Guild Wars 2

gillius.2856:

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…:(

Guild Wars 1 is four games. If you only count Prophecies, you could finish everything in Prophecies in well under six months. Compare apples to apples. When guild Wars 2 has three expansions out, then compare the amount of content.

Vayne.8563:

gillius.2856:

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…:(

Guild Wars 1 is four games. If you only count Prophecies, you could finish everything in Prophecies in well under six months. Compare apples to apples. When guild Wars 2 has three expansions out, then compare the amount of content.

Gw2 also has 6 times the manpower that GW1 had behind it. Or are we going to sweep that under the rug here.

Conner.4702:

Vayne.8563:

gillius.2856:

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…:(

Guild Wars 1 is four games. If you only count Prophecies, you could finish everything in Prophecies in well under six months. Compare apples to apples. When guild Wars 2 has three expansions out, then compare the amount of content.

Gw2 also has 6 times the manpower that GW1 had behind it. Or are we going to sweep that under the rug here.

What rug? It’s an ambitious game. If you compare Guild Wars 1 to Guild Wars 2 at launch, you’ll find Guild Wars 2 is much larger and has far more content. Five starting cities, instead of just pre-searing Ascalon is a lot more content. One story track compared to multiple story lines is a lot more content.

Prophecies had 25 missions and probably under 500 quests. Guild Wars 2 has 3x the number of dynamic events over what Prophecies had as quests, plus hearts, plus personal story quests. Add to that WvW something Guild Wars 1 had nothing like, and the size of the world, underwater areas and eight dungeons, each with four modes. No one with any degree of honesty can say Prophecies had more content than Guild Wars 2.

But content STILL takes time. and Prophecies plus Factions plus Nightfall, Plus Eye of the North, well yeah, that gives Guild Wars 2 a run for the money in Content.

When Guild Wars 2 is 2 years old, it’ll have far more content than all those games together.

Not to mention a lobby based game always takes less development time and resources than a true MMO.

Conner.4702:

Gw2 also has 6 times the manpower that GW1 had behind it. Or are we going to sweep that under the rug here.

All right, then pray tell, what should the effect be on the game? Six times as much content? Six times as good? Four? How about two? If a game company can be several times as big as another one, does that mean they must be better? Does that mean a game produced almost solely by one person isn’t going to be any good while a large company will produce nothing but awesomeness? So does that mean games made by almost a single person (“Cave Story”, “Akalabeth”) are junk? Or the reverse, and games made by hundreds of people are junk?

How about if we change that to “development time”? If a game is in development for longer periods (say, six years), does that mean it’s better or worse than a game which was in development for one year? I mean, by that logic, Duke Nukem Forever should have been the most awesome game ever . . .

What about survival time? If a game is alive and still played for longer, does that make it better? Pong should be godly then . . .

So, anyway, on topic.

Comparing GW1 and GW2 is comparing apples and peaches. (Not oranges, because seriously, I hate oranges.) They’re both different games in many very real aspects, but just happen to be both from a tree.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Conner.4702:

Gw2 also has 6 times the manpower that GW1 had behind it. Or are we going to sweep that under the rug here.

All right, then pray tell, what should the effect be on the game? Six times as much content? Six times as good? Four? How about two? If a game company can be several times as big as another one, does that mean they must be better? Does that mean a game produced almost solely by one person isn’t going to be any good while a large company will produce nothing but awesomeness? So does that mean games made by almost a single person (“Cave Story”, “Akalabeth”) are junk? Or the reverse, and games made by hundreds of people are junk?

How about if we change that to “development time”? If a game is in development for longer periods (say, six years), does that mean it’s better or worse than a game which was in development for one year? I mean, by that logic, Duke Nukem Forever should have been the most awesome game ever . . .

What about survival time? If a game is alive and still played for longer, does that make it better? Pong should be godly then . . .

So, anyway, on topic.

Comparing GW1 and GW2 is comparing apples and peaches. (Not oranges, because seriously, I hate oranges.) They’re both different games in many very real aspects, but just happen to be both from a tree.

Name alone its the same tree, which is why people are sad its a million miles away fom gw1.

Ricky Da Man.5064:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Conner.4702:

Gw2 also has 6 times the manpower that GW1 had behind it. Or are we going to sweep that under the rug here.

All right, then pray tell, what should the effect be on the game? Six times as much content? Six times as good? Four? How about two? If a game company can be several times as big as another one, does that mean they must be better? Does that mean a game produced almost solely by one person isn’t going to be any good while a large company will produce nothing but awesomeness? So does that mean games made by almost a single person (“Cave Story”, “Akalabeth”) are junk? Or the reverse, and games made by hundreds of people are junk?

How about if we change that to “development time”? If a game is in development for longer periods (say, six years), does that mean it’s better or worse than a game which was in development for one year? I mean, by that logic, Duke Nukem Forever should have been the most awesome game ever . . .

What about survival time? If a game is alive and still played for longer, does that make it better? Pong should be godly then . . .

So, anyway, on topic.

Comparing GW1 and GW2 is comparing apples and peaches. (Not oranges, because seriously, I hate oranges.) They’re both different games in many very real aspects, but just happen to be both from a tree.

Name alone its the same tree, which is why people are sad its a million miles away fom gw1.

If “name alone it’s the same tree” then every Final Fantasy game should follow suit, no? Or how about Dragon Quest? Quake?

Also, they’re named similar but that doesn’t mean “macintosh apples” are going to have exactly the same qualities as “granny smith apples” because they’re both apples.

Vayne.8563:

gillius.2856:

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…:(

Guild Wars 1 is four games. If you only count Prophecies, you could finish everything in Prophecies in well under six months. Compare apples to apples. When guild Wars 2 has three expansions out, then compare the amount of content.

im pretty sure i still have things to do in prophecies to be fair, altho thats not the point. there was always something to do, and quests to finish. also i heard that there arnt gonna be ‘expoansions’ like in gw1 more like expansions.
The point still stands tho.. run out of stuff to do except the grind. dont get me wrong i still log on and play with friends,

Vayne.8563:

gillius.2856:

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…:(

Guild Wars 1 is four games. If you only count Prophecies, you could finish everything in Prophecies in well under six months. Compare apples to apples. When guild Wars 2 has three expansions out, then compare the amount of content.

Personally even though I started shortly after launch, I had plenty to do until and continuing after Sorrow’s Furnace. The pace of expansions and updates in GW was perfect for me, based on my playstyle.

It’s always going to be different for everyone what “a lot of content” means, depending on the rate of completion for a particular player.

It’s funny how anyone can show me empirically how much more there is to do in GW2, and yet I still don’t like it as much as GW. Maybe some day…

My main problem is that they moved too far from what they started out with in GW1, for reasons which we all know come down to attracting other players from other games for get more steaming piles of cash.

I don’t mind most of the things they changed, like the mass shortage of skills and the professions, in fact I like how they are apart from the balance issues, but I hate the level 80 cap, which has been near enough confirmed will be increasing during expansions (I there was a link on another thread, no idea which one because I forgot to make a note)

They moved the bar way too much, this is no longer Guild Wars, its something completely different and only has a few sweeteners to make it feel like Guild Wars, such as the Charr, but they dropped the ball by leaving out guild halls, alliances, UW, and for me personally, the high level cap which I feel has no place and should have stayed closer to 20.

clay.7849:

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.

Awesome post i 100% agree.

Character progression in GW1 retained the essence of RPG. You start at a base and are given the freedom to build a role out of all the resources available. The more you played the game, the more varied gear and skills you’d collect so you could tweak the effectiveness of the role of your character, or even allow your role to expand into other roles.

Character progression in GW2 feels like it started at a base that copies how subscription based MMOs do RPG. The community of GW2 players and GW2 developers really need to study how GGG’s POE is exploring online RPG.
I’m seriously only trying to help GW2, because I really liked GW1.

As a GW1 player, I feel my case of the “blehs” have been misrepresented by OP’s opinion. Although I’m sure OP’s rationale covers an extensive number of GW1 veterans, my bleh’s are more basic:

1. I’m quickly running out of PVE achievements to complete.
2. Due to a lack of goals (achievements, etc), there is less of an incentive for me to play
3. I really want more map and more content that can specifically be completed by playing alone. I have no interest in content that requires me to team up with other people, as is the case with dungeons.

I don’t suffer from the illusion that GW1 was a balanced game and wasn’t a constant grind. Because it wasnt a balanced game and was the biggest grind I have ever faced. I’m not looking for another grind. I’m just saying that a wider variety in armor and weapon skins and move pve achievements would do a lot to shut me up until aNet eventually puts out an expansion, even though they’ve recently stated they arent working on one.

GW1, we had expansions that added so much content to the game.

gillius.2856:

Vayne.8563:

gillius.2856:

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…:(

Guild Wars 1 is four games. If you only count Prophecies, you could finish everything in Prophecies in well under six months. Compare apples to apples. When guild Wars 2 has three expansions out, then compare the amount of content.

im pretty sure i still have things to do in prophecies to be fair, altho thats not the point. there was always something to do, and quests to finish. also i heard that there arnt gonna be ‘expoansions’ like in gw1 more like expansions.
The point still stands tho.. run out of stuff to do except the grind. dont get me wrong i still log on and play with friends,

What was there to do in Prophecies. Quests weren’t generally repeatable, only missions were. You finished a quest, it was done…forever. You couldn’t go back and do the same quest. All you could repeat were the 25 missions.

Of the 25 missions there was hard mode and normal mode, though I don’t believe hard mode existed at launch. Some of those missions were highly entertaining. Some of those missions just plain sucked. I mean they were bad. Particularly the bonuses on some of them.

So if you say you can do the same 25 missions over and over again, that’s all well and good, but if you played Prophecies for 6 months and didn’t run out of quests, I’d say you didn’t play very much.

GW2 was born when Anet wanted to create a forth expansion for GW1, thy had a lot of ideas that couldn’t be created with the game engine, and that what started the new game. due to that we cant compare GW2 to the initial release of GW1 because thy knew what their player base loved, and thy learned a lot of lessons in GW1. GW2 is miles away from the promises given when the game was in early development.
GW1 was a grind after Anet introduced the hall of monument and decided that the game will not have any expansion, before that the game was fun.
We had elite skill caping, great and engaging missions (i loved the part where koss understood melonni liked him). challenging explorable areas like the Realm of Torment. Killing a named boss could give the player a nice piece of weapon. dungeons ware challenging and fun like vlox’s excavations.
In GW2 we have dungeon with enemies that regen and reset after a certain distance, the inability to snipe, bind on pick up (why cant it be account bound), insane respawn rate (10 min in WoW and less then 2 min in GW2) and last not least vertical gear progression. i hope that a net will try to return to the right path but im somewhat skeptical.

Hey, skipped most of the reading, starting playing gw1 factions when nightfall came out.

The thing I liked most about guildwars 1 is that you hit that low max level really early, like 30% of the way through the storyline in factions and nightfall or 50% in prophecies. From there on the enemies kept getting stronger, but my level and gear stayed the same strength. I felt that this system made people actually have to learn how to play their characters and use theirs skills. In gw2, I feel as though you’ll be fine as long as you’re high enough of a level for the area.

Second, areas with increased difficulty here just directly pump up the damage done so it’s 1 or 2 hits. In gw1, it wasn’t so much about one mistake and it’s over, but it was still hard in a different way. They actually got different skills or environmental mechanics, so a player had to understand more about what was happening during combat and there was more strategizing, which also leads more to the next thing; teamwork.
At this point I’m mainly just pointing out a major difference. Gw1 forced you to be in parties to play nearly any area in the game (except farming). As a result, players actually focused on teamwork and helping each other during battles. They adjusted their builds to work together with their teammates and had skills solely for helping them out. In gw2, working as a team is certainly possible, but I feel like the majority of the players either don’t know how to or just don’t. You get a pug and everyone just tries to do their own thing with a smaller amount of communication.

Of course the course the game and players are still new compared to gw1 so this is just the comparison at the moment.

I feel Guild Wars 2 is better overall. It’s more polished, has more systems, and is more open than its predecessor.

1. Higher Level Cap

Personally, I found the low level cap a bit too low. It was reached so quickly that you spent a better of the game at max level. The higher level cap implies there is more content to explore before you’re mature. It stretches out the need to explore while providing something to progress.

2. Zone quality

The shared world design in this game is one of its strongest points over the first one. There were a lot of zones in the first game, but with the invisible walls and lack of jumping I didn’t want to explore them all. The addition of dynamic events into this game really gives each zone a lot of meaning and makes their stories more rich. There’s also jumping puzzles, which provide further diversity for characters. The zones in this game feel more alive and the game provides tangible incentive to visit them: crafting materials, zone completion, and events.

3. Focused class design

I mainly played a ranger in the first game and I always felt like it was missing something. They had some many good skills, but I felt it was difficult to make a build that gave me the whole picture of the profession. In this game, that profession is more focused and feels like I’m playing ranger. (Whether it’s strong or not is a different discussion)

I like this game provides so many different playstyles for each profession and the combination between utilities and weapon skills make for a nice diversity in builds. The trait system gives more tangible results, rather than just increasing the potency of skills.

4. Huge amount of content

With the first half year of this game, we’ve seen more content than the first one. At launch, we already had 8 dungeons, massive world events, a new zone, new dungeons (fractals and holiday), and new pvp maps. The original game had UW, FoW and SF along with the missions. Now, we’re getting the living story which provides us with a more living world.

Next, we have jumping puzzles, the sweet little reasons to explore every nook and cranny of a zone. Most (all?) have a treasure at the end. Then we have diving points – silly as they are, it’s still something to look for.

Then we come to crafting. Everyone can gather, giving players economic reasons to go into specific zones. Crafting then feeds into legendary weapons.

from his post
“Right now in Guild Wars 2 its:
1) Hell yeah, become the highest rank in my Order
2) Hell Yeah, Setup a military Pact base on the edge of Orr.
3) Hell Yeah, Hit max level!
4) Hell Yeah, killed Zhaitan
5) Ummm, max level means more stuff to do right?”

Uhhhm Personal Story was the LAST thing i did because i had gotten bored of doing EVERYTHING else

The main Reason the original poster imo felt so bleh because he was a LORE PLAYER…..
Everything he stated revolved around that. In GW2 Lore is only 1 aspect of the game.
There is Personal Story(aka LORE -what he was talking about-things to accomplish), PVP-pug group pvp, 1v1pvp + Team pvp and the Activity Participation games outside of the mists, WVW-which imo should have a different gear set like pve+pvp, PVE-leveling your character from just fighting mobs n killing stuff, Crafting to level your charcter--now they added ascended crafting too, GUILDS-trek,bounty,missions-social atomosphere, MAP EXPLORATION-but once you have world completion this is boring as they haven’t added any new maps or done anything dynamic to this. LIVING STORY- the bread and butter of the design team as they have rolled out biweekly new content-but this gets old fast as you spend 1 maybe 2 days getting everything done and then return to boredom of the repetitve grind. and if you prefer you can just play the money market and buy and sell stuff to become the Donald Trump of Tyria! plus you start with 5 character slots but can expand that to infinity with gems. So there are 5 toons/races/proffesions you can try out and they all have a different story line. Plus if you are into RP=LoreRoleplaying there are many guildes and players through out Tyria who are into that. Getting to max level is a feat by itself. And lets not forget JUMPING PUZZLES- everyones favorite or annoying thing to do. DYNAMIC EVENTS-keeps your exploration from getting too boring. LEGENDARY-collecting all the mats to craft this awesome effects weapon and getting lucky when a precursor drops!So to sum up…

1.Personal Story
2.Living Story
3.PVE
4.PVP
5.WVW
6.Map Exploration
7.Crafting
8.Guilds
9.TP
10.Characters/toons
11. Professions(guardian, warrior, mesmer, etc..)
12. Lore based Roleplaying
13. Max level
14. Titles
15. Achievement Points
16. Jumping puzzles
17.Dynamic Events
18. Building your Legendary

18 Basic things to do and i might left some stuff out! Thats a heck of alot of content, much more then lonely little lore player’s origninal post. Sure it was 9 months ago some stuff is new but the 18 base points were all still there. He just needs to open his eyes and expand his mind about all the GW2 possibilities!

holy zombie thread! Kill it!

it’s alive! it’s alive!

Cole Eyre.8471:

As a GW1 player, I feel my case of the “blehs” have been misrepresented by OP’s opinion. Although I’m sure OP’s rationale covers an extensive number of GW1 veterans, my bleh’s are more basic:

1. I’m quickly running out of PVE achievements to complete.
2. Due to a lack of goals (achievements, etc), there is less of an incentive for me to play
3. I really want more map and more content that can specifically be completed by playing alone. I have no interest in content that requires me to team up with other people, as is the case with dungeons.

I don’t suffer from the illusion that GW1 was a balanced game and wasn’t a constant grind. Because it wasnt a balanced game and was the biggest grind I have ever faced. I’m not looking for another grind. I’m just saying that a wider variety in armor and weapon skins and move pve achievements would do a lot to shut me up until aNet eventually puts out an expansion, even though they’ve recently stated they arent working on one.

GW1, we had expansions that added so much content to the game.

unfortunately no matter how the designers try to hide it(living story/ legendary) everything is a grind. Champion grind! they gave that to us and i feel like that’s way too easy but also gets boring uber fast.

Ricky Da Man.5064:

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

This is something I don’t understand. I keep seeing people complain about the difficulty, but every time I attempt to PUG something like Arah, half the time the party will wipe over and over until the leader rage quits.

The game has difficult content, that’s not the problem, the problem is how the difficult content is not rewarding enough.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

I have no qualms with the GW2 level cap as long as it never increases.

Dreams shattered!

http://www.gamefront.com/guild-wars-2-level-cap-raise-confirmed-for-future/

@the thread resurrecter, there are far more than 18 basic things to do in GW1, but that is a pointless debate because you can continually break down things to do into smaller and smaller components.

Ultimately it comes down to personal preference. Many of us prefer more of a story/lore driven game, which the original was more so than gw2. There were a lot of big picture storyline, and people liked that. Currently in gw2 the big picture storyline are scarlet and dragons, scarlet didn’t feel like a big storyline until recently when people realized the connection between magical veins on the planet, dragons, and Scarlets pursuit of information on those magical veins.

In Gw1 there were 3 different stand alone campaigns, plus lots of lore and stories that were released with eotn, plus 2 Guild Wars beyond story arches. There was a lot of good writing creating connections between these different elements.

I personally am now excited about the scarlet arc in gw2 because of the recent connections they have been making to the lore. We’ll see where it goes.

What’s with necroing old threads lately?

My biggest issue with GW2 from GW1 is skills/stats. When you changed your stats around it had a huge effect on your character. In GW2 changing your stuff from Assassins and Zerker is like….Ok what has changed here?It just seems like GW2 is just so straight forward and if you move from the meta you are crippled. I had so much fun making builds in GW1 but in GW2 it really feels like the game just refuses to allow you to change at all.

I beef up tanky stlye with warrior and I am still getting dropped by npc’s. I go full zerker with warrior and I am still getting dropped by npc’s. It just doesn’t feel like anything you do is rewarding you for anything.

Hum… about the story and max level, I have to disagree. I liked being able to make decisions, but they didn’t seem to be important at the end

Check Dragon Age Origins, either templars or mages, and you are gonna take your allies to the final battle
Here I become the most powerful member of my “guild” to unite everyone against Zhaitan; but you have to find a party of real players and their “guild” choices don’t matter

It’d be awesome to see some different results depending on your choices

The game became prettier, but mechanic wise the game got dumbed down alot.

Less ways to impactfully change or tweak your build.

No more resources to counter spam ( GW1 all classes had energy )

No more healers = battles end to fast = zerg win = no strategy because either A facerolls B or vice versa.

No more hexes ( Tha F* ? )

All in all the gameplay became to spamhappy and non strategic even tough the game looks gorgeous it sadly is not enough – my 3 cents

darkace.8925:

As a GW player, here’s my take.

I enjoyed GW’s “deck building” skill system. I loved the lower level cap, and all of the tightly-focused balance that brought. I liked the “less is more” approach of runes, again they were tightly focused and balanced. For some masochistic reason, I kind of (not wholly) miss Vanquishing. And I greatly miss heroes. Heroes gave me a chance to play around with classes I never intended to play.

I prefer the sideways progression of gear in GW, but I dislike the vast number of useless or redundant skills. The writing I find equally bad in both, but I like the little touches and the presentation more in GW2 more than in GW.

In everything else, from the combat mechanics to world exploration, I think GW2 trumps GW. For me, and this is of course just my opinion, I think GW2 is the better game by a great many miles.

This right here, until we jump the shark there at the end…

Title grind crept into GW1, but very few of them had any impact at all—IN ANY WAY—with the character. Elite armor skins were just that, skins, with no inherent bonus, just bragging rights.

Its what drew me into GW1. The idea that legendaries were a meh buff compared to exotic armor let me comfortably gear every toon in the game. he introduction of ascended weapons, armor and all this other stuff is a clear indication of grind over skill that made WoW number 1…for people who already play WoW.

But if they already play WoW the chhances they are going to give up the grinded toons they already made to come play THIS game are slim to the point of stupidity. Anet has a history of this “we changed our minds because we think this will be better” when it comes to policies that actually drew me—and people like me—to them.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

What’s with necroing old threads lately?

At least they’re using the search feature.

And it’s better than necroing new ones, I expect.

I think you make a good point.
It’s also that the story of GW1 was much more in-depth, much more thought-provoking and dark, and much more mature than the story of GW2. It’s not the story content itself, but rather, the way it’s been handled. GW1’s dark storytelling made you feel invested in what was happening—the emotions of the characters were hauntingly real. GW2 could have been the same, but instead it feels like a comic book or an action movie. The characters don’t feel as authentic as they did in GW1. Back then, you were a mere mortal struggling to make sense of a troubled world. In GW2, it makes you feel too much like a big, strong, comic book superhero. You’re goody-goody all the time, and you know that because you’re so good and holy, it’ll all end well. And that’s bad for getting players invested in a story.

My biggest problem is the way that they portray the Iconic Heroes as if they were children that needed to have their hands held, the only characters of note are Warmaster Frogal, Tybalt Leftpaw, and that sylvari that could fly for no reason. The worst part is that the only reason anyone remembers them is because they copy-pasta’d Ruriks martyr moment, and have yet to finish copying it.

GW2

• Better combat action
• More interactive environment
• Better graphics

GW1

• Feels more epic, storyline-wise
• Heroes add some fun when building them and alleviates the situation of lacking players

For me, this game isn’t something I’d wanna compare WoW with because WoW’s PvE is far superior; unless one prefers disorganized team-based combat. Having played GW1 for more than 3 years (from Prophecies to EotN), I wasn’t expecting much out of GW2’s PvE to begin with; ANet’s idea of that aspect never sat right with me. I didn’t buy the game at launch since I’ve tried it in beta and, to be honest, I didn’t think it was worth USD 49.99 so I waited out till a price drop about half a year later (bought the game around March).

I’m not entirely sure if I think this game is bleh compared to GW1. To begin with, I thought GW1 was bleh too. Regardless, GW2 does seem to still have room to improve to become a much better game as long as ANet can figure out what prospective players find fun (which I think they are quite oblivious to). All in all, I don’t GW1 or GW2 can be considered exceptional (it’s good but not great) in terms of PvE. I guess it does pretty ok in terms of PvP, with GW1 having GvG which seems to fit the title better.

One thing I miss the most from GW1 is the build synergy. Yes, GW2 has combo but it’s nothing more than giving buffs/debuffs. In GW1, you heavily rely on your teammates. Making the team more “close”. I know it’s something they intentionally removed from GW2, but I still miss it.

I’m sorry if I missed this but I was just skimming the thread, and one of the major things I find lacking in this game’s story is purpose. In GW1, you did all these things for a reason – you became max Lightbringer and there was a story behind it, you ranked up the EotN titles and there was a reason for doing it. I don’t feel that with this game. It’s like, great, I’m in the order of Whispers. So what?

levionan.8506:

For me, this game isn’t something I’d wanna compare WoW with because WoW’s PvE is far superior; unless one prefers disorganized team-based combat.

I guess it depends on what type of PvE content you are talking about. If you are talking about general quest content, than GW2 DEs are far, far, far, far superior than WoW quests (though PS is just bad). But regarding dungeons / raids, I could aggree that WoW´s are more challenging, although I believe theres some much room for improvements on GW2 dungeons.

The reason GW1 players are so iffy in regards to GW2 is because the game offered replayability that was VERY fun. Like mentioned by other people here earlier, the deck building system was amazing and allowed players to really explore the game mechanics and play whatever way that suited them; it basically allowed players to relate personally to the game itself because the game allowed them to define how they played their game. Simple things like trait redistribution and saved build specs were easy to use and not overcomplicated; why do I need to run to a trainer to respec? Why can’t I respec right here, right now? Why can’t I just switch to another build with a touch of a button?

We built our builds. We chose what we wanted to accomplish. We grinded however we liked.

And not once in GW1’s lifetime was a gear with better stats ever introduced besides for more customisability. FoW was the cosmetic endgame armour and that never changed. Not even once.

It’s disappointing to see Anet drop so many of their original game design philosophies just so they could appeal to more players instead of the foundation of players they built upon and grew with.

Also the blatant disregard of Cantha and the Canthan District’s exclusion from the final game really ticked me off. I want Kaineng’s glorious red and gold motif in Divinity’s Reach again.

caiomacos.1694:

levionan.8506:

For me, this game isn’t something I’d wanna compare WoW with because WoW’s PvE is far superior; unless one prefers disorganized team-based combat.

I guess it depends on what type of PvE content you are talking about. If you are talking about general quest content, than GW2 DEs are far, far, far, far superior than WoW quests (though PS is just bad). But regarding dungeons / raids, I could aggree that WoW´s are more challenging, although I believe theres some much room for improvements on GW2 dungeons.

I’d agree that DEs are worthy aspects of GW2, but it never really crossed my mind that they would be worthy contenders to traditional quests. DEs aren’t good for storytelling; however, I do think they helped GW2 feel more like a living world, but I never thought WoW was lacking in this area. With the traditional quests, WoW seem to be more successful in delivering rewards and storytelling. Frankly speaking, I was under the impression that ANet did it differently simply for the sake of doing it different; also, content re-usability where old areas (that a player has explored) can remain interesting when working in tandem with level down-scaling.

I strongly agree with you that PS is bad; in fact, the entire story was average at best. I definitely had a more emotional connection with GW1 in this regard.

The problem with dungeons, I think, is somewhat complex. The encounters are bland, but this has something to do with the combat mechanics in the first place.

To me GW2 feels like a completely different game. It doesn’t feel like Guild Wars. I feel like Anet came up with some random concocted story to explain why Guild Wars isn’t Guild Wars any more. Not much mention of Dwarves. Cantha and Elona are gone. Ritualists, Dervish, Paragons, Monk… all gone. Mesmers are completely different. The Gods are gone. Most ruins are either gone or hidden underwater.

Maybe I am missing something but I don’t even remember half of this being talked much about lore wise. What happened to all the classes that don’t exist? It’s like everything from GW1 was glossed over. While I realize certain things may be mentioned here and there, for the most part all of it has been thrown out. They got rid of all the things that made it feel like Guild Wars and replaced it with pop culture (zombies and dragons).

In GW2, you are just DPS. Would you rather DPS like this or that? It makes it feel completely casual and it gets really repetitive. There’s only so many ways you can kill things.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. When I read “Guild Wars 2”, I expected it to at least some what resemble Guild Wars. It’s not that I didn’t expect Guild Wars 2 to be different. It’s centuries in the future. What I didn’t expect was to find a game devoid of most Guild Wars lore and replaced with zombies.

FootDive.3451:

The reason GW1 players are so iffy in regards to GW2 is because the game offered replayability that was VERY fun. Like mentioned by other people here earlier, the deck building system was amazing and allowed players to really explore the game mechanics and play whatever way that suited them; it basically allowed players to relate personally to the game itself because the game allowed them to define how they played their game. Simple things like trait redistribution and saved build specs were easy to use and not overcomplicated; why do I need to run to a trainer to respec? Why can’t I respec right here, right now? Why can’t I just switch to another build with a touch of a button?

This. What makes GW2 really incompatible with creating lots of builds is how heavily stats are tied to gear. You play power and want to try out a condition build? You gotta get a whole new set of gear first. And with Ascended that’s much worse.

What I miss most is armor collecting (and I think the armor designers of this game should keep looking back to the old; anet spent a lot of time on that game and there’s no need to cast those looks aside), and guild halls, and missions.

The personal story is a lot like missions, though.

Yes, GW2 did lift a lot more from GW1 than people give it credit for.

I also miss playing a healer, but I don’t expect to see one anytime soon. I’ve set up my Mesmer a bit like a smite monk, though.

I feel bleh because some systems(with some rethinking) from GW1 would create less problems than what we have in GW2 now. (Looking at the stretched armors of the norn and the charr. Poor guys.)
I feel bleh because the personal story feels rushed(for me) and a few missions to some “chapters” could give the races and the orders more depth.
I feel bleh because the Living Story is a whole new out of the air story arch(which wouldn’t be a problem, but we’re talking about a world with full of interesting lore), though I admire the experimenting with it and I hope they learn from CDI’s and responses and improve the implementation of it and use the existing lore which is great.

Edit: Yeah, armor collecting. I found it interesting that the artwork looks breathtakinglykitten and the in-game version is just “okay” or “I wear it….for now”.
I hope they will take their time when creating the in-game models to reflect the artwork more and the envisioned version of the artists.

Can’t think of more now.

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. 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.

Mate, at this point in development compared to GW1’s point, factions was already released and Nightfall was one month away from release.

Guild Wars 2 is severely lacking in content compared to Guild Wars 1 in a similar timespan.

Lord Kuru.3685:

FootDive.3451:

The reason GW1 players are so iffy in regards to GW2 is because the game offered replayability that was VERY fun. Like mentioned by other people here earlier, the deck building system was amazing and allowed players to really explore the game mechanics and play whatever way that suited them; it basically allowed players to relate personally to the game itself because the game allowed them to define how they played their game. Simple things like trait redistribution and saved build specs were easy to use and not overcomplicated; why do I need to run to a trainer to respec? Why can’t I respec right here, right now? Why can’t I just switch to another build with a touch of a button?

This. What makes GW2 really incompatible with creating lots of builds is how heavily stats are tied to gear. You play power and want to try out a condition build? You gotta get a whole new set of gear first. And with Ascended that’s much worse.

This has also 100% annoyed me since launch. Different builds require different armor sets which will set you back 50-80 gold or so. And there isn’t even a trait saving system like in the first game.

I really enjoyed making interesting builds in GW1. Skill update notes kept me checking the wiki every week. The Me/Rt/E major updates were especially cool.
I didn’t really get into GW1 until I made a fun and interesting build for my Necro. This build brought me from start to finish of Nightfall. In GW2, I’ve yet to experience this feeling of creating something functionally unique in my character. The armors were great to collect, but what truly made my characters unique were the builds that I used.

Why the thread necro? Search doesn’t even work too!

I feel bleh because of how dumbed down it’s become with build diversity, especially when you play a class that has the least builds and viable utility skills. I also can’t enjoy the type of PvP I did in GW1 (Fort Aspenwood).
I do feel like GW2 is in the GW1 Prophecies stage as I started to truly enjoy the game a lot more with Elona and Cantha expansions. The storyline feels smaller though and you have to grind levels to get through it all instead of being able to keep going.

If When Cantha is released I hope my Thief can be more Assassin and less what-is-this. I feel like pvp is kinda hopeless though. We’ll get profit from it finally soon, but I just really really really don’t enjoy capture the point. I wish they didn’t choose Jade Quarry as their foundation to build Spvp on.

caiomacos.1694:

levionan.8506:

For me, this game isn’t something I’d wanna compare WoW with because WoW’s PvE is far superior; unless one prefers disorganized team-based combat.

I guess it depends on what type of PvE content you are talking about. If you are talking about general quest content, than GW2 DEs are far, far, far, far superior than WoW quests (though PS is just bad). But regarding dungeons / raids, I could aggree that WoW´s are more challenging, although I believe theres some much room for improvements on GW2 dungeons.

I think DEs are better, but maybe it’s because I’ve never really bothered to read most of the quest text in games like WoW because a lot of it is just ‘go get me 5 potatoes’, and frankly if I wanted to read a story, I’d pick up a novel, which is likely to be better. The concept of DEs is simply much better regardless of what you can do with a quest however: it makes the world seem alive. Nothing is more immersion breaking to me than seeing a NPC standing idle doing nothing whilst his village is burning around him.

In terms of dungeons. That’s a hard question. I think the concept behind dungeons is better than WoW. The process of trash-boss-trash-final boss is quite bland abd makes you question why is it called a ‘dungeon’ instead of just ‘instanced area’ at all. Adding a structure to it in terms of puzzles, tasks and obstacles the players need to overcome in reaction to events that occur is a welcomed addition.

In terms of bosses. It’s a very difficult comparison. You got bosses than are mundane to the extremes like the jellyfish beast, to things like the guy in the Thermanova reactor and Lupi for which whoever made them needs to be awarded a degree in General Awesomeness for. You also got bosses which are just so cool, like Arah P2’s first and last bosses, that it makes you forget that it actually has very little mechanics, and bosses which have amazing and interesting mechanics like that disappearing priestess in Arah P4 but just are so annoying to fight that you don’t appreciate any of it.

I played GW since launch and quit after GW2 release. I played GW2 beta for about 20 levels, and asked for a refund. Simply because it was nothing like GW1. Some of my friends were very postive about it post launch so I decided to give it another shot. I probably played guildwars 2 wrong, because I leveled in AC til 80 got the gear I needed and expected to play it the same way as I played GW1. Boy was I disappointed in finding there was nothing useful for me to do that piqued my interest. Leveled another 3 characters to 80, I don’t think I have higher than 20% exploration on any of them. Tried a few dungeons until I managed to succesfully play in them without failure, and was very disappointed that most of it boils down to succesful dodgerolls.

This is what ultimately drove me from GW2, the dodge button. Gear doesn’t matter, skills have too high CD’s to matter, its dodge or die. Mobs don’t have teamwork or good AI, just oceans of HP and one hit kills. It makes combat feel like a huge tickle fight, which saddens me because GW2 has superior core combat. The whole flow of things feels slow and clunky when I revisit GW1. I loved build wars, never once have I used pvxwiki so I don’t know if it was even there through Prophecies. The deck of cards type building was so much more fun for me. I get the feeling GW2’s builds are more like League of Legends Masteries/runes, with minor tweaks that give a minor edge and it feels out of place.

I didn’t like heroes/henchmen and Pve skills in GW1, they destroyed a lot of social aspects for me. But in GW2 a huge amount of content is soloable or zergable, most of which means theres no real player interaction. You might aswell have an army of bots at your side and not notice the difference. Never did I feel the need to form a party in the open world. I never did quests in GW1 except for the stat reward ones, or cared for titles and exploration for the sake of exploration. I did love skill capping and the areas it took me to, that was one of the most rewarding experiences in the game for me. So I never really did any hearts because they fellt really lame to me, events didn’t really faze me either but I did them until I hit 35 and then level in AC. Same for exploration for the sake of exploring, don’t care for it, don’t care for achievements or titles.

The multiple guild system further trivialises being in a guild, I’ve had some great experiences (and bad) with guilds in GW1. But GW2 guilds seem very lacking in content to me, no GvG or guildhalls. Hell not even capes.

I check in from time to time to see how the state of the game is but it never captivates me as much as GW1 used to do. I severely regret purchasing this game for me and a friend of mine.

Reason why GW1 players feel so “bleh” about GW2, is because it doesn’t give them the satisfaction of building something unique. It’s a general demand on gaming, people prefer building their specs rather than actually playing the game. Which is something I really disagree with, but that’s just be being a player and not a builder.

And GW2 comes in, with one of the most amazing, genius, yet simple combat systems ever created in a game (its balance is another topic – inb4 haters) and people are complaining because they don’t have 200 available skills and being able to choose some of them. Duh. THAT really grinds my gears.

Dodge roll to win, armor has no impact other then tweaking your damage source in pve.
Skills themselves are weak, it’s dodge and autoattack to save the day.