(edited by Zeldain.5710)
several million more people play wow lol….
In China maybe
But it’s clear in the western world players said “No” to Pandas and are now playing GW2.
Not quite.
As an aside, an inside source tells me Blizzard will soon announce WoW is back up to 11 million paying subscribers around the world. Where as Guild Wars 2 hasn’t announced any sales milestones since the first one. Peculiar, no?
Exactly, love WoW for this reason: since I am rogue unfortunately, we helped my friend mage get his legendary and a bunch of dragons spawned above our main city and it was a pretty epic scene, the entire town knew when you got that staff lol plus there is always lore behind them & not to mention they aren’t a mindless grind like in GW2.
I also got my legendary daggers that expac but it wasn’t as cool as the staff
Legendaries got ZERO love in this game
I thought the fangs questline was cool! But as you say – nothing at all in this game like they even gave the meaning of “legendary” a thought.
The best weapon skins should come from mastering aspects of the game.
Heck, they should be themed based on what you’ve done.
You should be able to achieve benevolent weapon and armor skins by raising downed and dead allies/using group-altruistic abilities in combat, or jumping in to save a pvp allie in critical condition. Maybe some dark and deathly looking ones for large numbers of pvp kills, or aggressive looking ones for boss kills or challenge modes, or very odd technological ones for completing puzzles or discovering easter eggs.
Each of these would be earnable naturally by “just playing the game” and reflect your playstyle in the process. Then you could make similar-styled items that are craftable for people who like the tone of an outfit but prefer some other playstyle.
The gold sink needs to go though.
But their business model depends on players mastering the cash shop
Not exactly pay-to-win but this is monetization design not game design.
@Zeldain,
In the end I just think you’re making too many broad assumptions. ‘For fans who love mmo’s and the possibilities that cooperative team play hold,’ I know just as many veteran MMO players that love this game to discontent players.
There are players who like anything, that’s not what I’m arguing. Simply stated, GW2 combat leaves the core unique selling propisition of the MMO genre on the floor to rot. There is zero effort at making team playt fun and interesting because they’re too focused on making sure any random player can play any group content without talking or working with another soul.
I think you’re missing the points where I agree the combat isn’t fun.
I did misspeak when discussing comparisons. You’re right. I’m being too strict. The point I was trying to make was in comparison of MMO systems. Every system of the trinity is exactly the same with every MMO. There are tanks that hold aggro, there are Healers that keep players health pools high, there are dps that fight to bring HP down on the target. These are tried, and tested to the point we can bring up numerous examples and draw conclusions of effective, and very ineffective.
On this we agree, the GW2 combat system is very uninteresting. There are basically 8 DPS classes that are very generic in and of themselves. But based on what we discussed above, and believing in ArenaNet’s goals, I don’t think they intend to change anything about combat… so therefore we’re left with what we have. I don’t think it’s a stepping stone at all.
Look at it this way, if I’m wrong, you didn’t waste anymore time on this game. If I’m right, you have a fun game to come back to at some point.
There are too many core, unconditional problems with the design. They’d have to whole-sale change the game for me to come back and play. It’s a shame, because I think it’s one of the most amazing MMO worlds, aesthetically and lore-wise, that has ever been created. (The story telling is abhorrent of course but that’s another thread.)
In the category of well developed (not the FTP trash MMO’s out there) MMO’s please list to me another MMO that has followed GW2’s design to a T.
I’m talking about same mechanics, same classes, same everything. Please don’t list anything if you can’t use the word ‘exactly,’ and instead use ‘like’ and ‘similar’ in your response.
None right? Well of course there aren’t any MMO’s out there exactly like GW2, because the only game that is exactly like GW2 is GW2.
There aren’t copies of any game out there if you’re going to use such strict guidance. They’re all original.
So what do you have to compare to this unique game to list it as a failure in regards to, ‘without this system, you can’t have this’? Nothing.
GW2 is very bland and boring to me. Yet, I don’t kid myself in thinking this is as good as it gets. Sure, we’re not going to see the same boss fights we saw in other games, because GW2 has a completely different system. Though subjective, I agree the trinity boss fights are far more fun than GW2’s. I love having a purpose in my party aside from contributing damage, so naturally I enjoy utility roles in the trinity system. Yet I’m fully aware other MMO’s have had decades to tweak the Tank / DPS / Healer system.
GW2 has had since August to tweak their own class system.
I’m positive this game will find its ‘sweetspot’ in a year or two. That’s exactly what happened with GW1, I have little doubt the same will happen with GW2.
It’s ArenaNet’s design. There were prototypes years before the game came out that were being play-tested. THAT is when they find out if something is going to work or not… not something as major as combat design after launch. I present to you SWG: Combat Update as one case sample.
ArenaNet came to the table with this “manifesto” and one of the first things they say in it is “if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to try GW2”. This, in my opinion, is precisely the way they designed combat the way it is.
It’s designed so that you don’t need to play with anyone else, only along side them. No coordination or communication is necessary, and worse there are no class synergies inherent to facilitate those things.
We just don’t know if this system is a complete mess of a failure, or if the potential will outride this dry period. This system may, in time, demonstrate an amazing array of strategy in combat.
We do know.
There is nothing implicit in the combat design that they will change it to make more strategy and synergy required. The tools and the foundation are not there for it.
The combat is what it is by design, and it simply doesn’t work for fans who love MMOs and the possibilities that cooperative team play hold.