Guild Wars 2

Disagree. I thought it was a pretty good zone and has its own charm. I liked it more then the human zones. I was a bit sad I saw practically no one else there while I as levelling. I found some of its quirky quests pretty fun.

When I personally play MMOs – and of course I don’t speak for everybody else – my emotional attachment to the character I play is important to me. I guess I just feel disappointed with GW2 at the moment because I was hoping for a compelling story and characters. It started off rather wonderfully. I was super excited to play a Charr and the dynamic questing was refreshing…but I just felt like I had no interesting story to follow and that de-motivated me. Afterall, it was about adding the RPG back into MMORPG right? I just feel like the personality story is devoid of any soul or dimension. It was trite and cliche. My charr ranger is 60 at the moment and I feel no compulsion to long on and wonder what’s happening next on her journey. Yes, I tried a few other characters and classes prior to that, but I had the same issue.

It just doesn’t help the more you level the less personal the story becomes. I get that at some point, the story has to come together to face Zhaitan, but your personal decisions should be sprinkled throughout your journey right up to that, it just really feels like it all stops by the time you join an Order. I wondered where some of the characters I met earlier on during my adventures had gone off to. I feel like characters run off on you before you really get to know them and like them.

I also never get a chance to show my character’s personality. I’m a robot speaking her lines. I have one fixed personality that doesn’t match the vision I had for my character. I get story and lore is a small part in a (financially) successful MMORPG (I mean SWTOR went full-bore on that yet the rest of the game was dull and badly done, so it sunk, right?) but it makes the world feel so empty. Which is an even bigger shame to me because this game has some of the most beautiful sights and landscapes in any game to date.

Anyways that’s enough of my mini rant, just thought maybe some people felt the same way and I wasn’t being picky.

I was going to add a thread similar to this until I found this one. I dislike complaining for the sake of complaining, but I feel this is pretty big issue, particularly for a game that was really trying to put the RPG back into MMORPG. I find it a real shame the further you go into the story the less personal and interesting it seems to become. This problem is further emphasized by complete lack of ability to choose your character’s personality and dialogue choices. This whole dignity/charm/intimate system was too shallow and underutilized.

Anyway, the Order stuff starts out okay enough but all this emphasis on Personal Story makes you think your earlier choices were still going to make some effect. I was somewhat enjoying the Charr storyline and my warband and hoped to seem them involved more at some point. I hoped to see my honorless Gladium father pop out and cause trouble again. I hoped to see that eccentric female Charr engineer I picked to join my warband and never saw or heard from her again??? I was given the impression she’d be a regular teammate. I could not find her anywhere, I even looked in the Hero’s Canton. Speaking of which, never even changes whatsoever anytime you go there.

I seriously hate to say this, but almost all the characters feel like cardboard cutouts, the beginnings of some potentially memorable characters but they never get there. I think only Tybalt so far as had some measure of personality. I have played the Sylvari storyline too and had the same issues. I can’t even remember the names of my Charr warband members anymore. Now I get that time is money, resources are limited and there’s only so much individual branching one can do before the story has to come together since everybody knows Zhaitan is the big baddie here, but I felt this happened way too soon and for a game that really put emphasis on Personal story, it only reached half the mark.

Agreed. I think Arenanet should take a leaf out of EQ2’s array of titles. So many you can earn whether from crafting, joining certain factions or killing x number of a certain mob and different tiers of titles too.

Don’t agree on the Charr being the enemy again, but I do agree with undead being the main enemy force has become a really tired concept for this game. It’s not that undead aren’t cool enemies to face, its just that’s way overdone in this game in general, especially 45-50 or do onwards I’ve noticed. Everything becomes focused on undead and the variety of situations and enemies from earlier zones is gone.

Yeah I’m not a fan of the gambling nature of the Black Lion Chests frankly (I’ve had my fill of disappointment of raid drops in WoW and I’m tired of that kind of mechanic) If I saw a skin I really liked I’d buy it outright, providing its not going to cost me an arm and leg. I haven’t really seen anything I like so far. Fluff pets would be nice. Who wouldn’t want a cute quaggan for example?

I think its sad too! Plains of Ashford is among my favourite zones, I love Diessa Plateau too. I think its a matter of most players liking the “traditional” beauty of Caledorn Forest and Queensdale. I can see why. But I love the rolling plains and chaos going on in the Charr lands and there are definitely moments of beauty there too. The Asura zones I admit I don’t particularly like. I don’t like the layout and I never liked the excessively arrogant nature of the Asura either shrugs

greg.3792:

I played MMOs for the last 15 years.

The one thing, assuming the MMO was good, that kept me at it was the grind.

Nobody LIKES grind, but we do it because it gives us the edge in PvP or PvE.

GW2 has no grind e.g. PvP its all balanced like a FP shooter.

I cant really decide whether I like that fact or not. On the one hand I like how I can take a month off and join PvP and know it will be balanced.

On the other hand I like working towards something, I like the carrot because I cant resist it.

I dont know what the answer is, I think GW2 was a superbly designed game and I really do enjoy it.

But for some reason I am not ‘compelled’ to play it because there is no carrot.

Go figure. I don’t have the answers.

Fair enough. But I think you have to ask yourself “is chasing the carrot even fun or are you doing it because the game is exploiting a part of your brain urge you to keep on playing?” (cough WoW cough ough) You just mentioned yourself “nobody likes the grind.” So if nobody likes it, why should it even be implemented in the first place? A game is supposed to be fun, everything else is bad game design. That’s why GW2 has removed that “need” to grind for better stats. I guess that would feel uncomfortable for players so conditioned by the gear grind.

I’m a level 56 ranger and decided to look at my slot skills panel (which I haven’t looked at since about 45 or so) and realize I have no desire to even spend the 56 extra skill points I’ve accumulated so far. I’ve basically gotten all the ones I wanted quite a while back and feel are useful, everything else feels situational and a waste of skill points. I guess I miss making decisions on picking abilities that look equally awesome and useful. I do get why it was designed this way; excessive abilities aren’t always the better idea but I somehow feel there needs to be more sense of character progression, which is a really fundamental part of RPGs and what makes them so compelling so alot of players, right?

Yes. I was incredibly skeptical at first. I hadn’t really followed the game till about 6 months before release, it looked mildly interesting to me and I’ve been really burnt out with MMOs in general. I find myself approaching this game far more casually then any MMO I’ve played and I feel its a good thing. I can’t pinpoint why, I feel no huge compulsion to play but when I do I have plenty of fun with my partner. The lack of pressure to log in to get my money’s worth makes me actually enjoy the game alot more. I’m not sure whether it’ll be a really long term thing but I have no regrets!

This is precisely why I didn’t make a female human caster lol. Not a huge fan of the young anime schoolgirl/seductress look they seem to be going after. There are a handful of pants for them but its pretty limited compared to the other races’ light armor.

I’m not trying to say one playstyle is better then the other and maybe its just my experience, but I see many if not most players just dart to one checkpoint to the next and not even taking a little stop to look for hidden treasures and areas or listen to the convos. Maybe these are many of the players that complain of lack of content?

I already have a charr ranger in the Ash Legion, so I was thinking of one of the other two but Blood and Iron doesn’t seem like a place for an elementalist, or am I wrong?

- Love being rewarded for exploring nooks and crannies of the world, whether its loot or an NPC or discovering a new ranger pet. It makes the game feel more then just a pretty backdrop to grind exp like many other MMOs.

- Love the general open-world feel

- Love the random conversations that often hint of things.

- Love the robust dye system and transmutation stones. Love the design of the armors. Being able to look like you want, that’s huge to me. Huge plus that I can change my dyes anytime I want.

- Love how beautiful the world is. Love the attention to detail, the attention to sound effects, the gorgeous look of the long distance terrain. Easily the best looking MMO out there. I can’t count how many times me I have just stopped and admired the views and not always from vistas. Its hard to even pick a zone that is most amazing, they are all just stunning in their own ways. The beauty of this game puts every other MMO to shame and I have played most of them.

- Love the push towards the RPG of MMORPG. There may be alot of complaints with the personal storylines, but its really refreshing to feel like you’re actually role-playing more again instead of just rushing through text to go and grind more mobs.

All female, except I avoid the human females because they’re like anime inspired schoolgirls with lingerie adventure gear and I truly loathe that style. To each and their own though.

Avatar.1923:

LOL,

when OP said “working hard” i cracked.

game is just fun, and isnt about “working hard” or “stronger gear”.

imo its about exploration and pvp and action gameplay.

i am very surprised to see how many people are gear addicts and play the game as a “job” just because there is better gear available.
but yeah… some people redo the dreaded d3 act 3 more than a thousand time… for gear :/

i am so HAPPY that anet is breaking this mold.
and breaking the blizzardified zombies grinders to death.

Yeah its amazing how much WoW has conditioned players to tolerate medicore/bad/ gameplay to chase after the carrot on a stick. Skinner’s Box is sure effective. Now I’m not trying to bash these kinds of players. If this is truly what they enjoy, all the more power to them. I just wish they’d take a step back sometimes and ask themselves if they genuinely enjoying the gameplay, not mindlessly repeating something for a reward like a gambling addict.

Aeson Thackery.5927:

demonic corn.2187:

I disagree with this, I think the game is very social.

You need other people around to events effectively, so that creates social interaction throughout the entire game. Some people even call out where events are happening and where the next will be so that everyone in that map can come together.

I also have a different experience than you in dungeon runs; I have added many people during these runs and have run with them again afterwards if they were a good player.

Social interaction can’t only come from everyone else, you have to get involved also. If you think the game is antisocial you only have yourself to blame.

Yup, this exactly. If you make no effort to be social, no one will be social to you back! I’ve made an effort, and made plenty of friends in the process. Hardly a single player game, definitely an MMO!

Totally agree. In general, players have almost no interest in trying to be social and making friends anymore and make no effort. They are quick to blame others and not look at themselves and see if they are part of the problem. They are totally cellular and have huge social anxiety or something. I miss the warm, friendly, welcoming community back in Everquest, but the playerbase is an entirely different beast to what it was back then and I don’t think its fair to completely blame ANet for players not being social enough. I think they can continue to re-tweak gameplay mechanics to encourage this more, but there’s only so much one can do. I think is a society problem. People are so absorbed into technology they have forgotten the ability to bond with people or something, but that’s a totally different topic.

Just three basic things imo:

• Pay more attention to your environment then you are probably used to in WoW, because you can miss out on alot of amusing convos, well-hidden puzzles and even the entire next step of a quest chain if you are used to skimming npc text.

• Enjoy the journey. WoW’s common rush-to-end-game-to-boost-ego mentality will make you sorely disappointed. If you can’t break out this is probably isn’t the game for you.

*PvP is skill based over gear based, so don’t get angry if you get floored and scream for a nerf. Learn to adjust to the combat mechanics of this game.

Replace “X centaurs need to be killed” with “X X need to be killed” and you’ve got the entire game, with bad mechanics and a simpleton skill bar to boot. Oh, and there’s a new goldseller email every time you log in.

You’ve described literally every MMORPG out there in existence. Quests are the meat and bones of anything with RPG in it. If you take a step back and think, there’s only so many ways one can dress up a quest. Kill, escort, collect, explore and a couple of others I think I missed off the top of my head. The main ingredient is presentation, GW2 does it different to every other WoW( or more correctly, Everquest) clone out there and the only one that has really tried to tackle issues players have had with more traditional MMOs for years. It may not be mind blowing revolutionary. But what were people hoping for? Hyper complex AI and virtual realities? That’s not ever happening until the proper tech comes out. This is the first game that has actually bothered to shake up the EQ formula in some significant manner in a genre that has long been stale. The core game works and its fun.

Also, think again also with skills. Players have been conditioned to think more class skills available = better over the years. I’d rather have a smaller set of skills then a zillion clogging up my UI, half of which are always redundant or so similar its pointless. What does almost everyone end up doing? They end up picking the “best” ones and half of them are trashed by the playerbase and the dev team are left wasting time to think of ways to make them more useful. Better to not go overboard in the first place. Less is often more.

Anyways, obviously no matter what, the game will not ever be everybody’s cup of tea and that’s cool.

I think the main problem with player housing, as cute as it is and how cool it was in games like EQ2, is that it makes the cities so, SO dead. With so many players sitting in their houses decorating its going to take away the liveliness of cities fast. Heck right now I’m already struggling to find another living soul in Black Citadel although I suppose my time zone has much to do with it.

I presumed getting a juvenile pet, it would get bigger and mature with levels. =( I get they cannot be too huge for practical reasons, but they’re still too tiny!

Selo.1250:

Guild Wars 2 is a really good game
But if it had raiding, it would be twice as good for me

The only end game content there really is, is WvW and sPvP

You can grind your armorsets, but its only for the sake of grinding, theres no real advantage getting them other then looks

Not everyone likes to run around all over the place watching the harvest nodes grow, alot of people, actually the majority, wants to progress their character

People are using the argument “you dont have all sets on your character” its kinda like like the “you havent completed all character stories” argument SWToR fanboys used, and that didnt end too well.

There is alot of stuff in GW2, but its alot of the same, you just choose which dungeon your going to grind today,

Both players and developers shoud get used to the idea that people will “play to get to maxlvl” fast, that wont change, and it has always been like that. The only difference is how hard it is to get there.

GW2 has alot of potential though, and i hope they are thinking about endgame as well and come up with some nice ideas.

Wasn’t part of the design of this game to get away from raiding? There’s already a sea of MMOs that deliver this for you, let’s keep GW2 something unique and pushing the genre forward. Also, you’re speaking as everybody is an achievement oriented gamer that only cares about rushing to get to end-game because “that’s where the real game starts.” Sorry but there are loads of players that are definitely not like this. most players in WoW never raided or rarely raided regularly. Hell, so few people so saw nexxramas (something like 5%?) they ended up redoing it in WotLK.

I don’t know very much about the lore in this game, still learning it, however, would this combo make much sense?

Harak.8397:

This issue from my point of view is that alot of people who find the running animation for the Charr too slow “usually” have set their character to the largest body proportions. Mine isn’t overly bulky or tall and the issue is reduced significantly.

My character is small for a Charr and female, but its the same problem.

Kodan, Hylek, Tengu

I just don’t understand players like the OP. Do they sleep, eat, take breaks? Do they have jobs or school? How can you possibly be so bored and complaining of lack of content in a game with 5 years development just 3 weeks after launch? >_> It boggles the mind. You’ve gotta be playing like 10 hours straight every day or something.

So I get alot of guys (and girls too) want sexy looking gear for their female toons, to each and their own and nothing wrong with it. Human nature is human nature. However, I’m tired of being a female gamer that prefers something more conservative and realistic, having almost no choice in so many MMOs but to wear skimpy gear, to point I often roll a male toon, so if this suggestion is going to be taken seriously I just hope armors in the future don’t go overboard and at least strike a balance to please both crowds. Currently very happy with the choice and customization available at the moment, just hope female armors in the future don’t all become Tera style is all.

I love my Charr ranger, she is my main, but boy Warrior archers are fun to watch and play too. I still like pets too much though.

molitar.8534:

Of all the MMO games I have played GW armor is ugly. No cool looking armor just to be cool looking. I do not know who designs the armor but why no cool swashbuckler style armor for light armor.. why is it all so ugly. I play a Female Ranger and armor is ugly no female style at all in the armor.. same with the male armor. I ultimately hate the looks of almost all the armor in GW.

You clearly haven’t seen EQ2’s armor. They’re the pinnacle of ugly, not to mention plasticy. This is one of the few games where I like almost all of the armor and I’m damed picky.

Look at almost every other MMO out there. Massive inflation and overall trainwreck economies. WoW being a fine example. Scaled waypoint costs ensures having just 1 gold is actually pretty awesome and valuable and buying basic stuff doesn’t cost your newborn baby and left arm.

There’s always going to be some sort of grind. Content cannot be produced faster then players consume it with current technologies, especially regarding hardcore players.

miya.5160:

I think making them persist through enemy deaths would be dumbing the class down to a pet class, but the idea of clones and phantasms lasting an extra 1-2 seconds and able to be shattered in their current location, despite their target being dead, would be good.

Too many times has my target died with me spamming Shatter, hoping that it would Mind Wrack the multiple enemies still present, but I was sadly treated to my clone or phantasm simply disappearing.

Totally agree. Although I’d love a permanent illusion this isn’t a pet class. They simply just don’t last long enough. Mantras need to be reworked too, annoying to recast them and feels like it isn’t worth a slot half the time.

I don’t think giving them any sort of pet is the solution. We don’t need to make engineers rangers with guns and a mechanical pet. You may as well go ranger. WoW made the mistake of homogenizing their classes too much and we can see what good that did. Rather, better close combat capabilities or better defense buffs is probably the way to go. Their combos are also too finicky and not as apparent as other classes, which I think need to be fixed.

Everquest 2 already tried this with their adventure packs, which they stopped producing. It causes segregation with the community. It’s annoying having to pay for mini content updates constantly and plenty of people don’t like it. Big meaty expansion packs are much better and I believe most players are more comfortable with that.

That’s really saying it all when the guy that helped the popularity of quest hubs is tired of them lol.

My boyfriend and I were exploring Caledorn forest and found a certain gate tucked away in the swamp with something behind it. We had no idea how to get past it until we did some random things out of curiosity, presuming nothing would happen, but then we were so surprised when it opened and explored within. It’s moments like that, that has made me love this game so much (combined with all the other refreshing changes) It never felt like any company has really listened to what players have been asking for so long until now. This is a really big step in the right direction for MMORPGs. So my thanks from just another average MMO player tired of the staleness of the genre and excited to be excited again. =)

I love Charr, first character I rolled and I love them but my god…they just…run…too…frakkin…slow! Even with my 10% speed boost as a ranger I feel like I’m in slow-mo. Something as big and strong as a Charr, especially running on all fours should be running a hell of alot faster, it feels really off. I think at the very least the animation itself must be sped up.

As an Australian player, I often feel like I’m playing on a dead server (I’m on Ferguson’s Crossing) but I know its not the case. My partner lives in the U.S and its totally packed and lively at U.S peak times. I suppose its a fresh new game too, people are simply busy enjoying themselves or chatting to their close friends. It’s not like WoW atm where people are so bored they must incessantly troll chat channels.

- Levels just go by too fast. Ability scale or lock exp for those who want a slower experience. Even with level scaling, it just feels like you’re “cheating” in a sense.

- Add a confirmation button for selecting traits

- Option to remove that green outline when highlighting players

- Not having to rename pets every time you decide to change a pet in a slot, I seem to keep having to. Also, more pets! Ability to tame something a little more exotic like a wurm or dragonfly would be nice.

- This may be out of the realm of possibility, but ability to build our own houses or even towns in either special zones or incorporated into existing zones. That would be a unique and cool gameplay feature that no other major MMO really has. (Maybe it could be a basis for an expansion?)

- Add kodan/tengu as a playable race!

No thanks. Part of the appeal of this game is gearless pvp. Even Blizzard themselves admitted arena was a mistake if i recall correctly.

I agree to an extent. I do like then fact that this game has removed endless amounts of skills, which in turn removes a messy chaotic UI and a lot of redundancy. However the downside is that lack of character progression most mmo players are accustomed to. It’s addictive and exciting to get a new awesome class ability. Some way to find a middle ground would be good.

Because I’ve always been a fan of beastly sort of races in mmos and I particularly dislike the anime schoolgirl style they went with the human and norn females in this game.

Either Tengu or Kodan would be awesome. Both, extremely so!

I’m going to have to echo the sentiments here. I enjoy the fact there’s actual choice in personal stories which is refreshing and welcome, but the stories are let down by characters that are one dimensional and almost always defined by their racial stereotypes. I think the Norn are the worst offender. The example of Lord Faren coming off as a characiture was a good one. The game seems almost afraid to show too much personality and plot, although I’m sure that wasn’t the intention. The VO is also a strange mixed bag which yanks you out of immersion.