Guild Wars 2

I love Guild Wars 2. I bought it and played the beta and then played the crap out of it after launch. I played every single race and class and decided I wanted to focus on a guardian. I did. I got to 80, did a bunch of world completion, got my dungeon gear, played a bunch of WvW and PvP. I’m sure the die hards and the people who are still infatuated with the game will take offense to this question:
What is being done to keep people playing this game? I ask because I’m concerned.

People consume content. Content gets stale. To keep people playing the game, it must provide them with enough permutations of play content to allow them to want to keep logging back in. Especially with a game such as this where it’s free to play, and easy to leave. The bottom line is that they need to expand the game and fast. They need more content; they need expansions; they need more features. Yeah, I know most people hate comparing the game to other MMOs, claiming that it’s “not that game” (see discussions about a dungeon finder feature). But the bottom line is that if you’re buying a car, and you for sure want a car that has heated seats, then you’re only going to buy a car with heated seats. No brainer. It’s not about whiney WoW players coming in and ruining your “perfect” Guild Wars 2 experience. Guild Wars 2 itself has shown that there are many many features and aspects of an MMO that can be revisited, and it’s for those reasons that many other MMOs are ruined for me. Take ability mechanics, for instance. GW2 rewrote the book when it made ONE bar that IT controls. How awesome is that?! Do you know how much time I waste in other MMOs configuring my stupid ability bar????

So my question is: considering how awesome so many things about GW2 are, why would they let an awesome game with heated seats die just because there’s no more road to drive? In case you’re too thick to figure out what I’m saying: Guild Wars 2 needs:
-More content (no more holiday BS please)
-End game progression (alternate achievements, etc. “Discover the map, durrr”, isn’t good enough.)
-Dungeon finder: holy crap I went there! Yes I know there are like thousands of forums where fanboys poo poo the idea, but the fact is that you need people to keep the game alive. Those people aren’t gonna come unless you have heated seats. Stop being a hipster kitten and realize it’s probably going to make your life easier. Sorry to those who love to stand around. Not me, I do enough of that at the grocery store.
-Way more black lion gem purchasable items. I, for one, am a huge fan of cosmetic items and I’m super disappointed that there are only a handful of items to purchase to that end. I hate to admit that they would have made a ton more money off of me if they’d only had a library of stuff on their real money auction house. Learn from: Everquest 2. Come on GW2 devs, that game is F2P also and if you haven’t played it- well, first of all you aren’t a real gamer, but second of all you aren’t doing your job because investigating other MMOs should be something you do all the time.

I leave you with all of this wisdom. I welcome constructive feedback; I won’t even read any negative or troll-ey stuff.

-You’re welcome.

Monthly content patches.

That’s whats being done to retain the playerbase. And it’s working

TL;RD

A post on another thread by Colin Johanson regarding the upcoming updates:

ColinJohanson.2394:

One of our major goals with these releases is making our existing world as strong as possible, ensuring there are reasons to go to all the locations in the world we’ve already built, and strengthening the core game we’ve provided.

Karizee.8076:

Monthly content patches.

That’s whats being done to retain the playerbase. And it’s working

Are there new dungeons or zones? I must have missed the notes. I don’t see them on the map. I see all the XP that my 80 gets going to skill points- some oblivious thing that gives me no incentive to want to get more XP. Yes I know you can use a ridiculous amount of skill points to buy stuff that goes towards your “epic” weapon which you can get after putting a ton of time and money in to chance drops all of which amount to about 1500 gold on the auction house because, yes, you can now buy the “epic” weapons for gold. Gold that is much easier to earn via other means to simply purchase what you want instead of levelling to 80 a million times. That’s not “alternate advancement”, it seems like it’s just lazy design.

Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk here, I’m just trying to drive the point home: this game needs more stuff to do! Both EQ2 and Rift have player housing. Do you know how big the “decorate my stupid house” market is? It’s huge! People love to do that! I can’t help but wonder why this isn’t on the GW2 radar.

It just seems like Anet has so many hard stances; “no dungeon finder, ever”…etc…etc. Well who died and made them good at MMOs? Why don’t they have a fluid perspective? I think they could benefit from staying humble and keeping an eye on the community. Even then, I don’t think that the community always knows wtf is going on. That’s why I’ve written all this here. To get it out there and to help the dev team and the community begin to be aware of what is needed in this potentially amazing MMO.

StealthKK.7086:

Karizee.8076:

Monthly content patches.

That’s whats being done to retain the playerbase. And it’s working

Are there new dungeons or zones? I must have missed the notes. I don’t see them on the map. I see all the XP that my 80 gets going to skill points- some oblivious thing that gives me no incentive to want to get more XP. Yes I know you can use a ridiculous amount of skill points to buy stuff that goes towards your “epic” weapon which you can get after putting a ton of time and money in to chance drops all of which amount to about 1500 gold on the auction house because, yes, you can now buy the “epic” weapons for gold. Gold that is much easier to earn via other means to simply purchase what you want instead of levelling to 80 a million times. That’s not “alternate advancement”, it seems like it’s just lazy design.

Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk here, I’m just trying to drive the point home: this game needs more stuff to do! Both EQ2 and Rift have player housing. Do you know how big the “decorate my stupid house” market is? It’s huge! People love to do that! I can’t help but wonder why this isn’t on the GW2 radar.

It just seems like Anet has so many hard stances; “no dungeon finder, ever”…etc…etc. Well who died and made them good at MMOs? Why don’t they have a fluid perspective? I think they could benefit from staying humble and keeping an eye on the community. Even then, I don’t think that the community always knows wtf is going on. That’s why I’ve written all this here. To get it out there and to help the dev team and the community begin to be aware of what is needed in this potentially amazing MMO.

They recently added Fractals, a new dungeon, and Southsun Cove a brand new zone.

Also they never, EVER said “no dungeon finder, ever.” Not sure where you got this from. They said that they are looking into it/developing it.

I agree with the OP! 100%. Also to Ursan, Southsun Cove is hardly a new zone. I mean really. I haven’t found one reason to even visit that place.

The monthly updates so far have been just great, but it’s the in-between that gets stale. What would really revive my interest in old characters is a character-specific dungeon armor collection. Player housing might be a ways off into future development, but stuff like manakins or a menu to store armor sets would really incentivise the collection of multiple dungeon armor sets. Collecting an armor set and dropping it in the bank is not quite as fun. I feel this game could really get some mileage out of a wardrobe system similar to RIFT’s.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/chris-whiteside-on-the-lost-shores-and-beyond/

Great Samuel.5346:

Also to Ursan, Southsun Cove is hardly a new zone. I mean really. I haven’t found one reason to even visit that place.

“They haven’t added any new zones!”

“They did. Southsun/Fractals”

“Pkitten. Southsun is hardly a new zone”

“…………Er. Still doesn’t change the fact that they have added new zones (fact) and are adding in new zones, and from everything they are saying, will continue to do so in the future.”

Ursan.7846:

Great Samuel.5346:

Also to Ursan, Southsun Cove is hardly a new zone. I mean really. I haven’t found one reason to even visit that place.

“…………Er. Still doesn’t change the fact that they have added new zones (fact) and are adding in new zones, and from everything they are saying, will continue to do so in the future.”

I can’t wait to read about the next zones fiasco because I sure as hell won’t be playing it. Bet they’ll even ban new players who manage to get 3 copper from mining nodes in the new zone. Hackers, they should have gotten gloppy goo or hooves from those nodes!