Guild Wars 2

I can’t be the only one who is seriously jaded with the current circulation of pvp maps. Its possible that I was spoiled by the first Guild Wars, which had a total of TWENTY NINE different pvp maps, and FORTY FIVE if you count the SIXTEEN different guild halls where gvg battles could take place.

I understand the model for MMO’s has changed, and that a lot of $$ is made from the miserly gem store, but the standards have sunk so low.

I think that putting the same developmental effort into this game as was given to its predecessor would only mean good things.

The big problem with things getting popular (not just bands but entire industries especially) is the values dissonance between the new consumers and the original consumers. Let’s say the originals value branching paths, challenge, a visible impact on the world including destructible environments, challenge, depth, complexity, and mechanical consistency in the main parts of the game (important qualifier since skateboarding or card games could be great optional content) whereas the newer consumers like simplicity, cutscenes, story, and may be socially different from the originals so somethings would be changed to accommodate them, so no ridiculous yet gritty themes for them.

Nothing wrong with a good story but if resources are going there instead of complex level design and the need to develop skills for an intricate encounter then it must have a cause. Even within this game the conflict can be seen, I mean look at how many people complain about Tangled Depths for being too confusing but the potential to get lost and die is part of what makes it such a great map. The story is also good especially the Rata Novus part. The only thing I agree with the casuals on is make the hero points vets instead of champions but tuned to give single players in full ascended enough of a challenge.

When audiences who don’t share your values and even have conflicting values enter your market things change because now companies will keep trying to get their money. Likewise when a band gets popular it tends to lose what made it appealing to the original audience. Instead of spreading an important message to the world and having technical excellence the original audience can appreciate they dumb their sound down and sanitize their message so as to “offend” the least amount of people possible as ordered by their record label.

Agemnon.4608:

The big problem with things getting popular (not just bands but entire industries especially) is the values dissonance between the new consumers and the original consumers. Let’s say the originals value branching paths, challenge, a visible impact on the world including destructible environments, challenge, depth, complexity, and mechanical consistency in the main parts of the game (important qualifier since skateboarding or card games could be great optional content) whereas the newer consumers like simplicity, cutscenes, story, and may be socially different from the originals so somethings would be changed to accommodate them, so no ridiculous yet gritty themes for them.

Nothing wrong with a good story but if resources are going there instead of complex level design and the need to develop skills for an intricate encounter then it must have a cause. Even within this game the conflict can be seen, I mean look at how many people complain about Tangled Depths for being too confusing but the potential to get lost and die is part of what makes it such a great map. The story is also good especially the Rata Novus part. The only thing I agree with the casuals on is make the hero points vets instead of champions but tuned to give single players in full ascended enough of a challenge.

When audiences who don’t share your values and even have conflicting values enter your market things change because now companies will keep trying to get their money. Likewise when a band gets popular it tends to lose what made it appealing to the original audience. Instead of spreading an important message to the world and having technical excellence the original audience can appreciate they dumb their sound down and sanitize their message so as to “offend” the least amount of people possible as ordered by their record label.

Well said. Having seen the model change from immersive and hardcore to an uber casual setting that in my opinion is so absurdly simple that it insults the players intelligence (a phenomenon not confined to Guild Wars 2) I originally gave the playerbase the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that the widespread dumbing down by the developers was due to their misunderstanding of their players.

After a little awhile I began to see what you write about… two very disparate playstyles, one new, and one old, one with a whiny proclivity for faceroll content, the other looking for excitement and challenge. And also that the vast majority these days really do want no challenge at all.

Hard to accept that the carebears are having their way, which is why I still try to vie for more hardcore content with developers every now and then.

bump, still the same amount of pvp maps as there were when I posted this

I would love to see more pvp maps, but Anet didn’t really have great experiences with that. Spirit Watch is not popular (and still has huge imbalance in orb transportation, like Superspeed working while carrying the orb), and Skyhammer was hated for a long long time. Most of the issues with Skyhammer were dealt with (after a painfully long time, and without adding gliders sadly), but the damage was done. That’s probably why we don’t see new maps. It’s a shame really.

Calydro.7268:

Well said. Having seen the model change from immersive and hardcore to an uber casual setting

You are comparing two different games, targeted at two different audiences. So I don’t think the “model” has changed at all. GW1 still has all these features you call hardcore, and you can still play it. GW2 does not, apparently, but why should it? When I play Mario Galaxy, I don’t complain that it’s casual compared to Super Mario Bros, even if they come from the same company, in the same franchise.