Guild Wars 2

Jovel.5706:

Guild Wars 1 was what made me buy Guild Wars 2.

Let’s say a decade from now ArenaNet releases a Guild Wars 3, I can’t say I’d buy GW3 no matter how much they hype it and claim it’s “revolutionary and unique.”

Just imagine that Guild Wars 3 Manifesto. “Guild Wars 3 takes everything you loved about Guild Wars 2..” YEAH GOOD LUCK WITH THAT LOL

There wouldn’t be much of a game left, would there?

Vayne.8563:

Plenty of people thought Guild Wars 1 was grindy as hell…it wasn’t for gear. But the gear here, even though it’s BIS…it just doesn’t make that much of a difference.

I ground out multiple sets of Obsidian armor for various alts. I enjoyed very much doing that. But once I had that gear, my stats were still exactly the same as the guy who had the cheapest set of gear. And I thought that was revolutionary, and a very, very good thing.

Skill and imagination made that game so much fun to play.

Having better numbers than someone else just because I had more time to grind out some gear doesn’t make me a better player. Which is what I hated about all those other MMO’s.

Gah…I don’t know why I bother. I’ve said this a hundred times on these forums. ArenaNet aren’t trying to make a good game. There’s no pride or prestige in anything in GW2. It’s all fluff, or bought with the credit card. And always will be. I don’t think they’re going to change at all.

And I’d be willing to bet that the next time there’s a sharp dropoff in players, they’ll add more tier gear to grind…

darkdomino.9578:

milo.6942:

darkdomino.9578:

milo.6942:

darkdomino.9578:

GW1 was one of the buggiest, most shallow games I’ve ever played, and I’ve played it since 2005.

Terrible voice acting. Terrible story… Thousands of fetch quests and a dull, lifeless, poorly rendered game world.

I would never go back to GW1. Even with GW2’s many flaws, it’s still a vastly superior gameplay experience.

gw1 gameplay > all

Here’s an idea… Maybe play GW1 then?

Or do you like playing games you don’t like?

Help me help you man.

I do play GW1, thanks anyway.

You do realize you’re on a GW2 forum right?

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to compare and contrast GW2 with GW1 on the GW2 forum. In theory, at least, they’re related.

Jeahanne.5209:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

AFAIK, when you reach a craft level, you can craft any weapon/armor under that crafting profession provided you have the materials.
Example: You can craft weaponsmith orichalcum weapons as soon as you reach 400 weaponsmith.

I am interpreting this as:
it will take 2 weeks to max a crafting profession(say weaponsmith) to 500 and say you are using greatsword & sword/axe, you’re done right there as long as you have the mats, you may craft all 3(they are all under weaponsmith). Now you need another 2 weeks to max your huntsman and another 2 to max artificier, so depending on what weapons you use, it may take 2-6 weeks to finish your ascended weapons.

Of course that means you will also need huntsman500 for your speargun or artificier500 for your trident.

If they make it time-gated and it takes 2 weeks for 1 weapon, then arenanet has lost a customer, a fan and a possible investor.

If it wasn’t time gated, you’d complete it in a day, get your weapon, and then complain about a lack of content.

As someone else stated before and I agree with them:
“Additional weapons, armor, trinkets, ect., should never be considered ‘additional content’.”

Additional content for me is something PLAYABLE, not force-farming (or forcing daily log-ins to save up account bound items to eventually make something). For me, legitimate content constitutes: dungeons, storyline, living story, events, holidays, new maps, and new cities, among many, many, many others.

Having new gear of any kind, including weapons, be used as new “content” is inexcusable to me. You should not have to spend months of your life getting a full set of gear in any game. This is especially true in this one, where upon launch it was supposed to go AGAINST the idea of having to constantly grind to have “best in game” gear.

Crafting in the game has NEVER been time gated until the recent addition of Celestial gear, which I only put up with due to it’s fairly ridiculous stats (+’s to everything almost made up for the time-gating, but not quite. I still don’t own any and don’t see the investment in time worth it.) In fact, I’ve always applauded this game for not having as much of the REQUIRED grind as most games. The multiple avenues and non-time gated ability to earn the things you wanted in the way you wanted has always felt freeing to me in an industry of games where the norm is to be thankful for the RNG giving you ANY chance at ANYTHING even half decent, and most of the time the good stuff would still end up being from cash shop lottery boxes of some description, and having best in game gear is a requirement since ALL worthwhile content is end-game. That isn’t what this game was intended to be as described when it was released, and forcing a time sink into the game like time-gating really does go against what the description of this game is when Arenanet released it.

This is the game that was suppose to “end the traditional view of MMO’s”. It was the “WoW killer”. I have no problems with updating gear so we can have better stats, and I LOVE that legendaries will finally have the ability to get the stats people need instead of literally all of them sporting identical ones. However, time-gating it is just a poor excuse to force people into throwing more hours into a game that we all are willing put time into anyway. If we weren’t we wouldn’t be here already playing this game and putting our voices out there on forums.

So please Anet, don’t shackle us to a game we already tied ourselves to voluntarily, or you’re just shooting yourselves in the foot. Don’t start making this game into what it was supposed to be ending. If you want to know what GW2 should be, watch your own manifesto.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that, no one finds that fun.”
Colin Johanson

To reference another now-famous quote…does grinding and timegating for gear equal “preparing to have fun”?

It occurs to me that, in the first year of GW2, I went from being one of ArenaNet’s biggest fans and supporters to one of their biggest detractors.

That’s quite an accomplishment

Tengu.4209:

Chuo.4238:

zeromius.1604:

Bacon.4918:

Strongly against the vertical progression system to be introduced in the upcoming patch.

It was introduced back in November. Once the Ascended armor is added then maybe they’ll stop there.

Maybe. I’ve got better things to do than wait around and see. Besides, forevermore, the shadow of more tier gear will taint this game. It could happen anytime.

And after the PR smoke and mirrors of the first year, ArenaNet could come out and explicitly say (they won’t, but if they did): “We will never add another tier of gear beyond Ascended,” and I wouldn’t believe them.

Aside from Legendary (which the Tier has been in the game forever, which offers no stat advantages) there won’t be anymore. Ascended was in GW1. I would actually be kinda shocked and sad if they didn’t ever add it to GW2. In GW1 it was made to be a big deal, after you got it you felt the affects agaisnt Agony. When I saw that Agony was added, I KNEW (as should anyone that played GW1) that Ascended was going to be a deal.

I don’t recall Ascended gear being in GW1. Your character could be Ascended, which was something that just happened as you played the storyline. All it did was give you access to FoW and Underworld. It had nothing to do with gear.

There were no gear tiers whatsoever in Guild Wars.

And Spectral Agony in GW1 was a rather different thing than Agony is in GW2.

Edit: I still can’t work out why the OP was infracted. It makes no sense to me. I thought these forums were for feedback, yes?

zeromius.1604:

Bacon.4918:

Strongly against the vertical progression system to be introduced in the upcoming patch.

It was introduced back in November. Once the Ascended armor is added then maybe they’ll stop there.

Maybe. I’ve got better things to do than wait around and see. Besides, forevermore, the shadow of more tier gear will taint this game. It could happen anytime.

And after the PR smoke and mirrors of the first year, ArenaNet could come out and explicitly say (they won’t, but if they did): “We will never add another tier of gear beyond Ascended,” and I wouldn’t believe them.

milo.6942:

Zacchary.6183:

Oh mai gawd! This game is not like GW1!!!!! /ragequit

Not so much a ragequit as a drawn out realization that you bought this game on hype and promises of more of the unique guild wars gameplay you loved but it’s turned out to be generic mmo spoonfed content with time gated gear tiers and cash shop business gimmicks.

Like a really-slow-dirge quit.

I kind of like the way you put that…

milo.6942:

Whatever they reveal, prepare to be underwhelmed.

So is anyone underwhelmed yet?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chuo.4238:

Kyrel.8942:

You can do all PvE without Ascended. You don’t have to play catch up.

Oh. Well. Dang. That makes it all good, then. No need to get it…

Um. Why, then, is it there?

To be gotten.

. . . seriously, if you’re going to agree on that point there’s no reason you require it? It’s only there right now to be had.

In the future however . . . well, nobody knows. Because we can’t tell exactly what’s coming, only that Ascended gear is going to be available. With Infusions and Agony Resistance included, to note.

Infer what you will.

I’d rather have a dungeon, or a new PvP map, or even a pastry. Anything with more imagination than gear grind. To be had? If it’s there at least there could be a concrete reason to need it.

You know what’s funny?

I bet ANet are surprised by the negative response. Again. After 10 months…

Kyrel.8942:

You can do all PvE without Ascended. You don’t have to play catch up.

Oh. Well. Dang. That makes it all good, then. No need to get it…

Um. Why, then, is it there?

rjnemer.7816:

cesmode.4257:

Such a horrible move for the game. So disgusted right now. Done.

This gives me a good opportunity to continue playing some other games.

Why? Everything in this game is either given to you or you are hand held all the way there.

IMO the only way to get ascended weps should be fotm 48.

Enjoy that mindless, repetitive grind, then. No reason to engage the brain. Just do the same thing…48 Times.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Lindsey mentioned this in the video, but I thought I would as well. A lot of comments I saw worried about grind and what not and how it was going to take them a month or more for their asc weapon. But she explicitly said it would take two weeks to get a weapon.

I honestly don’t see why its such a big complaint at the ascended crafting if its only 2 weeks. Amulets can take a month!!! If you don’t obtain laurels through achievement chests.

That 2 weeks is exactly why, mate. It goes against everything that Guild Wars ever was. It cheapens commitment. It’s a lazy development tecnique. It supports time-based grind. It slaps skill in the face. And it tries to convince you that your free time is less important than the shiny skin. To say nothing of fun.

That 2 weeks is exactly why.

cesmode.4257:

Such a horrible move for the game. So disgusted right now. Done.

This gives me a good opportunity to continue playing some other games.

Yep. I gave GW2 most of a year. It’s gone from bad to worse. The spirit of Guild Wars is turning in its grave. I’d apologize for my harshness…but ANet deserve it.

Nick.6972:

So now, after they add new Ascended Weapons, I’ll have to not not only buy Transmutation Stones but also spend who knows how long time crafting Ascended Greatsword to make my Foefire’s Essence useful again?

Yep. Enjoy your grind, and welcome to Grind Wars 2.

vincecontix.1264:

PvE wise I dont think new ascended gear will be a problem my main concern is the effect it will have on WvW. My suggestion would be to keep the new ascended gear a pvE thing only and upon entering WvW the gear would be scaled down to exotic stats. I know that lots of wvwers current builds are based on using ascended trinkets so that would remain the same.

People have been saying this for ten months. ANet doesn’t care.

Only 2 weeks.
FAIL

Ascended gear has killed this game. It went from potentially epic…to niche. Way to go, ArenaNet.

Vol.5241:

I think Saturday’s announcement could be, in order of likely to happen:
-GW2 ‘raid’ content
-GvG
-new WvW map
-new class

I think so, too. I’ll betcha a gold piece, though, that it’s some new grind…

Sirendor.1394:

Hey all, I held a survey and finished it yesterday (with a variety of questions about the different game aspects). The data has been collected and uploaded to this forum thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Survey-Scores-of-GW2-UPDATED-DAILY/first#post2729450) aswell as a number chart.

Here it is, hope it helps you discuss things and helps Anet to see the player’s wishes.

I’m not going to comment on your questions, as some have already done so. I think it’s a fine effort, and I, too, am interested in what you’re trying to get at.

The only thing I’d add is that 100 people is very most probably not statistically significant compared to the GW2 population as a whole. Also – you’re only getting the opinions of the sorts of people who read the forums – the numbers of whom, I strongly suspect, are not even close to the total population of players.

I don’t think there’s a solution to this unless you can find a way to query a statistically significant random cross-section of the entire player-base. I’d imagine only ArenaNet has the information to do so.

Sirendor.1394:

No harm done. Discuss along. Would just be nice if ArenaNet itself held a community-wide survey that everyone was forced to fill in. Saves us all the work :P

Yea but then if something negative came out of it, they couldn’t just blame it on the haters…

I don’t see them doing that. Even if it would be good for them to know how to improve things. This game is more about perception than reality.

I wonder if Mr O’Brien has even played GW2. From what I read, I’m not playing the game that he’s talking about…

Rosen Myst.7641:

From Sirendor: The story however is so weak that it barely conceals the fact that arenanet is just throwing a random item at you and asking you: play (=farm) for 1 week more and you can have it! People finally see this and ask themselves “why are we doing this?”

I really identified with this statement. It does feel like we are given a to-do list which will keep you busy for a week and then you get a reward at the end. But for me that desire to get the reward is fading. I only did enough invasions to complete the Scarlet instance. I don’t care about the tonic. I’m one of those oddballs that does enjoy the story in a game; unfortunately in GW2 it seems secondary to the achievement based activities. For me one of the best events was Bazaar of the Four Winds. It had so much potential for a really interesting story especially with the crystals having a tie to Glint:

From the Trek of the Zephrites: I write with some confidence that once we leave this forsaken desert landscape, I will never return. It’s everything we are not: inhospitable, lifeless, and cruel. We’ll take her to a resting place with fresh breezes and gentle sunshine. She deserves nothing less.
She was as old as the Shiverpeaks, older than the gods. None will ever hear her true name spoken properly. And so we will remember her only as Glint, the one and only dragon who fought the destruction of our world. While we live, she will never be forgotten.

Good post. Really good post.

cesmode.4257:

Major Reveal at PAX: Now you can earn a new tier of gear….called..TRANSCENDED GEAR. One piece of gear per quarter(thats three months folks), and will cost you 75 laurels, 75 ectos, 75 mystic coins, and 75 obby shards. Each.

Kidding.

lol good one.

What’s really funny is you might be right, and not know it

I’ll read about it here, no doubt, but I have no intention of logging on. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but I think that this is probably the nail in the coffin for me.

Vayne.8563:

The problem is, if they change this game so you like it, I’d probably not like it. lol

I strongly suspect that there are ways this game could be improved for both of us. And a few other folks around here, too.

Zero Day.2594:

ASCENDED GEAR WITH TIME GATING IS STUPID FOR MILLIONS OF REASONS.

balance,builds,alts, CasualsVSgamers,grouping, picking up the game again,……….

Starting to think, mate, that they don’t care about those reasons. We’ve been beating that drum since November. I think they’re working some “keep ’em grinding and buying gems” profit strategy. It’s certainly not about fun.

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

But if people weren’t enjoying it, most at least probably wouldn’t log in. And since I’m on overflows for a week or so after each update, I have to assume people are logging in.

If they’re logging in and not enjoying it…that’s just sad. I’m at least enjoying myself.

Sort of off-topic, but I do know people who don’t like it, get upset about X, Y, or Z, yet still log on every day. I hear them complaining on our community TeamSpeak server (where a lot of us play various games). Kind of blows my mind, too. I have asked: “why do you play this if you don’t like it?” I’ve never got an answer that makes sense. Glad we agree on something btw…

Ok back on topic – sorry bout that little flight of fancy

Yes, I’ve seen the same thing about WoW. Both my kids playing it, and complaining about it…but complaining about something doesn’t mean you don’t like it, or at least that you’re not getting something out of it.

I guess I’m weird. When I realize that I’m more annoyed than happy with an activity, I generally stop doing it. In this case, I’ve stopped doing it, and am throwing my opinion all over the forums in the hopes that ArenaNet does something, because I want to like it. But that’s looking more and more like a pipe-dream.

Vayne.8563:

But if people weren’t enjoying it, most at least probably wouldn’t log in. And since I’m on overflows for a week or so after each update, I have to assume people are logging in.

If they’re logging in and not enjoying it…that’s just sad. I’m at least enjoying myself.

Sort of off-topic, but I do know people who don’t like it, get upset about X, Y, or Z, yet still log on every day. I hear them complaining on our community TeamSpeak server (where a lot of us play various games). Kind of blows my mind, too. I have asked: “why do you play this if you don’t like it?” I’ve never got an answer that makes sense. Glad we agree on something btw…

Ok back on topic – sorry bout that little flight of fancy

Elbegast.6970:

Erasculio.2914:

Elbegast.6970:

After reading that article, I am angry, disappointed, confused and very uneasy about the future direction of the game. I probably shouldn’t have read that article. I would be much happier right now.

Oh, it gets better. Read this:

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=32955&storypage=1

See my signature for a preview.

After reading that article, I’m not sure that Mike O’Brien is playing the same game that I am.

I’m wondering the same thing.

A direct quote:

“The philosophy is we came out with a game that is not about continual vertical progression and gearing up for one raid after the next. Our game is about going out into the world and taking on challenges together. We even have the inverse motivation against having that continual gear grind as it would separate players so they wouldn’t be able to do these things together. If there is a dragon attacking in the open world, with a vertical progression would it end up being too easy for some people and too hard for others?
Our big focus then is to give people more horizontal progression, different things to accomplish and rewards from accomplishing those things.” (italics are mine for emphasis).

What does that even mean? Inverse motivation against having that continual gear grind? This game is buried in gear grind, and if you don’t grind it, you’re less powerful than the people who do. How is that not vertical progression?

This whole interview looks like a lot more of the same hype, smoke, and mirrors to me. 12 months after launch, same old same old.

/sigh

There goes the last of my hope for this game…

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Gehenna.3625:

Oh crap, just when I thought I found all 3 threads about this, there is a fourth one….lol

Numbers without context are what people want them to mean.

I’ll give a couple of example.

It’s about the first year. “Fastest selling MMO” is fastest MMO selling in the west in the first NINE months since release as calculated by a company that was asked by Anet to do these numbers. Take that for what it’s worth.

460K concurrent users (at one time)…Yep when the game came out. Great spin to advertise with that a year later when I think we all know it’s nowhere near there anymore.

So GW2 has got some big numbers, but what they actually mean? Well, it means one thing: Anet is advertising their game, that’s what it means.

I think we’ve learned since GW2 released that ArenaNet is all about hype and spin, implying one thing, and delivering another.

Your analysis is, sadly, probably accurate.

You mean the same as all companies? Every single one? I concur.

I still remember Rift, rather than closing servers, giving everyone free transfers off them and then switching them to test servers. They didn’t merge servers though.

Yep just like any other company out there. I think the mistake a lot of people made (myself included) is to think that Anet were different in that. GW1 was completely different, they spoke to their fans on forums regularly etc. but it was silly to think that they were not a company wanting to make money. Perhaps at one time….but a lot of the original staff isn’t there anymore. Things change and that’s sometimes hard to accept lol.

Sure, but…

1) just because many or most do it, doesn’t make it right, and
2) there are lots of companies out there that actually try to live up to their hype and make a good product, and take professional pride in what they do.

So what you’re saying here is that it’s wrong for companies to put stuff in the best light possible (ie advertise) and that Anet isn’t trying to live up to its hype or take professional pride.

Imagine that you have 300 people working on a product. Do you think all 300 people are going to be exactly the same. You don’t think some of the people at Anet have pride in their work?

Anet isn’t a person…it’s a company. You can’t put 300 employees into one basket. You can’t even say they have no pride in their game or they’re not trying to live up to the hype.

What they aren’t doing is living up to what you think the game should be. That has nothing to do with them living up to what they think the game should be. And with 300 employees on board, what makes you think that all of them have the exact same ideas of what the game should be.

Take ascended gear, which was introduced into the game. Was everyone at Anet in favor of it? Does anyone know? Was anyone there at meeting to know if any arguing happened? Does anyone know what was discussed.

There’s a great danger in painting all Anet employees with one brush or generalizing about Anet employees in general, much less trying to kitten how much pride they have in what they do.

Even in a much smaller business that I ran, I had tremendous pride in what I did, but I had to hire a specific number of people, with a specific budget. On any given day, depending who was working, different people might make it look as if that place had no pride, because one person did the wrong thing, or made the wrong decision of the wrong thing happened.

The more people you need to employee the more likely it is that you’ll need to employee people who are less qualified than the original people. It’s like customer service. If you need 1000 people, you’re not like to get 1000 first class technicians. If you judge a company based on the first guy you get on the phone, you’re going to be disappointed.

I think you make a whole lot of assumptions about Anet that are based on your specific prejudiced on how you want the game to be.

lol I said no such thing. Nice try, though

It’s certainly implied. Read what you wrote again and look at it…particularly this:

“2) there are lots of companies out there that actually try to live up to their hype and make a good product, and take professional pride in what they do.”

You’re at least implying Anet isn’t doing this. If not, you had no reason to post what you did. In doing so you are personifying the company, because each individual at the company might or might not have pride. The company itself can’t have pride, because it has no consciousness.

I know what I said, and what I implied. My point was, you put some words in my mouth.

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Gehenna.3625:

Oh crap, just when I thought I found all 3 threads about this, there is a fourth one….lol

Numbers without context are what people want them to mean.

I’ll give a couple of example.

It’s about the first year. “Fastest selling MMO” is fastest MMO selling in the west in the first NINE months since release as calculated by a company that was asked by Anet to do these numbers. Take that for what it’s worth.

460K concurrent users (at one time)…Yep when the game came out. Great spin to advertise with that a year later when I think we all know it’s nowhere near there anymore.

So GW2 has got some big numbers, but what they actually mean? Well, it means one thing: Anet is advertising their game, that’s what it means.

I think we’ve learned since GW2 released that ArenaNet is all about hype and spin, implying one thing, and delivering another.

Your analysis is, sadly, probably accurate.

You mean the same as all companies? Every single one? I concur.

I still remember Rift, rather than closing servers, giving everyone free transfers off them and then switching them to test servers. They didn’t merge servers though.

Yep just like any other company out there. I think the mistake a lot of people made (myself included) is to think that Anet were different in that. GW1 was completely different, they spoke to their fans on forums regularly etc. but it was silly to think that they were not a company wanting to make money. Perhaps at one time….but a lot of the original staff isn’t there anymore. Things change and that’s sometimes hard to accept lol.

Sure, but…

1) just because many or most do it, doesn’t make it right, and
2) there are lots of companies out there that actually try to live up to their hype and make a good product, and take professional pride in what they do.

So what you’re saying here is that it’s wrong for companies to put stuff in the best light possible (ie advertise) and that Anet isn’t trying to live up to its hype or take professional pride.

Imagine that you have 300 people working on a product. Do you think all 300 people are going to be exactly the same. You don’t think some of the people at Anet have pride in their work?

Anet isn’t a person…it’s a company. You can’t put 300 employees into one basket. You can’t even say they have no pride in their game or they’re not trying to live up to the hype.

What they aren’t doing is living up to what you think the game should be. That has nothing to do with them living up to what they think the game should be. And with 300 employees on board, what makes you think that all of them have the exact same ideas of what the game should be.

Take ascended gear, which was introduced into the game. Was everyone at Anet in favor of it? Does anyone know? Was anyone there at meeting to know if any arguing happened? Does anyone know what was discussed.

There’s a great danger in painting all Anet employees with one brush or generalizing about Anet employees in general, much less trying to kitten how much pride they have in what they do.

Even in a much smaller business that I ran, I had tremendous pride in what I did, but I had to hire a specific number of people, with a specific budget. On any given day, depending who was working, different people might make it look as if that place had no pride, because one person did the wrong thing, or made the wrong decision of the wrong thing happened.

The more people you need to employee the more likely it is that you’ll need to employee people who are less qualified than the original people. It’s like customer service. If you need 1000 people, you’re not like to get 1000 first class technicians. If you judge a company based on the first guy you get on the phone, you’re going to be disappointed.

I think you make a whole lot of assumptions about Anet that are based on your specific prejudiced on how you want the game to be.

lol I said no such thing. Nice try, though

Tachenon.5270:

Gehenna.3625:

That they sold 3.5 million copies is amazing. They were also lucky I think, because the game came out just before all those other MMOs introduced f2p to their games. But it’s ok to be lucky. No matter how anyone turns it, selling that many copies is a great feat. In fact that’s probable the only number that I will support. It’s a very clear number that can’t really be misinterpreted.

Guild Wars 2’s initial blush of success was pretty much guaranteed by the folks who played Guild Wars. I’d say a fair portion of those 3.5 million copies were snatched up by manifestly misguided Guild Wars players, who were expecting more of what they loved about Guild Wars in Guild Wars 2 than what they actually got. How many are still here?

It would be interesting to see the ratio of former Guild Wars players to players who didn’t play Guild Wars among the currently active players. It would also be interesting to know which of these groups is most happy with the current state of the game.

Standard Disclaimers ~

‘Fair portion’ does not mean ‘all’.
In my opinion, this post presents my opinion.
‘Interesting’ in this context means ‘interesting’.

To this I’d add: ratio of GW fans who bought GW2 to GW fans still playing GW2. No way to figure this out, though it’s an interesting thought.

AndrewSX.3794:

Long short story:
-game launched too early, regardless of all the “When it’s ready claims”.
Not only bugs, but overall design of some areas of the game (DGs, WvW) have/had a very noticeable rushed or uncompleted feeling. On the other hand the launch time has been perfect from a marketing standpoint – over this year no decent/fearsome MMOs launched. MoP was catering a different audience to begin with, and the only MMO lanuched in past 12 months has been Neverwinter, which isn’t anything special. Also, i guess they rushed August on purpose to have Sept to sort out game stability and then start pushing with events with Halloween/Wintersday combo. I guess delaying the game would have meant skipping at very least to Jan to keep that couple toghether.

-game overall have a GREAT potential. But too many good things have been scrapped from GW1. Some design choices turned out backfiring into a worse solution than what they meant to resolve(i hate trinity with passion. Gw1 soft trinity – healers on 2 set classes, everybody else is nearly free – was perfect to me. was quite hyped about the 0 trinity of GW2. But now it turned out in something worse, especially pve wise.). Some issues lies in very early game building decisions(who is the “genius” who decided to utilize Gw1 engine instead of a modern and better optimized/coded one?).

-and on top of that, devs failed to deliver post launch imo. Playerbase has been hardly listened(Wxp accbound? PTR?). Some bugs are still around since BWE1. Balancing around tpvp hurts the rest of the game, badly (and even in tpvp balance isn’t good at all). After some tries they simply dropped the ball over permanent content, at least so far in 2013 – just look at DGs, had Fotm in November, AC revamp months ago, then DG team got cut away in favor of LS. And i think everybody agrees that DGs are far from polished and balanced decently enough to do not need a dedicated team.

At the end, ppl still play (and still post here, even if not playing anymore or with a angry attitude) cause the game is not bad. But you can see what it could have been. Much, much bigger and better, 360°.

“Wasted potential” makes ppl much more angry than a simply “bad game”.

/end rant
/all imo
/contains hyperboles

For what it’s worth, almost exactly how I feel. +1, if anyone’s counting these things.

Gehenna.3625:

Constructive feedback is as much about form as content. At the same time, replies often are at fault for making sure the thread becomes non-constructive.

I absolutely agree. Saying “this sucks” or fingerpointing and namecalling are pretty well pointless. There are obviously a number of posts just like that, or are pretty well empty of anything constructive. All they do (for me, anyway) is identify the poster as somebody not to take seriously (side note: like it or not, spelling and grammar play a big part in this also, non-native English speakers excepted).

I think, however, there is a lot of discussion going on around here, both positive and negative towards GW2, that’s perfectly reasonable and rational. Several of the “negative” threads going at the moment are quite enjoyable reads, with only the occasional kneejerk post interspersed.

I think the idea is for people to say what they like, and what they don’t, and ArenaNet to get a feel for what people think, and take that into consideration in the future. Or if not ArenaNet, someone else who may be paying attention

Charak.9761:

We’re still playing because we’re hoping one day, just maybe, anet will notice their mistakes and the game will be wonderful, until then mundane task over and over and over again.

Agree except for the “still playing” bit. I probably log in once a week for 10 minutes to chat with some people. That’s about it. I certainly don’t play. I haven’t since several LS releases ago. Nothing has tempted me to leave Lion’s Arch in quite some time.

phiplayer.2865:

I find this thread funny with all the haters trying to mock the game as hard as they can.

And i find this funny too, because of people (mostly haters) aske anet to show off their big numbers. And now, when we got the answer, people:
-don’t believe them,
-think those are advertisments,
- that they are too small,
- that even with alive, healthy, think that community of this game is dead.

You know what i’m going to tell you ?

You are wasting your time, dear hater. Go do something for christ sake, by posting in this thread you didn’t gain anything. And if you think that your efforts damaged, somehow, GW2, you are totally wrong.

How is this not hating?

Sirendor.1394:

phiplayer.2865:

I find this thread funny with all the haters trying to mock the game as hard as they can.

And i find this funny too, because of people (mostly haters) aske anet to show off their big numbers. And now, when we got the answer, people:
-don’t believe them,
-think those are advertisments,
- that they are too small,
- that even with alive, healthy, think that community of this game is dead.

You know what i’m going to tell you ?

You are wasting your time, dear hater. Go do something for christ sake, by posting in this thread you didn’t gain anything. And if you think that your efforts damaged, somehow, GW2, you are totally wrong.

In response to this comment, the only thing I can do is sigh.

Criticism is something developers are supposed to learn from and should be grateful for. It means there are people who care enough about their game, that they are willing to spend time to shout out what they like/dislike/think should be improved. There isn’t a single comment out there that is completely made up out of negative criticism, they always state what might be a good solution to the problem, which in turn should – theoretically – help the developers.

I’d also like to add that if you think this isn’t an advertisement on Anets part, you are terribly naive.

Absolutely. Many companies (and other organizations) pay consultants a lot of money to get solid consumer feedback that they can work with. So many companies would love to have a way to get that feedback without having to pay for it.

ArenaNet gets it for free. And, from what I can tell, treats it rather like some of their customers did getting a bunch of the same free minipet.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Gehenna.3625:

Oh crap, just when I thought I found all 3 threads about this, there is a fourth one….lol

Numbers without context are what people want them to mean.

I’ll give a couple of example.

It’s about the first year. “Fastest selling MMO” is fastest MMO selling in the west in the first NINE months since release as calculated by a company that was asked by Anet to do these numbers. Take that for what it’s worth.

460K concurrent users (at one time)…Yep when the game came out. Great spin to advertise with that a year later when I think we all know it’s nowhere near there anymore.

So GW2 has got some big numbers, but what they actually mean? Well, it means one thing: Anet is advertising their game, that’s what it means.

I think we’ve learned since GW2 released that ArenaNet is all about hype and spin, implying one thing, and delivering another.

Your analysis is, sadly, probably accurate.

You mean the same as all companies? Every single one? I concur.

I still remember Rift, rather than closing servers, giving everyone free transfers off them and then switching them to test servers. They didn’t merge servers though.

Yep just like any other company out there. I think the mistake a lot of people made (myself included) is to think that Anet were different in that. GW1 was completely different, they spoke to their fans on forums regularly etc. but it was silly to think that they were not a company wanting to make money. Perhaps at one time….but a lot of the original staff isn’t there anymore. Things change and that’s sometimes hard to accept lol.

Sure, but…

1) just because many or most do it, doesn’t make it right, and
2) there are lots of companies out there that actually try to live up to their hype and make a good product, and take professional pride in what they do.

Palador.2170:

Brimstar.9036:

Please, take a step back and look at this game compared to every other MMO out there and how they treat their community. This company listens to their community much more then others and are quite transparent with what they can be with.

This makes me want to laugh, bitterly.

Hi. I’m Palador, and I’m a former long-term player of City of Heroes, which was run by Paragon Studios. THAT was a group that knew how to work with their community to improve their game and actually make friends. And then, one Friday, NCSoft came in and fired everyone. The next big update which was pretty much ready to go was never released to live servers. Game servers shut down 3 months later.

I don’t intend to take this out on ANet, even though they also work for NCSoft. However, NCSoft IS the reason I don’t hold back on what I say to them about what’s wrong with the game. CoH and Paragon Studios were just the latest in a series of games that NCSoft has killed off and swept under the rug, never to be seen again. GW2 could very easily become their next victim.

They don’t get nice from me because they can’t afford it. If they don’t meet whatever goals NCSoft has dreamed up for them, then one morning they’re going to get the ax so fast that ANet will have no chance to split off to become its own company. The game will disappear, and that will be that.

If someone’s playing with fire, you don’t kindly suggest that maybe they might want to consider precautions to avoid getting burned. You either yell at them, or you grab some popcorn and grab a seat to watch.

For the record, and whoever’s reading…I feel exactly the same way.

Wildstar looks interesting. I won’t be playing it. Why? Because of NCSoft’s treatment of CoH, and what’s been going on with GW2 lately.

Although this post does shed some light as to why ArenaNet might be behaving the way they have been…

Ravenmorghane.9287:

So really it boils down to one query from me:
If this game is really so bad then why are you people still playing ? It makes the forums less enjoyable for players like me who genuinely like the game.

I’m glad someone is enjoying the game. I wish many more were, but as you can tell, ArenaNet have lost quite a lot of goodwill and faith from many onetime fans.

Honest answer to your question:

I’m not still playing. I was a GW fan for years, and so had high expectations of GW2. I still come here to express my opinions about GW2 in the hopes that my voice, along with many others, will be heard by ArenaNet and they start making the game into the one they implied we’d get.

After the past 10 months (last November was the first time I had much negative to say about GW2) I’ve come to the conclusion that ArenaNet have their agenda, and it doesn’t include making positive changes away from grinding, zergs, poor storytelling, good community interaction and relations, and the like. It does include trying to wave that gem store in as many faces as possible.

So at this point, my voice is no longer for ArenaNet. It’s for the next small, up-and-coming studio that’s paying attention to what’s going on here, and learning from it, as ArenaNet should be, and aren’t.

Gehenna.3625:

Oh crap, just when I thought I found all 3 threads about this, there is a fourth one….lol

Numbers without context are what people want them to mean.

I’ll give a couple of example.

It’s about the first year. “Fastest selling MMO” is fastest MMO selling in the west in the first NINE months since release as calculated by a company that was asked by Anet to do these numbers. Take that for what it’s worth.

460K concurrent users (at one time)…Yep when the game came out. Great spin to advertise with that a year later when I think we all know it’s nowhere near there anymore.

So GW2 has got some big numbers, but what they actually mean? Well, it means one thing: Anet is advertising their game, that’s what it means.

I think we’ve learned since GW2 released that ArenaNet is all about hype and spin, implying one thing, and delivering another.

Your analysis is, sadly, probably accurate.

What bothers me is that people have been saying all this since November…and guess what? We’re getting it anyway. I think all they really care about is how to milk as much out of as many credit cards as possible. This isn’t about making a good game. I’m starting to wonder if it ever was.

kitten shame to see another once-brilliant, imaginative company sell out its core principles.

But hey. I don’t have to play it. And anymore, I’m not. No desire to have anything to do with time-gated gear grinds.

I used to post my disappointment here in the hopes that ArenaNet would learn from this. I’ve lost all hope of that. Now I’m hoping that some up-and-coming studio is learning from it, and makes a good game.

I’ll cheerfully spend money in a good, fun, engaging game. I’m sure as heck not going to spend it on gear grind.

I don’t know about killing builds at all. Some may change, but I’m sure it’ll just make them more powerful.

It’s certainly killed my will to play however, to say nothing of my will to play an alt.

cesmode.4257:

Hi,
So I am thinking of taking a break from the game for my own reasons to which I will not get into.

If I take one or two months off and come back…will I be “behind” in terms of ascended armor and weapons? I mean, I won’t have all the charged quartz and whatever other T7 materials that are to be released.

Will I be behind everyone else, or can I come and go as I please without fear of missing out, being behind, or gear being out dated…like people once told me I can.

Yes. You will miss some of the Living Story achievements, also, which you will never, ever be able to make up. So if that’s important to you, and you take a break, there’s not much point in coming back.

Enjoy the free time and sunshine

I don’t see a conspiracy theory here, but I do see a very ill-timed decision by ArenaNet to release Mini-Pack II of minis for sale, around the same time as a birthday.

If they’d thought about it, they might also have realized that giving people a bunch of the same, account bound mini as a birthday present, given their history of making them variable and tradeable, would cause a ruckus in the community.

Apparently they thought about neither of these things, and clearly not the effect that doing them around the same time might have.

Which tells me that they’re still waaaaaaaaaay out of touch with the playerbase, and mostly everything they implement seems like a rush-job with minimal thought care put into it.

For GW2? Neither.

Nothing in the gemstore is worth it, and I wouldn’t pay a sub to play this game.

My preferences in general, however, lean towards subscriptions. I just want to play a good game, and if that gives developers the breathing room to make one, and quit shoving ridiculous cash-shop stuff in my face, then that’s what I want.

I’d cheerfully pay a sub for a good, classy game.

Why did this thread get moved to “Queen’s Jubilee”? Character/account birthdays can happen at any time, and have absolutely nothing to do with Queens Jubilee.

Mods – suggest you move it back to where it came from.

I’m thinking that I’d just rather see them make an entirely new game, and that could be in Cantha. I don’t think I want to see my beloved Cantha in GW2, as an expansion, or otherwise.