Guild Wars 2

You’re also not including the revamp of AC, which was pretty big actually, and the ability to not only preview the trading post stuff, a much requested feature, but also to see weapons both sheathed and drawn with their particle effects.

Fortuna.7259:

Vayne.8563:

Proof? Because I don’t spend money on the game and play it just fine. This kind of conspiracy theory is the worst kind of conspiracy theory. One that appeals to fear in people without having a shred of evidence to back it up.

I would hardly call a corporation taking actions to increase their own profits a “conspiracy theory.” More like common sense. The only question is what the business strategy is.

Saying Anet doesn’t care at all about anything but making money through the cash shop is a conspiracy theory. The poster is saying that everything they do is about making money through the cash shop. Except I can think of tons of things they could have done but haven’t. So maybe it’s not that clear cut.

Every company wants to increase its profits, but some companies do have self-imposed moral limits. I had a computer store at one point in my life and I had things I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t buy stolen merchandise, even if I knew I could get away with it, because I didn’t want to make money that way. That’s a limit.

Anet has limits too. Look at other F2P MMOs and compare their cash shop with Anets. Then we’ll talk about greed.

TC didnt’ advertise themselves as the guesting server, one or two people did. I’m sorta doubting they consulted everyone on TC before posting. I know I wasn’t consulted.

It is a good server, and it’s busy. But yeah, with guesting it’s gotten out of hand. Fortuanately, I can just guest over to the other busy servers.

Grizledorf.5290:

Brendar.3548:

Monthlies and dailies reset at 0:00 UTC, which for US west coast is 4:00pm PST. So, we are in March for all servers.

I’VE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF UTC UNTIL YOU JUST TAUGHT ME ABOUT IT.

I stand by what I said,

Resetting the Monthly before the First of the Month of March was

So Not cool.

But they didn’t reset it before the first of March. They reset it on March 1st UTC (which stands for coordinated UNIVERSAL time). They can’t make it reset for everyone in different time zones at the same time. They have to pick one. Many games, including Guild Wars 2, use this time.

It’s unfortunate that you missed the monthly. Surely this isn’t the first time I’ve seen posts like this. But if they wait to reset it for you at your time, it wouldn’t reset for some other people until March 2nd.

It’s a lesson for future months for sure.

Anyone who approaches any game with such a limited sphere of what they’ll enjoy is in danger of not being able to fulfill their personal agenda in the game.

I’ve RPed too, but I RP many characters, not just one. If one character doesn’t work for me, I’m quite happy to make one that does within the context of the said game.

If this game doesn’t work for the single view you have of your character, you’ve answered your own question. Why even ask it?

Raijjn.8256:

let me add my 2 cents in here…

first and foremost, there’s something that all of you have failed to understand. Guild wars 1 was a game, guild wars 2 is NOT a game, it’s not here for your entertainment. Guild wars 2 is a business.. it’s entire design is centered around creating your need to spend real money on it. THAT’s the bottom line… anet, doesn’t give 2 squirts is p*ss about whether or not you like the changes they make. they don’t care a bit about what you feel they should or should not add to the game. they’re sole purpose is to create, in you, a need to spend your money. there are far too many examples of this in game for me to list here, but for those of you who will undoubtedly call bs.. take a look at the history thus far.. anything that deals with the gem store get immediate attention.. everything else, get attention, IF at all, when they feel like getting around to it. how long did it take them to fix the skritt segment of the personal storyline? how long did it take them to fix the cattlepult so ppl could get the vista? during this time, how many new items did they add to the gem store for you to spend money on? how many new bugs did they introduce, rather than fixing any of the existing bugs? I loved gw1.. but anet has lost their sense of gaming when they discovered what kind of money they could make from all the suckers that don’t see the big picture.

vv que trolls vv

Proof? Because I don’t spend money on the game and play it just fine. This kind of conspiracy theory is the worst kind of conspiracy theory. One that appeals to fear in people without having a shred of evidence to back it up.

There are so many greed F2P games out there and P2W games out there. This isn’t one of them.

If Anet was really after cash sales from the shop, they’d introduce pay to win options like many other games.

Zenith.6403:

Vayne.8563:

Anet hasn’t broken any promises, because they didn’t promise anything. Look up promise in the dictionary and see what it means, then use the word.

- What about this video then?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=1m26s

I thought it was pretty clear vision statement that they don’t want grind in their game. Yet they have added grind to their game, more with every patch. And from reading interviews they sound “very excited” about it too. What are fractal relics (quantities starting at 5) for? Why does the back item cost 1,350 fractal relics in a game that is not supposed to have grind?

What about half the achievements? Kill 1,000 centaurs. Get 1,000 sword kills. The whole WvW tab in achievements is about massive grind. Kill a million players in WvW to get your title.

Guild missions: get 5th level unlock and grind 50,000 influence points before you even get a chance to try them out.

Based on these observations, I say that Colin Johanson has mislead the players.

If you listen to the video and you look at the text, and I’ve posted this many times on the forums, it’s obvious that Colin is talking about grinding mobs to gain levels. That’s what he’s talking about. Making combat fun. You’re taking the whole paragraph out of context by looking only at the word grind and ignoring everything else. It’s not how English works. Here’s the actual paragraph in text:

“When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

We want to change the way people view combat. Nothing about grinding for achievements. Nothing about grinding for gear. Nothing about vertical progression.

Anyone who even has a basic understanding of English should read that paragraph as not having fun tasks and having to work to get to the fun tasks. As in gearing up to start raiding.

But you dont’ have to grind to do the content in Guild Wars 2. You don’t have to grind to do dungeons, because I can do dungeons in greens. You don’t have to grind to do the fractals, because as you get to the lower level fractals if you enjoy them you get what you need from them. And you can do any level you want. You’re not locked out. You don’t have to grind to run around in Orr and farm.

That’s what he was talking about, and that’s all true. You don’t have to grind for that.

People are misunderstanding basic English and calling it a lie. Hyperbole at best, ignorance at worst.

Revolution.6301:

Zeldain.5710:

Martin Kerstein.3071:

Critickitten: You mention in your first paragraph that this is your opinion. I changed the thread title to reflect that (which you could have done in the first place yourself). The original thread title was sensationalist and broad to attract more views. I will change the title back to reflect that it is a personal opinion. If you change it once again, this thread will be locked and trashed.

I know I’m not the first to notice your casual moderation in favor.

EVERYTHING on these forums is “in our opinion” but you protect yourself by taking the edge off of the genuine problems.

I’ve never seen behavior like this before.

Not cool.

I agree. Honestly everything as you stated in this form is in your opinion. But in an attempt to dull the problem you force us to include in our thread titles. Why?

What the OP said really is true, sad but true. Honestly Anet has been so vague as of late its worrysome.

Honestly what happened to the old Anet from Gw1?

What the OP said is opinion, not true, not false. People in this thread have disagreed with him. Unfortunately,. when people feel aggrieved, they feel they have the right to venture into hyperbole, a form of exaggeration.

Of course it’s true that the OP doesn’t trust Anet anymore. That’s true. But his reasons for not trusting them are spurious at best. And sensationalizing a headline to sell newspapers is cheesy no matter who does it.

Anet hasn’t broken any promises, because they didn’t promise anything. Look up promise in the dictionary and see what it means, then use the word.

Anet has made changes to the original game. This is 100% true. They’ve also gone out of their way to say they’re a company that works on iteration. Iteration means that they try stuff, all the time.

During development they tried and abandoned many things that didn’t work. They had energy originally and energy potions. They abandoned it. No one said one word against it. No one said, you liked, you were going to have energy potions. No one said a word because they liked that specific change, but it was still a change. Anet said one thing and then did something else. Because it made more sense after seeing the data to do something else.

This is what an iterative process will get you. During development it’s easier to accept by people because people don’t have the game yet, haven’t gotten used to anything yet. But after the game launched, Anet trying things wasn’t going to stop. They even had blog posts about iteration itself and barely an Anet blogpost appears without the word iteration.

So they try stuff and some stuff works and some doesn’t and they move on. Which should I believe, two lines about vertical progression in pre release interviews or the countless times they mentioned iteration.

I trust Anet to do what they feel is best for the game. And I trust them to know a lot more about what’s best for the game (having more data than I do), than any specific subset of players.

Budchgon.2108:

I don’t want the best gear, sadly ‘as I love WvWvW’ it is getting to the point where I ‘need’ the best items ‘ascended’ to have fun (getting stomped by a guy wearing far superior gear is not fun)
If it was for fashion or ‘keeping up with the jonses’ then I can easily do without but the higher numbers mean without I will be much weaker and do less damage-which are needed in WvWvW.

I don’t know how you can possibly know that you did or didn’t beat a guy because of his gear. You cant’ talk to him. You can’t know what gear he has. Maybe he beat you and he gear wasn’t as good because he’s (or she’s) simply a better player.

I really do think this is all in people’s minds.

Mercucial.6759:

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

It really has nothing to do with needing instant gratification, it’s the genre of game. MMOs, hell RPGS in general have always been about getting awesome stuff for your characters and beefing them up until they are absolute beasts. Also not to be an kitten but you would think someone of your age wouldn’t care so much about how OTHER people play the game. Why does it bother you so much?

This is not what RPGs used to be about. RPGs used to be about stories and solving puzzles. Go back to games like Baldur’s Gate. You tried to figure stuff out. Even later games like Dragon Age, I didn’t sit there trying to get the best loot. Or games like Skyrim.

All these RPGs have something in common. They’re more about exploring and experiencing than loot gathering. And they were all massively popular.

It’s MMOs that have made RPGs more about loot. I’ve been playing games for a long, long time, and I never remember gearing up being what any game was about until MMOs started becoming mainstream.

+1 OP. You’ve said it better than I could have.

There’s a deeper problem to all this, that isn’t talked about much. If you can get constantly rewarded for doing nothing in a video game, what’s the point of working hard for anything in real life?

Seems to me, video games are easy instant gratification, or nearly instant anyway, and they give people this false sense of achievement. Which means that working for stuff for most people becomes something they’re not used to at all.

I can easily see people getting used to being instantly rewarded growing up,. then going out into the real world and finding they can’t make any progress because real life doesn’t work that way.

Even a game like Guild Wars 2, better than most MMOs by my standards, is shallow compared to some of the older games.

There are two types of people responding to this post…farmers and not farmers.

Farmers are kitten because they can’t mindless run between two points and make bank. That’s how they want to play the game.

People who don’t get farmers don’t like what farming does to the rest of the game. I’m with those people. Farming isn’t something that’s your “right”. It’s not something you get to do. DR was added to stop people from messing up other people’s games. It has to do with inflation, it has to do with the marketplace price of certain items. It’s not just about your phat lootz.

Anet did what Anet has always done. Made it harder to farm, because farming is YOUR game, but it’s not THE game.

I hope this drives farmers away from the run. Of course, they’ll only turn up somewhere else, until that’s nerfed too.

Why can’t people just play the game?

Anyone who doesn’t think this game is the evolution of the MMO genre, simply forgot all the stuff that’s done right…and there’s plenty of it. Of course, there’s also stuff done wrong. Did anyone really think that a zillion people would play this game and not want their phat lootz? WoW and wow clones killed the entire genre. RPGs don’t have to be about loot, but the people playing the game don’t remember that. Surely you’ve seen the numerous loot threads here, about loot this and loot that and loot nerfs. Now people are complaining about dragon chests because they can get good loot, but only once a day. Well, yeah, there is an economy to think about.

This game has done a few things that set it apart from other MMOs. Everyone being able to rez hasn’t really been done that much. The cooperative instead of competitive feeling in PVe likewise, as in no loot or node stealing. The dynamic events that chain into each other. They’re there, even if they repeat. And they’re far ahead of stuff like the Rifts in Rift, or the public quests that existed in War. Anyone who doesn’t think so isn’t being honest.

It’s an evolution for sure, but people wanted a revolution. But look at how hard it is for people to adapt to the game as is. Cosmetic rewards weren’t working for a huge percentage of the playerbase who literally need something to grind for. I don’t. I don’t want this crap in my game…but apparently we either have not enough people playing to support the game, or we have compromises that have to be made to keep the people who have been trained by other games. It sucks but there it is.

I’d love to see an MMO that’s more of an RPG, which is what Anet was aiming for…but at each turn, they’ve met with resistance from the fan base.

What has Anet put into this game, one thing, that people haven’t complained about?

Xericor.9103:

I missed this..

So effectively this means they are saying ‘go repeat X(fractals/dungeons etc) over and over and over’, and in the same breath saying we are not allowing you to ‘repeat Y(big event), over and over’.

On one hand I can see where they are coming from, they don’t want people getting good stuff, easy, by repeating the same fight. But they want us to repeat the same grind over and over elsewhere, for longer, with less reward…

Repeating a fractal takes time and some amount of skill. Repeating a dragon event means standing there with a zerg and getting a reward for a few minutes of your time and pretty much no real effort. And the reward you get from the dragons is actually more than you’d get from running a fractal. You get at last 3 items, and in many cases more. So it’s like running three fractals or an entire level.

People who run fractals are actually doing something. People who farm dragons want easy loot.

The problem with easy loot is what it does to the economy long term. Much of the stuff from the fractals is account bound. That’s not true from the dragon chests.

People complained that they were getting blues and Anet fixed it. People want free loot all day every day and that Anet can’t provide.

If you want loot, play the game.

I agree legendary weapons shouldn’t be sold on the trading post, but I disagree with your use of the word hypocrisy. How is this hypocritical?

Anet took away some training wheels. Probably long overdue.

gw2lfg.com That’s how people find dungeon groups. It works. It’s that simple.

What’s even simpler is finding a guild of like minded people and playing with them. My guild runs stuff almost every day. Why pug stuff when there are great guilds out there?

And now, with the new guild missions, there’s other organized stuff for guilds to do.

Nope,. nothing has changed. It’s the same as it was. You know why? Because it’s not a problem.

What you want is a different game, and that’s not this game. The concepts you’re espousing are the very things Anet has tried to move away from. Probably not the game for you.

Guild Wars 2 was mad busy today. Plenty of people playing. Only a small percentage of them feel they MUST have ascended gear. So basically you lied to your friend. Good job. lol

Yep, I agree, alliances need to make a comeback, particularly after this update. I’m a big fan of the game, and I enjoy it immensely. Also, I’m in a guild that’s big enough to not have to worry about the requirements for the new missions. By the same token, I think that there are enough smaller guilds affected by the changes to make alliances an important future update.

Savoy.6824:

I like having max gear, and I like having alts. I am one sad panda since the 11/15 patch. I like knowing when I lose at something its because the encounter is so hard its broken or that my skills at the game are bad and I need to get better. I dont like thinking, gee if I just had that Ascended earring maybe that flame bat wouldnt have kicked my butt.

Please stop the verticle progression. I want to go back out and explore the world again. See the kitten room, jump off of waterfalls, and kill folks in wvw. That is all.

I don’t know, I beat everything in this game without a single piece of ascended gear. It’s not impossible. I can’t solo every champion in Orr, but you know, I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to. And I don’t think having ascended gear would make a significant enough difference to make a defeat a victory. Maybe once in a very long while, but not most of the time.

I finally got an ascended amulet, and I go down pretty much exactly as much as I used to. The difference isn’t as big as some would lead you to believe.

Actually, OP, I can see where you’re coming from…but I can’t agree with your conclusions.

My focus hasn’t substantially shifted, because I know I can’t do everything. In Guild Wars 1, where I had mostly everything done, I did whatever I wanted, until new content came out. The problem is, Guild Wars 1 was around for 5 years. And each individual campaign was relatively linear. And that was good in a way.

It was also problematical. This is a theme park MMO and what Anet did was give you a theme park…much like Disneyworld. You have a bunch of attractions, but you have to decide which of them is worth waiting in the queue for.

The real trick is to do things more slowly…not faster. You don’t need everything today. I’m still only at level 8 fractals. But I’m working on other things. You know. the fractals…they’re still going to be there tomorrow.

I’ll get there. It helps to have a guild, at least for me, because I’m working with people together.

And pretty much everything you do is working toward your legendary, because you need a boatload of both gold and karma for that. So if you are getting gold, experience and karma, you’re working toward your legendary anyway.

Each thing that’s added to this game is something else someone wants because the other stuff isn’t holding their interest. It means more players playing which isn’t at all a bad thing.

If there was no content at all coming out, it would be much, much worse.

Every time anything is made more difficult, there’s always a wall of complaints about it. Sure it was easy, even mindless before. And most of the PVe world really is. And there are, believe it or not, some people who complain about lack of challenging content in PVe. I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

I had more problem with the krait than I used to, but they were doable. Even solo, I was able to defeat a bunch of them, but I had to think on my feet, and I did go down a couple of times. Fortunately I was able to kill nearly dead ones to rez. It’s harder, but it’s not impossible by any means. That said, I did this on my 80th level mesmer.

I’m pretty sure there were supposed to be harder and easier areas in the game all along. And when most people didn’t have 80s and exotics, the area was probably more challenging to begin with. Games need to evolve.

In a month, no one will care about, or be complaining about this, because they’ll figure out how to deal with it, and overcome this challenge.

I agree, though, I don’t find it more fun. But then again, I wasn’t one of the guys who was complaining PVe was too easy.

We’ve done most of the explorable mode dungeons with lower level characters in our guild. They’re not impossible, and sometimes level scaling characters up is actually very good…this is particularly true in the fractals. I’ve done many fractals on lower level characters and the level scaling works a treat.

But no matter how dungeons are designed, human nature is still human nature. There are nice people and idiots. No game can fix that. If someone kicks you for no reason, odds are they’re not the nice people.

vespers.1759:

atilathegun.1950:

I don’t get why people complain… anet literally gives us laurels for free on top of the dailies we already previously do, and people complain. Ridiculous. With fotm, dailies/monthlies, and now guild missions, ascended stuff is really easy to get. What’s more, it’s fun to get, even for a casual player.

If people are going to complain this much about ascended gear, then just don’t get the kitten stuff. If playing the game for 30 minutes a day is too hard, then maybe ascended gear isn’t for you. We have it way, way better than players in other games. This game isn’t nearly as grindy as people seem to say, and what grind there is I find considerably funner than most other mmos out there.

come back and tell us how much you like dailies after 365 of them in a row.

So far, I’ve been doing dailies for six months halfway there. The dailies aren’t a big deal to me because I’m playing anyway. Even today they hardly took any time at all. There are so many ways to save time if you want the laurel.

And if you take longer to get something, so what?

You get 1 achievement point for each one you do past the five. That’s it. I know because I’ve done seven of them.

OrianZeta.1537:

Vayne.8563:

I’d hate this, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m doing everything in the game with rare and exotic gear. I don’t need ascended to do anything. If it takes a long time, how does it actually change the game for me.

See, in other games, you NEED to have X to complete Y. If you don’t have certain gear levels in Rift, you’re not allowed to queue for specific dungeons. Here, I don’t have that problem.

I did five dungeon runs yesterday with my guild and farmed Orr. I didn’t need ascended gear for any of it.

It’s really a mentality thing. I don’t need the stuff, so I don’t care when I get the stuff. Completely different from other games.

Maybe some of you should leave the old mentality behind.

I’ve not brought this mentality to GW2. I am bringing the mentality of GW to GW2, and that was not about stats. Light armor was base 60. Medium base 70. Heavy base 80. Weapons topped out with the same base damage, there weren’t six freaking tiers of rarity or with level requirements.

You had two upgrades from there: a prefix and a suffix. That was it. Come up with a build and a skill bar, you’re in business. Have fun.

This here is insipid stat-chasing. It’s boring and depressing. The devs have brought antiquated mentality, not Guild Wars players. We were doing just fine at level 20 chasing skills, showing off cosmetic shinies and playing content.

Sorry but I played Guild Wars 1 for five years. I’ve got my GWAMM and my 50/50 and I play this game EXACTLY how I play Guild Wars 1.

You DO NOT have to chase stats. And if you choose to chase them, that’s pretty much your own lookout.

You’re responsible for how you see the world, no one else. I played Guild Wars 1 and other games and feel NO NEED for ascended gear. I’ll get it when I get it.

It’s a misleading poll with the options listed and it’s clear the OP has an agenda. A fairer poll would be:

A) I’m okay with the cost of the new guild missions
B) I’m not okay with the costs of the new guild missions
C) I’m neither okay or not okay with the price of the new guild missions

Some of the options in the poll above are “leading” so the poll couldn’t be taken seriously.

I’d hate this, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m doing everything in the game with rare and exotic gear. I don’t need ascended to do anything. If it takes a long time, how does it actually change the game for me.

See, in other games, you NEED to have X to complete Y. If you don’t have certain gear levels in Rift, you’re not allowed to queue for specific dungeons. Here, I don’t have that problem.

I did five dungeon runs yesterday with my guild and farmed Orr. I didn’t need ascended gear for any of it.

It’s really a mentality thing. I don’t need the stuff, so I don’t care when I get the stuff. Completely different from other games.

Maybe some of you should leave the old mentality behind.

Most people on forums are lurkers not posters. Some people read but never post. They want information but don’t feel qualified to give information. Sometimes I’ll read a thread, see what I want to say has already been said and not type a reply. Sometimes I have no reply to give.

No one is obligated to reply on a forum but reading a post can still inform them.

Delgan.8619:

darkace.8925:

World of Warcraft’s server transfer costs $25.
And that’s on top of the $15/month subscription fee they charge.
And you can’t use in-game currency to pay for their server transfers.
And ArenaNet let us transfer servers for free for almost half a year.
So no, I don’t think Guild Wars 2’s server transfer fees are too expensive.

what you’re missing though is that WOW allows multiple characters to made on a number of different servers – This is the defining difference.

Totally irrelevant, since in WoW there’s nothing like WvW. This game is not designed to allows that for a reason and that reason is one of the main selling points of the game for a lot of people. Same reason why the costs are there.

You claim it doesn’t matter what other games/companies charge. How can it not matter? The price of pretty much anything is determined by competition. No one can sell a gallon of milk for $100 because no one else does. The price of anything is set by what people are willing to pay for it, and what the competitors charge for it.

Now if Anet in a free to play game was charging twice or three times what a pay game is charging, you’d have a point. But it’s not. It’s charging less than the pay game. It’s also a game that allows you to PVe on ANY server in your server park without paying that transfer fee. Those other games that allow you to have characters on other servers don’t allow that at all. So you can have a character in one server and play on another anyway, which makes transfer more optional in this game than any other.

The only real thing that is affect, as others have pointed out is WvW. What reason do you need to transfer if not for that. And if that is the reason then the cost MUST remain high for the WvW to be viable at all.

Babychoochoo.5690:

I’m surprised so many people bring up the “GW1 issue” and not the “centaur issue” after watching that manifesto…

“The centaurs are standing around in a field and you get a quest that says go kill 10 centaurs. We don’t think that’s okay.” So, their solution?

“Instead of talking to this npc, go kill enough centaurs (that are still standing around in this field btw) until this bar fills up.” Innovation.

I think you missed the point with the centaurs. No one said no centaurs would ever be standing around, but if you’ve spent any amount of time at all in areas like the Harathi Hinterlands, you would know Centaurs do run up to things and take them over, completely. And then the situation changes. Some of those dynamic event chains can be pushed back quite far. Sure they repeat, but that’s not what was promised.

In Rift, there’s a town that’s burning because it’s been destroyed by something…but it’s NEVER undestroyed. It’s in a perpetual state of destruction. That’s what the manifesto was talking about. They even said, you SEE the centaurs attacking the town. If you haven’t seen this, you’re not paying much attention.

Do you mean dailies?

It’s not out of line with what other games charge for transfers, even subscription games. In a non-sub game it’s certainly not out of line.

Seems to me what you’re looking at is how much gold it would cost to buy the gems, but you can just buy gems, in which case, that point is moot. The gem to gold conversation rate doesn’t really figure into it.

Put it this way. If this was WoW, you’d be playing $15 a month and still paying $25 cash to move a character to another server. And there’s be no way to do that with in game gold at all.

Dangerkips.6035:

I’ll agree it’s nice to never fall behind, but if there are no goals left for you to achieve other than purely cosmetic stuff with the exact same stats, why go the extra mile?

I guess it comes down to what you think is the lesser of two evils. A gear grind, or lack of content.

Having cosmetic stuff to go for isn’t lack of content. It’s a shame so many people think only stats are worth going for, because many of us, me and most of my guild, are perfectly happy going for the “perfect look” for our characters.

Yesterday, I got the sylvari tier 3 greatsword for my mesmer…it was one of the few skins that were right for her. I didn’t feel the need for better stats, but I did feel the need for a better skin.

Face it, stats are just stats. If you can do the content without them, what’s the difference if you have better ones? To do the content 3 seconds faster?

In other games, where content is gated by gear, sure it makes a difference. But here it doesn’t.

Make some friends. This game is much better in a guild of like minded people. And I mean much better. Dungeon runs can be great fun (particularly if you don’t take them too seriously).

Everything is better with friends…dungeons, leveling, farming mats in Orr…it’s just a much better game with the right guild…like all MMOs.

Taking anything literally, everything you love about Guild Wars 1, as an example, is your first problem.

I’m willing to wager there are things about Guild Wars 1 someone loves that someone else hates. Since everyone is watching that video, it can’t possibly be a fact or truth.

One guy loves the skill system in Guild Wars 1, and one guy hates the skill system. So everything guy A loves is different from everything guy B loves. Maybe everything you love about Guild Wars 1 is charr and that’s it. There are charr in Guild Wars 2, mission accomplished.

There are still a lot of similarities, even though most people don’t see it. Those who notice it most are probably those who played other MMOs. For example, strategically this game is very similar to Guild Wars 1, far more similar than it is to games like WoW. Guild Wars 1 didn’t have a true trinity, as there was no taunt mechanic and neither does GW 2. And let’s not forget in GW 1 protection was more important than healing and everyone had access to a self heal. Not so in most MMOs.

I pull the same way, I use landscape to an advantage the same way…hell, Trahearne is just as annoying as Komir, when it comes to stealing credit for your hard work. It really does have a lot of similarities.

You choose to ignore them.

They also did stuff like added a marketplace. Someone may have loved standing around in Kamadan trying to sell crap, but I didn’t. So to that person who loved it, Anet lied, right?

A bit of common sense goes a long way.

Dragons are the most boring events in the game to me. I don’t think we need more of them. I think we need more epic encounters, but something a bit more interesting than the dragons.

It’s too scripted, and not enough fun for my tastes.

MrDmajor.7084:

“The game’s population is seriously declining”
“Nuh uh, it’s not I have 5 level 80s and I play them”

Somewhere between those 2 quotes lies the real truth.

I can only play one at a time. Everyone who plays the game who has multiple 80s can only play one at a time. There are plenty of people playing the game that have multiple 80s. Hell it’s six months in. It doesn’t take 2 months to max a character.

Now, I play alts in every game I’ve ever played, so this is nothing new for me. It wouldn’t be new in any MMO. But the fact is, I STILL see lots of people on Tarnished Coast, all the time, off hours and on hours.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense to me.

So people who like the dailies should be less rewarded because you have no self control? Probably not the best metric for a design decision.

The dailies give players who want ascended gear a way to do them without farming fractals. And they’re about to change anyway, so why not wait until this patch before you judge what the dailies are?

Then it would make sense to make a post if you don’t like them. But be aware removing them from the game will kitten off an awful lot of people.

CoRtex.2157:

GW2 got over-hyped, ratings don’t count, they are just an opinion of the early levels. But GW2 sold sooo much copies, but after 2months after release, a huge percentage of people got 80. But there’s nothing to do after level 80. So everyone stopped playing. Until this day, you can see messages on the forums of people that get bored, leaving the game. And it’s dropping everyday. only a small percentage kept playing. Only on big updates you’ll see alot of people. Because people are still following the game, hoping the gameplay will get better for them.

Everyone stopped playing? lol

I play my level 80s, plural, all the time, and I still find stuff to do. And all the people in my guild, over 70 of us (most of whom were here in beta) are still playing. I guess when you say everyone stopped, you mean a percentage of people.

This is true. A percentage of people stopped playing. Those are the people who should be playing games like WoW. People who need to be led around by the nose, now grind this specific instance till you get this specific gear, till you beat this specific boss so you can move onto the next instance. I’ve played games like that. Do you know what I do at max level. I leave them. Because they suck.

Guild Wars 2 lets me play a game I want to play, not be locked up at 80 in a couple of dungeons and a raid I have no interest in banging my head against. Or end game PvP.

Some people just haven’t figured out yet that there’s another type of gamer out there. Less competitive, but not necessarily more casual. People who play games like Dragon Age and Skyrim (both are immensely popular). These are, wait for it, RPGs.

I’d much rather play a game with “nothing to do” like Guild Wars 2 at level 80, than play WoW at max level and bang my head against the same raid for week after week, hoping to get the one piece of gear I need to move onto the next ridiculous waste of time. That’s what a treadmill is.

I go anywhere I want, and do anything I want, in any zone I want…and I have fun doing it. People who need to be led around by the nose are indeed leaving this game. And most of those same people are quite happy to think that everything thinks like them. But there’s a large playerbase out there that makes their own fun. They don’t want to be led around. They want to make their own fun in a virtual playground.

I do the ocassional Fractal, but I’m not at level 10 yet. I’ve done a bit of WvW, a bit of SPvP, but mostly you’ll find me in a dungeon with friends or more often, the open world, where I happily play this game.

Because some of us are looking for a different game than the rest of you. And we’re the people who are largely satisfied. Not that the game doesn’t have flaws, of course it does. It just has less flaws for my type of gameplay than any other MMO.

Sauzo.6821:

And then in March, we’ll get another minor update with the “big stuff” coming in April…..oh i see that dangling carrot!!!

Right because no programming task ever gets delayed. /sarcasm

5139 points…. 66 from agent of entropy.

I still haven’t done all the jumping puzzles, since I only do them when I find them. I’m slowly getting through dungeons. Yesterday, I finally finished the last path I needed for CM.

Slowly but surely.

eisberg.2379:

Vayne.8563:

eisberg.2379:

Vayne.8563:

cherrie.8907:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This game is doing better then any other MMO i’ve ever played. I can get a group for any dungeon, any path, at any time of day within 5 minutes.

If someone can name one other MMO anywhere that can even do HALF as well as that then I will eat my hat. But I think my hat is safe, even the biggest MMO out there, WoW, has a 20+ minute wait for most people.

The Secret World

Didn’t they lay off like half their staff and go free to play in almost record time?

They didn’t go Free to play, they went Buy to Play, but I do not know anything about the staff stuff.

Okay, not free to play but they did cut out their monthly fee, and yes, they did lay off a significant amount of staff….and the head of the company resigned, if I’m not mistaken. Not really a successful game, from all indications, though it has a strong fan following.

The head resigned? lol, they keep losing the head of the company with their MMO releases. If I was promoted to the head in Funcom and a new MMO was about to launch, I would be looking for a new job =D

It really caught people by surprise. No one expected it.

eisberg.2379:

Vayne.8563:

cherrie.8907:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This game is doing better then any other MMO i’ve ever played. I can get a group for any dungeon, any path, at any time of day within 5 minutes.

If someone can name one other MMO anywhere that can even do HALF as well as that then I will eat my hat. But I think my hat is safe, even the biggest MMO out there, WoW, has a 20+ minute wait for most people.

The Secret World

Didn’t they lay off like half their staff and go free to play in almost record time?

They didn’t go Free to play, they went Buy to Play, but I do not know anything about the staff stuff.

Okay, not free to play but they did cut out their monthly fee, and yes, they did lay off a significant amount of staff….and the head of the company resigned, if I’m not mistaken. Not really a successful game, from all indications, though it has a strong fan following.

Rift had sales within the first six months. In fact, Rift had a sale either two or three months after release. It went down to a ridiculously cheap price. Pretty sure it was 5 bucks for a weekend.

I don’t know why anyone would say these other games didn’t have sales within six months of launch, unless they were simply trying to stir the pot.

TheRudeDude.1596:

Bloodstealer.5978:

Of course it would be… why go buy ecto’s when you can just farm rares in Openworld.. i regualrly hit 3-6 rares in a few hours of gameplay most nights without even trying.

Then consider how it would affect the bigger economy ie gem sales to purchase Ectos etc… drops in hard coin sales doesnt take long before the business model begins to suffer.. that then could lead to all manner of nerfs or worse slower content releases, even worse support and pretty soon maintenance mode is instigated.

So no, risk and reward are what makes RNG more fun… entitlement doesn’t.

I think you are missing my point
What i wanted to say in my initial post, discouraging people to play more is not the way to go, and i am not alone with this opinion.
I want to feel progression (you may call it entitlement or whatever).
It actually doesn´t matter if we get more ectos in the end, what does matter is the bad taste in my mouth after completing fractal level 30 with 0 ectos to show for it (just as an example).

So the whole business model, if this even is one, falls flat, because the goal you want to reach “seems” not getting closer at the rate you want it to be.
A lot of people will simply stop playing, so no need for more content and no moneyz for anet.

Just let me put this out there:
If you spent two hours playing the game, for the goal of getting ectos, then getting none, does this make you go —> yeah, no dice, i´ll better keep playing! or does it make you think about playing another session, because you can´t feel any progression at all?

If all you’re playing for is ectos, I think you’re looking at it wrong. I just ran the fractals, low level. I got some okay drops, but no ectos. However, I made close to 2 gold at the end of the run. If I bank half of it, I can still buy 3 ectos.

No way you could keep running fractals and not make some money. If you’re just waiting for ectos from salvages, and not counting anything else you’ve gotten, then the fault is yours.

cherrie.8907:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This game is doing better then any other MMO i’ve ever played. I can get a group for any dungeon, any path, at any time of day within 5 minutes.

If someone can name one other MMO anywhere that can even do HALF as well as that then I will eat my hat. But I think my hat is safe, even the biggest MMO out there, WoW, has a 20+ minute wait for most people.

The Secret World

Didn’t they lay off like half their staff and go free to play in almost record time?

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

But what does Anet hope to gain by saying that the “game is growing”? That’s where the assumptions pour in.

An active game is an attractive game.

His options are to say, “the game is growing,” “the game is stagnant,” or “the game is tanking.” He’ll obviously never say the latter, and there’s little reason to say the second one unless there was serious and credible reason to believe the game was tanking, but he’s happy to say “the game is growing,” even if he’s referring to 0.01% growth in the playerbase or in player activity.

Did any of the fanboys stop to think that all these new players are people who bought the game (or received it as a gift) during the holidays? Or that these new players are just as likely to follow the same general population trends that all the release day purchasers exhibited?

Or even that the entire increase in “concurrent hours” is purely a statistical fudge of the increased activity during the holidays?

Is Colin’s full quote offered anywhere in this thread? I mean fully in context, including with the question he was responding to?

Alternately, there are less bugs now than at launch and more content. Those starting now aren’t likely to be buying the game because there’s no vertical progression, those people are gone, already.

So if new people came in over Christmas, those who didn’t know what to expect, there might be a higher retention rate anyway, not that I’m convinced that the retention rate is as bad as some people think. Very few people who started in my guild have left. Well under 30%, probably under 20%.

But if 2/3rds of the population that bought the game aren’t playing, it still leaves a million players, which isn’t bad for an MMO that hasn’t done a ton of advertising. When compared to SWToR, which advertised like mad, it’s actually quite a success story.