Most people are looking at Guild Wars 1 from the point of view of four products not one. Though Guild Wars Prophecies was a good game, it took many years before the game really came into it’s own.
That is to say, a lot of people liked Nightfall and Eye of the North more than Prophecies. Not everyone, but a lot.
Nightfall didn’t come out until a year an a half after Prophecies.
Guild Wars 1 WAS a great game. But some of the things that made it great, also made it niche…and it was niche. It was never a household name.
A lot of the stuff you see in Guild Wars 2 is an attempt to deal with the shortcomings of Guild Wars 1. As an example…the skill system.
Guild Wars 1 had to very big problems with skills. There were too many of them, and with the dual profession system it was literally impossible to balance skills. People complain about the inbalance in Guild Wars 2 but they never had to deal with the permasin, or even sabway. Guild Wars 1 had serious balance issues and less skills meant more control by Anet, which is what they wanted. But there was another problem.
Many people couldn’t figure out how to make a decent build. There really were too many skills and not everyone is capable of making a build. I’m a guy who loved to make builds. That’s what I did half the time. Make new builds. But at the same time I was doing an enjoying this, other builds were ruining the game for me, particularly because if you didn’t run Build A you weren’t going to be finding a group to do the Underworld. Everyone only wanted specific builds so they could do speed clears. It was pretty obnoxious.
So Anet lost a lot of people to the inability to have a build that worked. The solution was tie skills to weapons and introduce less skills at start. This way when they do finally have an expansion and they add skills, there’s more of a chance to keep it balanced and even a total noob can play a build because his weapons have the skills he’ll basically need.
Guild Wars 1 was a great game for a small percentage of the audience. Frankly I think Guild Wars 2 will improve a lot in the years to come, but it’s going to take another six months to a year before it’s the game it should have been at launch.
I really enjoyed GW1, as you did. I will admit that I joined in the fun around the time of the Nightfall expansion. As such, I’m sure that the game already had time to evolve into a more robust and complete product versus when Prophecies was first released. I will agree that GW1 was more of a niche game. To me, it was like an indie project that had a cult following. Once you would introduce your friends to it, many would like it. However, chances are they had no idea the game even existed. (Great product not mainstream)
The great selling points for me for GW1 were 1) no monthly fees and 2) the skill system. I loved both of these things so much that I was able to look past the game’s shortcomings (ie lots of player pathing instead of a true open world, instanced game world, no Z axis, etc). I’m a fan of CCGs. So, I was drawn to the skill hunting and experimentation. I was (at the time) playing another game which required a monthly fee, so the one-time-purchase model of GW fit nicely into my budget.
While you believe that the skill system in GW1 was one of its shortcomings, I saw it to be a major selling point. You say that there were too many skills, and the system was impossible to balance. However, when I try to think of what GW1 would have been if it didn’t have the complex skill system… I just can’t imagine myself enjoying the game if that were true. GW1 would have been only been a shell of its niche glory without this system. (my opinion, yes, I know) I’m sorry that other people ruined the game for you with their skill build requirements. From your post, I can only assume that you did not have a guild or a group of friends that would allow you to pilot your own creation into the depths of UW.
I certainly hope that GW2 will release/include more skills with its next expansion. This would imbue a breath of fresh air for me into this more restrictive system. Perhaps then I will enjoy GW2 much more than I already have. That being said, I do worry that a new expansion does not seem to be on the horizon for GW2 anytime soon. Anet seems more focused on releasing monthly story updates. With the skill & trait tweaks released yesterday, maybe I’ll get just a tiny taste of more build diversity.
As a side note, It shocks me a bit that you are willing to admit GW2’s shortcomings, but seem quick to jump at those who would compare it to its predecessor.
Anyway, good hunting.
Atryue
Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing here…
