Guild Wars 2

I simply adore Dynamic Events and pretty much everything about this game in PVE/WvW/PVP ..

There are some good suggestions out there as to how to improve these things, e.g. making DEs more ‘intelligent’ and challenging etc. but overall I’m extremely satisfied.

Can’t believe I got all this for only 60 bucks! Plus you may leave and join whenever new content comes out

Battle Rifles.2965:

SpectacularYak.6518:

Battle Rifles.2965:

And, I should add, this game is very Jobsian in the sense that it’s taken aspects from a multiplicity of other games, reworked the artwork a bit, and then called itself revolutionary.

Are you really going to start a crusade against marketing hyperbole now?

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but marketing hyperbole is not a new concept, nor is it limited to companies that you dislike or products you hate.

I rail against crap whether it’s something I like or not, actually. And dishonesty in particular pisses me off, especially when every airhead can’t come up for air long enough to realise how deluded they are.

I’m sick of being told I’m playing a game with all this new great stuff in it, when I’m not. There’s nothing revolutionary about anything in this game, not the DEs, the boss fights, anything. Anybody who’s playing anything else can attest to this (and really, if you’ve played anything else, the statement is laughable). And yeah, it pisses me off that players are repeating verbatim precisely what the developer has been spoon feeding them for the past 2 years.

(And hell, I LIKE ANet).

Admit that the game is a disappointment for you, and stop coming off grandiose with vague generalizations to get your point across.

While dynamic events are nothing new, combined with the hearts/skill points/vistas/etc in each zone, it adds more flavor aside from the traditional MMO in terms of just going out and collecting X apples for Y amount of time, or killing X amount of enemies.

You have to look at the full product, and not emphasize on certain features as though they are the entire game. WvW, dungeons, events, hearts, exploration, hidden treats and great class diversity is what is holding this game up so high for most players. It may get old, but so long as content rolls out in the future, and people have something to work for, I guarantee this game won’t die like Warhammer, Conan or Rift did.

This game does one thing really well, and that’s bringing players together.

They did a lot of things right, a few things I’m iffy on, but the game basically just came out, so you have to give it time.

Rhongomyniad.5081:

I simply adore Dynamic Events and pretty much everything about this game in PVE/WvW/PVP ..

There are some good suggestions out there as to how to improve these things, e.g. making DEs more ‘intelligent’ and challenging etc. but overall I’m extremely satisfied.

Can’t believe I got all this for only 60 bucks! Plus you may leave and join whenever new content comes out

Not that I’m complaining about having to pay for content (because I’m happy to do so) but, if this is anything like GW1, when there’s any sort of meaningful update, it’s usually $20-$30. Again, I don’t mind paying, but until we get meaningful updates for free, as they’ve said they’ll do, to suggest otherwise is just misinformation.

Cezton.2415:

It may get old, but so long as content rolls out in the future, and people have something to work for, I guarantee this game won’t die like Warhammer, Conan or Rift did.

You guarantee?

So what do I get in six months when, if they haven’t dramatically altered things, this place is a ghost town and we’ve both long forgotten about this thread?

Nothing, right?

Battle Rifles.2965:

Examples?

Battle Rifles.2965:

Saying DEs are a system that ‘works perfectly well’ is intellectually dishonest, and you’ve got a plethora of comments in just this thread that prove that.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/biased-sample.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/hasty-generalization.html

Battle Rifles.2965:

It’s intellectually dishonest to call something perfect when there’s a sizable portion of relevant users who think it’s severely flawed.

Battle Rifles.2965:

That is being intellectually dishonest. There’s not already a ‘perfectly good [system] in place’, because many users loathe it.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html

Although the fact this is appeal to popularity at all demonstrates a fairly significant confirmation bias on your part.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Now, who are the many users I mentioned? Of the 8 people I know personally who play (or have played) GW2, not one of them likes the Hearts + Dynamic Events way of leveling up.

Not one.

Now, you could accuse me of simply associating with people similar to me, but when those eight people span the spectrum of good friends to people at work to friends of friends, then I think you’ve got a sample size that outruns that accusation.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/biased-sample.html

And our good friend the confirmation bias again.

Battle Rifles.2965:

I certainly don’t think everyone hates the system, but heck, have you been reading for the past two pages? A good 30% of the posters here agree with me, at least to some extent. That’s a sizable portion, in case you’re too dull to figure it out.

Now we’re back to appeal to popularity, and you’re getting emotional, so the personal attacks have started.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Do you think the majority of the players who are playing right now will be playing in 6 months?

The answer is an absolute no.

Bit of fortune telling here. History would seem to suggest you have something to go on here, but GW2 is not a subscription based game, so it is not likely to be subject to the same vagaries as its cousins. While I’m generally inclined to agree with you that the population is unlikely to hold steady or grow, you really have no idea if what you’re saying here is true or not, and yet you present it as fact.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Thus, people like us are up against both the multitude of casuals who think the game is great as well as the devs themselves because they’d have to admit their ideas weren’t the greatest. That’s a pretty formidable opponent, when you combine the two.

Now you’re really losing it. You’ve gone off the rails with self-aggrandizement, you’re snidely attacking “casuals” as though this was 2003 and the idea of filthy casuals actually sticking around and playing a game was foreign to the imagination, and you’re casting the developers as mustache twirling villains. We covered the “No True Scotsman” earlier, I won’t bother linking it here. “People like us”. Seriously man.

And here’s the thing. You actually seem like a smart guy, and you were pretty calm and seemed to be well rooted in the fact that this was your opinion, your disappointment was your own, and that there was really nothing to be done about things. Then you started ARGUING with people, and…quite predictably…the more you argued, the more polarized you got, and now you’re just talking rubbish. When you go off on rants about ego and money and “players like us” and the evil casuals and yada yada yada you sound like a clown. And I don’t think you’re a clown. I think you’re a reasonable fellow who didn’t like a game, and you got slammed for it, and now you’re throwing wild punches.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Cezton.2415:

It may get old, but so long as content rolls out in the future, and people have something to work for, I guarantee this game won’t die like Warhammer, Conan or Rift did.

You guarantee?

So what do I get in six months when, if they haven’t dramatically altered things, this place is a ghost town and we’ve both long forgotten about this thread?

Nothing, right?

A gritty sense of satisfaction? I don’t know, nor do I care really.

Guild Wars 2, I predict will be between LotRO and WoW. I don’t expect it to be “better” than WoW as people love to protest, or more populated, but with games like Warhammer, AoC, Rift, etc, the problem was leveling would come to a hault, or that there was absolutely no end game. Performance issues were always thick in these games, and the forums became a ghost town very, very quickly. Forget forums though, with the advertising of this game, and the amount of youtube prowess and general chatter that it has gotten earlier til now, it’s evident that it’s not going to just die.

Like I said, the game just came out, and the response so far has been great.

I know nobody who has stopped playing, if anything, all my buds are glued to the screen like they were when WoW first came out. Recently many of us got D3 and evidently that game was a piece of trash, and people knew it was right away. You just don’t see that response on here this early in it’s life. Just issues here and there.

People use the term “casuals” as an insult and still expect to be taken seriously? What is this, a forum for an FPS game?

You think those wild punches are bad, Yak, you should have seen him yesterday. His jimmies were definitely rustled.

Battle Rifles.2965:

I rail against crap whether it’s something I like or not, actually. And dishonesty in particular pisses me off, especially when every airhead on the interwebs can’t come up for air long enough to realise how deluded they are.

I’m sick of being told I’m playing a game with all this new great stuff in it, when I’m not. There’s nothing revolutionary about anything in this game, not the DEs, the boss fights, anything. Anybody who’s played anything else can attest to this (and really, if you’ve played anything else, the statement is laughable). And yeah, it angers me that players are repeating verbatim precisely what the developer has been spoon feeding them for the past 2 years.

(And hell, I LIKE ANet).

Well, again, I’ve been getting marketed at for many years, so maybe I’ve just learned to manage my expectations better, but I think you need to pick a better hill to die on. You will literally be paralyzed with rage if every single piece of marketing in existence throws you into a lather, and you’re suggesting it MUST, because they are all LIARS.

The game is actually revolutionary in one respect (barrier to entry socially), and semi-revolutionary in another (the somewhat effective, somewhat kitteny level scaling). In most cases, including the dynamic events you dislike so much, it is merely evolutionary. You are correct in that.

Lot of fanboys in this thread, I do have to agree, a lot in this game was a huge disappointment. After you get out of the beta tested areas it’s just one broken DE after another, and even when you do find a working DE it’s just a spam fest of just aoes, and all people do at level 80 is grind grind grind for 63k karma. Dungeons in this game are a joke, sure the first run was hard when you didn’t know what to expect but after that…a joke. I’m not sure what Anet did wrong, I watched their manifesto, read all their updates and it seemed to be going well. I was expecting a world that would be alive, not just have X centaurs that are standing still and need to be killed, or just have X centaurs attack a place and need to kill them. What did we get? X centaurs standing in a field or X centaurs attacking an outpost that need to be killed.

Cawesome.1580:

Lot of fanboys in this thread

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HateDumb

People are quick to throw the word “fanboy” around. They forget that polarized thinking and bias run in both directions.

Don’t drop the fanboy card. I didn’t even want to get GW2, I was pressured into it. I get a sense of satisfaction in this game, and feel there’s a great social aspect, and plenty to do.

People really need to stop leaning on the traditional MMO approach. It’s getting really, really old, and like I said twice already, the game just came out.

I will agree though that, that there are TOO many centaur quests.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Rhongomyniad.5081:

I simply adore Dynamic Events and pretty much everything about this game in PVE/WvW/PVP ..

There are some good suggestions out there as to how to improve these things, e.g. making DEs more ‘intelligent’ and challenging etc. but overall I’m extremely satisfied.

Can’t believe I got all this for only 60 bucks! Plus you may leave and join whenever new content comes out

Not that I’m complaining about having to pay for content (because I’m happy to do so) but, if this is anything like GW1, when there’s any sort of meaningful update, it’s usually $20-$30. Again, I don’t mind paying, but until we get meaningful updates for free, as they’ve said they’ll do, to suggest otherwise is just misinformation.

I guess we just have different expectations then ..

Personally though I like the nutty stories behind some of the DEs and what not. I just hit 80 but only now have started to explore the various dungeons and that’s my latest infatuation. And then pecking at the back of my head is map exploration and doing all of them secret jumping puzzles. And then some random in a tavern will start asking if anyone wants to run around in WvW and the sheer magnitude of it fascinates me. AND THEN mates feel like having a little sPVP a la LOL style :p

So for me I’m quite occupied. Even the random little conversations you hear NPCs having in towns is something I enjoy.

Maybe you’ve just played so long in such a short time you’re feeling a little jaded ..

I never played GW1 though, and from what you say bout the multiple skills available etc. that would be nice if GW2 gradually went in that direction (I can see why that started out trying to make things simple for ‘newcomers’ like me).

SpectacularYak.6518:

And here’s the thing. You actually seem like a smart guy, and you were pretty calm and seemed to be well rooted in the fact that this was your opinion, your disappointment was your own, and that there was really nothing to be done about things. Then you started ARGUING with people, and…quite predictably…the more you argued, the more polarized you got, and now you’re just talking rubbish. When you go off on rants about ego and money and “players like us” and the evil casuals and yada yada yada you sound like a clown. And I don’t think you’re a clown. I think you’re a reasonable fellow who didn’t like a game, and you got slammed for it, and now you’re throwing wild punches.

For starters, any thread like this is inherently opinionated. That’s the nature of any forum, so I won’t apologise for giving my opinion. You’re criticising me for trying to pass my opinions off as facts when this entire thread is a discussion about whether or not my opinions (ie., personal preferences) make any sense, and if they’re held elsewhere. Plenty of other people agree with me, and a lot of people disagree with me. But don’t misconstrue what’s going on here: There’s 200 comments relating back to 3 main ideas, and those comments are about what I think is wrong with the game.

There are no objective facts about “what’s fun for everyone”, and the response that’s made so many appearances has been, “The game’s not for you, move on”. It’s accepted that people have variations in taste, lifestyle, time constraints, etc.

I have absolutely railed against casual gamers, and here’s why: Every multiplayer game I’ve ever loved that has had a sequel —- or indeed a series —- has followed the same pattern, which is: Small developer makes a game that develops a niche following > game gets good reviews and gets more sales > Developer gets purchased by somebody larger > Developer makes sequel, only this time the larger, parent company is on their tail about shareholders and profit margins, and the game is dumbed way down > repeat. Eventually the small developer gets consolidated.

The gaming industry is absolutely saturated with this archetypal story, and since you seem half-educated yourself, you know this.

Casual gamers mean a less complicated, shorter, and thus a less engrossing, less challenging game, because they don’t like to grind, they don’t like hard stuff, and they’d rather do other stuff most of the time anyway. But they do spend lots and lots of money, so they’re the cash cow.

Ultimately, this entire thread is based on opinion, and yes, opinion about ‘what is fun’. I’m not a soothsayer, but I’ll be right here in 6 months’ time rubbing in how right I was if everything plays out that way (we’ve all got egos).

At least, I’ll be here if ANet isn’t bought out or consolidated by NCsoft, who had the same thing happen to them, by a company composed of once smaller companies, and on and on and on, and the servers get shut down.

It also isn’t a thread where we’re expecting there to be Venn Diagrams and logical proofs and Punnet Squares on the chromosomes you have if you like the game and the ones you have if you don’t. Even my original post is full of bias. That’s the nature of forums.

I’m glad you enjoy the game. As I’ve said multiple times, I hope they alter it so we can both enjoy it, but I’m not so entitled as to think it will actually happen. Posts like this are just one small way of achieving catharsis.

Edited before Anet brings the banhammer again.

Battle Rifles.2965:

The biggest problem now with any of these issues being resolved is that the development time for GW2 was absolutely ridiculous, and after years of players and more importantly investors (more important to ANet and NCsoft) waiting for this release, I don’t think it’s very realistic to hope that ANet capitulates and sees their errors.

The bottom line is they’ve sold 2 million copies (on hype alone) and, let’s face it, the game is ridonkulously beautiful and it’s easy to Prscrn and upload a photo and make it look like the greatest game in the world. The reality is that regardless of what we think as players, they’re part of a business that’s all about money.

Also, many of their devs have spent the past 6 or 7 years of their lives on this thing, and I don’t doubt that it’s very much their baby, or that a lot of these ‘innovative’ implementations are seen as personal pet projects for them (read: egos are at stake).

Thus, people like us are up against both the multitude of casuals who think the game is great as well as the devs themselves because they’d have to admit their ideas weren’t the greatest. That’s a pretty formidable opponent, when you combine the two.

I don’t have much hope that anything will be changed. Reading this thread has given me a bit of solace because I know there are a lot of people who agree with me, but I think that —- ultimately —- we’re up against egos and greed and we’re not liable to get very far.

Again i agree with you.
It will be almost impossible for them to go back on their decisions after all those smiling videos announcing them as the next big thing.

I believe we wont see any changes until the first expansion or campaign comes out. I think the drop in sales will finally make what is obvious for us crystal clear.
The thing about casuals is they dont really understand what they like and dont like and are extremely volatile. They are not a loyal base of sales, they buy whatever is hyped the most. After the glaring flaws this game has, i dont think the expansion will see the same ammount of hype so most of the casuals will just slip away.

I’m hoping that at that point ego’s can fall and we can have hope for a better Guild Wars 2.

Battle Rifles.2965:

As I’ve said multiple times, I hope they alter it so we canboth enjoy it, but I’m not so entitled as to think it will actually happen.

And rightly so, as many things you suggest are against the ideas that the game was founded on and, therefore, would equate to ArenaNet giving a big fat middle finger to all the people who bought the game and, unlike every single complainer I’ve seen on these forums, actually knew what they were buying when they did it.

Cawesome.1580:

Lot of fanboys in this thread, I do have to agree, a lot in this game was a huge disappointment. After you get out of the beta tested areas it’s just one broken DE after another, and even when you do find a working DE it’s just a spam fest of just aoes, and all people do at level 80 is grind grind grind for 63k karma. Dungeons in this game are a joke, sure the first run was hard when you didn’t know what to expect but after that…a joke. I’m not sure what Anet did wrong, I watched their manifesto, read all their updates and it seemed to be going well. I was expecting a world that would be alive, not just have X centaurs that are standing still and need to be killed, or just have X centaurs attack a place and need to kill them. What did we get? X centaurs standing in a field or X centaurs attacking an outpost that need to be killed.

Replace “X centaurs need to be killed” with “X X need to be killed” and you’ve got the entire game, with bad mechanics and a simpleton skill bar to boot. Oh, and there’s a new goldseller email every time you log in.

Replace “X centaurs need to be killed” with “X X need to be killed” and you’ve got the entire game, with bad mechanics and a simpleton skill bar to boot. Oh, and there’s a new goldseller email every time you log in.

You’ve described literally every MMORPG out there in existence. Quests are the meat and bones of anything with RPG in it. If you take a step back and think, there’s only so many ways one can dress up a quest. Kill, escort, collect, explore and a couple of others I think I missed off the top of my head. The main ingredient is presentation, GW2 does it different to every other WoW( or more correctly, Everquest) clone out there and the only one that has really tried to tackle issues players have had with more traditional MMOs for years. It may not be mind blowing revolutionary. But what were people hoping for? Hyper complex AI and virtual realities? That’s not ever happening until the proper tech comes out. This is the first game that has actually bothered to shake up the EQ formula in some significant manner in a genre that has long been stale. The core game works and its fun.

Also, think again also with skills. Players have been conditioned to think more class skills available = better over the years. I’d rather have a smaller set of skills then a zillion clogging up my UI, half of which are always redundant or so similar its pointless. What does almost everyone end up doing? They end up picking the “best” ones and half of them are trashed by the playerbase and the dev team are left wasting time to think of ways to make them more useful. Better to not go overboard in the first place. Less is often more.

Anyways, obviously no matter what, the game will not ever be everybody’s cup of tea and that’s cool.

OP… you come off a little too jaded for most of the people you would find on this forum to take you too seriously. I am not saying you shouldn’t be taken seriously, but if they see that sort of hate towards the game they just often mindlessly tune out what you have to say.

Anet has really dropped the ball on this one. They were supposed to be the anti-blizzard, the west coast gaming company that succeeded but held on to the desire to make games for gamers by gamers. I don’t know if they were blinded by the fact that it was their own baby to nurture into a released mmo, but they’ve attempted to deliver the next WoW.

When WoW launched, blizzard basically dumbed down all of the popular MMORPGs, integrated the features from each that would mesh well together, but used their resources to make a very fluid game. Now while blizzard dumbed things down, things were so challenging before, that even the dumbed down wasn’t too newb friendly (yet).

Anet has tried to evaluate the current MMO market, and do the same… they’ve created the super easy MMO, which some fans will argue is challenging, because some boss 1 shotted them. Their marketing was quite deceptive, and while false advertising is common in this day and age, deception is still deception. Just because many companies embrace it doesn’t make it ok.

GW2 will entertain some people… unfortunately the type of people it entertains, will never grasp how things COULD be, because they just aren’t at that level of gaming. They like it easy… and they like the rose-tinted goggles.

If people play too much they were rushing and it is their own fault they burned out, if they played less and didn’t like the game, they are newb and didn’t give it an honest shot. This is the mentality we have to deal with… and while GW2 will sell well on hype, i do not believe it will have a healthy retention rate. I think it will be more like a d3 junior.

I remember posting on the gw2g forums back in the day, saying the loss of the trinity and making every class a hybrid would bore people, the appeal of mmos is to create virtual characters that you can tailor the way you want and give them their own identity. GW2 does very little of that with the limited traits, skills, races, professions.

Anyway I am all over the place in this post, I will close out by saying, anet was one of the companies I thought would stay the course, they are obviously just a hype machine now.

As for the infractions… just part of the change in philosophy. Can’t let there be too much criticism cause it is disrupting the peace.

Agree with all the points you’ve gotten up OP, nevermind the trolls.

If they tailored the game for the more hardcore base, you get TERA, I suppose you don’t know about what happened with that game. But i’ll explain it anyway.

Game came out, confirmed sales were 750k. 2nd month (when subs kicked in) . 300k, 3rd, 100k. Now? under 50. And a good 95% of them (read, almost all of them) don’t even pay for subs anymore, and abuse the hell of ‘chronoscroll’ like eve’s plex.

Now, mass server merge, 9 servers down to just 2. The severe drop in players was due to casual players getting bored because the HARDCORE PLAYERS were shunting them out of every instance, dungeon and event they tried to do

To me, that game was a cataclysmic failure. I forsee it will be free 2 play in just a few months time.

The MMO market is a Brutal market. If you don’t tailor your game to the greater numbers, your MMO will fail. And while some might see it as a success (read : the hardcore players might call it the next best thing since sliced bread) to a company, it is completely unfeasible.

The most important test for GW2 currently right now, is will they be able to release content that tailors for both sides? I’m holding my breath but only because I love the game and everything about it. I’m not going on any crusades just because its not the same as its predecessor.

Also, anet is deleting your posts because despite you trying to sound extremely calm and meaningful, your posts due incite alot of flaming. Its like adding fuel to a fire.

the game is pretty but it is very shallow. I know alot of folk dislike the holy trinity but without it is what we have now, it a now zerg or dodge harder. Which does not really make for a lot of tactical or strategic value. For the record i have completed all the story dungeons and explorer modes and i only got stuck once. When the boss bugged out , in no way was i ever skill challenged and i was never with a super skilled organized group of mates.

nope i ran alot of PUGs and still was never really challenged ( ok the middle boss for the Arun dungeon required some know how ) .

my issue is that the casual players do not really realize how important it is to feel progression. I can already see plenty here jumping down my throat shouting GTFO BACK TO WOW , but really do you login to any of your single player games just to look around? because that will happen to GW2 soon.

Sheen.8196:

When WoW launched, blizzard basically dumbed down all of the popular MMORPGs, integrated the features from each that would mesh well together, but used their resources to make a very fluid game. Now while blizzard dumbed things down, things were so challenging before, that even the dumbed down wasn’t too newb friendly (yet).

Nice revisionist history. WoW has described by angry zealots as the Fisher Price of MMOs and a betrayal of the hardcore fans that had carried the genre for years. I don’t even need to go into the reams and reams and reams and reams of diatribes that have been written about how Blizzard poisoned the well by letting the dreaded “casuals” in through the gates, as though spending less than 20 minutes killing a mob meant you were essentially playing Farmville.

Sheen.8196:

GW2 will entertain some people… unfortunately the type of people it entertains, will never grasp how things COULD be, because they just aren’t at that level of gaming. They like it easy… and they like the rose-tinted goggles.

Ho-ho-holy cow. Do you actually believe this stuff when you write it? Because that’s scary. “Aren’t at that level of gaming”. I don’t even know if this is worth the time to debate, because anyone who could write something like that non-ironically is not going to be receptive to logic or reasoned discussion, but I think it’s important you realize how ridiculous that sounds. Where did this preposterous notion come from that a game has to be HARD to be GOOD? Who gets to set that bar? You?

I’ve been gaming for almost 30 years. The fact anyone could consider GW1 or WoW “hardcore” on any level is LAUGHABLE. That doesn’t mean they weren’t good games. I defended them against the “kittenDERP WHERE IS MY HARDCORE” crowd then, and I’ll defend GW2 now.

Bloody.8769:

my issue is that the casual players do not really realize how important it is to feel progression.

It’s not important at all, unless you set out to design a Skinner Box instead of a game. Believe it or not, game design has always allowed for models of play that do not involve the vaunted “progression”.

Battle Rifles.2965:

I have absolutely railed against casual gamers, and here’s why: Every multiplayer game I’ve ever loved that has had a sequel —- or indeed a series —- has followed the same pattern, which is: Small developer makes a game that develops a niche following > game gets good reviews and gets more sales > Developer gets purchased by somebody larger > Developer makes sequel, only this time the larger, parent company is on their tail about shareholders and profit margins, and the game is dumbed way down > repeat. Eventually the small developer gets consolidated.

The gaming industry is absolutely saturated with this archetypal story, and since you seem half-educated yourself, you know this.

Certainly. I’m no stranger to niche games that I enjoyed getting a mass market makeover that changes the spirit of the title, with the result being that I enjoyed it less. I’ve seen some pretty atrocious adaptations of some pretty seminal works over the years.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Casual gamers mean a less complicated, shorter, and thus a less engrossing, less challenging game, because they don’t like to grind, they don’t like hard stuff, and they’d rather do other stuff most of the time anyway. But they do spend lots and lots of money, so they’re the cash cow.

This was the same argument used to hand-wave WoW and every evolution it brought to the genre back in 2004. Everything was coming too easy now, the talking heads said. You don’t really APPRECIATE anything unless you have to grind your head against a wall for 50 hours to get it. Legions of angry genre pundits stroked the crackers out of their beards and penned furious missives about the state of the genre and how everything was slumping into ruin. Here we are 8 years later, and now WoW is the template that must be followed, and it’s the WoW players who have suddenly become the hardcore grind enthusiasts, and they’re uttering the same grim fables about how any deviation from the master formula will mean an end to Proper Gaming. And it’s all rubbish, really, it’s so stupid it makes my head hurt. (And yes I know you’re not a WoW fan, but WoW fans are amongst your most ardent constituents in this, trust me).

If you want to see what happens when a company actually DOES betray a playerbase and take their series off the rails, go watch a retrospective on Ultima IX. Go see what the initial reaction to the transformation of XCOM into a FPS was, before Firaxis swooped in to save the day. Arena Net has not made a BAD game, not by any objective standard. They’ve made a very good game, but they’ve made a game that isn’t to your taste. Which is why I’ve repeatedly said that I sympathize with you, because I do. I like some pretty quirky games myself, and sometimes those games get iterated into something that I no longer enjoy, and when that happens I grouse on forums and pout and make declarative statement like “I HOPE YOU LIKE FAILURE, YOU STUPID STUPIDS”, and point to everyone who agrees with me as hard evidence that I Am Correct. But forums are a self-selecting population of people who came to discuss the game, and angry threads with angry titles lead to an even finer distillation of the population, and create an echo chamber in which the truly discontent can shout and feel like they’re standing in the middle of a mighty crowd.

This trend towards “casual gaming” is not going to stop. Gaming has gone mainstream. It doesn’t belong to you because you were gaming before them, just like it doesn’t belong to me because I was (likely) gaming before you. I don’t “know what makes a game good” because I’m good at games, or because I got here first.

Battle Rifles.2965:

It also isn’t a thread where we’re expecting there to be Venn Diagrams and logical proofs and Punnet Squares on the chromosomes you have if you like the game and the ones you have if you don’t. Even my original post is full of bias. That’s the nature of forums.

That’s a lazy defense of poor reasoning and poor argumentation. Of course every post has an element of bias, that doesn’t mean you embrace it fully and just throw all attempts at rationality and objectivity to the wind. MMO forums are bad enough without sane, sensible, well spoken people losing their minds and adding to the jungle noises.

Battle Rifles.2965:

Edited before Anet brings the banhammer again.

I haven’t gone back to see what got warned/deleted, but there was quite a bit of name calling going on at a couple of points. If I had to guess what got reported, it was probably those.

Bloody.8769:

the game is pretty but it is very shallow. I know alot of folk dislike the holy trinity but without it is what we have now, it a now zerg or dodge harder. Which does not really make for a lot of tactical or strategic value. For the record i have completed all the story dungeons and explorer modes and i only got stuck once. When the boss bugged out , in no way was i ever skill challenged and i was never with a super skilled organized group of mates.

nope i ran alot of PUGs and still was never really challenged ( ok the middle boss for the Arun dungeon required some know how ) .

my issue is that the casual players do not really realize how important it is to feel progression. I can already see plenty here jumping down my throat shouting GTFO BACK TO WOW , but really do you login to any of your single player games just to look around? because that will happen to GW2 soon.

Good that’s very good now when some poor person cry about the dungeon being to hard and need a nerf I refer them to you.

SpectacularYak.6518:

It’s not important at all, unless you set out to design a Skinner Box instead of a game. Believe it or not, game design has always allowed for models of play that do not involve the vaunted “progression”.

i am not sure how to say this to you but , YOU as a human being , is living in a skinner box in RL. Look around you, take a good look around you. Notice that there is always an urge to upgrade? to be better, stronger, faster, have more shinies, bigger shinies, more comfort , less hungry etc etc ? You DO realize that there is a built in instinct which has led humanity to where it is right now. The Skinner Box whech is used to condition and train animals , is built around us humans. We are compelled to buy things, compelled to behave in a certain manner etc

and btw there is plenty of research to suggest that the Skinner principle does not always apply to gaming . Also if we did not have the built in conditioning, the Skinner has less affect on us .

SpectacularYak that was inspired. I only wished you hadn’t raised the ghost of Ultima IX though. I don’t get the whole casual v hardcore argument. Battletoads or 7th Saga scarred me away from that nonsense.

Bloody.8769:

i am not sure how to say this to you but , YOU as a human being , is living in a skinner box in RL. Look around you, take a good look around you. Notice that there is always an urge to upgrade? to be better, stronger, faster, have more shinies, bigger shinies, more comfort , less hungry etc etc ? You DO realize that there is a built in instinct which has led humanity to where it is right now. The Skinner Box whech is used to condition and train animals , is built around us humans. We are compelled to buy things, compelled to behave in a certain manner etc

and btw there is plenty of research to suggest that the Skinner principle does not always apply to gaming . Also if we did not have the built in conditioning, the Skinner has less affect on us .

I hear what you’re saying, but the prevailing attitude in certain quarters that a game needs compulsive progression models to be successful or entertaining is profoundly silly and completely ignores the entire history of the medium. There are innumerable examples of games and forms of play that don’t have any “progression” at all, and yet somehow we have a small subsection of MMO grognards who are convinced if numbers aren’t perpetually going up then the whole exercise has been a waste of time.

Also, I’m not sure I philosophically agree with you that the urge for better/stronger/faster is inevitable, but I do understand we have certain biological drivers that keep us perpetually seeking more. What “more” is, though, can be defined on an individual basis. Alas, that whole discussion is WAY off topic, so we should probably keep it to a dull roar.

Iskandar.3679:

SpectacularYak that was inspired. I only wished you hadn’t raised the ghost of Ultima IX though.

Sorry about that. I should probably have included trigger warnings for Ultima fans. =D

I still wake up in cold sweat. After the long wait following Super Avatar Bros came… Ultima IX. The Mass Effect 3 ending barely scratched the surface of EA’s depravity.

The fact that the first post in this thread got flagged for an infraction says all you need to know about the GW2 community.

Some dude eloquently outlines his problems with the game and he gets reported.

Pathetic.

Elysian Rose.5283:

The fact that the first post in this thread got flagged for an infraction says all you need to know about the GW2 community.

Some dude eloquently outlines his problems with the game and he gets reported.

Pathetic.

The OP has had his moments, and he certainly did not deserve an infraction for that post (what was THAT about?), but I’d not go so far as to call it “eloquent”, for heavens sake. I’m not sure how you can suggest that without dissolving into giggles.

Dynamic events were the worst implementation of a pitifully bad idea I can possibly imagine for a video game…essentially a boring, monotonous hackfest that begs to be ALT-TAB’ed…Scaling is pathetic…profoundly boring…It’s profoundly boring, every single time…This, of course, doesn’t even address the fact that dynamic events themselves are boring…I’d rather find a rusty fork and plunge it into my eye…"

The thing is, I actually SHARE some of his complaints about DE’s, but if this is how one frames their criticism, they are not being “eloquent”. They are being hyperbolic, and they are flame baiting.

SpectacularYak.6518:

Elysian Rose.5283:

The fact that the first post in this thread got flagged for an infraction says all you need to know about the GW2 community.

Some dude eloquently outlines his problems with the game and he gets reported.

Pathetic.

The OP has had his moments, and he certainly did not deserve an infraction for that post (what was THAT about?), but I’d not go so far as to call it “eloquent”, for heavens sake. I’m not sure how you can suggest that without dissolving into giggles.

Dynamic events were the worst implementation of a pitifully bad idea I can possibly imagine for a video game…essentially a boring, monotonous hackfest that begs to be ALT-TAB’ed…Scaling is pathetic…profoundly boring…It’s profoundly boring, every single time…This, of course, doesn’t even address the fact that dynamic events themselves are boring…I’d rather find a rusty fork and plunge it into my eye…"

The thing is, I actually SHARE some of his complaints about DE’s, but if this is how one frames their criticism, they are not being “eloquent”. They are being hyperbolic, and they are flame baiting.

For somebody who is airing his grievances with the game, i’d say it’s eloquent. People use hyperbole to be funny or to make a point at times. I’m just saying, enough people obviously reported those first posts that there’s a infraction sticker. It’s embarrassing really whether you agree with him or not.

Logical fallacies and their techniques should be a mandatory part of education across the world. Thank you SpectacularYak for taking the baby steps to demonstrate at least some of them.

EDIT: and statistics, specifically sample sizes.

LordShade.8143:

If they tailored the game for the more hardcore base, you get TERA, I suppose you don’t know about what happened with that game. But i’ll explain it anyway.

Game came out, confirmed sales were 750k. 2nd month (when subs kicked in) . 300k, 3rd, 100k. Now? under 50. And a good 95% of them (read, almost all of them) don’t even pay for subs anymore, and abuse the hell of ‘chronoscroll’ like eve’s plex.

Now, mass server merge, 9 servers down to just 2. The severe drop in players was due to casual players getting bored because the HARDCORE PLAYERS were shunting them out of every instance, dungeon and event they tried to do

To me, that game was a cataclysmic failure. I forsee it will be free 2 play in just a few months time.

The MMO market is a Brutal market. If you don’t tailor your game to the greater numbers, your MMO will fail. And while some might see it as a success (read : the hardcore players might call it the next best thing since sliced bread) to a company, it is completely unfeasible.

The most important test for GW2 currently right now, is will they be able to release content that tailors for both sides? I’m holding my breath but only because I love the game and everything about it. I’m not going on any crusades just because its not the same as its predecessor.

Also, anet is deleting your posts because despite you trying to sound extremely calm and meaningful, your posts due incite alot of flaming. Its like adding fuel to a fire.

Would just like to point out that there is a glaring flaw in that reasoning. Its called EVE online.
You dont need to have huge waves of hype and dumb your game down the most you can to be sucessful. You can make a really good game with plenty of depth and many hardcore gamers will stick to it, making it profitable.

I dont see whats so wrong in wishing this game would’ve been as good as or better than GW1. Some moderate people here say the game is a good game, but its dumbed down for the masses. I dont even agree with that. I would say, as a single player game, the game is decent. Instead of henchmen you now have mindless drones that other people control but to whom you will equally hardly speak because there is no need for any sort of strategies in the game. As an MMO, that makes it a very bad game.

About TERA, i dont like how elitist the gamers in that game can be sometimes. I dont really know how that came to be, but its probably because of the difficulty of the encounters. Its not worse in terms of difficulty than some bosses that 2 shot you on GW2, the difference is you need teamwork and skill to overcome them. As far as eastern game design goes, it was held back from the "deleveling"days on FFXI. Now THAT was infuriating… but look the game is still alive and its the most profitable FF ever, a series that sells alot more than 2 millions on their single player games
.
The problem is GW1 was slightly aimed at that croud, minus the heavy level grinding. Hardcores keep your game running, they are more predictable and easier to retain than casual gamers. With that said, im not saying the best way to go is to be uber hardcore. For me everything would be solved with a deeper combat system in terms of skill choice, recourse mechanics and healing/classes to promote coordinated play.
Will it make people have to spam for healer before a dungeon. Yeah it will, but at least they will be enjoyable.

The key point here is: Games like Rift, EVE, FFXI are still alive and kicking and they aimed for the hardcores. Despite what people say, the only reason SWTOR went F2P sort of was because EA wants more money and not just for it to be profitable. TERA i think will survive aswell because of that. There is a threshhold of hardcore that will stay no matter what, if the game has meat on it.
Will the casual stick around and support GW2 and its expansions? That is the real question, and one that should be worrying anet.

It’s only a grind if you see it that way. I don’t see it as a grind. I’m enjoying the game. I’m not looking for ways to make it like some other game. I’m happily waltzing in whatever direction I choose and doing whatever comes my way. Every corner of the map yields something new and interesting.

Maybe I play the game as it was intended to be played… not like some laundry list of things to be ticked off, but rather just head off into the wilds to see what was out there. Every time I head off, something new happens. I find that refreshingly new. I don’t need a reason to go west, I just go west. West meets me in many glorious ways and I didn’t need a story to send me there.

I made my own story.

Nemmar.8491:

Hardcores keep your game running, they are more predictable and easier to retain than casual gamers.

Fundamentally untrue. It’s been stated time and time again that the ultra-casual player is the most desirable MMO participant. They don’t play a ton, so there’s less server load. They move through content slowly, so there isn’t a constant, piping demand for new content, new content, new content, I’m bored, I’m bored, feed me. And they’re more likely to partake of costly convenience items because they don’t have the time or inclination to get them through in-game means.

If being hardcore was really optimal, then EQ would’ve soared to 10 million users, and not World of Warcraft. Now that WoW is the new hardcore standard (and oh boy does that make my sides split) everyone is forgetting that it was casual central! WoW was the great casual revolution! It’s all a question of perspective.

EVE is an outlier in many respects, in large part because it might be the only AAA sandbox game on the market, so it gets to frolic in a meadow almost completely devoid of meaningful competition. That is not to say that EVE is not a good game or that it doesn’t deserve its success…I’d go so far as to say it’s a special game. I admire it greatly. But I don’t think every game needs to be EVE. There’s already an EVE. It’s pretty good!

Any way, long story short…no…hardcores are the WORST audience. They’re the quickest to blow through content, the first to complain, the first to insist they know better than the developers, the first to find and abuse exploits, and the first to move on because they’ve exhausted the game. You’re mistaking “hardcore” with “core audience”. The core audience for a game tends to be incredibly loyal, and shows tremendous recidivism. Like, say, the 7-9 million casual gamers that reflexively return to WoW every time Blizzard bangs the gong. The core audience, though, is not a unified demographic. All of them are core for highly individual reasons. I was a core WoW gamer for many years, although I hated raiding. A fellow core WoW gamer might’ve been there BECAUSE of the raids.

GW2 will find its core audience regardless of which direction it moves in. The size of that core audience will depend on how niche Arena Net decides to be with their design.

You’re either with us or against us mentality just hurts the forums nowadays. Seems like no normal discussion is possible anymore, but maybe this is a problem
of this time.
I am on the same boat a bit, played in GW1 for like +3000 hours mostly in GVG and some HA and PVE. I don’t agree with all points the OP makes, but he has some valid points IMO.
Personally i agree on DE’s being executed very poorly, the idea is great, but somehow on the way things went wrong. I dislike the word ‘zerky’, but it is a fact most big events are more about button bashing then strategy, which is not the game style I prefer. In the long run i think DE’s can be an improvement, but at this time I am not really impressed.

From the start I was a bit sceptical about the skill/weapon system, I hoped we could choose our own skills and every skill would react different on another weapon. Now the system just feels very limited and forced, including the traits system, it is just not the same flexibility we got in GW1. I think ANet simplified the skill system so they could balanced it better, but the result is we are forced to play with the same skills over and over again. The option to choose your own utility skills, elite and healing skill isn’t enough.

Same for example with the skill combination and the downed state, on paper maybe a good idea, but in practice it doesn’t work very well.

I prefer PVP above PVE, but at this moment the hotjoin/capture point mode isn’t enough for me. I never liked CP’s mode, because it makes the gameplay so unpersonal and most people are too impatient to defend the points anyway. I almost never got into WWW, I refuse to wait for more then 30 min. I mean there is no excuse for waiting so long, I want to play WWW and I should be able to, they really should fix this! Maybe ANet underestimated the use of such a large WWW instance, again the idea is fantastic, 3 factions fighting for dominance, but in reality it doesn’t work very well because of the technical limitations.

I still haven’t lost hope on this game, I respect ANet as a developper and I know they really want to give us the best experience possible. I love the idea ANet tried to chance the MMO landscape/mechanics, but i am not sure about the results. I think ANet has some great creative people, but somewhere in the proces the great idea’s didn’t translate to the game so well.

Personally i am gonna wait until they fix/tweak the DE’s, implement new PVP modes like GVG and ARENA, fix the waiting time in WWW and other small problems, but thast is just my opinion

While I respect the right to voice opinions, I disagree with calls to change the game to the extent that it would be considered an overhaul. The game is new and will grow. If you’ve put in hundreds of hours, great! However this isn’t a pay to play game. You’re not continuing to pay for something you don’t feel is good.

You’ve gotten quite a return on a $60 purchase. 200+ hours is a lot of content. There will be content updates and expansions down the road. If you’re unhappy with the game now or feel you’ve ‘beaten’ it, put it down for a couple months and come back. Things will have changed and you can explore the new stuff.

No one is forcing you to play and 200+ hours is a respectable return on your purchase cost. Try the game on a new character or shelve it for a while.

This game is a mind-numbing grind from start to finish. I feel cheated.

SpectacularYak.6518:

Nemmar.8491:

Hardcores keep your game running, they are more predictable and easier to retain than casual gamers.

Fundamentally untrue. It’s been stated time and time again that the ultra-casual player is the most desirable MMO participant. They don’t play a ton, so there’s less server load. They move through content slowly, so there isn’t a constant, piping demand for new content, new content, new content, I’m bored, I’m bored, feed me. And they’re more likely to partake of costly convenience items because they don’t have the time or inclination to get them through in-game means.

If being hardcore was really optimal, then EQ would’ve soared to 10 million users, and not World of Warcraft. Now that WoW is the new hardcore standard (and oh boy does that make my sides split) everyone is forgetting that it was casual central! WoW was the great casual revolution! It’s all a question of perspective.

EVE is an outlier in many respects, in large part because it might be the only AAA sandbox game on the market, so it gets to frolic in a meadow almost completely devoid of meaningful competition. That is not to say that EVE is not a good game or that it doesn’t deserve its success…I’d go so far as to say it’s a special game. I admire it greatly. But I don’t think every game needs to be EVE. There’s already an EVE. It’s pretty good!

Any way, long story short…no…hardcores are the WORST audience. They’re the quickest to blow through content, the first to complain, the first to insist they know better than the developers, the first to find and abuse exploits, and the first to move on because they’ve exhausted the game. You’re mistaking “hardcore” with “core audience”. The core audience for a game tends to be incredibly loyal, and shows tremendous recidivism. Like, say, the 7-9 million casual gamers that reflexively return to WoW every time Blizzard bangs the gong. The core audience, though, is not a unified demographic. All of them are core for highly individual reasons. I was a core WoW gamer for many years, although I hated raiding. A fellow core WoW gamer might’ve been there BECAUSE of the raids.

GW2 will find its core audience regardless of which direction it moves in. The size of that core audience will depend on how niche Arena Net decides to be with their design.

I see where you;re coming from, but again there is something i consider a glaring issue.
The casuals are still volatile, much because of what you said. They are moody, they dont play the game often and arent hooked to it. Most of all though, they follow the trends, and its the hardcore crowed that builds those trends and pre-orders the new expansions as soon as possible. They might always be after more content but they will also tell you wich game is worth playing and has meat on it.

I never played everquest, i dunno how hardcore it was, but i do know that that game had raids and so does WoW. Raids are the main appeal of MMO’s. Its where the class design unravels in beatutiful synergy on a whole coopertative effort. That aspect, is severely broken on GW2, wich in my opinion makes the game a very boring experience. I dont think there is any way around it and i cant comprehend how someone can enjoy playing this game for more than 1 hour each time they login.
What i do think is that the casuals that say they like this game, hardly play it, and are also gonna get bored eventually. Its just an exercise on repetition. The boredom will have to hit everyone as porportional ammount of play hours are hit. And by that i mean about as long as it takes to get to lvl80. At least PvE wise.

I mean, i see people on these forums and GW2guru, recommending to people that say are bored for them to play the game less. What bigger proof is there that there is something seriously wrong with it? Its just a matter of how long it can be hidden, and that comes in play hours. People that are bored, will obviously not buy any gems or cosmetic items. They will simply stop playing. I dont think this is an issue that will only affect the hardcore, bu the casuals in time aswell.

DusK.3849:

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.

Well since everyone is throwing up past gw1 numbers. Gw1 beta plar to launch. over 6k hrs in gw1. HoM maxed. So i guess that makes my opinion matter the most. So here gos.

The game is unique and fun. Until 80. And the more ppl that hit 80 the more what do i do threads are gonna pop up. There is NO end game. Fanboys can cheese it up and say oh oh but wvw and spvp and and legendaries etc blah etc. Dungeons are absolutely 90% pointless. There is no reward. World bosses? How many times you wanna kill the same event bosses that…..wait for it…..yield jack kitten. I get just as much xp & karma for a 5 minute DE. World boss= walk on by to that DE over yonder that takes 1/16 of the time and gives me the EXACT same rewards. – the chest of crappy blues. ( Big Loss there) But i have hopes that soon anet will introduce something. ANYTHING. to get my interest back. B/c the game was fun. But it feels like a single player and not an MMO. Wheres all the cool skins. Like the old dead sword farming and ele sword farming. you know. Something worth more than vendor price or the ecto you may or may not pull from it.

Well, now he and everyone knows that GW2 is not GW1. Now hopfully we can move past this and either adjust/adapt or find enjoyment else where.

I seen this once, when Everquest 2 came out. Everyone ran to it thinking it was Everquest with better updated graphics. And if i recall correctly one of the guys, his name eludes me atm, said that was one regret/mistake they made with the game. (Naming it Everquest.)

So, I guess a lesson we can learn from this is, next time a company creates a game and uses a 2 after the name sake, go in looking for a new game unless otherwise stated.

Battle, just give yourself/anet a chance. If you can’t then not much anyone can say or do to change that for you.

daemonlama.5413:

Well, now he and everyone knows that GW2 is not GW1. Now hopfully we can move past this and either adjust/adapt or find enjoyment else where.

I seen this once, when Everquest 2 came out. Everyone ran to it thinking it was Everquest with better updated graphics. And if i recall correctly one of the guys, his name eludes me atm, said that was one regret/mistake they made with the game. (Naming it Everquest.)

So, I guess a lesson we can learn from this is, next time a company creates a game and uses a 2 after the name sake, go in looking for a new game unless otherwise stated.

Battle, just give yourself/anet a chance. If you can’t then not much anyone can say or do to change that for you.

Cmon, listen to yourself.
A sequal should be the development of what you have in the first game. We cant just remake the concept because anet droped the ball. What is Mass effect 2 to 1, what is Skyrim to oblivion (even though theyare 4 and 5) and what is Ninja gaiden 1 to 2? Just to give a few examples.
GW2 is the de-evolution of GW1, and that is hardly acceptable. The game should be called GWzero.

Nemmar.8491:

daemonlama.5413:

Well, now he and everyone knows that GW2 is not GW1. Now hopfully we can move past this and either adjust/adapt or find enjoyment else where.

I seen this once, when Everquest 2 came out. Everyone ran to it thinking it was Everquest with better updated graphics. And if i recall correctly one of the guys, his name eludes me atm, said that was one regret/mistake they made with the game. (Naming it Everquest.)

So, I guess a lesson we can learn from this is, next time a company creates a game and uses a 2 after the name sake, go in looking for a new game unless otherwise stated.

Battle, just give yourself/anet a chance. If you can’t then not much anyone can say or do to change that for you.

Cmon, listen to yourself.
A sequal should be the development of what you have in the first game. We cant just remake the concept because anet droped the ball. What is Mass effect 2 to 1, what is Skyrim to oblivion (even though theyare 4 and 5) and what is Ninja gaiden 1 to 2? Just to give a few examples.
GW2 is the de-evolution of GW1, and that is hardly acceptable. The game should be called GWzero.

If they’d simply left the ‘Guild Wars’ part out of it I don’t think they’d be having this massive backlash. There are a lot of expectations with that name, a lot of great memories and fun times and future hopes all because of the name, and you can’t reasonably expect people to separate a seminal game like GW1 just because Arenanet said they’re going to make it different. Sure, we expected it to be different, not a playskool MMO for divorcees who can play in between changing diapers.

Should have just renamed it. No way you can defend how bad they’ve gutted with the name ‘Guild Wars’ in it. :-/

“Well, now he and everyone knows that GW2 is not GW1. Now hopfully we can move past this and either adjust/adapt or find enjoyment else where.”

I see this kind of idea all throughout the gaming world, people come up with this idea of just adapt, just adapt and it is so flawed. Why on earth would I ‘adapt’ to something that is worse? I remember quite clearly 1 year ago this same very argument was used for Halo Reach, people said just adapt, you don’t like it because you haven’t ‘adapted’ and i warned them of the imminent failure of the game. Lets look at the game now, 20k people on at night, 1 year after release? That was a far cry from the previous game when in the same situation still had 300k! I fear this game will suffer the same fate, on a side note this is another reason why sales is not an indication of whether the game is good or not.

To Battle Rifles,

I like this game, don’t be so harsh to judge. I like to take the philosophy “Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged” its a great motto. As a single dad who regularly changes diapers, Guild Wars 2 has provided me with enjoyment that almost surpasses changing diaper’s! While not on Par with changing diaper’s it does fill in the time between diaper changes. If You ever become a dad I’m sure you will understand my point of view. I agree that the environment is beautiful, but seriously just have a kid and you will appreciate the little things in life. Just chill out bro and enjoy some Guild Wars 2 between diaper changes.

Sincerely,

Power House Jas

Mr Sendar.2871:

“Well, now he and everyone knows that GW2 is not GW1. Now hopfully we can move past this and either adjust/adapt or find enjoyment else where.”

I see this kind of idea all throughout the gaming world, people come up with this idea of just adapt, just adapt and it is so flawed. Why on earth would I ‘adapt’ to something that is worse? I remember quite clearly 1 year ago this same very argument was used for Halo Reach, people said just adapt, you don’t like it because you haven’t ‘adapted’ and i warned them of the imminent failure of the game. Lets look at the game now, 20k people on at night, 1 year after release? That was a far cry from the previous game when in the same situation still had 300k! I fear this game will suffer the same fate, on a side note this is another reason why sales is not an indication of whether the game is good or not.

The key is that now Halo is all about the casuals (all the pro halo players hated Reach), and that’s obviously the path ArenaNet have taken. Don’t have the skill or the time to get the best gear? No problem, just buy it! Actually, that overstates the situation, since gear means nearly nothing in this game. I miss my staff heads and sword hilts :-(

Elysian Rose.5283:

Sure, we expected it to be different, not a playskool MMO for divorcees who can play in between changing diapers.

Should have just renamed it. No way you can defend how bad they’ve gutted with the name ‘Guild Wars’ in it. :-/

Well, do you expect anyone to enter a reasonable argument with you after THAT display of your fine character? I am sure everyone with a real life totally thanks you now for showing them their place.

Algreg.3629:

Elysian Rose.5283:

Sure, we expected it to be different, not a playskool MMO for divorcees who can play in between changing diapers.

Should have just renamed it. No way you can defend how bad they’ve gutted with the name ‘Guild Wars’ in it. :-/

Well, do you expect anyone to enter a reasonable argument with you after THAT display of your fine character? I am sure everyone with a real life totally thanks you now for showing them their place.

Just calling it how I see it. It’s a casual MMO for casual players.The reason I brought the divorcee thing up is I actually saw a post by some single dad who was over the moon that he didn’t actually have to play the game to get stuff out of it. The horror of actually having to spend time in the game! Whodathunk?) My personal opinion is that it’s pretty disgusting that they’ve created a game that’s catered to these sorts of people, but hey, just my opinion. Don’t worry, ArenaNet won’t change anything because people like that are just as over the moon to spend real cash on items they could never otherwise obtain.

So, you think a game where the time invested alone in grinding for gear gives you huge advantages is superior to a game which relies on reaction time and versatility?

Cause then I frankly do not understand what you liked about GW1 which was never about grinding gear or time invested. (no, I am not a complete casual player today and certainly wasn´t back then, GW1 from day one both pvp and pve, from Ascalon to DoA).

And what items are you talking about? There are no p2w items in the shop. Are you talking about gems for gold? The superexpensive stuff is mostly cosmetic and exotic max gear is easily obtained by casual gameplay, so I do not see a p2w scenario here.

I can somewhat share your feelings about catering to casual players ruining gaming experience for more invested players I feared GW2 would turn out to be this way, but I just cannot see it applying to the product – I am not saying it is perfect, but that profound doomsaying just has no foundation.

I enjoy the game quite a bit, but I also don’t think its perfect and the items in the original post are some of them.I’ve only really played TOR at any length in terms of MMOs, so let me make some comparisons on his first two points.

On questing and the reasoning behind it, I find that GW2 quests are typically more fun than in TOR. They’re not always, and some of the TOR quests are just really fun compared to the GW2 ones, but that makes perfect sense as nothing is going to hit a home run every single time. The thing is, the quests in TOR always made perfect sense, had a background/story to them that I found interesting and made me feel like there was a point to doing it, and so on.

In Guild Wars 2, the vast majority of the time I’m just doing stuff without any reason for it. This is because, in the first place, you typically come across the quest activities before you find the heart NPC to explain things to you and so you do at least a big chunk of each one without having any idea what you’re doing or why – ditto for DEs, and in the second place, there just isn’t a whole lot of motivation to read the heart NPCs unless you’re really a lore hound. Now its true – for those who want to know what’s going on, the lore is there to read. The thing is, there are a many people who aren’t that kind of person – I’m not for instance – but TOR still found a way to get me the information in an interesting way and made me care about the reasoning behind the quests. GW2 feels almost like a light version of WoW in this category – a game I’ve only played for a few hours in my entire life – in that the only real lore behind most things is in a bunch of text that you have to be interested enough to read in the first place.

On the second point about skills being boring, I have to kind of agree. Like I said, I enjoy the game and the combat, but there’s still a certain element of combat in the game being not much more than circle strafing and letting the game autoattack for you. It’s more true for some professions than others. This is very noticeable as I play with my various alts… some of them, like the thief, I can only play for an hour or two before I feel somewhat bored. However, once I do feel bored with it I am able to have fun logging into a second character and play with it for a bit – especially my engineer, which has one of the more complex skillsets.

Now contrast this to TOR, a game where I leveled 6 characters to max level, 6 more halfway op further, and on several of them I “grinded” out basically max level PvP gear (though I had too much fun doing so to call it grinding IMO). Even after doing the same quests 53 million times, I never got so bored with it I had to put it down except on my Vanguard – a class with a combat mechanic literally consisting of 2 buttons 90% of the time. I’m not sure, but I think my similar experience with this class and most of the GW2 ones is related to the fact that most of the GW2 classes involve only a few skills that you actually use most of the time with the rest being used here and there.

Once again, I really am having fun with this game, so I don’t want to be brushed off as a hater or whatever else it is a lot of folks are being called about the game these days, but I also think the OP has some valid points which at the very least contribute to the game not being all it could be.