Guild Wars 2

Hey guys.

Like many others, I’ve been playing GW2 for quite some time now, pretty much since launch. Now that we’ve recently hit the 2 year anniversary for the game, I couldn’t help but take a look back and consider how far we’ve come since many of us experienced our first waking moments in the game.

I’m sad to say, we haven’t come that far at all.

In terms of features, I’d say Anet has made some good, necessary advancements to the game, with a number of quality of life changes including account wallets, the wardrobe, gem store improvements and UI improvements, as well as balance tweaking, etc. However, there seems to be a severe lack of progress in the one particular area that matters most to gamers, and that is gameplay content.

In two years, the only new, permanent content we’ve actually gotten outside of various weapon and armor skins (most of which are limited to the gem store), are two small new areas, ascended items, Guild Missions, Edge of the Mists and Fractals of the Mists. We also got repeatable living story episodes for season 2 of the living story, but there’s only a finite amount of times you can complete that before you’ve gotten the rewards/achievements you needed from them, after which the purpose for replaying them becomes lost.

Now, I do acknowledge the fact that the Maguuma Wastes area will be expanded on, etc, but to me it just feels like we have to wait weeks or even months, just for a small new expanse on the map, or for a minimal amount of gameplay content that can be completed in a very short space of time. A lot of the stuff that has been promised to be in the works, such as new weapon types and new skills, has not really been delivered on, save for one new unique healing skill for each class and the odd few new traits (that’s not much to go on after two years of waiting).

I really like this game, but I’m afraid I’m getting to the point where I’m going to start saying “I liked this game, but now I’m over it”. Hell, I might be there already. I’ve actually spent money on the gem store in an effort to support Anet for what I felt was a promising MMO with a long future ahead of it, but I feel like my optimism and good will isn’t being rewarded in any meaningful way. Instead, I can’t help but notice that any time I spend in GW2 these days is done so either wandering aimlessly, simply chatting to others, or repeating content that I’ve already done 100 times, and have long since become bored of. The only reason I do it still, is because I don’t want to feel like I’m falling behind and because I’m still expecting something grand to happen. I can assure you though, that this sentiment is now wearing hopelessly thin.

In the end, I really think Anet needs to address this issue. I surely can’t be the only veteran player who is starting to lose faith in this game, or who is losing sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. We need more meaningful gameplay content. We need more rewards or items that aren’t limited to the gem store. We need to feel like we’re investing our time and energy into something fun and worthwhile, something that has a bright future that doesn’t feel like it’s years beyond our reach. We need something that will make many of us tired veterans fall in love with this game all over again.

Hell, even if we don’t get all that stuff right away, at the very least we need more transparency on Anet’s side with regards to upcoming content and changes, because a lot has been promised that has yet to be delivered. I say all this not because I’m trying to flame, or mud sling, or to create strife, but because I truly believe in the vast potential of this game, and I hate seeing it squandered.

I think that you’re not the only one feeling that way.

I have been playing GW2 since it’s launch. I was in the head start and before that the beta. For the longest time GW was one of my favorite franchises, I earned enough points in GW to obtain all the HoM items and spent well over $300.00 within the GW2 gem store. The lore of the GW franchise is great and the reason I purchased and supported it for so long is because I was expecting Anet to do for GW2 what it did for GW and that would be to release amazing expansions with new lands to explore, dungeons to enter, raids to experience, and end game content to delve into. However, Anet did not nor has any intention to do this for their supportive user base. It seems every time Anet talks about upcoming features they take a step in the wrong direction.

I have had many guild members and friends quit GW2 already because they felt cheated out of the game, they too had played since the beginning and never once did a precursor drop for them, not once did they feel that the rewards of Guild Wars 2 were strong enough to keep playing for, and I am starting to think they were right. As much fun as GW2 is in gameplay, Anet always finds a way to make it more frustrating whether it be for new or old players. When my cousin started to play he logged in just a few days ago and quit immediately due to the new leveling system and how the story is now set up. It is abhorrent how new players will now have to reach level 10 just in order to start their story line, and for what? Because of key farming, well sorry to say Anet but some people don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend like I did on keys. You take out all the fun and return it in place of greed and you will lose your user base.

So new users are out of luck in GW2, and old users have not enough new content other than that “living story” which in my opinion is no where near enough and in all honesty quite dull and void of anything to look forward to in future content. It all comes back to Anet not putting out for their users and making a bad name for themselves in future releases. I went from a guild that was once over 150 users to a guild that is now void of any members showing up online, I have seen other larger guilds with similar results and this is because Anet is not supporting their game like they should and release real expansions with new end game content and stop making the game a dress up simulator with that dull living story as being considered “new material” for GW2.

@Aither

I pretty much understand and sympathize with everything you’ve said.

Same here: abysmal and lackluster updates. Nearly every other multiplayer game has after two years at least a new class or race, a new continent or campaign, new gameplay modes (GOD kitten IT 1 PVP mode even after launch is ridiculous, but after two years it’s embarassing!!!), new professions (crafting), etc., etc., etc.

There’s plenty of people who agree with you, but this thread will be dominated by the same 1 or 2 posters that all negative threads are dominated by and will ultimately turn into a thread about how great GW2 is and how there are no problems. Luckily there is still an hour or two before they wake up where people can actually discuss it rationally.

Anet claims to put out content faster than any other MMO, but I just don’t see it. We have had no new areas, no new skills, no new dungeons, no raids, no new guild missions, no new PvP modes, no new races, no new trait lines, and none of the other things you see other MMO’s producing. Yes other MMO’s only put out 1 patch every 3 months and an expansion every other year, but those patches actually contain content and exciting things, and the expansions are HUGE.

Look at GW2… we are only getting patches every 3 months and they contain small stroy instances with little replayability and maybe 3-4 hours of content. The last content patch was August 12th, with the next one coming in November… same 3 month schedule as every other MMO but without the fun stuff that expansions bring.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

There’s plenty of people who agree with you, but this thread will be dominated by the same 1 or 2 posters that all negative threads are dominated by and will ultimately turn into a thread about how great GW2 is and how there are no problems. Luckily there is still an hour or two before they wake up where people can actually discuss it rationally.

Anet claims to put out content faster than any other MMO, but I just don’t see it. We have had no new areas, no new skills, no new dungeons, no raids, no new guild missions, no new PvP modes, no new races, no new trait lines, and none of the other things you see other MMO’s producing. Yes other MMO’s only put out 1 patch every 3 months and an expansion every other year, but those patches actually contain content and exciting things, and the expansions are HUGE.

Look at GW2… we are only getting patches every 3 months and they contain small stroy instances with little replayability and maybe 3-4 hours of content. The last content patch was August 12th, with the next one coming in November… same 3 month schedule as every other MMO but without the fun stuff that expansions bring.

I wasn’t going to even respond to this thread, until this bit of misinformation. Why twist the truth to try to prove something.

We haven’t had a content patch since August 12, which I count as six weeks. But before that we got content packs every two weeks, four times in a row. That, in my boat, makes it four patchs in 8 weeks before a break, afterwhich we got a feature patch, and now we have a tournament in WvW, followed by Halloween, followed by a new story patch.

I agree that the content is coming out too slow. But saying that it has a 3 month schedule, just because there’s 3 months between two specific types of patches is just a bit unreliable. I mean, it wasn’t three months between patches before that one. Or three months before that one, or three months before that one. So we’re not getting patches every three months, are we?

By all means express your opinion, but stop twisting stuff to fit a theory so easily disproved.

To clarify you say other games get patches every 3 months and we get patches every three months too. Anyone with access to the wiki and this page can disprove what you’re saying.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

ZudetGambeous.9573:

There’s plenty of people who agree with you, but this thread will be dominated by the same 1 or 2 posters that all negative threads are dominated by and will ultimately turn into a thread about how great GW2 is and how there are no problems. Luckily there is still an hour or two before they wake up where people can actually discuss it rationally.

Anet claims to put out content faster than any other MMO, but I just don’t see it. We have had no new areas, no new skills, no new dungeons, no raids, no new guild missions, no new PvP modes, no new races, no new trait lines, and none of the other things you see other MMO’s producing. Yes other MMO’s only put out 1 patch every 3 months and an expansion every other year, but those patches actually contain content and exciting things, and the expansions are HUGE.

Look at GW2… we are only getting patches every 3 months and they contain small stroy instances with little replayability and maybe 3-4 hours of content. The last content patch was August 12th, with the next one coming in November… same 3 month schedule as every other MMO but without the fun stuff that expansions bring.

I kinda used to be one of those people who was mesmerised by the living story and its two week release schedule. It kinda gives people the impression that lots of content is being released all the time and seems very impressive at face value. It’s only when you actually take a step back and look a the whole picture, that you start to realize how superficial that content was in the grand scheme of things and how little permanent gameplay content has actually been added to the game as a whole.

Anet has attempted to fix that with season 2, by making the living story content permanent rather than temporary or seasonal, but it’s still very limited content that doesn’t have much replay value. We need more permanent end game content and many of the other things you mentioned – like new races, new weapons, new skills, new traits, etc – would all be very welcome. It starts to feel tired when you just play with the same classes, using the same builds and the same skills, to do the same content over and over again.

Vayne.8563:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

There’s plenty of people who agree with you, but this thread will be dominated by the same 1 or 2 posters that all negative threads are dominated by and will ultimately turn into a thread about how great GW2 is and how there are no problems. Luckily there is still an hour or two before they wake up where people can actually discuss it rationally.

Anet claims to put out content faster than any other MMO, but I just don’t see it. We have had no new areas, no new skills, no new dungeons, no raids, no new guild missions, no new PvP modes, no new races, no new trait lines, and none of the other things you see other MMO’s producing. Yes other MMO’s only put out 1 patch every 3 months and an expansion every other year, but those patches actually contain content and exciting things, and the expansions are HUGE.

Look at GW2… we are only getting patches every 3 months and they contain small stroy instances with little replayability and maybe 3-4 hours of content. The last content patch was August 12th, with the next one coming in November… same 3 month schedule as every other MMO but without the fun stuff that expansions bring.

I wasn’t going to even respond to this thread, until this bit of misinformation. Why twist the truth to try to prove something.

We haven’t had a content patch since August 12, which I count as six weeks. But before that we got content packs every two weeks, four times in a row. That, in my boat, makes it four patchs in 8 weeks before a break, afterwhich we got a feature patch, and now we have a tournament in WvW, followed by Halloween, followed by a new story patch.

I agree that the content is coming out too slow. But saying that it has a 3 month schedule, just because there’s 3 months between two specific types of patches is just a bit unreliable. I mean, it wasn’t three months between patches before that one. Or three months before that one, or three months before that one. So we’re not getting patches every three months, are we?

By all means express your opinion, but stop twisting stuff to fit a theory so easily disproved.

To clarify you say other games get patches every 3 months and we get patches every three months too. Anyone with access to the wiki and this page can disprove what you’re saying.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

I should clarify: I don’t make any distinction between 3 hours of content every 2 weeks for 4 releases and 12 hours of content every 3 months. They are the same to me.

When I compare GW2 to other MMO’s I see ~4 patches of LS to be equal to 1 MMO patch. Except GW2 doesn’t release expansions in between.

We have “feature” patches which are supposed to make up some of that expansion like aspect, but I just don’t see it as a success.

Edit: To be fair I thought the second half of S1 actually had some decent pacing content wise, it was just the story aspect that was lacking. Unfortunately that was mostly temp content that was removed so I can no longer justify counting it.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Vayne.8563:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

There’s plenty of people who agree with you, but this thread will be dominated by the same 1 or 2 posters that all negative threads are dominated by and will ultimately turn into a thread about how great GW2 is and how there are no problems. Luckily there is still an hour or two before they wake up where people can actually discuss it rationally.

Anet claims to put out content faster than any other MMO, but I just don’t see it. We have had no new areas, no new skills, no new dungeons, no raids, no new guild missions, no new PvP modes, no new races, no new trait lines, and none of the other things you see other MMO’s producing. Yes other MMO’s only put out 1 patch every 3 months and an expansion every other year, but those patches actually contain content and exciting things, and the expansions are HUGE.

Look at GW2… we are only getting patches every 3 months and they contain small stroy instances with little replayability and maybe 3-4 hours of content. The last content patch was August 12th, with the next one coming in November… same 3 month schedule as every other MMO but without the fun stuff that expansions bring.

I wasn’t going to even respond to this thread, until this bit of misinformation. Why twist the truth to try to prove something.

We haven’t had a content patch since August 12, which I count as six weeks. But before that we got content packs every two weeks, four times in a row. That, in my boat, makes it four patchs in 8 weeks before a break, afterwhich we got a feature patch, and now we have a tournament in WvW, followed by Halloween, followed by a new story patch.

I agree that the content is coming out too slow. But saying that it has a 3 month schedule, just because there’s 3 months between two specific types of patches is just a bit unreliable. I mean, it wasn’t three months between patches before that one. Or three months before that one, or three months before that one. So we’re not getting patches every three months, are we?

By all means express your opinion, but stop twisting stuff to fit a theory so easily disproved.

To clarify you say other games get patches every 3 months and we get patches every three months too. Anyone with access to the wiki and this page can disprove what you’re saying.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

I should clarify: I don’t make any distinction between 3 hours of content every 2 weeks for 4 releases and 12 hours of content every 3 months. They are the same to me.

When I compare GW2 to other MMO’s I see ~4 patches of LS to be equal to 1 MMO patch. Except GW2 doesn’t release expansions in between.

We have “feature” patches which are supposed to make up some of that expansion like aspect, but I just don’t see it as a success.

Edit: To be fair I thought the second half of S1 actually had some decent pacing content wise, it was just the story aspect that was lacking. Unfortunately that was mostly temp content that was removed so I can no longer justify counting it.

They may not be the same to you, but they are in fact, different. Because there are people who it takes much longer to do all the content and there are people who actually try to do the content without going to guides. It took me far more than three hours to get the achievements in each of the updates. In fact, finding all the coins I’m still not done with. I’m still missing a couple.

But yeah it’s surely three hours of content if you look everything up and do it as fast as possible.

GW2 is 2 years old, it’s stale and dying…put a fork in it, it’s done.

I really, really hope they have been working on an expansion and made the mistake of not announcing it yet.

Most of the other posters have outlined my problems with the game.
I’d just like to add that the ‘living world’ feels very constricted. For season 2 I was expecting a short story guiding us into an expansive new map.
What I got was not even 1/4 of a average sized map that was frankly too story intensive. I want to explore and learn about the world in a meaningful manner, not have immortal NPC’s hold my hand in personal instances. (Where’s the social aspect in that, by the way?)

Siofra Crumble.2098:

I really, really hope they have been working on an expansion and made the mistake of not announcing it yet.

Most of the other posters have outlined my problems with the game.
I’d just like to add that the ‘living world’ feels very constricted. For season 2 I was expecting a short story guiding us into an expansive new map.
What I got was not even 1/4 of a average sized map that was frankly too story intensive. I want to explore and learn about the world in a meaningful manner, not have immortal NPC’s hold my hand in personal instances. (Where’s the social aspect in that, by the way?)

+1 About the expansion.

I play this type of game on a main.

I’m casual by definition, lucky if I get 5-10 hours a week to play this game but that was never an issue in GW1. It held relevance.

This is a great game for altoholics. Most of the people I talk to have no issue with the game, and they have 10+ lvl 80’s and 2-5 legendaries.

They’re just totally off track, making videos on why gathering nodes and minis are cool…

Meanwhile the core of the game has been abandoned for a year.

Just started playing a few months ago and I’m bored already. 6 more levels until I unlock my next trait? Jesus christ. I literally haven’t had any reason to swap my skills since level 30. When do I actually get to be awesome?

OP, I truly sympathize with your situation and I’m sorry it’s going too slow for you. I have been playing (casually) since launch and there is so much in this game I have yet to experience (dungeons/fractals/jumping puzzles, titles, farming ..etc). That being said, I do agree that there needs to be some sort of repeatable content for those that are able to play the game for hours on end.

tofumon.5924:

Just started playing a few months ago and I’m bored already. 6 more levels until I unlock my next trait? Jesus christ. I literally haven’t had any reason to swap my skills since level 30. When do I actually get to be awesome?

There isn’t much skills to swap, that’s all you going to get. Have you played GW1…there’s thousands of skills over the all the profession, plus maps bigger, more things to do.

It wasnt always that way.Soz.

On the bright side new players get shinies!!!

I’ll be fair to ArenaNet, they have given us content. There is several things that are different today, compared to when we started playing two years ago. I have to recognize the fact that we’ve gotten stuff, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

We’ve gotten Ascended, we’ve gotten Fractals of the Mists, we’ve gotten one large PvE map (Edge of the Mists; nobody really PvP there) and two smaller ones (Southsun Cove and Dry Top), we’ve gotten new Runes and Sigils, changes to existing ones and a complete re-work of how Sigils can be used together, a second Sigil slot on two-handed weapons, new Traits, new healing skills, we got the Aether path of Twilight Arbor, some new world encounters, such as Karka Queen and Triple Trouble (terrible scaling), and there’s been re-imagined encounters against some of the other ones, such as Tequatl (could do a bit better on scaling down). We got the Achievement Point system. Daily reworked with Laurels for guaranteed rewards you may want. There’s been a game mode added to sPvP, Team Death Match (Courtyard). There’s 3 other maps added to sPvP too, Temple of the Silent Storm, Spirit Watch and Skyhammer. Leaderboards were added. WXP and Ranks was added to World vs. World, as were vendors with lower-end PvE-skins for badges. We’ve gotten quality of life improvements, such as the Account Wallet, Account Bound Ascended-, Legendary weapons, the ability to change stats on Legendary weapons outside of combat, most (all?) things purchased with Skill Points are also Account Bound now, instead of Soulbound (e.g., Philosopher’s Stones). The Wardrobe was a nice addition. Even the added effects to some of the Legendary weapons were nice. We’ve gotten more Activities to do (e.g., Sanctum Sprint). There’s been small snippets of story content as well with the Living Story, Season 1. But as I stated my frustration with when initially announced, they took the rather terrible path of making it temporary content, so it’s poof, gone, nowhere to be found anymore (well, not entirely true, there’s two new encounters in Fractals, and of course some changes to the world map). As I said back then, it was content that wouldn’t help expand the game for new and old players, it was dumb to make it temporary. I still think it was a dumb choice to make it temporary, and hope they are working on making it re-playable. Recently we’ve gotten re-playable content through the Living World, Season 2, that is good. There’s new Collections to be completed and aimed for.

I can’t say we haven’t had changes done, there’s been quite a few things done. But nothing substantial in terms of bringing new freshness that’ll last for a while. A few new full-fledged maps would go a long way. New cool armor to obtain in-game (the designs can be taken from Guild Wars). Opening up the ability of professions to use more weapon types would also help. E.g., perhaps a Dagger on Mesmer, Hammer on Engineer, etc.

I dunno, I want more stuff to do for longer periods of time. I want proper changes to World vs. World maps, I think it’s sad that after 2 years there has basically not been a WvW map added. The Borderlands are still just copy-pasta laziness which is extremely boring. I want more underwater content (full underwater maps), and a revised look at how underwater combat works. It is currently not bad, for some professions, but nevertheless terrible in PvP, e.g., when the player you kill gets a new health bar and can continue swimming around.. that’s just annoying. I would love to see a few more dungeons added as well. With the Fractals you clearly showed you are capable of producing quality dungeon content post-launch, just try to make a few bigger ones under the same design and location. Design content with the purpose of encouraging more types of builds? Perhaps some stuff that are more vulnerable to conditions and some that are more vulnerable to physical damage? Some that are better taken on ranged, some that are better melee?

Anyways, enough rambling, I just wanted to give ArenaNet a bit of a fair treatment by listing things I could think of on the top of my head when it comes to changes to the game, but also adding my voice to the discontent with the lack of fresh (repeatable) content added nonetheless.

fireflyry.7023:

I play this type of game on a main.

I’m casual by definition, lucky if I get 5-10 hours a week to play this game but that was never an issue in GW1. It held relevance.

This is a great game for altoholics. Most of the people I talk to have no issue with the game, and they have 10+ lvl 80’s and 2-5 legendaries.

I also have multiple alts, and legendaries. I wouldn’t even consider myself as hardcore a player as many others out there. That still hasn’t stopped the game from feeling stale. And the biggest reason it’s feeling stale for me above all else, is a lack of new, replayable gameplay content. Yes, Anet has introduced a lot as far as new items and skins are concerned, but a new skin (for example) won’t change the way you play, or what you play. I’m here to play a game, not to stare at new skins all day. X__X

And as I mentioned, even when I login out of boredom, I often find myself not knowing what to do when I get into the game. Hell, it would even liven things up if they just introduced new weapons and skill for existing classes, because then at least I could experiment with new builds and play styles for a while.

@Absconditus

I love your idea about content that promotes build variety. I’d personally love to see some enemies in dungeons that take more damage from particular sources, like conditions. It would certainly promote party variety, as opposed to everyone just running full zerker gear in an effort to get it done as fast as possible.

Right now, running a condition build in PvE is akin to intentionally going into battle with one hand tied behind your back.

Aither.2859:

I have been playing GW2 since it’s launch. I was in the head start and before that the beta. For the longest time GW was one of my favorite franchises, I earned enough points in GW to obtain all the HoM items and spent well over $300.00 within the GW2 gem store.

I have had many guild members and friends quit GW2 already because they felt cheated out of the game, they too had played since the beginning and never once did a precursor drop for them, not once did they feel that the rewards of Guild Wars 2 were strong enough to keep playing for, and I am starting to think they were right.

You and your friends are right. I too have been an avid player since GW:Prophecies. My guildmates and friends and I made the transfer to GW2 during beta and headstart. A year after launch my friend’s list was halfway active, tack on another year and it’s dead. This is a list of 40+ diehards of whom I spent countless hours in UW, The Deep, Urgoz, FoW, DoA, rolling alts after alts with. Farming ectos and shards and armbraces til the cows came home. We played Guild Wars because our efforts were rewarded. We played Guild Wars because the develop created new continents filled with new races, classes, enemies, quests and missions.

Where are those types of rewards in GW2? Where are those new types of lands filled mysterious enemies waiting to unleash havoc?

Just today I logged in after a three week layoff to see I was kicked from my guild because I didn’t “fit the culture” anymore. Well, if that culture is running through the same content that’s been stagnate for over two years than yes I do not fit that culture. In fact, I refuse to be affiliated with a culture that accepts ill-conceived and executed development work for the sake up updating a release notes page every two weeks. I refuse to keep my head in the sand and accept Arenanet’s poor decision-making of late.

If Arenanet wishes to see their game return to the level of excellency it once enjoyed then give the players what they want: an expansion with a stronger, more everlasting reward system. You can keep your Gem Store skins.

Vix.6730:

Aither.2859:

I have been playing GW2 since it’s launch. I was in the head start and before that the beta. For the longest time GW was one of my favorite franchises, I earned enough points in GW to obtain all the HoM items and spent well over $300.00 within the GW2 gem store.

I have had many guild members and friends quit GW2 already because they felt cheated out of the game, they too had played since the beginning and never once did a precursor drop for them, not once did they feel that the rewards of Guild Wars 2 were strong enough to keep playing for, and I am starting to think they were right.

You and your friends are right. I too have been an avid player since GW:Prophecies. My guildmates and friends and I made the transfer to GW2 during beta and headstart. A year after launch my friend’s list was halfway active, tack on another year and it’s dead. This is a list of 40+ diehards of whom I spent countless hours in UW, The Deep, Urgoz, FoW, DoA, rolling alts after alts with. Farming ectos and shards and armbraces til the cows came home. We played Guild Wars because our efforts were rewarded. We played Guild Wars because the develop created new continents filled with new races, classes, enemies, quests and missions.

Where are those types of rewards in GW2? Where are those new types of lands filled mysterious enemies waiting to unleash havoc?

Just today I logged in after a three week layoff to see I was kicked from my guild because I didn’t “fit the culture” anymore. Well, if that culture is running through the same content that’s been stagnate for over two years than yes I do not fit that culture. In fact, I refuse to be affiliated with a culture that accepts ill-conceived and executed development work for the sake up updating a release notes page every two weeks. I refuse to keep my head in the sand and accept Arenanet’s poor decision-making of late.

If Arenanet wishes to see their game return to the level of excellency it once enjoyed then give the players what they want: an expansion with a stronger, more everlasting reward system. You can keep your Gem Store skins.

You remind me of my friend who used to love war games…you know the ones with the big hex maps that you played with cardboard counters. Well maybe you don’t know. At one point, this shop called the Compleat Strategist in NYC was selling those types of games all over the place. And when Dungeons and Dragons came out, they had a tiny little shelf for it.

As time went on, that shelf became a rack. More and more RPGs came out and more and more, the war games were relegated to smaller and smaller areas, until there was only one shelf of them.

Times change. Those who want to hang onto the past are welcome to. It won’t stop progress. More people played Dungeons and Dragons than probably all those war games combined. Companies made a lot of money on RPGs.

The same can be said for this. The die-hards, the hard core, those who can’t adapt will fall away from these games, kicking and screaming the whole way. And yeah, it sucks. I’d rather have some more old school games myself.

I simply don’t see it happening. For better or for worse, this is where the genre’s going and there are too many people who are going to support it for anyone to make a game for me.

if you aren’t familiar with payday 2’s community reward system, might I suggest you check out their current ongoing event – and might I even suggest anet take notes Wonderful way to grow your game and playerbase, has been immensely successful.

http://www.overkillsoftware.com/crimefest/

My little sister plays the game much less than I, and she comes on a few times a month. Every time she comes on, I let her know about all the new content that has come out since her last time playing, and she gives the same response every time: “That’s all?” She plays through some of it, gets bored, then leaves again to other games.

I’ve logged 5000 hours into the game myself and yet I feel the same way. Aside from the occasional white knight I see stalking the forums, everyone I talk to (friends, guildies, and random players I party with) all agree that there’s too little content released to make up for a lack of expansion, and there really does need to be an expansion.

They’ve made some good changes to the game, but it’s really not enough to excuse the stagnant doll-fest this game has become. These are my opinions on the matter.

I got GW1 in ’08, playing GW2 since beta, etc. I stopped GW2 for a while because nobody was playing with me, and I was bored. I got back into it early this year, still playing regularly.

I don’t know why people make such a big deal over “quitting” a game you can come back to at any time. Just stop playing until you want to play again, problem solved.

Also, just because you’re bored doesn’t mean Anet isn’t making loads of money off of the game as we speak. People can point and shout about problems with the game and the studio all day long, but if they’re still making good money on it, they don’t really need to change anything about their process. They should, but they don’t need to.

I’d like to see significantly more content, too. But so what if Anet is going slower than we like? I barely have time in my day to fit in GW2 with other things I want to do; if I get bored of playing it, that just means I have more time to do other stuff.

GW2 is just one of an unfathomable number of entertaining things you can do without moving from where you are right now. We players may think the fate of the game is important to us, and it is if you’ve invested more in it than you’re willing to let go of, but really, the only people who need to care about it are ANet and NCSoft; if (when) the game does die, we’ll still have plenty to replace it with.

Andred.1087:

I got GW1 in ’08, playing GW2 since beta, etc. I stopped GW2 for a while because nobody was playing with me, and I was bored. I got back into it early this year, still playing regularly.

I don’t know why people make such a big deal over “quitting” a game you can come back to at any time. Just stop playing until you want to play again, problem solved.

Also, just because you’re bored doesn’t mean Anet isn’t making loads of money off of the game as we speak. People can point and shout about problems with the game and the studio all day long, but if they’re still making good money on it, they don’t really need to change anything about their process. They should, but they don’t need to.

I’d like to see significantly more content, too. But so what if Anet is going slower than we like? I barely have time in my day to fit in GW2 with other things I want to do; if I get bored of playing it, that just means I have more time to do other stuff.

GW2 is just one of an unfathomable number of entertaining things you can do without moving from where you are right now. We players may think the fate of the game is important to us, and it is if you’ve invested more in it than you’re willing to let go of, but really, the only people who need to care about it are ANet and NCSoft; if (when) the game does die, we’ll still have plenty to replace it with.

There’s this saying that goes something along the lines of “penny wise, pound foolish”, and it’s usually used to describe people who are good at handling their money in the short term, but who don’t have much foresight when it comes to long-term investments.

That’s basically how I see ANet right now. You say that so long as ANet is making money, it means they don’t need to change anything, but that statement couldn’t be more inaccurate. If players become unhappy with the state of the game, and start leaving or stop playing for whatever reason, it means ANet’s income will start to wane.

If ANet is in this for the long haul, then it makes financial sense to invest in the greatest commodity they have, and that is their playerbase. By introducing more, fun gameplay elements and keeping their playerbase happily playing, they will essentially be securing their own financial futures because the more players there are around, the more they will be spending money on the gem store, and thus, the more money ANet will make.

The problem right now is that ANet’s approach is too lopsided. They’re too focused on the gem store and not enough on introducing new gameplay content. In my opinion, the focus should be, first and foremost, on gameplay content and the gem store should be the secondary focus. That way, players will have more faith in GW2 and in its longevity, and it goes without saying that if someone sees themselves playing a game for a long time, they’d be much more inclined to invest money in it.

As for having other stuff to do, on that part I do agree with you. But let me make it clear that GW2 is not the only game I play. I do often play other games. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want GW2 to become better, and the main reason I want it to become better is because I see the great potential in it and I don’t want to see it wasted.

The game over it’s rather short lifespan has shifted it’s focus away from skilled play to Zerging and being a casual friendly experience. I finally gave up on Arenanet and stopped playing 6 months ago for this very reason.

I am waiting for an expansion or a major (read major not some living story pap) update to shake things up to even think of returning to this game.

I mean in 2012 you could release a game and treat it this way and possibly retain a considerable playerbase but with Steam having blown up the way it has and the influx of innovative indy titles as well as PC being accepted as a serious platform by developers whom previously only targeted the consoles, things have changed. I think if GW2 wants to remain relevant an expansion that hits on all the right notes is truly Arenanets only hope. They can only survive off naive players gem store purchases for so long until even the most easily placated players move onto greener pastures.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Are-you-getting-tired-of-Gw2/first#post1288296

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Too-easy-Too-hard/first#post3495894

I would love gw2 with mixed system of dc universe online.
So every 2 weeks we get new living story and every 2 months we get new DLC .
And DLC contains :
-new arena with new mobs,daily quests etc etc .
-new dungs,raids etc etc
-new profession,skills,traits,weapons
But we will hear I didnt buy dlc why player who bought it has access to content which I dont have and over over again.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

I would love gw2 with mixed system of dc universe online.
So every 2 weeks we get new living story and every 2 months we get new DLC .
And DLC contains :
-new arena with new mobs,daily quests etc etc .
-new dungs,raids etc etc
-new profession,skills,traits,weapons
But we will hear I didnt buy dlc why player who bought it has access to content which I dont have and over over again.

Logical conclusion: Just like the CE upgrade, make it purchasable with gems.
People could buy with regular money → gem (600-800 would be fair imo) or
convert gold → gems which drives up conversion rates and incentivises others to
buy gems with real money, which makes Anet more profit in the long run.