Guild Wars 2

No thank you.

One of the major things I love about GW2 is that they’ve captured the action element of combat without resorting to an action-style combat system. The main thing that kept me away from Tera is the FPS style aiming and combat system

Fernling.1729:

The google trends does show that ff14 is searched more often than gw2. Over the last year, gw2 hasn’t surpassed ff14 a single time. We are also forgetting about runescape, which is trending much higher than gw2. We will have to see how archeage will hold up, since release it’s been higher, which is to be expected. I have a feeling it will hold up though. Gw2 one month after launch had a 38 and archeage one month after has a 37.

From those mmorpgs and WoW, that puts gw2 at #4, with a potential #5 depending on what happens with archeage.
I’m pretty sure I’ve said this exact same thing before. Lol

Don’t forget that FFXIV has the massive power of the Final Fantasy brand.

I played FFXI for years for no other reason than I love Final Fantasy as a franchise (And some good people)

As for this topic, needs to be closed because of all the negativity.

Let’s face facts, invasive third party apps will never be good judges of game activity because few people use them and large numbers of those people downloading will have downloaded through a promotion for the specific game they play, making the numbers favour a specific game.

The only activity statistics I will trust are ANet’s own. Hopefully they’ll release some stats for this year’s activity

The game is in a bloody fantastic state of activity. All the doomsayers clearly have no clue what an actually dying game looks like.

Fluctuations and decline in overall activity between major releases are a totally natural aspect of any online game, and considering GW2 only requires initial investment, the retention numbers are amazingly impressive.

I am usually a very critical person, but GW2 as a product always impresses me on a regular basis. I feel much of the talk of the death of Tyria is simply people who played since launch, with huge hoards of people, and seem to (unrealistically) expect those levels of activity to always be there. GW2 is casual in nature and doesn’t have the “obligation of investment” factor of a subscription game to keep you logging in well past being bored of the game

Ah, the RNG. The most horrible, kittenty mechanic in any multiplayer game ever.

Fun times.

Dervish. That is all

I’m absolutely loving the halloween content, but one thing really souring it for me is the sheer number of glitch abusers in the pvp ghosts vs humans event. People not transformed who should be ghosts (especially prominent amounts of abuse from longbow rangers) people attacking through walls, people multing an instance and letting their preferred team know where targets are, etc.

Really spoiling the fun for me, and I’m sure many others

Malediktus.9250:

Gibson.4036:

Isn’t devaluation the risk you take investing in something? Why should anyone be entitled to see items grow in value?

Thing is this is more of a bragging right investment. Since all of this stuff was bound to your account anyway, having it was an investment in collector’s value.
I take this update as a slap into the face to veterans who played since the beginning and as a sign that anet is too lazy to make new rewards despite earning 100m $ a year with the game.

revenue and profit are two very different things. Game development is a very expensive process.

Expecting content based on annual events to be exclusive is kind of silly.

1. You can’t keep everyone happy. plain and simple. No matter what changes take place, there will always be a vocal few unhappy (and very loud about their unhappiness)

2. You seem to be under the illusion that ANet can just pull content from their rectums. Content development on a scale and quality offered by GW2 takes months/years. A CDI for guild halls in coming, and I expect cantha may be somewhere in future plans once the forces preventing people from accessing cantha have been dealt with

3. I have pretty crappy internet, and GW2 NEVER lags for me. I’ve not had issues in my guild with doing guild events, and I can’t comment on how it impacts Role Play because it’s not something I know about/have an interest in. In regards to it “taking away” from the community, I fail to see how this is the case and would appreciate clarity in what you mean.

4. Most games rehash their seasonal content with a few extra/switched around bits and pieces. Don’t forget that the continuation of the Living Story hits in early November, and I strongly suspect that developmental resources have been focused there, instead.

I’m all for constructive criticism and valid questioning of practices, but this just seems like unfounded and poorly thought out whining, to me.

I, too, found that change rather unusual.

I feel changes to important features such as gem conversion (which I imagine is used by a large number of customers) should be announced in advance to gather feedback, rather than be a purely internal decision.

tofumon.5924:

I quit playing before I even hit level 60. Grinding 6 levels out just to get one measly adept trait was too boring for me.

I’ve personally level considered GW2 leveling a grind. it’s very easy and casual for me, given the nature of the scaled exp system.

It is a pity you decided to stop playing before 60. the power spike you experience when obtaining a new trait tier is pretty darn awesome.

Vayne.8563:

rapthorne.7345:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

What’s your evidence? The game hasn’t gone down in any significant way in any of the sites that track it. It has essentially the same number of unique log ins and the same number of hours played.

People keep saying that the game is dying or becoming a ghost town but nothing, and I do mean nothing, supports this with the exception of their personal observations.

I think we should all just keep an eye on Xfire for the Halloween content and the new living story content and see just how that affects the traffic. Since I’ve been following those sites, the people who report the game isn’t doing well make me wonder on what they base their information.

I can’t say I understand fully how Xfire works nor it’s purpose , only looked up to it now, but taking a first glance at it, GW2 has 400 unique logins , I don’t see how that proves anything. Taking a second glance, a first person shooter has more than 20x more unique logins than GW2, and that game was released at 2007. To cut it short, I don’t see how 400 active player proves GW2 is in a healthy state.

crossfire/xfire is crappy software that only takes in to account users that log in with xfire installed and that allow xfire to track their game activity. it’s not an accurate measurement of game activity.

The only actually accurate measure of activity would have to come from ANet themselves

Right, Xfire means nothing, because it doesn’t fit your theory. And Raptr means nothing because it doesn’t fit your theory. And Overwolf means nothing because it doesn’t fit your theory. Your personal observations and a few posts from forum strangers are much more accurate.

If someone doesn’t know how Xfire works btw, I’m not really sure they should be commenting on it, but as a comparison of hours played (without knowing how often it’s updated) it can be compared to other games on the same service.

So in the time frame (unpresented) we see Guild Wars 2 has at this time 1110 hours clocked up. Something like Archeage has 605. Diablo 3 has 2197 or almost double Guild Wars 2 hours.

You don’t get an idea of exactly how many people play but…if Guild Wars 2 isn’t healthy in that list, then no game is healthy.

Of course in addition to this, Anet still shows a healthy quarterly profit, still shows it’s hiring (without any mass layoffs), and is still coming out with updates (admittedly not as fast as many would like).

There’s a whole lot more evidence the game is doing well then the game is not doing well. It always amazes me that people who don’t personally like a game just assume it’s doing badly.

For the record, I’m playing less than I used to because of the trait update…and I don’t think it matters at all. In fact, if I were to stop playing I’m one guy. It won’t change the overall popularity of the game.

Not sure if this is directed at me or not, but I was actually trying to emphasise that xfire’s statistics can’t be used to argue that the game is inactive, due to the small sample size, same with raptr.

I myself don’t think the game is going down any dark paths for some time yet. The game seems healthy, there’s always people to find on maps, the pvp lobby area is stuffed to the brim with people, eotm is always full (even on overflow) for my server (Northern Shiverpeaks).

Perhaps the game is quieter than it’s first year (I wasn’t around to judge) but that’s to be expected from absolutely every MMORPG. The vast majority of MMORPG’s will experience their highest traffic in the first few months of release. As time goes by it’s only natural that the hype generated from the wait on development dies down a little, as people get comfortable with the game and settle in.

GW2’s forum is more active than most MMO forums I’ve been a part of, the community is friendlier than most MMO communities, and the active population most definitely seems much higher than a majority of MMO’s I’ve been a part of.

I don’t think there’s any reason to worry about GW2’s health just yet.

Anonymous Player.3079:

Ok let’s be clear and give some sample how gw² is becoming all about money farm or use your credit card (aka gems) masta powa
Average player make 10-20g MAX a day -> ok
Legendary : look price on tp, do some math, better buy ! You don’t have gold, wait gem is the solution (so credit card) that’s why some 2k ap have 2-3 legendary (thx mum)
Now let speak about the new pro system “collection” : once again look price on tp. The best joke is about Black Lion. 1 collection is arround 1900g. Atm there is “only” 13 to do so …

legendary weapons are 100% completely unnecessary to play the game. It’s a luxury item that you can chose to persue as a long term goal. If you don’t have the patience to farm (Some of my guildies have been playing since the game’s release and don’t have a legendary, because they don’t want one), that’s your problem, not ANet’s.

If you want to buy your way through the game, then for sure, you can expect to pay a lot to do so, but the point is, you are not, EVER forced to shell out money. It’s your choice, and yours alone, to pump money in to the game if you don’t have the patience to complete collections/other content over time.

Don’t blame the developers – Whose goal it is to create long term content and objectives for players - for your lack of patience

Not against any rules, but it’s a pretty shitty thing to do.

I can carry a low damage person through ac with just 3/4 active contributors in the party, and I’m pretty new to the game. I’m sure you can manage the same

Though I’m in the UK, I play on Northern Shiverpeaks (US)

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

What’s your evidence? The game hasn’t gone down in any significant way in any of the sites that track it. It has essentially the same number of unique log ins and the same number of hours played.

People keep saying that the game is dying or becoming a ghost town but nothing, and I do mean nothing, supports this with the exception of their personal observations.

I think we should all just keep an eye on Xfire for the Halloween content and the new living story content and see just how that affects the traffic. Since I’ve been following those sites, the people who report the game isn’t doing well make me wonder on what they base their information.

I can’t say I understand fully how Xfire works nor it’s purpose , only looked up to it now, but taking a first glance at it, GW2 has 400 unique logins , I don’t see how that proves anything. Taking a second glance, a first person shooter has more than 20x more unique logins than GW2, and that game was released at 2007. To cut it short, I don’t see how 400 active player proves GW2 is in a healthy state.

crossfire/xfire is crappy software that only takes in to account users that log in with xfire installed and that allow xfire to track their game activity. it’s not an accurate measurement of game activity.

The only actually accurate measure of activity would have to come from ANet themselves

GW1 is a very close knit community because it’s population is probably only several hundred (if that) at this point. Few people really do anything in GW1 any more other than idle in the various hub zones to chit chat. GW1 is also pretty much a single player game with group lobbies (town hubs).

GW2 is a high population MMORPG, people can afford to be selective and picky in who they bring with them because there’s always going to be people filling the gaps

With several high profile MMO’s releasing content on the 4th (Tera, Aion, WoW, ArcheAge, etc) how much do you feel the new content will influence in-game traffic?

I am relatively new here, but for me, what makes or breaks an MMO is the community. I’ve stuck with some absolutely horrid games just because the people there are fantastic GW2 has one of the better communities I’ve come across in the long list of MMO’s I’ve played, and is definitely one of the highest quality MMO’s I’ve ever played. I imagine I’ll be staying around for a long time yet

PvE most definitely needs an overhaul to allow condition builds/classes to become a viable option that is on-par with power builds in terms of dps. Necromancers have been shunned from dungeons for a very long time (seriously devs, please take a look at the necro forum section every once in a while) and it really needs to be sorted out

There’s already traits that allow offensive stats to contribute to healing power, to allow critical healing would make support builds obsolete, everyone would just go assassin/berserker (which they do anyway) and be able to crit heal themselves all day every day.

This would also make elementalist even more powerful than they already are, allowing them to heal like crazy in a berserker gear set up.

The game needs more solid supportive build/role options before any real balance should be done to supportive heals

I’ve never seen any mass rage in Kessex over the Toxic Alchemist event, as the amount of champions that spawn on event fail is horribly low (like 2-3 champs, with mostly veterans or elites).

At most I’ve seen a few people just mention/ask that toxifiers not be destroyed to allow champ spawns, but I’ve never seen any serious unpleasantness, and I spend a lot of time in kessex

chilling in Queensdale

I just wanted to thank Gaile for contributing and interacting so much in this thread, as well as keeping it open for discussion, rather than shutting it down due to the few unpleasant posts there have been, so…

thanks

I am in a guild full of australians, they don’t complain of lag often at all o.o

GW2 has none of the pay to win item mall attractions of 99% of F2P MMORPG’s. Making GW2 free to play without a huge gem store overhaul would mean a massive net loss in income from game sales

Niteraven.1372:

Well I only opened it because my original page just got moved to the bug forum and ignored like this one will.

A topic about a bug got moved to the bug forum?

Seems to be working just fine

dungeons, fractals, pvp, living story, dry top, wvw, achievement hunting, jumping puzzles, map completion, wardrobe filling, working on ascended/legendaries.

That’s just off the top of my head, I’m sure there’s a lot of other stuff, too.

GW2 has a hell of a lot of end game compared to other games.

Gaile Grey did mention that there was some sort of plan to improve the forums.

I’m hoping a total overhaul is planned. I like people having avatars, sig banners, forum groups, etc etc

ProtoGunner.4953:

Of course they won’t release any statistics be cause they would show how abysmal the game performes compared to the first year. Even the first year numbers were presented in a shady way (max players who played at one moment in this year, oh btw it was something with 400k people, compare this to Destiny: 3.4 million).

Fact is: WoW still holds 6 million people who pay monthly while GW2 is free and is played by a couple of 100k people.

WoW has always had the resources of a major game developer at hand, a staff of several thousand, and worldwide brand recognition/loyalty to keep players in. GW2 is supported by a small team crushed under the boots of NCSoft’s demands.

Destiny is also a cross platform game, which allows it to reach an incredibly large audience (The vast majority of Destiny players are console players, I believe), whereas GW2 is pc-exclusive. On top of being an FPS (one of the most popular next-gen game genres)

If ArenaNet had a larger team and NCSoft was not a part of the picture, the game would be a booming success and likely dwarf other F2P games.

That’s the other aspect of GW2 that affects it. GW2 is in it’s own niche of Buy to Play. Once you have the game, it’s yours for good. No subs, just gaming. Games likw WoW compel you to play them to get your money’s worth from the sub, whereas GW2 seems to be more aimed at a casual experience. This also keeps away the F2P gamers who may not be willing to invest in the game before being able to try it out (one of the reasons WoW implemented a perm free account option to allow players to play up to level 20 under restrictions)

I have never lagged in GW, and I connect to the NA servers from the UK

o.o

Leah Hoyer.9382:

So, don’t expect the Elder Dragons to break into song anytime soon.

Well darn.

Honestly, I like the aureate weapons. they’re pretty snazzy looking for one of the more common skins around.

I also like the seraph weapons

I wanted to expand on my post here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/The-rebuilding-of-Lion-s-Arch/first#post4486699

I feel that it would be awesome fun, and a great way for the community to truly contribute to the shaping of the game world, for LA to by dynamically rebuilt through a series of events to donate resources and restore Lion’s Arch to it’s former glory.

An example of this would be something like:

[World Event] Restoration of Lion’s Court
Donate resources to the foreman to help restore the Lion’s Court

0/500,000 Copper donated
0/200,000 Iron donated
0/750,000 Mithril donated
0/100,000 Platinum donated
0/50,000 Orichalcum donated

0/500,000 Green Wood Logs donated
0/200,000 Soft Wood Logs donated
0/100,000 Hard Wood Logs
0/750,000 Elder Wood Log

etc etc etc.

And then when that completes, a new area opens up for restoration.

I just feel like this would be an awesome way for the community to get involved with really shaping the world and getting LA back to how it used to be

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m enormously fond of Lion’s Arch, and I dream of the day when it’s back to its former glory. I guess if you look at this in realistic terms, suffish and Stramatus are right: If it’s going to happen, the process would take time. After all, Rome wasn’t (re)built in a day.

I see more workers these days, and hey, CrimeDog, that’s one big rock!

Why not make it in to a huge player event?

Allow players to donate resources to the rebuilding of LA. once milestones have been met, a section of the city/a building/landmark/etc has been restored.

For example: Stage one, restoring the statue at the centre of LA: Takes 500,000 copper 100,000 iron, which players could donate to a foreman npc. Not only would this be a totally awesome and interactive way for the community to restore LA (and feel more a part of the world as a whole) but it would also be great at draining the economy of some of the hyper-saturated resources on the TP

Every other MMO I have ever played has females of every race with costumes available that might as well be them naked. GW2 is actually pretty kitten tame in that aspect of things. I really don’t get how or why this is an issue on any level.

Neither race has anything close to human female breasts, so what’s there to hide?

I’m not certain how the scaling mechanic work, but if I had to theorise, I’d say it’s scaled by level, so if you’re wearing rares, they give rare level stat bonuses of your effective level, if you’re wearing exotics, they give exotic level stats of the effective level, etc.

I imagine there is a power difference between rare and exotic, but (depending on the effective level you are) I doubt it will be a huge difference in overall stats

I like outfits. Being able to wear heavy armour on a light/medium armoured character suits the thematic I’m aiming for

If anything, I’d ask for more. The game has so many weapon/armour skins, and so few costumes.

I would love to have weapon customisation as a whole. We have armour dyes, after all, why not employ a weapon dye system?

Skins are all well and good, but what if you could dye the skins? :O

“What did I ever… do… to you?”

Dying last words of one of the millions of bandits slain mercilessly at the hands of Tyria’s “heroes”.

Morality is a very fluid concept. I’m enjoying this thread a great deal.

Niteraven.1372:

rapthorne.7345:

Niteraven.1372:

Well it’s true that this game has more bugs than South Florida. Something still smells funny about this. That’s my point I guess. Instead of playing a human female, which had great animations, you get to play a tiny Norn. I just don’t think its a bug. I think there’s something else.



If you observe my post history, you’ll see I’ve actually been overly critical of ANet. I just think you’re being unreasonable in your expectations that the developers prioritise an idle animation over actual bugs that affect gameplay

Niteraven.1372:

Well it’s true that this game has more bugs than South Florida. Something still smells funny about this. That’s my point I guess. Instead of playing a human female, which had great animations, you get to play a tiny Norn. I just don’t think its a bug. I think there’s something else.



nexxe.7081:

This is just pathetic. It’s taking them this long to fix it? It just shows where their priorities truly are, and that’s the gem store.

Their priorities, I would imagine, lie with fixing bugs with content that affects gameplay. A missing idle animation is insignificant compared with a bug that actually affects game progression.

And it’s also been stated a few times just since I started playing by staff, but they have different teams working on different aspects of the game (though you’ll likely find all gem store content was developed a while ago, and is simply set to a staggered release, requiring little upkeep)

On the topic of the forums, I was actually incredibly disappointed when I signed up to find that the forums are so restrictive (no avatars, no searching, no content embedding, etc etc) which I didn’t know until I bought the game (can’r access the forums without an account), so it would be great if there’s an upgrade in the works long term.

Stooperdale.3560:

Some armor pieces do respond to dyes differently to others. This can be true even for different armor pieces in the same set. I don’t know whether it is the material types or some shading in the armor pieces themselves. I don’t know how players can remedy this.

I get a grey color with celestial dye on the legs on the falconer’s armor set.

Some armour (especially, it seems, heavy/light) incorporate either cloth or leather, or leather and plate.

Chain-mail, plate armour and scale-mail all react differently to dye, too, despite all being metal

I enjoy map completion. Each completed map gives me more insight in to the world of Tyria, it’s goings on, and how the world is affected by the war.

Hide all.

I want to streak through Tyria like the merry nudist I wish I was.

Elsdragon.5109:

That is likely due to your auto-attack skill being skill number 1, which is assigned to your main hand weapon (in case of dual wielding).

You may change your auto-attack skill to a different skill (right click on desired skill), but be aware that in most cases only the 1st skill has no cooldown or initiative cost. So if you do do that, your character won’t auto-attack at all and would automatically use the auto-cast skill whenever possible.

I know the mechanics of why. I meant why from a design perspective. Seems silly to me to have a pistol in each hand and to only make use of one regularly

The preview does not take in to account current map lighting conditions. Wearing metal armour your gear will change in hue depending on light sources and time of day.

Why do you not attack with both pistols with dual wielding them and auto attacking?

Come to think of it, most dual wield auto attacks only make use of the primary weapon

I don’t think it’s a case of few people wanting challenging content, it’s a case of how trivial content becomes once a method has been established (stack her, run here, do this to lose aggro, etc)

Most dungeon groups that I have experienced do everything in their power to skip as much dungeon content as possible to get at the rewards.

ANet: please give an incentive for 100% clearing dungeons