Guild Wars 2

+2 Voodoo Tina because your post succeeds on both levels.

Your descriptions of the additive and subtractive colour models are spot on, but Bigskyn’s head hurts because you didn’t provide practical examples of when the two colour models are used, thereby adding to the confusion.

An electronic medium such as computer and its screen uses the additive colour model – it uses red, green and blue light to make all the colours.

A printer uses the subtractive model which is why it needs cyan, magenta and yellow toner cartridges, the CMYK colour model.

In theory, mixing cyan, magenta and yellow gives black but in reality the imperfections in the ink gives a muddy brown colour, hence the need for the black cartridge. So the K in CMYK stands for black, which isn’t that clear really but fits in perfectly with the spirit of Voodoo Tina’s post.

All cleared up now?

The manifesto talks about innovation.

GW1 was and is a unique game. With GW2, Anet has taken a large step towards the traditional theme park MMO.

Anet have innovated in the context of some MMO features and activities seen in GW2, but if you compare GW1 and GW2 – which is the closer to the Everquest/WoW model?

In what way is it innovative to move away from the unique and towards the standard?

1. What do players expect they should do once they’ve completed everything?

Different players have different expectations – some are dedicated pvpers, others prefer the different aspects of pve and many enjoy both.

2. How do MMOs that have been around for years, keep top level players playing?

Pvp formats in which players feel that skill is the major factor can be a key element in the retention of an MMO player-base. The extent to which an MMO is pvp-orientated determines the degree to which this element is significant. In GW2 this will be highly significant.

As for pve, in a traditional theme park MMO, such as WoW, there are raids. Taking WoW as an example, a raid is a 10 or 25 player dungeon which contains many bosses of varying difficulty. Player groups have clear roles which provide the basis for the teamwork necessary to defeat the bosses. When defeated the bosses drop loot and if a player wins loot they gain a sense of their character improving.

Over the course of a WoW expansion, 3 or 4 raids will be released, so the challenge of the next raid and the raid after that, plus the reward of ever-improving gear, is what keeps people playing (and paying a monthly sub). Also, many raiders enjoy the format for its own sake.

The raid-style pve format requires something like the Holy Trinity – tank, healer and dps or at least a dedicated healer role. Anet decided not to implement this so there won’t be any raids in GW2. This may act to limit the active pve player-base in the GW2 endgame.

3. What could Guild Wars 2 do to improve the endgame experience.

For pve: iron out the bugs in dungeons, buff AoE healing on all professions, improve rewards, make it easier to get a group.

For pvp: keep it balanced, listen to the feedback from the pvp community and refine the formats over time.

4. If you could suggest a drastic change to improve the endgame for all MMOs what would it be?

Once per week anyone who posted negative and intentionally offensive criticism on the forums is teleported to another dimension. This would be permanent.

5. Would you support a game that was so hard, it took months, or years to reach level 80?

Personally I might be interested, but in my opinion the proportion of MMO players who want this is relatively small.

If someone wants to be taken seriously and for their opinion to be respected, then how they express their opinion is important.

Opinions on MMO forums are often framed in abusive terms, as though by being as offensive as possible the poster is trying to convey how strongly they hold their opinion. Or they could be a troll.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when it is unconsidered and calculated to offend the poster confers upon the rest of us the right to exclude them from intelligent conversation.