Guild Wars 2

The skins are still available to people who “did not” play GW1. All they have to do is “go play” GW1. Seriously, go play it. It’s still there.

The dirty little secret about the gem store is that Anet wants your real money. They can’t put real food on their real tables with your imaginary gold.

Okay Anet. I’m done with this.

Please fix teleport skills. When I am frantically trying to escape a deadly situation with Blink or some other teleport, and my mouse cursor happens to graze a UI element, my character teleports TO THE SAME LOCATION SHE IS CURRENTLY STANDING.

Make the cursor ignore the UI when casting a ground targeted ability.

For Thieves, Mesmers, and Eles a successful teleport is often the difference between life and death. I’m sick of my UI getting me killed. It mostly happens when I am desperately trying to teleport up to a ledge or walkway. It is beyond frustrating.

On that note how about when I happen to be targeting terrain that is 0.01 microns out of the max casting range? Can we please have it teleport you to the max allowed distance in that general direction???

I apologize in advance, but this is going to be a wall of text with a pretty academic discussion. I just need to get this off my chest.

Does anyone remember dungeons during beta? Anyone remember Kholer before they nerfed AC? Those were good times… I recall Anet talking about their intentions for combat pre-launch, saying they wanted gameplay to be very visual. They didn’t want people staring at UI bars. They wanted you reacting to things in the world and watching boss animations for cues.

But then Particle effects quickly became a problem that never got truly fixed. Anet has had to make compromises in game design. They have had to sacrifice their ideals in order to make gameplay practical.

Kholer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DWeC2LtL7I

At 0:25 you can see Kholer pull his sword back slowly with a white/black charge-up effect, just before sending out his grappling hooks. You are meant to see this visual cue and dodge appropriately, because the damage after being pulled in is usually fatal.

Dark Souls – Asylum Demon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHbUnaieRPc

At 0:22, and pretty much throughout the fight, you can see the boss pull his hammer back slowly before slamming it down. It is a clear visual indication that the boss is about to do something, and you should take appropriate measures to avoid damage.

These are examples of anticipation. One of the 12 principles of animation, it is an important element that lets the audience know that something is about to happen. In GW2 anticipation has become nonviable as a means to warn players.

*See my attached screenshot below when I reference “what GW2 has become.” *

Rather than continue to emphasize anticipation in animation as a means to telegraph attacks, Anet has implemented these neon-orange, super bright geometric shapes which are almost a complete rip off of Wildstar’s telegraphing system. Sure, Carbine didn’t invent colored geometric shapes, but that’s not the point of this thread. The point is to bring up discussion about the future visual quality of video games in general. It is my hope that Anet thinks twice about continuing the current trend.

Many of us want an expansion because it would mean far more substantial content than what the living story seems capable of.

I’ll try to list what we have gained since launch (in terms of permanent stuff), please correct me if I forget anything:
- ascended gear
- crafting to 500
- a new dungeon path to TA
- 1 new unique dungeon; fractals
- the LFG tool
- a smattering of QoL improvements such as the currency wallet
- 1 new wvw map
- 1 new zone
- a very scarce few new weapon and armor skins that weren’t temporary/gem store
- 1 new world boss (and one revamped old one)
- a couple new spvp maps

Looking back I’m actually kind of surprised by the list, but it’s still not what people expect in an expansion. Personally I (and I think most people) expect something like:
- a whole new continent
- a whole new personal story chain just as long (or close) as the original
- at least 10 new zones
- at least 5 new dungeons
- new armor and weapon skins for each of those dungeons and/or new events
- new open world dynamic events
- at least 3-5 new spvp maps
- a new (relevant to the new campaign) wvw map
—-And above all—-
- New playable race
- New class (or at least a slew of new weapon and utility skills, like 8-10 new skills and/or traits per class)

Not to mention all of this should be wrapped together in an overall package with a unifying theme, story, experience, etc. Not a disjointed series of unrelated patches that have nothing to do with each other until the last 4 or 5 patches where we find out the main villain is this crazy chick who we find out doesn’t even matter what her motives were…

I’ve said it before, but I think Anet simply doesn’t have the revenue to pursue such an expansion. NCSoft probably takes the lionshare of their gem store profits. I’m not mad at NCSoft though. I just wish they would see that GW2 has a passionate fanbase that deserves more and will pay for more if the content is up to par. But NCSoft is more interested in Wowstar it seems…

To answer the question of the title of this thread, we shout for an expansion because if we don’t, it might never happen. The higher-ups need to see demand before they invest the funds to create the supply.

I think the new Wurm fight proves and indeed begs that Anet can and should develop instanced raids for GW2. For big servers like Blackgate, Bloodtide coast has essentially stopped existing as an open world PvE map, and become a massive 150-man instanced raid, albeit with primitive organizational tools.

Think about that for a moment. Bloodtide Coast has become a raid with a 2 hour lockout, as opposed to other MMOs having 1 week lockouts, etc. Take that concept and refine it in your mind. Make it more manageable by the community; basically make the cap smaller (maybe 50 people?) and set it up so that it uses a large party system (evolve the commander/squad system?) instead of the current system of people “ferrying” others into the hardcapped map.

Take what Bloodtide Coast has become, refine it, put it in an instance like a dungeon which can accommodate multiple groups in different instances that are under your control rather than the hardcap limit of the open world map, etc. Anet could do this, the pieces are all there. I think it would please a lot of people, both the raiders and the non-raiders, because it would mean alleviating the congestion of open world maps while simultaneously giving raiders more control over organization.

Devs? Players? Thoughts?

I play my alts because they are fun, not because I could reap extra rewards from them.