Guild Wars 2

If you will be primarily leveling with a friend who is an ele, it would be a good idea to go the Guardian route to have access to a wider variety of skills.

The base reward is experience. There are some ways to make money from crafting, specifically cooking and jewelcrafting. It is far more lucrative to sell crafting mats for any other crafting profession. It is generally cheaper and quicker to get your first exotics either from dungeons or Karma vendors in Orr than crafting them. As you level it is also cheaper to just buy greens and blues from the tp than to craft.

Penitent waypoint and Shelters Gate waypoint in Cursed Shore.

Be aware that currently event scaling in these areas can bring in mobs that will wipe entire populations of farmers at the events that spawn there if the population farming is significant.

The game isn’t dying, but there are issues.

It’s true that there is always a portion of the forums who never want to discuss issues, but instead wish to stick their head in the sand and loudly proclaim “There’s nothing wrong” “If you don’t like it leave” “All you guys do is whine”

There’s also a portion of the forums who will always proclaim “The game is dying” “The game is completely broken” “No one wants to play this game”. All they want to do is see the game fail, for whatever reason they have.

Neither side is productive on the forums. Neither side bring anything meaningful to discussions about issues within the game. Neither side should be taken seriously.

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

kiba.2768:

perhaps you should stick to the op’s issues contained in this thread instead of reaching out to other perceived problems. i’m not offering it up as a fix for any and all problems. i’m offering it up as a fix for the op’s 2 problems. if you can’t see something that obvious or literal then there’s nothing more to discuss

hyperbole indeed

Sorry, if you had actually bothered to read the op, it is about the mechanics of certain encounters. Explain to me how your suggestion “guesting” has anything whatsoever to do with the mechanics of those encounters he is talking about?
Hint: Nothing
What it does do is say “Ignore it, just go somewhere else where it’s already been done”
smh

The OP, if you’d bothered to read it, says he has what he needs to get the rest of his armor but on his server, the temples are never taken. THAT is his problem, no matter what the title of the thread is that was what was said. Sure he’d frustrated by the hard encounter but the bottom line is he wants the armor he has saved his karma for. To buy that armor, you need to get to an open temple. There are servers that have temples open daily….just not his.

His problem as stated in the post is solved by guesting. The encounters themselves were meant to be hard. There are tons of people complaining there isn’t enough hard content in the game. Orr is meant to be end game content. It really is supposed to be hard.

Of course, dealing with a pug to take a temple is harder than dealing with a guild to take a temple. Just be happy I didn’t tell him to join a guild too. lol

Let me quote the op " Ridiculous and infuriating encounters", That was the title.

First paragraph: “I’ve been playing GW2 for a while and have even been a big advocate to my friends. Unfortunately, I’ve run into one too many infuriating encounters and have really soured on it.” Hmm, mentions encounters being infuriating.

Second paragraph: “You know, those encounters where two of you stumble on a village that’s under assault, and NOTHING says “[GROUP]”. Yet the bad guys keep respawning in twos and threes faster than the two of you can possibly kill them.”
Here the op is talking about encounters that are overpowered, even though they don’t say [GROUP]

Third Paragraph: “Or Orr, where I’ve logged in twice a day for a week and couldn’t find a single temple that’s open. (The Narthax was open for about five minutes before it was raided and I was slaughtered.) So a bunch of us try Grenth. First stage, ok. Second stage wipe, but recovered and won. Third stage, someone lured the spider to the NPC and the NPC called it quits. 20+ minutes (or was it 30 or even 45, I lost track) of a 15-20 folks time and, nothing to show for it.” Here the op talks about encounters that he feels are broken or overpowered or that the mechanics are frustrating.

Fourth paragraph: “So I’m sitting on enough karma to get the last two pieces of gear, but there’s nowhere to get it. How ridiculous.” Here is the one and only place he talks about having enough karma to get his gear, but that is it. He isn’t saying he needs more people, or that he wants to know how to get his gear

Summary paragraph: " GW2 is different from other games in its mechanics and I like that a lot. The encounter designs are way, way behind the times, though. There’s either no scaling concept, or it’s so poorly implemented that once a tough group fails, every smaller group that comes along will be overwhelmed. It’s infuriating." Here, again, he mentions encounter mechanics.

I’m glad you decided to take one single sentence out of context to try and prove your point, but in actuality you ended up proving mine. Awhile back you mentioned about taking your statements out of context, and I responded that you do the same exact thing on these boards. Thank you for proving it.

kiba.2768:

perhaps you should stick to the op’s issues contained in this thread instead of reaching out to other perceived problems. i’m not offering it up as a fix for any and all problems. i’m offering it up as a fix for the op’s 2 problems. if you can’t see something that obvious or literal then there’s nothing more to discuss

hyperbole indeed

Sorry, if you had actually bothered to read the op, it is about the mechanics of certain encounters. Explain to me how your suggestion “guesting” has anything whatsoever to do with the mechanics of those encounters he is talking about?
Hint: Nothing
What it does do is say “Ignore it, just go somewhere else where it’s already been done”
smh

kiba.2768:

killcannon.2576:

I love how guesting went from “Play with your friends” to “Fixes any and all problems in the game for everyone”. All games should just use guesting from here on out to scapegoat anyone who has an issue with anything.

“Does your game suffer from not having enough invested population? Try new and improved guesting!! Even removes hard water stains!”

hyperbole

op was having issues with temple and group events. that’s 2 problems, not ‘any and all.’

Perhaps you should do a forum search on “guesting”, and actually see how many times it’s offered as a fix for different problems. lol hyperbole. The only thing I would call hyperbole around here recently is how many times I see posters dismissing other posters issues as nothing more than whining or crying and just plain telling them how wrong they are.

Mirta.5029:

dcypher.2590:

You’re joking right? The same rares with level 1 skins?
Please don’t talk to me like I’m clueless. Making something usable and making something blatantly meant to be tossed in the mystic forge or salvaged is a big difference. At no point did I imply they’d be better than a higher tier.

You would never be able to complete that event by yourself A, B you go in there with a group to beat the event you still can. The farming unit doesn’t break the walls…that doesn’t mean the walls are broken and you can’t do it. So get a group and go do it, if not…stop bothering them as if they are stopping you.

1. Talking about skins, a lot of the prettiest skins are rares, for example the flower backpiece from Southsun or all cultural armor. When it comes to choosing your skin for the end game some people even go with a green set (see Winged sets) because they look very pretty. So I have no idea what you’re talking about here.
So please tell me now in what way are rares not usable in this game?
2. You can break the walls while the farming unit farms, but all you get for that is “you’re ruining our gameplay”, “I’m going to report you” or just never ending bullying from some. Then you report them, then they come to the forums to ask why did they get a temporary ban.

I did that today (broke all the walls while someone was trying to farm it). Got cussed out. Made me chuckle, I hope someone threw their mouse at the wall.

I love how guesting went from “Play with your friends” to “Fixes any and all problems in the game for everyone”. All games should just use guesting from here on out to scapegoat anyone who has an issue with anything.

“Does your game suffer from not having enough invested population? Try new and improved guesting!! Even removes hard water stains!”

Karizee.8076:

Great video on all the changes we’ve seen since launch. It kinda creeps up on you when you play every day but they’ve done A LOT with the game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIgeldCpV68

Breakdown of an HOUR long video below

Fixed bugs
Profession balance
Allowed use of materials from bank slots while crafting
Can play on Mac
Content from Halloween- recurring temporary content
Costume brawl
Karma Jugs for dailies/monthlies
Exploration achievements
Titles viewable
4 new jumping puzzles
Explorable mini dungeons
30 new DE’s, including Skritt burglar
Lost Shores-Temp content- major infusion of precursors if you got to take part
Southsun Cove- includes new enemy types, pets, crafting materials
New build- apothecary
Dungeon reward overhaul
Better downscaled loot drops- (was supposed to always be in game in that form, would consider this a bug fix)
Fractals-Mini dungeons that scale up as you complete them over time, unique dungeon rewards for fractals
Ascended gear
Content from Wintersday- recurring temporary content
New build- givers
Increased diversity of drops from blc’s
Living Story content- All temporary content
Laurels system for dailies/ monthlies
Tweak daily and monthly choices- a lot of players now only log in for dailies, then stop
Guesting
Paid server transfers
Name/ appearance change
Orr updates- improved reward, karma inventory increased, more wp, enemy revamp
Legendary Tweaks
Item preview updates
Guild Missions-raiding
Leaderboards
World boss event chests
SAB- recurring temp content, possibly permanent at a later date
SPVP changes:
1vs1 ranked spvp
2 new spvp maps
spvp build locks
custom arenas
Spectator mode

WvW
removed orbs
fixed bugs/exploits
Breakout events
outmanned buff tweaked
WvW leveling
new skins
wvw culling
siege weapon tweaks
traps

Anecdotal evidence says it does.
There is currently a group from the wiki who are trying to quantify it into real numbers, but I expect that to take some time. Personal evidence for me was Southsun in it’s current iteration. Six or more rare drops in under two hours from mob drops with around 300% mf.

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

@killcannon

As I’ve said, and illustrated, people don’t just gather toward rewards. People gather in places where there is virtually no reward in Guild Wars 1, like Kamadan and Shing Jea Monastary. Why those places? They’re not rewarding. Nothing around them is rewarding.

You postulate people gather for reward, but I postulate that even if rewards were equal EVERYWHERE, people would still gather. It happens in every MMO not because of the mechanics of MMOs, but because of human nature.

Again, why did people gather in those places in Guild Wars 1, if it’s all about rewards?

Guild Wars 1 is not an MMO, why do you keep bringing up guild wars 1? It wasn’t open world, you maxed out at playing with other people at ten or twelve players, you didn’t even have to play with other players when you had an ai party. None of the designs there reflect anything about mmo’s.

You may as well discuss any single player rpg. There just isn’t enough MMO in GW1 to make contrasts or comparisons to an open world mmo where the population can play and see each other. There was a different focus for GW1. It doesn’t take much to see it, all you have to do is look at the hundreds of threads from GW1 fans hating on gw2, saying how much it isn’t like gw1, saying how different this game is. It’s because this game is an MMO and GW1 wasn’t.

I feel like I’m arguing with Clay now.

That’s funny, I was thinking the same thing about Clay.

It’s not just Guild Wars 1, it’s EVERY MMO. Lotro had a place where people gathered, a couple. If you want to the Prancing Pony, people gathered there. I was a low end zone. No real reason to be there, but that’s where people went? Why? I don’t know.

People always find places to gather…in every MMO…and every multiplayer game too. I used Guild Wars 1 as an example because I know it better than any other game. But the logic is true. Ask anyone who plays any MMO if there aren’t gathering spots that have nothing to do with rewards. Stormwind an dOggrimar in WoW, for example.

Those are hubs, not gameplay areas. That’s a totally different subject. If you want to discuss why people go to LA instead of Divinity’s Reach, I suppose we can.

But it doesn’t have anything to do whatsoever in where people decide to actually play. In LotR, people may have gathered at The PP, but they didn’t go out and just play the low level areas. Why would they? It’s not the games focus. When high levels went out to play they went to the end level zones and dungeons. Because that was the endgame.

People may gather in SW and Org, but they didn’t go out and play in that zone. Why would they? It’s not the games focus. They would go to the Cata zones (no clue what they do now, I signed the hell off before pandaland) and play/farm/run dungeons. Because that was the focus. Endgame

You can bring up as many other MMO’s you want, and if they have a focus on endgame, unlike GW2, that’s where the players are going to be.

The fact is GW2 needs to decide what it’s going to be. Is it going to be Endgame? If so it needs more of it and quick. Or is it going to be Journey? If it is, it needs to lay off this temporary jazz, make all the zones equally rewarding, and start focusing on content to bring people back into these zones. Farming world bosses everyday, doing pent/shelt, and zerging WvW ain’t compelling gameplay to recommend it to people.

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

serialkicker.5274:

i don’t know

Then it’s hard to be convincing. I think there are less people playing this game than you think. The game sold over 3 million copies. We know a lot of people don’t log in all the time and many left the game. We also know that you have to divide the population into server parks. Nothing that happens in Europe affects the US servers and vice versa.

Your situation might work if you have millions of people playing, but I really don’t think that’s the case. If players are divided evenly between Europe and the US and there’s a million people playing that’s 500,000 per server park.

That’s not a lot of people when you divide by servers, and then figure out how many people play casually and don’t log in every day or week to week.

My guild has a hundred people in it, but only 30 or so long in with any regularity. If that holds true for the rest of the population, start doing the math.

If you spread the population out into every zone you MIGHT see people on the busiest hours, but everyone else the rest of the time is completely screwed.

So, there are even less people playing than others think? Does this not tell you something of the decisions that have been made and are continuing to be made?

Maybe it’s time to change that then, instead of saying “Well, let’s just continue to do the same thing we’ve been doing, because that’s working out great!”

No, it doesn’t tell me anything, other than this is one of the most competitive gaming genres available. The MMO field is MASSIVELY overcrowded. There are so many games. So many new releases. And unlike other games. you’re not expected to play them for 20 hours and leave, so the problem compounds itself.

There hasn’t been a truly successful MMO in years, except for WoW and Eve. Rift started out okay, but they’re going free to play now due to lack of interest. And not only are there tons of MMOs out, there are tons of FREE MMOs out there.

You’re comparing a buy to play game to a free to play game, in a genre that many people still won’t embrace. I don’t see why you think that the problem is Guild Wars 2, when the problem has been every single MMO in the last five years….again except Eve.

Everyone is losing Market Share. There are so few MMOs that have a million players left. As more come out, the player base becomes more and more divided. This has nothing to do with design decisions. This has to do with new and shiny. Neverwinter was new and shiny and people will go check it out…particularly because it’s free. That’s the nature of the game.

Guild Wars 2 has done well to keep the player base it has, but it’s not millions of players. It was never going to be. If a huge superpower like SWToR and go free to play and not keep players, if WOW has lost well over a million people since the release of MoP (almost 2 million), if competition keeps coming out, how do you expect any game to maintain millions of players?

I expect them to do well by focusing on what they do best. What GW2 does best, really, truly, best, is the journey. Look at the reviews, look at what the players say, look at the world as you level.

What kills games, especially mmo’s, is losing focus. What was WoW’s claim to fame? End game progression, challenge, and a feeling of accomplishment. Want to know what killed it for it’s core audience? Everyone and their mother walking around in welfare epics, the lfg/lfr/crz, frakking pokemon, oversimplification of skill trees, and the decision to go super casual. If they had stayed true to core concepts of the game, they would have never gone through these periods of losing huge chunks of their playerbase. Short term gain ended up being long term loss.

When you actively and energetically pursue things that are not in the core focus of your game, it will suffer.

Vayne.8563:

@killcannon

As I’ve said, and illustrated, people don’t just gather toward rewards. People gather in places where there is virtually no reward in Guild Wars 1, like Kamadan and Shing Jea Monastary. Why those places? They’re not rewarding. Nothing around them is rewarding.

You postulate people gather for reward, but I postulate that even if rewards were equal EVERYWHERE, people would still gather. It happens in every MMO not because of the mechanics of MMOs, but because of human nature.

Again, why did people gather in those places in Guild Wars 1, if it’s all about rewards?

Guild Wars 1 is not an MMO, why do you keep bringing up guild wars 1? It wasn’t open world, you maxed out at playing with other people at ten or twelve players, you didn’t even have to play with other players when you had an ai party. None of the designs there reflect anything about mmo’s.

You may as well discuss any single player rpg. There just isn’t enough MMO in GW1 to make contrasts or comparisons to an open world mmo where the population can play and see each other. There was a different focus for GW1. It doesn’t take much to see it, all you have to do is look at the hundreds of threads from GW1 fans hating on gw2, saying how much it isn’t like gw1, saying how different this game is. It’s because this game is an MMO and GW1 wasn’t.

I feel like I’m arguing with Clay now.

Vayne.8563:

serialkicker.5274:

i don’t know

Then it’s hard to be convincing. I think there are less people playing this game than you think. The game sold over 3 million copies. We know a lot of people don’t log in all the time and many left the game. We also know that you have to divide the population into server parks. Nothing that happens in Europe affects the US servers and vice versa.

Your situation might work if you have millions of people playing, but I really don’t think that’s the case. If players are divided evenly between Europe and the US and there’s a million people playing that’s 500,000 per server park.

That’s not a lot of people when you divide by servers, and then figure out how many people play casually and don’t log in every day or week to week.

My guild has a hundred people in it, but only 30 or so long in with any regularity. If that holds true for the rest of the population, start doing the math.

If you spread the population out into every zone you MIGHT see people on the busiest hours, but everyone else the rest of the time is completely screwed.

So, there are even less people playing than others think? Does this not tell you something of the decisions that have been made and are continuing to be made?

Maybe it’s time to change that then, instead of saying “Well, let’s just continue to do the same thing we’ve been doing, because that’s working out great!”

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

So the “white knights” are wrong and you’re right. Because your friends looked on busier servers.

First of all, right now all the action and I mean all the action is on South Sun. So if you didn’t look there since the event started, well, then you’re missing where the people are.

Because you know…new content, people go to check it out.

Do you have any idea of how many Southsun overflow servers there are?

Secondly, you dont’ have to be a white knight to see there are some highly populated servers out there. If you can’t find them you’re not looking. But again, right after a patch, go to the new content, because that’s what everyone is checking out.

It’s kind of cruddy that all the action is on Southsun, though. His complaint is still valid that there weren’t people out in the world to do DE’s with and that zones look and feel completely barren.

Also, his complaints of the grind-like system and issues that have been around since launch (and even before then)are still valid.

Well, yes and no. It’s like any MMO. You put in a new dungeon in an MMO and everyone will be hanging around that dungeon, because it’s new. Everyone wants to do new content.

This is human nature. I used to be involved in the publishing industry and most books sell 90% of all the copies they’ll ever sell during the first three months after release. It’s just the way people are. They want to see the new stuff.

In a week or two, they’ll have seen the new stuff and slowly drift back to the rest of the world. It’s already happening slowly.

So is it really a legit complaint? They only way to stop it is to not release new stuff at all.

This is not like any other mmo. This game is focused on Journey, not end game. 90% of all content is in the leveling process. There is no endgame progression, and first impressions in the leveling zones make all the difference in order to keep a stable population. There are no reasons in this game to forgive a leveling process without players, in most other MMO’s you have end game to look forward to if you didn’t have the players to play with as you level. Here you have 2 hours of content a month, and farming. Large guilds can offer some content as well, but this leaves out every single player who doesn’t want to be in a large guild (exactly what raids do in other mmo’s)

The same arguments that may fly in other MMO’s don’t work here, because there is no end game. There is no excuse or prize waiting at the end. There just is, what is, and that’s all.

I disagree with this statement. You can argue this is a different MMO, but human nature is still the same, even if this were a martian designed MMO and completely different. As long as you put humans together somewhere, they’re going to gather. Even if it makes no sense for them to gather there.

People gravitate to the most populated servers, and then then most populated towns on those servers. We’re social animals. There are individual exceptions but in every MMO, people find a place to gather. Even in Guild Wars 1 there were gathering points. I mean not a whole lot of people gathered at Yak’s Bend or Sardelic Sanitarium. They were always empty. Why? Because everyone was in LA or Kamadan.

KC was never a big gathering place, but Shing Jea island was? Why? No idea. But it’s what humans do. Anet can’t control that.

I’m pretty sure if they make every zone universally rewarding, people would still gather in hubs. And I’m also pretty sure if they did this and people didn’t gather, the population would be spread way too thin to make a difference.

I don’t have to argue it’s a different mmo, it is a different mmo. If you want to apply the logic that it’s the same as any other mmo, go for it. I think that the Devs, the players, and the media will all disagree with you though. End game progression? None. Overall design focus on end game content? None. Trinity? None. Gear based combat? Very little. People fight tooth and nail for this game to not be like every other mmo, and here you’re telling everyone it is like every other mmo. I could probably even go back through some of your early posts stating how it isn’t like every other mmo. The devs can’t treat it that way, because it simply isn’t designed for it from the ground up.

People gather towards reward, that’s it. It’s not magic, it’s not mysticism, it’s not religion. Make the Journey rewarding, and people will go there again, and you will see the population rise again. Or don’t. You will continue to see these posts more and more often till the devs decide to start supporting the Journey correctly.

I’m going to watch the whole thing, I promise. If it’s one thing this game needs, it’s some machinima support.

First suggestion though, break the video down into parts. An hour long youtube video is a chore. Think of 15 to 20 minutes max per part, with a structure of three acts overall and a coherent beginning, middle, and end in each of the smaller videos.

My two cents.

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

So the “white knights” are wrong and you’re right. Because your friends looked on busier servers.

First of all, right now all the action and I mean all the action is on South Sun. So if you didn’t look there since the event started, well, then you’re missing where the people are.

Because you know…new content, people go to check it out.

Do you have any idea of how many Southsun overflow servers there are?

Secondly, you dont’ have to be a white knight to see there are some highly populated servers out there. If you can’t find them you’re not looking. But again, right after a patch, go to the new content, because that’s what everyone is checking out.

It’s kind of cruddy that all the action is on Southsun, though. His complaint is still valid that there weren’t people out in the world to do DE’s with and that zones look and feel completely barren.

Also, his complaints of the grind-like system and issues that have been around since launch (and even before then)are still valid.

Well, yes and no. It’s like any MMO. You put in a new dungeon in an MMO and everyone will be hanging around that dungeon, because it’s new. Everyone wants to do new content.

This is human nature. I used to be involved in the publishing industry and most books sell 90% of all the copies they’ll ever sell during the first three months after release. It’s just the way people are. They want to see the new stuff.

In a week or two, they’ll have seen the new stuff and slowly drift back to the rest of the world. It’s already happening slowly.

So is it really a legit complaint? They only way to stop it is to not release new stuff at all.

This is not like any other mmo. This game is focused on Journey, not end game. 90% of all content is in the leveling process. There is no endgame progression, and first impressions in the leveling zones make all the difference in order to keep a stable population. There are no reasons in this game to forgive a leveling process without players, in most other MMO’s you have end game to look forward to if you didn’t have the players to play with as you level. Here you have 2 hours of content a month, and farming. Large guilds can offer some content as well, but this leaves out every single player who doesn’t want to be in a large guild (exactly what raids do in other mmo’s)

The same arguments that may fly in other MMO’s don’t work here, because there is no end game. There is no excuse or prize waiting at the end. There just is, what is, and that’s all.

Sirevanac.3178:

Fernling.1729:

Conncept.7638:

Not sure about Europe specifically, but there are no such reports (nor any evidence whatsoever) that sales are down globally or anywhere in America. Sorry you’re on a bad server, stop blowing it out of proportion though.

NCsoft already said that sales are down. 3 million copies were sold. If those 3 million people still played, the game would be heavily populated. The problem is that people in that 3 million are dropping off left and right.

Well this comment, sorry to say it, but it’s just plain stupid.

Guild Wars 2 is not a hurrdurr limitless grind mmorpg, therefore it has it’s lifetime in playing hours (for the average player). I’ve played around 500 hours, i havent logged in some months now, yet i’m checking every month update and i’m expecting the expansion/campaing to buy it. I’m REALLY satisfied with what i’ve played, but i’ve done pretty much all i can. And that’s okay man. I’ll log when i see some interest content i want, level a new character from scratch, and spend another two hundred hours.

And all that for 60 bucks huh, that’s sure the most time i spent on a game with so little money.

People stop playing because they’ve had all the fun and did all they could with the game. And those are things that i’m pretty sure the company knows.

The sells decay because it’s PRETTY obvious that sales go down after some months of the game release. It happens to ALL games (although here some dude will probably come saying “hey hurrr this game didnt for the first 30 years durr”).

I love the eloquence of your “hurrs” and “durrs”, it really speaks to me on a spiritual level.

So, why is population important in a MMO? Why is it important that even if people “have had all the fun they can get out of the game”, that they still login?

When a new player picks up this game as an MMO, there are some things that are naturally expected. One of these things is that the world is populated in such a way as to not make them feel as if they are playing a single player game. An MMO with no population is essentially just a badly made rpg. So losing vet players to disinterest directly affects any new players experience. If a new player loses interest quickly due to the fact of certain zones being lightly populated, then that new player no longer plays, and exacerbates the population loss problem. It also pretty much guarantees that any word of mouth from that new player will be negative, and most MMO’s sell by word of mouth, not advertising.

In the long run, some vet players will naturally leave the game for other games, and some will leave due to burnout or from disagreeing to the direction of the game. When these players are not replaced with an equal or greater amount of new players, the game starts a slow spiral into depopulation from naturally occurring player churn. And no amount of expansions, free content, or happy thoughts will change it.

All MMO’s face this problem, but GW2 faces it on an especially grand scale due to their design decisions. GW2 was designed with the journey in mind over the destination. There is no end game content here as in other MMO’s, most of the content is designed into the leveling process. There are reasons to forgive dead areas and leveling zones in other MMO’s because their focus is at the end of the game, the leveling doesn’t really matter. In GW2, there is nothing waiting for you at the end, there is no dungeon progression, there are no structured raids, there is no heavy gear treadmill. All you have is farming, some non structured guild content, and all the leveling areas which are really worthless to a max leveled player.

So, you have a journey focused MMO, with no one playing the journey because it isn’t worth it, with Devs throwing content and making design decisions that take even greater focus off the journey, new players wondering where all the players are as they level, and players reaching 80 and realizing that 90% of the content is in things they just did and no longer have a reason to go back to.

It’s all fine and good if you enjoy WvW, but how long will people just sit back and eat the zerg vs zerg?

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

Because you say so?

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think a single person should be a guild.

Oh, I get it! He was wrong because he thought so, but you’re in the right.

If you can’t see why a single person shouldn’t have a guild on his own, I’m not sure what to say. Anet discourages single person guilds in numerous ways, so Anet doesn’t like it either. It’s why a single person doing an event gets 2 influence, but 2 people in the same guild working on an event get 20.

1 person does not a guild make. You can argue that if you like…but I’m not sure on what basis.

I don’t see why a single person shouldn’t have a Guild on his own. It only takes one to make it, and if that’s how he likes it, then fine. It shouldn’t exclude him from being able to at least participate in content that’s added.

Because guild content is designed for multiple people. Guild rewards are designed for multiple people. If everyone could get the same stuff, it would limit the reason people join guilds. Some people join them to get certain benefits.

So you’re saying that an MMO that has multiplayer guilds should give the same think to anyone who just wants to start his own guild by himself?

Okay…then I guess that’s your opinion, and we’ll have to agree to disagree. Because I think that would be bad for the game over all.

Dungeon content is also designed for multiple people, but is available to be soloed or ran however you want in whatever kind of party you want.

Just because something is designed in a certain manner does not mean it should not be available to anyone.

According this statement you believe all dungeons should be soloable.

No, according to that statement, I know that all dungeons are available to make attempts at soloing them.

Something that is getting brought up is the difficulty of Guild Missions and that is a reason why they should only be available to large guilds.

Last time I checked this game has a core feature of content scalability for that type of thing.

Personally, I feel it’s the large guilds who fight against this type of thing more out of fear than anything logical. If it’s available to all, then there just isn’t a need for these types of guilds to exist.

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

Because you say so?

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think a single person should be a guild.

Oh, I get it! He was wrong because he thought so, but you’re in the right.

If you can’t see why a single person shouldn’t have a guild on his own, I’m not sure what to say. Anet discourages single person guilds in numerous ways, so Anet doesn’t like it either. It’s why a single person doing an event gets 2 influence, but 2 people in the same guild working on an event get 20.

1 person does not a guild make. You can argue that if you like…but I’m not sure on what basis.

I don’t see why a single person shouldn’t have a Guild on his own. It only takes one to make it, and if that’s how he likes it, then fine. It shouldn’t exclude him from being able to at least participate in content that’s added.

Because guild content is designed for multiple people. Guild rewards are designed for multiple people. If everyone could get the same stuff, it would limit the reason people join guilds. Some people join them to get certain benefits.

So you’re saying that an MMO that has multiplayer guilds should give the same think to anyone who just wants to start his own guild by himself?

Okay…then I guess that’s your opinion, and we’ll have to agree to disagree. Because I think that would be bad for the game over all.

Dungeon content is also designed for multiple people, but is available to be soloed or ran however you want in whatever kind of party you want.

Just because something is designed in a certain manner does not mean it should not be available to anyone.

RuneCrimson.7380:

See no one knows anything about this p/p sb except you guys thats been playing this game for ages and those are not on any site. I know I checked before I posted the question.

See, we have no clue what you do or don’t know. So people need you to give examples of what you want to know in order to help you.

But since you decided to label people as jerks for asking you to give examples, I will just say…good luck.

Penguin.5197:

Wait, whats this about a server being shutdown?

I’m pretty sure that is not true. Otherwise you would have seen it being used for some agenda on the forums in one way or another. In addition, there are no other accounts of this happening anywhere, either on the forums or the internet at large.

Must give examples or……not? Give some examples and people would be gald to tell you what they mean.

Geotherma.2395:

killcannon.2576:

Geotherma.2395:

Dante.1508:

Geotherma.2395:

Sil.4560:

If only it did something worthwhile.

600 karka shells seems worthwhile ^^

Over how many hours/days/weeks….

Actually going off today I’d say solo around 10-15+ an hour, in a group probably 20-30+ an hour. Easy stuff, and tons of bloods. Those numbers would be way better if EVERY mob actually dropped “something” hehe

That would be around 20+ hours played in a single day. You play 20+ hours in a single day much?

Lol no, closer to 15+ But whos counting :P

I am, when you start throwing numbers around. Glad you’re doing it though, the game needs more dedicated farmers who aren’t bots.

Geotherma.2395:

Dante.1508:

Geotherma.2395:

Sil.4560:

If only it did something worthwhile.

600 karka shells seems worthwhile ^^

Over how many hours/days/weeks….

Actually going off today I’d say solo around 10-15+ an hour, in a group probably 20-30+ an hour. Easy stuff, and tons of bloods. Those numbers would be way better if EVERY mob actually dropped “something” hehe

That would be around 20+ hours played in a single day. You play 20+ hours in a single day much?

Navzar.2938:

Vayne.8563:

It’s entirely possible that Anet is testing something new to replace magic find on armor.

I certainly hope so, but I wonder what mf gear would turn into if they did choose to remove it.

Most likely gold find.

Fernling.1729:

Conncept.7638:

Fernling.1729:

Conncept.7638:

Not sure about Europe specifically, but there are no such reports (nor any evidence whatsoever) that sales are down globally or anywhere in America. Sorry you’re on a bad server, stop blowing it out of proportion though.

NCsoft already said that sales are down. 3 million copies were sold. If those 3 million people still played, the game would be heavily populated. The problem is that people in that 3 million are dropping off left and right.

Please show where they’ve said that. And so help if you say you ‘heard it on the internet’… I will not be responsible for my actions.

I could definitely be mistaken, as it was heard on the internet. I thought people were saying something about the NCsoft quarterly report stating sales were down. I would like to retract my statement about sales being down because I have no proof other than rumors.
It’s kind of a moot point anyways. Are we talking about box sales? Of course those dropped. It is only normal for the sales to make a decline after launch. Or are we talking about gem store sales? I have no idea here. I would think these rng boxes are loading their pockets though.

I’m not sure how anyone missed the sales reports, since there were several threads in the forums about them.

A couple pertinent links:
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/37350/guild-wars-2/
http://www.vg247.com/2013/05/13/ncsoft-q1-guild-wars-2-sales-flatten-but-profits-up/
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/12/ncsoft-sales-down-from-last-quarter-up-from-last-year/

Make of it what you will.

Also, servers capacity has nothing to do with players currently on server. Server capacity is tracked by the number of accounts created and kept on that server. Pointing out increased server loads has no direct link to players actually playing the game.

Imbune.5497:

Yeah I thought this was going to be about Arah story mode…but as others have said, the dungeon was the ending (in particular, the events to the end and immediately after the dungeon, not just the fact that you attack the facility)-everything after is the epilogue of that ‘chapter’, if you will (Southsun obviously shows the story isn’t over yet). If you know you aren’t strong in writing/literary techniques then please take the time to learn about it/improve your skills rather than proudly displaying your ignorance and arrogance in attempted to contradict others who are obviously your betters in that particular aspect (not directed at OP)……reading the dev notes also helps in this case -__-

Btw:
“The Flame and Frost epilogue will be active from Sunday, May 12 at 12:00pm Pacific until Thursday May 16 at 12:00am Pacific the release of the Secret of Southsun on Tuesday May 14. The epilogue will mostly consist of conversations and story elements; there are no exclusive rewards to be given at this time.”

“A Rallying Flame Achievement

This achievement can only be earned during the epilogue, which starts on Sunday, May 12 at 12:00pm Pacific and remains active until Thursday, May 16 at 12:00am Pacific. You can earn this achievement by interacting with a bonfire in either Lion’s Arch, Hoelbrak, or the Black Citadel."

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-guide-to-flame-frost-retribution/

Really not sure how much clearer one can be that the bonfire isn’t the ‘ending’…
What you consider to be the ending is your business, but it is also irrelevant-the creators have declared this to be the epilogue, so any worthwhile critique will have to be of the event as an epilogue, not an ending. Or could it be some of you are so full of yourselves you are unable to view anything objectively, if so then your opinions will always be biased, based in ignorance and carry very little worth, contrary to your deepest wishes/delusions.

Also, why can’t people seem to stick to topics, has literacy really dropped this far? The topic is about the perception of the ending of F&F-not your opinion on the entire story, not the last time you liked temporary content, not whether your are a fan of temp content, not your wish for PTR, not how you think the event was handled, not drop rates, not your alts, not your profession, not exotics (-__- idk where the hell this one even came from)…smh

Wow, “biased”, “based in ignorance”, “carry very little worth”, “delusions” calling people “illiterate”, “irrelevant”, “worthwhile”, “full of yourselves”, “ignorance”, “arrogance”

Yep, sounds objective to me.

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

darkace.8925:

killcannon.2576:

Then the interlude blew chunks. Any way you want to slice it, call it interlude, call it end, call it epilogue, call it lemon sherbert, it left a lot to be desired.

But feel free to keep telling Anet it was great, maybe we can get more compelling parts to the living story just like it in this episode.

It didn’t say it was great. I didn’t say it was bad. It was what it was.

I don’t know exactly what you wanted for an interlude that closes one chapter of a story before another is opened? Did you want Blue Angels to fly overhead, doing aerial-acrobatics to the guitar riffs from Crazy Train? Did you want a lazy and fireworks show while Santa passed by on his float throwing out precursors and candy? Did you want Zhaitan to rise from the dead and attack Lion’s Arch so the heroes of Tyria could rally once more to overthrow evil?

You got a climax with the dungeon. You got an ending to the story with the cut scenes in Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel. What more was needed? A better question is in what way did the bonfire take away from the aforementioned climax and resolution?

I don’t consider it an interlude? or an epilogue, or lemon sherbert, I considered it the end of the F&F chapter of the Living Story.

You may have got the ending with the two sentences Roxx and little boy lost said to you, but I expected more, and I expected it at the bonfire. If you felt happy with it, that’s great.
I’m not trying to change your mind, and I’m just stating mine. Let’s leave it at that shall we?

I can’t believe I agree with you. I’m going to go check my temperature. lol

I normally agree with you Vayne, we just butt heads sometimes over certain issues we each feel passionately about. It’s what the forums are for though, really. If we all agreed with each other all the time, not very many ideas would come about and nothing would ever be hashed out. If I put out a suggestion here, it’s your, and everyone else’s, job to look at it critically and discuss it.

Recently, there seems to be a big push to dismiss things out of hand too often. (not saying you do this)

darkace.8925:

killcannon.2576:

Then the interlude blew chunks. Any way you want to slice it, call it interlude, call it end, call it epilogue, call it lemon sherbert, it left a lot to be desired.

But feel free to keep telling Anet it was great, maybe we can get more compelling parts to the living story just like it in this episode.

It didn’t say it was great. I didn’t say it was bad. It was what it was.

I don’t know exactly what you wanted for an interlude that closes one chapter of a story before another is opened? Did you want Blue Angels to fly overhead, doing aerial-acrobatics to the guitar riffs from Crazy Train? Did you want a lazy and fireworks show while Santa passed by on his float throwing out precursors and candy? Did you want Zhaitan to rise from the dead and attack Lion’s Arch so the heroes of Tyria could rally once more to overthrow evil?

You got a climax with the dungeon. You got an ending to the story with the cut scenes in Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel. What more was needed? A better question is in what way did the bonfire take away from the aforementioned climax and resolution?

I don’t consider it an interlude? or an epilogue, or lemon sherbert, I considered it the end of the F&F chapter of the Living Story.

You may have got the ending with the two sentences Roxx and little boy lost said to you, but I expected more, and I expected it at the bonfire. If you felt happy with it, that’s great.
I’m not trying to change your mind, and I’m just stating mine. Let’s leave it at that shall we?

Geotherma.2395:

killcannon.2576:

Mujen.5287:

killcannon.2576:

foofad.5162:

What the… What? The DUNGEON was the end of the event, and the dungeon was awesome. You expected something past that? Did you even notice that Rox and Braham parted ways at the very end?

It obviously wasn’t the “end” since the end happened with activating the bonfire. You are confusing end with climax.

I don’t think you know what climax means.

Perhaps you could explain it to me? Most of the feedback I have seen in game, on forums, and in the press was that the MWF was the highlight/best part of the F&F story arc. Had the most action, the most challenge, and most reward of that chapter.

If I go look up the definition for reference it would be
Climax: The point of greatest intensity or force in an ascending series or progression; a culmination

I could be wrong, but it seems that MWF would fit the term climax.

If it was the END to you or anyone else, fine by me. It wasn’t to me.

Just be careful googling that word lol

I agree the bigger stuff like the dungeon was the climax and beating the dungeon entirely and when it was destroyed. After that was the small reward and culmination of everything. A brief interlude between F&F and Southsun beginning.

lol

darkace.8925:

killcannon.2576:

The Mass Effect 3 ending is exactly my point, thanks for catching on.

Throughout the game you take part in one battle after another, each more heroic than the last, you lose friends and squadmates (poor Mordin..sob) along the way, resolve conflicts, overcome challenges, have a final drink on top of the Citadel.

The climax can happen at different times for different people, the overall climax gameplay wise though was the battle to get to the Citadel. But this indeed was not the end, in the same way that the Molten Weapons Facility was not the end of F&F. The end was for F&F was the bonfire, where you should be catching up with your friends, celebrating your victories, and feeling good about yourself overall.

Instead….you click a bonfire. In ME3 you click a color.

Both left me wondering wtf?

Edit: Yes, I know the story isn’t over. Still lame for a chapter end imo. Hope it’s better next time.

Here’s where I feel you’re going wrong. You’re disappointed the “ending” was a bonfire. The “ending” was actually the Molten Facility and boss fight. The stuff with Rox and Braun that happened after that was “epilogue”. The bonfire part neither, it was “interlude”. It was just a brief “between chapters” thing that happened to give out a buff and an achievement. Or at least that’s how I looked at things.

Then the interlude blew chunks. Any way you want to slice it, call it interlude, call it end, call it epilogue, call it lemon sherbert, it left a lot to be desired.

But feel free to keep telling Anet it was great, maybe we can get more compelling parts to the living story just like it in this episode.

Mujen.5287:

killcannon.2576:

foofad.5162:

What the… What? The DUNGEON was the end of the event, and the dungeon was awesome. You expected something past that? Did you even notice that Rox and Braham parted ways at the very end?

It obviously wasn’t the “end” since the end happened with activating the bonfire. You are confusing end with climax.

I don’t think you know what climax means.

Perhaps you could explain it to me? Most of the feedback I have seen in game, on forums, and in the press was that the MWF was the highlight/best part of the F&F story arc. Had the most action, the most challenge, and most reward of that chapter.

If I go look up the definition for reference it would be
Climax: The point of greatest intensity or force in an ascending series or progression; a culmination

I could be wrong, but it seems that MWF would fit the term climax.

If it was the END to you or anyone else, fine by me. It wasn’t to me.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Vayne.8563:

Because you say so?

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think a single person should be a guild.

Oh, I get it! He was wrong because he thought so, but you’re in the right.

It’s an opinion, he’s entitled to it. Same as the rest of us.

Mathias.9657:

Looking at every guild activity put into the game since launch, I think it’s safe to say ANet REALLY HATES small guilds.

Hate is probably too strong a word.

Don’t care about is probably more appropriate, at least from what we have seen so far. Shame, small guilds usually are what can hold a game together for a lot of players.

People keep using the word epilogue, it does not mean what you think it means, there is no extra story, there is no wrap up, there are no conclusions from clicking the bonfire.

Definition in link

http://tinyurl.com/beq5a2r

Vayne.8563:

Except with the exception of WvW, the people in big guilds had no content at all. None. The party size is five. You can’t run around with forty people doing most events, because most events don’t scale that high.

These guild quests were added because big guilds were left out of everything else. It’s so easy to join a guild that allows people in for public guild missions and still be in your own guild 99% of the time.

Hell my guild will allow people to run with us, without otherwise contributing to the guild at all.

It’s easy enough to do. People who choose not to…well that’s their own look out.

But is there a significant reason to only restrict this due to guild size? That is my only concern. I know the general reaction to stating anything about reward, but even if smaller guilds do run it with someone else, they don’t receive the same kind of payoff.

If it was open and fairly accessible to all guilds, who would that leave out exactly? Does it simply boil down to a prestige thing?

I recognize that managing a large guild can be a chore and a challenge in it’s own right, and that there should be some form of prestige that goes along with that ideal. I’m just not sure that gating content should be the answer.

ThiBash.5634:

It wasn’t the end. The story hasn’t finished yet.

You’re compaling about something that’s similar to Bilbo doing the dishes after the Dwarf tea party in the first chapter of the Hobbit.

It’s not the ending. It’s an intermediate step in a much longer story.

There’s a difference between mindless negativity, and constructive criticism.

If I had said " Zomfg!! Anet was trying to sell you the ending in the gemstore, all theyz wantz is the moar moneyz!! It’s a conspiracy with all the big bads!!". Now, I think most of us can recognize that just isn’t the case, and that is a form of what mindless negativity is.

Complaining in a constructive manner, where you clearly state either real identifiable problems, or well thought out opinions, with a clear goal of debate instead of advancing an agenda, is what the people on these forums should strive for. This goes equally for both camps.

By letting Anet have some well structured feedback on what some of us thought of the bonfire part of F&F, they will have more information going forward on how to structure future Living Story segments that may be more appreciated by all of the community.

The people in small guilds can put just as much effort into playing as what any person in a large guild can. Yet there is a discrimination against this size of guild, not due to their play style, how much they play, or what content they chose to do, but instead because of the fact they don’t have enough people banging their heads against a wall.

If players in a small guild play more than players in a large guild, play better than the players of a large guild, are more active in the community than a large guild, why are they being discriminated against?

For all the people who wanted raids, large guilds are it. There is the content you can only reach if you have large groups of people, that no one else can do.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The Mass Effect 3 ending is exactly my point, thanks for catching on.

Throughout the game you take part in one battle after another, each more heroic than the last, you lose friends and squadmates (poor Mordin..sob) along the way, resolve conflicts, overcome challenges, have a final drink on top of the Citadel.

The climax can happen at different times for different people, the overall climax gameplay wise though was the battle to get to the Citadel. But this indeed was not the end, in the same way that the Molten Weapons Facility was not the end of F&F. The end was for F&F was the bonfire, where you should be catching up with your friends, celebrating your victories, and feeling good about yourself overall.

Instead….you click a bonfire. In ME3 you click a color.

Both left me wondering wtf?

Edit: Yes, I know the story isn’t over. Still lame for a chapter end imo. Hope it’s better next time.

foofad.5162:

What the… What? The DUNGEON was the end of the event, and the dungeon was awesome. You expected something past that? Did you even notice that Rox and Braham parted ways at the very end?

It obviously wasn’t the “end” since the end happened with activating the bonfire. You are confusing end with climax.

Not going to goalie this one.

They dropped the ball on it. Endings to chapters matter in RPGs, especially if you want the player to feel like they are part of something or that they matter. Not worried about reward, but they should have put a scene in here with Roxx and little boy lost.

See original ending to ME3.

Opinion is opinion, go figure. GW2 is a good game, one of the best MMO’s released to date.

I’m more interested to see how it will stack up to the new games coming out. Many games will be taking the best of what GW2 has to offer and implementing it into their own systems. Hopefully the team at Anet will be up to the challenge, guess we’ll see.

Watch out for WildStar.

You know what…I just don’t see a lot of light armor charr. Even my charr is a warrior. I suppose their overall demeanor and look tend to be taken as Warrior types, or engies.

You should change your topic title to ask people to post their Charr light armor characters. You will probably get a lot more hits and it’s something I haven’t seen anyone make a post about. I would be very interested in seeing other non typical charr.

MysticalAbyss.8047:

Ty the colors took a while to get right. Most of them are even common lol.

What’s your armor make up? It’s very David Bowie/Labyrinth.

I can see why you stand out. Nice use of colors, better than the “Look at me, I found a black dye” crowd.

Non instanced zones. I miss the big open world that I could walk from one end of the continent to the other and never see a load screen.

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Huh?
Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO. But I will address that what I said would apply to the Prophecies campaign. New players who started Prophecies after the later campaign was released would have had a substantially changed experience to anyone who would have played it from release. I assume Prophecies never came back to the population level of pre-launch Factions? I hear most GW1 vets tell people not to even bother playing it because of that. Now, if instead of releasing a brand new continent in Cantha, but had instead integrated an entire new campaign in Prophecies itself, the entire player base would have been revitalized for both new and veteran players and that split would never have happened.

Here’s the flaw in your thought process:
WoW, Rift, LotR have completely different foci for their game. It’s all about the end, the journey doesn’t matter. Most of their content is at the end of the game- dungeons, raids, mounts, gear treadmill. Where’s the population at? At the end where the content is. Where are the rewards? At the end where the content is. Where’s the focus? At the endgame.

What’s GW2’s focus? The journey, there is no end game content per se- except Orr- and Living Story in Southsun. And those two areas are now just being used to farm. Straits and Malchors are both considerably more empty than Cursed Shores. Almost all of GW2’s content lies in the journey, but where is the population? Not there. They are doing what the devs have decided to make endgame, while ignoring where their content actually lies. The majority of players are farming world events for chests concentrating in very small areas of a zone, or farming a very small area in Orr for drops, or farming the least time consuming dungeon.

This is what Anet has gotten wrong, and what Vet players can’t or won’t see. The game’s content focus is on journey, but the reward focus is on end game. The reward needs to go where the content focus is, just like those other games you mentioned.

I’m not sure you realize just how many people play Lotro who don’t care about or never get to end game. Lotro more than other games sure, but most games have a very health not-end game population.

It’s true that a lot of people on forums will talk about end game, because the people that solo those games and never party or don’t do anything more than casual dungeons aren’t usually forum goers, but I think you’d be shocked about the number of people who play other MMOs who couldn’t give a toss about end game.

Even Guild Wars 1 was like that. Plenty of people in Guild Wars 1 never even attempted DOA, the Deep or Urgoz’s warren. And while I beat them all at one time or another, they weren’t particularly a major part of my game either.

Don’t know about any game that has a healthy population in their leveling areas that aren’t focused on them. I don’t currently play LotR, so have no clue how it currently is, but when it released and before it went f2p, the best content was at the end, and afaik, each new content release has more stuff for end game players, and there are more players there than anywhere else. The game was set up and released to be just like every other mmo. End Game> journey. The leveling process and all areas it contained were disposable, not meant to be returned to.

You can point to pretty much any mmo out there and see where the population is, and it’s what that game has focused on. Not so GW2. The focus has always been on the journey, almost every single core mechanic relates to it, almost ninety percent of the content is there. But the rewards? At the end. The population? At the end trying to get the rewards.

They just need to put the rewards back where the focus is, or just change the focus, scrap the journey and work on end game, and declare a mission failure with their idea. New players in other games have a reason to put up with dead leveling areas, because the leveling areas aren’t the focus of the game, the end is. Here, all the leveling areas are the focus, because at the end…there’s nothing except farming and 2 hours of living story a month if you’re lucky.

Edit: As an experiment, I would be glad to go back to LotR for awhile and actually see these bustling leveling areas. Just suggest to me a server.