Guild Wars 2

Farzo.8410:

World of Warcraft will have nothing to do for almost a year before their expansion releases.

To be fair, there are plenty of altaholics.

It’s no different from here, really in that regard. I’m sure many people duck into other games once they get their LS Metas, because really, what more is there to do?

Celtic Lady.3729:

Really? You think? With 20 million or so fans of their games? Why wouldn’t they subscribe?

ESO in its current state is broken. I causes crashes for peoples drivers/tries to explode your CPU, It doesn’t have an economy, its pay to win (not that bad but still), Sub people are sick of those, and is basically a re-skinned WoW. Guess how many elder scroll fans want that? not many. Most people log on and go many this makes me want to play skyrim/oblivion/morrowind and then they go do that. In addition I love star wars with a passion but HATED SWTOR so your fan subbing logic is invalid.

Also this is GW2 you can take a break for 10 days that’s what makes it GW2

I actually like just doing the standard content for a while. No more chasing after zerg-content all the time, no more frustrations about achievement hunting, no pressure to farm enough X in time for Y.

Maybe we’ll give Tequatl a few more visits, maybe even do the Wurm again.

Who knows. It’s easy to forget the content this game already has when you’re constantly being spamed with Living World stuff.

I remember when Super Adventure Box II came out and I was rubbish at it. My thought at the time was “Well, thank goodness for that, now I can just do some world roaming stuff without feeling any pressure.” However now I have done most of the stuff I want to do a few times over and most of the stuff left over for me simply requires grinding (second legendary, ascended armour and a few mor ascended weapons) and I find myself thinking “Hmm, now what?” after the dailies.

The moral of the story is that not only can you not keep all the people happy all the time, if the player is like me it can just be a matter of the headspace they’re in. Personally I think the way ANet has released stuff is about as good as they can do for keeping as many people happy as possible.

As for ESO, I will play for a month, but would be genuinely surprised if I played past that before it becomes free to play. Too many reviews from MMO gamers have said “I didn’t like it but it may appeal to Elder Scrolls fans.” while reviews from Elder Scrolls fans have said “I didn’t like it but it may appeal to MMO gamers”.

effinshiddy.1364:

the free model of GW2 and the community it fostered shows in the comments here. this is welfare gaming

That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all week.
It’s a shame you seem to be serious.

There is no free model.
There’s a game that people paid for and they now play.

That you seem to be okay with paying over and over and over again to enjoy something you already bought is your problem.

Code.8615:

That you seem to be okay with paying over and over and over again to enjoy something you already bought is your problem.

You don’t pay over and over for the same thing. You pay for it to be monitored, fixed, balanced, updated and expanded.

How much permanent content has this game seen in the past two years? What is the amount of new items that were not put into the gem store? How many bug fixes, gameplay features and balance patches got rolled out and with what frequency? How long does it take to contact a representative when you have an account or in-game related issue?

There are no free rides. You’re not forced to pay anything more than the initial box price and that reflects on the quality of the game. Guild Wars 2 has the foundation to be an exceptional product but it lacks solid, constant funding and has to count on the unpredictable gem store revenue that might be sky-high one week and almost non-existent the other.

effinshiddy.1364:

(we all have a lot of worn out “1” buttons as proof.)

Small correction, games like WoW are no less 1-button-centric than GW2 is.
In fact WoW especially is actively reducing the amount of abilities per each class, and for good reason, there’s way too many which are never used. That was the whole motivation behind only having 10 slots in GW2 in the first place, to cut down on that.

DAoC was 1-button-wonder gameplay, too.

It’s a popular concept, in any case. Look at how everyone plays ARPGs like Diablo or PoE, it’s all based around pushing a single ability to kingdom come, then spam that plus have a handful or sometimes-used support abilities.

At least MMORPGs have the “excuse” that autoattacks are extremely useful because they allow for communication mid-fight.

Slowpoke.2749:

Code.8615:

That you seem to be okay with paying over and over and over again to enjoy something you already bought is your problem.

You don’t pay over and over for the same thing. You pay for it to be monitored, fixed, balanced, updated and expanded.

How much permanent content has this game seen in the past two years? What is the amount of new items that were not put into the gem store? How many bug fixes, gameplay features and balance patches got rolled out and with what frequency? How long does it take to contact a representative when you have an account or in-game related issue?

There are no free rides. You’re not forced to pay anything more than the initial box price and that reflects on the quality of the game. Guild Wars 2 has the foundation to be an exceptional product but it lacks solid, constant funding and has to count on the unpredictable gem store revenue that might be sky-high one week and almost non-existent the other.

Uhm…

Fractals, new pvp map, updated WvW maps, EotM, new dungeons, new skills, new weapon/armor skins, monthly balance/content updates, ascended gear, ascended crafting, seasonal events (not permanent but recurring), new areas, guild missions. And this was just off the top of my head. Also, the game hasn’t been out for two years yet.

So far it seems that Guild Wars 2 has seen a lot of permanent content next to the temporary living story; all without you being forced to pay a monthly fee. And while some may hate the temporary nature of LS, it does give a sense of playing in a living, breathing and constantly changing gameworld.

Here’s an infographic that shows us roughly everything that was added in the first year because it seems some people are apparently choosing to ignore them.

Charak.9761:

Wouldn’t you think? Really nothing for us to do at the moment… I mean really you could of had that bar scene in-game during the battle anyways.

no counter looter events maybe?

Many others have said it in the game so I am repeating what I agree with.

Anet should have left us with a way to, as a group, rebuild our city into a more logical and better city with the crafting stations where we want them, with the buildings refurbished and wards set around the city to keep this from happening ever again.

I feel like we are being forced into WvW and PvP – the living story was important to keep going – and you left us with absolutely nothing.

I agree, that “party” was abysmal – no coordination of the mouths that were speaking the words, no one seemed happy at all, and not a single person was drinking or eating or doing what one would do if one attended a celebration of this magnitude.

Funny that not a mention of the rest of the characters who were completely left out – they should have been incorporated so we could see what they were doing in the meantime or could have been used HERE.

This is so awful to be forced into areas that are frustrating like WvW with the massive imbalances – insane imbalances in population and sleep cycles/coverage.

Wetpaw.3487:

It’s the AvA that will grab players from GW2 WvW, AvA IS FAR SUPERIOR in every way.

^ This. From those that came from DAoC, soooo much this all over it.

Carighan.6758:

effinshiddy.1364:

(we all have a lot of worn out “1” buttons as proof.)

DAoC was 1-button-wonder gameplay, too.

You didn’t play the same game then. DAoC was absolutely no where near 1 button wonder gameplay. If you did play like that, then thanks for the free Realm Points back then.

Charak.9761:

Wouldn’t you think? Really nothing for us to do at the moment… I mean really you could of had that bar scene in-game during the battle anyways.

no counter looter events maybe?

No, more downtime like this will serve anet as a reminder that they need to step up to the plate and make professions and regular gameplay better if they want to keep players interested for the long run.

Aveneo.2068:

Slowpoke.2749:

Code.8615:

That you seem to be okay with paying over and over and over again to enjoy something you already bought is your problem.

You don’t pay over and over for the same thing. You pay for it to be monitored, fixed, balanced, updated and expanded.

How much permanent content has this game seen in the past two years? What is the amount of new items that were not put into the gem store? How many bug fixes, gameplay features and balance patches got rolled out and with what frequency? How long does it take to contact a representative when you have an account or in-game related issue?

There are no free rides. You’re not forced to pay anything more than the initial box price and that reflects on the quality of the game. Guild Wars 2 has the foundation to be an exceptional product but it lacks solid, constant funding and has to count on the unpredictable gem store revenue that might be sky-high one week and almost non-existent the other.

Uhm…

Fractals, new pvp map, updated WvW maps, EotM, new dungeons, new skills, new weapon/armor skins, monthly balance/content updates, ascended gear, ascended crafting, seasonal events (not permanent but recurring), new areas, guild missions. And this was just off the top of my head. Also, the game hasn’t been out for two years yet.

So far it seems that Guild Wars 2 has seen a lot of permanent content next to the temporary living story; all without you being forced to pay a monthly fee. And while some may hate the temporary nature of LS, it does give a sense of playing in a living, breathing and constantly changing gameworld.

Here’s an infographic that shows us roughly everything that was added in the first year because it seems some people are apparently choosing to ignore them.

part of that picture is BS, some are more a question on how it’s counted.

204 new weapon skins: doh, if you count all the gem skins, BL token skins and new temp skins while counting not per skin category but per weapon, no kitten sherlock.
a quick calculation would show you it’s about 11 or 12 new weapon skin categories.

58 new armor skins: same problem, if you count not per set but per peace then it’s easy to make a high number.
again, a quick calculation makes it 9 or 10 sets and this is without separating the armor types.

16 content updates: most of this is temporary so this can’t be counted, only the after match is seen but all it did was ruin some good places, it never really improve anything. (for instance, i would love to see kessex hills like it was before the LS ruined it)

i can go on but ill leave it at that.

sorudo.9054:

i can go on but ill leave it at that.

Yeah, it is best that you do. Your post was a prime example of stating a personal (biased) opinion as if it was fact with pointless ‘yeah, that doesn’t count’ arguments. Deny all you want but I have shown that this game has seen more content than some would like to admit.

But if you don’t like it, have fun playing another game.

Aveneo.2068:

sorudo.9054:

i can go on but ill leave it at that.

Yeah, it is best that you do. Your post was a prime example of stating a personal (biased) opinion as if it was fact with pointless ‘yeah, that doesn’t count’ arguments. Deny all you want but I have shown that this game has seen more content than some would like to admit.

But if you don’t like it, have fun playing another game.

Seems plenty of players share that biased opinion of substantial content, & I would think we could agree somewhere in the middle. Please notice yes I was critical on some of that content, but also agreed w/you too on some.

Like I mentioned the 2nd year this game has been live is wrapping up, it’s not like I blame Anet devs at all, but more of a complaint to NCsoft and how they could allow a game w/so much potential lose in so many ways through greed (i’m all for profit) and probably proper funding/focus to reach such a potential.

At times I have been critical, and other times w/praise. I wouldn’t waste my time posting if I didn’t want to see a game I invested time in since BWE2 succeed, & bring players back that have left or going to leave.

Embrace The Bold.7619:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Really? You think? With 20 million or so fans of their games? Why wouldn’t they subscribe?

ESO in its current state is broken. I causes crashes for peoples drivers/tries to explode your CPU, It doesn’t have an economy, its pay to win (not that bad but still), Sub people are sick of those, and is basically a re-skinned WoW. Guess how many elder scroll fans want that? not many. Most people log on and go many this makes me want to play skyrim/oblivion/morrowind and then they go do that. In addition I love star wars with a passion but HATED SWTOR so your fan subbing logic is invalid.

Also this is GW2 you can take a break for 10 days that’s what makes it GW2

could you put even more lies in one post? ESO neither is a WoW clone nor breaks your drivers or hardware lol. And what you mean with no economy?

Celtic Lady.3729:

The only thing dangerous to GW2 right now is ESO. Place is going to be a ghost town in less than a month.

ESO is garbage.

A beautifull single player franchise suddenly turned into an mmo abomination, and they have the audacity to ask for a monthly fee too.

Bah..

haters gunna hate i guess… ill play ESO for a least 5 month and pay the sub fee. I realy ENJOYED the beta and im dying to actualy make it past lvl 20 so to check out vampirism and lycantropy.

kyubi.3620:

haters gunna hate i guess… ill play ESO for a least 5 month and pay the sub fee. I realy ENJOYED the beta and im dying to actualy make it past lvl 20 so to check out vampirism and lycantropy.

I really don’t get the prevalence of super aggressive attitudes towards new games; maybe I’m just too old to feel really defensive about a game I play, but I like to sit back, evaluate something based on my personal opinion alone, and judge accordingly. It’s ok to not like something I don’t like, but some these days take great enjoyment out of tearing down something others enjoy.

I will be playing ESO as I have missed real PvP in a big way for a long time now. I played the hell out of DAoC and Warhammer Online, and can’t wait to get back into fullscale war where alliances and guild communications mean a lot in the community.

So glad Dulfy has picked this up too, one of my favorite info sites just got better.

Celtic Lady.3729:

The only thing dangerous to GW2 right now is ESO. Place is going to be a ghost town in less than a month.

I’m not too worried about that. If ES never appealed to some players before, it highly won’t in ESO. Also, that subscription fee can be troublesome which is what’s keeping me away from trying it.

Miflett.3472:

I really don’t get the prevalence of super aggressive attitudes towards new games; maybe I’m just too old to feel really defensive about a game I play, but I like to sit back, evaluate something based on my personal opinion alone, and judge accordingly.

Hah, same. I do feel old with most modern MMO players.

Oh and ofc, having played ESO so much during the betas, that’s why I sound so disillusioned (not angry, just …@……..) about it. It was so… nothing. I kept looking for the part which was supposed to impress me. Or be Elder Scrolls. Or be a MMO. Or anything, really.

I had this feeling before, when I bought BF3 and then after half an hour stopped and sat there wondering why the hell I would play something so generic that I cannot even remember the past 60 seconds of gameplay.

X The Manimal.5293:

Minos.5168:

Aveneo.2068:

Now if ESO had been B2P like GW2, it might have been competition. But not when they want to charge you $60 for the box with $15 a month on top of that and a cash-shop.

See: World of Warcraft. (which had 7.8 million subscribers as of December 31st)
Next expansion will be $50. It’s still got a $15/mo subscription AND a cash shop.

7.8 is more than twice the “over 3 million GW2 copies sold”.
And that’s people that are still actively subscribed. Not just people that bought the game.

WoW has been out for YEARS and has developed a strong playerbase that worked so hard to get their gear and rewards. They don’t want to lose it all so they’re obligated to pay and play. I know, because I was one of them until I just didn’t care anymore. It was painful to see my characters go but I had to do it. ESO, however, is a new MMO and has a sub-fee as well as the 60$ box just like WoW. It won’t do so good I’m afraid.

THIS is total truth. Every time someone say something like ,,P2P model is not death just look at wow,, i have o perform captain Picards favorite pose……
All games that have long success with subscriptions are around 7 years old. New games can’t succeed with subscriptions. Maybe in some other decade if market will be tired of free to play just like it is tired of pay to play now. But now no new game is and will be able to stick to p2p for more then year.

ESO’s actually a really good game. I went in expecting to hate it thanks to comments like the ones in this thread only to be pleasantly surprised. Most of the ‘hate’ is purely subjective. Frankly, anyone who’s satisfied with let alone enjoyed the past year of GW2 I can understand not liking ESO. Different tastes.

Personally, I have hated almost every single aspect of the LS and having done basically everything else in the game I wanted to do I am bored. I see no expansion on the horizon, so I’ve been shopping around for other games for awhile. ESO’s basically offering me everything I’ve been missing out on in GW2 (not the least of which is decent writing), so I’m sold.

A lot of people hating ESO based on the buggy old BETA build they played, talking about how it will go FTP based on nothing but wishful thinking or spite. It really feels like it will be a great game. The crafting blows GW2 crafting out of the water, the immersion factors (the story, the voice acting (Oh, the voice acting!), the super clean UI) are all very strong. For those of us who don’t care about a sub fee (and there are a lot of us) it has a lot to offer. I have been playing GW2 steady since beta, and it is a great game in many respects, but I will be going to ESO and am looking forward to it. I will still drop in every so often, which is the best thing about GW2 that I can do that.

I believe the reason that people started bashing ESO on this thread is that somebody else attempted to use ESO to bash GW2. Considering that these forums are dedicated to GW2, it is a safe assumption that most of the people here would incline towards defending GW2, than ESO.

So, you gotta thank this one person for all this ridiculous discussion:

PoorlyHiddenUsernameGiggity:

The only thing dangerous to GW2 right now is ESO. Place is going to be a ghost town in less than a month.

Oh, my “bashing” of ESO is entirely based around the fact that I genuinely – give me a sec on this – considered a MMO-formula a way to improve Elder Scrolls as a game series.

Only… wow did the beta disappoint me.
Not only did they not use the MMO-parts to improve the boring elements of TES, rather they didn’t even really make a TES-MMO. It feels like they took a generic MMO, hid the individual skill-XP bars EQ1 had, then painted some Cyrodiil over it with the Skyrim graphics engine.

It’s… disappointing. All around.

I’d still take a look if it were F2P at least, but I can’t see myself paying upfront + monthly for a game which was such a big letdown in beta.

And anyhow, what I mean by improving is that TES struggles with the idea of having a regeneration and “endless” open world you can explore. It always ends up making you have way too little impact on the world. At which point one might ask, if you’re already not properly affecting the world, that sounds like one could viable merge a MMO on top of it. Exactly. This’d smooth over the edges of the non-interactive world a bit because you got the other players to interact with, and you could have areas where you need lots and lots and lots of players in very high equipment just to break into it.

However, instead we got something with the underlying mechanics of Everquest, with a Cyrodiil paintjob. So, exactly the wrong way around.

Just… so disappointed.

April pack 2014

Aveneo.2068:

sorudo.9054:

i can go on but ill leave it at that.

Yeah, it is best that you do. Your post was a prime example of stating a personal (biased) opinion as if it was fact with pointless ‘yeah, that doesn’t count’ arguments. Deny all you want but I have shown that this game has seen more content than some would like to admit.

But if you don’t like it, have fun playing another game.

gw2: 19 months and no expansion worth of content
gw1: 19 months, 2 new chapters with tons of content and an expansion on it’s way

yah, allot more then some would like to admit….
keep on fooling your self, that what Anet wants.

Celtic Lady.3729:

The only thing dangerous to GW2 right now is ESO. Place is going to be a ghost town in less than a month.

I’m sorry but I refuse to pay a sub-fee for ESO or any other game after GW2. Guild Wars 2 has spoiled me silly, I simply can not go back to paying sub-fee’s when I’ve seen a company that has constant new stuff, so much that I can barely keep up, that always has updated, that’s always fun and never boring. A game this good, without a subscription fee, that you just buy once and then continue playing, and I’m not forced to go into cash shop because it’s just visual aesthetics and nothing more and doesn’t affect the game or my enjoyment in any way, a game this good without a sub-fee…. It has spoiled me. I’m spoiled now and I can’t go back to paying a subscription every month for an mmo game that isn’t half as good as GW2. (and fyi I played eso in beta, it’s kittening kitten)

Aveneo.2068:

Celtic Lady.3729:

The only thing dangerous to GW2 right now is ESO but that place is going to be a ghost town in less than a month.

fixed

In my opinion ESO is not dangerous to GW2 in any way as ESO is B2P+P2P+$shop. And I’ve played it a lot during beta but it’s nothing special. Just another generic mmo with a Tamriel sticker on it.

I knnnooowww… It’s terrible. I played beta too, I expected way more. After GW2 I don’t think I’ll ever pay a subscription ever again for any mmo. Those other companies need to step the kitten up and get on Arena’s level or they’re not gettn my money.

Meanwhile, I think the entire past year of GW2 has been filled with little more than bi-monthly achievement grinds with nothing of any real interest or substance added.

Shpongle.6025:

Celtic Lady.3729:

The only thing dangerous to GW2 right now is ESO. Place is going to be a ghost town in less than a month.

I’m sorry but I refuse to pay a sub-fee for ESO or any other game after GW2. Guild Wars 2 has spoiled me silly, I simply can not go back to paying sub-fee’s when I’ve seen a company that has constant new stuff, so much that I can barely keep up, that always has updated, that’s always fun and never boring. A game this good, without a subscription fee, that you just buy once and then continue playing, and I’m not forced to go into cash shop because it’s just visual aesthetics and nothing more and doesn’t affect the game or my enjoyment in any way, a game this good without a sub-fee…. It has spoiled me. I’m spoiled now and I can’t go back to paying a subscription every month for an mmo game that isn’t half as good as GW2. (and fyi I played eso in beta, it’s kittening kitten)

Aveneo.2068:

Celtic Lady.3729:

The only thing dangerous to GW2 right now is ESO but that place is going to be a ghost town in less than a month.

fixed

In my opinion ESO is not dangerous to GW2 in any way as ESO is B2P+P2P+$shop. And I’ve played it a lot during beta but it’s nothing special. Just another generic mmo with a Tamriel sticker on it.

I knnnooowww… It’s terrible. I played beta too, I expected way more. After GW2 I don’t think I’ll ever pay a subscription ever again for any mmo. Those other companies need to step the kitten up and get on Arena’s level or they’re not gettn my money.

very subjective feeling, personally I have been very dissatisfied with the last months of updates

Lane.3410:

Meanwhile, I think the entire past year of GW2 has been filled with little more than bi-monthly achievement grinds with nothing of any real interest or substance added.

That is mostly because development of lasting content isn’t happening

they’d rather band-aid us with “living story” than be forced to spend resources on an actual “expansion” or content additions which stayed present.

Actually this combined with the scarlet arc failure (which i logged in for after the email) was the last straw for me. Its just shown no improvement story/lore wise in almost 2 years and frankly 1,600+ hours is a hell of a lot of time falling for the same “you’ll get a reason in two weeks, x ability will be coming soon!” The micro transactions are a bit too in your face and the prices on things are climbing a bit much (400 per armour piece for gem store, ingame goods beginning to cost significant amounts such as consumable foods etc) which means that my already large investment will continue to be added to. Considering i’ve spent around $1 per hour over the gametime I think its been worth it, but i’ve lost the hope it will improve to gw1 story/lore/character standards.
Did i enjoy it? hell yes, the mapping x3, running all dungeons and the wvw play was fantastic fun for the first year, but then you hit the LS as all you have left and it just doesn’t leave you aching for more.
Have a blast folks!
Looks like it was longer than 10 days after all.

That people have no idea what to do during a ten day pause in the Living Story, I believe, is all the proof one needs that Living Story has been greatly detrimental to the game.

The core game is not and was never meant to be an “Adventure by Checklist”, chase the carrot, sort of game. I got almost 1,800 hours, between two accounts, playing this game like it was Skyrim Online. Level scaling offers all sorts of freedom and the game world is massive, with tons of redundant content.

The conversion to this vapid new form of game pay and the way it trains people to NOT play the core game are a big reason I haven’t played more than a few hours for several months. That and the fact that the game world, which was supposed to have evolved with tons of free Dynamic Event content, has remained completely static, while they’ve thrown content development resources at temporary content.

I get that some people like to be force fed a linear treadmill experience, which they dutifully run because of “limited time content”, a.k.a. the newest, exclusive, carrot on the end of the stick. However, that’s not what this game was at launch or was advertised to be.

If this is all they wanted to do with GW2 post launch, I don’t even see the point of 80% of the content and game zones they spent 5+ years developing. What’s they’ve been doing for the last 18 months would have been much better suited to a game that needed this fluff to make up for a lack of world space and game content.

Whether the pre-launch content was a waste, or the post-launch “Living Story” content was a waste probably depends on your perspective, or on how easily you were enticed onto the treadmill and how satisfying all those carrots seem in exchange for treading all those miles going no where and jumping through some hoops along the way. Either way, tons of development resources might as well have just been flushed.

The sad thing is that new new game features and re-balance look good. Just the sort of thing that might entice a departed player to come back and check things out and see all the content that has been added since they’ve been away…. oh… that’s right…. there essentially is none.

In autumn of 2012, a very senior developer teased a doubling of Dynamic Event content by the end of year one and how much the ability to rotate DE content in and out of the game would keep the dynamic world feeling fresh and alive. If they had achieved even half that, returning players would find every zone they revisited would have a lot of content they had never experienced before. Now, a returning player has nothing but a list of event achievements they can never complete that represent content that was not only thin, but temporary.

Oh, yeah and they also get to see how what had felt like a dynamic, living world is really just a static, dead place, repeating the same exact content from 18 months ago in an endless, unaltered loop.

Of course, they can’t stop now. They’ve already tossed their original core player base aside in exchange for those easily bribed into playing via dime a dozen carrots on a chase to no where. If they stop with the carrots and turn off the treadmill, many of the remaining players obviously would have zero idea what to do with themselves.

One of the greatest mysteries of game development is likely to be how a studio that created the game GW2 was at launch managed to waste so much time, money and manpower producing temporary content that was, somehow, much worse for the health of the game than even nothing.

Lockheart.4312:

Lane.3410:

Meanwhile, I think the entire past year of GW2 has been filled with little more than bi-monthly achievement grinds with nothing of any real interest or substance added.

That is mostly because development of lasting content isn’t happening

they’d rather band-aid us with “living story” than be forced to spend resources on an actual “expansion” or content additions which stayed present.

I have to believe they have also been spending resources on an actual expansion of some sort. Even as they’ve muddied the waters with conflicting comments on an expansion, we do know that most of the studio has been working on something other than Living Story for the past year+.

The problem is that not only has living story been an absolute waste of resources, but it has driven people who would actually want an expansion of real content from the game, while creating a player base that just wants it’s next fix of temporary, time limited content and the associated Limited Edition Carrot. Most of the new class of treadmillers have zero want, need or use for new world content. Who exactly is supposed to buy future expansion content?

How many among those who have left due to a disgust over the lack of permanent world content won’t be wary to return to purchase such content, after witnessing what the studio has done to the game over the last 18 months?

The game has been greatly diminished by Living Story and faith in future development of the game has been shattered by such a blatant squandering of the game’s once limitless potential. They could produce the best MMO expansion anyone has ever seen and it will still be a very hard sell after the 18 month Living Story fiasco. And that travesty isn’t even over, with Season 2 inbound on the heels of the worst 6 months of Living Story having been the last 6 months of Living Story.

At what point does someone with authority wake up and say “what the heck have we done and why are we continuing to do it”?

ANet needs a break, players could use a break (to prevent burn out) etc. etc.

CureForLiving.5360:

ANet needs a break, players could use a break (to prevent burn out) etc. etc.

Sure, players want a break from the thing they enjoy while having a break. How does that make sense?
Here is what players want:

What players want is a break from the terrible LS, which they now get.

BUT

Also they want real content, lasting content, new content on new playfields.

They want a break from the bad stuff and more of the good stuff.

Rocket science.

Talissa Chan.7208:

snip… I’ve deleted all my chars and items (incl a grinning ghastly and a kudzu) and wash my hands of the whole thing. …snip

Sooooo, I’m guessing I can’t have yer stuff?

Have fun wherever you may roam though.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

CureForLiving.5360:

ANet needs a break, players could use a break (to prevent burn out) etc. etc.

Sure, players want a break from the thing they enjoy while having a break. How does that make sense?
Here is what players want:

What players want is a break from the terrible LS, which they now get.

BUT

Also they want real content, lasting content, new content on new playfields.

They want a break from the bad stuff and more of the good stuff.

Rocket science.

It’s get’s boring to do the same thing over and over and over. Come home from work, get a bit of GW2 in rinse and repeat.
Maybe I’m just old, you kids probably have a far higher tolerance for repetition. A break is nice, since that way I don’t get burned-out. A simple analogy then: ice cream is nice, ice cream everyday less so.

Sorry Tommy, everything was uselessly accountbound, I couldn’t even use a splitter to hand the skins on my only option was to just wipe/salvage the lot. I did pass the 951 gold I had around though, so at least something was useable.

Celtic Lady.3729:

The only thing dangerous to GW2 right now is ESO. Place is going to be a ghost town in less than a month.

I doubt that it would last long. Even if ESO draws away folks, most will very likely come back. A friend who beta tested ESO says that ESO aint all that great and that the hype is over-rated. (gee, whatta surprise!) He said he aint going to waste time and money on it and I’m in agreement with him.

As someone who enjoyed the ES games on and off (never got that strongly into it due to a variety of issues), I can say that I have zero interest in ESO. The main appeal of the ES games to me was the opportunity for total immersion in a rich RP world. Despite some flaws, you really got the sense that Tamriel was a living, breathing world that went on despite what you did or didn’t do.

You simply can’t get that sort of immersion in an MMO. You’ll get players with inappropriate names like “Xx Legolass xX”, “Darth Vader 69” and “Captin Jack Sparrow” that ruin it, not to mention thieves going around picking pockets of every NPC in sight, or a player running down the street chased by 50 guards after incinerating every NPC in sight. (And the fact that you could DO those things in the game, followed by reloading, was part of the appeal of ES.)

Maybe ESO will be a success, maybe it won’t be, but it completely missed the point when it comes to providing the type of gaming experience I would want from an ES game.

And as far as the 10 day break is concerned, I’m glad for it. I needed a break after the breakneck pace of the LS, and I’ve been able to spend time doing dungeons, WvW, and mapping, that I simply couldn’t get to while the LS was ongoing.

“Kindof dangerous to have nothing for 10 days”
Wow, after having a YEAR of living world updates, you think a 10 day lull is “dangerous”? How about you take a look at how many sPvP or WvW specific updates have occurred over the past year?

Wetpaw.3487:

This being my first f2p/b2p mmo that I actually stuck with and held out to see it grow has definitely put the nail in the coffin for me w/these kind of pay models (in general, some quick cash grabs as submodel).

Focused towards big release sales, and lousy followup. They retain a small niche crowd out of the mmo community that are anti-sub model and believe free is best, and the mmo player who enjoys pulling out his/her credit card spending hundreds a month on digital items.

These blacklist mmo companies are spread far too thin to focus on any one mmo for proper content, bugs, & balance needed for growth.

NCsoft
Guild Wars
Guild Wars 2
Aion
Blade&Soul
Lineage
Wildstar

SOE
DCUO
PlanetSide2
Dragon’s Prophet
EverQuest Next
and many more in the block package not worth the mention

EA
SWTOR
Secret World
Warhammer
and the countless other titles “supported”

Trion
Rift
Defiance
Archeage

Perfect World
NeverWinter
Jade Dynasty
Forsaken World
Star Trek online
Champions Online
and many more not worth the mention

Even if you enjoy the current standard of these companies, you can also agree they’re spread far too thin w/way too much development focused towards the digital store.

As a player since BWE2 this “break” shows me what? Dungeon master, fotm farm til 44, six level 80’s, WvW, all crafting to 400, crafting 500×3, Legendary….what else is their to do? This is what clearly stands out of no new substantial content. Now if we were 6months into the game I would say you rushed through take a break, 1year 7months reasonable to be where Im at.

Hell, anytime I see a game with the “Electronic Arts” logo on it, it has the same effect on me as showing a crucifix to a Vampire. I’ll NEVER waste my time with ANYTHING that EA is in any way associated with.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

CureForLiving.5360:

ANet needs a break, players could use a break (to prevent burn out) etc. etc.

Sure, players want a break from the thing they enjoy while having a break. How does that make sense?
Here is what players want:

What players want is a break from the terrible LS, which they now get.

BUT

Also they want real content, lasting content, new content on new playfields.

They want a break from the bad stuff and more of the good stuff.

Rocket science.

I agree with him i needed a break from living story. I played almost no GW2 since January. I just logged in every new update look at it and logged of. I just didn’t want to play another hundreds of zerg events. But now becouse there is no living story i play again and have fun becouse i feel no presure for completing achievements and story…. I realy was burned out becouse of living story and this break got me back to game.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Also they want real content, lasting content, new content on new playfields.

They want a break from the bad stuff and more of the good stuff.

Rocket science.

And you know this because of the huge game-wide polls you ran, right?

Why are people saying anet needs a break.

They took a break during winter, did everyone forget this?

I gave WvW a go and I’m hooked! I usually branch off with a smaller group than the main zerg and go around reeking havoc causing the other servers main zerg to be baited by us or following behind the enemy zerg picking off their members one by one. At one stage there was about 5 of us vs 20 and it was like that scene from the movie 300.. so good!

I loving the break, i didnt know i needed till i got some, will be refreshing when the new content start come again.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Really? You think? With 20 million or so fans of their games? Why wouldn’t they subscribe?

I’m a major fan of Elder Scrolls and just about everything Bethesda has ever done (but not blindly so, they have all been flawed), but I don’t pay monthly subscription fees for games. I am not alone.