Guild Wars 2

BobbyStein.2315:

Thalador.4218:

BobbyStein.2315:

Zin.1673:

The character is indeed voiced. Did you ever played your personal story ?

Warning: nerdy devspeak ahead!

The player character (PC) hasn’t had new voice recorded since the game launched, so you’ll only hear your character speak in the following circumstances: conditional chatter, in cinematic conversations in the Personal Story, and in painterly “full” cinematics. We retired cinematic conversations with the Living World, so right now the PC can only “talk” through unvoiced dialog trees.

We’re exploring some technical improvements that may allow the PC to speak under new circumstances, but it’s actually a bigger undertaking than one would imagine due to the complexity of player voice implementation (10 possible voices, currently shared lines of dialog that we want to split out, scene timing per language, etc.). That’s about all I can say at the moment.

In short, we’re looking to make the PC speak again, but it’s going to take a bit of time to redo the code and content pipelines to make it work, not to mention updating our tools to allow us to generate PC lines that deviate based on race & gender, prior accomplishments, etc. We’re not ready to announce what those changes will actually be or when they might be deployed, but we’re seriously looking into it.

As always, thanks for playing.

Fun fact: SW:ToR had 8 classes with entirely diverging storylines and was and is still fully voiced. With the two genders that means 16 possible voices, with split lines of dialogue (usually 3 choices).

Actually, I’m not saying that you could’ve pulled off something similar as you didn’t have EA’s financial backing (although by not ditching quests for events and cutting down the ridiculous amount of ambivalent dialogue that in 90% of the cases is all about the everyday, boring lives of a zone’s denizens you would’ve had way more resources to concentrate on giving voice to the person who matters the most in an RPG: the PC… my 2 cents). However, I’m still waiting on a branching storyline where my choices matter, I have more than one line of dialogue, and which incidentally also takes my character’s personality, origin, species, and gender into consideration.

For you, the game should be about the PC at the expense of the open world content and ambience. For me, and for Guild Wars 2, it’s about the world as a whole since it’s a cooperative, shared environment. Neither approach is wrong, but we decided to put more of our resources into bringing the world to life. I don’t regret that at all.

There are some among us who want to feel some sense of importance to character planning. It could be as simple as having a text box to put some background story, it could be as weighted as having forking text branches. The impression I’m getting from the last two years of playing this game is there are too many unraveled and unfinished threads.

There are some among us that want to experience deeper lore and exploration, and be rewarded with some sense of history and context. That’s largely absent. Take for instance the ruins of the dwarves, is there anything to discover? No. You have a couple headstones. In Lion’s Arch there’s a placard serving as a memorial to those who died. What does it say? Nothing more than a description of what the sign says – no actual details. You can’t say that you guys have spent time fleshing out the open world when in two years time, 2.25 zones have been released. And those zones are shallow compared to the vanilla ones. What about the 30+ minigames? What about Order quests and events?

The open world is completed by our choices and what things interest us. To ignore that is to ignore any chance at meaningful content, open world or not. The two groups are not exclusive.

During the launch time ego boosting your company said you were wanted WoW’s throne. Let’s do a simple comparison. Count how many dungeons, count hearts and events as quests – do you think that Guild Wars 2 actually has the same level of content?

Tamias.7059:

I saw this on the front page of reddit today. I don’t think it’s actually a real Henry Ford quote, but the spirit applies here.

Then log off and don’t offer anymore input. ArenaNet will take it from here.

A few thoughts on this…

First, I totally agree with you on the content delivery of this game. I was a huge Guild Wars fanboy, whose heart was broken when they announced it would stop. I had hoped to see more lands in the game, more stories. Guild Wars 2 was announced and its initial release was ground breaking for me. It resolved the frustrations of the first game and renewed my hope to experience more of Tyria. Then ArenaNet announced no expansions and here we are today. This game is no where near what I’d it be like at the 2 year mark.

I don’t get the business model and I get the feeling NC Soft and Daewoo may feel the same way. They’re selling fluff, not content. I guess that may change when they start Living Story episodes. It’s not like people don’t want to buy an expansion, yet they won’t sell stuff like that.

To your point about Wildstar – it’s a better game in most respects. If you’re looking for a more traditional (see, complete) MMO, that’s a better bet. I played it for the first month but computer couldn’t handle it at more than 25 fps, so I quit. Really saddens me, because the game was fun as heck. Guild Wars 2 shines in its pick-up and play mentality but Wildstar’s first patch added more content in one month than Guild Wars 2 has in two years. Is it the business model? Who can say?

Im Mudbone.1437:

Schtizzel.5497:

TheDaiBish.9735:

phys.7689:

well, it kind of is, every programming language we use is a tool created by a programmer to automate or make it easier for a user to create outputs. But the question really is, does it matter?

A programmer will use them languages to create a program. For example, Microsoft creating Windows.

If the user uses that program to make a change in the code, that doesn’t necessarily make them a programmer. For example, changing the colour scheme of the desktop.

The person has changed the code, but it in no way makes them a programmer.

Going back to the previous example, the programmer makes the program for the user to use in order to create and edit the number component of skills.

The user enters the details of the skill (Name, description, range, coefficients, activation time, channel duration ect) and clicks a button that creates that component of the skill.

However, they didn’t actually do any programming in the sense of writing a program, or coding the skill. The program they used did all of that for them, and therein lies the difference.

Now, if Mudborne was talking about programming in the sense of altering how the skill works i.e programming it’s attributes, they’d be right.

However, they specifically mentioned about altering the code. Using a tool such as that to alter the code, when the person doesn’t have any interaction with the actual code itself, is not programming.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter on our end. At the same time, they made a comment about how they don’t think the programmers are qualified in a discussion about balance, without fully understanding how the balance teams go about balancing and altering skills. If you don’t need any programming knowledge to do that job, it kind of makes his comment wrong.

So you wanna say that for example editing my own website with the help of a wysiwyg html editor (because I lack knowledge of an actual programming language) isnt actually programming?

IMO, I call that pre-programed programing, if that makes sense.

I think the term you’re looking for is configuration – retool existing code/programs to meet a new requirement. You’re not creating a whole new API or whatever, but you’re making a new product from one.

sirflamesword.3896:

Boneheart.3561:

It is complete. Dry Top was always this small.

If it’s complete then the Zone name and level needs to be moved on the map because it’s not centered. Most everyone who noticed this(including me) expect more of Dry Top to be opened in the coming releases (although it still won’t be the same size as any other zone in the game).

I’m hoping that’s the case, I really I am. The zone so far has the hallmark craftsmanship of the other zones, it feels incomplete in comparison though.

Boneheart.3561:

Destai.9603:

Falathar.9215:

my thought on the LS season 2:
“that’s a bit…. dissapointing… for that much of a wait”
what are your thoughts?

I was excited to see the new zone, thinking it’d be huge and complete. Nope. I should have known better.

It is complete. Dry Top was always this small.

No hearts. No world bosses. One champion. Two waypoints. It’s a tiny corridor, nothing more.

Swami.4691:

So I bought GW2 back in 2012 when it first launched, but due to personal reasons I was only able to play for a couple of days. I’m off school for the summer and my dusty copy of GW2 is still sitting on the shelf…

Comments on youtube videos have been generally positive, and a solid majority of the people rolling in recommend giving it a try.

I played a lot of LoL over the past year, year and a half, and while it was fun I’m completely burnt out now. I played WoW during vanilla, heavily during TBC and quit like a lot of people did after Cataclysm. I came back for about a month or 2 for Mists, but after so many years staring at the same graphics, I feel like my WoW days are – for the most part – behind me.

The resounding consensus on TESO (a game I was looking forward to) is that the game is bugged all to heck and not currently worth the money. And Wildstar is just not my flavor.

Would it be worth giving GW2 another shot? I basically just want to know if the leveling experience is good and if the game is still fun to play. The last piece of my new PC arrives today and I definitely want to try this game on full blast (highest settings) because the graphics look great. Would you guys recommend a total noob jumping in at this time?

Always a good time to start. The game has plenty of QoL features and the core gameplay is definitely worth experiencing. I play this and WoW now – I feel you on Wildstar – and they’re two very different games. Both can be fun, but don’t expect this to scratch every itch WoW did.

Arantheal.7396:

Actually I like the new content.
Yes, its not really much, but promising for the next bi-weekly updates.
The desert-style is exactly what I’ve always missed in gw2, I like how the weather (sandstorms) decides which types of mobs spawn while other seem to hide. And having high – climbable cliff-sides, together with dark, claustrophobic canyons and caves is purely awesome. I can’t wait for the map to expand or lead to new, wider areas.

About the story itself, welp who doesn’t hates scarlet, not as villain but her mere existence. Then again, Sylvari are Mordremoths prime target so I guess its fine that the first thing we met (and luckily kill) is a freaked out sylvari, while discovering more tracks of scarlets corruption.
The mission-mechanics were improved as well. Still the NPC’s are kinda “over our top” with an illusion of being incorporated by dull questions from time to time. I guess for hardcore rpg’ers thats a definite immersion-breaker, but for my taste it was good enough. The real improvement seems to be that they started to actually fight with us (instead of standing around and clapping each others shoulders), and have useful skill rotas that support us, even with actual mob-cleanage, while not completely “stealing our show”. The little combat-breakers were nice as well, where you could see kasmeer and marjory forming a bone-bridge and a portal. It now feels like I would lead an actual “guild” (like Destiny’s Edge), instead of babysitting the AI. Good job on that front, a-net.

The cons are the following:
- Too long NPC dialogs. While I like to explore every last detail, most players will get seriously bored by them. I know you like your story and stuff, but please go back to your former dialogue-system (like in dungeons/ personal story) and give people a skip-button. you would get happy faces all around. Also you could bring back the original synchron-speakers of the races and give our main-character – us – finally a voice again. Ty.

- Another, yet pointless meta-event. Why would the Zephyrites loose the track on our reputation by them, just by a sandstorm? It is really dull, please get rid of it or replace it in the following manner:
-all merchants have all items offered to all times for rank 4 prices.
-the old meta-event is gone.
-the new meta-events offers a valuable loot-collection, and a definite number of picks depending on which level got completed.
- to increase the level, do the already existing event-chains.
- The new theme is to actually help the zephyrites who are stranded and threated by nature ( and inquesture), instead of being “judged” by them if you’re “worthy” to see their “special” prices.
c’mon, this is seriously dull and makes no sense whatsoever.

Anyways, all combined together, I feel good about this update.
It has its cons, but definitively also strong points on the pro-side that are promising for the future. Keep it going a-net.

It’s thing like this that drive me nuts about ArenaNet – they come so close to releasing something and then back away because they can’t/won’t implement something as standard as reputation. We don’t have rep with the Orders, with the Cities, and now the Zephyrites. There should be a point where we can keep our Zephyrite skills, rep would be a great way to facilitate it.

Falathar.9215:

my thought on the LS season 2:
“that’s a bit…. dissapointing… for that much of a wait”
what are your thoughts?

I was excited to see the new zone, thinking it’d be huge and complete. Nope. I should have known better.

Iason Evan.3806:

I have been pretty critical lately and wanted to offer my sincere thanks for finally adding a wholly new zone to the game. Thank you!

Explorers haven’t been exactly drowning in content and this is a really nice addition to the game. Awesome!

My thoughts exactly!

Rieselle.5079:

Whilst GW2 never had the disastrous launch that FF14 had, nevertheless it was a disappointment to many people and never lived up to its true potential, nor the legacy of the first Guild Wars.

The shame of it is, GW2 is not a terrible game, which means there’s little incentive to fix the very serious and fundamental problems the game has. FF14 was a total wreck, and that was enough to force Square to bow their heads and remake it into FF14:ARR. Sure, you may or may not like the type of game FF14:ARR is, (I don’t, really) but from everything I’ve heard, it’s fulfilled its potential and the people that like that kind of thing really think it’s a great game.

Now that we have “Living World Season 2” coming, it’s maybe a good time to think about an expansion pack or reboot, that really FIXES the problems that have been there from day 1.

Sure, you might care about these things less or more or not at all, but I’m pretty sure everyone agree that “There’s room for improvement here.”

- Combat needs an overhaul.
Currently GW2 is an unhappy hybrid between action games and MMOs.

On the action side, the mechanics are too shallow, and there isn’t a proper risk/reward system in place. Even something as simple as “Powerful attacks and defensive skills use endurance too”, would mean that you have to make the difficult choice between using your endurance on offense, or saving it for dodging/defense. Rather than just hitting every skill on cooldown 90% of the time.
Also, too many of the traits are passive, minor and invisible. It would be much better if (like Diablo 3), choosing traits produced visible and game-changing alterations to how some of your skills worked. (eg. The elementalist trait Evasive Arcana is a good one.)

On the MMO side, there isn’t much depth in the way players cooperate in battle at the moment. Support skills are usually PBAoEs, that encourage everyone to stack on a single point (which is silly on many levels) and there aren’t any meaningful Roles.
ANet needs to rework a lot of the skills and traits so that they have strengths and weaknesses that depend/interact with your team. For example, give each class some support skills (ie. skills that heal/benefit others) that are very strong, but have a casting time that is interrupted by any attack. Then add more skills to every class that can knockdown/knockback the enemy and create projectile shields.
So, without pigeonholing any class to a role, we can allow players to build defensive and supporting roles, in addition to the usual offense.

There’s a whole bunch of other stuff, but I’ll just list them quickly since it’s already a wall of text.
- Enemy AI also needs a lot of work.
- Some fundamental features are missing from PvP and WvW – Like observer mode, build templates, etc.
- The metagame mechanics of WvW is quite broken. When the best rewards come from karma trains rather than epic combat, your Epic Combat mode is not designed properly.
-The personal/living story system, and the story of the game, is not sustainable. Personally I think it would be much better if you weren’t Saving The World, and instead Personal Stories could be shorter episodes about your character, like “My quest to find my sister who was captured by a circus and the adventures I had along the way.” There’s a potential for a huge variety of such Personal Stories, whereas you can only really Save The World a couple of times before it gets really silly.

Anyways, time for a reboot.

They need to reboot – they need to knock off LS. It’s a waste of time and resources. The game as released was great – that’s what they need to continue doing. That doesn’t require a reboot. The stories could be broken into campaigns, by attacking the Elder Dragons. They need storylines for the Orders – they actually need to expand upon the foundation they set. The combat, of all things, is the best. The only thing they need to improve is actually giving classes more defined roles.

Aleglast.6027:

Destai.9603:

One of my friends recently returned to the game. He’s treating it like Skyrim – wandering the open world, gathering, making his own quests and goals, finding loot, and hidden places. It’s all there. That’s one of the best things about this game – its open world. At 80, it really opens up for you. Craft special armor for yourself, find your own adventures. I only wish this game would add more content – the vanilla game was amazing and I still love coming to it. We’ll see with season two.

That my friend, is a perfect definition of how to enjoy this game. And if you ever get slightly bored you can just go have some epic battles in wvw or test your skills in pvp.

Totally agree. I just wish they’d add a bit more RP stuff in the game to accentuate that. I don’t want this game to be about raiding – I want it to be about grabbing a few friends and exploring Tyria. If they can do that this season, all the better. I still love the world that released at launch.

Best
- Open World: amazing artwork and atmosphere in most locations, very memorable and satisifying to explore
- Combat: my favorite of any MMO
- Character creation: not the most exciting, but better than most MMOs
- Get to the action quicker, doesn’t require a day’s commitment to get meaningful play
- The UI has a lot of QoL features

Worst
- Lack of RP functionality or impactful character choices. Remember all those choices we were given during character creation? Don’t matter. Character history, non-existent. The choice of Orders doesn’t open any new storylines – totally a missed opportunity.
- Lack of new zones, storylines, etc. I would love to explore Deldrimor Front or north of Divinity’s Reach. Anything really.
- Lack okitten man instances
- Lack of new instances
- No Guild halls
- No player housing
- Storywriting

The part where it stopped was probably the most impressive.

Other than that, the flame and frost dungeon.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Destai.9603:

Wrong. People want an expansion because they want the game expanded. That’s what that term means. That’s its definition in this context. I don’t want an expansion’s worth of content – that’s just dancing around the subject. You can’t just dismiss the fact people are actually willing to buy an expansion, people actually want to see more than 1 new zone.

That’s what the term means in the barest of definitions.

But we’re speaking of an MMO and players of MMOs who have very distinct expectations with what an “expansion” should hold. Less than that, it’s a failure of an expansion and a sign of the game dying.

There is a set of expectations which comes with the word “expansion” which is why ArenaNet only used it once in the games it released – for Eye of the North.

I think the generally agreed upon definition, is more zones and content. They’ve a way of meeting those requirements with something no one wanted. They need to open up more zones, more instances, more weapons – see what I’m getting at here? Who disagrees that’d be an expansion?

Nerelith.7360:

Draknar.5748:

Nerelith.7360:

I recently re-activated my account, and am having a pleasant time playing the game.

This is about as far as anyone ever gets going back to WoW. You recently re-activate, play a few weeks maybe a few months if you really have some willpower, then realize why you stopped playing in the first place. I’ve been there, all of my friends have been there, practically everyone I know that has “gone back to WoW” has raved about how great it is going back, then 3 weeks later they’re all playing single player games or LoL and talk about the latest MMO that’s coming out that is going to be the next big thing.

Why is this the reaction of people here at GW2? EVERY time I happen to mention that i am playing WoW while monitoring the goings on here, they feel compelled tyo point out.,." Oh she won’t be there long" or are you the same person that said the exact same thing about me On another thread a few weeks ago? It is almost as if some players feel they need to reassure themselves that " WoW is not worth it for anyone. If a Player leaves Gw2 to return for WoW, it cannot last long!!!!..They WILL get bored….they WILL Return… or they will play some single player game…or they will play another MMO!!!!!"

why???

Well umm..it’s a few weeks later..and Umm..I’m still having a great time at WoW. See what people that are always saying " it won’t last long" fail to say is….

Games change… some games improve, and some games get worse.

While I may have come here FROM WoW, there was a reason. Now I went back… and that is also for a reason.

WoW wasn’t as good when I left it as it is now. It is better now than it was when I left.

GW2 WAS good when i started here…then it got worse in MY opinion, defenitely less enjoyable. What I enjoy about MMO’s is Not viable in gw2, it IS In WoW, so i went back.

FACT: I consider it a better deal to pay a $15 Monthly to play World of Warcraft than play THIS game for free.

THAT should be a warning.

Anyway, I continue monitoring because I enjoyed Guild Wars. I like what it did, fact is i also re-activated my account with Guild Wars. That should ALSO say something.

I do hope that Anet gets it’s head out of the sand…

I’m in the same boat as you. I’m playing WoW and Wildstar, relegating Guild Wars 2 to ‘check on’ status. That’s really the great thing about the game. I can pop in whenever. Guild Wars 2 is sorely missing the reward structure that the other games have.

Omg its Tina.4872:

In other games I’ve played, my favorite archetype was a tribal, spiritual class. I was really disappointed when there wasn’t a profession that filled that roll in GW2. I have every profession to level 80 (excluding warrior) and none of them just don’t have that outlook of a shaman/seer.

We have almost every archetype: your typical warrior, sneaky thief, wizard, holy protector, etc. However, we’re missing an archetype that deals with ancestral spirits.
Some people would say that necromancers fill this niche but it’s not the same at all. Necromancers mainly manipulate and force the dead to do their bidding, while a spiritual/shamanistic profession would call assistance or be granted power from their ancestors.

I know they’re working on LS2 but I just hope one day they add that kind of profession.

Anyone else feel the same?

Definitely would be behind this. I’d make a norn shaman any day.

A R W E N.6895:

So yeah, my daily thought…

Where is my high level end game rewarding content ive been waiting for so long?

Am I in the wrong game?

Yes. That’s the thing I came to accept and I started enjoying this game more. Fractals are the closest thing to it, and WvW is also pretty fun. If you’re thinking raiding, it’s just not this game. One of the best things you can do is make a character, get him to 80 and just explore the world. It’s beautiful, the events are fun. I know that’s not going to last you like raids will, but this game isn’t made for that. There’s people that have gotten thousands of hours out of this game. Truth be told, I have more hours in this game than I do in WoW. Believe me, I want this game to be a bit more traditional but it’s not going to happen. ArenaNet isn’t going to give me, and maybe you, the game we’re desiring. That doesn’t mean the game can’t be enjoyed.

Bolthar.7192:

Give The Vigil, The Priory and the Order of Whispers a job board with missions. Each season of the living story add missions that support the story and release with each living story installment. This alone would help to give a little more purpose to our alignment to whatever order.

Doing these missions would reward the player with rank points. Ranking up gives the player access to rewards from the orders quartermaster. With each season of the living story release a new set of armor and weapons that can be earned from each order.
———————————
Likewise it would be really nice if with each Living Story season, a new set of armor and weapons was released for WvW, PvP and Dungeons that could ONLY be obtained through doing that content. It would give players something to work towards by playing their favorite content over and over again.

Anyways, that’s my peace.
+1 if you like this idea, comment with opinions.

Stole my idea, stinker! I was just thinking this today. It’d be a great idea. There’s so much they could do with the Orders – story missions, dungeons, new skills, guild-type missions. I’m also thinking they could add content similar to the Paths in Wildstar.

CureForLiving.5360:

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Why do people see the need in trying to change the game into what they think they want?

If the game changed in a matter that they want then they might have more fun. This might not be true, some people might not know what they like, or the change might only be to their enjoyment. However since the idea exists the action follows.

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Why do people complain about the game so much?

It’s the forums, that’s what people do here. Happy people are busy playing the game.

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Why do people want mounts?

Probably bragging rights.

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Why can’t people let Anet do their jobs instead of trying to do it for them?
Why do people want to make this game into their old game?

Pretty much for the same reason as the first question.

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Why do people want expansions, When living story will add more content for free over time? https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

Expansion is a loaded word, they don’t so much want an expansion as much as they assume that a expansion will include the types of content they want.

Wrong. People want an expansion because they want the game expanded. That’s what that term means. That’s its definition in this context. I don’t want an expansion’s worth of content – that’s just dancing around the subject. You can’t just dismiss the fact people are actually willing to buy an expansion, people actually want to see more than 1 new zone.

Kodan, absolutely. I love their lore and would love to explore it more. It’d be cool to have more of the mountainous areas opened as a result of their introduction.

Hylek would also be cool – it’d be a nice throwback to the Froglok from Everquest.

I’m going to make the distinction between what I expect and what I hope for.

Expectations.

1. More achievements.
2. More rabble about the Destiny’s Edge replacement squad.
3. Some stuff about Mordremoth and how awesome the sylvari are.
4. SAB coming around in intervals
5. Maybe one new zone. It may or may not have hearts or jumping puzzles.
6. One or two one-path dungeons
7. More kitten in the gemshop.
8. Some balancing measures to ensure we’re not making too much money or getting too rewarded for our time.
9. More zerg content because ArenaNet hates role specialization or anything that remotely resembles roleplaying mechanics.
10. Something resembling fixing sign posts.

What I hope for

1. Multiple new zones, as good as or better than the ones in the base game.
2. A complete dungeon every quarter, used to advance the story.
3. A few new fractals.
4. Craftable precursors
5. New weapons, skills, and/or professions
6. New player races
7. The player housing district being expanded to allow for custom housing.
8. Guild Housing. (I’m dreaming, I know)
9. new armor sets
10. new world bosses

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Why do people see the need in trying to change the game into what they think they want?
Why do people complain about the game so much?
Why do people want mounts?
Why can’t people let Anet do their jobs instead of trying to do it for them?
Why do people want to make this game into their old game?
Why do people want expansions, When living story will add more content for free over time? https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

1. Because I’m a paying customer and I want to enjoy the game.
2. Because they released an awesome game with loads of content, turned around and said, we’re not going add content like this. Instead we’re given achievements. No depth is being added.
3. Why don’t want mounts? What about riding on a horse, moa, asura is unattractive to you?
4. Because they’re failing at adding of serious import. In the last year, we’ve been given one new zone. I want you to look at what other MMOs add in their patches and tell me if this game compares. It doesn’t.
5. Because previous games set standards and convention that should be followed. You shouldn’t remove basic roleplaying functionality. You shouldn’t remove role specialization. You shouldn’t remove larger group content. They didn’t build upon the lessons learned in Guild Wars 1.
6. You can either swim in a pool or have a backyard filled with glasses of water of an equivalent amount.

Bigsexy.8302:

Isairyu.5106:

All Is Good.
Man, if you can’t get money IRL, will you complain about it? Is it God’s fault? Goverment? Laws?
“Get rich or die trying” man…
This man from “I do dungeon everyday” like classic worker. Its ok. Middle class…High class…lumpens…
Easy money man. Easy.

With the big difference that GW2 is a game. Not kitten RL. People come here to relax.
Not sure if troll or just lack of active brain cells.

Sure thing they do. GW2 EU/NA is profitable, but not as much as they wish so they don’t care. And there’s the Chinese milking cow. Who would even go play Wildstar if they weren’t angry and gave up on Anet? They got their deals with NCSoft…

I play both because each has something to offer. When I want a more traditional MMO, I play Wildstar. It has more depth. When I want some drop in-drop out action, I come to Guild Wars 2. For me, this isn’t really the game I can log in every day anymore – after 4 80s, I’ve peaked. If Guild Wars 2 can come back from the Living Story mistake and release more permanent, meaningful content (zones, dungeons), that’d liven it up for me. However, Wildstar is offering multiple types of group content, quests (missed those!), and its fantastic housing. Guild Wars 2 can’t beat that.

nolij.4327:

making the game harder and nerfing gold farming methods accomplishes two things

1. people who are dedicated players who like to farm for stuff will quite, making server load lighter
2. people who aren’t so dedicated but still want gold will end up spending even more money on buying gold because it’s now impossible to make gold by playing the game

it’s very easy to understand these kind of situations once you face the fact that it’s all about the money

inb4 “omg how dare anet try to make money blah blah blah”

yes, anet deserves money for content. however, taking present content and making it harder is not content, and therefore not deserving of money.

it’s sad to say that i’m thinking about leaving too, for wildstar

Do it, you won’t regret it. I approached it with reservations after the severe disappointment suffered with this game over the last year. Wildstar’s what an MMO should be and is worth the $15 a month.

Maxite.6102:

Don’t want to throw out giant paragraphs, but the gold reward from dungeons seem awfully good. Maybe you guys at ANet already know this. But as a player I can say its easy to pass up other stuff just to make sure the daily “easy” dungeons get done.

I’m not an economist, but I’m pretty sure inflation is a thing. Thousands of gold entering into the world each day probably isn’t helping it retain much value. This makes the gap between dungeon rewards and everything else even seem much bigger, too.

Catacombs in particular seems like it pays way too much for how quick-n-easy it is these days. Between ferocity scaling down so favorably, FGS-rush/frostbow spam, the two mid-bosses being cheeseable (corner stack, no AOEs), and the end bosses melting, even a basic pug can clear all three paths pretty quick. – Maybe drop it to 50s, or fix the bosses. This might drive off the dedicated dungeoneers , but it might become a bit more low-level friendly as a result.

Sorrow’s is another standout. Path two and three are about right. But path 1 is silly. Actually, a good chunk of the late night LFGs are now people skipping Tazza, and farming bags over and over. For the most part is comes down to the end boss being fairly easy (or skippable), and there being no need to fight the trash mobs along the route. Not quite as easy as AC or COF, but the bag thing should probably be looked into.

Anyway. Overall the rewards seem out of proportion given the challenge/length to other stuff in the game. Maybe the internal data shows otherwise, but that’s my take.

(Might be nice to have an Emyreal sink or two. Those are piling up a a wee bit, too.)

Nope. I actually like being rewarded. ArenaNet has nerfed enough profitable avenues, let’s not tempt them to nerf more.

I’m in the same boat as you – I want to support this game financially. I want to buy content, but it’s not being sold and we’re being given speeches rather than content.

Seeing is believing.

nightzirch.3126:

After I wrote another SAB related thread yesterday, my creativity started flowing thinking of how awesome it would be to have a SAB (Super Adventure Box) leaderboard.

SAB has been a temporary “Jumping Puzzle dungeon”. As many of the other temporary dungeons in the Living Story, people have disagreed with the fact that Anet removes them after the LS moves on. I see the point of the Living Story, and I understand why there are temporary content, but to be it looks like SAB has been by far the temporary dungeon with the most work put in. As a jumping puzzle enthusiast, I think it would suck for this great content to only be playable for a short amount of time.

Relics of Orr wrote an article titled What Ever Happened to Dungeons?, which I thought was an interesting read. They barely touch upon the subject of temporary vs permanent dungeons, which is my point in this thread. I would love to see more permanent content. There is a well-known fact that players tend to get tired of the current end-game content. That goes for every MMO ever made. I understand what Anet is trying to do by not giving us the chance of getting tired of this content through making it temporary, but I do not think it is a good idea doing this for basically every Living Story patched dungeon. Granted, we have seen the return of the Aetherblades dungeon and Molten Facility as they were implemented in Fractals of the Mist, but to me it just dont feel the same.

My suggestion!
When the last planned patch of SAB ends, the dungeon cluster should stay, but with an added layer of PvP. As there are three modes (baby mode, normal mode and tribulation mode), there could be another called racing mode (in lack of a better name). This would be a single player mode with a timer that starts when the player can move and act like a stop watch with laps, showing the total time and the time for each of the zones completed thus far. The timer would stop when the boss of every level is defeated and the cage is opened.

Of course there would be a leaderboard! I took the liberty of making a few screenshots. (If clicking links are too scary, please see the attached screenshots below).
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2

By doing this, hardcore jumpers, like myself, would still have a challenge; the PvP. I did not like the “dumbing” down of Tribulation Mode last patch (excuse me if I step on somebody’s toes), as I felt things became too easy. Having a timer and the challenge of beating other equally hardcore players, I think would be a great addition.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Would a competitive approach to SAB be something you would be interested in?

Great idea! There’s so much they could do with SAB, and it all starts with leaving it in the game. There’s this educational feel to it, supported the NPC dialogue, and this could leverage to have seasonal content. “Courses” could be offered, such as PVP, or specific types of dungeons/maps. The possibilities are endless.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

It surprises me sometimes that for all the talk of converting gold to gems nobody ever offers the other direction as a solution. Enameled dyes can be bought directly using gems if you go through the exchange.

As of this morning the range is:

• Enameled Legacy Dye ~190 gems.
• Enameled Crimson Dye ~1100 gems.

No randomness required.

edit: Lol – Raistlan did the thing i said nobody did, beat me to it

Thanks for laying it clear – it’s all about getting us in that cash shop. Rather than sell it straightforward, there’s incentives and coercion to spend more money in the cash shop.

I was out in Brisban Wildlands – happy to see people out in these places again. I’ve long believed that the open world is one of the strongest features of this game. Anything to make that a more social experience is beneficial in my eyes.

Chase.8415:

Azure Prower.8701:

Chase.8415:

Meanwhile in other Major MMOs people are visiting community websites everyday to read up on possible information on a patch that will come several months from now.

Guild Wars 2 people are simply spoiled.

Or maybe when other MMOs release some thing. It is actually some thing substantial.

You mean like another raid tier where it erases all of your progress from the previous patch and you have to start the grind all over again?

No, he means like new dungeons, raids, instances, zones, etc. You know – content.

Zine.2136:

I am fairly convinced part of the changes the devs are making to the game with timers, megaserver, and adjustments that may have been done to the train the OP mentioned are to a purpose.

There is a wide world of other events that can be done out there. By doing some of these changes, I think the devs are trying to encourage a bit more spreading and branching out for play style. I find it hard to believe the devs intended trains and world event farming to be the end game or main play mode. Not saying it should be eliminated though, to each their own. But I do acknowledge the devs vision and steering the game helps set the atmosphere for the whole game in the long term and foster the type of community the devs desire.

What about fostering the type of community the player wants? I love seeing players come together and define a new endgame outside of the Fractals and Dungeons. That what makes this game special, players get to decide. The devs should be facilitating that and hampering the flow of players to a certain activity. If a lot of players are gravitating towards one area, analyze that and create similar content. That’ll support the game’s culture and keep players. Short of exploits, content should never get nerfed.

Tanith.5264:

shwan.3051:

WHY ANET? My only source of income is gone. Life is not worth living anymore. But seriously, this was not even clear in the patch notes. This patch went ahead without the approval of the community. I’m sure this is devastating to everyone! How can anet change something so drastic and not ask the community how they would feel about the train being removed. This change is so drastic, it needs democracy and opinions of others.

We want the train back.

I’m going to assume the OP was meant as a joke.

If not, then I’m sad for you. You have a huge, beautifully crafted game to explore which got a little bigger last night, and all you’re worried about is farming gold in one zone? Open your eyes.

Anet doesn’t need anybody’s approval for anything, it’s their product.

They need my approval if they want my money. They like their paychecks? Well, keep me happy in the game. If that means letting me farm, let me farm. For all their talk of tolerance and play your way, they sure have a hard time actually internalizing that train of thought. Maybe that’s another train that got nerfed.

shwan.3051:

WHY ANET? My only source of income is gone. Life is not worth living anymore. But seriously, this was not even clear in the patch notes. This patch went ahead without the approval of the community. I’m sure this is devastating to everyone! How can anet change something so drastic and not ask the community how they would feel about the train being removed. This change is so drastic, it needs democracy and opinions of others.

We want the train back.

ArenaNet doesn’t understand the very simple concept that people like to farm. I don’t get why this is so remiss upon them. They pulled the same crap in the first game and irked a lot of people off, they’re doing it again. Let people play the way they want.

I keep thinking about the two Skritt talking to each other about going into the sewers. I hope they survived.

Thanks, I got it taken care of by support. Quick turn around!

Two questions:

1. I’d like to change my email address associated with the game, how do I go about that?
2. Why is that option still not available under account management?

I was playing the game last night, doing a jumping puzzle, and that fuzzy feeling was there again. Thinking to myself, “This is why I play.”. The best thing a game can do is instill wonder. It’s that feeling that keeps me playing. Despite how I feel about the Living World, the core game is great. I love exploring it. Now that all of my characters are 80, I feel like I can focus on the fun aspect of the game, rather than leveling. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy leveling, but it’s nice to have no pressure. This game certainly rewards that, at least in its core game.

Chokolata.1870:

The point i was trying to make is: If there is good character development that furthers the story it is absolutely irrelevant if its a gay romance or not. I am not about to praise or condemn a relationship simply on the fact that it “raises gay awareness” or other such crap.

This is how I feel about it – there is a subtle push in the game for a lot of causes – we hear messages of diversity, togetherness, love across species, etc. I just want good characters, I don’t want a message forced on me.

Mortifact.3102:

Alright, let me start this topic by saying that I am gay and I am all about putting LGBT characters in gaming. That being said, with the recent confirmation in the living story livestream that Marjory and Kas are a “love story” I’m beginning to question Anet’s motives. Faolain and Caithe were good characters, and I loved that an LGBT relationship was such an important part of the main story in GW2, but by adding another lesbian relationship to the “biconics” as well as the “iconics” I’m starting to think Anet is just doing it because girl on girl is hot. The only other relationship we have really seen in a major part of the game is Logan and Queen Jenna, and even then they don’t have 10% of the flirting that the 2 lesbian pairings do. Am I alone in thinking like this?

I’ve often felt that the relationship is for attention in this game. Where Caithe and Faolain seemed natural, this one seems a bit forced and really reeks of fan fiction.

Nightarch.2943:

…An expansion? Dare I feel hope?

No, shelter your heart, lest it break completely.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

Jeff.4680:

PLEASE START WORKING ON AN EXPANSION. If you already are, ANNOUNCE IT. The Living World is only good as long as there’s an expansion that players are waiting for. It’s been said thousands of times, but its the truth.

I heard something about someone datamining something about a “VIP membership” that would basically be an optional subscription fee. Are you serious Anet?!?!?!? This game doesn’t need a subscription fee, it needs an expansion.

The Living World/Story has dramatically improved since it’s debut. Regardless, it is overall boring and predictable. This game needs some real direction.

For the love of god…MAKE AN EXPANSION

/rage

CONFIRMED EXPANSION
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

Actually, it sounds like there is an expansion planned. “We have a couple of really big Guild Wars projects cooking in the background,” Johanson told me.

Later, he added: "Some of our players believe that because we are doing this Living World seasons, and these features or these big feature-builds, that it means that the features you would traditionally get in an expansion, or the content you would traditionally get in an expansion, is not something that will get added to Guild Wars 2. And that is not true at all.

“Not only are we doing those things, new features and content you would traditionally get from a boxed expansion are also things that will be added to Guild Wars 2.

“The thing that we haven’t decided yet,” he went on, "is what form that type of content will take. Is it right for Guild Wars 2 for that kind of boxed expansion? Is it right for that to be something we add, live, through storylines in the game? Is that something we want to sell through our in-game store? There are a lot of different options available to us.

“… but we absolutely are going to do sweeping new features that you would traditionally only get in expansions – large regions, content and progression additions to your characters in the form of growth and professions and races. Those are all things that you will see in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.”

That isn’t confirmation. That’s speculation. It’s more of “it sounds like”. They’ve been saying we’re getting an expansion worth of content for a while now, they’ve yet to deliver or even give us specifics. They’re still unsure of what they want to deliver. Granted, this is more optimistic than interviews and blogs of the past, but I’m still skeptical.

CuRtoKy.8576:

Jeff.4680:

PLEASE START WORKING ON AN EXPANSION. If you already are, ANNOUNCE IT. The Living World is only good as long as there’s an expansion that players are waiting for. It’s been said thousands of times, but its the truth.

I heard something about someone datamining something about a “VIP membership” that would basically be an optional subscription fee. Are you serious Anet?!?!?!? This game doesn’t need a subscription fee, it needs an expansion.

The Living World/Story has dramatically improved since it’s debut. Regardless, it is overall boring and predictable. This game needs some real direction.

For the love of god…MAKE AN EXPANSION

/rage

Expansion is a marketing term. What you want is a LARGE content update with a lot of things added at one time which can include things like new zones. That can be a typical “expansion” or it just simply be a large content update to gw2 in the summer for example. Please stop using the term “expansion” and instead focus on what type of gameplay you want added. Expansions and dlcs mean nothing they are just content updates wrapped into marketing terms for different journalistic/media outlets like mmorpg.

Game is a marketing term, too. What he wants is software that causes him pleasure to interact while simulating a world.

Expansion means a large content update, as you said, where the world of the game and its system are permanently and substantially expanded. That’s where it get its name from. That’s what it is. That’s what the game needs.

While the exact amount of content, like zones, skills, etc. is not clearly defined, it’s certainly more than one zone and one skill per class. One only needs to look at other games to see just how large an expansion can and should be.

Confused.

I’m confused because the core of the game and its systems are largely being ignored. I see majority of the people I know doing things champ runs, dungeons, zone clearing, legendaries, Orr runs, jumping puzzles, and personal story. Then I see the Living World and it either peppers those things or does something different entirely. I’m confused because the game has a great core – but that’s it. That core hasn’t been expanded upon and very few meaningful updates have been permanently left.

juno.1840:

I feel bad for ANet in a way because they’re a victim of their own success. They have a history of excellence with GW1 and we fans are rabid about the franchise. So much so that we build up massive hype with anything they say. In addition, there’s so many things to do in GW2 that everyone has their own idea of what’s “great”. So when deliveries do occur it’s a let-down from super-high expectations as you can’t make everyone happy.

I’m hoping for a good GW2 year so I don’t shelve it when the next good thing comes to town.

There’s no defense for them at this point. They knowingly did something different despite people’s ardent pleas otherwise. The same leadership, vision, and staff that made Guild Wars great have largely departed. There’s no defense for them ignoring the core game, shifting their resources towards living story, and then putting up a smoke screen to fool us into thinking something is coming.

For all we know, the spring megapatch will be more of the same – there’s no indication that it will actually be something worthwhile. There’s no reason for them to stray from the tried and true formulae of MMO – expansions existed for a reason. Their loss of revenue and player population are solely on their business decision to pursue living story and inability to have a cohesive release plan this late in the game.

We should not be seeing posts from Colin and whoever else saying they’re figuring things out – your game isn’t in beta. I’m sure both investors and players alike would love to see some standards conventions – like an expansion.

Galen Grey.4709:

Destai.9603:

Galen Grey.4709:

Vol.7601:

Don’t forget the lighthouse in LA that got destroyed!

I didnt because that happened over a year ago !

didnt even mention that there was no southsun at launch or that the lion arch statue got destroyed and rebuilt… ohhh yeah but if they stopped one year ago they remember the statue destroyed so there another change statue is back

I’m so happy they spent time and money on that. That’s great content, that statue.

Well if companies didnt spend time and money on stuff like decorations all games would end up being is pc and npcs fighting on plain backgrounds. Dont you think that would be really boring?

What sets art and great art apart is attention to detail.

they could just as easily destroyed the statue for the mad king event and had it pop into existance again the moment the event ended.

That would be akin some Tv series in which in one episode the hero gets shot and is crippled really badly, miraculously survives and in the next episode its like nothing ever happened. Sure it works and ton of people enjoy the show none the less

But then you have the other show where each episode builds on what happened previously. For the next few months our hero will need to struggle with what that injury means. Well some people will appreciate this much more.

Not that one show is necessary worst then the other, good chance people who love the first show might think the 2nd moves way too slowly.

The problem is they have a great set and horrible actors, continuing the show analogy.

Galen Grey.4709:

Vol.7601:

Don’t forget the lighthouse in LA that got destroyed!

I didnt because that happened over a year ago !

didnt even mention that there was no southsun at launch or that the lion arch statue got destroyed and rebuilt… ohhh yeah but if they stopped one year ago they remember the statue destroyed so there another change statue is back

I’m so happy they spent time and money on that. That’s great content, that statue.

Vol.7601:

Another interview
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

Good Lord, they don’t get it, do they? It’s way past time to add new content. It’s over a year in and they’re still telling us things are in the works? He goes on about the break after season and the big patch – it can’t be just quality of life improvements. It can’t be more of “we’re trying to strengthen the core game”. The game needs to be an expansion – it needs a Factions, a Nightfall. Nothing Colin has said indicates they truly understand why a good many players are kittened off. I don’t care about a permanent addition of a dungeon path – I want a new dungeon. I don’t care about Rox, Raisin Brahams, or any of the others, – I want my character to expand and grow.