Guild Wars 2

Zenyatoo.4059:

Greedy? Christ. Where did this movement of accepting everything a company does come from. I swear it wasnt like this 15 years ago.

You want the truth? Games been out for an entire year. lets compare the god kitten score for a second.

Guild wars:
1 year

Free content:
Sorrows furnace – Entire new rarity of items, large amount of bosses from every profession, bunch of new quests, and one hell of a crazy bossfight (forgeman)

Expansion content:
2 new professions
1 new weapon type
something like 200 new skills, 90 of which were elites
13 new story missions, 5 new other missions (elite/challenge)
3 new types of pvp
2 new faction types (which meant a way for guilds to own towns, also a new thing)
something like 70 new zones filled with completely new monsters we’d never seen before using new skills we’d never seen before
More weapon skins than you could shake a stick at.

guild wars 2
Permanent content:
1 new dungeon path that removed an older path
1 boss has been revamped
new weapon skins that require gems
1 new zone
Fractals
1 new rarity
4 “activities”

Removed content:
a bunch of quest chains
a dungeon (molten factory)
a couple mission type instances

Factions added far more content than we’ve gotten so far, in the same timespan, and it STUCK AROUND. it wasnt removed a month later.

We havent become greedy at all. Our standards are the exact same. It’s Anet itself who has changed the amount of content that they produce.

Yep, let’s compare. The content total of Guild Wars: Prophecies and Factions together, is not as much content as Guild Wars 2 AT LAUNCH.

Maybe you don’t realize it, but I sure do. Prophecies had under 300 quests and 25 missions, a couple of elite areas. It’s lovely they added stuff to that game, because it needed.

People finished Factions in a week. A WEEK!. It only had 13 missions.

Maybe your concept of content is different from mine, but this game has far FAR more content than Guild Wars 1 had even after the release of Nightfall.

Galen Grey.4709:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Sirendor.1394:

Keep going. Keep going. We want a game that is fun, not “grind x”, “farm y”, “zerg z”

Except that’s what people have been asking for…. so apparently that is what they want. Maaaaybe not you or me specifically, but obviously we aren’t loud enough to offset those crying for those things.

We actually got a game that applies to both our groups but you have to be willing to choose what you love playing rather then whats more profitable.

Quoted for truth. People who must play the most efficient way are gimping their own enjoyment. Play the most fun way, and don’t worry about rewards.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Anet DID learn from the Karka Queen. Since then they haven’t done a one time only event, with everyone having to show up at the same time to do it. That’s called learning.

That’s Ancient Karka event. Yes, they learned something – that their servers are not up to the task. Now, Karka Queen… that didn’t teach them anything.

I don’t know. I don’t think the Karka Queen was supposed to be anything more than it is…something for larger guilds to do (and larger guilds do it).

Anet is trying to provide content for all kinds of people. Big guilds have guild missions they can do a couple of times a week, and WvW. This and the Tequatl encounter is something for them.

Gene Archer.8560:

Vayne.8563:

Except that I’m A) not alone in my views and there are more people on the other side of the coin, who don’t play like I do that would agree with me.

Who do you think the people generally are that think that it’s okay to have ultra hard content that requires organization? I’ll give you a hint…it’s not carebears like me. lol

I know you’re not alone in your views, that’s why I didn’t say “all” forum goers.

But what I mean is this: You basically just said “I don’t see why people would want to experience every part of the game they just bought.”

It just seems like a silly thing to say, in my opinion.

I’m saying that in a themepark game (and this game is very much a theme park) not everything will be for everyone. It would be like going to Disneyworld and paying the admission price and then insisting every single ride be something you’d enjoy. If you only like roller coasters, then you’re going to be very disappointed. If you don’t like roller coasters, you don’t go on space mountain.

It’s the same here. There are, in every single MMO, a percentage of people who want to be challenged. This isn’t news to anyone. And there are a percentage of people who want to bang around the world and have a good time without any risk at all. This also shouldn’t be news to anyone.

All I’m saying is that this game has a bevy of stuff for the latter group, but relatively little for the group that wants a challenge. Providing stuff for the group that wants a challenge IS going to leave some people out…probably most people. But you can’t leave out an entire portion of the population just because it’s not your portion.

I think it’s a silly thing to assume that most people expect everything in the game to be for them, or even finishable by them. I think some people do expect that, but I don’t think they’re the majority. Any more than most people who buy a five day pass to Disneyworld expect to enjoy every ride.

It’s simply not reasonable.

Tree.3916:

I still don’t see how Scarlet fits into the lore. A sylvari graduating at all asuran colleges? wtf

You mean lore has to have no exceptions to anything.

Sylvari are naturally curious about everything. An exceptional Sylvari goes to Rata Sum and applies and naturally the Asura want to keep her out By the same token, if she does well, some Asurans would actually want to see what she comes up with (if for no other reason to see the limitations of the Sylvari brain).

Staying within the realms of the lore doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions. There is zero reason why Scarlet can’t have gone to one of the Asuran universities. None at all.

Arimahn.3568:

The last good addition to the game were Fractals. It was obvious that the team that made them really learned something about designing dungeon instances, considering how awful the regular dungeons were and still are. The same can not be said about the Living Story. It’s still badly written and nonsensical and, since it’s on such a short cycle, there probably isn’t much room for sitting down and thinking of ways to become better. That’s why I assume the LS hurts real content.

Except that parts of the living story are quite good and some are even brilliant. It’s like you’re making the ‘story’ all the living story was about. Lots of people, for example, loved the Molten Facility dungeon. Lots of people also like Southsun Survival and Sanctum Sprint. And a whole lot of people seemed to like the Zephyrite area, when that was in the game. Saying that the fractals was good and something like Zephyr Sanctum isn’t…I’m pretty sure more people visited and enjoyed the Zephyr Sanctum than currently enjoy fractals.

The problem is, people who like dungeons think of dungeons as the main content of MMOs. People who like open world think of the open world as the main content of MMOs. People who like farming think of farming as the main content of MMOs.

I like the new Twilight Arbor path as much as I like the Fractals…yet it’s part of the Living Story, but I’m not at heart a dungeon guy. I much prefer open world content to instanced content (and probably always will).

I think you’re simply saying that the content you like is real content and the content others like is somehow less real.

Arimahn.3568:

Vayne.8563:

Sytherek.7689:

Vayne: ANet has not made a " a game that you can walk away from and come back to."

If you walk away for even a couple of weeks, you miss temporary content.

If anything, ANet has built a game that is hostile to taking a hiatus.

It’s like putting down a book, and coming back to find unread chapters ripped out and gone.

But what do you miss when you miss that temporary content? Some achievement points and a backpiece? A minipet.

I think the idea is you pick and choose the stuff you want to do. Unless you have borderline OCD, you don’t have to do living story every month. Those who feel they have to probably have bigger problems than the game.

It was designed so there was always something new to do. Not everyone does everything.

Temporary content detracts from actual, useful content. We all know they can’t and won’t make Living Story rewards interesting and actually rewarding, because then you’d REALLY miss out and be punished for not playing. Yet without something fresh that’s there to stay, there is no reason to come back. I’ve recently made the mistake of leveling a new character and if it wasn’t for the champ train in Queensdale and the Halloween champ farming, I’d never gotten to 80 with it. The regular zones are empty, unchanging and plain boring. The classes are still pretty much like they were on launch.

There is nothing to keep me interested, nothing to new to try and thus no reason for me to play or spend money on the game.

Yep, I agree with you. There’s no reason for you to play the game. Obviously you know you better than anyone.

But I strongly suspect you don’t represent the majority of people who play games like this. Constantly changing, having to come to terms with new builds doesn’t necessarily keep other people playing and can even frustrate and turn people off. Because to me the game isn’t about builds. I’d much rather fire and forget than constantly sit around tweaking my build…and you know, in Guild Wars 1 I loved builds.

But the game became build wars. I wasn’t fighting anything in the world, I was just working on my build.

And I completely disagree that temporary content isn’t actual content or somehow ruins content that’s there. I don’t know why people believe this.

Kozume.9035:

Vayne.8563:

Personally I think you’re at a disadvantage if you’re so worried about being at a disadvantage that you stop having fun because of it.

People want to be forced to have fun, rather than find their own fun.

At least that’s how I see it.

I sort of agree with this. I hate it…but I think I agree.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Yeah, I have to use guesting to kill an open world boss. And first I have to find the right server.

Bad game design is bad.

In most games you have to find the right guild to do the hardest content. This is actually easier.

Gene Archer.8560:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure why people think every single aspect of a game needs to be able to be done by every single player in the game in the first place.

Then you don’t understand people and gamers in general, and quite frankly, you never will. And in fact, it might explain why your views clash so much with a lot of other forum goers.

Except that I’m A) not alone in my views and there are more people on the other side of the coin, who don’t play like I do that would agree with me.

Who do you think the people generally are that think that it’s okay to have ultra hard content that requires organization? I’ll give you a hint…it’s not carebears like me. lol

TheDaiBish.9735:

Vayne.8563:

TheDaiBish.9735:

I can’t say that I agree that the Roman numerals give an impression of unpolishedness (although the buff on the buff bar, such as Empower Allies, could use an icon, even if it’s just the icon for the stat it boosts).

In terms of usability and friendliness, it’s going to change from player to player. I find the numerals much preferable personally, since I only use them for recording builds, thus I’d much rather write ‘IV’ than a) describe the icon or b) mouse over to find the trait.

Write? You still write? People still write? Holy crap!

I think I’ve forgotten how to use a pen! LOL

Pen? Psh, I use a quill and ink :P

Yeah, I tend to write a lot when number-crunching / getting ideas down / drafting code.

Honestly if I ever had to go back to using pen and paper, I’d give up writing.

TheDaiBish.9735:

I can’t say that I agree that the Roman numerals give an impression of unpolishedness (although the buff on the buff bar, such as Empower Allies, could use an icon, even if it’s just the icon for the stat it boosts).

In terms of usability and friendliness, it’s going to change from player to player. I find the numerals much preferable personally, since I only use them for recording builds, thus I’d much rather write ‘IV’ than a) describe the icon or b) mouse over to find the trait.

Write? You still write? People still write? Holy crap!

I think I’ve forgotten how to use a pen! LOL

Rama.6439:

Vayne.8563:

Tequatl still gets done on some servers and guesting is free. Anyone who insists on getting it done on their server is being stubborn.

The store down the block from where I live was out of milk. Now I have to go without milk. It’s a tragedy. Why doesn’t my store have milk….I mean I have to go to the next shop now, and that’s a couple of blocks away. Oh the pain.

Teq still gets done. The Karka Queen still gets done. You can join a server that does them both if you want…or you can post to the forums and never get your achievement.

It’s better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

On the topic of other boss redesigns, I’m pretty sure none of them will require the coordination of Tequatl. Anet does learn from these things, the way they learned from the original Karka event.

You seem to think that if it is getting done on 1 server, everyone can get it done, you forget that server gets full, then people get thrown into overflows, then what, it dont get done. This is what is in store for every dragon event in the soon to be future.

And no, Anet learned nothing from Karka Queen, they never learn, look what they did to WvW, they don’t learn, they think they know everything already.

My bad, just realized who I was responding to, might as well be responding to a wall…

Anet DID learn from the Karka Queen. Since then they haven’t done a one time only event, with everyone having to show up at the same time to do it. That’s called learning.

Anyone can guest to another server to do it. Today I guested to Maguuma where they gave it a try (unsuccessful, but it was planned and I joined).

Anyone who wants to do it, can find out where it’s being done and make it their business to be there.

I’m not sure why people think every single aspect of a game needs to be able to be done by every single player in the game in the first place.

DocHolliday.5921:

Knote.2904:

rjnemer.7816:

As a Pve ’er my main problem with the game is how broken Risk vs. Reward is. The fact that you make equal if not more money running in a champ train over running the most difficult content (arah/48+ fractals) blows my mind.

We need INSTANCED elite content as well. PvE is way to easy right now.

Risk/Reward is messed up everywhere in the game.

Pvp balance especially.

My biggest grievance with the game is the lack of skills/build variety and just…. “FUN”.

Still over a year in and still no new traits/skills, and on top of that, skill/traits that have been garbage since beta… are still garbage… Over a year in.. Cmon now.

I still can’t see how people think this is better than GW1 was, at any point from launch.

It depends on what you play for. Guild Wars 1 had great skills and great builds, but not everyone liked that aspect of the game. Guild Wars 1 was completely “pathed”. It was hard to go off road. If you ran into a log, you had to turn around and go back. Not all people liked that aspect of the game.

But mostly Guild Wars 1 was instanced. There was no chance of running into a random stranger out in the open world and a lot of people, myself included, simply prefer a persistent world.

Maybe I don’t want to start over in a zone if I want someone to join me.

Lalangamena.3694:

the majority of GW2 players are ADHD kiddies,
older audience moved to serious games.

Evidence?

What makes you think older audiences WANT more serious games. The number one genre of fiction books is romance, which isn’t necessarily well written and it’s mostly the same plot book after book. Women 35-50 is the main target. It’s mostly “light” entertainment and much of it is downright stupid. I know because I’ve written some of it. But it sells.

Those people who want more serious content are often younger, because they’re still plagued with ego problems and are self-conscious about being seen as being childish. They’ve just grown up and they’re too old for comics.

But there comes a time when you’re old enough for that stuff again. If you don’t believe it, read the dedication to Narnia one day. CS Lewis said it best.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

I feel exactly the same.
Waypoints simply take away so much of the “world” feeling.

One of my fondest memories from vanilla_WoW_ is making a night elf, then traveling from teldrassil to auberdine, then across half of Kalimdor, taking a boat from menetil harbour to Wetlands, running through that zone then through to get to Loch Modan, then getting to Dun Morogh and finally discovering Ironforge.

When I think about what my experience would be like if there were no waypoints or asura gates I get really sad, cus they make the world pointless.
Cus I will never have the experience of traveling from Plains of Ashford to The Grove, which would be an incredible journey.

And don’t give me the “then don’t use waypoints” speech, cus it’s like mounts. You put yourself at a disadvantage by not using them.

But you dont’ have to use them. I don’t. Because I don’t always have to have an advantage.

Why can’t you make one character, make it your explorer character, turn off the map markers on that character (this also does wonders for exploration), refuse to use a waypoint, and explore to your hearts content.

Asking for the game to change isn’t going to happen, and you can experience exploration if you make the choice to do so.

Personally I think you’re at a disadvantage if you’re so worried about being at a disadvantage that you stop having fun because of it.

Iason Evan.3806:

CHIPS.6018:

Wizard’s Tower is a major lore item. I rather they take the time to make it great. But yes its been 8 years.

I did post this 8 months ago: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Wizard-s-Tower-as-a-Fractal/first#post1346064

They have this amazing thing that has always piqued interest, they move it into this game(it really is one of the only immediately recognizable things from GW1 in GW2) and yet it just sits there tucked away into a corner of a map that until now was kind of neglected because it has no meta event. What actually has to transpire for that thing to get fleshed out? It’s like if they showed the Death Star in Star Wars but never talked about it. I have sufficiently given my two cents on the matter though now. It would be nice to hear something from the devs on it though. It’s been 8 years of waiting.

Or the designers aren’t lore hounds and they’re just normal players. most of whom really don’t care about lore.

You seem to be laboring under the assumption that the majority of people care about lore and think about lore. Why call something a tower? I don’t know. We have towers in WvW. We have water towers. Tower is just a word in the English language.

Do you realize how few people, even Guild Wars 1 players by percentage hardly think about the Wizard’s Tower in Kessex.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to see it, but saying that someone shouldn’t use the word tower because it has such deep meaning to a relatively small percentage of people…well it’s like saying everyone has to think like you.

I know from personal experience not a lot of people think like me, so I stopped expecting them to.

The Wizards Tower looms large in your mind. This isn’t a universal or wide-spread circumstance.

dukefx.9730:

Unfortunately Arena.net’s priority =/= the player’s priority. Instead of new skills and traits, new armor sets, craftable precursors, new legendaries they are busy with the Living Story which 80% of the commnity is sick and tired of.

I love how people pull numbers out of their….imagination to try to make a point. You have no clue how many people by percentage are sick of the Living World stuff. It’s probably less than you think is my guess.

By the same token, not everyone is barracking for more skills. Some people certainly are, but many people are not build-a-holics and are happy just to throw stuff together that works Those people aren’t hurting for build options, because they don’t follow any sort of meta.

I’d wager there are far more people who don’t even know a meta exists than there are those who pay attention to it.

You don’t have to do every daily every day. Hell, you shouldn’t do every daily every day…unless you’re trying for a position of the leaderboards (and if you’re not there now, you’ll never catch up).

bluestocking.6148:

1983 sounds about right. I would have been 10 so it must’ve been about that time. Did you have “B.C. Quest for Tires”? I loved that game.

OFMG I loved that game. Yes, I had it. I think I had like every Commodore 64 game ever…I’m older than you though.

bluestocking.6148:

JustTrogdor.7892:

Ashabhi.1365:

I’ve been playing computer games since you had to program them yourself. (BASIC, anyone?) played p&p D&D….

Haha that brings back memories. I was the kid that would go to Radio Shack in the mall and program my name to go all over on the screen on the TRS-80 display. Later I had a Commodore Vic-20 with a cassette tape drive. I remember many hours with my nose stuck in Commodore magazine coding a game and many times having it fail. I had a few games for the cassette drive and would get home from school and start loading it, go watch cartoons and come back an hour later and maybe it actually loaded.

My RP also started with p&p D&D. Those were the days were most of the graphics were in your head aside from a few pictures to look at in books. Things certainly have come a long way since then.

I had the Commodore 64. No tape drive on mine, but that external floppy drive that liked to overheat and catch fire if you didn’t have a fan running on it at all times.

I had the tape drive before the disc drive was available (or at least affordable). 1983. Fun times. Brings back memories.

Galtrix.7369:

Angelica Dream.7103:

Our guild has about 40% under 21 so I would say that more adults play GW2 but more “mature teens” play GW2 VS games like WOW

lol, I beg to differ. I’ve been kicked out of more dungeons than I can count by little teenagers in GW2. Let me give you a comparison. I’ve played WoW since the beginning of it’s existence. I’ll just say 8 years. I was only kicked by a teenager twice in WoW, and he was extremely immature. Fast forward to Guild Wars 2, and I’ve been kicked over 30 times. 20-22ish of those were teens.

That’s because more little teenagers pug, where older people tend to organize into guilds of like minded people. Much of my guild is over 30. Plenty of us are over 50.

Tequatl still gets done on some servers and guesting is free. Anyone who insists on getting it done on their server is being stubborn.

The store down the block from where I live was out of milk. Now I have to go without milk. It’s a tragedy. Why doesn’t my store have milk….I mean I have to go to the next shop now, and that’s a couple of blocks away. Oh the pain.

Teq still gets done. The Karka Queen still gets done. You can join a server that does them both if you want…or you can post to the forums and never get your achievement.

It’s better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

On the topic of other boss redesigns, I’m pretty sure none of them will require the coordination of Tequatl. Anet does learn from these things, the way they learned from the original Karka event.

Mathias.9657:

RIP Professor yakkington… now a stupid ascended item.

What an honor! He’d be very proud. lol

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

But I disagree about Twilight Assault. It’s by far my favorite dungeon in the game to date..well maybe except for the Fractals. But it’s up there.

Is it because of the mechanics, story or both? While i am not really fond of aetherblade retreat-style dungeons and think that Assault could have been made easier a bit, i can understand that there are people that like it. That’s not what i was talking about. I was solely concentrating here on basing its fluff on aetherblade/scarlet story arc (though i guess i didn’t make it clear enough).

It’s not much worse than any dungeon in most MMOs. Everyone seems to think that every story has to be high drama and engaging. Dungeons in most games have mediocre stories. In fact, stories in dungeons are really just excuses for mechanics. If I want great stories, I read books.

The idea isn’t really a bad one, set up wise. You’ve got the Lion Guard who have reason to be angry at Scarlet over the death of a captain. You have Caithe who is lured there for other reasons. And your’e in the middle clearing the way.

The story does exactly what it’s supposed to do for a dungeon. It sets up the action. That’s it. That’s the purpose of stories in dungeons. As far as I can remember, it’s pretty much always been the purpose.

I mean it is better than Heart of the Shiverpeakes in Guild Wars 1 where we’re sent to get a hammer to do a ritual? I don’t think so. That entire hammer quest was an excuse to make is go through a dungeon. The end boss mechanics was more like a minigame. It was fine because that’s what stories in dungeons are. A reason to go do them.

Good suggestion, OP. There should be something to do while waiting.

Astralporing.1957:

I partly agree with Vayne here. I don’t remember hearts being toned down in any way during the develompent – quite the opposite. I also understand the need for temporary content, that (while engaging) is neither too important or too rewarding. People that missed an arc of temporary living story cannot miss too much, after all.
Unfortunately, that’s only a small part of what OP was talking about – and most of the rest is pretty much spot on.
And even things that Vayne mentioned are very conditional:
While hearts weren’t nerfet in importance, karma vendors (mentioned by OP in the same sentence) definitely were. While karma was originally supposed to be an important currency, we’ve seen it being completely abandoned by the devs after the start. Even last attempts to increase it value again (by massively nerfing it’s income) weren’t exactly well thought-out, and never addressed the main reasons why it was mostly useless currency lately. In many ways, it only made the situation worse.

And while creating a constant stream of temporary events to keep players engaged (living story) seem to have been a good idea – most of the players (especially casuals) do like to be pointed at some shortterm goals – the pacing of LS events seem a bit too fast now, leaving people burned out. Also, for the MMO to really feel alive, some of the changes must be permanent. And those changes must be of way better quality than what the LS shows us now. Which of course means that they cannot be based on poor quality living story arcs (yes, Twilight Assault, i am looking at you).

…and story even for those short-term temporary content could be improved in quality, and made more consistent with the world, instead of producing some really wtf effects. In that context flame and frost was okay, but the Aetherblade/Scarlet part was a great disappointment.

I agree with a lot of what you’ve said here. The karma was over-nerfed. The pace of the living story is too fast.

But I disagree about Twilight Assault. It’s by far my favorite dungeon in the game to date..well maybe except for the Fractals. But it’s up there.

champ.7021:

Lord Kuru.3685:

If they restore your guild bank to what it was before the hack, all the stuff that had been put in the bank after that point would be lost. Now you’d have more players upset. If they just give you your 25 gold back, then they run the risk of people fraudulently claim their account has been hacked.

I don’t think this is an indication that Anet doesn’t care about its customers — it’s a pretty no-win situation for Anet here.

Isnt there a record of withdrawls and deposits into the guild bank. Couldnt they just look at that and figure out whether it was actually taken out and just give back what was taken. I mean it cant be that big of a deal.

Also to the OP, this really sucks. Although its not that much gold (from my perspective) the principle remains. For example in my guild people have been depositing their minis and if someone were to take them out they could probably have 100s of gold.

So if I go and take a bunch of stuff out of my bank and then claim my account was hacked…how can they possibly verify that. Maybe my roommate logged in while I was sleeping and did it. It’s just not that easy.

Experience tells us if you give people a chance to cheat and steal, a percentage of them will. People can log into their own account, maybe from a friend’s house, say they were hacked and then what?

JK Arrow.7102:

Vayne.8563:

The living story is another thing that is misrepresented here. Do you know why the living story is what it is? Because it’s exactly what its designed to be. It’s not supposed to be a deep story that enthralls, because it’s temporary. No one wants to miss a deep enthralling story. And Anet wants to make a game that you can walk away from and come back to. If you make it so that the living story is something you must do, then you’ve missed a basic tenet of the game. That’s why there’s little plot. So people can pick it up whenever they join up to it. It’s not meant to replace personal story, it’s more meant to do what adding more dynamic events would do.

I can’t believe you are defending Anet by saying they produced a lame storyline on purpose…

I’m repeating what they said. Literally. They said why the living story was just a bunch of loosely related content updates, that doesn’t increase the main story. I didn’t actually say this, they did.

Edit: You know the living story doesn’t need defense. It’s what it’s supposed to be, pretty much exactly. It’s 2 week content updates and that’s all it is. It keeps the world moving. That’s why they changed the name from Living STORY to Living WORLD, which better represents what it is.

I get it, everyone wants new dragons every week, and deep meaningful story, but that’s neither realistic, nor even particularly desirable. It’s content for people who enjoy doing achievments or minigames, or in some cases dungeons or challenging content. You want a two week update to be what you want it to be. That’s not fair or reasonable. Some updates will have stuff people like, some won’t. Not everyone is going to like SAB, but a lot of people do.

Sytherek.7689:

Vayne: ANet has not made a " a game that you can walk away from and come back to."

If you walk away for even a couple of weeks, you miss temporary content.

If anything, ANet has built a game that is hostile to taking a hiatus.

It’s like putting down a book, and coming back to find unread chapters ripped out and gone.

But what do you miss when you miss that temporary content? Some achievement points and a backpiece? A minipet.

I think the idea is you pick and choose the stuff you want to do. Unless you have borderline OCD, you don’t have to do living story every month. Those who feel they have to probably have bigger problems than the game.

It was designed so there was always something new to do. Not everyone does everything.

Dante.1508:

Enjoy your purchase and the game, only piece of advice i’ll give is steer clear of Ranger and Engineer if you want to enjoy all aspects of the game.

I play all aspects of the game on a ranger and an engineer.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I thought the OP said he was rolling a Thief?

We’re still barracking for our favorite professions. A lot of people come to this game from other games, and roll a thief, expecting it to feel like a rogue profession in other games. Many of those people end up rerolling.

We’re preempting. lol

Depends on whether you’re a hands on guy or a fire and forget sort of guy. Eles are great if you want to be constantly switching skills, all the time…but survival can be harder. It’s not the easiest of professions to play.

Ranger is great, except some people don’t like them for dungeons. I personally never had a problem with that, but that’s what some of the masses say.

I’m a big fan of the necro recently, though, you might want to check them out.

While there are a few things in this post that have some merit, some of the post is either uninformed or misses the point completely.

The part about hearts for example. Anyone who followed the game know that renown hearts were neither changed nor toned down. They weren’t included at all at first and were ONLY added to keep people in areas where dynamic events happen. They were an afterthought and there to serve a purpose. They are not the meat of the game. That’s why there are 300 hearts but over 1500 dynamic events, which were supposed to be the meat of the game.

The living story is another thing that is misrepresented here. Do you know why the living story is what it is? Because it’s exactly what its designed to be. It’s not supposed to be a deep story that enthralls, because it’s temporary. No one wants to miss a deep enthralling story. And Anet wants to make a game that you can walk away from and come back to. If you make it so that the living story is something you must do, then you’ve missed a basic tenet of the game. That’s why there’s little plot. So people can pick it up whenever they join up to it. It’s not meant to replace personal story, it’s more meant to do what adding more dynamic events would do.

Finally the dynamism of the personal story is limited by man power and money. Anyone who expected a vast range of options (when I knew for over a year before launch that all roads lead to Zhaitan) wasn’t paying much attention.

The risk verses reward comment, however is spot on.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

In terms of MMOs it is. If you see it from your lawyer standpoint of course, it is different.

But in terms of MMOs it means that you start out with a product and the product at one point goes into a totally different direction, like from horizontal to vertical progression.

You have been tricked to buy a product, that becomes something different than you were expecting.

Depends on what percentage of the fan base or player base saw that as a main feature. I’m thinking it might not be as high as most people assume.

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Replace easy with fast, and I’d agree with you…because that’s what was going on.

You make a game. You spend five years and millions of dollars. The game is fun..but it doesn’t have the stickiness and poof, soon people are logging in less and playing other games. It’s okay if some people do it, but it’s a very annoying trend if too many people do it.

So you have a meeting and say, what can we do to fix this, fast. Most solutions take time to develop, in some cases LOTS of time. Sure you can add tons of new content…but that takes time. Sure you can throw a bunch of new skills/weapons/professions/races into the game, but that takes time.

In all likelihood, Anet mistook the numbers of people loggging out, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t need a quick solution. I’ve yet to see one quick solution suggested that could be implemented in a relatively fast time frame, while at the same time providing not that much risk.

I completly agree: it is absolutely one of the quickest things they could’ve implemented. That is because it is the easiest thing they could have implemented: Items with bigger numbers. And that’s the concern.

Instead of implementing ideas to increase replayability and variety into the game – things like difficulty settings, dungeon randomization, skill progression – they went the ‘quick and easy’ path of simple vertical progression.

In addition, I feel “time” isn’t as limiting a factor as it should be given the lack of a subscription. There’s no artificially induced sense of urgency, which I feel is the worst thing about a game with a subscription fee, especially with how the game will milk it from you through grindy timesinks.

If anything, I believe that introducing more vertical progression is much less a way to add longevity to the game and far more a means to increase real money transactions. This is the tried and completely true method of sustaining a free to play game. Even some WoW private servers make money off of it!

As you may’ve guessed, I have no issue with a subscription fee. I would gladly keep up with a subscription if what I was getting was more high quality and fun content. I’ve seen no game thus far that’s satisfied me as such, and just take advantage of my subscription fee instead.

This is what gets me the most. Because of being “free to play” but also “buy to play”, I had hoped to be free of being “nudged” into continuously funding their game, hoping that the only thing that made the game feel like an “MMO” was a persistent world. This may very well be the best attempt at an MMO in years, but even then I still feel that MMOs have a long way to go.

Maybe I’m just too optimistic. If their motivation was merely to get people playing and enjoying their game, I would gladly wait it out in order we got awesome content (“If you build it, they will come”!). I’d even throw down money for an expansion pack if I liked what I was seeing. But I certainly don’t like what I’m seeing now, and if they’re set on it, I see no reason why this “stat grind” would stop.

My take on it is this. They have more stickiness with the achievement point grind than they’ll ever get with gear grind. So they don’t need to keep doing that. At least that’s my hope.

To get from level 20-30 takes a very short amount of time, which is when the first dungeon becomes available. Before that there are a couple of mini dungeons. If you don’t mind dying some, you can even level in WvW.

It shouldn’t take that long to get a max level character these days, even on your first character.

It could be that your guild isn’t very supportive of new or lower level characters, which is a shame.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

I’m not sure why people resist VC either. But it does beg the question as to the adequacy of the in game chat system if people need to resort to using a third party program just to chat to guildies when playing the game.

For content, sure VC is superior. But it also has issues such as not protecting people ‘s privacy as much as text chat (for example some women are loathe to use VC due to being hit on, people’s behavior changing, not being taken seriously as players etc).

There’s also chat segregation issues to consider. While i’m in a dungeon I just want to focus on what i’m doing, not listen to guildies chatting about this and that. With text chat I can just scroll up and see what’s been going on.

Not being able to chat in party or guild is a symptom of the combat system, which is why i’m convinced a quiet guild chat means more active players, not necessarily less active ones

It’s up to us, the players to realize this and adjust our expectations

We have voice chat with different channels. People running dungeons tend to move to one of the channels reserved for that. And we have plenty of women in the guild, most of whom use mumble.

As for it not being in the game, adding it to the game is an extra budget of time. Because solutions existed that were as good as or better than anything Anet would have come up with, it was decided not to do it…at least this is what Anet said, and I agree with them.

They have voice chat in DDO for parties too…but my guild there ignored it and used vent.

I’ve actually become less greedy. As time has passed, and I’ve watched MMOs, I’ve realized how hard they are to create. How much time and investment goes into each. How complex each MMO is, even the ones I can’t stand. They’re a huge amount of work, and they’re pretty much all filled with bugs and half-thought out in one way or another. Guild Wars 2 is no exception.

Having been around the block a few times (so to speak), and seen the greedier cash shops, the buggier games, the games made for people who are clearly not me, I’m probably more tolerant of newer MMOs than most people.

I don’t expect more from MMOs than I once did, I expect less.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

ANet is just very unwise in their choice of formulations, which causes backslashes all the time.

But compared to “More Than An Expansion’s Worth of Content”, the Manifesto was at least true for the first weeks of the game. Novemeber was just a 180 turn to how the game worked.

Bait and switch I think is the proper term for that.

Actually it’s not the correct term for that. It’s completely the wrong term.

Bait and switch refers to advertising something, a specific product and then saying when you get to the store it’s out of stock or there’s something wrong or missing with it, and trying to sell a different product. It is not saying that you’re going to do something and doing something else.

As an example…if a place advertising a VCR for a very cheap price, too cheap, and then doesn’t have it in stock and tries to switch you to a different model, that maybe has more features, for just a couple of dollars more…that’s the legal definition of bait and switch. Before I started writing full time and working as an editor, I managed a computer store for many, many years.

What you’re talking about is false advertising, but even false advertising wouldn’t really cover this. In order for this to be a case of false advertising, you’d have to prove that this was some major selling point. It would have to be listed clearly on the package, and or on the website, or in ads.

Saying that something ambiguous meant what you thought it meant, when it turned out to be something else doesn’t really cut it.

Anet advertised dynamic events and provided them (with many examples along the way). Anet advertised a personal story and provided it. Anet advertised WvW and provided it.

A single small feature of an MMO might get you a refund of your purchase price after a reasonable amount of time, but in no way do I believe that Anet could be charged with false advertising.

They wouldn’t even be fined.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

I personally think, reducing the meaning of grinding to just accumulating xp by killing mobs is no longer up-to-date.

Grind in games is seen as a repetitive act, be it killing mobs, farming resources or grinding quests, instances or whatever content.

Mindless repetition is seen as grinding. Farming ori and ancient wood for weeks is a mindless repetition. Farming instances for gold is a mindless repetition. But the latter one is ok with the manifesto.
The first one is mandatory though as it is needed for ascended items, which still are BiS, And don’t fool yourself, BiS items is what players strife for at 80 and they were promised to be easily accessible.
People feel excluded if they can’t, and this way you create elitism, a thing that most people tried to escape when they started with GW2.

Those with ascended items will say, they are easy to get if you just try, which will enrage the people that try and can not even more.

And as a result we have drama, as seen here on the forums, and to be honest, rightfully though.

It’s not up to date…you’re right. But the manifesto was written 3 years ago and it was more up to date then than today. Language changes.

More to the point, whether it’s up to date or not up today, my intepretation is supported by the words used around it. None of the words around it mention gear, or vertical progression. They’re talking about fun things to do. I’m not sure how anyone things BIS gear is something to do. It doesn’t make sense. And it’s backed up by other stuff Colin had said at the time after it. I’m sure others here besides me can remember Colin saying stuff about having big encounters like the Shadow Behemoth in the starting zone as an example of this. I can’t be the last guy who remembers.

Could it have been worded differently? Without a doubt. Would it have been better if it had been worded differently. Sure.

As an editor, I’ve found it’s lways after something’s published that people realize the backlash. No one at Anet could have possible thought when making that teaser that 3 years later, people would still be referring to it as a bible.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Everyone likes to say Anet took the easy way out. I think they took the pragmatic way out. It’s really easy to tell people what to do when you’ve invested $80 (or even a few hundred) and they’ve invested millions.

I’d be more receptive to them if they were actually fully transparent about why they they made these decisions, and not come out with statements about still adhering to the manifesto which they even said again recently IIRC.

And I believe that they have adhered to most of the manifesto. You and I have danced this dance before. I don’t accept your interpretation of the manifesto and you don’t accept mine.

The only line that I question STILL, is the one about everything you loved from Guild Wars 1. The definition people are using of grind isn’t supported by what’s being said, So by continuing to say they haven’t abandoned it isn’t wrong from my point of view.

And it’s further evidence my interpretation is the same one they’re using.

Anet should communicate more, though, and they should communicate better. That’s something that needs improvement drastically.

I was going to retire an Engineer and even posted a thread about retiring characters, but some nice soul on the forums gifted me a makeover kit, and I changed the characters hair, and skin tone (making him look more weatherbeaten and rougher). Changed his armor and dyed it black.

He’s playable again. So at this time, I haven’t retired any characters.

Guild chat is relatively busy at certain times of day with certain people on in my guild. At other times of day (late night mostly) it’s relatively dead.

Of course, at those times, there is still sometimes chatter going on in mumble.

For a game like Guild Wars 2, which is more dynamic, I find voice chat much easier than typing.

It’s hard to type while in a WvW zerg or in the middle of a dynamic event in Orr, or in the middle of a Scarlet invasion or even in the middle of something like the Clocktower jumping puzzle.

Guild chats will suffer. Voice chat is one answer.

I don’t know why so many people resist this.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

In the end, the game was released true to the Manifesto last year.
Then they changed it. I followed the development as eager as you. We all knew there would be grind for items that have the best looks, that was true for the release too, just look at the legendary weapons.
And that was fine, they had the same stats as exotics and people got them anyway, without vertical progression.

Now you have to play the lawyers game, twisting words in their meaning to make statements true that sound false. You will not convince people with that kind of talk though. It is artificial.

I know you like to defend ANet, but they have done people wrong. They took everything they liked about GW1 and trashed it. At least that is what veterans feel.
And from my experience, if it feels wrong, something is wrong.

People liked how the gear was handled in GW1. Now we have vertical progression.
People liked the freedom in skill choice. Now you have fixed skills an just a handfull to choose for the open slots.
People liked the easy to achieve max level. Now they have to spend what, 60h of playtime, if you don’t craft your way there.

Now I know, “people” can be anyone. But you have to expect your customers to feel as part of that group.

This isn’t some lawyer game, and I’m a bit offended that you think it is. I’ve ALWAYS understood the manifesto to mean grinding experience for levels. From the very first time I saw it. I never thought it was about gear grind.

I agree other interviews DID mention vertical progression and gear grind, I just believe the manifesto didn’t. The language doesn’t support that conclusion.

The manifesto wasn’t betrayed on that point, if it means what I’ve always thought it means and I’ve never thought it meant anything else.

But yes, Anet did do a 180 on vertical progression. They just didn’t talk about it in the manifesto.

Smith.1826:

chemiclord.3978:

Smith.1826:

chemiclord.3978:

There seems to be this artificial distinction between vertical progression of skills and of gear. For some reason, one is okay… and the other isn’t.

I’d say they’re both pretty silly. Based on their initial stances for GW2, I was given the impression that this would’ve been something they learned not to do.

I’d say vertical progression, at least for the MMO market, is one of those necessary evils that has to be changed by players, not by developers. Guild Wars 2 tried to be one that eschewed such progression… just to have players walk away because it didn’t have “anything to do” at max level.

As you can’t crank out raid content of any sort (either vertical or horizontal) two weeks at a time, Arena.net settled with this sort of busy work (which is all I really think it is), while they fashion more content.

I wouldn’t say it’s “necessary”. But I would certainly say that it’s “easy”. I also don’t always think it’s the best, or even if it’s that good of a solution.

You’ll want to see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

Replace easy with fast, and I’d agree with you…because that’s what was going on.

You make a game. You spend five years and millions of dollars. The game is fun..but it doesn’t have the stickiness and poof, soon people are logging in less and playing other games. It’s okay if some people do it, but it’s a very annoying trend if too many people do it.

So you have a meeting and say, what can we do to fix this, fast. Most solutions take time to develop, in some cases LOTS of time. Sure you can add tons of new content…but that takes time. Sure you can throw a bunch of new skills/weapons/professions/races into the game, but that takes time.

There’s something about quick tried and true solutions that appeal to those with the most time and money invested.

I wish I were a fly on the wall at the meeting that ascended gear as vertical progression first game up. I’m almost positive that part of the staff was against it. And part of the staff was pulling figures out and showing the numbers of people staying, leaving, logging in.

In all likelihood, Anet mistook the numbers of people loggging out, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t need a quick solution. I’ve yet to see one quick solution suggested that could be implemented in a relatively fast time frame, while at the same time providing not that much risk.

Everyone likes to say Anet took the easy way out. I think they took the pragmatic way out. It’s really easy to tell people what to do when you’ve invested $80 (or even a few hundred) and they’ve invested millions.

You know, it’s not just dodging, OP. Even just moving makes the game a lot better. Do you know how to circle strafe? Because if you’re moving while firing, something you can’t do in most MMOs, you take less damage. Attacks miss you.

In most MMOs whether you’re hit or not is a matter of pure math. Your block that’s a number. Your evade, that’s a number. Here, you’re actually having to dodge and evade.

Rangers, to me, are the most survivable profession in open world PvE, because your pet can take the heat off you. Eles and mesmers are harder to play…but doable. I found warriors die more for me than almost any other profession…but if you learn to hit and run, hit and move, use terrain to your advantage, you’ll find yourself surviving a lot more.

If you’re on an American server, and want to guest over to TC, I’ll show you the ropes if you like, on any profession you have.

a t s e.9614:

Another lie . Guild wars 1 lasted for 8 years with 0 gear
Progression . Gear treadmil is useless .

But it had skill progression and some of that progression you had to level and grind for. And don’t tell me people didn’t…because people did.

Meglobob.8620:

Not alots changed since the Queens pavilion event but Halloween is a really fun event and you may want to give that ago.

Anet are currently collecting player feedback on the game in 3 separate threads and hopefully will address some of the main issues in the future.

Unless you like the Tequatl event (which some servers and guilds organize) and the new dungeon path, which is by far my favorite dungeon in the game.