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.
The game has made some major improvements and has other major improvements in the works. The ones coming soonest are probably the LFG tool, and culling reduction in PvE, but there are other things coming as well.
There’s still a lot Anet needs to work on, but it’s getting there.
The real question is going to be what they choose to do with ascended weapons and armor, gear grind and that sort of thing.
The problem is we have two completely different groups of people on these forums who want the game to move in diametrically opposed directions. So while the game gets better for one group, it gets worse for the other.
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.
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.
You can play however you want Vayne. I’m just rephrasing what people felt about this game from quotes on mmorpg website.
What some people felt. And a lot of people don’t feel that way. I’m giving you the other side of the story.
You really think I’m the only guy that didn’t run out and do every dungeon?
I do agree the modular design hampered the entire story telling process. I see why they did it, but it doesn’t make for better story telling, that’s for sure.
The game can’t be called a failure, even if it hemorrhaged a good number of players right after launch. It has beautiful graphics, great innovations, and fluid gameplay, and I got put in Queensdale overflow just yesterday so it still has a solid number of players.
I think the real issue with GW2 is that the setting and story sort of fell flatter than was expected. The story of GW1 felt a lot more gripping and epic than the story of GW2 , which engaged you and created a feeling of immersion. It’s hard to put a finger on why really, but I think it’s responsible for the game feeling a bit more shallow than it should feel and that causes people to just lose interest easily.
I hope and think this is something that will be recovered over time if Anet takes the right approach.
The reason why Guild Wars 1 was more immersive is because it was completely instanced. So your quests could match what you were doing in missions. In Guild Wars 2, what you’re doing in your personal story really can’t match the world, because it’s not only not instanced but it’s also less linear.
I mean Guild Wars 1 was very linear. By the time you did the four missions in Ascalon, you were also fighting charr constantly in the world. There’s a bigger disconnect here between your personal story and the open world. When everything feels more compartmentalized, it feels more like a game and less like a world.
Purely speaking for themepark game. I think it means doing something you havn’t done before and keep doing that.
In other games, content are usually heavily gated by gear check and grind. And usually those raid take several month to finish.
In this game, by the time you get to 80, and get full exotic the next day, and finish all the dungeon in a day or 2, you scratch your head thinking … wow I finish all the PvE content in this game.
I’m pretty sure most players don’t finish all 33 dungeon paths in 2 days, plus all the fractals and world completion.
And of course, some people actually do like the living story.
And then for some people, their end game is chasing achievements. You may not like it, but it doesn’t make it less valid an end game for someone else.
I finished my personal story on 7 character, map completion on 2, and 98% map completion on another 5 character. Did 32 dungeon path.
I think most people just didn’t do those map completion and dungeon because they don’t care. You don’t get anything for doing map completion or dungeon. Doing a dungeon won’t unlock another dungeon for you.
It’s the concept of fighting big dragon to get a sword to fight a bigger dragon. That’s what happening in other game, and not in this game. The sense of progression.
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing. That’s what generally people felt. Fill free to goto any mmorpg website and that’s what people will tell you. GW2 have a lack of endgame, very casual game, if you are looking for a mmorpg to play like a second job dont’ play it. Else it’s pretty good for people who have a lack of time.
But there are people who like to do the ocassional dungeon and don’t want to run out and rush through them all, like me. I just got my Dungeon Master title last month, when I finally beat Arah path 4. I certainly didn’t do dungeons in order and didn’t go out of my way to do every path of every dungeon. I did them as people want to do them.
The same with fractals. I’m only up to fractal level 20, but I’ve done well over 300 fractals. Why? Because I help some of my guildies out on lower level fractals when they need help.
There are people who burn through content and people who take their time on content.
If you don’t look up where the mini dungeons are, and you don’t look up where the jumping puzzles are, and you go out and look for them, this game lasts a whole lot longer.
The manifesto is merchandize. More precisely, it is an example of the bloated merchandize language ArenaNet increasingly used when the release drew nearer. It’s not really the cornerstone of ArenaNet’s design philosophy.
ArenaNet wanted to create an MMO with artistic design without item threadmill, with a combat system that is different from the usual tank&spank-setup, without content blockers, where it is reasonable for high-level chars to hang out in all areas of the game and not just the high-level ones and with an action-gameplay in which other people are welcome and not competitors.
This is what the idea of GW2 was all about and I would argue that that is what it mostly has become.
Thank you for this. The manifesto was written a long time ago, before SWToR was out. When they talk about stuff like the personal story, there was no MMO with a personal story at all at that point. Even now, it’s only SWToR and Guild Wars 2. So yeah, the personal story isn’t what Dragon Age is, but it’s a HUGE step up from MMOs in the past, and certainly a step up from any MMO when the manifesto was published.
The same thing with dynamic events. While Rift and even Warhammer had a form of public event system, neither of them was brave enough to do away with the traditional questing model. Guild Wars 2 has 1500 dynamic events, push the genre envelop.
Anet envisioned a different kind of MMO and largely created a different type of MMO. One with a personal story that centers in the open world around dynamic events. This is what the Manifesto talks about and this is basically what they’ve done.
If you want to pick on individual specific words or take lines out of context, you can pretty much prove anything, but if you watch the manifesto and look at what Anet is actually saying, they’ve pretty much created the game they describe (with the exception of the everything you loved about Guild Wars 1 line).
Terrible idea. You’ll have more skills when an expansion is released which will probably provide more weapon choices for each profession. Before then, there’s more important work that needs to be done on this game.
Purely speaking for themepark game. I think it means doing something you havn’t done before and keep doing that.
In other games, content are usually heavily gated by gear check and grind. And usually those raid take several month to finish.
In this game, by the time you get to 80, and get full exotic the next day, and finish all the dungeon in a day or 2, you scratch your head thinking … wow I finish all the PvE content in this game.
I’m pretty sure most players don’t finish all 33 dungeon paths in 2 days, plus all the fractals and world completion.
And of course, some people actually do like the living story.
And then for some people, their end game is chasing achievements. You may not like it, but it doesn’t make it less valid an end game for someone else.
Not everyone has reached the battle of claw island, though, so saying something about what happens there (how it ends up) might not be a good idea, epic or not epic.
On topic: I didn’t like Claw Island as much as other people did. My most epic battles are the ones that aren’t the same every time I do them. Like when we don’t have quite enough people but we squeak through some of the harder events.
I tend to like Harathi Hinterlands a lot, because I love those types of battles. Also the entire quest chain in Straits of Devastation is awesome for me.
Hey that’s awesome! Gratz to you. My luck tends to be more spread out, but I generally can’t complain.
End game only means really, what you do after you’re through leveling. You get to 80 and after that, the stuff you do is end game. Everyone has different ideas of what end game is.
For a lot of people end game is PvP (either SPvP or WvW). But in most games, there’s a separate end game for PvE, which usually takes the form of raids and gear grind, plus maybe a bunch of dailies to get faction reputation with specific factions. Guild Wars 1 had this sort of faction rep end game too, which allowed you to make certain PvE only skills more powerful.
Guild Wars 2’s end game is more amorphous than most MMOs. Some people will grind Fractals for an end game, some people will run dungeons for tokens, some will just make alts, because they enjoy the open world so much…and that’s just as viable.
Me, my end game is what I do with my guild. We had a great day today. Did a guild bounty and a guild trek for guild merits (still trying to unlock the final guild mission type), then did some meta events together, followed by a run through Obsidian Sanctum in WvW, to get the aetherblade weapon cache. There was this annoying guild camping the end of the puzzles (their guild tag is camp) and we got beat back a few times, before taking the top from them and holding it against them.
Then later we did a few more meta events, Vexa’s Lab, another mini dungeon and finally a level 10 fractal run. It was a fun time.
Nothing I did today was something I haven’t done before. But I had a blast anyway.
So, a guildie of mine mentioned something about Brahm and Cragstead. I’m not going to say what here, because I’m generally anti-spoiler.
However, I hadn’t been to Cragstead since Flame and Frost and I decided to go check it out. I’ve been wandering around, talking to a couple of NPCs, listening to their brief stories. It’s pretty cool.
This is the kind of thing I love. Story stuff in the game that no one has a clue about unless they go out of their way to go look for it.
Guild Missions are also content, and some of it is quite fun.
To bad most of the stuff in that post picks on single words, personal interpreations and completely ignores Anet’s clarifications and explanations published immediately after it came out.
You do realize, I hope, that the same could be said about your criticism of those who point how the Manifesto is wrong. You usually pick on single words, personal interpretations and ignore the context of ArenaNet’s claims in order to try to twist reality as much as possible so the Manifesto would be true. The last time you tried doing that and someone called you on it, your next argument was that the Manifesto doesn’t matter because it’s two years old.
Sorry but no. You seem to forget. language is my business. It’s what I did for a living for quite a long time. I’m not just making stuff up here.
When someone defines something like grind in a document, the definition of what they mean by grind is what they described. Otherwise, why go to the trouble of defining it.
Grind has too many definitions to ignore the one provided. This isn’t taking single words, this is reading English.
It’s very easy to take single words and try to make the entire context about them, but it’s not the right way to read. And frankly, using “fully” branching personal story line, as opposed to just a “branching personal story line” is just silly.
It’s an attempt to pick holes. It’s what lawyers and politicians do. If you want to be a part of it, go ahead. But I’ll not let it get by without commenting on it.
It’s nice that you think that people who like it have gotten enough, clearly they don’t think so or they wouldn’t be asking for more. How is it obvious that enough people who don’t like it are floating around? What have they done to “deserve” a game of their own?
How about they bought multiple MMOs just to fall behind over and over again so much that they ended up cut out of the content. Only 5% of WoW players have seen the end game.
Other people have also bought other games. I have bought multiple games, do I not deserve a “game of my own”? Do you have official numbers to back up this 5%?
I’ve seen the end game in plenty of games, its not that hard to get into if you really want to.
And this still does not negate my point that some people do indeed enjoy gear progression.
The number comes from an interview with Ghostcrawler, one of the WoW devs. Only 5% of the population has seen the hardest content, according to that interview. One would think he would know.
If you need to accomplish something other than fun in your down time, if you need to be spoonfed go here and do this, go here and do that to keep you going, if you need to constantly test yourself to try to prove something, then you might be well playing the wrong game.
Show me where I told people to stop complaining and leave.Would you like me to show you where I’ve complained about the game?
One of many examples:
If you need to accomplish something other than fun in your down time, if you need to be spoonfed go here and do this, go here and do that to keep you going, if you need to constantly test yourself to try to prove something, then you might be well playing the wrong game.
Might well be playing the wrong game is not saying you should leave. It’s a simple statement of logic. It’s a suggestion that if someone isn’t finding what they want in a game it MIGHT be the wrong game for them.
Dude… So maybe I’ll just put it this way: what do you suggest me to do if you think that any of my suggestions can’t be considered as good for the game? Because they are pretty deal breakers to me. So? What should I do? Leave?
I’m pretty sure that’s the answer is: YES. And there you have it… Your not telling me to leave, you are just leaving me without a choice and this is what wrote about you: “your telling people to deal with the flaws of the game or leave”.
I’m telling you that devs make design decisions in their game and I’m telling you that if your idea of fun doesn’t match the devs decision of fun, that doesn’t necessarily make the game bad, or make it something wrong with the game.
A whole lot of people don’t like minecraft. A whole lot of people love minecraft. It’s developed a huge following.
If you don’t like that TYPE of game, you shouldn’t e playing that TYPE of game.
So some suggestions like the reward system could be a little more generous…well yeah…that’s a decent suggestion. No problem there.
Having an LFG tool, good suggestion no problem there.
Making the game something it’s not and was never intended to be by making it about gear progression will effectively destroy this game. You don’t see it and you don’t believe it, but it doesn’t make it untrue.
I love this game, but I’ll stop playing if it becomes that. And I’m not the only person who plays like me.
Then you have a game that has to compete against dozens of other games that do the same thing.
Where is the logic in that?
Come on Vayne, I like you because you’re always polite, but you have to come up with something better than argueing semantics man.
Well no. He has to come up better with something than using the word stagnation which doesn’t mean what he’s trying to say.
He’s saying if you don’t get better stats, you’re stagnating. I don’t know about him but I get better at the game all the time. There are different challenges.
Most recently there’s a new dungeon that’s particularly difficult for some people, including me. I get better at it every time I do it…so I’m not stagnating, am I?
The use of the word stagnating in this case shows that the person using it is attached to a specific form of progression and no other progression will do for this person.
I’ve spent years playing RPGs on computers and most of them aren’t centered on gear progression. They’re centered on experiences within the game. This includes popular games like Skyrim.
Edit: I’m not the one who used the word stagnation, but it’s actually being used an an attack. You don’t want THIS type of progression so you must like stagnation. It’s a bullkitten argument.
I do wonder how many characters these dedicated GW fans have at level 80. Must be a lot, since surely they have hit the ceiling most of us are collectively complaining about as well, but seem to not be bothered by complete stagnation at all.
Define stagnation.
Some of us are progressing through content. That’s a form of progress.
And there are plenty of people for whom the journey is just as if not more important than the destination.
In fact, sometimes, I think the most stagnant people are those who constantly compete. There’s more than one way to be stagnant.
So GW2 does have gear grind? Your gear has progressed from what it was at level one, therefore you’ve had to grind.
My point still remains, from the beginning, that what Xenon was attempting to describe as odious, I am trying to point out that some people actually enjoy. People do volunteer for that kind of thing.
You can’t just change the direction of a game that was primarily sold on certain points because SOME people like other things. It’s just not the right thing to do.
Do you know how many people actually walked away from this game because ascended gear was released? You can’t be completely unaware of the backlash of that decision.
That’s the problem in a nutshell. Not whether or not gear grind is good or bad, or enjoyable or not. Anet wanted to make a certain game…and tried to make a certain game. They talked about a certain game.
Ascended gear is riding the line of what people will accept. Adding more gear grind is not going to make the core player base of this game happier, because the game was sold to not have that.
I don’t know how else I can say it.
If you need to accomplish something other than fun in your down time, if you need to be spoonfed go here and do this, go here and do that to keep you going, if you need to constantly test yourself to try to prove something, then you might be well playing the wrong game.
Show me where I told people to stop complaining and leave.Would you like me to show you where I’ve complained about the game?
One of many examples:
If you need to accomplish something other than fun in your down time, if you need to be spoonfed go here and do this, go here and do that to keep you going, if you need to constantly test yourself to try to prove something, then you might be well playing the wrong game.
Might well be playing the wrong game is not saying you should leave. It’s a simple statement of logic. It’s a suggestion that if someone isn’t finding what they want in a game it MIGHT be the wrong game for them.
If you can’t see a difference between these two things, I guess there’s nothing else to talk about.
You’re completely out of touch with this community and this game.
Do you realize that what you’re complaining about was a selling point of this game. That even the slight upgrade to stats that ascended gear gives you caused a significant percentage of the game’s population to walk? That people are claiming that the addition of ascended gear was the equivalent of Anet lying to us?
Guild Wars 1 lasted 8 years with a much smaller gear ceiling than Guild Wars 2 has. It had only 20 levels, and it was MUCH MUCH easier to get max armor and weapons. In Guild Wars 1, you were fully geared in a much shorter amount of time and there was no way to get better stats ever on anything PERIOD.
And this was what Guild Wars 1 players wanted. It’s also why a lot of people came to this game. No stat creep. No gear creep.
In fact, Guild Wars 1’s only true expansion raised neither the character’s max level nor the gear cap.
What you’re asking for would literally destroy this game for people who waited for it for years..and you’re trying to make it sound like it’s unreasonable.
Maybe you should have done a modicum of research before you brought the game. Your post would be like me going into the WoW forums and complaining that the game has gear progression.
It’s completely against the design decisions upon which this game was sold.
Vayne you need to stop talking for the entire community! I did play Gw1 and bought this game hoping that it’s going to be different in many ways – also I know dozen of other people that feel exactly the same way. Why do you keep talking in my name when we disagree?!
We don’t need better stats on gear. But we need some kind of goals and rewards.
I know there some people that still play this game and are totally fine with it’s current state. But as you said earlier there are many that aren’t ok with it. Including me and many other players. Those still playing the game now and those that stopped. Your a type of conformist who is ok with the status quo and you persist to claim that players should be either happy about it or leave. How does that sound to you?! I think it’s insolent.
And if you think that the game is completely fine then I have a few questions for you:
- how could I ever be able to see Karka Queen if no one want’s to do that anymore? Because there is no reason to?
- if the gear grind is so bad for you. Then why it’s ok to make grind mechanics like tokens in dungeons (do the same thing 20 times and you can choose your armor).
- if the game is so cool for most of the people playing it. Then why I see literally crowds of people entering cof and never meet anyone in that beautiful world exploring?
- do you think that it’s ok that all rewards that are put into the game are gem store based and the best way to acquire them is to farm gold?This is the game you wanted so much?
You misrepresent me. Obviously you don’t read my posts as carefully as you think you do.
I have never said people shouldn’t complain. I have said that people shouldn’t complain about the core game that was created as it was intended to be created.
I wouldn’t go on a WoW forum and complain about raids, gear grind or mounts, because that’s what that game is about as an intentional design decision. People who play that game want those things…or should.
And Guild Wars 2 was designed without gear grind being the most important thing in the game. Those who require gear grind to be added to the game (more than it already has) are asking the designers of the game to change a core concept of the game….and that’s not rational.
It’s like buying a chess program and asking the designers to put in more RNG.
Developers have a view what the game they’re trying to make. Why is it wrong to remind people of that?
I didn’t misrepresent you because all I wrote about you is true.
You are telling people to stop complaining or leave and you call anything that you like “core game”. But that’s just an excuse. People that say the game is boring and needs some goals are not always demanding gear grind or raids and changing the “holy core of the game”. But you appear to be always thinking this way.
Also you didn’t even try to explain yourself that you keep talking for the entire community when you don’t have a right to.Why don’t you respond to any of my other questions? If you think that’s the “holy core of the game” is important and perfect for the more important players (I mean true gw players like you).
Also… I want to remind you one more time: I’m NOT talking in any part of any of my posts that I want gear progression, raids or mounts! So just stop referring to that!
Show me where I told people to stop complaining and leave.
Would you like me to show you where I’ve complained about the game?
So what if someone enjoys picking apples?
Ending is stagnation and death.
Clearly this is an quantity issue with you. So you use the starting gear, right? Or perhaps you run your character around naked, since gear could be more powerful than you.
No it’s not a quantity issue. It’s a question of what you get by doing something naturally, ie, just by playing, and what you get by having to work/grind for it. Voluntary grind is fine. Required grind…not so much.
And you can’t really have gear progression in a game without gear grind, or you end up with endless leveling.
Can you name an MMO that has gear progression without gear grind…cause I can’t.
He fought for it so he could face greater challenges. this is exactly why I enjoy gear progression.
If finding one thing is cool, why is finding two things the worst thing ever?
Where did I mention grinding?
Gear progression never ends. In the end it’s not you that’s powerful it’s your gear.
It’s the difference between having a day out picking apples an an orchard, or working as a farm hand. One of them is work.
You don’t remember Gandalf the Grey becoming Gandalf the White? You don’t remember him picking up Glamdring after fighting the trolls? Bilbo getting Sting, then the One Ring, his mithril coat. The Fellowship getting elven cloaks and other gear to help them in their quest after fighting through the Mines of Moria.
So, we’ve set a lower limit of at least one weapon upgrade, is two bad then? Why?
Gear progression IS progress, progress being defined by being in the word progression. And being an addition, moving on from where you were.
Levels are there to provide a way to progress your character. You don’t like it, fine, you’re welcome to your opinion. YOU seem to be forgetting that some people do like levels. And since levels are already in the game, gear progression is in as well, and therefor so is stat creep.
Why would someone design a game to NOT be played? Guess what, Anet wants their game to be played too. And guess what else is in GW2, gear progression. Level 1 gear is vastly different from level 80 gear.
If Anet sold this game on just skill and story progression and no gear progression, then they owe people some money. You get gear through doing story and events. Skills are gained through levels and events, but all those things are there.
Lastly, I’d have no problem in your restaurant situation because I like meat. You don’t know me or my reasons, please don’t act like you do. If everyone in a restaurant wanted meat to be served, it would be a good idea for the owners to serve meat.
Sure I remember Gandalf getting ONE upgrade. That’s not gear grind. I didn’t say I didn’t want gear. I said I didn’t want constant gear progression.
Finding something is cool. Finding something (or having to find something constantly) is no longer cool. It’s the different between something you have to do all the time and something that you get incidentally is huge.
Gandalf found glamdring..he didn’t grind for it.
How so…I’m interested.
See, when I started this game, I didn’t like the checklist aspect, so I turned the markers off. It makes for a much more interesting game…particularly if you’re still trying for zone completion.
First, I can’t stand the idea of creating an artificial challenge to myself when I’m trying to be efficient. My personality is logical, but relaxed and lazy. To do something that my primary motivation for doing is a reward, I want to get it done as easily as possible.
But at the same time, I want to enjoy doing what I like doing.
It’s a fundamental contradiction, but if there’s anything I feel more strongly about than doing what I like to do, it’s not spending extra energy doing something I don’t like to do.
But from a design perspective, I have a hard time enjoying the maps because you CAN place everything in terms of markers.
In most MMOs you have zones with a bunch of random crap all over the place that serves no purpose. In Guild Wars 2 the map design is INCREDIBLY efficient. In reality, the outside world is NOT nice and neat and perfect. The fact that the Human starter zone has all these conveniently placed hearts all packed together in such a precise arrangement… doesn’t feel ‘real’ at all.
Maybe that’s why I liked Harathi Hinterlands (or however it was named) and Orr. Both felt messy and chaotic, and both were HUGE and spread out. Both had very unique shapes and it didn’t feel like I was caged in a box with 4 mountains around me.
I hope I’ve articulated this all well, it’s mostly a rant.
I actually get this completely. With hearts up and such, the game is a lot different than when you can’t see them.
I come from the old RPG world. Before there were arrows showing you where to go, or little stars on the map marking who you have to talk to. It’s tough, because the first thing half the people playing a game do is run to the wiki or a fan site to get a walk through. There really is very little brain power required to play most modern MMOs.
You sound like exactly the type of person who’d be better off exploring with the map markers off.
I understand exactly what you mean about always being aware you’re playing a game.
No map markers might have helped, but my core problem is the design of the maps themselves I suppose.
How so…I’m interested.
See, when I started this game, I didn’t like the checklist aspect, so I turned the markers off. It makes for a much more interesting game…particularly if you’re still trying for zone completion.
Again, ignore my point and just make up your own, please, its lots of fun.
If you don’t like leveling, why are you playing a game with levels? What form of progression is there where your character doesn’t change? Should we all have the same class and skills? Should all skills be the same?
To me, it sounds like you want stagnation. Start the game with everything, never get a different weapon. All things do 0-1 point of damage. Perhaps there shouldn’t even be hills? Just one flat level playing field.
If one skill happens to be better than another then you’ll have that dreaded vertical progression, right?
I don’t want stagnation. I don’t want stat creep either. My games are moved forward by experiences. By stories and events.
In Guild Wars 1, what happened in the world after was what made progression. The same is true in most RPG games.
Gear progression isn’t progress. Gear progression is a backwards step, made popular by pay to play MMOs that require people to KEEP PLAYING. It’s completely artificial.
I’ve been a fantasy fan for most of my life. I don’t remember Gandalf constantly getting new robes or a new staff. Maybe once, after he fought the Balrog, but that’s it. And sure the occasional weapon is quite nice.
But don’t confuse stagnation with not liking a specific type of progress.
And yes, I’m not necessarily a big fan of levels either. I’d prefer if there were no levels. Progression should be skill progression or story progression, rather than gear progression….but that’s just my opinion.
On the other hand, it’s also what Anet basically sold the game on.
I’m pretty sure if you went to a vegetarian restaurant and everyone was trying to get them to serve meat, you’d be pretty against it.
The problem is that when you play Guild Wars 2, you are very aware that you are playing a game, and that’s my problem.
If this makes sense to anyone, I think Guild Wars 2 world PvE is the most themepark of any MMO I’ve ever played.
No matter what I found in GW2 PvE, I always felt like “this is what they wanted me to experience” which bothered the hell out of me.
Even with playing WoW/Rift/Warhammer, I had a MUCH more immersive experience in PvE.
When I play an MMO, I like to explore. Guild Wars 2 is a nightmare for me, because there is no exploration. There is experiencing what they wanted me to.
Exploration is a sandbox activity. Not themepark. What Guild Wars 2 tried to do was turn it into one.
I’m having a hard time expressing what I mean. Maybe this will help. When I go into a zone, I look at the map and the game tells me where every quest, interesting spot, scenic outlook, path, etc is. The zones are square so it’s not like I don’t know exactly where it ends, and each zone is not seamless. It’s like every square inch of each map is a little “activity” for me to look at. When exploring I felt like I was in a box too, the map is always a rectangle and you’re always very aware where the limits are. The zones felt like there was a set path to go on, whereas in other games I might random trek through a forest and over a mountain because I feel like it.
It doesn’t feel organic whatsoever. I always felt like I was playing a game; in other MMOs I felt like I was in a real second world (minus the horrible questing which was only sometimes fun). I could look around and see a huge forest and walk around in it. In Guild Wars 2, a forest is a bunch of trees with a few mobs in it for the heart where a giant troll might pop out every 20 minutes. And after the “forest” would be a mountain for the side/barrier of the zone on one side, two paths, one leading to the NPC heart and the other a tunnel that leads to a skill point and a POI.
Guild Wars 2 PvE exploration wasn’t like I could get into my character and get into the world and the people inside of it, it was just something to do in between personal story and a tool to level up. It looked really, really nice, but that doesn’t make up for what it was.
But then again… I guess it’s what most people want in an MMO now. People want something to DO not something to really experience.
I’ve put 900 hours into the game, just for reference.
For the record, some areas felt less like this, and Orr was pretty cool.
You sound like exactly the type of person who’d be better off exploring with the map markers off.
I understand exactly what you mean about always being aware you’re playing a game.
And you seem to keep changing the point. Originally Xenon made the point that he liked playing for fun and indicated that people who played for gear didn’t do so because it was fun, I responded to that saying people do indeed like to gear for fun.
Now it seems to be that any form of gear progression automatically means giant raids that will keep you from content.
My point was, people enjoy getting better gear for their characters, and unless you are still in your starting gear, you do too.
No where did I say anything about raids. No where did I say anything about gating content. All I did was suggest that some people (( IE every single person who ever changes anything about their character )) might not be completely happy with the starting gear.
Horizontal progression is great, I love it. Vertical progression is great too, it was great for 80 levels, why is level 81 anathema?
Again you seem to forget how many people don’t even like it for 80 levels. In Guild Wars 1 you could level to max level in one day.
And vertical progression comes with an entire set of problems, including gear creep.
I would be in favor of character progression that didn’t depend on gear grind…but it would have to be done very very carefully.
After getting a character to max level I was saddened and stunned to realize all you had to do was have a maxed out profession to craft some exotics, browse the auction house for your other stuff you weren’t able to craft and you were done for 80% of your “gearing”.
Then iirc (it’s been a while since I quit) you had to get fractal level ten to get access to the ascended items, was only a matter of time till you had that one, if you already didn’t had it by doing those monthly/daily “achievements”.
There, you’re geared. Now what?
No other activity what so ever in this game will give you better stats. Every kittening exotic is the same. The only reason to run dungeons is to get vanity skins. Jezus kittening Christ, even the legendary doesn’t have better stats.
…
snip
Oh yeah, it’s not about gear, it’s a bout skill, right? It’s about the experience?
Well… why not ALL of it? So everybody can have fun.You’re completely out of touch with this community and this game.
Do you realize that what you’re complaining about was a selling point of this game. That even the slight upgrade to stats that ascended gear gives you caused a significant percentage of the game’s population to walk? That people are claiming that the addition of ascended gear was the equivalent of Anet lying to us?
Guild Wars 1 lasted 8 years with a much smaller gear ceiling than Guild Wars 2 has. It had only 20 levels, and it was MUCH MUCH easier to get max armor and weapons. In Guild Wars 1, you were fully geared in a much shorter amount of time and there was no way to get better stats ever on anything PERIOD.
And this was what Guild Wars 1 players wanted. It’s also why a lot of people came to this game. No stat creep. No gear creep.
In fact, Guild Wars 1’s only true expansion raised neither the character’s max level nor the gear cap.
What you’re asking for would literally destroy this game for people who waited for it for years..and you’re trying to make it sound like it’s unreasonable.
Maybe you should have done a modicum of research before you brought the game. Your post would be like me going into the WoW forums and complaining that the game has gear progression.
It’s completely against the design decisions upon which this game was sold.
Vayne you need to stop talking for the entire community! I did play Gw1 and bought this game hoping that it’s going to be different in many ways – also I know dozen of other people that feel exactly the same way. Why do you keep talking in my name when we disagree?!
We don’t need better stats on gear. But we need some kind of goals and rewards.
I know there some people that still play this game and are totally fine with it’s current state. But as you said earlier there are many that aren’t ok with it. Including me and many other players. Those still playing the game now and those that stopped. Your a type of conformist who is ok with the status quo and you persist to claim that players should be either happy about it or leave. How does that sound to you?! I think it’s insolent.
And if you think that the game is completely fine then I have a few questions for you:
- how could I ever be able to see Karka Queen if no one want’s to do that anymore? Because there is no reason to?
- if the gear grind is so bad for you. Then why it’s ok to make grind mechanics like tokens in dungeons (do the same thing 20 times and you can choose your armor).
- if the game is so cool for most of the people playing it. Then why I see literally crowds of people entering cof and never meet anyone in that beautiful world exploring?
- do you think that it’s ok that all rewards that are put into the game are gem store based and the best way to acquire them is to farm gold?This is the game you wanted so much?
You misrepresent me. Obviously you don’t read my posts as carefully as you think you do.
I have never said people shouldn’t complain. I have said that people shouldn’t complain about the core game that was created as it was intended to be created.
I wouldn’t go on a WoW forum and complain about raids, gear grind or mounts, because that’s what that game is about as an intentional design decision. People who play that game want those things…or should.
And Guild Wars 2 was designed without gear grind being the most important thing in the game. Those who require gear grind to be added to the game (more than it already has) are asking the designers of the game to change a core concept of the game….and that’s not rational.
It’s like buying a chess program and asking the designers to put in more RNG.
Developers have a view what the game they’re trying to make. Why is it wrong to remind people of that?
We can go back and forth over “some people do, some people don’t” Anet is going to go with what makes them the most money.
If you enjoy the game as it is, and they add something to it, what have you lost? You can continue enjoying it exactly the same as you have before, but now other people can enjoy it in other ways and more people are happy and more money is made.
It’s nice that you think that people who like it have gotten enough, clearly they don’t think so or they wouldn’t be asking for more. How is it obvious that enough people who don’t like it are floating around? What have they done to “deserve” a game of their own?
Unless you are sitting at level 80 with your starting gear stats, then you have already jumped on the gear bandwagon.
You seem to be missing the point. Some changes are changes that would ruin the game for people with a different play style.
Right now, I can go anywhere, do anything, SEE anything. Even if I don’t get to the higher level fractals (I’m on 20 now), I can see every fractal without ascended gear. I can see every dungeon.
But if I have to get more people together to get into something like a raid, I might not ever be able to see that content. And I want to see content.
The game gives people freedom because without ascended gear, without even exotic gear, you can do everything in the game. And Guild Wars 1 was the same way. People loved the game for that reason. The game was expected to have very little vertical progression. People bought the game for that reason.
Some people have tons of time. Some people have lives. They leave the game for a period of time and when they come back they want to be able to play with their friends.
But if you put in gear progression, where certain content is cordoned off by what gear you have, you end up in a situation where more casual players will no longer be able to play with their friends. Those people will eventually become disenfranchised and leave.
You’re making the assumption that putting in certain features wouldn’t affect other people playing. It’s a bad assumption.
Actually, this isn’t quite true.
In order for you to rate whether or not something is fulfilled in the manifesto, you have to define certain words. Words like fun.
I understood exactly what Colin was saying about grinding and fun. Some people choose to take comments from that paragraph out of context and assign a different definition of grind than the one he’d already given. By taking that line out of context, they are changing the meaning of the entire paragraph.
But the manifesto talks about fun things to do also. That you’ll be able to do fun things without this annoying grind to get to them. That’s simply a matter of opinion since different people find different things fun. I certainly was able to do a bunch of stuff I personally found fun, but someone else might not find the same things fun, so the paragraph might not hold true for them.
You are mistaken. The experience of fun may be subjective but the word itself has a definition without our creating a new one.
I just revisited the manifesto for the first time since it was released. Afraid that I have to agree that it has not been achieved based purely on objective examination.
1) Does it include everything that was loved about GW1 ? No. There are things that some loved about GW1 that do not exist in GW2.
2) Does the storyline branch, “fully ?” No. There are very few points of story branch. Had the word, “fully,” not been included in the manifesto this aspect would have been achieved. It was an unfortunately poor choice of wording.
Is the storyline personalized ? No. Storylines are pre-designed with a small number of options. If something is shared, potentially with hundreds of thousands of others, it is not personalized.
Most rewards in GW2 are based on RNG or repetition. Ive yet to see a definition of grind that wasn’t at least close to something like, “doing task X repeatedly in the expectation of eventually receiving a desired reward.” One cannot get dungeon armor without this. One should not expect to get a legendary weapon without this. If your definition of grind is different than any other Ive seen I might be inclined to cede this point. On the other hand the manifesto mentions avoiding the boring stuff to get to the fun stuff. As there is no option to bypass leveling in order to gain access to higher level dungeons the manifesto fails if there are players who consider high level dungeons to be fun and leveling to be boring. The decision to not make GW2 a level-less system guaranteed the failure of the manifesto in this aspect.
The boss, in GW2, does respawn, “ten minutes later.” The manifesto spoke against that and yet it is present in the game.
You do not affect things in the game world around you in a, “very permanent way,” as the manifesto claims.
“The village that you rescued,” does not in fact, “stay rescued.”
I am not claiming that GW2 is not fun. I like the game. I enjoy it (admittedly less after the recent patch). Fun is subjective and so for each player to decide for himself. But the manifesto is rife with claims and goals that objectively failed to come to fruition. Unless you can demonstrate that when you defeat a boss it stays defeated, and so on, these failures are not subjective.
Great post exactly how i feel about the manifesto, it is not accurate at all, and very much the opposite of what we got and what many expected from watching it.
Guildwars 2 was Awesome in it’s own way when it opened quite buggy though, since then its taken a multitude of nerfs and content additions that ruined it (for many) to a point where a lot have just given up..
To bad most of the stuff in that post picks on single words, personal interpreations and completely ignores Anet’s clarifications and explanations published immediately after it came out.
The thing is, there are things in this game that add character to the game, and some people just ignore them. You need to get the Temple of Balthazar open (at least most people do) if you want obsidian shards. It’s a very long, and quite difficult quest chain.
There are quest chains for temples that you need to get exotic armor with specific stats for Karma.
These things are in the game.
These are, unfortunately, the exceptions rather than the rule, in my opinion. I absolutely love the feeling of progression in Orr, but that’s the only place to experience it, and it’s the one of the few places the meta-event system really shines. Another one of those places is the chain in northern Harathi Hinterlands, and I think the game would be better if they were a more consistent element.
Also, the assured rare chests should be as difficult to get as one another. Killing Shadow Behemoth doesn’t really feel like an accomplishment; they really should be the summation of a meta-event rather than just big fights.
See again, this statement I’m not sure about.
I don’t think every zone should be a variation on the same theme. We do have it in Harathi and we do have it in Orr. In other zones, we have other things that some people like. There’s a mix of stuff.
The point is is that it’s there…its’ a spring board…a starting point.
When Rift started it had 11 zones, all smaller than the zones in Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 gave us a skeleton of what is to come..which is all most MMOs can do. Now you start building on that skeleton…and that takes time.
I think the ideas are solid, but there isn’t enough of anything. Not enough challenging stuff, not enough grinding stuff, not enough styles of armor, not enough cool outfits in the cash shop…it’s all stuff that requires time.
Two years from now, all this will be much different. For now, there is stuff in the game. Not enough stuff for most demographics. The quantity of content will arrive over time.
Well I normally play a game for the fun of it. I think it’s actually abnormal to play a game for any other reason. Although somewhere along the line “fun” and “gear progression” became the same thing to most MMO players. For traditional MMO players, GW2 is a disappointment in this regard. I feel bad for those people. I feel worse for GW2. I wish more of my friends were in to it as much as me.
This may come as a shock, but some people actually enjoy getting better gear for their characters. I mean, you don’t go through the whole game in starter gear, so why is it that at max level you don’t want better stuff?
No gear grind is an admirable goal. but what did Anet replace it with? Simply eliminating things is not visionary or progressive, you have to come up with something new. If you want to reinvent the wheel, getting rid of it is only the first step.
And some people don’t. It doesn’t seem to me that people who like it have been ignored by developers. People who don’t like it have been ignored.
There are obviously enough people who don’t like it floating around to deserve a game of our own, no?
Thank you Vayne and others for making a thread that’s SUPPOSE to be nostalgic aesthetics into another stupid “Mechanics gw2 vs Mechanics gw1”
Seriously. I hope a moderator would just lock this thread. There were many other “mechanics” argument thread…
I’m having a conversation. There have been other nostalgic Guild Wars 1 threads too. And until people start coming into them and saying how much better it was than Guild Wars 2, I’m happy to be nostalgic too. But when people start glorifying the game, while forgetting it’s faults, yeah, I have something to say about it.
How come you’re not annoyed at the people who come into threads and derail them by saying Guild Wars 1 is better than Guild Wars 2?
No you are glorifying GW2 and ignoring all the blatant faults IT has. GW1 is the better game. And no I am NOT talking about the whole package like you like to claim people do. As an explorer I loath GW2 exploration. Everything is fed with a silver spoon to people.
I’ve listed many of Guild Wars 2’s faults. You’re blatantly ignoring those posts. And any explorer who wants to can turn off the map markings and explore to their heart’s content.
You’re accusing others of bias without acknowledging your own bias.
Solo dungeons did not end up being particularly popular in RIFT.
If you have more detailed information regarding ideas for a dungeon to solo (outside of stories), please post in the suggestion forum.
That is not an endorsement of the idea, just a pointer to the correct forum for the thread.
Solo dungeons in Rift, at least when I was there, had a major, major problem. That is they didn’t scale at all. And since everyone in Rift had different armor, and they had to be made for the person who just turned 50 basically, anyone who’d done a few max level dungeons could walk through them with their eyes closed.
Trion made the mistake of thinking people want easy solo dungeons…but that’s not necessarily the case. They thought people just wanted to see content but not do content and that’s not the case.
The Rift solo instances once you had any gear at all, made Guild Wars 2 look difficult.
Yes, which is why, in part, they were not popular.
But in other games, solo dungeons were more popular (AoC, Aion) for example. Rift is a bad example because they executed the dungeons badly. Guild Wars 2, due to scaling, might be able to do it better.
Thank you Vayne and others for making a thread that’s SUPPOSE to be nostalgic aesthetics into another stupid “Mechanics gw2 vs Mechanics gw1”
Seriously. I hope a moderator would just lock this thread. There were many other “mechanics” argument thread…
I’m having a conversation. There have been other nostalgic Guild Wars 1 threads too. And until people start coming into them and saying how much better it was than Guild Wars 2, I’m happy to be nostalgic too. But when people start glorifying the game, while forgetting it’s faults, yeah, I have something to say about it.
How come you’re not annoyed at the people who come into threads and derail them by saying Guild Wars 1 is better than Guild Wars 2?
Gw2 will never be what gw1 was..
Let me correct that.
Vanilla GW2 will never be what GW1 was after 3 expansions.
And I agree to that. But GW2 is already leaps and bounds beyond vanilla GW1. I have good hopes for expansions.
Vanilla GW2 will never even match Vanilla GW1
For your type of play style. But then, for my type of play style, Guild Wars 2 vanilla easily surprasses Guild Wars 1.
For example pathing just sucks. Totally sucks. I could never really feel the world is real because I mostly couldn’t go off road.
Here’s the brave ranger, going through the wilderness. Yes, I’m a master of the wilds. Oh look, a log. Guess I have to turn back.
Yeah, Guild Wars 1 was awesome for explorers.
When dealing with success or failure of subjective elements you need only look to the target audience and gather votes. In this way the success or failure of Guild Wars 2 is decided democratically, and while I have no hard data to offer, the fact that the game does continue to thrive leads me to believe that the majority of players (Meaning all players, not just the relatively small minority who posts on the forums one way or the other) do find the game fun or otherwise engaging
Following similar patterns of previous MMO releases (how most of them had a lot of subscribers in the first few months, and lost most of them later), I somehow doubt we could say that the majority of those who bought and played GW2 continue to play. In fact, following similar patterns of previous MMO releases would hint that a large number of players left the game a bit before Fractals of the Mists was introduced.
Regardless, though, your argument has a flaw – you are trying to define failure or success democratically, as in, considering the population as a whole. When we consider that yes, we can gauge success or failure based on something subjective, we open the door to an interesting statement:
To me, Guild Wars 2 has failed.
Now, is that wrong?
What you’re saying is wrong without adding more context.
To me, Guild Wars 2 has failed in it’s ability to entertain is fine. It’s failed is not fine because you’re using a word that has a definition already that doesn’t jibe with what you’re saying.
It’s simply inflammatory for no reason at all.
Solo dungeons did not end up being particularly popular in RIFT.
If you have more detailed information regarding ideas for a dungeon to solo (outside of stories), please post in the suggestion forum.
That is not an endorsement of the idea, just a pointer to the correct forum for the thread.
Solo dungeons in Rift, at least when I was there, had a major, major problem. That is they didn’t scale at all. And since everyone in Rift had different armor, and they had to be made for the person who just turned 50 basically, anyone who’d done a few max level dungeons could walk through them with their eyes closed.
Trion made the mistake of thinking people want easy solo dungeons…but that’s not necessarily the case. They thought people just wanted to see content but not do content and that’s not the case.
The Rift solo instances once you had any gear at all, made Guild Wars 2 look difficult.
I understand what the OP is saying, but I’m not 100% sure I agree.
The thing is, there are things in this game that add character to the game, and some people just ignore them. You need to get the Temple of Balthazar open (at least most people do) if you want obsidian shards. It’s a very long, and quite difficult quest chain.
There are quest chains for temples that you need to get exotic armor with specific stats for Karma.
These things are in the game.
And there are karma merchants that sell specific things that are fun or useful that you can only get in one place or another (ogre pet whistles, ember summoning stones and the like).
Instead of people crowding around a city, like they do in most games, they crowd around meta events in the world, so they can get loot.
Because my object to most MMOs is that most people end up in cities, and the entire game, this huge world, simply becomes a lobby while people wait in queues. And frankly, that’s not the kind of game I want to play.
Use of the word compete in Guild Wars 2 is interesting, because it’s not really a competitive game. Of course in SPvP, there is no ascended gear at all, and that remains “pure” for lack of a better word.
WvW was never meant to be balanced for 1v1 and there are zillions of factors that affect how you do there, having little to do with either your stats or build.
PvE isn’t competitive in this game. It’s just not. Ascended gear makes no difference in PvE unless you’re doing the higher level fractals. If you have the time to do that, you’ll get ascended gear.
It really is that simple.
Not surprisingly, I agree with the OP. Saying a game has “failed” is not constructive. Claiming a game doesn’t live up to it’s manifesto (particularly when you try to use language as a weapon instead of a tool), is not constructive.
The game exists as it is and, apparently, there are people who like it this way.
If you make a post saying that you should be able to wear your costumes all the time (at least in PvE), I’ll agree with that. It’s a valid criticism.
If you say that choosing to tell the story of Destiny’s Edge through the dungeons is quite possibly a poor design choice, I’d agree with you, based on the point that most people don’t end up doing dungeons, even story dungeons, in order.
If you say that RNG boxes are bad design because they leave people with a bad taste in their mouths, I’d agree with you. I think it’s long term bad for the game.
But if you say the game is dying, or failing or going to die because it doesn’t have gear grind, I’m going to disagree.
Does that make me a fan boy?
People try to prove their point by taking words out of context, by throwing words around the exaggerate situations, or they’re just trolling because they think it’s funny and they like to annoy perceived fan boys.
I have an idea. Why not stick to actual, pertinent facts, instead of exaggerating or making stuff up completely.
Hyperbole doesn’t win arguments….it weakens them.
If you really want to help the game, don’t use it to try to make a point.
@Galtrix
I have a question for you? Do you have a tally of the number of people who specifically AVOID those games because of gear grind?
Let’s say there are 20 million people playing MMOs today. Maybe a bit more, maybe less. There are over 200 million gamers according to some estimates.
That means only 10% of the gaming population (again more or less) actually play MMOs. Ever ask yourself why?
Maybe if MMOs didn’t have gear grind, MORE people would be playing them.
I do love gw2, thou i wish it was gw2 and not a new game with the lore of gw.
The game just feels nothing like gw, the profession’s are missing some of the original favorite’s, Ritualist and Dervish were loved, instead we got engineer, pffft thanks a lot.
Of the professions we did get, some just bad interpretations of the ones we had, take Mesmer for example, i loved my gw1 Mesmer and her play style, what they gave us is not the Mesmer most loved.
I think gw2 will last a while, thou i feel the gem store is showing a-net in a bad light,
with all the offers they have, you could be forgiven for thinking you are playing a blizzard product.On the blizzard note, i wonder how well gw2 will survive when World of Warcraft goes f2p on release of Blizzards next gen mmo Titan, i guess we will have to wait and see:).
Titan has been all but canceled. It’s been delayed indefinitely or in Blizzard’s words, they’re going back to the drawing board on it. They’re moved 2/3rds of the staff to other projects.
And I predict Blizzard will be so greedy when WoW goes free to play, it’ll make SWToR’s F2P look generous. It won’t be a true free to play.
Blizzards overhead is just too high.
A casual player base can deal with time gating far more easily than it can deal with skill gating.
Not really. In MMORPGs, the difference between “casual” and “hardcore” is basically the time spent grinding. Doesn’t really make a difference if a casual player could possible achieve something with enough time spent or not. A Legendary, for example, has been almost exactly described as a reward for hardcore players, yet it’s something any casual player could get one after playing ten years or more.
Any casual player can get an ascended amulet. Any solo player who is casual can get an ascended amulet. Ascended amulets are time gated.
Once ascended gear again becomes the purview of raids only, particularly if a skin and stats are involved, it will cause a huge problem with a large percentage of the player base. Anet tried it once, and admitted it was a mistake.
Why do you think they’ll do it again?