Guild Wars 2

I keep hearing in the latest interviews constant mentioning of the word “reward” and very little about making the game more fun. This reminded me of an Extra Credits video I posted back discussing the nature of extrinsic and intrinsic gameplay, and the focus on rewards leads me to believe that intrinsic gameplay is taking a backseat to making players feel good about grinding. However, I also believe that the intrinsic vs extrinsic debate presents somewhat of a false dilemma when it comes to rewards and progression in RPGs.

Rewards should in and of themselves be a part of the gameplay experience, as both the means and the ends. In most RPGs, getting rewarded with higher stat gear and new skills for beating enemies was intrinsically fun because it was part of the problem solving and resource management that’s a very core of the genre. You get gear/skills so you can beat the next baddies. I think Zelda does this beautifully (if a bit redundantly) by introducing weapons as the players go through the game. GW1 does this quite well with the deck-building elements of the skill system.

The problem with GW2’s rewards system and gear progression is that it lets players be (slightly) more effective or look prettier in content they’ve already completed/problems they’ve already solved, and the effectiveness is only in dps. They don’t influence gameplay on a level that engages players to solve problems or play in different and interesting ways. They’re nothing more than carrots.

What worries me is that, as previously mentioned, the latest articles and teasers indicate a fetishism with rewards over gameplay. There’s a fine line between rewarding players to engage them to do more and rewarding them to encourage them to repeat the mundane, and I believed they crossed the line with the transition from guildwars 1 to guildwars 2. The wording of the article and general attitude towards content design (evident by their lacing everything with achievement points) leads me to believe that they did so without knowing where they were to begin with or how good it was for the playerbase in their previous game.

Your words have potential, but they don’t really have any depth. They’re just all these words that make sense and are scattered on the ground like dice, trying to form a point.

I came into this thread, expecting a wall of text. What I got was a tripwire of text.

Regardless, they probably threw around the word reward a lot because they’re talking about their new reward system (makes sense, right?) I think you’re not giving Arenanet enough credit. Think about every player that plays this game. Arenanet has to cater to every individual; the grinder, the casual, the super casual, the super grinder, the achievement finder, the completionist, and more. And if they displease ANY of them, they get a stick shoved up their…

With that in mind, they have implemented a great system, it’s just abused (as anything and everything get, in any video game) in a way that it wasn’t meant to be. Because of that, they’re redoing the system to a method that will prevent it from getting abused (as hard). This new system will allow players to do that RNG skin grind they’ve always wanted (and yes, I am saying that they’ve always wanted this, I’ve seen so many complaints and suggestions, both ingame and out of game, asking for RNG on bosses for unique skins) That’s what’s happening. Arenanet is changing based on what the populace wants/needs.

The redundancy of content to get gear is not a problem. Why? Because you’re:
A: Working for pretty gear which you don’t need to do (you can easily play while looking ugly, there’s nothing stopping you).
B: YOU’RE working for that gear. Nobody is stopping you. Nobody is forcing you.
C: How would you propose new gear be attained WITHOUT reusing content? WITHOUT forcing players to do a task, or two, or three? How would you propose players get rewarded in a method not done with carrots (players love carrots)?

Think about it. Sure, you can add rewards tied to objectives done only once. Kinda like the Aetherblade Jumping Puzzle. Oh, that went well. But wait, there’s also the Achievement Points, you’re not forcing players to follow a carrot, you’re rewarding players who play how they want. Oh, that went well. But wait, there’s also the Fortune Scraps, which can be obtained while playing the game how you want to play the game (as long as it involves some sort of looting). Oh, that went well.

Want me to continue?

The thing is that they’ve heard from players that there are problems with the reward systems and people don’t feel rewarded for their efforts in game.

The problem however is that they think players just want bigger rewards for doing as little as possible. This is certainly true for some players, who can’t think further than what they want to have for breakfast tomorrow morning, because in the long term it makes the game completely boring.

What makes rewards good is a few things:

1) The reward should be something useful and/or desireable, something a player would want to get.
2) There should be multiple options for more important rewards, so there is choice….not everyone likes the same things.
3) Monetary rewards (gold) should be a secondary consideration, not primary.
4) Good rewards should require actual effort or challenge or the game will enable people who want everything for nothing.

So how is GW2 doing on these points?

1) Most rewards are not things that people get excited over. Especially story line rewards often give blue gear that is below what I already wear. It’s an afterthought at best.
2) This is done for example with quest rewards (3 different skins to choose from), but it is not consistent.
3) My feeling is that gold is too much the focus. Anet may say, but yes that’s what the players are asking for. So let me ask: Why are players asking for more gold? Exactly, because the game revolves around because of how it’s designed.
4) This to me is a huge problem in game. Currently it’s too easy to get exotic gear together, in dungeons or with karma. Specifically at level 80. It doesn’t feel rewarding as a consequence because even though it has the best stats atm, it’s treated like the gear you level up with. Also with current karma rewards it’s dead easy to get enough karma to buy level 80 gear in Orr.

There is so much more related to this subject that causes the foundation of the reward system to be shaky and pointless, but I wanted to focus on these 4 points.

Surely at the moments the rewards you get are generally not satisfying and that’s for specifically 2 reasons: either the rewards are crappy and/or it’s so easy to get, you don’t really care.

That to me is the real foundation of why the reward system is not working.

Esplen.3940:

Your words have potential, but they don’t really have any depth. They’re just all these words that make sense and are scattered on the ground like dice, trying to form a point.

I came into this thread, expecting a wall of text. What I got was a tripwire of text.

Regardless, they probably threw around the word reward a lot because they’re talking about their new reward system (makes sense, right?) I think you’re not giving Arenanet enough credit. Think about every player that plays this game. Arenanet has to cater to every individual; the grinder, the casual, the super casual, the super grinder, the achievement finder, the completionist, and more. And if they displease ANY of them, they get a stick shoved up their…

With that in mind, they have implemented a great system, it’s just abused (as anything and everything get, in any video game) in a way that it wasn’t meant to be. Because of that, they’re redoing the system to a method that will prevent it from getting abused (as hard). This new system will allow players to do that RNG skin grind they’ve always wanted (and yes, I am saying that they’ve always wanted this, I’ve seen so many complaints and suggestions, both ingame and out of game, asking for RNG on bosses for unique skins) That’s what’s happening. Arenanet is changing based on what the populace wants/needs.

The redundancy of content to get gear is not a problem. Why? Because you’re:
A: Working for pretty gear which you don’t need to do (you can easily play while looking ugly, there’s nothing stopping you).
B: YOU’RE working for that gear. Nobody is stopping you. Nobody is forcing you.
C: How would you propose new gear be attained WITHOUT reusing content? WITHOUT forcing players to do a task, or two, or three? How would you propose players get rewarded in a method not done with carrots (players love carrots)?

Think about it. Sure, you can add rewards tied to objectives done only once. Kinda like the Aetherblade Jumping Puzzle. Oh, that went well. But wait, there’s also the Achievement Points, you’re not forcing players to follow a carrot, you’re rewarding players who play how they want. Oh, that went well. But wait, there’s also the Fortune Scraps, which can be obtained while playing the game how you want to play the game (as long as it involves some sort of looting). Oh, that went well.

Want me to continue?

I wanted to keep it brief. I was also keen to avoid the mental gymnasitics that generally cause people type of pages of nonsense as reasoning-the kind I see in your post.

@Gehenna
I get that feeling as well. I’m not entirely sure why they gave those greens for completing LS quests when my current gear made the rewards so obsolete.

I think the tier system functions as a double-edged sword. The increases are significant but not enough to make make combat different in a meaningful way. You kill stuff with yellows or you can kill slightly faster with oranges. Whoopeee.

The newly announced skills piqued my interest because they could potentially add meaningful decisions and gameplay variations, but then I remembered how difficult it would be to add variation to this mushy mess of a combat system.

Welcome to MMOland? People were crying “gimme shinies” for months, so they decided they wanted the easiest-to-please and lamest player-base, people who play reward systems and not games. Can’t say I can blame people calling the shots at anet, sadly, it’s just way too easy. You don’t need a meaty game, all you have to do is roll out the +stat crap and rewarded “achievements” and those people shut up and keep paying. Wouldn’t that corrupt your lofty game designer ideals? lol

Harbard.5738:

Welcome to MMOland? People were crying “gimme shinies” for months, so they decided they wanted the easiest-to-please and lamest player-base, people who play reward systems and not games. Can’t say I can blame people calling the shots at anet, sadly, it’s just way too easy. You don’t need a meaty game, all you have to do is roll out the +stat crap and rewarded “achievements” and those people shut up and keep paying. Wouldn’t that corrupt your lofty game designer ideals? lol

Pandering to superificial wants is the worst way to design games IMO. As a gamer, what I’ve seen that often separates a good game and a bad one is nuance of design (including gameplay mechanics, storytelling, graphics), and that’s something you can’t expect to achieve by listening to metrics. And I think blindly pandering to the beat metrics is a trap in itself, because I believe that if an MMO continues to continue down a path of poor design decisions, people will sooner or later realize it and move onto a better alternative. This will happen no matter what kind or what quantity of shinies you throw at the player. This is has happened even to giants like Blizzard. If this is all part of MMOland, well then MMOland kind of sucks.

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

Welcome to MMOland? People were crying “gimme shinies” for months, so they decided they wanted the easiest-to-please and lamest player-base, people who play reward systems and not games. Can’t say I can blame people calling the shots at anet, sadly, it’s just way too easy. You don’t need a meaty game, all you have to do is roll out the +stat crap and rewarded “achievements” and those people shut up and keep paying. Wouldn’t that corrupt your lofty game designer ideals? lol

If this is all part of MMOland, well then MMOland kind of sucks.

Well, pretty much sums up my point. Not saying I don’t agree with you, but face it, man. That’s MMOland. Or am I missing some awesome game out there? Feel free to PM me the name.

On the bright side, GW2 took a mini step ahead, and we now get to play it every now and then in between real games, without subscriptions, when/if Anet releases something that’s not a stupid clunky minigame, while we continue on our Ever lasting Quest for the Next MMO-Which-Might-Not-Pretty-Much-Repeat-The-Same-Crap-And-Eventually-Suck.

Love Extra Credits, but you have the reward thing wrong in this genre. They are not giving up on intrinsic rewards, they are simply addressing the perceived lack of extrinsic rewards, something absolutely necessary and to be desired in an MMO/RPG.

The concept of intrinsic rewards is important, just not important as an either/or. It’s both/and in or near the genre.

Harbard.5738:

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

Welcome to MMOland? People were crying “gimme shinies” for months, so they decided they wanted the easiest-to-please and lamest player-base, people who play reward systems and not games. Can’t say I can blame people calling the shots at anet, sadly, it’s just way too easy. You don’t need a meaty game, all you have to do is roll out the +stat crap and rewarded “achievements” and those people shut up and keep paying. Wouldn’t that corrupt your lofty game designer ideals? lol

If this is all part of MMOland, well then MMOland kind of sucks.

Well, pretty much sums up my point. Not saying I don’t agree with you, but face it, man. That’s MMOland. Or am I missing some awesome game out there? Feel free to PM me the name.

On the bright side, GW2 took a mini step ahead, and we now get to play it every now and then in between real games, without subscriptions, when/if Anet releases something that’s not a stupid clunky minigame, while we continue on our Ever lasting Quest for the Next MMO-Which-Might-Not-Pretty-Much-Repeat-The-Same-Crap-And-Eventually-Suck.

I’ve already planned my Next adventure This game (or rather the forum) is tiding me over until then.

Love Extra Credits, but you have the reward thing wrong in this genre. They are not giving up on intrinsic rewards, they are simply addressing the perceived lack of extrinsic rewards, something absolutely necessary and to be desired in an MMO/RPG.

The concept of intrinsic rewards is important, just not important as an either/or. It’s both/and in or near the genre.

“In this genre” Well this genre stinks and emphasizes extrinsic time wasting.

There’s quite a few EC videos that could apply to this topic as a whole (Skinner Box, Achievements, Energy Systems [and their use to get people in a routine], Power Creep [if we’re talking about higher stats as a reward]).

In general though, I agree. Game-play mechanics should be the priority, with rewards an icing on the cake. Get people to play through the content for the content.

What I feel that game devs in general should do during beta’s is completely remove rewards (until such a time that rewards need to be introduced for testing). Why? Because the player is then required to play through the content, for the content. And yes, this can be easily done with rewards in place, but removing the rewards gets the player to seriously ask at the end ‘Was this a waste of my time?’ or ‘Did I find that thrilling / engaging?’ rather than ‘It was Ok, the rewards made up for it.’

Now, of course, this is all subjective, meaning 9 / 10 times, what is engaging to one, won’t be engaging to another (just look at all of the ‘OMG you’re making me PvP for PvE achievements?!’ threads, and visa versa).

For example, I mostly play PvE. I do so, not for rewards or achievement points, but for playing the content. I enjoyed searching for them Sky Crystals, for example. Why? Because I was required to look for them and think how to reach them. I was so invested in these that they didn’t feel like a grind. I’ve got all of my icons turned off on my map. Why? Because, for me, it gets rid of the checklist mentality when it comes to world completion.

However, someone who goes and uses a walkthrough guide, who is simply doing it for the reward, doesn’t have that level of engagement, they view it as a chore, thus come the complaints of ‘grind’.

I play WvW for WvW, not for some extrinsic reward (and I can imagine that most WvWer’s do), but for the fun of it. I don’t go around in zergs. I hang with around with a few of my mates, and we go taking supply camps, waylaying Dolyaks and scouting large forces. Sure, we don’t get much in the way of rewards, but we enjoy it.

I’ve probably gone right off-topic here, so I’ll just sum it up as: Rewards shouldn’t be a driving force to do content; engaging content should, with rewards as something to show you’ve done the content.

I should also add that it’s good that ANet recognises that a) there’s a disparity in content quality, b) there’s room for improvement and c) there’s irregularities when it comes to reward schedules.

TwoBit.5903:

I keep hearing in the latest interviews constant mentioning of the word “reward” and very little about making the game more fun. This reminded me of an Extra Credits video I posted back discussing the nature of extrinsic and intrinsic gameplay, and the focus on rewards leads me to believe that intrinsic gameplay is taking a backseat to making players feel good about grinding. However, I also believe that the intrinsic vs extrinsic debate presents somewhat of a false dilemma when it comes to rewards and progression in RPGs.

- I think the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards is academic. There are tons of games loaded with all sorts of extrinsic reward systems that don’t interest me. Farmville is one of those games, have you played it? I tried it and played for a couple of days but got bored because the game lacks depth. That game didn’t reward me or satisfy any need I have.

Anet’s goals are to keep people playing the game and buy stuff from cash shop. It’s a real problem when you see that your playerbase is moving away from, say, WvW games and forum posts complaining that there’s “no point to play it”. Very cost-effective solution is to add some small progression without breaking balance, like having +% damage vs. NPCs or being able to carry a couple of supplies more. This makes it so that players have extrinsic rewards for playing WvW and solves the problem of players leaving.

There are players that feel their intrinsic reward mechanism doesn’t match what is being offered by the game (have you actually listened to what every single NPC has to say? There’s a ton of content) and leave the game because of it. I think this is natural.

I like content, but without rewards its less fun, it actually feels more Grindy, i used to play Firefall when they removed rewards i removed myself from their game..

i made myself some cookies, and did some thinking about the rewards system, and i figured something out. they completely painted themselves into a corner, and here’s why: their stat system. every single stat in this game revolved around combat. healing power, toughness, crit damage, all of it. every single item is stuck pumping up these stats, and that’s ALL they can do. compare this to D&D, and actual role-playing game, and sure, there’s a combat system, but there’s a whole lot more to it than just that. and these things can be represented on the gear. (no, not appearances….) meaning a much much greater variety of max level gear that can be made. in fact, it would take forever to come up with a list of every different combination that would qualify as max level gear just using the charts in the core books.

meaning, all of the max level gear in gw2 would only amount to a tiny fraction of that total. and this is true for every other MMO that only has stats that relate directly to combat. so instead of being able to offer more variety at the same level, they’re forced to either continuously add higher and higher levels, or find some other way to create variety such as different appearances. however, both of these are extremely short sighted solutions, because overall, their creation will end up requiring much much more time, work and money to produce. not to mention a far more one dimensional game, that end up being extremely repetitive akittens very core(get group, kill mobs, get loot, rinse and repeat), even if the details surrounding that core change (new mobs, new loot, new ways to kill mobs).

the sad part is, MMOs and RPGs are, right now, on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. and it really looks like most MMOs are moving farther and farther away from RPGs, and are suffering for it. until they get back to being MMORPGs, expect the same exact problems to show up in every single MMO that comes out, and don’t count on even a single one coming up with a decent solution to them.

That is because the Role Playing crowd is, and always was, a niche market. In expanding their reach to the more typical gamer, MMOs move away from role playing and towards generic gaming themes. The lowest common denominator between RPGs and other video games is that you kill stuff and collect points/loot.

There may be a market for a sandbox MMORPG where players can take on various non-combat roles like running a shop or being mayor of a town, and therefore support other kinds of gaming beyond “kill monsters and gather treasure, level up and kill bigger monsters.” But that kind of game is going to have a much, much smaller potential audience than the games chasing a piece of the WoW pie, and probably require an even bigger investment from the company that creates it, making the development of such a game unlikely.

tolunart.2095:

There may be a market for a sandbox MMORPG where players can take on various non-combat roles like running a shop or being mayor of a town, and therefore support other kinds of gaming beyond “kill monsters and gather treasure, level up and kill bigger monsters.” But that kind of game is going to have a much, much smaller potential audience than the games chasing a piece of the WoW pie, and probably require an even bigger investment from the company that creates it, making the development of such a game unlikely.

Hmm, that sounds pretty cool actually.

In terms of audience though, I’d have said, if done right and each particular playstile given care when creating the content for them, it’d appeal to a wider audience, since you’re covering more playstyles.

TwoBit.5903:

I wanted to keep it brief. I was also keen to avoid the mental gymnasitics that generally cause people type of pages of nonsense as reasoning-the kind I see in your post.

@Gehenna
I get that feeling as well. I’m not entirely sure why they gave those greens for completing LS quests when my current gear made the rewards so obsolete.

I think the tier system functions as a double-edged sword. The increases are significant but not enough to make make combat different in a meaningful way. You kill stuff with yellows or you can kill slightly faster with oranges. Whoopeee.

The newly announced skills piqued my interest because they could potentially add meaningful decisions and gameplay variations, but then I remembered how difficult it would be to add variation to this mushy mess of a combat system.

Mind you, lame story rewards is not unique to guild wars. For some reason MMOs tend to make leveling something that takes quite a while and is supposed to be epic and all that but the rewards are anything but. It seems to be some game developer logic that story lines should not be rewarded, thereby teaching people that the story line actually isn’t that important. It’s a matter of putting money where your mouth is really or do as I say, not as I do. Anet have followed suit in that.

The stat increase from exotic to ascended is small enough that you don’t need it, except maybe in the tetris dungeon aka fotm.

However, there are a significant amount of people who want it, but not even for the stats. Just as a sense of completion or achievement. Too bad all it takes to get said gear is log in once a day for a while, again devaluating the meaning of top tier gear. Aside from being too easy and just time gated it’s also a very one sided approach…just do dailies, that’s it. That devaluates the rest of the game.

What worries me about new skills is that to make them interesting, they will likely be more powerful. That means everybody will go for earning the new skills and the existing content will be even easier to do. Why do I think the new skills will be more powerful? Because if not, people will be disappointed and go: whatever.

Wanna get people excited? Give them more freedom within the existing skill bar set up.

Zenith.6403:

TwoBit.5903:

I keep hearing in the latest interviews constant mentioning of the word “reward” and very little about making the game more fun. This reminded me of an Extra Credits video I posted back discussing the nature of extrinsic and intrinsic gameplay, and the focus on rewards leads me to believe that intrinsic gameplay is taking a backseat to making players feel good about grinding. However, I also believe that the intrinsic vs extrinsic debate presents somewhat of a false dilemma when it comes to rewards and progression in RPGs.

- I think the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards is academic. There are tons of games loaded with all sorts of extrinsic reward systems that don’t interest me. Farmville is one of those games, have you played it? I tried it and played for a couple of days but got bored because the game lacks depth. That game didn’t reward me or satisfy any need I have.

Anet’s goals are to keep people playing the game and buy stuff from cash shop. It’s a real problem when you see that your playerbase is moving away from, say, WvW games and forum posts complaining that there’s “no point to play it”. Very cost-effective solution is to add some small progression without breaking balance, like having +% damage vs. NPCs or being able to carry a couple of supplies more. This makes it so that players have extrinsic rewards for playing WvW and solves the problem of players leaving.

There are players that feel their intrinsic reward mechanism doesn’t match what is being offered by the game (have you actually listened to what every single NPC has to say? There’s a ton of content) and leave the game because of it. I think this is natural.

The npc dialogue and interfacing is so poorly done in this game that people are are unlikely to read or enjoy them.

And plastering shallow, extrinsic reward only solves issues with in the short run. This is why WoW has so many gear tiers that consititue and egregious treadmill. For those like me, it was actually so repulsive that I stopped playing WvW. The fact that certain other upcoming MMOs seem to offer deeper reward systems/progression that work in tandem with world PvP make me believe that I wasn’t missing much.

A good reward system in which gameplay can built around can actually last for the lifespan of a game. Star Wars Galaxy and its procedural loot generation come to mind as it adds an infinite amount variety and incentive, and the incentive is enough to drive certain forms of gameplay.

I think many of you are also focusing too much on the binary intrinsic/extrinsic relationship of gameplay, which I made a point of getting away from as it presents a false dilemma in RPGs. But that’s understandable as the current rewards system in GW2 can really only be seen one way.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Hmm, that sounds pretty cool actually.

In terms of audience though, I’d have said, if done right and each particular playstile given care when creating the content for them, it’d appeal to a wider audience, since you’re covering more playstyles.

You’d think it would, but the reason why there aren’t more sandbox MMOs is that there are more hack/slash players (kill a monster, take its treasure, repeat) than other styles combined. And they tend to get bored and/or confused when confronted with actual role playing. I’ve played D&D with those types, people who sit at the table with a blank look until something attacks, then they start tossing dice and counting XP.

That audience is larger, easier and cheaper to entertain. Given a limited budget for developing these games, it’s natural for companies to move in that direction because the potential profit is much larger. That doesn’t mean other game don’t exist, but they are mostly Skyrim type open-ended RPGs.

TwoBit.5903:

I keep hearing in the latest interviews constant mentioning of the word “reward” and very little about making the game more fun. This reminded me of an Extra Credits video I posted back discussing the nature of extrinsic and intrinsic gameplay, and the focus on rewards leads me to believe that intrinsic gameplay is taking a backseat to making players feel good about grinding. However, I also believe that the intrinsic vs extrinsic debate presents somewhat of a false dilemma when it comes to rewards and progression in RPGs.

Rewards should in and of themselves be a part of the gameplay experience, as both the means and the ends. In most RPGs, getting rewarded with higher stat gear and new skills for beating enemies was intrinsically fun because it was part of the problem solving and resource management that’s a very core of the genre. You get gear/skills so you can beat the next baddies. I think Zelda does this beautifully (if a bit redundantly) by introducing weapons as the players go through the game. GW1 does this quite well with the deck-building elements of the skill system.

The problem with GW2’s rewards system and gear progression is that it lets players be (slightly) more effective or look prettier in content they’ve already completed/problems they’ve already solved, and the effectiveness is only in dps. They don’t influence gameplay on a level that engages players to solve problems or play in different and interesting ways. They’re nothing more than carrots.

What worries me is that, as previously mentioned, in the latest articles and teasers indicate a fetishism with rewards over gameplay. There’s a fine line between rewarding players to engage them to do more and rewarding them to encourage them to repeat the mundane, and I believed they crossed the line with the transition from guildwars 1 to guildwars 2. The wording of the article and general attitude towards content design (evident by their lacing everything with achievement points) leads me to believe that they did so without knowing where they were to begin with or how good it was for the playerbase in their previous game.

repped

Gehenna.3625:

TwoBit.5903:

I wanted to keep it brief. I was also keen to avoid the mental gymnasitics that generally cause people type of pages of nonsense as reasoning-the kind I see in your post.

@Gehenna
I get that feeling as well. I’m not entirely sure why they gave those greens for completing LS quests when my current gear made the rewards so obsolete.

I think the tier system functions as a double-edged sword. The increases are significant but not enough to make make combat different in a meaningful way. You kill stuff with yellows or you can kill slightly faster with oranges. Whoopeee.

The newly announced skills piqued my interest because they could potentially add meaningful decisions and gameplay variations, but then I remembered how difficult it would be to add variation to this mushy mess of a combat system.

Mind you, lame story rewards is not unique to guild wars. For some reason MMOs tend to make leveling something that takes quite a while and is supposed to be epic and all that but the rewards are anything but. It seems to be some game developer logic that story lines should not be rewarded, thereby teaching people that the story line actually isn’t that important. It’s a matter of putting money where your mouth is really or do as I say, not as I do. Anet have followed suit in that.

That’s a silly trend, if true. It’s built on a shallow understanding of storytelling and it relies on the audiences ability to follow the developer’s obscure logic without proper conveyance of said logic. I really wish more developers would follow the loot concepts in Zelda. Often times the loot added characterization to NPCs and depth to the story, and it was all really easy to follow. For example of this would be the Iron Boots in Twilight Princess as it added character depth and humor to the mayor of your hometown.

However, there are a significant amount of people who want it, but not even for the stats. Just as a sense of completion or achievement. Too bad all it takes to get said gear is log in once a day for a while, again devaluating the meaning of top tier gear. Aside from being too easy and just time gated it’s also a very one sided approach…just do dailies, that’s it. That devaluates the rest of the game.

Problem I have is that gear only changes the speed at which things are done, and not actually engage players to make interesting or meaningful gameplay decisions. The gear and skill system in GW1 somehow managed to this beautifully, despite the horrendous balance issues. But then again games are never balanced in terms of power of efficacy, and that’s okay because they should focus on challenge and meaningful decisions instead.

What worries me about new skills is that to make them interesting, they will likely be more powerful. That means everybody will go for earning the new skills and the existing content will be even easier to do. Why do I think the new skills will be more powerful? Because if not, people will be disappointed and go: whatever.

Wanna get people excited? Give them more freedom within the existing skill bar set up.

That’s one of my concerns as well. It’ll be blatant power creep disguised as a horizontal skill system. Why? Because I can’t see them adding much meaningful variation in combat without redoing the entire system, so it’s easier to add in skill Y that does the same thing as skill X, but always does more damage.

tolunart.2095:

That is because the Role Playing crowd is, and always was, a niche market. In expanding their reach to the more typical gamer, MMOs move away from role playing and towards generic gaming themes. The lowest common denominator between RPGs and other video games is that you kill stuff and collect points/loot.

There may be a market for a sandbox MMORPG where players can take on various non-combat roles like running a shop or being mayor of a town, and therefore support other kinds of gaming beyond “kill monsters and gather treasure, level up and kill bigger monsters.” But that kind of game is going to have a much, much smaller potential audience than the games chasing a piece of the WoW pie, and probably require an even bigger investment from the company that creates it, making the development of such a game unlikely.

it appears that you believe that roleplaying somehow doesn’t include combat. that’s not the case. every single RPG has extensive rules for combat. however, simply swinging a sword or casting a spell isn’t the extent of their rules. to go back to D&D as an example, there are a list of skills that players can add points into at each level up. skills such as hide and move silently, and their counter skills spot and listen. these were condensed in 4th edition to simply “stealth” and “perception”. it’s pretty easy to see how these would be useful for combat. then there was the diplomacy skill. while this may sound like a non combat skill, NWN broke this skill up into 3 sub skills. one of which, taunt, was able to be used in combat to apply penalties to an opponents combat abilities. even going beyond pure combat into the exploration territory, there were very crucial skills such as search, open locks, and disable device (for disarming traps). none of these have anything to do with owning a shop or being a mayor.

the common misconception is that roleplaying is simply sitting around town, peacefully socializing. the fact is, that’s just the watered down version of roleplaying that’s seen in MMO’s, because they simply don’t support any of the rest of it. why? because that’s how WoW handled it, and pretty much every MMO that’s come out since then has just copy/pasted the pre-existing lackluster system. in fact, those newer MMOs have even less than what WoW offered, because WoW at least kept lockpicking.

i honestly doubt that 99% of MMO makers have ever even sat down and played D&D, or shadowrun, or VTM, or even some form of GURPS, and their knowledge of roleplaying in general is limited to the myths and stereotypes that they have fed to them. the products they come out with are very telling in that regard. if they had actually played any of those games, even if they didn’t do it in character, MMOs would be vastly different than what they are today. which, in all actuality, are WoW’s framework with different details stuck to it, and then labeled as “revolutionary!!!” even though it’s a nearly identical experience in each and every one of them. (explore the PvE world to level up, then repeat dungeons/raids/PvP until you have your ideal set of gear, then sit around bored out of your mind until they decide to come out with new “content” to repeat the same cycle over until the next big game comes along.)

to be honest, they really should just stop calling them MMORPGs, since they’re doing everything that’s humanly possible to remove the RPG part of the games. but they won’t, for marketing purposes.

Dante.1508:

I like content, but without rewards its less fun, it actually feels more Grindy, i used to play Firefall when they removed rewards i removed myself from their game..

Yep.

I love running around and killing things and hopping events. But it all seems pointless without getting rewards.

This threat certainly brings out a point in gaming. One that I think identifies what went wrong from rpg’s 20 years ago to the mmorpg’s today.

Both character and gear progression was a means to an end. Somewhere along the way, this changed and now character and gear progression is that end. The means is simply doing whatever is necessary to get that next gear item, skill, char lvl, etc.

That’s not to say that those old games simply gave you what you needed to move on. You still had to perform some task first.

Perform task→Get the advancement needed→Carry on towards your goal→repeat

Games now don’t have that last step. Or rather the advancement is the goal.

Perform task→Get the advancement→repeat

Games have become shallow. Is it lack of imagination of the developer’s part? Is it because gaming companies or too corporatized and simply want to put out products that rake in cakitten the lowest cost possible?

So what is the difference between those old rpgs and mmorpgs? Well, one is that the former is single player and the latter is multiplayer. What happens when you reach that goal in the rpg? Simple, you’re done the game.

With mmo’s the point is the game doesn’t end. Now expansions are suppose to be what gives you that next goal and keep the full cycle going. The problem is that this is not what ANet is doing with living story. The living story is simply new tasks designed to reward you new gear with the gear being the goal.

It’s simply more and more of….

Perform task→Get advancement→repeat.

The worst part? That the gear is just skins. It’s not even advancement. As for the tasks? Well, they are the same things with a new look.

So it’s no wonder that people are complaining about grind.

They need to bring out content that has a desirable goal. Content that requires advancement. Content that puts advancement back to being the means to an end rather than being that end.

Oddly enough a sandbox can do this. Look at EVE. Sure, advancing your character could be a goal but typically the player had their own goals and advancement may or may not have been needed.

Whether it was to form your own mega corp, bring down a mega corp, become an infamous pirate, or be the richest person in game, advancing your character was simply a means to such an end. It’s what made that game far less grindy than any other mmo out there.

Which is why game companies should be setting out their own particular goal and that goal is to see who can build the better sandbox.

Phantom.8130:

tolunart.2095:

The lowest common denominator between RPGs and other video games is that you kill stuff and collect points/loot.
.

it appears that you believe that roleplaying somehow doesn’t include combat. .

How does it appear so when I said that it does? It’s a lot more than that.

I was playing D&D when most of the people playing GW2 (and a few of the devs no doubt) were in diapers. You don’t need to lecture me about role playing.

Deamhan.9538:

This threat certainly brings out a point in gaming. One that I think identifies what went wrong from rpg’s 20 years ago to the mmorpg’s today.

Both character and gear progression was a means to an end. Somewhere along the way, this changed and now character and gear progression is that end. The means is simply doing whatever is necessary to get that next gear item, skill, char lvl, etc.

That’s not to say that those old games simply gave you what you needed to move on. You still had to perform some task first.

Perform task->Get the advancement needed->Carry on towards your goal->repeat

Games now don’t have that last step. Or rather the advancement is the goal.

Perform task->Get the advancement->repeat

Games have become shallow. Is it lack of imagination of the developer’s part? Is it because gaming companies or too corporatized and simply want to put out products that rake in cakitten the lowest cost possible?

So what is the difference between those old rpgs and mmorpgs? Well, one is that the former is single player and the latter is multiplayer. What happens when you reach that goal in the rpg? Simple, you’re done the game.

With mmo’s the point is the game doesn’t end. Now expansions are suppose to be what gives you that next goal and keep the full cycle going. The problem is that this is not what ANet is doing with living story. The living story is simply new tasks designed to reward you new gear with the gear being the goal.

It’s simply more and more of….

Perform task->Get advancement->repeat.

The worst part? That the gear is just skins. It’s not even advancement. As for the tasks? Well, they are the same things with a new look.

So it’s no wonder that people are complaining about grind.

They need to bring out content that has a desirable goal. Content that requires advancement. Content that puts advancement back to being the means to an end rather than being that end.

Oddly enough a sandbox can do this. Look at EVE. Sure, advancing your character could be a goal but typically the player had their own goals and advancement may or may not have been needed.

Whether it was to form your own mega corp, bring down a mega corp, become an infamous pirate, or be the richest person in game, advancing your character was simply a means to such an end. It’s what made that game far less grindy than any other mmo out there.

Which is why game companies should be setting out their own particular goal and that goal is to see who can build the better sandbox.

I belive gear should be an ends as well, as it’s an important part of character expression. Just like how the skill system in GW1 was a form of expression. There are obviously superior builds but there was still room for imagination and personalization.

This brings to mind how power can be both gained and reduced in EVE. It’s sort of a treadmill gathering assets to buy ships in order to repeat gather more assets and so forth, but if you’re not careful or attentive you can lose assets to piracy so it’s not a completely mindless grind. PvP in EVE is competition based on equity and at the same time equity is reduced by actions encouraged through competition. It’s a fascinating dynamic that creates a highly sustainable model.

I’m hoping this kind of sustainability is something EQ Next and Wildstar are able to achieve. I haven’t read too much about EQN (although I’m excited about its premises), but Wildstar’s guild system and the competition it brings seems like a fun and interesting equity sink, at least with a cursory look at how the system works.

Zenith.6403:

TwoBit.5903:

I keep hearing in the latest interviews constant mentioning of the word “reward” and very little about making the game more fun. This reminded me of an Extra Credits video I posted back discussing the nature of extrinsic and intrinsic gameplay, and the focus on rewards leads me to believe that intrinsic gameplay is taking a backseat to making players feel good about grinding. However, I also believe that the intrinsic vs extrinsic debate presents somewhat of a false dilemma when it comes to rewards and progression in RPGs.

Anet’s goals are to keep people playing the game and buy stuff from cash shop. It’s a real problem when you see that your playerbase is moving away from, say, WvW games and forum posts complaining that there’s “no point to play it”. Very cost-effective solution is to add some small progression without breaking balance, like having +% damage vs. NPCs or being able to carry a couple of supplies more. This makes it so that players have extrinsic rewards for playing WvW and solves the problem of players leaving.

That’s precisely my point. In the MMO world, where the devs have the “+stat or +% safety net” to fall back to, they don’t need to actually work to make WvW relevant, more engaging in its own merits, because there are always enough suckers that will grind the +%, the +gold… it’s so easy, so “cost-effective”, you don’t even have to make a game.

DarkWasp.7291:

Dante.1508:

I like content, but without rewards its less fun, it actually feels more Grindy, i used to play Firefall when they removed rewards i removed myself from their game..

Yep.

I love running around and killing things and hopping events. But it all seems pointless without getting rewards.

What if instead a +stat item or a RNG chest something really cool happened in the zone when you complete a DE sequence or killed a champion. What if it mattered somehow?

Harbard.5738:

Zenith.6403:

TwoBit.5903:

I keep hearing in the latest interviews constant mentioning of the word “reward” and very little about making the game more fun. This reminded me of an Extra Credits video I posted back discussing the nature of extrinsic and intrinsic gameplay, and the focus on rewards leads me to believe that intrinsic gameplay is taking a backseat to making players feel good about grinding. However, I also believe that the intrinsic vs extrinsic debate presents somewhat of a false dilemma when it comes to rewards and progression in RPGs.

Anet’s goals are to keep people playing the game and buy stuff from cash shop. It’s a real problem when you see that your playerbase is moving away from, say, WvW games and forum posts complaining that there’s “no point to play it”. Very cost-effective solution is to add some small progression without breaking balance, like having +% damage vs. NPCs or being able to carry a couple of supplies more. This makes it so that players have extrinsic rewards for playing WvW and solves the problem of players leaving.

That’s precisely my point. In the MMO world, where the devs have the “+stat or +% safety net” to fall back to, they don’t need to actually work to make WvW relevant, more engaging in its own merits, because there are always enough suckers that will grind the +%, the +gold… it’s so easy, so “cost-effective”, you don’t even have to make a game.

I don’t disagree with this notion, since it is effective to a degree. However I think this tactic is only effective when used in games that succeed on their own merits.

It certainly wasn’t effective enough to keep a several large communities, who were critical to the success of certain servers in WvW, from leaving the game or effective in making them come back to it. This relates back to my previous statement, if the game’s no good then people will eventually leave no matter what shinies you throw at them. And I believe there’s a another factor to it as well. Players have become more experienced. This is true in larger communities which tend to have people with more experience in their roster. I think these types of players going to be able sniff out carrot dangling tactics and know to avoid games that offer little more than shallow incentives. With the power of networking, it’s easy for them to find alternatives to play. I’m not going to list any names, looking up the web pages of former GW2 communities shows that these communities have already moved their consciousness away from GW2 and towards upcoming titles like Wildstar and ESO.

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

Welcome to MMOland? People were crying “gimme shinies” for months, so they decided they wanted the easiest-to-please and lamest player-base, people who play reward systems and not games. Can’t say I can blame people calling the shots at anet, sadly, it’s just way too easy. You don’t need a meaty game, all you have to do is roll out the +stat crap and rewarded “achievements” and those people shut up and keep paying. Wouldn’t that corrupt your lofty game designer ideals? lol

If this is all part of MMOland, well then MMOland kind of sucks.

Well, pretty much sums up my point. Not saying I don’t agree with you, but face it, man. That’s MMOland. Or am I missing some awesome game out there? Feel free to PM me the name.

On the bright side, GW2 took a mini step ahead, and we now get to play it every now and then in between real games, without subscriptions, when/if Anet releases something that’s not a stupid clunky minigame, while we continue on our Ever lasting Quest for the Next MMO-Which-Might-Not-Pretty-Much-Repeat-The-Same-Crap-And-Eventually-Suck.

I’ve already planned my Next adventure This game (or rather the forum) is tiding me over until then.

You’re saying reading Erasculio and Vayne derail topics for ~2 years (yes, they will be here still) will keep you amused until your Next adventure? lol

C’mon, man, there are good games out there, even GW2 is still pretty ok, don’t do that to yourself. But if worse comes to worst, I suppose this year’s holidays will be a Landmark for the genre, at least something pretty cool seems to be on the way to save you from haunting the forums. At any rate. Good luck! – Oh and I really hope you’re right people will stop playing reward systems and start playing games, that’s the only way this genre is moving forward.

Harbard.5738:

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

Welcome to MMOland? People were crying “gimme shinies” for months, so they decided they wanted the easiest-to-please and lamest player-base, people who play reward systems and not games. Can’t say I can blame people calling the shots at anet, sadly, it’s just way too easy. You don’t need a meaty game, all you have to do is roll out the +stat crap and rewarded “achievements” and those people shut up and keep paying. Wouldn’t that corrupt your lofty game designer ideals? lol

If this is all part of MMOland, well then MMOland kind of sucks.

Well, pretty much sums up my point. Not saying I don’t agree with you, but face it, man. That’s MMOland. Or am I missing some awesome game out there? Feel free to PM me the name.

On the bright side, GW2 took a mini step ahead, and we now get to play it every now and then in between real games, without subscriptions, when/if Anet releases something that’s not a stupid clunky minigame, while we continue on our Ever lasting Quest for the Next MMO-Which-Might-Not-Pretty-Much-Repeat-The-Same-Crap-And-Eventually-Suck.

I’ve already planned my Next adventure This game (or rather the forum) is tiding me over until then.

You’re saying reading Erasculio and Vayne derail topics for ~2 years (yes, they will be here still) will keep you amused until your Next adventure? lol

C’mon, man, there are good games out there, even GW2 is still pretty ok, don’t do that to yourself. But if worse comes to worst, I suppose this year’s holidays will be a Landmark for the genre, at least something pretty cool seems to be on the way to save you from haunting the forums. At any rate. Good luck! – Oh and I really hope you’re right people will stop playing reward systems and start playing games, that’s the only way this genre is moving forward.

Not for the two whole years. I’m stubborn but not masochistic. And besides, Wildstar looks promising despite looking a lot like WoW (right down to the character interaction and gear system), and I’ve got am every-growing library of steam games to try and finish.

Harbard.5738:

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

Welcome to MMOland? People were crying “gimme shinies” for months, so they decided they wanted the easiest-to-please and lamest player-base, people who play reward systems and not games. Can’t say I can blame people calling the shots at anet, sadly, it’s just way too easy. You don’t need a meaty game, all you have to do is roll out the +stat crap and rewarded “achievements” and those people shut up and keep paying. Wouldn’t that corrupt your lofty game designer ideals? lol

If this is all part of MMOland, well then MMOland kind of sucks.

Well, pretty much sums up my point. Not saying I don’t agree with you, but face it, man. That’s MMOland. Or am I missing some awesome game out there? Feel free to PM me the name.

On the bright side, GW2 took a mini step ahead, and we now get to play it every now and then in between real games, without subscriptions, when/if Anet releases something that’s not a stupid clunky minigame, while we continue on our Ever lasting Quest for the Next MMO-Which-Might-Not-Pretty-Much-Repeat-The-Same-Crap-And-Eventually-Suck.

I’ve already planned my Next adventure This game (or rather the forum) is tiding me over until then.

You’re saying reading Erasculio and Vayne derail topics for ~2 years (yes, they will be here still) will keep you amused until your Next adventure? lol

C’mon, that’s fun >.>

I don’t share the optimism you two have. I doubt MMORPGs will move from the MMOland TwoBit described for a single reason:

I don’t think MMORPG players want it to.

Here, whenever someone complaints that Guild Wars 2 is too grindy, or that it’s too focused on giving rewards instead of in being a fun game, the common reply is, “That’s how MMORPGs are, if you don’t like it go back to a single player game”. I believe most people actually heard that. And that the great majority of those who are left – the MMORPG players – are exactly the players who don’t really care about having fun, and just want to grind for rewards.

We can even see it in numbers. We have big AAA MMORPGs selling between 1.5 and 3 millions on release, being flooded by MMO locusts who want a copy of their first online world (whether they realize it or not) and watching as those locusts leave after a few months (see the common curve in subscriptions here). That’s when the game developers notice something – most of the large mass of players leaving are asking for features seen in classic MMORPGs. The developers then panic and add classic features to their games, often in a haphazardly way. This doesn’t preven the locusts from leaving (they want a perfect clone, not a game with some similarities), and only alienates those players seeking something unique. People continue to leave, until the game goes free to play.

That’s what I believe will happen with the Next incoming MMOs. They are trying to make a fun, unique world, which is great – but MMORPG players don’t want fun, and don’t want unique. Most want a MMORPG that could outWoW WoW, and they will continue jumping from MMO to MMO looking for something they will never find, all the while asking for mounts, raids, gear treadmill, more rewards for grind, and so on.

I think the MMORPG genre will continue to be mediocre until the current generation of MMORPG players, that pratically demands games to be mediocre, dies.

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

TwoBit.5903:

Harbard.5738:

Welcome to MMOland? People were crying “gimme shinies” for months, so they decided they wanted the easiest-to-please and lamest player-base, people who play reward systems and not games. Can’t say I can blame people calling the shots at anet, sadly, it’s just way too easy. You don’t need a meaty game, all you have to do is roll out the +stat crap and rewarded “achievements” and those people shut up and keep paying. Wouldn’t that corrupt your lofty game designer ideals? lol

If this is all part of MMOland, well then MMOland kind of sucks.

Well, pretty much sums up my point. Not saying I don’t agree with you, but face it, man. That’s MMOland. Or am I missing some awesome game out there? Feel free to PM me the name.

On the bright side, GW2 took a mini step ahead, and we now get to play it every now and then in between real games, without subscriptions, when/if Anet releases something that’s not a stupid clunky minigame, while we continue on our Ever lasting Quest for the Next MMO-Which-Might-Not-Pretty-Much-Repeat-The-Same-Crap-And-Eventually-Suck.

I’ve already planned my Next adventure This game (or rather the forum) is tiding me over until then.

You’re saying reading Erasculio and Vayne derail topics for ~2 years (yes, they will be here still) will keep you amused until your Next adventure? lol

C’mon, man, there are good games out there, even GW2 is still pretty ok, don’t do that to yourself. But if worse comes to worst, I suppose this year’s holidays will be a Landmark for the genre, at least something pretty cool seems to be on the way to save you from haunting the forums. At any rate. Good luck! – Oh and I really hope you’re right people will stop playing reward systems and start playing games, that’s the only way this genre is moving forward.

Not for the two whole years. I’m stubborn but not masochistic. And besides, Wildstar looks promising despite looking a lot like WoW (right down to the character interaction and gear system), and I’ve got am every-growing library of steam games to try and finish.

Good to know. Just remember MMOland survival rules, soldier. You’re a veteran, but we may all fall for it in a moment of weakness (After years of discipline and keen predictions… I pre ordered THIS game. I know. But I will regain my honor, and I will survive.)

So:

- Never get hyped;
- never believe;
- never pre-order.

Be strong and wait ~3 months after releases. May the gaming deities be with you. <heroic soundtrack, panoramic shots of a devastated battlefield littered with body parts>

From reading all of this, I see some great points. Most of the points I see though are things that lead me to believe that some of the people making them shouldn’t really be playing GW2 because it probably isn’t their cup of tea. At some point, you just have to cut your losses and find something else to play that suits you more.

It’s like when we get into a relationship with someone. We can either like them for who they are or try to change them into what we think they should be, or what we want them to be. There are some people here trying to make GW2 into what they want it to be and it’s not just superfluous changes. They want changes to the core game and vision. I just don’t think that works. There are people that like to play a social style game that gives them things that make them feel rewarded. It seems that isn’t enough for some here. You may need something more complex. I kinda feel like there are some people here that want this game to be some really complex game. Some others just want it to be above average and others want it to just be a gear treadmill.

Whenever I want to play something hard I go play Street Fighter 4 online and remind myself that GW2 is probably more my speed. This game is for the masses. It isn’t niche. it isn’t a complex puzzle with a need for spreadsheets and calculators. It’s a place to be silly and social and occasionally it offers up a challenge in a high level fractal or dungeon boss fight. This isn’t EvE. This isn’t Zelda. This isn’t StarCraft 2.

It’s Guild Wars 2 and it’s pretty stinkin’ awesome.

Iason Evan.3806:

Most of the points I see though are things that lead me to believe that some of the people making them shouldn’t really be playing GW2 because it probably isn’t their cup of tea. At some point, you just have to cut your losses and find something else to play that suits you more.

It’s easy to keep saying that until most players have left the game, and then it will be too late to bring them back.

GW2 has a lot of potential, but it’s not quite there. Those who are still here making criticism are (with the exception of the haters, but most have left) actually hoping the game will become better.

Saying the game is perfect and so that it shouldn’t improve is just preventing ArenaNet from making their game better.

Iason Evan.3806:

From reading all of this, I see some great points. Most of the points I see though are things that lead me to believe that some of the people making them shouldn’t really be playing GW2 because it probably isn’t their cup of tea. At some point, you just have to cut your losses and find something else to play that suits you more.

Funny. We kept telling people that wanted WoW in GW2 the same thing before ANET pulled a 180.
ANET is making the stupid mistake almost all MMOs in the last decade made: try and cater to WoW players. In fact you could say they are making an even bigger mistake as with GW1 they had a very large player base and have sacrificed their original design. In most cases when you do that you ll end up with nothing once the next big thing rolls around the corner.

Iason Evan.3806:

From reading all of this, I see some great points. Most of the points I see though are things that lead me to believe that some of the people making them shouldn’t really be playing GW2 because it probably isn’t their cup of tea. At some point, you just have to cut your losses and find something else to play that suits you more.

It’s like when we get into a relationship with someone. We can either like them for who they are or try to change them into what we think they should be, or what we want them to be. There are some people here trying to make GW2 into what they want it to be and it’s not just superfluous changes. They want changes to the core game and vision. I just don’t think that works. There are people that like to play a social style game that gives them things that make them feel rewarded. It seems that isn’t enough for some here. You may need something more complex. I kinda feel like there are some people here that want this game to be some really complex game. Some others just want it to be above average and others want it to just be a gear treadmill.

Whenever I want to play something hard I go play Street Fighter 4 online and remind myself that GW2 is probably more my speed. This game is for the masses. It isn’t niche. it isn’t a complex puzzle with a need for spreadsheets and calculators. It’s a place to be silly and social and occasionally it offers up a challenge in a high level fractal or dungeon boss fight. This isn’t EvE. This isn’t Zelda. This isn’t StarCraft 2.

It’s Guild Wars 2 and it’s pretty stinkin’ awesome.

Saying it’s awesome and not why leads me to believe that’s it’s purely bias. This game may not be Zelda, EvE or StarCraft 2, but each of those games deliver on on some concept that GW2 tries to emulates they do it far more effectively in both aesthetics and mechanics. Quality is best measured in relative terms after all, such is the nature of innovation (or constant backpedaling in GW2’s case).

tolunart.2095:

Phantom.8130:

tolunart.2095:

The lowest common denominator between RPGs and other video games is that you kill stuff and collect points/loot.
.

it appears that you believe that roleplaying somehow doesn’t include combat. .

How does it appear so when I said that it does? It’s a lot more than that.

I was playing D&D when most of the people playing GW2 (and a few of the devs no doubt) were in diapers. You don’t need to lecture me about role playing.

i got that impression from the examples you used of running a shop and being a mayor. my apologies if i misinterpreted that. i’ve gotten used to those sort of activities being the primary expectation of RP and RPers in MMOs. it’s gotten to the point where that’s the vast majority of what i see in MMO RP anymore. tavern RP, trolling for ERP, or just people playing make-believe, all of which can be done just as easily in a chat room. ironically enough, i’ve actually gone into a RP chat room, and ran an event using dice rolls and did what i could to recreate a tabletop experience, and people had a blast. in MMOs, it’s been the exact opposite, to the point where i’ve seen people getting discriminated against for paying attention to their character sheet or the mechanics.

I think Anet is realizing that the MMORPG player that WoW has created doesn’t care about good game or level design. They don’t even care about fun, really.

They’ll do any old boring thing if it gets them a shiny at the end. Is it a bonus if it’s fun? Yeah, maybe a little. But they’re not willing to play something fun without that carrot there. On the other hand, they’re more than willing to play something that isn’t fun—or to an extent that it stops being fun—if there is a carrot.

It’s not their fault that this is the modern MMO player and has been for nearly a decade now, but maybe they should’ve seen it coming too.

Corian.4068:

I think Anet is realizing that the MMORPG player that WoW has created doesn’t care about good game or level design. They don’t even care about fun, really.

They’ll do any old boring thing if it gets them a shiny at the end. Is it a bonus if it’s fun? Yeah, maybe a little. But they’re not willing to play something fun without that carrot there. On the other hand, they’re more than willing to play something that isn’t fun—or to an extent that it stops being fun—if there is a carrot.

It’s not their fault that this is the modern MMO player and has been for nearly a decade now, but maybe they should’ve seen it coming too.

Those are the the type of assumptions that appear to be the basis for failed WoW clones. If those assumptions were true we’d see more success in those clones.

The types of players you describe do exist, but I doubt they constitute the entire MMO playerbase. GW2 succeeded by selling on the premise that it wasn’t going to be a grindfest like Lineage or WoW, so that says something about the wants of mmo players, 3 million of them in fact!

The things these types of players do are often for the sake of personal progressing. There’s little headroom for that in GW2, just a tiny bit of progression behind timegates, and the reward for dailies isn’t that enticing either. Those carrot chasers you described would probably find more enjoyment in games like Lineage.

TwoBit.5903:

Those are the the type of assumptions that appear to be the basis for failed WoW clones. If those assumptions were true we’d see more success in those clones.

The reason why the clones fail, IMO, is because the huge mass of MMORPG players want an exact clone of their first online world, not merely a clone. There’s an interesting article on GamaSutra, here, about how people may not even notice that what they want is exactly what they had before. And no MMO ever is going to outWoW WoW, hence failed clone after failed clone.

TwoBit.5903:

GW2 succeeded by selling on the premise that it wasn’t going to be a grindfest like Lineage or WoW, so that says something about the wants of mmo players, 3 million of them in fact!

Was it because of the lack of grind?

Or did MMORPG players just see a big new AAA MMORPG and hop there, regardless of anything else?

We know The Old Republic sold between 2 and 3 million copies (source 1, source 2). We also know most of those left the game within a few months. Rift sold very well, too, but quickly those numbers dwindled. It’s a common pattern in modern MMORPGs – a huge sales spike, followed by a huge loss of players after a few months (just look here).

IMO, those are the same players. The same cloud of MMO locusts, jumping from one big AAA MMO to the next (regardless of what features those games have or not), unconsciously searching for the perfect new WoW that they won’t ever find.

Notice how the time frame in which ArenaNet introduced Ascended gear (something ArenaNet themselves admited they introduced poorly) is the same time frame in which the MMO locusts begin leaving en masse. What likely happened was that ArenaNet panicked when they saw so many players leaving, and considering how those players were the ones asking for features from classic MMORPGs (going into the opposite direction of the “let’s not be a grindfest” mentality), the company replied by adding gear grind and more dungeon grind as fast as they could.

The exact same thing will happen with Wildstar, The Elder Scrolls Online, and EverQuest Next. They may be trying to be fun games, but the playerbase they will get is one that doesn’t want fun. All those games will sell a lot, lose most of their players within a few months, panic, and then fail.

“We don’t make grindy games”

The issues with GW2’s retention can be easily explained without the use of articles, especially the ones that try to conflate opinion, personal observations, and sketchy data collection (we don’t even know how his survey was conducted) with science.

All of the MMOs described are designed with the same themepark mentality in which there’s a set goal and when you finish it the game is rather pointless until the next content patch. Complaints about there being “nothing to do” stemmed from the fact that there was, well, nothing (engaging enough for them) to do after max level. Colin’s spiel about the entire game being the endgame was simply delusion on a massive scale; the entire game isn’t designed to be engaging enough for multiple playthroughs and this is evident by complaints of how boring it is to level alts.

On that subject many things promised pre-purchased hype simply failed in execution. The no trinity gameplay and the promises of eSports level pvp come to mind. False promises are bound to disappoint and send players away.

There are also sure to be players that are are either dissatisfied with game or just not engaged enough to even play through it, but there’s nothing that can be done about that since it’s a matter of tastes. These are likely another subset of players and we don’t know their exact exact percentages among those who left since it’s impossible to delineate without the metrics.