Guild Wars 2

Valento.9852:

Vayne.8563:

snip

I’m thinking, it’s lucky for Anet there are a lot more people like me than like you.

Wow someone got real statistics or is simply based on forum opinions.

The real statistics I don’t have, but aside from the myriad comments by devs over the years (including panels at trade shows), it’s not that hard to figure out.

Anyway it really is simple logic. In any group there’s the top percentage, the middle percentage and the lower percentage.

So if you take 100 people of all different skills, logically, there will be people at the top, people in the middle and peoiple at the bottom.

I’ve seen just as much complaining on these forums about the game being too hard as I have about the game being too easy. Those are the edges of the spectrum.

In a typical bell curve (and most social classification systems fall along a bell curve), you’re going to have more people in the middle or the average then at either end of the spectrum. It’s simple, basic, logic.

Ghost Crawler, the lead dev of WoW, has gone on record saying only 5% of the playerbase have ever completed the hardest content.

There are still tons of people in this game who have never beaten Arah. This isn’t a fantasy, it’s true.

There are people who have failed CoF path 1. I know it sounds amazing, but that’s true also.

And then there’s Anet. Most of the stuff in this game is clearly targeted at a casual player base. If most of the game was hard core gamers, don’t you think Anet would be making more stuff for that group faster?

I’m pretty sure Anet has the information of who does what, and how often people die. If the money was in the hard stuff, there would be more hard stuff. If you ever really want to know what’s going on, you follow the money.

But this has been discussed on so many game forums over the years, it’s hard to believe anyone thinks hard core players make up the majority. It really is relatively common knowledge.

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.

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

the destruction of customer trust has become the business model imo. not having a PTR so people can help work out design flaws or bugs, not releasing information prior to launching a patch even by 1 day, teasing things like a design of a whole new armor set and then discovering it was meant for the store alone, and releasing an achievement patch without the retro to when they made the promise of improving the rewards system and including the retro back to the time of the promise, pretty much left a permanent bad taste in my mouth and others. My friends refuse to come back to this title. In fact, some of them are seriously considering boycotting all titles supported by NCsoft from here on out because of the way the economy and combat was done in this game.

People don’t how serious customer trust is these days.

I think you should read the OP. This is more off topic than I usually am.

The OP is complaining about a gift given to people who have bought gems. His complaint was answered, quite accurately by saying if Anet advertised the gift beforehand, it would be looked on as an advertising ploy rather than a gift.

Your list of “complaints” is not only off topic for this thread, but it’s gotten to the point where I can’t take anything you say seriously.

Yes, I get it. You’ve lost trust in Anet. Some of your friends have lost trust too. Well I ran a pretty reliable computer store for years and years, and I experienced some customers losing trust in me as well. Fortunately they were a vocal minority that never affected the bottom line of a business.

This sort of thing doesn’t benefit the game or the forums at all. If I were you, I’d find a game I liked, because clearly you’re not happy and your lack of happiness has you making off-topic posts that don’t further the conversation at all.

“I’m glad people are enjoying the kites! Though I’m displeased that Arenanet would once again release items with no prior knowledge given to the costumers. Also, that these items are presently exclusive. *To me, not being upfront with and limiting the customers opportunities, are not a healthy or honorable way to conduct business.
I’ve first noticed this with the mini’s, then the Starcake Recipes, and now the Kites. A good precedent this does not make. How can the costumer have trust in this environment?”

Does that clear it up for you now? It’s one thing to disagree it’s entirely another to make false statements about someone. My point is that it’s not limited to the kites it’s been happening for months now about alot of things. But since you didn’t read what I wrote obviously you didn’t notice that did you.

Right, and people said in this thread, rightly so, that if Anet said if you spend money you’d get a gift, they’d be rightly criticisized for greed. That’s what makes it a gift.

The OP wasn’t complaining about anything but Anet giving away gifts without telling people first.

It’s funny how you want to take this one topic and make it about something else. You’re reading more into it than the OP intended. His comments were quite focused.

You’ve used to to complain about everything you want to complain about. You can make your own topic for that you know.

Wow, you learn something new every day. Maybe it’s like an alternate reality. How cool would that be?

Shifty.5187:

Vayne.8563:

Clear communication doesn’t exist between one person and a million people. One person says something and even if 500,000 people understand what he’s saying, someone WILL be able to misunderstand. It’s called the Army Axiom. Any order than can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.

I’ve watched a team of editors go through a professional writer’s manuscript and someone, somewhere will still find ambiguity that no one else saw.

Communication is flawed. Always has been, always will be.

No matter what anyone says, someone, eventually will misunderstand it.

Fair enough.

There’s no need for Anet to provide a clear picture of their intentions for every single customer they have, but they should address the issue we’ve been discussing since it pertains to, I believe, a relatively large number of people.

What issue is it, specifically that they’re supposed to address? The issue about the manifesto? It was addressed. You want them to address it again? This has been done to death. I’m sure Anet is tired of addressing it, since it’s already been addressed.

And there’s another issue. For any iterative company, it’s hard to lock in plans. They make a decision and then they go and change it. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. They try something, it doesn’t work, they try something else. They keep the stuff that works, they discard the stuff that doesn’t.

Over time, the game comes together.

I think people just need to learn to be more patient.

DiogoSilva.7089:

It’s not up to the player, it’s up to Anet and how they design this game. The argument that this game is perfect and players are to blame is not a very good one.

Anet has promised us that skill would take players to the top. I don’t even mind the existance of grinding, so that less skilled players can get the best stuff too. But for those who don’t like grinding, where is the alternative challenging content that was promised to us?

Blaming the players’ choices is a bad argument, because there are no meaningful choices to be made. There’s no choice such as “I can play this really challening content and get things faster, or go the easier way and grind for a long time”. You either grind for most of the rewards in this game, or you don’t get them at all.

Players can’t create new content. Players can’t redesign existing content. Players can’t make existing content more difficult and fun. It’s all up to Anet. So no, the problem isn’t with the players’ choices.

Also, not every player is a wandering “today I feel going there doing this stuff” type. Especially when GW2 offers “so much to do”, yet most of it isn’t special at all.

Tell me, what’s there to explore, outside of grinding hearts and rushing to vistas/ points? There’s almost no lore to be found. Most maps play the same way. There’s almost no exciting hidden places nor dangerous creatures to fear. Outside of a few hidden jumping puzzles, exploring is heart grinding and point rushing.

WvW is mostly driven by zergs, with poor support for smaller squads. Dungeons are mostly filled with boring encounters that can one-hit kill most builds, and are otherwise boring and easy because, as long as you can dodge everything, all they have is high HP.

Yep, you’re right. There’s no challenging content here at all for players like you. Or very little. Hopefully one day there will be, but right now, there’s not much to challenge someone of your caliber.

The difficulty level is just about right for me (with most of the stuff achievable and a few odds and ends I can’t get) but for the uber l33t guys, you’re just basically screwed.

I’m thinking, it’s lucky for Anet there are a lot more people like me than like you.

tigirius.9014:

the destruction of customer trust has become the business model imo. not having a PTR so people can help work out design flaws or bugs, not releasing information prior to launching a patch even by 1 day, teasing things like a design of a whole new armor set and then discovering it was meant for the store alone, and releasing an achievement patch without the retro to when they made the promise of improving the rewards system and including the retro back to the time of the promise, pretty much left a permanent bad taste in my mouth and others. My friends refuse to come back to this title. In fact, some of them are seriously considering boycotting all titles supported by NCsoft from here on out because of the way the economy and combat was done in this game.

People don’t how serious customer trust is these days.

I think you should read the OP. This is more off topic than I usually am.

The OP is complaining about a gift given to people who have bought gems. His complaint was answered, quite accurately by saying if Anet advertised the gift beforehand, it would be looked on as an advertising ploy rather than a gift.

Your list of “complaints” is not only off topic for this thread, but it’s gotten to the point where I can’t take anything you say seriously.

Yes, I get it. You’ve lost trust in Anet. Some of your friends have lost trust too. Well I ran a pretty reliable computer store for years and years, and I experienced some customers losing trust in me as well. Fortunately they were a vocal minority that never affected the bottom line of a business.

This sort of thing doesn’t benefit the game or the forums at all. If I were you, I’d find a game I liked, because clearly you’re not happy and your lack of happiness has you making off-topic posts that don’t further the conversation at all.

I’m not so sure the vote of a Captain on the Lion’s Arch Council has any sway over the mists. Fractals are in Lion’s Arch. The mists aren’t run by the Lion’s Arch government. lol

Siphaed.9235:

Well, it seems that the Fractals are actually Historical, and not recent events.

-Evon’s research would lead to the Fall of Abbadon

-Ellens research would lead to the Thaumanova Reactor explosion.

So, whoever on reddit kept claiming it would be either Molten Weapons Facility or Aetherblade Retreat was fully, 100% wrong.

With that said, the reduced BL keys vs. reduced Waypoint travel was correct and might be the real deciding factor in this election since nobody has a real knowledge about what either Fractal will contain (other than enemy type and a bit of story).

I don’t know. One fractal shows the destruction of Rata Sum which is clearly in the future. So not necessarily historical.

Shifty.5187:

Vayne.8563:

Clear communication doesn’t exist. However, that’s WHY Anet published after the manifesto a clarification of certain things. Some people probably remember it. It was probably lost in the shuffle to the new site, but it might be around somewhere.

No one can guarantee 100% clear communication. I’m a professional editor, who works with writers and no matter how clear you think something is, it’s never clear enough.

So Anet made the manifesto, there was confusion, Anet explained the manifesto. Then they proceeded to have two years of pretty crystal clear communication that everyone seems to have completely forgotten while trying to make a point about a two year old video that was clarified at the time.

And the customer isn’t always right. The customer is often wrong. We TELL customers they’re right, because customers like to hear it, but it doesn’t change the fact that customers often have no clue what they’re talking about.

And that’s from someone who spent 19 years in retail. You’re only right to your face. As soon as you turn around, you’re not. It’s pretty entertaining.

Clear communication does exist. Whenever I express my intention and you understand that same intention, there was clear communication. “Please hand me that soda”, I receive the soda, done: clear communication.

Regarding the Manifesto, there clearly is miscommunication, but probably because we also hear what we want to hear. Those coming from Guild Wars 1 understood their message as a continuation of what made Guild Wars 1 so awesome: (almost) no vertical progression.

Here on the forum it is clear by now that there are people who think the Manifesto is not being adhered to. The next step is to address this. Does Anet agree with this? Did they do what they set out to do from the start? Did they have to adjust their planning because of unexpected events (the Exodus hypothesis perhaps)?

What I want personally is for Anet to explicitly address these things. Specifically, do they themselves find it fun to press ‘F’ 50 times for an achievement, do they like to have to log in on a daily basis to get a steady supply of Laurels? Do they like to spend many resources on a +6 stat boost item? If they stand by these things and think they’re perfect examples of where they want to go with this game, then fine. Right now I’m just confused because I did not expect they would.

Clear communication doesn’t exist between one person and a million people. One person says something and even if 500,000 people understand what he’s saying, someone WILL be able to misunderstand. It’s called the Army Axiom. Any order than can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.

I’ve watched a team of editors go through a professional writer’s manuscript and someone, somewhere will still find ambiguity that no one else saw.

Communication is flawed. Always has been, always will be.

No matter what anyone says, someone, eventually will misunderstand it.

Rooks Zaer.5846:

Vayne.8563:

So Anet made the manifesto, there was confusion, Anet explained the manifesto. Then they proceeded to have two years of pretty crystal clear communication that everyone seems to have completely forgotten while trying to make a point about a two year old video that was clarified at the time.

See, this is where I’d disagree with you. I dont’ think there was confusion. There’s nothing in the manifesto that is confusing. At all. It’s very simple and straightforward. Now, there -may- be misunderstanding and/or expectations that were not met, but that’s different. No confusion meant that no one had any reason to go out looking for clarifications, because people thought they fully understood the type of game that they were going to get.

As a side note, if I look at the manifesto from the point of Colin talking about combat and Ree talking about personal story…it doesn’t even seem like it would have been worth making the manifesto at all. Permanent choices in areas of the game that are instanced? Is that even worth advertising? Why would anyone make a point of that?The supposed clarifications/backpedaling are waaay more confusing than anything the manifesto or pre-launch inverviews talked about.

Applying Occam’s Razor, I think they made a manifesto video showing what they wanted to do, they were forced to push the game out about a year before it was ready (and had lots of progression options in place for people hitting level cap), people hit level cap and complained they were bored, and ArenaNet took the quick fixes in an attempt to retain players and make their game more sticky….and if the manifesto and “Is it fun?” blog had to be compromised to get something in place quickly, so be it.

Ah you miss the point. Keep in mind this was before SWToR was released.

NO MMO back then had a personal story of any kind. Like the story or hate the story, it wasn’t done.

A human warrior in WoW had the exact same story as every other human warrior in WoW. WoW didn’t use instances to tell YOUR story. This was talking about stuff that changed for your character, and on one else. So yes, it was new and different. Execution may not have been what people wanted or expected, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

And Colin was talking about dynamic events, when he spoke…obviously dynamic events were meant to be persistent but not permanent (Anet’s words not mine).

The two did their talk seperately…and editors made it look nice. You know, they broke it up so they alternated and yes, it caused confusion. Not everyone was confused, but enough people were where Anet felt a clarifciation was justified.

After that point, they went into detail about personal story, about dynamic events. I mean a lot of detail.

So if there was confusion, and people didn’t get it, it wasn’t like Anet was hiding it from anyone.

And sure some people do buy games because of the pretty white box or some stupid video (like the one that sold Rift to me), but I always acknowledged it was my fault.

I simply didn’t do enough research before I bought the game. I felt let down, but you know, the company was doing what companies do. Promoting their product. As a consumer, my job is to separate sales talk from reality.

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

Vetrie.7804:

Here is my opinion.

If there is temporary content every 2 weeks, how much endgame will this game have?
If you can play every countent for few days/weeks and than its over that means you only get +1 endgame thing to do every 2 weeks. And if you miss like 3 living stories. AGAIN you have only 1 living story you can do, instead of having all 4 and endgame content is much higher now… I am afraid that Anet wants players to spend real money to get things.

I startted playing again few days ago and getting bored fast. No new content at all. I missed 2 living stories, cant do them now. Really whats the point of doing temorary content and than delete it.

Overall game was awesome in leveling stage. But I think this game has worst endgame than MMO can have.

So please Anet, if you really care about players ( like you always say ) make some major changes to endgame.

And I think this game has the best end game a game can have, which is none to speak of.

What is this burning need for an end game that so many people seem to have. What was the end game of Skyrim? Dragon Age? There wasn’t one.

RPGs don’t really need end games. It’s what MMOs have sold us so far.

End games are very much MMOs but not very much RPGs.

You could have at least used some relevant examples. Stating 2 SINGLE PLAYER rpgs against an mmorpg does not work.

The endgame for singleplayer games usually do not exist for many reasons. One is, those two examples have mod support. The end game is pretty much modding your game and replaying a whole new experience. Not just re rolling a new class or race.

If you really want to compare those 2, you’ve got less flexibility in an endgame with gw2.
we all know mmos are a different beast and can not use the exact same methods as a single player game.

I can compare them. I think you might be very surprised how many single player RPG people like the idea of MMOs but hate MMOs, specifically because of the traditional end game.

And yeah, I’m not a program designer. I’m a writer. I can give you a hell of a story but I couldn’t necessarily say how to make a game better. But I can say what I like and what I’ve been waiting for.

It’s not quite this. But this is closer than anything else out there.

You’re free to compare whatever you want, just make them relative to each other. Mainly because we rarely ever compare singleplayer games against mmos. Just because it has ‘rpg’ in there. Like i said, they’re two different beasts.

The whole idea behind endgame is retention, is it not?
Mainly for the benefit of devs to keep numbers consistently up but it gives players a reason to consistently play.

Surely is people ask for better endgame they just want a rewarding reason to log in after hitting 80. The assumption people make is that real, meaningful, endgame content will just cause the game to spontaneously combust.

But there’s a problem with the very concept of end game. In most games you do one activity, until you reach the end game and that activity changes. You level THEN you raid. This means that there are two different games going on there, and you have to like both of them or you’re screwed.

If you don’t like leveling, you’re going to hate doing it to get to the raiding. If you don’t like raiding, and the game centers on that (which most end games do) then the companies don’t provide enough open world stuff for you to keep going.

Here we have a game with no end game, at least no end game as it exists in other MMOs…because the end game isn’t pathed. In most MMOs you go from dungeon A to dungeon B to raid A to raid B. No thanks.

The end game here is about retention…but it’s not here to appeal to the people who are raiders, because those people have games they can play. But the people who like to level and don’t like traditional end game. We’ve had nothing.

The reason I compare to single player games, is because it’s the same types of players who might very well like both. It’s not even the games I’m really comparing but the players.

So Anet gives us the equivalent of DLC in the game, but for free. It works for people like me. It obviously doesn’t work for people like you.

But it’s what I’ve personally been waiting for. And yes, it’s not perfect, but it’s better for me than the end game offered by any MMO I’ve played. The exception might be TSW, but I didn’t like other things about the game.

tigirius.9014:

Doesn’t work for me either. When i learned that they didn’t retro the rewards for the achieves like the salvage ones that I’ve been doing every day since before launch, which would have added up to thousands of achievement points, I was highly disappointed. Yet again another promise not fulfilled.

The way this game was at launch for the first month was the only time everything was perfect. Even with the engineers problems we could actually do great damage, conditions weren’t nerfed in PVE, kit refinement made sense. I could go out into the world and get rewards for finding chests hidden at the top of some jump puzzle and the rewards were appropriate to my level and often were rares. I got the feeling of actually mattering when killing things for events. You could actually farm the materials you needed for anything relatively quickly just be being in the open world where the game was originally focused and those who wanted to run dungeons and who ran WvW were a separate castes and it was rightly done so people could actually play their way.

Just so much broken now it’s impossible to even begin to list it all.

Another unfulfilled promise? Really?

You’ll have to show me the quote where Anet said they’d reward the unlimited achievements.

All I saw was a general post saying they’re reward achievements without any specifics at all. They didn’t give the specifics, possibly because they haven’t finalized them, or possibly because no matter what they said, someone would twist it anyway.

I no longer think your expectation are too high. I think you are reading things into what’s been said that were never there.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I would like to know what’s left to do in GW2 if a player chooses NOT to grind.

World exploration is a mathematical grind. Gold farming is grinding by its very own nature. Getting dungeon armor is grinding. Fractals at some point also start to be highly repetitive, especially when grinding ascended gear. Dailies are grinding. All of them are highly repetitive, and outside of one or two dungeons and high-level fractals, they’re mindless.

So, what’s left to do in GW2 if a player chooses not to grind?

Following the storyline? GW2 is not particularly good at this, and the living story’s content has been only worth one or two cutscenes every month, and is constantly cycling through different plot archs pretty fast, not unlike the main narrative. Very few are excited by this.
Doing dungeons once? That’s fine, if unrewarding. This game does not have the best dungeons ever, but it can work… for a few hours. Many players find most dungeons in this game boring, however.
Doing jumping puzzles? That’s fine, but not to everyone’s tastes. Let’s not forget that GW2 is primarly a mmorpg.
Doing mini-games? Like-wise.
Doing PvP? GW2’s pvp has a lot of problems, and those are getting fixed at a snail’s pace. Generally, players don’t spend much time there, and most of the pvp community has left or is inactive.
Doing guild missions? Gated to once per week or so.
Interacting with the community? Nearly non-existent in GW2 due to the lack of mechanics that support or incentivate it.
Doing repetable content that’s actually challenging and varied? There’s almost none.
Exploring the dangerous parts of the world and working hard to beat challenging, exciting encounters? This is nearly non-existant in this game.
Having fun creating, customising and experimenting your own builds? GW2 is not very exciting at this, and it actually punishes you with massive money sinks and lack of mechanics to make it convenient (like the lack of templates).
Doing fun stuff with friends? Content that requires group play, especially deep team-playing team-building strategy, is almost non-existent in this game.

I don’t think you have a clue what grind actually is.

I guess the question is, are we talking PvE or PvP. I wouldn’t care if the downed state was removed from PvP (it won’t be anyway), but in PvE, I think it would be a big, big mistake. If nothing else it adds drama.

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.

9263 as of about five minutes ago.

But I like achievements. Keeps me off the streets. lol

CrossedHorse.4261:

AntiGw.9367:

HiddenNick.7206:

AntiGw.9367:

You should think of them as a combined three paths. That’s only 7 full dungeon clears. That’s not a grind.

I don’t want to argue with you but personally I think that 7 dungeon runs is a lot. Also spending couple of dozens of hours repeating single instance is a grind… But that’s just me.

7 dungeon runs is a week’s worth of content. You can do it in a week. A week.

You want to finish with a dungeon in 3 days? Then complain about temporary content that also takes a few days of playing?

Seriously, this game is not for you. Go away.

Depends on the time you have, your level of experience in dungeons, finding a group etc. For people not in a very active guild, or running one of the less “desirable” dungeon classes and/or builds, for people who usually play solo or for people who still need to do whichever dungeon people want to do at the moment in story mode (not many people are willing to run story), it can be quite a pain.

I agree that it’s not much if all the above things are running in your favour. But for those of us with some or all of that against us … well, it’s a lot longer than a week.

But if you want to do it, anyone can join a guild. It’s multiplayer content. So you need to find people to run it with.

And there are plenty of casual guilds that run dungeons often, without being total elitist kittens. They run for fun.

Find the right guild, even if it’s not on your server, and you can guest over and play with them or just do dungeons from where you are.

Shifty.5187:

VOLKON.1290:

Shifty.5187:

No. The fact there are so many of us who believe Anet has backtracked on their Manifesto is solid evidence they are at fault for the miscommunication; it is their responsibility to prevent misunderstandings, and they could have been perfectly clear.

No, it’s solid evidence only of the fact that some people believe ANet backtracked on their Manifesto. What’s lacking is actual evidence that they did.

The burden of clear communication is on their side. If there are many people who end up believing they backtracked on their Manifesto, then that is their fault. It is similar to “The customer is always right.” Clearly that is not always so, but there’s an imbalance in accountability with these things.

Clear communication doesn’t exist. However, that’s WHY Anet published after the manifesto a clarification of certain things. Some people probably remember it. It was probably lost in the shuffle to the new site, but it might be around somewhere.

No one can guarantee 100% clear communication. I’m a professional editor, who works with writers and no matter how clear you think something is, it’s never clear enough.

So Anet made the manifesto, there was confusion, Anet explained the manifesto. Then they proceeded to have two years of pretty crystal clear communication that everyone seems to have completely forgotten while trying to make a point about a two year old video that was clarified at the time.

And the customer isn’t always right. The customer is often wrong. We TELL customers they’re right, because customers like to hear it, but it doesn’t change the fact that customers often have no clue what they’re talking about.

And that’s from someone who spent 19 years in retail. You’re only right to your face. As soon as you turn around, you’re not. It’s pretty entertaining.

Galen Grey.4709:

Raine.1394:

I know you are a lover of the English language so I’ll give the first definition of PROMISE from merriam-webster.com:

a : a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified

If they say they are going to do something or not do something they have declared it. But if you are still in doubt, let me give you the first definition of DECLARE.

1: to make known formally, officially, or explicitly

Is the manifesto a legally binding contract that can never change? No, but it is a declaration of what they will do and what they will refrain from doing. And, that’s how it reads. The manifesto and associated marketing documents contain promises. What is my authority for believing so? A conventional understanding of the English language. Heck, if I tell you I will meet you for lunch, I consider that a promise. And, if I have to break it, I’ll call in advance and renegotiate a time.

I don’t know, we may have differing understandings of promise. I rely on the plain meaning that we hold conventionally.

snip

I think people just expect too much.

Example, what is a manifesto? A manifesto is a declaration of intent. Its not promises, its what you believe and what you’re planning to achieve. To make matters worst the implementation you make can be subjective. Example probably the biggest thing that gets criticized about the manifesto is Ree Soesbee’s famous statement “You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you.”

People say Arenanet clearly Lied there. The village doesnt stay rescued 15 minutes later its invaded again. But did they? I personally dont think they lied and I will explain why.

Remember this is a manifesto a declaration of what you intend to do that is what you intend to do differently from everyone else.

Rescuing villages is not something thats only done in Gw2, you get such quests in many other MMOs. Whats the difference between the two? Again looking at the manifesto as a whole its easy to see what the intention is. They want change, visual change, an evolving world. In your typical MMO saving the village is nearly always, Creature / faction X is threatening us go thin their numbers. By the end of the quest you’ll be thanked for saving the village but apart from that how is that change represented? it just isnt the herd you “thinned” has already re-spawned so in actual fact if thinning the herd is what would save the village the village was saved for only 5 seconds (until what you killed re-spawned). In Gw2 once you save a village, what ever was threatening it will retreat. You can clearly see the difference between the village under assault and the village saved. It stays rescued it doesn’t reset immediately like other MMOs do. It is also true villagers will remember you rescued them. If you take part in a village defense and talk to npcs they will thank you for rescuing them. It doesnt stay rescued forever of course, It will eventually reset and the invasion will happen again but they never implied forever. Stay whatever doesnt imply that whatever will persist forever.

If I dont eat, I will die, If I eat I will stay alive. That doesnt mean If I eat I will become immortal.

Yet time and time again people point at that statement as proof that Arenanet lied in their manifesto.

What I am trying to say with this example is it is really dangerous to judge these things. using this as an example again I have no doubt people pointing at the above statement were disappointed because thats something that didnt meet their expectations, but that alone doesnt make it a lie. We knew dynamic events would be cyclic even before the manifesto was released. Proof this interview dated may 2010 (manifesto was released aug 2010):
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/4235/Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic-Events-Interview.html

“It’s important to clarify that the event system is cyclical in nature. Events will occur again in the game world”

So here we have a situation of something that didnt live up to people’s expectations fine but it was not neither a lie nor a broken promise.

yet now that false assumption is being used as a basis to doubt whatever Arenanet claim because they lied / broken promises before even when they really didnt? I honestly think thats very wrong.

Ree was talking about personal story, not dynamic events. Anet said it directly. It’s not a guess.

So when Ree was saying you rescue a village that stays rescued, the example she gave had nothing to do with events. This was from Anet’s own clarification of the manifesto, due to the confusion it caused on release.

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

Vetrie.7804:

Here is my opinion.

If there is temporary content every 2 weeks, how much endgame will this game have?
If you can play every countent for few days/weeks and than its over that means you only get +1 endgame thing to do every 2 weeks. And if you miss like 3 living stories. AGAIN you have only 1 living story you can do, instead of having all 4 and endgame content is much higher now… I am afraid that Anet wants players to spend real money to get things.

I startted playing again few days ago and getting bored fast. No new content at all. I missed 2 living stories, cant do them now. Really whats the point of doing temorary content and than delete it.

Overall game was awesome in leveling stage. But I think this game has worst endgame than MMO can have.

So please Anet, if you really care about players ( like you always say ) make some major changes to endgame.

And I think this game has the best end game a game can have, which is none to speak of.

What is this burning need for an end game that so many people seem to have. What was the end game of Skyrim? Dragon Age? There wasn’t one.

RPGs don’t really need end games. It’s what MMOs have sold us so far.

End games are very much MMOs but not very much RPGs.

You could have at least used some relevant examples. Stating 2 SINGLE PLAYER rpgs against an mmorpg does not work.

The endgame for singleplayer games usually do not exist for many reasons. One is, those two examples have mod support. The end game is pretty much modding your game and replaying a whole new experience. Not just re rolling a new class or race.

If you really want to compare those 2, you’ve got less flexibility in an endgame with gw2.
we all know mmos are a different beast and can not use the exact same methods as a single player game.

I can compare them. I think you might be very surprised how many single player RPG people like the idea of MMOs but hate MMOs, specifically because of the traditional end game.

And yeah, I’m not a program designer. I’m a writer. I can give you a hell of a story but I couldn’t necessarily say how to make a game better. But I can say what I like and what I’ve been waiting for.

It’s not quite this. But this is closer than anything else out there.

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

…

Sure, this game could be better than it is…that’s true of all games. But for replayability, each dungeon having at least 3 explorable paths helps a lot.

That’s still at least 7 runs per path, with a couple more required, for a full set of armor. This would be the best case scenario for the dungeon to feel as ‘fresh’ as possible, a scenario that’s hard to achieve with the popular ‘easier’ paths.

I’m aware that it’s not required – that a player can ‘mix and match’ his armor if he chooses – and I’m also aware that it can be acquired at one’s own pace. This is the specific example of a player wanting a complete and coherent set of armor. Whether he acquires it over a week or a year isn’t relevant, he’s still expected to repeat a lot of the same content.

I’m also aware how other MMOs handle their rewards systems, especially in this circumstance, but that’s not relevant to me, nor do I think it relative to my point. “X did a better job than Y” isn’t the same as “X did a good job”.

Erasculio.2914:

Not to mention that, if you want Cultural Armor, good luck getting those 100 gold, plus finding yourself a set of exotic armor and earning the gold required to buy gems and get the transformation stones.

I actually don’t have much of an issue with the cultural armor. They’re some of the best designed sets in the game (justifying the cost) and there are plenty more options in earning gold than, say, Ascalonian Tears.

I think how other games handle dungeons is quite relevant. This is a huge improvement on what else is out there.

The other option would be to give you a full set of armor for 3 runs.

There’s no company in the world who can balance everything so everyone is happy. You get stuff too fast and it’s worth nothing. You get stuff too slow it’s a grind.

If you’re arguing about pacing, argue away. It won’t change the fact that no decision Anet makes on this matter will please everyone.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Nekroseth.5186:

We dont live in the Amiga age now….and the amiga age players play Mario if they want to play with nostalgic platform games….not Gw2 -_-

Actually, I’m an ex-Amiga user, and I play GW2 and love the platforming.

If I want my dose of nostalgia, I pop Megaman 2 into my NES, or I play Super Adventure Box.

Yay ex-amiga users! lol

Shadow of the Beast, Loderunner…trying to think of some of the names of the other platform games on the Amiga.

Dungeon Master (though having nothing to do with platforms) is one of my favorite games of all time.

Smith.1826:

Stone.6751:

Nothing in this game is a grind, unless you choose to grind. And that’s simply a player’s choice. For example, if a player just simply must have the TA armor ASAP, and they grind TA day after day to get the set, and they don’t find that enjoyable, then that’s just their own stupid fault.

The game gives you choices on what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Players make the mistake of chasing rewards to the detriment of enjoying the game. Unless ANet began restricting player’s freedom to choose how to play I don’t see how its preventable in an open game like GW2. At least they have made some effort to discourage it by including diminishing returns or by limiting certain things like Laurels to daily events, which prevents people from farming and grinding even more than they already do.

A player looking to acquire a complete set of dungeon armor is looking at a total of 1380 dungeon tokens. At 60 tokens per completed path, you would need to do 23 of them, at the least.

If the dungeons had more mechanics that encouraged replayability, or if there was some sort of light ‘token exchange’ system to grant some more freedom in acquiring a specific set, I could probably forgive the price. As is, it seems excessive.

23 runs for a guaranteed set of armor?

I don’t see this as excessive. Of course, not everyone wants every piece from one dungeon either and this can encourage people to mix and match. If you insist on having all pieces from one dungeon…

I mean every dungeon has one “faster” path. Even CoE has the submarine path. People have Arah runs down to half an hour.

I think if you have to do them all in a row, of course you’re going to suffer. If you’re in a rush you pay the price. If you do a couple of runs a week, in a few weeks you’ll have your armor.

I mean compared to other games, where you have to run dungeons and you’re not even guaranteed the drop you want (much less whether you’ll get it if it does drop), this really isnt’ bad at all.

And most of those other games have only 1 path. That’s it. 1. Where’s the replayability in dungeons in most games?

Sure, this game could be better than it is…that’s true of all games. But for replayability, each dungeon having at least 3 explorable paths helps a lot.

Vetrie.7804:

Here is my opinion.

If there is temporary content every 2 weeks, how much endgame will this game have?
If you can play every countent for few days/weeks and than its over that means you only get +1 endgame thing to do every 2 weeks. And if you miss like 3 living stories. AGAIN you have only 1 living story you can do, instead of having all 4 and endgame content is much higher now… I am afraid that Anet wants players to spend real money to get things.

I startted playing again few days ago and getting bored fast. No new content at all. I missed 2 living stories, cant do them now. Really whats the point of doing temorary content and than delete it.

Overall game was awesome in leveling stage. But I think this game has worst endgame than MMO can have.

So please Anet, if you really care about players ( like you always say ) make some major changes to endgame.

And I think this game has the best end game a game can have, which is none to speak of.

What is this burning need for an end game that so many people seem to have. What was the end game of Skyrim? Dragon Age? There wasn’t one.

RPGs don’t really need end games. It’s what MMOs have sold us so far.

End games are very much MMOs but not very much RPGs.

Antara.3189:

lordkrall.7241:

They will most likely not add a whole continent in one release, but it is fully possible to release one part at a time.

The only reason expansions can do that is because they takes a long time before they are released, what ArenaNet is doing is simply cutting it into pieces and giving us some of them here and there instead of a big chunk once a year.

That entirely seems boring and would have to have a lot of backend work. The anticipation factor in an expansion or large update is the fact that you have so much to explore, learn and do. One map at a time? Meh, it would become repetitive and timely just to explore. I don’t plan on spending a lot of 6+months trying to explore and do everything in an new continent. How can that even be explained in a lore sense? “Oh you can’t go any further, closed off until future notice” Two weeks comes, boom unlocked and then blocked again.

A continent or large map introduced in a lump sum is exhilarating imo. Granted, they can easily expand the story in the maps with the living story, but simply giving us one map at a time would created an increased grind to run the map over and over, until the next one is released. then jump to the next. Leaving behind zones such as southsun that no longer serve a purpose besides randomly running through.

I could settle for a group of maps being introduced at once, to give players that explorer sense. For example in southsun, the first time I was in the map I was ecstatic to run around check it out, was eager to find out what awaits us in the areas beyond. But now I lost that eager feel, and it’s out of sight, out of mind kinda deal.

How could it be explained in the lore sense. Quite easily I think.

Explorers didn’t race through new areas even in real life. They went places, spent time with the people of those places, got the lay of the land, set up settlements sometimes…before pushing on to the next area.

Do you know how many years it took explorers to cross the mainland US?

I can only assume Lewis and Clark didn’t run up and down the coastline looking for vistas and points of interest, only to move on and discover Texas.

In fact most explorers are only credited for discovering and going to very small areas.

@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.

Ashen.2907:

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.

Ree is talking about the personal story. Everything you do in your personal story stays that way. Colin is talking about dynamic events.

Editing for style caused confusion and Anet clarified it. People knew what Ree and Colin were talking about.

Without the clarification it was indeed confusing but you obviously couldn’t have a permanently rescued village in the open world. Which brings me to the next point.

AFTER the manifesto this stuff was discussed and expounded upon and explained ad nauseum. It was done at conventions and the panels are still available to view. It was done in interviews. It was done at AMAs on Reddit. It was done on Guru. There are so many times and ways this was explained.

Sure if you came to the game today, this might be all new to you if you didn’t follow it, but there’s NO excuse for anyone following the game not to understand what was meant in the manifesto. Anyone who says otherwise is being liberal with reality.

You make a solid argument, in this very thread, that the manifesto was an ad for GW2. I agree. It, along with my time spent in GW1, is what encouraged me to buy the game. I don’t know what AMAs is (American Music Awards ?), have never visited Reddit, stopped visiting Guru before the GW2 Manifesto was announced. So the question is, were the clarifications being presented with the ad ? I mean neither of us considers what was done to be really an example of bait and switch, but a published ad whose content is revised at unconnected outside sources is exactly that.

And again, what specific clarification references whether or not a boss stays dead, or a village stays saved, etc. Dynamic Events rotate fairly quickly. The manifesto refers to permanent changes…nothing associated with a character’s interaction with a DE is permanent.

So you watched one video, made two years before the game launched and ignored every single thing shown/mentioned/explained afterwards? Because that’s not the best defense I’ve heard.

Prior to this forum launch, Guru was pretty much the unofficial Guild Wars 2 information site, but even wtihout that, Anet had a blog. Their explanation of many things, including their clarification of the manifesto was explained in their blog on their site.

The videos of panels and information were posted to Anet’s Youtube channel. There are/were countless videos including ANet panels on Youtrube.

The AMAs were advertised, where the community asked questions and Anet answered them. But the bottom line is no one could possibly expect to see one 5 minute video made two years before a game launched, do no further research and expect to have an accurate representation of what was going on with the game.

It’s not reasonable.

I didn’t say go to LA to RP. I said go there to find a guild because it’sa hub of people not RPers. If you say in map chat, I’m looking for an RP guild that accepts low level characters, you’ll undoubtedly get responses.

Talk to people. You don’t have to jump into the first RP guild you run into. Try to see what RP guild fits you.

You’re still talking about looking for randoms to RP with. I’m still talking about the best way for you to find a guild. Then you’ll know where they RP because they’ll tell you. lol

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Sorry I can’t agree with this. Too many changes too fast and you lose too many people and nothing evolves. Evolution is a slow process not a fast one. It takes time. For the genre to move forward, you have to give some people a bit of help…because they’ve spent years in other games learning what to expect from the genre. You can’t just expect people to say well okay it’s all changed now..good. It doesn’t work like that.

So Anet compromises. They give them a bit of what they want, but not so much since and that was a long time already. Essentially, Anet is weening people off gear progression. It won’t happen for everyone and it won’t happen right away, but it will happen over time for some people.

Making changes and expecting people to deal with them all at once…probably not the best way to run a railroad.

I’m not sure that evolution in the MMO genre is exactly what the thread is addressing. The MMO genre has evolved little over the years and GW2 was advertized to embody evolutionary changes that a lot of people recognized the need for. Some of those changes were described in the manifesto and in other pre-release materials. They weren’t pointing to an evolutionary process, but rather to a product that embodied the fruit of a needed evolutionary process that had already taken place in GW2.

And, you don’t wean people off gear progression by going from horizontal progression (post max level gear at max level) to vertical progression. Interestingly, if I actually believed that, I mean that they were attempting to wean people off VP, I wouldn’t be the forum warrior that I am. You wouldn’t happen to have a link for that, would you?

The best I can do in the analysis of cause is to assume that they got spooked and added VP to give people who complained about nothing to do something to do. Sadly, that compromise represents devolution not evolution within the genre. And, more to current topic, a reversal of pre-release promises.

I don’t have a link for that, I’m looking what what Anet is doing rather than what they’re saying.

Typical MMO has new gear tier every 3 months. It’s been more than six months since Ascended gear came out. During that time we have an amulet which can only be gotten from laurals. We have rings, which can be gotten numerous ways, including laurels. We have earrings which can be gotten in some ways. And we have a backpack which can only be attained by doing fractals (and the LS temporarily).

This isn’t a game that has this huge curve. It’s not gear grind. It’s simply stuff they put out there. There’s as yet been no sign of ascended armor or weapons.

It is my belief, and that’s all it is, that Anet did something to stop a mass exodus, while trying to find a way forward that would keep people engaged. Which means that now, with the Living Story starting to do that (and it has), we might NEVER see ascended weapons and armor with higher stats. It’s been theorized by a few people, but Anet has neither confirmed nor denied this.

Anet has not changed their vision. They changed their approach. I don’t believe for one second when they talked about cosmetic only upgrades they didn’t mean it. Now they’re doing it, through the LS.

If it’s successful, if they can get enough people to be there to just play with this new paradigm, then they may very well NOT increase stats.

At any rate, Anet isn’t a person it’s a company. Eric Flannum might have been well against vertical progression and lost an argument with other people. But I really do believe Anet still believes everything they said originally and they just couldn’t convince the players that it was the way to go forward.

It will be interesting to see what Anet does from here.

Shifty.5187:

Stone.6751:

Interesting. From an outside perspective, as someone who didn’t play GW1 or any MMO for the past 10 years, I don’t really see why people make these types of complaints about the game. The game is very progressive in the world of MMOs, so much that it attracts players like myself who are primarily console gamers.

You should’ve seen Guild Wars 1.

Stone.6751:

I don’t know what the betrayal, false information, etc. was that people felt sold on, but did you ever think thakittens possible that people took information and created a set of false expectations in their head about what that information meant?

No. The fact there are so many of us who believe Anet has backtracked on their Manifesto is solid evidence they are at fault for the miscommunication; it is their responsibility to prevent misunderstandings, and they could have been perfectly clear.

Nothing is ever perfectly clear. As a professional editor, I can personally guarantee that. There is no such thing as perfect clarity. Times when Anet says something that’s not clear, such as the manifesto, they posted clarifications of and explained (and explained and explained).

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

The only statement I consider to be “false” is the everything you love about Guild Wars 1.

I do not fault ANet for failing to completely follow through with every bit of the manifesto, but does that village stay saved ? Does the boss stay defeated ? Do they still not want us to grind ? Do they still not like the idea of dailies ?

No amount of post manifesto, “clarification,” can change the fact, not opinion, that numerous elements and points made in the manifesto did not come to fruition.

My response to the fact that a company with limited experience producing a full-fledged MMO had to face reality and make adjustments to their intentions in order to bring their product to market….so what. It happens. Its life. Its business. That doesn’t mean it didnt happen though.

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.

Ree is talking about the personal story. Everything you do in your personal story stays that way. Colin is talking about dynamic events.

Editing for style caused confusion and Anet clarified it. People knew what Ree and Colin were talking about.

Without the clarification it was indeed confusing but you obviously couldn’t have a permanently rescued village in the open world. Which brings me to the next point.

AFTER the manifesto this stuff was discussed and expounded upon and explained ad nauseum. It was done at conventions and the panels are still available to view. It was done in interviews. It was done at AMAs on Reddit. It was done on Guru. There are so many times and ways this was explained.

Sure if you came to the game today, this might be all new to you if you didn’t follow it, but there’s NO excuse for anyone following the game not to understand what was meant in the manifesto. Anyone who says otherwise is being liberal with reality.

Shockwave.1230:

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Stone.6751:

There is no treadmill anywhere in this game other than the fact thakittens a RPG, which inherently means that it includes continued adventure for new items and new levels of progression, but beyond level 80 this is all optional. GW2 does it in a much more fair and accessible fashion than other MMOs.

Again I think where many people have gone wrong with this game is to play it in a fashion they don’t enjoy. They ‘grind’ and ‘farm’ for things and its not fun, but they do it because they feel compelled to do it. Honestly that sounds like someone with a problem and that person should probably step away from the game and take a reality check, reassess their situation, and get back to playing games in a fashion that they find enjoyable.

Guild Wars did not have veritical progression and it was a role playing game. Max stat gear was readily available.

I stopped playing GW2 for months because of the grind. When I came back there’s even more vertical progression, ascended items.

So would your suggestion be for anyone who enjoyed ANet’s last game and was expecting their next game to follow the same philosophies to not push for the things that drew them to the development company in the first place to be brought back?

Guild Wars 1 didn’t have vertical progression? I beg to differ.

The PvE only skills ALL had vertical progression. What it didnt’ have was vertical GEAR progression. But you can’t tell me people didn’t grind to get lightbringer points or kurzick/luxon points, or any of the EotN reputation points with the four different factions.

You can say Guild Wars 1 didn’t have vertical progression all you want. All I can say is LFG R8 Ursan.

There was plenty of vertical progression in Guild Wars 1. You just don’t like that they shifted it from skill progression to gear progression.

Already addressed this previously. UB was nerfed bcs it incentivized people to do vertical progression due to its power and effectiveness. The VP associated with titles could only increase the power of 3 skills at most in a skill bar at any given time. The PvE skills themselves were impactful without grinding out the titles. While the vp made up to 3 additional skills stronger it was of minimal impact overall and not a theme of the game.

So yes potentially 3 skills in a skill bar could have vertical progression. The overall difference in power between different ranks was small enough to go unnoticed, save Ursan blessing which was a mistake Anet remedied.

I totally disagree with this. Some of the skills were the centerpoint of builds. I didn’t make up people looking for R8 ursans for example, that was not only in the game, but it was common enough for Anet to nerf it.

I’m sure perma-sins required a leveled up PvE only skill to be permasins and I’m 100% sure that people had to level up their luxon/kurzick skill Save Yourselves to be an imbagon paragon.

And there were people who LIVED on pain inverter and technobabble, not to mention the Asura summons for most people.

Some of those skills were almost as good as elites and often they REALLY REALLY helped with content.

You can say it was only 8 skills all you want, but I NEVER could justify not taking necrosis on my necro. I just couldn’t do it.

You’d probably be right of those skills weren’t better than 90% of the skills in the game.

Arguably, ascended gear means LESS than the PvE only skills in Guild Wars 2. No one makes any builds around ascended gear. It’s nice to have but it doesn’t affect content nearly as much as some of the PvE only skills did.

I mean how many people demanded an Imbagon in their group before they’d attempt DOA?

LA is pretty much the central hub of the entire game. Also make sure you’re not in an overflow server…it’ll say overflow on your minimap if you are.

Basically every single race has it’s own starting area, but everyone is funneled into LA at level 30ish. Which means it’s the place where all five races come together. It’s also not a racial city but run by a Council of Captains, and all races are represented on that council.

Finally the entrance to Fractals of the Mists is here, as well as the Mystic Forge, so it’s a place lots of people congregate.

Good luck!

Raine.1394:

Stone.6751:

I know you are a lover of the English language so I’ll give the first definition of PROMISE from merriam-webster.com:

a : a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified

If they say they are going to do something or not do something they have declared it. But if you are still in doubt, let me give you the first definition of DECLARE.

1: to make known formally, officially, or explicitly

Is the manifesto a legally binding contract that can never change? No, but it is a declaration of what they will do and what they will refrain from doing. And, that’s how it reads. The manifesto and associated marketing documents contain promises. What is my authority for believing so? A conventional understanding of the English language. Heck, if I tell you I will meet you for lunch, I consider that a promise. And, if I have to break it, I’ll call in advance and renegotiate a time.

I don’t know, we may have differing understandings of promise. I rely on the plain meaning that we hold conventionally.

I think most of us understand there is a context in which a “declaration of intent” constitutes a promise, and when it is simply a statement of someone’s thoughts or plans.

If you and I are out to breakfast and I say "I think I’ll have some OJ with breakfast’ only to when they waitress comes I say, “You know, coffee actually sounds good, I think I’ll have that to drink”, would I have broken a promise and lied to you? Most people understand that given the social context it would not be considered a lie. Sure I said one thing, then change my mind and did another, but people would not call it a promise or a lie. There was no intention to deceive, it was simply a change in plans for whatever the reason.

Saying I’m going to buy your lunch, then when the check arrives tell you that I actually have no money and you will need to pick up the check, would be a broken promise and a lie since there was a clear intent to deceive.

To answer your question as to whether you would have lied to me, no. And, I make no presuppositions about intent and especially no presuppositions about intent to deceive. My post above only concerns what constitutes a promise. I actually don’t believe that Anet lied when making pre-launch declarations of what the game would be about and what it would not be about. I believe that they felt they needed to change what they said the game would be about to meet what they saw as the demands of the player base. Many people immediately go to “they lied” when dealing with an unfulfilled promise. I don’t go there. I don’t believe they lied. But I do hold to a conventional understanding of the word promise in the context of the current discussion.

A promise, to most people, isn’t just saying you’re going to do something. A promise is a guarantee of you doing something.

If I tell my wife, I’m going to put up the dishes and I get distracted, I didn’t promise her I’d put up the dishes. The casual nature of what I said to her was understood that I’d do it assuming nothing else came up or I couldn’t get to it. She wouldn’t take it as a promise either.

But this is just a semantic conversation at this point. Because promise, whether you like it or not, means something more to a whole lot of people, so using the word promise compromises what you’re trying to say.

Breaking a promise is very different to most people than not doing something you said you were going to do.

It might not be to you,. but you’re not talking to yourself here.

I think you should go into LA (everyone can get there) stand around and talk to people until you find the guild that’s right for you.

It’s also a relatively fast game to level in, so you might one to work on that in the mean time.

If that many people didn’t like them, I must have hallucinated the number of people doing the Sky Pirates Puzzle in Gendarran Fields. There were a TON of them. Not like a dozen…but a ton. Even to make multiple overflows even.

I know some people don’t like jumping puzzles, but I think a lot of people do. And I’ve also met people who didn’t like them at first and then warmed to them.

A lot of people tend to RP with people they know. Have you thought about joining an RP guild?

I have to admit the kit is a nice gesture. Thanks Anet!

There are meta events that do spawn chests, once you’re level 40. Some people farm those events all day. You’ll get to know all about them when you’re at a higher level. At least four of them are in starter zones too.

After the summer Anet will be revamping the reward system anyway (but we don’t know what to expect from that.

The whole point of group events is to do them with groups btw. They give something for guilds or people who play with friends to do. The reward is in the fun of the events.

If you’re playing this game for rewards instead of experiences, you’re probably going to be disappointed.

9,238 points and climbing.

I do think WvW achievements need to be more realistic, but the reality is, there’s a lot less to do in WvW over all as an achievement than there is on all of PvE.

Still, they could add some new achievements to WvW if they wanted, maybe achievements centered around leveling different professions in WXP.

Villious.8530:

Vayne.8563:

I have the same problem in most MMOs. Leveling is usually fun for me and end game stuff usually isn’t.

However, I still think my guild has a lot to do with how entertained I am. There’s always someone that needs help in the open world and I go help them and boom, I find something I’ve either never seen before or an event that I’ve not entered from that point in time, or some detail that I either overlooked or perhaps forgot.

I still spend a lot of time in the open world doing events and enjoying them.

I guess the difference is, I really like some of the new stuff that’s come out.

Vayne, I find that I’m liking your post more and more. Wait….OH MY GOD! Am I being assimilated??!! ;-)

Seriously, I don’t always agree with what you might say 100% of the time, but I do believe you always try to be fair and unbiased. Cheers!

Careful what you say. If you like my posts too publicly, you’ll only become a target. lol

And thanks.

I don’t think those complaining are a vocal minority. I’m not even sure they’re a minority at all. Which doesn’t mean they have a majority.

I think the people who really think deeply about the games they play, all of us that post here regularly, are DEFINITELY a minority.

Those who just log in and bang around a kill stuff without thinking are probably the majority.

It’s like those who watch movies. Most people I know go to a movie and watch it. They either like it or don’t like it, but don’t think too deeply about why they like or don’t like it. They say this movie sucks or this movie is great, and that’s as far as it goes for them.

Most people aren’t deep thinkers, because they’re trained to jump from one thing to the next thing. You don’t watch an episode of a TV series anymore and then wait a week to see what happens, you watch the whole series at one time, on DvD or streamed from a website.

You don’t have time to think deeply about things. Or you go from game to game to game to game…without fully exploring any of them.

That’s the majority. The rest of us, whichever side of the divide we’re on, are the minority.

Shockwave.1230:

Stone.6751:

There is no treadmill anywhere in this game other than the fact thakittens a RPG, which inherently means that it includes continued adventure for new items and new levels of progression, but beyond level 80 this is all optional. GW2 does it in a much more fair and accessible fashion than other MMOs.

Again I think where many people have gone wrong with this game is to play it in a fashion they don’t enjoy. They ‘grind’ and ‘farm’ for things and its not fun, but they do it because they feel compelled to do it. Honestly that sounds like someone with a problem and that person should probably step away from the game and take a reality check, reassess their situation, and get back to playing games in a fashion that they find enjoyable.

Guild Wars did not have veritical progression and it was a role playing game. Max stat gear was readily available.

I stopped playing GW2 for months because of the grind. When I came back there’s even more vertical progression, ascended items.

So would your suggestion be for anyone who enjoyed ANet’s last game and was expecting their next game to follow the same philosophies to not push for the things that drew them to the development company in the first place to be brought back?

Guild Wars 1 didn’t have vertical progression? I beg to differ.

The PvE only skills ALL had vertical progression. What it didnt’ have was vertical GEAR progression. But you can’t tell me people didn’t grind to get lightbringer points or kurzick/luxon points, or any of the EotN reputation points with the four different factions.

You can say Guild Wars 1 didn’t have vertical progression all you want. All I can say is LFG R8 Ursan.

There was plenty of vertical progression in Guild Wars 1. You just don’t like that they shifted it from skill progression to gear progression.

Erasculio.2914:

Vayne.8563:

They made an ad. How can you look at the manifesto as anything else.

It didn’t really go into detail or explain anything like a how to. It was a statement of intent

You have just replied your own question. The Manifesto isn’t simply an ad; it’s also (in fact, it’s more importantly) a statement of intent.

Sure but a statement of intent is not a guarantee of delivery. You can’t have it both ways. And it was obviously put out to market the game. I don’t see how anyone can deny that.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

What does the word ad mean to you? To me it was a way for the company to promote their upcoming product. It’s like what companies do.

Were their blogs of the time ads? They are all part of a PR campaign to publicise the game but not necessarily ads in their own right. And it doesn’t matter really whether its technically an ad or not they still made false statements in it, or statements that they later back away from.

The only statement I consider to be “false” is the everything you love about Guild Wars 1.

And that clearly is impossible since anyone who thinks it through must realize everyone loves different stuff. If everything everyone loved was in Guild Wars 2 it would be guild wars 1. I saw that as marketing speak the moment I heard it. I can’t believe anyone would take that literally.

There is nothing else in the manifesto that was backed away from. Zero. Zilch. Nothing.

If you actually listen to what’s being said instead of inserting your own meaning for what you think it means.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

So a company made an ad that made their game look good. An ad which had in it actual game play, where most companies make ads and have some bullkitten video cut scene that doesn’t represent gameplay at all, and you say the company was acting like a business? lol

I wasn’t an ad though, nor was the associated information presented to players around the time.

As for acting like a business they could make a product actually for players which makes them money they did it with GW1. They started to with GW2 but then they deviated away from it to include what I would call anti player systems which are basically a treadmill keeping people playing and spending money in the cash shop, not to mention the gambling boxes.

Vayne.8563:

Most of what was said in the manifesto remains true to this day. And anyone who actually looks at what’s being said, particularly with what was clarified immediately after (Ree talking about personal story, Colin talking about DEs)…well, yeah.

Not gonna debate this with you because you’re wrong and its useless debating the topic any more.

It wasn’t an ad? Really? Based on what evidence.

It was CLEARLY advertising for their product. They made an ad. How can you look at the manifesto as anything else.

It didn’t really go into detail or explain anything like a how to. It was a statement of intent, but if you can’t see ad when you look at the manifesto, I’m not sure what else there is to talk about.

What does the word ad mean to you? To me it was a way for the company to promote their upcoming product. It’s like what companies do.

morrolan.9608:

Stone.6751:

Uhh…yea. But people have beaten this horse to death, drudging up old comments made by ANet employees from years ago, writing page long posts, and even linking “the manifesto” in their signature.

I like to talk about games too. I’m just saying that people take the complaints to the level of an unhealthy obsession.

The game is what it is.

People were sold the game based on the manifesto and other marketing from around that time. They had a high opinion of anet as a players company based on GW1 and the way they sold GW2.

So when its revealed that it was all a bunch of marketing BS and that anet are really just another corporate game company they feel disappointed and betrayed.

So a company made an ad that made their game look good. An ad which had in it actual game play, where most companies make ads and have some bullkitten video cut scene that doesn’t represent gameplay at all, and you say the company was acting like a business? lol

I bought Rift on one of their trailers and likewise felt disappointed because the stuff they said in the trailers wasn’t true. But instead of the company saying it, they had fans say it. The company chose to put that ad up and yes, I bought into the game.

But in the end, all companies try to sell their products. The thing is, the manifesto is obviously emotionally charged and people chose to interpret certain things one way when they were in fact meant another way…and that’s always going to happen.

Most of what was said in the manifesto remains true to this day. And anyone who actually looks at what’s being said, particularly with what was clarified immediately after (Ree talking about personal story, Colin talking about DEs)…well, yeah.

With all the hundreds of hours after the manifesto of Anet explaining everything in great detail to people, I can’t imagine people fall back on blaming the manifesto.

Jemmi.6058:

Vayne.8563:

Jemmi.6058:

Im Mudbone.1437:

AntiGw.9367:

Shockwave.1230:

I could login to Guild Wars and in start a new character, play for about 30 hours and be max level with max gear having earned the gold for it in that time, and just play the game after that for it’s stories and challenges without ever having a thought cross my mind about am I playing with handicapped stats.

That’s no where near a possibility in Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars felt much more about enjoying well thought out quality content and stories. Guild Wars 2 distracts from that way too much with it’s grind.

You could login to Guild Wars 2 and start a new character, play for about 30 hours, and be max level with nearly max gear (green) around which the entire game was balanced.

Then if you like you could play for a few more hours and get exotics.

Hear, Hear. Best response yet, except, to use several instead of few.

Actually, you can have all exotics within minutes of hitting 80. If you sell all materials, loot bags and drops that you get while levelling you will have more than enough gold to purchase all exotic gear on the TP.

However, for me, it took more like 40-50 hours to hit 80 on my more recent characters. (This is without crafting and only doing events, story and hearts)

And if you save your daily karma jugs and don’t use them till you’re 80, you could probably buy exotic karma armor from the temples in Orr without spending any gold at all.

Hmm I highly doubt this, Karma jug is what, 4k karma? You need 42k karma to buy some gear. I got around 100,000 k karma on one of my recent 80’s, but some of that is from CoF runs and post 80 time. Let’s assume that 75,000 karma is reasonable for a new 80.

I am going to assume I play more than most, so let’s say 2 hours per day levelling, at 40 hours = 20 days. 20 days * 4k karma = 80k karma + 75k karma = 155k karma. That is enough to get you 3 pieces of gear, not all 6. If you played like I did, you would have levelled to 80 in less than a week, so you would have had 20k + 75k karma = 95k karma or enough for 2 pieces of gear.

That is also excluding the fact that the stats on the gear is not ideal. It is better to purchase off the TP, because you can pick and choose your desired stats.

I would recommend you use that ~100-150k karma to purchase jewelry boxes from karma vendors and make gold. It will be enough gold to cover at least one of your items (and possibly more depending on luck).

I guess you never got a karma booster, or used any karma buffs, because I’m getting over 7000 karma from jugs. There’s foods that boost karma, buffs that boost karma, all sorts of stuff.

Depending on how long you take to level, you can end up with a whole lot of karma jugs…particularly because in the past, monthlies were relatlively easy to get which give you ten jugs or 75,000 karma just from doing one monthly.

Now, if you’re doing events, and zone completions, which a lot of people do, by the time they’re a month into the game, it’s quite easy to say have 40 jugs of karma. That’s the daily every day and the monthly plus all the other stuff you do.

And let’s say you can’t get an ENTIRE suit of armor. You can get half your armor, or two thirds.

The point is it’s another option without spending any gold.

butch.8136:

^ Isn’t a permanent rotation of minigames still temporary? Because we’ve been getting festivals and minigames since a long time and people consider those temporary.

Unless I don’t get what they mean with a permanent rotation.

A permanent rotation isn’t temporary. That’s like saying a TV show that’s on once a week doesn’t exist because it’s not on at this second. It means you have a chance to play games again.

It was like roller beetle racing in Guild Wars 1. It was very popular but it was only on twice a year for years.

And I played it whenever it showed up. Because it was only on during certain events, it never lost that fun factor for me.