Guild Wars 2

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Much of the fanbase indeed does not share my viewpoint. The problem is that a huge chunk of GW2 players are not *fan*base. Majority of F2P players came no sooner then launch of HoT and before shelling out $50 for HoT they decided to try core game for free. Why buy something you’re not even sure you like?

By the time they decided what their stance on core GW2 is and grew their characters to 80, initial hype died down to reasonable levels, and both reviewer and player feedback about genuine content and issues with HoT has surfaced giving them far more objective view on the purchase of HoT. Now let’s summarize a F2P player’s perspective:

- huge, engaging core game = $0
- 4 maps (+ 2 guild halls if you’re in one, not everyone is) if you’re a PvE’er (most are) – extra 50$.

And a-net wonders why sales are not meeting expectations….
With core players disappointed (mostly about amount of content vs hype+price) and F2P delaying their decision to jump ship to HoT (it costs 50$, and come next xpac it’ll be free!) it’s nor surprise sales are rock bottom on the F2P front…

Let’s be honest here: Milk got spilled, no use crying about it, but a-net can either mop it up and be done with it, or leave it there to rot and start smelling.
Soon we’ll know the answer as the issue can’t stick around forever and now is really the time to take action, such as:

a) LS3 delivering huge chunks of new HoT content – that’s probably best choice for them – with this addition HoT may become worthy of its asking price and they both save face and get those xpac copy sales moving, along with regaining some of the lost trust from fanbase.

b) they bend their neck, lower official HoT price, admitting the mistaken price/content appraisal. Yes they can lower it via 3rd party retailers, but doing it officially is like publically admitting their mistake. While it may hurt their pride and upset some players that recently bought it at full price, it is a way to gain back respect of many players.

c) they start HoT sale. Not much in terms of regaining player sympathy but it will get many undecided core players to jump ship.

Regardless the time has never been riper to do something about the current situation of HoT sales and player faith in company.

I don’t think I can disagree with this post more. If they like the game, they get three extra character slots, get daily log in rewards, have all their restrictions removed. And I don’t believe most players even read forums or reddit. It’s just not how people are. They play a game they like it and they either buy it or don’t. That’s why the 80 level thing came out. People weren’t leveling fast enough.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Regardless it’s over 9 months now, so the “light content” either will get pad properly with LS3, or they’ll have to be very, VERY clear that next xpansion is full of content to the point of morbid obesity..

I think much of the fan base doesn’t actually see it the way you do. Just my opinion but I stand by it. Plenty of people are playing and enjoying HoT, working on achievements and collections. Some are raiding. Some are enjoying WvW.

You can’t really speak for anyone but yourself and those like you. We don’t really know how big that group is.

We also don’t know what the next expansion will sell for.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Vayne.8563:

ProtoGunner.4953:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Proto – agreed on HoT needing more maps for it’s price. Both in open PvE (not guild halls), and spvp. Insuficient amount of content is the cause of both players not grabbing as many copies as was expected, and of this over the top grind that many point out.

Disagreed on not wanting complex maps – this is Guild Wars game. More then other games of its gendre this one is about players overcoming challenges with their grit and skill, and not just getting everything handed to them. The new challenge of exploring and mastering this beuatiful, fullly 3D maps is a joy i don’t get to experience much elsewhere. I do not wish to see GW2 return to generic flat map model of every other game out there. Especially now that we have gliders begging to be used and abused;)

I like the complex map, but most people don’t. Just read the forums. We are in a very casual era of gaming where people like to play 30mins and go off again.

The solution is somewhere in the middle: you have to offer complex maps with meta large meta events but also easy accessible maps.

@vayne, I think they pretty much failed with Draenor (first expansion I never played), but it used to be much better with constant stream of content. And yeah: 12€/month is quite a lot, I agree but then again, I bought gems in the 4 digits amount and so did others. I don’t think their revenue is worse than in subscription based games.

Guild Wars 2 makes about 8 million a month. WoW, even when they were down to 4 million subscribers made 60 million a month. Not sure why you think they can be compared.

Also the industry 8 years ago can’t be compared to the industry now. It’s a very different animal with every different costs. Voice acting is very highly priced. What happened in the past has no bearing on anything.

Right now, WoW makes many times, many many times what Guild Wars 2 does every quarter and that’s pretty much uncontestable.

I think the problem is that the industry standard that we’ve come to expect regarding boxed expansions left Heart of Thorns lacking in real estate. For example Rift’s Storm Legion released with two continents with complete story paths for both, with open world events for each map, half a dozen 5 mans, the 1st tier of raid completely there from day one, new raid rifts, a form of repeatable open world end game called Torvan Hunts I think, 4 new souls for their four classes; now granted at the time Rift was a subscriber game but it was pulling in no where near what WoW was at that time.

I’m sure it would have been more reasonable for Heart of Thorns to launch with at least 6 maps, the new Raid intact, a few new Fractals, and the legendaries done.

As far as I’m concerned ANet only gave us half the expansion and I expect the other half to ship before its one year aniversary or they better give out refunds for half of what we paid.

PS even Woodenpotatoes said we got less than we paid for.

The real problem is, people don’t listen. Anet said beforehand this expansion would be light on content because they were essentially rewriting the game. They were pretty clear about it generally.

So if the expansion was light on content, after Anet told us to expect that, then what can you really say? Yes, you told us but we don’t care? Okay.

People say Anet gives us no information. They told us. Elite specs and masteries and that stuff were all part of the content.

Those new legendary quests take ages and they’re pretty fun and engaging, more so than the last stuff. I’ve really enjoyed making Nevermore, I’m on tier 4. I sort of wish more people did it, so they’d keep going with more legendaries.

As for Rift, when it offered the first expansion, the content it was coming out with prior to the expansion was paltry. They had these terrible little events, farm here for these rewards and farm here for those rewards. I remember.

And Rift came out with an expansion at a time when the game was really on the nose. That expansion wasn’t even particularly well received.

But up until that point, even if they had only half a million subs, they were still making more each month just on subs than Guild Wars 2 made total…and they still had a cash shop on top of that.

ProtoGunner.4953:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Proto – agreed on HoT needing more maps for it’s price. Both in open PvE (not guild halls), and spvp. Insuficient amount of content is the cause of both players not grabbing as many copies as was expected, and of this over the top grind that many point out.

Disagreed on not wanting complex maps – this is Guild Wars game. More then other games of its gendre this one is about players overcoming challenges with their grit and skill, and not just getting everything handed to them. The new challenge of exploring and mastering this beuatiful, fullly 3D maps is a joy i don’t get to experience much elsewhere. I do not wish to see GW2 return to generic flat map model of every other game out there. Especially now that we have gliders begging to be used and abused;)

I like the complex map, but most people don’t. Just read the forums. We are in a very casual era of gaming where people like to play 30mins and go off again.

The solution is somewhere in the middle: you have to offer complex maps with meta large meta events but also easy accessible maps.

@vayne, I think they pretty much failed with Draenor (first expansion I never played), but it used to be much better with constant stream of content. And yeah: 12€/month is quite a lot, I agree but then again, I bought gems in the 4 digits amount and so did others. I don’t think their revenue is worse than in subscription based games.

Guild Wars 2 makes about 8 million a month. WoW, even when they were down to 4 million subscribers made 60 million a month. Not sure why you think they can be compared.

Also the industry 8 years ago can’t be compared to the industry now. It’s a very different animal with every different costs. Voice acting is very highly priced. What happened in the past has no bearing on anything.

Right now, WoW makes many times, many many times what Guild Wars 2 does every quarter and that’s pretty much uncontestable.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Vayne.8563:

ProtoGunner.4953:

What I don’t get is why they didn’t lower the price in any way after almost 9 months… 50 is too high for such little content. We haven’t seen anything than four maps soon one year into the expansion – that’s just embarrassing given the fact there a mere 4 maps.

Not to pick on your wording but there really are more than four maps as far as content design and time went. Two guild hall maps each took time to create and some people do love their guild halls. I’m one of them.

Desert borderland maps is a map. It’s not in the game right now but it will be coming back in one form or another. That’s also another map.

And the new PvP map, that’s a map too.

It’s four open world PvE maps, some of the most complex in the game. It’s very different than saying four maps is pathetic.

Sometimes I think people aren’t looking at the amount of work that went into the expansion as a whole.

I don’t speak about quality and the fact that those maps are rather complex. They are of course. But still, it is just too few content. In WoW you get 2 raids, 8 dungeons and about 7-8 maps to explore, and 2-3 months later there is another 1-2 dungeons, a new map and 1 new raid. I mean it’s so much more content it really hurts.

What I don’t get is why don’t they do what people want? Just push out more maps, make them simpler, people don’t like fancy and gimmicky stuff as they had to realize when Aetherpath failed. Anet always has this dream of re-inventing the wheel and fail at the people’s expectations. It is a noble intention, indeed, but at the end you have to deliver.

In WoW you get a year long content drought (see the complaints on their forums you can google it now) and you don’t pay $50 for that expansion. You pay $15 a month and $50 for that expansion. It’s a bad comparison.

Our expansion is more worth $50 than the WoW expansion is worth $200. That’s my opinion of course,. but you have to look at the whole picture, not just the part of it you want to point out.

The whole picture is that WoW is produced by Blizzard which is a much bigger entity than Anet and they have a lot more capital. Last I saw, I didn’t see William Shatner or Chuck Norris in a Guild Wars 2 commercial. They have the numbers. They have a sub. And each and every person playing pays a lot more than $50 for that content you’ve listed. And three months after, people are still complaining there’s nothing to do.

ProtoGunner.4953:

What I don’t get is why they didn’t lower the price in any way after almost 9 months… 50 is too high for such little content. We haven’t seen anything than four maps soon one year into the expansion – that’s just embarrassing given the fact there a mere 4 maps.

Not to pick on your wording but there really are more than four maps as far as content design and time went. Two guild hall maps each took time to create and some people do love their guild halls. I’m one of them.

Desert borderland maps is a map. It’s not in the game right now but it will be coming back in one form or another. That’s also another map.

And the new PvP map, that’s a map too.

It’s four open world PvE maps, some of the most complex in the game. It’s very different than saying four maps is pathetic.

Sometimes I think people aren’t looking at the amount of work that went into the expansion as a whole.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

VaLee.5102:

Why is this even debated, even Anet admited indirectly HoT was a bust, hence why they are trying to salvage what they can now.
Yes, HoT failed in all aspects, minus the art and music departments.

Actually HoT didn’t fail in all aspects. For a company to say sales didn’t meet expectations, and specifically saying new players didn’t buy into it, is very different from saying existing players didn’t buy it. NcSoft didn’t say HoT failed. They said sales weren’t up to what they expected, having gone free to play and expected more people to pay.

I still say the biggest barrier to that is pricing and nothing more. It’s being debated because people read a single line from a half an hour conference call and infer all sorts of things from that.

NcSoft said they made some mistakes. But those mistakes were NOT identified. The mistakes NcSoft made was getting a bunch of bad publicity before launch by not including a character slot, by making the price too high and by kittening off veteran players, having nothing to do with the expansion itself.

Given the context of the call (talking to investors) the mistakes by NCSoft referred to were almost certainly related to revenue prediction. Any mistakes related to XPac design, concept, marketing, execution, etc, would have been the province of the designer/publisher, ANet, not the parent company.

Sure and revenue prediction as far as they said was that they expected new players who were free to play to pick up HoT in greater numbers. That’s all that was directly said at any point. Not that the game failed abyssmally because when that happens there are usually layoffs or at least more negative language.

As an example when Blizzard was losing players quickly they told their investors they were “haemorrhaging subscribers”. NcSoft didn’t use that kind of language.

VaLee.5102:

Why is this even debated, even Anet admited indirectly HoT was a bust, hence why they are trying to salvage what they can now.
Yes, HoT failed in all aspects, minus the art and music departments.

Actually HoT didn’t fail in all aspects. For a company to say sales didn’t meet expectations, and specifically saying new players didn’t buy into it, is very different from saying existing players didn’t buy it. NcSoft didn’t say HoT failed. They said sales weren’t up to what they expected, having gone free to play and expected more people to pay.

I still say the biggest barrier to that is pricing and nothing more. It’s being debated because people read a single line from a half an hour conference call and infer all sorts of things from that.

NcSoft said they made some mistakes. But those mistakes were NOT identified. The mistakes NcSoft made was getting a bunch of bad publicity before launch by not including a character slot, by making the price too high and by kittening off veteran players, having nothing to do with the expansion itself.

Marcus Aseth.7420:

Vayne.8563:

Guess you’ve never heard of a havoc group in WvW, OP.

Silly to uninstall a game before you’ve learned how to play it.

Some people run with the zerg, others run small havoc groups, and in a havoc group, even player is important.

Is this havoc group earning more reward than the zerg?

Don’t consider your strategy in a vacuum, everything is connected so of course I want a fun and challenging gameplay while at the same time I want to get the rewards and skins everyone else are unlocking. Telling me to choose between the 2 is a clear sign the game have a problem.
This havoc group you talk about should be the resoult of a policy by the developer to discourage the formation of zerg trains. (for example like reward splitted between all the participants, so people would favour the smallest group capable of getting the job done for better rewards)

And again, everything is connected so we have still the zerg events on pve, that why in the first post I said was pointless to try and persuade me, “solving” the zerg with your strategy still won’t fix all the other reason which lead to me uninstalling, which by the way I only mentioned 2 on the first post to not make this too confusing/ caotic.

You’re not going to stop zerging in games like this, because people do the easiest thing. Even the most rewarding things, if it’s not easy a lot of people won’t do it.

But if you want exactly equal rewards, there’s no point in even talking. There’s plenty of rewards for havoc groups, but you’ll get them mostly through leveling and stuff like that.

However the real reward is the challenge and fun.

You’ll also get rewards from playing fractals which is not zerg content and those rewards are pretty good right now. Dungeons now give pretty decent rewards too.

But you can’t have it every which way. I don’t zerg generally and I have quite a few legendary weapons.

If you only care about the most efficient way to do things, you’ll have to suffer doing them sometimes in ways you don’t want. On the other hand, if you’re interested in the most fun way to do things, that’s certainly an option. It may take you longer to get something but MMOs are all about choice.

I tend to enjoy havoc groups in WvW sometimes, just because there’s more danger in them, so it’s more exciting.

I get one precursor drop about every 6000 hours if that helps you guys. lol

Guess you’ve never heard of a havoc group in WvW, OP.

Silly to uninstall a game before you’ve learned how to play it.

Some people run with the zerg, others run small havoc groups, and in a havoc group, even player is important.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vayne.8563:

Her death in combat, at the hands of Faolin’s betrayal really is a tale good enough for moots in Hoelbrak.

Stated like that, it sounds noble. As it played out in the instance, I thought it was …blase. It’s within Eir’s character to help an enemy escape a fate-worse-than-death; it’s within Faolin’s character to bite the hand that frees her. What seemed out of character was Faolin failing to ensure her own survival first.

Anyhow, I have no problem with Eir dying — on the contrary, prior to this, only GW2 Red Shirts died, which seems unrealistic. Heck, Rytlock dropped down a wormhole to who knows what (not us: we still haven’t found out where he went off to) and lived to talk about it (and introduce a new prof, conveniently in time for the expansion).

I read that completely differently.

Faolin made sure Eir couldn’t run faster than her. She WAS ensuring her own survival. If Eir was faster, the creature would kill her first.

scerevisiae.1972:

Yep, no matter what they say, this is a pay2win game, by design.

It is a fundamental shortcoming of the B2P model that companies will always create new ways to force you to spend more money while not really improving the stuff you’ve already paid for.

It is also why things like class balance & fixing bugs are very low priority in GW2 – they don’t bring in new income.

Case in point: the sheer number of bugs still in the game since release, nearly 4 years ago, eg: Ele skill Ride the Lightning overshooting even stationary targets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAYiEMR-Rv8

…or new ones like shiro teleport not working half the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d1BZDPL8KA

…they just don’t give a kitten because there’s little financial incentive to, so naturally they just keep churning out quaggan backpacks.

</rant>

So which MMO sells you an expansion that’s not pay to win? Because as far as I can tell, every expansion in every MMO gives you in game advantages. I’m not sure why you’d think otherwise.

That was never what pay to win meant.

Also bugs are fixed all the time in this game.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/98802888-Known-Issue-Tracker

I’ve pretty much always done dailies but once I hit my daily cap, I was happy I didn’t really need to. I was sort of free. Now, for two gold, they’re fast enough to do, but I’d rather do them then not do them, because 2 gold for a few minutes work is a no brainer.

The whole free from dailies when you hit your cap thing is an unfortunately irony to me.

I’ve run into this a few times, and I’m hoping if someone can get into a Malchor’s Map that’s not IP 73, I can get a taxi over, on a US server.

I’m in game right now, and can’t progress the event chain on server 73.

To check your ip type /ip and the number to appear before the final zero is the server number.

If anyone can provide a taxi to another Malchor’s map that would be great.

I’m assuming more elite specialisation weapons will be added. You don’t have all of them, just all of them so far.

Presumably the next expansion will come with another elite specialisation for each profession, and then more weapons to make.

Sylent, the story of HoT isn’t just in instances. The instances are half the story. Some of the meta events figure heavily into the story too.

Without counting the Dragon Stand meta as part of the story, you’re missing out part of the story.

And I won’t say more, because if you don’t know, I’m not going to spoil it for you.

Sylent.3165:

I just beat it my fist time today…..it was so short and just suddenly ended. Luckily I bought expansion for elite specs though

Short isn’t so bad if you have many alts you’re running through it. The personal story on alts is a nightmare, because it’s too long.

Ashen.2907:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

multimillion dollar gaming projects don’t happily toss money back at ppl cause they’re “good uncles”. They do so because otherwise players might have a easy to win case in court.

The most common reason for a business to offer refunds has nothing to do with court cases. It has everything to do with customer good will and reducing barriers to purchase. A customer is much more likely to spend more if they know the company is lenient with its return policies. The reality is that most people will not bother seeking a refund even if knowing that one is available is part of their decision to purchase. Similarly a customer is much more likely to come back to your business to purchase again if their desire to seek a refund on a previous purchase was met with little or no hassle.

Even if the customer is completely in the wrong in seeking a given refund (and I am not saying that they were here) it can be better business to give it to them than to refuse.

No, you were right in what you said, absolutely correct.

But anyone who’s saying this is false advertising or particularly bait and switch is pretty much in the wrong.

It was certainly badly thought out though and badly presented and the launch could have been handled a lot better. In this instance, Anet made a lot of their own problems. I don’t suspect we’ve seen the last of that sort of thing either.

Heraldusluminare.2946:

To be fair, the Star Wars, Star Trek and Final Fantasy franchises have been around since the 1980s, while GW2 has only been around since 2005.

With that in mind, I wouldn’t be surprised to know that games created today based on these franchises would have the financial resources, fanbase following (to create positive hype) and time to refine content, as compared to Guild Wars 2.

To be even more fair, the game hasn’t gone 9 months without content. Raids ARE content. Lots of positive changes to WvW. People are saying there’s a content drought for one area of the game.

Well not every game upgrades every aspect of the game every three months and frankly, I don’t think most game upgrade much more than this one.

I’ve listened for years to people who have complained about content droughts in all sorts of games, including WoW.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I’ve heard this is true for Final Fantasy as well. Don’t know from experience about FF, but I do know Star Trek Online is doing this right now. And a new expansion is coming out in a few weeks—for free—on top of that.

So, no, it’s not an unrealistic expectation by any stretch.

Still, I do appreciate Guild Wars at least releasing these new achievements to chase with the Ley Lines. Something is still better than nothing.

Okay, and how long has Anet gone without content. Raid wings are coming out once every three months. Last I heard, raid wings were content.

What you’re really saying is there’s no content you’re interested in. That’s another story. But to say that no content is coming out is wrong and misleading.

I can’t remember ever playing any MMO where people weren’t complaining about content droughts. There’ll be times when stuff comes faster, and then there’ll be some sort of content drought.

We’re in a content drought now for the open world PvE crowd, but the WvW people aren’t complaining about a content drought right now, nor are the PvPers that I know, nor are the raiders.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

, but to prove false advertising you also have to prove the intent to deceive.

No you do not.

There is a three part test, in law, to determine if an ad is deceptive or false advertising:

1) was a claim made.
2) is the claim likely to mislead a reasonable customer.
3) is the claim material.

Intent to deceive is not relevant. The people at Airborne may very well have believed in every advertised claim made about the health benefits of their product….but got hit with a $30 million dollar fine anyway when the FTC determined that the ads were not factual and did mislead consumers. Again this is regardless of the intent of the people making the claims.

One of the requirements, expectations under the law, placed on an advertiser is that they ensure that the claims being made are accurate. “We didnt intend to deceive, we just didnt feel like checking the facts, doing due diligence, etc,” is not a valid defence against false advertising. If it were then companies could defend against accusations of false advertising by simply stating, “we honestly believed that consuming our candy bar would cure and/or prevent cancer.”

They made a change and they offered a refund. No court in the land would convict them of false advertising. Not one. If you don’t believe it, try testing the claim.

Edit: I should ad that’s why tyops in ads aren’t considered false advetising. Because it was simply a mistake.

If an ad publishes a price and it’s a typo, even though the ad is wrong, it’s not considered false advertising…unless you can prove that it was done intentionally in which case it would.

Edit 2: Actually you’re right Ashen. Your definition of false advertising is better than mine. However, in this case, Anet made claims about a product that wasn’t released yet, changed the nature of the release after the fact, and offered a refund. There’s simply no law at all broken here.

I find that walking up to an updraft and hitting f once launches me.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Very well i can settle for “misleading” or said “false advertisement”. Case in point is a-net was industry standard setter when it came to triple A honesty, and HoT made that reputation degrade in eyes of many. I’m looking forward to them redeeming themselves in that area with next xpansion.

It was misleading. Whether it was intentionally misleading or not, or one hand didn’t know what the other was doing is really open to question. We don’t know when the decision to include the core game with HoT was actually made.

Nor do we know that the left hand was talking to the right hand.

Definitely a bad look, but to prove false advertising you also have to prove the intent to deceive. By offering refunds to people who bought within that time frame, it seems to have made the point moot anyway.

Everyone always assumes intent to deceive, even when that doesn’t necessarily exist. Anet has made mistakes before, and they’ll make them again. Now if they didn’t offer refunds, you might have a point. But seeing that people that bought the game from the time they stated you need it till several months after had a refund option…I’m not so sure what the big deal is here.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Sartharina.3542:

Actually, neither of the instances of “Broken Trust” had anything to do with A-net. Instead, they were assumptions made by the community. Guild Wars veterans expected a free character slot with the new expansion despite no promise of such, due to precedent. The “Need core to play Xpac” wasn’t a Bait+Switch by Anet – The company’s line has ALWAYS been “Buying HoT includes the base game”. But veterans of every other MMO out there made the assumption that the base game was required before purchasing the expansion. (Frankly, I’m not sure why they didn’t go with "all new Full Game activations after that date include baseline HoT, though)

Sorry but you’re wrong. The “must own a core game for xpac” was a pure bait & switch, deliberate or not. For quite a while there was a notice one must own a core game to play xpac, nothing about core game becoming free to play or free if you buy xpac.
The core game refunds for ppl who fell victim to this change in the sale system are the best proof – multimillion dollar gaming projects don’t happily toss money back at ppl cause they’re “good uncles”. They do so because otherwise players might have a easy to win case in court.

@Vayne – well i’m shocked at your post. My hat goes off, sir. But I will correct one mistake you made – free slot was not for pre-orders as far as i recall. It was for pre-purchases, ensuring a-net gets their money before you get a say. Pre-order can be cancelled and you pay majority or all of it’s price once it’s shipped to you.

Well it’s certainly bait and switch if you’re not aware of what bait and switch is. The word you’re probably looking for is false advertising, which is a completely different issue.

Bait and switch has a very specific definition and I promise you, that is NOT it.

Edit: Don’t know why you’re shocked at my post, if I believe something to be bad, I say so. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again. I just don’t agree with everything everyone else finds bad about the game.

Sartharina.3542:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

3. broken trust – remember the war over free xpac slot? Or the bait and switch with needing core game to play xpac, then players getting mass refunds after justly raising a kittenstorm? Before when you heard a-net you just opened your wallet, you knew awesome deal with no tricks is coming your way. Now many people will be wary and weigh their options before opening their wallets.

Actually, neither of the instances of “Broken Trust” had anything to do with A-net. Instead, they were assumptions made by the community. Guild Wars veterans expected a free character slot with the new expansion despite no promise of such, due to precedent. The “Need core to play Xpac” wasn’t a Bait+Switch by Anet – The company’s line has ALWAYS been “Buying HoT includes the base game”. But veterans of every other MMO out there made the assumption that the base game was required before purchasing the expansion. (Frankly, I’m not sure why they didn’t go with "all new Full Game activations after that date include baseline HoT, though)

Anet definitely made mistakes with how they launched HoT. It was generally too expensive for an expansion that they knew (and said) would be lighter on content. To charge what’s considered a premium price and not offer a character slot was just a bad call. I’m not sure how they didn’t see the backlash coming.

The HoT launch did raise a lot of eyebrows and damage the trust the community had in the game, rightly or otherwise. You can say the community expected certain things, and you’d be right, but they didn’t really expect those things in a vacuum.

If the price was lower, it would have been more acceptable to not provide a character slot. At the price offered, considering they knew there wasn’t a ton of content, you’d think the character slot would be the least they could do.

Offering it as a preorder was a compromise that mollified most of the community, but regardless of that, it wasn’t well done. The base HoT game should have either been cheaper or come with a character slot.

I really like HoT but I really have to question Anet’s judgement on the decisions surrounding the HoT launch.

RoRo.8270:

HoT showed me how greedy anet has become. Supported them from beta weekend event from gw1 but they won’t see my support anymore. The expansion was like a dlc content wise yet they charged as much as a full game for it.

They also made all elite specs ridiculously powerful where you are kitten if you do not take them for pvp.

I also can’t stand to be bothered with open world zerg trains. It’s so mindless for how rewarding it is

Clearly someone who hasn’t spent that much time in HoT. There are not too many zerg trains. Very often, particularly in AB and TD there not entire zergs. Dragon Stand and Auric Basin are more zerg like, so the game offers different experiences.

There’s also plenty to do that’s not zerging.

Hell half the people are saying there’s not enough people in the new zones and the other half are complaining about zerging. You can’t both be right.

DeceiverX.8361:

On many low tier servers, they certainly did exist. Again, I refer to this as population bleeding, and it’s far different from the mass exodus that definitely occurred with the release of HoT. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy because of bad matchmaking, though. The “hardcore” WvW players would move up tiers to get with more populated servers to get more action, which left the low-tier servers with few people, which for those new people interested in the format, they’d see the appeal of high-tiers and the cycle would repeat endlessly.

Strictly speaking, population was out of control since release with the stack-enablement of servers (especially early with free transfers) and slow glicko-based tier system. Population imbalances based on coverage also dictated server tiers as well, which further gave players an incentive to stack based on coverage performance as well. Without coverage, even well-performing servers during their prime (apparent early on in the game when all servers had queues to WvW) would be incapable of winning. Since glicko is slow to adapt and people don’t like to participate in runaway matchups, they’d just simply move to greener pastures, be it other servers, or entirely other games.

WvW in terms of its innately bad matchmaking design caused its decline and slow bleeding. With no attention to fix the flawed design for three years, of course it would bleed players, particularly as the game aged and thus the churn rate would be higher than the new-player acquisition.

We still haven’t seen any changes to matchmaking. The population problem diagnosed with “merges” is a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem itself. Population disparity or lost interest isn’t people being bored of WvW so much as being bored of the matchup and runaway scores every single week with no movement because glicko is too slow to adjust to dynamism. It’s because the format’s matchmaking itself is flawed in design, and we’ve seen no attention or care to fix it, even when the solution using AI techniques exists and ANet had even at one point had a world-famous game AI expert working for them during the development of HoT. Until matchmaking is redone, it doesn’t matter what ANet does; WvW will still bleed players.

And even despite this, there were still many people playing in the high tiers. Did you ever see anyone in T1 complaining that the format was dead? No. There were queues pretty much every primetime every day before HoT. The low servers were dead for reasons I explained above. But now even the high-tier servers are not full anymore. There are definitely less people playing WvW than pre-HoT. That’s not up for debate, and there is a lot of evidence of massive groups of people leaving citing the sole reason for departure being poor design brought on by HoT. These are first-hand accounts, not just maybes.

HoT killed off a large number of players from the “hardcore” WvW scene. This is also why you’re seeing a huge influx of inexperienced commanders/guilds running rampant even on T1 servers, and the GoB-dependency for getting PvE players into the format is there just to try and mask the massively damaged population since HoT.

But those server mergers for those low pop servers were absolutely needed. Even before the mergers, on TC we were getting queues in WvW at peak times.

And there was always action no matter what time I jumped in.

It’s not about whether the population is higher or lower. Those mergers have been sorely needed for the lower population servers since before HOT ever existed, no matter what HoT did or didn’t do to the population.

We also have a whole new group of people coming into the game as free to play players, replacing people who left.

Might there be less people. It’s possible. But with the changes, I don’t think the population is as much lower as some make it out to be, it’s just different players.

DeceiverX.8361:

Vayne.8563:

Excellent Name.9574:

Are You saying that there was free server transfer at the HoT release? That would explain the server merges then indeed?

No. I’m saying at launch of Guild Wars 2, due to the fact that guesting didn’t make it into the release, that everyone loaded up on the top servers until they were full.

The population problem in WvW is years old. Therefore it can’t be due to HoT, because the problem preceded HoT by at least a couple of years.

The population problem in WvW is an old problem, not a new one.

HoT didn’t do WvW any favors with the new map, but that’s another story. The population problem existed before the new map drove WvW players away.

And WvW has come back a long way since then.

Again, server mergers in WvW (and only in WvW) have nothing to do with HoT.

I’d have to disagree to some extends. If they didn’t start making sweeping changes to stop the bleeding and get a few people back into WvW (also putting PvE requirements like GoB in the reward tracks to make people join), it’s very arguable HoT killed WvW.

It was definitely bleeding quite badly before, but the mass-scale exodus from the format at or near the release of HoT permanently reduced player populations. Servers that were once full are now not. Queues are shorter across the board for previously-populated servers. Tons of guilds have quit entirely solely quoting HoT-only content such as the guild halls removing all upgrade progress and the DBL’s themselves (before you say people have been voting for the inclusion of DBL, the data is skewed to favor it since most people who were against it (a large number) have since entirely stopped playing GW2).

WvW’s been in dire straights for years, but HoT was a killing blow. We’re seeing some attempts to resuscitate it, but it’s questionable if they’ll work into the future. The classes are still terribly imbalanced, the gear combinations are still swinging builds wildly, and the sheer powercreep has tremendously hurt the format and peoples’ willingness to consider it seriously.

But the population problems on low servers existed for years. Are you denying this?

Excellent Name.9574:

Then, what I said stays. There were no WvW server merges prior to HoT, and from what I see WvW has also been destroyed with HoT release.

WvW has probably never been in a better place than it is right now. And a lot of people who actually play WvW are saying it. The are NO server mergers right now on the tier 1 servers, and there are queues.

You can insist on anything you want. But it’s factually wrong. Unless you can somehow prove there weren’t problems on the unmerged servers pre hot and you can’t…beause there were.

Excellent Name.9574:

Are You saying that there was free server transfer at the HoT release? That would explain the server merges then indeed?

No. I’m saying at launch of Guild Wars 2, due to the fact that guesting didn’t make it into the release, that everyone loaded up on the top servers until they were full.

The population problem in WvW is years old. Therefore it can’t be due to HoT, because the problem preceded HoT by at least a couple of years.

The population problem in WvW is an old problem, not a new one.

HoT didn’t do WvW any favors with the new map, but that’s another story. The population problem existed before the new map drove WvW players away.

And WvW has come back a long way since then.

Again, server mergers in WvW (and only in WvW) have nothing to do with HoT.

Excellent Name.9574:

IMHO, yes it did and the worst part is that it has permanently damaged the game and user base. I remember having the discussion after the first open beta in with guildies and noted that it won’t be received well on multiple levels (gating, verticality, locked out map areas…). All of these were true and then HoT brought terrible grind to the mix.
Out of 4 guilds I was member of, only 1 survived HoT aftermath.

People just stopped playing the game including myself. I do come back from time to time to Central Tyria to see how Anet is merging servers one after another. There are currently several games that GW people took refuge in and I haven’t heard anyone mentioning anything about going back to GW2

Nothing can fix the HoT I’m afraid as it is unfixable without a complete redesign, lowering grind is but a makeup on an old face.

If you’re going to complain about HoT, that’s fair enough. If you’re going to make stuff up to justify your position, that not so much.

There is an issue with one single aspect of the game WvW, which has existed since well before HoT. No servers have been merged, but again, those servers have been a problem for years. People have been complaining about them for years. HoT is not the reason that those servers are playing together.

PvE servers have been on the megaserver for a long time, so there would never be a server merge there.

By all means, complain about HoT all you like. But the so-called server merges….they have nothing to do with HoT.

If you don’t believe it, look back when we had to do WvW complete for map completion for legendaries and look at the number of people complaining, long before HoT existed, that their server was dead.

The fact is, it was the free server transfers at launch that allowed everyone serious about WvW to transfer to the three busiest tiers that causes the WvW problem

No other “server mergers” have occurred.

Well the fractals are pretty different now. It’s the same fractals but there have been a number of changes. Cliffside and the dredge fractal are much better for example. And there’s new and different dailies that are far more rewarding..but more rewarding if you buy HoT.

The bottom line is, if you’re going to progress in the game, move forward with more new stuff, you’ll end up buying hot at some point.

I mean the shatterer was completely redone. Dungeon rewards have changed, but dungeons themselves are the same.

Anet isn’t going to be adding tons of new content to Guild Wars 2. Why would they?

I agree with the OP completely. The story achievements are riddled with inconsistencies that create an artificial difficulty that doesn’t help the game at all. This is a well thought out post, Zolar. I hope Anet sees it.

Nova.7261:

Sartharina.3542:

Nova.7261:

It did and it didn’t.

For those that just like the soloing, story, and freeplay, it sucks. In GW2 pre-HoT, when did you have to unlock anything to progress in the story? You had to solo instance boss fight and walk to some new places, thats it. In HoT, you MUST participate in content repeatedly on HoT maps, grinding your mastery until you have the right unlock to progress your story. The time spent unlocking story to playing story in HoT vs pre-HoT is massively disproportionate. It really feels like grinding now, no exploring new hearts to get experience. There is zero point to exploring the map and enjoying it like an adventure.

Actually, you had to grind experience levels to progress the story Pre-HoT, which could easily be far more tedious on a first character than masteries. And you have to unlock the maps/waypoints to get to the next story instance. While there aren’t ‘Hearts’ in HoT, each map has several equivalents in terms of the local meta events (Thankfully, the April patch fixed the reward structure) – the assorted outposts in VB (Noble Crash site, Ordnance Corps, Itzel village, Main Pact base, and the Sylvari team in the ruins) and TD (Nuhoch, Ogres, Rata Novus, and SCAR), and watchposts in AB come to mind.

For those you you liking zergs and zerg trains, thats exactly what its become. You don’t actually think for yourself, you just follow the guy in front of you and do what he does. “working together to take things down” by copying the guy beside you to do the one event that’s on the map. The game already had this but to make it the what-is for all new content is harsh for those outside zerg-mentalities.

Eh. “Zerg Trains” are a great way to end up with incomplete maps. You gotta spread out, and a lot of events are very soloable. Though I find your dismissive attitude toward group play to be highly disturbing.

I can’t agree with you that changing maps and getting to a new waypoint is the same as unlocking masteries. And I also don’t know how your soloing events in HoT? You must be at least rallying with randoms in the area. You’re way above average if you soloing a bunch of HoT events.

And yes, I’m not a fan of trains so I have this tone in my posts. But with original content there were work arounds for the trains. It was walk two feet, bump into an npc who needs help and start something so you didn’t need to go on one should you choose to. WvW trains were always running, you just needed to catch up to it making it different then PvE which goes off on set timers and they are also circumvent-able as there are ways to do your own thing.

Most of the map in HoT is pointless to explore more then once and its the diversity I’m poking at here. Its become a rail shooter.

If I could level up my HoT mastery in the original content I would. There is just too much content to enjoy that you rarely come to do the same thing twice, let alone in the same order. But I can’t since mastery of HoT and pre-HoT don’t overlap. I don’t mind leveling slow, I just want to enjoy it while I do and not be forced into repetition.

There are so many hot events you can solo now it’s not funny. Any of the new vet spawn events can be soloed. Clearing outposts in VB night can be soloed. The itzel hunting event that spawns like every few minutes at the end of the day cycle can be soloed. There are many events that can be soloed.

But zerging is something that’s really not done very often at all. 2-3 people can probably complete 90 plus percent of the events.

I’ve finished most of the events in most of the event chains in daytime VB with 3 people. It’s definitely doable.

That’s hardly what I’d call zerging.

In fact you don’t even need zergs to finish things like tarir.

In some cases, zergs scale up the events to make them harder and less people have an easier time. If you don’t believe me, I’d be happy to show you.

Nightfade.4625:

I don’t think it matters what they ruined or didn’t ruin.

How many people have said it over and over “Anet ain’t no charity”.

They sold you a game that you bought. Then they found a way to sell it to you again. And you bought it again. And they will do it again and again, and you will buy it again and again. Or you won’t. Probably you will. Probably I will.

At least they don’t seem to have the temerity to keep that “buy once, play forever” line going. Perhaps it should be “buy once and then save up ‘cause we’re coming for it”.

I’m sorry is something stopping you from playing Guild Wars 2, whether you buy HoT or not.

Yes, you can buy Guild Wars 2 and you can keep playing it, probably not forever, but at least until the servers shut down at some point in the undescribed future.

At the same time, Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is a new product. An expansion. Guild Wars 1 worked the same way. You bought the game, and you could continue to play it, whether you bought the expansion or not.

Just like they say Guild Wars 2 is free to play now…but Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is not.

Nightfade.4625:

How about a savings for those poor suckers who bought the “buy once, play forever” line. Although one might argue that if it sounds too good to be true, one might ought to have know better.

You bought Guild Wars 2 once and you play it forever. There is nothing to stop you from playing Guild Wars 2. It’s not a line.

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is an expansion and sold separately. Guild Wars 1 worked the same way.

Buy to play doesn’t mean you get every expansion for free forever. Buy to play means you don’t have to pay a monthly subscription fee to play the game.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Once again, wrong. I said you cannot solo certain areas in Heart of Thorns. I said it would be harder to solo because the zerg was not as populated. And I have not attacked the game.

I offered my opinion and thoughts. You attacked my opinion and thoughts. Yes, my answer is right in my opinion.

In case you missed the memo, that was the whole point of this thread: to ask for our thoughts on whether it was possible.

The point of this thread was not to have a fit with me. If you don’t like my opinion, kindly stop quoting it, telling me I’m wrong, and then getting upset because I can defend my position better than you can yours.

And if it bothers you so much? Might I suggest you ignore it from here on out.

Then you’re factually wrong because it it possible to solo and make progress, and that Sir, is a fact. You may die a few times doing it, but it’s certainly possible. Even if no one else was on the map at all it’s possible.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

It’s not a popularity contest, but wrong again, Bob.

reapex.8546:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Dragon Stand is the worst because even mapping will require zergs to complete because they’re locked behind quests. In order to gain access to more of the map, those quests must be successful . . . unless you’re clever with some climbing in the environment.

Agreed, if you’re patient with mobs and clever you can map DS or just the LFG tool and go with the zerg.

Yes, we know, you got the right answer, everyone else in the thread is completely wrong. Your response doesn’t help the OP at all. Saying sorry you can’t do it isn’t helpful because it’s not true, unless you take it literally.

Everyone else has tried to help the OP by giving strategies and answers. You’d rather attack the game. So noted.

We’re done here.

OP you can play the new zones without grouping, but you do have to change the way you play to succeeed.

I can help. Hit me up in game.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Oh. Splitting hairs again?

Nova.7261:

I’m not on allot and play solo so I usually miss the experience trains. Even when I do make them, it becomes hours of play at a time.

I read more than the title, thank you. And I’m not getting into hypothetical with you in some attempt at guessing what might be defined as solo. I’ll believe Webster over you: a person who works, acts, or performs alone.

Having two or three people help you is not soloing anything.

That said, Nova asked our thoughts and I gave mine. I don’t need to get into a tit-for-tat with you because you didn’t like my response.

He asked for our thoughts. I didn’t ask for yours about mine.

You’re the only one in the thread who took it the way you did. Everyone else answered a different question. That should tell you something.

He wants to make progress. He doesn’t mind getting help he’s just not on at a time when trains run. What is so hard to understand?

Xinjay.5093:

Thanks! That’s sort of unfair for people who already have the base game then huh… I was thinking about getting HoT but I’d basically be paying for the base game a second time. :c

Thanks anyways!

No you’re not. The base game was down to $10 anyway on three occasions. Game prices do come down over time. And free to play players have huge restrictions. You still have to buy HoT to get the base game.

This is what WoW does. Once you buy WoW, you only have to buy the current expansion to get access to all expansions. EQ does this too. Why? Because it removes barriers from entry to new players which games actually need to survive.

All MMOs suffer from natural attrition. Without removing those barriers to entry, you soon find no game to play.

If you follow the MMO business at all, you’d realize this is how it moves forward. It’s not any more unfair than the price of any game going down to next to nothing….and that happens all the time.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

What part of ‘solo’ do you fail to understand?

What part of context do you understand.

There are two ways to interpret solo. One is to do something alone. One is to to something without going with friends.

You can go solo to a party, but you won’t be alone at the party. You just didn’t go with anyone.

If I ask how to solo lupi, that means one thing. If I say I want to go through HOT without ever joining a group or organizing my play, it MIGHT mean doing it without anyone else around, but it most likely means I don’t want to group and I want to make progress.

Sometimes context is everything.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Vayne.8563:

If you need mastery points, there are things you CAN get solo, and you only need maybe 2-3 people to solo most event chains, with the exception of the metas.

And this is where your diatribe and logic fails. Two or three people helping is not soloing an event. Soloing anything, much less an event, is you and you alone.

How does one solo Heart of Thorns? You don’t. Yes, you can solo some mobs, mastery points, and champion events if you’re good. But overall? You’re not. Period. And even in your attempt to defend this indefensible position, you admit it.

Two or three is not one. It’s not soloing. And no amount of your attempts at spin is going to make it so.

It doesn’t fail because he’s not asking if he can do an event alone period. It’s not the OP’s question. He wants to make progress. He doesn’t CARE if there are two other people are there.

He’s saying:

1. I want to make progress.
2. I can’t hang out with HP groups because they’re on for too long.

What in that sounds like he minds if 2-3 other people are around?

Edit: You can’t take the title and ignore the post because titles don’t always match posts. The title is a yes or no question. The question being asked in the OP describes what is meant by the title.

Actually try hitting f one time. You can interact with them hitting f. Don’t hit F a second time, because they take a second to kick in and I think it acts like a toggle.

Also, they’re not updrafts, more like leyline spouts on the ground. Don’t jump though. Be on the ground and hit F.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

AliamRationem.5172:

No. You’re taking a far too literal interpretation of what other players are saying.

When someone asks how to “solo” HoT, I imagine most players read: “How can I zone into the HoT maps on my own and make progress on objectives without getting killed constantly?”

That seems to be the question myself and others are answering here, not “How can I solo the assault on Tarir?” So, can I solo most of the HPs including champions? Yes, I can. Can I solo most of the events (outside of DS, which is really the only map that is a full on zerg!)? Yes, I can. And can I navigate the HoT world freely without feeling like I’m running for my life? Also a yes.

By that definition, I consider HoT a great place for solo players. And I think the expectation that the entire event cycle from start to finish should be solo content is ridiculous. Nobody expects that! So what are we even talking about now?

Sigh. Context is key to the question. Please note Nova also said:

Nova.7261:

The experience is like walking through wet concrete and im not getting anywhere… I get on, kill a few mobs, hope that I run into an event and then get off.

I’m not a hard core PvEer nor do I have time to pretend to be one so am slightly at a loss on what to do.

The key word here is events. By no stretch of the imagination am I saying it cannot be done. Ironically, I soloed as much as I could myself. But I’m also not blind to the fact one cannot solo certain events without other people due to timer requirements or coordination.

And with less people in the those maps? Yes, it is harder given that circumstance. This is not brain surgery. This is saying the initial zerg is now gone and certain events cannot be done without them.

We’re not talking the pitiful beginnings of a chain quest event, but the ones that end it and open certain portions of the map.

Why this obvious situation is such a point of contention is beyond me. He even stated he missed the ‘experience trains’, therefore he wants to know if those events can be soloed without them.

And the answer is no. You cannot. He didn’t ask if he could solo the mobs. He also stated he can do that and a select veterans.

Please don’t tell me I’m taking a “literal interpretation” or some other nonsense. I answered the OP’s question from my experience and point-of-view. And then, one of our special posters decided to split hairs on the topic.

Yes, as I said originally, it can be done, but it’s harder without the massive amount of people from the original release. Yes, some events can still be soloed. But some events you are not going to solo no matter how good you are.

And there’s no getting around that.

This is from the OP:

“I’m not making much progress, getting to my current mastery 12 has been painfully slow. With it at that state I can’t even progress in the storyline.

I’m not on allot and play solo so I usually miss the experience trains. Even when I do make them, it becomes hours of play at a time."

What in that context makes you think he won’t do something other people are doing at the same time they’re doing it. He’s talking about his mastery points being at 12. He’s talking about how slow they’re going. He’s talking about not being able to progress in the story line.

All of these things really have nothing to do with soloing big giant dynamic event chains.

If you need mastery points, there are things you CAN get solo, and you only need maybe 2-3 people to solo most event chains, with the exception of the metas.

There are almost always people around if people would go to a map that’s during the timer phase and even if those people don’t stay long, they can make progress in the map.

Now if you’re only playing for half an hour a night, obviously you’re going to make progress slower than someone who can play for hours, but you can make progress. Yes, even by yourself, because there are other people around._

Think of someone who needs to kill the Karka Queen who has half an hour to play between spawn times. That person couldn’t do the Karka Queen. That’s already in the game.

But they can make progress on leveling by doing other things. There’s a very easy spot to get XP for example in DS, right as you enter the zone for the first time, during the day time hunting quests. People can do that solo and there are usually people around doing it anyway. It’s farmable. It’s easy. I showed a few people in my guild. They like to solo and they’re happy doing that to fill in experience bars and get loot.

And suppose, in the above example, he could get on at the karka queen and he was the only one there? Could he solo it?

You’re taking the question out of context. There’s no other way to say it.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Vayne.8563:

Don’t solo,. Seriously. There are generally enough people in the zones where you can make a bit of progress at a time, just by calling out in map chat that you need help with something and being a bit patient.

Please choose which opinion to stand behind: Don’t solo? Or it’s not hard to solo? Otherwise, you’re being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative . . . as usual.

And I see it’s time to go back to ignoring you again.

Actually I’m not.

The OP is clearly asking for strategies to get through HOT while playing by himself. You can’t stand HOT for whatever reasons you have, but I assure you no one solos most of the world bosses in this game, but no one says you can’t solo the open world. You’ve misinterpreted what the OP is asking, or you’re deliberately ignoring it.

I can name 20 things in this game easily you can’t solo that aren’t in HoT, but no one is saying you can’t solo the open world core game.

There’s a difference between someone wanting to solo a skill point as some sort of challenge and someone who’s playing solo who wants to get the skill point and would be happy to if other people were around.

I’ve been in HOT every day this week, on alt characters, getting their elite specs unlocked and I can assure you, there are plenty of people in HoT, doing hero points, getting stuff done.

And yes, I was soloing it. I wasn’t grouped. I wasn’t playing with the guild. I’d come across a skill point and join other people doing it, or ask in map chat and people would come. I didn’t party.

This is what the OP is asking about. He wants to progress in HOT without grouping. You can do that easily.

Whether or not you can solo the Tarir meta.

And on that topic, there are SO MANY people doing the Tarir meta right now, it’s not even funny. Guy in my guild came back today and got the Tarir meta without even knowing it was a thing, because he was in the zone and other people were around doing stuff.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The question is: How does one solo HoT?

And the answer is: Overall . . . you can’t. It’s not hard. In some cases, it’s impossible. But, by all means, please post a video showing you soling the assault on Tarir or taking on all three towers in Dragon Stand to solo the Mouth of Mordy.

Otherwise, please take that ’It’s hard only because you think it’s hard’ nonsense somewhere else. Heart of Thorns is built on the concept of massive zergs working together to accomplish certain tasks in all four zones. To tell anyone it’s not hard to solo, but it’s also misleading if not outright a lie.

As I said before, some content can be done solo. But, with the laxing of the population, some content will be much harder or impossible.

Nova asked for our honest opinions and observations. He didn’t ask for a rah, rah, rah from someone with pom-poms and an obvious agenda and axe to grind against other posters.

Kindly keep that in mind.

This is deliberately taking what someone is saying out of context in order to prove some sort of point.

He’s not asking how to do everything by himself, any more than someone is asking how to take temples in Orr all by themselves. He wants to get through content without grouping. That’s all.

You want to use solo literally but that’s not what the OP is asking. He’s asking how to do the content when he doesn’t play that much. He’ talked about groups and said they stay on too long, so he can’t stay with them. So he’s obviously not talking about that kind of soloing.

He’s talking about getting stuff done without grouping.

How can you solo a temple in Orr. You can’t solo most of them and almost never have to because there are other people around. Same with Claw of Jormag or anything else.

Getting through hot solo is what people are generally asking about, rather than say soloing a champ.

I’m pretty sure most people understood is question that way. Seems that most people answered his question the way I believe it was intended.

Crimsonstar.3120:

If there’s a few months between Living World season 3 episodes, they have to give a LOT of rewards and content to do. A new zone or two with a lot of events (Basically a larger new version of Silverwastes) for people to be content for a while, as well as a longer amount of engaging story content.

And what MMO do you know that provides that much content every 2-3 months? I don’t think people have realistic expectations.

Ensign.2189:

Without putting too fine a point on it, A.Net is not a well managed company. Their coordination and control structure is a mess and they waste an enormous amount of work. Private equity would be thinking leveraged buyout.

At the same time, building a game like Guild Wars is not like managing a P&L at a factory or retailer. A.Net really is building a work of art – and it shows in game. Sure, it could be better managed, and look more like, say, EA, but the game would likely follow suit. A.Net has a culture that runs on collaboration between a big jumbled mess of passionate creative types, and while I’m sure you could fire management and bring in professionals that would improve productivity and efficiency by leaps and bounds, I’m not confident at all that you could do that while maintaining the energy and soul that brought us SAB and all the other countless small touches that make the game what it is.

I think you need to look at it with a healthy dose of perspective. A.Net is not a publicly traded company tasked with maximizing return on equity to shareholders. It’s a private company owned by millionaire veterans of the game industry that want to run a company that they like working at – and if that resembles a kindergarten classroom of passionate artists and designers doing what they love, then so be it.

This is a great post. It’s how I see it. I’ve played Anet games for a long time, and I’ve always seen them as the product of creative types more than management geniuses. It’s a different dynamic that produces a different product. The more corporate they get, the more the product suffers. But it doesn’t seem efficient to me, and not everyone will fit in.