Guild Wars 2

Dog.1472:

I really don’t understand OP’s argument.

MF is most definitely selfish. I don’t think I even need to argue that point, nor will I bother since it’s being removed as a stat.

While everything else is viable, it’s without a doubt sub optimal. Conditions are broken in group PvE content, please don’t use it there. Using conditions instead is similar to just saying hey, I want to do a fraction of the damage as anyone else. You are not helping the party at all, I wouldn’t call it selfish, but it is stupid.

Healing power is useless. You are essentially making fights take longer in order to give your healing a negligible boost that doesn’t actually assist anyone. This is a very bad stat that just makes everything slower and more difficult for everyone. The longer a fight lasts, the more damage everyone takes, the more chances people will go down.

Vitality/toughness is definitely useful to players at a lower skill level. I’m not too bothered by people that need a little survivability if you play. Go a little into this if you need to whatever, but gradually throw on some zerker instead and you will perform better, and fights will be faster and easier.

I don’t see how anyone can be against improving and doing a better job. I would say it’s just lazy more than selfish. Choosing to hold everyone down, making things take longer… it’s just the respectful thing to do to play to the best of your ability.

Okay, let me try to explain this from a different point of view.

If your goal is to finish as dungeon and quickly and as easily as possible…then you’re quite correct. But not everyone has that same goal. For some people the goal is to have fun. Not fun by being quick and efficient, but to have fun by playing a character they enjoy. Now if one person in your party cares about how fast the dungeon will be run, you’d be right. But in my guild, where no one cares how fast the dungeon goes because we’re having fun, and we like each other so we WANT each other to have fun, playing a profession we don’t like to make it faster would be more selfish. It would put pressure on people who want to play to have fun to finish faster. Our goal is different.

One day, in the grawl fractal, one of the guys got a fire bubble and started playing tag with it. Chasing around other people who were trying to avoid him. Suddenly, we’re playing tag in the middle of the grawl fractal. Not very efficient, I’ll admit, but funny as hell. We finished the fractal.

Let’s pretend we wipe because someone is goofing off. So we wipe. It’s a couple of silver. No one cares. As long as we’re having fun.

We have one guy who loves to heal and support. We know it’s not most effective, but we don’t care. Because he likes doing it, so we appreciate his help when he provides it. Sure the dungeon takes longer. Why is that a problem?

I’ve been on fast runs of dungeons where no one speaks and I find them boring as hell. Run, run run. Let’s get it done. Let’s get the reward.

Remember, though some people are farming dungeons, many are trying to experience the dungeon more or less as their own character.

Klawlyt.6507:

You guys are kind of cute.

I think so. lol

Serelisk.6573:

Vayne.8563:

Serelisk.6573:

Vayne.8563:

Blumiere.1489:

Vayne If they have a developer, that created a Rytlock SNES mini-game over a weekend, if Anet have team that created SAB over few weeks ( and it turned out to be better than regular dungeons ! At least forum posters said something like that ) how come they cannot think about a sufficent way to promote mini-games in more reasonable manner ?

I ask again : why is it that people did not know about Keg Brawl from the start for instance ?

You do know what I personally think is huge money waster – Living World, but this is a matter of other threads.

Except that the living world is populated by tons of people and keg brawl isn’t…no matter the reason.

Anet looks at their data for who’s doing what. If keg brawl had enough of a following…if enough people were interested in it, it would be in their agenda.

Your argument in almost every post is summed up to: “since the developers have all the data and we don’t, they’re probably making a more informed and better decision than we can.”

It’s really hard to have a discussion when you’re retreating to speculation that always favors the developer. It doesn’t address causes, just outcomes that peopel are using to make a claim that player dilution is the reason why we should funnel everyone into one mini game.

I don’t see how you can possibly think the devs don’t have this metric. I’m not ALWAYS retreating into this logic, but in this case, they have a business to run. It seems to me if their data showed keg brawl was popular and liked, they’d have impetus to do something about it.

I’ve gone many times to keg brawl on days when it wasn’t on the dailies and spent time standing in an arena waiting for an opponent to show up.

No one says they don’t have some metric, but you’re not actually saying anything with it. The issue is that they’re making it so people who enjoyed it cannot play it now 75% of the time, and people who don’t enjoy it are forced to play it 25% of the time with this new update. But they haven’t actually updated Keg Brawl to be any better than it was previously, and they’re likely going to end up with a broken wheel of this mini game rotation, which is already fundamentally broken because it’s restricting content for no coherent reason.

I’m saying they have more information than you and they made this decision. They made it dispassionately. They have nothing to gain by cutting off a popular game. The only reason they’d do it is for some positive reason.

Now I’ve seen at least two threads on this forum about Keg Brawl cheating and how it’s ruining the game for some people. We don’t know how many complaints this has caused, but Anet does.

No company makes decisions for no reason. That doesn’t mean we get to know the reason.

Serelisk.6573:

Vayne.8563:

Serelisk.6573:

But you didn’t give a reason of why and how this is amended in this new patch.

Because it’s much easier to cheat at keg brawl on a slow down when few people are around, and give someone new the complete wrong impression of the game than it is to do so one a day when many people are playing. And this I know from personal experience.

Explain, because that’s a completely unfounded claim. Furthermore, you haven’t actually made a point that guarantees Keg Brawl will have any larger of a following because your argument was that people didn’t like the game… so why would they like it more now? Nothing changed except they were told they can only play it on this days and every 4 days for the rest of forever. Why would there be more people? For the achievements? Those are farmers, and they’re likely to be more insistent than ever considering this is now time limited.

My personal experience on busier days is that you get in there, and every pretty much has to agree to cheat…because once someone starts playing, they’re playing and taking the keg away from you.

On other days, slower ones, when there’s only two people playing PERIOD, who refuse to play at all, it’s very hard to get a game started at all. That’s my experience.

How will it be better? Because it’ll be like the daily days when play actually occurs. And I’d rather play the game then stand around farming achievements.

Blumiere.1489:

Vayne, than assuming that Anet is aware of playerbase being low why the hell they are still introducing new mini-games ? Makes no sense at all. I now honestly cannot wait for another month. If another new mini game will be introduced I will honestly find their current movement bizarre.

Post was edited.

I never said the playerbase was low. I said those who play Keg Brawl is low. Other mini games have been consistently popular…possibly because they are limited time, but that doesn’t change my experiences.

I’ve never gone into one of the minigames from the LS and had no one there but me. Sometimes I’m the first person in an arena because others are full, but I’ve never had no one there. In Keg Brawl I’ve more than once had no one there.

Minigames aren’t the problem…but I think Keg Brawl is.

Serelisk.6573:

But you didn’t give a reason of why and how this is amended in this new patch.

Because it’s much easier to cheat at keg brawl on a slow down when few people are around, and give someone new the complete wrong impression of the game than it is to do so one a day when many people are playing. And this I know from personal experience.

Serelisk.6573:

Vayne.8563:

Blumiere.1489:

Vayne If they have a developer, that created a Rytlock SNES mini-game over a weekend, if Anet have team that created SAB over few weeks ( and it turned out to be better than regular dungeons ! At least forum posters said something like that ) how come they cannot think about a sufficent way to promote mini-games in more reasonable manner ?

I ask again : why is it that people did not know about Keg Brawl from the start for instance ?

You do know what I personally think is huge money waster – Living World, but this is a matter of other threads.

Except that the living world is populated by tons of people and keg brawl isn’t…no matter the reason.

Anet looks at their data for who’s doing what. If keg brawl had enough of a following…if enough people were interested in it, it would be in their agenda.

Your argument in almost every post is summed up to: “since the developers have all the data and we don’t, they’re probably making a more informed and better decision than we can.”

It’s really hard to have a discussion when you’re retreating to speculation that always favors the developer. It doesn’t address causes, just outcomes that peopel are using to make a claim that player dilution is the reason why we should funnel everyone into one mini game.

I don’t see how you can possibly think the devs don’t have this metric. I’m not ALWAYS retreating into this logic, but in this case, they have a business to run. It seems to me if their data showed keg brawl was popular and liked, they’d have impetus to do something about it.

I’ve gone many times to keg brawl on days when it wasn’t on the dailies and spent time standing in an arena waiting for an opponent to show up.

Blumiere.1489:

@vayne Then why they are actually introducing more-mini games ( Belcher Bluff, Aspect Arena, Sprint) knowing that they have little or no intrest ? Why is it that instead of polishing older content we are being rushed into new one,eventually leaving previous one locked ?

What if I want to play Sancum Sprint today ? Or maybe tomorrow ? Is is logicall to be blocked by group that plays currently Southsun Survival ?

I said there was little to no interest in Keg Brawl specifically, not minigames.

Blumiere.1489:

Vayne If they have a developer, that created a Rytlock SNES mini-game over a weekend, if Anet have team that created SAB over few weeks ( and it turned out to be better than regular dungeons ! At least forum posters said something like that ) how come they cannot think about a sufficent way to promote mini-games in more reasonable manner ?

I ask again : why is it that people did not know about Keg Brawl from the start for instance ?

You do know what I personally think is huge money waster – Living World, but this is a matter of other threads.

Except that the living world is populated by tons of people and keg brawl isn’t…no matter the reason.

Anet looks at their data for who’s doing what. If keg brawl had enough of a following…if enough people were interested in it, it would be in their agenda.

Blumiere.1489:

Vayne yes, because limiting the content is far more better than disabiling it for a while to fix any loophole that allowed to abuse the game /sarcasm. And you should ask yourself why players have not heard of the game form the start . Treat my question as a food for thought.

Nice sarcasm.

Doesn’t address my point at all. It’s not the question of what’s better, but what’s worth the time and energy. Every single developer has limited resources to spend time/money on things. Anet is no different.

So they have to put the money into stuff most people like pretty much by definition. Now it’s possible that if Keg Brawl wasn’t broken in the first place, it would be more popular, but Anet has no way of knowing if that’s the case or not. What they do know is that most people don’t care about it/know about it or play it. Which means putting time/energy into it now is like throwing good money after bad.

Serelisk.6573:

Vayne.8563:

Let me ask you this, OP. What about all those players who hadn’t heard of it, saw it as a daily, tried it out and it totally sucked because of how the game was being abused. Those are potential players that never get to see the game fully populated or played as intended.

I’d almost wager there are more of them than there are people who love the game.

Idk if you think I’m the OP or what, because I’m not. But that was part of my point. The reason for the unhealthy population of Keg Brawl is more than likely not because of player dilution, but because Keg Brawl is an unsupported, unrewarding experience filled with bugs, achievement point farmers and lobbers. And ArenaNet have done nothing since launch to correct any of that.

I agree. The game as it stands is a disaster. Certainly other minigames were more enjoyable. So Anet asks itself why spend time/energy on a game that isn’t as popular, when we can make more popular games in the future.

For you this is a major deal but I promise you, you’re in a vast minority.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

A fact is a fact. Me saying anyone who’s looked into would know the fact isn’t condescending, in spite of the fact you want to paint me that way. It’s just not true.

snip

Vayne.8563:

It would be like me saying anyone who looked into fast food restaurants would find out that McDonalds is a big one.

No it wouldn’t.

Vayne.8563:

I have very specific stats from multiple forums over the years, not one or two. Most recently was guildwars2forum.com when it was up. I know EXACTLY how many people looked at pages every day and exactly how many people posted. Not a guess. Real experience.

So you’ve had some experience. Great. Things change, times change and your conclusions might be wrong about them or might not be representative. I doubt you did a proper test run accounting for all kinds of variables.

This is the difference between saying “it’s a fact” and “what I’ve seen in my experience”.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve experienced the same thing in the dozen or so yahoo groups I’ve run over the years. And on other forums.

Nice story. Saying that you have experience and such is still not evidence.

Vayne.8563:

Unless you’re in a business where you literally have to post, the biggest percentage of people on forums will be lurkers. You don’t have to accept this as true, but it doesn’t make it less true.

We don’t know…and that’s the real truth.

Please understand that I am not saying that it isn’t true. I am saying that you present your points as fact without providing evidence. Without evidence I cannot accept it as fact. I just don’t like it when people say something is a fact so casually when in fact there is no proper evidence at hand. Again there is a difference between “it’s a fact” and “what I’ve experienced”.

I think personally that there are quite a few lurkers. Just my feeling, also based on some experience. That makes it my opinion. An opinion can be right and wrong. But how many people are lurkers? Are they always lurkers or also post? How many visits do they make? What do they read and what don’t they read? What’s the percentage of lurkers vs posters? What’s the percentage compared to the total player base? Me, I have no idea. So I wouldn’t call my opinion facts.

You? You present it as facts without actually providing clear evidence. We’ll just have to take your word for it. But I don’t believe you’ve done a proper experiment and test to be able to present your experience as facts at all. So what you call facts I call opinion.

Vayne.8563:

As for forums, very often forum conversations evolve in threads. Yes, I started talking about one aspect of the manifesto and other things were brought up. I suppose we could close this thread and open another thread to continue those conversations, but I’m pretty sure that’s not all that efficient.

Or we could’ve had this discussion in one of the existing threads, but perhaps your ego needed a new one in your name. So far I don’t see anything it hasn’t added anything that couldn’t have been added in the existing thread(s).

Sure we’ve had this conversation in previous threads. End of the world time. The problem is, most of the forums are repeat threads. A good percentage anyway. So saying that this thread is repeating what was said before means little.

In fact, most forum threads are repeat threads from other forums from other games. We should have open world dueling was a thread in every game forum that didn’t have it I can think of. Same with open world PvP. Same was imbalance of professions. Some with not enough end game content.

Maybe we should ban every thread the repeats stuff and have like one post. Because that’s what you’d end up with.

As for the rest of it, it’s clear to me you don’t get me and frankly that’s fine. You think that you have the moral high ground because you don’t like the way I say things. Well, I dont’ particularly like the way you say things either. The difference is, I’m not the one complaining about it, or singling you our, or anyone else.

What I see on these forums is more akin to bullying than it is to constructive criticism. And it’s okay if you all want to gang up on me, because you can’t affect me in any significant way.

And lest you think this is just my opinion, there are quite a few people who think I’m bullied on these forums and wonder why I put up with it. I always tell them the same thing.

Because forum posters can’t hurt me.

Let me ask you this, OP. What about all those players who hadn’t heard of it, saw it as a daily, tried it out and it totally sucked because of how the game was being abused. Those are potential players that never get to see the game fully populated or played as intended.

I’d almost wager there are more of them than there are people who love the game.

Okay the whole the skill maxes out at rank 5 is a new update, only recently put into the game. For many many years, you had to get all the way to rank 10 to get max on these skills, so the current wiki isn’t of much use. In fact, it was only changed when Guild Wars 2 came out. So nothing maxed at T5 during the time when most of us played Guild Wars 1 as it was meant to be played. And you can bet that the tier 5 change wouldn’t have been made if we were all still playing. This was to get the newer players coming in to get HoM points a bit of extra help, nothing more.

The point is Guild Wars 1 had outrageous grinds that affected skills and Guild Wars 2 really doesn’t. The grind (unquote) for legendary stuff is not grind at all but time-gating which is entirely different from grind.

In other words the full amount of time it takes to get these things is a pittance compared to getting the highest level on some title tracks (remember many of those other title tracks gave you advantages in retaining lockpicks, not breaking items when you salvaged runes from them, etc).

Titles and achievements don’t have the same impact on Guild Wars 2. That leaves ascended gear, which means just accessories at this point. It may take a month or two to get everything kitted out, but if you do manage to do it effiiciently you’re spending a fraction of the time/effort that you spend in Guild Wars 1 leveling up some of those tiers for those skills.

Guild Wars 1 had grind but not required grind. Guild Wars 2 has grind but not required grind.

There’s no guarantee those wings will be available next year, even if the event comes back. In fact, it’s unlikely to, because most people got wings this year and a repeat would be worthless to most people.

Most holiday events are repeated yearly. I don’t know about dragon bash specifically but I suspect we’ll see it back next year…likely with some changes.

stof.9341:

Last time I checked, you can get one pristine relic per tier 10+ daily reward actually. So one for level 10 run, one for a 20, one for a 30 etc…

Ah okay. I didn’t realize that. Though I’m over level 20, I don’t remember getting a pristine fractal token from that run.

Still, it’s a long haul. I’m pretty sure no one has more than two stacks, and pretty sure 95% plus percentage of the people don’t even have one.

You can only get 1 pristine fractal relic per day. That’s it. That’s max.

Someone would have had to do a daily fractal run at level 10 or higher every single day for 250 days to have a stack.

I’m not sure the fractals have been out long enough for that to occur.

Okay, I’m not getting this it takes longer for casual players to get this stuff argument.

Let’s say it takes me 30 days to get something. It takes a casual player the same 30 days to get it. That is to say, the days that player is not playing don’t count, because they’re not playing.

So it takes me 30 days of game time to get the stuff, same as them.

The days they’re not playing, they’re not playing. It’s the same with how much money I earn.

If I get X money per day then I"ll have more money then them after 30 days. But not necessarily more money after they’ve played for 30 days.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

—snip—
2. Guild Wars 1 had tons of grind…so many grindy achievements that actually affected your character’s power.
—snip—

Yes and No. Do recall that this “grind” that impacted your character power was negligible. You are referring to Eye of the North, Sunspear, Lightbringer, and Luxon/Kurzick titles. Titles that impacted PvE only skills, of which only 3 could be used at a time. Titles that progressed naturally as you went through the game’s story. These titles naturally progressed to t3-t6 when you played through a storyline, which was more than adequate to make these skills very effective, for example with Asuran Scan
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Asuran_Scan/Skill_history.

You are twisting people’s perception of ANet as they were with the original Guild Wars, by implying that power progression was a significant part of that game when it was negligible. It’s negligible enough that Mike O’brien is quoted as saying vertical progression didn’t exist in Guild Wars, even though it technically did.

Actually I disagree about how little it affected your character…in certain specific cases, anyway.

There were specific builds, builds required by the meta in PVe, that you needed to have points there.

In case you weren’t there at the time, LF rank 8 Ursan was hardly something uncommon. Having to get luxon points to make my “Save Yourselves” para/warrior imbagon build some SOMEONE would accept me on a DOA run is much much worse than anything Anet has done in Guild Wars 2. Maybe you weren’t playing at that point, I don’t know.

The fact is, the reason you could only use 3 PVe only skills, is because those skills were the most powerful in the game. Pain Inverter plus a minion master took down most ele bosses pretty kitten fast. Technobabble, necrosis, the sin skill (the sunspear one I think) needed to create a permasin.

Those grinds were less optional than the ones in Guild Wars 2, as far as I’m concerned.

Also keep in mind I generally only talk PvE, because I don’t have enough experience to say anything about most PvP. I’m a rank amateur at PvP.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . is it that time of month again to get to work on the Manifesto once more? Hang on, I need my hipwaders and shovel because this is gonna be too good to avoid.

Did it live up to the Manifesto? Yes and no. Yes in the sense that I got what I expected from hearing the Manifesto but no in that I don’t think any came could fully encompass what is described there at this time. There’s not enough development time and funding to allow it short of some guy bankrolling it with his private accounts (Paging Richard Gariott…)

But I’m tired of talking about it on a case by case basis because, frankly, I know no matter what I say nobody who disagrees will be convinced. It’s a favorite pinata, except this one doesn’t give you even that horrible salty Zhaitaffy which was next to worthless. All it does is get fans worked up because they like the game, flaws and all, and that’s just unacceptable to some people.

I don’t really have problems with people saying they don’t feel the game lived up to the manifesto. My main grievance is with people saying that Anet lied….straight out lied.

I don’t see the lie and I’ll fight that particular bit of hyperbole because in order to say they lied, you have to prove intent to deceive.

Living up to it, that’s very much a matter of opinion.

Scourge.4317:

How long is this dead horse going to be beat?

When people stop bringing it up to try to prove a point. It’s three years old. It’s contested. People should leave it alone. But as long as they keep beating it up, I’ll keep defending it.

There are things I won’t defend, like random gear from cash boxes…but the manifesto…I think most people aren’t on the same page as Anet. I certainly don’t believe Anet lied in it.

Erasculio.2914:

Vayne.8563:

So maybe they’re not using grind in the sense you are super imposing over it, but they’re using grind in the more traditional meaning of killing mobs to level (a quote I’ve also posted before but you continue to ignore).

Vayne, you never post links to ArenaNet quotes (unlike myself). The definition of grind you claim to be the “traditional” one has never been mentioned by ArenaNet. In fact, when they talk about grinding for rewards, they made it clear they are not using the definition of grind you claim they would be using.

You can’t reply to the ArenaNet quote about grinding for rewards because that single statement destroys all the dozens of posts you have made about the Manifesto. It’s clear that ArenaNet claimed the game would not have grind, and later changed their minds, while still using the Manifesto as a marketing tool. In other words, they lied.

As I’ve said again and again, I have no desire to troll the net to find things I know were said. You expressed doubts about the clarification and someone else posted it. If you care to research it, go ahead, but stuff was said.

Some of that stuff isn’t around anymore, but plenty of it is. Particularly the old Reddit AMAs, the videos of panels at conventions, the interviews with devs…but you know, I do this for FUN. Trolling through old stuff isn’t fun, so I don’t do it.

Everything I’m saying that was said was said. You questioned me once, I went looking once and found a thread. It was someone else who posted the entire clarification.

But I’m not here to do your research. I’m saying it was said and anyone who wants to can do that research. I had to research for a living before I retired. I don’t have to do it now.

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

CrossedHorse.4261:

snip

TotalBiscuit made a video in which he shares his thoughts about pre-ordering games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf5Uj4XIT1Y

It’s worth watching. I’m not saying it solves the whole “argument” people like to have on this forum about whether or not ANet lied, but it’s an interesting thing to think about. A little “buyer beware” message.

Edit:
I should clarify that I am in no way comparing GW2 with the unmitigated disaster that was Aliens: Colonial Marines! I am simply saying that there is usually a gap in what people think they’re buying and what they actually do end up with. A little research usually goes a long way to help this, as does delaying the purchasing decision until more reliable information is available to help your decision. I’m not saying ANet are guilty of lying, and I’m not saying they delivered a perfect product. Simply stating that the issue isn’t only with the manifesto and ANet. Our culture in general tends to allow for this sort of mistake more often than not, and that’s the source of the problem, in my opinion.

This is due to many number of things, but mostly exacerbated by today’s trend for pre-purchasing games before any real, solid information is available. That’s not all on the buyer – why, after all, should we feel we can’t trust a manifesto? But, as Vayne has constantly pointed out, something released several years before the product itself can’t be the be all and end all.

I personally am not all that bothered about what was said and what ended up happening. This sort of thing happens with any product all the time – I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that it’s difficult to really hold up the manifesto as the check list for the final product. In my personal experience, anything I’ve ever bought based off marketing only (ie, without waiting for reviews and a good few months post-release), has never been exactly what I thought it would be based on marketing alone.

Great post, i do think that video applies to Anet and every company these days, i wish more people would view that video and take it to heart, also i believe children under a legal age shouldn’t be able to pre order game without an adult present, because many do not understand the way it works..

I got burned by the manifesto video i’m ok with it, but i will not buy anything off anet again. People like Vayne either work for Anet or are so indoctrinated they have no middle ground.

Luckily the GW2 game was ok, as in average, but i’m very careful what i pre order now, and i do not give videos like the manifesto video any credence anymore, as they are mostly lies and twisted words to make companies money obviously.

Look at you. I’m either an Anet employee or I’m indoctrinated because I’m enjoying a game and that I see things differently from you. Nice.

I’m not the only one who thinks Anet succeeded in what they tried to do, for the most part anyway.

It has nothing to do with you enjoying the game Vayne, i’m really glad you like GW2.

It is because you will not believe the game has flaws and mechanics issues and some serious balance problems, you will not take any criticism to the game in anyway bar maybe RNG and even then your very quiet about it.

The game is far from perfect and it needs new content badly, real content. but you see anyone who asks for changes and fixes as your enemy and Anets enemy.

I’m glad you like it as i said i just don’t feel my money was well spent when i bought GW2 and that Video was not honest at all.

The game is far from perfect. You’re right. That has nothing to do with the manifesto.

If you want to complain about not having enough build variety, go right ahead. Why bring up the manifesto to do it.

If you want to complain about the game not being rewarding enough. Go right ahead. Why bring up the manifesto to do it?

The manifesto, being 3 years old now and somewhat in question strengthens no one’s argument.

Not only have I not said the game is perfect, I said it’s not a great game. It’s a good game with a potential to be great.

Of course, the problems I have with it are very different from the problems you have with it.

Dante.1508:

Did GW2 Live Up to the MMO Manifesto?

Not in any way shape or form, bar the art direction.

If Anet meant what they said any other way than what they said in those lines on the Video, they should have said it in the Video.

They said it. You took grind to mean one thing, for example, they meant something else. The definition they used of grind is the same definition me and my friends used pretty much all the time. We called other stuff farming.

As for the confusion with the personal story and dynamic events, they did clarify that due to the confusion, and that clarification was around for a long time. And now it’s been found and posted, so yeah.

Could Anet have been clearer? Probably. But the problem with making a five minute video to explain everything you’re trying to do with a game is that you’re not going to be able to communicate it 100% perfectly to everyone.

Erasculio.2914:

Vayne.8563:

Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, means that instead of grinding to level to max level, and THEN have fun, you have fun stuff to do right at the start.

(…)

It’s like you’re select on sentence A and sentence B, you’ve ignored two years of context.

You are ignoring the evidence in front of your face: "Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward”. That’s a direct quote from ArenaNet, instead of something vague like your so-called “context”. Did you honestly expect you could just look at the first statement there, ignore the second, and not be called on it? We have lots and lots of grind in GW2 for rewards. Ergo, Manifesto = lie.

Sorry, but it’s not a lie. Because some people don’t grind for future reward. And why do you keep ignoring these two facts.

1. Anet said straight out there would be stuff to grind for for people who like that playstyle but it wouldn’t be required.

2. Guild Wars 1 had tons of grind…so many grindy achievements that actually affected your character’s power.

So maybe they’re not using grind in the sense you are super imposing over it, but they’re using grind in the more traditional meaning of killing mobs to level (a quote I’ve also posted before but you continue to ignore).

I agree for the most part OP, but I still say that the word grind, as used here, is not the grind being talked about. For many many long years, the word grind was meant to mean one thing and one thing only….killing mobs to level. It later got used (and often misused by people) who used it to mean doing a repeated task, but farming is not grinding…they have different words for a reason.

There are many places online you can look to find the original definition of what grind is in a video game. It’s predominantly meant to be killing stuff to level. That’s what korean grinders are all about. That’s how Aion was. You ran out of quests and you had to kill the same mobs over and over. And it’s not, in my opinion, what Colin was talking about.

If he was, the last line of that segment wouldn’t have been we want to change the way people view combat.

He’s talking about combat. About killing. About static combat you have to stand there through. No dodging. No environmental weapons that change things up.

There’s zero evidence he’s talking about grind in the sense of repeating unliked content. Ultimately every game has to have grind, because there’s no such thing as infinite content. Eventually you have to repeat stuff.

The other thing is that there have been interviews where Anet has said there will be things to grind for in the game for those who like that playstyle. I’m almost positive one of those times it was said was in an AMA, but I’ve seen it said a number of times over the years.

And of course, there was plenty of grind in Guild Wars 1. So if Anet said, we don’t make grindy games, but they had title tracks like lucky, unlucky, treasure hunter and the luxon/kurzick…and countless others, then obviously they have to be using grind in a difference sense.

Because in the sense a lot of people are talking about, Guild Wars 1 was grindy as hell.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Not a lie re grinding to get to “the fun stuff”

The lie was “the fun stuff”. The “fun” stuff is all grind, whether it be grinding AA, grinding a “live Event” by sheer massive repetition of junk like pounding signs or hurling up bad candy, or just the fact that you end up doing the same thing over and over. It’s a grind tossing items into a mystic toilet. It’s a grind running dungeons. It’s a grind running dragons. It’s a grind collecting craft fines or anything needed for end game crafting. It’s a grind running idiotic mini-games enough times to qualify for AA or beat the RNG for a limited time reward.

This game is the easiest leveling game I’ve ever played.. and that fast leveling leads you to nothing but endless repetitions of the events you did to level, endless grinds to achieve end game items, and new content that is nothing but “grind as fast as you can” to get the limited time awards and achievements.

This game has taken “play your way” to “play our way or suffer”. The GRIND is optional, but without it there is no end game. If a player chooses not to GRIND, well.. “you aren’t doing it right”.

“We don’t make grindy games” Sorry Mike, yeah, you did.

You can’t lie about fun, fun being an opinion at all. Even if they did have signs, if you chose to grind them, it wasn’t going to be fun. If you chose to fix a couple every time you were in the zone in passing, it had little to do with the fun stuff…because there’s another clarification in there.

In most games you have to go through this grind to get to the fun stuff. This doesn’t say that every single thing in this game will be fun to every player. How could that even be possible.

It says there will be fun things to do, pretty much right away. Now, one person may hate the personal story, but some people like it. One person may hate jumping puzzles (notice how many are in early zones) and some people may love them. Some people may hate WvW (which you can enter right away) and some people love it. The game was giving you a range of things to do, including crafting, which would level your character and is fun for some people. You pick what’s most fun for you.

What the manifesto didn’t say was that there would be an infinite amount of fun content moving forward for people who have done all the content. It never even implied that. So while pounding in signs isn’t fun, it doesn’t mean those fun things don’t exist in the game.

And you know, it is possible to like NOTHING about the game. It’s possible not to like hearts, or events, or jumping puzzles or crafting, or WvW, or the personal story. But that’s still just one person’s opinion.

I find various aspects of the game fun, and some aspects of the game less fun, just like I do in every game I play.

I just tried it and got loot bags off every champion I killed. I don’t know, however, if champions have been removed.

Yep, I have the same issues OP. I wish karma had remained character bound..though when I was discussing it with a guildie, they pointed out that karma jugs already changed that whole thought process.

Karma jugs exist in the game and we get reward stuff that we can drink that gives up better karma, which moves it into the realm of just another currency…unfortunately.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Never played keg brawl before, never even heard of it or knew where to find it. Now that it is in the rotation I will probably try it out since it is easier to access.

Seems like a great change to me. no one I talked o had ever heard of this game before… has it really been in since launch?

Yep, I played it pretty much the first day, since Anet had talked about it before launch. It was better back then, before the achievement hounds came in and ruined it. It’s hard to find a game that’s being played honestly anymore.

I think it’ll be better to play it when there are lots of people playing it…which is an over all improvement.

Erasculio.2914:

Vayne.8563:

Now, Anet, they put something like the Shadow Behemoth in a starter zone. Why? To give you the fun stuff right away. And that really is what they’re talking about. How do I know.

snip

See, that’s how you prove to us that you are wrong.

First, let me point the irony in your earlier statement:

Vayne.8563:

I’ve said that English is English and the English is clear. There’s no mention of the word gear at all. None. Zero. There’s no mention of vertical progress at all. None. Zero.

snip

Second, let’s look at your second statement. You claim you know what Colin was talking about since it was mentioned in interviews after the Manifesto was created. However, when asked to provide links to those interviews, you fail to do so.

snip

ArenaNet

Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward.

…And guess what are rewards in GW2? Hint: it’s not fighting against the Shadow Behemoth.

In fact, in the link above (which, again, unlike anything you have provided, is actually ArenaNet itself talking about the Manifesto), the only other mention to the concept of grind is…

ArenaNet

Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill

…So, considering we have both mentions of a “grinding treadmill” and “grinding for a future fun reward”, it’s rather obvious that the concept of grind is being used to talk about things that are rewards and that could be a treadmill. Have you ever heard of the concept of gear treadmill? Or about the idea that gear is a reward?

Now, have you ever heard of a Shadow Behemoth treadmill? No? I wonder why.

In less words, your interpretation of the Manifesto is wrong.

And even ignoring all of that, even if I didn’t have all those links, and even if you actually did have anything at all from ArenaNet… It’s easy to show how you are wrong. You claim that the Manifesto is talking about grind to level up and reach “end game” content, that is usually locked behind some kind of progression gate in other MMOPRGs; and that said grind would be bad, but gear grind would be perfectly fine.

And that’s wrong.

The Manifesto says, “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun”. What do people do to grind levels, in other MMOs? They kill the same monsters over and over, repetitively and mindlessly (“I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again” – sounds familiar?). What do people do to grind gear, in other MMOs, and in GW2? You can go watch it in the Crown Pavilion right now, but let me describe it for you: they kill the same monsters over and over, repetitively and mindlessly (“I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again”).

Now, and this is obvious, if grinding enemies to level up (and reach the fun content) is something no one enjoys and no one finds fun… Doing the exact same thing, grinding enemies in the same way, but to get gear (and thus reach the fun rewards) is not something people would enjoy, or something people would find fun.

Ergo, in two different ways, the Manifesto shows how you are wrong. The clarification from ArenaNet shows you are wrong. And what do you have in your defense…? An old forum topic? Riiiiiight.

No more excuses, Vayne. The Manifesto is a lie. It’s time you accept it.

Right…it doesn’t mention starting zones. It mentions fun stuff to do. You don’t do gear. It’s that simple. It is English.

Fun…stuff…to do. What is what you’re doing? Events. That’s what they’re talking about. Personal story. Both of these things are mentioned in the manifesto.

Not just reading a wall of text, running to the next guy and running back for the rewards. Events that happen. You see the centaurs destroying stuff. I don’t know about you, I’ve seen the centaurs destroying stuff. I’ve seen the bandits destroying stuff. And when I played WoW, get this, I didn’t see that.

Even in Rift, there was a burning town that was a quest hub, but it was ALWAYS a burning town. I never saw the town when it wasn’t burning. In Guild Wars 2 that town would be been burned down and rebuilt. It’s different. And for some people it’s fun.

Fun stuff to do. TO DO. You don’t do loot. You don’t do gear. You do stuff for which gear is a reward.

The manifesto is not a lie. It’s about time you accepted it.

I don’t count so I don’t know. It seems possible they did it certainly. I just don’t look at that stuff and then at the end of the day I go, wow, look at all this loot.

Sorry it got screwed up for some.

Serelisk.6573:

I understand that, but it doesn’t make sense to limit it from people who’re playing anyway if their purpose was to keep people from exploiting it. That’s actually very likely to make the problem of exploiters/boosters worse.

The SAB isn’t a very fair comparison considering it got out of game promotion in the form of a trailer, plus it was literally the theme of the content update. It was posted about in gaming sites everywhere, and was the topic of a ton of forum posts because it was something big. There’s a lot of people who don’t even know where Keg brawl is because it’s not really explained or incentivized beyond the daily achievement.

Well at very least then, people will learn about keg brawl from this.

I missed it. How did they nerf it?

Find and follow the zerg in Queen’s Pavillion. You’ll not only level fast, but there’s plenty of awesome drops. You’ll be leveled to 80 when you 80 there for the duration of the event (though your skills won’t get unlocked). But it’s fast loot and leveling, and achievements, with chances to get some of the new skins.

Erasculio.2914:

Open world dueling is an horrible idea that I hope never gets implemented in the game.

And we already have topics about this.

Holy crap. I agree with you! lol

morrolan.9608:

Xenon.4537:

Ok, yes it was a tool to create hype, you’re absolutely right about that, but backhanding it by saying it’s dishonest is just silly. Point me to any advertizement that is 100% honest. I think the problem is people approaching the manifesto with the same attitude as approaching a dictionary or encyclopedia. This was just a video of some human beings trying to hype up their product that they were very excited about, not scientific documentation to be analyzed. People take the manifesto way too seriously, and take this perceived “betrayal” way too personally.

While it was used to help market the game its not an advertisement or even presented as such really. Plus its not just the 1 video, its the blog post about it plus numerous other blog posts and comments from devs from around the same time up until the game was released.

They knew how people interpreted how they were marketing the game because it was all over the relevant forums yet they continued marketing the game the same way so yea it was deceptive.

I disagree. It’s deceptive to some people because they had preexisting definitions of what grind was, that doesn’t necessarily jibe with every definition.

I’ve seen many many people post on these forums to say they’ve never had to grind in this game.

There was a quantum shift in the game when ascended gear was released (I’m not sure anyone would disagree with that), but that has nothing at all to do with the manifesto.

And there are still people saying the game is a full on gear grind, which I dont’ find it to be at all. Many of those people call doing dailies grinding, which I can’t imagine, having played some other MMOs.

Erasculio.2914:

Vayne.8563:

What is mentioned? The grind to get to fun things. That’s what’s mentioned. You can associate any definition you want to anything. But it really is just English.

And what do you think those “fun things” are?

I think you’re missing the entire context. Let’s go back three years in time. Let’s look at the MMO landscape.

In every single MMO I could think of, you had to level to raid. It’s what people did. They blew through leveling, power leveled, did everything they could to get to end game, because that’s where all the really cool stuff was.

Now, Anet, they put something like the Shadow Behemoth in a starter zone. Why? To give you the fun stuff right away. And that really is what they’re talking about. How do I know.

Because Colin said so in interviews about the manifesto after that.

Basically they’re trying to differentiate Guild Wars 2 from many other games out at that time saying, look you don’t have to rush to level to get to the fun stuff, because you can do the fun stuff at lower levels.

You might not agree with that, but many many people do. This game provides the best leveling experience of any MMORPG I’ve played.

But beyond that, once I got to end game, I didn’t have to raid. I could do anything I wanted. Go back to any zone. Bang around and half fun. It’s the difference between goal oriented-challenging, I have to live my life to play this game, and wait for my guild to get into a raid, compared with just having fun stuff to do.

Now, obviously, everyone finds different stuff fun. So I’m happy what I find fun is the same sorts of things the Anet devs apparently find fun. And again, I’m not alone in this.

Dante.1508:

but i’m very careful what i pre order now, and i do not give videos like the manifesto video any credence anymore, as they are mostly lies and twisted words to make companies money obviously

Indeed.

Vayne.8563:

Somehow, I don’t see that as an issue here, since double posting isn’t against forum rules on this forum and I don’t subscribe to your definition of polite.

It’s your choice, considering how it has been mentioned a few times in this topic alone how making multiple posts like that hurts your credibility.

Making multiple posts don’t hurt credibility. Of all the claims you’ve made, this one has the least basis.

At the very least anyone who cares whether you’re doing it all in one post or on separate posts isn’t someone I’d care enough about to convince anyway. It’s a silly criteria for credibility.

Dante.1508:

CrossedHorse.4261:

I think this whole manifesto fiasco is really much more to do with today’s culture of the “pre-order”. Generally, I like pre-ordering because I’m impatient, but can’t always get to a store on release day etc. Other people pre-order because of marketing or promises of exclusive rewards etc. This is a problem, actually, because it can both promote lazy developing, and also leads to companies being in trouble precisely because what they thought, two years before release, that they can do, they can’t. The game changes, but it’s already been sold to people, and those people aren’t happy – doesn’t really matter about the clarification … many people stopped reading/listening once they decided to purchase.

TotalBiscuit made a video in which he shares his thoughts about pre-ordering games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf5Uj4XIT1Y

It’s worth watching. I’m not saying it solves the whole “argument” people like to have on this forum about whether or not ANet lied, but it’s an interesting thing to think about. A little “buyer beware” message.

Edit:
I should clarify that I am in no way comparing GW2 with the unmitigated disaster that was Aliens: Colonial Marines! I am simply saying that there is usually a gap in what people think they’re buying and what they actually do end up with. A little research usually goes a long way to help this, as does delaying the purchasing decision until more reliable information is available to help your decision. I’m not saying ANet are guilty of lying, and I’m not saying they delivered a perfect product. Simply stating that the issue isn’t only with the manifesto and ANet. Our culture in general tends to allow for this sort of mistake more often than not, and that’s the source of the problem, in my opinion.

This is due to many number of things, but mostly exacerbated by today’s trend for pre-purchasing games before any real, solid information is available. That’s not all on the buyer – why, after all, should we feel we can’t trust a manifesto? But, as Vayne has constantly pointed out, something released several years before the product itself can’t be the be all and end all.

I personally am not all that bothered about what was said and what ended up happening. This sort of thing happens with any product all the time – I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that it’s difficult to really hold up the manifesto as the check list for the final product. In my personal experience, anything I’ve ever bought based off marketing only (ie, without waiting for reviews and a good few months post-release), has never been exactly what I thought it would be based on marketing alone.

Great post, i do think that video applies to Anet and every company these days, i wish more people would view that video and take it to heart, also i believe children under a legal age shouldn’t be able to pre order game without an adult present, because many do not understand the way it works..

I got burned by the manifesto video i’m ok with it, but i will not buy anything off anet again.

Luckily the GW2 game was ok, as in average, but i’m very careful what i pre order now, and i do not give videos like the manifesto video any credence anymore, as they are mostly lies and twisted words to make companies money obviously.

I’m not the only one who thinks Anet succeeded in what they tried to do, for the most part anyway.

I think Anet knows exactly how many people like/play keg brawl on days that it’s not a daily. In fact, I think Anet knows exactly how many people exploit keg brawl to get their achievement points without playing it. It happens all the time. I go to play a game and two people grab a keg, jump out of bounds and toss it back and forth. Some fun.

Because they have the data of how many people are affected by this decision and no one else does, I can’t really side with you, OP.

I daresay SAB was a whole lot more popular than Keg Brawl and that was temporary. Keg Brawl would have to be completely reworked to be a game worthy of a personal slot. For one thing, it would have to be changed to prevent the prevalent cheating that continually occurs there. That takes dev time.

So if their metrics don’t show enough people play it the way it was intended to be played, they don’t necessarily have reason to put time and effort into fixing it.

Business decision is a business decision. Sometimes individuals don’t like it, but I don’t think there are enough people in that boat to affect the decision.

Fortuna.7259:

Xenon.4537:

Ok, yes it was a tool to create hype, you’re absolutely right about that, but backhanding it by saying it’s dishonest is just silly. Point me to any advertizement that is 100% honest. I think the problem is people approaching the manifesto with the same attitude as approaching a dictionary or encyclopedia. This was just a video of some human beings trying to hype up their product that they were very excited about, not scientific documentation to be analyzed. People take the manifesto way too seriously, and take this perceived “betrayal” way too personally.

Again with this ‘but everyone does it!’ logic? I suppose everyone has to be 100% innocent before we can hold anyone accountable for their actions? “Little boys kill ants, so while my client may have killed those people, he isn’t guilty!” Mmm-hmm.

And then you present the ‘some people are overreacting, therefore everyone is overreacting’ logic as well. I don’t care if some people act like their life has ended. That doesn’t stop others from holding developers accountable in an appropriate manner.

If you tried to take this to court, it would be laughed out of court. There’s nothing said in the manifesto that’s untrue, whether you agree with it or not. Any any new information that came out which gave detail to what was in the manifesto (which remains only a statement of intent), would clarify it. In order for a company to have to own up to doing something wrong, they’d have to be found to have done something wrong. Aggrieved players on a forum saying a company has wronged them is simply their opinion.

If they really felt that way, Anet gave refunds on the product, in many cases, to people who had the game for months. You probably could have gotten one when you realized the game wasn’t what you thought, such as after the ascended gear was implemented. I know many people did.

So Anet was accountable. They let people play their game for free for up to six months in one case, which is above and beyond the call of duty.

Now if Anet had released the manifesto and released no other information at all about the game that clarified it, and explained it and showed it to be what it is, then you might have a point. As it is, the only point here is that you don’t see the game the way they devs do. Because I’m pretty sure they don’t think they’ve lied.

Fortuna.7259:

Vayne.8563:

No, it doesn’t depend on that. It depends on people not substituting definitions for something ALREADY DEFINED IN A DOCUMENT. Colin DEFINED what grind was fort he purposes of what he was saying. He said it straight out. It’s not some hidden code. Then two lines later, he referred to grind AGAIN, in which case in any common usage of English as a language, it would use the same definition.

When you take a line from a paragraph and use it to mean something that it was never intended to mean, it’s called taking it out of context. Because without the first defining usage of the word, it MIGHT mean something else…but in context, it can only mean one thing. Or at very least can’t mean gear grind.

The fact that some people won’t acknowledge this doesn’t make it less true.

There is no definition. He uses the word grind once. Then he uses it again. Your “definition” is only your inference from a single sentence. Hence, you are the one fabricating a view from one very tiny portion of a text and taking it out of context.

If you look at the manifesto holistically, the inclusion of a description of the “gear grind” that you are excusing would completely clash. Your analysis of who didn’t lie and how they didn’t lie is beside the point. Of course a short video isn’t going to tell you everything that is and isn’t in a product as complex as an MMO. But this video was intended to represent the product. As it turns out, it misrepresented the product. Period.

I uses the word grind once in a single “paragraph” which he then uses the word again. In most games there’s this annoying grind to get to the fun stuff…followed by we don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2. Even the word “this” in the first part, talks about a specific grind. It really is just English.

And other stuff that was said during discussions after the manifesto support this as well.

Mickey.4207:

Vayne.8563:

Mickey.4207:

One of my favorite lines from Manifesto..
“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, Hey! I swung a sword AGAIN!…….We just don’t want players to grind”

Even after such a long time it still cracks me up. Now people like OP can try and clarify what devs actually meant by things they said in manifesto but one can not change the fact that it was pure exaggeration and nothing but a tool to create hype to the point where it was completely dishonest.

Nope, I don’t have to clarify this because Anet already has.

You don’t just swing a sword, even if you have a sword. They’re talking about other stuff like enviromental weapons (which they show as a catapult in the video when saying that). They’re talking about the quests where you change form to other forms. They’re talking about transformation skills, where you get five new skills.

You don’t have to like it, but that’s what they’re talking about. And those things are all in the game.

No that is not what they are talking about. They were trying to assure the players that their game won’t follow old formula of repetition and grind. Hence the above statement of swinging the sword again and again.

You are trying twist their words and make it into something it isn’t. But i have come to expect that from you. So no surprise there.

Actually, what I’ve said they’ve said. If you don’t believe me, well, that doesn’t make what I’m saying less true. Someone didn’t believe the clarification existed and that was true too.

Anet in response to questions about the manifesto brought up environmental weapons on more than one occasion.

wolfpaq.7354:

Ursan.7846:

Well, obviously you aren’t optimizing your time because you aren’t enjoying it. That’s fine, but don’t expect your rewards to be optimized as well.

Why not? In guild wars 1 I had the best gear in the game as soon as I hit max level, no grinding required. You’re right though, shame on me for expecting guild wars 2 and it’s “no grinding required” advertisements to be truthful.

Ursan.7846:

And oh yea, GW1 had them too. i.e. title tracks

I don’t care about title tracks! I ignored most of the title tracks in gw1 and guess what? My character had best in slot gear anyway. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

There is no grinding required. There’s grinding you choose to do. I assume from what you say that you don’t do fractals, and fractals, higher level ones at that, are the only place that require ascended gear. If you enough fractals to require ascended gear, you’ll get the rings and back piece for pretty much nothing. That only leavings earrings and an amulet from laurels, and earrings are easily gotten with guild missions.

And if you use the WvW laurel vendor, you can stretch your laurels with badges of honor which many people now have an abundance of.

Hey, happy birthday!, Glad you had a good time.

Nick.6972:

Vol.5241:

cesmode.4257:

Seras.5702:

Vol.5241:

Did you completely forget or did you choose to ignore all the previous updates where we had to kill stuff?

You know, Karka, molten mobs, aetherblade pirates, that sort of thing?

Karka I’ll give you.

But aetherblades appeared ocassionally when you had to hunt holograms. Ooh…fun.
And you’re talking about temporary dungeons that lasted 2 weeks. It wasn’t an immersive story that involved us wandering Tyria and noticing pirates everywhere, slaughtering centaurs, and pillaging asuran outposts. Instead they materialized out of thin air as we played duck-duck-goose with holograms (something we spent the previous 2 weeks doing for taffy). Where were the Aetherblade DEs? The Molten DEs?

Pretty much this, in response to your question Vol. It wasnt substantial real combat. Ocassionally a small pack of pirates. Ocassionally you stumble on some charr coming out of a portal.

To this end, Southsun was probably the most significant real content we received. Even though it promoted karma trains, you had people completing dynamic events..DYNAMIC EVENTS! Champion mobs, Karka queens. Karka invading towns, and we have to hold locations to spawn the queen. These things that are everywhere in the game, except in most of these mini patches.

Granted, southsun is as empty as it was. But lets be honest, its the only patch this year that has had real combat/content with dynamic events.

Southsun is an entire zone. It is unreasonable to expect such a thing to happen every 2 weeks. Same with new dragons or insane new monsters. Do that every 2 weeks and you simply don’t have enough monsters left to drive forward the lore and the game.

I want epic content just as much as you guys but you need to realistic. Stuff like that takes time and sometimes you need to prolong content so that you don’t run out of it.

We as GW2 players are spoiled as kitten. Other games like Rift, when I played it during release, we had zero content updates until several months later. Even Aion didn’t have anything special added until they had the expansions.

Faction added like 20+ zones in 2006, less than a year after original game launched.
Not to mention their team was much, much smaller than it is now.

Sure it did. But it also only added a very small number of quests and missions. If you add up all the content in Factions and Prophecies, there’s actually less content than Guild Wars 2 had at launch. I think people forget this.

Between Prophecies and Factions there were under 500 quests compared to over 1500 dynamic events at Guild Wars 2’s launch. There were 25 missions in Prophecies and 13 missions in Factions. And some of them were great…others I couldn’t stand. If I never did Thunderhead Keep again, I couldn’t be happier. It felt like a filler mission.

Between Factions and Prophecies, you had 2 starter zones. You also didn’t have the personal story, which like it or not, is a whole lot of content. There’s about 50 personal story instances for each character, five starting areas, and then there are dungeons. You have 8 dungeons, with 4 paths each (roughly) as compared with say The Underworld, FoW, Urgoz’s Warren, The Deep and Sorrow’s Embrace.

The one thing Guild Wars 1 did have in spades was different PvP types (but nothing like WvW, which is like a whole game in and of itself.

So yeah, when you add in stuff like Fractals, jumping puzzles, and such…Guild Wars 2 at launch had more content than Guild Wars 1 did after Factions launched.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

I strongly disagree with the argument that people are taking the manifesto out of context. I believe what we have is people like me who saw the manifesto and its language and realized it happened to be consistent with our current understanding of what kind of gaming company ANet was. They were a players company, in my eye, that catered towards a crowd who didn’t want vertical power progression, preferred horizontal progression, and didn’t even know what time gated rewards were other than BDay gifts.

The change from those positions is drastic, and there don’t seem to be any modern games on the market like the original Guild Wars, not that everyone necessarily would switch due to lore, loyalty, and other reasons. That said, ANet made a one of a kind game for an audience that is no longer catered specifically to, therefore they are upset. The manifesto is what made many believe Guild Wars 2 would cater just as much to ANet’s original audience, therefore the manifesto gets a lot of heat.

How widespread this actually is remains to be seen, but I know applies to me and at least a dozen people I play with. Not that I view GW2 as a bad game, but it’s not on the same level as Guild Wars. I hope as time goes on ANet phases out the gating of vertical progression and makes obtaining max stat gear more trivial, and I would also hope they do a better job at making the game feel less punishing when it comes to character build and playstyle flexibility. They should also strike a better balance with timegated rewards. I believe these are the three biggest issues people have with ANet’s designs.

Except that the manifesto didn’t mention progression at all. It’s incorrect to suggest that it did. Nor did it mention vertical or horizontal progression.

It’s one thing to say that I know Anet and they changed, but quite another to say Anet put out a manifesto that said it.

I don’t think the company has changed as much as you did, but it has certainly evolved, that much I do know. But I don’t think adding in one tier of gear that’s not even completely in the game in 6 months, a tier of gear they said was planned for release but didn’t make it no less, makes them a game that centers on vertical progression.

I think people are making a mountain out of a molehill with ascended gear, and I know I’m not alone in this.

But none of this has ANYTHING to do with the manifesto. Not one thing.

I wouldn’t say evolved. That implies a positive progression, which overall is not what I see between the ANet of Guild Wars and the the ANet of Guild Wars 2. Their philosophies have shifted. This game makes people feel like they have to play around ANet’s schedule instead of their own. This game doesn’t naturally put everyone on an equal playing field when it comes to character power. This game is designed to be inflexible for PvE and WvW character builds. This game is also designed to be unnecessarily punishing in regard to people’s time, so much so that someone like myself feels compelled to buy gems to get gold for buying or crafting exotic gear, or crafting mats to level up an alt so they can play through the story without having to do things they don’t want to do.

I personally don’t want to have to pay/play extra to play the game the way I want to play it, especially when someone else who wants to play it a different way doesn’t pay extra at all, and even comes out ahead converting gold to gems, which is fine, but paying extra for my preferred way to play isn’t.

All of these things do not indicate evolution to me, but rather steps backwards.

Evolution doesn’t always mean better. It’s evolved. Some evolution occurs horizontally. In any case, how a game evolves depends completely on your personal perspective.

To me this game has become much better. There’s more to do that interests me now than there was say back in November. That’s because I’m enjoying many of the minigames coming out.

The evolution I see particularly is the idea that because dynamic events repeat…and thus could never really be the basis of the living world, Anet is trying something new…the Living Story.

For a completionist, this is a nightmare. If you feel you have to do everything, well then, you’re going to feel pressured by what is going on. I stopped playing this game as a completionist, because it’s just not possible for me. There are too many things I won’t be able to do.

But whenever I want to do stuff, there is stuff to do…stuff that I find fun. I’ve never seen any other MMO provide this experience….so for me there is evolution. It’s becoming it’s own game. It’s finding it’s way.

That’s what happens with all MMOs. And if some people don’t like the way it evolves, they’ll leave, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t evolved. It just hasn’t evolved in a direction you like.

HawkMeister.4758:

Jeez, how about you actually play this game you keep defending like the proverbial damsel in distress, instead of constantly fighting ever imagined slight against it?

One, I’m not defending the game against imagined slights. I’m defending the game against misinformation, which I’ve always disliked in any form about anything.