Guild Wars 2

That poor dead horse. People just won’t leave it be.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Have faith, OP, Anet’s hellbent on turning this game into a WoW clone so I’m sure you’ll get your mount soon enough!

LOL why because they made a healing class and added raids ?

News flash, both of these things existed before WoW was even a twinkle in the MMO markets eye.

Behellagh.1468:

Pandaman.4758:

Sometimes you don’t even need more shares than the current chairman’s to influence a company. Activist shareholders routinely influence larger companies through a combination of holding shares and convincing other shareholders to vote with them.

Judging from the article it’s pretty clear Nexon was doing exactly that, but gave up and cut their losses when they (presumably) couldn’t secure enough friendly votes to rival the NCSoft/Net Marble alliance. Given how aggressive Nexon was in trying to exert control over NCSoft, it’s really not unreasonable to assume they were already pushing their agenda long before this fight.

And losing. Otherwise they wouldn’t have tried to take control. In the end Nexon ate some $150 million plus in just lost stock value.

I think a hostile takeover was the plan from the start, given Nexon had a subsidiary buy just enough shares to push them over 15% without being required to declare. The timing would certainly have been due to NCSoft’s shares hitting an all-time low of 125,000 won (compared to its high of 368,500 won in Nov. 2011), which would have made shareholders more amenable to Nexon’s attempt to take over.

Thank goodness they failed though, can’t imagine how bad it would be if Nexon actually had serious say in the business model.

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

The Walton Family only owns ~23% of Walmart stock, yet they are considered the majority shareholder. The majority shareholder doesn’t mean owning more than half of the shares, it means having the greatest individual influence on decisions.

Sometimes you don’t even need more shares than the current chairman’s to influence a company. Activist shareholders routinely influence larger companies through a combination of holding shares and convincing other shareholders to vote with them.

Judging from the article it’s pretty clear Nexon was doing exactly that, but gave up and cut their losses when they (presumably) couldn’t secure enough friendly votes to rival the NCSoft/Net Marble alliance. Given how aggressive Nexon was in trying to exert control over NCSoft, it’s really not unreasonable to assume they were already pushing their agenda long before this fight.

Behellagh.1468:

Nexon sold off their entire interest in NCSOFT last week.

http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/industry/12519-bad-romance-ncsoft-nexon-divorce-after-whirlwind-4-years

So please no more “Nexon is pulling ANet’s strings” conspiracy theories. Nexon never had any influence on NCSOFT, much less ANet.

ANet has always been, since years before the first Guild Wars, a 100% owned NCSOFT company with it’s own officers, none of whom came from NCSOFT.

ANet is the master of their own fate, always been. Assign any poor decisions they made in your opinion to ANet itself and not some shadowy figures overseas.

Bought out with HoT cash. The reason living story season 3 became an expansion perhaps. (That’s a theory).

Make no mistake any developer who is a subsidiary is not in control of their destiny.

You state no influence from Nex that’s ridiculously wrong (see gem store).

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

Nope, from the dictionary.

To be the majority shareholder one must own greater than half of the stock in a publicly traded company.

If there are 100 stocks of a company available and 75 of them are owned by 75 individuals, 10 of them are owned by one individual and 15 of them are owned by another individual guess who has the controlling interest?

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

You don’t have to have 51% of a company to be majority shareholder, you have to have a larger portion than any other shareholder. And these days, 15% is actually a huge portion, most large businesses have hundreds if not thousands of investors.

at some point anet had someone from nexon come in and look at the gemshop stuff. that’s fact. how much that influenced anything in the end we don’t know (means: YOU also don’t know). however, since that happened stuff that players were to some degree outraged about popped up more often than before (f.e. the watchwork pick). attention: NOT started popping up or became outrageous, just popped up a bit more frequently. might be coincidence, might not. we will never know.

however, even if nexons influence over any decisions is close to none i still love to see them gtfo of any relationship with any company that produces games i play. they are generally just not good to have around.

PS: don’t underestimate the fact that money can sway people in their decisions. a payraise here, a job offer in a higher position there, a promise of investment or just exercising ones influence on (potential) shareholders (that you might be connected to through other enterprises f.e.) can gradually change how decisions are made within a company without directly interacting with their daily business. those things happen subtly and silently. however, i would not be able to find any decision by anet they wouldn’t have made just my themselves so i don’t think nexon has ever tried to pull strings with anet. but who knows ….

PS²: spelling is important. you are actually the “tin foil hater” while we are the “tin foil hatters”.

@DeceiverX

If there has been any misleading here it is you who have misled yourself. There is 0 reason to expect things to have turned out any differently if you have had any experience with MMOs, played this game at launch, or just got off the boat after spending ten years in Guild Wars 1.

CandyHearts.6025:

Honestly I could care less about how many HP we need to unlock the elite specs. What ticks me off is how short of notice we got.

Because they knew the instagratification types would rail about it on the forums, reddit, twitter, anyplace they could complain about it and thus nerf early sales.

So much for insta-leveling a Revenant and immediately elite.

Sirendor.1394:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I have to say I don’t understand the forums.

Previously: Everything is too easy! We have nothing to do! Give us something, anything to do!

Now: OMG! You want us to do stuff??? This is uncalled for! Way too much to do!

Poor Devs.

Well.. the devs misunderstood.

-> Players: “Too easy”

• Easy = not hard
• Players: “Hard = challenging!”
• Devs “Hard = timeconsuming!”
• But: timeconsuming =/= hard!
• Timeconsuming = grindy
  -> Players: “Too much grind”

There’s always going to be people who see effort as grind. Not much one can do about those kinds of people except laugh at them derisively, and then go on to play the game. -Sid

Pezz.4758:

please dont take this as rage or hate or anything but i gotta vent im a little ….meh.

So i main necro, followed the scrapper hype all through the info releases. After trying it on the beta weekend i was hooked. I had a partially leveled engy, so i finished it, grinded out all his skills, all his exotics, some ascended, crafting , bought skins went HAM.

now i find out, to even play the elite spec, i have to grind ANOTHER at least 170 points.

So doing the math, thats either basically doing map complete now in 3 days to find enough to unlock it. OR waiting till HoT, where they are 10 points each. BUT assuming 5-10 per map like currents maps, i will be half way through HoT open world content BEFORE even being able to use the spec properly.

Like i said im not raging but i cant lie, kinda killed the hype for release when i know its just going to be a grind to even START playing.

“Play how you want” ha, ya right.

To be fair, there where to be the “new progression” along with masteries. Wouldn’t be much progression if we had them almost immediately would it?

I have to say I don’t understand the forums.

Previously: Everything is too easy! We have nothing to do! Give us something, anything to do!

Now: OMG! You want us to do stuff??? This is uncalled for! Way too much to do!

Poor Devs.

Ohoni.6057:

Nobody is disputing that there are people who enjoy grinding for loot in content they enjoy. I am one of them, when it’s content I enjoy. My point was specifically referencing people playing content that they do not enjoy, and every type of content in the game is something that some people do not enjoy, and almost everyone has at least some content in the game that they do not enjoy.

The point is, when the situation occurs where you do not enjoy the content, but because of the game’s design it is the only way to earn something you want, what do you do in that situation? It’s not so uncommon that you can pretend it just isn’t likely to come up.

My point is that players who do enjoy grinding loot in content they enjoy should be able to do that, that should be an option. But if you do not enjoy that content, then you should be able to do different content instead, and still grind out those rewards.

Ok, whether you view raids as grindy or not is up to you, just accept as fact that there are a lot of people who would view raids as grindy. We don’t have exact details of how raids will work out in GW2, but most people are assuming that you will have to complete the same raid wings several times each in order to earn all the available rewards, possibly three or more each, and that would certainly constitute grind by any reasonable definition. If it’s possible to actually fail the raid wings then that would only further increase the level of grind.

Ok, I think I am finally starting to boil down your viewpoint. First, though, allow me to address the previous paragraph. Most of your support for raids being grindy are based on assumtions (i.e. completing the same raid wing multiple times to get what is wanted). Truth is we have no idea how they will be structured rewardwise yet. Albeit this means I can offer little to no support myself that they won’t be. So for now, let’s leave anything involving the “grindy-ness” of raids off the table.

Nope. I just flat out and absolutely reject the notion of “well if you don’t want the content then you can just give up on the reward, it’s not a problem.”

Kitten that.

If there is a reward that I want, and it’s locked behind content, then I either have to do that content, or miss out on the reward, and NEITHER is an acceptable option. They may be acceptable options to you, but don’t try to project that defeatist attitude.

It really is not a problem. You are making it one. Missing out on rewards is a completely acceptable option. In fact — it happens all the time. When not everyone, or very few people, has/have a reward, it just works to add to the prestige. I’m not “projecting” a “defeatist attitude,” I am simply being reasonable with expectations and game market mechanics. If anything, I could argue you are projecting such an attitude, as you are so quick to give up on content you have even yet to try. I really don’t mean to be rude, but…when I read this it just sounds like sophisticated whining :\

And that’s a fine attitude to have, so long as you only apply it to yourself and your choices, and do not intend for other players to have the same position. If you can argue that a player should “be fine” with not having access to a given reward, then you should be doubly fine with “non-elitist elites” being able to get that item, but not having exclusive access to them. If non-elites should be fine with not having the item, then the elites should be doubly fine with sharing them.

This is counter-intuitive. If non-elites are fine being in a position of not having an item, who would elites share said items with? How would the sharing even happen? What kind of mechenic would this be in the game? I guess I could simplify this down to: How does a player being fine with not having access to a given reward correlate to elites not having exclusive access?

Going over to the topic of raid item value, what you are suggesting would severly devalue the uniqueness of items earned in raids. Having multiple ways to obtain some items is good sometimes (such as ascended gear), but it is equally important to have gear that is only obtainable through certain branches of content (such as the Annelid Rifle Skin). The reason being due to the unique value it adds to these items. Their uniqueness serves as a visual representation of direct accomplishment. I understand you want every reward in the game to have multiple (or at least 2) methods of acquire, and that’s a fine attitude to have, so long as you only apply it to yourself and your choices, and do not intend for other players to have the same position.

Every attempt would be a grind, at least after the first. Stretching out that process wouldn’t improve anything.

More assumtion on reward requirements…

Or don’t do the raids at all. Wait for legendary armor to be potentially released at a later date, you won’t need it till then. Sure you’ll be down a skin or three, but at the end of the day are you really suffering?

Yes?

Wow. Dude. Let a Reaper slap you with their GS’s 3rd auto. If a game is causing you to suffer, it is time to move on to games that better suit you. Misery loves company, but this company doesnt want your misery.

I’d like to add that I would be happy to help you when the time comes. My main’s name is Lance Bowson. I’m not always on due to limited internet and abundant work, but I love helping others when I can

I appreciate that, but rather than offering to help me on your own terms, perhaps you could actually listen to what I am saying, listen to what I actually want out of this, and help me on my own terms, to get what I want, not what you’re willing to let me have. I would rather have your support in allowing me to not have to do raids than to have your help in completing them.

Then this is where we part (probably?). I can’t help you. Only the devs can help you, and I (maybe?) agree with their position on this matter. If you are posting so heavily on these threads in the hope that a dev will reply, then I wish you luck with that. But what this seems to boil down to, as you so eloquently put it, is “what [you] want.” You can sugarcoat your statements with your certainty that others agree with you too (and I’m sure many do), but I imagine that you guys are unfortunately in the minority on this one. I’m just going to leave with this…

Whether you “have” to do raids or not is purely up to you. But sooner or later you are going to have to judge which is stronger: your dislike towards content you have yet to try, or your desire for rewards that are unnecessary within the grand scheme of the rest of the game’s content. If you choose the former, you may view it as giving up, but I advise you to think it as moving on. Content will be blooming on the 23rd. There will be plenty of other things to keep your attention. If you choose the later, then understand that you can always have my assistance when avaliable. However, my support on this matter is something I just cannot not agree to provide.

Spirits guide you.

Ohoni.6057:

Let me explain the difference. “The more elite” he mentions are people who want group content that is challenging, in wich they can better themselves and they live for the feeling of overcoming a challenge.

Which implies that they believe themselves to be “too good” for the existing content.

No it doesn’t… Seriously do you considder everyone who likes the thought of raids to be beneath you? Talk about showing true collors…
You are on a personal crusade here, this has nothing to do with other people.

Ohoni.6057:

It is finally a chance for the more elite (not to be confused with elitist) side of the community to be allowed to show their skill and commitment

Lol. “not to be confused with elistist.” Lol. “It’s finally a chance for the bakers (not to be confused with those who bake. . .”

This kind of clearly states to me what you think about anyone who is better then you at the game, and how it kittenes you off.

Let me explain the difference. “The more elite” he mentions are people who want group content that is challenging, in wich they can better themselves and they live for the feeling of overcoming a challenge. To them a unique reward is like a badge of honor, a personal reminder of them overcoming the challenge, something they are proud off. These players also love teamwork and improving together.

Elitists are something totally different. They do not care about overcoming challenges, they care about 1 single thing, proving that they are better then others. Most elitists are actually not that good, and use thrashing others to make themselves feel better.
To them a reward is like bragging rights. They are a small outspoken minority, and it’s kittening me off that you keep putting all players who enjoy playing hardcore content, especially hardcore team based group content, in the same basket as these ignorant kittens.

Kevan.8912:

Don’t care if it’s the least grindy in the market, if it generates income or not.
I chose gw2 and not other mmos for a reason.
Each customer has his preferences: no grind to have bis…and ascended is a huge grind for my playstyle.
At the beginning it was enjoyable, but the launch of ascended made me quit. This latter development of raids convinces me that it’s not what i desire to play, so coherently won’t buy neither gw2 nor other mmos.
maybe I’m the only one? or there are other people like me who bought gw2 thinking it would have been just cosmetic grind?
it’s the same. my conditions are the same.

edit: once again, no problem with grinding skins. i did it and enjoyed it.
i don t want to grind bis for weeks or months..and don t want to craft anything.
as it used to be at the beginning when i chose to play it.
the latter evolution caused me and other guildmates and friends to quit too.

You log in once a day for one month for ascended amulet. Yes simply logging in. How is that a grind?

You do guild mission with your guild once a week for one month for both ascended trinkets. How is that a grind?

You do one fractal a day for about two weeks for both ascended rings? How is that a grind?

You spend 80g for an ascended weapon. How is that a grind?

The entitlement these days. People just need toughen up and actually play the game. It doesn’t promise to sell you BiS gear for free.

Ohoni.6057:

And that sounds good, unless you get to “I don’t want to do a raid? Well then you’re never going to get the Legendary.” There needs to be flexibility.

No, you haven’t made any good point to why there needs to be flexibility. You need to play the game to get the reward.

Only if the champ is made of straw, like yours.

You said this as if you have came up with anything better than straws.

You haven’t made any specific recommendation to what you think is good alternatives.

Ohoni.6057:

Presumably because you enjoy it more. If you don’t want to, then that’s fine too.

You don’t need to do raids and not get the legendary armor and that’s fine too.

If anything in gw2 is grind I’d hate to see the people with that opinion play any other MMORPG. XD

MyriadStars.5679:

The reason why people are unhappy is NOT because there is a lot of grind in a game, but because there is a lot of grind in the xpac of a game originally advertised as one that “does not require time to prepare for fun” and “respects your time”.

That is, people are unhappy that Anet failed their legendary “quest” of designing a MMORPG without grinding.

The fact that there are grindy stuff in some other games is totally irrelevant. Anet tried to avoid grindy stuff and then gave up in the xpac, and that’s it. Of course there are people who are happy about Anet’s failure because they like grindy stuff, while others will be unhappy.

I don’t think anyone can argue about this.

I can argue about it. Because I have a different definition fo grind. Doing a bunch of different things to level something up was never a grind to me. I don’t subscribe to that definition of grind. The problem is the word itself has come to take on something than the original meaning.

Even Wikipedia emphasizes the original definition of grind. Grinding always referred to killing mobs over and over again to level, as opposed to having quests. For example, when Aion came out, there weren’t enough quests and we had to grind mobs to level high enough to get to the next area. A lot of games were like that.

The definition of the word has changed but I don’t think that Anet said that there would be no grind in the modern sense of the word, which is a very different thing.

You can’t really argue about grind until you define it, but not everyone goes by the same definition. I’ve not seen anything in the expansion I’d consider a grind, but the closest thing to me would be raiding, if we had to do the same raid over and over again to get something specific. That I would consider a grind, because I’d have no options.

Ohoni.6057:

i’m not going to sit here and advocate gw2 as a grind-free game, but to label it grindy? did you just start playing mmos this year? gw2 is a vacation on a beach compared to silkroad

The measure is not of how it compared to the competition, but rather in how it compares to the ideal. Other games might do things worse, that does not mean that GW2 always does it as well as it could.

This here is your problem – you’re idealistic – ideals don’t really matter – what matters is the competition because ultimately people will play your game or other games.
You must make a game better than other games – not an ideal game – because the ideal game doesn’t exist – it doesn’t compete with your for customers.
As long as you’re better than other games you’ll have the customers – regardless of whether your game is ideal, good or even bad.

You just have to be the best alternative. Doesn’t matter if that alternative is still good or bad as long as people need your product and yours is the best.

Just do something like the Bonus Mission Pack for GW1.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Bonus_Mission_Pack

It had past stories that you could play out as the characters of that story. In the end, after you finished the story, you got your choice of a weapon skin related to that story. It had multiple achievements to get as well, that would give you multiple weapon skins when you finished it too (well, it gave you books that you could turn in for skins).

I think that would work better than trying to incorporate it into the Living World somehow. It would be like reading a story that is interactive. Sell it on the Gem Store and people would gobble it up trying to get the new skins for new collections. Plus you’d get to learn about what happened in between those 200 years.

Sell it in volumes if you want, that way you don’t have to make a bunch of them at once. Have each volume tell a different story and offer unique weapon skin for that story as a reward.

phreeak.1023:

dont need it… i only need something like: alts dont need to uncover the map to find certain points. When i am level 80, all i want is getting all WPs, but its hard to find them by running through an area blind.

uncovering gives exp, yeh… but who cares :P

or make an option that WPs on the map are always visible, even in uncovered areas, so i now whats the best way is to unlock them.

uncovering gives exp, yeh… but who cares :P

One month after expansion starts, trying to get 8 million exp for Precursor crafting and 8 million exp for gliding and 8 million exp for pack commander and 8 million exp for…… he decides that maybe he does care about exp after all.

I absolutely love map completion. I currently have 5 characters at 100% and 9 at approximately 60%. Doing map completion is how I level my chars, so I for one dont want to see it go. I dont understand the problem the OP has in saying that map completion stops him making alts because it is totally not needed to make them. You can get your chars to lvl 80 so many different ways.

I dont understand why people want things taken out of games because it doesnt suit their tastes in game play. If you dont like it then just dont do it.

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, that’s fine. Can’t please everyone.

Doesn’t this same line apply to you too? If you realize this, why are you here saying what you are saying?

Other than the highest level fractals, is there anywhere else you NEED Ascended gear for fun/completion? No, there isn’t.

Raids, supposedly, and ANet seems to be moving towards Fractals and raiding as their higher end content, hence the renewed concern.

But I thought you said you have zero intrest in doing raids? How does the “need” for ascended gear affect you? And if it does somehow, that need is arbitrary. Unless you are pugging the raid (I highly advise against this), then just find friendly friends who are willing to run with exotics in the group.

After I get what I need out of the raids, I personally would not mind “carrying” said people through them.

It’s all sensationalized nonsense really. There is absolutely zero chance there won’t be raid groups being formed purely around exotic gear. The community is weird like that, heck I won’t be surprised if players start messing around with RARE level 80 gear just because they can.

Well sure, but these groups will likely be based around people that already have Ascended and just want to show off by doing without. They aren’t likely to bring in players that don’t actually have the stuff, because they will be focused on above average skill levels. Basically, the ones that need that option the most aren’t likely to get it.

This is an assumption, really. And it seems you plan to pug through these — again, I advise against this. I am only going to pug these when I am looking to assist others who have only been in a position to pug (guildless). If you are guildless or are in a guild that is not PvE focused, then I would highly recommend finding a friendly guild who is. This is an MMO after all. It is nice to connect with others

the amount of salt i sense from this thread could drain every user in this thread dry.

seriously, this idea of ascended and legendary gear ‘grind’ has been beaten to death already. beating the HoT area completely is nothing new – this is a simplified version of World Completion. You make it a grind when you actively seek out the item rather than getting it through passive collection. by the time i decided to get a legendary i had enough karma to buy about 500 obsidian shards because i focused on other things, to say nothing of gold or other legendary crafting materials. just because it’s there doesn’t necessarily mean you HAVE to do it right now. I get some people have the completionist mentality (which is fruitlessly served and an arduous torture if you play an MMO due to updates) but that need to complete can be directed elsewhere for the time being, such as doing the requirements for every precursor and collecting each of the ones you want first.

and don’t give me that BS about ascended or bust to be competitive. Exotic gear is stupid easy to get these days with how common exotic materials are nowadays, and that’s only a tier lower. if you can’t live with exotic gear then the fault lies in your mentality more than the system.