Guild Wars 2

Swagman.9013:

Nobody has ever said grinding doesn’t exist in gw2. It’s not required. I say this because I know from firsthand experience.

I leveled my warrior as GS signet build, I knew this wasn’t good in groups. When I decided to do explorable dungeons end game content I bought a set of rare level 80 armor from the TP for about 2g. I bought 3 peices of knights and 3 peices of Valkyrie. I then respected to a dungeon friendly spec.

So for around 2 gold, and from spending 5 minutes on the TP I was ready for all end game content

Which I then proceeded to kill zhaitan and do explorables till I got my dungeon exotics, all while wearing purchased level 80 rares.

The next trick is to get 4 other people that did the same.

Drintar.1246:

@Guaradan just FYI they did find a bug in the DR code that was causing some people to be stuck in a state of perpetual DR and have a fix already made for it and in internal testing

Even if they fix it, I doubt it will encourage people to do dungeons. It seems that the fact that dungeons are simply not worth it has become deeply embedded in the collective mentality of the playerbase. And it’s going to be hard to convince people otherwise.

Swagman.9013:

THEN WHAT WIZARD MAGIC WERE YOU EXPECTING ANET TO COME UP WITH TO MAKE A 0 GRIND MMO THAT’S CAPTIVATING FOR YEARS, AND WHY ARE YOU UPSET WHEN YOU FOUND OUT IT HAS A GRIND.

Guild Wars 1. That is all. Also Caps Lock doesn’t get your point across, logic does.

People are either going to call you a troll on this or either come up with some explanation about how the amount of players has dropped because there’s already been a month since release and it’s normal and so on.

The truth is the game has some big issues at the moment, the biggest of them all probably being the fact that bots are everywhere and they’re ruining the economy. Then, there’s the fact that nobody wants to do dungeons, which discourages even those who were willing to do them. My friend and my brother, both of whom started playing on the 28th have already given up the game, while I no longer find any desire to log in, simply because of the fact that no matter what I’d do, it would probably not be worth the time and effort.

Swagman.9013:

And all I was pointing out is that there is nothing in the game that requires you to get that armor, so your grind is self induced. You will get that armor eventually if you just play the game normally which is 100% possible as you are now. The only reason you view it as a grind is because you want it now.

If I had done that, I would probably have gotten bored before the first piece. Repetition without reward becomes dull. And there is no way anyone could possibly make an MMO , or even a game, that is not repetitive.

Porky.5021:

You’re looking for a game where you do everything exactly one time?

Why ask a question to which you already know the answer? You know it would be absurd to ask that, nor would it be preferable.

Swagman.9013:

Oh so the op used the scientific method, with his own personal GW2 experience.

I hear running 1 experiment with no control data, or opposing theories is how science is done these days.

Cause I have had and it seems like many others have had a very different view point from his, but I’m the wrong one for trying to reach a compromise, well you call that opinionated, but the op has been using facts the entire time. Ok.

If it had been any other game, doing 600 things of the same type (which is kill/collect/escort/defend type of activity) would have been called a grind, which is specifically why I classified these activities as grinds. I don’t know why the word “grind” is so taboo when we’re talking about Guild Wars 2. Why can’t we call activities that in other games are viewed as grinds by the very same name here? Just because ArenaNet said the game is designed for fun? That’s hardly reason enough. There are grinds in the game, it’s obvious. Whether they’re required in order to get the most enjoyable experience is irrelevant, since the OP didn’t debate that issue in the first place.

Swagman.9013:

Well then this sentiment along with the projected problem as we have worded it is a far more agreeable approach than the Anet lied about grinding one.

What just happened is a well thought out problem and possible solution in an intelligent context.

I believe karma rewards should be boosted for reasons X, Y, Z because of evidence manifesto, but in a reasonable amount so as not to disturb balance of the hardcore and casual.

If I saw that as a post I’d agree all day with that. But stating that Anet lied when they certainly did not (even though you still feel they lied to you) comes off as hostile and warrants the same response.

I never stated they lied. Perhaps they didn’t even feel getting karma armor was a grind. I’m just pointing out that it does require the completion of several hundred dynamic events, which makes it, in the common definition of the notion, a grind, which in turn was contradictory to their statement in the manifesto. It was an observation, nothing more. Besides, saying that my post is hostile is a bit too much. In fact, the OP is probably my least hostile post in the entire thread.

Craven.5468:

What personal attacks you have undergone in no way excuse this individual from dragging everyone who enjoys this game into a pile and claiming they are all illogical. This wasn’t about you, move on.

It’s obvious he was talking about the people that are enjoying the game and are posting in this thread. Everyone not posting in the thread is, again quite obviously I would say, excluded from any remarks. They’re not contributing to the discussion, so they can’t be judged. Since you hadn’t posted in the thread up until that post, you too were not included in the category of people that are illogical. This wasn’t about you, move on.

Swagman.9013:

Alright and to that end I’m saying, if we all define what a grind is to ourselves. Then for the sake of arguement you have to allow that some people may not view the dungeons karma or even legendaries as a grind, but fun.

So for those people that part of the manifesto was spot on. And all I’m saying is, by admonishing something that goes against what you think is fun and falls into a category that you think is grinding, it is being selfish to think it needs to change.

And that’s all I’ve been trying to say, there’s a few thousand other players in this game, we have to consider them all.

And ArenaNet could very well cater for both kinds of people. How? Very simple: reduce the cost of karma armor, so that those who view it as a grind can stop doing events. All the while, the people who consider it fun can get the armor, but also keep doing the events because they’re fun.

Edit: Also, the fact that I’ve gotten my armor more easily doesn’t impede your fun. You can still keep doing the dungeon even after you no longer need tokens, for fun.

Craven.5468:

Your insults are not welcome here. Some of us enjoying the game are quite capable of logic. Grouping a couple million people together based on a couple forum posts is beyond foolish.

So, he’s not allowed to insult the ones defending ArenaNet, but those people are allowed to insult us. It’s been implied over the course of this thread that I was stupid, I’ve been called “spoiled” and that “s” word that is synonymous to dung, yet that was fine and perfectly acceptable.

Swagman.9013:

I chose that point because the others as you admitted were debatable but you had some pretty resolute feelings on this subject, which I feel they still lived up to their end of the word.

And you have to be joking about the grind in wow, the entire archaeology profession is the very definition of grind. I guarantee people are still clearing MC to get a thunderfury.

False. According to you, each of us defines what grind is to them. Can you be certain that there is absolutely no one that enjoys archaeology? (of course nobody in their right mind would, but for the sake of the argument, I’ll say it).

Also, in the OP, I never argued whether these grinds are optional or not, or justifiable or not. I just said they existed, despite ArenaNet’s claims. By existing I mean they could be included in what is commonly defined as grind. You brought me into the discussion about how justifiable or optional they are. I never meant for that discussion to take place.

Swagman.9013:

this should have been the topic of your post then, not Anet lied to our face about no grind.

This is situational. It can be changed by you

I have never been unable to complete a dungeon I’ve started and I only play with pugs. But I communicate and strategize and try my best to understand the mechanics of the encounter.

That was never meant to be the topic of this thread. You just picked that single point and made it the topic of your posts. The thread was, like the title says, about what they promised in the manifesto and what they delivered on the 25th of August.

Edit: Also, you’re saying grind is a subjective thing. I guess the same applies for WoW then. Why then would people define WoW as grindy? Perhaps some people really enjoy doing the same raid bosses over and over for months. Perhaps people enjoy doing the same events over and over in Guild Wars 2. If everything is subjective about grinding, how is Guild Wars 2 better than WoW? By your logic, it’s not, and it’s all a matter of preference. Why then would they market it as the MMO which innovates the genre, when it all comes to whether you like WoW or Guild Wars 2, instead of which one is better?

Alright, I wanted to give up on the thread and I came back because I saw there were still people defending my points, yet I feel like it’s not worth it anymore. If I had called anyone stupid or spoiled, I would probably have been infracted by now, but then again I don’t defend anything ArenaNet does mindlessly.

I just can’t believe how many people are defending the game by simply saying the grind is optional. If WoW had required you to do the same 10-20 things 600 times over in order to get a cosmetic skin, people here would have been laughing and saying: “How can people still play WoW, look at that grind”. I can’t for the life of me understand how people see doing the same thing over and over again as being fine in Guild Wars 2, but as a grind in another game.

Swagman.9013:

First off I have to address the I could get cool skins from old content in wow part.
Buy wow – 60
Buy tbc – 60
Buy wotlk – 60
Buy cata – 60
Buy panda – 60

That is if you have been loyally playing at the release of all the games, your 300 bucks deep minus the sub fee, I think you payed your dues to have some old content skins but oh so nice of wow to add transmute so late in the game.

And to your point of the manifesto, if you get that it’s optional, and you get that maybe they added grinding in for the sake of those who like grinding. Then literally you are mad cause they didn’t follow it to the T and have a 0 grind game?

Are you saying then, that had they called that blog post, Our MMO beliefs, and not mentioned the word manifesto, then you would have 0 qualms.

Up until Cataclysm every expansion and month of subscription was worth the cost, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought them. True, they added the mechanic quite late, but at least it’s available for in-game gold, not some real money currency.

I don’t mind having insane grinds like the legendary weapons. What I do mind is having a grind for armor skins. And the grind in the dungeons doesn’t necessarily come from the fact that you have to do 20 runs, but from the fact that it’s hard to get a group and even harder to finish the dungeon.

In Guild Wars 1, there were a couple of armors that costed a lot (like the FoW armor, Vabbian armor, Primeval and so forth). However, you could get some nice skins at decent costs. Keep in mind there were no travel and repair costs in Guild Wars 1 and as such you never actually lost gold. It’s the other way around in Guild Wars 2. The crafted armor skins are terrible and all the nice skins require you to grind. So, how is it again, that they are taking everything we love about Guild Wars 1 and bringing it here? People loved instant travel in GW1 and it made its way into GW2, but with a rather big cost (huge improvement, really). Same was the case with not having to repair armor. I remember the first time playing the game, after having played WoW (afterwards I went back to WoW, but that’s beside the point) and I was like: “You don’t have to repair armor? That’s awesome.” The first days in the game were simply breathtaking because it was different from WoW and in a good way. How is that they expect me to have that same feeling here when they have: travel costs, repair costs, armor grinds, all of which have been done before? Also, did you know what was the reward for completing a story there? A green weapon with an unique skin (green meant high quality there, by the way). What do you get here? Some WvW blueprints and some stupid blues and greens. Wow, so awesome.

Moreover, I could understand not respecting everything in the manifesto, because it was released quite a while ago. What I don’t understand is not sticking to what they said 6 months ago when beta started, which is that you would get 1 piece of dungeon armor per run (and it was actually so during the BWEs).

Swagman.9013:

Gauradan.8361:

Alright, fine, you win. The game is not a grind, everything about the game is perfect, as if God himself designed it. ArenaNet didn’t change their philosophy, I’m just misinterpreting it. I want everything for free and I’m a self-entitled prick. Now that we’ve settled that, I’m off to play Skyrim. Have fun.

Well that mindset doesn’t surprise me, the flip the chessboard and walk away.

I never said that there is no grind. There’s plenty of grind, but it’s all by choice. The entire game world is open to you. You can do Arah in level 80 rares. In wow you can’t do black temple in level 70 blues. That’s an example of a forced grind. You cannot progress to point c without doing point b.

Gw2 you can go from a to c or to d or to whatever.

Why would I argue with you? Logic doesn’t work with people like you.

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2.

If there is a grind and you are grinding, whether it’s your own choice or not, they have already broken their promise from the manifesto. Not once in the OP did I argue whether the grinds are optional or not, or justified or not. I simply said they exist, therefore breaking their promise in the manifesto. Simple logic.

As others have said, when you call it a manifesto, I, as a customer, expect that you respect everything you said there to the letter.

Furthermore, by your logic, once again as others have said, WoW doesn’t have compulsory grinds. Besides, in WoW, I could get cool skins from raids from previous expansions and transmogrify them on my current gear. This, however, will never be the case with Guild Wars 2, given the sidekicking system.

Alright, fine, you win. The game is not a grind, everything about the game is perfect, as if God himself designed it. ArenaNet didn’t change their philosophy, I’m just misinterpreting it. I want everything for free and I’m a self-entitled prick. Now that we’ve settled that, I’m off to play Skyrim. Have fun.

Swagman.9013:

No I didn’t play gw1 but I want to hear Gauradans solution for other people not enjoying the game when it’s catered to timeframes that suit his desires.

It’s not about time. If it required me to do 20 runs, but the dungeons were fun and not as punitive as they are now, it probably wouldn’t have been much of an issue. The problem is the dungeon are horrible. And it’s not my job to find solutions to dungeon design issues. If they couldn’t come up with interesting mechanics themselves, they could have just copied them from WoW instead of adding difficulty by increasing the health pool and damage of mobs.

Porky.5021:

Gauradan.8361:

Porky.5021:

There is no grind required. You can have the same abilities and stats as everyone else without grinding anything.

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

Can I have the dungeon armor that I like without grinding? No.
Why are dungeons a grind? Because they’re not fun.
Why aren’t they fun? Because they’re poorly designed.
Why are they poorly designed? Because the difficulty is artificially created via huge health pools and huge damage on mobs, instead of clever mechanics.

Oh, so I can’t have that dungeon armor then? Nope.

You can’t just say that to people. ArenaNet need people to buy their expansions to keep the game going. How do you get people to buy expansions? By making the previous content entertaining.

You’re mad because you can’t just have everything you want?

There’s a word for that…spoiled.

No, I’m mad because I have to go through the worst form of content I have ever experienced in an MMO about 20 times to get what I want.

ThiBash.5634:

Zen

No it isn’t.

Yes it is. That’s like saying the main characters of Lord of the Rings all experienced the same story because they all ended up in Mordor.

Of course the ending is the same. That’s the whole point. They never said the whole story should be different, and it doesn’t have to be.

And at the very least, you have much more influence on things than you did in World of Kittencraft.

In WoW, starting with WotLK, different stages of a quest meant you saw the world differently.

Here, when I entered Orr, my story quest was on the stage where the Pact was just forming. How then was it that Fort Trinity was already built? So how exactly do my choices and personal story affect the world?

At least learn about question progression in WoW before saying you have less influence there than here.

Porky.5021:

There is no grind required. You can have the same abilities and stats as everyone else without grinding anything.

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

Can I have the dungeon armor that I like without grinding? No.
Why are dungeons a grind? Because they’re not fun.
Why aren’t they fun? Because they’re poorly designed.
Why are they poorly designed? Because the difficulty is artificially created via huge health pools and huge damage on mobs, instead of clever mechanics.

Oh, so I can’t have that dungeon armor then? Nope.

You can’t just say that to people. ArenaNet need people to buy their expansions to keep the game going. How do you get people to buy expansions? By making the previous content entertaining.

Shard.4791:

What if “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2” talks about this grind: " — the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff."

We really can’t know IMO. There’s this possibility they did not say that there would be no grind at all.

Even if it was meant that way, what was it that they innovated? That would mean they simply swapped the grinds between them.

@Swagman Why are you putting words into my mouth? I never said it should be that easy. However, 100 runs per piece of karma armor is absurd. 20-30 would have been more acceptable. That way you’d have felt that you were working towards a reachable goal.

Swagman.9013:

The only reason you say there’s nothing to do at 80 but grind is because you have put some goal that you want to reach that is beyond clear all explorables. And that is exactly like what I said before.

All the games content ALL of it is doable with 0 grind. You can complete all story modes, you can complete all explorables, you can discover every zone, with never having to equip an exotic.

But because you have chosen a goal, let’s say it’s a certain dungeon armor set, you now want what is meant for players that you are not. That stuff is not for players like you. The entire game is available to you but these aesthetic items and weapons are not put in the game for everyone.

So don’t complain about a grind when you are willingly, of your own free will, choosing to get something that is meant to be grinded for.

You know, I’m dead sick of being told something is not for me just because I’m not the right player. That’s a mentality specific to WoW. You’re not a hardcore raider so no purples for you. How about no? How about you take that mentality back where it belongs and stop picking on me just because I want Guild Wars 2 to be the game that they promised it would be?

@slafko
Each to their own I guess.

Anyway, it’s kind of sad to see the game I’ve been waiting for since I bought GW1 in 2008 turning out to be such a disappointment. I know 3 people besides myself who have quit so far: my friend (who didn’t even get past level 40), my brother and the leader of the guild I was in at release.

What’s even worse is that all these issues could be easily fixed, but ArenaNet just doesn’t seem to care. They have their own schedule about the game and it doesn’t take into account the players’ concerns and complaints.

Mura.8673:

And what gets my gizzard about threads like this one, is how few people acknowledge that yes there ARE players that love grinding for unique and cool as hell items! So while anet didn’t meet that particular sentence of their manifesto, I’m really happy it turned out the way it did.

And those items should have been the legendary weapons. As it is right now, there’s more content for the hardcore special snowflakes than for the average player who just wants to get the look they like without being knocked into the dust every time they try to do so.

Swagman.9013:

How did they not deliver guardian? There is only an optional grind, you arekitten cause they said there is no grind but they offered a grind for those who choose it.

It’s like a mall that proclaims “we don’t want our mall shoppers to climb stairs” so they have escalators for every single floor, you can get anywhere you need to by using an escalator, but then you see a stairwell and become enraged?! What is this bull&@$! you said you don’t want us climbing stairs?!
Well those are for people who prefer to take the stairs, but they are optional
No you said no stairs and I see stairs I don’t care if it’s optional I’mkitten and you are liars.

First of all, it’s Gauradan. Very different from Guardian.

Secondly, they didn’t deliver because the only thing to do at level 80 is the grind. Legendary weapons were enough of a grind to keep the really hardcore players busy. They needn’t have made the dungeon and karma armors the same. Also stop it with the analogies, games work nothing like real life situations. That has been proven time and time again by how many people are willing to accept a game not delivering what it promised, whereas if it were any other object/service they would probably have taken the issue to court.

Spawn.7014:

True they promised no farm. When have you known of a company, trying to make money, not to Lie?

Never. However, it’s disheartening to see that, despite the fact that the grind is far worse than in the MMOs they were so openly criticizing, people still defend them saying it’s not required. They might just as well say there’s no need to play the game after hitting level 80, because grind is all that level 80 is about. Then, if I’m not required to play the game, whatever did I buy it for?

Swagman.9013:

Anet: hey player 1, do you want grind in your mmo?

Player 1: heck no I hate grinding.

Anet: well good news player 1 all our content can be done in easily obtainable rares!

Player 2: well wait a second I like grinding for difficult to obtain rewards.

Anet: well fantastic news player 2 we added some gear for you to obtain by grinding your eyes out and since you will most likely play our game longer to obtain those rewards we made them look extra cool!

Player 1: hey but wait I want that gear too

Anet: well that gear is for player 2 only cause he doesn’t mind grinding, but don’t worry both of you guys will see the same amount of content.

Player 1: no that’s not fair I want his gear too but I don’t want a grind, give me his gear without the grind.

That is utterly irrelevant. They promised there would be no grind and they didn’t deliver. That is all that matters. Also, as Konrad pointed out everything in the endgame is a grind. Doing stuff for fun doesn’t even cover the waypoint costs.

The game offers two choices if you’re not a PvP player: get to level 80 and grind or get to level 80 and stop playing. There’s nothing else to do. Dungeons aren’t fun. You don’t feel like a HERO when a zombie in Arah which can barely hold its flesh together knocks you out in two hits, when in the books, Destiny’s Edge were slaughtering dragon minions with one hit. You don’t feel like a HERO when Trahearne comes into your story and despite being annoying, incompetent and, above all, arrogant everyone loves him. You don’t feel like a HERO when you have to defend the same camps and collect the same items dozens of times in order to get a piece of armor or a weapon, while Trahearne gets Imba Sword of Uberness, just because he is Trahearne.

Good read but you clearly hate the BLTC.
You need to give the reader more than just the BLTC.
I hate the grind. I don’t hate the concept of a cash shop, so long as it isn’t as intrusive as this one. Moreover, I don’t think I even mentioned the BLTC even once.

Add in sections about how Anet puts a patch out and breaks 100 other things.
They never promised they would have perfect patches in the manifesto. I was just talking about design philosophies in the OP. Sure, they promised they would only release the game when it was ready and it wasn’t as smooth as we would have expected, but they didn’t say this in the manifesto. This is a legitimate complaint, but it simply wasn’t related to the topic.

Talk about why there is no test server or the lack of communication between Anet and the players.
Communication has been lacking for the past year, if you asked me. They changed things without telling the playerbase, then, when we reacted to those changes, they did not care enough to revert them. Dyes becoming character bound and transmutation stones disappearing from karma vendors are two such examples. About the t-stones, they said they were looking into redistributing them in-game, but as it is right now the only reasonable way of getting fine stones is by buying them with gems.

Add in how PvE is being nerfed every patch because they will not ban bots.
Again, this issue was not talked about in the manifesto. It is indeed a most severe one, especially since the players are the ones being affected. Crafting materials get harder and harder to obtain, while the prices are still dropping. How are you supposed to make gold?

The game might turn out to be successful or it may fail, but to me it’s just another MMO flop.

Cailais.5180:

Relax. AN a doing what most MMO companies now do – collate data on where, when, how and who is botting and who is conducting RMT.

Once AN have all the data they need they’ll slam the door shut on thos botters and life will return to normal.

C.

Could you provide a quote on that? Perhaps you have an internal source? As of right now, we have no idea what they are doing. Even if the do a massive ban, they’d still need to intervene directly to get the economy back on its feet.

Swagman.9013:

I think when they said that they don’t want to require grinding for gear I believe they have achieved that. I have been able to do many (I haven’t done all of them yet) explorable dungeons using rare crafted lvl 80 armor. They are doable and it’s not a graveyard rush zergfest if you know what you are doing.

Exotics are not required to clear explorables. Therefore that billion karma you say you have to farm up is not needed, but it’s by choice. I’ll admit that the level 80 crafted armor I wore looked so bad that I wanted my dungeon exotics ASAP. But other than that if I was happy with the way they looked I could have taken my sweet time.

This idea that the top tier gear is needed to complete top tier content is something players have dragged over from other games. But in other games you don’t have ways to easily and frequently dodge damage, you don’t have debuffs that reduce boss damage by 50% which is huge btw. Can you stun bosses in other mmo’s? Can you knock them down or knock them back. I’ve had runs where we have been able to chain stun bosses frequently.

I say they delivered on the no grind is necessary promise, but players have interjected grind by making the gear that is meant for the more dedicated players (dungeon and karma) a necessity and not a prestige or badge of honor like it was meant to be.

“We don’t want players to grind” is different from “No grind is necessary”. The first implies that there is no grind, whereas the second suggests that there is a grind, but you’re not required to do it. That’s not what they promised.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you talked to the heart NPCs, you would actually find out why they needed you to kill 20 rats.

Then again, there are more things that make it not worth playing, which is precisely the reason why I feel no urge to log in anymore. The basics such as combat, being able to revive NPCs and players are fine. Things like personal story and dungeons are the ones who didn’t live up to the hype. The endgame didn’t live up to the hype. Just because they say endgame starts at level 1 doesn’t mean it’s true. Once you’ve hit level 80 it’s either grind or stop playing.

I stand by my first statement, it’s different from other MMOs, but in most aspects not in a good way. Keep in mind that I tried to keep the post as objective as possible. Perhaps I was wrong in speaking in the name of others.

Edit: I also wanted to say I played the devil’s advocate on the first post, giving them the benefit of the doubt. It’s obvious they didn’t stick to many of their design philosophies. The purpose of the post was to educate that part of the playerbase who thinks ArenaNet kept to their philosophy, without actually knowing what that philosophy was. As such, it had to be written in a manner which, to them, did not mark me as a “hater”.

Fayel.7589:

Please god no. That’s what Legendaries are for, so you have to grind for them, same with cultural weapons. I don’t get what people want form this game. You want a full armor set of exotics/ legendaries at lvl 80? You don’t need ot get the cultural, you don’t need ot get the legendaries, heck just play with blues/ greens. They don’t add much power, you can complete the game without problem with those. I personally love to go for the legendaries, because it’s a challenge. You can’t eliminate grind from an MMO, not with the current setup MMos follow at least.

Once more, I did not say whether the grind was justifiable or not, I just pointed out there are grinds, contrary to their statements in the manifesto. No serious company should boldly name one of their presentations a manifesto without actually making sure the points they have nailed down will never be changed.

At the pace they seem to be going, by the time they are done working on it the economy will have been ruined and many players will have quit. And this was the game that would bring new life to the genre. A game where botters make tons of money, while legit players get punished by the scarce loot and the anti-farm code. Pathetic.

The only ones who should be able to get gold in-game are bots and those who play the trading post. The rest have to buy gems and trade them for gold. That’s what you get for not having a subscription fee: stupid mechanics designed to push you into spending real money.

You’ll get quest text that tells you ’I’m being attacked by these horrible things,’ and it’s not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says ‘Go kill ten centaurs.’ We don’t think that’s OK. You see what’s happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants.
Nothing much to comment here. There clearly is no quest text and with the exception of Orr, there aren’t many areas where “there are actually centaurs standing around in a field”. Thus, we could say that Orr is the only area that doesn’t follow this part of their philosophy, due to the huge amounts of mobs standing around doing nothing.

We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building, and in Guild Wars 2, it’s your world. It’s your story.
We can all agree they have not built the same MMO as everyone else. Whether it’s for better or for worse, is up to everyone to decide. The story part was discussed above.

You affect things around you in a very permanent way.
Your completion of a dynamic event has a temporary effect, up until the event or the servers reset. Furthermore, we have seen how the cleansing of Orr doesn’t have any noticeable effect outside the instance. This was impossible to do and was probably an exaggeration on their behalf.

Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.
Again, untrue. The only choice a player can make concerning certain events is whether to start them or not. There aren’t choices like the ones in the personal story, where you can pick what quest to do, at least none that I have experienced while doing 100% completion.

You’re meeting new people whom you will then see again. You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.
The village will stay rescued until the event resets; however, it was impossible for it to be any other way. The fact that the NPCs remember you is also true; there are certain events where are you are thanked for helping even after the event has passed.

All in all, I hope I didn’t seem too subjective while writing this post. As you can see, I’ve tried presenting both sides of the coin as much as I could. This was my experience while taking 3 characters to most of the world, with one of them having 100% completion.

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.
This is a part which has been subject to a lot of debating. Some people say there shouldn’t be any grind, while others say the grind is entirely optional. Yet, we have this statement from ArenaNet which says they don’t want players to grind. To my understanding (and I’m not claiming my understanding can’t be erroneous), that means there shouldn’t be any grinds at all. However, there are:
-karma armor: the cost of a karma armor set is equivalent to the reward of 666 level 80 Dynamic Events; it’s simple math: 42000/378~111; 111*6=666. I can understand they might have meant it as a long term goal, but after some time, doing the same events over and over again can get tedious. Of course, there is always the possibility of farming lower level events so as not to get bored with them, but for the math part, I used the reward numbers of the most efficient way of farming the karma.
-dungeon armor: even after the changes to the token system (which are currently not working properly), it would still require roughly 20 runs of the same dungeon to get a dungeon armor set, meaning at least 6 runs per path. This might have been thought of as a long term reward as well, but doing the same dungeon over and over again, especially with the number of bugs and issues encountered, can prove tedious. There are also people who claim that the dungeons are badly designed, which makes it even worse to them.
-cultural armor: also could have been considered a long term reward, but the cost is high anyway. Take into consideration the fact that it was increased tenfold since beta.
-gold sinks: another thorn in the side for those looking to explore the world at higher levels. There’s a high chance that if you simply went from waypoint to waypoint simply having fun, you’d be broke. Thus, there is a certain amount of farming required to keep your gold pool steady.
-legendary weapons: these were clearly meant for the most devoted for players, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re a grind to get. You simply cannot get them just by “playing for fun”.
Obviously, you may be doing all these grinds while also having fun, so you won’t feel like you’re “grinding”. However, that doesn’t nullify the sheer number of times you’re required to do the same action in order to attain these rewards.
To conclude, I’d like to say that, for this part I did not try to debate whether these grind are optional or not, or justifiable or not. I simply pointed out their existence, contrary to Colin Johanson’s statement in the manifesto.

As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.
Even with the instanced personal story, most of the time you’ll still be doing the same thing that others are doing: doing the same heart quests, the same Dynamic Events, the same puzzles etc. However, from levels 1 to 80, they have done a good job of hiding this, because most of the time you’re not following a linear path, so everyone in the area is running around for their own purpose. At level 80 however, and especially in the Orr zones, everybody is just zerging the same Dynamic Events.
The personal story does a good job of making you feel like a hero up until level 50-60, when it simply gets hijacked by Trahearne, a fact which is pretty commonly agreed upon. Another issue that some people have is that your character has no choice but to like Trahearne. Nobody expects the possibility of killing him, because that’s unrealistic, but the occasional “I don’t like you” which exists in SWTOR’s story wouldn’t have been hard to implement.

Disclaimers:
-This post contains personal story spoilers.
- I will try to be as objective as possible in my presentation of what the manifesto promised vs. how it turned out. If at times I may seem subjective, I apologize in advance.

Seeing so many posts in which people say we shouldn’t try to change the game because it delivered everything it promised, I will try to outline certain differences between what was perhaps the most clear statement of their philosophy and what the game actually turned out to be like.

We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2.
This is the introduction. I believe we can all agree that Guild Wars 2 is different from other MMOs and that on this part, it delivered.

Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that’s got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees.
Now, let’s analyze this part:
- persistent world: check;
- active combat: check; definitely a big improvement from the usual “stand in one place pressing buttons” MMO combat;
- a fully-branching, personalized storyline: false. The storyline starts out as a diversity of choices and possibilities, then it adds up into 3 paths and finally into 1. You still get to choose between 2 missions at times, but these choices have no impact in the end. Everybody still kills the Eye of Zhaitan; everybody still helps Trahearne purify Orr, despite their choices. So, the story is not branching, but converging;
- event system: check;
- no monthly fee: check.

The look of Guild Wars 2 is stylized. We’re going for a painterly, illustrated aesthetic. Everything in our world feels handcrafted and artisanal. We treat our environments as if they are characters themselves.
Nothing to comment here. It is commonly agreed that the art team more than delivered.

When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’
Again pretty much the same thing as before. The combat part is too subjective to discuss – note: this doesn’t contradict my above statement as to how combat is active. It is active, but it depends on whether you like being restricted to 5 skills and some utilities or not.

In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great.
Again, this is a part that requires too much subjectivity to discuss, but I think we can all agree they’ve done a great job of distributing fun heart quests all over the world. Of course, that doesn’t meant everyone’s supposed to enjoy every single heart quest.

melkathi.5203:

Silly, different levels of communication require different levels of language skills. A person’s english may be good enough for the basic teaming and joking around but they may need help in their native tongue for more complex issues.
So to force them to speak in the less effective language so the less educated (those players who only speak english) do not have to be confronted with their lack of foreign language skills seems selfish.

Oh, so the solution is for us to learn their languages instead of them learning English. Moreover, you’re calling people less educated because they can speak English as well as their native language, while, to you, those who can only speak their mother tongue are those with high education. Foolproof logic right there.

I can speak two foreign languages, English and French. If ever were I to learn another one, it would probably be German. Anything else seems pretty useless to me, unless you’re moving to the country that speaks the language.

Besides, here, in Romania, knowing English alone qualifies you as educated. The fact that I have a C2 Level in English makes it even better. Our own president can barely speak English, let alone other languages.

And I’m not absurd; a guild announcement or even a question in a foreign language don’t bother me. What does bother me though is when people who have shown they are proficient in English speak their native language just to spite others.

Inci.7560:

To be honest 5 warriors would be one of the few professions that could actually finish dungeons due to the sheer amount of knocks they have at their disposal, as well as shouts and flags and ability to take hits.

Actually, the only profession that could probably not make this happen would be Necro. But I might be wrong there, it’s the profession I least understand.

Alright, that might be the case, but anyway, I feel like the game requires a level of theorycrafting that I’ve never encountered in WoW as a non-hardcore player. I won’t complain, nor will I try and compare Guild Wars 2 and WoW, but after so many MMOs, I simply don’t have the energy to learn every little detail of the game anymore in order to do dungeons. Therefore, I will simply stop playing the game, while still being grateful for the opportunity of exploring the great world that is Tyria.

People are saying you need a wide variety of utilities from different professions to complete dungeons. But how about their promise that you could actually do a dungeon with 5 warriors if you so chose? Right now, that’s pretty much impossible. They said they wanted to move away from the WoW-raid system because that way only a select few would see content (which isn’t even true anymore, because of the implementation of LFR), but what did they come to? Well, they’ve created dungeons where even story modes make you grind your teeth in frustration. And if you aren’t doing dungeons what else is there to do? Farm mindlessly in Orr? No thank you. I’m done with the game and I’m not going to say I didn’t get my money’s worth because I did. The leveling and exploring Tyria were interesting, but I simply have run out of things to do.

@Porky Cosmetics weren’t supposed to feel like a grind either and I really hope they’ll actually fix it like Jon Peters said. I agree on the other points though. It was well known that there would be a stat plateau, just like there was in Guild Wars 1. If that plateau didn’t exist, the game would turn into WoW 2.0, with the same annoying gear grinds over and over again.

It seems like some people just came to this game expecting it to be WoW with new graphics, some dynamic content and a different setting. It’s not. Sure, the game has its problems in the endgame and I’ve been quite vocal about them (the dungeon armor grind, the karma armor grind, the lack of rewards etc.), but making it play like WoW would definitely not solve them.

The stat plateau is fine as it is. The problem is that dungeon and karma armor are too much of a grind for anyone to do it. Why would I do 30-40 runs of the same dungeon when I could just as well play some single-player RPG where I can get the look I want for my character far more easily? I don’t want dungeon armor because I want to feel like a special snowflake, but because the way my character looks matters to me. Yes, I know everyone thinks that if someone wants a prestige set they probably just want to show off, but that’s not the case with everyone.

So, there you go, the huge grind for karma and dungeon sets doesn’t only impede the competitive part of PvE, but also the RP part of the game. What say you to that?

Hickeroar.9734:

Gauradan.8361:

Hickeroar.9734:

Gauradan.8361:

Indeed, I love how they only require you to do 30-40 runs of the same dungeon to get a full armor set, I was already tired of grinding. Oh wait…

I know people like to mention WoW a lot, but let’s be honest here: You’re looking at literally hundreds of runs of dungeons and raids over several months to get a full set of top-tier armor in WoW.

Same goes for plenty of other MMOs.

30-40 runs is NOTHING compared to that.

Except in WoW you actually do different dungeons to get the badges/emblems or whatever they’ll called nowadays. The reason WoW become dull is because every 2 years you’d get a hard reset to all your equipment. As of now, there’s no guarantee that this won’t be the case with Guild Wars 2, since we don’t know whether they will or won’t be increasing the level cap in expansions.

If you want to get a full set of Tier 13 Cataclysm armor, you’re going to be running some SPECIFIC raids dozens of times. You can’t get the high end armor doing dungeons only. There’s also time constraints on that as well, so you’re literally talking about MONTHS of waiting and working to get that armor.

GW2 provides a MUCH faster path to get the higher end armors.

On that account, you are correct. However, I never cared much about raid armor in WoW because it looked ugly and WoW never claimed not to be grindy. I cannot accept that a game who promotes itself on fun, rather than mindless farming can actually require you to do a dungeon 30 times.

Sevens.6390:

And yet not a single run of the dungeon is required…you can never do a single dungeon in GW2 and still be a viable member of any DE, WvW or anywhere else…..there is NO required grind, its all optional

What about their philosophy that there shouldn’t be any grind, be it required or optional? Oh well, I guess that with all the new people around, you can’t expect everyone to know that was what the game was supposed to be like a couple of years ago.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I don’t see why fun and rewards have to be mutually exclusive. Anet has plenty of mechanisms in place to separate the PvE from the PvP stuff. The dungeon content is there, yet folks aren’t running it all. Don’t see why some carrots can’t be tossed down that creepy corridor. I derive fun through challenges and those challenges having some meaningful reward…. maybe others do as well and some don’t. It’s nice that those challenges have some reward. I’m not a masochist, I don’t enjoy getting the kitten beat out of my toon or some “try try again” jumping puzzle when there’s nothing worthwhile on the other side (not saying the jumping puzzles offer nothing, but if they did then there wouldn’t be much incentive to do them).

“Oh it’ll affect WvW”… scale down gear in WvW so that a player can only have stats equivalent to wearing exotic gear.

“It’s against the design philosophy”… I guess not having players want to try out your content is also part of the philosophy? I guess having a philosophy going into your design means that it’s impossible to revise or reconsider it at any point in the game’s time span. Why do we even care if the ability to get this gear is possible for any player since the entry-requirements to get it are the same, but only requires the players to be willing and competent?

I agree. You barely see anyone doing dungeons. I spent most of my time in Cursed Shore farming karma and gold and the only Arah runs being done are either the shard farm or the story mode. I have never once seen someone starting a group with the attention of actually completing an explorable path for the dungeon.

Hickeroar.9734:

Gauradan.8361:

Indeed, I love how they only require you to do 30-40 runs of the same dungeon to get a full armor set, I was already tired of grinding. Oh wait…

I know people like to mention WoW a lot, but let’s be honest here: You’re looking at literally hundreds of runs of dungeons and raids over several months to get a full set of top-tier armor in WoW.

Same goes for plenty of other MMOs.

30-40 runs is NOTHING compared to that.

Except in WoW you actually do different dungeons to get the badges/emblems or whatever they’ll called nowadays. The reason WoW become dull is because every 2 years you’d get a hard reset to all your equipment. As of now, there’s no guarantee that this won’t be the case with Guild Wars 2, since we don’t know whether they will or won’t be increasing the level cap in expansions.

Indeed, I love how they only require you to do 30-40 runs of the same dungeon to get a full armor set, I was already tired of grinding. Oh wait…

Certain areas of the game are definitely designed to encourage cash shop usage (like how a year or so ago they were proud with not punishing people for dying, yet now we have the stupid repair mechanic, dyes were account bound etc.). I bought costumes and the bonus mission pack in Guild Wars 1. However, I am resolute about not spending a single dime on gems just because of the fact that the game was designed to force you into it. Any purchases I make in the cash shop will be with gems traded for gold. And I would never buy gems to trade for gold, ever. Besides, even with their stupid gold sinks and anti-farm code, I’ve still managed to raise some 30gold.