Showing Posts For OneLouder.2807:
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I’m assuming others have seen this alien-looking ghost that appears in random locations for maybe 3-5 seconds. Just hovers and disappears. What’s the story? Anyone know?
I’ve read most of the replies in this thread, and all the while I’m thinking to myself, “these people are honestly complaining about a game that’s essentially free to play.”
I think the problem is simple and it has nothing to do with indifferent development staff, bad leadership, or most of the criticisms put forth in this thread. The problem is purely economic. If you were Anet, you would never invest $1M in developing new maps or classes if there wasn’t a direct line to how that $1M investment turned into $2M revenue. They’re not running a hobby shop designed to put out amazing new spectacles on their dime. I highly suspect new content has to earn its keep, which means it has to trace back to supporting increased gem purchases that more than offset the development costs. I mean think about it – Fractals more or less requires Ascended gear, and Ascended gear is expensive…so off we go to the gem store or you grind it out making gold the old fashioned way.
To that end, I actually hope they are working on some of these arguably good ideas in an expansion that we can buy (like they did in GW1). I’d rather pay $40 for a new expansion than on gems. Because once you have the gear and a stable full of level 80’s, there isn’t really much worth doing.
You need a larger vocabulary to have this discussion. “Casual” and “Hardcore” are too restrictive and have too many interpretations.
Any given player can fall anywhere on a grid that covers:
Time: plays a little, plays a lot
Challenge: wants high challenge, wants low challenge
Skill: highly skilled, basic skills
The issue is any given player may be a different combination of those things on any given day. Maybe they have five hours and are highly skilled with their main and want a challenge. Maybe the next day they only have one hour, are playing a new class, and want to just unwind. So is that person casual or hardcore? Depends on the day and what they are doing.
But IndigoSundown did nail it above – regardless of the content, once you get the right build and the right formula to beat it, hard things become easy and you want to move on. So then what is and is not a challenge becomes different day to day as well.
I think the labels only serve as short-hand ways for people to insult others in some way. Truth is GW2 will be most effective if it can offer a wide range of experiences to the widest possible audience.
I feel the same way about GW2 as I do about cars and how people modify them. You paid for it, enjoy it however you like, and don’t worry so much about what other people think. As these posts indicate, how people enjoy the game will vary.
This is a small tangent but what really annoyed me in other threads on this topic were when people with Legendaries take the “it was hard for me so it should be hard for you” attitude, or even worse, “you must not know how to work hard so quit trying to make it easy”.
Getting a Legendary is not hard work. It’s time consuming, which is different from hard work. Hard work is working in a coal mine. Hard work is working two jobs and raising a family. People with Legendary weapons a) had a lot of time to devote to the game and b) enjoyed different tasks you have to do in order to earn that much gold/components. And that’s OK – I’m not making a value judgment. Just some people have that kind of time, and others don’t. And getting a Legendary takes an extraordinary amount of time. More so than any other achievement in any other game I’ve ever played.
Which brings me back to is it worth it. I really wanted Bolt. Still do. Not because anyone will think I’m cool, but I’ve defeated every single game I’ve played in the past 20 years and it was a challenge I wanted to achieve. But I got about 4 months into it and realized how much time this was really going to take. I can only play maybe 4-5 hrs a week. That’s enough to farm about ~15g per week (on a good week). So Zap was going to take 73 weeks all by itself. Almost a year and a half. Really? I also concluded that farming like that was just not enjoyable. I don’t mind a grind – I don’t even mind a grind for 3-4 months. If I saw light at the end of the tunnel I’d keep going, but this is ridiculous. Then I thought about all the game content I’m ignoring because I’m too busy farming and decided that exploring the other facets of the game was what I really wanted to do.
I’ve decided to let it go for now, and work on getting Ascended/Exotic gear for my four characters. Just started a new Mesmer for something different and that’s been a lot of fun. I’d rather have four “fully loaded” characters than one with Bolt. Maybe if anet provides other ways to get a precursor I’ll think about it again.
I guess you haven’t gone to college – that was boring and a lot of work – did you quit there too? Just asking……
I was making a simple point that seems to have escaped you so if you don’t have it by now I’m not going to try again.
But since you asked (as disingenuous as it was), I have three degrees, two obtained while holding a full time job and raising a family. So don’t question whether I know what hard work is. This is just a game.
That is why they are called ‘LEGENDARY’ – they should be hard to get.
And I think I said as much in my post. But you don’t want something to be so hard and take so long that you lose interest in the game trying to get there.
First of all, a basic point about economics must be made. GW2 and every other game out there exists for one purpose – as a money making venture. Games are not developed to break-even or operate at a loss. If GW2 does not make profit, GW2 does not exist. It’s not bad, it’s not evil, it’s not dirty. I have no problem with a.net creating a profit model that works for them. And I think the recent changes they made to make more items account-bound rather than soul-bound was a good one. But I think the topics in the original post – bank slots, revive orbs, etc. are very low impact issues that all have work arounds. I mean, throw in $10 or $20 and your slot issues go away.
My only frustration might be around the effort / cost involved in acquiring the rare items of the game – legendary items, some ascended gear, etc. While I understand those items should be difficult to get, I’ve been purely focused on acquiring a legendary item for the past five months and I’m only about a third of the way there. That’s playing about an hour a day. That seems excessive to consider it may take more than a year of focused farming effort to raise the items and gold needed. I computed the real cost of a 3000 gold legendary – convert that to gems and back to real cash, it’s just over $500 depending on the exchange rate. Not that anyone would actually pay for a legendary that way, but raising that kind of cash inside the game is tedious. That would be my only gripe.
I’ve been playing GW2 since it came out. I’ve done what I can solo – about time to join a group. :-) I actually played GW1 for years and never belonged to a functioning guild, so being in a guild is a bit new to me. Yours looks great – I guess the only thing I’ll say up front is I don’t play all that often. Maybe 2-3 times a week. Job and kids… :-) But if you don’t mind that, would like to be a member!