Guild Wars 2

Judge Banks.9018:

Guild Wars 2 Flat PvE Square miles = 58
Vanilla WoW Flat Square miles = 80

Using the same methods found in this infograph
Which spawned from this thread

Do note that this simply a flat surface measurement.

Relevance?

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

chemiclord.3978:

I think what Vayne is getting at here is that you’re NEVER going to see an MMO solely run off an expansion model again (and even by the end of GW1 it was running a cash shop as well). It’s going to be tied with something else that will provide you with a more stable and constant revenue stream. And I’d argue it has to… the cost of making a game has gone up nigh exponentially, and requires much larger staffs to accomplish what the player base demands.

So the question now becomes, “what constant stream do you prefer”, because each one has their strengths and weaknesses. It’s not “cash store or expansion” because pretty much EVERY MMO maker’s answer is going to be “Both.”

The question is “cash store or subscription?” And even THAT might not be accurate, because Activision/Blizzard answered THAT question with “Both” as well.

I know what Vayne is getting at but an expansion every year / year and a half is also a steady flow of income. In a way it’s even similar to a subscription based model because you can expect to pretty much having to pay an x amount every year / year and a half. Biggest difference is not having a timer over your head.

BTW having a cash-shop next to that that only sells some extra services like access to beta events and name changers and character slots would be fine. But the moment you are generating you main income from a cash-shop you really will have to try and get people to buy stuff from the cash-shop (by game-play tactics of specific items) and then it will effect the game.

Yes games have become much bigger but so have the communities. That levels each other out pretty well.

So no, I don’t believe it has to be sub or cash-shop but expansion-based won’t be an option. I think is very well is an option and I think there are enough games proving it is. It’s just not being used a lot in the MMORPG genre.

But you don’t really know that would be enough money to support a game today. You only suspect that would be enough money. And I suspect it wouldn’t be.

It’s nice to theorize that if a company did that, they’d manage to stay afloat, but I’m guessing that if you were putting up your millions and millions of dollars to make a game, you might put a cash shop there….just in case.

Gambling with other people’s money is easy.

If it would be my money I would want to also create a good name for myself so deliver a high-quality product and so would go for expansion-based model. But thats not really the question, is it.

And yes I do think it would work and base my idea partly on GW1 partly on the many non-MMORPG games that use such models.

You think it won’t work and based your idea on the fact that the marked is bigger and many MMO’s are using F2P.

In the end we indeed both don’t have factual numbers to back it up, so it’s kind of useless to keep arguing about that.

Yet I am happy to see that at least we seem to agree that quality wise a micro-transaction based game is not the best option.

I don’t agree on that at all. We never talked about quality specifically. I don’t think you can blame all the woes of this game on the cash shop. Some, maybe. But I don’t think it’s any worse than a subscription based games.

Other games in other genres have no bearing on this conversation. They make a game, they put the game out, and that’s pretty much it. The staff afterwards is miniscule.

Take a driving game. YOu make the game, people buy it. Very often it is a console AND computer game. You sell to everyone and the sales cover the cost of making the game. But most games take far less time and money to make than an MMO aned most games have far last after cost…that’s why other games that use the model are useless to compare. And even Guild Wars 1 wasn’t a true MMO. How much different is it? How much more server power do you need to have 100 people all playing at the same time? Because you didn’t really have this problem in Guild Wars 1. I mean you could get 100 people in cities, but generally they couldn’t use their skills there.

I think that I’ve seen games that have a model like you’re talking about that sucked badly. So should I then conclude that all games that work on selling boxes every few years suck badly.

Dragon Age was a great game. Dragon Age 2…not so much. Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 were great games. Mass Effect 3, not so much.

Making game sequels or adds on and selling them doesn’t mean making a better game.

If I were making a game today, I’d want it funded so I could do great things. I don’t think the model you’re suggesting would fund an MMO…not enough to push the boundaries….which costs money.

It doesn’t matter if there’s a market for expansion based games or not, if the risk of making one is too high. The problem is this is all theory. Without being deeply vested in the industry, and really knowing how much everything costs, and without business models to show if it can work or not, it’s all just guess work.

The problem is you want something because you think it would make a better game, but we don’t really know how well that better game would do against the competition.

You’d not only have to convince a company that this could work but the company would have to convince investors that this would work. The problem with that is no one is doing it. The first question an investor would ask is why.

laokoko.7403:

Suddenflame.2601:

laokoko.7403:

Suddenflame.2601:

laokoko.7403:

To me it’s really the context.

If you look around, everyone is doing the same thing everyday.

Why do you have 10 characters?

5 races
2 genders per race
so 10 characters

Would have stopped at 8 since there are only 8 classes but wanted to have a full set.
None of my characters are mules.

Exactly. I have 8 level80 with full map completion and personal story done. And a total of 13 level80.

If this game actually have an endgame to play, people won’t have that many level80. Since this game have no endgame, people end up doing AC or COF or fractal everyday which is the same thing they did 1 year ago.

The guy above your post said it “And add in the fact that raids and battlegrounds offer an actual, FUN gearing process and compare it to the tedious crafting grind here. Guess who wins?”

This game is in fact very casual. But when you try to play it hardcore you wind up doing the same thing everyday. “same daily, same dungeon, same farming”.

Agree on your last point.

GW2 endgame however from what i seen is do what you want type of end game where the ultimate goal is to have fun which is different from previous MMORPGs. This is causing many of the issues since most people are coming from games where the goal is set in place long before they even started playing. Creating their own goals rather than goals placed for them.

I don’t even know what goals you are talking about. There are nothing to do.

There are no content casual players can’t do. If I already can do every content as a casual players, why would I want to play hardcore.

Hardcore guys go for server firsts and speed clears.

Devata.6589:

chemiclord.3978:

I think what Vayne is getting at here is that you’re NEVER going to see an MMO solely run off an expansion model again (and even by the end of GW1 it was running a cash shop as well). It’s going to be tied with something else that will provide you with a more stable and constant revenue stream. And I’d argue it has to… the cost of making a game has gone up nigh exponentially, and requires much larger staffs to accomplish what the player base demands.

So the question now becomes, “what constant stream do you prefer”, because each one has their strengths and weaknesses. It’s not “cash store or expansion” because pretty much EVERY MMO maker’s answer is going to be “Both.”

The question is “cash store or subscription?” And even THAT might not be accurate, because Activision/Blizzard answered THAT question with “Both” as well.

I know what Vayne is getting at but an expansion every year / year and a half is also a steady flow of income. In a way it’s even similar to a subscription based model because you can expect to pretty much having to pay an x amount every year / year and a half. Biggest difference is not having a timer over your head.

BTW having a cash-shop next to that that only sells some extra services like access to beta events and name changers and character slots would be fine. But the moment you are generating you main income from a cash-shop you really will have to try and get people to buy stuff from the cash-shop (by game-play tactics of specific items) and then it will effect the game.

Yes games have become much bigger but so have the communities. That levels each other out pretty well.

So no, I don’t believe it has to be sub or cash-shop but expansion-based won’t be an option. I think is very well is an option and I think there are enough games proving it is. It’s just not being used a lot in the MMORPG genre.

But you don’t really know that would be enough money to support a game today. You only suspect that would be enough money. And I suspect it wouldn’t be.

It’s nice to theorize that if a company did that, they’d manage to stay afloat, but I’m guessing that if you were putting up your millions and millions of dollars to make a game, you might put a cash shop there….just in case.

Gambling with other people’s money is easy.

Raine, the problem is, it DOES work. It works for facebook games. It works for games like Candy Corn Crush, where you can buy power. Pay to win actually works. That, unfortunately, is the problem.

For everyone person who takes games seriously, there’s someone who thinks that taking out your credit card is a valid way to play. More to the point, younger generations of players are trained this way.

Both of my sons, in their 20s, think nothing of taking out a credit card to buy stuff to use inside a game, instead of “earning” it, which is what I prefer to do.

I think you’ll find that the shift is toward people buying wins, not away from it. More’s the shame.

Peetee.9406:

EG of SoR used to run Tequatl, twice a day, every day. They got 3 Ascended chests from Tequatl every week on average.

150 people x 1 hour x 2 a day = 300 invested man hours per day
300 man hours x 7 days = 2100 man hours per week
2100 man hours per week / 3 Ascended chests = 700 man hours per Ascended chest.

If you killed Tequatl every day, it would take you 2 years on average to get 1 Ascended drop.

Name me any other MMO where it takes 2 years (have to play every day) to get 1 item.

You’re 100% right. I didn’t have an ascended weapon 2 weeks after they were introduced….oh wait….

Devata.6589:

There is also a bigger audience (thats the main reason the gaming industry changed) so that levels each other out pretty well one would think.
[/quote]

I’m not sure what makes you think it balances out. I mean is there evidence of this?

There are ten times the number of MMOs (well over that most likely) but there aren’t ten times the number of MMO players, of that I’m relatively sure. There are more gamers over all, but face it, more people play League of Legends than WoW. Same with Call of Duty.

The problem is most MMOs are computer games and computer game sales are going DOWN, not up as an overall percentage of gaming sales. To prove that point, Bethesda, before releasing Skyrim, said they expected 90% of their sales to come from consoles, not computers.

So more gamers, but maybe not so many more computer gamers, and of those, not necessarily so many more MMO players. You can’t say really believe it balances out.I’m not sure what makes you think it balances out. I mean is there evidence of this?

There are ten times the number of MMOs (well over that most likely) but there aren’t ten times the number of MMO players, of that I’m relatively sure. There are more gamers over all, but face it, more people play League of Legends than WoW. Same with Call of Duty.

The problem is most MMOs are computer games and computer game sales are going DOWN, not up as an overall percentage of gaming sales. To prove that point, Bethesda, before releasing Skyrim, said they expected 90% of their sales to come from consoles, not computers.

So more gamers, but maybe not so many more computer gamers, and of those, not necessarily so many more MMO players. You can’t say really believe it balances out.

Hey OP. Most people know me as a big defender of this game…and a defender who got a precursor drop at that.

The RNG is pretty bad here. Mind you, there were these sorts of RNG things going on in Guild Wars 1 as well, so I wasn’t completely surprised. For example, I ran a dungeon called Bogroot Growths hundreds of times without getting a Frog Scepter, which could only be gotten from that dungeon.

What they did in Guild Wars 2 was make it so that you didn’t have to run one dungeon. You can get a precusor from most places in the game. If you’re level 80 you can get them from WvW, jumping puzzle chests, open world foes (not just bosses) or dungeons. In that sense it’s pretty generous.

The problem is, without a traditional end game (and even Guild Wars 1 had end game in the form elite content that had it’s own unique drops), the end game some people are left with is making a legendary.

The problem is, farming for gold to buy one in no way feels epic…and that includes the precursor as well.

In these other games, it’s a bit different with the grind. You’re running specific content for specific drops. Here you’re just wandering around without signposts, hoping it will drop from somewhere.

I actually prefer this solution, but I can see why it would frustrate people and in fact, I’ve often felt the precursor situation was badly designed.

On the other hand, the dye situation I think is fine and the problems with it are often overstated.

tolunart.2095:

Hule.8794:

Corpus Christi they already said there will be short break after end of LS, but because they did not announced length of that short break, many people thinks that Feature patch will be in summer.

ESO launches in early April, the most logical time for GW2 to have a major update is within a few weeks of April 1, either to draw attention away from the release (mid-late March) or to recapture the interest of those who play the free month of ESO that comes with the purchase of the game but don’t continue paying to subscribe to the game (late April-early May). So far it seems this will coincide with the LS finale and the features update with a few weeks between to account for a temporary drop in logins from the new shiny.

I don’t think so. I think they’l wait until the shine wears off a bit and THEN launch.

Beldin.5498:

Vayne.8563:

My issue with taunt is that it kills any illusion the enemy is intelligent at all.

I’ll keep banging way on this guy, even though he’s not taking damage, and even though I’m a super intelligent demon from the abyss, I have no idea healers exist or someone is keeping him alive.

It’s just too contrived for my taste.

I always have to laugh when people in a trinity game say they want a better Monster AI since i know that they don’t really want that because any AI would kill the trinity.
If a monster is intelligent it would ignore the low damage tank, and first kill maybe the healer or the squishy DDs.

In GW 1 monsters often went for the healer or minion master first. I loved that.

Raine.1394:

Tru Reptile.6058:

The original GW made a great compromise between the holy trinity and the mess we currently have in GW2.

There was healing, but mitigating damage was more important than making red bars go up. There was tanking, but it involved body blocking and use of control skills. Oh, and support was actually worth a kitten . If you were a Necromancer in a melee oriented group you’d take things to boost your teammates damage such as Mark of Pain, Order of Pain, Barbs etc. Support in GW2 feels so generic and involves seemingly little to no thought.

Taunt skills are the main reason why I hate the holy trinity. I mean, MMO mob A.I is bad enough, yet developers feel the need to give players a tool to abuse it even further.

Just look at it from a boss perspective: You’d love nothing more than to strangle that squishy guy that’s keeping everyone alive, but you can’t because this heavily armored kitten in front of you keeps saying something about your mother.

It’s interesting that you take issue with the taunt. I like looking for analogues to something in the human experience and find only weak analogues to various combat strategies such as luring an opponent into a desired position. Yeah, I would be happy to see the tank go.

My only complaint is that the absence of any meaningful role beyond DPS leads to a mind-numbing stack and wail monotony, and, of course, the zerker meta. My experience of the trinity is one of pretty intricate strategy and execution. The only scripted aspect to it was that it was complex enough that you needed things like interrupt lists. GW2 combat is actually rather dull in comparison. I don’t feel the trinity is necessary, but I think we need meaningful combat roles beyond DPS. And, I don’t even think it needs to be set roles—it could just as easily be what you described with the Necro providing something unique to the team given it’s composition. But it needs to be meaningful. Everything right now that comes under support and control feels insignificant in PvE.

My issue with taunt is that it kills any illusion the enemy is intelligent at all.

I’ll keep banging way on this guy, even though he’s not taking damage, and even though I’m a super intelligent demon from the abyss, I have no idea healers exist or someone is keeping him alive.

It’s just too contrived for my taste.

darkace.8925:

OmaiGodman.2098:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

Concern: 350 people! And all they’ve come up with are story updates people outside the game can’t connect with? Where are the big new features? Is there really no expansion planned?

Actually, it sounds like there is an expansion planned. “We have a couple of really big Guild Wars projects cooking in the background,” Johanson told me.

Later, he added: "Some of our players believe that because we are doing this Living World seasons, and these features or these big feature-builds, that it means that the features you would traditionally get in an expansion, or the content you would traditionally get in an expansion, is not something that will get added to Guild Wars 2. And that is not true at all.

“Not only are we doing those things, new features and content you would traditionally get from a boxed expansion are also things that will be added to Guild Wars 2.

“The thing that we haven’t decided yet,” he went on, "is what form that type of content will take. Is it right for Guild Wars 2 for that kind of boxed expansion? Is it right for that to be something we add, live, through storylines in the game? Is that something we want to sell through our in-game store? There are a lot of different options available to us.

“… but we absolutely are going to do sweeping new features that you would traditionally only get in expansions – large regions, content and progression additions to your characters in the form of growth and professions and races. Those are all things that you will see in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.”

Mike Zadorojny, clarifying his comments from last year – which suggested there wouldn’t be an expansion any time soon – said: “The answer I gave you [in 2013] was that nothing was off the table.”

The only thing from that interview that comes close to indicating an expansion is in the works is, “we have a couple of really big Guild Wars projects cooking in the background.” And given that we heard this exactly line when the Living Story kicked off more than a year ago I don’t see any reason to assume anything “big” is cooking in the background, the foreground, or anywhere else at ArenaNet. We’ve passed “benefit of the doubt” and crossed into “proof is in the pudding” territory.

I don’t think you should give Anet the benefit of the doubt. But it works both ways. I don’t think we should prejudge negatively either.

I’m not saying what’s coming out is going to be uber/awesome. I’m not saying it’s going to be dreadful. I’m not saying it’s going to be big or small.

I’m saying until it’s out, there’s no point in believing OR disbelieving.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Vayne.8563:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

eisberg.2379:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You get what you pay for.

I pay a trivial fee per month for another game and I’m guaranteed to receive decent content that isn’t rife with bugs upon patch release. The few bugs that do slip through are caught within the first 24 hours.

What game is that? Every MMO that I have played had bugs in their content updates, and none of them fixed all of the bugs found in 24 hours. In my experience, GW2 has been no different than any other MMO when it comes to fixing bugs, including the MMOs with a subscription fee.

I find that my posts are getting pulled whenever I mention that other game, but given the way things are now, the quality of that other game merits a sub fee while GW2 does not.

Not with the shallow content and the bugs present from release.

Even if there were a single MMO that released great content often with no bugs or bugs that were fixed in 24 hours (and I’ve never seen it), it’s certainly the exception to the rule. There are dozens of MMOs out, and I’ve played at least that many. Age of Conan, for example, was so bugged it was unplayable on my machine. Other people had the same problem I did. Lotro and DDO had tons of bugs. SWToR…I don’t even think I need to go there.

And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the game you’re talking about has plenty of reported bugs and that if I googled those bugs, I’d find the list.

Whatever. Let them pull this post if they want but, I’m talking about WoW and I don’t remember encountering any problems/bugs the last few patches. The only annoyance was updating my addons.

Whereas here, people are saying they are encountering persistent bugginess from release, disconnects, skill lag, etc.

A simple forum search will prove you wrong.

And WoW at launch was about ten times less playable than Guild Wars 2. They has scary server issues. The game was down for hours at a time, sometimes almost entire games.

It’s great to like a game, but every MMO has bugs, including major bugs and if you don’t think so, you’re not paying attention.

Grileenor.1497:

Vayne.8563:

Anet is a corporation. Yes, they’ve done some stupid things, but I’m pretty sure that they’re more successful than most MMOs that have launched in the last five years. They must know SOMETHING.

Very good example, Vayne. If have felt just like you for more than a year now. Very good exaple for “hope dies last”. My has died with the last patch. Hopefully yours will survive a little longer

What was it about the last patch that made your hope die?

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t matter if you don’t place stock in what they have to say or not.

It doesn’t matter if a company’s customers think they’re not trustworthy? And you used to run a business? I really hope you didn’t have that same attitude with your own customers.

Vayne.8563:

You’ll see, that’s all. And you will.

You keep telling yourself that, and I’ll keep watching them release bi-monthly filler content.

It doesn’t matter if you believe something is coming or not. It will come or it won’t come. It’s that simple.

If I believe it won’t rain tomorrow, my belief or disbelief is unlikely to determine whether it will rain.

Not trusting the company is a completely different thing. But whether or not that thing happens or doesn’t happen has nothing to do with your belief in it.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not taking anything out of context. I’m talking from my understanding of the industry. Anet is going to sit on any big chance/annoucement until it makes sense to make it. That has nothing to do with your schedule and everything do with with what the competition is doing.

That’s why so many games announce expanstions around the time of a new major release.

Rift had an interesting reaction to the SWToR launch. They stopped advertising altogether. They figured they couldn’t compete in that field, so they saved their money, they waited until the SWToR shine wore off and then put all their money into pushing their next big thing.

Anet doesn’t want to use a trump card now, which is why nothing is being said. If you don’t believe me, that’s perfectly cool.

Wait and see.

“Wait and see” is just as likely to mean “we don’t have anything, but if we tell you that you’ll leave” as it is “we’ve got something great, but we can’t tell you anything about it just yet”. You can take their word for face value if you want, but as you yourself have said on multiple occasions, “a statement of intent is not a promise.” Given ArenaNet’s track record, I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I don’t place any stock at all in anything they have to say in these marketing pieces.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t place stock in what they have to say or not. You’ll see, that’s all. And you will.

Every major MMO has strategies in place for dealing with competitors launching. They can’t let the cat out of the bag early because that actually destroys what they’re trying to do. Call the attention to them. That’s how the game is played.

The public memory, over all, is too short. You can give them the world and six months later, when it comes out, they’ve moved on already because they waited too long for you to deliver.

Anet is a corporation. Yes, they’ve done some stupid things, but I’m pretty sure that they’re more successful than most MMOs that have launched in the last five years. They must know SOMETHING.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Well, if you want to bring up GW1, ok, we can go there. Eventually GW1 introduced additional inventory slots that could only be unlocked from their store. It came late in the game’s lifespan and GW1 didn’t have a gem store directly accessible from within the game; but the same concept was there. They’ve simply expanded upon it and made it more readily available with the GW2 in-game gem store.

As to why they didn’t have a Nexon employee back in GW1, ArenaNet is best suited to answer that. Perhaps they didn’t have the budget, they thought they could do it in-house, they were too deep into the development of GW2 and put their energies there, etc.

What happened with GW1 isn’t terribly relevant to the OP’s thread, though, as we’re discussing GW2. And in GW2, there are a multitude of currencies and items, limited storage space in which to keep them, an in-game option to buy more storage space, and their own admission in a blog post prior to beta they were hiring a Nexon employee to assist with monetization. That’s not a conspiracy theory; those are simply the facts.

Nowhere in my first post did I say they shouldn’t figure out a way to monetize. It was simply a suggestion of how to deal with all the clutter for those who choose not to purchase more storage space; use it, sell it, or destroy it. Problem solved.

I’m sorry but someone directly tied this event to having a nexon employee. I was responding to that comment. My response was directly to the comment about the nexon employee is the reason it existed.

Since it existed prior to the nexon employee in a product by the same company I find it entirely relevant and can’t imagine why you don’t.

Essentially someone is drawing a conclusion based on the fallacy that a Nexon employee specifically created a situation unique to Guild Wars 2. Since it’s in Guild Wars 1, I say that’s not true.

Karizee.8076:

I don’t rent games.

How about bowling shoes when you go to the bowling alley? lol

I’m not taking anything out of context. I’m talking from my understanding of the industry. Anet is going to sit on any big chance/annoucement until it makes sense to make it. That has nothing to do with your schedule and everything do with with what the competition is doing.

That’s why so many games announce expanstions around the time of a new major release.

Rift had an interesting reaction to the SWToR launch. They stopped advertising altogether. They figured they couldn’t compete in that field, so they saved their money, they waited until the SWToR shine wore off and then put all their money into pushing their next big thing.

Anet doesn’t want to use a trump card now, which is why nothing is being said. If you don’t believe me, that’s perfectly cool.

Wait and see.

Seetth.6189:

Judge Banks.9018:

Vayne.8563:

Most of your cons are my pros.

Coincidentally some of his pros would be considered my cons. Also, best engine?

My friend trust me this game beside what we can call a bad optimized engine works really but really nice.

For the rest ofc will be hard to make everyone happy that’s is nearly impossible but for those who like PVP that is our point of view.

The PvPers became the minority in Guild Wars 1 eventually. I’m pretty sure the same is already true here.

How does threatening half your audience to please the other half make sense?

Devata, casual players often don’t have time to work for stuff in game and WANT to buy it.

You keep saying there are more casual players in the game than hard core players. I agree with that. But many casual players really don’t want to grind. As much as I play I’m more of a casual player than you’d think. I care more about minis and cosmetic stuff than I do about stats, and always have.

But I don’t want to be stuck running the same content over and over to get it, because that’s not fun for me.

I spent a boatload of time running Bogroot Growths in Guild Wars 1 for a Frog Scepter. I never got one. Never. Talk about a waste of time.

And many casual players can’t compete with time but by the same token, many have jobs and can compete with money.

But taking those things out of the cash shop, I’m guessing you’d inconvenience more casual players than you’d help.

Yep, it’ll be here for at least another 2 weeks….and possibly longer. As long as the marionette fight stays in, so will the lair. And the Marionette fight is definitely still running.

Ren.5842:

Vayne.8563:

…and far more teams than that working on longer term content.

From whom we’ve yet to actually see anything at all in game.

Don’t get me wrong, love this game, love the quest mechanics and pretty much everything about it.

But given that one AAA mmo has just gone out for preorder (release in 2 months), another is in alpha and by the end of the week BOTH will have the NDAs lifted, now would be a great time for ANet to pull back that mysterious curtain and tell their fanbase what they’ve got to look forward to in the future.

Umm, I’m 100% sure that’s not true. I know the big Tequatl battle was done by one of those teams. I know that the redo of the Ascalon dungeon bossses wasn’t done by a living story team. Some of the quality of life features we’ve had weren’t done by the living story team. I don’t think the new TA path was done by a living story team either, it was done by a dungeon team.

Stuff like the ability to view SPvP match ups, the account wallet, were done by other teams.

They sneak this stuff into living world updates, so everything thinks that these things were done by living world teams, but we’ve been told that’s not the case.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Junk is held onto in anticipation of needing it at a later date? Check.

Bags fill up with junk? Check.

Players buy gems to increase bank and inventory storage to keep up with the junk? Check.

Appears to be working exactly as intended. Don’t forget they hired someone from Nexon who was involved in the Maple Story economy to advise them on game monetization. The fact that there is so much junk cluttering up our collective inventories is no accident. Use it, sell it, or delete it.

Okay then explain this? Why was it exactly the same in Guild Wars 1.

There were a million things that dropped that you might need. There were things you collected for Christmas, because they sold then. There were things you just KNEW Nicholas the Traveler was going to need one day, so you saved them. At least I did.

There were so many currencies for so many different things. In Nightfall there was a different currency for each area you went so you could buy salvage kits and other stuff.

Where was this Nexon employee then?

/conspiracy theory

They have four teams working on the LS and far more teams than that working on longer term content.

My view on legendaries is quite different. If I like a way a legendary looks I’ll go for one for my character. What I won’t do is farm or grind.

I’ll make a list of the stuff I need for the legendary I want and I’ll just play the game doing pretty much what I want to do.

When I have “close” to enough stuff, I’ll use in game gold to buy the rest of the stuff.

It doesn’t matter how long it takes me to get the legendary, because I don’t need it super fast…it’s not like I can’t pay with it.

So what if instead of taking you six months, it took you a year, but you enjoyed yourself more in game by doing stuff you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it?

I think my point here and I’ve made it elsewhere as well….the entire industry has changed. Expectations of the playerbase has changed. More is demanded now.

If you add all all the voice acting in Prophecies and compare it with all the voice acting in Guild Wars 2, you’d find Guild Wars 2 had TONS more voice acting that Prophecies, which is massively expensive. The cost of making games today is higher than it was years ago.

Guild Wars 1 had a staff of 50. Guild Wars 2 has a staff of over 300. It meant moving to bigger digs, probably with higher rent.

I was in the publishing industry for part of my life, and it has changed dramatically from the 60s till now. There was a time when selling 200,000 copies of a book was profitable. Now it’s not. That’s why all the books you see are basically copies of all the other books. There’s very little new and different coming out. Risk vs reward. The risks are too high.

It’s why the MMO genre is so stagant. It’s a huge risk to try to innovate. It’s why when things aren’t looking good, businesses look to the tried and true. They can’t afford the risk.

So today, due to cost, every game has to do something to be competitive. What works eight years ago isn’t likely to work today. Buy to play in a time when everyone is charging subs, is very different from buy to play at a time when there are dozens of free to play MMOs floating around.

You need more content faster, or you lose the low attention span crowd and the content burners.

People who want a deeper game are going to have problems moving forward in general I think.

Corpus Christi.2057:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe, the model that ‘worked so good’ for GW1, was working because GW1 was a much smaller game, and a different kind of game. Maybe, having used that model before, ArenaNet has information (that we do not) indicating that model would not work so well with GW2. Maybe, as a compromise, they included the ‘gold-to-gem’ transaction method as a way to ‘marry’ the two. Maybe, they have a long-term plan we know nothing about. Maybe, as experienced game developers, they know more about the whole subject than we do.

Maybe, ….just maybe.

GW1 was by no means a smaller project than GW2.

The best idea is to launch GW1 and you will, de facto, feel how small GW2 feels compared to GW1.

Not to mention, quite off the topic, that GW1 is one of the best selling PC MMOs ( if I remember correctly, 2nd best selling MMO ) with over 8 mln copies sold.

Except that it wasn’t an MMO and launched at a time with no competition. If WoW launched today it wouldnt’ be what it is now. Neither would Guild Wars 1.

Anything I could possibly say here would earn me an infraction. lol

I would have no problem if they offered specific drops from specific bosses, like they did in Guild Wars 1. There are some in the game, but not nearly enough. Same with minis. You can get a rare chance for a Tequatl mini by doing Tequatl. You can get a rare chance at a clockwork moa by doing the new Marionette event. There have been plenty of minis in the game already that you can win.

What you want isn’t realistic. I want a game where they keep giving me content, for which I don’t really have a cash shop that sells stuff that people might want, and I want it in such a way where I can play this specific way. Do this one thing to farm for that one thing.

It’s nice that you want this, but it’s really too specific a request in my opinion. I think your cash shop desires, in particularly, are completely unreasonable. It seems the community, for the most part, in any game or board I’ve ever seen, has agreed only cosmetic stuff should be in the cash shop.

This isn’t some small thing I made up, it’s been discussed to death. For any company to go against that grain and give you stats instead of skins, would immediately label them pay to win.

RuneCrimson.7380:

Then the drops are not specific like people are telling me. Either way I see Different then what I am being told so I just stick to my little group and if I get something that I think belongs to them I hand it over to them.

The drops are reserved for your character. You can see this because it says so when you point to it. That’s ALL that drops are specific to you means. It doesn’t mean the drop will be usable by you.

RuneCrimson.7380:

MachineManXX.9746:

RuneCrimson.7380:

I have hit the monsters tons of times and watched it give me split XP between myself my wife and a friend. Why am I seeing different then everyone seems to be telling me when I watch for things like that in all games. So I know if I can play with people I do not know or not. Its a MMO and thats just how they are no matter if it says it or not there is always a loop hole around it. I have watched it while I played and watched it while my wife played its happening so if its not suppose to then there needs to be a fix cause I sure as heck took my wifes loot and watch a split in XP more then tons of times. Anyway what I see and what others see has to do with people not caring about loot and XP and I do cause it matters to the character getting stronger and if someone else is getting it then I am not leveling or getting what I need for my character. I have seen myself get loot for my wifes class while she got loot for mine or others it makes no sense if its specific for us…if it was we would be getting loot for our class not someone elses. and if the mob was suppose to give us our own loot it would be the same for me as it would be for my wife and its not. never has been.

I now see the problem you THINK you are having. Say you are playing a heavy armor class and your wife is light. (example only) You loot a light armor chest piece. You now assume you “stole” your wifes loot.

Same thing in reverse. Your wife loots heavy armor boots and you assume she “stole” your loot. Am I correct so far?

What you fail to realize is that armor and weapon types that drop as loot are totally random. Sometimes you get something you can use, sometimes not. It was never meant specifically for you or your wife or anyone else for that matter.

I would think that was the thing thats happening but for one thing…I have been told from the beginning that loot is suppose to be specific for only us. If thats the case then it should be dropping what My current character is if it is specific. So if I am confused about anything which is making me think what I am its cause of what I a being told that contradicts everything that I see. Including the whole thing with XP. If we are suppose to get the same XP and it matters how long the monster is currently spawned then when i kill it with my wife we should get the same XP according to how I am hearing things. Either way if I am just confused and I am seeing something thats not happening its cause of what I am being told by others and its contradicting what I am seeing In-game 100%.

Here are some facts. They are easy to test.

Your achievement points affect how much experience you get. I have an 18% bonus on experience because of my achievement points. Potions and buffs can affect this too. Some guilds if you’re in different guilds affect achievement points and your level affects achievement points.

Want to guest to my server, I’ll prove to you that you don’t split experience or loot.

Drops that drop for you may not be usable by you. Just because they’re “your” drops doesn’t mean they’ll fit your character. That’s not the way it works and NO WHERE does it say it is.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

A necromancer, a mesmer and a guardian are standing at the mystic forge. Miyana tells them, “throw any 4 items into the forge and yell out your wish, and Zommoros will reward you handsomely.”

So the necromancer can’t wait to try this out. She throws a couple of skulls into the forge and yells out “Ultimate power!!!”, and much to her surprise Zommoros rewards her with a powerful magical staff in return. “Sweet!” -the necromancer exclaimed poetically.

Next up is the mesmer. She throws in a pile of junk that she found during her travels, and yells out: “A new mask!”. And much to her surprise, Zommoros rewards her with a beautiful priceless mask. “Groovy!” -The mesmer exclaimed in joy.

Last up is the guardian. He throws in a couple of swords, and then he thinks. “I’m not as selfish as the both of you. I’ll wish for something that will make us all happy.” So the guardian thinks long and hard, and then he yells out: “I wish for a better world!”

Zommoros instantly pops out and decapitates the mesmer. “You’re welcome!”

ROFLMAO! I think this is the best in the thread so far.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

@ Rhyse

So let’s look at your list of pretty bad things. Let’s start with dyes.

There are 400 dyes in this game. 400. There are dyes like Abyss which is black black and would cost you over 30 gold on the TP right now. But just black dye (which IS black) and I use is only 8 gold or 8 dungeon runs to unlock it on a character.

For me the fun would then be going into the world doing that dungeon or quest or whatever to get that black or Abyss dye.

That’s my idea of fun. Not going into the world, finding a way to grind gold and then use the gold to buy the item and then do the same for the next color (or mini, or kin) and again for the next item and again for the next item and so on and so on, not to forget to grind all temporary achievements to make sure I do not miss out on a item.

No, going for the item specific (at my own time) and every item has it’s own way. That is what I like to do. Thats my idea of fun, that my game-play element and thats impossible because of the design that things “how do we get people to buy gems”, “well not by making everything available in the game”.

With the skin, if I see a cool skin (personally for ME collecting all skins would not be a game-play element.. for somebody else it might be!) the my idea of fun would indeed be again the same as I just explained with the other items. Going into the world and find it. Not coming to the conclusion it’s not available anymore or having to buy with real money it or having to grind gold to buy it. Thats not fun to me.

But you get tons of dye drops just playing… and some of those might be those colors. I have gotten both black and abyss dye drops. You dont’ have to buy them. You can play to get them.

So I’m not sure what the complaint is about here. I mean in guild wars 1, dyes were in a similar situation. They’d drop randomly anywhere in the world…but you could also go to a dye trader and buy them.

Interesting opinion. If they put open world PvP in this game, I’m guessing more than half the game’s population would leave. The game is designed to have cooperative PvE, which is pretty much what many game here for. You’d have six guys in this huge world to fight and you’d never find them.

Have you looked at the threads that suggest open world PvP and dueling before? Most people that respond don’t want them. So yeah, this game is better for not having that stuff.

As for WvW, those who live by the zerg, die by the zerg. Seems to me plenty of people on my server have a whole lot of fun running havok groups. Seems to me there’s a guild vs guild culture developing in the place Anet set aside for it.

Most of your cons are my pros.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 2 has a cash shop and that cash shop offers mostly crap…and mostly crap you don’t need. Does it matter that there’s new minis in the cash shop? Well, not unless you’re a mad addicted mini collector. Does it matter if there’s a new weapon skin or new armor skin…not really, it’s a skin. You can play the game without the skin and there are nice looking armor sets in game that you can get. Your game isn’t depending on having THAT specific skin.

Vayne, you are now only looking at it from your personal perspective. You say “what is in the cash-shop is crap” because you think so. I personally don’t try to always get the BIS item (strongest) because I don’t care about that so much. I would not agree if they put that in the cash-shop but for me personally it probably would not hurt me much, while it might hurt you (reading what you consider bad).

“Does it matter that there’s new minis in the cash shop? Well, not unless you’re a mad addicted mini collector.”
Yes it does for many casual gamers (thats how they promoted this game right). It has nothing to do with an addiction. In many MMO’s going into the world and doing dungeons, doing quest, doing crafts where you could create mini’s, killing mobs and so on to get those mini’s is what I do as game-play. Thats how I play an MMORPG. Not by trying to get the highest AP, Not by tring to get the most kills in PvP.
Fun thing about that is that it would let you do every aspect of the game because every mini (or whatever item) would require another way to get them but that would them simply be the road to get it for me. While the dungeon for you maybe is the goal itself.

That IS my game-play. That is what I prefer to do in a MMORPG. Collecting mini’s, finding rare items, collecting mounts. That’s what the game is to me. It might not be what the game is for you, for you mini’s and such are just crap items that don’t add anything to the game (because they don’t higher your stats) but for the people who like the RPG element of this MMORPG that is very much part of the game-play.

Thats now all grind grind grind or buy, so the cash-shop destroys that part of the game it’s as simple as that.

So the minis in WoW, subscription cash shop and the mounts aren’t fair game? Because that seems to be what you’re saying.

Whatever subscription games are left are also getting cash shops now and putting that very stuff in cash shops. Are there any purely subscription games out right now that don’t have cash shops.

Stuff likes mounts and minis and skins…that was always supposed to be what a not P2W cash shop is. Why? Because they offer no power.

For weeks and months before the game came out, in every speculation thread I can remember, everyone said cosmetic items are fine. Minis are fine. No one lifted a finger against them.

WoW charges fifteen bucks a month and still has mounts and minis that people would have to buy if they wanted them. Rift is free to play now, because it couldn’t sustain a sub. SWTOR has a hybrid model that’s greedy as hell but still allows you to sub. Eve has a sub and a cash shop…with cosmetic items.

If sub games can have cosmetic items in their shops, why shouldn’t a buy to play game? And what would they have if not cosmetic items.

Do you realize the outcry that you’d here if they put gear with stats in the cash shop?

If they have to make a separate precursor quest for each and every precursor and they’re all to be different….considering how hard and how long it should take, it would probably be a prohibitive amount of work.

Immensus.9732:

yeah but you forget something important, when gw2 was in beta and players were asking for obvious things to be added in the game or fixed, nothing happened, carbine postponed the game launch for wildstar more than 6 months based on beta feedback because they actually listen to players. that for me is enough to say carbine is more solid team than anet.

Actually, several things people asked for have been added to Guild Wars 2. Eye color changes were in, fans complained, Anet changed it. The ability to walk wasn’t in, fans complained and Anet added it. There are actually quite a few examples of stuff people asked for that got added, including increased loot from champion bags.

I can almost guarantee that six months after launch (and probably a good deal sooner), the Carbine forums will look just like these.

Why do I believe this? Because it happens with every MMO.

Immensus.9732:

ill probably be hated for that, but i think Carbine has much better and solid team than Anet! still both games are fun! but id LOVE see housing and other customization features in gw2.

Cracks don’t appear in a game’s armor until the honeymoon period is over.

It’s like comparing your wife with some pretty young thing you don’t know at all. There are lots of women who are nice to look at. None of them are likely to ever compare to my wife. Not favorably anyway. lol

@ Rhyse

So let’s look at your list of pretty bad things. Let’s start with dyes.

There are 400 dyes in this game. 400. There are dyes like Abyss which is black black and would cost you over 30 gold on the TP right now. But just black dye (which IS black) and I use is only 8 gold or 8 dungeon runs to unlock it on a character.

Black Lion chests don’t contain skins for weapons. They contain tickets which can become skins. But there ARE skins in the game. Even if you include all the skins in the black lion chest (many of which aren’t that popular anyway) it’s still JUST a skin. There are skins in game to work for that are cool too. Skins have always been fair game for cash shops that aren’t pay to win. And the truth….you can live without those skins. If you absolutely must have them, the problem isn’t the cash shop’s.

Stuff that doesn’t blend in the the environment doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the cash shop. The christmas cane weapons in Guild Wars 1 weren’t cash shop items, but they didn’t fit in. That’s a design decision, not just a cash shop decision. Anyway, this game isn’t immersive enough to even start worrying about that. But blaming the cash shop for stuff not fitting in? It’s a hazard you get because different people want different stuff. If people didn’t want that stuff, people wouldn’t buy it. I mean the Guild Wars 2 baseball cap was free, no?

Every MMO has bugs, and long standing bugs at that. There were bugs that launched with WoW that lasted for years, and no MMO has as much income as WoW. You can’t blame the cash shop on WoW.

The stuff it launches with is, for the most part, completely innocuous. A weapon skin or a mini, or a dye pack with a random chance of a cheap color. You know, I don’t like any of those random chance packs, so I don’t buy them. Do I miss ANY of the dye colors in there? No, because there are 350 other dyes I can get cheap.

If you get brainwashed by the shinies, the shop will mean more to you.

But let’s compare it to Lotro, which has a cash shop. I was playing Lotro with a friend and we go to go into the next area to do quests. So he goes there and I go to go there and suddeny…oh wait…sorry I can’t quest with you. I don’t have that area. Hang on, let me go buy it. That’s intrusive.

Or DDO, where I paid to unlock the monk profession because I really wanted to play it. Early there’s a dungeon you can do that gives you a returning shuriken…so you don’t have to keep buying them. Oh wait, I don’t have that dungeon pack. Want the shuriken? You have to go out and buy it.

In SWToR you have to buy SKILL bars. People who played characters and leveled them when they went free to play had to choose 2 characters they could play out of all of them, unless they paid a subscription fee.

Tell me, which MMO cash shop have you seen that’s less intrusive than this one. Because even WoW, which charges a monthly fee, made a small fortune selling the sparkle pony. Did you hear about Eve online’s fiasco with the $90 monocle?

Have you looked the cash shop for AOC, Runes of Magic, DDO, Lotro? What MMO has a cash shop fairer than this…besides Guild Wars 1, which isn’t an MMO and has a much smaller overhead anyway?

There was pet progression in Guild Wars 1, and I hated it. Every time I tamed a new pet, I had to level it again.

It was annoying as hell.

They eventually added the Zaishen Menagerie, something I really liked in Guild Wars 1, that allowed you to store pets in an island set up just for your pets.

You could then go in on any character and take out the pet at the level it was stored.

But you still had to level each pet separately.

Other types of progression might work, but I’d hate to have to level every pet I might want you use at some point.

RuneCrimson.7380:

I have hit the monsters tons of times and watched it give me split XP between myself my wife and a friend. Why am I seeing different then everyone seems to be telling me when I watch for things like that in all games. So I know if I can play with people I do not know or not. Its a MMO and thats just how they are no matter if it says it or not there is always a loop hole around it. I have watched it while I played and watched it while my wife played its happening so if its not suppose to then there needs to be a fix cause I sure as heck took my wifes loot and watch a split in XP more then tons of times. Anyway what I see and what others see has to do with people not caring about loot and XP and I do cause it matters to the character getting stronger and if someone else is getting it then I am not leveling or getting what I need for my character. I have seen myself get loot for my wifes class while she got loot for mine or others it makes no sense if its specific for us…if it was we would be getting loot for our class not someone elses. and if the mob was suppose to give us our own loot it would be the same for me as it would be for my wife and its not. never has been.

I’ve watched it too. I always watch stuff like that. Did you know different level characters get different amounts of experience based on their levels for the same kills?

So if you and your wife are attacking something at different levels, you will get different amounts of experience. However, if you were to solo that same creature, you’d get the same experience you got if you killed it with her.

And bonus experience is only for the amount of time that a creature has been in the world without being killed.

I’ve tested this myself many times.

RuneCrimson.7380:

If you say so….I saw My wifes loot and to prove to her I could take it took it from her. But its a pointless thing to go over and over. I know what I saw.

Actually perhaps you should say what you saw in detail, because frankly, after over 5000 hours including playing with my wife a good portion of the time, I’ve never seen this.

RuneCrimson.7380:

And thats why I will never believe it…rudeness that happened to me on the board and in game as I watched it happen. Glitch or not it has happened more then once I watched it I don’t need someone telling me I am wrong I know what I saw. Matters little I do not have to listen to the rudeness.

Loot is assigned to specific players in this game. No one can take your loot period. It’s been known from day one. It’s in the wiki.

No one can take your experience either.

About the closest thing that can happen is that you don’t get XP or loot because you didn’t hit the threshold.

In order for you to get credit for a kill, you have to do a certain percentage of the damage. If five guys are hitting something, and you hit it a couple of times, you might not get credit for that kill because you didn’t hit the threshold.

However when in a party that threshhold is much much lower. It’s much easier to get credit for a kill.

So you kill things faster, because you’re with other people, and you get more loot.

You’re only hurting yourself by not playing with others.

When a company has a cash shop in a game that’s not free…they have to walk a tightrope. They can’t put anything too good into the shop that people will be required to buy, because that would make the game pay to win…or at least pay to play. SWToR did this sort of thing. You get one skill bar and if you want to use more skills you have to pay to unlock a second skill bar. That’s not free to play to me anyway.

Companies that gate content behind walls, or races or professions…they’re borderline free to play with me.

Guild Wars 2 has a cash shop and that cash shop offers mostly crap…and mostly crap you don’t need. Does it matter that there’s new minis in the cash shop? Well, not unless you’re a mad addicted mini collector. Does it matter if there’s a new weapon skin or new armor skin…not really, it’s a skin. You can play the game without the skin and there are nice looking armor sets in game that you can get. Your game isn’t depending on having THAT specific skin.

If you are bored with every skin in the game, and skins are that important to you, you’ll go to the cash shop…and that should be fine by everyone. The cash funds the game, but you don’t “need it”.

As time goes on, companies tend to push what they can get away with. They test the waters. They see if adding say sprockets to a pick is something the community will accept. I bought the pick myself, but before I knew about the sprockets. I probably wouldn’t have had I known.

The cash shop in this game isn’t actually that intrusive. It’s nothing like the cash shops in games like Lotro and DDO or Runes of Magic, where you can’t really compete if you don’t pay up regularly.

And then there are games like WoW which charge a monthly fee and STILL have a cash shop for cool cosmetic stuff.

No cash shop is ever going to be perfect, but to say all the content in the game is about the cash shop, or affects it is probably a misnomer. We got two boss fights this week, both of which took work. A lot of people love the Marionette fight. With the exception of the achievements I like it. But there’s nothing in the cash shop related to the fight. There are three wurm minis that tie to the other big boss fight. So what?

If you like the wurm minis you can buy them. If you don’t like them, you can’t.

And there’s a mini that drops in the game from the Scarlet chest you can get anyway, that drops fairly frequently.

I’m just not seeing this huge pressing problem here.

As far as Guild Wars 1 was able to do something and survive so others should be able to do it…I disagree. Guild Wars 1 was able to do it 8 years ago. It’s a very very different market. Much more competitive now. Far more investment needed to get a game out in the first place. A far bigger staff.

I really don’t believe that the original model would work today because the entire landscape has changed significantly. Even just the number of games available make the expansion model at the very least far more risky.

rhapsody.3615:

If you’re solo farming, you may consider necro. Out of my 80’s (ele, necro, mesmer, ranger, warrior), I find that my necro is fastest for mobs. Pull them together, throw a bunch of condis on, and epidemic (spreads all conditions from the target to nearby foes). Just about every skill for a necro is aoe damage. Minion builds are also pretty quick at killing mobs and help keep aggro off of you. The downside is the necro doesn’t have a weapon swiftness skill, but they do have a 25% speed signet and you can always use swiftness runes if it really bothers you.

This…my necro is my favorite farming character (though an engie with a bomb kit works pretty well too).

What’s the best way to get a drink out of a norn?

Stick your finger down his throat.

lordhelmos.7623:

milo.6942:

Vayne.8563:

milo.6942:

Vayne.8563:

milo.6942:

Vayne.8563:

milo.6942:

Strongly agree with OP. Vayne is in here again talking about how it’s the player’s responsibility to “be social” but he completely ignores basic human nature. An mmo game especially should provide some kind of backdrop or reason for you to contact specific people and to form communities based on mutual needs “I scratch your back you scratch mine”. There needs to be some reason for people to seek out other people. Once that’s done you can begin to have more meaningful interaction that goes beyond what you need in game and you can make friends. But if any schmuck can fill your party slot and even a monkey could do it then there’s no reason for you to begin to care about who is in your party because you can just get the next guy to fill the slot too.

To me, this has been the biggest downfall of eliminating the trinity. Not the gameplay consequences (though they are also noteworthy) but the near complete elimination of individual distinction and proficiency, and the boring interchangeability that replaced it.

This game seems to strongly want to become some kind of mmorpg-fps hybrid. FPS games don’t have roles, but the individual’s skill and proficiency can be quickly seen and praised. Here, everyone just rolls into one huge ball of mediocrity.

So what about all the people who want to play the game and aren’t naturally social. The old way force them to be social even if they’re antisocial and they end up destroying everyone else’s fun. That’s bad design.

Here you can find social people if you want to be social, but no one is forced to. What you’re saying is games should basically tell you who to be. I don’t agree with this.

Forcing people who don’t want to socialize to socialize will lead to some people being forced into something they don’t want to do, and some people refusing to do it and having to miss out on vast swathes of content.

I’d consider that far worse design.

Each class should have a selection of weapons that are more balanced for solo play. 90% of the game is open world communal events. If you want to do dungeons or pvp then it should have been clear from the “mmo” game description that you will be playing alongside other players. This is exactly what op was talking about: This is an mmo where everyone plays by themselves. And it is supremely shallow because of it.

I found myself playing far more by myself in other MMOs with the trinity. I was healing so I was looking at little green bars and not really playng with people at all. If I did well no one cared. If I did badly it was the end of the world.

Yeah it was very social. I’m so glad I don’t have to put up with that crap here.

I think your anecdote is irrelevant, if you didn’t enjoy healing then you shouldn’t have played a healer. Now of course people won’t rage at you for doing a “bad job”, support is mostly inconsequential.

Except people pressure you, if they know you have a healer to play one. It happens all the time. And if no one wants to heal there is no dungeon.

Great stuff. I wish I could do it all again.

It’s all this touchy feely candyland “no pressure” stuff that makes this game so bland. It finds the rock bottom players that don’t want to talk to anyone in an mmo and makes a game for them. Have fun man

Moreover the glaring issue exists that players can do every role with certain classes. When people lack something that makes them unique from other people, the game becomes very one dimensional.

Player Guildwars 2 is like going into a Team Fortress game where every single class is locked except for the soldier.

You DO NOT need the Trinity to have roles. But you DO need roles to have a successful game play experience.

I completely disagree with this. I’ve had many successful game experiences without roles. It might just have to do with personal preference. See, I dislike having roles. And doesn’t make my experience better or more fun.

So maybe there are 87 zillion MMOs out there with roles and one without, and the people supporting this game are trying to make it so that there’s at least one MMO for us to play.

milo.6942:

Vayne.8563:

milo.6942:

Vayne.8563:

milo.6942:

Vayne.8563:

milo.6942:

Strongly agree with OP. Vayne is in here again talking about how it’s the player’s responsibility to “be social” but he completely ignores basic human nature. An mmo game especially should provide some kind of backdrop or reason for you to contact specific people and to form communities based on mutual needs “I scratch your back you scratch mine”. There needs to be some reason for people to seek out other people. Once that’s done you can begin to have more meaningful interaction that goes beyond what you need in game and you can make friends. But if any schmuck can fill your party slot and even a monkey could do it then there’s no reason for you to begin to care about who is in your party because you can just get the next guy to fill the slot too.

To me, this has been the biggest downfall of eliminating the trinity. Not the gameplay consequences (though they are also noteworthy) but the near complete elimination of individual distinction and proficiency, and the boring interchangeability that replaced it.

This game seems to strongly want to become some kind of mmorpg-fps hybrid. FPS games don’t have roles, but the individual’s skill and proficiency can be quickly seen and praised. Here, everyone just rolls into one huge ball of mediocrity.

So what about all the people who want to play the game and aren’t naturally social. The old way force them to be social even if they’re antisocial and they end up destroying everyone else’s fun. That’s bad design.

Here you can find social people if you want to be social, but no one is forced to. What you’re saying is games should basically tell you who to be. I don’t agree with this.

Forcing people who don’t want to socialize to socialize will lead to some people being forced into something they don’t want to do, and some people refusing to do it and having to miss out on vast swathes of content.

I’d consider that far worse design.

Each class should have a selection of weapons that are more balanced for solo play. 90% of the game is open world communal events. If you want to do dungeons or pvp then it should have been clear from the “mmo” game description that you will be playing alongside other players. This is exactly what op was talking about: This is an mmo where everyone plays by themselves. And it is supremely shallow because of it.

I found myself playing far more by myself in other MMOs with the trinity. I was healing so I was looking at little green bars and not really playng with people at all. If I did well no one cared. If I did badly it was the end of the world.

Yeah it was very social. I’m so glad I don’t have to put up with that crap here.

I think your anecdote is irrelevant, if you didn’t enjoy healing then you shouldn’t have played a healer. Now of course people won’t rage at you for doing a “bad job”, support is mostly inconsequential.

Except people pressure you, if they know you have a healer to play one. It happens all the time. And if no one wants to heal there is no dungeon.

Great stuff. I wish I could do it all again.

It’s all this touchy feely candyland “no pressure” stuff that makes this game so bland. It finds the rock bottom players that don’t want to talk to anyone in an mmo and makes a game for them. Have fun man

I am having fun.