Guild Wars 2

Thrumdi.9216:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not twisting what Colin said, because we talked about the manifesto. Looking at Anet’s web page for Guild Wars 2, grind and vertical progression was barely mentioned at all. They talked about dynamic events, personal stories, and a living breathing world. That’s the main thing the game was marketed on.

If you can find 3 quotes over five years that say vertical progression….okay, you’ve found three quotes. So what? It’s three quotes over five years.

There were literally hundreds of hours talking about everything else. It’s people’s focus that make this the depth of the promise it was, not what was actually said.

By percentage, Anet talked about vertical progression very little.

No you are just making excuses, and stretching the truth to justify that excuse. As I said before, changing small things and backing out here and there is fine. But not when it goes against the core design philosophies you preached. It is if a game like WoW talked about Raiding and how important raiding is in their game and removed it a year after launch. Even if it didn’t take a lot of “percentage” of their time talking about it, it still is a major change for your core philosophy.

Regardless, it is idiotic to think importance is based on how long they talk about it. Talk about going the extra mile to defend this change.

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

Again, I have a background in retail. I know what I push and what I don’t push. I know what Anet pushed. Lack of vertical progression wasn’kitten They pushed personal story. They pushed dynamic events. Those were what would have sold the game to most people.

There are a minority of people who even know what vertical progression is. Those are more likely to be people here on the forums. But the bulk of the population just sees something they think looks cool and buys it.

I’m not defending Anet adding vertical progression to the game. I’m calling out people who say this is the major thing Anet sold the game on.

Yes, this is what the game was sold on.

“Ignorance is bliss” – Vayne

Noone cares about your PR rofl, people know how to read.

People know how to read? lmao Yep. That’s why publishing companies are all doing so well and people skip quest text.

Language is all about nuance and studies show that a lot of nuance is lost on the average reader.

And there are quite a few people here who do care what I have to say. You’re not my target audience and never have been.

Of course im not your target audience.

I have brain and use it.

Seems too much for you though rofl

PR failure

READ…..MY…..SIG

I’ve read your sig many times. All is shows is that a dev stated something a long time ago and it’s since changed. That’s exactly what your sig says.

Strangely, some of us expect that from MMOs. Stuff changes all the time. I’m not sure why that would surprise an experienced MMOer like you.

Yup, i expect core philosophy to not change. All successful MMOs didnt change it.
All failed ones did.

Wow..all the failed MMO’s core philosophy changed and all the successful ones didn’t. How interesting. I’d be interested to know which MMOs you consider failed and which you consider successful.

Star Wars Galaxies: widely hailed as one of the most innovative MMO’s ever. Totally gutted by the New Game Enhancements which turned it from an immersive sandbox into a twitch-shooter in space.

The NGE was so bad that Sony was still apologizing for it years later. Before their last few MMO’s launched they had to assure people they learned their lesson and would not be changing games drastically a la the NGE. It had become legendary in the MMO community.

Will Ascendeds eventually have a bad a reputation as the NGE? Nothing can probably top that debacle, but I predict the next game Anet makes they will have to assure people nothing like Ascendeds is planned.

Read about SWG and the NGE here:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_101/560-Blowing-Up-Galaxies

I know that story. One game does not a trend make. It’s one game, and one I knew about. But is Lotro a successful MMO? Because that’s changed drastically since it’s inception and as far as I know they’re still making money.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not twisting what Colin said, because we talked about the manifesto. Looking at Anet’s web page for Guild Wars 2, grind and vertical progression was barely mentioned at all. They talked about dynamic events, personal stories, and a living breathing world. That’s the main thing the game was marketed on.

If you can find 3 quotes over five years that say vertical progression….okay, you’ve found three quotes. So what? It’s three quotes over five years.

There were literally hundreds of hours talking about everything else. It’s people’s focus that make this the depth of the promise it was, not what was actually said.

By percentage, Anet talked about vertical progression very little.

No you are just making excuses, and stretching the truth to justify that excuse. As I said before, changing small things and backing out here and there is fine. But not when it goes against the core design philosophies you preached. It is if a game like WoW talked about Raiding and how important raiding is in their game and removed it a year after launch. Even if it didn’t take a lot of “percentage” of their time talking about it, it still is a major change for your core philosophy.

Regardless, it is idiotic to think importance is based on how long they talk about it. Talk about going the extra mile to defend this change.

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

Again, I have a background in retail. I know what I push and what I don’t push. I know what Anet pushed. Lack of vertical progression wasn’kitten They pushed personal story. They pushed dynamic events. Those were what would have sold the game to most people.

There are a minority of people who even know what vertical progression is. Those are more likely to be people here on the forums. But the bulk of the population just sees something they think looks cool and buys it.

I’m not defending Anet adding vertical progression to the game. I’m calling out people who say this is the major thing Anet sold the game on.

Yes, this is what the game was sold on.

“Ignorance is bliss” – Vayne

Noone cares about your PR rofl, people know how to read.

People know how to read? lmao Yep. That’s why publishing companies are all doing so well and people skip quest text.

Language is all about nuance and studies show that a lot of nuance is lost on the average reader.

And there are quite a few people here who do care what I have to say. You’re not my target audience and never have been.

Of course im not your target audience.

I have brain and use it.

Seems too much for you though rofl

PR failure

READ…..MY…..SIG

I’ve read your sig many times. All is shows is that a dev stated something a long time ago and it’s since changed. That’s exactly what your sig says.

Strangely, some of us expect that from MMOs. Stuff changes all the time. I’m not sure why that would surprise an experienced MMOer like you.

Yup, i expect core philosophy to not change. All successful MMOs didnt change it.
All failed ones did.

Wow..all the failed MMO’s core philosophy changed and all the successful ones didn’t. How interesting. I’d be interested to know which MMOs you consider failed and which you consider successful.

Clearly they planned for it to be released and it’s not quite ready for prime time. You can be disappointed by a schedule overrun if you like, but that’s programming for you.

I’ve seen many launches of entire games pushed back because it took longer to get going than they expected.

I’m not sure how this is different.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not twisting what Colin said, because we talked about the manifesto. Looking at Anet’s web page for Guild Wars 2, grind and vertical progression was barely mentioned at all. They talked about dynamic events, personal stories, and a living breathing world. That’s the main thing the game was marketed on.

If you can find 3 quotes over five years that say vertical progression….okay, you’ve found three quotes. So what? It’s three quotes over five years.

There were literally hundreds of hours talking about everything else. It’s people’s focus that make this the depth of the promise it was, not what was actually said.

By percentage, Anet talked about vertical progression very little.

No you are just making excuses, and stretching the truth to justify that excuse. As I said before, changing small things and backing out here and there is fine. But not when it goes against the core design philosophies you preached. It is if a game like WoW talked about Raiding and how important raiding is in their game and removed it a year after launch. Even if it didn’t take a lot of “percentage” of their time talking about it, it still is a major change for your core philosophy.

Regardless, it is idiotic to think importance is based on how long they talk about it. Talk about going the extra mile to defend this change.

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

Again, I have a background in retail. I know what I push and what I don’t push. I know what Anet pushed. Lack of vertical progression wasn’kitten They pushed personal story. They pushed dynamic events. Those were what would have sold the game to most people.

There are a minority of people who even know what vertical progression is. Those are more likely to be people here on the forums. But the bulk of the population just sees something they think looks cool and buys it.

I’m not defending Anet adding vertical progression to the game. I’m calling out people who say this is the major thing Anet sold the game on.

Yes, this is what the game was sold on.

“Ignorance is bliss” – Vayne

Noone cares about your PR rofl, people know how to read.

People know how to read? lmao Yep. That’s why publishing companies are all doing so well and people skip quest text.

Language is all about nuance and studies show that a lot of nuance is lost on the average reader.

And there are quite a few people here who do care what I have to say. You’re not my target audience and never have been.

Of course im not your target audience.

I have brain and use it.

Seems too much for you though rofl

PR failure

READ…..MY…..SIG

I’ve read your sig many times. All is shows is that a dev stated something a long time ago and it’s since changed. That’s exactly what your sig says.

Strangely, some of us expect that from MMOs. Stuff changes all the time. I’m not sure why that would surprise an experienced MMOer like you.

Zplus.4217:

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not twisting what Colin said, because we talked about the manifesto. Looking at Anet’s web page for Guild Wars 2, grind and vertical progression was barely mentioned at all. They talked about dynamic events, personal stories, and a living breathing world. That’s the main thing the game was marketed on.

If you can find 3 quotes over five years that say vertical progression….okay, you’ve found three quotes. So what? It’s three quotes over five years.

There were literally hundreds of hours talking about everything else. It’s people’s focus that make this the depth of the promise it was, not what was actually said.

By percentage, Anet talked about vertical progression very little.

No you are just making excuses, and stretching the truth to justify that excuse. As I said before, changing small things and backing out here and there is fine. But not when it goes against the core design philosophies you preached. It is if a game like WoW talked about Raiding and how important raiding is in their game and removed it a year after launch. Even if it didn’t take a lot of “percentage” of their time talking about it, it still is a major change for your core philosophy.

Regardless, it is idiotic to think importance is based on how long they talk about it. Talk about going the extra mile to defend this change.

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

Again, I have a background in retail. I know what I push and what I don’t push. I know what Anet pushed. Lack of vertical progression wasn’kitten They pushed personal story. They pushed dynamic events. Those were what would have sold the game to most people.

There are a minority of people who even know what vertical progression is. Those are more likely to be people here on the forums. But the bulk of the population just sees something they think looks cool and buys it.

I’m not defending Anet adding vertical progression to the game. I’m calling out people who say this is the major thing Anet sold the game on.

Yes, this is what the game was sold on.

“Ignorance is bliss” – Vayne

Noone cares about your PR rofl, people know how to read.

People know how to read? lmao Yep. That’s why publishing companies are all doing so well and people skip quest text.

Language is all about nuance and studies show that a lot of nuance is lost on the average reader.

And there are quite a few people here who do care what I have to say. You’re not my target audience and never have been.

Forum ego jeeze

When all I do is spread misinformation and display pure ignorance, a few people attacking my every post, ego is what’s left that allows me to continue on trolling on this forum.

Fix’d

P.S I salute you sir because without your tireless effort this thread wouldn’t have made it pass 11 pages and most possibly be forgotten by now. Well done.

And the efforts of the people who reply to me. It takes two to tango. Of course, if you’re biased, you’ll only blame the side you don’t agree with.

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not twisting what Colin said, because we talked about the manifesto. Looking at Anet’s web page for Guild Wars 2, grind and vertical progression was barely mentioned at all. They talked about dynamic events, personal stories, and a living breathing world. That’s the main thing the game was marketed on.

If you can find 3 quotes over five years that say vertical progression….okay, you’ve found three quotes. So what? It’s three quotes over five years.

There were literally hundreds of hours talking about everything else. It’s people’s focus that make this the depth of the promise it was, not what was actually said.

By percentage, Anet talked about vertical progression very little.

No you are just making excuses, and stretching the truth to justify that excuse. As I said before, changing small things and backing out here and there is fine. But not when it goes against the core design philosophies you preached. It is if a game like WoW talked about Raiding and how important raiding is in their game and removed it a year after launch. Even if it didn’t take a lot of “percentage” of their time talking about it, it still is a major change for your core philosophy.

Regardless, it is idiotic to think importance is based on how long they talk about it. Talk about going the extra mile to defend this change.

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

Again, I have a background in retail. I know what I push and what I don’t push. I know what Anet pushed. Lack of vertical progression wasn’kitten They pushed personal story. They pushed dynamic events. Those were what would have sold the game to most people.

There are a minority of people who even know what vertical progression is. Those are more likely to be people here on the forums. But the bulk of the population just sees something they think looks cool and buys it.

I’m not defending Anet adding vertical progression to the game. I’m calling out people who say this is the major thing Anet sold the game on.

Yes, this is what the game was sold on.

“Ignorance is bliss” – Vayne

Noone cares about your PR rofl, people know how to read.

People know how to read? lmao Yep. That’s why publishing companies are all doing so well and people skip quest text.

Language is all about nuance and studies show that a lot of nuance is lost on the average reader.

And there are quite a few people here who do care what I have to say. You’re not my target audience and never have been.

Forum ego jeeze

When you have a few people attacking your every post, ego is probably the best defense. It allows me to continue on posting, even when some people in this forum do nothing by attempt to put me down. So far it’s working.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not twisting what Colin said, because we talked about the manifesto. Looking at Anet’s web page for Guild Wars 2, grind and vertical progression was barely mentioned at all. They talked about dynamic events, personal stories, and a living breathing world. That’s the main thing the game was marketed on.

If you can find 3 quotes over five years that say vertical progression….okay, you’ve found three quotes. So what? It’s three quotes over five years.

There were literally hundreds of hours talking about everything else. It’s people’s focus that make this the depth of the promise it was, not what was actually said.

By percentage, Anet talked about vertical progression very little.

No you are just making excuses, and stretching the truth to justify that excuse. As I said before, changing small things and backing out here and there is fine. But not when it goes against the core design philosophies you preached. It is if a game like WoW talked about Raiding and how important raiding is in their game and removed it a year after launch. Even if it didn’t take a lot of “percentage” of their time talking about it, it still is a major change for your core philosophy.

Regardless, it is idiotic to think importance is based on how long they talk about it. Talk about going the extra mile to defend this change.

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

Again, I have a background in retail. I know what I push and what I don’t push. I know what Anet pushed. Lack of vertical progression wasn’kitten They pushed personal story. They pushed dynamic events. Those were what would have sold the game to most people.

There are a minority of people who even know what vertical progression is. Those are more likely to be people here on the forums. But the bulk of the population just sees something they think looks cool and buys it.

I’m not defending Anet adding vertical progression to the game. I’m calling out people who say this is the major thing Anet sold the game on.

Yes, this is what the game was sold on.

“Ignorance is bliss” – Vayne

Noone cares about your PR rofl, people know how to read.

People know how to read? lmao Yep. That’s why publishing companies are all doing so well and people skip quest text.

Language is all about nuance and studies show that a lot of nuance is lost on the average reader.

And there are quite a few people here who do care what I have to say. You’re not my target audience and never have been.

Dante.1508:

Hobbitz.5831:

If you went to the grocery store with a list of 50 items, picked up the first 5 then they kicked you and told you to comeback tomorrow, how would you feel?

I’d stop going to that store and find another one, which is what people should be doing in Guildwars 2 imo.

It’s the reason I left AoC.

Zegai.8256:

Don’t expect ‘anything’ from him or the false promises they’ve been repeating for over a year now. Balance has been an unchecked failure since launch, and many classes still only have ONE viable build.

I don’t know any professions that only have one viable build. Maybe they only have one viable build if you’re building for ONLY efficiency, which I think is the OP’s point.

I’m sure none of the builds I use regularly, you’d consider viable…but I still beat dungeons and fractals with them on a regular basis. I’m sure it takes me longer to run a dungeon than it takes you. I just don’t care.

Happy Birthday. I hope Anet gives you what you want…not just a response, but an in game solution.

Dante.1508:

I can’t believe people actually enjoy these things, i have full exotics on 11 characters i own but i still wouldn’t go to zerg the new teq in some mindless i must beat it in 15 mins to get my leet wings (yet another pair to sit in my bank) or a chance at some useless Ascended i don’t need..

Obviously a lot do enjoy mindless gear checked zerg content but i am not one of them thank god…

The reason this encounter isn’t being beaten is because you can’t zerg it. Not straight up. The people on the guns have to know what they’re doing. Other people have to protect the people on the guns and repair the guns should something go wrong.

That’s not a mindless zerg. It’s more like an open world raid boss.

It’s a very common thing that people do. They lose a fight in PvP or WvW and immediately try to think of something to blame. That guy, he had better gear than I did, or I would have won. It’s much easier than accepting the fact that someone was better than you.

I don’t think a single ascended weapon (which is all we’re talking about here with the real grind) is the problem. The rest of the ascended stuff is easy enough to get with the possible exception of the back piece.

And of course, there are people who don’t have ascended weapons that have legendaries which do the same damage.

One of my guildies has access to it. AFAIK he hasn’t used it yet.

You are you saying on the server that beat him everyone had ascended gear?

This battle is not about full damage, it’s about coordination and the people manning the guns to know what they’re doing. The more coordination you have the faster T’quatl will go down.

cesmode.4257:

I agree that they wanted to innovate more than they did. They really should have stuck to their guns…on everything.

Part of the problem is that prior to launch arenanet loved to get infront of cameras and tell epeople how the game is going to be..what they are going to do, what they wont do. They made bold statements, they said “We. Will. Not. Do. <insert here>”. Sure, part of this is referring to the manifesto because their statements are so bold there. So as a community, we held them to those standards, not giving them an inch of wiggleroom to play the black/white/grey game..walking a fine line as they are currently doing.

Comparing to other games, they do not make as many bold statements concerning their design direction. A game dev will say “We will have dungeons and raids at launch, raids will be difficult and reward the best gear”. Most of these other devs are not saying “Our raids will be vastly different than other MMOs because of XYZ…no more of ABC in these raids as you are accustomed to. We will do things differently and change the genre”.

So because they made bold statements and teetered off of those statements is the reason why so many of us are up in arms about EVERYTHING.

I go to a game like neverwhere where I have received everything I expected. Sure, game got bugs.. But I wasnt lied to, or rather I dont feel mislead at all.

EQN needs to watch it with their big promises. Same with Wildstar, although I have a feeling Carbine wont falter from their design path…they really dont give a crap about the casual and will make that game for the hardcore. But we’ll see.

Its when companies make bold statements and promises to us…lures us in with those..and then its not as they said it would be. Thats what gets us.

Other games made big and bold promises too. Some of them, like Rift, were clever and created a video where fans made the comments and they published them…absolving them of saying stuff…but it was still their promo video…and in my mind, they went against what they said.

They said open world stuff would be front and center and it was more just an additional gimmick to make leveling better, so you could get to raiding. And I was disappointed.

You say other companies haven’t made these bold statements, but I’m not sure that I’d agree. I’m not sure how closely you watched what other devs said about their game.

TSW said there would be no levels. Well, sure, they took away the NUMBERS, but still had experience points and skill points and skills unlocking at different levels. Saying there will be no levels in our game is a bold statement. It was one of the major selling points of that game. But to me, there were still levels, and the company was wrong.

I have yet to see a company that has lived up 100% to every single thing they’ve ever said.

I don’t think they’re the same thing either. I have a playstyle that can use many different builds. I don’t play the game around a build…I make a build around my play style.

A lot of people have said that the professions in this game are too similar because everyone can do the same sorts of things.

Those people are looking at mechanics, not flavor. I’m pretty sure this is the type of thing the OP is talking about.

Find a group/guild that doesn’t mind watching cut scenes. In my guild we often watch them…and we’re happy to wait if someone hasn’t seen them before.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

No it was a major thing they pushed, everywhere. Including in their sPvP which still remains horizontal. I fully understand people prefer horizontal but that doesn’t mean the core message of the game before release was no grinding and no gear tiers.

You mean everywhere except their web page? What an odd omission. From recollection, vertical progression was usually mentioned during interviews or when specific questions were asked. It wasn’t something I saw Anet push. I think it resonated with people and so people clung to it. That doesn’t mean Anet pushed it though.

People hear what they want to hear.

You also said Eric Flannum said there would be grinding, even though you had an argument with someone 2 months earlier and he proved to you they didn’t.

They had pushed that feature everywhere before launch even on their website with articles linking back to those statements. It was one of their core design philosophies. See Mike O’Brien’s comment again if you missed it.

Eric Flannum did say it. I’m pretty sure it was in a video at a convention…and it might have also been in one of the AMAs, but it was definitely said…there would be stuff to grind for for those who enjoy that play style. I don’t care if you believe me or not. No one believes me about the MMO clarification until someone else found and posted it. Your belief doesn’t make a thing true or false. It was said.

I saw the Mike O’Brien comment. In all, I’ve seen three quotes from five years about it. Three quotes in five years. No big single article about it in their blog. No real mention of it on their web page. Three mentions in five years?

I mentioned my ex-wife three times in five years too, but that doesn’t make her something I’m going to center my life around. lol

Edit: It was certainly something Anet intended to do. They wanted to make a game with simply cosmetic progression. That had always been the plan. They changed it, because they felt that plan wasn’t working. You can blame them for doing that if you wish, but it’s what any business would do that wants to remain in business.

Was it not working? Who knows. But surely Anet thought it wasn’t.

I don’t know. With the exception of SAB, I’ve found content more rewarding. Hell, even failing Scarlet invasions has given me a whole lot of gold.

Once we learn the Tquatl fight, we can then judge the rewards…but I really think going in the direction of less rewards for failure isn’t a bad thing.

If nothing else, it’ll stop people from failing stuff intentionally to farm.

Cactus.2710:

Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish here. ANet has already stated that the players who post on these forums represent a minority, so if they live true to that premise they will ignore your praise just as they have our complaints.

For the record, there are many things I like about GW2. I like the game interface (mouse control for movement, keybinds for abilities), I love that there is no trinity, I like the way downscaling lower level zones works, and I like the way leveling works. There are many other things I don’t like, however, particularly the way that sPvP and WvW have been so badly mishandled, and I absolutely hate the way that ANet has interfaced with their player base. For all it’s warts, Rift devs were able to maintain an active and viable dialog with their players, and they responded very well to most suggestions and complaints. Why ANet is incapable of doing the same is beyond me.

The bigger the company and the game, the harder it is to do this. Even smaller companies that grow larger have trouble doing this.

Rift has far less players and far fewer employees. It’s a whole different situation.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

No it was a major thing they pushed, everywhere. Including in their sPvP which still remains horizontal. I fully understand people prefer horizontal but that doesn’t mean the core message of the game before release was no grinding and no gear tiers.

You mean everywhere except their web page? What an odd omission. From recollection, vertical progression was usually mentioned during interviews or when specific questions were asked. It wasn’t something I saw Anet push. I think it resonated with people and so people clung to it. That doesn’t mean Anet pushed it though.

People hear what they want to hear.

cesmode.4257:

First, baseball is boring.

Second: Im not calling myself a mastermind or a pre-cog, but oneismple player catching a huge design problem in 10 minutes vs a design team that had months to plan and execute….eh, I dont consider that mistake that a human can make. If you have many people making decisions and coming up with ideas, chances are someone has to have seen this coming. All of their decision makers cannot be THIS short sighted. Its a simple concept that I was able to see right off the bat. Many were involved with that decision. Either the decision makers didnt care to listen to reason, or they were all incompetant and they should hire me as an outside consultant because I do see things a few steps down the road.

Ive predicted this next one a few times before…

We are slowly getting ascended gear. We are told that its probably, most likely the last tier of gear. We also have been told that the level cap very well could be raised some day. Arenanet has two options: Scale our level 80 gear to the new level cap. Or, make us grind for a new level 90 ascended gear set. This will be a hot one on the forums and I want you to remember me calling this way in advance. I said tihs back in November when they first announced ascended gear. Once we they raise the level cap, nothing is stopping them from making us grind new gear (like any other MMO).

You will have concrete evidence of your gear grind there. It would be irrefutable.

Of course this is all speculation, but it is a reasonable conclusion to come to.

Well if they do that, they do that, and you’d be right. I’d pat you on the back and either play the game or play another MMO that does things differently. I don’t frankly see that happening, and that’s the problem.

Anet wanted to innovate more than they did, and it didn’t work. Sucks to be them. I see them as victims of the fan base more than the fan base as victims of Anet. Anet made a business decision to appease the majority. Is that what they really wanted to do? Who knows…but I doubt it.

marnick.4305:

Vayne.8563:

Okay here’s your challenge. Look at EVERY single video and article, every one. Look at everyone that mentions vertical progression. Count the amount of minutes or lines of everything Anet published or said that referenced vertical progression.

From my point of view the living/breathing world got a lot more play than the words vertical progression or no gear grind even.

What Anet spent most of the time talking about (ie most of what it was built on) was dynamic events as compared to quests, a branching personal story line, and a living breathing world.

Look at it all. Everything Anet said. You might have 15 mentions of vertical progression, but I seriously doubt it. Some of those might have been in response to direct questions.

But I don’t think it was the #1 point. I think it was one of many points. I think Anet also made a lot of other points. They made a huge deal about not being able to kill steal, or node steal. That’s still in the game. They made a big deal about the amount of voice acting they used. That’s still in the game.

They did talk about vertical progression, but I’d wager that far more people saw dynamic events, personal story and living breathing world. In fact, I can only remember one single blog post that mentioned vertical progression at all, out of dozens and dozens of blog posts.

In fact, I’ll take it further. How many times was vertical progression or gear grind mentioned on the Guild Wars 2 home page. If it was a central selling point, surely it would be mentioned there.

All that is not relevant. The no grind and no progression thing wasn’t hyped up, because it was evident, common sense. No one expected differently.
It wasn’t necessary to talk about, just like it’s not necessary to talk about whether or not it’s acceptable to murder your kids. People don’t explicitly write that into a marriage contract.

Arena.net also didn’t communicate much about Mesmers, simply because they were to be expected. Mesmers were not a big reveal and neither was the lack of gear progression. Neither was lack of sub fees much discussed. One line in the FAQ was all because that’s simply evident with a Guild Wars game.

As for a living, breathing world … ye that’s a hefty achievement. It should be hyped, and rightfully so. But lack of vertical progression is a cornerstone for the Guild Wars franchise just as much as the lack of sub fees.

Mesmers were a big reveal. People speculated about it. Guild Wars 2 Guru had a zillion pages of threads discussing the mesmer reveal. There were probably more posts about the mesmer reveal than there were about vertical progression.

So what you’re saying here is that it was assumed, so it didn’t have to be talked about. Except for one problem. Anet wasn’t only talking to people who knew Guild Wars 1, or played Guild Wars, so what is the evidence that it was assumed. Assumed by who? Of course it would be assumed by Guild Wars 1 players. That’s another story. But Anet is selling a game. Presumably they want to sell a game to more than just you and people like you. They want to tell people and explain to them what the game would be about.

And if that was really one of their core selling points, don’t you think they’d have made it clear for the WoW players and the Rift players who may never have encountered that?

No, I don’t think it was assumed by everyone, though I agree it was probably assumed by most Guild Wars 1 players that thought about such things. But many people who played Guild Wars 1 also played other MMOs as well, and not all of them would have necessarily assumed that.

Yes, if Anet was building their game around it, they’d have had to have said so and made that clear.

Mind you, I agree it was there original intention. I just think other selling points were far more prominent and thus the major selling points of the game to most people.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

Probably because ANet didn’t feature it somewhere in their official publications and advertising. I am sure he isn’t in the Manifesto.

Sure, he’s not. But what Colin was saying in the manifesto is pretty clearly not talking about GRIND, it’s talking about a specific type of grind.

Grind can mean more than one thing. The definitions of grind are:

1. Killing mobs to earn experience to level
2. Doing repetitive tasks to get higher level gear

When you look what Colin was saying, the whole paragraph…there’s no mention of gear at all. Nothing about that. He’s talking about combat and hes’ talking about “fun things to do”. How anyone can imagine he’s talking about gear grind there, when he’s obviously (to me anyway) using the original definition of grind, I don’t know.

I already settled this. Don’t you remember? He’s talking about the way combat looks. Here’s the indisputable proof:

When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow that’s incredible I’ve never seen anything like that.’

We want to change the way people view combat.

The evidence lies in plain sight before you, yet you persist in persistently choosing to ignore it. And even if it wasn’t there and you didn’t persistently persist in choosing to ignore it, would there have been a difference in the laws of physics if Newton got bonked on the head by a Golden Noble instead of a Flower of Kent?

So what else in that entire paragraph, beside the single word grind, has you believing that he’s talking about gear grind. Because I don’t see anything in that paragraph that mentions gear. Or vertical progression. All he talks about is going through this awful grind to get to the fun stuff.

We didn’t settle it. You settled it. I didn’t agree it was settled and there are others who agree with me as well. They posted in that thread too.

You may disagree with Newton, too;
But gravity still has a hold on you.

Strawman much?

See what i mean name calling!!

Strawman is describing a type of argument, not name calling. Asking if you strawman once is quite clearly shorthand for suggesting that a strawman argument was used. I’m not sure how anyone can interpret that as name-calling.

Tinman much?

Sometimes yes.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not twisting what Colin said, because we talked about the manifesto. Looking at Anet’s web page for Guild Wars 2, grind and vertical progression was barely mentioned at all. They talked about dynamic events, personal stories, and a living breathing world. That’s the main thing the game was marketed on.

If you can find 3 quotes over five years that say vertical progression….okay, you’ve found three quotes. So what? It’s three quotes over five years.

There were literally hundreds of hours talking about everything else. It’s people’s focus that make this the depth of the promise it was, not what was actually said.

By percentage, Anet talked about vertical progression very little.

No you are just making excuses, and stretching the truth to justify that excuse. As I said before, changing small things and backing out here and there is fine. But not when it goes against the core design philosophies you preached. It is if a game like WoW talked about Raiding and how important raiding is in their game and removed it a year after launch. Even if it didn’t take a lot of “percentage” of their time talking about it, it still is a major change for your core philosophy.

Regardless, it is idiotic to think importance is based on how long they talk about it. Talk about going the extra mile to defend this change.

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

Again, I have a background in retail. I know what I push and what I don’t push. I know what Anet pushed. Lack of vertical progression wasn’kitten They pushed personal story. They pushed dynamic events. Those were what would have sold the game to most people.

There are a minority of people who even know what vertical progression is. Those are more likely to be people here on the forums. But the bulk of the population just sees something they think looks cool and buys it.

I’m not defending Anet adding vertical progression to the game. I’m calling out people who say this is the major thing Anet sold the game on.

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

Probably because ANet didn’t feature it somewhere in their official publications and advertising. I am sure he isn’t in the Manifesto.

Sure, he’s not. But what Colin was saying in the manifesto is pretty clearly not talking about GRIND, it’s talking about a specific type of grind.

Grind can mean more than one thing. The definitions of grind are:

1. Killing mobs to earn experience to level
2. Doing repetitive tasks to get higher level gear

When you look what Colin was saying, the whole paragraph…there’s no mention of gear at all. Nothing about that. He’s talking about combat and hes’ talking about “fun things to do”. How anyone can imagine he’s talking about gear grind there, when he’s obviously (to me anyway) using the original definition of grind, I don’t know.

I already settled this. Don’t you remember? He’s talking about the way combat looks. Here’s the indisputable proof:

When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow that’s incredible I’ve never seen anything like that.’

We want to change the way people view combat.

The evidence lies in plain sight before you, yet you persist in persistently choosing to ignore it. And even if it wasn’t there and you didn’t persistently persist in choosing to ignore it, would there have been a difference in the laws of physics if Newton got bonked on the head by a Golden Noble instead of a Flower of Kent?

So what else in that entire paragraph, beside the single word grind, has you believing that he’s talking about gear grind. Because I don’t see anything in that paragraph that mentions gear. Or vertical progression. All he talks about is going through this awful grind to get to the fun stuff.

We didn’t settle it. You settled it. I didn’t agree it was settled and there are others who agree with me as well. They posted in that thread too.

You may disagree with Newton, too;
But gravity still has a hold on you.

Strawman much?

See what i mean name calling!!

Strawman is describing a type of argument, not name calling. Asking if you strawman once is quite clearly shorthand for suggesting that a strawman argument was used. I’m not sure how anyone can interpret that as name-calling.

cesmode.4257:

No, they are pretty reasonable expectations. I expect well-thought decisions to be made, executed, and the “updates” to be tested. Thats what a good company would do.

They have dynamic events where the mobs drop lots of stuff. They couldnt see a few steps down the road where people will intentionally fail the events to gain more loot? Or the TA first boss speed runs? Or glitching CoF early on? They couldnt see this coming?

Or how about when fractals were released. It was completely player gated. Chris Whiteside responded to my very own reddit post during the AMA and told me this was a mistake on their part. Me being a simple player picked this apart in 10 minutes after the launch of the update. And they spent months working on the fractal update, with a whole team of industry vets. Me, a simple player saw what a team of industry vets could not.

I expect a company worth their spit to see the big picture more so than me. They dropped the ball on that fractal update. Inexcusable to be honest because it required a patch to fix how the ‘gating’ works.

I expect quality in decision making, content and code.

Everyone makes mistakes and I do mean EVERYONE. Those who don’t tolerate the mistakes others make, aren’t being reasonable. Everyone should know everything, but people work on crazy schedules. People have stuff they’re thinking about that precludes thinking about other stuff.

I expect people to make mistakes, because I know they will. Anyone who thinks they won’t isn’t being reasonable.

And Chris Whiteside said he made a mistake as a political statement to appease people complaining. I’m still not sure he believes he made a mistake. That’s another issue altogether. There are many times in my professional life that I’ve said my mistake or taken responsibility for a mistake I knew wasn’t mine. Obviously there are also times I’ve made mistakes and I’ve owned up to them.

The point is, I’ve never seen ANY MMO that hasn’t had this kinds of problems quite regularly. You’d probably be right if what you’re asking for is the rule, but if you’re asking for something that very very (if any) MMO companies can/have delivered, then I’d say it’s unreasonable.

You know, my favorite baseball team lost some games. I think all the players aren’t good enough because they lost some games. They won some games too, but I’m going to focus on the games they lost. Because obviously if they were any good, they wouldn’t have made those mistakes, because I expect more of them.

It doesn’t sound any better when you look at it objectively.

cesmode.4257:

@Eurhetemec…so then instead of testing content with a larger pool of testers than their small QA team and reporting bugs…we encourage the behavior of haphazardly pushing out content that will inevitability break in some fashion just because we want to look cool in front of cameras and say “We will pushout content every two weeks”.

My god man..do you read what you write? I write SQL for a living. I pull data from databases, mold them into reports so overpaid directors can read them in a pretty format. If i didn’t proofread, test, or UAT, Id be fired.

We just rolled out a new platform here. We performed UAT. We found bugs, we reported, they fixed before go-live, and all is well in the universe. Do you think that this is a worse alternative? Do you think that not having some sort of UAT or PTR is better than having the actual end-users test the stuff?

Wow. Im going to exit this thread because clearly the mentality of quantity vs quality, and not wanting to put forth proper effort to debug and test is beginning to be toxic around here. Not sure you all understand what you are saying.

I understand what I’m saying. I’m not sure you do.

You keep using the word quality. Quality of content is very different than whether they content has bugs or doesn’t have bugs. Skyrim is one of the most popular games of all time..and it was buggy as hell. Bethesda games are known for their bugs. No one says they’re low quality games. They’re high quality games that happen to be buggy.

There’s a difference between quality of content and quality of code.

When one person makes something, it’s easy to take credit/blame for everything that’s going on. When a dozen people are working on a project, it’s something else entirely. Because there are more people doing more things, sometimes at cross purposes. The more people and faster the schedule the harder it is to organize and the more likely things will interfere with each other.

It doesn’t make the quality of the content bad. It just means that the program will have some bugs. Anet identifies and fixes these bugs pretty quickly.

I think your expectations are probably unreasonable.

cesmode.4257:

So again, they will release content when its profitable for them..at a fast paced schedule to keep us checking things off the achievement list…rather than spending the proper time to QA the stuff and give us quality.

Everything youre saying supports the notion that they would rather pump out piles of dung in hopes to increase player concurrancy and money, rather than giving us quality experience.

And while games release the actual title when it is profitable…that is true..but after the fact, good games test their content. Not saying GW2 is a bad game ofcourse, but it definately has a quality problem with the amount of bugs and exploits they need to scramble to patch.

Except that it’s not dung. YOU don’t like it. That’s the difference. There are people who do like stuff. Last I saw, people liked the Bazaar of the Four Winds. There are threads on these forums thanking Anet for the new Tquatl fight. There are threads that thanked them for SAB.

You don’t like the content, that doesn’t make the content dung.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

Probably because ANet didn’t feature it somewhere in their official publications and advertising. I am sure he isn’t in the Manifesto.

Sure, he’s not. But what Colin was saying in the manifesto is pretty clearly not talking about GRIND, it’s talking about a specific type of grind.

Grind can mean more than one thing. The definitions of grind are:

1. Killing mobs to earn experience to level
2. Doing repetitive tasks to get higher level gear

When you look what Colin was saying, the whole paragraph…there’s no mention of gear at all. Nothing about that. He’s talking about combat and hes’ talking about “fun things to do”. How anyone can imagine he’s talking about gear grind there, when he’s obviously (to me anyway) using the original definition of grind, I don’t know.

I already settled this. Don’t you remember? He’s talking about the way combat looks. Here’s the indisputable proof:

When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow that’s incredible I’ve never seen anything like that.’

We want to change the way people view combat.

The evidence lies in plain sight before you, yet you persist in persistently choosing to ignore it. And even if it wasn’t there and you didn’t persistently persist in choosing to ignore it, would there have been a difference in the laws of physics if Newton got bonked on the head by a Golden Noble instead of a Flower of Kent?

So what else in that entire paragraph, beside the single word grind, has you believing that he’s talking about gear grind. Because I don’t see anything in that paragraph that mentions gear. Or vertical progression. All he talks about is going through this awful grind to get to the fun stuff.

We didn’t settle it. You settled it. I didn’t agree it was settled and there are others who agree with me as well. They posted in that thread too.

You may disagree with Newton, too;
But gravity still has a hold on you.

Strawman much?

Rigel.3092:

Vayne.8563:

They said we’ll release the game when it’s ready, and they didn’t. They released it due to market pressures.

When it’s ready is a funny word. Ready for what? The whole idea of saying when it’s ready is to let people know that it’s not coming soon.

But they released this game probably a year early. You didn’t learn from that?

And what game is any different? None!

Yep, I agree. No game releases without releasing when it’s profitable to release. I’d like to see anyone here invest millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars into a project and then not wait to release it to the right moment…for business reasons. It’s not reasonable to expect it.

Anet released before MoP came out, because if MoP was a success, they were sunk if they released after and they couldn’t take the chance. At least that’s my opinion on the matter.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Every show you watch on TV is television content, even if they never reply it. If I go see a show, that’s content, even if the show packs up and leaves.

Its a matter of tense. Something that has been removed from the game is not content, but it once was.

If the game no longer contains something then that something is no longer content of the game.

So then Southsun Survival, Crab Toss and sanctum sprint at all content. The Queen’s Gauntlet will come back, so that’s content. SAB came back already, so that’s content. Halloween is around the corner, that’s coming back…that’s content. In fact the four “festivals” are are content.

Then you have the new jumping puzzle in Gendarran Fields, Moa Races, The Scarlet Invasions, all content.

The problem is people just aren’t thinking that far ahead. Just about every single living story left something behind. In two years the game would be crazy. The player base would be too divided and it would suck.

As it is, there’s plenty of content now. Today we have the new Tquatl, and that’s also content.

There’s plenty of new permanent content.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

Rebound.3409:

I still don’t see why it would be useless. Compared to making content very few like or fine tuning it based apon a general impression players have to suit their player base better. If guilds practice boss runs on PTR good for them…it’s their time spent on the same game. Anyone can practice if they want to…as long as it guarantees a better polished result custom tailored for this community

It would be useless because of Anet’s production schedule which is intense. Adding in a server wouldn’t give people time to find the bugs. Also there would have to be enough people on that server to stress test the content and that won’t happen till it’s live.

See, if it was a five person dungeon that was being tested, I would agree, that a test server would work, but you got stuff happening faster here than in any other MMO I’ve ever seen. More updates, more stuff being put into the game and changed regularly.

The ONLY way Anet will have less bugs is if they slow down the pace. There’s just not enough time to add another layer of testing. It would slow down releases and again, without enough people testing, it wouldn’t help the open world at all.

And if enough people were on the test server, you’d lose those people from the main game, which requires players to be there anyway.

So… what you are saying is that you believe arenanet is concerned with quantity over quality. According to your logic, they would rather haphazardly push out lots of content and forgoe proper testing.

No, I believe that Arena Net is releasing content too fast. That doesn’t mean they’re concerned with quantity over quality. I think they’re more concerned with keeping people logging in, which is quite a different matter.

Anet is probably looking to up and maintain concurrency figures (I actually know this to be true, whether you believe me or not). Concurrency figures are very important to Anet.

So anything that gets more people in and playing is something they see as good…but they don’t believe the releases they’re making aren’t quality releases. They’re just bug fixing them on the fly…and they do it fast. Much faster than most games fix these things.

You know, I had the same problem in Rift. They’d did updates like every single night for a very very long time.

And they had a public test server.

So..they are then concerned with player concurrancy. What happened to “we will release it when its ready” mentality. With that quote aside I still think that concerning yourselves with player concurancy contradicts the idea of quality. “Well, we need to keep these guys busy in the game…” “But Boss, Tequatl isnt ready, we need a few more weeks”. “Sorry, you dont have it. We need to keep players logging in. Prime it for live and get it out there for Sept 17th. You have three days. We will patch it later.”

Then overflow servers ensue. Bugs are realized. Possible exploits are realized. Forums are filled with negativity and frustration. Arenanet patches in a day or two or three…

Compound this cycle over the course of months or a year..and you have a bed rep for quality.

They said we’ll release the game when it’s ready, and they didn’t. They released it due to market pressures.

When it’s ready is a funny word. Ready for what? The whole idea of saying when it’s ready is to let people know that it’s not coming soon.

But they released this game probably a year early. You didn’t learn from that?

TooBz.3065:

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

IMO opinion whether they meant that they were talking about a specific type of grind no long matters when almost everyone thought they meant grind in general.

If you combine different quotes you get a pretty clear picture that grinding was going to be for looks only.

Maybe that’s not what they meant, but it’s what they implied (or at the very least what any reasonable person should have known we inferred) and it’s what they let people believe. So, to me, either they a) said one thing, implied another, and didn’t correct the misconception (which any reasonable person would have known was out there) or b) changed their mind and have turned in a different direction.

Which is better? And really, what difference does it make? We are where we are. Does it really matter if someone said this wasn’t where we were going?

Anet made a manifesto two years before the game launched and then provided, after that subsequent information which people seem to ignore.

No one said Anet didn’t change direction….at least I haven’t said it. But I don’t believe the manifesto was talking about gear grind (and I see no reason why anyone would believe it). In no English I know can that be construed to mean gear grind.

People don’t like gear grind, they seized on the word grind and decided that’s what it meant. I don’t buy it.

As for everything else, Anet didn’t have pages and pages on how there would be no vertical progression in this game. They had two or three quotes from interviews. They talked about other stuff, A LOT. Dynamic events, personal story, hell, even dye colors got an entire blog post.

Vertical progression didn’t.

Sorry, I still don’t think the difference matters. They knew (or should have known) that people thought they meant no gear grind. I think it’s better if they intended for grinding to be for looks, realized it wasn’t working, and adjusted their strategy.

The fact that there was no clarification on vertical progression supports my point as much as it does yours. They described dynamic events, the personal story, and dye colors, but never discussed vertical progression. Didn’t say they would have it, didn’t say they wouldn’t.

I think that, for a sequel, the default position is that things are going to be the same as the predecessor. For example, even if the trailers didn’t show car chases, you could safely assume that Fast and the Furious 7 would include a lot of cars. If this game was named WoW2 then people should expect vertical progression, but this game is named GW2. Which, people have said, didn’t really have vertical progression after max level.

And I still don’t see why it matters (but I enjoy the debate). Although some people seem to think it does. We have the game we have.

It matters because people feel betrayed…and I understand WHY people feel betrayed.

I’m just not one of those people.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

Rebound.3409:

I still don’t see why it would be useless. Compared to making content very few like or fine tuning it based apon a general impression players have to suit their player base better. If guilds practice boss runs on PTR good for them…it’s their time spent on the same game. Anyone can practice if they want to…as long as it guarantees a better polished result custom tailored for this community

It would be useless because of Anet’s production schedule which is intense. Adding in a server wouldn’t give people time to find the bugs. Also there would have to be enough people on that server to stress test the content and that won’t happen till it’s live.

See, if it was a five person dungeon that was being tested, I would agree, that a test server would work, but you got stuff happening faster here than in any other MMO I’ve ever seen. More updates, more stuff being put into the game and changed regularly.

The ONLY way Anet will have less bugs is if they slow down the pace. There’s just not enough time to add another layer of testing. It would slow down releases and again, without enough people testing, it wouldn’t help the open world at all.

And if enough people were on the test server, you’d lose those people from the main game, which requires players to be there anyway.

So… what you are saying is that you believe arenanet is concerned with quantity over quality. According to your logic, they would rather haphazardly push out lots of content and forgoe proper testing.

No, I believe that Arena Net is releasing content too fast. That doesn’t mean they’re concerned with quantity over quality. I think they’re more concerned with keeping people logging in, which is quite a different matter.

Anet is probably looking to up and maintain concurrency figures (I actually know this to be true, whether you believe me or not). Concurrency figures are very important to Anet.

So anything that gets more people in and playing is something they see as good…but they don’t believe the releases they’re making aren’t quality releases. They’re just bug fixing them on the fly…and they do it fast. Much faster than most games fix these things.

You know, I had the same problem in Rift. They’d did updates like every single night for a very very long time.

And they had a public test server.

Rebound.3409:

I still don’t see why it would be useless. Compared to making content very few like or fine tuning it based apon a general impression players have to suit their player base better. If guilds practice boss runs on PTR good for them…it’s their time spent on the same game. Anyone can practice if they want to…as long as it guarantees a better polished result custom tailored for this community

It would be useless because of Anet’s production schedule which is intense. Adding in a server wouldn’t give people time to find the bugs. Also there would have to be enough people on that server to stress test the content and that won’t happen till it’s live.

See, if it was a five person dungeon that was being tested, I would agree, that a test server would work, but you got stuff happening faster here than in any other MMO I’ve ever seen. More updates, more stuff being put into the game and changed regularly.

The ONLY way Anet will have less bugs is if they slow down the pace. There’s just not enough time to add another layer of testing. It would slow down releases and again, without enough people testing, it wouldn’t help the open world at all.

And if enough people were on the test server, you’d lose those people from the main game, which requires players to be there anyway.

TooBz.3065:

IMO opinion whether they meant that they were talking about a specific type of grind no long matters when almost everyone thought they meant grind in general.

If you combine different quotes you get a pretty clear picture that grinding was going to be for looks only.

Maybe that’s not what they meant, but it’s what they implied (or at the very least what any reasonable person should have known we inferred) and it’s what they let people believe. So, to me, either they a) said one thing, implied another, and didn’t correct the misconception (which any reasonable person would have known was out there) or b) changed their mind and have turned in a different direction.

Which is better? And really, what difference does it make? We are where we are. Does it really matter if someone said this wasn’t where we were going?

Anet made a manifesto two years before the game launched and then provided, after that subsequent information which people seem to ignore.

No one said Anet didn’t change direction….at least I haven’t said it. But I don’t believe the manifesto was talking about gear grind (and I see no reason why anyone would believe it). In no English I know can that be construed to mean gear grind.

People don’t like gear grind, they seized on the word grind and decided that’s what it meant. I don’t buy it.

As for everything else, Anet didn’t have pages and pages on how there would be no vertical progression in this game. They had two or three quotes from interviews. They talked about other stuff, A LOT. Dynamic events, personal story, hell, even dye colors got an entire blog post.

Vertical progression didn’t.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

Probably because ANet didn’t feature it somewhere in their official publications and advertising. I am sure he isn’t in the Manifesto.

Sure, he’s not. But what Colin was saying in the manifesto is pretty clearly not talking about GRIND, it’s talking about a specific type of grind.

Grind can mean more than one thing. The definitions of grind are:

1. Killing mobs to earn experience to level
2. Doing repetitive tasks to get higher level gear

When you look what Colin was saying, the whole paragraph…there’s no mention of gear at all. Nothing about that. He’s talking about combat and hes’ talking about “fun things to do”. How anyone can imagine he’s talking about gear grind there, when he’s obviously (to me anyway) using the original definition of grind, I don’t know.

I already settled this. Don’t you remember? He’s talking about the way combat looks. Here’s the indisputable proof:

When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow that’s incredible I’ve never seen anything like that.’

We want to change the way people view combat.

The evidence lies in plain sight before you, yet you persist in persistently choosing to ignore it. And even if it wasn’t there and you didn’t persistently persist in choosing to ignore it, would there have been a difference in the laws of physics if Newton got bonked on the head by a Golden Noble instead of a Flower of Kent?

So what else in that entire paragraph, beside the single word grind, has you believing that he’s talking about gear grind. Because I don’t see anything in that paragraph that mentions gear. Or vertical progression. All he talks about is going through this awful grind to get to the fun stuff.

We didn’t settle it. You settled it. I didn’t agree it was settled and there are others who agree with me as well. They posted in that thread too.

JDGumby.7685:

Vayne.8563:

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying no one was complaining that Anet “lied” about energy potions. No one used the word lie in reference to that. Anet changed their mind, but they agreed with it, so that change was okay.

First, they changed it long before they started selling the game to people. Yes, that matters. A LOT.

Second, they didn’t try and claim “We always meant it to be this way” or “You just misinterpreted what we said back then” after the change, like was being said after Ascended was added contrary to their PR.

Anet is a business that said a ton of things. People make these claims that Anet said something a couple of times during interviews, so those things are written in stone. They’ve said that Anet has made this some kind of major promise about the game.

Anet made statements of intention. They’ve promised nothing of the sort. When you look at the Guild Wars 2 webpage, what you see is stuff about dynamic events, stuff about personal story, stuff about pretty much everything but vertical progression. Furthermore, the web page has ALWAYS been that way. There’s been very very little talk of verticle progression and most of it was in response to fan questions in the first place.

You might consider this some kind of core promise that Anet did a 180 on, but I saw far more talk of other things that are still in the game.

Did Anet change directions. Oh yes, 100%. Anet changed directions.

But to say they made this big huge pledge about how it would be is simply wrong. The game changed directions. If you didn’t get your money’s worth out of your $60, at the time they changed directions, which was LAST NOVEMBER, you should have asked for a refund. Anet give plenty of people refunds because they changed direction back then.

Now we’re arguing about Anet changing direction, when we already had this argument ten months ago.

I’m not sure which is worse those people who think a statement of intent is a promise, or those people who knew ascended gear was coming, and continually bring up an argument I thought was long over.

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Oh also you skipped Ree saying “You are rescuing a village that will stay rescued”, missed that part too?

I am not holding devs to every word that would be silly, but I do hold them to honor the core fundamentals that they promised.

Did you miss the clarification published 3 days after the manifesto that was around for a year or more that explains Ree was talking about personal stories and Colin was talking about dynamic events?

They made that up so that it’ll defend their statements…….Lying through the first statement and then oh wait i want to clarify…………BS

I’d believe you if it wasn’t published 3 days after the manifesto came out to explain things.

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

Algreg.3629:

I think we now reached the schoolyard stage of “no – YOU are!”. Time for a thread closure :P

I’m not actually calling anyone names or ignorant. People use such tactics when they run out of arguments. I’m against calling people names. It solves nothing. I simply point out when other people do it, because it weakens whatever arguments they might have had.

Says the guy who has called people names…….

If you can find where I’ve called people names, feel free to report the post. I’m sure I’ll get infracted for it if that’s the case.

I’ve done so and i’ve seen your post been removed.

I’ve never had a post removed for name calling. I’ve had posts removed for being argumentative, though. Nice try.

OP, a hard encounter doesn’t get beat on day 1 of a patch by most servers. In Guild Wars 1, DOA didn’t get beaten on day 1 by most people either. It took time to learn the fight.

Just the idea that someone is talking about a hard event that’s made to be hard and claiming there’s a problem because only one server has beaten it in a day, means that it’s not that kittene server beat it in a day.

Others will start beating it when they learn how to do it. It only requires some large guild to start organizing things and people to learn the fight.

Rebound.3409:

They are testing on us obviously.

A PTR system is way above their income apparently.

Or they’ve deemed it as useless as it would be.

xephire.8324:

Vayne.8563:

Algreg.3629:

I think we now reached the schoolyard stage of “no – YOU are!”. Time for a thread closure :P

I’m not actually calling anyone names or ignorant. People use such tactics when they run out of arguments. I’m against calling people names. It solves nothing. I simply point out when other people do it, because it weakens whatever arguments they might have had.

Says the guy who has called people names…….

If you can find where I’ve called people names, feel free to report the post. I’m sure I’ll get infracted for it if that’s the case.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Brother Grimm.5176:

HiddenNick.7206:

Another ‘AC gear is bad’ thread… It’s getting old. It differs from ‘mounts’ threads only by that you get a lot of +1 for making one.

Unfortunately, that means some people agree with it…..

While the entire argument the OP makes brings up valid points and complaints about “the problem”, it must be stated that not everyone agrees there IS “a problem”. Ascended gear is an end game goal that is NOT necessary to play the game. It IS useful to play some aspects (Fractals), but the claim that players are FORCED to grind for this gear or that BiS gear is mandatory is ridiculous. Hailing that idea as absolute truth is the real problem here (just my opinion, but I’m not alone).

I don’t think it can be argued that Exotics are fairly easy to gear up with and I just don’t see the major issue with the highest tier gear being a tier of items that take some time and expense to obtain. I’m still baffled that some seem so surprised that Ascended items are somewhere between Exotic and Legendary Weapons in both time and money to obtain (from what I understood, exactly what we were told they would be).

Pretty much no gear besides basic one was ever required to play any MMO.

Whats exactly your point as i dont see it.

Umm what? lol

Yah, ill let you figure that one out, cyas in few days?

To progress in Rift I had to get higher gear to do pretty much anything when I played. The same was true with AoC when I played that and Lotro.

All the good, cool, interesting stuff was hidden behind gear checks.

You obviously dont read what is responded to. Suggest you do.

You were NOT forced to get BiS gear in Rift or AoC or LOTRO to “play teh game”.

Lazy people, why do they respond like they wanted to quote someone else?

And not to mention that all those games had abysmal retention rate and gone F2P because they couldnt sustain any decent playerbase.

GW2 became “fastest selling MMO” * (in first 9 months) BECAUSE of their pre launch selling points. Keep THAT in mind next time you respond.

I’m not lazy. I can to ALL the content except for the highest level in fractals in Guild Wars 2. And I can see everything in the fractals without doing the highest levels, without getting anything above rares.

This is different from other games where such things aren’t true. I’m sure most people knew what I was talking about.

I pretty sure they dont since pretty much all other MMOs are same crap.

AGAIN, NOBODY CARES WHAT WAS 5-10 YEARS AGO.

hope it sticks this time. though i doubt it.

Except that my experienced with Rift were two years ago, not five to ten. And you can’t discuss a genre without going back at least a couple of years.

And? You have “experience” with 1 other game. That also had to go F2P to stay afloat.

Do you know how many are out there?

Ignorance is bliss.

I’ve played Aion, Rift, Lotro, WoW, Guild Wars 1, Perfect World, DDO, TSW and a few others. But since this is a Guild Wars 2 forum, I seldom refer to them here. Not talking about other games on another game’s forum is a type of etiquette that’s apparently not everyone follows.

Algreg.3629:

I think we now reached the schoolyard stage of “no – YOU are!”. Time for a thread closure :P

I’m not actually calling anyone names or ignorant. People use such tactics when they run out of arguments. I’m against calling people names. It solves nothing. I simply point out when other people do it, because it weakens whatever arguments they might have had.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Vayne.8563:

I didn’t do the wurm but I did do the Fire Ele, The Maw and The Golem. The Golem took somewhat longer, but the fire ele and the frozen maw never got close to five minutes. Maybe it went from a minute to two minutes.

For a guaranteed rare, it’s not that bad. I’ll have to try the wurm to find out how that goes on my server.

I’ve not done any of those yet on the new system, and I agree, two minutes is not bad at all. Do you play at peak times, though, I wonder? I play a fair bit earlier than US peak, and tend to see far less people at events than if I am still on a few hours later.

Might also depend on what server you’re on. Part of my problem is I’m on one of the busier servers so even at off hours we get a lot of people.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Brother Grimm.5176:

HiddenNick.7206:

Another ‘AC gear is bad’ thread… It’s getting old. It differs from ‘mounts’ threads only by that you get a lot of +1 for making one.

Unfortunately, that means some people agree with it…..

While the entire argument the OP makes brings up valid points and complaints about “the problem”, it must be stated that not everyone agrees there IS “a problem”. Ascended gear is an end game goal that is NOT necessary to play the game. It IS useful to play some aspects (Fractals), but the claim that players are FORCED to grind for this gear or that BiS gear is mandatory is ridiculous. Hailing that idea as absolute truth is the real problem here (just my opinion, but I’m not alone).

I don’t think it can be argued that Exotics are fairly easy to gear up with and I just don’t see the major issue with the highest tier gear being a tier of items that take some time and expense to obtain. I’m still baffled that some seem so surprised that Ascended items are somewhere between Exotic and Legendary Weapons in both time and money to obtain (from what I understood, exactly what we were told they would be).

Pretty much no gear besides basic one was ever required to play any MMO.

Whats exactly your point as i dont see it.

Umm what? lol

Yah, ill let you figure that one out, cyas in few days?

To progress in Rift I had to get higher gear to do pretty much anything when I played. The same was true with AoC when I played that and Lotro.

All the good, cool, interesting stuff was hidden behind gear checks.

You obviously dont read what is responded to. Suggest you do.

You were NOT forced to get BiS gear in Rift or AoC or LOTRO to “play teh game”.

Lazy people, why do they respond like they wanted to quote someone else?

And not to mention that all those games had abysmal retention rate and gone F2P because they couldnt sustain any decent playerbase.

GW2 became “fastest selling MMO” * (in first 9 months) BECAUSE of their pre launch selling points. Keep THAT in mind next time you respond.

I’m not lazy. I can to ALL the content except for the highest level in fractals in Guild Wars 2. And I can see everything in the fractals without doing the highest levels, without getting anything above rares.

This is different from other games where such things aren’t true. I’m sure most people knew what I was talking about.

I pretty sure they dont since pretty much all other MMOs are same crap.

AGAIN, NOBODY CARES WHAT WAS 5-10 YEARS AGO.

hope it sticks this time. though i doubt it.

Except that my experienced with Rift were two years ago, not five to ten. And you can’t discuss a genre without going back at least a couple of years.

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

You’ve found a couple of quotes that Anet changed. Anet literally said hundreds and hundreds of things and by percentage, far more than 90% of them are true.

Nobody complains when you tell the truth. That’s almost a tautology. It’s also pretty universal, though, that if you tell one lie, forevermore you’re a liar.

If I told you the truth about everything, except one thing that mattered a great deal to you, would it be ok because 90% of everything else I said was true? I doubt it. And if it is Ok, I’ve got some swampland in Florida for sale…

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying no one was complaining that Anet “lied” about energy potions. No one used the word lie in reference to that. Anet changed their mind, but they agreed with it, so that change was okay.

That’s the very definition of double standard.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Vayne.8563:

The meta events don’t seem to take much longer than they used to, and you don’t get much more reward for them. What they have now is the ability to kill you..which they should have ALWAYS had.

The reward is fine. If you get blues and greens you’re working on your magic find, and if your magic find goes high enough, you’ll be rewarded constantly in other areas. I’m up to 88% magic find now and I’m getting better drops than ever throughout the entire game. I’m happy for greens and blues right now.

And I’m getting a sufficient quantity of rares (and even the ocassional exotic) to keep me in mats.

You say they don’t “seem” to take much longer, but it’s clear that, in practice, they do take very much longer. Jungle Wyrm used to be problematic because he was sometimes dead before everyone could even tag him (i.e. seconds). Now he’s problematic because ten minutes spent killing him is not as profitable as ten minutes spent on really any event involving a large number of mobs. It’s from one ridiculous extreme to another only slightly less ridiculous one.

It’s nice that they’re harder, but the loot really isn’t very good for time involved. I mean, we can always thus not do those ones, but it seems kind of like a waste.

I didn’t do the wurm but I did do the Fire Ele, The Maw and The Golem. The Golem took somewhat longer, but the fire ele and the frozen maw never got close to five minutes. Maybe it went from a minute to two minutes.

For a guaranteed rare, it’s not that bad. I’ll have to try the wurm to find out how that goes on my server.