Guild Wars 2

champ.7021:

Yeah ive kind of moved to your side of the argument that we shouldnt keep bringing up the manifesto because thats stupid as kitten. But that doesnt mean we shouldnt ask for less gear grind we should just stop saying Anet lied because if you say that they are less likely to listen and even less likely to change because that would prove they were lying.

The whole communist thing was me nickel and diming

I would go into it more but that would be for another time. I know cuba has problems but i think there are many good aspects to it. I havent looked into it that much recently that documentary was a couple years old, but i think that it showed a much needed perspective of cuba as most American articles and such, although not entirely wrong, usually paint a negative picture of it.

I agree with you. I WANT people to ask for less gear grind. I just want them to stop using the manifesto as the reason to ask for it. Each year that passes makes it less and less of an argument.

Make GOOD arguments for less gear grind. Say it’s not fun. Say it’s not good for people who are casual. Say that it’s making the game more like work and you don’t enjoy it. And that if it becomes too much work you’ll leave.

That’s how I feel. I understand why they did it, but I want it contained. I don’t want more of it.

I could live with this game if this is the highest tier of gear we get. Beyond that…I don’t know.

Reading all of this makes my head spin.

I am still in love with this game. There are changes that have occurred and they are obviously MMO flavored changes designed to keep the ship afloat and headed in a profitable direction.

I find some aspects of their direction to be frustrating. I have never lusted after legendary weapons mainly due to the price and time investment and partly due to the requirement for me to complete parts of the game I loath such as dungeons.

Ascended weapons are a reasonable compromise for me. I am not excited about them being time gated. I am not excited about having to farm World bosses and Temple events in order to get a specific material. I would choose the WvW route except that keeps and such don’t change hands often enough to make that a reliable method unless I played in WvW 100% of the time.

I am not a fan of the laurels either for that matter. Placing so many things behind time gates makes me feel a bit like I am drowning under the content. I work hard to keep my head above the water so to speak but sooner or later things drop off my to do list.

Keeping up with all of the Living story content was the first to go. It started out small and manageable but has blossomed into this huge time eating frenzy that is barely enjoyable while surround by the hundred or so content locusts flying about.

I have recently started a new character but for a long time I didn’t want to bother because I still have characters that have not been blessed with ascended trinkets as yet. I would have to break down and do Fractals in order to make that happen quicker. That is something that would certainly remove my enjoyment of the game.

Due to my disdain for dungeons I amassed my gold through other means primarily farming. For a really long time after release Anet seemed determined to squash any kind of farming which slowed my nest egg a great deal. I could become a TP guru I suppose but that style of money making has never been my forte. In real life I am worker bee and in my online life I am much the same.

With all that being said. I am not ranting throughout the the various channels about my frustrations and disappointments. As I stated previously, I still love the game and I just adapt. When and if things reach the point that I no longer want to adapt or if I am just unable to, I will quietly exit the game and find some place else to call my home.

Hanging around here making water in all the corners and flinging fecal matter will not lead to drastic changes rekindling your romance with GW2. Sometimes you just have to know when to call it quits.

why are you comparing A.NET manifesto to the Communist Manifesto? Communist manifesto is composed of utopic ideals. A.NET manifesto is not (basically saying that A.NET does not making grindy games). Proof that A.NET manifesto is not utopia is GW1 and A.NET didn’t live up to their manifesto in GW2.

I think Vayne brought up the Communist Manifesto as an example of how your ideals (what you WANT to do), rarely mesh with reality (what you wind up HAVING to do). There is truth to that.

Of course Arent.net didn’t live up to their “manifesto.” I’m not sure we should have expected them to have to compromise it so quickly… but it should have been expected that they would have to deviate from it at some point.

alcopaul.2156:

why are you comparing A.NET manifesto to the Communist Manifesto? Communist manifesto is composed of utopic ideals. A.NET manifesto is not (basically saying that A.NET does not making grindy games). Proof that A.NET manifesto is not utopia is GW1 and A.NET didn’t live up to their manifesto in GW2.

No. I’m explaining what a manifesto IS. A statement of ideals. They had an ideal. They tried to live up to the ideal. The ideal went south when real life kicked in. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

why are you comparing A.NET manifesto to the Communist Manifesto? Communist manifesto is composed of utopic ideals. A.NET manifesto is not (basically saying that A.NET does not making grindy games). Proof that A.NET manifesto is not utopia is GW1 and A.NET didn’t live up to their manifesto in GW2.

No. I’m explaining what a manifesto IS. A statement of ideals. They had an ideal. They tried to live up to the ideal. The ideal went south when real life kicked in. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.

and im saying that the communist one is composed of utopian ideals and the a.net manifesto is composed of not utopian ideals..

alcopaul.2156:

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

why are you comparing A.NET manifesto to the Communist Manifesto? Communist manifesto is composed of utopic ideals. A.NET manifesto is not (basically saying that A.NET does not making grindy games). Proof that A.NET manifesto is not utopia is GW1 and A.NET didn’t live up to their manifesto in GW2.

No. I’m explaining what a manifesto IS. A statement of ideals. They had an ideal. They tried to live up to the ideal. The ideal went south when real life kicked in. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.

and im saying that the communist one is composed of utopian ideals and the a.net manifesto is composed of not utopian ideals..

You’d be wrong. The Anet manifesto is composed of utopian ideas for what an MMO should be. It’s all about context.

And then when you get into the world and it’s not the ideal, you’re disappointed.

maybe anet titled it a manifesto so that if they didnt follow up it didnt look so bad…. they could just point to communism and say “that didnt work out either!!!”

champ.7021:

maybe anet titled it a manifesto so that if they didnt follow up it didnt look so bad…. they could just point to communism and say “that didnt work out either!!!”

Or people would have viewed the manifesto in the light that I did when I first saw it, and expected what was possible within the context of both technology and what the players would allow/demand.

I still say that any one of you, given the same situation, might have ended up doing the very same things Anet did. It’s so easy to be a back seat developer.

Vayne.8563:

I still say that any one of you, given the same situation, might have ended up doing the very same things Anet did. It’s so easy to be a back seat developer.

Its very difficult to prove this, since we dont know all of anet’s intentions. This is a very invalid assumption

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

why are you comparing A.NET manifesto to the Communist Manifesto? Communist manifesto is composed of utopic ideals. A.NET manifesto is not (basically saying that A.NET does not making grindy games). Proof that A.NET manifesto is not utopia is GW1 and A.NET didn’t live up to their manifesto in GW2.

No. I’m explaining what a manifesto IS. A statement of ideals. They had an ideal. They tried to live up to the ideal. The ideal went south when real life kicked in. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.

and im saying that the communist one is composed of utopian ideals and the a.net manifesto is composed of not utopian ideals..

You’d be wrong. The Anet manifesto is composed of utopian ideas for what an MMO should be. It’s all about context.

And then when you get into the world and it’s not the ideal, you’re disappointed.

it’s not utopian because a real life example that lived up to the manifesto has already been made and existing for more than half a decade already. Guild Wars 1.

The manifesto is to reaffirm their ascendancy from Guild Wars 1 legacy and continue that to Guild Wars 2.

Call it a utopian manifesto if there was no benchmark predecessor and Guild Wars 2 was started from this utopian ideal that they just recently crafted.

I believe that, generally speaking, ANet have lived up to the spirit of the Manifesto, if not to each specific detail.

For instance, how many times have you started a project, and said, “I want to complete A, B, C, and D”, only to find out that some sort of unforeseen circumstances or technical/physical limitations are preventing you from completing one or more of those tasks? Sometimes, the limitation is something that you have no control over, like someone you were relying on not coming through. This is an analogy for the players: Sure, ANet envisioned a happy world where everyone was perfectly happy with cosmetic progression; Unfortunately, not enough players who actually wanted to play that kind of game actually bought this one.

It’s time we put the whining surrounding the manifesto to bed. It’s a three-year-old marketing piece about a one-year-old game, and the fact that people keep pointing it out like ANet promised these things to us is childish at best.

While we’re at it, the “For a game called Guild Wars……..” people only serve to prove that they took no time whatsoever to educate themselves about the game before coming here to whine like a kitten kindergartner.

If you don’t like it, don’t play it?

champ.7021:

Vayne.8563:

I still say that any one of you, given the same situation, might have ended up doing the very same things Anet did. It’s so easy to be a back seat developer.

Its very difficult to prove this, since we dont know all of anet’s intentions. This is a very invalid assumption

Well, we either take their intention at face value or we don’t. I was born in a country where people were innocent until proven guilty. I’ve seen Anet launch a game that pretty much tallied with the manifesto, but ended up getting changed due to lack of participation on the side of players.

You can see whatever you want to see. It’s all perception.

alcopaul.2156:

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

why are you comparing A.NET manifesto to the Communist Manifesto? Communist manifesto is composed of utopic ideals. A.NET manifesto is not (basically saying that A.NET does not making grindy games). Proof that A.NET manifesto is not utopia is GW1 and A.NET didn’t live up to their manifesto in GW2.

No. I’m explaining what a manifesto IS. A statement of ideals. They had an ideal. They tried to live up to the ideal. The ideal went south when real life kicked in. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.

and im saying that the communist one is composed of utopian ideals and the a.net manifesto is composed of not utopian ideals..

You’d be wrong. The Anet manifesto is composed of utopian ideas for what an MMO should be. It’s all about context.

And then when you get into the world and it’s not the ideal, you’re disappointed.

it’s not utopian because a real life example that lived up to the manifesto has already been made and existing for more than half a decade already. Guild Wars 1.

The manifesto is to reaffirm their ascendancy from Guild Wars 1 legacy and continue that to Guild Wars 2.

Call it a utopian manifesto if there was no benchmark predecessor and Guild Wars 2 was started from this utopian ideal that they just recently crafted.

It was an MMO manifesto and Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO.

Coffee.7058:

If you don’t like it, don’t play it?

Is that a question? or do you always even on forums speak with upspeak

Vayne.8563:

Or people would have viewed the manifesto in the light that I did when I first saw it, and expected what was possible within the context of both technology and what the players would allow/demand.

And you’re once again – for what feels like the thousandth time – making it sound like the players rose up in a unified rabble, pitchforks and torches brought to bear, and physically forced ArenaNet to abandon the ideals they had when they made this game. They didn’t. It’s on ArenaNet, not the players. They were faced with a choice, and they chose to go with “money > ideals” over “ideals > money”.

And before you drop your usual “they needed to make money or the game would have been shut down” reply (forgive me for the hyperbole), let me remind you that anything you say in this regard is purely speculative; none of us have any data to prove one decision or the other was better for the game’s long-term financial well-being.

Vayne.8563:

I still say that any one of you, given the same situation, might have ended up doing the very same things Anet did. It’s so easy to be a back seat developer.

Believe it or not, there actually are people in the industry who are interested in making fun games…games they themselves enjoy playing. ArenaNet used to be this way; that’s why vanilla GW2 is great. But I don’t think even you would argue the folks at ArenaNet consider breaking 150 pinatas, collecting 150 kites, riding in 30 balloons, finding 30 dragon scales scattered across three zones, or charging Quartz Crystals at a rate of one per day to be fun.

champ.7021:

Coffee.7058:

If you don’t like it, don’t play it?

Is that a question? or do you always even on forums speak with upspeak

They might not teach this in your school so here’s a link; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric

Coffee.7058:

champ.7021:

Coffee.7058:

If you don’t like it, don’t play it?

Is that a question? or do you always even on forums speak with upspeak

They might not teach this in your school so here’s a link; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric

what is skooolll? why u bring that rehtorik into dis forum

champ.7021:

Coffee.7058:

champ.7021:

Coffee.7058:

If you don’t like it, don’t play it?

Is that a question? or do you always even on forums speak with upspeak

They might not teach this in your school so here’s a link; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric

what is skooolll? why u bring that rehtorik into dis forum

Lol, larning dis herd!

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

why are you comparing A.NET manifesto to the Communist Manifesto? Communist manifesto is composed of utopic ideals. A.NET manifesto is not (basically saying that A.NET does not making grindy games). Proof that A.NET manifesto is not utopia is GW1 and A.NET didn’t live up to their manifesto in GW2.

No. I’m explaining what a manifesto IS. A statement of ideals. They had an ideal. They tried to live up to the ideal. The ideal went south when real life kicked in. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.

Perhaps people are just not that good with expressing what they actually want to say. A lot of people have seen the manifesto and were enthralled. ANet intended do so much and so well. I too was hooked when I read what they were planning. I knew it all depended on how well it was implemented, but I wanted them to succeed. And so did a lot of other people.

But ANet did not succeed. Not to the extent a lot of us have expected. And so we felt let down. We wanted to believe, but they failed. And from being let down that feeling of being betrayed originated. And so we actually felt betrayed. If you think about it, when people say they were betrayed, it’s just bad wording.

Also, whenever people use the manifesto as an argument they are referring to what would be fun, namely the mechanics and gameplay envisioned in that manifesto and people are at the same time comparing it to the actual state of the game. So while they don’t directly state “activity x is no fun”, they still mean it. And that is what counts.

Like you said the manifesto is a statement of ideals. Whenever people use it, they wish for those ideals to come true. That’s the path they want the game to get back onto.

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

why are you comparing A.NET manifesto to the Communist Manifesto? Communist manifesto is composed of utopic ideals. A.NET manifesto is not (basically saying that A.NET does not making grindy games). Proof that A.NET manifesto is not utopia is GW1 and A.NET didn’t live up to their manifesto in GW2.

No. I’m explaining what a manifesto IS. A statement of ideals. They had an ideal. They tried to live up to the ideal. The ideal went south when real life kicked in. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.

and im saying that the communist one is composed of utopian ideals and the a.net manifesto is composed of not utopian ideals..

You’d be wrong. The Anet manifesto is composed of utopian ideas for what an MMO should be. It’s all about context.

And then when you get into the world and it’s not the ideal, you’re disappointed.

it’s not utopian because a real life example that lived up to the manifesto has already been made and existing for more than half a decade already. Guild Wars 1.

The manifesto is to reaffirm their ascendancy from Guild Wars 1 legacy and continue that to Guild Wars 2.

Call it a utopian manifesto if there was no benchmark predecessor and Guild Wars 2 was started from this utopian ideal that they just recently crafted.

It was an MMO manifesto and Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO.

They specifically said that all that we loved in GW1 will be in GW2. That is not utopia.

They implied that GW2 will not be grindy. Not utopia.

But i take it back. Since the manifesto isn’t concurrent with reality (e.g. guild wars 2 is grindy, they didn’t bring all that we loved in guild wars 1 in gw2), that makes the manifesto utopian itself. The Manifesto is INDEED a manifesto.

yeah you’re right, hats off to you.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

Or people would have viewed the manifesto in the light that I did when I first saw it, and expected what was possible within the context of both technology and what the players would allow/demand.

And you’re once again – for what feels like the thousandth time – making it sound like the players rose up in a unified rabble, pitchforks and torches brought to bear, and physically forced ArenaNet to abandon the ideals they had when they made this game. They didn’t. It’s on ArenaNet, not the players. They were faced with a choice, and they chose to go with “money > ideals” over “ideals > money”.

And before you drop your usual “they needed to make money or the game would have been shut down” reply (forgive me for the hyperbole), let me remind you that anything you say in this regard is purely speculative; none of us have any data to prove one decision or the other was better for the game’s long-term financial well-being.

Vayne.8563:

I still say that any one of you, given the same situation, might have ended up doing the very same things Anet did. It’s so easy to be a back seat developer.

Believe it or not, there actually are people in the industry who are interested in making fun games…games they themselves enjoy playing. ArenaNet used to be this way; that’s why vanilla GW2 is great. But I don’t think even you would argue the folks at ArenaNet consider breaking 150 pinatas, collecting 150 kites, riding in 30 balloons, finding 30 dragon scales scattered across three zones, or charging Quartz Crystals at a rate of one per day to be fun.

I didn’t say they needed the money or they’d be shut down. I said if you made a game, and people stopped playing it in numbers, keeping in mind that Anet has those numbers and YOU DO NOT, then you don’t know what you’d do, but I strongly suspect you’d try to save your game.

Do you know the numbers? You’re making it sound like Anet glibbly said, screw it, I’m making this change. I’m relatively sure it didn’t happen like that. There was no reason for that to happen.

They had a reason. You don’t have to accept it. It doesn’t make it untrue.

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

and im saying that the communist one is composed of utopian ideals and the a.net manifesto is composed of not utopian ideals..

You’d be wrong. The Anet manifesto is composed of utopian ideas for what an MMO should be. It’s all about context.

I think they used most of their utopian ideas in Eye of the North.

/e Stanley Roper

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know, I’ve never seen ANY manifesto, by ANYONE that has been lived up to. Ever.

A manifesto is more than just a statement of intent. It’s a statement of ideals. Did the Communist Manifesto live up to what Karl Marx wrote?

It’s something you strive for, not something you necessarily attain. They started working from this basis that this is what we want to do. This is what we want to accomplish. That’s what a manifesto is.

You don’t necessarily attain it. All these quibbles like a people calling out a fully branching personal storyline. Compared to other MMOs when the manifesto was made, that was accomplished. Unless you’re saying that in WoW your human warrior has a different story than my human warrior.

This whole nickle and diming word for word in a manifesto is not only pointless, but counterproductive.

Ideals don’t always work so well in the real world. Sometimes, you have to compromise to stay in business. Anet felt they had to. If you don’t feel they had to you should invest your millions of dollars and your five years into a game and see how you react when people stop playing it, which was what was happening last November.

It was too early for them to be losing the numbers they were losing BEFORE the advent of ascended gear.

They made a compromise that many hated and many left. But I’m sure in their mind, they believed they saved the game. Because if only those people who left ended up staying, the game wouldn’t have been as successful…or so Anet believes (and they probably have better evidence than we do).

I don’t know how anyone can see this as a casually or easily made decision. Sure they didn’t get to do what they wanted to do. That’s life. There are a lot of times that’s happened to me in life as well.

And as long as it’s your millions of dollars and five years on the line, it’s easy to judge.

Oh, come on, Vayne. The Communist Manifesto? That was doomed from the start. ANet called it a manifesto, so that’s what people still call it. Because, as you’ve told us so often, terms are important. It was really a marketing document.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Oh, come on, Vayne. The Communist Manifesto? That was doomed from the start. ANet called it a manifesto, so that’s what people still call it. Because, as you’ve told us so often, terms are important. It was really a marketing document.

Actually im not even sure if Vayne knows how good of a point he made. Maybe he does.
Anyways the communist manifesto wasnt doomed from the start the problem was they tried to use the idea on a large scale which wouldnt work. In small communitites (i.e. small businesses) communism works well.

In a similar way the ideas anet wanted to implement would have worked in a smaller game with a more homogenized playerbase, however with many players, like that guy who made the post that he has nothing to do without a gear grind, it doesnt work out so well.

Vayne.8563:

I didn’t say they needed the money or they’d be shut down. I said if you made a game, and people stopped playing it in numbers, keeping in mind that Anet has those numbers and YOU DO NOT, then you don’t know what you’d do, but I strongly suspect you’d try to save your game.

You DID say that. You’re STILL saying that. When you say stuff like “save your game” you’re implying the game was on the verge of failure. You have nothing but speculation to support such a claim.

Vayne.8563:

I didn’t say they needed the money or they’d be shut down. I said if you made a game, and people stopped playing it in numbers, keeping in mind that Anet has those numbers and YOU DO NOT, then you don’t know what you’d do, but I strongly suspect you’d try to save your game.

Vayne.8563:

The problem is, Anet has no other games besides Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2…and Guild Wars 1 is no longer being updated and it is no longer pulling in money for them. They’ve put all their eggs into this basket. They paid a dev team for five years to make this game, they moved to bigger headquarters, they’re STILL hiring more staff.

So yeah. This is make or break for Anet.

Hmm……

darkace.8925:

Call my cynical, but where you see the Living Story as something to keep the old customer base happy I see a treadmill designed to get players to log in as often as possible and delivery system for a constant influx of temporarily available items in the cash shop.

Well yes, the Gem/Cash Shop is primarily filled with stuff you simply don’t need to play the game. If people stopped buying stuff from it, well, can anybody post a picture of the Titanic for me? For all we know, they’ve already hit an iceberg and it’s only a matter of time before it takes on too much water.

I used to play everyday, doing dailies and monthlies religiously. More recently however, I can’t really be bothered to do dailies, and dungeon revamps aren’t going to do it for me personally. Guess we’ll see in due time.

I read the Manifesto mainly to reinforce my memmory of people claiming it said there would be no gear treadmill. I first read it when someone linked it in a complaint thread about Exotics being to hard to get and it was unfair in WvW (I know it’s laughable now, but it was a serious issue in the early stages of the game). I read the Manifesto and didn’t see a single thing stating the no tradmill, only 2 parts that if taken into extremeties could make people believe they had said that. However I believe most people never even read or watched the video and only made those assumptions based on what they have heard others say, what passed down orally through VOIP and paraphrased on forums.

Regarding the Manifesto itself, I think Anet has done a really good job in heading in that aim. They are by far not perfect in their execution, and great ideas are harder to make reality than some kid screaming out “oh this should be SO easy to implement, it’s just a few lines of code!”. I’m sure GW2 will do ine for years to come, despite people screaming sinking ship. The business model is the few people who wants the premium stuff paying for the others in place of a monthly fee. I can stop and start anytime without worrying about wasting cash every month. No matter how much you update a game, eventually it will just be the same “old” thing. Unless it’s SWG…. but we all know how that worked out.

alcopaul.2156:

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

Vayne.8563:

alcopaul.2156:

why are you comparing A.NET manifesto to the Communist Manifesto? Communist manifesto is composed of utopic ideals. A.NET manifesto is not (basically saying that A.NET does not making grindy games). Proof that A.NET manifesto is not utopia is GW1 and A.NET didn’t live up to their manifesto in GW2.

No. I’m explaining what a manifesto IS. A statement of ideals. They had an ideal. They tried to live up to the ideal. The ideal went south when real life kicked in. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.

and im saying that the communist one is composed of utopian ideals and the a.net manifesto is composed of not utopian ideals..

You’d be wrong. The Anet manifesto is composed of utopian ideas for what an MMO should be. It’s all about context.

And then when you get into the world and it’s not the ideal, you’re disappointed.

it’s not utopian because a real life example that lived up to the manifesto has already been made and existing for more than half a decade already. Guild Wars 1.

The manifesto is to reaffirm their ascendancy from Guild Wars 1 legacy and continue that to Guild Wars 2.

Call it a utopian manifesto if there was no benchmark predecessor and Guild Wars 2 was started from this utopian ideal that they just recently crafted.

It was an MMO manifesto and Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO.

They specifically said that all that we loved in GW1 will be in GW2. That is not utopia.

They implied that GW2 will not be grindy. Not utopia.

But i take it back. Since the manifesto isn’t concurrent with reality (e.g. guild wars 2 is grindy, they didn’t bring all that we loved in guild wars 1 in gw2), that makes the manifesto utopian itself. The Manifesto is INDEED a manifesto.

yeah you’re right, hats off to you.

No one, as far as I know, disageed with the Guild Wars 1 line being wrong. This is not Guild Wars 1. However, I think anyone who stopped to think about it would have seen marketing at work. Simply put, everything WHO loved in Guild Wars 1.

Did everyone in Guild Wars 1 love the same stuff? There might be stuff I hated that you loved (I can almost guarantee that’s true).

By the same token, we KNEW, long before release, that skills would be tied to weapons and you’d have a lot less of them. That there would be no healers. This wasn’t something Anet kept a secret.

So if you loved healers and skill variety from Guild Wars 1, and you’re saying you didn’t know that wasn’t going to be in the game, I’d say you didn’t do any research at all, because Anet was very clear about what would and wouldn’t be in the game.

The Manifesto is a 5 minute video made 2 years before the game came out. You’d think that during those 2 years someone might have looked into the game a little more deeply.

This thread shouldn’t die because Anet has NEVER lived up to what they promised and they continue to get farther and farther away from it.

Oxe.6142:

This thread shouldn’t die because Anet has NEVER lived up to what they promised and they continue to get farther and farther away from it.

This thread shouldn’t die because the more people that see it, the more people realize how ridiculous it is to bring up 3 year old videos that have been supplanted time and time again by new information that players have completely ignored.

Meh, I’m over this. ANet is clearly deadset on whatever path they’re chasing; the responsibility is theirs for whatever happens later on. If they want to fix the hole, and break it bigger, they well enough know weather they’ll sink or float. GL ANet.

Red Falcon.8257:

They held to the manifesto 99% for me.
The gear treadmill change was not wanted from Anet but widely and aggressively demanded by players.

Untrue. There were aggressive demands made by a small subgroup of the players (the top percenters, and content locust groups) but they were not about new gear tier, but about new content. Endgame content, to be precise – so, mostly they were asking for elite dungeons, bosses and raid instances. Instead they got the gear grind.
And they left the game anyway.

Vayne.8563:

This thread shouldn’t die because the more people that see it, the more people realize how ridiculous it is to bring up 3 year old videos that have been supplanted time and time again by new information that players have completely ignored.

It should not die, so the players have a reference point anytime devs claim again that their ideas for the game have not changed at all since it’s inception. or when they’ll claim that all the changes were because of their original ideas (when in truth they go against them). If they want to change the game, they should at least admit that’s what they are doing.

The Manifesto is still important, because the devs claim that they are still following it.

what would have happened to rockstar if they dropped their manifesto and changed gta because angry americans blamed the company for all that is evil in the world?
they would have failed miserably. instead they believed in their vision of gameplay and made billions of dollar out of their last gta!

gw1 despite being so different from any other mmo in the world lived up and still live after 7 years.

this won’t be the case for gw2

Nope,. it won’t be the case for Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 already has in less than a year, half the sales that Guild Wars 1 had in it’s entire lifetime and it hasn’t released in China yet. By the time this game is two years old, it will have probably more sales that Guild Wars 1 had a 7 years.

Beyond that, I like this game MORE than I liked Guild Wars 1, and I liked Guild Wars 1 quite a lot…but there were always things about it that really annoyed me and most of those things have been fixed.

I’m really sorry you guys don’t like the direction the game changes have taken…and in truth, I don’t like all of them either.

However, I do know the difference between a promise and an intention. I do know that all MMOs change and evolve. I do know that Anet was very public about how it iterated things and sometimes changed them completely.

You can cry all you want about a three year old video that was five minutes long, but it remains just that. A three year old video that’s five minutes long.

i think you missed the point i was trying to make, they got something fixed from gw1 that i used to love in gw2, but they changed the gameplay they intended to make room in the market for just so they could sell on china too, or for some improved revenue.

i guess time will tell us which one was the right direction for the company, but i think a lot of companies proved that the market isn’t always right and the rockstar is a shiny example of that. they pushed the boundaries of legit so far and for this reason they are beloved despite every mistake they make. gtaIV has less customization for your character than gta san andreas, but people will still buy gtaV in fact the sales of gtaV were definitely better than gtaIV. and what they did was just deliver what they promised.

if gw2 had a vision of a game if their company management is wise they also should have known what kind of customers they would have. so if you think your game is niche you should cater to that niche. if you want a game to be sold in all the world pleasing everyone and satisfieing no one you should do so from the start.

i think it is unfair advertise a game in a way than change your mind because you want to sell more. at least be honest with this and say, we are changing the direction of the game because we want it to sell more. i can understand and respect that, all we get is, we want to experiment and create something different (while all we have is something very old and facebook like).

Yep, it’s unfair to advertise a game a certain way and then change the way you advertise the game. By the same token, the amount of “advertising” that was done on no vertical progression was minimal compared to everything else that was advertised. The no grind comment from the manifesto wasn’t talking about gear grind or vertical progression in my opinion and I never took it that way. So I wasn’t surprised when grind was introduced into the game. For that matter, I found Guild Wars 1 relatively grindy as well.

In the end, Anet’s game spiel was built on dynamic events, personal story, dungeons and a living breathing world. Visiting their website you almost never found a mention of no vertical progression. In five years, you might have seen it mentioned 3 times. It’s NOT what they advertised their game on.

It was what people wanted and focused on, but if you look at the bulk of advertisement, that wasn’kitten

i don’t care about vertical progression or grinding in this specific moment.
there is no living breathing world anywhere. it is a themepark not a sandbox.
when you log in gw2 you don’t have the feeling of belonging of being part of a world living and breathing.
hell you don’t even know what scarlet is unless you log off go on the main web site and read the short story… if this is what living world means i think they failed in delivering.

the ascended gear would be fine if attached to some sort of story driven quest in order to get it, the fun, the exitement… what they did is tie it to farming and crafting and time gating just for you not to be able to have it immediatly and use your time to gain it. nobody that have it says it’s hard to get, some people doesn’t even consider it a grind. but i read of no one telling it was fun to obtain it. not a single person saying: i enjoyed so much to run again all content i already run thousands of time in a year, than click to gain one more tier of crafting and than finally craft a weapon with stats that if we are lucky will be still useful after october 15th

edit: a living breathing world in my opinion is world where:
npc don’t stand still for ever, there is weather changing in the same map over time, maps change due to season (not things that magically appear due to update event). pc can do a lot more emotes, you can interact a lot more with your surrounding (and not in a jumpy way), your class has a meaning in a group, there are stories to uncover and be told. mabinogi despite has an aweful combat system gives you the feeling of a living world so much better than guild wars that i found myself more engaged to it than i will ever be with this biweekly updates nothingness

Sorry but what part of Guild Wars 2’s advertising led you to believe this game would be a sandbox? I never really saw an evidence of that. Guild Wars 1 wasn’t a sandbox. I’m not sure they ever claimed it would be a sandbox, but certainly I never expected it to be a sandbox.

And yes, I find this, compared to most themepark MMOs to be a living breathing world.

they never said it was a sand box though they advertise it as a living breathing world… i hardly noticed when it was night or day in this game…
and yes i forgot to say that is not living and breathing for my personal taste, you made it already clear that it is fine for you countless times.

for this and many more reason i’m not playing it anymore, and in time i will stop bother reading and commenting the forum… it was just a lazy morning

edit: true gw1 wasn’t a sandbox and it wasn’t even an mmo for some people. although i never had to log off to learn lore and story about the world i was playing in. if i know something about gw lore i learned it there. what i learned here is to press h and see what was asked me to do and learn nothing. just seeing at filling bars

I’ve now seen the video and read the clarification, and in my personal opinion ANet could have avoided a lot of PR flack by simply not releasing it to begin with. That being said, this “manifesto” seems to me more of a statement of intent than a “written in stone” game outline, and as such they’ve pretty much kept to the spirit of that intent. I have to agree with some previous posters, there are aspects of the game, both past and recent, that I don’t particularly like. WvWvW match-ups and the Tequatl update are prime examples of this for me personally. However, the introduction of ascended gear does not make this list. In fact Ascended/Legendary gear is one of the big reasons I still play on a regular basis. I don’t care about outfitting all nine of my characters with it, just one. But even outfitting that one is giving me every reason to play on a regular basis, and I have to actually thank ANet for that. So I’ll say again, it is my personal opinion that they’ve kept to the spirit of the “manifesto” if nothing else. And let’s face it, when have you ever seen ANY MMORPG that didn’t change/evolve over time?

Manifesto is just a PR stunt,the only way to make them follow their own manifesto is to take action by" ".

Vayne.8563:

Nope,. it won’t be the case for Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 already has in less than a year, half the sales that Guild Wars 1 had in it’s entire lifetime and it hasn’t released in China yet.

You didn’t mention the part where 80% of those sales were made in the previous year and the number of sales since then dropped significantly. And will continue to drop, since most of the people that have been interested in this game have likely bought it already. Yes, chinese sales might change that, but so far the chinese market has been very resistant to western style MMO’s, due to many reasons.

Often the case of things, you intend to do something, but it doesn’t work out. A MMO needs income, if the cash doesn’t come in or there’s not enough people playing, you HP back to the drawing board.

Vayne.8563:

Oxe.6142:

This thread shouldn’t die because Anet has NEVER lived up to what they promised and they continue to get farther and farther away from it.

This thread shouldn’t die because the more people that see it, the more people realize how ridiculous it is to bring up 3 year old videos that have been supplanted time and time again by new information that players have completely ignored.

One of the few times I am in complete agreement Vayne.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Nope,. it won’t be the case for Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 already has in less than a year, half the sales that Guild Wars 1 had in it’s entire lifetime and it hasn’t released in China yet.

You didn’t mention the part where 80% of those sales were made in the previous year and the number of sales since then dropped significantly. And will continue to drop, since most of the people that have been interested in this game have likely bought it already. Yes, chinese sales might change that, but so far the chinese market has been very resistant to western style MMO’s, due to many reasons.

One of which is that there’s not enough grind. Chinese culture is about competition and progress.

Berelious.3290:

I’ve now seen the video and read the clarification, and in my personal opinion ANet could have avoided a lot of PR flack by simply not releasing it to begin with. That being said, this “manifesto” seems to me more of a statement of intent than a “written in stone” game outline, and as such they’ve pretty much kept to the spirit of that intent.

No they haven’t, you’ve got to look at it in context which was the entire campaign at teh time including other blog posts and interviews eg. Colin’s blog about ‘fun’.

Vayne.8563:

Oxe.6142:

This thread shouldn’t die because Anet has NEVER lived up to what they promised and they continue to get farther and farther away from it.

This thread shouldn’t die because the more people that see it, the more people realize how ridiculous it is to bring up 3 year old videos that have been supplanted time and time again by new information that players have completely ignored.

Right now, the dead horse is nothing more than pulverized bones you can fit in a shoebox. And yet somehow I can still imagine ‘manifesto’ threads here for years to come.

Some players just want to watch the forum burn.