the comments in this thread, particularly on the first page and starting with the OP, have been very thoughtful and constructive, even when I don’t agree with everyone. I’m not sure this thread needs a lecture on positive discourse.

Intended less as a lecture and more an expression of my own opinion and thoughts on the matter. Sorry if it came off as starchy.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You realize Prophecies was a cliche storm of epic proportions, and very much a “standard fantasy realm” until it got some legs to develop, right? Seriously, if it weren’t for the lack of orcs and elves it would have blended right in.

- I would really like to see where this game focuses. GW1 had the fantastic skill system that allowed teams to have strategy. Guild battles were enjoyable also with plethora of different guild halls that guilds could choose. Remember split-pushing, flag running, different midline strategies? How slow accumulation of death penalty was the thing that broke teams rather than being overwhelmed by swarm of invisible enemies?

It’s not that gear grinding or trivial skill system are inherently bad things. The kind of tactic where a company dabbles on a little bit of everything and doesn’t completely satisfy any segment of players is the bad thing. Some players like grind, but why play GW2 if this game X has more rewarding grind? Some players dislike grind and become upset that GW2 has any of it.

Some players came here for WvW only to discover there’s just two maps and the other one is painfully symmetric too. It’s possible to create balanced maps that don’t have symmetry lines at all. They are making the big WvW patch this month. It’s kind of hilarious that giving players grind for +5% vs. gate damage is what improves the game in their mind.

proxy.7963:

Meret.5943:

“In my opinion” most of the comments in this thread, particularly on the first page and starting with the OP, have been very thoughtful and constructive, even when I don’t agree with everyone. I’m not sure this thread needs a lecture on positive discourse.

Intended less as a lecture and more an expression of my own opinion and thoughts on the matter. Sorry if it came off as starchy.

No probs, sorry I read it wrong.

Vayne.8563:

I’m another long time Guild Wars 1 player, who likes Guild Wars 2 more.

First of all, you can only really compare Guild Wars 2 to Prophecies at launch. At this point in it’s development, Factions wasn’t out yet. And a lot of people seem to be comparing four games with one. Take away professions like the Rit, sin and dervish and see how many people are still saying Guild Wars 1 was much better. Certainly not as many PVe people.

25 missions, no hard mode. That’s what you had. And the mission bonuses were annoying and story breaking in some cases. Many were badly done (particularly in Nightfall).

Sorrow’s Furnace and hard mode weren’t there at launch. There weren’t 8 dungeons. There wasn’t five races and starting areas. And though the personal story is uneven, some of them are pretty good (while others are not). That being said, there are only so many times I could play through pre, even though some people loved it. At least here I have five zones to play around in.

I did like the skill system in Guild Wars 1 and loved making builds. It was my favorite part of the game. But it wasn’t enough to compensate for the incredible lack of necessary game functions, like marketplaces and jumping. The last thing I wanted to do was stand around Spamadan all day, trying to sell a bunch of stuff, instead of playing.

There was plenty wrong with Guild Wars 1. It was still one of the best games of its time but I think too many people remember it with rose-colored glasses on, and even more, many are comparing the full range of games that appear over a couple of years with what we’re seeing in Guild Wars 2 after six months.

In two years, I think this game is going to rock.

I totally agree with this, and sometimes I have to remind myself of it. If I do think back to early prophecies, it wasn’t much different than it is now. The only worry I have about this game is if they continue to raise the level cap. That will definitely hurt this game more than help. If they want new, harder content, fine, make it, release it. Leave us as lvl 80’s fighting lvl 85’s or something. We need harder content, the skill cap that players have reached at this point has raised tremendously and we need content to reflect it. Learn from GW1, build on that. It was a solid game at it’s foundation and very well polished at the end, and still is to this day, even better now imo in case you haven’t been back recently. GW2 has some growing to do, but it will get there as long as they remember their roots and stick to it.

To be honest GW1 Prophecies wasn’t the great game you guys make it out to be.

1) GW1 PvE was terribly flawed because Anet let it become based on some gimmicks (55hp, SF) instead of building a proper team system.
Now, while GW2 endgame is still very dependant on having a Guardian who makes things 33% easier, it’s a big step forward from the cheese of GW1.

2) PvP in GW1 was all about finding out the new gimmick and abuse it till nerfed.
GW2 also has some gimmicks but they are all counterable with any class/build.

It was a lot of time before we got Furnace (in GW2 we got fractal instead), UW/FoW, hardmodes etc.

Overall GW2 is a major leap forward, though it needs to be said that while Anet fixed some of their mistakes from GW1, other mistakes are still there (Guardian-dependant PvE, gimmick builds in sPvP), and in some cases they are using the wrong solutions (babystep buff/nerf policy ending up with stagnation and lack of build variety, this new “boon hate” counter mechanics instead of fixing bunkers).

Apple never falls too far away from the tree afterall.

GW was an okay game that became great with time. Most of the additions to GW really made it better, and the only times it ever lacked in something were often due to developer neglect in terms of skill balance and bug/exploit fixes. The most important thing about GW that made it great was its core design: short time to max performance, tons of things left to do after hitting max, and initially, a segue from PvE into PvP and a connection between the two.

GW2 as of late has just felt empty to me. Now, before release during the beta weekends and for the first two months after release, I was having the time of my life. GW2 was giving me an experience far greater than anything I’d ever gotten from GW. The combat was engaging (even if easy at times), visuals stunning, and the world alive. When I eventually got into sPvP, I had my fair share of fun there, even if its depth or balance didn’t seem quite up to the standards of the best of GW. I had some complaints with how expensive exotic armor was and how absurd having the best-in-slot gear so far out of reach was, but I still had the feeling that that core from GW was there. I could max out my characters, deck them out in top-of-the-line gear after not too long, and then be on my way with really experiencing the endgame, which was basically whatever I wanted to do in GW2.

What ruined everything for me was Ascended armor, but not because of the new tier itself. What the introduction of Ascended armor really showed me about ANet is that it’s not out of their design scope to throw in extra vertical progression over horizontal progression. After all, there were several other things in the game they could have expanded upon to give players more to do if they wanted people to stay in the game longer. However, they opted for the route that I could have found in most any game – giving me bigger numbers to chase. GW did this too in different ways, what with Lightbringer skills giving statistical advantages against certain creatures or improving certain skills, and then eventually with Factions allegiances and racial tracks. This progression wasn’t remarkable, since the largeness of each title controlling the power of these skills made them slow to progress, but one good thing about them is that they gave their bonuses in addition to the core max armor. They didn’t ask you to give up on your max armor that you already had for cheap and instead have you chase after a new maximum performance gear to replace the old set. In fact, the core best-in-slot gear became even cheaper at the release of the expansion. Ascended gear, on the other hand, requires a large time commitment or material cost for a single piece and replaces gear from a lower tier. This runs counter to GW’s design philosophy of maxing out being easy or quick and then leaving you with the rest of the game to experience.

It’s become even worse recently with the introduction of laurels. Laurels are a reward that can only be earned so many times in a specific window of time. Miss the window, and you miss the reward. Perform within the window, and you can’t earn more than you’re allowed in that period. Some Ascended gear can only be earned by purchase with laurels. This means you have to spend time completing the goals in each of these windows of opportunity in order to get closer to purchasing one of these pieces of gear. At the current rate, it takes about a whole month to get just one of these pieces! Plus, laurels are used to buy several pieces of Ascended gear, and by spending them on one piece of gear, you forfeit the chance to spend them on another piece. That might seem obvious, but it’s worth mentioning again since the time investment associated with each piece is a whole month. One month for a piece of gear is outrageous, particularly when it’s the sole method for obtaining it, it’s the best level of gear, and it has no equivalently performing counterpart. Guild commendations, and also guild merits in a similar fashion, suffer from the same issues as laurels.

The result of all of this is that GW2 has gone from a game which I dearly loved for its first two months to something that has deviated and continues ever more quickly to deviate from the core design of GW that I was so enchanted by. It’s very hard to think about having waited five years past the release of Eye of the North to reach this “finished” product that looked like a nearly pristine gem, only to see it hastily ruined by design choices that I had believed ANet had learned were unappreciated and unwanted by fans of their previous work, and with no signal from them that they won’t continue a focus on vertical progression and time gating over horizontal progression.

The worst part about all of this is the feeling of hopelessness that I have about encouraging ANet to return to the better path. My experience in interacting with ANet during the development years of GW (between the release of Prophecies and the announcement of GW2) and from my time on the Test Krewe has led me to believe that any effort to persuade off or discuss with ANet any of their design decisions is futile. It is for that reason that I am seriously contemplating putting down this game for good shortly after I see what the full scope of March’s update brings. I would rather not be tugged along another five years by their charades than invest what slivers of hope I have left in trying to encourage them to make good decisions.

Shayne, I agree with many of your key points [as I understood them]. What truly saddens me is the ‘double tap’ from certain players as well as the abandonment of what once was. I read your posts, sympathized, empathized, and wanted to roll up my sleeves and help fix it. Then I remembered that you are likely about to be told: a) this game is not for you (/holdsdoorandgestures), b) Ascended Gear, Laurels and _______ are all optional and thus the solution is not to fix the problem but instead to avoid the problem areas. or c) some needless personal attack.

While you are not alone in your concerns, I too ponder the futility of present and future investments.

Respectfully,
Monk Anchorwind

I agree with the OP’s ideas. Here’s what I love about GW1/hate about GW2.

1. Sense of progression. Guild Wars 2 claims to be “all endgame.” This means, to the developers, that you can do the same things at level 1 that you can at level 80. Unfortunately, this also means that you’re doing the same things at level 80 that you were doing 79 levels ago, and all through the process. Reaching level 80 is the pinnacle of your experience. At level 80, you can finally reach those 80 zones that you’ve been eyeing for the whole progression. Orr becomes fully accessible, Frostgorge Sound becomes fully explorable, and Southsun Cove is unlocked as well. OR – you can go and play all of the worn-out areas that you hit so hard while you were leveling. My biggest complaint here is the fact that you’re limited to what you can do by your LEVEL. So LEVELING becomes a large factor of the whole thing. Whereas in GW1 (especially Factions and Nightfall), you reached max level by the time you started exploring the mainlands.

Story.
Please, what is epic at all about the story in GW2? I’ve never been able to get into doing the story in GW2. The only reason I ever did it was to get exp > to level up > move on to new areas > …… Once you hit level 20 in GW1, you practically started the game. You could play storyline until you dropped, instead of in GW2 where you play storyline… and then you have to STOP… level some more… and Then! you can continue. The breaking up of the story just makes you less and less engaged. In GW1, I felt like I was actually doing something in the missions because I ALWAYS ended up somewhere different after finishing a mission, as opposed to leaving the instance and arriving in the same place, generally the same way I left it. Playing the story doesn’t feel like I’m actually doing anything.

Also, what the heck is it with the dialogue here? I feel like I’m playing the role of a curious, overly noble and naively loyal third grader in the body of a hero. Yes, the Quaggan are cute and cuddly and lovable, but what is their place in a game trying to be “epic?” The script in the dialogue cutscenes is stale, and although done with a touch of ingenuity, the dialogue cutscene lacks storytelling elements. Who goes to see a play where the actors stand and look at the audience whenever they talk?

…And what up with the one-liners? “Might makes me right!” Enough said.

Interpersonal Reactions / Reactions.
Guild Wars 2 was created with the intention to eliminate the long LFG -Profession- -Role- -Level- thing. It was made to eliminate the need for using parties. But in the process, they’ve eliminated the very thing that makes the professions unique. By giving each profession the ability to do everything without giving the profession a purpose, you lack the ability to play a single role very effectively. I really didn’t have any problem with the trinity as it was. It was structured, it was effective, and it made sense.

Also, the game in the current state can literally be played without ever speaking a word in the chat channel. And I hate that. Even for dungeons. Post in gw2lfg, join a group, don’t die, and you’re fine. The trading post works! It keeps people from getting scammed, it keeps people from having to run around for hours in Spammadon trying to find a buyer/seller. But now I don’t even have any reason to talk to a fellow player. I play for hours on end and the only thing I say is the occasional “ty” to someone who picks me up when I fall. And then we go our separate ways, never to see each other again. Personal story is just that: Personal. Bringing someone else into an instance makes them entirely confused as to what could be going on. They don’t get any reward at all for helping out, and for pete sakes, your NPC’s don’t even help you at all. Why the heck must I have 20 well trained pact soldiers downed at my feet at any given moment?

In Conclusion…
I could go on to talk about the Elite Arenas, and how speed clearing was so much fun in GW1 and gave you a reason to roll alts, and how it wasn’t particularly difficult to do so because reaching max level was so easy. Then you could just play the character and have fun. I could talk about PvP modes, including GvG – a whole other metagame that revolved around community. I could talk about how the introduction of ascended items and their methods of obtaining them just gave elitists more of a reason to single players out for their run-of-the-mill exotics (I’m talking to you, CoF Zerker Warriors). With GW1, max damage weapons were all the same, minus their upgrades (sold separately) and skins (completely optional).

My biggest gripe with GW2 is the barriers to entry. To play something, you have to have played X amount of time to be the right level. You must have spent X amount of money to buy something with stats that really do make a difference. GW1 content was barred only by how much time you wanted to spend in an area. All you had to do to get to the next place was pass the test of a mission to continue, not play X hours to gain the levels. Max level armors were NOT EXPENSIVE! Now, if you wanted an awesome skin, you could save for it, but you didn’t need a cash store item to make your lower-stat cultural t3 armor skin match with your ugly crafted armor from the TP.

Alright. That ends my rant. If any of you actually read any of this.

gw1 i still have loads of quest lines to do… they came from everywhere, so many sometimes that i didnt know what to do.
GW2 well 6 months in an all done except for the grind…:(

Here are my thoughts on the GW1 vs GW 2 debate, and as someone who only played Prophecies all the way through soon after launch and just a little of Factions, I may be better able to compare the current state of GW2 to GW1 (to counter the repeated “GW1 was a finished project” response).

First off, as someone who largely plays solo due to an irregular play schedule and lack of gamer friends, I’m glad I started playing GW2 at launch. As I’ve attempted to play alts, I have definitely found wandering the open world to be a lot more challenging than with my main due to the absence of players outside the farming areas. Doing a group event like the final assault on the centaurs with only one other player is futile. GW1’s instances and the ability to recruit NPCs like Mhenlo, Aidan, Cynn, Devona, and Eve made solo play much more feasible. I replayed numerous missions in GW1 because they were fast and fun, and I could replay them whether other players were there or not. The open world story chain events just don’t allow that. Look at how many waypoints are contested 24/7 simply because there aren’t any players in the zone.

The reliance upon tiered gear in GW2 is ridiculous. When I played GW1 I used quite a few pieces that dropped from common mobs after I reached level 20. The gear never felt like it was a huge part of the game. Now, with six effective tiers of equipment (including ascended but combining legendary with exotic) and a significant gear stat bonus metagame, gear has dominated the endgame. When I first reached Orr with mismatched mostly-masterwork gear, it was a pain in the kitten Dungeons too. Seriously, why bother with basic, fine, or masterwork gear above level 70? I had to spend my time exclusively farming to get the needed mats to craft a set of exotic armor and to buy my weapons. If I want to try a new build and make it viable, I have to go back to farming until I can enjoy it. I have a buttload of karma, but the stat choices for temple armor are limited. Dungeon armor also requires grinding. I’m all for rewarding players willing to grind or farm with unique skins or weapon names, but in a game that promises accessibility farming and grinding should not be a barrier to stat acquisition and choice of playstyle.
You want to see how significant gear is? Play a few events in Orr with all-white or blue gear.
Play in GW 1 was largely dominated by the available skills and the acquisition of most skills was built into the story playthrough by skill merchants. Acquiring the elites, which required some work, became missions in themselves, not some repetitive mind-numbing grind. It’s not like you had to capture the same elite 30 times before you were able to use it.

I can’t speak to some of the other criticisms (like guild halls), but it does seem a little silly that ANet would drop popular features that they developed in GW1 for GW2.

Now what can ANet do? First and foremost, fix the loot and mat systems to encourage players to spread out. Scale world event rewards based upon the size of the zerg, and make loot from common mobs useable for more than vendor trash. Create unique skin recipes that use the junk. Eliminate high level white and blue gear. Make low level dungeons actually playable by low level characters, and provide NPC support for players that can’t get a group of 5 together. Link the final chest rewards to the number of events that were completed in the event chain by the player. Get rid of DR, because it won’t be needed anymore. Eliminate the mat tiers… give a level 1 a chance to harvest orichalcum from a copper node or find gossamer scraps in low level drops. This way a PvE player can build up the necessary mats to craft useable gear when they first reach Orr.
Now PvE players will be able to focus on the events and dungeons that they enjoy playing, rather than the ones they need to grind to enjoy the game in a month or two.