Guild Wars 2

Helterskelter.8490:

Vayne.8563:

Helterskelter.8490:

For what? There’s already hundreds of waypoints? Same thing really.

Waypoints cost money, Asuran gates are free.

They cost money because money-sinks are needed somewhere (and obviously in other places other than WP) or else gold would stack up very quickly in everyone’s pockets.

Oh I agree. I was just pointing out why others would ask the question. I don’t think we need more gates…waypoints are fine.

Helterskelter.8490:

For what? There’s already hundreds of waypoints? Same thing really.

Waypoints cost money, Asuran gates are free.

Good mesmers are HELL to beat in SPvP. I mean really hell. I dislike fighting mesmers in SPvP more than any other profession. I can take down most professions a good portion of the time, but mesmers are my stumbling block….the good ones anyway.

The ones that aren’t quite as skilled at playing their profession go down pretty easily though. I think the profession has a higher skill cap than some of the others.

I guess this depends on how you define balanced. I find I kill stuff slower with my mesmer than some of my other professions, but my survivability is quite high. I seem to have more than couple of build options as well. And I like using multiple weapons in different areas of the game.

Is it balanced? Against what? Against other professions?

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Vayne.8563:

The problem is that there’s an achievement leaderboard, which some people seem to care about, and if you made it this way, everyone with a ton of alts and some time would easily be able to top the leaderboard.

I wouldn’t actually mind if the change was made, but the problem here is that dailies were always able to be done on any character, so if I played one, I’d get my daily and if I played a different one I’d STILL be working on the same daily.

What you’re essentially asking is for a complete rewrite of the rules. People are already complaining (in other threads) about the pressure from feeling they have to do the daily. How do you think they’ll respond when they feel they have to do four or five of them.

While this change would work for some people (those who have multiple characters and those who have the time to regularly do multiple dailies) I think it would work against the bulk of the population…so it’s a change that will never happen.

In fact, the whole purpose of making dailies the way they were was so casuals COULD catch up. I mean if you don’t have a ton of time to do dailies now, you only have to do 30 dailies to get an ascended amulet. Less if you do a monthly.

Changing this would give a huge advantage to people with lots of free time. It negates the whole reason for the cap in the first place.

You really ruin the experience of the forums by posting in every thread you disagree to with a condescending “My way is right everything else is flawed logic and therefore a hyperbole.”

I think your English talents are better served writing a book instead of posting on the forums 24/7.

I’ve written quite a few books, thanks for suggestion though. I didn’t call this suggestion hyperbole either, so why you’d bring that specifically up, I have no idea.

I’m allowed to disagree with people on a forum. Why people should say I ruin the forum by disagreeing, I don’t understand. I didn’t suggest the OP ruined the forum by posting what he posted. I think the OPs post is quite reasonable, compared to many of the threads I post in. I never suggested the OP was unreasonable or used hyperbole.

I do suggest, however that the OPs suggestion will have a negative affect on part of the playerbase. I’m really sorry that that ruins your experience of the forums.

If disagreements are hard for you to deal with and they ruin your experience, perhaps you should take up something less stressful.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

Any idea if this new southsun stuff is sticking around like the last permanent content fractals?

If you don’t count guild missions, which I do.

Veldan.4637:

Mirta.5029:

The reason the game discourages you from farming is because you are NOT supposed to FARM in this game.

loooooooooool

So you’re supposed to get all those ecto and T6 stacks (legendary, ascendeds, MF skins) by not farming? GL doing that.

But that’s how I did it. I get ectos from just playing the game. I get karma from playing the game. I get mystic coins from playing the game. I get skill points from playing the game. Mystic coins are also cheap on the marketplace right now.

Then I play the mystic forge for clovers. I have far far more clovers than I need to make two legendary weapons but they also reward me, sometimes, with T6 mats. Doing this when I get ectos and enough coins have given me enough T6 mats to get my legendary. I tend to get more elaborate totems and powerful blood than other T6 mats, but I just sell those and buy the mats I need.

In the end, it took a look time, but it wasn’t impossible….and I didn’t farm to get them.

Ashane.3520:

You guys dont do much research

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/So-much-for-the-bag-bank-slot-sale

2nd page, half way down, quote:

So much for the bag/bank slot sale!!!
in Black Lion Trading Co
Posted by: John Smith
As a quick aside. Gems in the currency exchange are finite. You may buy gems with real money to your hearts content, but if you don’t put any of them gems into the currency exchange the currency exchange’s stock of gems never changes.

P.S. Your welcome, search feature is your friend, Dev tracker is your friend.

Okay I misunderstood your post. It’s quite obviously the only gems that can be bought for gold are the ones people are selling. I’ve always understood that.

But the supply of gems itself is unlimited, because people can always buy more to sell…which is what I thought you were saying. There’s no limit to the number of gems Anet can sell, there is only a limit to the number of gems you can buy with gold at any time.

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

Ashane.3520:

Mirta.5029:

laokoko.7403:

So where is all the gem supply come from? Obviously someone buys gem and sell them for in game gold, else there will be no supply. Unless you think there is a conspiracy theory.

I think you just experienced a severe brain fart. Gems are unlimited. They don’t require to be bought and sold.

Gems are not unlimited. There is a set amount of gems in the store, as explained by its designer. Once those gems are gone, if no one purchases more then there will be no more gems. Period.

The gem prices are rising because more people are turning gold into gems, and there are not enough gems entering the market to offset the gem loss, thus a increase in price. When prices fall, it’s players turning gems into gold. kitten pretty easy to understand.

……………………

Also, you’d be surprised what people pay. One of our members has dropped well over $1000 on this game so far. You see Legendaries selling all the time on the “shady” sites for $400-1000, literally daily.

For some people, that amount of cash is chump change.

I’m sorry but where did Anet say that gems aren’t unlimited. I’ve never seen anything to suggest that. Do you have a quote?

Hey HGR…not sure my guild would be for you, but we’re a medium size guild (close to 100 members) with a core of about 25 people who play a lot. We’re far more into PVe than PvP, though we do have some small presence in WvW. Basically it’s a more social, non-competitive guild. We run dungeons and events, but we’re inclusive not exclusive. In other words, elitists need not apply.

It can help if you’re prepared to use mumble as well, since you’re more likely to get into groups that way. More groups form spontaenously on mumble than in guild chat.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

I support the anti-farming measures and hope they don’t something about CoF path 1 sooner rather than later.

I can honestly tell you the real rich people are the TP flippers.

I agree. Not sure how to do anything about them, though. And I think, by percentage, there are less of them than farmers (but I can’t prove it).

This game is designed for certain types of players. No game is designed for all players. I mean this is pretty self-evident, I shouldn’t have to justify the statement. Games have players they intend to satisfy.

This game was designed to be played by people who enjoy playing it. It probably wasn’t really designed for people who enjoy farming. This is why people who enjoy farming complain a lot about the drops and people who play like me almost never do. I get plenty of good drops…but I’m not farming. I just play the game.

This game was designed to be experential. You experience things. Those who enjoy the open world, really enjoy it, like me, have fun playing around in the open world. The drops are not my primary concern, and I just enjoy going around and having fun. Discovering stuff, dynamic events, helping people out. It’s fun for me. A couple of times a week I we do guild missions, and I find that fun. Every now and again I just into SPvP and have fun there. Even more often I enjoy some WvW. I’m never farming, per se. I’m just doing what I’d normally do.

I’ve leveled 6 professions to max level, still need to complete one more dungeon to get my dungeon master title, I’m level 19 in the fractals, and yes, I have a legendary (which I just got).

But I play the game for fun. The other stuff will get here when it gets here. The people who are most satisfied with this game probably play it more like I do.

The problem with hard core farmers is that they get rich. The harder it is to do the less people get rich doing it. The more rich people in the game, the higher the inflation which makes it hard on those new to the game or more casual people.

I support the anti-farming measures and hope they don’t something about CoF path 1 sooner rather than later.

Third Eye.6718:

Vayne.8563:

MMOs have the highest risk factor of any type of game. They cost more to run. The staff required to run Guild Wars 2 is more than five times the size of what it cost to run Guild Wars 1.

You can compare the two games all you like, but this is a much bigger project with a much higher overhead. It requires a different level of financial support.

Yes but big overheads are also backed up large sales volume…

You often ask people to back up their statements : ), so I’m curious, what facts & figures are people who justify the Gem shop using to base there views on?

How do we know that any of the money made through the Gem shop is even going back into the game?

How do we know that Gem shop items weren’t developed from the get-go, and are just being slowly leaked out as Gem prices go up?

I’d love to hear the stats from you or anyone else that has them : )

JustTrogdor.7892:

Personally I’d load up the gem store with every non-essential in game item I could think of no matter how small the audience for it may be. If I thought enough people were willing to buy it to cover the cost of development plus earn money it would be in the gem store.

I think you’ll find that as the Gem prices rise you will find more and more HIGH desirability (or RNG) item’s being released, it would be pointless loading up the Gem shop until the price of gems has risen as it wouldn’t serve its purpose, to make profit and to sink in game gold… But that is just my assumption : )

Big overheads aren’t backed up by large sale volumes. Let’s look at this logically.

Before Guild Wars 2 was ever released, they were paying devs. The game was in development for five years. That’s five years of paying devs, paying rent, paying electricity, paying insurance, flying out to shows, setting up play boths at shows, paying for voice acting (huge expense)…after which the game came out.

We know the game as sold more than 3 million copies. We know some of those copies are retail and some are from Anet. I’d wager most are directly from Anet. We also know Anet has been hiring more staff and that they produce content every month.

Now, games like Diablo 3 sold 6.8 million copies in a week. That’s twice what Guild Wars sold over a period of six months in one week. That’s a high volume game. Games that have console and computer versions also tend to sell a lot more copies than computer only games. There are games that have sold 25 million copies. Guild Wars 2 isn’t one of them.

Then there’s games like WoW. WoW still has 10 million SUBSCRIBERS, each paying the game $15 a month. That’s a whole lot of money every month.

I don’t see how anyone can figure that maintaining a big staff and putting out constant updates and even bug fixes doesn’t require continuing income.

Anet has talked about their market plan, publicly and they did say that the cash shop would be part of funding the game. I’m not making this up. Do some research if you dont’ believe it. It was part of the market plan all along.

They said in Guild Wars 1 the cash shop was added after the fact, but in Guild Wars 2 it was build in from the ground up, with the idea of supporting the production of ongoing content.

I’ve read and seen a lot of stuff over the last five years. I haven’t cataloged it all, and you’re free not to believe me, but this stuff was said. Most likely, enough people will remember it that will back me up, because the one thing I hate doing is looking for quotes. It doesn’t mean those quotes don’t exist however.

In almost every instance I’ve said something like this, someone else has come along and posted a link to a reference about it.

Drew.1865:

Third Eye.6718:

Vayne.8563:

MMOs have the highest risk factor of any type of game. They cost more to run. The staff required to run Guild Wars 2 is more than five times the size of what it cost to run Guild Wars 1.

You can compare the two games all you like, but this is a much bigger project with a much higher overhead. It requires a different level of financial support.

Yes but big overheads are also backed up large sales volume…

You often ask people to back up their statements : ), so I’m curious, what facts & figures are people who justify the Gem shop using to base there views on?

How do we know that any of the money made through the Gem shop is even going back into the game?

How do we know that Gem shop items weren’t developed from the get-go, and are just being slowly leaked out as Gem prices go up?

I’d love to hear the stats from you or anyone else that has them : )

JustTrogdor.7892:

Personally I’d load up the gem store with every non-essential in game item I could think of no matter how small the audience for it may be. If I thought enough people were willing to buy it to cover the cost of development plus earn money it would be in the gem store.

I think you’ll find that as the Gem prices rise you will find more and more HIGH desirability (or RNG) item’s being released, it would be pointless loading up the Gem shop until the price of gems has risen as it wouldn’t serve its purpose, to make profit and to sink in game gold… But that is just my assumption : )

Vayne how do you know how many staff members Anet has or have access to any of the info you claim to know?

Anet has said themselves how many people were working there. You can see a picture of the staff in various places at various times. They moved to new larger headquarters as a matter of public record and showed videos of it. Anyone who actually follows the game has some idea of how many people work their. The last I heard, it was about 270 people. We don’t know the percentage of those that are artists or developers, but unless Anet is lying (and they probably aren’t), there are around that many.

We know it’s five times the size of the staff, again because Anet said so. There are pics of the staff all together in front of the headquarters and it seems like a fairly large amount.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s me, but I’m the kind of player where if I bought gems and sold them, I’d be cheating myself. I see it as something that is just a way for impatient people to get stuff the easy way. I’d have no enjoyment of a legendary weapon that I got through paying cash. I don’t get why people think that’s good or cool.

I’d rather NOT have a legendary than convert gems to gold to get it.

Scarn.1703:

Mathias.9657:

Farming makes you gold and that is not allowed in this game. Although it’s obviously possible to get rich, they want most of the playerbase poor for reasons I don’t understand. I think ANet believes and endless tunnel of grind for legendary and such will keep people going, but for me it does the complete opposite. If I were able to get the stuff I wanted without getting crap drops 24/7 and being a legendary garbage collector I would be playing this game a LOT more.

They keep some things casual, then throw in ridiculously insane RNG to cater to the ‘old ways’ which is funny because it’s even more grindy than other MMOs I’ve played for years, simply because of the RNG. It’s not so much the nerfing of farms that gets me, but the abysmal drop rates on everything. Being able to farm won’t fix that.. I’ve been grinding for months and it feels like I moved maybe 2 steps closer to my goal which I’ve since completely given up on.

this is an excellent point! and one we agree on. i have also given up (for a while now) because of the horrible rng. its disgusting. i dont mean to take over the topic, but honestly the legendary needs to more “game” based than “farm for these items” or “buy off the TP”.

It would be an excellent point except for one small detail.

For each person who gives up and doesn’t go for it, a number of people will stay and keep grinding away. It’s all in the numbers.

If I were a business and 500 guys left because of this and 5000 guys stayed because of it, I’d be happy. No one has those numbers, but we know from experience, once someone gets everything they want in a game like this, odds are they’ll stop playing. People need stuff to work for.

And in most MMORPGs, particularly theme park ones, companies can’t produce content as fast as players consume content. So there’s always artificial ways to slow down progression, until such time as more content can be added.

So those that complain about how long it takes, how much grind it is, how hard it is to get a legendary are completely right. It’s hard. It takes a long time. It’s a stupid process…and one that is quite intentional and long term works for the benefit of the game.

Eventually it will be easier when more content comes out. Until then, I firmly believe we’ll lose far less people over not being able to get it than we will if it was so much easier to get.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Pelagato.6092:

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

Ascended gear was a mistake. I hope they don’t continue down the path of traditional MMOs and release more gear tiers. I would quit.

They haven’t said they’d never release a new tier of gear, but they did say they wouldn’t release one this year.

I suspect when a paid expansion finally comes out, we’ll see some sort of tier upgrade. I don’t suspect it will be hard to get though, or that you’ll have to run specific dungeons to get them, which is one of the problem in other games.

BuD.7851:

What gets me is the message I get..

In 1 or 2 hours your game will be restarted for an update (or w/e it says, focus is the amount of time they say I have).

15 minutes later I start getting the 3 minute count down till mandatory update…

Yeah, I don’t get that at all. It’s just bad.

The problem is that there’s an achievement leaderboard, which some people seem to care about, and if you made it this way, everyone with a ton of alts and some time would easily be able to top the leaderboard.

I wouldn’t actually mind if the change was made, but the problem here is that dailies were always able to be done on any character, so if I played one, I’d get my daily and if I played a different one I’d STILL be working on the same daily.

What you’re essentially asking is for a complete rewrite of the rules. People are already complaining (in other threads) about the pressure from feeling they have to do the daily. How do you think they’ll respond when they feel they have to do four or five of them.

While this change would work for some people (those who have multiple characters and those who have the time to regularly do multiple dailies) I think it would work against the bulk of the population…so it’s a change that will never happen.

In fact, the whole purpose of making dailies the way they were was so casuals COULD catch up. I mean if you don’t have a ton of time to do dailies now, you only have to do 30 dailies to get an ascended amulet. Less if you do a monthly.

Changing this would give a huge advantage to people with lots of free time. It negates the whole reason for the cap in the first place.

Grounder.7381:

… even so.. more option can keep people from being bored. so.. i hope they add more in the future.

They’ve already said straight out they will be adding more over time. How long a time is anyone’s guess.

One quote I remember specifically was during a Reddit AMA when someone asked the devs about two-handed axes. The dev replied that we need to leave some weapons for expansions…paraphrasing but that was the answer.

Chopps.5047:

Vayne.8563:

dimgl.4786:

Vayne.8563:

Because GW 1 was very well balanced. It was so easy to balance all those skills. What you might not be realizing is that GW 1 was a nightmare for some people, because of the number of skills. People didn’t know how to make builds. A lot of people tried the game, failed heavily and went on to different games. Anet doesn’t want that to happen again.

Now people are forced to take a self-heal. They’re forced to have at least some skills that work together. Sure it doesn’t suit you, personally. Doesn’t particularly suit me either. But that doesn’t mean it’s not better from a design point of view, or better for the game.

The combination of the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 and the second profession mechanic made the game virtually impossible to balance. It screwed with PvP and PVe became so easy it was meaningless, down to the point where you could use a Rit to solo farm ectos in the underworld.

I too miss the skill selection from Guild Wars 1, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for not having it in Guild Wars 2.

Omg! A game that makes players think?! SAY IT AIN’T SO!

I love games that make you think. I also recognize that the kind of game Guild Wars 2 was going to be depends on traffic and, unfortunately, if you make people think, you’ll seriously limit the number of people playing the game. Guild Wars 1 had 20% of the staff of Guild Wars 2. This is a much bigger project and has to appeal to a much wider audience.

WoW doesn’t make anyone think and has a zillion players. Guild Wars 1 did make people think and had far less (though many just as devoted). I’m a Guild Wars 1 fan and loved the game.

But I’m also aware that a game that aims to be mainstream can’t make people think too much, because there are fewer smart people than average people (pretty much by definition lol).

In competitve counterstrike, builds are very vanilla and many people take similar loadouts. But since there’s not build wars, well, I suppose no one thinks. Right? That’s what you’re saying? The guy that got into position to fake a flashbang with a pistol for the win? He’s not a thinker at all!

And how about real life sports? Everyone starts with the same gear and the follow a strict set of the same rules. Well, gee, it’s all positioning and timing and no build wars.

I guess none of those people think either?

And how many people play competitive counterstrike? Everyone has the same build in chess also, but it’s not the most popular game in the world because of the depth of thought required to play it.

And chess isn’t dependent on the masses to make the game work. Nor is competitive counterstrike. That’s why your analogy doesn’t apply to this situation.

Anet creates an MMORPG that has content updates, needs constant bug fixes and they want to expand and grow into more. In order for this to happen Anet needs players. Not just a few. They need a LOT of players. The more or play, the more spend money in the cash shop which funds the game, and more importantly funds the GROWTH of the game.

It doesn’t matter that some people like competitive counterstrike and chess. That’s great. But more people today play games like Farmville than games like chess, sad though it be. And because of that, more people have to be catered to.

Guild Wars 1 had some real problems with accessbility and in some ways it paid for those problems. Anet is aware of those problems and has said so. It’s one of the reasons they created the game the way they did.

You can argue with me all you want, but obviously Anet saw and fixed a perceived problem. I’m pretty sure they have a decent handle on various reasons Guild Wars 1 never really made it main stream.

Pelagato.6092:

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

This is a bad question, because it’s only assuming two ways. I see the potential for ways that are neither the WoW way or the Guild Wars 1 way.

The problem with the WoW way is that content is gated behind gear that you have to run specific content to get. I don’t believe Anet wants to do this. The exception to this would be fractals, which were designed just for those people, but even there, you can enjoy lower level fractals and see everything without any of that gear. Higher level fractals are the same thing as the lower levels ones, but the bosses have more health and use the agony condition, which is punishing. But essentially the design of the different fractals is the same. Only the difficulty goes up.

I think Anet wants to create a more gentle gear curve than WoW has as a compromise. Those who just want to play the game and not worry about gear can without jumping through hoops to see content. Those who want to see their stats increase, albeit not very much, will keep chasing the carrot on the stick.

As the game progresses and more and more content comes out, ascended stuff will become much easier to get. The whole idea of it was to give people stuff to do…because that’s what an MMO is all about.

The compromise is to try to make it so those who don’t want that particular stuff to do aren’t greatly inconvenienced by the gear.

My guild still plays occasionally. We started a guild event to play with each other once a week in fact, to show people the story and help them get HoM points. Though a lot of people initially expressed interest in playing, not everyone stayed with playing. Those who played and loved the game, though, still go in to help people

For myself, I’ve done everything there is in the game so many times, without going in to help people there’s not much reason to keep playing.

Maybe because they won’t pay people overtime overnight on a weekend to do an update that needs someone to watch and make adjustments. Maybe Anet employees have families. As annoying as this is, Guild Wars 2 is a game and people have real lives.

You should try being in my shoes. I live in Australia and most games update during my prime playing time constantly. Rift did it nightly for weeks on end, where the down time each night was a half hour more.

Annoying? Sure. Our guild lost a bounty due to a reset, and yes we were annoyed. But no matter when they do it, they’re going to screw someone over. Sometimes you get the bear….sometimes the bear gets you.

Parisalchuk.9230:

Vayne.8563:

Parisalchuk.9230:

marnick.4305:

Parisalchuk.9230:

So this update is a total of a small PvE questline that will likely take 30 mins like Flame and Frost and EB JP being an instance. Thats it?

Sad…

If you call free stuff sad … you must really have a very, very sad life. I can’t imagine how sad paid content would make you.

Except its not really ‘free’. When the game was released it was promised that we would get these great content updates as long as you purchased the game. That means they were intended to be developed and included with the price of the game.

That is the exact logic of someone buying a game that was supposed to be this great game only to find out the game itself at release was half done. While they delivered on what they promised, they didnt deliver to the quality that you expected when you purchased the game.

Except that they didn’t say that everything would be free. They said they had a business model that included a cash shop. That is to say, the content would be funded by something.

No company can sell you a game and continue to give you free content forever. However, not everyone will spend money in the cash shop. Those that do fund the new content. It’s called a business plan.

Logically, if you buy a game like Tombraider for $60, you get under 20 hours of time out of it. If you buy Guild Wars 2 for $60, you can’t expect to get thousands of hours of content…not for that same price.

Of course, those that don’t spend money in the cash shop still get the content…but it’s naive to believe that any company can keep producing content for free, just based on box sales.

Anet has a different business model than a subscription game, but it still depends on money coming in.

That is not the point at all of my argument…

My point is that the quality of monthly updates that was advertised before game as advertisement to draw more sales before release does not match that of the actual product being delivered. They break no ‘promises’ because they still deliver but I am well within my rights to be upset that these updates dont really ‘have lasting effects on the world’ or any other of their buzz phrases they use. Am I upset at each individual update? No, there have been some months of enjoyment where content matches what was expected. Holiday events for example. But look at January. We got ‘Living Story’ that added content that was easily completed within 20 minutes with no rushing through it. That content does not live up to their prerelease hype.

Business model has no effect here. I have no problem with them trying to use the gem store to make money, that is and has always been their business model. A model which they decided would sustain the company allowing them to release large content updates. It is my opinion that these updates do not match what they hyped they would be.

They never advertised this game where they said every month would change the world. The only time I can remember them saying will change the world forever, was the karka event, which did in fact change the world by adding a new zone if nothing else. Now they’re getting ready to use that zone.

I don’t remember any advertisment for the game saying the game would change each and every month permanently.

Some people thought dymanic events would make permanent changes, but even there, Anet was massively clear, well before launch that dynamic events were persistent but not permanent, which is true. Furthermore they explained dynamic events in great detail and issued examples.

So sure, you can be kitten off. But I’m still not 100% sure what you’re kitten off about.

Simon.3106:

@ Vayne

Don’t you ever get bored of running around forum, dude? -_- Anyways, well said.

Hey…I’m retired. This keeps me mentally active. Anyway, it’s like PvP, you know. lol

Flashing Blades.7165:

Vayne.8563:

Milennin.4825:

Was to be expected.

I’m just missing the old GW1 emotes. Oh well, it’s not a big deal, I’m just not interested in buying them when they came free in GW1.

Various dances did NOT come free with Guild Wars 1. You got your one dance, and that was it. If you bought the collectors edition, you got a special dance (at least the Factions and Night Fall one). There were no other free dances.

Guild Wars 2 comes with a free dance for your character and Guild Wars 1 came with a free dance for your character. There were no options besides collectors edition dances beyond that.

Sorry Vayne but I have to call BS on this one. You forget about all the other dances that came with the tonics, for example turning into a rollerbeetle had its own dance associated with it. Same thing for the candy corn transformation, Oozes and many other tonics. Also, If you got the prophecies collectors you got the glowy hand effect also.

Paying for emotes and dances is lame. Just like paying to display your guild emblem on each character is lame. GW2 is one giant gold sink. At least in GW1 you bought your emblem once and everyone could display it for free. Still waiting for our characters to have to use an outhouse and we have to pay to access the outhouse or our characters double over and become unplayable.

Some of the tonics in Guild Wars 2 have dances as well. My wife made an endless toy doll tonic from christmas which comes with a dance. She didn’t pay for that in the cash shop.

And at this point in Guild Wars 1’s life there were NO dances but the ones it came with. So you had a choice of one dance at this point in Guild Wars 1’s life. That’s it. No tonics back then with dances. Nothing like it.

Guild Wars 2 gives you at least your dance, and the doll tonic, which is twice the number of dances Guild Wars 1 gave you at the same point in the game’s development.

Your experience of MMOs is all Guild Wars 1. My experience with MMOs is lots of MMOs. Judging the way a coop game is monetized compared to how an MMO is monetized really isn’t fair. They’re very different types of games.

MMOs have the highest risk factor of any type of game. They cost more to run. The staff required to run Guild Wars 2 is more than five times the size of what it cost to run Guild Wars 1.

You can compare the two games all you like, but this is a much bigger project with a much higher overhead. It requires a different level of financial support.

Edit: By percentage VERY few of the tonics had dances. Also the toy charr soldier tonic has a dance as well.

Parisalchuk.9230:

marnick.4305:

Parisalchuk.9230:

So this update is a total of a small PvE questline that will likely take 30 mins like Flame and Frost and EB JP being an instance. Thats it?

Sad…

If you call free stuff sad … you must really have a very, very sad life. I can’t imagine how sad paid content would make you.

Except its not really ‘free’. When the game was released it was promised that we would get these great content updates as long as you purchased the game. That means they were intended to be developed and included with the price of the game.

That is the exact logic of someone buying a game that was supposed to be this great game only to find out the game itself at release was half done. While they delivered on what they promised, they didnt deliver to the quality that you expected when you purchased the game.

Except that they didn’t say that everything would be free. They said they had a business model that included a cash shop. That is to say, the content would be funded by something.

No company can sell you a game and continue to give you free content forever. However, not everyone will spend money in the cash shop. Those that do fund the new content. It’s called a business plan.

Logically, if you buy a game like Tombraider for $60, you get under 20 hours of time out of it. If you buy Guild Wars 2 for $60, you can’t expect to get thousands of hours of content…not for that same price.

Of course, those that don’t spend money in the cash shop still get the content…but it’s naive to believe that any company can keep producing content for free, just based on box sales.

Anet has a different business model than a subscription game, but it still depends on money coming in.

Doggie.3184:

Probably not. Anets always offered rewards exclusive to their unique yearly events that never return a 2nd time. Highly doubt they’ll change that custom but who knows.

This isn’t true. The same stuff you did one year in Guild Wars 1, you did the next year in Guild Wars 1. The lucky title boardwalk continued, the stuff you got for party animal continued. In Guild Wars 1 there were no achievements you couldn’t get over time, even if you weren’t there.

All you couldn’t get were some of the masks that they gave out.

No one knows for sure, but I’m betting you’ll be able to.

Arcanorum Ignis.9218:

Yes we can dream, but dreaming is all we will ever be doing.

ANet have stated time and time again that they have no intention of ever making Guild Halls. The market for cuddly backpacks is just too lucrative at the moment.

Quote please.

Not only has Anet NEVER stated this, but they’ve actually stated quite the opposite.

There was a quote by Martin Kerstein on Guild Wars 2 Guru that Guild Halls and Player Housing would be coming, probably with the first paid expansion. It was also said that they don’t want to do the same old thing and they want to do guild halls right.

Third Eye.6718:

stale.9785:

Good lord, all the Vanye baiting.

For the OP, and anyone else offended by the micro-transactions? Grow up. Anet needs to make money, continually, and they only sell fluff in the gem store. If you don’t want the fluff, don’t buy it. Coming in with the attitude that it’s somehow owed to you, or you’ve been done wrong by not being given the fluff for free? If that’s what offends you most about GW2, you’re lucker than a lot of people.

It is not a question of being offended nor growing up, but rather a question of Ethics.

Anet needs to continually make money you say? I’d be interested to hear your facts backing up this statement, because I’ve been playing games for around 40 years and micro-transactions weren’t there in my day, and here we are still playing games. Also, hasn’t GW2 in all its success sold over 3 million copies, so I ask you, where did all that money go?

It would be interesting to know how much money is generated through micro transactions, and how much of this is put back into the game. I’m sure most are not naive enough to think that it’s not lining ‘other’ pockets as well.

Also you say, if we don’t want the fluff then don’t buy it, well that’s fair enough when we’re talking to adults who are not primarily ego driven. But the problem here is, we are talking about children as well, and as Drew mentioned above, MMO companies MAY be playing an active role in turning kids into gamblers(RNG), addicts(Legend grind), and simply sucking them in with marketing gimmicks(Quaggan backpacks lol).

And sure, while this falls back to the parents, it also lies with the MMO companies who allow it all to happen does it not? I’m curious as to what you and the whiteknight(Vayne) think about this in regards to this Ethical side of it, because from where I sit, to defend GW2 is to defend this practise is it not?

Btw, someone asked Vayne why he’s always defending the game. From a psychology point of view, people will defend whatever they are identified with (or value), as essentially they are just defending themselves. It is why this old dude who lives in a Commonwealth country is bothering to speak here, because I do not care for game banter, but the issue of Ethics is another story. : )

I’m against RNG in the game, when it comes to things like skins in the black lion chest. I’ve said so before and I have no doubt I’ll say it again. Of all the things I dislike about Guild Wars 2, RNG in the black market chest for rare skins is just ridiculous to me. I also didn’t like the dye packs having RNG for the new dyes. I think it’s a bad design decision.

That said I’m not sure it’s a question of ethics for me, so much as a question of balance or fairness. I don’t think someone should have to spend fifty or sixty dollars to try to get a skin. Selling the skin is one thing…rng for skins is terribad.

I’m not a big fan of minis available for a week either. They seem pointless to me. Why make them only available for a week, unless you’re trying to manipulate a large percentage of people into buying it.

Stuff like the dance, and the mining pick I’m fine with.

Astral Projections.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Those who duel in WvW probably don’t take up nearly as much space as the PVe’ers who neither want not care about WvW who are there just to get world completion. I promise you, more people who don’t care about WvW are out there trying to get world completion every day on every server than are trying to duel in WvW.

PvPers have an interesting mentality sometimes. Here we have some saying, no dueling. It takes up a slot in WvW that others want to use. But when a PvEer points out that to get maps 100% they are forced into a PvP area, that they don’t help in any way and take up a slot in WvW that others want to use, then it’s different. Then it’s you MUST explore WvW to get the title.

Well, if it’s not a big deal for PvEers to take up a wanted slot then it’s ok for duelers to do so.

Yep. Pretty much my take on it too. lol

Morrigan.2809:

Grats Vayne! which one?

@ OP- I like the economy too and I think it was really clever to make it world wide and not server bound, much less market fluctuation that way.
I do think that some GW2 tycoons are bordering on controlling some aspects of the market though.

I also rather like that it is fairly hard to earn gold- at least with my playstyle, it gives me small mini goals to work towards because I love cool stuff.
If I could just buy it outright all the time I think it wouldn’t give me nearly the amount of satisfaction it does now.

I love looking at my characters and see the effort I put into them and knowing that I earned it.

I am very poor ingame- I think my bank is at 8g atm

Got the Predator just yesterday…put it on my engie, who was my first level 80. It’s pretty cool.

LordByron.8369:

actually in a mmorpg i expect to play with random players.

I could have a fotm Group but it would be the most boring thing in the world.
That defeat the purpose to even play a mmorpg….

If your guild is big enough, that happens anyway. We have almost 100 people in my guild. Id don’t play with the same four people every day or even most days.

But I do play with people who think like I do…more or less. lol

LordByron.8369:

people do not kick me because i accept what i read and join only when i have prerequisistes….

YET prerequisites are there…

Guardian/warrior and DPS plus AR OR ascended….that is the community they are listening to and appealing to for PvE.

I am not a new player….and do not need help at all….

Prerequisites are there IN SOME GROUPS. But since you can’t put a number to the number of people who run this stuff in guilds and don’t pug, or the number of people who don’t use the site and just stand around in LA spamming, I’d say so what? So some people have requirements….just like in every MMO. Just like standing around in TOA in Guild Wars 1. Some people have requirements.

And some don’t.

You’re not going to find any answer here. First, we have no knowledge of who is right or wrong. We have no knowledge of the situation other than hearsay. And customer service or the devs aren’t going to come into this thread and make judgments on what happened in a specific instance….so I’m not sure what the point if this post is.

Drew.1865:

Vayne.8563:

Drew.1865:

Yondee.3258:

I’m slowly finding this game boring. What aspects of the game do you find exciting and rejuvenating? What do you think makes this a fun MMORPG? love to hear personal stories!

The game has no rewards other than social rewards from playing it with your friends. Once your friends get bored or also realize it is one of the least rewarding mmos you can play it gets boring because then you’re playing it alone.

They need to change the combat, boring builds, loot system aka RNG, remove DR, add things players actually want to the gem store (emotes and dances are a start) and lose the RNG gambling chests, make world bosses fun, stop making dungeons even worse than they already are and admit the design of them is terrible and many other things.

Actually I find other MMOs far less rewarding than this one, friends aside. Because my rewards aren’t necessarily loot. Fun is a type of reward too and I find this game fun. I don’t find other games fun, even though they may give me more loot.

Of course, the obvious fact is that the more loot given out freely in any game, the higher the inflation in that game and what ends up happening is that it tends to balance out. I don’t know why most people seem to ignore this basic economic fact.

Games should be fun and not be centered around an economy in my opinion and that’s just my opinion as it is my opinion that it is the least rewarding mmo on the market.

I’m glad you find it rewarding but I didn’t once I figured out everything was focused on the gem store.

If everything is focused on the gem store, as you claim, how are so many playing for free without buying gems. There are plenty of people doing that.

I think this opinion of yours has a long way to go to be proven. I’ve seen games focused around the gem store (Runes of Magic anyone), where you can rent a mount for a week with cash. This isn’t one of them.

stale.9785:

Good lord, all the Vanye baiting.

Look folks, the forums are a relatively small portion of the people playing the game. Overwhelmingly, they will be people with issues with the game, because that’s how most people find the forums.

The fact that the dude apparently doesn’t sleep, and has faith in Anet, doesn’t make him wrong. The fact that he speaks (types) like an old dude doesn’t make him wrong. (Betcha he’s the other side of 50, and from a commonwealth country.)

Mostly, it seems he’s interesting in leavening the 100% doom and gloom that floods the forums with some small amount of optimism.

Some of you are blatantly baiting him – this is the third thread I’ve read today where there are postings with no other purpose than to bring out his white-knightedness.

For the OP, and anyone else offended by the micro-transactions? Grow up. Anet needs to make money, continually, and they only sell fluff in the gem store. If you don’t want the fluff, don’t buy it. Coming in with the attitude that it’s somehow owed to you, or you’ve been done wrong by not being given the fluff for free? If that’s what offends you most about GW2, you’re lucker than a lot of people.

Vayne-baiting huh? I like it. Maybe Anet can add it into the game as a minigame. lmao!

Drew.1865:

Yondee.3258:

I’m slowly finding this game boring. What aspects of the game do you find exciting and rejuvenating? What do you think makes this a fun MMORPG? love to hear personal stories!

The game has no rewards other than social rewards from playing it with your friends. Once your friends get bored or also realize it is one of the least rewarding mmos you can play it gets boring because then you’re playing it alone.

They need to change the combat, boring builds, loot system aka RNG, remove DR, add things players actually want to the gem store (emotes and dances are a start) and lose the RNG gambling chests, make world bosses fun, stop making dungeons even worse than they already are and admit the design of them is terrible and many other things.

Actually I find other MMOs far less rewarding than this one, friends aside. Because my rewards aren’t necessarily loot. Fun is a type of reward too and I find this game fun. I don’t find other games fun, even though they may give me more loot.

Of course, the obvious fact is that the more loot given out freely in any game, the higher the inflation in that game and what ends up happening is that it tends to balance out. I don’t know why most people seem to ignore this basic economic fact.

LordByron.8369:

Vayne.8563:

This comes under choosing who you play with, instead of playing with elitists.

I m not an elitist.

I just use the gw2 lfg tool that anet didn t implement…
And seems differently from what you think MOST players are elitists playing fotm, cof and stuff like that.

If people are kicking you because you don’t have the right gear…with the exception of the highest level fractals, I’d say they’re elitist. They’re at very least not interested in helping new people along. Either way, I don’t team with people that ask me to ping equipment.

Those who duel in WvW probably don’t take up nearly as much space as the PVe’ers who neither want not care about WvW who are there just to get world completion. I promise you, more people who don’t care about WvW are out there trying to get world completion every day on every server than are trying to duel in WvW.

RuneCrimson.7380:

Like I said since not a soul will believe what I saw with my own eyes then its over I will just play the game like I play all MMO’s get what I can and give people who help me everything else.

What you’ve seen with your own eyes is the loot system at work. If you kill an ogre, he might have a weapon he took from ANYONE. He might have a bow, even though you’re an engineer. Not because you need the bow, it’s simply what he has. That doesn’t mean you don’t get unqiue rolls on loot tables.

Your drops aren’t tailored to you…you’re confusing unique for personalized. But your chance for a drop from each kill on each table is yours and yours alone.

Your change to get loot is unique but the loot itself is not personalized.

I used to be wealthy. Then I got a legendary. Back down to under 100 gold. lol

LordByron.8369:

Geotherma.2395:

LordByron.8369:

To OP…
Start today and tell me how much time do you need to equip your character with ascended/exotic items.

Not to mention economy that is slowly but steadily collapsing.

This is nothing but the old lineage 2 formula…

Exotic for me full set was 4 weeks ^^ Ascended meh, I have no use for it.

Ok when you will be booted from fotm parties remember that ascended are useless.
Also when you will be booted by cof1 speedruns….the difference between exo and asc is about the same between rare and exo.

What percentage of the playerbase do you think pugs high level fractals. What percentage of the playerbase do you think does CoF speed runs. You may think this number if huge, but I’d wager it’s much much smaller than you think.

In the month it takes to get the exotics, if you’re also doing dailies (or dailies and a monthly) you’d have enough to get at least one piece of ascended gear with AR, so yeah it’s still a month. That one piece can take you all the way to level 20 in the fractals.

By the time you get to level 20 in the fractals, you’ll have at least one ring and probably two, which would give you enough to continue.

So the answer is…its’ the same month. Stop making problems where problems don’t exist.

Being kicked out of a CoF speed run? LMAO. Maybe I don’t know,. don’t play with elitist farmers and you won’t have a problem. I’ve never been kicked from any dungeon run in the game the times when I pug.

And yeah, I don’t have the “best” gear on every character, nor do the people I play with necessarily care.

This comes under choosing who you play with, instead of playing with elitists.

SilverangelXx.1685:

Morrigan.2809:

The game has many emotes, the only ones I ever use are /sit, /wave and /bow.

Uh, no. Closer to zero than many. As a new player, I’ve seen great things about this game, but also big holes in what should be there. The lack of emotes is one of those things that are almost unbelievable. The lack of a trade feature with other players is another.

No matter how many emotes you have, it’s always closer to zero when compared to the almost infinite number of emotes you can have.

I do agree with you about direct trading though. I know why Anet did this, but I don’t agree that it should have been done.

Curae.1837:

As Vayne said, the game gets boring soon when playing alone. I’ve leveld 2 characters to 80 pretty much alone. Now I’ve joined an awesome guild and I’m having loads of fun again.

And try doing things you haven’t done before maybe. Have you done all the dungeons? Have you done fractals?
And if you’ve done them… have you done speed-runs, or runs with friendly people who who instead of getting angry/annoyed can’t stop laughing when someone gets blown of the ledges 20 times in the one with the giant and the seals while trying to guide them through? (well she had some horrible lag… though it was still quite funny)

Playing with people who see the game as a… game. Is a lot of fun.

It’s true. We were playing the grawl fractal. At the last boss, if you get a fire bubble on you it not only burns you but others who you come in contact with. One day, spontaneously, people in my guild who got the fire bubble just started playing tag in the middle of the fractal. We’re trying to kill the fire elemental, avoid the lava elementals when they spawn and suddenly we’re all trying to tag each other with flame.

It was hysterical.

LordByron.8369:

To OP…
Start today and tell me how much time do you need to equip your character with ascended/exotic items.

Not to mention economy that is slowly but steadily collapsing.

This is nothing but the old lineage 2 formula…

About a billionth of the time it would take starting today in EQ and trying to get max level gear. lol

All MMOs are better if you have the right people to play them with. If I played this game solo, I’d be done by now…having enjoyed myself but have little content I haven’t done.

My guild keeps it fresh and interesting. So does helping other people.

About 20 minutes ago, I ran into a small guild attempting a guild rush in Diessa Plateau. They might have failed the rush, but one of my guildies and I followed along with them, and helped kill the stuff that would have killed them.

Not to say they wouldn’t have finished without our help…they may have…and they may not have. We got no actual “reward” for helping but at the end, we had a nice chat with the other guild members and it seems they really appreciated the assistance.

Definitely more fun than farming mobs in Orr.