Guild Wars 2

Hello people. To collect some player’s opinions about current topics and some of the changes GW2 made compared to other games, I created a survey. I avoided questions about stuff like class balance or dungeon encounters, and tried to look at the game as a whole. Here is the link to it:

http://ow.ly/jzoD4

Results are viewable after you complete it (or with link http://ow.ly/jzpST). Thanks in advance

Also, let me know if you think any question should be added.

Someone pointed out that the last question should have more options. I do agree and maybe I should have added something, but I don’t wanna change it now since that would mess up the results of that question.

Some interesting results so far, keep ’em coming

In the last question I can’t say revolutionary, it’s an great MMO, but not enough to change how MMO Martket itself is going to be after GW2.

Before launch, there was many saying it will be the future, but now, it’s just a normal MMO, as many others with their own innovations, changes, etc… are coming in a near future.
Mainly because GW2 Promised things as “We don’t want grindy games” and that made alot of people that were tired of it go away when they saw in some recent updates that introduced new things but, more and more Grind to the general game (optional sure, but there isn’t any objectives at endgame for most game, unless we grind for gear).

Do wonder how many only read the first part of the trinity question…

More options would have been nice on many of the questions (actually maybe just a followup question for more detail?).

The one thing I miss from the original guild wars is the strategy it could involve; pulling groups and dividing and conquering them, enemies didn’t instantly respawn (actually they didn’t respawn lo; although in an open world game you do need to have respawning, but I think they could have done much better with it…), the groups of enemies patrolling that could walk right into a fight and then join in on it. There was a kind of flow to the combat, you couldn’t just rush in without a plan as much as you can in GW2.

GW2 involves mostly just player skill and it lacks in strategy; GW1 involved a lot more strategy in it’s pve content.

The only real reason I haven’t gone off to some other MMO/Fantasy online game, is because there is no real significant gear grind and the level scaling (I absolutely hate it in games when skill becomes a non-factor and content obsolete purely because of gear and leveling stats; at least GW2 allows you to still play those areas without making them feel just pointless)

It seems there are still a lot of gw1 fans >.> (yay)
I wonder how much their (hypothetical) leaving would affect the game.

GW1 and 2 are so different that they comparing them is kinda pointless, maybe another option in that question? Also, shouldn’t there be an “I don’t care about that” answer in each one? (for example, I don’t give a kitten about how many guilds a person can be part of)

Rule #1 in survey taking, be non-bias if your not non-bias your survey results mean nothing.

A lot of the questions on this are very bias.
Examples: “Do you hate being ‘forced’ to do them,”
“Is it nice that Arenanet got such a tight control of gold sinks and inflation”

The simplify your questions and remove any personal option. Your here to get others option not push your own ^_^

zerorogue.9410:

Rule #1 in survey taking, be non-bias if your not non-bias your survey results mean nothing.

A lot of the questions on this are very bias.
Examples: “Do you hate being ‘forced’ to do them,”
“Is it nice that Arenanet got such a tight control of gold sinks and inflation”

The simplify your questions and remove any personal option. Your here to get others option not push your own

Although I 100% agree with you as that is how a survey SHOULD work, 9 times out of 10 a survey is done specifically to push ones own opinion through leading questions. Often intended (and much more subtle) they are designed to showcase how one is indeed correct or to sway people towards their opinion in whatever it is they are thinking and/or trying to prove by providing “evidence” that the majority of others feel the same as them. That being said I don’t believe this individual was trying to push his agenda in a malicious manner but probably did not realize that it was being done.

I stand with the majority on most of the issues, was surprised to see the split between the “is gw2 a revolutionary mmo?”. I couldn’t imagine ever playing a traditional wow-esque type game ever again.

Edit: And such support for the time-gated laurels, very interesting to see.

Talock.7340:

zerorogue.9410:

Rule #1 in survey taking, be non-bias if your not non-bias your survey results mean nothing.

A lot of the questions on this are very bias.
Examples: “Do you hate being ‘forced’ to do them,”
“Is it nice that Arenanet got such a tight control of gold sinks and inflation”

The simplify your questions and remove any personal option. Your here to get others option not push your own

Although I 100% agree with you as that is how a survey SHOULD work, 9 times out of 10 a survey is done specifically to push ones own opinion through leading questions. Often intended (and much more subtle) they are designed to showcase how one is indeed correct or to sway people towards their opinion in whatever it is they are thinking and/or trying to prove by providing “evidence” that the majority of others feel the same as them. That being said I don’t believe this individual was trying to push his agenda in a malicious manner but probably did not realize that it was being done.

Another option is to run questions that are biased one way at the start, and another further down, so they cancel out.

I voted “revolutionary” because it is the first MMO that has GOOD dynamic events (Rifts “rifts” and invasions are so repetitive), the game feels more alive through this.

I really hate the old “run around to gather quests and then run back to turn in” style of other MMOs… hearts and events for the win

It is by far the best buy to play MMO (no subscription, no pay to win shop) I know, also one of the few MMOs with mostly cosmetic progression instead of endless stat gear grind.

No trinity is revolutionary for a RPG MMO but I don’t really like that…

Sorcerer, with hearts don’t you typically have to collect X or kill X?

Dynamic events are greats, hearts are just reskinned quests.

But for me, what keeps me playing GW2 is definitely the active combat and no trinity. It’s the saving grace of this game, imo.

I mostly voted in the majority. I just do wvw jp for BP’s. #2 was inaccurate = monthly laurels now. Last question is split dead center, I’d rather see “different” option. I don’t like “revolutionary”, I like either classic old-school (primarily sandbox) or unique mmo’s. I hate the clone bandwagon thing which seems to follow after the idea of “revolutionary”.

No trinity as a concept is one thing, the ANet execution in GW2 is quite another…

Geikamir.6329:

Sorcerer, with hearts don’t you typically have to collect X or kill X?

Yes, but
1) you don’t have to collect them and turn them in (half-way across the map and then you get send to the other side of the map for the follow-up >.<)
2) you can quite often do them during an event
3) you don’t HAVE to do them, ex. getting to 80 without doing a lot of hearts (=non-story quests), except accidentally through an event is far easier in GW2 than in WOW, Rift, etc.

And yes, I’d like to see more hearts with other objectives than standard fighting and collecting :-) riddles, mini-games etc.

I want every MMO to use dynamic events and story quests now ;-) (Swtor does story better than GW2 but then again they had a much bigger budget)

digiowl.9620:

No trinity as a concept is one thing, the ANet execution in GW2 is quite another…

Yeah and for that, it depends on what part of the game you are speaking of. There is a trinity in dungeons. Give or take, but it’s there. Though I don’t mind, I have a guard + warr + mes, though my mes isn’t idealy built for dungeons atm… give or take.

Not going to participate, too few of the options capture my opinion, especially in the required question. GW2 has revolutionary elements that might change the MMO landscape going forward, but some of the consumers didn’t want a revolution.

Geikamir.6329:

Sorcerer, with hearts don’t you typically have to collect X or kill X?

Dynamic events are greats, hearts are just reskinned quests.

Old style quests:

NPC: Hey, I need lavanewt eyes for the potion I’m brewing, go kill 20 newts and bring me their eyes.

PC: trudges out to the lavanewt hills, kills a bunch of stuff going in, and a bunch of stuff going out. Returns to NPC.

NPC: Great! While you were away I realized I already have a jar of lavanewt eyes, so here’s the potion I made. It’ll stop the lavanewts from going after the farmer’s sheep so you need to put it in the well at the center of the lavanewt hill.

PC: trudges out to the lavanewt hills, kills a bunch of stuff going in, and a bunch of stuff going out. Clicks on well. Returns to NPC.

NPC: Wonderful! But it seems the alpha lavanewt is immune to the potion. He’ll just get the other lavanewts riled up again, so you have to go back there and kill him. Off you go, now!

PC: trudges out to the lavanewt hills, kills a bunch of stuff going in, and a bunch of stuff going out. Kills alpha newt. Returns to NPC.

NPC: Outstanding! Here’s a pair of old boots that were lying around for no particular reason. They’re slightly nicer than the ones you’re wearing. By the way, my brother Joe is having problems with a gaggle of greater lavanewts…

PC: Moves on to next area.

New quest style:

PC: goes to orchard in Queensdale. Note pops up, collect apples, kill spiders, etc. There’s an event going on, clear the orchard of spiders. Kills a bunch of spiders, gets gold medal reward for event. Follow up event, the mama spider appears surrounded by baby spiders. Kills more spiders, gets gold medal award again. Ding! Heart quest finished. Goes to NPC to buy apples. Moves on to next area.

The differences between the two styles of questing are so slight as to be unnoticed by casual readers, but if you look carefully you can see that there is indeed a subtle difference between them.

I didn’t vote, because for most of the questions, none of the answers reflected my opinion.

The fact that it is comply free and has a AAA feel to it make it revolutionary as much as GW1 was but to a higher level that they are adding in updates every month for free where in GW1 you payed for expatiation.

There was 666 views when I replied to this thread.

15% thinking jumping puzzles are great… Welcome to Super MMariO!

Snowy.9580:

15% thinking jumping puzzles are great… Welcome to Super MMariO!

I am reading 39% that rank jumping puzzles as 5 but these survey not the best way to get how good or bad something is. I must say that this game maybe going Super MMariO in the next update i cant wait hehe.

This survey could have been a lot better. Things like what do you prefer…hearts or traditional quests. Anet didn’t add the hearts to replace additional quests. They replaced traditional quests with dynamic events. The purpose of hearts was to get people to hang around in the areas where dynamic events spawn, since people were just running around missing dynamic events.

Several of the questions had no middle option. Like would you prefer one time events or the living story. Well, I’d prefer first of all to see how the living story evolves, but surely there are more options than just those two.

For example the Karka was a one time event and it failed miserably but that doesn’t mean other one time events wouldn’t work out. Given a choice between the living story as it stands now and the Karka event, I’d take the living story every time. But these two things are not all we’ve seen in the updates. Mad King Thorn’s instance wasn’t really a one time event and it wasn’t really living story. It was it’s own thing and it was great.

There are several questions in which the answers are leading, and for that reason, I’d say this survey isn’t going to provide the best information.

Revolutionary? Yes but not in the right path.

I’d say it’s more evolutionary than revolutionary. It’s helping the genre evolve. Nothing in it is really all that revolutionary but the combination of ingredients makes it at least evolutionary.

Take the dynamic events. Rift had them, in the form of Rifts. Warhammer had them in the guise of public events. But both those games also had traditional questing systems, and the other events are just tacked on.

Guild Wars 2 is the first and only game to include events instead of traditional questing. Even hearts aren’t traditional questing. There’s multiple ways to complete them, they can be gotten incidentally by doing dynamic events, and there’s no real order you have to or need to do them in. In other words, the quest hub structure has been eliminated. This wasn’t true of Warhammer or Rift.

In Rift one of the major problems was that if you wanted to quest, zone wide events would screw you over. There’s no real problem with that here, because there are no actual quest hubs or traditional quests.

There are many examples I could cite that would show the combination of factors make this game evolutionary. Rift could have been evolutionary but the devs didn’t take it far enough. That’s why so many people called it WoW 2.0.

After reading all the questions I’ve come to a conclusion, I’m totally burnt out on mmo’s.

I might take a break until a big fat new sand box with collision, even weapon collision, and lots of resources devoted to animations!! comes around some day. That’s about all that could get me really excited again.

There will be mostly positive feedback if you post this kind of surveys in official/fansite forums, especially with the current playerbase.

Vayne.8563:

Take the dynamic events. Rift had them, in the form of Rifts. Warhammer had them in the guise of public events. But both those games also had traditional questing systems, and the other events are just tacked on.

Interestingly enough though, is that Arenanet was the first one to announce Dynamic events. Rifts and WARs came later. IMO, this makes it that GW2 was actually the first, and should still get the revolutionary title.

I said just another MMO simply because I found everything to be medicore. I like the concept of what ArenaNet had planned but everythign so far led me to believe that they only half dipped their foot on something greater out of fear that it might a failure.

What do I mean by medicore? Well ….

1) Dynamic Events: Next to WvWvW, this was one of the main features advertised in GW2. Yet although technically it does change the world, theres barely any impact. So an entire village gets burned down- oh well I’ll just wait 10 minutes for a safety net quest so I can return the village back to its orginal state. Each dynamic events imo are too independent and occurs far too often from the meta. It would have felt more dynamic if everything was linked (similar to how Orr Straits of Devastation and Temple of Balth works).

2) WvWvW: Although I still enjoy WvW, in the end its just a battle for points. I was expecting there to be an end-goal for the week with objective of taking their capital fortress similar to Minas Tirith battle from LOTR but all we got is zerg fest of one keep to another with no strategical value asides from claiming points.

3) Story: I have yet met one person who have said “The story was amazing! WOW! Kudos ArenaNet”. The common reply I get instead is “Meh. Okay voice acting. Terrible ending” and I have to agree with the common. Granted its a very subjective subject but the story was very dull with lots of lame deaths. I only remember ONE decent death, your mentor and even then I can barely his name (vigil guy). The story keeps dumping you with mediocre characters you only meet for 30 seconds with their death that is supposed to evoke feelings? To make it worse, the majority of the voice acting is just horrid (take Lionguard in claw island as example). Where is Destinity’s Edge? Instead of building a story with them, you seperated them and gave us crappy characters in their place.

I can still remember the characters in GW1- Rurik, Glint, Lich, Devona, Mhenlo, Cynn, Nika and none of them had the amount of screen time as GW2 characters did. My suggestion is to create LESS characters and more attachment with already known ones such as the Destiny’s Edge. I rather have 1 character I would be saddened if he/she died than 1000 new characters who randomly dies.

I could keep listing but I’ll stop to prevent an already large wall of text. I felt GW2 could have been better if ArenaNet put more effort into some of their original concepts.

eisberg.2379:

Vayne.8563:

Take the dynamic events. Rift had them, in the form of Rifts. Warhammer had them in the guise of public events. But both those games also had traditional questing systems, and the other events are just tacked on.

Interestingly enough though, is that Arenanet was the first one to announce Dynamic events. Rifts and WARs came later. IMO, this makes it that GW2 was actually the first, and should still get the revolutionary title.

Warhammers dynamic events, public quests, existed before Guild Wars 2 annouced them. Quite a bit before. Rift built on those.

It’s an evolution of the genre, but not a revolution.

Vayne.8563:

I’d say it’s more evolutionary than revolutionary. It’s helping the genre evolve. Nothing in it is really all that revolutionary but the combination of ingredients makes it at least evolutionary.

This.

Arcturus.5846:

I said just another MMO simply because I found everything to be medicore. I like the concept of what ArenaNet had planned but everythign so far led me to believe that they only half dipped their foot on something greater out of fear that it might a failure.

What do I mean by medicore? Well ….

1) Dynamic Events: Next to WvWvW, this was one of the main features advertised in GW2. Yet although technically it does change the world, theres barely any impact. So an entire village gets burned down- oh well I’ll just wait 10 minutes for a safety net quest so I can return the village back to its orginal state. Each dynamic events imo are too independent and occurs far too often from the meta. It would have felt more dynamic if everything was linked (similar to how Orr Straits of Devastation and Temple of Balth works).

2) WvWvW: Although I still enjoy WvW, in the end its just a battle for points. I was expecting there to be an end-goal for the week with objective of taking their capital fortress similar to Minas Tirith battle from LOTR but all we got is zerg fest of one keep to another with no strategical value asides from claiming points.

3) Story: I have yet met one person who have said “The story was amazing! WOW! Kudos ArenaNet”. The common reply I get instead is “Meh. Okay voice acting. Terrible ending” and I have to agree with the common. Granted its a very subjective subject but the story was very dull with lots of lame deaths. I only remember ONE decent death, your mentor and even then I can barely his name (vigil guy). The story keeps dumping you with mediocre characters you only meet for 30 seconds with their death that is supposed to evoke feelings? To make it worse, the majority of the voice acting is just horrid (take Lionguard in claw island as example). Where is Destinity’s Edge? Instead of building a story with them, you seperated them and gave us crappy characters in their place.

I can still remember the characters in GW1- Rurik, Glint, Lich, Devona, Mhenlo, Cynn, Nika and none of them had the amount of screen time as GW2 characters did. My suggestion is to create LESS characters and more attachment with already known ones such as the Destiny’s Edge. I rather have 1 character I would be saddened if he/she died than 1000 new characters who randomly dies.

I could keep listing but I’ll stop to prevent an already large wall of text. I felt GW2 could have been better if ArenaNet put more effort into some of their original concepts.

What voice acting? You mean there are STILL missing lines of dialogue and mismatching subtitles 7 months after launch?

The story branches ARE rather interesting but only if you did 75% of them and you will see a lot of them tying in together, along with the story dungeons as well. The problem is some of them are far too short and the overall path feels that way too.

It would probably be my favorite MMO if it wasn’t for the downed system and the massive skill queue causing skills to be cast 2 seconds after you stop pressing the keybind.

bigtime.7410:

There was 666 views when I replied to this thread.

Do you really want to know how deep is the rabbit hole ?

Thanks all for the replies, some interesting survey results so far. I’m quite surprised about how close some are to 50/50 split. Also as some pointed out, the survey has room for improvement, but it was my first survey, if I make one again it will be better

Sollith.3502:

I absolutely hate it in games when skill becomes a non-factor and content obsolete purely because of gear and leveling stats; at least GW2 allows you to still play those areas without making them feel just pointless

While I agree with most of your post (perhaps I should have made more options, and I also liked those things about GW1) this part I can’t agree with. I feel totally pointless when going to lower level zones still. And in the lowest zones, I can solo champions with my 80 that would pretty much kill me in 5 seconds if I was on a low level alt. This may have something to do with overall GW2 difficulty though, since I never had any problems with the open world content, even the 80 zones are pretty much facerollable for me (veterans included)

Dessan.9420:

GW1 and 2 are so different that they comparing them is kinda pointless, maybe another option in that question? Also, shouldn’t there be an “I don’t care about that” answer in each one? (for example, I don’t give a kitten about how many guilds a person can be part of)

You can skip questions, which I stated at the top of the survey (“feel free to skip questions that you just don’t care about”). I felt like this was a better solution than making everything required and adding “I don’t care” options to each question. And you can very well compare the two games, since the question clearly states that you should look at which you find more enjoyable. After all, the biggest factor in playing a game should be “fun”.

Talock.7340:

zerorogue.9410:

Rule #1 in survey taking, be non-bias if your not non-bias your survey results mean nothing.

A lot of the questions on this are very bias.
Examples: “Do you hate being ‘forced’ to do them,”
“Is it nice that Arenanet got such a tight control of gold sinks and inflation”

The simplify your questions and remove any personal option. Your here to get others option not push your own

…I don’t believe this individual was trying to push his agenda in a malicious manner but probably did not realize that it was being done.

I indeed did not realize it. I did, after all, add two view points to each of these examples, one for and one against. zerorogue is only telling half of it in his post. Let’s look at the first one, the survey says: "Do you hate being “forced” to do them, or are you happy that they give a good reward?" The first part would indicate a bias towards a negative reply, but the second part would indicate the opposite. So how is the total of this biased? Are you maybe implying that one viewpoint was “stronger” than the other?

Daywolf.2630:

2 was inaccurate = monthly laurels now

Yes currently that’s true, but it’s only for this month because it’s patch month and not a general thing. I expect people know this.

Vayne.8563:

This survey could have been a lot better. Things like what do you prefer…hearts or traditional quests. Anet didn’t add the hearts to replace additional quests. They replaced traditional quests with dynamic events. The purpose of hearts was to get people to hang around in the areas where dynamic events spawn, since people were just running around missing dynamic events.

Several of the questions had no middle option. Like would you prefer one time events or the living story. Well, I’d prefer first of all to see how the living story evolves, but surely there are more options than just those two.

For example the Karka was a one time event and it failed miserably but that doesn’t mean other one time events wouldn’t work out. Given a choice between the living story as it stands now and the Karka event, I’d take the living story every time. But these two things are not all we’ve seen in the updates. Mad King Thorn’s instance wasn’t really a one time event and it wasn’t really living story. It was it’s own thing and it was great.

There are several questions in which the answers are leading, and for that reason, I’d say this survey isn’t going to provide the best information.

Thanks for your feedback, if I ever make a survey again it’s helpful :P However:

1) I do think the quests or hearts question was right, because most people I know/knew ingame, and also myself, used hearts as method of leveling rather than DEs. DEs were sort of a little extra when you ran into them. This was caused by the fact that hearts are reliable and always available. To use DEs as main leveling method, you either need to search for them or be lucky and have them spawn close to you. Add to this that people want to do hearts for world completion, and you’ll probably find hearts are used a lot more than DEs as quest replacement.

2) I didn’t think the karka event failed miserably, cause it was probably the day that me and some guildies had most fun in GW2

Guild Wars 2 isn’t revolutionary, it’s evolutionary since it did improve on the systems that mainstream MMOs use (Like the traditional questing, party, guild, dungeon and etc. systems). I played plenty of MMOs and they all had similar systems (With an exception to a few) and so far, GW2 is an MMO that just stands out than the rest of them (In my opinion)!

Depends on what aspect you’re talking about.

If you’re talking about the game by reducing it down to the mechanics, the game certainly is evolutionary as others have put it. However, I feel that I must point out that the term “evolution” is often used within the context of creatures adapting to survive in very specific environments. The same concept could be applied to define GW2; it’s an evolution (or at least an attempt at it) done in the vain of surviving in an environment where players have less time to play, because of life and an ever growing videogame library.

In terms of gameplay aesthetics- the general feel and impression of the game (not to be confused with art style and quality)- GW2 is a major step back for the genre.

I took the survey. On the final point, I’m not what some people call an ‘ANet fanboy,’ but I do think in some ways GW2 is a ‘revolutionary’ MMO in that there are enough things that are different and better about it than previous MMOs I have played that if future MMOs don’t follow suit, I will not be able to play them at the same level of enjoyment that I experience in GW2. E.G. shared experience/rewards without formal groups, hearts type questing rather than traditional questing, careful attention to making maps interesting besides just places to quest (JPs, vistas, etc., and of course the attention to detail and art quality that makes everything so pretty).

Veldan.4637:

Vayne.8563:

This survey could have been a lot better. Things like what do you prefer…hearts or traditional quests. Anet didn’t add the hearts to replace additional quests. They replaced traditional quests with dynamic events. The purpose of hearts was to get people to hang around in the areas where dynamic events spawn, since people were just running around missing dynamic events.

Several of the questions had no middle option. Like would you prefer one time events or the living story. Well, I’d prefer first of all to see how the living story evolves, but surely there are more options than just those two.

For example the Karka was a one time event and it failed miserably but that doesn’t mean other one time events wouldn’t work out. Given a choice between the living story as it stands now and the Karka event, I’d take the living story every time. But these two things are not all we’ve seen in the updates. Mad King Thorn’s instance wasn’t really a one time event and it wasn’t really living story. It was it’s own thing and it was great.

There are several questions in which the answers are leading, and for that reason, I’d say this survey isn’t going to provide the best information.

Thanks for your feedback, if I ever make a survey again it’s helpful :P However:

1) I do think the quests or hearts question was right, because most people I know/knew ingame, and also myself, used hearts as method of leveling rather than DEs. DEs were sort of a little extra when you ran into them. This was caused by the fact that hearts are reliable and always available. To use DEs as main leveling method, you either need to search for them or be lucky and have them spawn close to you. Add to this that people want to do hearts for world completion, and you’ll probably find hearts are used a lot more than DEs as quest replacement.

2) I didn’t think the karka event failed miserably, cause it was probably the day that me and some guildies had most fun in GW2

Re Hearts, you can’t level reliably with hearts, because you can only do them once, and then they run out. Anet has stated straight out that dynamic events have replaced quests in Traditional MMOs. Dynamic events are the meat of the game not hearts. That’s why they’re repeatable.

The question isn’t a good one, not because of how you play, but how the game was designed. Lots of people know that dynamic events are among the fastest way to level, it’s not like secret hidden voodoo knowledge or anything.

Again, the hearts didn’t even exist until much later in the game’s development cycle, because people were too thick to look for events. But to compare something that’s designed for a specific purpose, rather than the thing actually designed to compare makes the question unfair, no matter how you try to defend it.

The Karka event was so laggy, that a lot of people complained about it and Anet was forced to issue make up rewards for all the people who were kicked off the server and didn’t get one. Most people do consider the Karka event a failure, so much so that Anet has not since done a huge one time event.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Arcturus.5846:

I said just another MMO simply because I found everything to be medicore. I like the concept of what ArenaNet had planned but everythign so far led me to believe that they only half dipped their foot on something greater out of fear that it might a failure.

What do I mean by medicore? Well ….

1) Dynamic Events: Next to WvWvW, this was one of the main features advertised in GW2. Yet although technically it does change the world, theres barely any impact. So an entire village gets burned down- oh well I’ll just wait 10 minutes for a safety net quest so I can return the village back to its orginal state. Each dynamic events imo are too independent and occurs far too often from the meta. It would have felt more dynamic if everything was linked (similar to how Orr Straits of Devastation and Temple of Balth works).

2) WvWvW: Although I still enjoy WvW, in the end its just a battle for points. I was expecting there to be an end-goal for the week with objective of taking their capital fortress similar to Minas Tirith battle from LOTR but all we got is zerg fest of one keep to another with no strategical value asides from claiming points.

3) Story: I have yet met one person who have said “The story was amazing! WOW! Kudos ArenaNet”. The common reply I get instead is “Meh. Okay voice acting. Terrible ending” and I have to agree with the common. Granted its a very subjective subject but the story was very dull with lots of lame deaths. I only remember ONE decent death, your mentor and even then I can barely his name (vigil guy). The story keeps dumping you with mediocre characters you only meet for 30 seconds with their death that is supposed to evoke feelings? To make it worse, the majority of the voice acting is just horrid (take Lionguard in claw island as example). Where is Destinity’s Edge? Instead of building a story with them, you seperated them and gave us crappy characters in their place.

I can still remember the characters in GW1- Rurik, Glint, Lich, Devona, Mhenlo, Cynn, Nika and none of them had the amount of screen time as GW2 characters did. My suggestion is to create LESS characters and more attachment with already known ones such as the Destiny’s Edge. I rather have 1 character I would be saddened if he/she died than 1000 new characters who randomly dies.

I could keep listing but I’ll stop to prevent an already large wall of text. I felt GW2 could have been better if ArenaNet put more effort into some of their original concepts.

What voice acting? You mean there are STILL missing lines of dialogue and mismatching subtitles 7 months after launch?

The story branches ARE rather interesting but only if you did 75% of them and you will see a lot of them tying in together, along with the story dungeons as well. The problem is some of them are far too short and the overall path feels that way too.

Voice acting I meant some of the NPCs voice acting are just monotoned. The missing dialogues didn’t really bother me much to be honest. I just didn’t find the story interesting until Orr and even then instead of an epic invasion, we keep getting sidetracked with only one quest that involves the march through malchors. GW2 NEEDS less meat shields NPCs that dies after 2 quest and more major characters. SWTOR suffered from the same thing. Instead of 2 memorable characters, you end up with 1000 faceless. Can you actually remember some of the NPCs names who made the “sacrifise” in Orr off the top of your head? I sure can’t.

Vayne.8563:

Veldan.4637:

Vayne.8563:

This survey could have been a lot better. Things like what do you prefer…hearts or traditional quests. Anet didn’t add the hearts to replace additional quests. They replaced traditional quests with dynamic events. The purpose of hearts was to get people to hang around in the areas where dynamic events spawn, since people were just running around missing dynamic events.

Several of the questions had no middle option. Like would you prefer one time events or the living story. Well, I’d prefer first of all to see how the living story evolves, but surely there are more options than just those two.

For example the Karka was a one time event and it failed miserably but that doesn’t mean other one time events wouldn’t work out. Given a choice between the living story as it stands now and the Karka event, I’d take the living story every time. But these two things are not all we’ve seen in the updates. Mad King Thorn’s instance wasn’t really a one time event and it wasn’t really living story. It was it’s own thing and it was great.

There are several questions in which the answers are leading, and for that reason, I’d say this survey isn’t going to provide the best information.

Thanks for your feedback, if I ever make a survey again it’s helpful :P However:

1) I do think the quests or hearts question was right, because most people I know/knew ingame, and also myself, used hearts as method of leveling rather than DEs. DEs were sort of a little extra when you ran into them. This was caused by the fact that hearts are reliable and always available. To use DEs as main leveling method, you either need to search for them or be lucky and have them spawn close to you. Add to this that people want to do hearts for world completion, and you’ll probably find hearts are used a lot more than DEs as quest replacement.

2) I didn’t think the karka event failed miserably, cause it was probably the day that me and some guildies had most fun in GW2

Re Hearts, you can’t level reliably with hearts, because you can only do them once, and then they run out. Anet has stated straight out that dynamic events have replaced quests in Traditional MMOs. Dynamic events are the meat of the game not hearts. That’s why they’re repeatable.

If so i wonder why ANet made those pesky events so hard to find when not already triggered. You more or less have to walk into the trigger NPC to find them, while hearts are called out by every kitten scout in the area (and show up on the map permanently once uncovered).

The NPC trigger starburst should really be visible like hearts once you have a map section uncovered, and a indicator should be on a NPC while they are transitioning between events in a chain/meta. I see all too many people run away the moment they get the medal, and then return once more when the next link in the chain show up on their map and sidebar. Once again the idea is good in theory, but the ANet implementation lacks refinement (or downright stinks).

The company seem to to have too many designers and not enough engineers.

“Do you like the living story, or would you rather have big one time events?”

What if I dislike both? Pretty pointless survey withtout that option.
I’d rather have GW1-like cooperative story missions than this living story thing, let alone the one-time event fiascos.

Being a MMO fanatic since the mid-late 90’s, and playing just about every AAA title that came out, in my opinion there is nothing revolutionary about GW2.

They simply took bits and pieces of game design that had come along in the MMO industry and blendered it up into their own version.

Seriously, the only thing I have enjoyed, and the only thing I would give this game props on was the way they handled their “questing” solution with the hearts.

I still believe the “casual” concept would work, but in order for it to do so a company would have to be prepared to provide massive content updates at least semi annually, and make the money by selling those xpacs.

To date I have 5 lvl 80’s, 3 of them in exotics, and have spent zero monies beyond buying the game to do so. With Anet stating there will be no expansions this year, I am pretty much ready to move on. The little things Anet provides just isn’t enough to keep me.

With games like ESOL and Camelot Unchained on the horizon, we will have to wait untill after those games come out to see if GW2 manages to hold its own, or be relegated back to GW1 status.

The trinity system wasn’t removed, just severely hampered. You’ll find your groups in a event or dungeon ‘somehow’ doing better if there are people good at tanking, and people speced for healing. The difference between fighting the Modniir Ulgoth with or without a water ele or two in the background for example is substantial!

They just make you have to bend over backwards to actually reach one of the trinity corners that isn’t DPS.

I answered the last question “Just another MMO” because I don’t believe GW2 is Revolutionary. However, I do believe that GW2 is an Evolution of the MMO genre. While it might not the epitome of the MMO genome(Lol) it is going the right direction I think.

I like what they did with the trinity, it’s not perfect but it’s a step forward.

I like what they did with hearts and dynamic events. Hearts are done well, DE’s could be better.

GW2 does a lot of things right, but they still have a looong way to go. In time, I expect better.

Some of the questions seem to indicate a bias on your part. For example, the last question only allows you to answer that you either think GW2 is “revolutionary” or “just another MMO.” While I’m not sure I’d go as far as to say it’s revolutionary, I also wouldn’t say it’s just another MMO. It’s definitely better than most, and you definitely can’t beat it for the price. I’m not sure a majority of people are ever going to agree that an MMO is truly revolutionary, at least not till we get full environmental immersion with the aid of some tech that hasn’t been invented yet.

Vayne.8563:

eisberg.2379:

Vayne.8563:

Take the dynamic events. Rift had them, in the form of Rifts. Warhammer had them in the guise of public events. But both those games also had traditional questing systems, and the other events are just tacked on.

Interestingly enough though, is that Arenanet was the first one to announce Dynamic events. Rifts and WARs came later. IMO, this makes it that GW2 was actually the first, and should still get the revolutionary title.

Warhammers dynamic events, public quests, existed before Guild Wars 2 annouced them. Quite a bit before. Rift built on those.

It’s an evolution of the genre, but not a revolution.

Dynamic events were first going to be in Utopia (canceled project that was the ground work for GW2), and was already being talked about way before WAR talked about Public Quests. Earliest time for WARs announcement was about Feb 2007, Utopia was already being talked about since it was going to be released in April of 2007 and most of the work was already done by the time they canceled it.
Anet were the first ones to talk about dynamic events. Public quests were not even talked about for nearly 2 years after development started, and only about 1 year prior to releasing.