Guild Wars 2

I am not sure that one’s gender identity should be the reason for one’s station, position, or advancement in life, or in game. Choosing to advance a character, not because of relevant character qualities, but because of their gender identity is a bad idea IMO. It says that one should be singled out because of one’s gender identity.

Something that could be purchased for real world money being cheaper at a later point doesn’t seem all that unusual to me. Things often go down in price over time.

I am not sure that the classic car analogy holds up unless you are going to wait more than 50 years for the gemstore skin price comparison. How much did that 1960 automobile cost in 1963? The analogy also fails to consider the fact that reproducing, in mass, a 1960 auto today would involve having to reset an entire factory. Not the same thing as flipping a digital switch.

Also, there is nothing to say that the people who purchased the skins from the gemstore, black lion chests, etc early in the game’s life have in fact supported the game more than someone who did not. The person wanting the skin today could have spent an order of magnitude more on the game than someone who got the skin during its first release. I could totally support the idea of letting the skins keep their exclusivity if everyone with them was required to spend at least as much on the game as any and everyone without. So, to keep the skin, based on the idea that you have supported the game more, you would have to pay more than the highest spending whale in the game who did not get the skin back at initial release.

The response, proactive, is in the OP. MO states the player reaction to the announcement and then responds to that reaction.

I am not saying that I like the response, but it is there.

I would love a Bat Cave style guild hall. I don’t mean with the bat logos and such, just a hidden secret base with consoles, gadgets in cases, kitten nal, etc.

Conski Deshan.2057:

@Ashen, It’s your hobby your ability within a hobby can be as important to a person as anything else in their life, doesn’t matter if it’s Olympic swimming, card shuffling, ping pong, grass growing or MMO gaming. The “prestige” is contained within the activity (no one’s arguing that putting yourself through college and being good at a game are comparable).
(Actually that’s why gold conversion irks me so much you’re using an external force to influence your position in the hobby unfairly rather than improving as a hobbiest in the activity.)

Sorry for the delayed response.

The thing of it is that everything involves an external force to influence your position in the hobby.

One person has more time to play than another and so has more AP, or is more practiced in a given game mode, becoming more skilled in the process. All because he doesn’t have to work three jobs to just survive.

Where does unfair external influence begin and end? One player’s employment situation provides him with more time to play for rewards, another provides him with more money to buy what he wants. In both cases it is an external influence involving their financial/employment circumstances that determines their situation in game.

This is why I advocate for a variety of approaches.

Some rewards are earned through dedication of time.
Some rewards are earned through overcoming difficult challenges.
Some rewards are earned through the expenditure of money.

I do not think that there should be much, if any, crossover in these categories though. Something that is earned through time dedication should not be purchaseable for real money, and vice versa.

I think that unlocking WP would be an interesting use of a gift of exploration. Not sure about POI and vistas though.

Miku.6297:

Some customization makes sense, but I think in some ways it’s better as it is now. The amount of neon green and pink flames from fire attuned eles/flamethrows/fire effects etc might be a bit immersion breaking :P

Visual immersion went out the door a long time ago.

Norbe.7630:

….you know that universal queue is already solved in the form of eotm right?
your proposal is good but think of it this way, its a WvW 1.5 version not 2.0
why?
because, it would put again a wall on tiers, lock again each other servers to fight each other, PPT meta again will dominate……. bored players will slumber again on WvW and worst case, leave for good…

just give everybody a chance to meet everyone, i personally don’t want to be separated by tiers to meet some good people, before if you want that there’s a fee, but now its free

you see, everyone is being blind by not seeing the truth, they say that GW2 is Buy to play B2P, and it is also not Pay to Win P2W because there are no items that can be bought with cash that will have advantage of the others,

in order to win…. you must buy gems for the transfer to higher tiers
that is another form of P2W

tiers and ranks are bad image… it bring inequality, it brings imbalance
you’ll ask, so what will be the purpose of winning a match if not for glicko, ranks and tiers?
answer: profit

that would disable one of the deadly sins, the pride, but it would introduce another, greed

Not sure that I can agree that tiers and ranks are bad. Some of the worst PvP Iveever encountered was flawed specifically due to a lack of tiers, etc. If you put seriously dedicated players up against more relaxed players who just want an occasional fun match you end up boring the dedicated player with a complete lack of challenge and frustrating the more relaxed player with a nigh unbeatable foe.

Olympic level sport teams should not be placed in competition with a team of middleaged, out of shape, play for lols, weekend warriors.

John Smith.4610:

It’s me.

Two expansions in a row?

; )

Danikat.8537:

Sartharina.3542:

Randulf.7614:

Well in their defence, not closing it down and not protecting their copyright, would probably have caused much greater problems with setting a precedent for allowing infringement. Hence why so many lawsuits that seem so silly and petty get filed. It is the unfortunate nature of the copyright law in certain countries.

On topic for GW2 however, it is more interesting to see such a (seemingly) high % of accounts who wanted to play the original format. Expansions can have the effect of changing the game beyond recognition and it isn’t the first MMO to derail due to excessive exapcs (LOTRO..). GW2 isn’t suffering quite in that regard, although it veered a little off course with HoT in some places, but it goes to show what a fine balance between progressing an MMO and keeping the vision which attracted so many in the first place.

Ehh… it’s not like the developers of this game don’t radically change the game without an expansion. Remember when we had to unlock traits by doing specific events scattered throughout the world? (And nobody ever rolled another alt until that was discontinued) And we can’t forget the still-present NPE and butchering of the Personal Story.

To be fair players asked, repeatedly, for traits (and skills) to be unlocked by doing specific challenges in the world. They said they wanted something like GW1 where you were awarded skills for doing specific quests or finding and defeating bosses. So Anet did as they were asked and it rapidly turned out a lot of people (including some of those who had asked for it) really did not want what they thought they did.

Also they fixed the personal story. It was a while after they broke it, but it’s been back in order (and with some new improvements) for quite a long time now.

A lot of the problems with unlocking abilities was the implementation, not the concept. People wanted what they said they did, what was implemented just didnt match.

Hmm, I did not feel that LS1 created a common goal for all players. My goal, for example, was to not play after the first chapters. Terrible writing and tedious gameplay (IMO) preventing a player character from feeling like a relevant part of what was going on meant that the concept of LS or LW was lessened.

He did not claim that other options are available. “Opinions,” and, “options,” are not synonymous.

Leo G.4501:

I’m going to go against the grain here and play devil’s advocate on the subject:

To me, it just doesn’t really fit GW to have custom skill looks outside of physical character model animations. I feel this way because the game’s lore seems to bridge us all together using its defined palette and story. Tyria is more defined and concrete with how we see it or how things occur and doesn’t do well allowing us the player to define or explain things about our characters.

So you want green Spirit Weapons for your Guardian. Okay, why? And how? Now if we simply don’t care about lore or story, then the “why” is because we want in and the “how” is just program it in. But from a lore standpoint, magic has a school and those schools have color. It’s very different from a game like CO or CoH where we define every aspect of our character, from what race they are, their home of origin all the way down to the source of their powers but that’s just not the case here.

Oddly enough, I still try to utilize “my own explanations” for my characters but yeah, I still try to work it into the lore of the game (like my Asura Warrior having the strength of a Norn because he was exposed to chaos magic from the Thaumanova reactor accident).

Anet, in game setting, has established that spell visuals can vary.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Ashen.2907:

We know very little about humans, who have thousands of years of history. The Sylvari came into being yesterday on a historical scale. There is little history to delve.

Yeah, but just to play devil’s advocate for one moment: humans are boring.

So, let’s compromise and forget Sylvari and Humans, and focus on the true heroic race worthy of all our focus: Charr.

/threadfinished

~EW

The best charr story involves charrbequed devil-kitty. Not that I would eat one, but my pet pig deserves the occasional warm meal. ; p

eNeRgOo.5463:

Ashen.2907:

This is not GW1. The amount of time spent developing the older races in a different game is irrelevant to the amount of story time spent on them in this one. Even so, all of the racial lore in GW2 deviates from what we knew in GW1 due to the passage of centuries and the evolution of those races’ cultures. The fact that the older races’ cultures have centuries, or even millennium, more history than do the Sylvari is a reason to spend more time developing and exploring that history than is spent on the Sylvari in my opinion. Not the reverse.

This is GW2 lore is still here and we know almost everything about other races, more or less, while we have tons of questions about Sylvari

We know very little about humans, who have thousands of years of history. The Sylvari came into being yesterday on a historical scale. There is little history to delve.

Fermi.2409:

sorudo.9054:

Cyninja.2954:

sorudo.9054:

steam is a useless software that gives nothing more then problems and a little bit of convenience, anything steam offers exist outside steam without being forced to use a third party software.

Without wanting to get into to much of a discussion, you need to look beyond the obvious functions which steam provides but instead think about what the service as a whole provides.

Without steam (or other digital distribution platforms) the entire gaming industry would be in a very different spot than it is now (anyone remember Starforce CD/DVD protections in its early stages?).

yeah, it would be DRM free, that’s what kind of spot it would be right now.
i have never seen a majority of ppl saying they love DRM, better yet, they hate it like hell on earth.
any DRM, not just steam, is just a horrible thing to have.

So you’re ignoring everything Steam brings to the table purely because it also has/is a form of DRM. Nice.

So far steam has brought nothing to the table for me. No benefit for me at all as near as I can see. I dont hate it, but having to be online to play a single player, off line, game that I bought a physical copy of at a local brick and mortar store adds nothing for me. All of my games were already collected in one space before I had to create a steam account in order to play the off-line single player game. There is nothing I need to share with my friends about my time spent playing a single player game. One that none of them play anyway. When my friends and I want to play together we do so with an actual online game, such as GW2, which is meant to be multiplayer, and which does not require Steam.

On the other hand I have experienced negatives from mandated Steam use. The most obvious being an inability to play my offline, single player game when internet outages prevented me from playing my MMO of choice.

eNeRgOo.5463:

Ashen.2907:

Too much story time spent on the Sylvari so far as far as I am concerned. It really comes across as if the writers’ own main characters are Sylvari.

No. Just no.
Other races already existed in GW1, while Sylvaris did not. Our beloved holy Pale Tree was little sapling then, oh wasn’t she so cute?
So, don’t be then surprised that you get to know them a little bit more than the others. Their lore should end with HoT expansion, but problem is that they were speeding with story, so you have lots of questions after it, but I wont write them again.

This is not GW1. The amount of time spent developing the older races in a different game is irrelevant to the amount of story time spent on them in this one. Even so, all of the racial lore in GW2 deviates from what we knew in GW1 due to the passage of centuries and the evolution of those races’ cultures. The fact that the older races’ cultures have centuries, or even millennium, more history than do the Sylvari is a reason to spend more time developing and exploring that history than is spent on the Sylvari in my opinion. Not the reverse.

Have to admit, until I followed the wiki link provided earlier in the thread, I had no idea who this Malyck was, why he mattered, and why I should care.

Still don’t really care, to be honest. Would it be nice for those who interacted with this NPC to have some closure, sure. Should significant resources be spent on developing one minor supporting character out of hundreds, not really in my opinion.

Too much story time spent on the Sylvari so far as far as I am concerned. It really comes across as if the writers’ own main characters are Sylvari.

Dante.1508:

Nike.2631:

Oh for pity’s sake! It’s not a PROMISE, its a policy. One that’s changing, thank the Six.

Seriously, not every word you ever hear in your life is a “promise”. And if you can’t distinguish promises from every other form of communication I pity the people around you.

Honestly if a company says something they should stick to it, and not say something then change on a whim, it makes the company look poor…

Honestly it makes them look like one side doesn’t know what the other side is doing..

Ashen.2907:

I thought they said armor sets, not armor pieces. Could be wrong though.

So if they added six armor pieces all separately.. thats ok?

Really? You’re going to got there?

We are talking about an item that has always, in the history of the franchise, for as long as it has existed, been a cosmetic option. No stats assigned to it. It is not an armor piece, it is a skin that can be applied to an armor piece.

I thought they said armor sets, not armor pieces. Could be wrong though.

I would expect the AP average to be lower with the influx of FtP accounts.

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Ashen.2907:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Mea why comment at all?

Because this is a merchant’s official forum for discussion and feedback regarding their product. This purpose is not served by a, “if you dont like an aspect of the product keep it to yourself,” direction.

Because multiple feedback threads on the same subject are frowned upon and this one has the patina of officialdom due to the red post.

Ultimately Anet, the owner and operator of this forum, has asked for his feedback, positive or negative, and you have taken it upon yourself to try usurping their authority by countermanding their direction. They gave him permission to provide his negative feedback and yet you take him to task for it. He isnt the one being rude, or engaging in bullying, here.

LOL I sure hope you feel better. And you are who???? I’m so glad you felt compelled to join our little discussion. Would you like tea or maybe a soft drink?

I feel great, thank you for asking. Sorry, I just hate to see people picked on. Always have been disinclined to ignore bullies and bullying. Glad to participate in our little discussion though.

A nice rootbeer would be delightful.

Would be interesting to see Jenna descend into tyranny as she seeks to expand human influence and dominion. Her special police, the Dark Seraph, are everywhere. The sound of the iron boots of the Seraph marching into LA for its own protection. If humanity is to have a future on this continent it must have living space.

This is something that I love in CO, and would be delighted to see here.

I think that, “big fat lizard hippie pokemon,” may very well have become my new go to pejorative.

Thank you.

I dont think that there is any more prestige inherent in having bought the game before someone else, or having logged in on a day when someone else did not, than having earned enough money to be able to afford something that someone else cannot. The opposite perhaps. “I worked my kitten off to put myself through college and then again to advance in my career and can now afford X,” seems more prestigious than, “I logged into a video game on a Tuesday,” to me.

That said, I answer yes to the OP’s question. But I think that the exclusivity should encompass a variety of approaches. Some through specific difficult content. Some to show you were there on that special day. Some to show your dedication over time through farming, grinding, etc. And, perhaps, some that can be bought.

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Mea why comment at all?

Because this is a merchant’s official forum for discussion and feedback regarding their product. This purpose is not served by a, “if you dont like an aspect of the product keep it to yourself,” direction.

Because multiple feedback threads on the same subject are frowned upon and this one has the patina of officialdom due to the red post.

Ultimately Anet, the owner and operator of this forum, has asked for his feedback, positive or negative, and you have taken it upon yourself to try usurping their authority by countermanding their direction. They gave him permission to provide his negative feedback and yet you take him to task for it. He isnt the one being rude, or engaging in bullying, here.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I think crowd-funding is a decent idea for developers that have a game idea but don’t have the money to produce it. I think it’s a terrible idea to encourage development companies (any companies, really) that already have a sustainable business model to think they can get away with providing less for the money they charge because people will then pay them more money to flesh out the product. This is a bad idea for consumers.

This right here.

Astralporing.1957:

Shylock.4653:

redcomyn.4651:

I mostly solo and I need to use every skill and dodging, especially against champions and veterans.

You should try this
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_DPS/Support
build.

redcomyn.4651:

The people who are saying that you can do core Tyria just by pressing ‘1’, are flat out lying.

The auto attack chain of the hammer is your max dps and gives you perma protection. So yes, you basically just press 1. ;-)

No stunbreaker, heal, utility skill use at all? No dodging? Yeah, right.

In core tyria? Should be doable. Perhaps not everywhere, but in the vast majority of content.

I don’t craft at all.

PopeUrban.2578:

IndigoSundown.5419:

PopeUrban.2578:

Personally, I think designing MMOs around solo play does a huge disservice to the genre.

- snip -

I appreciate (and to some degree agree with) your analysis and conclusions. I have to wonder, though, about the trend being a disservice to the genre. I agree it is for the demographic that wants what you want.

We’re living in a time where good MMO’s involve the expenditure of many millions in development costs. The old-time MMO experience that you’re referring to would not in all likelihood draw sufficient players to justify the expenditure in a corporate environment where executives think in terms of how many millions of people they can get to buy their product/service. I’m not sure we’d be seeing new MMO’s at all if developers designed them to be like EQ with regard to accessibility.

Whether some people like it or not, the genre has evolved. Some think, not for the better. However, for the genre to continue to exist it has to adapt to both player desires and current business realities.

I don’t think that’s such a bad thing really. If you’re trying to pull in, say, the single player RPG crowd, then why aren’t you making a single player RPG?

The industry by and large is past the inflates expectations that the WoW population bubble created. Nobody in their right mind thinks MMOs are the future of all games any more.

It’s perfectly reasonable to cater to player expectations, and try to bring in new players, but accessible isn’t the same thing as dumbed down. “Accessible” is simply a buzzword that has been misinterpreted as “make it easy” rather than “make it approachable”

An accessible design is easy to learn, but not necessarily easy to master. PC gaming’s giants fall in to that mold. Games like LoL or DOTA or Super Meat Boy or the Souls series or <insert sim game> or <insert this minute’s latest FPS> are accessible, but not dumbed down experiences. They’re designed to be easy to learn, but difficult to master.

The problem with over-engineering accessibility, which is what Anet has done with GW2 over the years and is only starting to step away from with HoT, is that you have a game that’s equally easy to learn, but without the sense of achievement or communities that makes MMOs as a genre remarkable different from a shooter, or a single player RPG, or a MOBA.

There’s nothing wrong with any of those genres, but I don’t think adding more single player RPG to an MMO garners a remarkable amount of long term users and more than adding XP, levels, and unlocks does to a shooter.

That’s not to say genre bending is bad. It’s healthy to try and innovate, and GW2 does a lot of innovative things, but genre bending solely to attract customers rather than to serve the overall design of the product is a bad idea.

If you’re going to make your game more accessible, do it by teaching new players what’s special about it, and give them something unique to love about it. Don’t do it by simply mistake-proofing the entire game from the beginning to the end.

Keep in mind that Indigo was commenting on your point about solo play, not about easy play or mistake proofing. Ideally, “soloable,” should not be seen as synonymous with, “easy.”

Here is something that has worked for my warrior during times when I could not see the telegraphed attacks due to onscreen clutter, or when I just wanted to relax while playing solo:

Armor
Head: exotic Cavalier w/Rune of the Pack
Hands: exotic Cavalier w/Rune of the Pack
Chest: exotic Cavalier w/Rune of the Pack
Legs: exotic Cavalier w/Rune of the Pack
Shoulder: exotic Cavalier w/Rune of the Pack

Trinkets
Back: rare Berzerker w/Exquisite Ruby Jewel
Accessory: Rare Knights w/Exquisite Ruby Jewel
Accessory: Rare Knights w/Exquisite Ruby Jewel
Amulet: Rare Knights w/Exquisite Ruby Jewel
Ring: Rare Knights w/Exquisite Ruby Jewel
Ring: Rare Knights w/Exquisite Ruby Jewel

Weaponset 1
Axe: Exotic Assassin’s w/Superior Sigil of Bloodlust
Axe: Exotic Assassin’s w/Superior Sigil of Fire

Weaponset 2
As per set 1 (the weaponset duplication is because I want to play this character as an axe master, but also want the benefits of weapon swapping built into the traits here)

Specializations
Strength:
Reckless Dodge, Restorative Strength, Building Momentum, Great Fortitude, Stick and Move, Axe Mastery

Discipline:
Versatile Rage, Warrior’s Sprint, Fast Hands, Brawler’s Recovery, Versatile Power, Heightened Focus

Arms:
Precise Strikes, Signet Mastery, Rending Strikes, Deep Strike, Bloodlust, Dual Wielding

Heal
Healing Signet

Utilities
Signet of Might or Signet of Stamina
Signet of Fury
Dolyak Signet

Stats (w/25 stacks of bloodlust and 3 stacks of Signet of precision from Signet Mastery)
Power: 2493
Precision: 2297
Crit Chance: 65.76% (note that this is up to 85% about half of the time due to Fury)
Crit Damage: 203.5%
Armor: 3295
Health: 22,813

Also remember that these numbers are without ascended trinkets.

Note that this is not meant to be some sort of super-optimised uber build. It is fun, lets me play my axe-master concept, and works. I have a second set of gear that is all berzerker (except the axes remain assassin’s) for when I feel like doing a bit more damage at the cost of some survivability.

The character is statted for survivability and uses traits to increase damage to compensate.

Remember that the race’s aesthetic options being unappealing to you does not mean that there is something wrong with them. One of the reasons for there being multiple races is to appeal to the varying tastes of different players.

battledrone.8315:

Vayne.8563:

Anyone who said this hasn’t changed too much, simply isn’t paying attention. They didn’t make it so no one could have any challenge anywhere, but they did add in veteran events, they did make it so you didn’t have to do the meta to make progress in many of the collections, they did make it so that they night was decoupled from day so you’re not stuck in one map fearing to move for losing participation.

There were drastic changes to the zones, included moving the tiger and electric wyvern pet for rangers, so it wasn’t locked behind the meta.

There are people in my guild who used to have problems with those zones that have a whole lot less problems.

They can’t make the game brain dead easy all over the place because a small percentage of people don’t know how to play their professions, or don’t have exotic armor.

HoT just isn’t that difficult anymore, the except probably being some of the hero points. That said, I hardly pass a day in HoT without seeing a hero point train on each map.

those qualities could get me in a raid in other games
but here-in the casual mmo-it is needed for “open world” content?
makes total sense..not

The player qualities he mentioned are: knowing how to play your profession and having second rate gear. Those are pretty minimal expecations for playing endgame content.

Again, it wasnt, “complete pro level mastery of your profession,” and, “the best of the best of top tier gear.” Just know your profession and use second tier gear that can be purchased fairly inexpensively from the TP.

But I agree with you about platforming.

Leo G.4501:

Ashen.2907:

This question assumes there is a problem that the OP’s suggestion will solve. Others don’t believe that the suggestion serves such a purpose. There is no solution because the suggestion has no bearing on the hypothetical problem.

If someone started a thread suggesting that we needed to change the name of the Easter holiday to chocolate bunny day in order to get new people to buy into GW2’s next expansion, what solution or positives would one be expected to provide? This example is comparable to the OP’s suggestion, IMO, because neither is reasonably remotely likely to have the intended effect.

To clarify, I would be interested in a new 1-80 path, but it would be meaningless to someone for whom the existing leveling paths are all bright, shiny, and new.

Imo, having more 1-80 paths goes hand in hand with enticing older and newer players. You’re bringing together older and newer players as well as enriching the replay value for both. There’s also the matter of polish. Imagine if the amount of effort put into making the newest maps had been applied to the first ones.

But the disconnect from our perspectives here likely stems from that term “story path”. Introducing more paths and not just branches can make the newer players feel like they are apart of what is going on now vs catching up on old content.

The new players being more part of current activity rather than catching up on old content is not an angle I had considered. Thank you.

The replay value is primarily relevant to veterans. A player isnt really new by the time he gets to the point where he is worried about replay value.

GW2’s level scaling and daily system seems likely to keep people revisiting old zones for some time to come. I dont think new players will have a problem finding vets to play with.

Again, I would live to see a new 1-80 path, story, zone, etc. I just dont think that, if the concern is attracting new players (as indicated by the OP), this would be the way to do it.

Gwynnifer.2497:

Maybe they’ll have mounts in the next expansion. Anet’s missing out on real world funds from customers who’d buy an expansion filled with horses and other types of mounts, whether the mounts were achievable via game play or in the Gem Store. The re-skinning potential would be immense, and a continuing source of income.

They’d also fulfill a type of content role in the sense that new collection achievements could be tied to them, just as there are achievements associated with collecting armors, mini’s, weapons, etc.

(I’m neutral on the subject of adding them to the game, but I’m surprised they haven’t been due to the income implications.)

This is why I think that Anet has done at least some sort of potential ROI analysis indicating that potential revenue might not provide sufficient return to justify the expense. Not that mounts wouldnt be potentially profitable, but that the same resources spent elsewhere would be more so.

Sartharina.3542:

Ashen.2907:

Sartharina.3542:

kurfu.5623:

simplesimon.2084:

The only way I could see that happening is if they added a new race with a city, personal story, and differnt zones going all the way from 1 to 80

That would be an actual expansion.

… such as the Tengu, in the Domain of Winds, finally joining the five other races against the Elder Dragons?

TexZero.7910:

Expansions aren’t about ‘new’ players, they are made to help retain existing players and bring them back to playing the product.

If an expansion isn’t about attracting new players, the best it can ever hope to do is slightly stave off death from an ever-dwindling playerbase.

Isnt that pretty much a fact of life for any MMO?

Hmm, any entertainment product really? Sure some TV shows last for 26+ years but we all know that the Simpsons are going away eventually.

WoW expanded rapidly over the course of its first two expansions, before dwindling again after Cataclysm released (Which also coincided with the ‘end’ of the MMO Golden Age)

But that aside – an MMO needs a constant influx of new players, because lots of people who quit will NEVER return, no matter how shiny the expac is. Or they’ll return and leave again. Without new players, the death of the game is much faster.

Well of course. The point wasnt that a new player wouldnt, eventually, buy an expansion, but rather that they are not the target audience. The reality is that if your core game isnt appealing to that potential new player, not all of the expansions in the world will matter to him. The expansion might keep him around after he is burned out on core content, or bring him back from a break from the game. Of course he isnt a new player by that time.

Again, I am not speaking against a new leveling path. Such could really benefit veterans who have played the existing paths many times. But a new leveling path doesnt do much for players who have yet to experience the existing paths. Similarly, new endgame content adds little for a new player who isnt at endgame

To be sure it doesnt hurt a games ability to attract new players to show that it is still being actively developed, via expansion releases. But that is even more important for retaining existing, paying, players.

Sartharina.3542:

kurfu.5623:

simplesimon.2084:

The only way I could see that happening is if they added a new race with a city, personal story, and differnt zones going all the way from 1 to 80

That would be an actual expansion.

… such as the Tengu, in the Domain of Winds, finally joining the five other races against the Elder Dragons?

TexZero.7910:

Expansions aren’t about ‘new’ players, they are made to help retain existing players and bring them back to playing the product.

If an expansion isn’t about attracting new players, the best it can ever hope to do is slightly stave off death from an ever-dwindling playerbase.

Isnt that pretty much a fact of life for any MMO?

Hmm, any entertainment product really? Sure some TV shows last for 26+ years but we all know that the Simpsons are going away eventually.

Ardid.7203:

Of course, Asura would be able to store bigger amount of mass/magical power in more compact structures, making their own weapons easier to wield for them…

Of course. If anyone could come up with a way to bend the metaphysical laws of the universe it would an asura.

Elden Arnaas.4870:

re: Just go into another gane mode. – First off, I don’t want to be forced to do what I don’t want to do. Second, (and I think this would be important to everyone) I don’t want players in a game mode, who don’t want to be there.

I only play PvE. And I only want players there who are engaged, and want to participate. People who enjoy PvE. I don’t want players there, who feel like they have to be there, because they’re working towards something which is (unfairly) restricted to PvE. This goes beyond dailies. There are other things unfairly restricted to certain game modes.
Why would anyone want players in a game mode that don’t want to be there, and are just there to cheese dailies/get some special item, etc… I would think that this would be especially crucial for PvP and WvW, where players always need to be engaged and participating. Not resenting every second they’re in there and wishing they were in another mode the whole time. I would think that would bring the whole game mode down. Who would want their preferred game mode brought down by people who don’t want to be there?

re: WvW is composed of both PvE and PvP. – That’s like saying “Martinis have olives. You like olives, so why don’t you drink martinis?”
To which I reply:
“Pass me that jar of olives, but keep the booze.(and whatever else is in a martini)”

nothing like that at all. No booze, just jars of olives. It would be closer to reality if you had said that the store you frequent kept jars of olives in the same aisle as the vodka and vermouth. There they are, walk right up to the olives, take them to the checkout counter, go home, make your sandwich with an olive on top, eat to your heart’s content…all wthout ever interacting with alcohol.

But it’s more than that. While I’m in there, I count as a member of my team, but I’m not contributing – I’m just there to cheese dailies. This makes me being there a negative for my team. Why would anyone want that for their game mode?(unwilling non-participants, pulling their team down)

WvW doesnt scale up based on number of players on the map.

Responses in bold.

Vayne.8563:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Anyone who knows anything about public relations knows how it works in the real world. We call it damage control. And given how things went recently, ANet certainly doesn’t want to add fuel to the fire.

So they had a ‘parting of the ways’ as they say. I know because I did this last week. Terminated a contract with a client. We both said publically that he decided to pursue other interests at this time. And I wished him the best of luck.

Sound familiar?

Again, no, it’s not concrete evidence, but those of us with common sense can read between the lines.

It is what it is, and that’s the last I’ll say about that. We’ve derailed the thread enough.

So let me try to put it back on track: With the recent patch, things are much better in the Deep Jungle to include Dragon Stand. Better loot drops and the like. And with the daily win reward there, hopefully more interest will be included too.

Dang man how do I give you a standing Ovation with an avitar, lol.

I agree I haven’t had time to try DS yet but my open world experiences so far have been great. My Guildies and I are already making plans to try the DS Meta this weekend.

You’re simply making an assumption and it’s not a warranted assumption. Because when people part ways that way, they don’t hang around and participate. Why would they want to or have to or be trusted to.

When people leave under that circumstance, you don’t put them out on public display which Anet did with Colin in the AMA on reddit. Both were there.

you might in a situation where the departed individual had been an important face for the product, with a following among the fanbase for some time. This isnt some faceless (to the average player) intern we are speaking of.

What’s Colin’s incentive for playing nice if he really got fired. And what makes you think what you’re describing happens more often than people just burning out?

Conditions of one’s severance package can be very, very, very restrictive. I know this one first hand. Also, he would probably not want to be seen as someone who badmouths his employer by future prospective employers.

I think it’s far more likely that Colin worked his kitten off on something that wasn’t appreciated and said kitten this, I’m out of here.

Because in Colin’s place, that’s what I’d do.

Your questions right back at you. What evidence? Why woud he play nice after saying kitten this and walking out. If he’d already burned his bridges there would be little to be gained.

There’s no evidence that Colin was told to walk away except sales of the expansion weren’t what they expected, and even that’s only a matter of interpretation because what the company actually said was that free to play players didn’t convert at the rate they expected them too.

This isn’t circumstantial evidence, because there are a number of things that can explain Colin’s departure, including the stated reasons, that he got an opportunity closer to home where he can spend more time with his family.

The fact that there are other epxplanations for something does not prevent something from being crcumstantial evidence. But, nothing presented here is circumstancial evidence. Its just speculation.

Responses in bold.

Ultimately I dont know why Colin left any more than does any other player. I have suspicions based on timing and such but overall I dont really care. Of course I hope that, as another human being, he has moved on to gainful employment that will allow him to support himself and his family, but its not my business to care who is running the game so long as the results are reasonably pleasing to me.

graymouser.4698:

Ashen.2907:

graymouser.4698:

If someone has an idea why primitive weaponry is still being used in Tyria, please add this to the discussion!

Cheers!

Gray

My thought is that the primary damaging force in a weapon in Tyria is the magic contained therein. The magic is delivered via the weapon strike. The amount of magic is directly proportional to the mass of the weapon. In the case of a missile weapon the mass of the projectile is used. This means that a sword, axe, etc will do more damage than an aarrow. Since magical armor, or the magic infused hides of monsters, outmass an arrow by a greater margin than they do a greatsword, the arrow will do less damage than will a greatsword strike.

This mass to magical force theory would also explain why so many of the most powerful weapons, those of, “Legendary,” power are crafted to be so very large. They need to be big in order to contain legendary levels of magic. Why else would anyone want to use a sword the size and shape of an unwieldy surfboard?

Good Lore explanation! Do official resources exist on this subject (the magical strength of iron weaponry)?

Thanks

Cheers

G. Mouser

Nothing oficial. I just tended to get annoyed at the idea that swords and bows would continue to be primary weapons of war in a setting with assault rifles, auto cannon, automortars, flamethrowers, grenades, machinegus, tanks, helicopters, etc without some sort of explanation….so I invented one that seemed to fit the available data (projectiles do less damage than melee weapons, the supposedly most powerful melee weapos are often oversized)

Keep in mind that it isnt just iron, its the mass of whatever construction material is used. There are swords made of bone, glass, etc that gain this magical mass effect ; )

Leo G.4501:

I’m sure we all could expound on negatives and possible problems with ideas. That’s easy.

So when are we going to start discussing positives and possible solutions (because I already have multiple for the issues you just brought up)?

This question assumes there is a problem that the OP’s suggestion will solve. Others don’t believe that the suggestion serves such a purpose. There is no solution because the suggestion has no bearing on the hypothetical problem.

If someone started a thread suggesting that we needed to change the name of the Easter holiday to chocolate bunny day in order to get new people to buy into GW2’s next expansion, what solution or positives would one be expected to provide? This example is comparable to the OP’s suggestion, IMO, because neither is reasonably remotely likely to have the intended effect.

To clarify, I would be interested in a new 1-80 path, but it would be meaningless to someone for whom the existing leveling paths are all bright, shiny, and new.

Elden Arnaas.4870:

In highly populated areas mini’s are culled to help the engine handle all the graphics. Mounts would be culled too.

Would mounts be culled if, as pointed out earlier in this thread (without a supporting quote unfortunately), a single mounted character model would replace the unmounted character, resulting in the same number of models, rather than adding an additional model due to the nature of how such can be handled by the GW2 engine?

Elden Arnaas.4870:

re: someone who said we should change it simply because people have differing tastes. So I asked where should that stop and how each time they did a change to appease one group’s tastes, you’d have another group that would go: but that goes against my preferences. – And how would giving everyone more choices be against people’s preferences? The only preference that it would seem to go against, is this odd preference some people have for the game to be more restricted, with less options. And that just makes no sense. (And the people who will complain about anything. But of course, they’ll complain about anything – so you just can’t win with them. They’ll always be complaining.)

re: Changing just because of people’s preferences isn’t the best course of action in a game with a wide target audience. – On the contrary. With a wide target audience, you want more choices and you want them to be less restricted.

re: See if you can find someone to group with that has those maps open and if you have Teleport to Friend items. This is a quick way to get some way points in those areas. – Why should people have to burn a teleport to friend, for a daily? Why should they have to PUG for them? More choices, that are less restrictive, will make less problems.

re: It will take soooooo muuuuuuch WOOOOOORRRKK to add more choices to dailies. – I guess all of you asserting this have missed how such flexibility is already built into the dailies system. There are more options and categories added every festival, for quite some time now. This capability is already built in. And the recent SAB festival proves that categories can already hold up to 6.(maybe more) And I think 6 options for each game mode is a great place to start. Especially if they make them less restricted.

re: If the dailies aren’t fun, don’t do them – This is a problem. The dailies should be fun.

re: there are plenty of other ways to earn loot in the game – That’s right, therefore the dailies should be fun. For a wide variety of people.

re: the dailies are designed to get people to spread out and do different things. – I am not some clueless idiot who has no idea what he wants to do with his time. And I suspect that I am not alone in this. If something seems like it would be fun/interesting/rewarding, etc… I try it. But lately I’m finding that there are less fun options.(IMO) This concerns me. Once again, more options, that are less restricted would help.

re: There are PvE dailies in WvW pretty much every day. This increases the number of PvE options to as much as six or seven fairly frequently. – No, it makes them WvW dailies. Hence the category they’re in. Yes, I’ll go buy badges every once in a while, when the (IMO) “good” options are slim. But why should I have to learn a whole different game mode, and all new maps, for a daily? I don’t think it’s right to cheese dailies by going into a different mode and “not really playing” to get them. And how is that fun?

And once again, how do more options, that are less restricted hurt anyone? Unless you’re in this (IMO) weird crowd that seems to think that games should be work and absolutely NO FUN AT ALL. Why do people like that even play games? Geez, get a job, or a second job. The rest of us, we’re here for the fun.

Nice strawman in there at the end.

WvW is composed of both PvE and PvP. It is not only possible, but actually very easy to do the PvE (and it is in fact PvE by the very definition of that term) daily elements without engaging in PvP. You also do not need to learn the game mode nor the maps for this.

Ultimately anything that could be added as a daily that one could find fun is something that one could do anyway. Rewards for dailies are not rare, special, or unique skins that cannot be earned doing something else that one actually enjoys are they?

So do what one enjoys in game, on a daily basis, every day, and have fun while being rewarded for that fun.

Huh, I prefer the new.

Sorry you guys dont.

archmagus.7249:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I don’t know about anyone else but I want NEW maps for my expansion. Not reworked old maps.

I’m not proposing reworking old maps. I’m just throwing the idea that the next expac has low level zones so that new players don’t have to wait until level 80 to get to the new cobtent. There’s plenty of space to put those new maps adjacent to starting cities.

Edit: although, plains of ashford does need a rework. It’s the only starter zone without a world boss. Woodenpotatoes has mentioned that in several of his videos.

If they are a new player then all of the existing content is new for them.

There are PvE dailies in WvW pretty much every day. This increases the number of PvE options to as much as six or seven fairly frequently.

foxcat.4096:

If your not willing to fork out 50 or so dollars for hundreds of hours of entertainment you mustn’t be really interested in the game in which case why does it matter to you how competitive you are in pvp?

I know that the question is directed to someone else, but I will take a stab at answering it, for myself, anyway…

The expansion would not provide me with hundreds of hours of enjoyment. If it could I would be willing to spend much more than $50. In all likelihood I would get essentially zero hours of enjoyment from HoT content. I spent over a thousand dollars on GW2 in the first year. If HoT could provide even a significant fraction of the enjoyment I got out of the base game I wouldnt flinch at going back to my $100/month budget for the game.

I am interested in the game. I am disinterested in playing HoT.

graymouser.4698:

If someone has an idea why primitive weaponry is still being used in Tyria, please add this to the discussion!

Cheers!

Gray

My thought is that the primary damaging force in a weapon in Tyria is the magic contained therein. The magic is delivered via the weapon strike. The amount of magic is directly proportional to the mass of the weapon. In the case of a missile weapon the mass of the projectile is used. This means that a sword, axe, etc will do more damage than an aarrow. Since magical armor, or the magic infused hides of monsters, outmass an arrow by a greater margin than they do a greatsword, the arrow will do less damage than will a greatsword strike.

This mass to magical force theory would also explain why so many of the most powerful weapons, those of, “Legendary,” power are crafted to be so very large. They need to be big in order to contain legendary levels of magic. Why else would anyone want to use a sword the size and shape of an unwieldy surfboard?