Guild Wars 2

Aeon.6397:

Can you PLEASE stop.
First, Because of all the nerfs already I’ve basically finished all the content in less than a week.

Which is all I really needed to read.

The problem here, and with the MMO industry in general, is how many people seem to think that rushing content, spending far too much time in front of a game and attempting to tell others how better-skilled they are because they managed to get to a high level quickly.

An MMO that is well-designed and balanced gives something for everyone who plays the game – both casual players and people who rush to the top for whatever bizarre reason of their own (Guild Wars did this brilliantly, by the way. Guild Wars 2, not so much).

While ANet likes to tell us that the game is designed to encourage cooperation, the truth of the matter is that GW2 is designed so that, with the exception of dungeons, we need absolutely no-one else, and have no need to play with friends.

So it’s no wonder that people went into HoT and discovered that you can’t solo it, then became frustrated and annoyed. We are taught right from the start that in the GW2 world, we are on our own.

Then they threw HoT Mess at us. It feels very much like it was designed by a team who had never seen, let alone played, the core game (I really mean that, Devs). It does, in fact, feel like a completely different game forced onto the existing one. A game that is specifically designed for people who want to rush through content and reach max level as fast as they can.

HoT is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a game for casual players. It’s a game exactly for people like Aeon – someone who’s going to spend 16+ hours in front of it, playing with the hardcore intent of caffeine addict truck driver trying to outrun the tachometers of Hell.

I fall into a grey area when it comes to, “If you didn’t buy it…”

I didn’t. I have two accounts, one on the American server and one on the European server, because I have friends on both continents (and servers) and I want to play with them all.

A friend of mine on the American server gave me HoT, so I have it, but didn’t buy it. I do not have it on the European server – and I’m not going to.

Having played the last Beta weekend, and then played since its subsequent launch, I have absolutely no interest in buying HoT on my European server account. I think it is, frankly, terrible, and if anyone wants to know why, I’ve commented on that in another thread (just click my profile and you’ll find the thread).

And it’s highly unlikely that I’ll continue to play the core game on the European server.

First, the account on the European server has been around since Guild Wars 2 launched. I’ve leveled a few characters up to 80, done everything except PvP and WvW (because I have no interest in PvP), and honestly the game doesn’t feel differently enough between classes for me to have any impetus to level multiple characters to 80.

That leaves me with nothing new or different to do in the core game (aside from Mastery that I don’t care enough about to do it all over again).

There’s a small core of that guild still here who hasn’t gone off to other games out of boredom. And this weekend was the first time I haven’t even bothered to log in to play with them at all in quite some time.

As it stands, I still have friends who play on the American server, and I’ll still log in to play with them, but even that is becoming less frequent as we all start to find other games to play together.

So there it is. 1) On the American server I have HoT, don’t like it and my game play in core relies on whether or not my friends are in and playing; and 2) On the European server I don’t have HoT, won’t buy it, and my game play in core has fallen off to near not playing at all.

(And, Gaile, remember years ago a conversation about Ralph Vaughan Williams during Wintersday in Kamadan with some random guy (not sure why you would LOL)? Hi.)

Coulter.2315:

I played through the story and went exploring in maps and have my elite spec fully unlocked, I would hardly say having full access after less than 2 days a “grind.” I was also just doing things I wanted to do and having fun – nothing repetative or dull.

Awesome. Glad you’re enjoying it. I work, spend time doing other things, and come into the game to play casually.

I would say having full access after less than two days means you play rather a great deal more than I or someone like me does, and that for us, HoT falls utterly flat.

VaLee.5102:

Stelakh.2136:

Heart of Thorns is the best expansion ever, and the players love it.

Said no one ever.

Well, someone has, I’m sure.

But that phrase is a reference to *_Star Trek Online_, (STO) which was never the best game on the face of the planet, but it was at least fun to play when playing with friends.

In the face of the players really despising the latest content in STO, “Delta Rising,” one of the devs actually said that. He said, “Delta Rising is the best expansion ever, and the players love it.” So it was a reference to STO, a bit of a joke, and swipe at HoT.

“Perfect World Entertainment” (a company name that should automatically get replaced with “kitten” because that company is the epitome of profanity) bought Cryptic, and turned the game into a max-gear grindfest that was directed solely at hardcore, high-end gamers who (and let’s be honest here) enjoy the kitten stroke of being able to say, “I can do millions of DPS in a video game,” as if that matters in the real world.

I’m too old for that kind of thing. I play games for enjoyment, not to feel great about myself because my character has better gear than yours. HoT feels specifically designed for exactly the kind of player I’m not.

Based on some of the comments in this thread alone, I’m not the only one who sees it that way.

Dear god, I miss the original Guild Wars. THAT was a fun game, and GW2 is a pale shadow of the original.

HoT isn’t even a pale shadow of the pale shadow.

Heart of Thorns is the best expansion ever, and the players love it.

Ellieanna.5027:

Just going to put this here (as it’s been this way since Free to play was announced).

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157-Account-types-Free-Core-HoT

I upgraded my account, but the game is still acting as though I’m on a free account!
After you upgrade a free account, you’ll need to exit the game and log back in to see your permissions change. There’s also a longer delay (up to five days) before mail attachments, the Black Lion Trading Company, and guild banks are unlocked. You should see a message in-game displaying the time remaining before you have full access to these features.

Thank you for that information.

Unfortunately, that quoted information doesn’t appear anywhere on the page where you actually buy the game.

It should be blazoned in giant red letters there. Instead, it’s on the “Help” page, where you’d only go AFTER spending money.

That’s BS.

Oh, and just to add to the issue, they SMS verified when they got their free accounts, and then they SMS verified AGAIN to use the codes.

Why don’t you get the NSA involved ANet? At what point does verification become “too much verification”? Seriously.

So far I managed to get 11 friends playing Guild Wars 2 when it went free to play. Some of them have liked it and stayed.

So I bought a couple of them the full game (with HoT) as early Christmas gifts. The rest were to follow in the coming weeks running up to Christmas.

Today, both of them discovered that, even though they’ve been playing since it went free to play, even though they both have valid keys, even though one of them actually contacted ANet about an issue with the key AND gave them the appropriate information to get it sorted out, they SMS verified, and they STILL have to wait FOUR DAYS before they get access to everything that comes with having a paid account?

What in the name of Me is wrong with you ANet? I bring you new players and the first thing you do after I give them the game is anger them (and me)?

And to top it off, there’s not one word about that on the page where you buy the game. Nowhere did I see it, and I just went and double checked.

Can you even begin to imagine how many more people I won’t bring to GW2, and how many more paid accounts I won’t pay for, until that policy is changed?

All of them. I’ll not bring anyone else in (to say nothing of buying the game as a Christmas present), and I will ACTIVELY discourage my friends who haven’t tried GW2 from playing, until that policy is changed.

I don’t like looking a fool because ANet decided to say, “Hey, thanks for your money. Kitten you for the next four days.”

Well, Kitten THAT.