Guild Wars 2

PapaBear.5249:

I think the point that a lot of the Trahearne supporters are trying to hit on is how we think we should be the grand hero in all of this, and we should be crowned King of Tyria. I may not speak for everyone else but im glad im not, im happy to be another cog in the wheel of the machine that saves the world. I never cared for MMOs that makes it out that you’re the only person ever that can do what the other tens of thousands of players are doing, that just dumb.

This is one of the most easily counterable arguments in the world.

Your argument is that I can’t be the hero of a story which from my perspective I am the only one acting in because other player’s who are the only actors in their stories , which is the same story I am now reenacting without their presence, before me. I already showed why your logic doesn’t work.

While it is true that if this story were real there is only 1 dragon that could be slain, however from there is a problem. Each person who does the quest slays the dragon and from that player’s perspective they are the only one who not only slays that dragon but is the only person who could have possibly slain that dragon, all the other people who are taking on the same quest and all the dragons laying devastation to the land are outside the perception and interaction of the player and effectively do not exist for the player. The only thing that matters is how the single player interacts with the game world, and not how the 10,000 other people interact with the game world.

When the player is given the quest, when they perform and complete the quest the player is told that this is the only dragon laying waste to the land, that they are the only person who can slay the dragon and save the land, etc. It doesn’t matter that the same NPC gives the same quest to each of the 10k players, what matters is how the quest itself is structured and how it makes the player feel. Also relevant is what the player sees and experiences when performing this quest. In the MMOs of the past, it wasn’t feasible to make seperate instanced zones for players to play out the quest in so every person who wished to finish that quest would have to get inline to wait their turn to kill that specific dragon when it respawned. Where was no doubt in the player’s mind that not only was their involvement in the world unnecessary but also that the threat itself wasn’t really a big deal since there was this huge mob of people who were already in place to stop any threat the moment it appeared. But that wasn’t by design, those quest creators didn’t make quests for the purpose of making the player feel unnecessary or unimportant. Any feelings of that type that the player had were against the wishes of the quest designer and caused solely by technical limitations that prevented the quest designer from being able to fully realize the quest and storyline that they wanted the player to experience.

Only now that MMO designers are able to create individual instances for players to experience a quest by themselves are quest designers able to implement the quest as they meant it to be experienced. That is the quest designer really does want the player to feel like the hero, like the only person who could possibly slay the dragon and save the land from this dragon which is definitely laying waste to the countryside because there aren’t a mob of people waiting to kill it the instant it spawns. And they are able to do this by giving the player a personal instance where they are the only actor. We have seen these sorts of quests in WoW (beginning with WotLK and much more heavily in Cataclysm), in KOTOR where according to the writers the player really is the hero of the story and is the only hero of the story which in the case of the Jedi character is supposed to make the player feel like their character is Luke Skywalker or Anakin, and even in GW 2. If you follow the actual storyline of the GW2 quest, you will see that the player really is meant to feel like the hero, is meant to perceive themselves as the hero and that this was all the intention of the various quest designers.

Kal Spiro.9745:

I have to assume that anyone who thought they would be the main characters didn’t play Guild Wars 1. The player has never been the main character, ever. You are just some guy who happens to also be there, even though you’re actually the one doing all the work.

Destiny’s Edge and Trahearn are the main characters. I will admit that everything about Trahearn is a little nonsensical, he’s a researcher, he has no place being the leader of the Pact, but it is what it is. Destiny’s Edge couldn’t do it cause they’re always busy getting lost in dungeons all over the place. That and they don’t actually make up with each other until you’re already well into Orr, so it’s too late to recruit them.

Also, every single person you connected with in any meaningful way, who survived, through your personal story returns just before the end. They all have something to say relevant to your experience together, and it’s just a good time as they all help you defeat the final obstacle between you and Zaitan.

This isn’t true at all. If anything in GW1 you are more typically a hero than anywhere else.

You have to remember that a hero doesn’t start out as a hero, they are supposed to start out as a shephard, or a common soldier, or a student whatever. The hero then gets called onto a heroic journey.

Campbell explained it best:

The hero starts in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events (a call to adventure). If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials (a road of trials), and may have to face these trials alone, or may have assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift (the goal or “boon”), which often results in the discovery of important self-knowledge. The hero must then decide whether to return with this boon (the return to the ordinary world), often facing challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world (the application of the boon).

Just look at Luke Skywalker. He started out as a moisture farmer completely seperated from the war that was going on around the Galaxy. He only developed into a hero because of his journey. The same is true with your character. You are the hero of the story even though you don’ start out as a point of importance.

And be ready for someone elses character to get all the dialogue scenes while yours gets completely sidelined.

And don’t ask what happened to the Pact who falls off the face of the Earth for this quest or why your character decided to head off to a random cave in the middle of nowhere that they couldn’t have possibly have known was even there instead of getting on an airship like everyone else.

To me the joining an order didn’t make sense not only because there was no reason for it but also because once you do join an order which you presumeably only do for the purpose of getting that order to better help you defeat Zhaitain, you don’t actually do anything to progress your quest to kill Zhaitain.

Making the player start as an ambassador to all the orders who was on an equal footing with the officers of all the orders where everyone was in agreement that they needed to work together to bring Zhaitain down to having the player join only one of those orders and start at the very bottom rank of that order didn’t seem like a natural or logical progression of the story. I mean none of the orders were actually fighting each other aside from the clashing of their different ideologies, none of the orders were in disagreement that Zhaitain was an immediate and pressing threat, they had already agreed to work together to address the problem of Zhaitain and continued to work together for multiple story line quests up to that point in time, so why did Anet randomly make the player join one of those orders and turn their nose up at the other when to both the player and every NPC in the game it was obvious that they’d need the help of every available force to defeat Zhaitain.

The only reason I could see the player joining one of the orders is because that order believed that by allying itself closer with the player that it would gain preferential treatment from the player however since none of the offer’s actually woo the player’s character it doesn’t really make sense why the player’s character decided to join one of the orders and turn their nose up at the other 2.

I could probably go on and on about this, but for me this was one of the 3 weakest points of the personal story.

The other 2 are:
2) Destiny’s Edge. They are an utterly useless collection of NPCs which mean absolutely nothing to the player if they didn’t play Guild Wars 1. (and everything related to Destiny’s Edge, especially Logan pulling an airship out of his butt after he rightfully should have been killed because every other NPC in that situation had been but apparently the game decided to pull its punches just for that one character who really wasn’t very likeable)
3) The NPC deaths. There was not a single death in the personal storyline which didn’t feel forced and unnatural. To explain I will simply quote HISHEdotcom’s How Casino Royale Should Have Ended:

Vesper Lynd: Now I must kill myself for no reason. <drowns>
Bond: <shouting in despair> But I killed all the bad guys!

In fact I think the entire video describes a lot of the plot for this game.

You are working with the orders to fight Zhaitain, then you join an order for no reason where you do some stuff completely unrelated to killing Zhaitain only to wind up once again working with the orders to fight Zhaitain which was right back where you started. But you already knew that you’d need the 3 orders working together, already knew Zhaitain was a threat and were already on the path to figuring out a way to bring Zhaitain down.

The bigger question is why does Trahearne say that summoning 6 minions is difficult?

My necro can summon 6 minions more easily than she can draw breath, especially when she is in Orr where the air reeks with the putrid stink of rotting flesh.

Grileenor.1497:

Sylvarian.1765:

I had gathered a lot of gold and mats (with my level 80s) to cover all the crafting I would be doing. But with this change it won’t be nearly enough. Now, instead of crafting 30 disciplines to 400 (6 × 5 characters), I will have to do 45 disciplines to 400 (8 × 5 characters). In addition, eight crafting disciplines will now only yield 56 levels, instead of the 60 levels six crafting disciplines yielded before. So now I will have to play each character to level 24 (instead of 20). The cost in both time and resources is devastating.

Not surprisingly, all this has changed how I view this game. It has been made clear to me that I can not do any serious long-term planning here. Apparently, there wasn’t even any warning that such a drastic change would be coming.

You can do as much long term planning in GW2 as you can do in any MMO, as long as you play it the intended way. That said: each and every MMO is about to change constantly. Long term planning is never safe in MMOs. And… no matter what is or has been possible in this game, no dev will ever have considered a player playing the game in your just quoted way.

And after all, no class is played the same at level 20 and at level 80. So if your strange way to play the game is capped for you at level 76 for each class, it offers you the chance to play each class for four additional levels, to really get in touch which each of them. Sounds not too bad for me either.

How is playing a character from level 76-80 providing you with any more experience with that character than playing it for the same amount of time at level 80? If anything it actually provides you with less practical experience if the character at level 80 is different than it is between levels 76-80.

Genesis Notch.1905:

Elthurien.8356:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

it’s meant to be something to work for. Hopefully it takes 2-3 months to craft a full set.

This is where I am beginning to sour toward this content grind. I don’t play video games to Work I already work in real life, when I log into GW2 I want to spend that time playing the game.

Total up how many hours you spend in GW2 doing tedious content (aka working) and put a $/hour value on it. It’s scary to think how much time/money is lost on grind.

Lets say all you want to do is WvW or run dungeons, to get the most out of it and enjoy it you need to slog your way through 80 levels, then farm countless hours of gold and materials to gear up. It may be fun the first time, but after 5 characters, I’ve had enough. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my spare time to be spent doing things I don’t enjoy to reach a point where I can enjoy the game. Ascended trinkets were the beginning of the end for me, yet I still play, weapons arrived and I still reluctantly tow the line, 6 pieces of armour and I dare say I will be moving on to another title, Life is too short to waste 3000 hours working towards something you are supposed to enjoy.

Then do not get it? No one is forcing you to get them in any way. If you feel that you were forced/burdened because others are getting it, then it’s your problem. If your idea of ‘enjoying’ game is to get all the things that you want without hard work, this game will never sate you.

The idea behind Ascended was to bridge the gap between Exotic and Legendary. Exotic was quite scarce in the past, but sadly becoming way too common afterwards. If Ascended were so easy/accessible that almost everyone can get it, then what will people ask for next? In the end, what will happen?

Power creep.

Sometimes I wonder why it is so hard for some people to grasp this.

Mindless brainless repetitive tedium is not hard work, it is a punishment. Just ask Sisyphus how much fun that is.

As a punishment for his trickery, King Sisyphus was made to roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. Before he could reach the top, however, the massive stone would always roll back down, forcing him to begin again.⁶ The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus himself. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by enchanting the boulder into rolling away from King Sisyphus before he reached the top which ended up consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration. Thus it came to pass that pointless or interminable activities are sometimes described as Sisyphean.

Why would anyone with even half a brain desire to do what the Greeks considered to be the ultimate punishment?

daimonos.9831:

Obtena.7952:

Statistical loot is not BiS; it’s just some vague nonsense really.

Some players have interpreted “the best statistical loot” as meaning “loot with the best statistics”.

Similarly, http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/ . Mike O’Brien: “Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.” Some players interpreted that to mean that GW2 did not feature “grinding to get the best gear.”

On their own website: https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success/ " Colin Johanson wrote, “We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”. Some players have interpreteed being “just as poweful” as meaning, “just as powerful, and not less so by having worse gear stats.”

Some are able to read these statements and shrug them off – the basic argument there is, “players should not be so stupid as to believe marketing noises made by ArenaNet spokespeople.”

Sad but true.

If we go with the plain meaning, then best statistical gear means gear with the best statistics.

When that phrase was used it was used according to how MMO players would understand it, and to MMO players that phrase could only be interpreted as meaning the stats on the gear.

I’m curious to know how you would define “best statistical gear.”

Nike.2631:

If its a “grind” to you, you can either accept the rewards are not for you or you can pay a premium to the people who feel like putting in the time AND want to sell them.

Or you can put in the effort.

But plenty of people ARE getting to the rewards they want so don’t expect the system to bend for you.

It’s a game. You can’t win a Nobel prize or an Olympic medal for crafting/gathering. Nor should you because those things are entirely brainless processes that a machine does much better. And you don’t gain any special or useful real world skills by repeating the same thing day after day which you would gain if you for instance were to practice playing an instrument or carving wood or actually learning how to be a blacksmith.

And because of that the time requirement is ridiculous. Devs need to just accept it is a game, accept that we play it for fun and to relax and thus stop trying to turn their games into second jobs.

Morbridae.8607:

Banjal.7328:

Yeah this whole time gated on Celestial is crap,it took me 2+ months to make the armor and weapons for two of my toons.

Maybe we should start PLAYING the game and ENJOYING it just for the sake of getting a good time, and whine less about why we can’t get ALL the equipment we want in just one hour…

Really, two months to craft two whole sets of the most time consuming armor doesn’t look like too much effort to me. In other games I had been though almost a year just to get a whole set.

You are missing the point of the complaint and failing to see that there is a superior alternative.

The complaint was that the way the time gating as implemented created a derogatory experience (login and click on the items required for the single craft every day with the feeling that if you failed to log in or be unable to log in on any single day you’d be screwed so you felt like you were being forced to login and click on the recipie every day instead of logging in and doing what you wanted to or not logging in at all that day because you didn’t feel like it/couldn’t find the time). Thus the time gating as implemented both kept players from doing what they wanted to do when they logged in and also made the player feel like they were being forced to log in. I believe that complaint is both legitimate and fair.

There are other options that Anet could have implemented which would have had the same effect as time gating without the unnecessary mundane component. For instance instead of having to individually craft every single at a rate of 1 per day over a period of 60 days, Anet could have simple implemented a system where you hire an NPC to do the crafting who consumes the components at a rate averaging 1/day (that is once you start the clock running on the NPC crafter the NPC will be finished in 2 months from the moment you start the clock ticking no matter when you give the NPC the materials), and you can turn in the materials one a time, in batches, or all at once and the NPC does not finish crafting until 2 conditions are met:
1) a minimum of 2 months have passed
2) the NPC has been given all the materials required
Once both conditions have been fulfilled you will get a mail from the NPC who says your item is ready and then you go pick the item up.

That to my mind is a vastly superior system which still places a 2 month minimum requirement but removes a lot of the unnecessary tedium.

Large Man: Here’s one.
Dead Collector: Nine pence.
“Dead” Man: I’m not dead.
Dead Collector: What?
Large Man: Nothing. [hands the collector his money] There’s your nine pence.
“Dead” Man: I’m not dead!
Dead Collector: ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead.
Large Man: Yes he is.
“Dead” Man: I’m not.
Dead Collector: He isn’t.
Large Man: Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.
“Dead” Man: I’m getting better.
Large Man: No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.
Dead Collector: Well, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.
“Dead” Man: I don’t want to go on the cart.
Large Man:’ Oh, don’t be such a baby.
Dead Collector: I can’t take him.
“Dead” Man: I feel fine.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, do me a favor.
Dead Collector: I can’t.
Large Man: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won’t be long. Dead Collector: I promised I’d be at the Robinsons’. They’ve lost nine today.
Large Man: Well, when’s your next round?
Dead Collector: Thursday.
“Dead” Man: I think I’ll go for a walk.
Large Man: You’re not fooling anyone, you know. Isn’t there anything you could do?
[The collecter paces for an idea, then whacks the body with his club, solving the problem]
Large Man: Ah, thank you very much.
Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.

Tikky.6231:

Anonmly.2436:

I have read the complaints about Trahearne and I agree with most of them, however, after playing through 4 races and 4 stories I still feel that the character remains a sideliner watching the action.

I dunno, my characters were right in the middle of the action, blood and gore (not depicted), smoke and ash all around them. Depends what type of ‘action’ you want, i guess.

Anonmly.2436:

You saved the fort? You fought Zhaitan? You saved hundreds of lives? None of it matters at the end, because you are still a second in command in Orr, and while the congratulations are in order, I still feel that my character plays on the sides – doing the vital things but never getting recognition.

It would be silly to have the player be the leader, because it wouldn’t make sense to have all the players be the leader of the Pact. Second in command is hardly better at all, actually. We should only be the leader of a squad, at best. Non-Charr characters should have a few NPCs assigned to them once the Pact gets going, and Charr characters should get to have their ’band mates with them.

But it makes sense for there to be a seperate Pact and Trahearne for each character? How is that any different from just having each character be the leader of their Pact?

Face it, your reasoning is just a cop out.

The Personal Story is solo content and therefore there is zero reasoning why your character could not be the leader seeing as you are the only player who interacts with your personal story quest chain which takes place outside of the game world in personal instanced zones.

Chadramar.8156:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

To invent a combat mechanic, and then make all bosses immune to it, is to break one’s own combat system.

Every game designer out there should be made to hand-write this about 10,000 times until it haunts them in their sleep.

I think they should have to use the same pen that Harry Potter had to use which cuts the words into the back of their hand.

And then if they keep doing it they will be fired.

Leablo.2651:

Keta.9601:

My personal opinion is that stuns in any way shape or form are a bad thing when applied to any human player for any reason. Taking away peoples ability to play their toon annoys them.

Yes, this. Stun, knockdown, etc. are mechanics that translate into blocking player input. To a lesser degree it’s also true of effects like immobilize or daze, which block a specific portion of player input. It is telling that in every RPG that has such effects, the big bosses are immune to them. GW2 is no exception with Defiant. Therefore at some level, it seems all game designers acknowledge that this is a very cheese-prone mechanic which is why you have artificial limits on its use against bosses. Why not just do away with them entirely? This type of effect is another one of those RPG tropes that needs to just go away and die.

Agree completely.

Any benefit given to bosses needs to also be given to players in order for the game to be fair. You can’t give a benefit to an inexistance and deny that benefit to an existance simply out of spite and hatred for your players.

The personal story takes a dive the moment you are forced to join an order.

There was no real reasoning given why you couldn’t continue to work with all 3 orders simultaneously considering that this was supposed to be a huge problem that equally affected and required the need for everyone to work together. If anything, the story only really makes sense if you never join an order and instead spend all the time working to bring the orders together.

smekras.8203:

not quite true Ellisande, the Nightmare Court wants to free both the “Dreamer” sylvari AND the Pale Tree from Ventari’s teachings, something they perceive as forced on them and a perversion of their true nature.

to do so, they use pain, suffering, anguish, shock and awe, basically whatever kicks Dreamers out of their comfort zone and creates bad experiences (and the memories that go with them) if that means walking around wearing someone’s skinsuit, so be it

The very fact that you don’t ever see or hear any mention whatsoever about even a single member of the Nightmare Court going around wearing flayed skin means that not only does it not happen but anyone who thinks it could happen doesn’t understand them. The Nightmare Court are not inherently evil even if they perform some acts which can be seen as evil. From their perspective they are more akin to freedom fighters who have had to resort to taking drastic action not only to protect themselves but also to protect the other Sylvari.

The person who suggested that they’d just say it was a skinsuit reminds me of a PNP RPer who does something completely stupid and out of context with the story and then tries to create some boneheaded reasoning to justify it where if they had to justify the action within the confines of the story before they could perform the stupid action they’d be unable to perform the stupid action.

I like Caithe the most, perhaps because she was part of the story when it was still my character’s personal story.

I also love the Asura announcer who reminds me of announcer Koto from YuYuHakusho so she’s the second best character in the game.

After that is Sieran.

colesy.8490:

Actually it does because conditions offer sustained damage and GW2 is all about burst.

Actually it is about the fact that conditions don’t deal enough damage to mobs.

The DPS of a condition build is a lot smaller than the DPS of other builds and that’s the biggest part of the problem.

The other damage sources are working as intended, however condition damage is not working as the players intended, and the reason boils down to PvP balance.

MMOs need to seperate out how skills affect mobs and how skills affect players so that all skills will be viable in all areas of gameplay and developers won’t have to worry about how a change to the PvE side of the skill affects the PvP side.

Vayne.8563:

Harpoon GUNS are ranged weapons and one type of combat. Spears and harpoons are melee weapons and another type of combat.

It is possible to think too deeply about stuff like this.

Isn’t the difference between a spear and a harpoon that a harpoon was designed to be thrown whereas a spear was designed for stabbing?

At least that’s the difference in Moby kitten.

Brick Mantooth.9520:

I’m happy for you. My character issues got worse. Before (since pre-launch), my Charr’s footprints were backwards.

Now they’re backwards only when I have my weapons out. When my weapons are away, I have absolutely no footprints.

Also, my daggers hang off my sides by like 6" each, so they’re just floating in the air rather than on my belt.

s’pretty cool.

But yes, thanks anet for fixing sylvari back markings.

Nobody cares about Charr.

Vayne.8563:

In Guild Wars 1, in five years, I could count the times I heard trash mob used on one hand. No one called trash mobs trash in Guild Wars 1, because they could drop black and white dyes, or lockpicks in Eye of the North or anywhere in hard mode.

The idea that some mobs are trash and can’t reward you is ludicrous. It comes from games where that is literally not true. But you can get a rare, exotic or even a precursor from a trash mob.

People who skip trash mobs and complain about not getting drops at all make me laugh.

You can also get all of those things from killing mobs outside of dungeons.

I think most people don’t go into dungeons to kill trash, rather they go into dungeons to kill bosses and get a reward for doing so.

If you believe that I am correct then all dungeons should be nothing but puzzles and bosses with no trash to muck up the experience.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

The view on the forums is likely to be skewed towards a “no don’t bother” answer.

Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason why the boards are leaning in that direction.

GW2 is a mediocre MMO with pretty character models.

khani.4786:

Goodness people. If they put them in at character creation you’d still be whining & complaining….What about my existing lvl 80 characters, newbies get these styles for free and I have to buy makeover kits. Whaaaah.

Another case of ANET can’t win. I love the new hairstyles and I’m fine with them where they are. It is a cosmetic change. Go play the game and quit complaining about every little thing!

Incorrect. ANET could win by simply making the new hairstyles free for everyone.

You just can’t win when you become a money grubbing corporation.

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

Vol.5241:

MrRuin.9740:

If there is to be a cashshop, this is what it should be. Cosmetic luxuries. Skins, hairstyles, minis, and other in game luxuries like bank slots, inventory slots, additonal character slots…..thats what should be in there. Its absolutely nothing you need in any way to play the game. Noone can gain any advantage from cashshop use.
And there’s going to be a cashshop no matter what. Even if they did pay expansions, the cashshop will remain. Anyone who thinks they’d introduce expansion with a fee and drop the cashshop entirely is kidding themselves.
Its there to stay and a mainstay in a vast majority of MMO’s. What you would prefer in it? Being able to buy endgame gear? Lets just put Ascended and Legendaries directly in the cashshop. Fractal backpieces too.

Saying the cashshop stuff isn’t available in game isn’t true either. I have the new hairstyles free twice from free makeover kits. You can also farm and exchange in-game currency for gems.
Willing to farm exotics via whatever method or Ascended or Legendaries or Ap’s every couple weeks, but farming a few gold to buy this is too much?

I’m honestly surprised that the complainers are surprised that there is a cash shop in game.

It’s as if they are patiently waiting the day when Anet announces that they are not going to be continuing with the gem shop. I really wonder what their expectations are.

I haven’t seen those complainers to be honest.

I think what he is basically saying is that everytime Anet puts something new in the store, something not needed for the game at all, and people are complaining that it is in the store instead of giving it for free.

I don’t think that is true. You can have a select few mini’s in there, you can have unlocks like character slots and bank slots and you can have many more things where people will not complain about. People complain about thinks they think that should be in the game world or that are limited or that are RNG.

If they would have a focus on expansions for income they would be less forced to put these items in there but because they are focusing on cash-shop income they are forced to.

So I totally understand why Anet basically has to put them in there.. I am mainly (and have been for a while) complaining about the reason behind this.. And thats the F2P model that generates income with the gem-sore in stead of a B2P model that generates income with expansions.

Guild Wars 2 is the first Buy to Play MMO, there is no B2P MMO that uses Expansions to generate income. Anet would rather they give us the content with no additional charge, instead of charging us for expansions. IMO, this system they are doing now is far better than charging for expansions. Everything they have been adding to the store has no real effect on the game, new hair styles is purely cosmetic and it certainly belongs as a gem store item and is nothing wrong with it being a store item, people are not entitled to free cosmetic stuff just because. And just because is basically what it comes down to. And yes, people have complained about everything in the store, from dyes, to bag slots, to character slots, to skins, to XP boosters, literally the only thing people have not complained about in the store are services like name changes.

Actually there are other MMOs that use expansions to make money. For example, SWTOR, DC Universe, DDO, etc.

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

Because GW2 is not really a B2P game that focuses in sale of the game and expansions for income but more of a F2P game (that you need to buy) that focuses on cash-shop as income.

So now they do this sort of bad thinks to make money.

Try not to buy any gems, that might help them to shift back to a real B2P system where everything is available ingame but where you pay for an expansion every year year and a half.

What real B2P MMOs are there out there? Please do not say Guild Wars 1, that is in fact not an MMO, so it doesn’t count and cannot be used as an example since they are 2 different genre of games.

Guild Wars 1 is in fact a B2P MMO.

Just because you don’t know what a MMO is doesn’t mean GW 1 isn’t a MMO. It just means you don’t know what a MMO is.

I would be more willing to kill trash if the trash didn’t have an unrealistically high amount of hp and damage.

That is to say they need to make trash into the normal mobs they were always supposed to be until some kitten developer thought it would be a great idea to make unrealistic MMO encounters.

teh persun.6517:

Their nightmare courtiers, they probably think that it’s flayed skin, and she just so happens to be really kittening big, because being hulkishly huge is cool and edgy.

That would make sense if the night court were actually evil and there were other members of the night court who wore flayed skin.

In fact the difference between the night court and the rest of the Sylvari is simply one of ideology. The night court are fighting to free the rest of the Sylvari from the control of the mother tree which they perceive as evil.

Yeah that sword was such a huge letdown. I was almost happier that Trahearne was forced to use the sword instead of me because my Guardian’s normal Greatsword skills are way better than the ones that come with Caladbolg.

Doc Howler is the hardest storyline boss in the game. Unless they changed encounter since I last did it which is quite possible as it was a while ago.

Basically all the orders are the same. The only important choice you are making is whether you want to listen to Sieran, Tybalt or the very forgettable old man for 20 levels.

I personally prefer Sieran because I hate the Charr and didn’t care for the old man.

Oh and just don’t get too attached to the character because the plot will kill them off even though the plot gives no real reason for why the character had to die.

1 character is not going to be able to hold off a hundred undead for more than a second or two so there is zero point in having them stay behind.

I don’t hate Trahearne as a character, even if he is an incredibly boring character with no real personality or character development, what I hate is how he is used as an unnecessary plot device by writers with very heavy hands.

If you think about it, Trahearne actually serves no purpose within the story. His knowledge of Orr couldn’t possibly be useful to stopping Zhaitain because Zhaitann is so completely different from Orr (Zhaitan being a dragon who predates Orr and Orr being created through the ritual of some humans who used to live there). His quest to cleanse Orr isn’t even that important in the larger scheme of things. Your purpose is killing Zhaitain, you don’t really care about what happens to Orr either way because except for the fact that Zhaitain decided to use it as a place to mobilize his forces it really, the normal undead who were living there weren’t really bothering anyone. And even if you think his knowledge or Orr was important, you must concede that his knowledge of Orr was completely irrelevent in regards to killing Zhaitain as you didn’t use some cool magic ritual to kill Zhaitain. No, you shoot Zhaitain in the face with a cannon for like 5 minutes. We could have killed off Zhaitain within the first 2 minutes of creating our characters considering that anyone could have gotten on these ships, flown them to Orr and shot Zhaitain in the face with the cannons. There was no purpose in creating the Pact, no purpose in marching all the way to Orr, no purpose in helping Trahearne cleanse Orr, no purpose to any of it. Worse, there is no attempt made to make the player actually believe that Trahearne holds special knowledge or is unusually talented or gifted. All the player’s saying how they owe or love Trahearne when the player themselves never experience a single moment which makes them feel the same only leads the player to suspect that they are being duped.

The last quest completely nullifies every single part of the story that came before it because it is focused on a group of characters who come out of nowhere with no reason for being where you find them, in a location that your character has no reason for being in especially when your character was supposed to be boarding a different airship with the rest of the Pact (and all members of the Pact and all their airships are completely missing from the last quest), becomes focused on a ship that one of those characters pulls out of his bleeping kitten after he should have been killed but was saved via a plot hole, has you shooting a boss who decides half way into the fight to just give up and sit on a pillar out in the open so that the players’ characters can take their sweet time shooting him with cannons.

And to top the amazingly terrible last quest off, there’s a good chance your character won’t even be the one doing the talking which only makes your presence in this last quest that much more unnecessary. Had your character decided to become a farmer when they were level 1 instead of going off on an adventure the world would have been just as well off. And that is the worst insult. Using Destiny’s Edge and airships to kill Zhaitain was the worst possible choice the writers could have made, and that’s what they went with!

I also refute the assertion that the player character can’t be the star of the chain of personal instances quests in a MMO. From the player’s perspective they are the only character who is performing and taking the actions they are taking. Especially because the story the player experiences clearly isn’t actually taking place outside the personally instanced story areas of which they are the sole participant. Sure only one person can be dealt the Ace of Hearts, but when you’re the only person playing the game you’re the only one who could be dealt the Ace of Hearts.

And for the fact that Trahearne’s position seems boring, I would point out that in most fantasy novels, it is the people who are at the top of the chain of command who are the ones who go out and have grand adventures. This is especially true for Kings, Princes, Lords, Ladies, High Priestesses, Grand Wizards and the like. Even if you don’t accept that, you will have to accept that as second in command your character should already be performing all the same, if not more, boring tasks that Trahearne has to handle. In fact as second in command you’ve probably also be in charge of the more mundane clerical work.

If I can paraphrase the opener’s post:

“I got my legendary and now I want to make sure noone else can get their legendary so that I can feel like an extra special snowflake.”

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

The problem with introducing new methods of obtaining stiff is that already present content will get ignored. If you would make them buyable every single player will farm coe speed clears. You just substituted a problem with a new problem.

I don’t think they will do that. Running all 3 paths of CoE almost always (and on average surely does) grant you at least 1 core, which is already a possibility to farm. In addition you get at least 1,5g which makes another core.

I know i don’t like these random chances either but it is just fair and provides a stability to the game. Everything else would just make things messy.

Your analysis is wrong.

If people stop doing the old content because they can get the same reward elsewhere, then that means that the old content was not liked and should either never have been created in the first place, or is in serious need of alteration. This is therefore not a subsitution but an indication that there is a problem with the old content.

Deciding not to make a change like this isn’t going to result in Anet making the old content desireable in and of itself, the only result will be Anet simply not doing anything.

That’s fine and dandy if you like GW2’s instances but is a horrible idea if you don’t.

I personally hate the instances in GW2.

Gaudrath.6725:

No, not at all. I have no problem with a “reluctant hero” – Aragorn (LOTR) is one, and is one of my favourite characters.

Aragorn is a different type of reluctant hero. Aragorn was born to be king, however he constantly refuses to take up the mantle until the story changes him and makes him both capable and willing to do so. It would have been rather strange to see Aragorn go straight from being Strider in Bree to demanding that Denethor make him king without all the pages of character development in between. Thus Aragorn taking up the mantle of the king in Return of the King is a natural and expected progression of the story which is why it works.

Trahearne however does go straight from being Strider to being made king and that is where the problem lies as he is clearly unfit for the position at the time when he is made leader and he is made leader at a time when there were people who were actually qualified and able to lead the Pact.

Jyenh.5739:

I didn’t mind my character tagging behind the leader who was ‘destined’ to defeat zhaitan. He is the world’s best scholar on all things orr after all. If his personality was askew, so be it. The one thing that did annoy me was how my character, although he was second in command, seemed to have gotten pushed out of the story, maybe my memories a bit off but towards the end I don’t think he was even referred to much, he was just sitting in the background.

At the very least, since I’m left with this feeling it’s not a good sign anyway.

Actually Trahearne was not destined to defeat Zhaitain, he was destined to cleanse Orr.

It is your Sylvari character and Caithe (I think, but it has been a very long time) who are the ones that were destined to defeat Zhaitain. That’s part of why it makes no sense for Trahearne to be leading the Pact as there is no absolutely no reason for him to be doing so or even for anyone to have considered having him lead the Pact.

Thothkepara.2539:

Honestly, the chief failure here is in the scripting of the “personal story”, creating an expectation that is left unfulfilled. The showdown with Zhaitan should be an optional end, not the primary one.

Written properly, I think players would have been satisfied with knowing they were responsible for taking the fight back to the dragon, pounding on his door and leaving it there on whether they personally finished the job or not. Perhaps summoning other great commanders to their aid? (In other words, four other players to complete Arah?)

I get the feeling this conclusion was implied in the Source of Orr, but wasn’t given a dramatic enough finale/reward to feel like a passable ending to the personal story. There is no sense of accomplishment, and that’s a big problem. It’s fine if you want to have defeating Zhaitan be a special and perhaps difficult achievement, but you have to also leave players who are unable to make that step feeling they accomplished something special by seeing the story through to the end. No one likes seeing a project unfinished.

As it stands, I agree that forcing both a raid to open Arah and then four additional players to complete your “personal story” is unacceptable. It will simply lead to more disillusionment from casual players and soloists who do not have the assumed resources of large guilds and multiple friends to accomplish a goal left in the right corner of all of their screens.

There is no way to write this properly because there is no one who could be satisfied with stopping short of the last storyline quest when the entire storyline up to that point was entirely dedicated to killing Zhaitain.

Cleansing Orr was an unimportant sidequest that would have happened anyways once the player had killed Zhaitain and in fact finishing the quest clearly has no actual effect because everything in Orr is exactly the same after that quest as it was before that quest.

OrianZeta.1537:

While I echo the dissent over forced grouping, I think there’s a bigger point to be made. The final mission in the personal story is actually lopped off at the end and literally stitched together with a separate storyline: Destiny’s Edge and their reuniting. That is the real tragedy here. I have not done every dungeon, I don’t think many people ever did by the end of their story yet the player is put at the conclusion and redemption of DE likely without ever experiencing that story arc.

It was a mistake to link the two; it cheapened them both. Well as I go back and start working on dungeons, I guess I know how it ends, because I just read the last chapter!

The last quest is one of the biggest failures of the storyline.

Every other quest was entirely soloable. There is no justifiable reason presented for why this last quest should not also be soloable and in fact I believe there is a very justifiable reason why it should be soloable.

The actual story doesn’t even work. You spend most of the storyline assembling the Pact because Destiny’s Edge demonstrates that it is made up almost entirely of useless children (all the male characters are childish, only Caithe and the female Norn show any semblance of worth). And you assemble the pact for the sole purpose of killing Zhaitain. And during the end of the quest right before the last quest you and everyone else in the pact are assemlbing on the airships to go kill Zhaitain. Then the beginning of the last quest has you in the middle of a cave in the middle of nowhere with zero explanation as to why you are here, how anyone else got here, and no reason given why you aren’t on the airshipping you should have been boarding at the end of the previous storyline quest. No explanation is given as to what happened to the rest of the pact and its airships, you are given no knowledge of what everyone else is doing and suddenly you see Destinie’s Edge all together even though the very last time you saw them they all went their seperate ways which was why you formed the Pact in the first place.

Making the player slay Zhaitain in a group with Destinie’s Edge instead of solo with the Pact is completely antagonistic with the progression of the storyline up to that point in time.

Xena Ravenblood.2716:

I don’t have a problem with soloing it, but it seemed more epic with 5 team members.

What made it having more people more epic and not less epic for you?

Because imo the more people you bring the less epic the experience becomes.

Dasenthal.6520:

Its Zhaitan… If you could solo him that would be great, but really stupid. I havn’t made it to 80 yet so Idk what NPCs are actually with you the instance, but it doesn’t matter he is the Elder Dragon. If you could even in theory solo him it would ruin the immersion for so many people.

But you don’t even kill him.

The turrets on a flying ship that Logain pulls out of his kitten is what kills Zhaitain. And those turrets on that flying ship that Logain pulls out of his kitten would have killed Zhaitain regardless of whether or not you were there. Your involvement in the story during the final quest becomes entirely irrelevent.

Furthermore, soloing Zhaitain would have been epic, being nothing more than one of the many insects that nipped away at Zhaitain’s health is what would have been unepic.

digiowl.9620:

Novalight.7568:

Mobs getting more and more damaging abilities is not fun. In my experience people are more likely to grind happily if they destroy large amount of mobs with relative ease. Hell, I’d take “kill 20 mobs every 10 sec” over “fight 1-2 challenging normal crap mobs that can one shot you every 30-60 sec”. Challenging should be reserved for bosses and unique mobs (and not by adding stupid amounts of HP).

Likely because trashing hordes of mobs quickly is boring, it is not as mentally fatiguing as trying to keep up with mobs that can one shot you for the same duration.

Nothing for me is less fun than killing a mob that was randomly assigned way more stats than my character who can one shot me but I cannot one shot it in return. (Ie every boss and elite mob in any mmo).

These mobs are joe nobody mobs that should be way weaker than my character and not way stronger. The artificial stat inflation given to these mobs ruins the game for me.

I also have the most fun when I am wading through hordes of mobs by myself and having the least fun when spending 30 minutes autoattacking a mob with 40 other people that is capable of one shotting us at any moment.

If the story says I should be powerful then I should be powerful.

I play a Sylvari female, so it’s easy for me to imagine that my character is really Commander Shephard and goes around punching annoying NPCs in the face.

FemShep being a jerk: http://youtu.be/1YEynxGhJVQ?t=7m7s

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Play story mode of the dungeons. They tell the story of Destiny’s Edge.

And that was one of the problems with the Personal Story. If the story of Destiny’s Edge was going to be so relevant to the Personal Story then it should have remained as part of the Personal Story. In point of the fact, the culimination of Act 1 is going to meet Destiny’s Edge to try getting them to help stop Zhaitain and during this quest Destiny’s Edge falls apart and the story basically says that it will be the player’s job to get Destiny’s Edge back together. But then for no adequately explain reason the personal story completely forgets about the end of Act 1 and immediately sends the player to military school at one of Orders for some of the most pointless filler material I have seen outside of Bleach or Naruto that was nothing more than a huge deviation of the storyline up to that point in time.

For the storyline to be consistent either the player should have been working towards getting Destiny’s Edge back together or should have kept on working with the representatives of ALL the orders to figure out a plan for stopping Zhaitain. Making the player go from seeing Destiny’s Edge fall apart with the suggestion that they are the only one who can bring it back together to joining an order was completely discontinuous and bad storytelling.

Furthermore, this created a huge discontinuity problem with the last quest. When the player finishes the second to last personal story, they and the rest of the Pact are getting ready to board the airships in order to fight Zhaitain in the air. Then for some completely unexplainable region they descend into a cave in the middle of nowhere where they meet Destiny’s Edge (who according to the Personal Story had broken up and never got back together). But if they were getting ready to board an airship to face Zhaitain why did they descend into a random cave in the middle of nowhere? Furthermore why was Destiny’s Edge in a cave in the middle of nowhere? The whole thing made absolutely no sense. I am not even going to address the utter ridiculousness of leaving Logan behind instead of just cutting the ropes from the airship while on the airship and then having Logan pull a magical airship out of his kitten and magically catch up to you at the very last second (honestly I am getting pretty sick and tired of everything always being at the last second. Can’t we just have a nice and clean war where everything necessarily falls into place naturally like a well orchestrated battle or symphony?)

Either the personal story should have left Destiny’s Edge out completely or should have had the player working on restoring Destiny’s Edge instead of becoming the pack mule for an order.

Puaru.9325:

Zaxares.5419:

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

The GW1 descriptions of the krait said they were evil and bloodthirsty:
“the Krait rival even the Charr for viciousness and cruel ingenuity. These semi-intelligent creatures are vicious and xenophobic, attacking all other species on sight.”

They no longer shape-shift, but this is hardly the only change we have seen in races in Tyria over time. Charr, Tengu and Grawl could not, apparently, make human speech in Prophecies. The Jotun were mostly mesmers with a few warriors. Griffons used to wield smites and symbols, the precursors to meditations and symbols, but do not anymore.

Charr and Tengu were shown speaking in EotN and Factions respectively, so we can safely assume that they were capable of speech even during Prophecies, but that they just never bothered to say anything to their enemies.

The Grawl in GW2 bug me a lot actually. Even back in EotN, the Grawl were portrayed as being only semi-intelligent, barely capable of forming the basics of society. (There was one quest in EotN where a Charr is attempting to talk to a Grawl, and after a long, one-sided exchange, the Grawl’s only response is “Ook!”) Their intelligence seems to have advanced remarkably fast in 250 years, to the point of being able to speak at literacy levels rivalling humans and other races, and of grasping much larger concepts such as farming and ranching.

Likewise, the Krait also seem to have advanced remarkably fast from EotN to GW2. They were never shown as having any kind of permanent settlement or semblance of society in GW1, and never used anything apart from their own claws, teeth and magical abilities to hunt, yet in GW2 they apparently have developed weaponry, metallurgy (as shown by the cages they use to hold slaves), engineering (krait harpoon cannons), and have a hierarchical social structure and a species-wide organised religion led by the Witches. I’ll grant that the former two could have been stolen from the other races, but the latter two developments would take a lot longer than 250 years to set up.

In contrast, the Naga from Cantha are shown wielding weapons and wearing clothing, so obviously they do have some kind of pre-existing society and technological development.

You realize that in a span of just 66 years we went from the Wright Bros first sucessful airplane flight lasting only seconds to going into outer space and landing on the moon, right?

But that wasn’t really as huge a leap as it seems in part because of the number of people available to work on the technological development. There were millions of people per country in the late 1800s to early 1900s, probably hundreds of thousands of scientists and inventors each working on independent projects that would later be used or lead to various components of the missles. And getting into space wasn’t nearly as large of an achievement as landing a man on the moon and then having him land successfully back on Earth.

A typical Krait village seems to consist of about 50 Krait who would need to spend a great deal of time hunting for food because they don’t have the surpluses they are not an agricultural society. And that is probably the biggest problem. A lot of technology development only began and was made possible because our way of life changed from having to constantly hunt and gather in order to not die of starvation every day to being able to grow a surplus of food as we moved to a moral aggrarian soceity. This surplus allowed some people to move away from having to spend the majority of each day acquiring sustenance which allowed for the development of culture and technology.

The launching of our first space capsule into space was also the culmination of a lot of other developments which took a lot longer than the 66 years it took to get the Wright Bros their 60 seconds of air time. For example figuring out how to make high quality steel after learning how to make bronze took more than one thousand years.

Heck if we were using your developmental timeline, then we’d have to ask ourselves why the humans aren’t driving Teslas.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I did that on my first (and so far only) playthrough of Arah story mode, and I liked seeing my own character participating in the dialogue.

I think we can all pretty much agree that everyone who has advanced to the last personal story mission likes seeing their own character participating in the dialouge.

That’s why the decision to not give each player a seperate cut scene showing their character was a terrible design choice (when Anet could have very easily done [Bioware also could have easily done the same in its game and the decision there not to give each player their own seperate cutscene was equally bad]). I don’t think players can stress enough just how terrible of a design decision this was.

Maybe it’s a little too small.

Maximillian Greil.1965:

It’s logical extrapolation. Gods made of magic, Dragons eat magic, ergo: dragons eat gods. Can you think of a better reason for the gods making themselves scarce?

We don’t know exactly how or what form of magic a dragon can eat. It is entirely possible that dragons can only abosrb purified forms of concentrated raw magical energy. The gods then would not be capable of being absordbed by the dragons.

Plus the gods trying to eat a live dragon would probably be like a human trying to eat a live bear, it’ll swipe your face off before you can begin chewing it.

No we are not inbred but yes we are all incestuous.

The fact that Sylvari are plants and not animals is irrelevent to determining whether relations among Sylvari are incestuous. The reasoning is because Sylvari were created to mimic humans as closely as possible and that would have to include familial structure and relationships. What determines the wrongness of incest isn’t the genetic problem but the social acceptance or refutation of actions which are considered incestuous. If we are meant to determine that incestuousness amongst the humans in GW2 is based on our standards and morality then the same would have to apply to the Sylvari because the Sylvari were created to mimic humans as closely as possible.