Guild Wars 2

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Palador.2170:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

There was no real point to begin with. OP has no clue what grinding really means. He also does not seem to understand that end-game rewards do not come easy.

The previous LI system was a problematic system that required RNG drop and tons of actual grinding. Running each and every dungeon every day, doing the exact same thing as fast as possible, repeating it for months and months with your only goal the reward, is the definition of grind.

If you fail to see that, you never played a serious MMO before, and you just cry on the forums because with HoT, you can’t just finish all the content the game has to offer within 3 hours of release while pressing #1. Something you could totally do in the vanilla version of the game.

The core GW2 was not an MMO able to keep players playing for a decent amount of time. It was so facerolling easy that an enormous amount of the total population was taking huge breaks very often out of boredom and lack of end-game content. A big percentage of the population was just logging in to do the daily (or just logged-in since they changed the system to give you rewards for logging in…), and logged out right after because there was literally nothing else to do.
In addition to that every single Living world episode could be completed within 2 hours from release.

Grind is relative.

You’re basing your standards of “grind” off of other games. EQ, WoW, and the like, I’m guessing. They’re basing their standards of “grind” off of the rest of GW2. There’s a rather huge difference between the two, but both are correct from their own point of view.

The problem is, this is not one of those other games, and it is GW2. GW2 was supposed to be different, not just a copy of other MMORPGs. The grind may be small by the standards of other games, but those are not the standards we should be using. If GW2 is meant to stand as its own thing, we should measure it as such.

That model of GW2 was obviously not working out well and that’s why they felt the need to change it. As I mentioned above, the game could not sustain a healthy population.

Also, I’m not comparing the game with EQ/WoW/RIFT etc… I’m just saying that grind means repeating the same content countless times with your only goal the reward.
In HoT you get the rewards by exploring/playing the content new maps have to offer. It’s a different thing completely.

Palador.2170:

The problem is, this is not one of those other games, and it is GW2. GW2 was supposed to be different, not just a copy of other MMORPGs. The grind may be small by the standards of other games, but those are not the standards we should be using. If GW2 is meant to stand as its own thing, we should measure it as such.

Lets be honest for a second. MMO can’t live without grind. Multiplayer mode can live forever only by their content, because the developer only have to create the framework, but that’s all the different players that shape all matches into different content that keep it fresh.

PvE can’t achieve that. The developers have to create the content and people will go through it faster than the devs can create it. So the devs need to create incentive for players to repeat the same content over and over again, while still enjoying it. A good content is a very good base, but you also need to give rewards and goal to keep the player engage. That where grind at it’s core come from. Feeling that something is grindy or not is subjective, but at it’s core, grind isn’t subjective. If you need to do the same content more than once for a reward, it’s grind. Like I said, it can feel or not grindy to a specific players, but that’s another story.

The gold of GW2 was never to get rid of grind. Because if you can get all the reward by going through the content only once, the game will have a very limited life span. Just like a single player game. You buy the game, you play it, you stop playing the game. But that’s not what we want from a MMO. We want a sense of constant evolution. We want to play the game for years as we slowly upgrade our characters, ours skills, etc. We also want a place where we find friends and can socialize. Something that can’t really be done with a normal PvE game.

So grind is necessary to keep the players engage long enough for more content to be created so that we can get that sense of long term RPG and socializing.

The goal of GW2 was not to eliminate grind, but to make it optional. There is nothing fun into grinding if you don’t really want the reward, but you need it. I want to do X content, so I need Y gear, but for that I need to do Z task, which I hate. You have two methods to go around that problem.

1) One you create optional grind. You only grind if you want the reward, not because you need the reward. GW2 is good at that, since almost nothing is needed anywhere. Of course Ascended gear come back often and IMO it was a mistake to introduce it in the game. I need to do specific task to get my ascended gear for fractal and raids.

2) You give optional ways to get rewards. GW2 have some problem with that. Ascended gear wouldn’t so bad if different ways to get it would exist. Not easier way, just different. Someone the old fractal had a much easier time getting their ascended stuff that someone doing PvP, or WvW. Someone doing guild mission have a lot less work to do that someone without in a small family guild.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

In HoT you get the rewards by exploring/playing the content new maps have to offer. It’s a different thing completely.

So once I’m finished with the content, I should have everything I need? Or am I going to have to complete it multiple times?

I understood grinding by the time the manifesto was released as leveling by doing repetitive stuff such as killing mobs/farming/etc. (on that point of view, farming mats is not grinding as there’s several ways to get them … time consuming != grinding, some stuff might be grindy as the specific time gated items that are obtained in certain places once per day, but its not repetitive per se

MMORPGs don’t require grind. What they require would be better termed as “Filler Content”. Grind is just filler content that you don’t find fun.

Now, naturally, not everyone is going to enjoy the same filler content. That’s unavoidable. It shouldn’t be an excuse to give up on at least trying to make it fun, however. To say “Grind is unavoidable” is to give the devs a free pass to make bad filler.

I’m not saying it’s easy to make (far from it), but there can be good filler content.

Easy acquisition of certain things that are not necessary to play the game was never part of either GW2 or the GW2 Manifesto. That type of goal was in the game to begin with, and more has been added because that’s one of the things that MMO’s do — they provide long-term goals for those who want to work towards them. GW2 has actually adhered to the anti-grind statement in the Manifesto in that nothing people are choosing to grind for is necessary to play the game.

The closest ANet has come so far to the type of grind they were referring to is level gating of core zones, and Mastery gating, which are pretty much the same thing — progression mechanics. Both were put into GW2 because of player demand.

Buy the precursor. Zero grind.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

There was no real point to begin with. OP has no clue what grinding really means. He also does not seem to understand that end-game rewards do not come easy.

I played Aion for a long time, that should cover the topic of what grind is (since everything in that game was grind and RNG to the max(Gets old fast.. you kinda feel a bit of your brain die as you do it for that hour longer too.)).
Look at it this way, its now more work for a player starting now to make ‘ascended’ gear than it was for us a few months back.

My gut feeling is that the manifesto was more in line with Jeff Strain’s perspective on mmorpgs. I’m pretty sure Strain did play a role in why the original GW was pretty different from the standard online rpg fare. He left the company years ago, so his perspective probably went with him.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Obtena.7952:

Those people are just being obtuse for the most part. This argument has been had hundreds of times. Something wasn’t working, they adjusted their approach.

Mike O’Brien brought up the manifesto himself at the HoT announcement. If they had abandoned it as you claim, why then do they continue referencing it? Before you call customers obtuse be sure you’re right.

Where did I claim they abandoned it? Oh right …. I didn’t.

Again, ANet has a particular definition of ‘grind’ — it refers (in their manifesto) to players being forced to re-gear all their L80 characters, in order to play the new content. That doesn’t happen in GW2.

• Exotic gear works in all areas of the game (with the possible exception of the elite content Raids) and higher-level fractals.
• Ascended gear remains the highest tier of stats in the game.
• Stat prefixes are generally viable and can be changed, at the player’s discretion.

So by ANet’s standards, there’s no “grinding for gear”.

ANet’s definition is, of course, horribly narrow. The average gamer uses grind in all sorts of other ways, generally referring to feeling forced to repeat content in order to be able to gain access to other content.

GW2 has all sorts of examples where this is true, including all the new armors; there is just no way to get lumi or bladed etc without repeating content. Of course, all of this stuff is for looks, so arguably ANet is still technically correct that we aren’t forced to grind. Still, I wouldn’t award ANet any community service awards for that argument — grind is a grind feels, not as the game maker proclaims.

tl;dr the manifesto remains accurate if we accept ANet’s definitions. That doesn’t change the fact that people feel compelled to get on a content treadmill to gain rewards, and so perhaps ANet should consider updating their implementation of the manifesto to consider the types of tedium and repetition we find in GW2.

Linken.6345:

Smoosh.2718:

To clarify I’ve been playing for over a year and a bit, have 4 legendary weapons and put in over 3k hours into this game. This topic isnt just about the legendary weapons but more about the actual manifesto for the direction of the game. Why has the no grind policy been thrown out the window?

It havent they just noticed oh kitten people need stuff to do or they wont play our game.
So they put in stuff for you to do.

More like, they noticed that they don’t actually need to make stuff interesting – just upping the mat requirements by few zeros is enough. And if someone notices and calls them out for this? Who cares, there are white knights around that will defend it to their last breath.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The manifesto remains accurate if we accept ANet’s definitions.

Communication is a process by which an entity conveys ideas, information, etc. to another. Words are one medium for communication. Words have definitions. Anyone who imposes his/her own definition of a word onto someone else’s communication is committing a disservice to both himself and the communicator. If you want to accurately receive what someone else says, you have to accept their meanings for the words used.

That said, people insert their own definitions all the time, and not just with individual words. Also, that’s not to say that some players don’t feel put upon by the amount of time it takes to get things they want. I’ve yet to see, though, anyone come up with a way to give everyone what they want, when they want it, and not have them within a week be saying, “I’m bored, there’s nothing to do.”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Again, ANet has a particular definition of ‘grind’ — it refers (in their manifesto) to players being forced to re-gear all their L80 characters, in order to play the new content. That doesn’t happen in GW2.

• Exotic gear works in all areas of the game (with the possible exception of the elite content Raids) and higher-level fractals.
• Ascended gear remains the highest tier of stats in the game.
• Stat prefixes are generally viable and can be changed, at the player’s discretion.

So by ANet’s standards, there’s no “grinding for gear”.

---

ANet’s definition is, of course, horribly narrow. The average gamer uses grind in all sorts of other ways, generally referring to feeling forced to repeat content in order to be able to gain access to other content.

GW2 has all sorts of examples where this is true, including all the new armors; there is just no way to get lumi or bladed etc without repeating content. Of course, all of this stuff is for looks, so arguably ANet is still technically correct that we aren’t forced to grind. Still, I wouldn’t award ANet any community service awards for that argument — grind is a grind feels, not as the game maker proclaims.

tl;dr the manifesto remains accurate if we accept ANet’s definitions. That doesn’t change the fact that people feel compelled to get on a content treadmill to gain rewards, and so perhaps ANet should consider updating their implementation of the manifesto to consider the types of tedium and repetition we find in GW2.

I agree with your post I’m just correcting your assertion that “exotics work in all parts of the game”. Ascended is absolutely required for fractals and good luck getting into a raid without them.

The defocus on dungeons (or abandonment) and the refocus on fractals is in my opinion due to the fact that fractals have a significant gold barrier to entry that dungeons do not.

What this change did was add grind by almost anyone’s definition to dungeoning.
Want to run fractals? Get gear.
How? Grind gold and materials (and level crafting to 500)

This paid “expansion” has declared war on liquid gold and introduced outrageous time and gold sinks. They said the liquid gold rewards from dungeons were being moved to fractals and they absolutely weren’t.

kuritsutian.2987:

GreyWolf.8670:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

TLDR; I want the new end-game stuff NOW and I also don’t wanna work much for them.

Useless and off-topic.

Useless and off-topic… so is this..

And so is this.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Well they actually did up the gear grind. Look at the new requirements for ascended crafting. I know it’s not a new tier of armor but the mats to get them got increased.

It was a new tier of armor when it was introduced.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Buy the precursor. Zero grind.

You can do this with the old ones but not the new ones.

Smoosh.2718:

Quoting your own manifesto carried out in 2011, you stated (sorry Colin for dropping you in here) ‘We just dont want players to grind in Guild Wars 2’.
The old way of making legendary weapons was fine, so why was there a need to go completely over the top with the time gating of materials along with a stupidly high number of the same material you can only make one of per day, just for the new precursors. Surely with a system like this in place you should remove the daily craft restriction on all T7 materials.

Looking at the new list of what is needed for the new legendary weapons this is the most grindy thing I’ve seen in this game, which goes against the 2011 statement on what direction you guys wanted this game to go in.

https://youtu.be/FU1JUwPqzQY?t=1m22s

Heart of Thorns turns it’s back on that manifesto in so many ways it’s not actually funny.

Ironically, legendary weapons are not one of them. They were always intended as a long grind for invested players that would provide some tangible benefit but not completely drag the game down with it. If you have a set of ascended gear you do not actually need to go farm up a legendary. Hell, if you already have one of the old legendary weapons, what would the new ones even yield? New weapon skins?

the best thing to do do was to delete manifesto and forget about it..but still devs keep it online and occasionally quote it.
really really bad move :/

HoT is nothing similar to the vanilla, it aims to a different slice of players’ population.
and obviously, i just didn t buy it and ragequit.
There is no post that will make anet go back, manifestos or philosophy.. there is no useful discussion with who asked for and like things this way, will clearly defend it.
ragequit, as soon and as long as the game is not what we like, is the only tool we have.
it s just marketing and selling copies/gems. they think it s the best for their finances.

I don t think that the game will ever go back to what we liked at the beginning. but now gw2 is nothing so different from other mmo….old fans playerbase gone…even wow losing players because of boredom..
hard times are coming. they’ll try to bring back a part of casuals.
but “betrayed” customers like me won t come back

Aidenwolf.5964:

This paid “expansion” has declared war on liquid gold and introduced outrageous time and gold sinks. They said the liquid gold rewards from dungeons were being moved to fractals and they absolutely weren’t.

It’s the easiest way to create hours of content without actually creating any content.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The manifesto remains accurate if we accept ANet’s definitions.

Communication is a process by which an entity conveys ideas, information, etc. to another. Words are one medium for communication. Words have definitions. Anyone who imposes his/her own definition of a word onto someone else’s communication is committing a disservice to both himself and the communicator. If you want to accurately receive what someone else says, you have to accept their meanings for the words used.

This works both ways. If you want to convey something to others, you shouldn’t be using your personal, nonstandard definitions of words that differ significantly from the more common ones. Someone might think, that what you really want is not to be clearly understood, but quite the opposite, that you might want to confuse others and mislead them.

Lesson I learned is never trust marketing moves such as “The manifesto” again. Amen.

GW2 got me to spend big $ supporting it due to my trust every single one that spoke with sincerity on the manifesto video were the rebels with sincerity, vision, and a promise they would strive for.

I was on board with that “vision”, to the tune of donating very generously into this dream, buying 5 accounts, 64 alt slots, each with store gathering tools, made 5 guilds with full storage, cosmetics, home instance nodes, etc. etc… I took every chance to support the game,, even though I’m just a soloer.

For me, I just enjoy being the little guy, run around in the dynamic events where it felt so good to just hang out with strangers who might be playing an event or two based on their busy schedule in life. I had so much fun with anonymous strangers who instantly came together in a dynamic event, and felt the DE was the best thing ever in any mmorpg.

Well, look at what we have now.

Lesson learned! Trust eroded. mmm.. no regrets. :p In my life I would much rather be the fool than the one fooling people. I can sleep well. :P

I do feel devs might have run into some hard knocks in their attempts. But still, it’s pretty obvious too when things are done just to create gem shop exchanges and accommodate farmer/player exchanges… We are not stupid. There is so much I’d give to the game if it were just cosmetics. But alas, not enough. We had to have “grind”. And the content is not right for me now either… so much for ever trusting ANet again. Sorry to say so. That is life. We all learn lessons.

Honestly, I’m enjoying the content offered by HoT for the most part, and I do like guild halls, but….I’m just having a hard time agreeing with some of their business practices.

I mean with the bundle debacle, the advertising of the gems to gold exchange, and the troubles they’re having with the Megaserver system putting people in empty maps, or heck, the other day I had the volunteer thing pop up while our map was near capacity. Something just isn’t right.

Add in the fact all the timegates and gold sinks in the game now and the repackaging of vanilla features like guild buffs into HoT.

Right or wrong, I still feel NCSoft takeover of ANet may have something to do with new direction toward grindiness. It was probably not a friendly takeover, being 2 of the 3 ANet founders left to form their own company. (Pretty easy to find this history online.)

NCSoft history involves creating mega grindy games. Lineage, Aion, .. The moment I saw glider mentioned it brought back visions of Aion wings. Warning bells rang for me… So far the glider is doing exactly what the Aion wings did, cosmetic sales, stamina dependency. A grind and lots of store items.

I didn’t buy Hot partly because of Aion wings=Hot glider.

Anyway, … there are other visions that die in our global economy. Sad, but true.

This is why I just want to be a little guy in any game. Have the basic fun of meeting other players. End of the evening, go relax. heheh. Oh yeah, now me level 11 in WoW, again.. woot.

Astralporing.1957:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The manifesto remains accurate if we accept ANet’s definitions.

Communication is a process by which an entity conveys ideas, information, etc. to another. Words are one medium for communication. Words have definitions. Anyone who imposes his/her own definition of a word onto someone else’s communication is committing a disservice to both himself and the communicator. If you want to accurately receive what someone else says, you have to accept their meanings for the words used.

This works both ways. If you want to convey something to others, you shouldn’t be using your personal, nonstandard definitions of words that differ significantly from the more common ones. Someone might think, that what you really want is not to be clearly understood, but quite the opposite, that you might want to confuse others and mislead them.

Historical context is also an issue. The Manifesto was canned years ago. The Manifesto blog post is dated April, 2010. ANet management has gamed for a long time. Back when they were just players, grind meant killing the same mobs over and over to level because there was no other way to do so. The word evolved to also mean endgame gear grinds during the earlier versions of WoW’s endgame as Blizz borrowed processes from earlier games and refined them. Indeed, “gear grind” and “gear treadmill” are still in use.

ANet would have to have been prescient to know back then that by late 2015 the word “grind” was going to evolve to mean “any content repetition a player prefers not to have to do to get some reward.” No one in their right mind would read a book from any older period and hold the author culpable for not using a given word the way it is used today. Oh, but forum posters do, because they have an ax to “grind.”

GangNamTwo.9780:

Right or wrong, I still feel NCSoft takeover of ANet may have something to do with new direction toward grindiness. It was probably not a friendly takeover, being 2 of the 3 ANet founders left to form their own company. (Pretty easy to find this history online.)

NCSoft history involves creating mega grindy games. Lineage, Aion, .. The moment I saw glider mentioned it brought back visions of Aion wings. Warning bells rang for me… So far the glider is doing exactly what the Aion wings did, cosmetic sales, stamina dependency. A grind and lots of store items.

I didn’t buy Hot partly because of Aion glider.

Anyway, … there are other visions that die in our global economy. Sad, but true.

This is why I just want to be a little guy in any game. Have the basic fun of meeting other players. End of the evening, go relax. heheh

NCSoft acquired ANet a long time ago and has been the publisher for both GW and GW2. The only recent news about the relationship was an announcement that ANet would self-publish HoT.

IndigoSundown.5419:

NCSoft acquired ANet a long time ago and has been the publisher for both GW and GW2. The only recent news about the relationship was an announcement that ANet would self-publish HoT.

Aye. But HoT development began long ago. I’m sort of watching to see if the next expansion may be different. Sort of hopeful.

There are people blindly defending Anet here when in reality there is no progression without grinding since release of HoT. Masteries are an abomination… they can only really be attained through grinding out meta events and they net the player absolutely nothing other than the ability to traverse an already small, soon to be dead zone easier.

Wander.5780:

There are people blindly defending Anet here when in reality there is no progression without grinding since release of HoT. Masteries are an abomination… they can only really be attained through grinding out meta events and they net the player absolutely nothing other than the ability to traverse an already small, soon to be dead zone easier.

You mean playing the game, how is that grinding?

Maybe you should ask anet to sell boosts to masteries.
10$ for each level so you can buy that and not play the game.

Wander.5780:

There are people blindly defending Anet here when in reality there is no progression without grinding since release of HoT. Masteries are an abomination… they can only really be attained through grinding out meta events and they net the player absolutely nothing other than the ability to traverse an already small, soon to be dead zone easier.

If you pass through a zone and don’t do anything in it then yes you will have problems if the masteries. IF you actually take your time to experience every zone you pass through you will get enough exp to level all the masteries you might need later in your journey. Even the story of HoT is created in a way to go together with the meta events, the final parts are much much better if you also finish the DS meta. You can get great exposition and info if you play the other metas and not just rush through.

You are confusing grinding with playing the game. I guess a lot of people are doing this because they don’t want to play the game, they don’t want to experience it. As someone said in another thread the DS meta is great for exp and loot, so what do lots of players do? Skip everything to get to DS where the fat lootz and awesome XP is and feel like it’s a grind. That’s not only the game’s fault if you only go for the loot and exp and don’t play a game to actually experience it.

I wonder if in 5 years we will still see these manifesto posts. My money is on yes.

All I know is I didn’t have to get new gear to jump into the new content. My armor still is, and always will be, top tier. That’s the no grind they were talking about.

Otherwise what isn’t a grind? Oh man, 60 silver to buy this salvage kit from a vendor? So I have to grind money to buy this item?! I need 3 silk to make this bolt? So I have to grind silk to make this bolt of silk?! I have to earn XP to level up? So I have to grind monsters, events, crafting, gathering, story, PvP, or WvW to level up?!?!?!?!?!!

For realsies.

I love playing the game. I just don’t want to play the game the way Anet wants me to play the game. Unfortunately, playing the game my way means that there is no progression for my character. Why have mastery points? Let experience fill up the mastery bar to earn the mastery. I don’t want to do adventures. I never liked Nintendo crap and I refuse to play it now.

I really miss the “play your way” philosophy that gw2 had when it first launched. I could do anything in the game(pvp aside) and the experience from such activities could be used to progress my character. Now they have made it where experience is not enough. Play our way or else.

Well think like that now rng will no longer kitten you over. Now its all about your effort.

GangNamTwo.9780:

Lesson I learned is never trust marketing moves such as “The manifesto” again. Amen.

GW2 got me to spend big $ supporting it due to my trust every single one that spoke with sincerity on the manifesto video were the rebels with sincerity, vision, and a promise they would strive for.

I was on board with that “vision”, to the tune of donating very generously into this dream, buying 5 accounts, 64 alt slots, each with store gathering tools, made 5 guilds with full storage, cosmetics, home instance nodes, etc. etc… I took every chance to support the game,, even though I’m just a soloer.

I agree with you but it was obvious in the first November after the the launch that the manifesto was gone with the introduction of the ascended tier and the gradual evolution of grinding for rewards. HOT has just made it more explicit.

The lesson I learned is never to play a free to play or buy to play game which has a method of buying ingame currency with real dollars. Most systems in the game will be oriented to encouraging players to buy ingame currency with real dollars. For GW2 its been fairly subtle up until HOT. I would draw a conclusion that the game is not doing all that well financially from the gem store now so they are trying to encourage even more gem buying for gold.

adormtil.1605:

Well think like that now rng will no longer kitten you over. Now its all about your effort.

Have you seen some of the requirements for precursor crafting? RNG kittening you over has not changed.

The manifesto was probably a PR stunt, MMO’s are suppose to be grindy anyway, they’re suppose to keep you locked in the game for a long as possible so they gain your money.

I think the problem is, the grind is very often not worth the rewards and it needs to be made in a way that is rewarding for the player so it doesn’t feel like a grind.

At the moment creating “end game” gear.. or skins? is not just a grind, it’s a complex grind.. you craft this you need 4 core items but to get these 4 core items you need to get 250 of this and 250 of that but to get 250 of those you need to do this and that but wait! to get that! you need to do this and then that before you can do that…..

seriously wtf?

People keep coming back to the manifesto because it was such a show of “we’re doing things differently” and a lot of people believed them. They had no reason not to believe them, either – in the beginning (to my knowledge anyway) they stayed pretty true to that manifesto.

Over time, they only seem to be drifting further away from it. I kinda feel bad for them because they have to eat their words now and the manifesto is going to follow them until this game is dead and buried, and probably long after. The manifesto they wanted didn’t get them the monetary success they wanted, so it keeps evolving. I’m pretty sure it’s as simple as that.

Labjax.2465:

Over time, they only seem to be drifting further away from it. I kinda feel bad for them because they have to eat their words now and the manifesto is going to follow them until this game is dead and buried, and probably long after. The manifesto they wanted didn’t get them the monetary success they wanted, so it keeps evolving. I’m pretty sure it’s as simple as that.

I’m sure its something like that but my problem with it is that they haven’t utilised the gem store nearly as much as they could have for cosmetic items. Not to mention the armor they do release is kind of limited in style.

morrolan.9608:

I’m sure its something like that but my problem with it is that they haven’t utilised the gem store nearly as much as they could have for cosmetic items. Not to mention the armor they do release is kind of limited in style.

Well… I think it was a major mistake when they committed to the “outfits” way of doing things at the store, but it could be yielding more profit than skin sets for all I know.

I do agree with you that some aspects of the store feel very underutilized in general. I think they should put a bit more focus on items like the campfire group bonus thingy and the box o’ fun. Extra Credits series did a pretty good talk on why items like that work well.

morrolan.9608:

I agree with you but it was obvious in the first November after the the launch that the manifesto was gone with the introduction of the ascended tier

Hey! Agree with you!! I left the game that November, and stayed away for a year. Then made the mistake of coming back because a buddy of mine wanted to try this game. hahah, Well I still don’t have any ascended, and will never work on it. I’m just not interested in gear upgrades. For me it is much more fun to use random drop blue gear for a bit of challenge in soloing.

Besides, crafting is boring to me. I am never going to make ascended gear.

The lesson I learned is never to play a free to play or buy to play game which has a method of buying ingame currency with real dollars.

No more FTP games for me either. I’d pay for subscription for GW2 if it goes back to vanilla style, and buy a “vanilla” expansion instantly.

The business model was somehow not working for them. One would need to be an insider to look into details on why. Such a great concept… such failure… ouch.

In other words, they made the manifesto simply to draw people in and then disregard it.

Ok here is probably “why” to my bewilderment: :P

http://fortune.com/2015/11/24/areanet-investing-in-esports/?xid=soc_socialflow_twitter_FORTUNE

“After 13 months of testing Guild Wars 2 PvP (player vs. player) through events—including a World Tournament Series that spanned Beijing, Boston, Cologne, and Seattle—ArenaNet teamed up with ESL to run two global ESL Pro League seasons. The first one runs December through February and the second one will run in spring 2016. Sixteen teams will be vying for $200,000 in cash prizes each season. And the winners of these first two seasons will compete in a separate Super Bowl-style event in late 2016 for a separate large, but undisclosed, prize pool.”

So much for my past gem support for the “manifesto.” :P Now I vaguely recall way back around launch time I had read something and said to myself, “The devs sure seem to love PvP, I wonder how it will pan out…” Then I forgot. Doh.

I don’t blame them. Most of my rl friends are playing PvP online games. They are just not playing GW2 PvP though. Well, good luck to ANet. Take care and I’ll have fun elsewhere. Thanks for a fun vanilla time. Don’t really need another. I can always log in and goof in old zones when I miss it. For real! It beats the pants off HoT.

PyrateSilly.4710:

This has been answered so many times as it is now ridiculous to even think about bringing up something that was just a “this is what we would like” and as things change and grow things get cut and added.
As for the grinding …… I have been playing since head-start/beta and I have yet to grind. Not once have I grinded and I have played just about every day. I am not only doing the old Bolt but also every other new legendary weapon in the game at the moment. I am collecting as I go and not worrying about how fast I get them done. For me it is not a contest to see how fast I get them done. I am just letting the pieces come when they come. Having too much fun just playing to think about “oh crap I don’t have this legendary yet”

You may remember that just before release, the company making GW2 was taken over by another one, who had a bit of a reputation for being cash hungry. They made all kinds of assurances that they would stick to the original vision of the developers, but pretty much the first thing they did at launch was to start break promises.

Let’s just say I don’t think the original vision for this game is being adhered to anymore.

Broom.2561:

PyrateSilly.4710:

This has been answered so many times as it is now ridiculous to even think about bringing up something that was just a “this is what we would like” and as things change and grow things get cut and added.
As for the grinding …… I have been playing since head-start/beta and I have yet to grind. Not once have I grinded and I have played just about every day. I am not only doing the old Bolt but also every other new legendary weapon in the game at the moment. I am collecting as I go and not worrying about how fast I get them done. For me it is not a contest to see how fast I get them done. I am just letting the pieces come when they come. Having too much fun just playing to think about “oh crap I don’t have this legendary yet”

You may remember that just before release, the company making GW2 was taken over by another one, who had a bit of a reputation for being cash hungry. They made all kinds of assurances that they would stick to the original vision of the developers, but pretty much the first thing they did at launch was to start break promises.

Let’s just say I don’t think the original vision for this game is being adhered to anymore.

Who took them over Nexon?

Broom.2561:

PyrateSilly.4710:

This has been answered so many times as it is now ridiculous to even think about bringing up something that was just a “this is what we would like” and as things change and grow things get cut and added.
As for the grinding …… I have been playing since head-start/beta and I have yet to grind. Not once have I grinded and I have played just about every day. I am not only doing the old Bolt but also every other new legendary weapon in the game at the moment. I am collecting as I go and not worrying about how fast I get them done. For me it is not a contest to see how fast I get them done. I am just letting the pieces come when they come. Having too much fun just playing to think about “oh crap I don’t have this legendary yet”

You may remember that just before release, the company making GW2 was taken over by another one, who had a bit of a reputation for being cash hungry. They made all kinds of assurances that they would stick to the original vision of the developers, but pretty much the first thing they did at launch was to start break promises.

Let’s just say I don’t think the original vision for this game is being adhered to anymore.

NCSoft bought Arenanet long before GW2 was released, I think when GW1 was in its prime. And Nexon never took over NCSoft just bought a stake in it which they sold a few months ago.

morrolan.9608:

Broom.2561:

PyrateSilly.4710:

This has been answered so many times as it is now ridiculous to even think about bringing up something that was just a “this is what we would like” and as things change and grow things get cut and added.
As for the grinding …… I have been playing since head-start/beta and I have yet to grind. Not once have I grinded and I have played just about every day. I am not only doing the old Bolt but also every other new legendary weapon in the game at the moment. I am collecting as I go and not worrying about how fast I get them done. For me it is not a contest to see how fast I get them done. I am just letting the pieces come when they come. Having too much fun just playing to think about “oh crap I don’t have this legendary yet”

You may remember that just before release, the company making GW2 was taken over by another one, who had a bit of a reputation for being cash hungry. They made all kinds of assurances that they would stick to the original vision of the developers, but pretty much the first thing they did at launch was to start break promises.

Let’s just say I don’t think the original vision for this game is being adhered to anymore.

NCSoft bought Arenanet long before GW2 was released, I think when GW1 was in its prime. And Nexon never took over NCSoft just bought a stake in it which they sold a few months ago.

See this is what I thought, oh well easier to blame scary old NCSoft then lay any blame with actual developers.

Labjax.2465:

People keep coming back to the manifesto because it was such a show of “we’re doing things differently” and a lot of people believed them. They had no reason not to believe them, either – in the beginning (to my knowledge anyway) they stayed pretty true to that manifesto.

Over time, they only seem to be drifting further away from it. I kinda feel bad for them because they have to eat their words now and the manifesto is going to follow them until this game is dead and buried, and probably long after. The manifesto they wanted didn’t get them the monetary success they wanted, so it keeps evolving. I’m pretty sure it’s as simple as that.

Nah they’re still doing lots of things differently. I don’t remember a whole lot of expansions that came out without a new tier of gear and without raising the level cap. I mean if you wanted the absolute best gear in most games you had to run dungeons and raids.

This game continues to be different. It’s just not different in the way people specifically want it to be.

morrolan.9608:

Broom.2561:

PyrateSilly.4710:

This has been answered so many times as it is now ridiculous to even think about bringing up something that was just a “this is what we would like” and as things change and grow things get cut and added.
As for the grinding …… I have been playing since head-start/beta and I have yet to grind. Not once have I grinded and I have played just about every day. I am not only doing the old Bolt but also every other new legendary weapon in the game at the moment. I am collecting as I go and not worrying about how fast I get them done. For me it is not a contest to see how fast I get them done. I am just letting the pieces come when they come. Having too much fun just playing to think about “oh crap I don’t have this legendary yet”

You may remember that just before release, the company making GW2 was taken over by another one, who had a bit of a reputation for being cash hungry. They made all kinds of assurances that they would stick to the original vision of the developers, but pretty much the first thing they did at launch was to start break promises.

Let’s just say I don’t think the original vision for this game is being adhered to anymore.

NCSoft bought Arenanet long before GW2 was released, I think when GW1 was in its prime. And Nexon never took over NCSoft just bought a stake in it which they sold a few months ago.

NcSoft owned Anet before the first Guild Wars 1 was released, long before it was in its prime. By the way, some would argue its in its prime now, at the height of its playerbase.

Sicarius.4639:

morrolan.9608:

Broom.2561:

PyrateSilly.4710:

This has been answered so many times as it is now ridiculous to even think about bringing up something that was just a “this is what we would like” and as things change and grow things get cut and added.
As for the grinding …… I have been playing since head-start/beta and I have yet to grind. Not once have I grinded and I have played just about every day. I am not only doing the old Bolt but also every other new legendary weapon in the game at the moment. I am collecting as I go and not worrying about how fast I get them done. For me it is not a contest to see how fast I get them done. I am just letting the pieces come when they come. Having too much fun just playing to think about “oh crap I don’t have this legendary yet”

You may remember that just before release, the company making GW2 was taken over by another one, who had a bit of a reputation for being cash hungry. They made all kinds of assurances that they would stick to the original vision of the developers, but pretty much the first thing they did at launch was to start break promises.

Let’s just say I don’t think the original vision for this game is being adhered to anymore.

NCSoft bought Arenanet long before GW2 was released, I think when GW1 was in its prime. And Nexon never took over NCSoft just bought a stake in it which they sold a few months ago.

See this is what I thought, oh well easier to blame scary old NCSoft then lay any blame with actual developers.

Yep I think the change came with the 2 founders leaving and Mike O’Brien being left in charge.