Guild Wars 2

Mastruq.2463:

Vulpis.8063:

Hmm. This is the second thread in a row to use the term ‘CORPG’, and again, no clue what it stands for…nor am I sure why you’re making a distinction, as both are massive, multiplayer games.

Just to clear this up for you the ‘Massive’ is usually used to denote the games with an always existing outdoor world where any number of players can gather (could because servers will just fail at some point if you pile more and more people in). This is in opposition to games that have a lobby setup where the players gather to start their adventures in an area instanced specifically for them. GW1 is still a lobby albeit a pretty one (full 3d environment towns, as opposed to a chat room or just a town square or whatever else). GW2 features the persistant outside world like UO or EQ, hence it is considered a MMO game as opposed to Co-Op game.

Interesting way of looking at it—and completely honestly one I’d never have thought of, as compared to ‘Multiplayer RPG is Multiplayer RPG, as compared to Multiplayer FPS’. Just to make sure I’m understanding your meaning, Phantasy Star Online (also with a lobby, progressing into mission areas) is also a CORPG, correct?

Mastruq.2463:

The people that dont want to do the dungeons are (hopefully) willing to accept that they are not getting the rewards (be it items or achievements) for free.

So Anet just needs to anchor the final achievement differently. Wintersday did that pretty well, you had an achievement track that gave a title at 12 but there were I think 15-15 achievements in total. That way people can skip the parts they dont like (be it dungeons, JPs, grinding something or silly mini-games) and still get the final achievement for the story arc.

I think that suggestion is very reasonable. There will still be people complaining that they cant get all achievements or cant get the dungeon or JP rewards without doing that content, but you’ll always have those no matter what you do.

This is another comment I wish I could give more than a single +1 to.

Though, to give even the worst of the pro-dungeon types around here credit, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a whinefest based around ‘You just want everything given to you for free!’, like I’ve seen on…just about every other MMO when content that’s only suitable for one play type is wedged where it’s not particularly appropriate.

This is why I keep wanting a solable version of the dungeon—I want to have a reasonable challenge (and no, decking myself out in purples to work my way through 5-man content is a rather well above ‘reasonable’. ;-) ), especially if it shows off the design and effort that was put into the instance. I’ve done my best to avoid the really easy solution, which is to trip the completion flag for everyone and let them continue on to the followup scenes (Though…someone in another thread has claimed that that flag gets tripped just by entering the dungeon—I think they’re wrong, but I may have to go check this. If it’s true, it’s kind of a pathetic way to handle the situation.)
Getting handed something like this on a silver platter is nearly as distasteful as not being allowed to get it at all. :-/ I mean yeah, you get the stuff—but you don’t feel like you earned it.

Sinifair.1026:

Elbegast.6970:

GW1 was completely soloable. GW2 should be as well.

I say a hearty “Nay!” to grouped content. This isn’t 2004. It’s time MMOs moved on.

There was also some debate about GW1 being an MMO, as per definition.
- You were required to have Henchmen with you at the very least.

Making an MMO means making a game where players needs to be working together.
- If one individual is not able to do so then he/she should not be playing an MMO in the first place.

MMO game design is for players to be playing together. Massive Multiplayer Online, not Massive Single Player Online with a bunch of people who bugs you.
- Single player games are made for that, whereas the emphasis in any MMO is that the last epic battle against pure evil (and the lieutenants along the way) cannot be done by one person alone. Your character is not a raid boss in an on itself. We just don’t have that kind of power.

I think that if one person can state that an MMO shouldn’t be about Multiplayer content, when that is exactly what an MMO is for, then he/she shouldn’t be playing an MMO.
- I don’t say that as a “Leave us, mortal!” but merely “You will have to accept that Massively Multiplayer content is an essential part of an MMO. If such gameplay design bothers you to the extent that it can ruin the entire game for you, then you should consider whether or not MMO as a genre is your thing.” (and I mean that in the most friendly way possible)

Simple question—why does ‘multiplayer content’ automatically have to mean ‘5/10/15/whatever formal group dungeon’? I keep seeing, over, and over, people posting this trite little ‘If you don’t want to do a dungeon, you shouldn’t be playing MMOs’, totally ignoring all the large body of groupable content in GW2 that doesn’t require a formal group in the slightest unless the participants want to do so. I’m torn between wondering if they’re trolling just to make people mad, or if they really are that completely and utterly ignorant.

Goldrock.9076:

People make grouped content sound like somethin new lol gw2 was intended for all kinds of gameplay style and grouped dungeons oooo nooo shocker thats part of the game that is INTENDED for the group play like it or dont like it but u should excpect it.

But at least the grouped dungeons are a very small end of the content they toss out.

Kind of the opposite, really—the big thing about GW2 (and 1, or at least the later version of 1 that I saw when I played) is that they’ve gotten nearly completely away from the mandatory grouping model, instead providing content that handles being played solo or in groups. Slapping a mandatory formal-grouping dungeon smack-dab on the end of what has otherwise been nothing of the sort sticks out horribly as bad design.

Like you say, there’s only a couple of spots (currently only the 2, and one of those two is going in the trash can in a few days) where that happens—unfortunately, they happen to be rather critical as the final portion of storyline content.

panzer.6034:

People also forget that you don’t have to do the dungeon to see the story wrap up on the 12th. That, and you get the achievement simply by setting foot in the dungeon. Getting the finale of the story is completely separate from doing the optional dungeon content.

Wait…I set foot in the dungeon, and as far as I know, I did not get the achievement—I thought you only got that for completing the dungeon?
Or has this something that’s been changed in the last few days that I haven’t been playing at all?

Jemmi.6058:

Vulpis.8063:

Edit: D’oh! Went and re-read your post, and realized I probably misunderstood your tone entirely—I thought you meant you were disbelieving that average players were up to rares, when you really meant you were disbelieving that the were only as far as rares, rather than the higher grades of gear. Which would put me at even more of a disadvantage compared to the guy in the video for not having gotten there yet. :-/ I’m more casual than I thought.

Hey Vulpis,

Yes, I was definitely in disbelief that average players only wore rares and not exotics. It is clearly the intent of ANet to make max gear easy to obtain.

Might I suggest the following: do what you are doing (maw, JP, other bosses etc), which is easily soloable. Buy a Mystic Salvage Kit (Master + Fine + whatever the other one is called + Mystic Stone into Mysitc Forge). Use Mysitc Salvage kit to salvage all yellows which are worth less than 30s and sell all yellows that are worth more than 30 s on TP. Sell all Ectos you get from salvaging. Within a week you should have enough gold to buy yourself full exotic gear.

Alternatively, you can run the events (meta events and smaller events) and hit up Karma vendors in Orr for Exotic gear. I find this is less desirable, because 1. you do not get the exact stats you want on your armour and 2. it seems slower.

I hope that helps!

Back to the topic about dungeons and non dungeons. We do expect dungeons in a game like this. This, as many MMO games, is based off of DND. In Dungeons and Dragons you team up with a few others and venture into a dungeon. That is where it came from (not WoW, go figure). It’s a lot of fun for some of us, and the entire reason we play the game.

There is waaaaaaaaay more soloable content then there are dungeons, and I appreciate that they added this one. Think of the ratio in living story of solo content vs dungeons. Think of the ratio in personal story. Think of the ratio of number of dynamic events to dungeons. Think of the ratio of number of zones to dungeons. The ratio is clearly in solo plays favour. Let us have our 1 off dungeons and stop trying to ruin the game for others.

Thanks.

Actually, that info probably will be rather useful as a starting point if i can ever make myself pick up the game again—I’d been zone-clearing the lower-level areas, and hadn’t gone to the level 80 ones yet other than poking my nose in to do the ‘Under New Management’ jumping puzzle (just as well, since I’m even less likely to bother getting their ‘normally’ since there’s no real point in bothering with the Personal Story anymore). I haven’t even looked at Orr yet—though I suspect I’m going to regret spending my karma on ‘cultural’ weapons when I do.

As for the rest of your post—to be honest, I don’t think anyone wants the dungeon removed. In fact, I quite fully support the folks that want it to be kept permanantly in some fashion. The core problem is how it ends up being a complete roadblock (there’s a much more appropriate term, but I don’t think the mods would allow it even if the filter did. ;-) ) to those who can not and/or will not tolerate the forced 5-man grouping (as compared to the open-world ‘show up and do stuff’ sort of thing). What’s desired is the dungeon and some other mission/instance/event that lets the rest of us reach the same goal.

toafarmer.8401:

rainynoble.6531:

toafarmer.8401:

I love how we never get a single answer from Anet staff.

Say that to other MMO’s developer/CM.

We will know when it comes out.

Funcom answers questions, Blizzard answer questions. Josh answered SAB questions. Anet is getting worse than EA concerning PR and support.

Anet answers—if it’s a flat-out code bug, or you’re patting them on the back. Otherwise, might as well forget it.

We’ll get what appears to be soloable content in the beginning, only to be bait-and-switched with a dungeon at the end of the story with no alternatives, so that only a few will ever be able to actually complete it before it gets chucked into the waste bin.

Heh…I’m a bit with DoctorOverlord about the devourer.

But, unfortunately what I’ll most remember it is not being allowed to finish it, due to a dungeon being the only means to do so. A dungeon blocking me from being allowed to see the final cutscenes with Rox and Braham in their respective homes, with the viewing of those scenes, not the dungeon itself, being the requirement for the final achievement tick to gain the reward for the overall event. And I’ll remember how easily they could have provided an alternate (but still hard) task that lead to being able to see those scenes and get the final reward—and the laziness shown by not doing so, instead making the past months of participation totally wasted time.

Louveepine.7630:

Why do you criticize absolutely everything all the time?

and especially when it’s better than humans, wham! everyone becomes hateful.
The asura technology makes sense in this world though.

So accept it.

After her would be fun to see more magic in the everyday human, the norn.

Well, mainly the normal humans. The norns already have their own magic, in the form of their spiritual connections and magic, and their various special abilities to survive the harsh environment of the North. It’s more personal and internal, rather than showy like the Charr and Asura, but it’s there.

Admittedly, I do think that the Charr and Asura are both rather overboard—I’d rather have seen Asura more heavily on the straight magic side of things rather than the techno-mages they ended up as (even though I play one), and the Charr…I still can’t figure out out how they ended up going Mad Max from their more barbarian incarnations—maybe it’s the wasteland thing or something.

Gabby.3205:

I’m pretty sure you can pick up from where you left off
But just because this is the first part of the Living Story (Flame & Frost). When the next part starts (The Secret of Southsun), the previous will become inaccessible. You are pretty lucky, considering that you would have missed the final chapter of this story if you had decided to come back next week instead lol

Unless they do the dungeon as well, they’re still going to miss the final chapter. And grinding the rest is pointless, since the only way to get the reward from that is to do the dungeon on top of everything else.

Hmmm. Interestingly, I ended up with a different view on the Destiny’s Edge group…I saw them as their potential ‘players’, had they been PCs rather than NPCs.

Rytlock: Has no life outside the game, and not only pitched a hissy-fit because Logan dared to take a night off of raiding to spend with his gf, he blames Logan for his best friend Snaff rage-quitting the game as a result.

Logan: Pretty much the most average person of the group, not as serious about the game as the others might like.

Snaff: The oft-mentioned but never seen (well, I’m running Asura so I’ve certainly heard him mentioned a lot, though other races might not ;-) ) member of the group who rage-quit after the group wiped. Given the way the rest of the personalities in this group work, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if he was the type to yell for ‘More DoTs!’ and ‘50 DKP minus!’. :-)

Eir: The Leroy Jenkins of the so-called ‘team’, known for running off with ‘clever’ ideas..and giving her own son the brush-off.

Caithe: The nice one, who’s desperately trying to keep her group of friends together, rather than giving up and finding someone else to play with.

Zojja: The one I most identify with, and not just because she’s Asura. :-) Fed up with the entire lot of these losers, and would just as soon go do things on her own. But she likes Caithe enough to try one last time, but is pretty certain it’s a waste of time. (An Asuran player more or less gets dragged along as her GW1-style Hero, for a time. ;-) )

Jemmi.6058:

Vulpis.8063:

derLoko.2185:

molten facility CAN be soloed if you really want to solo it that badly…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOSoOHZ3FCc

edit: and some other dungeons can be soloed as well.

Sorry—spending $100 or so (gems -> gold -> Purples) to get uber-geared like this guy (I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he earned either the items themselves or the gold to buy them from the Trader, as opposed to buying it indirectly with RL cash) isn’t a particularly viable--or palatable—option.
Show an average player being able to do it with just rares and maybe a few exotics, then we’ll be getting somewhere. Nice try, though.

The average player runs around in rares? That is news to me. :| It literally takes 12-15 gold to deck out in exotic gear from TP, or 250k Karma, or a bunch of dungeon runs (or a combination of the 3).. It shouldn’t take you more than a week to get fully in exotics after you hit 80. To give casual players the benefit of the doubt, this should most definitely not take more than a month. On my last 2 characters, it takes me 30 seconds to gear my character in exotics upon hitting 80. The first took about 2 weeks and the 2nd took about 2 days.

Hmms. Point—given I’m not overly casual or majorly hardcore, I was counting myself as an ‘average’ player—and I’ve picked up a fairly decent selection of yellows as drops from things like Jumping Puzzles, the chests from Maw and similar group events (wow, things that you do as a group without having to form a 5-man team! The mind boggles!), and sometimes Daily/Monthly achievements (though the Dailies usually only gave Karma Containers, Mystic Coins, and sometimes Keys, rather than equipment). (My favorite pirate hat was a yellow from a Maw chest, and I’ve been transferring the look across my headgear since, even though I did find a higher-level pirate hat…as well as hitting the Trader for the same Divinity…Mark, I think it is (I forget what kind of upgrade goes where, really. :-/ ) that was on it originally. Of course, I’m a far from optimal build, either—I was rather dismayed to finally go looking at the thief forum and learn that the dual-pistol setup that I chose because I’ve had fun with dual-pistol character in multiple other systems and the Signets I chose for the passives rather than active effects I’d keep having to trigger over and over again are generally considered not just one of the worst thief builds, but one of the worst in the game overall. :-/
Come to think of it, building up my crafting levels and looking into what was needed for making exotics and the things needed for the Mystic Forge was one of of the things I was getting ready to work on before this F&F dungeon mess turned me off from playing GW2 entirely. :-/

Edit: D’oh! Went and re-read your post, and realized I probably misunderstood your tone entirely—I thought you meant you were disbelieving that average players were up to rares, when you really meant you were disbelieving that the were only as far as rares, rather than the higher grades of gear. Which would put me at even more of a disadvantage compared to the guy in the video for not having gotten there yet. :-/ I’m more casual than I thought.

Dark Saviour.9410:

Zanshin.5379:

Join a guild. You won’t have to group with strangers anymore.

Don’t like to group with strangers?
Join an arbitrarily-defined, insular group of strangers!

Totally different.

Atlas.9704:

Vulpis.8063:

Atlas.9704:

Yeah nothing about the term Massive Multiplayer Online implies being with groups at times.
Except for the first two words “Massive” and “Multiplayer” being together.

Annnd…what does that have to do with being in groups? Massive refers to the world setting being massive, especially compared to the rather small worlds usually found in any game not made by Bethesda. Multiplayer means there are other players in the world. There’s nothing in either of those words that says a thing about being forced to team up with those other players. For that matter, there’s nothing there that says anything about actually interacting with those other players, just that they’re in the same game world as you are.

And yet in gaming culture the term MMO usually refers to games where people come together, solve a problem, and are awarded because of it. The problem could be some big bad AI creature threatening things or another group of humans who need to be stopped because of some goal established by the game.

So once again this game was created for people to come together and complete objectives, thus getting rewards.

You may not like the idea of an instanced 5 man dungeon, for the record I’m never keen it either nor the guild part, but its going to be there. The gaming culture expects it thanks to various titles in the past that supplied such things for Online RPGs.

I love how people try to dissect my quote as if that is going to help combat the fact that we will have group instances. The current gamer mindset practically is indoctrinated to find those kitten things.

What GW2 does well is give others options that are away from it, so maybe it will help ‘deprogram’ folks. However we will still have these things and either must accept this or constantly make topics about how we don’t like them and never face the fact it won’t change.

Now I agree with most of the posts saying it shouldn’t be the main focus for the ending, but considering the alternative was the massive zerg battle with lag and not the Karka I’d say we can’t really win this argument.

True…to a degree. But a trend I’m noticing is that while there’s the group who ‘expect’ that sort of thing (though at least in part this is because one famous 800lb gorilla of a game does it, and people roaming elsewhere start pitching hissies because they want this other game they’re playing to be different and at the same time just the same as that famous one…), there’s a fairly significant group of players out there who are flat-out tired of it (to the point of being varying degrees of irritated when they’re stuck doing it) and instead look for the games that avoid using it as their primary form of content…such as Guild Wars 2. To use your phrasing, I think the ‘deprogramming’ is already happening on it’s own.

Kind of amusing thing—earlier today I was, for lack of a better term, meditating on the history of tabletop RPGs, MMOs, and how they progressed and linked to each other—things like the early text-based MMOs being more geared to individual play…and there being a solution to a lack of other players that, while pretty much a stock thing for CRPG/JRPGs (where you’re running the party as a whole rather than just the lead character), Guild Wars 1 is the only MMO, to my knowledge, that even remotely duplicates it without rather silly degrees of additional hardware and makeshift addons.

GM: “This adventure is too much for Bob the Fighter to take on alone.”
Bob: “It is? Not a problem!” <slaps character sheet on the table> “Here’s Fred the Mage, I’ll be running him, too.”
GM: “Alrighty, then!”

KorbanDallas.7389:

@Mojowalker:
For your RL comparison, think of dungeons as your actual job, assuming you work in a place that is a team effort – for example, my last job I was part of an assembly line. I was, in fact in that situation, forced to work with 4-5 other people.

<snippage>

For the argument of it being an MMO – its a stupid argument on both sides. Yes, there are tons of players, and no it isn’t a requirement of to force them to play together. On the other hand, the title is Guild Wars, and it would be silly to think that you would never need at one point or another to be in a guild that had other people. The entire personal story is just one big build up about how the races and people have to combine forces to fight the evil dragon superpower, and I can understand why people hate the idea of doing a dungeon (or aren’t able to for outside-reasons), but I’m sure you would also hate it if you’re final story quest was a zerg tank-n-spank that was boring. Could they have made it an instanced quest, where there was just tons and tons of NPCs in there to give it that feeling of massivity? Probably, but they didn’t. Doesn’t mean they aren’t going to keep experimenting and trying new things.

One final note: the AI hero’s in the original guild wars was a late addition through an expansion – they were not always there. The henchmen used to also be near useless, and could not be taken everywhere. Trying to use them as a basis in reference to gw2 (where mechanics are much more complex) is just as annoying an argument as all the people telling you that “Its an MMO!”

Using RL jobs is probably a not the best example to defend your point, I think—especially for people like me who get stuck with me doing the bulk of the work while the rest of the ‘team’ stand around gossiping or playing with their cell phones. If anything, it reinforces not wanting to be stuck with that in the time you’re supposed to be enjoying recreation. :-)

As far as the GW1 thing goes…hmm. My view there is primarily a side-effect of me having been a latecomer to the game—when I started, I was given the Trilogy set and the EotN expansion by a friend, so my entire gameplay experience (and a good portion of why I enjoyed it so much) involved having access to the henchmen and Heroes, rather than having to hunt down and shanghai other players to get through the missions. As you point out, what I was seeing was quite different from what someone from before those were in place would have seen.

And yeah, the ‘Because it’s an MMO’ thing is getting really annoying, especially since the people who keep using it seem to be fixated on the idea that 5-man teams are the only player interaction in the game. Meanwhile, from my persepective (as far as PvE goes, anyway—I’m not likely to touch PvP in any of the flavors any time soon, if ever) there’s tons of different means of player interaction with the forced-group dungeons being the only one of those I can’t stomach.

Chaosgyro.6023:

I have mixed feelings about the last dungeon. On one hand it was incredibly fun, but on the other I know I could only have completed it by being there during the initial day or two. I don’t have a guild, and hate spamming for a pug, so I needed that crush of people standing around looking for a group.

Honestly e best option would be to have a solo option, with greatly reduced rewards, and a group option that has all the goodies. Reward people for playing in groups instead of punishing people for being solo.

I could certainly get behind that. The gold and karma rewards for something like this are pretty much meaningless anyway—and if you make it Tradable, having special rewards like the Jetpack in the dungeon but not the solo would be a decent tradeoff (and making it tradable would ward off the inevitable complaint about it only being in the dungeon—non-dungeoneers could still get it, they’d just have to pay an arm, a leg, both ears, and their genitals on the Trader to do so. The line for this is always between possible and impossible, never between impossible and easy. ;-) )

derLoko.2185:

molten facility CAN be soloed if you really want to solo it that badly…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOSoOHZ3FCc

edit: and some other dungeons can be soloed as well.

Sorry—spending $100 or so (gems → gold → Purples) to get uber-geared like this guy (I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he earned either the items themselves or the gold to buy them from the Trader, as opposed to buying it indirectly with RL cash) isn’t a particularly viable--or palatable—option.
Show an average player being able to do it with just rares and maybe a few exotics, then we’ll be getting somewhere. Nice try, though.

Zanshin.5379:

This is a MMO. Anet’s devs can’t waste time working on soloable content just for a few people.

Join a guild. You won’t have to group with strangers anymore.

This is a MMO. Anet’s devs can’t waste time working on dungeons just for a few people who can’t grasp the idea that there are other ways for players to interact than being shoved into 5-man teams.

Join a guild. Unless you’re lucky, you won’t be lacking for people you increasingly despise anymore.
(Admittedly, that last is a bit of a stretch—there are a lot of decent guilds around here, though there are bad ones as well—this is true of any MMO. But personally, if I wanted to join a clique I’d have brought my own to start with. I get plenty of social interaction via casual chatting, I have no use for a buddy-circle.)

Pifil.5193:

Whattman.5841:

All I can say is that I am glad that the non-dungeon people seem to be a distinct minority. If you want a game that you play by yourself, then by definition an MMO is not for you. Play a single-player game like the Witcher or something. I hope they have a dungeon in this storyline and all of the others….the more the merrier.

What makes you think they’re a distinct minority? I don’t know what gave you that idea. Wishful thinking I suspect. Only ArenaNet will know if they’re a minority or the majority as they’re the ones who have the figures (or at least I hope they have).

If most of the people who completed the previous part of the Living Story completed the Dungeon then that’s fine but if most of the people who completed the rest of the Living Story didn’t complete the dungeon and most of the people who completed the dungeon didn’t complete the rest of the Living Story then they would do well to ensure that any future dungeons are not required to “finish” the story or if they are required that they scale or at least offer soloable story and a five man dungeon modes. Then everyone would be happy.

Personally, I did the Molten Facility dungeon once with a guild group for the story and I felt no need to repeat it, I would have preferred if it was an optional extra or (preferably) if there was a soloable mode. And I play with others all the time, in open world PVE, in WvW, I just don’t enjoy the five man dungeon model that much.

Indeed. I really do wonder just how much of the player base has never finished a Personal Storyline—and how many hit that last mission and haven’t ever logged into the game again.
And I’m quite in agreement with you—provide solo and group content..though I am compelled to point out that the vast majority of the ‘solo’ content is quite easily done as a group—formal 5-squads or not—as well. The reverse can’t be said about the dungeons, unfortunately.

LameFox.6349:

ForAce.1943:

When AN will bring this feature of ‘easymode’, many ppl will never join party, coz they can do this alone.

Hence it should only be useful for story completion. Then it can just serve to filter out the people who would have been dead weight anyway.

Hate to bruise your ego, but in a lot of cases that tends to be one of the reasons why people would rather run an instance alone, because of the dead weight they end up carrying. This is also part of the reason why more than a few MMOs have been adding soloable content of late—to let them go ahead and do the content, instead of dealing with an endless stream of fail-groups.

Danomeon.3201:

It’s a balance between a wide variety of different elements. consider that the flame and frost storyline is told through all of the following methods…

-Massive group events designed for a large base of players
-Solo collection quests and story content designed for one player
-small personal quest-esque instances that are designed simeltaneously for one player and multiple players
-dungeon content designed for five players

It’s not just solo content followed by a sudden slap-in-the-face dungeon, guild wars 2 has an infrastructure made up of a variety of different pieces molded together that are constantly mingling and interacting with one another. This sort of variety allows players to experience the flame and frost story in different ways, without feeling as if the whole experience is homogenized to fit one playstyle. The group dungeon is also tuned to such a difficulty that anyone who is willing to put in minimal effort to find a group can complete it. It’s not a serious roadblock that is preventing people from completing the content at all. It’s an easily surpass-able speed bump that tells a story in a different way.

I wouldn’t call it easily surpassible, nor would I necessarily not call it a slap in the face, but otherwise you raise some very valid points.

Honestly, I think the fundamental problem was that F&F was only doing one of these things at a given time, providing no options (and the dungeoneers do have as valid an argument about being forced to do the solo collect-a-thons as the rest of us do about getting roadblocked by a dungeon).
What needs to happen is that at any given stage of an event, all of these need to be in play, giving players the choice of which tasks to do, all culminating in the final reward for participating. After all, despite these arguments tending to polarize around dungeoneer vs. non-dungeoneer (come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen any pure solos—those who won’t even do the open-world group content—at all), there are those who like both—and this would give to do one kind of task in one stage, do a different type in another, and run the dungeon in a third, as they choose, rather than being railroaded into one or the other.
And if Arenanet can’t be bothered to put in enough design effort to cover all the bases—they probably shouldn’t be running this content at all, instead putting the effort and money into permanant expansions.

Wolfheart.1938:

Each part of the Southsun story arc should require 5 man groups, so we can stop the whine.

Hee…the whine from the dungeoneers that there should be more content that only they can do? ;-)

Honestly, I would like to see them do this, both to provide another encapsulated storyline like the Destiny’s Edge, and to see see what kind of a minority the pure non-soloists really are, as compared to the ones who just ignore it entirely due to their interest in GW2 being that it’s one of the uncommon games that provide lots of ways to interact other than regimented teams and dungeons.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I don’t want to get involved in the whole discussion about group content vs. solo playstyle in an MMO in general all over again, so I’d just like to reply to the original post.

After MF was so much better than the regular dungeons… I HOPE that there will be an equally fun one in the Southsun story. I am not much of a dungeon player at all usually, but I enjoy(ed) MF so much that I am actively looking forward to a Southsun themed one now.

I can’t stand dungeons myself—but I would have no complaint with them having a dungeon as part of the content, as long as it wasn’t mandatory to completing the storyline.
One downside to GW’s payment method, I suppose, despite how much I prefer it over a subscription scheme—it’s a case of ‘Too bad, so sad, we have your money and you’ve been had’ where there’s no equivilent to the subscription-drop stick to prevent them from pulling this sort of thing over and over again.

HyJinx.4896:

being in an MMO really throws out the point that you should at least make some kind of attempt at some point to do group play…

Hmmm. So I suppose all of those events where groups show up to do them aren’t group play? Or Champions that generally require groups of people in order to take down? Or those events with the big ‘Group’ label in front of them—those obviously aren’t any form of group play, right?
Why do people continue to insist that dungeons are the only form of group play? I’d say the evidence against that idea is pretty overwhelming. If I wanted to keep being stuck in 5-man teams, I’d be playing basketball, not GW2.

Malthurius.6870:

I hope it ends with something as epic as the Molten Facility dungeon, which was and still is at the moment an amazing dungeon by the way.

Bully on the players that don’t want to group up for dungeons; there is enough content for them to solo already, besides, the only other way I can figure to end an arc on an epic note is a world boss like Tequatl or The Shatterer, and even though you don’t have to group for those kinds of fights, you can’t solo them either.

Ending with a solo dungeon or a personal instance would just feel like a fizzle to me.

Honestly…I’m all for the dungeon-runners getting more content. Just don’t start it as solo, only end it with a dungeon—make it dungeons all the way through (and don’t be upset when all the non-dungeoneers out there who bought GW2 because of the lack of mandatory dungeons largely ignore it).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Elbegast.6970:

And NOTHING about the term ‘MMO’ implies that you are expected to form a party to complete content.

Except the word “multiplayer” and the fact that every MMO in existence has some form of high-end group content in PvE. Every. Single. One.

Mmmhmmm. I’m sure they do. Of course, there are also the MMOs that, in addition to this high-end group content, have high-end solo content as well. People like having options, after all.
Interestingly, a lot of people seem to be gravitating towards these these days—a fine example being Trion’s Rift, that made a point of specifically making solo versions of their dungeons be high-end solo content, so that more players could see the effort and rather lovely artwork they had put into them.

Paponzi.1637:

Did you complete every single dungeon alone in GW1?

Who cares about the dungeons? I did, however, complete the entire Factions storyline alone right through beating Shiro (multiple times, actually, since the first time I did it I forgot to bring along my armor materials. :-/), and if I had the desire I could have done the same with the other ones.
This is the point of the OP’s question, really—the F&F story fell on its face in the end because the only option to finish it is a dungeon. I’d like to see an answer to the question myself, and for the same reasons—if all they’re going to do is end it with a dungeon again, I have better things to do with it than waste it (yet again) on a storyline I won’t be allowed to finish, even if the earlier stages are solo content.

Atlas.9704:

Yeah nothing about the term Massive Multiplayer Online implies being with groups at times.
Except for the first two words “Massive” and “Multiplayer” being together.

Annnd…what does that have to do with being in groups? Massive refers to the world setting being massive, especially compared to the rather small worlds usually found in any game not made by Bethesda. Multiplayer means there are other players in the world. There’s nothing in either of those words that says a thing about being forced to team up with those other players. For that matter, there’s nothing there that says anything about actually interacting with those other players, just that they’re in the same game world as you are.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Dark Saviour.9410:

To me:
Jump in and play group content is good.
Content that requires actively forming a group ahead of time = not so much.

These type of things should culminate in areas like the Font of Rhand rather than a traditional dungeon, IMO.

I disagree.

You’ll just have a repeat of the Ancient Karka event, and having the facilities move around wouldn’t be possible due to the map. Each facility would have to be made from effective scrap, rather than the same dungeon entered multiple times with new entrances.

Vulpis.8063:

I need a -1 button, here. The ntire rest of the storyline is soloable content, at varying levels of difficulty. Instanced areas are nice--but giving you no choice whatsoever but a WoW-raid to progress is definitely a pants-on-head stupid direction to go in.

Yes, we do need -1 buttons, so I can start doing them to your posts. Do you intend to spam every thread with this? No offense, but I’m getting sick and tired of you calling FIVE man dungeons “WoW-raids” which were done with up to 40 folks in them.

They’re different, you know. And yes, I know that raids could be done with as few as five folks, but by my understanding none were intended to be done with fewer than 10 – little different than how folks can solo dungeons, but they’re intended for 5 players.

And either way, the GW2 dungeons are not all that bad, nor is it so inhumane to just party with 4 friends/guildies/puggers for ONE run. It’s not like it’d kill you. Hell, you may even enjoy it.

Equally, I might learn to enjoy stabbing my eye with a stick under the idea that one of these times it’ll suddenly be rainbows and lollipops—there’s a reason why I have such a strong aversion to forced-group activities specficially filter my MMO choices for the ones that (seemingly, anyway—-wish I’d learned about the bait-and-switch here before I spent my money) don’t require it for the main content line. I’ve tried it before, and in all my years dealing with it both on and offline (where it’s refered to as ‘team sports’), I don’t think I’ve ever had a reaction that was more favorable than ‘Heavily annoyed at having to be stuck with these people’. One of the few times I actually enjoyed a phys-ed class was when my middle school offered the choice between Team Sports (the classic football/baseball/basketball trifecta) and one on Individual Sports, among which was Archery—I had a blast in that class, learning to do a fun individual sport alongside the rest of the class who was learning that same thing.

I keep hearing about this Ancient Karka event ending—I’m guessing from the descriptions, it was basically like the Maw, Fire Elemental, and similar events, cranked up to 11? If so, that I’d loved to have seen and been in, as that sounds like a properly epic way to end a storyline—or the life of an MMO, since it also sounds like what Paragon did on CoH’s last day.
Maybe Arenanet should quit wasting their money on this content that they’re just going to throw away, or worse only a small portion of the player base is going to get to see, and instead spend it on upgrading their hardware so that it can handle such an event without issue (or figuring out how to upgrade/streamline the client end of things so that it can, if that’s the problem).

Arcturus.5846:

Heres my 2 cents.

I love grouping up. I rather play with someone than alone. I do however HATE DUNGEONS WITH A PASSION. Since completion Arah, I lost all desires to enter another dungeon. The dull 2 minutes of auto-attacking just to kill one trash with no interesting mechanics is something I WILL NOT repeat ever again. Sure it may have gotten betetr but again, im not interested in them anymore.

Dungeons should always be optional for gear and never story.

Hmmm. Dungeons should be optional for the solo story. But there’s nothing wrong with them having their own separate/parallel storyline, to be honest. The problem is when you have that bait-and-switch change-up where the one is not optional for the other.

choon.6308:

Vulpis.8063:

choon.6308:

Vulpis.8063:

Why do people keep trying to claim that formal/forced grouping is the only form of ‘player interaction’ that exists at all? I see plenty of player interaction in MMOs in general, not just GW2, that has nothing to do with raid/dungeon groups.

No one clamied that. I only claimed that it is dangerous to mess with group dynamics in favour of soloers.

Vulpis.8063:

Edit: And I also might point out that conversely, I’ve left MMOs because the high-end content was nothing but forced-grouping, with no solo content to be found..

If grouping is forced and uncomfortable to you, don’t play an MMO. Otherwise you will demand more and more things to be soloable, thus killing the MMO. Judging by the title of the thread, it seems like it is more of a chore than and opportunity to meet new people.

I don’t know how is it a horrible thing to group with 4 other people. Wow, don’t think about grouping with 23 other people then

You…don’t seem to be reading your own words, here.
In one line, you try to say that noone is claiming that forced grouping is the only form of player interaction…and then turn right around and once again state that if you’re uncomfortable with that, you shouldn’t be playing MMOs.

And as for grouping with 23 other people? I don’t. I do, however, quite enjoy open-world/public events where 23 other people show up and work on the task/Champion/Boss alongside me, without the need to actually group. There’s a vast difference between the two play styles. And that’s the wonderful thing about how nearly all of GW2 handles things—you can run it solo doing your own thing, you can run it alongside lots of other people doing their own thing—with you sometime pitching in and then wandering off, or wandering over to pick them up if they happen to be nearby, or you can, if you choose, form a group and do any of the rest of it as a team.

So did I say ‘forced grouping is the only viable playstyle and if you don’t like it don’t play mmos’ or ‘no one is claiming that. If you don’t like grouping don’t play an mmo’ ?

Sorry to break it to you but they are not the same thing. Maybe you should pay attention to what you reading before replying.

Incase you don’t understand: no, grouping is not the only playstyle. But if you don’t like grouping, don’t group ! No one is forcing you. Since you don’t like it or participate in it, what’s the point of demanding dungeons to be soloable ?

Heh. Actually, it’s not so much demanding that dungeons be soloable, as the problem that someone thought it was a cute idea to make the one and only means to complete either the Personal or Living storylines that are otherwise completely free of content that you absolutely have to be in a formal group for (but can be done that way if you choose to, since they scale upwards nicely) be a dungeon. Arah is even a doubly whammy of bad design, since not only do you have a dungeon smack-dab on the end of solo content, you have what ought to be solo content welded on to the entirely otherwise dungeon-based Destiny’s Edge reunion story. The two parts need to be split up, really. As for the Molten Facility…given how it’s been pushed as the epic end to the event, the ‘obvious’ solution is to make a soloable version (since fat lot of good making this ‘epic ending’ is if only a fraction of the people who did the entire rest of the event get to see it), with another solution being to keep the dungeon for the dungeon-runners, and provide an alternate, similarly difficult solo task that trips the same event flags for the rest of us (I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m quite willing to give up the unique dungeon drops in favor of being able to actually get the last part of the story and the reward for participating)

choon.6308:

Vulpis.8063:

Why do people keep trying to claim that formal/forced grouping is the only form of ‘player interaction’ that exists at all? I see plenty of player interaction in MMOs in general, not just GW2, that has nothing to do with raid/dungeon groups.

No one clamied that. I only claimed that it is dangerous to mess with group dynamics in favour of soloers.

Vulpis.8063:

Edit: And I also might point out that conversely, I’ve left MMOs because the high-end content was nothing but forced-grouping, with no solo content to be found..

If grouping is forced and uncomfortable to you, don’t play an MMO. Otherwise you will demand more and more things to be soloable, thus killing the MMO. Judging by the title of the thread, it seems like it is more of a chore than and opportunity to meet new people.

I don’t know how is it a horrible thing to group with 4 other people. Wow, don’t think about grouping with 23 other people then

You…don’t seem to be reading your own words, here.
In one line, you try to say that noone is claiming that forced grouping is the only form of player interaction…and then turn right around and once again state that if you’re uncomfortable with that, you shouldn’t be playing MMOs.

And as for grouping with 23 other people? I don’t. I do, however, quite enjoy open-world/public events where 23 other people show up and work on the task/Champion/Boss alongside me, without the need to actually group. There’s a vast difference between the two play styles. And that’s the wonderful thing about how nearly all of GW2 handles things—you can run it solo doing your own thing, you can run it alongside lots of other people doing their own thing—with you sometime pitching in and then wandering off, or wandering over to pick them up if they happen to be nearby, or you can, if you choose, form a group and do any of the rest of it as a team.

Mastruq.2463:

All of you complaining about dungeons, is the achievement really that important to you?

I mean there are screenshots proudly claiming 0 dungeons completed from the achievement list as some kind of badge of honor in these threads. In that regard this is no different, its nothing new. It’s another achievement you dont have because you refuse to do certain aspects of the game. Which I understand, I dont do some parts of this game either. But I dont complain about not getting the full achievements for it. Every other longer story chain in GW required a dungeon or more (Destiny’s edge story, personal story, halloween, xmas) to get all the achievements, same with F&F.

If it were the achievement by itself, I’d certainly agree with you. The problem is—it’s not just the achievement. In the case of the Personal Story…you basically aren’t allowed to see the end of the story without the dungeon.
But with the Living Story, it’s much much worse. If you’ll look in the Living Story achievement pane, the only one that provides an overall participation reward (The gauntlets) requires completing 5 achievements (and meta-achievements, as I think some have multiple sub-tasks)—the 5th tick for this is not the dungeon itself. It’s for the achievement that has the dungeon as a pre-requisite, which involves you going and watching the scenes with Rox and Braham afterwards.
So if you don’t do this dungeon, not only are you barred from seeing last proper content scenes (as compared to just NPC dialogue-boxes in the Epilogue), but the past few months of effort you’ve put into fixing signs, gathering momentos, fighting off Molten Invasion groups, tracking down multiple flavors of ‘hidden objects’, helping Rox and Braham liberate Cragstead and the Hatchery, and getting bounced around the landscape by the Microphones? You might as well have not even bothered doing any of it, because you’re getting absolutely nothing for the time and effort you put into the event. There’s no secondary prize, no nothing.
The maddening thing? The way this is set up, it’s very obvious that Anet could have provided an alternate mission or something that could also serve as a pre-requisite for those last scenes, with the ‘penalty’ of not getting the unique item drops from the dungeon, but for some reason didn’t.

KorbanDallas.7389:

Think about how annoying those stupid Sonic Recorder things are when you are just running around trying to explore the world and have fun. Imagine if stuff like that popped up on an even larger scale to bother you while you were out exploring!

Yes, it would be nice to experience the entire story in any of our specific playstyles, but you also have to remember : the story isn’t actually done yet. The dungeon tells the story of Rox and Braham going in to rescue the kidnapped folks, but the actual end to all of this happens after the 12th (or whenever it was this phase ended). As far as I know, that means everyone still gets to finish the story, with or without that dungeon.

Actually, I have had a very similar experience to the Sonic Microphones over on DCUO—there, regular level progression ends at 30, whereupon a second progression system kicks in primarily based around gearscore, called Combat Rating or CR. With one of of their expansions, they added a bunch of mobs into their open-world areas designed specificly for players that had the equivilent of all Purples/Ascended gear here..but with not particularly well thoughtout aggro where anyone not at the current pinnacle of gearing tended to run across one of these mobs when just traveling around and get two-shotted. There’s also content for a different expansion that while not designed for the top-rank players nor as immediately lethal, is still highly annoying because of the sheer frequency of the particular spawns across the open world combined with an overall apathy towards that expansion’s content, meaning these mobs aren’t cleared out as often as the spawning code was balanced for.
OTOH, they also never had that rather obnoxious knockback that the Sonic Microphones had, either. Though I must give credit to the physics engine GW2 uses..if you stood behind a sufficiently wide tree, it did block the sonic wave—so my little Asura ended up playing Time Crisis with the things, by jumping out to shoot the thing as much as I could, then ducking back behind the tree (and failing to line up properly quite often, resulting in me getting knocked back anyway). They also have a ‘cooldown cycle’ where they point upwards and don’t fire that’s also very useful, though I’m not sure if it’s related to their remaining health or not when they do it.

And…yes, there’s an epilogue, but as far as I can tell from what I’ve been reading from Anet and others, unless Anet makes a siginficant design decision between now and the 12th, all it consists of is an ‘epilogue’ with dialogue and/or cutscenes and a ‘celebration’ interactable that gives you an achievement tick—that is not one of the ones required for the only actual participation reward for the event. This in part is what is so aggravating about the way this last main section is designed—the final achievement tick needed to get the Gauntlets reward isn’t the dungeon—it’s the two cut scenes that you go see with Rox and Braham afterwards…but the achievement for this has the dungeon completion as a pre-requisite in order to be able to get credit for it. This is what makes me mad, design-wise—it’s blatantly obvious that they could have easily provided some optional means to unlock those scenes and the achivements related to them besides the dungeon, but for whatever reason decided to roadblock it instead—and worse, do it in a way they already know was something that made a good portion of the player base mad. This doesn’t seem like a particularly sane business decision, honestly.

Wolfheart.1938:

So you not liking the rewards (the gloves are pretty cool in my opinion) makes F&F automatically suck? I’m sorry but you have your opinion and I have mine, and mine is that F&F is (was?) an enjoyable piece of content.

Personally (pun intended, since the major problem with F&F is the same problem with the end of the ‘Personal’ Story), F&F could have a lot better, if Anet had provided more and more varied options to allow you to ‘complete’ the content over all and earn a final reward. It seems like they were basically only providing tasks for one play style at a time, and the only choice you have is to play all of them—particularly the ones you loathe. To be honest, they needed to have a collection task and an open-world-event task (like the Molten Invader) and a dungeon at each stage of the content, not just one, and then another, and then the third, especially in a way that roadblocks players who simply can’t stand that content type—instead of being fun for most of the people, it ended disappointing, aggravating, and/or angering most of the people at one stage or another.

On a side question—are there any underwater elite skills for a thief? I get a little tired of that empty last slot for the skill loadout when I’m underwater (one change I’d make to the game, BTW—provide a means to edit your underwater skill set other than actually going underwater to do it…)

Hmm. What we really need is for Arenanet to get a contract with the company, perhaps similar to the one Pelican had for a while, to advertise the N-Strike line ( I think it was N-Strike that had the melee stuff, anyway). They’ve got some rather nice-looking sword and axe designs, and I’d love to see my Asura waving them around in game—and/or brandishing a pair of Maverick pistols or something. :-)

Illysharia.7286:

<snipped purely for brevity>

Thank You
I regret that I can only give you a single +1 as you’ve simply and eloquently summed up everything I’ve been trying to get across here. (I’m not that great a writer to begin with—and being angry not only at the sheer stupidity of the decisions made, but at the trite, cliche, and in some cases totally inapplicable to Guild Wars compared to other games responses that I’ve been getting hasn’t helped).

I would add a small point, though—the dungeon-runners do have at least somewhat of a point in the other direction…they’ve complained about being forced to do solo content just to gain their reward for having done the dungeon (I’m not counting the loot from the dungeon like the Jetpack, here). Granted, I have to wonder why you’re playing here just for the dungeons since that’s a miniscule amount of the content, but still—they really should have had a dungeon at each stage of the Living Story with parallel storyline content, as well as a parallel achievement track that has the same final reward on completion.

Hmmm. I’ve said this before, but why not keep Rox and Brahwen around their home cities, and talking to them results in them basically saying ‘Rox/Brahwen told me another Facility in progress was found—want to help me go shut it down? Make sure to bring friends!’, with an option to be taken to the dungeon. Makes sense narratively, makes people wanting another dungeon happy, and the way the code in SAB worked demonstrated it’s entirely possible to have the dungeon entrance be a character dialogue option rather than a fixed map point.

Elbegast.6970:

The Asura are nothing more than steampunk garbage. They were much better in GW1. Now, they just annoy me with all the stupid technology that should never exist in a fantasy themed mmo.

Bwah? How are you getting Steampunk from the Asura?? The Charr, I can see it easily (either steampunk or post-apocalyptic), but the Asura? They’re magitech pushing toward outright sci-fi levels (forcefields, glowy consoles, etc), definitely not steampunk.
Silvari are basic ‘Elven Organic’…and I keep wondering why in the heck humans are still ‘plain medival’, really.

Wizzlock.3492:

Elbegast.6970:

lordkrall.7241:

Elbegast.6970:

I did read up on GW2. Nowhere did it mention that 5 man dungeons would be mandatory to complete the storylines.

And nowhere did it mention that you would be able to solo every single thing in the game either.

No, but you could solo everything in GW1. So…as stated previously….why should GW2 be any different in that regard?

I didn’t buy this game expecting a WoW clone but it seems Anet is turning it into one.

Because GW1 meant to be (and is) CORPG, and GW2 is MMORPG (and suposed to be from beggining). More than that – I’m sure I’ve seen it dozen times in some of the Anet blogging and stuff, that they treat it as normal MMO – party for dungeon, preparation before adventure and NO HEROES & HENCH etc.
And did You ever played WoW to call GW2 WoW clone? In terms of differences between MMOs, GW2 is quite far from WoW. But hey – You’re comparing CORPG to MMORPG, so why not to talk about Baldurs Gate? That was fun game – and no one ever stated that GW2 will not be Baldurs clone… and it isn’t! – how could they?!
Not that I’m defending GW2, because I find a lot of irritating stuff in the game lately, but there are holes in Your logic (each) bigger than my ego. But I agree that nowhere was stated that all dungeons will be 5 and only 5 people team stuff. But that is different story.

Hmm. This is the second thread in a row to use the term ‘CORPG’, and again, no clue what it stands for…nor am I sure why you’re making a distinction, as both are massive, multiplayer games. And as for comparing? I’d think that perpetrating a play mechanic made most identifyible by WoW, and that endless games copy badly only both ‘Because WoW does it’ and their player base complains that otherwise it’s not enough like WoW would be explanation enough. Especially when this construct is placed in a game that has little need for it due to many, many other mechanics designed to encourage playing alongside and together with other players without needing it, and instead of being properly encapsulated as separate gameplay as it’s predecessor did, is used as a big fat roadblock to completion of content that has had no need of it in any way, shape or form for the entire rest of the storyline?

lordkrall.7241:

Vulpis.8063:

I did try the dungeon—and I am badly missing MOX, Ogden, Gwen, Vexx, and my necro, as the NPCs given to you get flattened in the first room, in positions that get you killed rather than being able to res them. Heck, Togo too.

So, did you get the boss?
Good luck having any use whatsoever of NPCs at that fight.

See the bit about ‘getting flattened in the first room’. I managed to take down one of the veterans, and that was all before I gave up from repeated trips to the spawn point.

Wizzlock.3492:

Elbegast.6970:

Dr Ritter.1327:

Elbegast.6970:

GW1 was completely soloable. GW2 should be as well.

I say a hearty “Nay!” to grouped content. This isn’t 2004. It’s time MMOs moved on.

go play a single player game if you don’t like playing with others

You think in such small terms.

There are people who enjoy seeing other players in the game world but do not enjoy grouping with them. I am one such gamer and there are a great many others like me.

‘MMO’ and ‘Online’ do not automatically mean you are expected to group with others. Go see the first ‘Guild Wars’ for more information.

And again in another thread XD. GW1 was CORPG and yeah – it didn’t force You to group. MMO actually do mean you are expected to finish at least some content with necessity of other player help… and guess what. GW2 is a MMO.
Don’t get me wrong – I love GW1, still play it from time to time, but I don’t expect GW2 to be GW1 with better graphics. It was stated long ago that it will be MMO and I treat it as such. And hey – around 95% (if not 98%) content is purely soloable in GW2. Except dungeons I hardly find anything needing grouping. Not WvW, not even tPvP.
But hey I agree – making last mission depending on 5peeps team dungeon was a stupid idea (and one of worst dungeons in gaming history on top of that).

Repeat after me: ‘Playing with others does not exclusively mean forced-grouping.’

There are lots and lots of ways people together and assist each other in GW2, in the forms of open world events (you know, some of those event alerts are labeled ‘Group’ for a reason). ‘WoW does it’ should never be an excuse for making forced-grouping be the only way to complete a storyline, unless that storyline has been told entirely through forced-grouping instances to begin with (Like the Destiny’s Edge side-story).

Edit: BTW, ‘CORPG’..I’m not familiar with that term. And last I checked, GW1 was a MMORPG as well—Massive world, Multiple players, with the rest being pretty self-evident.
And you’re right, 95%-98% is soloable…which isn’t a problem unless you do something incredibly stupid like making the non-soloable content a complete roadblock to completing the soloable, rather than keeping it properly encapsulated from it.

squashedsquirrel.5408:

I wonder what it will take to get a dev comment on this trend? They seem to be mostly ignoring it. I guess I’m getting spoiled by another game currently in beta, where the devs (including the CEO) are constantly active on the forum (and say they intend to keep it that way into release)… but I’d still like someone from ANet to comment on this or one of the other threads that are talking about this issue.

Honestly? They seem to only be responding to comments patting them on the back, or ones with actual code bugs. Not a peep on anything resembling negative commentary that I recall seeing any time lately.

SnoodBeAR.5286:

To complete the story content I’m being forced into events of big zergs. It has little structure to it and has no tactics, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything but waiting for the event to finish. The instances are repetitive and pretty much identical. I don’t like that! People enjoy bits of different content, we haven’t had a dungeon since release (not including fractals) and it was about time we got one. The majority of people can deal with a dungeon without getting their knickers in a twist, so it’s not much of a problem that they force you to finish the story in that way. Dungeons are also a core part of GW2 (omg, ikr, SHOCKED) being one of the primary ways to obtain gear and the main part of the endgame content, surprisingly I don’t sit in Orr and kill X, pick up Y or go to Z.

Also if every bit of F&F was instances or events I’m sure people would be just as annoyed in the lack of variety of the new content.

I’m actually starting to wonder if we’re playing two different MMOs that somehow have the same name and forums here.
The core content of the GW2 I’ve been playing consists almost entirely of instances, fixed events and dynamic events that are soloable but can be run by groups (formal only in the case of the instances, informal in the case of everything else), along with a smaller number of open world ‘group’ events such a Champions and things like the Maw. The dungeons are specifically side-story chain which is, with one glaring exception, an independant but parallel storyline to the main Personal one. (I admittedly have no clue about the PvP content in any of it’s flavors—though the fact that there has been no need whatsoever for me to have to be involved in it tells me that it’s properly encaspulated from regular PvE play, as the dungeons should have been.)

And as for getting knickers in a twist—imagine a giant department store, with every variety of purchasable there is. You’re quite free to browse and pick up things on your own, buy you discover when you get to the checkout that the only way you’re allowed to pay for things and leave the story is to form a regimented squad with 4 other people and pool both your items and your payment. If you came in with enough friends to do so, you’re fine, otherwise you either have to stand around trying to find people to hook up with (and hope you don’t get stuck with Slimeball Larry and his overloaded cart of partially-used ‘adult entertainment products’) or drop your stuff and leave empty handed. This policy isn’t posted on the front door, only at the checkout. I don’t know about you, but I’d get a bit mad at the sudden changeup…

Mastruq.2463:

Vulpis.8063:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Dungeons are the GW2 equivilant of GW1 missions.

Oh? GW1 missions were specificially designed to be completable by a single player with the the assistances of Heroes and/or Henchmen, or multiple players with the additional players taking up Hero/henchman slots in the group. Kindly show me where the GW2 dungeons are soloable that way.

I dont know, when I played prophecies I didnt didnt find these heroes everyone is bringing up, and with the henchmen most missions didnt really work, required ages or flat out failed.

My guess is heroes is something they added much later? If so it doesnt have much relevance for how prophecies missions were intended to be done, i.e. by a group of players.

And I agree with Konig, GW has raids in the open world, like Shatterer, Temple of Grenth, etc. Dungeons are not raids in the same sense and its hard to take you serious when you fill your posts with twisted references to express your disdain of another game.

Oh? Hmm. I came in late (was given the Trilogy set and EotN as a gift), so it’s entirely possible that Heroes weren’t added until the expansions (I know you can’t even get MOX until you get to Lion’s Arch). I always thought they were one of GW1’s greatest innovations, as they allowed a single player to do what in any other game would be considered a dungeon/raid (or more accurately dungeons/raids, plural, as the later missions expected you to be using either a full team of H&H and/or players, and had difficulty levels set accordingly).

As for my denunciation of ‘raids’—two things here. I’ll deal with the easier one first.
I think there’s a semantic difference in what I’m refering to as a raid and what you and Konig seem to be—the ‘raid’ I’m refering to is any content requiring a formal, regimented grouping of players to complete (It’s been my understanding that the 5-man activities of this type on WoW were also called raids, along with the larger groups—I’ve seen the phrase ‘5-man raids’ rather often). The open world public events aren’t, at least by the definition I’m using, raids, as they’re informal groups of varying size (I’d compare to the Rift public events such as rifts and invasions, but that game muddles the issue by having a largely automated system that bundles people into groups—and when a size threshhold is met, raid-groups—without any player input when they interact with the appropriate content).
As for the disdain…no, it’s not a disdain for the game, nor is it, really, disdain for the play/design type itself. It is, however a disdain (to use it mildly—disgust would be more appropriate, really) for the repeated and often very badly executed shoehorning of the design type into places where it’s not especially appropriate or even needed, nearly always justified with an excuse that boils down to ’We’re doing it because WoW does it’, backed by players who for some odd reason complain about non-WoW games not being just like WoW.
To their credit, Guild Wars handles them better than some (It’s been a while, but I seem to recall Champions’ Lairs being story-roadblocks…but mitigated by there being several separate storylines you could be working on at a time), and worse than others (Rift realized a while back that their dungeon instances had beautiful design work people wanted to see without getting killed in 5 second flat, so they made versions that were soloable and set them as level-cap+ content). The dungeons in GW1 were properly-encapsulated and self-contained mini-stories. The Destiny’s Edge side-story chain are in and of themselves nicely done (though pretty obviously only in dungeons as an excuse for having dungeons in the first place), but the encapsulation breaks down horribly at the end—there’s no excuse for having sudden requirement for the end of a dungeon, nor is there one for requiring the personal mission to complete the DE storyline…the two should have been kept separate. F&F handles it even worse—the dungeon should not be the only way to end the story, and conversely, there should have been dungeons all along, running a parallel storyline (the people who investigated the Molten Alliance, and brought that information to Rox and Braham to be acted on, perhaps?)
Someone else has already complained about being forced into doing the open-world and solo content, while liking the final dungeon…and on reflection, they’re absolutely right. Arenanet’s dropped the ball even worse than I originally thought, by focusing on only one flavor of content at a time, when they should have been providing tasks for every play type at each stage of content. (which does remind me—the people who should really be pitching fits around here are the PvPers, as there was no PvP/WvW content involved here at all..)

Heh. On the one hand, this reminds me of the Luxon/Kurzick split in GW1 (in my case, I joined because of the armor…and then learned that certain locations I wanted for map completion were owned by the other faction—and once you’ve joined one enough to continue the story, grinding faction for the other is a pain).
On the other—three points to note:
a) Shoulda done the wiki research on the faction armor styles first,
b) I don’t thing any faction is particularly ‘faster’ than another,
c) If you noticed, you couldn’t access the faction vendors before you joined a faction, either—they flat out tell you they’re for that faction’s members only. (I ran across Vigil HQ while map-clearing before I joined the Priory, so I know)

Sollith.3502:

Well how about Anet just meeting players in the middle? I like the idea that the content is temporary and only happens once over a certain period(s) of time, but it’s also a shame to see such good content just disappear.

I suggest that they adapt it a bit; make the “story mode” version of it end here, removing the more unique items and stuff, and tweak the dungeon a bit to make it more of an explorable one. Remove the unique limited time items (keeping them unique and limited lol) and replace it with some more generic reward potential. My suggestion would be to add Molten tokens and allow these to be exchanged for somewhat generic, albeit useful, items related to the theme of the dungeon (fiery heavy metal stuff stuff ); maybe stuff like a grab bag like the orrian jewel box, but have it loaded with themed items ( everything from junk to molten lodestones, etc.) a tonic that sets you on fire… uh and other… stuff.

Keep the bosses and stuff, maybe even add an additional path to it (maybe finally add a jump puzzle path to a dungeon? I would love a more Ocarina of Time Zeldish kind of dungeon with puzzles and obstacles and a few bosses to break up the puzzle solving), but keep the instance.

Actually, (and as I’ve posted elsewhere by now) I quite agree with you—to be a Living world, there needs to be permanant content alongside the transient. My suggestion here? Have Rox and Branwen be permanant NPCs in their respective hometowns—when talked to, they give the options of giving you a synopsis of the F&F event, send you to a version of their related instance mission (Cragstead/Hatchery, edited to reflect that this is another, similar location, not the one one you actually went to in the event—in the case of Rox, the whole interaction with Frostbite would have to be edited. :-) ), or a version of the Molten Factory dungeon (again, edited to reflect it being a trip to a subsequent factory, not the first one seen in the event).

Minion of Vey.4398:

Vulpis.8063:

Kain Francois.4328:

What I’m wondering is why so many people hate it? :S

Because a) You can only have it on one character on your entire account, and
b) The only people allowed to get it are the dungeon-runners, since there isn’t any alternative way to get (or at least get credit for) the cutscenes that complete the achievement track.

I haven’t seen much complaint about the gloves otherwise. Kind of a shame really—if they looked horrible, I wouldn’t mind so much being locked out of getting them and having totally wasted my effort and participation for the last couple of months.

Why not do the dungeon?

Because it’s a dungeon and forces you into a group, instead of providing options for both group and solo players like the old GW1 storylines gave you?