Guild Wars 2

I really like the “Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto” posted on April 27, 2010.
What is vision for a good game, everyone should read it.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/

I also like following in “how ArenaNet Measures Success” posted on June 19, 2012.

“If our model was subscription based, we might be spending all this time racing to add as much filler content as possible to keep players chasing the carrot, but as content designers with the goal of making fun, we get to spend this time refining our content and making it amazing. As designers this is both liberating and refreshing in an industry where so rarely do developers get time from publishers to actually polish their games. (High-five, NCsoft!)”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success/

Just could not schedule life around this game. Tried several times to unlock new traits, but could not make it to the events on time. Nothing is fun in the game after latest update. There are just so many better things to do than playing a game that is not fun any more.

How long will this break from the game be? Just a week, a month, 3 months, a year or more ?

Agree.

Brown Fang Thump.9482:

Joining a guild shouldn’t feel like volunteering for a circuit of never-ending fetch quests.

The new guild system is evil, subjugating players into addicts and slaves.

This game is full of disappointments. Not much experience was expected.

The learning curve for skills and builds is long and complex despite what is advertised.

The time commitment for the game is huge for top gears and WvW coverage, not sure if it is for casual gamers.

Thought one can play it anytime one chooses; no, it’s more important to schedule life around events to be productive.

Dev said the update patch would encourage players to use full set of runes, but the “Superior Rune of Lyssa” lost all boons with all conditions removal after the update.

Thought “Hall of monuments” stuffs would be cool before GW2 was released, no one cares them now because “Legendries” have fancy foot prints.

Thought “Festival of the Four Winds” would be fun, but this time it has No Loot.

Somehow the PR for game always misleads and always deceptive.

I did not want offend anyone, apologies.

Nevertheless, I don’t understand why the original post was trashed by the forum monitor so quickly. I did not even read most of the responses.

The original vision in the Manifesto is superior in my opinion.

selan.8354:

1 day in pve in that glider/ mastery hell was enough for me…

Yeah.

Anet, since you are aware there are many players complaining not receiving that WvW rewards, maybe the players can have a better understanding of your effort in resolving this issue if you let us know how many people and how many work hours have you spent on this and what would be the budgeted labor cost.

Many thanks.

“Two weeks ago we polled the WvW community about Desert versus Alpine borderlands.

The majority of players asked us to bring Alpine back. We’ll do that.

It actually takes quite a bit of time to dust off old content and bring it up to the current game state, so it won’t happen in time for the quarterly release. Instead we’ll launch the quarterly update with improvements to Desert, use that as an opportunity to get the community’s feedback on those changes, then

we’ll swap to Alpine when it’s ready.

Changing borderlands maps like this will disrupt matches in progress, but we think that making changes on live servers, where everyone can test, is worth the cost."
-MO

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Upcoming-changes-in-Spring-Quarterly-Update

Only a WvW player would have a second screen displaying Millenium.

Only a WvW player would stay up at 3:00am and completely exhausted in front of a keyboard yet to repeat the same again and again.

After reading the replies, I can feel the caring and understanding from some of you. Thanks. I always believed that GW community has many intelligent, understanding, warm and caring players. It is your kind and thoughtful actions in and out the game brings pleasures in this otherwise tedious world mad with greed. Whether it is a well planned attack of a foe or a helping hand to others, these actions bring fun and happiness to life.

Here are some pictures of my pet.

1.. when you found no Commander tags and 3 players in the “Crown Pavillion”
2.. when your zerg has a size less than 30 in Eternal Battle ground
3.. when you could not find a zerg in Orr
4.. when you could not find a tag in Lion’s Arch
5.. when you only see two guildee’s online
6.. when you see players quitting on the forum
7.. when you could not gain an skill point after hours online
8.. when you see unbalanced WvW scores
9.. when you spend more time on the forum than in the game

10.. when you uninstall the game

Googled “Outside” and found these screenshots

https://www.google.com/search?q=Outside

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-each-class-feels-like-in-GW2/first#post3240642

This sounds like fun.

Lokman.8326:

..

why i have to be punished 100 times to do same progress for better gear

..

why i have to gather people do raid like wow or ffxiv to get gear -> legendary armor

its a punishment for casual players

not fair

..

Good questions.

Jayne.9251:

you never saw anyone from Deso on the forums complaining.

You might not see anyone complaining on the forum because some posts are deleted by censorship such as a thread by a Deso PUG Commander with 8K game time who came to this forum a few days ago to complain, quitting and thanking for the fishes.

His thread and all of its posts just total disappeared.

More time on the Forum. So much fun here.

This forum is the Guild Wars 2 Legacy.

A mind game between censorship and freedom.

There is nothing fun to do again.

Ok. Just want the developers to know.

The last fun thing was EoTM and after playing more than 60 hours of it, EoTM became boring because I learned the maps and mechanics and even commanded a few times.

Before EoTM, it was fun playing WvW, but WvW is even more boring than EoTM now.

No clue if there are any strategies in WvW for my server anymore except for the zerg to find opponents’ zerg then sizing and killing each other.

Before WvW, it was fun playing the final segments of the season 1 of the living story.

Before that was the Triple Wurms.

So these are the fun memories of GW2.

It was also around the Triple Wurms time, I learned to improve my gears and before that, the first 500 hours of playing this was very confusion, leveling, deciding what weapons and traits to use and just try to survive in WvW.

Now I found my build and I can survive hours in WvW and EotM. I also have skins and dyes I wanted and looked cool, and after 800 hours of playing I am a Silver Invader, just shy of the next rank at 670. But there is nothing fun to do anymore.

Yes. There are many activities I have not played much, like the dungeon, Fractals, holiday events, and Living Stories, or even completing my personal story, but I have no interest in any of them.

I did a dungeon once, and did not want to try anything like a dungeon again. Same with Fractals, played a couple of times and do not want to go back again. Went to Dry Top for 2 minutes and that was all I wanted to play for the living story season 2, and I have one of the Mist Forged Hero’s Weapon from a WvW Tournament that I would never use because they are ugly and I am not going back to Mad King’s Labyrinth because I had fun there 2 years ago, but last year’s visit was boring there already.

For people who love this game, please do not be upset about what I am writing here. I am writing because it is good for the developer to know why some players might not be active for a while.

If after the June 6 update tomorrow,

queues occur and skills lag,

Just go to EotM and have fun there.

EotM was created for this in the first place.

If you want to keep playing this game, there is advantage not having HoT for the following reason.

After playing HOT, you might find WvW less rewarding to spend time on. However, HOT contents are extremely boring and grindy that would make you not want to play it either.

So you might quit the whole thing after HOT experience.

Evidence suggests if you know someone who complain about addiction to this game, you could give HOT as gifts. After a couple of months in HOT, they are most likely be happy not playing it.

Soloed a Camp as an ele and Complete the WvW achievement in 4 days (started playing on Monday) and this is from someone who used to complain about having nothing to do in the game 4 month ago and scepter ele been weak and slow in WvW.

What changed?

Got better gears. Exotics and trinkets improved the game play.

Improved knowledge of skills and survivability thought movement.

Changed to D/D in WvW and flexible to staff, scepter and focus as needed.

Guest to play Triple Wurms and met a larger and exciting player base.

Joined WvW guilds and made friends there.

Sold loot and purchased the Commander’s Compendium.

Most importantly, time in the game added about 178 hours in the last 4 months bringing total game time 518 hours in 585 days.

Really excited to see all the features in the upcoming Feature Pack that would address many of the causes of complain I had.

sunny.5789:

make GW2 have only one mystic forge in SMC XD
( a crazy thought from China fourm

Yeah. Make some meaningful objectives unique would give more purpose for fights.

lordkrall.7241:

Lord of Rings.5371:

You know Mark responds to your post and you should ask him.

I am more interested in your answer

I can ask Anet.

“Is it Fun?”

Colin Johanson on how ArenaNet Measures Success

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success/

Just play GW2 for fun when you have time.

Have fun dude.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Guys, the last update was on Friday. Today is Monday. Contrary to popular belief, our developers have lives and families that they would like to live and see respectively.

Believe me when I say that we will provide an update as soon as we have an update to provide. Until that time, your continued patience is appreciated.

Thank you for the update.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Players are left on their own, and if they aren’t theorycrafters like the top 5% of us, they aren’t going to know squat about how to play the game.

Agree. After about over 450 hours of play, I learned to solo capping Sentries in WvW and after about 600 hours solo capping Camps.

Getting all the skills and reaching level 80 do not prepare players on how to use the skills effectively and what to equip.

It is a deep, complex, dynamic, and beautiful game that takes a lot of time to learn.

Knowing the complexity and depth of the game also discourages some players to continue because they could not rationalize the time invested in a game that does not offer any obvious real life rewards.

I want to read the responses of the community regarding the Manifesto and the original thread was deleted before I had chance to read them. So I am posting it again.

I like the graphics, the dynamic combat, the competition, and the social connection of the game. Truly it is the only MMO anyone even need.

The problem is that it is too attractive. This game can easily take over one’s mind resulting thousands hours of in game time and even more time thinking about the game while not playing it.

It is complex and deep. For example, there are traits and additional of 1315 (out of 9945) WvW rank abilities points after level 80, and as result many quit without really learned the game. But after spending enough time in the game, it can be very addictive.

For this reason, the game welcomes players back because it is only a matter of time before one loses one’s mind to this world. This could lead to lost of sleep, lost of time for physical activities, and lost focus in real life.

One way to escape is to be with people who do not play this game.

And plan ahead and do not involve your close ones in this, just in case your life wants you to be more focus on real life situations.

I have rephrased my post. I am learning the rules here.

We had a discussion about WvW rewards about a month ago.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Increase-rewards-for-WvW/first#post5934548

Thx for the rules. Does the current post break any rules?

that I have completed my priority list for the things to do in HOT.

1. Completed Elite Specialization (after about 10 HP for 5 hours in PVE, I did rest in EoTM)
2. Commanded EoTM zerg to farm Hero Points (it was very fun and rewarding)
3. Played around the Elite Specialization afterwards (Tempest was fun with a zerg but not so much with a small number of players)
4. Went back to Silver Waste the Complete a Mentor Tag (Completed the events twice and the second time was taxied to a overflow that did the whole thing around 30 min, amazing)
5. Went back to HoT the farm mastery and finished the 2nd level, Updraft (Learned the mechanics of waypoint events and did a few there and found Updraft is useful because it can save players from falling to the lower level).
6. Now I am back to be a casual player.

Hopefully by listing my experience can help some players to accomplish what they want to do.

Digable terrain for tranches and tunnels, floodable lowlands, and

Hide and seek lords who can escape to another structure to avoid capture and defeat.

Oh, all those Mats that are required for guild upgrades in WvW that many complained are designed to be bought with gems through Trading Posts. ANet knows WvW players do not have the patience to grind for PvE mats.

So be prepared to support guilds with gems.

Players go through the following process

1. Learning the game (many never go beyond this and quit.)

2. Spend thousands of hours for an in game achievement, this could be a skin or a title(this could be repeated until the real life is valued more than what is offered for wealth, health, social and mental in the game.)

3. Became a casual player (because upon the acquisition of an achievement, its value become ambiguous and diminishing.)

4. Spend more time on forum than in game (the memory of thousands of hours of game play stays in players’ mind for a long time.)

My experience for the second step was achieving the title of

“God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals”.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Kind_of_a_Big_Deal

Top Ten signs that You Know You’ve Played GW2 Too Much

10.. when you start serving “Omnomberry Tart” at a bakery
9.. when you will your estate to Anet
8.. when you have crafted all the legendaries
7.. when your hours in game is more than 50% of age of the game
6.. when your achieved rank of “Diamond Legend” in WvW
5.. when you have switched in and out every server
4.. when your account gold wealth is more than Bill Gate’s in real life
3.. when you starting to brag your online hours when applying a job
2.. when you schedule life around GW2 events and resets

and

1.. when you logged out the game for the very last time

Thanks for the history.

A few changes could have increased WvW activities.

April 2014

Death penalty was removed with “The End of Repair Costs”.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/say-goodbye-to-armor-repair-costs-and-hello-to-free-trait-resets/

Oct 2014
WvW Fall Tournament 2014 started an “Adopt-a-Dev” project.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/adopt-a-dev-was-a-blast/

August 29, 2015
Guild Wars 2 started “Play For Free”.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/play-for-free-today/

Why didn’t these efforts work is another topic.

Chaba.5410:

Lord of Rings.5371:

If WvW is for fun,

then maybe someone just missed the whole point.

What?

If WvW is currently structured for fun,

Why would someone feel the following?

Packit.8576:

Feel like the main issue with recruiting is the pool to recruit from just keeps getting smaller

“Fun” was the whole point missed by Dev as GW2 evolved to its current form;

a lot of stuffs introduced by HOT just wasn’t fun.

My guess is that the ArenaNet tag has special meaning to players.

I am sure players love to see developers playing their own game,

but seeing the developer’s tag could be distracting to others.

Why the complexity?

“Won’t somebody please think of the children?”

This update made game play less fun because the builds I have been playing have different outcomes due changes in skills and traits.

So I selected files GW2-64.exe and GW2.dat and moved them to the recycle bin and emptied them.

Thank you for the update.

I can tell some of the players here are more passionate about WvW than the developer.

Weekends usually have high turn out on the WvW maps where players ignore other things in life to play this game. They want to improve and perfect themselves in the game. They want to “fix” issues they encountered in the game, whether it is a score, a build, more gold, or improving a guild or a server.

Moreover, their presence provides entertainment for the opposition teams because without oppositions, there would be no bags to loot, no keeps to recapture and the game would not be fun.

Surely, if Anet is as passionate about WvW as its players, it would schedule overtime shifts in weekend with extra pay to have this fixed.

Second place characters automatically bowing to the winners and the third place kneeling when players encounter in Lions Arch.

morrolan.9608:

OK so YB and JQ are now full TC and Maguuma are not. My question to anet is how can you justify this?

Players are more likely to leave lower tiers to go to higher tiers.

With Tier 1 open and JQ full, there are likely more players leaving JQ to tier 1 servers.

This is a business after all.

Yes. Thanks for the update.

nosleepdemon.1368:

Everything about this game is designed to be simultaneously time consuming and incredibly addictive, this includes:

• offering an “easy” way out through converting gems to gold instead of farming
• a disconnect between real money and items purchased with it (gems)
• achievements and ranks that are visible to other players to create a sense of competition
• a direct correlation between the impressiveness of an item and the amount of time required to obtain it
• an economy tied directly to the real currency

When your game continuously incentivises players to reach for the next big thing; never really providing them with an “end” to content, when there is always someone better than you and the game very explicitly tells you that, then the kind of behaviour in this thread is precisely the result you should expect to see when the Next Big Thing is pulled out from beneath player’s feet.

=^_^;=

Well said.

The game is very well designed to be addictive. In addition to the social tides it created between players through guilds and servers, it is very simulating to the mind because of the enormous amount of nerve impulses each player experiences while playing.

The number of key clicks on keyboard for “w, s, a, d, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, space bar, v, etc..” in one minute of a WvW battle could be over server hundreds of times, may be over 500 times, plus the beautiful visual particle effects. If one plays for hours, which can be easily achieved, the amount of new information imprinted in players’ brain are enormous. And these experiences linger in the back of players’ mind and bring them back to play for the next time.

I never regretted not playing the game but have urges to play. And once starting a session, it always lasted longer than expected.

During the WvW rewards delay, Anet can monitor any adverse effect in the active WvW player population and micro-transaction during this period. It constantly tests the lower end limit of rewards. For instance, in PVE, the initial release of the “Festival of the Four Winds” almost had no rewards. Rewards were added after players complained.

From the progress so far, the developer seems to be confident that many of the players would come back to play WvW whether there are reward tickets or not because the players miss their guild mates as well as the stimulation of beautiful graphics, dynamic movement, and competitions the game provides.