Guild Wars 2

Satirical rant. This summarizes what I’m seeing from complainers. Typos and grammatical errors added for effect

“You mean I rushed through all the content of the game to get to level 80 and now THERE IS NO POST LEVEL 80 content? Don’t you know it’s all about the level cap ArenaNet? I hit level 80 before any of my friends! Do you know what that means? It means I’m awesome. That means I beat your game. That little bar across the bottom and the stuff I can do once I’m level capped, that’s what I play for! Don’t you guys know how this is suppose to work? Your game is stupid. I skipped all those instanced zones that the little green star was leading me to because they were just not well done. Who plays a game for the story man?!? Where is my end game content? Where? That World vs World thing is kind of cool. It has queues kind of like WoW so that’s familial (my god I love WoW so much, Panda is coming). World vs World would even make for a great end game but YOU LET THE PLAYERS LOWER THAN 80 IN! Look, I grinded through 80 levels so I could claim max level and feel special. When you add this level scaling stuff and let anyone into things like WvW I suddenly have to reason to grind my way to level 80. If I can’t hit level 80 before others I don’t feel special. Do you see the problem? I am not alone in this thinking. I want some special content darn it! I know you said level cap was NOT what this game is all about, but you expect us to believe that?!? Seriously, if I can’t judge my awesomeness by my level and my gear what else is there? You don’t really expect me to pay attention to your story do you? I play exclusively to impress other players. I need this and your game doesn’t let me do that. Oh and also your game requires hand and eye coordination. I can’t watch football on Sunday, eat hot wings and mouse click my way through a raid. No good for me. Thank god Panda is coming..”

@Birdy, when someone tells me they want raids or miss raids that tells me you have someone who wants the experience of being on-line for many, many hours with a large group going through the same set of task, gearing up a specific way. With all due respect, I think raids represent the past (gasp, I know don’t attack). It’s complex repetition.

If I were to rethink the raid system I would make it so the content branched. I’d make it so it was hot-joinable I’d end up with something very similar to the more complex chian dynamic events in GW2. If you follow some of the chains you end up with a few hours of play. No they aren’t raids, they are an improvement on the concept.

Keeping in mind outside of raids a game like say WoW or AION or whatever, it’s just a boring set of quest in a quest log. Go gather X, return to Y NPC. For those who need that sort of content (and to ease the transition Hearts in GW2 provide it, but that’s not the meat of GW2).

This went up today. I agree with this perspective http://i.massively.joystiq.com/2012/09/18/flameseeker-chronicles-the-long-haul-in-guild-wars-2/
Regarding those asking what I have against raids, I am just annoyed at the concept of no raids = no endgame. I would take GW2s implementation of WvW over WoW raids any day. Why do we need post level 80 only content? Why are people focusing on level capping and skipping through most of the game content only to complain about not having endgame content? ArenaNet has properly focused the content to be pre-end game so if you cap at 80 then complain about personal story not being well written I think 1.) You’re crazy 2.) You’re probably playing the wrong game for you.

Fox.1054:

“They also ignore the uniqueness of personal story and how rolling a new character in GW2 can be a valid replacement for endgame because of it’s unique new experiences.”

Haha, don’t let me laugh. The ‘unique’ personal story is just an excuse for a really cheesy and lame story. The choices you make trigger one or two special quests, then it all funnels towards the main quest which is laughable at best. If you played the original Guild Wars you know how disgraceful this ‘unique personal story’ is and how good it could have been if the writers had been doing their job

I disagree. I’ve enjoyed my personal story line a great deal. Give specifics of why you think the story line is weaker from a writing perspective than the original GW?

All lines seem to unite with the Personal Story Retribution.

People who skip the Personal Story lines altogether have no story arch to go through. They don’t “get it”. Personal Story is your path from start to end game. There is nothing stoping you from just running through the world doing only events and clearing zones., dinging 80 then going to fight Zhitan and not having a clue what’s really going on, but for those who choose that and then complain, well that’s just silly. It’s like you’re saying since the game didn’t force you down a linear path you’ve chosen to abandon the dynamic one put together for you and go off to fight the final boss.

I’m glad they give the freedom for players to approach how they want, but I strongly disagree with someone who has the story is weak. Having played through many Personal Story chapters with guildies I can say this has been one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had in game. In fact I would say if I just ran around doing events and hearts I’d probably be giving the game a score of 75-80 too. I’d also feel like an idiot when I realized I’d missed meat of the game.

Lord Jaguar.9504:

1. You are not paying for an experience like Skyrim (not even close) or Dragon Age: Origins (not even close). Therefor the multiplayer provided by Anet is not “free”. . it’s the entire game, hence a persistent world MMO.

2. The lack of an end game is not mitigated by the ability to reroll your character and do the same crap all over. Although personal story quests are different for each class, they are neither comprehensive nor particularly worthy of praise as a standalone feature. To use your example, comparing the personal story quest to a game like Dragon Age I’d call the story quests in this game a C+.

(However, WvW and sPvP DO help mitigate it. I like these.)

3. If there is nothing left in this game once you ding lvl 80 except to reroll your character or PvP, you are going to find a host of people extremely disappointed. And the canned fanboi response of “you never did your homework / Guild Wars 2 was advertised as having non-traditional endgame for months and months prior to release” does not fly. People like having things to do on their favorite characters. People like being able to raid, PvP, play interesting dungeons and engage in other entertainment.

Failure to provide this will result in a large number of people quickly losing interest after lvl 80, and again, I will stress, NOT because they are all no-life losers who grinded to 80 too fast. Proof of this will come in time as more and more people ding 80, including casual, nonhardcore gamers who got there with perfectly measured patience and genuine attempts to enjoy the game. And they, too, might end up feeling let down.

Because players EXPECT and DESERVE end game content. That’s the standard set by the market, and GW2 has a terrible weakness here they are apparently trying to cover up with a marketing spin along the lines of; we meant it that way, the whole game is the end game.

The only thing missing is raids. Isn’t that the bottom line. People want to demand ArenaNet give them something comparable to raids and want to scream and shout “no endgame” because they don’t exist?

Let’s review what you can do as endgame.

• Dungeons

• World vs World (I actually see this as the most appealing endgame. It’s best suited for level 80 players with max gear, so although you can go there pre-level 80 as a level 80 character you certainly have some advantages)

• Structured PvP

Again, really raids are all that are missing and that seems to be what everyone is demanding. I’m so glad they aren’t in this game.

Craven.5468:

“The reviewers all seemed to play the game the same way, their approach was to clear zones, ding level 80 then wonder where the endgame content is.”

So all of them failed to read up and understand the basic game design? I find this hard to believe…

Well it was only 3 reviewers out of 35 or so, so yeah it’s possible they did not read up at all. One of them I don’t think even discovered his personal story line (if he did, he didn’t seem to identify it’s significance). Perhaps that would be in part ArenaNet’s fault for not emphasizing the importance of personal story?

Of the 35 or so professional reviews to be compiled by metacritic, XGN, Polygon and Videogamer have been the only ones to score the game in the 80’s and if you dig into these reviews it seems there are a few trends. 1.) These were all reviews that came in a bit late. The reviewers took their time to make an assessment. 2.) The reviewers all seemed to play the game the same way, their approach was to clear zones, ding level 80 then wonder where the endgame content is. It’s clear their focus from time of creation to time of review was to ding max level as quickly as possible and then discover what’s left. It’s as if these reviews are strategically focused around the thinking that an MMO’s endgame is what should dictate 15-20% of it’s overall score.

I honestly don’t know how to feel about that way of thinking. At some level it can be rationalized, the reviewer is trying to figure what the longitivtiy of the game and feels a good chunk of it’s overall score should be determined by their assessment of what’s available there. On the other hand they are reviewing a game that has no subscription fee that is less than three weeks old and it seems all they want to do is tear it apart because they see it as having no content after the game ends (selectively ignoring WvW and sPvP are free forever -or- the fact that for the cost of a single player experience like Skyrim, ArenaNet is giving you a free multiplayer experience).

They also ignore the uniqueness of personal story and how rolling a new character in GW2 can be a valid replacement for endgame because of it’s unique new experiences.

It’s sad that it seems some come into the review process with a little square box they envision MMOs should fit into and their entire assessment seems around how the game does not fit into that box. It’s frustrating people can’t objectively look at all this game gives for free. Pro reviews make me so angry sometimes.

You can buy a descent (Masterwork) set of level 80 armor on TP for 12-16 silver each piece. It makes sense you should have to work very hard to obtain of max stat set of rare armor. Legendary should be very, very hard to obtain.

1.) Add an item that cost roughly $15 in GEMS that provides 30 days of free map travel and free armor repair. Do this and you’ll have no problem with a steady revenue stream :p

2.) Make the mini-pets a yearly series. It would be great if the existing ones could have a chance to increase in value

Not that anyone will read this, but OP I could not disagree more. 1.) Your personal story has replaced the missions and primary quest of GW1 that guided you from start to end game. The meat of the story happens there. You can still solo all of that content btw. 2.) Secondary quest are replaced with Hearts and Dynamic Events. You don’t like the event system? Did you want them to make the traditional go gather x items and return them to y NPX type of quest? I don’t get why some people hate innovation.

The new model isn’t perfect, but it beats the old form and takes us somewhere exciting and new and it pairs well with action-combat. If you strongly dislike action games then GW2 might not be for you, but please don’t speak for all GW1 fans. I finished all GW1 content (save for title grinding) and ran a ranked PvP guild for a while. I know GW1 pretty well and this is a fantastic sequel. It will take some time to fill out, but keep in mind it’s a brand new game.

I think the official app that was demonstrated in 2010 was abandoned… In recent interview it was said an API was coming and the community would create apps… I have ideas and programming skills, need API. It would be nice if someone from ArenaNet would follow up with an update.

If you think back to the original GW (before Factions, before Nightfall, etc…) it’s price point was it’s most appealing feature. It became what it was because of how ArenaNet supported the game through new campaigns that linked to one another and opened up new parts of the world. But the first month into the release of the original GW it wasn’t all that special.

GW2 has had a much more successful launch. If you dislike the game, that’s fine. You only have to look at the metacritic scores of the pro reviews to know you are in the minority. Collectively pretty much everyone loves the game. In fact the lowest review is 85 and that reviewer’s main reason for the less than perfect score seems to be around her distaste for their approach to endgame (a valid concern)

Unlike GW1, GW2 innovates and where it doesn’t innovate it takes the best ideas of other games (dynamic events- Rift, WvW from Warmmer, Cash shop from Eve). Generally where they borrow they give credit. All great games build on ideas of what has come before it.

The skill system is completely different, but bear in mind the original GW1 system was modeled in part on Magic the Gathering (dev team admitted this years later). That system led to build wars. You had build wikis ranking builds and it got to a point where it wasn’t about trying to create a great build, the best build choice for a given situation was already documented. The community controls the game (this is true of any game) and the community embraced this. You would try to group for anything and be expected to ping your build. The game’s abundance of skill choices became it’s weakest point. The new system is the only way to properly do it with action-combat without making things too complex.

I think moving forward the success of the game will be all about how quickly new content pours in. They have a lot of work to do.

Please make them repeatable.

I played Retribution with a friend. It was the same next chapter for both of us. But only one of us got the reward and credit for it. Neither of us died.

Is this a bug or by design? If by design can this please be changed.

This map continues to be a broken mess. Many, many dynamic events stay frozen in certain states. Event says next wave is coming, you might wait 30 minutes and nothing! Heart quest recommend doing specific things that can’t be done (e.g. protect golems- the golems aren’t there)

The map so badly broken… Worse than anything I encountered BWE #1 and this is in the shipped/final version >:(

I’ve been in Timerline Falls on Embry Bay several hours today. I’ve covered a lot of territory and have seen perhaps half a dozen players total.

I’ve encountered several events and hearts where I’m the only one. I feel like I’m walking around an empty amusement park and am very disappointed this is going on in game.

Do you guys know this is happening? It destroys the experience and the game is not fun when this happens.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey all!

We may not have time to respond to all of your threads because we’re so busy, but we are watching! Thank you for all of your ideas, concerns, critiques and suggestions.

Very soon, I’ll be posting blogs about the things we plan to do, so watch for those. You know our policy – we try not to make empty promises, and we try to tell you about things only when we feel they’re ready to be talked about.

So in the upcoming blogs I’ll be updating you guys on things coming out soon.

Stay tuned!

If I could make only one request: Work to make sPvP Tournaments more approachable to the non-hardcore types! As the system works now there isn’t much for the non-hardcore sPvP Tournament players who can’t commit 20,30,40 hours a week in-game. Some want to do more than just Hot-Join but really can’t commit the hours and dedication needed to compete at hardcore level. I think with GW2’s focus being PvE content this is especially important.

Thanks for listening and for the great job with everything so far!

ColinJohanson.2394:

No need to buy them, Gw2 will feature consistent free content updates and in-game events going forward. Our goal is to make it so you get more from Gw2 for free than you get from a game you pay a subscription for.

On top of a large amount of free bonus content, we will be expanding on offerings in the Black Lion Trading Company going forward, as well as be doing large-scale expansion content down the road.

We’ll cover a lot of the details on the kind of support and plans we have in place over the next month or so on the Gw2 blog and with our press partners.

We do appreciate that you’d like to buy lots of new content, but we’d prefer to give a lot of it to you for free, cause that’s what we think a responsible MMO company does!

When will the first of these content updates begin to show up?

I’ve noticed in many of the 50-60 level zones a large decrease in number of players. I encountered three dynamic events today that I had no choice except to try and solo or leave alone. It was very frustrating. There were also non event zones were the mobs were just too large to deal with (e.g. Heimdahl’s Last Stand). Too many mobs spawned and four or five us who were in the zone were standing there trying to figure out how to make it work. Hope this gets worked out soon