Guild Wars 2

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

And you’ve called me condescending? LMAO! Maybe you should look inward. You’ve been condescending before, but this post is pretty much the worst I’ve seen.

I don’t care what you’ve seen or you consider a normal procedure. There’s no point in making someone who’s already played and beaten the game to walk around without unlocked skill slots and the ability to swap weapons.

The reason they give you stuff like a weapon swap at level 7 isn’t because they want to give you new skills. It’s because they want newbies to learn. It’s why elementalist attunements dont’ all unlock at level 2. And yes, Anet has said this directly at some of the conferences. They let people learn things by letting them slowly get skills.

In fact, if you’re level 1 and you’re trying to unlock a new weapon that you’ve never used, it takes several hits to unlock it. If you’re level twenty and you try to unlock a new skill, even the fifth skill, it unlocks in one hit.

So yes, I’m quite serious.

You have been condescending. Whether I am here or not doesn’t change that. You have a tendency to think that if someone else does something bad, you are not responsible for the same behaviour. Whatever on that, but to be clear I am truly astonished here.

I guess you were being serious as you just indicated here but truly, this is about as far out there as any tin foil hat story I’ve heard on any game forum. It’s about as far as a twist as I can imagine here.

But ok, you say you are serious. Skipping the first 20 levels, arguably the most interesting of the leveling process, is a good thing in your mind. You are indeed free to have that opinion and I shan’t contend that.

But I am actually completely flabbergasted by your argumentation here, because of the sheer, well, it’s just way out there for me. Does that make my reply here consdescending? If so, not intentionally.

I don’t care if you think or don’t think I’m condescending. The fact that you’ve called me out on it, while acting the same way yourself, makes you a hypocritical. That’s all.

Whether you agree with me or not, doesn’t make me wrong. I’m not just going by intuition here, as I’ve said before, Anet has talked about how the first zones were meant to be tutorials, and teach people the game.

A lot of people playing Guild Wars 2 have never played an MMO at all before. Anet wanted to make sure they didn’t get skills and traits and options thrown at them too fast. They said this. Why would I make it up?

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Even if your concurrency figures are accurate (and I question those), you have no idea how many people play the game.

A game that has a conccurency of 300,000 probably has over a million players,

So you say he can’t possibly know and you follow that with your own guesstimate which you can’t know by the same reasoning. Well done.

Vayne.8563:

Saying that less that 500k people play this game is unprovable.

You are right. He cannot prove it, but you can’t prove he’s wrong either.

Vayne.8563:

In fact, you have no idea how many people are playing.

Neither do you (nor me for that matter). Let alone what the definition of playing is.

I’m saying it’s a guestimate. I’m not saying good and I’m not saying bad.

But I know one thing for a fact. If 300,000 people are concurrently logged on, there are a lot more than 300,000 people playing.

What would you say the odds are of all the players playing all logging in at the same time.

No one on vacation, no one taking a break, no one working, no one in different time zones.

In fact, if 300,000 people were playing in the US at prime time, that means few people in Europe or Asia is playing at quite the same time. When do they log on.

Concurrency was probably measured at peak US time. I’m pretty sure there are more than 200,000 players in the rest of the world.

You can keep picking on everything I say. It just makes you look desperate.

The point is, you don’t really miss anything because there’s always something to do. You move and evolve with things. Sure you’re behind in gold acquisition, but that would be true whether content was permanent or temporary. I mean if your machine broke and there was permanent content left behind, at the end of the day would you really have more gold? Not if you played roughly the same number of hours.

Anyway, the farming is relatively good on the zone wide events now, and there’s still time to get in and do stuff. In fact, all the achievements from the beginning of the month (August 9th update) are still attainable.

I’m not sure you missed as much as you think (though you will have to rush some stuff).

Something some altoholics may be familiar with is retiring certain characters and not playing them anymore. In Guild Wars 1 I have a couple of retired characters and I’m about to retire my first Guild Wars 2 character, the first character I got world complete on.

The character is a human engineer, and though he has a legendary and pretty much BIS gear…I’m just not feeling him. I can’t find a play style I really like. Particularly now that necro has become so much fun to play, I just don’t feel like going back to him.

Now, retirement doesn’t have to be permanent, but I do have another engineer that I like better, so it’s likely this character will stay retired.

Does anyone else retired characters?

I think that’s a pretty fair review, actually. Good job.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

IMO, no game -no matter how good it is, is worth 15 bucks a month.

My advice to you is never take up golf. lol

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Ummm I don’t think the scroll means the leveling process is a problem. I think the scroll means that people who don’t want to go through the “tutorial” nature of having the early stuff locked, because they already know about slot skills, and their class mechanic, and traits, don’t have to go through that tutorial part of it again. It takes you past the basic, basic stuff…and that’s all it does.

That’s why you give it to people with 5000 achievement points or for their birthday. To let them skip the tutorial zone.

If leveling itself was a problem it would be 20 levels at any time.

Wait whut, are you being serious here? The whole point in leveling is improving your character by learning new skills, improving stats and unlocking abilities and what have ye….what you call a tutorial that’s leveling akittens best.

And 20 levels of tutorial? Seriously you realise that by, what is it, level 30 you unlock your elite slot and that’s it. Only trait points after for 50 levels.

I will throw it on a different point of view but from where I am sitting what you suggest here sounds completely insane.

Maybe there are some but I’ve never seen anything in a MMO I’ve played (not talking money grabbing f2p cakittenems) of any stature that brought in items that allows you to skip the first 20 levels. That is not a normal reward, letting people skip what should be the most exciting part of the leveling process.

If what you say were true, then you might as well skip to 80 right away because it’s just going to be more of the same for many levels. No, nice try, but your view on this just doesn’t sound reasonable to me. Oh well, different views yet again…

And you’ve called me condescending? LMAO! Maybe you should look inward. You’ve been condescending before, but this post is pretty much the worst I’ve seen.

I don’t care what you’ve seen or you consider a normal procedure. There’s no point in making someone who’s already played and beaten the game to walk around without unlocked skill slots and the ability to swap weapons.

The reason they give you stuff like a weapon swap at level 7 isn’t because they want to give you new skills. It’s because they want newbies to learn. It’s why elementalist attunements dont’ all unlock at level 2. And yes, Anet has said this directly at some of the conferences. They let people learn things by letting them slowly get skills.

In fact, if you’re level 1 and you’re trying to unlock a new weapon that you’ve never used, it takes several hits to unlock it. If you’re level twenty and you try to unlock a new skill, even the fifth skill, it unlocks in one hit.

So yes, I’m quite serious.

Even if your concurrency figures are accurate (and I question those), you have no idea how many people play the game. Concurrency just means who’s online at the moment, not everyone who’s playing.

A game that has a conccurency of 300,000 probably has over a million players, because the odds of even half of them all logging in at the same time is pretty small. People live in different countries, different time zones, have different play schedules. Some of the guys in my guild who play only play a couple of times a week. Some are only on at odd hours.

Saying that less that 500k people play this game is unprovable.

In fact, you have no idea how many people are playing.

Galtrix.7369:

No offense to anyone here, but if Anet made the subscription fee one dollar a month, I still wouldn’t pay for it. Heck, I even regret spending 30 bucks on this game already. No, Guild Wars 1 shows you that you don’t necessarily have to have a ton of items in the gemstore to bring in income. GW1 had about 3 costumes and a few extra items, and it thrived for many, many years even being constantly updated and changed. The base box price should bring in enough income for Anet to happily produce content for years already, they don’t need the gemstore or a subscription fee. Sure, why wouldn’t Anet want a gemstore? It’s more money for them, but they don’t need it to keep the game running. It’s just like extra pocket change. It’s nice to have, but you don’t need it.

Guild Wars 1? Really? LMAO!

Guild Wars 1 shows you that in a NON MMO (which is much cheaper to run than an MMO), with a staff of 50 people, in a game made 8 years ago, you can get by without strong depency on a cash shop. That’s ALL Guild Wars 1 shows you. Period.

If Guild Wars 1 were a true MMO, if they needed servers that had a couple of hundred people all moving and fighting at the same time, a staff of over 300, bigger headquarters, and more overhead in general, coming out today instead of 8 years ago….

Guild Wars 1 would never have been sustainable in today’s environment.

It did great when it had like only MMOs to compete with, all of which had subscriptions. In today’s environment… not so much.

There’s no way you can compare this game and that game, unless you throw away all the facts surrounding issue.

OliverT.9021:

Time Limited Edition – Fused Weapons.

People scramble and rush to open black lions chest. Some say they have used more than 150 keys before getting their first fused ticket. End result = Fused weapons can now be sold on the Trading Post and are now going to be back on the Auction House, redeemable for 7 Black Lion Claims Ticket.

Time Limited Edition – Sclerite Weapon Skins

Like the Fused Weapon skins example, not supposed to return, but they will soon be available also via Black Lion Claims Ticket. I think you need 3 of these.

Time Limited Example – Wintersday Weapon Skins

Supposedly only available last Wintersday via the Gem Store, these are also now back for sale.

Time Limited Example – Unlimited Molten Picks, Sickles and Logging Axe

Supposed to be time limited sale and never to return. Whoops, here they are. Back for more. You know this contender by now….

Account Bound FOTM RNG Fractal Weapon Skins -

Given ANET’s outstanding record, I’d believe we should be able to sell these soon on the auction house too.

Limited time doesn’t necessary mean never to return. The sales were never advertised as one time only. They were advertised as limited time. That means what it says. They stop selling it at a certain point. They certainly never said it would never be offered again.

And even if they had, the number of people requesting it on the forums means they’re listening to their player base.

Also, Fractal skins will never be sold on the trading post, I think, because they’re there to prove you’ve done the dungeon…much like dungeon tokens aren’t sold on the trading post.

Essence Snow.3194:

I’d rather assume that there is simply a lack of common sense input to the decision making over there. People may be very smart and yet lack common sense and vice versa. We have seen a lack of common sense consideration in an overwhelming amount of decisions in this game and I for one find it perplexing to say the least.

This is pretty much the truth. Anet does seem to lack some common sense. I’ve spent a lot of time working with writers and artists and, while some are certainly rooted in the real world, many have their heads in the clouds. I’m wondering if that has something to do with it, because it is a company of “creative” people.

There are times in my life when dealing with artists and writers that I have to take a step back and take a deep breath, and remind myself I’m living in a completely different world than they are.

I’m guessing theirs might be better. lol

Dante.1508:

minbariguy.7504:

Mirta.5029:

It’s more like
[SNIP]

• you were informed about how concerts will go

I take special exception to this one. I was most certainly not informed how this concert would play out when I bought my ticket.

Living World and the subsequent (mostly temporary) events attached to it were never mentioned at the time they took my money. I would never have purchased the game if I had been informed that this was the direction they would take.

I understand that you like the Living World concept. Good for you. I wholly encourage you to continue advocating for what you enjoy about the game, and to offer criticism about the things you would like to see changed.

But please don’t continue to try to tell other people why they are wrong to feel as they do. Everybody is different. Everyone’s life commitments are different. Not everyone likes (or dislikes) the same things. Since you’re so interested in “real life”, I’d have thought you’d have learned that by now.

But enough. You can do forum PvP with someone else. I’m not interested.

Sorry Mirta i agree with this guy completely we were well and truely not advised on any of this Living story stuff when i bought this product, honestly if i’d known i would have made a more educated purchase..

The directions this game has taken has made a mockery of Guildwars in my opinion.

I agree with you. You weren’t informed about something that wasn’t conceived when you bought the game, because MMOs, ALL MMOs, change and grow.

And when you bought Prophecies, you weren’t informed about heroes. You weren’t informed about certain titles being made account bound instead of character bound, you weren’t informed about shrine bonuses, you weren’t informed about Sorrow’s Furnace.

It’s like watching the second year of a TV series and saying you weren’t informed what was going to happen. Well yeah. Because they didn’t produce year two before the first year started.

I can’t think of any MMO that didn’t change drastically over time. Rift certainly did. WoW did. Aion did.

Anyone who buys an MMO and doesn’t expect it to change, probably shouldn’t be playing MMOs.

Nope. Your reward has been playing for as long as you have. I wouldn’t trade a year of playing this game for a few experience boosters and a suit of armor from the cash shop.

Think of how far behind in money the people starting now are. They’ve got a long, long road to get anywhere near me. So they get a couple of extra perks. Good for them. If it encourages someone to buy the game and play it…that’s good for me, not bad for me.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 2 is literally the first MMO I could stomach for any length of time. I don’t consider Guild Wars 1 an MMO for various reasons, and neither did Anet.

Of MMOs I’ve played WoW, Rift, Lotro, Aion, AoC, Perfect World, DDO and a few other odds and ends along the way. I couldn’t stay past the 3-4 month point in any of them. AoC would have likely been the closest, but for constant crashes on my machine (when no other game did). Lotro would have been next, but the amount of money that cash shop cost me was obscene.

In the end, this is the first MMO I’ve made it past the four month mark with. Is it special?

Compare to other MMOs out there, it is to me.

maybe that just makes you special

What I was saying though is that more than one game can be special to you. I would’ve like for GW2 to become a special game for me as well.

I played Aion for a year and a half and SWTOR since the beginning and still play it, with a short break last year to start GW2.

So I played 2 MMOs for a longer period and GW2 is sadly that game that I wanted to be special for me but it just refuses to be. That’s how it feels to me.

The current level 20 scroll that people are getting, to me, proves that they recognise their leveling process has a problem. Why else would they give everybody insta level 20, if people enjoyed leveling?

But I can fully understand that if this is the first MMO you played for more than 4 months that that means something to you. That’s fair enough.

Ummm I don’t think the scroll means the leveling process is a problem. I think the scroll means that people who don’t want to go through the “tutorial” nature of having the early stuff locked, because they already know about slot skills, and their class mechanic, and traits, don’t have to go through that tutorial part of it again. It takes you past the basic, basic stuff…and that’s all it does.

That’s why you give it to people with 5000 achievement points or for their birthday. To let them skip the tutorial zone.

If leveling itself was a problem it would be 20 levels at any time.

Dante.1508:

Siphaed.9235:

Gandarel.5091:

The real and final stab in the back was this. Not just that they didn’t give us random minis and we got 8 Jennahs, but meanwhile, they add 42 new minipets to the gemstore. Jennah for tease, and if you want your GW1 present, you can have it, just empty your pocket for it.

I hope ArenaNet will start to make logical decisions at some point after they left behind their ‘GW1 didn’t exist and we ignore every loyal veteran’ mentality,

What are you yammering about? Minis were set to be a gemstore item SINCE DAY #1. The players have gotten many a free mini pets through events (Wintersday, Dragon Bash, Queen’s Jubilee, etc.).

However, the bulk of minis are still a Gem Store item based on A.Net needing actual money to pay for the FREE 2 WEEK CONTENT UPDATES that players are getting WITHOUT A SUBSCRIPTION all the time. Even still with that into consideration, Type 2 minis are tradable and sellable on the Trading Post, which I’ve seen many there now (averaging 1-20g each). And, on top of that, you can still just trade gold for gems and get a random pack for free* using in-game currency (*meaning you don’t have to pay real $$ for it).

As for the birthday gift….they didn’t have to do that. There’s no benefit for them to give players something for free. They could have done what SW:TOR did, put a title up on the Gem Store for 24hrs for like $1 (no joke, this is what SW:TOR did during the 10th anniversary of The Old Republic series, which they made a whole big ol’ press release about it).

It’s the same with the Currency Wallet, something that again they didn’t have to do. There’s the fact that item frees up player bag space, which is contradictory your conspiracy theory of them trying to squeeze money out of players (considering they sell bag and bank slots).

Oh let’s not forget Achievement Rewards. Those things give players FREE GEMS [@ 5,000 and 10,000 points]. Those greedy people at ArenaNet are giving players free currency for playing the game, how dare they! I mean, those gems are enough to buy 2 sets of minis just from both those thresholds. That’s not right…they can’t possibly be giving away stuff for free?! Shame!

Really, you believe all that? well glad you’re happy then..

No one believes it.

Programmers at Anet all donate their time to work for free on the content patches and upgrades we’ve been getting. They need no pay. Anet’s headquarters are donated to them by fans who love the game, and the tech support department are all volunteers.

Every cent Anet makes from this game goes to a greedy Asura who’s manipulating the entire system for his own benefit.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

It’s my contention that the world is too big for it to be anything else. Even smaller worlds have this problem, in games with bigger populations. It’s just not that easy to do it right. You either have a tiny world with no options, which sucks, or you direct people to the same places. If there is another alternative, I can’t see it.

Let’s pretend you can only have 1000 people per server. I don’t know the actual number and I’m sure that’s not it, but it will work as an example.

1000 people and 20% of them maybe are in WvW…that only leaves 800 people. But then 10% of those are SPvPing. That only leaves 700 people. But of those 200 are in dungeons. That only leaves 500 people, 100 of which are in LA. That leaves 400 people. Assuming that those 400 people were divided equally between 25 zones, you get about 16 people per zone…and those zones are pretty big. You put that number of people in a zone, there’s a relatively big chance they’ll never run into each other.

Now I don’t know server caps, but once you start thinking about people who play at 4 am and you can’t make a world small enough for them. The only solution is to direct them to all be in a certain place at a certain time…or encourage them anyway.

Well, this is my point. You explained very well how people are divided up between different areas because of different activities. That is exactly the reason why I say that the original leveling world could’ve been smaller.

It is however also linked to the ridiculous level cap of 80. The solution for the leveling issue is actually simple enough. Make sure people spend more time in each zone while leveling. That’s why less zones at the start would’ve sufficed and they could’ve added more zones as the game progressed with endgame content or max level content if you prefer.

I think that it’s a shame that they put the dungeons mostly in low level zones with a tp next to it for example.

If dungeons were a little harder and more endgame content it would’ve been better and then put new dungeons in new areas for example. I mean this is just one small example but there is so much more that could’ve been done.

Right now dungeons are really done by level 80s mostly anyway, regardless if it’s Arah or AC.

Now, to change stuff now is not possible but these are the mistakes they made in my view that contribute to the current problems. And it surprised me because they originally set out to make a game that wouldn’t have that issue.

You tell me. Any MMO you say has some degree of this. SWTOR is actually pretty good in this respect because there are usually people in all leveling planets, but I can accept that that is an exception to the rule.

So, you’re Anet and see this issue and see how people were way spread out in your own GW1. You make a new game then and knowing this is an issue you make a super large world with lots of zones to level in. But, then you say, aha but level 80s can come back here because of the level downgrade system so the whole world is endgame. Then you set rewards a lot lower so level 80s are not interested in doing so.

Surely, somebody could’ve put two and two together? This game really needed fewer leveling zones and more level 80 zones with a purpose. If you want something specific you have to go there. If you want something else you need to go to another place. Dungeon access, materials whatever. The problem is now that most zones are just for pure leveling and a couple for farming. Not a great dynamic in my view.

When Anet makes a new game, everyone will be in the new zones, spreading out all over again.

I don’t think it’s a mistake to do what Anet did. I just think you have a different idea of how things should be done…but that doesn’t make the way it was done wrong. Because until you make a game and try your way, you can’t know if it will work. I’ve yet to be in any game, even WoW, where people didn’t complain about dead mid-level zones.

As for SWToR, one of my friends who played it, back when it was pay to play, expressed that most of the zones on his server were completely dead.

Mesket.5728:

Vayne.8563:

Mesket.5728:

Vayne.8563:

Mesket.5728:

This is one of the most single players MMO out there.

It’s just a bunch of zerk players (everyone one is a copycat of the other) doing things the fastest they can (like if they actually have something important to do in life) then leaving the zone.

Since there is no concept of team play, communications are not needed. Thus, people don’t eve say “thanks” when you rez them… you barely read a shortened “ty” every now and then.

If you want to play Zerk you play Zerk. If you join a guild that doesn’t do that, then you have different experiences.

I definitely have different experiences than the ones you’ve outlined here.

I’m talking about the occasional talk in the map with random people you encounter. Is it better now? I thought the message was troll proof but I was wrong…

Thanks.

Ps. Its not only the zerk gear, but the zerk mentality also. Players in this game are like a swarm. They just flow in the masses spamming 1 (this is so funny, some of them actually press 1 when there are no mobs just in case they are missing something or waiting for the spawn lol )

Right, but if they’re talking in their guild, then they’re talking in their guild. It doesn’t mean they’re not talking.

Social is a funny word. I’m a social guy…but I don’t need to socialize with everyone.

And because the game requires constantly movement and stuff, a lot of people can’t type and play anyway. I know I can’t often do that, which is why I’m on mumble with the guild most of the time.

That’s like saying I’m a good person, but I don’t need to be good with everyone. Doesn’t make much sense does it? Anyway, your particular case is not important but what you mention: “the game requires constantly movement” it is. It’s kind of what I said about the zerk mentality. It’s not really required to be honest unless you talk about this very last living world. You don’t need to be constantly moving, its players that think it is the only way. This is slowly turning into a racing game more than an adventure type game.

If it wasn’t for the big events, I sincerely prefer if this game had a limit of 20-30 or 50 players for each map and overflow the rest. So when you find another player hunting something down it actually means something that there is another “hero” there and not just a random grasshopper in the swarm

I totally disagree with this. It’s not like saying you’re a good person but you don’t have to be good to everyone. It’s perfectly viable to be selectively social.

Simply put, everyone has X amount of time and energy. That’s it. Now you can be friends with everyone, but then how many close friends do you really have?

I put my time and energy into my guild, because in the long run that pays off for me. It’s sort of like being at a party. You can go to a party and socialize with specific people you like, while not socializing with complete strangers. People do it all the time.

But when you take into account the fact that I have trouble fighting and typing at the same time, it’s more a double whammy. It was much easier in WoW or Guild Wars 1 to type and chat because I didn’t have to move. Here…it requires more focus.

But since I’m already on mumble talking to people, why would I need to make myself fight worse in game to chat with strangers I might never see again?

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

The amount of time you can play doesn’t determine whether your are a hardcore or casual player. In fact, I hate these labels altogether. “Casual” implies that the casual player could just as easily play solitaire or has no interest in improving their skills.

snip

It’s 13 zones…apparently I’m the target audience for that. lol

Probably, you seem to have a lot of time to play More than I do anyway. But my main point is that that isn’t “casual” by any reasonable definition unless you define casual to be “anything I don’t like.”

I don’t think anyone here would say that you are a casual gamer, unless they had a very very odd definition of casual.

See the problem is, I am casual…but I have lots of time. I’m casual because I’m not hard-core. I’m not interested, particularly, in challenge. I’m more interested in running around and having fun.

Apparently, to a lot of people, that makes me casual. I don’t think I’m that casual about the game…but what do I know? lol

There’s a new term around for a third category that you seem to fit in. It’s called dedicated player.

Casual= doesn’t play that many hours and doesn’t care much about harder stuff in the game. Just likes the game. May or may not have max level characters but will generally avoid endgame.

Dedicated= plays a lot of hours but isn’t as concerned with having a million gold and bis gear now. may or may not participate in endgame.

Hardcore= generally plays all the hours he/she can and wants to stay ahead of the rest of the group. will set targets like being the first at max level or beating a dungeon.

It’s a rough division and definition but I think it has merit to add a third group. I certainly am more Dedicated, at least in other games I play. Here I am casual at best

Yep, sounds like I’m a dedicated player. I sorta like that. I don’t really care about BIS gear, but if I can get it, I probably will. I just don’t care if I don’t have it. I do all but the hardest end game stuff…like I haven’t spent time fighting Liadri yet, only tried her once. I have beaten every dungeon in the game and I’m up to level 21 fractals, but don’t run the higher levels that often.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

The amount of time you can play doesn’t determine whether your are a hardcore or casual player. In fact, I hate these labels altogether. “Casual” implies that the casual player could just as easily play solitaire or has no interest in improving their skills.

If we must divide the community into “casual” and “hardcore” groups we should come up with a way of differentiating them other than hardcore players play like me, the rest are casual. Many people I would consider to be avid GW2 players have jobs, and lives outside the game. They can’t spend 4-12 hours a day in game.

Also, the most recent update requires you to fight Scarlet in each of 11(sorry don’t remember the exact count) different zones. That’s 7-10 hours of game play just to complete the bi-weekly stuff. I don’t see that as appealing to the “casual gamer.”

In fact I have no idea who the target audience for that is.

It’s 13 zones…apparently I’m the target audience for that. lol

Probably, you seem to have a lot of time to play More than I do anyway. But my main point is that that isn’t “casual” by any reasonable definition unless you define casual to be “anything I don’t like.”

I don’t think anyone here would say that you are a casual gamer, unless they had a very very odd definition of casual.

See the problem is, I am casual…but I have lots of time. I’m casual because I’m not hard-core. I’m not interested, particularly, in challenge. I’m more interested in running around and having fun.

Apparently, to a lot of people, that makes me casual. I don’t think I’m that casual about the game…but what do I know? lol

There’s a new term around for a third category that you seem to fit in. It’s called dedicated player.

Casual= doesn’t play that many hours and doesn’t care much about harder stuff in the game. Just likes the game. May or may not have max level characters but will generally avoid endgame.

Dedicated= plays a lot of hours but isn’t as concerned with having a million gold and bis gear now. may or may not participate in endgame.

Hardcore= generally plays all the hours he/she can and wants to stay ahead of the rest of the group. will set targets like being the first at max level or beating a dungeon.

It’s a rough division and definition but I think it has merit to add a third group. I certainly am more Dedicated, at least in other games I play. Here I am casual at best

Yep, sounds like I’m a dedicated player. I sorta like that. I don’t really care about BIS gear, but if I can get it, I probably will. I just don’t care if I don’t have it. I do all but the hardest end game stuff…like I haven’t spent time fighting Liadri yet, only tried her once. I have beaten every dungeon in the game and I’m up to level 21 fractals, but don’t run the higher levels that often.

Mesket.5728:

Vayne.8563:

Mesket.5728:

This is one of the most single players MMO out there.

It’s just a bunch of zerk players (everyone one is a copycat of the other) doing things the fastest they can (like if they actually have something important to do in life) then leaving the zone.

Since there is no concept of team play, communications are not needed. Thus, people don’t eve say “thanks” when you rez them… you barely read a shortened “ty” every now and then.

If you want to play Zerk you play Zerk. If you join a guild that doesn’t do that, then you have different experiences.

I definitely have different experiences than the ones you’ve outlined here.

I’m talking about the occasional talk in the map with random people you encounter. Is it better now? I thought the message was troll proof but I was wrong…

Thanks.

Ps. Its not only the zerk gear, but the zerk mentality also. Players in this game are like a swarm. They just flow in the masses spamming 1 (this is so funny, some of them actually press 1 when there are no mobs just in case they are missing something or waiting for the spawn lol )

Right, but if they’re talking in their guild, then they’re talking in their guild. It doesn’t mean they’re not talking.

Social is a funny word. I’m a social guy…but I don’t need to socialize with everyone.

And because the game requires constantly movement and stuff, a lot of people can’t type and play anyway. I know I can’t often do that, which is why I’m on mumble with the guild most of the time.

TooBz.3065:

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

The amount of time you can play doesn’t determine whether your are a hardcore or casual player. In fact, I hate these labels altogether. “Casual” implies that the casual player could just as easily play solitaire or has no interest in improving their skills.

If we must divide the community into “casual” and “hardcore” groups we should come up with a way of differentiating them other than hardcore players play like me, the rest are casual. Many people I would consider to be avid GW2 players have jobs, and lives outside the game. They can’t spend 4-12 hours a day in game.

Also, the most recent update requires you to fight Scarlet in each of 11(sorry don’t remember the exact count) different zones. That’s 7-10 hours of game play just to complete the bi-weekly stuff. I don’t see that as appealing to the “casual gamer.”

In fact I have no idea who the target audience for that is.

It’s 13 zones…apparently I’m the target audience for that. lol

Probably, you seem to have a lot of time to play More than I do anyway. But my main point is that that isn’t “casual” by any reasonable definition unless you define casual to be “anything I don’t like.”

I don’t think anyone here would say that you are a casual gamer, unless they had a very very odd definition of casual.

See the problem is, I am casual…but I have lots of time. I’m casual because I’m not hard-core. I’m not interested, particularly, in challenge. I’m more interested in running around and having fun.

Apparently, to a lot of people, that makes me casual. I don’t think I’m that casual about the game…but what do I know? lol

Azure Prower.8701:

Vayne.8563:

Azure Prower.8701:

Wolfheart.1938:

Azure Prower.8701:

Would rather pay a sub. That way I know quality is assured (snip)

Are you implying that every game with a sub releases only quality content? Because I keep hearing this argument really often and I wonder how paying monthly assures anything.

Because when quality isn’t assured. People stopped subbing. Then said bad quality game fails and goes free to play.

Actually TSW and Rift were both good quality games that went free to play. Lotro was a good quality game that went free to play. I don’t think going free to play has anything to do with quality.

And WoW has had some really bad products. But they also have the money to advertise a lot. That helps with sales. Which gives them more money to advertise more.

There are probably more people that have left WoW over the years than are currently playing it. That doesn’t make it a bad game or a good game, but other games that have gone free to play were certainly good games.

Whether people will pay for something is not always a sign of it’s quality.

Pet rocks were very very popular.

There are a lot more bad F2P games out then than sub games.

There are also a lot more F2P games than there are sub games. Remember a ton of games started with subs and are now F2P. Some of them weren’t very good, some were better. But since the number of free to play games is much much greater than the number of sub games, it stands to reason that many would be bad.

The question is how different is the good bad percentage. If there were 10 pay games and 3 of them were good, then 66% of them were bad. It’s hard to say that free to play games are worse by percentage.

Particularly because better and worse are matters of opinion in the first place.

TooBz.3065:

The amount of time you can play doesn’t determine whether your are a hardcore or casual player. In fact, I hate these labels altogether. “Casual” implies that the casual player could just as easily play solitaire or has no interest in improving their skills.

If we must divide the community into “casual” and “hardcore” groups we should come up with a way of differentiating them other than hardcore players play like me, the rest are casual. Many people I would consider to be avid GW2 players have jobs, and lives outside the game. They can’t spend 4-12 hours a day in game.

Also, the most recent update requires you to fight Scarlet in each of 11(sorry don’t remember the exact count) different zones. That’s 7-10 hours of game play just to complete the bi-weekly stuff. I don’t see that as appealing to the “casual gamer.”

In fact I have no idea who the target audience for that is.

It’s 13 zones…apparently I’m the target audience for that. lol

Mesket.5728:

This is one of the most single players MMO out there.

It’s just a bunch of zerk players (everyone one is a copycat of the other) doing things the fastest they can (like if they actually have something important to do in life) then leaving the zone.

Since there is no concept of team play, communications are not needed. Thus, people don’t eve say “thanks” when you rez them… you barely read a shortened “ty” every now and then.

If you want to play Zerk you play Zerk. If you join a guild that doesn’t do that, then you have different experiences.

I definitely have different experiences than the ones you’ve outlined here.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Vayne.8563:

Sure, a lot of people congregate in low level areas….why? Because it’s the easiest place to do dailies, or farm champions. Again, Anet has directed traffic with dailies and the champion rewards.

It’s not an accident that you run into people in low level zones. It’s part of the structure of the game that encourages it.

And in an expansion, it’d be the same way— the new zones would be about as populated as the existing ones were during launch, and then it would dwindle, still leaving a reasonable number of re-visiters.

In LS, it’d be different. A new zone introduced via LS would be, during its first week, utterly choc-full of players; and every encounter would be swamped by dozens of players (meaning your own personal impact would be near-impossible to recognise).

I don’t disagree with this. However, that’s how it was at launch too, and that’s how it would eventually be with an expansion.

You’re making an assumption that a new zone released during the personal story wouldn’t be permanent. But I’m thinking it would be.

Azure Prower.8701:

Wolfheart.1938:

Azure Prower.8701:

Would rather pay a sub. That way I know quality is assured (snip)

Are you implying that every game with a sub releases only quality content? Because I keep hearing this argument really often and I wonder how paying monthly assures anything.

Because when quality isn’t assured. People stopped subbing. Then said bad quality game fails and goes free to play.

Actually TSW and Rift were both good quality games that went free to play. Lotro was a good quality game that went free to play. I don’t think going free to play has anything to do with quality.

And WoW has had some really bad products. But they also have the money to advertise a lot. That helps with sales. Which gives them more money to advertise more.

There are probably more people that have left WoW over the years than are currently playing it. That doesn’t make it a bad game or a good game, but other games that have gone free to play were certainly good games.

Whether people will pay for something is not always a sign of it’s quality.

Pet rocks were very very popular.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Vayne.8563:

You put that number of people in a zone, there’s a relatively big chance they’ll never run into each other.

Now I don’t know server caps, but once you start thinking about people who play at 4 am and you can’t make a world small enough for them. The only solution is to direct them to all be in a certain place at a certain time…or encourage them anyway.

I don’t know about you, but I revisit the earlier maps frequently (either playing on alts, or picking somewhere random to do my daily), and I still frequently run into people playing.

I like to play things at my own pace, and LS wouldn’t really allow me to do that. I do not find it fun when every encounter is swamped by dozens of players (because you have little-to-no impact on the fight)— that’s exactly how it was when Southsun was first introduced. It could very well be the same if LS is the mode of delivery for new zones.

Sure, a lot of people congregate in low level areas….why? Because it’s the easiest place to do dailies, or farm champions. Again, Anet has directed traffic with dailies and the champion rewards.

It’s not an accident that you run into people in low level zones. It’s part of the structure of the game that encourages it.

Apparently there’s a bug that if you have one it does nothing but knock you down..if you have more than one, the others take you somewhere.

However, where they take you is to a random vista, POI or the end of a jumping puzzle.

Worth it? I think not.

Elbegast.6970:

Auesis.7301:

Elbegast.6970:

Auesis.7301:

I’m currently picturing people here in party hats at their own birthday parties. When they get a sweater that they know they will never wear (the inevitable gift that a grandparent or something would bring), they tear it apart in front of the heartbroken person that gave it to them and say “WHAT IS THIS CRAP? GET OUT.” The distraught guest/relative then runs out of the house, in tears.

That’s what you sound like.

It’s more like your strange uncle, who happens to own a sweater factory, decides to give everyone in the family the same exact sweater for christmas. Only the sweaters happen to be labeled with advertisements for the sweater factory.

You insult your strange uncle and his gift while he laughs, throws his hands in the air and rhetorically states in a very slimy tone, “Hey, that’s quality knitting. Your lucky to own one of those. I don’t just hand ‘em out to anybody. Know what I’m sayin’?”

Well now you lost me, because I don’t see any advertising.

But hey, why don’t we look at the GW1 version of this story, eh? The one where instead of having any idea what he gives you, your uncle dips his hand in to a big of randomly assorted things he picked up on the way to the house. On your turn, he gives you a brick (Jungle Troll). When he sees your disappointment, he says “Oh well, better luck next time! But hey, Jimmy over there got a freshly cut diamond on his turn (Bone Dragon)! If you blow most of your life savings, maybe you can buy it off him!” He then proceeds to give hundreds of bricks to the other kids, until a few blocks down the road, maybe one or two other kids strike lucky and get a diamond too.

A few different minis to choose from would have been nice, but I’m glad GW1’s system is dead and buried forever. I hope it rots.

The difference is that I could either sell or dedicate the Jungle Troll at my Hall of Monuments. It has the potential to hold value for me or for someone else. It was also a nice surprise opening a GW1 birthday gift. Unlike GW2, you never knew what you were going to get.

The GW2 birthday gift has no value whatsoever. The mini is soulbound. The booster is worthless as I don’t play alts. It’s junk, plain and simple. I do not appreciate when someone gives me garbage and calls it a ‘gift’.

Well this is true and not true. You could dedicate the troll in your Hall of Monuments, but not at Guild Wars 1’s first birthday..because it didn’t exist. The hall of monuments was added a couple of years later.

Since we have no idea if something like that will or won’t be added to Guild Wars 2, it’s not really a talking point. Particularly because the whole Hall of Monuments and dedication was set up to support Guild Wars 2 in the first place.

Jatacid.3725:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure why you feel you have to have the crystals faster. Most people forget to even do their daily crystal farm/run.

If you play less it means that you’ll get your stuff in the same number of play days as someone else.

It takes me 30 days of play to get 30 charged crystals and the same is true for you. Yes, I get them faster because I play more…but I play the same number of days without them that you do. Our game time is actually equal.

Time gating works to the advantage of people who can’t play every day. It stops people like me from getting everything in two days, where it might take you a month.

Interesting, I hadn’t considered that. What you’re saying means it comes down to ‘hours played’ ,rather than ‘time progressed’ for both players.

However, lets say I only am ABLE to play 1 hr a week. Is it fair for me to wait almost a year of my life to get the items I want?

There needs to be a system that caters for all. A system that time-gates the players that play frequently, but still allows freedom for players who can’t play as frequently.

Something like you get 1 item per day, or if you leave it unattended you get 20 per month.

It wouldn’t be fair if this was some other MMO where those items were needed to play. But in fact, they’re not. They’re not even the best item you can get. Very few people even care about celestial gear. Many people believe berserker (or the condition version of it) are the best gear in the game.

Maybe if this were the hands down best stuff in the game, I could see your point. But truthfully, I have no plans on making any celestial anything.

HiddenNick.7206:

Gehenna.3625:

HiddenNick.7206:

Advent.6193:

No thank you. If I were a fan of subscription-based gaming, there are plenty of other options still out there.

Name 3 fantasy based MMO’s with subs.

WoW
LotRo
DDO
Aion
Rift
Tera

Most of them can be played f2p as well but still have sub options that give you more in game.

From whole that list only ONE game have subs. Others are micro transaction based.

They all had subs at first and many have optional subs still.

Of course, WoW also has a cash shop that sells stuff for too much money, but everyone seems to forget that.

I’m not sure why you feel you have to have the crystals faster. Most people forget to even do their daily crystal farm/run.

If you play less it means that you’ll get your stuff in the same number of play days as someone else.

It takes me 30 days of play to get 30 charged crystals and the same is true for you. Yes, I get them faster because I play more…but I play the same number of days without them that you do. Our game time is actually equal.

Time gating works to the advantage of people who can’t play every day. It stops people like me from getting everything in two days, where it might take you a month.

RedStar.4218:

Vayne.8563:

Actually they plan on removing magic find from armor and weapons….not from the game.

Oh yeah that’s right. But in the end I’m a bit biased against MF in this game…RNG is RNG.

But again, as a birthday gift, a 24h booster isn’t a great gift. Neither is an experience scroll you could get in. The only thing that marks the birthday is a mini pet which unfortunately you’ll end up getting way too many.

The mini pet marks the birthday…you’re right. You only need one for that. It marks the day. The 24 hour booster is pretty cool. I have a number of characters so I get a number of boosters. In fact, I can boost myself right now for a week solid if I want….that’s a pretty decent birthday present.

If they made them 2 week boosters, with five character slots, everyone would get 2.5 months of boosts….probably a bit on the OP side.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

New continents will just give them more areas to run stories in. The game isn’t spread out so much now, because people are directed about where to go by the living story. This actually works. It gets people together in one place.

Adding more zones won’t change anything in this.

Well, it was their argument way back when. I do agree with you but from a different viewpoint. The idea that fractals, the grind of the month and the events are the things that bring certain groups together does work to a point.

However, if you are taking your time leveling through the zones and want someone to chat with and you’re not in one of those very active guilds, reality is that that part of the game people are really spread out in.

I find it midly ironic that Anet created a huge world, only to funnel them into an instance and whichever current event there is. It just would’ve been a much better idea to’ve started with a level cap of 50 and half the leveling zones we have now. That would cause more levelers to be in the same zone. That’s all I’m saying.

The fact that they are going the way of expansions at some point (my guess is about a year after China goes live), means that this will increase that effect. They will again make the world bigger and bigger and considering they already add new areas within the existing map they might end up doing it faster than in GW1…where they themselves recognised that as a problem. So yeh, it looks like GW2 will turn into a huge world where people are found in 3 places and the rest is empty. I guess I just don’t see the point in creating such a big world if you’re not gonna use it. That seems like a waste of resources they could use better.

It’s my contention that the world is too big for it to be anything else. Even smaller worlds have this problem, in games with bigger populations. It’s just not that easy to do it right. You either have a tiny world with no options, which sucks, or you direct people to the same places. If there is another alternative, I can’t see it.

Let’s pretend you can only have 1000 people per server. I don’t know the actual number and I’m sure that’s not it, but it will work as an example.

1000 people and 20% of them maybe are in WvW…that only leaves 800 people. But then 10% of those are SPvPing. That only leaves 700 people. But of those 200 are in dungeons. That only leaves 500 people, 100 of which are in LA. That leaves 400 people. Assuming that those 400 people were divided equally between 25 zones, you get about 16 people per zone…and those zones are pretty big. You put that number of people in a zone, there’s a relatively big chance they’ll never run into each other.

Now I don’t know server caps, but once you start thinking about people who play at 4 am and you can’t make a world small enough for them. The only solution is to direct them to all be in a certain place at a certain time…or encourage them anyway.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

I’ve never seen them say they wouldn’t bring out the other continents. Most recently Mike Z has said he’d like to. Not sure where I saw it, but that’s the latest.

Well, they did talk a lot more to the community way back when. A lot of this is lost by now perhaps, but it came up way before GW2 was released. It was part of their design because there were discussions at the time of how people were spread out over the continents. This started before EotN was out because that’s why EotN was part of Tyria again and not another new continent. Then they also said they wanted to change their approach with GW2 when it was announced.

There are two difficulties here. A lot of the people that worked at Anet on GW1 and the beginnings of GW2 are no longer there. I am sure the new team doesn’t feel responsible for what was said back then but people who saw these interviews do remember them.

Secondly, I fully understand that over time things change. What’s annoying though is that they say one thing and then years later act like they never said it or give an “explanation” of what they actually meant. Or they just stay silent on a subject and suddenly out of the blue their approach has completely changed. I know a lot of people still like to bring up the manifesto but I am talking about stuff before that.

Now I don’t mind if they want to bring out expansions after all, but when I look back at the reasons EotN was not a new continent and how they said multiple times back then they didn’t want to make that mistake again because it spreads people out too much, you can understand that this is a surprise.

To be honest, people are already spread out too much and then funneled in a couple of activities like fractals and champion runs. So new expansions of new continents won’t cause that problem.

I do wonder now though what they would do for example if they were to bring out Cantha. I guess it will be all level 80 zones…..or wait a minute, perhaps it’s how they will do the level cap raise…

New continents will just give them more areas to run stories in. The game isn’t spread out so much now, because people are directed about where to go by the living story. This actually works. It gets people together in one place.

Adding more zones won’t change anything in this.

Zeldain.5710:

First, a subscription game doesn’t automatically guarantee quality, but what it DOES do is make sure the developer’s are focused on the right thing — they have to capture us with content. In order to get paid next month, they have to do something awesome this month.

In the f2p/b2p zone that ArenaNet is in, “monetization” has to be involved in every step of the design process. The events every two weeks? Think of them as sales vehicles to sell cash shop items, not unlike Hallmark has created holidays to sell cards.

Like it or not, that is the business model of a b2p/f2p game. Now, give ArenaNet credit for trying to wrap it up in the Living Story, but it ends up pretty shallow and I’m not even sure that’s worth it. I’d almost rather see that development and design time simply go into amazing and constant flow of cash shop items. They’d probably do better.

It’s easy to estimate that a subscription game of say, 500,000 players (estimating that’s the number of active GW2 players) can make more — and perhaps more importantly — forecast more accurately.

500k subscribers paying $15 a month is ~$7.5m revenue. However, using even generous mtx conversion rates of 10%, that same number of active players in GW2 gets only $750,000 in that same month. And that assumes they are spending at least $15 each.

Of course those numbers are speculation, but they are based on industry data and the best assumptions we can make about active GW2 players until ArenaNet releases actual numbers.

Summary: A subscription model doesn’t guarantee quality, but it guarantees focus on gameplay, not monetization.

My experience of the subscription model is different. In a subscription game, the company has to keep you playing, because they don’t want you unsubscribing. There are different ways to do this and it’s not always with content. Often it’s with grind. The slower you progress people, the longer they have to play to get stuff…or get to the good stuff.

I’ve played subscription games and didn’t particularly like any of them. Nor do I like free to play games that pretty much require you to spend money in the cash shop.

But I don’t think I’ve seen better or more content in subscription games than I have here. It’s content with a different focus. If you like that focus it’s obviously better. But I never liked raids and I’m not particularly fond of dungeons. And that’s the content most supported by most subscription games.

RedStar.4218:

Vayne.8563:

No one cares about magic find boosters? Ummm kay.

As a birthday gift ? Not really.
And actually, not even Anet cares about it, since they plan on removing MF in the future…

Actually they plan on removing magic find from armor and weapons….not from the game.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Right, that’s what I’m saying…because that’s what Anet has said.

And I’m saying that when Anet says something it’s not written in stone, because they can just as easily make a 180 and say well, we didn’t actually say never and circumstances are different now blah blah blah.

Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next two years we suddenly see an expansion bringing Cantha, simply because they said it’s unlikely to happen.

I’m not saying they’re not going to bring Cantha in. I fully expect Cantha and Elona. I’m saying it’ll be an expansion, not a full game like they did with the first Guild Wars.

The reason they gave for saying it makes as much sense now as it did back then. When and if they come out with an expansion, it will be a true expansion, not a stand alone product.

Ahh yeah, that I doubt as well. The stand alone thing was a way to get people to buy the new part without having to buy the original. Still, I do think that if they bring out Cantha or something, they will probably give some deal to include the original game. People generally don’t wanna spend 100 bucks to start a game.

Oh sure, they’ll do it like Wow does. When you buy the new thing it includes the old thing. But it won’t be a stand alone game…and therefore it’s hard to compare these two products directly. They really are different things.

The GW1 expansions were unique in their way. Still, before GW2 came out they were saying that they wouldn’t bring back Cantha or Elona, because that would divide the player base as they felt it had in GW1. That’s the reason they gave for not continuing with expansions in GW1 and why EotN was different as it was than the other expansions.

They have said at later stages that they wouldn’t bring out new continents or expansions but then things get a bit vague. And now it seems like the latest version of their truth is to say they don’t want to make expansions in the same way (stand alone).

And you certainly seem convinced that they will bring out the continents even though a few years ago they already started saying they wouldn’t.

This is also why I was so surprised to see Tyria back in GW2 with so many zones. The world is huge compared to GW1 originally. It seemed to defeat the purpose of not wanting to spread people out too far.

Of course the game now has champion zerging and fractals and that’s about all people do unless there’s an event. That technically does bring people together if you have so few places that people tend to find interesting to be at for the loot of course. That does beg the question why create such a big world, that is actually too big and probably cost a lot of resources to make only to abandon it and funnel people in a couple of activities.

My guess is that when Cantha comes out, Tyria will be all but abandoned. I guess I will forever be confused between three things: What they originally said, what they said after and what they did in the end.

I’ve never seen them say they wouldn’t bring out the other continents. Most recently Mike Z has said he’d like to. Not sure where I saw it, but that’s the latest.

We need 16 threads to complain about the birthday presents? Why make a new thread to say what people have said in half a dozen others. It’s not like you have to search they’re all on the front page.

RedStar.4218:

They should have awarded the gifts based on the account age, not the characters. Players might have whined, but what difference would it have made ? More than 1 Mini Queen is useless (even just 1 is), not a lot of players have any use for experience scrolls, and no one cares about the boosters.

No one cares about magic find boosters? Ummm kay.

I think it’s because most people are talking…in their guilds. My guild is very chatty. It’s hard to talk on map chat and in guild at the same time…and I don’t usually have much reason to.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Vayne.8563:

But there is a difference between Guild Wars 2 and other MMOs. I’ve had guildies take even a six month break, come back and start running dungeons with us again within minutes of logging back in.

This is almost impossible in most traditional MMOs, since the gear you’d need to do a specific raid would be required and the player wouldn’t have been around to get it.

I have a friend who quit Rift for that reason. For personal reasons he couldn’t play when the expansion came out, and when he got back, his guild had moved on. No one wanted to do the old content with him (a multiplayer raid he needed to do to get gear), he hated leveling alone and when he eventually got the gear, he was still behind, because his guildies had already moved to the next raid.

Believe me, Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have nearly the problems most MMOs have on this count.

In fact, there’s relatively little you can’t do that you were doing when you left six months ago. The only thing that comes to mind in Guild Wars 2 is high level fractals, an tbh, if you don’t have tons of time to log in, you probably won’t be doing them anyway….and if you want do, you can do dailies for a couple of months and be caught up with relatively little time input.

I do agree that equipment based power creep is a big problem with aging MMOs, and that GW2 does not have this problem. However, I don’t think the OP is talking about equipment based power creep, but rather the way the game feels now. It feels different than it used to.

I’ve gone through this many times myself in many different games. In GW2 I went though a strange play cycle where I sPVPed nonstop for the first month, then went into PVE and exploration, then into dungeons, and then I stopped playing the game for several months due to real life reasons. Came back 3 months later, and everything felt different. PVP meta had changed a lot, dungeon runs were now skipped most of the dungeon, places that were once full were now empty… although all of the game components were there, it didn’t feel like the same game.

It wasn’t somehow a worse game. What immediately followed was Molten Facility, which was my favorite thing in the game ever, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t disappointed with some of the changes, however trivial many of them were.

You’re probably right. I’m just pointing out that the problem is far more limited here than in other games. All the same stuff you used to do…hearts, DEs…they’re all still here. They’re all still viable. Any zone you want to go back to…still there. Jumping puzzles…all still there.

So yes, there’s some culture shock coming back to the game..but considering most of the LS stuff has been temporary…I don’t see it as that much.

I think you’re a very specific type of player OP. I think most people come into the game doing at least minimal research and know there are dungeons in the game.

I don’t think most people got to level 20 and quit, because level 20 takes about 10 hours, maybe four to reach…even if you’re not trying very hard. So if you only give an MMO 10 hours and decide you know what comes later…I’m not sure what to say about that.

I don’t think there’s a huge problem with dungeons.

I do, however, thing the living story could be told better than it is.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

I know it’s now GW1, but it’s the same company making one mistake after another, while they did it better in their previous game. Seems silly to upset people by doing something that clearly isn’t as cool as what they did in GW1. They couldve done something entirely different than this for all I care. But they gave a mini, like in GW1 but didn’t make them collectible. Why bring something in they clearly did in GW1 but make a lesser version of it? That just boggles the mind.

So no one ever complained about changes and stuff done in Guild Wars 1…is this your contention?

Do you know why Guild Wars 1 didn’t see forum issues like Guild Wars 2 does? Because it had no official forums and for most of it’s life, people went to Guru, where the moderators for most of it’s life were so strict it was worse than the military.

I made a negative post once about Guild Wars 2 and my thread was immediate closed. So yeah…hard to say that people didn’t complain about stuff done in Guild Wars 1, because people complain about everything all the time. I’ve been in lots of MMO forums and they’re all like this.

And I strongly suspect if Guild Wars 1 had an official forum (which they didn’t), it would have ended up much like this as well.

One of the best strawman posts I’ve ever seen.

Thank you. I’m very proud of it.

Wolfheart.1938:

Vayne.8563:

Get out of combat, go to the mists, chat as long as you like. When you’re done chatting, leave the mists, you’ll be back where you were. It doesn’t cost you anything and it’s not much different from pausing the game.

If by the mists you mean WvW, sure. If you mean the SPvP lobby, you can only exit them through a portal to LA afaik.

Nope, you can go back to exactly where you were in the world.

Click on the crossed swords, and select enter the mists. That puts you in the PvP lobby. Click on the crossed swords again, and select leave the mists. You end up exactly where you were in the world.

I do this all the time, because my real life often requires me to take sudden breaks.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I think the OP is part of quit a big club. This isn’t something that is limited to just GW2, either. Countless times, someone will leave a game for awhile, whether it be months or years, then come back to find that things have changed in a manner they don’t like. When that bit of nostalgia bug bites, they wander into the old diner they are familiar with, and after so long it is no longer that same diner anymore.

There’s not much one can do about it. You can voice your displeasure over the matter, but no one can make the game fun for someone else. The game is going to change: friends will leave, new people will join, the player base will shift demographics, markets will go out of whack… it is the nature of the living world. For better, or for worse.

But there is a difference between Guild Wars 2 and other MMOs. I’ve had guildies take even a six month break, come back and start running dungeons with us again within minutes of logging back in.

This is almost impossible in most traditional MMOs, since the gear you’d need to do a specific raid would be required and the player wouldn’t have been around to get it.

I have a friend who quit Rift for that reason. For personal reasons he couldn’t play when the expansion came out, and when he got back, his guild had moved on. No one wanted to do the old content with him (a multiplayer raid he needed to do to get gear), he hated leveling alone and when he eventually got the gear, he was still behind, because his guildies had already moved to the next raid.

Believe me, Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have nearly the problems most MMOs have on this count.

In fact, there’s relatively little you can’t do that you were doing when you left six months ago. The only thing that comes to mind in Guild Wars 2 is high level fractals, an tbh, if you don’t have tons of time to log in, you probably won’t be doing them anyway….and if you want do, you can do dailies for a couple of months and be caught up with relatively little time input.

I think your reference to the word grind shows a lack of understanding in what Colin was saying in the manifesto. The word grind can have more than one definition.

The original usage of the word grind was to grind experience to level. Later on people started using that word to mean everything repetitive that they didn’t have fun doing.

Using the rest of that paragraph as a source of information (instead of the two lines you took out of context), what leads you to believe they were talking about stuff like gear grind?

Because from my point of view, the grind Colin was talking about was already explained. “In most games there’s this annoying grind to get to the fun stuff”. That’s what he was talking about. Not gear grind. Not a grind for a legendary weapon. He was talking about leveling to get to raiding. In fact, the paragraph ends with the words “we want to change the way people view combat.”

There’s nothing at all in the paragraph to suggest Colin was talking about gear or gear grind. He was talking about fun stuff to do. That’s why so many of the big zone wide events were put in the starting areas.

How do I know this? Because Colin has said so.

Fractal weapon skins are still account bound and can only be gotten in higher levels of the fractals. Aside from that, time doesn’t make you hard core or even good.

Many people got run through raid in other games, because finding 20 people to show up each and every raid day was silly. So maybe the tank and off tank had some skill and maybe the healer or off healer and maybe a couple of the DPS guys and half the guys in most raids were just bodies. They got the best stuff or chances at the best stuff doing those raids …because they had time not skill.

Gamer egos need to be a bit more self-fulfilling I think.

It’s more about builds and skill than stats.

Think of it this way. Two guys meet. One guy is a guy that lives on boons, another guy is a boon remover. Which guy wins that fight?

One guy is a condition spammer, one guy doesn’t have enough condition removal.

It’s very rare that two guys with equal builds will meet in WvW 1v1…and then what are they odds those guys have exactly equal skill.

Once, on my engineer, I ran into an enemy engineer, and we had nearly the same skill selection and it was a tough, very close fight.

But halfway through, a guy from my side showed up and it was game over for the other guy. It wouldn’t have mattered what gear he had.

I just don’t see this as an issue. Play the game, enjoy yourself, don’t worry so much..because you never even know what gear the other guy has.

I think a lot of people claim other people have better gear than them when they lose just to excuse the fact that they were beaten.

Devata.6589:

Colin promised in a interview a few weeks ago that the 2 weeks updates would be nothing more then a story and all the content would be permanent. The first patch released after his promise was more of the same temporary content. Every 2 weeks a list to do and a little reward you get for it. (But heey they had bigger teams so better content.. to miss out on?) That makes this game more like a second job then a game and thats why a big part of the people are leaving. Only thing that is holding me is the guild but I haven’t been bothered with many of the achievements after Colin’s lie and my online times have also dropped drastically.

Colin’s lie? He said every single thing would be permanent? He said it would start immediately? I think maybe you need to reread what Colin said, because if he lied, a whole lot more people would be saying it than you.

As for a “big part of the people are leaving”, I’m pretty sure that’s not true. I can’t prove it, but this game is packed. I think the concurrency rate is higher than it’s been in a long long time.

Each time a new patch comes out, it takes a longer and longer time for me to get onto my server, and off of the overflows.

I don’t where you get your info from but it doesn’t jibe with mine.