Guild Wars 2

webtoehobbit.4201:

Edit: This comparison is based off of features that were DAY 1 features and not added at a later date.

I think you could add Heroes to Nightfall as “Other Main Features”, since that’s when the hero system was born. I would also suggest adding the outpost control mechanic as “Other Main Features” for Factions, as well as the Challenge Missions that were unique to that chapter.

Very nice work. Congratulations on putting it all together.

MiniEquine.6014:

Either way, HoT will have more content released over time

Really? Will it?

Keep in mind that ArenaNet added content through the Living World Season 1… But that was a failure. That’s why ArenaNet switched gears and made Living World Season 2 very different from Season 1… But it was also a failure.

(Both failed to prevent GW2’s profits from falling.)

And thus ArenaNet going for an expansion, a few months after saying that they saw no point in an expansion since they could add everything through the Living World; and also stopping Living World content (when was the last episode?).

In other words, the Living World was a failure. ArenaNet will not add more content through it. If HoT is successful, we will likely get more expansions… Not more Living World. Which means, the assumption that HoT will get more content for free is, to say the least, rather premature.

Brimstar.9036:

I love how everyone in the livestream on guild halls today shut up about $50 dollars being over priced after they shown the content today. Completely tone changed in minutes, so funny.

Duh. That wasn’t because people were happy with what they saw in the video.

It was because ArenaNet blocked from the channel everyone who was complaining about the 50$ being overpriced.

You have a funny definition of content if you think guild halls could possibly be worth anything even close to 50$.

deSade.9437:

Well yeah, they know it’s gonna happen. The community (yes, myself included, even if I stopped buying gems since then) let them get away with other HoT topics: ascended gear, fractal reset, shady gemstore items… isn’t it silly to complain again, despite knowing the outcome?

“Let them get away”?

Hardly.

Why do you think ArenaNet is this desperate? Why do you think they keep changing business model, from the Living World Season 1 to the completelly different Season 2 and then an expansion, despite how they had said earlier that they didn’t see the point of making an expansion when they could introduce everything through the Living World?

Why do you think key, high level employees like Chris Whiteside have left ArenaNet?

Take a look at how sharply GW2’s earnings have fallen. Even after receiving a booster when the expansion was announced, the game is still earning NCSoft less than a MMORPG released in 1998 and a MMORPG that has not even been released in Western territories yet.

The ship is sinking. HoT is a desperate gamble, and all those controversial decisions recently – making ascended gear even more powerful than exotic gear, this whole mess with HoT, and etc – clearly reek of despair. If HoT doesn’t sell very well, I wouldn’t hold my breath for a second expansion.

Ulitmo.9712:

I really hope the content that hasnt been revelaed yet, like the “challenging group content”, is epic

It won’t be. If it were, they would have talked about it before starting the prepurchase. ArenaNet’s silence right now, when they want the most people to buy the game, is a sign that if they spoke more we would be even less inclined to buy HoT.

rapthorne.7345:

So the up to 3 years of content you veterans have experienced, much of it unique and non-repeatable, and the thousands of hours players have got out of their base game purchase, count for nothing?

Yep. It’s completely, utterly irrelevant.

The facts are:

New players:

• Have zero.
• Pay 50$
• Get 2 things (core + HoT)
• End with 2 things.

Current players:

• Have 1 thing (core).
• Pay 50$
• Get… 1 thing?
• End with 2 things (core + Hot).

For new players, 0 + 50$ payment = 2 things.

For current players, 1 thing + 50 payment = 2 things.

You cannot counter-argument this. It’s a fact, plain and simple.

If ArenaNet gave current players one extra copy of the core game when purchasing HoT, it would be less bad. Honestly, it wouldn’t still be that great, but it could be used as a second account or as a gift to a friend (leaving us with even more new players than the current HoT scheme will give the game). But nope.

And the “but you have been enjoying the game for the last 3 years”? BS. Tell that to the people who bought GW2 two months ago, or three months ago, or four months ago. What do they get? Living World Season 1? Nah, it’s gone. Living World Season 2? Nah, they have to pay extra for it. Do they get to experience GW2 without the NPE? Nope. Did they get to experience the game with a proper, not broken storyline? Nope, because it was broken then and is still broken now.

This “prepurchase” scheme is screwing up especially everyone who bought GW2 this year. Your “3 years of content” claim is completely irrelevant for them.

Keysha.2815:

It is directed at the corporation as a whole. Not individuals. It is directed at the faceless entity or entities that make the decisions that influence the game as a whole.

Not really.

“Faceless entities” do not make decisions. People make decisions. Every single thing ArenaNet has done with the explicit purpose of making the game worse for the players because it would increase ArenaNet’s profit has been someone’s decision. And something as big as the whole HoT sale thing? It has been the decision of many, MANY people.

This isn’t "ArenaNet"’s fault. It’s the fault of those who decided to do it, and of those who aproved it. And even those who have had nothing to do with that decision – they choose every day to work in a place that treats their own players this poorly.

If it really happens that HoT will sell less because of this whole thing, and everyone at ArenaNet loses money because of that – that would be nothing but the consequence of their own choices. It would be nothing but deserved. Each individual in there could have chosen differently, but did not (even if the decision was to work somewhere where they didn’t employ “bait and switches” like the one ArenaNet just did).

ICEing.9237:

Anet will not change anything. They are in the buisness to make money. Just like the era of Megaserver, they will ignore EVERYTHING you guys say until things die down. They know eventually you will accept it and buy the expac anyway. Just like it took about a month to accept the Megaserver, and now nobody complains and have grown to accept it, it will be the same here.

I wonder, though.

Those guys you remember complaining about ascended gear/the NPE/the megaservers/the Living World season 1 short’s duration/etc, etc?

Are they silent now because they have accepted it, or because they have left?

These are the GW2 earnings since release.

Is that the picture of a bunch of happy players who accept everything ArenaNet do? Doesn’t look like so.

Asmodal.6489:

It amazes me how most of you feel entitled to judge the value of the expansion in general.

ArenaNet is asking us to judge the value of the expansion when they ask us to pay for it in full, without even knowing a release date.

They expect us to pay basically the same we paid for the full game at release. Does HoT have as much content as the core GW2?

Nope.

And that’s it. There isn’t any way around it. The price simply isn’t fair, and ArenaNet knows it.

Wait until release. We haven’t been told even when the game will be released, we haven’t been told how much content the expansion will have (looks like it will have only a few maps), and if the expansion adds a massive amount of bugs, you can just wait it out.

I suggest trying the Steam Sale if you are looking for something to play while you wait. There you will get a far better value for your money.

Greymelken.1892:

If HoT adds absolutely nothing to the game, I will have gotten my money’s worth. So have you, “Veteran Player”.

Nope, we won’t.

If you think the time you got with the core release of GW2 is worth 1.000$ or whatever, good for you.

That, however, is irrelevant when considering HoT. When buying HoT, you are not paying for the time you have spent playing GW2. You are paying for the time you will spend playing HoT.

How long will you play HoT?

And the answer is, you don’t know.

What is obvious is that the expansion has significant less content than the main game did, so it doesn’t make sense that the expansion is priced as much as the main game.

It doesn’t matter if you think the main game was worth, to you, one billion dollars or whatever. The fact is, we bought it for more or less 50$, and now ArenaNet wants to sell us a (small) fraction of the same content for the same 50$.

Skord.5083:

So far we only know about verdant brink, Can Arena Net please give us a number of how many new PVE maps there will be?

Listen, the way people are rioting right now, ArenaNet would have done what they can to calm people down.

If HoT had content enough to justify the 50$ price tag, ArenaNet would have detailed very clearly what the game has (how many maps, events, dungeons, etc). Even if it were in general terms, like they did with GW2 before release.

The fact ArenaNet has not talked about this at all, even now, is a very clear sign that hoT has very few maps and few little content. Certainly, not enough for something priced about as much as the full game.

Jelzouki.4128:

The typical MMO will charge you 15$/month as a subscription fee.

This is 540$ for 3 years which is about the amount of time Guild Wars 2 has been out for.

Ah, the “typical MMO”?

Like The Elder Scrolls Online? Oh wait, that’s B2P!

Maybe like Tera? Oh no, that’s Free to Play.

So like The Old Republic? Dang, no, that’s Free to Play too now.

Then like Wildstar? Wait, what’s that “Free-to-Play” notice I see at their website?

I guess it’s like The Secret World then? Nah, that’s buy to play.

Funny that you begin your post with such a blatantly false statement. I fear it doesn’t get any better after that, either.

Jelzouki.4128:

You are entitled to that decision. I only stated the subscription fee scenario, because some successful MMOs have run off that model. Notably, WoW, Runescape, FFXIV: ARR. If Guild Wars 2 wasn’t B2P, it would have been P2P.

Runescape, the one with the big tag about being the “Free MMORPG”? Oh right, that one.

And for the records, if GW2 wasn’t B2P, it would obviously have been free to play like most of the games I mentioned, and like most MMORPGs today. It lacks everything – scope, quality, polish, etc – to ever be P2P. Meanwhile, it already has most of the small little annoyances of F2P MMORPGs, like a heavy focus on microtransactions, selling gold for real money, log-in rewards, and so on.

Jelzouki.4128:

The entire point of a debate is to come to the most reasonable answer. Their is always two sides, right or wrong

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

Vayne.8563:

I am relatively sure I’ll have a lot of fun with it and that I’ll get at least 50 hours of entertainment out of it, which is you know, a buck an hour.

And you are sure about that because…? Have you been told how many maps the expansion will have? How big each map will be? How many activities will be there? How many story instances there are in the game?

You don’t know any of those things. You are assuming everything will be bright and happy just because you want to assume everything will be bright and happy.

The matter of fact is – even now, when ArenaNet wants us to pay a very high price for the expansion, when they are asking us to judge how much it’s worth – they still haven’t talked about how much content the expansion will have. Merely the fact they are not using that information to sell the game is a strong hint that no, the game does not have that much content.

Vayne.8563:

Calling someone dishonest because you’re feeling pressured to buy something there’s no pressure to buy doesn’t feel honest to me.

So, are you saying I’m dishonest?

lordkrall.7241:

It isn’t.
The price for the expansion is $50. The base game is added in for free to people that don’t have it.

Uhu. So when you eat at a restaurant, the food is free, what you’re paying for is just to rent a really expensive fork!

I don’t know what’s worse, that people are willing to eat this scam-like marketing speech, or that some people are willing to accept this blatantly abusive price – the same we paid for the full game at release, for an expansion that has at most one quarter of the game’s content.

And before you say, “You can’t judge how much the game has”, of course I can – ArenaNet is asking people to when they invite us to pay for it. And based on everything they have told us when trying to scam us into buying their so-called expansion, well, it’s obvious HoT is just a slightly revamped Living World Season 3 with a lot of extra grind tacked in it.

LOL at ArenaNet for thinking they will contain this kitten storm in a single topic.

Tell everyone you know. Send e-mails to gaming sites.

Let they all see how ArenaNet deals with their players.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

But, this is the first, long-awaited expansion that has a ton of content. It’s easily worth 50$

It’s not.

It’s not a “ton of content”, as far as we know.

It’s not “worth 50$”, as far as we know.

It’s nowhere near being as big as the original game, as far as we know.

Do you know who knows exactly how much content there is in the game? ArenaNet. And the fact they are not telling us right now, right after saying that people would have to buy the core game in order to play the expansion and then silently deleting this from their FAQ, is the best evidence we could have that the expansion is not worth 50$.

Galen Grey.4709:

Its actually called being objective. We dont even know the full extent of the content HoT carries how can anyone really evaluate value at this point?

Since ArenaNet is asking us to pay the full price of the game, they obviously think we have enough information to evaluate value.

Meanwhile, HONEST developers give people more information before allowing pre-orders, such as, I don’t know, the RELEASE DATE or something?

Perfect example of ArenaNet’s dishonesty.

So, ArenaNet expects people to:

• Pay FULL price right now (it’s not even a pre-order, they’re calling it a pre-purchase)

• For a product we have NO IDEA when we will receive, since they have not given us even a release window, much less a release date

• Asking an ABSURD price for what is basically Living World Season 3 plus a few new skills.

• No new character slot, despite how the expansion comes with a new profession thus of course a lot of players will want to make a new character.

• AND, new players get the full game plus the expansion, while veterans, those who actually funded the expansion, get to pay the same price for less than half the same content.

This is pathetic. I knew ArenaNet was hurting for money, but this is way too much.

People, if you want a honest deal, go here:

http://store.steampowered.com

With the Summer Sale that is happening right now, you’ll find lots of games to keep you busy until this so-called expansion gets slashed to a decent price.

And to those of you who are buying HoT right now, all I have to say is: “a fool and his money…”

Perfect example of ArenaNet’s dishonesty.

So, ArenaNet expects people to:

• Pay FULL price right now (it’s not even a pre-order, they’re calling it a pre-purchase)

• For a product we have NO IDEA when we will receive, since they have not given us even a release window, much less a release date

• Asking an ABSURD price for what is basically Living World Season 3 plus a few new skills.

• No new character slot, despite how the expansion comes with a new profession thus of course a lot of players will want to make a new character.

• AND, new players get the full game plus the expansion, while veterans, those who actually funded the expansion, get to pay the same price for less than half the same content.

This is pathetic. I knew ArenaNet was hurting for money, but this is way too much.

People, if you want a honest deal, go here:

http://store.steampowered.com

With the Summer Sale that is happening right now, you’ll find lots of games to keep you busy until this so-called expansion gets slashed to a decent price.

And to those of you who are buying HoT right now, all I have to say is: “a fool and his money…”

Erick Alastor.3917:

This genere is selfdefining itself, it’s not players’ fault. It’s a business.
And there is no courage left, in any company, to think out of the box because it’s a lot easier to make money this way. Why should thet invest in something else than things that keep players playing and paying and why should these things require a lot of manpower and investment?

True. I honestly think it’s too late now. Even if someone wanted to make something different, it would be flooded by MMORPG players (who want all the things you described), and as soon as those players began leaving, the developers would start panicking and adding all those features seen in every other MMORPG.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what ArenaNet has been doing since release.

Erick Alastor.3917:

Anet was somewhat different, and this change, always in my opinion, is (again and humanly speaking) in the wrong direction.

I think ArenaNet has been going in the wrong direction since release.

Ascended gear, Fractals, poorly designed maps like Southsun Cove, poorly designed story elements like Scarlet, ignoring almost all the story hooks they had planted in the game before release, abandoning the idea of interesting events with multiple steps in favor of repetitive events for people to farm over and over… All of it is making the game more of a grind, more like any other MMORPG, and less like a game that “if you don’t like MMORPGs, you should REALLY check out” (remember that?).

Increasing the power of ascended gear is only one more step in the same direction. I’m surprised they are not just adding a new tier of gear, directly or indirectly (such as adding more powerful infusions).

bloodletting wolf.2837:

If you aren’t using your laurels for ascended gear burn them for t6 mats and sell them. Burn your Karma. Clear your bank. Don’t spend your gold on skins or whatever else the kids are spending it on these days. Next time there is a $10 sale buy another account and use it for burning laurels (I just started doing this).

Wow, that sounds like so much fun!

/not

If you are resorting to buying more accounts just to get laurels, wouldn’t it be easier to just buy gems and then convert them to gold? Because if you think you are “earning in-game” your ascended items, well…

Zefiris.8297:

The ability to swap stats via a drop-down menu

It’s a very good idea.

But I think it goes against what ArenaNet wants.

It’s obvious by now that they want people to grind. Getting ascended gear is a grind, making it better is a way to make grinding more worthwhile; the Silverwastes are basically a big grind, getting into the closed beta was a matter of grinding, and so on.

(Incidentally, HoT will likely follow the trend and be basically a massive grind.)

(Incidentally as well, it’s kinda painful to read this right now.)

Ergo, ArenaNet wants people to grind ascended gear; and preferably not only one set, rather multiple sets (because then people would spend a lot of time playing the game without ArenaNet having to actually add content, something we know they are terribly slow with).

By giving people the ability to change stats of ascended gear, it would become almost pointless to have multiple sets of such items. Thus, I doubt ArenaNet would ever do that, despite how much of a good idea it is.

Amazing to see so many people defending ArenaNet by claiming this change isn’t bad… While there’s next to no one saying why it would be good.

I guess it speaks a lot about the quality of the game’s updates when people are happy that a change isn’t making the game worse, even when it doesn’t make the game better.

AlexanderFalkor.4765:

has anyone ever thought that they planned to announce the release date at ea 3 as a total surprise that’s why there’s been no indication?

It would be a bad move. Considering the amount of big announcements during E3, the release date of an expansion with next to no content for an old, small MMORPG would be at best a footnote.

It would be wiser for ArenaNet to announce the release date far, far away from E3.

Xenon.4537:

Having 10 bleeds and 10 burning is now really similar, true. Whats the point here? What’s the difference? Why not just have 20 bleed or 20 burn? Condition removal is a good reason. Let’s say you cleanse 1 condition with a skill (Smite Condition for example). With the 10/10 split, you still have 10 stacks of something.

That’s mostly irrelevant in PvE.

More importantly, it’s a sign that HoT will not change PvE around. We have a very stale game today because basically all enemies follow the same pattern – the bosses tend to be big HP sponges with slow, hard hitting attacks. Based on ArenaNet’s reasons for not changing conditions, HoT will be just more of that same, instead of bringing significant changes.

Hyble.4271:

Just sayin’. Done right I’m pretty sure this would sell like hotcakes.

Would if done properly. But take a look at the Dwayna outfit and its lazy and boring design. The Balthazar outfit is great – it has nice particle effects without being a light show, it gives a consistent look, and it fits perfectly with the god its depicting.

Meanwhile, the Dwayna outfit is a joke. The helmet and the shoulders are aberrations, the skirt clips with nearly anything (isn’t one of the main reasons why outfits are not used as armor pieces the fact that they would clip a lot), and it should at least have an effect similar to the zodiac armor instead of bare skin.

No, ArenaNet is not going to work on the other outfits. They will likely follow the same pattern we have seen in the Dwayna one, and so your idea of an Abaddon outfit would lead only to a sad, little parody of the god’s concept art.

CMF.5461:

the additional changes to burning and confusion are blurring the lines between the usage of each condition too much

I agree. ArenaNet’s answer to the conditions issue is simply to make all of them basically the same thing. Instead of, you know, actually improving their game design.

Want a simple example? Confusion. They say it’s not as useful in PvE because almost all enemies have very slow attacks. The best fix here isn’t to change how confusion works, rather to change how the enemies work so instead of having the same lazy, repetitive design everywhere, we have some enemies with slow strong attacks, and some enemies with fast attacks and thus very vulnerable to the current confusion.

lordkrall.7241:

And how many of those “every other big MMO” does not require a subscription to play?

Wow. Have you played ANY MMORPG other than GW2? Because if you did, you would know that next to no MMORPG is pay to play right now. Other than WoW and Final Fantasy XIV, everything is choosing other models… Which makes your assumption that mediocrity is excused by a lack of a subscription extremelly flawed, to say the least.

Vayne.8563:

Test.8734:

Vayne.8563:

I have waaaaaaay more hours logged than you OP. But you know, I’m nuts. lol

I remember this:

Vayne.8563:

3335 Hours over the past 9 months.

Let me guess: around 11.850 hours by now?

10,154. Obviously, even though I’m often logged in, I’m not actively playing during all that time.

I’m surprised that so many people from that topic are still around.

Vayne.8563:

I have waaaaaaay more hours logged than you OP. But you know, I’m nuts. lol

I remember this:

Vayne.8563:

3335 Hours over the past 9 months.

Let me guess: around 11.850 hours by now?

Captain Unusual.9163:

And so I’d like to ask these people why they’re upset about it?

Isn’t it obvious? Egotistical people who have berserker gear don’t want any other set to be better than berserker in any circunstance, so they don’t feel like they need a new set of items in order to get “optimal” stats. The fact that they are expecting anyone who does not have berserker to do the very same thing they themselves do not want to do is lost on them, but that’s egotistical people for you.

MarkBecks.6453:

It might be an idea to reward people for their purchases according to your exciting headers and prospects of actually getting something decent.

The Black Lion Chests are a scam-like lottery system that proves how ArenaNet is willing to make something they know is bad for their players as long as it leads to better profits.

The honest approach would be to sell things in the Gem Store directly, like they do with outfits and some other things. But the Black Lion Chests have been designed to be as inconvenient as possible, so people are easily fooled into buying a lot of them only to realize that the great majority of time it will only lead to frustration.

Your best bet is to never buy them again, tell everyone you know to not buy them, and not buy gems until ArenaNet removes this system from the game store. If they are willing to frustrate you to make a profit, do they really deserve your money?

Celtic Lady.3729:

Well, everyone, every class is a warrior because they all kill and fight things, but no one seems bothered by only one class being singled out as a warrior.

Because the warriors are better suited to be warriors than every other profession (thus the “masters of weaponry” line at their description).

Just like most of our characters do eventually fight to defend something at some point of the personal storyline, but the Guardians get to be called Guardians because they have more tools to defend others, and are thus more fitting for the task of guarding than the other professions.

Is the dragon hunter (sorry, I’m not going to spell it in the silly way ArenaNet does) better suited to killing dragons than any other profession? Do they have anything that does more damage to dragons than to other enemies? Do they have any kind of specific ability that gives them an edge when hunting dragons as compared to the other professions?

No?

Then they don’t deserve the title of dragon hunters. It is, really, as simple as that.

Larynx.2453:

They literally said in the HoT trailer, as one of the main features of the expansions, that they’re adding “Challenging Group Content.” That’s the source.

You do realize, I hope, that as far as ArenaNet is concerned the wyvern fight we have seen in beta could be what they were talking about when they said “Challenging Group Content”, right?

People who are expecting the “Challenging Group Content” line to actually mean something important are just setting themselves for a massive disappointment.

Morfedel.4165:

The first thing to note is that the Revenant, clearly, isn’t finished.

Isn’t it interesting that the Revenant is in the exact same state it was in the previous beta, all that time ago? I wonder, did ArenaNet do any work at all on it? I can’t help but wonder if most of the team was busy trying to pick between Dragonhunter and DragonintsertWoWprofessionhere.

I think the Revenant is part of ArenaNet’s new model of “choices are too hard for our players, we need to give them as few as possible!”. Not only players don’t get to swap weapons, we also don’t get to swap utility skills outside of swapping legends (and even those are limited to two at any given time).

Which means, build diversity for the Revenant is incredibly, massively low.

And isn’t that the direction ArenaNet is going for? I wouldn’t be surprised if they just remove two thirds of the announced traits and just claim that each trait line will have only one trait per tier, because, you know, “choices” and all.

lolzertank.1928:

Can someone please explain the story or just tell me what is going on, a lot of cool parts of the personal story are gone for seemingly no reason.

ArenaNet butchered the storyline when they were atempting to fix it, so something that was already bad managed to become even worse. Now they say they are going to fix it, “soon” (whenever THAT means), and we have to hope that THIS time they will fix it, instead of (again) making it worse than it already was.

It’s very similar to the trait situation, TBH. They revamped traits to the horrible system we have today, and later said they will fix it (“soon”…?) for a much better system, assuming they don’t also fill the new system with a bunch of small cats.

I like the suggestions on the previous few posts, but I actually prefer Seeker to Inquisitor. Seeker has less of a religious connotation, while still being somewhat faith-based (when you remember the “seekers”, the group of people who crossed the Crystal Desert seeking ascension), and it also has links to the concept of someone who goes proactively hunt for the enemies instead of waiting for them to come.

IndigoSundown.5419:

In this day and age, companies generate huge revenues by selling to as large a group of people as possible. Increasingly, AAA MMO’s are games aimed at the mass of players.

Not true.

Increasingly, AAA MMOs are games aimed at the mass of grinders.

Because those are the players who it’s the easiest to make content for, while they’re also the players who play the most.

GW2 is embracing the grind with open arms, see how they gave people beta access.

Is that the mass of players? Nope, it’s just the same people who play other MMORPGs. GW2 is not changing the paradigm to get more players, if anything it’s more similar to other MMORPGs than the original Guild Wars.

Vayne.8563:

The bad points were if you weren’t going to put real thought into it, you weren’t going to be able to play the game properly.

That’s a very good description for chess, yet chess is FAR more popular than GW2 will ever be.

Vayne.8563:

It does my head in that people who think that system was the best thing since sliced bread can’t acknowledge that there were people who didn’t like it as much or even at all, and stopped playing because of it.

TBH, that’s irrelevant when worded they way you did. “People” stopped playing because of the GW1 skill system? Sure. “People” have stopped playing because of the GW2 skill system too. It’s very likely that “people” stopped playing GW2 because they wanted to play with a poney race, does that mean ArenaNet should add poneys before the tengu?

Saying “people” think something doesn’t really matter. You have no idea of how many people you are talking about, and you have no way of knowing. You don’t know how many people stopped playing the original GW because of its skill system, nor how many people have avoided playing GW2 because of its skill system.

(And really, the good old “the invisible people in my Guild who always happen to agree with me” argument is pure BS. You are statistically insignificant among the millions of GW1 players.)

Behellagh.1468:

I don’t play dungeons, or fractals, because of that prevailing attitude of the one true way to play but that does not negate the rest of the game.

Meanwhile, in the original Guild Wars you could play dungeons even if a few players had the attitude of “the one true way to play”, since you could solo almost 100% of them.

Just one more way in which the original was superior to the sequel, I guess. Too bad ArenaNet has designed content in such a way that people avoid playing in it, just like you avoid dungeons, just to not party with elitists.

Vayne.8563:

If you were going through a huge area in hard mode to get to a hard mode dungeon, you had to have a build to handle both the area and the dungeon.

It wasn’t called build wars for nothing.

That’s not why some people called it “build wars”.

Vayne.8563:

It’s much easier for me to find a casual group for a dungeon here taking a build I enjoy and find fun than it was to find a casual group for DOA or the Underworld. I can’t tell you about how many times I wanted to run one of those things without having to have the build of the week.

Here they tell you we want you in zerker armor. There they wanted to tell you every single skill and rune you needed to have. I never felt as free there to play as I want as I do here.

You could actually do pretty much the opposite, and solo the great majority of the content in the game (not to mention everything but less than a handful of end game areas), playing as whatever you wanted plus heroes.

Meanwhile, in GW2, you can… Play dungeons with people, or play dungeons with people. Who, more often than not, want to tell you how to play. The fact we don’t even have the option to solo already removes a massive amount of the freedom we had in the original GW; considering how much more toxic the GW2 community is (which is to be expected, given who GW2 is catering to), it’s actually far more likely you will find elitists when trying to join a low level dungeon in GW2 than if you were trying to join an endgame mission in the original GW.

lordkrall.7241:

And also: It is probably a very low priority right now and thus they haven’t finalized them yet.

Funny. I remember the videos we were shown before the GW2 release, with cutscenes between characters that looked ugly and boring (just two people talking to each other with a static background, and very poorly done emotes). It had a big “work in progress” tag, so, whenever someone complained about it, the usuals would come and say, “don’t complain, it’s not finished yet!!!!”.

And then release came, and those cutscenes were exactly the same, only without the “work in progress”, still ugly and boring.

You’re delluding yourself if you think it’s impossible for the exact thing to happen again.

It’s a pity many important artists who worked on the cutscenes – the real cutscenes, like the ones we get after character creation – have left ArenaNet. But then again, I’m sure they are at far greener pastures right now.

Kreejaffa.3682:

Once you start unlocking the mechanics of HoT, you would find there are many, many ways of moving around the map, and not just following the roads.

In other words, you gave up too fast.

If content is so boring that players like the OP give up before unlocking it, it’s not the players’ fault for giving too early; it’s the developer’s fault for not making the process enjoyable.

Honestly, this sounds like it goes completely against ArenaNet’s “the game is about having fun, not preparing to have fun”. If the expansion is only tolerable when you have unlocked half the masteries, the journey there is just a tedious, badly designed shore.

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

With HOT if they add 1 new skin for each weapon class that will be ridiculous

They will be adding less than 1 new skin for each weapon type. They will add only a handfull, with the rest coming “later” (the same “later” they said we would get kinds of legendary items other than weapons, years ago).

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

1 legendary every couple of years is a joke and if you need ideas and concept art why not go back to where you should’ve from day dot, GW1 has loads of great weapons that seem to have fallen from the gw story world

Those will be used eventually, but in the Gem Store – so players can get them through the scam-like lottery system of the Black Lion Chests.

Based on people who kept saying that ArenaNet has been working on a “secret project” since release, and who have been using that as an excuse for the low quality of the content we have received so far (“look, Season X was bad, but that’s because only a couple people worked in it and most of ArenaNet was focused on the Secret Project!!!!”), the expansion will be released tomorrow.

Based on people who think the expansion is a desperate move after the failures that were Seasons 1 and 2, with ArenaNet hurting for money and needing a quick grab right now, the expansion will be released between September and October.

Based on people who remember the wait between GW1 and GW2, and how ArenaNet’s “iterative process” often means restarting from scratch, the expansion will be released on late 2016.

Based on the former SWG players, the expansion will never be released, NCSoft will shut down ArenaNet before that happens.

Knighthonor.4061:

Bet Anet regrets the underwater combat system now as much as we do?

Definitely. I wish they would just remove underwater combat from the game, remove the enemies from underwater and just make those environments exploration-only. It would be no loss for the game, it would save work for ArenaNet since they would remove skills that aren’t fun using anyway, and they wouldn’t have to worry about underwater skills for the Revenant at all.

Saying GW2 has the best community among MMORPGs is like saying it’s the less stinky thing in a pile of garbage. It’s an interesting paradox that so many people play MMORPGs to solo content, until you stop to see the kind of player those games have been made to cater to.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nothing big, as I currently enjoy playing a MM in pvp I would like a nice red post confirming that minion and pet A.I. are being worked on for HoT, so ranger and necros can put more trust into their little zoo when facing other players.

I can confirm to you that minion and pet A.I. will NOT be significantly improved in HoT. This is something ArenaNet has been trying to fix for 10 years now, with little to no progress. If they had finally found a way to make it work, they would have told us so about a dozen times now.

zzBlurryzz.7492:

My list:
2x Incinerators
1x Sunrise
2x The Dreamer
1x Frenzy
1x Kamohoali’i Kotaki

I have a life.

lordkrall.7241:

And indeed, what is the point of doing a test if they team is not there? The team is not there on weekends, therefore the test is during a time when the team is there.

Beta Weekend Events say otherwise.

But wait, I have forgotten that in lordkrall’s land, the beta events that are not open for everyone are not, in fact, closed betas! I’m sure they are some weird branch of literature instead

TheFantasticGman.9451:

Test.8734:

All it’s accomplishing is killing variety.

That was the point. It’s a lot easier to balance if there’s a lot less variety.

The thing is, they already killed variety before – we have a lot less customization when compared to the original GW – so the game would be easier to balance.

Then ArenaNet had three years of next to no new skill or traits in order to balance the game.

And yet they still couldn’t accomplish that.

How long until ArenaNet says, “Hey guys! We can only balance the game if you have only 9 build options, one for each profession! So we will need to cut variety a slightly bit more but hey, look, it will be better balanced!”?

Diovid.9506:

The solution is already there (outside of PvP that is): Mix and match armor pieces and trinkets with different stats.

Considering the price of ascended armor, having multiple pieces with different stats is not something people are likely to do.

This is one of the many reasons why ArenaNet’s incoming model, of shifting choices from the player to the gear players have to grind for, is bad: it makes it even less likely that players will experiment with different stats, locking people even more in a given build.

The result is that we will have people pigholed even more into meta builds, and even less likely to try anything new.

All it’s accomplishing is killing variety. I hope ArenaNet is happy, though, since it will make grinding more important, and it appears hoT will be little more than a grinding cesspool.