Guild Wars 2

sorudo.9054:

RabbitUp.8294:

sorudo.9054:

RabbitUp.8294:

If you mean the launch-era trailers, they have nothing to do with “Living World”. The personal story is indeed affected by your choices, the ones you make at character creation and your choice of order.

yet in the end nothing affects the story, ether way the story barely to not changes whatever you choose.
i finally hat the time to get trough the 1:30 last mission (kill zaithan) and there was nothing to be found of my choices.

It affects the progression of the history, not the ending.

Expecting a personalised ending in an MMO where everyone shares the same story is quite delusional.

the personal story is instanced, there is nothing shared about that.
try again please but this time research a bit more.

I think researching a bit more is absolutely in order.

Immediately after the manifesto came out, Anet published a clarification. Ree Sosebee was talking about personal story, Colin was talking about dynamic events. This was discussed at the time in great detail.

Taking an old trailer out of context is almost always going to get you some misinformation, because the other stuff surrounding the trailer is as important as the trailer itself.

There are loads of things I’d love to stress, that are completely meaningless. Is this a bad idea? No. Is it the kind of idea that I think can’t be stressed enough? Again no.

It’s not a bad idea to have contests, and some contests have happened before. More to the point, there are channels that Anet has that promotes Art already. They have pinterest sites, they call out art sometimes on their podcasts and on their twitter account. Seems like people are posting art almost every day on reddit.

I just don’t think this issue is that important. Same thing with RP. RP attracts a certain kind of player. But there’s no much RP in League of Legends and it’s certainly one of the most popular games of all time.

The game is what it is and people who are interested in it will find it and stay. Some people who might be interested in it will miss out.

At the end of the day this is your opinion, and I don’t know that most people will agree with it, and even if they do, they likely won’t agree with how strongly you stress that opinion.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Or collections, such as the Caladbolg one. That one’s not too difficult.

The Caladbolg quest requires a Vision Crystal, an Account Bound Ascended component. What are the odds people who don’t high-level FotM or raid have the spare Ascended to salvage in the hope of getting one? Of course, they can craft it…

Or get one from their monthly log in rewards if they just once choose the ascended reward option instead of laurels. There is that.

Edit: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chest_of_Ascended_Crafting_Materials

NcSoft owns Arenanet and has since before Guild Wars 1 launched. Anet creates and publishes Guild Wars 2.

Monk Tank.5897:

That wasn’t because they moved. That was because of Bank Fraud.
I’m curious as to why Anet is in Seattle in the first place? Are there some underwater internet cables going to Asia from Seattle?
All the lines going to Europe are on the East Coast. Wouldn’t it make for faster server times as a whole if the Servers were located in NY? Or anywhere on the East Coast for that matter?
So people in Europe have to ping to the East Coast, then down to Texas, Then up to Seattle, back down to Texas, up to the East Coast and then back to Europe? Put the Servers on the East Coast plz.

There are lots of software companies in Seattle, including Microsoft and Amazon. It’s apparently a popular spot for software development, though I’ve never understood why.

A company owned by another company can’t just up and leave. It’s just not that simple. Anet can’t just decide to walk away from a parent company and the parent company might not allow it anyway. Even if Anet wanted to, it might not be possible, and without knowing more about structural specifics, it might not be good for them to do so.

DDOS attacks are annoying. This isn’t the only game getting DDOSed right now. Solutions may not be easy to implement and may take some time.

Moving won’t necessarily change any of that.

Many of the limitations on free to play are to prevent gold sellers, like map chat and not being able to send mail or items. This game has a responsiblity to protect against goldseller spam. You might not remember the free demo weekends by I do. They sucked for me. I’m glad these limitations are in place.

lawfan.7095:

I’d say players are fairly unfriendly on the HOT maps. And will not really help with anything.

You’ve had very different experiences than I’ve had and I’m in HoT maps pretty much every day.

Haleydawn.3764:

“Play their way” … “Play the way you want” …

I remember those phrases people quoted from Anet, they mean you can get the relevant gear how you want to play. And we can, we can craft/purchase Ascended armour and weapons from all game modes, you can purchase/earn Exotics in all game modes too.
That’s what play how you want means. It does not mean you can beg for Legendary skins without doing the content.

If I want Gold Fractal Skins, I go do Fractals.
If I want Ardent Glorious Skins, I PvP.
If I want a Legendary, I do the requirements
The skins are the optional content which does not prevent you from playing the game.

So tired of those phrases being tossed around like they’re law.

I agree. The play your way was never intended to guarantee every reward. It’s a quote bandied about out of context to try to make some kind of point. In the words of Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word…I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

If it did, then if my play style was standing in Lion’s Arch I should be able to get every reward by just doing that.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Obtena.7952:

I think you have to be a little more honest than this. The market is a spectrum and if you are on the fringe of that, there is no sensible financial reason to take a limited resource to capture it at the expense of the core market you serve.

…snip

Then they better rethink their whole immersion into MMO’s. Again, show me an MMO does not follow the “do this get that” algorithm … they don’t exist. Ever MMO work ‘on rails’ because the whole thing is hardcoded into the game. Game AI has to get much better than it is to adjust activities and rewards to a players preference or gamestyle.

Show me an MMO other than GW2 that gates endgame rewards behind mini-games that have nothing to do with your character.

Not that it’s an MMO, but there is Guild Wars 1 polymock.

Zehnchu.4985:

Vayne.8563:

Zehnchu.4985:

Vayne.8563:

I maxed out all the masteries in HOT just from doing HOT anyway before the living story stuff even came out.

I am sure a lot of people did too when it was still shinny, yet it still doesn’t dismiss the fact that it is a flawed system.

The majority of mastery points in HoT and base game are gained from achievements only, how many mastery points gained by Mastery insights 36.

That doesn’t make it flawed. Even mastery insights are an achievement. So 100% of the mastery points are based on achievements. They put enough easy stuff in there (strong boxes and insights) to get all the basic ones. If you’re decent at arcade type stuff there’s far more you can get easily.

You can get many in Dragon Stand just by running the meta. The system isn’t flawed because you say it’s flawed.

At the beginning people were getting them because it was busy and new. Now they can further that goal in new zones as well.

Not sure what you find flawed about that.

If you can’t see the difference between achievement and Mastery insights you have nothing further to add

Oh I can see the difference. If you can’t see the difference between easy achievements anyone can do and hard achievements that take time and energy than you’re probably right. There’s nothing further to add.

You seem to think achievements are all hard and all take time when in fact quite a few of the achievements are not actually harder or more time consuming than communing with a point.

For example you can get a single mastery point for communing with an insight and you can get a single mastery point for opening a strong box. They both take equal amount of time. They’re both achievements.

You can get a mastery point for gliding under 3 arches in AB which anyone can do in a matter of seconds, but that’s also an achievement.

You can get an achievement by doing events during the dragon stand meta…in fact, virtually every achievement in dragon stand is attainable just by playing dragon stand normally without doing anything unusual. That’s a fair whack of achievement points.

So saying a mastery insight is fine and dandy and other achievements are bad because they’re not mastery insights is just a bit of a misnomer.

To be fair there are harder achievements to get also, but they’re not as numerous as the easier achievements to get.

All the achievements you actually need to play the game can be gotten with easy achievements.

But they’re still ALL achievements. You’re simply arbitrarily removing the easy ones and saying this are okay because they’re easy. I’m adding easy ones to the list. The way to find achievement points is simply to look at your achievement panel…even the mastery insights.

The problem with doing this with multiple people is killing the golem too fast. Just have some people not attack it to get the achievement. Took me a while to figure out.

Zehnchu.4985:

Vayne.8563:

I maxed out all the masteries in HOT just from doing HOT anyway before the living story stuff even came out.

I am sure a lot of people did too when it was still shinny, yet it still doesn’t dismiss the fact that it is a flawed system.

The majority of mastery points in HoT and base game are gained from achievements only, how many mastery points gained by Mastery insights 36.

That doesn’t make it flawed. Even mastery insights are an achievement. So 100% of the mastery points are based on achievements. They put enough easy stuff in there (strong boxes and insights) to get all the basic ones. If you’re decent at arcade type stuff there’s far more you can get easily.

You can get many in Dragon Stand just by running the meta. The system isn’t flawed because you say it’s flawed.

At the beginning people were getting them because it was busy and new. Now they can further that goal in new zones as well.

Not sure what you find flawed about that.

LyricDawnhagen.7803:

At this point, AP and XP are just numbers that I see briefly appearing on the screen that do not mean anything and do not change anything. While it is a sad thing to learn that these numbers are worthless, I have found that I can sometimes enjoy my time in GW2 a bit more now that I have accepted that those numbers are truly just useless screen artifacts and no longer have any effect on my characters or account.

Except that this isn’t actually true. I’ve gotten some pretty cool skins out of getting achievement point chests and my karma, experience and magic find boosts are pretty impressive. Admittedly I’m an achievement point hunter.

The number itself might be meaningless but saying you get nothing for it is not true. I like getting karma faster and leveling masteries faster.

Zehnchu.4985:

The mastery point system is fundamentally flawed the most notable is the majority of new players aren’t going to pay for content just so they can unlock a game mechanic. Linking to achievement system that already has a reward. All they managed to so was turn something personally rewarding in to a mundane task that must be completed in order to advance there is no other way around it. HoT is almost 2 years I don’t see the player base I used to see.

Of course the player base is less for a two year old expansion than it is when an expansion launches. In what game doesn’t that happen.

That may or may not have anything to do with masteries at all. Not to put too find a point on it, but I maxed out all the masteries in HOT just from doing HOT anyway before the living story stuff even came out.

Mavis.1463:

So their only job is meddling and deciding how people should play their game. That explains why they never bother fixing bugs, improving game modes like PvP and whatnot. They’re too busy adding stupid kitten to spite their dwindling playerbase.

The list of bug fixes in this game is long and extensive. Anyone who does even minimal research can see bugs are fixed with virtually every patch. As with most games, bug fixes are prioritized, but anyone who says Anet doesn’t bother fixing bugs isn’t paying attention.

There have also been myriad improvements to the game. Right clicking on salvage kits to salvage all of a certain rarity at the same time was one of them. You may personally not like that changes, but it doesn’t mean changes aren’t made.

As for the farm options, anything that encourages unattended gameplay is against the TOS and Anet certainly should do something about that.

Faaris.8013:

Vayne.8563:

It doesn’t really matter if players have 186 ore 147, as long as they masteries allow them to do what they need to do in the game.

costepj.5120:

But that’s ignoring the fact that the additional masteries are only required for S3 maps. If you haven’t unlocked S3 why would you care about lava tubes and oakheart essences?

For me, that sounds weird, but sure, my idea of playing might be different from what most people consider fun. From a pragmatic point of view, you are both right. You don’t need fractal/raid/S3 masteries if you don’t play the content. But having a “186” at your name tag does make a difference in how others treat you and it feels “complete”. And it was so much fun when I saw that XP bar moving again when I hit 186. It’s not logical, because you only get a spirit shard each time you fill up the bar, but the feeling is nice. And we are not playing the game out of logical reasons, like in real life, we want things we don’t necessarily need.

Taking that to an extreme, which masteries are really needed? If you don’t plan on getting a legendary weapon, you don’t need the masteries. No fractals, raids or Season 3, no need for the masteries. Even if you bought LW S3 episode 5 but don’t like Draconis Mons much and only visit it to get an ascended trinket, the mastery doesn’t make much sense. To be honest, I rarely play there, and not always use the spiderman mastery.

If you follow that line of thinking to an extreme, we could probably say that most people actively use only maybe 20 mastery points playing the game. Everything in the Pact Commander line is useless to me except auto-loot. I basically never use anything Exalted Lore offers, and Auric Silver has no value. I could go on with that, but the truth for me is that I still wanted that 186, simply because completing things is fun.

It makes no difference about how anyone I know treats anyone, considering many WvW players who are absolute pros haven’t done much with their masteries at all. Same with PvPers. This is a non-issue.

Anyone who cares about that number probably isn’t worth playing with anyway.

Faaris.8013:

Vayne.8563:

Anet has gone the other route, adding more points in new zones than are needed to get the masteries in those zones. As time goes on you need to depend, for example, less and less on adventures, because there’s more masteries points to choose from.

30 of 185 HoT Mastery Points are coming adventures. 53 are from Raids and LW S3. Not everybody purchases LW S3 and even less people can get the points from raids. For a majority of players, there is no way to avoid Adventures if they want to max out the masteries. You need 137 HoT Mastery Points to do that.

Even if you get gold in all Adventures, all communes/strongboxes and even do all collections and crazy JPs, you still have to either do raids or purchase an episode LW S3.

It is not easy to max out masteries, that’s why we see much more players with 140 to 170 or less MPs than with 186. On the other hand we see much more characters at level 80 than <80, because maxing your character level is indeed easy. The surplus points in the new zones are a step into the right direction, but 30 points from adventures is a lot.

People who have been here all along and play even semi regularly have gotten LS 3 for free. I imagine that’s a substantial portion of the playerbase. Raid masteries are covered by raiding. If you don’t raid you simply don’t need raid masteries and if you do raid, there are enough masteries in raids to get them.

It doesn’t really matter if players have 186 ore 147, as long as they masteries allow them to do what they need to do in the game.

The ONLY real issue is the spirit shard issue. Does a person who’s not going for a hot legendary need every mastery? Nope, they don’t. And if they are going for a HoT mastery, the work is fine. It’s a legendary after all.

Djinn.9245:

Tumult.2578:

Vayne.8563:

Tumult.2578:

None of the posters here even see a problem with coming upon a player that has obviously taken a champ down to the last hit before death by themselves, and they would take that one shot before that player if they can, every time and then go “oh, were you trying to kill that?”

I don’t have a problem with it, because no one owns a champ. If you want to really practice, solo a dungeon. That will give you real practice. and no one can interfere.

I don’t either. That was not a complaint. I was simply trying to see if anyone else sees the difference between cooperative PvE and forced or required cooperative PvE. I’m not saying forced cooperative PvE is bad at all, just that it could be interesting to play in a game environment that required someone to group up before joining in a fight, or getting some form of acceptance before a reward can be earned, or even some system that awarded loot fairly but based on damage done or time spent or heals done or any number of entitling actions.

Clearly not the way the thread went, once more info was added.

You don’t think that GW2 awards loot based on how much participation is done? I get a copper event chest or sometimes none at all depending on how late I come to the event. If that isn’t based on participation, what is it based on?

This has nothing to do with anything I said. Not even a little.

Yes, there is some requirement to get participate, but that requirement is often very small. There are events I’ve gotten gold on that I wasn’t even aware I partiipated in while running from one place to another.

And still has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

Tumult.2578:

None of the posters here even see a problem with coming upon a player that has obviously taken a champ down to the last hit before death by themselves, and they would take that one shot before that player if they can, every time and then go “oh, were you trying to kill that?”

I don’t have a problem with it, because no one owns a champ. If you want to really practice, solo a dungeon. That will give you real practice. and no one can interfere.

Djinn.9245:

Pax.3548:

Djinn.9245:

Pax.3548:

Dorothy Sapphire.4392:

Yes I really hate that A-Net is forcing me to do achievements that I care nothing about and don’t really want to do. Not including enough Mastery points on the HoT maps themselves to finish all the masteries is a bad decision on their part. In order to get the last 12 mastery points I need to finish the last mastery I have to do achievements, and I do not like doing achievements. Why should I be forced to do a part of the game I don’t want to do to get my legendary short bow? A-Net please I know you can find challenging ways to add more mastery spots on the maps themselves so those of us who don’t like do the achievements don’t have to. It is like telling every play you must do raids or you must play wvw or pvp. Let us play our way.

Unbelievable, you want anet to mail you your wanted legendary too? there is a reason why those are called “legendaries” and crafting most of them will mean a lot of time, work, patience and sometimes doing things you don’t like. You don’t wanna do archievements? forget about your legendary weapon and there you go.

Seriously ppl are getting more and more lazy by the day, what good are legendaries if you can easily get them? where will the satisfaction of making something difficult go? sigh…

How does “I don’t like this” = “you are lazy”? I don’t like to eat squash. If eating squash was a requirement to finish becoming a chef, the fact that I don’t really want to do it doesn’t mean I’m lazy or want it for free. That is completely illogical.

Lazy as “I want to make something but want to do it with the less effort possible, including the stuff I don’t like” call it what you want, If you want to do something everyone must do if they want the same thing, you’ll have to accept doing everything needed to craft that legendary, if you need to complete archievements for it, then you’ll have to do it, simply as that, raging that you must do things you don’t like at the forum to craft stuff that is not obligatory is just whining about something you’re too lazy to do

Complaining to a company about something you don’t like about their product is perfectly acceptable. No, you don’t have to accept doing what everyone else did. Map completion used to include WvW and now it doesn’t. Things change – often from player input which Anet themselves said.

And you can continue to say “lazy”, but since it is obviously the wrong word that’s on you lol.

I’m not so sure that WvW was changed due to player input. It’s just as likely it was changed due to the upcoming desert borderlands, which would have a strong affect on a side’s ability to complete the map, due to all the completion being bound to the alpine borderlands. Anet had to either make it so desert borderlands completion was a thing, or take it out of WvW altogether.

There are plenty of things people don’t like to do in a game to get option gear/achievements. I’m not sure anyone likes to get shield kills. Plenty of people don’t like running dungeons, but you need to to get a dungeon master title. Even if you like running dungeons, you might not like path 4 of Arah or the Aetherblade path.

Asking for those to be removed from the dungeon master title because you don’t like them makes no sense.

ALL mastery points are achievements. Everyone one of them, including the mastery insights you commune with. But if they were all communes as well as achievements, then no one would be complaining. It’s not that they’re achievements that’s the problem…it’s the nature of specific achievemements.

But then you have a problem of people who don’t like one specific set of achievements who want X removed and people who don’t like another set of achievements that want Y removed. If Anet removed everything that everyone didn’t like there would literally be nothing left to play to get your maseteries done.

Anet has gone the other route, adding more points in new zones than are needed to get the masteries in those zones. As time goes on you need to depend, for example, less and less on adventures, because there’s more masteries points to choose from.

But saying Anet should not have mastery points bound to achievements because you don’t like achievements generally isn’t likely to be helpful. It’s the core of the system and it’s not likely to change.

The adventures were one thing because they were so far out of the realm of what people expect in an MMO, but they’ve become less and less necessary as time has progressed.

The problem with making something so easy everyone can do it is that you then lose people from the other end of the spectrum.

There’s lots of stuff I don’t like to do in this game and there are rewards tied to all of it. But if they took out everything I didn’t like in this game the game would have far fewer players.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

I said this games are completely different genres.

Except it isn’t true. It’s not like you’re comparing fps with turn-based strategy or old style platform game. The differences are small enough that while GW1 is definitely not a mainstream MMORPG, it could easily be considered an edge case. While some of its features are those usually belonging to single-player CRPGs with multiplayer component, others are leaning more towards the MMO side of the dividing line (which, by the way, is not very precise in the first place).

Even the quote that is so often brought up here, explaining the dev reasons of calling it CORPG clearly shows that it was a decision based on preference. They could have called it MMORPG, they just preferred to underscore its other aspects.

And yet when people say they come from Guild Wars 1, the first and most common comment is about not to expect this game to be like that game. They are in fact vastly different. People have been saying it so much it’s almost a meme.

I mean no one complained about too much jumping and mario brothers in Guild Wars 1. We have neither heroes nor henchmen. And you can run into random people while playing the game in the world.

Similarities aside, many many Guild War 1 players were vastly disappointed at how far Guild Wars 2 had strayed from the original.

And that’s unfortunately part of the promise many felt, because a single line in the manifesto said:

“Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that’s got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees.”

People have been complaining about that line since launch. I’m pretty sure it’s not because these games are so similar.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

It’s a different genre of game, because it’s completely different. You can’t randomly run into strangers while playing in the “open world”.

Yes, it’s completely different in that one aspect of the game. :p
Not to argue that it’s not a CORPG. Nor that that aspect isn’t different enough for its own genre btw. But to say it’s completely different is obviously not true.

As to the previous request, it was regarding the reason of why they called it differently, not that they called it differently. I already knew that one. I just badly quoted it. I was wondering if they actually said it was to temper people expectations, or if it was to stand out or both. I never heard them say either, though, but to say it’s not to stand out is kind of silly as the whole game stood out anyway.

Oh and even ArenaNet acknowledges the many similarities with an MMO:

Is Guild Wars an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)?

Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs, but it also has some key differences.
Like existing MMOs, Guild Wars is played entirely online in a secure hosted environment. Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world. Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them. Unlike many MMOs, when players form a party and embark upon a quest in Guild Wars, they get their own private copy of the area where the quest takes place. This design eliminates some of the frustrating gameplay elements commonly associated with MMOs, such as spawn camping, kill stealing, and lines to complete a quest.

Guild Wars takes place in a large virtual world made up of many different zones, and players can walk from one end of the world to the other. But Guild Wars eliminates much of the tedium of traveling through the world. Players can instantly return to any safe area (town or outpost) that they’ve previously visited just by clicking on it in the world overview map.

Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to create the best possible competitive role-playing experience. Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill, not time spent playing or the size of one’s guild. As characters progress, they acquire a diverse set of skills and items, enabling them to use new strategies in combat. Players can do battle in open arenas or compete in guild-on-guild warfare or the international tournament. But engaging in combat is always the player’s choice; there is no player-killing in cooperative areas of the world.

Finally, unlike existing MMOs, all characters in Guild Wars inhabit the same virtual world -they are not divided onto different servers or shards- so players can always team up with or compete against any other player in the world.

I love how people take a single word and try to disprove a premise by taking the word literally. That’s not how arguments work. Dogs and cats are completely different animals, even though no one can deny they have similarties. MMOs and lobby games are completely different animals for any number of reasons even though they too have similarites.

(…)

They are completely different types of games, even though they have similarities.

I was just being technical. You can compare GW1 and GW2. As long as you don’t lose the picture that they are different games. They just aren’t completely different games.

hell, I even stated that I wasn’t trying to disprove anything other than that.

They are completely different games whether they’re different genres or not. As my example pointed out, they can have similarities and still be completely different since the term completely different doesn’t literally mean what you’re implying it means. Even though a dog is a completely different animal than a cat they’re both mammals, both have four legs, both share a lot of common genes, but they are completely different animals. I said this games are completely different genres. A text adventure is a completely different genre too but even that can have similarities with Guild Wars 2, yet no one would say they’re not completely different.

And of course when people mention they come here from Guild Wars 1 virtually the first thing people tell them is not to expect Guild Wars 1.5 this is a very different game. And part of the reason for those differences is that it is a different genre of game. That’s all I’m saying.

To a lot of people who came from Guild Wars 1, they had certain expectations based on that game in that genre and to them, Anet has broken a lot of unspoken promises.

I think people have have played lots of MMOs know that MMOs change all the time and you can complain that things were tried and didn’t work till the cows come home, but stuff is going to change. None of it was a promise, it was an intention that didn’t pan out.

Just a matter of perspective.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

It’s a different genre of game, because it’s completely different. You can’t randomly run into strangers while playing in the “open world”.

Yes, it’s completely different in that one aspect of the game. :p
Not to argue that it’s not a CORPG. Nor that that aspect isn’t different enough for its own genre btw. But to say it’s completely different is obviously not true.

As to the previous request, it was regarding the reason of why they called it differently, not that they called it differently. I already knew that one. I just badly quoted it. I was wondering if they actually said it was to temper people expectations, or if it was to stand out or both. I never heard them say either, though, but to say it’s not to stand out is kind of silly as the whole game stood out anyway.

Oh and even ArenaNet acknowledges the many similarities with an MMO:

Is Guild Wars an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)?

Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs, but it also has some key differences.
Like existing MMOs, Guild Wars is played entirely online in a secure hosted environment. Thousands of players inhabit the same virtual world. Players can meet new friends in gathering places like towns and outposts where they form parties and go questing with them. Unlike many MMOs, when players form a party and embark upon a quest in Guild Wars, they get their own private copy of the area where the quest takes place. This design eliminates some of the frustrating gameplay elements commonly associated with MMOs, such as spawn camping, kill stealing, and lines to complete a quest.

Guild Wars takes place in a large virtual world made up of many different zones, and players can walk from one end of the world to the other. But Guild Wars eliminates much of the tedium of traveling through the world. Players can instantly return to any safe area (town or outpost) that they’ve previously visited just by clicking on it in the world overview map.

Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to create the best possible competitive role-playing experience. Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill, not time spent playing or the size of one’s guild. As characters progress, they acquire a diverse set of skills and items, enabling them to use new strategies in combat. Players can do battle in open arenas or compete in guild-on-guild warfare or the international tournament. But engaging in combat is always the player’s choice; there is no player-killing in cooperative areas of the world.

Finally, unlike existing MMOs, all characters in Guild Wars inhabit the same virtual world -they are not divided onto different servers or shards- so players can always team up with or compete against any other player in the world.

I love how people take a single word and try to disprove a premise by taking the word literally. That’s not how arguments work. Dogs and cats are completely different animals, even though no one can deny they have similarties. MMOs and lobby games are completely different animals for any number of reasons even though they too have similarites.

For example, scaling dynamic events to large numbers of people means dynamic events are harder to program than quests in games where you always have exactly the same number of people. I can easily make a quest for 8 players and heroes, but making one that scales from 1 person to 20 or from 5 to 50 makes it a completely different proposition.

The reason why necros can’t raise corpses anymore, but create minions from thin air is because you might have 10 minion masters all in the same event. Anet didn’t want them competing for corpses. The story telling has to be different, because a lobby game is actually closer to a single player game than an MMO for story. You can do things with an instance that you can’t do in the open world. That’s why when you do the story in Guild Wars 1, the “open world” and the story you’re doing match each other. You’re doing the first four missions in Prophecies and you’re in the Ascalon area for those missions and everything matches what you’re doing. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have that advantage in the open world, since you can’t really be THE hero in an MMO. The way the zones themselves are programmed has to be completely different. For example Anet originally was going to give each person a hero but they decided against it when they saw how it affect performance in an open world. A hundred players each with a hero would have caused too much lag.

They are completely different types of games, even though they have similarities.

Blude.6812:

Legendary Grenth.3561:

Im kinda kittened they went back on they’re word about not wanting to include mounts

At least they are consistent, say one thing then do the opposite.

I’d love to see a quote where Anet said there would never be mounts in this game. I haven’t heard or seen anything like this. I’m pretty sure it’s never actually been said. People have said it, but I don’t believe Anet did.

Ashen.2907:

Amaimon.7823:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

According to Blondie, expac #2 will be “Losing to Time (Lot)” and LS #4 will be “No Peace of Mind (PoM)”

Once we killed a dragon, but it was reborn
Soon turned out, had a Heart of Thorns
Seemed like a dead thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, jungle’s gone behind

Once I knew a god and he was divine
Soon found out he was Losing to Time
It seemed like the real thing but I was so blind
Mucho mistrust, Balthazar’s gone behind

In between
What I find is pleasing and I’m feeling fine
Tyria is so confusing there’s No Peace of Mind
If I fear I’m losing because it’s just no good
You killing like you do

blondie?
you have a source on this?

Its a joke.

Blondie is a musician.

Those are parody lyrics to the song Heart of Glass.

Technically Blondie is a group, Debbie Harry was the musician but yeah.

Or find some friends who play the way you do, or a casual guild. It’s not that hard. Or start your own LFG. The loot isn’t the problem, the problem is people. You can’t change human nature. The same stuff happened to me in Guild Wars 1.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

People will keep doing DS so long as they need Ore. It’s the rarest currency/mat in the game since you have to do a long winded 2 hour meta to get ~50ish pieces. Of course, most people just declare kitten it long before they get everything they wanted to that needs ore, since it’s so annoying to acquire.

Gen 2 legendaries all require it.

Astralporing.1957:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

In case anyone is interested, here’s the official ArenaNet site page declaring Guild Wars is a Competitive Online Role-Playing Game, way back before it even launched.

“Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game).”

https://web.archive.org/web/20040602202532/http://www.guildwars.com:80/faq/default.html

That’s from the time where they still thought pve would be a mere introductory lobby for a pvp-centered endgame.
The main reason why they haven’t changed the description later on to MMORPG is because they’ve been using CORPG acronym already for some time, and it was easier for them to simply change the word behind the letter “C”.

I assume you have a quote for that, because I don’t believe that’s the case. They didn’t change it to an MMO because they knew it wasn’t an MMO. I sure knew it wasn’t an MMO. I’m frankly amazed than anyone thinks it is.

I’ve played many many MMOs. They all have worlds where I can run into other players while playing the game. I’ve also played lobby games. Guild Wars 1 was a lobby game by any definition.

It’s easy to call it an MMO, because it shares leveling and multiplayer, but that’s not the definition I’ve heard of an MMO and there’s been a whole lot of talk about it for years.

If people can’t see the difference between games like WoW, Rift, Lotro, Aion, SWToR, ESO and yes Guild Wars 2 and Guild Wars 1, I’m not sure what to say.

It’s a different genre of game, because it’s completely different. You can’t randomly run into strangers while playing in the “open world”.

There is no living world in Guild War 2, I agree. There’s only a living world in Guild Wars 2 compared to most other MMOs which have static quests. The idea of a living world isn’t meant to be taken literary, but within the context of the MMO genre.

There is no living world in any themepark MMO, and not truly a living world even in sandbox MMOs. That’s because no server is actually capable of running a true living world, at least not yet. It will happen in the future, be we don’t live in the future.

Edit: To be sure there was more of a living world during Season 1 of the Living Story and the complaints about it from the playerbase were both myriad and vocal.

Psientist.6437:

Vayne.8563:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

Conner.4702:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You know, the information found in Wikis is only as good as the lay-person editing the page. Anyone can edit a page and place whatever information they choose.

There aren’t enough non-stardard MMO-type games, probably, to merit a CORPG separate entry.

Of course, that doesn’t make a game any less a CORPG, rather than a true persistent-world MMORPG.

Just need to point out that GW2 does not have a true persistant world either. It’s all instances. So I guess GW2 is a CORPG too

Well if you want to get technical, WvW maps are persistent if nothing else, even if they reset once a week. But the meaning is clear.

Guild Wars 2 has a world were MASSIVE amounts of players can PLAY together at the same time. Guild Wars 2 didn’t.

That’s the point of a massively multiplayer online game. In Guild Wars 1 you played with at most 11 other people. No one I know would consider that massively multiplayer.

Playing with 100 people at the same time in the same event? That’s more like what an MMO means.

If you really want to get technical, several of the seasonal events definitely let you play with a large amount of players at the same time.

Not to mention community events held just as massively.

It’s alot more sensible to put GW1 in a gray area between MMO and just MO, than to hold on to some ideal MMO standard that is most likely changing over time. I mean, really, the only thing that is being held onto is the amount of players you’re playing with, all the while the similarities between each of the games are extensive and very obvious.

Plus, even GW1 had grind. There were lots of even more grindy farming methods than gw2 has. Ranger trapping in UW, 55HP monk solo, 600hp monk solo, etc.

Wanted an Icy dragon sword? Get ready to farm. Wanted obsidian armor? Get ready to farm. Crystalline Blade, anyone? And all of it was RNG.

I might agree with you if Anet themselves have said that Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO, both directly and implied by the original Guild Wars 2 FAQ. I don’t think it’s going out too far on a limb to say that Anet knows what they’re making better than either you or I.

Players are just as familiar with GW1 and GW2, or any other finished game, as the studio that made the game. Players are as skilled as any studio at game taxonomy. Of course this is not true of the back end, just the playable content. I agree with FrizzFreston.

Parsing the minutiae of game taxonomy does not help a studio be more innovative. Innovation blurs the lines that divide one game type from another and if we want innovation we need to yield to the position that game taxonomy can be inexact.

Yep and I remember a lot of people coming to Guild Wars 1 and leaving because it wasn’t an MMO as per the players coming and leaving. They couldn’t run around in the “open” world and see other players.

In the FAQ that came out before Guild Wars 2 came out, they specifically asked the question is Guild Wars 2 a true MMO, which pretty much implies Guild Wars 1 wan’t. Guild Wars 1 is a lobby game and lobby games aren’t MMO. You meet in a lobby, you gather a party and you walk into an instanced area where you can see no one but your party. You may personally call that an MMO but I’m pretty sure most people who played MMOs and tried GW 1 walked away complaining it wasn’t an MMO…and those people were right.

I came to Guild Wars 1 from WoW and even though I liked it better I’ve always been aware it wasn’t an MMO.

Guild Wars 2 is because I can encounter random players in the open world. A lot of people seem to confuse a continguous world, like WoW has for an open world, which Guild Wars 2 does have, even if it’s in zones.

Most people won’t classify Guild War 1 as an MMO unless they’re people who don’t have a lot of experience with other MMOs. It’s true a lot of people who played GW 1 and no MMOs did call it an MMO, but I’d not agree with that assessment.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

Conner.4702:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You know, the information found in Wikis is only as good as the lay-person editing the page. Anyone can edit a page and place whatever information they choose.

There aren’t enough non-stardard MMO-type games, probably, to merit a CORPG separate entry.

Of course, that doesn’t make a game any less a CORPG, rather than a true persistent-world MMORPG.

Just need to point out that GW2 does not have a true persistant world either. It’s all instances. So I guess GW2 is a CORPG too

Well if you want to get technical, WvW maps are persistent if nothing else, even if they reset once a week. But the meaning is clear.

Guild Wars 2 has a world were MASSIVE amounts of players can PLAY together at the same time. Guild Wars 2 didn’t.

That’s the point of a massively multiplayer online game. In Guild Wars 1 you played with at most 11 other people. No one I know would consider that massively multiplayer.

Playing with 100 people at the same time in the same event? That’s more like what an MMO means.

If you really want to get technical, several of the seasonal events definitely let you play with a large amount of players at the same time.

Not to mention community events held just as massively.

It’s alot more sensible to put GW1 in a gray area between MMO and just MO, than to hold on to some ideal MMO standard that is most likely changing over time. I mean, really, the only thing that is being held onto is the amount of players you’re playing with, all the while the similarities between each of the games are extensive and very obvious.

Plus, even GW1 had grind. There were lots of even more grindy farming methods than gw2 has. Ranger trapping in UW, 55HP monk solo, 600hp monk solo, etc.

Wanted an Icy dragon sword? Get ready to farm. Wanted obsidian armor? Get ready to farm. Crystalline Blade, anyone? And all of it was RNG.

I might agree with you if Anet themselves have said that Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO, both directly and implied by the original Guild Wars 2 FAQ. I don’t think it’s going out too far on a limb to say that Anet knows what they’re making better than either you or I.

Conner.4702:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You know, the information found in Wikis is only as good as the lay-person editing the page. Anyone can edit a page and place whatever information they choose.

There aren’t enough non-stardard MMO-type games, probably, to merit a CORPG separate entry.

Of course, that doesn’t make a game any less a CORPG, rather than a true persistent-world MMORPG.

Just need to point out that GW2 does not have a true persistant world either. It’s all instances. So I guess GW2 is a CORPG too

Well if you want to get technical, WvW maps are persistent if nothing else, even if they reset once a week. But the meaning is clear.

Guild Wars 2 has a world were MASSIVE amounts of players can PLAY together at the same time. Guild Wars 2 didn’t.

That’s the point of a massively multiplayer online game. In Guild Wars 1 you played with at most 11 other people. No one I know would consider that massively multiplayer.

Playing with 100 people at the same time in the same event? That’s more like what an MMO means.

Having done the TD meta dozens of times, and having almost never seen this, this is still widely blown out of proportion. It’s not nearly as big a problem as the Queensdale champ train was, as far as causing drama.

This is simply a non-issue. It should never happen. But it has happened on rare occasion. It’s not as big a problem as many of the things we’ve seen in core Tyria, like the Queensdale Champ train, or events that have to fail to get collections, or even something like the ember farm in Cursed Shore when that existed. It’s nothing like the problems we’ve seen in Coiled Watch.

The problem is human nature, not HoT nor the TD meta. Basically if you have hundreds of thousands of people playing a game, you can’t guarantee they’re all going to be reasonable. Saying it’s the fault of the meta or the zone is simply not really understanding the problem.

Stevieboy.4192:

I don’t mind grinding to get things with in reason, I accept I have to work for the things I want but when I only get one decent drop every 3-6 months that’s worth anything, It’s hard to justify the time I pour into this game for the very minimal rewards…
Yet until the next big decent MMO comes along it’s either GW2 or the drivel on TV…

This game is a game of trickles. I barely get anything worth anything either, yet somehow I’m sitting on thousands of gold.

If all you play for is the big drop you’re probably playing the wrong game. I have enough gold for everything I want, without buying gems and selling them, btw.

Your view of the game is skewed by expectations, probably from previous games.

Mavis.1463:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Mavis.1463:

Arenanet tried to reinvent the wheel and failed catastrophically.

On the contrary, it succeeded wonderfully.

Uh, yeah it was so succesful the game lost the vast majority of its original playersbase and was forced to go F2P.

Your definition of success s a bit skewed.

Well, by your definition WoW lost most of it’s original playerbase, as has ESO and SWToR. The fact is that happens with the vast majority of games. It’s not a critera for success.

On the other hand, Guild Wars 2 makes 4 million dollars or so a month, 1.5 years after the last expansion which anyone who knows the industry would call successful.

Ayrilana.1396:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Ashantara.8731:

@OP – You miss the most important part: Those key people talking in the trailer, the veterans from GW1, are no longer part of the team. Founder Mike O’Brien (I loved that guy) left, and so did Ree Soesbee (she was great), and Daniel Dociu (his son took over as lead artist who apparently prefers a more modern style than good old-fashioned classic fantasy). That’s why GW2 has become more and more of a grinding game with weird new designs. And in many aspects it tries to copy other MMO’s core content (raids, for instance) instead of staying true to the original vision. I’d prefer to have better storylines personalized for my characters (race, background, alignment etc.) than new ways to ridiculously move through a map etc.

So I am currently desperately looking for an alternative, because GW2 just isn’t cutting it for me anymore (I’m merely hanging by a thread, trying to fill the “gap” with new characters only to experience some of the good content again on my way to Level 80). I am so bored most of the time. It feels too repetitive, as you correctly stated (and adding new means of travel doesn’t help the issue). Unfortunately, all the other MMOs out there are just as repetitive. The original vision of what GW2 was supposed to be has been canned in many aspects for the sake of satisfying those standard MMO players. While it still has a uniqueness about it, it is gradually fading. Quantity doesn’t equal quality.

P.S. This video summarizes the issue pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

When did MO leave?

He probably meant Colin. The problem with his assertion is that people were probably even less happy with the game over all when Colin was here (my opinion only) than now. I believe a number of people believe the game has shifted back in the right direction since Mo took over as the game director.

I can’t prove it, but it seems to be the case. Thus the argument for people leaving being the problem is probably not accurate.

It might, however, being new people coming in rather than people leaving, since Anet did hire a raid designer and an AI guy in the past couple of years.

The direction change had to have started when Colin was still here since all of the LS teams were in production at the time.

My opinion is that the direction change is from them listening to the players just as they had with the previous direction.

I agree they listen to players. The problem is they don’t listen to all players, just the vocal ones, which unfortunately don’t cover everyone. The people who don’t express their opinions in enough numbers are the ones that miss out…ie the most casual percentage of the playerbase, which is probably a pretty large group.

If you don’t vote, you can’t complain when someone else gets in office.

Ashen.2907:

Ashantara.8731:

@OP – You miss the most important part: Those key people talking in the trailer, the veterans from GW1, are no longer part of the team. Founder Mike O’Brien (I loved that guy) left, and so did Ree Soesbee (she was great), and Daniel Dociu (his son took over as lead artist who apparently prefers a more modern style than good old-fashioned classic fantasy). That’s why GW2 has become more and more of a grinding game with weird new designs. And in many aspects it tries to copy other MMO’s core content (raids, for instance) instead of staying true to the original vision. I’d prefer to have better storylines personalized for my characters (race, background, alignment etc.) than new ways to ridiculously move through a map etc.

So I am currently desperately looking for an alternative, because GW2 just isn’t cutting it for me anymore (I’m merely hanging by a thread, trying to fill the “gap” with new characters only to experience some of the good content again on my way to Level 80). I am so bored most of the time. It feels too repetitive, as you correctly stated (and adding new means of travel doesn’t help the issue). Unfortunately, all the other MMOs out there are just as repetitive. The original vision of what GW2 was supposed to be has been canned in many aspects for the sake of satisfying those standard MMO players. While it still has a uniqueness about it, it is gradually fading. Quantity doesn’t equal quality.

P.S. This video summarizes the issue pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

When did MO leave?

He probably meant Colin. The problem with his assertion is that people were probably even less happy with the game over all when Colin was here (my opinion only) than now. I believe a number of people believe the game has shifted back in the right direction since Mo took over as the game director.

I can’t prove it, but it seems to be the case. Thus the argument for people leaving being the problem is probably not accurate.

It might, however, being new people coming in rather than people leaving, since Anet did hire a raid designer and an AI guy in the past couple of years.

Faaris.8013:

Djinn.9245:

Yes, that is what I was referring to. Commanders often start asking people to leave the map far before the meta starts.

I noticed the same thing, it’s kinda weird and funny. When I’m doing the Q&A achievement in Rata Novus that takes some time, or even if I just want to roam, honestly, I don’t care that people do the meta at the same time. I’m not interfering directly, and that my mere presence on the map keeps one other player from joining it for the meta is not my business.

I get that people want a map where most people do the meta, but asking people to leave is still not ok. You guys can leave coordinated, all at the same time, and a brand new map will open up for you, without plebs like me who just want to do some quests. That’s how gw2community does it when they need a clean map for Triple Trouble.

And since a commander can’t force anyone to do anything at all, one would think the idea is to ask people to finish up their events since the meta is coming and move to another map. They don’t lose participation this way. The events on any other map at that time are likely to be roughly the same and end at pretty much the same time, so there’s very very little reason I can think of not to finish up an event and change servers.

However, people can say unreasonable things in map chat at any time for any reason and nothing changes. People may or may not remember that the same thing used to happen when Tequatl was new.

I’ve been all over HoT, it’s pretty much the game I’m playing now, and I seldom see commanders asking for people to leave anyway. I have seen it happen, but very very rarely and even then, not in a way that I would have considered offensive.

Commanders who single people out , or who act abusive are breaking the TOS and should be reported. Commander who ask people to please find another map aren’t necessarily out of line for asking. And people who are doing nothing more than just events, unless they’re with an existing HP group, have no real reason to stay on a specific map anyway.

This is nothing more than a storm in a teacup.

Ashantara.8731:

@OP – You miss the most important part: Those key people talking in the trailer, the veterans from GW1, are no longer part of the team. Founder Mike O’Brien (I loved that guy) left, and so did Ree Soesbee (she was great), and Daniel Dociu (his son took over as lead artist who apparently prefers a more modern style than good old-fashioned classic fantasy). That’s why GW2 has become more and more of a grinding game with weird new designs. And in many aspects it tries to copy other MMO’s core content (raids, for instance) instead of staying true to the original vision. I’d prefer to have better storylines personalized for your characters (race, background, alignment etc.) than new ways to ridiculously move through a map etc.

So I am currently desperately looking for an alternative, because GW2 just isn’t cutting it for me anymore. I am so bored most if the time. It feels too repetitive, as you correctly stated (and adding new means of travel doesn’t help the issue). Unfortunately, all the other MMOs out there are just as repetitive. The beautiful vision of what GW2 was supposed to be has been canned for the sake of satisfying those standard MMO players. While it still has a uniqueness about it, that is slowly fading.

P.S. This video summarizes the issue pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

Founder Mike O’Brien did not leave.

Furthermore the dates that Guild Wars 2 diverged from what was said back then according to a lot of people was the introduction of ascended gear, which happened a mere months after launch. Most of the people in that video were around during the creation and release of HoT.

The fact is, a manifesto is nothing more than a statement of intent. They had certain intentions in the production of the game that simply didn’t work and when something doesn’t work you change it.

The concept that most people who played the game are now dissatisifed with it, is not necessarily true and it’s certainly untested.

The idea that the game is somehow worse now, or less people enjoy it is not a provable position. It’s simply an opinion. The easiest type of opinion that can be subjected to confirmation bias.

The fact that you don’t like this game as much, doesn’t mean other people don’t like it more. But this game was as critictized there months after launch as it is when HoT launched and a lot of players left even back then. When everyone in the manifesto was still with the game.

The idea the game has changed drastically because specific people left is not only an unprovable theory, but it’s most likely a mistaken one.

So many people in this thread suggeset more people liked this game pre-hot than now. There’s not any hard evidence to support this.

The biggest “evidence” people use that is that a year and a half after HoT launched, the number of dollars the game makes quarterly has dropped to about half of what it was, which is certainly in line with other MMOs a year and a half after an expansion launches. Another example of confirmation bias.

The fact is, all these opinions are simply opinions, and people trying to find evidence to back up those opinions.

In some cases, as with this post, the stated facts using to back up the opinions are factually incorrect.

So I take it the OP is suggesting that Anet shouldn’t listen to the playerbase and adapt the game to what the players ask for. Because there were a whole lot of people who didn’t like season 1. People complained about Scarlet, about the story, about the lack of time to do achievements, about not being able to replay their favorite things.

Perhaps Anet would be in a better place now if they kept putting in and removing content, so that new people had no new content at all, only the original content.

I can’t see why anyone would make such an assertion. The Living Story was abandoned because it didn’t work, period. Whether you liked it or you didn’t like it, it drove players from the game and continues to be a problem to this very day.

Djinn.9245:

The other problem with the HoT metas is commanders asking non-participants to leave the map. Yes, I should stop what I’m doing in the middle of an event and go to a different map where the event might not even be happening at this time or will stop in the middle because I have to start over again so won’t be finished before the meta starts.

The HoT metas were a terrible idea.

There are a lot of people that play just for HoT metas. It may be a terrible idea for you but they’re popular and populated and people seem to like them.

Far more people do HOT metas than a lead up event to a HoT meta, even though I love doing those events as well.

However, most events, and all the significant ones don’t run when the meta is happening anyway.

Linken.6345:

Well in the middle of the night ds tend to fail mate.

I have never failed DS in the middle of the night. It’s always day somewhere and people play this game all over the world. I’m in Australia and I run it more in the wee hours of the US morning than I do during prime time US and I can’t remember the last time we failed a run.

ProtoGunner.4953:

I wonder this always so called ‘you buy gems back with gold which others bought with real money etc. So there should be a limited amount of gems. But I never see it to happen. I can hardly imagine that there is a limit where they tell a willing player who wants to buy gems with real money ’sorry dude, we are out of gems’.

Unless there are always people willing to sell gems they bought with cash to people who want to pay with gold. Fewer people likely farm gold, compared to the number of people who buy gems to sell, that’s my guess.

I think fantasy where people talk like real people is better than a lot of fantasy. Why? Because none of these people are actually speaking English. They’re speaking some other language.

Why wouldn’t they use colloquial speech, or slang, or casual sentences. This is how people talk after all.

I don’t think this makes the dialogue more childish at all. What it makes it is less formal. Pretty sure it’s intentional and I, for one, like it.

Halandir.3609:

Randulf.7614:

If you have bought HoT, you have full access to the content therein. LS3 is not part of HoT. The confusion comes from needing HoT to play LS3 (you can even bank it for free it as a f2p by logging in every 2-3 months) due to the mastery progression system.

Aww – That’s it I guess? Yet, so many voices told us we were wrong when we said that HoT was a half baked, content lacking piece of DLC sold as an “expansion”. People kept defending the lack of content with statements advocating HoT like a “season pass” to the (meager) HoT package + the promise of L3 story content.

So HoT is basically: Gliding, 4 different 4-layered maps, 1 elite spec pr. profession and a few core buffs? Compared to most other games: Overpriced DLC?

But HoT isn’t half-baked, you just see it that way. Without any of the DLC the four HoT zones are my favorite areas of the game.

Aside from that, however, there are very few triple A MMOs that don’t have a sub free, or an “optional” sub fee. Not like I know anyone seriously playing SWToR that doesn’t sub.

At the end of the day $15 a month for most triple A MMOs (including ESO for the first year), means a lot more than kitten expansion and no monthly fee.

I seriously think people have no clue. They bought a game for $60 or less, played it for three years, then have to pay $50 for an expansion to keep going and they think somehow this is overpriced.

It’s not like people who were here were charged for Season 1 or Season 2 of the Living story.

You can have the opinion that HOT was half-baked, but there are many things in the game that were half baked. We were told at launch we’d have guesting but we didn’t have it for five months. The end game at launch was practically not existent and many people started and left because of it.

The company keeps providing stuff for what is essentially a very low buy in price.

But people will complain no matter what.

Edit: On top of that HoT was a season pass for me, since I have all five episodes of the living story unlocked and I haven’t paid a single cent for any of them.

This farm was fine until the engineers took it over. It was done daily and often I know this because I’ve participated in it on multiple characters on multiple times of day, back when we used to run up the slope as intended.

The fact that people found a lazy way to do it, often unattended is why we can’t have nice things.

Magic find generally doesn’t affect chests, it affects loot from kills. I’ve seen a difference. That’s because I play an account with a low magic find and a high magic find. That doesn’t mean you’re going to get a ton of exotics from the content you do.

Btu then I do fractals and get exotics quite frequently.

If you’re grinding for months, you don’t know how to get the gear. First of all, the jewelry gives the most stats, armor the least. You absolutely don’t need ascended armor. Almost all the new living story zones give you some kind of ascended jewelry and back pack. most people can get a piece in a week or if you have multiple characters faster. Ascended amulets can be bought by anyone with laurels. So can ascended rings and earrings.

Fractals drop ascended rings pretty much link candy and high level fractals drop other ascended gear as well.

In fact it’s never been easier to gear up in this game, even with HoT stats.

That said, if you don’t own HOT and can’t get to the new zones, that’s another issue. If you want to stay current with any MMO you need to own the expansions.

There are a number of drops for collections that are very rare. There’s also drops like spirit links from Shadow Behemoth. There are special rare drops like modrem weapons from Dragon Stand. They’re so rare, when you do get one, it’s like winning lotto. The same is true for precursors.

I’ve gotten three precursors since I’ve started playing as drops, but in addition, I’ve gotten other stuff. I’m always happy when I see a skin that I haven’t unlocked yet, for example. If your focus is on skins for most players, you’ve got a while to go after you start to feel like you’re not getting value. And salvaging gives me the mats AND the skin.

I also get ascended drops in fractals and PvP and WvW. Tonight I got a Vine of the Pale Tree, an ascended ring I can use on one of my alts that uses marauder stats. Perked right up.

I’ve gotten minis as drops from time to time, particularly during holidays. I mean everyone wants more drops. But as soon as drops get more common you take them for granted, just like rares, so it’s pointless.