Guild Wars 2

TooBz.3065:

@Vayne,

But you already have a legendary. Can I ask when the precursor dropped and when / how you obtained the materials to craft one? I find it very difficult to believe that anyone obtained 100 charged lodestones without doing what I would consider grinding.

Also, as I said before, anyone who is lucky enough to have a precursor drop has already eliminated half of the grind.

Yep, my precusor dropped during the Karka event, but that doesn’t change how I got the rest of the stuff at all. I just played the game.

If the precusor hadn’t dropped, I’d have had to play the game for four or five months longer to get my precusor, which is fine.

Basically I play the game. I do whatever I want. I make a gold some days I make 5 gold others. I don’t count, I don’t care. I throw in the gold in my bank as soon as I have 1 gold 30 silver on a character. I keep doing it.

I sell a lot of the lower mats, the bags I get, the greens and lower. I salvage yellows for ectos.

At one point I knew I’d need 350 gold to get my legendary. I played the game until I had 350 gold. I went to the trading post and filled in whatever I was missing, and got my legendary.

But I’m telling you, as a fact, if it took me two years to get it, three years, it wouldn’t substantively change my enjoyment of the game. The legendary is an item. I don’t play for items. As I’ve said before, and I’ll no doubt say again, it’s the quest for loot that has destroyed the RPG genre.

I agree with the OP. For players like him, there’s not enough challenging content. As a result of that, he should go find a game with more challenging content. Guild Wars 2 has no sub and if something really challenging comes out, he can come back, finish it in 5.2 minutes, and be on his merry way again.

Some people CRAVE challenge in a game. Some people have enough challenge in life and crave different things in games. Watching this game develop, I was sure it was targeted at a more casual audience, and that’s fine by me.

I do hope, OP, that you find a game that’s more challenging to you. My son, however, played Neverwinter for a couple of weeks and he’s already done with it. And he plays much like you do.

Aeonblade.8709:

Vayne.8563:

If I didn’t have my legendary, I wouldn’t have it. I have 3000 hours in game due to the fact that I enjoy playing the game. I wasn’t even TRYING for a legendary until the precusor dropped. But my point in the same. I didn’t run CoF path 1 to get it…occassionally with the guild, never twice on the same day. I didn’t farm Orr to get it..occassionally I’d go there if I needed like omnom berries to make bars. I never farmed any area over and over. Honestly it would bore my senseless.

I’ve spent a lot of time in lower zones, hanging out with and helping guildies. Done some PvP, some PvE. In no game do I ever focus on loot. I see no reason to. I think the focus on loot has ruined the RPG genre completely and made it something it was never supposed to be.

Do you know what you are in WoW when you’re all geared up? A coatrack for greatness. I never wanted to be that. I want to be powerful, I don’t want my armor to be powerful. I don’t want to put on a coat to be awesome. The coat isn’t me.

So yeah, even if I didn’t have a legendary, none of what I said would have changed. I didn’t buy it, I didn’t farm it. I got it by playing. And if it took me two years…it would take me two years. Why should I care. I’m having fun.

People who aren’t having fun should play a game where they can have fun. I would think that would be self-evident. Maybe I’m wrong.

Another “I don’t think you understand the game” or “Should play a different game” post. Please, keep on, don’t let us interrupt your 24/7 soap box. 3000 hours played and wonders why everyone else is complaining about the game. Priceless.

Being able to have goals in the game wouldn’t hurt players like you. You can keep on wandering around low level zones not worrying about a thing. You could keep on picking flowers for 3000 hours or whatever it is you do. It would just give the rest of a us a full game to play.

I’ve played every game like this for years, even when I’ve had no time to play. I just don’t see what the big rush is. Maybe it’s an age thing. Maybe younger people need everything faster, because the world has spread up, but I’m quite happy to take my time.

This has nothing to do with how many hours I’ve played.

War Siren.2346:

sigh every game has it’s forum Warrior Fanboi who actually hurts the game more than he helps it by his fierce, blind, loyalty… seriously Vayne, I understand where you’re at I ‘ve been there with other games. But all you’re doing is hurting the game by trying to shoot down everyone’s ideas vehemently so you can keep this game niche. Passionate Constructive Criticism helps a game grow and thrive, Disagreeing is fine, disagreeing with disagreeing is fine, but when you pop up in every thread and start arguments by blind loyalty… that’s not fine you hurt the game you love. (I’m not saying don’t voice your opinion, in fact I say do it.. but stop the long drawn out arguments that has caused mine and several other topics that probably should be a page count or two smaller, than they are because you are doing the Knight and shining armor for the game.)

Anyways that said and back on topic.

I really hope they don’t do an Elder Dragon per expansion. Because that lets the over al story get stagnant like a year with no updates to it, Plus I di remember reading that there are no plans for an expansion unless the game needs it. Sooo I REALLY hope it’s not one Dragon per expansion or we’ll never get on with the story. :O

I want to know how come every negative post I’ve made or agreed with gets completely ignored by people. It’s an interesting question. Are you saying I’ve never made constructive criticism of Anet or agreed with negative criticism?

I simply don’t like certain things and I would fight to keep them out of the game. Stuff like DPS meters and inspect, in my mind, have no place is Guild Wars. So I say so. Stuff about nerfing farming…do you realize what farming did to Orr for people trying to experience it the way the devs envisioned it.

It was supposed to be hard, end game content. It was turned into farmville, with everyone trying to tag mobs before they went down. It was silly. After all the playing, the build up to Orr, you were barely in any danger at all, because everyone was there farming Plinx. You had to avoid have the map to feel like you were in any danger at all.

I’ve spoken out about plenty of things, including the use of RNG. I’m not a blind fan boy. But those who call me one…they’re sorta blind themselves. At the very least they only pay attention to the stuff they want to see.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

pricer.5091:

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

In your experience of who? You? Well thats one customer ANet are making happy then I guess. Unless you somehow have have access to the bank accounts of everyone in the game that plays less than one hour a day of course.

I used to be fairly “hardcore” and occasionally spend cash…now I am “casual” because the game is so bad and I refuse to spend anything.

Great, thanks for the meaningless observation.

It’s quite logical that casuals will spend more in the gem shop. Many hard-core players have no very few commitments and can sink 30, 40 hours a week into a game. People with real life commitments that can play a couple of hours a day max are people that will feel they’re falling behind. Since many have a job, they could conceivably have extra money to spend on a hobby…and people do spend money on entertainment. That’s a proven fact.

So if this is your entertainment (and this game is far better for casual than hard core players anyway), you’re more likely to buy gems to get some gold, or buy stuff that makes the game fun for you.

Hard core players can farm gold to buy gems for certain things. That’s harder for casual players.

Vayne, your general assumptions are outrageous. “Casuals will spend more, thats a fact”. How do you know? Casuals might view this game as a pass-time hobby, something to do for an hour each night, and then log off, not taking the game too seriously. Thus, why would they spend money on it? If I am a casual, and I only play for a short period each night or every other night, why would I want to invest a lot of money in something that I spend little time on, and possibly care little about? Youre entire arguement is insane and infact contradicts logic.

Not to mention, the next line of your paragraph, “People with real life commitments that can play a couple of hours a day max are people that will feel they’re falling behind”…the last few words there “…feel they’re falling behind”. Isnt this game supposed to not make you feel that way? Arent I able to put this game down for 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months and not feel “behind” as if it were a sub model item/gear progression game? Well, I did put the game down for two months. I was behind in the living story, which I had to catch up. I wanted to get the achievements. Not to mention, i still feel behind in terms of ascended gear. I do not have my ascended piece. Yes, I feel “behind”. This is what the game aimed not to do. Yet you yourself in your paragraph there said that people will feel they are “behind” everyone else since they play casually. Im confused. Is this game supposed to leave me with that feeling everytime i take some time off?

Name calling is just silly. I’m not insane.

Those who play the most, farm enough gold to buy gems. Those who play the least, if they want to buy stuff from the shop they have to pay for it. It really is that simple. I’m not sure why that’s hard to follow.

Hard core guys tend to play the game to get their stuff. Casuals don’t care if they “cheat” or not. So they spend money to get stuff. I’m not sure why that is hard to follow.

Most logically if Anet is really trying to make money they’ll aim the game toward the most profitable segment of the community. Are you really suggesting this game is aimed at hard core?

Recluse.6740:

Vayne.8563:

Amadan.9451:

whoever says that most part of getting a legendary is playing the game normally except for lodestone, i want to know how normally playing you can get 750 pile of crystalline dust to craft bifrost…
because in my normal gameplay i managed to have 100ish and this when loot and farming weren’t nerfed…
after the nerf i had to buy all of it and/or had it from friends

But you’ve made gold and you can buy mats. That’s what most people do. Most people don’t farm all the mats they need themselves. They play the game however they want, slowly building up the money they need to buy the mats they want. They keep an eye on the prices of mats, because they do fluctuate, and they try to buy when the price is lower.

So some people love dungeons and run them for money. Or Fractals. Some people hate them and just run dynamic events, which takes longer, but they do it anyway. Some people follow the world events around and make money doing that.

I do a bit of everything and though I didn’t need 750 crystalline dust for my lengendary, I did need 100 onyx lodestones, which by today’s prices works out to roughly the same price. And Crystalline dust has gone up. It’ll go down again after the Southsun event when more people are farming in Orr.

The point is, you don’t have to farm the mats, you just play the game, save your gold, and buy your mats. That’s what I did.

I am trying to make sense of all of your posts in this thread, but I am soooo confused.

You are telling people to slow down and play for fun, and that legendary weapons were meant to be “Ultra long term goals”, yet you have 3000 hours played by your admission, and a legendary already.

Its pretty easy to tell other people to relax and just play the game, when you are already afforded that luxury due to you achieving your "Ultra long term goal’ already. While others who either do not have your luck, your time, or your playing prowess want to achieve the same thing you have done already.

You are like the guy who quits smoking, then preaches to other people they should quit, and its easy. No one wants to hear it to be honest.

If half of these people had their legendary already, you would not see them in here complaining, unless of course it was about the lack of endgame/content.

I am happy you achieved your goal, and you did it YOUR way, but that does not give you the right to come in here and tell people THEIR way is wrong just because it is different than yours.

I am one of the players who enjoys mindless grinds ( Job is mentally tasking, and coming home to a mindless activity is nice) , and getting rewarded for spending my time doing what I find fun. I enjoy talking to my friends while grinding, and maybe listening to music while doing so, point is … to me, while I do enjoy the content Anet has put in the game, and I have tried most of it, farming is my bread and butter, and the content I find the most rewarding.

The good thing is that whenever Anet shuts down a farming spot, another one opens, so I will not freak out about losing skelks. I moved on from skelks a while ago, and making my money elsewhere, but as I see people moving in on that as well now, I know I need to start looking for another spot again. So I will .. and I will continue to play the game the way I want, as you so did it your way.

If I didn’t have my legendary, I wouldn’t have it. I have 3000 hours in game due to the fact that I enjoy playing the game. I wasn’t even TRYING for a legendary until the precusor dropped. But my point in the same. I didn’t run CoF path 1 to get it…occassionally with the guild, never twice on the same day. I didn’t farm Orr to get it..occassionally I’d go there if I needed like omnom berries to make bars. I never farmed any area over and over. Honestly it would bore my senseless.

I’ve spent a lot of time in lower zones, hanging out with and helping guildies. Done some PvP, some PvE. In no game do I ever focus on loot. I see no reason to. I think the focus on loot has ruined the RPG genre completely and made it something it was never supposed to be.

Do you know what you are in WoW when you’re all geared up? A coatrack for greatness. I never wanted to be that. I want to be powerful, I don’t want my armor to be powerful. I don’t want to put on a coat to be awesome. The coat isn’t me.

So yeah, even if I didn’t have a legendary, none of what I said would have changed. I didn’t buy it, I didn’t farm it. I got it by playing. And if it took me two years…it would take me two years. Why should I care. I’m having fun.

People who aren’t having fun should play a game where they can have fun. I would think that would be self-evident. Maybe I’m wrong.

NoodllZ.8376:

I honestly don’t blame them for what they were doing, crab toss sucks and the amount of points you needed to get the achievement would’ve meant staying in there for an extended period of time, time that you could spend farming. Though them insulting you is bad, you had the option to leave yet you stayed, for two matches and managed to win, so why are you complaining, you just beat them.

Honestly its crab toss, let them get their achievement points. Serious question, has anyone actually played keg brawl?

I play keg brawl and I enjoy it. I’ve gotten pretty good, even with the latency. I’ve learned to anticipate a lot better. I’ll probably never be awesome, but I do fine. Score come goals, get some steals, a few interceptions.

Actually it’s become one of my favorite things to do to unwind.

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

Vayne.8563:

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

Vayne.8563:

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

I think the games been a grind since day 1. Every map is the same:
Exploring it is great, but the heart quests are all the same. Either press F on this, or kill that. Getting 100% map completion was the worst thing I’ve done in GW2
The PvE end game is then dungeons, which are good for a while, or Farming Orr/CoF – more grinding.

This is the reason I’ve moved to wvw.

GW1 had the best PvE content i’ve seen on any game, and all the stuff they introduced as time went on bought me back. Here I’ve not bothered with much of the living story in this because it’s not engaged me at all, and the idea of doing the whole 1-80 thing through PvE again is horrifying. Until they move the pve side closer to what it was in gw1 I won’t be doing much of it

Strange, I much prefer the PvE here to the PvE in Guild Wars 1. I find it infinitely more engaging. I mean at least here I have to pay attention sometimes. In Guild Wars 1 in PvE, I really didn’t.

It was good for the first week, but I liked the fact that in Gw1 the objective was to run in a full party and fight mobs instead of here in Gw2 in most zones you run solo fighting a handful of enemies at most. PvE here really doesn’t encourage you to party up. (I know GW1 became merc central and heros really broke the MMO style a bit, but in prophecies I struggled to play a mission hencies only)

PvE here is much better when partied up. I party up all the time. Maybe that’s why you’re not quite enjoying it as much.

There’s no reason to party up ouside of the 80 zones though. The only time I enter PvE now is with my rl friends or guildies. It becomes alot more fun yes, but its still the same grind at heart so there’s only so much I can stomach.

GW1 you could get good fights against different types of mobs that required different builds to counter. I never change my build in GW2, its all the same

I party up at least in part for fun…but it’s also more profitable to party up. When you’re in a party with someone, and you’re doing all the same stuff, everything just goes faster. Foes are killed faster, loot is attained faster, and combos can happen more regularly. In addition, you don’t have to do quite as much damage if you’re partied to get credit for a kill. At least that’s what I seem to have noticed.

Alone, a single shot on something I don’t get to loot it. In a party I do.

I’m in the favor of having fun. Minigames aren’t SPvP and shouldn’t be held to the same standards.

/signed. This would make life a lot easier for people.

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

Vayne.8563:

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

I think the games been a grind since day 1. Every map is the same:
Exploring it is great, but the heart quests are all the same. Either press F on this, or kill that. Getting 100% map completion was the worst thing I’ve done in GW2
The PvE end game is then dungeons, which are good for a while, or Farming Orr/CoF – more grinding.

This is the reason I’ve moved to wvw.

GW1 had the best PvE content i’ve seen on any game, and all the stuff they introduced as time went on bought me back. Here I’ve not bothered with much of the living story in this because it’s not engaged me at all, and the idea of doing the whole 1-80 thing through PvE again is horrifying. Until they move the pve side closer to what it was in gw1 I won’t be doing much of it

Strange, I much prefer the PvE here to the PvE in Guild Wars 1. I find it infinitely more engaging. I mean at least here I have to pay attention sometimes. In Guild Wars 1 in PvE, I really didn’t.

It was good for the first week, but I liked the fact that in Gw1 the objective was to run in a full party and fight mobs instead of here in Gw2 in most zones you run solo fighting a handful of enemies at most. PvE here really doesn’t encourage you to party up. (I know GW1 became merc central and heros really broke the MMO style a bit, but in prophecies I struggled to play a mission hencies only)

PvE here is much better when partied up. I party up all the time. Maybe that’s why you’re not quite enjoying it as much.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

They didn’t abandon anything. it’s STILL different from other games. You’re not locked out of doing content by not having specific ascended gear. You can do it all with exotics without any problem at all. The only exception being the fractals and that’s self-sustaining since the stuff you need to higher level fractals actually drops in the fractals.

It doesn’t. Or at least i haven’t seen any amulets and earrings there yet. Perhaps you did, though, since you keep repeating this misinformation over and over.

You might learn the difference between misinformation and lack of understanding on your part.

The Fractals existed BEFORE ascended amulets existed and BEFORE ascended earrings existed (and people were doing them).

Can you push the fractal level higher than say 38 without going to these other items? Probably not.

Can you get ALL the rewards you could possibly get from fractals without pushing that high. Yes you can.

A difference that makes no difference is no difference. If you want to go higher in the Fractals you’re not experiencing different content. You’re experiencing a harder level of the same content, which is fine. You can do that if you want. This is the very reason fractals were designed. To give grinders and gear grinders something to do.

But everyone else, the non-gear grinds, the BULK of the population can do all 9 Fractals without a single piece of ascended gear, and they can go quite high in the fractals without ever getting either an amulet or earrings.

Martin The Brave.8731:

Vayne (Can’t quote)

The term “Clone” can only be understood at least from my perspective in one way. Meaning that it is has been wholly been copied; Which is a in my mind is a claim to know the truth about the intent of a developer/company. I would agree that there are similarities in these games as I have stated. But in all intent and purposes Rift and SWTOR are different games than WoW. These companies produce games for the same “Crowd” and they do accept standards of what a “Good” mmo should be. However I will concede my point and agree with you here as I want to keep this conversation on track.

So I will just ask you a question to you at this point. (I feel like I’ve had this conversation with you before)
1. Would you support the “Raid/Elite” content implemented in Guildwars 1 being re-introduced in Guildwars 2?

I worked in the game industry for many years (on the buying end for a computer store). We all knew what was meant when we said doom clones. You can take it any way you want. Do you use the word mob in game to mean one creature or a group of creatures? Because when I look up mob in the dictionary it’s a group of creatures.

Obviously there’s no such thing as a clone game in the literal sense, because it would be the same game. A clone is more like a reskin. It’s the same essential game reskinned. There were Doom clones that played much like Doom, but they weren’t exact clones. But everyone knew what you meant when you said a doom clone. Marketers from companies would actually tell me that a new game was a doom clone.

Every industry develops it’s own specialized use of the language. You can argue with me all day about dictionary definitions but it’s irrelevant, because we’re talking a specialized gaming language that has developed over the years.

If you don’t want to understand what’s meant by clone, that’s perfectly okay. But most people do know what it means.

LHound.8964:

Vayne.8563:

Right because what they’re doing is game-breaking. OMG someone got an achievement point. I got every single achievement without playing this way, btw, including winning a match. I simply lucked out on that, by getting into an arena early right after a reset, so I was one of two people in there for most of the match. The rest of the achievement were just a matter of playing until I got them all. Crabtacular I got by accident.

The point is, this is a game. There’s nothing involved here but a couple of achievements. Some people need to lighten up.

Is acceptable to get the same achievement point, by hacking? By your logic, there is no problem. It’s only for 1 achievement point, right? This is a game…

Rules are rules, and they are not to be bent, whatever the purpose (1 AP, or +9000AP) they are looked to.

They weren’t hacking. They were cooperating, having fun, NOT breaking the game, NOT changing the auction house, NOT doing anything except having a good time. Pretty much what games are for.

Some enterprising person organized them. I’ve seen it in Keg Brawl too and I don’t particularly like it or do it myself, but that doesn’t mean I’m worried if someone else does it.

SPvP which is meant to be competitive, sure. I can go with that. Those battles should be fair and above board. A temporary minigame in an event that means nothing.

No big deal. If it affected the TP, I’d be all over it though.

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

I think the games been a grind since day 1. Every map is the same:
Exploring it is great, but the heart quests are all the same. Either press F on this, or kill that. Getting 100% map completion was the worst thing I’ve done in GW2
The PvE end game is then dungeons, which are good for a while, or Farming Orr/CoF – more grinding.

This is the reason I’ve moved to wvw.

GW1 had the best PvE content i’ve seen on any game, and all the stuff they introduced as time went on bought me back. Here I’ve not bothered with much of the living story in this because it’s not engaged me at all, and the idea of doing the whole 1-80 thing through PvE again is horrifying. Until they move the pve side closer to what it was in gw1 I won’t be doing much of it

Strange, I much prefer the PvE here to the PvE in Guild Wars 1. I find it infinitely more engaging. I mean at least here I have to pay attention sometimes. In Guild Wars 1 in PvE, I really didn’t.

killcannon.2576:

I do not “expect” anything. I didn’t make the payment model. You are better off asking Anet what they expect, not me. I’m not worried about whether the devs get paid, get vacations, have new cars, or anything else doing with their personal lives. I don’t care how they pay to make the content. NONE of that MATTERS. They chose to go the buy to play route with all that entails. If they can’t pay whatever expenses they have with their payment model, then they need to change the payment model. Absolutely none of this is the players problem. It’s the devs problem. If the content is not good enough to support their business, then they need to MAKE BETTER CONTENT. They aren’t a welfare recipient, and I am not paying for stuff I do not want or like.

Your entire post is made from assumptions with which you base other assumptions on. You have no clue how much money is being paid out for costs, being taken in by box sales, where the money is being allocated to, how much it costs to develop in game content, whether some or all of this content was already made and being slowly parsed out, how much money is invested in the gem store, how much it profits, and on and on and on. You have zero facts. ZERO. This is the worst argument I have ever seen you put forth.

It’s not my or any other players responsibility to fund this game through gem sales. It is ANETS JOB to make me want to buy gems and stuff from the gemstore Period.

Actually it’s not.

It’s Anet’s job to make a game that encourages people in general, not you specifically to spend money on the gem store. And if a large enough percentage of those people do, people like you become superfluous.

Because people like you probably aren’t the target market.

As long as people who play MMOs BELIEVE they need to support them, they’ll continue to support them. There are probably enough of us out here to do it without you.

marnick.4305:

pricer.5091:

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

In your experience of who? You? Well thats one customer ANet are making happy then I guess. Unless you somehow have have access to the bank accounts of everyone in the game that plays less than one hour a day of course.

I used to be fairly “hardcore” and occasionally spend cash…now I am “casual” because the game is so bad and I refuse to spend anything.

Great, thanks for the meaningless observation.

You’re not casual. You’re a burnt out hardcore. That’s the only reason you believe this game is bad, because it’s made for casual people. You’re burnt out. Take a break, that’s not something to be ashamed for.

I don’t have access to bank accounts, but lets not dart around the facts. If people can only play for a maximum of 1 hour a day, I have a fair idea of what their bank account looks like. It is extremely evident why these people can’t play more than a single hour.

That bank account probably has more digits than the account of someone who plays 10 hours a day 7 days in 7 and probably is written in blank ink as opposed to red. Not for individual cases like you and me, but averaged on the casual vs hardcore population, that’s almost certainly true.

Probably not true in my case. I can play all day every day and I still have a nice nest egg…but my case is admittedly quite unusual.

I agree with you. Most of the money spent in the gem store will be spent by casuals.

Right because what they’re doing is game-breaking. OMG someone got an achievement point. I got every single achievement without playing this way, btw, including winning a match. I simply lucked out on that, by getting into an arena early right after a reset, so I was one of two people in there for most of the match. The rest of the achievement were just a matter of playing until I got them all. Crabtacular I got by accident.

The point is, this is a game. There’s nothing involved here but a couple of achievements. Some people need to lighten up.

bri.2359:

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

They’re chasing away the hard core farmers who complain on every forum in every game. If they all left, it wouldn’t substantially make that much of a difference. There aren’t as many of them as you seem to think.

How do you know its just hardcore farmers complaining?

You must have missed the memo …

Our Vayne knows everything about this game and every other game, including every single aspect of the gaming industry, since the beginning of time. He knows more than than all the game developers and publishers put together.

Oh, and if for some reason a tiny piece escapes his all knowing gaze, he makes it up as he goes. But that is ok, because he is so right so many times, and so many agree with his every word, that it becomes fact and true.

We are so fortunate to have such an enlightened resource gracing every thread in this forum. Anet must be thankful because they have no need to post when Vayne is around. He is like a dev and moderator all rolled into one, telling us how it is and how to play the game.

Be thankful for his presence, and now bow down to his superiority, for you are a mere minion before Vayne, and you have dared to question his knowledge ..

If you mean that some people agree with me..you’re quite right. If you believe they agree with me because they don’t have minds of their own, you’re most definitely wrong.

I moderated a forum before this one, and only when I left did I start posting here. Many of the people who agree with me were here before me, posting much of the same stuff. I’m actually the newcomer compared to many of them, because I didn’t have time to post here and on the other forum.

So why insult people who were already saying the stuff I am saying, by implying they don’t have a mind of their own.

I don’t know everything about anything, but that doesn’t mean I’m not right a good portion of the time. In the case of dust, we can wait a few weeks and see. It’s not really that hard.

pricer.5091:

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

In your experience of who? You? Well thats one customer ANet are making happy then I guess. Unless you somehow have have access to the bank accounts of everyone in the game that plays less than one hour a day of course.

I used to be fairly “hardcore” and occasionally spend cash…now I am “casual” because the game is so bad and I refuse to spend anything.

Great, thanks for the meaningless observation.

It’s quite logical that casuals will spend more in the gem shop. Many hard-core players have no very few commitments and can sink 30, 40 hours a week into a game. People with real life commitments that can play a couple of hours a day max are people that will feel they’re falling behind. Since many have a job, they could conceivably have extra money to spend on a hobby…and people do spend money on entertainment. That’s a proven fact.

So if this is your entertainment (and this game is far better for casual than hard core players anyway), you’re more likely to buy gems to get some gold, or buy stuff that makes the game fun for you.

Hard core players can farm gold to buy gems for certain things. That’s harder for casual players.

Doesn’t change the fact that I wouldn’t go on to any other game forum and ask what game I should play instead of that one. That’s like going into a restaurant and shouting out loud if there’s any other better place to eat than this one. Even if there’s not, it’s simply rude.

Of course, people don’t really care about rude anymore.

munkiman.3068:

Marxo.3829:

munkiman.3068:

Marxo.3829:

I’m going to put this really simply.

Other games: you literally have to grind to see new content or else your gear is not powerful enough to do the content.

GW2: Zero, none, nada need to grind to see all content in the game. Nearly max stat game is extremely easy to get.

Distorting logic that somehow you must grind because the appearance of your gear isn’t the sparkliest of them all is just a bad argument.

Other games just have a different treadmill type, sure you can’t progress through content in other games till you get the stats, but here you can’t progress through sparkles to get the armor/weapon/stat set you want. It’s just a different set of rules. Of course GW2 has both, just not at end game. Try running 80 content in 40 gear.

It’s completely not the same thing.

How can you possibly compare a game where you can’t leave town anymore of all new content areas because you didn’t grind up the power level of your gear… to GW2 where are get to do all the new content, but maybe with your weapons being less shiny?

It’s not even a close comparison so please stop muddying the waters.

Have you tried to do southsun on a level 20? How about fractals level 20 without AR gear? There’s plenty of examples. You’re not going to take a 20 to a level 40 area, etc. There are plenty of examples of the opposite as well, as you point out. No muddy water here.

It’s a different perspective, it’s an end game goal, which keeps getting moved further out by lowered drop rates and increased costs. It’s not rocket science.

Southsun provides at least a hope for a new rewarding GW2, even if it is temporary. Still t6 mats and dust are pretty out of whack.

Of course you can’t do Fractal level 20 without AR gear. But the gear you need is found in the fractals itself. You’re not farming the fractals to get to the next dungeon. That’s the difference. The fractals are completely self contained. If you do 10 days of dailies in a row at level 10, you get a ring. So in 20 days of dailies, you can have two rings. You should have enough for a backpiece by then too. So you can to your 20th level fractals without ever leaving the fractal.

More to the point, 20th level fractals is different than other games because players can’t SEE the content at all without gear. For non-competitive PvE types, they can play every single fractal, over and over again if they want, on level 1. They can see all 9 fractals. It’s disingenuous to say they can’t see a fractal level 20. It’s just a variation on a theme. If they want to see it they certainly can. But many people want to just see them a couple of times. and be done with it and you can do that here. You can’t in other games.

A treadmill implies multiple steps not one. At least for or five tiers of gear, not one tier of gear. So yeah, it’s not a treadmill.

Not a Guild Wars 2 releated topic and will soon be closed. Try Rift, maybe, it’s going free to play soon.

Yep I agree with that. Saying there’s a problem isn’t enough. You have to offer evidence of a problem, preferably video evidence.

Skarpa.8203:

How sad is this, that people must cheat at Crab Toss. Its hardly a difficult game.

Try it from Tasmania and say that again. You have easily a half second latency that prevents you from doing what you want to do even remotely when you want to do it. Others have complained about lag, but this is on top of the lag everyone else gets.

Not everyone lives in the states. Not everyone has the benefit of an immaculate connection and these games are heavily slanted to someone with no latency. Australians playing FPSs on American servers experience much of the same problems…much higher ping.

I’m not sure how fair it is to exclude people with geographical latency issues from getting achievements.

Martin The Brave.8731:

Vayne.8563:

My use of the term WoW clone is based on the WOW model of a raid-centric PvE end game, that is centered around an ever increasing gear treadmill that never ends. Where you need gear from X to get to Y. Gear from Y to get to Z. And you have to repeat that content over and over to get that gear to get to the next raid.

More to the point, it’s a skinner box model to keep people playing, and spending the subscription.

WoW clones are obviously people copying how WOW does things to make a part of the money that WoW makes. It’s quite obvious both Rift and SWToR went this route. Rift was more successful than SWToR but had a lower overhead, and didn’t need as much money to run.

In the end, though, Rift got most of it’s new players from WoW who wanted more of the same stuff but with a different, prettier skin.

In the end, I’ve played well over a dozen themepark MMOs and every one of them was pretty much the same on the level of raiding and gearing up for those end game offerings. Guild Wars 2 is different and that’s why I like it.

And you can see it on the forums. No end game. Not enough end game. Nothing to do at end game. Some of us don’t want end game. We like the game…why would we want it to end? lol

While you “Tried”, I don’t think you answered my questions in the depth I would have liked. Although you’re under no obligation I would like to see you address them more thoroughly, my main “Emphasis” was to coerce what “Elements” made a WoW clone. I think this will allow me to understand exactly what you are “Claiming”. Especially when you state that both SWTOR and Rift are clones of WoW, Which I would have to disagree; just because they share similarities doesn’t make them a replicate. Which even needs more explanation as we haven’t defined what WoW “Elements” have been replicated.

“Some of us don’t want end game. We like the game…why would we want it to end?lol” This isn’t a serious response is it? “End Game” is simply relevant content “Exclusive/Appropriate” for those who have reached max level. This content is usually “Difficult” and rewards players in a manner reflecting it’s challenge. While I wouldn’t say Guildwars 2 lacks “End Game” I would say that what is currently in game does not facilitate the role of being: Rewarding or challenging. (Maximally)

A clone, in the sense of a video game doesn’t mean a clone in the sense of human or genetic cloning. You’re trying to take the literal definition of a clone and apply it to a specialized area.

Take a look at SWToR. They added something to the WoW formula. They added a story, the kind of which Bioware was famous for. So it’s a hybrid of a bioware story and a WoW clone back end. Just about everything in the game can be found in WoW, down the way you progression SPvP.

Let’s look at Rift at launch (I can’t talk about it now because I don’t play it now). When you go into a battleground, you PvP with other people. You get certain benefits from your PvP level. So that as you play longer, you’re harder to kill and you can kill others more easily. The same was true in WoW PvP. The longer you play, the more skill you have but also the more in game advantage you have on top of your skill. New players would enter those arenas and die repeatedly because there was no way to stand against someone who had a higher rating. You couldn’t even damage them.

When I tried WoW PvP, I had the same experience. Guild Wars 2’s PvP is completely different.

The whole runnning back to your body from a graveyard is in WoW and Rift. This isn’t a self-evident truth that should be in all MMOs. This is something that was copied, directly, and not to the benefit of the game if you ask me.

The way quests work, down to the way dailies quests were given, including the faction reward for doing those quests was very much the same.

The dungeons, the way you grouped for them, the way loot was handled. Mob tagging, waiting for bosses to respawn.

People on the forums called Rift WoW 2.0 for a reason. Sure there was a layer of things added on top of the game to make it “different”. Rifts, which were eventually ignored by the playerbase (and had nothing really to do with the game anyway, they were like minigames) and zone wide events, which were better, but in the end, weren’t enough to make it more than a WoW clone.

Everyone throws in their own feature to make the game “theirs”. But when you strip away the excess, what the game boiled down to was WoW.

But there was a bug with drops that Anet acknowledged that lasted a long time. I’m not saying there is or there isn’t. But I’m not so fast to dismiss the possibilty. Obviously, someone would have to keep meticulous records over a long period of time filming every minute they were playing in order for such a complaint to have any proven validity.

I’m not so sure the OP is wrong here. I seem to be luckier than certain guildies on a regular basis. I mean like most of the time. I’m not sure why some people are luckier than others, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

You’d expect the RNG to balance eventually. Some people are saying that they aren’t getting the drops. Maybe they’re right.

One theory is that the DR isn’t releasing when people hit it. I never hit DR because I never stay long enough in one place. Again, I’m not saying it’s true, but I wouldn’t exclude the possibility so fast.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

^ hmmm i see. thanks for explaining! XD

“I dont’ see serious crab toss leagues being formed, do you?”
hmmm no. best attempt at that, that i have seen, is my guild members attempting to join the one room with lots of our guild members in it.

friends just want to get together in the same room for some fun.

easier if anet gave us a server browser.

It’s frustrating to not be able to get into a server with your team, but I can see why it was implemented without a browser. Because it’s not designed to be a team sport, it could easily be exploited by a guild of five guys all picking on guy number 6 and making his life hell. It’s practically a recipe for griefing.

I think overall, because of the guaranteed gold, meta events would end up being more profitable, even if you teleport to each one. WIth the overlay from gw2stuff.com, it’s pretty easy to track them and just follow the ring. Even after you do each of them once, it might STILL be more profitable to follow them around. I’m not sure about the last part though (because I don’t have enough interest to test it).

My use of the term WoW clone is based on the WOW model of a raid-centric PvE end game, that is centered around an ever increasing gear treadmill that never ends. Where you need gear from X to get to Y. Gear from Y to get to Z. And you have to repeat that content over and over to get that gear to get to the next raid.

More to the point, it’s a skinner box model to keep people playing, and spending the subscription.

WoW clones are obviously people copying how WOW does things to make a part of the money that WoW makes. It’s quite obvious both Rift and SWToR went this route. Rift was more successful than SWToR but had a lower overhead, and didn’t need as much money to run.

In the end, though, Rift got most of it’s new players from WoW who wanted more of the same stuff but with a different, prettier skin.

In the end, I’ve played well over a dozen themepark MMOs and every one of them was pretty much the same on the level of raiding and gearing up for those end game offerings. Guild Wars 2 is different and that’s why I like it.

And you can see it on the forums. No end game. Not enough end game. Nothing to do at end game. Some of us don’t want end game. We like the game…why would we want it to end? lol

killcannon.2576:

If you wish to be willfully obtuse, that is your choice. I can’t help you with that. Feel free to just make up whatever definition suits your reality.

Everyone knows what Free to Play means…no upfront cost, and paywalls for game content. Everyone knows what buy to play means- upfront cost, no paywalls for content. The day that GW2 starts putting up paywalls for game content outside of expansions-not that gimmicky stuff they do now- you can start measuring the pine box and buying the nails.

You’re being completely unreasonable. You can not expect box sales to pay for ongoing infinite content. It will NEVER happen. The cash shop is the only thing that continues to pay enough money into the game to make new content.

I don’t know about you but I spent my money on the game a year ago. During that year, there were a number of very nice content upgrades, not just holidays, but fractals and guild missions. I’ve liked some of the temporary content as well (but not all of it). There’s be a new PvP map changes to WvW, all sorts of changes.

Now, those changes didn’t get paid for by my $60 or $80 back in April of last year. That’s not a reasonable expectation. All that’s expected is that I can play the content that came in the box, which I can and have.

I’ve gotten 3000 plus hours out of that investment. For a similar investment in a single player game, which has a much lower budget, I might get 20-30 hours of play if I’m lucky.

You can say people expect, people believe, people know…but I think you’re wrong on this. I think people don’t expect devs to work for free. I think there’s enough content gating going on where people get it.

It’s like trailers that show CGI. No one expects those graphics inside the game, but most companies still spend a lot of money producing those trailers. People don’t expect ongoing free upgrades for a game they paid for a year ago. You might. But that’s not really an issue, because I don’t believe you’re in the majority.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

They’re chasing away the hard core farmers who complain on every forum in every game. If they all left, it wouldn’t substantially make that much of a difference. There aren’t as many of them as you seem to think.

How do you know its just hardcore farmers complaining?

Because if you’re not hard core, how vested in it would you be to worry about it? Hard-core farmers by definition would be the ones complaining. They’re the ones that have a real stake in farming. People who farm casually, there are a bunch in my guild, aren’t vested enough to scream at the forums.

Scrambles.2604:

anytime a tool is suggested to extend the ability of current features, you have:

a group that cries “doom” and the fostering of elitism. Most of their evidence lies in fantastic hypotheticals— “DPS meters will prevent me from joining groups and make me play a way i dont want”

And another group that recognizes the positive aspects, while downplaying the negative effects the tools will have on the community based.

yet, you never really from these mystical Elitists that are trying to ruin the game for everyone. I’m starting to believe they don’t exist, or simply don’t have the power or control over the game that some people would lead you to believe.

Most mystical elitists, as you put it, don’t consider themselves elitists. They think they’re perfectly fine. If you went and put up a thread targeting bigots, you wouldn’t expect people to put up their hands. Are you suggesting bigotry doesn’t exist?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

“crab toss isn’t SPvP”
^ but then why anet made it look like so? -_-;;;

i mean, our characters wear our sPvP armor in crab toss, or any other festive games
the 2 halloween ones and the 2 wintersday one.

and i think we earn glory (sPvP thing) while playing crab toss.
the exp bar is replaced with the sPvP rank up bar.

do we earn glory while playing crab toss? or keg brawl.

“it’s a fun minigame”
^ aye indeed its quite fun when played properly.

It’s PvP because you’re playing against other players. It’s not SPvP because aside from achievements it doesn’t track your stats. It was never meant to be played long term. There’s no observation mode, it doesn’t give you points to your glory, and it general it’s self contained.

You’re not even using your own skills, you’re using crab toss skills. It’s not team based it’s everyone for him/herself. So it’s demonstrably not SPvP. It’s clearly a mini game.

Just because something is player vs player, doesn’t mean its Spvp. The S for structured is a very specific format that awards glory and had tournaments and has an observation mode. Even if that mode is new, it was intended from day one.

I dont’ see serious crab toss leagues being formed, do you?

To be fair, most people only have experience with raids as done in wow and wow clones. When most people, not all people, ask for a raid, that’s the image they have in their minds. They don’t have another image in their mind because there are very few (if any) other images available. And if the Guild Wars 2 raid is substantively different from the raids they’re talking about, they won’t necessarily be satisified.

There are people who want a different kind of group content, a non-wow type raid, but they are by far the exception to the rule. Because people who think outside the box are the exception (or they wouldn’t be outside the box).

I have very little against group content made challenging and for larger groups. But I also believe the gaming community has been trained by years of not just wow, but wow clones. As such they’ve come to expect WoW style games. A lot of the dissatisfaction people experience with Guild Wars 2 is that it’s not a wow clone.

I didn’t like WoW, and I’m tired of every MMO coming out being a version of WoW more or less, that I’m tickled pink Guild Wars 2 isn’t a WoW clone. It has tons of flaws, as do most MMOs…but at least even with the flaws, it’s different enough from WoW for me to enjoy it.

Raids may start out as something that’s different from WoW raids, but as soon as raids enter the game, people will start wanting the better gear rewards that raids provided and they’ll want other people not to have them. Most hard core WoW players love being the haves, while most people in the game were the have nots. And that’s not really what Guild Wars 2 is about.

I can solo any normal mob quite easily on Southsun. The one except would be if you happened to run into a reef drake. Reef drakes hit you with confusion and if you’re not paying attention you kill yourself by using skills.

The idea of end zone content is that you need to know how to tackle things, not just fight one creature, run away and give up.

I can solo Southsun (at least normal mobs and most vets) on my ranger, my guardian, my mesmer, my warrior, my engineer and I know people who solo it on thieves and eles.

Some people want every mob in the game to be a walk in the park, but there needs to be a couple of harder zones for people who want challenge.

Trying once and failing doesn’t mean a zone isn’t doable. It means you gave up before you learned how to do it.

Darx.9842:

I enjoy farming as well.

Sometimes I dont want to group up, do events, read dialogues, get stressed out popping all my cooldowns and dodging my kitten off to stay alive.

Sometimes I just want to roam around killing things, and selling the loot I get. Whats wrong with that? It’s relaxing.

Actually nothing is wrong with farming. Are you tracking how much you make per hour, hitting the same spots again and again, and if it goes down you come and complain to the forums?

Because there’s farming and there’s FARMING.

If this was a permanent arena where people could get the title over a longer period of time, I’d say well, yeah. But I know for a fact that the odds are I’m never going to win a game of Crab Toss, just because of the latency I have here in Tasmania. Half the time when I go to swipe the crab from someone, they’re right next to each other on my screen and in a completely different spot on my wife’s screen which is right next to mine. The chances of me winning are neglible.

So a few people decided to cooperate in a game that doesn’t affect anything but achievement points that mean nothing anyway (and yes I’m on the leaderboards). Who cares?

Leave the arena, go into a different one, there are always plenty going and play the game. It’s really not that hard.

No instead you want to ruin the fun multiple people are having to get your achievement. I’m not thinking reporting people would amount to much. Though I agree people should play the game honestly, there are times when that’s not going to happen.

And let’s face it, crab toss isn’t SPvP, it’s a fun minigame. Even the OP isn’t taking it seriously, he was just there for the achievement just like they were. He could have easily switched arenas.

Calae.1738:

Seeing this company chase away their own customer’s is quite funny to watch actually.

I hope they keep doing this.

They’re chasing away the hard core farmers who complain on every forum in every game. If they all left, it wouldn’t substantially make that much of a difference. There aren’t as many of them as you seem to think.

Fortus.6175:

Jski.6180:

Fortus.6175:

Jski.6180:

Fortus.6175:

guys, i dont care about the legendary, this isnt about that, im talking about the mats and crafting stuff and the lack of ways to get it other than Orr and others. Also that im pretty much forced into those high level places because going to low lvl places only gimps me

So you want low level mobs to drop high level mats? That is a very bad idea everyone would play the lowest level of mobs all the time and the high levels zones will have no one in them.

then downscale me to that…. we are already downscaled, also, lower rate of drops, but like I said, tired of Orr. and thr suncove is good, but after a while it gets tiresome

There a lot more then Orr that can drop T6 atm even at the start of GW2 there where a few places and Orr was not the best. The down scaling would have to be much harder on players to the point where you gain no befit beyond having more skills when going to a lower level zone if you want some what better drops. In the end the higher level zones will still work out to be better drop and farming zones then the lower level.

once again, you are missing the point,i dont want to farm, i dont want to grind, i want to roam around, kill a couple of stuff, do events, hlp my guildies, low lvl people, or just screw around and not feel like i have wasted my day when I end the day with a couple of cracked bones and lvl-125 crafting materials….

I do all that, and I end up at the end of the day with gold. Not mats, but gold. And sometimes my guildies do go into high level areas. Some days I make a gold or two, some days I make a lot more. Since I’m not rushing it’s fine.

Are you saying going into early areas you don’t make money. Because I may not get as many drops but I kill a whole lot faster and at the end of the day, even selling the bags from those low level encouters, or the stuff in them, adds up. In fact, farming and selling the low level bags is pretty profitable. Not as profitable as a high level bag individually, but when you factor in how much faster they are to farm, it’s quite good for me.

I almost never use a dungeon exploit, the exception being CoF path 1 which I ceased considering a dungeon a long time ago. I don’t generally like to run by mobs. I don’t generally like to skip content by jumping around/up/over things. I like to play the game as it was designed.

Because I don’t play or do dungeons for reward (except maybe finishing a path for the dungeon master title), I don’t worry about killing something that might not be rewarding.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a vanquisher title which you could only get by killing EVERYTHING in a dungeon. That might get some people playing the game as intended.

chronus.1326:

maddoctor.2738:

chronus.1326:

The common sense in these people are just completely missing.

You mean the common sense of people who were asking irrelevant questions on a livestream about a new guild puzzle? Yes it is missing, I logged for a little while during the livestream and I was annoyed by all those questions, they were deleted for a reason, you want to ask for other features, do it through proper means, the livestream was about the new guild puzzle and the guild puzzle alone, it just takes a little bit of common sense to understand what kind of question you should be making.

Draconic dictatorship? They were doing their job keeping the chat clean of irrelevant questions.

That argument may hold up in court where the judges are the representatives of law, but not here in Babylon where the judges are the people whose comments were deleted.

Values only exist where people acknowledge them. That stream was interesting, but it had no acknowleged value next to the questions that people wanted to ask.

People wanted answers, they did not get them on the forums, they did not get them from mails. They used the closest medium in proximity where direct contact with the devs was avalable. Because they did not get their anaswers again, this further adds fuel to dissatisfaction.

Vayne.8563:

And the story…well, the story in Guild Wars 1 wasn’t all that. I don’t know why people think the story was so great. Take Prophecies. People complained about Rurik. They hated him. A lot of people were happy he died. Anyone with half a brain new the white mantle was evil…why didn’t we? Are our characters that stupid? I knew Vizier Khilbron was a mistake too, why didn’t my character.

Who the hell cares about Rurik? Rukik was like 10% of the story. He dies at the end of the very first Arc. The story had the main villain (Vizier) trick you into allying with him so you can kill the good guys (the Mursaat) who are protecting the doomsday door so the villain can get his hands on the Titans. You worked on the bad side since you left Kryta. It was an awesome story.

It wasn’t an awesome story. It was a pedestrian story. I feel this way because I read books and books have awesome stories. Video games have sub par stories. There was too much filler. Too much stuff that didn’t need to happen. Too many things put in there just to make the game longer. All the talk of ascension in the Crystal desert and when you finally ascend, which is supposed to make you more powerful so you can face the White Mantle….nothing from ascension had anything at all to do with facing the white mantle. It allowed you to enter the Underworld and Fissure of Woe, it allowed you to change your secondary profession. Neither of which were required to defeat the white mantle.

It was a better story than most MMOs, I’ll give you that. But it was also, in many ways, a flawed story.

I don’t play this game for “reward” other than I’m enjoying myself, which is my reward. What other rewards I get, whatever they are are fine, because they’re not my main reason for playing.

I’m working on a second legendary. It might take me six months it might take me a year it might take me five years. Why do I care, if I"m having fun?

I used to watch a lot of baseball. Sometimes my team would win, sometimes my team would lose. Sometimes my team would lose five games in a row. I didn’t enjoy watching the team lose, but I couldn’t get my money back for tickets.

MMOs are the only game I know where people actually insist on being rewarded in a timely manner. As long as there are smaller goals to go far, whatever they are, even just the living story, and I make slow and steady progress toward my long term goal, I’m quite happy.

killcannon.2576:

Geotherma.2395:

killcannon.2576:

TheProphetOmega.3596:

@killcannon you say
“Customer feedback is important, one of the big three. Feedback, metrics, and listening (or communication). These three things are the key to improving any service. And an MMO is not a point of sale thing, but a service.”

snip

oh and about that comment on entropy, well its not that some people “just like entropy” and if we define entropy as the wearing down of the component parts of a CLOSED system because of heat, then everything is in a way moving towards entropy, change is the way the universe moves forward, that change means things will eventually wear down and pass away, nothing is eternal, we all die in the end, so moving on is actually the most efficient way of change, attrition can and has won wars, but its not as efficient as say, nuking or just letting things go.

You also bought any updates, patches, and people that came along with it. That was their choice in going for the model they chose, and it was and is a very good model. It made many buy the game who may not have otherwise.

Free advice: Don’t go with the ToS argument, it comes off really badly.

It always makes me wonder why you say this. I’m curious why you think the box sales means we paid for all future content and it should be free? I buy a car, I get the car as is, I may get a warranty but I don’t get lifetime repair. In a free to play game I get lifetime updates/content unless they state otherwise. But as a business how can you say that the box sales is enough to foster endless updates and expansions? If this were the case, then removing the gem store altogether would mean we could just go on getting updates forever right? because we paid for the box? I just don’t get this, maybe I’m misunderstanding it, but you say it often. Imo Gem sales are what pays for future content, after basic deductions for salary, overhead etc are taken care of. Granted they have a larger pool of money to work with, but surviving off of original sales as a model to survive just seems silly. You need after purchase revenue in any business for longevity, and that’s the purpose of the gem store. So when we support that store we are paying for content in the future. When you say the box sale means we deserve everything free forever without ever contributing just sounds entitled. But again, maybe I’m misunderstanding.

I almost typed out my reasoning behind my opinion, then thought better of it. If you want to know the difference in the payment models for mmo’s, go google it.

As it stands, if you feel like supporting them over and above the box sale, go for it. If there is something I want in the gemstore I buy it, but it’s because I want to, not because I feel an obligation. It was their choice to go the buy to play model, if or when they decide to eschew this model for the free to play model, or subscription is entirely their choice as well.

Free to play means free to play
Buy to play means buy to play
Pay to play means pay to play

What kind of game is this to you? Because it sounds like you are saying it’s a pay to play game.

This isn’t quite true. Buy to play means buy to play what’s in the box at launch, not unlimited free content moving forward. It’s like you’re not looking at the industry itself. You say free to play means free to play. Yet SWToR went free to play and you can’t play it. You can play PARTS of it. To play the rest of it you have to pay. They continue to have optional subscriptions and you can pay to unlock content. What it really is is free to play part of the game, but not all of it. The same is true of Lotro and DDO and many other games.

Anet was crystal clear about this before launch. They said the business plan on which this game was built included the box sales and cash shop revenue to fund future upgrades. They said the cash shop would be more a part of the game than it was in Guild Wars 1, where it was added after the fact and didn’t figure into the business plan.

Even if you just think logically, box sales of any game that you only buy once have to slow down. Most games sell 90% of their total sales in the first three months of existence. So yeah, the cash shop was always part of the business plan and they said so. It’s pay to play because when you buy the box, you can play all the content in the box. It doesn’t entitle you do to free content forever.

In fact WoW sells you the game, charges you a subscription, has a cash shop and STILL charges for expansions.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Amadan.9451:

whoever says that most part of getting a legendary is playing the game normally except for lodestone, i want to know how normally playing you can get 750 pile of crystalline dust to craft bifrost…
because in my normal gameplay i managed to have 100ish and this when loot and farming weren’t nerfed…
after the nerf i had to buy all of it and/or had it from friends

But you’ve made gold and you can buy mats.

Someone still has to farm those mats. And i’d have to farm gold, because if i were just to “play normally”, then the prices would rise faster still, and i’d be always behind. And if you nerf the farming spots, then you’d get the current Crystalline Dust problem, where the supply is nowhere close to the demand.

Vayne.8563:

In most MMOs the road to top level gear is raiding. Period. End of story. They wanted people to be able to level and attain gear multiple ways, no matter their play style. So you could get gear through karma by doing events. Or WvW. Or just doing dungeons over and over. Or just by doing dailies. That’s what play your own way meant.

Except they abandoned that approach when they introduced ascended. Karma and crafting would not get you those. No amount of dailies or guild missions or WvW would get you an ascended backpack. No amount of dungeon running will get you even one piece of ascended eq… unless it’s Fractals (and even then, no earrings or amulets for you). face it, it’s no longer the “play your own way within the framework we provided”. It’s “play this content, and this one, ooh, and this one. And do not even try to skip on anything, we can’t have that.”. I’m still waiting for WvW-only ascended pieces. Or some that will be locked to some new niche gameplay.

They didn’t abandon anything. it’s STILL different from other games. You’re not locked out of doing content by not having specific ascended gear. You can do it all with exotics without any problem at all. The only exception being the fractals and that’s self-sustaining since the stuff you need to higher level fractals actually drops in the fractals.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

Thanks for this. Reasonable explanations like this are sort of what’s missing from the dialogue between Anet and the fans. I don’t know too many people who could argue against this.

projectcedric.6951:

Vayne.8563:

I’m assume that the metrics used to nerf a specific farming spot are pretty much locked in. Not every farming spot is going to be nerfed, but there’s an acceptable amount of profit per hour that makes the game a game. When it gets too high they nerf it.

I’m not seeing the problem here.

This is a valid point… if this was the first month that the game came out. Its already more than a year, man! If they were to nerf it, they should have nerfed it early. Now the market is hyper-inflated, too many people have already amassed too much money from pre-nerf, and even more so from the pre-nerf Nov 2012.

The “acceptable amount of profit per hour” is based on fixed content and the in-game economy. You cant tell people that it’s legitimate to decrease the gold-per-hour from content when that same farming before hand has increased the prices of things pre-nerf.

That’s why in-game economies are quite sensitive stuffs to handle. At the very least, they should decrease it very gradually over time, so that prices and new players have a chance to adapt. Not a dramatic change overnight – something like half of the original rate of gold acquisition or less. That’s kitten brutal, man.

The idea is more like this. A farming spot is discovered, a few people use it. It’s not throwing the balance of the game out too much. Everyone starts to use it and suddenly it starts to have an affect. They nerf it when it has that affect.

The problem is people get attached to farming spots. I like to farm HERE. Every time a spot gets nerfed someone finds a new one anyway. It changes up the game for people. It’s like the changes to skills in games. If no skill ever changed most people would get bored. Changes to skills change the meta, change the game. Farming really doesn’t have a meta, but more people will bore themselves to death and burn themselves out farming the same spot than would like to admit it.

And those that do farm one spot, over and over again into oblivion are a minority, possibly a vast minority. It’s too boring for most people to do.

You consider it brutal because you only look at how much you can make an hour, not what’s good for the game. I consider it appropriate because I believe if it’s better for the game, it’s better for me.

@killcannon

Not everyone is as reasonable as you are. A round table and communicating with fans is a recipe for disaster.

Even with the ascended stuff, I don’t think ANY amount of talking to fans would have resulted in anything different. Anet really believed some vertical progression was necessary at that time, and most of the long time hard core die hard fans wouldn’t have accepted it no matter what Anet said. I really believe this.

How Anet handled the roll out with the fractals was probably a mistake, but I’m pretty sure the hard core Guild Wars 2 fans that didn’t want any vertical progression at all would have made the same scene.

Anet’s own testers told them exactly how they felt about it, and how the fans would feel about it. But Anet made that change anyway, in their minds for the good of the game.

In the end, communication is only useful if most people you’re trying to communicate with are rational and reasonable. I’ve seen no evidence of this from the forums.

I’m assume that the metrics used to nerf a specific farming spot are pretty much locked in. Not every farming spot is going to be nerfed, but there’s an acceptable amount of profit per hour that makes the game a game. When it gets too high they nerf it.

I’m not seeing the problem here.