Guild Wars 2

All I’m going to remember about this event is how ANet bent over backwards for its players to try to make up for a mismanaged Lost Shores event, and how people refused to look past the noses on their own greedy, entitled faces, demanding more and more. The wanters will hold out a hand to beg for more whilst stabbing you repeatedly with the knife in their other hand.

The dungeon suffered from bugs that kept some from getting their cogs, so Anet (knowing they don’t have time to hunt down who missed out and who didn’t, at least not before the event has ended) quickly steps up and gifts everyone some cogs to make up for that. Similarly, the chest has the same problem, so they gift everyone through the mail too. And people have the gall to respond to these free gifts with more complaining, crying about how some people got more than others because they didn’t have the bugs and blah blah blah. Yes, the bugs should not have happened. But they did. And ANet thought it best to respond to them quickly. I think they did an amazing job with this event, and have been very prompt in trying to make right with any of the problems in this event.

What I love most of all is this logic that you DESERVE all five minis from this event. I assume none of the people complaining about this event have ever played GW1, because in GW1, nobody just got free minis. You had to pray to the RNG gods (and sacrificing a few goats to them didn’t hurt) to get just ONE, because they had absurdly low drop rates. This game has been way more generous in how it dotes out its minis so far, and people have the gall to complain about that. It’s entitlement mentality in a nutshell with these folks. Pay them no mind, ANet. You did good this year.

I find it interesting that people get so mad about not being able to automatically get the minis. Did you guys really play GW1?

Because in GW1, the only way you could get a lot of these minis was either shopping around (and they cost an insane amount) or else sacrificing a whole herd of goats to the gods of the RNG.

Here you’re being given two minis for free, items which (I may add) have absolutely no bearing on your game play, and you’re complaining?

Narkosys.5173:

Populations dropping bugs all over and DR forcing me to buy gems if I want to keep up with the dungeon grinders cause that is the only way to make gold. The game is in trouble and will be f2p in Feb.
I do wish they had listened to us the people gaming instead of throwing us under the bus maybe a lot more have stuck around an supported the game.

GW2 is on a buy-to-play model (akin to GW1 and standard video games) and the likelihood of it ever becoming free to purchase in stores like Gamestop and such is slim to none. It’s relatively unlikely for an MMO to go “f2p” unless it had subscriptions to start with, which GW2 never had.

So yeah, I think the ANet devs are better off NOT listening to someone who doesn’t understand something as basic as that.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

critickitten.1498:

People, I know you’re trying to help him with advice, but he’s actually got a valid point.

There are monsters in the game who kill you in one hit, regardless of your stats. It’s not a mysterious phenomenon, it’s an actual mechanic that is part of the game and has appeared in many places. Oh, they try to conceal it well in most cases (like the champion giant in that 15-25 zone), but in others it’s obscenely obvious (like the Jade Maw).

And it does need to be removed. Auto-kill mechanics are ridiculous, and the downed state is not nearly as “cool” and “fun” as they advertised it to be. It’s obnoxious that in many cases you don’t get nearly enough time to react to something like that, and even if you could, the window for dodging it is very very slim. I know the precise timing necessary to dodge the Jade Maw’s auto-kill and still don’t manage to dodge it every time.

you do know that the jad maw sticks a big scull over your head if he tagets you and its EASY to dodge at that point……..

No, it isn’t. I know the precise timing required for that dodge and I still don’t pull it off every single time. I’m not some scrub, I’ve actually gotten pretty darn good at dodging (an ability which has helped me survive for extended periods of time against champion mobs and even outright kill them on my own). If it were truly so “easy” then I’d have no trouble with it. And I’m not the only one. I’ve yet to run into a PUG, experienced or fresh, that even knew dodging the attack was an option….because the game doesn’t make it clear that you CAN dodge it. I myself only figured it out entirely on accident, knowing I wasn’t close enough to a crystal to save myself.

I hate when people post meaningless comments that boil down to “l2p noob”. They contribute nothing to the discussion, and often are rather uninformed (the players being called “noobs” are often far better at the game than the ones making this declaration). It’s rather difficult to argue that every single player who has trouble with OHKOs in this game is just terrible at the game. This is an actual game mechanics problem, and it needs to be treated like one.

There’s a reason that people don’t bother fighting these cheap shot monsters all that often if they can help it. They are cheap and under-rewarded. Both of these problems should be addressed promptly.

Zeldain.5710:

critickitten.1498:

That said, I do expect the population of this game to probably settle somewhere around SWTOR’s levels, maybe a bit lower or higher. Which would be plenty, honestly.

Yup, that or less. And that’s not a good number when they’re relying on the cash shop to survive and make content.

No clue how GW1 survived this long, then, because they ran on the same model. And given its numbers, GW1 only averaged about 1.7 million units per campaign/expansion (1.7 * 4 = 6.8 mil, which is a bit above their overall sales figures). And I don’t think anyone out there intends to argue that GW1 has a consistent server population of several million players, either.

GW2 will be just fine at that population level. It’s sold more units than GW1 did in its initial release, and it wouldn’t take much money for them to maintain the game. A $10 monthly gem purchase from only 100k players would net them $1 mil per month, which is probably far less than they’re actually pulling in right now from the gem store. So I rather doubt they’re in any serious trouble.

If SWTOR, which costs more money to maintain and operate than GW2, can survive at its present population, then I think GW2 can.

It’s a far cry from Mike O’Brien’s comment about how it will be the #1 MMO passing Warcraft. Suffice it to say, that’s failure.

There was no way GW2 was gonna pass WoW, anyways, whether it turned out to be the best game in the universe or the worst thing ever created by man. I think he was being more than a little excessively optimistic.

Rustypipes.6238:

You are correct, other game companies do tell everything, but many do not. People want them to spend more time fixing things and then kitten because they don’t take the time documenting what they fix. And if they did document every little thing, someone would come along with a post to the effect of “stop wasting time with meaningless typing and fix the game more”.

And when someone does that, please feel free to call them out on it.

Until then, the fact that you admit to other games doing it should be enough to end this debate. There’s no reason to keep them secret, no matter how mundane. This is how you establish trust with a playerbase that is (overly) jaded.

Rustypipes.6238:

You folks sure do demand a lot from a company who doesn’t even have to tell you anything they do with their game.

I don’t disagree that a lot of the people on this forum can be extremely demanding and needy.

But there’s nothing unusual about asking to know what bugs and exploits are being fixed. Other games do it, and there’s no reason (in the interests of transparency) to keep them a secret.

ZeroArmada.9426:

How are condition builds “worthless” in groups?

Conditions only stack up to 25 per mob rather than per person, so people have convinced themselves that condition builds are useless for this reason.

Personally I’ve never experienced problems with MY condition build but I guess I’m just not paying enough attention, maybe.

Agreed.

That is a statement that should never appear on a patch notes update. You can be more specific than that, especially since the patch should have fixed the bugs and exploits you’re talking about.

RoRo.8270:

Why is it so difficult for them to post it right when the patch comes out or before?

Uh….it’s been up for just a little under 5 minutes now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-December-16-2012

Clark Skinner.4902:

critickitten.1498:

Clark Skinner.4902:

You owe me 1 jormag chest + event reward!

>:(

Just run around killing monsters for ten minutes, you’ll end up with better rewards overall anyways. :P

Actually I have noticed since Wintersday the adds give next to nothing now too. Least profitable dragon events lately.

I’ve never profited significantly from dragon chests, tbh. I always got junk from those chests.

KingClash.3186:

critickitten.1498:

But….but….the game is dying. Haven’t you heard? There’s simply no way for that to happen! Unless…. :O

X-mas rush just like Halloween watch what happens in Feb. lol

But I thought all the players had left already and the game was in freefall. That’s what everyone’s been saying.

So….which is it? ‘cuz it can’t be both increasing AND decreasing. :P

That said, I do expect the population of this game to probably settle somewhere around SWTOR’s levels, maybe a bit lower or higher. Which would be plenty, honestly.

Zeldain.5710:

Haha, no they don’t. Mike O’Brien wants this to be more successful than WoW. WoW didn’t have a decline of any sort until 2010. 6 years. Not 3 months.

2009, actually.

And we don’t live in the age of WoW-sized MMOs any more. You won’t be seeing very many games hitting those kinds of numbers nowadays, because the MMO market is much more heavily saturated than it was at WoW’s release.

Clark Skinner.4902:

You owe me 1 jormag chest + event reward!

>:(

Just run around killing monsters for ten minutes, you’ll end up with better rewards overall anyways. :P

But….but….the game is dying. Haven’t you heard? There’s simply no way for that to happen! Unless…. :O

If you miss GW1, go play it. It’s not like the game no longer exists, seriously.

And besides, if the complainers on this forum are to be believed, then everyone has already left GW2 to go back to GW1, right? So there should be tons of people to play with. Go play with them.

GW2 is a new game, it is not GW1 and they never advertised it as being exactly like GW1.

plasmacutter.2709:

plasmacutter.2709:

Nayru.3947:

plasmacutter.2709:

What happened to the cosmetics from GW1? THAT was what people went after. A new weapon skin, new armor skins, nothing.

subjective is subjective…

I see a vendor with all manner of skins, I see more on the gem store, and yet more attainable through other means.

The game is only 3 Months Old , it’s not going to have the same number of skins as one 6 years old.

Patience is something generation y needs to learn.

The population isn’t increasing for a reason. I didn’t buy gw2 to wait for over 3 months to find the real game. That’s what development is for and it clearly didn’t go to well.

Imagine if parenting were like this …. “i’m giving my child up for adoption, it wasn’t born at 22 years old with an undergrad degree”

What does parenting have to do with a video game feeling like a beta 3 months into release?

Did you ever play GW1 in the early years? Probably not, because if you had then you would know exactly what he’s talking about.

People have awfully short term memories and tend to forget that it took years for GW1 to find its own niche as a game, too. So did Rift, and so did WoW. GW2 is not unusual in this regard and it will take time for it to find its place, too.

eisberg.2379:

Vlaxitov.5693:

Stats based on around 4200 players…

Big deal OP…

Neilson Ratings use about 5000 households to determine what 130 Million house holds are watching on TV -.-

And now you see why I (and many other people) hold statistics and those who deal in statistics with such low regard. That is not a statistically significant sample, so they’re not even following the rules of their own field of mathematics.

Majosea.2487:

No, giving up the game is entirely shelving it.

For varying definitions of “shelving”, I take it? :P

Giving up the game is giving up the game, whether temporarily or otherwise. Your reasoning is your own and you’re welcome to it, but “quitting” is pretty black and white. I’ve quit lots of games that I came back to, but I still call it “quitting” because that’s what it was.

Don’t know about you but i logged in several times to see patches being installed and the fact that there are several patch notes in the forums proves me right.

Was referring to the comment you made that “one might say many people quit because of the patch”, not to the fact that there have been multiple patches.

The flood of complaints all center around one patch, ergo that’s the only one I’m talking about.

And it’s I said: People are establishing a false cause-and-effect. The number of people who quit solely for that reason is much smaller than people want it to seem. Most of the folks who left are the locusts, the sort who were going to leave eventually anyways. SWTOR’s plunge, as well as every other MMO’s plunge, can be attributed to this.

Majosea.2487:

I did not give up the game; I gave up playing the game until some point that my playstyle is feasible again.

So you gave up the game.

Really it doesn’t matter whether it’s “temporary” or “permanent”, the fact remains that a single patch somehow convinced you that the game was no longer worth playing, and you refuse to play until it is removed.

It has been one CONTENT patch. (one I might say that has caused many people to quit the game completely or as I have, temporarily). There have been several patches to the game.

One might say that, but one might be wrong.

The fact of the matter is that every MMO on the market experiences a significant dropoff in players after their first month or so. Even WoW, after the magical panda expansion came out, has gone down significantly from their post-expansion peak.

People are establishing a false cause-and-effect relationship, trying to claim that the game is losing players because of something they personally do not like, rather than because it’s an MMO and it’s something that happens to all MMOs everywhere.

Your playstyle and the playstyles of other players is not the same. What affects my playstyle and your playstyle are two different things. You can never compare how another player feels about something to the way you do.

Technically you can. Just because opinions vary doesn’t mean they can’t be reasonably analyzed to see which one is closer to a basis of reality and which is not.

A lot of the opinions my parents share, for example, are based on very faulty information and personal biases. It’s entirely fair to claim that their opinions, by that token, deserve less regard than those of people whose opinions are better informed. Which is why I don’t mind educated and thoughtful debate about ascended items (which, I repeat, I actually do not like) and the patch in general.

What I don’t approve of are those who assume an extremist stance of “if you’re not quitting the game, then you’re a blind sheep who will support ANet regardless of what they do”. After all, only Sith deal in absolutes.

Not everyone who complains is a child. I myself am a grandfather.

There’s a difference between being a child and acting like one. A lot of the folks who are complaining about this patch tend to fall into the latter position. Props, however, for being mature in your replies thus far.

Zeldain.5710:

They you simply don’t like MMOs. Don’t try and force it.

No, I like MMOs just fine. And I have fun whether playing by myself or with other people.

I just don’t like the sort of nasty, berating, godawful people that they naturally accumulate, like a fungus that won’t go away.

The problem isn’t with the game, it’s with the people. The game is plenty fun, and whenever I’m playing with other friendly people, I have an absolute blast. The problem is with these people who insist that the game be played THEIR WAY OR ELSE, the sort of people who would “quit the game 4eva” over a single thing in a single patch they don’t like and yet will stay in the forums just to troll those who are still having fun, the sort of people who are just generally unpleasant individuals. I hate people like that, and given that they compose the majority of MMO players, it’s fair to claim that I hate people as a general statement.

Amra.6028:

Why look down on a player that doesn’t swallow whatever he gets stuffed with, out of whichever hole it comes, but resists and makes his point? He paid for the game in a certain state, not for a 180° turn to get cashcowed sooner or later.

Because if that player was willing to give the game up after only one patch (and yes, it is only one patch) that has only one thing they don’t like, then he wasn’t nearly as dedicated to the game as he wants to claim he was.

I find it interesting that you’re spinning my stance to the extreme, trying to assert that if anyone who didn’t instantly quit the game because of ascended items is just blindly accepting everything that happens to them and their game. It only takes a single step backwards and a tiny bit of perspective to see how ridiculous that stance really is. A few back items and rings have absolutely destroyed the metagame? Really? I don’t think so.

Mind, I’m not happy with ascended items either, in fact I hate them. But I’m not going to quit a game I enjoy over one aspect of gameplay that has yet to affect me in any significant manner. Instead, I’m going to do what any sane, rational person would do: complain about it in a constructive and reasonable manner, which in turn will create a proper dialogue with the devs about what we think needs to be fixed. “This game sux, I quit” doesn’t open a dialogue, it’s holding the dev team for ransom, and that almost never ends well for either the devs or the players. I’d rather try to fix things than pretend that I can hold the game hostage. Boycotting and quitting never, ever works. But complaining, especially when it’s loud complaining, does.

ANet isn’t composed entirely of EA executives, they DO actually listen and they’d probably agree with some of our sentiments if you took the time to express them in a reasonable tone of voice instead of flailing your arms around like a child in mid-tantrum.

gooberkid.6029:

So when all of these “absurdly fickle” people leave and your bugged game is forced to merge servers, is that still going to be a “win”?

Frankly? Yes. It’ll still be a win, because I’ll still be enjoying the game I paid for, and you’ll be off whining somewhere else.

I can’t imagine a bigger win than than.

And I love how expressing an opinion other than “waaaaaah, I didn’t get what I want in the last patch, I quit this game forever” is instantly considered a fanboy stance, rather than the rational stance of an adult who is sick of dealing with children.

Gore.8401:

critickitten.1498:

2) Because Square Enix would sue in a heartbeat.

Square doesn’t have any rights whatsoever to putting a blade on a gun, they existed in real life long before they put them in Final Fantasy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_sword

That isn’t a gunblade. That’s a blade with a pistol welded onto it.

What the user above is referring to is a specific type of weapon in which a sword blade is fused with a pistol grip. This type of weapon was created by Final Fantasy 8. A few other big games have created such an item as a joking reference to FF8, but they needed Enix’s permission to do so. Ergo, ANet would at least need the company’s permission to implement such a weapon. And I don’t think that’s worth the time and effort wasted, because GW2’s fantasy setting strives for some degree of realism and there is nothing remotely realistic about the function of a gunblade.

I don’t think they really fit any more.

And I can’t say I miss them. GW1 was too much about building a “well rounded team” and then watching as their terrible AI bungled everything up. In many cases I would PUG a map simply because my experience with the AI was so downright awful that I’d rather risk playing with complete “noobs” than play with something I know is awful.

Furthermore, GW2’s NPCs, minions, and pets all appear to share the same terrible AI as the folks in GW1. I’d rather see that fixed first before we even think about heroes or henchmen.

Bastion.2457:

Zeldain.5710:

Bastion.2457:

It isn’t an MMo anyways, it’s a multiplayer solo game.

And that is precisely the failure.

What failure? I don’t want to play with random buttheads, just friends and guildies, so ill take my MMo world, and my single player mechanics and have fun.

Why should the whole game be gated by playing with others? Many people love MMo’s but hate MMo players (because lets face it in general the vocal ones are vile and nasty little snots). What failure is it where a game is a smash hit, loved by millions, and appeals to me perfectly?

One of the things I loved about Skyrim was it’s MMo feel, in a single player environment. The only thing that game could have done better was allowing me to bring friends into my world with me, not MMo, just Left 4 Dead type gaming, a few friends, exploring and playing together, without the hassle of dealing with the unwashed masses.

I think what you meant to type is “This game is not Vanilla WoW, the one I think I remember based on what a few people said it was like on a forum I read once”.

I already live in a world filled with buttholes and vile people, I don’t want to purchase something that allows me to do the same in my spare time.

I think you’ve just accurately captured what has charmed me about this game more than any other.

Fact of the matter is, I love MMOs but I hate people. Now I have a game that lets me play mostly by myself, and the people I do run into aren’t competing to see how long it takes to tick me off.

I’d love to see more weapons. It would introduce more variety which is always a good thing.

Avatar.1923:

and claw cloves.

Claws, yessssssssss.

I would kill for a pair of claws on my thief.

SolarNova.1052:

However i woud personaly want GunBlades put in over battle Axe’s.

We have rifles ..and pistols ..So there is no reason not to have a GunBlade ..both 1h and 2h versions.

I can think of two reasons:

1) Because gunblades are stupid, impractical weapons that don’t even make sense in a fantasy setting. Wielding a sword with a pistol grip is absolutely ridiculous. You’d break your hand and wrist trying. And the pistol grip doesn’t actually serve a purpose.

2) Because Square Enix would sue in a heartbeat.

Amra.6028:

critickitten.1498:

plasmacutter.2709:

it’s been 3 months!

I was falling through the map and dying of the fall damage a full 3 YEARS into wow.

Give em a break! They’re working on it!

Shhhh, let them leave.

It’ll just mean that those of us who aren’t absurdly fickle enough to quit over a single poor patch will have less complainers to deal with in the long run, and they’ll be off on some other internet forum ranting about how GW2 is still “dying” for years to come. Sounds like a win to me.

How often have you seen a patch that restored a previous state?

Irrelevant question, really.

Why? Because those people last patch said they were quitting no matter what, right? So why would they come back?

Why, the only reason that such a person might come back after a patch was rolled back is….if they were being absurdly fickle in the first place, I imagine.

plasmacutter.2709:

it’s been 3 months!

I was falling through the map and dying of the fall damage a full 3 YEARS into wow.

Give em a break! They’re working on it!

Shhhh, let them leave.

It’ll just mean that those of us who aren’t absurdly fickle enough to quit over a single poor patch will have less complainers to deal with in the long run, and they’ll be off on some other internet forum ranting about how GW2 is still “dying” for years to come. Sounds like a win to me.

FaRectification.5678:

blame NCSoft, still if NCsoft gets axed, they might have a chance

….now I know you’re just messing with us.

Because if NCSoft gets axed, then both GW1 and GW2 are in serious trouble. >_>

People, I know you’re trying to help him with advice, but he’s actually got a valid point.

There are monsters in the game who kill you in one hit, regardless of your stats. It’s not a mysterious phenomenon, it’s an actual mechanic that is part of the game and has appeared in many places. Oh, they try to conceal it well in most cases (like the champion giant in that 15-25 zone), but in others it’s obscenely obvious (like the Jade Maw).

And it does need to be removed. Auto-kill mechanics are ridiculous, and the downed state is not nearly as “cool” and “fun” as they advertised it to be. It’s obnoxious that in many cases you don’t get nearly enough time to react to something like that, and even if you could, the window for dodging it is very very slim. I know the precise timing necessary to dodge the Jade Maw’s auto-kill and still don’t manage to dodge it every time.

Tomkatt.1684:

Exchanging gold for gems is freaking insane now. Over 2 gold for 100 gems. What happened? This seems pretty unbalanced to me, especially since I hear the gem to gold conversion is also terrible.

Is this something that will eventually rebalance? It only seems to go up.

I agree, it’s only discouraged me from investing any money in gems. I was originally going to try and grind out some gold for gems but with the rate continuing to go up, I only have less motivation to invest play time in that sort of thing.

But I get the sense that the dev team doesn’t intend to fix this particular problem. If gems are hard to get for in-game gold, then that’ll encourage people to buy them….at least that’s the time-tested theory of microtransaction MMOs.

Because the RNG is a harsh, spiteful goddess who can only be appeased with blood sacrifice.

Or, alternatively, because dice being evil is a fundamental law of the universe.

In either case I do agree, loot tables need to be fixed. They really should be giving consistently high rewards, or else events will always feel worthless. Most of the flak surrounding the Ancient Karka boiled down to the fact that the event chest rewards were SO MUCH BETTER than normal event chests….this is something that simply wouldn’t be a problem if they just fixed world event chests.

Knote.2904:

What saddens me is I’ve been having more fun customizing my playstyle and fighting in Torchlight 2 than here. As something I find important in an MMO and/or RPG, a fairly simple hack n slasher manages to be more entertaining for longer.

It’s funny you mention TL2, because I was playing Embermage and it really only took me about five minutes of looking at the skills before I created a self-made build that basically broke the entire game. I spent the remaining playtime face-rolling through everything. So forgive me if I question the “combat depth” in TL2. It’s even less balanced than Diablo 2 ever was. :P

GW2’s combat is fine, honestly. People say there’s not a lot of build depth and yet there’s plenty of personal variations on the most popular builds. People say there’s no combat depth and yet I have always felt pretty satisfied in the amount of self-management I’ve had to do. It never gets overbearing where I’m doing too much, or positively boring like many other MMOs I’ve played would get at times.

I do get a snicker out of people who say that GW2’s combat is “just spamming 1-5 as you run around” though, considering that many of these same folks praise GW1, a game in which you spam 1-8 on your keyboard as you sit perfectly still. Oh, but I forgot, you’re spamming those buttons “strategically” so it’s totally different. ’cuz you never want to use your skills in GW2 strategically, oh no.

Granted, there are situations where strategy goes out the window….namely, world bosses. Which is perhaps the biggest disappointment of combat for me. When the big boys boil down to a big ol’ zerg rush, it’s not nearly as fun as those small skirmishes with just me and a single veteran mob.

I think people get about as much depth out of combat as they choose to observe, really.

You’ll want to get used to attunement swapping. It’s really the only way to roll with the elementalist if you intend to get proper use out of it. I’ve been running a staff user and usually use Fire/Air for damage, plus Water to heal up in mid-combat.

If you’re going to run with daggers and such, you’ll be playing at closer range, so you’ll want either some vitality or toughness so you can take a hit and stay standing. You may also want to get some practice with Earth Attunement since that’s really one of the better ones for tanking, and close range glass cannon isn’t always that effective for squishy eles.

Kirito.3591:

Murderin.8269:

It happened with about 5 other presents so far

I’ll say what someone in the comments said "You should be a little more cautious when? messing around zones 20 levels higher than you. "

It happened to my Lvl 50 elementalist too while I was in a Lvl 15-25 zone.

It’s not the player’s fault this time around, believe me. It’s a bug in which the skritt that come out of the presents are very much overleveled.

You don’t care about whether or not they give out precursors but it apparently bothered you enough to start a thread complaining about the possibility that they MIGHT do it?

Yeah, okay.

BobbyT.7192:

Rustypipes.6238:

They give you something and now people already want more?

I know right? after tokens and doubloons (i kinda see doubloons, but token?!? thats just greedy), people will want siege equipment and boosters. -.- people will never be happy.

What a load of tripe.

Of course we’re happy about this functionality. However, it’s functionality that should have existed before the game was released. Crafting demands rare materials, and for almost three months there was no place to store them, all while they continued to add more and more rare crafting materials to the game (thus compounding the problem further). It’s not like it’s a problem they couldn’t have easily anticipated, because GW1 has a rare material storage system too. So they had to know it’d be necessary, but rolled the game with an unfinished storage system anyways, and didn’t fix it until three months in. And even now, it still doesn’t include all of the crafting items that it should.

Yes, I’m happy and I give the team credit for implementing a highly demanded aspect of gameplay. I’m very pleased it’s in the game and it has cleaned up my inventory a lot.

But no, I’m not gonna dump heaps of praise on the team for finally implementing something that really should have been present at the start of the game, and would have been if they had listened to us back in beta when people pointed this fact out to them. It would be like us praising the team for finally fixing Ranger pets, when we knew as far back as beta that the pets suffered from bad AI and couldn’t hit moving targets but the team apparently considered it a minor enough issue that they went ahead and released the game anyways.

And no, it’s not “greedy” to expect that this functionality be extended to ALL collectable items, in a game where collecting all of these collectable items is absolutely necessary to buy certain things or to perform advanced crafting.

Yeah, a lot of stuff got added and I’m really thrilled about that. It’s long overdue and I thank the team for that. ^^

Now they should work on making sure any of the stuff they missed gets in there, too. Dungeon tokens, Doubloons, and Badges of Honor would help clean my inventory even more.

Nayru.3947:

Raf.1078:

Nayru.3947:

Other than the fact that GW2 is nothing like GW1 in even the slightest aspect and GW2 failed, they could have released 4 or 5 new campaigns for GW1 in that time and been a lot more successful.

Either that or they could’ve sold GW2 to Blizzard to make it WoW2. But I don’t think they’d take it.

They would never have sold 2 million copies if they had released a hundred new campaigns for GW1.

Yeah because the 4 GW1 games they made in the space of 2 years didn’t make over 6m sales.

Next white knight please.

GW1 has sold 6.5 million copies between all four of its campaigns and expansions. That’s a little over 1.6 million copies (1.625 to be technical) per title, and they sold that many over the course of 7 years.

By comparison, GW2 is likely approaching the 3 million sales mark and has done so in less than four months of being released.

It’s really not hard to figure out which one turned out to be the better investment.

You can pin it up to hype, and you can argue about how GW2 is a much worse game in your own opinion. Fine, fair enough. But the fact of the matter is, the devs made the right call in terms of financial investment. GW2 was going to be a bigger hit than any GW1 expansion would have been, simply because it was a new game.

And the original game is so dated at this point that it’s unlikely they’d sell 1.6 million copies of an expansion today. As the devs have said, the game’s engine severely hampers their development on a mechanics level, and people are starting to leave GW1 because of all the changes they’ve been making in terms of balancing and whatnot, anyways. GW1’s following nowadays is still significant, but as with WoW, it’s mostly a cult following. They wouldn’t likely attract many (if any) new sales with an expansion, as they did with GW2.

So the poster you’ve just ridiculed is entirely correct. They would not have sold 2 million units with yet another expansion to GW1. It’s just that the premise behind his post is somewhat faulty because it’s not really a fair comparison to make. GW1 was never a WoW-esque game which boasted freakishly large sales figures, so it’s not really fair to say “but they wouldn’t have sold as well” because that’s rather exceedingly obvious.

The better question to ask is “was it the right call to make GW2 from a development standpoint rather than a financial standpoint”, and the answer….is really up to your own personal opinion.

Akiko.2364:

critickitten.1498:

bojangles.6912:

LOL learn your facts first please. Like someone already said, ToR had a lot more servers then GW2.

TOR released with 103 servers, according to information I’ve located online. It’s down to 20 servers as of this date, less than GW2 and less than other competitors such as Rift and Aion.

GW2 released with 52. And still has that many.

Maybe next time, before shooting your mouth off, do a little internet research to make sure you know what you’re talking about, ya?

Ummm, Rift only has 18 Servers …. and Aion has 5 North American (basicly international) servers total. (there are more localized Aion Korean/Japanese/Chinese one but they have limited access)

Tera only has 3 servers and I think last time I looked Lineage 2 (again outside of asia) only has 3 or 4 ..

Huh, should’ve checked more recently. Rift had more than 20 last time I looked. And Aion’s running on a different server scheme though, IIRC, which explains the small count. Each ‘server’ is really several.

But meh, minor point retracted nonetheless.

That said, my primary point remains valid. SWTOR started with over 100, and has fallen to less than 20% of that original figure. Trying to argue the “but it had so many servers” angle is relatively meaningless when you consider that their dropoff in terms of percentages is really quite terrible.

And I didn’t comment on either Tera or Lineage 2’s server counts, if you read more carefully, so not sure why you brought them up. Is it because I stated that SWTOR’s population is now closer to competing with them (which is factually true)? Because there’s a difference between “number of servers” and “number of players”, you know.

bojangles.6912:

LOL learn your facts first please. Like someone already said, ToR had a lot more servers then GW2.

TOR released with 103 servers, according to information I’ve located online. It’s down to 20 servers as of this date, less than GW2 and less than other competitors such as Rift and Aion.

GW2 released with 52. And still has that many.

Yes, it’s fair to say that SWTOR had more, but that doesn’t change the fact that SWTOR’s incredible population plunge led to it losing over 80% of its original servers, and now it has less of a population count in both players and servers than other subscription-based competitors. SWTOR was supposed to compete with WoW, TERA, and GW2 on the big stage….and now it’s not competing with any of those games. And it’s well below Aion, Lineage, and Runescape, too. It’s now more in competition with the next tier of games below all of those in pop count….games like Eve, Rift, and LOTRO.

So yes, SWTOR had lots of servers at launch, but that only helps highlight how much of a disaster SWTOR turned out to be, and how surprising it is that GW2 has not consolidated any of its servers yet. I suspect they will have to eventually, but the point that the OP made is still valid, and you are entirely missing it.

Oh and ToRs population has been steady over 500k and now risen a lot since going f2p.

I’d love to hear your evidence for that. Because all existing data suggests that SWTOR’s population went up briefly after the F2P launch, and has since began to go back on the decline again.

For example: http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us/stats <—— All US servers are down in total population by about 5% from last month.

It’s just a much smaller decline than before because the game is (partially) free, and because most of the typical “try then abandon” crowd has already left the game (the same crowd that GW2 is in the midst of losing now).

Most people who are playing SWTOR now are doing it to get through the story, and then they’re likely leaving again. EA foolishly locked off and limited almost all of the other content behind pay barriers, so once those free players finish the story, they have very little left to do. I don’t expect their population to hold at 500k for long, if indeed it even is at that level.

GW2 on the other hand has declined like a landslide since launch and not getting any better. Amazing how they stopped announcing game boxes sold when they couldn’t get much higher after the first month of launch.

Actually….they have 1.56 million non-digital sales of the game as of the first of this month.

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/37350/guild-wars-2/

VGChartz doesn’t track digital sales, but given that we know over a million people bought the game via digital pre-purchasing as reported by several major news sites before the game’s launch, it’s safe to estimate that GW2 has likely sold about 3 million total units.

Maybe next time, before shooting your mouth off, do a little internet research to make sure you know what you’re talking about, ya?

So ANet is “disrespecting its customers” by offering a business promotion, just like every other company in the entire world?

I’m beginning to think that we’re just going to get complaints towards ANet staff over everything and anything now, even stuff that it makes no sense to complain about.

You can tell how well-grounded the folks in this forum are. “I didn’t get a hat in a video game, my life is being ruined by these evil corporations!” First-world problems, indeed.

Firstly, it’s a reviewer from Forbes. They’re about as credible as the Onion for accurate news regarding video games.

Second, I tend to find that those who complain that combat is “purely a matter of stats” just suck at the combat. Because when I played with my friends, they would complain about how they struggle with mobs, and I would be downing 4-5 mobs at the same time in the exact same area. Or they’d be struggling with a Veteran mob, while I’m working with one other player to down a Champion mob. And there is very little difference between our gear. Chances are good that if you’re blaming stats for your struggles in combat, that you just suck at the combat and want a scapegoat. There are obvious imbalances, but almost every class has the potential to be quite lethal when used smartly. And dodge-rolls are EXTREMELY useful, if you say otherwise then you’ve been doing it wrong. Period.

Third, people very often complain about a game differentiating itself from other games in the genre. GW2 is trying to be different (with mixed success), so it doesn’t make sense to complain about why it’s not more like WoW. It’s not trying to be WoW.

And lastly, worth noting that the reviewer has since changed his mind and given the game a much more positive review. Not that this increases his credibility as a reviewer because he’s still reviewing a video game for Forbes (which is like me reviewing daily stock reports, entirely unreliable), but even he doesn’t agree with himself any more.

Angry Joe gets the reviewing right, pointing out some of my own frustrations with the game and highlighting all of the good things in a very good way.

Mirta.5029:

nobody can solo it.

False.

I went into Orr with my ranger and obtained virtually every map location and skill point solo. And the only times I didn’t get something solo, it was only because other players stumbled onto the scene at the same time as me.

It is entirely possible. You just have to be clever, take your time, and be very, very careful about your movement so you don’t pull excessive mobs. >_>

That said, I remember being extremely put off by the waypoint contesting in Orr. It’s very frustrating when the map is full of contested waypoints, and most events to retake them are not designed to be defeated solo. It just tells me that events need to be redesigned in general. The “meaningful impact on the world” thing is great and all, as is the notion of “naturally formed groups”, but designing the end portion of your game around zergs that may or may not be coming is not good design. Events need to be scaled such that it is difficult, but entirely possible to beat them solo if you’re skilled. That would give players like me a sense of achievement when I clear out a camp solo, while still keeping content difficult as intended.

No.

Why do I need to explain to you why you should play? If you’re not having fun, then please go play something else. Don’t become another one of these half-dozen-or-so people who said they “quit” the game “forever”, but then stick around trolling on the forums and demanding people’s attention. It’s childish.

I don’t mean to sound cruel, but seriously. This thread sounds like you’re demanding attention, and I have no nice response to that sort of thing. If you don’t want to play, that’s cool, go do something else and leave the forums to those of us who do still play.

Pretty sure they’ve said Guild Halls will be coming.

I do think guilds need to have more effects on the world overall, though.

Okay, so I’ve read the AMA transcripts. And I have to say that, as someone who was very “meh” overall on the Lost Shores patch, I’m actually somewhat satisfied with what I see.

Here’s what I got out of the AMA that I like:
1) The staff realize that the ascended gear is too grindy and the RNG factor is causing problems of its own, and is working on a fix for both.
2) As they stated earlier, ascended gear will appear in other locations, not just Fractals, so we won’t be forced to farm Fractals to get them.
3) The “gating” that is occurring in Fractals has been noticed by the staff and they’re brainstorming options to address it.
4) One-time events are being looked into, to try to make them more inclusive.

And here’s some things that worry me:
1) The level cap will eventually be raised. This is concerning to me because a lot of the game’s build mechanics are designed around 80 being the final level (for example, the game was designed to award exactly 70 trait points, and all exotic/ascended/legendary tier gear is Lvl 80). How will these things be addressed when the cap is raised? Will we be able to gain more trait points (potentially increasing the lack of balance already present)? Will legendary gear be bumped up to the new max level (making it unusable to players who rightfully earned it until they grind out more levels) or kept at the same level (making legendaries no longer the top tier of equipment)? I think raising the level cap offers too many complications that aren’t worth the effort.
2) “We do not intend to deploy another tier/rarity of loot such as Rare>Exotic. However we also do not intend to make promises that can be misinterpreted moving forward.” This worries me because it’s not the straightforward answer I (and many others) wanted. I’d like to interpret that as “no more new tiers” but the second part, combined with other answers that mention “gradual progression” make me suspect that this isn’t set in stone, and send mixed signals to us as players. I really think ANet should just be straightforward on this subject and say “yes, there will be more new tiers” or “no, there will be no more new tiers” just to end all of the arguments and speculation about it.

All in all, I’m actually pretty satisfied with the AMA, though there are some areas of concern I have going forward. What are your thoughts on the AMA?

Robbyx.1284:

Embolism.8106:

Precursor prices continue rising and players implore Anet to do something about it. When Anet does something about it players complain Anet is cheapening Precursors.

I realise it’s not necessarily the same group of people making those complaints, but I hope you see my point: Anet cannot please everybody.

The fact of the matter is, Precursor prices had to be brought down: if they continue to rise they will only become more and more unreachable by new players, a group that will continue to increase throughout the game’s life. It is much wiser to do something now instead of say a year later, when much more players have been frustrated by the ever-increasing price of Precursors.

While I can understand why you’re upset, it is for the greater good.

The fact is that Anet screwed up again in spectacular fashion…..you do NOT go handing out expensive rare items like that…you increase the drop rate for the materials to craft one, or decrease the needed materials to craft one……seriously pretty much everything Anet is doing lately is straight out of the MMO guide of “how to kill your game quickly”.

….

The OP is talking about a drop in price on legendary precursors. Unless something has changed recently or the GW2 Wiki is incomplete, the precursors are NOT craftable items. They drop rarely from Lvl 80 event chests or are created rarely by throwing exotics into the Mystic Forge. That’s it.

Ergo the only way to lower the prices on such an item is to make them more common.

They should have been more common right from the start anyways. They were obviously horrendously overpriced at the time, and the prices have been slowly creeping back up since the weekend event ended, too. They need to make the rewards for Temple runs (or for Claw of Jormag) equal to the rewards level of the Ancient Karka chest. That’ll help keep precursor prices down to more reasonable levels.

A lot of folks seem to care an awful lot about how many people are playing. I don’t.

So long as it’s somewhere above the “enough people playing to keep the game running” mark, I don’t particularly care if this game is beating other MMOs, or if we have millions of active players, or what.

Maybe that’s because I’m not concerned about how well GW2 is competing and am more concerned with actually playing the game and having fun. Oh well.

Hell, several of my friends have quit playing already, but I haven’t. And probably won’t until the dev team essentially forces me to stop (whether by making more tiers after Ascended or whatever they choose to do).

I guess I’m just anti-social that way.

I found one without even realizing it after ~5-7 runs in the Fractals dungeon, so I imagine the rate is “rare, but not quite legendary caliber of rare”

MechanicalMind.9126:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

Anet hyped this game like crazy and simply didn’t deliver.

They deserve the complaints. Also, making posts telling others to stop making posts is futile.

This. I honestly think the OP is trolling or doesn’t know what free speech is.

Ugh. American, I take it?

Did you know that the first amendment only applies to public land, not private land? And that a forum owned and operated by a private company would be classified as private “land”? People on the internet need to stop waving that “I can be however much of an kitten I want because free speech!” banner on forums, because the devs own those forums and most certainly are not obligated by law to give you a soap box.

~The More You Know~

I agree that you should be permitted to say your part and be mad if you want, but I think the OP hit the nail on the head here. There is way too much of this “game ruined I quit” nonsense, and not nearly enough “you dun goofed, ANet, but that’s okay, let’s work together to fix this”.

For example:

I hate Ascended gear with the passion of a thousand suns. But knowing full well that ANet will never remove it just to satisfy me, I’m suggesting that they make implementation of Ascended gear in other areas (including PvE and WvW) a top priority. And I’m also encouraging them to lower the amount of grind to obtain those items by providing better looting tables.

Another issue from this release: I am neutral on the one-time event’s chest being so rewarding (because it really should be rewarding, but I can see why people hated missing out). So when I sent my survey in, I suggested to them that they upgrade the chests in every other high-level event chain so that they are equally rewarding. That would make new one-time events less painful to players who miss out, because there will be plenty of repeating events that offer similar rewards.

There needs to be less destruction, and more construction in this forum if the game is going to be fixed. Don’t stomp your feet and throw a tantrum and hold your breath until they remove the content you don’t like. Point out what you feel is flawed and compromise with the devs to make that content work better in the game.