The main motivator for humanity is survival at all costs, Darwin proved that. The main motivator for people playing this game, the main motivator Arena Net encourage for people playing this game is vanity and the acquisition of material goods. They’ve termed it horizontal progression.
I have one hard time understanding how “vanity” can be an expression of “survival at all cost”. If anything, earning vanity in a “meaningless” video game detracts you for spending time IRL enhancing your skills and getting a better job, a better pay then a better mate, education for your offsprings and, all in all, better chances at propagating your genes.
I am sorry to correct you, but Darwin theories deal with “survival of the fitest”, not “survival at all cost”, which is quite different.I maintain that one of the problems with Guild Wars 2 is its single minded focus on monetizing almost every aspect of itself.
That is a strange quote. I get the feeling we are not playing the same game. When I look at the gemstore, what do I see ?
- little boosts
- some utilities (several of which have been mathematically proved to be of little use to their ingame available counter parts)
- huge lots of vanity items (skins, pets, music instrument)
- custom arena passesHow is this monetizing every aspect of the game ? There is only one community that could really complain about the state of the gemstore, and that community is the role players. Anyway, in the current state of the game, the gemstore has little to do with WvW
Threads full of bile and hatred like this one are a result of a community fed the idea that in order to advance in the game, they must tread upon one another or throw money at the company. As such, many players feel that they earned the WvW rewards through hard work, and that this hard work was going to pay off and elevate them above their peers.
Funny to hear that about one of the games that least emphasizes the competition between players.
I know we all are different, yet I think it is very sad if you play to elevate yourself above others. You should play to keep on elevating above yourself, not above others. WvW is not about treading upon one another, it is first and foremost about playing as a community, managing a lot of players that act together.
How did you confuse vanity and survival of the fittest? I didn’t equate the two as meaning the same thing (I did mean survival of the fittest when I said survival at all cost, I just worded it poorly).
How can you describe this game as anything other than extremely vain when the end game content progression is almost entirely based upon the idea of acquiring a more and more impressive wardrobe? This is what I mean by emphasizing the worst kind of competition among players, the desire to look good is clearly at the very least equal to every other desire a player has in this game and if nothing else, in game rewards tend to be tied to this.
The gem store items are not the “monetization” I was most closely referring to, I’m implying that the game encourages you to purchase short cuts, most explicitly seen through constant reminders that gold can be purchased with gems. Another example is new weapon sets (arguably the “coolest” feature in terms of looks) usually being tied to RNG and not even being directly purchaseable with gems.
WvW is absolutely about treading over one another. Think about how many players transferred to more popular servers just to be on the winning side, about how many 2v1 scenarios erupted in the season just to ensure a win. These are features that Arena Net have explicitly allowed! You might have a rosey outlook on how WvW is conducted, but let me tell you the reality is far, far nastier.
The fact is, at no point does this game emphasize working as a group and respecting one another to achieve a common goal. Material gain is king, and rage is the result.
