Guild Wars 2

Yeah I don’t recommend my guild to everyone because frankly, we’re not for everyone. We’re on average a bit older, a bit slower, a bit more leisurely than most guilds. We don’t “run” dungeons we play through them. We take our time with stuff. We get there in the end, but we just have fun doing it.

A lot of people find us too casual for their tastes.

Guild missions are available to anyone who wants to do them. Many servers have public guild missions. You rep a guild for the time you need to do the mission and then you never rep it again. It’s like a temporary invite just to do the content.

Entire small guilds take advantage of this. My own guild has taken smaller guilds along on guild missions just so they can get that content.

I don’t see how this content is locked off from people, unless they simply refuse to do what they need to to get the content. Repping another guild for an hour twice a week isn’t all that hard.

LHound.8964:

Temporary content by default are not bad. The problem is to define what should stay permanent within the temporary content.

-Seasonal events (Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc..):
This events should stay temporary as they are meant to bring the hollidays and other noticble RL events into the game. They aren’t tied to the Lore of the game and they surely are meant to be played on that times solely!

-Living Story type events:
While the content that is the backbone of the “Living Story” should not stay permanent (living story steps), the content that is not directly attached to the story, should stay. Taking the Flame & Frost Living story, the dungeon should have stayed. It may be slightly different to accommodate the Living story conclusion (Like 2 paths – The first dredges exclusive and the second Flame Legion exclusive as their alliance have been broken, or not).

The reason why the content doesn’t stay is because the more you fracture the playerbase, the less people there are playing. SAB and the new dungeon kept a lot of people out of the open world, which is not really Anet’s goal.

serialkicker.5274:

Vayne of course the playerbase is devived, because all mmos are the same. They are made to suck money from people as much as possible. I’m fairly new to mmos, but i’ve tried bunch of them and i’ve read a lot about them and they are all prety much the same. The only difference is graphic and combat system. Quest system is always, go talk to this guys, so he can tell you to go talk to the other guys, so that guy can give you a mission to kill few monsters and then come back with the loot. And that’s it. Whole game is a big grind. You grind mainly for higher level gear so you can kill higher level monsters.
Some players enjoy that, they enjoy grinding, but a lot of players will get bored in a week or two. That’s why a big chunk of playerbase is switching from game to game. Try one, meh same kitten as one before, let’s try that new one, might be something new, meh same kitten, let’s try next one…
Gw2 is not like other mmos, but it definetly lacks content and is in a need of some fixes and balancement.

If people didn’t like this, WoW wouldn’t still have 8.3 million subscribers. That’s a lot of people. In fact, look at the popularity of games like Farmville, which have considerably more players. And that’s pure grind.

I agree this game needs work. I also think that work takes a lot longer than people think it will. Not just because of resources not dedicated to it, but because there are so many things that need attention. LFG tool, well yeah we need that. More viable builds. We need that. Stuff like the builds require mega long term testing, so yeah it takes time. And you can’t really change everything at once because then you open the flood gates. Last month the did some work on pets. They’re better. Not awesome but much better than before. Now we see how rangers do with that change and how it works into everything else before changing the next thing.

There’s plenty of work that needs to be done in this game. But it’s still the new content that keeps people playing.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

@killcannon

As I’ve said, and illustrated, people don’t just gather toward rewards. People gather in places where there is virtually no reward in Guild Wars 1, like Kamadan and Shing Jea Monastary. Why those places? They’re not rewarding. Nothing around them is rewarding.

You postulate people gather for reward, but I postulate that even if rewards were equal EVERYWHERE, people would still gather. It happens in every MMO not because of the mechanics of MMOs, but because of human nature.

Again, why did people gather in those places in Guild Wars 1, if it’s all about rewards?

Guild Wars 1 is not an MMO, why do you keep bringing up guild wars 1? It wasn’t open world, you maxed out at playing with other people at ten or twelve players, you didn’t even have to play with other players when you had an ai party. None of the designs there reflect anything about mmo’s.

You may as well discuss any single player rpg. There just isn’t enough MMO in GW1 to make contrasts or comparisons to an open world mmo where the population can play and see each other. There was a different focus for GW1. It doesn’t take much to see it, all you have to do is look at the hundreds of threads from GW1 fans hating on gw2, saying how much it isn’t like gw1, saying how different this game is. It’s because this game is an MMO and GW1 wasn’t.

I feel like I’m arguing with Clay now.

That’s funny, I was thinking the same thing about Clay.

It’s not just Guild Wars 1, it’s EVERY MMO. Lotro had a place where people gathered, a couple. If you want to the Prancing Pony, people gathered there. I was a low end zone. No real reason to be there, but that’s where people went? Why? I don’t know.

People always find places to gather…in every MMO…and every multiplayer game too. I used Guild Wars 1 as an example because I know it better than any other game. But the logic is true. Ask anyone who plays any MMO if there aren’t gathering spots that have nothing to do with rewards. Stormwind an dOggrimar in WoW, for example.

serialkicker.5274:

Vayne.8563:

serialkicker.5274:

i don’t know

Then it’s hard to be convincing. I think there are less people playing this game than you think. The game sold over 3 million copies. We know a lot of people don’t log in all the time and many left the game. We also know that you have to divide the population into server parks. Nothing that happens in Europe affects the US servers and vice versa.

Your situation might work if you have millions of people playing, but I really don’t think that’s the case. If players are divided evenly between Europe and the US and there’s a million people playing that’s 500,000 per server park.

That’s not a lot of people when you divide by servers, and then figure out how many people play casually and don’t log in every day or week to week.

My guild has a hundred people in it, but only 30 or so long in with any regularity. If that holds true for the rest of the population, start doing the math.

If you spread the population out into every zone you MIGHT see people on the busiest hours, but everyone else the rest of the time is completely screwed.

Well, I’ve seen games that did poorly at release and they fixed the game and people came back and new people came too.
So, for start, anet should fix the kitten bugs already and balancing issues.
I quit the game for almost 3 months myself and just got back last week. And what i see? Almost every reason why i quit is still there. It really saddens me. And people are reporting bugs and giving suggestion and they barely do something about it. I know some things takes more time, but there are tons of stuff that could be fixed so easily and quick and it wasn’t.

So, if they would fix the game and add some good content that will not last for like a week and then got boring, then people would come back i’m sure.

Which MMOs would those be? I’m curious.

Im Mudbone.1437:

I say put the original Guild Wars staff/crew back in charge, then we might start seeing good content again.

Because everyone who tried it loved the original Guild Wars (coughs).

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

serialkicker.5274:

i don’t know

Then it’s hard to be convincing. I think there are less people playing this game than you think. The game sold over 3 million copies. We know a lot of people don’t log in all the time and many left the game. We also know that you have to divide the population into server parks. Nothing that happens in Europe affects the US servers and vice versa.

Your situation might work if you have millions of people playing, but I really don’t think that’s the case. If players are divided evenly between Europe and the US and there’s a million people playing that’s 500,000 per server park.

That’s not a lot of people when you divide by servers, and then figure out how many people play casually and don’t log in every day or week to week.

My guild has a hundred people in it, but only 30 or so long in with any regularity. If that holds true for the rest of the population, start doing the math.

If you spread the population out into every zone you MIGHT see people on the busiest hours, but everyone else the rest of the time is completely screwed.

So, there are even less people playing than others think? Does this not tell you something of the decisions that have been made and are continuing to be made?

Maybe it’s time to change that then, instead of saying “Well, let’s just continue to do the same thing we’ve been doing, because that’s working out great!”

No, it doesn’t tell me anything, other than this is one of the most competitive gaming genres available. The MMO field is MASSIVELY overcrowded. There are so many games. So many new releases. And unlike other games. you’re not expected to play them for 20 hours and leave, so the problem compounds itself.

There hasn’t been a truly successful MMO in years, except for WoW and Eve. Rift started out okay, but they’re going free to play now due to lack of interest. And not only are there tons of MMOs out, there are tons of FREE MMOs out there.

You’re comparing a buy to play game to a free to play game, in a genre that many people still won’t embrace. I don’t see why you think that the problem is Guild Wars 2, when the problem has been every single MMO in the last five years….again except Eve.

Everyone is losing Market Share. There are so few MMOs that have a million players left. As more come out, the player base becomes more and more divided. This has nothing to do with design decisions. This has to do with new and shiny. Neverwinter was new and shiny and people will go check it out…particularly because it’s free. That’s the nature of the game.

Guild Wars 2 has done well to keep the player base it has, but it’s not millions of players. It was never going to be. If a huge superpower like SWToR and go free to play and not keep players, if WOW has lost well over a million people since the release of MoP (almost 2 million), if competition keeps coming out, how do you expect any game to maintain millions of players?

I think Anet wants to change the game. I think they want to make the temporary content so prevalent that people will come back just to look for it. They’ll keep an eye in. Obviously this won’t work for people like the OP, but it might well work for a lot of others.

If nothing else, it’s an interesting experiment.

@killcannon

As I’ve said, and illustrated, people don’t just gather toward rewards. People gather in places where there is virtually no reward in Guild Wars 1, like Kamadan and Shing Jea Monastary. Why those places? They’re not rewarding. Nothing around them is rewarding.

You postulate people gather for reward, but I postulate that even if rewards were equal EVERYWHERE, people would still gather. It happens in every MMO not because of the mechanics of MMOs, but because of human nature.

Again, why did people gather in those places in Guild Wars 1, if it’s all about rewards?

serialkicker.5274:

i don’t know

Then it’s hard to be convincing. I think there are less people playing this game than you think. The game sold over 3 million copies. We know a lot of people don’t log in all the time and many left the game. We also know that you have to divide the population into server parks. Nothing that happens in Europe affects the US servers and vice versa.

Your situation might work if you have millions of people playing, but I really don’t think that’s the case. If players are divided evenly between Europe and the US and there’s a million people playing that’s 500,000 per server park.

That’s not a lot of people when you divide by servers, and then figure out how many people play casually and don’t log in every day or week to week.

My guild has a hundred people in it, but only 30 or so long in with any regularity. If that holds true for the rest of the population, start doing the math.

If you spread the population out into every zone you MIGHT see people on the busiest hours, but everyone else the rest of the time is completely screwed.

serialkicker.5274:

I don’t think so.. Imagine all the people that are mainly just sitting at dungeons, lion’s arch and other cities and maybe even people that left the game because there is not much to do… if all those people would go out in the zones, i think you could spread them and there would still be quite a chunk of players everywhere…

Tell me, how many people do you think are on each server?

bewhatever.2390:

Vayne.8563:

bewhatever.2390:

killcannon.2576:

Dungeon content is also designed for multiple people, but is available to be soloed or ran however you want in whatever kind of party you want.

Just because something is designed in a certain manner does not mean it should not be available to anyone.

CoF p1 has a step which requires 5 people

Concur that small guilds should be able to attempt any content. The game is, of course, free to have content which cannot be completed by a small number of people, no matter how good they are. But small guilds like mine should at least be able to see it and try.

How big is your guild?

4

So you want content made for big guilds to scale down so you and your three buddies can do it (when the whole game otherwise was designed for you?)

It seems unrealistic to me at best. Any MMO is going to make it so that guilds have some kind of advantage for being guilds. Obviously the system is designed for a larger group than four to be a guild, because you can make groups of 4.

Managing a large guild is hard work, often unrewarding. More than one guild leader has walked away after throwing their hands up in the air. I frequently feel this way myself. If I could get the benefits of doing everything with a much smaller guild, I might….but 4 people?

There should be plenty of stuff for you to do in game without guild missions and if you want to do them, almost every server has public guild missions. You four could even come to my guild, rep for only the time the missions are live, get your personal rewards and leave, without ever otherwise participating.

That’s my point….you wouldn’t see people everywhere you go. These zones are HUGE. If there were 12 people in a zone your odds of running into them are very very small.

Let’s say there are 1000 people playing on a server at the same time. Let’s say 25% of them are in WvW. That leaves 750. Maybe another 100 are PvPing. That’s 650, and maybe another 50 in LA. That’s 600. These are all made up numbers, but you get the idea. That’s 600 people split evenly over 25 zones.

That’s 24 people per zone…max. That’s not a lot at all. With the way zones are designed, some in the water, some on land, some in caves, you’re not all that likely to see people. Far more to the point is what happens on the off hours. People who live in Australia, people who work nights…now you end up with like maybe 3 or 4 people in a zone. It’s just not enough.

MMOs go through ebbs and flows. There are a lot more people playing on the day new content is released and many drift away again until new content is released again. That means less people even than that.

Without the new content drawing people back, I think you’d have a very lonely world…much lonlier than it is right now.

You’re not the first person to complain about temporary content in a game. You probably won’t be the last. But it seems like this is the direction Anet has decided to go.

I’m of a mixed mind about it. Anyway, some of the stuff will be staying behind on Southsun when this event ends, or so they say.

dimgl.4786:

ArenaNet unfortunately has diehard fans that will play goalie and are willing to throw money at them no matter what decisions they or their publishers make. Even with those 300+ employees, bad management can ruin any company. And what you’re seeing is the product of bad management, plain and simple.

Guild Wars surely was NOT a perfect game… It definitely improved as the years went by. But I think that Guild Wars was in better condition than its successor.

I don’t disagree with this. I think the company is probably badly managed. That’s what happens when you leave the artists in charge. lol

@morrolan

“It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill;”

<bold>And it doesn’t. There’s no treadmill here. Even if you think Ascended gear is hard to get (and it’s really not), there’s still no treadmill. A treadmill implies you have to keep at it all the time. You’ve clearly never played World of Warcraft or Rift. In order for you to be forced to grind, you first need to be locked out of content. Considering I can do all content (except for high level fractals) in rares, I can categorically state this is true. No gear TREADMILL exists in Guild Wars 2.</bold>

“In addition to great storyline and important player choices, another hallmark of great RPGs is that they create a world that feels real and alive. Let’s say a village is being terrorized by bandits. You don’t want to find out about that because there’s a villager standing there motionless with an exclamation mark over his head who says when you click on him, “Help, we’re being terrorized by bandits.” You want to find out like you would in GW2: because the bandits are attacking, chasing villagers through the streets, slaying them and setting their houses on fire. You can stand up for the villagers, or you can watch their village burn to the ground and then deal with the consequences. We’ve worked hard to create a living, dynamic world for you, where there’s always something new to do.”

<bold>This is 100% true. I’ve watched things invade and take over a village. You know the pipes outside of Divinities reach. When the bandits attack them, if you don’t fight them off, they destroy the pipes. You see it happening. I’m not sure what you think here is a lie.</bold>

“Of course GW2 has great support for parties, but they just don’t feel as necessary as they do in other MMOs,”

<bold>And they’re not necessary for 90% of the game, because you can play with people not in your party. So this statement is true. </bold>

“Finally, since combat is such a core part of the gameplay of any MMO, we’ve put a lot of emphasis into rethinking combat. So much of traditional MMO combat is rote and repetitive. You execute the same strategy over and over again, just augmented over time with better and better gear. After a while it starts to feel like you’re playing a spreadsheet. Combat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceral. So we’ve put a huge focus on strengthening our combat, giving the player limitless choices, and providing the thrill and joy of being in combat.

<bold>Yep, this is true. Combat is definitely more visceral here than in just about any other MMO. And in every other MMO, I have a rotation, in Guild Wars 2, I don’t. This is not a lie.</bold>

The original GW featured a CCG-like skill system that allowed each player to discover unique combos and new strategies. Theoretically every Elementalist in the game could approach combat with a different strategy. In fact players found thousands of interesting strategies over the years, most of which our designers never anticipated, which is always the sign of a flexible system.
GW2 shares this flexible skill system. "

<bold>This isn’t a lie…the system is flexible. It’s also not finished. There’s work to go on it, certainly but there’s no way to construe this as a lie, not even using the loosest sense of the word.</bold>

“Then we add environmental weapons to mix up combat even more. In the original GW you’d sometimes find a catapult or trebuchet that you could take over and fire at enemies. That’s one type of environmental weapon, and in GW2 we have dozens more. If a Stone Elemental throws a boulder at you, pick it up and throw it back. Or as an Elementalist, use that boulder to create a meteor storm”

<bold>Again, this isn’t a lie. There are tons of environmental weapons in the game. You haven’t found any?</bold>

“It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

<bold>And this isn’t a lie. I’m having fun. Lots of other people seem to have having fun.

If there have been changes to the game (and there has), that doesn’t mean there’s any lying involved. There’s nothing here that isn’t actually true, it’s just your perception of it is different from that of other people.

Some people think this game has the best combat of any MMO…I’m one of them. If you don’t like that, it doesn’t make this statement untrue.

Anyway, lying implies intent. MMOs change ALL THE TIME. And nothing here is particularly different from what exists in game now. </bold>

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Not one of these quotes is from the manifesto.

Edit: And I disagree with most of your assessements about this stuff being true or not anyway.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Design_Manifesto

Ah, okay…most people refer to the video, the MMO Manifesto, which came out way before this. I probably read this when it came out and don’t remember seeing anyone talk about it, but I’ll go through what you said and respond individually to the points I disagree with. There were a few.

Astral Projections.7320:

I hope they make laurels easier to get or make ascended items easier. This system is bad enough for people who only play one toon. For those with alts who want to get ascended jewelry, it’s punishing. You need 180 laurels for just one toon. That’s 4.5 months, if you get a laurel every day and get the monthly. And if you don’t spend the laurels on any other items.

Guild missions and fractals, of course, are also available. Even if you don’t like fractals, guild missions are definitely another way to get them. Getting rings in Fractals is pretty easy, and the loot drops are some of the best in the game.

Mathias.9657:

Valanga.5942:

Sky.4356:

Would you buy the next expansion? Why or why not.

No way.

Why should a buy more gambling, more RNG, more autoattack-semi afk “world events”, more facerollable contents and more vertical progression?

And by the time ANet will throw out an expansion, Elder Scrolls Online and Wildstar well be already released and at least for me, GW2 will be long forgotten…

I feel the same, going ESO but if it was Cantha expansion I would buy it, just to see…

I really hope ESO doesn’t put skins in RNG chests, or a lot of people are going to be very annoyed.

Blackmoon.6837:

Sorry, should have stated that I’m looking for a North American server.

It just feels like everyone on my server is too concerned about rewards. It’s like they completely ignore the fact that it’s a video “game” and simply relish in this elitist battle for who can achieve the best rewards the fastest. If their focus isn’t rewards then it’s WvW, both of which I’m am not looking for.

Just a crowd of people who enjoy the lore, characters, landscape and the thrill of adventure etc.

Tarnished Coast is where you want to be, preferably with a decent guild, because there are many of us out here who share your values.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

Okay prove it. Show me.

“It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill;”

“In addition to great storyline and important player choices, another hallmark of great RPGs is that they create a world that feels real and alive. Let’s say a village is being terrorized by bandits. You don’t want to find out about that because there’s a villager standing there motionless with an exclamation mark over his head who says when you click on him, “Help, we’re being terrorized by bandits.” You want to find out like you would in GW2: because the bandits are attacking, chasing villagers through the streets, slaying them and setting their houses on fire. You can stand up for the villagers, or you can watch their village burn to the ground and then deal with the consequences. We’ve worked hard to create a living, dynamic world for you, where there’s always something new to do.”

“Of course GW2 has great support for parties, but they just don’t feel as necessary as they do in other MMOs,”

“Finally, since combat is such a core part of the gameplay of any MMO, we’ve put a lot of emphasis into rethinking combat. So much of traditional MMO combat is rote and repetitive. You execute the same strategy over and over again, just augmented over time with better and better gear. After a while it starts to feel like you’re playing a spreadsheet. Combat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceral. So we’ve put a huge focus on strengthening our combat, giving the player limitless choices, and providing the thrill and joy of being in combat.

The original GW featured a CCG-like skill system that allowed each player to discover unique combos and new strategies. Theoretically every Elementalist in the game could approach combat with a different strategy. In fact players found thousands of interesting strategies over the years, most of which our designers never anticipated, which is always the sign of a flexible system.

GW2 shares this flexible skill system. "

“Then we add environmental weapons to mix up combat even more. In the original GW you’d sometimes find a catapult or trebuchet that you could take over and fire at enemies. That’s one type of environmental weapon, and in GW2 we have dozens more. If a Stone Elemental throws a boulder at you, pick it up and throw it back. Or as an Elementalist, use that boulder to create a meteor storm”

“It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

Not one of these quotes is from the manifesto.

Edit: And I disagree with most of your assessements about this stuff being true or not anyway.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

So the “white knights” are wrong and you’re right. Because your friends looked on busier servers.

First of all, right now all the action and I mean all the action is on South Sun. So if you didn’t look there since the event started, well, then you’re missing where the people are.

Because you know…new content, people go to check it out.

Do you have any idea of how many Southsun overflow servers there are?

Secondly, you dont’ have to be a white knight to see there are some highly populated servers out there. If you can’t find them you’re not looking. But again, right after a patch, go to the new content, because that’s what everyone is checking out.

It’s kind of cruddy that all the action is on Southsun, though. His complaint is still valid that there weren’t people out in the world to do DE’s with and that zones look and feel completely barren.

Also, his complaints of the grind-like system and issues that have been around since launch (and even before then)are still valid.

Well, yes and no. It’s like any MMO. You put in a new dungeon in an MMO and everyone will be hanging around that dungeon, because it’s new. Everyone wants to do new content.

This is human nature. I used to be involved in the publishing industry and most books sell 90% of all the copies they’ll ever sell during the first three months after release. It’s just the way people are. They want to see the new stuff.

In a week or two, they’ll have seen the new stuff and slowly drift back to the rest of the world. It’s already happening slowly.

So is it really a legit complaint? They only way to stop it is to not release new stuff at all.

This is not like any other mmo. This game is focused on Journey, not end game. 90% of all content is in the leveling process. There is no endgame progression, and first impressions in the leveling zones make all the difference in order to keep a stable population. There are no reasons in this game to forgive a leveling process without players, in most other MMO’s you have end game to look forward to if you didn’t have the players to play with as you level. Here you have 2 hours of content a month, and farming. Large guilds can offer some content as well, but this leaves out every single player who doesn’t want to be in a large guild (exactly what raids do in other mmo’s)

The same arguments that may fly in other MMO’s don’t work here, because there is no end game. There is no excuse or prize waiting at the end. There just is, what is, and that’s all.

I disagree with this statement. You can argue this is a different MMO, but human nature is still the same, even if this were a martian designed MMO and completely different. As long as you put humans together somewhere, they’re going to gather. Even if it makes no sense for them to gather there.

People gravitate to the most populated servers, and then then most populated towns on those servers. We’re social animals. There are individual exceptions but in every MMO, people find a place to gather. Even in Guild Wars 1 there were gathering points. I mean not a whole lot of people gathered at Yak’s Bend or Sardelic Sanitarium. They were always empty. Why? Because everyone was in LA or Kamadan.

KC was never a big gathering place, but Shing Jea island was? Why? No idea. But it’s what humans do. Anet can’t control that.

I’m pretty sure if they make every zone universally rewarding, people would still gather in hubs. And I’m also pretty sure if they did this and people didn’t gather, the population would be spread way too thin to make a difference.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne: And how do you propose to make EVERY zone more appealing. In fact, I’ll go one better. If Anet makes every zone more appealing all at the same time, you’ll have no one to play with in the world.

I’m sorry, I’m the designer now? I can’t give opinions on how good or bad a system is after my own testing and gameplay if I’m not a designer? Look, I do have ideas for it. But I’m not going to go in-depth on that, because that doesn’t make my argument any more or less valid.

[i]Vayne: The problem is, the world is big. It really is. It’s bigger than most MMOs and all new MMOs. It’s a big, big world. So if you make it so everyone can go everywhere, then you’ll run into the problem of people not being able to find each other, because the population would be spread too thin.

It’s a big problem, and Anet isn’t the only MMO to suffer from it. Even World of Warcraft has dead zones on many servers, and they have 8.3 million active subscriptions.

You have people divided by server, and then divided by zone. People who do SPvP and WvW dont’ count toward the population of the world as a whole. People doing dungeons and fractals they dont’ count either. People in Lion’s Arch crafting or hanging out, they aren’t out in the zones. So the rest of the people, those left, can’t all go anywhere they want. Because if they did, they’d be too spread out and there wouldn’t be enough people.[/i]

So you would rather have people stay only wanting to do WvW, SPvP, sitting in Lion’s Arch, or only zoning out to go do dungeons, rather than even attempt to put them back into the open world? Because that is what ArenaNet wants. Players to go back out into the zones and explore them again. The attempt with the dailies was a pretty bad one, but it proves that it is what they want. There would definitely be enough people. I think you underestimate how many people actually bought GW2 and just quit because they had nothing to do in the game.

Vayne: The ONLY way MMOs get people together in large numbers is to A) force them into the same few zones (which is why so much of th world seems dead in so many MMOs) or Give them stuff to do in certain areas where they’ll hopefully group.

This is exactly what I am suggesting. Give players something to do, something to work towards in the zones, and they’ll wander into each other. Exactly like it was at launch when everybody was running into each other. World Bosses work out just fine, even though they’re in several zones. They have rewards that players want, and that’s why people do them.

Vayne: I’m positive that making everything in every zone more rewarding so anyone can go anywhere won’t make the problem much better, but it could make it a whole lot worse.

How could it make it worse? A majority of the zones are empty in a lot of servers, so if they remained empty, it wouldn’t be worse. It would be the same. But honestly, they wouldn’t be empty if they gave players a reason to go there.

It could make it worse by having not enough people in any zone and no crowds of people anywhere. Right now, there are places you can go where there will be people. If everything was equally rewarding the population with either spread to thin to be of help or people would just make their own gathering places, because it’s what people do.

Why did people meet at Kamadan in Guild Wars 1 to sell their stuff instead of any other outpost?

Because people gather. It’s what we do. We’re a social animal. Making the entire world equally rewarding will just create new hot spots and you’d have the same problem. And if it didn’t they’re would be enough people that thinly spread to make a difference.

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

I agree some parts of the game has let me down in regards to the promises within the manifesto.

Although i still hope on the premise of potential. Quite frankly DE’s are the best type of questing/levelling content iv ever player in a MMO currently.
This in itself is a massive achievement. HOWEVER let me make it clear I dont condone marketing hype unless one day, we get a full map of meta chains that are effected by player controlled variables rather than timers, warring factions that are literally battling for control and boss events that create massive implications for the whole map.

I mean, it is what you once promised anet!?!?

That’s all three zones of Orr. They come massively close to what you’re saying.

bewhatever.2390:

killcannon.2576:

Dungeon content is also designed for multiple people, but is available to be soloed or ran however you want in whatever kind of party you want.

Just because something is designed in a certain manner does not mean it should not be available to anyone.

CoF p1 has a step which requires 5 people

Concur that small guilds should be able to attempt any content. The game is, of course, free to have content which cannot be completed by a small number of people, no matter how good they are. But small guilds like mine should at least be able to see it and try.

How big is your guild?

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

That is the one single line in the manifesto that certainly was misleading “It takes everything you love from Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world”.

There is actually more than that.

Okay prove it. Show me. There are two things commonly quoted as being lies in the manfesto. One of them is the Colin line about “We don’t want people to grind in Guild Wars 2”. Taken out of the rest of the paragraph, it sure sounds like a lie. But then when you fill in the rest of the paragraph it’s very clear what he’s talking about and it has NOTHING to do with gear grind or farming. It has only to do with grinding levels.

As for the other thing, it’s the back and forth being Colin and Ree about dynamic events and personal stories. Colin is talking about DEs and Ree is talking about personal stories. Anet issued a clarification on the manifesto just about immediately after releasing it, based on the confusion caused by editing.

There are no other “lies” in the manifesto, besides that single marketing line in the beginning.

killcannon.2576:

Something that is getting brought up is the difficulty of Guild Missions and that is a reason why they should only be available to large guilds.

Last time I checked this game has a core feature of content scalability for that type of thing.

Personally, I feel it’s the large guilds who fight against this type of thing more out of fear than anything logical. If it’s available to all, then there just isn’t a need for these types of guilds to exist.

Except WvW, of course. And yes, I agree. Large guilds need a reason to exist and they should have a reason to exist. I don’t see why that should be a problem.

99% of the PVe content in this game is centered around teams of no more than five. Guilds complained they had nothing to do as guilds. Smaller guilds have tons of stuff to do as guilds because they’re smaller. Larger guilds, not so much.

Anet introduced this content, content larger guilds have been asking about since day 1. And I’m not in a large guild. I’m in a small to medium sized guild. I sometimes can’t do the missions either because I don’t have enough people online.

But I recognize the reasoning behind the move.

Did you beat all four paths of Arah explorable mode yet?

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

Because you say so?

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think a single person should be a guild.

Oh, I get it! He was wrong because he thought so, but you’re in the right.

If you can’t see why a single person shouldn’t have a guild on his own, I’m not sure what to say. Anet discourages single person guilds in numerous ways, so Anet doesn’t like it either. It’s why a single person doing an event gets 2 influence, but 2 people in the same guild working on an event get 20.

1 person does not a guild make. You can argue that if you like…but I’m not sure on what basis.

I don’t see why a single person shouldn’t have a Guild on his own. It only takes one to make it, and if that’s how he likes it, then fine. It shouldn’t exclude him from being able to at least participate in content that’s added.

Because guild content is designed for multiple people. Guild rewards are designed for multiple people. If everyone could get the same stuff, it would limit the reason people join guilds. Some people join them to get certain benefits.

So you’re saying that an MMO that has multiplayer guilds should give the same think to anyone who just wants to start his own guild by himself?

Okay…then I guess that’s your opinion, and we’ll have to agree to disagree. Because I think that would be bad for the game over all.

Dungeon content is also designed for multiple people, but is available to be soloed or ran however you want in whatever kind of party you want.

Just because something is designed in a certain manner does not mean it should not be available to anyone.

According this statement you believe all dungeons should be soloable.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

You ignored the fact that ArenaNet literally sold the game in this manner. Did you buy it before the game was out? Because the forums were in an absolute uprage about the Ascended gear being added. Do you know why? Because it was going against the principles of the game that they used to sell it.

I didn’t ignore that at all. I explained it very carefully. If you read my post, you’ll see that I answered this complaint. They sold the game, and explained this many times over.

In most games there’s one path, one way to get to top level gear and Anet gives many options about how to play. You never have to level WvW if you want. You never have to go into a dungeon if you don’t want. You dont’ have to PVe to play SPvP if you want. This is clearly what Anet meant by play your own way, since in most other games you can’t do this.

On the other hand, what it doesn’t mean is that every single option for everything single thing, with every single reward will be offered to players. That’s not reasonable to expect. Just because you want something to mean something doesn’t mean it does.

Look, I’m not going to go dig up the quote.. (mainly because ANet deleted all of their previously posted blogs). But they literally said that getting the highest-stat gear in the game would never be something that you had to forfeit your way of playing for. This, coupled with them saying that the game was “everything you loved about GW1” was more than enough to sell loads of copies with the idea that there was no gear grind, and that max gear would be very easy to obtain. Which it was, up until Ascended. Which is not even what this thread is about.

No, but it is what they meant when they said play your own way. It was explained a number of times in a number of interviews. They specifically said over and over again what they meant. I don’t know how you could have missed it.

Edit: And there are still three ways to get ascended gear, which means you can still play your own way. It’s apparently not enough of your own way for your personal taste.

Like I said, it’s not even what this thread was about. I’m not going to argue with you about how underhanded it was when they sold the game as something it wasn’t.

As for Ascended Gear, that isn’t “three ways to get it”. That’s 3 different ways to get 3 different pieces. Backpieces are only from Fractals (or tons of gold), and Amulets are only from Laurels. The only thing that is in multiple accessible ways of purchase are Rings and Earrings, both of which are completely in-proportionate costs to the other ways of getting them. 40 Laurels and 50 ectos, because I’m not in a big Guild, for an accessory. 35 Laurels for a Ring, even though it gives less stats than the Amulet which is 30 Laurels.

Regardless, I’m retracting from this thread.

There’s nothing to argue about. They explained what it meant, you ignored the explanation. Instead of bringing in a quote that’s essentially a strawman argument, and has nothing to do with one person forming a guild by himself and getting all the guild rewards, which is what you’re arguing, you should never have brought it up.

If you hadn’t brought it up, I wouldn’t have brought up what Anet said they meant by it.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

But Anet HAS worked on making going back to zones appealing. They’ve increased, for example, your chances in lower level zones of getting a yellow drop. They’ve improved rewards in the reward chests for all the world events, most of which happen in lower level zones, they’ve nerfed Orr so people can’t sit around and farm it constantly (in fact you can see precisely how many threads there are complaining about this)….just because it’s not working 100% doesn’t mean they’ve done nothing.

Hell the last living story took place in Wayfarer foothills and the early charr zones and those zones were packed.

This month the story is on Southsun and they’re allowing people to go there by leveling them up.

Saying Anet has done nothing is simply incorrect.

Doing things like the Living Story does not make going back to zones more appealing for more than a few minutes while you do the new Living Story content. I’m talking about making every zone more appealing for players to go back to at any given time. Not just the ones with Living Story currently in them, or with dull world bosses in them. People going to the world bosses get their chest and go. They don’t explore the zone, they don’t do anything there. You just get your daily chest and leave. That’s not incentive for a player to re-explore the zone, that’s just getting another thing off the checklist. Nerfing Orr has left Orr completely empty, and that didn’t help anything. That’s a terrible example.

The extra chance at yellows is something that hardly ever comes to fruition, so it is not enticing. Are you honestly arguing that there is plenty of reason for players to go back and do old DEs and re-explore the world that they’ve seen and done already? Because there’s nobody that does it.

And how do you propose to make EVERY zone more appealing. In fact, I’ll go one better. If Anet makes every zone more appealing all at the same time, you’ll have no one to play with in the world.

The problem is, the world is big. It really is. It’s bigger than most MMOs and all new MMOs. It’s a big, big world. So if you make it so everyone can go everywhere, then you’ll run into the problem of people not being able to find each other, because the population would be spread too thin.

It’s a big problem, and Anet isn’t the only MMO to suffer from it. Even World of Warcraft has dead zones on many servers, and they have 8.3 million active subscriptions.

You have people divided by server, and then divided by zone. People who do SPvP and WvW dont’ count toward the population of the world as a whole. People doing dungeons and fractals they dont’ count either. People in Lion’s Arch crafting or hanging out, they aren’t out in the zones. So the rest of the people, those left, can’t all go anywhere they want. Because if they did, they’d be too spread out and there wouldn’t be enough people.

The ONLY way MMOs get people together in large numbers is to A) force them into the same few zones (which is why so much of th world seems dead in so many MMOs) or Give them stuff to do in certain areas where they’ll hopefully group.

I’m positive that making everything in every zone more rewarding so anyone can go anywhere won’t make the problem much better, but it could make it a whole lot worse.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

You ignored the fact that ArenaNet literally sold the game in this manner. Did you buy it before the game was out? Because the forums were in an absolute uprage about the Ascended gear being added. Do you know why? Because it was going against the principles of the game that they used to sell it.

I didn’t ignore that at all. I explained it very carefully. If you read my post, you’ll see that I answered this complaint. They sold the game, and explained this many times over.

In most games there’s one path, one way to get to top level gear and Anet gives many options about how to play. You never have to level WvW if you want. You never have to go into a dungeon if you don’t want. You dont’ have to PVe to play SPvP if you want. This is clearly what Anet meant by play your own way, since in most other games you can’t do this.

On the other hand, what it doesn’t mean is that every single option for everything single thing, with every single reward will be offered to players. That’s not reasonable to expect. Just because you want something to mean something doesn’t mean it does.

Look, I’m not going to go dig up the quote.. (mainly because ANet deleted all of their previously posted blogs). But they literally said that getting the highest-stat gear in the game would never be something that you had to forfeit your way of playing for. This, coupled with them saying that the game was “everything you loved about GW1” was more than enough to sell loads of copies with the idea that there was no gear grind, and that max gear would be very easy to obtain. Which it was, up until Ascended. Which is not even what this thread is about.

No, but it is what they meant when they said play your own way. It was explained a number of times in a number of interviews. They specifically said over and over again what they meant. I don’t know how you could have missed it.

Edit: And there are still three ways to get ascended gear, which means you can still play your own way. It’s apparently not enough of your own way for your personal taste.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

Well, yes and no. It’s like any MMO. You put in a new dungeon in an MMO and everyone will be hanging around that dungeon, because it’s new. Everyone wants to do new content.

This is human nature. I used to be involved in the publishing industry and most books sell 90% of all the copies they’ll ever sell during the first three months after release. It’s just the way people are. They want to see the new stuff.

In a week or two, they’ll have seen the new stuff and slowly drift back to the rest of the world. It’s already happening slowly.

So is it really a legit complaint? They only way to stop it is to not release new stuff at all.

It’s still a bad feeling for a new or returning player to want to come back and do zones, and it being empty like that. There are no incentives for players to go out and do DEs in zones, aside from daily chest rewards from world bosses. Why hasn’t ANet done something about that?

I see what you’re saying. Yes, players are always going to be pushed towards the new content. But he’s not wrong at all. Even after players are done with the new content, it’s not like they actually go and run around the world and do DEs for fun. Because most of them aren’t fun, and most of them have terrible rewards. Dailies was an attempt at getting people to go back into zones, but I can say it failed for a lot of servers.

So yes, I think it is a real and legitimate complaint.

New players coming back, even low level ones, can go see this content too. Particularly because the content won’t be here in another month, it’s a good idea for them to do it. They’ll level faster, farm more decent stuff, and in general be rewarded better for going to Southsun than they would in any other area of the game.

If you consider rewarding returning players by offering them a way to catch up fast bad planning, I guess I have nothing else to say on the topic.

New players, for the majority, won’t even know what is going on with Southsun Cove. It’s not explained too well in the game, and new players have a lot to grasp and do when they first start out.

Also, that’s still not a reason for ANet to have not worked on making going back to the zones appealing.

But Anet HAS worked on making going back to zones appealing. They’ve increased, for example, your chances in lower level zones of getting a yellow drop. They’ve improved rewards in the reward chests for all the world events, most of which happen in lower level zones, they’ve nerfed Orr so people can’t sit around and farm it constantly (in fact you can see precisely how many threads there are complaining about this)….just because it’s not working 100% doesn’t mean they’ve done nothing.

Hell the last living story took place in Wayfarer foothills and the early charr zones and those zones were packed.

This month the story is on Southsun and they’re allowing people to go there by leveling them up.

Saying Anet has done nothing is simply incorrect.

Hope everyone who’s experiencing this bug reports it.

Diamandis.7483:

Manifesto is a lie. true true words!

I would like for DEVS to go back and watch all of the manifesto videos/ text they sent out to sell us this game and I wanna see them explain themselves a bit. Example LEGENDARY items? sooo is that working as it should be cause that has got to me the most anti epic end game item I’ve ran into on any game. Not to mention there desire to make content more grindy over time and DR us on everything? can we even play anymore without having to farm something…

What line specifically do you call a lie. I just watched the manifesto and with the exception of the “everything you love about Guild Wars 1 line”, I can’t find a single lie in the manifesto. Not one.

AlietteFaye.7316:

You ignored the fact that ArenaNet literally sold the game in this manner. Did you buy it before the game was out? Because the forums were in an absolute uprage about the Ascended gear being added. Do you know why? Because it was going against the principles of the game that they used to sell it.

I didn’t ignore that at all. I explained it very carefully. If you read my post, you’ll see that I answered this complaint. They sold the game, and explained this many times over.

In most games there’s one path, one way to get to top level gear and Anet gives many options about how to play. You never have to level WvW if you want. You never have to go into a dungeon if you don’t want. You dont’ have to PVe to play SPvP if you want. This is clearly what Anet meant by play your own way, since in most other games you can’t do this.

On the other hand, what it doesn’t mean is that every single option for everything single thing, with every single reward will be offered to players. That’s not reasonable to expect. Just because you want something to mean something doesn’t mean it does.

SkylightMoon.1980:

For some of the stuff in the trailer yes. I mean they made it sound like everything from gw1 would be in here. Obv a lot of stuff isn’t, but its understandable and is expected all in due time. Even though Anet may mean everything in Manifesto a different way, watching the trailer and playing the games makes it appear as a lie. The trailer is to blame for a lot. Either way DE’s undeniably need to be balanced with more personal instance, or small quest(Riff Sootclaw) like content. I don’t expect it all now though. These are just suggestions, very strong suggestions.

That is the one single line in the manifesto that certainly was misleading “It takes everything you love from Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world”.

There are two reasons why this line didn’t personally affect me, but yes, it’s misleading.

The logic of it is that if you’re talking to a million people, and everyone loves different things, well, maybe there’s something you love that I hate, and how would he know? How can they take everything I love, when they don’t know what it is I love. Some people loved not having a marketplace…but I wasn’t one of them.

More importantly, this was a manifesto that appeared years before the game released. A statement of intent. There were TONS of other interviews, videos, blog posts, articles in MMO sites, articles in magazines…there was a tremendous amount of information out there, more than for any other game I’ve ever seen.

And things were pretty much spelled out. I don’t know many people who went into Guild Wars 2 without knowing that the weapon system was, or the skills were tied to weapons. Indeed, long before launch there was an article on the website about it.

In all the advertisements over the entire time the game was being promoted, I can think of two things that were said that Anet “went back on”. One was that dyes would be account bound and one was that there would be no vertical progression.

But the manifesto said neither of those things. And there was so much information out there, really good accurate information, I can’t really believe anyone is complaining that Anet lied to them.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

Well, yes and no. It’s like any MMO. You put in a new dungeon in an MMO and everyone will be hanging around that dungeon, because it’s new. Everyone wants to do new content.

This is human nature. I used to be involved in the publishing industry and most books sell 90% of all the copies they’ll ever sell during the first three months after release. It’s just the way people are. They want to see the new stuff.

In a week or two, they’ll have seen the new stuff and slowly drift back to the rest of the world. It’s already happening slowly.

So is it really a legit complaint? They only way to stop it is to not release new stuff at all.

It’s still a bad feeling for a new or returning player to want to come back and do zones, and it being empty like that. There are no incentives for players to go out and do DEs in zones, aside from daily chest rewards from world bosses. Why hasn’t ANet done something about that?

I see what you’re saying. Yes, players are always going to be pushed towards the new content. But he’s not wrong at all. Even after players are done with the new content, it’s not like they actually go and run around the world and do DEs for fun. Because most of them aren’t fun, and most of them have terrible rewards. Dailies was an attempt at getting people to go back into zones, but I can say it failed for a lot of servers.

So yes, I think it is a real and legitimate complaint.

New players coming back, even low level ones, can go see this content too. Particularly because the content won’t be here in another month, it’s a good idea for them to do it. They’ll level faster, farm more decent stuff, and in general be rewarded better for going to Southsun than they would in any other area of the game.

If you consider rewarding returning players by offering them a way to catch up fast bad planning, I guess I have nothing else to say on the topic.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

Because guild content is designed for multiple people. Guild rewards are designed for multiple people. If everyone could get the same stuff, it would limit the reason people join guilds. Some people join them to get certain benefits.

So you’re saying that an MMO that has multiplayer guilds should give the same think to anyone who just wants to start his own guild by himself?

Okay…then I guess that’s your opinion, and we’ll have to agree to disagree. Because I think that would be bad for the game over all.

I am saying that exact thing. Because that’s what Guild Wars 2 was advertised as. A game where you could play your own way, and not have to worry about having to specific things to get your gear and experience the content.

It was literally sold like that. Do you understand that a lot of people bought the game because they said it was a game designed to be that way? There should never be a point in the game where you feel forced to do something you don’t want to do, just because that’s the only way to complete the content. That was the purpose behind removing the trinity, the purpose behind having Exotic gear so easily accessible. Because there wasn’t supposed to be anything that a player couldn’t do just because they didn’t want to play a certain way.

It goes against what the game was sold as, and that’s why people are upset over things like this. It’s logical and valid.

Playing your own way is the biggest cop out line ever. Saying that you can play the game your own way doesn’t mean every single person in the entire world can do whatever they want and get the same level of rewards. That’s a simple single intepretation of it.

You can’t exploit. What if I said I want to exploit things and that was my play style. Should Anet allow this? Of course not.

Play your own way means this: It means that Anet is giving people different routes to get to max level and indeed some of the best gear in the game.

For example, exotic armor. You can get exotic armor by doing dungeons, just doing dynamic events and dailies and saving karma, playing WvW, or just farming gold and buying it from the marketplace.

Ascended items are now available through guild missions, dailies and monthlies and fractals, with presumably more ways to come.

In most MMORPGs the way to get BIS gear is to do raids. That’s it. Anet aimed to change that and they did.

Maybe my style of play is that I want to get everything in the game just standing in Lion’s Arch chatting. Hey, that’s my play style and Anet said I could play my own way.

Way to take a statement completely out of context.

It’s true, the guild missions on servers that have meta events that reward chests will often end up over populated.

I’m a bit surprised they didn’t place the guild missions in less populated zones in the first place.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

So the “white knights” are wrong and you’re right. Because your friends looked on busier servers.

First of all, right now all the action and I mean all the action is on South Sun. So if you didn’t look there since the event started, well, then you’re missing where the people are.

Because you know…new content, people go to check it out.

Do you have any idea of how many Southsun overflow servers there are?

Secondly, you dont’ have to be a white knight to see there are some highly populated servers out there. If you can’t find them you’re not looking. But again, right after a patch, go to the new content, because that’s what everyone is checking out.

It’s kind of cruddy that all the action is on Southsun, though. His complaint is still valid that there weren’t people out in the world to do DE’s with and that zones look and feel completely barren.

Also, his complaints of the grind-like system and issues that have been around since launch (and even before then)are still valid.

Well, yes and no. It’s like any MMO. You put in a new dungeon in an MMO and everyone will be hanging around that dungeon, because it’s new. Everyone wants to do new content.

This is human nature. I used to be involved in the publishing industry and most books sell 90% of all the copies they’ll ever sell during the first three months after release. It’s just the way people are. They want to see the new stuff.

In a week or two, they’ll have seen the new stuff and slowly drift back to the rest of the world. It’s already happening slowly.

So is it really a legit complaint? They only way to stop it is to not release new stuff at all.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

Because you say so?

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think a single person should be a guild.

Oh, I get it! He was wrong because he thought so, but you’re in the right.

If you can’t see why a single person shouldn’t have a guild on his own, I’m not sure what to say. Anet discourages single person guilds in numerous ways, so Anet doesn’t like it either. It’s why a single person doing an event gets 2 influence, but 2 people in the same guild working on an event get 20.

1 person does not a guild make. You can argue that if you like…but I’m not sure on what basis.

I don’t see why a single person shouldn’t have a Guild on his own. It only takes one to make it, and if that’s how he likes it, then fine. It shouldn’t exclude him from being able to at least participate in content that’s added.

Because guild content is designed for multiple people. Guild rewards are designed for multiple people. If everyone could get the same stuff, it would limit the reason people join guilds. Some people join them to get certain benefits.

So you’re saying that an MMO that has multiplayer guilds should give the same think to anyone who just wants to start his own guild by himself?

Okay…then I guess that’s your opinion, and we’ll have to agree to disagree. Because I think that would be bad for the game over all.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

They try stuff that doesn’t work and then they make more changes that don’t work and they finally may make a couple of changes that do work, but they’re not going free to play because the world is full of people playing that game.

What are you talking about? Rift is going F2P in June.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m saying they’re not going free to play because so many people are paying subscriptions. They’re going free to play because people are leaving the game. It’s the usual reason games that have subs go free to play.

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

I really don’t understand how we could have so little done to the game with such a large team. Anet has been very quiet about their plans, which makes me think we are going to see(hopefully soon) a blog post that will blow us away. Maybe they have 100 people working on a project that’s been going on since before release.

300 employees doesn’t equal 300 devs, though. There’s a Q&A department which just tests stuff. There people who answer phones. There’s people who do admin stuff. There’s marketing people. And of course artists and programmers. The programmers would be spread out. I seriously doubt the guys working on SPvP work on WvW and neither probably works on PvE.

So yeah, a lot of people, but it’s not surprising that progress is made incrimentally.

I do understand that, but it still seems like things are happening slowly. I’m mainly looking at you living story.

Trion is said to have about 200 employees, have you checked their patch notes on rift? They are also maintaining more than one mmo. They were recently hit with layoffs, so we will have to see how that affects them.

I played Rift for a while when it launched. Several months in fact. Let me tell you about how Rift works.

Rift, when I was there, made ZILLIONS of changes all the time. Multiple times a week. Do you have any idea how many times I logged and had to respec because they completely changed my skill and skill tree. At one point it was twice, three times a week.

They try stuff that doesn’t work and then they make more changes that don’t work and they finally may make a couple of changes that do work, but they’re not going free to play because the world is full of people playing that game.

Rift has some of the worst updates I’ve ever seen for a game. They had to do a full apology for their first big world event. As bad as the karka event was, the Rift world event was far worse.

Rift makes a lot of changes, and that’s part of the problem. They were new to the MMO space and they were trying to find their way. And in making all those changes, there was never any chance of balancing anything.

Slow, steady change is the very best way to update an MMO.

Dante.1508:

So people are saying its ok for companies to lie and trick consumers with false advertising and we shouldn’t complain, sure i guess they can lie, but then i wont give them anymore money, which seems fair to me..

They didn’t lie, you just don’t know how to read. First of all a manifesto, is, as already stated, not an advertisement or a guarantee. It’s a statement of intent. This is how they envision a game.

Logically, if you have an event and it happens once and never again, you’d need an almost infinite number of events. No one can program that. Do you know how I know this is the case? Because Anet said this before launch.

In fact, Anet said a LOT of stuff before launch, including explaining EXACTLY how dynamic events would work with specific examples. They also said before launch, many times and quite clearly, that there would also be simple one of events, and bigger, longer more complex events. All of which is true.

This isn’t hidden or secret information. There are tons of videos of this stuff from conferences and conventions where this stuff was gone over and repeated again and again.

So if you watched one single video and checked out absolutely nothing else, and didn’t know the defintion of manifesto, and didn’t realize that things change in MMOs all the time, then I guess you might have been misled by watching the manifesto.

Other people, however, were aware that there was plenty of very specific information given about just what dynamic events would and wouldn’t be.

Fernling.1729:

I really don’t understand how we could have so little done to the game with such a large team. Anet has been very quiet about their plans, which makes me think we are going to see(hopefully soon) a blog post that will blow us away. Maybe they have 100 people working on a project that’s been going on since before release.

300 employees doesn’t equal 300 devs, though. There’s a Q&A department which just tests stuff. There people who answer phones. There’s people who do admin stuff. There’s marketing people. And of course artists and programmers. The programmers would be spread out. I seriously doubt the guys working on SPvP work on WvW and neither probably works on PvE.

So yeah, a lot of people, but it’s not surprising that progress is made incrimentally.

Chris.7653:

penatbater.4710:

Chris.7653:

HogWash.3928:

Been Gone for a while and thinking of coming back.
Hows the game these days?
How is the state of the necro?

I just came back myself…I know I will be flamed for this but it is my honest opinion…

Stay away man, right now it isn’t worth the hard drive space…The world was empty (Even had my friends on the populated servers look too) they put in a grind link system and it just seems like a mess…

All the problems I and many others complained about are still there for the most part…

ok whiteknights you can flame me now…

grind link system?

typo…“grind like” is what I meant.

So the “white knights” are wrong and you’re right. Because your friends looked on busier servers.

First of all, right now all the action and I mean all the action is on South Sun. So if you didn’t look there since the event started, well, then you’re missing where the people are.

Because you know…new content, people go to check it out.

Do you have any idea of how many Southsun overflow servers there are?

Secondly, you dont’ have to be a white knight to see there are some highly populated servers out there. If you can’t find them you’re not looking. But again, right after a patch, go to the new content, because that’s what everyone is checking out.

Nick.6972:

“Getting gear colors you want.”
Seriously? I mean, really?
Some fine Endgame we have tight here.

Actually I’d rather have this end game than a raid. And that’s the problem. Some people think end game is all about challenging content and nothing else, when devs well know (and have said) that the most challenging content doesn’t get played by most players ever. So yeah.

More people will make use of collecting dies than beating the Underworld.

Valanga.5942:

Vayne.8563:

If I were Anet i’d be mad careful about posting anything.

They are the same people who posted about “an expansion worth of content”…

Another reason to be mad careful. lol

I didn’t say that everything that Anet posted was smart or well-advised. But even the stuff that they post that’s absolutely fine, and there’s plenty of it, gets twisted or complained about by someone. Half the stuff that people complain about is forgotten a month later.

Very early in this thread, the OP was complaining that after all this time and all these complaints, no one from Anet came to say anything, and I said, well if they did, someone would complain.

So you know, Colin stops, takes time out of his schedule to reply and the OP uses what he says about future intent less than a month later to complain. I think I am completely right in suggesting Anet stop responding to individual complaint threads like this one.

Unless they’re absolutely going to fix the problem, all they’re doing is saying we know there’s a problem and it’s on the list. Apparently that bothers as many people as it helps.