Guild Wars 2

I think the game will stay like this. I think those that are worried about vertical progression are really worried about content gating, and having to keep up. I just don’t see that happening here.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Vayne.8563:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I believe so because of several reasons:
-A lot of players played GW1 before this, which didn’t have gear progression either.
-Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have gear progression yet it’s a very successful game.
-This subject has been discussed before and everytime (including now) most people turn out to be against gear progression.
-I know a lot of people in GW2 who dislike gear progression.
-The developers clearly stated (even promised) that there would be no gear progression in the game, so most people (though I’m sure not all) knew this in advance, yet they still bought the game.

Now, I’m not saying this is definitive proof, but it heavily implies that most of the GW2 fanbase either doesn’t like gear progression or simply don’t care about it.

I’m a Guild Wars 1 player and I don’t mind gear progression. I don’t like content being gated by gear, but gear progression itself doesn’t bother me.

Gear progression already existed in this game from day 1. No one said a word. That’s why you 80th level green is different from an 80th level yellow, is different from a 80th level orange. That’s gear progression. Those are tiers of gear. There are several tiers of gear you can get at 80th level. each one better than the one before it. That is gear progression. Did you complain about it at launch?

What most people hate about gear progression from other games is the gating of content. You can’t do this dungeon without this gear. You can’t do that dungeon without that weapon. It’s ridiculous. That doesn’t exist in Guild Wars 2.

Most people who play Guild Wars 2 probably weren’t huge Guild Wars 1 players. Guild Wars 2 has sold half the copies that Guild Wars 1 has sold before the first year is up. Many players have never played Guild Wars 1 and don’t know what it’s about at all.

People have been playing games with gear progression in them for years. They are conditioned for this to be part of the genre.

Anet didn’t go whole hog and make a gear progression game like WoW. They added one tier of gear, which they’re rolling out slowly, while providing slowly multiple ways of getting it. That’s not quite gear grind…which is what most people hate.

Most people don’t think about this stuff enough to know the difference between gear progression, gear grind and content gating. They’re all different things.

I think most Guild Wars 1 players who were “into the game” probably want no gear progression at all. I have very little reason to believe they are a majority.

What I hate most about gear progression is the grind. For me the game is about using “the leet gear”, not obtaining it. Unless the road to getting your gear is fun, but it almost never is (except for those who like grinding the same things for months like mindless drones).

I’m not having any trouble getting BIS gear in this game, but more importantly I don’t feel I need BIS gear in this game. This is where it gets interesting to me.

I do the dailies pretty much just by playing…naturally. I’m not locked out of content. Even high level fractals can be done without doing dailies, because those fractal levels existed before laurals did.

So I just get the daily pretty much playing normally and down the road, I get an upgrade for a character. Not that hard at all. I do a few guild missions, there are public ones for people not in guilds on most servers and bam, I get some more ascended gear.

And if you like fractals, you’ll get it just running them. I run fractals because I find them fun, not for the ascended gear. I already have more ascended rings than I know what to do with. All my alts have them and some I’m saving for lower level guys for when they get to 80.

I didn’t feel I was grinding during any part of this.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I believe so because of several reasons:
-A lot of players played GW1 before this, which didn’t have gear progression either.
-Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have gear progression yet it’s a very successful game.
-This subject has been discussed before and everytime (including now) most people turn out to be against gear progression.
-I know a lot of people in GW2 who dislike gear progression.
-The developers clearly stated (even promised) that there would be no gear progression in the game, so most people (though I’m sure not all) knew this in advance, yet they still bought the game.

Now, I’m not saying this is definitive proof, but it heavily implies that most of the GW2 fanbase either doesn’t like gear progression or simply don’t care about it.

I’m a Guild Wars 1 player and I don’t mind gear progression. I don’t like content being gated by gear, but gear progression itself doesn’t bother me.

Gear progression already existed in this game from day 1. No one said a word. That’s why you 80th level green is different from an 80th level yellow, is different from a 80th level orange. That’s gear progression. Those are tiers of gear. There are several tiers of gear you can get at 80th level. each one better than the one before it. That is gear progression. Did you complain about it at launch?

What most people hate about gear progression from other games is the gating of content. You can’t do this dungeon without this gear. You can’t do that dungeon without that weapon. It’s ridiculous. That doesn’t exist in Guild Wars 2.

Most people who play Guild Wars 2 probably weren’t huge Guild Wars 1 players. Guild Wars 2 has sold half the copies that Guild Wars 1 has sold before the first year is up. Many players have never played Guild Wars 1 and don’t know what it’s about at all.

People have been playing games with gear progression in them for years. They are conditioned for this to be part of the genre.

Anet didn’t go whole hog and make a gear progression game like WoW. They added one tier of gear, which they’re rolling out slowly, while providing slowly multiple ways of getting it. That’s not quite gear grind…which is what most people hate.

Most people don’t think about this stuff enough to know the difference between gear progression, gear grind and content gating. They’re all different things.

I think most Guild Wars 1 players who were “into the game” probably want no gear progression at all. I have very little reason to believe they are a majority.

clay.7849:

One of many quotes:

If we chose fun as our main metric for tracking success, can we flip the core paradigm and make design decisions based on what we’d like to play as game players? Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience? Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to? It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun!

I don’t have any problem with this quote. The daily takes like 15 minutes, if you focus on it. If you don’t focus on it, you usually get just about all of it just from playing, particularly because you don’t need to do all of them.

And yes, many things in this game have been added for fun, including most recently SAB, which a lot of people do find fun.

You pull out a quote like this and you think this shows they’re not doing what they said? You really are out there, aren’t you?

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

Shootsfoot.9276:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

@Clay

What I like is how many times you say I’m “wrong” in your posts. You have accused me in the past of saying you’re wrong, except I almost never say it.

So now you want to bring in expertise, people more experienced to define things. Yet when I point out I’m more experienced that you, you dismiss it.

Experienced people have all sorts of opinions on things, but they don’t all agree with each other. I’d say Ravious is pretty experienced and he didn’t think Guild Wars 2’s combat was shallow.

That’s because this isn’t opinion, this is fact we are talking about. The depth of a game, not only has to do with different experiences that you can get out of the game, but how effective those experiences are.

In GW2, first, there isn’t much more than just direct damage and dodging. And, anything else, is really less effective than direct damage, which makes them irrelevant to the game’s depth.

These are all facts. You can have an opinion about a fact all you want, but you would be wrong.

I’ll say one thing, you guys sure entertain me in what the two of you think are “fact” and “opinion.”

LOL

We need our own podcast.

Actually, this isn’t a bad idea lol. I bet it would be pretty popular.

What would we call it? OMFG, this would be a riot. We’d argue for like an hour at a time.

I really liked Halloween and to a lesser degree Christmas.

I think they made too big a thing about the living world, so it was bound to be anticlimactic. Maybe this month will change that. One can hope.

I really liked the scavenger hunt sorta quest on Halloween, and the jumping puzzle too, even though I didn’t beat it. LIked the maze and the PvP as well.

Wolfey.3407:

The way dungeons are set up at the moment is purely anti-newbie and anti-casual player. Removing the ability to warp back to a way point when defeated, has really dampened any effort for newbies to learn the dungeon. The idea of removing it had good intentions on trying to force people to play the dungeons correctly instead of spawn spamming; however, with that being said… you run into parties being more elitist oriented. With the web site LFG, almost every posting I have seen involves one of two criteria: 1) Warrior/Guardian Only. or (2) Gear Check
You also run into an issue of certain dungeons no longer being farmed which hinders any interest some players may have. E.g. I can do 25 Ascalonian Catacomb runs before I find a party willing to try 1 Twilight Arbor. That’s with advertising in chat & on LFG.

Fractals are the same issue as dungeons in terms of warrior/guardians only & gear checks.

There’s just nothing in the dungeon element to really benefit newbies or help them learn the ropes of dungeons when you have a bunch of elitist kitten.

Unless they join a guild with people willing to show them the ropes. I find this behavior far more prevalent in guilds than it is in pugs.

Today my guild ran Arah path 2. It was a really good run. Took us a long time, but w had a blast.

No one in the group had EVER done Arah path 2 before. I’d done 1 and 3 (as had my wife), and none of the other three had ever completed Arah. In fact, one of the group had never been in Arah at all, not even story mode.

There are plenty of good guilds out there with nice people who’ll take the time to show new players the ropes.

Shootsfoot.9276:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

@Clay

What I like is how many times you say I’m “wrong” in your posts. You have accused me in the past of saying you’re wrong, except I almost never say it.

So now you want to bring in expertise, people more experienced to define things. Yet when I point out I’m more experienced that you, you dismiss it.

Experienced people have all sorts of opinions on things, but they don’t all agree with each other. I’d say Ravious is pretty experienced and he didn’t think Guild Wars 2’s combat was shallow.

That’s because this isn’t opinion, this is fact we are talking about. The depth of a game, not only has to do with different experiences that you can get out of the game, but how effective those experiences are.

In GW2, first, there isn’t much more than just direct damage and dodging. And, anything else, is really less effective than direct damage, which makes them irrelevant to the game’s depth.

These are all facts. You can have an opinion about a fact all you want, but you would be wrong.

I’ll say one thing, you guys sure entertain me in what the two of you think are “fact” and “opinion.”

LOL

We need our own podcast.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Vayne.8563:

Adding something into a game that some players enjoy IS a benefit. How can anyone say it’s not?

That’s like saying adding jumping puzzles into a game for people who like jumping puzzles isn’t a benefit. Honestly, Clay, sometimes you mystify me.

But that’s just it, I believe (Though I’m not sure) the largest part of the GW2 fanbase does not enjoy gear progression, because that’s pretty much what defines Guild Wars 2

But we don’t know what most players like or want. Anet obviously believes a sizeable portion of the population does like some gear progression. Unfornately they aren’t the people that followed the game from day 1. But it doesn’t mean that group isn’t a majority.

I’m pretty sure Anet has better metrics about what people want in the game than I do.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Vayne.8563:

Adding something into a game that some players enjoy IS a benefit. How can anyone say it’s not?

That’s like saying adding jumping puzzles into a game for people who like jumping puzzles isn’t a benefit. Honestly, Clay, sometimes you mystify me.

But that’s just it, I believe the largest part of the GW2 fanbase does not enjoy gear progression, because that’s pretty much what defines Guild Wars 2

You believe this based on what, precisely?

I believe that the largest part of the Guild Wars 2 player base has no real prior knowledge of the game, didn’t particularly research it, they just bought the game for something to do. And that’s the problem.

People who were following the game for years, the die-hard fans like me, we’re never the majority. We’re the minority. It’s like people who buy and read books. I was a professional editor. When I read a book,it’s a very different experience than the average person who pays their $15 and they read the book and in a week, they’re done with it, and they move to the next book. They don’t have to think deeply about what made the book good or bad, and most of them don’t.

Back in October, a couple of months after Guild Wars 2 came out,. people had burned through all the content and they were complaining they had nothing to do. Real content takes time to make, so Anet put in the Fractals, which they’d probably already been working on, but added the ascended gear bit in to keep people playing the game. And for a lot of people that worked.

The population was dropping before the Fractals came into the game, and since then, from my observations anyway, the population seems to be increasing.

You don’t really have the numbers of what most people playing the game actually want. You’re just making the assumption that’s what they want, because you’re part of a group of people you’ve been associating with that seem to be prevalent.

But I don’t really believe they are.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

Adding something into a game that some players enjoy IS a benefit. How can anyone say it’s not?

That’s like saying adding jumping puzzles into a game for people who like jumping puzzles isn’t a benefit. Honestly, Clay, sometimes you mystify me.

Why do they enjoy it? What about ascended gear makes it enjoyable?

You can try and use that “subjective” argument for everything, but it doesn’t work every time.

I fail to see how ascended gear adds enjoyment to the game. If people want to grind, there is already plenty to grind.

It doesn’t matter why they enjoy it. That’s 100% completely irrelevant to the conversation. What’s relevant is that they DO enjoy it.

My dogs like pulling on rope. Why do they like it? They can’t answer, but I still buy them rope toys. You don’t have to be able to qualify why you like something for you to like it. It’s like when someone makes a movie that people like. Some people will be able to go into great depth about what they liked about it (like me) and some people won’t…but they’ll still like it Should someone stop making movies because they average person doesn’t know why they like it? Preposterous.

People don’t think deeply about their gaming experience. You do. I do. Most people don’t. So they don’t know. They just play what appeals to them.

And they have just as much right to have a game that appeals to them as you do.

lordkrall.7241:

Vayne.8563:

How about that. This was completely off my radar.

Happy birthday Anet!

I wonder what I’ll get in Guild Wars 1 as my 8th year birthday present. lol

A gift-card that can be traded for a gift box from any of the earlier years.

Really??? How cool is that?

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Milennin.4825:

Strange, didn’t know they removed the blogs. Maybe to prevent people from digging up old ‘promises’ they made in some of them (such as account-wide dyes).

I’d go with this theory until someone proves otherwise.

Because it’s easier to go with a completely unproven theory than to not judge. Says tons.

Have you read some of those blog posts? It’s pretty obvious why they pulled them. Much more kitten than the “manifesto” compared to what we have.

I’ve read all of the blog posts. Every single one of them. It’s not obvious why they pulled them. It’s your opinion why. Some of the blog posts are years old though and probably not relevant to an evolving game.

No, it’s pretty clear as to why. There are lots of things they made definitive stands against that now appear in the game. Some things specifically contrary to what you continue to say.

It’s only clear to you, and maybe a couple of guys like you. As you get older, you start seeing more shades of gray and less black and white. I hope you remember some of these conversations when you’re my age.

You have an opinion about why something was done. You don’t know. You’ve guessed and because you can’t prove it, you can say it’s obvious.

I have a copy of the strategy guide in the house. Some of it is already outdated. It talks about dye seeds for example, which are no longer in the game. That was a good change actually from how they had it, in my opinion.

Sometimes, articles get dated, particularly in a dynamic, work in progress.

How about that. This was completely off my radar.

Happy birthday Anet!

I wonder what I’ll get in Guild Wars 1 as my 8th year birthday present. lol

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

@Clay

What I like is how many times you say I’m “wrong” in your posts. You have accused me in the past of saying you’re wrong, except I almost never say it.

So now you want to bring in expertise, people more experienced to define things. Yet when I point out I’m more experienced that you, you dismiss it.

Experienced people have all sorts of opinions on things, but they don’t all agree with each other. I’d say Ravious is pretty experienced and he didn’t think Guild Wars 2’s combat was shallow.

That’s because this isn’t opinion, this is fact we are talking about. The depth of a game, not only has to do with different experiences that you can get out of the game, but how effective those experiences are.

In GW2, first, there isn’t much more than just direct damage and dodging. And, anything else, is really less effective than direct damage, which makes them irrelevant to the game’s depth.

These are all facts. You can have an opinion about a fact all you want, but you would be wrong.

You used the word wrong again. I think you should stop using it, considering you accused me of saying you were wrong all the time. In reality you’re the one saying I’m wrong.

More to the point, the definition of depth is definitely up for grabs. Depth doesn’t have to mean what you think it means. And efficiency doesn’t have to be part of the depth discussion, because people DO have different play styles.

As long as you’re only interested in efficiency and nothing else, you’re playing a different game than I am. For example, some of the depth can come from using a “less efficient” profession and trying to do harder content with it.

I think pugging dungeons is horrid, most of the time, but running a dungeon with a guild of like-minded players can be a blast.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Milennin.4825:

Strange, didn’t know they removed the blogs. Maybe to prevent people from digging up old ‘promises’ they made in some of them (such as account-wide dyes).

I’d go with this theory until someone proves otherwise.

Because it’s easier to go with a completely unproven theory than to not judge. Says tons.

Have you read some of those blog posts? It’s pretty obvious why they pulled them. Much more kitten than the “manifesto” compared to what we have.

I’ve read all of the blog posts. Every single one of them. It’s not obvious why they pulled them. It’s your opinion why. Some of the blog posts are years old though and probably not relevant to an evolving game.

Adding something into a game that some players enjoy IS a benefit. How can anyone say it’s not?

That’s like saying adding jumping puzzles into a game for people who like jumping puzzles isn’t a benefit. Honestly, Clay, sometimes you mystify me.

@Clay

What I like is how many times you say I’m “wrong” in your posts. You have accused me in the past of saying you’re wrong, except I almost never say it.

So now you want to bring in expertise, people more experienced to define things. Yet when I point out I’m more experienced that you, you dismiss it.

Experienced people have all sorts of opinions on things, but they don’t all agree with each other. I’d say Ravious is pretty experienced and he didn’t think Guild Wars 2’s combat was shallow.

My argument comes down to two things.

1) Some people think it’s a benefit to add grind to a game (and Guild Wars 1 had some LEGENDARY grinds).

2) A benefit for the game is a benefit for people who like to play the game. MMOs are big business. I want more content for the game, which will only happen if people PLAY the game.

Right now, from my observations, people are playign the games. Certainly more than in November, which is a step in the right direction.

Giving people something to do isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Give them something to do that they don’t have to do if they don’t want to, that’s even better.

In spite of that, we’ve found some really great combos to use as a guild. I love putting down a chaos storm and giving everyone chaos armor briefly, or getting confounding bolts out of it. It’s very cool stuff.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

TwoBit.5903:

To be fair, the designers probably didn’t know what they were getting into when they decided to do “active combat.”

They clearly didnt. Despite the fact that they added jumping and dodging and swimming, this game is still based too much around skills to be considered “action” combat.

Now all we have is a poor excuse for either.

In your opinion. I actually quite like the combat.

Some people prefer shallow easy combat. That, however, is not something for a developer to be proud of.

The fact that’s it’s shallow is ALSO your opinion. I don’t particularly find the combat shallow. And I think Anet has made a game to be proud of. Of course that’s also just an opinion.

Nope, wrong again. By definition the combat is shallow. Maybe you should read up on that.

Actually, first you’d have to find an acceptable definition of shallow that we can both agree on. Then from there we could discuss whether or not this combat is shallow.

I actually think combat in Guild Wars 1 was more shallow than this. Builds were not. Combat itself was.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

TwoBit.5903:

To be fair, the designers probably didn’t know what they were getting into when they decided to do “active combat.”

They clearly didnt. Despite the fact that they added jumping and dodging and swimming, this game is still based too much around skills to be considered “action” combat.

Now all we have is a poor excuse for either.

In your opinion. I actually quite like the combat.

Some people prefer shallow easy combat. That, however, is not something for a developer to be proud of.

The fact that’s it’s shallow is ALSO your opinion. I don’t particularly find the combat shallow. And I think Anet has made a game to be proud of. Of course that’s also just an opinion.

clay.7849:

TwoBit.5903:

To be fair, the designers probably didn’t know what they were getting into when they decided to do “active combat.”

They clearly didnt. Despite the fact that they added jumping and dodging and swimming, this game is still based too much around skills to be considered “action” combat.

Now all we have is a poor excuse for either.

In your opinion. I actually quite like the combat.

I get the impression the O kitten o fixated on the precusor and the legendary weapon that even if he comes back, he won’t be satisifed if it’s not a lot cheaper..and it’s not.

I also get the impression that the couple of times a week his guild does guild missions probably won’t keep in satisfied with the game for any length of time.

People play games for different reasons. I’m guessing the reasons the OP plays games will probably make him incompatible with this game.

Personally I’d try it anyway, but reading what the OP has to say, I’m not thinking it’s worth it for him.

I don’t know if it’s a “very real problem”…I suppose it probably is to someone it bothers. I can say it’s not a very real problems for me, though.

I do think the LFG tool will be out soonish, and I am hoping it’s this month…but not because of what happened to me tonight.

It’ll be just one less thing for me to have to keep telling people to be patient about. lol

Nope, nothing has changed since then.

I didn’t defend the point. I said, and have said all along, the LFG tool will be in the game when it’s finished. Yes, people can troll others using that site. There are actually many ways in game to troll people too (which I won’t ever post on the forums). They all need to be looked at.

All I’ve ever said was that it will be ready when it’s ready. In this particular case the “trolling” worked to my advantage. I could see why it would annoy some people though.

I think this first living story is sort of a test run, looking at what they can do with it later.

I can’t wait. I hope the finale of Flame and Frost is a bit more “meaty” than it has been so far.

bigtime.7410:

Vayne.8563:

bigtime.7410:

Uhh if you havent notice, the way you look IE COSMETICS is a competition, so this game IS pay to win in that regard. Since when was only fighting a competition. Theres competition all around you, look, and it doesnt invovle smacking someone. Therefore its cheating, paying to get a head is cheating, its like paying the refereee to score points because you dont want to or cant score yourself. Cheating plain and simple, I dont know how any game can call itself credible when they ALLOW CHEATERS TO CHEAT in their game. How am I supposed to play a game where known cheaters are allowed to play?

This is actually a pretty good argument, with one small, tiny problem.

For the most part, no one cares how anyone else looks but themselves. So you’re really only competing with yourself. Since you can’t cheat yourself, it’s not a big deal.

Maybe you spend a whole lot of time looking at other people in LA and envying them….but I’m pretty sure most people don’t.

I dont envy them, i admire them, but I dont see anyone in LA anyway, the only time i get to see cool armors and weapons is during world boss fights. Thats when I actually see a crowd in this game. And who are you to judge what I like and dont like, whats the difference between competing for vanity with cosmetics, or competing for ego in pvp? Is one better?

The difference is, competing for titles or achievements have a definite “score” while competing for cosmetics is very much a matter of personal taste. A lot of people see legendary weapons as awesome. A lot of people don’t how they look at all. So you’re not actually “competiting” for them.

Cosmetic stuff is there to make your character look how you want him to look. If you choose to see that as “winning”, that’s on you.

Could have been anyone. I have many “admirers”. lol Actually I didn’t mind it, but I can see how people can.

I mean Anet has said they’re working on it…can it really take that long to make an LFG tool?

While I know Anet is working on an LFG tool, just earlier someone trolled me by using my name on gw2lfg.com.

Actually it didn’t really go that badly, since I made a couple of friends and got a new guildie out of it…but the point remains, it’s too easy to troll people this way.

While I like gw2lfg.com, I think the LFG tool really needs to come soon enough. Not everyone likes chatting as much as I do.

Anyone think it’s coming in the April patch?

I know a woman in game who had an honest to god fear of heights. Well a fear of falling anyone. Even easy vistas are very challenging to her. So I portal her places sometimes. What’s the big deal?

If I didn’t, she’d not be able to get zone completions. I’m happy to help out.

bigtime.7410:

Uhh if you havent notice, the way you look IE COSMETICS is a competition, so this game IS pay to win in that regard. Since when was only fighting a competition. Theres competition all around you, look, and it doesnt invovle smacking someone. Therefore its cheating, paying to get a head is cheating, its like paying the refereee to score points because you dont want to or cant score yourself. Cheating plain and simple, I dont know how any game can call itself credible when they ALLOW CHEATERS TO CHEAT in their game. How am I supposed to play a game where known cheaters are allowed to play?

This is actually a pretty good argument, with one small, tiny problem.

For the most part, no one cares how anyone else looks but themselves. So you’re really only competing with yourself. Since you can’t cheat yourself, it’s not a big deal.

Maybe you spend a whole lot of time looking at other people in LA and envying them….but I’m pretty sure most people don’t.

I don’t know. I get into my characters okay…though not so much through the personal story.

With my human character, I start in the middle of a centaur battle. I can get into that right away. It gives me something that drives me forward. As I explore the world, just looking around, I run into things that interest a particular character. Even something like choosing what order to join was interesting for me.

My first character, Cador Shrike, was a human engineer. He sees everything basically as an engineering problem. He’s honorable and he believes in direct action. Acccording to his demeanor and beliefs, choosing the Vigil would seem like the perfect choice for him…but it doesn’t work. Because he doesn’t believe you can use force against something like a dragon. It just doesn’t make sense to him.

The Durmond Priory would be the second choice for him, by temperment, but he’s a man of action and the whole scholar, learning for the sake of learning, doesn’t really fit him either.

The Order of Whispers, on the other hand, is a bit under-handed, something he doesnt’ respect. But he thinks they have the best logical chance of defeating the dragons, so that’s the order he joined.

Maybe it’s because I played pen and paper RPGs for so long, but my characters are individuals and that means each play through is different for me.

Vaugh.7193:

Vayne.8563:

Vaugh.7193:

Vayne.8563:

You’re not, however, likely to get a whole lot more of value.

I converted 1.3kk Karma to 50 gold 1 week ago from those boxes.

That’s pretty amazing. It’s also a boatload of karma. A few people have posted results and they haven’t been quite that favorable.

I guess that’s RNG for you.

Those 50 gold is from re-investment in the karma bottles you also get from the boxes. Its not from a single “run”, I repeated it untill I couldnt anymore. I spent alot more than 1.3kk karma total, but that was what I started with.

Ah, I see. I wasn’t nearly that lucky and I spent a lot of karma too and reinvested the karma back into getting more boxes. I was going for the mini. Took me ages. But along the way I didn’t do all that well. Might just be bad RNG for me.

I’m a casual, and I’m a pretty good player. Mind you, I have a lot more time than most casuals. But I hate min-maxing, and I won’t play the game to be most efficient. As long as the content gets cleared I’m not particularly stressed about how long it takes to clear it.

The only area that hard core would really likely affect me is SPvP, which I do rarely or sometimes WvW, if I happen to get into 1v1 fights. Usually I end up doing okay in them, but sometimes I’m outplayed.

I’d have to go with take your time and enjoy the road to max level. It’s not like other games where the first fun thing you do is at level cap. There’s plenty of cool things to see along the way.

Joining a guild of like-minded players helps a lot too.

I play with my wife, and we’re both altoholics. We have a lot of free time though (being retired).

I have yet to find a pair of characters that don’t synergize well. Most commonly we play Guardian and Mesmer or elementalist and ranger, though right now we’re playing 2 necros.

There really is no wrong way to do it in this game.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Conncept.7638:

He’s a cinematics expert that happens to know enough programming to pull this off.

A. He can’t make the cinematics until the rest of the content is finished, so he’s not wasting anything by filling his time with other projects. Google is considered to be one of the most productive companies of our age, and each developer spends at least a third of their work day on personal projects.
B. Knowing how to develop an 8-bit platformer does not translate to knowing how to develop a 3d MMO. His not working on this little side-project most likely wouldn’t have helped any other content get done faster.

Anet is not being serious with its IP thats good to know. Bioshock Infinite: Blood Songbird 16 bit awesome side scroller shooter please?

Part of being mature is being able to laugh at yourself.

Sovta.4719:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-27-arenanet-holds-frank-reddit-debate-on-guild-wars-2-loot-grind

Very cool and even better. So if they always had gear progression in mind, but a gentle gear progression that isn’t a gear grind, then I don’t really see the problem with that progression.

But I’d also heard prior to that that they were going to up the level cap in an expansion and that could certainly be the gear progression they had in mind. There’s nothing specific in this interview, at least that I saw, that said they were going to raise the gear progression with ascended gear specifically.

You’re putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5.

So gear progression is bad but “gentle” gear progression is good? Vayne you are really piece of work, i salute you.

Actually gear progression itself isn’t bad. Gating content based on gear is. If the gear curve is so gentle that I don’t need it to do content…then it’s not a treadmill.

You should salute me. After taking what I say out of context (or thinking of individual words instead of actual meaning) it’s the least you can do.

SolidTx.3249:

our entire guild and many others I know ran out of things to do in GW2 once we got all exotic gear and a legendary in the hands of those who wanted them. Leif Johnson (one of the few credible MMO journalists) wrote an article 3 months after release calling GW2 the easiest MMO to stop playing – and then pick up again – because the game lacks content for high level characters. It just does.

Arena has lost a huge amount of its player base since launch – and yes almost all MMOs these days do – but just because something is common place doesn’t mean we have to accept it.

There are a lot of good arguments made here on the “UN” fun aspects of grinding and doing something for the sake of doing it but it adding no real value to the game. I’m not advocating that – I don’t think anyone is. But to abandon key features in an MMO because the casual market wants to be on par with the hardcore market is INSANE.

I’m not here to bash WoW or throw rose petals at its feet. I played it for 5 years and like many of you eventually got bored with it. But it still has circa 10M paying subscribers for ONE simple reason – CONTENT!! CONTENT is king. It takes Blizz about 8 weeks for every patch that includes new dungeons and new gear. It takes the average guild and players about that time to clear that content. They have it down to a science.

Now their method of execution may not appeal to everyone here – no one is saying Arena has to do it that way. The point is there is always new stuff coming out that players can experience to make themselves AND their characters advance.

If GW2 philosophy is to make a game so a player who plays the game for 5-10 hours a week can have the same gear, look, and capabilities as someone who invests 30 hours a week – then GW2 will FAIL. It’s inveitbale. And the rationale for doing so is illogical. Make everything accessible to everyone – making a game based on COMMUNISM is STUPID. It doesnt work in governments and societies and it doesnt work in games.

WoW had LESS content at 8 months in than Guild Wars 2 does now.

All dungeons are too short if you run through half the mobs. I did Arah today and it wasn’t that short….not to me. How long do you want dungeons to be?

I was actually quite surprised by the quote. I’d have thought guild halls would have been in before the first expansion (and maybe they will be, who knows). And yeah, you’re still young. The memory thing is really insidious.

laokoko.7403:

Morphisor.7290:

BlackhawkSOM.6401:

I really hate it when people say ohh you can make your own end game—-seriously stfu..
this game aint no sand box.

Reason this game lacks real end game because there is just lack of things to do. Once you hit lvl 80 and get map completion the only thing left is spvp…wvw..fractals..farm for legendary/exotics(cof p1).

Thats what most people do anyway: Spvp was supposed to be the ultimate end game and has a lot of potential but with 8 months passing and no significant content(game modes, working tourny system, pvp specifc skins ect) its dying very fast.

I like how you say “once you got map completion the only thing left is….” and then proceed to name four different activities that can be done indefinitely.

Take any other MMO, and tell me, how amazingly many things there are to do in it after you reach max level and max gear.

Oh, right.

That is the thing. In other mmorpg I never see all the content, I never killed all boss in the game, I never get maxed my gear, some of which I never even reach max level. And I’m a game addicted that play way too much video game.

I’m in no way saying GW2 design is bad. I’m just saying this game is designed to be much more casual. Which is a good and bad thing depend how you look at it.

How many of those MMO did you play at launch? Because you could kill and do everything in games like Rift in a couple of months after launch EASILY. Even WoW when it launched, you could have done all the content in a couple of months.

Content takes time to produce. If you play an MMO with years behind it, you’ll have more to do. It’s simple logic.

Morrigan.2809:

Vayne.8563:

ThiBash.5634:

Vayne.8563:

So how long after Rift launched was it before Trion added player housing? It’ll get here when it gets here.

Except it was firts promised to be in the game, then promised to be added really soon. Then we hear they’re not even working on it, and we’re still waiting.

Ummm, no. They never promised Guild Halls or player housing would be in at launch. The ONLY reference to it is that one Martin Kerstein quote from Guru, in which he replied that they’d come at the same time, most likely in an expansion.

Are you sure? I have a dim memory of someone somewhere saying that initially it was planned for launch but as time got closer it was delayed but will be in after.

Sure no-one said when exactly but it did sort of create an expectation among players, which is why we have had these threads since launch.

Clearly it is something that many people would love to have.
I don’t think it is unrealistic to say in the first expansion but that seems odd to me since it was very much an idea from the start- at least that is how I recall it.

I followed this game very closely for a long time. While there’s a possibility that I’ve misremembered some things (especially at my age), I very specifically remember the questions about it, and Martin Kerstein’s response.

They’d never planned Guild Halls or housing for launch.

Not to mention, you can have map completion and still miss tons of things on maps. Yesterday I did the minidungeon in Caledon Forest.

Do you have any idea how much time I’ve spent in this zone. I have it completed on three characters, and never realized there was a minidungeon in it.

Vaugh.7193:

Vayne.8563:

You’re not, however, likely to get a whole lot more of value.

I converted 1.3kk Karma to 50 gold 1 week ago from those boxes.

That’s pretty amazing. It’s also a boatload of karma. A few people have posted results and they haven’t been quite that favorable.

I guess that’s RNG for you.

BlackhawkSOM.6401:

I really hate it when people say ohh you can make your own end game—-seriously stfu..
this game aint no sand box.

Reason this game lacks real end game because there is just lack of things to do. Once you hit lvl 80 and get map completion the only thing left is spvp…wvw..fractals..farm for legendary/exotics(cof p1).

Thats what most people do anyway: Spvp was supposed to be the ultimate end game and has a lot of potential but with 8 months passing and no significant content(game modes, working tourny system, pvp specifc skins ect) its dying very fast.

Are you telling people to stfu because you don’t agree with them? Okay. I won’t shut up though.

Yes, you can make your own end game. You can DECIDE, for example, that you want every armor set from every dungeon. That’s a choice you can make. You can decide to try to get every minipet. You can decide to try to get all named exotics. There are tons of ways to make your own end game.

None of these may appeal to you, but you really don’t need a sandbox MMO to make your own end game.

What an end game is is what you do at level 80. I’m at level 80 and I’m still playing . At the moment my end game is achievements and going for a legendary weapon….also some WvW.

I’m going through looking for all the jumping puzzles, too. And all the mini dungeons.

Hell, you could start a new character, turn off all the map markers and go for world complete, if you like that sort of challenge.

End game in Guild Wars 2 is what you make it.