Guild Wars 2

http://south.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/guild-wars-2-beyond-the-point-of-no-return

Guild Wars 2: Beyond the Point of No Return
Join ArenaNet president and co-founder Mike O’Brien and Guild Wars 2 game director Colin Johanson for an exclusive sneak peek at what’s next in Guild Wars 2 and be among the first to hear how we’re setting up a new framework for how an MMO can grow its universe. The Living World was just the beginning.

PANELISTS:
Mike O’Brien [President and Co-Founder, ArenaNet], Colin Johanson [Guild Wars 2 Director, ArenaNet]

Warhorns are usually passive with boons, so that’s why people don’t like them much.

People want a weapon that does actual damage, such as an axe, pistol, or a sword. We don’t know what the actual skills will be, but i seriously doubt it’s going to be anything like these other off-hand weapons. At least with the Mesmer’s shield, it does pretty amazing damage skills, but if this new warhorn is anything like current warhorns, then it’s going to be useless.

The problem with Living Story? It spans way too long. All content can be finished in one day, then we need to wait 1 month for more? Sounds ridiculous.. By the time the next installment of Flame & Frost came, i was already disinterested in the story. I prefer large patch updates instead of these smaller ones that will have 1 month intervals..

It should be obvious that the LFG tool was meant for group content, whether it’s PvE or PvP. Selling items is definitely an abuse of the system.

Megaservers killed server communities. I remember seeing the same group of people in Lion’s Arch, and it fostered a social community, where people would chat in /map chat, and then became friends and they’d do dungeons or wvw together.

I’m not against megaservers. I think they are awesome, and address the low-populated zones pretty well. They shouldn’t have megaserver’d the cities though. They should’ve kept them like WvW.

RP’ers and Guilds were affected the most by this too. It wouldn’t have so bad, if they gave guilds better organization tools and a better guild UI to address some of the issues that megaservers caused.

“Just like a TV series, you don’t get everything in the first show. You have to wait for further episodes for the plot to develop, new characters to be introduced, new challenges for the protagonists, etc.”

And that’s the problem. People interact with a video game, not with a TV show.

If there’s little interaction, and sparse content being released, people aren’t going to waste their time. Trying to fuse a MMO video game with a TV show format will always fail.

Skills, events, combat, armor, new races & classes, new pvp gametypes, and all these can be interacted with, but we’re not getting this. Instead, we’re getting story as the main feature, which is taking up all the resources, while everything else is being neglected.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Collaborative-Development-Commander-System/page/14#post3343318

Over 8 months later, 14 pages of constructive dialogue, and this is the best they come up with? Couldn’t they have at least made different icons for various purposes, such as PvE, WvW, Bosses, etc. and perhaps sub-icons for different aspects such as small groups, large groups, etc.?

Sube Dai.8496:

Totally agree. Even though some of the female models have thinner frames the boobs are still way too big. It makes them look like a porn star from the 80s…

And that’s not a good thing.

They look really bad. The breasts look like they were attached with super glue. They aren’t even smoothed and the shading and skin tone are unevenly matched, and it’s very noticeable and unnatural.

The wings are bulky, mostly static, and they look unnatural. They look like a plastic toy that is glued on a toy figurine. Compare to the Holographic Shattered Dragon Wings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LCFhvMJ4GE

Mid level zones are less populated, which is to be expected, but this A-Net’s fault to a degree. They should have been focusing on new content within these zones, but instead they release southsun cove, which makes no sense. Why focus on a living story & a new zone, when they could’ve been adding new dynamic events or meta-events to existing ones.

RNG is always terrible. Imagine if the olympics or any other sport relied on RNG for their medals and trophies.

All those Gem Store sales funded Wildstar, which is already failing in it’s 1st month. lol.

Sure, there were many events that were added, but these events aren’t tied together with the Living Story, thus it makes it feel as if the world is separate from the Living Story concept.

The same thing happens with the Personal Story. It isn’t tied to the Living Story.

Just about everything from launch isn’t connected to the Living Story. It’s been largely abandoned, and that’s the real crux of the problem we are discussing.

There doesn’t feel like there’s any substantial update to the “endgame”.

Here’s a list of endgame activities for groups in PvE (excluding dungeons of course). http://guildwarstemple.com/dragontimer/events.php?serverKey=105&langKey=en

Low-level zone events: The Frozen Maw, Shadow Behemoth, Fire Elemental, Great Jungle Wurm
Medium-level events: Ulgoth the Modniir, Taidha Covington, Megadestroyer, Golem Mark II
Temple Events: Balthazar, Grenth, Lyssa
Dragon Events: Shatterer, Tequatl the Sunless, Claw of Jormag
Guild Bounties/Missions

The only major update we’ve really had, was Southsun Cove, and this was before the Living Story was even launched. A whole new landmass was added, which was amazing, but once again it was abandoned for Living Story, until the LS update brought it back to life.

I’m specifically talking about PvE content that’s been added to the game. Besides this? Mostly temporary stories and minigames, which feel so underwhelming. I haven’t even brought up how underwhelming the rewards are too. RNG boxes, Minis, Backpack items, Gem-Store gear & weapons only. Why not give us full gear sets and weapons from Boss fights, instead of from dungeons or from the trading post only?

In conclusion, when i first read that GW2 was going to have a living, breathing, changing world… i thought the world from launch, almost 1 year ago, was going to change, but it didn’t. Instead, we got fluff content with no real long-term substance.

Scarlet is the scapegoat of the community right now. She’s just an easy target for people that hate the living story, or the game in general. She doesn’t really bother me, but that’s because i don’t care about the living story currently.

We used to be able to deposit, but they changed it. I actually liked being able to deposit, but not everyone did.

By the tone of the OP’s post, it’s obvious he’s made up his mind and isn’t seeking legitimate feedback, otherwise i would’ve answered.

I disagree with the wording about “Buy Dungeon Runs”. I don’t think Anet wants to encourage that. I would change it to “Experienced”, or something along those lines.

Okay, some of you are getting ridiculous. How can you say they haven’t added content? They have added a lot of content, but most of it wasn’t permanent, and most of it isn’t content that is expected from traditional MMOs.

If you want to argue about content, then argue about those points. I can’t take someone seriously when this link shows they are wrong.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

There’s even more details when you click each update in that link.

lordkrall.7241:

Maybe if you are only playing for rewards, doing short and easy STORY missions isn’t the way to go?

Are you serious? STORY is the main form of content coming from Anet now. There should be meaningful rewards for it, and not junk loot. At least in the original Personal Story, we got somewhat better rewards, but this really shows how amateur this game design really is. Anet can never do wrong in your eyes. It’s laughable.

Save your karma for tomorrow’s update. There will be karma vendors to unlock certain Collections.

I find it creepy that he’s showing himself overlayed on the video.

Jski.6180:

nexxe.7081:

A better solution, would be to leave the capital city hubs as they were, and use the other zones for megaservers. They could be like WvW zones, where only server populations are allowed.

Why? Most ppl play mmorpgs to play with other ppl and if the hubs have fewer ppl then the zones you play in how would that be better then having hubs that a full populated?

You’re missing the point. I think megaservers are good, but not for major cities.

The point is to foster a community, so you can get familiar with guilds and people, on a consistent basis. Megaservers are always fluctuating, so now there isn’t any reason to build upon a community event-driven society. These same guilds and people often hosted events in Lion’s Arch, whether it was a Guild Bounty run, Prize offers, WvW events, or RP events.

Now imagine if WvW was megaserver’d. You would have different commanders, guilds, roamers, etc., each time you went into WvW. It’s pretty much what happened to the racial capital cities.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/
In my opinion, the game took a radical shift after The Lost Shores and the 1st Wintersday, but the more i look into the wiki and the updates, it seems like GW2 was already going in this direction.

As Vayne said above, they wanted a “living, breathing world”, and that was a slogan they used all the time for GW2. There were around 100+ events all over Tyria, but they went unnoticed because they were never announced.

It’s hard to say if we were “lab rats”, because The Lost Shores was their 1st major update, and some of it was still temporary, but only certain things were temporary.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/november-2012/
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Lost_Shores

Temporary features
-A one-time weekend-long event that permanently changes the world in some places.
-Prelude content with hints and teasers to build up the game release.
-Unique minis, armor skins, town clothing, and weapon skins made for the Lost Shores event from Consortium Chests.

Everything else was permanent though.

A new PvP map: Temple of the Silent Storm
A new area: Southsun Cove, designed for level 80s.
Two new jumping puzzles.
New events.
New achievements.
A new dungeon: Fractals of the Mists, designed for level 80s.
A new set of exotic weapons: Fractal weapons.
A new enemy: the karka.
New ascended rarity and corrospending ascended equipment; with a new type of upgrade slot: Infusion.
A new PvE mechanic: agony.
New crafting resources to find and harvest – Karka Shells, Passion Fruits, and Passion Flowers – with 200 new crafting recipes, including the new Apothecary’s/Passiflora atrribute combination.
A new group of NPCs, a merchant conglomerate, called the Consortium.

After this, we got two(?) new SPvP maps, Obsidian Sanctum, EotM, Guild Missions, Belcher’s Bluff, Tequatl & Wurm events, TA: Aetherblade dungeon path, 3 new Fractals (thaumanova, molten furnace, atherblade), Jumping Puzzles, etc., and then all of Season 2 so far. Was this 2 years worth of content? I don’t know. To me, it isn’t.

They should’ve stuck with the Southsun Model, which added so many permanent things, such as new mobs, new zones, new dungeons and paths, new weapons, etc. Temporary events that shaped the story could’ve been the only things that needed to be temporary, as well as minis, skins, etc., but alas, they also made the former temporary too.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Thus, the ratio of Gems to Gold and Gold to Gems is not indicative of player population.

I disagree. It’s very indicative of the population. Just look at that graph above. Prices were very low, because there were literally millions of players during, and after, launch. Then it continually declined, hence the megaservers (basically a merge).

If there was more people playing, they would definitely be buying gems and selling them for gold, but that’s not what’s happening.

Anyway, i don’t want to steer off-topic into a population argument. The fact is, that not enough players are buying gems, and/or, selling them for gold. This is because of a variety of reasons. The two biggest factors being, that the population dropped off, and the other, is that gold isn’t really needed for anything in game, except for Legendary items. Just look on the Trading Post, and you’ll see every item under the Top Valued Items section, is a Legendary.

Anet needs to make more valuable items worth gold, other than a Legendary item. This would give more incentive for people to convert gems to gold, and bring the ratio down to a more reasonable conversion.

Instead, they just pump out content exclusive to the Gem Store only, which is really limiting their customers, and driving the rest away. People would rather earn their items in-game, instead of with their wallet. I could understand if both Gem Store items, and items earned in-game, were balancing each other out, but that’s not what’s happening.

The items that are earned in-game, are single-piece back slots, or gauntlets, or minis, or tonics, or boosts, or recipes, etc. These things aren’t going to entice players to stick around for the long term. There needs to be full armor sets, like the dungeon sets, added to the game. Sets that don’t require gems. This is where GW2 falls short. A wasted opportunity.

Wait a minute.. they have time to re-create these animations, yet they don’t fix the human female idle animation, that they labeled as a bug? Priorities much?

This is why i wish GW2’s combat system was improved. It seriously needs options for target reticules. Currrently, we’re aiming blindly without one.

Zaoda.1653:

Neve.7134:

And not everyone maybe liked all the proceedings before. Fractals is an aspect of the game. You want something special? You’ll have to work hard to obtain it, even with something you don’t like.

Don’t get angry

I’m more than happy to ‘work hard’ for something special – like doing a whole bunch of WvW or EOTM. Why limit the acquisition of the Mists Stone to fractals though? What does fractals even have to do with this back piece? It’s so random.

‘Fractals is an aspect of the game.’

Yes, it is an aspect of the game. So is WvW. So is EOTM. So is PvP. Why force everyone to do ONLY one of those aspects to obtain a Mists Stone? What has this backpiece got to do with fractals in the first place? (Furthermore, if we wanted an ascended backpiece from fractals… that’s what the fractal capacitor backpiece is for! Not a living story backpiece)

Why can’t Anet let people obtain the Mists Stone through other methods that they actually enjoy whilst also putting in the same exact amount of time and effort?

I’m not asking them to make it a piece of cake to get. I’m asking them for more acquisition methods of the Mists Stone. Same difficulty to obtain. Different Method.

This pretty much sums up what’s wrong with certain gameplay elements of GW2.

I think they just wanted to include many aspects of gameplay to finish it. Certain parts required Vexas puzzle, Fire Shaman event, etc., but requiring Fractals was a bad move, because it requires a random group for solo’ers. At least with open-world objectives, you can do it at your own pace and failure, but with a group it changes the dynamics which could lead to frustration if the groups fail a lot.

I was also disappointed that i had to farm for 20 more Foxfire clusters for the mystic forge, and also 28 more for plant food (unless Dulfy’s guide is wrong). If i would’ve known this, i would have kept farming for them casually between releases.

Now it feels like my time is being wasted by these gated cooldowns again. It’s either that, or i have to waste around 25g just for the foxfire and that’s not including anything else.

I despise farming and buying my materials for gold. I don’t feel any accomplishment doing it that way. I would rather earn it through achievements or events, or even pvp. They should’ve never required the steps for the clay pot, 7 plant foods, and 7 plates again, or they could’ve at least lowered the amount by half.

FuriousPop.2789:

lol who cares… when ESO comes out u watch and see how many servers will still be highly populated…

ESO is terrible. Believe me. That game will crash harder than Swtor did.

People might hate WoW all they want, but their initial game (non-expansions) had literally hundreds of unique armor items. This isn’t the same with GW2 though. I think even GW1 has more unique armor.

It just felt forced on us. Trahearne, the character, wasn’t so bad, but he was made the leader in the story, and that’s where the problem began. He should’ve just been a side character for several stories, then vanished into the background. Why would nominating a scholar of Orr, be an epic tale? It’s not. Not only that, but his voice and tone, and overall weakness, makes it feel as if he doesn’t want to be there. It just kills the mood.

The major problem though, was that there are 2 stories running parallel alongside each other.

Personal Story & Dungeon Stories.

They try to weave themselves together, but it doesn’t work. All we ever get is mail from Destiny’s Edge, telling us they are checking on our progress. How lame. I actually wanted to participate with them, but that only happens during dungeons.

In my opinion, the Personal Story should’ve involved Destiny’s Edge throughout the game, but it stops even before level 20.

They do listen. They just can’t respond and react to millions of players who want every special need attended to. It’s just not feasible.

And btw, NCSoft will fund Wildstar with gem purchases in GW2. Those sales don’t even go directly to GW2. lol.

Ayrilana.1396:

Tigaseye.2047:

pdavis.8031:

Morfedel.4165:

Stacking… is effing boring, and to be completely honest, brainless. It requires no real tactics, no thought of any kind. It doesn’t make encounters fun, it makes them lacking in challenge, strategy, and requires no real effort at outplaying the enemy.

Someone else said it earlier in the thread, but I’ll say it again.
Stacking is a legitimate tactic and strategy. Armies all over the world, going back to the days of the Romans, Greeks, Persians, etc. and even today, have used “stacking” at some point or another. The idea was to pack close together for better protection, as well as concentrated fire power. Just because “IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE!!” doesn’t mean that it’s in anyway broken. Even if in some way, some how, stacking became impossible in GW2, within a week the players would find the next single most effective method, and that would become the norm. Until people started complaining that the “New stacking” was boring and braindead and needs to be removed in favor of a play style the OP enjoys.

No.

Well designed games manage to make each encounter unique enough that one type of method, like stacking (or any other), isn’t always used.

If people don’t realise that, I can only assume they haven’t played many other MMOs (or no good ones).

How many games use the trinity system where you need a tank to hold aggro while everyone else either spams attacks or does support? Many of them have that as the only method to do encounters in their games. I guess those are poorly designed too?

Not necessarily. There’s a lot of mechanics involved in other MMOs. Examples would be Tera and Wildstar, and yes, even in WoW. The days of tanking and spanking has been gone for almost 5+ years now.

Search for the Liadri fight in GW2 on youtube, and you’ll see how possible it is for the A.I. to be similar in dungeons. Not just that fight though, but almost all of the Queen’s Gauntlet fights. In fact, they could make that whole place as a dungeon requiring 5 players, and you’ll see that stacking would be useless in those encounters, and the berserker meta wouldn’t be as useful. They never followed through though, and dungeons could have been tuned more like these fights if they did.

The comparisons are night and day.

Queen’s Gauntlet fights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMoQaOnSqrk
GW2 dungeon stacking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ_CVtFRLwk

What was A-Net thinking? I mean seriously. Why waste time on this dungeon? I can understand making holiday events temporary, but i’m just baffled that they couldn’t add some kind of storyline to keep it permanent.

After defeating the dungeon, they could’ve added something like:
“The molten alliance has defeated, but their operations continue underground.”

I could understand if they were pumping out dungeons and content every month, but this has spanned for several months, and it’s development time is too slow to justify an ever-changing world.

Travel in GW2 needs to be reworked.
It really does become a nuisance to always have to switch to movement enhancing skills.
The devs had good intentions with waypoints, but there’s just too many of them and it kills immersion.
It would be more immersive if they just reduced the amount of waypoints and introduced mounts, or even npc flightpaths, especially in WvW. Gameplay balance would be disrupted of course, so that’s also an issue.
Waypoints make sense around dungeons, portals, and major hubs though.

IndigoSundown.5419:

nexxe.7081:

Again, most of you missed the point.

I’ll keep it short this time and perhaps there is some hope, that some of you will understand.

-DPS-zerker is desired, but not required.
-One role is superior. The others are inferior.

When you have one role desired over everything else, then you must admit it’s a problem.

Or, you have players playing whatever role is required, when it is required, irrespective of gear. Gear =/= role. Damage is what everyone does. So what?

That’s where you’re wrong. Other roles aren’t needed, or required. Players are required to be self-sufficient, and aren’t required to rely on others’ support, except for reviving, and even then, it’s the players fault for going down in the first place.

Gear plays a huge part for roles. Why would a player use Rabid or Celestial gear, when it’s not required? Damage is the preferred style, making it worse than a Trinity MMO. At least in a Trinity MMO, you can be 3 roles.

Anyone in non-zerker gear is inferior. If you want to run a dungeon in Celestial or Rabid gear, you’re just making the team less efficient.

They should just add a toggle.

It was a legacy feature from GW1, but it wasn’t needed in GW2, so they should just get rid of it.

GW2 has devolved from Dynamic Events to an Achievement Checklist game. We need less living story checklist updates.

Galen Grey.4709:

somsom.5201:

Sicarius.4639:

somsom.5201:

lordkrall.7241:

somsom.5201:

How does a new player get $60 worth of gold? That’s what I thought. Don’t be facetious.

Where do you even get the numbers from?

You are assuming that:
1: People would buy every single episode.
2: People would buy every single episode on their own.
3: ArenaNet won’t release a package at the end of a season at a reduced price.

The numbers are freely available(calculate them based upon S1 # of chapters and 200 gem cost per chapter).

If you’re a new player, then yes, you’re going to purchase the full season. The only people purchasing individual episodes will be people who missed a couple or people who want the reward from them. ANet will likely release a packaged season, but don’t expect it to be much cheaper(see: their “sales” on gem store items).

So as a new player you’ll have a full expansion pack you could buy just starting the game, or you could play the original game first and use the gold saved to get it free. Either way, there will be an entire season of content available to you at a price.

Also this content will likely be tailored to you or a small group experience. Who pays for that? Who pays for the devs that sit down and rescale all this content so it works for you? Paying for it is perfectly acceptable and cold hard cash is only one of 3 options here.

People that play actively don’t “pay” for it, so I don’t see what you’re getting at. The only people losing here are new players and people who don’t log in every 2 weeks.

shrug

What are they loosing exactly? as is right now they’d simply loose the chance of experiancing the content and there would be nothing they can do about it.

With this they have an option to buy it at least.

They’re not really loosing, they’re actually gaining an option to do something about it!

I hate to correct people’s spelling, but you’ve spelled “losing” wrong multiple times. It’s bothersome. lol.

@Swish, that’s pretty much how i felt. Everything was going good until the living story. We had a new zone, Southsun, and a new boss the Karka Queen, along with Fractals and new dungeons coming out. After this though, many things were becoming temporary.

I stopped logging in consistently after Cutthroat Politics (here’s a point of reference of release dates: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/). I just couldn’t take it anymore and that’s when i knew the Living Story was taking GW2 into a direction i didn’t like. I still logged in sporadically to check out the new releases, but it wasn’t as consistent anymore.

I came back for Festival of the Four Winds, which was May 20, because i knew Season 2 was starting, and i was hopeful it would be different, which it was, but i realized that this was their only content being released, while everything else was being neglected. I even leveled three 80s during this time.

Sadly, i stopped playing consistently again after feature pack 2. I really disliked the recent update, and all the bugs/features that came with it. I was going to ride it out by playing the WvW tournament and then stop playing again, but even that was a disappointment. SPvP/WvW players have been treated terribly over the last two years. I’m sorry, but a couple maps and EotM just doesn’t cut it. As you said, the culmination of this feature pack, that came from the CDI’s, was very disappointing.

People keep bringing up that they are working behind the scenes on a major project, but that’s just speculation, and for all we know, it’s just more content for the living story, or a few additions here and there. I’ve even noticed the lack of fan videos, and slow forums, throughout the community on other fansites. Oh well, i’m having fun in another game right now. I’ll just log in to unlock the living story, in hopes of an expansion, but if there isn’t anything substantial in a year, it’ll be time to finally uninstall GW2. Good luck to you OP.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Vayne.8563:

I make friends on megaservers too. I talk to people, I add them to my friend’s list. If I see them again I talk to them again. I’ve made friends. It takes some effort, but it always did.

This.

Everyone is well aware of how MegaServer SHOULD group players. If you run into someone you want to play with again, add them to friends list….how hard is this? If you don’t have time to add them, how much did you really want to see them again?

Not every person should be added to friends list though. The way i see it, the Friends list, is for people that i’ve met in other games or for people i’ve formed a more closer bond with. Then there’s the occasional familiar face you see in chat and near the banks, crafters, mystic forge, etc., that would always socialize in /say and /map, and you would get to know them better, and do events with them from time to time, but never wanted to add them to friends list.

It’s sort of like Facebook. People have specific groups for family and friends, and then there’s Friends of Friends, etc.

OP is describing WoW over 6 years ago. WoW today, is so much different. You don’t have to grind at all, or use any strategy, unless you do Heroic Raids.

Other than that, you can pretty much zerg the content, like you can in GW2.

I’ll agree with the OP though, on the points of the ridiculous means of obtaining ascended gear, but i wouldn’t call it grinding.

It’s just terrible game design, to use gold and crafting combined, to obtain it.

I’ll never understand why A-net just doesn’t put this stuff on bosses, throughout all dungeons, or even world bosses. Do they even have loot tables or itemization?

They should’ve just made a spec that uses Lances and Spears instead, not a Bow.

The old meta-achievement was better. Anet seems to “fix” things, when they don’t need fixing. At least in the old-meta system you could socialize in /map chat, ask for help, and group up. With this new system, you’re confined in your own instance, and the only options are to wait at the entrance, ask for help, or use the LFG tool.

Some of you will think there isn’t any difference, but there is. With the old system, you are more mobile, experiencing the world, socializing, and sharing the environment with others, all while waiting for help if you need it. With this new system, it feels more like waiting for a dungeon run.

The old system had better rewards which were desirable, such as titles and gear. The new system has optional materials that aren’t desirable.

Men show respect, virtue, and honor against their opponents.
Boys trash-talk, demean, and belittle their opponents.

Past arguments, of the negative impact that a LFG tool has, are completely unfounded. It’s time for a serious tool in GW2, since the positives outweigh the negatives in many ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta

“Any subject can be said to have a meta-theory, a theoretical consideration of its properties, such as its foundations, methods, form and utility, on a higher level of abstraction.”

This definition properly fits for MMO’s.

In GW2, the meta would be the most efficient damage output, if we’re talking about combat in pve or dungeons, but an entirely different meta would occur if we’re talking about pvp.

These metas occur when players go beyond the simple builds and traits in GW2, and start forming different builds that is more efficient.

To expand on this, i use “efficient” because surviving is considered top importance in a combat-focused game, as well as utilizing time to get things done faster.

Efficiency isn’t the only thing that matters though. There are also player-driven events where challenge and entertainment can be considered the “meta” goal, where efficiency isn’t needed.

Fyrebrand.4859:

There is no current data on how many active players there are in GW2, or a even an agreed-upon number of total sales. Anyone who tells you different is either speculating, not telling the whole story, or has an agenda.

SkiTz.4590:

Megaservers was implemented because of how dead the maps were in majority of the servers. If you werent in a tier 1-3 server, most maps looked dead.

Not what was asked, neither is it the thread topic. But for that matter, you can go to many zones in WoW and find they are dead. Just because you don’t personally see a lot of players doing the same stuff as you, don’t take it as confirmation of anything.

SkiTz.4590:

Anyways, heres a recent link to Top 10 MMOs past year revenue…GW2 is not in it

GW2 is not there because SuperData (the original source of those numbers) very clearly states it is a listing of Top Subscription-Based MMO Titles. Granted, some of those titles have gone free-to-play over the years, and the writers seem to be confused about what qualifies for their list and use “pay-to-play” interchageably with “subscription-based” as if it is the same thing. At the very least, I believe their list is made up of games which all began as subscription-based, and most of them even still have some form of subscription option. I don’t know if they would consider GW2 a “free to play” title, or something else they don’t have a term for, but I am not surprised it isn’t on their list. They are a market research company, not a gaming site, and seem to hold no interest in the realm of video games outside of easily-quantifiable sales numbers.

Haha. I always laugh when people seem to miss that important part.

GW2 wasn’t listed because it’s not a subscription MMO. It’s Buy-to-Play.

Here’s the chart you’re looking for, even though it’s still not reliable.
GW2 is #3 on this chart.: http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/mmo-arpu/

I sense a feeling of pride here. The team doesn’t want to admit their FOV is a problem. Well, it is. Just look at all the videos and screenshots. There is the proof. The response of Jon Peters feels insulting. Just swallow the pride and admit it needs to be adjusted.

Because A-net gave us Living Story, which was supposed to change the old zones, but it wasn’t very effective. Some will argue the changes in Kessex Hills, but those changes are running parallell with all the old events and storylines. I really wish Living Story could work, but it isn’t.

It’s a very huge task to try and evolve old events, and zones, and A-net learned the hard way. It’s just not feasible.