Guild Wars 2

If people are keeping precusors and not selling them spidy wouldn’t change all that much.

I’ve played MMOs for years, sorry to say. Maybe some of the people who have played MMOs for years aren’t looking for the hard core experience ANY MORE because they see it as empty. It’s not impossible.

A lot of people I know in my guild used to raid and never want to put that kind of time and energy into a game again. But that doesn’t make them less experienced, or even super casual. Maybe burned out on the genre though.

Actually no. You’re not ENTITLED to an answer. Because there might not even be “an” answer.

You’re seeing all this as ONE issue. There may be several or many issues. For example, people complained about the skelk nerf on Southsun. So a dev came on and said, look it was a bug, too many were spawning, we fixed the bug.

Now that’s one case and one incident of one thing. Not everything you see is a nerf is a nerf. In your mind this is all under one umbrella, but what if it’s not. What if several situations all occurred and some things were nerfed and some were fixed and some are bugged…what THEN should the developer say.

You may well be asking a question to which there is no actual answer.

Because there are a zillion games out there, and X number of hours in the day. Because people have real lives that take time. Because people are frustrated with some of the bugs and don’t have patience for bug fixes (they think ten months is a long time in programming terms). Because some people exhausted all the content. Because some people like other games better. Because some people stopped gaming. Because some people have friends that play other games. Because other MMOs have gone free to play. Because new MMOs have come out and they want to try them.

I’ve seen a number of people leave the game and I’ve seen quite a few return to the game as well.

In the end, people leave for all different reasons, not just one.

It’s entirely possible this is a niche game and those who find this niche stay and those who don’t like this niche go to find another one.

I’d say with the possible exception of WoW, every single other MMO is a niche game. There are bigger niches and smaller niches. Guild Wars 2 is actually a bigger niche because it offers an experience most other games don’t. Other games tend to be smaller niches, because they’re all trying to appeal to the exact same type of player.

But you don’t need 10 million people to have a successful MMO. Eve is successful and has half a million.

The days of 10 million player MMOs are pretty much gone, at least until a decent MMO comes out for consoles (because so many people play console games).

An official response to WHAT?

The company made changes to their game that THEY thought were necessary. SOME people don’t like those changes. What should the company come and say?

Sorry, we did this because we thought (and still think) it was necessary? I know you don’t like it, but too bad?

Maybe it’s not that they don’t care, but there’s actually nothing TO say. They’re not going to fix something they don’t feel is broken even if YOU feel it’s broken.

It’s like people going on a profession forum and saying X profession is OP. A million people may say it, but that doesn’t make it so. What should the devs do? Go and say, we understand you believe it to be broken but you’re wrong?

No matter what the devs say, they’re going to lose on this one, unless they plan on changing it back…and I don’t think they do.

It doesn’t mean they don’t care. They’re doing what they feel they have to. Assuming that not answering is not caring is just a bad assumption.

It’s entirely possible that they think you’re wrong…which isn’t the same as not caring.

I think MMOs in general just suck, at least for me that’s true.

One one hand you have pay to play MMOs who’s sole job is to slow you down and make you come back again. They have a number of different ways to do this, particularly the slowing down part. Grinding for levels, of course, lock outs, slow crafting, flight paths, dailies for rep, and of course grinding dungeons for gear. Sorry not my scene.

Then you have F2P mmos, some of which are grindy and pay to make them playable. Some of which have content locked off and pay to unlock that (or grind till you drop to unlock it) and some of them have pay to win options, the worst of the three.

Then you have games like Guild Wars 2, which I enjoy, but still uses RNG in lock boxes, and arbitrary achievements and temporary content to keep people logging in.

Of them all, Guild Wars 2 is the best solution for me and my style of play…but it’s far from perfect.

So you know, I’ve done WoW, Rift, Lotro, DDO, Perfect World, AoC, Aion, Eve, and tried a few others.

I’m not thinking that future games are necessarily going to be any better either.

I think the most focused you are on gold acquisition in a “reasonable” amount of time, the more pressure you put on your enjoyment of the game.

Logically speaking, if you must have X amount by Y time, and you can’t get it, you’ll feel disappointed. There’s nothing in the game that says you have to do this. It’s in you.

And if you want to be disappointed, well…nothing anyone can say will stop you.

I try to put less pressure on games by playing them without placing artificial requirements on them. So I don’t say I have to have X by Y, I say, I’m going to have some fun.

The more external factors you try to superimpose on a game the less chance it will be enjoyable. Certainly that’s true of themepark MMOs if nothing else.

They’re already testing a fix for it.

I’ve seen this posted before. It’s not unexpected. It’s been a pretty bad year for MMOs in general. I don’t really expect next year to be much better.

A lot of the problems with MMOs today is the unrealistic expectation of players. I’m not talking about people who want harder core games or more sand box features. I’m talking about people who go into games expecting them to be relatively bug free, or get updated faster than possible or have more content faster than is possible.

Sometimes I feel like Scotty on the Enterprise yelling, “I can’t change the laws of physics. This repair is going to take some time.” lol

I can’t wait till they get rid of it. Of course, I have no idea what kind of problems getting rid of it will cause. lol

The living story is appealing to a completely different crowd than raids and high level PvE content like dungeons. It doesn’t surprise me that hard-core dungeon runners don’t enjoy it much. Of course, there are many people who don’t particularly like doing dungeons.

There are SOOOOOO many games where dungeons and raids are end games. I’m glad there’s one game out there for someone like me.

Maybe I’d be happy to have a job in the gaming industry in the first place. It beats the hell out of advertising. lol

On the other hand, value would be attributed to having that weapon, and people would display it proudly…instead of forgetting about it when the next cool looking weapon set comes out.

Varonth.5830:

Mackdose.6504:

tigirius.9014:

All things are not equal in the loot system, all people are not getting the chance for good drops, some people are stuck in a perpetual low drop 98% of the time situation so you can argue until you’re blue that there’s nothing wrong, but until everyone has equal chances at the loot there will still be a problem. That’s not what’s happening in this game I repeat loot chances are not equal in this game.

This is the only myth I can see concerning loot drops.

By this logic, I should be angry that there are people who are 98% of the time getting better loot than everyone else.

I would argue that it is actually impossible that there are accounts which have plain worse/better chances at getting rare loot… but let’s be honest it seems like a possibility when we all remember back at release.
There was a problem with some accounts not getting any WvW boni. That was an issue on a per account base. Why shouldn’t there be a related bug regarding loot.

For example, I have a char with 200% magic find. I can tell you that I found in total 9 exotics in over 2000 hours of gametime.

That doesn’t sound normal to me. And please don’t come up with stuff like, oh your samplesize is too low. It is 2000+ hours, that isn’t exactly low.

Of course, you could have spent half that time in PvP, which would completely change what you’re saying. Or standing around in LA. Or in low level zones (since exotics didn’t drop their until January (as far as I know).

How many hours doesn’t tell me anything.

Might be true. I don’t have a stack of ectos in my bank at this time.

Aeonblade.8709:

Vayne.8563:

Aeonblade.8709:

cherrie.8907:

marnick.4305:

cherrie.8907:

On a slightly related note, the fact that buying boxes doesn’t even support this game much, or most, but crap like Aion or Lineage, is another great reason not to buy this stuff.

That’s like saying you shouldn’t sub Aion back in 2010 because it support Guild Wars 2. You really have no idea how companies work do you?

You just want to pick up fights and insult people, don’t you.

If you ever listened to other people, you’d know how prelevant oppinions like “Buy Gems to support ANet and GW2” are. Well, it would be nice if the people who who do just that knew “how companies work”, as you put it.
Because apparently, as sad as it is, the best way GW2 could have gotten an expansion faster was and is NOT to buy gems as declining profits from initial sales and shop is what motivates NCSoft to give green light – ie fund – new expansion.

Well said, I haven’t bought a single thing with real money in game since I found out NCsoft is spending money I designated for Anet. I will not fund Aion, as it’s probably the worst game I have ever played hands down. You know something is wrong when you quit in the first week of your free month for buying the game.

Except you don’t KNOW that NCsoft is doing that. For one thing, Lineage STILL makes more than Guild Wars 2 does, and both Lineage and Aion are part of NCsoft East, where as Guild Wars 2 is part of NCsoft West. You’re just making an assumption.

Furthermore, it really doesn’t work like that. NCsoft is 100% responsible for financing Guild Wars 2. That is to say, they own the company.

It’s like saying I won’t buy coca cola and support it because I don’t like other soft drinks they’re making, or other food stuff.

Without support Guild Wars 2 will go away…it really is that simple. Whatever profit a company makes, it can spend any way it wants, as long as it’s legal anyway.

We’re both making assumptions so it’s a moot point. Neither of us knows where the money truly goes. Try harder.

Until there is transparency, whether they are owned by NCsoft or not, I will not waste my money.

No company is obligated to tell you how it spends its profit. This is ludicrous. I’m not assuming anything. I’m only saying that you don’t get to pick how any company spends it’s money. Guild Wars 2 and even Guild Wars 1 wouldn’t exist without NCsoft, or another company like it.

If everyone thought like you there’d be NO MMOs. lol

Aeonblade.8709:

cherrie.8907:

marnick.4305:

cherrie.8907:

On a slightly related note, the fact that buying boxes doesn’t even support this game much, or most, but crap like Aion or Lineage, is another great reason not to buy this stuff.

That’s like saying you shouldn’t sub Aion back in 2010 because it support Guild Wars 2. You really have no idea how companies work do you?

You just want to pick up fights and insult people, don’t you.

If you ever listened to other people, you’d know how prelevant oppinions like “Buy Gems to support ANet and GW2” are. Well, it would be nice if the people who who do just that knew “how companies work”, as you put it.
Because apparently, as sad as it is, the best way GW2 could have gotten an expansion faster was and is NOT to buy gems as declining profits from initial sales and shop is what motivates NCSoft to give green light – ie fund – new expansion.

Well said, I haven’t bought a single thing with real money in game since I found out NCsoft is spending money I designated for Anet. I will not fund Aion, as it’s probably the worst game I have ever played hands down. You know something is wrong when you quit in the first week of your free month for buying the game.

Except you don’t KNOW that NCsoft is doing that. For one thing, Lineage STILL makes more than Guild Wars 2 does, and both Lineage and Aion are part of NCsoft East, where as Guild Wars 2 is part of NCsoft West. You’re just making an assumption.

Furthermore, it really doesn’t work like that. NCsoft is 100% responsible for financing Guild Wars 2. That is to say, they own the company.

It’s like saying I won’t buy coca cola and support it because I don’t like other soft drinks they’re making, or other food stuff.

Without support Guild Wars 2 will go away…it really is that simple. Whatever profit a company makes, it can spend any way it wants, as long as it’s legal anyway.

Balkanwarrior.5132:

Wow. If I were to read this post without ever having played GW2, id probably be as impressed as the majority of this thread. Serious question, how can you guys be so content with this? Anet FINALLY get’s a couple of things right and this thread is making it seem like they’ve revolutionized the cure for cancer.

They got a lot of things right before this, probably just not for your play style. Of course, if you don’t love the game, you don’t love the game. But some people do. There’s a ton of things this game has gotten right.

If you don’t like them, maybe it’s not because they’re wrong, it’s because they don’t fit your play style.

Nah, people ran back and forth between two events for days and didn’t get that effect. Though I like the idea of punishing people for tagging mobs and leaving. lol

I bet a whole lot of people expect me to come to this thread, jump up and down and complain, but actually I agree with most of it. A lot of stuff in Guild Wars 2 can be better, and most of the ideas in this thread are pretty good.

What I’d like to see in the game is something that really hasn’t been brought up here. I’d like to see longer, more involving quest chains. Perhaps missions for the three orders that can be done after the personal story is finished. It would give players continuity with the order they represent, and further flesh out characters.

Because this, to me, is the biggest single problem in Guild Wars 2. It’s really not that easy to care about my characters. They’re a means to an end, instead of an individual. A lot of things go to making this happen, including account wide achievements. Who do you do your daily on? Anyone you happen to be playing. This is a good thing from one point of view, but a bad thing for trying to make your character feel like an indivdual.

After you finish your personal story, what really is there? Living story is account bound. Everything else is account bound. But each character, nothing further’s them. There are many things in the game that compound this issue.

In other games (not most MMOs however), even in Guild Wars 1, I was far more involved with each individual character. They had life for me. In Guild Wars 2, I don’t feel the same way. I like the game. I like the idea of the personal story…but I need to feel my characters. And I finished my personal story on five of them so long ago, I feel like I have to put them on ice to work on other characters, because what else is there for them that makes them unique?

They’re already wearing and wielding stuff that fits them fine.

pricer.5091:

Fair enough. So we’ll expect no more on the subject of loot drops being nerfed or not then….seeing as you don’t care.

I’ll comment if and when I please. If I see something that’s obviously bull, I’ll comment on it.

Even the word nerf is interesting. Like the skelk on Southsun which spawned too fast. Everyone said it was a nerf but it was, according to Anet a bug fix.

I do believe that Anet has adjusted loot tables for some areas. They’ve done it with the intent of getting people out of Orr and into the rest of the world. They’ve done it in a number of ways. They’ve done it with dailies, they’ve done it with changing events to make them harder, they’ve done it by taking loot of spider hatchlings, they’ve done it by making other content more profitable. Obviously there’s a method to their madness. They’re not doing it for no reason at all.

Probably the best thing for Anet would do would be to discuss this stuff with us, instead of just making changes. It would cut down on a lot of needless speculation. But of course, every time something is said, it’s a kittenstorm anyway, so I guess I can see why they don’t.

pricer.5091:

Vayne.8563:

pricer.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Oh, I know. Maybe there are different types of players who play games for different reasons. Or is that too implausible for you?

Or translated:
“I already have my legendary and I don’t care thakittens harder to get one now, because its not my problem”.

I answered stuff like this LONG before I had my legendary. Matter of record. The only reason I cared about a legendary at all was to get that stupid blank icon off my front page, and I was quite content to take my time to get it. Nice try though.

Its not a “try”. You are continually interjecting into threads that simply don’t affect you. Why?

People who say stuff like if you argue with me you’re wrong, before hearing the argument affect EVERYONE. I have no problem with reasonable people. In this case I have a problem with the OP attempting to shut down arguments before they happen. I think it’s bad for the forum and that affects me.

I commented on the part of the post that affected me. I consider that on topic.

Wow, that’s really interesting. I guess they must have disabled the DR on Southsun during the last event, because I spent the entire day there doing the same events with guildies on one character and never hit DR at all.

Balkanwarrior.5132:

Kootje.9271:

There are a lot of viable spots, just depends on what u think is viable. What return are u expecting to reach per hour?

I can’t say I have a specific number in mind for a decent return. As it is now, any area I go into the drop rates are abysmal. All im trying to suggest with this thread was for anet to look at the drop rates across the board and tweak them. Giving us more locations to spend time in and and make some gold. Lately the dragon coffers have been good because they drop often from holo farming and when they were selling for 7s/ea it was great, but im trying to look at the long run here, seeing as how this festival is temporary

Anet has already said they’re reviewing the loot system and should have it updated by the end of the summer.

pricer.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Oh, I know. Maybe there are different types of players who play games for different reasons. Or is that too implausible for you?

Or translated:
“I already have my legendary and I don’t care thakittens harder to get one now, because its not my problem”.

I answered stuff like this LONG before I had my legendary. Matter of record. The only reason I cared about a legendary at all was to get that stupid blank icon off my front page, and I was quite content to take my time to get it. Nice try though.

Balkanwarrior.5132:

Vayne.8563:

Balkanwarrior.5132:

Vayne.8563:

Because you say anyone who disagrees with you has baseless arguments, you’ve shown yourself to be not worth arguing with.

Of course, there are people who play this game without farming and still seem to have a good time. I don’t so how that fits with your “thesis”.

Oh, I know. Maybe there are different types of players who play games for different reasons. Or is that too implausible for you?

Im not trying to say people can’t have fun without farming. You’re trying to pick that argument out of your arsenal of retorts to try and shut my post down. Then you try and inform me that there are different strokes for different folks so you can try and be condescending. You never directly replied to the main message of the post which was asking if we could maybe have more spots to farm that are actually viable

I replied to part of the message of your post. The rest of your post has already been contradicted by other people.

I don’t farm, and I have money in this game. That’s a contradiction. But I’m far more interested in the fact that you tried to pre-emptively shut down all argument by calling them invalid before they were voiced….afterwhich you call ME condescending.

That’s pretty funny, all things considered.

Read the last thing you wrote. ‘’Oh, I know.’’ which means you’re behind that keyboard getting ready to educate me. ‘’Maybe there are different types of players who play games for different reasons’’ Next, you point out a piece of information that I’d assume is common sense. You saw that I didn’t directly imply it myself though, so you felt the need to bring it up yourself and remind me of it. (Again, as if I didn’t already know people have different reasons for playing) and then you top it off with ‘’Or is that too implausible for you?’’

Seriously bud, your comments read like you’re some unemployed liberal art degree holder on reddit. Voicing their opinion of every post/thread in the righteous name of ’’LOOKMOMIMARGUINGONTHEINTERNET’’

Then again, I should have known better than try and post my POV on the official arena net forums. It’s ok. I’ll keep the post up AND let you have the last word. I know it means a lot to a person like you

You can’t accept any personal responsibility at all. You end your OP with a post basically saying that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong…what did you expect? Flowers?

Sorry guy, but I don’t think this is DR. At least, I’ve never heard anyone suggest DR works this way before.

I don’t think entire guilds should be able to queue with other people, but I think allowing two people partied together should be allowed. It would allow you and a friend to play, but make it harder to grief the arena.

Balkanwarrior.5132:

Vayne.8563:

Because you say anyone who disagrees with you has baseless arguments, you’ve shown yourself to be not worth arguing with.

Of course, there are people who play this game without farming and still seem to have a good time. I don’t so how that fits with your “thesis”.

Oh, I know. Maybe there are different types of players who play games for different reasons. Or is that too implausible for you?

Im not trying to say people can’t have fun without farming. You’re trying to pick that argument out of your arsenal of retorts to try and shut my post down. Then you try and inform me that there are different strokes for different folks so you can try and be condescending. You never directly replied to the main message of the post which was asking if we could maybe have more spots to farm that are actually viable

I replied to part of the message of your post. The rest of your post has already been contradicted by other people.

I don’t farm, and I have money in this game. That’s a contradiction. But I’m far more interested in the fact that you tried to pre-emptively shut down all argument by calling them invalid before they were voiced….afterwhich you call ME condescending.

That’s pretty funny, all things considered.

You can be a die hard supporter of this game (no question that I am) and still refuse to buy RNG boxes.

I’m not sure anyone ever suggested that DR is tied to dynamic event rewards. I don’t think anyone believes that getting a silver instead of a gold in an event is DR. That’s not what DR is…at least to my knowledge.

DR doesn’t have to do with dynamic event rewards…it has to do with drops, or in the case of dungeons, dungeon tokens.

How is this supposed to show DR?

Because you say anyone who disagrees with you has baseless arguments, you’ve shown yourself to be not worth arguing with.

Of course, there are people who play this game without farming and still seem to have a good time. I don’t so how that fits with your “thesis”.

Oh, I know. Maybe there are different types of players who play games for different reasons. Or is that too implausible for you?

I yield to Kaiem’s expertise. I don’t play enough WvW to make definitive statements, though I do know ele bunkers are relatively hard to kill and they do make kills themselves.

I got 5 ectos from three rares today using a mystic salvage kit. RNG is RNG. Your sample rate is way too low.

Wryscher.1432:

Vayne.8563:

Lots of molds were broken but the biggest of all of them was the idea that not every other player in PvE always needs to be competing with you. The idea that everyone has their own crafting nodes, you can’t tag mobs, that you share in reward and experience makes this is a very different leveling experience from other games. The downed state and that everyone can rez makes it a differnt experience.

And it’s a non-linear leveling experience. This quest hub, that quest hub, this quest hub is gone. It feels more organic.

It’s easy to forget after you’ve played it a while how different it really is…but that doesn’t change that it is different.

I have seen lots of these things in of other games. GW2 pulled them all together and polished them. Something I feel was very similar to what WoW did its time. Didn’t reinvent the wheel or anything, just pulled lots of good ideas from different places and put them under one roof and did it better then those that came before did.

The leveling is sort of non-linear in the fact that if you out level an area, you can go level anywhere in that area. But if you are the right level for an area, it is still linear you just don’t have to go pick up a bunch of quest. It does feel much more natural that way.

People underestimate putting stuff together the right way. Shakespeare’s plays are just words. Other people have used the same words. Sometimes it’s how things are put together that makes all the difference.

In fact, creatively very very little is actually new. Just about everything has been done before. But the specific combinations of the factors here was an INTENTIONAL design decision by the devs, and that sets it apart from other games.

It doesn’t matter that Rift had dynamic events (aka Rifts) because they didn’t have the confidence in their events to get rid of the traditional quest system. The dynamic events there were tacked on, rather than a focus. That alone makes this a unique experience.

Lots of molds were broken but the biggest of all of them was the idea that not every other player in PvE always needs to be competing with you. The idea that everyone has their own crafting nodes, you can’t tag mobs, that you share in reward and experience makes this is a very different leveling experience from other games. The downed state and that everyone can rez makes it a differnt experience.

And it’s a non-linear leveling experience. This quest hub, that quest hub, this quest hub is gone. It feels more organic.

It’s easy to forget after you’ve played it a while how different it really is…but that doesn’t change that it is different.

Well if it losts its way, it lost it all the way back in Halloween. Bashing pinatas isn’t any different than carving pumpkins. Did you complain then?

I do sort of agree with you on the moa race thing, however, Not to say it’s lost its way, but that one single event seems poorly thought out to me. I don’t think I’d want to encourage that kind of gambling.

FateOmega.9601:

For us who are familiar with the game the dailies are simple as we know where to go. For someone just starting out they may find that it takes too long.

I agree with this. However, it’s easy enough to ask someone, read up on it (Dulfy has a guide) or in general find out…instead of complaining on the forums at the first sign of trouble.

You see it with dungeons too. People try a dungeon, die a lot, don’t find out what to do, and then complain dungeons are too hard. There aren’t too many dungeons in this game that can be classes as “too hard”, though you might have to learn a thing or two to do them.

This thread was made in response to someone who contradicted me when I said dailies usually take me 15-20 minutes and he claimed they took 30-45 minutes. Since I was contradicted, I thought I’d start a thread to EDUCATE people and show them how I do dailies and time how long they took.

This way, people who are newer and don’t know can learn. Sorta the whole point if this exercise.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

In more detail…here’s the Colin Johanson paragraph that most people quote when they talk about grind…the WHOLE paragraph:

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Where does it talk about gear or mats or farming in this paragraph? Does anyone else not actually remember the original definition of grind in MMOs, before people started calling farming grinding?

Grinding was killing stuff to level. In most games you had to kill stuff over and over again to level. Aion ran out of quests and the only way to level was to kill bosses. Over and over again. That’s the grind he was talking about.

He’s talking about stuff like having big encounters like the Shadow Behemoth in a starter zone. He’s talking about stuff like being able to go right from level 2 into SPvP without doing PvE at all. He’s talking about bring the fun back to leveling.

snip

There is no “original” definition of grinding for a mmo. The term grind can refer to all kinds of things, it just depends on what a player finds distasteful. Have to get an attunement? Some called that a grind. Want a particular rare mount or drop? Some people call that a grind. Rep gains, crafting, walking, gathering, filling a Heart quest, map completion, jumping puzzles, achievements, PvP ranks, Fractals, filling a DE bar, you name it…can be called a grind if people don’t enjoy it.

The trick is hiding what people may consider a grind behind fun activities. If GW2 wasn’t such a beautiful world, I would consider Map Completion grinding. If I didn’t enjoy the combat system, killing stuff for any reason would be a grind. If I didn’t enjoy farming, Legendaries would be a grind. I actually can not stand jumping puzzles and consider them to be a grind when there is content behind them I want to get to.

Obviously they failed at making leveling fun for everyone. Many people forgo the leveling process altogether and do it by sidestepping the content. Killing SB is much the same as killing the Shatterer or any other meta boss. The dungeons, which have arbitrary mechanics and which are filled with gimmicky boss fights, have to be done a ridiculous amount of times in order to accomplish anything. Everything in the game is centered around getting to max level as fast as you can, and it’s pretty fast- about an hour a level for normal players. Leveling is trivialized and it behooves a player to get to 80 as soon as possible, then continue doing everything else. The problem here is that there just isn’t anything waiting, just the exact same stuff you’ve seen at level 10.

snip

Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games. ¹² The most common usage is in the context of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, Tibia, or Lineage ³ in which it is often necessary for a character to repeatedly kill AI-controlled monsters, using basically the same strategy over again to advance their character level to be able to access newer content. MUDs, generally sharing much of the same gameplay as MMORPGs, encounter the same problem. Grinding may be required by some games to unlock additional features.

snip

Gear was not mentioned in the paragraph. I’m pretty sure most people who aren’t being disingenuous will admit that Colin was in no way talking about gear grind, which is another issue entirely.

Fail at reading comprehension much? Look at the words used. The most common usage- ie meaning not the only. And Wikipedia? Seriously? lol, Did you even bother to check the referenced sources for the article? Of course not. You are embarrassing yourself.

Common usage means nothing. Seriously. If you can’t tell from reading that paragraph what Colin was talking about, common usage or not common usage, you shouldn’t even be arguing. Because you’re embarrassing yourself.

It’s clearly a paragraph that starts with one thing and ends with another thing. At no point in that ENTIRE paragraph is gear mentioned at all. So you want to take a single word, out of context, while ignoring other words in the paragraph, including the first and last bits of it just to prove a point.

Ever consider becoming a lawyer?

So I wanted to do a daily count today to see how fast I could do it, but it didn’t work out. We had a guild mission this morning. By the time the guild mission was over, I had 3 of the 5. There was no point in counting, because gathering I’d do naturally anyway, and karma spender I’d just buy booze in the charr starter zone. So today it took me, after doing my guild mission, about five minutes to finish my daily.

I remember getting dye seed drops and having to go to an NPC in my home instance in order to grow them (in 24 hours) into a dye color so I could use it. I remember plant food in the cash shop that you could use to accelerate this process. I’m glad they forgot it.

Aeonblade.8709:

I have a hard time playing anything Non Human or Norn. In other games I play strictly Humans/humanoids.

I can’t take tree fairy people and dog cat men things seriously. And I don’t trust Asurans for obvious reasons.

It seems petty, but I want to play a human in any game because I like being a human being. It has nothing to with a lack of imagination, but more to do with pride I think.

I also can’t play a Necromancer because Anet’s version of a Necromancer is the worst iteration I have seen. Look to DAoC, Rift, EQ1 and 2, ANYTHING for how to a design a necromancer. What is in this game is like a soft headed blood mage from Dragon Age.

I’m not a huge fan of the necro either. I think it could have been done better.

Hey there, and welcome back.

1. Though there are few in game systems to learn about the game, there are plenty of external sources, particularly dulfy.net and the wiki. If you type /wiki in game at any time it will bring up the Guild Wars 2 wiki in a browser.

2. The best way to get money currently is meta events and farming dungeons/fractals. There is an overlay available to tell you when meta events pop up that can be found out http://gw2stuff.com

3. The way matchups are made for WvW have just changed so it’s too soon to tell. But it’s not like it was when you played.

4. Ele bunker builds are very powerful in WvW and do a lot of damage.

You have two question 4.s btw. lol

There’s plenty you should know but I don’t even know where to begin.

I’ll have to mull over this….you’ve made a lot of good points…but one thing I’d question is the better rewards for jumping puzzles. As long as mesmer portals are in the game, you’d have to disable them. Otherwise, people doing nothing or next to nothing would be getting those better rewards.

Fox.3469:

Bright.9160:

marnick.4305:

Fox.3469:

Because the cashshop RNG feeds of the social downfall caused by the economic crisis and just exploits those who can’t resist it. It’s worse then gambling. (i made a long post about this a few months ago, stacked with social and economic expert opinions, it was removed for being a “conspiracy theory”.)

If boxes in a cashop in an MMO cause the downfall of society and economic crisis … that’s textbook conspiracy nonsense. Your"experts" are probably experts for hire or other scam artists. As such your thread was rightfully removed.

Feeding off =/= causing. Read that part again.

Indeed, and it’s not just conspiracy theory, the tactics NC-Soft is using are actually forbidden in my country cause they fall under the false advertisement and gambling law (as it is stated that any object that is sold for real money must have the exact thing you pay for, or an accurate possibility of the chances, even our lotery has those chances(in very small letters) on them.) If i wasn’t a student i’d take em to court.

You’re not buying RNG boxes with real money. That’s the out. You’re buying GEMS with real money which have no value. You’re buying boxes with gems, which can’t be construed as gambling because you’re not spending real money.

It’s a legal loophole, but since those gems can be spent on costumes, buffs, bank slots etc, there’s no way you can say you’re spending real money on random RNG boxes.

morrolan.9608:

killcannon.2576:

The trick is hiding what people may consider a grind behind fun activities. If GW2 wasn’t such a beautiful world, I would consider Map Completion grinding.

To me it is a grind because the hearts become very repetitive, The game would be better if it was all dynamic events.

The game was originally all dynamic events. But people wouldn’t stay and wait for them, they simply ran in a straight line doing nothing. Hearts were added to solve a problem because of what happened during play testing. They were a relatively late addition to the game.

Zerbo.5381:

Vayne.8563:

But I think the game does match the manifesto.

I laughed pretty hard when I read this. Stop making excuses and reading into things. The game doesn’t match the manifesto, no matter how many times you or others say it does- people here have provided good examples of why it doesn’t. The implications of this, however, are up for debate.

I laughed pretty hard when I read this. Your inability to actually see what the manifesto said and what it means is completely underwhelming. No matter how many times you say that it doesn’t match the manifesto, it doesn’t make you right.

The examples provided by others leave out words, misintepret basic information and completely ignore the explanation that came out immediately following the manifesto in the areas where people were confused. If you don’t want to take into account the very public clarication published immediately after the manifesto came out, I would suggest that’s your problem.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

In more detail…here’s the Colin Johanson paragraph that most people quote when they talk about grind…the WHOLE paragraph:

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Where does it talk about gear or mats or farming in this paragraph? Does anyone else not actually remember the original definition of grind in MMOs, before people started calling farming grinding?

Grinding was killing stuff to level. In most games you had to kill stuff over and over again to level. Aion ran out of quests and the only way to level was to kill bosses. Over and over again. That’s the grind he was talking about.

He’s talking about stuff like having big encounters like the Shadow Behemoth in a starter zone. He’s talking about stuff like being able to go right from level 2 into SPvP without doing PvE at all. He’s talking about bring the fun back to leveling.

Now you may or may not like the leveling, but that’s what he’s talking about, and for many of us, Anet accomplished what they were trying to do. This game has the best, most fun leveling experience of any MMO I’ve ever played.

There is no “original” definition of grinding for a mmo. The term grind can refer to all kinds of things, it just depends on what a player finds distasteful. Have to get an attunement? Some called that a grind. Want a particular rare mount or drop? Some people call that a grind. Rep gains, crafting, walking, gathering, filling a Heart quest, map completion, jumping puzzles, achievements, PvP ranks, Fractals, filling a DE bar, you name it…can be called a grind if people don’t enjoy it.

The trick is hiding what people may consider a grind behind fun activities. If GW2 wasn’t such a beautiful world, I would consider Map Completion grinding. If I didn’t enjoy the combat system, killing stuff for any reason would be a grind. If I didn’t enjoy farming, Legendaries would be a grind. I actually can not stand jumping puzzles and consider them to be a grind when there is content behind them I want to get to.

Obviously they failed at making leveling fun for everyone. Many people forgo the leveling process altogether and do it by sidestepping the content. Killing SB is much the same as killing the Shatterer or any other meta boss. The dungeons, which have arbitrary mechanics and which are filled with gimmicky boss fights, have to be done a ridiculous amount of times in order to accomplish anything. Everything in the game is centered around getting to max level as fast as you can, and it’s pretty fast- about an hour a level for normal players. Leveling is trivialized and it behooves a player to get to 80 as soon as possible, then continue doing everything else. The problem here is that there just isn’t anything waiting, just the exact same stuff you’ve seen at level 10.

You’re complete wrong about this. There was/is an original definition ie, the first definition that was used, and what many old time MMOers STILL use. This is from wikipedia, the very first paragraph.

Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games. ¹² The most common usage is in the context of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, Tibia, or Lineage ³ in which it is often necessary for a character to repeatedly kill AI-controlled monsters, using basically the same strategy over again to advance their character level to be able to access newer content. MUDs, generally sharing much of the same gameplay as MMORPGs, encounter the same problem. Grinding may be required by some games to unlock additional features.

So I’m not making this up. And since the rest of the paragraph in question was specifically about combat and fun things to do while leveling, no one can POSSIBLY construe that has having anything to do with gear grind or grinding for a legendary.

Gear was not mentioned in the paragraph. I’m pretty sure most people who aren’t being disingenuous will admit that Colin was in no way talking about gear grind, which is another issue entirely.

Engineer or ele….if not those, maybe a guardian.