Guild Wars 2

LoneWolfie.1852:

Vayne.8563:

There’s only one problem with your response to me. Anet has helped a whole lot of people who crash in that time. We’ve seen posts of it before. Two people like that are in my guild. They had crashes and Anet fixed them. What they didn’t fix was YOUR crash.

Are you working with customer service directly?

For every claim that Anet helped them, another user will pop up saying the game has crashed. You can google guild wars 2 32 bit crash. More often than not, it has something to do with insufficient memory and a specific GPU (but I may be wrong.) In my case, I gave up on Anet fixing their memory leaks/usage codings and used win 64 bits with 8 gb ram.

Problem solved. And no, I did not reinstall a fresh new copy. Same PC with multi boot 32 bits and 64 bits, and only 32 bits suffered. In any case, the competence over their codings (unable to increase FPS in large WvW fights, even when I’m running a quad 4400 ghz intel 2500k…) has led me to believe they can’t optimize/fix issues, and if they do manage to solve it, good for us. Otherwise we play by Anet’s rules.

Weird my 14yr old uses my old Vista 32bit PC with an old Intel dual core CPU, 4GB DDR3 RAM and an Nvidia GTX 550Ti.. he gets pretty stable 40+FPS in the game, its never crashed and in large zerg fights in WvW he still sees 15-25 FP, which is more than playable, especially since the culling fixes last patch. – What is annoying is the server side skill delays that have gotten worse but I don’t really think there is anything we can do about that… that’s Anets issue and I hope that’s taken seriously by them and get it fixed.
My i7 3700K, Win7 64bit with 16GB DDR3, dual Nvidia GTX560Ti’s perform only a smidge better except I run off an SSD which helps with load times… but to date never crashed on either system… that is where the issue for Anet starts.. so many PC’s with so many variants, then add to that every PC might have something a little different running alongside it software wise, different anti-virus software, different ISP’s etc etc etc… its a mine field out there , but I am sure at some point it might get sorted… depends where you are on the priority ladder I guess.

TheZeus.8617:

For adding more crap to gem store that SPvPers wont be able to aquire without using RL money.

Errrmmm if you think that it is crap…. why would you buy it with RL money or ingame currency anyway.

If your gunna post a thread to whine and moan at least have it make sense.

Anet looking at a fix…. I am hoping that’s not a smoke screen for "ok we need to break something else in order to give them guild stuff back.. hands up with ideas people…. errm we could maybe break the WvW server lag instead … NO, NO, NO! we must has da server lag in WvW cos uderwise we has ta cull more again.. next idea please! "

Gee I sense a patch incoming.. everything always breaks on patch day

Better return all our guild stash, points and … errrrmm people.

As much as I try to keep telling myself its new, it will get better… its just getting old and worse each patch

Gestankfaust.4216:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Gestankfaust.4216:

Aeonblade.8709:

Can I order this paperback?

^This

This is why you won’t get a valid or constructive opinion. We need the lecture note a full friggin week ahead of your post

I know that “some of you ppl” on the innernet can write. I know you can make reports. I get that.

So…JUST GIVE US THE NOTES!!!

Then er can give our opinion

Then you can expand…

Iz how these thing started. Not with 50 page reports to analyze before we could rebut.

I don’t think you’re understanding that I’m no longer interested in your opinion.

This one and your last reply sums it up. Don’t post you biography on the state of your mind whilst playing an MMO in a ten page mocumentary…then ask for replies.

If your not interested in the OP then why do you keep posting….. in the time you have spent writing out your own “I hate” blogs you could of written and sold your own life story… oh wait I think what you wrote kinda sums up your life story.. nothing to say, lacks ability to construct conversation, refuses to listen and instead prefers to try and belittle others in an attempt to conceal his/her ignorance"…. man I can picture your gravestone “He came, he belittled, he died…. alone and forever disliked”

@OP – I guess constructing a large scale evolving world within a game will always run the risk or repetitiveness… I tend to measure a games creative success on how well the repetitive content can hold out being… well, repetitive.
Content doesn’t grow on trees and the devs place time syncs into the game in order to create a window of opportunity to dev, test and polish the next batch (yeah I know that’s often hard to see with some patching…. I’m looking at you Lost Shores ). Sometimes even the mini content events are nothing more than a time sync in itself… but of course they can never win that battle but repetitive content and/or grinds are part of every MMO (even levelling your toon is a grind, especially when you have maxed out a few already) they are merely stop gaps – everyone has different thresholds on that boredom factor… not saying your opinion is right or wrong.. I would love to be able to log into an MMO each week and expect new things to do, new things to collect, achieve, build etc but it isn’t gunna happen obviously.

daver.8324:

r z.7261:

OP is 100% on point here.

Game developers solution for anything they deem a problem is nerf it into oblivion. This is not just limited to ArenaNet, it’s a prevalent practice in the whole gaming industry and I’m quite disappointed to see ArenaNet follow suit, considering GW2 is supposed to be about breaking the traditional MMO mold.

I agree nerfing isnt the only way, surely balancing involves bringing up the weaker stuff too.

Yes it does imo.. but you cant do it all at once otherwise its more difficult to thin out what is or isn’t balancing or in need of balance.. its not something that is right or wrong its a fluid concept I think based around someones ideal medium… but as the game evolves with gear, content, mobs, skill etc things become muddied and to upsticks and change things just for the sake of changing them isn’t a good idea so I imagine ANET are addressing the obvious things, measure the effect and perhaps then will raise other classes that still fall outside the revised happy medium.
Its kinda like being a referee in a kids rugby match.. every decision is always wrong, your always seen as the bad guy no matter what you do – a thankless unrewarding job

Provost.6210:

Geotherma.2395:

What about the fact that they are changing the skills between PVP and PVE?

I don’t see what bearing that has on anything. We’ve already established that they continue to make changes across the game without considering what it is their players want. Why is this such a hard concept for you to grasp?

Let me put this in the form of an analogy. I invite you to join me at a sea-side resort. The resort serves a variety of dishes, a number of which you really enjoy, a number of which you might sample, and some of which you don’t particularly like. You can also enjoy sunbathing on the private beach, or engaging in water-oriented activities such as water-skiing or water polo.

How long would you continue to stay if I decided to change the menu, drastically reducing the things you enjoy, increasing the things you didn’t like; or dumped manure all over the private beach; or introduced a shark population into the local waters?

Suppose that I were not open to your concerns for your safety and well-being. How long do you expect you would remain at my resort?

ArenaNet has continually told its player base that it doesn’t care what they think. Do you truly find that acceptable?

LMAO this made me smile… have you played many MMO’s.. do you not understand that balancing is a constantly changing thing over time… its not based on what you or what I want out of our builds its what is fair across the game.. its not fair to you because you have built and used your toon with all those OP things at your disposal, while other classes have to stand back and watch. Sorry this is nothing more than a M,E ME, ME thread that offers nothing of any real substance to the argument of rebalancing classes.

If your gunna quit, then do so.. good players will just dust themselves off and learn to adjust their build/pla style to accommodate.
It stinks that a game needs balancing every now and then.. my necro would love some ANET love but its my favourite class and I just have to keep trying new things until I find something that works or that can be somewhat effective…. I am sure Engineers would like some love as would other classes… but in some ways rebalancing gives them that bit of love and brings the classes closer together forcing player skill to take over… alien concept I know for some.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

Posts like these also support my thread…

Like I said, I love this game, and I don’t want to see it die, but I’m being realistic here.

No your being overly opinionated.. nthing wrong with having an opinion but its not one shared by me.

What I believe your seeing is a game that is beginning to settle and stabilise concuurent logins following a pretty decent launch and early life. Every single MMO out there has gone through / is going through the same thing …. nothing overly unusual about that.
Players are fickle things.. we see something new and we hive to it.. burn through content get rich, try everything, achieve everything then…. the lull sets in until the next batch of content is prepped and launched. The activity bumps again for a while until that content is burned through. In the mean time the more normalised gamers are still chasing butterflies and looking at the rainbows…. GW2 is not dieing it is finding its place – what you need to ask yourself is Are you enjoying it and are you getting things done that you want to, can you group, do you support the game… if you answered yes, then where is the issue.. the number of active accounts means not that much to you if your playing and enjoying GW2.

As for opinions I am glad you have one but please don’t try batting others down just because they don’t share your unfounded claims of “the game is dieing”… you have no evidence other than heresay and maybe seeing your own guild diminish… like these forums it is but a mere drop in the playerbase ocean and add to that one server will always differ to others in activity levels its just the way it is.

On a side note I am sure you are correct that the game is loosing players, but it is also gaining new ones and others return as and when they wish… that’s the beauty of ANETS business model… no sub means no pressure to come back… its up to ANET to tempt us to add to the revenue streams when we are in game.. and they seems to be pretty good at doing that so far without the need push the “PAY PAY PAY” buttons too hard, which for me is a big between GW2 and the plethora of other P2P or even a lot of F2P games out there.

The game has issues.. yep for me there are things that really nark me.. Guild Missions is what has culled my time in the game a lot.. I run a small guild of old MMO friends and we are not really all that keen on being anything more than a small guild running content but Guild Missions have spoiled that idea due to the demands it creates on small guilds.
But aside from that the game is reasonable, not polished or balanced by a long shot but that’s something every MMO has to deal with and balancing is never ending.
Aside from the Karka event most of the small content additions have been pretty good and constant, I do share your view on Living Story – nice idea, poor implementation (far too long between parts) and sorry, but yes its boring as hell imo

Every server has them, every online game has them… that’s the interweebs for ya.

If you or others on the servers are fed up with it but fail to take the /ignore option then it’s for those affected by it to rise above it.. leaving a game because you fail to utilise the tools provided seems a little drastic to me.

On Underworld there are 2 very well know trolls that constantly show up in EB and get to work on insulting anyone and everyone… commanders especially but hey/ignore is your friend.

@ OP.. comparing GW2 to all those fps and SP is like bordering on the stupid.. totally different set of demands when you add in network, ISP’s, remote servers etc, etc… even a non IT person can work that out.. your 50+ fps on a single person game actually sounds pretty poor as I can get that running GW2, SWTOR, DDO etc. without any issues… if I go play some closeted SP game I would expect even more.

As for GW2 prior to the last patch I was struggling to get much beyond 30FPS and WvW at zergfest time was nothing more than slideshow of single digit FPS.
Now I easily get 50fps running around in there and when the zergs hit hard I am seeing 15-30FPS.. not earth shattering but an improvement that makes the game playable again.

My rig is an i7 3700K, 16GB RipJaw DDR3, dual Nvidia GTX 570’s (I don’t tend to use SLi very often though as I think most MMO’s still have issues with it) and running of a Mushkin 120GB SSD….. load times are sweet, and GW2 doesn’t task my CPU that much at all… maybe max 20%.. GPU does work hard and sees temps rise to around 55 degree… which considering no other MMO has causes that to happen tells me the GPU is definitely doing something.. so its not all CPU dependant.

There most definitely are quirks and glitches pretty much in any MMO.. two identical rigs can behave differently especially when you play across the interweebs to deny that is plain silly.

As for screen res.. I actually find 1080P to run like a bag of nails so I stick to 1680×1050 for best results.
By the way I have all settings piped to best quality except for Shaders and post processing, which I find seems to help.

One big thing I must say has made this game better in regards to WvW is the optimisation around culling… I was so sceptical about this " big improvement" they were working on bringing in, but I have been happily proven wrong it works a treat.

One thing though I will add.. since Thursday I have noticed FPS has dropped across the game, WvW especially and last night I actually logged off because of it as did others as well.. it was almost back to single digit FPS times except the zergs was only like 20-30 players and not all that tasking… maybe we all just had a bad few days across the iweeb but I am not convinced.

Jae.5138:

Bloodstealer.5978:

These problems you speak of… I don’t see and have not seen, certainly since pre-launch. It’s merely a p[roblem you have on something that does not fit your own playstyle and beliefs.

Taking away the Trinity is a bold move and one I have welcomed.. the only thing I would say ANET need to consider is how they add in the opportune ity for players to take a more trinity focused trait line should they want.. but as it is currently I think it works fine.

As for your notion that this is the only game where you can be downed, ressed and run back in… you may want to take a better look out there at how others do exactly that and always have. Heck many allow players to carry portable shrines for all to res up en mass.
As for PvP well I am not that focused on it, but I will say GW1 and GW2 seem to do things better than most – not by any means perfect but to date not at all bad. They have a lots of balancing of classes/skills to polish for sure and perhaps downed state needs a little tweaking around the concepts but its far from a priority 1 issue except maybe to you.. that just your opinion and is not shared by all me thinks.

If you do not see any of those problems mentioned, I’d say you’re the minority here. Like I had said, a new game like Guild Wars 2 should be aiming to increase its player base more and more, with every patch coming out. The game is dying in that the player base is decreasing. There’s no denying this. When a game is losing its player base despite its young age, this is never a good sign.

Yes – the notion of being able to be ressed and jumping into the fight is a good idea. The execution is poor. This is where the poor boss mechanics are not balanced well in addressing this down state notion. Many bosses hit like feathers, but take 10 minutes to kill. When they do have a killing blow, they do it in a manner that can be dodged easily, or not at all (with almost no visual warning). Instead of the tank and spank mechanic, you now have a pure burning the boss down mechanic. To say one’s superior to another would hardly be a comparison, as the latter clearly fails in this regards – again, judged by the player base.

Now, by this point you may have noticed I keep going back to the player base and the number of players. You may argue that it isn’t important that the Guild Wars 2 is losing its players, or that its player base is not as strong as some of the other mmo’s out there. While you may tell yourself that you love the game, everything about it, and everyone else can go kitten themselves, that is what the game’s success is based on. Its player base. This brings in the investors. This brings in the income. This brings in the future content, the bread for the employees. I do hope ANet has big plans to bring back its player base, a better one than simply giving a 30% discount on their game.

Ok.. lets take your notion regarding the playerbase decline… where are you getting your information on this.. last time I checked box sales were healthy and that’s pretty much all we can go on .. unlike other MMO’s like SWTOR that release info to support their investor quarterlies… but there in lies a major difference because games like SWTOR (at least until recently) were a sub based revenue stream which relied on players coughing up each month on the dot… F2P or B2P models don’t rely on the same streams, they rely on a cash shop over the top of box sales and last I checked it still looked pretty healthy on those fronts as well.
Your perception of playerbase and its needs are purely opinion and largely unsubstantiated. However I agree GW2, like any other MMO after initial launch will loose players.. some buy, try and discard, other buy try and take a break others simply buy to play occasionally… all of which will show a playerbase that peaks and troughs continually but as all games, suffer natural wastage… some players simply don’t like the game and no matter what, wont come back.. others then jump to the next big thing then either come back or not.
GW2 is designed in such a way as to accommodate all comers in this respect because its what happens in game at the shop that is where they need to work their hardest.
Believe me I think this game is far from polished and has a lot of work to do to secure its place on the MMO ladder, but who said they are looking to oust the big boys at the top.. GW1 quite happily thrived in its own niche area, so will GW2 but yes there are things that need to be done and things that need to be promoted but playerbase numbers mean less in this type of game than a lot of the others out there… especially as its more than likely now entering that period of time after launch where it finds its niche / stable playerbase… and with every new content addition or seasonal delight those numbers will increase and fall again.

These problems you speak of… I don’t see and have not seen, certainly since pre-launch. It’s merely a p[roblem you have on something that does not fit your own playstyle and beliefs.

Taking away the Trinity is a bold move and one I have welcomed.. the only thing I would say ANET need to consider is how they add in the opportune ity for players to take a more trinity focused trait line should they want.. but as it is currently I think it works fine.

As for your notion that this is the only game where you can be downed, ressed and run back in… you may want to take a better look out there at how others do exactly that and always have. Heck many allow players to carry portable shrines for all to res up en mass.
As for PvP well I am not that focused on it, but I will say GW1 and GW2 seem to do things better than most – not by any means perfect but to date not at all bad. They have a lots of balancing of classes/skills to polish for sure and perhaps downed state needs a little tweaking around the concepts but its far from a priority 1 issue except maybe to you.. that just your opinion and is not shared by all me thinks.

Tinboy.7954:

Red Falcon.8257:

Tinboy.7954:

This has been their style since GW1.

Not.
In GW1 they only had the classic holyday-based patches just like every single MMO out there.

Huh? They had holiday based mini-games. You speak as if I have never played the game… lol. FYI, I’ve played every expansion other than Eye of the North. Every other MMO out there does not do mini-games. They just redecorate everything so it fits the theme and maybe add a couple drops here and there like a Santa hat.

Disagree.. many MMO’s have mini games and seasonal games alongside I them… my personal favourites are the Ice Games – ice skate, ski jump seasonal games in DDO … came in as part of the 2010 Winter Olympics and has been coming back ever since around Christmas. Also the Pirates Cove and Graveyard Halloween events.
Many MMO’s introduce small scale content.. its not only a game freshner to pull players in/back but its also a way to test out new mechanics “DDO tested out crafting/drop box recipe crafting mechanics with such content”.
They also (from the Pirates Cove success" implements a whole game zone in Cannith dedicated to at least a dozen mini game quests, which in turn have opened up other new mechanics, crafting items etc.. – - This is just one example of A N OTHER MMO using mini games inside its core content.
Added to all that – all content big or small is its own marketing tool which helps bring in much needed revenue boosts for games like GW2, its also opens the door for special / exclusive store purchases.
So please don’t bleat that its something only Guild Wars does, you clearly have limited experience outside GW if you think that’s true.

Ezeriel.9574:

I actually find myself cursing blizzard, and then having to remind myself that this is an Anet game.

For instance, if I fall off a cliff and die, while trying to get to somewhere, along what should be a path… “f-ing blizzard, is that supposed to be ‘fun’… oh wait.. STUPID ANET!”

But yeah… being a dev must lead to having a MASSIVE ego. The mountains of games on the scrap heap is a testament to it.

Devs need to understand that if they say a class can do XYZ, then the players will expect the class to actually do XYZ viably.

..but instead we get car dealers trying to tell us that the Rav4 makes an excellent tank.

“Really? I kinda think a ‘tank’ makes a good tank”
“Oh yeah, it might not be the most ‘viable’ tank on the road, but it’s more than capable of filling the role.”

…and then it’s like, “did you hear about Bob? he got killed trying to tank a moose with his Prius”

And that’s how you end up with Necros in your group saying “I can tank, any class can tank” and “Can my engineer friend come too? He’s a great healer”

…and the devs see them say it, and walk off muttering “engineers are fine”

What.. you know Bob to.. so that’s why I have not seen him around in a whiles…… kitten Prius – respects

Snow White.9680:

They really need to remove the crafted items out of the mystic forge loot table!!

It was SO infuriating to get back an item I can craft..

I ended up saving up, and handing some lucky SoB 700g for my precursor. (It just isn’t right that someone can trip over something worth that much gold.)

Utter rubbish.. you are in fact the person who has valued the item not the seller.. you thought to take the easy route to something that is by its very design, meant to be rare and involve luck of RNG.. something that exists in any MMO that has loot tables connected to it… you handed over the gold, you were not forced to.. therefore you placed the value on the item – so lucky SOB should really read foolish SoB.
Though I do hope you like the pretty pixels

I am not overly impressed with the Mystic forge returns but I understand if I choose to use it then I leave myself open to the dice gods… and so far they seem displeased with me for sure, but hey that’s ok I don’t enjoy the game just because I can use a mystic toilet.. I find many other things to do in game to challenge my desire to have fun.

It sucks but once a guild expands beyond trusted friends/family then guild banks require managing a little tighter. If you recruit any and all without thinking about the ramifications then as others have said … you learn the hard ways.
With the endless amount of desperado guild spamming that goes on in GW2 I would hazard a guess this is far from an isolated incident but at least now you know to control access a lot tighter going forward.

SirDrygan.1823:

Sorry about making another thread about this.

And no, about me wanting what I want, I would have said so clearly. Like I want my Ele to be OP NOW. For example. Or I want all thieves to be less OP NOW. Another example.

This is about why adding content that is not relevant to the storyline or even the game. Sure, it is to showcase the Asuran’s technology or what not, but it is not necessary. Why don’t they just add more stuff to the Molten Alliance storyline? More DEs for the Molten Alliance? Like them mounting a siege on Hoelbrak or the Black Citadel? Or their fierce unknown leader reveals itself in a brief moment to warn the Norn’s and the Charr’s they are next on the extinction list.
Or Divinity’s Reach gets some unexpecting visitor’s where the Queen is given an ultimatum to surrender or see Divinity’s Reach burned to the ground. Or the Sylvari’s Mother Tree got attack and is injured. Or the Asuran’s High Council got wiped out in a surprised attack…etc FOR EXAMPLE.

Instead, we get them attacking small village, guarding portals that are not even near a city or town, eavesdropping with no apparent motive except for us players to collect audio logs for the Monthly achievements.
Braham’s and Rox’s storyline is awesome, with Braham’s having the best storyline so far. They should waste their time on these storylines.

As for add new content being things that I want, are you sure you all don’t want new content? Like a new dragon and stuff? Aren’t those also things some of you all want? Fixing bugs? isn’t this everyone wants Arenanet to address all the time? How come it becomes things that I want?

Like I said, if I want something I want, I will say it clearly. Like Elementalist should stopped being nerf to kingdom come! or thieves should stop being given preferential treatment, i want the AoE 5 person limit to be lifted, or I want staff ele to get a boost in damage or shorten cooldowns…etc for example.

Like others have said.. you may wanna try looking into the details surrounding SAB before posting this stuff.

The SAB was like 1 person with a lightbulb above his head who thought it would be cool to throw in a bit of retro for April Fools and ANET have harnessed the fun aspect of that lightbulb moment… I think you may need to re-roll your humour check.

If you don’t like it then by all means don’t play it… I myself have tried it out but like many of the 80’s platformers it failed to inspire me and so I have closed the door on it.. but that’s not to say it wasn’t a good idea and a break from the normal stuff rushed through to game like Lost Shores… tell me again what was that like when it landed, how did it go down and .. has it added any kind of value to the game since, cos when I’ve parked the boat over there its nothing more than empty server space mostly….
Maybe you would of been happier if the SAB platform had just been 1 old pixel dragon in a room that you could egg timer and jump in to kil, cos apparently that’s the real deal with GW2 these days..

Flamenco.3894:

That one guy could’ve created another expansion pack

I’m curious, could you explain to us all….. just how it felt as that palm smacked across your face?

Wake up and think logically will you!

You could actually level to 80 pretty quick just by running around and harvesting carrots, copper, and herbs 6 hours a day for 4 weeks … the more you harvest the faster you level and as you level the same things actually give you more XP each time.. no need to quest or kill stuff

Kalaster.9014:

Let me start by stating, I am by no means bashing GW2, haha, faaaaaaar from it! In fact, GW2 has given me almost everything i look for in MMO’s. Fun leveling, awesome armor sets, skinning your armor, voice acting, beautiful graphics, no more repetitive quests, epic WvWvW, crafting exp, and the nostalgic feeling of exploring.

But what my title states, is that i can no longer play any MMO that follows the gruesome quest log, collecting quests, and so on! I’ve been raised to believe all of that is standard and the only way to enjoy MMO’s. But Guild Wars has changed my outlook on online gaming. I know some of you may not fully agree with what i am going say, but Guild Wars 2 has revolutionized MMO gaming, for me at least.

Like today, i was bored, and decided to revisit Aion seeing as it went f2p. Not even 30 seconds in, i gave up because i could not stand reading through the quest logs, knowing i had to kill 6 wolves, and find like 10 chicken eggs. >.<

anyone else experiencing this as well? Anyone else try Visiting/ revisting other MMO’s and just couldn’t stand it?

OK.. I picked up this thread a little late and note the 200 replies thus far… and everyone is entitled to think what they like.
But reading the OP made me wonder… if this game is giving you all you want and is so much fun, why do you state you were bored and went back to A N OTHER MMO to overcome the boredom??
Then you gave up as the quests were obviously mind bogglingly silly.. kill 10 of them, 6 of that, find lah dee dahh… forgive me if I am wrong but I am pretty confident that GW2 is built around the exact same quest/event philosophy as well except its in an openworld environment single instance rather than quest based instances.. although it does have those as well. Exploration is fun I agree btw, but it too becomes old very fast.. and why does a carrot give me like 20xp at low levels when I farm it at low levels, but maybe 600xp say lvl 70… levelling in GW2 is ridiculously easy and lacks any challenge.
So I am not getting how GW2 has revolutionised your MMO experience tbh.
The only thing I see GW2 does is take away the gear grind treadmill and replaces it with appearance grinding and lots of luck in a mystic toilet mechanic, then add the need to farm over and over in order to make the most sought after things.
You say it takes away the repetitive quest requirements.. really, cos all I ever see is “CoF P1 speed runs” being put up cos its the fastest way to get gold hoarded so that you can buy the most sought after things from the Trading Post instead of farming a plethora of mats etc. Every MMO including GW2 has a grinds and is necessary to repeat many quests and functions a multitude of times… otherwise the devs could never satisfy the gaming communities incessant need for more content.. its just time syncing. GW2 imo does it better than some and so far has a pretty decent turnaround in content delivery albeit more mini additions, but for me its fine (Living Story aside, as I seriously think that’s has been drawn out to death )
As for voice acting,… really cos to me its a pretty lame attempt at it, the only decent voice acted MMO I have played is SWTOR and that had little else to offer imo hence its quick demise.
That said I agree GW2 is a decent MMO but like any game it will be susceptible to the highs and lows within the industry and the global economy.. hopefully what they put out is deemed worthy of keeping a balanced. stable community at a time when things are probably more challenging than they have ever been in the last 10 years. Every new release sees movement across the community… and unless the game is seen to have some real depth and a backbone in its content then it too could go the same way as other big titles have done.
Having been a GW1 fan and following this game right form the beginning through beta, early access etc I have found it to be decent enough, though a little buggy and major balance issues but its new so I expect it to be less than perfect my only real issue now is I find the decisions they throw into the game, the knee jerk changes to things like loot drops and guild mission requirements have unfortunately meant me drifting back to my favourite MMO more and more and will likely continue to do so, which is a shame but because its essentially F2P and breaking from it doesn’t really hinder players if they then decide to come back, I will still put some time in now and then I guess.

TBH I only find 1 explorer point on SoD that i could not get when soloing.. the Skill challenge up the top multi stepped area with the catapults firing at you and lots of those risen whippy things… the skill challenge is guarded by 3 or 4 vet risen and endless stream of respawning mobs… with a group of 3 it can be face rolled in 60secs though, so no biggy.

Where are these alleged leaderboards.. must see, must see, must see!

Seriously.. I didn’t even realise they could be viewed… or maybe I just lack the motivation to be that special snowflake so badly.

Scala.1340:

I never found the story to be all that interesting. The only story I’ve actually liked in an MMORPG was in Star Wars the Old Republic, mostly because it reminded me of other single player bioware games (which I enjoyed a lot more than the swtor).

In this game, I am not sure why I am leveling. What is the point?

I think having to read most things at the small font sizes is also taking me away from the game. My vision isn’t so good, so reading lots of stuff gives me a lot of eye strain. I want everything to be twice as big.

What…. you find the story to be not all that interesting… your only lvl 5, how much of the story could you possibly of unfolded.
You are basing your dislike fo the game on a few lvls of gameplay.. you haven’t even unlocked your second, third, fourth skill slots or started your trait lines, not started crafting yet and your still in the starter zone.

SWTOR story lines were fun I will give the game that much credit.. but they were all to easy and over in a flash… then all that was left was rinse repeat and the actions you took in the story never had consequence like they said it would.. light side and dark side points did nothing but give you some face paint and the use of a few items in game which were all but useless anyway.. though I did enjoy the gunslinger story

This game, as has been correctly stated, doesn’t suit all comers, show me an MMO that does but to judge it by a handful of levels seems a bit harsh to me…Ithere are things I don’t like about it for sure…. cap a toon then come back and tell us you still don’t then sure I’ll listen, but as it is I guess the best thing to do if your not enjoying something is to go find something else that does.

Either way best of luck, hope you find something you do enjoy.

kristijanH.1897:

I created this thread to start a discussion. Thank you all for your replies. I guess my conception of what is fun in a game differs from most of players on these boards. I play games to have fun. I expect that other people play it to have fun also and not to make the play experiance misserable for others. That’s why I prefer to play single player games since it’s up to me alone how the game is played. PvE is also good here since people are helping each other. I don’t mind the competitive spect as long at it’s within my boundry of what’s fun for me.

To all that are comparing this game or any aspect of it to war. Please don’t. It’s a game. Nothing more. You cannot disconnect when in a war or do other stuff when you’re tired of it.

Other people may have a different perspective when it comes to fun.. you just got out smarted.. next consider having some kind of rear guard so that u can fall back/ respawn in a safer environment or set up your own choke points along their reinforcement routes.
Like others have said.. surely the one of the major factor in a successful WvWvW battle is to reduce your enemy to the point they are strangle held… by cutting of reinforcements does exactly that… you could assume the same tactic from a defence point of view as well.. just need a bit of smart cookie thinking and your fun factor will only increase with it.

Elbegast.6970:

I liked the idea of zone by zone down-leveling until I actually began to play the game. It seemed like a great mechanic on paper.

Now that I’ve tried it, zone by zone down-leveling has caused me to lose all motivation to progress. There is no sense of accomplishment or pride in my character. It feels like the game has thrown away all my hours of hard work when I pass through a lower level zone, constantly running because I don’t feel like struggling with or being killed by mobs that are half my (true) level.

It doesn’t matter what down-leveling was meant to correct on the technical side, the feeling (a sense of character pride, power, accomplishment) is what matters. And right now, at least to me, it feels absolutely horrible. My character feels weak. I may as well just park him in The Grove and pretend to be a commoner or a merchant.

Sorry I just cant agree with your perception.

Sure you get down leveled but you have or should have better gear and stats that even when downgraded by the map/zone should still be superior to that which you had when you first ran the area. Add to that you have the use of higher level buffs, extra trait points extra skill point unlocks.. if your still struggling then I would suggest the problem lies elsewhere.
The whole point of level scaling is to eliminate just what you want.. 1 shot mechanics to enable you to farm without the risk.. no thanks.

If you think level scaling is making it difficult for you.. how did you get on walking through Metrica or Caledon or Wayfarers at level.. cos the mobs can be upto 7+ levels higher in some places.. going back as a down leveled toon you don’t get the same problem.

LordByron.8369:

Conner.4702:

LordByron.8369:

I want to ask OP to come with me at dredge part to show me how to survive at lvl 38-40 without stealth or cheats.

also without dying on switches and obviously without mechanics not accessible to all profession (i.e. stealth that is a far worse abuse used there we all know why).

Then we can proceed to try cliffside Killing both room (its doable).

Lets do it and just post here the result

You can PM me….
If you don t accept or we fail (i won t be a burden for sure) i ask you to stop with this nonesense…dredge is already one of the most annoying fractals…..
Rewards have been nerfed and frankly sounds like what happened to AC of some players complaining that a lvl 35 dungeon was too easy………

If you can’t do it legit than you don’t deserve to do it at all. What will you do on those when they do get fixed? Whine about not being able to do it anymore? Using exploits is preventing people to learn encounters and improve their skill. You are actually hurting the playerbase by doing it in the long run. So instead of justifying your exploit use why don’t you learn and improve yourself instead.

as said stop talking and show you can
Or maybe you cannot…..

More Facts less words…the forum is already to full of Forum-pros that fails in game.

Being one of the most dedicated fotm palyers you won t convince me of this nonsense.

I think OP and all Others complaining just use different EXPLOITS they don t even know are such…or are on a low level and cannot understand how its not possible tanking 5-20 mobs dealing 10.000 each attack standing still on platforms.

Prove me wrong or stop complaining….

P.S: about hurting playerbase…
I want to thank people like you for friends leaving….
They were casual players who liked to run some dungeons sometimes…..TO HAVE FUN !
after they “revamped” AC due to players like you they just drop being because they saw another low level activity taken away from them.

So think who is hurting playerbase between us WHO self entitle to say people how to play the game without possibly the proper knowledge….or people explaining why people use workaround to PROBLEMATIC and unfun parts…
Considering rewards also.

So your one of the “Most” dedicated Frac runners….. but someone obviously unable to understand the concept of L2P without the incessant desire to cheat your way through something time and time again… yeah your the real deal.
So if its too hard, the most dedicated Frac runners uses cheats to then come to the forum and profess their godlike skills and abilities whilst at the same time calling others wishing to do things legit as “self entitled” and the “bigger problem” to the player base… whilst struggling to actually construct sentences that are even understandable, I find your reasoning’s to be based on fools logic.

You really are a pro frac runner imo.

ExZee.8109:

Umm.. DUH achievement leaderboards is going to be a joke. That’s the entire point. It’s all about kitten stroking for noobs obsessed with achievement points because they know they can’t possibly hope for most kills in WvW or highest WXP rank. To share you a secret, the leaderboards for the latter two are also wery funny jokes. What real players want out of the leaderboards is along the lines of guild or commander rankings; stuff that actually has tangible meaning other than “I played more than you”. If it’s made correctly, we’ll FINALLY have data that shows which guilds do the most for their server or which commander is most effective – with detailed breakdown of points/kills/caps/whatever so you can define what “most” or “effective” means to you.

TBH a ranking system is where Commanders should come from not “go to NPC and buy blue tag”.

That way leaderboards themselves begin to be seen as the real achievement system for players and guilds… as it is and likely will be, is nothing more than “I played more than you”
Leaderboards could hold the key to specific unlocks in each core element of the game PVP, WvW, PvE but I guess they prefer it to be a stroking compliment to the kiddies brigade.

Cameirus.8407:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Diviner.7405:

In order to increase you chances of succeeding, you have to make sure everyone that doing it completely understand what the heck is going on. Communication is key.

This is the correct answer. Guild content is about coordination. If you truly work together, you don’t need nearly as many people to complete this content.

I get what you mean, but what you actually just said proves the op’s point.

Small guilds have to be much much more skilled than large guilds who can just zerg.

The whole gw2 content scaling system is really not living up to its promises.

I don’t think you will see a reply from AO… I could of sworn I heard the sound of face meeting palm… can only add.. great counter!

The everything from Open world events to guild missions is completely wacko in regards to balance and scaling. imo, you only have to look at a dragon pop or Maw to see they have no idea on how to scale difficulty in an openworld environment… if you blink its all over. Guild missions for those who can encompass the maps on mass face no real hardship unless they are all on suicide timers whereas smaller guilds have to work that much harder, communicate better and seek out tactic.. not just steam roller through it and move on…

Xolo.3580:

Even if Champs all had a 100% chance to drop at least a green item, would it be fun hunting them? I think not. It would be less of a waste of time, but not more.

IMO Champs (and other special mobs) should drop something that regular mobs can’t drop, THAT would make them more interesting to kill. It was always exciting to me finding Named Monsters (NMs) in Final Fantasy XI, because they had a unique loot table. GW2 could use some of this non-genericness (yeah Chrome doesn’t think this is a word either, but YOLO man!)

And by providing players with more things to camp for because other mobs don’t drop them… just means that the event treadmill gets expanded a little more, more people guest in to kill the champ and zone off to the next server to get the same champ drop.. that does not fix the game it merely changes the concept of Open World even more.. no need for any further content just another guarantee of loot in an event to que up for.

Nothing in a loot table should be guaranteed, its makes for a very shortlived experience… but at the same time loot tables should be adjusted to incorporate better items for sure, but should fall under RNG like anything else… maybe adjusting the percentages a little so that there is more likelihood of getting loot of green or better standard to chuck in the Mystic Toilet… but there should still be a chance to get lower loot or, as someone else said at the very least a double baggy or something similar with your blue drops.

RNG is the best way to keep the game looking a little more individual.. otherwise everyone will all be running round with the same outfits, the same weapons, the same everything in no time and it keeps players playing longer… what would you do if you could watch your event timers and circle the champ trains… get your bestest loot all in a few days… there would be little point in playing the game out across the whole of the maps/zones anymore even with alts.. so you leave and wait till the next things lands in the content bag.. rinse repeat again and again but each you come back your time in game gets less, you spend less if any in the shop.. the game begins to enter maintenance mode sooner than you think.

RNG has its place… but it needs better balancing and difficulty scaling nothing more and that is something that I would bet is done constantly as the data gets de-cyphered internally.

I personally hate the guarantee of loot from world event chests … if they want that kind of loot philosophy in game then they should at least randomise the event times and spawn points across the entire game so that players are forced to go do something else and the event becomes more of a surprise chance if your there… great opportunity to get their event scaling primed as well based on numbers in the area.

rozcinana.7249:

Bloodstealer, if your guild has guild armorer and weaponsmith unlocked you can purchase armor and weapons that display your emblem in PvE.

It would be cool if the banner displayed the guild’s full name at the least. Being able to write a recruitment message would be cool, too!

Maybe this should go to the suggestions forum if it hasn’t already been posted there.

Ahhhhkkk I always forget about those critters with the helmets above there head… one question though… if a guild member purchased a set of guild armour, with guild emblem.. can you then transmute it with say a nice Exotic or such and retain the emblem?.. cos never having really bothered with the guild armour merchants I wouldn’t even know what they offer in gear in comparison to what I have hoarded through hard work, blood sweat and tears

Kolwin.4950:

have had 2. played since late JAN. sold em immediately as the abyss dye really isn’t that good looking. midnight ice dye is 1000X better imo. i have gotten 7 of those

Agree most of the midnight dyes I find to be much nicer than other similar colours.. midnight ice is a particular favourite of mine… for the record I have only gotten 1 Abyss and I too sold it for silly money a month or so ago.

Also I like Celestial and Lipstick.. great combi for those more “confusing evenings” in game

Dang now I gotta go and watch 300 again… I musta missed the bit with Char running fur first into them baddies… I need to pay closer attention to what I am watching in future … just out of interest before I go running off to buy the DVD, are you sure it was 300 or “Meet the Spartans” you were watching???

Yeah banners could open a lot of ideas, guild recruitment messages just one of them.. maybe get rid of a lot of the spam perhaps.

One thing I would like to see though is the option to have your toon display your guild logo on your PvE gear not just in PvP…. or maybe I am missing something.

ArchonWing.9480:

Easy if you grind dungeons/fractals. Or play wvw. Easy if you only play your 80’s. To me who just does open world, last month’s was much easier considering there was one achievement that never required you to leave Lion’s Arch— finished in a few days. Instead I’m greeted with the tedious sonic periscopes crap or jumping puzzles so I’m just going to follow a wvw zerg train around.

Well, they figured they’d throw wvw users a bone. It’s really not a bad idea as most would rather not go out to pve to do their things.

The annoying thing about the periscopes is that you have to actually turn them in. It should have just been kill 100 of them.

You can just do the 3 jump puzzles in LA every few days… no need to leave LA for that one
Yeah the periscopes one is a grind especially as you cant loot the same one when it respawns until reset…. vets is a doddle in PvE or WvW. only one I will likely struggle to do quickly id the Fracs one, simply because I don’t tend to run them all the often.
Then again I am in no hurry to get the monthly in and Waypointing to Diessa to hand periscope logs in takes all of what 30 seconds….

On a side note, I’ve not really been a big WvW player since launch mainly due to the culling and lag issues.. but gees I was surprised just how much better it was since the patch and I was all “I wont hold my breath with the improved system” on these forums.. so thumbs up from me ANET.. its certainly made it so much more fun and getting most of the monthly targets done is all part of the fun again… hope to see something done about PvE soon

gurugeorge.9857:

The argument about “stickiness” only works with subscription games – the whole point of the addictive grind was that it attracted a bunch of people who were likely to stick with the game and keep paying a monthly subscription, and that formed the core playerbase. That logic doesn’t have any meaning with B2P. All you need with B2P is to have enough players around to create a background buzz for casual players, to have enough in the cash shop to let casual players get a boost now and then, and to engender enough enjoyment for casual players so that they’ll pony up for the next expansion. Naturally, it’s nice if some hardcore players stick around too, but it’s not as CRUCIAL for the game’s life and longevity as it would be for a subscription MMO.

There’s a different kind of “stickiness” that comes from the virtual world aspect (people like hanging out in this particular virtual place), and that’s what ANet are aiming for with the “living world” idea.

There’s a different kind of “stickiness” again that comes from hardcore PvP players. The PvP scene in GW2 is pretty healthy so far as I can see.

At the end of the day, basing your income on players who are liable to become heavily addicted was never a good idea. It led to a hardcore sticky playerbase, true, and that hardcore playerbase created good viral marketing for the game, true; but the bulk of subscribers was always casual anyway (check the stats for WoW) and there was always a high churn rate of casual players anyway. ANet have just gone with the flow of that and reversed the design emphasis from hardcore > casual to casual > hardcore.

So all that happens is that the game has some hardcore features but maybe not enough to satisfy some hardcore players, and instead of creating a positive buzz for the game, those players bellyache and create a slight negative buzz. But my impression from around the net is that most players who play GW2 absolutely love it to bits precisely BECAUSE it’s a game they can easily pick up and put down, and with the living world content, it is sufficiently interesting and different each time you pick it up.

I thik the game will want to attract to all comers imo.. casual or hardcore…. eventually I think they will want to try and cover all the bases.. that protects thir longevity.. even casual players have the choice to say don’t buy, just like hardcore players might log off… swings and roundabouts or horse for courses… all that matters to ANET is that the content they deliver has the right kind of hooks to entice both sides of the player base to part with hard cash.
Marketing is great tool to get the ball rolling… but as it evolves so to will their marketing and content.. at least I hope so because it needs to challenging us to log back in whether we play a few hours a week or 50 hours, whether we like to catch butterflies or whether we want to decimate the dragon hoards, whether we wanna solo quest or hardcore dungeon run etc …

Mackdose.6504:

But there is evidence the game is doing well…

1. There are many active players during off-peak hours.
2. It has been repeatedly said in multiple interviews that the game sold well beyond expectations, and concurrent players and repeat log-ins have stabilized. This is reflected by point 1.
3. the GW2 community is active and stable, as seen on these and other community forums. (i.e. reddit)
4. The trading post is still moving extremely fast, which shows that the are many active traders.

The game is healthy, and there is plenty of evidence in and out of the game that reflects that. You don’t need a million active players to have a successful and healthy MMO.

No you don’t need large numbers and ANET is probably one of the best in achieving through that scenario.

Forums though are likely not even 1% of the population so basing success on forum activity is not to be trusted imo… especially as active forums are also highly moderated and to some extent controlled.. this one being no different. Also active forums might contain more negatives than positives

Yes I am one of those traders, its an area of MMO’s I quite enjoy….. my shop is always open… actually that’s one thing about GW2 that I prefer there is a variety of rewarding things to do not just raid for gear or farm for mats over and over.. a decent array of choice in a game still in its infancy.

Vayne.8563:

Hmm I don’t know. For a lot of people how well the game is doing does matter. I’m probably personally not one of them, unless it’s doing so badly that I can’t find a guild or people to play with. That would be pretty annoying.

But when you consider that at this point in it’s growth, the well-selling SWToR was already laying off a decent chunk of staff, it certain gives me reason to believe the game isn’t doing badly.

No it doesn’t mean that Vayne… SWTOR was a huge team if you read back into the history of its making… huge.
Many of those people were there solely to get the game designed, built and packaged up… then when it launched many of those contracts ended.. that’s not letting go.. they were employed to get it from A to B… to get to C they needed different skillsets.
Sure there are always casualties in MMO’s and SWTOR is probably the biggest exabple of how not to launch but with the huge IP behind them, EA’s apparent bottomless moneypit and Biowares strength in the SP RPG market it was a sure thing.. and box sales suggested that… but they quickly found out that supporting an MMORPG is different and more complex… but the noted layoff were always going to happen after launch they simply didn’t need them all.. but they also went out and recruited different roles in order to take in onwards.. then when F2P came along (and personally I think that was always the plan) they went out and recruited a range of different skills again.

All MMO’s begin with a larger team than what’s is needed once it launches.. ANET will be no different.. except its highly likely ANET had a much leaner team to begin with than BEAWARE (pardon the pun ) so when they cut out the surplus after bedding in, its much less noticeable, but I bet they have especially those on contracts but that’s not a reflection of failure .. simply business balancing.

Vayne.8563:

Bloodstealer.5978:

marnick.4305:

Bloodstealer.5978:

Yes you are using nothing but speculative numbers in your argument.. and what you fail to understand is even if there are a million players left the concurrent numbers of logins based on the 1million is going to be significantly lower… but you and I or anyone know nothing of the games overheads, the breakpoints or there cashflow dynamics… you are simply trying to play the doomsayer and white angel all at the same time.. whilst armed with nothing but baseless facts and sheer guess work.

One thing we do know about overhead and breakpoints is that the whole GW-GW2 server design was about minimal costs and scale ability. As far as server costs go, it is pretty much a one player costs X times amount of online players. This was the core reason why a.net devs quit WoW and started their own thing, because they figured out how to make a free MMO.

Leaves employee costs, which is still low considering a.net is a mid-size firm.

I’m not making their balance, but I’d wager they can be a very healthy company with far less active players than any other MMO on the market. Don’t forget GW1 was thriving as a relatively obscure cult MMO.

I can only agree with this post… though no company large or small, is immune to market forces… but unless the OP has all the actual facts, rhymes and reasons to his/her disposal.. making such threads is really nothing more than heresay… then again every MMO forum has them being reeled out over and over I guess.

That’s my point. I’d have never made this post, if I hadn’t seen two or three posts asking if it’s dying. Well, no one really knows…but we have “some” indication. If it was really dying, you wouldn’t see them hiring. There’s NO percentage in hiring a staff for a dying game. The situations where that would be acceptable are pretty kitten rare, particularly in gaming.

No one knows but conclusions can be drawn from things we do know, and things we see. But I’m kitten tired of people making stuff up. If you’re going to say the game is dying (and plenty of people on these forums have), then at least show some evidence, other than all my friends left the game.

We don’t know everything, but there is at least circumstantial evidence that the game isn’t dying. How well its’ doing, no one can say, but dying?

That’s why I made this post in the first place. As an answer to those people.

Well I am saying neither to be honest Vayne.. simply because I prefer to base where possible off of facts rather than fiction.

Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against your reasons to post, this is a forum, a place to air your views and opinions but in doing so expect counters and disagreements.. which judging from your responses I believe you have no issues with unlike many others who post on these and other forums.

But one thing you might be surprised to find is that actually many companies, especially medium to large ones will actually go out and recruit when things have began to head south in the financials… the investors have likely put a lot into making this game come to fruition and if it had/has/might hit a poor patch so soon after launch ANET, NCSoft and their investors will put effort into turning things around before it spirals out of control.. of course there will be a point of no return but not this soon after launch.. look at SWTOR again.. it was miserable 3 months in and within 12 months its F2P with lots of recruitment over the ensuing months in a bid to turn the game around, appeal to a different demographic and counter some of the market trends… they could of said “oh well we made a shed load on the record box sales.. close the servers and move on”

Hopefully GW2 is no where close to that scenario anyway, and like others have said here the company has a decent track record of understanding their place in the market.. GW1 was a clear success, yes run on a meagre budget but popular and profitable for many years, nothing thus far suggests to me that GW2 won’t follow suit, albeit with the occasional bump and grovel scenario along the way.

Mackdose.6504:

To answer the topic question:

The game is clearly doing well. After 7 months, AoC, WAR, SWTOR were basically dead, with very few people playing content on a regular basis compared to what we have now in GW2.

I still find consistent numbers at off-peak hours, which is a pretty reliable indicator that the game is well populated. There are still several major kinks to work out, but I knew that was going to be the case going into the game when I pre-purchased it a year ago. MMOs take time to mature, and this game’s mechanics are new relative to the stagnant design MMO players have had to deal with post-WoW.

GW1 started off good and became great. I have no reason to doubt that this game will do the same. It’s just going to take some iteration, and iteration takes time.

I agree with you, the game is young and no where near the polished product I would imagine ANET / NCSoft envisage.. but after “x” years of development the company has to start making a return on its investment… so the powers that be in the money departments push to sale.. but behind that decision they will almost definitely have an action plan of content releases.. most of which will already either be ready to implement or close to.. this is what all MMO’s would do from launch because it buys them time to design and develop the next batch of small expansions/mechanics but at the same time allow them capacity to bug fix. It also allows them time to evaluate their needs and resources internally as well as externally.. ie they may need more support infrastructure or hardware resource etc, etc… better to tread lightly and carefully unlike what SWTOR did and just push out the whole hog from the off based on box sale success.. man those hundreds of servers were sooo empty so quickly .. virtual ghost towns after 3 months

Thus far the company has been busy keeping us busy with new stuff on a regular basis but I would hazard a guess much of this was already penned in t0 a calendar release schedule… maybe the Guild Mission stuff was something out of sync but its relatively light content if you think about it.

My point is, in response to the OP.. there is no evidence to suggest this game is doing well, or not as yet.. only snippits to say the box sales have been good… so was SWTOR’s.. a record for a AAA MMO if I recall.. its what comes after that’s makes the game viable over time… I have seen nothing to suggest this game is either flourishing or dieing.. so I opt to ere on the side of caution until such times as “the truth will out” comes into play… but to base assumptions on nothing more than “I think, so its true” and job adverts is a bit to…. thin on facts for me

Though I wonder.. if ANET came back and answered the OP with " it’s unfortunate but the game is not doing as well as we hoped".. what difference would it make to us.. similarly if they said " the game is doing super, were expanding and making loads of money of all you people"… what would we all do then – - > nothing we would simply carry on playing the game as usual

marnick.4305:

Bloodstealer.5978:

Yes you are using nothing but speculative numbers in your argument.. and what you fail to understand is even if there are a million players left the concurrent numbers of logins based on the 1million is going to be significantly lower… but you and I or anyone know nothing of the games overheads, the breakpoints or there cashflow dynamics… you are simply trying to play the doomsayer and white angel all at the same time.. whilst armed with nothing but baseless facts and sheer guess work.

One thing we do know about overhead and breakpoints is that the whole GW-GW2 server design was about minimal costs and scale ability. As far as server costs go, it is pretty much a one player costs X times amount of online players. This was the core reason why a.net devs quit WoW and started their own thing, because they figured out how to make a free MMO.

Leaves employee costs, which is still low considering a.net is a mid-size firm.

I’m not making their balance, but I’d wager they can be a very healthy company with far less active players than any other MMO on the market. Don’t forget GW1 was thriving as a relatively obscure cult MMO.

I can only agree with this post… though no company large or small, is immune to market forces… but unless the OP has all the actual facts, rhymes and reasons to his/her disposal.. making such threads is really nothing more than heresay… then again every MMO forum has them being reeled out over and over I guess.

@TwoBit

Exactly….
Even if GW2 had 3million players all logged in at the same time… only the powers that be know how much is being spent through the casshop.. which aside from a box sale, is the only source of income for GW2.

I would like to think that the box sales have at least by now allowed NCSoft to hit their break even.. so as long as the cashshop stays healthy and people feel their is value in the game, then there will likely be a decent profit being made each month… but when it starts to level out or dip (and yes it will continue to find its plateau during its first year) that’s when things might begin to change… at the moment we are very much in the bait and hook stages… retention over a longer period of time is the crux of a game like GW2, especially as the competition in the marketplace is also doing all they can to attract and retain …some will fare ok, others will scrap by and hope for better times, others will fall into maintenance mode and then there are some who will close their doors and wish they had listened to what the players really wanted

GW2 might very well be “casual gamer friendly”, but if suddenly the 2/3 of their active players took a sabbatical to play other games or walk away from GW2 that has a knock on effect throughout the game should it continue for a period of time, it has to have.

However the OP or anyone else is simply guessing based on their own speculation… and it normally begins when someone logs in and struggles to find a group or see anyone out in the wilds .. then the games population must be crashing and its DOOMED … closely followed by the naysayers stating their server is fine, they have no issues getting groups, they get new guild member everyday the game is growing… etc etc etc – both could be right, both could be wrong.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Xia.3485:

clay.7849:

It may, but it may not. Your point? Casual = limited interest. How can you argue that leads to more money? Oh, that’s right, you can’t.

You are having a tantrum aren’t you? Sorry. We should end the conversation before you get more upset.

By the way, the real money in gaming is now in casual games and cash shops. Its not for nothing failed mmos go free to play. But hey, if you want to believe otherwise its your right.

Proof? Links?

EVE seems to be doing quite well…

Eve is doing well, but last I checked, they didn’t have half a million subscribers. I’m guessing at least that number of people are playing Guild Wars 2 right, not daily but over all. And yes, it’s just a guess.

But if a couple of months ago they hit the 3 million market, and 2/3s of those people have stopped playing, you have a million people left. And more people do come to the game all the time, because we’re constantly getting new players in the guild.

A game can exist quite happily on half a million players or even less, and still make a profit. If Guild Wars 2 keeps getting better (and to many of us it is), then it’ll be here for a long time to come.

Yes you are using nothing but speculative numbers in your argument.. and what you fail to understand is even if there are a million players left the concurrent numbers of logins based on the 1million is going to be significantly lower… but you and I or anyone know nothing of the games overheads, the breakpoints or there cashflow dynamics… you are simply trying to play the doomsayer and white angel all at the same time.. whilst armed with nothing but baseless facts and sheer guess work.

If the game is enjoyable for you then why do you need to seek clarification if the game is thriving or not currently and why even bother comparing it with other MMO’s with other business models behind them….. you lack any kind of informative facts from which to base this from.

Many MMO’s over the years have failed, not simply because they were sub based or “pay to play” but because the global economy has changed, the marketplace in which they are sat has expanded in all directions and us gamers have so much choice available to us…. every new launch sees a wave of players come and go. Yes there are also some that were just incredibly bad or poorly managed etc, etc but please…. P2P, B2P, F2P.. all of the different models have their pro’s but at the same time they are all able to be effected by the same cons…. in fact many MMO prefer to offer a choice now of how you wish to play.. sub or F2P…
Every game will also then have its collection of white nights and cash shop whiners and every MMO has a person or persons who seek feel compelled for some reason to write threads about the games rise/demise.

If your really interested in ANETS or other MMO’s grounding then write a letter and enquire to them or look out for their quarterly reports etc (if they have them)… until then go enjoy the game and quit writing this nonsense.

Vayne.8563:

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

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

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

http://www.arena.net/

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

As much as I think SWTOR is awful for many different reasons…. to say any game is doing poorly because of layoffs is nothing more than pure heresay.

For starters any new MMO will have a large development team leading upto and for a wiles after launch … mainly on contract and once that contract is due then those people are either moved onto other things or become surplus to requirements.. the game needs internally change after launch and many positions are simply surplus to requirements.. nothing new in that and if you actually looked at the Bioware/EA job sites you will see that actually at almost the same time there were a whole host of new positions being recruited. Sure SWTOR has had issues bedding into an aggressive, overladen industry, the fact its gone F2P might indicate that (but even then that’s not a gimmee either).
Simple fact is you are speculating doom in one hand and speculating success on the other.. using nothing more than your own opinion based on nothing more than news clippings and job adverts… you know nothing of what is happening internally at any of those companies you mention including ANET…. business is a fickle thing and best left to those armed with the facts to control and comment on.. if they feel they need to.

Vayne.8563:

zenleto.6179:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

zenleto.6179:

I think of charr more like gnolls, to the point I even named one Gnoll Steakcutter. Anyone play DDO? The Black Citadel is reminiscent of the Burning City, though a hell of a lot prettier, and the Burning City was a dungeon.

Is DDO any good? Always wanted to try it, but Eberon (or however it’s spelled) was kind of a turn off. Whenever I see the Citadel I always think “Death Star”.

If you want to see REAL greed in a cash shop,. play DDO. What a P2W piece of garbage. The original game was quite okay, but the company is mega greedy. Anyone who plays that game and doesn’t fork out lots of money won’t be playing for long. Turbine is a bad, bad company. They should not be allowed to get involved with an MMO.

Lol Vayne, it’s not that bad. But it does have a different feel to Anet’s shop. Greedier? Possibly but I haven’t really compared the two. I spent a fair bit of money on it though…

Any game that’s P2W is just bad. Really bad. They do, however, have elves. But they also make the best choices and races a pay option, and limit you to not doing certain dungeons unless you pay.

Early on in the game, there’s one item that’s a shuriken that returns to you. It’s lovely. The only problem is, you have to buy that dungeon to play it go get that specific, very useful reward. On top of that, I’d already paid to play the monk profession that uses it. I have a friend who plays that game. The amount of money he spends on it is outrageous.

It really is that bad.

I have played DDO since early beta in EU… I paid subscription until the game became DDO Unlimited as have most of my guild… can’t recall ever spending a penny in the Turbine cashshop under duress and have gotten pretty much everything I could and upgraded most things to Epic sets etc…
The business model is nothing like P2W.. but it has to make money like any other F2P game.. so certain content is paid for, just like this will be .. sooner than you think… what you are getting at the moment is the appetiser, the cashshop is already becoming a P2W carrot cake here… .. once players have enough resources they will simply buy Legendary weapons, buy the Karma sets etc, etc.. then when the content dries up so enter the paid expansions.. what we get at the moment are merely snippits of extra content that was likely already piped into the process prior to launch, just needed tweaking.

As for Turbine, I think you will find they have pretty much laid ownership to decent F2P game models and many games could take a leaf out of their books. That being said I don’t tend to opt for F2P options anyway.. with the exception of GW1/2 but that’s why ANETS model is also fine, because it caters heavily for more casual gaming habits… I took a 6month sabbatical from DDO to get into GW2… but now find myself logging back there already, albeit on the F2P model (Premium) and sure, a few of my toons of certain classes are shelved and some content areas will need to be bought (if I choose not to resub) but hey.. you can still get to lvl 20 and gear up more than effectively with F2P and also earn Turbine points in game in which to buy things.. you just need to be smart enough how to do it quick and easy… its not P2W though imo, but neither is it perfect … its merely a business looking to make a profit because long gone are the days when we could buy a game and that was that.. box sales serve to keep the shareholders happy when the break even point gets surpassed.. cashshop keeps the game going it keeps the content coming and it keeps people in their jobs no doubt.

legion.7518:

You guys haven’t commented on what I said about the Charr and Asuran races. I don’t think anyone can deny that most people really don’t like to play those races. This game just doesn’t have enough cool races. People want to play epic characters, and that means being a race that you think is cool. Look at WoW, a lot cooler selection of races… blood elves, night elves, orcs, dwarves, goblins, etc.

Then why did you ever leave WoW for GW2.. its kinda obvious its not floating your boat.
I have been a DDO player since the start of time.. but even in a game so rich in Tolkienesc fantasy world Elves are far from the stand out race. I grew up in a time of table top fantasy gaming and Tolkien books, all of which were/are great but GW1 and now GW2 don’t need such similarities in lore and classes to be able to hold its own against the plethora of other MMO’s.. and as for WoW… oh please don’t ask for this game to be just another WoW clone gone bad… you wanna play pandas go back and play panda’s.

I will add I don’t really go for Char in GW2, I find them mind numbingly slow and encumbersome but they fit the scene in many ways imo.. just not my preferred race… I guess we all have favourites.
What GW2 really needs more than races is a better camera system so that larger races don’t fill the screen when your in enclosed areas like Jum,p puzzles.. it kinda kills the desire to play a large race for me, hence why I prefer Asura … but even then the armours etc need way more improvement to make them that much more enjoyable for me.

Bottom line, lets fix what we have first then consider options like new races and Lore advancement.

Ermmmm… give up and take it to a specialist … you clearly lack the basic competency imo.

I would seriously not even let you wire a plug up… By the time I got to the end of your postings I was expecting to read something like the CPU was still getting to hot so I cooled it off with a glass of water….

First Rule of Pugging – Always expect…. the unexpected!
Second Rule of Pugging – Always ensure you have learnt rule no. 1

To make you go do something else for a change … here’s hoping that they mess with all the timers and make them more randomised

As RNG based rewards seem to be an evil for the loot envey brigade .. I suggest NCSOFT/ ANET propose a new way forward for this game.
No longer need to dream up new dungeons, openworld events and no need to dice roll rewards… lets just have 1 map with a start point and an end point that is moved each month.. everyone just has to run to the endpoint, click the TP symbol and pick 12 items then pay for them.
Then ANET can save on development and other associated costs, the lag and culling will become irrelevant, skills and traits no longer require balancing as the only thing that determines a players skill is their credit limits.
There will be no whines about grinding mobs, dungeons etc for the holy trinity of gear, there will be no whines from the hard luck brigade about loot drops not being guaranteed for them and the forums will become a place of tranquility, full of butterflies and daisies.

Maybe then at Christmas then can bring in a special event… the Christmas Present Hunt .. everyone who reaches the endpoint on the map before midnight on the 22nd December is teleported to the Evil Santa Shopping Mall where they have until midnight on the 24th of December to purchase as many items as their credit card balances can hold then ascend the NCSOFT Tower of Joy – seek out the Mysterious Chimney Portal, jump down it and land in a small dimly lit room.. as you move forward a you will see tiny box on the floor that begins to eminate a coloured light the closer you get to it… when opened the box reveals a new, highly sought after prize, the item of all F2P and P2P items… the Guild Wars2 Golden Credit Card with a shiny credit limit set by the purchase tier you reached in the event. This item is a new accessory type … “The Wallet” and a variety of infusions are also purchasable via the ingame store… increased credit limits, travel insurances, payment protection, interest free peiods (max 3 days), payment holidays… the card comes as standard with 93.7% APR, no interest free period and no insurance. Additional cards can also be purchased in game for a one offfee of $79.95 with a standard credit limit equal to that of the lowest purchase tier from the event.

There.. everyone is a winner… and not an RNG required!!

Why complain about something that …
a – Holds content that has very little to no in game value
b – Is quite clearly labelled as a risk item not a guarantee
c- Has a mechanic to control it that has been around since early table top days and quite possibly since the Arc
d – Is not forced upon you to do?
e – Oh yeah and has beaten to death across the interweebs repeatedly ever since the concept first materialised in online gaming…. or maybe people missed it.

Simple solution… if you don’t like RNG and can’t absorb the hits when it goes south for ya.. don’t keep spending the coin in order to chase down the unicorn across the otherside of the rainbow… cos if and when you finally catch it, you will likely find out its just a mule you got with some white spray paint over it and a toilet roll stuck on its head.
The game has to attempt to generate income streams, its not a charity so it places hooks inside the game…. if you choose to take the bait knowing full well that what you get is randomised then you have no grounds to complain.
These loot envey threads are nothing more than “I want, I want, I am entitled” – and when they finally get the golden ticket then they complain that something else isn’t fair again “boss chests being a typical example”
I really do wonder why some people buy games to play that are based around RNG mechanics.. yes everything in the game that holds consequence has a dice roll behind it, get used to it or go play some P2W game instead – or mayb e tiddly winks for the bigger kids instead.