Guild Wars 2

Latinkuro.9420:

Vayne.8563:

Latinkuro.9420:

it IS punishment, if the whole dam game is being steered towards the idea that everyone should benefit from 1 character only !

that is also the reason why I’m raising my voice in protest, if WE the ones with lots of characters do NOT shout and rebel, arenanet will think it’s alright and continue this disgusting trend of business

Okay I have a lot of characters, but this is just wrong. If the balance of a currency is there to stop people from attaining it too quickly, then by giving it to every alt you break the balance. That’s completely logical.

There’s no reason that a person who has 10 alts should be able to get 10 of a reward that disadvantages people who have single characters by comparison.

And having a zillion alts doesn’t entitle you to getting quartz faster than anyone else. That’s would put pressure on people to alt, just because.

if you went through the leveling process and all that why shouldn’t you be allowed to earn and reap the rewards as well, limiting a mining node to just one character is NOT cool.

what you are talking about is more about laurels and that crap !
I’m talking specifically about this new gathering node

in your case you’re saying it’s ok to make this a single character game !
don’t presume to call it an mmorpg than !

Because game balance is more important than any individual.

Well Nuka, I do think you’ll find most people actually like rewards. lol

I quite liked the dungeon and the new jumping puzzle though, or don’t those count?

Latinkuro.9420:

it IS punishment, if the whole dam game is being steered towards the idea that everyone should benefit from 1 character only !

that is also the reason why I’m raising my voice in protest, if WE the ones with lots of characters do NOT shout and rebel, arenanet will think it’s alright and continue this disgusting trend of business

Okay I have a lot of characters, but this is just wrong. If the balance of a currency is there to stop people from attaining it too quickly, then by giving it to every alt you break the balance. That’s completely logical.

There’s no reason that a person who has 10 alts should be able to get 10 of a reward that disadvantages people who have single characters by comparison.

And having a zillion alts doesn’t entitle you to getting quartz faster than anyone else. That’s would put pressure on people to alt, just because.

You can buy it now. It’s up in the shop.

Yes, if you type /g (space) you’ll end up in guild chat as soon as you hit space.

Zelyhn.8069:

Vayne.8563:

Zelyhn.8069:

Fractals did not satisfy anyone apart from grinders.
But there was already quite a lot available to grinders, they were not the problem!

Rewards would be nice, and they do not have to be gear (I dislike gear treadmill as much as anybody):
-cosmetics
-titles
-guild stuff
-housing stuff
-spells and abilities
you get the idea

The core concept of the game if that anyone can do anything, no gating (hello fractals), but what we would like is a way to progress and differentiate ourselves from the rest.
-Grinders have fractals and legendaries to grind for
-Casuals have living story stuff
-Skilled players have … what … arah solo? :/
And guess what are the most rewarding things to do: CoF brainless runs and brainless world bosses!
Do the designers really want to promote brainless play? I am baffled

Edit to mention that I am actually a fanboy: I love the core mechanics and design of the game. Actually I love the idea so much that I want to improve it, I won’t let it down, I won’t let it be wasted by people who do not understand gaming!

I’m not so sure I agree about the Fractal part. I love Fractals, and I’m no grinder. To me, Fractals are the best dungeon in the game…but I’ll never grind them. I’m up to level 20 finally after all this time.

I agree they are great! Finally some mechanics that are not as boring as in the other dungeons (bar a few). But their rewards? That’s what’s wrong!

I find Fractals to be relatively rewarding, when compared to doing most other content.

Try putting a space after it.

/g (space)

Once you hit the space bar the channel will change.

Zelyhn.8069:

Fractals did not satisfy anyone apart from grinders.
But there was already quite a lot available to grinders, they were not the problem!

Rewards would be nice, and they do not have to be gear (I dislike gear treadmill as much as anybody):
-cosmetics
-titles
-guild stuff
-housing stuff
-spells and abilities
you get the idea

The core concept of the game if that anyone can do anything, no gating (hello fractals), but what we would like is a way to progress and differentiate ourselves from the rest.
-Grinders have fractals and legendaries to grind for
-Casuals have living story stuff
-Skilled players have … what … arah solo? :/
And guess what are the most rewarding things to do: CoF brainless runs and brainless world bosses!
Do the designers really want to promote brainless play? I am baffled

Edit to mention that I am actually a fanboy: I love the core mechanics and design of the game. Actually I love the idea so much that I want to improve it, I won’t let it down, I won’t let it be wasted by people who do not understand gaming!

I’m not so sure I agree about the Fractal part. I love Fractals, and I’m no grinder. To me, Fractals are the best dungeon in the game…but I’ll never grind them. I’m up to level 20 finally after all this time.

1. Rewards don’t reflect the time/risk factor, such as fighting champions. This has to be adjusted very carefully however, because if they make champion rewards too good, people will just zerg them and they’ll become as meaningless as some of the meta events.

2. Connection to your character. There’s a ton of stuff in Guild Wars 2 that’s very convenient, but some of that makes it harder to connect to your characters. Sometimes I feel like I’m playing characters interchangeably, rather than playing a specific character because I love the character.

3. Not even reason to play support type characters from a meta point of view. I’d love to see an actual choice in what I want to play that makes me a valuable member of a party. Build diversity isn’t going to matter at all, if support largely isn’t needed to complete content.

Seems to me that there’s a huge ideological divide between what makes an MMO good or even playable.

Some people say that what other MMOs have done is required to make an MMO playable. But then, there’s a whole lot of gamers out there who won’t TOUCH an MMO, and some of those people not only play Guild Wars 2, but enjoy Guild Wars 2.

Those who want this stuff, refuse to acknowledge that there’s a sizable population of people who DO want something different from what other MMOs offer. This is in spite of the fact that many many people have come out in favor of this on these forums. More all the time.

And many people, of course, have come out with the desire for more challenging content that’s rewarded by increased reward.

Now, I’m not saying one side is right and one is wrong. I’m saying that one side has a bevy of games to choose from and one side has none.

Let’s pretend that there is a mass exodus from this game of players who DON’T like the direction it’s going. There’s also a bunch of people discovering the game for the first time. Why? Because many gamers previously would never touch an MMO because of how bad MMOs have been.

I’ve always seen the potential of the format, but I’ve NEVER found an MMO worth playing for any length of time…until now.

So if I’m not alone, of other people are in my boat, what makes those who want change think that it’s in any way fair to take away from us the one game we can enjoy as it is?

There are tons of games out there that provide challenge and reward for all your “hard work”. You don’t need another one.

Maybe Guild Wars 2 will never have millions of players. That shouldn’t be the one deciding issue on the design factor. Anet advertised and promoted a certain game. A good portion of the playerbase was incensed when ascended gear was released. Many couldn’t be more happy if ascended weapons and armor never made it into the game…or if they do, that they won’t come with a stat increase.

Anet has to make a decision between demographics, because the demographics clearly aren’t co-existing. And from experience I know, that if you give a gamer a finger, they take a hand. Sure the Fractals were challenging content with better rewards…but now those gamers want more. And the more they get, the more disenfranchised will be the people who bought the game as it was originally portrayed.

Anet should make a statement and say what they plan on doing, and eventually they will. No matter what they do at this point, one group of players is going to be very very annoyed.

Portals is actually a big part of helping out guildies. It helps bind guildies together. It’s not a bad thing for a guild to have people who can help other people through content they normally wouldn’t be able to do. That, to me, is one of the major things a guild can do. And it helps build community.

Recently we did the Obsidian Sanctum jumping puzzle, because people wanted the Aetherblade cache in there. We’re predominantly a PvE guild and to be honest, moving through an area with hostile enemies, built for PvP was tasking. We had two mesmers in our group. When people fell on jumps, we portaled them back up so they could try again. The entire movement through relatively hostile territory made it a great group event.

Tarnished Coast, currently a second Tier WvW world as well as having a whole lot of people playing. There are other busy worlds too, but TC is one of the busiest.

No different from Guild Wars 1, where people would pay gold to get through dungeons or hard missions. Sometimes they could even AFK while doing it.

There are tons of people out there who love jumping puzzles, and tons of them who hate them. On woman in my guild has a real fear of heights. She’s never get zone completion in some zones without a mesmer’s help.

And in all honestly, because she doesn’t do dungeons or PvP at all, the open world is all she has. Why should her fear of heights be an issue.

I’m talking in this case about the few vistas that are at the end of jumping puzzles.

Jumping should have always been voluntary. Once they tied it up with map completion, I think the mesmer portal became necessary for some people.

This is a game, not an olympic event. And people did run people for money all the time in Guild Wars 1.

And nerfing jumping puzzle rewards is not enough of a problem to me to worry about it.

Insignya.8625:

@Mirva, can I ask, what beta test is your friend participating in? Is there a secret PBE server we’re not aware of? I appreciate your feedback, but I don’t think this is how a company should treat their fans. Are we not worthy of a developer’s post that we have to wait for the next PR talk from Colin? I have never seen this in a game, honestly, where a developer announces when he’ll tell players what’s going on. If you don’t like your own official forums, use Reddit! A platform that almost all gaming devs are currently using to reach out to the community.

The most obvious way to decide whether or not the player population is in decline is to play the game. I have, for 10 months, and based on my experience, Seafarer’s Rest is nearly void of dedicated players. Yeah, people jump back when it’s time to bash dragons but temples get uncontested ‘bout once a day, CoF is almost impossible to get in, most of the dedicated Commanders in WvW have left and I knew some of them. That’s what I use as a method to support my statement- if I don’t see people playing, to me it seems that the game is dying. It didn’t use to be like that.

The reward chances are broken, I don’t think proof is needed here. For reference point, I’ve committed close to 2000 hours in Guild Wars 2 and have never had an item worth more than 5 gold. Many people feel the same – that they don’t complain about it means they’ve lost hope this can be fixed. There is no way to justify a system this extreme – it literally makes playing the game obsolete because you can just win the lottery and have more gold than the person who’s been playing since release.

You can even draw a parallel with Diablo III. That’s right, a game that also doesn’t reward players for their efforts, rather their item flipping skills and luck. To me the Black Lion TradePost is a less evil incarnation of the Auction House, but is just as harmful to the game. Yes, you can’t bury everyone in exotics because the market would crash. However, if a single random-chance Dusk is worth more gold than I’ve made collectively over 10 months, then something is seriously wrong.

PS: Fix your censorship system, please! Kitten.

Maybe people are changing servers, guesting, and doing other things. Several people feel their servers are busy. Even very populous games end up with dead servers. It’s one of the things NO MMO has found a way around. Free guesting is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

As far as what most companies do as regard to talking to their fans, most MMO companies don’t communicate that well and some barely communicate at all. Anet doesn’t communicate BEFORE they’re ready to because the fan base will parse each word with a fine tooth comb, and find something to scream about. I don’t blame Anet for not talking to the fan base. There are too many people looking to tear apart anything Anet says. And of course, Anet hasn’t been blameless in that either by saying things that easily could be taken wrong or even saying things that sound different than they are. Choice of words is probably not Anet’s strongest point.

So why did Colin say he’ll give you an answer on a certain date in a blog post? Because people were asking for answered and they wanted to know when the devs would give them those answers, so he told them.

My guess is, if people weren’t asking for answers NOW, he wouldn’t have said that.

But the other side of that coin is what if they really haven’t decided everything yet. What if they still have decisions to make?

Before Guild Wars 2 launched, Anet had more information about the game out there than just about any game I’ve ever seen. I knew exactly what a dynamic event would and wouldn’t be. I know pretty much exactly what the personal story would and wouldn’t be.

And even with all that communication, you still have people complaining that they were misled by the manifesto, because they didn’t look at anything else.

Sorry, but I don’t blame Anet for not talking to forum or even Reddit, unless they’ve at least attempted to cobble something together that will minimize the damage that’s sure to come from any annoucement…no matter what it is.

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

wolfie.7296:

Galtrix.7369:

I know for a fact that many, many people left GW2 because of the RNG issues and the “not enough permanent content” issues. I’m about to play other games because the Mystic Forge is making me angry beyond belief.

Ironically that’s not why people should leave. if anything it should be great ideas and bug/gameplay reports are simply ignored. I got headaches more than once from the blinding vista flashes, reported it multiple times and it’s the same.

So bug reports are ignored? No bugs are fixed at all?

Maybe there are a lot of bugs and some new bugs as well and Anet is fixing bugs according to an order that makes sense to them…for example…bugs that halt progress first (which is why you have an option to check that off when you report a bug).

If that were true, the TP bug would’ve been fixed since launch. But it’s been there. Since launch. I’m pretty sure a bug that makes it so you can’t use the TP halts progress. I mean, you have to exit the game and then log back in to use it. If it works. Lots of bugs are fixed, sure. But Anet apparently needs to prioritize which bugs they should fix first. The TP bug was reported so many times that it should have been fixed instantly. Instead, no answers were given, and no bugs were fixed that dealt with the TP.

Exiting the game and logging back in doesn’t halt progress. Halting progress is like when you are doing a personal story and it won’t finish, so you can’t continue your personal story. That’s halting progress. Relogging to activate the trading post…not halting progress.

That’s not even a good try.

So you disagree that the TP bug should have been fixed at launch then? And it halts my money intake for a few minutes. Most people are lazy and don’t want to take the time to restart their client just so they can get their hard earned gold from the TP. I’d say this is a halt in progress. My point is that this bug should have been fixed ages ago, and allowing it to stay in the game this far into its life should have never happened. No matter what, this should have been fixed 5+ months ago

This has been discussed before in other threads, and it’s relatively off topic here, but the reason some of the issues with the TP exists is to thwart bots. Ideal? No. But then it’s not the big deal you’re making it out to be either.

It’s called a storm in a tea cup. You’re right about a lot of people being lazy. But it’s still not blocking your progress because you CAN relog and sell. It slows your progress, which is not blocking it.

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

wolfie.7296:

Galtrix.7369:

I know for a fact that many, many people left GW2 because of the RNG issues and the “not enough permanent content” issues. I’m about to play other games because the Mystic Forge is making me angry beyond belief.

Ironically that’s not why people should leave. if anything it should be great ideas and bug/gameplay reports are simply ignored. I got headaches more than once from the blinding vista flashes, reported it multiple times and it’s the same.

So bug reports are ignored? No bugs are fixed at all?

Maybe there are a lot of bugs and some new bugs as well and Anet is fixing bugs according to an order that makes sense to them…for example…bugs that halt progress first (which is why you have an option to check that off when you report a bug).

If that were true, the TP bug would’ve been fixed since launch. But it’s been there. Since launch. I’m pretty sure a bug that makes it so you can’t use the TP halts progress. I mean, you have to exit the game and then log back in to use it. If it works. Lots of bugs are fixed, sure. But Anet apparently needs to prioritize which bugs they should fix first. The TP bug was reported so many times that it should have been fixed instantly. Instead, no answers were given, and no bugs were fixed that dealt with the TP.

Exiting the game and logging back in doesn’t halt progress. Halting progress is like when you are doing a personal story and it won’t finish, so you can’t continue your personal story. That’s halting progress. Relogging to activate the trading post…not halting progress.

That’s not even a good try.

Motoko.2875:

People who still play get so defensive when it gets pointed out that the game has decreased in activity.

ANet has the numbers. Correct.

If they were numbers to be proud of, why aren’t they flaunting them?

“Guild Wars 2 population continues to grow every day!”
“Record number of new accounts bought this month!”

And if the population hasn’t grown and hasn’t shrunk then what would they say. Most MMOs don’t brag unless the numbers are massively high. Clearly there’s not massively high.

That doesn’t mean that there are less people playing concurrently. You just don’t know.

Leo Paul.1659:

Vayne.8563:

Leo Paul.1659:

I have no problem if you think it was great. But I hope you realize that it sounds condescending, as if we didn’t pay attention to the story or that we are purposely detracting people by referring to the zhaitan fight.

In YOUR opinion, it sounds condescending. I don’t know why you’re so sensitive, but I don’t feel that’s my problem. If you were aware of the story and still felt that way, then obviously you weren’t one of the people I was talking about.

Me thinks thou dost protest too much.

Why, can’t handle it when people express their opinion about you? You really like saying “your opinion” too much. As if it diminishes anything. Just because I don’t put “in my opinion” in my statements doesn’t mean I’m claiming them to be facts. You’re penchant for the word opinion is funny.

Because your opinion about ME is not relevant on a Guild Wars 2 forum. I’ve specifically avoided stating my opinion about you. If you want to talk about Guild Wars 2, by all means, talk about Guild Wars 2. If you want to talk about me personally, contact my personal assistant and we can set up lunch.

Xenon.4537:

Vayne.8563:

Stop guessing. Unless you guest to every single server in both the EU an the US you have no idea. No one does. Only Anet can answer this.

This is true, but I think he’s still right about RNG being a huge flaw in the PvE experience. We should be able to get cool stuff directly from the content, not from gambling the trash loot of the content. Like, I know that there is a tiny chance of getting any exotic (including precursors) from any champion/world boss, but the chance is extremely remote and the fact that none of the items are linked to a specific event/boss makes them less “unique” and feels like there is no reason to do one thing vs the other.

I got Eir’s longbow from a random minotaur in Frostgorge Sound (thanks only to +175% magic find btw). How does that make sense? Eir’s longbow should drop from a specific dynamic event boss that involves you helping Eir somehow.

For example in GW1 you had to do Urgoz or Deep to get a zodiac weapon. Shadow blades only drop from shadow enemies in the realm of torment or FoW. Many bosses in the game dropped their own unique green weapon.

I think the main fear in that design is that people might overwhelmingly farm a few things and ignore other content, but it seemed to work before. At the very least it would force Anet as designers to make sure the aesthetic quality of every drop be up to snuff, which is a good thing for us. Right now I think the game feels unrewarding because you don’t get cool stuff from clearing content (other than tokens), you get cool stuff from gambling after clearing content.

I’m not arguing for RNG. I’m generally against RNG, particularly RNG from chests that you pay cash for. And though I have a legendary, I think the precusor system isn’t very good at all.

But that doesn’t change the fact that we have this conversation pretty much once a week every week, and it always ends up exactly the same.

wolfie.7296:

Galtrix.7369:

I know for a fact that many, many people left GW2 because of the RNG issues and the “not enough permanent content” issues. I’m about to play other games because the Mystic Forge is making me angry beyond belief.

Ironically that’s not why people should leave. if anything it should be great ideas and bug/gameplay reports are simply ignored. I got headaches more than once from the blinding vista flashes, reported it multiple times and it’s the same.

So bug reports are ignored? No bugs are fixed at all?

Maybe there are a lot of bugs and some new bugs as well and Anet is fixing bugs according to an order that makes sense to them…for example…bugs that halt progress first (which is why you have an option to check that off when you report a bug).

Leo Paul.1659:

I have no problem if you think it was great. But I hope you realize that it sounds condescending, as if we didn’t pay attention to the story or that we are purposely detracting people by referring to the zhaitan fight.

In YOUR opinion, it sounds condescending. I don’t know why you’re so sensitive, but I don’t feel that’s my problem. If you were aware of the story and still felt that way, then obviously you weren’t one of the people I was talking about.

Me thinks thou dost protest too much.

God Of Fissures.8627:

idk how many actually play but i heard a rumor that there are over 3 million accounts

There are over 3 million box sales, that’s not a rumor that’s confirmed. I would imagine the number is closer to 4 million now than three million, but that’s speculation.

Obviously there are a lot of people dissatisfied with the game as it stands. I believe it was made to appeal more to RPGers than MMOers in general and some of the design decisions seem to support that.

By the same token it’s very different from a single player RPG experience.

People have obviously left, just as people have obviously left WoW. People leaving an MMO is not news. The question is, how fast are new people coming in, as compared to people leaving.

I don’t know that a million people are still playing this game. I have no way TO know.

But then, since it’s a B2P game without a monthly fee, people stay away for longer than they do other games. We have people that take breaks for months (so they’re not playing now and then they come back and play for a while and leave again. Are they active players?).

It’s just not such an easy question to answer, even if you’re looking around.

Nick.6972:

Yeah. Guessing is pointless, I agree.
But, you must be really blind not to see that people are quitting this game and that this game is NOT as active as it used to be.

Used to be in January, Used to be in November, used to be at launch?

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Facepunch.5710:

Dhar.6392:

I abandoned the game for 6 months for many reasons but my top list.

1. Fractals. When this started up- it was Wow and every other MMO I have ever played all over again. I don’t have the time to grind endlessly. Legendary Weapons being difficult I can accept given my circumstances. Fractal progression… that was my breaking point.

(I have not completed a single Fractal yet… I think I know where the entrance is…)

Perhaps it would interest you to know that the items with ascended stats that you get from fractals are also available for purchase by laurels from the daily achievement and guild commendations from guild missions (which are fun).

I have done a few fractals (like 10), they were actually fun. I have full ascended accessories, rings and amulet, just not the backpiece, which has low stats anyhow.

Your ‘breaking point’ wasn’t really at all what you assumed it would be. I don’t mean to be rude, but you should have at least tried the content or stuck around to see how it affected the game before ditching because of it.

As far as I know, the ascended gear that you can buy for laurels does not have agony resistance. You have to run fractals in order to get AR gear that helps with fractals.

None of the early fractal ascended gear has agony resistance either, but for a mere 75 fractal relics, doing very few fractals, you can get a simple infusion that gives you agony resistance.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Vayne.8563:

Okay there are X numbers of servers, and no matter what you can only guest to half of them. There are people in WvW, in different maps, people in fractals, people in dugeons, including the new dungeon, which would likely be more popular than old dungeons. There are people in personal story instances.

There are 25 big zones. There’s culling. Anything anyone guesses is a guess and nothing more. There are guilds running around that have hundreds of members in them. My guild has a hundred. Many people have left the game, because it’s not for them.

I guarantee you more people have left World of Warcraft in the last quarter than Guild Wars 2, and no one is saying WoW is dead.

This kind of question is not constructive. You’ll get group 1 saying it’s dead, many of whom don’t like the game and have their agenda. You’ll get group 2 saying it’s not dead, many of whom love the game and have an agenda.

And you still won’t know, so it’s down to who you choose to believe, which doesn’t make either side right.

Therefore, my answer to the question is the only answer that actually makes sense. Anet has the numbers and if they don’t release the numbers, anyone’s guess is as good as anyone else’s.

Which is to say, pretty much worthless.

Vayne, the OP very clearly stated he/she was asking for a guesstamate, stop being so critical of others.

A guestimate is going to be misleading. This question is asked probably once a week or mentioned once a week in another thread. It leads to division. It never gets answered or accomplishes anything. It has nothing to do with critical. It has to do with experience.

Do you think the answer we have or don’t have will chance since last week?

Leo Paul.1659:

Vayne.8563:

Leo Paul.1659:

What is a red herring?

A distraction. That’s how I intended it. Misleading, which doesn’t imply necessarily fallacious. It could be completely true and still be a red herring. You may not like my choice of words and they may not have been the right words even, but that doesn’t negate anything I said after it, nor is it in itself the wrong thing to say.

I was using the term red herring in the sense of an analogy. A red herring is something that throws people off a specific thought process, and that’s precisely what this does. Maybe you should be less literal. I should probably have used different wording however.

You were the one who strawman’d your way out of the idea that the zhaitan fight was bad.

Here’s the post that I assume you responded to with that red herring comment:

I was really surprised that I was able to kill Zhaitan with one hand while eating popcorn with the other. I completely agree that some aspects of this game need to be upgraded, and some aspects need to be downgraded.

You keep using words like strawman and fallacious. All I did was express an opinion about how I see that fight. You can be disappointed with it if you want.

I have no problem with that.

Leo Paul.1659:

What is a red herring?

A distraction. That’s how I intended it. Misleading, which doesn’t imply necessarily fallacious. It could be completely true and still be a red herring. You may not like my choice of words and they may not have been the right words even, but that doesn’t negate anything I said after it, nor is it in itself the wrong thing to say.

I was using the term red herring in the sense of an analogy. A red herring is something that throws people off a specific thought process, and that’s precisely what this does. Maybe you should be less literal. I should probably have used different wording however.

Leo Paul.1659:

I wasn’t the one who claimed that referring to shooting down zhaitan with cannons as fallacious.

Quote please. Because I didn’t claim it either.

Kreslin.6832:

Vayne.8563:

I would go as far to say that 99 percent of all MMOs don’t have as many people as they have on release day, so this is meaningless comment….

My comments are not as meaningless as yours my friend. You are forgetting that your posts are just your own opinion, nothing more. And you should respect other’s opinion, instead of trolling them hundreds of times in a day.
Don’t think that you are smarter than others. You would surprised, but your are not.

Vayne.8563:

Edit: I think the Guild Wars 2 population was lower in November than it is now.

You think… And I think that tomorrow will be raining and the day after tomorrow will be sunny and dry.

That’s how it looks like. Nothing constructive. Just opinion, and attempt to offend me with your: “meaningless comment…”.

I already said, that the whole question and thread is largely meaningless because it’s all guess work. That remains true, no matter what my opinion is. I said that too.

Leo Paul.1659:

Vayne.8563:

Leo Paul.1659:

See it’s you who do not understand. Regardless of what they named the laser or the canons we used at the end, that encounter is still very much anticlimactic. It’s not logical to assume that people who do not share your opinion must have done something wrong along the way (not paid attention to the story).

I understand what you’re saying. I disagree with what you’re saying. By continuing to assume that I don’t understand (when in fact I do) you’re being condescending, which is what you accused me to be.

Yes, I can understand and still disagree with you. Some people see the forest, some see the trees.

If I am doing this, and you are doing that, then we must be doing the same thing. See, I understand what you’re saying even when you think I don’t.

Yes, I agree you can disagree with me. I said earlier there will be people who feel it is anticlimactic and I suspect the reason is is because they’re not seeing the whole thread. This isn’t belittling them or making any judgement on them, other than an observation of what might be behind it.

I didn’t claim you didn’t understand what I was saying, I’m simply saying that from my point of view it wasn’t anticlimactic. I’ve made ZERO attempt to try to change anyone’s mind about whether it’s anticlimactic or not. I’ve simply pointed out that whether it is or not is simply opinion and my opinion is different.

YOU are the one trying to change minds, not me. I’ve already said otherwise.

Leo Paul.1659:

See it’s you who do not understand. Regardless of what they named the laser or the canons we used at the end, that encounter is still very much anticlimactic. It’s not logical to assume that people who do not share your opinion must have done something wrong along the way (not paid attention to the story).

I understand what you’re saying. I disagree with what you’re saying. By continuing to assume that I don’t understand (when in fact I do) you’re being condescending, which is what you accused me to be.

Yes, I can understand and still disagree with you. Some people see the forest, some see the trees.

Insignya.8625:

I didn’t really have anyone on the other end to reply to before Morrigan and marnick’s comment. Quoting Vayne is like stabbing yourself in the chest for no reason, I did it once and got infracted so not gonna bother.

Right, because you’re all reasonable, and I’m a blind fan boy without a brain cell in my head.

I don’t agree with you, because I play games differently than you do. Other people do too.

Your lack of openness in considering the people who don’t play like you do is very evident in your choice of words. You attempt to appear reasonable, but you’re not actually being reasonable.

tolunart.2095:

kosmo.2437:

they chose a path by doing this living story thing, and in the next year we ll see where will that lead them to, i predict to a free to play model…

If they do that, I’m gonna cancel my subscription.

LMAO! You beat me to it.

Leo Paul.1659:

it’s condescending to presume that we didn’t pay attention to the story. i understand that you are easily impressed and i respect that.

It’s not condescend at all. It’s far more condescending to say that something is objectively anticlimatic. What I’m suggesting makes perfect sense.

People are complaining about this specific battle without reference to anything else. MANY people didn’t have a group to finish their personal story right away. In fact, many people did the personal story piecemeal. Many skip scenes.

Making an assumption that you’re not thinking about something you haven’t mentioned at all is not condescending, it’s logical.

Leo Paul.1659:

It doesn’t make the encounter any less anticlimactic. What is so fun in shooting down a creature supposedly rivaling a god with a pink laser in an underwhelming cutscene?

Regardless of what the items we used to defeat him are called, he still doesn’t live up to the hype. It took an entire race (dwarves) to defeat Primordus’ general for god’s sake.

I guess what we’re trying to say is that Zhaitan deserved better treatment that what they gave him in the story.

We glitter-bombed him kitten . -_- Mariah Carey could’ve done that by herself.

I’m really sorry you’re not following what I’m trying to say, but I guess I can keep repeating it.

It was anticlimatic to you. I didn’t see the specific fight with Zhaitan as THE fight. I’d been fighting Zhaitan all along. I saw the piece as a whole. I didn’t take the boss fight out of the whole so by the time Zojja used the anti dragon magic gun to cripple Zhaitan…I’d already felt I’d had it on the run.

In other words, if you paid attention to the personal story, Zhaitan was LOSING the battle with us. Throwing everything at us and we were advancing. The actual death of Zhaitan is more of an epilogue to everything I’d experienced than an event in and of itself. You were looking for that event and I’m not.

You can’t say something is objectively anticlimatic, only subjective. I agree it was anticlimatic for you. I’m explaining why it wasn’t anticlimatic to me. You can’t argue me around into believing something I enjoyed immensely is suddenly anticlimatic. In fact, Arah is my favorite story mode dungeon.

Leo Paul.1659:

It wasn’t his literal mouths or eyes that I fought. And even so, he’s an elder dragon who’s lived for eons. Cutting off his supply of power for what, several days is supposed to make him super weak immediately?

Nope…what is Zhaitan’s power? Raising the dead. We cut off his magic, his supply of undead, partially blinded him and on top of that, we’re using an asuran technology that uses anti-dragon magic. It’s called technology. It’s anticlimactic if you don’t understand what the laser is, but it’s made specifically to take on the elder dragons.

Gandarel.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Missions are also content, and some of it is quite fun.

Too bad you start with bounty, for what you need at least 20 members to succeed. So 80% of GW2 players cannot go.

A. There are public guild missions.
B. You can do Guild Bounties with 5 people, because people have.

Everyone who wants to participate can. Everyone who wants to make excuses, and cite reasons they can’t participate are doing just that.

Morrigan.2809:

I read your whole essay OP and the rest of the thread as well and it seems to me honestly to be just a very polite rant disguised as concern.
You make this clear by only responding to people who agree with you- so basically you don’t want to hear from people who are actually happy with the game.

I have given input , and constructive criticism ( at least I think so) on these boards since launch.
Guess what?
I do love the game- I do not like RnG rewards, vertical progression and gated content because I feel it goes against what this game was advertised to be for years.

I couldn’t care less about Dontain and to be honest you lost a lot of credibility by even bringing up NCSoft, how they spend their money and Wildstar.
Wildstar is aimed at a different demographic and I see it as a complement not competition to GW2

To me your whole post does exactly what you accuse others of.
GW2 was designed the way it was by choice- you seem to be saying that their choices are wrong because you do not agree with it.

So no- I don’t agree with almost anything you say

Well of course he doesn’t reply to us. We’re mindless fan boys and girls, brainwashed by Anet without a single thought in our own head…because we don’t agree with the “right-thinking” people who know what’s what.

LordByron.8369:

i do all missions weekly

They are so Bugged.. .-.

Not to mention that is another place where you see ANET rng working silly.

You Always get the same….

Shrugs. We beat all our guild missions this week. Not sure why you’re getting the same things over and over, but I’d record it and bug report it if it keeps happening to you.

Leo Paul.1659:

He was very anticlimactic because he didn’t live up to the hype as an elder dragon.. We didn’t get to fight him directly at all.

As I said, I was fighting him ALL ALONG. You’re locked into this “boss” idea of fighting him directly. I never had that need. I suggest many people DO have that need, being trained by dungeons in other games….but that’s not my problem. I don’t find him anticlimatic, because I’d spend five missions crippling him in the first place.

I see the dungeon as a whole. You’re separating out the last boss, who you assumed would still be this massively powerful entity. By the time you reach Zhaitan, most of the damage had already been done…by you.

LordByron.8369:

Vayne.8563:

Guild missions are also PvP permanent content that most people overlook, but some of it is quite fun.

They are fun but even there they forgot to check that open pve events overlap guild missions….

even huge guilds can t clearm themselves the karka mess with 50 oneshotting karkas in a small village….while a guild rush have to pass by.

Just one of many examples.

There is some pve content (most of wich is uberbad like Killing XXX mobs…) but even there balance is lacking at 360°

Oh sure, a percentage of the PvE guild mission content needs work…particularly (but not exclusively) the stuff on Southsun. But that’s still a minority of the content.

Kreslin.6832:

There are not so many people as it was in release days. And mister Vayne (do not confuse with Bruce Wayne) can’t deny this.

On first 2 month GW2 had much more people than it has right now. As has been toled before by one person, GW2 is an unfocused game. I toled this to my Russian speaking friends too. That’s why GW2 are loosing it’s players. There is simply not much to offer.

Seriously, what can offer GW2? Decent PVE? I don’t think so. PVE is superficial and not much rewording. PvP is superficial, WvW is superficial, LORE is superficial, exploring the world is superficial too. Team synergy is superficial and so on and etcetera.

GW2 is nice, but there is not much it can offer. Because, as I’ve told it before, ArenaNet set themselves too much tusks, and are simply failing. Almost every aspect in the game is superficial. There is not much to offer unless you are an extremely casual player, playing the game once in a month, for example.

For now, there is only 2 things which are not superficial. It’s temporary rng boxes and grinding/farming.

That’s why GW2 are losing people. Of course it has new arrivals, but the truce is that GW2 is a short term game. No aspect in this game are holding you for long.

GW1 didn’t have such problems as I remember.

Sooner or later GW2 will die unless they will improve the game.

I don’t like the idea of Living story, which will release every 2 weeks. Instead of that, I would improve aspects which we already have. But we all know that ArenaNet will continue feeding us temporary “content” which I call “event” cause it’s temporary.

I don’t think GW2 will change, though, I still have hopes. But time is ticking, and other games will come.

I would go as far to say that 99 percent of all MMOs don’t have as many people as they have on release day, so this is meaningless comment.

More, even if there were as many, you’d never be able to tell, because on release day, everyone is crowded into five zones starting in the same area. There’s no one in a dungeon. There was no one in fractals. People were out in the same zones in the world.

But yes, I’d be massively surprised if we had the same numbers that we had on launch day. So?

Edit: I think the Guild Wars 2 population was lower in November than it is now.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

See, the whole shooting a dragon with a canon thing is a red herring. This comes from people thinking of bosses as bosses, and gaming in a certain way. I have a whole different view of Arah story mode than most people, because I don’t separate boss battles out in my head. We never had bosses when I played pen and paper RPGs and even in many computer RPGs, boss battles are sort of a more recent addition (though an older one to be sure). Basically if you’re fighting an army, who cares about “the boss”.

The thing about Zhaitan wasnt’ that you killed him with a canon. It’s like ignoring the personal story and below this point there are SPOILERS to the personal story for those who didn’t complete it.

First, you weaken Zhaitan by partially blinding him, cutting off some of his food supply (which is where his power comes from) and even crippling his ability to make more undead.

From level 70 up, your entire personal story is all about weakening Zhaitan.

And in the end you’re not just shooting him with a gun (though it much looks like that). You’re taking a very specific weapon designed by the Asuran genius Professor Gorr (who you meet in one of the Asuran story lines while no one believes his theories), which is designed specifically to be anti-dragon magic. You even have a mission to test this weapon on dragon minions in the Asuran story line.

In fact, the story lines from the different races tend to meet up in Orr, and this is one of the most ignored parts of the personal story. The magic mirror comes back from the Sylvari storyline along with the people who first used it. Professor Gorr makes a return from the Asuran storyline. There are many characters found in different story lines who end up in the last scenes, and if you play one character and one personal story, you’ll probably never put it all together.

But you didn’t just go up to Zhaitan and shoot him with a gun. Your direct battle with Zhaitan begins the moment you get to Fort Trinity and continues until the moment you defeat him.

As a single boss in a game, Zhaitan is pretty meh. As part of the greater story it’s actually pretty kitten ed cool.

My perspective as a writer leads me to not isolate individual events and see the story as a whole. It’s much better that way.

It still really doesn’t change the fact that he was incredibly anticlimactic. That alone really kills the overall joy for me, personally.

He was anticlimatic to you. He wasn’t anticlimatic to me.

When you say you’re a PvE player do you mean a PvE dungeon runner, or an open world fan..because being a PvE player can still vary greatly. I know PvE players that never set foot in dungeons at all. I know people who run dungeons who don’t care about the open world.

For those who like the living story, and there are some of us, there’s stuff to do every month. If you came back now, you’d have the same new stuff to do. Some people like it, some people hate it. Some stuff, like the new jumping puzzle and the scavenger hunt will be permanent content.

Guild missions are also PvP permanent content that most people overlook, but some of it is quite fun.

Depends on what you’re looking for in PvE.

The problem with this thread is how disingenuous you are about it. You say fan boys aren’t helping the game, you say naysayers aren’t helping the game, only people who presumably agree with you are helping the game. But they’re only helping the game to become what people with your play style want it to be. That’s not helping the game. That’s helping people with your play style.

I’ve been called a blind fan boy by many many people, in spite of the fact that I’ve complained about a number of things in my time on the forum. Like you, I’m most interested in supporting MY play style.

As it happens, the direction of the game tends to go in my play style to begin with.

You claim this game isn’t all it can be. Well true. No game is actually all it can be, particularly MMOs. But sometimes, making the game all it can be to one portion of the playerbase will ruin it for others in the playerbase.

As the game stands, it’s doing a good job of supporting my play style. That, to some people. makes me a blind fan boy.

In truth, I’m not blind. I’m simply enjoying what the company has provided and hopes they’ll continue in the same direction moving forward.

Yenn.9185:

I’d imagine you play for the experience then. But after you have done the things you enjoy, don’t you think they get stale? That you have to work on something to keep playing? Let’s say you truly, truly enjoy dynamic events/hearts. Regardless of how much you enjoy them, I can’t imagine you doing them as much as a CoF farmer farms P1. If you can, then you one of the very few.

They don’t really get stale, because I have so much TO do. It’s a huge game. If you take rewards off the table, I’m seldom doing the same stuff every day. If you only do the most rewarding stuff, it has to get stale.

Yenn.9185:

CryxTryx.9208:

Yenn.9185:

1. Maps are empty – After players have done their 100% completion, there’s virtually no reason to come back. It’s not like, “I just logged in, I feel like doing a dynamic event in Caledon forest” or “I should hop on my alt and do some hearts at Metrica Province.”.

I have many spots around Tyria that I enjoy returning to in order to complete my daily.

I have favorite events that I enjoy returning to in certain zones, and not just world boss events.

I enjoy redoing and taking people through the many jumping puzzles around the world.

I always have at least one alt on the go.

The maps on my server are not empty.

Meh, I must be missing out then. I usually get 3/5 or 4/5 just doing my regular Arah/CoF runs. Then I just hop in to wvw and I’m done.

Those events in open world is pretty fun the first several times. It’s not something I’d go back to on a daily basis because of the rewards.

Jumping puzzle – That’s why Anet invented the portal. jk To each their own.

I have 6 80s. I don’t really know if my map is empty but LA seems pretty lively over here.

And that’s the difference. Because of the rewards. People have been trained to play for rewards from so many games, but some of us just don’t play that way, including most people who play RPGs but not MMOs.

CryxTryx.9208:

Yenn.9185:

1. Maps are empty – After players have done their 100% completion, there’s virtually no reason to come back. It’s not like, “I just logged in, I feel like doing a dynamic event in Caledon forest” or “I should hop on my alt and do some hearts at Metrica Province.”.

I have many spots around Tyria that I enjoy returning to in order to complete my daily.

I have favorite events that I enjoy returning to in certain zones, and not just world boss events.

I enjoy redoing and taking people through the many jumping puzzles around the world.

I always have at least one alt on the go.

The maps on my server are not empty.

I’ll second this. Sounds a lot like how I play. I enjoy certain dynamic events and certain areas and often return to them, just to relax.

Devata.6589:

cesmode.4257:

Nuka Cola.8520:

I bet all the furniture will be ONLY available from gem store, pass no thanks, brah. Never raided in any game so i’ll try that and hopefully it’ll be fun for more than 2-3 runs.

I wouldnt mind if the furniture was only avial in gem store. cosmetic, gemstore..as it should be.

what I dont want are gates to content. They’ve walked a fine line thus far, and wavered a bit with guild missions. Lets see how they do with this.

Make or break for me.

Furniture is NOT only cosmetic, it’s part of the game so do not belong in the gem-store. This is a B2P game remember. They are supposed to make the money with the sales of the games and expansions. Not the gem-store. But for some extra money they can put some special looking chairs and stuff in there. That would mate is a special skin for the furniture and that would be oke. But most furniture should just be available in-game.

Kanexus.2648:

i mean you could have a huge WvW like area that is filled with houses only. would be cool actually. gives you something to do besides kill things

Just a few area’s in the current maps and many area’s in some new maps. In that way it is part of the big world. Much more fun an you will have more activity on the maps. If it’s not part of the normals maps it all become such separate parts. Just like WvW is now. I do like WvW but I would have preferred if it in one way was more part of the normal map. It’s now just like a separate game.

Karizee.8076:

Bearhugger.4326:

The raiding thing makes me very curious.

I don’t understand how they are going to make large raids interesting in a game that doesn’t have tanks and aggro mechanics. You can’t really make large raid encounters interesting without any kind of control or structure.

I’m not saying that raids can’t work for Guild Wars 2, I just don’t understand how they’re going to make it work without letting every boss encounter degenerate into “zergs” with a couple of red circles to dodge and where there’s no point to have anyone that isn’t in berserker gear.

I’m very interested.

And I fail to see how having a tank hold the boss in one place is interesting.

I mean you may as well dig a hole and put the boss in it and let everyone “do their rotation” for all the interest a tank brings.

But it would be interesting is they required all classes. I think it was a good idea from ArenaNet to stop with the holy trinity but it failed because you do not need everything ending up in we need warriors and guardians all full berserker and less tactics. They have to focus on in stead of only needing a healer, a tank and dps on having more professions in stead of not requiring any. So you need the skills of a thief, and a ranger and a necro and so on.. now with 5 man dungeons that is a problem that is hard but with a raid instance they can introduce that. You need at least 2 of all professions to really be able to do the dungeon because they all have something you need.

Who said they’re not supposed to make money in the gem store. Where did you get that idea?