Word to the wise: players looking for GW1 pvp will find only frustration and despair in this game. We will never have GW1 GvG in GW2. It’s not the team sizes or the maps, it’s that the game operates in a fundamentally different way with no healers.
edit: oh I guess Burnham already had me covered
Yep, you’re absolutely right. And yet I’m 100% sure I’ve heard Jeff Strain or Mike Obrien refer to it as a cooperative RPG, as well, later on in the game’s life.
As I said earlier the game certainly was first posed as a PvP game, but Anet themselves have said they were surprised by the passion of the PvE players. Again it’s why the last two games they released, Nightfall and EotN had no PvP at all in them. They were pure PvE games.
Why? Because as I said earlier, after their initial plans they saw which side their bread was buttered on.
And again, it’s why they talked about PvE in Guild Wars 2 for a full year, before ever mentioning PvP.
I thought it was “cooperative” as well, and the official wiki gives both cooperative & competitive as true. And it’s also true that starting from later expansions there was less emphasis on pvp, and certainly heading into gw2 it’s been painfully obvious pvp has been relegated to life support status. Other posters talking about gw1 being “coincidentally” featuring gvg are really quite far from the documented truth: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars which leads me to the conclusion that the name “guild wars” originates from a desire to market the game as pvp-focused to distinguish it among its competitors.
Guild wars comes from the series of human wars called “the guild wars”.
There is more circumstantial evidence that points to the opposite conclusion: the game was made with GvG as a core foundational element and the lore was made to coincide. Certainly it makes much more sense this way round to explain the name.
inb4 “anet confirmed name comes from lore!!” — of course they did, 2 years in and they don’t have a pvp offering worth mentioning it’s no wonder they’d like to sweep the GW1 GvG legacy under the rug.
No – GvG was coincidental with GW1. Meaning that the game just happened to have GvG in it. Also too, since the Gods left the world, GvG serves no purpose – Guild Wars was about fighting for your God, like a religious war. Since there are not Gods in GW2, why have GvG (although you can do it now – they the coliseum in OS map).
They didn’t do it 2 years in, they did it in BETA. Please get your facts right before you spout garbage. A.Net had the lore out so that players could understand the whole situation in Tyria. It was pretty monumental Lore for only having one game out in this universe.
Your fanboy is showing man. The game was built from the ground up to have GvG/HA as the end game, and all the features present at launch support that (if you’d like I will list them).
Guild wars comes from the series of human wars called “the guild wars”.
There is more circumstantial evidence that points to the opposite conclusion: the game was made with GvG as a core foundational element and the lore was made to coincide. Certainly it makes much more sense this way round to explain the name.
inb4 “anet confirmed name comes from lore!!” — of course they did, 2 years in and they don’t have a pvp offering worth mentioning it’s no wonder they’d like to sweep the GW1 GvG legacy under the rug.
Man, I am so glad I stopped playing this game years ago. The cycle of hype and delays and underwhelming releases is like a bad crack addiction.
I usually don’t answer to posts like these, but since you are speaking about addictions …
I do still check the forums once a month, and here I am, but I’m really super happy that I’ve left this game behind. If they add a large patch that doubles the available skills & weapons I’ll almost certainly come back to check it out, but as OP said anet says one thing, then disregards it and under-delivers.
You do realize though that by only reading the forum … well you are not getting the whole picture. Sure there are grains of different versions of the truth in everything, but which one would be true for you?
I skim patch notes too, and I know exactly what sort of thing (as I already mentioned) I am looking for to make it worth my while to return.
Man, I am so glad I stopped playing this game years ago. The cycle of hype and delays and underwhelming releases is like a bad crack addiction.
I usually don’t answer to posts like these, but since you are speaking about addictions …
I do still check the forums once a month, and here I am, but I’m really super happy that I’ve left this game behind. If they add a large patch that doubles the available skills & weapons I’ll almost certainly come back to check it out, but as OP said anet says one thing, then disregards it and under-delivers.
Man, I am so glad I stopped playing this game years ago. The cycle of hype and delays and underwhelming releases is like a bad crack addiction.
I submitted a ticket a while back about the drop-rates, got one response from player support saying he would forward the issue on to one of the devs followed by multiple copy pasta responses:
[…]It is important to remember that in-game bug reports go directly to our Quality Assurance Team for investigation.
That explains everything. We know that Anet’s Quality Assurance Team has zero members, so the bug reports get sent directly to nobody. Then nobody fixes them.
As far as I can tell, this is possibly the actual truth. Heard some rumors that QA dept was let go and all QA is now outsourced.
No can do. That build freedom resulted in a balance hell. We do need more weapons and skills, and maybe a bit more specializations, but we can’t have what we had in GW1. It was 1319 skills that you could combine way more, but resulting also in way more crappy combinations.
The freedom resulted in a self-balancing meta, at least in pvp, where if a particular thing was too powerful, there was often some way to build your team to counter it. Balance wasn’t about making nothing overpowered, it was about giving teams the tools to counter. It wasn’t perfect but considering the sprawling quantity of skills it was amazing it worked as well as it did, and it certainly made the game more fun to have so many skills to work with. there were not so many crappy skills as you would think, many were situational for pvp or pve and 80% of skills saw use in important builds at one point or another. Again, not perfect, but infinitely better to have massive skill freedom and leave it to player to come up with good combinations than to have developer force you to use skills you don’t want and still have just as many balance problems.
That being said, I’m starting to miss a better PvP system and more build freedom. You don’t even react to people’s skills on GW2 in PvP! Pretty much all other PvP games have you deciding to use a certain skill to counter what your enemy used, but on guild wars 2 you never do that, you simply try to do a combo of yours and spam as fast as you can, with some dodge action to try to count as the skill factor. This is a bad system. PvP in guild wars 1 was extremely addictive, on 2 I don’t even enjoy it.
yea gw1’s heart and soul were pvp and it took it seriously, much more seriously than any game before or since. here pvp is a joke, a kid’s game, you just do your little button mashing and roll around with minimum cares about what enemy or even ally is doing.
Y’all are romanticizing GW1 a little too much. Remember when every group running HoH was Bunny Thumpers, then there was the next meta. There was no freedom either.
Infinitely better to have a meta that shifts month to month than one which becomes stale 2 weeks after a patch and stays that way for 6 months before next skill patch.
Guild Halls have no place in Guild Wars 2.
The Guild Halls in GW1 were launchpads for GvG – Guilds fought at each other’s guild halls. In GW2, guilds don’t fight each other, they have some makeshift zergfest in WvW zones and that’s it.
Since guilds are not in wars in GW2, what’s the point of Guild halls? I wish they change the name of the game to “Guild Not in Wars”.
Mind you that the original Guild Wars for which the first game was named ended before the game’s story even began. It wasn’t called Guild Wars because of GvG, that was just a thing they put in the game, and didn’t put in Guild Wars 2.
Amazing feat of backwards thinking. Sure, name a game Guild Wars, have Guild Battles at launch, Promote GvG championships with cash prizes, Guild Rating, Rank, Emote, Observe mode, Gold capes, and champion title, but no, Guild Wars is about a lore event that is barely mentioned. Logic.
TLDR: Where are guild halls, I’m frustrated because they’re not out after almost two years and am a little kitten.
You’re upset because a feature that ANet never promised to implement hasn’t been implemented yet?
“Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1, and then leaves it in silent developmental limbo for years.” — Abraham Lincoln
GW2 does not cater well to players seeking skill team play. Overall, it is a casual game. You could try spvp I guess, but last I left it was still in beta. Lots of people that still play may reply with their suggestions, and you guys may want to try them out, but take it from me: save your time and look for another game. Try a little bit of ________ (censored game name) that is in open beta for one week right now, see if you guys like that. It may be more geared towards your group’s “hardcore” playstyle, but that game wasn’t really for me either.
Honestly, what’s the problem with the Districts model from GW1?
In my last two games, I was permanently immobilized five times.
I think this bug perfectly represents the flaw in ArenaNet’s QA system versus other companies. Does anyone doubt that Blizzard or Riot would have fixed this massive bug within a couple hours? Yet it’s taken ArenaNet months.
they outsourced their qa dept a while back
pvp used to be the bedrock, now it’s an add-on
There is currently a bug with all NPC damage in PvP being higher than intended. We are shooting to get this fixed before the Tournament of Legends.
suggestion, make a qa team
I haven’t played in a long time, but thief class was one of the reasons I quit game. Not because they are OP or they couldn’t be killed, etc. It was their over the top mobility and stealth. I didn’t like that the game didn’t set some kind of balance between the classes, some kind of equality and moderation that made sense. It was like they just decided what class should do what based on what they thought was cool, not on what was balanced and fun to play against. A class that has a mobility advantage should have a moderate but significant advantage, not over-the-top “where did he come from that didn’t even make sense” advantage.
One other puzzling implication of this whole thing is the comment that the ANet devs made (regarding WvW, but still) that they want to boost server pride. And yet, they release a feature which removes all the elements from our server pride we have learn to know – that is, players that we recognize. Where is my pride for Gandara, if I don’t see any Gandarans around when I play?
What they say and what they do have historically often been completely different things.
They added the fractals and changed a path of the TA … I consider them new dungeons.
Bless your heart.
Opens door and walks into room full of gw2 devs
What’s wrong with district selection like you did in GW1?
The devs don’t speak, just look back silently making fish mouths
Slowly closes door and leaves
that female armor looks super uninspired
I am playing guild wars for years now. And the best thing about guild wars was that you could quit for a few months and it did not impact your account a lot. And now when I had this break in gw2 I noticed yesterday by chance “use all your glory, materials etc. or it will get wasted”. Because of bad design thousands of mats will get wasted anyway but what if I would miss that message like many will I pressume. All the stuff players got in months of playing will be lost because they went on a break … like they did many times before …
Your honor,
Relevance to Guild wars 2?
While it is nice you played guild wars 1, the truth is this is not guild wars 1 and it will never be guild wars 1 for good or mostly bad.
It’s nice to see someone play the trusty “it’s a different game” card, but is it also a different company? This isn’t the anet I remember.
I still think it’s pretty amazing that they are deleting an entire rewards system without leaving any way to convert to the newer system. People that stopped for a few months will come back to quite a surprise.
More likely, they just won’t come back.
“Where’s my stuff…
What do you mean it got deleted?
…forget it, later Anet.”
I still think it’s pretty amazing that they are deleting an entire rewards system without leaving any way to convert to the newer system. People that stopped for a few months will come back to quite a surprise.
It’s nothing like GW1, at all.
They didn’t mean in game, they meant the backend of the client is not the same, in GW1 they could push small updates while you played because zones etc where instanced, GW2 its not possible as you can jump from 1 place to another instantly.
I understand but he said he was hoping the game was worth the wait based on his time with GW1, I was just forewarning him.
It’s nothing like GW1, at all.
But in GW2 I feel lost, bored, out of place, broke, uninspired and alone.
Summary of my experience as well.
I was going to write: “I don’t know what the huge difference in feeling is between gw1 or gw2” But maybe it’s that in gw1 there was something to aspire to that took time to learn and seemed “pro” and you thought “one day I’ll be pro and do that too” but in gw2 it all seems so simple and routine. Nothing you do seems to matter: events reset and in big groups you are completely replaceable.
It’s like they wanted to move from an MMORPG game type into FPS game type and kinda stopped working on it half way through.
This again… Here, I’ve written an explanation before, so have at it.
“Guild Wars 2,” the game, is named what it is for marketing reasons, to ensure that the players of the first game would know that this was a “continuation” of the original “Guild Wars,” Co-OpRPG. The original “Guild Wars” was named as such because of it’s original design, that being a PvP-based MMO, but was changed during its development into a PvX centric game (with PvE eventually taking the spotlight).
Additionally, lore-wise, both games are named after an event which predates their timelines, that being the Guild Wars. The Guild Wars were a series of wars fought by some of the largest guilds on continental Tyria, with the last one ending due to Ascalon entering into serious conflict with the Charr.“Guild Wars 2” isn’t named the way it is due to a focus on guilds, that content was never meant to be a focus of the game. It was named after its predassosor who kept its original name despite it having its original design elements changed.
I agree 80% with that and it’s a reasonable compromise.
It’s so like them to over engineer a solution that was previously solved more simply in gw1
the problem is that GW1 had at its basis, a very different system. Nothing was persistant, all the maps that used districts were exactly the same. The idea for GW2 was to actually have dynamic systems where different things were going on. Now, its possible they have thrown out this idea, which makes a district like system more viable
Point being, they have a complex system to automatically sort people based on “mysterious algorithms” instead of a drop-dead simple server (district) selector. Unless they have a system in place to choose which server/district/whatever-it’s-called you want to be in there will be significant problems.
It’s so like them to over engineer a solution that was previously solved more simply in gw1
Game that launches with GvG (ratings, rankings, guild halls, observer) and a focus on pvp (Hero’s Ascent too, favor of the gods, affected pve access to elite pve content, winners broadcast to entire world) was disingenuously marketed as “Guild Wars” when in fact this was all misleading as the real reason was an obscure lore event. Totally checks out.
I think the big reason we need to streamline things and make it easy to pickup is NOT because newbies are dumb or incapable of figuring it out, but rather because PvP is very, very intimidating. Reduction in apparent complexity helps PvP be more approachable and less intimidating.
Also, I can’t undersell the benefits of reducing conceptual complexity for assisting designers achieve balance. We are finite creatures, us humans, and can only hold so many things in our mind at one time. We can create tools to help work around this, but anything that helps make balance easier gets my vote.
+1
however, complexity can also be seen as deviation from norms. a thing that is different from pve, no matter how simple, is still more complex than a system that mirrors it.
also, seems like all effort goes to bringing players in but not on keeping them
hahahaha yea I wasn’t being serious, but it was a funny thought I had
Oh the memories.
Game is surprisingly active actually, everyone should try it out again. Find a large guild & ally and it’s like the old days.
What if the reason they don’t add more skills is because there is no skill activation bar? As the number of skills increases, a new player will be more and more lost with what the enemies are doing.
p.s.
pls add activation bar
There are entire categories of core features that are missing or underdeveloped. Post-80 content, lasting non-ls content, teamplay mechanics, meaningful guild activities, CPU optimization, UI customization, skills, weapons, classes, races, non-gemstore armors and so on. If you read recent glassdoor reviews by employees (both the good and the bad ones), the general sentiment is that the company is stretched too thin trying to accommodate the frantic LS pace.
Post 80 content? Have as much as any other MMO
teamplay and meaningful guild activities? That’s there
The game is always being optimized, hence we’re able to not have culling anymore
UI customization is not something every MMO allows. In fact most don’t.
weapons, classes, races, etc are just fine. We have those. We have non gemstore armours too.Is this an april 1st post? Where are GvG and HA? Where are Underworld, FoW, Deep, Urgoz, DoA, and Sorrow’s Furnace? Where are the new classes & skills (a handful of skills and traits are fine, but not alone after a year and a half)? Culling wasn’t so much an optimization but a bug fix to enable people to see the enemy…
In Guild Wars 1, where was the WvW, The Fractals of the Mists, the 32 dungeon paths (33?) that exist in Guild Wars 2.
Where was the markpetplace, the jumping puzzles, the guild missions?
It’s different content. You may have that HA and GvG was stand out content, but I never touched either of them. The Deep and Urgoz’s Warren I did once. FoW was okay.
Do you really think the majority of the player base ran the Underworld?
I never said gw2 didn’t have non-LS content, but it’s mostly the same content as day 1.
There are entire categories of core features that are missing or underdeveloped. Post-80 content, lasting non-ls content, teamplay mechanics, meaningful guild activities, CPU optimization, UI customization, skills, weapons, classes, races, non-gemstore armors and so on. If you read recent glassdoor reviews by employees (both the good and the bad ones), the general sentiment is that the company is stretched too thin trying to accommodate the frantic LS pace.
Post 80 content? Have as much as any other MMO
teamplay and meaningful guild activities? That’s there
The game is always being optimized, hence we’re able to not have culling anymore
UI customization is not something every MMO allows. In fact most don’t.
weapons, classes, races, etc are just fine. We have those. We have non gemstore armours too.
Is this an april 1st post? Where are GvG and HA? Where are Underworld, FoW, Deep, Urgoz, DoA, and Sorrow’s Furnace? Where are the new classes & skills (a handful of skills and traits are fine, but not alone after a year and a half)? Culling wasn’t so much an optimization but a bug fix to enable people to see the enemy…
There are entire categories of core features that are missing or underdeveloped. Post-80 content, lasting non-ls content, attitude and development pace for pvp, teamplay mechanics, meaningful guild activities, CPU optimization, UI customization, skills, weapons, classes, races, non-gemstore armors and so on. If you read recent glassdoor reviews by employees (both the good and the bad ones), the general sentiment is that the company is stretched too thin trying to accommodate the frantic LS pace.
Interesting, I just read through 5 pages (42 reviews) on glassdoor from current and past employees. Nothing about the LS specifically. Overworked, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s due to the LS though. Considering the variety of other stuff on their plate (just consider all the changes for the current feature patch), I can easily see how they might end up feeling overworked.
Edit: Admittedly a lot of the cons people list are things I’ve come across in every dev position I’ve had. Nice to know they exist everywhere to some extent. XD
“The bi-weekly cadence has been tried and failed. It is killing your business.”
From one of the most recent ones, but I don’t want to turn this into a glassdoor thread, even in that same review he goes on to say they are “maintaining” so it is not all negative.
However, the feature patch is not so large as to counterbalance the ongoing glacial pace of non-LS content/features/bugfixes.
There are entire categories of core features that are missing or underdeveloped. Post-80 content, lasting non-ls content, attitude and development pace for pvp, teamplay mechanics, meaningful guild activities, CPU optimization, UI customization, skills, weapons, classes, races, non-gemstore armors and so on. If you read recent glassdoor reviews by employees (both the good and the bad ones), the general sentiment is that the company is stretched too thin trying to accommodate the frantic LS pace.
We can’t support GW1 style observer mode and recordings yet due to the fact we use Havok. The simulations are not deterministic so we have to figure out a way around that first. Basically, its way harder to do in GW2 than GW1.
If you make it possible we’ll each send you a batch of cookies – that’s a lot of cookies!
I look forward to the day.
What’s the big difference between observing in hotjoin and observing in team queue?
In hotjoin you’re not observing, you’re in the server in real time.
If you could be in a tpvp match in real time with access to all player visibility you could relay that information to a team and give them an edge. Which is why these things are normally on a time delay. Which is where the technical problem arises.
launched with poorly thought out systems
Having that separate jewel was completely pointless in the first place. I like this change.
exactly
it was always a mostly pointless extra option and shouldn’t have been in the game to begin with. more pointless choices != better gameplay
but of course people will cry because they’ve grown used to things being a certain way and now they redesign things (again) which is symptomatic of poor initial design
(edited by milo.6942)
Finally a (small) step in the right direction. Unfortunately I’ve moved on.
Know your product before you buy it
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars
- marketable product franchise name directly implies guild battles
- first product has guild battles at launch
- but no, name must come from a barely-mentioned lore event
- makes perfect sense
Does not matter. The features where well advertised for several years before the game was released. If someone purchased the game without even reading about it on the many sites that reviewed it, then honestly it’s their problem.
As to the topic, been discussed at least once a week since launch. No reason to create another duplicate thread and hash the whole thing out again. Anet knows how the player base feels, so all we can do is wait.
Before launch and during the betas I was closely following any news I could find about gvg (I still occasionally gvg in gw1) and the message has always been “soon”, and here we are 2 years later and that “soon” is starting to look like a “jk, maybe never”
Know your product before you buy it
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars
- marketable product franchise name directly implies guild battles
- first product has guild battles at launch
- but no, name must come from a barely-mentioned lore event
- makes perfect sense