Guild Wars 2

Ballistic.4531:

Fortuna.7259:

show me a bird that does not ever do so.

Penguins.

(sorry, I just couldn’t resist)

Cute, but off the mark. The question is about a bird that flies without ever flapping its wings, not about one that doesn’t fly.

Show me an argument where something you are arguing (grind is to be expected) FOLLOWS from the other properties of GW2. Because honestly your argument by association is far from conclusive.

You’re right that my argument isn’t conclusive. I can’t show you a situation in which a certain set of design decisions MUST lead to the introduction of vertical gear progression, probably because this situation doesn’t exist. My reasoning is not deductive; it is, admittedly, inductive. I’m not constructing a logical syllogism; I’m…submitting a possible and plausible explanation.

I think it actually does matter if they were taking minor risks and sticking to convention. It’s a matter of attitude. The attitude of the manifesto was radical, was revolutionary, clamored for change and insisted with powerful (and believable!) confidence that they can do things differently, and that they were not willing to settle for the safety of precedence, and they were eager to challenge convention and make mistakes in the name of advancing the genre.

The attitude expressed in the manifesto—radically optimistic, aggressive—is not evident in the design of the final product. Upon close scrutiny, Guild Wars 2 is a modestly unconventional game.

My argument isn’t empirical, because I have no conclusive evidence; my argument is rhetorical: Guild Wars 2 leaned toward conventional game design in nearly every major element—leveling, crafting, combat, trait lines, zone design. It is a cautiously designed game, cautious in its innovations. Even the Ascended gear was introduced with caution, in small, limited portions (a ring and a back piece) and with hesitant optimism.

Doing away with vertical gear progression is a radical shift. It’s wildly innovative and blatantly contrary to the entrenched habits of half a decade of MMO design. Making a free to play AAA quality MMORPG with over ~2 million initial sales and absolutely no endgame gear progression requires guts. It is a huge, radical risk.

You’re right that my argument isn’t conclusive, but I hope it’s persuasive: Are you really that surprised that a game as cautious in its innovations as Guild Wars 2 was never able to fully embrace a notion as wildly radical as eliminating gear progression?

If your answer is “Yes,” then I respect that, but I think it’s an important question to ask. If you’re willing to hold ANet’s feet to the fire over Ascended gear, then you should be willing to grill them about every other area of the game.

The existence of exotics alone a sidestep from their original philosophy. Ascended gear and beyond is just a discussion of magnitude.

Fortuna.7259:

Ballistic.4531:

Fortuna.7259:

show me a bird that does not ever do so.

Penguins.

(sorry, I just couldn’t resist)

Cute, but off the mark. The question is about a bird that flies without ever flapping its wings, not about one that doesn’t fly.

It’s a technicality and meant as a joke, but touché!

Fortuna.7259:

Eveningstar.6940:

Like I said in an earlier page, I have to take an opposing position in order to try to look at things rationally. To that end I’m perfectly happy to admit I’m wrong in my assertion that MMORPGs are categorically and essentially defined by having gear progression. But that’s the kind of conversation I’m really hoping we can have as a community after this fiasco blows over: Was the Manifesto realistic in the first place?

In what way are you suggesting it was not realistic? By what measure and standard?

It’s a rhetorical question. A manifesto is by definition idealistic—otherwise what’s the point of having one? I used the question rhetorically, as a transition to the more important question: What went wrong?

Eveningstar.6940:

And if it was, where did Guild Wars 2 go wrong? Because my feeling is that it wasn’t with Ascended armor and Infusion slots. It had to have happened before that, somewhere in the prototype stage, during which the developers decided to have a combat system, a crafting system, a trait system and a leveling system which were more like variations of the mainstream rather than something radically new.

You think so? What then is inherent about those systems that require a perpetual gear treadmill? You are making no case for any connection whatsoever.

There is no requirement, but a gear treadmill comes from the same school of conventional MMO design from which GW2 never really divorced itself. The fruit didn’t far fall from the tree. GW2 was never all that radically different a game to begin with, so why are we that surprised they’ve introduced gear progression?

If ANet let you down, they let you down way before Ascended Armor even became a thing.

Eveningstar.6940:

You’re right that my argument isn’t conclusive. I can’t show you a situation in which a certain set of design decisions MUST lead to the introduction of vertical gear progression, probably because this situation doesn’t exist. My reasoning is not deductive; it is, admittedly, inductive. I’m not constructing a logical syllogism; I’m…submitting a possible and plausible explanation.

Your reasoning just isn’t sound.

A is a duck.
B is a duck.
B has property C.
B has property D.

If A has property C, then it will also have property D.

This doesn’t follow. In the absence of any reason to believe D follows from C, talking about ducks and such is just smoke and mirrors.

Disproving that D doesn’t follow from any property that A has is essentially impossible. So you can continue your questioning all day long. But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I seriously think not.

I think I get what you’re saying. You’re suggesting that just because GW2 resembles conventional MMORPGs by design doesn’t necessarily mean it must have gear progression, right?

And that’s fine. But I’m not saying GW2 must have gear progression. I’m saying it isn’t terribly surprising that they went ahead and implemented some version of gear progression. Doing away with gear progression altogether requires guts. It’s a radical shift in design philosophy. But this game is relatively conventional in just about every other way. It didn’t innovate much in combat, exploration, leveling, or storytelling, so in retrospect, it isn’t that surprising that they didn’t innovate with their gear progression either.

This doesn’t follow. In the absence of any reason to believe D follows from C, talking about ducks and such is just smoke and mirrors.
Disproving that D doesn’t follow from any property that A has is essentially impossible. So you can continue your questioning all day long. But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I seriously think not.

See, that’s the thing. You’re assuming I’m saying gear progression is absolutely inevitable. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying it’s sadly unsurprising . There’s a big difference.

We can continue the duck motif if you want: If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck. If it levels like a conventional MMO, tells a story like a conventional MMO, crafts gear like a conventional MMO, designs zones like a conventional MMO, deals with combat like a conventional MMO, then it’s probably more like a conventional MMO than we think, and it just might have some gear progression like a conventional MMO.

This is an inference. It’s a personal reflection on the situation in retrospect. I can’t provide you with any solid evidence, and if that means I can’t persuade you, then that’s fine. I respect that.

Eveningstar.6940:

Fortuna.7259:

Eveningstar.6940:

Like I said in an earlier page, I have to take an opposing position in order to try to look at things rationally. To that end I’m perfectly happy to admit I’m wrong in my assertion that MMORPGs are categorically and essentially defined by having gear progression. But that’s the kind of conversation I’m really hoping we can have as a community after this fiasco blows over: Was the Manifesto realistic in the first place?

In what way are you suggesting it was not realistic? By what measure and standard?

It’s a rhetorical question. A manifesto is by definition idealistic—otherwise what’s the point of having one? I used the question rhetorically, as a transition to the more important question: What went wrong?

Eveningstar.6940:

And if it was, where did Guild Wars 2 go wrong? Because my feeling is that it wasn’t with Ascended armor and Infusion slots. It had to have happened before that, somewhere in the prototype stage, during which the developers decided to have a combat system, a crafting system, a trait system and a leveling system which were more like variations of the mainstream rather than something radically new.

You think so? What then is inherent about those systems that require a perpetual gear treadmill? You are making no case for any connection whatsoever.

There is no requirement, but a gear treadmill comes from the same school of conventional MMO design from which GW2 never really divorced itself. The fruit didn’t far fall from the tree. GW2 was never all that radically different a game to begin with, so why are we that surprised they’ve introduced gear progression?

If ANet let you down, they let you down way before Ascended Armor even became a thing.

I saw this coming when I logged into Beta and saw that armor now had stats…

Eveningstar.6940:

It’s a rhetorical question. A manifesto is by definition idealistic—otherwise what’s the point of having one? I used the question rhetorically, as a transition to the more important question: What went wrong?

Guild Wars was released in the Spring of 2005. Which means it was well into its development before World of Warcraft hit the scene. It was meant to challenge many of the conventions that existed at the time, both in terms of design and business model, and it truly did so. The studio that delivered it was founded by folks who had departed Blizzard and they had some Big Ideas. They had an agenda, they had a plan.

Since then, a great deal has changed. The Warcraft phenomenon unfolded. MMOs started genuinely failing, which created an increased air of risk around launching one. The industry in general became more conservative and franchise-focused. And the Metacritic score continued to rise in prominence as the Almighty Arbiter of Success and Failure, which in turn fed into the truly dysfunctional relationship between the industry and gaming journalism.

Today, it’s all about the hype, yo. You might be surprised, dismayed, and even distressed to learn just how much control marketing can have in design and development, even from the very beginning of the process.

Meanwhile, closer to home (virtually speaking) we have NCSoft. It’s a powerhouse in its native market. But in the American market… not so much. The West represents only a tiny sliver of its profits. Its footprint here is quite modest. ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2 offered a serious path to expansion of its market share, so it invested a great deal into the title. That no doubt translated into a tremendous amount of pressure being brought to bear on the studio. Add to this NCSoft’s recent financial woes, and the pressure would’ve only increased. For the distributor, ANet is essentially the only game in this particular town. A lot has been riding on it. The studio is assuredly expected to deliver results. Big results.

Keep in mind also that NCSoft has its own ideas about what makes a successful MMO, and those ideas are informed by the Korean market, which is notoriously grindtastic.

So, what went wrong? A whole lot of things. It’s just a completely different landscape today and, frankly, it’s kinda broken. It in no way resembles the environment in which Guild Wars was born. All the dynamics have changed.

Of course, it’s possible that none of the above has had any influence at all on GW2’s development or on ANet’s priorities. But I’m intimately familiar with corporate culture, and I have windows of insight into the gaming industry in particular. I highly doubt ANet’s principles dodged all, or even most, of these bullets.

Hydrophidian.4319:

Keep in mind also that NCSoft has its own ideas of what makes a successful MMO, and those ideas are informed by the Korean market, which is notoriously grindtastic.

Yup.
Now here’s my point.
If that model worked well here, NCSoft would already have a presence here. It does not, they do not.
If they were smart, they would have let a company that HAS been successful here BE successful here.. but nobody is ever smart.

It’s like getting lost, asking for directions, and then interjecting with your own directions. The ones that got you lost in the first place.

Now they’re both lost.

Even if gear progression is the conventional norm in the MMO scene, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s required for the game to be successful. As many have pointed out already, here and elsewhere, it is often incorporated into this genre due to WoW without considering whether it is the source of its success or not. It reminds me of how culture works with humans in general: that if it works (and by “works”, I mean the purely Darwanian sense in that the population is reproducing), people will follow the culture entirely even if bits of it are counterproductive to survival of the population.

On top of this, ANet themselves claimed that ANet is founded to innovate, and that they want it to show in GW2. Is GW2 conventional? In many ways, yes. Does this mean they should carry over all the stereotypical aspects of the conventional MMO, regardless of the individual “good” of each aspect? I think not. And for a long time, I had felt that they struck a good balance between what they do take from other games and what they innovate themselves, because, after all, being able to appeal to a larger group of people by incorporating familiar elements without compromising the integrity of the game is almost always a good thing in MMO, as it creates a healthy population. This is why that I, a long time follower of franchise, felt that GW2 was very promising, despite its resemblance to the conventional MMO.

Hydrophidian.4319:

snip

Probably the best explanation as to why this is happening.

Nerth.3940

Your guitar playing analogy would make sense if you would have to have a better, more expensive guitar to be able to play more complicated songs. You don’t, a guitar wizz can play anthing on the cheapest guitar he can find. No matter how expensive your guitar is, if you are bad you won’t be able to play those songs.

You’ve just described a horizontal progression where your skill alone is a factor in your progression. Better amplifiers, guitars, effects, etc provide you with a different/better sound but that’s subjective and personal preference.

If you can’t play not even the most expensive guitar in the world will make you a good guitar player. Practice will.

warmonkey.8013

You mention you play guitar.

When tackling a song that’s very hard to play, do you ever find your equipment is what prevents you from playing it (aside from, y’know, if it requires effect peddles or that neat thing that Frampton sticks in his mouth or a 7-string with splayed frets like Charlie Hunter)?

I’m guessing no.
I’m guessing that as YOUR skill increases, so does your ability to play harder and harder songs. Your guitar isn’t holding you back — at worst, it might look chintzy and sound bad, but getting a better one wouldn’t change the fundamental fact that it is YOUR ABILITY ALONE that determines what you can or cannot play.

That’s all I was looking for here. Not just another game where skill is determined by your gear, where player ability is meaningless and all that counts is your gearscore.

The 2nd post answers the 1rst one. I agree with both of you. Having an expansive guitar doesn’t make you a better player. But that’s not what I implied and it’s my fault for not going into details.

One of my favorite bands is Scale The Summit. They use 8-string guitars. I have 6. I can play their songs with my 6 strings, but I have to substitute every note that would be played on either the 1rst or 8th string. Usually that means the note is an octave higher or lower or on another string. There’s a big difference in feel to the ear as the same note on different string have different frequency content.
My guitar has no tremolo (a bridge with an arm that allows you to pitch the note up or down and do all kinds of crazy spooky sounds). That means I can’t do a “divebombs” or other tremolo techniques (Slayer – Reign In Blood).
I don’t have a “killswitch” either (Rage Against The Machine – Know Your Enemy). That’s just not doable with a pedal tremolo, which is automatic.
Pedals, fx, Stompboxes: I don’t need them to play my guitar, but it extends the range of sounds I can make and so, the music I can make. Music is very emotionally charged. FX don’t just sound cool, they have a tangible purpose within a song, just like the rhythm, the melody and the tone of the instrument. Without them, the song will sound dull and bland. Ever noticed how many guitars professionals can have? It’s not because they just can. Each has its own “personality” and is used for different songs. A Fender Stratocaster does not sound at all like a Gibson Epiphone. Just like a cheap strat doesn’t come close to what an expansive strat sounds like. It’s a matter of quality of the components = quality of sound.

Everyone of these things makes a song more complex (as opposed to complicated) and requires more components (higher cost for making the instrument) and requires more ability to coordinate the different techniques.

While my ability accounts for the greater part of what I can or cannot play. My gear allows me to put that ability to a greater field of uses.

You don’t get better at guitar because you have a more expansive guitar. You don’t get any better at playing because you have more expensive gear. Wait, we’re not talking about cost are we? You get better because your arsenal is more expensive. Notice the change from A to E. The first one meaning “costly”, the 2nd meaning “bigger, larger”.

Farming gear is akin to practicing playing the guitar: everyone can have it, they just have to put the time into it. Ascended gear is just that, it’s a new pedal fx that you didn’t have and that has its own uses (agony and FotM dungeon higher difficulties).

(…)

(…)

But be all that as it may, (if it’s a wrong analogy or not, I just thought I should explain why I thought it was fitting), I think Anet should be upfront about making these kinds of changes. A sort of “hey guys, sorry but the horizontal progression thing…it’s just not working out…”.
I think it’s too early to be getting new gear. I just got my guild backpack, which was the best back item available. Now, it’s not.
I’d be content if the new gear could at the very least not be useable in WvW. Through something like adjusting player level to the zone they’re in. Maybe make players with Ascended gear suffer from agony while using it in WvW? * Evil *
Players with full ascended will have a noticeable advantage which I’m not sure just how well it can be bridged by player skill.

In the end though, hoping for no gear progression is a bit naive. It’s gonna happen. It would make for a repetitive and boring game. The question is: how fast should it happen and by how much?
Regardless of what the manifesto implied or “promised”. I’ll say it again: Ideals don’t work well in Reality.
Democracy works well as an ideal. By the people, for the people…everyone happy, right? In reality, it’s by the majority, for the majority. The rest can just suck it up until the next election and hope their demographic don’t get screwed too much in the meantime.
A static world goes against the “dynamic event” philosophy behind the game. So, how else would you add incentive to play, without better stats/abilities and harder dungeons and bosses? With new challenges, you need better tools to work against them, otherwise you’re at a disadvantage. You’d quickly get overwhelmed and skill would be useless without the means to counter it. But we have a chance to counter players with better gear: it’s also available to us.

How can you maintain the status quo when things, by themselves, tend towards change?

I long for a game where devs would listen to players and make the game evolve based on player needs. But that’s just an ideal. And ideals…well…

Because every single person who grew to love guild wars 1… The group of players who were loyal, bought every expansion, bought into the ideals and the concept, who truly stuck by the game through the good and the bad, those players who trusted ANet, just got metaphorically punched in the face and told to suck it up.

Plain and simple. If I made this great new invention that was able to regrow hair in balding men permanently. It was natural, it was great. The downside was, the hair didn’t grow past a certain length, but other than that, it was perfect. Then one day I realize, well, once people buy this and use it, I don’t make any more money again. So I somehow forcibly retroactively altered my product to diminish in quality, even on those who have already used it, thereby forcing people to buy more of my product. If you were one of those people I lied to up front, that had bought my product, had loved my product, then woke up one day and realized your hair is now falling back out and you need more of my product, wouldn’t you be PISSED?

I’m glad some people like the gear grind. Go play an MMO which was designed to have a gear grind. Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 were not (or at least, that’s what they told us). We, the Guild Wars 1 fans, who stood by ANet and Guild Wars 1, are now PISSED. I would venture to say, likely over 90% of us are (though this is entirely speculation and in no way factually supportable with information I have at my disposal).

populationcontrol.5072:

(…)

But be all that as it may, (if it’s a wrong analogy or not, I just thought I should explain why I thought it was fitting), I think Anet should be upfront about making these kinds of changes. A sort of “hey guys, sorry but the horizontal progression thing…it’s just not working out…”.
I think it’s too early to be getting new gear. I just got my guild backpack, which was the best back item available. Now, it’s not.
I’d be content if the new gear could at the very least not be useable in WvW. Through something like adjusting player level to the zone they’re in. Maybe make players with Ascended gear suffer from agony while using it in WvW? * Evil *
Players with full ascended will have a noticeable advantage which I’m not sure just how well it can be bridged by player skill.

In the end though, hoping for no gear progression is a bit naive. It’s gonna happen. It would make for a repetitive and boring game. The question is: how fast should it happen and by how much?
Regardless of what the manifesto implied or “promised”. I’ll say it again: Ideals don’t work well in Reality.
Democracy works well as an ideal. By the people, for the people…everyone happy, right? In reality, it’s by the majority, for the majority. The rest can just suck it up until the next election and hope their demographic don’t get screwed too much in the meantime.
A static world goes against the “dynamic event” philosophy behind the game. So, how else would you add incentive to play, without better stats/abilities and harder dungeons and bosses? With new challenges, you need better tools to work against them, otherwise you’re at a disadvantage. You’d quickly get overwhelmed and skill would be useless without the means to counter it. But we have a chance to counter players with better gear: it’s also available to us.

How can you maintain the status quo when things, by themselves, tend towards change?

I long for a game where devs would listen to players and make the game evolve based on player needs. But that’s just an ideal. And ideals…well…

It’s not naivety, it was wrongly placed trust in a developer based on the precedence set by that developer in its previous presentation, and the belief that it would stand by its own words.

Guild Wars 1 succeeded without ever increasing the gear. Not once did it. That game is literally the only argument needed against every single person who claims “gear increases are inevitable”.