Guild Wars 2

Some bounties are hard to kill because of bad mechanics. Take Half-baked Komali. Frankly I think half baked is bugged, but even if she isn’t. there’s another issue.

If you hit half-baked when the fire shield is up, she stacks might. It makes her much more dangerous. The only way to really get that fireshield down is to stop attacking her.

But this is the open world. I might be able to get my guild to stop attacking her, but other people in the zone, they don’t necessarily know the fight, don’t necessarily have map chat switched on and don’t necessarily care of my guild fails or passed a bounty. So my guild could do the complete right thing and fail based on the actions of people outside the guild.

This to me is unacceptable. It’s a bad mechanic that needs to be fixed.

Another one is Sottz, who sits in a barrel. You don’t have enough time to find him and kill him, because as soon as you find him he teleports away. Most guilds who get Sottz think he’s an automatic fail.

There are good mechanics and bad ones. Even a good guild is going to have trouble working with bad mechanics.

We’ve only failed two bounties since we started, though, the very first one, when we didn’t know what to expect, and a recent one when the server reset in the middle of our last target. It was frustrating but what can you do?

Fiontar.4695:

This is just part of a disturbing trend with GW2’s ongoing development. When are they going to wake up and realize that players want FUN content, not content so challenging that it ruins the fun for the vast majority of the playerbase.

It’s such an oft repeated cliche in the MMO industry, the decision to cater live development to the most elite of the playerbase, on the assumption that they are a.) worth the nearly impossible effort to keep happy and b.) that that 1% is somehow more important to retain than the other 99% of us. Every MMO that has gone this route has dwindled away to nothingness. WoW may have gone to far in the other direction, but their success shows that mindfulness of casual players is the key to burgeoning success for an MMO.

I think this game has a high percentage of high play hour “casuals”. We don’t want content that can be facerolled, but we also don’t want content that is highly frustrating and most often doesn’t offer rewards any where near worth the frustration. However, we’ve spent several hundred+ hours playing the game because we love it and want more, fresh content and FUN things to do with friends and guild mates. Stop assuming that the hard-core are the only ones you will lose if you don’t find new ways to keep them happy and there are exponentially many players and potentially lost players that are casual than are “hard-core”.

If you want hardcore content, make hard core modes, in addition to normal modes, for dungeons and make T3 guild activities challenging, while allowing normal dungeons and T1/T2 Guild activities to be something “casuals” can actually have fun playing and leave feeling sufficiently rewarded for their time.

It really feels like Arenanet has had a major personality transplant since the game went live and it’s not taking the game in a positive direction. There seems to be a large portion of the company that still possesses the soul of what makes this game great, but it also seems like there is a darker faction pushing to take the game someplace that could tumble the entire wonderful house of cards that 5+ years and 300+ people built!

But some people DO want challenging content. And some people want fun content. That’s why there’s so much fighting on these forums. Different players want and need different things.

I don’t mind challenging content, but I prefer fun content. I do both, but I’d rather just have fun. That is, I like to pick my challenges. I’m at the point where I’ve done just about every explorable mode dungeon in the game and I don’t really enjoy them. I do, however, like the fractals.

It’s just that I don’t want challenging all the time. Still, not having challenging content would be a mistake. The game really needs both types of content.

And as of this moment, it’s rather light on challenging content.

Fiontar.4695:

April was made too easy for the portion of players who already frequent WvW and do Fractals on a daily basis. Not so easy for the rest of us. I’m glad for the variety, but I wish there were more daily/monthly achievements that rewarded NORMAL PvE world play. A problem with the current mix for dailies/monthlies is that it’s more about making players jump through not so fun hoops, rather than encouraging and rewarding the type of game play that keeps players interested in the game and the game world.

With three of the four things you need being events, veteran slayer and daily achievements for four days, all of which are easily done in standard PVe, the fourth one is a choice. If you like dungeons you do fractals. If you like WvW you kill players.

But even if you like neither of those, there’s still jumping puzzles, a part of PVe, or at very worst case scenario you can recover audio logs. In fact, if you combine recovering audio logs with events and veteran slayer, and even the daily, you can often do them all at once.

Monthlys are supposed to have “some” form of challenge to them. Admittedly this month they’re particularly easy for people who do fractals or WvW, but honestly, they shouldn’t be that hard for a PVe’er. It’s a lot of reward for relatively little work.

Apparently you can’t repeat jumping puzzles for this, they have to be different jumping puzzles. They should have said unique jumping puzzles in the text for the monthly if that’s the case.

marnick.4305:

GW2 is like a good girlfriend who gives you space when you need it. WoW is like the bad ex who’s always keeping tabs on where you are. Just like good girlfriends are hard to find, GW2 is a rare gem in the MMO market. For all its flaws, it’s the best MMO on the market, just like the small imperfection that makes a girl interesting.

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. WoW, to me was far more additive, and far less enjoyable, than Guild Wars 2.

Mungrul.9358:

I don’t understand why they don’t recycle the Unique item concept from Guild Wars 1, where almost every “Boss” had a chance to drop a maximum level, fixed stat item named after them. Hell, half the time, you’d even see said boss using that item in combat before killing them.

Anet specifically stated they didn’t want to do this. That that wanted people to be able to play “anywhere”, though they still did it with at least a couple of the items that drop from meta events, including the Final Rest staff that drops from the Shadow Behemoth event.

And before the peanut gallery asks, I’m not gong to go look for the quote. I don’t care if you believe it but one of the Anet devs did say it.

Flamenco.3894:

Vayne.8563:

Flamenco.3894:

Vayne.8563:

WeightTrainer.3219:

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have an epic feel to it anymore. I don’t know. I will be back at the beginning of May to see if the new content for that month is better than the April content. the super adventure box is a neat and creative idea, just doesnt seem very “epic”.

You’re 100% right. It’s not epic.

Sources please.

Weight Trainer was my source. Wish you had one for the stuff you’ve spouted.

I hear people say that this update was epic, that it brought back lots of memories they are fond of. Look at the countless of threads that praise the Super Adventure Box.

Now if you mean that it’s not epic in comparison to the previous updates and in regards to overall effect on the virtual game world, you are half-correct. Many chests spawn throughout the world that has everything to do with this update. The people who play GW2 PvE, which are the majority, will be affected somehow by this update. It’s of an epic scale in that regard.

Now if you mean it’s not an epic update as that it’s not game-changing. You are correct. It doesn’t change the game much at all. It fits in the lore mostly and it can be disregarded in almost everything you can do in GW2. Though some people treat it with contempt because it’s radically different than what you normally see in GW2.

As for how GW2 is doing, we can only speculate without much data. So let’s take a look at the server population and the revealed plans of ANet regarding GW2. The community can only a part of relevant information.

As from my own point of view I think GW2 will last a long time and will be one of the better MMOs of today. GW2 is not doing

We’re clearly using a different usage of the word Epic. I quite like the update. In fact, I really like the update. But I’m guessing, and it’s just a guess, that Weight Trainer meant epic as in an epic saga, or epic fantasy. And in that, he’s right.

It wasn’t meant to be that sort of epic, because it was an April Fool’s Day upgrade. Other things in this game in the future probably will be epic.

So before you refute what one says, it helps to know how one is defining his terms. I figured you’d post something to refute what I said, but I stand behind it. I wouldn’t define a fun retro video game as epic, certainly not with the usage I’ve intended.

Well it won’t be official, any more than we have an official RP server or an official Oceanic Server.

There are some busy servers out there for sure. I’m on Tarnished Coast and there’s usually people around in most zones.

Flamenco.3894:

Vayne.8563:

WeightTrainer.3219:

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have an epic feel to it anymore. I don’t know. I will be back at the beginning of May to see if the new content for that month is better than the April content. the super adventure box is a neat and creative idea, just doesnt seem very “epic”.

You’re 100% right. It’s not epic.

Sources please.

Weight Trainer was my source. Wish you had one for the stuff you’ve spouted.

WeightTrainer.3219:

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have an epic feel to it anymore. I don’t know. I will be back at the beginning of May to see if the new content for that month is better than the April content. the super adventure box is a neat and creative idea, just doesnt seem very “epic”.

You’re 100% right. It’s not epic.

I’m sure new armor skins will get here at some point, but I’m not so sure they’ll be in the next patch. They’d have to have at least three sets of armor ready (heavy, medium and light).

Each of these sets have to look at least acceptable on five different races.

So while I"m sure new armor sets will make their way into the game, they won’t just be able to get them out at a specific time. Nature of the beast, I’m afraid.

If I got one now, I’d have to sell it. Because my characters would be arguing endlessly on who gets to keep it. They’d be all cross at each other and would make my life a living hell. So in all fairness it would have to be sold.

Writing humor is hard, because humor is so subjective.

Ten years ago I moved to Australia from the US. Stuff that’s funny in the US often isn’t considered funny here at all. I’m assuming it’s the same in reverse.

I find several things in Guild Wars 2 to be quite entertaining. There are other things I don’t find quite as entertaining. Some things make me chuckle, other’s don’t.

I’m not sure the writing is at fault, so much as the background of the person viewing a specific joke.

For example, I never found Tybalt “goofy”. I found him cartoonish in some instances, but there was something I really liked about him. Some of the back and forth between Logan and Rylock, even in the books, I really liked, but other people didn’t.

That’s the problem with humor. It’s not easy to pin down. There are indeed very few jokes that everyone finds funny.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Vayne.8563:

Geikamir.6329:

Vayne.8563:

Geikamir.6329:

ProphetSword.5427:

I will say the same thing that I always say when these threads pop up. There’s this thing that comes with the game called the EULA. You click on it and agree to its terms when you first run the game.

According to that EULA, you agree not to exploit. And, you agree that your account can be terminated/banned at any time without notice for violation of the rules. That is your warning. It was given when you read the EULA (you read it, right?)

You can moan about it all you want, but you agreed to those terms. It’s a done deal. Don’t exploit.

I don’t think you’ve read this thread.

I completely with the OP. Not telling citizens the law and then punishing them based off of these mysterious hidden rules is inherently unfair. Just saying “Don’t commit crimes!” doesn’t count. What exactly are the crimes I shouldn’t commit?

Except that’s how the law works in real life. If you aren’t a lawyer you don’t necessarily know the law, and you can get caught out. And ignorance of the law is no excuse. It happens all the time.

No, that’s not how the law works. Laws are written down. They are official and what can and can’t be done is available for anyone who is interested to see. The OP is asking for that exact type of clarity with in-game exploits. This isn’t about pleading innocence, it’s about not even being able to know.

Laws are written down and subject to constant ammendment and annotation. No laymen can expect to follow, know or understand law. It’s just not possible. That’s why lawyers can charge so much money.

Recently in a case in Australia, someone who used to get workers comp for an injury sustained on the job, suddenly stopped getting paid because of a reinterpretation of an existing law. The law hadn’t changed at all but a new ruling based on that law was handed down by a judge that changed how the law was perceived.

So even though the government agency admitted the person was injured at work and remained injured, they could get out of paying, since the way the decision was worded, if a person is denied a benefit, transfer or promotion they are simply not eligble for that type of compensation. The name of the case was Hart vs. Comcare, if you care to look it up.

The person who stopped being paid (it was a bunch of people actually but I know only one person it happened to personally) had to go to court and fight for their right to compensation. The problem is there were too many legal issues, too many loopholes, too many issues for that person to understand by themselves.

The law is written down. Have you ever looked at or read it? Do you even have that kind of time? For all practical purposes, the law is obscure except in the most commonly held notions. Things like murder and stealing are bad. Assault is bad. But what constitutes crimes in one state can be completely different when you’re in another state, never mind how they vary from country to country.

Anyone who says the law is clear because it’s written down doesn’t know much about law.

Would you be willing to explicitly explain the exploit to the community the next time one is found, so we can be less ignorant of the law?

No, because I never find them until it’s all over. But then Anet doesn’t find them until people abuse it…that’s the problem. And real law has contingencies for that too. Laws change because cases get tested all the time in courts, to see if the judge will allow charges to be brought. Sometimes something that’s not specifically a law gets charged under another similar law.

If Anet doesn’t know about the exploit until it’s used, and it takes time for them to find out, how can they inform anyone?

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

People can say anything they want before a game comes out. Do you remember what people were saying about Guild Wars 2 WvW before it came out?

Yes

Vayne.8563:

It’s a different song then some of them are singing now, I can assure you. Do you really think that this will be any different?

Different to what? I’ve seen people abandon games in droves after similar feedback to what GW2 has received since the infamous ascended items patch. Why I think it hasn’t happened yet is the lack of competition.

As I’ve said before, there are a lot of people who don’t really think deeply about their gaming experience. For every person who is in the know, there are a number of people who have no clue. There are plenty of people, I know you’ll find this amazing, who find WvW fun. I’m one of them. There are others in my guild who do too.

I know some guilds are talking about leaving, but they haven’t SEEN the other game yet. So they’re talking. And a lot of people spoke about leaving other games to come here.

It’s much easier to talk about making a game than it is to make a game. Frankly, I’ll believe it when I see it. If Guild Wars 2 has taught you nothing else, it should have taught you that.

Competition still has to deal with all the same obstacles. That means they have to be able to have everyone on one shard without lagging. I don’t think they can do it. No one else has been able to to date. No one foresaw the culling issues Guild Wars 2 had before the game launched, and that really hurt WvW for a long time.

Now we have input lag. Will Bethesda really be able to pull off better RvR type action? That remains to be seen.

And Guild Wars has time to work on what they have before that launches. It’ll be interesting, but I don’t think it will be as clear cut as you think.

It almost never is.

Galk the Bloody.4629:

Had a group of 10 to fight teesa twice, wasn’t even close. This is what I’ve been working my kitten off for? As a guild leader of 70 players i feel like i want my time/gold back and an apology. Guild missions have let me down to the point where i well know longer speak highly of gw2, hell im not going to speak of it at all.

My guild got and killed Teesa today. We had about fifteen people there. There was a lot of rezzing going on, but we were able to take her down, and still had ten minutes left to finish the other bounty. We only did Tier 1 today.

I can understand you being frustrated, but Teesa isn’t impossible. And guild missions weren’t meant to be easy. You weren’t meant to succeed every time.

Mind you some of it is just plain ridiculous like Sottz. I’ve watched some pretty big guilds wipe on Komali as well.

But Teesa is definitely doable.

Geikamir.6329:

Vayne.8563:

Geikamir.6329:

ProphetSword.5427:

I will say the same thing that I always say when these threads pop up. There’s this thing that comes with the game called the EULA. You click on it and agree to its terms when you first run the game.

According to that EULA, you agree not to exploit. And, you agree that your account can be terminated/banned at any time without notice for violation of the rules. That is your warning. It was given when you read the EULA (you read it, right?)

You can moan about it all you want, but you agreed to those terms. It’s a done deal. Don’t exploit.

I don’t think you’ve read this thread.

I completely with the OP. Not telling citizens the law and then punishing them based off of these mysterious hidden rules is inherently unfair. Just saying “Don’t commit crimes!” doesn’t count. What exactly are the crimes I shouldn’t commit?

Except that’s how the law works in real life. If you aren’t a lawyer you don’t necessarily know the law, and you can get caught out. And ignorance of the law is no excuse. It happens all the time.

No, that’s not how the law works. Laws are written down. They are official and what can and can’t be done is available for anyone who is interested to see. The OP is asking for that exact type of clarity with in-game exploits. This isn’t about pleading innocence, it’s about not even being able to know.

Laws are written down and subject to constant ammendment and annotation. No laymen can expect to follow, know or understand law. It’s just not possible. That’s why lawyers can charge so much money.

Recently in a case in Australia, someone who used to get workers comp for an injury sustained on the job, suddenly stopped getting paid because of a reinterpretation of an existing law. The law hadn’t changed at all but a new ruling based on that law was handed down by a judge that changed how the law was perceived.

So even though the government agency admitted the person was injured at work and remained injured, they could get out of paying, since the way the decision was worded, if a person is denied a benefit, transfer or promotion they are simply not eligble for that type of compensation. The name of the case was Hart vs. Comcare, if you care to look it up.

The person who stopped being paid (it was a bunch of people actually but I know only one person it happened to personally) had to go to court and fight for their right to compensation. The problem is there were too many legal issues, too many loopholes, too many issues for that person to understand by themselves.

The law is written down. Have you ever looked at or read it? Do you even have that kind of time? For all practical purposes, the law is obscure except in the most commonly held notions. Things like murder and stealing are bad. Assault is bad. But what constitutes crimes in one state can be completely different when you’re in another state, never mind how they vary from country to country.

Anyone who says the law is clear because it’s written down doesn’t know much about law.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

So yeah, some people will go to those big games, but so many big games have disappointed..what makes you think those won’t also. Do you really think those new games at launch will have less bugs than Guild Wars 2 by then? I don’t think so.

Thats not actually the point, sure people may go then come back to GW2, its apparently happening to swtor with f2p, but there still would be a large drop in population for a significant portion of time that would be acted upon by anet or ncsoft and would affect how the game is regarded.

Vayne.8563:

And talking about what most of the big guilds are or aren’t doing is pointless. Because unless you’ve polled every player among them, you really have no idea. Do you know how many “big guilds” went to SWToR when it came out, only to leave a month or two later?

I’m basing it on all the feedback I see and hear from WvW players, have you polled them to discover otherwise.

Nope. but I know that a lot of people say stuff all the time, and then don’t do what they say they’re going to do. I know one guy who’s been complaining about WoW for four years. Every time something comes out, he swears he’s going to leave…but he hasn’t left.

Looking at the early stages of any new MMO doesn’t show the flaws, only the selling points because that’s all the company is going to show you up front. The hype takes over, people really truly believe that the next game is going ro revolutionize gaming. And you know, game companies try to push that idea, because marketing departments are paid to do just that.

So they market the game, people go ahead and jump in. New games generally have worse balance than games out for a while, and new games generally have more bugs. Bethesda games have more bugs per square inch that most tracts of rain forest.

So some guys will go, some guys won’t, depending on what happens with WvW between now and the launch of those games.

Then those games launch, sometimes on time, somtimes late and everyone flocks to them. They might hold some people for longer than others but a lot depends on whether or not that game is really ready for release.

The only MMO I’ve seen that was ready for release in time out of mind is Rift, and that was a small world, without a lot of content. So the game was polished, but people finished everything there was on offer there in a month and they left in droves.

People can say anything they want before a game comes out. Do you remember what people were saying about Guild Wars 2 WvW before it came out?

It’s a different song then some of them are singing now, I can assure you. Do you really think that this will be any different?

Aiden.6209:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure you realize it, OP, but there are other ways to earn XP in this game besides crafting. lol

He could be power leveling or testing out how crafting is for leveling and how fast he can do it. He’s only asking if there is anything you can do wrong while crafting all 8 skills which might not make you level 80.

And answering the actual question, i think you must have done something wrong, i have crafted 8 before and give or take abit of xp depending on what you level you will get 80, maybe 79.5 but not 75, you must have done something wrong.

Ah, I was under the impression you could only get 60 levels from crafting, but I see that I’m wrong now.

Thanks for clearing this up for me.

morrolan.9608:

MistaMike.7356:

SWTOR shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same post as GW2, much less the same sentence. Look around at all the creativity, detail and passion that went into this game. The developers here care and are very proud of their product.
Now look at the buggy piece of garbage that is SWTOR, where the development is outsourced to third-world countries that don’t even know what Star Wars is.
One is a game made by gamers, the other a game made by suits, business and marketing majors.

Plenty of people poured their passion into swtor its insulting to them to suggest anything different. As for buggy mess I’ve encountered far more bugs in GW2 than swtor and IMHO the live support for GW2 has been equally as bad as for swtor.

By the time SWToR was as old as Guild Wars 2 is now, it was already seen by most as a failure. And by most I don’t mean like a small handful of guys on the forum. I mean investors. At this point in time, they were looking for scapegoats and pointing fingers. They had laid of, I’m pretty sure it was close to half their staff.

Guild Wars 2, by all means, has it’s problems. Thus far, however, it’s problems aren’t as severe as SWToR experienced, quite possibly because it has no monthly fee. When people are being charged continually for something, they expect a certain level of service. They aren’t likely to get it, but they expect it.

The fact is, by the time you’d played SWToR for six months, you’d have spend a whole lot more than the box price…and not by choice, either.

It makes people more likely to stop playing, too.

There are a couple of problems with what’s being said here.

First in a single player game of any kind, exploits are meaningless. Cheat codes are meaningless. The stuff Anet really cares about is stuff that affects the in game economy which affects everyone. If you do something to get infinite lives in Mario Brothers, no one cares. If you have a mod in Skyrim that makes you invulnerable, no one cares. If you do that in SPVP, some is going to care.

More importantly, before Anet can tell you that an exploit exists, someone has to find and use it, and by the time Anet even finds out about it, it could be hours, or even days. Exploit warnings don’t pop up on their monitors. People don’t talk about it in normal forum chat, as you’ve already said. So what if Anet finds the problem after the horse is already out of the barn.

If people think they won’t be punished until Anet posts the exploit, and they think they can get away with it, you might be able to close the barn door but the horse is likely to already be gone.

Anet closes down exploits as fast as it can once they’re found. But without the deterrent, people who might stop and think and not use an exploit, might well feel they’ll be able to get away with it before a warning is published.

I bought it too, but not for strategy. I bought it for nostalgia, in advance. The game has already changed a ton since it’s come out. In a few years time, I’ll be able to look back and see what the game was like at launch. That’s why I buy guides for most MMOs. It’s fun to look back.

@Clay

The fact that some people run meta events and log out or do dailies and log out, means some people MAY eventually realize they’re not having fun. Some people may find it fun. Some people are strange. Some people have OCD. Some people do other stuff, like chat with their guild while doing it, so they find that fun.

There are times when my guild goes to do a dragon event, and the dragon event itself sucks but we still all have fun.

So we need to know how many people will actually realize they’re not having fun, and how many of those people will leave over it.

If you don’t know how many, you can’t know if the game is in trouble or not. This is like simple logic. It would take a LOT OF people to walk away, all at the same time, without being replaced by anyone.

Now let’s say that ESO comes out and a lot of people who’ve never played an MMO before try it. If it’s as buggy as Skyrim was at launch a lot of people are going to be frustrated. More people will enter MMO space, some for the first time, and look, there’s Guild Wars 2.

SWToR did this actually. Star Wars fans who never played an MMO suddenly played one. And some of those people now play Guild Wars 2.

You’re trying to make a very complicated system very simple. What happens when Guild Wars 2 releases in China? Will it be a hit? Will it fail? You have no idea.

This is so much more complex that your simple comments would lead people to believe. Tell me, on what planet would those numbers NOT matter?

Lambent.6375:

Would be nice if they assigned champions their own special mat loot bags. Each champ can have a chance of dropping these bags ,and they can give between 3-5 mats upon opening.

Might not make people swarm champions, but at least peeps would have a chance to get a little something extra upon killing them.

This is a pretty good idea. I like it.

Geikamir.6329:

ProphetSword.5427:

I will say the same thing that I always say when these threads pop up. There’s this thing that comes with the game called the EULA. You click on it and agree to its terms when you first run the game.

According to that EULA, you agree not to exploit. And, you agree that your account can be terminated/banned at any time without notice for violation of the rules. That is your warning. It was given when you read the EULA (you read it, right?)

You can moan about it all you want, but you agreed to those terms. It’s a done deal. Don’t exploit.

I don’t think you’ve read this thread.

I completely with the OP. Not telling citizens the law and then punishing them based off of these mysterious hidden rules is inherently unfair. Just saying “Don’t commit crimes!” doesn’t count. What exactly are the crimes I shouldn’t commit?

Except that’s how the law works in real life. If you aren’t a lawyer you don’t necessarily know the law, and you can get caught out. And ignorance of the law is no excuse. It happens all the time.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

And your lack of understanding of the MMO industry remains a lack of understanding. Because you’ve played Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. I should bow before your vast experience. You obviously know all about this stuff.

Every MMO slows stuff down, again, because every MMO depends on people to be out in the persistent world. Guild Wars 1 DID NOT depend on that. You had heroes. You could solo pretty much everything in the world, except for a couple of elite areas. There were no events, even in hard mode that you couldn’t h/h.

So you played Guild Wars and you come to Guild Wars 2, which is a true MMO with an open world, and you expect everything to be the same. It doesn’t really give you any credibility at all.

Every single MMO NEEDS to slow down people, until they can make enough content. And they can never make enough content because it’s faster to run content than it is to play through it.

That’s very basic logic.

Or, they could make content that is fun to repeat.

Just because bad mechanics exist in other games, doesn’t mean that they need to exist in new ones.

You do understand how innovation works right?

I must say Vayne, you really do use all of the arguments no matter how bad they are and cling to them like they mean something special. Just because MMO’s have done something in the past, doesn’t mean that it is good. It just means it has been done in the past.

Here is something for you from an actual developer, not some wanna be one like yourself.

Jeff Strain, co-founder of ANet, said in a 2008 keynote speech at a gaming convention:

“The truth is, I hope that I am completely ignorant about what kind of games we’ll be making in ten years, because I hope some hotshot kid comes out of nowhere and changes everything out from under us before then. If that doesn’t happen, we’ve all failed to embrace and protect the culture of innovation that made it possible for us to be here in the first place.”

Kinda kills your whole, let’s keep making MMO’s like the last one.

No matter how fun something is, nothing bears repeating a zillion times. I find the fractals a lot of fun. I’ve done them over 200 times now. Are they still fun? Well sorta. But just like anything, your favorite song can get played out. It happens.

How long did it take a team of programmers at Anet to create the fractals? How long does it take me to play the fractals 200 times till I’m no longer enthralled by it?

That is the problem EVERY MMO faces. You can make content fun. But you can’t make something fun forever.

This is easy to understand. I don’t see why you’re having such a hard time of it.

Even if you randomize dungeons, the act of randomizing instead of scripting always leads to a much simpler dungeon, and therefore, repetition.

So, yeah, no matter what you say, at this point in time, no one and I do mean no one has been able to program an MMO without repetition and therefore without stuff to slow you down.

Because repeating stuff even more often isn’t any more fun than doing it once a day.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Karizee.8076:

clay.7849:

I’m not uptight at all. I could care less what the fanboys think. I just speak from the heart.

Also, I don’t log in for dailies, but so you deny people do? Do you deny that until recently, there were tons of people just going from boss to boss to collect gold chests?

I would be willing to bet we agree that isn’t the kind of activity that leads to long term investment in a game.

Oh, that’s right, who needs that! It is buy to play! ANet can’t lose!

If you think that’s all people are doing, you obviously haven’t looked at the WvW forums lately

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv

Or the 3 mil + dungeon & fractal groups that have formed on gw2lfg in the last couple months.

http://gw2lfg.com/

Or how ’bout a new forum that fairly exploded with hundreds of thousands of posts in 4 short days since they added the content.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/sab

Or been in game to see the swarms of people in Diessa Plateau and Wayfarer Foothills for the Living Story.

Yes, of course people do dailies and kill World Bosses for rares but it’s very silly to say that’s all people do in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

If you can quote where I said all people are doing that, I would appreciate it. Do you deny that there were overflow servers for nearly every world boss from people farming them?

C’mon now, I’m not making this stuff up. There are LOTS of people that play this game just for the rewards. Those people are going to realize that one day, the game they are playing isn’t fun for them. Not because the game isn’t fun, but because they are too tied up in the rewards to appreciate the game. Some will realize this and stay. Many more will leave. As newer titles are published, I would be willing to bet more leave than stay.

Pretty straight-forward logic.

What’s straight-forward logic? Saying that everyone who crowds into one area for a boss is only interested in that, and that’s all they do, and that they don’t enjoy other facets of the game? I’m interested in how that’s logical.

See I do the maw sometimes, or a dragon. Not my favorite part of the game by far, but I sometimes am there for them. But I’m still enjoying other parts of the game. I announce it in my guild when the maw is up and sometimes 10, 15 people show up to do it. But none of the people in my guild are following around events all day for loot. Not one. Know how I know?

Because that’s not what the guild is built on. We mostly enjoy open world content, but we also run fractals and dungeons, some WvW, some of us SPvP, but we’re definitely not just running around farming. There’s like two guys in the guild who will do content they don’t enjoy to get something. The rest of us just play the game.

So where is your logic exactly? Did you poll everyone waiting for each event?

So you deny that people only log on to get their dailies and log off? Or that people only logged on to farm boss chests and log off? Or that some people only play the game for the rewards and then those run out…. what?

I love how you are able to drill down to something so specific to try and prove that I’m wrong, when if you open your eyes, you would see that there are lots of people that play this game, not for the game, but for the reward. And, ANet encourages it.

How long can that last? Probably until the next MMO comes out…

But, I can’t wait to hear your rebuttal about how my thoughts are absurd and outlandish. Please, go ahead.

I deny nothing of the kind. I said you were right. I also said you don’t know how many people do that. You just don’t know. Why can’t you admit it? I admit I don’t know?

So if you say many people, I agree with you. Many people do that. How many is many? You can’t answer it.

Without that answer, the rest of your argument is null and void. Because people do that in WoW too.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

The only problem with DR is the dungeon tokens. That is a bit ridiculous IMO.

Every MMO has ways of slowing down progression. Ridiculous or not, there are reasons for it.

Let’s say someone could get the armor he wanted from a dungeon in one single sitting. So he goes, does it, gets the armor, decides he’s finished with the game and that’s that. It happens all the time.

There’s no game in existence that can keep up with content locusts. So game companies slow down progress by time-gating things. That’s why many MMOs have raid lockouts. You can’t finish a raid and do the same raid in the same week.

In a very real sense, this is actually done for the playerbase, not against it. People want everything fast, until they realize once they have everything, they’re done with the game.

But I thought all that didn’t matter because once they bought the game, ANet got your money and longevity wasn’t important to the non sub model?

Also, GW1 didn’t have that problem. Maybe it’s because they didn’t have the developer imposed grind of needing to do X dungeon runs to get Y, etc, etc…

The whole, other MMO’s do it is such a bad point. Let’s go back to grade school and use what your mother would have told you: if your friend Jimmy decided to jump off a bridge should you follow him? Or, two wrongs don’t make a right.

That’s right, just because other MMO’s do something badly doesn’t mean GW2 has to follow suit. Although, I guess I would say it goes deeper than dungeon DR. It has to do with the fact that a lot of this game is designed around grinding instances far too much to keep people playing as long as possible. Which, like you said, is why the DR exists. So people don’t stop playing once they get what they want. Sound like a great game mode. Don’t bother making a game people want to stick around to play, put in a mechanism to make them go slower…

Guild Wars 1 had PLENTY of stuff to slow down the game. The entire game was slower. Much slower. Prophecies practically crawled. You don’t think Guild Wars used ways to slow down the game?

How about in Factions where you had to farm 10,000 Luxon or Kurzick faction, before you could continue your story. There was NO reason for that but to slow down the game. Do you think all the running back and forth to the same place you’d been a dozen times wasn’t there to slow down the game?

Guild Wars 1 had plenty of ways to slow you down. And when people did speed runs, they changed the landscape to make it harder to do speed runs. And let’s not forget, Guild Wars wasn’t a true MMO in the first place. It was made more as a coop game. It had different rules. It had a lower overhead. It had a lower budget. And it STILL had some stuff to slow you down.

Anet doesn’t need to keep people the same way other games do, but there’s NO COMPANY ON THIS EARTH that can make content fast enough for the content locusts. So if they don’t slow people down, they end up with less people in game. Is less people bad for the game? Of course it is. They don’t need people playing every second of every day but they need players. If they don’t have players who’ll buy stuff in the shop? Who’ll do dynamic events.

Your disingenuous posts remain disingenuous.

Oh Vayne, you miss the point that developer imposed mechanics to artificially slow down game play is much different than having a campaign that takes a while to complete.

And, no, I didn’t like the way that Factions held you back either.

Your fanboy know-it-all posts remain fanboy know-it-all posts.

And your lack of understanding of the MMO industry remains a lack of understanding. Because you’ve played Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. I should bow before your vast experience. You obviously know all about this stuff.

Every MMO slows stuff down, again, because every MMO depends on people to be out in the persistent world. Guild Wars 1 DID NOT depend on that. You had heroes. You could solo pretty much everything in the world, except for a couple of elite areas. There were no events, even in hard mode that you couldn’t h/h.

So you played Guild Wars and you come to Guild Wars 2, which is a true MMO with an open world, and you expect everything to be the same. It doesn’t really give you any credibility at all.

Every single MMO NEEDS to slow down people, until they can make enough content. And they can never make enough content because it’s faster to run content than it is to play through it.

That’s very basic logic.

clay.7849:

Karizee.8076:

clay.7849:

I’m not uptight at all. I could care less what the fanboys think. I just speak from the heart.

Also, I don’t log in for dailies, but so you deny people do? Do you deny that until recently, there were tons of people just going from boss to boss to collect gold chests?

I would be willing to bet we agree that isn’t the kind of activity that leads to long term investment in a game.

Oh, that’s right, who needs that! It is buy to play! ANet can’t lose!

If you think that’s all people are doing, you obviously haven’t looked at the WvW forums lately

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv

Or the 3 mil + dungeon & fractal groups that have formed on gw2lfg in the last couple months.

http://gw2lfg.com/

Or how ’bout a new forum that fairly exploded with hundreds of thousands of posts in 4 short days since they added the content.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/sab

Or been in game to see the swarms of people in Diessa Plateau and Wayfarer Foothills for the Living Story.

Yes, of course people do dailies and kill World Bosses for rares but it’s very silly to say that’s all people do in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

If you can quote where I said all people are doing that, I would appreciate it. Do you deny that there were overflow servers for nearly every world boss from people farming them?

C’mon now, I’m not making this stuff up. There are LOTS of people that play this game just for the rewards. Those people are going to realize that one day, the game they are playing isn’t fun for them. Not because the game isn’t fun, but because they are too tied up in the rewards to appreciate the game. Some will realize this and stay. Many more will leave. As newer titles are published, I would be willing to bet more leave than stay.

Pretty straight-forward logic.

What’s straight-forward logic? Saying that everyone who crowds into one area for a boss is only interested in that, and that’s all they do, and that they don’t enjoy other facets of the game? I’m interested in how that’s logical.

See I do the maw sometimes, or a dragon. Not my favorite part of the game by far, but I sometimes am there for them. But I’m still enjoying other parts of the game. I announce it in my guild when the maw is up and sometimes 10, 15 people show up to do it. But none of the people in my guild are following around events all day for loot. Not one. Know how I know?

Because that’s not what the guild is built on. We mostly enjoy open world content, but we also run fractals and dungeons, some WvW, some of us SPvP, but we’re definitely not just running around farming. There’s like two guys in the guild who will do content they don’t enjoy to get something. The rest of us just play the game.

So where is your logic exactly? Did you poll everyone waiting for each event?

clay.7849:

I got a good one that will get everyone uptight again.

What happens when all the people that just log in for dailies, or boss chests, or CoF runs suddenly realize that the way they are playing the game isn’t fun and decide to quit when another MMO comes out?

Lots of people out there just doing those things…

Sure you’re 100% right. Lots of people are. But how many is lots?

Lots of people are also playing and enjoy the game. Unless you know how many is lots, that’s not really a relevant fact.

In fact just about everyone I know who has a WoW account hasn’t enjoy that game in ages.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

The only problem with DR is the dungeon tokens. That is a bit ridiculous IMO.

Every MMO has ways of slowing down progression. Ridiculous or not, there are reasons for it.

Let’s say someone could get the armor he wanted from a dungeon in one single sitting. So he goes, does it, gets the armor, decides he’s finished with the game and that’s that. It happens all the time.

There’s no game in existence that can keep up with content locusts. So game companies slow down progress by time-gating things. That’s why many MMOs have raid lockouts. You can’t finish a raid and do the same raid in the same week.

In a very real sense, this is actually done for the playerbase, not against it. People want everything fast, until they realize once they have everything, they’re done with the game.

But I thought all that didn’t matter because once they bought the game, ANet got your money and longevity wasn’t important to the non sub model?

Also, GW1 didn’t have that problem. Maybe it’s because they didn’t have the developer imposed grind of needing to do X dungeon runs to get Y, etc, etc…

The whole, other MMO’s do it is such a bad point. Let’s go back to grade school and use what your mother would have told you: if your friend Jimmy decided to jump off a bridge should you follow him? Or, two wrongs don’t make a right.

That’s right, just because other MMO’s do something badly doesn’t mean GW2 has to follow suit. Although, I guess I would say it goes deeper than dungeon DR. It has to do with the fact that a lot of this game is designed around grinding instances far too much to keep people playing as long as possible. Which, like you said, is why the DR exists. So people don’t stop playing once they get what they want. Sound like a great game mode. Don’t bother making a game people want to stick around to play, put in a mechanism to make them go slower…

Guild Wars 1 had PLENTY of stuff to slow down the game. The entire game was slower. Much slower. Prophecies practically crawled. You don’t think Guild Wars used ways to slow down the game?

How about in Factions where you had to farm 10,000 Luxon or Kurzick faction, before you could continue your story. There was NO reason for that but to slow down the game. Do you think all the running back and forth to the same place you’d been a dozen times wasn’t there to slow down the game?

Guild Wars 1 had plenty of ways to slow you down. And when people did speed runs, they changed the landscape to make it harder to do speed runs. And let’s not forget, Guild Wars wasn’t a true MMO in the first place. It was made more as a coop game. It had different rules. It had a lower overhead. It had a lower budget. And it STILL had some stuff to slow you down.

Anet doesn’t need to keep people the same way other games do, but there’s NO COMPANY ON THIS EARTH that can make content fast enough for the content locusts. So if they don’t slow people down, they end up with less people in game. Is less people bad for the game? Of course it is. They don’t need people playing every second of every day but they need players. If they don’t have players who’ll buy stuff in the shop? Who’ll do dynamic events.

Your disingenuous posts remain disingenuous.

killcannon.2576:

Giving everything good loot would not inflate prices, it would drive prices down. A greater supply of any item drives the price down, not up.

If everyone has money then prices go up because people can charge more. That’s exactly what inflation is. In games with money is given freely stuff costs more. In other words, the value of your currency goes down.

You don’t have to believe it but it’s what ends up happening.

morrolan.9608:

Mackdose.6504:

To answer the topic question:

The game is clearly doing well. After 7 months, AoC, WAR, SWTOR were basically dead, with very few people playing content on a regular basis compared to what we have now in GW2.

Difference is GW2 had the very good fortune to launch in a bubble without much competition which exists to this day. WvW for example major guilds have said they are really just biding their time until TESO and Archeage come out, then beyond that there is Camelot Unchained. For PvE there is also Wildstar as well as the above and EQ Next on the horizon.

The same could be said for WoW, which launched in a virtual vacuum of competition and Rift as well. WoW, of course, had very little competition for a very long time, but even Rift is still a succcessful MMO, and other “big” games have since come out. DDO is still doing well. Lotro is still making money.

So yeah, some people will go to those big games, but so many big games have disappointed..what makes you think those won’t also. Do you really think those new games at launch will have less bugs than Guild Wars 2 by then? I don’t think so.

A lot of people always went to play MoP and some of those have come back to Guild Wars 2. That’s one of the big advantages of the no subscription fee model. There’s no real downside to looking in every now and again.

And talking about what most of the big guilds are or aren’t doing is pointless. Because unless you’ve polled every player among them, you really have no idea. Do you know how many “big guilds” went to SWToR when it came out, only to leave a month or two later?

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Hmm.
" content would be rendered pointless because there’d be no challenge with a million people doing it."

Kind of like Meta Events? I get that you feel compelled to support anything and everything Anet does, Vayne, but honestly… this statement made me spew coffee.

It is kind of like meta events. I agree, those are pointless. Anet originally had them so they weren’t so rewarding and less people did them. I liked them better then.

Actually, I can list several things Anet does that I don’t like, including the RNG in Black Lion Chests for the new skins, which I’ve said in other threads is a bad look. Including the choice of making the last part of the personal story multiplayer out of the blue, including the dungeons in general, which I don’t enjoy at all.

However, that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with other decisions. Perhaps you’re confusing me with someone who only has positive opinions. In the case of loot, I think that making it so that everyone just goes to one thing for max loot sucks for the game in general. I think making everything give good loot which just inflate prices, which is bad for the game.

Just because someone agrees with specific points that you can’t see, doesn’t mean they agree with everything the company does. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure they know more about game design than most players.

I’m not sure you realize it, OP, but there are other ways to earn XP in this game besides crafting. lol

dinominator.9862:

Vayne.8563:

dinominator.9862:

What about veterans? I’ve killed many that had no loot at all. Are they supposed to have at least something, or is it a % chance that they carry something?

I don’t think vets have guaranteed drops. Many, however, are pretty easy to kill in any case.

They’re not particularly difficult most of the time, but it is strange that the trash mobs around them will drop at least vendor trash (sometimes blues or greens) and the Vet gives nada. Makes my wonder “why bother?” except for the fight.

It’s an increased chance that’s all. It’s a loot table, not guaranteed loot.

It’s sorta like any kind of gambling. There are games that pay off more, but you have to invest more cash to play them. There’s still no guarantee of winning.

The bottom line is if they make something so that every time you kill a champion you get a gold, that’s all anyone would do, and the content would be rendered pointless because there’d be no challenge with a million people doing it.

dinominator.9862:

What about veterans? I’ve killed many that had no loot at all. Are they supposed to have at least something, or is it a % chance that they carry something?

I don’t think vets have guaranteed drops. Many, however, are pretty easy to kill in any case.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Vayne.8563:

People get banned for doing questionable stuff without thinking. And a lot of people who did get banned, those who did it 500 times, had their ban overturned if they agreed to a rollback.

So I’m not sure what your point is.

My point is simple, unless players are given adequate information regarding the “law” of the game, then it seems unreasonable to punish them without warning. Imagine if Area 51 took down all the signs that trespassers would be shot on sight, and then started shooting hikers that wandered in.

I understand that there are people who recognize and take advantage of exploits. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the average player who doesn’t have the information, or experience to be able to recognize the difference between what is, and isn’t an exploit.

Because these average players have no way of asking the question without being banned, it creates a situation where the law is hidden, and people found guilty are sentenced without ever knowing why.

Actually, people know why and learn for the next time. If something is too good to be true, it’s usually pretty obvious. And since Anet didn’t punish people who do that stuff ten or twenty times your point is pretty much a non-point.

The abusers are using stuff to get rich fast or get achievements fast. Even in real life, ignorance of the law is no excuse. It should even be that way moreso in games, where the penalty is a ban, rather than jail time.

Or do you think the lawmakers should publish every single law on every street corner too?

Anet wants to get people out into the world…which is why world chests give decent loot. You’re only guaranteed one gold a day from them, but a lot of people go for them anyway. Many, when in the area do other events, kill stuff, and help fill zones.

As far as I know, Champions are programmed to drop blue or higher. Annoying, I’m sure, but as far as I know that’s working as intended. You should have a higher chance of getting a better drop from a champ, but there’s still a chance to get blues.

clay.7849:

The only problem with DR is the dungeon tokens. That is a bit ridiculous IMO.

Every MMO has ways of slowing down progression. Ridiculous or not, there are reasons for it.

Let’s say someone could get the armor he wanted from a dungeon in one single sitting. So he goes, does it, gets the armor, decides he’s finished with the game and that’s that. It happens all the time.

There’s no game in existence that can keep up with content locusts. So game companies slow down progress by time-gating things. That’s why many MMOs have raid lockouts. You can’t finish a raid and do the same raid in the same week.

In a very real sense, this is actually done for the playerbase, not against it. People want everything fast, until they realize once they have everything, they’re done with the game.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Randulf.7614:

Its not an ANet policy..its the identical policy I have seen in every mmo I’ve played. We aren’t allowed to discuss them, because the risk is much higher that others – albeit briefly – may catch on and use them.

I don’t agree.

As I said before, if ANet put out a warning message to every player who logs in, explaining the exploit and the consequences of using said exploit, then all the players could make an informed decision.

I think most players would feel good about knowing that information and would make sure that they avoid the exploit at all cost. Those who disregard the message should be banned simple as that.

Keeping people in the dark, and then banning them without warning is unfair in my opinion. I also don’t know what ANet considers a “worst offender” because I have no information about who I’m being compared to. If I do something in game and then start to suspect it is an exploit, it may be too late by the time I stop.

What exactly are you disagreeing with? Every MMO I’ve played has had this same policy. None of them discuss exploits and all of them will ban you for exploiting.

Ambrecombe.4398:

What about Kodans as the next playable race? With the Voice recently corrupted in HotW by the Harier and Jormag probably beeing the next target on the list, it could make perfect sense to add them in the alliance against the dragons.

Or maybe Tengus, their gates are still closen and one of them is next to the Sylvari starting area, making perfect sense for a new playable race. But something should motivate them to start the alliance with the other races of Tyria.

Not sure about the Kodan. It might interfere with their Coca-cola contract.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Before this turns into a post personally insulting me, lets take a look at what you guys are doing.

You’re arguing against my candy example using your own previous experience. You know that because typically candy machines only give a small amount, that a candy machine that gives more must be broken.

My point is what if your experience with candy machines was limited?

You have to step back for a moment and approach this problem from the perspective of someone who may not understand why that would be considered an exploit.

To use the Mystic Forge example above, I have never used the forge. For me, anything that thing spits out is intended. I would have no idea if something was working as intended.

For example, say I threw in three items and got a Quaggan backpack. I would be pretty happy. If I did it again and got another one, I would be super happy and feel pretty lucky. If I did it a third time, I would start to wonder if perhaps something wasn’t working.

My first instinct would be to ask on the forums, or map chat. This is however forbidden, so my choice is to stop, or to continue. The problem is that I may be unaware that what I’ve done is a problem, and could log in a few hours later to find out I was banned.

You can’t simply assume that everyone understands, or has the same experience as other when it comes to what can, and can’t be done in the game. There are so many little tricks and things that one can do in the wide world of Tyria, that to ban someone without warning, or without explaining why what they are doing is wrong (nor give them any way of finding out), is not a great solution in my opinion.

Basically you cant’ get something for nothing. One of the things Anet banned people for was buying something that was ten times cheaper than all the other stuff in the same tab, for essentially the same item. It would be like looking at a candy machine and all the candy bars are $10, but you find one for ten cents, for the same thing. In theory, you might buy one or two.

But if you buy 500 of them and start to sell them for more than you paid, you’d have to know that it’s an exploit, because obviously people wouldn’t be buying them. If you can buy something for $1 that you can trade in to consistenly get something worth $10 that would be an exploit.

It’s a way of printing money. It’s completely unrealistic.

People get banned for doing questionable stuff without thinking. And a lot of people who did get banned, those who did it 500 times, had their ban overturned if they agreed to a rollback.

So I’m not sure what your point is.

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Vayne.8563:

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Like once it was common knowledge that the world is flat.

./sigh
Lets just take a step back. Are we, or are we not talking about Guild Wars 2 here?

Seems you are caught up in things said about the mechanics of another game at another time. The reason you won’t supply links to official arenanet statements on the subject is because there are none pertaining to Guild Wars 2. Just because you’ve played games for 30 years everyone should be in awe of your wisdom and blindly follow your word as the only source of truth?

It’s time for some fresh ideas from that side of the table. Unless anet themselves come forward to shed some light on the subject everything said about this so called “anti-farming policy” is speculation. Period.

You seem to have forgotten why this entire conversation started in the first place. A certain member of this forum has been insisting, loudly and often, that the ONLY reason that Guild Wars 2 has a DR is because they want people to buy gems to convert to cash. No evidence, just a strongly expressed, oft repeated opinion.

My argument is that Guild Wars 1, which had no gem to cash conversion ALSO had a DR. So there is no conceivable way to say that the only reason Anet has done this is the cash shop.

The only reason this was brought up is because said person completely denied that such a policy existed at all.

I know it’s a different game. But I also know that if they did have such a system in the first game, then no one can say the only reason DR exists in the second game is the gem/cash thing.

Conspiracy theory is just that, a conspiracy theory.

If someone on these forums didn’t keep repeating the cash shop conspiracy over and over again, I wouldn’t even be TALKING about DR, because it doesn’t affect me personally at all.

I’m not denying the existence of DR in GW2. I’m concerned that assumptions about company stance pertaining to a certain in game mechanic is being regarded as ‘policy’ without any irrefutable evidence supporting such claims.

If indeed this is anet’s stance it would have far reaching consequences on how this game is viewed by current and potential players (views that may or may not include the “cash shop conspiracy theory”, among others).

And I’m telling you, in the past, Anet has made anti-farming changes in games, at least one of which can be viewed in the Guild Wars 1 wiki. They won’t talk about the policy because they don’t really want people to know how to get around their anti-farming measures. I’m not sure what the mystery about that is.

Anet doesn’t want people to stay in one place and farm the same stuff over and over. Sure it’s a limitation on the playerbase, but it doesn’t affect a huge segment of the population. It affects a small segment. Because most people don’t want to stay in one spot and farm the same thing over and over.

You farm for a while, if you like that sort of thing, you start to hit DR, you move to another area. I don’t get the problem here.

But yeah, since that policy has been referred to by Anet devs in the past, you can hardly dismiss it.

There’s no way in hell I’d do it all at once, but over the course of time, why not? It’s not that bad to buy a bunch of liquor ocassionally and drink it.

The OP is arguing that no one will get this achievement without cheating? Maybe not in one day and maybe not all at once, but it’s not really that hard. This is the kind of achievement you do after you’ve done everything else you want, and you have less use for gold and karma.

Actually, if I, in real life, saw a machine behave that way, I wouldn’t keep putting quarters into it, because it would be like stealing from that company. Instead I’d report it to the shop owner, or whoever was around. I’d probably keep the candy I did get out of it, but I wouldn’t keep exploiting it.

If a cashier gives me too much change in a shop, I let them know and give it back.

An exploit is an exploit, even in real life. It doesn’t matter if I can get away with it. What matters to me is if it’s the right thing to do.

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Like once it was common knowledge that the world is flat.

./sigh
Lets just take a step back. Are we, or are we not talking about Guild Wars 2 here?

Seems you are caught up in things said about the mechanics of another game at another time. The reason you won’t supply links to official arenanet statements on the subject is because there are none pertaining to Guild Wars 2. Just because you’ve played games for 30 years everyone should be in awe of your wisdom and blindly follow your word as the only source of truth?

It’s time for some fresh ideas from that side of the table. Unless anet themselves come forward to shed some light on the subject everything said about this so called “anti-farming policy” is speculation. Period.

You seem to have forgotten why this entire conversation started in the first place. A certain member of this forum has been insisting, loudly and often, that the ONLY reason that Guild Wars 2 has a DR is because they want people to buy gems to convert to cash. No evidence, just a strongly expressed, oft repeated opinion.

My argument is that Guild Wars 1, which had no gem to cash conversion ALSO had a DR. So there is no conceivable way to say that the only reason Anet has done this is the cash shop.

The only reason this was brought up is because said person completely denied that such a policy existed at all.

I know it’s a different game. But I also know that if they did have such a system in the first game, then no one can say the only reason DR exists in the second game is the gem/cash thing.

Conspiracy theory is just that, a conspiracy theory.

If someone on these forums didn’t keep repeating the cash shop conspiracy over and over again, I wouldn’t even be TALKING about DR, because it doesn’t affect me personally at all.

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Vayne.8563:

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Vayne.8563:

The people who run the same stuff in Orr over and over again, DID ruin the game for anyone who just wanted to play. You have to either play the tag mob game (not something that the devs intended, I can assure you) or you have people tagging a few mobs, scaling the event up and moving on. Do you really think that kind of selfish behavior is what the devs had in mind.

It was supposed to be a cooperative game, not a selfish one. But farmers are inherently selfish. I know one of them. He’s my son. He’ll tag a mob, tag a bunch of them, enough to get his reward and move into the next event. He doesn’t care if the event fails or succeeds. He’s not interested in playing the game created by Anet. He’s interested in getting loot. And if he gets loot at the expense of another, so what?

You asked for an anti-farming policy and someone linked a page from the Guild Wars wiki about it, but you still haven’t commented on it. Could it be that you’re actually wrong about Anet and their policy on farming?

Yes farmers ruin the game for people who just want to play it “normally”. If you don’t think so…well that’s your opinion. Good thing Anet seems to share mine.

I have yet to see an official statement where the company actually states what you claim as truth. Anything other than that is pure speculation. A wiki entry for GW1 won’t cut it, sorry.

If the tagging mechanism wasn’t intended it would not have been in game to begin with or it would have been changed/removed a long time ago because of this ‘farming’ exploit. But, instead it was fixed in a previous update to actually give loot if you get experience for a kill. So now even casuals can get loot during events.

Also… if Anet never intended for anyone to ‘farm’ for anything, why are the requirements for legendary weapons so outrageous? Do you honestly think they expected gamers to just kitten around in LA and eventually get the required mats, as if by magic?

Farming, ruining the economy, lol.

That post in the wiki, had a reference. That reference told where the quote came from. It was well-known among Guild Wars 1 players that Anet was anti-farming. I can’t imagine anyone who played the game that didn’t know it, even down the creation of Skeletons of Dhuum which Anet said straight out was to prevent speed clears and solo farming.

The fact is, Anet wants people to play their game, rather than “farm” their game. The DR isn’t all that tough. If you farm one area for an hour or so, you’re going to run into DR. So move areas?

The whole DR thing isn’t such a big deal except for a fairly small percentage of the player base, who can’t let it go. But it’s been around a long time.

If you don’t want to believe it, don’t. Because obviously you know better.

I ran UWSCs for years before it was made more difficult by the dhuum critters. Thousands of people relied on farming to get event items for titles. If Anet was so against this why introduce titles that rely on farming to achieve them? If they were completely anti-farming they could have easily changed or removed the raptor cave, for example. They didn’t. It’s still very much in game and farmable.

I also like how you completely avoided most of my post, then went on to (try and) change the subject, and ending with “Because obviously you know better”. See, unlike yourself I try my best to not make any claims of game mechanics and policy that I cannot back up with links to official quotes. I question things that we have no concrete answers for. I don’t cling to a skirts of a semi-unrelated statement on the wiki of another game to try and justify my beliefs. It is unconvincing and makes you look foolish.

Actually make makes you look foolish is denying something the Guild Wars community has been aware of for years. You really expect me to track down every reference to something we knew about years ago? I pointed to an article or two in the wiki and frankly I don’t need more to back up what I know, because I was there.

I’m not sure anyone in the Guild Wars 1 community, at least those involved in the game and forums, wouldn’t remember the discussions about Anet’s anti-farming policy, but it was Anet employees who talked about it.

You try tracking down stuff that was said 5 years ago on another forum, or many forums, if you have that kind of time.

I’m talking from knowledge and experience. You’re asking for me to prove something that was all but common knowledge.

TwoBit.5903:

Game development requires many different specializations, so it’s not unheard of to shuffle or even lay off personnel once the is little or no use for their specialization. It all depends on which direction management wants to take development, not necessarily the health of the game. Unless knowledge of at least the kinds of employees laid off is provided, information of layoffs may as well be pulled out of thin air.

Speaking which, what happened to certain designers at GW2? We don’t really hear from designers like Eric Flannum anymore. Speaking of which two of the three founding members of ArenaNet aren’t here anymore. I’m not trying to insinuate anything (well, I am actually and insinuate is all I can really do), but maybe there have been major layoffs at ArenaNet as well.

One of the company founders left off early in the game’s history. The other one went to produce a Zombie MMO. I’m sure, like in any creative project, there must have been either creative or personal differences. I can’t see walking out on a game as late as Jeff Strand did without him being unhappy. Though, actually, before he left Anet, he worked for NCsoft first. From what he said in statements, he was tired of being an excecutive and wanted to be on the front line again. I’m guessing there’s more to it than that, but it’s just a guess.

Eric Flannum is still working for Anet. He just isn’t fronting the media anymore. This is probably because Colin is so popular with a certain segment.

In a lot of games, concept artists leave toward the end of production (but less so in MMOs since there will likely be expansions) though Anet did lose it’s head concept artist…but he was hired away by another company.

The difference is, when a company lays off 30% of it’s staff or 50% of it’s staff, that’s when you know there are problems. When a company loses a few individuals, that’s not publicized as much because it’s part of doing business. Happens all the time.

SWToR laid off a big percentage of it’s staff and when you do that, you really can’t hide it. It becomes news. Same thing with what happened with Big Huge Games (Curt Shillings company, the guys who made Kingdoms of Amular). Their death was pretty public (and a bloody mess). One of the highest guys in Funcomm, pretty sure it was the CEO, resigned the day TSW launched. That raised some eyebrows, but a short time later they lost a third of their staff due to disappointing sales figures.

You hear about stuff like this. If Anet had to lay off more than ten percent of their staff, it would be news and it would be reported in the business papers. The closest thing we saw was NCSOFT West restructuring at one point, but it didn’t come with a huge loss of jobs.

I follow the business end because it interests me. I’ve been following MMO business news for many years now.

Actually one of the reasons I believe Guild Wars 2 was delayed is because when Jeff Strand left to make his zombie MMO, he took a few keys staff members over with him.

Fritz.5026:

Its not the worst mmo I have ever played, but I think many of the supporters simply have not played that many other games.

This game loses its shine very quickly.

You try to level up a character now and its a ghost town. If you can’t solo it then you have to skip it. Might as well be playing a 1 player game.

They can’t decide what they want to do with end game. They said it would not have loot farming and was about pvp, except since then they have added fractal farming and very little for pvp.

Its taken them this entire time just to fix culling so thieves would stop being invisible for entire fights while thieves think they are just magically more skilled than the rest of the world.

They put in DR because of farmers without any regard for it hurting actual players because it was the cheap and easy way out.

so on and so forth. I am sick of complaining.

The bottom line is I can jump on other games and have more fun and I still feel like I wasted the money buying this game.

There’s so much in this post that I don’t agree with, I don’t know where to start. First many of us who love this game have played MANY other games. I’ve played WoW, Aion, Lotro, TSW, AoC, a bit of Eve (not my thing), DDO, and Perfect World, plus a boatload of single player games. Oh and Guild Wars 1. This game hasn’t lost it’s shine to me. It’s a startup MMO and after six months, before a lot of the new content comes out, all MMO’s suffer from lack of content. Particularly now in a saturated market, it’s far harder to impress than it was say when WoW launched.

Aside from that, no one said the game was about PvP. That’s a prejudice some people brought in with them, but Anet never said this.

The original Prophecies was supposed to be a vehicle to get people to PvP as end game, that much is true, but even Guild Wars 1 evolved over the years, so much so that most upgrades ended up being PVe upgrades and the game had a very strong PVe playerbase. A lot of PvPers accused Guild Wars of betraying them for PVe. Unfortunately, people STILL think of it as a PvP game, even though Anet spend over a year promoting PVe long before they showed off PvP.

And I’m not sure how DR affects other players that aren’t farmers. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced DR playing this game.