Guild Wars 2

Manasa Devi.7958:

Vayne.8563:

Anomaly.7612:

Vayne.8563:

I’m still having fun. Finally got 161 mastery points today. Pretty long haul but I wasn’t particularly focused on it either. Crafted Kudzu after making the precursor. Finished one of my elite specialization weapons. Pretty close to getting my vigil backpack. Running more Fractals than I used to.

So yes, I’m still having fun.

But I’m also glad Anet is going to do something to make the game more approachable for people who don’t have as much time.

How long does it take to finish the backpacks? Would I be better off buying an ascended quiver if I don’t have one?

I don’t know. I enjoyed the process of making the back piece, I didn’t actively focus on it.

Today I got the last piece I needed. I ran the TD meta, got the 100 or so leyline crystals I needed and that was the last piece. It’s a lot easier than the specialization weapons for sure.

Just to be clear, the ascended order backpacks each require 1,000 of one of the map currencies.

I made the vigil backpiece which is exotic. To be clear, that’s all I was talking about. Not sure where you got ascended from. That said, it’s not that hard to get 1000 of any of the map currencies if you actually play on the maps.

I liked the expansion but I think there’s room for improvement. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Yeah, because as everyone knows, “running with a guild” makes the clock tick differently.

Of course it does. Time is relative. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Doing something alone takes longer than with an organized group anyway, but when you’re laughing and joking while doing something it’s a different experience. I think most people have experienced it.

Yes, things tend to feel a lot faster with a good group no matter what the clock says, and it makes all the difference in the world to some of us.

You should try running it with a guild instead of running it on your own. Today a handful of us got together and completed with the TD meta and DS meta pretty much back to back. We had a blast.

Anomaly.7612:

Vayne.8563:

I’m still having fun. Finally got 161 mastery points today. Pretty long haul but I wasn’t particularly focused on it either. Crafted Kudzu after making the precursor. Finished one of my elite specialization weapons. Pretty close to getting my vigil backpack. Running more Fractals than I used to.

So yes, I’m still having fun.

But I’m also glad Anet is going to do something to make the game more approachable for people who don’t have as much time.

How long does it take to finish the backpacks? Would I be better off buying an ascended quiver if I don’t have one?

I don’t know. I enjoyed the process of making the back piece, I didn’t actively focus on it.

Today I got the last piece I needed. I ran the TD meta, got the 100 or so leyline crystals I needed and that was the last piece. It’s a lot easier than the specialization weapons for sure.

I’ve done DS every day this week, twice on some days, no disconnects. Not sure why some people are having problems, but obviously it’s not happening to everyone and therefore it’s hard to track down the actual problem.

Have you thought about finding a guild to help you through stuff like that?

I’m still having fun. Finally got 161 mastery points today. Pretty long haul but I wasn’t particularly focused on it either. Crafted Kudzu after making the precursor. Finished one of my elite specialization weapons. Pretty close to getting my vigil backpack. Running more Fractals than I used to.

So yes, I’m still having fun.

But I’m also glad Anet is going to do something to make the game more approachable for people who don’t have as much time.

Mirta.5029:

Vayne.8563:

Grinding is definitely defined by doing the same content over and over, not the same FOUR ZONES over and over. That’s ridiculous. You can level masteries in any of the four zones in hot. YOu can level them by grinding mobs, which some people did, by dynamic events, by adventures, by raiding.

So yeah, not a grind by your definition.

I get it. You don’t like the game so it’s not worth it to you. There are easily a couple of dozen posters who REALLY don’t like the game and post everywhere.

But you know,. if the game has half a million people playing it,. that’s not such a big percentage. It is, however a very LOUD percentage.

Also, there are different depths of dislike. To you HoT is the end of the world. However, you’ve already ragequit the game twice before HoT if I recall correctly.

Now you’re saying HoT is the evil bad thing but before you said other things were the evil bad thing.

It’s entirely possible you just don’t like the game.

okay, you just entered HoT. Tell me how are you able to a) leave the first map b) level masteries by raiding? You’re stuck there either doing dynamic events or grinding mobs for the most part.
HoT is not an evil bad thing. It’s just that it’s not perfect and we can all see that. And HoT being as it is, a lot of people are disappointed. And they have the right to be here and be upset. They have the right to be vocal if they so wish to.

You enter HoT. You’ve done the story presumably. Now you have event chains, you have gathering, you have adventures. All those things are something you can do.

If you follow a single event chain, you’ve leveled gliding. If you follow a different event chain, you level mushroom jumping. You can do two more of your stories. By the time you’re done with that, just through killing and event chains, which is basic to the game, you have yout third mastery done.

I did it tonight with a guildie who just got hot. On day 1 he has three masteries unlocked just playing the game.

When you start a new character in Guild Wars 2, you have to get to level 10 before you can access your story at all. The way to do that? Events and hearts, killing. That’s what you get.

This isn’t really that hard to understand. If this is grindy then the game has always been grindy.

Technically if you were patient and didn’t want to get everything done fast, you could even level by gathering if you really wanted. It’s just not the most efficient way to level.

And hero points give you XP. Events give you XP.

If you follow the very first event chain from the very first way point, you get to an unlocked adventure you can do without requiring a single mastery. The experience you get from that alone is huge.

By the time you’ve leveled the first three masteries, which is a few hours, you have access to far more stuff, including the raid. So I really don’t know what you’re talking about.

And yes, it is 100% possible to walk through the first map and get to the second if that’s what you want to do. Or join a guild that has the guild hall in the second map, go to the guild hall and walk out the door.

Dhaara.5817:

Vayne.8563:

Dhaara.5817:

Is it worth to buy it ? I am one of the first players since i pre purchased the original game when it was not free to play, but somehow it does not seems fair to pay the double ammount for a game for the same content.

When it became free to play , we who purchased the game got actual exras, like more character slots etc.

When a free to player purchases the expansion he gets the exras too for that 45 €.

Then tell me please , why should we the first players pay the SAME 45 € for nothing more then the content, because We already had the extras with the purchase of the Original game ?

It does not seems fair to me.

Because you had 3 years to play it. Just about every single game goes down in price. I can’t think of many game at all that 3 years later aren’t a tiny fraction of what it cost when it came out. I’ve bought games for $50 bucks that were $5 three years later.

People who were here got loot and experience new players have no access to. A new player can’t play Twilight Arbor forward up path, for example or the old ascalonian catacombs before the update. They missed all of Living Story Season 1. They missed the Bazarre fo the Four Winds.

People pay a premium for getting in first. It’s always like that with games.

On top of that, MMOs have the problem of new players having to buy multiple titles to get into the game, so many MMOs including WoW and EQ aren’t charging for the expansions after the first. If you own WoW and the new expansion you get every expansion in between, because Blizzard knows they’re nto going to get people to start playing if they have to buy 4 games. So it’s a business decision too.

Lowering the barrier to entry is good for veteran players and we should be happy Anet is doing it, because if you don’t replace players lost to natural attrition, you soon won’t have an MMO at all.

Nah this games dont have subscription, so you can´t bring up wow. Take for example Tera, it is a free to play game now, but if you buy the game for the same price as it was when it came out you still get bonuses.

But here, you can´t say that you payed for the time you played.

The free to players missed some content ? Well they could buy the game anytime. They didn´t. I am telling you its not FAIR for the first players to buy for the SAME ammount the expansion.

What would you say if u would buy a game then it becames free to play and u got nothing for your money. Time is not a reward for the ammount we payed, again its not a WoW. If we know that it becames free to play after a year we would have not purchased it maybe ?

Look man We don´t want back our money, but at least a 50% discount to buy the expansion.

That would be fair.

This has ZERO to do with a subscription. Look Tomb Raider was $50 when it came out and it’s been on sale for 80% off since then. I bought it at $50. It has no subscription. I only got 20 hours or so out of it. That’s the game market.

Before Guild Wars 2 went free it was also on sale for $10 on three separate occassions. Because 3 year old games are generally much cheaper than when they come out.

And yes, you getting more time to play the game has everything to do with it, because you’re right. They could have bought the game earlier and spend more money, or you could have waited and saved the money but lost 3 years of progress.

I promise you, it’s much harder to start an MMO years after it launched than it is to be there at launch.

The real question is would you trade everything you got over the 3 years you played for a 50% discount on an expansion?

Because I know I wouldn’t.

Dhaara.5817:

Is it worth to buy it ? I am one of the first players since i pre purchased the original game when it was not free to play, but somehow it does not seems fair to pay the double ammount for a game for the same content.

When it became free to play , we who purchased the game got actual exras, like more character slots etc.

When a free to player purchases the expansion he gets the exras too for that 45 €.

Then tell me please , why should we the first players pay the SAME 45 € for nothing more then the content, because We already had the extras with the purchase of the Original game ?

It does not seems fair to me.

Because you had 3 years to play it. Just about every single game goes down in price. I can’t think of many game at all that 3 years later aren’t a tiny fraction of what it cost when it came out. I’ve bought games for $50 bucks that were $5 three years later.

People who were here got loot and experience new players have no access to. A new player can’t play Twilight Arbor forward up path, for example or the old ascalonian catacombs before the update. They missed all of Living Story Season 1. They missed the Bazarre fo the Four Winds.

People pay a premium for getting in first. It’s always like that with games.

On top of that, MMOs have the problem of new players having to buy multiple titles to get into the game, so many MMOs including WoW and EQ aren’t charging for the expansions after the first. If you own WoW and the new expansion you get every expansion in between, because Blizzard knows they’re nto going to get people to start playing if they have to buy 4 games. So it’s a business decision too.

Lowering the barrier to entry is good for veteran players and we should be happy Anet is doing it, because if you don’t replace players lost to natural attrition, you soon won’t have an MMO at all.

Silicato.4603:

DaikonSamurai.6714:

For anyone assuming NCsoft/Anet must be unhappy right now…

“NCSoft, the Korean MMORPG juggernaut, released Q4 2015 earnings today and they reported $196.7M in revenue, the highest in over a year, largely thanks to Guild Wars 2 (the Heart of Thorns expansion launched in Q4). "
…
“NCSoft’s stock (Korea Stock Exchange: 036570) has performed exceptionally well over the last few months, especially since global stocks have been in free-fall since 2016 began. NCSoft’s stock is sitting at multi-year highs.” (http://mmos.com/news/ncsoft-q4-revenues-increase)

“NCsoft says that its QOQ sales and profits were up thanks to “balanced growth from all major IPs” and that “operating marging reached 32% driven by an increase in high-marging overseas royalty revenue.” Guild Wars 2 in particular “surged” upward in the fourth quarter”
…
“NCsoft says GW2 “solidified its position as a main revenue driver by adding on expansion pack sales to stable in-game item sales.” " (http://massivelyop.com/2016/02/10/ncsoft-reports-q4-2015-sales-surge-for-guild-wars-2-bump-for-wildstar/)

So yeah, HoT didn’t sell as “well as expected”. It still “sold well”. Well enough to be among their top 2-3 games and be credited directly by NCsoft.

Anyone thinking NCsoft and Anet are in panic mode… they’re not. Your argument boils down to “they got rich, but not filthy stinking Scrooge McDuck swimming in a tower of gold coins rich. Man what a failure.” Maybe they aren’t streaking through the streets and showering each other with champagne and confetti, but I’d bet they aren’t unhappy either.

I really cant understand what people like you want to prove, or what goal are you seeking…
GW2 passed from the 2nd best game in sells for NCsoft in 2014 to 3rd, in a year where it had an expansion launched, while the new 2nd didnt have any.

Solid sales doesnt mean good sales. It is just vocabulary to investors, so they dont fly.

If changes are coming on the kind of content, quantity and frequency inGW2, is beacuse ncsoft realized the game need them. Why cant we see it as well?

And of course NCsoft is not going to die, they had great performance and revenues, but mainly thanks toLineage 1 and B&S, not thanks to GW2, who underperformed and its in need of changes.

They need to bring people back to the game, or new ones. And for that task they need a new kind of game, more apealing, both in prize and content. Ncsoft knows it, hopefully player base realize that someday as well…
We are in this position and with HoT because some people demanded this and Anet listened to them.
Pls, lets start for once to tell anet something that actually help the game, its sales and increase our fun in game playtime, instead of cover reality and accept the disappointment as something good.

Solid sales doesn’t mean bad sales either.

Every game has to walk a tightrope between hard core and casual and every single person has a different threshold for that that means.

Clearly you’re more casual than I am and clearly other people are more hard core than I am.

So if you move the bar too far to casual, you get hard core players leaving. If you move the bar too far toward hard core, you get casual players leaving.

What we’ve seen so far, more than anything, is that not enough people over all purchased the expansion. Those who haven’t can’t comment on whether or not it’s hard core enough for them.

Every bit of evidence I can think of seems to indicate people not buying the game in the first place, not just people who think the game is too hard. More than likely too expensive is as much as a culprit as anything.

Yes, we get it. You think the game is too hard. But there are other people who don’t. And there are people who didn’t buy the game who didn’t buy it for other reasons.

I’m pretty sure if they move the bar too far in the wrong direction, they’ll lose an entirely different group of people…which would actually be fine by me, because I don’t need great difficulty to enjoy a game.

You can use the Lost Precipe Guild hall as well. As soon as you leave the zone, the Shipwreck Peak waypoint will be opened automatically.

Mirta.5029:

Vayne.8563:

And people in my guild came back, which is my point. But saying HoT is a really bad purchase is just a matter of opinion too. HoT is a really bad purchase to you. The fact is, however, that HoT didn’t sell that well and no one who didn’t buy it can say if it’s a really good purchase or not, simply because they didn’t buy it. This is my issue.

Yet the OP has obviously bought it?

Vayne.8563:

The game gets some really bad publicity up front and scares off a number of people from buying HoT.

there are various reasons people might not want to purchase HoT. One of such reasons could indeed be bad publicity, but bad publicity does not come out of nowhere. Bad opinions are still legitimate opinions. HoT did not release up to standard of everyone and people are free to express this.

Furthermore that is not a sole reason for why HoT did not sell. One of the reasons could be for example that refunding HoT would close your account entirely, instead of just forbidding you from going into new areas/ using your newly acquired masteries, like some MMOs would do. Meaning HoT is much more of a gamble and people are much more dependent on the outside opinion.

Vayne.8563:

People use the word grind over and over and over, even though the mastery points themselves, certainly the ones you must have, just isn’t that grindy.

Grinding is defined as repeating the same action over and over and over again. HoT masteries being limited to only getting increased by HoT activities, cause just that. Besides for those 15 minutes that adventures would be open, main source of your Exp will be either dynamic events or enemy killing, which causes said grind. Dynamic event systems are actually not too uncommon in other MMOs as well, meaning on average in a traditional MMO I could gain Exp trough instances (most often dungeons), killing enemies repeatedly, dynamic events (Rifts, Fates, whatever other MMOs wish to call it) and questing. Sometimes there’s even more options that gain you exp (for example in GW2 vanilla such things as gathering herbs, or crafting, or PvPing (tomes!) also did the trick), however expansion pack severely limited that when it came to new HoT exclusive masteries. Hence the word “grinding” gets used often.

Vayne.8563:

I have almost 300 people in my guild now, but 200 of them were there before HoT launched and everyone bought it, or at least, I’m aware of no one who didn’t buy it. I haven’t met one person in the guild who things HoT wasn’t worth it, though I have met a couple of people who have experienced some frustration.

that’s a nice personal experience. Similarly enough HoT killed a lot of guilds. Unlike a normal expansion HoT made sure that normal old content got something extra added to it specifically for those that have HoT (fractals are not worth it now, unless you have HoT and the mastery). It also caused a lot of problems in PvP as those with HoT PvP against those without.
If this was a more traditional MMO (for example World of Warcraft), there would be nothing stopping you from NOT buying the expansion if it doesn’t interest you, as you could continue doing what you loved doing before (heck in WoWs PvP twinking even used to be a huge thing). GW2 is more of a HoT or bust. Meaning those who didn’t like the theme of the current expansion simply left.
Similarly HoT provided a very narrow amount of content in comparrison to the amount of content that was enjoyed by people before. Meaning that a lot of people whose area of liking did not get updated (and there were many), simply chose to either refund and loose their account, or leave.

It’s great that HoT was a successful expansion to you, however concerning those that it wasn’t, they have the right to express their concerns.

Vayne.8563:

Imagine if all 12 legendaries had come out at the same time what the price of mats would have been. The complaints would have been legendary. It’s better for the game, in my opinion, that they werent’ released all at once. We know Living Story Season 3 is coming too. We know more raids are coming.

You mean the raid that was supposed to be finished is still under development?

HoT as it is released very bare. Unexcusably bare. You might say “oh it will be worth it in the future!”, but the bottom line is, for a lot it’s not worth it right now. And when it will become worth it, parts of it will be behind a paywall again (Living Story Season 3 for example, how much do you want to bet that it will become payed?), further pushing away possible customers. As choices are, buy now on wishful thinking, or perhaps have your wishful thinking validated later, only to realize that it will be too expensive to get into.

Also an MMO that I’m playing, releases all the legendaries and all the updates to legendaries at the same time. They cope with the marketboard pricings by also introducing new crafting materials, tied specifically to new legendaries. Having in mind that ascended materials are a thing, Anet perfectly could have done that.

Similarly postponing them might have done more harm than good. As imagine, you’re not an altoholic. You have a specific class, or a specific set of classes that you like that use specific weapons. You buy the expansion only to realize that there are no real new shinies for you to work towards. Are you really going to stick around waiting, if working on said items was your intention?

Vayne.8563:

My guess is, even if HoT isn’t worth it now by the time the next expansion comes out it will be.

by which point it will be free. So once again people being disappointed about what they got for their money have a right to be disappointed.

Grinding is definitely defined by doing the same content over and over, not the same FOUR ZONES over and over. That’s ridiculous. You can level masteries in any of the four zones in hot. YOu can level them by grinding mobs, which some people did, by dynamic events, by adventures, by raiding.

So yeah, not a grind by your definition.

I get it. You don’t like the game so it’s not worth it to you. There are easily a couple of dozen posters who REALLY don’t like the game and post everywhere.

But you know,. if the game has half a million people playing it,. that’s not such a big percentage. It is, however a very LOUD percentage.

Also, there are different depths of dislike. To you HoT is the end of the world. However, you’ve already ragequit the game twice before HoT if I recall correctly.

Now you’re saying HoT is the evil bad thing but before you said other things were the evil bad thing.

It’s entirely possible you just don’t like the game.

Mirta.5029:

Vayne.8563:

Mirta.5029:

Obtena.7952:

Right, it’s not worth it anymore so … the value they got from 11K for a hundred bucks just disappears? Gotcha.

no, that just means that the original GW2 was a good purchase. If they couldn’t even get a couple tens of hours out of HoT though, HoT was a really BAD purchase.

I got a couple of hundred hours out of HoT. It wasn’t a bad purchase for me. I run Fractals now and didn’t enjoy them as much before HoT. That’s another plus. I love some of the elite specs, that’s another plus, because I can use them anyway. I like the breakbar changes too. That affects the whole game. I don’t like action cam but I’m sure some people do. I enjoy gliding in core Tyria now, btw. I even like the Revenant which I can play anywhere. And yes, I enjoyed the Hot story as well on more than one character.

your opinion is completely valid Vayne, but so is OPs. Ncsoft’s financial report in regards to Anet is obviously quite good, they nearly doubled their normal quarter income, however as who found the expansion appealing, the game and the forums obviously show a split. While it’s valid that you enjoy it, nobody in my guild did, we all left. And it’s also valid for us, and for people like OP to express their lack of pleasure in HoT.

And people in my guild came back, which is my point. But saying HoT is a really bad purchase is just a matter of opinion too. HoT is a really bad purchase to you. The fact is, however, that HoT didn’t sell that well and no one who didn’t buy it can say if it’s a really good purchase or not, simply because they didn’t buy it. This is my issue.

The game gets some really bad publicity up front and scares off a number of people from buying HoT. People use the word grind over and over and over, even though the mastery points themselves, certainly the ones you must have, just isn’t that grindy. But that doesn’t matter, because a dozen or so people repeating the word grind in dozens of threads is enough to give the impression that there’s a lot of people who think it’s really grindy.

It would be a lot more grindy if I had to do it on every character, but considering it’s account based, it’s really not that grind. Except for people who have to have everything now. That’s another story.

So now we have less people buying the expansion, based on that, or based on the price debacle or whatever. They don’t know if the expansion is worth it or not.

I have almost 300 people in my guild now, but 200 of them were there before HoT launched and everyone bought it, or at least, I’m aware of no one who didn’t buy it. I haven’t met one person in the guild who things HoT wasn’t worth it, though I have met a couple of people who have experienced some frustration.

There have been serious detractors from HoT that joined my guild and found what I said to be true. We showed them how to get around and how to handle the new zones and suddenly HoT wasn’t the monster it had first appeared.

Are there problems with HoT. Absolutely. No one is saying otherwise. But the amount of people saying that HOT is too hard, or too grindy or too whatever…it’s a handful of people making an awful lot of noise.

I’d say HoT didn’t get nearly the reception Anet hoped it would get. But I also say that Hot got a better reception than those who don’t like it believe.

The truth, as usual is somewhere in the middle.

Which leads us to the question in the OP, where is the rest of HoT. HoT, in my mind, was always meant to be a season pass as well as an expansion. I’ve said this before too. That means over time it’s value would be added too.

Imagine if all 12 legendaries had come out at the same time what the price of mats would have been. The complaints would have been legendary. It’s better for the game, in my opinion, that they werent’ released all at once. We know Living Story Season 3 is coming too. We know more raids are coming.

But we’ve also received things we didn’t know were coming like the Shatterer revamp and gliding in Central Tyria.

My guess is, even if HoT isn’t worth it now by the time the next expansion comes out it will be.

Mirta.5029:

Obtena.7952:

Right, it’s not worth it anymore so … the value they got from 11K for a hundred bucks just disappears? Gotcha.

no, that just means that the original GW2 was a good purchase. If they couldn’t even get a couple tens of hours out of HoT though, HoT was a really BAD purchase.

I got a couple of hundred hours out of HoT. It wasn’t a bad purchase for me. I run Fractals now and didn’t enjoy them as much before HoT. That’s another plus. I love some of the elite specs, that’s another plus, because I can use them anyway. I like the breakbar changes too. That affects the whole game. I don’t like action cam but I’m sure some people do. I enjoy gliding in core Tyria now, btw. I even like the Revenant which I can play anywhere. And yes, I enjoyed the Hot story as well on more than one character.

Substance E.4852:

Cirran.1429:

Phy.2913:

Cirran.1429:

Phy.2913:

Poor Wildstar.

…….

Best part of that graph is how bad Wildstar is doing, it makes my day.

Cirran

Wildstar is the poster child for how the market has shifted away from WOW style business and game play.

Meh, personally I think it has a TON more to do with how Wildstar presented it’s self. It is a “hardcore” and “elitist” players paradise. Just shows when you basically call everyone who is not one of those a cupcake and needs to grow a pair, you fail badly. I do feel the game had potential but the focus needed to change when it went free to play, it didn’t it is now reaping what it has sown.

Cirran

EvE online has been going for longer than almost any other MMO at this point and has done so well they literally built a monument for the player base in Reykjavik.

Going hardcore isn’t a problem. Going hardcore and doing a poor job of it is.

Well to a point, but I don’t think Eve online ever got many more than half a million subs at one time, and a lot of those were multiple subs because all the serious players have multiple accounts…much like Guild Wars 2.

Both Guild Wars 2 and Eve Online are niche games. ANet’s issue is they want to be mainstream, so they keep kittening off different niches. Eve’s success is that they focused on a single niche and stayed true to it.

Khisanth.2948:

Whispering.8672:

Hello All!

I have been away from Guild Wars 2 for the better part of a year now to to real life responsibilities but am looking to come back. I still have plenty of stuff to finish from the core game but wanted to know if the expansion would be worth it right now when I still have plenty to keep me busy in core game?

Any pros and cons would be appreciated!

Thanks!

If you wait long enough you’ll get it for free with the next expansion. :P

Oh and hopefully you are not too fond of dungeons or can do a decent job of soloing them …

I don’t get this, I get dungeon groups all the time.

Daddicus.6128:

Mortifer.2946:

Actually it is not. When you level up your character in other mmo to a max level, does XP still matter? I don’t think so.

Wrong. I’ll name two: Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 (before they removed it).

Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO. Guild Wars 2 is the same MMO and the question was name another MMO.

It’s easy to say wrong, but that doesn’t make a statement wrong.

That said I believe Anet needs to add something to allow people to continue progressing after they max out their mastery, even if it’s a repeatable mastery track they can select for a spirit shard.

Zerkules.4128:

Bottom line : I purchased a Guild Wars 2 expansion and instead got a Metroid game with a Guild Wars skin on it…. I hate back tracking during a first play through a game and now it is just a back track simulator now. I’m sorry Samus… you cannot go through that door… got grind for a upgrade… I mean jump in your space ship and fly to the planet you just cleared and find the upgrade then fly back.

I cleared the story in 3 days…. I replayed LS season 2 to find that it was longer than the content I paid $49.99 I will be back for LS3 to see if that happens to change my mind but I doubt it.

Except that story doesn’t equate to game. New profession and elite specializations were not in LS 2. Guild Halls weren’t. Gliding wasn’t and a whole lot of people seem to like gliding whether you like masteries or not. The four zones provided in the expansion are bigger than the zones provided in Season 2, with far more achievements. New enemy types, new enemy AI, combat mode…there’s a lot of stuff that came with the expansion that isn’t story.

Your focus may be story but story isn’t the only reason people buy expansions and it isn’t the only thing in the expansion. It’s very hard to compare what the LS Season 2 gives you because LS Season 2 didn’t rewrite core game systems.

In before people tell you how bad the expansion is.

The expansion will provide you with several things you can’t get in the core game.

1. Masteries, including gliding. At level 80 now the experience you’re getting is literally being wasted in the core game. The only way for the experienced to be used is to unlock masteries which will give you some interesting additions to the game, including better Fractal rewards and the ability to loot stuff without pressing F. That alone was worth it for me.

2. A new profession to play, the Revenant.

3. A new way to play existing professions, giving you access to a new weapon, and new skills, including a new healing skill and a new elite.

4. The ability to use all the features of a guild hall if you plan to join one or have one already. The guild buffs are particularly useful. Using the guild arena is another thing you can do if you have HoT.

5. Precursor crafting. If you want to make a legendary, right now your best option for a precursor is to farm gold and buy it. For some people that doesn’t feel like a great solution. Even though it’s just as expensive to create your own precursor from scratch through collections, it’s only possible if you own HoT.

If you don’t mind waiting for those features, you don’t need to buy HoT now.

Americium.7182:

Let me guess, you are playing for less than 2h/day and not in a serious guild?

I’m playing for more than 8 hours most day. Don’t know what you mean by a serious guild. And while I have my complaints, I’m still enjoying the game.

OP, people are complaining because they’re angry with changes to the core game. Dungeon runners are mad because rewards to their favorite content was nerfed. Fractal runners, some of them, don’t like the changes to fractals. Small guilds feel like they’ve been left behind. Casual players feel like theres’ too much grind in the new zones to get anything done in a short amount of time.

There are all legitimate grievances.

Olegun.6501:

I don’t think that players will spend 1000 gems to get the same item on another character. Yeah, I guess the best decision will be to send via bank. Shared inventory slot 700 gems… it’s not worth it.

I guess I shouldn’t tell you how many complete sets of tools I’ve bought for alts. I think you’d be surprised.

I think that might be true of the boxed game anyway. I don’t think any version of Heart of Thorns comes with a CD. Just a key.

Quarktastic.1027:

Jarvis.9540:

Doggie.3184:

Jarvis.9540:

Logged back into FFXIV.

Sounds expensive.

$12/month isn’t expensive. LoL

More expensive than $0/month.

Doesn’t matter to me. With all it’s flaws, Guild Wars 2 is worth more to me than FFXIV would be if it were free to play and maybe even if they were paying me to play it. In all honesty if Guild Wars 2 charged a sub and FFXIV was free, I’d still choose Guild Wars 2 over it. Your mileage may vary.

No matter who’s fault the disconnect is, not being able to get back into the same map you were already in is a serious problem.

Once I invest 20-30 minutes into something in a game, if I feel I wasted my time, I get angry. It’s reasonable to be angry.

On the other hand I also go to great lengths to minimize the chance of that happening, because I don’t like to be angry. I do lower my graphic settings. I am using the 64 bit client.

Torolan.5816:

Vayne.8563:

I still can’t see how you can not see that if people left the game because it was too easy and never tried HOT because they moved onto other games a year ago, that doesn’t matter. You’re saying X caused people to not buy HoT.

I’m saying X, Y, Z and probably a bunch of other things caused people not to buy HoT.

You’re claiming you know X is the reason. It’s more powerful than Y, Z and everything else. I’m saying you can’t know that.

You’re trying to attribute HoT’s lack of traction to a single cause because you feel it. And I’m playing for the same reasons you are. I don’t want a game far more challenging. That is not why I play these games.

But even though I have similar complaints to you, I disagree your conclusions are the REASON the game didn’t get the uptake Anet wanted it to.

What proof do you have that the reason you’re offering for the luke-warm reception the game received is the actual reason the game received it?

But wouldn´t that mean that people who sought more challenge clung to GW2 up to shortly before the anouncement and the introduction of HoT and then quit apruptly in large numbers before Anet could show them that the game now goes more into the direction they like?

I also tend to the idea that there are several factors why HoT did not sell as good as it should. My guess for the main offender are raids and jump and run.

No people could have been leaving slowly over a long period of time because the game wasn’t hard enough. 4 million people bought the game and a bunch left over ascended gear. We don’t know how big that bunch is, but many of them didn’t feel that forgiving to me.

Would it surprise me if 20% of the population left over that? Not even a bit. And then a gradual attrition over years? It’s what happens in must about every MMO, particularly one without an expansion.

My guess is the game had less players when it went free to play than most people think, and some of those players might come back, but some have found other homes. That’s just the business.

I agree the situation is crap right now with DS.

However I’d still rather fail at DS and get no reward than play FF XIV even if it were free.

Silicato.4603:

Vayne, I still dont see how you cant understand that a lack on sells it is a clear consequence from a not desired product. it doesnt matter if you didnt desire it yesterday, 1 month ago 2 years ago or if you are new and you dont like that product.

You are making an effort trying to convince us that HoT didnt sold as expected, cause people didnt liked GW2 and they left a few years ago to never return. But the truth is that it didnt attracted the desired number of people, not old, not active, not new. Cause the product was not attractive (for the reason you want, I no longer going to try to debate the reasons, principally cause i think they are obvious: prize, quantity and kind of content)

You put your known examples, like 100 people in my guild bought it. I can go even farther, they sold around 750k boxes (making an estimated calculation, please dont take that figure as an statement). And still was less than expected… ask yourself why, why 750k is less than expected, imagine what was what they expected and ask yourself why the difference between expected and reality, didnt bought.
And you should reach to the same conclussion as myself: the product sold was not desireble enough.

What i am trying to say is that even after your efforts convincing us, you can never defend that something is liked or is good or is what people desired, when it has not sold as expected. Clearly it was not what people desired. clearly Anet didnt made a product people enough wanted. And they should learn from that, for future iterationts.

I still can’t see how you can not see that if people left the game because it was too easy and never tried HOT because they moved onto other games a year ago, that doesn’t matter. You’re saying X caused people to not buy HoT.

I’m saying X, Y, Z and probably a bunch of other things caused people not to buy HoT.

You’re claiming you know X is the reason. It’s more powerful than Y, Z and everything else. I’m saying you can’t know that.

You’re trying to attribute HoT’s lack of traction to a single cause because you feel it. And I’m playing for the same reasons you are. I don’t want a game far more challenging. That is not why I play these games.

But even though I have similar complaints to you, I disagree your conclusions are the REASON the game didn’t get the uptake Anet wanted it to.

What proof do you have that the reason you’re offering for the luke-warm reception the game received is the actual reason the game received it?

Ricky.4706:

I don’t think that’s the solution either ….imo, there isn’t one big fix….there are many little fixes. And yes, exactly what you said with second life, that would be lions arch, divinity’s reach or any of the other major towns where there is no fighting in town. – that rp group got grounded a long time ago with the mega server. Meanwhile wvw would have done really well with the mega server for balancing out fights – guilds could still fight together, and pugs would have a blast. But scoring poorly matched fights was unreasonable. The mega server is fine for pve environments, but for arguments sake, places like lions arch are not pve – they are the second life type area, and the shops here were for craftsmen to sell their wares. I wanted to have fun being a craftsman and selling off stuff making stuff, but my jeweler got thrown under the bus long long ago, lol.

the problem I’m seeing is there is no one big fix, just a bunch of little fixes that shows a little love to all the sub-cultures. I think that would go much further than trying to do major changes that shows favoritism to any one subculture. The whole hot expansion was pure favoritism to hardcore pve – and if that wasn’t enough, it took the few perks subcultures had away to drive them to hardcore pve. That’s like some new world order move and a lot of people didn’t like it.

you can’t fix gw2 like one big community, you have to address it as the mmorpg subculture melting pot that it is, "and this next patch goes out to the “sub culture of the moment here” " seriously, unless it’s free gold, there isn’t any one thing that’s going to please everyone, there is simply too much variety to consider that a reasonable approach.

Very much this. You can’t fix one thing, you’ve got to fix all of it. Everyone needs to feel like part of the family. If you alienate one sub culture, you’ll have the same situation. I’m sure WvW feels like Anet’s red-headed stepchild right now.

But we also know that’s being worked on, it’s just taking a really really long time, because the WvW solution isn’t a simple one.

Ricky.4706:

my usage of pvp / wvw is just one example. The common denominator with all the subcultures, is they all feel the same…neglected for this greater idea of rpg utopia.
Not everyone likes the idea of having to play against artificial intelligence. It’s like a good movie, fun the first time I watched it , but dam, how many times do i have to watch it before I can go back to playing cards ?

Just like not everyone likes to player vs player ( mainly because meta-trolls have dominated it, true hard core pvp’rs are the coolest rp’rs, social cats in the world,that’s 0why esports exists to begin with – it is the most social aspect of mmo gaming ) – not everyone likes playing against a computer. Heck, some people don’t want to play against anything and just play dress up in town building stuff and rp’ng …..drunken dwarves are a hoot!! what was second life ? huuuge, pure rp community, zero quests all social. There are people who hate the idea of killing animals, even if virtual, doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy gw2 either – they got shoved under the bus too! lol

I don’t really think you understand what Second Life was. Second Life wasn’t a game in the sense of the word at all. It was a virtual world, very different from a game. There was no score in Second Life. There were no achievements. There were no goals. It’s a lot more like mind craft than an MMO but even Mine Craft is a game.

When you play mine craft, you have creatures that attack you. This doesn’t happen in Second Life. Second Life, as a virtual world, was a sand box allowing you to create anything. My wife still has a boutique on Second Life were she sells clothes she designed. She made real world money off running that business. She didn’t really play the game at all, just designed stuff in graphics programs and sold them through the game. I ran a club in Second Life. But I built that club with my own two hands, using graphics I imported from outside the game. People make their own emotes. It was just a blank slate you could create on and other people would then come along and check out your creations.

Some of those creations were games, everything from slingo to some sorts of RPG to some sort of shooter. Most people who played Second Life that I knew didn’t RP at all but used it as a giant chat program.

I do agree with you that certain sub-cultures feel neglected by the direction Anet has gone, including the casual/solo player. Still doesn’t change the fact that what we were arguing about was the cause for the change.

You made a statement in a post. You implied people were wearing blinders because they didn’t see the game wasn’t as popular as it was. I’m saying no one has been saying there here. Most people have acknowledged the game has taken a hit with HoT due to a variety of reasons.

However, we’re arguing over those reasons.

The only thing I’ve ever said about numbers, since before HoT, was that they number of people who left might well be less than the number of free to play players who started playing. And that’s all I’ve said. And that remains true.

For Anet, that means if the number of free to play players who buy the expansion has to go up, which is what they were talking about in their quarterly report.

I truly hope that attempt to make the HoT zones more approachable to more casual players might bring some back to the game. Many of the things being said in this thread I predicted in various raid threads, about the casual audience feeling disenfranchised and leaving. It’s not like it’s a huge surprise to me.

TimHellen.5903:

Once I’ve maxed out a mastery track, is there supposed to be some kind of alert or notification? Cos there have been quite a few times when I had no idea I already maxed one out and just kept on doing stuff, wasting EXP collected.

If it wasn’t for the occasionally opening of the mastery window, I wouldn’t have known I could put the points in already.

When the yellow bar on the bottom of your screen is full, it’s done. It usually flashes from white to yellow to white again, but it’s sort of hard to see if you’re not looking for it.

Ricky.4706:

yall can’t keep spin doctoring stories if you want to help anet. the pvp was a huuge part of the community, and the fact that the vipers stats are restricted by forced pve play is not good. you can’t spin a bad thing and expect a good thing to come out of it. just because people complain, doesn’t mean they want something to fail – in fact….there are many games i don’t complain about…..guess why ?

But you see that’s not what we’re discussing at all here. The current conversation is a single person using the lackluster sales of HoT as evidence that most people want the game to be easier, not harder. That HoT is too hard.

Your complaint, as far as I see it, is a valid one. But that’s not what’s being discussed right here. What’s being discussed is someone is saying make the open world easier than it is, which I’m not 100% sure it the right thing to do.

Silicato.4603:

Vayne.8563:

What makes you think the expansion wasn’t made for new players? What makes you think Anet doesn’t believe that the reason they need new players is because the game wasn’t engaging/challenging enough?

I actually think HoT was made it with new, current and old players in mind.
I dont know what we are talking abot anymore XD.
You were the one implying that an old player or a new one was not in the equation for HoT, cause only active players had to be taken into consideration for the sales. if there were 2 players actively playing and 1 buy, that is a 50% success, you said.

I still support that that cant be the case, cause old and new players are part of the expectationts. 2 active players, ok, but they expected to sell 5, (2 active, 1 old and 2 new). if they sold just 1 to an active player, they underperformed in a 4/5 proportion, not in a 50%.

In any case, if HoT was for new ones, old, active players or all at once, it just didnt delivered the sales they expected. Thats waht they said, and everyone can check it.

And about what you said regarding they needed to make Hot, cause they needed new players, cause GW2 wasnt enough challenging or engaging and people left… again, it didnt delivered the sales they expected, so… the changes they made to GW2 with HoT, (whatever the reason, engaging or not) didnt pay off so far.
I think it is easy to conclude therefore that they made the wrong changes, right? other wise they would have win new and more players, as their goal was.

You’re using lackluster sales of HoT to justify an it’s too hard campaign. But since we don’t know why most people left in the first place, we don’t know that the lackluster sales are actually HoT not selling, or just not having enough people still playing. We haev no real idea. You’re acting like you have an idea. I don’t see how you can.

I don’t think, and I’ve said this all along, any group as a huge majority. Maybe there are 30% of the players in your group. But there are 20% of the players in the harder group maybe. Again, pulling numbers out of thin air.

There’s no evidence if HoT wasn’t dirt easy it wouldn’t have sold worse. None at all. You have an agenda and you want to further that agenda, but you’re adding 2 and 2 and getting five. That’s not the way it works.

We know that uptake of the expansion was lackluster. We know it got bad publicity. Presumably most people if they were enjoying the original game, before it launched, would have preordered. I know just about everyone in my guild did, and that’s a couple of hundred people.

So logically if that’s the case, the people who didn’t uptake were people who weren’t regularly playing already, but had just started, ie the free to play players.

In my mind that was the missing part of the equation. Anet couldn’t convert hte free to play players to paying customers. That’s what NcSoft directly said.

Anything else is just speculation.

Silicato.4603:

but again, what is the goal of making HoT, if is not bringing back old players, current and new ones?
Vayne you are just assuming HoT was made exclusively for the active players, like if we all should eliminate old plyers from the equation. they left, and they dont exist, lol.
And new ones as well, the only thing that matters when you compare sells are active gw2 players vs people who bought HoT.
That is completely… wrong, to say it nicely.

Hot was made to sell, to bring all people in, current, old and new. And it did not make it.
Reasons why, we can debate it. But not the fact that it didnt bring enough old, current or new people.

Actually, it’s not unreasonable to believe that HoT was aimed at people who like the game, trying to get people back to the game, but mostly the people coming up through the game who are free to play, hence the comment about not enough free players adopting it.

Logically speaking the game gained a lot of free players. That’s normal. It could have easily gained MORE free players than were currently playing. No one has that info, but Anet did.

What makes you think the expansion wasn’t made for new players? What makes you think Anet doesn’t believe that the reason they need new players is because the game wasn’t engaging/challenging enough?

Your theory could be correct. Your theory could be wrong. But whether it’s correct or wrong can’t be proven by the data you’re providing.

Silicato.4603:

Vayne.8563:

Now you’re saying that so many people didn’t buy HoT even thought they bought the core game. Where’s the evidence of how many people hasn’t already walked away from this game, and had no intention of buying HoT no matter what it offered.

To me it is the same, sorry. Dont know what is the difference for you between leaving the game 2 years ago or when HoT launched. To me neither of those bought HoT, thats the fact.
You guys are trying to cover the fact that most of GW2 buyers didnt bought HoT, but it is just evident.
If HoT was so unimportant as you are trying to portrait (“players were not going to buy it no matter what, cause they left x years ago”, as you said…), then why anet made HoT? For new people? Where is that new people? I tell you where: playing GW2 for free. Cause thats what people like. Something like GW2. If people liked HoT, they would have been bought it.

So dont fool yourselfs guys, we already have the official data… It is not longer whining, unofficial expectationts, supositionts, believes or whatever…

HoT was made to sell… and it underperformed in that department so far. Said by ncsoft leader, not just for me. HoT didnt catch enough old players, current ones or new ones. Because of what HoT is or represent.

It is time to correct it or fix it, instead of cover it or removing its importance, dont you agree? Anet or NCsoft can still fix it.

Dude how is it the same.

You’re saying most people that have EVER bought the game didn’t buy HoT. You’re saying it’s because HoT is harder core.

I’m saying that most of the people who ever left the game left the game before HoT was announced. Only a fraction of those players who bought the original game remain.

So let’s say 500,00 are playing and half of them bought hot. That says something.

But you’d then be ignoring that fact that four million people left before HoT was announced, likely because they were dissatisfied with the core game. HoT may have even brought some of those people back (n fact we know it has in some cases because people have said so).

You have no evidence that more people haven’t left due to the content being too easy than the number of people who didn’t buy HoT because it’s too hard.

Silicato.4603:

Again, maddoctor: my point is that HoT is different in every aspect from GW2.
Im no valuating if one is “better” than the other, thats another debate (thought sales should be a good reference for that… ) and in any case its a subjective debate, where i may think something about it, you the opposite, and both right cause depends on personal tastes.

But the fact HoT is different from GW2 must be the reason why HoT has not been bought as much as expected.

And dont tell me the real reason is cause of the quantity of content or prize, cause those are included among the differences between GW2 and HoT.

They are just 2 different products, for 2 different kind of people… and with 2 different results on sales.

Im sure ncsoft will make anet to come back on track and stop experimenting trying to please people that actually dont reward back to the company (cause that was HoT, a failed attempt to make people who didnt like GW2, to join the party)

This isn’t true.

It’s equally possible that the number of people left playing Guild Wars 2 before HoT came out is smaller than you’re saying and most of them did buy the expansion. You’re simply trying to use sales figures to push your agenda and it doesn’t work that way.

And I’d have preferred more casual content than what we got myself. I want the game more the way you want it, but it doesn’t make you right about sales figures.

If 10 people bought the game and 2 were left playing it and 1 person bought the expansion the uptake on it is 50%. We just don’t have those figures, and unless you work for NcSoft or Anet, neither do you.

The game was clearly a niche game, when compared to a game like WoW. But every MMO is a niche game compared to a game like WoW. That has as much to do with circumstance as it does with anything else, but it’s how the industry is. No one has near the numbers WoW does, even after a particularly disappointing expansion.

Now you’re saying that so many people didn’t buy HoT even thought they bought the core game. Where’s the evidence of how many people hasn’t already walked away from this game, and had no intention of buying HoT no matter what it offered.

Silicato.4603:

Zeonis.1962:

Silicato.4603:

Zeonis.1962:

Silicato.4603:

Meta events of 2 hours long, are killing the pve game.

As long as they are fun and challenging i’m okay with spending 2 hours. And yes i think VB,AB and TD are really fun meta events. It finally takes some sort of organization to do large content in Gw2 unlike before.

And they sold unlike before as well, XD

This is not the way, and now Anet knows it. Thats the important.

Yea alot of people bought Gw2 due to hype at that time like any HUGE game but many bought it for that reason the hype of a big new mmo, they played it didn’t like it and quit. Of course half the sales from the original Gw2 game were just a bunch of bandwagon gamer’s like all games. then the xpac came out of course the sales weren’t gonna be the same as the original game. But maybe you have a point they went and catered too much for the hardcore players. But i’m happy as can be and i think alot of others are too.

Yep and i like that at least some people are ok with the changes from GW2 to HoT.

But the problem is that one of the people who wont be glad with those changes and specially their results are the own anet guys.

Its game has underperformed in sales and critics.
And they will change it if they want a different result.

I think there’s a problem with your logic.

In a few places now I’ve seen you pop up and say so many people bought Guild Wars 2 but only a small handful of those people bought the expansion. While I agree the expansion probably didn’t do as well as Anet would have liked, this whole 4 million people but only a small percentage bought the expansion has a potential logical flaw.

How do you know how many people left the game because it was too easy and didn’t even look at the expansion because of it. 4 million people bought the first game, and maybe 2 million left by the time the first year had hit. Maybe more.

We don’t really know how many people were playing Guild Wars 2. The only real acknowledgment we have from NcSoft is that free to play players didn’t convert in the numbers they thought they would. Which would mean that most people that bought the game had already ceased playing it, and weren’t necessarily likely to buy the expansion.

Basically you’re making a raft of assumptions assuming that a lot of people already loved this game, that they were casual and didn’t buy the expansion.

I’ve always felt this game was niche, but I’ve always been happy with that, because it was my niche. And I agree the expansion is out of my niche in several ways. The game is less mine now than it was before the expansion.

But there’s no way you can say that the number of active players that were playing that game that weren’t free to play that purchased the expansion is particularly low without knowing how many people were playing the game and how many people picked up the expansion. Let’s pretend the user base was half a million before going free to play, which is possible. Then the number of people who converted who weren’t free to play was probably quite high.

I know in my guild only a tiny percentage don’t own HoT at all, and of those, only one or two of them weren’t free to play.

BellatorDeus.2310:

And it takes a longgg time to get the essential masteries.

Not really. The only essential masteries are basic gliding and the jumping mushrooms. All others are really just “nice to have” but you don’t actually need them until you hit Dragon’s Stand where you should have extended gliding.

Not quite true. You need also updrafts and Exalted Lore #1 to finish your story, but I agree with you. Even adding those, it’s not that hard to get.

qbalrog.8017:

Mahou.3924:

I switch between my characters a lot because I can’t find a profession where I feel the most comfortable with.

I wonder if that’s at the bottom of it: those who like a lot of characters (like me) may find all the HP acquisition and time gates very daunting on multiple toons. If you are doing it more “one time” on a single toon, it may be a different experience entirely.

I left GW2 some year ago when I stopped having fun with my herd of characters and came back when they made account wide wallets, dyes and outfits. Maybe some similar change in the future might make it altoholic friendlier. The masteries are already account wide but the map exploration and HP are certainly not.

Anyway, something for me to keep an eye on in the updates. If they do something that seems to make running lots of toons friendlier again, I may give it a try.

BTW for those who say each character should go with the full effort, what difference does it make to you or the game company on what toon I’m spending my time if I supporting the game through my money and my presence? Why is 20 hours on one toon better than 5 hours on each of 4 toons?

Because if you make everything account bound for a guy like you, you take away the little bit left of character bound for guys like me. I’m an altoholic but unlike you, each of my characters, in my head, are individuals. I LIKE doing the story on different alts. I LIKE completeing maps on different alts. That’s a lot of content to for me.

And I know I’m not the only altoholic to feel this way because even when the wallet came out, which I wholeheartedly embraced, others were saying that they wanted separate wallets for different characters. They were even more like me than I was. lol

So it may not make a different to you, but let’s not pretend that all altoholics are unanimous that the changes you suggest would be better.

FogLeg.9354:

The people who liked GW2 were expecting more of same kind of content. And HoT is really not same thing at all, so players complain.

Not sure what this thread is about. If you have customers who are not satisfied with your product or service, they can ask for refund. Is this really such a surprise for you?

While there are differences between HoT and core Guild Wars 2, there are also many similarities too.

I mean VB is very similar in many ways to SW, which was popular content. The collections were already there and some of them were quite grindy themselves. All the world bosses were on timers.

This was simply the evolution of the game. It was the end game content that many people complained didn’t exist. Is it really that different?

I don’t particularly find it so.

Try map chat and pop a tag. Include a waypoint. People will come.

Danikat.8537:

Also characters in the story, including the player character, are never doing it for the drops.

I would love that, though. Have some hero or character in a game and something dies and he/she says, “anything good drop?”

I would totally love that. lol

I’ve killed that guy half a dozen times. You really do need to find an organized T4 map, because those maps kill every boss.

You need to do the first two stories in HoT to unlock masteries. Go to your hero panel, and on choose the fouth icon down, story journal. Click on Heart of Thorns and the click on begin story.

The story will send you to the Silverwastes, where you can play through 2 chapters to unlock masteries.

Tiburon.8634:

Lex.9071:

No, Story exp is one time only.

It wasn’t when HoT launched. I ran several characters through the prologue with a friend to get our characters into the new map and leveled up the glider almost to max. Made things much more user friendly.

It still isn’t. I get XP from doing stories on different characters.

Racurn.5921:

I think you misunderstand my point when analyzing meta events. I don’t criticize them because I think they’re things guilds should necessarily do together, but because they are PvE content and I didn’t want to leave things out, since we are a PvE guild. My point isn’t that my guild has to do things together, it’s that we want to do things together, but there isn’t much for us to do.

And yet my guild is like your guild and we find things to do together. This is where guild leaders make a big difference I think. They have to set the tone, make the plan, encourage people to come along. The game can’t do that for you, you have to do that.

There were a few people in my guild who weren’t sold at all on hot maps, but I worked with them and showed them what’s what and now I see them in HoT maps quite frequently.

Soon.5240:

@Vayne,
If you are such an immersive role player, how is it that you are such an uber defender of HoT maps? I’m truly interested, and not being snarky. Surly you don’t find them to be immersive.

I find them to be the most immersive maps in the game. That’s because I’m not going out of the game to seek out a timer.

HoT to me is a war zone. I’m not focused on rewards, I’m focused on immersion. So when I’m in Verdant Brink, defending a camp at night, it’s because my character really is fighting of modrem to protect the camp. That makes it immersive. There’s a sense of urgency that very little in the core game can match.

I’ve said before, several times on the forums that I like Straits of Devestation and Hirathi Hinterlands as maps because it’s not as much about “boss” fights, which are contrived, and more about open warfare.

When you fight a boss, he has half a dozen moves and they repeat over and over. When I’m fighting 50 centaurs, I’m fighting 50 centaurs. I’m not seeing the same repetitive attack from one guy. I’m reacting to multiple attacks all around me.

When I go into HoT, I’m going into Mordremoth’s territory and I’m completely immersed in that, because it FEELS like mordremoth’s territory. There are very few areas in the game I get that feeling from.

Clearly if I were driven by rewards and I just looked up event timers, the zones would feel different.

Soon.5240:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Vayne.8563:

Soon.5240:

Kaiju chi.3620:

How come there are no heart task to do like in the other parts of the game?.

Hearts required imagination and a respect for the RPG elements of gaming. So they were jettisoned….

Now you have Adventures! Nintendo styled platform events that have no place in a MMORPG.

Hearts required imagination and respect for roleplaying? They were put in the game, as per Anet, to get people to areas were dynamic events were. That’s why they were put into the game. They didn’t even exist in the first two betas. People simply didn’t understand a game without static quests, so they had to put in these places near were events spawned and keep them there.

Anet didn’t add hearts for some bizarre RP reason. They added them to make you stay in one place long enough for an event to spawn.

I don’t think the poster you replied to was talking about why ANet added them. Just about what they required.

Also, I don’t necessarily believe ANet anymore when they tell us why they do things.

Vayne,

I’m sure you will acknowledge, if you think about it for a moment, that the Hearts in the central Tyria maps were ways of introducing the Lore of Tyria into game play. That’s all I meant.

Hearts are typically centered around thwarting the Dredge, something funny happening with the Skritt, snobbish Asura scientist conducting research, etc.

I enjoy this. I enjoyed taking a new profession from Map 1 to the Cured Shore (I only tome leveled on profession and then deleted it and swore to never do it again). I enjoy the funny remarks that the NPC make to each other.

If that is not your cup of tea, then so be it. If you are happy that all of this is absent in HoT, and most probably all future content, then great for you.

But I’m sure there are many others who enjoy the charming RPG elements of the base maps and miss them in the “expansion”.

Actually I played Guild Wars 2 before hearts, in the beta, and I don’t think they introduced anything of the type. That’s my point. I think that ambient dialogue and the events and paying attention to NPCs introduced more or less the same amount of lore, albeit in far less hand held manor.

See, I’m an immersion player. Hearts to me break immersion. They’re bad for my internal roleplay. So are vistas and points of interest really and for a long time, I played with those map markers turned off, so I could immerse myself in a world, instead of following symbols on a map that doesn’t even really exist to my character.

My character wouldn’t see a heart. My character would see a person who needs help. The mark on the map to me, or the need to fulfill this as part of something to complete a zone detracts from my role play, it doesn’t add to it.

I want to wander the world in a more organic fashion and to me, hearts go against that.

Actually that’s my big complaint about this game from early one. I expected it to be and wanted it to be more immersive, but the systems put in the game pretty much everywhere just turn it into a giant checklist.

I adapted and gave up on those expectations early and and hearts were one of the reasons.

The description of your guild, matches the description of my guild, with one single exception. I have more people than you do.

We’re still casual. We haven’t raided at all as a guild. But also not everyone in the guild does group content at all or cares about it. Many casual guilds like yours don’t worry that we have to do this content or that content.

Twice a week we do guild missions and once a week we have a social night. Usually about 20 people show up, more or less the same 20 people who showed up years ago. There are 200 members in my guild, 100 people log in each week and 20 show up for group stuff.

This doesn’t mean the group is dying. It means the people who enjoy the group content find content to do together.

You say the entire guild has different reasons for not doing the meta, but everyone doesn’t have to be done by everyone in the guild. If five people want to do a meta, five people can do it.

I think you’re putting too much pressure on most content having to be done as a guild. It really doesn’t have to be that way.

My guild has continued to thrive, because I don’t feel forced to get together. We have our three weekly meetings. We have mumble and we talk while we’re doing more solo stuff, and that’s completely okay.

If it gets really stale, I’ll just run a guild event, for example we have our four year guild anniversary coming up in March and I’ll make up some stupid games for us to play. Glide and seek. Darts. Trivia. Mad libs. Whatever.

Anyway, that’s just my take on it.