I love this game! It’s one of the best online games I’ve played in the last ten years. I would need to track back to BF1942, Planetside and SWG Pre-CU to a game were I have had this much fun.
Also – Why should it be easy to make money? That’s a stigma from other games with horrible inflation. I love how money is really worth something in this games. In other games I would have 100 gold by now. The costs for repair and fast traveling takes it’s toll on you.
In this game you need to be smart if you have 30 silver and want to turn it into 30 gold. Not since SWG/EVE have I seen an economy this much fun.
Granted, economy is not really steady yet. when they remove free world transfers and pop settles down(3 months!) then we should be able to see things more clearly.
Steve – Guild Wars 2 is putting responsibility of the player into the game. In other games they become “god-mode” because the player is so outragously powerful.
What you should do, is to make some money by gathering materials, then make some stuff, try to find out what mats should be sold, and then buy stuff from the trading post. Most people buy things at very low prices at trading posts.
They do not want farming in this game. Thats for games like WoW. They want this world to be dynamic.
Review; http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-09-18-guild-wars-2-review
Snippit;
“Funny thing about expectations: they can blind you both ways. After claims that Guild Wars 2 would shake up the stagnant genre of massively multiplayer online games, many were surprised, and a little disappointed, to find that it looked and played just like an MMO. But deflated expectations can be just as deceptive as the hype that led to them.
It’s true that you can hardly call Guild Wars 2 an iconoclast. From its high-fantasy head to its role-playing toes, it’s an unashamed genre piece, an MMO through and through, a giant engine designed to grind out experience points and loot beneath the tattoo of a hundred thousand hotkeys. But don’t let its familiarity blind you to the fact that this engine has been re-engineered from first principles, and purrs sweeter than any has before.
In fact, Guild Wars 2 is by far the most important – and plain enjoyable – massively multiplayer game since 2004’s World of Warcraft. At long last, it’s the changing of the guard.”
I find that the review rings true, on both the negative and positives.
I don’t care scores. I never have. You can’t make a reviewer, who is just a person. I don’t believe in being a professional gamer. It’s all just entertainment, and no human on earth is more entitled to decide what is more fun on others behalf.
However, I do have a soft spot for well written, and well documented reviews, that are backed out by sound logic and a non-boring writing style. Eurogamer has some good and critical articles, and they are usually more strict that a lot of other outlets. That doesn’t mean anything in itself (make your own opinions, don’t rely on others) but it’s still interesting to discuss reasonings and thoughts, instead of a silly score, which again, doesn’t mean anything.
Here’s how Guild Wars 2 handles tagging: you so much as land a single blow on a monster, you get full credit for killing it. Experience, loot, quest progression, the works. It doesn’t make any difference if you’re in a group or not. It doesn’t matter if the monster was killed by two players or 20. It doesn’t matter if you just hit auto-attack and took a sip of tea while someone you’ve never met did all the hard work. Everyone wins.
Is that fair? Did you earn it? Who cares? It’s more fun – and just as importantly, it’s more social. You’re rewarded for helping others, because many hands make light work. And the result is that in Guild Wars 2’s world of Tyria, those wary queues of self-interested souls don’t exist. In their place are happy, noisy scrums of players, digital flash mobs coalescing and dispersing around dynamic events: an army of adventurers fighting together for the common good. Isn’t this what massively multiplayer gaming is supposed to be like?
One small change; one giant, wonderful result. Next to the libertarian work ethic espoused by most of these games, Guild Wars 2 is practically a socialist utopia. The needs of the one and the many are aligned, and the awful tension between solo and group play that plagues most MMOs disappears in a puff of goodwill.
ozzybananas – I don’t think it’s about it not being optimized for games. OSX simply does not have DirectX, and has to rely on OpenGL. That’s the difference. All PC games virtually run on DirectX technology, and I don’t think Microsoft allows for that to work in OSX.
Blizzard makes game natively for OSX and they run fine. Particularly D3 and SC2. And WoW. Which has build in video recording and itunes integration. There are a few FPS hits, but again – OpenGL.
Why do people think ArenaNet lied about anything? And why do people project their problems out on external things like a software company? It’s very rare that I see someone with the foresight to take responsibility for their own expectations, happiness and disappointing. It’s funny how it’s always someone else fault except their own.
It’s almost like they think that everyone views the world like they do. Like that people don’t see and interpretate the world differently. ?
It should be obvious, but the game is what it is. Nobody lied about anything. If you watch trailers and interviews, you should know, (unless you get mad unless everyone lives up to your utopian society) that companies sugarcoat and try to aim for the heavens, but rarely hits it.
So the game has problems, if you look at in grander schemes, it’s a really good game. I don’t know who can dispute that, and still retain their integrity. Even if the game is not to your own liking.:)
I hope they don’t make more classes. Why? Make new weapon types instead. A weapon type turns the class into something else. It gives horizontal progress instead of vertical progression as in other games. You want more choice, more to mix and match with.
Also I disagree with OP. I love my Warrior. He is fun and I love his utility skills. Kick is by far my favorite. So simple, yet so satisfying.
Harpies. ughhh^_^
Suggestion;
If both Exotics are too difficult to work towards, and dungeon armors are too time consuming, maybe we are looking at two solutions;
- Karma Based armor sets with comparable stats.
- A sort of half tier with near identical stats. Perhaps with 3-5% decrease for half the effort. This would make people able to go half way towards the dungeon armors/exotics, and get almost comparable stats. Those that want that extra 1% edge, can do twice the effort.
Most people might go for half the effort, but at least that would ensure that dungeon and exotic sets remain; rare and exclusive which is the point.
We all know what happens when “welfare epics” start. It’s a cool part of MMOs to have exclusive looking items. However, it should be, even in unbalanced WvW by design, possible to get relatively comparable gear for not doing content (dungeon runs) or insane grindy money gathering.
Why not use the Karma? Or reward people for doing / succesfully doing every event in the game. Not hearts, but all events. With all those triggers, that would be a monumental and non-repetitive challenge. Not only would the player have to find every event, but also get gold and win the event, and the entire event chain, but also be equipped when they just pop out of thin air at random times. That would take some skill, and some required planning.
It would be traveling to all sorts of zones to do everything.
As a Guild Wars 1 fan, I’ve never been a proponent of the mentality a lot of traditional MMO players have. Endless content that is created as soon as the hardcore grinder demands it, simply isn’t possible to do unless you have a company with endless resources. And the only MMO company who has those kinds of resources is Blizzard.(arguably EA does as well, but with SWTOR in decline I don’t think they’re a great example to use)
Anet as fantastic of a company as you are, you are going to have a long, tiresome road ahead of you if you still intend to ‘revolutionize’ the MMO genre. Because here, especially for the players, change comes slowly, if at all. That’s why you will continue to see so many conflicting ideas about what a ‘good grind’ is.
That being said, I love what GW2 is for the most part, though they are still trying to work the kinks out, I’m am just as engrossed in the content as I ever hoped to be in the five years I’ve waited for this game to be released. I am currently at level 32 and the slower path has been the most rewarding one for me to take. For those of you who raced up to 80 and now are complaining about having so little to do at ‘end-game’ I have no sympathy for you. Content takes time to develop, and with most developers this means there will be a waiting period. So relax a bit, there will be more to do. Until then I suggest the following:
I bet many people with 100% map completion didn’t bother to talk to most of the NPC’s or take the time to explore all the fantastic little story and character details Anet wove into their game. They just looked for all the heart, vistas and point of interest objectives until their little yellow bar was maxed out. I spent several hours just exploring the main cities alone for all the little tidbits of info. they left nestled in there. And i still don’t feel like I’ve found everything there is to see in those locations.
Great post, man. Kudos for that. I’m in awe of well you captured my feelings.
I loved Star Wars Galaxies. So many of us did. When SOE created the dream team in 99-2000, to build this game, helmed by Ralph Koster, he got a lot of flack for one of his greatest design philosophies.
“Players make their own content” . Everquest was still the biggest thing, AC and DAOC were running well for the time.
His point was; no developer will ever be able to make meaningful content at the rate which hardcore players will not exhaust it and grow bored. Fighting over pvp objectives forever, or having a competitive capitalistic economy, which allows players to compete against each for control over and over, is creation of content. the trick is to make it meaningful and fun and not drawn out and repetitive.
It’s another reason why I look at GW2 with admiration.
Btw, thanks for keeping the topic mature and to the point. I know we disagree on fundamental levels, but hopefully the Developers reads and listens to all sides of the arguments. Hopefully we will all be satisfied:)
love to all of you wonderful ppl!
This is exactly why people are upset, the game has turned from being different into yet another WoW clone sans the raids. The gear treadmill is absolutely horrendous and has to go. The only reason for it to even be there is to get people to spend real money on gems.
Why you think that? GW1, it was the same thing. They merely expanded on ectoplasm and 15K armor, and offered more ways to achieve it. Albeit through crafting, Karma or Dungeon. You don’t need this stuff to be effective. Balance is contained in structured pvp as it’s seperate. It’s not like WoW were you get 1-shotted by someone who did raids 15 hours a day. skill over time investment.
You’re thinking about prestige gear. Obsidian armor and 15k armor were hard to get because they only existed for the better looks. The cheaper armor had exactly the same stats and you could get it before even hitting level 20.
Prestige gear isn’t the issue here, the issue is getting the cheaper gear with the same stats. Right now there’s no cheaper alternative with the same stats as “prestige” gear, everything is a massive grind.
Valid point. Absolutely. And I think it needs to be adressed.
Perhaps what ArenaNet should do, is to make a tier past lvl 80, that is much more achieveable, with the dungeon set stats. It could be a tier 4 of cultural armor sets? Players would always be able to transmute to get their own ideal look by matching and hunting for their favorite lower-level stats, and then still being able to retain the same stats.
That could perhaps be achieved to get such a set as an option, by just keep playing the game. Doing as many events, getting as many recipes, or doing good in WvW. That’s a good idea that they could implant for sure.
I think they feel this way too. That there should be some more mundane looking gear, but with dungeon set quality stats to it. It’s something to suggest at least, for those that want to be stat wise as effective as possible in WvW.
As I’ve said a few posts earlier (seriously, repeating myself a lot it seems)… so here’s some cliffs for the ADD:
- Plenty of content in GW2
- Content is designed poorly. DE’s are not Dynamic or fun.
- Poor implementation of Karma system/rewards undermines incentive to do DE’s.
- You can make all the content you want. If it’s terrible, I will not do it.
I’ve replied to this before, but maybe you missed it.
If you think so many of the major game systems are designed poorly, which I find extremely exaggerated. I mean, there are flaws, but I think things like the DEs are the most well implemented thing in a non-sandbox MMO in over a decade. They made something work that was skimpy in Tabula Rasa and Warhammer.
I’m sorry that you think these things are poorly designed, but I know from experience, that a lot of people are enjoying these things and would totally disagree with you.
Maybe you are so much at odds with what the game tries to do, that maybe this game is not for you? Maybe there is a different game that lives up to your standards of well implemented game systems?
Some people enjoy the raiding side of wow. I was one of them. Seperate to the gear grind and old combat mechanics, it was the high level of challenge that kept me interested. The place where teamwork was vital to success.
According to the recent endgame dev blog the focus of the difficult structured content is within the dungeons. After having played them I can safely say I agree, pretty much dungeons = raids from other games. It is the only really difficult PVE content in the game.
So why not add 10 man / 20 man versions of the current dungeons. These versions would be scaled versions of the current dungeons with harder / more mobs. This would give people the endgame content they want whilst having little impact on the non raider.
They would give the same tokens as the 5 man explorables so the gear you get would be the same. They would not exlude people as the content would be accessible in 5 man. They wouldnt remove extra people from the world because anyone who would do a 10 man dungeon will already be splitting up and doing two 5 mans.
So all the benefits of raiding without the gear grind and with little development time to bring to realisation. Giving people who like large groups and raiding an option within GW2 and hopefully bringing in a few more people who are on the fence.
As a side note they should also add an explorable version of the story mode dungeons. Seems a waste of content at the moment just experiencing it once.
Question: How could they design a dungeon that would not make it feel like a zerg? I feel like the games dungeons are crazy intense and confusing, and many people have such a hard time with them, even in story mode.
To design them with 20-40 man, how would everyone have a clear role? How would we even begin to still feel significant? how can everyone have distinct role without being diminished?
Just not happy that there is no well thought out level 80 content that ironically is not just a token/material grind with no challenge.
All content is still relevant at level 80 do to scaling. Just because the zone is 15-25 if that is your races leveling zone does not make it level 80 content.
Again (and this is no insult to you or other gamers with the same mindset) but you are treating this like a WoW clone where a level 15-25 zone is only relevant while you are level 15-25.
I know you have said you are 99% complete, but if true you raced through content expecting something at 80 that was never promised. You are not the person that GW2 was designed around, I know that is rough to hear as you bought it but really this game was not designed or intended for you. I think all ANet ever intended for a customer like you was that you would pick up the box, play for 200 or so hours, fully completing 1 character, and then hope you picked up the expansions to check out the new content.
Again that isn’t to insult you or anyone else like you, but honestly I don’t think this game was intended to be a traditional MMO, only an MMO in the basic definition of persistent world with multiple player characters logged on at one time.
You cannot seriously look me in the eye and tell me that the level 15-25 zone is relevant for my 80. This was one aspect of the game that they fed the players and hyped up. In practice, this is absolutely false. Beyond 100% completion, I have 0 reason to go back to the 15-25 zone.
But honestly why not? They put so much effort into the PvE world, all these differently occurring events, and art and music. Why can it not be a legitimate part of the game? of the end game? to explore and do everything? why is that not relevant? Not many MMOs have done scaling like this games does. It wants the players to take responsibility. So in that sense alone the rules change.
I don’t think it’s fair to say “thats unacceptable” simply because other MMOs have not done that. It’s just an added bonus to the dungeons, to the collect-em-all-recipe-madness, to the skill hunting, to the mystic forge, to the WvW, to the unlocking of everything WvW, to getting all the dyes, to getting the achievements.
It’s cool if it’s not worth it for you or if you dont enjoy it. But I ask again; just because you dont enjoy it, does it mean that the end game is just done poorly because its not WoW?
I knew. I knew back in 07 when this was announced that it would be different and a lot of people would want it to be the same as what they had played in the past, while simultaneously complaining about it being too much the same.
I think it’s important that we all chill, and let things smooth out. balancing with scaling, difficulty, population controls, bugs, and all the other things. I think that 6 months from now the game will feel very different. these things takes time. Many MMOs reach their prime 3-4 years after release.
GW2 just launched. its been a rocky road, a lot of people are confused about this game still, and 8 years of doing things differently will make it take time for many people to adjust.
peace!!
If there is no reason to reach 80, and “endgame” starts at level 1; then why did my damage triple in WvW going from 79 to 80 with exotics? Wasn’t the gear and level supposed to not matter? Yet, I’ve found the only place where it doesn’t matter is in SPvP for obvious reasons. But you kill mobs faster (even when downscaled), dungeons become easier, and you stomp WvW as an 80 with exotics compared to all the other levels.
That’s what’s strange about GW2. It tries to sell the idea that it’s not necessary to grind gear or get to 80. But at the same time it is important. So it’s stuck in a weird place right now.
But WvW was never meant to be balanced, right? The odds and power structure against each others, when you cant control the fairness when its 30 vs 100, just made Anet decide that its one big pot of insanity.
Still, even as a lvl 2 I was able to have a lot of fun and be succesful in WvW just tagging along. You might say, that if I was not in a zerg mob, I would have died instantly, which I admit is true, and perhaps a flaw(?) but I also think its great to have incentive to get to lvl 80.
I think its like in GW1. You could get gear that took tons of effort and time (perfect stats, max dmg, 15% bleed on sword for example) but it would not make you invinsible. these minor adjustments in stats would not make you own or pwn anything. but it would matter if paired against a completely equal player in all terms. it would be that 0,1% difference were gear would matter. but not enough to make it anywhere near as important as skill.
This is exactly why people are upset, the game has turned from being different into yet another WoW clone sans the raids. The gear treadmill is absolutely horrendous and has to go. The only reason for it to even be there is to get people to spend real money on gems.
Why you think that? GW1, it was the same thing. They merely expanded on ectoplasm and 15K armor, and offered more ways to achieve it. Albeit through crafting, Karma or Dungeon. You don’t need this stuff to be effective. Balance is contained in structured pvp as it’s seperate. It’s not like WoW were you get 1-shotted by someone who did raids 15 hours a day. skill over time investment.
continue >
Again, it boils down to journey versus destination. Maybe they just decided that they wanted to make a great world, and then have an aprupt ending until they could provide new actual content in the form of a DLC, free content or an expansion. Whatever the case, it is what it is. Complaining about there not being more, is a bit like getting mad over it raining. You can’t really change that, and I think we could all probably agree that they tried to put in as much stuff as they could. It’s not like they purposely tried to screw you over by not giving you enough stuff to do.
It’s also a question of all these events and personal story chains you dont get to see because they might not be available when you are running around the world with a certain race, or the event might not be available at the time your entering a zone.
It seems superficial to me, to say that there is not enough stuff to do, because is there someone who has tried every single event? and have experienced these events in both failure and success state?
I’ve been playing on Blacktide, and in the zones i’ve been going to often we’ve not been enough. I just discovered that I had not done Disseau Plateu on my main at all (I just skipped it entirely) so when I went back to it at all and played throughout the night, we were not enough people. We faced the giant champion gigant and were waaayyy to underlevelled, I had 5-10 events I had to do by myself.
I agree mate. Scaling is a problem. but its a complicated system with lots of variables. Anet knows this. events are really awesome and hair rising when the event is scaled correctly and your just winning by a hair. When I am in a zone with lots of players, I try to stay on overflow or go to a less populated area. I know this over abundance of large zerg group is due to initial launch rush. it will slow down in 3-4 months and they will balance these things out.
some events are also way to difficult. the fire elementalist boss in the Asura starting zone, is stupid hard. even with 30-40 people it was futile and became a lot of trial and error. so thats an expample of an event that needs to become easier. it will sort itself out. I hope;)
peace
if people play these games too much, too fast. I wonder if people would slow down, they would not burn out so quickly and see all these long term engagements as not worth it or punishing.
Because in the end, isn’t GW2 just about coming together with other people online and killing stuff? I think it brings us together like few online games have done over the last ten years. The game really makes us play together. To me the context matters little. As long as we’re playing with people whom we enjoy spending time with, we need little excuses for recreational purposes to just go out and kill monsters.
I believe this is the essence of the dynamic events. They didn’t want to get rid of your need to kill stuff majority of the time. They just wanted to make it more optimal. Easier to kill things with friends. More fun ways to kill them. More different ways to kill them, but ultimately still hacking and slashing online.The thing is though, to spend so much time making this game and have so very little for people to do at 80 is ridiculous, they most definitely played other MMORPG’s before, they know that there is a playerbase who love to devote endless hours into games, to say the whole game from level 1 is the endgame is a cop out.
The game does make you play together, the only issue is, it’s just mindless zerging, DE’s are a complete zergfest and while they were an interesting change in how to level, there is no depth to the combat, people don’t need to work together to kill the boss or get the event done, it’s just completely self explanatory even the big boss zone events, they’re completely lacking.
The same with dungeons, it’s a complete zerg and again the bosses lacking any interesting mechanics, it’s all very self explanatory. Another issue with dungeons is people don’t even do certain types, so all this “LET’S PLAY FOR FUN” crap is nonsense, since people are qued outside COF wanting to do speed runs and do the same Explorer mode route every time. some of the dungeons are not even being used. If people were truly playing for fun then they would at least attempt to do the other routes an explorer dungeon has to offer and they wouldn’t be grinding the same dungeon constantly.
I really don’t see the point of zerging something like a mindless idiot, with very little to no thought required, with very little interaction with the other players. It completely discourages any social aspect to the game, and sadly SPVP and WvWvW is not much better.
I’m not a game developer. In the grand scheme of things I can only speculate on time allocation, but just like you can’t assert the quality, scope or duration of a product due to it’s budget, I don’t think you can with regards to it’s development cycle. If that was the case, Duke Nukem Forever would be the best game ever.
Maybe they spend a long time on the engine, or they cut a lot of content which didn’t live up to their standards, maybe working so much on iderations just slowed the content pace down. I don’t think anybody is able to speak about this, except for the devs.
continued >
Well it’s an MMO, it’s supposed to go on forever. But I am not sure about that. First of all because I know of no MMO that is truly fun and meaningful after reaching it’s end game.
stopped reading right there
first of all, if you label your product with a specific term to generate more sales, you better deliver on what that label implies
furthermore, just because YOU find the endgame in the typical mmos not fun doesn’t mean someone else can’t like it. there are plenty of people still playing wow – and even daoc is still running. repeating stuff that people spout after they fell for the hype and have buyers remorse and/or simply didn’t like the game don’t help your argument.
as for the nostalgia, that could fill a whole thread alone. let’s just say the fact that there IS nostalgia related to these games says something. for the rest it’s probably suffice to say “you should have been there”.
Nobody decides what a MMO is or what it needs to have. Guild Wars itself was a game that tried to transcend the barriers. Lots of peoples who are “Sandbox 4life” don’t even see games like WoW as real MMOs. Many of these of players think fullheartedly, that raids and instanced end game content is complete contradictory to what UO M59 and MUDs of all tried to do.
The thing is – Nobody is entitled to say what a MMO has to be. Or that a game which tries to break new bold or create new foundations have to deliver on the same things like other games have.
It’s no secret that Guild Wars 2 was never meant to satisfy people who wanted the WoW replacements. They said they would expand on Guild Wars. They would offer MMO features like auction housing, persistent large scale pvp, repeatable-long-term-enganged dungeons and lots of events that would run at random times throughout the world, while still retaining quite a lot of the philosophies that made Guild Wars 1 great.
We knewe this back in 2007, from the initial PR slash. Thing is that a lot of people and websites have taken this information and tweaked it to sound like the game would deliver something else.
You are right about plenty of people still playing WoW. You got lots of options if you want that. LOTRO, TERA, SWTOR, Aion. Conan. You got lots of great games that you can play for free that are like that.
You don’t have a whole lot of games that play like GW2. You got some that still has public quests, but none that does them as well as GW2 (in my opinion at least!). I ask you, why should GW2 offer what all those gamers offer? Why can’t GW2 not just have its own feature set?
I think its fine that people want WoW, and raids. It’s not for me anymore. Thats why I play wow until expansion caps, and then stop playing. I grow bored of battlegrounds, arenas, dungeons and raids. its not just the emphasis on carrot-on-a-stick-uber-items, but also just the outdated combat systems.
GW2 is different and a fresh breathe of air. it has no monthly fee, of course the expectations and target audience is different. GW2 is a different kind of MMO. It doesnt need to offer the same end game as others. And honestly, is WoWs end game so much better? I know tons of people who play it, who complain and dislike it all the time. At the end of the day, I think most people linger on in these games because of their friends. Sign me personally up as one of those that prefer this end game, compared to traditional themeparkistic MMOs. I like this direction.
Whoa guy. So you’re saying if you only got 6-12 hours out of GW2, then it was ok? I don’t think you should compare GW2 to a CoD campaign. I’m sorry, I expect a lot more from this game because I want to throw more money at it and I know it has the potential.
By the way, the amount of content is not what GW2 is deficient in. GW2 lacks interesting content. Bosses are designed poorly, dungeons are designed poorly, and dynamic events are designed poorly. PvE at 80 is just not fun. You can make as much content as you want, but if the content sucks, then I don’t want to do any of it.
Hey, thanks for replying,
For clarification,
No I am not saying that it would be great if GW2 lasted 6-12 hours. I was just trying to put things in perspective, with regards to value contra what you are paying. You get a lot of content for what you are paying.
If you think the bosses, DEs and Dungeons are all designed poorly, then it sounds like the game is not for you. I on the other hand, find the DEs and and bosses awesome. I’m not a dungeon expert, and haven’t really mastered them enough or done the explorable modes on half of them, so I can’t really comment on that yet.
But that’s okay. I hope you find something else, that you think is awesomely designed, and enjoy playing.
peace
Problem is you progress through the game so fast it doesn’t feel epic or lengthy. hence why most MMOs focus on the end-game now.
This game throws experiance at you so quick the feeling of progression goes down hill.
Yes, I can explore lower dungeons scaled down, but my 80 gear still makes it easier and rewardless.
Its a flawed system in the long run, works while the rose tinted goggles are still on people.
That has not been my experience at all mate.
From Final Fantasy to Everquest, I have not enjoyed a themepark MMO for the longest time, because of how long winded they are. I personally have an extreme dislike for time consuming games. I love the sense of reward from completing something difficult. I’ve spent close to a hundred hours on Dark Souls (not an MMO) because it’s difficult. That is satisfactory. That is rewarding.
But it takes no effort, outside wasting extreme amounts of time. I feel I get tangible experience from just playing. I think doing hearts, or gathering materials or killing players in WvW are all worth it. They give enough experience to make it fresh. To make each play session meaningful.
Why extent the experience? Thats when you are making it a grind. That’s the problem. A game must not waste a players time. Making a game last longer does not make it better I think. It would be like beating your head into a wall, because by the time you stop doing it will feel very good.
The journey, must be fun all the way through. And I think a short but great experience is much better than a long repetitive experience.
I have lots of video games to play, movies to watch, and books to read. I can’t afford to spend my time on something that is anything less than excellent every moment that I am playing.
And that is one of the reasons why I love GW2, and its approach. It’s not annoying or long winded. I truly love this. It’s a blessing in disguise. If you are a player who is all about doing the story and seeing things once, then the most important thing surely has to keep a pace?
If I am paying good money to watch a film, I wouldnt want to the director to extend the movie to give me more bang for my buck. If a movie can be told in 1 hour, thirty minutes, surely it will be horrible if they extended the film to 3 hours by just adding filler and fluff. you start getting bored, the great pacing is gone, and the enjoyment you would have had with the shorter version is replaced with regret and a sense of having been able to spend your time doing something else.
I think, that if you do not think it’s worth it, after getting to lvl 80 to do these things, then you totally should not do it. It goes without saying, but I think some sort of cultural entitlement have made many gamers think or except some end game to give them a tedious progression even after the game is done, which is something I don’t think is realistic. If you had fun, the journey was not wasted. No need to unsubscribe. The game is here for you. That’s the cool thing. You don’t have to feel bad about not logging in or your friends beating you and outgrowing you with powerful items. You take a break now. The game is ended, and come back when you want to.
For me personally, I like to play towards long term goals, but I would never want to run the same dungeon or same activity multiple times. I think that would get boring, no matter what game. I think the way to play the game, is to vary all its activities, and if even that is boring, then to take a break and log back in once new content is made available.
Guild Wars had a brilliant end game. And it’s why I played it for over 7 years. In that game I didn’t sense the self-contempt for the game, as I have felt in games like WoW, were people are slowly losing their mind over a *forced grind. bold I don’t believe people like to be told what to do. They like options. They like doing stuff when it’s optional, when it’s on their agenda, and their accord. Thankfully you can take the time towards working towards a dungeon armor. Maybe run the same dungeon once a month. Maybe go for some karma hunting and a cultural armor? Maybe go through a rare crafted armor. Maybe scout the world for unique pieces (hearts vendors) and transmute to make the ideal looking character with the best stats. Really whatever it is you want, your not forced to do anything.
I really enjoy the casual approach. I think they are on the right track. But of course we would love to have more. Less of a barrier right after lvl 80. More tangible goals that are not that time consuming. But I think they know this, and as features are being added over the coming months (duels, spectator mode, bug fixes, tweaking, scaling tweaks, more events) I think it will be more smooth. From my experience most MMOs tend to be rougher in the beginning.
Ultimately, I am here because I played GW1 for all those years, and I felt ArenaNet treated me better as a customer, and gave me more for money, than any other company. I wonder if people play these games too much, too fast. I wonder if people would slow down, they would not burn out so quickly and see all these long term engagements as not worth it or punishing.
Because in the end, isn’t GW2 just about coming together with other people online and killing stuff? I think it brings us together like few online games have done over the last ten years. The game really makes us play together. To me the context matters little. As long as we’re playing with people whom we enjoy spending time with, we need little excuses for recreational purposes to just go out and kill monsters.
I believe this is the essence of the dynamic events. They didn’t want to get rid of your need to kill stuff majority of the time. They just wanted to make it more optimal. Easier to kill things with friends. More fun ways to kill them. More different ways to kill them, but ultimately still hacking and slashing online. *bold
I do miss the sandbox idea. I do miss building the world, and everything in it. (old school SWG!) but, I also knew that GW2 was not going to be that. I just think it’s a fantastic game, and I love the end game. Maybe I am thinking of end game in wrong way, but I love how it is. I feel confident that they will give short term rewards post-lvl80 to ease the grease towards the legendary weapons, and dungeon armors.
The trouble is of course always to balance, having really rare cool items for the select few, because a big part of what makes them cool is that very few people have them. Otherwise they would not be as cool. But maybe that in itself is also a form of entitlement?
see you in Tyria,
space cowboy
When GW1 was released, I think most people, even those of us who had followed it for years, were surprised by the amount of PvE content. Originally the pitch for the game was very PvP centric.
The community divided into a PvE / PvP split. Guild Wars 1 was a game in the classical sense that it ended once you had done the campaign. End of the story. Wait until new expansion. *bold
However, as time went on, it was loaded with the hunt for titles, skills, hard mode completion and so on. The ultimate point was that the game labeled itself as not a grind by force, but by force. Because there were people who needed these carrot-on-a-stick goals to enjoy themselves. Others however, did not find them enjoyable.
Some stopped playing, and would wait until a new campaign was released, others would focus on the PvP, others would make new characters and play with their friends.
I think the important thing to remember, is that you don’t have to play anymore once the game is done. Getting a legendary weapon or some dungeon armor, is not for everybody. And thankfully, unlike other games, they are not needed to excel in the game. You won’t be inferior to your lack of raiding.
GW2 gives you a lot of content for your buck. Many games that costs 60 Dollars lasts 6-12 hours. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect more, considering the amount of stuff you are getting for your money. If you compare it to say, what it costs to go watch a movie in a theater (10-15 dollars) which lasts 1,5-2,5 hours, it’s quite amazing the value that you are getting. *bold
You could say that. Well it’s an MMO, it’s supposed to go on forever. But I am not sure about that. First of all because I know of no MMO that is truly fun and meaningful after reaching it’s end game. PvP and dungeons/raids are the sthick in the ghist of them. Besides that, people assault you with nostalagia, speaking fondly of the better days of old of UO, Planetside, AC, DaOC, SWG-Pre CU and Vanilla WoW, or whatever other title they may fancy. But none of these games currently holds a happy population. The developers are always blamed for ruining the fun.
I believe the truth is simply, that the repetition of doing the same content in variational skins, and encounters grows old, and because forever-MMO offers no: “game is done. now go out in the sun and play” gamers keep playing a game they are bored of until they finally rage quit and talks about the days of old, which often were not better. The game was just new and exciting. And that is how it is with all games.
I believe a game like Lord of the Rings Online which is a fully featured MMO, also took a stand about accepting that once you hit the cap and have seen the majority of content, its perfectly reasonable to not play until they make new stuff. Why wouldn’t you expect that?
In theory, it should not even take any rewards or goals for you to log in and kill monsters. Thats how fun the game should be. Or the crafting or the PvP. or the WvW. or the achievement hunting. How can anyone expect more of a product?
End gamer starts at level 1 only means that your doing the same activities while leveling as you do after you hit the cap. In many other MMOs, you level by doing quests, and then suddenly you hit the end game, and you have to do a completely different activity. Scaling upwards and downwards just reinforces that GW wants to reinforce personal skill and put the responsibility of being succesful back in the hands of the player. *bold
I don’t believe in the mantra, that because it’s a MMO that it’s supposed to last forever. I often get the feeling that MMOs like WoW that tries to draw out the experience indefinitely, tend to hate the game. I think it’s healthy to have a “ending”. Now the game is done. You physically progressed through the areas. Here on out, it’s completion, or the forever hunt of fighting over territory in WvW, getting more cool looking gear for your dress-up-doll-character, making a name for yourself in the sPvP or simply trying to see and do everything in terms of achievements, titles, rewards and so on and so forth.
ArenaNet, you are amazing. I really wanted to buy a Mac, and now I can and not have to install Windows. Thank you soo much. you guys are the best! I’m serious. Thank you. Now I can buy a Mac. I’ve been using Windows 8 beta for the last month, and I hate it.
I’m not crazy about everything Apple does. A lot of it is silly, and they are expensive, but I like less the route Microsoft are going.