Guild Wars 2

Having played just about every MMO and RPG out there, this frail, aging 44 year old gamer still finds that to this day, there are only two online games that he has given his most time to, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2.

This post is not about World of Warcraft. That is for another time.

I want to talk about Guild Wars 2. More importantly, on how I constantly see crowded in game cities and how it appears in the top 10 most played pc games from sites ranging from Xfire to Raptr, and yet it is also the most consistently frowned upon MMO in most online forums. This is a game that was the next step up. If World of Warcraft borrowed the Everquest model and made its game more polished, then Guild Wars 2 took all the little irritating things about all MMOs and eliminated them completely.

This is a game were you “see” what is going on right in front of you, and react. You are never told by NPCs to go kill x amount of spiders, and questing can involve many different ways to complete an area. Small events pop up and sometimes even collide. Exploration is encouraged and completing a zone map actually leads to a reward.
You can deposit material items to your bank from anywhere in the game, you craft straight from your bank, can read email from anywhere. There is shared looting so if someone tags a mob before you, as long as you hit, you get credit. Everyone can mine the same ore so you don’t get upset at other players. Anyone can resurrect anyone else which has created a sub culture of some very nice, helpful players. The game runs great, has a nice interface, beautiful graphics, gorgeous music, AND it is buy to play, making it one of the better deals around. There is little or no downtime whatsoever, and it has that special quality of being easy to get into but difficult to master. It has a sense of humor, excellent lore and even jumping puzzles for some of those parkour fans. The starting areas are fantastic and epic, and having outdoor giant monster Shadow Behemoth-like open events in all the starting areas is a real eye-opener. The wardrobe and specifically dye system is one of the best around.

The end game is what we always knew it would be. People complain about the lack of gear progression but that’s what Guild Wars 2 was always going to be. Even though there are some small upgrades, it has never really been about gear at level 80. In fact, to me, it is more about how you look cosmetically at level 80, which is refreshing, to say the least. The lack of a holy trinity has made finding dungeon groups so much easier, as there is no waiting around for a tank or healer, and holds you more accountable for getting out of the way of damage.

While there have been bumps with the living story content only being temporary, future updates are rumored to be more permanent additions, so ArenaNet has listened. Some of the content was quite impressive including the attack on Lion’s Arch and the very popular Super Adventure Box. Updates in general seem to come as fast if not faster than other games that have subscriptions.

My question is, what am I missing here? Is it jealousy? Are a lot of these internet anti-GW2 rants actually shills from other companies? Maybe GW2 is not your cup of tea, I get it. But I get sick and tired of someone randomly saying “GW2 sucks” or it is a flop because it just does not make sense. It does not add up.

The thing with GW2 is that it is different.

Players that didn’t like the differences from their previous MMOs, usually hated GW2 and then they go to the Internet vent their hate towards the game, while the vast majority of the players that like GW2 just play and doesn’t show their affection on the Internet, at least that is how I see the current scenarios.

That is why you see bad comments only in forums and some community opinions, but bigger sites you hardly see any bad article about GW2.

It’s not GW2 specific. Every MMO gets the same negative feedback. Google any MMO and you’ll find plenty of “XXXXX sucks” posts.

I can’t honestly think of one MMO I’ve played, where I was active on the forums (which is most MMOs I play), that didn’t constantly have negative posts about how X feature is bad, Y is broken, farewell posts, this game is dead posts, etc.

I think more have crept up lately because of the increased focus on gem store. It’s almost like they’ve added people to their gem store department while neglecting other areas, but that is speculation.

I just hope Season 2 of LS isn’t a complete disaster, otherwise I can really see things going south.

But as far as negativity, I’ve not noticed it being any worse than other games I’ve played. Can’t please everyone and upset people tend to be most vocal, whereas happy people tend not to say anything.

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

Exactly, so we can either wait for the community to grow up or get used to it.

GW2 has some good ideas how not to run an MMO but still doesn’t know exactly what to do instead. This leaves some players very happy about open access events, living story, no subscription, etc but leaves others unhappy because they don’t see what replaces grind, expansions, gear treadmills, instanced raiding, trinity, etc.

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

Grownups don’t whine?

Its like this with every game,only difference is that GW2 after WOW has biggest community and that also means more ragers.To add to that,Gw2 is atm only competition to WOW so WOW fanboys like to HATE and HATE to justify why they still paying for that “ancient” MMO.Look at ESO,since got out WoW fanboys went to forums and youtube to hate the game they never even tried.There are also those kind of people that prefer stupid cartoonish animation instead of real thing so they are going towards WOW and WildStar.Point is that haters gonna hate,they feel happy when they are doing that and they wont stop-same thing happends in MOBA genre.Just play your game and dont pay attention on ragers.

Yargesh.4965:

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

Grownups don’t whine?

If you are having trouble differentiating between the two, may I recommend a large amount of time passing before you read my statement again?

Yargesh.4965:

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

Grownups don’t whine?

“Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up are the marks of childhood and adolescence.”

Vesuvius.9874:

Yargesh.4965:

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

Grownups don’t whine?

If you are having trouble differentiating between the two, may I recommend a large amount of time passing before you read my statement again?

wow

Negativity is always louder…in any game. Or newspaper, or govt, or website or…whatever.

I’m new to the game (been eyeing it for a while, was too busy with grad school before), and I have really enjoyed the design of the game for many of the same reasons as the OP.

While I dislike the “children/adult” maturity stereotypes (I know quite a few younger people who are much more mature than older people), I do wonder if age, more specifically gaming generation, does correlate to different views on the game and approaches to articulating criticism.

I’m a not-quite-as-frail 34, and I’m old school in that I came from tabletop and don’t see leveling as a grind. In fact, I was quite surprised to hit 80 so quickly and effortlessly compared to WoW; I was exploring zones (mostly scaled to lower levels) and helping people (NPCs and PCs) out on events and I just kept leveling. I love the cooking craft – it’s really well done and immersive (I cook a lot IRL).

What really makes GW2 approachable for me is that I am still a single player at heart, but the design of the game makes it not only easy to join in to help others out, but beneficial. I’m not afraid of kill stealing or node hogging, and I enjoy playing a Guardian because at the very least I can throw some boons/buffs on people and feel like I contributed.

I had my eye on ANet’s promotions for GW2 as it was being developed, and to me, I feel that they did succeed at showing that there are new ways to set up the rules of an MMO so other types of player behavior that are more positive can be promoted. But I think that my perspective is strongly informed from having started from Zork and King’s Quest (the originals) to today and being used to watching for significant changes in game design over the years.

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

I doubt children spend too much time on forums and writing 200+ words complain posts.

Myself, I love(d) the game and played since launch, but the luster’s fallen off. Since I’m an altoholic, I worried less about the “endgame” and focused on learning to enjoy each class and dig into the personal story paths.

But half of an MMO (if not more) is in its endgame. Less so with GW2, since seasonal events and story threads have targeted (nearly) the entire player base. Previous Living Story content occurred on a temporary basis, so the challenges and rewards were accused of being shallow. And they were.

Especially the rewards. If there was a single, greatest criticism of GW2, it’s that gameplay time doesn’t really match the rewards we see. Seasonal/Living Story events have been meta-achievement/token grinds. Ascended and Legendaries are unnecessarily long grinds. “They said there wouldn’t be grinds.” But every game has them. Challenges are limited in the game, and where there are challenges, the rewards are “two blues and a green.”

That’s the major source of the hate. Which is a shame, because I see so much potential for GW2’s style of gameplay, but the devs seem to be designing for older MMO models, not the one GW2 was built on.

Gamers in general hate MMOs.

MMO players hate MMOs

Haters hate

It’s a never ending circle. Don’t get caught up in the hoopla.

Scrambles.2604:

Yargesh.4965:

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

Grownups don’t whine?

“Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up are the marks of childhood and adolescence.”

As far as I’m aware, whining as an action is not exclusive to children. Are you using the term grownup as a measure of maturity? I do agree that mature people, whether child or adult, don’t whine. Whining is a sign of immaturity. A mature person will express their dissatisfaction in a manner that isn’t whining.

Reikou.7068:

The game itself is fine.

The disappointment comes from the fact that there was just so much potential for the game to be so much more than it is, and that potential is just squandered.

This exactly. I can’t speak for someone who didn’t like the game from the beginning, but for me it’s just the lack of improvements and extensions which the game greatly suffers of.

darkwombat.3685

Guild Wars 2 took all the little irritating things about all MMOs and eliminated them completely.

This statement points to one cause of the complaints. Another such statement is, “Guild Wars 2 is the perfect game for Guild Wars players.” from Mike O’Brien’s GW2 Design Manifesto. People fail to take such absolute statements as the hype they are. There is no way that GW2 could have lived up to those statements. For example, GW2 did not remove every irritating thing from other MMO’s for every MMO player. It removed some of them, but no way was it going to get them all for everyone and even resemble an MMO. While GW2 was not a bad game, and the game at launch was worth the purchase price, GW2 was — and is — not the perfect game for all GW players. Too many things that people loved in GW got left out of GW2.

So, what happens when people take these statements literally? They are disappointed when the game fails to deliver. Disappointed people — especially in the current age — vent their ire.

As a 44 year old, you should be well aware that people who are passionate about something will complain about things that make it less than perfect.

GW2 is a great game. What you’re seeing on the internet is not a GW2 specific issue. Every MMO I have ever played has in its own way brought something great to the table, but EVERY MMO gets its share of hate from the vocal minority on the internet. If you don’t believe me, check out the reviews and comments about Elder Scrolls Online. A great game in its own right, but lambasted constantly for not being something else.

I think what you are seeing is the “folly of choice” phenomenon. That is to say, people will choose to play one MMO over another for whatever reason, and then immediately relegate all other choices to the “this sucks” category in order to feel validated in their own decision. I’m willing to go so far as to say that the majority of the vocal minority hating on GW2 probably haven’t even played it. But they didn’t choose it as their favorite, therefore it becomes “stupid”, “lame”, “generic”, etc…

It’s a two way street, too. There are a lot of GW2 fans declaring all other MMOs to be “the worst” and “failures” because they are not GW2. This instigates retaliatory behaviors, creating a cyclical roller coaster of cynicism and hatred. “You think my game is stupid???” easily translates to “You think I’m stupid for liking this game!” and so on. It is a toxic activity and none of it is ever true, no matter what game the speaker is speaking of.

Every MMO has its haters and its fans. Fans are too busy enjoying their chosen game to spend an excessive amount of time talking about how much they enjoy it. The haters on the other hand simply seem to have nothing better to do.

My advice; if you see something that seems overly negative, derogatory, or cynical being stated about a game that looks or is appealing to you, then you should by all rights ignore what everyone else says and enjoy playing the games that you enjoy playing. None of the hateful stuff people say about the games they don’t like is ever true.

Draknar.5748:

Scrambles.2604:

Yargesh.4965:

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

Grownups don’t whine?

“Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up are the marks of childhood and adolescence.”

As far as I’m aware, whining as an action is not exclusive to children. Are you using the term grownup as a measure of maturity? I do agree that mature people, whether child or adult, don’t whine. Whining is a sign of immaturity. A mature person will express their dissatisfaction in a manner that isn’t whining.

It’s actually a c.s. lewis quote that i abbreviated. It was a reference to the idea that the concern over whether something is childish or not childish is a generally something only children worry about (which is kind of contradictory in itself, lol, but it’s still a good observation).

I’d link the whole quote but i don’t want to get suspended again for posting off-topic in an off-topic discussion. So, on topic – everyone whines and it’s silly to say that adults don’t whine, or make baseless assumptions about forum population demographics.

Realistically, we’re all adults at work on video game forums instead of working, lol. Kids don’t have to work and have better things to do. (disclaimer, this was another baseless assumption for the purpose of humor).

ryan.5106:

GW2 is a great game. What you’re seeing on the internet is not a GW2 specific issue. Every MMO I have ever played has in its own way brought something great to the table, but EVERY MMO gets its share of hate from the vocal minority on the internet. If you don’t believe me, check out the reviews and comments about Elder Scrolls Online. A great game in its own right, but lambasted constantly for not being something else.

I think what you are seeing is the “folly of choice” phenomenon. That is to say, people will choose to play one MMO over another for whatever reason, and then immediately relegate all other choices to the “this sucks” category. I’m willing to go so far as to say that the majority of the vocal minority hating on GW2 probably haven’t even played it. But they didn’t choose it as their favorite, therefore it becomes “stupid”, “lame”, “generic”, etc…

It’s a two way street, too. There are a lot of GW2 fans declaring all other MMOs to be “the worst” and “failures” because they are not GW2. This instigates retaliatory behaviors, creating a cyclical roller coaster of cynicism and hatred. “You think my game is stupid???” easily translates to “You think I’m stupid for liking this game!” and so on. It is a toxic activity and none of it is ever true, no matter what game the speaker is speaking of.

Every MMO has its haters and its fans. Fans are too busy enjoying their chosen game to spend an excessive amount of time talking about how much they enjoy it. The haters on the other hand simply seem to have nothing better to do.

My advice; if you see something that seems overly negative, derogatory, or cynical being stated about a game that looks or is appealing to you, then you should by all rights ignore what everyone else says and enjoy playing the games that you enjoy playing. None of the hateful stuff people say about the games they don’t like is ever true.

Nope. Of course there are people who just try to trash the game, nitpicking about small things that don’t matter. However there are also posts that are well thought out and articulated, like the thread yesterday but was closed since they don’t want to listen to the critics. Do you really think that people who writes a page full of complains really don’t care about the game? Let’s be honest, if it was WoW, Diablo 3, or game from any other devs even though there are major faults in those games as well I would just leave without saying anything because I don’t really care and I have no expectations of them. Most people didn’t leave GW2 with hate or anger, but mostly disappointment, because they had expectations from the guys who made GW1 would make it work, had their hopes up but was let down by how it went down the same route as every company.

Because the good MMOs get bashed all the time.

“OMG WoW sucks! only ****** play that game!”
“OMG GW2 was so bad its dead nobody played after 1 month!”

These kind of people are silly, insubordinate children who envy success. And blatantly lie to themselves in effort to hide truth

The rule is, the more successful something is, the more hate it will get. Be that for games, famous people, music, global corporations, just about anything.

All MMOs are the greatest that we will ever have seen .. as long as they are not released. (ok, all minus TESO, that already failed before release )

1-2 month after release they suck hard, have no endgame, bugs without end, the worst support ever, the devs don’t care .. blabla ..

Thats simply the internet hype today.

If you mean mmorpg forum. I would say the reason is GW1.

Most of the complaint are from GW1 veterans that : “why can’t GW2 be as good as GW1”.

You can relate to how mmorpg forums are usually full of complaint about why games now just arn’t as good as those game released “10+years ago”.

“Why the Guild Wars 2 Internet Hate ?”

Because not everyone agrees with you regarding the game’s merits, deficiencies, and direction. People disagreeing with you does not mean that they are jealous shills for another company.

When you first get the game, GW 2 is a breath of fresh air with lots of potential, then you play through it and realize the end game is non-existent and getting certain things are pointless grinds and the LS and PS are meh at best. I still enjoy the game but I get burnt out easy because there is so much they could do with the game but it feels like you’re on a treadmill with locked skills and must have utilities.

darkwombat.3695:

Having played just about every MMO and RPG out there, this frail, aging 44 year old gamer still finds that to this day, there are only two online games that he has given his most time to, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2.

I gather you never played GW1?

The problem is all the very best parts of GW1 was left out and this has upset the dedicated GW players that put in over 7 years playing.
if you haven’t tried GW1 grab a copy and see what all the complaints are about.

I will say GW2 is a great looking game with alot of potential to be the very best, but you will understand the quote " if it ain’t broke don’t fix it" , and I am afraid the current direction has broken what GW’s is and was to alot of players.

cheers

phabby.8945:

darkwombat.3695:

Having played just about every MMO and RPG out there, this frail, aging 44 year old gamer still finds that to this day, there are only two online games that he has given his most time to, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2.

I gather you never played GW1?

The problem is all the very best parts of GW1 was left out and this has upset the dedicated GW players that put in over 7 years playing.
if you haven’t tried GW1 grab a copy and see what all the complaints are about.

I will say GW2 is a great looking game with alot of potential to be the very best, but you will understand the quote " if it ain’t broke don’t fix it" , and I am afraid the current direction has broken what GW’s is and was to alot of players.

cheers

I’ve been playing GW1 for the last few months and I find it incredible that people rely on their memories as the truth of all things. But that’s nostalgia for you.

I would also add to the discussion that usually those comments are not about the lack of a “gear treadmill”, but about the absence of a proper “end-game”.
So consindering the fact that Anet clearly advertised that the game is build to have a very low vertical progression curve, I doubt that most of the ones that complain about the Gw2 would do it blaming the lack of VP.

It’s partially just the internet but also partially because ANet really did screw a lot of stuff up and wasted a lot of the potential of the game.

It’s a huge stepdown from GW1. It really is. They said GW2 will have everything you loved about GW1. The deep customization system? Not here. Meaningful PvE combat that isn’t just about everyone being DPS? Not here.

If they managed to provide amazing balance and intricately made skills, each with their own unique purpose (say, like ESO’s), then perhaps that would be forgiven. But they didn’t: balance is in shambles at the moment even with this dumbed down system, with them for goodness knows what reason advocating for balancing PvE and PvE under one blanket (making entire game mechanics like Confusion or Retaliation just not work), most of your skills serve one primary useful purpose: do damage, and there’s tons of useless/bugged skills on every skill bar you can construct.

Despite all this, they don’t seem to be doing much about it. Balancing patches come seldomly, and when they do, they often come with knee-jerk changes (remember the infamous 50% nerf on Dancing Dagger) despite ANet saying they don’t like ‘whack a mole’ balancing.

They also promise a lot of things which they never carry out. They said they’ll ‘regularly’ add new traits and skills. I don’t call 2 healing skills and 1 new GM trait after a year ‘regular’.

Finally, LS S1 blew it for a lot of people. It was a disaster. Temporary, unengaging content, terrible rewards, a storyline so bad it made Scooby-Doo seem like a masterpiece thriller, and a main antagonist so badly made and presented that it proved to us it is possible to make a character more annoying than Trehearne.

In an ideal world, you would look through someone’s post history and see a mix of positive and negative feedback, which are both constructive. No game is perfect, but then I suppose in an ideal world the game would be.

My point is negative constructive feedback has its place just as much as positive feedback. People gave feedback about the rewards for boss blitz being underwhelming and they were improved. People gave feedback about the dredge fractal and it was re-balanced. There was a lot of positive feedback about SAB world 1, but there was a lot of constructive negative feedback about world 2, which we’ll have to wait for world 3 to see how that’s been implemented. If that feedback didn’t exist, ANet wouldn’t know what players like and don’t like.

Now I’m assuming the OP is referring to the entirely negative non-constructive feedback. The ones that act like ANet MUST act on THEIR feedback or they’re terrible devs who want to steal their money and summon the rapture. The ones that act like any opposition to their opinion are from people who have been brainwashed or are ‘fanboys’. Well, these people exist everywhere – in restaurants, in cinemas, and online. It’s not GW2 centric or even video game centric – it’s all around. And of course, the opposite is true – there are people who refuse to admit something they enjoy can do anything wrong. Both types of people aren’t helping.

Thankfully, most businesses know not to listen to those who let their emotions (be that a lot of anger and rage or a lot of pride and defense) fuel them. Give ANet constructive feedback, both positive and negative. Don’t feel like you have to stand in the only negative or only positive feedback camp, ‘cause I’m sure whatever side you sit on, if you really think about it, there’s always going to be something you like that they’ve done and something you dislike! I’m guilty of this, too, but I try to be as objective as I can.

zenleto.6179:

I’ve been playing GW1 for the last few months and I find it incredible that people rely on their memories as the truth of all things. But that’s nostalgia for you.

Not everyone relies on “memories” and “nostalgia”. I was playing GW1 right until the pre-launch of GW2, so I don’t judge the first game based on “sweet, distant memories”.

For first impressions, GW2 seems to be the better game. Prettier, bigger, streamlined, seamless, certainly more ambitious. But as a player that digs deeper and deeper into each game, GW1 has a lot to offer beyond first impressions, with more focused storytelling, the concept of horizontal progression handled better, challenging and satisfying endgame content, well designed missions/ dungeons (exceptions aside), PvP with a lot more infrastructure and support, better enemy encounters, and especially a very deep character building system that has generated a lot of unique roles that go beyond the basic dps-tank-heal trinity.

GW2, in comparison, has failed at many of those aspects. Its endgame content is broken, its attempt at expanded the role diversity lead to the very opposite dps-only meta, character building system is mostly shallow (traits aside) and unsatisfying, horizontal progression functionality is heavily clashing against vertical progression gear, pvp is barebones, pve mob encountering is primitive as possible, and some of the best things about GW2 were left forgotten or have been going nowhere (dynamic events).

This is usually expected from a newly-launched game, where the first experience is much better and the second experience goes downhill until the game is updated and enhanced. But then comes another big problem with GW2: how Anet choose to update it. We had a first year where the focus was on creating festivals, a second year where the focus was on experimenting with a new concept whose first execution didn’t work very well, and inbetween we’ve gotten grind, gemstore items, farmville dailies, some nice QoL changes, and some nice content that was mostly temporary.

GW2 had the ambition of being one of the greatest MMOs out there, it had the potential for that, and it still has.

But that potential has been mostly untapped for two years, some MAJOR problems are yet to be solved, and the “we’re doing things different!” gimmick is not as charming after two underwhelming years than it was at launch.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I think GW1 was also a flawed game and GW2 is still a nice game. But GW1 had certainly one thing that GW2 hasn’t yet: a very focused direction. Anet knew what it wanted out of GW1, and gradually updated the game towards very specific goals. GW2, in turn, is drifting as a very directionless game. Anet wants GW2 to be a little bit of everything, without having enough time, budget and manpower to make sure GW2 is great at all of those things.

zenleto.6179:

I’ve been playing GW1 for the last few months and I find it incredible that people rely on their memories as the truth of all things. But that’s nostalgia for you.

The Guild Wars 1 that is playable now is a hollow shell of the amazingness that was around for ~4 years. And the reason for that? GW2, they stopped “expanding” on the original to give us an “updated”, “better” version of it, but it has fallen short. The gameplay, mechanics, and engine of GW2 are perfect for giving us a “better, updated” version of GW1, but the implementation of it is sorely lacking. Most of that is because the lack of things that made GW1 awesome. GvG, UW/FoW, Alliance Battles, Urgoz/The Deep(8-12 man “raid” type dungeons), Multiple pvp formats, EXPANSIONS, Quicker balance updates(more to just spice up the meta every couple weeks), and finally NEW SKILLS/WEAPONSETS. Honestly at this point I and my guild who have been with Guild Wars since the beginning have given up hope, it really feels like noone from the original is still working on this game.

It becomes easier to understand and predict the behavior of MMO communities when you think of them as a bunch of (very articulate, but no less annoying) small children whining to their parents.

Well I had replied that may have made for interesting discussion but since only the first line was posted I’m just going to leave it.

Vesuvius.9874:

Maliel.8362:

This is just typical behavior in games without subscription fees, have you ever visited the League of Legends forums?

I’m assuming there’s more whining there because more children play LoL . Grownups don’t whine, they provide feedback.

I hope you are being sarcastic about the grownups and feedback xD

As others here have said, mmo forums generally consist of people with complaints about the game, and/or just haters of the game. Most people who enjoy mmos rarely come to the game’s forum, unless they’re looking for specific tips on a certain part of the game.

The GW2 forums are not unique in the hatred/complaints. It’s just the nature of most mmo forums.

The GW2 reddit forums are an exception, as they are usually quite civil, with quite a few posters that actually enjoy the game. Proof of that is that most of the haters here call the gw2 reddit forum, the ‘fanboy’ forum, even though it does have some extremely useful info and constructive criticism discussions on the game.

darkwombat.3695:

I want to talk about Guild Wars 2. More importantly, on how I constantly see crowded in game cities and how it appears in the top 10 most played pc games from sites ranging from Xfire to Raptr, and yet it is also the most consistently frowned upon MMO in most online forums. This is a game that was the next step up. If World of Warcraft borrowed the Everquest model and made its game more polished, then Guild Wars 2 took all the little irritating things about all MMOs and eliminated them completely.

No, they didn’t Examples; The highly irritating being slowed down to a plodding crawl when in combat is one that Anet decided to use. That’s something that someone in some past MMO thought would be great and it’s not as no one in fo-real combat is going to slow down and make themselves a easy target. This is one of the stupidest “features” I’ve ever seen in a MMO.

Making Rogues/stealthers (Thieves) overpowered is another theme that Anet implemented that’s ridiculous and borrowed from other MMOs.

Also, no particle effect scaling like pretty near every other MMO has. This not only lets you actually SEE the boss that your group is fighting and therefore you can see what he’s doing and going to do but it also CUTS DOWN DRASTICLY ON LAG.

Those are just off the top of my head. So until Anet corrects those and others I aint mentioned, they have NOT taken “all the little irritating things about all MMOs and eliminated them completely.”

It’s not what’s in the game that causes anger, it’s what is not in the game.

So many good ideas have been passed on simply because they wouldn’t have generated revenue.

Huck.1405:

darkwombat.3695:

I want to talk about Guild Wars 2. More importantly, on how I constantly see crowded in game cities and how it appears in the top 10 most played pc games from sites ranging from Xfire to Raptr, and yet it is also the most consistently frowned upon MMO in most online forums. This is a game that was the next step up. If World of Warcraft borrowed the Everquest model and made its game more polished, then Guild Wars 2 took all the little irritating things about all MMOs and eliminated them completely.

Making Rogues/stealthers (Thieves) overpowered is another theme that Anet implemented that’s ridiculous and borrowed from other MMOs.

Ummm, the norm is mages being overpowered.

A lot of people get their expectations up so high about one thing or another and then get so furious that they leave. You see this everywhere. People transfer in WvW, people rage quit in pvp… It’s everywhere. And I don’t just mean in game. Some people think things should be this way or that way and when they don’t get it, they come here to rage.

Picture a spoiled kid who doesn’t get what he wants for Christmas. Basically the same. Parents said they don’t need it, or knew they wouldn’t really like it, and the kid wanted it anyway so they ball or scream or whatever.

I can understand if people leave GW2 and not play other MMOs, but in terms of MMOs I don’t know where they are going to go at all. No game compares to it and no game coming out in the near future will seem to compare so far, either. GW2 has some problems, sure, but it’s an incredible game – best game I’ve ever played and I plan to stick around for some time and to those who think that things don’t get fixed – they do. I’ve been around since launch and the game has really improved in a lot of ways.

This reminds me of an old theory my US Government teacher taught us: the more you use something, the less satisfaction you get out of it. So my take on all the hate is that people are getting too familiar with Guild Wars 2 and it has BECOME the norm for them. When they leave, all they find are MMOs that feel “last-gen” in comparison to GW2. That early discovery wonderment that people felt when they played GW2 coming from other games is now gone and now they expect something better then GW2 – and they aren’t finding it by playing GW2 some more.

Do people seriously believe that disliking GW2 makes you a spoiled kid? There has been plenty of constructive, well-written feedback that points to GW2’s faults.

My question is, what am I missing here? Is it jealousy? Are a lot of these internet anti-GW2 rants actually shills from other companies? Maybe GW2 is not your cup of tea, I get it. But I get sick and tired of someone randomly saying “GW2 sucks” or it is a flop because it just does not make sense. It does not add up. [/quote]

Its not Jealousy, its more likely http://thehspot.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/disappointment.jpg

I did ask once, what happened to the manifesto, “Everything you loved about gw1 put into a persistent world” as an example they gave us the wp and some lore.

The cash cow that is gw2 is a far away from the vision of the manifesto and it feels like they lied to us.

Gw2 could and should have been awesome, instead of feeling its wasted talent.

^ well I know a bunch of people from mmorpg forum that regularly post there. They don’t look like fake poster.

Most of the complaint are from furious GW1 veterans. Just like most of the complaint in the mmorpg forums are from veterans who just think every new game that come out sucks compare to those game released 10 years ago.

Most of the GW2 hate is due to extremely poor post-launch development. We still have incredibly unbalanced builds/classes that seemingly get worse the few times a year they actually try and balance. The entire class system is built on extremely flawed components(conditions, stats, formulas, etc) Temporary content is fine when endgame foundations are solid, but GW2 endgame has NEVER been solid. Dungeons were never in a good place either(the fact that the “3” paths more often than not, feature the same areas with slightly different bosses is weak). Of course we can’t the almost complete reversal of everything they said pre-launch(manifesto, conventions, interviews, etc).

People expected ArenaNet to build on GW2 and in almost 2 years they still really haven’t done that. The things they have added are either disjointed, temporary, or purely flavor.