Guild Wars 2

NCSOFT is committed to their vision of a “budget” online RPG. They have always had a strategy of keeping the overhead low, so they drastically scale back on things like Customer Support and UI development. It’s just how the model for the guild wars games go. We are never going to see much improvement in these areas, unfortunately.

translation = “we are making plenty of profit from the piecemeal selling of shinies to whales that we don’t actually need to produce new content”. Congrats, guys, for making this plan work for them.

well, every couple of weeks there’s a new gambling box with some skins in them, and either a temporary dungeon, jumping puzzle, or temporary “click on things” quest. This is how new “content” comes to the game. If you are looking for rewards and items, or a real mmo, you have come to the wrong game.

farming

/10 characters

Yeah, we just ended up kicking 80% of our 200+ guild because we couldn’t tell. After months of wondering when we were gonna get some useful guild tools, like every other mmo has, we had to pull the trigger. We spared the ones we all recognized, but most of those have left for greener pastures, anyway. I guess that works too.

lol @ gem harvesting tools. I like it.

Housing is great news and will probably bring me back to the game. that’s why I left for rift! Hope fully they implement it the same was as that game, or EQ2. Multiple instanced set/houses with placeable/rotatable furnishings and stuff. although I wouldn’t hold out much hope for anything obtainable in-game. It will probably be full cash shop.

Just started playing Rift again. very good cash shop. no reliance on Gamble boxes and more importantly – the game is not designed around the shop. I just has convenience and shortcut gear. Unlike the “hey we only sell vanity items” (and gold, sole currency for everything) in a game where vanity items are literally the only thing to strive for. It’s all GW2 has lmao. Plus I miss mounts and the trinity, but that’s not the point.

And Gaspara; if you can’t see the issue with temporary content versus additive, then I don’t know what to say. Alright, I’lI state what should be obvious : if WoW (or any other mmo for that matter) had gone this route it wouldn’t be the content-heavy juggernaut that it is today. It would still be vanilla.

In this game , unlike all other MMOs except the cheap F2P knockoffs that we love to disparage : you can’t tackle new goals at your own pace, giving reason to play day after day. You burn through the time-limit content and move on the whatever other game scratches that itch, until the next crappy temporary gimmick.

How do you stay invested in a game like that? only through social pressure (friends, guildies) which is a pretty fragile thing when you start hating the game you’re playing. The whole no-sub but cash shop approach is destroying good game design lol

I know; I just wanted parallel construction to the guy’s post above me haha.

I think what was meant is : Anet’s vision for this game has changed to TEMPORARY holiday shinies and cash shop gamble boxes as “content”. It has also proven to be very profitable; much more so – but for a TEMPORARY period; until the fanbase finally realizes what’s up and leaves ANET’s rep as a dev is in the mystic toilet.

Don’t expect ANET to change anything until most of the payer base has left for greener pastures, then the recruitment emails and promises of actual content will start flooding our inboxes once again. I think most of us have been here before, in other games.

hating it, honestly.

The full implications of a developer also acting as gold seller (in a cash shop game culture) are finally starting to hit. How did we ever come to accept this?

It’s not just the RNG, it’s the “limited time offer” bullkitten and the implementation of every cheesy intelligence-insulting marketing trick in the book that infuses every piece of new content; that really gets me. It’s not very subtle to an educated adult. And it truly sucks all of the “fun” and “achievement” out of the game.

Well here’s one of the minority that was VERY vocal, started at prelaunch, guild leader of 200+, achievements around 6K, and spent a decent amount of cash shop money that is no longer willing to play the game.

I know I’m just a drop in the bucket, however, so good luck with the future and your rep ANET! This was the “3rd strike” so to speak (I hung around the SWTOR forums for a few months after leaving as well, just for closure, if you’re wondering).

It’s amazing to me how online games offer no staying power anymore, it’s all a disposable tissue-thin experience. Like the reputations of their developers, they are only temporary cash-ins for the publishers – who move on to trade hard-earned dev laurels for quarterly financial reports boosts.

if it’s not a 100% chance (and just some vague “increased chance”) than it’s just more trickery from the Nexxon contingent, and ANET’s last chance at me. They are so intentionally obtuse and this game’s charms aren’t going to last through more obvious “player wallet farming”.

Danikat.8537:

Mercurio.4970:

It’s kind of an illusion, like a lot of things in this game. We’re being tricked to pay more than a sub for a lesser game than a sub-based one.

Really? I’ve spent about £30 in the gem store since launch, and for that I’ve gotten 8 months of play time and a bunch of extra items. In a sub game that would have gotten me, what? 2 months of permission to play the game I’d already paid for. And an invitation to spend the same again in the cash shop, because I don’t think there is an online game without one these days.

Some people do spend more than they would on a sub. But that’s their choice, if they don’t want to or can’t afford it or whatever they can keep on playing, whereas if you don’t pay your subscription you can’t play at all, even the content you’ve already paid for.

ANET has embraced the most cynical game-design-wedded-to-cash-shop ever, and you people cannot see it. “It’s not P2W!” they say. That’s the trick. What the heck would P2W be anyway in this game? The CS informs the game rules.

Top gear is given to you. There is nothing else but fluff in this game. They have designed it so that the only thing you would want to grind for can easily be bought for real money; and not outright, but gambled for. Pets, gear (all gear is cosmetic lol), “fun” items, you know, all the content they release that we are supposed to look forward to. And almost impossible to achieve without spending money – IE limited time items with disgusting RNG drop rates.

Other than those things, there is a complete lack of carrots i.e content in this game. Would you play this game if it had a 15.00/month sub? exactly as it is? It’s half of an MMO. Man , I can just imagine the forum complaints if this game were held to a sub game standard. If that were the case this game would tank faster than SWTOR.

Would you pay a sub if all the little knickknacks/weapons/armors that get released to the gemstore in scratch ticket form would be obtainable in game through actual game activities? Making “playing the game” rewarding? I would. Might even pay 20.00 to enjoy a full game.

However, ANET wants us to pay much, much more to enjoy that level of game design. Like twice a regular sub to be able to get everything. And then you have it all, dropped into your mailbox with a receipt; no reason to actually play the game. That’s fun.

The GAME suffers when there’s no reason to do anything. Farming, especially the meager method promoted by this game; is for peasants. The only way to not be a peasant in the ethos in this gameworld is to open your wallet wide, not to achieve extraordinary things by playing the game. That is why its a trick. It seems possible to earn gold and convert to gems to get stuff (the F2P way) but that is an illusion. ANET is constantly tweaking and nerfing the gameplay to make sure that is as difficult as possible. fun.

Guess what? I’ve spent 0 $ on skyrim since it launched aside from box price. And I’ve gotten what, 2 years of gameplay out of it? More from oblivion, and even more from morrowind before that. But it’s not an MMO. and neither is GW2. But I don’t have to grind and farm in Elder scrolls games, I just play and enjoy them. They’re well designed GAMES.

of the dungeon gear, only AC has ‘pant’ looking legs

It’s kind of an illusion, like a lot of things in this game. We’re being tricked to pay more than a sub for a lesser game than a sub-based one.

This direction is to support the gem store, not the gameplay. And yes, it is an achilles heel that will doom this game, like the soul system was to the otherwise excellent game rift. Temporary content that almost no one will get = no content. After a while the empty carrots don’t hold any interest.

Anything you need to do in this game requires a dulfy or other 3rd party internet guide, which is a strange departure from the current “hold me by the hand” techniques of emergent content in online games. But it’s not to make the game challenging, ROFL. It’s still a casual EZ mode romp of dings with a dropoff of mind numbing grind at the end. It’s really just to cut costs.

Does this game even have an instruction manual? You certainly can’t count on ANET to provide us with the helpful in-game things we’re used to in the genre.

Heck, this game launched without a FORUM. They were planning on letting 3rd parties do all the work until massive outcry, then this site appeared. They also almost completely lack a customer service department. They keep the overhead low. I mean, you don’t see fancy chandeliers in the lobbies of dollar stores, do you?

In before move to the void of the obscure “suggestions” forum. I think that this is important, but meh. What does it matter that EVERY other game in the genre that isn’t a fly-by-night P2W has such a feature?

It won’t matter if it isn’t in before the next big mmo release anyway. I’m pretty sure GW2 is simply aiming to be a second-rate game that people pop into from time to time during breaks from their other games, like GW1. To farm mobs for an hour, before diminishing returns kick in.

Because that’s all this game is about – shallow WvW camp flipping and endless mob farming and cash shop for shinies. It certainly doesn’t seem as if they’re investing much into content or features.

LOL, this Filthy bounty thing is cracking me up! He is great at metagame stuff involving giving away his money. Raffles, bounties, what’s next? Maybe we’ll see a WvW JP thunderdome soon?

I hope no one puts a bounty on [ND] because I’m a kamikaze guardian with terrible map awareness and a very sensitive disposition. Plus I might make the local server sheriff broke from buying up my scalps.

I actually can’t wait to get back out in WvW to try this new (old) matchup. I’ve been slacking. Hope to see you all out there tonight!

every other month or so my guild does a raffle, which is really a giveaway party in divinity’s reach with gold, minis dyes etc. And people “roll” numbers in /g chat to win. it’s pretty fun!
what we do is announce the prize, and everyone who wants it posts a number sequentially, starting with 1. the next person posts 2, etc. If more than 1 person posts the same number at the same time, the later one in chat posts the next sequential number. IE two people post “3” at the same time – the second 3 poster types in 4, and so on, so each person is assigned a number. then we just use a RNG program to get the winner. it’s active and interesting

Whether ANET does it, or a third party, UI customization needs to be done. It is an essential aspect of MMOs. Not doing this is bush league, pure and simple; and gives the impression of a cheap F2P game. Wait…..I’m starting to come to the realization that that’s what this game is.
It’s literally the 1st thing I do in a new MMO – fiddling with the UI. I would guess a lot of players are the same way. It’s funny, too. Some people I know didn’t even give the game a chance because in their words “it felt cheap”. This is one of those reasons for that. Although a lot of corners were cut by the devs in general in terms of designing features for an MMO, at least I know that GW1 had a great flexible UI, so this gives me hope.

AFAIK it still isn’t implemented properly.

customizable housing

for me it goes heavy > light > medium from best looking to worst

housing and mounts

greatspear (to differentiate land spear from underwater one) or polearms.

excellent post! Right now the forum is filled with outrage over the RNG trickery being foisted upon us. This is a very well articulated anchor for fellow posters form an educated opinion on the subject.

bump! And our latest raffle is tonight!

Oh, it’s the old “it’s ONLY vanity items” line again? Here’s the thing, “vanity” items, I.E “gear” (as max gear is gotten just by sneezing in this game and everyone has it by default, pretty much) IS the game. The whole thing. There’s not a whole lot else to work toward.
It’s an MMO! It’s not guild wars 1. Without gear/shinies/fluff this (like all MMO’s – not singling out GW2) is a crappy hybrid multiplayer action game with simplified stats (relative to the RPG genre) and no point . In MMO’s the items that bring “status” are the goals to grind for. We make fun of people wanting to play “dress up” but that is what makes MMORPGs what they are. We play them to get cool shinies to show off to other people as we go about otherwise playing a subpar combat-based game. It’s the feeling of struggling to make a name for ourselves in a virtual world that makes this genre “click”. Lost of MMO players refuse admit this, as its a reflection of their failure to achieve such status in real life, but that is a subject for another time.
Except most other MMO’s, you know, the real ones; have all kinds of non combat activities with their own shiny rewards to show off. Pets, fun items, gear. The staples of the MMO experience. As well as things like customizable UIs, duels, arenas, auto-follow, guild UI’s that are halfway functional, etc. Guild wars 2 doesn’t have these things. But hey, it’s “free!” which helps to deflect some of the criticism that would be leveled at a legitimate MMO from the fanbase. Like why its lacking many bog-standard MMO features, and feels cheap as a result.
Which brings me to my next point. You say I’m not paying as sub. To enjoy the game the way you enjoy other MMOs (full access to those staple mmo items), you have to pay : and more than a standard sub. It aint a level playing field, so where is the contest? Not only that, but from the beginning, even in my still-smitten phase of new MMO ownership, I have always pondered the question – would I even play this game with a subscription? And the answer is no, I would not.
I don’t want to play a cheap “free” game that nickles-and-dimes its costs deceptively, I would rather play a quality sub-based one. I had a method whereby I would spend 30.00 every 2 month in the gem store, to simulate a sub. hah! even that doesn’t get you much, and its RNG gated as well! I don’t buy lottery/scratch tickets in real life, and its a sensitive point with me. I don’t have a problem with a benign cash shop, it’s the gambling. With each new update, the shop moves further and further away from acceptability; and as a result, the game design as well. It’s the tail wagging the dog.

I like trying maintain connections with guildies and interacting without having to party up 24/7 but honestly to me if you’re not in voice chat and we don’t run stuff together a lot I have no idea who you are. I just can’t distinguish you from the other faceless names in the guild panel.
Also, I am awful at monitoring guild chat/chat in general, especially in a more action-oriented MMO such as this one, unless we’re in an active conversation. I just don’t understand people who refuse to use VOIP. You don’t have to talk, just listen. It gets you involved in the socialization without excess effort on the part of your guildies.
The amount of typing necessary for anything more than the most superficial of conversation (hi, bye, ding, grats lol) has a negative impact on my gameplay. I know it sounds kind of niggling, but seriously: the breakout of random chatter is seriously impeded without voice chat.

Yes this whole RNG situation is getting old. Each patch its the same story : minimal content added as reward for in-game activities – maximizing the grind of said activities to get the meager reward, and lots of cool stuff (i.e the “reward content” that most MMOs add as goals for doing their new game activities or increasing interest in underutilized ones) just crapped onto the store. And not directly obtainable but walled behind gambling mechanics. Don’t get me started on the “limited time” bullkitten. ANET is skating on some thin ice here.

Every now and then my guild will put on a raffle for guildies, where we give away dyes, minis, gold and stuff. We have a whole setup in the front area of divinity’s reach with every table, buff, banner we can get our hands on and just get down for hours as it’s going on. It’s not epic pvp/dungeoning and takes all night, but its fun just to dance and chill and costume battle all together. We also get tons of randoms passing by who first give a “WTF?” then join in the craziness for a while. I love seeing fun metagame stuff like this going on.

[ND] Nine Divines is a small guild (~130 members, about 2 dozen active each day) who play mainly in the evening. Our membership spans both coasts of the U.S. and even overseas! We are looking for fun, friendly people to join the family and grow our ranks.

We have a crack 5-7 man WvW squad; and even though we play all aspects of the game (fractals, dungeons, world boss runs, sPVP, etc), we are mainly looking for more soldiers to fill out and upgrade our WvW team. 5v20 is not as fun as 10v20, though we try to make it competitive!

Many of us are chasing their dreams of legendaries, so we are constantly sampling all the game has to offer in terms of activities – World bosses, special event groups, even just helping each other complete their dailies.

Some aspects of the guild include:
-Mumble/Vent
-Website
-Periodic Raffles/giveaways (gold, dyes, minis, etc.)
-Organized dungeon/fractal runs, coordinated WvW groups
-a bunch of cool, fun people to call guildies!

If you are interested or have any questions, feel free to PM Mercurio or Kremklin in-game or here and we’ll be happy to oblige.

lilcoffeebean.3149:

Life.1576:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc5wM4H3ClU

Very nice video. I haven’t seen too many decent staff ele wvw video’s before. Most of them have been boring where X person sits on the back line or oriented around tower defense. It was nice to see someone a bit more aggressive even if you are an IoJ =P

To this thread in general. I don’t know what everyone is complaining about and quite frankly I don’t care. All I can say is I have enjoyed this match immensely (though reset is rough) and have had some memorable small scale battles specifically with SF. I can’t see names but I won’t forget the PVP guild anytime soon and I believe the other was ND. I’ve encountered more small scale coordination than any wvw I can remember (though I’ve been gone two months XD) and was pretty impressed with the small scale parties with the fore mentioned tags. Now while everyone is busy bragging about individual skill, I will comment on that too. I have not had any 1vs1 that I survived or died, that made me think wow….that player was amazing and all this “I’m a kitten” is rather irrelevant as one player does not win WvW nor is this spvp. Also this is the internet, anyone can talk and make up anything. Do like the quoted user and provide a video putting your skills on display for all the world to marvel at.

Hey thanks for the props! It is awesome to see as we [ND] are really only a group of 5 that WvW (and I’m the worst of them, so it feels good lol), the rest of us PVE almost exclusively. SF really does just like to zerg, zerg, zerg so small groups need to take it upon themselves to do some work apart from the crowd.

As for complaints about double-teaming, LMAO. That’s the whole point of 3-faction RvR, some semblance of structural balance. The lower 2 team up on the leader, and then turn on each other, keeping matchups from stagnating. This has easily been the most fun tier I’ve been in (on SF), due to the constantly shifting dynamics.

Of course, official and immutable alliance are pretty lame, but the constant scoreboard-influenced temporary alliances of necessity keep things fresh IMO.

I like that all 3 factions represent fairly well compared to the lower 2 tiers. 3 way skirmishes are chaotic and interesting when they happen out in the field, and I’ve seen many more of these since hitting T6. See you out there tonight guys, it almost feels like home here.

Man we’ve been in the Glicko Ghetto so long my pvp muscles have undergone atrophy. I’m not sure I want to move up any more. What would my death squad do if faced with even a bare minimum of skill? We would have to put forth some sort of effort, and I would not longer be able to snack at my computer while one-handedly mowing down hordes of ET. Does an olympic sport shooter long to trade his clay pigeons for hungry bears or angry birds? Too much effort, I tell you : and not enough reward.

I don’t want to be challenged! I want to continue to gather nodes 4X in a row, explore the fullness of each map with all my alts, and scamper through dappled sunlit fields without worrying about death or hotkeys. I want to watch episodes of my favorite TV programs while absently clicking and giggling to myself. So come on, SF; enough of this “grass is greener” mentality and enjoy our reign of terror while it lasts.

As for ET/FC, I don’t have any enmity for you, you are tasty and nutritious and I love you all.

Player housing is a #1 feature for me. I love GW2; it is the shiny new thing, but housing is what kept me in EQ2 for years longer than I should have, and the same for other games. GW2 seems to me more of an “immersive world” type of mmo than some of the other combat simulator-types recently released, so the concept fits well.
I have been meaning to check out rift again just due to supporting their take on it, even though the core game/world was flawed for me.
So, yeah. Housing (and other fluff/non combat activities) is important to many people.