Guild Wars 2

mesme.5028:

It may appear to look as thou this is a qq thread but it’s not my intention,
The devs look like really nice peeps and im sure they are, they just have a nice way about them and i like them, i wonder thou what actually happened with gw2.

Things from the manifesto are quite the opposite, grind for example, i am sure the devs have been asked this before but idk, why the change? what happened? was it necessary? was the manifesto a ideal to strive for but in reality not really possible?

Does anyone have any links to the devs explaining why the game isn’t like the manifesto?

Again this isn’t a qq thread, i guess they had to make these changes but id like to know why.

Legendary weapons have been in the game since launch I think. The grind has always been there from day 1.

There isn’t really much different between ascended and legendaries beyond ascended require a lot less RNG and gold.

timidobserver.7925:

mesme.5028:

It may appear to look as thou this is a qq thread but it’s not my intention,
The devs look like really nice peeps and im sure they are, they just have a nice way about them and i like them, i wonder thou what actually happened with gw2.

Things from the manifesto are quite the opposite, grind for example, i am sure the devs have been asked this before but idk, why the change? what happened? was it necessary? was the manifesto a ideal to strive for but in reality not really possible?

Does anyone have any links to the devs explaining why the game isn’t like the manifesto?

Again this isn’t a qq thread, i guess they had to make these changes but id like to know why.

Legendary weapons have been in the game since launch I think. The grind has always been there from day 1.

There isn’t really much different between ascended and legendaries beyond ascended require a lot less RNG and gold.

Wrong. Ascended is a lot more work than a legendary. Think about it. A legendary is one weapon. Ascended is 6 armor pieces, multiple weapons, and 6 trinkets/back items. It takes a lot of work for those.

Anyway, back to the manifesto, if they actually still believed in it, ascended armor/weapons/trinkets should be sold in the TP. Why should I be forced to grind? Legendaries can be the only grind item in the game that way.

style.6173:

timidobserver.7925:

mesme.5028:

It may appear to look as thou this is a qq thread but it’s not my intention,
The devs look like really nice peeps and im sure they are, they just have a nice way about them and i like them, i wonder thou what actually happened with gw2.

Things from the manifesto are quite the opposite, grind for example, i am sure the devs have been asked this before but idk, why the change? what happened? was it necessary? was the manifesto a ideal to strive for but in reality not really possible?

Does anyone have any links to the devs explaining why the game isn’t like the manifesto?

Again this isn’t a qq thread, i guess they had to make these changes but id like to know why.

Legendary weapons have been in the game since launch I think. The grind has always been there from day 1.

There isn’t really much different between ascended and legendaries beyond ascended require a lot less RNG and gold.

Wrong. Ascended is a lot more work than a legendary. Think about it. A legendary is one weapon. Ascended is 6 armor pieces, multiple weapons, and 6 trinkets/back items. It takes a lot of work for those.

Wrong. You compare 14 pieces to 1 piece for bias. One piece of ascended is much easier to obtain than one piece of legendary.

Vayne.8563:

They advertised this game based on several things. The manifesto was one five minute video. That’s what it was. It’s been misinterpreted and lines from it are taken out of context to try to prove specific points. People have ignored the clarification posted three days after it, explaining some confusion. People have ignored the two years of stuff released afterwards explaining everything in much greater detail.

If you look at the number of times in the “advertising” words like vertical progression were mentioned, you’d find that the game was advertised on dynamic events, personal story, and active combat.

The other stuff was side bar stuff that if it was important to an individual they focused on it to the exclusion of all else. But it wasn’t what the game was advertised on.

Advertising focus is such that the more times something is mentioned, the more a company talks about it, the more important it is to the product. There are so many discussions around dynamic events and how they work and how they’re made and why they’re better.

The manifesto is a 3 year old 5 minute video. If people watched that and ignored everything said after that it’s not Anet’s fault.

That’s right we ignored things like this said by Mike O’Brian

Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.

So once you realize that you don’t have to run on this gear treadmill to compete, then ask yourself whether you think it’s fair or unfair for players to be able to trade microtransaction currency with other players, which essentially allows some players to trade money for time and other players to trade time for money. I think it’s more fair to allow that.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/

Well clearly that’s ambiguous and with just 3 months until launch they could have marketed the game as something completely different! OR it could in fact be that you’re entirely wrong and the game was marketed as not having a stat grind at max level, but rather a cosmetic grind.

Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions – a lot of that is still up in the air and we’ll finalise a lot of those reward systems as we get closer to release. And those come off of things like the bosses at the end of dungeons – the raids.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview

There is a reason that GW2 was known as the MMO you didn’t have to grind for endgame gear. They said it multiple times and in multiple places. Pretty much any time they brought up legendary weapons they made it clear it was NOT a stat advantage so people who put in more time didn’t have an advantage, they just looked cooler. It might not have been their biggest bullet point, but it was brought up several times; enough times that it was well known.

You need to face facts, ArenaNet has deviated from what they sold at least a part of the game as. There is now a gear treadmill. You certainly do not have the best stat gear by the time you reach 80 and I’d expect most casuals to never have it unless it gets made a lot easier. There is zero room for debate here, Both of those statements are now 100% false.

I’m beginning to think that you’re the one who didn’t listen or read anything ArenaNet said prior to launch.

Jski.6180:

I think there is something wrong with the gaming community over all they over-hype games to the point of utopia like levels and once they find out that they live in real life they hate the game and not just hate but hate to the point of trying to destroy. I do not think the gaming community will ever be truly happy with there life or the things they love gaming. They are addictive to feeling unhappy and the self given right (they feel that they have the right to destroy and rages if its not the way they think it should be) to rage and destroy.

So, gaming as a microcosm of Samsara?

mesme.5028:

I think they sold gw2 to just about every gw1 player, for years it was mentioned in towns, guild and alliance chat, a lot of gw fans do play gw2 still, some quit and others went back gw1, im in a gw1 guild atm with a full alliance, i play both gw1 and gw2 and have a lot of fun, i know a lot feel betrayed and you get the same reaction in gw1 guild chat if you mention gw2 as you do if you mention wow.

If they had did as they said in the manifesto and stuck to that, everyone i think would have been happy.

They sold GW2 to a lot of people, not just GW1 players.

And therein became the problem. They wanted a larger audience. They, frankly, NEEDED a larger audience. And (perhaps sadly) that larger audience turned out to come from the general MMO playerbase, who really didn’t give one tenth of one kitten about the manifesto, and in fact rejected large swaths of GW2 intent. These players found the lack of vertical progression “boring.” They didn’t want to go back to “newbie” zones unless they had to. They wanted kitten (achievement points and gear). They want (and still want) large scale “raid” content.

Arena.net was left with two options; 1) Stay the course and have the game die because the GW1 veterans that did carry over (which wasn’t all of them to begin with) simply weren’t enough to cover the larger costs of GW2 (I’m sorry, I know you hate it, but it’s true), or 2) compromise some of their original design to cater to the locusts.

As a head of a company; which would you have chosen?

Distaste.4801:

Vayne.8563:

They advertised this game based on several things. The manifesto was one five minute video. That’s what it was. It’s been misinterpreted and lines from it are taken out of context to try to prove specific points. People have ignored the clarification posted three days after it, explaining some confusion. People have ignored the two years of stuff released afterwards explaining everything in much greater detail.

If you look at the number of times in the “advertising” words like vertical progression were mentioned, you’d find that the game was advertised on dynamic events, personal story, and active combat.

The other stuff was side bar stuff that if it was important to an individual they focused on it to the exclusion of all else. But it wasn’t what the game was advertised on.

Advertising focus is such that the more times something is mentioned, the more a company talks about it, the more important it is to the product. There are so many discussions around dynamic events and how they work and how they’re made and why they’re better.

The manifesto is a 3 year old 5 minute video. If people watched that and ignored everything said after that it’s not Anet’s fault.

That’s right we ignored things like this said by Mike O’Brian

Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.

So once you realize that you don’t have to run on this gear treadmill to compete, then ask yourself whether you think it’s fair or unfair for players to be able to trade microtransaction currency with other players, which essentially allows some players to trade money for time and other players to trade time for money. I think it’s more fair to allow that.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/

Well clearly that’s ambiguous and with just 3 months until launch they could have marketed the game as something completely different! OR it could in fact be that you’re entirely wrong and the game was marketed as not having a stat grind at max level, but rather a cosmetic grind.

Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions – a lot of that is still up in the air and we’ll finalise a lot of those reward systems as we get closer to release. And those come off of things like the bosses at the end of dungeons – the raids.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview

There is a reason that GW2 was known as the MMO you didn’t have to grind for endgame gear. They said it multiple times and in multiple places. Pretty much any time they brought up legendary weapons they made it clear it was NOT a stat advantage so people who put in more time didn’t have an advantage, they just looked cooler. It might not have been their biggest bullet point, but it was brought up several times; enough times that it was well known.

You need to face facts, ArenaNet has deviated from what they sold at least a part of the game as. There is now a gear treadmill. You certainly do not have the best stat gear by the time you reach 80 and I’d expect most casuals to never have it unless it gets made a lot easier. There is zero room for debate here, Both of those statements are now 100% false.

I’m beginning to think that you’re the one who didn’t listen or read anything ArenaNet said prior to launch.

Vayne knows exactly what was said. But as the facts work against him, he chooses to either ignore them or speculatively pretend the company would have been bankrupt had it not about-faced the ideas they espoused in the articles you linked.

chemiclord.3978:

As a head of a company; which would you have chosen?

Implement ascended as a component of FOTM only with no difference in stats to exotic, which gives those who wanted that progression an outlet.

Implement the fortnightly content update system with better quality control.

morrolan.9608:

chemiclord.3978:

As a head of a company; which would you have chosen?

Implement ascended as a component of FOTM only with no difference in stats to exotic, which gives those who wanted that progression an outlet.

Implement the fortnightly content update system with better quality control.

You’re assuming that would have been enough to placate the locusts (which I am dubious). They WANT the number creep. They would have dismissed your plan as just prettied-up exotics, and rejected it just as wholly as the initial gear progression.

And the monthly Living Story with your “better quality control” (which it really wasn’t, for the record), wasn’t enough either. Players ground through those initial offerings in days and whined they were bored.

See, the people who are trying to hold up the manifesto either can’t (or don’t want to admit) that the locusts are NECESSARY. Arena.net HAS to keep them happy to keep the game solvent. Arena.net’s original plan DIDN’T WORK. Yes, it kitten es off part of the loyal fanbase… but it had to be done.

chemiclord.3978:

You’re assuming that would have been enough to placate the locusts (which I am dubious). They WANT the number creep. They would have dismissed your plan as just prettied-up exotics, and rejected it just as wholly as the initial gear progression.

And the monthly Living Story with your “better quality control” (which it really wasn’t, for the record), wasn’t enough either. Players ground through those initial offerings in days and whined they were bored.

See, the people who are trying to hold up the manifesto either can’t (or don’t want to admit) that the locusts are NECESSARY. Arena.net HAS to keep them happy to keep the game solvent. Arena.net’s original plan DIDN’T WORK. Yes, it kitten es off part of the loyal fanbase… but it had to be done.

You have sources to support such a bold claim, I’m sure.

darkace.8925:

chemiclord.3978:

You’re assuming that would have been enough to placate the locusts (which I am dubious). They WANT the number creep. They would have dismissed your plan as just prettied-up exotics, and rejected it just as wholly as the initial gear progression.

And the monthly Living Story with your “better quality control” (which it really wasn’t, for the record), wasn’t enough either. Players ground through those initial offerings in days and whined they were bored.

See, the people who are trying to hold up the manifesto either can’t (or don’t want to admit) that the locusts are NECESSARY. Arena.net HAS to keep them happy to keep the game solvent. Arena.net’s original plan DIDN’T WORK. Yes, it kitten es off part of the loyal fanbase… but it had to be done.

You have sources to support such a bold claim, I’m sure.

He doesn’t. Even if true, ANet would not admit it. Based on what they did say (“Sales of GW2 exceeded our expectations.”), it’s more likely they attracted people they did not expect to attract and added a flat gear progression feature to try to keep some of them. They way they’ve implemented Ascended after the initial “FotM only” release says they were trying a middle of the road approach.

chemiclord.3978:

morrolan.9608:

chemiclord.3978:

As a head of a company; which would you have chosen?

Implement ascended as a component of FOTM only with no difference in stats to exotic, which gives those who wanted that progression an outlet.

Implement the fortnightly content update system with better quality control.

You’re assuming that would have been enough to placate the locusts (which I am dubious). They WANT the number creep. They would have dismissed your plan as just prettied-up exotics, and rejected it just as wholly as the initial gear progression.

And the monthly Living Story with your “better quality control” (which it really wasn’t, for the record), wasn’t enough either. Players ground through those initial offerings in days and whined they were bored.

Seeing as they didn’t do either your rejection is just opinion. My opinion is that the stat increase of ascended is too small to placate the ‘locusts’ anyway and that arenanet have wound up antagonising all sides needlessly.

Plus there’s the fact that they have not been remotely transparent with these decisions anyway, to teh extent that when ascended was introduced they denied that it went against the manifesto.

Valanga.5942:

Vayne.8563:

The manifesto is a 3 year old 5 minute video. If people watched that and ignored everything said after that it’s not Anet’s fault.

I lost the count of how many time this has been asked, but anyway… Why a “3 years old 5 minutes video”, is still on the main page of GW2’s website, and “everything said after” don’t?

lordkrall.7241:

But if people only listen to a single video and then ignore all those articles and stuff clarifying things during the YEARS between Manifesto release and game release it IS the players fault.

As i said… Manifesto is on the mainpage, articles and stuff are not even in the database… Because they got conveniently lost when they changed from beta to release…

Vayne.8563:

Most of the statesments the devs made about the game prior to release didn’t mention vertical progression or gear grind at all. Only an tiny tiny percentage of dev quotes talked about that, and almost always only in response to a question asked by someone.

So all the people who complain about this, and left the game must have some kind of problem at reading/listening what the devs said… And all the quotes they put as signature, taken from devs’ interviews and blog post, must’ve been some kind of collective allucination, right?

It’s not on the main page. Yes it’s under Media/Videos. The very first video since it’s 3 years old.

The only things that bothered me were:

“Action Based Combat”

Umm, tab targeting. Long CD’s and cast times.

“Monsters Standing Around in a Field Twiddling Their Thumbs”

Their was supposed to be none of that. In fact, everywhere you go, that’s what you see in the open world.

“No quest givers”

Heart quests – ruin half of PvE for me.

The open world itself is arranged in these very immersion breaking rectangles, and on top of that it feels the entire world is too small. The end effect of this is that it scores low on the immersion and exploration scale.

Not enough monster types – everything is repeated endlessly everywhere I go.

Anet promised a massive, open world, but it’s obvious that all they really wanted was to grab a huge share of the MMO market for their Esport PvP game.

I think that decisions motivated by money often have the reverse effect.

If you just make a really compelling, awesome game, then people will come and they will spend money on it.

Everything else about GW2 is amazing.

Despite my criticisms, I feel it is currently the best MMO on the market – but there are some really interesting ones on the horizon, including Black Desert and Bless, as well as anything that pops up for the Oculus Rift (is GW2 going to make an Oculus version? That would kitten!)

IndigoSundown.5419:

darkace.8925:

chemiclord.3978:

You’re assuming that would have been enough to placate the locusts (which I am dubious). They WANT the number creep. They would have dismissed your plan as just prettied-up exotics, and rejected it just as wholly as the initial gear progression.

And the monthly Living Story with your “better quality control” (which it really wasn’t, for the record), wasn’t enough either. Players ground through those initial offerings in days and whined they were bored.

See, the people who are trying to hold up the manifesto either can’t (or don’t want to admit) that the locusts are NECESSARY. Arena.net HAS to keep them happy to keep the game solvent. Arena.net’s original plan DIDN’T WORK. Yes, it kitten es off part of the loyal fanbase… but it had to be done.

You have sources to support such a bold claim, I’m sure.

He doesn’t. Even if true, ANet would not admit it. Based on what they did say (“Sales of GW2 exceeded our expectations.”), it’s more likely they attracted people they did not expect to attract and added a flat gear progression feature to try to keep some of them. They way they’ve implemented Ascended after the initial “FotM only” release says they were trying a middle of the road approach.

Unfortunately I don’t think they did not expect to attract the people they attracted…
and you can understand that thanks to many contents of the game…
Try to google “Obsidian Sanctum”, “Stalwart Shoulderpads”, the late “FoTM”… and many many other names present in this game… they knew what they wanted even back then (sadly).

Erick Alastor.3917:

IndigoSundown.5419:

darkace.8925:

chemiclord.3978:

You’re assuming that would have been enough to placate the locusts (which I am dubious). They WANT the number creep. They would have dismissed your plan as just prettied-up exotics, and rejected it just as wholly as the initial gear progression.

And the monthly Living Story with your “better quality control” (which it really wasn’t, for the record), wasn’t enough either. Players ground through those initial offerings in days and whined they were bored.

See, the people who are trying to hold up the manifesto either can’t (or don’t want to admit) that the locusts are NECESSARY. Arena.net HAS to keep them happy to keep the game solvent. Arena.net’s original plan DIDN’T WORK. Yes, it kitten es off part of the loyal fanbase… but it had to be done.

You have sources to support such a bold claim, I’m sure.

He doesn’t. Even if true, ANet would not admit it. Based on what they did say (“Sales of GW2 exceeded our expectations.”), it’s more likely they attracted people they did not expect to attract and added a flat gear progression feature to try to keep some of them. They way they’ve implemented Ascended after the initial “FotM only” release says they were trying a middle of the road approach.

Unfortunately I don’t think they did not expect to attract the people they attracted…
and you can understand that thanks to many contents of the game…
Try to google “Obsidian Sanctum”, “Stalwart Shoulderpads”, the late “FoTM”… and many many other names present in this game… they knew what they wanted even back then (sadly).

ANet was founded originally by people who worked for Blizzard. It does not surprise me that references from Bliz might creep into GW2. Unless, “The game sold better than we expected.” was a lie, those unexpected sales came from somewhere.

lordkrall.7241:

rogerwilko.6895:

Greed happened.

Or maybe the want to actually survive happened?
It is extremely unlikely that the game (and therefore also the company) would survive more than a year if they only ever did exactly as people interpreted the Manifesto.

It’s a bit more complicated than that. I doubt that the leadership was so naive.
IMO they knew what will come and they lied to get fatter.

You mean…

What happened to the Truth?

What Truth?

Chrispy.5641:

frans.8092:

Mireles Lore.5942:

I guess its not a gear treadmill then because exotic armor is still plenty capable of getting any job done. Like others have noted in the forums in increase is really minuscule you can’t notice the slightest difference. You don’t NEED this armor to do anything.

Ascended gear is noticeably stronger. A mix of Soldier’s Armor with Berserker trinkets and weapons hits harder then full Berserker exotics (almost 30%!) , yet has more then 2K additional Hit points and 250 more armor (for medium armor). Don’t try to qualify that difference as ‘minuscule’.

ptfff…..If that’s the case, then Valkyrie Ascended armor should hit 50% harder than Full Berserker Exotics….but It doesn’t.

My bad, mixed up the columns, Ascended PVT/Zerker hits 15% harder then Exotic Full Zerker. Ascended Valkyre/Zerker hits 21% over and Acended Zerker 33%.

frans.8092:

Chrispy.5641:

frans.8092:

Mireles Lore.5942:

I guess its not a gear treadmill then because exotic armor is still plenty capable of getting any job done. Like others have noted in the forums in increase is really minuscule you can’t notice the slightest difference. You don’t NEED this armor to do anything.

Ascended gear is noticeably stronger. A mix of Soldier’s Armor with Berserker trinkets and weapons hits harder then full Berserker exotics (almost 30%!) , yet has more then 2K additional Hit points and 250 more armor (for medium armor). Don’t try to qualify that difference as ‘minuscule’.

ptfff…..If that’s the case, then Valkyrie Ascended armor should hit 50% harder than Full Berserker Exotics….but It doesn’t.

My bad, mixed up the columns, Ascended PVT/Zerker hits 15% harder then Exotic Full Zerker. Ascended Valkyre/Zerker hits 21% over and Acended Zerker 33%.

Alright, that sounds a little better.

Manifest Destiny

The Manifesto is alive and well and lives on in our hearts — and, I sincerely believe, in the hearts of most ArenaNet employees. I don’t think anyone in the video was lying, nor have I ever seen any evidence that anyone at ArenaNet even remotely resembles the “monsters from the id” too many players accuse them of being.

Like any creed, opinions on how the Manifesto should be interpreted, how it should be applied, how strictly it should be applied or when it should not be applied will vary, and disagreement naturally ensues. That is just as true within ArenaNet as it is in these forums, so any pretense of a One True Interpretation of the Manifesto is no more credible than any other claims of inspired revelation.

As eloquent as the Manifesto may be, it’s not perfect and never was. It’s probably not possible to actually publish a game which would conform to the Manifesto perfectly, and even if that somehow happened, players would nonetheless argue over whether it actually did, because opinions inevitably vary.

Rather, I think it is best to consider the Manifesto a statement of principles and ideals to draw upon and work toward, recognize that not everyone will agree on the best way to do that, and endeavor as a community to help shape the extraordinary vision ArenaNet has laid out for us.

Granted, that’s not always easy, we naturally tend to get emotional about things we care about, and I could certainly stand to better practice what I preach, myself.

But as long as we keep our eyes on the prize, (politely) hold ArenaNet to that vision and respect the fact that our fellow players can disagree (without necessarily being wrong), we won’t lose sight of what we care about most.

And that’s a goal worthy of us all.

Majic.4801:

Manifest Destiny

The Manifesto is alive and well and lives on in our hearts — and, I sincerely believe, in the hearts of most ArenaNet employees. I don’t think anyone in the video was lying, nor have I ever seen any evidence that anyone at ArenaNet even remotely resembles the “monsters from the id” too many players accuse them of being.

Like any creed, opinions on how the Manifesto should be interpreted, how it should be applied, how strictly it should be applied or when it should not be applied will vary, and disagreement naturally ensues. That is just as true within ArenaNet as it is in these forums, so any pretense of a One True Interpretation of the Manifesto is no more credible than any other claims of inspired revelation.

As eloquent as the Manifesto may be, it’s not perfect and never was. It’s probably not possible to actually publish a game which would conform to the Manifesto perfectly, and even if that somehow happened, players would nonetheless argue over whether it actually did, because opinions inevitably vary.

Rather, I think it is best to consider the Manifesto a statement of principles and ideals to draw upon and work toward, recognize that not everyone will agree on the best way to do that, and endeavor as a community to help shape the extraordinary vision ArenaNet has laid out for us.

Granted, that’s not always easy, we naturally tend to get emotional about things we care about, and I could certainly stand to better practice what I preach, myself.

But as long as we keep our eyes on the prize, (politely) hold ArenaNet to that vision and respect the fact that our fellow players can disagree (without necessarily being wrong), we won’t lose sight of what we care about most.

And that’s a goal worthy of us all.

Its why the Communist Manifesto fails in the real world. Its a great, almost utopian set of guidelines, but in practice, it will never live up to the expectations of the original. (yeah, …. I know that was a bad comparison)

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

If you look at the number of times in the “advertising” words like vertical progression were mentioned, you’d find that the game was advertised on dynamic events, personal story, and active combat.

The number of times an aspect of a product is advertised is not relevant. If you own a store that sells men’s clothing and advertise ten times that your shirts cost $10 putting out one hundred advertisements that your jackets cost $100 does not negate the advertisement for your shirts.

Yes the Manifesto is a three year old video…one that is still presented on the game’s official site.

And the official Guild Wars 2 strategy guide still says that you get dye seeds and have to take them to an NPC in your home instance to grow them into dyes. Should they reprint it?

Everyone knows MMOs change. But what you did here was ignore everything else I’ve been saying. You’re doing what I’m accusing others of doing to the manifesto…taking one bit of what I said while ignoring the context. The context here is simple.

I think people have misintepreted the manifesto, by taking stuff out of context. They take one line, they ignore the previous and following line and then have the audacity to say that Anet advertised the game falsely.

Now your example about a $10 sale is also very misleading. Because that’s something that’s immient. The sale is now. It’s not something that can be dated.

In other words Anet went into tons of detail after the fact, the manifesto itself is pretty much still preventative of the game, and some people just choose to misinterpret it. If you tried to take Anet to court over it and prove false advertising, you’d lose. It really is that simple.

Anet wouldn’t even be asked to take the video down.

This is people who have an ax to grind blowing something completely out of proportion.

Anet stated very clearly (as every MMO does) that it owns the world and it’s entitled to change the game. Anet offered refunds for six months, which is very generous.

That’s ALL Anet is required to do. The most you could get is a refund which Anet offered in the first place.

This whole conversation about the manifesto is ridiculous and has been for the last year.

An MMO started up, made some changes. It happens all the time. Sometimes they change drastically.

Those who don’t like the changes say false advertising, those who like the changes say Anet has improved the product.

Shrugs. Keep believing it’s false advertising if you want. But I’m pretty sure a lawyer would disagree with you.

Vayne.8563:

You’re doing what I’m accusing others of doing to the manifesto…taking one bit of what I said while ignoring the context. The context here is simple.
I think people have misintepreted the manifesto, by taking stuff out of context. They take one line, they ignore the previous and following line and then have the audacity to say that Anet advertised the game falsely.

manifesto is there, where anyone can read it.
can you provide this “previous and following line” ppl ignore?
without any personal inferring. just the text.
where anet corrects the previous advertisement, so that everybody can understand the real hidden meaning of it.
as you say, this infos should be aged some months BEFORE the launch.

i think it unlikely that so many of us misunderstood it.
IMHO we understood it right. it’s anet that decided just to ignore it.

i think that the most elegant solution to this post would be:
“hi. i’m a dev. we used to think what you read on this kitten manifesto, but after some months from the launch we’ve changed our minds. this is our new line of conduct. grind is good. progression is good. we apologize for it but we think it’s better for us and the game because all we previously said is fail.” period

obviously, it will never happen.

Majic.4801:

Manifest Destiny

The Manifesto is alive and well and lives on in our hearts — and, I sincerely believe, in the hearts of most ArenaNet employees. I don’t think anyone in the video was lying, nor have I ever seen any evidence that anyone at ArenaNet even remotely resembles the “monsters from the id” too many players accuse them of being.

Like any creed, opinions on how the Manifesto should be interpreted, how it should be applied, how strictly it should be applied or when it should not be applied will vary, and disagreement naturally ensues. That is just as true within ArenaNet as it is in these forums, so any pretense of a One True Interpretation of the Manifesto is no more credible than any other claims of inspired revelation.

As eloquent as the Manifesto may be, it’s not perfect and never was. It’s probably not possible to actually publish a game which would conform to the Manifesto perfectly, and even if that somehow happened, players would nonetheless argue over whether it actually did, because opinions inevitably vary.

Rather, I think it is best to consider the Manifesto a statement of principles and ideals to draw upon and work toward, recognize that not everyone will agree on the best way to do that, and endeavor as a community to help shape the extraordinary vision ArenaNet has laid out for us.

Granted, that’s not always easy, we naturally tend to get emotional about things we care about, and I could certainly stand to better practice what I preach, myself.

But as long as we keep our eyes on the prize, (politely) hold ArenaNet to that vision and respect the fact that our fellow players can disagree (without necessarily being wrong), we won’t lose sight of what we care about most.

And that’s a goal worthy of us all.

+1

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

If you look at the number of times in the “advertising” words like vertical progression were mentioned, you’d find that the game was advertised on dynamic events, personal story, and active combat.

The number of times an aspect of a product is advertised is not relevant. If you own a store that sells men’s clothing and advertise ten times that your shirts cost $10 putting out one hundred advertisements that your jackets cost $100 does not negate the advertisement for your shirts.

Yes the Manifesto is a three year old video…one that is still presented on the game’s official site.

And the official Guild Wars 2 strategy guide still says that you get dye seeds and have to take them to an NPC in your home instance to grow them into dyes. Should they reprint it?

The strategy guide is a product not an advertisement. If it is faulty it might not be a bad idea to recreate it to be functional though.

Vayne.8563:

Everyone knows MMOs change. But what you did here was ignore everything else I’ve been saying. You’re doing what I’m accusing others of doing to the manifesto…taking one bit of what I said while ignoring the context. The context here is simple.

Nope. I am not ignoring anything. I am also keeping everything said in context.

Vayne.8563:

Now your example about a $10 sale is also very misleading. Because that’s something that’s immient. The sale is now. It’s not something that can be dated.

I didn’t say anything about a sale. In my example the product is listed as having a certain price, not a temporary price.

Vayne.8563:

If you tried to take Anet to court over it and prove false advertising, you’d lose. It really is that simple.

Reread my post and then point out where I claimed false advertising. All I responded to was your claim that if a company advertises aspect of a product X more frequently than Y that Y somehow becomes non advertised as an aspect of the product. My example existed solely to demonstrate that even advertising one aspect of a company’s product/service an order of magnitude more frequently than another aspect does not render that other aspect null.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

If you look at the number of times in the “advertising” words like vertical progression were mentioned, you’d find that the game was advertised on dynamic events, personal story, and active combat.

The number of times an aspect of a product is advertised is not relevant. If you own a store that sells men’s clothing and advertise ten times that your shirts cost $10 putting out one hundred advertisements that your jackets cost $100 does not negate the advertisement for your shirts.

Yes the Manifesto is a three year old video…one that is still presented on the game’s official site.

And the official Guild Wars 2 strategy guide still says that you get dye seeds and have to take them to an NPC in your home instance to grow them into dyes. Should they reprint it?

Everyone knows MMOs change. But what you did here was ignore everything else I’ve been saying. You’re doing what I’m accusing others of doing to the manifesto…taking one bit of what I said while ignoring the context. The context here is simple.

I think people have misintepreted the manifesto, by taking stuff out of context. They take one line, they ignore the previous and following line and then have the audacity to say that Anet advertised the game falsely.

Now your example about a $10 sale is also very misleading. Because that’s something that’s immient. The sale is now. It’s not something that can be dated.

In other words Anet went into tons of detail after the fact, the manifesto itself is pretty much still preventative of the game, and some people just choose to misinterpret it. If you tried to take Anet to court over it and prove false advertising, you’d lose. It really is that simple.

Anet wouldn’t even be asked to take the video down.

This is people who have an ax to grind blowing something completely out of proportion.

Anet stated very clearly (as every MMO does) that it owns the world and it’s entitled to change the game. Anet offered refunds for six months, which is very generous.

That’s ALL Anet is required to do. The most you could get is a refund which Anet offered in the first place.

This whole conversation about the manifesto is ridiculous and has been for the last year.

An MMO started up, made some changes. It happens all the time. Sometimes they change drastically.

Those who don’t like the changes say false advertising, those who like the changes say Anet has improved the product.

Shrugs. Keep believing it’s false advertising if you want. But I’m pretty sure a lawyer would disagree with you.

In the uk we have a csg time period, within this time scale we can return purchses for a full refund, outwith this we have an applicable guarantee or t+c, with games its a t+c, when you install the game you have to agree with the t+c to be able to play, in this t+c all company’s have a safety net and clauses to protect them, your own nothing and everything is subject to change, they don’t even have to guarantee a service.

From a legal stand point a-net are right, but it doesn’t change things, the manifesto doesn’t hold up, one simple quote ill use as an example “everything you loved about gw1”.

Behellagh.1468:

Mars.6319:

Colin Johanson spoke about ANet’s manifesto leading up to and during GW2’s beta program in early 2012.

In June 2012 Nexon invested in NCSoft and became NCSoft’s largest shareholder.

Around this time Crystin Cox, perhaps best known for her work at Nexon with Maplestory’s cash shop, became GW2’s monetization manager.

Is GW2 becoming more like GW1 or Maplestory?

Wrong! She was hired months (3/12) before Nexon purchase their share in NCSOFT (6/12) which was months before the game shipped. So she’s been in charge of the store since before the game went live.

The question you all should be asking is would it be worse, whatever slight you feel the Gem Store is doing to you or what it would be like if the exchange didn’t exist?. If everyone was forced to spend cash to get anything. How many $10 bank slots or $7.50 character slots would you have bought? or ~$1 keys? or $5-10 armor or city outfits?

That’s part of the problem. Imagine you’re Ms Cox, hired away from Nexon to run a cash shop and on day one they tell you players can buy items from the cash shop with in game currency. Basically that throws everything, every trick you know in running a true cash shop out the window. You now can’t make the items too cheap because then everyone will just use in game currency. But you are still stuck with not making them too expensive because then few will be able to buy it. She had to figure out new ways to motivate players into buying gems with cash.

Right now it looks like these little bursts of desirable items nearly all at once to deplete players gold reserves so they are forced to buy gems is the current strategy.

I didn’t mean to lay the blame solely on Ms Cox, I was just pointing out that Nexon had a huge influence on ANet in 2012… so much so that ANet hired a former Nexon employee to run their cash shop just 3 months before Nexon became the largest share holder of NCSoft stock… which doesn’t seem entirely coincidental.

GW2 is playable without buying gems and ANet has done a great job of providing us with new content. There are hundreds of MMOs out there and GW2 is my favorite of them all so ANet must be doing something right. Just the same I’m disappointed in various things like the way legendary weapons and ascended gear has been handled… as well as things like the infinite continue coin during the SAB fiasco… ugh. I’m also weary of the coming sPvP changes as the removal of the more or less worthless Glory while sPvP transitions to Gold means the coming changes will likely be opened up to monetization via Gem conversions.

I get that ANet needs to make money and don’t begrudge them that but the current drive to make buying gold via Gems desirable by making the acquisition of top tier gear painfully slow with the option of cashing out for instant gratification is a huge letdown.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

If you look at the number of times in the “advertising” words like vertical progression were mentioned, you’d find that the game was advertised on dynamic events, personal story, and active combat.

The number of times an aspect of a product is advertised is not relevant. If you own a store that sells men’s clothing and advertise ten times that your shirts cost $10 putting out one hundred advertisements that your jackets cost $100 does not negate the advertisement for your shirts.

Yes the Manifesto is a three year old video…one that is still presented on the game’s official site.

And the official Guild Wars 2 strategy guide still says that you get dye seeds and have to take them to an NPC in your home instance to grow them into dyes. Should they reprint it?

The strategy guide is a product not an advertisement. If it is faulty it might not be a bad idea to recreate it to be functional though.

Vayne.8563:

Everyone knows MMOs change. But what you did here was ignore everything else I’ve been saying. You’re doing what I’m accusing others of doing to the manifesto…taking one bit of what I said while ignoring the context. The context here is simple.

Nope. I am not ignoring anything. I am also keeping everything said in context.

Vayne.8563:

Now your example about a $10 sale is also very misleading. Because that’s something that’s immient. The sale is now. It’s not something that can be dated.

I didn’t say anything about a sale. In my example the product is listed as having a certain price, not a temporary price.

Vayne.8563:

If you tried to take Anet to court over it and prove false advertising, you’d lose. It really is that simple.

Reread my post and then point out where I claimed false advertising. All I responded to was your claim that if a company advertises aspect of a product X more frequently than Y that Y somehow becomes non advertised as an aspect of the product. My example existed solely to demonstrate that even advertising one aspect of a company’s product/service an order of magnitude more frequently than another aspect does not render that other aspect null.

I’m saying that if a company says something about an MMO a couple of years before launch, it’s possible that it will change. No company goes back through everything they’ve published and puts in every change. It would be prohibitive, particularly because of how often these games change.

You don’t have to agree…but whether you do or not, all MMOs change, and no one goes back and changes every video or every article in their blog.

Vayne.8563:

And the official Guild Wars 2 strategy guide still says that you get dye seeds and have to take them to an NPC in your home instance to grow them into dyes. Should they reprint it?

Everyone knows MMOs change. But what you did here was ignore everything else I’ve been saying. You’re doing what I’m accusing others of doing to the manifesto…taking one bit of what I said while ignoring the context. The context here is simple.

I think people have misintepreted the manifesto, by taking stuff out of context. They take one line, they ignore the previous and following line and then have the audacity to say that Anet advertised the game falsely.

Now your example about a $10 sale is also very misleading. Because that’s something that’s immient. The sale is now. It’s not something that can be dated.

In other words Anet went into tons of detail after the fact, the manifesto itself is pretty much still preventative of the game, and some people just choose to misinterpret it. If you tried to take Anet to court over it and prove false advertising, you’d lose. It really is that simple.

Anet wouldn’t even be asked to take the video down.

This is people who have an ax to grind blowing something completely out of proportion.

Anet stated very clearly (as every MMO does) that it owns the world and it’s entitled to change the game. Anet offered refunds for six months, which is very generous.

That’s ALL Anet is required to do. The most you could get is a refund which Anet offered in the first place.

This whole conversation about the manifesto is ridiculous and has been for the last year.

An MMO started up, made some changes. It happens all the time. Sometimes they change drastically.

Those who don’t like the changes say false advertising, those who like the changes say Anet has improved the product.

Shrugs. Keep believing it’s false advertising if you want. But I’m pretty sure a lawyer would disagree with you.

You keep citing the dye thing. At first is resonated, but I’ve been so conditioned to daily chores that, I think I’d be okay with that. After all I’d have had 365+ changes to account bound dyes. Not being able to buy them on the TP would be fine too, because the robber barons of the TP have all the wealth anyway.

I think that you are wrong, people didn’t misinterpret the manifesto. ANet changed directions. (The other quotes (cited above) taken at the same or similar times tend to support my position). The thing is. I think it’s fine for them to change position. It happens.

In fact, taking the position that ANet changed due to market forces is actually nicer to everyone. Your position seems to require that either a) ANet was intentionally misleading or b) I am too stupid to understand English.

Mars.6319:

Behellagh.1468:

Mars.6319:

Colin Johanson spoke about ANet’s manifesto leading up to and during GW2’s beta program in early 2012.

In June 2012 Nexon invested in NCSoft and became NCSoft’s largest shareholder.

Around this time Crystin Cox, perhaps best known for her work at Nexon with Maplestory’s cash shop, became GW2’s monetization manager.

Is GW2 becoming more like GW1 or Maplestory?

Wrong! She was hired months (3/12) before Nexon purchase their share in NCSOFT (6/12) which was months before the game shipped. So she’s been in charge of the store since before the game went live.

The question you all should be asking is would it be worse, whatever slight you feel the Gem Store is doing to you or what it would be like if the exchange didn’t exist?. If everyone was forced to spend cash to get anything. How many $10 bank slots or $7.50 character slots would you have bought? or ~$1 keys? or $5-10 armor or city outfits?

That’s part of the problem. Imagine you’re Ms Cox, hired away from Nexon to run a cash shop and on day one they tell you players can buy items from the cash shop with in game currency. Basically that throws everything, every trick you know in running a true cash shop out the window. You now can’t make the items too cheap because then everyone will just use in game currency. But you are still stuck with not making them too expensive because then few will be able to buy it. She had to figure out new ways to motivate players into buying gems with cash.

Right now it looks like these little bursts of desirable items nearly all at once to deplete players gold reserves so they are forced to buy gems is the current strategy.

I didn’t mean to lay the blame solely on Ms Cox, I was just pointing out that Nexon had a huge influence on ANet in 2012… so much so that ANet hired a former Nexon employee to run their cash shop just 3 months before Nexon became the largest share holder of NCSoft stock… which doesn’t seem entirely coincidental.

GW2 is playable without buying gems and ANet has done a great job of providing us with new content. There are hundreds of MMOs out there and GW2 is my favorite of them all so ANet must be doing something right. Just the same I’m disappointed in various things like the way legendary weapons and ascended gear has been handled… as well as things like the infinite continue coin during the SAB fiasco… ugh. I’m also weary of the coming sPvP changes as the removal of the more or less worthless Glory while sPvP transitions to Gold means the coming changes will likely be opened up to monetization via Gem conversions.

I get that ANet needs to make money and don’t begrudge them that but the current drive to make buying gold via Gems desirable by making the acquisition of top tier gear painfully slow with the option of cashing out for instant gratification is a huge letdown.

I once hired a former employee from another electronics store. That electronics store had nothing whatsoever to do with my store and nothing that employee did had anything to do with that store.

The key word here is former. Anet hired a former employee. That means someone worked for one company and came and worked for a new company. In this industry people move from company to company all the time.

In fact, Guild Wars was founded by three guys who came from Blizzard. Are you suggesting Blizzard had influence over how they developed Guild Wars?

frans.8092:

Mireles Lore.5942:

So what your saying is yes, because ascended armor is not easy to get… by your definition makes it a gear treadmill.

No, because it is a better best-in-slot then the previous best-in-slot. The previous best-in-slot was obtainable with regular play while the new best-in-slot require grind. And frankly, I find my daytime job more fun then MMO-grind.

Sorry not all of us feel that way, if they had said they planned to add more tier

They never said they planned for the current tier best-in-slot and I doubt they’d be announcing the next tier (or many would be waiting).

Ascended armor is not restrictive to content.

It will be, eventually. They’ll add new content (they already have added new content) balanced for the current best-in-slot.

The game needs some type of progression to be rewarded for playing or it wouldn’t even be a game.

You are contradicting your earlier statement about there not being a gear-treadmill by saying there must be progression for it to be a game.

On a side note, completing interesting challenges is enough for me, I find it a silly notion that there must be (gear) progression to make it a game.

Really great post totally agree, this is why i moved on as it was not the Guildwars 2 i was sold.

Vayne.8563:

In fact, Guild Wars was founded by three guys who came from Blizzard. Are you suggesting Blizzard had influence over how they developed Guild Wars?

If Blizzard became a significant shareholder three months after the company’s founding? I don’t think it would be out of bounds to give the move a suspicious glance.

Company takeovers have happened much more subtly for the record. I remember how a “former” employee of Electronic Arts became the president of a holding company, then sold Bioware to EA… then promptly was “rehired” by EA within months of the takeover.

The entire deal with Nexon could very well could simply all be coincidence (and one should also note that GW2 is nowhere NEAR “Pay to Win” unless you want to do some painful mental gymnastics)… but I do also think it’s a justified question to ask.

chemiclord.3978:

You’re assuming that would have been enough to placate the locusts (which I am dubious).

Oh, that’s the point – the locust simply cannot be placated, and trying to do so at the expense of more stable target group is always a bad idea. Those people did leave anyway, after all – ascended gear might have slowed some of them for a bit, but only for a bit. And only some of them. And if there are any of them remaining, it’s only because they haven’t had a game to move to yet – as soon as something like that appears, all the locust will be on the move.
No amount of ascended gear was ever going to make them stay.

Astralporing.1957:

chemiclord.3978:

You’re assuming that would have been enough to placate the locusts (which I am dubious).

Oh, that’s the point – the locust simply cannot be placated, and trying to do so at the expense of more stable target group is always a bad idea. Those people did leave anyway, after all – ascended gear might have slowed some of them for a bit, but only for a bit. And only some of them. And if there are any of them remaining, it’s only because they haven’t had a game to move to yet – as soon as something like that appears, all the locust will be on the move.
No amount of ascended gear was ever going to make them stay.

This is most likely true, but that still doesn’t solve the problem Arena.net has.

When your “stable audience” isn’t enough (and by all accounts I’ve received from the few people I’ve talked to, it wasn’t)… what do you do? Arena.net had already committed to the larger company with larger expenses and overhead.

Could they be lying to me when they say the veterans weren’t putting enough money into the system to keep it solvent? I mean… sure, they could be and at some point the whole company just got greedy. But I know a couple of these people quite well, and I don’t think they’d lie to me.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that in the months and years ahead, this game will become more and more like a traditional MMO, not because the developers particularly WANT it to be, but because it HAS to be to make the money they want it to. The customer block has spoken, just like it has spoken pretty much EVERY time someone wants to change the game…

“Nope. We want more of the same. Gimme gimme gimme now now now!”

I don’t think this game is going to evolve into a typical MMO. I think that Anet has made strides to compromise, because the original game, which I loved, wasn’t “sticky” enough. People really could just walk away and not come back.

Now, with the achievements and the living story, the game has gotten a new type of stickiness, something proven to keep a percentage of people. My guess is enough to fund the game.

Which means Anet won’t have to go the route of gear progression anymore, because they found another route to stickiness.

They can hold and on gain more players now and new players coming in will not have the changes to deal with that older players saw as a betrayal.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think this game is going to evolve into a typical MMO. I think that Anet has made strides to compromise, because the original game, which I loved, wasn’t “sticky” enough. People really could just walk away and not come back.

Now, with the achievements and the living story, the game has gotten a new type of stickiness, something proven to keep a percentage of people. My guess is enough to fund the game.

Which means Anet won’t have to go the route of gear progression anymore, because they found another route to stickiness.

They can hold and on gain more players now and new players coming in will not have the changes to deal with that older players saw as a betrayal.

Wouldn’t that be “devolve”?

I have to admit… I’m still completely in the fog as to how, in any way, shape or form, ascended gear is somehow violating the basic premise behind the manifesto. Yes, there’s a tier of gear with a time-effort behind it, that’s beyond doubt. However there is in no fashion at all anything even remotely resembling the gear treadmill grind so prevalent in other MMOs. When you look at the CDI discussions going on it’s rather clear that there is at the moment no intent to go beyond ascended “power” with the gear, otherwise there wouldn’t be so much discussion on how to progress your characters. With the archaic gear treadmills that is your progression, like it or not.

The problem is, again, people using a distorted definition of grind out of the proper context. If you choose the definition that grind means it takes a lot of time… well, ok, then you could say there’s grind. But if you use the intended definition in context it’s clear they were referring to the endless repetitive cycle of the treadmill where you spend time continually in a cycle of gear replacement as newer content is released. That does not exist in GW2.

VOLKON.1290:

I have to admit… I’m still completely in the fog as to how, in any way, shape or form, ascended gear is somehow violating the basic premise behind the manifesto. Yes, there’s a tier of gear with a time-effort behind it, that’s beyond doubt. However there is in no fashion at all anything even remotely resembling the gear treadmill grind so prevalent in other MMOs. When you look at the CDI discussions going on it’s rather clear that there is at the moment no intent to go beyond ascended “power” with the gear, otherwise there wouldn’t be so much discussion on how to progress your characters. With the archaic gear treadmills that is your progression, like it or not.

The problem is, again, people using a distorted definition of grind out of the proper context. If you choose the definition that grind means it takes a lot of time… well, ok, then you could say there’s grind. But if you use the intended definition in context it’s clear they were referring to the endless repetitive cycle of the treadmill where you spend time continually in a cycle of gear replacement as newer content is released. That does not exist in GW2.

Stop focusing on the exact language used in the Manifesto and look instead at the spirit behind it (and all the other interviews, blogs, vlogs, etc) and that fog in which you’re stuck will dissipate in an instant. It’s not about ascended gear, it’s about a wholesale change to the things that were supposed to set this game apart from the rest of the genre.

darkace.8925:

VOLKON.1290:

I have to admit… I’m still completely in the fog as to how, in any way, shape or form, ascended gear is somehow violating the basic premise behind the manifesto. Yes, there’s a tier of gear with a time-effort behind it, that’s beyond doubt. However there is in no fashion at all anything even remotely resembling the gear treadmill grind so prevalent in other MMOs. When you look at the CDI discussions going on it’s rather clear that there is at the moment no intent to go beyond ascended “power” with the gear, otherwise there wouldn’t be so much discussion on how to progress your characters. With the archaic gear treadmills that is your progression, like it or not.

The problem is, again, people using a distorted definition of grind out of the proper context. If you choose the definition that grind means it takes a lot of time… well, ok, then you could say there’s grind. But if you use the intended definition in context it’s clear they were referring to the endless repetitive cycle of the treadmill where you spend time continually in a cycle of gear replacement as newer content is released. That does not exist in GW2.

Stop focusing on the exact language used in the Manifesto and look instead at the spirit behind it (and all the other interviews, blogs, vlogs, etc) and that fog in which you’re stuck will dissipate in an instant. It’s not about ascended gear, it’s about a wholesale change to the things that were supposed to set this game apart from the rest of the genre.

That’s just the point, I am looking at the spirit behind it! It’s the people twisting the words and meanings into something unintended then claiming the manifesto has somehow been violated that are the problems.

Vayne.8563:

I once hired a former employee from another electronics store. That electronics store had nothing whatsoever to do with my store and nothing that employee did had anything to do with that store.

The key word here is former. Anet hired a former employee. That means someone worked for one company and came and worked for a new company. In this industry people move from company to company all the time.

In fact, Guild Wars was founded by three guys who came from Blizzard. Are you suggesting Blizzard had influence over how they developed Guild Wars?

Um… did the company that your new employee had worked for buy almost $700 million in stock from your company to become your company’s biggest shareholder? Did your new employee hold an influential position at their old company and gain an influential position at your company? If not then I don’t think your example is even remotely comparable.

VOLKON.1290:

That’s just the point, I am looking at the spirit behind it! It’s the people twisting the words and meanings into something unintended then claiming the manifesto has somehow been violated that are the problems.

If you are looking behind the spirit and still don’t see the problem, then you’re either disillusioning yourself into pretending everything is fine or you’re not looking behind the spirit at all.

Please Volkon, reread the extracts from the interviews.

We perfectly understood what they meant. It is you that is trying to distort the definition.
No grind for BIS means exactly that : no need to do repetitive tasks for obtaining BIS.
They thought it could work, it did not.

If they had said there would be no ducks in this game and later put some some, people would start excusing them by saying : “no, look, it’s not really a duck! And after all, they said there could be no ducks, but I am sure they meant no ducks to eat! And look! we can’t eat them!”

They said ‘no grind’. Period. This means no tedious repetitive tasks to obtain anything (unless it is cosmetic).

Now, I can understand this could not work with their model and had to review their copy, but it is useless to try to say that they meant something else. It is written everywhere. You only need to open your eyes and read.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think this game is going to evolve into a typical MMO.

It already has. And there’s no indication it won’t continue to do so.

Vayne.8563:

I think that Anet has made strides to compromise, because the original game

Compromise indicates two or more parties getting something to satisfy their wants and needs. What have those of us who bought into GW2 because it was supposed to be different from other MMOs got since release? Where’s the compromise?

Vayne.8563:

Now, with the achievements and the living story, the game has gotten a new type of stickiness, something proven to keep a percentage of people. My guess is enough to fund the game.

Your proof has been gathered in a vacuum. The real world isn’t a vacuum. I said long ago that once competition hits the market, many of the achievement/carrot chasing crowd would pack up and move on. Over the next six months, we’re all going to find out who was right: me or you/ArenaNet.

Vayne.8563:

Which means Anet won’t have to go the route of gear progression anymore, because they found another route to stickiness.

That remains to be seen. If people do move on when competition hits the market, there’s the very real possibility they’ll add another tier. And another. And another after that. If the gear treadmill worked before, then there’s nothing to dissuade them from going to that well again.

Vayne.8563:

They can hold and on gain more players now and new players coming in will not have the changes to deal with that older players saw as a betrayal.

Where are these new players going to come from? There are exceptions, but most games don’t add significant players/subscribers a year or more after launch. And I’m not sure why you think they’re going to hold onto what they’ve got. As I’ve said, competition is coming. And the mood both on the forums and in-game gives me the impression many players are burning out and approaching the point of walking away. You’re speculating that the game will not only retain the players it has, but add more. I’ve seen nothing that indicates either of those are assured.

VOLKON.1290:

darkace.8925:

VOLKON.1290:

I have to admit… I’m still completely in the fog as to how, in any way, shape or form, ascended gear is somehow violating the basic premise behind the manifesto. Yes, there’s a tier of gear with a time-effort behind it, that’s beyond doubt. However there is in no fashion at all anything even remotely resembling the gear treadmill grind so prevalent in other MMOs. When you look at the CDI discussions going on it’s rather clear that there is at the moment no intent to go beyond ascended “power” with the gear, otherwise there wouldn’t be so much discussion on how to progress your characters. With the archaic gear treadmills that is your progression, like it or not.

The problem is, again, people using a distorted definition of grind out of the proper context. If you choose the definition that grind means it takes a lot of time… well, ok, then you could say there’s grind. But if you use the intended definition in context it’s clear they were referring to the endless repetitive cycle of the treadmill where you spend time continually in a cycle of gear replacement as newer content is released. That does not exist in GW2.

Stop focusing on the exact language used in the Manifesto and look instead at the spirit behind it (and all the other interviews, blogs, vlogs, etc) and that fog in which you’re stuck will dissipate in an instant. It’s not about ascended gear, it’s about a wholesale change to the things that were supposed to set this game apart from the rest of the genre.

That’s just the point, I am looking at the spirit behind it! It’s the people twisting the words and meanings into something unintended then claiming the manifesto has somehow been violated that are the problems.

If you are looking at the spirit behind the Manifesto (and other propaganda) then you’re not looking nearly hard enough.

If you’re really looking at the spirit behind what’s been said then I’d like to get your thoughts on ArenaNet justifying the implementation of ascended gear by telling us “we didn’t expect players to get the best gear so quickly” after they’d gone on record saying “we think everyone, including casual players, should have the best gear by the time they hit level 80.”

If you’re really looking at the spirit behind what’s been said then I’d like to get your thoughts on ArenaNet saying they won’t have to “rush to add filler content designed to keep players logging in to chase carrots” before implementing a Living Story system that rushes to add filler content designed to keep players logging in to chase carrots.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. The point is if you’re not seeing why people are upset over not the verbiage of the Manifesto, but the spirit behind it and other interviews, blogs, and other promotional pieces then you’re just choosing NOT to see it.

BeoErgon.9107:

No grind for BIS means exactly that : no need to do repetitive tasks for obtaining BIS.
They thought it could work, it did not.

Could you explain why it didn’t work and what is different in the current system?

I thought the BIS weapon was legendary weapons.

Can’t you buy legendary weapons off the TP with real money by converting gems to gold?

Can’t you also buy time gated Ascended materials as well as crafting materials to level your crafting skill with real money?

So what exactly are we fixing by adding new tiers of gear and then making us choose between grinding out long lists of materials or buying them with real money? Why is this better?

Here’s the actual quote regarding “grind” from the manifesto.

“It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

This is how I’m playing the game right now. Yes, I’m working towards ascended armors and weapons, but I’m not forced into a grind in order to get these ascended pieces in order to have fun. I’m gathering materials from regular game play (primarily WvW), I’ll go and craft a bit when I’m in queue or just farting around before logging out, no rush, no pressure, playing at my own pace and there are no barriers to any progression or content anywhere in the game. If I chose to spend my days trying to rush ascended so be it, I have the choice, but again there’s nothing being forced upon me to progress.

This is why I say I’m looking at it from the words and the spirit of the manifesto and not seeing where they’ve gone awry. You can play how you want. You can simply go out and have fun and work towards ascended gear while doing so. There are no barriers with ascended gear present towards you playing how you want to play. Perfectly in line with the manifesto.

“What happened to the manifesto?”? Not a whole lot. The manifesto in and of itself doesn’t say much, turning out to be an odd infomercial for the game.

It’s more pivotal to look at the Manifesto in addition to the rest of their pre-release goals and desires, and yeah, not all of it currently ‘syncs up’.

I think the biggest deal is how GW2 is essentially following a free-to-play model. Once the box price is out of the way, the game then becomes entirely ‘free to play’. The concept sounds great on paper, regardless of the game. In actuality there’s a handful of strings attached permitting that game to be F2P, many of them affecting gameplay.

I don’t think GW2, or the way it’s gameplay is molded, is completely ‘no strings attached’. I think the biggest example of that is turning cash → gems → gold.

Mars.6319:

BeoErgon.9107:

No grind for BIS means exactly that : no need to do repetitive tasks for obtaining BIS.
They thought it could work, it did not.

Could you explain why it didn’t work and what is different in the current system?

I thought the BIS weapon was legendary weapons.

Can’t you buy legendary weapons off the TP with real money by converting gems to gold?

Can’t you also buy time gated Ascended materials as well as crafting materials to level your crafting skill with real money?

So what exactly are we fixing by adding new tiers of gear and then making us choose between grinding out long lists of materials or buying them with real money? Why is this better?

Legendary was not BiS actually. It had the same stats as exotics. As a result Legendary was a horizontal progression. You don’t need it to be (or to feel) competitive. You can work on it for month while doing other content.
After ascended introduction you have stats increase. This forces you to get it ASAP to have the same benefits in stats as exotics granted previously. This prevents you from doing other content (in most cases it’s psychological desire, but it doesn’t really matter. With one patch ANET made you a second class citizen considering initial game setup and manifesto). Or you can admit that manifesto failed and this game is the same as the others MMOs on the market now. In this case I’ll switch to another game as soon as will find a good one.

WRay.2391:

After ascended introduction you have stats increase. This forces you to get it ASAP to have the same benefits in stats as exotics granted previously. This prevents you from doing other content (in most cases it’s psychological desire, but it doesn’t really matter. With one patch ANET made you a second class citizen considering initial game setup and manifesto). Or you can admit that manifesto failed and this game is the same as the others MMOs on the market now. In this case I’ll switch to another game as soon as will find a good one.

Forces? Why? What can’t you do in the game without ascended stats? Is there new content that’s ascended only that I didn’t hear about?

Eh… no. You’re not forced into getting ascended. Maybe you think you are as a relic of past games where numbers were far more significant, but no, it’s ridiculous to claim that you’re being “forced” into ascended gear. If you want it, go for it. If not, nothing changes.

Forces. Sheesh.

VOLKON.1290:

WRay.2391:

After ascended introduction you have stats increase. This forces you to get it ASAP to have the same benefits in stats as exotics granted previously. This prevents you from doing other content (in most cases it’s psychological desire, but it doesn’t really matter. With one patch ANET made you a second class citizen considering initial game setup and manifesto). Or you can admit that manifesto failed and this game is the same as the others MMOs on the market now. In this case I’ll switch to another game as soon as will find a good one.

Forces? Why? What can’t you do in the game without ascended stats? Is there new content that’s ascended only that I didn’t hear about?

Eh… no. You’re not forced into getting ascended. Maybe you think you are as a relic of past games where numbers were far more significant, but no, it’s ridiculous to claim that you’re being “forced” into ascended gear. If you want it, go for it. If not, nothing changes.

Forces. Sheesh.

Emphasized the initial post to aide with reading comprehension.

TooBz.3065:

VOLKON.1290:

WRay.2391:

After ascended introduction you have stats increase. This forces you to get it ASAP to have the same benefits in stats as exotics granted previously. This prevents you from doing other content (in most cases it’s psychological desire, but it doesn’t really matter. With one patch ANET made you a second class citizen considering initial game setup and manifesto). Or you can admit that manifesto failed and this game is the same as the others MMOs on the market now. In this case I’ll switch to another game as soon as will find a good one.

Forces? Why? What can’t you do in the game without ascended stats? Is there new content that’s ascended only that I didn’t hear about?

Eh… no. You’re not forced into getting ascended. Maybe you think you are as a relic of past games where numbers were far more significant, but no, it’s ridiculous to claim that you’re being “forced” into ascended gear. If you want it, go for it. If not, nothing changes.

Forces. Sheesh.

Emphasized the initial post to aide with reading comprehension.

Emphasizing a falsehood doesn’t make it magically true.