Guild Wars 2

Rainbowsand.2438:

Fay.2357:

Being useful would be figuring out how to win.

I got it figured already. You have to gamble/premade decent teammates that do reasonably more stomps than suicides. So it is possible to stealth revive them at all.

I bet you are really popular with people, getting a decent team shouldn’t be a problem at all. Just pick the best out of your friend list, win tournaments, play for a living, make your life a success.

Khisanth.2948:

Manthas.6234:

First of all, please give examples of people complaining about the length of the original story. I can’t remember it being an issue. The problem I remember, was the final battle, which wasn’t really a battle at all. There were a lot of complaints and that part was fixed, now we have a decent final battle (bugged though)*.

We do? I could not find any difference between the two versions other than the fact that you can do it solo now. You are still killing an elder dragon with fireworks.

I was talking about the final battle in the expansion. My comment may have not been entirely clear, sorry for that.

Vayne.8563:

You need examples about people complaining about the original story? You’ve never seen any complaints about it? I’m sure you can find your own complaints.

The original story seemed to go on forever. Anet even tried to shorten it but people who liked the story insisted it get restored. They tried to shorten it because people don’t play the original PS. For a lot of people is it too long. It seems to go on forever and a lot of it is just filler missions. The original PS is some of the least compelling content in the game in my opinion.

Complaints were varied, not just in the length of the final mission but its anticlimactic nature. Or the fact that once you hit level 60, no matter how many alts you have you’re basically doing the same stuff over and over again.

There have been many complaints about the short story but the biggest thing you’ll notice is how many people don’t do it at all. That should tell you something. It really is a long drawn out process unless you love story.

And in fact, how it’s drawn out in some ways, I consider worse writing than the writing on Heart of Thorns.

There were too many side stories that really weren’t that impactful, and didn’t need to be there, and probably shouldn’t have been there. The PS had so many characters that came out of left field, including Trahearne if you didn’t start with a Sylvari.

By contrast, you don’t have that problem in the HoT story because the story is basically the same for everyone, with the exception of some changes to the Sylvari character’s dialogue.

As for your comments about fiction, unfortunately that was my profession. You really don’t want to explain everything in most short stories these days, for a reason. They would no longer be short stories. You can’t explorer every avenue in a shorter work and HOT IS a shorter work.

The HoT story accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish. We absolutely 100% do not have to know everything about Caithe’s reasons, because she’s not there as a main character, she’s there to drive events forward. We may see in the future more of her motivation, but I think obvious that just like Trahearne knew he had to heal Orr, she knew she had to get the egg to the jungle. No one asks why or how Trahearne knows that, we just know it’s his wild hunt. We know it. We don’t have to question it.

You’re questioning it because you want to find flaw. But since you KNOW that the dream of dreams is incomplete, and you don’t get to see everything and there are sylvari that specialize in interpreting what you’ve seen (yes we know that from in game), then there’s no reason to assume that she had all knowledge. But she did know what she had to do. I’m not even sure why this is a conversation.

The Heart of Thorns story was made to be shorter, because the first story was too long for a lot of people. Personal source is people I’ve talked to, which is annecdotal. A more important source would be how many people never do it on a second character, which Anet would know and I don’t.

But yes, I believe Anet knows it was too long.

Such a wall of text and everything you said could be summed in “look for something yourself; I heard something somewhere; I’m a writer, I know better”.

I’m not looking for examples I’ve just asked you to provide. In fact, my claim is that there are no such examples. Why would I look for something, that I don’t think exists? You are talking about a lot of people who think like you, but I’m supposed to look for them myself. Yeah…

You mentioned that you are a writer a few times. Was that supposed to impress me? Are you trying to appeal to your authority as a writer? First of all, appeal to authority is a common argument form which can be fallacious, such as when an authority is cited on a topic outside their area of expertise, or when the authority cited is not a true expert. In the context of logical reasoning, any appeal to authority is fallacious, because it is not a logical argument. Secondly, you even described yourself as a fanboy whose opinion is being denigrated. You hold little to no authority in these forums, do no appeal to it.

A better example of appeal to authority:
A youtuber with 100 616 subscribers (at the moment of writing), a devoted GW franchise fan and a lore geek wrote a review of HoT story. Even he agrees with me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL-8bSUothk

Try again.

Vayne.8563:

The expansion doesn’t explain it, because everything doesn’t need to be explained. Maybe you haven’t read a lot of books recently but there are many things in books that happen today that aren’t explained. Hell, short fiction today doesn’t have ending half the time anymore, at least in the traditional sense of the word.

People have always complained about this game because not everything was given to them on a silver platter. But this I have to know it now, as if the story is over and Caithe is dead is just impatience. Caithe can come back into the story and explain herself or she may not. But everything really doesn’t have to be explained. That’s just not how it works.

Also patronizing me by calling my comments cute really doesn’t make your arguments any stronger.

As for the Trahearne thing, well, no we went in trying to rescue Trahearne and talking to him came upon the solution of how we might attack something you can’t attack phyiscally.

It’s really only an issue if you’re looking for issues and let me tell you, if you want to find issues you can find them with any story or book. The problem isn’t the things you’re mentioning.

You liked the length and depth of the original story. The new story is different because it’s faster and doesn’t go into the same level of moment to moment detail and you don’t like the change.

Neither the point about Caithe or the point about figuring out how to beat the dragon is bad writing.

A lot of people complained the personal story was too long or the personal story was too boring so Anet stream-lined it, mostly like as a reaction to complaints.

The same thing happened in Guild Wars 1. People complained Prophecies was too long and too slow, so Anet made Factions. The story was fast, the game was half the size, it could be finished much faster and you leveled far too fast. Why? Because they were reacting to people’s complaints. Anet has a tendency to over-react, and that’s why the story is the length it is. Within a shorter story, particularly one that’s continuing, you don’t to explain everything at the moment.

Would it be interesting to hear Caithe’s story. Sure it would. Is it required to hear Caithe’s story. No. Because she’s a character that drives the action forward and she served her purpose in the story.

Again, in a novel where you have hundreds of pages, you put everything. In shorter stories, you often leave people to figure stuff out. It’s not bad writing and it’s not uncommon.

As for the later cub comment, there’s nothing really to explain. We know what the revenant is, and the story of Rytlock and what happened to him is not the story of HoT. These side passages don’t get explored in shorter stories for a reason. Then they become longer stories, which some people complain about.

A lot of people who love story complained that the expansion was too fast and didn’t give enough detail. A lot of people who don’t like story complained the original story was too long.

And because a game isn’t a book, Anet has to balance it out between people who don’t want a longer story and people who do. There will always be a percentage of people dissatisfied with the balance.

First of all, please give examples of people complaining about the length of the original story. I can’t remember it being an issue. The problem I remember, was the final battle, which wasn’t really a battle at all. There were a lot of complaints and that part was fixed, now we have a decent final battle (bugged though).

Secondly, the main issue is, that both personal stories came out unfinished. Defend it how you want, but the main reason for all those loopholes and questionable decisions is the expansion being rushed. That’s the main cause and this is where they fail once again.

About fiction that does not require explanation, yes, this kind of fiction exists. Those are complex stories, which leaves most of the stuff for the public to figure out. But aren’t you the one, who said that the video game story should do what it’s supposed to do? You were the one, who said that most people don’t give much attention to the story of a video game. So, was this story supposed to confuse those people even more? That was the purpose?

You see, the points you make does not connect. They are full of loopholes and they do not follow reason. Arguing with you is like playing HoT. I’m trying to understand what are you saying. Sometimes your points make some sort of sense, after a while they’re contradicting themselves, your jump from point to point for no resason, it’s hard to follow but I still try to. Just like playing HoT.

Wait, I figured it out. You are Heart of Thorns. You are a computer program trying to defend itself. That is just natural to you and all my efforts were in vain from the start.

Vayne.8563:

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Actually, Caithe has a wild hunt and the egg is her wylde hunt. Now, what we know from Wylde hunts is that before she has awakened she’s dreamt of something. We also know it’s not like a book or novel. Anyone who’s started a Sylvari knows what the dream of dreams is. It doesn’t give you complete pictures. It gives you tiny snippets.

So, we have a character who gets tiny snippets of dream. There’s nothing unlikely about her knowing that there’s a place the egg has to get to which is the jungle. At the same time, there’s nothing unlikely knowing that she’s missing information either, because that’s how the dream has worked. That part isn’t unreasonable, since we haven’t spoken to her about it. She knew the egg had to get to the jungle. She knew she had to see it there somehow. She didn’t know how it would work out. And if the egg is her wylde hunt we’re not even sure it’s done yet, since the egg itself is still there. There might be more coming with this.

The Rata Novus part about the dragon weakness was absolutely the weakest part of the story. That long side trip to Rata Novus only to find out every dragon have a weakness was very weak in and of itself. It was a terrible excuse for a big side trip that really yielded us nothing. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess we haven’t seen the last of Rata Novus and there are things there Taimi will discover that will become useful in the future, but that was badly done in my opinion.

However, the figuring out we have to attack it’s mind isn’t really that hard to figure out. If the entire body of the jungle is the dragon and we can’t burn every try we have to attack it at its source. And we can’t get it’s body so we have to attack it’s mind. I’d have come to the same conclusion so I’m not sure why you think that’s some amazing leap of faith. We have to attack it at it’s core, because hacking off the body that can always regrow will do nothing.

Now I’m also not saying certain things couldn’t have been done better, but in my experience, that’s always the case with writing. I find stories I’ve loved that make perfect sense to me, and years later realize the opportunities I’ve missed.

One thing about writing that writers are told is to put something down, don’t think about it for months, leave it in a draw and come back to it. You can’t really do that with a game. That’s the problem.

For what it is supposed to be, driving the story forward, this is perfect acceptable with the single weak leak of the Rata Novus conclusion. And I still think that’s setting up something in the future.

Your efforts to justify those loopholes are really cute.

S-P-O-I-L-E-R-S

Yes, we don’t know why Caithe took egg deep into the jungle, yes, we didn’t ask her. Now, that the Mordy is defeated, there’s no reason not to know this. And yet, expansion doesn’t explain anything. We have characters near us, but they do not explain anything (“later, cub”).

I could agree that dragon’s weakness is not that hard to figure out. But that was just a guess. At the end of the story. Basically we went into the fire without a plan, guessed the solution at end and the tools to carry out this solution was just right here. How convenient. And that tool was just another loophole. Trahearne’s power to get us into dragon’s mind? How does that work? Don’t answer, we don’t know yet, but there must be some reasons, right? Which developers didn’t bother to give us. Again.

In conclusion, a lot of the things we do doesn’t have a reason, but somehow those actions conveniently helps us defeat the dragon.

Good writing.

Vayne.8563:

Give me some examples and I can talk about it. Saying what you’re saying now has about as much value as me saying it’s good.

From my personal perspective the writing in the Personal story was weaker than say most of the open world writing. The writing in Living Story Season 2 is a bit better, but the writing/delivery in HoT is probably the best it’s been. What I’ve seen is improvement in story telling.

Let’s not forget, for a whole lot of people the PS is unbearably slow.

SPOILER ALERT

A few examples of loopholes:
Caithe takes egg for no reason. Then we are told, that it was some sort of a new vyld hunt to protect the egg. And while protecting it she moves towards Mordremoth? Yeah, it lets plot advance, but other than that it doesn’t makes any sense.
Dragon’s weakness. At the last moment, PC somehow figures out what its weakness is. For some reason.

Vayne.8563:

It’s not bad writing if you’re doing what you’re supposed to. There is one instance in the HOT story that I do think is bad writing. Really bad. Beyond that, people overuse the word bad.

It’s like watching the movie Tombraider. It’s an action movie based on a game. It wasn’t a great movie. It wasn’t even really a good movie. That said, it was exactly what it was supposed to be, no more no less.

In order to judge anything… a movie, a book, a piece of writing, you have to take into account what it’s supposed to do/be. Let’s take the Ibli scenario from early on. Spoilers ahead for those of you who don’t want to know what happens.

The writing team is told we have this outpost to defend. So you have to characters, Ibli and Tizlak the two characters you meet in the story. They’re being chased by modrem, and you save them. This gives them some reason to trust you. We know the rest of their party has been killed and taken, making them sympathetic.

They’re a great contrast the two of them. Ibli is small and thin. His friend Tizlak is huge and carries a big hammer. There’s an entertaining bit of dialogue when your friends are talking about him and Tizlak overhears your suspicious of him, and says something. It’s cute and funny. This is on the escort back to their village.

The chapter is called the Jungle Provides and Ibli’s mother is the head of the hylek village. She believes that you’ve been provided to help them at a time of need, a time when the mordrem are about to attack their village. You’re given a choice. Defend the village as Ibli suggests, or go on the offensive as Tizlak suggests. Both of them have clear logical reasons for choosing their course of action.

Tizlak more the warrior, is more aggressive and believes a good offense is better than being on the back foot defending all the time. Ibli, on the other hand, wants to protect his home, because it is his home. Neither of them are wrong.

The game requires a choice to be made by the player. Why the player? Because they’ve been sent by the jungle to help. like an omen. The leader of the hylek is reading something into that, which isn’t that unlikely really. After all, you just saved her son.

The whole thing is well done. You have a sympathetic character, who happens to be adorable and voiced well,. giving you one motivation. Tizlak is another character I like btw. He’s big and strong, but he’s not overtly violent. I think he’s voiced well as well.

If you look at what is required from the story and what needs to be done and said, the writing for that particular story is spot on. Not Shakespeare. Not brilliant. It simply does exactly what’s required of it for the game.

You can complain all you want about the writing, but I don’t believe it’s as bad as you think it is.

As for the character situation, I’m pretty sure there are too many characters now, without throwing more main characters into the mix. You’ve got Destiny’s Edge characters, Pact Characters, and the Braham/Rox, Marjorie, Kasmeer, Canach, Taimi… its’ a lot of characters for anyone to keep track of.

Also keep in mind how little most MMO players actually follow story. It’s not like everyone is story driven. So you have to hit people over the head with some stuff to get them to understand it, which is another problem for writers in stuff like MMOs. All subtlety gets lost.

The same is true of professional wrestling. Everything has to be exaagerated, because live people in the top row need to understand what’s going on. Wrestling has some pretty good writing too, but you’d never know if if you didn’t understand the industry and how it works.

And here I give another example based on movies: Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Anhilation. Both are supposed to do the same thing, yet one is mediocre and other is terrible.

So what is GW2 story supposed to be? To me, it takes dark and mature themes like overpowering someones mind or losing a family member, uses them once or twice and throws them out. It wants me to take it seriously, but it doesn’t take itself seriously. It gives choices with absolutely no results, and even suffers from loopholes. Yes, loopholes. What kind of writing is supposed to have loopholes?

Vayne.8563:

My opinion is based on industry experience, not just this is good or this is bad. It’s based on the target for the writing, not just the writing outside of it.

I could go into a very long discussion on writing, but talking with people who haven’t written professionally to spec for specific markets doesn’t really help issues. Everyone is going to think they’re right.

Take the personal story. It’s at best uneven writing. But the unevenness most likely comes less from the writing itself and more from the demands of the game.

Once the developers decided that everything had to finish in exactly 5 episodes and start over, that took something away from what the writers could do.

You can look and see that the writers didn’t write a story that the game wrapped around. The game had mechanics and story that the writing wrapped around. It’s a design choice.

Saying the personal story writing could have been better is absolutely true. Of course it would have also required a different game.

You don’t get to, as a game writer, write what you want. The writing serves the needs of the game. This game is clearly not centered on that. There’s too much else going on.

The game designers design mechanics and the writing has to wrap around it. And often, there are deadlines and other projects in the way.

This is why most single player games have it easier than MMOs. It’s also why most MMOs dont’ have great stories. There are obviously exceptions.

But most of the MMOs that have great stories suffer in other ways. TSW is just a clunky game with a good story that saved money by not voicing the protagonist, which I found far more annoying than anything in this story. That’s why it’s a matter of taste.

The story was fine, except everything in every mission was a monologue and you never said anything. Not really very good from my point of view. You liked it. It’s your opinion.

Why should I argue with your opinion?

I never mentioned TSW, I’m that other guy

I’m not a fiction writer I admit it, but I know when I see bad writing. You give a lot of reasons why writing for video games is more challenging. I agree with every single one of them.
And yet, I don’t really care about them. I don’t blame the writers. It’s a teams job to produce a good video game. And that team FAILED to deliver. I don’t care if they have internal problems or something, if you get into industry, you better be good or you WILL get negative feedback.

Vayne.8563:

You have an opinion. Other people have other opinions. I don’t judge stories in games the way I judge stories in books. I don’t judge stories in MMOs the way I judge stories in single player games.

It’s really nice that you have an opinion. Me having a different one changes nothing about that. But it doesn’t make you right. I wish people would stop trying to express opinions as objective truth.

When people argue, they present their opinions and bring arguments on which their opinions are based. Some opinions are much more based when the others.

Hearing different opinions actually changes your own. You hear all sorts of points of view, which broadens your own view. This way, you can see the points you didn’t even thought about or see why some of your arguments are wrong.

On the other hand, discussion let’s you verify your own arguments and if your points can’t be broken, you trust your opinion on that topic even more.

Take the best out of every discussion you are in.

NotOverlyCheesy.9427:

Manthas.6234:

luzt.7692:

I would like to play the game for fun and not for rewards.
Wouldn’t it be better if you enjoyed the gameplay so much that the rewards are just a bonus? I have played games like that.

The negative side of the psychological principle you talk about is justifying boring gameplay by adding a shiny reward at the end.

This is MMORPG. Fun = rewards. You could enjoy gameplay for a while, yes, but without rewards no mmo would live longer than a month.

Diablo 3 had amazing loot but was a snoozefest. Fun and engaging gameplay for me anyday over everything on a silver plate.

100% agree.
However, as I said, mmo has to last longer than a month. This means that players will have to repeat content over and over again. How many times have you played trough a singleplayer game? For me, in some cases it would 3 or 4 times at best. That is not enough for mmo no matter how engaging gameplay is.

Solutions are:
1. Create more good content fast. As we all probably know that is not possible. And new players would still want to do older content, but they won’t have anyone to do it with.
2. Give long term rewards for doing the same old content. This way players will get into loop of continuing the same things with the sense of achievement.

So, no matter how you look at it, rewards are important. The only exceptions probably are all kinds of pvp modes. Defeating other players is an award itself, but only a few would call pvp the best part of GW2 right now.

Vayne.8563:

Okay let’s review what I said.

The original postulate was the storytelling was bad because no memorable characters have been introduced.

I didn’t say, and have NEVER said, memorable characters can’t be introduced. I’ve never even implied it. My statement is that there are some pretty good works out there that never introduce a character.

Ever see the Alfred Hitchock film Lifeboat? All the characters are introduced right away. There’s one environment, which is the lifeboat. The writing is good. Therefore you don’t need to introduce new characters in a story for the writing to be good. It’s not necessary. Of course it can be done. Nothing to do with my point at all.

I can’t describe him because he’s a relatively minor character that I happen to like. He’s a tree frog. That’s what he is. You want me to describe a tree frog? Even if he were visually different from the other tree frogs, the description would look basically the same. Big eyes, green, thin limbs. He looks like a tree frog hylek.

But he’s friendly and he’s got a cool voice. He wants to protect his village. He mother is the leader of that village. And while the jungle provides is pretty much a cliche it’s also based on the reality of cultures that live in jungles.

Hell I’m not even sure what this discussion is about. I bought into the whole tree frog jungle thing and that’s ALL the writing was supposed to make me do.

Writing in games drives your character forward. So we have slight spoilers ahead….a village of hylek with a common enemy who can perhaps help us. That’s all that chapter of the living story needs to do. Doing more, making that character more important than he’s meant to be would be bad writing, not good writing.

The whole conversation is ridiculous. It’s a terrible criteria to try to base writing on. Most professional writing has a purpose. The writing in that chapter is adequate to the purpose and I found it to be fine. Again it’s not Shakespeare, but it wasn’t supposed to be.

There are some works which requires more new characters and some which do not. My main reason why a few new characters are a must in this expansion is, because developers introduce new races. I believe Hitchock never introduced new cultures in that movie. I don’t know, haven’t seen it. My point is, there are reasons why some fiction works require new characters and some do not.

As I said, if you introduce new races, you better introduce characters to represent them. Without them, you don’t care about the struggles of that race, reasons why we should help them, etc. For example, I’m a terrible person and I don’t care about a famine in Africa unless you show me a starving kid and tell his story. That’s a good, impactful storytelling and medias use it.

Let’s get back to original personal story. Chapter V. Do you think we really need to ally ourselves with quaggans? No, it’s all about introducing a selected minor race. How do you do that? You get to know new characters, share their struggle and help them overcome it. Yes, some introductions were better than the others, but in HoTs case, it’s a huge step backwards. Ok, let’s say Ibli is a good character and he represents Itzel well, what about the other races? Nothing, and that’s my point. They introduce a new world I don’t care about. It’s not personal to me, it just goes by. Even more, I’m being constructive and present the reasons why storytelling is bad and what could improve it.

Yes, this whole conversation is ridiculous, but that’s only because you fail to see reason and continue your struggle defending something, that does not deserve defence.

To be more accurate try to give ratio between what was released at vanilla and at expansion. For example HoT increased number of armor skins by 10% and EotN by 40%.
This way, you’ll be comparing how much each expansion improved the base game.

Vayne.8563:

Manthas.6234:

Vayne.8563:

Whether a single character is liikeable or memory is nothing more than an opinion. It’s like eating cheddar cheese. Either you like the cheese, or you don’t like the cheese. It really is that simple.

Not everyone is going to painstakingly analyze everything they like, nor is it reasonable to expect people to. There are reasons to like all sorts of things. Trying to demand an explanation of why someone likes something really isn’t at all reasonable, whether you intend to let it pass or not.

I…like…the… character. That’s it. I’m not sure why this is an issue for you.

Because opinion without arguments holds no value. It gives nothing to the developer. It’s the same thing like “HoT failed”. Why? How? Whom? How should I fix it?

Now, imagine developer reading your comment. Fine, he likes it. Now how should I please him even more?

Nope, opinion without arguments hold plenty of value. You may believe otherwise and that’s okay. Most people don’t know why they like specific things, but they still do. However, you asked someone to name a character that they liked and I did. That’s ALL that was required. Now you’re raising the bar by demanding I tell you why I liked the character.

This simply isn’t reasonable.

Well, actually I asked to name a character AND describe his character. I knew there may be a kitten who would look for a name in a wiki or something. I always take insurance when I’m in a discussion

Vayne.8563:

Whether a single character is liikeable or memory is nothing more than an opinion. It’s like eating cheddar cheese. Either you like the cheese, or you don’t like the cheese. It really is that simple.

Not everyone is going to painstakingly analyze everything they like, nor is it reasonable to expect people to. There are reasons to like all sorts of things. Trying to demand an explanation of why someone likes something really isn’t at all reasonable, whether you intend to let it pass or not.

I…like…the… character. That’s it. I’m not sure why this is an issue for you.

Because opinion without arguments holds no value. It gives nothing to the developer. It’s the same thing like “HoT failed”. Why? How? Whom? How should I fix it?

Now, imagine developer reading your comment. Fine, he likes it. Now how should I please him even more?

Vayne.8563:

What you’re saying is not relevant to the conversation. Try not to bring the fan boy into the conversation because that IS the end of the conversation. It’s disrespectful. It’s wrong because I DID like that character.

You’ve never watched a movie and liked a character? Without playing the story again I can’t analyze it to tell you what made me like it. But yes, it is the end of the conversation from that point of view. I like something you don’t. I don’t like it because I’m a fan boy. I’m not lying about liking it. I like it because I found the character entertaining. I liked he was the son of the village elder. I liked the way the voice actor played him. Yes, I liked the character.

Your attempt to dismiss me as a fan boy because I like it really does end this conversation. I’ve never talked to some about a movie or book where they said they liked a charcter and I said they didn’t and thought they were a fan boy.

In any event, there are enough characters in the main story without adding more characters anyway. The success of a piece of fiction doesn’t automatically mean adding new characters you remember. Star Trek when a long time with crew members and a lot of unmemorable characters in each episode.

This is a different situation from Factions where the story started all over. So judging the story based on new characters you remember is a complete red herring anyway. Pretty sure most people remember Braham and Kasmeer.

Anyway, I’m tired of people trying to denigrade my opinion because they think I’m a fan boy, or a white knight. You guys don’t really know anything about me.

Denigrating any opinion based on the persons character is wrong and faulty, I would never do that, at least intentionally.
However, I can not let “I like it” pass as an argument. It’s an opinion, conclusion in other words, but not an argument. As an argument it will be refuted.
When I present my opinion, I let people know why I think that way or another. Well, in your case, you may really be in love (at its true form) with the game. And yes, sometimes it can not be explained why people love one thing or another. And while I respect your absolute right to love things, some people may not share that feeling and you should understand them as well.

On other points about no need for new characters, I agree. Even more, I felt that they should have just stick to improving existing races. Was Exalted really needed? That’s probably my original problem which led to the question: did they add anything meaningful to the lore with HoT?

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

That’s true, only difference is, all that hate used to wash away in a few weeks.
Have you been to Reddit lately? All that “contructive critisim” has been turned to jokes about the state of the game. Some of those are really good actually.

Saying that game has failed or dead is pointless, no denying in that. But if that post brings points, which are faulty or could be improved, you shouldn’t ignore that. Pick your raisins out of the pie.

Those were updates that came out every 2 weeks, this is a major release, ofc discussions will last a lot more.
I’m not saying you can’t “Pick your raisins out of the pie.” my original reply was directed @ a post that was referring to the lack of statistical evidence required for these “game’s dead” topics.

On the other hand, once evidence is presented, there’s no point in discussing the state of the game, since it is, well, dead.
Those “game’s dead” are just a flashy headlines, nothing more. As long as they bring valid points and starts discussion, I have no problem with them.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Raziel.4216:

mauried.5608:

Lets look at the numbers of replies and views of this thread.
123 replies and 6300 views.
How many players does GW2 have?
On the basis of 123 replies HOT is a failure.
Seriously?
A basic course in statistics would be a good start for some of the replies to this thread.

Get used to it, someone once said it failed and he talked for a “lot of people”, when asked he directed me to a topic with less than 2000 replies.
The usual reasoning is “my guild + everyone I know + the people my guildmates know = everyone”

Should we wait for Anet to step up and show numbers proving that HoT failed?

Real, objective and verifiable evidence is always available after a game’s release.
Stocks change, they fire/hire more people, they make moves that show a declining population (like merging server) or such, you can access real evidence eventually.
And it may show that the game didn’t fail.
This “analysis” proves nothing, it’s simply a rant.

And forums full of toxic community shows nothing? We should wait and do nothing, do not discuss, because real numbers hasn’t shown up?
Who do you think we are? Stockbrokers? We are players. And that “my guild + everyone I know + the people my guildmates know = everyone” in players eyes actually is everyone. People do not play with numbers, they play with their guild, people they know and the people their guildmates know. People give feedback, positive or negative, based on their experience. Should you wait for numbers while your experience is negative?

When are forums not full of toxic topics?
Ascended came out = filled with “game over gg arenanet ignored manifesto” topics.
LS1 came out = filled with “game will die because of temporal content, going to back to wow” topics.
LS2 came out = filled with “200 gems? game’s dead”
Fractals…
Stronghold….
You name it.
Reddit has more constructive criticism and the comunity can choose to ignore pointless topics by downvoting’em to hell.

There’s a difference between “I don’t like this” and “this product failed”. The second requires evidence to be valid.

That’s true, only difference is, all that hate used to wash away in a few weeks.
Have you been to Reddit lately? All that “contructive critisim” has been turned to jokes about the state of the game. Some of those are really good actually.

Saying that game has failed or dead is pointless, no denying in that. But if that post brings points, which are faulty or could be improved, you shouldn’t ignore that. Pick your raisins out of the pie.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Raziel.4216:

mauried.5608:

Lets look at the numbers of replies and views of this thread.
123 replies and 6300 views.
How many players does GW2 have?
On the basis of 123 replies HOT is a failure.
Seriously?
A basic course in statistics would be a good start for some of the replies to this thread.

Get used to it, someone once said it failed and he talked for a “lot of people”, when asked he directed me to a topic with less than 2000 replies.
The usual reasoning is “my guild + everyone I know + the people my guildmates know = everyone”

Should we wait for Anet to step up and show numbers proving that HoT failed?

Real, objective and verifiable evidence is always available after a game’s release.
Stocks change, they fire/hire more people, they make moves that show a declining population (like merging server) or such, you can access real evidence eventually.
And it may show that the game didn’t fail.
This “analysis” proves nothing, it’s simply a rant.

And forums full of toxic community shows nothing? We should wait and do nothing, do not discuss, because real numbers hasn’t shown up?
Who do you think we are? Stockbrokers? We are players. And that “my guild + everyone I know + the people my guildmates know = everyone” in players eyes actually is everyone. People do not play with numbers, they play with their guild, people they know and the people their guildmates know. People give feedback, positive or negative, based on their experience. Should you wait for numbers while your experience is negative?

Raziel.4216:

Extreme.8350:

Raziel.4216:

Extreme.8350:

Raziel.4216:

Extreme.8350:

Raziel.4216:

Extreme.8350:

nickoboy.2063:

Hopefully you have realised this already and understand that people quit for this reason

No most players quit because they finished hot already or 95% of it.

Source?

I don’t have a source i just know the new maps are more desserted than before.
after just 1 week i saw many lvl 50-120 players.
OP dont have a source of bad class balance either.
In pvp i see all classes except for warriors there is lots of thieves but it still sucks.
Stacked teams usually lose except for dragonhunters.

What if someone else “just knows” that it’s doing fine. What do we do then?
Hitchen’s razor: What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Then you can dismiss OP too because no evidence.

I have.
His faulty reasoning and missuse of the term Pay to Win has been pointed out multiple times in this topic.

Maybe you should apply for work at arenanet.
As statistic analyst you know. so you can get the evidence.

Or maybe I can wait half a year and get the evidence based on it’s retention rate and changes in stocks, you know, like with any other game?

Ok, guys, next time wait half a year before posting on forums.

Raziel.4216:

mauried.5608:

Lets look at the numbers of replies and views of this thread.
123 replies and 6300 views.
How many players does GW2 have?
On the basis of 123 replies HOT is a failure.
Seriously?
A basic course in statistics would be a good start for some of the replies to this thread.

Get used to it, someone once said it failed and he talked for a “lot of people”, when asked he directed me to a topic with less than 2000 replies.
The usual reasoning is “my guild + everyone I know + the people my guildmates know = everyone”

Should we wait for Anet to step up and show numbers proving that HoT failed?

Vayne.8563:

You not remembering a character doesn’t make him a bad character. He makes him a bad character to you. There’s nothing wrong with Ibli. You don’t believe he stood out, which is fine. I do. That’s fine too.

It’s an opinion. You’re entitled to yours, I’m entitled to mine.

The reason why stories in these games are as they are is because in single player games you have a lot more time to work on them, and they probably don’t change as much. Single player games don’t evolve as they go.

MMOs need more and faster, often with teams of people changing all the time. It’s not so easy to get everything in by that deadline all the time. But the deadline for a game that’s not out yet is very different from the deadline of a game that is constantly needed you for the next thing.

There are a lot of reasons why single player games have a better chance at a better story than MMOs do. The proof is in the fact that it happens so often. It’s not like single player game writers are great and MMO writers suck. That’s not it at all.

It’s a different vehicle with different focus.

If you’re building a racing car you build for speed. If you’re building a family car you build for safety. It changes the design.

Different opinions is not a basis to end the discussion, it’s a basis to start one. When we present our opinions we give arguments. Admit it, “I like it” is not much of an argument. You could just as well try to convince me, that a tree is a good character, since it makes nice sound when you chop it and you love that tree.

And why do you try to convince as that story wasn’t Anets focus on HoT? Well, maybe not the main one, but they still put quite a lot of resources into it. PC has 6 different voices, many missions have different approaches, Braham shaves his head. That’s an effort in my book. Hell, I can’t say many bad things about story and lore in VB. Beginning was good and if all HoT was as good as VB, I wouldn’t be talking here. But ever since I leave this map, it feels like they dropped the ball and all the promise beginning gave me starts to fade out. Compared to a slow start, everything else seems rushed. It’s like they reached Rivendell in the middle of the movie and destroyed the ring at the end of it.
I don’t know the reasons why, maybe they didn’t have enough time and they had to rush the story to meet the deadline. Frankly, I don’t care why and i shouldn’t. They took my money for a rushed product and that’s a fail.

It’s not healthy to defend a product for a sake of defence. I know you love GW2 and you want it succeed. I want that too. But when developers looses direction or even starts to insult their players, community has to be vocal about it.

Vayne.8563:

Manthas.6234:

Vayne.8563:

Manthas.6234:

It’s not about cinematics, voice actors or something like that. It’s about quality of the story/lore developers are creating. And that quality is low, compared to the original GW2.

For example, could anyone give me any name of a new, HoT NPC? Describe his/her character?
In my opinion, there are no new characters in HoT, only new races, which will be forgotten in the next expansion since there’s no one to represent them.

Ibli. I love him. Sorry but I do.

Googled him. If that’s the best HoT story character, then it just describes how low quality is.
I kind of remember him myself for being one of the first NPC of some importance. After a mission (wiki says he’s in two missions) that guy is dropped.

Nothing wrong with the character. He’s cartoony, he has a great voice and I like him. You may not remember him, but it doesn’t make him a bad character. There was a bit of writing that I really didn’t like from HoT, but aside from that one incident, the writing was fine. And the delivery was better than anything we’ve seen so far.

If I can’t remember a character, it kind of makes him a bad character. Look how you describe him “he’s cartoony, he has a great voice and I like him”. That is all. Anet didn’t even bother to make his character model stand out. If I present you with 3 random Itzel and one of them would be Ibli, you couldn’t even point at him. Lazy developer?

Vayne.8563:

Manthas.6234:

It’s not about cinematics, voice actors or something like that. It’s about quality of the story/lore developers are creating. And that quality is low, compared to the original GW2.

For example, could anyone give me any name of a new, HoT NPC? Describe his/her character?
In my opinion, there are no new characters in HoT, only new races, which will be forgotten in the next expansion since there’s no one to represent them.

Ibli. I love him. Sorry but I do.

Googled him. If that’s the best HoT story character, then it just describes how low quality is.
I kind of remember him myself for being one of the first NPC of some importance. After a mission (wiki says he’s in two missions) that guy is dropped.

It’s not about cinematics, voice actors or something like that. It’s about quality of the story/lore developers are creating. And that quality is low, compared to the original GW2.

For example, could anyone give me any name of a new, HoT NPC? Describe his/her character?
In my opinion, there are no new characters in HoT, only new races, which will be forgotten in the next expansion since there’s no one to represent them.

luzt.7692:

I would like to play the game for fun and not for rewards.
Wouldn’t it be better if you enjoyed the gameplay so much that the rewards are just a bonus? I have played games like that.

The negative side of the psychological principle you talk about is justifying boring gameplay by adding a shiny reward at the end.

This is MMORPG. Fun = rewards. You could enjoy gameplay for a while, yes, but without rewards no mmo would live longer than a month.

mauried.5608:

I dont understand the “I am being forced to do something” line thats seems to be common in complaints on this forum.
In an MMO you are NOT forced to do anything.
There seems to be a mentality that if I want XXX and I am required to do YYY to get it then I am forced to do YYY.
Not everyone can have everything, unless you are prepared to meet all the criteria needed to get everything.
In all reward based MMOs , in order to get a reward of some type you will be required to do something to get it.
But you are not being forced too, as getting the reward isnt mandatory.

OP, probably just like me, chose GW2 because you could achieve everything without spending massive amounts of time being online. For example, you could always take a break after a dungeon, which required about 15 min, go spend time with your family and then go back online with no loss. Now, you can’t do that: either spend at least 1h+ in one map or no shinnies for you.

Yes, I can still achieve a lot of things in GW2 after HoT without huge time commitment, but not everything. And why I chose GW2 in the first place? Because I could have EVERYTHING. No I can’t. Has the HoT failed me? Yes.

Getting the rewards is not mandatory, yes. Playing GW2 is not mandatory too. While I’m there, could anyone recommend another MMO, which still meets my time criteria?

I see that a lot of was discussed while I was away. So, I’ll try put my final thought there. Stand-alone campaign. For some of you, this is a whole new game. For people like me, it’s just another type of expansion (expandalone). I would have no problem with that, if not for some inconsistencies I can’t allow to pass.

Take Frozen Throne and Legacy of Void for an example. One would be considered expansion, the other – stand-alone campaign. To me, as a player, it is almost the same experience compared to the original versions. Yet, because of the minor differences (requiring original game and marketing), one can’t be considered an expansion. To me, such minor differences can not be the deciding factor.

One more thing, and I’ll be gone from this thread since it really dragged too much. “On July 15, 2015, Heart of the Swarm was made a standalone title, allowing play without having first purchased Wings Of Liberty” (Source: Wiki). What was HotS before July 15 and what it is now?

If Blizzard called Starcraft 2 a FPS game would that make it FPS?

Raziel.4216:

All the starcraft 2 campaigns.
Took me 1 second, off the top of my head
But maybe, just like before, you know better than the devs themselves and they’re actually expansions? Dunno, after all, devs themselves don’t know what they make in front of you right?

Those are expansions >.<

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

What the devs say about their game is marketing. A business plan. Anyone can advertise a glass of juice as an elixir of youth and raise the price. Thing is, while you are drinking an elixir of youth, I am drinking a glass of juice.

We agree to disagree then, I follow objective & verifiable evidence.
Does faction meet the criteria for expansion, when compared to expansions from many games, including the ones you mentioned? No
Do EoTN and HoT? Yes
Does faction require an original game (base characteristic of any expansion)? No
Do EoTN and HoT? Yes

You’ve not refuted anything, not even your own examples which were easily turned to support my position, instead of yours. It all adds up to “screw the facts, I say it’s an expansion so it has to be one!”.
A debate where your opponent is unable to refute anything is extremely boring, have fun.

Easy example: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade – my favorite expansion. Devs said it’s an expansion? Yes. Stand-alone campaign? Yes. It’s actually even more different game to Dawn of War, since you can’t use your character from the original campaign. But somehow it still gives point to your claim, right?
My point is, that not requiring an original game is more of a pleasant feature, than a deciding point. Many expansions (like Frozen Throne, Awakening) could have easily had that feature but for some reason decided not to.
But ok, I get it, it’s all about how the devs call that. I just hope that such logic won’t bring more questionable practices in gaming world.

Great, Dawn of War has an expansion based on that dev’s definition.
But not based on the comparison with any other expansion mentioned so far (once again, I’m including your previous examples here too, still waiting for that refutal), not according to the developers themselves and not according to the very definition of “expansion”.
Having to cherry pick one game – after all the rest mentioned did not support your point- does not support your position.

And yet, your only points against Factions being an expansion are: 1) it does not require original game; 2) devs said so. I have actually dismissed both, yet you ignore it.
Furthermore, google “expansion pack” and “standalone expansion”. You’ll get much more examples you’ll probably ignore.

And the fact that all the other games mentioned, including all your previous examples, meet the same criteria as EoTN and HoT.
Google the very definition of the word expansion before you go on.
Don’t let that inconvenient fact bother your pointless cherry picking tho.
Dismissing =/= refuting.
I can easily dismiss the fact that the sky is blue because of rayleigh scattering, but that’s not the same as refuting it.

To put the final nail: Could you give any example of a game, which uses the same engine, game mechanics and universe of the other game and yet, is not considered its expansion? You can cherry pick.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

What the devs say about their game is marketing. A business plan. Anyone can advertise a glass of juice as an elixir of youth and raise the price. Thing is, while you are drinking an elixir of youth, I am drinking a glass of juice.

We agree to disagree then, I follow objective & verifiable evidence.
Does faction meet the criteria for expansion, when compared to expansions from many games, including the ones you mentioned? No
Do EoTN and HoT? Yes
Does faction require an original game (base characteristic of any expansion)? No
Do EoTN and HoT? Yes

You’ve not refuted anything, not even your own examples which were easily turned to support my position, instead of yours. It all adds up to “screw the facts, I say it’s an expansion so it has to be one!”.
A debate where your opponent is unable to refute anything is extremely boring, have fun.

Easy example: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade – my favorite expansion. Devs said it’s an expansion? Yes. Stand-alone campaign? Yes. It’s actually even more different game to Dawn of War, since you can’t use your character from the original campaign. But somehow it still gives point to your claim, right?
My point is, that not requiring an original game is more of a pleasant feature, than a deciding point. Many expansions (like Frozen Throne, Awakening) could have easily had that feature but for some reason decided not to.
But ok, I get it, it’s all about how the devs call that. I just hope that such logic won’t bring more questionable practices in gaming world.

Great, Dawn of War has an expansion based on that dev’s definition.
But not based on the comparison with any other expansion mentioned so far (once again, I’m including your previous examples here too, still waiting for that refutal), not according to the developers themselves and not according to the very definition of “expansion”.
Having to cherry pick one game – after all the rest mentioned did not support your point- does not support your position.

And yet, your only points against Factions being an expansion are: 1) it does not require original game; 2) devs said so. I have actually dismissed both, yet you ignore it.
Furthermore, google “expansion pack” and “standalone expansion”. You’ll get much more examples you’ll probably ignore.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

What the devs say about their game is marketing. A business plan. Anyone can advertise a glass of juice as an elixir of youth and raise the price. Thing is, while you are drinking an elixir of youth, I am drinking a glass of juice.

We agree to disagree then, I follow objective & verifiable evidence.
Does faction meet the criteria for expansion, when compared to expansions from many games, including the ones you mentioned? No
Do EoTN and HoT? Yes
Does faction require an original game (base characteristic of any expansion)? No
Do EoTN and HoT? Yes

You’ve not refuted anything, not even your own examples which were easily turned to support my position, instead of yours. It all adds up to “screw the facts, I say it’s an expansion so it has to be one!”.
A debate where your opponent is unable to refute anything is extremely boring, have fun.

Easy example: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade – my favorite expansion. Devs said it’s an expansion? Yes. Stand-alone campaign? Yes. It’s actually even more different game to Dawn of War, since you can’t use your character from the original campaign. But somehow it still gives point to your claim, right?
My point is, that not requiring an original game is more of a pleasant feature, than a deciding point. Many expansions (like Frozen Throne, Awakening) could have easily had that feature but for some reason decided not to.
But ok, I get it, it’s all about how the devs call that. I just hope that such logic won’t bring more questionable practices in gaming world.

What the devs say about their game is marketing. A business plan. Anyone can advertise a glass of juice as an elixir of youth and raise the price. Thing is, while you are drinking an elixir of youth, I am drinking a glass of juice.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Well, all Dawn of War expansions can also be played without original game, but yet, since they use the same engine in the same universe, they are expansions of essentialy the same game. Expansion is an expansion, standalone or not. Read the definition, it’s free on the internet.

Did that game’s devs call it an expansion?
Did that game’s devs state that it had ONE expansion only and that all the other ones were stand-alone campaigns?
What characterizes an expansion is that it adds content to an already released game, it expands and improves an already existing product.
Notice an already released game, it’s an addition, not something you can play on your own without taking the previous game into account.
Can you play legacy without taking the already released game into account? No.
Can you play awakening without taking the already released game into account? No.
Can you play HoT without taking the already released game into account? No.
Can you play factions without taking the already released game into account? Yes. Even the games you use support my argument instead of yours, lol.

It gets even better, did the company that created both Factions and HoT clearly state that HoT is an expansion like EoTN and not it’s other stand-alone campaigns? Yes.
In other words, did the devs themselves tell you that factions & nightfall are different from HoT? Yes.
Why you insist on comparing’em is beyond me.

Manthas.6234:

That “objective stuff” you stick to, are nothing more than uncomparable numbers compared. I don’t really feel like supporting claim, which has already been supported in the original thread.

According to whom? based on what evidence?
It’s the best attempt at comparing different expansions taking into account all the stuff they provided, feel free to provide (on a case-by-case basis) a complete argument that disproves it.

Basically, you say, that Factions is not an expansion because the devs said so. Yeah, devs love customers like you, because they can do the thinking for you. Everybody wins, you don’t have to think and developers are not hearing complaints.

The ability to play the expansion without the original game was never the deciding point whether the Factions is an expansion or not. The deciding point (at least to me) is: the game engine, gameplay mechanics and the game universe. Yes, Factions gives new campaign, but it still uses the engine, gameplay mechanics, classes, skills, etc. from Prophecies. Take all that away and Factions can’t really stand on it’s own.

To further my point even more, lets take EotN. On which of these 3 stand-alone games (Propchecies, Factions, Nightfall) does the EotN improve? At first, you could say that it expands Prophecies map, so it’s a Prophecies expansion. But then, take into account, that is also gives more skills and armor to classes not featured in Prophecies, which means that EotN improves GuildWars as a whole game. Whole game, which already had two expansions.

About that quote, ok, I’ll be generous and explain a few things which seems like a common knowledge to me.
First of all, when you are comparing different things, you can’t compare absolute numbers. It may seems objective, but it only gives false conclusions. It’s like saying that India’s population is more literate than Italy’s just because it has more literate people, while it only mean that India has bigger population.
Secondly, that quote compares waypoints like it has any indication at all. The number of checkpoints could only describe game’s difficulty level, not the level of content.
My suggestion would be: take vanilla GW2 and HoT, set the ratio on the numbers of maps, armor, whatever you like, and compare to the ratio of GW1 and any of its expansions. That ratio difference would determine how content rich each expansion is compared to their vanilla version.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

That’s what I’m talking about, it’s not even fair comparing those two. Yeah, Anet said that we shouldn’t expect expansion to be like Factions, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t ask “why not?”

I can’t really comment about that Diablo example, since it haven’t played them, but I can see where its flaw is. No one is comparing Diablo2:LoD with Diablo 3.

You are, you see Factions is a stand-alone game, it can be played without the base GW1 campaign.
D2 is a standalone game, so this is like comparing it with D3: RoS.

It’s more like comparing Dragon Age Origins: Awakening to Dragon Age 2: Legacy.

Does awakening require the base game? Yes. It’s an expansion
Does legacy require the base game? Yes. It’s an expansion
Does HoT requite the base game? Yes. It’s an expansion
Does factions require the base game? No. It’s not an expansion, it’s a stand-alone campaign.
Far from the same

Manthas.6234:

About that quote where expansions are compared, it’s so flawed, that even commenting on it feels insulting.

Objective stuff compared vs your unsupported claim that it’s flawed (unsupported because you did not specify any flaws)
I’ll stick to the objective stuff.

Well, all Dawn of War expansions can also be played without original game, but yet, since they use the same engine in the same universe, they are expansions of essentialy the same game. Expansion is an expansion, standalone or not. Read the definition, it’s free on the internet.

That “objective stuff” you stick to, are nothing more than uncomparable numbers compared. I don’t really feel like supporting claim, which has already been supported in the original thread.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Chrono.6928:

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

Nah, it was just straight up a standalone campaign. EOTN was the only expansion GW1 got.

Oh, who cares anyway? This fact only gives more credit to how superior Factions as an expansion (yeah yeah, “standalone campaign”) was compared to HOT.

Anet has already said that HoT is an expansion like EoTN, any comparisson with standalone campaigns will be unfair. One requires a base game and one doesn’t, one adds as much as the base game and one doesn’t.
That’s like comparing Diablo 2:LoD with Diablo 3, or Diablo 3:RoS with Diablo 2, it’d be pointless we all know the result before we even start, we’d have to compare Diablo 2 LoD with Diablo 3 RoS.

There’s an old post comparing the gw1 expansion with the gw2 expansion, I’ll repost it now.

That’s what I’m talking about, it’s not even fair comparing those two. Yeah, Anet said that we shouldn’t expect expansion to be like Factions, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t ask “why not?”

I can’t really comment about that Diablo example, since it haven’t played them, but I can see where its flaw is. No one is comparing Diablo2:LoD with Diablo 3. It’s more like comparing Dragon Age Origins: Awakening to Dragon Age 2: Legacy. Awakening, just like Factions, has different story, companions, but uses same engine, old and new skills and can be played as standalone or as another part of Wardens story. However, it doesn’t mean it is a different game. My point is, Factions was never an entirely different game. Same engine, same skills, same characters, same classes + a lot of new content. Yes, you could have bought just Factions and ignore Prophecies, but that’s more of the marketing thing.

About that quote where expansions are compared, it’s so flawed, that even commenting on it feels insulting.

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Chrono.6928:

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

Nah, it was just straight up a standalone campaign. EOTN was the only expansion GW1 got.

Oh, who cares anyway? This fact only gives more credit to how superior Factions as an expansion (yeah yeah, “standalone campaign”) was compared to HOT.

DanteZero.9736:

Firelysm.4967:

DanteZero.9736:

It could be much, much worse than what is going on right now. At least there’s an option to pay for gems with gold, some mmo devs don’t even allow that option.

I dont want to pay it with GEMS or GOLD, they deserve neither, i want to earn it in game.

If you don’t want to pay it with gems or gold, then where will the devs get money to make content? I suppose you’re willing to pay X amount per month for more content where you can earn it through playing said content? By the way, if you want to refer to GW1 for examples, be sure to keep in mind that the dev team from back then was much smaller (about 150 people if I remember correctly) compared to the current team of 300+ people.

Haven’t they just released an expansion? Or is this company doing so bad these days, that they need to get more quick money?
I understand, cash shop is a vital source of income, but c’mon, it’s not even two months and cash shop is already full of new shinies.

I love how people give the argument that there are separate teams working on separate things. It seems that the company has its hands tied because, you know, people are nailed to one or the other department.

In both cases, the basic point is, that I have to commit myself more and start planning ahead. However, planning my day around video game kind of leads to stressful situations which are, yeah, not fun. I don’t want to force my definition of hardore, but when you have to plan a whole week in order to beat a raid…

Ok, my 2 cents on why I feel excluded. Since I’m full time working guy I can commit about 2 hours a day into gaming. I have full ascended + legendaries, no problem with gearing. The problem is, that since I login in, I really need to have a strict regime in order to do raids. If I’m lucky, I manage to find a group, set up the roles, wait for the group to fill in in about the half of the time I have the ability to commit. Which means that half of my time goes into getting ready. I can hardly call this fun. Then we are doing the raid. By the time the team is starting to get better, I have to leave it, since, you know, real life stuff. Final result: no kills, no sense of achievement, 2 hours wasted. After a few evenings like that I’m giving up, because of the feeling that I’m only wasting my playing time. Any advice on how to get back to raiding?

Thing is, they chose a business model which didn’t really work. They had to change things, fine. However, now we are getting the same amount of content, only with the price of expansion. Not much of the improvement I’m kind of entitled to, since I, well, paid money.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Manthas.6234:

Haha, I love how people are starting to attack my personality (“grow up, kid”), let the hypocrisy flow trough you. I love how people set themselves the rules on how people should act, apply their own rules on other people and slowly start to break those rules themselves.

Its the internet , if you dont like it dont read it :P
You call them lazy , and i call you a kiddo :P
You will feel like a developer

Thats life

Can i see your :
3 Bladed armor sets, 3 guild armor sets, 3 leystone armor sets and 1 mistward armor kiddo ?

Do you have any skills in designing gear ? Can you help them or are you lazy ?

And if you tell us ‘’i am sorry i told them lazy’’ and i simply want ‘’more ingame gear’’ then yeah i i wiont bother you :P

Oh, god no! Another point missed. Do you think you bother me? Not at all. I criticize people and expect to be criticized. No problem with that. I’m just confused when people use the same tactics on me I’m not allowed to use.

About that armor, yes I have a all the pieces I wanted and a lot of chests unopened. Why I need more? Because I don’t like those sets. If they added like 20 of new sets and I still don’t like them, than yes, it’s my problem, but when it’s only 3 – I don’t really have much choice.

And do I really need to be a gear designer to see the numbers. Lets take heavy class at release: 6 loot, 6 karma, 8 crafted, 3 cultural, 3 order, 8 dungeon, 1 legacy, 1 WvW, 1 guild = 37 sets at release. With expansion I don’t really need much maths, only 4 sets. For the same price. So, you tell me how should I call someone who presents me with ~11% they’ve shown to be able to present.

Haha, I love how people are starting to attack my personality (“grow up, kid”), let the hypocrisy flow trough you. I love how people set themselves the rules on how people should act, apply their own rules on other people and slowly start to break those rules themselves.

Yes, you could say that I am hiding behind the screen, but am I really? They have my real name, my email, my phone number. They could call me anytime and ask “what’s your problem dude?” but they won’t, of course. No, they would rather contact a polite person, talk with fake smiles and ignore the issues. And that’s where my problem is, some people would rather discuss the manners instead of the issues presented. Yes, manners come first but for how long? Vayne has already dropped the ball by contradicting himself, which I find hilarious.

So, do we focus on words used or we focus on the issues? I really don’t give a shot about how developers feel reading my comments (if they read them of course). If you are insulted, but still haven’t got the message, that’s your problem. If people call your work lazy, stop for a second and ask yourself why, because you are clearly doing something wrong. And while you are at it, please, read my very first comment on this thread, its not really that bad. Just an honest opinion and no fake smiles.

Vayne.8563:

You can be a customer and not be offensive or insulting to an entire group of people. I’ve worked in the retail sector and the customers who were most insulting were the customers I was least likely to try to mollify and the ones who often got ignored by a percentage of my staff just by human nature.

If you are the kind of person that wants to be offensive to people when you’re angry that’s your own lookout. It doesn’t really belong on the forums. Complain about the game, not the people making it. It’ll be better for you AND them.

I’m sorry you’re so bitter about the game that you feel the need to venture into something that isn’t that far off a personal attack. But I promise you it’s not helping your argument at all.

Woah woah woah! Did u just called me bitter? You used a negative adjective towards me based on my previous actions? I am offended! It’s a personal attack towards me! You don’t know me!

See where this gets us? You can’t make every negative comment into a hate crime. I understand that being offended is the new cool, but even this is way too far. An offence is like a salt. Put a little of it and food tastes better, put too much and food is ruined. It’s all about personal taste, but take the salt away and your food is tasteless. Maybe you like tasteless, I don’t. Trust me, I’m good at offending and I haven’t even started yet.

Please, keep on dragging this thread off topic, you are really good at this.

Vayne.8563:

Wryscher.1432:

Vayne.8563:

Manthas.6234:

Vayne.8563:

Nope you don’t have to say that. Nor do you have to trot out trite words like lazy to express your dissatisfaction which is a lazy way to complain, and an offensive one.

Anet can’t be lazy, because Anet isn’t a person. Anet is a company comprised of people. It is extremely likely that a percentage of employees of any company are in fact lazy, but the company itself can’t be lazy unless you’re personifying it. Whether you’re a developer, a customer or a norse god is not really relevant to the conversation.

You chose to use a word some would consider to be an insult and directed it at a group of 300 people. So unless every single one of those people is lazy, you’re doing a disservice to them, and you’re potentially being offensive.

If I were working really hard on something and someone called me lazy, yes, I’d take offense. Last I’ll say on the subject since to anyone reading it, this was obvious a while ago. Only someone deliberately ignoring what I’m saying would keep going and what I’m saying is factual. You can’t call a company lazy, without impugning everyone in the company.

Really? Are we really talking about how word “lazy” should be used? Ok.

First of all, be honest with yourself. I’m pretty sure you were not running around at release (when reviews were glowing) saying how we can’t praise Anet, because it’s not a person. There still could have been one slacking programmer, you know

Secondly, companies have personalities, in fact, they’re juridical persons. Companies are not the people working for them. For example, 2 of 3 Anet founders have left the company, does it meen Anet is no longer Anet? No. It’s still the same company, even though it changed over the years (people change too, right?). Companies could be good, evil, corrupt and yes, lazy. Its personality is represented by:
1) the people working there. It’s usually the senior officers, but there’re a lot of exceptions. In Anet case, that would be every red post we see on forums. Yes, there’s a living human being with the name who says something on those forums, but in the end, we remember that it was the Anet, who said that thing. Anet can’t go behind that persons back and say: “Dont look at me, it was he who said you that the fractal rewards will be fixed” (yeah, I know it’s still December).
2) its work. It this case that would be the expansion. And if someone, who had the ability and resources to produce something good, presents me a half-finished product… well, I have a pretty nice word to describe that person.

Basically, you say that I can’t call Anet lazy, because that would hurt their feelings. Well, it’s the reality talking and guys from South Park even made an episode about this. Saying anything else just gives them a wrong message that they could get away with this. No, they can’t.
Yes, you could say that my critisim is not constructive. But how can I been constructive when all I want to say is “give me more stuff for the money I paid”?

If you’re defending your use of lazy to describe a group of people, my conversation with you is pretty much over. Using a legal fiction to create some type of reality is what lawyers do. It’s offensive to call people lazy if you don’t know how hard the work and doing so only makes your argument weak. Surely you can complain without inventing stuff.

As for getting your money’s worth, you’re absolutely entitled to that opinion. I have no problem with you feeling that.

But using the word lazy? I can have no respect for that argument.

By the gods do I love you. You are so freaking good at this.

But i am curious because he actually makes a valid point. Is there a list of words that you are ok using to describe a company? Just the positive ones then?

I’m not sure it’s necessary to malign the company to critique the game at all. Look, I’m a professional editor and I’ve been in my critique group settings. Nothing like what appears on this forums would be allowed. I’m also older and find a lot of stuff to be disrespectful and rude.

So it’s very easy to say, I don’t feel like the expansion has enough content for what I paid. I expected more. That’s a perfectly valid criticism. It doesn’t impugn the devs. It doesn’t blame or set fault. It states it as a fact.

Saying that the devs are lazy is not constructive, it helps no one, not a single person and it’s almost definitely untrue. If Anet has an issue it’s more likely to be an organizational one than one of laziness.

But again, I don’t work there, I don’t see the devs every day and I think it’s bad to draw conclusions about them based on the game. If I want to critique something an author wrote, I focus on the work. I don’t use language to malign the author.

I could say you’re too lazy to have done the research but who does that help?

First of all, has the lazy become the new n-word?
Secondly, it was never the statement of fact. I don’t know how hard working they are and you don’t know it either. It’s an assumption based on the facts I have and I all have have is an expansion.
Does calling someone lazy help? I don’t know. It’s a feedback from a player and a negative one. It’s not about giving an advise on how to fix this or that. It’s all about saying that what you gave us at release was more than enough and what you are giving us now is not. I do not compare Anet to other authors. I am comparing the creators work now with it’s previous work. Does the “now” pale when comparing with the “past”? In my opinion, yes (and, as you said, I am entitled to that opinion). You could say that I could have draw the line here. Yes, I could have. But I am a customer. I don’t have time for this “in my opinion, developer used to give us more stuff”. I have one simple word and use it when I feel the need to. Anet is not a child. I don’t have to hold its hand and try not to make it cry. It’s a cold and unforgiving market. Deal with this.

mattkoko.6029:

Sicarius.4639:

Silas Eorth.7348:

Enjoy it for what it is. And if you don’t like it, you can always take a break and come back when something about it appeals to you again.

How is that going to happen when those who don’t like it are deemed salty and told to leave? Then you have a forum of people saying it’s great and nothing ends up changing and or the game dies.

I agree with what you are saying and I am all for constructive criticism. The keyword there is “constructive.” Here is my problem with a lot of posts in this forum. "The expansion sucks, I don’t like it (some use “we” don’t like it as if they are talking for everyone)" is not constructive feedback. A lot (not all) of the negative feed back is a lot of complaining, but offer nothing as far as what they dislike or how it can be improved. Instead it is just relentless crying and bickering.

Regardless, as a game company, they know they can’t please everyone. Before the expansion, people were complaining the game was too easy and they ran out of things to do. After the expansion, all of the sudden, those people are quiet, and all the people that thought it was fine the way it was are now saying the exact opposite. It is too hard and everything is such a grind. If they really listened to everyone and implemented all of their suggestions, it would be a disaster. Unfortunately, too many people have the mindset of, “if it is not the way I like it, then it sucks and everyone else who disagrees can eat kitten.”
Edit: I actually find it quite funny that the censor of “kitten” sounds worse then what I actually said.

If people were actually nice about it and more respectful and didn’t come in with fists swinging non stop, then there wouldn’t be much of a problem. But as you can see, someone makes a positive thread and 3 posts in, the OP catches crap for it. So much for being nice.

The expansion lacked a lot of things. A lot of constructive criticism has already been presented . I feel that all the other posts are just the way to support this opinion. And I believe that that’s the best way to give a message that you can’t get away with the expansion like this, without repeating other peoples points already made.

YaYa.5879:

This technique of not telling us Kitten, is toxic for their image and for our experience. We paid for an unfinished product and they refuse to give us information now that they have our money.

Their lack of communication creates a void which eventually gets filled by toxic people. Instead of getting information from the developers, we “figure out” the facts about the state of the game ourselves and it’s never a positive state

Killthehealersffs.8940:

If you want to pay acompany that can earn 5.000.000 -10.000.000 players x 15 dollars per month = 75.000.000-150.000.000 per month
215.000.000-450.000.000 per 3 months (without the bonus from the x-pack sales + the microtransations in their store) , you are freely to do it

But dont come here saying why the Arenanet is hungry for our money , when every 3 months creates 21.000.000 per 3 months (and you are not forced in any way to give them money )

If you want to go to play a game where it will release scale mobs down based on your lvl + has timetravel dungeons (you scale down) , you can increase the difficulty of the dungeons from extra rewards (fractals) + more focus in outdoor World Bosses + release wardrope you can play …. and pay the sub …

I mean something Arenanet is doing trully right , after all …..

How many Sets do they release with each x-pack ?
8 unipue per class Blue Dungeons sets + 8 LFG Exotics + 8 Mythic (with some ornaments from the LFG one) = 24

How many did GW2 realase ?
10
3 Bladed armor sets, 3 guild armor sets, 3 leystone armor sets and 1 mistward armor set . (3 Legendary Armor-3 Precursor + 3 Legendary Weapons-Specialization mambo-jumbo+PvP Backpiece are exluded)
= with a lower bugdet
+ they had the Semptember Feature patch
+ they release Living Story Updates
+ they focused in the localization in china
+ the focused their manpower to finish the x-pack
All these is a very closly timeline

And they realease 6 outfits, where THEY DONT EXPIRE ….YOU DONT HAVE TO GATHER NOW GOLD
When i drunk i am god , and i dont feel bad , about other ppl feeling bad :P

(Edit: Vayne let them to do what they want :P)

Don’t do math when you are drunk

Vayne.8563:

Nope you don’t have to say that. Nor do you have to trot out trite words like lazy to express your dissatisfaction which is a lazy way to complain, and an offensive one.

Anet can’t be lazy, because Anet isn’t a person. Anet is a company comprised of people. It is extremely likely that a percentage of employees of any company are in fact lazy, but the company itself can’t be lazy unless you’re personifying it. Whether you’re a developer, a customer or a norse god is not really relevant to the conversation.

You chose to use a word some would consider to be an insult and directed it at a group of 300 people. So unless every single one of those people is lazy, you’re doing a disservice to them, and you’re potentially being offensive.

If I were working really hard on something and someone called me lazy, yes, I’d take offense. Last I’ll say on the subject since to anyone reading it, this was obvious a while ago. Only someone deliberately ignoring what I’m saying would keep going and what I’m saying is factual. You can’t call a company lazy, without impugning everyone in the company.

Really? Are we really talking about how word “lazy” should be used? Ok.

First of all, be honest with yourself. I’m pretty sure you were not running around at release (when reviews were glowing) saying how we can’t praise Anet, because it’s not a person. There still could have been one slacking programmer, you know

Secondly, companies have personalities, in fact, they’re juridical persons. Companies are not the people working for them. For example, 2 of 3 Anet founders have left the company, does it meen Anet is no longer Anet? No. It’s still the same company, even though it changed over the years (people change too, right?). Companies could be good, evil, corrupt and yes, lazy. Its personality is represented by:
1) the people working there. It’s usually the senior officers, but there’re a lot of exceptions. In Anet case, that would be every red post we see on forums. Yes, there’s a living human being with the name who says something on those forums, but in the end, we remember that it was the Anet, who said that thing. Anet can’t go behind that persons back and say: “Dont look at me, it was he who said you that the fractal rewards will be fixed” (yeah, I know it’s still December).
2) its work. It this case that would be the expansion. And if someone, who had the ability and resources to produce something good, presents me a half-finished product… well, I have a pretty nice word to describe that person.

Basically, you say that I can’t call Anet lazy, because that would hurt their feelings. Well, it’s the reality talking and guys from South Park even made an episode about this. Saying anything else just gives them a wrong message that they could get away with this. No, they can’t.
Yes, you could say that my critisim is not constructive. But how can I been constructive when all I want to say is “give me more stuff for the money I paid”?