Guild Wars 2

Currently i’m just coming back a couple times a month. Just to see some guildies again, while Anet creates more Zergfests. I’m a liddle bit sad for the currently playing folks, and hope the last remaining good folks in my guild don’t transform to mindless drones. We had so much fun with the content since release. sniff

I would like to add that one problem with having too many account-bound crafting material is that some of these crafting materials are tied to specific places in the game. So if you don’t like to play that specific place then that’s too bad, you can never get your maxed out ascended back items or something. This runs totally against what ArenaNet promised. What happened to “It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/

It seems like we are “forced” to play certain content in order to reach the most powerful reward instead.

I have always been excited to receive my character’s random birthday gifts in GW1. If it is a mini that I like, I would keep it. Otherwise, I can sell for a good sum because I have been a customer since the beginning. In GW2, the birthday gifts are a sham. Everyone gets the same account-bound mini and booster which I don’t even use. How boring?

I dont think it has anything to with not having any progression, GW1 had a level cap of 20 that was very fast to get to and it was just as easy to get geared out. The fun in GW1 was the diversity of PvP (and how strategy mattered) as well as an amazing PvE with great story.

GW2 had a good start with 1st time exploring the maps and learning the story of this era through personal story. What GW2 is lacking is well, living world has no real story with a pretty lame villain, almost like a kid’s cartoon (been said countless times). WvW is a mode with lots of potential but with big issues that need fixed, it really is just Coverage Wars 2 when it comes to WvW. SPvP again, a year into the game, it’s still just about capturing objectives. And lastly, when it comes to the classes, every time a class can finally be specced in many different ways to accommodate different play-styles, that class gets the nerf hammer because people complain that “X class is too OP”. GW2 has very few skills compared to GW1 where builds varied so much based on what you were about to do…

Zalman.8719:

Because it’s a dissapointment. GW1 was fun just by playing the game. Mindless gear for a piece of gear is not worth it.
I did everything I wanted, seen everything I wanted but the game doesn’t give more interesting points or events to keep me here.
WvW is fun IF you’re on the right server. Otherwise you’re zerged.
Pve is not interesting anymore. I’ve been playing for a year and done every meta event,dungeon a lot of times. Dungeons, stacking in every corner is not fun. I’ve done them so many times, they can’t show me anything new now.
Legendaries. Pretty items put behind a curse called RNG. The worst part of any game ever. LS, if they won’t change their ways, I’m done with this. Not interesting, minimal, unrelated story, with grinding. No, thank you.
Zerging, running in a big mob mindlessly is not cutting it, sorry.
Then comes ascended. Not only kills a part of the lore, but I’m always wondering “What’s the point of this” ? What was the problem with exotics? Why they have to be replaced? Found no logical reasons for that. I’ve had high expectations after GW1, I admit. But this…I never was this patient with any game yet. Will be around to see the changes though. But I find myself playing less and less and less…

well said…

lolnotacat.9814:

2/2

It’s time to make MMORPGs more social

Guild Wars 2 is NOT more social. Infact, if anything, GW2 is a very anti-social game. Social interactions in games spring up from necessity, forced or accidental. In GW1, this was obviously facilitated by the need to use a party to complete 99% of the game’s PVE content. And really difficult content (Urgoz’ Warren or the Deep at Factions’ launch come to mind) absolutely required a good team (usually guild members) who could strategize and communicate. You practically needed to join a good guild to have any chance at most PVP as well. But, in GW2, there’s no reason to get to know who you’re partying up with. As long as you have zerker gear and know the path, why bother? And since any combination of classes can clear content (although some combinations are much better at it than others) there’s little reason to stand out or learn which individuals are good at their class on your server. It almost feels like queueing up for a heroics run in WoW.

.

That’s not making a game social. What you just described is actually what makes MMOs ironically such an anti-social genre.

Players just find an exclusive group which they do content with, then that’s it. You don’t meet new people, you don’t want to meet new people because it takes too long to teach them the content and their class may not fit in your group.

That’s what makes newbies feel like they’re that kid who gets picked last in football or the new guy who has no friends.

Why would you need to be only in 1 guild? There’s guild alliances in other MMOs which are basically the same as joining different guilds.

Some of the best convos I’ve had with people in this game are in PUGs. We once did a fractal run which lasted 4 HOURS. Seriously, 4 hours. The group was that bad, but it was 4 hours of my life which I’d gladly waste again because it was great, we joked about it, we laughed and we RPed all the way through.

The only reason which people don’t get to know each other is because they don’t want to.

Zalman.8719:

Then comes ascended. Not only kills a part of the lore, but I’m always wondering “What’s the point of this” ? What was the problem with exotics? Why they have to be replaced? Found no logical reasons for that. I’ve had high expectations after GW1, I admit. But this…I never was this patient with any game yet. Will be around to see the changes though. But I find myself playing less and less and less…

Due to the nature of ascended equipment and their crafting materials to be account bound, I can only think of one reason why they introduced them. They use it as a “cattle prod” to nudge us to play the content that they want us to play! If you don’t play Fractals, too bad you can’t have an ascended back item then.

Do you think that it was random chance that ascended rings are cheapest to be acquired through Fractals too, ascended accessories are cheapest to be acquired through guild commendations, and ascended amulets can only be acquired through WvW or laurel vendors? No this is by careful design. They sprinkled these account-bound crafting materials in the places that they want you to play before you can get maxed-out equipment.

It doesn’t matter how long you have played this game. It doesn’t matter how much gold you have collected because you have played many hours. All that matters is that, you have to play the content that they want you to play otherwise you would not get your maxed-out gear. Either that or play the RNG toilet to get your precursor.

10 pages and I wonder if Anet is reading these and getting the message?

Xae Isareth.1364:

lolnotacat.9814:

2/2

It’s time to make MMORPGs more social

Guild Wars 2 is NOT more social. Infact, if anything, GW2 is a very anti-social game. Social interactions in games spring up from necessity, forced or accidental. In GW1, this was obviously facilitated by the need to use a party to complete 99% of the game’s PVE content. And really difficult content (Urgoz’ Warren or the Deep at Factions’ launch come to mind) absolutely required a good team (usually guild members) who could strategize and communicate. You practically needed to join a good guild to have any chance at most PVP as well. But, in GW2, there’s no reason to get to know who you’re partying up with. As long as you have zerker gear and know the path, why bother? And since any combination of classes can clear content (although some combinations are much better at it than others) there’s little reason to stand out or learn which individuals are good at their class on your server. It almost feels like queueing up for a heroics run in WoW.

.

That’s not making a game social. What you just described is actually what makes MMOs ironically such an anti-social genre.

Players just find an exclusive group which they do content with, then that’s it. You don’t meet new people, you don’t want to meet new people because it takes too long to teach them the content and their class may not fit in your group.

That’s what makes newbies feel like they’re that kid who gets picked last in football or the new guy who has no friends.

Why would you need to be only in 1 guild? There’s guild alliances in other MMOs which are basically the same as joining different guilds.

Some of the best convos I’ve had with people in this game are in PUGs. We once did a fractal run which lasted 4 HOURS. Seriously, 4 hours. The group was that bad, but it was 4 hours of my life which I’d gladly waste again because it was great, we joked about it, we laughed and we RPed all the way through.

The only reason which people don’t get to know each other is because they don’t want to.

What I just described is why other games are far more social than GW2. Yes, the average GW2 player is more polite than other MMOs, but that doesn’t make them more social. The fact of the matter is, content in this game requires very little social interaction overall. There is little/no division of labor, which forces social interaction (whether it be good, bad, polite, impolite, etc…)

Since we’re using anecdotes, I’ve had the exact opposite experience as you (on Tarnished Coast no less!) in regards to dungeons. It just turned into a quick explanation of a fight if nobody knew, then move on. No interaction, no real strategy…just an explanation that was essentially copy/pasted off a wiki article.

Now lets look at other games, ones which force social interaction via a division of labor. Sandbox games like Star Wars Galaxies (pre-NGE) were extraordinarily social because the entire game required other players to accomplish relatively simple tasks. My friend’s list in that game was 50+ players, all of whom I had tagged for specific reasons (armorsmith, weaponsmith, image designer, good pilots, etc…). More mainstream games like WoW are also far more social than GW2 because, they too, require the division of labor (limited crafting and gathering specializations, the trinity, etc…).

Creating an environment which promotes individuals to stand out is what social interaction is all about! Just because you had a pretty fun experience once doesn’t negate the fact that the game generally promotes an anti-social atmosphere which feels like a bunch of people playing a single-player game at the same time.

I haven’t quit but there’s just really not that much left to do. PvP I suppose.

Mentalhead.5721:

Why do people stop playing GW2?

1. GW2 is not a sandbox MMO by any stretch of the imagination, so PvE players require regular content additions and/or traditional endgame (carrot-on-a-stick treadmill).

2. It had very little traditional endgame at launch. Nothing to keep players farming or grinding. Fractals are not enough by themselves.

3. The regular content additions (Living Story) didn’t really hit its stride until summer of the next year and by then most of the players had left. It still remains to be seen how well this works with the remainder of the playerbase – I have high hopes.

4. WvW (the PvP endgame) was poorly optimized, servers populations were incredibly imbalanced, causing it to lose most of its steam by the next January.

5. GW2 the e-sport fell flat on its face.

I started out loving GW2 but have been playing less and less and going back to playing WoW more and more. Why? It comes down to grind mainly but a few other things as well.

1. The grind for anything considered non-essential in this game is absolutely brutal. Ascended weapons, legendary weapons, living story and event skins all require a mind-numbing, eye-bleeding grind. I don’t mind some grind. But this is just brutal and is very much along the lines of an Asian grinder. WoW on the other hand also has grind but not nearly as bad. I feel the items in WoW are attainable with casual play. But things like precursors and ascended weapons in GW2 just aren’t worth the brutal grind for casual players. Hell I’ve been saving for a precursor for a year and can’t save faster than the rate of inflation on the kitten things. And flipping on the TP is just plain BORING!

2. Dungeons? Stack, LOS, and AOE. Yawn.

3. Living story? ZERG! Temporary content. Achievement grind. Yawn.

4. WvW? ZERG! Musical chairs! Yawn.

5. sPVP? Matchmaking is completely broken. Rewards are a snoozefest.

6. RNG. Nuff said. Put more stuff in the cash shop and less stuff locked behind RNG. I’d buy a lot of the stuff with gems but I’m not given the option. I refuse to buy gambling boxes. Also, the mystic toilet is a perfect example of “the house always wins.”

7. No way to turn down particle effects. I can’t seen a kitten thing in a zerg and usually get one shot because of it. Not fun.

8. The camera blows. Way too much collision.

I could go on. But I’ll close with a few things that GW2 has going for it.

1. Graphics. The world is stunningly beautiful.

2. Dynamic events are much more interesting than static quests and are a hell of a lot of fun when the number of players is just right requiring actual tactics and not facerolling.

3. Action combat is fun! I love not having to stare at hotbars and cooldowns. Too bad I usually can’t see anything due to over the top particle effects.

If ANET addressed the grind and just a few of above issues, I’d be feeding my money into the gem story regularly. As it stands, I’m finding pandas and pokemon pet battles more fun and Blizzard has been getting my money instead because shinies are actually attainable within a few months of casual play.

It’s a shame because everything is in place for GW2 to be a home run. But it just isn’t mainly due to grind.

Riffing on lolnotacat’s post, there’s also one clear problem that acts as a barrier to socialisation.
No in-game voice comms.
Yes, you can tell people to download Teamspeak, Skype or Mumble, but straight away, you’re preventing users from easily communicating.
If someone joins your party/guild/zerg, unless they’re already familiar with the ins and outs of all possible third-party VOIP applications, someone’s going to have to spend a lot of time typing instructions on how to download, install and set them up.

This is a huge barrier to effective team-play and socialisation.

To be honest, I think it should be a requirement for modern MMOs to include VOIP as standard. Not including it just impedes the user base’s ability to communicate effectively. It slows down the game at all levels.

I stopped playing because of not enough combat skills, not enough trait choices, and not enough class mechanics overall. I feel like my brain is running in circles after 10 minutes of fighting.

I also want to point out that this is the core of a lot of problems in GW2. Because if combat was more varied, more exciting with more choices, it would solve all of the complaints I’ve read in this thread, and let ANet continue with their current gamedesign philosophy :

- grinding wouldn’t be a problem, as combat would be so exciting and different in each fight that people wouldn’t focus on the repetitiveness of the task, but on the excitement of their fight.

- Dungeons wouldn’t be deserted, as fighting would be so exciting that some people would be glad to run old ones again and again

- ESports scene would rise from the ground, as very serious gamers would be attracted by interesting mechanics, may they be on individual or team scale.

etc…
It really feels obvious to me that class mechanics and skills variety are where ANet should have put most of the money. The basics are brilliant, but the lack of choice makes it appear as a wasted effort.

Plus, I’d never say this enough, but in mmorpgs, we spend 80% of our time fighting … so if such fights are boring, it’s no secret that players will leave in no time.

edit : oh and yes, more mechanics means more balancing difficulties … but you know, balancing is actually a job, where people get paid to work on such issues. It’s called Systems Designer.

Yeah, mechanics needs seriously looking at.
One of my favourite ways to play before I stopped was as a PvE hammer warrior. My build was fun and reactive, but relied heavily on the ability to control the fight, something we were lead to believe before release as being one of the pillars of the new trinity.

Unfortunately, ArenaNet couldn’t find an effective way of balancing this, so they slapped an immunity to control on all significant enemies. So while it’s a fun way to play against mobs up to veteran level, it becomes completely ineffective on champions or tougher.
That means that while I enjoyed my way of playing, it was ineffectual against a huge amount of content.

Straight out of the gate, they’ve crippled one of their pillars and reduced options for build diversity.
I endured it for as long as I could hoping they would re-examine the implementation of control, but it’s clear to me now that fixing the actual game is way down their list of priorities.

I think a good number quit because the game has strayed so far from its predecessor its almost the same as its competitors now, many people enjoyed Guildwars for what it was (i understand a few here on the forums didn’t) but on a whole it was popular with a good deal of fans.

Guildwars 2 is in most respects completely different a game to the original and this affected its fans a lot, upset a lot and disheartened a lot.

The fact that Anet stubbornly trudges onward in a direction many Guildwars fans hate seems like the icing on the cake of leaving.

DarkSpirit.7046:

I would like to add that one problem with having too many account-bound crafting material is that some of these crafting materials are tied to specific places in the game. So if you don’t like to play that specific place then that’s too bad, you can never get your maxed out ascended back items or something. This runs totally against what ArenaNet promised. What happened to “It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/

It seems like we are “forced” to play certain content in order to reach the most powerful reward instead.

Four words.

You’re doing it wrong.

If there’s a zone you like, stick to that zone and gather the mats there. Ascended gear requires a wide swath of materials, so the ones you’re gathering are likely in demand. Sell the excess on the TP and buy the ones you need but aren’t farming. Pretty simple really. You’re not forced to go anywhere you don’t want to go for materials.

I recently came back for 2-3 weeks. Participated in the CDI living story discussion. Had a nice back and forth with some of the devs. Played through the last LS as well as part of the current(which isnt half bad).

I can tell you why I am going to quit AGAIN (probably starting today).
I simply cannot do the achievement grind anymore. Even though this is something that was touched on in the CDI, I don’t think its something that will be changed within the next month or two. Probably several down the line. All of the patches are drivin by achievements and zergs. Nothing more. And it has burned me out, yet again. If I wanted to break off and go out into the open world, I find no one. Because everyone is either in Dungeons, WvW, Lion’s Arch, or in the current FoTM zone of the week for LS.

Plus, I can no longer create forum posts and must wait 5 minutes between posts. This place is run like a prison sometimes. No other official game forum is this ‘strict’. I will probably receive an infraction for this and probably a perma ban, which will solidify me not returning to the game ever again because it will further tell me what kind of company I am giving my money to.

Ascended uncalled grind, terrible PvP pushed for esport, AP grind. WvW, DGs, sPvP and almost the whole game being ignored to favour the biggest reason for leaving:

Living Story.

VOLKON.1290:

Four words.

You’re doing it wrong.

1) You
2) are
3) doing
4) it
5) wrong

I’m sorry, I had to

Mordalus.8146:

I started out loving GW2 but have been playing less and less and going back to playing WoW more and more. Why? It comes down to grind mainly but a few other things as well.

…a few things that GW2 has going for it.

1. Graphics. The world is stunningly beautiful.

2. Dynamic events are much more interesting than static quests and are a hell of a lot of fun when the number of players is just right requiring actual tactics and not facerolling.

3. Action combat is fun! I love not having to stare at hotbars and cooldowns. Too bad I usually can’t see anything due to over the top particle effects.

If ANET addressed the grind and just a few of above issues, I’d be feeding my money into the gem story regularly. As it stands, I’m finding pandas and pokemon pet battles more fun and Blizzard has been getting my money instead because shinies are actually attainable within a few months of casual play.

It’s a shame because everything is in place for GW2 to be a home run. But it just isn’t mainly due to grind.

Snipped. I agree with the positives and Im astonished that they are not playing to their strengths a bit more with the game.

-Gorgeous world, probably the best looking, most diverse, expansive and explorable MMO game world to date. But the LS updates funnel us into one or two zones, or instances. I forgot what some of the other zones look like because I am always following the LS carrot.

-Dynamic events are the CORE of this game. The absolute CORE. While these LS updates have DEs, we are still plagued by the first issue(being funneled into zones). I would rather be rewarded for experiencing all different kinds of DEs across the entire game world, not just a few zones. Instead of adding LS, they should expand on these DEs. Some of them were so fantastically written. But once we were given a carrot to go do something else that yielded better profits, thats when zones began to empty (early on too..November 2012)

-The combat has so much potential. When I first read about the combo fields, that was a one of a kind mechanic. I hadnt seen that before in a game. Arenanet has/had so much potential with this. Requiring dungeons to utilize these in order to overcome encounters would be great. Instead, we just spam and spam and spam, and then avoid trash mobs. The spell effects are also really well done. I cannot say enough for the art team and graphics team.

Mesket.5728:

VOLKON.1290:

Four words.

You’re doing it wrong.

1) You
2) are
3) doing
4) it
5) wrong

I’m sorry, I had to

Isn’t the contraction counted as a single word even though it’s a combination of two?

VOLKON.1290:

Mesket.5728:

VOLKON.1290:

Four words.

You’re doing it wrong.

1) You
2) are
3) doing
4) it
5) wrong

I’m sorry, I had to

Isn’t the contraction counted as a single word even though it’s a combination of two?

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/80635/counting-contractions-as-one-or-two-words

We will never know, not even dictionaries agree. Lets say we are both right/wrong (?)

Mesket.5728:

VOLKON.1290:

Mesket.5728:

VOLKON.1290:

Four words.

You’re doing it wrong.

1) You
2) are
3) doing
4) it
5) wrong

I’m sorry, I had to

Isn’t the contraction counted as a single word even though it’s a combination of two?

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/80635/counting-contractions-as-one-or-two-words

We will never know, not even dictionaries agree. Lets say we are both right/wrong (?)

OK, works for me. I will share one thing that this reminded me of for some reason…

VOLKON.1290:

DarkSpirit.7046:

I would like to add that one problem with having too many account-bound crafting material is that some of these crafting materials are tied to specific places in the game. So if you don’t like to play that specific place then that’s too bad, you can never get your maxed out ascended back items or something. This runs totally against what ArenaNet promised. What happened to “It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/

It seems like we are “forced” to play certain content in order to reach the most powerful reward instead.

Four words.

You’re doing it wrong.

If there’s a zone you like, stick to that zone and gather the mats there. Ascended gear requires a wide swath of materials, so the ones you’re gathering are likely in demand. Sell the excess on the TP and buy the ones you need but aren’t farming. Pretty simple really. You’re not forced to go anywhere you don’t want to go for materials.

If you have read my post, you would know that I am talking about account-bound materials. Materials that can’t be traded on the TP.

For example vial of condensed mists essence, gee I wonder if I can get an ascended back piece without going to Fractals. Answer: No you can’t! Well except for the sclerite karka shell which has the unpopular apothecary stats and also requires the exotic sclerite karka shell that are not available now.

As for the other ascended materials, many of them are also account bound, which implies they can’t be sold on the TP.

Because the game doesn’t immerse you in the world in these two week updates. 5 minute dungeon with a cut scene and let’s not forget the lack of permanent content. The game is literally going through a lump right now. I started playing GW1 again because it’s actually fun. I have no clue what they are doing or trying to do. But if you’re getting bored you may as well take a break from the game until it gets interesting again.

I normally log on now to do CoF, AC and then log off. There’s not really any good reason for me to stay on long enough since half of my guild has quit.

I’m in a guild that’s dead on Guild Wars, but very active in other games, and the #1 reason among all of them is that it’s boring.

Given that most of them haven’t even capped (which is easy to do if you know what you’re doing) and that the ones who played during one of the free event never bothered picking up GW2 and purchased other games instead, tells me that perhaps something that most of us level-capped folk of moderate wealth who could craft-grind a character to 80 in hours (because we know how to/can afford to) have forgotten what a chore leveling up the hard (and only readily apparent to new eyes) way is.

I think that some optimization of the leveling experience needs to be had, it seems like most of the additive features (WvW/Dungeons/ect) are conceived to be best experienced when you are high enough level/capped, considering that mental block where someone may not want to try these things because they don’t feel confident that they are powerful enough until then.

These problems are pretty typical across all MMOs of course, but given that there’s a “fast lane” to leveling, would speeding up the “slow lane” be so bad?

To add to this: Everybody hated the heart quests. Everybody.

While I don’t personally feel that they are that bad, I can see how they get tedious when doing one right after the other. Perhaps cutting the qualifiers down by some arbitrary number will make it less of a “not another one” and more of a “ooh an opportunity to make some silver!”

Because items you lose that legitimately SHOULD be replaced, aren’t.

There’s one reason why players leave GW2.

Tired of it, done EVERYTHING a hundred times.

Living story is not for me :/

Because in the end its boring. I haven’t even capped. I’m at 63 and I can’t get this game to grab me like others do.

I think its because the LS isn’t very interesting. I love 2 week updates, but its just story that isn’t even connected. Every 2 weeks it seems like they bring up a new story that leaves unanswered questions…and next week we get more. Who the heck is Scarlet? And why do I care? Hasn’t Scarlet been going for months now? She’s not even a big bad guy. The dragons are the real threat, but no…the heroes of Tyria are fighting this little annoyance in the corner while the dragons just eat the world. That’s how I see it.

Also a lack of a personal touch. Everyone’s personal story ends up playing the same way about half way through getting to 80. Which is also why I love housing. I want to have my own touch on Tyria….but no each week I get a lame story with zerg after zerg…and it just gets boring.

TL;DR – The story is boring and uninteresting and everyone does the same thing week after week.

Pravda.7641:

Because in the end its boring. I haven’t even capped. I’m at 63 and I can’t get this game to grab me like others do.

I think its because the LS isn’t very interesting. I love 2 week updates, but its just story that isn’t even connected. Every 2 weeks it seems like they bring up a new story that leaves unanswered questions…and next week we get more. Who the heck is Scarlet? And why do I care? Hasn’t Scarlet been going for months now? She’s not even a big bad guy. The dragons are the real threat, but no…the heroes of Tyria are fighting this little annoyance in the corner while the dragons just eat the world. That’s how I see it.

Also a lack of a personal touch. Everyone’s personal story ends up playing the same way about half way through getting to 80. Which is also why I love housing. I want to have my own touch on Tyria….but no each week I get a lame story with zerg after zerg…and it just gets boring.

TL;DR – The story is boring and uninteresting and everyone does the same thing week after week.

How many MMOs have you played that end in a personal touch?

Vayne.8563:

How many MMOs have you played that end in a personal touch?

I think his point is less “The end sucks!” and more “So, for a Personal Story, it sure stops caring about my character early on.” It’s…actually kind of really awkward.

Here, let me try to explain what I, at least, am trying to say with that:
You start the game.
You pick your character’s three race-specific major things.
You pick your character’s disposition.

I’ll be going by the wiki from here on, due to spotty memory.

The three major things form the backbone of your early quests (1-30ish, unsure of exact division point; might end earlier). This is the real Personal Story, as it’s actually about your character. This is the segment of your character’s existence that is about them, where the story pretends to care about the difference between a drunkard Norn ranger and an uptight Asura elementalist.

After that…it’s not about your character. It’s about Destiny’s Edge (in Story mode dungeons), the Orders, the Pact, Orr and Trahearne.
Every Order gets the same set of five choices, apparently, from 41-47, about which tribal race to recruit.
At 48, each Order gets a binary choice specific to the Order, about which allies Trahearne will try to recruit. This sets off a thirteen-level quest chain culminating in Trahearne getting Caladbolg, the player defending their order’s HQ, the creation of the Pact and the retaking of Claw Island (or Clohwr Island, as the salad would say).

And then, from 62-71, your character actually sort of matters again, because these missions are based on a fear you selected during an earlier mission, instead of Trahearne deciding to bop on down to the shop for a box of crisps and asking you to accompany him because he just doesn’t feel safe in that part of town.

Things wrap up with a resoundingly impersonal battle with Zhaitan, which is not only impersonal insofar as it’s not about the player character (it could be about the Pact or Destiny’s Edge, but it’s not the player characters), but a dungeon, requiring several player characters who are, as far as the game is concerned by this point, simply several different clients to trigger a cinematic on.
All things considered, it’s hard to personalize the ending, though.
After all, five characters, three Orders, one Pact; there’s inevitable overlap in high-ranking (possibly unique, though I don’t recall precisely) in-Order positions, all five characters are Commander of the Pact, all five characters have accompanied Trahearne through the exact same major missions (possibly separately), all five characters have potentially had exactly the same conversations with him.

At no time, it can be noted, does your character’s disposition matter in the least, which isn’t really a big deal but it just bugs me that they wasted an actual opportunity to personalize this, okay. They could’ve done so, but they didn’t.

As I see it, that’s a total of 40 or so levels where your character actually matters – for half of the Personal Story, your character could just as well be entirely absent; somebody else would do the recruiting, be the Commander, assist Trahearne, etcetera. The PC doesn’t even get different in-cutscene lines based on their ‘personality.’

In my opinion, that’s the dividing line between a Personal Story and an Impersonal one; if the player character never showed up, what would have changed, really? For half of the Personal Story, the answer is “Nothing,” and for the other half, the answer is “It wouldn’t have happened” or “It would have played out very differently.”

Right, as compared to most other MMOs, like say WoW, where all human warriors have the exact same stories, or better, no story at all. That’s true of probably 99% of MMOs. Characters have no personal story. This is a step forward from that.

The complaints about Trahearne running the show really blow my mind a bit. I mean people say this game didn’t keep anything from Guild Wars 1, but that was the modus operandi for pretty much ALL of Guild Wars 1. You were never doing your own thing, but someone else’s thing, even if you were the chosen. The most obvious example of this is Komir, who is the head of the Sunspears and becomes a goddess at the end. You do all the work, she gets all the credit.

It’s less like that with Trahearne, who has the wilde hunt to heal Orr. If you play a Sylvari your wylde hunt is to kill Zhaitan. Different wylde hunts. Even if you don’t play a Sylvari, Trahearne gives you plenty of credit, if you listen to what he’s saying. I think people are just used to Skyrim where you can be the head of everything all at the same time…which always rubbed me the wrong way. If I’d been able to walk up to Zhaitan and beat him with a mace and kill him, that would have likely rubbed me the wrong way too.

But yeah, the person story, as with any portion of a game, has budgetary constraints. SWTOR was the most expensive MMO ever made, and they put most of their money into cinematics and voice acting, and we all know where that went.

In a company that’s smaller with a lower budget, you can’t expect individual endings for each player and I’m not sure why anyone did. Anyone following the game would have known all roads lead to Zhaitan and that it’s in a dungeon. At least I knew that well before launch.

Vayne.8563:

Right, as compared to most other MMOs, like say WoW, where all human warriors have the exact same stories, or better, no story at all. That’s true of probably 99% of MMOs. Characters have no personal story. This is a step forward from that.

The complaints about Trahearne running the show really blow my mind a bit. I mean people say this game didn’t keep anything from Guild Wars 1, but that was the modus operandi for pretty much ALL of Guild Wars 1. You were never doing your own thing, but someone else’s thing, even if you were the chosen. The most obvious example of this is Komir, who is the head of the Sunspears and becomes a goddess at the end. You do all the work, she gets all the credit.

It’s less like that with Trahearne, who has the wilde hunt to heal Orr. If you play a Sylvari your wylde hunt is to kill Zhaitan. Different wylde hunts. Even if you don’t play a Sylvari, Trahearne gives you plenty of credit, if you listen to what he’s saying. I think people are just used to Skyrim where you can be the head of everything all at the same time…which always rubbed me the wrong way. If I’d been able to walk up to Zhaitan and beat him with a mace and kill him, that would have likely rubbed me the wrong way too.

But yeah, the person story, as with any portion of a game, has budgetary constraints. SWTOR was the most expensive MMO ever made, and they put most of their money into cinematics and voice acting, and we all know where that went.

In a company that’s smaller with a lower budget, you can’t expect individual endings for each player and I’m not sure why anyone did. Anyone following the game would have known all roads lead to Zhaitan and that it’s in a dungeon. At least I knew that well before launch.

I just had to come back and answer that…

You mean, SWTOR, the game where we can feel like a real badkitten for real, where you truly feel like you have some power ? Some meaning ? And companions (not all of them, I admit) that matters ? Oh, and stories ! Yeah…

I have yet to see a story in GW2 beat the Imperial Agent one, or the amazing feeling I had with my sith jugg when he trashed a republic base just to see the general inside of it. By himself.

What do you get in GW2 ?

Lame dialogues.

Crappy voice acting.

One (or two) cool cinematic(s).

Characters that don’t have any importance. You just want to punch them a few thousand times in the face…with another mother****** (if you get the joke here, kudos).

Oh, and my favorite…

Dialogues scenes where I have the sudden urge of killing someone. Where characters are supposed to “feel” angry, but are just standing upright, facing each other. It’s like watching Hamlet, but with the actors having as much feelings as a brain-dead magikarp flopping around.

Not the worst story ever, per se, but let’s just say it sucks. Badly.

Vayne, the personal story was a waste of Dev money. They stopped developing it for a reason.
There will be no more personal story they said. The Living Story is the replacement and it is the same for every single player. And it is beyond bad, which is a different story though.

The personal story was a mistake, no more development time goes in that. But I think I explained that before.

For every new race they introduce, they have to create a kittenload of quests for the first 30 levels, where people blow through anyways and do not care much if a random boring story is about this or that random boring event.

That is why we have not yet seen any new race. The personal story is just too little profit for the time invested. If you want a real story, play a single player rpg (at least that is what ANet’s telling me with the LS)…

Vertical progression.

If you advertise your game as being based on an horizontal progression in which players wouldnt have to enter endless grinds for BiS gear, and only 3 months after release you add a new time-gated heavily grind-based gear tier, which completely ruins the initial gear acquisition system that perfectly fitted the “play the way you want” concept you so talked about, you cant seriously expect people to be happy about it.

There are hundreds of reasons why this game is such a disappointment, generally speaking – hence so many different responses here.
Let’s face it: the general consensus is that this game is… above all… boring.
Nothing more to add.

A whole great deal to be changed and added, on the other hand, by Anet to actually prevent this game from its premature death.

lolnotacat.9814:

Creating an environment which promotes individuals to stand out is what social interaction is all about! Just because you had a pretty fun experience once doesn’t negate the fact that the game generally promotes an anti-social atmosphere which feels like a bunch of people playing a single-player game at the same time.

I would like to focus on this point, as I think this is what makes our opinions so different. That environment does not make things social, it recreates the environment back in elementary school where everyone got picked for football in recess, and there’s the pros, then there’s that one kid who no one ever picked. That environment is actually what creates elitism.

Now I’m not saying we should build an environment where no one matters, bu thats not what being sociable for me means.

What being sociable for me is creating an environment which promotes interaction outside of just people you usually play with and with complete strangers who can end up becoming your companions one day. That;s not something which achieved with your model, because what ends up happening is that everyone just groups themselves into tight ‘warbands’ who does stuff together but excludes everyone else; its like going to a party but only chatting to your closest mates.

Getting rid of the trinity was a great first step to encourage more social interaction, because this means there isn’t so much reliance on one particular person to do things right, making taking people you don’t know into content a lot more plausible and you get to actually go into the content quicker by getting rid of the LFM No DDs problem, resulting in a lot less frustration (when I’ve been queuing for 2 hours for a dungeon, I’m not in a good mood).

Joining different guild is basically a combination of guild alliances you already have in other MMOs and being bale to join stuff which aren’t really guilds but just an hub for a particular activity or need.

Why would you say the game promotes anti-social activity? Theres more opportunities to interact with other people than in all other MMOs I’ve played and the environment promotes it. Just because people don’t want to socialize in the game, it doesn’t mean the game demotes socializing.

Fiddlybitz.6982:

GW2 is masturbation without the pay-off at the end. Why log in to do the same thing day in and day out without anything new or exciting or any thing nice to work towards.

Because you choose to not work towards anything. I choose to work towards WvW wins, armor sets and new and unique looks, achievements, my ascended great sword (eventually), possibly a Legendary, etc. and with Living Story going on it’s really becoming quite rare to log in and only do the same thing over and over again.

You are making the conscious choice to not work towards the many things available in the game to work towards.

Corpus Christi.2057:

There are hundreds of reasons why this game is such a disappointment, generally speaking – hence so many different responses here.
Let’s face it: the general consensus is that this game is… above all… boring.
Nothing more to add.

A whole great deal to be changed and added, on the other hand, by Anet to actually prevent this game from its premature death.

There’s also a hundred different reasons why the game’s also very good.

You’re putting a red filter over the rainbow and claiming red is the only colour in there. If the title if ‘why do people stop playing GW2’ then of course its going to be mostly reasons why people stop playing GW2.

VOLKON.1290:

Fiddlybitz.6982:

GW2 is masturbation without the pay-off at the end. Why log in to do the same thing day in and day out without anything new or exciting or any thing nice to work towards.

Because you choose to not work towards anything. I choose to work towards WvW wins, armor sets and new and unique looks, achievements, my ascended great sword (eventually), possibly a Legendary, etc. and with Living Story going on it’s really becoming quite rare to log in and only do the same thing over and over again.

You are making the conscious choice to not work towards the many things available in the game to work towards.

I will refer to one point made by you only, i.e. LS. With the rest of it, I do agree to some extent.
Shortly, you can hardly say the Living Story is “going on” if the fortnightly updates ( yes, they last for 14 days ) are accomplished by people within the first 2-3 hours of their existence. The LS is true “quality” ( irony ).

Xae Isareth.1364:

Corpus Christi.2057:

There are hundreds of reasons why this game is such a disappointment, generally speaking – hence so many different responses here.
Let’s face it: the general consensus is that this game is… above all… boring.
Nothing more to add.

A whole great deal to be changed and added, on the other hand, by Anet to actually prevent this game from its premature death.

There’s also a hundred different reasons why the game’s also very good.

You’re putting a red filter over the rainbow and claiming red is the only colour in there. If the title if ‘why do people stop playing GW2’ then of course its going to be mostly reasons why people stop playing GW2.

Hence my post. On the other hand, I do not actually understand the idea of your post if you clearly state that it’s the very place ( thread ) where to say ‘why people stop playing GW2’, and that’s precisely what I stated in my post.

Corpus Christi.2057:

VOLKON.1290:

Fiddlybitz.6982:

GW2 is masturbation without the pay-off at the end. Why log in to do the same thing day in and day out without anything new or exciting or any thing nice to work towards.

Because you choose to not work towards anything. I choose to work towards WvW wins, armor sets and new and unique looks, achievements, my ascended great sword (eventually), possibly a Legendary, etc. and with Living Story going on it’s really becoming quite rare to log in and only do the same thing over and over again.

You are making the conscious choice to not work towards the many things available in the game to work towards.

I will refer to one point made by you only, i.e. LS. With the rest of it, I do agree to some extent.
Shortly, you can hardly say the Living Story is “going on” if the fortnightly updates ( yes, they last for 14 days ) are accomplished by people within the first 2-3 hours of their existence. The LS is true “quality” ( irony ).

The same thing with expansions where if I really wanted to, I can get through expansions for most games within a week if they didn’t time or gear-gate anything.

The problem isn’t that the LS lacks actual content, its just that its so bad both storywise and general content-wise theres no incentive to back and repeat it.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Corpus Christi.2057:

VOLKON.1290:

Fiddlybitz.6982:

GW2 is masturbation without the pay-off at the end. Why log in to do the same thing day in and day out without anything new or exciting or any thing nice to work towards.

Because you choose to not work towards anything. I choose to work towards WvW wins, armor sets and new and unique looks, achievements, my ascended great sword (eventually), possibly a Legendary, etc. and with Living Story going on it’s really becoming quite rare to log in and only do the same thing over and over again.

You are making the conscious choice to not work towards the many things available in the game to work towards.

I will refer to one point made by you only, i.e. LS. With the rest of it, I do agree to some extent.
Shortly, you can hardly say the Living Story is “going on” if the fortnightly updates ( yes, they last for 14 days ) are accomplished by people within the first 2-3 hours of their existence. The LS is true “quality” ( irony ).

The same thing with expansions where if I really wanted to, I can get through expansions for most games within a week if they didn’t time or gear-gate anything.

The problem isn’t that the LS lacks actual content, its just that its so bad both storywise and general content-wise theres no incentive to back and repeat it.

You’re forgetting one thing: expansions are not only the new stories. They include precisely what you are referring to, i.e. new maps, new dungeons/fractals, new races, new traits, new skills and so on and so on, not to mention huge fixes or extensive balances. Thus, no – they are not the same as the LS time-wise.

Corpus Christi.2057:

Corpus Christi.2057:

There are hundreds of reasons why this game is such a disappointment, generally speaking – hence so many different responses here.
Let’s face it: the general consensus is that this game is… above all… boring.
Nothing more to add.

A whole great deal to be changed and added, on the other hand, by Anet to actually prevent this game from its premature death.

Hence my post. On the other hand, I do not actually understand the idea of your post if you clearly state that it’s the very place ( thread ) where to say ‘why people stop playing GW2’, and that’s precisely what I stated in my post.

Where did you state this in your post?

Also, when you claim that something is a ‘general consensus’ it implies you are talking about the whole population, not just the sample. Hence why I pointed out your flaw of assuming the sample represents the whole population when its clearly a biased sample.

@ above post. What makes you think new dungeons, new maps etc has to come out in expansions. TSW did theirs in DLCs, RuneScape did theirs for 12 years in weekly updates. What the LS was supposed to be was just an expansion broken down into small bits, but it didn’t work out as the Anet doesn;t know how to actually achieve that.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Corpus Christi.2057:

There are hundreds of reasons why this game is such a disappointment, generally speaking – hence so many different responses here.
Let’s face it: the general consensus is that this game is… above all… boring.
Nothing more to add.

A whole great deal to be changed and added, on the other hand, by Anet to actually prevent this game from its premature death.

Hence my post. On the other hand, I do not actually understand the idea of your post if you clearly state that it’s the very place ( thread ) where to say ‘why people stop playing GW2’, and that’s precisely what I stated in my post.

Where did you state this in your post?

Also, when you claim that something is a ‘general consensus’ it implies you are talking about the whole population, not just the sample. Hence why I pointed out your flaw of assuming the sample represents the whole population when its clearly a biased sample.

Where did I state ‘why do people stop playing this game’? I think you should re-read my post.
The fact that it is a biased sample does not mean that the general consensus ( majority of the population, not the whole population ) has to differ. The general consensus may be exactly the same as the one represented by the very biased sample you are talking about. Still, like I said beforehand, I do not understand the discussion you are trying to conduct.
I clearly did what the thread asked me to do: I pointed out to the reasons which make people stop playing this game.
I am not stating they have to do, but as Anet is failing at putting forward their LS idea into life, the expansions would seem like a better idea to introduce the things I mentioned ( e.g. thanks to a greater amount of time that would be spent on polishing the things, which cannot really be done atm, and we see this with the poor bi-weekly LS updates ).
Best regards

Corpus Christi.2057:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Corpus Christi.2057:

There are hundreds of reasons why this game is such a disappointment, generally speaking – hence so many different responses here.
Let’s face it: the general consensus is that this game is… above all… boring.
Nothing more to add.

A whole great deal to be changed and added, on the other hand, by Anet to actually prevent this game from its premature death.

Hence my post. On the other hand, I do not actually understand the idea of your post if you clearly state that it’s the very place ( thread ) where to say ‘why people stop playing GW2’, and that’s precisely what I stated in my post.

Where did you state this in your post?

Also, when you claim that something is a ‘general consensus’ it implies you are talking about the whole population, not just the sample. Hence why I pointed out your flaw of assuming the sample represents the whole population when its clearly a biased sample.

Where did I state ‘why do people stop playing this game’? I think you should re-read my post.
The fact that it is a biased sample does not mean that the general consensus ( majority of the population, not the whole population ) has to differ. The general consensus may be exactly the same as the one represented by the very biased sample you are talking about. Still, like I said beforehand, I do not understand the discussion you are trying to conduct.
I clearly did what the thread asked me to do: I pointed out to the reasons which make people stop playing this game.
I am not stating they have to do, but as Anet is failing at putting forward their LS idea into life, the expansions would seem like a better idea to introduce the things I mentioned ( e.g. thanks to a greater amount of time that would be spent on polishing the things, which cannot really be done, and we see this with the poor LS bi-weekly updates ).
Best regards

Apologies if I’ being stupid, but your argument doesn’t flow in my head.

Your initial argument to me was that since theres so many posts about why GW2 is bad in this thread, I countered it with that the thread represents a biased sample, and thus your argument doesn’t hold water.

Now your argument is that you were just stating why you stopped playing the game. That wasn’t even part of the initial argument and doesn’t make any sense in this context.

As for your second point. It doesn’t mean the general consensus has to differ, just like if you go into a meeting of the local communist party and ask them about their views on capitalism, the responses might not differ from what people generally think of capitalism, but that doesn’t make it valid sample.

I don;t quite understand where the rest of your argument sprouted from considering I was only debating about that one post.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Corpus Christi.2057:

There are hundreds of reasons why this game is such a disappointment, generally speaking – hence so many different responses here.
Let’s face it: the general consensus is that this game is… above all… boring.
Nothing more to add.

A whole great deal to be changed and added, on the other hand, by Anet to actually prevent this game from its premature death.

Hence my post. On the other hand, I do not actually understand the idea of your post if you clearly state that it’s the very place ( thread ) where to say ‘why people stop playing GW2’, and that’s precisely what I stated in my post.

Where did you state this in your post?

Also, when you claim that something is a ‘general consensus’ it implies you are talking about the whole population, not just the sample. Hence why I pointed out your flaw of assuming the sample represents the whole population when its clearly a biased sample.

Where did I state ‘why do people stop playing this game’? I think you should re-read my post.
The fact that it is a biased sample does not mean that the general consensus ( majority of the population, not the whole population ) has to differ. The general consensus may be exactly the same as the one represented by the very biased sample you are talking about. Still, like I said beforehand, I do not understand the discussion you are trying to conduct.
I clearly did what the thread asked me to do: I pointed out to the reasons which make people stop playing this game.
I am not stating they have to do, but as Anet is failing at putting forward their LS idea into life, the expansions would seem like a better idea to introduce the things I mentioned ( e.g. thanks to a greater amount of time that would be spent on polishing the things, which cannot really be done, and we see this with the poor LS bi-weekly updates ).
Best regards

Apologies if I’ being stupid, but your argument doesn’t flow in my head.

Your initial argument to me was that since theres so many posts about why GW2 is bad in this thread, I countered it with that the thread represents a biased sample, and thus your argument doesn’t hold water.

Now your argument is that you were just stating why you stopped playing the game. That wasn’t even part of the initial argument and doesn’t make any sense in this context.

As for your second point. It doesn’t mean the general consensus has to differ, just like if you go into a meeting of the local communist party and ask them about their views on capitalism, the responses might not differ from what people generally think of capitalism, but that doesn’t make it valid sample.

I don;t quite understand where the rest of your argument sprouted from considering I was only debating about that one post.

Your initial response to my post, if I understand it correctly, read that my logic is flawed as I assumed that the “general consensus here is that the game is a disappointment, which we can see from a wide range of responses we got in this thread”. My response to that is plain simple: you misunderstood my initial post. What I said in my initial post ( not a response to you ) is that the general consensus ( not based on, as you rightly pointed out, the biased sample in this thread; but, in my mind, on what we hear from people all over different forums, websties, media etc. ) over the game is that it has been a disappointment. Therefore, your response with regards to my alleged “flaw in logic” is a misunderstanding of my initial post.
Hence, all the discussion that followed unnecessarily.
Hope we understand each other perfectly now.

Best regards

Corpus Christi.2057:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Corpus Christi.2057:

There are hundreds of reasons why this game is such a disappointment, generally speaking – hence so many different responses here.
Let’s face it: the general consensus is that this game is… above all… boring.
Nothing more to add.

A whole great deal to be changed and added, on the other hand, by Anet to actually prevent this game from its premature death.

Hence my post. On the other hand, I do not actually understand the idea of your post if you clearly state that it’s the very place ( thread ) where to say ‘why people stop playing GW2’, and that’s precisely what I stated in my post.

Where did you state this in your post?

Also, when you claim that something is a ‘general consensus’ it implies you are talking about the whole population, not just the sample. Hence why I pointed out your flaw of assuming the sample represents the whole population when its clearly a biased sample.

Where did I state ‘why do people stop playing this game’? I think you should re-read my post.
The fact that it is a biased sample does not mean that the general consensus ( majority of the population, not the whole population ) has to differ. The general consensus may be exactly the same as the one represented by the very biased sample you are talking about. Still, like I said beforehand, I do not understand the discussion you are trying to conduct.
I clearly did what the thread asked me to do: I pointed out to the reasons which make people stop playing this game.
I am not stating they have to do, but as Anet is failing at putting forward their LS idea into life, the expansions would seem like a better idea to introduce the things I mentioned ( e.g. thanks to a greater amount of time that would be spent on polishing the things, which cannot really be done, and we see this with the poor LS bi-weekly updates ).
Best regards

Apologies if I’ being stupid, but your argument doesn’t flow in my head.

Your initial argument to me was that since theres so many posts about why GW2 is bad in this thread, I countered it with that the thread represents a biased sample, and thus your argument doesn’t hold water.

Now your argument is that you were just stating why you stopped playing the game. That wasn’t even part of the initial argument and doesn’t make any sense in this context.

As for your second point. It doesn’t mean the general consensus has to differ, just like if you go into a meeting of the local communist party and ask them about their views on capitalism, the responses might not differ from what people generally think of capitalism, but that doesn’t make it valid sample.

I don;t quite understand where the rest of your argument sprouted from considering I was only debating about that one post.

Your initial response to my post, if I understand it correctly, read that my logic is flawed as I assumed that the “general consensus here is that the game is a disappointment, which we can see from a wide range of responses we got in this thread”. My response to that is plain simple: you misunderstood my initial post. What I said in my initial post ( not a response to you ) is that the general consensus ( not based on, as you rightly pointed out, the biased sample in this thread; but, in my mind, on what we hear from people all over different forums, websties, media etc. ) over the game is that it has been a disappointment. Therefore, your response with regards to my alleged “flaw in logic” is a misunderstanding of my initial post.
Hence, all the discussion that followed unnecessarily.
Hope we understand each other perfectly now.

Best regards

Ah, my apologies, I misunderstood your original post.

But being an actuary I’m a bit tight when it comes down to claims, I tend to expect very solid evidence when someone claims something is a general consensus. So far, we really can’t tell if GW2 is disappointing because judging by its current revenue, it doesn’t look bad, and the only data we have on the number of players also says it isn’t. Afterall, why would people play and pay for something they find bad or boring?

Also, forums, fansites etc aren’t …. valid sometimes. For example, just purely looking at how much people claim WoW, and to an even further extent, RuneScape, sucks, you would think they would be dead games by now. But MoP’s sales ranking that high on Amazon and RuneScape’s 50k (constantly over 200k during 2007) concurrent users despite being that old of a game running on Java seems to state otherwise.

Ah, my apologies, I misunderstood your original post.

But being an actuary I’m a bit tight when it comes down to claims, I tend to expect very solid evidence when someone claims something is a general consensus. So far, we really can’t tell if GW2 is disappointing because judging by its current revenue, it doesn’t look bad, and the only data we have on the number of players also says it isn’t. Afterall, why would people play and pay for something they find bad or boring?

Also, forums, fansites etc aren’t …. valid sometimes. For example, just purely looking at how much people claim WoW, and to an even further extent, RuneScape, sucks, you would think they would be dead games by now. But MoP’s sales ranking that high on Amazon and RuneScape’s 50k (constantly over 200k during 2007) concurrent users despite being that old of a game running on Java seems to state otherwise.

That’s ok, but I also may have made my initial post more clear now that I’m reading it again. Pardon me and the whole misunderstanding.

With regards to DATA, I thought that the only info that was avaialable to us regarding the possible number of people playing this game was the “box sales”. What I would expect to have is the “current active accounts number”, or “concurrent logins in the game number” during week and weekend. This would let us somehow decide what the present and the future of this game is.
Nevertheless, I did find a piece of information on reddit, in one of the posts, regarding the “logins in GW2 on xfire during weekend” or something like that. This info was taken during the first 2 weeks of the game start and during the 2 weeks during this September, if I remember correctly. I am very well aware of the drawbacks of this kind of information, e.g. 1) the premiere of the game always attracts a great deal of enthusiasts, greater than any other time, 2) xfire, altough very popular, is not used by all the GW2 players, or possibly even the majority of GW2 players ( including me ). Still, the numbers show only around a couple of thousand of people playing it at the same time around the world during September and around a few hundred thousand people playing during the first 2 weeks since the game’s start. The data is not conclusive, indeed, but the general feeling I’m getting from a wide variety of sources, including people in the game itself ( I was a member of a couple of international guilds, and each one of them lost around 45-65 per cent of people approx. 1 year after the release of the game ).
Don’t misunderstand me, I’ve always been a great fan of GW2, and still play it rather often, but I do miss the diversity, the complexity and the… greatness… of GW1. It was something special and until this day GW1 is one of the best selling PC games ever. I simply miss the direction that GW1 took. With regards to the LS, shortly – I think that the idea of the LS that the devs had in mind was great, but the actual embodiment of this idea in the game has been mostly failure, unforunately.

Best regards

Anet told us the game had a maximum of 400k~ concurrent users (I can’t find the source at the moment, on my iPhone).

I’m not too keen on xFire data because its very difficult to say if it holds a constant proportion of players. From my understanding, most people use clients that their guild/friends uses, so it is a possibility that people started with xFire, but migrated to Teamspeak as they joined guilds and gaming circles.

You would expect a huge decrease in the number of players in most guilds after the initial launch because one, people find out they don’t actually like the game, two, people switch guilds constantly, and three, people tend to do everything available, then drop out until more stuff comes along (which the LS is supposed to ‘solve’ but even Anet thinks the LS isn’t ‘where we wanted it to be’).

No one can tell how well GW2 is doing in terms of players playing it apart from Anet I guess. But, we would probably see some sort of a reaction if they aren’t doing as well as they wanted that figure to be.

I completely agree on GW1 having more diversity and plot than GW2, and I would like to add another point: character progression. Our characters played essentially the same after around level 40, where you unlocked all your skills and most of your traits. I feel that this and the removal of the dual-class system was due to the devs wanting it to be an eSport, too much complexity makes the game harder to balance.

They promised regular additions of new skills and traits though, so we’ll have to see. Although I’m not hoping too much from it given how the game seems to focus so much on PvP in terms of balance and refuses to have PvE-only skills.