Guild Wars 2

I’ll try not to make this a complaint thread/question, but it may be difficult.

I find myself routinely quitting and then coming back, usually when a new LS release comes out to see if the game AS I SEE IT has been “fixed.” And by fixed, I mean something more than a mouse whacking a button to get cheese.

I thought ANet was going to deliver a new MMO experience, with minimal grind, etc., etc. but after two years, I still see the same thing over and over. New titles to grind for, new skins to grind for, new stuff in the gemstore to grind for, a grind that takes uncountable hours to never quite accomplish, and what do we get story/gameplay wise? A couple of cutscenes, bad dialogue, character/skill balance issues, skill bugs, and a LS “release” that can be done in about an hour, even if roleplaying and without skipping anything.

I ask this in all seriousness, will GW2 ever be anything more than a Las Vegas slot machine or mouse-button-cheese psychological conditioning experiment? Silverwastes is a good example of this, with the hordes of players scrambling from Bandit Chest to Bandit Chest desperately hoping for something other than Account bound, un-sellable crafting materials to drop.

I want GW2 to be the be-all, end-all MMO for me. I really do. Frankly I love the way the Elementalist plays, and feels like something straight out of the Last Airbender. But that means nothing if there’s nothing engaging for that character (and me the player) to do or accomplish. Maybe that’s a fault of mine, perhaps its a fault inherent in MMO design and the game just isn’t for me. But I would like to know, before quitting for good, if the game has any intention of ever being something more than loot whack-a-mole, or a system designed to drive players to spend cash in the gem store.

Hmm. I don’t grind for anything. I suppose it is all perspective. If one feels that playing the game is a grind, then most of the content will seem like a grind.

As for loot chests, lol, I wish they dropped nothing but crafting materials.

Sometimes, games/shows/books/whatever just don’t suit our fancies, and then we look for something else.

I’ve often thought of the mystic toilet as a slot machine and wondered if ANet had to get a gambling license for it. :P

Well I suppose for me its that GW2 has been out for over two years now, and the lack of interesting content is really starting to wear thin. There’s plenty of grind released every couple of weeks, but nothing that makes me say Wow!

I guess its just odd, when other MMOs try to give players permanent content, such as housing, guild halls, a selectively upgradeable garrison, etc. that is designed to make the player feel like they’re having an impact on a world that can’t change too much since other people also play it, GW2 enhances that feeling of impermanence and futility by making all content time gated or temporary.

Does anyone think ANet will ever release new features like mounts, housing, guild halls and all the other PERMANENT changes that keeps players around, or will they simply continue to add more LS chapters, gem store content, and item re-skins?

I really wanted GW2 to be “THE” game for me, but it already feels like how GW1 feels now at the end of its life cycle. A boring title grind for transfer over to GW3.

Sadly I agree with most of what you’ve said. On the other hand, I’m glad they’ve added 2 new maps. It’s something.

GW2’s never going to be the game you want it to be Kaleban. It’s a shame, but I realised this a while ago and simply stopped playing. I still come back to the forums and post in the hope that ArenaNet see the error of their ways, but they’re far too focussed on dollar signs now to pay any attention to customers.

Take a break.

Play some single player games that aren’t designed to keep you playing by repeating the same thing over and over. If you’re anything like me, you have a Steam back-catalogue full of games you’ve bought in sales but never got around to playing.

Play some multiplayer games that aren’t MMOs. I’ve found Diablo 3’s a very good substitute for GW2 with a focus on excellent loot and over-the-top combat. Besides which, recent updates from Blizzard have been outstanding, only serving to improve the game. And D3 really is a "pay once, never again" game. No gem shop, no auction house, just a focus on providing the best experience in their genre that they can.

And then there’s incredibly exciting things like Elite Dangerous just around the corner, with a dev team who aren’t afraid to tackle delicate issues head on and consistently provide clear communications for the players, with no wishy-washy, legalese style loophole PR speak.

Of course, there are also games out there on Steam and other digital stores that will cost you less than a weapon skin in the GW2 gem store and will provide hours, if not weeks of entertainment.

And at the end of the day, because at its core GW2 is buy-to-play, it’ll still be here in a year or two if you feel curious about checking it out again.

Kaleban.9834:

I ask this in all seriousness, will GW2 ever be anything more than a Las Vegas slot machine or mouse-button-cheese psychological conditioning experiment? Silverwastes is a good example of this, with the hordes of players scrambling from Bandit Chest to Bandit Chest desperately hoping for something other than Account bound, un-sellable crafting materials to drop.

I have yet to play an MMORPG that wasn’t a fancy glorified slot machine or a maze-rat-cheese simulator. If there are any out there please let me know.

America.9437:

Kaleban.9834:

I ask this in all seriousness, will GW2 ever be anything more than a Las Vegas slot machine or mouse-button-cheese psychological conditioning experiment? Silverwastes is a good example of this, with the hordes of players scrambling from Bandit Chest to Bandit Chest desperately hoping for something other than Account bound, un-sellable crafting materials to drop.

I have yet to play an MMORPG that wasn’t a fancy glorified slot machine or a maze-rat-cheese simulator. If there are any out there please let me know.

There used to be Meridian 59. That was a fun one.

By the way, it came the closest to a good paradigm of how much loot/drops mattered and it still fell apart. So did Ultima Online. Go figure.