Guild Wars 2

I and all of my freinds have played MMOs. Whether they were EVE, WoW, Runescape, SWOTR or some other game.

All of us, myself included, have stopped playing our MMOs because we were sick and tired of “Vertical Progression”. We were sick of chasing that carrot, and watching meaningless numbers slowly grow bigger and bigger. It took us a few years, and for some of us it took us a few MMOs, but we’re over that style of game, we never want to play a gear grind ever again.

We’re not unusual or unique. Most players I talk to share this mindset. Sometimes it’s painful, uncomfortable or difficult for people to admit they wasted some the best years of their life chasing a sword that increased their damage output by 0.5%, but in the end everyone feels cheated and hateful towards their old MMOs.

I hope you don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that Gear Grind is addictive, demoralising and can lead to some really complex and frigtening emotions and behaviours. It can break up relationships, and in some cases even lead to real-life violence. It’s a despicable plague upon gaming, and brings the whole industry into disrepute.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1162078-Gamer-dies-playing-D3

http://digital-lifestyles.info/2005/03/31/legend-of-mir-3-gamer-killed-after-selling-virtual-sword/

http://uk.kotaku.com/5925667/man-stabbed-in-the-chest-after-world-of-warcraft-argument

You might think these incidents are far-fetched or unique, but they are the ultimate product of Gear Grind mentality, and are frighteningly common.

This is why there was such a wave of excitement when Arenanet released their “Manifesto” to the press. Would this FINALLY be the MMO that broke the mould? That did away with “Grinding”? It certainly appeared to be the case.

And it was. The beta weekends confirmed everything in the Manifesto, casual-friendly difficulty, stuff for hardcore people to do, and an easy-to-attain stat cap.

It was, for want of a better word, perfect. Sales went through the roof. The internet was abuzz, Youtube was flooded with videos of players having an awesome time, free from the tyranny of gear grind. The game was SO POPULAR that Arenanet actually had to close down sales on their own website for a while to be able to cope with demand. The success of the game was absolutely unprecedented.

For months now, I have been convincing and persuading my friends to buy Guild Wars 2. The game is so much more fun with friends, and I wanted them to see that MMOs had changed, it was no longer a competition to see who could play the longest, grind out the most mats, thoerycraft the highest numbers, it was about having FUN and being competitive on a level playing field.

“Come to Tyria, it’s different!” I said.

“You only need to get to 80 and buy 1 set of gear, then you’re set!” I said.

“World Vs World is AWESOME fun, and you don’t need to grind to play it!” I said.

I’ve given out free trial keys, I’ve pimped the game in the forums, I’ve asked people I don’t even like to try it on Facebook.

I had followed every blog post, read every interview, watched every video, I thought I knew what Guild Wars 2 was about. I thought I saw a pioneering young game company bringing something amazing to the world, which had the chance to actually do the unthinkable and topple WoW from it’s throne.

In October, my world was shaken. I saw a simple picture posted by someone I’d never heard of before called Lindsey. It seemed to show a new item available in Guild Wars 2, a simple ring with some magic find stats.

WHAT? WHAT WAS THIS. The game I loved, the game I treasured, the game I logged over 300 hours playing and enjoying every minute of was introducing a new tier of items, with slightly, EVERY SO SLIGHTLY higher numbers on it than what I already had.

And I was supposed to be “excited” by this?

Well yes I was excited. I was so kitten excited I immediately called my friend who was going to relent to my incessant pestering for him to buy the game and told him not to.

“Don’t bother, they’ve started to introduce new gear with higher stats, it’s World of Warcraft all over again. Stay away from it man.”

So would I recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend? Well before October I not only would but did. I reccomended it to everyone I possibly could and practically begged them to buy it and come play with me.

Now, I would feel like a drug pusher, getting them hooked on their first little taste of Vertical Progression crack.

No, I won’t be recommending it to anyone in future. They might get stabbed, or starve to death at their computer screen.

Shame on you all.

yeah I would, but only if I knew them anyway. The only reason I started playing this game was because old guild friends asked me to come. I never bought into the manifesto because I didnt think what they talked about for personal story was possible..and it turns out it wasnt.

What on Earth? Firstly, please don’t try to speak for everyone. You say “All of us, myself included, have stopped playing our MMOs because we were sick and tired of “Vertical Progression”.” and “in the end everyone feels cheated and hateful towards their old MMOs” – this is not why I stopped playing my previous MMO and I don’t feel cheated or hateful towards it at all. I have a lot of good memories of fun times raiding with my friends and guild.

Secondly, no this is not WoW all over again. GW2 is nothing like WoW.

Thirdly, people dying at their computers and stabbing each other because of gear progression is most definately not “frighteningly common”. These people have mental illnesses. If you would stab someone over a game, you would most likely still end up stabbing someone even if the game never existed.

Yes I would recommend GW2 to a friend, it’s very good.

It sounds as if you’re still locked into the Gear Grind mentality. I hope you break out of it one day.

I wouldn’t recommend it to friends but that’s not because of the Lost Shores patch as people might think.

I already had reservations about the game in beta. In fact I stopped playing beta’s and came back for the release just to see. I liked certain aspects of the game but am done with those as they are now completed, but already then I wouldn’t recommend it to friends.

I do think that saying GW2 is WoW all over again is not really true. If I set aside the anger over this new direction, I simply must say that GW2 was always a game that could barely hold my interest because I’ve felt that the storyline in no way lives up to anything that was promised and the lack of freedom in creating builds in your skill bar is another one that really disappoints.

Also as an MMO this game has many bugs, nothing unusual there as such, but dungeons that are bugged for months to the point that they are unplayable is unusual to me. Also the fact that when you get disconnected from FotM and cannot rejoin your team is also a bad design. I imagine they will fix that but it seems to me that this game is too iffy to really advertise to people.

The chances that people will be disappointed with this game seem to high to me to risk.

It’s funny cause I did advertise GW1 a lot….at work some people called me Mr. Guild Wars. I guess that title is no longer appropriate.

Chamone.6890:

It sounds as if you’re still locked into the Gear Grind mentality. I hope you break out of it one day.

I’ve never raided to grind gear. I like raiding itself. I stopped playing WoW because the raids are too easy now and I was bored. I like GW2 dungeons because there are circles that give you 2 seconds to move before they one shot you.

i will be liberal and say; “if you want to grind pick GW2 wont go wrong with that,
if u wanna enjoy the game for the graphics vista etc pick gw2 as well,
for pvp well maybe
for an easy-climb-to-the-top experience ….guess not”

I would not.

The game had some issues since the early beta and a lot of the bugs we currently have to deal with were already known back then. I expected Arena Net to concentrate on fixing these bugs but instead they went down another road and created ascended gear that contradicts all I was made to believe this game would be about.
So, also the game was fun for a while I cannot recommend it to a friend cause I don’t really know what Arena Net is up to. If the game would be totally free it would be another story, but I can’t tell someone to spend money on an unclear future.

nach how would you know if your friend liked grinding or not?

Honestly – no, i didn’t even give out any of my free weekend codes.

With the current amount of unfixed class/skill bugs (a very major issue after 3 months – i’m ok with some skill bugs, but the sheer amount in this game is shocking), the state of the sPvP, how certain things are setup (FOTM in LA and the level system in it for example), how the previous event went and many other things – i just don’t think i could bring myself to get a friend to pay money for it right now.

Now the catch is, i do actully enjoy the game (a lot) and play it every day, it’s just i could never recommend a game with so many bugs and issues no matter how much i enjoy it. Once a lot more bugs are fixed and when certain things are adjusted (as statedi n the AMA) and if the next event goes well – then yes i would.

Gnatoay.7581:

nach how would you know if your friend liked grinding or not?

It’s not about grinding, it’s about whether the actions of developer and publisher are predictable or not.

/edit
And since we are talking about a friend I would know if he likes grindy games or not.

NO, if my friends were interested in an MMO, I would recommend PlanetSide 2 or suggest waiting for Elder Scrolls Online.

Yes, I would.
I would also recommend that they stayed away from these forums.

Nope, even offered some a weekends trial… They laughed!

OP’s examples of people dying at their computers are a bit extreme, but otherwise he’s right. Games should be able to stand on the merits of their gameplay, sound and art design, graphics, story, community etc. It is no secret that since the inception of MMO’s, developers have found it easier to extract profits from their players with psychologically exploitative, skinner box game design such as grinding for levels and high-end gear, gift boxes, etc.

Maybe Anet will make more profit as a result of ascended gear, in which case I should really be blaming the players for demanding grey goo instead of content. If Anet wants to keep players playing, I think they should’ve gone with the relatively new trend in online gaming where games such as Dota 2 and Minecraft can keep players interested and entertained in a social environment by sowing the conditions for emergent gameplay. They could’ve done this by building upon the WvW framework or even introduce that to PvE. Instead it looks like they’re going back to the tried-and-true gear grinding formula =(

Sure, I recommend the game to friends all the time.

In my opinion, one of the biggest factors to judge whether a mmo is a “mmo”, is the ease to play with other people. This game is one of the easiest games to play with my friends. I have played most mmos for the last decade and I do more things with my friends on a daily basis then any other game I have played.

The ease to play with friends that have different types of playstyles (casual vs. hardcore, pve vs pvp, novice vs experienced, etc) is one of the most desirable aspects of this game to me. I try to encourage all my friends to give it a shot.

I don’t think GW2 is exactly WoW again, just that they are introducing the one thing about WoW that made my friends and I want to stop playing it.

continual, never-ending, limitless “progression” in the form of your attacks hitting for 1012 damage instead of 1004 damage. Hold on to your hats guys, next month we’re releasing a new item that lets you do 1018 damage!

I love the trappings of MMOs, I love talking in guild chat, going out and doing stuff together, that feeling of teamwork and camaraderie that you only really get in an MMO, but I never wanted that type of regressive and redundant “progression” mechanic, and the reason I went and bought GW2 rather than any of the dozens of other MMOs out there is because it DIDNT have it.

Now that it’s been added, most of my guild has quit. Of those that are left, all they want to do is run Fractals over and over and over. All they talk about is Ascended gear and what DPS they now have. The fun, for me, is lost.

No I would not. Anet have shown themselves to be liars and I don’t deal well with dishonesty.

Gnatoay.7581:

nach how would you know if your friend liked grinding or not?

I lost my relationship with my brother because he was addicted to EVE and could not socialise outside of the game. My best friend lost his girlfriend to her WoW guild. I’ve been there myself, my relationship with my own girlfriend almost broke down because I was logged in every waking hour that I was not at work, and she felt like the game was more important to me than she was. The terrifying thing is, on some level, she was right. Luckily I snapped out of it before it went too far. I’m sure we’ve all got stories like this.

This is not a joke. This addictive, pervasive, reprehensible mechanic, offered in the name of “entertainment”, is vile and dangerous. Anyone stuck in the grind mindset, I would try to help. If they would not accept my help, I would stop being friends with them.

If my friend liked grinding I would do all that I could to show him that grinding was a pointless waste of time, ruins lives and is to be avoided at all costs. I would certainly not feed his addiction by showing him more grindy games.

I hope some of you now understand why people feel so strongly about this, even though it is “just a game”.

Chamone.6890:

I don’t think GW2 is exactly WoW again, just that they are introducing the one thing about WoW that made my friends and I want to stop playing it.

continual, never-ending, limitless “progression” in the form of your attacks hitting for 1012 damage instead of 1004 damage. Hold on to your hats guys, next month we’re releasing a new item that lets you do 1018 damage!

I love the trappings of MMOs, I love talking in guild chat, going out and doing stuff together, that feeling of teamwork and camaraderie that you only really get in an MMO, but I never wanted that type of regressive and redundant “progression” mechanic, and the reason I went and bought GW2 rather than any of the dozens of other MMOs out there is because it DIDNT have it.

Now that it’s been added, most of my guild has quit. Of those that are left, all they want to do is run Fractals over and over and over. All they talk about is Ascended gear and what DPS they now have. The fun, for me, is lost.

Aaah, I see. That sucks, but if you enjoy the rest of the game you should probably find a new guild.

Since the fractals have been added group activities in my guild have been doing fractals, doing old dungeons, keg brawling, doing jumping puzzles, levelling alts together, messing about on the diving board in LA and helping people get map completion stuff in WvW – all while chatting on mumble. Some people have Ascended backpieces and rings, but I haven’t seen anyone talk about them other than the initial “yay I got my [link]”.

I would not recommend this to a friend. The AMA just confirmed my fears. This game is not what it said on the tin!
All those years watching and waiting… sigh
Such a let down

na i wouldnt recommend it to a friend. the game lost a lot of its shine already the past months its been out. i bought this game for one thing only and thats the pvp.. were 3 months further and theres still

5 maps and 1 game mode..and they keep pumping out new content for the pve crowd and leave the pvp crowd in the cold with minor bug fixes and 1 crappy map

if i knew it was gonne be like this the moment i stared at the box in the store i wouldnt have bought it.. pvp aspect and especially since they re advertising like true e sport and highly competetive and skillfull pff right competetive my kitten.. its basicly burst and bunker wars 2.. has nothing to do with skill at all.. i know i should ve stayed with my fps.. ah well what can you do..

I did, before the Lost Shores patch. A few friends of mine bought it.

I regret doing it.

Kana.6793:

Aaah, I see. That sucks, but if you enjoy the rest of the game you should probably find a new guild.

Indeed it does, and indeed I will.

I am already invested, I’ve already bought the game, done the boring grind in Orr to get my Exotics, got 400 hours under my belt and about $50 worth of gems. They’ve got me, hook, line and sinker. Shame on me for not waiting a few months to see if it was too good to be true.

The gear grind only affects Fractals for now. The game is still worth playing, even though it’s a lot less fun now than it was in October.

I want to get my money’s worth, so I am still in, for now.

I certainly won’t be telling my friends to buy it, and I won’t be spending another penny on gems or expansions.

I did recommend it – quite lividly – to every friend who would listen. As of 2 weeks ago, I’m quite humiliated by it.

With honey covered promises I lured my friends into the game when it launched. Of the eight of us I’m the only one still playing, and I doubt they’ll be coming around anytime soon.

Honestly, it sucks.

I already have, and was forced to rescind those recommendations. Fortunately everyone realised I made them in good faith. I’d originally called it an MMO without the grind but I just can’t hold on to that without a wishy-washy “doesn’t really have too bad a grind at the moment and the devs insist it won’t get one but then they claimed all gear would be even and they went back on that 3 months in. It comes down to trust and I can’t see any reason to do so. Maybe give it a go but don’t get your hopes up”

Sure I’d recommend it to a friend. I’d probably enjoy my time even more with a friend.

Also, blaming the concept of ‘gear grind’ or ‘vertical progression’ on addiction-related player deaths is pretty extreme. People don’t buy into (and become addicted to) gear grinding because gear grind exists, they buy into it because they feel the need to. It’s a more complicated issue than basic game design, and one that is certainly not helped by a community that apparently places so much weight upon ultimately pointless tasks performed for some desperate measure of acceptance or a sense of accomplishment. Is it immoral to promote addiction? Sure. But many banal things in life can be addictive and are made less so by the support and grounding provided by peers. Having the sensible ones leave, due to something that they are well-aware of existing, and allowing the community to descend into addiction without their passive input strikes me as somewhat like jumping a sinking ship when it could be saved if all hands got to the buckets.

I’d even argue that the forums talking so much about the hate they had for Ascended gear/gear grind actually promoted the idea that we need to buy into the idea of Ascended gear/gear grind to effectively enjoy the game, because here was a thing that was apparently so much of an impact that some people were leaving over it rather than risk feeling forced to take part. That’s both weird and interesting to me, as someone who feels pretty neutral about the whole thing. I know that there were other reasons that folks were dropping out, but it was when people gave these explanations that I was particularly curious.

I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone but I would not care if they chose to play it themselves, they probably won’t be that disappointed unless they played GW1. It’s just another typical MMO but without good healers and tactics.

Yes I would recommend it. Out of the people I know that started playing it only one have quit. His reason was that it was boring because gear was too easy to obtain and there was nothing else to do. He didnt even set foot in WvW or sPvP, because they were bad since they didnt givbe you gear with higher stats when you progressed.

A WoW child in short.

The rest of us enjoy what the game brings, we arent super happy about grinding, but the fractals are fun and bring many laughs when we fall to our deaths. I will stick with the game for a good while, since I enjoy it and so will probably the people I know.

@OP: Yes those games are claimed to be involved with deaths. It doesnt matter if its a heartattack, playing a game, driving a car or having sex. Life kills you, thats just how it is.
It doesnt matter what it is in life, some people have feeble minds and cant seperate reality to fiction.

During the 80’s we had the Washington Wives bashing heavy metal, blaming Judas Priest, W.A.S.P, Alice Cooper, Twizted Sister etc. for the decline/corruption of the youth. They claimed a Judas Priest song made two kids commit suicide.

The truth behind the game deaths are probably as true as those claims during the 80’s. Which means its as far from the truth as it can be.

Many swedes here probably remember Sivert Öholm, trying to prenounce We Are Satan’s People in very bad english live on swedish TV. What he though W.A.S.P ment. The most evil band at the time, with the sawblade codpieces, bracelets and naked women on their album covers/videos. I dont think anyone to this day knows the exact meaning of W.A.S.P, because I dont think Mr. Lawless has set it straight yet. Last I heard was We Aint Sure Pall.

I gave a couple friends the refer-a-friend code. But I accompanied it with lots of warnings about the game and about how much time it would take for them to get into it. If it was sent now, I would give more warnings.

Needless to say, they didn’t partake and I don’t at all blame them.

Shallow power increase my kitten-puppy hybrid. No one wants it, no one needs it. As you said, increasing power stats is the worst of the worst in the gaming community. It makes the MMO genre the most detested kind of game in the world by non-players and rightfully so.

The only reason I kept playing GW1 for so long, was because there was no gear grind. No shallow power increase. WE don’t puppykitten care

Kana.6793:

What on Earth? Firstly, please don’t try to speak for everyone. You say “All of us, myself included, have stopped playing our MMOs because we were sick and tired of “Vertical Progression”.” and “in the end everyone feels cheated and hateful towards their old MMOs” – this is not why I stopped playing my previous MMO and I don’t feel cheated or hateful towards it at all. I have a lot of good memories of fun times raiding with my friends and guild.

You should read better what he wrote, he was talking about him and his friends, not everybody around the world, i quote:

I and all of my freinds have played MMOs. Whether they were EVE, WoW, Runescape, SWOTR or some other game.

As for my opinion, as this moment i dont know what to think of this game, i have fun leveling my alts once in a while and also doing various things with my guild (pvp,pve,WvsW) but i’d like to think how this will go, i do like to get new stuff, really i do, but when it gets to grinding i will see it like i’m doing a chore, rather than having fun.
so no, right now i wouldnt recommend it, this needs to be cleared out first

Its too early to assess the long term impact of ascended gear. I do get the feeling ArenaNet have gone back on their word and we are being drip fed the never-ending upgrade ladder.

In most MMOs I like some of both PvE and RvR/WvW. That said, GW2 PvE endgame is pretty crap. Other than the Fractals instance I’ve been extremely unimpressed with ArenaNet’s PvE endgame. So to PvE-focused friends I advise them to stay away from this gobbler. One decent 5-man instance in an MMO does not an end-game make.

On the other hand, WvW is very good and I would still recommend people to play at this time if they like large scale PvP. I can’t comment on sPvP as I don’t play that.

Roo Stercogburn.9671:

Its too early to assess the long term impact of ascended gear. I do get the feeling ArenaNet have gone back on their word and we are being drip fed the never-ending upgrade ladder.

In most MMOs I like some of both PvE and RvR/WvW. That said, GW2 PvE endgame is pretty crap. Other than the Fractals instance I’ve been extremely unimpressed with ArenaNet’s PvE endgame. So to PvE-focused friends I advise them to stay away from this gobbler. One decent 5-man instance in an MMO does not an end-game make.

On the other hand, WvW is very good and I would still recommend people to play at this time if they like large scale PvP. I can’t comment on sPvP as I don’t play that.

I don’t think it is too early to assess. I think Chris Whiteside’s statements in the AMA were pretty clear once you strip away the corporate double speak:

“Ascended is (probably) the last gear tier, however, we will continue to gradually increase the stats on all tiers of gear on a shallow power curve forever, not just Ascended.”

Pretty much gear treadmill confirmed, the only things we don’t know is the steepness and speed, which he seemed to agree were out of whack. If it’s a VERY shallow and VERY quick treadmill, we might be able to get an ascended piece in a few hours (rather than 60-70 hours as it is currently).

If they change it so that 1 Ascended is as easy to get as 2 Exotics, then I doubt many people will mind too much, as we’ll be back at the top of the treadmill in a couple of days, each time they creep up the stats.

However, if this is their idea of keeping us playing constantly, to give us a new piece of gear or a new infusion every couple of months that takes a couple of months (for normal people) to get, then their game will die, and it will deserve to die.

There was never supposed to be any endgame. The whole game is Endgame. This should not be a surprise. Once you play Skyrim, or GTA4, or Half Life 2, or Assassin’s Creed 3 all the way to the end, you don’t complain there’s nothing to do now that you’ve finished it, you turn it off and do soemthing else. GW2 PvE is like that, and in fact any worthwhile content, whether it’s a game or a movie or a TV series or whatever is like that. It stops.

WvW and sPvP were where we were supposed to find the long-lasting content. Endless battle in an open arena? Yes please! Honing our skills in close-quarters combat on a truly level playing field? Sign me up!

When I look at GW2 I see it as something like COD4. In both games, the PvE campaign is decent, cinematic and very entertaining. However it is easy, short and shallow. You play though it once, have a great time and then you go into PvP, which is where the majority of players spend most of their time, and where the real depth of gameplay is to be found.

Hundreds of thousands of people are still playing COD4 today, 5 years after it came out. I’m sure very few of them are moaning that playing through the PvE campaign over and over is boring.

Actually yes, I would recommend this game to my friends. Many will blast me saying that the game is overly buggy, that the concept of gear progression and the treadmill takes the fun out of it, that Lost Shores ruined it, and so on and so forth. However my friends and I share an understanding about MMO’s that seems to have been missed by many in these forums. First off no game young in its release is going to be perfect. Even once it’s been out a year I can guarantee that there will be bugs. Guess what? Bugs don’t bother me one bit, and for the most part not my friends either. I know this because I warned them about it before recommending the game. Same with lag, it’s an expected occurrence especially during events. Again, not a big deal. Same with disconnects. These things are expected and endured. It just takes time to iron out the kinks, and I’m sorry but two months isn’t nearly enough time for any MMO to do that. And as for the whole gear progression argument, I don’t buy into it. The supposed higher stat boosts are minimal, and so far as I can tell the only real need for Ascended gear is if you’re moving up in the fractals dungeon. In regular PvE it has minimal benefit. So would I recommend this game to my friends? Absolutely.

No, the core principles this game was built on are on shaky grounds. How could I tell someone what the game is about after all those empty promises.

To summarize the two major lies:
-GW2 would be designed with esport level pvp; pvp has no ladder or matchmaking to support healthy competition
-GW2 would be be stat capped and not have a gear threadmill; ascended gear and content gating were recently intorduced.

If someone asks me about the game I’d tell them if they wanted another pve centric carrot on a stick dungeon grind I’d tell them GW2 might be turning out exactly what they’re looking for, but who really knows what is to become of this game.

I would recommend it. Leveling is fun, stories are well written and funny, WvW is fun to play if your team is focused, dungeons are well made (ran path 3 of AC yesterday, can’t wait to run path 1 and 2 today), PvP is purely skill based and good to test out different builds. There are goals to reach for. Also dragons!
I would recommend them to stay out of the forums full of whinny kids and stay out of the LA chat of “Ascendeds ruin everything!”.

I have to agree with you Mirta, I’d tell them to stay out of the forums too. Too many complaints and not enough useful info.

Chamone.6890:

Roo Stercogburn.9671:

Its too early to assess the long term impact of ascended gear. I do get the feeling ArenaNet have gone back on their word and we are being drip fed the never-ending upgrade ladder.

In most MMOs I like some of both PvE and RvR/WvW. That said, GW2 PvE endgame is pretty crap. Other than the Fractals instance I’ve been extremely unimpressed with ArenaNet’s PvE endgame. So to PvE-focused friends I advise them to stay away from this gobbler. One decent 5-man instance in an MMO does not an end-game make.

On the other hand, WvW is very good and I would still recommend people to play at this time if they like large scale PvP. I can’t comment on sPvP as I don’t play that.

I don’t think it is too early to assess. I think Chris Whiteside’s statements in the AMA were pretty clear once you strip away the corporate double speak:

“Ascended is (probably) the last gear tier, however, we will continue to gradually increase the stats on all tiers of gear on a shallow power curve forever, not just Ascended.”

Pretty much gear treadmill confirmed, the only things we don’t know is the steepness and speed, which he seemed to agree were out of whack. If it’s a VERY shallow and VERY quick treadmill, we might be able to get an ascended piece in a few hours (rather than 60-70 hours as it is currently).

If they change it so that 1 Ascended is as easy to get as 2 Exotics, then I doubt many people will mind too much, as we’ll be back at the top of the treadmill in a couple of days, each time they creep up the stats.

However, if this is their idea of keeping us playing constantly, to give us a new piece of gear or a new infusion every couple of months that takes a couple of months (for normal people) to get, then their game will die, and it will deserve to die.

There was never supposed to be any endgame. The whole game is Endgame. This should not be a surprise. Once you play Skyrim, or GTA4, or Half Life 2, or Assassin’s Creed 3 all the way to the end, you don’t complain there’s nothing to do now that you’ve finished it, you turn it off and do soemthing else. GW2 PvE is like that, and in fact any worthwhile content, whether it’s a game or a movie or a TV series or whatever is like that. It stops.

WvW and sPvP were where we were supposed to find the long-lasting content. Endless battle in an open arena? Yes please! Honing our skills in close-quarters combat on a truly level playing field? Sign me up!

When I look at GW2 I see it as something like COD4. In both games, the PvE campaign is decent, cinematic and very entertaining. However it is easy, short and shallow. You play though it once, have a great time and then you go into PvP, which is where the majority of players spend most of their time, and where the real depth of gameplay is to be found.

Hundreds of thousands of people are still playing COD4 today, 5 years after it came out. I’m sure very few of them are moaning that playing through the PvE campaign over and over is boring.

You compare SP games to MMOs. It’s not the same thing. You cant go and compare them regarding end game or not.

A game cannot survive on a PvE or PvP only setting, it needs both.

However, the introduction of ascended gear was done wrong, as Anet stated in the AMA. As most players have said, it should have gone live as it was intended to be in the final end i.e you should be able to obtain the ascended gear by taking whatever path you want. WvW, PvE-event drops, dungeons, fractals, badges, karma, crafting you name it. Currently there is only the fractal way aswell as a very expensive crafting way rgarding cloaks.

Both of the costs, mystic forge and fractal relics, are being looked into. Since they are both very high, this was also stated in the AMA.

And regarding the future stat increase on rarities I asume he included it so people wont get their panties in a twist when new levels are brought to the game along with 81+ gear.

If they do increase stats prior to a new level cap I asume it will be increased on exsisting gear aswell, unless they start with item levels. Which I hope they dont. If its exotic it should have exotic stats, not exo t1, t2, t3 stats.

I was one of the only reasons 4 of my good friends got the game. Now I feel exactly as you do; a drug pusher, a bad salesmen. I have stopped playing after word of the lost shores patch after playing over 340 hours on my Guardian. Not only me either.. Everyone who I recommended it to has quit as well. And no, unfortunately I would not recommend the game to anyone else because of what it is turning into.

nope no sir noway no how

BroScientist.9875:

NO, if my friends were interested in an MMO, I would recommend PlanetSide 2 or suggest waiting for Elder Scrolls Online.

Planetside 2 isn’t the same as GW2. They are entirely different games.

It’s a FPS shooter with vehicles so you can’t really compare it to this. I play both Planetside and Guildwars and enjoy them both.

No
Not because its grindy or because Anet said this or that (obviously i don’t like that direction we are going), but because its broken on so many levels, to sell a product at the current prices in Aus and have these many issues Broken Classes (ranger , Ele, Necro etc) Broken gameplay, skills and in game issues.

No sorry my friends would throw it in my face..

I would highly recommend it, was well worth my 60 dollars.

I remember back in the 80s a guy keeling over and dying after playing Donkey Kong for many hours in a bar …. guess that was because of the gear grind huh?

Chamone.6890:

I lost my relationship with my brother because he was addicted to EVE and could not socialise outside of the game. My best friend lost his girlfriend to her WoW guild. I’ve been there myself, my relationship with my own girlfriend almost broke down because I was logged in every waking hour that I was not at work, and she felt like the game was more important to me than she was. The terrifying thing is, on some level, she was right. Luckily I snapped out of it before it went too far. I’m sure we’ve all got stories like this.

This is one of those things that annoys the living piss out of me.

You know what?

If the game didn’t exist, you would have found something else to wreck your life with.

You and your brother are equally to blame for losing your relationship over Eve. Your best friend and his girlfriend are equally to blame for that relationship going under. You and your girlfriend are to blame for your personal relationship going under. It was you people, not the game that did it.

Chamone.6890:

This is not a joke. This addictive, pervasive, reprehensible mechanic, offered in the name of “entertainment”, is vile and dangerous. Anyone stuck in the grind mindset, I would try to help. If they would not accept my help, I would stop being friends with them.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-04-20/Coca-Cola-New-Zealand-death/54433488/1?csp=34news

You going to go on a crusade now to get all your friends to stop drinking caffeinated beverages?

Chamone.6890:

If my friend liked grinding I would do all that I could to show him that grinding was a pointless waste of time, ruins lives and is to be avoided at all costs. I would certainly not feed his addiction by showing him more grindy games.

Gaming, in general, is a waste of time.

Playing Guild Wars or Call of Duty or League of Legends or Lego: The Hobbit is no less of a waste of time then playing WoW is today.

I already recommended the game and I would do it again.

people calling this a buggy mess must be very new to MMO’s …

I think back to the first few months of Everquest 1, and 2.. DOAC, WoW, Lineage2, AoC, Vanguard, WAR… this launch has been remarkably solid and bug free.

No I wouldnt as has been stated by soo many too many bugs and Anets throws in new dungeon and new tier of gear instead of fixing the game content they have out there. They think telling you we are working on that issue be patient will surfice. I see alot of talking and nothing being done except new content. Yes nodes are made available but the amount of materiel you need is excessive. Its just too grindy and the one feature I would have recommend to friends is gone that everyone was on even footing now to be the best you have to grind a dungeon. So just too many negatives in the game not enough positives there to sell the game on