Guild Wars 2

Erasculio.2914:

Sigh. Vayne, you are shooting your own foot.

This…

Vayne.8563:

I found something that verified, at least circumstantially that what I said was true. People based on this can accept it or not, but I’m not willing to devote more time to the search.

…Is worthless. It’s very, very easy to find the blog entries from that time. People have already linked those entries for you – I know because I have linked them, too. And when you say you don’t want to devote time about this, well, you probably have a hundred posts about this subject by now. So saying you don’t want to devote time to it isn’t exactly convincing.

Ergo…

Vayne.8563:

Maybe people will stop saying that I’m inventing stuff now.

You are. You have ignored all evidence people directly linked to you from the time of the Manifesto, showing how your interpretation is wrong. Your link, as you mentioned yourself, is circunstancial at best – a bunch of nobodies discussing their interpretation of the information released at the time. We have direct access to ArenaNet’s statement. They show you are wrong. Heh, the Manifesto itself shows you are wrong.

We know exactly what ArenaNet said. We know exactly how they said they didn’t want players to grind, because they knew grind is boring and no one enjoys it. They mentioned how they didn’t want people to grind for rewards. We also know how ArenaNet went back on all those things later on, probably afraid that the players of classic MMORPGs wouldn’t like GW2 if they didn’t have something to grind for.

The Manifesto, effectively, is a lie. We can prove that based on ArenaNet’s words. Linking a bunch of forum posts from GWGuru (famously known as “LOLGuru”) with second hand information is not going to change any of that.

Devoting time to typing in a forum is completely different to devote time to search for old sites. It’s a different activity. I’m retired. I do what’s fun or interesting to me.

Newsflash…I worked in writing. Research was something I had to do. I don’t have to do it any more. Certainly not to satisfy you. Many many people accept what I have to say, at least with regards to the clarification of the manifesto.

I could care less what you accept. You’re not reasonable about it and that’s fine. Others can make up their own mind.

I think if they do give you a refund on those laurels, they should charge you the extra gold you made while you had it. Fair is fair.

Otherwise you’d have a bunch of free gold that you didn’t pay any laurels for.

Gehenna.3625:

I’ve seen some of the things they replied to it. So I will say that at least on some topics they did answer. However, answering is not enough, because the answers were mostly cop outs.

But I guess you decided there weren’t enough threads on the manifesto so you had to create your own. I guess your forum name sounds about right.

So, the original blog is missing. The only thing there are replies that could be misinterpretations, so without the original blog it still means nothing (except the boss thingy that was quoted I suppose).

Now, the manifestor was a great marketing stunt and they said things that were not the actual experience I had in game and judging by the reactions that still come, it will always be a matter of opinion and not proof.

And again, the manifesto is 3 years old, you are absolutely right. But then you complain about people bringing it up over and over again…well guess what, with this thread you did it again.

Do you get that this will never be resolved? Do you get that by bringing it up yet again, the only thing you have achieved is to awaken the same old discussion again?

I told you this in another thread but your methods don’t match your goals. If you wanted to prove a point and thereby convinced everybody that Anet didn’t lie, then you are very naive. All it will do is bringing another thread full of negativity in the top of the forum that you want to have less negativity in.

Well done.

Really? LMAO.

Okay so if someone said the clarification said X and it didn’t, you wouldn’t find someone disagreeing with it in a thread? REALLY? I see.

Actually this thread is about the clarification, not the manifesto itself. And if some people don’t want to read about it, they’re free not to be in this thread. It’s not like they have to come here.

But some people might be interested in that clarification and if the original isn’t around, I provided the next best thing.

It seems that if someone wants to say bad things about the manifesto, 800 threads can be made, but the second someone wants to point out something different about the manifesto, well that’s just a duplicate thread, right?

Biased much?

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Fernling.1729:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Nike.2631:

Vayne.8563:

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story.

Weird… its like that entire year I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic before GW2 came out never happened. And I’m sure Bioware hadn’t been blathering about it for 5 years prior to that.

Star Wars was released 2011-2012 while the manifesto was released 2010.

The personal story in SWTOR was known about well before 2010.

And it went a lot further than GW2, so nothing to brag about really for Anet.

Anet wasn’t bragging, they were talking about their game as compared to say…you know the MMOs people were playing at the time it was made. SWToR still came out a couple of years after the manifesto was released.

As for it doing the personal story better, I’m sure it did. That’s why it went free to play and had to fire half it’s staff. It was a raging success.

You know I could pick something from each MMO that it did really well. Vanguard was better than WoW in some ways, but I don’t think anyone should hold it up to compare to anything else.

Bioware specializes in story, and came from making single player MMOs. It was always going to have a good story mode. Too bad the rest of the game fell so flat huh? Do you think Star Wars advertised or talked about anything besides stories before their game released?

Now, wait a minute. The story lines in SWTOR are a major feature and they hyped it for sure.

But I am still trying to figure out why you needed to make a new thread about ONE sentence out of the manifesto, especially one that is rather insignificant in my view. So story bosses don’t respawn because they decided to instance them, which was an existing technique. I get it, it was clarified. So what? This game is still either giving handouts or stupidly grindy, the story is crap and certainly not heroic feeling.

If it matters so much to you, then ok, they clarified that they only meant story bosses…which makes that sentence even less significant. I am ready to agree that on this miniscule point they did a correction on a blog.

Of course they didn’t correct it anywhere else but hey, they did it somewhere that some people might find out about. I would’ve prefered they make corrections, sorry clarifications on the main website rather than something you have to know how to find since I don’t get the feeling many people knew about this blog. To me that’s poor communication.

Because they brought the manifesto in full view…it was advertised in every channel they had. Then a clarification comes and then you just have to follow their blog (which is gone by now).

Do you think it’s fair communication this way from them?

Actually…this isn’t about one line…and it’s not about one single clarification. Do you really think that there was one single clarification and this fan base left it alone? That manifesto was dissected six ways till Sunday and Anet answered every question about it AT THE TIME. As you do.

Then other information came out. Information the superceded and surplanted the manifesto. So much information it’s hard to believe anyone watched it and didn’t look at anything else.

Because what a dynamic event was…that was presented in GREAT detail. Videos about it, convention panels about it, reports about it, blog posts about it. The amount of detail was staggering. Anyone who entered the game not knowing that events would repeat back and forth along a track simply wasn’t paying attention.

So this isn’t really about one line in the manifesto. This is about people bringing up the manifesto repeatedly and then claiming that the post explaining it didn’t exist, even though I kept bringing it up. There’s more to that thread than just one line…I didn’t post the whole thread here. If people are interested they can go and see the thread and see what people were saying and what was being spoken about.

The point is, there was so much information, but people go back to the manifesto, even though it’s now close to 3 years old, as if it’s the only video or information Anet released. It’s five minutes. It was made two years before the game launched.

Surely other information that came after, and clarified things (for more than the original clarification did) should be taken into account.

You know, it’s funny how people try to make this thread about me being a fan boy, or a white knight, while completely ignoring the point of the thread.

I said there was a clarification of the manifesto, and some people tried to call me on it. I produced some evidence it actually existed, circumstantial though it was. Most reasonable people would see an old thread about it on Guru to be genuine.

But apparently people would rather try to discredit me by trying to point out that I’m white knighting. The beauty of it is, I’m demonstrably correct. When they run out of stuff to actually argue about, the next step is to try to discredit by insult.

This tells more about them than it does about me.

Nick.6972:

The white knight fights back again.

It’s not hard to fight against the naysayers. All you have to do is be reasonable. Those that aren’t, will never get it. But many of the lurkers do, if my personal messages are anything to go by.

Hi Siya…Wardens of Destiny runs dungeons quite frequently and very casually. We’re big on helping people through stuff, particularly those new to dungeons. It builds a base of people who know what they’re doing, so there usually someone around that can fill in if needed.

It’s a casual friendly guild. Send me an in game email at Cador Shrike if you want. We can chat in game.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

Is it really that hard for players to challenge themselves outside of the game’s own criteria?

For a lot of people the answer is yes…it is that hard.

There are all sorts of different people in the world. Some need to be shown a breadcrumb trail, some hate breadcrumb trails. They’re just different types of people.

To me this game already has too much it pushes you to do. I’d probaby be happier if were more sandbox. It’s not but I can live with it, because I’m still having fun.

But there are people who have to be motivated by either in game rewards, or something else to do content.

It’s not wrong to be that way. It’s just that people are wired differently.

That’s why I always say that when someone says a game sucks, they’re really talking about an incompatibilty between what they want/expect from a game and what the game delivers.

HawkMeister.4758:

Is this another thread in the everlasting Saga of Vayne; Chapter Titles 1-all: ANet can do no wrong?

For many the Manifesto very well was the main basis for choosing this game and there was no reason to disbelieve the main message, like the know it-alls and hindsight smart-a.. in here do.
“Marketingz lol”. /rolls eyes

Thankfully there´s Everquest Next on the horizon that actually has a real chance to deliver on ANet´s window dressing.

That’s pretty cute. So when people accuse me of lying about a clarification that actually existed (or at least implied I was lying) I shouldn’t set the record straight by offering evidence? Biased much?

There was a clarification of the manifesto, it explained some things that confused people, then more information came out that explained things in even more detail.

I’m pretty sure that watching a five minute video produced two years before a game’s release isn’t sufficient information on which to base a purchasing decision. But since some of us, including me, see that manifesto as largely being fullfilled, this is just your opinion.

And since the manifesto WAS clarified, as I’ve said all along, the naysayers are looking less and less plausible.

Valanga.5942:

I guess nobody ever noticed that Age of Conan had an instanced personal story way before GW2 and SWtOR were ever even mentioned…

Actually I did. But even though it was instanced, it was different from the personal stories that came later…it’s more like a forerunner.

There’s a different personal story for each profession (so it would be different if you played a necromancer, say than another profession) but it was the same for ALL necromancers. There were no choices in that game.

Of course, that instanced story only lasted 20 levels till the end of the tutorial area, which coincidentally was all you could play on the free demo. A whole lot of people, including me, loved that part of the game, and felt pretty disenfranchised when the rest of the game wasn’t at all like it.

Not much permanent content since then. Moa races, which is a gambling thing in LA, a new jumping puzzle that’s pretty cool (with new goggles) in Gendarran Fields, and a new rotation of popular mini games is coming.

There are a lot of cool mini games added in this last patch, including a really interesting Southsun Survival game, a pretty cool race (sort of a Guild Wars 2 version of Mario Carts, without the carts) and the Aspect Arena which is similar to a PvP map but with different skills.

In a couple of days they’re adding a currency wallet for stuff like dungeon tokens.

Also achievement points now mean something and you should get some decent rewards just for logging in. You can get one backlogged chest per day based on the amount of achievement points you have.

In a couple of days dungeon and champion rewards will be changed as well.

Harbard.5738:

CobaltSixty.1542:

The manifesto is the Word of God for some people.

Some? Infidel!

Vayne, The Ubiquitous is a false prophet preying on innocent sheep! Do not fall for his silver tongue! Erasculio, Keeper of the Forgotten Promises (hallowed be thy name) is the one and only interpreter of the Holy Scriptures.

Never forget. Never forgive.
<chanting>

This made me laugh. Brilliant. Probably true also. lol

Fernling.1729:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Nike.2631:

Vayne.8563:

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story.

Weird… its like that entire year I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic before GW2 came out never happened. And I’m sure Bioware hadn’t been blathering about it for 5 years prior to that.

Star Wars was released 2011-2012 while the manifesto was released 2010.

The personal story in SWTOR was known about well before 2010.

The personal story in Guild Wars 2 was known long before the manifesto.

Gehenna.3625:

Fernling.1729:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Nike.2631:

Vayne.8563:

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story.

Weird… its like that entire year I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic before GW2 came out never happened. And I’m sure Bioware hadn’t been blathering about it for 5 years prior to that.

Star Wars was released 2011-2012 while the manifesto was released 2010.

The personal story in SWTOR was known about well before 2010.

And it went a lot further than GW2, so nothing to brag about really for Anet.

Anet wasn’t bragging, they were talking about their game as compared to say…you know the MMOs people were playing at the time it was made. SWToR still came out a couple of years after the manifesto was released.

As for it doing the personal story better, I’m sure it did. That’s why it went free to play and had to fire half it’s staff. It was a raging success.

You know I could pick something from each MMO that it did really well. Vanguard was better than WoW in some ways, but I don’t think anyone should hold it up to compare to anything else.

Bioware specializes in story, and came from making single player MMOs. It was always going to have a good story mode. Too bad the rest of the game fell so flat huh? Do you think Star Wars advertised or talked about anything besides stories before their game released?

Nike.2631:

Vayne.8563:

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story.

Weird… its like that entire year I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic before GW2 came out never happened. And I’m sure Bioware hadn’t been blathering about it for 5 years prior to that.

But you weren’t playing Star Wars 2 when the manifesto hit, or the year after that, or even most of the year after that. So Anet devoted less than 1 minute of time to tell you how Guild Wars 2 would different from other MMOs people were familiar with at that time and you think that’s somehow wrong?

I’m not even sure what to say about that.

ArchonWing.9480:

Ah, so all that cool stuff referred to the personal story.

That’s great. Where is this awesome personal story? I saw a pile of trash that was passing itself off as one in game, but I doubt anyone with any appreciation of art or gameplay would consider that more than 25% complete. I thought that was just Trahearne’s story?

This has nothing to do with whether you like or don’t like the personal story. That’s another issue entirely. People are saying the manifesto lied when it said certain things and to avoid misunderstanding at that time, Anet clarified it. Whether you like what they did or not is fine. I don’t care. What I do care about it people deliberately misinterpreting something to prove some sort of non-existent point.

You didn’t like the personal story. Okay. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s a personal story. And some people did like it.

My own experience is that personal stories were uneven. An no, I didn’t have the problems with Trahearne that most people did.

Nike.2631:

Vayne.8563:

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story.

Weird… its like that entire year I was playing Star Wars: The Old Republic before GW2 came out never happened. And I’m sure Bioware hadn’t been blathering about it for 5 years prior to that.

I’m relatively sure Guild Wars 2 planned their personal story as a feature at or around the time that SWToR was planning theirs. After all, it’s only a small step up from what Guild Wars did in Guild Wars 1. They even had a dungeon in Guild Wars 1 that changed based on which NPC you talked to to start it.

When the manifesto hit Guild Wars 2 already had planned their personal story. It was one of the things they planned early on, long before SWToR was talking about it.

And in reality it’s not a hard thing to come up with. Single player adventures games have existed for years. Saying that Star Wars would have a personal story when it came out a couple of years after the manifesto is no reason for Anet not to talk about it.

Anyway, the Star Wars personal story, better done though it probably is, still is meaningless. You can be good or bad in Star Wars but I’ve often heard the complaint that the personal story means absolutely nothing in that game.

TooBz.3065:

I think the problem is that people viewed the manifesto as a “mission statement” as opposed to a marketing document. In fact it was only a marketing document. And as such, it’s misleading.

Saying that bosses shouldn’t reappear every 10 minutes and then saying that only applies to story missions is like a store saying that it doesn’t price gouge because 10% of the goods are reasonably priced.

I’m not saying that bosses can or should have a long timer, because this is an MMO and frankly I don’t think that would work. But the simple fact remains that the statement, on it’s face, is misleading.

And there will be forum posts about it forever because of this.

Actually no, they never said the bosses wouldn’t appear every ten minutes in the open world. Giving people stuff to do > than being “realistic”.

No Walking.6349:

You all do know the manifesto was written over a year ago right? Funny that people keep forgetting that.

It’s about three years now.

milo.6942:

Spectre.6452:

Why not try to come up with solutions to make the combat in gw2 better rather than just telling everyone how shallow it is/comparing it to other games?

1. lots of people have already
2. they can refer to a little known game called “guild wars 1” maybe someone has played it?

Actually I don’t believe Guild Wars 1 had better combat that Guild Wars 2. It had better skill variety..but actual combat wasn’t as good in my opinion.

People confuse things like builds with combat…builds are builds and combat is combat. I wouldn’t want to give up either dodging or jumping. I wouldn’t want to have to stand still to cast. I’m not even very sad about giving up energy.

And of course, the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 made it completely impossible to balance over time. People say Guild Wars 2 is imbalanced, but it was nothing to what Guild Wars 1 became.

Raine.1394:

Danikat.8537:

Raine.1394:

Sadly, they have already broken faith around the platformers in-game. Originally they were to be optional content, there for those that like them, optional otherwise. This release of the LS they have even gated voting , an important element of impact on the world, behind a mini-game platformer. I don’t do platformers and am unable to vote. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Very sad.

Did you actually try it? Even once? Because getting up to the airship is not even remotely platforming. If you use the lightning crystal near where the elemental spawns you don’t even have to jump, you can do the entire thing never pushing more than 1 button at a time or using any kind of timing or aim.

That’s what platforming is here. Your skills are replaced by platforming skills and you use those to play a different game than the one you bought. What I object to is platforming taking over the core game, not how relatively hard or easy it is. When I play GW2 I want to play my character and his/her skills, not the skills of the month.

So you never use environmental weapons?

I pretty much agree with what you wrote.

The way I did it was to level to 80 first so I knew my profession, then took the profession as specced for PvE into PvP and kept changing it until I was viable. Because that’s the one advantage to PvP. Losing doesn’t cost you anything. Your armor doesn’t break. Waypoints are free.

So you can experiment.

But overall I think Anet needs to make SPvP more accessible…there should be a real training tutorial, that explains it all step by step.

And something like Zhaitan battles in Guild Wars 1 where you could practice PvPing against AI in solo arenas wouldn’t hurt either.

Gratz, OP. Don’t let the naysayers get you down. It’s quite the achievement.

Guardians aren’t particularly slow, though they are defensive. The problem is if you’re just offensive and not defensive in WvW you’re going to get eaten. You need defense in WvW.

Generally speaking right now, warriors are one of the better dungeon professions, along with guardians and mesmers. In WvW however, guardians, eles and mesmers are some of the best professions.

Rangers, and engineers are generally the least liked professions over all, even though if you play them really well, they can play anywhere…but many don’t play them well.

Don’t know if this helps or not but in spite of your reservations, I’d still try guardian.

Raine.1394:

Sadly, they have already broken faith around the platformers in-game. Originally they were to be optional content, there for those that like them, optional otherwise. This release of the LS they have even gated voting , an important element of impact on the world, behind a mini-game platformer. I don’t do platformers and am unable to vote. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Very sad.

I’m not sure why you’d be unable to vote. Even if you couldn’t get to the top, any mesmer could portal you there…in stages. Once you had the waypoint you could teleport up there and vote till your heart’s content.

It’s pretty easy as platforming goes anyway, but I think Anet put mesmers in the game specifically to help people who don’t platform.

Hell, I’d do it myself for you if you can guest over to TC.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

But when my integrity gets called into question, I defend that, because those who aren’t winding me up are still reading. This post was sort of to put the whole thing to bed.

Now, when someone says this information didn’t exist, I can show that it did.

When someone makes a claim, and makes that claim over and over, and then doen’t produce the evidence to back up that claim, people will call that person on it. You expected to be exempt from this?

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t bother me that some people target me, not even a little. I find it entertaining that they feel compelled to do so.

You still haven’t produced the actual clarification post – which is not, I feel obliged to point out, the same as saying such a post did not exist – just that you haven’t produced the actual clarification post. I’m sure many people here would prefer to read it for themselves, right here and right now, as opposed to sifting through what a few random people on some other site had to say about it way back when, or, more to the point, taking your word for what it does or does not clarify.

The post no longer exists…the entire old blog was migrated and some of the stuff never made it over. The posts were dated and when the new blog site went online, those posts didn’t appear. I can’t produce a post that doesn’t exist that I didn’t save, so people can want what they want. It’s not relevant.

I didn’t go back in time and create an old guru thread talking about a clarification. Any reasonable person will see from this that at that time that clarification existed and during that time, people talked about it, and it did in fact say what I said it say, certainly in regards to Ree talking about personal stories. If the clarification didn’t state that, then someone would have contradicted the people who said it.

I don’t have a time machine. I can’t time travel. If you want to believe that the clarification didn’t exist, that’s on you.

But it did exist and most reasonable people will accept the quote thread as evidence of it.

I never ask this, but at this point I feel compelled to do so: did you even read what I wrote?

I read exactly what you wrote.

I produced the only thing that I could find (without spending hours at my computer hunting it down), mostly to verify that it existed and to show that some of the stuff I said about it is actually mentioned in the comments.

What people want or don’t want isn’t really my problem. I don’t work for them. I

I found something that verified, at least circumstantially that what I said was true. People based on this can accept it or not, but I’m not willing to devote more time to the search.

In theory, if it’s not online, even if I had the original text from it, someone would just say I was making it up.

Araziel.7201:

Tachenon.5270:

Paulytnz.7619:

Umm I doubt very much that Peter Jackson would ever consider such a thing……

I am from NZ also and have seen some of his very early movies which were so low budget that you would think “why would you say that?” They were good movies but in all honestly he has moved on from those kinds of movies (low grade/budget) and let’s be honest GW hardly has the kind of following that LOTR ever had.

Lastly GW never really had a good story as in storyline wise. Mind you I haven’t really read any of the books but still…..lol

Doesn’t matter, Peter Jackson would butcher change the story anyway.

“If you want him, come and claim him!” said Arwen Warrior Princess, never.

Anyway, I’d watch a GW movie even if it was directed by… him.

Yeah! Where the hell was Glorfindel?!

It makes me happy that I’m not the only one asking that question.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

But when my integrity gets called into question, I defend that, because those who aren’t winding me up are still reading. This post was sort of to put the whole thing to bed.

Now, when someone says this information didn’t exist, I can show that it did.

When someone makes a claim, and makes that claim over and over, and then doen’t produce the evidence to back up that claim, people will call that person on it. You expected to be exempt from this?

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t bother me that some people target me, not even a little. I find it entertaining that they feel compelled to do so.

You still haven’t produced the actual clarification post – which is not, I feel obliged to point out, the same as saying such a post did not exist – just that you haven’t produced the actual clarification post. I’m sure many people here would prefer to read it for themselves, right here and right now, as opposed to sifting through what a few random people on some other site had to say about it way back when, or, more to the point, taking your word for what it does or does not clarify.

The post no longer exists…the entire old blog was migrated and some of the stuff never made it over. The posts were dated and when the new blog site went online, those posts didn’t appear. I can’t produce a post that doesn’t exist that I didn’t save, so people can want what they want. It’s not relevant.

I didn’t go back in time and create an old guru thread talking about a clarification. Any reasonable person will see from this that at that time that clarification existed and during that time, people talked about it, and it did in fact say what I said it say, certainly in regards to Ree talking about personal stories. If the clarification didn’t state that, then someone would have contradicted the people who said it.

I don’t have a time machine. I can’t time travel. If you want to believe that the clarification didn’t exist, that’s on you.

But it did exist and most reasonable people will accept the quote thread as evidence of it.

You know…I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a great MMO. MMOs tend to move between good and tragic.

I think Guild Wars 2 is a good game with some relatively big flaws. It’s also the best MMO for my specific play style.

I don’t think any MMO to date is something I’d consider great, but thanks to Guild Wars 2, I think they’re moving in the right direction…again to cater to people with my play style.

I think this game over time can be great, but whether that happens or not remains to be seen. In the mean time, I’ll enjoy it for what it is now, with the understanding that I’ve already gotten my money’s worth many many times over.

Gehenna.3625:

TheDaiBish.9735:

http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/anet-blog-mmo-manifesto-reactions/

Partial interview

TL:DR – When they were talking about bosses not returning 10 mins later, they were referring to Personal Story bosses.

Which makes their point pointless because there are plenty of other games out there where storyline bosses don’t respawn either. Somthing called instancing, which is how it’s done in GW2 and also in many other games. No wonder people read more into it since they were being all excited about an exciting new thing, which was in fact already commonplace in newer games.

It’s not pointless, you’re simply missing the point.

First of all we’re talking MMOs, not single player games. And when this was made, there was no MMO that gave you a PERSONAL story. What does that mean?

In WoW, a human warrior is a human warrior. All human warriors start in the same place and run through the same quests. You’re not a poor human warrior or a rich one. You don’t have a personal story. All MMOs have stories. Not all of them have YOUR story. It’s pretty simple.

The only other MMO I know that has a personal story is SWToR, and of course, that’s Bioware’s strong suit. MMOs, however, weren’t, as shown by the rapid decline of that game and half the staff being laid off.

The point is, when the manifesto was created, no MMO that was out had a personal story built into it. Anet had every reason to talk about it (whether you like the personal story or not).

tolunart.2095:

Vayne, people like to push others’ buttons and watch the fireworks that result. You have a big red button labeled “Manifesto is a lie” which people love to push because it always gets a reaction.

The people who do this already know everything you have told them – they’ve heard it time and again. It’s not that they don’t believe you, they just don’t care about what Anet devs said years ago vs. what has happened since. They just want to see you get upset.

When I see someone use the word “manifesto” in their statements, I know the person is either trolling or has already made their mind up about the issue and is not open to discussion. So I ignore the post because there simply is nothing that can be done except blindly agree “Anet bad” because that’s the only response he will accept.

If you enjoy arguing with a wall, then keep responding to people who have negative opinions regarding the manifesto. Otherwise, just let it go.

Oh, I’m well aware people are “winding me up” as we say downunder. And I don’t have a problem with it.

But when my integrity gets called into question, I defend that, because those who aren’t winding me up are still reading. This post was sort of to put the whole thing to bed.

Now, when someone says this information didn’t exist, I can show that it did.

It doesn’t bother me that some people target me, not even a little. I find it entertaining that they feel compelled to do so.

I felt I had to post this because people expressed doubt, said I was making stuff up, never posted a quote. I don’t really want to have to go back and research stuff that was around years ago. Because it’s all ridiculous anyway.

Two years in the life of development of a game is ages. Things WILL change. But the intent and wording of the manifesto….and everything Anet said around that time…I remember that stuff. It wasn’t one little document and a couple of paragraphs. There were months of conversations and clarifications and dialogue. They weren’t all called clarifications, but they all clarified.

Each time a new bit of information came out…it was analyzed to death. All this stuff people are questioning now was explained again and again. It’s easy to look back to 3 years ago and claim that document doesn’t mean what I say it means.

But it wasn’t just the document I depended on for my information. People didn’t believe me, so I took the time to find that thread, if nothing else.

Maybe people will stop saying that I’m inventing stuff now.

A few people have questioned my clarification of the manifesto. I found this thread about it in Guru. Now, the link to the clarification doesn’t work, but the comments about it are still there.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/5727-arenanet-mmo-manifesto-reactions-arenanet-blog/

This includes people talking about how Ree was talking about the personal story.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Vayne.8563:

Black Lion kits are in game already…and you can buy them with gold. You’ll be waiting forever if you wait for another kind of perfect salvage kit.

The BLSK isn’t perfect, using still breaks the item being stripped unlike the GW1 PSK, you know this Vayne.

Actually I didn’t remember. I haven’t used a perfect salvage kit in years.

That said, I don’t suspect we’ll ever see a perfect salvage kit in this game. In GW 1, there was always a chance to keep your item. In Guild Wars 2 there has never been a chance.

shedim.8504:

Vayne.8563:

shedim.8504:

Vayne.8563:

shedim.8504:

RedStar.4218:

How much are you actually going to save ? Even if it was a 100% reduction (doubt it will), what kind of traveling do you even do that will save you a few golds ? Do you like to WP back and forth from Rata Sum all the way to CoF ? Do you somehow manage to jump to every meta event multiple times a day ?

If I were to imagine that everyday I’d pay the same WP fee I did today, I would barely be near 2g…

Let’s assume you’re teleporting around for 1 gold/day. That’s still ~30 gold saved in a month, whereas the discount on keys is worthless to players who don’t want/need them. Quite honestly, it’s very stupid to implement a bonus that is free while the other requires you to invest real life money in order to benefit from it.

You don’t have to invest real life money since you can buy gems with gold.

Funny, I barely have any gold to spend and I am definitely not going to waste that little bit of gold on worthless keys.

Sure but other people have lots of gold. So if you’re poor, it doesn’t change the truth of my statement.

Yet Kiel’s bonus provides something for every player, regardless of their income, interests and how long they are playing ths game. Everybody is using the waypoint system but not everybody is willing to spend money on keys, especially with the rather underwhelming stuff you get from chests. Another tonic or crafting booster? Beach please!

Bonus for everybody>bonus for wealthy players.

I’d rather have the Abaddon fractal but the Charr’s bonus is just plain useless.

On the other hand if they switched the bonuses they were offering, Evon would have won FOR SURE. It’s still closer than you’d think…52 to 48.

I think that’s precisely what Anet was looking to do. Make people choose sides. Get people involved. If they made it so that both candidates had equal value other buffs but different fractals, they’d have failed in what they tried to do.

Just from listening to people, I’d say this was a successful gambit. And it could have gone either way.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

It’s not quite level grind. Colin as talked about, on more than one ocassion, how in most games you have to hit max level before you get to the fun stuff. In other words, you grind as fast as you can to get to max level to raid. You don’t do fun stuff till the top level. That’s what he’s talking about. That’s what I’ve said repeatedly. Your refusal to acknowledge not only that I’ve said this, but that Colin has, just shows how far you’re try to go to prove your point.

Like taking a line out of the original manifesto or a SINGLE WORD out of that article. This is an argument you’ve already lost. I don’t know why you can’t see it.

Take the dye system. You take that out of context too. Look at you pointing out that they changed the dye from account unlocked to single character unlocked. You know, that’s absolutely 100% true. But what you ignore, against taking it out of context, is the accompanying changes that made that dye collection far more of a grind in the first place. A dye seed, which you could only grow once per day, taken to an NPC in your home instance. And if you want to see more than one dye per day, you have to spend money on the cash shop on plant food. And the dyes were account locked but also couldn’t be sold on the trading post. Anet didn’t JUST change the dye to make it character bound, they changed the entire dye system and the new system is less greedy than the old one and makes it easier to get dyes.

I think maybe you should stop taking stuff out of context to try to prove points that are clearly not true.

It’s seems a bit delusional to defend the dye system being character bound. It’s obvious that it was changed to create a significantly larger gold sink. It doesn’t even matter if they left the old dye system, most people don’t want every single dye color, they just want to be able to easily preview every single color (whether they have it or not) and get the few ones they like. Now most people have to get the ones they like multiple times, once for each character.

Vayne, if it was so obvious that their only marketing intent when referring to grind was to communicate you don’t have to grind to get to the fun content, then why do we see new people continuing to pop up in threads (people I’m not familiar with bringing it up before either) referring to the manifesto with the understanding that people like Erasculio are communicating?

It’s because of a number of items, some of which Erasculio references, and the impressions ANet left on people from interviews and articles leading up to release. Telling us all the things we loved about Guild Wars would be in Guild Wars two, we loved grind only impacting Titles and Aesthetics, yet that’s not the case. How can people not understand that one of the biggest draws of Guild Wars was that there was no focus on vertical progression, the focus was on horizontal progression. Saying these things should have been understood by people, means we should have disregarded everything they gave us in Guild Wars and not trusted them. You’re saying people should have seen it coming that ANet was going to cater towards a very different crowd and not the market share they had. You’re saying we should have either A) understood they were going to abondon their previously ideologies or B ) understood they were going to use deceitful marketing involving the developers (who have the most insight into the game and were familiar with the previous game). But if this is not what you’re trying to say in any way at all, it sure comes across like it is.

The older dye system was far more greedy than the current one. They didn’t change one aspect of the system, they changed the entire system. They made it less greedy.

Anyone who says otherwise didn’t look at the whole picture. The way things were would have cost players a whole lot more real money or a whole lot more time.

Imagine having to wait 24 hours to see if you have a dye already, only to find out you do…and you can neither sell it, nor do anything else with it.

Yep…ain’t it great.

Why complain now when it’s changed on August 6th? We all know this is the case.

Black Lion kits are in game already…and you can buy them with gold. You’ll be waiting forever if you wait for another kind of perfect salvage kit.

shedim.8504:

Vayne.8563:

shedim.8504:

RedStar.4218:

How much are you actually going to save ? Even if it was a 100% reduction (doubt it will), what kind of traveling do you even do that will save you a few golds ? Do you like to WP back and forth from Rata Sum all the way to CoF ? Do you somehow manage to jump to every meta event multiple times a day ?

If I were to imagine that everyday I’d pay the same WP fee I did today, I would barely be near 2g…

Let’s assume you’re teleporting around for 1 gold/day. That’s still ~30 gold saved in a month, whereas the discount on keys is worthless to players who don’t want/need them. Quite honestly, it’s very stupid to implement a bonus that is free while the other requires you to invest real life money in order to benefit from it.

You don’t have to invest real life money since you can buy gems with gold.

Funny, I barely have any gold to spend and I am definitely not going to waste that little bit of gold on worthless keys.

Sure but other people have lots of gold. So if you’re poor, it doesn’t change the truth of my statement.

Nuka Cola.8520:

everything you hear from these devs lately is “limitation” of this thing and that thing. Having two sigils on two hand weapons makes perfect sense should have been this way since game launch.

Everything we here from you lately is a complaint about something the devs should be doing differently. I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard lots of things from devs that aren’t this. Maybe you’re just not listening carefully enough.

Grumpdogg.6910:

It’s exactly the same as release. If you hated the bugs the skill lag etc and left, then gg its the same now.

Though it will be interesting to see what the new changes to particle effects do to lag during the next patch. And there’s a whole lot fewer bugs.

Because there’s no room on the fullest servers and, due to WvW, Anet would have to close 3 servers at a time.

With guesting being free and easy there’s no real reason to merge servers. In fact, some things are more fun to guest to a less populated server to do.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Kiel is a flawed character. Its reminds me that saladhead called Treaharne.
I don’t understand why ppl vote for her but i guess they love virtual “chicks” bc its all they can touch. Poor guys

I voted for her because flawed or not, she’s honest. She wanted to give the treasure back to it’s rightful owners. That’s more in line with what my main characters want. Mind you I have one main character that is a Gnashblade supporter, but she’s more profit oriented.

Esplen.3940:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

So I’ll just go ahead and get this out of the way – if you play a game for 8+ hours day, lets face it…. even your friends would say you have no life. XD

Who said I have friends?

Of course, you can work for 8 hours a day at the most pointless job in creation but doing that for 8 hours a day means you have a life…go figure.

I have more of a life now playing this game for 8 hours a day, then I did when I worked in retail.

shedim.8504:

RedStar.4218:

How much are you actually going to save ? Even if it was a 100% reduction (doubt it will), what kind of traveling do you even do that will save you a few golds ? Do you like to WP back and forth from Rata Sum all the way to CoF ? Do you somehow manage to jump to every meta event multiple times a day ?

If I were to imagine that everyday I’d pay the same WP fee I did today, I would barely be near 2g…

Let’s assume you’re teleporting around for 1 gold/day. That’s still ~30 gold saved in a month, whereas the discount on keys is worthless to players who don’t want/need them. Quite honestly, it’s very stupid to implement a bonus that is free while the other requires you to invest real life money in order to benefit from it.

You don’t have to invest real life money since you can buy gems with gold.

Dgenerate.1948:

Tolmos.8395:

Dgenerate.1948:

So… Has the game gotten any better? It was pretty bad when I left. Way too casual and unrewarding. How’s the playerbase? I haven’t played since about 2-3 months out of release.

If by “casual and unrewarding” you mean “Not like WoW, lacking in raids and not based on vertical gear progression”, then the answer is that the game is still GW2 and has not become WoW yet. Sorry.

As for the playerbase- larger servers are pretty packed. I haven’t seem what the smaller ones look like but Tarnished Coast has a lot of zones that still push me into overflow.

Working towards better gear is a solid incentive for a player to keep wanting to play a game. It’s a big part of what made WoW, WoW. Not trying to make this a GW VS WoW discussion, but wanted to point that out.

To me GW2 was trying to sell an experience, which although beautiful, does not create enough interest for extremely competitive-minded players like me. Honestly when I played GW2, I got the same feeling I got when I play single player RPGs. I don’t know how to explain it, but I guess I liked the feeling of working towards being recognized for my efforts.

Working towards better gear works for a percentage of the playerbase and turns another percentage of the playerbase off completely. Akittens height, with very little MMO competition, WoW had 12.4 million subscribers…but that included Asia and the US and when you look at the number of gamers out there, by percentage it’s not that many.

Those who like that sort of thing liked WoW. If WoW had concentrated on other things it might have had 30 million subscribers. No one will ever know.

What we do know is that other games that copy that formula don’t seem to do very well.

I named a norn mule Strongbak Weakmynd…and gave him the rucksack from the event. He looks awesome. lol

Erasculio.2914:

Esplen.3940:

Vayne, you need to step back and read.

Indeed.

Vayne.8563:

The manifesto is beyond your ability to understand. Even if it was incorrect (and I don’t believe that it is) the ONLY way (and it is the only way) you can claim it’s a lie if if you can prove it wasn’t the INTENT of the devs.

As pointed out about a dozen times, a manifesto is a statement of intent. So if it was intended, then it can’t be a lie. You have zero proof that what was said in the manifesto wasn’t intended, therefore you have zero proof of a lie. Simple, plain English.

And you still ignore other quotes, such as when Anet has said directly there would be things to grind for. How do you account for ignoring that?

You have just answered yourself.

Ignoring the very forced delusion that ArenaNet would be talking about level grind (which is something they don’t mention even once in the video), and considering how the statement about avoiding grinding for rewards (in the written Manifesto) just makes it clear that the statement about avoiding grinding for the fun stuff (in the Manifesto vide) includes “fun” things like rewards…

We see that ArenaNet changed their minds. They changed dungeons from a system in which a single run through a single path would give us an armor piece into a system in which a single run gives only some of the tokens required for an armor piece; so if you wanta full set of AC armor, be ready to kill the Spider Queen 23 times.

They changed dyes from an account bound system into a character based system, while asking the person responsible for the GW2 monetization to tell us about that.

They changed the recipe for Legendaries, adding the need for more or less 500 Globs of Ectoplasm, not to mention thousands of other crafting materials.

So yes, ArenaNet changed their minds. They chose to go back on the “We don’t want players to grind” philosophy and just add grind anyway. Using your words, they changed their intent.

And kept the Manifesto right there. Around release, the Manifesto was in the GW2 homepage. They have deleted many of the old blog entries, but they have kept the written Manifesto.

In other words, ArenaNet changed their original intent, while still making sure new players would see the Manifesto, which shows said original intent. Effectively, they lied.

Simple, plain English, Vayne. Can’t get much more obvious than that.

It’s not quite level grind. Colin as talked about, on more than one ocassion, how in most games you have to hit max level before you get to the fun stuff. In other words, you grind as fast as you can to get to max level to raid. You don’t do fun stuff till the top level. That’s what he’s talking about. That’s what I’ve said repeatedly. Your refusal to acknowledge not only that I’ve said this, but that Colin has, just shows how far you’re try to go to prove your point.

Like taking a line out of the original manifesto or a SINGLE WORD out of that article. This is an argument you’ve already lost. I don’t know why you can’t see it.

Take the dye system. You take that out of context too. Look at you pointing out that they changed the dye from account unlocked to single character unlocked. You know, that’s absolutely 100% true. But what you ignore, against taking it out of context, is the accompanying changes that made that dye collection far more of a grind in the first place. A dye seed, which you could only grow once per day, taken to an NPC in your home instance. And if you want to see more than one dye per day, you have to spend money on the cash shop on plant food. And the dyes were account locked but also couldn’t be sold on the trading post. Anet didn’t JUST change the dye to make it character bound, they changed the entire dye system and the new system is less greedy than the old one and makes it easier to get dyes.

I think maybe you should stop taking stuff out of context to try to prove points that are clearly not true.

Tolmos.8395:

Vayne.8563:

All you’ve done here is show me exactly the type of person who doesn’t like this game.

… I… What is this I don’t even… what?

You’re saying that anyone who doesn’t like GW2 is the type of person who would afk for achievements and otherwise be a kitten to their group?

Out of the 100,000,000+ PC gamers in the world, only the 1.5-2 mil or so playing this game aren’t total jerks?

Me thinks that sentence didn’t come out how you intended it =D

What I’m saying is that if the OP is going to be that kind of person, I don’t care that he doesn’t like the game. Clearly there are some fine and intelligent people who don’t like this game. I know some of them.

But the OP himself has stated he doesn’t like the game, and he does like to cheat. So what I’m saying is I’m glad he doesn’t like the game and I’d be happy to recommend some other game to him if it helps.

Yeah it’s 3 am, it didn’t come out quite right. lol