Guild Wars 2

Destai.9603:

Xar.6185:

They really should just sticky a thread about

• Mounts
• Duels
• Cantha
• Elona
• New Race
• New Class
• New Legendarys
• Precursors (Crafting & Scavenger Hunt)
• Guild Vs Guild
• Guild Halls
• Player Housing

After that just merge all the threads that pop up about those topics into the corresponding one or delete the new thread while giving the “A discussion already exists about <InsertTopicHere> post your thoughts / concerns here <ProvideLink>”

A few of those were promised shortly after launch and have all be forgotten about. Mounts and duels are standard for the genre, with duels being great for practice. You could even have those in the non-existent Guild Halls! As for Cantha, Elona – yes, some of us actually to explore more of Tyria than one tiny corridor of a zone.

Maybe they could give us an update on these things.

Which few. I know about precursor crafting. I don’t remember anything else being promised, even though a few things have been mentioned as stuff they’d eventually like to do.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The better question would be:

Why does anyone play a necro? No mobility, lowest DPS of all classes, no active defenses, and very little group support. The only situation where a necro doesn’t objectively make your group worse is 3-headed wurm for the trash.

Very survivable in spite of the low armor. You mention the lowest armor, but you neglect the highest health, equal health pool to the warrior. Then there’s the death shroud, which gives you the equivalent of a second health bar, making you relatively hard to kill. And not every necro uses a condition build. Some soul reaping builds are superb.

They also do every well at choke points in WvW and they do well in SPvP.

I really enjoy playing my necro.

But there’s a mount in game already!

If you want to make it harder, just leave the instance if you die and start over. I don’t like dying, no matter what the penalty the game imposes on me is.

Mystic.5934:

there should certainly be less. but not none. like 2-5 per zone would be good.

The problem is, people try to get to events. And it frustrates people to get to them late and miss out after spending the silver to teleport to them. The less waypoints the harder it is to get to the event.

So the giant is up at Nageling. You teleport there. You run down. Even now sometimes, by the time you see the call the giant is almost dead. Having to run further to get to that giant means the people fighting the giant have less help and the people trying to get there have less of a chance of getting it.

That’s the thing with dynamic events. People want to actually reach some of them in a timely manner. The frustration this would cause would completely mitigate for many people any perceived benefit from having them removed.

I have over 18,000 HP, I doubt very much anyone would consider me pro.

DJRiful.3749:

Wait, turning them into a instance world for replayable feature ONLY I hope.

I hope they are not like “Let’s keep vanilla LA and only show destruction in Instance story” aka no permanent changes in the current world and that is not what I am looking for.

Love to have permanent changes in live world with a replayable instance in that case for those who missed or away for many months.

No worries. Permanent changes to the world stay. Sort of what makes them permanent. lol

data.4093:

I think what OP wants is more activity in maps. Older MMOs forced you to run from a large city or town to get to an area(even in GW1 you’d have to start in a town and some areas forced a very long stretch of running like the drok’s run). WPs just take you directly from A to B, anywhere you want to go. You almost never see a character running through a map unless they’re going for completion and most people aren’t doing that anymore. The idea of immersion is totally lost when you just teleport everywhere and there’s very little feel that anyone is out there. Another thing people sometimes realize is how nice this game looks but since we don’t see most of it after completing a map, it’s lost on us.

Now the game is set up to limit WPs in a minor way when an event is active, but because they are all so close it makes no difference. When you die at teq you just use one of the 2 WPs that are close and you’re back fighting again.

Guild Wars 1 is not really pertinent in this case. There’s no more activity on the maps in Guild Wars 1, whether you run or waypoint, because the only thing in the maps is your party. Different in the open world.

The thing is the title of this particular thread isn’t Season 1 it’s Season 2. Whatever happened in Season One, however you liked or didn’t like it, is not 100% relevant anyway. We’re so lost in talking about Season 1, we’ve forgotten all about Season 2.

What Anet has done here is this. They’ve given us the foundations of characters and a story. They’ve given us something to think about. They’ve give us content that is relatively easy to finish for most people with slightly harder achievements, particularly if you don’t use videos to help you figure out how to get them. They’ve given us a scavenger hunt. They’ve given us new bosses, with new mechanics. They’ve given us new enemies including new enemy models. There are plenty of people finding that zone tough to stay alive in.

The Asura in that zone are now using the original AI. They dodge. They move out of AOE. This is something that was originally in the game that Anet took out because of complaints from the player base. It’s back.

They’ve also given us new weapon skins to craft, a champ train that’s more fun and interesting than the one that was in Queensdale. A chance to work together to improve our rewards by not zerging. And some really cool jumping puzzlely type stuff, which some people seem to like.

Some of the bosses require CC (the race, three toed tootsie). Some of the bosses use reverse logic than you see in much of the game (you have to kill them without killing their adds), some of the events require the use of crystals to complete. Some events only spawn at higher levels, so there’s encouragement not to zerg to get those events.

And for achievement hunters there’s, as always, stuff to do.

People wanted new zones and Anet is giving us a new zone a bit at a time. It’s not all at once, but there’s enough for, probably most people, to do in those zones for a couple of weeks. Particularly if you’re playing all the content, and if you don’t use a guide to run you through it as fast as humanly possible.

I still have two achievements from the first chapter I haven’t completed yet.

At any rate, I think the second season of the Living Story is off to a great start.

And if they are giving us zones this way, the zones get to stay. The story stays. Don’t do the content and wait, and you’ll have part of your expansion when you’re ready.

It’s a good start.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

BlueZone.4236:

Sure thing. You done twisting your own logic to make Anet look like they deserve high praises?
One minute you argue “they aren’t changing it because the numbers don’t support it”, next minute you’re arguing “they’re changing it but it’s not related to the numbers, they’re looking for improvement.”.
When you’re done making pointless arguments, feel free to respond.

Also, twice is not repeating “over and over again”.

While I’m usually ambivalent about “let’s make Vayne tie his tongue in knots trying to keep his message straight while insisting on different wording each time”, this really keeps dragging on and on. Shall we try discussing the message more than the phrasing?

@BlueZone – ANet has improved from telling a scattered plotline of a story to focusing on one plot and working it forward slowly. LS1 was flawed largely in how the first two thirds left a lot of people specifically saying “what is going on again?” because of the crossing threads and the inconsistent focus. One segment we have the Queen’s Jubilee, then we have Scarlet showing up out of nowhere to turn it into a near-world-wide Dynamic Event. And after that it shifted again . . . it wasn’t until after Wintersday it started gelling into something more solid and a lot of myriad guessing games about how it all connected came to a stop because we got led through the hoops. It was flawed in execution of an interesting concept.

LS2, on the other hand, is direct and obvious to the point of blunt force trauma. But it’s consistent, we don’t have new plots being dumped in because it’s “a living world”, and the new area is actually new and being designed as permanent content unlike a lot of LS1. However it’s flawed in the details and polish where things just slip in without proper context (“Mordrewhat now?”) or things seem rushed in and then out all too quickly (I clocked Prosperity at the quickest time to getting screwed by viney death on record short of ‘Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors’).

It’s getting better but we are really far from “excellent” yet on an objective level.

Vayne.8563:

Obviously you learn and evolve. That’s not spin. That’s logic. They learned even from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. The end of the season wasn’t prefect, hell it was far from perfect, but it was good for a lot of people.

Having flaws doesn’t make something bad. That’s all anyone is saying here.

You may think it’s bad. It may have been bad for you. It may have had flaws that prevented it from reaching it’s full potential…but if people weren’t playing it, I don’t believe Anet would be continuing it.

@ Vayne – Now it’s your turn. Frankly, I do expect better than debating the meaning of the word “bad” from you. You’re more intelligent than this, so take a deep breath and start over again. You’re fast approaching “well that’s just your opinion” level of retorts, and once you hit it we’re almost to Godwin’s Law level of “there is no more meaning in this discussion”.

Back up and discuss the flaws. Discuss how they changed the method, discuss what you see as improvements, and let that be all you have to say on it.

Strange, though, you describe it as “evolution”. Remember that evolution doesn’t always result in a “more perfect” form – there are always chances of evolutionary dead-ends which aren’t viable. “Evolving” isn’t necessarily “better” for a long-term survival strategy.

Evolution is one way to move something forward. It’s expected to sometimes hit dead ends. That’s what the entire iterative process is about. It works like natural selection. You try a bunch of stuff and the stuff that works survives. If it doesn’t work, it won’t survive. That’s sort of how Anet has been working the game. It’s very different than what most people are used to.

And you know, in some ways, Anet is in new territory. Other companies aren’t taking this route. There’s no rule book to go to. So things start off rough, they get refined.

Not everything is going to work. The same thing happened in Guild Wars 1, though. Not everything that was done worked. So they made changes. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone…at least anyone who played GW 1.

Guhracie.3419:

Vayne.8563:

Maybe Anet should make trait tomes that worked like skill tomes in Guild Wars 1.

In Guild Wars 1, if you had a skill unlocked on one character, you could use a tome to unlock it on another character, without going out and capturing it. Tomes were dropped in hard mode and could be bought for Zaishen Coins, roughly the equivalent of laurels.

It would give people a way to unlock the stuff on their first character and never do it again if they want to spring for a tome.

This is a fantastic idea, and would go a long way toward making the system better. I still think the requirements need a massive overhaul, though.

I agree with you. I think the requirements were somewhat haphazard. Don’t tell anyone I said something bad about the game though, because I’m supposed to be a white knight.

Maybe Anet should make trait tomes that worked like skill tomes in Guild Wars 1.

In Guild Wars 1, if you had a skill unlocked on one character, you could use a tome to unlock it on another character, without going out and capturing it. Tomes were dropped in hard mode and could be bought for Zaishen Coins, roughly the equivalent of laurels.

It would give people a way to unlock the stuff on their first character and never do it again if they want to spring for a tome.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

If you like to think changes happen for mysterious reasons, sure.
But, they’re just like any other company. If things aren’t working, then change it.
Resolving some of the issues aren’t some happy accident as a byproduct of restructuring here. No one is saying that’s the sole reason.
We’re not dealing with rocket science here.

Again, you can make changes without things being “bad”. They can always be better. I’ve restructured many things in the past that were working fine..but I made them more efficient.

That’s not rocket science either. It’s good business.

Yes, and they’re addressing things because it wasn’t working.
I know you’re trying very hard to get into another semantic argument, but I’m not biting. No need to put them on a pedestal.

Now you’re just trying to bait me. I said I wasn’t putting them on a pedestal and you repeat over and over again that I am. When you’re done playing games and would like to discuss the matter at hand, feel free to respond. Until then, I think all that needs to be said has been said.

Sure thing. You done twisting your own logic to make Anet look like they deserve high praises?
One minute you argue “they aren’t changing it because the numbers don’t support it”, next minute you’re arguing “they’re changing it but it’s not related to the numbers, they’re looking for improvement.”.
When you’re done making pointless arguments, feel free to respond.

Also, twice is not repeating “over and over again”.

You refuse to deal with the fact that there are a lot of people who enjoyed the Living Story Season One.

It definitely got off to a rocky start. I don’t think anyone would disagree. The improvement from earlier installments to later installments was vast. There were a lot of people who praised the later installments of season one.

Obviously you learn and evolve. That’s not spin. That’s logic. They learned even from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. The end of the season wasn’t prefect, hell it was far from perfect, but it was good for a lot of people.

Having flaws doesn’t make something bad. That’s all anyone is saying here.

You may think it’s bad. It may have been bad for you. It may have had flaws that prevented it from reaching it’s full potential…but if people weren’t playing it, I don’t believe Anet would be continuing it.

I don’t need to “deal” with anything because I never claimed no one enjoyed it.
It’s clear you’re projecting negative opinions as facts.

Dramatic changes were done internally and externally because it was bad. Bad enough to compromise the original concept because the original concept was bad.
Other than your silly semantics, you’re agreeing with me.
You don’t like the word “bad”? Too bad!

Well semantics are only silly if we’re saying the same thing. But saying that the content was bad when it was in fact not bad is not really just semantics. Saying they’ve made improvements to something doesn’t make it bad automatically, whether you want to use the word or not. The content has been improved. That much I can agree with.

It certainly needed to be made permanent. The journal is a big improvement. The story telling has gotten better.

So whether it was bad or wasn’t bad, it’s better now. That much I can agree with.

HiddenNick.7206:

Vayne.8563:

It will certainly be a lot of fun for the six people who are still playing afterwards.

This game is perfect… We know… Now go somewhere else.

Just sad. The OP thought it was funny.

Gah, a lot of stuff. Don’t know when you actually left, before or after Guild Missions were introduced. We have an account wallet, an account wardrobe (with all skins now being account bound), new jumping puzzles, a couple of new meta events. You can’t access the Living World Season 1, but the Living World Season 2 has recently started.

There’s at least a revamp of AC and a new dungeon path of TA.

There’s some new minigames (Sanctum Sprint and Southsun Survival).

The Living World stuff is the big thing though…oh and new PvP maps and a brand new WvW map.

Edit: And check your traits, they should have all been reset.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

If you like to think changes happen for mysterious reasons, sure.
But, they’re just like any other company. If things aren’t working, then change it.
Resolving some of the issues aren’t some happy accident as a byproduct of restructuring here. No one is saying that’s the sole reason.
We’re not dealing with rocket science here.

Again, you can make changes without things being “bad”. They can always be better. I’ve restructured many things in the past that were working fine..but I made them more efficient.

That’s not rocket science either. It’s good business.

Yes, and they’re addressing things because it wasn’t working.
I know you’re trying very hard to get into another semantic argument, but I’m not biting. No need to put them on a pedestal.

Now you’re just trying to bait me. I said I wasn’t putting them on a pedestal and you repeat over and over again that I am. When you’re done playing games and would like to discuss the matter at hand, feel free to respond. Until then, I think all that needs to be said has been said.

Sure thing. You done twisting your own logic to make Anet look like they deserve high praises?
One minute you argue “they aren’t changing it because the numbers don’t support it”, next minute you’re arguing “they’re changing it but it’s not related to the numbers, they’re looking for improvement.”.
When you’re done making pointless arguments, feel free to respond.

Also, twice is not repeating “over and over again”.

You refuse to deal with the fact that there are a lot of people who enjoyed the Living Story Season One.

It definitely got off to a rocky start. I don’t think anyone would disagree. The improvement from earlier installments to later installments was vast. There were a lot of people who praised the later installments of season one.

Obviously you learn and evolve. That’s not spin. That’s logic. They learned even from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. The end of the season wasn’t prefect, hell it was far from perfect, but it was good for a lot of people.

Having flaws doesn’t make something bad. That’s all anyone is saying here.

You may think it’s bad. It may have been bad for you. It may have had flaws that prevented it from reaching it’s full potential…but if people weren’t playing it, I don’t believe Anet would be continuing it.

I honestly don’t think it has to do with just people logged in. I think there’s another metric there. I’m not sure what it is, but I know for a fact that servers aren’t full at that hour. In fact, now that there are no actual physical servers, there has to be a different metric.

Sorry mate lots of Aussies on TC too. It’s only 7PM ish here.

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

snip

Vayne, this isn’t a court of law where you get to say " show me evidence". The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

And you are right, Raptr is not indicative of anything. With a buy2play game the only viable proof is concurrently logged in players.

Now, last time I checked those numbers are locked up tight by Anet. Not sure if they publish them anywhere. Have they?

If they have I’ll admit I was ignorant. but I do know this….

If their concurrent numbers were anything to rave about, it would be on the front page of Most forums " Arenanet Breaks 5,000,000 concurrent players"…

If they have done so, I have not seen it. Not saying they haven’t ..just I have not seen it.

Maybe you can find me the link? I’ll gladly eat humble pie if you show me any link post say 5/1/14 that shows ArenaNet raving about their concurrent logged in players.

Edit:

When I said 5,000,000 I was exaggerating…but any large type blog On a reputable website that shows ArenaNet raving…. any interviews post the 4/15/14 update… that shows Anet bragging about How many concurrently logged In players Gw2 has. I’ll gladly admit I was wrong. it’s 3 months since the 4/15/14 update, so surely there must be at least one.

Edit: I disagree about raptor since there are players that play MMO’s and do not use it..* raises her hand*.

IF Raptor were mandatory with ALL games…and IF… it were mandatory to run it when you are logged into all these different MMO’s THEN, you coupld point to raptr’s figures as meaning something. since it is purely voluntary, it is not representative.

You could have 100,000,000 players playing League of legends, but only 50,000 on Raptr,… On the other hand you could have 2,000,000 Gw2 players… and have ALL of them on raptr. If you go by Raptr…. Gw2 is 40 x’s more Popular than league of Legends.

so no… I don’t accept raptr’s figures as being representative of anything, other than How many players that Play Gw2, are also logged Onto Raptr at the same time.

If you haven’t followed Raptr for any length of time, of course you wouldn’t believe the numbers. But if you have followed it and looked at it, you’d see that it does pretty well parallel how games are doing in sales. It’s not hard and fast evidence, but annecdotally it’s been pretty compelling.

More, what are the odds that everyone that still plays Guild Wars 2 happens to also be subscribed to raptr? It would seem very unusual to me.

Generally speaking, about the same percentage of gamers that play Guild Wars 2 would likely be on Raptr as any other game. And it counts log in hours. Hours spent actually playing. Not sales. So it doesn’t matter that Guild Wars 2 is buy to play.

If you have Raptr and decide to open it up while playing Guild Wars 2, it will track your hours, just like all the other games up there.

So when you see Raptr players from May to June in ESO have halved, the odds are the trend would follow elsewhere. The numbers might not be 100% but they’d be indicative of a trend.

You don’t have to believe it. Their predictions and the information they give have been relatively solid for a good long while now.

As for concurrent players, most games have the highest period of concurrency near launch when the hype is the highest. Everyone is playing at once. People take time off from work to play sometimes. That’s going to be your high concurrency for most games. Then people you know, play less, because they can. They’ve delved in. Maybe it’s a busy week and someone only has time to do dailies. Maybe they’re checking out a new beta or new game. Some people leave any game. That’s a normal part of the business.

So concurrency numbers from the high they announced would go down for well over 90% of all games. That’s normal. The exception would be if the game had a terrible launch and then got better. Then it might have a higher concurrency.

What company would advertise a concurrency lower than their peak? It could be 10% lower, 30%, and it doesn’t matter. That’s again, normal for most games.

In the end, you have no evidence at all except for silence on concurrency numbers, which doesn’t really make sense.

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

What evidence do you have that Guild Wars 2 is “petering out” as you put it? Because I don’t think that’s the case. While Raptr isn’t all players it gives and has always given a pretty decent indication of what’s popular. Guild Wars 2 remains in the top 20. In June it was back above ESO again, even though ESO is only a couple of months old. There are precisely 3 MMOs ahead of it. One of them, Wildstar launched this month. WoW is a juggernaut of course, and FF and Guild Wars 2 are almost neck and neck, before season 2 kicked off. I expect Guild Wars 2 to move up that list next month.

I’m not sure what you think petered out means in a 2 year old game, but it seems to me that Guild Wars 2 is doing quite well.

Vayne, this isn’t a court of law where you get to say " show me evidence". The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

And you are right, Raptr is not indicative of anything. With a buy2play game the only viable proof is concurrently logged in players.

Now, last time I checked those numbers are locked up tight by Anet. Not sure if they publish them anywhere. Have they?

If they have I’ll admit I was ignorant. but I do know this….

If their concurrent numbers were anything to rave about, it would be on the front page of Most forums " Arenanet Breaks 5,000,000 concurrent players"…

If they have done so, I have not seen it. Not saying they haven’t ..just I have not seen it.

Maybe you can find me the link? I’ll gladly eat humble pie if you show me any link post say 5/1/14 that shows ArenaNet raving about their concurrent logged in players.

Edit:

When I said 5,000,000 I was exaggerating…but any large type blog On a reputable website that shows ArenaNet raving…. any interviews post the 4/15/14 update… that shows Anet bragging about How many concurrently logged In players Gw2 has. I’ll gladly admit I was wrong. it’s 3 months since the 4/15/14 update, so surely there must be at least one.

Edit: I disagree about raptor since there are players that play MMO’s and do not use it..* raises her hand*.

IF Raptor were mandatory with ALL games…and IF… it were mandatory to run it when you are logged into all these different MMO’s THEN, you coupld point to raptr’s figures as meaning something. since it is purely voluntary, it is not representative.

You could have 100,000,000 players playing League of legends, but only 50,000 on Raptr,… On the other hand you could have 2,000,000 Gw2 players… and have ALL of them on raptr. If you go by Raptr…. Gw2 is 40 x’s more Popular than league of Legends.

so no… I don’t accept raptr’s figures as being representative of anything, other than How many players that Play Gw2, are also logged Onto Raptr at the same time.

If you haven’t followed Raptr for any length of time, of course you wouldn’t believe the numbers. But if you have followed it and looked at it, you’d see that it does pretty well parallel how games are doing in sales. It’s not hard and fast evidence, but annecdotally it’s been pretty compelling.

More, what are the odds that everyone that still plays Guild Wars 2 happens to also be subscribed to raptr? It would seem very unusual to me.

Generally speaking, about the same percentage of gamers that play Guild Wars 2 would likely be on Raptr as any other game. And it counts log in hours. Hours spent actually playing. Not sales. So it doesn’t matter that Guild Wars 2 is buy to play.

If you have Raptr and decide to open it up while playing Guild Wars 2, it will track your hours, just like all the other games up there.

So when you see Raptr players from May to June in ESO have halved, the odds are the trend would follow elsewhere. The numbers might not be 100% but they’d be indicative of a trend.

You don’t have to believe it. Their predictions and the information they give have been relatively solid for a good long while now.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

If you like to think changes happen for mysterious reasons, sure.
But, they’re just like any other company. If things aren’t working, then change it.
Resolving some of the issues aren’t some happy accident as a byproduct of restructuring here. No one is saying that’s the sole reason.
We’re not dealing with rocket science here.

Again, you can make changes without things being “bad”. They can always be better. I’ve restructured many things in the past that were working fine..but I made them more efficient.

That’s not rocket science either. It’s good business.

Yes, and they’re addressing things because it wasn’t working.
I know you’re trying very hard to get into another semantic argument, but I’m not biting. No need to put them on a pedestal.

Now you’re just trying to bait me. I said I wasn’t putting them on a pedestal and you repeat over and over again that I am. When you’re done playing games and would like to discuss the matter at hand, feel free to respond. Until then, I think all that needs to be said has been said.

BlueZone.4236:

If you like to think changes happen for mysterious reasons, sure.
But, they’re just like any other company. If things aren’t working, then change it.
Resolving some of the issues aren’t some happy accident as a byproduct of restructuring here. No one is saying that’s the sole reason.
We’re not dealing with rocket science here.

Again, you can make changes without things being “bad”. They can always be better. I’ve restructured many things in the past that were working fine..but I made them more efficient.

That’s not rocket science either. It’s good business.

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

Nerelith.7360:

Many people are focusing on " The meta" or " Optimal builds". The issue for me is… what if I want build divercity that doesn’t follow the garden path of those that Theorycrafted before me?

Some say " Gw2, has x number of “optimal” builds and Guild Wars has y number of “optimal” builds, and since they are close…they are each as diverse."

Some say " Guild Wars made it so it was too easy to make sub-par builds"

They do have points. The issue for me is, I don’t hunt down "optimal " builds. I Like to Theorycraft. I enjoy playing builds that are fun. Or Builds that focus on a particular style of gameplay.

Guild Wars allowed me to do that, since Guild Wars gave me tools that if i searched I would find weird and unique synergies between 2 or 3 skills.

Can you do that in Gw2? I am sure you can. Can you do it as well as in Guild Wars? Many may debate that they can. But If you have an 8 color box of crayons….. and a 64 color box of crayons… one gives yoiu more divercity than the other….even if 16 of the 64 are colors YOU might not touch with a 10 foot pole…it’s always best to be given the option to select your palette for yourself.

Guild Wars had more colors.

Yep Guild Wars did have more skills. And for a guy who likes and centers around Build Wars, it was definitely a superior game.

I think you’ll find that it was less popular than it would have been because of that focus. Too hard for too many people.

I’m like you. I loved the building aspect of that game. But that was the ENTIRE game. It was linear. It was pathed. You couldn’t step over a log you had to turn around and go back. The entire game was the builds.

Because that was the focus of the game, that was what you got.

This game doesn’t have as much build diversity as that game. And if that’s mostly what you care about, you won’t like this game as much.

Guild Wars 2 has a different focus…intentionally.

The problem is… Guild Wars is still around, and there are plenty of people that play it, I among them. Gw2 seems to be petering out.

Now you can say that Gw2 has a different focus …intentionally, and that is clear.

That is not the issue, the issue is… that many players feel the game took a wrong turn.
Many will say " this is not the game for you." And maybe they may be right. But Anet has shown that they are not above changing direction. The way they now have players opening up traits by completing content shows they are taking a page from Guild Wars playbook.

It may be the execution may be off, but if i remember something about Anet it is, they do not have a problem saying to themselves." Maybe we can do this in a new way, a better way."

So is the game as it is, the game I might wish it to be? No. But does that means I have given up that Anet may bring some of what made Guild wars great to this game?

I’m still here.

Lastly. I disagree that Guild Wars would have been a better game by making the game simpler. I feel that it appealed to players that liked playing Build wars, and have no problem playing Build wars year after year after year. Log into Build Wars sometime, you’ll see plenty of people still playing with their builds, their heroes builds, and their mercenary’s builds.

You can argue that it would appeal to more casual gamers. But is that always a good thing? It makes the game simpler. But is that always the right way to go?

" If it is more casual friendly it will be more popular" is not always true. Sometimes challenge keeps and retains players. Make it too casual friendly, and it becomes shallow. And you retain less players than if you catered to a Little more Hardcore.

This is Not Black and white. There are not " Super – casuals" and “super-hardcore.” turning to one doesn’t always mean abandoning the other. All of us fall somewhere in the middle.

So to answer your question….No. I do Not think that simplifying Guild wars so it would have been more casual friendly would have made it better, or even more popular.

What evidence do you have that Guild Wars 2 is “petering out” as you put it? Because I don’t think that’s the case. While Raptr isn’t all players it gives and has always given a pretty decent indication of what’s popular. Guild Wars 2 remains in the top 20. In June it was back above ESO again, even though ESO is only a couple of months old. There are precisely 3 MMOs ahead of it. One of them, Wildstar launched this month. WoW is a juggernaut of course, and FF and Guild Wars 2 are almost neck and neck, before season 2 kicked off. I expect Guild Wars 2 to move up that list next month.

I’m not sure what you think petered out means in a 2 year old game, but it seems to me that Guild Wars 2 is doing quite well.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Vayne.8563:

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Many here are swearing the game is diverse and has so much depth. Besides GW1, what other mmo’s have they played? Seriously played. Have they ever done a dungeon crawl that took hours to complete, or had lockouts so you could take several days to complete it? Those are hard core games, where skills require thought, and combinations, etc are important. Where certain builds are crucial. In comparison, GW2 is an extremely casual game, and that is fine. I just find it interesting how players new to mmo’s think this game is more than it is.

Raids in most games are artificially hard based on the fact that you don’t have the gear requirement to complete them right away. It’s just a numbers game.

I played Rift. I had three stupid buttons I hit, because all my useful skills were macroed onto three keys. The content that came out was jumping through hoops complex. The only thing complex about it was getting people to be in the same page. The actual content wasn’t that hard.

The fact is, if you had less than a certain amount of focus as a spell caster, you couldn’t do damage to the creatures at all. You needed the gear to up your focus. There was zero skill in it. It was about perservering until enough gear dropped with enough focus so you could damage stuff.

That’s not depth, and that’s not fun for me. This game has more depth than that. Not depth in being a trained monkey repeating the same thing over and over till you could do it in your sleep.

Raids and dungeons in other games are one of the reasons I was looking forward to Guild Wars 2. They give the illusion of complexity when in reality, it’s just a giant con.

Rift? Lol

I’ve also played Lotro, DDO, WoW, Eve, Perfect World, TSW and a few others. I picked the first example I can think of. Nice try.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

See, that’s ridiculous. Claiming I’m putting something on a pedestal. I’m not. I’m simply not using an subjective term objectively. If you wish to defend that, by all means go right ahead. It doesn’t change anything at all.

There’s nothing to defend here. It was bad enough for them to do a drastic change internally and externally.
The old structure wasn’t working. Some of us saw it. Anet sees it. You didn’t.
Now they’re testing a new structure, that tries to retain some of the philosophy of the old structure.

The fact that the old structure was temporary and unsustainable was definitely not working. However, that has nothing to do with the quality of the story when you play it.

Uhh…yes, it does. The dev I quoted included the word “cohesion”.
Their teams worked fairly independently from one another.
People picked up on how poor the cohesiveness of the story was even if they didn’t know how Anet was internally structured. Because it showed in their work. No, I don’t care that you didn’t see the problem. People saw it. Anet addressed it.
Again, this is just one part of the problem amongst many others.

I doubt the current structure solves the QA problem, though.
That requires something they can’t address with the old or new structure: development time.

All of which still doesn’t make it objectively “bad”. You kept using the word. I’m happy to say that it lacked cohesion. That still is one deficiency. There’s still an over all bad and good. The way you post makes it seem like the living story was bad, when in fact the living story wasn’t bad, even if it had elements that needed work.

You refuse to acknowledge that painting the living world as bad, deficiencies or no deficiencies, is your opinion and the opinion of other people. There are others, plenty of others, who found the living story good. There’s no objective good and bad here, it’s all opinion.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

See, that’s ridiculous. Claiming I’m putting something on a pedestal. I’m not. I’m simply not using an subjective term objectively. If you wish to defend that, by all means go right ahead. It doesn’t change anything at all.

There’s nothing to defend here. It was bad enough for them to do a drastic change internally and externally.
The old structure wasn’t working. Some of us saw it. Anet sees it. You didn’t.
Now they’re testing a new structure, that tries to retain some of the philosophy of the old structure.

The fact that the old structure was temporary and unsustainable was definitely not working. However, that has nothing to do with the quality of the story when you play it.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

cesmode.4257:

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ find the living story very interesting compare to expansions of other games.

The main problem I find is Anet dont’ spend alot of time working on their core games, but spend much of their time making on small extensions content which people will play a few times and never do it again.

Exactly.

Things like dungeons and the open world DEs that launched with the game have gone abandoned since early release. All focus is on LS and zones of the week that foster zergs and tactfulless and mindless combat. It is why I cannot support this game anymore.

But the new LS opened new areas with new events. Shrugs.

People see what they want to see.

I kind of quit the game because of real life issue. So I’m not too familiar with the new area since I only did it once.

What I’m trying to say is take the previous area “South Sun Cove”. I won’t really go back to it beside doing Karka Queen.

Mostly what I’m trying to say is Anet is pushing out “a lot” of content, but they either lack depth or they haven’t put much thought on the reward system so people wont’ “repeat” them.

Other games put out a dungeon or area, they’ll make the most out of it, and make sure people spend a lot of time in them. But in GW2, they push out dungeon or area, people will just do the content once and never go back.

The new area is much much better than Southsun in my opinion with much more to do. There’s a lot going on. You should check it out.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Ashen.2907:

Last year the store I manage saw overall sales increases of more than 3%. EBITDA increases were in the +8% range. I restructured and reorganized aspects of the business not because it was bad but because there is always room for improvement. EBITDA is now up 5% over last year’s already great numbers.

Good for you. Well, Anet made these changes because they were common complaints. Complaints happened because they were bad.
(In before white knights counters with ’whiners whine about everything")

Vayne.8563:

I wasn’t talking about cohesion, I was talking about uneven quality. I didn’t really have a problem with the cohesion I had a problem with some events being less fun for me than others.

The beauty of that was, in most games if you didn’t like a big patch, you have to wait months for the next one. Waiting two weeks is a lot easier.

Good for you.
They’re making changes to living world because there were plenty of bad things about it.

Vayne.8563:

You didn’t say anything to the guy who said that the living story was bad (as an empirical statement). You did say something about me responding to him. I don’t know how else to take that but as a double standard.

Anet proved it with your logic.

Nope, improving something isn’t the same thing as saying it was bad to begin with. I’ve seen many foods that were new and improved, but they were fine before they were new and improved.

When I edit something professionally, I’m usually (hopefully) improving it. It could have been awesome and there’s still room for improvement.

Calling something bad just because there’s room for improvement would mean that everything is bad. Because there’s always room for improvement.

Anet made changes to something that wasn’t as good at first (to me), got better (to me), and now they’ve made it even better (to me).

I actually loved the Nightmare Tower, the Marionette Fight and the Escape from LA. To me it was good stuff. There was room for improvement even within those things I loved. But they were by no means bad (to me).

Yep, restructuring your team to address obvious complaints is because that’s what was bad about them. Because their old structure was bad, which reflected onto their content.
Just because you didn’t see the problem doesn’t mean other people didn’t see them. No need to put them on a pedestal.

See, that’s ridiculous. Claiming I’m putting something on a pedestal. I’m not. I’m simply not using an subjective term objectively. If you wish to defend that, by all means go right ahead. It doesn’t change anything at all.

BlueZone.4236:

Ashen.2907:

Last year the store I manage saw overall sales increases of more than 3%. EBITDA increases were in the +8% range. I restructured and reorganized aspects of the business not because it was bad but because there is always room for improvement. EBITDA is now up 5% over last year’s already great numbers.

Good for you. Well, Anet made these changes because they were common complaints. Complaints happened because they were bad.
(In before white knights counters with ’whiners whine about everything")

Vayne.8563:

I wasn’t talking about cohesion, I was talking about uneven quality. I didn’t really have a problem with the cohesion I had a problem with some events being less fun for me than others.

The beauty of that was, in most games if you didn’t like a big patch, you have to wait months for the next one. Waiting two weeks is a lot easier.

Good for you.
They’re making changes to living world because there were plenty of bad things about it.

Vayne.8563:

You didn’t say anything to the guy who said that the living story was bad (as an empirical statement). You did say something about me responding to him. I don’t know how else to take that but as a double standard.

Anet proved it with your logic.

Nope, improving something isn’t the same thing as saying it was bad to begin with. I’ve seen many foods that were new and improved, but they were fine before they were new and improved.

When I edit something professionally, I’m usually (hopefully) improving it. It could have been awesome and there’s still room for improvement.

Calling something bad just because there’s room for improvement would mean that everything is bad. Because there’s always room for improvement.

Anet made changes to something that wasn’t as good at first (to me), got better (to me), and now they’ve made it even better (to me).

I actually loved the Nightmare Tower, the Marionette Fight and the Escape from LA. To me it was good stuff. There was room for improvement even within those things I loved. But they were by no means bad (to me).

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

Why aren’t you picking on the person who made the wrong statement in the first place? Oh right, because you agree with him.

This isn’t the first time you’ve been wrong when presuming to speak for me, but I actually agree with both of you. I think the overall quality of the Living Story: Season 1 was very poor, but I also think the quality improved markedly toward the end. And I think Season 2, thus far, has been better still.

About you presuming to speak for me, that’s yet another of your double standards. You recently replied to the accusation of being a paid shill for this game with, and I’m paraphrasing here, “just because the majority of my posts are supportive or praising doesn’t mean I think it’s perfect. I just don’t bother posting criticisms because I feel what criticism I have to offer has already been covered.”

So that’s one standard for you. But then you turn around and call me jaded because my posts are generally critical. That’s a different standard for me than the one you’re applying to yourself. I’m doing exactly what you’re doing from the other side of the same coin, and you label me one thing while telling others it’s unfair for them to label you the opposite. That, my friend, is a double standard.

I said it once in one post, what, a week ago? I haven’t said anything else about you since. I regret saying it. I felt it was true, but I still shouldn’t have said it.

They say that most vocal non-smoker is the guy who gave up smoking. You used to be very pro game and you switched to being not so pro. It’s affected you more than someone who wasn’t pro game in the first place…which is understandable. So I’m sorry I said that. I shouldn’t have.

But I stopped.

You didn’t say anything to the guy who said that the living story was bad (as an empirical statement). You did say something about me responding to him. I don’t know how else to take that but as a double standard.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

See the Living World wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad on paper. It wasn’t bad in it’s execution though it was uneven. Toward the end of the first season the Living World picked up some converts that hated it in the beginning. The Marionette fight was very popular. Escape from Lion’s Arch was very popular too. So calling it bad, just because you say so is problematical.

You’re very conveniently ignoring the bug-ridden fiasco that was the Season 1 finale.

Edit: And again, I’ve got to point out your double standard. You closed your paragraph with “so calling it bad, just because you say so is problematical”. You opened that very paragraph with “see the Living World wasn’t bad”. Since what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, I’m going to say to you “calling it good, just because you say so is problematical.”

How many times do we have to dance this dance. I’m RESPONDING to a statement. I’ve never come into a thread and said, the living word is awesome or good or great. I respond to people who empirically state it’s bad. I’m RESPONDING.

Why aren’t you picking on the person who made the wrong statement in the first place? Oh right, because you agree with him.

As a respondant, I always fight fire with fire intentionally. There’s no good or bad, it’s all just opinion. My opinion is stated in a way to head of his opinion.

Edit: And I didn’t ignore the finale. That’s why I said the quality was uneven. I didn’t say it was all great. I pointed to things that many people thought were great. The finale wasn’t as dismal a failure as some make it out to be. I also didn’t bring out the Nightmare Tower which a lot of people liked.

But I did say the Living Story season was was uneven in quality in many places. So far, however, the Living Story Season 2 has surpassed Season 1 in many ways FOR ME.

Nothing wrong with what I said.

You even say “The logic is, if the numbers aren’t supporting what they were doing they’d change it.”
Here’s a change because the numbers didn’t support it. If it was a good thing, they wouldn’t need to change it.

In any case, I don’t bother with arguing semantics anymore.

This isn’t a semantic argument. The argument you’re giving that they changed something has nothing to do with the quality of the living story in an meaningful way. It has to do with it’s temporary nature. Now if the living story stuff sucked so badly why would people want it in the game permanently. The answer is they wouldn’t.

And this thread is about Season 2 anyway, which is permanent. You’re the one playing semantics so let me rephrase.

If the player base weren’t playing the living story in Season 1 in numbers large enough to justify them investing the manpower and expense to create seaseon 2, Anet would have scrapped season 2 and went with a more traditional approach.

Looky, looky here. Who’s nitpicking on how to determine “the quality of the living story in an meaningful way”?
The temporary nature is (was) part of the “living” world. Trying to discount it is silly.

Anyway, it was bad enough to restructure their development process.

We’ve made a lot of changes for Season 2. We’re continually improving our processes with each new release. The most notable being that we no longer have 4 Living World teams, each making their own content; we have 1. This has allowed us to create much more cohesive releases, and I think you’ll find that our story hangs together quite well in Season 2.

By the way, I consider “cohesion” being related to quality, and that’s just part of what was bad (“bad”, haha).

I wasn’t talking about cohesion, I was talking about uneven quality. I didn’t really have a problem with the cohesion I had a problem with some events being less fun for me than others.

The beauty of that was, in most games if you didn’t like a big patch, you have to wait months for the next one. Waiting two weeks is a lot easier.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

See the Living World wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad on paper. It wasn’t bad in it’s execution though it was uneven. Toward the end of the first season the Living World picked up some converts that hated it in the beginning. The Marionette fight was very popular. Escape from Lion’s Arch was very popular too. So calling it bad, just because you say so is problematical.

You’re very conveniently ignoring the bug-ridden fiasco that was the Season 1 finale.

Edit: And again, I’ve got to point out your double standard. You closed your paragraph with “so calling it bad, just because you say so is problematical”. You opened that very paragraph with “see the Living World wasn’t bad”. Since what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, I’m going to say to you “calling it good, just because you say so is problematical.”

How many times do we have to dance this dance. I’m RESPONDING to a statement. I’ve never come into a thread and said, the living word is awesome or good or great. I respond to people who empirically state it’s bad. I’m RESPONDING.

Why aren’t you picking on the person who made the wrong statement in the first place? Oh right, because you agree with him.

As a respondant, I always fight fire with fire intentionally. There’s no good or bad, it’s all just opinion. My opinion is stated in a way to head of his opinion.

Edit: And I didn’t ignore the finale. That’s why I said the quality was uneven. I didn’t say it was all great. I pointed to things that many people thought were great. The finale wasn’t as dismal a failure as some make it out to be. I also didn’t bring out the Nightmare Tower which a lot of people liked.

But I did say the Living Story season was was uneven in quality in many places. So far, however, the Living Story Season 2 has surpassed Season 1 in many ways FOR ME.

Nothing wrong with what I said.

You even say “The logic is, if the numbers aren’t supporting what they were doing they’d change it.”
Here’s a change because the numbers didn’t support it. If it was a good thing, they wouldn’t need to change it.

In any case, I don’t bother with arguing semantics anymore.

This isn’t a semantic argument. The argument you’re giving that they changed something has nothing to do with the quality of the living story in an meaningful way. It has to do with it’s temporary nature. Now if the living story stuff sucked so badly why would people want it in the game permanently. The answer is they wouldn’t.

And this thread is about Season 2 anyway, which is permanent. You’re the one playing semantics so let me rephrase.

If the player base weren’t playing the living story in Season 1 in numbers large enough to justify them investing the manpower and expense to create seaseon 2, Anet would have scrapped season 2 and went with a more traditional approach.

Mosharn.8357:

Vayne.8563:

Mosharn.8357:

They arent gona get any where with these tiny updates.

I thought this week was gona have more content and as i was doing the new story i finished it in a sad little 20 mins… 20 mins of content really anet.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this. You mean 20 minutes of content ignoring all the events, the new weapon skins you can craft, trying to get a zone to tier 5 for the best rewards on stuff.

Or 20 minutes just doing the stories without the optional achievements?

Because so far, I’ve spent hours in the NEW AREA. Oh right, there’s a new area. It’s a cool area. Lots of people seem to like it.

It’s not 20 minutes of new content, unless you only count story missions, which is not all the new content.

Events dont count. They are just the same events we already have all over the game. As for crafting the skins. Thats optional and they dont look like they are worth the bother.

Im talking about new content which was just the 20 min story. I dont know how long you been playing but this is no real content.

The events are different. The creatures you fight are different. For one thing, much of it is harder than most of the world. Some of those new creatures suck badly.

And it’s not just individual events. It’s getting enough events done in time limit to reach a higher tier.

So events aren’t content. New creatures aren’t content. New areas aren’t content. Scavenger hunts aren’t content.

I guess I’m enjoying the stuff that’s not content then, along with a whole lot of other people.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Saying I said all the zones were buzzing is a demonstrable falsehood.

Then demonstrate it ? (a joke because we both, hopefully, know that you cannot demonstrate such)

For what it is worth I was paraphrasing. I chose to not put that turn of phrase in quotation marks for exactly that reason. I am not claiming that you used that exact word.

Vayne.8563:

You’re asking a company to put time and resources into doing something that might very well hurt players on both sides of the divide. It’s a bad risk.

Kind of like implementing Megaservers in the first place ? Expending time and resources on something that did hurt many players (I am not claiming a majority here).

I didn’t even imply the zones were all buzzing. Paraphrasing means saying something in a way that provides at least some of the meaning. What you did was rewrite what I said to mean something completely different than I said, which isn’t quite paraphrasing.

Any change may or may not hurt anyone. It’s like a nerf. A lot of people didn’t like the redo of AC. They liked the old AC better. And then people mostly anyway got used to it.

The mega servers definitely have people against them. No question about that. But I simply think that more people are helped by them than hurt. That’s my opinion. I can’t prove it.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

See the Living World wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad on paper. It wasn’t bad in it’s execution though it was uneven. Toward the end of the first season the Living World picked up some converts that hated it in the beginning. The Marionette fight was very popular. Escape from Lion’s Arch was very popular too. So calling it bad, just because you say so is problematical.

You’re very conveniently ignoring the bug-ridden fiasco that was the Season 1 finale.

Edit: And again, I’ve got to point out your double standard. You closed your paragraph with “so calling it bad, just because you say so is problematical”. You opened that very paragraph with “see the Living World wasn’t bad”. Since what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, I’m going to say to you “calling it good, just because you say so is problematical.”

How many times do we have to dance this dance. I’m RESPONDING to a statement. I’ve never come into a thread and said, the living word is awesome or good or great. I respond to people who empirically state it’s bad. I’m RESPONDING.

Why aren’t you picking on the person who made the wrong statement in the first place? Oh right, because you agree with him.

As a respondant, I always fight fire with fire intentionally. There’s no good or bad, it’s all just opinion. My opinion is stated in a way to head of his opinion.

Edit: And I didn’t ignore the finale. That’s why I said the quality was uneven. I didn’t say it was all great. I pointed to things that many people thought were great. The finale wasn’t as dismal a failure as some make it out to be. I also didn’t bring out the Nightmare Tower which a lot of people liked.

But I did say the Living Story season was was uneven in quality in many places. So far, however, the Living Story Season 2 has surpassed Season 1 in many ways FOR ME.

Lostyus.4250:

Vayne.8563:

But there is harm. What if the people who opt for the main servers don’t get enough people on their main servers to make it worth it?

Then that would prove megaservers weren’t popular and that Anet had made a mistake.

And what if not enough people use those servers and they don’t end up having an enjoyable experience, but they take just enough people out of the mega servers to make them not viable?

You’re asking a company to put time and resources into doing something that might very well hurt players on both sides of the divide.

It’s a bad risk.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

Every time you single me out with that kind of personal attack, you look more and more desperate.

Come on, now…you’re supposed to be above these kinds of silly games, aren’t you?

Nope, you’re really getting on my nerves and it feels quite personal. I don’t say “only Dark Ace” would do anything. By singling me out, you’re making a personal statement. Not to mention you ignore and trivialize the point I was making. It’s a way to ridicule people. It’s really bad to resort to that sort of attack and comment that I should be above it.

I laughed, because of the irony of you saying he’s trivializing the point you’re trying to make, considering your nitpick post.

In any case, the “living” world was bad.
We didn’t need numbers to know it was bad. It sounded bad on paper, and it was bad in practice.
If you think changes = proof, then they did make changes. They’ve started to compromise to provide more permanent, replayable content.

See the Living World wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad on paper. It wasn’t bad in it’s execution though it was uneven. Toward the end of the first season the Living World picked up some converts that hated it in the beginning. The Marionette fight was very popular. Escape from Lion’s Arch was very popular too. So calling it bad, just because you say so is problematical.

You’re attempting to state an opinion as a fact.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

it’s circumstantial evidence

No it is not. It is a theory. I think that the theory has merit but that doesn’t mean that it is anything more than supposition.

The longer you’re involved with business and doing business, the more you know how businesses work. It’s hard for me to conceive of a public company doing something that they specifically know is not working, and then putting more and more resources into doing it more. It doesn’t happen that often.

My theory is based on experience in business. That makes it at very least an educated guess, but again. What reason would Anet have for putting this much time and effort into something that wasn’t working for them?

“Anet,” doesn’t make these decisions. A person does. People make bad decisions, and stick with them, all of the time. I tend to think that your supposition is probably on target, however don’t forget that even very smart people do stupid things. Ego, a bad day, one’s hemorrhoids acting up putting one in a testy mood leading to biting Field Marshal Davout’s head off rather than accepting his suggestion prior to the battle of Borodino, etc.

Actually sometimes a person makes decisions but from what we know about Anet it tends to be more of a group decision. Not one person but people bouncing ideas off each other.

This isn’t a dictatorship, it’s a creative enterprise. You can tell by the “iterative style”. You don’t iterate all that much in a dicatorship. There are plenty of stories of people who came up with ideas and were allowed to run with them.

There are companies where you have Rupert Murdocks who pretty much control everything, and then you have creative collectives. This company seems to function more like the latter.

Which explains a lot of what’s going on if you look at everything that’s happened.

Sometimes having one person with a specific vision is actually better. But it’s also more subject to someone getting it wrong as you’ve stated above.

In the end, after all of the bouncing ideas and the like, someone has to make the decision on how to spend the company’s resources. Someone has to listen to Riker, Deanna, Wesley, Geordi, Worf, and Data hash out an action plan and then say, “make it so.”

How about this then. Anet has said in the past that they make a lot of their decisions based on metrics. Is that a better indication that they’re using they data they have?

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

it’s circumstantial evidence

No it is not. It is a theory. I think that the theory has merit but that doesn’t mean that it is anything more than supposition.

The longer you’re involved with business and doing business, the more you know how businesses work. It’s hard for me to conceive of a public company doing something that they specifically know is not working, and then putting more and more resources into doing it more. It doesn’t happen that often.

My theory is based on experience in business. That makes it at very least an educated guess, but again. What reason would Anet have for putting this much time and effort into something that wasn’t working for them?

“Anet,” doesn’t make these decisions. A person does. People make bad decisions, and stick with them, all of the time. I tend to think that your supposition is probably on target, however don’t forget that even very smart people do stupid things. Ego, a bad day, one’s hemorrhoids acting up putting one in a testy mood leading to biting Field Marshal Davout’s head off rather than accepting his suggestion prior to the battle of Borodino, etc.

Actually sometimes a person makes decisions but from what we know about Anet it tends to be more of a group decision. Not one person but people bouncing ideas off each other.

This isn’t a dictatorship, it’s a creative enterprise. You can tell by the “iterative style”. You don’t iterate all that much in a dicatorship. There are plenty of stories of people who came up with ideas and were allowed to run with them.

There are companies where you have Rupert Murdocks who pretty much control everything, and then you have creative collectives. This company seems to function more like the latter.

Which explains a lot of what’s going on if you look at everything that’s happened.

Sometimes having one person with a specific vision is actually better. But it’s also more subject to someone getting it wrong as you’ve stated above.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

it’s circumstantial evidence

No it is not. It is a theory. I think that the theory has merit but that doesn’t mean that it is anything more than supposition.

The longer you’re involved with business and doing business, the more you know how businesses work. It’s hard for me to conceive of a public company doing something that they specifically know is not working, and then putting more and more resources into doing it more. It doesn’t happen that often.

My theory is based on experience in business. That makes it at very least an educated guess, but again. What reason would Anet have for putting this much time and effort into something that wasn’t working for them?

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

Every time you single me out with that kind of personal attack, you look more and more desperate.

Come on, now…you’re supposed to be above these kinds of silly games, aren’t you?

Nope, you’re really getting on my nerves and it feels quite personal. I don’t say “only Dark Ace” would do anything. By singling me out, you’re making a personal statement. Not to mention you ignore and trivialize the point I was making. It’s a way to ridicule people. It’s really bad to resort to that sort of attack and comment that I should be above it.

Nerelith.7360:

Many people are focusing on " The meta" or " Optimal builds". The issue for me is… what if I want build divercity that doesn’t follow the garden path of those that Theorycrafted before me?

Some say " Gw2, has x number of “optimal” builds and Guild Wars has y number of “optimal” builds, and since they are close…they are each as diverse."

Some say " Guild Wars made it so it was too easy to make sub-par builds"

They do have points. The issue for me is, I don’t hunt down "optimal " builds. I Like to Theorycraft. I enjoy playing builds that are fun. Or Builds that focus on a particular style of gameplay.

Guild Wars allowed me to do that, since Guild Wars gave me tools that if i searched I would find weird and unique synergies between 2 or 3 skills.

Can you do that in Gw2? I am sure you can. Can you do it as well as in Guild Wars? Many may debate that they can. But If you have an 8 color box of crayons….. and a 64 color box of crayons… one gives yoiu more divercity than the other….even if 16 of the 64 are colors YOU might not touch with a 10 foot pole…it’s always best to be given the option to select your palette for yourself.

Guild Wars had more colors.

Yep Guild Wars did have more skills. And for a guy who likes and centers around Build Wars, it was definitely a superior game.

I think you’ll find that it was less popular than it would have been because of that focus. Too hard for too many people.

I’m like you. I loved the building aspect of that game. But that was the ENTIRE game. It was linear. It was pathed. You couldn’t step over a log you had to turn around and go back. The entire game was the builds.

Because that was the focus of the game, that was what you got.

This game doesn’t have as much build diversity as that game. And if that’s mostly what you care about, you won’t like this game as much.

Guild Wars 2 has a different focus…intentionally.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Many here are swearing the game is diverse and has so much depth. Besides GW1, what other mmo’s have they played? Seriously played. Have they ever done a dungeon crawl that took hours to complete, or had lockouts so you could take several days to complete it? Those are hard core games, where skills require thought, and combinations, etc are important. Where certain builds are crucial. In comparison, GW2 is an extremely casual game, and that is fine. I just find it interesting how players new to mmo’s think this game is more than it is.

Raids in most games are artificially hard based on the fact that you don’t have the gear requirement to complete them right away. It’s just a numbers game.

I played Rift. I had three stupid buttons I hit, because all my useful skills were macroed onto three keys. The content that came out was jumping through hoops complex. The only thing complex about it was getting people to be in the same page. The actual content wasn’t that hard.

The fact is, if you had less than a certain amount of focus as a spell caster, you couldn’t do damage to the creatures at all. You needed the gear to up your focus. There was zero skill in it. It was about perservering until enough gear dropped with enough focus so you could damage stuff.

That’s not depth, and that’s not fun for me. This game has more depth than that. Not depth in being a trained monkey repeating the same thing over and over till you could do it in your sleep.

Raids and dungeons in other games are one of the reasons I was looking forward to Guild Wars 2. They give the illusion of complexity when in reality, it’s just a giant con.

Yes, you can log in every two weeks to unlock the story for free and play it all in a row when enough of it is out to entertain you.

However the new zone is pretty cool. You might want to check it out anyway.

Edit: To be clear you have to log in and click on the story unlock thing that appears over your minimap. It will give you a message saying it’s unlocked.

Mosharn.8357:

They arent gona get any where with these tiny updates.

I thought this week was gona have more content and as i was doing the new story i finished it in a sad little 20 mins… 20 mins of content really anet.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this. You mean 20 minutes of content ignoring all the events, the new weapon skins you can craft, trying to get a zone to tier 5 for the best rewards on stuff.

Or 20 minutes just doing the stories without the optional achievements?

Because so far, I’ve spent hours in the NEW AREA. Oh right, there’s a new area. It’s a cool area. Lots of people seem to like it.

It’s not 20 minutes of new content, unless you only count story missions, which is not all the new content.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

Nearly everyone hates it? Evidence?

I love it. I know lots of people who love it. Anet has the actual data on how many people not only play it, but continue to play it.

And the new living story stuff is much better than the old stuff. And some of that was pretty kitten ed good.

If no one likes the living story why did so many people continue to play the Marionette and Escape from LA?

Only Vayne would challenge someone to provide empirical data on something before offering anecdotal evidence in rebuttal.

I didn’t make the statement. I’m responding to the statement in the same way. And the logic in the reply is what you’re ignoring now, and often ignore.

Anet KNOWS the numbers. If the numbers were as bad as people suggest, Anet would have changed the strategy. I’m not sure what kind of businesses you’ve run before, but generally when something doesn’t work long term, you change it. They have the numbers, we don’t. They make choices based on numbers we can’t see.

The logic is, if the numbers aren’t supporting what they were doing they’d change it.

That’s not empirical evidence, it’s circumstantial evidence, which is far more evidence than the poster gave.

Every time you single me out with that kind of personal attack, you look more and more desperate.

nexxe.7081:

Vayne.8563:

nexxe.7081:

Poplolita.2638:

I’d rather have FREE content every 2 weeks, than to pay for an expansion.

It’s basically free vs pay. In my case, free win, not even up to discussion.

Yes, free updates, but look deeper into them, and start to compare and contrast, to the more traditional MMOs, and you’ll find out that other MMOs put out more meaningful content for your characters and gameplay.

I’m here because I compared this to other MMOs and found the content here to be meaningful, far far more meaningful than the content in other MMOs.

The problem with using words like meaningful is that they’re just matters of taste and opinion. What’s meaningful to a dungeon runner is not meaningful to a PvPer who never runs dungeons. Some people would think putting ten new dungeons in this game would be meaningful content. But I bet more than half the player base wouldn’t be in that category. Most people don’t consider themselves dungeon runners in most games, and I believe that’s the case in this game as well.

You talk to PvPers they have different meaningful content than WvWer’s who have different meaningful content than me.

Most MMOs don’t offer what I consider to be meaningful content. That’s why I play Guild Wars 2.

I should’ve clarified when i said, “meaningful”. I meant in terms of gameplay and progression, besides the story.

And no, it’s not subjective. The purpose of an RPG, whether it’s an MMO, or a singleplayer game, is to interact and engage in the story, hence the roleplaying aspect, but story isn’t the only facet of an MMORPG. There are also items, stats, combat, dungeons, pvp, etc., to enhance the story, otherwise the game itself becomes stale without progression to it’s other aspects, which is happening to GW2.

To Anet’s credit though, they have tweaked stats, and introduced new traits in the past, but lately, there doesn’t seem to be anything new on the horizon, except the Living Story.

When compared to other MMO content additions, GW2 lacks additional content, especially after 2 years.
FFXIV, WoW, Rift, Tera, and even GW1, etc. All of these introduce more meaningful content, for everyone, whether it’s for pvp, dungeons, story, classes, skills, talents, gear, and so on. This is why WoW is very popular, because they offer alternative gameplay additions, such as, skills & talents, new classes and races, dungeons-scenarios-raids, pvp maps & game-modes that is meaningful, to everyone, and they don’t just focus on story.

I’m curious how you know what’s on the horizon. Because I don’t think anyone does. We learn what’s going to happen like the day before it happens half the time. No one predicted Fractals. People were surprised by many of the updates and events that have come out.

Anet has started adding traits and doing balance. They’re doing it slowly. They said they would do it slowly. The make a bunch of changes, they wait for the meta to change and stabilize. They make more changes. That’s what they said they’ll be doing.

People said there’d be no new zones and we’re in one now. People said content was all temporary and now we’re getting permanent content. I don’t see a basis for believing more skills and traits won’t be added, since they laid the groundwork for it.

It won’t be added on anyone’s schedule but Anet’s.

Azhure.1857:

Vayne.8563:

The harm is in the fact that Anet would have to maintain far more servers than just mega servers, which costs money. Raising expenses isn’t in any companies best interest.

Losing customers isn’t in any company’s best interest either. Refusal to fix and/or address the harm they’ve caused to their customer base is causing many people to stop playing. You can argue against that, Vayne, because you seem to be doing a good job at disregarding everyone’s concerns over the Megaserver system (and all the other crap that came with it). Observations made by myself and many other posters tell the tale – people have left over this.

Personally I wish I’d known a long time ago that ArenaNet was going to take GW2 in this direction… If I’d known I don’t think I’d have invested so much in them and this game. Its hard to say.

People keep talking about losing customers as if this is something unusual in gaming for MMOs. You always lose customers. Sometimes you gain new customers. Some customers come back. It’s an equation.

Anet lost customers over the ascended debacle a few months after launch. I know for a fact they lost customers. I saw it with my own eyes. I know some of those customers. Some of come back, some haven’t. They made a gamble that losing the amount of customers they did would somehow make the game better for future/other customers and keep them here longer. I don’t particularly like ascended gear and I don’t love the way it was implemented. I thought it could have been done better. But people left and the game remained healthy and the population grew again after.

I believe if they split the servers the way some have asked for they will lose MORE customers. That’s just an opinion. It doesn’t mean anything and I’m sure Anet won’t change anything based on my opinion. This is because Anet has metrics.

They know what’s going on with the population of the game. How many are left. How many have come back. How many are playing more hours.

Saying I’m going to leave or people are going to leave is like saying Anet didn’t think about it. Of course they thought about it. People leave over lots of things. People will always leave.

But the number of people who are going to leave over this are a lot smaller than most people believe. Again, that’s just my opinion.

Anet knows how many players they need to make ends meet and grow. We don’t.

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

Nick.6972:

My main was Monk.

In PvP – WoH/RC/LS/PaH/SoR/ZB/Smiter…etc
In PvE – HB/UA/WoH/RoJ/55hp/600hp/ …etc

And I only named the meta builds. Mo/A (Assassin’s Promise) wasn’t even considered meta, but it worked extremely great – (Basic principle, spam all your skills and cast AP for instant recharge of all skills).

No Build Diversity? Get real.

A handful of builds over six years. You’re not taking time into account. I’m positive 600 monks appeared way after some other builds and some builds were far less viable by the time they appeared. There was an evolution.

55 monks eventually became just farming builds and pretty much the place people used them was outside Bergen Hotsprings. They weren’t a build that people used to play the game. They were a build people used to farm in one specific spot.

But I wouldn’t take kitten monk build into most dungeons.

If you want to talk about builds that won’t work in harder content or anywhere, Guild Wars 2 has plenty of them.

Since when is farming not a part of playing the game? You do it in the game, it’s part of playing the game for those of us that like farming.

I am confused the way you say

55 monks eventually became just farming builds and pretty much the place people used them was outside Bergen Hotsprings. They weren’t a build that people used to play the game. They were a build people used to farm in one specific spot.

Are you saying that even for those of us that enjoy farming, and that enjoy using the 55 monk build, somehow the fact that it’s farming, even if it’s only one location, somehow we are not playing the game? what are we play8ing then? It Looked to me Like I was Logged into Guild Wars, and I was playing a Guild Wars profession…. and killing Guild Wars mobs… to collect Guild Wars Loot.

What game was i playing?

Nope. But you can make farming builds in Guild Wars 2 also. No one talks about them but they’re out there. However, what I’m saying is that’s a build that’s not very useful and hasn’t been for years but you list it. If I listed every build I’ve used to do a specific thing in Guild Wars 2 over the last two years, the list would be quite long.

You didn’t run all those builds at the same time or during the same periods of time. If you check the builds in Guild Wars 2 that were being used a year ago and check the builds that are being used now, you’ll find there are quite a few differences. The same was true in Guild Wars 1. The same builds weren’t prevalent or used at the same time. Only the most efficient builds were.

Which means there was diversity and there wasn’t diversity.

I use a ton of different builds in Guild Wars 2, because I don’t really care much about the meta. This game in many was is better for me, because the meta really doesn’t come into play nearly as much.