Guild Wars 2

It was an attempt to compromise your account via your email account. It was not a “hack”.

“Hacking” hasn’t occurred since Mathew Broderick’s character set the old analog phone in to the cradle and started dialing random phone numbers in search of a computer that would answer.

People toss the word “hacking” around too frequently these days without understanding its meaning/origin.

Accessing a game account or even an email account for that matter is the equivalent of Identity Theft or Social Engineering.

“Hacking” is blatantly accessing a single computer system or network directly in order to access the data or use the applications/services. So unless you are running WOPR to play GW2 or read your Gmail.. you weren’t hacked.

This lesson in Tech Support 101 was brought to you by the letters A, X and the Number 5.

Asura, Infinity Ball, one chapter of personal story is titled “Any Sufficiently Advanced Science”

Arthur C. Clarke once said “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

sweatycool.9624:

All I know, at least champions are dropping something compared to pre-november content. They changed the drop rate of champions to drop blues-exotics 100% of the time, only time you won’t get a drop from them is if you didn’t do enough damage(less then 10k damage). As to vets, they have a better chance of dropping items, I’ve gotten more exotics from champs/vets then trashmob, and the only exotic i got from a trashmob was from a Risen Putrifier(level 81).

The fact that you got an exotic from it, shows that the term trash-mob probably doesn’t even belong in the game. I spent 5 years in Guild Wars 1 and hardly ever heard the term at all.

Calling things trash mobs sort of belittles them. One of my guildies got dusk off a trash mob, or what would be called a trash mob in other games.

It amazes me how many people run through so-called trash in the dungeons, instead of killing them for loot.

Even stuff like the Jade Maw fractal, where I’ve gotten some great drops (including powerful venom sacs) just spending an extra two or three minutes killing to get to the boss.

I don’t understand why they don’t recycle the Unique item concept from Guild Wars 1, where almost every “Boss” had a chance to drop a maximum level, fixed stat item named after them. Hell, half the time, you’d even see said boss using that item in combat before killing them.

I think the overproduced RPG aspect of MMORPG has really burned players out. Everyone isn’t expecting a WoW 2, they are expecting something worth playing with or in addition to what they already love. People have enveloped themselves both physically and socially into these games. Those companies who seek to tear people away from games that hold a firm position in the lives of gamers will find failure at every turn. It is in the best interests, and clearly something Arenanet understands, to allow gamers flexibility. They don’t want you to leave your friends in WoW, they don’t want you to abandon your pvp buddies in Aion. They want you to play the game and enjoy it, knowing full well that your friends here, and your friends there, will welcome you back every time you switch.

Designers and big wigs that attempt to grab players from other games are missing the point. The purpose of most games is to get our time, and our time is a limited thing. How does one go about tearing a gamers hours between two games? the answer is, they don’t. Players aren’t one cloned type of people, we love role playing and can love shooting our enemies or mind blowing puzzles as well. While developers try to incorporate all that into one game, it doesn’t make that game the end all win all of MMO’s. Very much so it makes that game scattered, and often players spend more time trying to find out where they fit in than actually playing. In the coming months and even years you will see ideas that push the envelope of gaming. What you won’t see is the next big WOW Killer. Because simply put it doesn’t exist. WoW is a great game to some people, as are many other MMO’s. But it has become a world where we are split apart enjoying different things. And until developers learn to bring us together rather than pull us away, no MMO will be truly revolutionary.

So can we tell if GW2 is dying/succeeding? In most cases the answer is no. Tons of people playing today doesn’t mean it is doing good tomorrow. Tons of subs doesn’t make a game good either. People need to stop thinking in terms of what is better than something else, and simply what is enjoyable period. Do you like WoW? Great, so do tons of other people. How about EVE, FFXI, FFXIV, TESO, DESTINY? Yes? Great! Now where are we going with this? Well none of those games are going to be the end, none of them will be the game that gets you, me, or anyone else to leave everything we love. None of them will pull us away from our friends, at least not forever. We build bonds in these games, friendships, some that go beyond casual. It is time we stop asking if a game is alive or dying, and start asking why aren’t the AAA games working together? We aren’t basement dwelling balls of slime, hiding away from the world like some portray us to be. We are living breathing, thinking people. And we don’t log on to make your game seem alive. We log on because we enjoy your game, we enjoy the community. If we don’t then we simply wouldn’t. The entire discussion is great, but in the end I think we are all thinking inside the box (pun intended). All games are alive, all games have some part of our limited time. So why not stop asking if we are playing a dead or alive game, and start asking how we can enjoy more games more often.

Less forcing players to log in to keep the world alive, less forcing people to play “X” game. Give us a reason to play this AND other games, not toss the cake in front of us to pull us away from what we also enjoy. I think Arenanet gets this, I think most publishers do not. Which is why the very few make amazing games we keep coming back to. While others are like sweet treats we like now, but walk away from later. Look at minecraft, indie game, not everyone loves. Amazing graphics? Not really. Best story line ever? Nope. Will some people go play it along with their other online games? Yep. Some people get it and some people don’t. You will never be able to judge life of MMO’s in the same light as people once used to. We are no longer playing Amazing games VS crappy games. We are playing many great games with bright futures. While this is a great topic of discussion, there is no clear answer. Those who argue yes or no, are lacking the depth of the conversation, and the depth of themselves. We are not pigeons pecking at a red button for food. We choose to have options, choose to have a choice in the first place.

Vayne.8563:

This is for all the people who claim the game is dying.

Star Wars The Old Republic ended up laying off a significant portion of their staff six months or so after launch. TSW ended up laying off a third of their staff, due to disappointing sales.

Anet, on the other hand, is hiring. Here’s the link to their website, which I got by following the shifting news on top of the main Guild Wars 2 page.

http://www.arena.net/

If Guild Wars 2 is doing so badly and the game is dying, why is Anet hiring?

SWTOR shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same post as GW2, much less the same sentence. Look around at all the creativity, detail and passion that went into this game. The developers here care and are very proud of their product.
Now look at the buggy piece of garbage that is SWTOR, where the development is outsourced to third-world countries that don’t even know what Star Wars is.
One is a game made by gamers, the other a game made by suits, business and marketing majors.

GW2 is like a good girlfriend who gives you space when you need it. WoW is like the bad ex who’s always keeping tabs on where you are. Just like good girlfriends are hard to find, GW2 is a rare gem in the MMO market. For all its flaws, it’s the best MMO on the market, just like the small imperfection that makes a girl interesting.

Coordination is a small part. Luck is the overiding factor in the whole thing. A thoroughly coordinated team in constant communication can still fail if the target is in a place hard to find in this incredulously silly time limit.

Small guilds work extra hard on coordinating and communicating and are less rewarded than big guilds who just throw numbers at the problem.

We had a situation where a big guild were scouting all the bounties, having half a dozen at EACH target then would roll the bounty. They asked us and anyone who engaged the bounty not to engage the target even though we had activated already. Out of respect, we chose not to grief them over it, but we ended up failing the bounty. And then subsequent attempts as we never found the target (and map chat ppl were trolling the location in other zones which wasn’t helpful).

Please don’t use the coordination argument. Too much luck is involved at the moment for this to be true – luck for small guilds, sheer numbers for large guilds. I’d love it to be based on skill/coordination/communication, but it isn’t.

A long time ago in a game that to me still is a brilliant design just outdated, Asheron’s Call, there was a very cool concept used many times which drove their storyline and created absolute chaos and joy whenever it happened. In a nutshell it was a dev controlled villain named Bael’zharon that would raid towns and areas of the open world and fight off the hordes of heroes that ran to defend the area. It was an amazing part of the game that since human controlled was unpredictable as well as an amazing challenge and his appearance caused a glut of excitement with hordes of people rushing off to join the battle. Usually at the conclusion of these epic battles, there were prizes doled out to the participants in one form or another that remained somewhat unique (not game breaking) Some of the best moments in AC’s history revolve around these encounters and to this day stands out in my memory as the single best moments for me in online gaming.

Now that I’ve given a little history lesson I was curious to know if this is something that is feasible to be added to GW2 in a more permanent way, as a method to breath real time excitement into the world of Tyria? I know this is far more difficult to do especially when comparing the size of this community vs. the size of all online communities back then, but I think at the end of the day the unscripted mega events like this would certainly gain some keen interest of many who have not yet experienced this kind of content and add a very cool feature to an already great game. I think it would also help to add some personal connection to the story lines which of late could really be used to regain the “give a kitten” factor from many in the player base.
To me nothing would be better than some unpredicted attack on the people of Tyria by a dev controlled villain run amuck making use of the waypoints and other components in the world to evade elude and terrorize. Can you just imagine the buzz this would create if it became a permanent part of how story lines unfolded in GW2?

Hardcore = Planning life around the game.
Casual = Planning the game around life.

legion.7518:

What do the most successful fantasy MMOs have in common? They had elves! People love elves. Remember EQ? And then WoW.

GW2 would have been better off not trying to be so original, and just stick with the races that people know and love. I’d guess that 80% of players dislike the Charr and Asura races. The Sylvari are not much better, although I suppose they are the closest you can get to an elf.

Possibly the worst thing I’ve ever read on this forum. Which is quite a feat to be honest.

Also, I love asura. I have 7, 4 at 80, and then one sylvari at 80.

Asura ftw.

Remember, charr were unequivocal bad guys in the first game. For some, guild wars will always be a human story.

Id play my asura more if he could shout BOOKAH at passing humans tho…

I may not know Elves, but I sure knows a troll when I sees one.

You want Elves and dummies in game?
Anyway if they brought in a non-playable Terry Pratchett type elf maybe. Otherwise do not miss them.

legion.7518:

It’s easy to do “well” when you charge zero monthly subscription to play the game, whereas your competitor is charging $15/month. People are going to play this game because it’s free, even if it wasn’t a good game. The question is how “well” the company is doing when they have $0 from subscriptions and their competitor is getting tens of millions $$$$$$ of dollars each month from subscriptions.

Try hundreds of millions of $ per month in WoWs case. No idea what the current player base is for WoW, but between 6-7 mill still. 7 mill subs = 105 mill $/month.

And you dont need to wonder how well Anet is doing, apparently they did well enough with GW1 to spend money on doing GW2. So I’m pretty sure they arent losing money. Sub based games is a dinosaur in gaming, it’s outdated and needs a mercy shot in the back of the neck.

Even a so gimmicky and die hard fan centered game as Star Trek Online is doing very well, well enough to release an expansion very very soon. It has also become free to play, but there are players everywhere. But then again, they made the smart choice at start, with 1 single server with instances (overflows). Same as GW2, not an insane amount of servers like SWToR and Rift had. GW2 never went live with the expectations to get 8 mill subs, SWToR and Rift on the otherhand did.

I can safely say, the two most enjoyable MMOs currently on the market are STO and GW2 imo. Free to play so you dont feel forced to play either or, both have some of the best combat systems I can imagine and both have a healthy amount of people to play with everywhere. Something not even WoW can beat with its ghost town zones all the way up to max level, WoW the game that needs x-server lfg.

Nappychappy.7046:

Vayne.8563:

Nappychappy.7046:

Snip

I do enjoy farming, I see it as part of the game. I meakittenome point, that is what all games become – farming. If someone enjoys killing bandit’s all day should they be punished for not killing 10 of each critters in 10 different zones? Both can be considered a grind, farming, but only 1 is punished for this type of “farming”. The game wasn’t sold on the basis that I could only play the way ANet deemed “correct”, but as “How I wanted to play”.

“Play how you want to” unless it skews the Cash shop.

You keep saying cash shop. You’re OBSESSED by it. Even after I pointed out that long before they had this cash shop and the ability to change gems to gold, Anet had an anti-farming policy. You use some other excuse as to why they used to, instead of accepting the extremely reasonable view that maybe the company has another reason for not liking farming, besides just making it hard for botters even.

Farming screws with game economies. It’s that simple. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to agree with it, you don’t have to believe it, but it’s true. Game economies, unlike real life economies, aren’t complex enough to be sustained without some kind of management. In games where loot is easy to get, farmable and freely available they inflation becomes HUGE. And then people who have less time get screwed over. Clearly Anet doesn’t want this to happen. This is as much a possibility as why DR exists than the cash shop because Anet’s anti-farming policy preceded the gem/cash issue. You just don’t want to see it, because you’re stuck in your point of view. You want to farm no matter who it affects.

Well its’ like life. Everyone can play the way they want, until someone else is affected and then there are repercussions. Anet doesn’t allow griefing either, but griefing is a play style for some. Every game has rules. Within the boundaries of those rules, written or unwritten, you’re free to play the way you want.

But if you’re just going to farm the same area over and over again, you might as well be a bot. Bots are eliminated for a reason. DR affects people who do the work of bots in just the same way. It ruins the economy for a whole lot of people.

It’s not that hard to farm an area and move to another area long before DR kicks in, which is why it’s a good strategy to use against bots, at least to some degree.

The object of the game is farming. How you perceive it, doesn’t change what it is.

>Kill bad guys > loot.

Gibson.4036:

Nappychappy.7046:

This game wouldn’t last a month with a sub-fee, that alone judges how great this game is.

Recent history indicates that’s true of most games. Sub-fees are becoming less and less common.

Yes common knowledge is common, right? I think it is mostly the fault of greed, because no way should a sub-fee still be 15 dollars a month and to be fair it is hard on middle class families where 15 turns into 30-45 a month. Seems like every time sub-fee is brought up, it’s followed by “15 a month is a rip-off” – My question is: Why does it always have to be 15 dollars?

F2P is great until you realize how much it costs to play at a games full potential, seems to be the same with B2P.

My complaint is simply the game is gated, no matter what you do is hampered buy the cash shop. Does blizzard care if you have a bazillion gold? Nope. Do they care if you have 2 hours to play, or 12 hours to play? Nope. Do they care if you kill Green Whelps for a month? Nope.

Because they get paid and if that’s all you want to do, so be it.

This game isn’t gated by the cash shop. Your expectations are. I don’t play the same game you do, because I’ve never sold a gem in my life and I don’t feel I need to.

The object of the game for me is NOT farming. I could care less about farming. The drops I get are completely incidental to me playing the game. I don’t go through a dungeon for drops. I don’t go through fractals for drops. I get drops doing them, but that’s not why I’m there.

I do different things in this game for different reasons. Sometimes, like today, I ran CM explorable mode to help a guildie who need to complete CM. I didn’t need or want the tokens. I didn’t need or want the drops. But I did want to help a guildie.

I also play to have fun. I enjoy certain things. I enjoy finding things I’ve never seen before. I enjoy some dynamic events. I enjoy leveling alts. I enjoy running fractals. I do them because I enjoy them.

The only things I’ve done in this game that I haven’t enjoyed, I’ve done to progress a storyline, not for loot.

I’m not convinced most people play games like either one of us.

Mini-pet sounds should only be heard by those who own it.

Aeonblade.8709:

Us video gamers will be a dying breed eventually at this rate! And the reason us mid to late 20s use those words is because we freaking INVENTED them.

This did make laugh, as I’m 42 and I distinctly remember playing Space Invaders in 1978 and 1979, which would make someone in their late twenties (lets say 29 for arguments sake)…erm…not born by 6 years.

And I remember playing Elite on a Spectrum in 1984, making someone who was 29, erm, zero years old and probably still not born. So you mid to late twenty year olds must be very clever….

Aegis.9724:

Yes, gw2 makes an effort to make everything available to everyone. Thats a great thing, especially if you have little time to play.
Buuut there is a downside
A psychological one. The easiest is something to obtain/see, the lesser is the perceived payback, or sense of accomplishment.

I consider it long overdue to move away from that trick. This whole genre is essentially based on making the players believe they achieve something to lure them back long after the tedious gameplay has gone stale. This has done MMOs more harm then good, it stalled development of new game mechanics and designs for over a decade now.

Deposit Collectibles; man, I could never play another MMO without this.

Similarly, having access to all of the crafting materials you own while crafting without having to grab them from the bank. This wasn’t in during initial beta, but it was cool to see it get refined as time went on.

Being able to sell things in your inventory on the trading post from anywhere.

No need for parties in order to share rewards.

Player-instanced loot. This was in GW1, but still can only be found in the Guild Wars series.

There’s an event in Iron Marches I believe where you free Drakehounds from cages and they help you scout out enemies hiding in trees.

If the hound uncovers a landmine and it blows up, the poor dear limps around holding one paw up and I just go awwwwwwww : ’ (

Phoenix.3416:

I’m sick of these posts now, common sense says that if they remove the 5 target limit they either nerf AOE into oblivion after 5 targets or have to buff single target damage to be worth it which would mean one hit kill single target damage.

Remove the cap in wvw and you could get instantly killed by a group of elementalists who use firestorm at the same time, dodging wont save you and you will die over and over.

Come on man, think about this before posting this kind of thread, if they buff something they have to buff everything else to match.
If i can use a spell that does 500 damage on 30 players at the same time I need to be able to do 15,000 damage to a single target per attack to balance it out for single target to be the same DPS.

No, common sense does not say this at all. AoEs are long cooldown skills, usually with long cast times, as well. Single target skills are short cooldown skills, usually with shorter cast/activation times. If any adjustment had to to be made to single target skills as some form of compensation, it would be a very small amount; they would not become one hit kills. Your comparison of the DPS of an AoE versus the DPS of a single target skill only works if both skills have the same recharge and activation times; which they do not.

To illustrate:

1) Elementalist casts Firestorm on a Warrior. Firestorm is now on a 15 second cooldown.

2) Warrior dodges once to evade and takes no damage, but isn’t fully out of the AoE ring of the spell.

3) The Warrior now takes a hit from Firestorm. The base damage is 211, but obviously will be greater than this due to the Elementalist’s attack stat, boons, nourishment and consumable buffs, and if they’ve traited to increase their fire damage. Regardless, that one strike of Firestorm isn’t going to kill a Warrior at full health.

4) The Warrior is now able to move out of the AoE ring of Firestorm. Let’s assume 3 seconds have elapsed since the Elementalist first cast it; it still has another 12 seconds left on cooldown.

5) Let’s assume the Warrior is an axe wielder. He closes the distance to the Elementalist using Eviscerate. Let’s also assume he only had level 1 in adrenaline at the time of the leap. At base level, he’ll deal 487 points of damage to the Elementalist. We’ll assume 4 seconds have now elapsed and Firestorm is still has 11 seconds left on cooldown.

6) The Warrior now starts to auto-attack the Elementalist using Chop – Double Chop – Triple Chop. The whole sequence takes 3.6 seconds to execute for 1648 base damage.

7) By the time the Elementalist’s Firestorm is off of cooldown and ready to be cast again, the Warrior will have had an opportunity to land 3+ sequences of Chop – Double Chop – Triple Chop. Using just his gap-closer Eviscerate and the axe auto-attack, the Warrior will have potentially dealt 5,431 points of damage versus the Elementalist’s 211. This is a 1:25+ ratio of damage in favor of the Warrior.

Of course, this all contrived since the Elementalist isn’t just going to stand there nor use any other skills. Likewise, the Warrior will do more than just auto-attack. However, since you wanted to use a contrived scenario in describing Elementalists using a single skill – Firestorm – to instantly kill a player, it’s only fitting I counter it to demonstrate how it wouldn’t work in practice; even with multiple Elementalists stacking their Firestorms together.

The point being that the removal of the AoE cap does not mean single target skills must be increased in damage to compensate.

The more important point is that AoEs are not guaranteed insta-kills; even with the caps removed. The simplest counter to the argument against removing the AoE cap is two words:

Arrow Carts.

They have an AoE cap of 50; effectively no cap when compared to the size of most zergs. Furthermore, unlike player AoE skills with long cooldown times, Arrow Cart skill recharge times are so short that – in conjunction with the duration of their AoE – they can maintain continuous suppression fire. They create permanent AoE with a cap of 50 players and dealing 600+ damage per hit. They are – in effect – the epitome of AoE without a cap.

Do Arrow Carts make WvWvW unplayable? No.

Is Arrow Cart fire un-dodgeable? No.

Are Arrow Carts so OP that there’s no way to counter them? No.

Likewise, removing the cap from player AoE skills – especially in light of their longer recharge times – will not lead to instantly killing whole zergs unless the players in that zerg are braindead. In which case, they should be wiped by the AoE.

Now to the most important point of all. Learn to dodge. Learn to juke. Learn to bait an enemy into wasting a long recharge AoE so you can then charge through while its on cooldown. In short, learn to think when you play instead of being a mindless zombie following the herd.

Siphaed.9235:

I’m trying to see a logical argument against the AoE cap removal, but all I’m seeing is single-pathing minded concepts where everyone thinks that players will brainlessly go into narrow areas of death. That’s what we have now already in the game in the zerg vs zerg that currently exits. And the problem with what we have now is that people do this willingly because they KNOW that only 5 people are hit by a single AOE; being a group of 20, you’re chances of getting hit is 1 in 4, a significantly easier thing to risk if walking into that AoE was a 1 in 1 hit chance without a cap.

This. Most of these arguments seem to be based on the fact that AOE would be OP against the zerg without a cap. Well, you’re right. But that’s kind of the point. AOE should be devastating if you take 40 people and stand in the middle of it. The balance to AOE is not to stand in the middle of it. What a lot of people seem to be missing is that if you remove the AOE cap, the game will change. People will stop zerging up so as to avoid getting wiped by AOE. They will be forced to spread out, run in smaller groups, take multiple objectives and generally think more overall.

Yes, AOE would be OP against the zerg without a cap. That’s the idea. To get people to stop running in mindless zergs. At least bump it up to 10 and see if that promotes some more interesting gameplay.

….because all it seems to have is “glass pistols” that aren’t even 6-shooters (they’re 5 max!).

What am I talking about?

Why, I’m talking about none other than the cap for AoE which is restricting creative gameplay in PvP -WvW in particular- and making the game a Zerg vs. Zerg affair.

AoE (Area of Effect):
- A spell or ability that effects certain people within the specific area. This is dependent on whether or not the spell or ability is a beneficial effect for allies or attack against enemies.

Yet, it seems that the AoE effects in Guild Wars 2 are not of normal RPG definition. They only hit a maximum of 5 allies or 5 enemies within the area. By that, they shouldn’t be called AoE at all. Instead, they should be called “Effects Up To 5 Within Area Abilities” [EUTFWAA] Guild Wars 2 may very well be the only game that has these kind of EUTFWAA’s for players to use. Maybe this is their “innovation” that they advertised?

Well, innovative or not I would like to see them removed the EUTFWAA for the traditional AoE of old. Because frankly this is the only game where an AoE would actually fit much better than other games. Why?

DODGE!!!!!!

That’s right, this game gives the players the ability to dodge roll out of things such as AoE, direct attacks, an Ogre’s mallet swing, and other such harsh things. So, if someone cast a raining hell of fiery meteor showers on a single area where your group of 10 where standing, you can roll out of the way to mitigate most of the damage. Those that don’t roll out? This is what Darwinism is all about.

So, ……again, we need Glass Cannons, because this game lacks them. No more “Glass Pistols”, they’re not fun and they break like a cheap hour glass that’s run out of the 5 grains of sand that was in it….

I agree with the TS. There’s a reason for AoE to be called Area of Effect. It should affect the whole Area not 5 random targets even if the spells is visually affecting the entire area. If there are 10 brainless nuts willingly stand in the AoE then let them die from it, why? bcoz they are standing in the AoE. No point limiting it to a number within an area. Meteor storm hits at random spots within the AoE, if a meteor lands on 8 players stacking then they should pay the price for stacking under the meteor.

Calae.1738:

I’m not sure how long they will be able to sustain this though. Their Achilles heel is a AAA MMO targeted to a mature audience. The Disney stuff might be tolerable for awhile but; it’ll get dumped really fast. Your average MMO gamers is over 30 and is demanding mature content.

Disney is mature content. Only 14-17 years old teens trying to be mature discard the perfection of a Disney animation. Lion King is among the best movies ever made.

Once you’re past 20, you’ll start to realize being mature means filling your office with playpen balls if that’s your thing. It means finally putting your favorite plushie back in your bed because you know the girls will love you for it. Being mature means you have the guts to look at a Disney animation and love it for what it is.

This game offers what a mature, 30 years old demographic wants. Once you’re that age, you’ll realize it too.

@Clay

Hopefully you’ll see this when you wake up.

One of the things you’ve said before as part of your theory about why Guild Wars 2 might fail is that other MMOs, many others have failed. So let me ask you a couple of questions.

1. How many of those other MMOs that failed, started with a Buy to Play model? This is an important distinction because trying to go pay to play is a disaster waiting to happen for any MMO…and Rift did it and remains viable, so not even all of those failed, but most did. However, none of them, to my recollection, were buy to play, and that makes a difference.

2. How many of the MMOs that failed tried to mimic WoW in most particulars. I mean SWToR was basically WoW in space. Rift was called WoW 2.0. The problem is, there is only so much of a market for that kind of game. Guild Wars 2, while being a fantasy MMO, doesn’t really mimic WoW in most particulars. There are no raids, there is no trinity, there are no traditional quests, there is no monthly fee…the list is almost endless, down to the graphic style. So Guild Wars 2, arguably isn’t competing with WoW at all.

3. How many of the games we’re talking about have actually “failed”. What does the word failed mean? SWToR had major issues and had to let go a lot of people, that’s true. But they’re coming out with a paid expansion now. Did SWToR fail? Rift certainly didn’t fail. Aion didn’t fail, though it’s lost a lot of traffic. On the other hand, it was successful for many years now.

You’ve pointed also to the success of Eve, which remains a cult game. That’s been building player base for a long, long time…but it didn’t start with a huge player base.

All you really have is that some games with a monthly fee had to go free to play, most of which are still making money. Not quite failure anyway.

So this is what Guild Wars 2 has going for it.

1. It IS a sequel and those who enjoyed PVe at least in Guild Wars 1 seem to enjoy Guild Wars 2 as well.

2. This is a buy to play game from the start. It doesn’t suffer from the P2W aspect that many if not most free to play games suffer. In fact, it’s in its own niche which means, for now, a whole lot less competition.

3. The release was timed well. With only Pandas as competition, Anet managed to find a very nice window in which to launch the game. By the time a real competitor actually launches, there will be an entrenched, loyal fan base. It doesn’t have to be a huge one even for a game to be successful.

4. Some people really REALLY like this game. People like me who don’t like other MMOs. One of the great lines of the much maligned manifesto is “If you love MMOs you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2 and if you hate MMOs you’re REALLY want to check out Guild Wars 2”. That line resonated with me and remains true to this day. I saw the potential of the format, but never before found an MMO I can like. I’m willing to wager I’m not alone in that boat. There are a whole lot of people out there who hate WoW, so by extension they’d hate WoW clones. It’s just logical. Are there enough of us? I believe there are.

Time, of course will tell.

Geotherma.2395:

Complex and Guild Wars 2 don’t belong in the same sentence. If a 6 year old can figure out basic combat, I’m sure that 50 year old wii bowling person can. You know they have tournaments in wii bowling for people 50-80+ years old? We have a 50 something year old in our guild, they play regularly. This game appeals to many types, hence why it is doing so well. And I still know military veterans who I served with in iraq who are in their late 40’s and 50’s who play several video games, some of which are MMO’s and not just FPS games. This whole blanketing everyone with the hardcore/casual term is getting old, as is the assumption of who likes the game and who doesn’t.

Hey, I resemble that comment. Plus I’ve been playing PC games since the days of boot floppy copy protection and Hercules monochrome graphics. Before that I played Atari 800 games when “Electronic Arts” had a cool hip poster of their developers and their games came in album styled packaging.