Guild Wars 2

GregT.4702:

Naoko.7096:

Gw1 was a corpg with instanced-maps. It’s not meant to be a mmorpg. Gw2 is a mmorpg with open environment. That’s why it has to accustom with the human nature in reality too. Mmorpg = a world that’s reflected from reality.

There’s hierarchy of needs, elitisms, dedication-get-rewards, skillful-get-rewards, sense of belonging to be with a group, seeking to feel special, seeking to be worth in something, to protect something, to feel motivated with something, feeding people’s needs of progression, seek something new everyday, taste something new everyday, to have leisure and most importantly, people in reality can only create light only when there’s darkness. That’s why in reality, people appreciate things more that comes with own effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

The closer the mmorpg is closer to human nature, the more successful it’ll be.
The reason: It’s inevitable that human nature will be shown in a virtual world that’s a reflects realism and people.

This is a frightening misunderstanding of game design, of the experience of human play, of psychology, and particularly of the work of Abraham Maslow.

Maslow’s model of human motivation (which in any case is now largely discredited) is intended to apply to the whole of human life, not to be micro-replicated into individual activities. It’s true to say that people are unlikely to play games (or feel comfortable playing games) when they feel their physical safety is not under control. But it’s not true to say that the game space should replicate and satisfy all of a human’s needs; the logical extension would be to say that people can’t enjoy a dungeon until they have a healthy guild and regular cybersex, because their emotional needs have to be met before they can self-actualize. That’s patent rubbish, and you look ridiculous for having suggested it. It would be analagous to the suggestion that for people to enjoy a hamburger it must offer them sexual intimacy, security of housing, and the potential for self actualization.

Specifically Maslow has nothing to say about whether humans enjoy challenge, or being rewarded for challenge. What he’s saying is that people are unikely to be motivated to seek out higher order challenges such as building their self-esteem or engaging in personal self-growth while their lower-order needs such as safety and social acceptance are failing to be met.

Appeals to authority work better when you understand what you’re talking about rather than just mis-linking a wiki page.

Mmorpg is a mmorpg for a reason. You role-play as someone who you are not you in an alternate reality world. You control an avatar, but in a world with millions of people. In that alternate reality world, human nature are inevitably formed. A community where human nature takes it’s course.

If you want to play a game where human nature does not plays a part, I recommend you to play console games. There’re many rpg consoles where it’s between you and the npcs/challenges. You can play to the point to reach a wall and switch games each time you complete it’s story. In mmorpg, it’s people who creates their own story and memories with each other. They must not only creates memories between players and npcs/challenges. Mmorpg’ers must make memories between themselves.

You’ve no idea of the human nature, “People appreciate things of what they lack.”.
Fun often takes into account on how much people appreciate it.
In reality, people hardly appreciate things unless it’s exclusive and others doesn’t have.

Face it. Game designs between mmorpgs and console games are different for reasons.
Mmorpg must accustom to human nature if it wants to be successful. No, not just successful in making money, but delivering fun and precious memories. Console games are made without consideration of any interactions between 2 or more humans. Console games is a virtual reality only between players and npcs. Mmorpg must relate game with human nature of what is taken into consideration from people’s course of actions they would’ve taken in reality.

Gw1 was successful because the maps are fully instanced. It’s not an open-world. It’s closer to console games with multi-player options. So the lack of human nature doesn’t affects the game. In mmorpg, human nature is the vital element. This is why gw2 can’t follow entirely gw1 based on it’s success.

I miss the prestige feeling of being a high level in mmorpg too.

LordByron.8369:

Try to get an ascended backpack/ring currently…..

-Agony resistance is the DEFINITION of "spending hours preparing to have fun ".

-New tiers
-New equip level
-New tiers of ascended (i menan ascended infused, capacitor infused, ascended to talk about the 3 currently known)
-Infusions

You realise that ascended gears are optional right?

If players want the “optional max stats” or “optional skins”, it means players love grinding and working towards a bonus goal. Players should leave the optional bonus to dedicated players. Casuals play the fun contents. That’s the right way of playing Guild Wars 2.

If achieving the bonus gears are considered “…to have fun” for players, it means players are fond of gear progression in their heart. They actually like climbing for better stats. =p

Players can play the content without the need of agony resistance. Players don’t even need to prepare for it. -.- Players already experience the fun of the content by playing from Lv1 to Lv10. Lv11 onwards are just bonus rounds with agony that’re not mandatory. On higher maps, players still experience the same set of maps that players had already experience the fun from Lv1 to 10. Going up level 11 and above are meant for dedicated and hardcore players. Unless players like the fun of progressing in dungeons, yet again, it means players are actually fond of vertical progression in their heart.

“So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.”

The game sticks to it’s manifesto in every view I see it.

1) I love mmorpgs because I experience all kinds of human nature and emotions in-game. I love the no-wall progressions in mmorpgs that doesn’t exist in console games.

2) I hate traditional mmorpgs like maplestory because it forces to me get best gear X/Y/Z to explore new maps and Zakum. Maple forced me to grind to unlock experiences. Gw2 has access of experiences available to everyone without grinding for any tier of gears.

3) GW2 doesn’t suck my life away and force me to get ascended gears. Instead, ascended is a bonus that I don’t have to rush or panicked. It’s a solid goal that I can choose to take my time or rush towards under my own decision. I see “best stats” are optional in this game, unlike some other mmorpgs which best stats are mandatory.

4) In some mmorpgs I played, I’m forced to need gear X to even get to experience content X. In GW2, I didn’t have to prepare anything before I play the new content, the fractal dungeons. I get to experience the fun of the new content right away.

Gw1 was a corpg with instanced-maps. It’s not meant to be a mmorpg. Gw2 is a mmorpg with open environment. That’s why it has to accustom with the human nature in reality too. Mmorpg = a world that’s reflected from reality.

There’s hierarchy of needs, elitisms, dedication-get-rewards, skillful-get-rewards, sense of belonging to be with a group, seeking to feel special, seeking to be worth in something, to protect something, to feel motivated with something, feeding people’s needs of progression, seek something new everyday, taste something new everyday, to have leisure and most importantly, people in reality can only create light only when there’s darkness. That’s why in reality, people appreciate things more that comes with own effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

The closer the mmorpg is closer to human nature, the more successful it’ll be.
The reason: It’s inevitable that human nature will be shown in a virtual world that’s a reflects realism and people.

nachtnebel.9168:

Naoko.7096:

“The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best.”

The misinterpretation is here. The rarest items in the game is only the legendary. Before 15th nov, legendary = exotic. After 15th nov, legendary = ascended. Legendary have the same stats as the other items. You don’t need legendary to be the best. You can have any tier gears and still be the best because what’s counted is your skills, not the gear. A masterwork-geared player can beat exotic-geared player in WvWvW without making 2-3 times more effort. It’s because the increase is very insignificant. Unlike other traditional mmos where 1-2 tiers above others can make you 50% stronger that’s almost impossible to win against.

“The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game.”

You don’t need legendary tier to play all the content in the game. You also don’t need ascended tier to play all the content in the game. Imo, gw2 is the only mmorpg that allows player to have accesibility to 100% fun contents without being best-geared.

“We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so”

There, it’s optional. No mandatory gear treadmills but only optional gear treadmills for those who find fun in it. If a group of players don’t find it fun, they don’t need to go for the ascended tier. If players want the optional “max-stats”, it means players actually fond of stat progression inside their hearts to crave for “max stats”.

That’s exactly the reason why companies nowadays think they can fool their costumers. People got so used to all that “political talk” so they always find a way to justify actions by re-interpreting what was said earlier.

Especially the last part about mandatory gear treadmills is outstanding. Ascended gear in combination with the infusions are without any doubt the start of a treadmill. And Arena Net not just didn’t deny that, they also said that they will continue going down this road. They said that this is just the start of the progression. A gear treadmill is a gear treadmill, it doesn’t matter if you just call it progression, it essentially stays the same thing.

In nature, people perceive things what they want to perceive it to be.
If you perceived negatively in that way, it’s really your problem. =/

When I first heard about the game before it was launched, I did watch those manifesto trailers. However, I never even heard nor feel of being promised that there won’t be any vertical progression. So I don’t know why there’s a group that feel like they’re promised. I keep an open mind that the game is jack of all trades, master of none. Personally, I still feel the game sticks to it’s manifesto. I didn’t feel forced into ascended. I feel it’s optional that I can acquire it anytime as a bonus. Therefore, it’s a not a forced treadmill.

stpetemermaid.5947:

The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

“The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best.”

The misinterpretation is here. The rarest items in the game is only the legendary. Before 15th nov, legendary = exotic. After 15th nov, legendary = ascended. Legendary have the same stats as the other items. You don’t need legendary to be the best. You can have any tier gears and still be the best because what’s counted is your skills, not the gear. A masterwork-geared player can beat exotic-geared player in WvWvW without making 2-3 times more effort. It’s because the increase is very insignificant. Unlike other traditional mmos where 1-2 tiers above others can make you 50% stronger that’s almost impossible to win against.

“The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game.”

You don’t need legendary tier to play all the content in the game. You also don’t need ascended tier to play all the content in the game. Imo, gw2 is the only mmorpg that allows player to have accesibility to 100% fun contents without being best-geared.

“We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so”

There, it’s optional. No mandatory gear treadmills but only optional gear treadmills for those who find fun in it. If a group of players don’t find it fun, they don’t need to go for the ascended tier. If players want the optional “max-stats”, it means players actually fond of stat progression inside their hearts to crave for “max stats”.

Yeah. I have the same sentiments as TC.
Some players are pushing their own expectations and interpretations of the game upon others. The manifesto didn’t claim that they are going to make the game with no vertical progression. They didn’t claim they’re not going to put a new tier.

If players realised, the game is already a vertical progression from Lv1 to 80. Yet, they’ve not realised it. They expect a game to be like console rpgs where they reach the cap and gain favourite skins. Then feel like they ended a game, so they could put back the game in the shelf and stop playing for months. Ps3/xbox can afford that, but mmorpgs can’t.

Some gw1 players said that gw2 should be like gw1, but there’s no such promises that they’re going to make gw2 a replica of gw1. They are approaching to make it an entire new game concept. Please remember that gw1 is a CORPG and gw2 is a MMORPG. Gw1 is full of instances which horizontal progression is recommended. Gw2 is full of open maps and dynamic events which they can’t afford players to every players to put back the game in the shelf and stop playing for months.

Players are misinterpreting “no grind for gears to experience the fun content”. This means higher tier gears are optional. Gears are not content, but rewards and bonus. You are able to experience all the fun content without the best gears in the game. This is the true interpretation of the manifesto. If you say, you enjoy mmorpgs where you get max stats (when it’s optional and you can already experience all fun contents with any gears), this means you are actually fond of chasing gears inside your heart. That’s the truth.

From what I gather from friends who quit or became super inactive, it’s because players burn through all the contents within a month, get bored and quit. Dedicated mmorpg’ers stick to one mmorpg unlike console players. Console players tend to play 2 or more games and switch games frequently. That’s why, once dedicated players left, they never turn back. The momentum to play – a part of human nature.

Some players said, it’s f2p and you can come back anytime you want if you get bored. It doesn’t work that way. Once we take a break from this game and touch other games, we will be occupied with another game and forgot about this game. We will lose all momentum to go back to the game. This is why I dare not give this game a break. If I give it a break just because it’s no longer fun, it’s the same as quitting it forever.

- My gaming background -

I started with the love of rpg consoles games from gameboy/ps1/ps2. The first mmorpg I played was MapleStory. I played for almost a year. I had a taste of what mmorpg is about.

The following year, Granado Espada was introduced. It was released around the same time as WoW. While WoW was the king of mmo in western countries, Granado Espada was the king of mmo in Korean and other asian countries. GE was localised in other countries like Japan and SEA. It won some awards on that year like best mmo and best graphics. I was with that mmorpg for 3-4 years.

Among all mmorpgs, I had the best experience with Granado Espada. It’s the only mmorpg that really appeals to casual, hardcore and dedicated. It has it’s manifesto of not a grindy game at all. It’s because of a genius creator Hakkyu Kim who made the game allows you to afk for level’ing. You can play for 2-4 hours per day while you afk overnight while sleeping. It’s an in-game mechanic that allow characters to auto-attack. I can even dedicate myself to my real life commitments while I progresses in-game.

The best thing in this game is that “gear progression” is not the main carrot in that game. It’s the “npc progression”. People chase after unique and more legendary npcs. It’s like "Gotta’ catch em all pokemon’. You can do personal stories, befriend them and they join you in your character selection. What’s unique about this mmorpg is that you control 3 different avatars at once. You can have 50-100 characters in your character selections. The npc progression is that you can recruit limitless heroic npcs. For example, you can recruit Logan or Rytlock in gw2. GE has gear progression, but players sees npc collecting progression a much higher priority and more tempting carrots.

GE is the only game that gave me the true memories of mmorpg. The social interaction mechanic is awesome. There’re many guild activities. I remember there’s super world boss which can’t be brought down by a single guild. 3 guilds form alliance with each other to bring it down. The drama and bonding folds between the 3 guilds through time. We became friends with each other, meet in real life and all those memories. Only when there’s darkness, there’s light.

Every weekend, there’s a colony war where guilds take over cities and pve maps to conquer. This game brings real glory to the guilds. I actually feel so much fun whether we win or lose because it makes me closer with people in-game and reality. We even met the opposing guilds in real life too. We are rivals in-game, but close friends in reality. The pvp requires real skills because we control 3 avatars with changeable stances and 10-15 × 3 skills available during combat.

My experience with the player community is full with mature adults and teens. I see that most of the players are at age 20-50. My guild leader is a 30yo businessman and he appeared once in newspaper for attending a real life baroque-themed ball organised by the mmo company. The game hold quite alot of real life events like blood donation drive, fan-made video competition and overseas trip too. (Yes, I attended the blood donation drive and got an exclusive in-game item. Those are good memories.)

Overall, GE gave me the most memories. I did play other games like Dragon Nest and Runescape but GE is the only one that brings the true essense of mmorpg.

- Do I love or hate Guildwars 2? -
I love Guild Wars 2 because of it’s graphics and refreshing npc interactions. To be honest with myself, I’m very neutral about the entire experience of it as a mmorpg though. The game has some flaws which is related to social interactions and opportunities for bonding. If I be honest with my feedback, wvwvw is quite meaningless. Pve end-game feels like I completed a console rpg story instead of a progressive mmorpg. The end-game feels bland and needs effort in something that pulls players to log in daily and feel ancitipated. Something that makes players, “I feel like doing X/Y/Z today. I can’t wait for X/Y/Z tmr!”.

But still, I can see good efforts made into gw2 with the introductions of fractals and ascended gears. This game has quite good potential but it still needs alot of research to accustom with the human nature of players. The nature that leads to retain them each time they log in and make them feel anticipated. The clue for improvements is that, “Elements that can’t force players to it, but lead them to it.”

Cultural tier 3 are just for looks. If players are willing to fork out 120g on those skins, what difference does it make to fork out an extra 15g on full crafted exotics?

It really doesn’t matter if it’s rare or exotic. Cultural armors cost an unreasonable ton is because it’s being made to look as prestigious skins. Only the very few can afford them that makes the owner feel special that they accomplish something.

I can suggest that they make it into a skin item instead of gear item.
This won’t misled players to think that it’s for gears.

E.g. The halloween weapon skins from BLC which you can apply to a weapon.

I’m anticipating the wintersday too.
I hope they put an improved version (more fun instead of punishing) of rng BLC and not like the consortium chests in this seasonal event. Rare-looking skins with money where majority can’t afford is better than cheap-looking skins with more money per chest. The reason why consortium isn’t selling well compared to halloween BLC is because it’s part of nature to seek for rarer and more beautiful gear skins like chainsaw and shield. (This is why branded companies and casinos in reality succeed well in business).

Fun is very subjective because everyone defines fun in different ways.

For me, I see something fun when there’s tempations and something to achieve for. I see contents as fun too but all contents don’t last long. Every content are limited. Either mmorpg or console game, once you experience all the carrots, you feel like moving to another game. Mmorpg can’t afford that. This is why mmorpg need progression (any progression and not limited to gears). Well, that’s my opinion.

LordYz.8941:

I spend $0.00 on the gem store and get the some of the stuff ppl complain about and I only play 4-5 hours a day. What does that make me?

A spendless hardcore player.

Dedicated = Players who are dedicated to achieve goal xxxx. They’re willing to spend time or money to achieve things that average can’t.

Hardcore = Players who wants challenges. If you didn’t spend any money on the game, it means you want to achieve things with a challenge.

Dedicated players:

1) Those who wants to achieve things that others can’t through any means. This includes long gameplay so they can surpass other players, or spend real cash into gems and gold. This is a common practice in every mmorpg. When there’s no gems to gold transaction in other mmorpgs, they always buy cash items and sell them in TP for gold. They use the gold to buy skins or good items that separate them from average players.

2) Players who are not hotel players. Hotel players are those who just want to achieve max stats capped and their favourite appearance just so that they can start being inactive. They don’t want the game to tempt them into login because it’s human nature to climb for the best although it’s optional. End-game hotel players playing pattern are those who only login when there’s special events like halloween and christmas and put the game in their shelves 90% of the month.

This is why horizontal progression games is a big gamble for mmorpg because it can’t afford everyone to be like hotel player if the game servers to live long term.

3) Dedicated players love temptation. They always seek a goal after achieving a previous goal. Casual players hate temptation. When ascended comes out, they complaint so much because it tempts them. When there’s a rare item like halloween chain greatsaw, they complaint so much because it tempts them. When anything attractive somes out, they complaint so much because it tempts them. Casuals want to avoid all kind of temptation while playing the game.

I don’t agree that WvWvW should be out from world completion. It should be challenging so that it’ll differentiate between people who have the star and not. Players now have so little reason to WvWvW. Why would they take away more reasons?

I do feel for lower population servers who gets dominated by another server most of the time. I feel it’s better to find solution for that problem instead of reducing the reason to go WvWvW.

If there’s a stat cap, there must be something with equal element of progression that will replace that. If not, I hate to say that any mmorpg will not succeed. GW2 replaces the “stats progression” with “skin progression”. They should have known by now that it’s very ineffective because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Players just try to achieve their favourite one set and ignore the rest.

Why is stat cap a great gamble?
If everyone has achieve their maxed stats and favourite armor skins, what will you do next? You put the game back to the shelves and only pick it back up for a couple of days every month during festive events like Halloween and Christmas. It’s just like GW1 but that game can afford it because it’s mostly instanced and it’s not a mmorpg, but a corpg. Corpg can afford low concurrency of players. Mmorpgs must have high concurrency of players despite high sales and population.

That’s human nature. If people got nothing to play for, people feel satisfied and get burned out on the game. People no longer feel like login anymore. Does this sounds familiar? You will feel this way in all console pc, ps3 and xbox games. Console games can afford this because they don’t have a server. Mmorpg can’t afford those kind of scenarios. They can’t afford to create a wall for players. Mmorpg very nature is suppose to be progressive that will last 5 – ? years.

It does not have to be stat progression. Yet, it must have the same or greater pull than stat progression or else games will have ghost maps with high initial sales. It will end up with players who treat their server like a hotel and waste resources. I think players must know that it takes a great amount of money to maintain a server. The higher the graphics and population, the more money is needed. They can’t afford to punish dedicated players who are potential spenders that helps to keep their servers alive.

If players are looking for a game that have a console feel to it or an ending-wall, they should stick to their console games. They have a stat cap and you can feel a sense of completion by playing it. They progressive only to the point you finish the game.

I like playing with people but I can see why guild wars 2 players prefer to be alone in this game. This game doesn’t have much purpose to group up. Well, the game has added fractal content to “force” people to group up now.. but you cannot force people. I feel that the game must understand and study in-depth human natures in mmo. They should do case research studies on experienced traditional mmo first, and make their own idea that touch the topic of human nature in mmorpg. It can help them improve on gw2.

Grouping is suppose to be encouraged, not forced or ignored. For example. Guilds. They are like fb chatroom. >_< Secondly, structure of dynamic events where you only meet one-time stanger and ninja away after it ended. Thirdly, players have different objective and found it meaningless to go to their friend’s map. Who want to waste waypoint money and come back? I know of several mmorpgs where waypts are near to free. There are good and vital reasons for it.

They are refering to the “time” needed to spend.

Exotic is so easy that it takes only a couple of days for dedicated players to get the full set from TP. But I must say that they still didn’t bridge the gap in the end because they just pushed legendary further away.

There’s only 2 ways to acquire it.

1) Ectos and 250 tier 6 which will cost you a fortune that you’ll push your legendary away. They require the same resource as the legendary.

2) 1350 fractal gems on a single backpack when the time spent is better on other normal maps to farm tier 6 materials for the legendary. Fractals droprate for tier 6 is quite bad. I think I never even receive one with so many tries.

They should improve on ways to acquire ascended while people are farming mats for legendary. Ascended and legendary shouldn’t interfere with each other progresses. It’s normal to get ascended first, then legendary. But not ascended first, then your legendary becomes fortified. A proper bridge that is accustom with human nature should be made.

Columba.9730:

Unless you enjoy getting curb stomped in wvwvw, it’s not optional. 20-50% better stats aren’t optional. they are mandatory, and the ONLY way to get them now is to grind dungeons, which many of us hate.

Yes. 20-50% in “character stats” but in actual combat, it’s actually only 3~7% increase.
Every 20pts increment from the “previous stats” is 1% increment in actual combat.

This is why I don’t mind using masterwork for WvWvW and pve magic-find farming. The only exotic/ascended set I be using is for dungeons and boss dynamic event battles. I keep 3 sets and there’s really not much difference among them. The exotic only gives the positive illusion and a form of assurance.

I understand it’s part of human nature to be worried and anxious whether another with better gear can defeat you more easier. But there’s really not much to worry because they’re not so much stronger until it requires 2-3 times more effort to kill like the other mmorpgs. Gw2 has still one of the most balance pvp among mmorpgs.

It’s also part of human nature that if we defeat a player supposing with better “stats” than us, we will feel more satisfaction and greater sense of achievement.

dalendria.3762:

Does this appeal to you?

Colin Johanson, Arenanet Lead Content Designer on GW2 Approach to Gear:

“The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

This is an approach to gear based on stat cap and differentiators based on cosmetics not stats. Arenanet said many times pre and post launch that they would have max stat gear and any new gear would be same stats but different looks. Arenanet explained that Exotics represented the max stat gear. They have many different Exotics with different looks and degrees of difficulty to obtain (easy to longer/harder). Many of us read their marketing and bought the product because they said it would not be based on “gear” progression mechanics.

How would you feel if you bought WOW and 3 months later they removed raids to appeal to their more “casual” players?

Their manifesto looks like it’s some of you who are the ones misinterpreting. >_<

“The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best.”

The rarest items at the moment and before the 15th November, is the “legendary tier”. Before the 15th, they have the same stats as the exotic. After the 15th, they have the same stats as the ascended. They still have sticked to their manifesto that their legendary tier is not above the stats of ascended, which is the current max stats item. Remember that it only apply to the “rarest”, nor “rarer”. That means it’ll only apply to the rarest tier, the legendary.

If it’s what some of the “rage players” interpreted, then there won’t be any needs for the five tiers of basic to exotic in the beginning. The game would only offer you one tier with the same stats for the whole gameplay during launch.

“We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional”

There… they had said it. This means, they’ve intended to make it, but it’s optional. Unlike most mmorpgs, you must have gear X to experience content X. In gw2, you can experience all 100% contents with any gear tier without a problem of being gated.

In my perspective, I interpreted it this way. >_<
I mean… why would players go after max stats when they can play the game (not gated from any fun content) with any tiers? It’s a part of human nature. People automatically go after the best stuffs. It really shows in their heart, they really like to chase after the best gears. This is why the game has to have this kind of progression to keep players anticipated and increase their player online concurrency.

I’d love to see the book one glows too.. or else it’ll look inferior to the halloween book.

Before FotM, most maps were already emptied out. FotM is just their 1st step to improve the player online concurrency. It works and players become online more frequently. They just have to spread it around Tyria. I’m waiting for the rest of the dungeons to be revamped. Shorter dungeons yet tactical and doesn’t give much peer pressure.

They’ve already said on the news they’re going to revamp the older dungeons so we just have to wait for it. We’ll soon see people rushing for arah and other dungeons that players avoided because it’s too long and draggy.

I heard the capacitor backpack glows. Does the quiver and book back item glows when it’s upgraded to the infused version?

Munrock.3092:

I’ll belabour the point because it’s either being missed or ignored; the design manifesto said this: …if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun….

The manifesto also said this.
“If you love mmo, you should check out Guild Wars 2…”
Link: http://youtu.be/35BPhT-KI1E?t=42s

It means, they already intended for the game to appeals for people who love traditional mmos too. In my perception, guild wars 2 is not really trying to be a full guild wars 1 game but a totally new game that appeals all kinds of players. Jack of all trades, master of none.

Imo, they still sticked to their manifesto that “it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun”. We don’t need ascended gears to experience new contents like the Fractals. In fact, we don’t even need rares or exotics. A level 80 with exotics and a Lv40 with masterpieces can experience the fun of Fractals. I seen a level 17 player enter the fractals and succeeded. Majority of players in WvWvW are wearing masterpiece gears (I wear exotic for pve and masterpiece for WvWvW because of different builts and have no problem too.) Players are not gated from fun content. The purpose why people avoided gear treadmill is because in previous mmos, you’re gated from fun content right? In this game, gears are just a bonus. You can have access to “fun” with any tiers. Gw2 is the only mmo which I feel that you can experience 100% content very easily.

If players don’t want gear progression, then they can stick to your current gear without problems of being gated from fun content (gears are not fun content, they are merely bonus rewards). If they don’t want gear progression because they want to be at “max stats”, it means they’re actually fond of gear progression inside their them. If not, they wouldn’t be eager/greed to go for the max stats.

Saidor.7028:

Naoko.7096:

E.g. A poor child can feel so much happiness with just being donated a bread. The same happiness feel by a rich woman who just spent a thousand bucks on a branded bag. People who have tasted something, will want to taste something bigger to achieve the same happiness. Once they tasted something bigger, they want to taste something even bigger to achieve the same happiness. The human greed is endless. As we go higher, our “needs” to fill up the sense of satisfactory increases. .

Sorry but that is simply not true, a lot of people do not need bigger and better to achieve happiness. I certainly don’t. Greed is largely a social disease. You must have this you must have that. People want to be one of the have’s so they dont feel excluded by their peers. Cant be part of the conversation about the latest ps3 game if you dont have one, and so on and so on. Society is encouraged to ‘want’ in order to keep people consuming. Consuming drives the economy.

You’re not alone. Some people feel they “don’t have” because they’ve not achieve much in life to level-up the “satisfaction-needs” capacity inside them. Happiness is scaled depending on humans needs capacity from how much they had achieved. As I pointed out with the earlier scenario, “human satisfactory-needs to feel happiness” grows as they progresses higher. Different people have different ways to satisfy their needs, which is why you’ve not realised that part of nature is inside you.

Human greed is not necessary a social disease nor a bad thing. Yes, it can impact negatively under the wrong path. But without it, humans have no need for progression. They wouldn’t keep improving the quality of living. We wouldn’t have high technologies. The world won’t progresses. Greed has always been part of everyone, but different people go through it with different paths.

There’re limitless examples. In mmos, greed is already part of everyone. It can be seen how players want something new each time. When we play the same content repetitively, we naturally get bored right? That is because our human nature urges our mind to seek new experience. Once we tasted it few or several times, we want naturally want something else refreshing or better. This is also part of the human nature of greed. If greed doesn’t exists, players would be able to repeat the same content a million times and still feel the same level of happiness after each repeated rounds. It’s in-born inside us.

It really depends of the type of player you are. Since you bought the game, it’s worth to play it to level cap. Imo, the experience to level cap is one of the best I’ve experienced among mmos. Once you reached level 80, try do things like dungeons and fractal of the mists. You may experience end-contents positively or negatively depending on your personal taste. After awhile of tasting the end-game content, you can chose to put it back onto your shelves like your console games or be dedicated to it as a mmorpg.

You’re loving the game now, so don’t stop just because a group of people post negatively. Those players are only giving feedbacks. Every mmorpg has their share of negative comments in forums.

RoChan.1926:

Actually the scenario you described is the human condition not human nature. We are constantly being conditioned in society to be better than the person next to us and not to be better than we were before.

Human nature example: Today I ran faster than yesterday. I am better than myself from yesterday.

Human condition example: Today I got first place in a race. I am better than others.

See the difference? It’s hard to nurture human nature without fostering the human condition but not impossible. It does however rely on the person’s personality type.

The need for self-satisfaction and the nature of greed is still part of human nature.

E.g. A poor child can feel so much happiness with just being donated a bread. The same happiness feel by a rich woman who just spent a thousand bucks on a branded bag. People who have tasted something, will want to taste something bigger to achieve the same happiness. Once they tasted something bigger, they want to taste something even bigger to achieve the same happiness. The human greed is endless. As we go higher, our “needs” to fill up the sense of satisfactory increases. That’s why progression is needed. A bigger goal/rewards after another goal/rewards. (Goal sized 1 achieved -> Goal sized 4 achieved -> Goal sized 7 achieved -> Goal sized 12 achieved).

The human need to feel special is part of human nature too. Everyone has a form of “adhd” in us, no matter how shy the person is. We want to stand out in phases of our life. This is why we develop skills for ourselves that the majority do not have. We pursue our strengths and prove ourselves useful in real life by default. It’s deep within our sub-conscious. It’s not a human condition where it’s influenced by a culture or environment. It’s a nature to seek attention in parts of our lives, no matter which environments we grow up in. This human nature can be evidently be seen even when we were just born. Babies and toddlers cry because we seek attention from our parents. To “seek attention and be noticed” is a human nature that’s born inside everyone.

Chase.8415:

You don’t have to take your gear off to avoid damage, all you have to do is switch to town clothes.

Useful information. I never thought of this.
Thanks.

cegorach.5624:

I disagree that this is fundamental human nature, though I’ll add your point wasn’t possibly articulated well to the discussion.

You said ‘people want to feel like winners’ as being human nature.

I don’t think that is the case.

Some people simply don’t.

Some people definitely don’t if it means others suffer, or feel bad.

Some people want EVERYONE to feel like winners, not just themselves.

Some people want themselves and those they care about to feel that way but don’t care about others.

And it goes on.

You’re describing one end of the spectrum – the ‘I got mine’ crew – as being definitive of human nature.

I’d say that’s one extreme end of a spectrum.

So my question is about how that entire spectrum translates to and from a game world.

Human nature can never be calculated.
“To feel special” is part of the human nature, no one can deny that.

Let’s have an example.
Scenario 1 : There’s a sports game event that everyone races to the finish line. There are trophies for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. The 4th to 9th places received a token of participation.

Scenario 2 : There’s a sports game event that everyone races to the finish line. There are no trophies and winners. All 1st to 9th places received a token of participation.

Which scenario above makes players feel a sense of anticipation and more satisfied?
The obvious answer would be scenario 1. Ask yourself why? It’s because it’s a game. In a game, there are suppose to be both winners and losers. What is a game when everyone is a “winner”? It’s just an illusion to blind people when in fact, there’re no winners and losers. It’s part of human nature to have or achieve something that the rest doesn’t. When they achieve something that the rest doesn’t, they feel special. When everyone achieve the same thing, there’s lesser appeal to the event. There’s no prestige.

Another example are the branded items in the real world.
Why do many people go after such stuffs when there’s a cheaper item with the same functionality? Human nature plays a part in this too. When people bought a branded bag that the majority can never afford, they feel a sense of being special. When they wear something with high rarity, they feel rewarded and proved to the public that they have worked hard to earn that amount of money to purchase something “rare”. While not everyone goes after the same thing, the element is still inside us.

There’s few examples in gw2 too.
Why some players go after rare skins like dungeons, legendary and the halloween weapon skins? Again, human nature rides on this. If they wear skins that the majority doesn’t have, they feel “special” and a “winner”. The only problem is that they never regard another part of the human nature. The human nature of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. After dedicated players achieved their favourite skins, they no longer have any goals left. It created a wall to the end-game. Yet again, the 3rd part of the human nature was disregarded. When there’re no goals left, people naturally become demotivated and doesn’t feel like doing X/Y/Z today. The progression was halt. Yet again, the 4th part of the human nature was disregarded. People have the basic need of progression (not just gear but the progression as a whole). When they have more, they always want more. The hunger. The human nature of greed. No one is spared from that.

Human nature itself is a big thing. Like above, human nature is like a chain from one thing to another. Many thing in this world revolves about one who wants to feel special. I agree that it’s only a part of the spectrum. But in the past all the way to the present, there are many positive and negative that come through this part of human nature.

Zoul.1087:

- Go to the cursed shore on many servers. You can’t even get to Arah.

- A tumbleweed could blow through the entire world. It has been reduced to a dungeon.

- Crafting is useless now unless they make some changes (which I hope they will)

I agree that these 3 points needs improvement. But I doubt ascended or fractal are the main causes for those 3 points. Before 15th Nov, Arah was already inaccessible and no one wants to clear it. Crafting was already meaningless at lv80 end-game before the 15th Nov because it’s human nature to do something that only benefits them. Hardly players were playing dungeons except for CoF and AC because other dungeons were too long and draggy for their liking.

It’s human nature to go towards the best spot for best gains. With these problems you pointed out above, it means they’ve not perfected human nature -> in-game. They’ve not mastered how to design the game with consideration of human nature but I know they’re making efforts on it from the new content and future. I heard from the latest news that they’re revamping the older dungeons. It’ll probably ease down the side-effects if they know how to design it around with human nature further in order to spread out the player concurrency on each map. Imo, ascended/fractal dungeon has include quite good potential towards the human nature element. It’s the reason why players naturally go there. The only improvement they need to do is to spread it throughout Tyria.

There’re many other anticipating updates which can help to improve in the human nature -> in-game element. Guild Halls are one. I heard they’re going to create more activities that create memories with each other, so I can’t wait for it. ^^ The current guild system doesn’t plays around with human nature at all. Imo, a good guild system should make players feel like their guild is their home and guildmates as their family. Guilds should be where players create real bonds and many memories together instead of like a FB chat list. Just like in real life, 20 good friends is better than 200 acquintances. That’s why mmorpg needs to have strong elements of human nature.

Zoul.1087:

No people HAVE to progress.

Why do countries other than the U.S. feel the need to improve their weaponry?

Its about advantage. This stat buff forces you to go up to stay competitive. If everyone else has a gun and you have a knife then why would you want a gun?

Also these dungeons have already proven the dark side of this. “You don’t have full exotics, we are not going to dungeon with you.”

Its turning people into elitists.

In other words, it’s about competition.
Without competition between countries, there’s no progression. Without progression, people have no reason to set goals in life. It goes against human nature. Competition is important in life. Without it, we wouldn’t have skyrise buildings. We would probably still be in stone age.

It applies almost to every aspect in life. (E.g. If a smartphone company have no business rivals, they will make the same smartphone and won’t make effort to improve it. If they have business rivals like Samsung and Iphones, they constantly compete with each other to create a better smartphone. Each company wants to be at advantage than another. As they progresses, people now have better and better smartphones through the years.)

It applies in mmorpgs too. Human nature plays a big part in mmorpg.
There’s an analogy. – “There’s only light if there is darkness.”
Darkness existed in the first place. People have to create light. If everything is light in the beginning, there’s no place to create your own light.

Earth (Positive/Negative emotions) > Utopia (No human emotions)
Before 15th November, gw2 was very near to utopia-like. The game starts to improve on the basic needs of players which I feel they made a good effort. I naturally want a game world where I can feel different types of emotions when I play. It’s basic human needs since everyone is born with emotions. It’s normal to want to be in a world to experience all that. Mmorpg is a game in “world” setting instead of “console” setting.

I’m okay with the one-time special event that gives rewards like the precursors.
They should make more events like this. The pre-cursors are overpriced anyway.

If players realised, even if you own the precursor, you need at least 634 golds with the rest of the materials. (I calculated all the ingredients from the current market price). Pre-cursors shouldn’t cost as much as 200-300 golds. It should be like back when it was released. Each costs around 60-100 golds. Efforts should come from gathering and scavenging hunt.

I wonder if players give up and start selling back their precursors after I mentioned “634 golds on the rest of the mats”. If you chose not to craft it, it’s better to sell it now before everyone else selling and depletes the price.

Zoul.1087:

They are spending time in the fractals a lot, because they can’t spend it anywhere else since nothing else will improve their character.

Yes. It’s because it’s human nature to constantly keep ourselves improve all the time. If it isn’t human nature to not improve themselves, they wouldn’t naturally chose to do fractals. In reality, people sub-consciously wants to keep improving and progress too.

Yeah, mmo needs to relate to human nature.
It must be built around human nature.

Some players said that games are supposed to be a leisure. I agree and disagree on this. In console games where it’s the world that only one player exists, yes it can be a leisure. However, mmorpg is a virtual reality with massive people. A world of virtual reality is a reflection of the real world. Human nature inevitably exists in-game. If some forgotten, life itself is a game. A good mmorpg revolves around both leisure and human nature.

It can be evidently seen. Players wants to feel special by standing out in crowds. Players want perfection and completion. Players wants to have something that 90% of the population doesn’t have. Players want to climb higher and higher. If we achieve some sort of rare item of use that most do not have, we feel like a “winner”. I believe everyone has some form of adhd traits in us. These are all human nature.

Imo back before 15th November, gw2 was pretty weak in playing around human nature in the game. I see that they’re already making efforts to improve in the basic needs of players. After the fractal and ascended release, they must have noticed in their database that their online players concurrency has increased.

“We’re very excited about the new content, and from the reactions we have seen, so are many of you. Players have already spent an incredible amount of time in the new Fractals dungeon, and their reaction to it has been phenomenal.” – by Chris Whiteside

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/chris-whiteside-on-the-lost-shores-and-beyond/

Keep up the good work.

I tried Lv10 today. It became more scarier. >_<

The harpies on that level onwards start to knockback players off the platforms.

It’s really not for the few faint-hearted acrophobic players.

I can’t imagine as it goes higher.. Would they start making disappearing platforms?

One-time event is needed but make it available for different timezones.

I love one-time events. They made players feel anticipated and excited.

The big battle in phase 3, imo was epic.

I really like this idea too.

It’s makes skins feel like a collector hobby. It’s much better than choosing a set of favourite skin and ignore the rest – creating a wall to end-game. If the structure is like the “collector”, it’ll definitely helps players to feel motivated to collect more than 1 set of skins. The collector approach is good.

It’s just like trading card games. We collect and place them in albums. We take it out and put into our deck if we want to use them. If we want to use them, we can transmute into our gears with the stones. If we want to change back, we can transmute a dungeon gear on top of another dungeon gear without having to fear of losing it.

They probably even can sell more transmuted stones with this collector approach.
Currently, players only use it once on their favourite skin and never use anymore.

I fully support the suggestion made by gibzy.

It depends on which path the mmo is taking.
Is this a rpg or action-base mmo?
You can only pick one.

RPG : Yes, it should be hard. RPG needs to have some progressive nature that allows player to play around with their stats. Even in storybooks, dramas and movies, the characters progresses. The “philosophy stone” that grants you immortality in Harry Potter should be difficult to get. The “ring” in lord of the ring movie are difficult to get too. Just like in fictional stories, the best stat items in the game must be hard to achieve, and they’re not just for cosmetic purposes.

Action-base game : No. In fact, there’s not even a need for gear tiers or levels. You play the game like in arcade. You’re given the character and you use skills with it. The characters have no souls of it’s own because you’re the player. It’s like playing street fighter in the open world of mmo. There’s pre-made story, but no rpg elements.

I was expected FoTM to be like the suggestion above.

It’s the reason why I did Fractal Lv1 three times and realised I’m stuck at Lv2.

It’s a good suggestion because it can be hard to progress with everyone at different levels.

Once we unlock the levels, it’s up to us whether to go for Lv5 or Lv15.

I expected ascended tier to have a full different required materials.

I suggest having ascended to require a different set of materials that isn’t needed to craft the legendary. The purpose is to narrow the gap between exotic and legendary.

E.g. Players have gotten 250 Ectoplasm, would he hinder his process of getting a legendary by crafting an ascended by taking away 50×6 ectos?

If ascended and legendary requires different set of materials, it’ll help in making a proper progression between exotic and legendary. Players can work both at the same time, by getting ascended in 3 months, legendary in 6 months. Not getting ascended in 3 months and pushes back the legendary to 9 months.

If WoW never existed, the structure of mmo + rpg will still continue.

WoW is not the founder of rpgs. There’re so many mmorpgs that existed before WoW and has the elements of rpgs. Doesn’t mean the game is big which makes the game the founder of those elements. E.g. Final Fantasy existed way before WoW and it has gear-grind and progressive levels and gears. WoW simply adapt the rpg elements.

So any mmo that takes in the rpg elements = wow clone?

GW2 is simply just an mmo that mixed with action/jumping-base genres in multi-player setting. In other words : “mmo + action games” instead of “mmo + rpg”.

If there’s a new mmo that makes action/jumping-base games like ninja gaiden/street fighter in multi-player setting, does it makes that mmo into GW2 clone?

Interesting. :o
I didn’t really took much notice of the titles or names.
It sound logical though.

I have acrophobia and and I’m feeling very intensed.
It doesn’t goes away even after playing difficulty Lv10.

I even find the Eternal Battlefield WvWvW JP so much easier than the ones in fractals because EB has low height and a dark room. The Halloween clock tower isn’t scary because the tower is shrinking to the ground and doesn’t give that “height scare”. I’ve gotten 100% in map completion but fractal’s “height scare” is a different scale.

I only feel this way in fractals (hammer and asuran map). I get very dizzy and feeling intensed to find those maps enjoyable. In addition to feel a sense of peer pressure that if you fall, you slow down the entire team.

Once, one of my partymates asked me why I’m climbing up so slow. It’s my acrophobia making me hard to focus in this high-graphic game.

Anyone else with acrophobia having the same experience?

Andovar Edoras.2143:

2nd, i already got a positive reply as well in my mail, as to how to avoid these problems (it was a very good point-out actually [and seemingly from a person with <80 level])
so i dont need these people here that keep yelling at me, that they want to kick me and im bad etc..

Don’t worry about people here “yelling” at you. (They aren’t actually “yelling” but taken aback by few of your points.) It’s because everyone experience it before, and want to forward to you that it’s truely a normal occurance. In any games, newbies who’re in a party with experienced players often gets pressured. We’ve been through all that.

Fractal dungeon is better than any dungeons in terms of first-timer peer pressure. It’s due to the level progression. If players are new and need to adapt, they can stick to difficulty lv1 and join other first-timers. They can pick up good knowledge and tips through observing the runs. When I first tried Lv1, we took like 1 hour per map. Now I can easily finish all 3 maps in less than 40-50 minutes. Especially in fractals, knowledge is power.

I kind of agree with this.

On my first visit, I went sight-seeing, took few photos, kill few mobs, do phase 3 and took the ship back. I didn’t visit it back because that place is not meant for you to go alone. It doesn’t feel like an end-game place. It’s a waste of a good scenary.

If the purpose is to “group up”, we might as well do fractals.

Andovar Edoras.2143:

1) people are ’’lfg’’ for the same level, yet they dont actually ask or invite anyone..

This is common. It happens even in any previous dungeons.
I agree that many people would “lfg” instead of “lf4m”.

The problem is that they don’t want to hold the responsibility as a leader. If any new problems comes out, they don’t want their party-mates to accuse the leader for not telling them any information or walkthrough.

Andovar Edoras.2143:

2) the worst part, people care SO MUCH about your level ‘’are you 80? no? well ok, bye then’’
i mean, you get SCALED up… (the character i wanted to do it with, was 65, and yet people werent ok with me being scaled up 15 levels)…

I heard low level such as Lv17 can still be recruited with the help of their guild. Yes, you get level scale but your equipments are still equivalent to a lv65. It’s not unexpected they want lv80 only. This dungeon is targetted towards level 80 end-game. The website introduction said that. You’re only 15 levels behind. You can reach that within a weekend.

3) So once i got a group, at some point, we seemed to be dying a lot, so i unequipped my clothes, and when i explained that i dont wanna spend that much money on that overpriced repair system, they kicked me from the party and i had to do it all over again..

Doesn’t everyone unequip during those 1hko mini-game traps?
The only 1hko mini-game in fractal I know is the asuran map.

I’ve done it several times (300+ fractal relics) and never see anyone unequipped besides the laser rolling down the stairs map.

PS. Your loots worth more alot more than your repair fees.
2 full rounds = At least 1 gold.

Andovar Edoras.2143:

4) People arent having fun in this game…at all…. just lots of rudeness and caring about getting loot.. I mean…all i want to do is to enjoy playing this game -.-

You found the wrong group. >_<
It’s better that you find an active fractal guild.

I like limited timed events. In most mmo, limited time events are like those special occasions that excites and makes players feel anticipated. The anticipation feeling is like looking forward to watch solar eclipses or olympics.

The only issue I have is they should expand the time between each phases. Imo, 24 hours between each phases was too short to counter inevitable bugs and other problems. Halloween time length between phases was fine.

I agree that estimately 70% of the cultural armors looks bland.

I don’t agree in lowering the price. There’re few players who bought it for the sake of looking special (wearing something very few are wearing). If it’s cheapened down, the players who bought it earlier would feel cheated of 100g.

You write a very well-written post.

I fully agree with you because it’s what I felt during the game. I came upon this game since a friend of mine recommended it. I know nothing about guild wars 1. I did not follow their manifesto nor blogs. I only watched videos and trailers from youtube. The playerbase and hundreds of fan videos was something that made me started on this mmo.

Same thing occured to me. I only start to realise it’s flaws shortly few days after reaching the cap level. I decided to confirm my thoughts by having a 2nd character to lv80. I agree with most players. The process from Lv1 to 80 gave the best experience in-game.

Imo, guild wars 2 is better with vertical progression (increase gears and levels). I did research on guild wars 1 and that game suits better with horizontal progression. The reason is because guild wars 1 is heavily on instance while guild wars 2 on dynamic events. Dynamic events are effective with high concurrency of online players. While both games have very high population, the non-progressive element makes players inactive. Satisfied players makes inactive players. Horizontal progression makes players feel as if they achieve all goals and no more reason to be in the game. On the other hand, vertical progression makes players feel anticipated to achieve a goal and feel a reason to log in.

This is why the process from Lv1 to Lv80 is the best phase in Guild Wars 2 experience. Lv1 to Lv80 is a vertical progression no matter how people look at it. Upon reaching the level cap, it became a poor horizontal progression after players achieve their exotic wall goals. Cosmetic gears may not give players good end-game goals because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It made players who have tasted the vertical progression from Lv1 to 80 feel like they have “completed” the game and little reason to log in.

I still play the game regardless of it’s flaws because the fractal dungeon seems anticipating and filled with high potential.

Topic starter give a very good tip for everyone who missed it.
Yeah, some overflows have their p3 event. A couple of my guildmates doing it now.

Those who complain about the precursors must know that this is a one-time event. It must be special and very rewarding. It’s long and tedious. Only those who make effort to stay on are rewarded with a chance to obtain a precursor. (Although I feel for those who gets dc’ed in the final phase of the boss. I get dc’ed twice during the 2 hours but luckly not during the final boss.)