Guild Wars 2

Keeping in mind there is a slight “profession bias” – a quick spin around the Elementalist forum will detail the issue in a very comprehensive way. Primarily playing an Elementalist currently, I can tell you there does seem to be room for some fine tuning (translate as: ArenaNet, please help me die less).

This game was designed from the ground up to remove any hurdles to off path exploration and organic team-up play. Mounts are considered one of those hurdles. At this point in time, I agree.

Second thoughts? Yes, yes I do. I wish I would have known on my first character to choose a more neutral colored hair accessory.

About the game? No, not at all.

Difficult choice.

I thought ME:3 was a masterpiece of a game. I found the stink kicked up by gamers over the ending – to the point of voting EA as the worst company – to be just plain embarrassing; and worse, overshadowing the many things that game did with excellence. But that’s just my opinion.

Clearly, GW2 is a very good game. It would edge out some of my other favorites as GOTY, simply because it injects life into a very tired genre with a ground up re-think of every MMO mechanic. The highly underrated The Secret World did a bit of this, but not quite as well, and not quite as thoroughly. And such a specific, modern, niche, game as TSW was never going to have mass appeal of a good old fantasy world romp.

Because of innovation and quality of GW2, it is my belief that this game marks a permanent turning point. Much as WoW was the template for duplication, copying and strip mining for the games that came after, I think we’ll see in a few years that GW2 will be this template. Games will duplicate, and build upon, its foundation. And for moving the genre forward in such leaps and bounds, I’d give it my GOTY.

Somewhere in the late 30s and mid 40s

Thanks for the update and assurance you’re on top of it. I’m sure we’ll all be more than glad to give the issue a rest. Nice work.

Starrydust.3826:

I have never taken so man screenshots in a game, ever! I have taken 2,676 screenshots so far.

I have an infatuation with exploration in this game

No kidding. While not quite two thousand by some number, I do have an entire folder full of awesome screenshots. All wallpaper worthy. Great art design in this game.

Fozee.1083:

I still don’t understand why we’re making this out to be a MASSIVE issue. It happens in every new MMO, and it isn’t happening with greater frequency than usual.

People are making a huge deal out of it, to the point of writing articles already, but they haven’t even remotely given ANet the time they need to correct the issue. We’re a month in, report them and hope they complete the countermeasures soon. There’s absolutely no sense in writing entire articles to spread around and make it seem like our game is worse than it is.

Giving them a bit more time is a fair shout.

But this is a larger problem in GW2 than other games. The sheer number of bots aside, the higher level of interaction that this game naturally moves players toward is particularly spoiled by being forced to interact with crowds of bots. It puts the issue very much in player’s face. And, as discussed at length, they are damaging an already precarious economy that -and I claim no level of expertise here – would probably require delicate balancing during the best of times.

I play an elementalist. Extremely fun profession, but squishy. So I will, never, ever, ever get this achievement. Even while crafting, my elementalist got her glove caught in one of the looms, cut herself, and died. So not even that way.

The problem with the solution:

The sheer level of fine detail poured into of this game seems to clearly say that Arena cares about every aspect of their creation. And, I have faith that, at some point, a more lasting solution than simple banning is what is holding up the purge – anti hack measures, or whatever the solution may be. But what we can’t know is how high up on the list these measures are, or how much time they will take to implement. The bot infestation has certainly snowballed and is a much larger problem this week than last by what looks to be several fold (observationally, and anecdotally speaking only). And with the more recent appearance of bots using common Chinese surnames, it just feels brazen, just short of taunting.

Unless short term solutions interfere with the effectiveness of long term solutions – and maybe they do – I think people concerned about bots are having a hard time understanding why short term solutions aren’t already in play, particularly in light of how quickly other exploits were squashed. The botting is so obvious, so blatant, that players can spot scores of bots in the course of regular game play, and wonder why can’t someone ban those same number with better tools at their disposal. Or, at the very least, clean up event spots where game play is seriously impacted.

Yes. Completely. I’m actually surprised how much enjoyment I derive considering I’ve played it every day since early launch. No burn out in sight.

Nice article – it’s interesting to read just how the economy is harmed.

And hopefully this article will serve as a shot across the bow. My experience of reading game journalism is when one writer brings up an interesting angle, or uncovers something, it catches fire. Most other sites will be happy to have something to write about that transcends the usual regurgitating press releases, or pouring over release trailers.

With a game this size, and with the complexities of bug squashing and keeping it running, it may just be that bots aren’t prioritized at this point.

I hope articles like this (well written, researched, clearly not a rant) will move this issue up the “fix” list.

TheBob.9863:

Aren’t these bots hurting the economy the longer they stay in the game without being banned?

Economy, game play, and player goodwill. Where once I would rush to the aid of another player, now I wait and observe to see if they’re a bot – and if I see a dead player in the middle of bots, I assume “bot”. So no Rez there.

Also, players can’t steal kills from players by game design, but a bot who can teleport, kill a mob, then teleport to the next one before you can move 10 feet, certainly can.

“Infestation” is definitely the word.

Only real complaint I have about this game.

Out of weapon swap, most certainly. There’s no real reason I can see not to implement this.

May have something to do with overflow servers (may not). But I’ve gone from night to the bright of day in Lion’s Arch just by moving from overflow back to the regular server. So if you’re bumping to the overflow – which may be on a different night/day cycle – when you travel, that may explain it. I personally get bumped to overflow every time I enter a gate.

If that’s not what’s going on, then, well, I couldn’t begin to guess.

I didn’t have this problem, but for a very specific reason. Up until this game, I didn’t enjoy crafting. So I leveled two characters up to their late 20s/30s banking all the crafting items. The third alt, which I decided was going to be a Tailor and cook on the side, was able to craft wearable gear because the mats were already there from the moment she stepped out of the tutorial. But I’ve crafted, worn and sold so many items now that even that character is (level 45) starting to run into mat shortages. It will turn out soon, that I will have sell lower level crafted gear in order to buy appropriate level crafted gear on the trading post.

All that said …. if you don’t find it tedious, the leveling answer may be solved by having a “grinding” alt, which can collect the mats for the “crafting” alt.

I don’t know if it is because I am more aware of bots overall, or that the cooperative nature of this game makes me pay attention to what other “players” are up to, but I’ve never seen so many bots in a game. It’s truly crazy. And between the teleporting, the ability to stand right next certain mobs and not aggro them, and being able to shoot, say, north and kill something far behind them to the south, it’s just plain aggravating to see such blatant exploits flaunted for days on end.

One hopes the delay in bot eradication is caused by the desire to purge the game of bots in a short amount of time and (somewhat) permanently once they have a solution – instead of playing whack-a-mole. But the problem, in some places, impacts game play and enjoyment so directly and obviously, that a little whack-a-mole may not be a bad idea.

Kana.6793:

…If they were to try to add that here it wouldn’t just be the personal story, the hearts and events would make no sense either. They’d have to practically re-do the entire game. It would’nt make the slightest bit of sense to have me trying to put out fires in a village and you trying to light them again. They’d have to then enable world pvp or something.

This.

The entire dynamic/heart system and story is built around a simple concept: do smaller good in the world on your way to doing bigger good (in the story).

The “hero’s journey” may or may not be an ethical choice by the developers, but it certainly seems to be a mechanical/game play one.

… proving once again how broken this game is. If there were more endgame, like that other game, you would never leave your keyboard for something as trivial as dinner. You would die in front of your monitor as a starved skeleton. GW2 was so clearly unfinished and rushed out of the gate , that players are leaving in droves every single day, sometimes longer than 20 minutes, to eat meals. And you fyanbyoise may may pretend everything is ok, but I’ll laugh last when the servers are empty at 6:00 pm because people are away at their tables eating food.

Razer Naga: Primary skill, plus dodge (V) are on the mouse. As are skills 8 -0, as they are the hardest to reach with the left hand when in combat and the keys I’m most likely to miss-press (“No, no, no! I wanted teleport, not the Wurm!”)

Logitech G-19 gaming keyboard: Combat skills 1 -7, WASD for dodging in combat, for regular movement out.

Key binding: X for sheath/draw weapon, Z to reverse the camera angle (to “look behind” me) and groups of “G keys” are assigned to the “F functions”, so I can just swat in that general direction without looking and and still hit the right key.

Turn using the mouse.

I have an elementalist in the 42, 43 range. Fun profession. Tough profession. Fragile profession. But over all, very satisfying.

There are a couple of things about my ele’s build (and ele’s in general) that make it challenging, which is just another way of saying “difficult to keep alive”. I play using a staff, because I find that the selection of AOE available in the different attunements to be pretty effective in overall PVE play. So, open areas with low mob density and plenty of room to dodge run circles and cast AOE damage between spamming the primary attack, little problem..

That said, while there are any number of good skills available, there is no quick swap between melee and ranged staff. I’m not even sure I’d want to go toe to toe in melee in any case as flimsy as my ele is. So there are certain situations where I’m just going to die, and that is that. Tight caves with high mob density: death. Tight spaces where dodging aggros more mobs: death. Areas with high mob density and quick respawn rates: death. Mobs which surround me in numbers: death. Bridges: death. Narrow ravines: death. Too far from other players during a camp invasion: death.

But the game does of really good job of reminding me at all times how flimsy my ele is, being as the most powerful armor at this point looks like a slightly naughty prom dress.

Bots are one thing. What is terrible though is when you see a dead player icon on the map, fight your way over to them, Res them, and it turns out to be a bot. That’s just plain dispiriting. And over time, it will drain goodwill toward helping defeated players and completely sabotage the Res system that is such a good feature in this game.

I don’t know if it is because the TP market is beginning to stabilize, or that I’ve hit 100 in crafting and no longer am cobbling together undesirable things, but I am finally starting to routinely turn a tidy profit with crafted goods.

Eveningstar.6940:

‘Casual’ is just a stereotype created by frustrated ‘hardcore’ players who can’t understand why obsessively pouring dozens of hours into a game per week doesn’t make them any more fulfilled than the guy who plays for ten hours and seems happy as a clam and has a good set of gear to boot.

‘Casual’ is a vitriolic term used to express contempt for players less masochistic than you. It is a term used to express contempt for developers who design games for—Dwayna forbid—the 90% of gamers who do play ‘casually’ rather than “you,” the ultra-dedicated hardcore type, who’s grinding endgame, buying multiple accounts and dropping a lot of gold into the gem store.

In the context of the OP, ‘casual’ means a relatively run of the mill normal gamer who doesn’t play as often as him but still has better opportunities. The problem is that…

• Casual denotes time played, not skill. If the difference between casual and hardcore were measured in skill, then casual players shouldn’t be able to clear the same content. They can.
• The peculiar use of the term “casual” as a kind of pejorative illustrates just how backward and toxic the idea of hardcore gaming has become. Why shouldn’t we be casual players? Being able to enjoy the same game without having to invest tons of hours a week is a sign of good game design. There’s something fundamentally weird about mocking another player as a “casual” just because they keep sane /played hours.
• Unfortunately for some, ‘casual’ players—players who play primarily on their own, or with friends, or who don’t really do that much endgame content, or play less than roughly 20 hours a week—make up a huge population of the player base. Essentially, they are the playerbase. This is as true in World of Warcraft as it is in Guild Wars 2. Designing for the “hardcore” players at the cost of everyone else is an exclusionary design philosophy and a great way to dissuade players from being a part of your community.

.Best post I’ve read in ages. Deserves to be quoted in its entirety.

Some of these so-called hard cores have a certain self-centered belief that they somehow are essential to a game’s health. What they fail to understand is without the dollars from this vast market of less obsessed players – those with crucial disposable income – these games don’t get made on the scale they do, and they certainly don’t stay afloat.

Instead of heaping disdain on less obsessive players, these gamers that imagine themselves as hardcore should be thanking them for their ability not to blink at an $70.00 price tag again and again and again. They’re the ones who build these playgrounds, not the handful of gamers who can play 9 hours every day.

Best MMORPG on the market? Likely. Still hold a fondness for Rift though.

What will be interesting is GW2 will test a pet theory of mine, unproven and untested, until this point.

I suspect as MMOs have become more accessible due to game design, digital downloads and better internet connections, that there has been a larger influx of players who do not come not from MMO backgrounds, but from single player games. These players do not have the time, nor inclination, to “live” an MMO as players in the past have traditionally done. And while people point to WoW numbers as a marker of success, it is important to keep in mind Skyrim sold (I believe) some 10 million copies and counting. And one of the few places one can get that (somewhat) similar type of experience, with that level of quality, is an MMO.

I would not be surprised if the failure of recent MMOs is not necessarily due to there not being enough to do at “endgame”, but that the many of today’s players in these games don’t enjoy traditional endgame at all. For many, it is too “grindy”, too time consuming, and involves gear and build elitism (and accompanying hostility) that they are not at all interested in dealing with. So, like a single player game, they enjoy the leveling and exploration, and move on before sinking too many/any dollars into a subscription.

I am willing to bet that GW2’s lack of subscription, its scaling design, combined with the alt friendly multiple story line progression and different starting zones, means that this type of player can roam and play through this vast world at choice. Even better, players will be able to do so without being shoved down the same old leveling path which is a sure fire recipe for boredom.

And that is why it will not suffer the fate other other MMOs.

But …. as the cliche goes, only time will tell.

Norn: “By Raven” as in “By Raven, there is no end to Tyria”.

148 hours:

33 – Elementalist (current favorite)
28 – Ranger (viable and playable)
29 – Warrior (viable and playable)
6 – Thief (due for deletion, not my style)
5 – Necromancer (baffled by this one. Delete!)
16 – Engineer (uncertain, seems ok, may come back to it one day)

“Hmm. I know, let’s see what’s going on over there”. The driving force of this game being exploration and wonder – not being flung in circles by Quest Givers like a cheap boomerang.

That it is not so heavily informed by Tolkien mythology that I feel like I’m playing in that same old fantasy world.

That even some of the lowest level quests are very interesting, so there is incentive to visit other zones.

It is built to be played in sessions of 10 minutes or 10 hours.

I don’t hate other players. I like them. Welcome them. Help them. And they help me.

Breath taking cities.

A completely living, real sounding world, where one newlywed couple can still gush, yet another woman speaks bitterly at the way she being treated.

Weapon swapping.

Intuitive crafting.

Norn.

Trust me, there are flimsier professions out there. If I wrote your paragraph, it would read like this:

“I’m having a real blast burning things to death with my fire staff Elementalist. It’s so much fun. Unfortunately, my health bar drains like a glass of Guinness in an Irish pub on St Patrick’s Day. I think I just aggroed two hyenas at the same level as me and my health bar just disappeared before I saw the first one bite me. The second one didn’t bother attacking, and just stood by and laughed as his friend mauled me.

I wear run of the mill PVE gear and have a pretty decent, but right cool to look at, level 31 steam staff. I’m specced fairly evenly, with a strong emphasis on survivability. I have a little over 3k health at this point.

Please ANet, I think that’s plenty of challenge in the PVE already. I love those moments when I’m fighting for my life, dying, dodging, dying, burning, dying, healing back up, dying, throwing AOE, dying, checking my map, dying. But dying is getting much more frequent as the mobs gets better. It seems the pve in this game is amazing, but my coffers are draining from death taxes."

I kid a bit. I don’t die quite that much. Just feels like it. But I do enjoy that “just made it feeling” which, for me, is the challenge.

DusK.3849:

Death Aggro

B/c only a small fanboy base is calling this game a success.

And the 2 million copies sold. And nearly every reviewer, professional or not. But what do they know; anyone that doesn’t want this game to be a carbon-copy of that other game is clearly a fanboy and doesn’t understand that it’s carbon-copies of that other game, like SWTOR, that go on to be succe- oh wait.

Interestingly, it is not only the early reviews which are good, but the “ongoing reviews” where the reviewers aren’t just giving quick impressions to make a deadline, but have played the game heavily since launch. People who play every game for a living, think and breathe video games all day every day, are very impressed with this game. In the end, reviews are just opinion, but overwhelming good reviews, or bad, are decent indicators.

So … using the tangible measures we can lay our hands on, this game is a success. The only real open question is “is it a lasting success?” Only time will tell us that.

And, I actually find it helpful when a poster denies this game’s success or throws about terms like “fanboy”. It lets me know they are blindly lashing out, and I can ignore them and move on to read a post from someone who has real, intelligent, considered criticism.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

Well over 200 hours since head start. Even so I consider myself a casual. Let me give you my definition of Hardcore and Casual. A hardcore player, to me, is someone who constantly runs dungeons (or raids) to get the best available gear in the game and maxes out his character using that min/max mumbo jumbo spreadsheet calculation stuff that I just don’t get. A casual is a person who, regardless of the amount of time spent in the game, plays it just for fun. I might run through a dungeon, or I might work on my crafting, or I might explore. But I’m not trying to be the best of the best of the best in the game.

By this definition of casual, I’m casual. After 147 hours now, highest character is halfway between 31 and 32. I’m taking my time and seeing the sights.

Server Genocide.

A scant over 144 hours in 25 days. Not sure what that makes me. Enthusiastic about the game, likely. Looking over the thread, not as enthusiastic as some I see.

Crud. Can’t edit posts on my phone.

Three “main” characters:

Female Norn Warrior
Female Norn Elementalist
Female Norn Ranger

Three characters (yep bought the extra slot) that I may play or may delete, but I created just to see how the professions played out for the first few levels:

Human female Necromancer
Human female Engineer
Sylvari female Thief

Can you say “altoholic”?

Wolves. And, believe it or not, Moa.

Wolves because of their ability to spawn more wolves. I can be killing a wolf or two, dodging about no problem. It howls: more wolves. Now I am dodging and running in circles to stay alive in a tight space, and, oh look, I’ve aggroed another wolf. It howls: more wolves. I’m dodging, throwing fire, blasting this way and that, raining down meteors, spinning, jumping, and my health is low, but it looks like I’m going to beat this massive, self spawning, wolf pack.

An epic victory at hand.

But not so fast.

The entire time I’m fighting these wolves there are Moa running about like headless, well, Moa. A flock runs between me and the last wolf, get hit by fire, and turn hostile. I get pecked and kicked to death. By birds. Birds! Death by pecking is deeply humiliating. I hate them.

My elementalist, somewhere around level 28 I believe.

Operative word: “game”. Do the parts you like, skip the parts you don’t, move on when you’ve had enough. Anything else is madness.

BeardRex.6739
People don’t get that they aren’t committed to keep playing through a subscription fee. Attention people: you’re allowed to stop playing for a bit. Play another game. If it takes you a year to get level 80, you got your money’s worth.

Exactly. The thinking should be more along the lines of a single player game: did I get (am I getting) my money’s worth? Considering games of a similar price offer about quarter of the game time one can get from GW2, the answer clear to me at least.

But to answer the question: it’s a hobby for me, but one that has pushed a couple of other hobbies to the side, for now at least.

Keep in my this game has a major built in advantage: scaling. New content can be built covering levels 2 on up which players even with maxed out characters can explore and enjoy. That’s no small innovation there, even if it is not “end game” as defined by other games.

Further: I’ve gotten three games worth of enjoyment for the 60 or 70 dollars I’ve paid. That’s fantastic. I don’t need to justify a monthly subscription fee which doesn’t even exist. For me … I put in a certain amount of money, got more than that money’s worth back. Simple consumer math, the rest is white noise.

gurugeorge.9857:

Deith.7596:

Lynce.1705:

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

A lot of the people who have rushed to level 80 are WoW players, and are uncomfortable with the mechanics in GW2.

Pretty much this. People burn themselves out rushing to 80 and than complain because they feel like there is nothing to do.

So you’re saying that you should level as slow as possible because there is nothing to do at level 80 because it’s not designed for it. Well, that’s encouraging.

No, the point is that a game can only be designed for the bulk of the game population, not the outliers. All that’s required is that by the time the bulk of the population reaches 80 there’s something for them to do. There’s no need for that amount of content to be in the game now, at release, just to please a minority of people.

… and they will be able look over the tons of data they’re collecting on player habits, and determine how to best create content moving forward for this majority, while (hopefully) staying true to the vision that makes this game what it is.

There’s a certain group out there who want nothing more (and I’ve seen it elsewhere) than to play the same game they’ve been playing for years, but just with a newer engine and better graphics. And they try their best to – through complaints – turn every game into just that.

Not every game is for everyone, nor should it be. This game has a singular, unique, vision that is largely living up to, yet has more potential even to reach, its massive potential. But that vision will make it a different kind of game.

In the game’s log in screen should be a message: “Do Not Resurrect Anyone Lying Dead in Their Underwear”.

I kid. But barely.

robot.9134
GW2 needs to turn it around and do it in a hurry if they are going to retain their player base. Its starting to look like previous flopped MMO’s and people are becoming bored and disgruntled quickly.

A small subset of a smaller subset – people who hang around forums and are quickly becoming bored and disgruntled. I can’t say if they represent the player base as a whole, I would suspect not. In any case, predicting the health of an MMO based on a handful of disgruntled players (or enthusiastic players, for that matter) is folly. And make no mistake, forums are not a representative sample of anything.

Spitwyld.1963
What, if anyone knows, is Anet’s intention with this game? Having a game free to play, in my opinion, really limits the developers’ ability to regularly produce new and exciting material so I wonder how far the game can really go.

Impossible to know how limited they are, or are not, without knowing what kind of money is being poured into the cash shop. Some people are putting vast sums in, others nothing. It would be an interesting poll for this forum, actually. And since the cash shop will be the driving focus of revenue once box sales hit the saturation point, you can almost be certain all manner of items will begin to appear.

In any case … while rushing to 80, particularly those who did in days, is as a legitimate way to play as any, it certainly isn’t representative. It speaks to a certain game style and insatiability that the game wasn’t designed to cater to.

So … whatever lies in the future for GW2, I just hope that the designers are not chided into hammering old tired pieces of MMOs onto this one until it essentially becomes just another tired old MMO.

No.

It is clear this is a handcrafted map meant to be explored on foot. Mounts would upset the balance of this:

There are certain events, such as escort missions, that have participation built partially around the idea that is as easy to join them as it is to race past.

Most importantly: random grouping and teaming (as opposed to marked events on the map) is built upon the concept of players moving in the same direction at the same time, at a pace which encourages team work to get through hazards.

There’s a certain balance to this game, in its social construction that I think people are missing here. And the social construction of this game is what it will live or die on.

And on a personal leveling, I despise being crowded out by mounts at merchants and the like when my character is on foot.

Rift has a rifts and dynamic content of a sort.
SWOTR has solid character stories.
The Secret World has interesting quests that break the mold.
Tera has dodging and skill combat.

But none of these games has all of these things, and most only have one. GW2 seems to have them all.

So … it would be difficult to go back. I really don’t see myself doing so at this point.

Sooner or later, someone was going to look at the genre and put some thought into how to get it right. This game gets it seriously right.

In fact it gets it so right that here’s phrase you haven’t heard yet, but will need to get used to a few years down the road: “Another Guild Wars 2 clone”.

You may find her irritating. And not all will agree she hasn’t taken leave of her senses. But she has clearly succeeded in getting the message out, as you, me, and thousands of others have all taken heed.

Amusingly, I just came from a certain modern world MMO where the big complaint was players couldn’t get their characters good looking enough.

I’d wouldn’t say the CC is unfinished at all. In fact, there are some highly advanced features, such as being able to change facial characteristics (hair, eyes, nose, lips) and then going back see how it affects the template faces. But I’m all for more hair styles, body types, and face types. Why not? Particularly hair styles. That said, I am not big on giving players too much freedom to create their own personal Picassos. Cubism’s cool and all, but ….

Magiofdeath.2745:

Arsenal.2601:

The Ele and Ranger:

What armor is that on ele? I saw this armor on an NPC in LA colored differently and thought it was either some form of NPC only clothing or town clothing but apparently its just a light armor skin. Please enlighten!

I’m not in front of the game right now, so I can’t supply the exact names until later. But that’s a fairly low level Ele (7 or so when the screenshot was taken). So the gloves, leggings and coat are the first basic items that can be made by crafting (Tailor). The best part about that being an alt is I already had all the supplies and could walk straight up and start making that clothing almost from the start. And the starting tailored items have a huge stat increase on anything you find/can buying for quite few levels.