Guild Wars 2

This is only a observation, you are free to disagree with me.
In fact disagreement and criticism are welcomed to the discussion, just please address the discussion and don’t attack my character for believing what I do.

Migration Campaign: http://youtu.be/2Epn6ZZResk

I believe the push to have players recommend this game is obvious attempt to delay the slide of decline with a population leaving due to the Living World. I used to wonder if the patches of small content, patch-bugs, and gem-store fiascoes are signs of ANET lacking a direction for the game.

While I am sure there are a few people who are taking up the video offer to play Guild Wars 2 (and I do not wish to offend you), but they are the minority compared to the amount of jaded players that want something more than the theme park content.

Player housing, another class, another land to explore, another race, more emotes, new weapon types, would be the typical updates in expansion but there is a serious doubt if we’ll see any of this in any form. We’ll have more gemstore gadgets and gimmicks and that is the ONLY thing most of us are sure of.

The future for Guild Wars 2 isn’t grim, or scary… and it is very childish to say that a game is failing. In fact we have no idea, no clue where this ship is going, after the Fractals patch I am not too sure Arena Net has a clue either. I will wonder if any of the fan-shouting madness is reaching ANet, or maybe they are taking the Nero approach ignoring the screams and watching Rome burn.

There are only things I would like to ask the forum
-Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?
-Why or why not?
-What do you like about the current Living Story content?
-What do you dislike?
-In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game? What would you like to see?
-Am I being fair in my observation?

Let’s all try to be civil, if you do not agree with someone’s opinion just take a moment to consider what they are saying.

-Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?

No.

-Why or why not?

My friend who actually recommended this game to me a few months before head-start already quit a long time ago after how badly The Lost Shores weekend turned out, the game not really striving to make improvements and prioritizing the gem store above putting out some amazing, fleshed out content and the game’s current state of not letting new players play past living story chapters and thus missing out on some cool items and skins isn’t very appealing for new comers IMO.

-What do you like about the current Living Story content?

My achievement score getting a boost with each installment is nice, but that’s about it.

-What do you dislike?

It’s temporary, rushed and thus very buggy, and at times grindy when it comes to some of the achievements for each chapter. It leaves players who took a break as well as new players missing out on a ton of stuff.

-In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game?

No.

What would you like to see?

Permanent new content that adds new zones, professions, NPCS, playable races, dungeons, weapons, and more skills going forward, with an option for past Living Story chapters to be replayable in some type of instanced state, with achievements and items tied to their respective LS chapters to be obtainable as a fairness to new players.

-Am I being fair in my observation?

Yes.

Getting people to play Guild Wars 2 through an ad campaign is fine and dandy, and even doing it in the way Rift does with it’s playful jabs at WoW is also acceptable.

Making a campaign that’s sole purpose is to slander other MMOs by having people make ridiculous youtube videos with the promise of “maybe” getting the game free is not.

This Migration Campaign leaves a terrible taste in my mouth, and if this is the direction Anet is taking, where they can’t make a good game on it’s own merits, but instead have to rely on slandering other MMOs and coaxing people to come play them, than it’s going to get to the point fairly soon where I won’t even play GW2 anymore out of protest.

-Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?
No

-Why or why not?
Because I already did and none of them are playing anymore, even I am barely playing, I just log-in once every two weeks to check out the new content and get my achievement points.

-What do you like about the current Living Story content?
Not much, the only one I really liked was the Bazar of the four winds, I guess there was some cool things here and there too like the Molten Factory and Aetherblade Retreat dungeons or the Queen’s Gauntlet.

-What do you dislike?
It’s temporary and it’s not what I consider to be good and/or meaty content, every two weeks it’s basically a checklist of achievements with little backstory as to why we are even doing it and the tasks generally range from “kill mob A x times” to “collect item B x times” and most of the time you are done in 3 to 4 hours after release. Also it’s mainly based around zergs.

-In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game? What would you like to see?
No. I actually dislike it and am afraid of where the game is going.
I would like more areas, more horizontal progression (new skills, new weapons, new traits, …) and less vertical progression (yes, I am still kitten about Ascended), an actual progression in the main story, more playable races, more replayability, player housing, good guild management and content less centered around achievements and there’s probably a ton of things that I would like but can’t remember as of now. Also all of this would have to be permanent.

-Am I being fair in my observation?
Yeah.

Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?
Currently I will not, there was a time when this answer would have been different.

-Why or why not?
I feel like the base game we all played at launch is still there and is very good. A new player could get the same enjoyment I did from it and depending on the person I am referring then my answer for #1 might be different.

However, the last several patches have been more or less the same. They lack any sort of meat. You kill X monsters, Find X whatever, Complete X events, etc, etc. The story started out fairly good and has turned into Scarlet did it. On top of that the story you do get is very minimal. Few lines here and there and that’s about it. 1-2min of story really.

On top of this you have patches every 2 weeks. As a fresh new player into this world I would be pulling my hair out trying to make sure I was getting that experience and for lower levels some of these patches are difficult to do if not impossible. See Meta for TA path or Teq. I realize that those on the whole stayed in the game and you can experience them whenever you like (this is good) but you miss out on skin X or Y which may or may not be important to a new player.

Every week we get new gem store stuff, this isn’t really a bad thing. In fact its pretty good. However, a lot of it is filled with RNG this or that or temporary tools, Minis, etc.

I could go on, but that is enough I think.

-What do you like about the current Living Story content?
I do like some of the story. I do like frequent updates, when they aren’t full of bugs. But there isn’t much else sadly.

-What do you dislike?
Kind of listed this above. But patches feel rushed. We constantly here there aren’t enough resources to do X,Y,Z. I am not a fan of RNG Dyes, Tickets, etc. I’ve tired of buying double mini packs because I want all 4. I am tired of not being able to earn this stuff in game as well other than to grind out gold and convert it. (I know they need to make money)

I don’t like scarlet, or how she has to overshadow everything. I don’t like that when one of these patches is worked on in August that it’s too late a few months later to go back and change or fix things when the community doesn’t like X or Y.

This is more but this is enough.

-In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game? What would you like to see?
I am not a fan of where the game is currently or has been heading. I would like to see an Expac and next year with tons of new MMOs coming out I think GW2 is going to need it badly.

I want to see a new Race
new zones -fully fleshed out not southsun cove
new skills
new weapons or at least the same weapons with new skills for different classes
continued weapon and armor skins and more than 1 way to obtain these
new personal story
This is just a start.

-Am I being fair in my observation?
I think so, but then again I agree with you.

I am going to give positive feedback in my answers, not to be different, but because I honestly feel different

Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?

I have, and will continue to do so.

Why or why not?

This game has way too much to offer to pass up, I myself am approaching, or maybe by now I’ve passed, 3000 hours logged in and I still enjoy every moment of it.

What do you like about the current Living Story content?

The world is changing, hopefully for the sake of Tyria, in a better way

What do you dislike?

It isn’t permanent, and not retroactive, while I understand not everything needs to be available at all times (holiday stuff and the like), but the option to participate in certain previous Living Story releases would be nice for newer players, would be a fantastic selling point for the game

In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game? What would you like to see?

I am very optimistic about the future of Guild Wars 2. I would like to see more areas to explore available, and maybe bring the Living Story on track with the overall Lore of Guild Wars 2; the awakening of the Elder Dragons

Am I being fair in my observation?

I think so, but is my voice really being heard, and more importantly, listened to?

-Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?
No

-Why or why not?
This game is nothing compared to its predecessor. Its too shallow and with the recent update, where is the game going? Its so bland and all it is is just another way to funnel people into certain areas. Think about it. With each update the devs/writers funnel people into certain areas of the world leaving the rest super super empty. Think about the people who would be joining now. The game they play now is totally different from when GW2 launched and all the maps where populated. I just find the direction they are heading in right now very very dangerous. Also the game today is totally different from when it was 1 year ago. Since the living world crap, the devs have been funneling people into certain maps while keeping the rest super super empty making the entire gameplay totally different. Lvling now would be so boring compared to how it was 1 year ago

-What do you like about the current Living Story content?
I dont like it at all. Theres no depth to fractals. Sure great you added and modified some fractals, cool. At the end of the day its just another grind. Plus its pointless, grinding all the way to fractal lvl whatever has no impact on the world. Tyria doesnt change from people doing FOTM. Its cool how you can do some interesting things in fractals that you cant do in open world but its the same thing over and over and over again. I absolutely hate Scarlet. Like the devs and writers think they made the ultimate character with Scarlet? My kitten . This game was originally built on “OMG dragons are attacking” keep it that way. Unless the devs mindblow us by linking Scarlet to some crazy dragon that leads into an epic boss fight (THATS NOT A ZERG FIGHT) then people would be accepting of the annoying character. Also, when I did the thaumanova reactor, I was so pumped that it was gonna be a worth it fractal to do ( I havent done any fractals since the release of fractals and since then I only did like 3), but nooooo, the writers and devs found some dumb way to implement Scarlet. THat made me so upset. BUT its a good thing that they did not implement the abaddon fractal because if they tied it with Scarlet in a kittened way then I would just quit. But the abaddon fractal would teach alot of the GW2 players about the pre GW1 lore and doing a fractal about one of the Gods sounds pretty kitten intriguing, you’d learn about the God, fight is crazy looking followers (search em up they are really cool looking), learning about the forgotten, and learning about Pre GW1 Orr and how beautiful it was before the cataclysm. Which leads me into my next thing. The lore from GW2 is totally different. okay great the dragon thing is good,but since then what the F has gone into the lore of the game. The writers are going on tangents about Scarlet and all the enemy Alliances (which upset me so much especially the Krait) THe lore from GW1 was amazing and thats one thing that lacks in GW2. There is no deep lore that makes the game intriguing. Either your fighting the undead in Orr nonstop or your doing fractals or your WvW which is brainless too. Its sad to see a beautiful game with so much potential go to the trash.

-What do you dislike?
Where the game is heading currently,
classes are unbalanced, Anet makes too many drastic changes
PvE gets so bland
After playing for some time you get so bored
Despite their “manifesto” its still a grindy game
There really is no true incentive to play.
Look above in the huge explanation for the shallowness of the game and what i dislike about it
Where the hell is the lore going? What about GW1 lore? Mursaat? Dwarves? Forgotten? Cantha? Elona? Ring of Fire? Come on Devs. this is just sad.
Also, since the game is built on dragons invading Tyria, make the fall out of the sky! in Orr you see the dragons flying above you and casting shadows. Make them randomly drop in areas and have a event tied with it. That will get more people involved in the game and make it ten times for fun.
Add more depth to the game. Look at GW1 its soo deep and intense. This game is a joke. Im still playing it just to get achievements or to check updates.
I seriously want hte devs to listen to true GW2 players, not those random kids that ask them random crap like town clothes or some other dumb thing.
I seriously want them to expand the map, we’re so limited on the current map or add more interesting backstory.
Finally I hope that they start incorporating more GW1 stuff in the game. like a fractal with you killing rurik in the ring of fire at the end of GW1 prophecy or fighting Shiro in GW1 Factions.
Make this game have a sense of feeling like Factions. Right now you arent tied to any faction or group so thers no incentive to do anything.
If your gonna introduce more people to the game, give them a back story of everything that has happened thus far in the “lore” of GW2 (all the living story) in the beginning of the game or something like that. I have had friends that say they are lost in the story of the game because of the living story.

-In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game? What would you like to see?
The direction of the game scares me.
I would like to see more depth in the game. Bring back some GW1 lore, expand into Elona if not Cantha. Introduce the Deep Sea Elder Dragon, Do something that changes the game, or an event that makes an impact in the game without funneling all the players into one map.

-Am I being fair in my observation?
I feel like coming from GW1 I was robbed of my enjoyment of the game. GW2 is a totally different game from GW1 and I dont blame the devs, but its so poorly executed that the game is bad. Honestly, I find too many people AFK in lions arch, like the population has significantly decreased since start. Why? you know the reason why.
But overall, I find myself pretty fair with what has happened so far.

-Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?

No.

-Why or why not?

I dont like the direction the game is going wise with regards to content. We have not gotten any good permanent content since the game came out in my opinion. And although new fractals and new dungeon paths are all good, they do not take very long to complete and be done with.

-What do you like about the current Living Story content?

The chance to do new activities, and new skins to get.

-What do you dislike?

It’s temporary, rushed and thus very buggy, and at times grindy when it comes to certain achievements. Although I am a fan of gear that is limited, the fact that every 2 weeks introduce gear that I cant get unless I play is kind of ridiculous. Limited gear should be limited to big events, it kinda feels like arenanet is “forcing my addiction” even though I am very unsatisfied with the game currently.

-In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game?

No.

What would you like to see?

A questing-esque system. Right now all the weapons skins and legendaries are farming goals. I feel like I should be going on an epic quest in order to get them instead of buying them from a seller. Same with other skins, even though i put in the effort to farm for them money to buy them, it doesnt feel like i deserve it.

-Am I being fair in my observation?

Yes.

-Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?
I would, IF I HAD ANY !!!
-Why or why not?
Even with all of its failings GW2 is still one of the most innovative and original MMOs of the decade, and the only MMO I’ve played for more then a few months.
-What do you like about the current Living Story content?
Fractured is a nice update to fractals, and brings about a nice way to return temporary dungeon content for future releases. I liked everything till Queens Jubilee including it, but it was a sort of a downward spiral storywise since day one.
-What do you dislike?
Scarlet should’ve been either faster, less influential, more believable or all of the above.. Currently, she’s almost as influential as Zhaitan, all the while being forcibly mysterious to the point of ridiculousness.
-In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game? What would you like to see?
As long as developers learned from current story ark what mistakes they made I’m fine with it all… PvP needs allot more work to get out of “beta”, WvW is getting there but it still has 2 skeletons in its closet called zerging and huge population disbalance.. The good thing is most of the problems are being worked on.. painfully slowly, but still worked on.
-Am I being fair in my observation?
From one point of view, definitely.
I’m seeing CDI as at least an attempt to bridge the gap between players and developers, and we’ve already seen dialogue resulting in concrete changes to the game. The road is still long and the communication is slow and painful for both sides, but at least its moving..
Both developers and players care about the game and that’s whats most important IMHO.

Will you recommend the game?

Yes, but only with a qualifying statement.

Why

the profession balance is poor and the game is subject to change by a small but loud few on the forums.

What do you like about the current living story content?

Nothing! I hate the current content. Having something new every 2 weeks is nice but I’d rather have expansions, new gear, new races and professions and all balanced.

What do you dislike?

I have absolutely no interest in fractals. The mist is PvP and I feel no need to prove myself to anyone. Wont be doing any of it.
I have enjoyed the living story content that takes place in the open world, but that is not what I came to the game for. That was Dragons.

In my opinion do I like the direction of the game?

Ummm, what direction? The changes away from increased difficulty and toward mass dependence on the “leaders controlling the zerg” through non-game communications programs is disgusting to me. I’m not interested in the military. After the first day or two, the setting is empty because the zerg already went through, when the proper distribution of achievement points and some simple time gating could make it long term enjoyable game play.
To me, the focus seems to be on, and always has been on PvP. I’m glad PvP is there for those that like it however nothing done for PvP should affect WvW or PvE and it always does. If they now want only massive groups playing like it seems, expect massive groups of players to disappear.

Am I being fair in my observation?

That’s for the OP to decide. I can only post my personal opinion.

-Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?

No.

-Why or why not?

Based on my past experience with NCSoft, I was already hesitant to recommend any of the company’s games to my friends. Based on GW2 itself and its potential I saw during beta, and the fact that I was a huge fan of ANet from GW, I recommended this game to many of my friends. Currently, ANet has turned every single one of them off, despite how good the core game is. Not one of them still plays. I’m not even sure how long I’ll continue playing, unless something changes in the near future. Based on what I’ve seen since launch, I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone.

For example, already in beta, there were inaccessible portals and gates leading to zones that were not going to be open at launch. Obviously the portals were placed there for eventual use, which was exciting. Not one of them has been made accessible since.

As a second example, at launch, the dungeon system had a perfect reward system with tokens rewarding armor skins in exchange for a reasonable time commitment. One would expect that the same system would be used for future dungeon-like instances that were added to the game. Over the past year, however, we have seen more and more emphasis on grindy achievements (that are somehow supposed to be a reward by themselves) and, even worse, a huge reliance on the gem store instead of rewarding players for participating in game content. I hear the Home Shopping Network is free-to-play, too. If only that’s what I was interested in.

-What do you like about the current Living Story content?

There are bits of good content in the LS releases (some more than others). The instances are generally fun. The introduction of new game mechanics is very good (Bazaar, for example). Many of the mini-games and activities are fun.

Previous post about best/worst LS releases

-What do you dislike?

The content itself is not rewarded at all. Grindy achievements offer consolation prizes for those people who don’t want to be involved with the gem store. The gem store gets continuous updates that are either A ) only loosely related to the living story content, or B ) even if they are related, it is distanced by the gem store’s complete disconnect from actual content.

The content still does not change the world with any sense of permanence. This problem started at launch with Zhaitan and has persisted through most of the Living Story. The notable exception is Southsun Cove, but it is missing so much compared to other zones that it’s an absolute ghost town. The second exception was Labyrinthine Cliffs, but it was removed after its festival ended. We’ll see if the Tower of Nightmares actually does.

-In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game?

No.

-What would you like to see?

Longer periods between Living Story releases. This would give us story updates in coherent chunks. It would also not make players wait months for the supposed culmination of a story many no longer care about. If the player likes the story, they have all of the content at their disposal for a longer period of time. If the player doesn’t like the story, they can play it once and be done with it, rather than being reminded how much they don’t like the story every two weeks.

Far less reliance on the gem store. Put at least half of the stuff into the game itself to reward participation in actual content.

Permanent expansion into new zones, with the new zones designed similarly to the original zones (hearts, DEs, PoIs, vistas, puzzles, etc).

Ascended crafting that isn’t bound-on-acquire.

Revert WvW matches to the old non-randomized matchmaking system. At very least between league seasons, although I’d rather get rid of the leagues, too.

I don’t want to see any more Living Story releases that don’t include any meaningful advancement to the story. The Tower of Nightmares final instance was the most recent huge letdown.

Features from GW that are still not in GW2, such as guild halls, build templates, and large-group PvE instances that would really flesh out GW2’s core game.

Develop and polish underwater combat so that it is as fun, fluid, and varied as land combat.

-Am I being fair in my observation?

Yes.

-Will you recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend during the “Migration” period?
No.

-Why or why not?
GW2 seems to be focusing on small and meaningless content updates, although new content regularly normally would be a good thing but it just is not the game with GW2. The Living Story updates often are just zergs doing achievements. The loot from most of these LS updates are no better if not actually worse than what we can normally farm already with much less time spent.

-What do you like about the current Living Story content?
I like the idea of regular content updates.

-What do you dislike?
I dislike that these LS updates essentially are pointless and really just a way for Anet to add more cash shop items which I am completely fine with, the cash shop items I mean. I think content updates are being wasted as a means to add to the cash shop when Anet could just release actual proper content updates and add to the cash shop anytime they want to.

Adding to the cash shop should not need a LS update to use as an excuse. We’re not little children here, we all know the cash shop helps fund the game so why not just add to it regularly but ditch the LS failures and release actual good content updates every month or two instead of every two weeks releasing trash content that is completely useless and mindless.

-In your opinion, do you like the direction of this game?
I think the direction of this game is not good right now. I do think the game will survive and flourish regardless of our opinions because many people love it to death and always will and those same people most likely spend a lot of money on Gems. I think the amount of us that might consider a new game are more so in the minority than the majority and that will always make it harder to see changes to truly improve GW2. This happens in all MMOs though. The majority loves whatever is given or accepts it and plays and spends real money and the devs and publishers don’t care since they’re making money still.

-What would you like to see?
I would like to see Living Story reduced to seasonal content updates and then I would like actual proper content updates every 3 months instead of every 2 weeks. That would be the amount of time to release 6 LS updates which very likely would be pointless and mindless zergs without actually really adding anything to the game.

Take these 6 LS updates and create an actual real update and I believe people would be much happier. Keep in mind that the average player doesn’t farm nor spam content and if 6 LS worth of updates were put into a single real content update then I believe most people would prefer that. Southsun Cove is a perfect example of infinite potential yet completely blundered.

Southsun had some great one time events upon release then it was essentially a useless map for a long time. Right now it’s not very popular due to there being nothing to do there past a few routine events and mobs dropping t6 mats. We need maps like Southsun but they need to have a purpose. Add in unique items from there, make more use of the mats obtained from there, add events people will want to go there to do regularly. Just a few ideas but I think everyone will get the point.

-Am I being fair in my observation?
Yes I am being fair because I have supported this game since beta but when the people running the game lets things go to waste too much, what can we do? Anet and Ncsoft are no different from any other company. They might listen rarely but overall they don’t care as long as they make money which is the path seemingly most MMOs end up on. The path of putting profit above what the player base wants.

I believe if a company makes the players happier that the players will spend more money on the cash shop and in return the company will profit even more than if the company just shoves in meaningless content constantly while adding in cash shop items and expecting people to just accept it and keep spending money. Many LS updates seriously can be completely in mere hours, same day of released.

I think this game needs real content updates every 3 months and no more LS except for seasonal content. Give us content we can work on for weeks and months rather than a few mere hours every two weeks.