Guild Wars 2

CharrGirl.7896:

Or how about instead of nerfing CoF we get boosted rewards elsewhere? Like nerfing one dungeon will achieve anything. Besides haven’t the prices of ectos and dust/other mats gone down?

That suggestion is way too logical.

How did you get past the screening process for these forums, hmmmmm?

lol, “Make sure you always build specifically to counter a thief, otherwise it’s your fault”

Always makes me chuckle.

Next patch expect them to have yet another condition and be able to dual wield greatswords. Go esports yay!!!!

Erasculio.2914:

killcannon.2576:

Yeah…30 million plus gamers and growing, and the genre is dying. Do you research this stuff, or just pull phrases out of a hat at random?

I’m simply not naive enough to take MMORPG’s developers claims of “30 million registered players” at face value, considering how most of those have left their games. Although I guess people gullible enough to believe grind is a good thing are going to fall for anything.

And luckily, I’m not naive enough to take a forum soapboxer at face value simply because they have an axe to grind about an entire genre of gaming and like to pull “facts” from thin air.

Grind is everywhere, in all games, in all forms of existence, and it’s all subjective.

Erasculio.2914:

killcannon.2576:

Accept it or don’t. Try to blame others because you don’t enjoy it. Try to blame marketing for your own shortcomings. It’s an MMO, and it’s here to stay.

Not really. Some people are happy to be completely oblivious to how MMO after MMO has failed, but those paying attention can see a very obvious trend. MMOs are a dying trend – they require people foolish enough to buy the idea that “time spent” is the greatest achievement one can have, and fortunatelly there aren’t that many gullible players in the world. Watching all recent MMOs shows more or less the same numbers – between 1.5 and 2 million players begin playing after release, most leave after a few months, and either jump back to their first MMO or hop to the next big thing. The MMO market is not growing – it’s just dying, as seen on how almost all MMORPGs have been forced to move to free to play (a format in which they are fortunate enough to avoid describing how many active players they have, unlike in subscription models).

In the end, the conclusion is obvious – MMOs are going away. Fortunatelly, they are not here to stay.

Yeah…30 million plus gamers and growing, and the genre is dying. Do you research this stuff, or just pull phrases out of a hat at random?

Sorry to say, someone is demonstrably wrong. I love how people have zero experience with MMO’s but feel free to comment on them like they have some sense of innate knowledge.

They loved a single player, sometimes cooperative RPG. They simply lack any kind of real experience for what makes an MMO an MMO. They want their co-op rpg experience back. Sorry to say, that genre died. No one wanted to play it. That’s why they didn’t make GW2 like GW1. If it was sooo popular and soooo great, why isn’t it still relevant? Because it wasn’t. It was niche. Niche can be great, and GW1 had a passionate following. But it’s time is gone. There is a reason those types of games aren’t being made by the dozens.

People can stoke that little flame of nostalgia as much as they want, they can pine away moaning that this game isn’t some mediocre co op rpg that belongs to an age long past, they can attempt to sound knowledgeable by spouting catch phrases and jingoism, but it doesn’t change anything.

This game isn’t and will never be GW 1.5

Be as bitter about it as you want. Try to tear it down, not because it’s a bad game or has flaws, but simply because it doesn’t live up to the precious ideal of a game that lived past it’s time. I’m glad GW2 didn’t follow the tired mechanics of the past. I’m glad it has become it’s own game.

Accept it or don’t. Try to blame others because you don’t enjoy it. Try to blame marketing for your own shortcomings. It’s an MMO, and it’s here to stay.

Lots of posters mention WoW dungeons as grindy.

Personally I felt as if they were a lot more fun than the dungeons located in this game, and many people who played WoW would often return and play through older content at an appropriate level simply because they enjoyed it. WoW’ers played for fun, did dungeons for fun, did content for fun, logged in for fun, and did more than spend every waking minute of every day grinding.

With the introduction of Cata, and to some extent, WotLK much of this grind people seem to lay at the feet of WoW was greatly reduced. Most of the grind was for reputation, much like the laurels are implemented here. Some of it was genuinely fun, some of it was mind numbingly boring. But in actuality, it was never actually needed. There was more than enough content in WoW, even in Vanilla, that you never had to step inside of a dreaded Raid instance in order to have fun with the game.

People constantly want to hold WoW up as the epitome of grind culture in MMO’s, when it’s not actually true, and none of the arguments based on it hold water. You could do the same things in WoW that you can do here, it just doesn’t tell you to do them, or hold your hand and direct you to the lore bits, or vistas, or jumping puzzles, or riddles. You had to go look for them, and finding those out of the way quests, or long lore chains were sometimes more fulfilling than joining your friends and guildmates to take on the newest raid.

And even getting geared for raids and higher content was fun, simply because they made the process enjoyable to a large extent. The dungeons all mattered, they had fun enemies, enjoyable bosses, interesting secrets, and complex mechanics in some cases. Gearing wasn’t just about mindlessly beating your head against a wall, but consistently contained enjoyable content. I learned more about the world of Azeroth in Vanilla than I have learned about the world of Tyria in GW2.

GW2 has grind, so did WoW, so do many games. What GW2 has yet to learn is how to mask that grind behind enjoyable content.

Vikestart.4523:

Well, if you look at The Secret World, their item store is stuffed with cosmetic stuff and a few xp-boosts (not pay-to-win). I’ve spent over $200 in their item store.

I couldn’t possibly dream of spending an equal amount here seeing as there are no interesting items at the moment. To me, that seems like bad marketing strategy. While, the temporary items strategy is okay, they should have more permanent items as well.

Seems to work for Anet. I assume they have an eye on other games implementation of cash shops and will modify theirs accordingly if necessary.

Vikestart.4523:

So how often do they push out new items?

Recently, as often as once or more a month. This timing will most likely be shortened even further in the future, to further increase any items sense of rare appeal.

Vikestart.4523:

killcannon.2576:

They tend to remove items from the gem store after an arbitrary amount of time. This tends to lend those items immediacy and increase the need or desire for them “right now”.

It’s a marketing tactic that resonates with a large part of the player base. Makes them feel “special”.

Well, do items sometimes reappear in the store later on, or is it written in stone that they appear once and then they’re gone forever?

It is very possible that some items may return in one form or another. Items such as the permanent harvesting tools will almost certainly return at a later date to take advantage of a new market, ie new players. Other items, such as certain armor sets, town clothes, vanity backpacks, musical instruments, vanity travel items may or may not return either to lend themselves a false sense of rarity, or may return in a slightly altered form so as to make the most money with the least amount of effort involved.

All in all, you have not missed much anyway, so don’t worry too much about it. Some of the best items were seasonal and will probably be making a reappearance…and probably be improved to boot.

They tend to remove items from the gem store after an arbitrary amount of time. This tends to lend those items immediacy and increase the need or desire for them “right now”.

It’s a marketing tactic that resonates with a large part of the player base. Makes them feel “special”.

Nuage.5230:

killcannon.2576:

Nuage.5230:

Dey be straight chillin in dey crib, yo. Funny as I don’ kno what how y’all be lunchin’ over dis game sometimes. Askin’ peeps where some dragons be at? Yo, son, you know where dey be. Stop playin,’ you ’bout to make me get all Mike Tyson up in here.

Translation:

The Elder Dragons are relaxing in their lair. It’s rather odd how you folks get over GW2, sometimes – I mean in terms of the questions you ask. You’re asking about the location of dragons, lol. Look bud, take a bit of time to check the wiki and you’ll find them. Stop being silly, you’re about to make me go crazy on these boards.

wow…just wow.

I hope you are joking and realize that the thread isn’t about their actual location.

On the real, yo, just chill. What, cuz I like “dis and dat” you like “what?” Nah, young, dem dragons is chillin’ like I said. Hit up that wiki to get yourself knowledgefied. I was clear that bammas be lunchin,’ talkin’ ‘bout where some dragons be. You straight, bet – I mess with you like dat, but you trying to get all smart talking some “actual location” like we need GPS up in dis junt. What kinda people be talkin’ ‘bout “actual location” ’cept pilots that be droppin bombs on fools? Talking some “Foxtrot Alpha Charlie Tango… I got an actual location. Clear to engage? Over.” Nah, dogg, it ain’t like that – I know what’s up. Don’t be sleepin’ on me unless you wanna get snuck. I can drop some flows.

Translation:

Seriously, relax. Just because I made reference to the location of the dragons doesn’t necessarily mean I thought that’s what OP was referring to in the strictest sense. Still, on a level, the dragons are just doing their own thing, relaxing. Head on over to the wiki to learn more about the dragons. I thought I was being clear with the sarcasm, especially when I started talking about how people on the forums can be goofy, lol. You’re cool – no doubt you’re fun to be around, but you (lol) you came off like a stiff when you said “actual location” like we need to make use of GPS on these forums or in this game. It’s not common to hear people speak like that, not in this context at least. Who does that, mentions “actual location” in such a way except for maybe a fighter pilot going over orders of engagement, “Foxtrot Alpha Charlie Tango… I got an actual location. Clear to engage? Over.” No way, man, it’s not like that – I was just having a bit of fun. Still, I must warn you, don’t think that you can pull the verbal wool over my eyes, as I have a command over the language.

Pretty much what I figured then.
Thank you for your valuable and informative addition to the topic.

Harbard.5738:

• ATTENTION: This is not a post about what’s healthy/good or bad for the player. It’s about the economy and how CoF farming is affecting prices for normal players.*

As people are running CoF over and over for ~10 gold an hour for ages now, isn’t about time ANet shutdown this farming already?

I see only a ton of inflation coming out it. Am I wrong? Doesn’t even make up for the lower prices of some stones while everything else gets more expensive for people who just play the game normally (that includes the occasional farmer).

-
Seriously, look at this people:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/One-in-a-million-FB-Event-Like-away/first#post2354187
-

So, ANet, please do something about it.

Someone is assuming they are a “normal player”.

If “normal” means the majority, then I think the daily runners of CoF are the “normal players” and everyone else is in the minority.

Again, who can say who is playing the game “normally”? Are any developers here in disguise? Go ahead…you can tell us.

I sure am glad the “normal players” are here to tell everyone else how wrong they are.

Galen Grey.4709:

killcannon.2576:

So I asked you to list what has changed…and you listed:
1.Couple of Grawl npcs in LA
2.The refugees who were not there before the living story are no longer there…shocking!!!
3. A broken Lighthouse
4. Southshore is still a dead zone…which they were supposed to fix but didn’t do too hot a job at.

Three things that have zip to do with gameplay, and another failed attempt to make SouthSun worthwhile. Thanks.

Dont twist my words please. You asked me what impact those events left on the world. I was answering specific this statement of yours in a previous post: “Tyria is much the same as when I started, I can see little to no evidence of any “Living World” that the devs have spoken so much about over the last 8 months.”

I listed 3 off the top of my head that I knew were in game off the top of my head. There are more. Even subtle ones like you can still see the disturbed land where the camps had been in hoelbrak. I mean areas without snow, scorched land where the camp fires where etc..

anyhow back on subject. Like I said in a previous post if you want to have a moving storyline you have to do this. If all the events/instances in flame and frost remained in the world how could you ever say the conflict was resolved? Would it make sense to have the story say we destroyed the molten alliance, the threat is resolved but then in the open world you’d get the alliance attacking the outposts still? or refugees limping along the road?

Think of it in real world terms. If there is a major conflict anywhere in the world, while its happening you see a lot of activity, soldiers fighting, tanks, planes etc… right after the fighting stops things will start to return to normal, you’d see some distraction, people rebuilding, refugees etc.. Fast forward more and you’ll be left with some subtle hints nothing more. More time passes and everything will disappear. If today we visit london or berlin we wouldnt be able to tell those 2 cities where prime targets in a world war. That doesnt mean world war 2 never happened. Same here the effects of the molten alliance are starting to disappear sure but thats to be expected.

Also what do you mean the refugees appeared out of no where? when the flame and frost saga started you could see the refugees walking from the center of where the alliance was attacking up to hoelbrak and the black citadel. Week after week the refugee settlements grew and grew and more refugees joined them. Thats like unheard of in an MMO, what more did you want?

Still waiting on the list of what has changed in this “Living World”.

Krosslite.1950:

“It seems all of this free content is only possible due to the ongoing popularity of the in-game gem store which Mike told us feeds new revenue into the studio at a “constant” rate, something which regular updates would inevitably increase as players return to the game regularly to sample newly added content. Essentially it seems those who use the store are essentially sponsoring those who don’t ensuring these new content updates remain free, and that’s a tough balance which very few online games get right.”
http://www.gamerzines.com/pc/arenanet-planning-fortnightly.html

Again..this is not a quote from a dev…and even if it was people should realize by now not to quote them for, well, anything.

NCSoft says they are releasing an expansion, Anet says they are not, well maybe they are, no they definitely are not, well maybe it’s on the table…but not yet, definitely not this year, maybe this year, maybe never.

I honestly don’t know what’s going on in this game from one day to the next, except that I need to punch more pinatas in the face.

Nuage.5230:

Dey be straight chillin in dey crib, yo. Funny as I don’ kno what how y’all be lunchin’ over dis game sometimes. Askin’ peeps where some dragons be at? Yo, son, you know where dey be. Stop playin,’ you ’bout to make me get all Mike Tyson up in here.

Translation:

The Elder Dragons are relaxing in their lair. It’s rather odd how you folks get over GW2, sometimes – I mean in terms of the questions you ask. You’re asking about the location of dragons, lol. Look bud, take a bit of time to check the wiki and you’ll find them. Stop being silly, you’re about to make me go crazy on these boards.

wow…just wow.

I hope you are joking and realize that the thread isn’t about their actual location.

Brutal Arts.6307:

No Walking.6349:

Who cares, TESO will come out before the next dragon does, so it’s not like any of us will still be playing GW2

That’s not how you spell Wild Star

Lol, good stuff

Wolfheart.1938:

Can we make the fight against Zhaitan decent first?

That would actually take effort. Ignore Zhaitan and go beat that pinata over there.

No, not that one…the other one. There ya go.

Galen Grey.4709:

killcannon.2576:

I take back the things that were in at launch, I misread and didn’t see you specify only three of the mini dungeons.

All the supposed “new game features” were talked about before launch.

And if you were not here for the temp content or were on sabbatical for whatever reason, the content did not and does not exist.

Removing content from the game may be “So what” to you, but not to many others, I assure you. If it’s gone then it may as well have never even existed.

Tyria is much the same as when I started, I can see little to no evidence of any “Living World” that the devs have spoken so much about over the last 8 months. Go through your list again and only keep what is still in Tyria. Tell us how it’s changed.

Tell us where the last 8 months have gone, because GW2 is going to need all the help it can get in the coming months.

Smoke is here and gone, much like Anets content. Ephemeral and fleeting. And all because they can’t make content that makes people want to log in on it’s own strengths. They have to use the temporary gimmick.

I am not going to contradict you, but honestly the only new feature I heard talk about before launch was the guesting. The crafting materials accessible from the game was requested by players afaik, they never even talked about it before one day poof it was made available. Guild missions and WvW progression were also stuff added based on player feedback afaik. For the rest I dont know but honestly never heard talk about them before launch and I followed the game extremely closely.

If you were not there, you’d miss it true but if you were not playing you didnt need new content to play either. I mean if I start playing today would it make sense to complain no content was released the past 9 months? like wise if I missed 1 month out of those 9 months, is it a problem i got 8 months worth of content in the 8 months I played? The most important thing imho is that when you’re playing you have fresh content to play.

Thing is ironically I would bet the reason why content is temporary is preciesly to give us the change you’re asking for. One of the biggest complaint they got for the manifesto is that they promised change. Specifically “if you save a village it remains saved” Now in my view what they meant is the change would happen as you play not eternally. I mean in other MMOs there would be no visual change or just an instantaneous change. For a save the village quest there would generally be no change at all. you go kill stuff that respawn nearly instantly and nothing else will change except the npc who gave you the quest will not give it any more. In other times like with an escort quest, you can see stuff change but as soon as you finish the quest it instantly resets as it was before with again 0 change. The village staying saved they refer to in the manifesto I am pretty sure was temporal. In the sense that you save the village and you experience it saved but for a time period. This is key because otherwise you’d either have to phase every dynamic events and with 1500 events that have 2 possible outcomes that would mean there would an unbelievable big number of phases more then players playing the game meaning that you could expect never to meet another player ever! (not doable) either that you do 4500 million dynamic events so that there is 1500 events for every player who bought the game. Both are completely impossible. However players felt that since the change was not permanent it was not a change at all. Temporary content is the solution to that problem. by making say the molten facility temporary you cant say that no change really occurred. The flame legion and the dredge made an alliance, build a secret base we went that and destroyed it. Because of our effort it is no longer there, we removed it off Tyria completely. If they had left it there people would go back to the dynamic event arguments that they effort have 0 effect because despite winning against the alliance their hq is still there.

Actually there is quite a few fallout off the living story. Tokk’s mill in LA still has Grawl refugees who didnt move to Southern cove. The norn and the charr refugess are gone because you guessed it they can be found on southern cove. Talking of southern cove, the refugees build a few outposts while there and these are still there. Going back to lost shores the light house that was destroyed in the karka attack is still broken.

So I asked you to list what has changed…and you listed:
1.Couple of Grawl npcs in LA
2.The refugees who were not there before the living story are no longer there…shocking!!!
3. A broken Lighthouse
4. Southshore is still a dead zone…which they were supposed to fix but didn’t do too hot a job at.

Three things that have zip to do with gameplay, and another failed attempt to make SouthSun worthwhile. Thanks.

They will be introduced once other MMOs launch in an attempt to retain players.

Count on it.

GW2 has done a lot of positive things to push the genre, but at the same time it has instituted things that hold the genre back. Two prime examples are non static combat mechanics implemented well, and rng taking precedence over skill or targeted labor. The latter comes mostly from the monetization model though.

For any game that breaks convention it should be prepared for controversy as well.

Galen Grey.4709:

killcannon.2576:

Some of the stuff you listed was always in the game and just had achievements attached to them.

Some of the stuff you listed has since been removed from the game.

Some of the stuff you listed was ease of use features or things that were always supposed to be part of the game, it just took them months upon months to add.

People have enough companies trying to blow smoke, it doesn’t help when the fans do it too.

Not really, none of the stuff I listed was in the game at launch, I made sure of that. Feel free to point out what it was that I listed that was there at launch will be happy to double check for you.

Sure, lots of stuff I mentioned has been removed from the game but so what? does that mean it never existed? does it mean it was never playable?

The only thing that I listed that was supposed to be there at launch was guesting. 1 item out of about 950. Perhaps you’re right and it shouldnt be there since it was promised at launch, then again I didnt list other stuff like AC revamp, new models for various mobs, the decorations and reskin of LA with each event etc.., I think it balances that one thing out.

What smoke exactly? did any of the content I listed not really exist?

I take back the things that were in at launch, I misread and didn’t see you specify only three of the mini dungeons.

All the supposed “new game features” were talked about before launch.

And if you were not here for the temp content or were on sabbatical for whatever reason, the content did not and does not exist.

Removing content from the game may be “So what” to you, but not to many others, I assure you. If it’s gone then it may as well have never even existed.

Tyria is much the same as when I started, I can see little to no evidence of any “Living World” that the devs have spoken so much about over the last 8 months. Go through your list again and only keep what is still in Tyria. Tell us how it’s changed.

Tell us where the last 8 months have gone, because GW2 is going to need all the help it can get in the coming months.

Smoke is here and gone, much like Anets content. Ephemeral and fleeting. And all because they can’t make content that makes people want to log in on it’s own strengths. They have to use the temporary gimmick.

I read one about this poster complaining about complaints, I found that pretty amusing.

Galen Grey.4709:

I have a feeling that the monthly content release makes it hard for people to judge how much content is being pushed out. Its not even been a whole year yet and we already got the following stuff since release:

- 139 New Achievements
- 62 New Dynamic Events
- 9 New Jumping Puzzles
- 3 new mini dungeons (Forsaken Halls, Vexa’s Lab,Canach’s Lair)
- 2 new story-line instances (Braham and Rox)
- The Diving Goggles Activity
- Costume Brawl
- 3 farming Activity (Halloween (haunted Doors), Wintersday and Dragon Bash)
- 5 PvP Mini Game (Lunatic Inquisition,Reaper’s Rumble, Snowball mayhem, Crab toss, Dragon Ball)
- 4 mini games (Bell choir, super adventure box,Toypocalypse,Moa Racing )
- 510 new recipes (Halloween, Lost Shores, Wintersday)
- 15 new minis
- 98 new skins
- 20 new tonics
- 2 new world event (Skritt Thief and Modus Sceleris)
- 4 event specific dungeon (Ascent to Madness, Tixx’s Infinirarium, Molten Core, Aetherblade Retreat)
- Fractal of the mists (9 new mini dungeons)
- 2 new PvP map (Temple of the Silent Storm, Spirit Watch)
- New Gear Tier
- 2 new maps (Mad King Labyrinth, Southsun Cove)
- 9 new game features (crafting materials accessible through bank,PvP paid Tournaments, guesting, guild missions, trading post preview, selectable daily achievement, Custom arena, spectaor mode, WvW progression)
- 4 new currency ( Pristine Fractal Relics,Laurels, guild merits, guild commendations)
- 3 scavenger hunt (the mad king, Karka scavenger hunt, Marriner Plaque )
- 42 new guild missions
- 1 new meta event (Legendary Karka Queen)

I am sure I forgot to count stuff here but even so there might not have been many new maps or new classes but If all of this was released all at once wouldn’t it be an expansion worth of stuff? Personally I love they’re not lumping stuff up for an expansion. Its nice getting large amounts of content. Someone mentioned a specific expansion of another game (am not a player of that game) but as far as I can tell that expansion took 2 years to develop and in between there were only a few raids released) I personally feel a game keeps me a lot more engaged by providing new stuff every couple of weeks for me to do then a massive amount of content in 2 years time with some repeatable content every few months while we wait. As we can see above we got a ton of stuff. Now I understand the content is not engaging for everyone that’s a bummer no doubt but even so at least its just a couple of weeks / a month before you get new stuff that might be interesting to you, if a whole expansion isn’t your kind of content the time you’d need to wait is measured in years and what do you do in the interm?

I would also urge patience, we’re still in the first year, a lot of time was devoted to bug fixing and improvement which we got a mountain of with ever release and isnt even counted above. As the core gets more robust more resources can be devoted to new content. We already know the 4 living story teams are just a subset working on the game and there is more long term stuff planed. There was already mentioned in an ingame chat with a developer about a possible gw2 style implementation of raiding being already in the works.. I would bet thats definitely one such long term project !

I got nothing against Expansions but if they keep this up I think they’re quite right in that there might not be the need for one. The 4 teams working on the living story can have 2 months leadtime working on content if each team release a piece every 2 weeks. And the long term team can work on expensive features like new zones, classes, features such as housing or whatever which isnt doable in 2 week timeframes and release those once they’re done in 3 or 6 months. I can see this working beautifully personally!

Some of the stuff you listed was always in the game and just had achievements attached to them.

Some of the stuff you listed has since been removed from the game.

Some of the stuff you listed was ease of use features or things that were always supposed to be part of the game, it just took them months upon months to add.

People have enough companies trying to blow smoke, it doesn’t help when the fans do it too.

It’s a sexual metaphor. The author of the book has probably read too much Stephenie Meyer.

Go esports yay!!!

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

killcannon.2576:

Fix the zergs (wvw and pve)

How do you fix WvW zergs? :P

Several threads on it already, check em out.

Neither.

2 months or longer.

Fix the current content to make it more compelling. Put the things in that were supposed to be in at launch. Revamp the crafting systems. Fix the precursor debacle. Fix the zergs (wvw and pve). Add some more weapons. Fix the home instances. Add more game types in PvP. etc etc etc

MAKE EVERYTHING PERMANENT. Except Holidays.

And the Living Story starts a long, slow, smoking spiral towards the earth where we can all watch it crash in glorious abandon.

Thumbs up for good, comprehensive, compelling, permanent content.

Latinkuro.9420:

there is no higher tier of runes, duh !

Sigh.

The poster means why can’t we put them in the forge to possibly get a different one in return for four we don’t like.

Expect all the classes that got buffed to be nerfed the next time around.

Expect all the classes that got nerfed to be given slight buffs the next time around.

Welcome to the status quo of MMO balancing. Hasn’t worked since inception, but that wall certainly does have a nice head shaped impression by now.

lol, remove the rng and people hate it just as much.

Truth is people just wanted to loot the chest, get the 60 silver a day, and go on with farming the meta chests. People wanted it to be just another stop on the farm train.

Krosslite.1950:

When statements like this are made:

“It seems all of this free content is only possible due to the ongoing popularity of the in-game gem store which Mike told us feeds new revenue into the studio at a “constant” rate, something which regular updates would inevitably increase as players return to the game regularly to sample newly added content. Essentially it seems those who use the store are essentially sponsoring those who don’t ensuring these new content updates remain free, and that’s a tough balance which very few online games get right.”

I feel confident in quoting

Considering that’s not a quote from a dev, I’m not sure what your point is there.

Krosslite.1950:

HawkMeister.4758:

nehezbegar.1065:

It gives the world the sense of living, thats what ArenaNet claimed before they released the game, they want to make this game world living and breathing. Thats why They introduced the living story feature. .

Sorry to break it to you, but you bought that hype hook line and sinker.

Temporary content is a phenomenally bad idea in a MMO that´s supposedly taking itself seriously.
It works great in casual games, but GW2 is everything but.
It placates the bean-counters as they see numbers rise on introduction. And the quick buck these player numbers promise is all these types care about.

The ONLY thing that´s making a MMO live & breathe are the players, not some temporary ride in the Themepark.

Sorry to break it to you but you bought into the anti-hype line and sinker

http://www.gamerzines.com/pc/arenanet-planning-fortnightly.html

This is the PvE end-game for this game for the foreseeable future. Remember one of the things Anet stated is that this game is not going to be like other MMOs. So don’t try and mix apple with oranges in the future okay

They “plan” and “say” lots of stuff. If it doesn’t keep the players involved, they will change it quick enough. If people should have learned anything by now, it’s to not quote the devs for truth.

Good, they can have the place. It could be GW2’s Australia.

Time spent in game does not equal out to hardcore or casual.

Those are playstyles, not timeclocks.

Threads going to derail with an rng discussion, Oh well.

You get the increased rng with the B2P and F2P (and a bit with hybrids) models. Just the way it is.

Don’t like the system? Don’t support the payment models.

It’s a sensitive topic on the forums.

There have been a lot of game mechanics introduced that actively concentrate people in small areas, like the meta chests, the living story, the CoF runs, and guesting. Some servers experience a perceived lack of population at different times, and some servers are just plain less populated than others. You will get different answers depending on who you ask, especially on the forums. Some will always answer that the population is huge and growing, and others will always answer that no one is around and the game is dying. Neither side has hard evidence to support their statements.

You have to answer this question for yourself though really. Is the game populated enough in the areas you care about to make a difference?

The truth is no one except Anet knows for sure what the metrics are. All we can do on the forums is guess…and argue about it.

As far as what I think? Probably in the range of a million maybe more people log in at least once a month.

I see a lot of people saying that temp content adds things..and that is good. The frequent updates with content are good.

Now tell us why removing that content is a good idea.

Brutal Arts.6307:

ITT Shills and Detractors converse above each others heads while anet counts their money from RNG boxes. More on this and other “My opinion is better than your opinion” at 11.

lol, +1

Just take the leashes off of dungeon mobs. It’s was a horrible idea in the first place. Trivializes entire dungeons.

“Endgame” is character progression after level cap.

Character progression is open for interpretation. Story, gear, instanced content, exploration, achievements, pvp.

While GW2 has all these things, very little is exclusive to being level 80. Some content needs to be added to add a sense of progression to being max level, something exclusive to being an 80 besides Orr, that has a clear sense of continuing a leveling process. These things need to have a degree of challenge to make people feel like they have accomplished something, and need to have a way of being seen by other people.

While some may say they don’t like it, having certain characters that have rare cosmetics or achieves gives others something to strive for as well, as long as these are acquired by skill and not bought off the gemstore or through gold buying or by rng.

There needs to be progression for strictly level 80 characters.

Champs should not drop guaranteed rares- makes them too farmable.

Any loot overhaul should not reinforce the idea of farming, but instead allow a player to just play the game while naturally accruing the mats they need or want. Concentrating rewards anywhere is a bad idea.

Champs should give/have a better loot table, but more along the lines of guaranteed tier whatever crafting materials/multiple bags/slightly increased monetary drops/ possible uncommon food items/ slightly increased chance for lodestones-cores-slivers/ recipes/ boosts/ slightly increased drops of rares and exotics/ blc keys etc etc.

Daecollo.9578:

If there is a cap, they should replace 25 stacks of bleeds with another condition called: Open Wound, which stacks up to 25 and does the same amount of damage as 25 stacks of bleeds, open wound is applied to basicly a set amount of 1500 condition damage. (It does 25 stacks of bleeds with 1500 condition damage worth.) Only affected by bosses/events.

This is a good idea. There are a lot of ways this could be developed further.

+1

Awesome-ish.

Like that pizza you ordered with all the stuff you liked…but also had a few anchovies on it for some reason.

You are correct in your assumptions for the first question. Anything past the arbitrary medium distance will be rendered in less detail.

Culling in WvW has a different checkbox/option. LOD will still affect how sharp any player rendered at certain arbitrary distances will be though.

It’s so P2W now.

Before I had this recipe, I was down and out in the sewers of Lions Arch. Having to beg passing skritt for food, clothes, and a miserable rare here and there. My wife had left me, my kids would no longer talk to me, and my dog was eaten by wild Hyleks. I would stare up from under the sewer grates at all the wealthy and influential citizens of Tyria and wonder just where my life took a turn for the worse.

But no longer!!! With the pittance I acquired from selling my extra organs to a less than reputable necromancer, I had bought a dragon coffer. Since that recipe came into my life things have changed, praise Kormir! I now live in the wealthiest part of the city, with women on each arm, people ask me for my autograph, and I have opened an orphanage for the needy children. I have 15 legendaries, my gold overflows my bank tabs, and they are renaming Lions Arch to Killcannon Township. Life is good.

Or……. it’s just a recipe for a food that doesn’t really change anything.

CharrGirl.7896:

True, but Southsun is dead on my server. Nobody goes there anymore, no events are being done, constantly contested. They did something very wrong there and I hope they fix it.

lol, that was their fix.

Krosslite.1950:

Nuage.5230:

Forgive my ignorance, but how is temporary content even a way to make money? The devs put int he work to release this awesome content, why take it away? I mean I see some things like events, invasions and all that stuff – but it seems so much effort is ut into content that is, as some termed it, thrown away.

It seems they could still put in work to give us permanent content, all while adding stuff to the gem shop and people will buy it.

More dungeons, lower level ones too. Anet makes a kitten fine game and a lot of this content is really awesome, don’t just trakitten. Again, much of this stuff is awesome and Anet could load up that gemstore with even more goodies and people will buy.

You have an establish game that was fully paid for when the game was launched and sold over 7 million copies. ($350,000,000 high end rough eestimate)
The game is run with an engine that is easy to update. This statement was made more then once in articles with the devs before launch.

You have a cash shop and you place items into that people use real money to buy them. Not everyone exchanged in game gold into gems. These are actually a minority. So you do the math and you can see that the Living Story model is making them a ton of cash.

lol, what? 7 million copies? Where did you get that data from?
You also have no data showing what percentage of people use gold to convert to gems as opposed to buying them with real world money.

Best check your sources. Seriously.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Nick.6972:

I tried doing the new dungeon yesterday with 2 rangers.
The whole run was pathetically slow.
Today I did the dungeon again, with 3 Warriors and 2 Guardians and we completed the end boss in less than 13 minutes.

Facts speak for themselves.

Those two dungeon runs might have gone exactly that way if yesterday’s patch had included no balance changes. I fail to see how this is relevant to the thread topic.

Well one reason why it could be relative is that balance changes are supposed to bring balance. With the current Ranger changes we see no improvement to the class in dungeons, or in PvE in general. What we see is an actual blanket nerf to the class instead.

Balance changes should be bringing the utility of all the classes closer together, so that they are all equally valuable in any situation, but different. That’s not happening.

Feida.2163:

I’m raging alright, but I’m not raging at the changes. I’m raging at the other ranger players. True I find the pet nerf a little saddening but the shortbow nerf is just fine with me. I mean think about it, LB has1.2k range 1.5k if traited. Doesn’t that same thing count for SB? The LB buff is amazing and the shout changes to. For the first time ever I hit a 8k crit with rapid fire thanks to the LB changes and BM builds did that to with pets. So really buff or nerf I count this update as a win for rangers.

…….No, it doesn’t work for SB…….

Zoldyck.6241:

My guess is that they took it off to rework on the animation. I was expecting the animation along the lines of “hit the floor and make the tree explode”.

lol, good stuff.