Guild Wars 2

First of all, I played Guild Wars for over 2000 hours on multiple accounts. Initially, I wasn’t too impressed (I started playing in 2006) but over the years—-and expansions—-it got better, more addictive and, ultimately, more rewarding.

Guild Wars 2 is amazingly beautiful. Jeremy Soule has done a masterful job, as usual. But after playing Guild Wars 2 for over 220 hours, to say I’m disappointed would be a gross understatement. This isn’t even a ‘There is no endgame’ gripe’. I’ve been reading lots of posts by people who purportedly enjoyed getting to level 80, only to be bored and disappointed with a lack of endgame, but I was bored really from the start.

I have a huge amount of problems with this game, but ultimately, because of everybody’s time, I’m only going to address the big three. Again, I’ll preface by saying I played the original Guild Wars for 2000 hours, I’ve never touched WoW (lest I be called a Blizzard fanboy) and I come to this game after years of waiting and anticipation. I’ve tried my absolute best over the past 200 hours to love this game. I spent three grand on a system that would be able to max it out. And so far, I’ve been bored out of my mind.

My big three problems:

1. Dynamic events. Dynamic events were the worst implementation of a pitifully bad idea I can possibly imagine for a video game. Any dynamic event, whether it’s fighting 8 centaurs or battling a dragon, is essentially a boring, monotonous hackfest that begs to be ALT-TAB’ed. Scaling is pathetic (try doing a boss by yourself, which happens often these days in low areas) and quickly goes from impossibly difficult to profoundly boring. As soon as a sizable group of players appears and the boss’ stats scale, it turns into a 5 minute auto-attack where you hope you’ve done enough damage to get XP by the end, followed by one amalgamated mad-dash to the body to see if there’s any loot.

It’s profoundly boring, every single time.

This, of course, doesn’t even address the fact that dynamic events themselves are boring. Oh, someone’s been kidnapped and taken to a cave and I need to save him (aka, hackfest a boss for 5 minutes)? Great, I’d rather find a rusty fork and plunge it into my eye. The only time boss fights are enjoyable is when there is a very low number of people (think 3-5) and so you feel like your hits are actually doing something, and yet there is also a true risk of failure. When there are 50 players hacking at a boss, big deal if you get downed or (unlikely) defeated: you’ll get resurrected straight away. (Continued)

In fact, that latter bit leads to a bit of a digression, viz., that the game’s just way too easy. There are waypoints everywhere, and there’s no death penalty. Remember how fun it was fighting from Beacon’s to Drok’s to get max armor as a newly created level 17 or 18 (or lower)? Remember when dying actually meant something, and dying several times meant you’d have to zone and evaluate your options (see: strategising, which is actually fun)? Well, keep on remembering because there’s none of that here.

Dynamic events have absolutely no back-story. They’re uninteresting, and they’re boring. In GW1, once you did a mission, you were given instructions on where to go, and if you went to an outpost, you spoke to someone who gave you a ‘quest’ (oh noes!) that furthered the storyline, made chronological sense, and added coherence to the overall story. Even if some of the quests were boring, they at least made sense from a storytelling point of view, and as you unlocked new outposts (and thus new quests), your understanding of the world was increased. ArenaNet said they wanted to make GW2 ‘more fun’ and that quests were ‘antifun’, but what they failed to realise is that, whether you get instructions to kill something from an NPC in an outpost or you just randomly find some while you’re running around, it’s the same thing in the end. Only, because every single dynamic event is either a hackfest or a repetitive ‘activate, pick up, or otherwise give yourself an epileptic seizure whilst completing this mind numbing bore of an activity’, it’s the same thing anyway, except dynamic events lack any direction or chronological/lore meaning.

In short, they’re really boring, and doing them for 80 levels sucks.

Ultimately, I can’t see why you wouldn’t’ allow players to choose what’s fun for them. Give us quests for those who want them, and give dynamic events to people who like those (though I have yet to talk to anybody who doesn’t abhor dynamic events). Forcing people to level up by doing a mixture of Hearts (which are, again, so boring that I’d rather scrape my eyes out) and dynamic events (ditto) just seems unnecessarily draconian. Why not just implement both?

2. Skills. Why do I need the first 5 skills to be straight out of a cookiecutter? Why can’t I edit them? Why are there hundreds, if not thousands, of skills in GW1, and what feels like 50 in GW2? Why would you take out Elite Skill capping? Why would you prevent people from taking a second profession? The entire skills platform has been so dumbed down and simplified that I can only assume ArenaNet can’t be bothered trying to balance it or something. Capping elite skills in GW1 was fun because you felt like you were accomplishing something, doing so was usually challenging, and you actually got something you could use in the process.

Guild Wars 2 neutered that and gave me a League of Legends-style trait menu that I can’t even save.

Strategizing via the skillbar is laughable in GW2, like it was designed for simpletons.

The Asura would be ashamed.

(Why not do something like add Cap-able elite skills to dynamic event bosses? You won’t completely reduce how bloody boring DE are, but at least you’ll add a little bit of meaning to them.) (Continued)

3. Trading post. So you wanted to prevent spam, ArenaNet? Well, taking out the TP didn’t do a thing. Every time I log in, I have at least 2 messages from gold sellers in my inbox. Why not make a chat channel that is just for trade? Why prevent people from trading? Again, just like with quests, there’s no reason to take out something that has worked beautifully for a large proportion of your player base over the many years Guild Wars 1 was out, and replace it with something that is, in many ways, vastly inferior.

Why can’t we have both?

You think a 15% fee is going to somehow force people to buy gems? Again, I’m dumbfounded and don’t understand. Just have both. There’s absolutely no reason to have the fee, and if you’re going to argue that you’re trying to simulate a real economy, people pay cash in hand all the time. You’ve taken a feature out of the game with the TP without replacing anything close to it in terms of functionality or entertainment (see: haggling). That seems to be a recurring theme throughout, actually.

I could type for hours, and this is far from exhaustive.

Where are the actual titles like Legendary Survivor and Vanquisher? Where are the rest of the emotes? Why can’t I have heroes, at least for my personal story missions? Why is the voice acting still so cheesy and bad (except for Rytlock), and why do I have to feign belief so often while playing through storyline missions (from what I’ve played, the Asura storyline was the worst with this. Bad voice acting and lack of believability in terms of how supposedly ‘genius’ beings would behave make for a bad time). Why’d you take away elite skill capping? Why’d you absolutely murder the skill system that made Guild Wars 1 playable for 6 years+? Why don’t I get XP for helping my friend do his personal storyline mission? What was wrong with the holy trinity in the first place?

You’ve messed with a lot of stuff just to mess with it, and frankly, it didn’t work.

Ultimately, I’ll never understand why so much was changed. Guild Wars 1 was immensely enjoyable, even years after it should have gotten boring. Some people don’t mind grinding, and I’m not saying everybody should have to grind. But you should certainly allow those who want to grind, or are willing to grind, to do so. All you’ve got now is a player base filled with casuals who will be gone in 6 months.

For the rest of us, the people who will actually spend money and tons of time in your game, well, we’re already really bored.

Completely disagree on your point about DEs almost all the way except for the part about scaling.

There is backstory, try following the NPCs once you’re done the event.
The talk, just because you didn’t listen doesn’t mean there’s no backstory.

Torcan.2314:

1. Get level 80
2. Get full exo
3. ????
4. Quit

Good riddance.

tl;dr because these huge wall of text “I played GW1 and hate GW2” threads pop up every day.

Hey at least GW1 servers are still up right.

guild wars 2 is not guild wars 1.
they took tyria’s backstory and made it into an MMO. if you dont like it, move along. You paid already and played 220 hours (IN 2 WEEKS).

btw gw1 servers r still up.

So yesterday I play this game I think you’d like. It’s called Guild Wars 1.

Battle Rifles.2965:

For the rest of us, the people who will actually spend money and tons of time in your game, well, we’re already really bored.

I’m a day one GW1 player and spender of money. Kindly, don’t speak for me.

Naturally, almost everybody is trolling in the comments. Here’s to hoping just one ArenaNet developer sees this and, at the very least, thinks about things.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Naturally, almost everybody is trolling in the comments. Here’s to hoping just one ArenaNet developer sees this and, at the very least, thinks about things.

And what? Redesigns the entire game from the ground up? Retools every single interdependent system in the game, just to assuage a handful of neo-luddites?

You’ve had your moment atop the soapbox. Move on. Because they aren’t going to give you GW1 with updated graphics. Ain’t never gonna happen.

I can’t believe I actually read all of that. Couldn’t you just write “I hate everything about GW2!” and be done with it? Or did you think you were making a structured argument? Repeating how boring dynamic events were for you is not an argument.

I’ve read lots of threads of people and their negative opinions about GW2, but most of the OP in those threads liked the game, just had some complaints.

I don’t know why you’re wasting your time on a video game you obviously don’t like.

i like the game, its like skyrim on steroid with a jrpg feel.

from long time GW1 to long time GW1 player, I disagree with all your points.

I’d add “to me” at the end of your topic title, because I was a GW player starting in May 2005, have played all three campaigns and EotN extensively, and I wouldn’t call this game a failure by any means.

I’d add “to me” at the end of your topic title, because I was a GW player starting in May 2005, have played all three campaigns and EotN extensively, and I wouldn’t call this game a failure by any means.

Seconded.

Besides the disappearance of quote buttons, that’s a pretty big fail.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Naturally, almost everybody is trolling in the comments. Here’s to hoping just one ArenaNet developer sees this and, at the very least, thinks about things.

They arent “trolling” you. It’s simply stating a fact, there are elements you loved about Guild Wars 1 had that Gw2 just doesn’t provide you. Let’s face the reality Guild wars 1 appealed to a very niche part of the MMO community. Arenanet is a company, a company that wants their game to appeal to a large sum of players.

You put 200+ hours into Gw2, and you defintely got your money’s worth. And I’m sure there are others who feel the same way about the game. Personally i’m not one of them, but as the others above me said just go back and play guild wars 1, there is nothing wrong with that.

To add, do you really view the word like this: people who disagree with me – must be wrong and only want to taunt me. My opinion – absolute truth, everyone who wants to debate it just is a bad person. If only the powers that be would listen to me and adopt my utopian plan? cause that is exactly what you are pulling here.

I played GW1 and I play GW2. They are not the same. They are not meant to be the same. If you come into GW2 expecting it to be just like GW1 you will be disappointed. It’s not a GW1 expansion pack. It’s a whole new game. Enjoy it as if it is a whole new game.

How the hell can you play a game for 220 hours and hate it the entire time. Why did you keep playing?
220 hours in at this point is like working two full time jobs. So you just worked two full time jobs that you hate in the last two weeks.

Another ‘GW1 isn’t -insert MMO title here-. Change it’.

No. No, there are plenty of us that like GW2 for everything it is. Sure it has it’s problems, but not being GW1 certainly ain’t in that list.

“I got 99 problems, but imitating past MMO’s ain’t 1.”

Wortermelon.6035:

“I got 99 problems, but imitating past MMO’s ain’t 1.”

Well, it is…

So I was wandering in Iron Marches. I saw quite a few Charr cubs near an old house and decided to see what was going on in there. They were approached by this woman. She said:

“How wonderful. You sweet, innocent children have come to play at my home.”

And I was thinking how nice that humans and Charr were finally getting along.

A cub humorously responded:

“We’re not sweet! We’re ferocious warriors (roar)”

She went along:

“Oh yes, I can see that. Come closer, my little champion. I have something for you, it’s a warrior’s prize, worthy of your courage.”

The cubs approached.

“A present?” asked one, “I want one!”

“What is it? An unbreakable shield? Is it a flaming sword like Tribune Brimstone’s?”

And I was there still watching with a smile on my face. The woman continued:

“It’s something even better, little ones. For your bravery, I reward you with…”

“ENDLESS TORMENT”

Wait, what!? Yeah, that took me by surprise. Turns out she was an undead Ascalonian witch trying to kidnap the cubs to bring them pain. Suddenly an event begins and you have to save the cubs from the innumerous beasts she is summoning, and then fight her at once. This is not something I will forget anytime soon.

Would it really be better for you if this were some NPC? “Oh, hi, some undead necromancer is kidnapping Charr cubs, please kill her and come back for your reward.”

Say whatever you want, I prefer this method of storytelling a hundred times over GW’s. And yes, I actually took screenshots of the dialogue.

Apathy.6430:

Wortermelon.6035:

“I got 99 problems, but imitating past MMO’s ain’t 1.”

Well, it is…

Technically, GW1 wasn’t an MMO so much as a team-based dungeon crawler with towns and outposts as lobbies.

Sorry , completely disagree. As someone who played GW1 from beta period forward and loved every minute of it. GW1 was a great game in its time and is still worth playing.

GW2 resets the genre and delivers fun and varietry in a package like no previous MMO has done. This is 2004 all over again and I am more than ready for the rebirth of the “truly” social based MMO. Kudos to ANET for this game.

Eochaidh.4106:

So I was wandering in Iron Marches. I saw quite a few Charr cubs near an old house and decided to see what was going on in there. They were approached by this woman. She said:

“How wonderful. You sweet, innocent children have come to play at my home.”

And I was thinking how nice that humans and Charr were finally getting along.

A cub humorously responded:

“We’re not sweet! We’re ferocious warriors (roar)”

She went along:

“Oh yes, I can see that. Come closer, my little champion. I have something for you, it’s a warrior’s prize, worthy of your courage.”

The cubs approached.

“A present?” asked one, “I want one!”

“What is it? An unbreakable shield? Is it a flaming sword like Tribune Brimstone’s?”

And I was there still watching with a smile on my face. The woman continued:

“It’s something even better, little ones. For your bravery, I reward you with…”

“ENDLESS TORMENT”

Wait, what!? Yeah, that took me by surprise. Turns out she was an undead Ascalonian witch trying to kidnap the cubs to bring them pain. Suddenly an event begins and you have to save the cubs from the innumerous beasts she is summoning, and then fight her at once. This is not something I will forget anytime soon.

Would it really be better for you if this were some NPC? “Oh, hi, some undead necromancer is kidnapping Charr cubs, please kill her and come back for your reward.”

Say whatever you want, I prefer this method of storytelling a hundred times over GW’s. And yes, I actually took screenshots of the dialogue.

That’d be great if your being there actually meant something. One of the great advantages of having your own instance (ala GW1) is that successes and failures are based solely on you and your team.

What happened in your case, I’d surmise, is that 10 other players were there also, and you all fought and successfully defended, or failed to defend, the Charr, and that your being there was irrelevant. And that’s my big complaint: GW2 makes individual players irrelevant, whether it’s a DE or a boss fight (and in boss fights, invididual players are 100% irrelevant based on scaling).

The idea behind DEs is okay, but its implementation at the moment is horrendous.

What do you think about making quests optional for people who want them, and leaving DEs as they are?

Hey guys. I’d like to say that I bought and have played Guild Wars on it’s release day up until Guild Wars 2’s launch. It was easily one of my favorite games of all time. However, GW2 feels and plays like a completely different game. There are numerous pros and cons to this. But we need to understand that GW2 would have not been successful with using the archaic mechanics present in the original. Just take a look at the latest big named MMOs who borrowed 100% of its design philosophy from major MMOs. While I’m unsure how well GW2 will do in the future, I do believe they’re making a major step forward in the industry. But for the sake of it, these are my pros and cons:

Pros:
-Dynamic Events
-The Questing (I like this because if gives you MORE options than simply “kill x of y”.)
-The Story and Lore
-Like the original, the leveling isn’t tedious. You grind for other things besides levels.

Cons:
-Lack of utility spells
-No dual class specs. I seriously miss this the most.
-Balance seems a little shady right now, albeit this should be fixed over years.
-Lack of specialized builds in classes. Wheres my support/bardish thief?

Overall I do think a lot of the major design choices are a step forward in the right direction.

Battle Rifles.2965:

That’d be great if your being there actually meant something. One of the great advantages of having your own instance (ala GW1) is that successes and failures are based solely on you and your team.

You should look into doing some dungeons.

After that flamebait of an opening post, do you really expect people to just agree with you, and pat you on the back for “finally saying what everybody is thinking”?

Seriously, it read like you were pounding on the keyboard in a fit of rage. You’re not going to win any friends or supporters by being insulting.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but ANet pretty much abandoned anything that was really Guild Wars with GW2. It’s more like WoW2.0, if you want GW play GW1 because there isn’t any of it here.

That said, I don’t think this is as bad as you make it out to be. Yes, it’s unfortunate and I am bothered by it too. But it’s still got some awesome pvp, at least…. I can’t be bothered to pve much from all the 1 shot deaths to bosses that annoy the crap out of me.

Great graphics, classical ANet style art, and generally a game I can see myself getting used to, I didn’t jump in GW1 at the start either. In fact it felt really really weird at first and took me almost 2 years to get into GW1 seriously. But after I jumped in, I played for 5 years straight.

I understand where you’re coming from, and I feel ya, but this is what we got. A decent, dumbed down MMO.

Battle Rifles.2965:

That’d be great if your being there actually meant something. One of the great advantages of having your own instance (ala GW1) is that successes and failures are based solely on you and your team.

So basically you want to play a single/co-op game.
Now tell me. Why did you buy an MMO?

Apathy.6430:

Battle Rifles.2965:

That’d be great if your being there actually meant something. One of the great advantages of having your own instance (ala GW1) is that successes and failures are based solely on you and your team.

You should look into doing some dungeons.

I’ve done dungeons, and didn’t get any satisfaction from them. I’m open to trying them again, but if dungeons are all anybody has to look forward to at endgame then, well…

Rukia.4802:

I agree with a lot of what you say, but ANet pretty much abandoned anything that was really Guild Wars with GW2. It’s more like WoW2.0, if you want GW play GW1 because there isn’t any of it here.

That said, I don’t think this is as bad as you make it out to be. Yes, it’s unfortunate and I am bothered by it too. But it’s still got some awesome pvp, at least…. I can’t be bothered to pve much from all the 1 shot deaths to bosses that annoy the crap out of me.

Great graphics, classical ANet style art, and generally a game I can see myself getting used to, I didn’t jump in GW1 at the start either. In fact it felt really really weird at first and took me almost 2 years to get into GW1 seriously. But after I jumped in, I played for 5 years straight.

I understand where you’re coming from, and I feel ya, but this is what we got. A decent, dumbed down MMO.

The graphics and music are amazing. Again, the potential is ridiculous, but I’ve no doubt they need to change some things.

Battle Rifles.2965:

I’ve done dungeons, and didn’t get any satisfaction from them. I’m open to trying them again, but if dungeons are all anybody has to look forward to at endgame then, well…

What were you looking for in the endgame, then? Because if it’s a gear treadmill a la WoW, then you have nobody to blame but yourself, because ANet said a long time ago that that crap wouldn’t be in this game.

Greyfeld.7104:

After that flamebait of an opening post, do you really expect people to just agree with you, and pat you on the back for “finally saying what everybody is thinking”?

Seriously, it read like you were pounding on the keyboard in a fit of rage. You’re not going to win any friends or supporters by being insulting.

While I certainly wasn’t flaming or trolling, I also wasn’t trying to make friends. I just hope the devs, or at least one of them, reads it for some perspective. Considering how dedicated they’ve been from the beginning to listening to their fanbase, I don’t think that’s so farfetched.

DusK.3849:

Battle Rifles.2965:

I’ve done dungeons, and didn’t get any satisfaction from them. I’m open to trying them again, but if dungeons are all anybody has to look forward to at endgame then, well…

What were you looking for in the endgame, then? Because if it’s a gear treadmill a la WoW, then you have nobody to blame but yourself, because ANet said a long time ago that that crap wouldn’t be in this game.

I want something that’s going to keep me playing PvE for the next 6-7 or whatever years. They did it with GW1.

That’s all I want, actually.

Greyfeld.7104:

Seriously, it read like you were pounding on the keyboard in a fit of rage. You’re not going to win any friends or supporters by being insulting.

That’s not true.

I’m as insulting as I can possibly be without getting an “infraction”, and I apparently have a couple fans.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Greyfeld.7104:

After that flamebait of an opening post, do you really expect people to just agree with you, and pat you on the back for “finally saying what everybody is thinking”?

Seriously, it read like you were pounding on the keyboard in a fit of rage. You’re not going to win any friends or supporters by being insulting.

While I certainly wasn’t flaming or trolling, I also wasn’t trying to make friends. I just hope the devs, or at least one of them, reads it for some perspective. Considering how dedicated they’ve been from the beginning to listening to their fanbase, I don’t think that’s so farfetched.

You mean the devs, who have spent all their time and hard work creating the game to a point it is at now, with several years of planning and preparing, are going to re-think everything when they read some shoddy quickly written 10 minute piece of writing?

Sure, they take user based constructive criticism on board, but not someone complaining that the new game they’ve been trying to make is too different from the old one. That’s the whole point.

Wortermelon.6035:

Battle Rifles.2965:

Greyfeld.7104:

After that flamebait of an opening post, do you really expect people to just agree with you, and pat you on the back for “finally saying what everybody is thinking”?

Seriously, it read like you were pounding on the keyboard in a fit of rage. You’re not going to win any friends or supporters by being insulting.

While I certainly wasn’t flaming or trolling, I also wasn’t trying to make friends. I just hope the devs, or at least one of them, reads it for some perspective. Considering how dedicated they’ve been from the beginning to listening to their fanbase, I don’t think that’s so farfetched.

You mean the devs, who have spent all their time and hard work creating the game to a point it is at now, with several years of planning and preparing, are going to re-think everything when they read some shoddy quickly written 10 minute piece of writing?

Sure, they take user based constructive criticism on board, but not someone complaining that the new game they’ve been trying to make is too different from the old one. That’s the whole point.

Don’t get me wrong, I know this is their baby, and I know they’re liable to be very protective of it. I also know that, of all the gaming companies I know of, I’d count on three of them to actually listen to their users: Valve, Bethesda, and ANet. I don’t expect many to agree with me on here, certainly. Forums are known to be saturated with fanboys, and that’s no surprise. I do know that between talking to RL friends who play the game and lots of people in game, something needs to be done. Now sure, short term they’ll get all the casuals who will spend $60 and beef up their margins, but as I said, if they want to keep people interested, they’re going to have to pay attention.

This isn’t even an issue with any of the other people here. Really, I shouldn’t have commented at all after posting. This is just my small pipe dream of hoping that an ANet employee comes along, reads my thing, and perhaps sees where there can be some improvement. I hope that after playing GW1 for so long, and having such hopes for this one, that I’d have at least a few iotas of credibility. That’s all I’m after and, if it doesn’t happen, this whole thing was a bit cathartic for me, so no big deal, I guess. I got it off my chest, and the rest is up to them.

You don’t like the game — that’s fine.

Your criticisms go to core design decisions that you don’t like. Those are not going to be changed to suit you.

knightblaster.8027:

Your criticisms go to core design decisions that you don’t like.

They also go into core design decisions that we’ve known about for quite a while before the game was released, making him yet another uninformed consumer.

Seriously, did like nobody read about the game before they bought it? Why did some many people pick this game up thinking it would be WoW2 or a carbon copy of the first game?

“All you’ve got now is a player base filled with casuals who will be gone in 6 months.

For the rest of us, the people who will actually spend money and tons of time in your game, well, we’re already really bored."

I have over 100 hours logged on one character in this game and I’m only level 41. I’m having a blast, and I’m far from casual. Heck I’ve only been playing for a week.

In the last cash shop game I played (DDO) I spent over 2.5k in real life money over the course of four years, and I’ll be doing it again in this game.

I get you’re not happy, but stop speaking for everyone.

You don’t like this game, you’re bored, you want something else.

I’m having a blast, I love this game, I love the events, I’m not bored, I’m not causal, and I won’t be leaving in 6 months.

I get you love GW1 and I’ve never tried it. However I have to say if it was such a great game, how come it was never as popular as GW2 has become?

Most of us are looking for the new concept in gaming and GW2 delivered.

As many of us have said over and over, if you don’t like it, go to the game you do like.

Why waste your time trying to change something to suit you instead of changing yourself to suit it?

I can semi-agree with your points on no story information leading into new zones and dynamic events. In most cases, you’re left in the dark wondering why exactly it is you’re helping the people you’re helping. However, if you take the time to speak to the NPCs, and you have your audio in the game on, you can pick up bits and pieces of information on why you’re doing what you’re doing. I wish it was a bit more immersive though.

beriiel.2804:

I get you love GW1 and I’ve never tried it. However I have to say if it was such a great game, how come it was never as popular as GW2 has become?

Well, GW2 is partly as popular as it is because of the success of GW…4 million copies is nothing to really scoff at since it was competing with WoW in it’s prime.

Apathy.6430:

beriiel.2804:

I get you love GW1 and I’ve never tried it. However I have to say if it was such a great game, how come it was never as popular as GW2 has become?

Well, GW2 is partly as popular as it is because of the success of GW…4 million copies is nothing to really scoff at since it was competing with WoW in it’s prime.

And I wasn’t scoffing at GW’s success, quite the opposite actually. However GW2 is becoming more successful.

My point is that a lot of people are coming to this game because of all the things the op and players like the op don’t like.

It’s hard to ignore that.

You say that ArenaNet listens to the playerbase, and I agree with you. To that end, I have a question for you: who should ArenaNet listen to in this case? You, who hate dynamic events and many of the changes they made between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, or players like me who find many of these changes superior to the gameplay we found in Guild Wars?

I played Guild Wars shortly after it was released and only quit sometime after EotN. It was my entrance into MMO-like games, and it still holds a special place in my heart because of all the memories I made in the original Tyria. However, I disagree with most of your points. I think dynamic events make the world seem more alive than a regular quest is capable of doing. While I would like more skills for weapons, I don’t want to see dual classes come back. Dual-classes were fun back in the day, and they allowed for some pretty crazy builds, but they also killed the unique flavor of classes. If the only thing you use your primary class for is your primary attribute while the rest of your skills are from your secondary profession, are you really a member of that primary class anymore? I like having the flavor for each class be distinct, but to each his own.

It really comes down to taste. Dynamic events are boring- to you. I think they’re great, and have had no problem re-doing several of them I’ve come across in my leveling. That doesn’t make me a crazed fanboy.

I’m sorry Guild Wars 2 isn’t to your taste. However, you’re not asking for objective improvements; you’re asking that the entire game be remade to suit your gaming preferences. Surely you can see why that is a bit unreasonable?

Eochaidh.4106:

So I was wandering in Iron Marches. I saw quite a few Charr cubs near an old house and decided to see what was going on in there. They were approached by this woman. She said:

“How wonderful. You sweet, innocent children have come to play at my home.”

And I was thinking how nice that humans and Charr were finally getting along.

A cub humorously responded:

“We’re not sweet! We’re ferocious warriors (roar)”

She went along:

“Oh yes, I can see that. Come closer, my little champion. I have something for you, it’s a warrior’s prize, worthy of your courage.”

The cubs approached.

“A present?” asked one, “I want one!”

“What is it? An unbreakable shield? Is it a flaming sword like Tribune Brimstone’s?”

And I was there still watching with a smile on my face. The woman continued:

“It’s something even better, little ones. For your bravery, I reward you with…”

“ENDLESS TORMENT”

Wait, what!? Yeah, that took me by surprise. Turns out she was an undead Ascalonian witch trying to kidnap the cubs to bring them pain. Suddenly an event begins and you have to save the cubs from the innumerous beasts she is summoning, and then fight her at once. This is not something I will forget anytime soon.

Would it really be better for you if this were some NPC? “Oh, hi, some undead necromancer is kidnapping Charr cubs, please kill her and come back for your reward.”

Say whatever you want, I prefer this method of storytelling a hundred times over GW’s. And yes, I actually took screenshots of the dialogue.

This. While lots of times you miss out on the story behind events cause you come into them once they’ve already started they usually have something like this which introduces them. Also I really like how sometimes NPCs will run up to you (not stand there with a ! above them) and ask for help. If you choose to speak to them they will tell you their problem and then you agree to help which starts an event. That is 100x better than classic questing imo.

The DE system also gets rid of the typical complete every side quest in this area then never come back that can happen in other games. I’ve often gone through areas I’ve already completed 100% and I end up getting caught up in some events just cause they are fun and when you see someone in trouble you feel like helping them out cause you get rewarded for it so it’s not really a waste of your time.

Only thing I agreed with OP is that lots of the heart renown quests were really boring. I don’t want to catch bugs to feed to your cows 20 times. Lots of them make up for it by having multiple ways to complete it like kill this enemy, collect this item, or repair/activate this object. Those type always go by quickly since you can do a combination of the different objectives as you pass through the area and it’s not as tedious. World boss events do need a bit of fixing for large number of players since it does become a stand at max range and unload all your skills at him til he goes down. The few times I’ve done one with smaller groups has been immensely fun, however.

Myrina.4658:

You say that ArenaNet listens to the playerbase, and I agree with you. To that end, I have a question for you: who should ArenaNet listen to in this case?

Would it be so hard to compromise, and maybe put quests in for people who don’t mind doing them, while leaving DEs in for people (like you) who enjoy them?

I just feel like a lot of it hasn’t been well thought out or considered. I don’t know why you’d isolate a substantial portion of your playerbase (and again, I’ve talked to a lot of people about this) over being ‘innovative’.

Why not have both? It’s grindy either way, so you can’t try to say, “Well, we’re eliminating the grind.” No you’re not, you’re simply changing how I grind. Instead of having a quest hub I can reliably go to to get stuff to do, I run around ad nauseum waiting for some event to pop up, often with obscenely contradictory results. One minute I’m helping the dredge or the trolls, and the next minute I’m killing them, depending on where I am in a map.

Dynamic events have little meaning IMO. If you truly enjoy them, I’m happy for you. But why eliminate quests? Let’s have both. As I’ve said, it seems they’ve ‘changed’ just for the sake of it.

That is a part of their vision. They didn’t want to make a game with quest hubs and shopping list quest completion, but a game based on exploring around and coming across content. Again, you don’t like that vision, which is fine, but it’s a core design feature of the game. Putting in quest hubs would completely destroy the core design of the PvE game, and, believe me, plenty of people, almost everyone I talk to, is quite happy that there are no quest hubs and quest shopping lists like every other bloody MMO.