Guild Wars 2

Silent Majority AKA Argumentum ad populum without the populum.

Enough people believe this logical fallacy though, so it must be true! see what I did there?

Hey Lefty. I’m probably not taking a huge break, but trying to get some perspective. I’m really burned out on Fractals and there are so many other good games coming out. I’m kinda concerned that with vertical progression I will get left behind.

If I leave GW2 for six months and come back, will I be able to play all of the content in the game? Keep in mind I am level 80 in full exotics.

Definition (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect):

The overjustification effect occurs when an expected external incentive such as money or prizes decreases a person’s intrinsic motivation to perform a task. According to self-perception theory, people pay more attention to the external reward for an activity than to the inherent enjoyment and satisfaction received from the activity itself. The overall effect of offering a reward for a previously unrewarded activity is a shift to extrinsic motivation and the undermining of pre-existing intrinsic motivation.

I don’t think you could find a better argument against vertical progression than this. People flocked to GW2 because of a promise that the game would be intrinsically rewarding. The gameplay was tight, the encounters were fun, the WvWvW was exciting, and the lore was interesting. Playing the game in and of itself was rewarding, and the mechanics and build choices were deep enough that you just played to get better at playing and try new challenges.

You can still do all that stuff too. It’s all still there. Nothing is stopping you from enjoying it, and yet some people had an unexplained shift in their desire to play and their motivation to log in when Ascended gear was introduced. Others don’t see what the big deal is. I recommend both sides read the above link as well as Motivation to perhaps find some understanding.

I suggest ANet read it as well, and consider reversing the changes already in place. A well designed game will have people playing because it is intrinsically rewarding. A poorly designed game will have people playing because of an imaginary carrot.

I don’t watch TV to be honest. Don’t even have a tv subscription, just internet. You would be amazed how much time a family and job can take up.

Hey all. With all the negativity in here, I wanted to pop in with a positive message and maybe make folks feel better. I’ve been playing mmos for years, since I was a teenager and cutting my teeth on Ultima Online and…wait hold on a sec…

/map lfg fractals level 5

Where was I…oh yes I’ve been playing mmos for years and I rather enjoy the concept. Thousands of people coming together to enjoy a game. It is really great. The problem with other…oh wait a sec…

/map lfg for fractals level 5

…the problem with these things today though is I’m a grown man. You see, I have limited play time between family life, work, and everything else. I am lucky if I have 3 hours a night to play, and this really limits….

/map lfg for fractals, level 5

…really limits my enjoyment of most mmos. You see, when you get to the end game in most mmos all there is to do at end game is grind dungeons, and just finding a group for those can take a very long time. Too often in other mmos I would get a group, just to…

/map lfg for fractals, level 5

…just to notice I don’t even have enough time to finish the run before I have to go to bed. I’m certainly glad GW2 doesn’t have that problem. It is so easy to find a group and run a dungeon to advance. I don’t have to worry about falling behind due…

/map lfg for level 5 fractals

…due to my busy life. I really appreciate GW2 finally making a game that can fit in my life that I can play for years to come.

/map LF3M for fractals level 5.

tl;dr: If you want gear progression, there are plenty of other games that have it. Go play them. Let GW2 be unique.

Thank you all for reading this. Does anybody know who I can e-mail it to directly to make sure it is seen? I don’t think it contains enough vitriol to remain on the front page for very long in the sea of hate threads.

(continued from above)

Yet they seem to be intent on compromising their vision. With the introduction of a tiered gear system, no matter how low the tiers might seem now, the game moves itself further to the right on the graph. Every inch they inch towards the “hardcore” category is customers they will lose from their target market, while only temporarily gaining customers from the more hardcore crowd. They will drop in, consume the content, and go back to their games saying “Yeah it was fun but there just wasn’t enough to do.” There are so many games that provide a more hardcore experience, GW2 does NOT need to become one more, and can not if it wants to continue to survive in the competitive MMO market.

Please Arenanet, I urge you to reconsider the inclusion of tiered gear systems. I know nothing can be done about these few changes now for the upcoming content, but please think about the continued health of your company and the importance of your brand identity. You have made many loyal customers by daring to do something different in this massive MMO market, and it pains me to think you might now be compromising your vision because you believe you need to compete with those other games. Be true to yourself, and make the game you promised.

Thank you.

Hey all. I’m seeing a lot of rage posts about the upcoming addition of a higher tier of gear, and a lot of anti-rage posts who are for it. I figured I’d drop in here however, and explain a concept that I believe has relevance. I want to talk today about the concept of Market Positioning, and how it contributes to brand identity. If you are bored by serious business marketing speak, please go to another thread.

“Market positioning” is the idea that you can create a certain image for your company to appeal to a target market. This gives your brand a unique identity, which allows it to prosper in markets with a lot of competition. A good example of market positioning outside of the video game world is the auto industry. Cadillac has positioned itself as a luxury auto company, and Honda has positioned itself as a rather frugal and efficient auto company, where Volkswagon has used marketing to bill themselves as reliable and “fun”. They’ve built identities for themselves that allow them to prosper despite there being a ton of auto manufacturers.

How does this apply to this situation? Well it’s rather simple. Let’s imagine the MMO market as a sort of grid with two axis. On the horizontal axis, you have two sides. On the left, you have “casual (no gear grind, no timesinks, no gated content, low death penalty)”, and on the far right you have "hardcore (grinding for gear, high death penalty, large time investment required, heavily gated content) " . Then on the vertical axis, let’s imagine another axis, which on the bottom will have “PvP Focus” and on the top “PvE Focus”. I think using these axis, you can place pretty much every MMO in existence. EVE Online would be far in the lower right quadrant, making it “Hardcore/PvP Focused”. Many of the Korean MMOs would be very far to the right, and less far towards the top, making them “Extremely Hardcore, PvE Focused”. If you think about it, I’m sure you can think of places to put other MMOs on the grid.

Why is this relevant? Well quite simply, without a focused market niche, your MMO will die. This has been shown time and time again over the years as MMOs have risen and fallen by trying to occupy the same niche an existing product sits in and getting slapped down. It’s extremely rare that an MMO can be successful unless it sits in its own niche. To show the progression everybody knows…Ultima Online was a “Hardcore, PvP Focused” MMO. Then EQ came along, and had a still somewhat hardcore, but PvE Focus. This appealed to a different set of MMO gamers, who jumped ship because they enjoyed the more relaxing PvE aspects and didn’t want to deal with the PvP. UO reacted, changing their initial vision and alienating the customers they had left who enjoyed their product.

WoW then came along, and made a more casual PvE focused MMO, and appealed to the crowd that was enjoying EQ, but didn’t have time for the grind. Given that many MMO players were aging and getting more responsibilities, this lead to quite a few of them jumping ship. WoW then expanded its capabilities to include more PvP content, and more hardcore content. It saw that this hardcore content was alienating the players, so it made a model where the hardcore players got access to the content FIRST, but it was still accessible over time to the more casual players. It’s a very balanced approach, and has helped them become the most successful MMO over time. They have a very large blob on the graph.

How does this apply to GW2? Well I think part of the reason for GW2’s success is they promised to be very far into the casual side of things. If I were to classify them, I’d say they’re very far to the left of the graph, and slightly lower on the axis, making it “Extremely casual, slightly PvP focused” Upgrades being cosmetic only means that players like me who have responsibilities in their lives can step away from the game for a bit, and come back without fear of falling behind. They can enjoy the content at their own pace, and do what you find fun. This is extremely unique, and in my opinion is driven by ANet not really needing to hook players with the addictive Skinner Box (google it) of gear progression due to having no subscription fee. This puts them in a very nice niche, and if this vision isn’t compromised, gives them a very loyal customer base. Put simply, there is no other game out there that does this.

I love it, but then again I also don’t build a stupid glass cannon build with no durability. If you are having problems with downed players getting up, try using alternate methods to move them to defeated. You can either AOE around them when people are trying to rez them, or stack a ton of conditions on them from range. If they get back up and you have an AOE bomb going off on them, they’ll likely fall right back down again. If you are a Melee class, use a ranged secondary weapon to finish them off, or stack some temporary invulnerability powers to get the stomp off without getting interrupted.

I am against DEFEATED players being so easily brought back, and I wish they would continue to take damage in their defeated state to prevent just going in, rezzing a little bit, rolling out, and going back in again. It really makes battle swing hard when one side wins by just a little bit. I don’t think downed state is a problem.

You can either adjust your strategy, or cry to the devs to fix a mechanic you don’t like. Those of you against downed state have chosen the latter.

Alright SoR, be ready to rock and roll tonight. This next week is our week to show that our dominance wasn’t unearned. We will be competing in a higher tier, and will have to step our games up to show it.

Let’s kick some butt.

I for one welcome our new Ex-JQ homies. Although some guilds may feel threatened by the presence of a new dominant force stealing their personal thunder, I think having more power on our server can only lead to more victories.

I think I speak for all of FL when I say welcome to the server, and we look forward to shedding more blood with you in the weeks to come. Please do not feel unwelcome by the angry words of a few people with fragile egos.

McWaffle.1927:

Mara.5372:

Well.. At least I’ve been able to sleep and catch up on all my school work this week. But I’ll agree with Elthurien, “this was a hollow win nor do I feel like we deserve to move up a rank.” I liked the progression rate SoR had.. People coming to the server now want to sky rocket the server into the top tiers. It’s going to ruin our wonderful community. Hopefully when we start losing they’ll leave and all the original guilds can work SoR’s community back up to its former glory.

you realize your are the most malignant part of the “community” now that Furanku doesnt log on or rerolled an alt.

Most guilds wont even talk to you, let alone work with you. You are delusional.

See this? This stuff right here? Not productive.