Also, great insight pointing out that this is not WoW. Amazing observation. WoW being the king of MMOs set the precedent for nearly every MMO that has come after. They are the example that other developers follow for many things, including gameplay, interface, and player desires. The point seems lost on you as to why a new MMO would follow the example of the industry leader, and this is not only evident in gaming but all aspects of business an marketing, so I’m not going to spend time trying to educate you. But should you wish to discredit your own opinions less and start making actual contributions to discussion in the future, consider your handle on the facts before you start lecturing. It will be a lot less embarrassing in the long run.
WoW is the king of MMOs for several reasons, all of which have been adequately determined:
- It offered a fairly tame set of system requirements. Furthermore, it was an MMO for those who owned Macs to play. These things lead to the game being more accessible and thus more people can play it if they choose.
- It came at an opportune time. EverQuest was winding down and there really wasn’t a good successor coming into the market.
- It took everything the previous “big fish” (EverQuest) did and tweaked it. EverQuest had a lot of things implemented in it, but they just weren’t as well-executed as WoW did later.
- Currently, there are so many people playing it (for whatever reason) that people who play other games eventually go back because “all my friends are there”. This is perhaps one of the most powerful reasons it has stayed the king.
The problem is a lot of failed MMOs have been started primarily to compete with WoW without actually offering enough to draw the masses away. GW1 succeeded because it was never intended to “kill World of Warcraft”, it was its own game and its own style.
(Sarcasm on.)
Of course, Guild Wars 2 is a blatant clone of World of Warcraft, all the way down to the orcs . . . I mean charr . . . and the night elves . . . I mean, sylvari. Heck we even have Illidan, I mean Trehearne. And we even have a limitless amount of raid content available for you to seek out the most prestigious gear which drops 0.04% of the time.
(Sarcasm off)
Now, as to the question presented in the title – Ascended armor isn’t in the game yet. Right now we have Accessories (back), Rings, and Amulets. They’re stronger due to the scaling-up of the Fractals by the time Agony shows up (which is the primary reason to be wearing Ascended gear even before stats)., so it’s meant to be what you use to do your Fractal work.
. . . and show of hands, if Ascended Gear only had the statistic boost while in Fractals and everywhere else it had Exotic stats, who’d still be complaining?
All of what you said about WoW is common knowledge. That was my point.
Interesting idea about Fractal gear only working in Fractals though. I’ve seen it done in other games and it never worked, but it all comes down to implementation I guess.
Personally, I have no problem with how it is now, and I think majority of posters in this thread are just the usual MMO garbage that show up in every new game, complain for months, and move on to the next big thing as soon as it comes out so they can complain about that, all while boasting about how they’ve played since beta as if that meant a thing anymore.
Luckily ANet seems to see them for what they are as well (they’re not exactly new to this) and tunes them out accordingly.