Guild Wars 2

Karizee.8076:

I think the people complaining about this really haven’t grasped the concept of this game yet. Look at it this way, if they left all the content permanent it would be the most confusing clusterbomb of a game ever created.

Just imagine, we would have a world where we are simultaneously building road signs for the refugees Wayfarer Hills while the refugees have already arrived and are camping in Lion’s Arch AND have already moved on to Southsun Cove where they are being exploited by the Consortium all the while Queen’s Pavilion balloons are taking players to the Jubilee while Molten Portals spawn everywhere and we have just started to open/build Southsun but the Ancient Karka has already been defeated but karka are still invading Lion’s Arch. Or how about Evon Gnashblade politicking for votes at the same time he’s bemoaning his loss while election banners are hanging everywhere and Ellen is already in the Council? Or how about Kessex Hills with the Tower of Nightmares both up yet blown up at the same time?

Those concepts work well within a linear game where you are working your way through the story via quests and such, but it simply doesn’t make sense here.

I do think the 2 week tempo feels a bit pressured and I’m happy they’ve moved towards letting the content overlap in one month chunks, but I simply don’t see how everything could be left in game within the freeform/nonlinear/multiple layers of content in zones way this game is designed.

Phasing.

Advantages :

• 2 week update schedule
• Um…I’m really having trouble here

Disadvantages :

• 2 week update schedule
• Content isn’t around long enough to complete
• Content feels rushed and half way thought out because of said 2 week cycle
• There is no way to experience anything of the LS after it is gone

Just imo. Nothing tangible has been added to the game since I bought it, and I have ignored LS faithfully since the Aetherblade because I refuse to let Anet force me into some of the most boring uninspired content I have seen in years.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

I couldn’t care any less. They are not going to revamp the whole WvW since 90% of it’s population is little zerglings following a commander. They don’t care what the rest 10% thinks about WvW.

Don’t get me for a zerger, I never followed a train, I’m solo roaming 90% of my time, and the other 10% is if I add another two persons on my group.

My only hope is that ESO will learn from this mistake!

There is nothing to learn from. Siege warfare relies on large armies and contingents of players, sPvP is there for those who can’t handle the strategy of large scale fights.

Don’t get your hopes up, ESO is a much better PvP system, but it’s still siege warfare.

The game is designed to sap your wallet and your will to play. It’s a double edged sword my friend, and they are slicing deep this time.

Who?

15 char

Junkpile.7439:

Sounds kind of unfair that there actually is some way to hit thief.

Haha, that was good. And a fair point.

zeromius.1604:

Aeonblade.8709:

Oghier.7419:

Because there’s no character progression.

If I wanted to play a straight fighting game, there are plenty of them to choose from. When I play an MMO, I expect long-term character and gear progression. If I want to play a MOBA or an FPS, I’ll go do that.

When I do PvP (and I engage in PvP in every MMO I play), I prefer open-world battles rather than e-sports. WvW is fairly well done in GW2, so that’s where I play.

This is a good post an explains why sPvP in GW2 has essentially been a flop. It doesn’t affect your actual character in anyway, you may as well be playing LoL for all the good it does your characters.

The opposite could also be true. If you introduce power creep to PvP then essentially you’ve taken away the reliance on skill. Should players that have been playing longer have a stat advantage over those that have been playing less? How do you expect anyone to take PvP seriously at that point?

Haha, there is no reliance on skill already, it’s about who is using the most OP build that counters your own OP build. I don’t know where this comes from, but you will probably not see skill based PvP in mmo’s for a long time to come.

If you want balanced PvP, FPS is the genre for you, and also MOBA’s, to an extent, although still heavily reliant on gear and skills rather than actual player skill.

skullmount.1758:

Aeonblade.8709:

Best E-mail of the week – GW2 Conclusion of Scarlett!

Now get to work on some content/expansions Anet looking forward to what you guys can do when you aren’t constrained by the LS!

Well prepare for disappointment, cuz’ LS is still continuing after Scarlett/Season1. Season 2 starts mid/early March (maybe late March if Feature patch is all by itself with no LS part).

I’ll believe that when they are foolish enough to actually not release an expansion. Until March I’m gonna keep my hopes up.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Hardly a “hidden” ploy. It’s clearly their new business model. They want to get as close to play-to-win as possible but still far enough away that there’ll still be white knights saying that “you don’t have to…”

Did you mean “pay to win” or “play to win”, because it’s really hard to win games you don’t play. Unless that Vabbian Prince really is trying to find me with loads of rubies and diamonds . . .

Yeah, I meant “pay-to-win” (edited now) …. big difference that one letter makes.

Okay, now we have a discussion.

And the important question I was going to ask until spotting that typo . . . what exactly are you “winning”?

Skin Progression. Since they won’t /don’t want actual character or gear progression in the game, they have cosmetic progression, which is what players would be trying to win.

Regardless the point of any game is to win, be it sports, video games, monopoly, etc. If you aren’t winning, you are losing.

Whether or not I agree with that, meh. But it is what it is, and how most people playing games are going to think, regardless.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I just want the people who stopped playing and have no intention of coming back to stop posting about how they quit and have no intention of coming back.

This is a forum for an MMO. 90% of the population are these people, without them the forum would be empty.

Oghier.7419:

Because there’s no character progression.

If I wanted to play a straight fighting game, there are plenty of them to choose from. When I play an MMO, I expect long-term character and gear progression. If I want to play a MOBA or an FPS, I’ll go do that.

When I do PvP (and I engage in PvP in every MMO I play), I prefer open-world battles rather than e-sports. WvW is fairly well done in GW2, so that’s where I play.

This is a good post an explains why sPvP in GW2 has essentially been a flop. It doesn’t affect your actual character in anyway, you may as well be playing LoL for all the good it does your characters.

Best E-mail of the week – GW2 Conclusion of Scarlett!

Now get to work on some content/expansions Anet looking forward to what you guys can do when you aren’t constrained by the LS!

tigirius.9014:

Sub or not customers should hold companies accountable for their promises.

This.

I almost feel sorry for the dedicated few holding on to Anet’s vision and still defending them. Almost.

But to do or say the same thing over and over and expect something different is insanity, and I have no sympathy for self imposed insanity.

WTB Shadowknight type class. With useful defense. And a taunt. Oh lord that would be glorious.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Aeonblade,
what if badges have more uses?

so you think there is something wrong with the sPvP community?

It’s not this game specifically, it’s the instanced PvP community in general in any game. The last good community based around that kind of PvP was WoW pre BC. Everything since has caused an influx of people from FPS games that constantly whine that things are unbalanced. It’s really something I actively avoid since there is no sense of community and every sense of hostility.

If they made ascended gear purchasable with badges and sPvP awarded massive amounts of them, I would put up with the game type and community for the reward. That’s about it.

I had an exotic drop one time. That was nice. Think it was Edge of Honor or something like that, I don’t remember.

Every night in WvW is a fun and unique experience.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

dear PvE / WvW players,

would you be inclined to participate, play sPvP more often if you have a good chance to earn some badges of honor from there?

yes? no? why?

just a simple “what if” question to think about.

thank you for reading!

No. The badges are mostly useless already. To make me deal with shoddy BG/Arena PvP would require unique rewards that were relatively easy to get. And even then I doubt I would subject myself to that community.

Myth: A casual player can get a precursor without sacrificing his first born child to the Goat Lord.

I will always take losing in a blowout over fighting the same boring fights week after week.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kevan.8912:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kevan.8912:

+1
i think that if anet does really want to be different in the mmo market should rely on these 2 themes:
roleplaying (more players’ involvement in world events, not just an infinite chain of grind. making the player count in tyria. housing, ambient changes) and customization. (more skills, more weapons, more skins, mounts, etc)
but seems it’s already too late.
the usual farming-grinding is here

Never too late until the servers shut down.

Although I don’t expect some of your “roleplaying” list of improvements – notably “housing” – to make it. The last game I played which actually had housing matter also had serious problems with limited space.

Though the “customization” list seems to be in their minds, given how they tried to put in healing skills. Weapon and armor skins . . . really hope we get more, and almost a given we will.

Mounts? Probably staying right out and won’t be showing up. I honestly don’t know why people keep asking for them.

well, It’s all down to personal taste. i’d love mounts.

and, obviously…
if, and only if, ascended is really the last tier….and the last BiS…and if anet creates more interesting (and viable) ways to craft them, could be interesting to come back into the game.
xD

Don’t think they will revamp the crafting methods, and I think Ascended is the best we will see for now. Unless the next set of areas permanently added to the game are incredibly more difficult, I expect we won’t see anything at all.

If they do “Legendary Armor” it’ll probably be through existing armor being back-worked into “Precursors”. I’d suspect using the named exotic pieces would be that, and the method requiring things crafted at skill 450+ along with some other “Gift” item to transform them. It’ll have the same stats as Ascended but be flexibly able to be changed, as per the weapons.

And the gods willing, it won’t be ugly.

I wish they would stop with the crafting addiction. The crafting system in this game is awful and tedious. I think people should be able to craft the best gear in the game, but I don’t think they should force people to craft for anything. Crafting has been an option in every game I have played till this point, and I’m not thrilled by the fact if I want the best gear I have to waste my time on crafting, which is not why I play.

I find it easier to just not worry about ascended stuff until we get more avenues to actually obtain the gear reliably.

Noice.8730:

How about you do it in OUR prime time. Challenge to TFV and NNK.

Yes because that is a logical and possible thing to do. Hey everyone call in sick today so we can go play with ZoD on their terms! Sigh.

Yes because your time zone is so much more important than the rest of the world. Ridiculous. You can’t restrict other people from playing the game just because you don’t want them to.

It amazes me that people don’t realize to this day that they are not the center of the universe.

Valanga.5942:

Spawne.3128:

460k concurrent users is nothing by comparison to other MMO’s. Warcraft has over 10 million active subscriptions at its last expansion and over 1.5 million concurrent users. Even star wars knights of the old republic managed 350k concurrent users and thats a non mainstream MMO geared towards star wars geeks.

Final Fantasy XIV, the reproposition of one of the biggest fail in MMO’s recent history, managed to get almost 400K concurrent users online not even a week after release…
I still don’t understand why ANet was boasting so much…

I don’t think it’s boasting so much as a “We aren’t dead yet guys!” I just hope they do something about the state of the game this year. The game hasn’t really changed since release, and it’s showing it’s age.

Good fights this weekend BP, and Ebay when they decided to come out of their keeps.

Shout out to the BP thief/guard I think who killed my upleveled warrior in EB last night. I tried to get away to a tower….that you guys owned. Don’t WvW and drink kids.

I would be worried if a game so young had any less concurrent users. Seems about average given the state of a the game and decline in player base.

Qaelyn.7612:

Quick background on me. Started playing in October, did mostly PvE, then discovered WvW. Loved the concept but had no experience with player-player combat and I’d panic every time enemies got near. So I decided to spend some time in PvP over the last two months to get more comfortable with fighting other players, and have learned to like it, at least to a certain extent.

Anyway, it seems a very small percentage of players use this part of the game, and PvPers are always arguing about why that is. Seems to me that it’s missing the point to have people who engage in an activity speculate about why those who don’t engage in it choose not to, rather than asking those people directly.

So, to those of you who don’t participate in sPvP: what are the major reasons why?

No rewards, Arena/Battleground combat is far played out at this point, and it sucked to begin with. Little strategy is involved imo compared to WvW. It’s just not enjoyable to me anymore. If I wanted to play battlegrounds WoW and Rift did it better and actually rewarded you for playing PvP. I’m not knocking anyone who enjoys it, I’m just done with that game type at this point. Just a bunch of dudes running cookie cutter fotm builds slapping each other on the butts saying good game.

WvW is awesome though.

Righteous.4307:

Since ArenaNet has stated that they are back in the office… Ill go ahead and necro this.

I support this necro. A response would be nice on why so many wasted their time Anet.

Ethics.4519:

Aeonblade.8709:

Nabrok.9023:

Aeonblade.8709:

I wonder if they’ll sing the same tune in 6 months as population continues to decline as rapidly as it has.

OK, look me up in 6 months and we’ll continue this conversation then.

I’d rather not. And I’m sure most of us will be gone by then anyway if an expansion announcement isn’t made in the next few months.

You guys can have your LS and all the ghost towns that come with it if there isn’t an expansion announced before then, because we have much more ambitious projects coming down the pipeline this year

I have been warning them against this content delivery method since I started playing, and during that time I have watched nearly every server become empty outside of LA and Queensdale.

Come to BG. Frostgorge and WvW also have Queues =)

Hehe don’t tempt me, have been a DB faithful since the beginning

Nabrok.9023:

Aeonblade.8709:

I wonder if they’ll sing the same tune in 6 months as population continues to decline as rapidly as it has.

OK, look me up in 6 months and we’ll continue this conversation then.

I’d rather not. And I’m sure most of us will be gone by then anyway if an expansion announcement isn’t made in the next few months.

You guys can have your LS and all the ghost towns that come with it if there isn’t an expansion announced before then, because we have much more ambitious projects coming down the pipeline this year

I have been warning them against this content delivery method since I started playing, and during that time I have watched nearly every server become empty outside of LA and Queensdale.

Nabrok.9023:

Obsidian.1328:

Nabrok.9023:

The fact remains that living story has introduced new zones, new dungeon paths, new skills, new skins … all of those things.

You need to be more specific: 1 new zone added, 1 alteration to an existing dungeon path, 1 alteration to an existing open-world boss, Several new Fractal paths, 1 new skill, lots of temporary new skins now gone, several temporary zones now gone, 1 new pvp arena(as far as I know), a few existing zones altered.

In a year and a half.

That’s not even 1/10th worth of expansion content. An expansion should give you a new continent’s worth of material: permanent new races/professions, dozens of permanent new skills, entirely new permanent storyline arc, permanent new dungeons, permanent new pvp arenas, and of course gem-store items.

At this rate, it will take them 20 years to give an “expansion’s worth” of content.

Nobody is saying they’ve already given us an expansions worth of content. What we are saying is that they have introduced and tested the mechanism for delivering the content.

What arena net is saying is that they’re going to give us expansion level content through it. I’m not making this up, you know? I don’t have links at my disposal but they’ve said stuff like that in several places.

I wonder if they’ll sing the same tune in 6 months as population continues to decline as rapidly as it has. Go to any website other than the official forums and the LS is a complete failure that drove people away from the game.

I’m not making this up, check other gaming forums. These forums are actually quite tame in their criticism of the living story.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Vol.7601:

Farm moldy bags. Do events in Orr.

Please don’t do this. You’ll ragequit eventually due to lack of actual loot.

Sweetbread.2679:

Why does there even need to be any discussion of Anet’s integrity or commitment to their said design philosophies after the whole manifesto fiasco? They can declare, promise, commit, plan, intend, proclaim anything and at best you have absolutely no idea if they actually mean any of it or not. I don’t feel that way when WoW or LoL devs discuss things, they actually have some proven reliability or merit behind what they say. With GW2 it all just feels like PR doublespeak or hype with little follow through. I’ve never seen a company kitten all over a good reputation as quickly as Anet has done this last year with how they’ve handled GW2.

+1, good post.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Aeonblade.8709:

Don’t joke about bringing the trinity and team strategy that goes with it back into the game. It’s a wet dream I have from time to time

Yes…‘team strategy’

Someone heals, someone repeatedly gets hit, and 3 people deal damage.

It’s a pretty one-trick strategy.

One trick strategy > No strategy imo.

My vote for a single idea goes to Role Diversification as well. New skills and traits, new options for them, new weapons and weapon types.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

The other day in WvW our zerg was passing the enemy keep. Normally, I wouldn’t chase squirrels but that day I did and I totally shouldn’t have… Anyway, this very attractive Warrior was standing just a few feet from us when we passed (I say attractive because their c**kyness made me want to attack them). Separating from the group, I began to attack only to be immediately stunned (when the border of your screen goes white and you can’t move until the duration is finished), fortunately I’m a very, very tanky Necro. So after being stunned I went back to trying to attack only to be stunned again within about 2 seconds. I used Spectral Armor to break the stun, and was immediately dazed (when the border of your screen goes purple and you can move, but cannot attack). I was stunned a total of 5 times, and dazed twice before I was killed. All within about a minute.
Then, I watched the same thing happen to two other people trying to attack this person… Was this an exploit or what the hell were they using to do this? I’ve never encountered a player who could spam stuns so often. Which is probably why they were so c**ky in the first place… I ask because I want to know how I can counter this incase I find myself against another person who’s doing this. Because that was an extremely frustrating 60seconds. I just about flipped my table and rage-quit.

This game doesn’t have diminishing returns on CC yet. CC is king, like it was in the original DAoC before Mythic fixed CC.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Ethics.4519:

Lol, now he’s defending the company by a completely hypothetical future maybe.

The LS has failed so far. The only reason activity is as high as it is right now is because of A ) Hype and B ) waiting on other releases coming soon.

By this logic then, we should go back to the hard Trinity of Tank, Healer and DPS, and go back to instanced raids instead of open-world fights, because the because the system we have now doesn’t work, and although there’s potential for improvement, it’s hypothetical.

Also, where was I defending the company exactly? All I said was because the LS doesn’t compare to an expac now (which I haven’t the slightest on how you’d consider that ‘defending’), doesn’t mean that it can’t. Saying that the LS can only be what it is now is a logical fallacy.

Don’t joke about bringing the trinity and team strategy that goes with it back into the game. It’s a wet dream I have from time to time

Leamas.5803:

Is the best option just to farm gold and buy mats?

It is the only option currently that lets you get the mats in a reasonable time frame.

Nabrok.9023:

Aeonblade.8709:

Nabrok.9023:

Aeonblade.8709:

Nabrok.9023:

Aeonblade.8709:

I would not be surprised if they have been working on it since the game’s release tbh, I don’t see any company shooting themselves in the foot by not making expansions in this day and age.

The content that comes in an expansion, certainly. The actual box? No.

It’ll come packaged as living story, not a retail expansion.

That’s not an expansion.

Exactly, there will not be an expansion. There will be content that you might traditionally associate with an expansion, and it’ll be delivered through living story updates.

No one in their right minds compares the horrors of LS with true expansion content.

An expansion:

• Adds several permanent areas to a game
• Adds new skills/classes/races
• Adds more than one new dungeon
• Adds a lot of skins and weapon skins

LS has added:

• Temporary Content that if you aren’t so hardcore you never log you’ll never see all of
• A zone that is now dead sans botters
• Gem store cash grab skins

I fail to see the connection between LS and an expansion. I fail to see the connection between LS and content updates at all. Temporary content =/= content.

Then you haven’t really been paying attention. Living Story updates can, have, and will introduce all the things you listed. They’re just not going to do it all at once. You’ll get a bit here and a bit there, but it all adds up.

Living Story isn’t about temporary content, it’s about temporary content that introduces permanent content. Kessex Hills is a great example of this, we got a revamped zone but it didn’t just pop out of nowhere, we got story that we could actually participate in that told us what happened.

That tower was there for a month, but you say only hardcore who never log could get a chance to experience? Absolute nonsense.

What’s absolute nonsense is defending something that clearly hasn’t worked and has actively driven the game population to a ghost town from lack of updates.

I haven’t participated in any temporary content since Aetherblade, and I don’t intend to ever again because it sucks the fun out of the game.

Most of us are waiting for a game update, preferably in my case the form of an expansion that actually gives the players something.

Nabrok.9023:

Aeonblade.8709:

Nabrok.9023:

Aeonblade.8709:

I would not be surprised if they have been working on it since the game’s release tbh, I don’t see any company shooting themselves in the foot by not making expansions in this day and age.

The content that comes in an expansion, certainly. The actual box? No.

It’ll come packaged as living story, not a retail expansion.

That’s not an expansion.

Exactly, there will not be an expansion. There will be content that you might traditionally associate with an expansion, and it’ll be delivered through living story updates.

No one in their right minds compares the horrors of LS with true expansion content.

An expansion:

• Adds several permanent areas to a game
• Adds new skills/classes/races
• Adds more than one new dungeon
• Adds a lot of skins and weapon skins

LS has added:

• Temporary Content that if you aren’t so hardcore you never log you’ll never see all of
• A zone that is now dead sans botters
• Gem store cash grab skins

I fail to see the connection between LS and an expansion. I fail to see the connection between LS and content updates at all. Temporary content =/= content.

Nabrok.9023:

Aeonblade.8709:

I would not be surprised if they have been working on it since the game’s release tbh, I don’t see any company shooting themselves in the foot by not making expansions in this day and age.

The content that comes in an expansion, certainly. The actual box? No.

It’ll come packaged as living story, not a retail expansion.

That’s not an expansion.

Osi.3504:

Vol.7601:

https://twitter.com/PersistentWorld/status/418816619825999872

@DragonSeasonCom I can’t wait until you guys find out what’s in store this year. People are going to die with excitement/shock

---

Dragon Season ?@DragonSeasonCom 47m @CanadasMathlete @PersistentWorld I will interpret both of your statements as “Expansion incoming”. :P ~Tilion

Lewis B ?@PersistentWorld 43m @DragonSeasonCom @CanadasMathlete Oh not at all. Better than that!

---

so what could possibly be better than an expansion?

__

EDIT: go home everyone:

“I can confirm I am not an Anet dev. kitten . I can also confirm this has been blown WAAAY out of proportion. Still, fantastic theorycraft everyone! " – Lewis B on reddit

Well…. while an expansion would be good for the game in general to hype and bring players back to the game and show success, I question it. When ANET has shown so many poor signs for profit in the past year and the game company can just create a full tool set and make $30 a person, that’s a millionth of a fraction of work than creating an expansion for $50. Also since last year NCsoft stated there were no plans in an interview… either this will be a quickly put together expansion or a small one of recrops etc. or they have a lot of people working on it/has for a long time with intentional lies.

When WoW comes out with their new expansion, they will have already started on the next one.

That is what makes me think Anet/NCsoft and GW2 have been working on an expansion all this time. An MMO without expanding content is destined to fail and become stale.

I would not be surprised if they have been working on it since the game’s release tbh, I don’t see any company shooting themselves in the foot by not making expansions in this day and age.

Valanga.5942:

Ethics.4519:

Valanga.5942:

Yeah, you’d be right if the blogpost wasn’t their usual “we can’t hear you over the sound of our awesomeness”, full of “awesome” here, “epic” there and crap like that…
And of course if they didn’t broke promises, taken 180° turns on their original plans and so on…

Thank you. My biggest issue is that this is just another tick against them in there string of 180 degree turns, stealth nerfs, bad PR, etc.

I don’t really care that much that some of these weren’t in 2013 (well, the precursor one I did really want to happen) it’s just that it’s the same old story.

Anet promotes something flashy and cool. The majority buy into it. Anet fails and it’s not as good or doesn’t happen. Some people are upset, and other people argue that humans make mistakes.

Point is, a certain amount of players (not gonna say “all” “most” “a lot”, because, you know, inb4 “you’re not speaking for the community! we love it!”), wants actual content, bugs solved, classes balanced, and ways to acquire Legendary Weapons that are not tied either to lucking the hell out of a chest or the Mystic Toilet, or grinding your guts out of your mouth to get enough money and pay some dude who did it before you.
What we get was Ascendant grinding… Well done Anet.

+1. Please listen this year Anet!

Best class hands down right now in WvW is Thief. It’s like playing with IDDQD on.

Huupa.1708:

Fun duels against NA and HIGH guilds of Ebay tonight. You are all on another level. Well played. Mostly me getting stomped, but i learned a few things about necros and mesmers that i didnt know before. Thanks for the fun. I hope that next week we aren’t paired again seeing as ebay has been against dragonbrand for about 3 weeks in a row and i understand from this thread that people aren’t fond of our server. Hopefully you get to go against a server you feel is a fun match.

They aren’t fond of our server because they lose to our server. Losing breeds animosity towards your opponents. It’s human nature. It’s why we have rivalries in pro sports.

Any complaints about numbers, unfair fights, etc. are all bred from losing a fight at some point and time.

VOLKON.1290:

Aeonblade.8709:

Read the OP’s post. It’s like a bar no one talks in. Yea there are people there, but no one is saying anything to each other.

If you find pleasure in silence throughout 90% of the game I’m not faulting that. To each their own. But every other MMO I have played had a community that made you feel larger than yourself or your guild.

Unless you plan on doing WvW or Champ Trains, prepare yourself for the deafening silence. By making the game completely “solo friendly” they removed any need to communicate, which has made the game feel cold and unforgiving.

Ah yes… Barrens chat. Well… that was a community claiming to be larger at least. I don’t really recall any games where the low level PvE zones really went all that far to promote a sense of community… just a bunch of people leveling alts and passing through, maybe trying to get a group to take out some larger mini-boss before someone else came along and stole the kill.

Oh, and you think WvW is silent? Really? No… really? I’m guessing you’re one of the ones that refuse to get on TS and then wonder why you can’t hear anyone talking. It’s really pretty simple. The combat system in GW2, especially in an area like WvW, doesn’t work well with “type to chat”. You ever try to fight something and chat at the same time? Doesn’t work. What does work is voice chats like TeamSpeak. Or, to enhance the bar analogy, it’s not that the patrons in the bar aren’t talking, it’s that you need to take out the earplugs and actually allow yourself to listen.

I said WvW is one of the only areas of the game that isn’t silent. And yes I use TS. Can you read? WvW is one of the only areas of the game that are enjoyable because it does have people communicating.

RIP Understanding the English language, Jan 3. 2014. You will be missed.

Galen Grey.4709:

Aeonblade.8709:

This thread makes me weep for the amount of empty defense on something that has so far been indefensible in this game.

There has been hardly any sense of community outside of a good guild since launch, and it’s only been magnified over time.

The game is effectively sterile as another poster put it.

I can assure you people on the other side of the fence are weeping too for having to defend what should need no defense. Take the sense of community. You said that doesnt exist outside of a good guild but then many of us have experience quite the opposite, people getting downed themselves trying to revive us during group events just to mention one. Never mind how many times you see someone in trouble and you go help them out. Not to mention the times you’re roaming alone and come across a champion and a player and you decide to take it on together and with some good support you manage to take him down even though technically it should require 5 people being a group event.

No sense of community is something I experienced years ago when I played Loong. One time I was walking around when I see this player running away with just a tiny bit of health left being chased by an open world mini boss. So I moved in to help him, took aggro kept fighting while the person I had just saved from certain death healed up and the moment I saw him coming back I started to move away to allow him to finish off the boss. Only the guy thought I just wanted to kill steal his boss and decided killing me was more important then finishing of his boss.

Granted Gw2 isnt perfect in this regard. If people depended more on each other like in some sandboxes of old we might have more community even though that makes it very solo hostile which the game is specifically designed to avoid. But sterile? far far from it. In other MMOs coming across other players in the open world that arent part of your guild is generally an annoyance. Here its always a pleasure. how is that a sterile community?

Read the OP’s post. It’s like a bar no one talks in. Yea there are people there, but no one is saying anything to each other.

If you find pleasure in silence throughout 90% of the game I’m not faulting that. To each their own. But every other MMO I have played had a community that made you feel larger than yourself or your guild.

Unless you plan on doing WvW or Champ Trains, prepare yourself for the deafening silence. By making the game completely “solo friendly” they removed any need to communicate, which has made the game feel cold and unforgiving.

Leo Paul.1659:

Reverence.6915:

Azure Prower.8701:

Reverence.6915:

Kevan.8912:

Kevan.8912:

and someone will say that they can gain ascended playing 1h a week without even looking at the screen while cooking,

here he comes xD

i have no mats, no gold, and no tolerance for any kind of crafting….
it’s my fault? i think it is.
in fact i accept my responsibility for not having had any legendary or rare dye or title.
i never argued about “voluntary” grinding.
i’m just a mediocre player, both in skills and in “aspect”.
if i can login only once in 2days for a pair of hours, i hoped i could play without any handicap (even that 12%) in any part of the game.
this is what i saw in the gw2, and what developers said about it.
simply now things are different. just admit it.

I see your point and I do agree that it’s a bit ridiculous to expect casuals (whom ArenaNet’s target audience is) to get ascended gear and stay competitive in the game. It’s a lot easier to get BiS in this game than in any other MMO though, given the number of paths available to get the mats required to craft them. In saying that however, it still doesn’t constitute a grind in my opinion, as there is little repetitive activity required in achieving said gear.

We all hope that there will be alternate methods to obtaining the gear soon though.

Little repetitive activity? Pray tell how do you obtain different tiers of cloth with out either:
A) Grinding the mobs at the correct levels.
B) Grinding gold so you can buy it off the TP.
C) Opening your wallet to skip the grinding for gold process.

D) Play an alt through those levels without doing champ trains. It nets you quite a lot of those mats and is very fun if you just relax and take it easy. I took my level 20 necro to WvW and got around 50 wool scraps in around 2 hours from salvaging the loot. Running through maps doing exploration also netted me a lot of mats. Think outside the box.

So you’re saying that he should make a 9th alt? How is that thinking outside the box? You didn’t read his OP didn’t you?

Most people tend not to read any post criticizing the game before they jump to it’s defense of inane grinds.

Azure Prower.8701:

I started since head start of the game.
I used to log on every day to do the dailies.
I used to care about getting every achievement point I could.
I’ve obtained the commander feature.
I’ve hit 80 on eight characters.
I’ve crafted 5 ascended weapons for my main.
I’ve crafted a legendary for my main.
I’ve reached the top 700 in achievement points.

Then the fractal revamp hit. Then come the ascended armors.

Now I’ve stopped caring. I’m losing interest.

Because I do not want to even think of farming for different tiers of cloth from mobs for ascended armors. Because I no longer want to repeat content I’ve done a thousand times before for an insignificant reward.

This has become a Korean grinder. I’m now struggling to log in.

Good post, all we can do is keep letting them know how bad the direction they have taken the last year has ground down even the most dedicated players.

At this point, I’m getting to where I don’t even blame people for botting anymore. At least they are getting a reward out of the game and not playing the same content x100. I’d never do it myself, but I can see why someone would for sure.

This game, at this juncture, is simply the biggest grind I have seen since Lineage 2 for end game gear. L2 is only slightly more annoying.

Don’t like to craft? GEAD, we don’t want you playing our game, or even remotely able to get end game gear.

Like WvW? Get out.

Wanna get ascended armor in WvW? Don’t make me laugh, well, ok, we’ll make it drop, but you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning 9 times than actually seeing the piece of armor you need drop.

Anet – Stop the senseless grinds! Bring the fun back to the game!

No, not even close to keeping their promises. But I don’t intend to hold the failures in year 2013 against them in the coming year. Keep your head up.