Guild Wars 2

I think the point is for it to be gradual. It’s not supposed to be get 2 goal every week from achievements. It’s supposed to represent milestones.

And let’s not forget, there’s a living story every 2 weeks that usually gives plenty of opportunties for achievements.

The whole concept of achievement, even the word, is supposed to mean you achieve something. Most of the achievements are already relatively easy…and those longer term ones are necessary to give goals to people who actually want to play the game more.

Working as intended.

If you don’t want ugly backpacks on your back, don’t play an Engineer. Kits are the professions class mechanic and in all honestly if you don’t use kits, you’re gimping yourself so badly it’s not worth rolling.

It really is that simple.

Saelune.5316:

laokoko.7403:

Ratty.5176:

I don’t think you need to go full melee to be effective as a Ranger

You don’t. But the problem is people still get the mentality ranger use bow and longbow.

If I’m a warrior or thief I get frawned on if I use range weapon. But most people don’t have a problem with ranger using bow.

If people just think that melee = high risk more damage. Range = lower risk less damage. It is much easier to understand why ranger is design that way.

Something about -range-r that screams ranged weapons. I mostly use bows on my ranger cause I liek keeping my distance, and they arent bad in a rangers hand. I prefer having a range and a close up weapon set on my classes. Longbow obviously fits the range side, but I often use shortbow as my close up, since it seems to serve me better than their other melee choices.

Rangers aren’t rangers because of their weapon choice. They’re rangers because of their desire to “range”. To travel from place to place. You know, home, home on the range.

All fantasy RPGs are descendents of D&D which itself descended from The Lord of the Rings.

Aragorn in LotR is a ranger, and he uses a sword, not a bow. He and his people simply live in the wilds and they’re called rangers, just like a park ranger is a person who supervises a certain range.

I don’t know about you, but the bomb kit definitely qualifies as a melee weapon to me. It’s point blank AOE and very effective.

It’s not bad for rangers who aren’t massively competitive players who want to run every dungeon as fast as it can be run.

For people in casual guilds like mine, we have plenty of rangers who do just fine.

It’s not that rangers are “bad” it’s that they do less damage than other professions without some of the advantages of other professions.

If you don’t pug and you’re playing in a guild with like minded people it will matter a whole lot less than if you’re trying to pug with speed run groups.

If he deletes every single character and starts over he can choose a new server for free.

He can even put non-soul bound stuff and money in his bank, so he can take it out on a new character.

Is Guild Wars 2 a different game than Guild Wars 1….the answer isn’t that simple.

Try to put yourself in this place. There are people here who played Guild Wars 1 for years. In that game we were RICH. We had the best of everything. The best armor in the game (visually), the best weapons, the rarest minis, the best everlasting tonics, the best titles. We could go anywhere and do anything. This was the game we played.

Then Anet annouced an expansion called Utopia. And Utopia was going to be a Guild Wars 1 expansion. But as Anet discussed their options, they realized a lot of the things they wanted to do couldn’t be done with the old engine. They had all sorts of ideas. They learned all sorts of lessons. And they wanted something better.

So they decided to scrap Utopia and they decided to come out with Guild Wars 2…not because it was a different game. But to update the existing game. I know this because Anet said so.

So they came to us, fans who’d been playing their game loyally for five years and they said, okay guys, we’re not going to expand this game anymore. We know you like it, but we think we can do better.

They asked Guild Wars 1 players, who were rich, who had unlocked every skill, who had vanquished every area of the world to bear with them, while they created something new.

And every long term Guild Wars 1 player had to deal with the concept of starting over. This is what we had. The same gold, the same karma the same inventory space as everyone else who was starting….and this was our expansion…or it replaced it. Because of this game, we didn’t get major updates. Since Guild Wars 2 was annouced, we had a handful of new content releases, many of them okay but nothing to write home about. They all took place in existing zones. They got progressive more meh.

Because we were asked to transfer our allegience (but not our gold or possessions to this game). Anet didn’t want people coming to the game to feel disadvantaged, so they limited the rewards to basically cosmetic items. Pet skins, weapon skins, minipets but no real advantage. In fact, many rangers were disadvantaged because two of the hall of monuments pets were bugged and were weaker than their in world counterparts for most of this game’s lifespan. It was only fixed a couple of months ago.

So here we are, giving up everything we’ve accumulated to play this new game, which replaced our expansion. And it IS a new game…but it’s also our promised expansion because no expansion for the game we were playing was going to come out and no new content is forthcoming either. We could have had two, maybe three expansions in the time that it took this game to come out and many many people would have preferred that.

We all started over and got a bunch of skins. Of the HoM skins, I like a handful of them…and the mini pets and the ranger skins….oh yeah and I got 50 achievement points. That’s it. For all the stuff I was giving up to come here, including expansions and all the stuff I’d accumulated, I got some skins and a few points.

Is this really an issue worth fighting about? Did I gain more or lose more?

Guilds are the best way to find people to play with. My guild runs stuff like that relatively regularly.

Guilds are definitely the best bet. Joining a guild can help a lot of Guild Wars 2. Not just because you’ll have people to help you, but also because Guild Missions can be entertaining and provide you with rewards that are otherwise quite a bit harder to get.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tolkien is probably rolling over in his grave.

The jumping puzzle scene in Moria in the movie version of The Fellowship of the Ring probably has him doing triple salchows. Not to mention the dwarf tossing. Hey, we have dwarves!

Anyway, I don’t mind the jumping puzzles here and have done them all without mesmer assistance except for Stepping Stones (not gonna happen) and the holiday puzzles. Oh, and two of the ‘triplets’ in WvW, and I believe one should count for all three there.

Funny, looking back on my time aboard the TORtanic, the ‘jumping puzzle’ -esque stuff there is one of the things I remember most fondly, although they did from time to time evoke some colorful metaphors. The stories weren’t all that bad. Better, in my opinion, than the prequels.

I didn’t play ToR, but I’d have to assume any game by Bioware would have to have a relatively good story. However that story is completely divorced from the rest of them MMO…from what I understand…almost an entirely separate entity.

Much like the personal story in Guild Wars 2 being completely separate from everything else in the game.

Compare that with playing a game like Dragon Age or Skyrim.

There’s a world of difference.

AmidimA.2795:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Removing-JP-or-make-them-optional

I’m not the only one that has this sentiment.

Not the only one doesn’t make you the majority.

I can show you how many people dislike PvP from many threads…should Anet not put more PvP into the game?

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

I agree, in a lot of mmo’s the story is lacking. It was one of the ways that I was hoping that GW2 would step out of the box, considering it’s legacy.

Have to wait and see what the future holds.

The problem is that Guild Wars 1 was completely instanced, where as Guild Wars 2 is mostly open world…and it’s much harder to “tell a story” in the open world.

In GW 1, every time you walk out into the world it’s your instance. It isn’t there for 100 players all at different places in their personal story. In Guild Wars 1, your missions were coordinated with what was going on in the open world. That’s just not possible here.

Before this game ever came out, I knew it would truly be able to be story driven. The personal story was always going to be an aside to the living world.

I don’t know. It may be nostalgia, but I have seen MMO’s tie the story into why I am doing things better than it is implemented here.

And I don’t think having a strong story in GW2 is any more impossible than not having the tank/heal/dps trinity.

I don’t remember any particular great story in any MMO. Even Lotro, based on Tolkien, the story they gave you sorta sucked. It was quite silly in many places. Tolkien is probably rolling over in his grave.

In WoW, the stories were either basic, cliche, or stupid….at least to me. I never really understood why I was doing what I was doing.

Rift started very strong…I loved how it began but each zone had a different separate story, with no real feel of continuity between them.

Aion has story…but the story was an excuse for Factions. The actual story itself was pretty weak.

TSW again the story is an excuse for them to put weird stuff in the world.

Nope, I can’t remember any MMO with a “story”. There were MMOs that had quest lines that had stories, though. Sort of like the event chains in Hirathi Hinterlands or Straits of Devastation.

killcannon.2576:

I agree, in a lot of mmo’s the story is lacking. It was one of the ways that I was hoping that GW2 would step out of the box, considering it’s legacy.

Have to wait and see what the future holds.

The problem is that Guild Wars 1 was completely instanced, where as Guild Wars 2 is mostly open world…and it’s much harder to “tell a story” in the open world.

In GW 1, every time you walk out into the world it’s your instance. It isn’t there for 100 players all at different places in their personal story. In Guild Wars 1, your missions were coordinated with what was going on in the open world. That’s just not possible here.

Before this game ever came out, I knew it would truly be able to be story driven. The personal story was always going to be an aside to the living world.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Good to see almost everyone is negative about their crappy ‘waste of new content’ jumping puzzles and only a couple of fanboys who will consider anything delivered by anet as 2nd coming of jesus appreciating their jumping puzzles. Hopefully they see this thread and start delivering the rpg element of this game instead of yet another mini this and that… How is it that in close to a year we received only one significant thing, fractals? Stop adding goofy crap and give me the reason to log in!!! adding a flute to gem store isn’t one…

Almost everyone isn’t negative about this content. Just a few people who suck at it…and that’s pretty much okay. Not all content will be for everyone.

On the other hand, anyone who claims you must be a fan boy to like something obviously has an agenda of their own.

The more you say stuff like this, the less credibility you bring to bear on any topic. Most reasonable people would dismiss this kind of prejudice..and it is prejudice. You’re basically saying anyone who likes a jumping puzzle must be a fan boy. There’s zero basis for this kind of statement.

I don’t suck at it, and it still niche. Seems a bit of a reach to say just because someone doesn’t like content they suck at it.

snip

It’s the same with the meta boss fights, that content isn’t popular either, not to say it can’t be fun. But it’s being done by the majority for the chests.

There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be in game, but the content releases seem to have a lot more focus on these kind of niche areas than with what makes a RPG strong.

Story/Combat/Character development will always be the core content of an MMORPG. These are the things which are the core experience, and these are the things that have been lacking.

More jump puzzles than strong instanced content? I think that points out a weakness in the devs content development.

Story in MMOs has always been excuses for what you’re doing. MMOS are about killing and collecting and always have been. What do the stories give you? A reason to do those things…nothing more.

All Anet has done is made the killing and collecting part of the game and added jumping to it. And a lot of people like it. Not a few…a lot. Sure it’s niche..the whole game seems niche to me.

But what does that mean?

I think you’ll find that there’s just as large a percentage of people who enjoy jumping puzzles as there are who enjoy dungeons.

It’s just my guess, but I’d wager it’s true.

It’s possible, I can’t say it’s not.

I’m not sure I agree that story is the excuse for why I do the things I do in game. I would like to see the story be the driving force and everything else flows naturally into it.

If there were story bits hidden inside jumping puzzle (there is some, but nowhere near enough), or at the ends, it would make them much more compelling. As they stand currently, the puzzles sorta stand outside of the core experience and not tied into it.

I fight to see the next bit of story, to get to the next plot line, to see what is in store for character X/Y/ or Z. Story is a bit lacking in this game because I often feel I am fighting…just because I’m fighting. More things need to be tied together into lore and story progression.

More people would enjoy the JP’s if they were tied more fully into the game instead of just feeling like tacked on content. It was the same with SAB, it just felt tacked on, not an actual part of the world. Why not tie these content releases into the overarching story lines? Why not when finishing JP’s you are shooting for continuing the story or plot progression? Instead you just have an instance (a decent instance) outside of any other part of the game, not tied to anything, no plot, no story, no reason to do it outside of the achieve and the box at the end and the challenge.

Sometimes the game can feel like a big box of parts without any coherent whole.

See, I’d agree with you in a first person RPG that the story is what drive the game, but not in an MMO. In MMOs, no matter what I’ve seen, the story is a series of reasons to explain why you have to kill this, why you have to go here, and why you need to collect ten of these plants. It’s not idea. It’s not my preference. It’s simply my experience.

Even in games like Tomb Raider, the story is just an excuse for where you have to jump through next. Without the jumping, the story wouldn’t be enough for me to bother with.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Good to see almost everyone is negative about their crappy ‘waste of new content’ jumping puzzles and only a couple of fanboys who will consider anything delivered by anet as 2nd coming of jesus appreciating their jumping puzzles. Hopefully they see this thread and start delivering the rpg element of this game instead of yet another mini this and that… How is it that in close to a year we received only one significant thing, fractals? Stop adding goofy crap and give me the reason to log in!!! adding a flute to gem store isn’t one…

Almost everyone isn’t negative about this content. Just a few people who suck at it…and that’s pretty much okay. Not all content will be for everyone.

On the other hand, anyone who claims you must be a fan boy to like something obviously has an agenda of their own.

The more you say stuff like this, the less credibility you bring to bear on any topic. Most reasonable people would dismiss this kind of prejudice..and it is prejudice. You’re basically saying anyone who likes a jumping puzzle must be a fan boy. There’s zero basis for this kind of statement.

I don’t suck at it, and it still niche. Seems a bit of a reach to say just because someone doesn’t like content they suck at it.

It’s a good thing it’s in the game, because it gives more people more things to do, and occasionally everyone likes to step outside the box and do something a little different. They are done for the reward (achieves for LS or chests with exo’s or daily/monthly), not because everyone likes them. All you have to do to see the truth of that is look for the amount of Mesmers offering ports.

It’s the same with the meta boss fights, that content isn’t popular either, not to say it can’t be fun. But it’s being done by the majority for the chests.

There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be in game, but the content releases seem to have a lot more focus on these kind of niche areas than with what makes a RPG strong.

Story/Combat/Character development will always be the core content of an MMORPG. These are the things which are the core experience, and these are the things that have been lacking.

More jump puzzles than strong instanced content? I think that points out a weakness in the devs content development.

Story in MMOs has always been excuses for what you’re doing. MMOS are about killing and collecting and always have been. What do the stories give you? A reason to do those things…nothing more.

All Anet has done is made the killing and collecting part of the game and added jumping to it. And a lot of people like it. Not a few…a lot. Sure it’s niche..the whole game seems niche to me.

But what does that mean?

I think you’ll find that there’s just as large a percentage of people who enjoy jumping puzzles as there are who enjoy dungeons.

It’s just my guess, but I’d wager it’s true.

I agree, you need a lot of luck to beat him. I beat him without any buffs or cheats at all but it took ages. I wouldn’t recommend it for those easily frustrated.

I’m not a big fan of the drinking game…even though I liked polymock in Guild Wars 1. Not sure why, because they’re sort of similar.

Chuo.4238:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Good to see almost everyone is negative about their crappy ‘waste of new content’ jumping puzzles and only a couple of fanboys who will consider anything delivered by anet as 2nd coming of jesus appreciating their jumping puzzles. Hopefully they see this thread and start delivering the rpg element of this game instead of yet another mini this and that… How is it that in close to a year we received only one significant thing, fractals? Stop adding goofy crap and give me the reason to log in!!! adding a flute to gem store isn’t one…

I tend to agree. I stopped playing for the better part of 5 months…came back a few weeks ago…started to enjoy the Four Winds content right up until the jumping nighmare…and then got hit with a “Coming Up in 2013” announcement that looked pretty good until you see the Ascended Gear grind buried in it.

Back to what I was doing. Maybe in a year, ArenaNet, if you’ve figured it out yet.

Of course, it’s starting to look like I’ll have simply missed a bunch of temporary, vapid content, and be so far behind on the tier gear and achievement grinds that there’ll be no point in logging in then, either.

I don’t know, seems to me a whole lot of people are enjoying this content. It’s okay for you not to be one of them,. but that doesn’t make the content “vapid”.

And Anet hasn’t “hidden” the ascended armor in a post. They talked about it as one of the things coming out. And since they said ascended gear would be coming out ages ago, I don’t know why you think this is suddenly some secret being hidden (in an open post in their blog).

Nuka Cola.8520:

Good to see almost everyone is negative about their crappy ‘waste of new content’ jumping puzzles and only a couple of fanboys who will consider anything delivered by anet as 2nd coming of jesus appreciating their jumping puzzles. Hopefully they see this thread and start delivering the rpg element of this game instead of yet another mini this and that… How is it that in close to a year we received only one significant thing, fractals? Stop adding goofy crap and give me the reason to log in!!! adding a flute to gem store isn’t one…

Almost everyone isn’t negative about this content. Just a few people who suck at it…and that’s pretty much okay. Not all content will be for everyone.

On the other hand, anyone who claims you must be a fan boy to like something obviously has an agenda of their own.

The more you say stuff like this, the less credibility you bring to bear on any topic. Most reasonable people would dismiss this kind of prejudice..and it is prejudice. You’re basically saying anyone who likes a jumping puzzle must be a fan boy. There’s zero basis for this kind of statement.

And it’s free to guest to another server. If your server isn’t busy find one that is. It’s simple.

Lankybrit.4598:

Vayne.8563:

Lankybrit.4598:

Vayne.8563:

What’s the reason for lockouts? Slowing people down. And of course the rep grind, 25 daily quests, they want you slowed down.

Guild Wars 2 dailies are NOTHING compared to WoW dailies.

To be fair. You don’t need to do any dailies to gear up in 5.3, and they’re completely removing the rep requirements from gear in 5.4 So, I think even Blizz sees that these dailies were a bad idea.

Cheers.

How many years did it take them to do this?

Does it matter? Your point is fine. WoW is a gear grind, and they want you to take your sweet time getting that gear. They add new content all the time that gives you new ways to get the gear, and new gear to get. It’s a treadmill, granted. GW2 is totally different.

But to get back to the point of the thread, isn’t it kind of sad that it looks like no more levels and no more zones for GW2?

Cheers.

I don’t know why you think it will be no more zones. Not sure about levels either, but I sure hope there are no more levels.

Lankybrit.4598:

Vayne.8563:

What’s the reason for lockouts? Slowing people down. And of course the rep grind, 25 daily quests, they want you slowed down.

Guild Wars 2 dailies are NOTHING compared to WoW dailies.

To be fair. You don’t need to do any dailies to gear up in 5.3, and they’re completely removing the rep requirements from gear in 5.4 So, I think even Blizz sees that these dailies were a bad idea.

Cheers.

How many years did it take them to do this?

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Vayne.8563:

Galen Grey.4709:

morrolan.9608:

Devata.6589:

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I don’t buy it. You can’t compare flight paths with map travel for speed. In WoW when you craft 100 of something it takes six years. You might want to go make a snack. In Guild Wars 2, when you craft multiples of something, it speeds up. Guild Wars 2 is particularly fast to get to max level and max gear, except for ascended trinkets, but that doesn’t lock you out of content. That’s what all the subscription games tend to do. It’s what the gear treadmill is all about.

People complain about the dailies in this game…I guess they never saw the WoW dailies. I honestly don’t see how you can compare.

The craft time in WoW is just based on 1 item takes x time. Don’t tell me they just do that so it takes you longer. GW2 was very smart and reduces that with every try. It’s simply not something Blizzard did think of and I would not be surprised if they would introduce that in a future patch.

“You can’t compare flight paths with map travel for speed.” Not sure what you want to say with this. You did say flight paths where there so everything would take you longer didn’t you? I think they are there because it makes more sense as teleporting all over the map (more immersive) and so you get the feeling of a big world.

“Guild Wars 2 is particularly fast to get to max level and max gear” that part is true however personally I think the leveling is a little boring for alts. Kill x attacking centaur to scare them away, collect x that, find x samples. In other games many of the quest where similar but you could also go for the quest that had more of a story and usually they even gave you more xp. To make the leveling more fun in GW2 that would not be a bad addition. But indeed purely looking at the time it takes less time to get to 80 and some exotic lvl 80 gear (at least for the first char, alt chars tent to go faster then the first char in other MMO’s while in GW2 they all have the same speed).

The first time you do flight paths, they’re awesome. The second time to. By the 75th time you do the same flight path, there’s nothing awesome about them. They’re time wasters. And if you don’t believe they were put in for that way, there’s nothing much I can say.

Particularly when you have to take multiple flights to get somewhere. It’s just there to slow you down. The leveling takes a long time to slow you down. Everything takes time to slow you down.

It’s funny to me that you believe that everything in a cash shop game is designed to take you to the cash shop, but everything in a pay to play game isn’t designed to keep you playing longer. WoW is a business. They designed the game to keep you playing. Part of that is by intentionally making it addictive and part of it is by slowing you down (historically things like lockouts). I played Guild Wars 1 and I never heard of a lockout on dungeon there. And while Guild Wars 2 does have diminishing returns on tokens, that’s just for dungeon armor. You can still run dungeons (CoF path 1 anyone) whenever you want.

What’s the reason for lockouts? Slowing people down. And of course the rep grind, 25 daily quests, they want you slowed down.

Guild Wars 2 dailies are NOTHING compared to WoW dailies.

And it’s funny to me how you keep making things up. I did not say everything in a pay to play game isn’t designed to keep you playing longer. I already agreed leveling takes longer and that is most likely to keep you busy longer. But your flight path example is just hmm.

You know.. if they did not put them in traveling took even longer. Just saying.

And if they put more portals or waypoints in traveling would be faster. These companies do nothing by accident. Not Anet and not Blizzard. If it’s in there, it’s in there because somehow they think it’s better. Flight paths take longer, and keep people playing longer than fast travel.

Getting faster mounts you have to grind for, also keeps people playing. You wouldn’t really have to grind for faster mounts if you could instantly be anywhere.

You can say my example is meh, but you weren’t present when the game was being designed and I wasn’t either. I’m relatively sure that every element they put into that game is based on the idea that they want people logged in for longer amounts of time.

I think you need to have an entirely different mindset to play Guild Wars 2, both if you’re coming from standard MMO and if you’re coming from Guild Wars 1.

Guild Wars 1 did much better at telling the big stories, and did much better at attaching your to your characters. I don’t find myself nearly as attached to my characters in Guild Wars 2.

But then, an instanced game is ALWAYS better at telling a story than the open world.

In Guild War 1, because it was instanced, everything you did was sort of aligned with the missions. You were fighting charr in the missions and you were fighting charr in the world. When you passed that area, your missions were with stone summit dwarves and your quests felt like part of the same thing.

But there’s a big disconnect in Guild Wars 2 between the personal story and the open world, as there’d have to be. There are so many personal stories (not just one mission) and the open world is for everyone. So it’s not going to have the same feeling.

However, Guild Wars 1 was pathed and you couldn’t just wander around. You’d see a log and you’ve have to turn back because you couldn’t jump over it. If I were you, OP, I’d turn off my map markers from the map screen and try playing the game without them. Just wander around and really experience the world, without worrying about where the next POI or skill challenge is. Explore the world as if you were in the world.

It drastically changes how you play the game.

XxTAFxX.6741:

Algreg.3629:

wow, condition removers are pvp skills, that is like… an exotic assessment.

Yes,i only use condition removers if i’m in pvp or wvw or maybe dungeons( i hardly do dungeons anyway)
As using a condition remover in pve can and does mess my dmg for a useless skill in pve tbh,and can take away a minion i would otherwise need.

As for curse shore,it’s not about the chests many ppl farmed the shelter or plinx ect.
They have all been nerfed to the point where no one does them.
It would be better to put it back to how it was and get the ppl back in.
End game area where no one wants to be just shows how badly they have nerfed it and messed it up.

I’m sorta glad they messed it up. Before they did, a bunch of people sat in one zone running back and forth and doing nothing else. There were two problems with this.

One, it took people away from everything else, and more importantly, it ruined the experience for people who were playing the game as I believe Anet intended it to be played.

I mean think about it. The whole personal story led up to Orr. You’re deep in Zhaitan’s territory. There are no hearts here, just undead, everywhere you look. It’s an end game zone, after all.

And then you hit that part of Cursed Shore where if you don’t have the right build or use the right weapon, you can’t even tag mobs before they’re dead. This isn’t Zhaitan’s hidden sanctum, it’s a shooting gallery for plastic ducks.

I’m sure some changes need to be made to Orr, but I really hope they never put it back to what it was.

Celeras.4980:

There’s a difference between a gear treadmill, and not being able to get the best gear within 30 seconds of hitting 80. GW2 launched with the latter, and I’m glad A.net realized it wasn’t going to cut it.

Ascended is what exotic SHOULD have been at launch; an easily accessible and mildly time gated set, but something that isn’t just handed out. Cosmetics are still supreme, as they should be.

Great decision on their part to recognize the problem so early after launch, and I’m excited for the rollout to continue to all slots.

I understand why Anet did it, but I’m still not sure it was the right decision.

Some of Anet’s staunchest supporters walked away over the release of ascended gear and many of them have not returned.

Shifty.5187:

Vayne.8563:

It affected a few skills that were arguably the most powerful in the game, some of which were required for builds that people asked for to do the hardest content in Guild Wars 1. This is my point.

By comparison, the work we need to put into to get ascended gear is negligible. And the difference in power, at least so far, isn’t nearly as great.

The difference in power comes from the basic skill itself, not the power added through the title tiers. I never maxed those but I clearly noticed the incredible power of say, Pain Inverter.

Anyway, it’s BAD, and it’s worse when it applies to something like armor, which you need in almost every aspect of the game. I feel bad when my gear is not BiS, and in Guild Wars 1, my gear was nearly always BiS.

True to some degree of pain inverter, not so much true for technobabble and specifically for Save Yourselves, which was, as I’ve said, pretty much a required skill for DOA.

Also if you never saw people spamming chat for R8 ursans, you weren’t playing that much. And I’m pretty sure the permasin build didn’t work with that Sunspear skill at lower levels.

HiddenNick.7206:

Vayne.8563:

A friend of mine used to play Rift, but he had a job and all. Used to raid with his guild. Everything was cool. Then the new expansion came out but he was busy for a month with work. Couldn’t play much. So his entire guild is onto the new content, where he still had to grind the gear he needed to be able to play with them. It wasn’t much fun grinding alone, and by the time he got to where they were, they’d be working on the next tier of gear. He stopped playing Rift because of this.

So what? I know people who stopped playing because they already have their exotics.

Vayne.8563:

Right now, anyone in my guild can do any dungeon with anyone else in my guild (exception is high level fractals). But any other dungeon in the game is open season. Even people gone six months and come in and play with us no problem.

But why do want to even go to that dungeon again if you already have everything you can get there?

Farming lodestones, helping guildies, in Guild Wars 1 you could try for a specific drop (something they should put into GW 2 in my opinion), just because you enjoy the dungeon (I can’t tell you how many times I ran Bogroots Growths in Guild Wars 1)….there are many reasons to run a dungeon besides just tokens.

And diminishing returns doesn’t mean you get no tokens, it means you get less tokens.

And contrary to popular belief, some people run dungeons for fun. There’s a woman in my guild who runs HoTW all the time. She enjoys it. She already has 2000 tokens, and she STILL runs it.

Not everyone plays only for rewards.

Galtrix.7369:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

PVStar.3658:

One of the biggest issues in GW1 was character development/progress. There was none. This is what happens when you add that.

It wasn’t an issue in GW1. The fact that it didn’t exist in GW1 worked extremely well because it diverted the focus to the actual content and the actual story. I’m not saying GW2 shouldn’t have vertical progression though, different game targeted at a different market. I <3 both, but in all seriousness if you insult GW1 I will eat you

+5000

If Guild Wars 2 was half the game Guild Wars 1 was…. I would play a lot more than once every week. You actually got immersed in the story and got extremely excited when you completed something difficult. In GW2 though, you only need sheer numbers to overcome obstacles instead of coming up with your own build and seeing what works. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I killed Zhaitan with a freakin cannon when I had defeated Abaddon about a month before with my bare hands and a build that I had made and was proud of.

If Guild Wars 1 was half the game Guild Wars 2 is, more people might still be playing it.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Vayne.8563:

Galen Grey.4709:

morrolan.9608:

Devata.6589:

..

….

…..

……

………

…….
snip

You left out one thing. Everything about subscription games that I’ve seen leads to slowing you down. Lockouts, RNG loot in dungeons so you have to run them umpteen times to get gear that you need to progress, flight paths, long amount of time crafting, long waits to level, that sort of thing.

If F2P games push you toward the cash shop, subscription games push you to play longer and slower.

In my opinion all mmo’s do that. Including GW2 and the F2P games.

Flight paths I think are more to make the game more immersive and show the size of the world. Lets face it.. teleporting all over the map is not the most immersive thing in GW2 and it makes the world much smaller.

About the rng loot in dungeons, usually you don’t ‘need’ that loot to go on, it is a nice to have, many times it are even mini’s or mounts. Sometimes the armor gives you a little bit extra power but not so much that you need it to go on. In GW2 you also need to do multiple runs to get your set from one dungeon (thats a nice to have) they just don’t have rare items drop from dungeons (I mean like the one we did have in MF and AR). In fact it could use some more rare drop from dungeons and mobs. It’s one part of the end-content many people are missing.

I don’t buy it. You can’t compare flight paths with map travel for speed. In WoW when you craft 100 of something it takes six years. You might want to go make a snack. In Guild Wars 2, when you craft multiples of something, it speeds up. Guild Wars 2 is particularly fast to get to max level and max gear, except for ascended trinkets, but that doesn’t lock you out of content. That’s what all the subscription games tend to do. It’s what the gear treadmill is all about.

People complain about the dailies in this game…I guess they never saw the WoW dailies. I honestly don’t see how you can compare.

The craft time in WoW is just based on 1 item takes x time. Don’t tell me they just do that so it takes you longer. GW2 was very smart and reduces that with every try. It’s simply not something Blizzard did think of and I would not be surprised if they would introduce that in a future patch.

“You can’t compare flight paths with map travel for speed.” Not sure what you want to say with this. You did say flight paths where there so everything would take you longer didn’t you? I think they are there because it makes more sense as teleporting all over the map (more immersive) and so you get the feeling of a big world.

“Guild Wars 2 is particularly fast to get to max level and max gear” that part is true however personally I think the leveling is a little boring for alts. Kill x attacking centaur to scare them away, collect x that, find x samples. In other games many of the quest where similar but you could also go for the quest that had more of a story and usually they even gave you more xp. To make the leveling more fun in GW2 that would not be a bad addition. But indeed purely looking at the time it takes less time to get to 80 and some exotic lvl 80 gear (at least for the first char, alt chars tent to go faster then the first char in other MMO’s while in GW2 they all have the same speed).

The first time you do flight paths, they’re awesome. The second time to. By the 75th time you do the same flight path, there’s nothing awesome about them. They’re time wasters. And if you don’t believe they were put in for that way, there’s nothing much I can say.

Particularly when you have to take multiple flights to get somewhere. It’s just there to slow you down. The leveling takes a long time to slow you down. Everything takes time to slow you down.

It’s funny to me that you believe that everything in a cash shop game is designed to take you to the cash shop, but everything in a pay to play game isn’t designed to keep you playing longer. WoW is a business. They designed the game to keep you playing. Part of that is by intentionally making it addictive and part of it is by slowing you down (historically things like lockouts). I played Guild Wars 1 and I never heard of a lockout on dungeon there. And while Guild Wars 2 does have diminishing returns on tokens, that’s just for dungeon armor. You can still run dungeons (CoF path 1 anyone) whenever you want.

What’s the reason for lockouts? Slowing people down. And of course the rep grind, 25 daily quests, they want you slowed down.

Guild Wars 2 dailies are NOTHING compared to WoW dailies.

I don’t see many bots at all. It doesn’t mean there are none, but they’re certainly not prevalent like they used to be.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Imbune.5497:

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

facepalm
Ignorance is bliss….research ‘therapeutic index’…maybe then you’ll understand the point he was making…maybe

…oh Lord

I understood the point he was making; give me a break, how could you miss it? But, I don’t think it pertains. For those of us who equate VP with poison, why would we ever think a little of it was good? It is wisdom of a proverbial nature, that while it may be true (with the usual qualifications—i.e., intent is a factor, poison is poison, medicine is medicine), is here misapplied.

People associate VP with poison because of how other games have used VP. That doesn’t mean that all VP is going to necessarily be the same.

I agree that in the past, most games have been effectively destroyed by VP at least for players like me. Yet I don’t think VP itself is at fault.

The question becomes, can you have any VP at all without a full on gear grind. I think Anet thinks you can.

For me the jury is still out. So far, I’m not overly stressed by ascended stuff, because it’s not gating content for me (which is another sign of a gear grind).

But I am approaching this issue cautiously. I just don’t have the automatic negative reaction that you do….more like a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, as you may recall I played WoW for years—I’m pretty much ground out. I am interested in your thoughts on the blog post today. When they talked about Progression Advancement, or character progression, they prefaced it by saying that they don’t want us grinding out gear every 3-6 months, and then began by saying and this is what we are going to do instead. They then talked about a common element of horizontal progression, which is skill or ability progression. The “instead” seemed like a strong transition. Do you believe it represents a stronger commitment to horizontal progression in the game? Did you read any of that into it?

See, I don’t think Anet has ever “changed its spots” the way what many others have. This is because I’ve followed the devs for a long, long time. You don’t suddenly turn around and say to your core group of players, okay, full gear grind now with no reason. I know through channels that I’m not supposed to know that just about every tester that they want to with ascended gear hated and complained about it. Anet did it anyway. Why would any company risk putting off their entire player base unless they felt they needed to.

The point is, they didn’t start a “treadmill”. It’s not a full on gear grind. It’s something quite different. Why did they do it? Because they felt they had to. There was no other reason. It’s not a cash grab, because ascended equipment can’t be sold on the auction house. It doesn’t profit them at all, unless they felt their backs were against the wall.

But I also know the company and know the game that they made. I listened to what was said. I read between the lines. This isn’t a company that embraces vertical progression. They did, as I’ve always said, compromise…because they felt they had no choice. It was costly to them either way, but they did what they felt was right.

They needed something in this game that was sticky. They didn’t have it and they KNEW they didn’t have it. Even me, a so-called fan boi, knew that I wasn’t as attached to my characters as I was to my GW 1 characters. And I knew why. More importantly Anet knew it. This is a good MMO but it’s by far the least addictive MMO I’ve ever played. I didn’t enjoy WoW, but found it more addictive than this.

So now, this living story/achievement things has provided the stickiness Anet has been searching for. Not for everyone surely, but it’s something they have and they’re building that other games dont’ have and probably can’t match. It’s a different kind of progression. They can now start to take off the training wheels.

I don’t know that we’ll ever see another tier of gear past ascended. If so, maybe legendary. What’ I’m 100% we won’t see here is a full on gear treadmill like other games. Even with all the gear out so far, I can still beat all the content in the game, except high level fractals, with rares.

I don’t see a problem here. They were never going to give you a precusor. Anyway, I suspect that there’ll be more armor skins added that aren’t there yet…datamined is datamined.

So as you get higher you’ll probably be able to unlock every zenith weapon and an entire set of armor for example.

Link the list?
25 char

Raine.1394:

Imbune.5497:

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

facepalm
Ignorance is bliss….research ‘therapeutic index’…maybe then you’ll understand the point he was making…maybe

…oh Lord

I understood the point he was making; give me a break, how could you miss it? But, I don’t think it pertains. For those of us who equate VP with poison, why would we ever think a little of it was good? It is wisdom of a proverbial nature, that while it may be true (with the usual qualifications—i.e., intent is a factor, poison is poison, medicine is medicine), is here misapplied.

People associate VP with poison because of how other games have used VP. That doesn’t mean that all VP is going to necessarily be the same.

I agree that in the past, most games have been effectively destroyed by VP at least for players like me. Yet I don’t think VP itself is at fault.

The question becomes, can you have any VP at all without a full on gear grind. I think Anet thinks you can.

For me the jury is still out. So far, I’m not overly stressed by ascended stuff, because it’s not gating content for me (which is another sign of a gear grind).

But I am approaching this issue cautiously. I just don’t have the automatic negative reaction that you do….more like a bad taste in my mouth.

With gear/power creep, a lot of problems enter the MMO space that cause problems.

A friend of mine used to play Rift, but he had a job and all. Used to raid with his guild. Everything was cool. Then the new expansion came out but he was busy for a month with work. Couldn’t play much. So his entire guild is onto the new content, where he still had to grind the gear he needed to be able to play with them. It wasn’t much fun grinding alone, and by the time he got to where they were, they’d be working on the next tier of gear. He stopped playing Rift because of this.

Right now, anyone in my guild can do any dungeon with anyone else in my guild (exception is high level fractals). But any other dungeon in the game is open season. Even people gone six months and come in and play with us no problem.

Not so in most MMOs.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

You probably won’t love my advice, but I don’t think in this game, that size guild is viable. I think you need a larger guild and then find within that guild a subset of players you play with all the time, which is what most people end up doing in my guild. The same people tend to team a lot.

The reason I say this is because the game isn’t like other games. It’s harder to keep people in smaller guilds, partly because of guild missions, but also because of the casual nature of the game.

If you have 30-35 people and some are sick and some are away and some are doing things you’re not interested in, you’re back to having no one to play with.

Why would I not love your advice, vayne? !! I was actually waiting for you to show up This thread is prime for your opinion so please give it.

I see your point, true..true. But then it feels less like a guild and more like a company where you go out to lunch with only your small area of co workers and thumb your nose to the rest.

It doesn’t feel like that at all in my guild. It’s more like we’re a collective of people who have slightly different play styles. But here’s what usually happens.

I usually run with a group of less than 20 people, but as I said, there are over one hundred in the guild (about 30 active).

Now, I’m playing with the same people most of the time, but we’re not an exclusive group. We’ll talk to anyone, play with anyone. And sometimes, someone will need something or ask for help and I’ll be right there. I don’t really care who it is. Because they’re in the guild.

Think of it in terms of a community. I know a lot of people are friends and hang out together. Everyone doesn’t have to be my friend. By the same token, there are times when my friends, my play group just isn’t around. Then there are people I hang out with.

It’s not that these people aren’t as nice as the people I usually hang with. I’ts not like these people are somehow less. It’s like having close friends, and then friends you go to the movies with with your wife, and then friends from work. They’re all nice people. I like them all.

But I only have so many hours in a day. It’s not cliquish where people can’t move from group to group…and sometimes that happens.

Some people group up because they have common interests or they’re in the same age range. I’m older and slower. I don’t like to run run run through dungeons, but some people do. I’m probably not the first choice for running dungeons with some of the guys. But sure if there’s room, they’ll hang with me and no one complains.

I don’t understand this idea that everyone has to be friends on all the same levels. But it doesn’t mean we’re not friends.

So your problem is the game is giving you too much to do? Horrors. lol

You probably won’t love my advice, but I don’t think in this game, that size guild is viable. I think you need a larger guild and then find within that guild a subset of players you play with all the time, which is what most people end up doing in my guild. The same people tend to team a lot.

The reason I say this is because the game isn’t like other games. It’s harder to keep people in smaller guilds, partly because of guild missions, but also because of the casual nature of the game.

If you have 30-35 people and some are sick and some are away and some are doing things you’re not interested in, you’re back to having no one to play with.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Vayne.8563:

Galen Grey.4709:

morrolan.9608:

Devata.6589:

snip

And after getting a lot of complains about those things expansions are now back on the table. So lets hope they go for that.

The “GW2 model” at this moment resembles more a F2P model then a B2P model. Thats the problem.

Yep I agree with this as well. But it won’t happen, too many design decisions have been embedded in the game funnelling players towards the gem shop and appealing to the ‘whales’. They would have to roll back these as well as get an expansion out.

Can you people be a bit specific… What game design decisions did Gw2 take that steers it towards the F2P in a bad way?

snip

Technically at this point, TSW is also buy to play.

The thing is, after playing many F2P MMOs, Guild Wars 2 is NOTHING like them. There’s no way to compare GW 2 to SWToR or Lotro or DDO, or Perfect World…it’s just a different system.

I mean in some of those games, content needs to be purchased separately for you to even play. SWToR is almost impossible to play without paying monthly. There’s no p2w in Guild Wars 2, there’s no content locked off by the cash shop.

So I’m not sure of Devata’s point.

………

Of course you get retorted with that because it was a P2P game and like I said just because you buy the game it does not really make it a B2P game. Yeah if you would literally read the words as if it is not more as that it would.

You say the lines are not very clear because most games share similar design decisions. Well let me make it clear.. or at least as how I define it.

F2P focuses on a cash-shop and so make design decisions based on that focus. Trying to get people to buy stuff with cash. If that is locked content, B2W items, items only available for a limited time, locked levels or what more. There focus is the cash-shop and so game design is based on that because thats where they get there main income from.

Sub-based. The game is based on a subscription. Usually they will ask money for the box and expansions but thats not necessary. They might also have a cash-shop but there is no focus on it. They just put some items in there for some extra income. Game design is not based on getting people to buy something from the cash-shop.
There main income comes from the subscription.

B2P That games focuses on box-sales (online or real boxes) so the original box but also the expansions. They also might have a cash-shop with some fun or useful items in it but game-design it not based on getting people to buy something there. It’s a nice side-income. They focus on box-sales because thats where they get there main income from.

You left out one thing. Everything about subscription games that I’ve seen leads to slowing you down. Lockouts, RNG loot in dungeons so you have to run them umpteen times to get gear that you need to progress, flight paths, long amount of time crafting, long waits to level, that sort of thing.

If F2P games push you toward the cash shop, subscription games push you to play longer and slower.

In my opinion all mmo’s do that. Including GW2 and the F2P games.

Flight paths I think are more to make the game more immersive and show the size of the world. Lets face it.. teleporting all over the map is not the most immersive thing in GW2 and it makes the world much smaller.

About the rng loot in dungeons, usually you don’t ‘need’ that loot to go on, it is a nice to have, many times it are even mini’s or mounts. Sometimes the armor gives you a little bit extra power but not so much that you need it to go on. In GW2 you also need to do multiple runs to get your set from one dungeon (thats a nice to have) they just don’t have rare items drop from dungeons (I mean like the one we did have in MF and AR). In fact it could use some more rare drop from dungeons and mobs. It’s one part of the end-content many people are missing.

I don’t buy it. You can’t compare flight paths with map travel for speed. In WoW when you craft 100 of something it takes six years. You might want to go make a snack. In Guild Wars 2, when you craft multiples of something, it speeds up. Guild Wars 2 is particularly fast to get to max level and max gear, except for ascended trinkets, but that doesn’t lock you out of content. That’s what all the subscription games tend to do. It’s what the gear treadmill is all about.

People complain about the dailies in this game…I guess they never saw the WoW dailies. I honestly don’t see how you can compare.

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Vayne.8563:

Galen Grey.4709:

morrolan.9608:

Devata.6589:

snip

And after getting a lot of complains about those things expansions are now back on the table. So lets hope they go for that.

The “GW2 model” at this moment resembles more a F2P model then a B2P model. Thats the problem.

Yep I agree with this as well. But it won’t happen, too many design decisions have been embedded in the game funnelling players towards the gem shop and appealing to the ‘whales’. They would have to roll back these as well as get an expansion out.

Can you people be a bit specific… What game design decisions did Gw2 take that steers it towards the F2P in a bad way?

Also @Devata you claim Gw2 when more towards f2p then to b2p… compared to what exactly? there was only one other b2p game that I am aware of and thats Gw1 which you say you never played. So which B2P game did you play prior to Gw2 that you were hoping Gw2 business model would follow exactly?

Technically at this point, TSW is also buy to play.

The thing is, after playing many F2P MMOs, Guild Wars 2 is NOTHING like them. There’s no way to compare GW 2 to SWToR or Lotro or DDO, or Perfect World…it’s just a different system.

I mean in some of those games, content needs to be purchased separately for you to even play. SWToR is almost impossible to play without paying monthly. There’s no p2w in Guild Wars 2, there’s no content locked off by the cash shop.

So I’m not sure of Devata’s point.

True but If I brought up TSW I am sure I will get retorted with TSW didnt start B2P it started P2P.

I personally do not see the clear lines between B2P, F2P and P2P some people suggest there are. Especially now a days all models share the same design decisions and sell the same kind of stuff in their cash shops. For a while having cash shops in P2P was unheard of, now they all have it (or nearly all) like wise things change for the better. A long time ago F2P meant you could buy the best equipment in the game, now thats essentially gone. What I am trying to say is now a days you can never say in B2P and P2P business model you will never find X because thats something only F2P do. Those rules just dont exist. At the end of the day is what you get.

You dont like game design X , thats perfectly fine but dont blame it on the business model cause most likely thats got nothing to do with it. Besides now more or less games are trying to include every type of business model Just look at Swtor or Lotro they’re free to play, buy to play and have a subscription as well. P2P have introduced cash shop or in case of TSW straight out started with one. Lines between what it means to be P2P, B2P and F2P are just no there, definitely not any longer.

Of course you get retorted with that because it was a P2P game and like I said just because you buy the game it does not really make it a B2P game. Yeah if you would literally read the words as if it is not more as that it would.

You say the lines are not very clear because most games share similar design decisions. Well let me make it clear.. or at least as how I define it.

F2P focuses on a cash-shop and so make design decisions based on that focus. Trying to get people to buy stuff with cash. If that is locked content, B2W items, items only available for a limited time, locked levels or what more. There focus is the cash-shop and so game design is based on that because thats where they get there main income from.

Sub-based. The game is based on a subscription. Usually they will ask money for the box and expansions but thats not necessary. They might also have a cash-shop but there is no focus on it. They just put some items in there for some extra income. Game design is not based on getting people to buy something from the cash-shop.
There main income comes from the subscription.

B2P That games focuses on box-sales (online or real boxes) so the original box but also the expansions. They also might have a cash-shop with some fun or useful items in it but game-design it not based on getting people to buy something there. It’s a nice side-income. They focus on box-sales because thats where they get there main income from.

You left out one thing. Everything about subscription games that I’ve seen leads to slowing you down. Lockouts, RNG loot in dungeons so you have to run them umpteen times to get gear that you need to progress, flight paths, long amount of time crafting, long waits to level, that sort of thing.

If F2P games push you toward the cash shop, subscription games push you to play longer and slower.

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

morrolan.9608:

Devata.6589:

But there is no need for the cash-shop focus if they go for an expansion-pack focus. The problem was that they suddenly started to focus on the gem-store and had no plants for expansions anymore. That means that they sort of took the model of a F2P game and I agree thats bad. But if they indeed turn back to the expansion pack focus they can drop the gem-store focus and the thinks you dislike about it should also go away.

And after getting a lot of complains about those things expansions are now back on the table. So lets hope they go for that.

The “GW2 model” at this moment resembles more a F2P model then a B2P model. Thats the problem.

Yep I agree with this as well. But it won’t happen, too many design decisions have been embedded in the game funnelling players towards the gem shop and appealing to the ‘whales’. They would have to roll back these as well as get an expansion out.

Can you people be a bit specific… What game design decisions did Gw2 take that steers it towards the F2P in a bad way?

Also @Devata you claim Gw2 when more towards f2p then to b2p… compared to what exactly? there was only one other b2p game that I am aware of and thats Gw1 which you say you never played. So which B2P game did you play prior to Gw2 that you were hoping Gw2 business model would follow exactly?

I don’t need to have played it to know there payment model. Yeah GW1 was a good example where you buy the game and buy expansions and that was the focus of that game. Besides many games work like that, you mean MMO games. There are not many MMO’s that use a B2P system. They mainly use sub-based or F2P. The fact that GW2 is at this moment the only real B2P MMO (or well, was) was the main reason for my interest in GW2. But to answer that question.. I hope they would follow there GW1 business model.

The design decisions I refer to I also put in my last comment but I will sum them up here for you again.

Temporary content (the temporary events with temporary achievements but also items temporary available in the gem-store), gold-driven system and RNG-boxes.

They can’t really follow the Guild Wars 1 business model, because it won’t work. And they’ve more or less said so early on in interviews. What they said, and I’m paraphrasing here, is the the Guild Wars 1 cash shop was added as basically an afterthought and never really factored into the business plan. They said that the cash shop would be more central to Guild Wars 2’s business plan.

There’s a reason. To go from a staff of 50 people, to a staff of 300 with bigger headquarters and overhead requires more cash flow. It’s that simple.

Everything is more expensive. SWToR was the most expensive MMO of all time. Why? Voice acting is enormously expensive and there was a ton of it. There’s a lot of voice acting in Guild Wars 2 also, far more than there was in Guild Wars 1, at a far greater expense.

The entire genre has changed. It’s more competitive. People put out content faster. If Anet had this game and waited a year and then put out an expansion without depending on the cash shop, the game wouldn’t be sustainable. And though Anet didn’t come right out and say that, they did say that the cash shop was a part of the business plan in a way it wasn’t in Guild Wars 2. They were pretty up front about it.

The whole industry has changed. It would be very hard for anyone to compete against companies taking in more money in this climate.

maddoctor.2738:

Tachenon.5270:

And so I asked, where is this clarification?

One of the few times Colin “clarified” something on the manifesto, he did it multiple times in the past and this is one I’ve found. This is on the GW2 takes everything you love about GW1 line that is often quoted on these forums:

Colin: It’s really tough. I think that at the end of the day we always have to look at if it’s exactly Guild Wars 1, we already made that game, and if people love exactly GW people should go play GW, right. So it has to be something different or we’re gonna end up remaking the exact same game we already built. So we definitely look at it that way as we know there are some people that aren’t going to be thrilled with Guild Wars 2 because it isn’t GW and it can’t be. It wasn’t going to be successful because we’d be competing with our own games.

Source: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1034-qa-with-colin-johanson-part-ii/

Definitely not the clarification that was floating around two years ago. It was very specific.

It said that Colin was talking about dynamic events and Ree was talking about the personal story. Watch it with that in mind and it’s pretty obvious. It’s not like you can’t see this.

It was the editing, where they cut back and forth to make it more “interesting” that also made it more confusing.

Shifty.5187:

Vayne.8563:

What are you talking about…a few quests?

I’m talking about the difference between Save Yourselves at Luxon/kurzick level one and Save Yourselves at luxon kurzick level 12. We’re talking months of grinding here.

Edit: If you don’t believe me look up Fast Faction Farming in the Guild Wars 1 wiki.

I thought you were talking about how your character become more powerful with the introduction of the new skills themselves, not the fact you can make those skills more powerful with the title grind.

I’m okay with introducing more powerful skills (although balance is nice) for which you only have to do a single or few quests to get them.

I’m not okay with the title grind to make skills more powerful. We have acknowledged that that was one of the examples of vertical progression in Guild Wars 1, but as Shockwave rightly pointed out, it wasn’t a big part of Guild Wars 1 and it only affected a few skills. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s still BAD and I would have preferred if Guild Wars 1 did not have it.

It affected a few skills that were arguably the most powerful in the game, some of which were required for builds that people asked for to do the hardest content in Guild Wars 1. This is my point.

By comparison, the work we need to put into to get ascended gear is negligible. And the difference in power, at least so far, isn’t nearly as great.

Shifty.5187:

Vayne.8563:

So those that fear vertical progression, even if it’s gear-based, should be used to it from Guild Wars 1 because, at least in PvE, the power plateau kept rising. Call it what you want but over the years, your character got a whole lot more powerful.

For which you had to do very little. In most cases you only had to do a few quests and that was it. It felt rewarding even.

Can we move on, though? Yes there was SOME vertical progression in GW1, now there is MORE. The question is whether the increase in necessary grind is a good thing or a bad thing.

What are you talking about…a few quests?

I’m talking about the difference between Save Yourselves at Luxon/kurzick level one and Save Yourselves at luxon kurzick level 12. We’re talking months of grinding here.

Edit: If you don’t believe me look up Fast Faction Farming in the Guild Wars 1 wiki.

Galen Grey.4709:

morrolan.9608:

Devata.6589:

But there is no need for the cash-shop focus if they go for an expansion-pack focus. The problem was that they suddenly started to focus on the gem-store and had no plants for expansions anymore. That means that they sort of took the model of a F2P game and I agree thats bad. But if they indeed turn back to the expansion pack focus they can drop the gem-store focus and the thinks you dislike about it should also go away.

And after getting a lot of complains about those things expansions are now back on the table. So lets hope they go for that.

The “GW2 model” at this moment resembles more a F2P model then a B2P model. Thats the problem.

Yep I agree with this as well. But it won’t happen, too many design decisions have been embedded in the game funnelling players towards the gem shop and appealing to the ‘whales’. They would have to roll back these as well as get an expansion out.

Can you people be a bit specific… What game design decisions did Gw2 take that steers it towards the F2P in a bad way?

Also @Devata you claim Gw2 when more towards f2p then to b2p… compared to what exactly? there was only one other b2p game that I am aware of and thats Gw1 which you say you never played. So which B2P game did you play prior to Gw2 that you were hoping Gw2 business model would follow exactly?

Technically at this point, TSW is also buy to play.

The thing is, after playing many F2P MMOs, Guild Wars 2 is NOTHING like them. There’s no way to compare GW 2 to SWToR or Lotro or DDO, or Perfect World…it’s just a different system.

I mean in some of those games, content needs to be purchased separately for you to even play. SWToR is almost impossible to play without paying monthly. There’s no p2w in Guild Wars 2, there’s no content locked off by the cash shop.

So I’m not sure of Devata’s point.

Algreg.3629:

no. First of all, there hasn´t been a single succesful “wowkiller” and that monicker exists only in the audience´s mind anyway, noone in the industry bothers with such nonsense. Wow will be killed by time and it has way more than twice the people that ever installed GW2 as paying SUBSCRIBERS almost a decade after launch. Anyways, GW2 is fine, your prediction is utterly false though. The mmorpg market is struggling. WoW made the genre appealing to the masses of players, launched marketing outside the usual target audience, had a large fan base to carry over from other games of Blizzard´s franchise and didn´t have any strong competitors. The market today is sated, no, it is bursting from mmorpg. Single player or “normal” multiplayer games have also improved a lot in recent years when it comes to story telling mechanics, no mmorpg can rival that by nature as they cannot concentrate on the experience of a single person. MMORPG will struggle more in upcoming years than they do now overall, GW2 will just be one of many.

The OP also said that Guild Wars 2 would settle into a comfortable second place, intimating to me at least that it isn’t expected to kill WoW.

Algreg.3629:

no. First of all, there hasn´t been a single succesful “wowkiller” and that monicker exists only in the audience´s mind anyway, noone in the industry bothers with such nonsense. Wow will be killed by time and it has way more than twice the people that ever installed GW2 as paying SUBSCRIBERS almost a decade after launch. Anyways, GW2 is fine, your prediction is utterly false though. The mmorpg market is struggling. WoW made the genre appealing to the masses of players, launched marketing outside the usual target audience, had a large fan base to carry over from other games of Blizzard´s franchise and didn´t have any strong competitors. The market today is sated, no, it is bursting from mmorpg. Single player or “normal” multiplayer games have also improved a lot in recent years when it comes to story telling mechanics, no mmorpg can rival that by nature as they cannot concentrate on the experience of a single person. MMORPG will struggle more in upcoming years than they do now overall, GW2 will just be one of many.

Of course Guild Wars 2 will be one of many. But I think the OPs point is many of that many will be looking to Guild Wars 2 for guidance, in the way that many WoW clones looked to WoW for guidance.

No one is saying that Guild Wars 2 is going to corner the market. But people are saying that the changes Guild Wars 2 have brought to the genre will help pave the way forward.

Well, Anet released a historical mission pack for Guild Wars 1, which sold in the cash shop. It wasn’t really a group activity though, it was solo, but aside from that, it was far more story oriented than any dungeon in the game.

I think that Anet could do something similar for Guild Wars 2 (though I don’t expect them to do so). It would be pretty cool through of they did.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

snip

And it took far longer to level Save Yourselves to a usable level than it does to get a set of ascended gear…maybe not in time, but certainly in actual hours played.

I was worried about you, but killcannon stepped in for you and did a fine job on debating whether GW1 had VP or not. We left it at, no, it did not have VP as there was simply no VP post max level gear at max level. It didn’t hurt that Mike O agreed that there was no VP, ever, year after year in GW1. He was not talking about gear or skills he was talking about vertical progression. Vertical: the power level of the game rises. Progression: it continually rises over time. This is usually accomplished through gear, but how it’s accomplished is irrelevant to the question. As I mentioned to killcannon it could be accomplished, theoretically, through potions—it really has no bearing on whether it’s vertical progression or not. The important takeaway from this is that GW1 had no VP whatsoever post max level gear at max level. The acquisition and leveling of skills, btw, is an example of horizontal, not vertical progression.

I disagree. Because some of those skills we’re talking about where added game after game and they did affect, not your stats, but the amount of damage you could output.

For example, the skills that came with Factions weren’t nearly as powerful as the skills that came with Nightfall and the skills that came with Nightfall weren’t early as powerful as the skills that came with EotN.

What I love is that people saying it didn’t have vertical progression haven’t actually played the game. You have one dev quote, during an interview talking about gear to back you up. I bet if we took him aside and asked him the question, he’s say there was a power shift in PvE in Guild Wars 1. And if he didn’t, I’d call him a liar.

Because those skills got more and more powerful expansion after expansion, the game got easier, to the point where I stopped playing because it was too easy. Now part of that was knowing the game like the back of my hand, but part of it was the skills were getting more and more powerful.

Anet also increased players power by increase skills like Aura of the Lich and Signet of Spirits, which after they changed, became all but indispensable.

There was a clear progression of PvE power as Guild Wars 1 advanced. You can say it wasn’t vertical progression but power creep (if not stat creep) was 100% present in that game. No one who played it can deny it…in PvE anyway.

In other words, they didn’t affect the power level of the game. That’s the distinction between vertical and horizontal progression and why acquiring and leveling skills is an example of horizontal progression.

Look, let me save us some time: I just googled “horizontal progression system” and the first thing returned was http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/strangesands/122012/24271_What-is-Horizontal-Progression-Really

Under horizontal options you have Ability Progression. I don’t quote mmorpg.com as a specific authority as everything written by any knowledgeable source will have ability progression as an example of horizontal progression and not vertical. Anything that systematically raises the power level of the game as reflected in stats would be an example of vertical progression. Practically anything else would be an example of horizontal progression.

This is why Anet and I don’t believe that GW1 had VP. It didn’t.

The complaint people have is that having higher stats means that players are getting more powerful all the time. I don’t care what causes that power. You can name it whatever you want. People are talking about stat drift. But what’s the problem with stat drift? You keep getting more and more powerful.

That same thing happened in Guild Wars 1. You don’t have to call it vertical progression if you don’t want, but it affected the game in the same way vertical progression does.

Remember this wasn’t just about getting new skills. After you got the new skills, you had to level them through reputation.

So those that fear vertical progression, even if it’s gear-based, should be used to it from Guild Wars 1 because, at least in PvE, the power plateau kept rising. Call it what you want but over the years, your character got a whole lot more powerful.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Vertical progression means after you get to level cap, you still get more powerful. Getting more skills doesn’t necessarily equal vertical progression. Getting a new skill and then having to level it, does equal vertical progression.

It’s entirely possible the dev was talking about gear only and not skills when he made that statement, but no one can say having to level a skill to get a specific build to work that everyone is asking for is not vertical progression. If you try to argue it, you’d be wrong and everyone can see that. Other people in this thread have already agreed it was vertical progression

And it took far longer to level Save Yourselves to a usable level than it does to get a set of ascended gear…maybe not in time, but certainly in actual hours played.

I was worried about you, but killcannon stepped in for you and did a fine job on debating whether GW1 had VP or not. We left it at, no, it did not have VP as there was simply no VP post max level gear at max level. It didn’t hurt that Mike O agreed that there was no VP, ever, year after year in GW1. He was not talking about gear or skills he was talking about vertical progression. Vertical: the power level of the game rises. Progression: it continually rises over time. This is usually accomplished through gear, but how it’s accomplished is irrelevant to the question. As I mentioned to killcannon it could be accomplished, theoretically, through potions—it really has no bearing on whether it’s vertical progression or not. The important takeaway from this is that GW1 had no VP whatsoever post max level gear at max level. The acquisition and leveling of skills, btw, is an example of horizontal, not vertical progression.

I disagree. Because some of those skills we’re talking about where added game after game and they did affect, not your stats, but the amount of damage you could output.

For example, the skills that came with Factions weren’t nearly as powerful as the skills that came with Nightfall and the skills that came with Nightfall weren’t early as powerful as the skills that came with EotN.

What I love is that people saying it didn’t have vertical progression haven’t actually played the game. You have one dev quote, during an interview talking about gear to back you up. I bet if we took him aside and asked him the question, he’s say there was a power shift in PvE in Guild Wars 1. And if he didn’t, I’d call him a liar.

Because those skills got more and more powerful expansion after expansion, the game got easier, to the point where I stopped playing because it was too easy. Now part of that was knowing the game like the back of my hand, but part of it was the skills were getting more and more powerful.

Anet also increased players power by increase skills like Aura of the Lich and Signet of Spirits, which after they changed, became all but indispensable.

There was a clear progression of PvE power as Guild Wars 1 advanced. You can say it wasn’t vertical progression but power creep (if not stat creep) was 100% present in that game. No one who played it can deny it…in PvE anyway.