Guild Wars 2

SkiTz.4590:

Nerelith.7360:

I don’t buy this argument at all. You’re postulating that more people will leave this game over not getting a precusor, over the amount of people who will leave this game because of the server issues that previously existed.

Even if I didn’t have a legendary, that’s a cosmetic thing. A long term goal. Not having people on a server? That’s far more important in my opinion. So much more important, it’s not even funny.

It goes back to that whole how many people really do end game content question. How many people just bang around in the open world and kill stuff.

And the other problem of not being able to get on your home server, because everyone else is taking your slot by guesting was another issue.

I’m 100% sure there are people that think the precusor crafting is massively important. I’m thinking some may have even left the game because of it. But by no means do I think that demographic is a big enough group to worry about. And I believe it’s a far small group than people banging around the open world who couldn’t find anyone to do events with.

People aren’t leaving because of not getting precursors, it’s because what on earth else is there to do in this game???

As soon as I hit 80, i’m already in end game gear. Exotics are all you need and they are dirt cheap.
Go around roaming / zerging in WvW only to be rewarded with scraps? While I did enjoy WvW for a bit of time… its still the same as its ever been for 2 years lol. It’s absolutely getting dull. EoTM has absolutely no impact on WvW, its just a map where you can zerg around in and hop on the karma train.
while I personally enjoy sPvP, it’s gotten completely stale due to balancing and build diversity is terrible. Every I go its teh same builds over and over again. Anet has completely thrown PvP to the side yet they still believe this is going e-sports lol. ToL finals on twitch couldn’t even beat out the number of ppl watching runescape pkers just randomly streaming

So what now? Oh pull out credit card, buy skins. Or hop on a zerg and spam 1 + daily dung runs and get gold to eventually buy whatever it is you want. Nothing in PvE is rewarding for skilled gameplay and not only that, theres just nothing rewarding for ANY kind of gameplay… its all scraps scraps and MORE SCRAPS… greens blues, salvage away and then a bunch of loot bags containing… wait for it… MORE SCRAPS! yay materials.

Seriously, why on earth can’t there be meaningful loot rewarded instead of this RNG and scraps system we have?

Those are not my words, you need to be careful how you delete quotes.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t buy this argument at all. You’re postulating that more people will leave this game over not getting a precusor, over the amount of people who will leave this game because of the server issues that previously existed.

Even if I didn’t have a legendary, that’s a cosmetic thing. A long term goal. Not having people on a server? That’s far more important in my opinion. So much more important, it’s not even funny.

It goes back to that whole how many people really do end game content question. How many people just bang around in the open world and kill stuff.

And the other problem of not being able to get on your home server, because everyone else is taking your slot by guesting was another issue.

I’m 100% sure there are people that think the precusor crafting is massively important. I’m thinking some may have even left the game because of it. But by no means do I think that demographic is a big enough group to worry about. And I believe it’s a far small group than people banging around the open world who couldn’t find anyone to do events with.

I do not think it is about the precursor thing, whether or not they want to change it, because there is only a small number of people that care about it.

Although if you ask me , NOT making changes to a part of the game that people care about… even if that number is small, is messed up. It basically says " your money is not the same as the money of other players because you are a minority."

That in my opinion is never a good thing.

The problem is, that a LOT of people feel that they have been basically smiled at, assured changes were in the pipeline, and told " don’t you worry about a thing., we are making these changes."

Then Nothing. No Communication, no explanation why it’s Not in the pipeline. Just " Oh well, there are things we wanted but it didn’t happen."

I think some people felt bamboozled. Now… I say this as someone that doesn’t give a roden’t rear end about precursor’s. I have no dog in this fight.

But stop making it about " Oh well, only a Minority are being affected, and the majority were In empty servers so megaserver was higher priority."

Why are server maps empty?

THAT is the problem, Megaserver is a bandaid. Megaserver only deals with a symptom, Not the problem.

Maybe, just maybe…the servers are empty because people are getting sick and tired of listening as ArenaNet makes plans in big bold type that keeps people hanging around, and then..a year passes, with nothing to show for it, Not even a " hey guys… we tried to include this… and here is why we weren’t able to include it yet. We have changed our minds"

Then again… this may be a reason so many servers were empty. People felt bamboozled… strung along.

Lopez.7369:

Of course there’s been great progress in other areas.

But in most companies, if a team leader sets out to do one or more projects, and the projects aren’t completed a year and a half later, a lot of people should expect to be fired.

Now, I’m not saying the ArenaNet developers should be fired. I love the developers, and I wouldn’t wish that on any of them. But there’s clearly something wrong with how the higher-ups are organizing and setting projects.

I do not want them fired. But I want the developers that gave us Guild Wars. If these are them, I want them to become who they used to be… if these people are new people, I want the old people back… what happens with these guys, is entirely up to NCSoft.

I don’t care what anyone says, I remember the ArenaNet that developed Guild Wars, and this company isn’t the same company, it may have the same name..but…Inside it’s not them.

I want the old ArenaNet back.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Sithaco.4673:

I understand that development changes, plans change, due dates change, but it’s because of such a lack of communication that this is a problem. They make a big blog post that lots of MMO websites link to detailing what will be coming in 2013, everyone hears about it and it gets really hyped up, and then some of it doesn’t happen. Sure, this is okay, plans and development change, but the way they communicated this with us was terrible, not everyone is going to see a reply from Arenanet in a single forum post saying that it probably won’t be coming in 2013, thus causing the problem of communication. If they are going to hype something up really big and make everyone hear about it, when plans change they need to make that information just as visible.

Except that a roadmap isn’t hype. They laid out plans and said plans might change. That’s not hype. That’s not even close to hype. If you took what was said at face value, they said they had plans that may change. If you can get hyped about that, more power to you.

They gave us, as I’ve said, other stuff which was just as important. Sure it’s not the same stuff. They specifically said in a post (I don’t have a quote handy) that the stuff they had been planning with the precusors wouldn’t have worked with other changes they made to the game. It’s back to the drawing board.

A statement of definite, “will be,” as opposed to, “might be,” or, “intend to be,” or, “hope to be,” is not a plan. It is not an intention.

A statement that X is true with a disclaimer at the end of the statement that X is not nor was ever intended to be true is a bad idea. Anet never intended the stated items to be definite, but they said they were. A poor choice of wording. Again.

Body of Intent says " X is true.*"

The fine print magic Blurb says " What “X is true” means is.." taken in the context of an mmo.. in the best of all possible worlds we would love to deliver x… and although we were categorical that " x" would be in the game what that really means is, barring any unforseen changes, Board meetings.. memos from NCSoft, vists from the executive junior vice-president in charge of public relations, bad quarter earnings…or any myriad of reasons we cannot go into detail about….. X is true, unless it might be false."

Edit:

When I read a developer Blog, I no longer get excited. I used to, until I learned the maxim of computer gaming. " Until it’s in your hands…it’s vaporware."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware

Xisk.3451:

2) Everquest – Set the bar for an expansive world and raiding content – my personal favorite MMO. Who can forget Corpse runs in places like LGuk or Plane of Fear, hoping you get there in time to loot your stuff

I still remember Grimfeather killing me after i went to North Karana to buy my group teleports from the druid merchant at the rings. Someone saw me advertising Taxi service. And offered me 50 platinum for a ride out. While I waited I heard a sound that i would fear for weeks… whooomp….. whoooomp……whooooomp…….

Grimfeather came by and everyone was running, I had no clue why, til I look over my shoulder… red conned…. I tried to pretend I was a piece of rock, it killed me, I lost my level… I lost the use of My spells… and 50 platinum…. sucker still owes me 50 platinum.

4) SWG – great sandbox till they ruined it, loved the gathering aspect of it (especially mining)

A lot of memories as an image designer and dancer. What I enjoyed was i actually roleplayed, and socialized In this game.

5) CoH – great game

RIP CoH. I think CoH was probably as close to perfect a superhero game I ever played. A shame it closed it’s servers.

But ya… Gw2 is not anywhere near “The second Greatest” I think it’s a good game, and i know there are plenty of people that love Gw2. But to say " second greatest" is stretching it, and denies the trully awesome games that came before it their due.

sorudo.9054:

i have designs, just not the funds and team to create.
WoW is a nice try, GW2 shows a basis to work from and wildstar has some cute improvements within generic content.
ill see when the next best thing comes, the only game i take on high regard is GW1 and no other game has ever surpass that quality, not even GW2.

+1 see my sig.

I have to admit, I enjoyed Guild Wars Immencely, Anet garnered a Lot of good will from me while I played it, and Factions, and Prophesies.

in my opinion, this game is so different from Guild Wars, that I cannot even think of it as a sequel. The only things it has that link them are the names of a few classes, a few skills, and some locations.

The game seems Like the developers had another game in mind, and NCSoft said " we need to make a Guild wars 2." And they slapped the name on, gave it a tyrian skin, … and just launched what they had.

The mechanics aren’t the same, the skills don’t work the same, the elites don’t work the same, the Bosses and Mobs don’t behave the same…

Aside from the tyrian skin, and the lore, which can be changed by writers, what is there in common between Gw2 and Guild Wars?

Stooperdale.3560:

There will probably never be another universally appreciated MMO as the market has split too much. There’s a place for final fantasy, a place for Wildstar, and so on. Any new breakthrough could be quite unexpected, perhaps as much like facebook as like an MMO, or perhaps as much like a movie as like a game.

The way I see it " great" is Not about universal appreciation, as much as i is about innovation, and beating a path for others that then copy you.

No one can deny the first 3 I mentioned. The reason I say " City of Heroes/Villains is " The 4th" is, it’s highly customizable character creator , it’s VERY unique Power progression, that allows anyone to create almost any hero they can imagine, and the fact that if it were not for it’s popularity, there would More than likely be no:

1. DC Universe Online.
2. Marvel Online
3. Champions Online

Champions costume developer is actually a close mimic to City of Heroes.

But you have a point. The market is too fragmented, and the Money-men are in the genre. The WORST thing that could have happened to it is the popularity, and financial success of World of Warcraft. before that…no one knew we existed. Now every banker and lawyer that reads a " trrend" report knows about MMO’s and wants a piece of the market. ALL of them want to own " The Next World of Warcraft."

Revan.4653:

World of Warcraft did many things the right way, which let it be a MMO king for a decade. Guild Wars 2 re-defined the MMO genre, and many GW2 players can not enjoy other MMOs anymore. This would make it second great MMO.
When can we expect the third great MMO? After Rift, SWTOR and ESO failures, I’m getting more cautius with my expectations.

In my opinion Jury is still out on “Gw2 is the second great MMO” in my opinion City of Heroes " had Gw2 beat.

So maybe Gw2 may be the " Third" but as I said, that is still debatable.

Edit:

Ultima Online has to be considered “The First great MMO”

EverQuest is “The second Great MMO”

World of Warcraft is “The third great MMO”

in MY opinion …City of Heroes/Villains, is " The Fourth Great MMO"

That makes Gw2 is scrambling to be 5th… maybe… so no it is not “The Second Great MMO” by a longshot.

Edit: Oops forgot

Eve Online is “The Fifth Great MMO” that makes Gw2 scrambling for 6th? .. 7th?

phys.7689:

Nerelith.7360:

phys.7689:

uknortherner.2670:

What I’ve learned from this thread so far:

1) Vocal serial complainers either can’t read simple English or deliberately take things out of context just for the sake of being argumentative.
2) Anyone who points this out to them is a shill, a fanboy, a white knight or an Anet employee.
3) I wish this forum had an ‘ignore’ function, so I can block out all the rubbish you conspiracy nuts keep coming out with.
4) I will probably get an infraction point or two for posting this.

the context of a blog post for anet is pretty much a commitment, they have said in the past, if you see a blog post about it, serious.
From the information that leaks out, i think anet is (or was up until recently) still struggling with managing and organizing the game development. It would honestly under that system be hard to even use our feedback, because they cant even use their own that well.

The reason these things arent happening is because anet is unable to use their current resources as well as they could, that includes these forums, and the feedback we give them.

Are you saying they don’t know what they are doing? Or maybe they don’t know how to realize their own vision?

It just seems that people are ok with " Well.. they are doing their best… " I paid for a quality product from a professional company. Not some college intern’s best attempt.

I really think a lot of players are so in love with Arenanet and GW2, that they let them get away with things we would only accept from an amature." hey, it’s Not good…but what do you expect? It’s not Like they are professionals or anything…. for people with a hobby it’s not bad."

I constantly hear " they are getting better." Or " the new patches show they are taking our input to heart."

That sounds Like Public Beta phase. This game has been released for 2 years…when are we leaving Public Beta?

I know one of the avid defenders will now say " All MMO’s are always in Public beta. " umm…No, they aren’t.

But the way this game doesn’t remain consistent with it’s primary vision, the way it squanders resources… and the good will it had generated with that other game I cannot mention. Unless it’s in the gem store of course.

It makes me wonder.

i am not excusing it, i am just trying to take a realistic look at the situation, It really does seem that anet is having problems with managing and product development. They have a lot of projects with one dude working on it most of it, who seem really disconnected from the other parts. They seem like they are constantly under time crunch and therefore cant deliver, They have a pipeline issues, bottleneck issues where every team has to wait on UI, or network etc.

I think they will probably need to get that stuff sorted out before they can begin to have sustainable success. Its pretty hit or miss at this point.

I was Not making comments about you directly or personally. I meant in general, there appear to be a Lot of players that are satisfied with what Anet is delivering.

I Like racing games. I used to hang out at arcades and play against others in 1 vs 1 racing… unfortunately,… I sucked at it. always spinning out of control.. then trying to recover, and failing… bla bla bla…

One day this player looked at me and said " you could be doing better, want to Know what the secret is to faster lap times?" I asked " what?" He said " Slow down."

I thought about that and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Anet has a problem, it is trying to do too many things too fast , and there seems to be lack of communication between different parts of the Anet team. it spins out of control.

Anet needs to slow down. That means it needs to ignore the playerbase that is saying " Gimme new stuff now!" Here is a fact. There are 2 types of players Mostly… players that will stick by you, and players that will drop you for the next Hello , Kitty IV MMO.

Anet needs to understand, that the players that will leave will leave, and trying to appease them by giving up on the vision you set for yourself only keeps them temporarilly, Until hello, Kitty IV comes out with their expansion " hello, Kitty: The tom cat years."

They need to understand the players they SHOULD be appealing to, are the ones they seem to be taking for granted.

phys.7689:

uknortherner.2670:

What I’ve learned from this thread so far:

1) Vocal serial complainers either can’t read simple English or deliberately take things out of context just for the sake of being argumentative.
2) Anyone who points this out to them is a shill, a fanboy, a white knight or an Anet employee.
3) I wish this forum had an ‘ignore’ function, so I can block out all the rubbish you conspiracy nuts keep coming out with.
4) I will probably get an infraction point or two for posting this.

the context of a blog post for anet is pretty much a commitment, they have said in the past, if you see a blog post about it, serious.
From the information that leaks out, i think anet is (or was up until recently) still struggling with managing and organizing the game development. It would honestly under that system be hard to even use our feedback, because they cant even use their own that well.

The reason these things arent happening is because anet is unable to use their current resources as well as they could, that includes these forums, and the feedback we give them.

Are you saying they don’t know what they are doing? Or maybe they don’t know how to realize their own vision?

It just seems that people are ok with " Well.. they are doing their best… " I paid for a quality product from a professional company. Not some college intern’s best attempt.

I really think a lot of players are so in love with Arenanet and GW2, that they let them get away with things we would only accept from an amature." hey, it’s Not good…but what do you expect? It’s not Like they are professionals or anything…. for people with a hobby it’s not bad."

I constantly hear " they are getting better." Or " the new patches show they are taking our input to heart."

That sounds Like Public Beta phase. This game has been released for 2 years…when are we leaving Public Beta?

I know one of the avid defenders will now say " All MMO’s are always in Public beta. " umm…No, they aren’t.

But the way this game doesn’t remain consistent with it’s primary vision, the way it squanders resources… and the good will it had generated with that other game I cannot mention. Unless it’s in the gem store of course.

It makes me wonder.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

The problem is that ANet makes their intentions clear on a blog post that every MMO media or fansite links to. And then they later make corrections in out-of-the-way forum posts, reddit posts, ect.

The majority of the people don’t hear the corrections. Then ANet begins to communicate less so we don’t blame them for not delivering what they intended.

But the answer was never to communicate less. It’s to communicate more, and in a place easy to find. If you delay precursor crafting then SAY so when you know that is the case, in the same venue you announced it originally.

I say this as a person who couldn’t care less about precursor crafting. But I do care about the increasing lack of communication as time goes on.

News appears On the first page in Big Print above the fold… retractions are buried in page 46… between the obituaries, and the used car ads.

Same thing here.

darkace.8925:

ritz.9853:

Does anybody think anything completely new will be added to spice the game up a bit? Just wanting to know what others are thinking.

No, I don’t. I’ve got the distinct impression they’re not real concerned with expanding the classes they’ve already got in the game, and that’s got to be easier than adding a new class altogether. So no go on new classes.

With new races, they’re expensive to add. They’ve got to write Personal Story from level 1 to level 80 and they’ve got to play voice actors to voice them. Since most people have already finished the PS and AN as a whole has moved on to the LS, they’re probably viewing that as wasted money. I also can’t help but feel they don’t want to spend the resources creating a new city, getting voice actors for its citizens, ensuring armor doesn’t clip, etc. So no go on new races either.

I am getting the feeling that if they can avoid spending resources outside the gem store they will. It’s all " Living Story". Someone came up with this idea that players will be content with " Living Story" Instead of actual , real expensions. And while many people may, i get the impression all this does is satisfy them for a little while… eventually…players either get a real expansion or move on.

Someone is really in love with the idea of Living Story they came up with, and keeps pushing it, hoping it satisfies as much as a real expansion would.

I can only speak for myself. Living Story is not an expansion. For me it just feels Like a cheap knock off.

From what I have experienced, I sincerely doubt that there will be any new professions or classes, or races in the " expansion worth of content through LS"

Living Story is about Introducing dynamic elements, new names giving to arch-enemy type mobs, and a plot device. What it is not, is new Professions, new playable races, new skills,…etc.

When I think Expansion, I think it will expand HOW I play the game think " New Professions : Assassin … Ritualist, New maps: Cantha"

For me,. that is an expansion… adding a new villain " let’s Name her Xylophone Queen, and she made a deal with Sub-almost elder Dragon Quobrummbrumm, and she has it in for all the Sylvari" is a plot device to get people to care about some drama that some people Just cannot be bothered about. And more importantly for me…. does NOT expand how I…Play the game. Does Not have new professions, new skills, etc…

The Anet focus on Living Story, and their centering monetization on the gem store, for me, makes it unlikely we will get any " real expansion", we will simply get " expansion-like content through the Living Story" releases, that some people would equate with an expansion, and which some players Like Myself… would never equate with an expansion.

Sithaco.4673:

So I’m getting the impression that even though it’s been 6 months since the end of 2013, it’s okay for us not to have any of those things and have no word about their ETA due to the fact that it was a blog post about their intentions, not a promise?

Sometimes developers say things, and because they Include a blurb on the Bottom that says " subject to change" that means that nothing they promise is really a real promise, just a statement of intentions, that are subject to change at any time.

Although they did Blog and say " these are some of the things we will bring you in 2013." the magic blurb on the bottom " intentions subject to change…" is enough to give them an out.

A lot of players are understanding enough to accept that since they included that caveat, they might never actually produce what they said they intended to produce. Remember… things change, intentions change, they never said " we promise on a stack of Bibles and swear."

And even if they did, they gave the magic blurb.

“This offer subject to change without notice.”

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Nerelith.7360:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Nerelith.7360:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Sky.7610:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Sky.7610:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

If all the complainers don’t want to use their creditcards, they just have to realize that Gems are actually “FREE” when you exchange Gold. There are players here who never spent a single cent beyond the box price of this game, and yet have thousands of Gems.

Just like when I exchange $ for food, i get “FREE” food right?

The food is “FREE” when you use stamps, or other non-monetary currency. You can still buy food with your creditcard.

Your time( non-monetary currency) can be used to exchange for $, and subsequently, goods and services. Therefore, all these goods and services must be “FREE” because i used a non-monetary currency right?

Time is not a currency, so your argument fails in that respect.

Edit – As a preemptive strike, I’ll also say that time has no value at its core. Time has value when you work on a job, at which point you get currency. Unless you’re paid to play video games, you generally can’t treat time in that manner.

Some economists have actually defined Currency as a form of concentrated effort over time. if you look at it that way, if I do dungeons for 4 Hours, and earn " Gold" that I transfer into gems, I am paying for those gems just as much as someone that bought their gems with cash.

And if you did that, you got Gems for free. The 4 hours you spent still has no monetary value. You could make the argument only if Anet allowed us to exchange Gems for Cash. But we all know what happens when you do that <coughD3cough>.

You seem to be stuck On a Logic loop that says " A is B..A is B"

You can repeat yourself over and over, it doesn’t make you right. In YOUR Opinion, Gems obtained by trading for in game gold are “free” because you define free In a circular logical order. “Free” = " Does not cost real world money"

Your opinion may be internally consistent. That does Not mean that your opinion is fact.

Many other people also have opinions.

One of whom was a Noted Economist that calculated the GNP of Norrath. (The Virtual World on which EverQuest takes place.)

Edward Castronova – Indiana University Bloomington – Department of Telecommunications.
He calculated at the time that Norrath’s GNP was somewhere between Russia and Bulgaria.

In HIS opinion.. and I think he has a higher knowledge base to make one about Work and Time, and Money, and Value, effort in a game, has value, just as much as effort in “The real world” has value.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=294828

PS You cannot obtain Real World cash for Norrath’s gold. Not legitimately. But even so, whether you can or not, does not mean that effort in Norrath has or lacks value, it has value at least according to Edward Castronova. I think his opinion carries more weight than " anonymous voice on the internet."

That was indeed a good rebuttal. But we must go back to the facts here. Gems can cost either real world money, or in game Gold. Time is a factor in the accumulation of in game Gold. Time has “personal” value to the player, not a monetary one. There is no way you can attribute a monetary value to Time, unless it’s in the process of earning something of monetary value (i.e. a paycheck from a job).

So while you can make the argument that exchanging Gems costs the player’s Time to accumulate the necessary virtual currency to make the transaction, that exchange cost no real world money out of pocket. The exchange is Free, in a monetary sense.

We could have the eternal debate that Time = Money. But the flaws in this debate is that it’s only the perception of Time = Money, because one can hold Time as being valuable. This misconception leads people to then make the connection that Time = Valuable = Money.

As an example, say you work an 8 hour job that pays you $20/hour. If you decide to call in sick to play GW2 (assuming no paid sick leave), that means 8 hours of your Time was equal to $160. The Time now has a monetary value, because that’s what you could have potentially have made if you didn’t call in sick. So if you farmed all day long to exchange Gold for Gems, the argument then stands that yes the Gems were not free. This would be the only time that the argument could be made this way.

Edward Castronova disagrees. And you are back to “A is B. A is B.”

This is your opinion. You can repeat it over and over, but repeating it over and over doesn’t make it fact.

EgonVenkman.1907:

IndigoSundown.5419:

………
So, yes, it’s more likely that the money does not all go to NCSoft — but that the profit does. Regardless, I doubt that solid gold Humvees are the result for anyone in this chain.

References go whizzing by…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM8PT1eAvY&feature=kp

In general, it is the sentiment that they already make enough money to get by, and then some, only to continue on the path of fattening their wallet….

Your comments on anything above expenses going to parent company are likely spot on. I bet they operate similar to how most businesses I’ve been at…

Enter stupid buisiness logic..
Company makes product month 1.
Company ends up making enough profit to fund 10 years worth of operations.
Company doesn’t make any products month 2.
Corporate sees no new income from month 2. Sends warning.
Company makes product for month 3.
Makes even more profit than month 1, corporate mildly amused.
Company doesn’t make product month 4.
Revenues from month 4 are static/not up.
Corporate enraged. Send final warning.
Cycle repeats for undetermined length of time, eventually reducing quality for quantity of products and short term monthly revenue.

Essentially, it doesn’t matter how much you earned last month for corporate, if your company/division isn’t earning the same/more each and every month, enter pink slip/doom mode. This is unfortunately the case of too many environments in the corporate world. I suspect Anet is no different.

I remember a story told me when I was a child, Int involved a Goose that lay Golden eggs.

The Moral was that sometimes it’s best to collect the ggs the goose lays one at a time, instead of trying to open it up, and get them all at once.

The irony is, we claim we try to teach this lesson to children.

So did we never really understand it ourselves? Did we forget it as we grew up?

or are Corporate executives just children that never learned it to begin with?

Sariel V.7024:

EgonVenkman.1907:

How else can they afford another solid-gold Humvee? – cries every one of the shills in defense of gem shop.

Bucko, you’ve got a serious misconception of where the money goes. We’re not talking about the 1%.

Unless you have information no one else has, and making cryptic comments does not equal " I KNOW where the money goes." MY understanding is, any money obtained in the gem store, goes to NCSoft.

Then they decide how to divvy the goods. I find it highly unlikely that none of that goes to NCSoft’s stockholders, and that ALL of it, goes into Anet’s game design.

As I said, unless you KNOW ( Platonic definition of knowledge please) something we do not? If you do…please share :-)

Galen Grey.4709:

Like others have said the game needs to financed somehow so the question is what they’re doing fair or unfair?

Some have claimed welcome to a non subscription game… so lets analyse this statement. They never release more then 1 armor/costume set a month. How much does it cost? something like $9? nearly 1/2 a subscription not just that but they dont release a new one every month so you’ll get some free months to. Doesnt seem unfair to me.

Some claim it should bearnable in game, not sure if the issue is cost or if its because they’d like to have goals to work towards. If its the former then well like we’ve been saying the game needs to be financed somehow. That being said you got the option to play the game make the gold and use conversion to buy it without spending any real life money. if its the later every single release had some new skins that are earn able.

At the end of the day think about the greater picture, what are you asking for exactly? a subscription that has you pay twice as much every single month? A cash shop that includes nothing you’d like to buy? Everything has its pros and cons.

The current system is a balance between all of these. You dont have to pay a penny if you dont want to but if you still want the nifty costume you’ll need to pay more of the game. You dont have time / dont want to pay enough to get the nifty costume. Pay a portion of a regular subscription and get it anyway while at the same help financing the game we love. You dont want to either of these? that fine you will not have any disadvantage by not owning this costume. You want ingame rewards, there are some of those as well.

Its not perfect of course, not saying it is… The price for this balance is you cannot bet the satisfaction of having this costume as a trophy for beating this content. There is the goggles and scarf that which is obviously not the same thing but we all know its absolutely impossible to have everything in life.

I would not have any issues with the current system, except for one.

Being able to buy in-game gold with Gems.

It places the developer in a position where they have a conflict of interest.

There will, and have been times when the developer has to decide whether to do what is best for the in-game economy… and what is best for gem sales, or gem to gold conversions.

While no one can prove that they always or even usually or mostly go on the side of " well it’s best for gem sales so let’s do this, even if it hurts the in-game economy" as far as i am concerned, there is an appearance that the main motivating force is " it’s best for gem sales."

So while some can come up with what appear to be good “in0game world” reasons for nerfing the gold and component drops of “open world” farming, and Diminishing returns, the only thing I can go by is my experience.

My experience in open world component and gold farming is not enjoyable.

Now while the only criteria is not " Am I having fun?" I need to ask…" is my fun being saccrificed for a greater good?" I have to know, the greater good is " the in-game economy" then I can accept that my fun is being saccrificed for something worthwhile to me.

Unfortunately, since the developer also sells Gold for gems. And they have as one of the motivating influences." Increase Gold sales… and sell gold." That conflict has me wondering.

The moment of concern, that my fun may be being saccrificed " For Anet’s Bottom line." is enough for me to " watch… and monitor." while seeking other venues for my pleasure.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Nerelith.7360:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Sky.7610:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Sky.7610:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

If all the complainers don’t want to use their creditcards, they just have to realize that Gems are actually “FREE” when you exchange Gold. There are players here who never spent a single cent beyond the box price of this game, and yet have thousands of Gems.

Just like when I exchange $ for food, i get “FREE” food right?

The food is “FREE” when you use stamps, or other non-monetary currency. You can still buy food with your creditcard.

Your time( non-monetary currency) can be used to exchange for $, and subsequently, goods and services. Therefore, all these goods and services must be “FREE” because i used a non-monetary currency right?

Time is not a currency, so your argument fails in that respect.

Edit – As a preemptive strike, I’ll also say that time has no value at its core. Time has value when you work on a job, at which point you get currency. Unless you’re paid to play video games, you generally can’t treat time in that manner.

Some economists have actually defined Currency as a form of concentrated effort over time. if you look at it that way, if I do dungeons for 4 Hours, and earn " Gold" that I transfer into gems, I am paying for those gems just as much as someone that bought their gems with cash.

And if you did that, you got Gems for free. The 4 hours you spent still has no monetary value. You could make the argument only if Anet allowed us to exchange Gems for Cash. But we all know what happens when you do that <coughD3cough>.

You seem to be stuck On a Logic loop that says " A is B..A is B"

You can repeat yourself over and over, it doesn’t make you right. In YOUR Opinion, Gems obtained by trading for in game gold are “free” because you define free In a circular logical order. “Free” = " Does not cost real world money"

Your opinion may be internally consistent. That does Not mean that your opinion is fact.

Many other people also have opinions.

One of whom was a Noted Economist that calculated the GNP of Norrath. (The Virtual World on which EverQuest takes place.)

Edward Castronova – Indiana University Bloomington – Department of Telecommunications.
He calculated at the time that Norrath’s GNP was somewhere between Russia and Bulgaria.

In HIS opinion.. and I think he has a higher knowledge base to make one about Work and Time, and Money, and Value, effort in a game, has value, just as much as effort in “The real world” has value.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=294828

PS You cannot obtain Real World cash for Norrath’s gold. Not legitimately. But even so, whether you can or not, does not mean that effort in Norrath has or lacks value, it has value at least according to Edward Castronova. I think his opinion carries more weight than " anonymous voice on the internet."

Cormac.3871:

Two points Nerelith. Firstly, the gem store has always been “pay to look good”. They have to make their money on something and they decided on cosmetic and convenience items.

Secondly, if you now consider spending time online playing the game to be work, then you also consider things like dungeons armour to be paid armours. In fact all armours by this logic are paid for unless they give them to you for just logging on.

Exactly. I feel any armor that doesn’t come out of a chest, or doesn’t drop… to be " earned" and " worked for."

If someone had to grind gold, or even dungeon tokens to then buy it it’s " earned" and " paid for" if it drops off a Mob, or comes out of a chest… ot a Loot bag, then it isn’t..it’s part of " play"

if someone grinds gold… it’s " earned" as much as if it’s payed for with cash.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Sky.7610:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Sky.7610:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

If all the complainers don’t want to use their creditcards, they just have to realize that Gems are actually “FREE” when you exchange Gold. There are players here who never spent a single cent beyond the box price of this game, and yet have thousands of Gems.

Just like when I exchange $ for food, i get “FREE” food right?

The food is “FREE” when you use stamps, or other non-monetary currency. You can still buy food with your creditcard.

Your time( non-monetary currency) can be used to exchange for $, and subsequently, goods and services. Therefore, all these goods and services must be “FREE” because i used a non-monetary currency right?

Time is not a currency, so your argument fails in that respect.

Edit – As a preemptive strike, I’ll also say that time has no value at its core. Time has value when you work on a job, at which point you get currency. Unless you’re paid to play video games, you generally can’t treat time in that manner.

Some economists have actually defined Currency as a form of concentrated effort over time. if you look at it that way, if I do dungeons for 4 Hours, and earn " Gold" that I transfer into gems, I am paying for those gems just as much as someone that bought their gems with cash.

Sky.7610:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

If all the complainers don’t want to use their creditcards, they just have to realize that Gems are actually “FREE” when you exchange Gold. There are players here who never spent a single cent beyond the box price of this game, and yet have thousands of Gems.

If all the complainers don’t want to get their hands down and dirty to produce food, they need to realize that foods are actually “FREE” when you exchange money. There are people who never actually produce a single food by themselves and yet have plenty of food.

Just like when I exchange $ for food, i get “FREE” food right?

People seem to forget that just because a Player did not spend " real-world money" doesn’t mean that Gold they exchanged for Gold was " free."

It was earned, by exchanging time, energy, thinking, and effort. That Gold wasn’t given to them, and they did not wake up One day to see the gold appear out of nowhere.

When the person you responded to speaks as he does, he trivializes the effort and the experiences of players that also pay to buy things on the gem store.

It is Not only the ones that pull the wallet and credit card out, that “pay” for gw2.

Clear.8512:

I’m ok with the cosmetics in the gem store. I don’t care for a lot of them

Which is why you are ok with cosmetics in the gem store, it does not affect you.

Azhure.1857:

pdavis.8031:

It would be the Corrupted Blood Plague like in WoW all over again. Players and NPCs lying dead everywhere…

Never played WoW and never will. Therefor I don’t know what the “Corrupted Blood Plague” is. Just want to comment that WoW is not the birth of every idea in gaming from its own creation to the end of time.

I think
the reason he mentioned a WoW game skill is, while many players may have played other MMO’s either before or since WoW’s release, odds are pretty high that MOST of the playerbase has played WoW.

So he picked a game mechanic that chances are most players would be familiar with.

Dahkeus.8243:

Welcome to MMOs without subscriptions. They gotta pay the bills somehow.

There used to be a Game that made Money fine without sticking everything in the cash shop, it also lacked a Subscription.

it managed to launch 2 other complete in themself games, was widely popular, and had an expansion that sold well.

It is still running, and I Logged in earlier, there are STILL tons of people playing it, even though a sequel, that gutted most of the fun parts of that game was released.

The sequel ironically is not doing as well after 2 years as the first game was doing after 2 years.

many of the people that played that game remember the developer very fondly. And were happy that the developer was able to launch such a great game, without a sub, and without an in-your-face Cash Shop which is what non-sub seems to mean today.

Would be awesome if Anet could learn from THAT developer.

Nat.4029:

infantrydivEU.9670:

For the rewards

Seriously, pretty soon this game will have more weapons/armor originating from the gem store than from the actual game.

Oh well, the woes of a F2P game I suppose.

Are people OK with this? I’d actually almost prefer at this rate to not have new stuff added if it’s only gem store based.

What happened to doing a cool quest line or killing a difficult boss to get a weapon skin in games?

You get that from the good ole sub-based games. Anet has to keep paying the rent, so the Gem Store is what we get.

I can mention another game that was launched as " No sub".. was revolutionary in it’s time, it based it’s business model on selling you expansions, just because Gw2 is centered on the gem store, does not mean that is the only business model that works.

That other game included a gem store at some point, although it was so unobtrusive that I only found out about it, by reading about it on these forums…

For years, after Prophesies, Factions and Nightfall, I still had no clue it had a Cash shop.

So no, I don’t accept that " Gem Store is what get" It’s more Like " Gem Store is what we are being given." and " gem Store is what a Lot of us are willing to accept, and be happy with."

Vayne.8563:

Yes, let’s compare.

Guild Wars 1 through EotN, less quests than Guild Wars 2 has dynamic events, counting no other content at all.

In other words, you’d have to take away content from Guild Wars 2 at launch to equal the amount of content that was in Guild Wars 1 after Eye of the North launched.

I’d say that’s pretty good.

In My Opinion Guild Wars was more enjoyable for me for 3 things that were gutted out to make Gw2.

Hundreds of skills that could be freely included or excluded, Not weapon Locked skills.

Subclasses.

Elites that needed to be unlocked by defeating Bosses.

These 3 features added to the endgame, by in many ways becoming the endgame.

It wasn’t Just defeating a dungeon it was defeating a dungeon as a dervish/assassin, or maybe deciding to go dervish/monk.

Playing through content as a Necromancer/Ritualist, or maybe a Necromancer/Elementalist?

Gw2 may have more dynamic content, but since the skills are wepon locked and a LOT less, since there is no subclassing, you do a dynamic event chain once, you’ve done it forever. Same ol’ Same ol’…

For me… the different combinations you could explore content with, kept the game fresh for me.

Ashen.2907:

Nerelith.7360:

Opinion is a personal observation, and cannot be wrong. it can be agreed with or disagreed with.

If someone, based on personal observation, expresses the opinion that the earth is flat…are they right ?

You neede to look up the definitions of Fact and Opinion.

Fact: The earth is not flat.
Opinion: Based on limited information, and personal observation only, and lacking a rudimentary education someone MIGHT say " To me, the earth appears flat"

The former can be said to be right or wrong, The latter cannot, since the person is saying how things appear to them.

The best you can do is tell them that appearances are decieving, you cannot tell them that " the earth does NOT appear flat to you"

I hope this helped.

Corpus Christi.2057:

maha.7902:

He suggests costing endurance and he says there is a lack of depth and no proper sense of risk/reward.

Suggestion #1 is bad, and claims #1 and #2 are wrong.

Why should I entertain them with an actual response if they are going to give ideas that would require a complete overhaul of an already good combat system and they try to make claims which just betray their, either lack of understanding or refusal to accept that risk and reward and depth exist in the current system and they just chose to ignore it?

That’s precisely what I thought you’d respond with.

A) While you are totally entitled to view his suggestion #1. as bad, you are absotulety wrong, by the theory of argumentation as proposed by Aristotle in Rhetoric, with regards to “and claims #1 and #2 are wrong.”.

Why? You may, again, propose your own view, with solid argumentation and not empty, blatant statements “is wrong”. Yet, you can’t judge whether it is “right or wrong”, since what he proposes is not a statement of facts but rather a piece of opinion. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that he misrepresented the facts whatsoever, to which, hypothetically, you would be entitled to respond with “right or wrong” statement ( again, backed up with argumentation as defined by Aristotle in Rhetoric ). What he did was to propose an opinion or view, with which, as with the only thing you were right about – his suggestion #1. – you may have disagreed or agreed with. But you are not entitled by the reason of sheer logic to state that his opinion is factually wrong or right, since, it never presents itself as a statement of fact.

Opinion is a personal observation, and cannot be wrong. it can be agreed with or disagreed with.

Suggestions based on personal opinion, are also not probable. They are either something you agree with, or disagree with. The issue is..some people think " if someone disagrees with me, they are wrong."

Not exactly….

Beldin.5498:

Nerelith.7360:

Beldin.5498:

havellian.4073:

Dardevilmon.6702:

Dont touch the combat that is the best part about this game the thing they need to touch is the balance of skills no the combat.Combat is incredibly fluid and responsive and non other mmo or rpg or mmorpg have combat as good as this 1.

no other mmo? Ever heard of Vindictus or Blade&Soul? Heck even Tera has a system closer to real action combat. I don’t get how people think 1 dodge button revolutionizes mmo gameplay….

I absolutely hate this style of combat. I never played shooters and i hate when i can’t move my mouse without moving the whole screen. Also i need to have the possibility to click my skills with the mouse. And the thing that each swing with your weapon drags you forward was also totally annoying for me.

My biggest fear before i could actually play GW2 the first time was that they could have a combat system like those games, because then i would have deleted the game after maybe 1 hour like i did with Vindictus, Neverwinter, DCUO .. Tera i managed at last to play for 3 days .. but in the end the combat was more like a physical pain for me.

You can play Gw2 without using the Mouse to click skills. You SHOULD Play Gw2 without using the Mouse to click skills.

Using your Mouse to click skills, will make you less effective.

I’m 50 .. i never learned typing so i use 4 fingers to type now and have to look constantly onto the keyboard to not hit the wrong keys. So thats why i prefer to click skills with the mouse.

So please don’t tell me how i should play .. thats as much helpful as telling me : you should play guitar as Al Di Meola.

Not quite. If you wish to play by clicking skills with the Mouse, that is your choice, but then don’t complain that you are not as effective as if you just clicked the 2 key, or used a proper gaming Mouse.

One can complain about the layout of the marathon course, but if one insists on Hopping the entire way on one leg, one doesn’t really have a leg to stand on.

Beldin.5498:

havellian.4073:

Dardevilmon.6702:

Dont touch the combat that is the best part about this game the thing they need to touch is the balance of skills no the combat.Combat is incredibly fluid and responsive and non other mmo or rpg or mmorpg have combat as good as this 1.

no other mmo? Ever heard of Vindictus or Blade&Soul? Heck even Tera has a system closer to real action combat. I don’t get how people think 1 dodge button revolutionizes mmo gameplay….

I absolutely hate this style of combat. I never played shooters and i hate when i can’t move my mouse without moving the whole screen. Also i need to have the possibility to click my skills with the mouse. And the thing that each swing with your weapon drags you forward was also totally annoying for me.

My biggest fear before i could actually play GW2 the first time was that they could have a combat system like those games, because then i would have deleted the game after maybe 1 hour like i did with Vindictus, Neverwinter, DCUO .. Tera i managed at last to play for 3 days .. but in the end the combat was more like a physical pain for me.

You can play Gw2 without using the Mouse to click skills. You SHOULD Play Gw2 without using the Mouse to click skills.

Using your Mouse to click skills, will make you less effective.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Eh, on the topic of the skill system of GW1 . . . it was really good but really broken at the same time. It had the complexity and flexibility to offer a lot of options in how to build a character . . .

. . . and there it ran into two problems. There was way more ways to set up your skills/attributes which was “wrong” than there was “right”. Much like there is a “wrong” way to play a class in GW2. There was so much in the way of possible ways to set up your character it was really difficult to figure out what to work with . . . without really having to spend time diving into build theory. (Or downloading a build and doing what it said to do with it…)

Secondly? People figured out how to break the game with the skill system, necessitating frequent balance patches to try to un-break it.

Both these things are a problem with my favorite other example of “constant content release” – MTG. Seriously. They have so much complexity if you decide to include any and all card sets (save two) that you’re looking at tens of thousands of unique cards. And they put out a constant stream of “content” in the expansions which I think are on a schedule of every other month . . . AND a revision of the core set every year which shakes up the state of the metagame each time.

I still have fun playing it but by any and all gods you could name, I would never try to take it seriously enough to go pro.

The thing is, a lot that many players considered broken, weren’t..they were just what you could do with the tools provided, that the devs left alone, because they agreed … 55 monks.

Ask anyone else, they would say " that was Broken, and the devs couldn’t Un-break it." but for many it was Just doing what the tools allowed.

The game was fun, and fine. As for " many ways to play it bad." yes… you are right. The alternative is.. a game with mediocre skills.

Azhure.1857:

Nerelith.7360:

TheDaiBish.9735:

2. I personally like that each weapon has it’s own individual skills (although I wouldn’t say no to more skills tied to the weapon and the ability to swap skills out). It makes the weapon something more than simply a stat-stick and adds a bit of depth to the character customisation. Not only that, in GW1, there were quite a few skills that were tied to a weapon that you couldn’t use with any other weapon type.

2. In MY opinion, having weapon locked skills makes for less customization. When you have hundreds of possible skills, and can load each individually, that means if all you have are 5 “weapn skills” that are freed up and Individual…. you have many more combos… even if it’s just exactly 100..that’s 100C5 possible combinations… not even counting utility skills. 3 mainhand skills + 2 offhand skills or 5 two handed weapon skills… does not mean more customizability, but less.

I’m on the fence on this subject. I would love new skills, new weapons. Would love spvp even more if people didn’t know exactly what I could or couldn’t do based on what weapon(s) they see me running around with. However my main concern, if we had the ability to slot skills of our choosing onto our build template, would be balance. I don’t know how it could be balanced… and if it could – The difficulty would be something I’m not sure ArenaNet is equipped to handle.

They did a good job with Guild Wars, although I really think this is a different Anet from the Anet that produced Guild Wars, maybe this Anet may not be up to the task? I mean they cannot balance the limited set of skills they have now.

Azhure.1857:

@JMadFour

I could take the time out of my day and develop a very long, detailed list for you. But you don’t really want to hear it, do you? Not really? If you were a Guild Wars player that was sold to the idea of GW2 by their Manifesto, you would already know. Whether all of those players agree with me or not – a good many do. They know. They care.

But you don’t. You’re happy with GW2 today, for the most part at least. Liking the game for what it is isn’t a bad thing, JMadFour. Just don’t pretend that there are a LOT of people out there that have no right to expect anything else.
So please excuse me if I’m not going to waste time trying to convince someone that has no interest in actually listening.

I changed My sig. And I am sure that people that loved Guild wars understand it. For those that cannot Understand it, i have to wonder what part of Guild wars they played.

Fact is…this is Not Guild Wars 2.

Imagine if you had seen and loved The Godfather. And you walk into see the Godfather II, Now you are Introduced to the Corleone Clan, but this time, they went straight, and were the people behind Godfather’s Pizza. Michael is the CEO, and they show him buying up Pizza chains.

Halfway into the Movie, he discovers the secret to stuffed – crust Pizza.

…

Does it have The Corleone Family? yes… can you honestly call it a sequel to the Godfather though?

Same. This is Gw2, not Guild Wars anything… it’s The Corleones selling stuff crust Pizza.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Nerelith.7360:

1. Elite Skill capture off Boss Mobs.

2. Hundreds of skills that are not Locked to a weapon, so that all players can use any skills they wish, and not be limited By weapon choice.

If 2 is not possible.( not sure why, other MMO’s do it)…then more weapons.

3. Sub-classes.

To each i got the same response from players defending the current Gw2. " It’s too hard for the devs"

1. We have this in the form of unlocking Traits (except it isn’t restricted to simply find boss > kill boss > use SoC, which, IMO, is an improvement), though they could have branched out with the requirements a bit and not lumped every professions’ traits to a single task.

2. I personally like that each weapon has it’s own individual skills (although I wouldn’t say no to more skills tied to the weapon and the ability to swap skills out). It makes the weapon something more than simply a stat-stick and adds a bit of depth to the character customisation. Not only that, in GW1, there were quite a few skills that were tied to a weapon that you couldn’t use with any other weapon type.

3. I honestly don’t see the point in adding sub-classes. IMO, the amount of time it would take them to implement the system and balance all of the existing Skills and Traits to follow this would be time better spent fleshing out the professions more (skills, traits, weapons ect). Not only that, players would simply choose the most wanted professions and pick and choose bits from other, less desirable professions. It wouldn’t improve anything while consuming a lot of resources to implement.

I wouldn’t say it’s “too hard” for them, but I think in terms of resources and time, it’s a smarter choice to do what they’ve done.

They simply learnt from the all of the trouble they had in GW1.

1. Trait Unlocks are Nothing Like Elite Skill captures from Guild Wars. The only thing they have in common is,…they both unlock something. Aside from that. Nothing else is the same. Nothing is even similar.

2. In MY opinion, having weapon locked skills makes for less customization. When you have hundreds of possible skills, and can load each individually, that means if all you have are 5 “weapn skills” that are freed up and Individual…. you have many more combos… even if it’s just exactly 100..that’s 100C5 possible combinations… not even counting utility skills. 3 mainhand skills + 2 offhand skills or 5 two handed weapon skills… does not mean more customizability, but less.

3. Play Guild Wars. All I need to say.

PS: All those troubles they had… provided the playerbase with a FUN awesome game to play.

Gw2 is what you get when you make a game that is made for the convenience of the devs, that cashes In on an awesome IP. and that has managed to get enough players that are willing to accept." this is the best we can do, without doing hard work."

Boneheart.3561:

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

Don’t have particular issues with what you’ve posted OP except for the very last point, about saving the world.

We’ve known about all the dragons since even before launch. We started learning about them in Guild Wars 1. The dragons aren’t going away. The battle with have is with them.

Until they’re gone, the world is in danger.

I’m not sure how Anet could back away from that now, and I’m not sure they should. It’s the same threat we had at launch. We’ve handled one of six elder dragons. There are five to go.

The problem as I see it is.. with this you have a sort of countdown…

1 dragon down… 5 left.

1. Either you kill off the dragons one at a time til None are left…or you do Not progress to kill the 6th dragon.

A. You kill off all the dragons One By one til None are left. What do you do then?

B. You never get to kill the 6th drafgon. How does your player-base feel?

It’s like the Dr Who corner the writers wrote themselves Into….

Only 12 Doctors .. that was the story going back to the 70’s…

Then the 12th doctor dies.

A. End the series.

B. Continue wih a 13th Doctor. But that means retconning all those " Only 12 doctors" storylines so that they make sense with a 13th doctor.." oops we were wrong"?

See what I mean?

What do you do if you kill off the 6th elder dragon? Turns out there was a 7th? an 8th? " oops we were wrong"?

Horrible analogy. The world still has problems, despite the Elder Dragons, they are not wholly motivators for the issues with bandits, centaurs, grawl, Inquest, Flame Legion, Nightmare Court. We’ll keep turning, like 250 years earlier when Shiro Tagachi harnessed the power of ten Vin Diesels.

So instead of One major Over-arching danger " a New elder -dragon" and destroying them, we focus on a lot of Little problems…“bandits” and fixing the farmer’s fence?

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

Somewhere along the way during development, ANet forgot to put the heart and soul of Guild Wars 1 into this game. That is what is missing and what needs to be fixed.

The only improvements GW2 has over GW1 is prettier graphics and you can jump and swim.

I have mentioned In other threads that there are 3 things that made Guild Wars awesome that were gutted ut to make Gw2. (Not Guild Wars 2. see my sig)

1. Elite Skill capture off Boss Mobs.

2. Hundreds of skills that are not Locked to a weapon, so that all players can use any skills they wish, and not be limited By weapon choice.

If 2 is not possible.( not sure why, other MMO’s do it)…then more weapons.

3. Sub-classes.

To each i got the same response from players defending the current Gw2. " It’s too hard for the devs"

I think that gamers need to hold developers more accountable for lazyness and complacency.

Then again, maybe this title has enough players perfectly happy that Gw2 never needs to fear anything from it’s base.

And that is why my sig.

Vayne.8563:

Don’t have particular issues with what you’ve posted OP except for the very last point, about saving the world.

We’ve known about all the dragons since even before launch. We started learning about them in Guild Wars 1. The dragons aren’t going away. The battle with have is with them.

Until they’re gone, the world is in danger.

I’m not sure how Anet could back away from that now, and I’m not sure they should. It’s the same threat we had at launch. We’ve handled one of six elder dragons. There are five to go.

The problem as I see it is.. with this you have a sort of countdown…

1 dragon down… 5 left.

1. Either you kill off the dragons one at a time til None are left…or you do Not progress to kill the 6th dragon.

A. You kill off all the dragons One By one til None are left. What do you do then?

B. You never get to kill the 6th drafgon. How does your player-base feel?

It’s like the Dr Who corner the writers wrote themselves Into….

Only 12 Doctors .. that was the story going back to the 70’s…

Then the 12th doctor dies.

A. End the series.

B. Continue wih a 13th Doctor. But that means retconning all those " Only 12 doctors" storylines so that they make sense with a 13th doctor.." oops we were wrong"?

See what I mean?

What do you do if you kill off the 6th elder dragon? Turns out there was a 7th? an 8th? " oops we were wrong"?

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

@Devata

You misunderstood what i meant. I didnt mean creating a jumping puzzle takes less time then creating an armor, I said playing through a jumping puzzle takes what 3 – 5mins tops? while crafting an armor set will take a couple of weeks. Ergo if you put the outfit into crafting you suddenly create a couple of weeks of gameplay, if you put it in a jumping puzzle you created 5 minutes of gameplay. Now if it takes them a month to design and model the outfit for all races which content would you put it in? the one where it will provide 5mins gametime for 1 month of effort or 2 weeks of game time for 1 month of effort?

Yes I would rather pay money or play my choice of content for 2-3 months to buy the gems necessary for it then repeat the same jumping puzzle 100 times for it to drop. Sorry I really hate repeating the same stuff over and over and over again am Allergic to it.

Well that depends on how many variety they can shove in a single expansion. Though how many minis would you need so that hunting them down for 11 months – 1year 11 months would not feel grindy? LOTS!

have you considering taking a sandbox approach? I know its not ideal and I am not defending the game for not providing the proper content but if you love minis thats no reason to deny yourself the joy. Here’s my idea maybe you’ll like it. Pick up a mini off TP lets say it costs 2g then decide on what would be worthy content for that mini say the claw of jormag cause its the rare Icebrood Goliath you set your eyes on and it fits the theme. This one being a rare mini costs 5g so it will take some time to earn it. You do the event and when you earn 5g you buy it. I know its not as exciting as having it drop directly not saying it is but it give you a goal and well you can still be excited for those rare drops like say a corrupted core or two that will get you that much closer. or the tooth of frostfang that will destroy your entire mini game as you’d suddenly afford most of the minis but anyhow … its an option! Gw2 gives you freedom and well no reason not make use of that freedom by creating content where its lacking. Try it you might find you enjoy it.

I don’t really do any crafting in this game because it’s boring I have done all JP’s and multiple I did multiple times. If there would be a reward (like the armor is the reward in your crafting example) from that JP it would be yet another reason to do it multiple times.

You completely ignored the fact that as long at the JP’s unique reward would no be account-bound you would still be able to grind gold for it so if you don’t want to you do not have to do the JP multiple times. And if buying items with cash Is what you like that may be so but is irrelevant to the discussion because we are talking about the game, and buying an item with cash is no game-play. So with the JP drop you still have your grind gold option you seem to like so much and there is the JP option. The buy for cash option is then gone.

The sandbox won’t work. Like you say yourself “I know its not as exciting as having it drop directly”. It’s that rush every time of will it drop ad then the eventual rush when it drops that is so much fun. Grinding gold even if it is for the same reward and the with the same content just isn’t as fun. Not to mention that it reduces the game value of the item. And again if it would drop from specific content as long as it would not be account-bound you would still have that same freedom + more.

The thing is… Anet seems to want to Put as Much as Possible On the tp… or the gem store, so players can just grind gold and acquire.

It does make the game more casual friendly.

Personally, I would Like content that is behind game content. Put some extra cool skins Inside dungeons or Boss mob drops, is a god start…but…

what this game really needs is a complete overhaul to mobs…

Improve their AI… Not swinging or attacking for long periods, followed by a giant swing that kills in 2 blows but is easilly dodged…. is a mechanic that only teaches you how to dodge. and dodge eliminates all incomingg damage.

Another idea is have any didged damage be Like " glancing" maybe you only take 1/2 damage. I Just think that the way the bosses and mobs are in this game.. there is very little reason to use any tactics other than " dodge" Unless you are doing a speed clear.

maybe I just want it more challenging,. so that if you do NOT use tactics you fail more.

Galen Grey.4709:

@Devata

You misunderstood what i meant. I didnt mean creating a jumping puzzle takes less time then creating an armor, I said playing through a jumping puzzle takes what 3 – 5mins tops? while crafting an armor set will take a couple of weeks. Ergo if you put the outfit into crafting you suddenly create a couple of weeks of gameplay, if you put it in a jumping puzzle you created 5 minutes of gameplay. Now if it takes them a month to design and model the outfit for all races which content would you put it in? the one where it will provide 5mins gametime for 1 month of effort or 2 weeks of game time for 1 month of effort?

Yes I would rather pay money or play my choice of content for 2-3 months to buy the gems necessary for it then repeat the same jumping puzzle 100 times for it to drop. Sorry I really hate repeating the same stuff over and over and over again am Allergic to it.

Well that depends on how many variety they can shove in a single expansion. Though how many minis would you need so that hunting them down for 11 months – 1year 11 months would not feel grindy? LOTS!

have you considering taking a sandbox approach? I know its not ideal and I am not defending the game for not providing the proper content but if you love minis thats no reason to deny yourself the joy. Here’s my idea maybe you’ll like it. Pick up a mini off TP lets say it costs 2g then decide on what would be worthy content for that mini say the claw of jormag cause its the rare Icebrood Goliath you set your eyes on and it fits the theme. This one being a rare mini costs 5g so it will take some time to earn it. You do the event and when you earn 5g you buy it. I know its not as exciting as having it drop directly not saying it is but it give you a goal and well you can still be excited for those rare drops like say a corrupted core or two that will get you that much closer. or the tooth of frostfang that will destroy your entire mini game as you’d suddenly afford most of the minis but anyhow … its an option! Gw2 gives you freedom and well no reason not make use of that freedom by creating content where its lacking. Try it you might find you enjoy it.

Galen after reading up your posts, i find you agreeable, and fun to read. You are reasonable.

I can also see how … rewarding Myself with a Minipet, for doing x… event… with a Mini, would kind of give me the experience, for me it just doesn’t work.

I shouldn’t have to create content for myself.

The way people post ideas that the developers then run with, I get the feeling that this is less a final release quality game, and more a Paid beta.

Paid beta for 2 years with the developers still asking " what ya think? we would Love ( maybe we NEED ) your ideas."

It feels like a pretty amateurish effort. I really cannot believe that any of the people that worked kitten Guild Wars, had anything to do with GW2.

It Just does not feel in any way Lik they are connected, except for a tyrian skin.

See my sig.

IndigoSundown.5419:

WoW has been the bellwether for MMO’s for a long time. That status invites comparisons, both good and bad. There is at least some WoW-bashing in virtually every other MMO’s forum. There is even WoW-bashing in the WoW forums.

GW2 is a wannabe game, like every MMO other than WoW. If you want to compare game defense in GW2 v. another MMO’s, you’d need to compare it to games other than WoW. WoW’s special status means that its defenders don’t need to bash other games with opinions — all they need to do is point at numbers.

Except I am not the one bashing gw2. All I do is say " in it’s current iteration gw2 is Not as enjoyable for me ..and here is why. Since it is not as enjoyable, I went back to WoW, and I also play Guild Wars."

and then I get responses Likr the above.

Why would i compare Gw2 to any game other than WoW? I am playing WoW.

Secondly, since WoW is the game that I am currenly enjoying for the very things that I enjoy, while Gw2 is not providing me with the same enjoyable experience, does it make sense for me to compare it to say " ESO" which i don’t play? Archage which i know Nothing about… or Wildstar which i will not touch with a 20 foot pole?

I was Not comparing it to say “Gw2 sucks” I was saying " this aspect of the game is Not enjoyable for me…so i went back to wow, because they have thi s aspect of the game In a way that is enjoyable for me in WoW, and Not in Gw2."

Now… as Much as players of gw2 may not Like being compared to WoW, it comes with the territory. And just because WoW is the 800 lb gorilla in the room, doesn’;t mean that gw2 white knights are excused for WoW bashing. it puts them in a negative light… and it doesn’t seem to be either a fair representation of perceptions… or a reasoned argument.

it comes across as negative, insecure, hating just because…

Draknar.5748:

Nerelith.7360:

WoW wasn’t as good when I left it as it is now. It is better now than it was when I left.

GW2 WAS good when i started here…then it got worse in MY opinion, defenitely less enjoyable. What I enjoy about MMO’s is Not viable in gw2, it IS In WoW, so i went back.

FACT: I consider it a better deal to pay a $15 Monthly to play World of Warcraft than play THIS game for free.

THAT should be a warning.

Anyway, I continue monitoring because I enjoyed Guild Wars. I like what it did, fact is i also re-activated my account with Guild Wars. That should ALSO say something.

I do hope that Anet gets it’s head out of the sand…

You’re the minority my friend. I’ve been back to WoW. All of my friends have too. We all have left already, and we were hard-core WoW players back in the day. The longest of us lasted a month this time around. I think maybe one person logs on just to talk to friends and stand around.

I have no doubt you will rave about WoW until the day the servers close, and it’s your right to do so. But, fact is, it’s a shell of its former self.

There’s a reason pretty much every WoW player is looking for a new MMO to play…

Blizzard needs to hurry up and make a new MMO is what needs to happen quite honestly.

Firstly about being in the Minority. That is only conjecture on your part. All I can consider is what my eyes tell me. And while I am certain you are sincere in your beliefs, I am sure both of us suffer from some Confirmation Bias.

Secondly:

You’re the minority my friend. I’ve been back to GW2. All of my friends have too. We all have left already, and we were hard-core Gw2 players back in the day. The longest of us lasted a month this time around. I think maybe one person logs on just to talk to friends and stand around.

I have no doubt you will rave about Gw2 until the day the servers close, and it’s your right to do so. But, fact is, it’s a shell of its former self.

There’s a reason pretty much every Gw2 player is looking for a new MMO to play…

NCSoft/Anet needs to hurry up and make a new MMO is what needs to happen quite honestly.

You will see that the very same can be said about Gw2, and it has the very same demonstrable truth to it, as your previous statement… None to speak of, since it is simply your opinion. My opinion ..is also NOT demonstrably true.

Lastly appealing to the masses. What you and your friends enjoy, says nothing. it just says what you and your friends enjoy. And do not change anything about Gw2 or wow.

Which leads me to what I consider the Worst about Gw2.

it’s community. Many players feel compelled to white knight the game whenever someome mentions another game, specifically WoW. Not just White Knight Gw2, but also trash WoW. The fact that both games have existed together for 2 years, and will continue to exist together, as long as BOTH Publishing companies keep their collective heads out of …the sand…. does Not seem to be a consideration for some players of gw2.

Which leads me to an observation. The number of times that players of WoW trash gw2…compared to the Number of times Players of Gw2 trash WoW.

I think that may say a Lot about the white knights in Gw2.

Kohlteth.3715:

Nerelith.7360:

Asgaeroth.6427:

I like where GW2 is in a lot of ways. It doesn’t feel like WoW Plus like so many other MMOs that just take that formula and try to spin it. It feels more like Ultima Online or Dark Age of Camelot, my MMO roots. There isn’t some nonstop stat inflating gear train to be on, or a constant parade of contrived bosses. When DAoC started to get really low on players I went over to WoW for awhile and raided tier 10 to tier 16. To me it never really felt like an MMORPG. It feels almost more like something along the lines of Candy Crush. Just give you this never ending chain of higher and higher stats to go for without ever actually making you more powerful, then charge you $15 a month to do it plus client and expansion fees. There just isn’t an enjoyable world there, everything is so static and dead. All the development focus is on instanced loot pinatas that barely anyone even seems to like. All the open world content is a 2 hour static quest chain that eventually unlocks a few repeatable fetch quests. GW2 scoffs at all of these concepts like the generation before WoW.

lol.. you really need to stop holding back, and tell us How you REALLY feel about World of Warcraft.

I recently re-activated my account, and am having a pleasant time playing the game. I enjoy that I can solo farm mats for my tradeskills, and don’t have Blizzard’s hands In My Pocket along each and every stage … I Like that what I craft has value to other players. I Like that it doesn’t cost me 11g to make a bag that then sells for 13g on the ah…if at all..since I might get undercut, and then suddenly..there is zero profit.

I Like that in THAT game, while there may be constant Upwardly upgrading gear dropping, the fact remains that before level cap, I don’t need to spend a single dime on gear. It drops off Mobs, or it is provided as a reward for quests.

Now. we can go back and forth about " My game is awesome, and wow sucks." from your end. But that seems childish to me.

You enjoy gw2 as it is, I enjoyed Gw2 as it used to be. Lately… I do not enjoy it as much, and the irony is… i have come to appreciate a Lot of things that WoW does well. At least well for me… things I enjoy are viable in WoW.

I can understand your enjoyment of Gw2. I can understand your desire to play it. What I fail to Understand is why you have to trash another game, or the people that play it. Especially since the free to play aspects of Gw2 are such, that a person can play BOTH.

Which leads me to the LAST thing I appreciate about World of warcraft, that 2 years On GW2 taught me to appreciate.

It’s community.

PS I cut my teeth on EverQuest. Make of that what you will.

you forgot to mention the constant neglect by Blizzard , even denial of the 70% dead servers where PUGing is impossible, the inability to complete “Legendary” quest due to lack of players, constantly taking things out that players enjoy ( in next expac , or should I say “shrink-wrap” culling abilities, no flying, destroying professions )

Yes Gw@ could do with opening the map more, and fixing the stupid trait system but I came from WoW ankitten EVER going back. For years people kept saying there would be a Wow killer, there is, Blizzard have given on on thier own game, final straw was selling insta-90’s ignoring 90% of the content

Back on topic..

Dynamic events rock and not having to group to help others!

Wish that there were not such huge zerg groups though or player attitudes to newer people and grinding so much in gw2 oh and of course the new trait system SUCKS the way you are supposed to unlock them either pricey as hell using SP that new players will need, or having to go to high lvl areas to get lvl 30’s traits ?

As regards to WoW, I think you and I are playing two different games. I was playing it last night, and have been for a few weeks, not sure when you last played the game you played. But your description of WoW, while very pessimistic in outlook, does not match my experience, and I am pretty sure, Mine is more current, and My memory of the game less colored by negative experiences or perceptions.

So Not Knowing when you last played, or the status of the game at that time, since I was Playing Gw2, for the past couple of years. All I can say is, that yes, your perceptions of the game may:

1: be outdated.
2: biased.

And therefore, I prefer to believe my own eyes, instead of your words.

Dusty Moon.4382:

If there was server merges, then you would see the merges happening in PvP and WvW since that is where the ‘Server Identity’ is important. Also there is no reason to have that identity in PvE as it makes no sense. Why do you need a server identity in PvE?

There were many maps, before the server merge where there were no people at all and this is why the mega-server came about. Try doing champions in Orr before the server merge – you couldn’t. That is all the mega-server was meant to do.

Any other ‘Conspiracy hypothesis’ is just that – an idea and one that has no proof. The mega-server is not proof that server populations were down – the populations moved to higher level maps (like Frostgorge Sound) and doing mindless champ zergs (which are gone now in lower level maps).

Nice try, but thank you for admitting what I have been long saying. Megaserver is a Server merge in PvE, that there were many empty maps on some servers.

That is exactly what I said.

Population dwindled, and they pulled a server merge. The only reasons i see why they did it THIS way was… WvW is too hard to merge servers, because of all the stats in terms of who is winning bla bla bla…

and 2. By callling it " Megaserver" many players will think that in terms of PvE, it is Not a server merge.

You proved my point.

Galen Grey.4709:

hmm you are aware you can craft already a jackalop transformation potion as well as lot of other animals and mobs in gw2 cause it sounds like you think it was a suggestion rather then something thats already ingame so I thought of clarifying that. Could my joke actually turned into something useful?

I think you misunderstand what people mean when they claim they could do that but it would be hard.

Going with crafting not being very profitable in terms of income… there is a reason for that and thats because except for a few exception its really easy to craft what you want. Not just that but the materials that make up that item are more valuable to people then the item itself (as people use crafting for leveling). none of this came to be randomly. It was a design choice to make exotics easy to craft and it was a design choice to make crafting a viable way to level up. Because of these design decision it is hard for Arenanet to change it in such a way to make it profitable. The normal solutions other games came up with wouldnt work here because of the different philosophies.

They cannot have stuff take a huge effort to craft so much so only a few people take the effort o get there and those people will have exclusive items to sell because of their accessible to everyone design.

They cannot split professions into specializations and have you take only 1 with both specializations requiring stuff crafted by each because again accessibility.

Thats why people claim some solutions are hard for Arenanet to do not because Arenanet are new to development and dont know how to do stuff or something like that. I dont think anyone meant that its easy to do in the gemstore but hard to do ingame that would obviously be wrong if someone said that.

Yes I am aware that the Jackalope Tonic is currently in game. I am saying it is an awesome way to make crafting awesome. but…

In My opinion, there needs to be more than there currently is.

In my opinion, Most of the minis, a large bulk of them are gemstore purchases.

a lot of the tonics are also Gem store, and a Lot of the cool skins are gem store.

I feel that this game is not Buy2play, it’s free2play. The whole gem store centered monetization is similar to a Lot of free2play games.

In my opinion, as the game is at this Moment, if it did not have a tyrian skin, it would not have sold…it would have been free to download.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

Azhure.1857:

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

AnAspieKitten.5732:

You’re closing the discussion to those won’t don’t have the same opinion as you, not sure that’s a really healthy way of using a forum.

+1

for a lack of caring too much, basically, haters gonna hate. it’s nothing special that there’s a group of people who avidly try to hate the game but regardless, keep playing.

Excuse me… are you saying that those of us that aren’t thrilled with GW2 as it is today are nothing but uncaring haters?

I’m saying most of the people complaining are still enjoying the game and have not actually left yet (like most say they will do), and are complaining for the sake of complaining.

of course most everyone who complains is going to disagree with me, and I regret pulling this move, but, that would just prove me right even more ;P

Dosn’t take Sherlock Holmes to say " I am making a statement I know a LOT of people will disagree with, and watch people will disagree." that’s Like saying…

" I Like dogs, and i say dogs are better pets than cats. now can tell you, as the amazing Karnak+ Sherlock Holmes , that many cat lovers will Now Log in to disagree with me, that proves I am right"

Umm..that proves you made a statement that can be debated.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Nerelith.7360:

bri.2359:

Nerelith, well said!
+1 to you!!

Anyone thinking megaserver is a positive or good step forward for this game, drank the kool-aid …

More fiends and guildies left the game in the 2.5 months since 15/04/2014 than during the entire time between launch and 15/04/2014 …

The metaphor that best clarifies it for me is… Gw2 was on the brink of a precipice teetering before april 15th. On April 15th, Anet tried to reach out to pull it back, and unfortunately…pushed it over.

You heard it here first folks. Our resident doom sayers have decreed that GW2 shall fail! Just as GW1 failed!

quiet whispers form the sidelines

Oh, GW1 is still running…. hmmm……

Correction folks! Just as WoW has failed!

more quiet whispers from the sidelines

Wait, WoW’s still going? …. And has an expansion around the corner? …. hmmm…

Sorry, I meant…. Just as Tera has failed!

emphatic whispers

Sorry, what? People still play that?

Ok, how about SWToR? People play that too… hmmm…

Nevermind folks. SSDD, nothing to see here…

I never said " Failed Like GUild Wars failed." Ther eis no Gw1, because there is no Guild wars 2. And I went back to playing Guild Wars.

I also never said " Failed Like WoW failed" And By the way, I also play WoW from time to time.

What I did say is…Gw2’s numbers are dwindling, and Anet’s april 14th QoL release when it comes to various of it’s Implementations…. Traits in Zones Higher level than the trait level it unlocks… having to do full map completions..etc… Megaserver. Was the equivalent of reaching out to pull the teetering game back off the edge, only to give it a nudge.

Has it failed? No. Is it failing? Well… that really depends On an HONEST answer to an HONEST question.

What was the point of Megaserver, if the game population is not dwindling.

And for those that claim it’s a good thing even if the game has 50 million players…. another question.

if it’s such a GOOD thing ( this can be debated)… why wasn’;t it in at launch? maybe because it is Anet’s responce to something that happened?

My theory is… dwindling customer base. That left many Game maps dead. Like..a server merge.

The thing is… MMO’s only do server merges when the population drops.

bri.2359:

Nerelith, well said!
+1 to you!!

Anyone thinking megaserver is a positive or good step forward for this game, drank the kool-aid …

More fiends and guildies left the game in the 2.5 months since 15/04/2014 than during the entire time between launch and 15/04/2014 …

The metaphor that best clarifies it for me is… Gw2 was on the brink of a precipice teetering before april 15th. On April 15th, Anet tried to reach out to pull it back, and unfortunately…pushed it over.

Belenwyn.8674:

Megaservers are not a proof for dwindling numbers. Even if GW2 would have 50 million players there would still be a demand for such a function for some areas.

My eyes see what my eyes see. less people… empty servers, then boom..Megaserver.

I can understand the need or the desire to just ignore the evidence of your own eyes. But sometimes there is .. short sightedness which can be cured with new glasses, or maybe Just someone tapping you on the shoulder and saying " don’;t you see that? it’s right in your face!"

And then there is sticking your head In the sand, hoping if you ignore the issue, it will go away.

Megaserver was launched for a reason, if it were " Oh this is good regardless of how many or few players we have…" it would have been in at launch.

We see empty maps, we see empty guilds, we see 15 of 20 friends on our friend list no longer logging on, and then boom…Megaserver.

I can see why you wish to spin it. It’s better than the alternative interpretation.

The number of people playing the game concurrently is dwindling.

laokoko.7403:

zoejo.2317:

So, does anyone who says the game is dying/losing players/failing financially, have any reliable source? Some official numbers?
Is it really all speculation?

honestly, you can really only speculate if the company don’t release information.

It seemed like a trend because I start seeing NCSoft not releasing information for their other games too.

Only official number is the financial report, that showed their sells number but not necessary population.

Except we do not need any official numbers to tell us population is dwindling. I can see How some of the posters are demanding it, because they know that type of information is hard to come by, and when someone does In fact provide Information ( i.e. Alexa) it is summarily discounted.

When I walk into a restaurant, and Look around at empty tables. I do not need an “official” report telling me that they have lost customers. Ok maybe a One – off doesn’t Indicate anything….

But then when i go over a significant period of time, and still see a lot of emprty tables… I begin to think that they lost customers, again, I don’t need to see an official report.

lastly I walk in, and see that they have remodeled, take up only half the floor space they used to, only have half the tables… it does seem to be more crowded, but is it because they have more customers?…or because they have pushed their current customers together into tighter confinement, so that it ONLY seems to be crowded?

Every time someone asks " Where is your proof that numbers are dwindling?"

My eyes see.

But more Importantly, megaserver. It’s a server merge. Last time I checked….when a game is gaining customers games launch more servers…. when a game is losing customers, games merge servers….

Megaserver. Proof enough for those that want to see it, and Never gonna be enough for those that wish to discount it.