Guild Wars 2

Interesting argument, OP, and one I’ve been thinking about as well. Something else to consider though:

The most frequently purchased items from Star Trek Online are, by a wide margin, new ships.

The most frequently purchased items from Champions Online are, by a wide margin, Freeform character slots.

The most successful Booster Packs in City of Heroes are, generally, the ones that came with attractive powers. (Example: The Ninja booster pack came with the Ninja Run power plus a few dozen costume pieces. The costume pieces were great, but it was the power that drove the sale.)

Conversely, small time consumables are usually the least popular items, generally purchased (if at all) as impulse-purchases with leftover currency.

Sovta.4719:

As long as players give them money why should they care?

Because caring cultivates loyalty, which drives a successful title.

MMORPGs aren’t a commodity market. MMORPGS are online communities that compete intensely for player investment. Strong communities lead to stable revenue and steady growth.

Sure thing.

/15characters

@OP,

This is a pretty comprehensive and analytical list; I can’t comment on everything you’ve said, but your criticism of level mechanics and combat mechanics seem convincing.

I wish you’d expanded a little on your Jack of All Trades point, though, because there’s something interesting happening here that no one seems to ever talk about:

The disparity between cooldown length and utility. In short, it works like this:

Skills that grant you boons have prohibitively long cooldowns and short durations. Long cooldowns discourages you from being sloppy with your Utility skills, which is fine, except your Utility skills rarely make a tangible and visible difference in the course of a battle. The result is an ability you only get to use very rarely, which doesn’t actually accomplish much anyway.

This leads to a situation where you’re basically stuck auto-attacking, dropping a few additional attacks on the side, dodging out of telegraphed attacks and running out of red circles.

Cooldowns are supposed to render resource systems (mana, rage, energy, whatever) obsolete, but instead they slow down the pace of combat, transforming what ought to be (according to ANet) a “visceral” experience into auto-attack, running out of fire, dodging, and occasionally popping a Shout every 40 seconds.

I can’t really leave GW2, since I have no subscription to cancel, but I play it less than I used to.

To answer your follow-up, I’m playing Okami HD on my PS3. I love it to death. After that…I’m not sure.

Primal.9513:

Orion.7264:

Look, there’s plenty of statistical evidence to show that in situations like this, those who choose to voice their concerns represent a fractal microcosm of the whole. The ratio of supporters to dissenters is usually a fairly accurate representation of the community as a whole; the only faction not well-accounted for is the apathetic faction who doesn’t care one way or another.

So the fact you voice your concern about us being a minority means there is only a “fractal microcosm” of people who think we’re a minority? Good to know!

I don’t know if I read you correctly, but I think you misunderstood what he was saying. Being part of a “microcosm” isn’t the same as being part of a minority. Microcosm means a small but accurate sample size.

Nerth.3940:

Lt Latency.7415:

What else would you do that give you that kind of value for your money??

I went to see the new bond movie and the add was nothing like what I thought the movie was going to be.

That cost me alot more then 10 cents an hour.

Your analogy would work if you were promised a Bond movie, bought a ticket for a Bond movie but you would get to see a romantic comedy that has nothing to do with a Bond movie.

But the romantic comedy happened to be 40 hours long, so you got your money’s worth anyway!

/sarcasm

xtorma.1283:

Eveningstar.6940:

I wish I knew. I logged in earlier today and all ~40 players that constitute my friend list and follower list were offline. That’s the first time I’ve seen that on a weekend; it’s pretty discouraging, especially as I’m on Tarnished Coast.

Do you think this will hit the rp community that hard? They are usually much more flexable because of the added value they create for themselves by rp’ing

I think it’ll affect everyone. I’m a roleplayer but I’m discouraged by this patch too, and I can’t possibly be the only one.

I think I get what you’re saying. You’re suggesting that just because GW2 resembles conventional MMORPGs by design doesn’t necessarily mean it must have gear progression, right?

And that’s fine. But I’m not saying GW2 must have gear progression. I’m saying it isn’t terribly surprising that they went ahead and implemented some version of gear progression. Doing away with gear progression altogether requires guts. It’s a radical shift in design philosophy. But this game is relatively conventional in just about every other way. It didn’t innovate much in combat, exploration, leveling, or storytelling, so in retrospect, it isn’t that surprising that they didn’t innovate with their gear progression either.

This doesn’t follow. In the absence of any reason to believe D follows from C, talking about ducks and such is just smoke and mirrors.
Disproving that D doesn’t follow from any property that A has is essentially impossible. So you can continue your questioning all day long. But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I seriously think not.

See, that’s the thing. You’re assuming I’m saying gear progression is absolutely inevitable. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying it’s sadly unsurprising . There’s a big difference.

We can continue the duck motif if you want: If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck. If it levels like a conventional MMO, tells a story like a conventional MMO, crafts gear like a conventional MMO, designs zones like a conventional MMO, deals with combat like a conventional MMO, then it’s probably more like a conventional MMO than we think, and it just might have some gear progression like a conventional MMO.

This is an inference. It’s a personal reflection on the situation in retrospect. I can’t provide you with any solid evidence, and if that means I can’t persuade you, then that’s fine. I respect that.

Fortuna.7259:

Eveningstar.6940:

Like I said in an earlier page, I have to take an opposing position in order to try to look at things rationally. To that end I’m perfectly happy to admit I’m wrong in my assertion that MMORPGs are categorically and essentially defined by having gear progression. But that’s the kind of conversation I’m really hoping we can have as a community after this fiasco blows over: Was the Manifesto realistic in the first place?

In what way are you suggesting it was not realistic? By what measure and standard?

It’s a rhetorical question. A manifesto is by definition idealistic—otherwise what’s the point of having one? I used the question rhetorically, as a transition to the more important question: What went wrong?

Eveningstar.6940:

And if it was, where did Guild Wars 2 go wrong? Because my feeling is that it wasn’t with Ascended armor and Infusion slots. It had to have happened before that, somewhere in the prototype stage, during which the developers decided to have a combat system, a crafting system, a trait system and a leveling system which were more like variations of the mainstream rather than something radically new.

You think so? What then is inherent about those systems that require a perpetual gear treadmill? You are making no case for any connection whatsoever.

There is no requirement, but a gear treadmill comes from the same school of conventional MMO design from which GW2 never really divorced itself. The fruit didn’t far fall from the tree. GW2 was never all that radically different a game to begin with, so why are we that surprised they’ve introduced gear progression?

If ANet let you down, they let you down way before Ascended Armor even became a thing.

Show me an argument where something you are arguing (grind is to be expected) FOLLOWS from the other properties of GW2. Because honestly your argument by association is far from conclusive.

You’re right that my argument isn’t conclusive. I can’t show you a situation in which a certain set of design decisions MUST lead to the introduction of vertical gear progression, probably because this situation doesn’t exist. My reasoning is not deductive; it is, admittedly, inductive. I’m not constructing a logical syllogism; I’m…submitting a possible and plausible explanation.

I think it actually does matter if they were taking minor risks and sticking to convention. It’s a matter of attitude. The attitude of the manifesto was radical, was revolutionary, clamored for change and insisted with powerful (and believable!) confidence that they can do things differently, and that they were not willing to settle for the safety of precedence, and they were eager to challenge convention and make mistakes in the name of advancing the genre.

The attitude expressed in the manifesto—radically optimistic, aggressive—is not evident in the design of the final product. Upon close scrutiny, Guild Wars 2 is a modestly unconventional game.

My argument isn’t empirical, because I have no conclusive evidence; my argument is rhetorical: Guild Wars 2 leaned toward conventional game design in nearly every major element—leveling, crafting, combat, trait lines, zone design. It is a cautiously designed game, cautious in its innovations. Even the Ascended gear was introduced with caution, in small, limited portions (a ring and a back piece) and with hesitant optimism.

Doing away with vertical gear progression is a radical shift. It’s wildly innovative and blatantly contrary to the entrenched habits of half a decade of MMO design. Making a free to play AAA quality MMORPG with over ~2 million initial sales and absolutely no endgame gear progression requires guts. It is a huge, radical risk.

You’re right that my argument isn’t conclusive, but I hope it’s persuasive: Are you really that surprised that a game as cautious in its innovations as Guild Wars 2 was never able to fully embrace a notion as wildly radical as eliminating gear progression?

If your answer is “Yes,” then I respect that, but I think it’s an important question to ask. If you’re willing to hold ANet’s feet to the fire over Ascended gear, then you should be willing to grill them about every other area of the game.

What really baffles me is the crafting system. It baffles me because all the building blocks are there for a truly different system… yet they decided to put those blocks together in a decidedly conventional and stale way. For me, that will probably remain one of this game’s Great Mysteries for years to come.

Exactly. The crafting system did a few things differently: no grind (usually), since you just had to make one copy of an item via discovery. Cooking was an exception. And gathering skills were universal. But if you stop and look at it: these aren’t radical changes to the way crafting works. These are tweaks to the way crafting’s worked since WoW (and possibly earlier?). They’re Quality-of-Life adjustments that don’t fundamentally question why we craft at all and what we should accomplish by crafting.

I know some of you called me an apologist for ANet for bringing this topic up the way I did, but nothing is farther from the truth. This is the kind of discussion I want us to have. I honestly believe that if you’re shocked, upset, dismayed or betrayed by the recent changes, then we shouldn’t just question the gear treadmill or Ascended armor.

We should question everything. Why do we have a Crafting system so reminiscent of crafting systems in every other game released in the last six years? Are Hearts/Dynamic Events really all that fundamentally different from the “Theme Park” stereotype where you level by hopping from zone to zone and doing circuits between quest hubs? What does the Trait line system accomplish in the first place, and how does it distinguish itself from Talent trees that we’ve seen in other games?

Like I said in an earlier page, I have to take an opposing position in order to try to look at things rationally. To that end I’m perfectly happy to admit I’m wrong in my assertion that MMORPGs are categorically and essentially defined by having gear progression. But that’s the kind of conversation I’m really hoping we can have as a community after this fiasco blows over: Was the Manifesto realistic in the first place?

And if it was, where did Guild Wars 2 go wrong? Because my feeling is that it wasn’t with Ascended armor and Infusion slots. It had to have happened before that, somewhere in the prototype stage, during which the developers decided to have a combat system, a crafting system, a trait system and a leveling system which were more like variations of the mainstream rather than something radically new.

Gilandred.9870:

Eveningstar, I’m going to comment on what you said here:

“The question, however, is whether that gear progression will be prohibitively inaccessible as it was in WoW, in which getting new gear meant raiding, meant showing up 3-4 times a week and grinding out instances for upgrades. ANet doesn’t want this. They want gear progression to be there for everybody, to be available for everybody, and to be open to you even if you aren’t a hardcore player.”

WoWs two endgame activities, raids and PvP, are separated by gear type. You needed to grind out two different sets of gear to be most competitive in either activity. However, unless this has recently changed, you could exchange tokens in order to get PVE gear by playing PvP, and vice versa. In effect, you could still “play your own way” as it were.

Anet has one type of gear that is useful for any type of activity. The only difference is you grind out one gear set instead of two. In my opinion, that is not fundamentally different, and no less “prohibitively inaccessible” than WoW.

Yeah, I see your point. As a preface, I quit WoW in late 2010, at the end of Lich King, so I can’t really comment on their recent direction with respect to Cataclysm and MoP. But yes, there was definitely a shift toward making gear more accessible over time. If you hang WoW’s design decisions on a timeline from Vanilla to Wrath, you’ll see a demonstrable shift in attitude, and an attempt to at least try to make gear and content more accessible to more players, and narrow the gap between Casual and Hardcore. (A distinction I hate using, but it makes sense here.)

You could make a perfectly salient argument that, right now, as of the release of Lost Shores, the means of progressing gear progression is more prohibitive and exclusionary in Guild Wars 2 than it is in World of Warcraft. Reason being that while WoW’s raiding system was originally pretty exclusive and inaccessible, that changed over time, while GW2’s gearing model went in the opposite direction, introducing an exclusionary gearing system in a game that was otherwise pretty egalitarian.

Which is just sadly ironic.

I’m an INFP! I’ve been taking the test pretty regularly for years, and my score never seems to change.

Money is a bad metric for measuring the value of the game. If you ask me, “Did I get my $60 worth from the game?” then the question misses the point.

Time is much more valuable than money. Money comes and goes; time is a permanent investment. The time I spend in the game—not the money—reflects my passion for the game, and my personal investment in the game.

So the bigger question is: What do you expect out of a game that you’ve invested 500 hours in?

No, it isn’t.

I have absolutely no hard evidence to support this, but observations, experience and inferences based on official responses.

Speaking as someone who never makes these kinds of bets, I’ll quote Toby Ziegler from Season 2 of the West Wing, and “bet you all the money in my pocket, against all the money in your pockets,” that Ascended is not the end of it.

I wish I knew. I logged in earlier today and all ~40 players that constitute my friend list and follower list were offline. That’s the first time I’ve seen that on a weekend; it’s pretty discouraging, especially as I’m on Tarnished Coast.

Fortuna.7259:

Eveningstar.6940:

So my argument is that GW2 is still fundamentally a pretty conventional game, despite the high aspirations of its Manifesto. Compare GW2 to GW1 and City of Heroes, in terms of pure unconventionality, and both GW1 and CoH are much more radical in their vision.

So what I’m asserting is that the manifesto was unrealistic in relation to the game they actually made, which is a lot more like an MMORPG than expected. Given that they were so cautious about change, is it therefore that surprising that they’d also (very cautiously and in small unthreatening steps) more or less reverse one of their Manifesto bullet points and introduce tiered gear? I’d argue: No.

So I can’t make a car that runs on bio fuel because it has a steering wheel and headlights? I’m sorry. The premise behind your argument, that something must be radically different or essentially the same, is not only false but is contrary to typical evolutionary processes. You are saying the first fuel injection car had to fail because it looked too much like other cars with carburetors.

I don’t know much about cars. So I can’t follow you into that analogy without getting lost in the metaphor. I’ll try to clarify though.

It’s not that a game must be radically different or destined to conventionality. There’s a false dichotomy to that premise, which I’m not suggesting.

It’s that the game described by ANet’s manifesto is radical. And yet the game actually published—the one we’ve been playing since BWE1—errs on the side of caution, leans toward conventionality, and innovates in small, careful steps. This is a game that talks about bucking convention in its manifesto, but in practice, prefers the conventional to the offbeat.

I’ve been typing out, deleting and re-writing this paragraph a half-dozen times to try and figure out a nice way to say it, but I’ll just be blunt: GW2 never resembled the game described by the manifesto all that closely. It was always pretty conventional. It was always trying to satisfy—in Linsey Murdock’s own words—“hardcore and casual players alike.”

It is a given in most games. This is irrelevant because GW2 was STRONGLY sold as a game where that would not occur. Hence, they sold copies to people that would never have touched the box otherwise. I wonder how that would make anyone mad

Yeah, I agree that they promised we wouldn’t have gear progression, and now we do, and that’s a perfectly valid reason to be incredibly upset. But what I’m saying is—look back at the game we’ve been playing since Beta. This is not a game that tried terribly hard to rewrite convention and take huge risks. The Manifesto does not describe a game that’s “inclusive to both hardcore and casual players.” The Manifesto describes a game that does away with everything that created the hardcore/casual dichotomy in the first place.

If the game we got was at all like the game the Manifesto described, hardcore/casual wouldn’t even be a distinction made by the developers, let alone a demographic the developers try to design for.

It’s perfectly valid for you to feel betrayed or lied to. I sympathize powerfully. But what I’m trying to get at is this: the game never actually followed its Manifesto from the very start. We just didn’t notice it until they went ahead and announced Ascended gear.

Hydrophidian’s response

Your recent points are very well taken. I spent a fair portion of the morning mulling over City of Heroes, and why it managed to not only successfully eschew conventional gear systems, but inexplicably fly under the radar of the discourse.

I think, fundamentally, you’re right. I can’t offer a rebuttal here. There are games with successful, nuanced and complex progression systems which do away with the de facto assumption that tiered gears constitute endgames, and endgames likewise constitute an MMO’s lifecycle.

But what really struck me is this: DAoC, UO and City of Heroes either predate or mirror WoW’s release. Champions Online and Star Trek Online were released after WoW, but the designer, Cryptic, was responsible for the original vision behind City of Heroes. Consequently, even though Champions did have a gear system, players were never saddled with the drudgery of pushing through tiered endgame.

Therefore I’m drawn to a conclusion similar to yours: WoW was (and perhaps remains) a supermassive presence in the industry, and following Blizzard’s success we saw a glut of MMORPGs uncritically following WoW’s design philosophy, a phenomenon encapsulated in Bioware co-founder Greg Zeschuk’s (I think it was him) infamous comment that if a game deviates from “The WoW Model,” then they did something wrong.

So it isn’t that gear progression is an inherent element of MMORPG design—it’s that titles released after or developed during WoW’s phenomenal success rarely took the risk of innovating. Therefore I’m starting to suspect that—no, it wasn’t the manifesto that was wrong. A manifesto is an expression of a high ideology, the design document for your dream game. It’s not that the manifesto was wrong, but that…the design of Guild Wars 2, the overall experience of the game, is, at least in retrospect, pretty conventional.

When we look at what’s already been done, by City of Heroes, by Guild Wars 1, by Champions and DCUO, the admirably lofty design goals outlined in ANet’s manifesto have been implemented in one form or another. They’ve just never come together in a mainstream title and successfully shifted the industry into a Post-WoW phase. At least not yet. Maybe that’s why the new Ascended gear has caused such a massive uproar.

That’s absurd. There is no mandate for an MMO to have gear progression. None. An MMO doesn’t even need to have gear. Period. If you have a game that many people will play online together with some form of massive connectivity, then it is an MMO.

Your argument is they were destined to fail because they made an MMO… that isn’t an MMO because it doesn’t have gear progression…? Which is it? If they designed a game that has no gear progression, and all MMO’s must have gear progression, then they never made an MMO so they don’t have to worry about that.

I’m saying there’s a fundamental disconnect between the kind of game their Manifesto describes, and the kind of game they actually produced. It’s not that ANet suddenly dropped their manifesto the moment they introduced Ascended gear; rather the way they designed their game made the inclusion of Ascended gear at best unsurprising, and at worst inevitable.

I know this sounds weird, but consider it this way. Even if you remove Ascended gear from the equation, GW2 resembles the stereotypical MMO in a lot of ways—the systems have been polished and improved, but the game never really bucked the conventions of the genre. A high level cap, zoned leveling, a largely conventional crafting system, and even a tiered talent tree in the form of Trait lines.

I’ll be the first to say that GW2 implemented its features differently, but its features are still recognizably conventional. It errs on the side of caution, and it does far less than GW1 to “buck conventions.” This is a game that, by admission of its own Manifesto, wants to undermine tradition and do something radically different, but it never leaves the safety of convention.

So my argument is that GW2 is still fundamentally a pretty conventional game, despite the high aspirations of its Manifesto. Compare GW2 to GW1 and City of Heroes, in terms of pure unconventionality, and both GW1 and CoH are much more radical in their vision.

So what I’m asserting is that the manifesto was unrealistic in relation to the game they actually made, which is a lot more like an MMORPG than expected. Given that they were so cautious about change, is it therefore that surprising that they’d also (very cautiously and in small unthreatening steps) more or less reverse one of their Manifesto bullet points and introduce tiered gear? I’d argue: No.

That’s absurd. There is no mandate for an MMO to have gear progression. None. An MMO doesn’t even need to have gear. Period. If you have a game that many people will play online together with some form of massive connectivity, then it is an MMO.

I’m happy to concede I was hasty, or wrong, or both in the way I asserted one of my points: that MMOs must have a vertical gear progression by definition, in the same way platformers must have platforms and ARPGs must have loot pinatas. There were some good points made in this thread and I admit, I was demonstrably incorrect.

There’s no mandate at all. I’m submitting the idea, however, that the de facto definition of an MMORPG is a game which includes, along with a big concurrent online community, some kind of gear progression. It’s not a mandate, but it’s a pattern of MMO design that defines the genre. It doesn’t have to be that way, but I think it’s fair to say that the genre has been built on vertical gear progression for so long that it’s essentially a given in most games.

Ah, I see. Well, I think you’re acting under the false premise that all MMOs seem to need gear grind

Yes, I agree and realize this may be a false premise as well.

You might be correct about all AAA high population persistant MMOs, and that is a bizarre phenomenon.

Agreed, and this is what baffles me. It’s just bizarre. Why do so many MMORPGs unabashedly advertise vertical gear progression and gear treadmills? LOTRO did it (and later apologized). DC Universe Online. Champions Online (sorta?). The Old Republic. Warhammer Online. Age of Conan. Aion. Even City of Heroes joined in with its Purple enhancements and eventual Incarnate system.

It makes me seriously wonder if it’s fair to say that gear progression is an accepted element of MMORPGs, and games without vertical gear progression are therefore outliers.

Anyway, thanks for the conversation.

Greep.6394:

Eveningstar.6940:

Yes, I know that. Could you respond to my post though? I’m saying, who cares whether it was what they planned. I bought a game that was falsely advertised, hence I was pissed. I bought it with money I could have used elsewhere, and I am not rich. I do not care about their failed good intentions, they are a company and a business and I expect results and not lies.

I don’t know. I’m sorry; I don’t have a clear answer for you. I started the thread because I wanted to take a closer look at the manifesto, and what it means and whether it’s even realistic, rather than to express my indignation toward Ascended armor and everything it means.

If it matters at all, I do sympathize a lot with how you feel.

Well sure.. it’s just I’m still struggling to understand is why you care. It’s just a commercial. I don’t care about the details or special arguments of a hot dog commercial, but if it says it is made of beef and it’s not, then it’s a blatant lie. And if the commercial doesn’t affect me then I don’t make massive arguments about it. You don’t need to construct some grandiose philosophical argument when this has a simple solution.

Because I’m past the point of being angry about it and trying to figure out where things went wrong. That ANet implemented something into their game that’s blatantly and obviously contrary to the Manifesto is a given. We know that happened, and it’s been pointed out frequently.

But what I’m trying to ask is whether MMORPGs are basically defined by gear progression de facto. Just about every MMORPG has gear progression as part of their endgame and it’s almost expected by default. ANet’s manifesto said that gear progression doesn’t have to be a “thing.” It turns out that wasn’t the case, because now we have Ascended gear.

So my question is: Was the Manifesto unrealistic in the first place? Is gear progression just something we’ve come to expect from our MMOs? Hydro and a few other posters say “No, not necessarily, because we have a few examples of MMORPGs that either have no gear progression, or do it differently.” That’s a perfectly valid argument, but it leads me to wonder why so many games nonetheless opt for vertical gear progression, unless that’s become a trope of MMORPGs.

You’re asking me why I care about something that obviously doesn’t affect me. But this does affect me. I didn’t want to mention it in my original post, but a history of my recent posts shows that I’m pretty demonstrably upset about the Ascended gear. Also I happen to really love the MMORPG genre, so the question of vertical gear progression being essential to the genre is an important issue for me.

Yes, I know that. Could you respond to my post though? I’m saying, who cares whether it was what they planned. I bought a game that was falsely advertised, hence I was pissed. I bought it with money I could have used elsewhere, and I am not rich. I do not care about their failed good intentions, they are a company and a business and I expect results and not lies.

I don’t know. I’m sorry; I don’t have a clear answer for you. I started the thread because I wanted to take a closer look at the manifesto, and what it means and whether it’s even realistic, rather than to express my indignation toward Ascended armor and everything it means.

If it matters at all, I do sympathize a lot with how you feel.

And with that, I can’t take this anymore. Time to go play for a little bit.

I’m sorry if I offended you; it wasn’t my intention. I have to take a contrary position in order to have a meaningful argument. If you decide to come back, I hope you take me up on my responses, because your point on subgenres was well-taken.

@ Rejam and Hydrophidian:

I’m not adamant that MMORPGs can’t exist without vertical progression, as evident in the fact that I’m rethinking my position in light of the points Hydrophidian just brought up. This is the argument I’m taking, the position articulated in my original post. But if I were adamant about it, I wouldn’t be having this discussion with you.

If you put aside text-based environments, I cut my teeth on Ultima Online. You might want to also look into the history of Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online and City of Heroes. You can also check out current games such as The Secret World and Star Trek Online. Really… you don’t have to look very far for alternative spins on gear progression, or no progression at all. Which says to me you haven’t actually tried.

I admit I actually don’t know much about Ultima or DAOC. I started online gaming with NWN (which remains my favorite game, but the subgenre to which it belonged seems to have disappeared). I have, however, played City of Heroes for years, and while CoH had a brilliant alternative to traditional gear progression, it did have a gear progression system—it was just abstract: enhancements, rather than equipment. And it did grow over time, especially with the introduction of the Incarnate system.

However, at this point I’d just be splitting hairs; I haven’t played Ultima or DAOC. If you say they’ve eschewed the vertical gear progression, then I’ll take your word for it. These are good counterpoints.

@Rejam

Unless you can explain why it is impossible for GW2 to follow the same pattern as GW1 and Anet’s own vision, how much more can we say about this?

It isn’t impossible. This is the big hole in my argument I just haven’t been able to mitigate yet. I’m arguing from a de facto definition of MMORPGs, which is to say: MMORPGs have gear progression systems. That’s how they’ve been done. We don’t have examples to the contrary, therefore MMOs are by definition games that have vertical progression.

Except as Hydro is pointing out, this isn’t necessarily true. It’s just mostly true given recent games. Since GW1 seems to be the big point of contention, let’s take a closer look at it.

“CORPG” was a marketing gimmick. Even if you except the label as something meaningful beyond that, it’s never put Guild Wars outside the MMO category. It was an attempt to distinguish it from subgenre convention. That’s it.
Anybody slinging the ‘Guild Wars is not an MMO’ line is just being intellectually dishonest, or doesn’t understand the distinction between genre and subgenre

My first response to this was: Why does “CORPG” have to be a marketing gimmick? Why can’t it be a valid description of GW1’s genre? Dismissing GW1 as a CORPG is as arbitrary as dismissing the term “CORPG” as a marketing gimmick. However…

Anybody slinging the ‘Guild Wars is not an MMO’ line is just being intellectually dishonest, or doesn’t understand the distinction between genre and subgenre.

You’re half-right. It’s not that I don’t understand the distinction between genre and subgenre—it’s that I hadn’t considered the distinction between genre and subgenre. If you’re willing to define Guild Wars as a sub-genre of the MMO, one which does away with certain tropes (including, but not limited to, gear progression), then you’ve made a perfectly valid argument.

Not considering subgenres was my mistake, and I admit to that. I don’t have a rebuttal for you. I want to expand the question, though, and this is a speculative question which will presumably have a speculative answer:

Shouldn’t it follow that, if GW2 were to actually fulfill the principles outlined in ArenaNet’s manifesto, it would resemble GW1 more closely? We have a game saddled with most of the tropes of a typical MMORPG: Quest hubs, a high level cap, even a talent tree system, or at least a close analogue. GW2 bends the tropes but never really breaks free, certainly not as radically as other games we’ve seen.

We can use City of Heroes as an example, since this is common ground for us. CoH almost completely did away with a traditional leveling system; its gear system was wholly abstract and directly improved abilities, rather than stats. Even the way you progressed in abilities was non-linear. Endgame wasn’t really a “thing,” and the game aggressively promoted having alts.

The game described in ArenaNet’s manifesto is a radical departure from the vein of a traditional MMORPG. Guild Wars 2, in practice, is not all that different from what we’ve seen recently. Consequently the inclusion of gear progression should seem almost inevitable.

@Hawkmoon:

While it’s true that a manifesto can be likened to a philosophy and not a business plan, I think people are missing the bigger problem. The problem was not necessarily that ANet deviated from the manifesto; the problem is that they did so, and then chose to not tell anyone about it.

I absolutely agree with you. Trust is a form of player capital that is incredibly hard to regain once lost. The thing is, the basis of my original post is not to make a judgement call about whether or not going back on their manifesto is a good thing or a bad thing. Because there are a billion threads on that subject.

My basic argument is that the manifesto doesn’t work. It doesn’t describe an MMO. It describes an amazing game, one I’d very much like to play, but Guild Wars 2 is fundamentally designed to resemble an MMORPG in so many ways that it’s not surprising that gear progression becomes part of the equation.

It’s not that it’s okay for ANet to break away from their manifesto (it’s really not okay), but that their manifesto is unrealistic vis a vis the game they actually created, even before Ascended armor became an issue.

@Greep

My biggest question to you is what’s the point?

The point of my thread? I’m trying to figure out the underlying cause to all the outrage, with which I sympathize. People say they’re upset because ANet went back on their manifesto. I’m trying to advance a different idea: the manifesto was wrong because it never reflected the kind of game ANet made in the first place. The inclusion of Ascended gear is less shocking that way, and seems more inevitable, if that makes sense.

@Wasselin

I’ve wondered this too. This whole controversy has made me re-read the manifesto and really critically look at the game and I think if you really look at it objectively— they didn’t make it. Not anywhere close. GW2, even without the lost shores patch, does not match what they laid out in the manifesto on multiple fronts.

See, this is exactly how I feel. It’s not that ANet had been following their manifesto up until the Lost Shores patch. It’s that the manifesto just didn’t work. It didn’t at all reflect the kind of game they were trying to make. MMOs have, among other things, gear progression. It’s how MMOs work. If GW2 were to follow the ArenaNet manifesto, then GW2 ought not have resembled an MMO as closely as it did.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Eveningstar.6940:

I can back up my points if you’d like. I thought I did, but I can clarify. Is there a part of my post that you feel requires more evidence?

Do so. I don’t see any evidence from you, just speculation. By evidence I’m talking about links to elsewhere so I don’t have to take you at your word.

Another question: If the manifesto was wrong, why hasn’t ANET come out and said that it was wrong ?
If they do, I expect that most of the people complaining about the gear grind will just leave and the controversy will die overnight.

A lot of the points I’m making are by nature philosophical, rather than empirical, and so providing hard evidence isn’t really going to be a possibility. In this case, the evidence is visible in the argument itself.

Much of what I’m saying isn’t speculation, but observation. For example, a manifesto is not a contract. It just isn’t, by definition. But does this mean you shouldn’t feel upset or betrayed when someone goes against the basic philosophical principles which they sold to you? No. You have absolutely every right to be upset. I’d be, and was, and still kind of am, upset. But that’s not the point.

The point is this: It’s possible that the manifesto was just unrealistic to begin with. The manifesto describes a game that barely resembles an MMORPG. But the game itself is very recognizably an MMORPG. Quest hubs, theme-park style zones, a high level cap, gear upgrades while leveling, unlocking new abilities—it even as a rudimentary talent tree (the Trait system). GW2 is an MMO. It’s going to have some form of gear progression because it was designed like an MMO.

If ANet’s Manifesto was right, then GW2 would be a very, very different game, fundamentally. It’d be a LOT more like GW1. It’s not.

As for my second point, about MMORPGs being defined by gear progression, the evidence is in the history: EQ, EQ2, WoW, CoH, DCUO, CO, LOTRO, ToR, STO, AoC. The list goes on and on and on. Just about every MMORPG released in recent memory includes a system of character progression through gear—even City of Heroes had an abstract gear system via Enhancements.

GW1 did it differently, yes. It broke out of the gear progression mold. But it was so fundamentally different from every MMO in the genre, that even ANet called it a CORPG.

As for my third point, the evidence is in a link I provided, wherein a developer uses the quote “all progression is important,” in response to a question about whether Vertical progression is a priority.

Fortuna.7259:

How can it be “wrong” when many, many people obviously want to play that way? Maybe it isn’t “profitable.” (More likely I suspect it merely less profitable short-term). But… wrong? Seriously?

I want to play that way, but I need to make something clear.

I’m not saying it’s not going to damage Anet’s credibility that they broke their manifesto. They did, and it hurts.

What I am saying is that their manifesto was probably unrealistic considering how they designed their game. Their Manifesto describes a game that isn’t an MMO. They made an MMO.

If they wanted to follow their Manifesto more closely, they shouldn’t have designed GW2 to look and feel and play like a classic, run of the mill MMO. But they did. Consequently, some elements of their Manifesto proved wrong in practice.

That’s the argument I’m presenting.

@Hydrophidian:

I’ve played a lot of MMORPGs over the years. I’m not discounting what you say, but my experience has been more or less consistent with my claim that gear progression is a defining element of the MMORPG. If you have any examples of games that refute this point, please let me know. This isn’t sarcasm—it is a sincere request.

@Snoring Sleepwalker:

I can back up my points if you’d like. I thought I did, but I can clarify. Is there a part of my post that you feel requires more evidence? Also, I’m not saying that GW1 wasn’t successful. I played and loved GW1. I’m saying it wasn’t an MMO.

And that’s my entire point. I’m submitting to you the possibility that gear progression is a basic, fundamental assumption in MMO design. I’m not making any value judgements about whether or not this is a good thing; I’m saying it is what it is, owing to patterns observed in dozens of MMORPGs released in the last ten years.

GW1 is a fine game. It’s not an MMORPG by ANet’s own definition.

My argument is that if ANet wanted to rid itself of gear progression, it shouldn’t have tried so hard to embrace all the other tropes of MMORPGs. GW2 resembles other MMOs in many, many ways. If it really wanted to do away with gear progression, it should’ve been a lot more like GW1.

3. All Types Of Progression Are Important: Vertical and Horizontal

This is a reference to something said by Lead Designer Isaiah Cartwright in a Kotaku interview. All forms of progression are important. Vertical progression for those who want it. Horizontal progression for those who want it.

(Horizontal progression is defined as progressing through the game by achieving different, broader goals which do not include a statistical component—more weapon skins, more areas to explore, more titles to get. Vertical progression is defined as progressing through the game by become statistically better, and having stronger stats, stronger powers, stronger gear.)

In other words, gear progression is here to stay. It’s a fact of GW2. The reason it’s here to stay is because the developers have stated that they want the game to be as inclusive as possible to all types of players. There’s going to be more gear-independent content for those who want it (i.e, world events like Lost Shores), and there’s going to be more and better gear for those who want it (i.e, Ascended Armor, and whatever’s coming in the future.)

So the question is not whether or not Ascended armor is going to go away (it’s not) or if gear progression is going to go away (it’s not). Gear progression is here to stay because this is an MMO, and if ANet defines GW2 as an MMORPG and GW1 as a CORPG, then it follows that GW2 will include the tropes that define an MMORPG—including gear progression.

So the question is not whether or not GW2 will have gear progression—it does, and it will, and it will continue to progress over time, through expansions and new content.

The question, however, is whether that gear progression will be prohibitively inaccessible as it was in WoW, in which getting new gear meant raiding, meant showing up 3-4 times a week and grinding out instances for upgrades. ANet doesn’t want this. They want gear progression to be there for everybody, to be available for everybody, and to be open to you even if you aren’t a hardcore player.

TLDR Version

• The Manifesto is not a binding contract; it is by definition an expression of an ideology. It’s somewhere between PR and Design Philosophy, but it is not set in stone. If we insist that GW2 broke its own Manifesto, all ANet has to do is demonstrate that Ascended gear was a success in order to demonstrate that the Manifesto was wrong.

• Gear Progression is accepted de facto as essential to MMORPGs. The Manifesto described a game that wasn’t an MMO. GW2 was, and is, an MMO.

• The question is not whether or not your gear should get better: the question is whether or not improving your gear and progressing your game is accessible and fun without feeling like a second job.

• It’s natural to feel betrayed, upset and angry. I totally, absolutely sympathize. But it’s probably not constructive to linger on it and hold a grudge. Look at the big picture, and be philosophical about this.

Please, please try to keep responses constructive. As a disclaimer, I am not taking sides in the Hardcore vs Casual argument, and I’m not at all trying to keep people from voicing very valid complaints about this game. I’m just encouraging the community to be philosophical about the issue and try to look at the big picture in a rational way.

Now that I have your attention…

I’m not trying to troll anyone; this is an honest and sincere question intended to reflect critically on the nature of the Manifesto that everyone keeps quoting. I’ve been keeping up with the debate for a few days now, and despite my mixed feelings on this subject, I’m trying to make sense of what seems to be a powerful split in the community.

Nearly every argument that criticizes the recent Lost Shores patch and the addition of Ascended armor cites the GW2 Manifesto—the document which outlines ANet’s vision with the game, and articulates the underlying design philosophy. The addition of a new tier of gear, critics argue, and the introduction of a “gating” mechanic (Infusion) violates a basic premise of the Manifesto—that the rarity of a gear should not be defined by stats but by appearance, and you shouldn’t need to grind away at gear in order to have fun in a dungeon.

I’m not here to argue the small details: the 8% stat difference, the availability of Ascended in WvWvW, the readily available Infusions. I’d like to submit to you a question about the bigger picture, which is:

What if the Manifesto is wrong? What if some of the principles expressed in the Manifesto may seem attractive in rhetoric, but are realistically impractical?

Consider the following points:

1. A Manifesto Is Not A Binding Contract

By definition, a Manifesto is an expression of beliefs. It is a document that collates and expresses the philosophy that motivates a particular group to do what it does. In this case, ANet’s Manifesto is an expression of ANet’s highest ideal, of what they think the ideal MMO should feel like and should play like. You don’t see any specifics in a Manifesto; you just see ideologies. There are no quarterly design plans. There are no projections of future projects. In short, a Manifesto is wishful thinking. It’s an ideal pursued by the design company, but sometimes pragmatism requires compromising ideology and finding a middle ground.

If ANet did go back on one aspect of their Manifesto, presumably they did so consciously. Presumably it was a calculated risk. It’s possible that, ideally, rare gear would be defined by rare skins, rather than better stats. However, in practice, reality may have proved that rare skins just aren’t a fun enough incentive to run dungeons, and players do need some kind of tangible motivator, some actual upgrade to chase. Which leads me to my next point.

2. An MMO Is (probably) Defined By Gear Progression

Actually, Action-RPGs are defined by gear progression as well, so it’s probably safer to say that MMORPGs are defined by having large, vibrant worlds that support big populations, which create incentives for play by offering gear progression.

It’s true that ANet’s design Manifesto claimed otherwise—that gear progression was a backward and un-fun gameplay model, and players should be encouraged to play the game for something other than an abstract, impossible-to-reach carrot that was constantly out of reach. ANet wanted to create the first true post-WoW MMORPG by breaking out of vertical gear progression. And maybe the problem is that it failed.

Bear with me for a second. It may be hard to swallow, and it may be difficult to accept, but what if, just maybe, gear progression is an inevitable reality of a successful MMO? Is it not possible that, if we hate gear progression, we should probably not be playing MMORPGs, in the same way that if we hate loot pinatas, we should probably not be playing Diablo? I want to submit to you the possibility that gear progression is just a fact of MMORPGs, inescapable and inherent to the genre.

I’m not saying this to discourage you, but to just be brutally honest about the whole thing. Every MMORPG has loot progression. All of them. They all create incentive by allowing your character to get better and better, and stronger and stronger, over time. MMORPGs are a carrot on a stick that you chase down a road constantly being paved by the designers. They just are. Until someone comes up with a way to totally undermine that basic principle, this is the definition of the MMORPG. And if you don’t like gear progression, then it may very well be that MMORPGs are not the right genre for you.

Being the heartbroken GW1 player that I am, I feel like a stalker, stalking a old girlfriend (doesn’t feel good). What I mean by that is that I keep coming to these forums, hoping for some official statement that announces that the game is now more like Guild Wars, and less like any other MMO out there.

This post really struck a chord with me, because I sympathize powerfully.

Zii, are you open to considering some unsolicited advice? If so, here it is:

Don’t waste your emotional energy waiting for some official response or trying to ‘make up’ with ANet. It isn’t going to happen, because the relationships you and the developers have vis a vis Guild Wars 2 is different. See, you’re a fan. You obviously have a lot of your enthusiasm personally invested in this game. You want it to succeed because you’re genuinely passionate about the genre, and you want to be a part of whatever defines the post-WoW MMO.

I get it.

But remember that the developers’ relationship with the game is different. I imagine they’re just as passionate as you are about the genre, but they’re professionals, and consequently, they’re professionally obligated to follow ANet’s protocol when it comes to communication. There may very well be a lot of designers who feel exactly as you do about the changes. There may very well be a lot of designers who are really enthusiastic about the changes and want to convince you to see things their way.

Whatever the case may be, engaging the community in this debate is very likely not an option for the developers right now, all of whom are professionally obligated to continue with their work (they’re probably swamped) and avoid risking bad publicity.

I know how you feel, but stalking the forums isn’t going to change your relationship with this game. You’re not likely to get more of a response than we have now. I’m not saying this to be cynical, but out of experience.

My advice to you, and anyone else who feels like you do:

If you’re seriously upset, just put the game down. Don’t make any dramatic “I’m leaving” posts. The game has no subscription, so put it down for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, whatever. Play something else. Try a console game. Try a game of another genre.

It’s good to be critical, but if the recent changes are seriously upsetting you, it’s probably in your best interest to back off a bit and refocus.

You listen to the Fan-Boyz at your own peril.

Why does this sound like the tag line to the mixtape of a really, really bad boy band?

The grand total of developers working on class balance is: two. I imagine they’re way busy and have their hands full lately, and won’t get involved in public discussions except for critical issues. We don’t really have any critical issues, compared to some of the other professions.

I make a point to avoid Guardian forums after every balance patch. Recently, though, it’s become increasingly discouraging to visit the forums at all. The level of dissatisfaction among the forum readers is being expressed with contempt so intense it gets actually exhausting to read after a while. Perhaps a break is in order.

There’s this really weird cognitive phenomenon where the people with the strongest convictions always believe that the other side is a vocal minority. This probably happens because it’s so easy—and so tempting—to believe that more people have to be on your side, because your side makes the most sense.

I really wish people would stop splitting our own community into false dichotomies: Vocal Minorities vs. Silent Majorities, Casuals vs Hardcore, Fanboys vs. Critical People, WoW Kiddies vs. Everyone Else.

The level of discourse in MMO communities would be better served if we quit trying to package every complex issue and the range of nuanced opinions that constitute them into a neat little bifurcation of People Like Myself vs. Everyone Else.

Morpeth, the problem with your point is that you’re using money as a metric for quality. The idea that we’re getting a whole boatload of entertainment for just sixty dollars and no monthly fee somehow precludes complaints. Consequently no one has a right to complain, because the game is free.

The problem is that money isn’t how I measure the value of my game.

Time is more valuable than money. The measure of a game’s value is not in dollars but in hours invested, in time spent participating in the game, evangelizing the game, exploring the game, theorycrafting, arguing on the forums, getting involved and being emotionally invested in the game.

No one, not a single person here, is going to claim that we haven’t gotten our 60 dollars worth of entertainment. It’s not about getting our money’s worth. It’s about the time and interest we’ve invested in a game many of us are intensely passionate about.

If I quit tomorrow, my money certainly wouldn’t have been wasted, but I wouldn’t be investing any more time into the game. I wouldn’t be investing any more passion into the game. I wouldn’t be investing any more interest into the game. I wouldn’t be investing any more creativity into the game.

Ask any developer how much a passionate, enthusiastic and devoted fan is worth. Players are not a form of capital you can measure in money.

And will it be available through crafting? Or is Ascended gear exclusively the drop from Fractals?

Honest question for my own curiosity. Haven’t been able to find an official answer yet so I’m hoping for insight. Thanks.

Pendragon.8735:

The best part of GW2 was never the dungeons. The dev team does not have as much experience or creativeness of other MMO’s that were designed and focused on dungeons and raiding from the beginning. It’s strengths were in the new gen ideas it pushed. About freedom of playing how you wish, anti-grind, multiple avenues to the plateau, lively combat, not restricted by rote raiding schemes, etc.

So simply throwing some higher number rewards into dungeons, and worse, forcing it to matter to all parts of the game, funneling players there whether they want to do it or not, is not any kind of answer or solution to dwindling player numbers, if that is what this is about.

In fact, to the extent that is happening, I would say its because dungeons were already too much of the focus of end game (for all the best looking skins) and they were dreadfully boring to run over and over, and most players simply are not doing them. So why make them even more required? And compound the problem by putting a gear treadmill on top?

Why not more longer outside dynamic event chains with cosmetic rewards at the end? Judging by how many people still do the same couple Orr events over and over, it wouldn’t take that much improvement and variety to get a lot of people out into new zones with new and better events. Why not more unique and challenging crafting reward? Why not more than one or two skin choices for WvW rewards, despite that so many already enjoy that mode even without virtually any rewards. Don’t force them into stale dungeon grinding, reward them for playing the part of the game they like.

I want to quote this because I feel like this is one of those interesting and nuanced posts that’s going to get lost in a lot of ad hominem and arguing.

You raise a really interesting point, and one I’ve been mulling about over a while. I do think there’s an overemphasis on dungeons, but in the sense that the PVE system needs to be more robust.

The premise of the game is a robust, flexible, tactical PVE system that depends on various builds and specs rather than a rigid definition of role. And the game isn’t there yet. We haven’t reached the point where PVE is actually interesting. Most PVE is still a matter of three things: Get out of red circles; dodge telegraphed attacks; keep hitting the boss.

And no amount of theorycraft and no configuration of traits fundamentally changes the way you approach most encounters. Most encounters will play out the same way regardless of your spec.

In other words we have a PVE situation in which you can spec/trait however you want, not because every build is viable, but because every build is tactically inconsequential. Unlike GW1, we don’t have the depth or the flexibility to build for an encounter, and swap our traits and spec to do something very specific.

So I think you’re very right. It seems counterintuitive to overemphasize dungeons when the PVE model still needs work, when Dynamic Events still need to be developed. When all the core features of the game still require attention and cultivation, it’s odd that they’d define “dungeons” as the thing to do at 80.

Erasculio.2914:

Regardless of what they have done, ArenaNet has lost their credibility under my eyes. The only thing that would make me believe in them again would be a complete reversal on the Ascended gear, together with firing Linsey Murdock.

Please don’t talk about credibility when you actually, unironically and openly advocate firing someone for no reason but to satisfy your sense of indignation. If you actually want Ms. Murdock to lose her job for nothing more than the fact that she delivered a blog post that you hate, you need to calm down and step away from the monitor.

I’m upset about the changes too, but there are about a thousand constructive ways to cope with being upset. This isn’t one of them.

Loosifah.4739:

The thing you’re failing to realize is for every person who hates this, there’s a person who loves it.

That’s a pretty horrible ratio, if half your players hate something. And this is assuming you didn’t pull your numbers out of thin air.

The real casualty from this debate is not going to be measured in departing players. It will not be measured in a change in the atmosphere of the forum, and it will not be measured by the collective angst of the community.

I’m not going to slide down a slippery slope of anxiety and decry Guild Wars 2 as somehow ruined, or predict the game becoming a staid clone of Warcraft two years down the road. I think that’s a gross exaggeration of the circumstances based on very little evidence.

I won’t get into a shouting match by taking sides in the perennial Casual v Hardcore debate. That’s a facetious fight and one that won’t ever end, and decrying Casuals for ruining the game with their whining or Hardcore players for ruining the game with their demands just blatantly misses the point.

I don’t care about the gear grind, or Ascended gear. So you have a new tier of gear with an Infusion mechanic about as innovative as Fire Resist/Nature Resist or Radiance. Great. Fine, whatever. I’m still going to play this game. I’m still going to participate in the Guardian community. I’m still going to level my alts. I’m still going to participate in seasonal events.

The real casualty here isn’t my money (I’m not spending any anyway, besides the occasional purchase on the Gem Store). The real casualty here is good will.

The real casualty is credibility. GW2 was designed on the passions of a development team with a very specific design philosophy: Buck the Trinity, make the game accessible for everyone, and toss out gear progression. Just like in GW1, gear was supposed to “stop” at Exotic and not inflate beyond that. You’d get your Exotics, and you were done gearing. Now you could do what you wanted. Now you were free. You were ready for all the content the game could throw at you. Gear should not be a gateway for more content. Gear should not be something you should keep up with.
That was the principle on which ArenaNet built its good will. That was the basis of the trust it cultivated between itself and its community.

Credibility is a form of capital: hard to define, hard to measure, hard to build, and very easy to lose.
I’m still going to play this game. I’m still going to level alts, explore the world, collect exotics and try new builds. But I’m a lot less enthusiastic about the game today than I was last week. And I’m far, far less likely to trust ArenaNet in the future. I’m not leaving; I’m not voting with my feet or my wallet.

ANet hasn’t lost my subscription because there wasn’t one to begin with. They haven’t lost my interest because I still love the game they’ve created. What they have lost is my good will, and that’s not something I give lightly, and it’s also not something anyone else values except me.

But it is what it is.

Well, that’s that, I guess.

Pretty sure it counts his account, since Adam can’t play more than 1 character at a time. I don’t know for sure but that’s my best guess.

fixit.7189:

???? Why is report making me post? LOL!

Because whatever post you’re trying to report has already been reported.

Item quality only applies to gear. Unless Ascended is some kind of resource node we’re harvesting. (It’s not.)

EgonVenkman.1907:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

The sad part is that these people are turning on them for something that has been in the game since launch.

Did none of you notice the different tiers of gear before this?

Did none of you notice the PvE stat boosters in the Gem Shop?

It’s like none of you have actually played the game you are now complaining about. Tiers of gear power have been here since the first week of beta, nothing is changing, they are just adding the next tier, it is literally no different then to what is already in the game.

Until February, when they announce Mythical gear, then next June with the dark side Diabolical gear, following next October on their annual release with Malevolent gear. They just need a few more tiers, then they will stop. Seriously. They will stop this time.

Trust them. Just ignore their previous marketing attempts. No gear treadmill indeed.

Slippery slope fallacy. And totally irrational. No one has any idea what the Ascended gear is actually all about. You’re just assuming Ascended is a new tier gear, and it’s going to lead to a whole new ladder of tiers, and before you know it the game is dead and we’re playing another WoW clone.

That is a massive cognitive leap considering that we have no information about the upcoming changes.

Would it kill you to relax, be patient, and wait for the blog post?

I think you don’t truly understand the gravity of the issue for us whom think this really does matters.

I totally understand the gravity of the issue, and I promise you, it’s going to be fine. Could we please, as a community, relax?

I can understand feeling anxious over this, but seriously, you guys are way overreacting. We have absolutely no hard details yet. We have no idea what Ascended gear actually entails, and a lot of us are freaking out over irrational fear.

It’s okay to be a little bit concerned, but calm down. It’ll be fine. There’s going to be a blog post later, and I’m willing to bet a fistful of silver a lot of us are going to feel really sheepish after reading it.

I’m all for PVE and dungeons, but I don’t think adding new forms of gear is going to solve the fundamental problem that dungeons feel chaotic, PVE feels absent of meaningful tactics and most builds lack practical variety.

I’d love to give Fractals of the Mists a shot, but new gear isn’t going to make me want to do that.

A better PVE system will. Because right now, it feels as if no matter how I spec and gear, combat boils down to running out of red circles, dodging telegraphed attacks and wailing on a boss.

In other words: My build does not seem to meaningfully alter my behavior in a dungeon, and therefore I don’t feel motivated to run dungeons.