Guild Wars 2

Nope. Sorry. To those folks trying to claim hours vs dollars, that’s not how I look at it. Anet chose to only charge me $60 for the original game, with no additional monthly fees. That was their choice, and their business model decision. So, I paid them $60 for the game and played.

Now, whether or not I spent any money on Gems depended on when, and if, there was something in the Gem Store I wanted, and whether I had enough Gold to transfer into Gem currency or not.

Again, they decided to allow Gold to Gem transference. That was their business decision.

Now they want $50 for HoT. Well, I’m most definitely going to wait to see how much new content (as in zones, maps, et cetera) it offers before I decide if it is worth $50 or not.

My hours played vs. dollars spent is not my concern. Anet chose their business model. It’s their job to make sure they profit high enough from it on a consistent basis. It isn’t my job as a customer to blindly buy one of their products as if they’re some Charity Organization, just to help them out. Business doesn’t work like that.

As a business owner, I absolutely love customers like those posting that concept. As a business owner, though, I’m not falling for it in my consumer spending.

And don’t get the wrong idea. If I feel it’s worth it in the end, I’ll spend the $50. I subscribe annually to SWTOR, and paid them additional for RoTHC when it launched, and paid additional for SoR when it too launched. I’ll stay subbed for a $150/year cost (since I do six months at a time). So, I will spend if I feel it’s worth it to me.

Reize.2176:

Does Amazon later ship you the box as well?

I assume be bought this: http://www.amazon.com/Guild-Wars-Heart-Thorns-Online/dp/B00ZSF6ZAG/ref=sr_1_5?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1435217348&sr=1-5&keywords=guild+wars+2+heart+of+thorns&tag=donations09-20

And no, they don’t. You just get the serial code.

Funny thing, though. That is being sold officially via Amazon by NCSoft. Didn’t one of the Anet people post a big hoopla that the pre-order was only through Anet? Or has that warning from Anet now ended?

Aerlen.5326:

This is garbage. My other ele was ALSO auto specced into earth 100% and while that’s okay for him (would have preferred water but I planned on taking earth for him too), it is absolutely NOT for my air build ele. In fact, all 12 of my lowbies were auto specced! For ten of them, it was fine because it reflected traits they were building on.. but for both eles to be shoved into earth like that – no option to fix…

And to those saying “well just level to 80”, greeeeat. I level slow. I like to enjoy the process and to experiment with builds as I go so that each toon plays just a little differently. For both eles, I am now stuck with a trait line I wouldn’t pick at that level and will be forced to grind to fix a mistake I didn’t make.

Yep, 100% agree. They autobuilt my Ele into a spec I do not play and never liked. Good job Anet. If I wanted to play “your way” to this extent, I’d still be paying Blizzard to play WoW based on “their new vision or the highway.”

I also level slow. I enjoy exploring and doing things. It takes me months to get to Level 80 because I also enjoy multiple professions across different characters. I’m glad I didn’t pre-order HoT yet, because unless Anet fixes this stupid decision for low level characters, I’m done spending money with them.

Orimidu.9604:

All comes down to the cost:content ratio. Therefore I will not be prepurchasing since there is nothing to show how much content will be in the expansion.

This is where I’m at. I was never one way or the other about a character slot. For $50, since I already own the core game, I’ll wait to see of the expansion’s material is actually worth that price.

chemiclord.3978:

The story is good… as MMOs go. It’s nothing impressive by purely subjective standards, but it’s not terrible.

You won’t ever confuse it for George R. R. Martin… but you won’t confuse it for L. Ron Hubbard either.

Considering I can’t stand Martin’s writing, that would be a plus.

(Hubbard was an even worse hack.)

Doflamingo.6957:

so the players who are 40+ years old might not even make it till the last expansion if it continues so slow.

Considering I am 42 years old, kindly go kitten yourself.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Anet has still yet to fix bugs that have been in the game since launch…

The release of HoT will change nothing…

the bugs will still remain as they always have.

In pretty much every MMO, including mega-successes like WoW, there are launch bugs that still remain, and pretty much will remain, until the day the game eventually ends. Bugs are basically smashed based upon how much they impact the core features of a game, to what degree, how many players are affected (determined through datamining), and how many resources it would take to find and fix that broken code.

Launch bugs in an MMO years later are nothing new.

They’re fun. Why the hell else would those of us who do them, do them,?

Sealreth.1425:

Hunting specific things is never a good name example

I won’t defend the specialization name under the Guardian profession, as I agree that it doesn’t seem to really fit there.

However, hunting specific things is never a good name example grated on me. It’s a very common thing in the fantasy genre, both in fiction and in RPGs. And I’m stating that as someone who makes a living at, and has been award nominated in, both the fiction and table-top RPG writing/design industries.

Much as I hate these replies, if a lack of mounts keeps your friends from playing, then the hard truth is that this isn’t the game for them. It really is that simple.

But, I have to ask: did your friends join the WoW forum criers over no flying in Draenor, too?

Celtic Lady.3729:

3 seems kind of ridiculous for an actual expansion. Expansions normally involve a significant addition of map content. That’s kind of the point, after all. We’ve finished with the previous locations and want new ones to keep us busy.

In LOTRO, for instance, an update that is a fraction of the cost of a real expansion introduces 1-3 new zones of content.

And in SWTOR, it is less than that.

Sorry, the point can be made both ways.

Good to know that GW2 suffers the same types of posts as every other MMO that does system changes with an expansion.

Sigh.

I’m 42, so I suppose that might qualify if you are only early 30’s.

mauried.5608:

Im 66 and been playing MMOs since Anarchy Online, if anyone can remember that.
Heres an interesting question though.
Trying to get one of my friends whose the same age as me into this game , and she hasnt got a lot of dexterity in her hands, so which class needs the least button mashing to play?

I started MMOs in 1999 when I joined Everquest 1. I played Anarchy Online at launch in 2001, though. Didn’t stick with that one very long.

Prototypemind.4026:

Honestly, this game handles skin/item rotations and availability very poorly. SWTOR is horribly managed at this point in terms of general content development, dev support with bugs, and other issues, but they are cleaning up with their cash shop, and I can guarantee that if you log on there now 98% of items that have ever been in their Cartel Market are either currently available or will be back in rotation within the next few months. Furthermore, because players can buy excess of said items or get them via RNG-gambling boxes—which sell like crazy in all games for whatever reason—and sell them to other players on the game’s equivalent of the TP, highly-sought after items are profitable to EAWare at release, profitable to players wanting to make in-game currency off of them, and allow players who weren’t in the game at the time of release to still get them. SWTOR manages to get not only $15 a month out of its subscribers, but said subs are the major purchasers of the Cartel Market coins that pushed that game to two $100M+ years in a row despite an outdated game engine and numerous other troubles.

Guild Wars 2 is relatively shallow when it comes to what to do once you hit 80. As I was leveling my first characters I bought things that would make the experience more fun and more my own. There were many items that I would have loved to have but because of the slow as molasses or non-existent re-release schedule for some items they couldn’t be had. That’s real money missed out on for Anet.

I just started a new MMO about two weeks ago and have already dropped about $50 in the cash shop because they have a much better overall skin system. It’s not perfect, but I found a better selection of items that I wanted and I didn’t have to continually PvP grind, map complete, or spend real money to maintain that look as I leveled. The majority of their skins also remain available at all times. Maintaining the same look as you level in this game is utterly painful as a new player if you don’t take breaks to allow daily trans rewards to accumulate, PvP—a grind if you don’t enjoy it here, which I don’t—or throw real money at the game to continue buying charges.

This has really devolved into another topic entirely, but bottom line is that Anet sees huge spike with the way that they handle the release and removal of certain items, but they are not seeing the continual payouts that they would if they handled the cash shop better. F2P games see faster roll out of content and cosmetics than we’re getting here currently, and higher dollars earned at the end of the year. There’s no way this game’s cash shop is doing as well as it could be if it had more items available.

I agree that the offerings in the Gem Shop could be better. However, the moment they add more and more to it, then you have people like the OP who will endlessly continue complaining because:

1) There’s all those items in the Cash Shop requiring money

and/or

2) Getting them at no cost in the game requires too much time and repetition.

IndigoSundown.5419:

McNinja.5417:

The real issue with this game is incredibly apparent from level 1 with any character, but I’ll relate my charrs experience: my character does 26 damage to an ascalonian ghost. NPCs do about 1. Maybe. Why is that bad? Because it’s stupid. Are you just another soldier in the Legion or are you some special snowflake? Because you sure as hell aren’t special outside of the personal story.

It’s like Iron Man thinking he’s one of a kind and incredibly powerful, only to find that there’s about 425,000 others who are either the EXACT same as him or slightly different. You aren’t unique. You aren’t special. You aren’t the only one that’s killed zhaitan, and even if you were, it’s not like killing him changed anything. Orr is the same whether Zhaitan is alive or dead, and I assume Maguuma will be the same way.

This is the nature of any MMO: all player characters are around the same power level and the persistent world is persistent. If it’s wrong in GW2 then it’s wrong in all of them.

Yeah, I don’t know what else to tell McNinja. If you want a game where your actions specifically affect the game world and the NPCs, I’d strongly suggest playing a single player RPG game.

Otherwise, what you described is the nature of MMOs. Outside of your personal story (if the game has one, such as GW2 or SWTOR), you do not affect the game world, NPCs, or events in any type of way except that you are one member of the player base that also got to experience that content. That’s it, nothing more. The game worlds are static such as they are to facilitate a vast player base online at the same time, as well as the new players that come into the game.

Eventually, we might see MMOs that could phase the game world as you complete things, such as what WoW (and some others) does with certain zones, questlines, and so forth. However, that opens another issue in that if your friends are not on the same phase of the same questline, you’re unlikely to be able to group with them. This specifically drove the wife and I nuts beginning with Cataclysm, when Blizzard went a little crazy with the questline phasing.

Devata.6589:

CureForLiving.5360:

Test.8734:

Irrelevant. You are not “REQUIRED” to advance the game. You aren’t even “REQUIRED” to play the game at all.

You’re mixing context here. I do believe ‘required’ here is placed within the context of the game itself and its mechanics.

Devata.6589:

With grind in a game it’s always an ‘if’. IF you want X you need to grind. If you want to do the highest level raids in WoW you need to grind, if you want cosmetics, toys (and so on) in GW2 you need to grind.

Since most new content in WoW takes the form of raids you’d be excluded from a large potion of content if you do not grind for better gear. Access to gameplay content is being walled off. You can’t really liken not being able to play content in the game with having a fancy weapon skin. The only grind in GW2 is fractals and technically leveling, in all other regards there is no content with a barrier to entry that requires grinding.

New content being mainly raids? Every expansion they add new toys, mini’s, mounts, armor and weapons (skins), toys, ranger pets and so on, all having their own content behind it.

With MoP they added a type of Pokémon system for mini’s, so a complete new game mechanic mainly targeting these type of players. They have ‘fun crafts’ (that lets you create this sorts of items) like engineering, that get expanded every expansion. All those things can keep people busy until the next expansion.

So no, most new content is not raids. It’s also all these things. It is exactly what GW2 missis or has as a big grind, and for a game that is so focused on cosmetics and ‘casual players’ that is a big problem.

“You can’t really liken not being able to play content in the game with having a fancy weapon skin.” Linken? You mean ‘compare’ right? No maybe you can’t, for example for me not being able to do the highest level raids would be less of a problem then having the fancy weapon skin behind an never ending brainless grind.

Yes, and in nearly every case of what you mentioned up there about WoW, it is a grind. Don’t tell me it isn’t, because I do play WoW, and started in its Beta. So, I’ve been there for all the “versions” of what Blizzard has done with the game.

Even the Battle Pets are a grind, and not necessarily a fun one after the first 10-15 levels of it. But yet to even do the Battle Pet Menagerie quests for your Garrison in Draenor, you’d better darn well have some seriously high level, grinded, Battle Pets.

I’ve played a vast majority of the MMOs on the market since I started with EQ1 in 1999. That is not an exaggeration. There are a couple I haven’t played, such as EVE, TERA, and ESO, but by far, I’ve played the vast majority.

Now, I’ll admit that I enjoy WoW when I do decide to subscribe and play, and ditto for SWTOR. But that said, GW2 is by far one of my favorite MMOs out there.

It’s nice to have the freedom to not be on a railroad, while not having to run the same dungeons or raids ad nauseum just to keep up with the latest expansion/gear reset.

I’ve yet to find a grind in GW2 that I “have to do.”

So, OP is in a Buy-to-Play game as opposed to a Buy-The-Game-Pay-A-Monthly-Subscription-to-Play game, and he’s complaining about the grind or a cash shop?

I rarely proclaim this, but entitled much? You paid a one-time fee to play the game, the original game box/download buy in. No subscription fee (never mind a subscription fee WITH a cash shop, as is become common in the industry as well), and you’re complaining because some things are a grind, or you spend some cash in the shop?

Seriously?

1) MMOs have a grind. Get used to it, or might I suggest a non-MMO game.

2) Pretty much every MMO out there, F2P or subscription based, has a cash shop now where cosmetics are sold (and in many F2P games, real gear as well). GW2 has a very generous model. So, yes, if you want those super nice or rare cosmetics, you will grind them or buy them. That’s pretty much the MMO model. If that doesn’t work for you, than sadly the MMO style game is probably not for you.

Behellagh.1468:

I have the feeling that those who complain about lack of permanent content are slumming here from their subscription MMO and are upset when they return here after exhausting the content in their “primary” MMO, find that they can’t play the content that came and went during their time away. They find it unfair that they have to “devote” themselves to this MMO to experience the content. That they can’t take time off because they will miss something.

Welcome to TV before reruns, syndication, streaming, DVRs and box sets. Now we have a DVR. Maybe we’ll get a box set for season 1 someday.

Invalid argument. Let me say first, though, I could not care any less about Season 1 being temporary. Yes, I missed it. But I do not care.

Anyway, “Welcome to TV before reruns, syndication, streaming, DVRs and box sets. Now we have a DVR. Maybe we’ll get a box set for season 1 someday.” is an asinine argument. This is 2014, not 1999.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Ahh, I see from your post in another thread, you have decided not to come back . Oh well, maybe some other year. Good luck.

The responses here, after I made that post, have caused me to not make a final decision yet. Likely, I’ll just let the computer download and patch the thing, and give it a shot. Nothing to lose but a little time, after all.

I also hate this forum name. I wish I could change the thing. It’s what I get for being busy and telling my teenager to set up the account for me when I first bought the game. /Sigh.

I love the open world stuff. Did dungeons back when I played before, and hated GW2 dungeons. No interest in WvWvW, as my comp isn’t top notch, so it is a lag fest.

How vital are dungeons and WvWvW to traits?

Was about to reinstall, come back, and level anew.

No thanks, Anet.

Thinking of taking the time to reinstall and come back, but from what I’ve read feedback on, the Trait changes seem to be bad. Honestly, is it that bad?

I would be starting over at this point, and I enjoyed building my character as I went, since weapon skills maxed out fairly early. Sounds like the Trait changes destroyed that, and if so this might not be the game for me.