Guild Wars 2

>log in
>hmm, which dailies are the least tedious
>think i can find 5 things that aren’t too painful
>recycler’s always a good one
>"golem’s up"
>may as well go, nothing else to do
>golem’s dead – yay a rare
>port around gathering these silly nodes
>not sure why i even do this, i have exotics, ascended stuff is stupid
>"lyssa’s up"
>what a massive waste of time that was
>"fire ele’s up"
>kitten i hate the fire ele pre’s
>what a massive waste of time that was
>"maw"
>may as well go there for the 1000th time
>heard someone got a precursor here once
>what a massive waste of time that was
>see generic guild spam in map chat “we have mumble and a website no one ever uses!”

I do love frost bow and fiery greatsword though.

Chrispy.5641:

So Wait! I’m not understanding why this is a bad thing?

It’s more or less a sub service.

The casuals feel if there is a sub service then people actually willing to pay a sub get a leg up.

The blah blah blah f2p’s feel like it causes their whole argument of “Subs are dead!! Long live b2p and f2p!!” to blow up in their face.

The GW1 lifers feel like it’s just another stab in the back because it’s not the exact same thing as a game in the dirt for five years, and they think they own the rights to what should be called GW, not the developers.

The gem buyers are gonna cry because “But we already bought gems…where’s mine.We’re not as special anymore!”

To the actual MMO crowd? It is a good thing.

I almost feel like the enjoyment I get from this game has more to do with my nostalgia for Guild Wars 1 than anything about it. I’ve seen any of the reasons I could point out listed plenty of times on these forums, so I won’t rehash them here. I guess I’m playing Guild Wars 2, and in my head I’m kind of playing what Guild Wars 2 could have been, if that makes any sense. I’ve got this fantastic mental image of a game, and the one I’m actually playing at least has the right setting, lore, and graphics, even if it gets so very much more of it completely wrong.

If you enjoy grind, it’s actually really really fun.

lordkrall.7241:

Morinmeth.9823:

It’s not false at all. Said by more than enough people before, will say it again, this is a legit datamine. Dulfy.net also confirmed it.

Data-mined != true.

There are a massive amount of stuff data-mined that have never been added to the game, even a year after they were first found.

Even if this isn’t happening, just the fact that they ever thought of implementing this into GW2 speaks volumes of the whole company.
This is no longer GW1 Arena Net.

I don’t know what to say.

I can’t even ask "What happened to the GW1 ANet?" because I know that they all jumped ship.

It’s honestly saddest because if GW2 were actually better handled over its lifetime, people would probably try to laugh this off or honestly react in a calm, but concerned manner. Instead, everyone is just going to curse ANet into the ground, kick dirt on its face and trod off laughing "Good riddance," because it’s believable. GW2 has fallen so low that we honestly believe that this leak could be a legitimate reality.

It’s just sad.

I joined this game thinking it would be buy-to-play. If a sub fee tier is added, I’m out.

Perhaps it’s intentional for NCSoft to kill off this game just in time for Wildstar.

“Alright folks, the Scarlet-Sue experiment failed, everyone out.”

RoRo.8270:

Challenge shame this game revolves around casuals

Actually it revolves around Korean grind philosophy not casual philosophy.

OP it’s prolly safer to ask what’s not fun. You’ll find that what people list as not fun, you’ll find in many areas of the game already mostly in the fundamentals like progression/rewards.

I find minidungeons/housing/fishing/crafting that doesn’t require RNG for mats, doing mini activities for cosmetics/decor that aren’t sold in the store, all of these activities tying together to include automatic reputation advancement for even more rewards later so that gameplay is seemless.

cesmode.4257:

Or another tactic to generate some hype…much like pre launch?

^

jheryn.8390:

Phantom.8130:

jheryn.8390:

Actually you did not throw me a bone or anything else. It is impossible to throw physical objects through written electronic communication. Are there any particular dictionaries you would like me to use to link the definitions of “throw” and “bone” for you?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metaphor

I just figured since you could not extrapolate from Hjorje’s post when I assumed he used shareholders as a a metaphor for people who take figurative ownership in the game, you did not understand metaphor even though you could search for a definition. Certainly you couldn’t know that he may have just used a wrong word and were crass enough to point it out.

I was just playing by your rules and taking what you “advertised” about throwing bones literally. Because certainly, throwing bones cannot be interpreted in any other way than actually physically throwing a bone. Playing by your logic. Not mine.

Hjorje.9453:

Edit: I got ahead of myself and used the wrong term. Changed Shareholder to Stakeholder.

Hjorje made a mistake and used the wrong term. he admitted it and corrected it. it was mature and very respectable, and i applaud him for that.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Kaleban.9834:

~snip~

I had more fun playing WoW, because at least there you had a good chance at high level drops from bosses.

~snip~

Many thing doesn’t hold true in your post, especially this one.

If that is true, then I don’t see why running the dungeons here in GW2 to get badges so that you can purchase the gears you want is not better than running raids in hopes for a high level drops.

It seems that the problem here is your preference and not the game itself.

The true part about his post is, that you have to grind through dungeons until you get the reward you wanted. I would like to see longer content with higher rewards.
That would help lowering the grind experience.

I have to say there are few things in GW2 you can do, they’re fun but since you have to grind those few things, like dungeons, championfarming, Worldboss-farming or resourcefarming all day long, they become very grindy. I would love to go out to maps like Timberline falls and farm eventchains. But until I don’t get a proper reward which can compete with dungeonrewards, I wont.

The most funny moments happend in LA anyways. Mystery tonics where involved…

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

VOLKON.1290:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

They do have a point that, and I do agree, the addition of ascended as it currently stands goes against Colin’s original statement (that we should have BiS by lvl 80). However, as time progresses and people build the crafting, it will get to the point where people will be able to craft a set of ascended for a character when it hits 80. We’re just not at that point yet. Allowing people to acquire some of the account bound materials prior to hitting 80 will help this.

Additionally, should they listen to our requests and implement additional ways of acquisition, that would also help to bring it into line with the other armors, and make it more readily obtainable by lvl 80, imo. We just aren’t there yet…

Can’t really argue with that. Well, I could, but it would look silly. I believe at the time of the statement the intent was indeed for characters to hit 80 and have the best (i.e. exotics) available to them, and through crafting, the TP, etc. that was certainly the case. At the time what he was was most definitely true, however the community wanted more so they created ascended without violating the principles of the manifesto (the statement is outside the manifesto, as we all know).

I think it’s also clear Colin misspoke a little due to the fact that you don’t really see level 80 drops until you hit level 80 as opposed to by level 80, so taking one statement made in an interview on the fly as gospel is an error in my opinion. At least I didn’t see an exotic 80 drop until I hit 80… not sure on others.

Agreed. At the time of the statement, I do believe that was their intent, and their general line of thought. Essentially, by 80 you should have enough materials to craft a set, or enough gold to buy a set, or enough karma to get a set, or even enough dungeon tokens (1380 really aint so much) to get a set… of full exotic gear. However, they were also probably thinking that it would take people a little longer than 36 hours to do it. (If I recall, the first person to hit 80 only took roughly 36 hours, and then decked himself in full exo)

However, at that point the cry was raised for ‘more’ by the community, as you pointed out. As many have actually pointed out in the various arguments over ascended gear. At which point, they had to step back and re-think their approach.

We do have other statements from Colin, which may hold truth, but only Anet really knows one way or the other on them. Things like ascended having been originally planned, but not making the cut. That’s something I could take with a grain of salt, since it’s not uncommon to develop and then not have it necessarily make the final deployment. He’s also said that they had a time frame that they thought it would take people to get exotics, and we blew them out of the water. That I can completely believe. Considering they launched without having Orr finished, I can believe they honestly thought it would take people more than a few days to max their characters out. They probably thought it would take close to a few weeks. Faulty planning on their part, but it is what it is. There are also other statements, but I won’t go into them all.

Essentially it simply boils down to the simple truth that businesses have to change and adapt with the ebb and flow of their customer base. What may be one’s initial intent may not pan out exactly as planned. Unfortunately, many (if not most) player’s aren’t as flexible and aren’t as willing to accept change.

the thing is, though, it certainly wasn’t the entire community. in fact, there was a lot of people who repeatedly argued against those calling for a gear treadmill to be put in. in fact, if you take a look at the NCsoft’s financial report, when they announced ascended gear in november, their stock value plummeted. it took months for it to even stabilize and never gained back how much they lost. it was clearly a bad decision that being pushed by a minority. instead of caving, anet should have just said “no. that goes against our intention for the game and the expectations given to our customers. we’re not going to flush our game down the toilet because a very vocal minorty can’t accept that this isn’t WoW.” and the entire debacle would have been avoided. they would have lost those who would were calling for a treadmill, but would have kept a lot more players in the long run.

Phantom.8130:

the thing is, though, it certainly wasn’t the entire community. in fact, there was a lot of people who repeatedly argued against those calling for a gear treadmill to be put in. in fact, if you take a look at the NCsoft’s financial report, when they announced ascended gear in november, their stock value plummeted. it took months for it to even stabilize and never gained back how much they lost. it was clearly a bad decision that being pushed by a minority. instead of caving, anet should have just said “no. that goes against our intention for the game and the expectations given to our customers. we’re not going to flush our game down the toilet because a very vocal minorty can’t accept that this isn’t WoW.” and the entire debacle would have been avoided. they would have lost those who would were calling for a treadmill, but would have kept a lot more players in the long run.

True, it wasn’t the entire community that wanted this. Rarely does it ever occur that an entire gaming community can agree on something. However, it was enough of the community crying out for it that Anet thought it was a good idea. That’s the big difference. Such business decisions are based (generally) on what the majority desires, how easily it could be implemented, and weights the potential gain vs loss to determine if the plan should be pushed forward. Based on the information they had at the time, it obviously looked like it should have been a good thing. Whether it has actually turned out to work in their favor, we really don’t know. We do not have that data to review and make determinations on.

Had Anet simply said ‘no’ as you suggest, the stock price may have fell just as drastically. Maybe not. Then again, maybe the stock price falling didn’t actually have anything to do with ascended. Again, we can make assumptions based on what we’ve seen, but we really don’t know. We don’t have the data. Honestly, we can go around and around arguing such, but the fact of the matter is that Anet obviously had something that made them think this was the correct path, and that’s what they went with. The decision is theirs as the developers, not ours. We can voice our opinions, and then support that opinion with our pocketbooks, but ultimately the final decision is never ours. (Kind of like voting…the person with the bigger bribe wins, doesn’t matter who you voted for…)

At this point ascended is in the game. We’re stuck with it. It is not going away. (Can you imagine the uproar if they did remove it now? Oh dear gods….) At this point, the best we can do is mitigate the damage by loudly telling them how we’d like to see it fixed… like more acquisition, less grind, obtainable by level 80 rather than only after, etc etc. Additionally, we can band together than tell them, again very loudly, that we do not desire any more tiers, and that we want the gear tiers to stop here. Just remember to be polite and rational about it. They are more likely to listen to (and accept) a well thought out argument, than some wild rant.

jheryn.8390:

Phantom.8130:

you said, multiple times, that advertising is, and i quote, “a guarantee or promise” the dictionary defines it as “the act of calling attention to something, especially through the media” not a guarantee or promise, just calling attention to something. the two are nowhere even in the same neighborhood as each other.

now, let’s take it one step further. things like blogs, facebook and twitter are referred to as social media sites. the internet as a whole is a form of the media. meaning, anything an arenanet employee writes on one of those, somewhere they know for a fact that many people will be reading, is indeed calling attention to something through the media. writing things into their own wiki page would also be considered advertising, because they’re posting it there as a representative of their company.

let’s apply this to to the topic. did they promise anything? no. did they call attention to something, especially through the media? yes. did they deliver on what they called attention to? not even remotely. is this a reoccurring pattern with them? yes. are there always people who try to redefine the english language and twist logic to make excuse after excuse for why Anet consistently fails to deliver on what they advertise? yes.

Well, I believe that you are stretching things more than a little. Maybe it isn’t, but I believe that most people can extrapolate that the definition of advertising in the media does not include statements or discussions on social media outlets. If it is an actual commissioned ad to the side with artwork and was paid for with the intent to promote a determined product or service, then yes, that something on a social media site would be advertising as set by the definition.

Just because something uses the same name as something else, does not mean they are the same thing. “Fruits of our labors” most generally doesn’t not refer to produce you would find in a grocery store. I think that I am and that others should be able to tell the difference between traditional media and social media. They are not the same thing just because the have the word ‘media’ as part of their name.

I also think that people should be able to differentiate when they see ads with artwork of Scarlet with a release date for content and when someone is discussing intentions of things they would like to see happen.

As someone who advertises for my company, if I put an ad in the paper saying we will be offering X product for 50% off in February 2014 then that is advertisement. If I say I would really like to offer Y product for 25% this sometime this year on my facebook page, it doesn’t mean that it is going to happen. It just means I want it to happen. It isn’t advertising, it is statement of intent. Nothing more.

I find that taking things too literally and so rigid by definition only leads to frustration for some people causing them to mislead themselves as to intent.

I often wonder what happened to taking things in context, deductive reasoning, and reasonable extrapolation.

Again, I believe that everything that ANet advertised by conventional means was indeed implemented. Everything actually promised as the OP set forth, also was indeed done. Everything else was statement of intent that many I believe are trying to twist into some sort of guarantee. Which it was not.

i’m sorry, but using the dictionary definition of words is in no way shape or form “stretching things”. in fact, quite the opposite. making up the definition of a word to suit your whim is stretching things.

look, all that matters is whether or not they called public attention to something. that’s all. everything else is semantics. your own personal definition of words doesn’t change that. they called public attention to something, they advertised. end of story. no amount of verbal tapdancing will change that. if x, then y. they x’d, so it’s y. i’m sorry you don’t understand that, but that doesn’t change anything. they advertised. they drew attention to their game by something they stated publicly. whether what they stated was true or not doesn’t matter. it ONLY matters whether they stated it. which they did.

Leamas.5803:

mesme.5028:

And when the level cap is increased, will we all start again in the new level cap greens?

If they increase the level cap, I will leave the game permanently.

They’ve already said that they’re going to increase the cap at some point.

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

BeoErgon.9107:

Oo
Still amazed how people can say an increase is not an increase because they decided so…

Want to see people start shouting? Let PVP players use ascended. That would be lots of laughs for me.

wouldn’t it just be the ascended skins, and not the ascended stats that PvP players get?

And… strictly speaking World Vs. World is technically a type of Player vs. Player by most conventional definitions. So strictly speaking they already can use Ascended gear while participating in PvP, it just has to be of the World vs. World sort of PvP.

No, I am talking abotu letting PVP use the real ascended gear with the ascended stats. Since everybody is claiming that ascended stats makes no difference why not?
I am sure I would love to sit and watch the reactions of the PVP crowd.

And yes, I know WvW is a sort of PVP, but people tend to ignore this. The fact that yo ucan use ascended in it seems to bother none of the ’increase in stats is nothing" crowd.

Vayne.8563:

Of course people are going to say that it gives an advantage to others. That’s how they excuse the fact that they aren’t that good. It’s much easier to blame their failures on ascended gear than on lack of skill.

Err.

Wild and crazy theory incoming: maybe people say that it gives people an advantage because it gives people an advantage. It’s right there in the tooltip, it has bigger numbers than Exotic gear. While second-guessing people’s motives is fun, I think you might be setting yourself up a little by second-guessing people’s motives when they’re using basic arithmetic.

Vayne.8563:

What I’m saying if that if your build is better than/or perfectly suited to defeating another build, then you’re going to win. If you have more people you’re going to win. If you have less lag you’re going to win. If you have more sleep so you have better reflexes due to lack of fatigue you’re going to win.

A better build/build matchup makes you more likely to win.
Having more people makes you more likely to win.
Having less lag makes you more likely to win.
Having better concentration makes you more likely to win.

None of those things can guarantee a win. All of them influence the outcome but no single factor can decide it. You know what can make a build better? A 12-13% overall statistical performance increase. If a fight is 8v8 and your entire team has ascended while the enemy’s entire team doesn’t, you have the equivalent of one more person, without the logistical needs of another person.

Stats always matter. There’s a reason why we spend so much time min-maxing our builds. Anything that makes you stronger is an advantage. Any advantage improves your capability to win. A good player can pull a win out of even the slightest advantage. If your opponent has even one more piece of ascended across their whole team than you, you are at a disadvantage.

I’ve fought much longer and harder to get 1% improvement in other MMOs. In my experience a 5% jump in anything is kinda… HUGE.

I guess my biggest problem is the huge deviation from what worked in Guild Wars 1. End game, BiS gear was easily aquired, after that it was all just prestige skins. The game was fun enough that people put in lots of time for those prestige items, but because they had no stat difference they were in no way required. Your reward for getting them was having them. The manifesto led many of us to believe that that philosophy was going to be continued in Guild Wars 2, and it hasn’t.

If you didn’t invest years playing GW1, and if that wasn’t one of the things that really stood out about it for you, then it probably doesn’t have the same impact.

Henri Blanche.8276:

The manifesto was a nonbinding document; but many of us were excited and pleased by what it said and implied. So we’re understandably disappointed and unhappy by how certain aspects of the game have veered away from the manifesto.

To coin Douglas Adams: ArenaNet is a bunch of kitten kitten who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

This. When you see an awesome trailer for a movie but the movie turns out to be really bad (and the cool scenes from the trailer aren’t even in the movie), you feel lied to and betrayed. Same thing here.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know. I looked at exotic weapons. I looked at legendary weapons. Exotics were massively easy to get. Legendaries were amazingly hard to get (certainly for the average player).

There needed to be something in between…in my opinion anyway and apparently Anets.

They probably would have had another tier at launch if they didn’t want to release before MoP (that’s my opinion not fact). But they released when they felt they had to, as any business would.

I’m pretty sure most people think the game wasn’t ready, with broken quest chains etc.

I’m also pretty sure they spoke about ascended gear before launch and never annouced it, because it wasn’t ready to go into the game.

The whole debacle could have probably been avoided if Anet were better at communicating.

Vayne,

There was something in between exotics and legendaries.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Equipment

People just weren’t satisfied with purely cosmetic progression.

Kevan.8912:

am i the only one to think that my post didn’t infringe any forum rules? (and got locked).

Referencing locked threads and moderated posts is a good way to wind up eating another helping of moderation attention. Try, really try, to approach it in a way different?

Or take it to Reddit? They don’t have quite as stringent rules on what you can post.

about exotics easy or not: i’m sure anet knew that they were readily available at level 80. they wanted them to be like that.
and after a while, they changed their minds as knew that ascended would be so much grind.
it’s not incidental.

It’s related to exactly how easy exotics were versus what people had to go through for a Legendary. And thus they were out to try to put a middle ground for effort.

. . . and rather completely missed the mark in the process . . .

As the opening post does not leave room for a constructive and friendly discussion, this thread is closed.

Vayne,
Seriously. The manifesto as you pointed out is maybe misleading, but when they talked about no grind before fun, and following all other explanations in consecutive interviews that meant no grind for BIS.

You were trying to imply that when they talked about no grind this did not include BIS. Saying that "no grind "in the manifesto might have some other significance than “no grind” in the interviews and that we are fools for thinking so is pushing it a bit too far.

I don’t know. Is as if I said to my daughter she would have her favorite dessert while showing her some pudding and in the night after dinner I give her an orange. She will go all : “hey! that is not pudding!” and I will simply answer : “I never said you would have pudding!”

Yes, I know this image is a bit strange

Still, if the manifesto talks about no grind and interviews about no grind for BIS : automatically the grind they talked in the manifesto included BIS too unless they had some weird Jeckyl/hyde personality.

Now they changed their view on the game. Ok, fine. Not pleased but it’s their right.

Vayne.8563:

It’s not really significant if you think you know what grind means. For the purposes of the video, Colin said most games have this annoying “grind” before you get to the fun stuff…before you get to fun stuff…not before you get new gear and raid.

No.
BIS gear was presented as easy to obtain by the time you reach 80.
There is nothing easy in obtaining ascended and more that evident that you will not get BIS when hitting 80 if you are new.

So yes… gear was supposed to be left out of the grind and BIS was supposed to be in your hands before “getting to fun stuff”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Mars.6319:

Ya, you’re right!

Except Nexon did in fact buy a large amount of NCSoft stock around the same time that a former Nexon employee took over an important position in ANet. None of that is conjecture.

But who knows, maybe the person who ran Maplestory hates Maplestory’s cash shop and prefers GW1 but she’s being overruled by Colin Johanson because he had a change of heart. Yeah. That seems likely. Let’s go with that.

sigh

You’re doing it again. Far more appealing is an idea you could get Nexon on insider trading thanks to a former employee becoming part of a company they later bought massively into. But, hey, that’s not about how the cash shop in Guild Wars 2 obviously is pay to win. I mean look at the massive amounts of game breaking benefits you can buy for Gems out of the shop.

I’m not speculating on how much Nexon spent or the fact that a previous employee took over an important position at ANet 3 month prior. That’s not speculation. That’s not me.

GW2 lets you convert gems to gold and therefor buy legendary weapons, ascended materials and crafting materials to make ascended gear. Again, this is not speculation.

The only speculation is why… and to tell the truth I really don’t care why. Selling end-game progression is despicable and I’ve lost respect for ANet.