Guild Wars 2

I have played…

UO
EQ2
WoW
Vanguard
CoH/V
CO
DDO
DCUO
SWTOR
DBZ Online(it exists look it up =P)
DFO
Vindictus
Tera
WAR

… i think a couple i am forgetting =P yep i like mmos! that said what does this game invoke? its hard to say its rather unique… that said reminds me quest wise of WAR if only slightly. Its combat feels like a watered down version of DCUO, its PVP i believe is more similar to Dark age of camelot though i never played that, it reminds me personally of WAR done a tad better.

However, that said CoH/V did the tankless system better, yes COULD use a tank in that game, and were healers but neither were required, with right group comp could easily handle any encounter. Additionally, pve invokes memories of demon souls… only demon souls with terrible telegraphs, cheap massive aoe circles, and dodge so limited that hardly have enough of it to avoid 25% of a bosses health let alone the whole fight.

I’ve played alot of mmos, and i’ve played ALOT of other games to i feel GW2 falls short of expectations…that said i love the lore, races, and world in question. The crafting is so enjoyable! but you want to know what game REALLY reminds me of? the devs remind me of DCUO devs…who managed to RUIN there game inside of a few months…

I hate to say but Anet is killing the game, and pve is just not any fun for me personally, and i just havent had urge to pvp yet though i hear thats much more fun. Thats my opinion personally… i like the game just feel were certain design choices were done horribly wrong.

DE’s as such are not a first (see Rift), but GW2 expands on it with chain events and more variety.

The big difference with both heart quests and dynamic events, versus traditional questing, is that players can join in half-way without any hassle whatsoever. In most other mmorpgs one can not join half-way (see GW1 instanced questing).

In addition the downscaling means level requirement for quests are greatly reduced.

Compared to most other mmorpgs these ‘innovations’ greatly promote the multiplayer aspect of “massively multiplayer online”, which for most players is the reason to play such games.

I can’t see innovation in GW2 at all, I think they actually went backwards.

Well, other than updating graphics. Trinity, which was made even worse… and skill customization which was made worse, more limited, etc. I guess innovation is just introducing new things… they don’t have to be done better, ya? I might understand the word wrong.

It’s like when I found out in MW3 I couldn’t turn aim assist off, a shotty autoaim that does nothing but hinder you and mess you up 24/7, I just think to myself… wat??? Backwards innovation? Less options? How is this good!? Am I being trolled!?

I have already written out a list of things I like and don’t like about GW2, but here’s a few regarding innovation:

Personalized loot

Not an entirely original idea but I do believe this is the way forward for MMORPGs from here on in. There was nothing more annoying than going through a three hour raid just to see that Big Hammer of Ownage being passed on to someone else, leaving you with nothing for your time invested.

Combos

The ability to create new, more powerful effects by working together across classes is a very cool idea that I would like to see more of.

Skills change based on what weapon you have equipped

This adds another layer of depth and strategy to the game (particularly pvp). This ties in with weapon swapping meaning you cannot go “Oh he has a 2 hander, he’s mortal strike spec” since they can actively swap skills and you have to stay on the ball.

DISCLAIMER: Like the OP my only experience with MMOs has been WoW; thereby these three ideas are probably not entirely original but certainly a step up from what I have seen so far.

the only thing i dont like about the heart system is that i like to read as much of the dialogue as i can except for the zones that my characters storyline doesnt take me to so ill have something fresh to experience when i choose another race and story that takes me to those zones. and sometimes ive had a heart quest pop up and an event near it or something and ill complete the quest before i get to read the heart givers dialogue. so i wouldnt get the background on it.

Innovation or not isn’t as important as change is to me, and there’s no question they changed the MMO experience. I spent years slumming it in the massive tide of WoW clones, disgusted that companies apparently could not get funding unless they agreed to mimic WoW in every way possible – even if the end results were invariably cheap knock offs.

GW2 has done a great job of getting us back on track in my opinion. In 1999 during my early MMO days it was staggering to even try and imagine what these games could evolve in to over the next decade, the creative possibilities were endless. If you’d told me then that soon enough I’d have to endure a nearly 10 year drought of every professional quality game miming one specific successful model (continually resulting in sub-par clones), and any further exploration of this genres limits would be put on hold, I simply wouldn’t have believed you.

To have a game that simply plays differently, or at least feels like a different experience to me than that inescapable clone spewing touchstone of what MMOs had become is more than enough for me. By creatively altering some long standing ‘rules’ for MMOs, they gave me a fresh experience.

That’s a huge change – if not innovation.

About the youtube video “slowing down gameplay”. Those events are fun for the first 1-5 times but after that it will ALWAYS stay the same. Thus its just an another repeatable quest. Also alot of these chain events are only played through once, simply because the follow up quest keeps repeating itself. For example taking one of the outpost in Cursed Shore. The event leading up to this will only come by after a server reset, after that the outpost will be defended by players camping the same events.

If only karma/ loot rewards were the same on all maps…

Hell everyone,

I will explain why I prefer GW2 to WoW and some other MMO games I’ve played. Short facts about my gaming ‘history’. I was playing WoW and old GW from the start back in 2005 (WoW was released in 2005 in Europe). In WoW I had many guilds (still leading one) and I have top notch gear and other rare items, including spectral tiger, ton of achievements and over 500k gold. I left WoW months ago, putting my friend as an acting GM and I am not planing to return to WoW. Why:
- GW2 is here!
- I am bored of tanking for the last 4 years and I am bored of healing for the last 7 years.
- I have a good life, job and many other RL activities so raiding once per week (and still downing HC bosses) is a pain.
- Managing DKP? WTF was that stupid thing with greed, roll, etc? Dumb mechanics that I hated from the day 0.
- Teaching people how to play. WOW is a simple and easy game but there are too many idiots playing it since it is a pop cultural phenomena.
- Only a few skills make sense, the rest you really use them.
- B O R I N G grinding. Quests, professions (specially Archeology)
- Meaningless professions, except JC and ‘sometimes’ cooking.
- Dumb talent tree. Too easy, yet looks like it takes a genius to apply it, oh wait… I meant to play it.
- 10% of players know how to play. The rest are just there to make servers laggy.
- Pet battle system… are you kidding me. How old is an average WoW player? 6?
- Pandas? I love Disney but not that much. KK, thx.
- HOLY TRINITY. Favoring classes, no freaking balance over 7 years.
- Warlocks… overpowered.
- Greed.
- Flying mounts? What are they good for? Everyone sits in SW or Org!
- Outdated graphics, models, textures. It is no longer 1999, please. I can still se hollow models while swimming.
- Rushing. You have this sense of urgency and the result is boredom.
- Arenas which were a bad copy of GW arenas. No proper balance. Yeah yeah…
- Did I mentioned greed?
- Soon you will have one skill, one button, one loot, I WIN!
- No diversity in combat, except you roll another class.
- No sense belonging… players us others to gain simply one thing and that is gear.
- Pay2play… I have invested in WoW (few accounts) over 5k euro in the last 7 years. I even payed subscriptions for 5 people who could not afford it. I am not sorry about it but it is enough.
- What did Blizzard do with billions of dollars? PANDAS who can do pet battles!!!
- They removed the world bosses, if you remember the dragons…
- Poor character customization. My characters had many twins. How can you relate to that… beats me.
- The best people @ Blizzard are graphics designers. They did a wonder of a kitteny 3D engine. Texture designers should be the last to be fired when the ship starts sinking.
- ETC… could write this for a whole day.

And why I love GW2:
- No greed, no DKP.
- No more tanking and dedicated healing. Hell yeah. I am no longer special because I can tank. Finally. Now everyone can be special because they can PLAY well!
- I play whenever I can and I don’t have a feeling that I let down someone.
- Superior combat system (skills, avoiding damage, constant movement)
- Amazing graphics!
- Challenging encounters. Oh and you need to move.
- CASTING WHILE MOVING <3
- M U S I C!!! OMG but Jeremy Soule did an amazing job for GW1 and they kept it, plus added more amazing music.
- Sounds! Listen on how the sound changes when you run trough different depths of water… for example.
- Fun professions! I love cooking!
- Gems, gold, karma!
- Trading post… well done.
- Rewarded for everything! So nothing feels like a time waste. You can easily get distracted with other activity.
- Dying! Worked well in GW1, even better in GW2.
- Character customization. I have not seen a single asura looking like mine.
- Micro transactions instead of Pay2Play. Earn for items in game (if you have too much time) or pay for the with real money. Sadly this has not stopped gold farmers for various reasons… but still…
- Dynamic events and chain events! Way better than in most games. And please don’t say WoW had them. Elementals running around once or some other “fun” stuff happening is not wort mentioning.
- ETC

GW2 wish list:
- Would love to see complex, hard, instances from GW classic, like Underworld and FoW, etc.
- Trading directly with players… mailing items is cool but sometimes trading is faster. That is a must.

GW2 is an amazing game, different than WoW and in some aspect (mentioned above) a much better game for me. And that is all that matters to me.

Enjoy your virtual worlds and have a nice day.

The main innovation is that things happen instead of us only reading about them. This has not been done in any MMO I can think of not even in any single player RPG I can think of. Not in Fallout, not in the Elder Scrolls, not in Mass Effect, not in GTA, nowhere. Things happen whether we are around or not. One action leads to another instead of just ending. This is new. And it’s big. People may not realize it because it is just so kitten good and smooth and natural. It’s only the first step but it gives a foundation to an entirely new breed of MMO’s in the future. We are seeing a revolution that is starting, people will look back in a couple of years and say this is where it started.

GW2 is a lot like Warhammer Online and Rift. Dynamic events, high amount of health and you do little damage.

Rift, last time I checked doesn’t have realm versus realm, but Warhammer does. GW2 copied the realm versus realm versus realm three way battle from DAoC.

GW2’s skill bar with each weapon set having skills might be considered an innovation, but isn’t this just organizing skills in folders? It doesn’t bring a whole lot to the MMO universe.

I have to say, GW2 has done nothing new.

GW2 has made it much easier for casuals to jump into the game than any other game before. That’s the only thing it does differently.

Valkaern.4763:

GW2 has done a great job of getting us back on track in my opinion. In 1999 during my early MMO days it was staggering to even try and imagine what these games could evolve in to over the next decade, the creative possibilities were endless. If you’d told me then that soon enough I’d have to endure a nearly 10 year drought of every professional quality game miming one specific successful model (continually resulting in sub-par clones), and any further exploration of this genres limits would be put on hold, I simply wouldn’t have believed you.

The issue is this:

199X: We’re making a cool complex game and hope you’ll all like it. If you don’t, well, that’s too bad.
Post-WoW era: Oh my God, someone doesn’t like our game!? We must make it enjoyable to EVERYONE, especially the huge amount of people WoW brought into the market.

I can’t say GW2 isn’t guilty of the latter either, it’s aimed at the same people, but after they’re tired of WoW and its clones. And it’s probably because of it that we get a lot of self entitled babies who create threads like “OMG I don’t like the game do something!”

Honestly, this actually isn’t that exclusive to MMORPGs, it just seems to be what happens when gaming became a ‘serious’ market with tons of consumers.

And then, we also get ultra demands for cutting-edge graphics, models and textures as well as having every single line in the game voiced, which slows down and limits available content.

I’ve been seeing people saying that GW2 is more “WoW-ified” than GW1.
I still don’t see that though, I’ve played both games.

The ways that GW1 was different was the combat system (GW2 is also different), the skill system (GW2 is also different), the world system (GW2 is also different) and the quest/mission system (GW2 is also different) also PvP.

Anyone mind explaining what you mean?

Also, I’ve been saying this since before beta, it’s an evolution not a revolution. Almost every mechanic it takes, it makes better.
The DE system is much better than RIFT’s.
The combat system is much better than DCUO’s.

Innovation in… pricing model.
That can be enough for some.

Well I think innovative may be a strong word so long as the XP / Level / Questing system is in place. Maybe evolutionary? There’s a lot in this game which isn’t new but is done differently – for better or worse.

The irony is the real evolutionary MMO I’ve ever played was the first one for me – UO. No quests, no levels, no XP. You leveled skills and stats rather than leveling your character as a whole.

GW2 Evolutionizes more than it Revolutionizes. However, it’s the highest production quality I’ve ever seen in a MMO to date. Tons of voice acting, quality art and graphics, fresh and exciting combat, and topped off with no subscription fee. It’s innovative in my mind, at least.

Like WOW did in 2004, GW2 takes a lot of good borrowed, adds in some of their own and wraps it up very nicely. Is that a bad thing? Certainly not.

The thing that stood out most as “fresh” is the lvl scaling, TP from anywhere, map completion design, and the nice edge graphic around the screen. Not competing for nodes or exp is also a nice touch.

Are dynamic events really dynamic? You can control the outcome, but in the end does the outcome matter all that much? Not really? Are the Karma items worth it compared to stuff on the TP? Nope. Will you care once you leave the zone? Not at all. Are they fun, yes, when they work. Did I do them in WAR and Rift? Yep I did. Are they better in GW2? A little bit.

The skills tied to weapons is different, but I don’t think it makes MMOs better at all. Neither does limiting everything to cool-downs instead of magic/enery pools. Limiting you to 10 active skills is also a step back as far as I’m concerned. Removing any real CC, healing or tanking is also a step back. You have far less control over a fight and NPCs just seem to act randomly and they do. There is no defined way to really KNOW what an NPC is going to do, which makes battle hectic and zerg-like.

AOE is also completely out of hand since everyone gets it. Spell effects are also too over the top. Works great in small groups or soloing. Its a complete disaster when 10+ players are in one spot. You simply can NOT see whats going on, which points back to how battles lose all their strategy, since if you can’t know exactly whats happening, you’re guessing too much. Maybe some people think guessing is strategy. I don’t.

DOTS are also way out of hand. Everyone should not have access to them. The same class should not have access to high dots and high DD, at least not at the same time. Its unbalanced. This goes back to how hectic and dissorganized battles can be.

As far as skill/spell combos…sorry I did those back in Phantasy Star 4 on the Genesis in 1994. When 2 characters cast a spell/skill at the same time, you get a new spell/skill. It was actually better back then because it was entirely new and unique, not just an extra effect added on. Its still nice to see them in a MMO though.

Oh yeah, the cities are also overly large for NO reason at all. Much of it for map objectives, but still its vast areas with NO PLAYERS. That says a lot. Its wasted space. Luckily you can warp around for free, but then you’re hitting loading screens, which is BAAAAAD. SPeaking a loading screens, there are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many. This is a MMO not a single player game. I shouldn’t be hitting loading screens between zones. Sorry. Blizzard did it, so ANET should be able to do it. DAOC sort of did it and the zone lines weren’t even defined, compared to little paths between the mountains. It breaks immersion and reminds you this is NOT 1 big world, just a bunch of zones slapped together with no real thought as to how they connect, like WAR. No synergy.

Oh well there’s more, but it would be a book=) Compared to WOW, I saw far more good things added back then, because what Blizzard removed were things I disliked in the first place. Everything they added made MMOs more fun. ANET added a few features, but they took away a lot of what I thought was good and replaced it with mostly inferior systems. OH well.

Edit: The Trading post NEEDS a filter by armor type, Light Med, Heavy… please. Sure, I can sift through everything, but why should I have to. If you made head, shoulders, boots, why not ONLY light Armor? Nah, thats too easy=)

[100% opinion and personal experiences]

I really enjoy GW2 so far. Yes, there’s a few things the devs are doing which, if not un-done will severely limit my longevity in the game, but I’ll not go into that here.

It’s interesting to me, some of the “Innovations” in game I actually saw, and saw them done better, in Tabula Rasa. I’m not saying GW2 does them poorly, just that TR did them better.

A few examples (quickly): AI dynamic raids against outposts. In TR, the outposts were much like they are in WvW. Players would man the walls and fight off wave after wave of AI that tried to capture the outposts. Losing the outpost meant losing a waypoint, merchants, and mission givers.
When the AI captured an outpost, it dug in. And players had to then re-take it. The AI would man the walls, turrents, etc just as the players had done.

Later levels had massive “walkers” that were as tall, if not taller than the Giants we see in Orr – but these things also attacked the outposts.

We never knew when such raids would happen. Only the sound of the raid sirens would alert us and the static sound of calls for help (NPCs) would let us know (if we were close enough).
TR did have it’s mission hubs like most MMOs, but the constant push and pull of the front lines made them more interesting as you never knew whether your goal would be over taken, and then turning it in often resulted in having to re-take the outpost.

I think another area that is often called on as Innovative goes to another title. No gear grind. I feel Champions Online takes the win here. You start your character exactly like you want them to look and can “finish” the game with mission rewards. Want to edge out a small % boost? There’s some top tier items players can grind out for. But it’s clear there, the goal is to get the players completely lost in the comic world and not solely focused on their own players “looks”. I’ve spent more money in Champions Online than any other MMO simply because I am pulled into it’s game world… and it has less content than most MMOs. – That one, simply made for “fun”.
Champions Online also had a Dynamic system in play. Flying around the city for example, one might suddenly see police cars swarm around a bank. Bank Robbery “Event” went into play. It was less scripted as a start time too. Sometimes I would see it twice a day, other times I wouldn’t see it for days. [Fair disclosure: I have not played Champions Online much since Perfect World got their mits on it. But that’s more for lack of time than many of the changes there]

As for GW2 brings. Well, I think it will eventually bring back that old open world feel once they get the kinks worked out. Exploring the world right now results in cool scenery, not much else. And that’s ok for now; but eventually I’ll want to know that finding some hidden nook will yield me “The Dragons Trove” of shinnies or that I’ve awoken a sleeping nasty.

Valkaern.4763:

Innovation or not isn’t as important as change is to me, and there’s no question they changed the MMO experience. I spent years slumming it in the massive tide of WoW clones, disgusted that companies apparently could not get funding unless they agreed to mimic WoW in every way possible – even if the end results were invariably cheap knock offs.

GW2 has done a great job of getting us back on track in my opinion. In 1999 during my early MMO days it was staggering to even try and imagine what these games could evolve in to over the next decade, the creative possibilities were endless. If you’d told me then that soon enough I’d have to endure a nearly 10 year drought of every professional quality game miming one specific successful model (continually resulting in sub-par clones), and any further exploration of this genres limits would be put on hold, I simply wouldn’t have believed you.

To have a game that simply plays differently, or at least feels like a different experience to me than that inescapable clone spewing touchstone of what MMOs had become is more than enough for me. By creatively altering some long standing ‘rules’ for MMOs, they gave me a fresh experience.

That’s a huge change – if not innovation.

With regard to the bold sentence, I would say that perhaps this is GW2’s main appeal: the fact that it is different than the stuff we’re used to (if not this, then the subscription fee).

However, I do want to say that being different or unique isn’t necessarily a good thing. If someone made a peanut butter enchilada ice cream sandwich, he would definitely be making something new and fresh, but I would rather try the stake and potatoes thank you very much.

My point is that yes, Guild Wars 2 does feel fresh (though familiar in some aspects). But is this freshness a gimmick? Or is it based upon something more deep and substantial?

Let me provide an analogy of food, with WoW being an orange:
Is GW2 an apple? (a completely different thing/genre—this is not the answer, I think)
Is GW2 a mandarin orange? (still an orange, but slightly more sour and sweet)
Is GW2 orange juice? (still an orange, perse, but in an alternative form)
Is GW2 simply an actual orange? (Same basic stuff, maybe has some gimmicks)

Let this be a spectrum in which GW2 can fall in between, rather than a this or that.

Untouch.2541:

I’ve been seeing people saying that GW2 is more “WoW-ified” than GW1.
I still don’t see that though, I’ve played both games.

The ways that GW1 was different was the combat system (GW2 is also different), the skill system (GW2 is also different), the world system (GW2 is also different) and the quest/mission system (GW2 is also different) also PvP.

Anyone mind explaining what you mean?

Also, I’ve been saying this since before beta, it’s an evolution not a revolution. Almost every mechanic it takes, it makes better.
The DE system is much better than RIFT’s.
The combat system is much better than DCUO’s.

I like the way you worded it. Not that I agree with you (again, I still need to try it for myself), but that I think you worded the whole innovation vs. creative rendition idea that others have been discussing in a concise and understandable way.

Speaking for myself, it relieves me of the psychological compulsion to treat quests like shopping lists that I’ve got to tick off. It also makes me more interested in the backstory of the quests themselves (rather than just clicking through text, then arriving at the quest area and wondering what I’m supposed to be doing).

For me, that’s HUGE.

Basically the virtual world feels much more dynamic and alive than in any MMO I’ve ever played. As I wander around, I have much more of a sense that the NPCs are living their own lives, rather than just being static decoration.

GW2 isn’t innovative, its different.

They do a horrible job of dismissing the holy trinity.

Also they made anti-social players interact with others, however, they also made social players have less social activities to take part in. The whole game is a “do everything on your own, but with other people!” mentality. I’ve been saying this since launch.

gurugeorge.9857:

Speaking for myself, it relieves me of the psychological compulsion to treat quests like shopping lists that I’ve got to tick off. It also makes me more interested in the backstory of the quests themselves (rather than just clicking through text, then arriving at the quest area and wondering what I’m supposed to be doing).

For me, that’s HUGE.

Basically the virtual world feels much more dynamic and alive than in any MMO I’ve ever played. As I wander around, I have much more of a sense that the NPCs are living their own lives, rather than just being static decoration.

Thank you for this reply. I honestly got goosebumps reading your post—I felt that passion!

I wholeheartedly agree. It is a very HUGE accomplishment when the quests/events.

The reason I got inspired was because I actually know how you feel, having played WoW myself. Their quests do feel like grocery lists (I prefer this term over shopping lists). Eventually, you become so concerned with getting each item in the “basket”, so to speak, that you forget to enjoy other things or perhaps even the quest themselves.

I don’t experience this when I quest on GW2 because there’s no progress to remain viable: the sense that if I miss one day of daily or JP/VP grinding, I might not meet the maximum quota and I will therefore be behind.

I’ve now reached level 17, and I do not at all feel this overwhelming pressure to get to 80 lest I miss all the good stuff. The good stuff is right there in my face, waiting to be oogled at.

There’s many things that are innovative about the game.

1- There’s never been a game that is so extremely restrictive. Look through the forums and you will constantly see fans shooting down anyone saying bad things about the game with this line “You aren’t playing it right”. And it’s very true, there is a ‘right’ way to play the game because the whole campaign about ‘playing how you want to’ was a load of bunk.

You can’t farm unless you ‘do it right’. You can’t dungeon unless you ‘do it right’, down to the point where people think the abundance of bosses that nearly force melee to go ranged for them is a good thing.

The game is more about dying in the right place so you can be combat rezzed easily, and dodge kiting than actual combat/class mechanics- because of the loss of holy trinity. It is why you never see discussion on using class abilities in dungeon discussions because the classes barely matter- your ability to evade tank/rez does. Meaning, this game is nice for those who like to evade tank to often poorly telegraphed moves, or like the rez zerg- or like standing back and spamming 3-5 ranged attacks.

2- Never played a game that thought they could put starting zones tasks halfway through the game. There is so little variation in what you do for hearts and events- kill x, gather y, escort z. And in level 50 zones I’m still killing bandits and checking crab traps- the game has zero feeling of epic beyond a few events and the world bosses.

And the grind is completely encompassing the game too- simply put, enemies have too much health, so it always feels like you’re fighting an elite enemy… even when you’re high level killing a boar or an insect swarm. That might sound nice, but it gives no feeling that you ever are doing anything different- if I want to go back and do earlier quests, it’s the same slogging through enemies it is at same level. Go to dungeons and it’s considerably worse. The game has completely missed the mark on fast, varied gameplay, dungeons all feel like I’m in Molten Bore dealing with giants- where’s the fun, varied gameplay?

Thing is, I’m all for having no loot progression, so this isn’t a ‘oh you just want to play for loot, this game is for fun’, no, this is a game that feels like a grind at all times- except there is no pot of gold at the end of that grinding rainbow, just more grind. And it feels like whether I’m in a dungeon, starting zone or at endgame I’m doing the exact same thing- even more so than other mmos. The scope changes slightly in level 80 zones- but until then the game is just slogging through it.

3- Running everywhere- sure, you have expensive fast transport, but for those who travel a lot and don’t want to have to engage in the poorly implemented trading post (or, cannot because it is down half the time), it’s going to eat your money fast because it goes up in cost much faster than the rate of earning cash goes up. This, in a world that is extremely huge makes even walking a dull grind- no mounts in this game, why put in something convenient.

Overall- this game has tried too hard to be unique by removing anything that has variety in it and streamlining the entire game into a massive, rewardless grind. It missed its mark, and it’s disappointing that so many of the things we were promised went up in smoke- but, as an mmo player I’ve gotten used to disappointments like this game.