Guild Wars 2

Yeah I don’t get it. I’ve rarely had a problem getting into zones with guild mates or friends, unless they’re full zones, in which case, yeah, they’re full.

Erllun.3278:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Dungeons aren’t really the main end game, most people don’t run them and Anet seems to have given up on improving them or releasing new ones :/

I’m sad to hear this… fractals is a good dungeon but is hard for me to get group to run it.
I’m really hoping they launch a new expansion and make better dungeons.
You said dungeons aren’t the main end game but I can’t find anything better to farm gold and everyone I know in the game says that dungeons is the way to go to get your stuffs quick, everyone do that except for when they release new content like this story stuff but it only entertain for 2-3 days then everyone is back to run dungeons again.
Maybe I’ve been out of the game for too longe and it’s not friendly for newcommers.
I see if I want to enjoy the game and keep playing I’ll have to adapt and do stuffs I don’t think is engaging.

Dungeons are a good way to farm gold but not every dungeon path is, nor is fractals. If your goal is farming gold, there are specific paths people do and those paths are easy to get into.

You run fractals for fractal weapon skins, ascended rings or a rare chance at a drop…or if you’re like me because you enjoy them. But they’re not great for farming gold. In the time I can get 1 gold from a fractal I can get 3-4 from easy dungeons.

PvP ladder season coming up might interest you, but no new modes have been added.

I think that would be a grave mistake. Plenty of new content for people who like the type of content being offered. And no more buggy than most MMOs I’ve played.

I don’t worry about the zerker meta either and I run dungeons with my guild quite frequently.

@ FalconDance

You’re making a few erroneous assumptions yourself and saying stuff that doesn’t make any sense within the context of Guild Wars 2 today.

First, I’m pretty sure I played more Guild Wars 1 than you did. Yes, I know Factions and Nightfall were stand alone games. And I know EoTN was the only expansion. And Guild Wars 2 has probably had more players already and all three original Guild Wars games ever had combined for a reason. Which isn’t really the purpose of this thread.

It’s a bit rich however to say that the living story is mostly temporary and completely instanced. While it’s true that there is an instanced aspect of the Living World, not all of it is (there are events in the world you have to complete to do some of it) where is in Guild Wars 1 the entire game was instanced. All of it.

As for temporary, the last temporary Living World content we had was back in March. Since the second Season started there is NO temporary events. They’re all permanent.

It’s obviously like like one game better than the other. I like both Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, but Guild Wars had a huge number of problems from the perspective of being anything more than a niche game. It was too complicated for a lot of people, it was too dependent on builds, heroes basically turned the game into a single player game for 9% of it.

It had no trading post, no open world at all, and I could AFK even in hard mode virtually anywhere in the world and my heroes could keep me safe while I had dinner.

Guild Wars 1 was pathed. If my ranger came upon a log in the woods he’d have to turn around because apparently rangers can’t jump over logs.

Since you gave up trying to follow the living story before it started to hit it’s stride, I don’t know why you think you’re qualified to comment on it.

I think you’ll find pre-Nightmare Tower the Living Story had less support and during and after that it grew in popularity.

Again, the new content is all permanent. New zones have been introduced. And I don’t really believe the playerbase is decreasing, at least not nearly as fast as most 2 year old games without an expansion.

This game is still one of the most popular MMORPGs on the market. You’ve got WoW, which nothing can touch and then a group of probably three or four games that are pretty much the next tier of success. Guild Wars 2 is one of them.

Sogradde.8016:

Vayne.8563:

Sogradde.8016:

Vayne.8563:

So the 200 people in my guild interested in PvE aren’t going to be happy about it? Gotcha. Oh, I forgot, PvE is only dungeons.

/rolls eyes

So you asked all 200 of them personally? Don’t speak for everyone Vayne, gosh!

I didn’t ask all of them personally. We don’t just randomly invite anyone to the guild. We don’t have an open application. We don’t recruit in Lion’s Arch and at some point, I’ve talked to every single member of the Guild about Guild Wars 2.

There are a handful of people who are unhappy, including one who posts on the forums. There are also a whole bunch of people who are VERY happy.

Everyone has some complaint about the game, whether it’s not being able to skip cut scenes in stories, or too many badges they need to get the stuff they want, or they didn’t like a specific episode of the Living Story.

But a hundred people in my guild log in every single week and play, most of us happily.

I’m not sure why it would surprise you that people who join a specific type of guild like a specific type of content and so would generally as a rule be happy or unhappy. For example, we’re not a guild filled with dungeon runners and the PvPers in the guild (such as we are) are mega casual.

The stuff they like is very similar to the stuff I like so why would they be happy?

Well you implied every single one of your 200 guildies would be happy, didn’t you? If you did not ask every single one of them, how can you know? Are you speaking for them Vayne? Are you the hivemind?

#StopSpeakingForMeVayne

I know how much you like arguing semantics.

As I said, at some point, I’ve spoken to every single one of those 200 people. The active guild, the guild that logs in, I speak to quite frequently. Those 100 people are the core guild and they’re happy.

The other people are relatives, people in other guilds who just do guild missions with us. But you know the whole pick on Vayne thing is very cute. It doesn’t make your arguments any stronger.

A lot of people probably don’t like the game and a lot of people do.

I’m sure it’s very hard to accept that if you close your mind to it though.

FalconDance.1637:

The market Anet is aiming for is the ones who have not only expendable cash but the desire to spend that cash to obtain ‘stuff’. Anet has shown they really are not targeting their original, steady player base. They are courting the MMO hoppers who go from game to game. And it seems to be working for them.

I have not played, seriously played, this game in over a year. Why? Because Anet seems to have lost whatever plan they had to actually improve the game.

But that’s a whole different conversation.

Many players – not me – have clamored since release for better PvP and WvW. And the mechanics, as I understand, are available to activate. Why doesn’t Anet improve their PvP/WvW gameplay to allow that core of players to enjoy the game more?

Many players – definitely me – have clamored since release for better PvE. Not dumbed down. No huge piles of loot at the end of every quest. But interesting, working quests that allow us to enjoy the beautiful world the artists have drawn us while we ‘save’ the various NPCs from terrible troubles or work through our personal stories.

Instead we get more and more ‘living’ content – which I understand, really I do, as a way to breath life into the game – that may/may not be bug-ridden and may/may not be available to players without ponying up real life funds.

So, while I am a veteran-since-release of GW1 and a beta-tester and original purchaser of GW2, I am still expected to buy into a game in order to play it. Not for pretty new skins or for cool mounts or any other non-essential material. But to actually play the game.

How is that, in itself, not deliberately trying to reduce its player base?

Because you’re only looking at it from your point of view. And I’m sure there are a demographic of players who share your point of view, but I believe those players are a minority.

The amount of players who think deeply about their gaming experience is probably quite small. A lot of people log in, kill a few things, do a bit of crafting, gathering, do a daily and go to bed to get up for work the next day. They don’t really have the time or energy to play the hours it takes to get great at a game or work through raids.

These are people who do this as a hobby. People spend money on their hobbies.

A better question is when did you last buy a movie that kept coming out with more parts that you didn’t have to pay for.

You seem to think all content should be free forever. But that’s not really how the world works at all. Even in Guild Wars 1, though there was a bit of free content from time to time, you paid for expansions.

In WoW, you not only pay a monthly fee, you pay a monthly fee, pay for expansions, you still play twenty bucks to transfer a server or for a name change AND there’s a cash shop.

Anet once has 50 people working there. Now they have at least six times that amount. Box sales alone aren’t going to cut it.

If you want to play the content, be happy to pay for it. And keep in mind had you actually just logged in, even if you didn’t play, it would have unlocked for free, which most of us did.

hydeaut.1758:

A lot of speculation in this topic is based on what we heard about the number of people working on LS (around 20?) and the number of all Anet-employees (around 300?) which leads to conclusions like: the rest of 280 people must also work on something.

What´s probably wrong in this conclusion is the definition of LS and LS-team: I´m quite sure that number of 20 people was not ment to include those people working on the Drytop- and SW-maps and all the events, new mobs and other things coming with them (“it takes 1 year for a new map”).

I wouldn´t be surprised if Drytop and SW were the “big projects in the background”.

Why do you think it takes a year to make a new map?

Edit: Guild Wars 2 had 25 maps at launch (I believe) which they made in five years. During that time, they were obviously also working on races, character creation, dungeons, and a bunch of other stuff.

I doubt very much it takes a year to make most maps.

It’s only worth paying if you are either a story nut or an achievement point nut. Beyond that it’s probably not. But I like it.

It’s quite a lot of free content that’s released quite often that you get for free as long as you log in. It’s not unreasonable to consider it a kind of DLC content that most of us get for free.

There have been a couple of threads about charging for the stories and very very few people seem perturbed by it. Most of the people posting in those threads seem to think it’s not that bad. It’s a couple of dollars for an episode.

Also, if you like the story but you don’t care about achievements, anyone who’s unlocked them can take you in for free so you can see the story. You only really have to buy it if you want the achievements.

HiddenNick.7206:

Vayne.8563:

If you look at the OP all he was really asking about are people playing right now.

I looked: “Just curious as to the state of the game, and if it is still active enough to justify coming back.”

So he is asking about the state of the game too…

This is his full quote “Just curious as to the state of the game, and if it is still active enough to justify coming back. If you go on the WoW forums the way they put down GW you would think that its a dead wasteland so I just had to make sure.”

What makes you think he was asking for a critique on the game and not just a player count. He made it quite clear he heard the game was dead and he wanted to make sure it wasn’t before giving it a try.

You simply assume that he meant something else by it. At any rate, if you stop bringing up my name, you won’t have to deal with me answering you. Particularly because most of what you’ve said about me was wrong anyway.

rapthorne.7345:

what the actual kitten is going on, Vayne actually has something critical to say, instead of spewing utterly blind brand loyalty?

The apocalypse is nigh.

If you bothered paying attention to what Vayne actually says (instead of what you assume he says), you might learn otherwise.

I say positive and negative stuff. In fact, I usually don’t say positive stuff. I just defend against stuff I consider to be unfair or overstated or exaagerated.

But I’ve said a few negative things too, even recently.

I didn’t even know Anet had cows.

On a more serious note, I certainly wouldn’t be averse to an expansion, but I wouldn’t want one at the expense of the Living Story which I like.

Anet is trying to appeal to a core player base who likes the game they’re making. They probably care a bit less about people who want to play a different game. For example, some people like the idea of open world PvP but it was never meant to be in this game.

It’s not that Anet isn’t sorry to see players go. They simply don’t want to lose the other players to keep those players.

If you lose the people who don’t fit your game, and keep the people who like it, adding a few here and there along the way who feel the same way, you should do decent business.

It’s when you try to appeal to everyone that you end up suffering.

Holy crow. I’m a litmus test! How…odd.

Sogradde.8016:

Vayne.8563:

So the 200 people in my guild interested in PvE aren’t going to be happy about it? Gotcha. Oh, I forgot, PvE is only dungeons.

/rolls eyes

So you asked all 200 of them personally? Don’t speak for everyone Vayne, gosh!

I didn’t ask all of them personally. We don’t just randomly invite anyone to the guild. We don’t have an open application. We don’t recruit in Lion’s Arch and at some point, I’ve talked to every single member of the Guild about Guild Wars 2.

There are a handful of people who are unhappy, including one who posts on the forums. There are also a whole bunch of people who are VERY happy.

Everyone has some complaint about the game, whether it’s not being able to skip cut scenes in stories, or too many badges they need to get the stuff they want, or they didn’t like a specific episode of the Living Story.

But a hundred people in my guild log in every single week and play, most of us happily.

I’m not sure why it would surprise you that people who join a specific type of guild like a specific type of content and so would generally as a rule be happy or unhappy. For example, we’re not a guild filled with dungeon runners and the PvPers in the guild (such as we are) are mega casual.

The stuff they like is very similar to the stuff I like so why would they be happy?

HiddenNick.7206:

My post WAS negative. As I’m negative about the game. As you are positive about it. There is no reason to claim otherwise. There is no shame in it. What I was trying to say is that I’m not talking for someone else.

PS. I’m not a fairy to predict the exact future but still… I was pretty close… I just didn’t know that you are trying to be the judge now. It’s a change since you ware always so white knightly.

PS2. And if Nightmare Tower was a dungeon then I’m a Jon Snow.

If you look at the OP all he was really asking about are people playing right now. The answer is a resounding yes. Either you’re not logging in at all, so you wouldn’t know, or you are logging in, so you would.

Trying to sell a guy off the game because you don’t like it isn’t really all that helpful, and it has nothing even to do with the question he asked.

The real answer (given by others so I didn’t) is that there are plenty of people playing this game).

What I didn’t do was come here and rave about the game. What makes you think posting your negativity was appropriate for the thread?

OP, there are still lots and lots of people playing.

HiddenNick.7206:

Vayne.8563:

Your post was simply negative. One of us is displaying bias, one of us is not.

Dude… I said: “probably”! If I would change my post my post like this:

“Exactly what the Hexicz said. If you’re interested in PvE then you probably can be happy about it… There is a lot of new stuff flowing into the game. But take note that it’s either short and without any replay-ability or it’s just a huge grind for skins.”

Would you be more happy?

And being bothered only by negative posts can also be seen as displaying bias…

Edit:

Vayne.8563:

Oh, I forgot, PvE is only dungeons.

Why do you assume that the content I enjoy the most are dungeons? If I would have to name the content I enjoyed the most in gw2 then it would be:
1. Revamped Tequatl
2. Nightmare Tower
3. Guild Challenges
Do you see any dungeons there? The problem is that I’m bored with pointless grind(I stopped caring about the skins since my character already have a huge pile of them) and the lame story instances(I would rather read about the story then play those instances). And I really don’t expect some gear grinding just some other reason to play then just collecting skins.

I’d certainly call the Nightmare Tower a dungeon. Anyway, there’s no way you can say your post wasn’t more negative than my post which was neutral. You started the argument by trying to pre-empt what I was going to say. Don’t act all coy now, after you fired the first shot.

I’m sure if the OP wants he can look at your post history (as he can look at mine) and see what you’re about.

But if you don’t want to get burned you stay out of the kitchen. Stop bringing up my name in posts for absolutely no reasons and you won’t have to deal with this kind of thing.

The first part of that scene before combat starts isn’t just a convo. It’s more than that. You have to talk to X person, plant a seed, listen to a convo talk to a person, watch that cutscene, watch another cut scene later when you get to the third switch.

And you have to actually log out if you want to stop in the middle, because there’s no way to exit it. There’s a pretty big thread on reddit like this was a whole bunch of upvotes. I can’t be the only one tired of hearing the same conversation over and over.

Astralporing.1957:

Galen Grey.4709:

Astralporing.1957:

also they mentioned “Big background projects” numerous times, but we don’t know what they meant

My bet is on the twice-a-year feature packs.

You loose your bet sorry

In this interview its clearly outlined that the feature packs and big background projects are sperate things:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

“Not really. ArenaNet is full tilt with the Chinese launch of Guild Wars 2, the Season One finale, the feature-build update and the two big background projects.”

What ever those big background projects are they’re definitely not Living story, A chinese release or a feature patch.

More precisely they were not a Season one Living Story, a chinese release, and the April feature pack. Those two projects could have been the September feature pack and season two of LS.

Vayne.8563:

I’m far far from naive and I see it as a business making a business decision based on circumstance. It happens in business all the time.

It was still a lie. They might have admitted that they decided to change the design. Instead they preferred to insist that the game did not work as it was supposed to.

The game didn’t work as it was supposed to. It didn’t hold players. I hope no one ever tries to apply to you the same standards of honesty you’re trying to apply to Anet.

You have a business, you make an unpopular change, people are human they try to justify stuff. That’s what being human is. That’s how I saw it.

People were freaking, people were trying to explain, interviews happened and people panicked.

I’m sure you’d like to think it was some kind of devious plot, some kind of lie, but reality is a very hazy thing. Eight people can remember the same event completely differently. A dev might not even remember an interview he gave a year earlier.

Fans pour over dev’s every word. They don’t do that themselves.

This is precisely why Anet won’t say anything. Exactly because of this. If people would stop being so liberal with their use of words like lie, Anet might be able to talk to us.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

Now when the game launched that was true. The situation changed when they saw people getting exotic gear and leaving the game. So were they dishonest, or did they change their mind. There is such a huge difference in this.

Years ago, due to doctors advice, everyone gave up butter to eat margerine. The doctors believed at the time that it was healtier. Now they tell you margerine is a killer and you’re better off with butter. Did the doctors lie? Were they dishonest.

The first paragraph says “we believe” and I’m sure when they said that that’s exactly what they did believe.

Only the least forgiving person could call that a lie, unless you have proof that when they said it they didn’t believe it. Things change in my life all the time and I make statements based on now. I’m not lying if the situation changes.

Only the most naive person would pretend it’s anything other than a lie. There’s simply no amount of spin that reconciles “we expect X” and “we never expected X”. into anything other than a lie. If they’d said “we expect X” and “we now believe not-X is best for the game” it wouldn’t have been a lie. But that’s not what was said.

I’m far far from naive and I see it as a business making a business decision based on circumstance. It happens in business all the time.

The cut scenes within are not skippable. Watching Caithe and Faolain say the same things over and over again gets irritating. It’s not necessary. I know the conversation already.

I’d love to do some of the living story achievements, but watching the same unskippable cut scene over and over while I try to do it and then if I fail not being able to exit and having to log out and in again is wearing quite thin.

It seems like it’s a relatively large oversight, because if it bores a guy like me who loves story, imagine what it does to most gamers.

Yes, anyone can take a line out of context and make it sounds like it means something it doesn’t. The manifesto line “we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2, no one finds it fun” is one such line.

Because the paragraph starts and ends on combat, anyone with a relatively basic understanding of the language should know that Anet is talking about combat.

See, in the old days, grinding was a very specific thing and to old MMO players grinding is still that thing. Killing mobs to level. That’s what Anet is talking about in that passage. I swung a sword, I swung it again, I swung it again….we want to change the way people view COMBAT.

There’s no mention of gear or progression in that statement at all. In a lot of games, even games that have come out recently, you have to grind to level. Anet wanted to give people a different leveling experience, so some people do events, some do world completely, some craft and pretty much everything gives you experience. Now even if you PvP you can gain levels. That’s what Colin was talking about.

How do I know? Because he spoke about it quite frequently back then at conventions and that’s what he said. Anyone who wants to twist it’s meaning to mean something else is doing just that. Twisting the original meaning. Which is why it’s dangerous to take phrases out of context years after something is said. None of the surround conversation gets heard.

This is the first setences of the Wikipedia definition of grind as it applies to video games:

Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games.¹² The most common usage is in the context of MMORPGs like Realm of the Mad God, Tibia, or Lineage ³ in which it is often necessary for a character to repeatedly kill AI-controlled monsters, using basically the same strategy over and over again to advance their character level to be able to access newer content.

This was the concept most old timers were aware of. The combination of the quote itself, the context that’s missing and the conversation and answers around at that time, definitely from Anet tell us what we need to know about how that was used.

No matter how people try to twist it.

HiddenNick.7206:

Vayne.8563:

HiddenNick.7206:

Exactly what the Hexicz said. If you’re interested in PvE then you probably are not going to be happy about it… It’s not that there is no new content. Just the opposite. There is a lot of new stuff flowing into the game. But it’s either to short and without any replay-ability or it’s just a huge grind for skins.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Just wanted to add that in a few hours Vayne is going to post here something about how fun the game is…

Edit: to late…

So the 200 people in my guild interested in PvE aren’t going to be happy about it? Gotcha. Oh, I forgot, PvE is only dungeons.

/rolls eyes

I wrote: “you probably are not going to be happy about it”.

And it means that there are people like your guild mates. But it also means that all of the people that I know personally and who bought the game stopped playing. As many others that I met in the game. Most of them because they couldn’t find anything worth doing.

Do you know the OP personally that you can tell from his OP say why he left or what he looks for in a game? When you apply personal prejudice to everyone, it’s called projecting.

If you notice, my own quote wasn’t that this is a great game, like you implied I’d say. I said nothing like it. All I said was if you liked it before you’ll probably like it now, if you didn’t you probably won’t.

This way I’m not pushing my personal likes an dislikes on someone else. You’re claiming I’m a fan boy but my post wasn’t a rave review of the game and I didn’t say how great it was.

Your post was simply negative. One of us is displaying bias, one of us is not.

You don’t need to view invisible bags. They’re not invisible to you. Just to merchants. If you don’t know what one is, you probably don’t have one. You’d most likely only ever get one by crafting or from the trading post.

HiddenNick.7206:

Exactly what the Hexicz said. If you’re interested in PvE then you probably are not going to be happy about it… It’s not that there is no new content. Just the opposite. There is a lot of new stuff flowing into the game. But it’s either to short and without any replay-ability or it’s just a huge grind for skins.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Just wanted to add that in a few hours Vayne is going to post here something about how fun the game is…

Edit: to late…

So the 200 people in my guild interested in PvE aren’t going to be happy about it? Gotcha. Oh, I forgot, PvE is only dungeons.

/rolls eyes

The game is fine. If you liked it before you should like it now. If you didn’t, you probably won’t.

If they have no price looking at them, they can’t be merchanted. If they’re in an “invisbile bag” then you’d have to move them to another bag to sell them.

Invisible bags exist so you don’t accidentally sell the important stuff to a merchant.

@Filaha

There’s a story being told here and you sound like you’re coming in in the middle of it. I don’t know what MMOs you’ve played in the past (not Guild Wars 1 which is not an MMO), but the traditional MMO end game funneled you into very specific activities to progress. That was it.

Though you could return to early zones, in most MMOs, things wouldn’t even attack you. You’d get no experience and no drops at your level at all. So in Guild Wars 2, you can stay in say Queensdale if that’s what you like, play for a really long time, and end up, eventually with enough gold to buy cool skins off the auction house.

I don’t grind. I don’t like grinding. I don’t have fun grinding. So I don’t do it. But I do have four legendaries. And I didn’t grind for any of them. They just took a long time.

So I did have to do 9 dungeon runs of a specific dungeon…but I could do them when I felt like them. When the guild was doing them. Doing a dungeon once a month to get a few tokens for a legendary may be grind to you, but you know, I run dungeons even when I’m not getting a legendary.

You used to have to grind WvW badges, but now they come in achievement point chests, which I get anyway.

The T6 mats drop in game, tier 5 mates can be upgraded or they can be bought on the trading post. The thing is…if you want it fast you can grind, or you can just play until you have either enough mats or enough money.

You can even do the world boss train and get the ectos you need, and then keep doing it to sell the extra ectos to fund the rest of the mats. But here’s the thing.

Traditionally grinding meant running the same content over and over. That is, you killed a boss repeatedly or killed mobs repeatedly.

Here you can do a lot of different things for mats, for gold, and yes some are more efficient than others, but everything works toward it. So one guy can pull out a credit card and one guy can farm iron and softwood in a low level zone and another guy can run around EotM.

If you want to call that grind, be my guest, but I don’t think most people would agree with you.

Yes, there’s an option in options.

Filaha.1678:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Filaha.1678:

Beldin.5498:

You don’t need a legendary or asended stuff or expensive
skins to play any of the content.

You don’t need ascended gear to do the fractals?

Technically 2 infused rings with agony infusions are sufficient

Those are ascended. And still require “grinding” to either buy them or get useful ones as drops. I still have not gotten a useful (read as: applicable to any of my characters’ builds) ascended ring from a drop out of the dozen or so that I’ve acquired. And then more “grinding” to get the items to infuse them and then the infusions themselves.

cranos.5913:

Lemme ask you this, what “endgame” that is not grinding would keep people playing after 2 years of the same content?

That’s why you would make new content within 2 years.

Ascended rings don’t require grinding, if you buy them from a laurel vendor, unless you’re going to start calling dailies grind now. Pretty sure you can get them with guild commendations too. Even if you can’t, you can get ascended earrings from guild missions.

Filaha.1678:

Vayne.8563:

It’s funny how when you don’t like a game

Nobody ever said I don’t like Guild Wars 2, least of all me. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t be here.

I just disagree with Anet’s policies and apparent lack of effort in many sections of the game.

And that’s all I’ll be saying to you. Good day.

So you like the game but you don’t like what Anet does to keep the game running. So noted.

Because reading the list of your posts, they read like one big complaint fest recently. I don’t think anyone reading your posts would think you like the game, but I think many reading your posts would see you as someone who is constantly attacking the game. Not in a constructive way either. For example, in this thread, your post isn’t really constructive, whether Anet said that years ago or they didn’t.

Filaha.1678:

@people saying all MMOs are grinding:

Not all MMOs say the following, though:

So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill

Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward.

We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun.

That’s the best part though. Guild Wars 2 DOESN"T suck your life away forcing you into a grinding treadmill. Because in every single other themepark MMO I’ve played, every single one, paths to get ANYTHING were remarkably limited.

But in Guild Wars 2….you don’t need top tier gear to play the game and that makes a huge difference. Unless you want to do the highest tier fractals, which were designed for people who like to grind and enjoyed that play style, you can do everything in this game in exotics. Which doesn’t require grind.

It’s funny how when you don’t like a game, you’ll pull up old quotes to try to say that there’s something wrong with it. However, there was also an old quote by Eric Flannum talking about Guild Wars 2 having stuff to grind for for people who enjoy that play style.

Shakkara.2641:

Not all MMOs are grinding…

• Ultima Online before AOS
• EVE Online
• Archeage
• A Tale in the Desert
• Wurm Online
• Second Life

And any other sandbox game. Because sandbox games either will pit you against other players, so the endgame is to kill other players and conquer their open-world territory, or it is to do social engineering and become well-known and well-liked amongst other players, or it is to express yourself by creating the most awesome new constructions and content.

I would love to have sandbox features in Guild Wars 2. I kinda expected it to have that, and was very disappointed to find another grindy themepark game. I’ve been having a lot more fun with Archeage these past few months, but unfortunately that game has many bugs.

Okay all theme park MMOs are grind then. Silly comments considering it’s a completely different type of game and, for many, just a repetitive.

Grind exists for one reason. No group of developers can create content as fast as we can consume it. They put years working on Guild Wars 2, five years at least, and people had 80th level characters and a week and exhausted all the content in a couple of months. That’s because there was very very little grind at launch compared to now.

The thing is, without that grind, there was nothing left for people to do. Anet isn’t going to be able to make content fast enough, so they have to use artificial methods to slow things down like RNG and time gating.

Other MMOs lock out raids so you can only do one a week, use RNG on drops, but those raids are the only place to get that gear. Since I have no interest in raiding I have no interest in most MMOs.

Here I get to do what I want, and even if it’s not the most profitable thing, it usually eeks me towards what I want to get. I’m just patient enough not to grind it.

Astralporing.1957:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

My favorite complaint about this game is when people bring up the “everything they loved about Guild Wars 1” line, because we knew a LOT of GW 1 stuff wouldn’t be making an appearance long before launch, including second professions, huge numbers of skills, instanced areas, and heroes. We knew it. To go and take that line literally after knowing that feels a lot like wishful thinking to me. I knew it wasn’t going to be the same game.

There are loads of reasonable complaints about that line too, just to name a few: no gear progression, weapon dyeing, alliance system, Guild halls/GvG , elite endgame zones , progressing title system. When they released the manifesto, we didn’t know for sure if these thing will be still present, and not all of us actively followed the next two year’s development. I can understand why some ppl got kittened up by this line.

No, Vayne has a point here. That line alone didn’t promise that any single part of design from GW1 would make it into gw2. It was never more that a general statement for GW1 players that GW2 will be a game for them.

Remember, where that statement came from. A game that was originally meant to be nothing more (and nothing less) than an upgraded Guild Wars, targeted primarily for original GW players, evolved into something created for a much bigger crowd, where, due to lot of changes, gw1 veterans were marginalized in design decisions. That statement was Anet’s way of reassuring those vets that the core ideals of their old game (that doesn’t mean specific mechanics) will still be followed. That in GW2 they would still feel at home.

I still think that this statement tuned out to be at least a bit untrue, but it’s entirely possible (in fact, it’s quite probable) that the devs really meant what they said. They may have been not fully correct here, but it doesn’t mean they were being consciously dishonest.

Well that’s my point. I’ve always said that line turned out not to be true. I’ve also said that it’s not necessarily dishonesty behind the words.

HiddenNick.7206:

YouWillLearn.9531:

Around a year ago, or so, my real life friends, and I quit playing Gw2. Now, as life settles and we all have free time. We have decided to come back and play. After reading the well angered forums, and the not so many updates. Is it worth it? You players out there that have been playing since I’ve quit. Should I come in, or just walk past?

Try it! It’s free! But you won’t stay here for long. I’m sure that the reasons why you left are still present in the game.

Actually the reason he left was no time in real life. He said he’d be said if it was dead because it’s such a good game.

It’s nice that you personally don’t like the game, but don’t assume that everyone who’s taken a break, even a long break doesn’t.

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

My favorite complaint about this game is when people bring up the “everything they loved about Guild Wars 1” line, because we knew a LOT of GW 1 stuff wouldn’t be making an appearance long before launch, including second professions, huge numbers of skills, instanced areas, and heroes. We knew it. To go and take that line literally after knowing that feels a lot like wishful thinking to me. I knew it wasn’t going to be the same game.

There are loads of reasonable complaints about that line too, just to name a few: no gear progression, weapon dyeing, alliance system, Guild halls/GvG , elite endgame zones , progressing title system. When they released the manifesto, we didn’t know for sure if these thing will be still present, and not all of us actively followed the next two year’s development. I can understand why some ppl got kittened up by this line.

Well that’s funny. Do we in fact have a gear treadmill or did they add one single tier of gear when they found out that peoiple playing the game left after they were geared up (which was what happened). If you think it’s reasonable to complain about something that Anet felt they had to change, go right ahead.

Guild Halls were never supposed to be in at release and Anet said so. They gave no date or time. The closest information we got was from Martin Kerstein on guru who talked about housing and said they’d probably be introduced with Guild Halls in some type of expansion. Yes, he said that. Anyone following the game knew GvG wouldn’t be included before launch because I did. Arguably there is a progressing title system in as far as achievements go. You get a new title every 5000 achievement points.

The question isn’t whether you can find a handful of complaints. The question is, knowing in advance that there were numerous changes from one to the next, why assume anything is going to be there.

This is a case of people seeing what they want to see.

Edit: To be clear, I’m not saying there aren’t faults to the game. I’m not saying that people should or shouldn’t like it. I’m saying that calling a company dishonest is a bit rich from the amount of evidence we have.

Ashen.2907:

Changing their minds is not what made for it being a lie. Claiming that they never expected for something that they previously said that they did expect did.

1) We intend X
2) We have changed our mind and no longer expect X

Is very different from:

1) We expect X
2) We never expected X

Fortunately for Anet out of literally thousands of statements made, only a handful turned out to be questionable.

Why not apply that same standard to your family, work colleagues and friends. See how that works for you.

People have to dig through countless pages to find a handful of things. You might find or or two things you can question.

I should be so honest.

I agree with the OP, though I don’t mind crafting myself. I think there should be more ways to get ascended gear.

I enjoyed Season 1 more but I’d have burned out on the pace. I didn’t like having to get achievements by X date or lose them forever. Particularly when there were unique rewards involved you couldn’t get after.

DigitalKirin.9714:

How do you feel about half-dragon half-elf vampires?

Vampires in any form suck. After all, that’s how they eat. lol

I hate elves. I really hate them. I didn’t hate them when I played D&D or played Lotro because they belonged there. But I hate the idea that every fantasy thinks they have to have it. I hate elves for the same reason I’m lukewarm on vampires.

They’ve been done to death.

For that matter I’m not that big on dragons either.

Astralporing.1957:

Scipio.3204:

also they mentioned “Big background projects” numerous times, but we don’t know what they meant

My bet is on the twice-a-year feature packs.

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

I’ll give you a better example.

“We think everyone, including casual players, should have the best gear by the time they hit level 80.” vs “We didn’t expect players to get the best gear so quickly.”

There are other, equally egregious examples, but I think the point is made.

Now when the game launched that was true. The situation changed when they saw people getting exotic gear and leaving the game. So were they dishonest, or did they change their mind. There is such a huge difference in this.

Yes, there’s a big difference. Unfortunately, the wording suggests that they didn’t change their mind – that they expected that the game would not follow their previously stated designs for it. First statemet is in the present, but second is about the past.

Vayne.8563:

The first paragraph says “we believe” and I’m sure when they said that that’s exactly what they did believe.

Then there are only two possibilities. Either they designed the game based on this belief (in which case they should not have been suprised that it does, indeed, follow the design well), or they didn’t design the game based on their statements, in which case those statements were dishonest.

Vayne.8563:

Things change in my life all the time and I make statements based on now. I’m not lying if the situation changes.

And there lies the problem. One o those statements wasn’t based on “now”, but on the past.

The problem is that people take what is a handful of lines and they completely ignore all the lines that completely disprove what they’re saying.

My favorite complaint about this game is when people bring up the “everything they loved about Guild Wars 1” line, because we knew a LOT of GW 1 stuff wouldn’t be making an appearance long before launch, including second professions, huge numbers of skills, instanced areas, and heroes. We knew it. To go and take that line literally after knowing that feels a lot like wishful thinking to me. I knew it wasn’t going to be the same game.

But anyone who plays any MMO and doesn’t expect stuff to change as it grows and as the devs learn, well I’m not sure what to tell them.

Sure, things change when you see the reaction of the audience. Most recently it was the commander tag fiasco and the NPE unlocks for skills, both of which were changed.

It’s funny because changes that people want aren’t called lies. No one, no one person, posted on this forum to say Anet lied when they said that the elite skill wouldn’t unlock until level 40.

So why is it a lie when Anet sees people leaving the game and makes a change in the best interest of the game from their point of view.

You may or may not like the decision, but that doesn’t make it dishonest or a lie.

Xenon.4537:

You know, this argument is way off topic and only serves to further add to the toxicity of these forums you mentioned… OP got his answer a long time ago: check out the game yourself and decide. Don’t read too much forum propaganda. By now the thread is only giving OP more reasons to run away from this community.

I’m not sure I agree.

The OP himself complained the negativity on the forums was making him ask himself whether he comes back. So if that negativity is unfair somehow, then it’s definite on topic.

I’m not even sure why you’d think it’s off topic.

I could argue that allowing only one path a day means that people come in and run dungeons on more days. Some people will leave. That’s true.

But there are tons of people who burn through what they want to get what they want and leave anyway. My sons were like that. Got their legendary and left. Came back made ascended armor and left.

So for those people, if they could have made it faster they would have left sooner.

In the end, all most MMOs become is a list of things to do. Almost every MMO finds out sooner or later that something has to be gated. Other games lock out raids so you can only do them once a week and so you have to wait to get stuff.

Some people will leave. But not as many as you think and many more will stay because they have “something to work on”.

Nope but if it’s enough to cause lag the server should cull them automatically.

I expected Guild Wars 2 to be more immersive. I quickly realized it wasn’t the game I wanted in a perfect world. It’s still better for my purposes than any other MMO out there.

I think the reason for that is that it’s organic. Things seem to grow out of each other. As I’m moving through an area, stuff happens whether I’m there or not. Raids happen on farmsteads. Ogre’s are attacked. And if I show up in time I can pitch in and help.

I’ve tried to go back to the traditional questing system with quest hubs and reading text and I just can’t do it. This game has ruined that for me.

I also can’t stand and cast anymore, I need more dynamic combat. I did fall in love with jumping puzzles.

However, the game still doesn’t tick my biggest box (and never has) which is immersion. The difference I guess between me and lots of people is that once I saw what the game was, I decided to take it at face value. That is to say, I played for the stuff I liked.

One day an MMORPG might come out that’s more immersive, and when it does, I’ll probably end up there. But so far, no one has even come close.

Filaha.1678:

Flitzie.6082:

Edit2:
OOOOOoooooo (-Quaggan)
I forgot something very important!
The No pay-to-win system. Thats another (100/10) for GW2 right there.
Anything thats even remotely pay-to-win is a game not worth looking at for me.
It’s sad that many current MMOs that go f2p feel forced to go p2w with it. Ironic, isnt it?

But GW2 is pay to win.

I mean, considering that the only way to “win” in GW2 is to have those shinier skins since there’s no such thing as progression, it makes it far easier, faster, and less of a grind to just drop some money on gems and transfer them to gold to buy what you need.

Want a legendary? Sure, you could spend days, weeks, or months and wasting gold trying to randomly get a precursor and then spend the time it takes to get all the other things, or just drop some money and buy it off the TP. Want ascended gear? You could go and grind out all the mats, or you could just drop some money and buy the mats!

That’s a clear advantage that people who pay money have over people who don’t.

Why, what did you think pay to win meant?

I always enjoy when people change existing definitions to fuel their own prejudice. Pay to Win has a definition already. Pay to look good isn’t pay to win by any traditional definition. If you’re going to change the definition why use the same words?