How will this be even remotely viable once people get sick of HoT?
It won’t be.
I think it’ll always be viable, because when very few people are playing many will be in one map. Right now, there’s just a lot of maps.
I can go into almost any zone, throw on a tag, call out a champ and people will come, even before the game when free to play that was true.
I think people need to link waypoints and directions though when calling out in map chat. So far I have yet to have a problem and I don’t suspect I will when the zones are less crowded.
I haven’t gotten diminishing returns, but apparently some people have. I don’t think everyone gets it, and I don’t think it’s intentional.
Renown hearts were created specifically to show people where dynamic events occur. That’s it. They were added very late in the piece.
In the manifesto, Ree Sosebee was talking about the personal story and Colin was talking about dynamic events. I know this because the clarification of the manifesto released shortly after said so.
What better way to screw everyone without a great connection and living in other countries. Good job there.
It’s been a ongoing issue with this game: They put their energy in a PvE Living Story extension (which is nice but temporary) instead of making endgame content (which is repeatable).
Result is we get only 1 pvp map, no dungeons, no new fractals, delayed raids, and a substantial (and potentially amazing) over-designed WvW map that has been rushed out in an outdated server system.
Guild halls are nice, but only as a place to go between endgame content challenges which are missing.
So, 2-3 weeks after the expansion for me it’s back to GvGs, in Gilded Hollow now instead of Obsidian Sanctum. That’s the only difference.
They need to come out with more repeatable content updates and SAB world 3
The ongoing issue is that you and people who enjoy your play style repeat the end game content endlessly and a large percentage of the population never touches it. That’s the ongoing problem. If Anet gives you stuff to do, I don’t get enough to do. If they give me stuff to do, you don’t get enough to do.
It’s time people started realized that generalizations like this only apply to a percentage of the player base. It would be interested to find out how much of a percentage, but I’m guessing most people think more people play their way than actually do.
You running the 64 bit launcher or the 32 bit? I haven’t crashed at all since I started using the 64 bit.
how do I see if I am using 64 or 32bit?
I do believe I am using 64 bit
If you didn’t download it and set it up specifically, you’re using the 32 bit version. This only uses 3 gigs of computer memory due to the limitations of 32 bit. Since I started using the 64 bit launcher I haven’t had a crash. Not one. I was crashing somewhat often on the 32 bit, which is why I’m asking.
Did you go to your account page and download the 64 bit launcher?
The story isn’t Shakespeare, obviously. But I haven’t played any MMOs where it has been. In most MMOs stories are a motivation to do something. They provide the motivation for your character to act. If I want actual story I read a book.
Weasel-words. There haven’t been open world games telling compelling stories either until a developer actually tried to push the boundaries of the genre and blew the contenders out of the water in the process. Video games in general have a lot of potential to tell compelling and even complex stories, whether this is something you as an individual look for in a video game or not is an entirely different matter.
As Doam pointed out, the HoT story was a step backwards from living season two. That’s not what I’m looking for from a developer, I’m looking for a company to man up and try to push boundaries, to knock the competitors down a peg instead of surrendering to mediocrity.
HoT is mediocre, unfortunately.
Nah the hot story was told better and the event chains in the open world are certainly better. Story isn’t just the instanced story, you know.
Instead of insulting people, why not answer my question? Are you running the 64 bit launcher or the 32 bit launcher?
You running the 64 bit launcher or the 32 bit? I haven’t crashed at all since I started using the 64 bit.
(edited by Vayne.8563)
The story isn’t Shakespeare, obviously. But I haven’t played any MMOs where it has been. In most MMOs stories are a motivation to do something. They provide the motivation for your character to act. If I want actual story I read a book.
That said, I think the way the story is presented is hands above what we had before. If the OP were any type of optimist at all, he’d have mentioned that.
And you know, I’m tired of pessimism OP, so we’re in the same boat.
@Tobias Trueflight
Comparing what HoT gave us is the very point here. All of HoT is less than 50% of what dungeons give us.
If they had given us a decent armor selection to begin with they could have added ten new outfits in the cash shop daily for all i care. But the way it is now this just seems overly greedy and takes out a good portion of the content that people aspire to get in GW2.
Hot gave us the ability to glide. That’s worth about 150 armor sets to some of us. Just saying.
You got to compare all of it, not just the things you care about.
How many people complained about the core game being included in HoT and having nothing for veteran players? What do you think the fan reaction would be if Anet gave more to new players, making the value of being loyal less. Could you imagine the outcry on the forums?
Not to mention the myriad people who spent the money and now bought HoT. Is Anet going to refund them all?
You can’t level masteries through WvW. My advice is start the HoT story, go into the new zone and find a quest chain. These happen around outposts. Try to stay with groups of people and follow along through the quest chain. Yes, your XP booster will help, along with food and utility boosts.
It might also help you to join a friendly guild who you can play with, instead of trying to solo what is a pretty hard area.
Lux no drama, I’m with ya. Jump into wvw on a Wednesday morning and tell me the game population is still strong. What has this game sold, 7 million copies? Lucky if a million still play. Not to compare, but WoW had over 10 million subs for what half a decade. Players decide the fate of a game, and if you continually make it harder for them to enjoy your game, then they’ll catch on.
We need changes that IMPROVE the QoL in game. They are a few slips from pushing the players off the ledge.
If a million still play the game would be considered strong. All MMOs experience natural attrition.
That said, WvW is probabliy the slowest and worst upkept area of the game right now, so yeah. They did lose a lot of players, particularly to top tier servers.
On the other hand I’m on TC and I run into players any time I’m in there.
Cute post, OP. Made me laugh.
When GW2 came out, every server every night had wvw ques and every zone was packed. Events scaling created epic events in low level zones because of all the people.
Just before HoT GW2 still had a ton of people on the top servers queing up for wvw and there were plenty of people in low AND high level zones.
After HoT released there was a weekend of fun when a good amount of people showed up to try the new stuff, it wasn’t epic like GW2’s release but it was mildly amusing.
Then HoT killed GW2.
Now the whole game is basically a ghost town. Sure there are occasional events that get packed and once and a while ONE zone gets filled up. But the sad truth is that HoT pushed many players away from the game and made it actually worse than before it’s release.
ANET failed and only the totally clueless can’t see that.
We’ll see who’s clueless moving forward as profit reports come in. Not just now, but in the future. No one in my guild left, and everyone bought HoT. HoT didn’t kill the game.
There’s definitely a problem in WvW though. Fortuantely WvW isn’t the game, but only one part of it.
I can confirm leveling masteries is a chore, or if you prefer a grind.
As they get higher you need more points, and they take forever to fill the bar.
Definitely a grind.
I can confirm that it’s not a grind. Level 55 so far, and I don’t feel like I’m grinding at all. I’m just having fun doing stuff.
Definitely not a grind.
See how easy that is?
Umm in the first 19 days FFXIV had 3 hotfix patches, 2 of which rivaled what you would see in a GW2 major patch, and a content patch that released their raid normal mode as well as another long list of fixes. In the first month they released 5 hotfix patches and 2 major patches. Let’s also not forget that Heavensward released in a far better state with far more content.
“Give them time” is the most ill-informed thing that anyone could say about ArenaNet right now. They had 3 years and STILL haven’t fixed a lot of the major issues the game has. It took them 2.5 years to finally make changes to conditions so they weren’t useless in dynamic events. Let that sink in for a moment. 1 of the only 2 ways to do damage was absolutely useless in dynamic events. Events that were supposed to be a major portion of the content. Oh but it’s even worse when you consider their combo system, a major game mechanic, actually made the situation worse. That is a gigantic mammoth issue that should have been dealt with in the first few months…2.5 years later and they finally got around to it. I realize that technical issues could be at play, but when other MMO’s had already fixed that issue LONG ago(nearly a decade) that’s a BS excuse. Of course after dev(s?) had said as one of their excuses for not changing it that allowing everyone to place condiitions on a boss would kill it too quick…
The good will and faith are gone. They burned those bridges multiple times. The way HoT has been handled from start to finish has only reinforced that.
Seriously FF14, the game that went F2P for a year plus because they rebuilt it, and rereleased it as FF14ARR?
Sort of like how GW2 went F2P this year and now they are attempting to rebuild it through a half finished expansion?
Actually there’s a huge difference between what happened in FF XIV and Guild Wars 2. FF XIV was a dismal failure at launch. It was so bad they literally had to change things, because the game was losing subs due to the game being unplayable. They had to apologize to their fans for releasing a bad game.
This isn’t the same thing. Here a lot of people really liked the game at launch and some don’t like the way it’s changing. Very VERY few people liked Final Fantasy at launch.
Only thing I’ve noticed is some people have trouble differentiating outfits and armor.
dear anet,pls b considerate to casual players
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Vayne.8563
I think the underlying thing here, what everyone is trying to vocalize but it seems to not be worded correctly is as follows: in base GW2, you could play for 2-3 hours a day and feel like you accomplished something meaningful. You played some dungeons, did some pvp, did some world bosses, whatever. In HoT, 2-3 hours doesn’t seem to make a dent in anything. It makes things seem overwhelming.
That’s what I understand from the conversation anyway.
Guild Wars 1 was the same way though. Once you had everything in the base game done, the stuff you had left to do was like a long, slow crawl. Survivor title, Defender of Ascalon title, the kurzick/luxon progression, the lightbringer progression, filling books in Eye of the North….sure when you start a new character you get stuff like achievements really fast.
And then you get most of them and it takes a long time to get the next thing.
The problem isn’t that people can’t make progress. They simply can’t make the specific type of progress they want. They want masteries to be a short term goal when that wasn’t intended. But there are plenty of achievements that are easy to get. You can get through the story pretty fast (in fact that’s one of the complaints about the game).
So yeah. I get stuff accomplished every day. Now I play a lot more than most players. Then again I"m level 55 mastery and have a ton of the new achievements done.
Actually it was never announced as being of the base game. The only real thing said about the guild hall was added with a quote from Martin Kerstein on Guild Wars 2 guru when someone asked him about personal housing.
He said it was something they would like to add, but it wouldn’t be coming any time soon and it would probably come with guild halls as part of the first expansion.
Yep, he said that long before Guild Wars 2 launched.
I’d love to see some quote somewhere, anywhere, that said Guild Halls were supposed to be part of the base game.
However, this isn’t precisely true. People did ask for LS to stop.
The largest complaint heard unanimously was that people wanted permanent content, because having temporary content offered 0 replay ability and was ultimately a poor decision.
People asked for the temporary aspect of the Living Story scheme to stop…. not the 2 week content packets.
In every link you’ve provided, almost everyone is complaining about the lifespan of the content, and how there is no accumulation of content.
not enough content… permanent content… content…
a pretty strong underlying theme here.
Players wanted more content, and since the situation proved to be a great way for them to suck some more cash out of their playerbase without providing anything they weren’t already providing, Anet was happy to oblige.
1 + 0 +1 +0 +1 + 0 +1 +0 +1 + 0 +1 +0 +1 +0 +1 + 0 +1 +0 +1 “Living World” – Free
0 + 0 + 0 + 0+ 0 + 0 + 0 + 0+ 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0+ 0 + 0 + 0 + 10 “Expansion” – $60
And that’s being generous and saying that HoT had an exactly equal amount of content we would have gotten through bi weekly LS…
How on earth is that addressing the issue that players want more content?
Its smoke and mirrors… and a pay wall.
Yes, one of the primary issues was that LS1 was temporary. And then we moved into LS2, which is permanent, and the complaints continued. People still called for an expansion, and for a stop to the LS, I’m not going to dig out all of the threads, but there are many.
People assumed that 1) while the expansion was made, we would continue to get content – which we didn’t (not sure why people thought that, its the same with every other game) and 2) that the expansion would somehow offer “more.” Anet did exactly what their players demanded – they made an expansion, they gave us raids, and they gave us guild halls.
Could all of this, including the story have been rolled out in content packets every 2-3 weeks over the course of the last year? Probably, but that’s not what the vocal people desired. I remember arguing this with them, going round and round, for months. They wanted more content, all in one chunk so they could play through it at their own pace. And now, they still aren’t happy.
Btw, the expansion was only $50, not 60.
You can’t argue with someone who already has his mind made up. He doesn’t remember when Anet said there would be two week content, he doesn’t remember threads with people saying it was too fast, he doesn’t remember Living Story Season 2 being permanent and still there are tons of people asking for an expansion.
Some people will never be satisfied not matter what you give them. They think devs wave a magic stick and poof, expansion. The four new zones must have taken ages to create and test. They’re truly complex. I was flying around in the canopy today doing stuff and I have to tell you, that place is nuts. The amount of design work to design that zone has to be harder than designing something like Queensdale.
But you know, it’s not a true expansion because it doesn’t have X. I think it is a real expansion and I can see playing it for as long as I’ve played expansions from other MMOs. Particularly once the Living Story kicks in again.
But you don’t need every hero point to completely unlock your spec. If you want the extra hero points, you don’t start the event and you organize in map chat.
Because unlike other hero points, you get 10 hero points for these, so why wouldn’t they be harder? The reward is much higher.
Why should something be just as easy for a reward 10 times as great? How is that good game design?
Please. They’re only worth ten points because ANet faced a dilemma.
They capitulated to player complaints about the new trait/skill unlocks by allocating enough HP to unlock all of core just via leveling. This left them with players who had as many as 214 HP unspent. Since it seems their original intent was to have players gain about as many points in HoT to unlock specs as they could have earned in core, they had to either make the HoT points worth the same as core ones and have a ton of them, or they had to value them higher. They chose the latter so they didn’t end up having a challenge every dozen meters in the new zones.
That said, I have no problem with the HC’s being more of a challenge than the core ones. However, let’s not pretend that an arbitrary valuation selected to meet a design objective means anything other than what it obviously is.
Challenge is fine. Having HC’s be group challenges is going to cause problems down the road. It’s not good design to present exploration objectives as group content because exploration is a one-time reward, and group content needs a pool of players willing to show up for those group events. In an MMO this means rewards. No reward, no interest from the lion’s share of players. You might be willing to go help all and sundry get their HC’s, but I doubt that a majority of players will, and maybe even you will be less than thrilled at the 3,689th call for help.
Regardless of the reason for the change, and it may be as you say, it doesn’t change the fact that this points are worth more. There’s no contesting this. You can say they’re worth more because Anet was forced to capitulate to it’s rabid fan base, or you can say it’s worth more because venus was in retrograde. It doesn’t affect my argument at all.
Once they were worth more, there was no reason not to make them harder, particularly now that you don’t need them all.
Yes, some people are completionist and must have everything but that’s not really Anet’s fault. Anet has created a situation were you can complete the only world and do three easy challenges in the new zones (there are plenty of easy ones) and then you have your elite spec unlocked. That’s the situation that exists right now.
On my world complete characters, I had to complete 3 skill point challenges in the new zone. I’m relatively sure there are 3 communes or points guarded by a vet now.
For everyone else there’s something more challenging. Enough people have been asking for something challenging for long enough that this would only be an issue if someone absolutely needed this to unlock their elite spec.
But that’s not really the case.
To add into the mix you can get some relatively easily in EoTM negates any real argument.
You can’t do those skill points, but you don’t need them either. If you do need them, adapt.
But you don’t need every hero point to completely unlock your spec. If you want the extra hero points, you don’t start the event and you organize in map chat.
Because unlike other hero points, you get 10 hero points for these, so why wouldn’t they be harder? The reward is much higher.
Why should something be just as easy for a reward 10 times as great? How is that good game design?
There are bugs/issues from the Core game that took over 2 years to address. Some stuff STILL is an issue.
Unrealistic expectations with complete inability to see or understand the process.
Why not just ask them to remove the update and revert back to pre Oct.23rd code?Not everyone is arguing about bugs. Some people have problems with the direction of the content.
And the direction of the content was clearly indicated well before the release of HoT. The feigned surprise is bizarre.
Now this I disagree with. If they had said right off the bat: we’re going to go in a more hardcore time consuming grindy direction, rather than what Guild Wars 2 has been up till now, I wouldn’t be complaining. However, if they said this, they weren’t blunt enough.
Well they definitely spoke about progression which involves the concept of having to do certain things before other things and they definitely 100% spoke about harder content, and even said the jungle was the hardest open world content in the game.
So I’m not sure why people were stunned. Minimal research could have unearthed much of this.
To be sure, no company is going to say we’re going to make the game grindy but they did explain exactly how masteries worked….exactliy. And they we didn’t have a point total, they also explained how elite specializations worked and when people complained, Anet lowered the point total required, so again, I say they did tell us, and people simply weren’t listening.
Some things certainly weren’t mentioned. I don’t recall anywhere seeing anything about how they were going to completely replace WvW borderland maps, for instance. Unless I missed that one.
They absolutely said it, because before launch my guild was getting the hero points out of the old ones and making sure that people had their jumping puzzle achievements. It’s been known for quite some time that borderlands would be replaced.
Yep, I’m waiting till they fix it.
What is a large roadblock when it comes to getting into gaming? Accessibility, namely the system requirements. WoW has remained at the top in terms of popularity for nearly a decade due to an extremely polished user experience and consistent system requirements throughout the years. Add-on support is obviously top of the line, no other even comes close. Content quality aside, as it’s all player preference, WoW is simply the superior game.
WoW isn’t a superior game. WoW is a different kind of game. Baseball isn’t superior to chess. Motorbikes aren’t superior to ice skates. They serve different purposes.
I played WoW and over all found it boring. I didn’t like the graphic style. I didn’t like the linear nature of leveling, I didn’t like being funneled into raids at end game, I didn’t like the constant stat creep, I didn’t like every expansion coming out invalidating every accomplishment you had, I didn’t like walls of text that lead to arrows telling me exactly what to do, I didn’t like the fact that people stole nodes right out from under me, or tagged the boss I’d been waiting for before I could tag it, or the loot system.
In fact, I think WoW is popular because of when it came out, and the size of it’s advertising war chest. That and you can play it on a potato.
The fact is, some people have invested so much money in it, it’s hard to leave, which is a psychological hold that most games can’t match.
Doesn’t make the game superior, even if you might like it better. In fact, I liked quite a few MMOs more than I liked WoW, including Lotro, and Age of Conan (though that had other issues).
There are bugs/issues from the Core game that took over 2 years to address. Some stuff STILL is an issue.
Unrealistic expectations with complete inability to see or understand the process.
Why not just ask them to remove the update and revert back to pre Oct.23rd code?Not everyone is arguing about bugs. Some people have problems with the direction of the content.
And the direction of the content was clearly indicated well before the release of HoT. The feigned surprise is bizarre.
Now this I disagree with. If they had said right off the bat: we’re going to go in a more hardcore time consuming grindy direction, rather than what Guild Wars 2 has been up till now, I wouldn’t be complaining. However, if they said this, they weren’t blunt enough.
Well they definitely spoke about progression which involves the concept of having to do certain things before other things and they definitely 100% spoke about harder content, and even said the jungle was the hardest open world content in the game.
So I’m not sure why people were stunned. Minimal research could have unearthed much of this.
To be sure, no company is going to say we’re going to make the game grindy but they did explain exactly how masteries worked….exactliy. And they we didn’t have a point total, they also explained how elite specializations worked and when people complained, Anet lowered the point total required, so again, I say they did tell us, and people simply weren’t listening.
The comparison is only fair if you make it at the “end” of HoT’s lifecycle rather that at the start.
I’m expecting loads of new content to be added into HoT over the coming months/years. A living story or two, more gear, more raids, moar lootz etc.
Compare core GW2 with how it was when it started. Today HoT does not seem to offer much (especially to me personally) but it will grow and develop.Yeah but it’s not really how expansions work.
See – Anet ran with HoT as an expansion – an expansion is a thing that brings a lot of features to your core game at one specific time and that you pay a sum of money to get.HoT is not living world. HoT is not early access – it is an expansion.
Sure they might add new things to the game (Core GW2+HoT now) but that doesn’t mean these are things that came with HoT since they did not.
Buying a car only to have “features” such as climate control, ABS and whatnot be shipped to you at a later time is not something that’s normal.
It’s a mistake to judge HoT in light of things that will be added in the future considering they marketed an expansion and no early access.
Living Story is already a part of the GW2 franchise and is free for everybody so it cannot under any circumstances be considered part of HoT or considered relevant content that came with HoT – since it did not.
The ultimate problem with HoT is that when they marketed it they went about it like “buy our new expansion and get this and that and this and all these new things” – people preordered only to later find that “some of the stuff will come later after the expansion’s release because reasons”.
I get that they didn’t have all the stuff ready at once – but that should have been known to people on the day they opened up the game for preorder – not in a blog post a while after telling us “uhm yeah, so raids and legendary weapons are going to come after the release of HoT – and you’re only getting 3 new legendary weapons”.
I disagree. The people who didn’t get HoT won’t be getting the new living story for free. We know it’s going to take place in the new zones and we know they can’t get to it.
Hot is like a combination expansion/season pass, just as Guild Wars 2 was. It’s a hybrid model. I’m not sure why some people can’t see this.
Last I heard, logic isn’t allowed on these forums.
Look, people are upset…in many cases rightly so. They’re going to complain. It doesn’t matter to them that it takes time to fix stuff, they’re still going to complain.
There’s logic and there’s emotion. Most posts are based more on emotion than logic.
I’d take the four maps I got with HoT over all the maps in EotN any day. The complexity of these maps is astounding.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved Eye of the North. But then, we haven’t seen raids yet, and Eye of the North didn’t have expansion content coming in reguilarly either. We have to see what the new content delivery cadence is. Also EotN offered nothing at all for PvP.
Good post. I wholeheartedly agree. Though I did beat Prized Possessions without help, it was an unnecessarily frustrating process. I tried Hearts and Minds a couple of times and decided to wait for bug fixes, because it’s just not worth it to me.
Given the age of this content do you really think Anet will ever bother trying to fix it?
Prized Possessions and Heart and Mind are new story chapters in HoT.
One thing I have noticed is that one’s first impressions, in games, are normally absolutely correct.
You think something, when you have just started playing and you think; “I mustn’t jump to conclusions – I must give it more time.”.
But, the truth is, that the vast majority of the time, it turns out you were right all along.
Of course there are exceptions too. Recently a reviewer who gave Guild Wars 2 a terrible review, came back, played it again and called it the best free to play MMO on the market.
So many people tried this game, didn’t like it, tried it again, didn’t like it, came back and found they enjoyed it immensely.
Sometimes it has to do with expectations and approach.
Good post. I wholeheartedly agree. Though I did beat Prized Possessions without help, it was an unnecessarily frustrating process. I tried Hearts and Minds a couple of times and decided to wait for bug fixes, because it’s just not worth it to me.
At the release of Guild Wars 2, players were promised free bi weekly content packages… Up until several months ago, that is how GW2 received all of its new content. The game’s content delivery and upkeep costs were funded exclusively through gem store purchases as well as the game’s sale price.
Many players enjoyed the release of new content, while some complained it just was not enough to keep their attention.
Anet decided it would be better off releasing those small packages all in a bundle in the form of an expansion. Anet also decided to put a price tag on the bundle… and what ended up happening was, players received less content (than what would have been expected in the same amount of time, had it been delivered through the Living World method), they paid for it, and the gem store still continues to support the game’s upkeep costs.
Neither method seems to work better than the other, and in switching between methods, what myself and many players have noticed is that Anet is simply stretching out the amount of down time between content releases, and is releasing less content than expected given a certain timeframe.
Method A is okay
Method B is sort of okA transition between methods A and B is nothing but down-time on content delivery.
Veteran players desire new content every so often to remain entertained, and what is Anet is delivering simply is not enough.
The Living world content delivery method was like breadcrumbs being fed to a hungry person at set intervals, just enough to keep the person from starving, but not enough to keep them satiated.
…while the expansion method was like letting a person starve almost to death, then giving them an entire piece of bread….. still not enough to make them feel satiated, but enough to put them back to the hungry level.
When are you going to give us a meal, Anet?
…and don’t tell us we are going to have to wait an exorbitant amount of time, because you are starving your community to death.
Are we going back to the Living Story updates every other week, or are you going to give them to us all at once labeled as an expansion?
If you plan on going back to the every 2 weeks thing, you are already behind…. since you are once again stuck in the transition between the A and B methods.
…and if you plan on bundling up more living world releases and putting a price tag on them, you may as well call it what it is….. a subscription fee.
You fooled myself and many others with the Heart of Thorns prepurchase.
…but you won’t be getting any more money from me until you eliminate all the smoke and mirrors and start being transparent with your intentions for the content delivery method.
I have no problem paying for content I feel is worth the price tag, and paying money is not the issue here.
I also have no problem paying every couple of months…. hell even EVERY MONTH…. if you delivered an appropriate amount of content associated with the price tag in return.
What IS an issue is deceiving your customers .. and tricking them into buying their way through a pay wall THEY ALREADY PAID FOR AT LAUNCH to continue playing the same old game they already had, (with a few minor additions) once the game went free to play.
The game was stale two years ago, and if you think reselling the game to us under false pretenses was a good idea, please think again for the next “expansion.”
Can we have a real expansion next time, instead of a glorified list of gated grindfest chores labeled as content?
At the release of Guild Wars 2 people were guaranteed what? You must have been playing a different game, because the bi-weekly content wasn’t offered until the Living Story and quite a bit into the Living Story. On release we were “promised” no such thing.
And it’s great to ignore people complaining about the release cadence being too fast and not having time to work on other stuff.
Actually I pretty much disagree with your entire post. It’s a revisionist version of history with a bunch of stuff you’re assuming and have no real evidence for.
One thing we do know though. The player base did ask for a paid expansion. At least a very loud portion of it did.
What makes you think some of us will give more of our money to anet after this HoT fiasco?
I don’t know, the people who are enjoying HoT every day since it launched. Those people might. It’s only a fiasco if you don’t like it. It’s an expansion to many.
Yes. Let’s have every single char in game a member of a huge, anonymous guild where few care if you are there or not or if you get kicked, just so that guild halls can be built.
I’m sorry but you don’t need to be in a guild of 500 where no one cares to have and upgrade a guild hall. There’s a huge difference between 5 and 500. 50 is between those numbers and some of the closest knit groups I’ve been in have been 50 man guilds.
I’m in a guild of 200 with 100 reguilars and a core of about 30-50 people who are very close and very welcoming. We go out of our way to help new people integrate into the guild, and some of them stay and become core members, if they like what they see.
Those people who choose to be part of the family are in fact part of the family. The idea that 50 people can’t be friends in an MMO is simply misguided.
I have a ton of friends on my guild and a few people I’m very close with. I’m not sure why you think you have to limit your guild to five to have friendships.
That was a sarcastic rejoinder to the OPs post where he said Let’s be honest in a large guild, if a person gets kicked not many people are gonna care. If its a higher up or an officer there may be some drama but people get over it.
(It’s also where the other poster’s comment about cesspool guilds is coming from)
Context Vayne, context.
Vayne needs more sleep and less forum time. My bad. lol
I bought HoT and I like the expansion but I cannot say Im glad with the amount of content. It really doesnt look like 60 dollars worth. As people said it expands some things but destroy others like dungeons. I think at 20 it would be a great deal.
See what you say six months from now. With a game like Guild Wars 2, the content will start to grow but you won’t be paying more. Those who haven’t bought the expansion won’t have access to that content.
We have a monthly sub. It’s called the gem store. You can pay $15 a month every month if it’ll make you happy.
I was looking for a better package deal. >_>
Anyhow, “optional”, so no, its not required. You can still play the game freely, but for those of us who want a monthly, can reap better rewards.
Also, the game has been P2W for a while now. You can pay tons of money to get your crafting up, and then tons more to get ascended crafting materials, sans the BoA materials that are fairly easy to farm.
But what are you winning? I don’t think you know what P2W means.
OP if you’re on a US server and want some help learning how to get around I’d be happy to help. And that goes for anyone else on US servers.
I’ve had to do this for a portion of my guild and once they get it, they like the expansion a lot better. Just hit me up in game if you want. It really looks harder than it actually is in a lot of cases.
I just played for about 3 hours, got lucky and landed in an AB with TTS, super organized way less stressful than anything out of VB, managed to finish the meta, got a few Hero Points, restored some good will.
I’m assuming you must be in a decent guild since your one of the vocal white knights, mind if I take you up on that offer you gave to the OP?
I’m up for helping anyone. I’m always happy to try to help. As for me guild, no we’re not a huge super organized guild. We have fun with stuff. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail, but we always have fun.
This is not an expansion – It is a boring drawn out – Excuse – For an Expansion – The longevity in playing this – Unless you are at it’s birth it will be a dead zone – Sooner than you think – Played every GW game to date – This is not Guild Wars- And not a fun Game anymore – It’s a chore- Flame away – Don’t worry New game no problem – Enjoy your future burn out -
This zone will be busy for a very long time, because some people find it fun. And free to play players will hit 80 and buy the expansion too, some of them anyway. And you don’t need thousands of people to play zones to make them fun. Drytop and Silverwastes are good examples.
The game will do fine without you. It always amazes me how people assume that they don’t like something so no one else will.
Some people are waiting for raids to be released. Some are working on crafting their precursors. Some are working on attaining the currencies to buy the new armor skins. To me the jungle is my favorite place in the game. It’s my go to place to play now.
I have no issue with masteries as is, besides the XP gate. Not all of them will feel as fulfilling as the last, they are quality of life changes to the first tier. Kind of like upgrading your endgame armor in other mmos.
I’ll use this example (May not make sense for those who have not raided in other games) I was a top tier raider in everquest 2, and everytime an expansion came out, the gear stat jump wad INSANE, cuz you know, big numbers=big fun. The first piece of raid fear you got for that expansion was a huge upgrade to what you had in the last expansion, but each piece after that, while still being an upgrade, was not nearly AS big of a damage boost.
Masteries work similarly. Unlocking gliding is HUGE. It allows you to do much more than what you could before, like the damage spike from new raid gear in eq2. But, the next tiers of gliding feel less and less like a significant change, like upgrading from that first piece and moving on.
That may not be the Best analogy,but it makes sense to me.
The only thing I think would make the mastery system a heck of a lot more fun would be making them level up differently.
So fir gliding, the first tier would be unlocked via speaking to an NPC who dreams of flight. You then gather things with this nps and make a functional hut not great glider. After that first tier, rather than just killing things to get XP that has nothing to do with the gliding, maybe have the first tier unlock after a curtain amount of time spent gliding, then the next you unlock for reaching places exclusive to gliders, etc.
I think this would be much more engaging than XP farming, which I’ll ne honest, I did a kitten ton of, I am mastery 161 now.
I might make a forum post here in a bit with my suggestions on a better levl up experience for each mastery track to see what people would think of my ideas =P
It’s the same in this game. Getting your exotic armor is a huge boost. Want to go up higher? Well yes you can add some infusions for laurels at a relatively high price for relatively few stats.
Going from tier to tier in this game is not ever a huge boost, not in comparison to having a glider and not having a glider. Yoy either don’t understand what I was saying or you don’t have that frame of reference, either way like I said analogy might not make sense to ever one.
Going from rare to exotic is not a huge jump, and neither is exotic to ascended
You don’t understand what I’m saying.
There’s a huge difference between having a glider and not having a glider. There’s a lot less of a difference though as you move up the line. Like having a glider was leyline mastery isn’t twice as effective as having a glider. For the most part it’s convenience.
In other words the earlier masteries, which are cheaper and faster to level are important as you go deeper into each tree the become less and less necessary.
So you train up a handful of early masteries and then you can take your time and not really worry about the later ones.
I sent items and messages via mail to guildies pretty often. I’d say I send messages almost every day, sometimes many times a day.
We have a monthly sub. It’s called the gem store. You can pay $15 a month every month if it’ll make you happy.
Like it or not, it’s smart business and it works. You all should know as well as I do that some people will get what they can for free for as long as they can. It’s the companies job to keep dollars rolling in. Not to give away everything for free. I don’t think that’s reasonable.
If Anet didn’t do this and did push people to buy the game, a lot of people wouldn’t buy it. But there are things in the game to “encourage” the purchase of the expansion.
Now, I can see why it would annoy someone that they would have to pay after 3 years to keep up with the current game. And I assume some people might even leave the game over it.
But the game has gone free to play and probably for each person who leaves, another few will buy the new game. It’s good business sense.
Yes, but has a problem, once we finish HoT content,we will only have HoT proffitable options. If not fixed we will get less options to play and get proportionate rewards at the same time.
It toke them a lot of time to fix dungeons rewards (they werent perfectionated more since the paths gold rewards acording to difficulty werent finished, they said they were going to do it but didnt in the end), they just destroyed part of their previews advance and as alredy said, limitate players options in the long run for HoT players and inmediatly for core players.
Its smart bussines for inmediate proffit, in the long term the loss of image they get for it and the lower in the welfare of the general population, plus the lack of improved welfare for HoT users (they changed old prenerfed core options for HoT options) will not make the game grow.
What you give as an example its exactly the typical Sales departament vs Marketing departament problems you have in companies when the bussines strategy isnt ruled for long term porpouse, Sales push for inmediate profit in detremint of future rents.
Its a fairly common problem, but history, experts and theory have probed that long term its the way to go for sucefull companies.
Its sad they did it, what they needed to do its make HoT so good that core users want to buy it more, not risk their long term image and players population.
We’ll how much of it we finish when raids come out and the living story starts up again. It’s not just HoT. It’s HoT and everything that comes out from this point on.
I like this concept of having to purchase second driver licence for “free” to drive a car that i want to purchase….
I want a bloody expansion for gods sake not base game for a second f-ing time – who normal does that ?
And no, this core game isn’t free its at least 2/3 of “expansion” price right now.
Terrible example is terrible.
The core game is now free. There is no price for it. So you’re not buying it for a second time.
One of the big problems all MMOs have is natural attrition. Over time, people stop playing. That means that those players have to be replaced from somewhere.
There are already huge barriers to entry for new players to start playing a 3 year old MMO. They’re behind in almost every way. They’ve missed major events. They’ve missed skins and content. They are starting from scratch.
Would you give up everything you’ve made so far to get HoT for $10 cheaper? That’s ridiculous.
So to remove the barrier to entry, many MMOs have removed the need to buy every expansion. They sell the current expansion and anyone can enter for just that price. When a third expansion comes out, those people will get GW 2 and HoT for free. Otherwise you’re asking people to start your game buying three products when they’re already behind.
If WoW and EQ weren’t already doing this maybe you’d have a point, but they area and you don’t.
I have no issue with masteries as is, besides the XP gate. Not all of them will feel as fulfilling as the last, they are quality of life changes to the first tier. Kind of like upgrading your endgame armor in other mmos.
I’ll use this example (May not make sense for those who have not raided in other games) I was a top tier raider in everquest 2, and everytime an expansion came out, the gear stat jump wad INSANE, cuz you know, big numbers=big fun. The first piece of raid fear you got for that expansion was a huge upgrade to what you had in the last expansion, but each piece after that, while still being an upgrade, was not nearly AS big of a damage boost.
Masteries work similarly. Unlocking gliding is HUGE. It allows you to do much more than what you could before, like the damage spike from new raid gear in eq2. But, the next tiers of gliding feel less and less like a significant change, like upgrading from that first piece and moving on.
That may not be the Best analogy,but it makes sense to me.
The only thing I think would make the mastery system a heck of a lot more fun would be making them level up differently.
So fir gliding, the first tier would be unlocked via speaking to an NPC who dreams of flight. You then gather things with this nps and make a functional hut not great glider. After that first tier, rather than just killing things to get XP that has nothing to do with the gliding, maybe have the first tier unlock after a curtain amount of time spent gliding, then the next you unlock for reaching places exclusive to gliders, etc.
I think this would be much more engaging than XP farming, which I’ll ne honest, I did a kitten ton of, I am mastery 161 now.
I might make a forum post here in a bit with my suggestions on a better levl up experience for each mastery track to see what people would think of my ideas =P
It’s the same in this game. Getting your exotic armor is a huge boost. Want to go up higher? Well yes you can add some infusions for laurels at a relatively high price for relatively few stats.
I think it’s quite organic how it happened. Each of them trusts you to start with, and is around when you’re around. So Taimi as an example, had already formed a relationship with Braham in the story. Rox and Braham also had a relationship from the story.
Scarlet was an enemy to everyone. She was an enemy to Rox and Braham due to her creating the molten alliance. She was an enemy to Marjory and Kasmeer due to her interference at first LA and then Divinity’s reach.
As Scarlet become more of a threat they ran into each other more and more. And they all fought by your side.
Seems to me quite natural that they would form a band, considering they had a mutual enemy for more than a year.