Guild Wars 2

Amusing Vayne. You always resort to comparing to GW only. Apparently ANET did as well.

Overflows, no. In EQ2 at the zone in I get a list of instances if there is overflow. I pick one. I don’t get sent randomly to some mysterious “overflow” . All copies of a full zone are localized, on the same clock, and same event timer.

Crafting.. laugh. out. loud. Vanguard, Everquest2 have “crafting”. This game has harvesting with a 1 click button to make something.

Every single thing that you mentioned GW not having, and GW2 having are part and parcel of every other MMO I have played, have been for years. Features GW2 are missing also happen to be found in other major MMOs, have been for years. Features that are popular, add to all gameplay, and things ANET should have been aware of when releasing a new MMO to the MMO market.

Things like UI customization, particle control, guild functionality, guild halls that are GUILD HALLs, not pvp zones. Even first person being missing have nothing to do with GW and a lot more with actually stepping up to the plate in a bigger market.

It is a year later, Vayne. The honeymoon is over. If you insist on comparing GW2 to GW the amount Anet accomplished in a year improving the launched game there was far greater than here, and to me didn’t have the desperate sense of floundering around in search of direction I see here.

And it is funny. I went from a game, Everquest 2, to GW1. In spite of EQ2 having more content, more features than GW2 has now. It had.. and has.. unique gameplay good enough to overlook lack of amenities. And now, that is reversed, as I’m back to Everquest2 and only playing GW2 sporadically, because of those features EQ2 has and GW2 lacks, with no indication they will ever come.

Smith.1826:

Oh yes, I remember loads of things, especially for PvE. Chief among them? Ursan Blessing. Jesus, what a nightmare THAT was.

For those unfamilar with it, it was pretty much this: Imagine a skill in GW2 that could be used by every class that had a set skillbar that was the same for everyone. That’s pretty much what Ursan did in GW1, it completely gutted class diversity.

At this point it was pretty much the tip of the iceberg, too: PvP balance was borked, the added vertical progression to PvE was shallow and grindy, heroes didn’t help the fact that finding people to play with was a mess – they made a LOT of strange decisions, and instead of fixing problems they ignored them and moved further away from them, creating whole new problems.

The most true thing I’ve ever heard spoken for GW1 is this: “The problem with talking about what made it great is it didn’t last long”. It had a horde of untapped potential but it was neglected and diminished. And I feel that GW2 has been going down the same path.

And then Ursan Blessing got rightfully nerfed to the Stone Age. What was your point?

Finding help? Yesterday on FA Claw of Jormag failed 3 times in a row. Scarlet invasion failed. The “help” was all stampeding around Kessix after temporary carrots.

Regards the number of DE.. some are a bit “fudged”. A lot of what I consider to be singular events are actually several rolled up in a package.

Simple example.. Maw. Kill Grawl=DE. Escort=DE. Destroy Idol=DE. Kill Portals =DE. Kill veteran Shaman =DE. Kill Boss Shaman = DE. That is 6 DE in one “event” judging from the completion messages.

There are a lot of these.

Conner.4702:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

gidorah.4960:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Chris

the hard adherance to the two week release schedule seems to indicate the opposite. there has clearly been releases that just seem unfinished. Cannach’s lair comes to mind of something that left the majority of players thinking the content was rushed out to meet a 2 week schedule. There have been others but that was the one that comes to mind first. I think its ok to just have a balance patch and delay content that clearly isnt ready so that our enjoyment of great content is merely delayed not ruined by clearly rushed release schedule.

Hi Gidorah,

To be clear we are absolutely focused on quality. We feel that we can have both this cadence and high quality and are continuing to work toward this. If we feel that we cannot reach this balance then of course like everything, we will evolve as necessary. This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.. My point is the current plan is to continue with this cadence.

Chris

Your post here outlines the problem for me I guess. Our views on quality vastly differ and I would say I put the bar higher than you. Quality to me means people enjoy it and repeat the content for the content itself. Most of the time now it is just AP chasing and when done they don’t come back. See tequatl and Aetherblade TA path. While from a developer standpoint you can claim it is quality work if no one does it after they get their AP it means you failed.

As for taking a hard stance on the 2 week cycle. That is just bad from the start and pretty much says you don’t want things to improve, because if you do than nothing is off limits. Everything needs to be up for discussion or this will simply be a futile effort.

I did WIK on 14 characters. Because, I could. No time gating. It was fun. It was lore, connected to the Prophecies storyline, and beyond that, setting lore for a lot of this game. It was long, involved, had goals that had to be met before even attempting it. I consider it a “living story” because it did, indeed, permanently change the game for those who had completed it. It was compelling enough to do 14 times.

I haven’t found a living story yet, here, that is worth repeating, or even able to be repeated, given the time constraints and the “per account” completions. A lot of them I look at and dismiss outright. Others, I may do an element I stumble across but I do not pursue them. The update notes are enough, for me, to say “no, thank you” because the results are meaningless.

The sole interesting LS, for me, was the first Karka event, which did not go off smoothly. It changed the world. I did not get some NPC pulled out of the ether, slapped in my face, and told to “care about”. I got no cartoon villain nor contrived improbable alliance to fight. I felt it fit more into the DE matrix, but on a giant scale. Too bad that approach has been abandoned instead of perfected.

Also, please note that I am comparing Anet to Anet. No other games, TV shows, outside influences. For me, I’m comparing things you have done.

This will be my last input. The simple fact that the 2 week cycle is non negotiable makes any further input from me invalid.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment, tilting at windmills or not.

Who, besides you, is talking of content numbers?. My post was and is about a few features that should be in this game by now. Particle control being an issue since beta in this game, more than any other MMO I have played and exacerbated by the reactive combat mechanics.

You are talking numbers. I’m talking features. At this point in time, which game had guild halls and which does not for one example. Which game had an entirely new story added that was not short term and time gated? And that is just comparing “year old” GW and GW2.

Everquest 2, at one year, had 2 adventure pack expansions and a full expansion, and a full expansion added every year, roughly, since launch. (and seriously, you do not want to compare “amount of content” between the two at one year.)

By this time we should be seeing quality of gameplay features added that don’t link to content, class, LS, or anything else but enjoyment of the game. Particle control would be one, Configurable UI, another, Guild halls? Guild management? Features that this game needs regardless of what other games have, or have not. Features that would have a lasting impact for all, as compared to Crazy Poison Ivy jumping out of bushes and going “bwaa haa haa”

Shrug. The game is a year old. But, persist on comparing it as “Brand New” to Proph at launch. Forget that at one year, Factions was introduced. Compare year old games to year old games at least.

Time is running out on the “but it’s a new game” thing.

locoman.1974:

Bright.9160:

.

[/quote]

Configurable UI. Particle controls. Appearance slots. Functional LFG. Flexible graphical settings. Enhanced guild management tools particularly the over simplified bank.

Also, you might take note that I was not comparing GW to GW2. I was comparing GW2 to all of the other major MMOs I have played.. and only in reference to above features.

[/quote]
At least in my case:

Configurable UI: agree, I personally like the UI but I miss the fact that you could configure it in other games I played.

Particle Controls: Also agree, though at least we got a response recently:

Yeah we’ve done a number of steps already this year to improve it, but we have a long ways to go to get it cleaned up to the point we’re happy with. It’s something we’re continuing to work on for sure, but we’re focusing way more on game performance currently before we turn back to the FX side.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Can-anyone-really-see-through-the-clutter/page/4#post3125306

Appearance slots: We just have a different system, the transmutation stones. I do agree that I’d rather have appearance slots, but I guess it’s the system they settled for (IIRC WoW uses a simmilar one, or did last time I read about it).

Functional LFG: What do you think should be improved about the current one?. So far seems to work OK for me, I’ve been getting dungeon groups almost daily since it was released. Actually reminds me of the one WoW had around TBC, which is basically what I was looking for on one.

BTW, about your previous comment about current MMOs not shipping without one… TSW was released few months before GW2, it had no LFG tool (like GW2, an user made one and several months later an official one was added to the game), TOR was released in december 2011, it didn’t have a LFG tool until 6 months later, those seem current enough for me (at least no big AAA MMO that I know has launched afterwards), so while I do consider a LFG tool very useful and top of my list of features I want, I don’t see it yet as a required one for MMOs at launch these days… yet.

Flexible graphical settings: Again, I’d like to know what do you feel is missing from the graphical settings. I’m not someone that dabbles with them too much, but so far they seem to be mostly adequate at least, they have done a good job in reaching a balance between looks and performance (again, to me, I’d like to know what you feel is missing).

Enhanced guild settings and bank: I agree that there are some features missing from the guild tools, specially a “last logged on” feature (we’ve been making up for that by booting people that haven’t earnt influence points for over a month or so), but I’d like to know what do you feel should be improved about the guild bank, not because I feel it’s good as it is, but out of curiosity, as I’ve only used it from an user point of view (on my guild) and never really from the managing point of view.[/quote]

Flexible Graphical settings. In Everquest 2 I can seriously adjust everything, far deeper customization of every aspect. Would take forever to explain all of it.. For just Targeting circles I can set size, visibility, color, animation, arrow,etc. I can set size, color and verbosity of combat text, or remove it. There is a pane just to set reflection levels and types. Earlier in this thread I posted a pic of just the particle pane. I can set animation levels to a greater extent. I can turn off people’s mounts, cloaks if I choose. Too much to list. Oh.. I can shut off tooltips, leave them on, set the duration of hover time to bring them up, set amount of text shown in tooltip, etc etc. I would kill here just to get rid of tooltips.

And save a template. So.. I have pretty pretty screenshot template, day to day template, raid template that is pure performance.. and change them with one button.

Guild Management for Banks. 4 banks actually, with the ability to set access to each one separately according to guild rank. I can set daily limits for each rank as well.. coin or items. I have a bank log that shows who deposited, who withdrew, and when. I can put different amounts of coin in each bank, limiting access to it by rank. For example, a recruit member can take 3 gold and 5 items per day. No more. (gold is not what it is here) I don’t give a recruit access to the other 3 banks at all.

General.. I have a dropdown to choose how I show members. Logged in last week, logged in last 2 weeks, 30 days, etc. I have an event log, and can choose what is saved to it. etc etc, I have officer only chat and channels in addition to guild chat. Mail to guild function.
All off the top of my head.

Sorry for all this text, but you did ask.

coglin.1867:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Perhaps then you could point out the “better” versions of the things I listed. I can’t seem to find them in my copy of GW2.
Just sayin.

That is because your views are ridiculously scewed do to your personal bias of GW1. I could linst the portions of your list that are better in GW2, but then my hands would be cramping after all of the typing.

Bright.9160:

• A good story: GW1 story was amazing. I don’t have to remind you of the public opinion of the GW2 story…

Wow, how fast we forget. You had to ignore A LOT of things said about GW1 if you are naive enough to believe the story in GW1 was loved by all as you are appearing to portray it.

I rather enjoyed the story in GW2 and feel very many did.

Feel free to cramp your hands typing out to me what of these things I listed is even in GW2.

Configurable UI. Particle controls. Appearance slots. Functional LFG. Flexible graphical settings. Enhanced guild management tools particularly the over simplified bank.

Also, you might take note that I was not comparing GW to GW2. I was comparing GW2 to all of the other major MMOs I have played.. and only in reference to above features.

and what of us that want a Shortbow that shoots Nyancats or random barnyard fowl?

Hmm?

Bright.9160:

You’ve done a number of steps to improve it, but the improvement is so little that it’s hardly an improvement.

And the fact that people have been asking for a real solution to the problem since Beta means that it’s pretty high up people’s priority lists, so it should be high on yours too.

I’ve come to the point where I simply don’t use my Virtue of Justice on some bosses in the game anymore (like Mossman) because that skills particle effects are so ridiculous that sometimes I even miss tells on Lupicus because of it.

Worst offenders are, to me, spells that effect no one but me. I don’t need the “amg looks at me” heal effect of my ele transmitted to anyone.. they don’t need to see it, I don’t need to. The animation is more than enough tbh. I don’t need the silly bubbles of my rage signet telegraphed to anyone,.. including me. What is the point of it. All of this junk adds up. Sword blurs, flying unicorns, footprints. why? So much could be turned off, toned down, subdued client side. Just turning off UI particles could help framerate. I don’t need red tinged shooter borders. I don’t need blue flames. So darn much I do not need, do not appreciate, do not want.. and have 0 choice in the matter.

Sure. Games did not launch with some, or all of those features, years ago. Some did. Point is, the features were popular, asked for, and became pretty much standard fare.

It is 2013. We should not have to beg for them for common features, much as we don’t have to beg a computer producer for a memstick or flash port, even though computers 8 years ago didn’t commonly have them.

I will repeat, pointing at products from a decade or so ago and saying “they didn’t have this at launch either” does not excuse a product produced today from including accepted, popular features.

I fail to see how anyone could look at lack of a particle slider is a “good” thing in a reactive move/dodge game when telegraphed warnings are impossible to see, nor can I understand why “fluff” particles, at the very least, were not client side controllable from launch day. I need to see AOE rings. I do not need to see rainbow unicorns, cutesy footprints, or golden bubbles of ??? coming up from my rage signet and they should have reacted to complaints re. particles as far back as Beta.

This should be “industry wide” learning. SWG learned it when large scale PvP became impossible with NGE particle effect spam. They put in a slider. EQ2 launched with one, having learned from large scale EQ raids. As mentioned, AoC learned when sieges were unplayable due to particles. Why should ANET, this late in the genre, have to “relearn” this?

With all due respect, what part of excessive particle spam is NOT effecting my game performance. I guess someone will have to explain that to me.

This was brought up in Beta and TBH, since every single item in game seems to “need” to come with even more effects, it has gotten far worse.

Wow, Vanguard, Everquest2, SWG, Lotro, AoC, etc etc. What supposed “mmos” were you playing?

Actually, Never mind. You are correct, Etch A Sketch had only 2 knobs. Everything is an “improvement”. It is good to be constantly prompted to do a story you have no intention of doing. A fixed, Rigid UI prevents me from hurting myself moving elements of it around. I’m so glad now, thinking about it, that I can’t access purchased costumes acct wide, put them in an appearance slot, and wear them Adventuring. I’m happy that I can’t choose to put a huge variety of Items in appearance and yet have my armor stats.

Mostly, I’m thankful that in a move/dodge game that I have a massive, blinding wall of particle effects helping me. It’s a great thing I cannot adjust those, for sure.

And no doubt, a second party LFG forum unconnected to the game is a vast improvement.

Gosh, I’m sorry.

Perhaps then you could point out the “better” versions of the things I listed. I can’t seem to find them in my copy of GW2.
Just sayin.

I will state. from my perspective, that asking what television elements need to be in game is, quite frankly, the most disheartening thing I have ever seen posted by a Lead, in 10+ years of MMO gaming.

I would look for inspiration in what you have already shown you can do.

Look at how you developed Varesh as a long term adversary. You showed us her motives, how she came to be, showed her progression into madness. You did not throw her into the world going “muaaa haaa haaaa”

Look at your development of General Morgahn. Look how Varesh sent Captains, minions, forces against us while she pursued her goals. And.. she had goals. Goals that became clear as the story progressed. Goals we worked hard to prevent.

Varesh didn’t summon some outlandish alliance of x and y. We knew where her forces came from, why, and how.

Look at other things you have done. Miku. Without her, the “personal” story line of Hearts of the North would have been impossible. We needed her. She needed us. That is how you create connection to an NPC char. You have done it, and done it well. Miku is a huge contrast to the NPC “help” we get in the stories here. It is hard to connect to a bumbling idiot you don’t need, want, and have to compensate for.

For brevity I just put a couple examples in.

Please. Do not look at a popular medium that relies upon entertaining passive, non interactive people as inspiration. Look at your own track record. Look at all the examples of what you did when you did it right. And there is a lot of that.

Anet does not need to redefine their ability to tell compelling stories. You need to just go back to doing it.

Look at your lore. We just now, barely, have addressed Orr. If you wanted to make Scarlet terrifying, you could have had her using her intellect, talents, and forces to track down the Scepter of Orr.. That would have been a threat worth caring about.

This game had an extremely long development. Yes, improvements to the core game released at launch should be expected, and improvements over time.

That does not excuse the game releasing without basic, fundamental features existing in far older games, including some in GW

Configurable UI. Particle controls. Appearance slots. Functional LFG. Flexible graphical settings. Enhanced guild management tools particularly the over simplified bank. These are basics. The newness of the game only exacerbates the fact that basic things are missing. NO ONE had to invent the concepts.

Companies do not release computers with basic features missing that computers released 8 years ago have, and then excuse it by saying “it’s new” and pointing out that the Commodore 64 didn’t have them at release.

Appearance slots. Like.. um.. GW? or nearly every other major MMO?

GS should be a giant 4 leaf clover GS that spawns leprechauns with giant greatswords spewing lucky charms zone wide. The Leprechauns would all be giggling. When you run it would make you skip merrily leaving a trail of little magic meadows with pots of gold and rainbows.

Longbow should be a scud launcher complete with thermonuclear air blast detonations.
When you run little mushroom clouds will appear.

Pistols should be sharks. In a sharkholder thing. they would have lazors and discoballs on their heads. Also play Disco. When you run, it would look like you are doing roller disco with rainbow glitter trails.

Staff could be a huge skull on a huge bone covered with skulls. All of the skulls would have laughing skull mouths that shoot out little skulls that form the shape of a giant skull that also laughs and shoots more skulls out. When you run little tiny skeletons should raise up out of your footsteps and follow you, cheering and shooting really tiny skulls out of their mouths.

Most of all they need at least 5x the amount of particles and the particle density should scale up with the size of the audience of people admiring it.

Rifle should be a GU 8A Avenger but made a lot bigger, with glowing spikes, shooting hundreds of little glowing snakes. when you run it should give the illusion of two or three turbojet engine exhausts.

I’m 57. I feel personally that the game is aimed at a far far younger target. Having a serious discussion thread re LS and having CJ pop in to ask “what’s your favorite TV show” was a bit disconcerting.

In a thread discussing mainly lack of particle effect control, again, a red name pops in to assure us they are making the UI simpler and more streamlined?
Huh?

We are directed like a bunch of kids in a pre school, sans nap time. We are given cheap shiney baubles for going along with the other kids and not raising a ruckus.

When we ask for common sense tools, like a checkbox to hide LS screen clutter, configurable UI, more graphical adjustments, they react with the same horror one would if a 3 year old asked to play with the carving knives.

I think their concept of their market is pretty young.

cesmode.4257:

I actually had a question about this insatiable need for a dragon-centric story from everyone. I did not play the original GW, and while I do like dragon fights because they tend to be epic in scale, why is everyone in love with them? Sure, they are neat, but surely, and arenanet has shown this capability even in GW2, there are other epic villains and bosses to fight. I know as per lore there are certain dragons out there in the guild wars universe. Putting scarlet aside, because I think she is a shell of a villain, would you folks not be happy if the next major villain were not a dragon? If it were some enormous titan or something?

Which brings be to another thought which relates to dragons and a reason why people might love them so much: Dragons tend to be huge which lead to epic encounters and cutscenes. Sure, agreed. But you can have an even more interesting villain in the form of a humanoid such as Scarlett, if she was written better. Take Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. Arguably one of the better villains in a video game from recent years. His character just dogs you all game, ruthless, belittles you, holds nothing back. In a way, I feel the writers of Scarlet tried to emulate Handsome Jack a bit, but fell a bit short. And then when you do fight him, it is a pretty interesting fight. I think he was well written. If scarlett had more character to her, her form as a sylvari would be completely acceptable to me. Size and form are irrelevant.

What Im trying to say is..Im trying to wrap my head around this need to have GW2 villains be dragons or large and epic in scale. They are fun, but there is no need if the character is well written. Is it because they relate to the lore of guild wars more?

GW had one dragon. Glint, a benevolent lesser dragon. We never fought an elder dragon, they were dormant. The Great Destroyer was.. a Destroyer. The re-emergence of the Elder Dragons destroyed the world as we knew it in GW. They are the dominant force on the world and reshaped the world totally. Tyria now is the result of the Elder Dragons.

I guess you have no idea how much of the world was taken from us. No connection to Cantha, Elona, no clue how big an area the Shiverpeaks were. No real idea how thin a shred of Tyria we play in.

But yeah, ignore em. Not that big a deal compared to Poison Ivy with a Brain concussion.

The centaur are biding their time until the Branded/Centaur alliance.

yes, Bronies. Team Rocket will make it happen after the failed Krait experiment.

Jessie er.. Scarlet won’t use the bandit/Centaur alliance because she is saving the bandits to ally with the Ogres when the Bronie alliance fails.

The final showdown won’t come until Jes..er Scarlet, invades Twinspur Haven with hordes of Ettin-riding Skritt Cavalry and the remnants of all of her other failed alliances that mysteriously will still follow her.

At that time it will be revealed that Scarlet has found the white Lion and formed Voltron. Because she is a Sith Lord.

It will all make sense then.

On the serious side.. nothing new. The Svanir and Minions of Jormag did not care in the slightest about the molten alliance invading areas they essentially controlled. How that made sense was beyond me.

And here we go again. You know, you defined the Krait as a xenophobic hate everything race here.

Now.. another implausible, improbable and formulaic “alliance” Really. Again.

You should not need “input” from us to have one guy at your developer sessions say…Hey..do ya think we are pushing the evil alliance thing a bit too much?

Undoubtedly Clown Queen will be involved eventually.

Really Really Bad. It’s like Team Rocket with an evil army. You can do better.

I want ZERO aspect of television. I feel there is far too much of the “extra in red shirt” role given to us in this game as it is.

I don’t watch TV, much less invest myself in it. I don’t spend RL cash to differentiate “my” char on a TV show.. I don’t have one. I don’t get a personal attachment. When the show became boring, I turned it off, walked away, didn’t care.

I don’t want to watch a script being mouthed by actors. I don’t want a script given to me.

I want far less of ANET functioning as directors, managing our every movement in game. “Cut. You aren’t doing it right”

The mistake made was not bringing in Living Story as content, but as unrelated, competing content to the core game you spent years developing.

Living story is shallow, the connections are thin, and some of it is ludicrous. It is temporary. It changes the world in no meaningful way.. at all.

Yet, you barrage us with it. Mail, reminders, achievements temp loots, temp weapons, etc etc. You keep pushing us as if to say “what are you doing over there, playing GW2. You aren’t doing it right” You reward this temporary “cranked out” mess more than you do the rest of YOUR game.

As fast as the content comes, for some players, new players, you practically telling them to abandon the huge game you crafted to rush off and kill some cobbled up bad guy in a cobbled up story or OMG you will miss it forever.

You did not do this with the stories you added in GW. They did not compete with the game.. in fact, you had to complete campaigns to even participate. The stories were there for every player that completed proph and Factions, and in their own time, and in a manner consistent with the main campaign stories.

Living story, as it is now, divides the game, trivializes ALL of it. It is mediocre content at best.. and you shove it down our collective throats and largely ignore the rest of the world.

Kelenek.7584:

There is so many realistic weapon ideas that would 100% fit Gw2
To start with…
~2Handed axes – how about making those Warrior exclusive ?
~Fist/Claw like weapons – those always makes for freaking good looking mean toons and i love it
~Whips – I have never seen an MMORPG game with Whips ! and whips really hurts ! it cuts down so its a weapon and it dates back to the sword times so it fits in…. (i know eles have a lightning whips thingy but,i mean the real thing)(Dual whips for Thiefs, fire whips, Look Adam Winrich on youtube…)
~Arm blades or Nunchuks – those would be thiefs exclusive…
~Halberds … or simply enabling the spears to be used on land, some of the skin looks awesome, but u almost never see them….
~Crossbows – im not a big fan of crosbows, but why not ? those could be Rangers Exlusive
~Orbs ? – casters could shape an energy orb into a weap to hit (kind of like guardians scpectrals
~Javelins – This one is inspired by the amazon back in Diablo 2 yeah i know, but god i loved throwing Javelins…

And there are MANY other good and realistic weapons Ideas out there… let me know if u guys agree on any of those :-D

Seriously.. what. Everquest has had whips for.. oh.. 12 years plus. Everquest 2 has had whips since launch, coming on to 9 years. Along with spears, javelins, short spears, tridents, rapiers, sabres, parry blades, sai, Khukri, katana, claws, katar, battlepicks, etc etc etc. Orbs, censors, symbols, books, Idols blah blah blah.

And that is the problem with this “community”. You buy the ANET hype about re-inventing the MMO without a clue about any other “mmo” but WoW, if that.

There is a ton of stuff that “should” have made it into an MMO developed 10+ years after Everquest. Why some of it did not is beyond my comprehension. Not even talking about mechanics, kill ten rats, W/E. Simple, basic options and choices. Stuff they could have included without changing their gameplay matrix at all.

Anet didn’t even bother to make a modern configurable UI nor include anything beyond basic Fisher-Price graphics options.

Not to mention the sheer lack of appearance slots for armor and weapons, something most MMOs have had for a very long time.

For as much as they claim to have advanced the genre, in too many ways they also regressed, even from their own game GW. GW2 is the most recent MMO released, and tbh the one with the fewest actual choices compared to the older ones.

from an 8 year old game. No excuse GW2. None.

Why not just establish a private forum and only have to read the “right” people?

Hate to break it to you.. a dissenting opinion is not a “troll”

Derailing again Vayne? Just can’t avoid playing semantics, twisting others words and context, and “having” to be right, can you?

Ashabhi.1365:

TL;DR:
I’m still having fun, and my friends, for the most part, are still here with me. I don’t think the LS is “the reason” people are leaving. I think those who ARE leaving are the ones that have burned themselves out because they have to have literally everything the game offers, and they’re kittened that they can’t have the chance to get it if they missed it.

It’s why I left. It is why my friend left. It is not a guess. I only speak for 2, but it is solid fact that you cannot dispute with assumption. And I don’t try to speak for an entire demographic. Neither should you.

My guild was 2 people. Myself, a long time fan of ANET, and my friend who was even a bigger fan.

For both of us, Living Story became the end of GW2. We have both stopped, totally. For me, it was also the spectre of the player base turning into a stampeding herd of sheep from one champ to another.

Only two accounts, but both long term, serious players and both very much fans of ANET.. up to this point.

And don’t start, Vayne. I KNOW why we quit, I don’t CARE what you think, and never will. Living story drove us from the game, and nothing you spin will change that.

My friend is done. Absolutely done. I still check in to see if reason has prevailed. I see it hasn’t, and I see the same old rhetoric from the same old people defending anything and everything with the same pretentious word games and implied “inner knowledge”.

Deadcell.9052:

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Some 40 or so permanent events were added around the game in our very first content update. They were met with little interest or fanfare. Granted, Halloween may have stolen the show. But those events are still in the game today. I’ve seen very little reaction to them, however, positive or negative.

While the reason he gives is probably true, I also think part of the issue there may have been that so early in the game’s lifespan (the Halloween release was only a couple of months in,) most people hadn’t done all the original events enough times to recognize when something was new.

I suspect that a dynamic event release of that magnitude now would be more noticed.

A ton of DE’s go unnoticed, there were so many patches where in the notes there would be a single line saying "we added “x” amount of DE’s to the game", no mention of where they are, what zone no additional info of any kind. So of course in the eyes of Anet its going to show lack of interest, no one knows where or when to go somewhere.

This. The new DE stuff was basically “ninja’d” in, with no fanfare from Anet to introduce or promote.

Contrast that to the sheer amount of Achievements, visual garbage, mails, and carrots given to promote their second rate “Living Stories”.

Hardly fair to compare.

Vayne.8563:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Essence Snow.3194:

Vayne.8563:

And you know, if other people felt I was wrong, you can bet your bottom dollar there’d be a flood of people disagreeing with me. So far, it’s pretty much you.

You can count most the posters in this thread as part of that flood, not just him. Debating with you is grindy and not fun at all so most simply stop doing so as it is not worth their time, which = less posters.

Not trying to be mean, just telling you why things are the way they are using generalizations (since you like them).

+ Over 9000.

My grandmother had a saying “Never try to teach a pig to whistle. It only frustrates you, and annoys the pig”.

(please note, that is a common rural saying. No one is calling anyone a pig, or actually teaching whistling)

Pretty rude anyway, since everyone knows who you’re talking about. But that’s okay. I don’t really mind.

I have plenty of support on these forums.

I guess I am not surprised to find that you managed to take personal insult to a metaphor that could also accurately describe your position from your perspective.

It is a generalized saying. It applies to many situations where you find yourself in circular arguments that will never be resolved. It has nothing to do with who is right, wrong, or “has support”.

it is commonly attributed to Robert Heinlein

Essence Snow.3194:

Vayne.8563:

And you know, if other people felt I was wrong, you can bet your bottom dollar there’d be a flood of people disagreeing with me. So far, it’s pretty much you.

You can count most the posters in this thread as part of that flood, not just him. Debating with you is grindy and not fun at all so most simply stop doing so as it is not worth their time, which = less posters.

Not trying to be mean, just telling you why things are the way they are using generalizations (since you like them).

+ Over 9000.

My grandmother had a saying “Never try to teach a pig to whistle. It only frustrates you, and annoys the pig”.

(please note, that is a common rural saying. No one is calling anyone a pig, or actually teaching whistling)

I have 3 rangers. I just like the class, and they are played differently, different weapons, different pets, different style of play. I like to feel in a world, and my girls don’t carry but one weapon swap, bow to melee. Different attributes, armor, etc. They all tend to focus on one area of the game now, like, if my Norn live in the north, I don’t go kiting off to Maguma to kill the local wildlife for some silly daily, stuff like that. My norn use wolves, my human a Krytan hound. Little things like that.

One uses shortbow only and lives with that. One Longbow. One is Axe. I deal with the limitations rather than swap. Same on melee side, although both Norn use sword and horn.

This stuff is why, were I to run a game, all testing would be done on a PVP only server. Those guys figure out uses for things nobody else dreams of, and find workarounds and “unintended uses” for things that Devs never dream of.

Hanging Chads. Its all about the hanging chads.

Serelisk.6573:

teofa, do you even play this game anymore? What do you think you know about taking leeks?

I still play, and most of the little time I do is finding ori and taking leeks. Or finding an ancient wood… node.. oh.. nevermind.

In less sophisticated societies that was called “taking a leek”.

Another issue, to me, is that they seem not to revisit some areas after a mob revamp. Case in point, the Vista in Timberline falls by the Krait witch. This was a do-able vista, with time and sense, I did it on many characters. Then krait hypnos got the red ring of death boost, and suddenly, not so do-able. Not because of the mob buff, but the combination of mob buff in a situation where the sole avoidance mechanism in game, dodge and movement, just isn’t feasible. The last character I ran through this zone took at least 5 deaths on that vista, most by falling trying to avoid poison nukes, or getting pulled/kd’d/poison nuked on a narrow ramp, and I don’t even bother now.

Vayne.8563:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

This thread needs to die. It is not constructive, hasn’t been constructive, has not evolved into being constructive.

I think constructive things have come out of this thread. I think that if people cease personal assaults, constructive things could continue to come out of this thread.

The definition of a troll posted by you could be considered baiting others in and of itself. I certainly don’t consider myself a troll. I posted an honest thread to answer a criticism that put to bed at least one major comment people were making about the manifesto.

Another thread was also merged into this thread about the manifesto more generally.

The thread doesn’t need to be closed. People need to stick to the issue and not get personal.

FYI, the definition of “Trolling” I posted, not “a troll” as you misstate above, is out of Websters, and is the definition of the fishing activity. Trolling is still a fishing technique and terminology. Fishermen who use the technique are trollers, not “Trolls”.

Just used it as an illustration of the capability of people to take a word and apply their own contextual definition to it, regardless of intent or original definition. It was not aimed at anyone, the definition is innocuous, and the post made with no intent otherwise.

Cura te ipsum

Comment removed.

I can see what will happen.

And I was right.

Not a lie re grinding to get to “the fun stuff”

The lie was “the fun stuff”. The “fun” stuff is all grind, whether it be grinding AA, grinding a “live Event” by sheer massive repetition of junk like pounding signs or hurling up bad candy, or just the fact that you end up doing the same thing over and over. It’s a grind tossing items into a mystic toilet. It’s a grind running dungeons. It’s a grind running dragons. It’s a grind collecting craft fines or anything needed for end game crafting. It’s a grind running idiotic mini-games enough times to qualify for AA or beat the RNG for a limited time reward.

This game is the easiest leveling game I’ve ever played.. and that fast leveling leads you to nothing but endless repetitions of the events you did to level, endless grinds to achieve end game items, and new content that is nothing but “grind as fast as you can” to get the limited time awards and achievements.

This game has taken “play your way” to “play our way or suffer”. The GRIND is optional, but without it there is no end game. If a player chooses not to GRIND, well.. “you aren’t doing it right”.

“We don’t make grindy games” Sorry Mike, yeah, you did.

Hype is hype, be it marketing or rabid apologists, it is all hype. And while it may not be a “lie” it most certainly isn’t the truth either.

Just showed up today. Honestly. I assumed it was part of the wallet. So.. the shiny new system that is supposed to give me less particles is giving me more. Just wonderful. I would have noticed before, its not subtle. the blobs are huge, so something done in this update kicked them up on my machine.

I took the signet off my toolbar, yeah. It stopped.

My warrior now has what looks like coins flying up out of her waist.
Gold blobs of something.. all the time.

What is this and when can I expect it to go away?

Really ANET, I’m down to playing 30 mins a day, tops, and now my favorite char is so annoying to look at that I don’t even want to see her, much less play the character.

And just what was the point to it? More stupid Fisher-Price particles?

Horribad. One should not look at doodles on a 6th Graders notebook covers as inspiration.

Redux of threads for 10 years in many games.

Stealth class repeats same tired old line.. “lrn to play”

Stealth class never admits that resetting combat at will is the real issue.

You rarely win vs a decent thief that resets and waits for the breaks. Your win is not killing the thief, its simply surviving till it gets bored and finds a different victim.

They can be bought. What is impressive when you know that?

As far as looks and cheesy particle effects.. Not impressive at all, to me.

Vayne.8563:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Time will tell. Note that this is an industry peer recognition, not some rabid Fan vote.

http://www.gdconlineawards.com/archive/halloffame.html

LMAO at peer recognition. One MMO stays around for a long time, due to a combination of lauching at the right time, and having a gazillion dollars to advertise, following some very successful franchises and so the industry has recognized it.

If another game had some out instead of WoW and WoW came out in this environment, it would never have gotten off the ground, particularly with how buggy it was at launch.

Saying a ten year old MMO that made a lot of money got an award from industry peers is all very nice…but time will NOT tell. Because at the time WoW launched there were like 4 MMOs, most of which were piddling and underfunded. WoW was in the right place at the right time.

Now, with a hundred MMOs out, how is any one MMO going to find that same niche?

So, recognition by industry peers in 2010, 11, and 12 is invalid. But frothy fan opinion from a former print editor is irrefutable?

And still, Hall of Fame does not mean “best”, the individual consumer defines that. I would assume that people still playing these games, some from launch, would consider them “best”.

But, Ok Vayne. Hilarious. Didn’t even scroll the page, did you? Didn’t know UO and EQ had those “vast advertising budgets”. How are we talking about WOW exclusively when the link shows 3 games?

Whatever, carry on. Crusaders have to Crusade. I’m sad for you, really.

One question though. In your “humble” opinion, is there anyone in the world qualified to have an opinion on MMOs, besides yourself? Im beginning to wonder.

Time will tell. Note that this is an industry peer recognition, not some rabid Fan vote.

http://www.gdconlineawards.com/archive/halloffame.html

Ageia.5843:

This question really doesn’t have a right answer. It almost feels like people are saying the people who answer are wrong, but its really a matter of opinion isn’t it?

I love Guild Wars 2 but happen to prefer Everquest, Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, Rift, Vanguard, DC Universe Online (which, granted is more brawler than rpg but has some really fun rpg elements to it).

That said, just because I prefer those others most of the time doesn’t mean I won’t play this one. Its f2p. You lose nothing by not logging in for a week…

Odds are most of the posters in this thread have no Clue re Everquest, Everquest 2, Vanguard.. but still feel they can proclaim “the best MMO eva”.