Guild Wars 2

Khorrax.2108:

Had you not posted about how useless this addition would be, I might have taken you more seriously. But since we have balloons, brooms, mini pets, mail carriers and finishers in the game, I’d like you to explain how are those not useless in the grand scheme of things. Or, alternatively, just how vital they are because, considering the dev time and resources that went into those, they must be important. Because they wouldn’t waste precious dev time and resources on something trivial, right?

Good point. I now support this proposal, as long as it is done via implementation of a “Personalized Crafting License”, 1600 gems each. As long as the developers are paid for their time so they can keep folks on staff and spend more time focusing on things beyond trivial non-additions, I am fine with the little stuff.

nosleepdemon.1368:

It is truly a sad state of affairs when a suggestion is met with little more than negativity because it might take sand away from someone elses sandbox. Don’t worry folks, I am sure there is plenty of sand to go around!

Sand isn’t free, and neither are development hours.

I’ve just been waiting for a place to plug that speech in for a while. This thread worked.

I feel for you, I do, but that’s the way the market works. Guild Wars 2 has a very fluid economy with risks and rewards. For those saying that that system only encourages greed, well…

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good.

Greed is right.

Greed works.

Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.

And greed — you mark my words — will not only save the Trading Post, but it will save that little corporation called Tyria as well.

Very excited about the dye thing, and I wouldn’t mind Lunar New Year getting replaced with nothing if Lunar New Year itself had been more than a little lottery with nothing great from it and a minigame that I played about an hour a day and found to be meh.

NonToxic.9185:

Megaservers mean the game will -appear- alive at all hours until there are less than 50 people playing the game total!

This is a dramatic statement. There are A LOT of zones to fill. As long as the game has thousands of players online it will appear alive, yes, but we’re not even close to such a low population.

First off, let me say that I am a huge fan of the overriding story arch. I am totally enthralled by bringing the fight to Mordremoth, I’ve found myself delving into the lore, and I even dig the side stories involving Rytlock, etc..

Still, I feel like all of this puts a little too much emphasis on the main story, and it would be cool to see a few more little progressions out in the world.

I know it becomes a question of development time, etc., but as a guy who was a longtime tabletop player, the side stories can be the most intriguing.

After all, we’re heroes, and heroes don’t just slay the dragons. We rescue the hamlets, we solve the crisis that saves dozens (not just entire planets). We did a lot of that as we were leveling up and doing world completion, but now it seems like we’ve elevated above all that.

Take for instance the town of Garenhoff. It’s an amazing little spot in the game. It would be kind of cool for something to happen there without “Elder Dragon” written all over it. What if Isgarren got into some trouble and we needed to mount a rescue into his castle? What if Isgarren died and we needed to defend the village from swarms of suddenly untamed elementals, all the while trying to figure out who can replace him, as it turns out that the magic he controlled is intrinsic to the location and needs a master to be held in check?

Some other games do a pretty cool job of introducing dungeons and other content that isn’t all tied in to the “big story”, but still relevant to our players. While I am (all in all) satisfied with the Living World, these little side changes could push me over the edge, going from someone who casually recommends the game to someone who effectively sells it to friends.

The opportunities across the world are nearly limitless. Yes, there are limitations on man hours, development priorities, etc., but I think these types of things would do more to draw players, purchases, etc. than having all development power focused on the main story arch.

Windsagio.1340:

I get why people deny the exclusivity/props motivation, it sounds selfish, and the exclusivity ends up changing it into a haves/have nots situation pitting the raiders against the non-raiders (and kidding aside, we know how those numbers go down, even in ‘raid’ games). Still, I think most of us know that without that exclusivity/props (and titles aren’t enough) those raids would be empty as hell.

I cannot disagree with this point enough. As long as raids weren’t a complete waste of time (rewards comparable to current SW rewards per hour), I would pick raids over Silverwastes as often as the group constraints allowed. I enjoy raid content for the content, generally. Please stop generalizing the motivations of those of us who would enjoy this content.

This. This. 100 times this.

Beldin.5498:

And of course there is always the thing that raiders think they are better and need to get “exclusive rewards”. So 95% will also maybe get less new armor skin because the developers have to create “exclusive” stuff for those 5%.

Then there will be all the drama that people feel they are forced to play stuff
they don’t enjoy to get that exclusive stuff .. and so on and so on ..

And yes .. even if people here maybe don’t want a gear treadmill .. the words
“exclusive rewards” were used in most of the posts in the Raid-CDI

This is a straw man attack. Not a single person in this thread has argued for exclusivity, by my count, and looking at the Raid CDI, neither did “most” of the people posting. If we’re going to discuss this, let’s avoid these types of things and focus on arguing the merits vs. demerits of what people are actually proposing, not some boogeyman system you’ve designed in your head to hate.

I say yes, and I want to address a few things.

1. For those opposed to raids based on other games, you need to keep in mind the gear treadmill those games propagate. Because Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have that, raids won’t be “mandatory” for players. ArenaNet just needs to balance rewards so that raids are worth the effort and on pace with the open world PvE content. A raid should have similar rewards timewise to the current Silverwastes meta, or whatever the new meta ends up being.

2. I think this forum, anecdotally, underestimates the number of players interested in this content. I can’t think of a single member of my 35-man guild who wouldn’t want to run raids. That does introduce some questions about raid size, lockouts, repeatability, etc., but those are more logistical than “yes or no raids” dealbreakers.

3. Instanced content has been a part of this game since launch, and is not mutually exclusive to open world content. I adore Vinewrath and Breach, but also love fractals. The game is capable of doing multiple things well.

4. If anything, raids will attract a different breed of player, and I think we all realize that expanding the playerbase is good for the long term development of this game on all fronts. More players equals more development, and I have a number of friends from other MMOs who enjoy Guild Wars 2 but want to see more instanced content before they invest heavily time-wise (and inevitably, with their money).

Long story short, I believe ArenaNet can walk and chew gum at the same time. Raids yes.

Astralporing.1957:

It is not a fruitless argument, because it may in fact affect how many players will quit.

Who cares? Anyone who is a somewhat serious player will buy the expansion and continue playing. More new players will flood in as the Xpac gets press, reviews, and word of mouth. Those who go missing? They’re not the people who use this forum. They’re not the people who you see often in your guild. They’re basically invisible now, and this theoretical argument about them has little bearing on any of us.

sorudo.9054:

and what if i am planning on proving you wrong, still irrelevant then?

Yes, you won’t be representative of the player base writ large.

This entire conversation is irrelevant. There will be effectively no non-HoT players in the game a couple months after it drops. The remainder will buy the game or quit. This is a relatively fruitless argument about a hypothetical.

psizone.8437:

They’ve stated that you won’t need the expansion to keep playing the base game, if this new map is on a rotation, if it isn’t free for everyone, it would contradict that.

I don’t doubt the majority will buy the expansion or quit, but even if it’s an extremely small number of players that just want to play the base game, they’ll need to make sure they don’t prevent them from doing so.

I don’t understand why people are being so aggressive about one map in the most neglected game mode in the game being free.

It’s because it’s not a big deal and those saying that rotating out one map out of 4 available is some violation of some blood pact ArenaNet made with us. Yes, you can continue playing the base game, and you will still have multiple WvW maps to choose from. You won’t have one of your nearly identical borderlands to choose from, big deal.

As I said, however, these experiments in the hypothetical based on some fictional core game non-HoT playerbase are counterproductive. That playerbase will be far too small to deserve any development team time or ArenaNet attention.

psizone.8437:

Whilst it’ll be a small number of players that don’t buy the expansion and play WvW, it’ll be extremely bad publicity for them if they shut out even a small number of players from a game mode they’d been playing for years.

No, it won’t be bad publicity, because this is standard across all MMOs. Ultimately, there won’t be players without the expansion who continue playing this game (at least not more than 1-2%). It’s a myth. It’s a nice theoretical exercise but ultimately every active player in GW2 will buy HoT or quit.

HoT, if it’s like any major expansion any other major MMO has put out, will also create interest and bring in new players who buy the bundle. The game will have a larger unified player base post-HoT than we do now, even if we lose a few folks who want more free content.

Players will either buy the expansion or stop playing the game. Let’s stop pretending like there will be a sizeable contingent of core game players that don’t get HoT. There won’t be.

The entire purpose of this conversation is not to debate the merits of paying for dungeons, but rather to find a community-derived price if they were to implement a system like that. It’s entirely fair to propose a question and ask people to stay on topic with their answer without going tangential.

The point of this thread is not to debate whether or not you’d pay for dungeons. It’s not to debate instanced content as a concept. This is a simple thread for people who would be willing to buy access to additional dungeons to say so, and give ArenaNet an idea of how many folks in the community would do this.

If you wouldn’t, you’re not pertinent to this discussion. Other people spending money would in no way obligate you to spend money.

Let me kick things off. I would be willing to pay 800 gems for a decent dungeon path, and I’d spend cash.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

The big question here is which parts of expansion will remain expansion only features and which will be general upgrades to the game available to all.

The point of this post is to note that this is not “the big question” because it’s mindless speculation from a bunch of players who are undoubtedly going to buy the expansion anyway. I love speculation, but we can speculate on things that might actually matter…

Dasenthal.6520:

In fairness to the people who want to pay in gold, Anet gets just as much real $. It just comes from people buying gems and turning it into gold instead of spending it themselves (or buying more than normal and selling surplus)

Um, no, ArenaNet does not get as much real $. If the gold they spent they farmed ingame, ArenaNet gets nothing. Heh.

I am a long time MMO player. I’ve played the major standards, as well as a number of other games that have come and gone.

Let’s be really clear — players are going to buy the expansion or they will quit playing the game. Not a single major MMO has had a substantial number of players continue playing without an expansion.

The original Guild Wars, due to the campaign nature, was a different beast. GW2 follows a more traditional MMO model.

So please, let’s stop talking about a “divided playerbase” as if we don’t know that 99% of those active in the game 2 months post-HoT will have HoT. It’s not a real concern. It’s a myth. It’s absurd. Everyone is buying the expansion.

This is so laughable. If you’re like me and every other person I play with, you’ve received your money’s worth out of buying the game. Living Story has been a perk, not something you’re entitled to.

If you want to complain because a buy-to-play game is going to have buy-to-play expansions, please, leave. Find a free to play game where you can revel in the subpar content that your fairytale view of a world without profit leads.

I just wanted to share what was my most memorable week of Season 2. Prior to the attacks on Fort Concordia and Fort Salma, vines were spreading across waypoints in Tyria. This forum was rife with speculation, including maps of the spread. At no point in this did ArenaNet tell us what was happening or what was coming.

We could use a little bit more of this.

While I have immensely enjoyed the big episodic updates, the silent little things stick with me the most, and really make the world feel “alive”. I think some updates like this prior to HoT could do more to build hype and fuel excitement than any “deep dives” or trailers ever could.

Imagine some seed pods showing up in Metrica one day and the next day them spawning some meta events that only exist for a couple days, with decent drops to boot. Later in the week, packs of Mordrem wolves show up springing from a breach-like hole in Lornar’s Pass. Meanwhile, we have no patch notes to read to tell us where to go — we’re experiencing the surprises organically.

I know that some of my friends who have left the game who are watching the expansion news and weighing whether to return to the game would come back for those types of things.

Obviously if nothing like this is planned, you can’t just cook things up overnight, but I think the surprises go a long way. Just my two cents.

No, because they don’t “come from” Jormag as the Sylvari “come from” Mordremoth.

I would appreciate if this thread isn’t hijacked by alternative discussions about map completion and unlocks.

None of the suggestions make content replayable for those of us who prefer not to create alts. As far as the developer effort, I don’t think any of us can adequately postulate on what it would take within their framework to implement this change.

For some reason, I have never been a huge fan of alts. I’ve played a number of MMOs and RPGs, including the original Guild Wars, and while I occasionally level another character, I never really devote any significant play time to alts.

It’s for that reason that I think that level 80 characters with map completion should be able to reset their maps to blank. This will allow us to pursue gifts of exploration and the various map rewards without being bottleknecked into playing another character. I am literally considering making an exact clone of my main with tomes of knowledge to do map completion again, but I’d prefer not to have to burn the tomes and slot.

I know I am a rare case, but I think the number of alt-weary players is higher than you may think. I don’t see a substantial downside, as long as players have to reset the map in its entirety and can’t simply reset one map at a time to farm rewards.

Here’s my Elementalist, my only true character.

Magnus’s Right Eye Patch
Radiant Mantle
Soul of Koda
Winged Gloves
Ascalonian Performer Pants
Path of Koda

Here’s to hoping I can find some more items that fit the “battlemage” type theme in HoT. Do you know how hard it is to find pants that don’t clip my weapons?

It’s worth remembering that you can invite your friends, guildies, etc. to your home instance where they have access to those nodes. The outlay numbers over time become less insane if you’re letting 4-5 people harvest them per day.

Let me just add in that I agree. Hopefully Gaile can relay that this pretty much unanimous. Heh.

I occasionally like to check my “nearly completed” achievements to see if I have one or two that I can easily knock out. Unfortunately, the various coin collection achievements have taken over that portion and I’m not exactly in the mood to go coin hunting.

Can we have a “hide achievement” button for the “nearly completed” portion, please?

Endo Kazuki.2086:

Are you this obsessed with the expansion? It is a transcript of a phone interview. They either forgot a ’’s’’ or it is really one map. Frickin wait for the details in the upcoming months. =.=

Yes, I am this obsessed, and as I note above, I am hoping that a number of the explanations play out. That being said, speculation isn’t unhealthy. It’s a relatively normal human reaction to uncertainty, and I intend to continue in a civil version of said speculation that won’t be contained by someone telling me to “frickin” do something.

All very possible explanations. I am hoping the deep dives confirm my optimism as opposed to the occasional pessimism. I am a “fanboi” so to speak, so I find myself thinking they’ll do something amazing.

The following has me very concerned (although I am otherwise hyped for this expansion). I don’t like the singular here:

From an environment standpoint, this is the largest amount of vertical space we have ever built in the game. Our map spans huge distances up in the air. We are actually able to climb to the very top of the jungle and look down on everyone below. We’re adding hang gliding, so you won’t have to fall to your death every time. We’re adding a lot of abilities that will take advantage of the amount of 3D space that we’ll make use of as part of these adventures in the jungle.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/87848/guild-wars-2-director-discusses-heart-of-thorns-revenants-guild-halls-and-more

I’m hoping the expansion is going to be the same price as the full game at launch. That’s an indication they are confident in the amount of content being delivered. As far as folks who say the amount of content is anemic, I would like to know how you saw the size/scope of masteries, specializations, and the new Maguuma Jungle zones.

Whatever Mesmer is, it’s going to use shield per the announcement video. Necromancers get greatswords and Engineers get hammers.

lorazcyk.8927:

PvE should be okay at 1366 × 768 minimum quality. I recommend a EU (European) server even if you’re in the US. Your computer is going to struggle in US servers because there’s too many characters and skill effects to show on the screen. EU servers have less people but definitely enough people to play with, and they speak English.

I don’t think your computer can handle US WvW. Even powerful computers struggle with it. If you plan to do a lot of WvW definitely go EU. Ask for a good but smaller server on the WvW forums.

I absolutely disagree with this. While your rig might not handle max settings or anything, I previously had a weaker set-up and handled U.S. WvW fine. Welcome to the game!

To those arguing that no one will pick up a game three years after launch if they weren’t interested already, I recommend you look at the life cycles and subscription numbers of “that other MMO”.

I played it, and picked it up about 2 1/2 years after launch, and when I played it about a year ago, most of the folks I was playing with picked it up some time after the first expansion, let alone Vanilla. There’s still plenty of growth time left in this game if ArenaNet delivers.

I am a map hopper. Let me make that clear first. I use the LFG to jump between Silverwastes maps for the same reasons that others do — it’s the most efficient use of my time for the rewards. Breach and Vinewrath are very rewarding content, and I give kudos to ANet for scaling the rewards properly for the execution.

That being said, I do wish that we didn’t have to rely on LFG and that folks would complete maps start to finish. The “Hero of the Wastes” buff is a start, but 50% MF and some extra bandit crests won’t cut it.

My solution would be for the map to trigger bonus chests (side of screen) at 25%, 50%, and 75% pact preparation. Also set it so that these chests escalate in rewards as long as you were present for the previous event. Tequatl has a similar mechanism with the defense phases, so I know it’s doable. Make it rewarding for folks to finish a map start to finish. As long as breach hopping is more efficient, that will remain the meta.

Snarftastic.6709:

I’m curious though, as a person who enjoys all content, from casual to hardcore PvE to PvP, is there a ton to do end game? Also, am I able to enjoy a lot of it solo, like solo farming things (an all-time favorite, don’t ask why), and when I want to, obviously group for everything I need to!

My input is this — this game has a ton of end game as long as you’re willing to engage in personal goal setting and you don’t need your end game defined for you.

There’s no easy to follow continually escalating gear treadmill. You need to set goals like full ascended armor, legendary weapons, gaining “Commander” for World vs. World, various titles, or high level fractals.

I think this game has one of the richest end game experiences of any MMO I’ve played (and I’ve played a lot). That being said, that’s because I have created my own end game goals. If you’re capable of doing that, you won’t be disappointed.

Here’s mine, Asura snark intended. Ha!

I am a huge proponent of ascended being in game. It’s a manageable amount of vertical progression for those of us that prefer that without breaking the game’s horizontal progression focus and lack of gear treadmill.

That being said, it’d be nice if ascended drops, particularly those in fractals, had some more value. Even a 1g or 2g vendor price would make the drop feel a bit more rewarding, especially for players like me who have their preferred characters in full ascended.

I have the reverse problem. I would actually pay for my map to reset so I can redo it all on my main character.

Vayne.8563:

For a start, most free to play games, generally add content expansions for free, including EQ 2, just off the top of my head.

EQ 2 is owned by Sony. Not exactly a tiny business.

Guild Wars 2 is not a free to play game. We are a “buy to play” game. It is logical and within ANet’s model that the expansion would be “buy to play”.

Ricky Da Man.5064:

Dont get me wrong, it would likely mean every single piece of content introduced would of been designed with how much they can stuff into the cash shop in mind.

Infact, It will likely be like paying to get exclusive access to the new store items!

My exact fear if the expansion is NOT paid. When their model is gem shop driven, you get gem shop centric content. If their model is based on selling a couple million boxes or digital downloads, the content itself becomes pivotal.

From a very basic economic standpoint, the higher the profit motive the higher the incentive to produce a good product. Paid content is more likely, in general, to be better content because of that corollary. My wallet is open and waiting ArenaNet.

Zypher.7609:

So you could get something for free, and yet you want to pay money for it. Paid expansion does not make sense, it could easily be a free large update. Gem store generates enough funds to cover everything no need to bring out a paid expansion that the company has been against since day one.

I would love to see some sort of evidence that ArenaNet has been opposed to a paid expansion since day one, considering they’ve used the paid campaign/expansion model in the past.

Shetta, the Asura thief trainer in Lion’s Arch, has a problem.

She is way too big to be an actual Asura. I think she is a human child in disguise. See attached screenshot, and note that I am not a small Asura.

Nokaru.7831:

Explain how not using AoE helps more than it hurts without going off-topic. Try to answer it in three sentences or less without going off on several different tangents.

(Hint: You can’t, if you actually understand how the boss works)

AoE abilities have other effects, such as Ice Bow applying conditions and various ele AoEs serving as blast finishers (and thus can stack things like might, which increase condi damage). Also, a broad based AoE can assist in killing bubbles before they reach the boss. Here’s my spare third sentence.