Guild Wars 2

I like greatsword and sceptre/torch for the most part. The sceptre is useful for those champion monsters you just just don’t want to get overly close to, and it allows me to start the fight at range, hitting sceptre 2, and the torch 4 and 5 right before switching to greatsword in the midst of a group. Most groups die very quickly.

It’s certainly not the only viable way to go though. Farzo has the right of it, there is just so much survivability built into the guardian, you can’t really go wrong with anything. Sometimes I’ll switch to hammer, and crank the speakers up just because it makes an especially satisfying thwack. Mace has arguably the best survivability if you absolutely need to straight up tank a tougher fight, but that’s been pretty rare for me. Both sword and hammer are fairly balanced offensively/defensively with sword offering more mobility and hammer providing more control. Both sword and mace giving you the option to add offense with torch, melee defense with focus, or ranged defense with shield.

I’ve never played much with staff, but it synergizes well with a group. I know some people use it for increasing might before switching to something like greatsword. It really is whatever you find most fun to use though. If your goal is maximum killing speed for the most part most everything can be handled with greatsword and it seems to kill average groups of fodder the quickest.

This is true, mostly I destroy them out of a matter of convenience, and only when my inventory is full. It just happens to be the least valuable piece of loot I have ever gotten. You’re right though, if I happen to get 3 of them before my inventory fills up, it becomes more economical to destroy something else..

I don’t consider the chests worthless, I consider them worth 3 copper. Which seems out of sync with how I might otherwise view finding an unopened chest. Do you really honestly feel that the appropriate value for a treasure chest should be less than a hunk of grawl fur or a shredded garment?

Jack Daniels.9723:

With subscription models at least everything that you can obtain in the game… is obtained via means in the game. This is what I miss about it.

Everything that you can obtain within the game CAN be obtained from in game means. Furthermore, nothing grants any significant advantage over anyone else.. Obtained in game or otherwise.

Besides, people buy gold in every game, subscription or not. While it may be unspoken in other games, at least in this one it doesn’t exponentially increase one’s effectiveness.

I too think it’s a little silly. While the value of the black lion chest stays consistent. (Being the value of the Black lion key.) It does seem a bit absurd to me. What with all the magic and capability within the world, the only way I can open one of these moderately common chests is with a very rare key that disappears.

Much better I think to make keys common and chests rare if one is going to go that route. Why on earth can’t I crack the thing open with a rock, or a meteor as the case may be.

While I do understand the need for the RNG gold sink. I also think it’s implemented sloppily within the Black Lion Chests. My vote would be either to make them as rare as the keys, make the keys the common source, or in the very least make the value of the chest commiserate with the rarity of the key drop.

As it stands, I actually just destroy my black lion chests.. It’s actually less valuable than a discarded scrap of junk. That just doesn’t seem consistent with it’s purpose or presentation to me.

Just like the lottery, the RNG is a gold sink. Unlike the lottery, it’s pretty much the only way to attain certain things. The alternative is to price the most valued items exhorbantly high.

So I ask you, which would go over better, to have a 1/500 chance of getting a particular rare die every time you spend 15 silver on a die.. Or to spend 750 gold on the die of your choice. It amounts to the same thing. The former is more entertaining and appealing to most though.

It seems to me that money spent in game is hardly an investment in your character.. It IS your character. If you don’t have fun playing or earning gold with your character, then that’s a seperate issue. But regardless that shouldn’t be seen as an investment of time. It is a game after all, do you feel it will be more fun once you have all there is to have within it?

Regardless, the amount of gold each $1.00 buy’s is related to how much gold is within the economy and how many people are buying gems. Arena Net takes a cut of this from the auction house. I personally am glad it’s a sizeable cut, as gold inflation is one of the biggest hindrances for new players. But the majority of the cost of gems is just a matter of how many people are buying gems with real money, vs how many people are producing (And rest assured that’s what they’re doing, not earning) gold from killing monsters.

I actually have quite the opposite view. While Guild Wars seems to have one of the better economies within MMO’s. I’d much prefer they increase their cut of the gem trade. Thereby increasing the cost further, rather than to suffer gold inflation, and ultimately item inflation and the commonality of rare items associated therein.

There are people who play guild wars more than 40+ hours a week. More than a full time job. Those are the people most invested in their characters. Sure, you can spend $500 and get all 9 of your characters outfitted in “leet” gear. If that’s your thing, to walk around in leet gear, and you have $500 to spare, I say more power to you. Or if you’re one of the enraptured, you could never spend a dime, spend instead 300 hours or so of your time with a single character getting much the same.

Honestly I don’t see the problem, most people aren’t willing to spend either 300 hours or 100 dollars on a single character. The best gear is still relatively rare, most don’t have it. There’s no game out there where you can’t buy gold, if you’re rich in real life, you can pay someone to get what you need regardless. Though I personally consider 500-1000 dollars hardly the realm of the rich and famous, that much money can buy you whatever you want in any game.

Whatever the real life cost, so long as they keep the “best” gear relatively rare, I care very little who owns it. It continues to be something to aspire to, and therefor a reason to keep playing. Much better that than to make it common place to shoot rainbow unicorns.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . is over-utilized and worn down so thin it’s not worth using as a template for your story. I want writers to stop using it as a checklist or a map of what points need to be hit while you’re writing your story. It’s not meant to be a primer for you to follow, it’s meant to be an examination of myth and legend.

If it is over-utilized, I think perhaps it was over-utilized before it was ever created. Which I think is what comes from being an examination of myth and legend. For a writer looking to understand what elements drive and resonate with us as a society, I feel it is worthwhile to explore. One might very well do an examination of myth and legend themselves and come to similar findings.

I think I understand your reservations though. For me at least the thought of a story written from a checklist, regardless of what that checklist is, seems a dry and boring affair. Though the breadth of myth within our culture is certainly varied enough, even though much of it does seem to follow a basic design. I imagine no amount of structure will help a truly poor story.

I feel an understanding of what memes our culture resonates with is important for writers to understand. While not every story needs be a heroic epic. Topics such as at temptation, atonement, failure, redemption and salvation, be they on a grand or small scale, drive us in life as they do in story.

I think Campbell’s work is particularly relevant to a forever ongoing story due to it’s cyclic nature. Which is why I bring it up here. I think it answers precisely what keeps us going once we have already proven our heroism.

Everything is relative. Higher stats, better gear, more abilities, titles etc.. All that adds to the sense that the character is changing, growing. But at any point if the growth stops, so does the sense of heroism. It becomes the new status quo.

Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”, which is just a universal story archetype, would say the penultimate phase of the journey is the ability to give back to one’s peers. In guild wars that amounts mostly on money to spend on either casual festivities for all to enjoy, or advantages in WvW.

To some degree the change in npc’s reactions towards the player is an extension of this, as they demonstrate appreciation for the players actions. Without new tasks and accolades from the npcs, it too becomes status quo though. The massive horde of supervillains can only be beaten so many times before even it becomes commonplace and less than heroic.

I think it’s fairly common within games to take things a bit outside the framework. By either creating your own heroic escapades within the social structure of a guild. Or taking things outside the game entirely by recording your skillful gameplay for all to see and comment on.

For me though, in guild wars, at level cap it’s mostly the money and what it can do.

As a philosophical aside. The difference between a hero and villain is only a matter of perspective. How many “creatures” have you slain, how many cultures, sects, and ecosystems have you personally disrupted in your hero’s quest? I know I’ve personally slain quite a few skritt who wanted nothing more than to stare at something shiny. I’m certainly a villain to the skritt populace.

While I’m certainly not opposed to more task hearts dotting the landscape. I certainly haven’t felt deprived of lore centric quests, and that’s the sort of gamer I’d classify myself as… A quester.. What with the smattering of hearts dotting the landscape surrounded by random events that continue to surprise me, I’ve found there was almost always something not only to do, but that draws me further into the lore and landscape of my current setting.

As a quester, I’m actually very much opposed to “Quest hubs”. They sorta break the immersion for me. I mean, ask yourself, what would you really do if you found a guy frantically screaming his head off because orcs or what have you just stole his wife. Do you rush off to save his wife before she’s eaten or worse.. Or do you mozy over to the next desperate looking individual so that while you’re out searching for the other man’s wife you might also pick some berries so that this sweet old lady can make a pie for her grandson. While also picking up a bounty on buzzards to maybe pick up some extra change while you’re out there searching…

One could grab one single quest, immerse oneself in it and go off to accomplish this, waiting until you’ve finished saving the mans wife before you agree to go pick up berries. But let’s face it, no one does that. It simply doesn’t make sense, you’ll be running right by those berries and having to kill the aggressive buzzards anyway. The whole idea of the “Quest hub” is based on leveling convenience, not lore. It rewards you with faster leveling for breaking immersion.

I much prefer the guild wars system where I might be helping someone pick apples when all of a sudden, spiders attack. Since the event is more urgent, I break off my apple picking to combat the spiders, but then low and behold after we decimate the spiders, it’s discovered that a cabal of evil spider loving necromancers has been unleashing these creatures on the town, and a posse is formed to take them down. Upon finally destroying the evil necromancers I learn they’re only a sub-sect and that I can expect future antagonisms from their parental branch based in Lion’s Arch or some such.. (Note: To my knowledge there aren’t actually evil spider loving necromancers based out of Lion’s arch. But you get the idea). Following this harrowing escapade, I’m ready for a little relaxation in the apple grove again. That whole process is far far more immersive to me than running around in a small area clicking on exclamation marks. Even though ultimately they can amount to the same thing.. I.E. Picking up apples, killing spiders, and defeating necromancy cults.

Again, I certainly won’t argue against more events and tasks.. But I’m pretty happy with everything I’ve gotten so far. Then of course there are the story events.. How I love those.. I digress though.

Like many others in the thread, I’d like to ask the counter question. Why not have religion in games? Regardless of what is or isn’t true in our reality, Tyria is a fictional reality. Why have dragons? Why not?

Ultimately any fiction needs to have elements we can relate to as humans. Otherwise what is their to motivate our interests.. How interesting would a story be with amorphous entities that had senses completely foreign that couldn’t be described in terms of our senses and motivations that seemed entirely alien. My guess is not very.

Conflict that we can relate to drives story, and religion ultimately is a story of creation and existence.. Regardless of whether its the Asuran Scientific take on the connectivity of all things as the workings of a giant machine. The human’s pantheistic mythology, The norn’s belief in spirits, the sylvari sense of creation by ideals, or the charr’s belief in survival of the fittest and that no diety is outside this heirarchy within which they strive to be top predator.

Honestly I think Arena Net did a really great job of exemplifying different possible views of reality, in a way that is both relate able and yet not directly confrontational to anyone’s real life personal belief. Whether in game or out, I honestly don’t see any huge differences in the various takes. They all seek to explain existence from a different cultural bias with differing methods. The end result of which is always the same.. Existence is. What else matters?

Rhysati.4932:

For something to be an e-sport it needs to be simple enough in mechanics that someone watching who has NO idea about the game can follow the action. GW2 doesn’t have this. There is way too many buffs, debuffs, combos, etc flying around. The game is simply too actiony and chaotic.

Secondly, it needs to be easily viewable to follow the action. This would require some sort of spectator mode that also provides the ability to watch replays or call your attention to something significant happening. MOBAs work well with their top-down wide camera views and very significant events such as players dying(it actually means something in a MOBA and can make the difference in the outcome of the game), towers being taken down, jungle mobs being killed, etc.

There are other factors that come into play as well, but these two HAVE to exist. They currently do not in GW2, therefore no e-sport.

I don’t know, I think you should say “For something to be a commercially successful e-sport…” In that sense I think you’d be absolutely correct. Most mmo-style pvp, be it in guild wars or not consist of a bunch of characters jumping around with a lot of flashes. Doesn’t make for good television, there’s no plot, only climax.

However not being commercially successful, doesn’t make something not a sport. Take polo for instance, that never really caught on. Since only nobility could be knights, only nobility or those with enough money to act as nobility acts, ran around practicing the ability to cut someone’s head off from horseback. To an observer it’s just a bunch of giant horses running around with the occasional glimpse of the relatively microscopic speck which is the ball. No good T.V. there either. Unless of course you happen to play polo. It’s still considered a sport though, just not a popular one.

beren.6048:

Rizzy.8293:

LOL everytime I hear that word I laugh.
Sorry XD

Made me laugh but I also find the name kinda inapproriate. How can you name sitting behind your computer playing a game a sport?

Sports aren’t necessarily about physical activity. Sports, going back to the original Olympics are basically wargames.. Which culture / village has the best warriors. When we fought with sticks and stones, throwing things, running, and grappling were the epitome of a warrior and the basis for sports. As our warfare has evolved so too should our sports.

While no one is controlling a virtual norn on the field of battle today, group tactics, unit placement, and the hand eye coordination to virtually control a drone/combatant are becoming more and more important. I’d say e-sports are more valid sports than most physical sports these days.

I think the biggest difference, for me at least, is the lack of loot progression in guild wars. World of Warcraft and most Role Playing Games for that matter are based around the concept of treasure.. Gear that allows you to feel more powerful within the game being the most sought after form of treasure. Guild wars seeks instead to offer a relatively flat and even playing field where tactics and strategy are more important than gear. Though this isn’t to say it’s necessarily a strategically superior game. Though in my opinion, it is. Only that gear is no longer the most defining aspect of gameplay. Since that’s what most other RPG’s are based around, that’s huge..

I actually enjoy the gear treadmill. It’s essentially an extension of leveling. I enjoy reaching new levels and getting new skills, the constant feeling of little rewards. At max level, the gear leveling process starts.. It’s not quite as entertaining as actual levels, but I still find the constant upgrade process fun and engaging. Unfortunately, that simply can’t exist if player skill is going to be the most important part of gameplay. And that’s what guild wars is all about.

Honestly as much as I prefer being recognized for my playing skill rather than my shoulder pads, I’d rather have the loot treadmill. That I think is the reason why people who prefer Wow, do so.

For me however, the narrative, cinematics, active gameplay, and diverse beauty of the world more than make up for the lack of loot leveling. Which is why I personally prefer guild wars. I imagine others might also prefer guild wars because of the lack of subscription, or the entirely skill based gameplay. In my opinion it’s just a matter of priorities. They’re both good games in their own way.

Obsidian.1328:

Eh…I don’t think the land itself meant anything to them, no. They wanted to bring down the wall because there were plump humans on the other side of it. The descendants of the same ones that pushed them north a thousand years ago…Charr never forgave humans for that.

It wasn’t even called Ascalon back then, the humans(or the gods) named it that. Where does it say the Charr had any emotional or cultural connection to that land?? They were nomadic, and used the land of Ascalon much like the Native Americans used the Great Plains…for food and warfare. It had zero socio-cultural value to the Charr, at least none that has ever been written about.

And where does it say the last Khan-Ur was assassinated by a human? Or that the last Khan-Ur was a shaman for that matter? lol

I would grant you that the humans did push Charr borders though, my point was that Charr probably considered their borders to be wherever they happened to be walking on any given day.

I think you hit the nail on the head with the Native American analogy. In fact I think that’s pretty much what the writers were going for. A civilized agricultural race moves in and supplants the nomadic hunter/gatherer lifestyle of the previous dwellers.

The very presence of towns, farms, fences etc would have threatened the charr lifestyle and inevitably pushed them out. Conflict would be inevitable between those two diametrically opposed cultures.

I’m generally a human not so much based on choice as the limitation of options. I just can’t get into the good natured Norn’s lust for battle glory, or the charr’s brutal and uncompassionate nature. The Sylvari don’t seem like full entities to me. Rather more like the buds and stems of the pale tree. As such, it seems like the tree is the real entity not me whenever I play one. While I do like the Asura, well the likeable ones at least, I can’t seem to bring myself to enjoy them as much because I simply can’t bask in the the wonder of my glorious armor. Everything is so tiny on an Asura. I don’t want my epic swords to engender chuckles from the Norn population. Shallow yes, but there you have it.