Guild Wars 2

IndigoSundown.5419:

OK, how is the GW2 cash shop invasive? I see people making claims like this, but they don’t ever say what they mean beyond using general pejoratives. Spell it out if you want the issue to be discussed. If you don’t, then I’m going to conclude that you all haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.

I’d say that the Gem Store in GW2 isn’t so much invasive, as it is starting to undermine the reward system of the game, and the development of the game.

I personally feel that the game should have a lot more rewards, armors, weapons, and costumes by now, but all of its released in the store, leaving the actual game rather barren of rewards.

Now what they recently did with the September feature patch is really clever; making collectors achievements for every piece of junk and worthless drop in the game. But it can’t hide the lack of actual rewards in the game. And whenever I see an announcement such as “dyes no longer drop in the game, and can only be bought from the store”, or “a new armor skin is available in the store”, or “buy the new musical flute from the store”, I can’t help but think: “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ACTUAL GAME?!”

This was especially painful during Halloween and Wintersday, where every single seasonal item seemed locked behind insane grind (Mini Bloody Prince Thorn, and The Crossing), or had to be bought. Not exactly in the spirit of the holidays is it?

A Mini Bloody Prince Thorn for 20 Candy Corn Cob, which is about 20,000 Candy Corn!!! Good luck grinding that all Halloween!

Or the Crossing, which can be crafted with 1 Gift of Souls, 1 Eldritch Scroll, 100 Mystic Coins, 20 Superior Sigils of the Night (1 wasn’t enough I suppose). But hang on, how do we get a Gift of Souls? Seems like we need a recipe for that. And the requirements to craft that recipe are… MERCIFUL GRENTH! 1 Gift of Knowledge, 250 Orichalcum Ingots, 20 Globs of Ectoplasm, 100 Crystal Lodestones! Now where the hell am I going to get a gift of knowledge? Oh wait, it costs only a meager 200 Knowledge Crystals! F-it, I’ll just buy the Crossing from the trading post for 200 gold! There goes all my money.

But heck, if you want one of the Halloween costumes…. you’ll just going to have to buy it from the Gem Store. Yes, lets lock away all the Halloween costumes in the store, so people have to pay money to dress up in a game for Halloween, and lock away all the other items behind ludicrous grind.

Happy Halloween everyone!

(PS. I hope someone at Anet reads this, and has a critical look at all the grind they’ve introduced into the game)

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

MikaHR.1978:

GW2 has one of least invasive cash shop in industry and no sub. It goes as far as lot of people complain theres “really nothing of interest in cash shop, just fluff”.

Gw2 is subtly invasive so subtle that most people overlook how invasive it actually is. Someone could write an article analysing the systems and how successful it has been for anet whilst all the while screwing players over as much as other f2p games.

The word subtle and invasive or actually quite opposite. That’s what’s called an oxymoron. If it’s subtle, it’s not invasive. That’s the difference between the words.

Invasive: “tending to spread very quickly and undesirably or harmfully.” I disagree that this spread or permeation can’t be subtle.

Well since the cash shop itself doesn’t really spread at all, offers very little by way of any in game advantage, and isn’t necessary to play content I’d say it’s categorically not invasive.

What you can say is that the design of the game is affected by the cash shop but it’s still not invasive. I never think about going to the cash shop when I’m playing. It’s nothing like games where the cash shop is actually invasive.

Yes, Anet tries to encourage people to spend money by putting skins in black lion chests. But since skins can also be bought for gold on the BLTP, it’s hardly like you have to spend money in the cash shop to get it.

The cash shop will probably affect impatient people who must have everything immediately, in which case they’ll spend real money to get gems to sell or keys or whatever.

I don’t really consider that invasive though.

KarlaGrey.5903:

MikaHR.1978:

KarlaGrey.5903:

Pretty sure running on yellows or random exotics in wvw (and the higher difficulty dungeons, let alone fractals) spells certain death for most (especially outside the zerg), but in particular for beginners/casuals who aren’t likely to undergo the horrid gold grind associated with the ascended, or even the exotics together with the meta runes.
Good thing the pvp is more-or-less a level playing field..sort of (hello recent unlucks).

Uh oh, if thats the case ascended wont help either. Thats matter of skill not gear.

What are you saying, bad players need bigger crutch (please leave casuals out of it, youre clearly talking about BAD players)

And really, with all venues you can get exotics, really, “horrible grind”? And i really think you dont understand the difference between “speed runners” and the rest. You can run dungeons just fine in rares/random exotics.

Uh oh, it was meant in view of facing an opponent of similar skill but better equipped. Anything with better skill and better gear will naturally result in a roll over.

Well you can also run a dungeon naked if your group has the benevolance to carry, as your input is likely to be negligable at best (esp if not damage-specced), which is pretty much the case in random yellows/exotics. Being a liability to the party, however, is not quite my thing. But of course, some won’t/don’t mind it, and that’s great…for them.

running a dungeon naked wouldnt result in negligable input. in Gw2 all stats are 50% level, 50% gear so you’d still be 50% effective.

The argument here isnt being naked or random gear without an semblance of a build the argument here is to avoid the grind of ascended gear. There is no reason why you cannot have the proper exotic gear for your build. Exotic is easy to get.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

This was especially painful during Halloween and Wintersday, where every single seasonal item seemed locked behind insane grind (Mini Bloody Prince Thorn, and The Crossing), or had to be bought. Not exactly in the spirit of the holidays is it?

A Mini Bloody Prince Thorn for 20 Candy Corn Cob, which is about 20,000 Candy Corn!!! Good luck grinding that all Halloween!

Or the Crossing, which can be crafted with 1 Gift of Souls, 1 Eldritch Scroll, 100 Mystic Coins, 20 Superior Sigils of the Night (1 wasn’t enough I suppose). But hang on, how do we get a Gift of Souls? Seems like we need a recipe for that. And the requirements to craft that recipe are… MERCIFUL GRENTH! 1 Gift of Knowledge, 250 Orichalcum Ingots, 20 Globs of Ectoplasm, 100 Crystal Lodestones! Now where the hell am I going to get a gift of knowledge? Oh wait, it costs only a meager 200 Knowledge Crystals! F-it, I’ll just buy the Crossing from the trading post for 200 gold! There goes all my money.

But heck, if you want one of the Halloween costumes…. you’ll just going to have to buy it from the Gem Store. Yes, lets lock away all the Halloween costumes in the store, so people have to pay money to dress up in a game for Halloween, and lock away all the other items behind ludicrous grind.

Happy Halloween everyone!

(PS. I hope someone at Anet reads this, and has a critical look at all the grind they’ve introduced into the game)

Sorry man, but you’re just being impatient.
Signed, vayne.

At Galen, I beg to differ. I had virtually no gold from pvp alone (bar from a few occasional rare dye drops that could net 5-10g or so), and only ever had one (useful, mind you) exotic drop in pve, while the exotics&especially the runes I’d need to buy would cost quite a lot more than a few k gold.

Also, I find Malafide’s example of adding features to the game during wintersday and halloween with the sole intention of boosting gem shop sales invasive (=game-experience spoiling), underhanded and absolutely not something a real b2p would ever even consider doing to its players.

The apologists may keep their heads buried in the sand all they want, but it changes absolutely nothing about the ill and abusive direction the game had taken a while ago.

KarlaGrey.5903:

MikaHR.1978:

pvp or www. Becuse now even from spvp you get exotics, and if were talking www…..sorry, but running casually around www for few days youll get enough gold/karma/badges for full set of exotics. Sorry, but back in the day i had more karma/badges than i knew what to do with, let alone now. But one thing is certain: you DONT need to buy anything in gem store to achieve that.

Idc what you can get NOW. When I played, you could get very little, and as for wvw…
running around casually in a ZERG is most definitely not the playstyle I will ever lower myself to, nor something I can even begin to associate with pvp. If you wanna ‘run around casually’ solo or perhaps duo as an undergeared condi necro you will not be getting very far.
You most certainly don’t need to buy anything – you can simply choose to not play instead, because the alternatives typically involve the type of grind that is likely to elicit frustration and boredom.

MikaHR.1978:

Oh and sorry that you feel offended at the notion of “nab-friendly”, but my guild runs are all nab foriendly. You were saying? You choose who to play with, if you choose to play with with jerks, thats YOUR choice.

Feel offended? Perhaps you should work more on your reading comprehension, because it leaves much to be desired. Unless it’s the fanboy PoV that’s affecting your ‘judgement’.
My guild runs were also ‘nab friendly’ (as in, we’d take anyone along if we’d dabble in pve), point being? I said I don’t WANT to be a liability, not that there’s no one who wants to carry undergeared players. You should honestly consider asking someone to explain to you what the posts you’re replying to actually mean, or try to convey.

@ Arachnid, +1 ad infinitum, I couldn’t have agreed more.

morrolan.9608:

MikaHR.1978:

GW2 has one of least invasive cash shop in industry and no sub. It goes as far as lot of people complain theres “really nothing of interest in cash shop, just fluff”.

Gw2 is subtly invasive so subtle that most people overlook how invasive it actually is. Someone could write an article analysing the systems and how successful it has been for anet whilst all the while screwing players over as much as other f2p games.

Word. Sheep getting sheared without as much as realizing it.

Sooooo, you want to skip ANY opportunity to get geared very easily (which seems awfully importan to you) and then complain theres absolutely no easy way to get geared.

ROFL

Or you can just get easily geared in a day or 2 and merrily continue (which most people do IF they actually care about gear at all). There are very few special snowflakes that just whine about nothing.

If theres any requirement for dungeons its skill. Greens are NOT a liability rofl. I can see why its confusing to you, and why youre angry with GW2. No gear crutch.

And yeah, when something is so “infinitely subtle”….well you may check out what it is then.

You have no idea what geared easily means.
Besides, I was actually on my way to get an exotics rabid set from Orr, until I ran out of karma and was left with no real alternatives (karma jugs gone) of obtaining it again (zvz is out of the question, as I do not participate in such attrocities in an excuse of a game mode).

As for the rest, I have no intention of repeating myself to someone who doesn’t feel the need to use that grey lump of tissue residing between his ears when typing out replies, so feel free to refer to my previous on the liability to the team part.

Also, nice try on the skill-in-dungeon part. Very nice indeed.

KarlaGrey.5903:

You have no idea what geared easily means.
Besides, I was actually on my way to get an exotics rabid set from Orr, until I ran out of karma and was left with no real alternatives (karma jugs gone) of obtaining it again (zvz is out of the question, as I do not participate in such attrocities in an excuse of a game mode).

As for the rest, I have no intention on repeating myself, so feel free to refer to my previous on the liability to the team part.

Also, nice try on the skill-in-dungeons part.

Sorry, exotics are so easy to get that anyone that actually complains about THAT….yeah.

WvWvW is a numbers game, if you want “real” pvp you go to spvp (ganking noobs in www, lol, yeah, i wonder why its not rewarded, but name gives it away WORLDvsWORLDvsWORLD, and sorry, but you are not the world), and guess what: FREE EXOTICS (and many other stuff).

Im sorry, you might complain about ascended (and rightly so) but about exotics…nope, you have absolutely no case there, especially claiming that you need to buy gems to get exotics, that makes it even more funny.

It is nice, because pretty much the only way youre liability in dungeone is if you…have a lot of room for improvement.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Iirc the discussions on why the prices went soaring the way they did most definitely did not boil down to ‘it was all the players’ fault’, but I will not be browsing the past threads atm to find the exact quotes in support…let’s just say that nerfing farm spots repeatedly, promoting gem to gold exchange, and continually increasing the RNG did in no way help deflate the skyrocketing costs, however.

Pretty sure running on yellows or random exotics in wvw (and the higher difficulty dungeons, let alone fractals) spells certain death for most (especially outside the zerg), but in particular for beginners/casuals who aren’t likely to undergo the horrid gold grind associated with the ascended, or even the exotics together with the meta runes.
Good thing the pvp is more-or-less a level playing field..sort of (hello recent unlucks).

nerfing farm locations will not increase prices it will lower them.

How do people decide on a price? basically they try to price things the highest possible price people are willing to pay.

lets take ancient logs for example they used to sell for 9s each. with 5 level 80 chars you could gather 180 of them in less then 45 mins and that batch would sell for 16g. now when you’re buying stuff instead of gathering it yourself you’re treading game time doing one activity for another. A regular non farmer player makes maybe 1g per hour (most likely they make much less but lets say 1g per hour) a farmer makes 12g per hour easily.

in order to buy those 180 logs a farmer needs to trade 1hr 20 mins of their time farming for 45 mins gathering.. well I wouldnt do it but its reasonable enough. it will take twice as long but if they enjoy farming more fair enough.

how about the non farmers? well they’re trading 16hrs of their time to avoid 45mins… hmm now its no longer reasonable for sure, much better to just go gather stuff yourself even if you hate the activity cause its most definitely not worth spending 2 – 4 days of gaming to avoid 45 mins is it.

So what do you think would happen if say Anet nerfed all farms so that farmers now dont make more then 1g per hour. thats 12x less profit then they make now. Do you think people will start selling said item at 12x the price or well 1g each because farming is now nerfed? of course not no one would buy them, what they would be forced to do is sell them 12x less. because now the base line for an hour is no longer 12g per hour its 1g per hour.

Nerfing farms doesnt increase prices it actually reduces them.

Promoting gem to gold exchange will not have much effect either. they dont need to promote it people know its there already. Yet I dont see many people whipping out their credit card each time they need to buy some of their raw material. Some people may do it sure but I doubt its that very many, for one thing if more people were converting gems to gold them people converting gold to gems we’d see the price of gems fall when actually the opposite is true. That alone means people have more gold then they’re actually spending and are converting a substantial amount of it to gems. Secondly Arenanet’s quarterly reports would probably be a lot higher then they are.

As for RNG, raw material such as iron or wood etc.. have no RNG yet they’re some of the most overpriced items. where as items like corrupted lodestone which are heavy dependent on RNG are actually under priced. Of course there are some exception such as black lion only skins.

Truth is players are much more at the core of this situation then Arenanet is. Its a player driven market after all.

phys.7689:

Essentially he is saying that gw2 population is generally way at the bottom % of gamers in being able deal with challenge.
Therefore anet makes the content that their population can handle, which he implies is extremely low.

I personally believe that gw2 players arent any less capable than other players, they like the systems and enjoy using them well, and knowing their class, its just extremely rare that game actually requires them to use these skills.
After a little while people adapt, and they tend to enjoy overcoming, or matching different challenges.

Well I am sure there is merit to this. Everything has a price and focusing a lot on players who like a easy casual experiance will result in a players who like a challenge to move on. Now It doesnt mean every player who likes a challenge will move on… I myself like challenging content and I dont find that in Gw2 but hey there is no sub so no reason why I cant play it along side other games that give me the challenge fix.

some players are strictly 1 game only though.

Bottom line their choices may have led to a situation where it is easier to come across players who dont like challenges then ones that do.

Now it doesnt mean that people who dont like challenges arent able to face them successfully, In fact personally I think it doesnt really matter in that every player can be good no matter what they like. Problem is most of the game is easy and thus you dont need to learn your class well. There is a reason why we hear a lot of all you need to do in gw2 combat is auto attack after all. In a real challenge knowing your class and having good muscle memory is crucial to survival and that part maybe whats lacking.

Personally I really think the game would benefit with some optional hard content that cannot be zerged but that may have a substantial increase in drop rate of rare stuff.

hendo.1940:

Anet and their (un)paid shills…

ehh Anet’s competitors and their (un)paid shills…. Dont believe anyone here is a shill but I hope when you see the argumented twisted back on you you’ll see how useless it actually is.

People who have issues with the game dont have issues because they’re dishonestly supporting anyone else just like people who actually like the game dont defend it because they’re dishonestly supporting what they dont like for for… hmm some mystical reason I cant think of.

MikaHR.1978:

Yeah, provided all things equal, so you will have to deal with losing maybe 1/1000 encounters base on that for a few days tops (as that is ow long it takes to get full exotics IF you dont already have those when you ding 80 which is very easy to do also)

So its not certain death? Oh my. Bad players are bad players, ascended wont help, and good players do it nekkid? So what was your point really?

I would like to add a bit to this I am replying to you mostly to build on your argument as this is mostly directed at KarlaGrey. We’ve been told since day 1 that WvW is intended to be unbalanced and thats the truth nothing can ever make it balanced.

A fair fight doesnt exist in that game mode. Now you may argue that okey fair enough but isnt this something thats making that unbalance worst? and the answer is no. Unbalance cannot be better and cannot be worst. Its like darkness you cannot have more dark or less dark its just a state.

if you have a group of 10 vs 11. the group of 11 people are all in exotics, the group of 10 people are all in exotics except for 1 who is in ascended gear for example ascended gear would have brought balance to the fight… in truth though it will not matter it is not what will decide the fight, all lot more factors come into play. WvW is something where you can easily find yourself in a situation where you are massively under powered or overpowered depending on group sizes, situation you’re in and what siege equipment each side has access to and what you’re worried is a potential 10% unbalance? A single Trebuchet hit might put you back 10k health and you’re going to worry about the 100 extra damage advantage ascended gear is giving your opponent?

in WvW Ascended gear is just 1 small factor against many other factors some of which are way larger factors you’ll face that just arent really “fair” in the strict sense of the word.

Galen Grey.4709:

MikaHR.1978:

Yeah, provided all things equal, so you will have to deal with losing maybe 1/1000 encounters base on that for a few days tops (as that is ow long it takes to get full exotics IF you dont already have those when you ding 80 which is very easy to do also)

So its not certain death? Oh my. Bad players are bad players, ascended wont help, and good players do it nekkid? So what was your point really?

I would like to add a bit to this I am replying to you mostly to build on your argument as this is mostly directed at KarlaGrey. We’ve been told since day 1 that WvW is intended to be unbalanced and thats the truth nothing can ever make it balanced.

A fair fight doesnt exist in that game mode. Now you may argue that okey fair enough but isnt this something thats making that unbalance worst? and the answer is no. Unbalance cannot be better and cannot be worst. Its like darkness you cannot have more dark or less dark its just a state.

if you have a group of 10 vs 11. the group of 11 people are all in exotics, the group of 10 people are all in exotics except for 1 who is in ascended gear for example ascended gear would have brought balance to the fight… in truth though it will not matter it is not what will decide the fight, all lot more factors come into play. WvW is something where you can easily find yourself in a situation where you are massively under powered or overpowered depending on group sizes, situation you’re in and what siege equipment each side has access to and what you’re worried is a potential 10% unbalance? A single Trebuchet hit might put you back 10k health and you’re going to worry about the 100 extra damage advantage ascended gear is giving your opponent?

in WvW Ascended gear is just 1 small factor against many other factors some of which are way larger factors you’ll face that just arent really “fair” in the strict sense of the word.

100vs10 is more imbalanced than 20vs10, and 20vs10 is more imbalanced than 11vs10.

So yeah, there IS such thing as more and less imbalanced.

In any case, they should make it more balanced than introduce more imbalancing elements. Blowuts suck….for everyone involved.

100vs10 is pretty much lost cause. But 20vs10, those 10 can still have hope if they play better/try harder they have a chance to win.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Sorry man, but you’re just being impatient.
Signed, vayne.

At Galen, I beg to differ. I had virtually no gold from pvp alone (bar from a few occasional rare dye drops that could net 5-10g or so), and only ever had one (useful, mind you) exotic drop in pve, while the exotics&especially the runes I’d need to buy would cost quite a lot more than a few k gold.

Also, I find Malafide’s example of adding features to the game during wintersday and halloween with the sole intention of boosting gem shop sales invasive (=game-experience spoiling), underhanded and absolutely not something a real b2p would ever even consider doing to its players.

The apologists may keep their heads buried in the sand all they want, but it changes absolutely nothing about the ill and abusive direction the game had taken a while akitten

ey fair enough lets say you didnt earn enough gold. An lets say you did no PvE just WvW. WvW has gathering nodes too. You could craft the things you needed. If you didnt want to go through the hastle of leveling crafting I am sure a guild mate would have been willing to craft what you need for you in exchange for the materials needed. There is a game out there and its just not just the trading post.

I actually agree with Malafide’s argument. Those holiday rewards were overdone to an extreme level. But I do feel blaming the gem store is misguided. They just wanted to maintain rarity and value. If you take the crossing for example (which I really wanted for my necro and never got just to be clear) they didnt sell that in the cash shop, they had it drop for free from the mad king dungeon. Alas I wasnt lucky to get the drop. I was lucky with other skins but not that one. Back then 200g were a ludicrous amount of money too. its not like now where 100gems convert to 9g thus buying the crossing would set you back some $25 or so but many many times that. I am sure some wouldnt mind paying $100s for a sink but most people would simply have lived without it. Like I said I really really wanted it and settle without it. I didnt use my credit card and buy it.

Also this was the 2nd month of release so how could it have been a change of direction like you argue?

Everything can be made to fit every argument its all a matter of interpreation. If you want to see malice then sure something can be made a rare drop so they can make money from gem → gold conversion. If you don’t want to see malice then it was done to give that item value.

After all plenty of people care about the crossing to this day myself included but how many people care Mad memories back piece… it was quite a good back piece, used it on my necro for months as the main back piece skin and still do today in dark places (the flames actually cast light all around you). Everyone could easily get one of those so its not as valued or desired as something that was really hard to get.

Vayne.8563:

cranos.5913:

I feel lore-wise gw2 has always lacked. Other than Tybalt, I’ve yet to care for any character in the game, including my own. And on that point you’re right, I loved the GW1 missions back in the day and yes, you really did feel connected to your character a lot more.

Still, there’s no way I could go back to GW1 after playing this game. I simply love the combat, mainly because it’s fast and there’s no trinity. Now if they would only add difficult dungeon/fractal content this game would be perfect.

So yeah, both have their pro’s and cons, but personally I feel GW2 has more replay value.

I think you’re confusing lore and story. Story wise is probably what you’re talking about. Tybalt is part of the story, rather than the lore.

The lore is the background, the build up, the history. The games share history and both have great stories. In fact, much of the lore of Guild Wars 2 is the lore of Guild Wars 1.

It’s the stories that are the issue. I only clarify, because it’s important that people realize the difference so they get their message across to Anet.

Mind you it seems a lot of people do like Tiami. And I sort of like the new group, particularly Marjorie.

The most hilarious thing is when I think about GW2 is this: When they started working on it, they said they want to do things they can’t do in GW1. If living world was what they meant back then, GW1 (with some modifications) system with instanced areas would be much more fitting for it. In the very beginning of GW1 you saw a nation fall, cities getting destroyed , thousands getting slained. And this was the first few hours.
I don’t expect anything this big from living story since it can’t be done in open world, but in instanced you could fight off the titans , making them disappear from every region. You could kill off the plague , you could fight for the luxons/kurzicks to claim territory.

Also I have problems not only with the stories, but the lore. I feel like lore is getting ignored, especially with Scarlet. And there isn’t much intresting lore in GW2 we didn’t know already before launch. And the intresting ones aren’t gettin used. (prior LS2 , but LS2 feels more like a checklist, players want to know more about the Ascalonian Twin swords/ghosts? lets put that in one episode, check, Krytan politics? Check etc.)
White mantle/mursaat , Scepter of orr ,bloodstones , dwarfs , the three order is getting ignored, isolation of cantha, palawa joko , human gods … All we can expect is dragons in the next 6-8 years.

At Galen, nerfing access to a particular mat would rise the cost, because the availability is reduced while the demand remains the same. If, however, alternative means of obtaining said mats would be implemented, then the cost would likely fall.

Did I mention somewhere I consider WvW balanced? No. However rolling on suboptimal gear doesn’t help you in any solo or duo endeavours when your cond degen can barely break even with, let’s say, warrior’s heal sig regen. You’re just a liability in that case.

At mihatr, exotics would have been easy to get, if they had cost 5g per piece (+common mats), rune sets 1-2g, and if gear would not give stat boosts (meaning you wouldnt have to purchase a diff set of armor whenever you want to change builds). That would make it available and greatly open up options to experiment and be geared up to themax potential. Naturally, stat-wise the differences between ascended and exotics would have to be consolidated. As someone coming from GW, THAT is what I call readiyl available. But I can understand some find gear acquisition simple and ‘ez’ on GW2, especially if they were originally playing typical grind-based mmos like WoW, Lotro and the like.
Also, you’re a liability in dungeons if your contribution is negligable. However your input – especially in terms of skill – is equally questionable, given the proverbial ball&spank nature of virtually all dungeons.

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

cranos.5913:

I feel lore-wise gw2 has always lacked. Other than Tybalt, I’ve yet to care for any character in the game, including my own. And on that point you’re right, I loved the GW1 missions back in the day and yes, you really did feel connected to your character a lot more.

Still, there’s no way I could go back to GW1 after playing this game. I simply love the combat, mainly because it’s fast and there’s no trinity. Now if they would only add difficult dungeon/fractal content this game would be perfect.

So yeah, both have their pro’s and cons, but personally I feel GW2 has more replay value.

I think you’re confusing lore and story. Story wise is probably what you’re talking about. Tybalt is part of the story, rather than the lore.

The lore is the background, the build up, the history. The games share history and both have great stories. In fact, much of the lore of Guild Wars 2 is the lore of Guild Wars 1.

It’s the stories that are the issue. I only clarify, because it’s important that people realize the difference so they get their message across to Anet.

Mind you it seems a lot of people do like Tiami. And I sort of like the new group, particularly Marjorie.

The most hilarious thing is when I think about GW2 is this: When they started working on it, they said they want to do things they can’t do in GW1. If living world was what they meant back then, GW1 (with some modifications) system with instanced areas would be much more fitting for it. In the very beginning of GW1 you saw a nation fall, cities getting destroyed , thousands getting slained. And this was the first few hours.
I don’t expect anything this big from living story since it can’t be done in open world, but in instanced you could fight off the titans , making them disappear from every region. You could kill off the plague , you could fight for the luxons/kurzicks to claim territory.

Also I have problems not only with the stories, but the lore. I feel like lore is getting ignored, especially with Scarlet. And there isn’t much intresting lore in GW2 we didn’t know already before launch. And the intresting ones aren’t gettin used. (prior LS2 , but LS2 feels more like a checklist, players want to know more about the Ascalonian Twin swords/ghosts? lets put that in one episode, check, Krytan politics? Check etc.)
White mantle/mursaat , Scepter of orr ,bloodstones , dwarfs , the three order is getting ignored, isolation of cantha, palawa joko , human gods … All we can expect is dragons in the next 6-8 years.

Maybe the thing they were talking about that they wanted to do was have over a hundred people on screen at one time fighting something. It wasn’t necessarily pertaining to story telling.

Galen Grey.4709:

Okey fair enough lets say you didnt earn enough gold. An lets say you did no PvE just WvW. WvW has gathering nodes too. You could craft the things you needed. If you didnt want to go through the hastle of leveling crafting I am sure a guild mate would have been willing to craft what you need for you in exchange for the materials needed. There is a game out there and its just not just the trading post.

I dabbled a bit in WvW and, naturally, gathered the common mats there, and I actually have max lvl in cooking, but the thing is 1) My now mostly inactive guild is pvp-oriented and no one coulg be kitten d with crafting (and I can completely understand why), 2) I actually had some friends craft me stuff, but obtaining the mats for the things I needed was ridiculously expensive too 3) Why the hell bother, really, when you need multiple sets just to be able to play diff builds, because someone at anet thought the GW way of separating stats from gear was something that had to be changed. Which was another reason why pvp, as underdeveloped and lacking as it was/is, was the only chocie left, really.

Galen Grey.4709:

I actually agree with Malafide’s argument. Those holiday rewards were overdone to an extreme level. But I do feel blaming the gem store is misguided. They just wanted to maintain rarity and value.

Wrong. If rarity was what they were concerned over (which I am absolutely certain was not the case, however), they would have locked them behind ridiculous RNG and account bind, as they do with most items. Instead they put it behind such ridiculous grind as to create obstructions high enough that the majority would not even consider farming all those items, because they don’t have the gold (n)or the will to put up with something like that.

Galen Grey.4709:

If you want to see malice then sure something can be made a rare drop so they can make money from gem -> gold conversion. If you don’t want to see malice then it was done to give that item value.

After all plenty of people care about the crossing to this day myself included but how many people care Mad memories back piece… it was quite a good back piece, used it on my necro for months as the main back piece skin and still do today in dark places (the flames actually cast light all around you). Everyone could easily get one of those so its not as valued or desired as something that was really hard to get.

It’s not really malice, it’s just profiteering, or business, if you will. Many do say how ‘the company’s gotta earn the bucks somehow’, so there you have it. If you don’t mind being cannibilized in the process, or do not experience it as such a hostile act, then thumbs up for you and similar minded crowd. However mind that nothing will changing in that case, and once a precedent is set, the rest will follow soner or later.

MikaHR.1978:

Galen Grey.4709:

MikaHR.1978:

Yeah, provided all things equal, so you will have to deal with losing maybe 1/1000 encounters base on that for a few days tops (as that is ow long it takes to get full exotics IF you dont already have those when you ding 80 which is very easy to do also)

So its not certain death? Oh my. Bad players are bad players, ascended wont help, and good players do it nekkid? So what was your point really?

I would like to add a bit to this I am replying to you mostly to build on your argument as this is mostly directed at KarlaGrey. We’ve been told since day 1 that WvW is intended to be unbalanced and thats the truth nothing can ever make it balanced.

A fair fight doesnt exist in that game mode. Now you may argue that okey fair enough but isnt this something thats making that unbalance worst? and the answer is no. Unbalance cannot be better and cannot be worst. Its like darkness you cannot have more dark or less dark its just a state.

if you have a group of 10 vs 11. the group of 11 people are all in exotics, the group of 10 people are all in exotics except for 1 who is in ascended gear for example ascended gear would have brought balance to the fight… in truth though it will not matter it is not what will decide the fight, all lot more factors come into play. WvW is something where you can easily find yourself in a situation where you are massively under powered or overpowered depending on group sizes, situation you’re in and what siege equipment each side has access to and what you’re worried is a potential 10% unbalance? A single Trebuchet hit might put you back 10k health and you’re going to worry about the 100 extra damage advantage ascended gear is giving your opponent?

in WvW Ascended gear is just 1 small factor against many other factors some of which are way larger factors you’ll face that just arent really “fair” in the strict sense of the word.

100vs10 is more imbalanced than 20vs10, and 20vs10 is more imbalanced than 11vs10.

So yeah, there IS such thing as more and less imbalanced.

In any case, they should make it more balanced than introduce more imbalancing elements. Blowuts suck….for everyone involved.

100vs10 is pretty much lost cause. But 20vs10, those 10 can still have hope if they play better/try harder they have a chance to win.

its not that simple.

100 vs 10 may seem very imbalanced but what if the 100 people are nothing more then button mashers while the 10 are experienced players? You can find plenty of videos of small groups winning against larger groups. There is that one video I saw when a single guy feared an entire zerg that was after him off a ledge of the castle he was defending using spectral wall

now obvously 100vs10 will nearly always result in the 100 winning sure but being more / less balanced isnt a simply a matter of who is going to win.

if 100 vs 10 results in 20 kills for the 10 before they succumbed it would still have been a more balanced then the 20 vs 5 if the 5 only got 3 kills before they died for example.

I think could say 100vs10 have worst odds then 20 vs 5 but you cannot really say which one is the more balanced because balance isnt just about the numbers, its about the skill, all the stats that come into play, the situation they’re in etc..

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

cranos.5913:

I feel lore-wise gw2 has always lacked. Other than Tybalt, I’ve yet to care for any character in the game, including my own. And on that point you’re right, I loved the GW1 missions back in the day and yes, you really did feel connected to your character a lot more.

Still, there’s no way I could go back to GW1 after playing this game. I simply love the combat, mainly because it’s fast and there’s no trinity. Now if they would only add difficult dungeon/fractal content this game would be perfect.

So yeah, both have their pro’s and cons, but personally I feel GW2 has more replay value.

I think you’re confusing lore and story. Story wise is probably what you’re talking about. Tybalt is part of the story, rather than the lore.

The lore is the background, the build up, the history. The games share history and both have great stories. In fact, much of the lore of Guild Wars 2 is the lore of Guild Wars 1.

It’s the stories that are the issue. I only clarify, because it’s important that people realize the difference so they get their message across to Anet.

Mind you it seems a lot of people do like Tiami. And I sort of like the new group, particularly Marjorie.

The most hilarious thing is when I think about GW2 is this: When they started working on it, they said they want to do things they can’t do in GW1. If living world was what they meant back then, GW1 (with some modifications) system with instanced areas would be much more fitting for it. In the very beginning of GW1 you saw a nation fall, cities getting destroyed , thousands getting slained. And this was the first few hours.
I don’t expect anything this big from living story since it can’t be done in open world, but in instanced you could fight off the titans , making them disappear from every region. You could kill off the plague , you could fight for the luxons/kurzicks to claim territory.

Also I have problems not only with the stories, but the lore. I feel like lore is getting ignored, especially with Scarlet. And there isn’t much intresting lore in GW2 we didn’t know already before launch. And the intresting ones aren’t gettin used. (prior LS2 , but LS2 feels more like a checklist, players want to know more about the Ascalonian Twin swords/ghosts? lets put that in one episode, check, Krytan politics? Check etc.)
White mantle/mursaat , Scepter of orr ,bloodstones , dwarfs , the three order is getting ignored, isolation of cantha, palawa joko , human gods … All we can expect is dragons in the next 6-8 years.

Maybe the thing they were talking about that they wanted to do was have over a hundred people on screen at one time fighting something. It wasn’t necessarily pertaining to story telling.

Probably we never know for sure what they meant. My two cent is they wanted to escape from the balance of thousands skills , but the classic “Can you jump?” question also could get on their nerves. But I don’t think the main reason is bigger fights, they already could do that with merging parties like they did it in Vizunah or on Alliance Battles.

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

cranos.5913:

I feel lore-wise gw2 has always lacked. Other than Tybalt, I’ve yet to care for any character in the game, including my own. And on that point you’re right, I loved the GW1 missions back in the day and yes, you really did feel connected to your character a lot more.

Still, there’s no way I could go back to GW1 after playing this game. I simply love the combat, mainly because it’s fast and there’s no trinity. Now if they would only add difficult dungeon/fractal content this game would be perfect.

So yeah, both have their pro’s and cons, but personally I feel GW2 has more replay value.

I think you’re confusing lore and story. Story wise is probably what you’re talking about. Tybalt is part of the story, rather than the lore.

The lore is the background, the build up, the history. The games share history and both have great stories. In fact, much of the lore of Guild Wars 2 is the lore of Guild Wars 1.

It’s the stories that are the issue. I only clarify, because it’s important that people realize the difference so they get their message across to Anet.

Mind you it seems a lot of people do like Tiami. And I sort of like the new group, particularly Marjorie.

The most hilarious thing is when I think about GW2 is this: When they started working on it, they said they want to do things they can’t do in GW1. If living world was what they meant back then, GW1 (with some modifications) system with instanced areas would be much more fitting for it. In the very beginning of GW1 you saw a nation fall, cities getting destroyed , thousands getting slained. And this was the first few hours.
I don’t expect anything this big from living story since it can’t be done in open world, but in instanced you could fight off the titans , making them disappear from every region. You could kill off the plague , you could fight for the luxons/kurzicks to claim territory.

Also I have problems not only with the stories, but the lore. I feel like lore is getting ignored, especially with Scarlet. And there isn’t much intresting lore in GW2 we didn’t know already before launch. And the intresting ones aren’t gettin used. (prior LS2 , but LS2 feels more like a checklist, players want to know more about the Ascalonian Twin swords/ghosts? lets put that in one episode, check, Krytan politics? Check etc.)
White mantle/mursaat , Scepter of orr ,bloodstones , dwarfs , the three order is getting ignored, isolation of cantha, palawa joko , human gods … All we can expect is dragons in the next 6-8 years.

Maybe the thing they were talking about that they wanted to do was have over a hundred people on screen at one time fighting something. It wasn’t necessarily pertaining to story telling.

Probably we never know for sure what they meant. My two cent is they wanted to escape from the balance of thousands skills , but the classic “Can you jump?” question also could get on their nerves. But I don’t think the main reason is bigger fights, they already could do that with merging parties like they did it in Vizunah or on Alliance Battles.

Swimming and underwater combat, jumping puzzles, these were introduced with the game that couldn’t have been done in the old system. I just see no reason to think they were talking about story. Stories they could already tell, as you pointed out.

Nerelith.7360:

Boneheart.3561:

Nerelith.7360:

MikaHR.1978:

P2W is self explanatory.

That means you don’t know the definition.

I don’t think you want a “definition”, but rather an explanation of what’s Pay-to-Win in ArchAge.

What you’ve typed here just seems like an attack, it’s the herald of a discussion devolving into a fight (the kind where no one convinces the other party to their side (fully or partially) or admits they were wrong (without explaining they weren’t actually wrong), and it’s just a self-serving document of how right they are).

You are free to think what you wish. I cannot correct your thinking. he calls Archeage P2w. I explain that it is not, by using a commonly accepted definition.

Now while anyone can " explain how Archeage is pay2win" for it to have meaning one needs to first work on a definition for pay2win, that everyone can accept.

I offered a definiton everyone agrees on. You and the previous Poster just say " oh we all know it’s pay2win, and can explain how."

The thing is. Either something IS pay2win, or it is not.

But to do so, first you need to provide a definition for pay2win. Neither you, nor the previous poster have.

I have.

Then you say that this will devolve into some kind of fight. Why?

Because I try to use Logic, and knowledge, define the terms being discussed?

I can see that someone that does not understand what pay2win really is, might not wish to engage.

Either way, you ans the previous Poster have demonstrated that all you kno about AA is what you have accepted because of Confirmation Bias. That and a few reddit posts..

" labor points"

Let me clue you in… if Labor Points and potions, makes Aecheage Pay2win. Then Experience Boosters, crafting experience boosters, keys sold in cash shop to open Bliack Lion Chests…etc… anything NOT a cosmetic Item on the BLTP..makes Gw2 …pay2win.

I couldn’t find your definition for Pay-to-Win, would you link it, please?

Also I haven’t typed anything about ArchAge.

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

cranos.5913:

I feel lore-wise gw2 has always lacked. Other than Tybalt, I’ve yet to care for any character in the game, including my own. And on that point you’re right, I loved the GW1 missions back in the day and yes, you really did feel connected to your character a lot more.

Still, there’s no way I could go back to GW1 after playing this game. I simply love the combat, mainly because it’s fast and there’s no trinity. Now if they would only add difficult dungeon/fractal content this game would be perfect.

So yeah, both have their pro’s and cons, but personally I feel GW2 has more replay value.

I think you’re confusing lore and story. Story wise is probably what you’re talking about. Tybalt is part of the story, rather than the lore.

The lore is the background, the build up, the history. The games share history and both have great stories. In fact, much of the lore of Guild Wars 2 is the lore of Guild Wars 1.

It’s the stories that are the issue. I only clarify, because it’s important that people realize the difference so they get their message across to Anet.

Mind you it seems a lot of people do like Tiami. And I sort of like the new group, particularly Marjorie.

The most hilarious thing is when I think about GW2 is this: When they started working on it, they said they want to do things they can’t do in GW1. If living world was what they meant back then, GW1 (with some modifications) system with instanced areas would be much more fitting for it. In the very beginning of GW1 you saw a nation fall, cities getting destroyed , thousands getting slained. And this was the first few hours.
I don’t expect anything this big from living story since it can’t be done in open world, but in instanced you could fight off the titans , making them disappear from every region. You could kill off the plague , you could fight for the luxons/kurzicks to claim territory.

Also I have problems not only with the stories, but the lore. I feel like lore is getting ignored, especially with Scarlet. And there isn’t much intresting lore in GW2 we didn’t know already before launch. And the intresting ones aren’t gettin used. (prior LS2 , but LS2 feels more like a checklist, players want to know more about the Ascalonian Twin swords/ghosts? lets put that in one episode, check, Krytan politics? Check etc.)
White mantle/mursaat , Scepter of orr ,bloodstones , dwarfs , the three order is getting ignored, isolation of cantha, palawa joko , human gods … All we can expect is dragons in the next 6-8 years.

Maybe the thing they were talking about that they wanted to do was have over a hundred people on screen at one time fighting something. It wasn’t necessarily pertaining to story telling.

Probably we never know for sure what they meant. My two cent is they wanted to escape from the balance of thousands skills , but the classic “Can you jump?” question also could get on their nerves. But I don’t think the main reason is bigger fights, they already could do that with merging parties like they did it in Vizunah or on Alliance Battles.

Swimming and underwater combat, jumping puzzles, these were introduced with the game that couldn’t have been done in the old system. I just see no reason to think they were talking about story. Stories they could already tell, as you pointed out.

Yeah I find it funny that jumping was missing from the first game and now they built whole releases only on jumping. Still ,like I said with some modifications to the original system these still could be part of the game. SAB was instanced after all. Yet if the new system wasn’t created for living world why is the living world the highest priority right now?

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

cranos.5913:

I feel lore-wise gw2 has always lacked. Other than Tybalt, I’ve yet to care for any character in the game, including my own. And on that point you’re right, I loved the GW1 missions back in the day and yes, you really did feel connected to your character a lot more.

Still, there’s no way I could go back to GW1 after playing this game. I simply love the combat, mainly because it’s fast and there’s no trinity. Now if they would only add difficult dungeon/fractal content this game would be perfect.

So yeah, both have their pro’s and cons, but personally I feel GW2 has more replay value.

I think you’re confusing lore and story. Story wise is probably what you’re talking about. Tybalt is part of the story, rather than the lore.

The lore is the background, the build up, the history. The games share history and both have great stories. In fact, much of the lore of Guild Wars 2 is the lore of Guild Wars 1.

It’s the stories that are the issue. I only clarify, because it’s important that people realize the difference so they get their message across to Anet.

Mind you it seems a lot of people do like Tiami. And I sort of like the new group, particularly Marjorie.

The most hilarious thing is when I think about GW2 is this: When they started working on it, they said they want to do things they can’t do in GW1. If living world was what they meant back then, GW1 (with some modifications) system with instanced areas would be much more fitting for it. In the very beginning of GW1 you saw a nation fall, cities getting destroyed , thousands getting slained. And this was the first few hours.
I don’t expect anything this big from living story since it can’t be done in open world, but in instanced you could fight off the titans , making them disappear from every region. You could kill off the plague , you could fight for the luxons/kurzicks to claim territory.

Also I have problems not only with the stories, but the lore. I feel like lore is getting ignored, especially with Scarlet. And there isn’t much intresting lore in GW2 we didn’t know already before launch. And the intresting ones aren’t gettin used. (prior LS2 , but LS2 feels more like a checklist, players want to know more about the Ascalonian Twin swords/ghosts? lets put that in one episode, check, Krytan politics? Check etc.)
White mantle/mursaat , Scepter of orr ,bloodstones , dwarfs , the three order is getting ignored, isolation of cantha, palawa joko , human gods … All we can expect is dragons in the next 6-8 years.

Maybe the thing they were talking about that they wanted to do was have over a hundred people on screen at one time fighting something. It wasn’t necessarily pertaining to story telling.

Probably we never know for sure what they meant. My two cent is they wanted to escape from the balance of thousands skills , but the classic “Can you jump?” question also could get on their nerves. But I don’t think the main reason is bigger fights, they already could do that with merging parties like they did it in Vizunah or on Alliance Battles.

Swimming and underwater combat, jumping puzzles, these were introduced with the game that couldn’t have been done in the old system. I just see no reason to think they were talking about story. Stories they could already tell, as you pointed out.

Yeah I find it funny that jumping was missing from the first game and now they built whole releases only on jumping. Still ,like I said with some modifications to the original system these still could be part of the game. SAB was instanced after all. Yet if the new system wasn’t created for living world why is the living world the highest priority right now?

The new system wasn’t created for the Living World. I’m pretty sure they came up with that when they saw people weren’t interested in DEs as a way to progress. They thought DEs would interest more people. They never counted on champ trains.

KarlaGrey.5903:

At Galen, nerfing access to a particular mat would rise the cost, because the availability is reduced while the demand remains the same. If, however, alternative means of obtaining said mats would be implemented, then the cost would likely fall.

Only if income doesnt change but it will considering those mats are the source of income itself. Thing is farmers have such a high saturation of gold that the above scenario doesnt work anymore. Sure in real terms you’d expect things that are farmed to be cheaper as they’d have a higher supply but its actually the opposite thats true.

Like take Iron ore. Something happens in game which creates demand for it. Price shoots from 11c to 80c a piece.. ohhh now it became something worth farming right? thus price should start falling again correct? no 1 month later it rises to 1s 23c, 1 month after that its 2s, then the month after that it falls to 1s cool, only to risk 2s 30c the month after. Well this falling and rising keeps going on for a whole year but never once did it ever get a single copper below 80 when all the iron farming started. And this is iron ore we’re talking about you can get truckloads of the stuff quite easily.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Did I mention somewhere I consider WvW balanced? No. However rolling on suboptimal gear doesn’t help you in any solo or duo endeavours when your cond degen can barely break even with, let’s say, warrior’s heal sig regen. You’re just a liability in that case.

I honestly didnt play a lot of WvW, but in the few times I did play it was really hard to get in a solo encounter because if you ever come across someone alone in the field at least in my case roughly 8 out 10 they run away to join their group before engaging you. But there are cases when you do solo its true.

Huh really? thats what 450 health per second? if your condition damage is less then 450 do you really thing an extra 5 condition damage per second are going to decide the fight ? also 450 condition damage seems really low, I would imagine you have much more direct damage. What class do you play if I may ask?

KarlaGrey.5903:

At mihatr, exotics would have been easy to get, if they had cost 5g per piece (+common mats), rune sets 1-2g, and if gear would not give stat boosts (meaning you wouldnt have to purchase a diff set of armor whenever you want to change builds). That would make it available and greatly open up options to experiment and be geared up to themax potential. Naturally, stat-wise the differences between ascended and exotics would have to be consolidated. As someone coming from GW, THAT is what I call readiyl available. But I can understand some find gear acquisition simple and ‘ez’ on GW2, especially if they were originally playing typical grind-based mmos like WoW, Lotro and the like.

Well I am no fan of ascended gear or any vertical gear progression at all really. For me what makes or breaks it is the effort required and what I can live without. Exotics were easy to get, Ascended gear is not a problem to live without. In games like you mentioned the effort is actually infinite cause there is always another teir round the corner thats a major difference for me.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Also, you’re a liability in dungeons if your contribution is negligable. However your input – especially in terms of skill – is equally questionable, given the proverbial ball&spank nature of virtually all dungeons.

How can you be a liability if you have no ascended gear when the dungeons themselves were balanced during which time there was no ascended gear existed anyway. Ascended gear simply makes you over powered. Actually to be honest Exotics makes you overpowered . They’re so easy to do in Exotics how can you be considered a liability ? You’re a liability if you’re dieing often and people have to stop an res you.
You’re not a liability simply because you’re doing 10% less damage then you theoretical maximum.

I mean I did quite a few dungeon runs and I see a lot of people who dont bother to take food and consumables for their runs. Thats in most cases a 3x as more stats ascended gear gives you. Yet while you see a lot of issues with ascend gear rarely people call out for consumable usage even though the advantage they give is actually greater.

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

cranos.5913:

I feel lore-wise gw2 has always lacked. Other than Tybalt, I’ve yet to care for any character in the game, including my own. And on that point you’re right, I loved the GW1 missions back in the day and yes, you really did feel connected to your character a lot more.

Still, there’s no way I could go back to GW1 after playing this game. I simply love the combat, mainly because it’s fast and there’s no trinity. Now if they would only add difficult dungeon/fractal content this game would be perfect.

So yeah, both have their pro’s and cons, but personally I feel GW2 has more replay value.

I think you’re confusing lore and story. Story wise is probably what you’re talking about. Tybalt is part of the story, rather than the lore.

The lore is the background, the build up, the history. The games share history and both have great stories. In fact, much of the lore of Guild Wars 2 is the lore of Guild Wars 1.

It’s the stories that are the issue. I only clarify, because it’s important that people realize the difference so they get their message across to Anet.

Mind you it seems a lot of people do like Tiami. And I sort of like the new group, particularly Marjorie.

The most hilarious thing is when I think about GW2 is this: When they started working on it, they said they want to do things they can’t do in GW1. If living world was what they meant back then, GW1 (with some modifications) system with instanced areas would be much more fitting for it. In the very beginning of GW1 you saw a nation fall, cities getting destroyed , thousands getting slained. And this was the first few hours.
I don’t expect anything this big from living story since it can’t be done in open world, but in instanced you could fight off the titans , making them disappear from every region. You could kill off the plague , you could fight for the luxons/kurzicks to claim territory.

Also I have problems not only with the stories, but the lore. I feel like lore is getting ignored, especially with Scarlet. And there isn’t much intresting lore in GW2 we didn’t know already before launch. And the intresting ones aren’t gettin used. (prior LS2 , but LS2 feels more like a checklist, players want to know more about the Ascalonian Twin swords/ghosts? lets put that in one episode, check, Krytan politics? Check etc.)
White mantle/mursaat , Scepter of orr ,bloodstones , dwarfs , the three order is getting ignored, isolation of cantha, palawa joko , human gods … All we can expect is dragons in the next 6-8 years.

Maybe the thing they were talking about that they wanted to do was have over a hundred people on screen at one time fighting something. It wasn’t necessarily pertaining to story telling.

Probably we never know for sure what they meant. My two cent is they wanted to escape from the balance of thousands skills , but the classic “Can you jump?” question also could get on their nerves. But I don’t think the main reason is bigger fights, they already could do that with merging parties like they did it in Vizunah or on Alliance Battles.

Swimming and underwater combat, jumping puzzles, these were introduced with the game that couldn’t have been done in the old system. I just see no reason to think they were talking about story. Stories they could already tell, as you pointed out.

Yeah I find it funny that jumping was missing from the first game and now they built whole releases only on jumping. Still ,like I said with some modifications to the original system these still could be part of the game. SAB was instanced after all. Yet if the new system wasn’t created for living world why is the living world the highest priority right now?

The new system wasn’t created for the Living World. I’m pretty sure they came up with that when they saw people weren’t interested in DEs as a way to progress. They thought DEs would interest more people. They never counted on champ trains.

Even when they started addig new events I’m pretty sure they had a living world in mind .The first update was Halloween , that was the first time when they introduced an one time only event with the Mad King , then with the karkas. This was an early concept of living world ,yet they didn’t call it living story at that time. Champ trains didn’t really exist back then , if I remember correctly they started appearing when they introduced champ bags. And I Can’t really blame people for not doing DEs, they don’t have much replay value or reward. They are not even a challenge.

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

cranos.5913:

I feel lore-wise gw2 has always lacked. Other than Tybalt, I’ve yet to care for any character in the game, including my own. And on that point you’re right, I loved the GW1 missions back in the day and yes, you really did feel connected to your character a lot more.

Still, there’s no way I could go back to GW1 after playing this game. I simply love the combat, mainly because it’s fast and there’s no trinity. Now if they would only add difficult dungeon/fractal content this game would be perfect.

So yeah, both have their pro’s and cons, but personally I feel GW2 has more replay value.

I think you’re confusing lore and story. Story wise is probably what you’re talking about. Tybalt is part of the story, rather than the lore.

The lore is the background, the build up, the history. The games share history and both have great stories. In fact, much of the lore of Guild Wars 2 is the lore of Guild Wars 1.

It’s the stories that are the issue. I only clarify, because it’s important that people realize the difference so they get their message across to Anet.

Mind you it seems a lot of people do like Tiami. And I sort of like the new group, particularly Marjorie.

The most hilarious thing is when I think about GW2 is this: When they started working on it, they said they want to do things they can’t do in GW1. If living world was what they meant back then, GW1 (with some modifications) system with instanced areas would be much more fitting for it. In the very beginning of GW1 you saw a nation fall, cities getting destroyed , thousands getting slained. And this was the first few hours.
I don’t expect anything this big from living story since it can’t be done in open world, but in instanced you could fight off the titans , making them disappear from every region. You could kill off the plague , you could fight for the luxons/kurzicks to claim territory.

Also I have problems not only with the stories, but the lore. I feel like lore is getting ignored, especially with Scarlet. And there isn’t much intresting lore in GW2 we didn’t know already before launch. And the intresting ones aren’t gettin used. (prior LS2 , but LS2 feels more like a checklist, players want to know more about the Ascalonian Twin swords/ghosts? lets put that in one episode, check, Krytan politics? Check etc.)
White mantle/mursaat , Scepter of orr ,bloodstones , dwarfs , the three order is getting ignored, isolation of cantha, palawa joko , human gods … All we can expect is dragons in the next 6-8 years.

Maybe the thing they were talking about that they wanted to do was have over a hundred people on screen at one time fighting something. It wasn’t necessarily pertaining to story telling.

Probably we never know for sure what they meant. My two cent is they wanted to escape from the balance of thousands skills , but the classic “Can you jump?” question also could get on their nerves. But I don’t think the main reason is bigger fights, they already could do that with merging parties like they did it in Vizunah or on Alliance Battles.

Swimming and underwater combat, jumping puzzles, these were introduced with the game that couldn’t have been done in the old system. I just see no reason to think they were talking about story. Stories they could already tell, as you pointed out.

Yeah I find it funny that jumping was missing from the first game and now they built whole releases only on jumping. Still ,like I said with some modifications to the original system these still could be part of the game. SAB was instanced after all. Yet if the new system wasn’t created for living world why is the living world the highest priority right now?

The new system wasn’t created for the Living World. I’m pretty sure they came up with that when they saw people weren’t interested in DEs as a way to progress. They thought DEs would interest more people. They never counted on champ trains.

Even when they started addig new events I’m pretty sure they had a living world in mind .The first update was Halloween , that was the first time when they introduced an one time only event with the Mad King , then with the karkas. This was an early concept of living world ,yet they didn’t call it living story at that time. Champ trains didn’t really exist back then , if I remember correctly they started appearing when they introduced champ bags. And I Can’t really blame people for not doing DEs, they don’t have much replay value or reward. They are not even a challenge.

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

KarlaGrey.5903:

2) I actually had some friends craft me stuff, but obtaining the mats for the things I needed was ridiculously expensive too …snip

is playing the game never an option? you have to just buy everything?

KarlaGrey.5903:

Wrong. If rarity was what they were concerned over (which I am absolutely certain was not the case, however), they would have locked them behind ridiculous RNG and account bind, as they do with most items. Instead they put it behind such ridiculous grind as to create obstructions high enough that the majority would not even consider farming all those items, because they don’t have the gold (n)or the will to put up with something like that.

It was. The crossing wasnt just something you could craft with great effort, it was also a rare drop from the halloween dungeon. Like I said it depends on how you look at it. You could also see it if you’re unlucky not to get the drop but really really really really wanted it you had an option to get it even though not a really happy one.

KarlaGrey.5903:

It’s not really malice, it’s just profiteering, or business, if you will. Many do say how ‘the company’s gotta earn the bucks somehow’, so there you have it. If you don’t mind being cannibilized in the process, or do not experience it as such a hostile act, then thumbs up for you and similar minded crowd. However mind that nothing will changing in that case, and once a precedent is set, the rest will follow soner or later.

How can anyone tell which one of the different perceptions is true?

All I can say is I enjoy the game quite a bit yet never converted a single gem to gold.
I played the game a lot and yet never had to buy something or else I wouldnt be able to continue enjoying the game or well be frustrated about it until I make the purchase.

I tried a lot of MMOs and really I cant see how people think arenanet are really greedy.

Other games have you paying for every bit of content they add, storage space that is really small and just cant possibly manage at higher levels without expanding it. Some even restrict the functionality of the game before you pay to unlock actual game features. Gw2 does none of that. The only things I bought were cosmetic and additional character slots. Even there with 5 free slots its way above average. Most free to play MMOs only provide 2 slots.

Not just that but in order to improve the experience they’re also giving up some potential profit. You get plenty of storage space in gw2 yet the wallet reduced the need for space drastically. So did Expanding collections to include new material. Not to mention Crafting and Discovering from the bank. The wardrobe made the game overall cheaper since you dont need to buy custom skins for each character now. Thats not to mention the frequent free gem shop stuff we get something thats nearly unheard of in other game especially to the frequency anet do it. I really dont see them Cannibalizing me with their payment model, quite the opposite it really leaves me free.

At Galen, I’d play rabid nec, iirc, but the issue was I mostly rolled on greens/yellows with a touch of an exotic, and the degen barely did damage against the combined regen from heal sig and food buffs, and possibly some passives.

Also, I suppose I used the wrong expression when it comes to undergeared character’s contribution in dungeons – perhaps ‘useless’ would be more exact, or a ‘deadweight’.
Either way, I don’t find exotics easily obtainable, or rather I would find them so, if you only really needed 1 set of armor with varying runes. But that is sadly not the case on GW2 cuz reasons.

On playing the game – of course I prefer to play the game, but as I already said – pvp netted you virtually nothing in terms of income, and the last time I checked there were no nodes to farm in pvp.

I played the game (well, the pve side of it – 2 lvl 80s) quite a lot for pvp standards, but I don’t consider sitting in mass events (lag and braindead 1-1-1-1) or running entire zones for mats (necros and mobility…), or camp champ trains as playing the game (to have fun), but more like doing a boring job towards an end I do not even approve of.

I play d3 now for my pve ‘needs’, and while I absolutely hate the gear-dependancy of building and the RNG, it is at least somewhat rewarding, and leveling an alt is a breeze in the park compared to GW2, especially if assisted by a friend.

Also, you say GW2 doesn’t put things behind a pay wall, but that’s not quite true. It is just rather subtle about it – sometimes less subtle (see the grind related to winterday- and halloween-only items), other times more (removal of rewards and general lack of rewarding content, or of a proper reward system which is actually scaled to match the challenge, increasing player inconvenience in terms of availability of in-game items, and adding things to the gem shop rather than the actual game).

Mind you shouldn’t compare what real f2p games charge you for, but rather what other real b2p games have to offer, compared to GW2. Besides, don’t you think many of those things ought being in the game start on? Or perhaps, that the game has too much of everything, rather than more of what it actually needs?
When I logged in a month ago or so, all the changes they implemented – in particular trait changes – just had me log off shortly after. Those weren’t improvements I’d be holding my breath for – however welcome they might be – they were just streamlining and QoL fixes that an AAA+ game ought having on release.

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Yes I meant a karma train. There was a train. That’s the point. It probably wasn’t quite how Anet envisioned the game going.

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Yes I meant a karma train. There was a train. That’s the point. It probably wasn’t quite how Anet envisioned the game going.

The point is, trains or no trains, they released a new area with one time events ~ 80 days after release, which means they had to work on it not long after release or maybe even before release, which means the creation of the living story wasn’t based on anything going on ingame. (and during that release I was part of the biggest train ever ingame which means during the creation of it they didn’t count with the downsides of the trains. Only releases after this they tried to break down the train somehow. )

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Yes I meant a karma train. There was a train. That’s the point. It probably wasn’t quite how Anet envisioned the game going.

The point is, trains or no trains, they released a new area with one time events ~ 80 days after release, which means they had to work on it not long after release or maybe even before release, which means the creation of the living story wasn’t based on anything going on ingame. (and during that release I was part of the biggest train ever ingame which means during the creation of it they didn’t count with the downsides of the trains. Only releases after this they tried to break down the train somehow. )

Okay, I agree with this. You may very well be right.

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Yes I meant a karma train. There was a train. That’s the point. It probably wasn’t quite how Anet envisioned the game going.

The point is, trains or no trains, they released a new area with one time events ~ 80 days after release, which means they had to work on it not long after release or maybe even before release, which means the creation of the living story wasn’t based on anything going on ingame. (and during that release I was part of the biggest train ever ingame which means during the creation of it they didn’t count with the downsides of the trains. Only releases after this they tried to break down the train somehow. )

Okay, I agree with this. You may very well be right.

Thanks
But now the real question remains. If they had a system in which they could tell better stories easier, why create an entirely different system in which it’s much harder to tell any story, and on that new system even focus mainly on story?

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

cranos.5913:

I feel lore-wise gw2 has always lacked. Other than Tybalt, I’ve yet to care for any character in the game, including my own. And on that point you’re right, I loved the GW1 missions back in the day and yes, you really did feel connected to your character a lot more.

Still, there’s no way I could go back to GW1 after playing this game. I simply love the combat, mainly because it’s fast and there’s no trinity. Now if they would only add difficult dungeon/fractal content this game would be perfect.

So yeah, both have their pro’s and cons, but personally I feel GW2 has more replay value.

I think you’re confusing lore and story. Story wise is probably what you’re talking about. Tybalt is part of the story, rather than the lore.

The lore is the background, the build up, the history. The games share history and both have great stories. In fact, much of the lore of Guild Wars 2 is the lore of Guild Wars 1.

It’s the stories that are the issue. I only clarify, because it’s important that people realize the difference so they get their message across to Anet.

Mind you it seems a lot of people do like Tiami. And I sort of like the new group, particularly Marjorie.

The most hilarious thing is when I think about GW2 is this: When they started working on it, they said they want to do things they can’t do in GW1. If living world was what they meant back then, GW1 (with some modifications) system with instanced areas would be much more fitting for it. In the very beginning of GW1 you saw a nation fall, cities getting destroyed , thousands getting slained. And this was the first few hours.
I don’t expect anything this big from living story since it can’t be done in open world, but in instanced you could fight off the titans , making them disappear from every region. You could kill off the plague , you could fight for the luxons/kurzicks to claim territory.

Also I have problems not only with the stories, but the lore. I feel like lore is getting ignored, especially with Scarlet. And there isn’t much intresting lore in GW2 we didn’t know already before launch. And the intresting ones aren’t gettin used. (prior LS2 , but LS2 feels more like a checklist, players want to know more about the Ascalonian Twin swords/ghosts? lets put that in one episode, check, Krytan politics? Check etc.)
White mantle/mursaat , Scepter of orr ,bloodstones , dwarfs , the three order is getting ignored, isolation of cantha, palawa joko , human gods … All we can expect is dragons in the next 6-8 years.

Maybe the thing they were talking about that they wanted to do was have over a hundred people on screen at one time fighting something. It wasn’t necessarily pertaining to story telling.

Probably we never know for sure what they meant. My two cent is they wanted to escape from the balance of thousands skills , but the classic “Can you jump?” question also could get on their nerves. But I don’t think the main reason is bigger fights, they already could do that with merging parties like they did it in Vizunah or on Alliance Battles.

Swimming and underwater combat, jumping puzzles, these were introduced with the game that couldn’t have been done in the old system. I just see no reason to think they were talking about story. Stories they could already tell, as you pointed out.

Yeah I find it funny that jumping was missing from the first game and now they built whole releases only on jumping. Still ,like I said with some modifications to the original system these still could be part of the game. SAB was instanced after all. Yet if the new system wasn’t created for living world why is the living world the highest priority right now?

The new system wasn’t created for the Living World. I’m pretty sure they came up with that when they saw people weren’t interested in DEs as a way to progress. They thought DEs would interest more people. They never counted on champ trains.

DEs would have interestet more people perhaps if they also gave something like a
champbag at the end instead of 1s30c that was no even nerfed down to 90 copper.
Before the champbags most champs were also ignored.

Boneheart.3561:

Nerelith.7360:

Boneheart.3561:

Nerelith.7360:

MikaHR.1978:

P2W is self explanatory.

That means you don’t know the definition.

I don’t think you want a “definition”, but rather an explanation of what’s Pay-to-Win in ArchAge.

What you’ve typed here just seems like an attack, it’s the herald of a discussion devolving into a fight (the kind where no one convinces the other party to their side (fully or partially) or admits they were wrong (without explaining they weren’t actually wrong), and it’s just a self-serving document of how right they are).

You are free to think what you wish. I cannot correct your thinking. he calls Archeage P2w. I explain that it is not, by using a commonly accepted definition.

Now while anyone can " explain how Archeage is pay2win" for it to have meaning one needs to first work on a definition for pay2win, that everyone can accept.

I offered a definiton everyone agrees on. You and the previous Poster just say " oh we all know it’s pay2win, and can explain how."

The thing is. Either something IS pay2win, or it is not.

But to do so, first you need to provide a definition for pay2win. Neither you, nor the previous poster have.

I have.

Then you say that this will devolve into some kind of fight. Why?

Because I try to use Logic, and knowledge, define the terms being discussed?

I can see that someone that does not understand what pay2win really is, might not wish to engage.

Either way, you ans the previous Poster have demonstrated that all you kno about AA is what you have accepted because of Confirmation Bias. That and a few reddit posts..

" labor points"

Let me clue you in… if Labor Points and potions, makes Aecheage Pay2win. Then Experience Boosters, crafting experience boosters, keys sold in cash shop to open Bliack Lion Chests…etc… anything NOT a cosmetic Item on the BLTP..makes Gw2 …pay2win.

I couldn’t find your definition for Pay-to-Win, would you link it, please?

Also I haven’t typed anything about ArchAge.

This definition was actually linked by someone that said AA was pay2win. he tried to use this definition to prove it.

When I explained that if you actually break down the definition of pay2win, and try to apply it to AA , AA is not pay2 win. BUT, the ONLY way that you can warp and twist, and Loosen the definition of pay2win, so that Archeage fits that definition, it can also be warped, twisted and Loosened to Gw2 does as well.

many interpret Pay2win as simply " purchasing advantage with cash." Under that definition One can say that a crafting exp booster can " lead to pay2win since it means a character can max his crafting abilities sooner than someone that doesn’t use cash" which is what people that TRY to use " The AA labor potions" as pay2win.

If that is pay2win, so is buying a crafting xp booster. That you can subsequently buy on the cash shop.

here’s the definition the guy used. Until I showed that AA doesn’t meet the criteria, then he backpedaled and said.." well forget that definition"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pay-to-win

“Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying.”

PS: I only post the definition so you see I didn’t Pull it out of my rear end. And explain how i even became aware of it. it was posted by someone trying badly, and failing to explain How AA is pay2win, with that definition.

It is not my intention to respark the debate, since that is derailing the thread.

This is My last post on this thread about AA or Pay2win.

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Yes I meant a karma train. There was a train. That’s the point. It probably wasn’t quite how Anet envisioned the game going.

The point is, trains or no trains, they released a new area with one time events ~ 80 days after release, which means they had to work on it not long after release or maybe even before release, which means the creation of the living story wasn’t based on anything going on ingame. (and during that release I was part of the biggest train ever ingame which means during the creation of it they didn’t count with the downsides of the trains. Only releases after this they tried to break down the train somehow. )

Okay, I agree with this. You may very well be right.

Thanks
But now the real question remains. If they had a system in which they could tell better stories easier, why create an entirely different system in which it’s much harder to tell any story, and on that new system even focus mainly on story?

I really don’t see any difference in how they tell the story in this game than they did with it’s predecessor. I mean all the story chunks are told in instances, aren’t they?

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Yes I meant a karma train. There was a train. That’s the point. It probably wasn’t quite how Anet envisioned the game going.

The point is, trains or no trains, they released a new area with one time events ~ 80 days after release, which means they had to work on it not long after release or maybe even before release, which means the creation of the living story wasn’t based on anything going on ingame. (and during that release I was part of the biggest train ever ingame which means during the creation of it they didn’t count with the downsides of the trains. Only releases after this they tried to break down the train somehow. )

Okay, I agree with this. You may very well be right.

Thanks
But now the real question remains. If they had a system in which they could tell better stories easier, why create an entirely different system in which it’s much harder to tell any story, and on that new system even focus mainly on story?

Because having an open world is better than having an instanced one to a whole lot of people, including me. If you’re only talking about story, and that’s all that matters, instanced content is better. I dislike instanced content as the main content of the game fora whole lot of reasons.

It doesn’t tell stories better, but it does other stuff better.

For example, every time I walked out into Guild Wars 1 into a zone, I knew what was in the zone, where every creature was, and I knew for a fact that I was on my own or with the people I was with.

Some of my favorite moments in Guild Wars 2 have been coming upon someone who randomly needed assistance and helping them out. Rezzing them during a champ fight, or whatever.

That can’t happen in an instanced game. It’s not as alive. If you want to make a living breathing world, instances are not sufficient, even if they do tell a story better.

munkiman.3068:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Yes I meant a karma train. There was a train. That’s the point. It probably wasn’t quite how Anet envisioned the game going.

The point is, trains or no trains, they released a new area with one time events ~ 80 days after release, which means they had to work on it not long after release or maybe even before release, which means the creation of the living story wasn’t based on anything going on ingame. (and during that release I was part of the biggest train ever ingame which means during the creation of it they didn’t count with the downsides of the trains. Only releases after this they tried to break down the train somehow. )

Okay, I agree with this. You may very well be right.

Thanks
But now the real question remains. If they had a system in which they could tell better stories easier, why create an entirely different system in which it’s much harder to tell any story, and on that new system even focus mainly on story?

I really don’t see any difference in how they tell the story in this game than they did with it’s predecessor. I mean all the story chunks are told in instances, aren’t they?

It’s not just the story. It’s the stuff AROUND the story.

You’re doing missions in Ascalon. Then you come out of those missions and everything in the open world, everything, goes back to the charr. But if you have a personal story in Caledon and you’re leveling in Queensdale, there’s no continuity out of the story. But here’s another example.

When you went into the Crystal Desert for the first time, Menhlo was waiting for you, with the other guys you’ve been with. In the instance, not the world..but it’s the equivalent of the world. He couldn’t be waiting for you in an open world because there might be 12 guys that need him to be there. There would have to be 12 Menhlos.

Anet could back up the missions (which are the equilvalent of the personal story) with the instanced world, which was the equivalent of the open world. There were many, many examples of this.

But Anet can’t take characters from your stories in Guild Wars 2 and put them in the open world. So your story gets no continuity with most of the other stuff you’re doing.

Even Orr. Orr is locked in Zhaitan days, before its defeat. It can’t change, because many players haven’t defeated Zhaitan. It has to remain as it is. But I did defeat Zhaitan. That zone should change. They can’t change it for me, without changing it for everyone.

On the other hand, they can’t make two zones to divide the playerbase either.

It’s not the same situation at all. In one game it’s ALL instanced. In this game there is an open world that doesn’t back up the story, so there’s less continuity. You’re not there with those characters 24/7.

For me it didn’t work because of the gem store or what the gem store causes. The economy in GW2 is anemic because of the gem store. Drops are anemic because of the gem store. Fun is anemic because of the gem store. So I went back to WoW. Started off on a new server with brand new level ones and am having a kick scavenging and creating wealth. Its so much nicer playing a game with a robust economy. The only reason I’m writing this and not playing is because of Tuesday maintenance But seriously, this is not to put the game down. The reason I left is because the economy is non existent in GW2 and I’m pretty sure that’s a side effect of the gem store.

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

MikaHR.1978:

GW2 has one of least invasive cash shop in industry and no sub. It goes as far as lot of people complain theres “really nothing of interest in cash shop, just fluff”.

Gw2 is subtly invasive so subtle that most people overlook how invasive it actually is. Someone could write an article analysing the systems and how successful it has been for anet whilst all the while screwing players over as much as other f2p games.

The word subtle and invasive or actually quite opposite. That’s what’s called an oxymoron. If it’s subtle, it’s not invasive. That’s the difference between the words.

I disagree, and here’s why. There’s no shortage of diseases out here in real life which are subtle enough to go unnoticed while they are being invasive. In fiction, one need look no further than ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’.

Nerelith.7360:

Boneheart.3561:

Nerelith.7360:

Boneheart.3561:

Nerelith.7360:

MikaHR.1978:

P2W is self explanatory.

That means you don’t know the definition.

I don’t think you want a “definition”, but rather an explanation of what’s Pay-to-Win in ArchAge.

What you’ve typed here just seems like an attack, it’s the herald of a discussion devolving into a fight (the kind where no one convinces the other party to their side (fully or partially) or admits they were wrong (without explaining they weren’t actually wrong), and it’s just a self-serving document of how right they are).

You are free to think what you wish. I cannot correct your thinking. he calls Archeage P2w. I explain that it is not, by using a commonly accepted definition.

Now while anyone can " explain how Archeage is pay2win" for it to have meaning one needs to first work on a definition for pay2win, that everyone can accept.

I offered a definiton everyone agrees on. You and the previous Poster just say " oh we all know it’s pay2win, and can explain how."

The thing is. Either something IS pay2win, or it is not.

But to do so, first you need to provide a definition for pay2win. Neither you, nor the previous poster have.

I have.

Then you say that this will devolve into some kind of fight. Why?

Because I try to use Logic, and knowledge, define the terms being discussed?

I can see that someone that does not understand what pay2win really is, might not wish to engage.

Either way, you ans the previous Poster have demonstrated that all you kno about AA is what you have accepted because of Confirmation Bias. That and a few reddit posts..

" labor points"

Let me clue you in… if Labor Points and potions, makes Aecheage Pay2win. Then Experience Boosters, crafting experience boosters, keys sold in cash shop to open Bliack Lion Chests…etc… anything NOT a cosmetic Item on the BLTP..makes Gw2 …pay2win.

I couldn’t find your definition for Pay-to-Win, would you link it, please?

Also I haven’t typed anything about ArchAge.

This definition was actually linked by someone that said AA was pay2win. he tried to use this definition to prove it.

When I explained that if you actually break down the definition of pay2win, and try to apply it to AA , AA is not pay2 win. BUT, the ONLY way that you can warp and twist, and Loosen the definition of pay2win, so that Archeage fits that definition, it can also be warped, twisted and Loosened to Gw2 does as well.

many interpret Pay2win as simply " purchasing advantage with cash." Under that definition One can say that a crafting exp booster can " lead to pay2win since it means a character can max his crafting abilities sooner than someone that doesn’t use cash" which is what people that TRY to use " The AA labor potions" as pay2win.

If that is pay2win, so is buying a crafting xp booster. That you can subsequently buy on the cash shop.

here’s the definition the guy used. Until I showed that AA doesn’t meet the criteria, then he backpedaled and said.." well forget that definition"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pay-to-win

“Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying.”

PS: I only post the definition so you see I didn’t Pull it out of my rear end. And explain how i even became aware of it. it was posted by someone trying badly, and failing to explain How AA is pay2win, with that definition.

It is not my intention to respark the debate, since that is derailing the thread.

This is My last post on this thread about AA or Pay2win.

AA fits the criteria perfectly. You grasping and disbelieving wont change that fact. And yeah, laboor points (however obnoxious they are) are just a small part of it.

THIS is what i would call an “invasive” cash-shop.

What we have in GW2 .. you can play for days without even notice the shop at all if
you just sell / buy via rightclick from your inventory / bank.

Galen Grey.4709:

MikaHR.1978:

Galen Grey.4709:

MikaHR.1978:

Yeah, provided all things equal, so you will have to deal with losing maybe 1/1000 encounters base on that for a few days tops (as that is ow long it takes to get full exotics IF you dont already have those when you ding 80 which is very easy to do also)

So its not certain death? Oh my. Bad players are bad players, ascended wont help, and good players do it nekkid? So what was your point really?

I would like to add a bit to this I am replying to you mostly to build on your argument as this is mostly directed at KarlaGrey. We’ve been told since day 1 that WvW is intended to be unbalanced and thats the truth nothing can ever make it balanced.

A fair fight doesnt exist in that game mode. Now you may argue that okey fair enough but isnt this something thats making that unbalance worst? and the answer is no. Unbalance cannot be better and cannot be worst. Its like darkness you cannot have more dark or less dark its just a state.

if you have a group of 10 vs 11. the group of 11 people are all in exotics, the group of 10 people are all in exotics except for 1 who is in ascended gear for example ascended gear would have brought balance to the fight… in truth though it will not matter it is not what will decide the fight, all lot more factors come into play. WvW is something where you can easily find yourself in a situation where you are massively under powered or overpowered depending on group sizes, situation you’re in and what siege equipment each side has access to and what you’re worried is a potential 10% unbalance? A single Trebuchet hit might put you back 10k health and you’re going to worry about the 100 extra damage advantage ascended gear is giving your opponent?

in WvW Ascended gear is just 1 small factor against many other factors some of which are way larger factors you’ll face that just arent really “fair” in the strict sense of the word.

100vs10 is more imbalanced than 20vs10, and 20vs10 is more imbalanced than 11vs10.

So yeah, there IS such thing as more and less imbalanced.

In any case, they should make it more balanced than introduce more imbalancing elements. Blowuts suck….for everyone involved.

100vs10 is pretty much lost cause. But 20vs10, those 10 can still have hope if they play better/try harder they have a chance to win.

its not that simple.

100 vs 10 may seem very imbalanced but what if the 100 people are nothing more then button mashers while the 10 are experienced players? You can find plenty of videos of small groups winning against larger groups. There is that one video I saw when a single guy feared an entire zerg that was after him off a ledge of the castle he was defending using spectral wall

now obvously 100vs10 will nearly always result in the 100 winning sure but being more / less balanced isnt a simply a matter of who is going to win.

if 100 vs 10 results in 20 kills for the 10 before they succumbed it would still have been a more balanced then the 20 vs 5 if the 5 only got 3 kills before they died for example.

I think could say 100vs10 have worst odds then 20 vs 5 but you cannot really say which one is the more balanced because balance isnt just about the numbers, its about the skill, all the stats that come into play, the situation they’re in etc..

Its not me who claimed its just “balance” “imbalance” and nothing in between. Theres is actually a lot in between and Anet should strive to get things MORE to the balanced side of things and LESS imbalanced side, while you claim it doesnt matter at all (which is actually false as my example somewhat showed)

shawn.1298:

For me it didn’t work because of the gem store or what the gem store causes. The economy in GW2 is anemic because of the gem store. Drops are anemic because of the gem store. Fun is anemic because of the gem store. So I went back to WoW. Started off on a new server with brand new level ones and am having a kick scavenging and creating wealth. Its so much nicer playing a game with a robust economy. The only reason I’m writing this and not playing is because of Tuesday maintenance But seriously, this is not to put the game down. The reason I left is because the economy is non existent in GW2 and I’m pretty sure that’s a side effect of the gem store.

Fun is anemic because of the gem store?

Someone reeeeeaaally hates the gem store.

Is your issue that you can exchange gems for gold? Surely your problem can’t be with the mini-pets, cosmetic items, boosters, mining picks, etc. There’s really no logical explanation as to why those items would make your fun “anemic”. That I can fathom anyway.

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Yes I meant a karma train. There was a train. That’s the point. It probably wasn’t quite how Anet envisioned the game going.

The point is, trains or no trains, they released a new area with one time events ~ 80 days after release, which means they had to work on it not long after release or maybe even before release, which means the creation of the living story wasn’t based on anything going on ingame. (and during that release I was part of the biggest train ever ingame which means during the creation of it they didn’t count with the downsides of the trains. Only releases after this they tried to break down the train somehow. )

Okay, I agree with this. You may very well be right.

Thanks
But now the real question remains. If they had a system in which they could tell better stories easier, why create an entirely different system in which it’s much harder to tell any story, and on that new system even focus mainly on story?

Because having an open world is better than having an instanced one to a whole lot of people, including me. If you’re only talking about story, and that’s all that matters, instanced content is better. I dislike instanced content as the main content of the game fora whole lot of reasons.

It doesn’t tell stories better, but it does other stuff better.

For example, every time I walked out into Guild Wars 1 into a zone, I knew what was in the zone, where every creature was, and I knew for a fact that I was on my own or with the people I was with.

Some of my favorite moments in Guild Wars 2 have been coming upon someone who randomly needed assistance and helping them out. Rezzing them during a champ fight, or whatever.

That can’t happen in an instanced game. It’s not as alive. If you want to make a living breathing world, instances are not sufficient, even if they do tell a story better.

I don’t deny having open world is a bad thing, but the the last two years was “Living story is our highest priority” , which, like we said, isn’t the strongest part of an open world. And that doesn’t look like it will change. If they wanted to create a world in which the story is the most important , open world shouldn’t be the way to go, even if some people wouldn’t like it that much that way.

And I gotta disagree " I walked out into Guild Wars 1 into a zone, I knew what was in the zone, where every creature was," part. If we put the living world into guild wars (See GW:B) it is much easier to change the world. You could see different things based on your previous accomplishements. You could take part in building cities , extinct enemies , make new allies in a better way we see it now with the living world. Temporary content is even out of question , the content will wait for you as long as you want. And when you complete specific content the whole world could change by it. Yeah , Season two is now waiting for you too , but what exactly changes when you complete it?

and when you said "If you’re only talking about story, and that’s all that matters, " that I think perfectly describes the direction of GW2 . See the most recent SAB statement: “SAB won’t return because it doesn’t fit the story” . Or any statement about the future. If this system does better at other stuff, why does it focus on something it doesn’t do better?

Vayne.8563:

munkiman.3068:

I really don’t see any difference in how they tell the story in this game than they did with it’s predecessor. I mean all the story chunks are told in instances, aren’t they?

It’s not just the story. It’s the stuff AROUND the story.

You’re doing missions in Ascalon. Then you come out of those missions and everything in the open world, everything, goes back to the charr. But if you have a personal story in Caledon and you’re leveling in Queensdale, there’s no continuity out of the story. But here’s another example.

When you went into the Crystal Desert for the first time, Menhlo was waiting for you, with the other guys you’ve been with. In the instance, not the world..but it’s the equivalent of the world. He couldn’t be waiting for you in an open world because there might be 12 guys that need him to be there. There would have to be 12 Menhlos.

Anet could back up the missions (which are the equilvalent of the personal story) with the instanced world, which was the equivalent of the open world. There were many, many examples of this.

But Anet can’t take characters from your stories in Guild Wars 2 and put them in the open world. So your story gets no continuity with most of the other stuff you’re doing.

Even Orr. Orr is locked in Zhaitan days, before its defeat. It can’t change, because many players haven’t defeated Zhaitan. It has to remain as it is. But I did defeat Zhaitan. That zone should change. They can’t change it for me, without changing it for everyone.

On the other hand, they can’t make two zones to divide the playerbase either.

It’s not the same situation at all. In one game it’s ALL instanced. In this game there is an open world that doesn’t back up the story, so there’s less continuity. You’re not there with those characters 24/7.

Meh, I personally don’t think it’s any worse or better. Prophecies didn’t have explorable and story based instances, like the rest of the game went with. When you did the story version and went back to the explorable, nothing really changed, i remember that being a complaint. I get the whole Zaitan thing, you’re right, Orr should be slowly cleansed, the risen should be growing smaller and smaller, but we didn’t have much of that in the original either. With this game, they definitely have an issue of how to provide the outside world (the present) with the story stuff (the past) in the personal story, but realistically it wasn’t any better in the original either. You’re right too about the continuity, I’ve always thought the PS should take you to level 80 if you just did it straight through. This way you didn’t have breaks in between where you most likely forgot where you left off.

Beldin.5498:

THIS is what i would call an “invasive” cash-shop.

What we have in GW2 .. you can play for days without even notice the shop at all if
you just sell / buy via rightclick from your inventory / bank.

buying pieces of UI in SWTOR is very invasive
inability to use purple gear in SWTOR is very invasive
only 3 rolls on loot/week in flashpoints in SWTOR is very invasive (its gear based game)
only 5 warzones/week in SWTOR is very invasive (since its gear based PvP)
extremely low credit cap in SWTOR is extremely invasive
not being able to use higher tier abilities in EQ2 was very invasive (dont know if they changed it), and many more in EQ2, it was terrible all around
labor points in AA are incredibly invasive
land owning in AA is extremely invasive

only 3 games and things that trump anything in GW2 by few orders of magnitude.

Draknar.5748:

shawn.1298:

For me it didn’t work because of the gem store or what the gem store causes. The economy in GW2 is anemic because of the gem store. Drops are anemic because of the gem store. Fun is anemic because of the gem store. So I went back to WoW. Started off on a new server with brand new level ones and am having a kick scavenging and creating wealth. Its so much nicer playing a game with a robust economy. The only reason I’m writing this and not playing is because of Tuesday maintenance But seriously, this is not to put the game down. The reason I left is because the economy is non existent in GW2 and I’m pretty sure that’s a side effect of the gem store.

Fun is anemic because of the gem store?

Someone reeeeeaaally hates the gem store.

Is your issue that you can exchange gems for gold? Surely your problem can’t be with the mini-pets, cosmetic items, boosters, mining picks, etc. There’s really no logical explanation as to why those items would make your fun “anemic”. That I can fathom anyway.

Will I sure didn’t mean to rouse the locals Its a personal opinion. I like looting shiny things that can be actually sold to people that actually want them. I like building wealth from scratch and opening auction house posts that say my 20 copper bars sold for 18 gold. I think the other game lends itself more to what I like to do, so I play that one. Its a personal preference, not a frothing hatred

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Orr was already a giant champ train before then.

Champ trains wouldn’t make sense, karma trains perhaps, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the creation of living story. Trains are not really a fun way to play the game and people aren’t playing them to have fun. Southsun cove was probably already in the works not long after release which means they had plans to do that without any information on what is going on in the game.

Yes I meant a karma train. There was a train. That’s the point. It probably wasn’t quite how Anet envisioned the game going.

The point is, trains or no trains, they released a new area with one time events ~ 80 days after release, which means they had to work on it not long after release or maybe even before release, which means the creation of the living story wasn’t based on anything going on ingame. (and during that release I was part of the biggest train ever ingame which means during the creation of it they didn’t count with the downsides of the trains. Only releases after this they tried to break down the train somehow. )

Okay, I agree with this. You may very well be right.

Thanks
But now the real question remains. If they had a system in which they could tell better stories easier, why create an entirely different system in which it’s much harder to tell any story, and on that new system even focus mainly on story?

Because having an open world is better than having an instanced one to a whole lot of people, including me. If you’re only talking about story, and that’s all that matters, instanced content is better. I dislike instanced content as the main content of the game fora whole lot of reasons.

It doesn’t tell stories better, but it does other stuff better.

For example, every time I walked out into Guild Wars 1 into a zone, I knew what was in the zone, where every creature was, and I knew for a fact that I was on my own or with the people I was with.

Some of my favorite moments in Guild Wars 2 have been coming upon someone who randomly needed assistance and helping them out. Rezzing them during a champ fight, or whatever.

That can’t happen in an instanced game. It’s not as alive. If you want to make a living breathing world, instances are not sufficient, even if they do tell a story better.

I don’t deny having open world is a bad thing, but the the last two years was “Living story is our highest priority” , which, like we said, isn’t the strongest part of an open world. And that doesn’t look like it will change. If they wanted to create a world in which the story is the most important , open world shouldn’t be the way to go, even if some people wouldn’t like it that much that way.

And I gotta disagree " I walked out into Guild Wars 1 into a zone, I knew what was in the zone, where every creature was," part. If we put the living world into guild wars (See GW:B) it is much easier to change the world. You could see different things based on your previous accomplishements. You could take part in building cities , extinct enemies , make new allies in a better way we see it now with the living world. Temporary content is even out of question , the content will wait for you as long as you want. And when you complete specific content the whole world could change by it. Yeah , Season two is now waiting for you too , but what exactly changes when you complete it?

and when you said "If you’re only talking about story, and that’s all that matters, " that I think perfectly describes the direction of GW2 . See the most recent SAB statement: “SAB won’t return because it doesn’t fit the story” . Or any statement about the future. If this system does better at other stuff, why does it focus on something it doesn’t do better?

Okay even with the new stuff, if I was up to War in Kryta, I always got War in Kryta. Same bosses in the same locations. Same mobs patrolling the same road.

In Guild Wars 2, I could hit an event I didn’t trigger at a time that I haven’t seen that event for a while. In Guild Wars 1 you literally trigger everything.

When I’m in Guild Wars 2, someone would have summoned Tequatl. In Guild Wars 1, Tequatl would always be there if he was there. The instanced zone may have became a new instanced zone, but that zone was then as static as the first zone.

I knew in Ring of Fire example where the pop ups where. Exactly how long to wait for the hydras to pass. It was completely 100% programmed.

The complexity of the dynamic event system means you’ll eventually see everything, but entering the same zone twice in a row could produce different results.

MikaHR.1978:

buying pieces of UI in SWTOR is very invasive
inability to use purple gear in SWTOR is very invasive
only 3 rolls on loot/week in flashpoints in SWTOR is very invasive (its gear based game)
only 5 warzones/week in SWTOR is very invasive (since its gear based PvP)
extremely low credit cap in SWTOR is extremely invasive
not being able to use higher tier abilities in EQ2 was very invasive (dont know if they changed it), and many more in EQ2, it was terrible all around
labor points in AA are incredibly invasive
land owning in AA is extremely invasive

only 3 games and things that trump anything in GW2 by few orders of magnitude.

I logged into EQ2 2-3 weeks ago and at least i was able to equip my legendary items
again .. so they seem to have changed that. But the final model was the worst thing
i have ever seen and killed all my interest in ever playing it again.
And i played it nearly 5 years with station access and later even 2 accounts.