Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is not, and will never be a sandbox game. But I’m thinking sandbox games are always going to be niche. None of them will pull most people from Guild Wars 2.

First of all, sandbox games almost always require more time and effort than theme park games. You lose more when you die. Think of a game like Eve.

Eve is arguably the most successful sandbox MMO in existence. It has half a million or so players, and that’s its high.

WoW is a theme park with 8.3 million players.

Themeparks are more designed for the masses and the masses will make them money.

Anyway since Trion bought Archeage, my hopes for it have gone down quite a bit.

Aside from that, Guild Wars 1 players would have an unfair advantage, since we’d have minis from the Hall of Monuments that others wouldn’t have.

WvW has WxP now, a sort of passive progression system. You can advance in WvW through that. Culling is gone in WvW too which makes it better.

Okay let’s try this again. In order for bait and switch to work, there has to be a second product involved.

I advertise this tv, I don’t have it in stock. I try to sell you a different tv. That’s bait and switch. It’s the only definition of bait and switch.

If I advertise a product and it doesn’t have the features I said it would, it’s NOT bait and switch. That’s not the definition.

The bait is the ad that gets you into the shop. The switch is the other item I tried to sell you.

Even if Anet didn’t get one thing right in the manifesto (which I don’t believe anyway), it’s STILL not bait and switch. If Anet had opened lied in the manifesto…it still wouldn’t be bait and switch.

Bait and switch is a very specific legal term that has a meaning. Even if the manifesto was a complete fabrication…it wouldn’t be bait and switch.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

I didn’t keep track of it, because I didn’t need to.

So…

You advertised a ‘clarification of the manifesto’. It was asked for, but was not available. So you provided those other links as a substitute.

Thereby providing us all with a textbook-worthy example of the classic Bait and Switch!

Nope. I said there WAS a clarification, past tense. Whether it’s available or not isn’t relevant. A million people probably saw it. Some conveniently forgot about it.

Bait and switch means that I advertise something, you come to get it, and when you get into the store I don’t have it and try to sell you something else. It’s not that you buy a product and it doesn’t do what they said it does.

In my case, I wasn’t advertising the manifesto’s clarification I was stating one was put out there. You’re the unreasonable one here, because you can’t acknowledge that a five minute video that was put out two years before a game’s launch, was then followed by a boatload of information you’re ignoring.

It’s not reasonable.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Anyone with half a brain

a fool

Nice. Nevertheless, you failed to provide what I asked for.

No, I didn’t.

You said, in this very thread:

Vayne.8563:

Yes, actually. After the manifesto came out, due to the confusion it caused, Anet posted a clarification of the manifesto. It was widely talked about at the time.

Vayne.8563:

“Anet posted a clarification of the manifesto.”

Your words. That’s what you said. A clarification of the manifesto.

And so I asked, where is this clarification?

It may have been ‘widely talked about at the time’, but here today you have failed to provide a link to this alleged ‘clarification of the manifesto’.

So. I guess we’re done here.

I didn’t keep track of it, because I didn’t need to. Anet DID post a clarification and if you want to call me a liar go ahead, but it was posted as a clarification and a million people probably saw it.

Where is it now? Who knows? It might have gotten deleted during the old blog. It’s probably around somewhere, but since it’s moot with all the new information it’s hardly relevant.

The only reason I’m bringing it up is because people keep bringing up the manifesto. Which I think is silly considering how old it is. There’s plenty of info around that came later.

It’s like looking at an MMO manual that comes with an MMO at launch. It’s outdated before the first month of play is done.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Anyone with half a brain

a fool

Nice. Nevertheless, you failed to provide what I asked for.

No, I didn’t. You’re making it sound like a clarification can only come in the form of a fast post to explain something. That post was supplanted by actual detailed information presented on the main site.

I can’t help it if you’re attached to a post that was made that moved up a list and eventually got forgotten because it was no longer necessary.

In other words, video comes out, people are confused, Anet clarified. Then Anet went and put a lot of time and effort to explain even better than the clarification just what a dynamic event was, just what personal story was, and all that information is there. For anyone to see. On the main page.

The need for clarification at this point is null and void because the information that’s being given on the page surpasses the clarification.

morrolan.9608:

cesmode.4257:

-Grind was bad choice of words. Get laurels yes. Still takes a month to get them. Time vs reward.

But it is a grind, its doing repetitive tasks over and over again for a reward. I find really only 1 daily out of the cycle I get from simply just playing the way I normally play. And as someone with 4 lvl 80s and soon to have a 5th it certainly feels like something of a treadmill to outfit all those characters. I don’t necessarilly need ascended to just play the game but the majority of the characters I take into WvW where having BiS gear is an advantage and it certainly makes the PvE side of the game slightly easier.

Doing something over and over again for a reward isn’t what grind means.

For example, in every MMO you kill stuff over and over again. But if you can move around and do different stuff for the same rewards, it’s not grind.

The reason the word grind was invented was to explain killing mobs to level your character because there were no quests in early games. The ONLY way to level was to grind mobs. That was it.

In Guild Wars 2 you can craft, explore, do your personal story, do WvW, grind mobs, do dynamic events…there’s tons of ways to level.

And there are tons of ways to get dailies. If you’re going for laurels, all you have to do is play your normal game (for most people) and you’ll get most of them. People in WvW now usually get them without too much effort at all.

I mean every MMO has you doing the same thing every day no matter what you’re doing. Kill stuff and questing. Running dungeons. Whatever you’re doing, it’s repetitive, even PvP. It’s the same thing. And you get rewarded for it. Therefore, by your definition MMOs are grind.

It doesn’t work that way.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

The Manifesto is like a teaser…it gives you an overview. It can confuse, but by the time the explanations came out they were far more detailed than the clarification.

So………. where is the clarification?

It’s not needed anymore because the articles on the website clarify the issue BETTER than the original clarification did. You see, unlike you, most people recognize as more information comes out, it modifies previous information.

I don’t look at last years patch notes to see what skills do today, even though last years patchs notes are still available for view.

All the videos and pages on the main page explain exactly what a dynamic event is, exactly what the personal story is, and exactly how combat works.

You think you’d get it by now.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

They abandoned? Really?

You’re trying to say this game has full on vertical progression. So far, it has ONE TIER OF GEAR. That’s it. Actually sorry I’m wrong.

It was one tier of ACCESSORIES.

I think abandoning their vision, all things considering is a little strong.

What Anet did was compromise. Reasonable people are usually for compromise. If you have to have it all your own way, then in my opinion you’re not being reasonable.

It’s not reasonable to say I want this and Anet didn’t do this so I’ve been betrayed. Particularly when so many Guild Wars 1 players ARE playing and enjoying this game.

And if you continue to compare this to Guild Wars 1, which remained a niche game and was always a niche game, I’ll remind you, again, that the staff is five times the size and a niche game won’t pay their salaries.

From what I see, a bunch of Guild Wars 1 people got it in their head that ALL vertical progression is a gear grind and thus a bad thing. I don’t ever feel like I’m grinding in this game. Because I choose not to grind. We don’t have a gear treadmill. And since vertical progression was in the game AT LAUNCH, Anet abandoned nothing.

I think some people are way to attached to vertical progression being negative automatically. It can BECOME negative, if not watched, but Anet hasn’t flooded the market with gear tier after gear tier.

Sorry but the response of a small portion of the fan base doesn’t indicate Anet abandoned anything.

In fact, this game is the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1. Want to know why? Because Anet is innovating and trying different things, and that’s precisely what Anet did with Guild Wars 1.

Guild Wars 1 players wanted Guild Wars 1.5…but then that wouldn’t be a true successor to Guild Wars 1. Because it wouldn’t have been as innovative.

Guild Wars 1 was hailed as a landmark game because it innovated. Now Anet is experimenting and innovating again. So Guild Wars 2 is the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1.

They have added vertical progression to what they do, no one is saying it’s the same degree as other MMOs. The “innovation” they’ve done with vertical progression is what you are calling a compromise. They took something from other games, something they didn’t do and made it less painful by (hopefully) not continuing to add tiers of gear.

Did other games not already do that by just sticking with the gear power they had at launch? I wouldn’t know, because I didn’t play any online RPGs before Guild Wars due to the rediculous amount of emphasis placed on powering up your character, Guild Wars was my compromise for vertical progression (because it stopped quickly). People do play games without power progression.

An even greater degree of innovation would have been to be the first MMO where power progression stopped early on in their overall content. Lots of people thought they were going to just have the illusion of power progression because of their original intentions with scaling, they were going to up and down level scaling, but they cut out up scaling (except for WvW).

Regardless of the number of tiers of gear, if players could obtain the top tier of gear from a playthrough of the story, people like me wouldn’t care how much progression there is in between, because there would be little to no need of having to think about managing our resources or currencies. People would just play through and they can focus so much more on the content, the challenges, and combat due to there being no need to worry about vertical progression at all.

Instead, players have to worry about managing their game currencies on not just for gear, but seemingly everything else from repairs, to waypoints, to a virtual stock market.

Guild Wars was a game, where that kind of thing was never a worry. If you had time constraints and were only willing or able to play 10 hours a week, it didn’t matter. Because in under a month you were on the same playing field as everyone else.

You never had to use anymore of your currency after half way through a campaign, because you were at peak power by then.

Guild Wars 2 was never a worry depending upon what you wanted to do in it. It was often a worry to me, forced to grind through zillions of levels of PvE only skills to be accepted into a group for DOA.

SHM.7628:

Rooks Zaer.5846:

Vayne.8563:

Are you still pitching the “it was two years old” argument…despite the fact that the main guild wars 2 site had a direct link to it (complete with graphics) on the main page basically right up until release?

http://web.archive.org/web/20120510235808/http://www.guildwars2.com/en/

Having it linked off of the very front page made it every bit at launch as the day it was created.

It’s bait and switch, even more so since the product was pre-purchased in many cases. Look, its an OK game. It wasn’t what was promised on a lot of fronts. That was disapointing. They promised epic and delived Meh.

I can still find and do things that i find are entertaining if I try. However, for me ( a casual player ) I feel that I’ve done just about everything worth doing in game. Now, most of the stuff is just to kill time. I’ve leved the professions, got my exotics, and played through almost all the content.

I’m sure as heck not going to start a legendary. There’s really not much left for me besides repetition. I’ll pass on that. but hey, to each their own.

Promising epic and delivery meh, even if that’s what they did, is not bait and switch. Words like epic are strictly matters of opinion, and anyone can say it. As long as a handful of players do find it epic, there’s no way you can say it’s bait and switch. What’s epic do you might very well be meh to me.

People who love jumping puzzles, and there are a lot of them, probably like this game a lot more than people who don’t.

Games expand and grow and what was delivered on launch is what the game was supposed to be at launch. But all MMOs evolve and change. Every one of them. So if you don’t like the direction that it evolved and changed from launch, you might stop playing…but most of what was said prior to the game launching is true.

Raine.1394:

killcannon.2576:

You’re thinking of it as an entirely gear or stat based form of mechanic, which it isn’t. Vertical progression simply means it moves you above other players who have not “progressed”.

The Living Story is a form of VP. It’s one of the only new forms of AP being added to the game. Accrue enough points, and your character becomes “better”
Laurels are a form of VP for the same reasons. The person who does them more, gets more “stuff”.
Fractals are a form of VP
Leveling anything is a form of VP
New skills are a form of VP, if they are more powerful or more useful in situations than old skills. It progresses players above where they were before when they didn’t have those skills.

What you are describing is “power creep” which is a symptom of gear related vertical progression. Which is actually what GW2 wants to get rid of, not VP.

Vertical progression is a part of 99% of games, including GW1. It just wasn’t gear progression. A new player is not equal to a veteran in GW1. They can’t do all the content that a vet can. That’s the easiest way to see it. If you can say that a brand new player can do everything a veteran can in GW1 , then I would agree that it has no VP, but from what I understand…they can’t. Even some of the cosmetics were vertical progression from what I understood.

Yes, I am suggesting that vertical progression is progression in power and, as such, is synonymous with “power creep”. You could fully discuss vertical progression and it’s inherent problems, use the term power creep, and lose nothing at all.

And, it’s why Mike O, contrary to killcannon’s assertions to the contrary, can assert that GW did not have vertical progression. My assertion is that progression in some form is present within 99% of games. Most MMO’s, arpgs, et al have vertical progression. Guild Wars did not. On this one, I think like Mike.

I really can’t argue this further as the understanding is definitional. There is a video by Taugrim where he explains why he believes horizontal progression is preferable and perhaps it could help with the distinctions involved. He uses the term “scaling” instead of progression.

Edit: the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zn81sY7pqI

So if Ascended gear was the last gear tier ever introduced, would that continue to mean power creep?

killcannon.2576:

Raine.1394:

killcannon.2576:

You’re thinking of it as an entirely gear or stat based form of mechanic, which it isn’t. Vertical progression simply means it moves you above other players who have not “progressed”.

The Living Story is a form of VP. It’s one of the only new forms of AP being added to the game. Accrue enough points, and your character becomes “better”
Laurels are a form of VP for the same reasons. The person who does them more, gets more “stuff”.
Fractals are a form of VP
Leveling anything is a form of VP
New skills are a form of VP, if they are more powerful or more useful in situations than old skills. It progresses players above where they were before when they didn’t have those skills.

What you are describing is “power creep” which is a symptom of gear related vertical progression. Which is actually what GW2 wants to get rid of, not VP.

Vertical progression is a part of 99% of games, including GW1. It just wasn’t gear progression. A new player is not equal to a veteran in GW1. They can’t do all the content that a vet can. That’s the easiest way to see it. If you can say that a brand new player can do everything a veteran can in GW1 , then I would agree that it has no VP, but from what I understand…they can’t. Even some of the cosmetics were vertical progression from what I understood.

Yes, I am suggesting that vertical progression is progression in power and, as such, is synonymous with “power creep”. You could fully discuss vertical progression and it’s inherent problems, use the term power creep, and lose nothing at all.

And, it’s why Mike O, contrary to killcannon’s assertions to the contrary, can assert that GW did not have vertical progression. My assertion is that progression in some form is present within 99% of games. Most MMO’s, arpgs, et al have vertical progression. Guild Wars did not. On this one, I think like Mike.

I really can’t argue this further as the understanding is definitional. There is a video by Taugrim where he explains why he believes horizontal progression is preferable and perhaps it could help with the distinctions involved. He uses the term “scaling” instead of progression.

Edit: the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zn81sY7pqI

lol.
Raine answer the question.
Can a new player do all the same content a veteran player can in GW1 without looking for or attaining better skills? Do these other skills you do not start with make the content easier?

Honestly, I don’t care one way or another simply because this isn’t GW1.

You, in theory, could do the content without the PvE only skills, but you’d be seriously gimping yourself to do so. Let me give you an example.

There was a PvE only skill called pain inverter. What pain inverter did was this:

Hex Spell. For 6…10 seconds, every time target foe deals damage that foe takes 100…140% of the damage it causes (maximum 80 damage).

Now this might seem relatively innocuous as it stands…BUT…if it did damage to just you, it would take a maximum of 80 damage. However, if it did AOE damage to you and your party of 8 people, it would do 80 damage for each of the 8 people or 640 damage (keeping in mind the level 20 cap…hit points were quite low). But it gets better.

If you had a minion master with you…it would do damage to you, 8 members of your party and up to ten minions. You’d take this powerful elementalists, that would use one skill and kill themselves with that one skill.

At higher levels, it did more damage, and lasted longer. Pain inverter so so powerful I stopped using it because it made the game far too easy.

The skill save yourselve’s was even worse. At max level it literally mitigated 90% of the damage done to your ENTIRE PARTY and could be kept up indefinitely. While you could do DOA without an imbagon paragon, you couldn’t find a group that went without one. In other words, if you weren’t one of the prescribed FoTM builds, you didnt’ get to do DOA.

Eventually, my wife and I finished DOA by ourselves with six heroes…but yes, I was an Imbagon paragon.

The point is you only got 1 second of protection at lower luxon levels and had to level the skill.

Oh and if you look it up now, Anet changed it last year so that all the PvE only skills maxed out at power level when you hit rank 5 in that particular title track. Back when I was playing, you had to go all the way to max level of any title track in order to get max power for any skill.

Ision.3207:

Raine.1394

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

Perfectly stated, Raine. Bravo

BTW, don’t bother engaging any of the “self-appointed” spokesmen for Anet that pollute nearly every single thread with dozens of posts. These types are easily spotted because they spend most of their time lecturing others on nearly every topic imaginable. Always at pains to give the impression they actually know why the game company’s developers made certain decisions or changes, truth be told, they haven’t a clue. Unfortunately, these types have become more common in MMO forums; usually polite, but always pretentious, these creeps are nothing more than dedicated reverse-trolls. However, if you do choose to engage them, be very careful, because reverse trolls adore the report option.

It’s perfectly stated, and perfectly incorrect. People in AMAs talk quickly and gear was being discussed. I’m pretty sure if you brought up the PvE only skills, any dev would tell you it was a form of vertical progression. But since they were talking about gear at the time that’s what they were talking about.

There’s no way in the world you can claim that having to level skills seperately after you hit max level is not vertical progression. Well you can claim it…but you’d be demonstrably wrong.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Guild wars did not have vertical progression. Collecting and leveling skills is not vertical progression. To understand vertical progression (VP) you only need to understand the meaning of the two words that make up the concept. It involves a continuous increase of the power level of the game. But, if there is doubt Mike O himself said that GW had no VP: “How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” The quote is from the AMA that followed the introduction of VP.

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.

cesmode.4257:

Ive played since beta. I loved how the game was until November 15th. And then every patch after seems to give the players exactly what we dont need or even ask for.

There was an enormous eruption of negativity when they announced ascended gear(new tier to acquire)..which had always been planned but they sat on announcing this for three months. Hmm?

Things we DONT have but CLAMOR for:
-LFG tool
-Scavenger hunt
-Difficult explorable mode dungeons / dungeons that you cannot glitch
-Additional story content
-A stop to nerfing farm spots
-Player/Guild Housing

Things that we have received that I dont think I’ve seen one whisper about:
-Living story
-Monthly updates
-Monthly updates increased to bi weekly
-More minigames
-Temporary content
-RNG boxes (also purchasable in the gem store).

Pure fallacy. You say the playerbase has been asking for certain things but you mean part of the playerbase, including the part you represent.

I believe that many people DID ask for more minigames. I believe many people ran out of content and wanted more stuff to do (such as monthly updates). They may not have said we want an update every month but they definitely wanted more content.

Now, no one could have asked for the Living Story. Why? Because no one had any idea it was in the works. No other game does it. In order for someone to have asked for it, would mean it would have had to been invented. I mean, before Anet put a jumping puzzle in the game, I never asked for more jumping puzzles…because they weren’t in the game. Simple concept really.

I think you underestimate just how popular the living story is. Anet knows it’s popular. Dungeons are also popular. But both of these things are popular with different areas of the player base. I’m pretty sure you think that you represent the majority. And I’m also pretty sure you don’t.

tigirius.9014:

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

I guess the one thing we can take away from this is that some people don’t know the difference between marketing and promises

Something can’t be both?

Vayne.8563:

and some people think that a company that makes an MMO will not try different things or change things around if things aren’t working.

A total revision of their vision for the game less than 2 months into it? A vision that was a major selling point for the game. Thats a sign of panic. Not to mention that they refuse to own up to it.

Agreed. Just like when they made fun of the playerbase the for the first set of noticeable loot issues (which still haven’t been completely looked at or addressed because of the sizeable difference between the haves and havenots in this game due to the consistant 95% of the time system of either getting everything or getting nothing while playing the same exact events in the same groups every week as guildies often do) there has been no apology, no talk of going back to their roots and giving the people what they bought the game for in the first place, freedom to actually play how they want and a literal focus on the entire open world, a combat system that isn’t a repeat spam system that is balanced thruout, etc etc.

People can argue for them all they want and try to discredit those of us who noticed this is not what we signed on for, but they can’t change the facts that just 1 month into the game they completely cutoff loot, and just 2 months into the game they completely changed their focus. Just look at the voting system they have now, deciding which items go into fractals??? seriously that’s what they think we’d like to see? That alone proves they haven’t read anything in these forums for a whole year now.

I’m not discrediting you for that. I am discrediting the OP for using the words bait and switch when it’s simply not true. It’s hyperbole pure and simple.

And yes, I love the idea of voting to see which fractal gets in. I absolutely love it. Because the whole idea of the living story is for the game to be affected by it. For players to have some say in it. People are ASKING for this in other threads.

Because you personally don’t like something doesn’t mean a bevy of players don’t. In fact, there’s a lot of excitement about it. People campaigning and getting into the spirit of things.

In fact, I strongly suspect if you didn’t have your loot issues, perceived or real, you’d judge the game differently over all. Since you’re so miserable about something so important to you, you could hardly be called unbiased judge.

cesmode.4257:

Still creative or not, I just cant wrap my head around a company that might back track on its word, every once in a while. You might be able to do this because of your chosen profession I suppose. You are subject to the “creative process” more than the next guy, so you are mentally able to step back and see that things change, etc.

I am a statistics guy, hard coded, etc. I work in a field where crunching numbers, metrics, and determining hard fact is my world. So when a dev says one thing, I take their word for it. If that word changes, I have a hard time adapting because I was already told one thing and understood it as fact.

Even the general populice: If they are told one thing…they expect it. Not everyone has the ability to put their creative thinking caps on. If I go to a store and purchase a gallon of whole milk, but get home and realize its actually skim milk, I’ll be kitten ed. If order a cheeseburger and fries and the person at Mcdonalds reads that order back to me, but gives me a cheeseburger and onion rings, I’ll go back and get my fries! Hell, she read it back to me! She understood what she was supposed to give to me.

Its all about managing expectations. This is the #1 thing my first boss taught me years ago. Manage expectations. Why give us any expectations at all, if they are all completely subject to change in a matter of months. Arenanet is in love with telling us their plans, how their teams work, etc. I like that. And they are giving us expectations. Going back on them would be a huge setback. And they did so a few times already in the eyes of many.

This is why I rail against uses of things like “their word” or “promise”. When an intention is stated, and something else comes up…everyone understands that in the real world.

I say to my kids I’m taking you to the movies. Work calls on the phone and I have to go in. Sure my kids might be disappointed, but they don’t blame me. They don’t say I lied to them. I had no way of knowing work was going to call.

Anet made a game centered around cosmetic progression. They attempted it. It didn’t take with the masses. Anet had a couple of choices. Stay with their original plan, and don’t adapt and resign itself to the fact that this game won’t long term be the game it could have been…or compromise.

Sure there are some people who are against compromise. They believe what they believe to be right…and that’s it. Vertical progression is bad…black and white. But the only vertical progression we’ve seen in most MMOs…all the ones I can think of, is full on gear grind.

Anet knows the difference between a gear grind and some vertical progression. We know this from Guild Wars 1 where they did have vertical progression through skills, but it wasn’t linked to gear. It was still vertical progression.

And there was vertical progression in this game from day one. Not November. Day one. But most people weren’t complaining about it.

And again, you make it sound like most people even knew what vertical progression was, but most don’t. Most people just play the game. Only a very small percentage of the playerbase cares about concepts like vertical progression and of those, not all are against it. Not in the black and white sense you seem to be.

So you’d rather have no game, watch it fall apart and go play Rift and Neverwinter than strike a compromise that allows work on the game to move forward?

Okay. I think that would have been a huge betrayal of those who like the game and want to keep playing it.

TwoBit.5903:

Evolution is a popular scientific term that’s misappropriated in order to give credence to nonsense. Frankly speaking it’s a buzzword. The actual mechanisms of evolution are completely blind and mindless (understanding, however isn’t), so not exactly a suitable term for a field in which innovation must be coupled with large degree of insight and knowledge.

If by “evolution” we’re talking about smart design and innovations, then ANet and their living story fail in that regard as well. The changes since launch seem to revolve around the backtracking of “innovations,” most likely because these “innovations” were built upon faulty premises. Even basic things like narrative structure fall short due in no small part to ANets “innovations.”The fact that people complain that there’s barely any lore to the recent updates while in fact there is a decent amount should be signal to this fire. Using the main website to dump important setting information instead of delivering it sensibly in-game is not innovative.

I disagree. I think this game HAS innovated and evolution has more than one meaning. It can be a passive concept.

The design of cars have evolved over many years, the designs of computers have evolved. You’re taking the scientific definition of evolution and trying to super-impose it over the common usage one.

If you don’t believe the genre is evolving because of design changes made in this game, take a look at ESO. It’s almost like GW2 set in their world.

And sure many of the things in this game have been done before in other games, but no one has brought them all together this way. It changes the way the game plays, testified to by the number of people who really don’t like MMOs but do like Guild Wars 2….myself included.

cesmode.4257:

So they feel free to contradict themselves? Thats probably going to be a largely unpopular practice.

If they say they will do one thing, and in a few months go in a different direction..that would be unpopular. Back lash. And ultimately leads to losses in consumer faith(aside from you )

And what is Utopia? Never heard of it in GW2 official blogs or interviews.

Utopia was an annouced expansion for Guild Wars 1. Anet annouced it. Everyone knew it was coming. Then, after months, they said, nevermind we’re making Guild Wars 2 instead.

Saying one thing and doing another is a ridiculous comment. It’s like you don’t understand the creative process at all…and this is a company of artists.

I’ve sold books to companies, told them what would be in the book and by the time the book was done, it was very different than what I originally sold them. That general topics of course where the same, but many individual details varied.

Then there were times publishers asked me to change things that I didn’t particularly want to change, but I did anyway. In the end, a creative process isn’t always something you can ink permanently in black and white. To think you can is ludicrous.

Anet understood that sometimes they say things, try them and they don’t work. That’s WHY Anet published a blog on iteration and how they work. They put things in, they take things out, they play around with things. Without doing that, there’s no way to know what works and what doesn’t work.

Anet said they couldn’t do eye color in the game and then fans complained so they found a way to add eye color. They didn’t lie, When they said it, there wasn’t a way to do eye color. They said there’s be energy and energy potions in the game, but they changed that.

The funny bit is, where you see this as a weakness, I see this as a strength.

I can’t tell you the number of books that I’ve edited that have been approved by drastic changes after the outline of the book had been finalized.

If every creative endeavor could only stick to an outline once created, this world would be a lot darker.

cesmode.4257:

Ah, the evolving argument. So that is the last line of defense. When an argument is supported by fact and quote…it is viewed as obsolete because its months old. Then why on earth would arenanet go through the trouble of writing the blog, having it approved by PR and posting it for everyone to see if it was going to be obsoleted in a few months or a year. I completely disagree with you.

If arenanet promised us Dungeon X in January and in April we get Dungeon Y instead, I would be kitten ed. I wanted Dungeon X. They said we would be getting Dungeon X.

You can’t throw the “evolving” argument at supported facts every time. Yes its evolving. But why have any vision at all? Why tell us what they are doing, what their design teams look like…

I recognize the difference between gated content via gear and verticle progression. I do. I just see a lot of small carrots dangling in front of my face. They do a great job not to make these carrots huge, just large enough for you to want to go after them but small enough that they might be disguised as minimal treadmill/if any treadmill.

How come you can quote other blogs, but you ignore the blog about iteration? Why would they do it? Because they iterate.

Do you know that for months on end, every single one of their columns had the word iterate in it and they even wrote a whole column just about iteration. Why is that one less important than any other.

Plans change all the time in MMOs. I saw Rift introduce a full PvP change and then change it back in four days.

If Anet doesn’t believe it’s in the game’s best interest to raise stats, then they won’t. Just like if Anet thought it was best to have the new stats in, they’d do that.

I’m not sure that just because an MMO plans to do something that it always happens.

I mean Anet spoke about Utopia and that never happened…and that was a lot more than a blog post.

Nick.6972:

As good as 4 Warriors + Mesmer?

You could do any dungeon with a gimmicky team consisting of 5 Perma Stealth Thieves too.

What does as good as mean? Do you mean you get better rewards? More achievement points?

Better to me means more fun. If you can run that dungeon easy as pie with a team in 25 minutes and there’s no challenge to it, no thanks. That wouldn’t entertain me at all.

You’re welcome to do that if you want to. But that doesn’t make rangers terrible in dungeons.

I’ve often found in life that the easy way to do something is seldom the best way to do it.

@cesmode

The game is evolving. What happened or was said in a blog even a few months ago, might have changed by now. The first ascended backpack was released in November. Here we are eight months later, and we don’t even have the first piece of ascended armor.

Anet made a change, because they needed to keep people from leaving the game after getting exotics. It worked (for a lot of people anyway).

But now they have another mechanism to keep people in the game…the living story. I’m not saying they will or won’t do anything, but there’s certainly a possibility that if they no longer need the gear upgrades, if they found the mechanism that keeps people playing (achievements and living story), then they’ll be less likely to add stats to that gear.

Anything is possible until it happens. That’s sort of what iteration means.

But even if it does raise stats, it could still be relatively easy to get, which would make it far more palatable at least to me.

Remember, I’m not particularly troubled by the words vertical progression, I’m only troubled by a full on gear treadmill that locks me out of content.

Edit: And this from a guy claiming there’s no challenging content. lol

Nick.6972:

Immersion? I don’t think this game takes itself seriously, just look at all the Gem store items, its like they’re all designed for 6 year olds.
And the living story, it’s like a never ending carnival, why can’t we get something more serious, I don’t know, like going back to Orr? Fighting the dragons?

Challenge, what challenge? There’s none in PvE.

I agree. The game is far less immersive than it could be. There are a lot of reasons for that.

And I’m a big fan of immersion. It’s why I’ve often said Guild Wars 2 is a good game, but not a great one.

Nick.6972:

Rangers are horrible in Dungeons, no offense, but they are.
Warriors/Guardians + Mesmer is all you need.

Yet a party of rangers can beat every dungeon the game. Imagine that.

I read it. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t like my comments on it and I don’t disagree with it strongly enough to attack it. I can see where you’re coming from.

cesmode.4257:

marnick.4305:

maddoctor.2738:

Shockwave.1230:

What I’m saying is that they abondend their philosophy of not doing vertical progression that impacts gameplay. They didn’t have to abondon that philosophy, but they did.

Ascended is the last gear tier and it was needed to introduce new ways of getting it without requiring the over-farmed ways to get the other gear types. Gold/karma/crafting were flawed and imbalanced designs in the first place, relying only on your luck to get what you need or excessive hours farming at certain places. They didn’t abandon their philosophy, yet, I haven’t seen a constant tier increase with Ascended gear, yet, so until that time comes, the amount of vertical progression in the game is at the bare minimum.

Indeed. He wants to see extreme VP so takes the extremely shallow and optional VP currently in the game and expands that into a flawed argument.

Not even half the gear slots are currently of ascended quality, whereas in other games at the 1 year mark, about 2 full tiers had been released. Furthermore exotic is viable everywhere except fractals.

While there’s a little bit of VP in this game, it is well implemented and I hope it remains at this level for a very long time. After ascended armor comes legendary armor and then nothing.

Yes, in one year you get one, two or even three tiers of gear. Takes about a month or so of grinding raids and rep to gain a near full set of the new tier gear. True.

Takes about a month or so to grind the laurels + ecto to gain an ascended..amulet? Whichever one requires the ecto. Takes about as long to gain that back piece, if you’re not playing 10 hours per day. See where Im going?

Takes as long to gain one slot of ascended gear than it does to gain a full set of max tier gear in a game like WoW. So tell me, what not grindy and not pure example of verticle progression?

Umm no. It doesn’t take a month to grind laurels. It takes a month to GET laurels. You’re not grinding them, unless you’re just a terribad player. There are numerous ways to get laurels. You can SPvP to get them. You can WvW to get them. You can PvE to get them. Hell half the stuff you can do in dungeons.

With the badges you get from WvW, you can spend even less laurels to get ascended gear.

In other games you get this next tier of gear here, here and here, specifically. This is NOT a gear treadmill. It works differently. It follows different rules. And there’s not a whole lot in this game that’s denied to you if you don’t have that gear. High level fractals and nothing else. Meaning someone with NO ascended gear and still see every fractal.

What other MMO can make a claim like that?

LordByron.8369:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 was hailed as a landmark game because it innovated. Now Anet is experimenting and innovating again. So Guild Wars 2 is the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1.

Do you think that using a concept like vertical progression that is the KEY of OLD SCHOOL mmorg is innovation?

Its actually the opposite i’d say.

You say that as if vertical progression is the only thing in the entire game. As if vertical progression is so important and such an issue that nothing else Anet is doing matters. And as long as you’re blinded by vertical progression, then there’s nothing to say on the matter.

Anet has brought together a whole lot of different things to make this game different from other MMOs in spite of the TINY BIT of vertical progression in the game. And that’s all it is….a tiny bit.

It’s like saying Guild Wars 1 wasn’t ground breaking because they had an energy bar, and so did other games. What makes a game innovative isn’t the one thing that a company does that others do, but how they changed the genre and moved it forward.

Anet is TRYING different things. Rift and Warhammer both had forms of dynamic events, but neither had the bottle to remove the traditional quest hub system. The removal of the energy bar is another thing Anet did. Not competing for nodes or kills, the downed state in an MMO, taking away the trinity, jumping puzzles, and now the living story are all ways that Anet is innovating.

That makes it the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1 (particularly since Guild Wars 1 had vertical progression as well).

cesmode.4257:

You do know that while ascended gear is currently limited to accessories, amulets, rings…they plan on releasing a full gear set of ascended? They said by the years end we will be able to fit out an entire gear set of ascended gear.

So no, it isnt limited to just accessories. We will have our ascended gear set. And if the level cap ever raises, that gear becomes obsolete(unless they allow ascended gear to scale with your level). And if they allow ascended gear to scale with your level, that pressures other people to grind for ascended gear so they can have their scalable gear.

Woa speculation I know.

And response from a small % of the playerbase? Try a thread containing 40,000+ posts in November, largely kitten ed off about ascended gear. And if ascended gear was always planned, as they claim, how come they didnt let us know about it for three months, or even in beta? They KNEW releasing ascended gear was going to annoy a lot of people, and they said they knew this. So why not avoid all trouble, release the game, and say “hey we do have more gear coming down in a few months., a higher tier. A one time treadmill only”. No, they didnt do that, instead they just annoyed a ton of people when they could have avoided a lot of it. So no, I really dont think it was planned.

I’ll believe it when I see it. And when I see it it still might not be a problem for me. Again, Guild Wars 1 had, through skills, vertical progression.

What I don’t want, and what I’ve never wanted, is a full on gear treadmill. Adding the a tier of gear over an entire year slowly, particularly if there’s many and easy ways to get it does not a treadmill make.

More importantly, I don’t want to see content gated by gear, with the exception of the Fractals what was put there for that reason.

So even if ascended armor and weapons do get into the game, we don’t know how much of an affect it will have. For example the ascended stuff that’s in the game now doesn’t affect me at all. I can easily ignore it, or get it when I happen to have enough laurels.

Adding ascended gear doesn’t make a treadmill. And again, they still said it was supposed to be in the game at launch. Why do people keep ignoring that?

Actually I don’t think that Anet needs to swallow their pride, because I don’t think they’re that prideful. And I don’t think you appreciate the steps forward this game has made to the genre.

Not to say there aren’t issues, because there are…but issues an all, this game is far ahead of most MMOs from my point of view.

It’s automatic. All the person did in the video was move the minimap to the upper right hand corner of his screen instead of leaving it where it usually resides, at the lower right hand corner.

If you did that, you’d see exactly what he sees when opening bags. In default mode, you’d see what you get from open bags on the top right of your screen, under the “quest text” area.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

So you think the Guild Wars community would have been better served letting the game settle into oblivion? Because that’s what would have happened.

Snip

So in your mind betraying you (while not betraying me) is a betrayal of Guild Wars 1 players. Well, sorry to tell you, not all of us feel betrayed. So what did Anet really do?

They made a decision for the benefit of their game…which some of us don’t mind and some actively like.

They betrayed, your words, a portion of their playerbase. In my mind, letting the game languish would have betrayed a bigger portion.

Things aren’t so black and white as you’re painting them.

No one is saying they were unjustified to lookout for themselves. Companies do it all the time. NC Soft and ArenaNet are bringing in far more revenue now, great for them. The market that likes vertical power progression has another system in another game they can play, wonderful.

What I’m saying is that they abondend their philosophy of not doing vertical progression that impacts gameplay. They didn’t have to abondon that philosophy, but they did.

They could have chose to stick with that philosophy and things would have played out differently. Would it have been better or worse? No one really knows for sure, but they probably would have had more players than Guild Wars but less than they have now, because it seems like the larger portion of the gaming community does want power progression, which they already have an abundance from every MMO. Would they have done their hirings and budget differently too? Probably. Would the game be different? Definitely. A lot different? It would be fairly different. Is that good or bad? It’s just different. Would they be hearing about how people are upset about grind for vertical progression? Not if they had stuck with their original philosophy, and maybe had a sprinkle of it like they had previously done.

They had however many millions of copies of Guild Wars sold, and it was sold on the idea of quality buy to play CONTENT. It wasn’t about vertical progression to suck you in and make your character more powerful or about a monthly fee to suck you into playing. Just pick it up, put it down as much as you want. Enjoy the content, enjoy the stories, repeat content and dive into the lore, progress your title’s for bragging rights if you want, and progress your character’s look if you want. There’s still more to it than just these things obviously.

Still millions of copies sold without power progression being a theme of the game, which allows players to focus on so much more than their character’s power. It was obviously a different concept, but still successful and enjoyed.

They abandoned? Really?

You’re trying to say this game has full on vertical progression. So far, it has ONE TIER OF GEAR. That’s it. Actually sorry I’m wrong.

It was one tier of ACCESSORIES.

I think abandoning their vision, all things considering is a little strong.

What Anet did was compromise. Reasonable people are usually for compromise. If you have to have it all your own way, then in my opinion you’re not being reasonable.

It’s not reasonable to say I want this and Anet didn’t do this so I’ve been betrayed. Particularly when so many Guild Wars 1 players ARE playing and enjoying this game.

And if you continue to compare this to Guild Wars 1, which remained a niche game and was always a niche game, I’ll remind you, again, that the staff is five times the size and a niche game won’t pay their salaries.

From what I see, a bunch of Guild Wars 1 people got it in their head that ALL vertical progression is a gear grind and thus a bad thing. I don’t ever feel like I’m grinding in this game. Because I choose not to grind. We don’t have a gear treadmill. And since vertical progression was in the game AT LAUNCH, Anet abandoned nothing.

I think some people are way to attached to vertical progression being negative automatically. It can BECOME negative, if not watched, but Anet hasn’t flooded the market with gear tier after gear tier.

Sorry but the response of a small portion of the fan base doesn’t indicate Anet abandoned anything.

In fact, this game is the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1. Want to know why? Because Anet is innovating and trying different things, and that’s precisely what Anet did with Guild Wars 1.

Guild Wars 1 players wanted Guild Wars 1.5…but then that wouldn’t be a true successor to Guild Wars 1. Because it wouldn’t have been as innovative.

Guild Wars 1 was hailed as a landmark game because it innovated. Now Anet is experimenting and innovating again. So Guild Wars 2 is the true spiritual successor to Guild Wars 1.

I didn’t love any of the elite content in Guild Wars 1, though I did all of it. I don’t suspect elite content in Guild Wars 2 will be soloable, though. It’ll be designed to require people to work together. That’s sort of the point of it. It’s what most hard core players are asking for.

tldr; I’m impatient and I think that after we kill one dragon we should just go kill another one. No time to train more troops, replace lost technology, scout out the situation. How do you even know we know where the other dragons are?

Actually that’s a good point I hadn’t thought of. I agree that achievements for WvW particularly need work.

Shifty.5187:

Vayne.8563:

So you think the Guild Wars community would have been better served letting the game settle into oblivion? Because that’s what would have happened.

This game has much higher operating budget that Guild Wars 1 did, with five times the number of employees, bigger headquarters, etc. This game would have languished and died without players. There aren’t enough players like you and even me. Sad to say, but true.

What would be the reason they can’t just say that this is the case?

No business ever says they’re in danger of failing unless they have no choice. The negative publicity hurts sales. You never give the enemy ammuntion to use against you. People would then go and say it’s a failed game.

Have you seen what this community does if Anet says ANYTHING. Do you know the kind of trollign that would go on here?

Anet is not responsible to say everything to the fans, because a portion of the fanbase isn’t trustworthy. It’s why Rift didn’t call server closes server closes. It would have been horribly stupid of them to say this.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

He said it, but there was vertical progression in Guild Wars 2 from day one since 80th level exotics are better than 80th level rares. More to the point, Anet also said that ascended gear was meant to be in at launch but it didn’t make it on time.

So it would have been just another level of gear that the game launched with. Which presumably wouldnt’ have been a problem.

There’s nothing that can be done about the past. It’s history, the game launched with substancial vertical progression, even though I didn’t understand it at that time. ANet’s history before that was not vertical progression, because of this it makes sense that people such as myself would impose as much pressure as possible to prevent any further vertical progression and to push for the grind to continually be lessened on that vertical progression.

snip

I followed this game religiously and very very little surprised me. The addition of ascended gear DID surprise me, and I said at the time, I’ll wait and see how it plays out. To me it’s fine. It doesn’t stop me from doing anything I want to do in the game. I have characters with and without ascended gear and I do most of the same stuff on all of them, the exception being high level fractals.

The problem is, most people see this vertical progression thing as this huge breech of promise, when in fact, vertical progression was in the game from day one. Beyond that, however, most people who play this game, the overwhelming majority, don’t even know what vertical progression is.

I’m willing to wager less than 25% of the game’s population know or understand vertical progression as a concept at all. Of those who do understand it, not everyone is against it.

So the question is, what percentage of the player base is negatively affected by this and what percentage of the player base is positively affected?

That sounds like the ends justify the means, which in this scenario show’s a company is more concerned about the bottom line than it’s existing playerbase. I already feel like ANet is less of a players’ company than they were, which may not make sense to some due to them likely having increased their audience. But every other MMO already had vertical progression. ANet was the company who’s online rpg didn’t have it. Their grind was purely cosmetic and for title. Their grind didn’t impact gameplay and it didn’t impact combat, save the first 30 or so hours to level and the minor impact to PvE skills. That’s what their playerbase liked, and now they’re doing the same things every other company else does to pull a larger share of the overall market instead of catering towards the market they did have. So to me they feel like less of a players’ company because they don’t cater towards what their existing playerbase wants, they make decisions to gain a larger share of the overall market. Which is good for business, but bad for the needs of playerbase that they had. They pretty much abondoned the don’t do vertical progression, don’t let grind impact combat gameplay philosophy and thereby alienated that whole part of the community.

So you think the Guild Wars community would have been better served letting the game settle into oblivion? Because that’s what would have happened.

This game has much higher operating budget that Guild Wars 1 did, with five times the number of employees, bigger headquarters, etc. This game would have languished and died without players. There aren’t enough players like you and even me. Sad to say, but true.

So yeah I like the idea of no real vertical progression but Anet has to worry about feeding families of the people that work for them, in addition to being loyal. But even then you’re missing the point.

Because I’m no less a loyal Guild Wars fan than you are, and I LIKE the changes. So do others I know. So only SOME of the Guild Wars fans felt betrayed not all of them. There are an awful lot of guys running around with GWAMM titles who seem to like this game.

So in your mind betraying you (while not betraying me) is a betrayal of Guild Wars 1 players. Well, sorry to tell you, not all of us feel betrayed. So what did Anet really do?

They made a decision for the benefit of their game…which some of us don’t mind and some actively like.

They betrayed, your words, a portion of their playerbase. In my mind, letting the game languish would have betrayed a bigger portion.

Things aren’t so black and white as you’re painting them.

mikeyob.6152:

Vayne.8563:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Mkalafut.1273:

Nuka Cola.8520:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Is this supposed to be a good news? No one liked them… and i can assure you that for lev40+ EVERYONE will be skipping these two. So this is just two additional fractals everyone will skip like they skip dredge/shaman/cliffside. GG.

Funny, I see a lot of people screaming about wanting those dungeons back….

like the kind of people who’ve missed these and want to try them now… No one that was doing them/done over 5 runs of each cares.

I ran them both over 5 times. I am very excited to see them return. You don’t speak for everyone so don’t act like your opinion is the be-all end-all of what the community wants.

oh but i’ve spoke to a lot of people about these two when they were available, no one liked them. on this forum im not surprised to see so much positivity about these two mini dungeons because most people here are fanboys who go crazy even if they add something as minor as a ONE new mini pet… Both of these mini dungeons are far from ‘fun’ or great.

Right we’re fan boys because we like something about the game we’re playing. lol Nice try.

Eh, you actually made me come out of lurking to finally post something, but you can’t brush this one off so easily. Every single post I’ve ever seen you make has been blind defense of Anet, without being willing to consider where other people are coming from. I’m not saying you’re wrong or that you can’t have that opinion, but just about all of your posts relate to trying to disprove any negative notions about GW2. As far as fanboys go, that’s a pretty big part of it.

In regards to this though, I’m actually happy to see their return. I wasn’t particularly active when the content came out, and wouldn’t mind a chance to experience. Even if it was negatively received for various reasons, incorporating already-created content that we wouldn’t otherwise see is positive for a lot of reasons. Wait to see how the final version actually plays out before automatically assuming it’ll hurt fractals and be unenjoyable.

How much would you like to bet that I’m a blind fan boy, and that every single post I’ve made is positive or supportive of Anet. Even people who used to be against me and call me that have come out saying that I’m not all pro Anet, and some people have even asked me what’s up and why I’m being so negative. I’m sorry if you don’t read all my posts but calling me a blind fan boy is not wrong, but demonstrably wrong.

Among the things I’m not happy with are rng cash boxes, the way the story dungeons/destiny’s edge story are laid out (I thought that was a bad design decision), the changes made to Southsun that affect guild missions, the new achievement points counting toward the leaderboard, daily points counting to the leaderboards…and there have been more.

I don’t blindly support anything, where as the person I was quoting, if you look at their post history, has attacked just about everything and anything Anet has done for ages.

Maybe you should do some research before commenting on stuff.

I beat him, using my own strategy, which is pretty much just common sense any way and not particularly different from Dulfy’s.

Bluff whenever you can.
Heal when you can if you need to.
If your heal and your belch are both available and you don’t need to heal, use the belch first. If you do need to heal, always use the heal before the belch, and follow immediately with the belch (since you’ll only have to bluff twice then to get your heal).
Needless to say never drink.
I don’t use my elite until I’m under 6000 points.

It took me ages, doing the same strategy over and over again to win. I almost won several times and got him down to just about zero once, but it still took me hours.

It is based on luck, as well as knowing that to do. But once you do the strategy you need luck to beat him.

I dont’ really look for it, but it seems okay on TC…maybe I’ve just been lucky.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

He said it, but there was vertical progression in Guild Wars 2 from day one since 80th level exotics are better than 80th level rares. More to the point, Anet also said that ascended gear was meant to be in at launch but it didn’t make it on time.

So it would have been just another level of gear that the game launched with. Which presumably wouldnt’ have been a problem.

There’s nothing that can be done about the past. It’s history, the game launched with substancial vertical progression, even though I didn’t understand it at that time. ANet’s history before that was not vertical progression, because of this it makes sense that people such as myself would impose as much pressure as possible to prevent any further vertical progression and to push for the grind to continually be lessened on that vertical progression.

Even though they’ve stated Ascended gear was meant to be in the game at launch, given the way ANet has done their marketing and communication with the community I don’t feel like it’s as straight forward as that. But it is further evidence to show they released before they were ready, if that is in fact true. I’m more apt to believe that when ANet says ascended gear was supposed to be in the game at launch, they meant that all the tiers of gear should have been introduced at launch to avoid the backlash that they face, but that’s just due to my inability to be as trusting with their words now with Guild Wars 2 as I could in the past while I was playing Guild Wars.

I think that’s probably one of the biggest things actually for people’s expectations, as part of the following in Guild Wars 1 there was communication on the wiki with the devs and release notes and more statements of intent, more detailed transcribed documentation on what they were doing basically. When ANet reps communicated back then, we just knew what they meant. Naturally as the build up occurred towards Guild Wars 2, many people thought they knew what ANet meant as they always had. Obviously things turned out the way they did, and now communication from ANet feels far less genuine and feels like it holds a lot more spin than it used to. This is just me personally speaking of course based on my experiences and from conversation with the people that I played Guild Wars with.

I followed this game religiously and very very little surprised me. The addition of ascended gear DID surprise me, and I said at the time, I’ll wait and see how it plays out. To me it’s fine. It doesn’t stop me from doing anything I want to do in the game. I have characters with and without ascended gear and I do most of the same stuff on all of them, the exception being high level fractals.

The problem is, most people see this vertical progression thing as this huge breech of promise, when in fact, vertical progression was in the game from day one. Beyond that, however, most people who play this game, the overwhelming majority, don’t even know what vertical progression is.

I’m willing to wager less than 25% of the game’s population know or understand vertical progression as a concept at all. Of those who do understand it, not everyone is against it.

So the question is, what percentage of the player base is negatively affected by this and what percentage of the player base is positively affected?

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Yes, actually. After the manifesto came out, due to the confusion it caused, Anet posted a clarification of the manifesto. It was widely talked about at the time.

If the manifesto was so so poorly done, so confoundedly confusing that they needed to clarify matters later, why is it still available for viewing on the Guild Wars 2 site? Why has it not been removed in order to prevent further confusion? Which one of the other videos features this alleged clarification? Where on the Guild Wars 2 website is this clarification? I see you mention it over and over, but I’ve not seen you post a link to it.

Edit: Digging through the News section, found this:

“So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.” ~ Mike O’Brien, April 27, 2010

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto

Right, preparing to have fun, instead of having fun is the theme. And it’s true. That is to say in most MMOs your leveling and what you do while leveling is COMPLETELY different from end game…which is why some of us, including me, hate MMOs.

Here what yu’re doing at end game isn’t much different from what yu’re doing during the game. In fact, you can enjoy the living story from almost any level.

So I’d say you’ve proved their point. Thanks for posting that.

Peter.8047:

Vayne.8563:

Peter.8047:

I want a full expansion. These quick little events that only last a small amount of time are not equal to a full expansion. At this rate we will never see any new skills, character classes, races or a new full map.

These events every 2 weeks are fine, as long as you are also creating a complete expansion as well.

At this point in GW1’s life, Factions was coming out soon. A brand new campaign, 2 new characters, a whole new map, 100’s of skills, brand new armor sets and new enemies as well as a new a multiplayer mode and challenge missions.

All we have in GW2 a year later, is fractals and some new gem store items.
We want new character classes, new races, new armor and weapons, new weapon types for each character, a new map (just remake Cantha GW2 style), a new multi-player game type with 3-4 maps, more guild features like guild halls and GvG.

If you can deliver this type of core content without an expansion then that’s fine, but these little 2 week mini updates just feel like something to keep us busy for a few hours, rather then a true full expansion experience.

And the amount of content combined between Factions and Prophecies is still considerably less than the amount of content in Guild Wars 2.

That is to say, after Guild Wars 1 was out a year and Factions was released, there was less Guild Wars 1 content than there was Guild Wars 2 content at launch.

That maybe so, but I played Prophecies from the day it launched all the way up until the day Factions launched, never stopped and never got bored. I played GW2 until December and stopped because I was completely bored (Came back to check out the event, already bored again. See the problem here?). I feel the smaller amount of content in GW1 was much stronger, especially compared to these little mini updates.

This may also be due to the fact that I have not had to ever change my characters skills (since theres a total of like… 5 per class exaggerating) and the SPvP is complete trash, but those are flaws with the actual game itself and not so much the “content”.

I guess I want an expansion because in my mind that’s the only way ANet can improve all the things I don’t like about the game and also add all the things I want in the game. It feels like since we are just getting these smaller updates, the game is going to stay completely the same (no new skills, no new characters, no new PvP, no new real maps, no permanent changes to the game).

Like I said before, if they can find a way to add these major things through these small updates then fine. If by the end of the year we have a new race and a new character and a new map to explore, I will be happy. And also, I’d be cool with them doing the small updates IF they were also working on a full expansion pack at the same time, then I’d be completely cool with it.

Both my sons played Prophecies at launch and were bored in a period of a couple of months. They went to WoW and stayed there for five years. One bought factions, got bored after a month.

Me, I started in WoW and migrated to Guild Wars 1 and never looked back.

If you were a PvPer, of course Guild Wars 1 was a much better game. If you’re a PvE’er, it’s hard to imagine you not getting bored with Guild Wars 1 periodically.

Devata.6589:

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

Nick.6972:

The fact that I did 16/16 Bazaar Achievements in less than 3 days doesn’t help either.
Hell, I’m not even rushing or using any guide, everything’s too simplistic.
And what should I do now? Wait another week till I get other 5 hour content update?
How about adding new HARD permanent repeatable dungeons?
Is it too hard to create a decent hard content for players that want an actual challenge? Is 1% Hardcore 99% Casual content division unfair?

As has been established elsewhere the casual player is between 30 -60 years of age and has the most disposable income while the average age of a hardcore player is 20 years of age has has the least amount of disposable income.
If you ran a business which group would you target?
Most would answer those with the most money to throw away.
That is what Anet has done… so get use to it, or learn to be a casual player soon then later. Because trust me unless you die at 25 you will become one.

EDIT: Real Live always wins. A pretty woman becomes more important then a game. Then a job that pays enough to give you a disposable income comes into play. Then kids who start to not only suck up that income but your remaining time. As it is gamers that have been around for around twenty years is no longer the oddity but the norm. Anet knows this. That is why this game is causal player centric.

I’m looking for it, and I can’t find your “claim” established anywhere. More propaganda.

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Incomes-by-Age-Brackets.php

http://ocw.metu.edu.tr/pluginfile.php/2372/mod_resource/content/1/ColeGriffiths.PDF

kill… let me know when you are going to stop being the pot calling the kettle back please. I would appreciate it

I’m assuming you didn’t bother to read that, because it actually disproves your theory. Thanks.

Casual gamer studies are generally involved with mobile technology, and or social media games.

For broad terms in gaming: Casual gamers don’t play mmo’s
For broad terms in MMO’s: Casual players don’t have anything to do with time investment, but a playstyle.
For a Broad look at what MMO publishers want their players to do: They want players to log in every day and play. MMO publishers don’t want casual gamers from the broader spectrum of the game populace. MMO’s attract and are fed by gamers who are attached to the game, are invested, and who want to play. Not people who log in once a week, or weekenders.

MMO’s are never and will never be targeted at a casual gamer.

talk about propaganda

come on killcannon… documentation…

You have more then once tried to peck this on me and then you make an inflammatory statement like above. back it up man

It’s common knowledge. Casual gamer does not equal an mmo casual player. The articles you linked give the data, read em.

That is not “common knowledge”
That is the common assumption.

My point is that they targeting consumers between 25 and 55 where the most disposable income is and most of the casual players

All very interesting but it does not make temporary content any better.

Nor does it make it any worse. Just saying.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Again, if vertical progression was so prevelent in Guild Wars then why am I quoting Mike O’brien at the beggining of this thread saying there was no vp in Guild Wars.

It’s not completely true, as previously explained, as it exists in Guild Wars in the form of leveling up characters and PvE skill progression as well. You level so quickly and grinding out titles only marginally improves PvE skills it’s like vp isn’t there. The vp is so negligible Mike O’brien said there was no vp. So while it’s there, it’s effect goes unnoticed, except in the case of Ursan Blessing, which was a mistake ANet remedied.

He said it, but there was vertical progression in Guild Wars 2 from day one since 80th level exotics are better than 80th level rares. More to the point, Anet also said that ascended gear was meant to be in at launch but it didn’t make it on time.

So it would have been just another level of gear that the game launched with. Which presumably wouldnt’ have been a problem.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

I guess the one thing we can take away from this is that some people don’t know the difference between marketing and promises

Something can’t be both?

Vayne.8563:

and some people think that a company that makes an MMO will not try different things or change things around if things aren’t working.

A total revision of their vision for the game less than 2 months into it? A vision that was a major selling point for the game. Thats a sign of panic. Not to mention that they refuse to own up to it.

Total revision is more hyperbole. They introduced changes, not major huge changes. They in fact added a tier of gear which they claimed as planned before launch. If you have any evidence to the contrary, by all means, let me hear it.

More to the point, they have always said they wanted to give people options to play their way. Well, those who wanted to grind for some sort of stat (and there were plenty of people) had no way to grind. They tried to sequester these people in their own grind fest but it didn’t work.

This hardly amounts to total revision. The dynamic events were still there and could still be done with exotics. The dungeons were still there and could still be done with exotics. SPvP didn’t change at all. Not one iota.

The only things you needed ascended gear for were higher level fractals (and you could get the gear from doing fractals) and possibly WvW (though that was always meant to be unbalanced and Anet said as much). Basically in WvW for the most part, it’s group vs group, not generally 1v1, so most WvW shouldn’t be several affected. Certainly not by a back piece and a couple of rings, which is all they were, both of which took time to get.

So yeah, I think you’re overstating the changes. I don’t believe most people who stayed believe it’s that big a deal. Of course, some people do. But the core game..that’s still there and relatively unchanged by ascended gear.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Mkalafut.1273:

Nuka Cola.8520:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Is this supposed to be a good news? No one liked them… and i can assure you that for lev40+ EVERYONE will be skipping these two. So this is just two additional fractals everyone will skip like they skip dredge/shaman/cliffside. GG.

Funny, I see a lot of people screaming about wanting those dungeons back….

like the kind of people who’ve missed these and want to try them now… No one that was doing them/done over 5 runs of each cares.

I ran them both over 5 times. I am very excited to see them return. You don’t speak for everyone so don’t act like your opinion is the be-all end-all of what the community wants.

oh but i’ve spoke to a lot of people about these two when they were available, no one liked them. on this forum im not surprised to see so much positivity about these two mini dungeons because most people here are fanboys who go crazy even if they add something as minor as a ONE new mini pet… Both of these mini dungeons are far from ‘fun’ or great.

Right we’re fan boys because we like something about the game we’re playing. lol Nice try.

Dante.1508:

I guess the one thing we can take away from all that is what Anet as a company is like, obviously what they say and what they do isn’t accurate, so take what you will from that, i know i have..

With all the false marketing and promises i do not feel bad that i stopped paying my money to them and i urge others to do the same, but ultimately its up to the players..

I guess the one thing we can take away from this is that some people don’t know the difference between marketing and promises and some people think that a company that makes an MMO will not try different things or change things around if things aren’t working.

I’d far rather be playing an MMO that takes the necessary steps to fix the game even if it means changing something, than be part of an MMO who says something, finds out it’s not working, and leaves it there just because they said it in the first place.

The dye system is a perfect example. The way it was released sucked badly. Anet fixed it. I feel the same thing about energy and particularly energy potions. They said it would be one way and they fixed it.

Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, too many people got their exotics and left the game. It really is that simple. Anet did what they had to for the good of the game. I highly doubt they expected it to happen but once it did, they had to think on the fly.

If they hadn’t, they could have kept the game the way it was and you’d have six guys playing it by now.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Be careful, someone might come on here and claim you don’t know what you’re saying, or that you are completely off topic, or some other such nonsensical attack on your personal ethical standards when it comes to business when you point out things like that OP.

Despite the naysayers again coming onto this thread and claiming what is not true about the design of this title and the methods they are still using for the acquisition of both wealth along with the problems they’ve allowed to continue with the loot system and the DR (bugs or not they are still in the game) I can say you are spot on about everything you’ve posted OP.

ie. we were told DR would be ajusted in the open world so that it wouldn’t have and impact on farmers because they love farmers, we were told greens and blue would be made viable for salvaging and that they’d change how salvaging works so that more T6 materials that were previously more rare than clean water in a desert would be collectable, I watched as they made items exclusive and only available in the store while not doing a single thing to help with the acquisition of gold, we were told many things and here it is the anniversary and these things haven’t happened.

It does count when promises are made prior and not just for 1 month before beta but years upon years of promises because that is advertising via word of mouth. So much disappointed came from this game that my friends and I won’t ever be buying anything supported by NCsoft again. When it’s okay to lose customers like that that’s when you know there’s a problem.

I’m far more disappointed in the player base than I am in Anet. I think common sense must taken a day off.

Anet has made some design decisions that would upset certain people, but that isn’t a lie…it’s a choice that’s not well received. In any event, isn’t it about time you found a game you like? This probably isn’t doing much for your state of mind.

If you know of an online rpg without Vertical progression please share. That’s guild wars. Simply put it’s all about horizontal progression and the content and the stories (and PvP too).

Guild Wars had vertical progression through skill leveling. Stop saying it had no vertical progression. What it had was no gear progression. All the luxon/kurzik/sunspear/lightbringer/norn/asura/ebonvanguard/deldrimor skills had vertical progression and for many of us that was a big part of Guild Wars 1.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

@Raine reguarding the word promise

The dictionary definitions have nothing to do with how words are used by people in the real world. There are tons of examples, not a few but literally tons I could bring up that come from years of editing.

When you say to a kid I’m going to do this, what does the kid say? Promise? If you don’t say it’s a promise, to a kid, it’s not a promise.

To put this into focus, according to theasaurus.com this is a list of words that might be used instead of promise:

promise
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: give word that something will be done
Synonyms: accede, affiance, affirm, agree, answer for, assent, asservate, assure, bargain, betroth, bind, commit, compact, consent, contract, covenant, cross heart, declare, engage, ensure, espouse, guarantee, hock, insure, live up to, mortgage, obligate, pass, pawn, pledge, plight, profess, say so, secure, stipulate, string along, subscribe, swear, swear on bible, swear up and down, take an oath, undertake, underwrite, vouch, vow, warrant
Antonyms: break, renege

Many of the words listed here show the bias of how people interpret the word (rather than what the word actually means). Words like cross heart, guarantee, insure, pledge, profess, swear on bible, swear up and down, take an oath….

I agree you CAN use the word promise the way you’re using it, but those who are claiming Anet broke their promise…well you can’t break an intention. You can only break a guarantee or the OTHER type of promise.

Because of the ambiguousness of the word, using it plays into the multiple defintions of the word. Saying something and promising something, to many people, including me, have completely different implications.

So some people will read your words one way and some people (in my mind most) will read your words a different way.

If you’re trying to communicate, promise is too ambiguous a word to use.

Vayne, at this point, your argument is not with me, it’s with the English language. The word promise is not ambiguous, it’s straightforward. And, the reason I gave the definition, a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified, was to exclude ambiguity. I wanted you, and others, to understand exactly what I meant. And, of course, that wasn’t really difficult as you only needed to be able to define the word promise.

Look at your closing statement: “If you’re trying to communicate, promise is too ambiguous a word to use.”

You are actually suggesting that we exclude the word promise when we are trying to communicate. Why? Promise is a very important word. It’s the basis of our legal contracts. What happens in a legally binding contract? Parties exchange promises (what kind of promise? a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified), and in the US, consideration (money). If we were to exclude the concept of the promise from our lives, we couldn’t have contracts. Do you remember getting married? If it was at all traditional there was an exchange of promises. Were they anything but a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified? No they were exactly that, now with the force of a legally binding contract because of the context in which they were given.

No, I won’t remove the word promise from my vocabulary because you don’t understand what it means. It’s simply too important a word. I will give the definition periodically so that you have the opportunity to understand me if you wish.

I’m saying you’re using a word that guarantees some people will interpret it differently than you’re using it. That makes it ambiguous.

I’m not arguing with the English language. The English language didn’t choose the word. Obviously you’re free to use any word you want. I know when I use a word that’s guarantee to be interpreted differently by too large a percentage of the people, I change the word because getting my point across is important to me. That comes from years of writing and working with writers. We have to change words all the time, even words we’re particularly attached to.

If you want to call a statement a promise, go right ahead. But in my mind and the minds of many, a promise is more than just a statement. In communication, nuance is everything.