(edited by xero.2097)
Showing Posts For xero.2097:
“It’s also fine for ANet though if they only log on 1 week a year. This lowers infrastructure and services costs for ANet proportionally.”
No, its not, many of the cash shop rewards will most likely be used by long term players for more then those whom long on for 1 week out of the year
Time and money are like supply and demand. They are inversely related, with the exception of trust fund kids. For the remainder of us, the more time you have the less money you will have to spend on the cash shop. The “dedicated players” will go out and farm for in-game money and never spend a dime in the cash shop. It’s the people who have little time and plenty of money who do this… these are the same client base who signed on because they were promised by ANet that the no-life basment-dwellers would not be given any grounds to arbitrarily exclude them for daring to have a life.
the cost to maintain the servers exsists regardless of how many players are actually on it. The fact the server itself exsists is what generates the majority of the cost, not that X number of people are on it, its the way bandwidth deals are set up for companies such as this. Infrastructure costs only go down if they cut they, ergo the game itself actually shrinks and servers get merged.
How about you spew this outright lie to someone who DOESN’t work in highly-available hosting for fortune 500 firms.
To save embaressing yourself by the fact you felt the urge to pull your “I’m an authority” rabbit out of the hat in addition to a personal attack.
So to be fair I’ll just point out that last I was aware server hosts as still about keeping operating costs low. Your statement above makes me find your credentials highly suspect.
I also wanted to hit upon your first point….why do you think someone who is only going to play the game for 1 week of the year is going to buy vanity items? Or magic find boosters? Do you believe he is going to try and craft a legendary for 1 week out of the year? The cash shop will most likely be used by the most devote of long term players whom consider GW 2 their long term entertainment expenditure, those whom do not will question the expense and will probaly use the gold/gem conversion instead, given their disposable income will most likely be used on a longer term entertainment medium
Why are people so upset with GW 2 now?
I frankly don’t get it.
It was only months ago people were having a blast
-Exploring vast stretches of land.
-Running dungeons.
-Working to make legendaries.
-Doing world events.
-PvP
-Leveling Alts, seeing the stories
I ask because I recall these were many of the things cited to do in GW 2 when people explained they were upset that there was “nothing to do at endgame”
From whatI understand, all the above listed things are still there, the only difference is for those whom wish to go to the millstone now have that option.
I do not see how gear progression has taken that away from anyone unless the people doing the above always had a preference for gear progression and as such thats what they are now doing, leaving those whom never wanted gear progression out in the cold so to speak.
I slowed my playing about 4 months ago, after I hit cap, got all my exotics and ran some dungeons and was just underwhelmed. I liked the dodge system, hated the character design limitations. I watch GW 2 mostly to hear whisper of a someday more complex character design system akin to GW 1. Till then I’ve been doing more TSW to be honest because I find its closer to how I expected GW 2 to turn out (was hoping GW 2 was a less buggy, but similar design concept, minus the setting)
“The best strategies ignore pleas that will hurt the loyal core consumers.”
Only if the loyal core is the minority.
“If they balance around gear rather than skill-based play, it means we are being insulted.
If I have to wear special gear to down an event, I feel like I’ve cheated.
If they build the event around me “cheating”, that makes me feel worse.”
In dungeons there is nothing skillful about bugging through a door, yet EVERY time I’ve ran one of the many dungeons I see constant exploitation occuring, infact I had NEVER done a run of CoF where the group didn’t either exploit through a wall or try to bug out Gaherrons ghost, again if there are skilled GW 2 players, they must be few and far between.
“It’s also fine for ANet though if they only log on 1 week a year. This lowers infrastructure and services costs for ANet proportionally.”
No, its not, many of the cash shop rewards will most likely be used by long term players for more then those whom long on for 1 week out of the year, the cost to maintain the servers exsists regardless of how many players are actually on it. The fact the server itself exsists is what generates the majority of the cost, not that X number of people are on it, its the way bandwidth deals are set up for companies such as this. Infrastructure costs only go down if they cut they, ergo the game itself actually shrinks and servers get merged
“I predict any effort to retain these titles’ target client-base for any significant length of time in the face of titles specifically engineered around this concept will be a losing one, and in the process the market segment they claimed to cater to will have abandoned them in droves.”
I disagree, I think ultimately some people may find GW 2’s art style/gameplay appeals more to them then the game that shall not be named, however in the long term they find that title offers them more to enjoy and is better supports then GW 2, thus why GW 2 will endeavor to catch up.
Lets be honest, Did anyone on the forums think GW 2 was designed assome sort of act of altruism? Do you believe GW 2 was designed just so people can “have fun”? I can’t help but get that impression as I follow the many posts on the boards, but there is a fine line between fun and profit. GW 2 like any other game product wants to make money, because of its lack of a sub, it has to encourage the players to invest in the game overtime, it has to convince you to spend more money on it, rather then pay them just to play it every month. The box sales are important, but as those sales slow down the cash shop and such have to pick up speed to keep those operating costs in check. As such they have to be where the money is at. Its inevitable that people are going to be upset at the choices they make, but as a above poster pointed out, ANet has all the numbers, which I’m sure are more impressive then even a inkling of post counts on these forums. I for one accept the fact that the goal of a MMO is to make money, I accept that if I do not like its current form, I can always leave and maybe come back later. I don’t labour under any illusion that the devs are beholden to my vision of the game and that for all my complaints, at the end of the day
The game needs to make money to persist…
Making it simple:
If you however like getting multiple sets to change builds and designing specfic types of characters (Support/tank/DPS/Condition/Etc) than this is your MMO. As once you hit 80 and get say full Tank P/T/V gear then you can swap and start to gear up a DPS based class. Then when you bored you can build a condition based character. The swap in variety will definitely spice up gameplay and the added knowledge that if you go away for a year and pick it back up you will not have to regrind all your sets. – This is all PvE specific.
Theres not a heck of a lot of skill in this game. Your limited in your actual pool of options of skills to use (15 for most classes or 45 for the elementalist). You cannot “set” builds, the game doesn’t remember what bulds your using and the concept of “tank” only really works if your foes don’t get the clue that your hitting them like a old man. Really your choices are “How do you want to DPS this guy” As AnEt has themselves pointed out there is no holy trinity…so the real question is..
How fast do you want to die. How fast do you want your opponent to die.
At the end of the day thats the game in a nutshell character design wise. Which in all fairness makes things fairly balanced except theres a few skills that are a bit off the mark at the moment.
Having Done MMO’s since UO to GW2 and most likely beyond I’ve played pretty much everything inbetween. If you like a abundance of simplicity then I recommend this game, if your looking for more challenge and complexity however I’d say keep looking. TSW for example uses a more complex character build system where you can comfortably play however you wish, there is some progression involved however but thats at your own option as theres a lot to do there.
(edited by xero.2097)
What would that Nvidia employee have to gain from saying that? Or are you suggesting that the Nvidia employee doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
Typically?
3 Months.
Why? Well first let me point out some things. GW 2 being predominately FtP, theres no real reason to “cancel”. That being said the first month is typically free and most major issues should come to light during this time. The second month is your first time paying a sub, its you giving the development team the benefit of the doubt. By the third month its game over.
End of the day this is not based on BuG’s however. Its based on bugs that YOU actually care about. I’ve played a lot of MMO’s and there are always bugs, heck DAOC didn’t even have dungeon loot for the first few months, not that I cared cause I was having a ball with PvP.
But if its a bug that is threatening your enjoyment of the game…give them till the 3rd month.
“Seriously go back to WOW.”
A GREAT WAY to advertise GW 2..
“Guild Wars 2, Seriously just go back to World of Warcraft!”
I still disagree with the “risk vs reward” concept.
To use the poker example, there is a risk, because the money you may lose to the pot is not easily replaced. In many ways its the difference between poker with actual money vs poker chips at the cottage. In one case your gambling with something with a value attached, the other you are not. The merit of winning is you seee a return on what you have invested with value.
I see it as players have invested 60$ and time into a game, the return however was not what they expected, thus their displeasure. They do not look back fondly on their experiences in the game because they’ve done these things before and very little has struck them as memorable.
Many dungeon runs for myself for example devolved quickly to people pulling Gaherron into the hallway while people ran circuits killing acolytes before burning down the crystal, despite having never run the dungeon myself till that time, I found that the methods of victory had quickly became so easily apparent that it frankly ruined the dungeon experience, something I value greatly since my time as a AC player. This is not to say “all dungeons suck” but to myself dungeon experiences are a memorable sticking point for me which I find lacking in GW 2, thus my waning interest. At the same time this does not say that others complaints of things are wrong, simply different.
I wouldn’t say its risk versus reward so much as cause and effect. People undertake a action with a expected result, that result however has come short on expectations and like rats pressing the button we press away only to realize there is no pleasurable shock to follow our action, thus our disappointment.
Again the nature of many video games is to press a button and give us a “pleasure zap”. A player can step outside the constructs of the game to find ways to entertain themselves like reporting bots all day or collecting all the dye colors. I would not say either of those two things was really intended in the design of the game however, just because one does not control the amount of bots nor does one plan to use all the colors of dyes there are.
Just a thought.
“This is the concept of risk vs. reward, that has been applied to games. People have simply just become addicted to this behavior, so they can’t see a reason to play if there are no rewards. It’s a bit sad really.”
See, the thing is first off I agree with the example. I do however disagree with the reasoning. I think ultimately its always us being rats pressing the keys. For most the effort put forward to entertain ourselves is far too exhausting. Its a big reason videogames are so popular, we no long need to go outside and pick up a stick and pretend we are fighting a dragon, most the work has already been done for us on the screen. The end result however is what people find lacking. It also becomes more transparent that we are just rats clicking a button.
In the end all games are “rats pressing buttons” the RP and metgame are constructs we fabricate in our heads with little help from the developers. The issue at the moment is that we are VERY aware we are rats pressing buttons, so the pleasure is greatly diminished, in short the game does a base job of distracting you from that fact.
(edited by xero.2097)
Oh my, again with this?
For how long are some people going to mistake character progression with stats increase? …
“End-game” and “leveling process” are nothing more, nothing less that words for a bad game’s design….
Someone has mentioned Ultima Online, …..
After so many years of linear, mind-numbing, skinner’s box heavy dependant MMOs, we have a game, GW2, that retakes the UO concept: a living world ….
I insist: you want this game to live forever? ….
And forgive me if I sound harsh but if this doesn’t work for you and prefer a linear, arcade-ish, gamey, treadmill game you have a myriad of WoW clones in the market. So, why the complaining?
See I disagree with you, not only on the ground tht it throws around a LOT of buzzwords to try and validate your statement but because your not measuring GW 2 by the same standard that your measuring these other experiences. I’ll try to explain my meaning.
Regardless of what you’d like to believe this is a form of progression, by no means the only progression, but it is one.
“For how long are they going to assume that endgame is something different than gated, hand held, heavy instanced content that you have to repeat over and over?… "
For this i agree with you, this is endgame in its purest form, the point is however that you enjoy it and that hand holding is perhaps not really accurate.
Having a planned vision for how your game is going to retain players is NOT bad design, leveling process is again a form of progression, one which is easily measured, but not the only exclusive means.
“Someone has mentioned Ultima Online, a game I played for 5 years after being a dedicated pen & paper roleplayer. There were no levels there, just a living world where you, as a gamer, developed your character’s story, you RP your character – seriously, I freaked out when I saw a “genius” above me stating that UO was not RP oriented. How come? You had to RP to make sense in that game, in fact, every aspect of that game was RP centric. Honestly, I don’t know what some people are talking about. "
Now I’m assuming you played UO and not a PoL shard. I also came from the UO meridian days, I however remember a very different game then you do. I recall guys called “Chicken Boo” running around killing anyone who walked outside of town, I recall a house on any empty space that would take one. Niether of these had anything to do with RP 99% of the time, unless you are using the term “Role Play” to suggest people were playing the Role of murdering dinks. UO again had progression, it was how your sorcery skill prevented you from consistantly Kal Vas Flaming poor souls when your fresh off the boat, it was how were seperated those whom could kill trolls versus those whom killed rats in the sewers. There was no “level” for you to clearly see, but trust me when I say a power progression was deffinetly there.
""After so many years of linear, mind-numbing, skinner’s box heavy dependant MMOs, we have a game, GW2, that retakes the UO concept: a living world ….""
Love the skinners box reference BTW, however GW 2 does nothing to retake the concepts of UO, its just another mindless monster mash, you will never make your own unique mark on the world as you could at some points in the days of UO/AC. In GW 2 everyone gets the same chances to do everything. GW 2 is by strides easier then UO, and far far more forgiving. In UO I could wander out past Vesper and beyond from the get go. If you wandered up into Frost Gorge sound in GW 2 at initial character creation I’d say your chances of survival are probably a LOT less.
“I insist: you want this game to live forever? ….”
I think everyone wants a game to enjoy forever, and your follow up point I 100% agree with, however theres no much that GW 2 does in this regard that is ANY different then many other MMO’s. Heck if your looking for a good RP enviroment I’d recommend saving the 60$ and go play LOTRO, it has far more “RP” support then GW 2 does.
I don’t think you sound harsh, passionate yes, harsh no. However the rub is that GW 2 is actually very much like many other games, so players judge it by those experiences and standards. You don’t pick up Battlefield and compare it to WoW..you compare it to Duke Nukem or something. The problem is that GW 2 is actually very much like others of its ilk and people are expressing their displeasure with their experiences in the game. Its healthy venting your displeasure over what you spent 60$ on. The thing is those people will for the most part disappear if peole didn’t constantly demand they defend their point of veiw by claiming their opinions are wrong rather then accepting that its just their opinion based on what they experienced, instead they tend to go on the attack, prolonging a simple exit interview.
-Sigh
See heres the thing, I love how close knit this community is and how friendly it is, how criticisms are always addressed and welcomed with maturity…
Lets take a look shall we?
“GW2 caters to people who are tired of running in circles – complaints are from people who expected another traditional MMO regardless if Anet yelled the opposite for months.
Would be cool if Anet offered a free WoW trial month to people who aren’t happy with GW2.
Like “Don’t like chess? Don’t worry here is your tic-tac-toe”.”
Contrary to popular belief, World of Warcraft actually does have involved activities (as does GW 2) Do you believe that dodge rolling suddenly makes GW 2 some marvel of MMO development? I swear so many people must break their wrists patting themselves on the back from thinking they are some genius because they like GW 2.
Please point out a GW 2 feature that isn’t in another MMO..
The only one I can think of is the Downed state…
I don’t see what makes GW 2 “fans” to be such a expert level MMOer that they would speak of other players who enjoyed highly successful MMO’s with such disdain.
My personal favorite.
“GW2 is not your cookie-cutter, child-proof, spoon-feeding, EZ-mode, UI-based, passive-combat,
hand-helding, back-patting, gimmicky MMO.”
I disagree,
1)cookie cutters are rampant in this game already. We’ve already seen some builds that have been nerfed largely due to their incredible success.
2) I’m not quite sure on what you mean by child proofing?
3)I’d say everything is pretty much spoon fed, perhaps you missed the scouts who tell you where all the events are and how even your quests on your story line have a level suggestion.
4)EZ-Mode? I’d say it depends on whom you ask many people have already acquired the best gear they’d ever get and downed the toughest fights the devs have offered us. Heck they give many classes the ability to rez THEMSELVES and anyone can ressurect anyone else, many dungeon encounter with pugs often devolve to corpse rushing bosses by people whom don’t care to pay heed to mechanics. How is that not EZ-Mode?
5)UI-based. Really? I guess you must’ve got the special edition that comes without a User Interface (UI)
6)Passive-combat. I would say given the amount of unattended botting there are plenty of occasions where actual human input isn’t necessary.
7)hand-helding, back-patting. Its hand “holding” and I think the game actually gives you just as much guidance as any other game. The game constantly heaps “your so awesome” onto you, especially in the story mode…its the idea to make you feel important, its the reason your guild banner pops up on the side of the keep they claim. I’d say thats a pretty stern pat on the back.
8)Gimmicky MMO. Every MMO has a gimmick, take your pick which one GW 2 uses be it the downed state or the double tap dodge.
Bottom line is that GW 2 is different, but not unique. While I encourage players to enjoy playing it and hope they do so, they really need to get over themselves by thinking that people who liked things from GW 2’s predecessors are somehow beneath them.
By expressing opinions we improve the situation as a community, if we choose to stay silent then either people don’t “want” to play the game or are fine with it.
Many people who express their dislike of something are doing so because they want a reason to stick around or in some cases may be trolling, but they shouldn’t be dismissed by those that don’t see eye to eye with them.
Well,
So like some others I to have waned in my interest in guild wars 2, I wouldn’t say I hate it mind you, just feel like interested in playing it lately. I guess one of the things is that armor skins really don’t entice me and I’m a acquirer by nature. I like to get new stuff.
I ran out of skills to gather pretty early, my skill points went instead toward my level 85 Endgame set. After which I stopped and looked around and said “Now what?”
I think personally acquiring stuff is TOO easy in guild wars. Everyone gathers each node and thus I think is bringing too many resources into the economy. This results in making it too easy to acquire anything you need, meaning that since Endgame crafted is on par (or better in some cases) then anything else that everyone is just….what? achievement running?
Just a thought
Well,
To be honest its free to play so I may from time to time log on, but there isn’t as pressing a need to get my moneys worth out of it.
I think part of me approached the game with a character idea in mind, but in reality GW 2 strikes me really as “playing your class” rather then “your character” while other games a character is defined at endgame by the spec/gear they equip and the abilities their playstylebrings to the table the trait system itself seems to only add “under the hood” things to your character, making it stand out far less then comparing 1 character spec to another in other games.
Also the skill system..I don’t like it…
I don’t like the idea of tying the weapon skills to classes, I’d actually like to see no weapon restrictions on classes. Thats more a me thing however and I realize we cannot always get what we want.
Me included.
Also the skill system wears out way to fast. I would prefer the classic 10 skills to Gw’s 9 + class ability. The big difference was really noticeable when I tried ut a elementalist who essentially has 24 skills at all times to most other classes 9+1. I found early on the promise of cool new abilties pushed me forward, but after about 40 you realize there no new abilties to look forward to, so you buy anything you haven’t already bought, and then realize why you never bought those abilties in the first place.
At 80 it just seems like the grind is far to long for far too little. The only legendary that appeals to me is unusable for my class, I don’t feel like leveling a alt whom could use it and the legendaries that could be used by my class don’t have stats I desire for my playstyle…so I make my 5 Potent Blood weapons and…..well frankittenhats it.
Well,
I think banning of gold buyers is a capital idea, I also want to address some concerns people have brought up, rightly so.
1. What if I’m simply trading gold to a friend?
A interesting note, assuming that the servers are keeping track of what is going on and some effort is put into investigating the case then players should be in the clear for a few behaviors to look for.
a. Farmers tend to bot.
b. Farmers tend not to be at all active in the community, an investigation would show that you get around and have friends and do a variety of activities, now while a FARMER may try to emulate these behaviors it would drastically effect their efficiency.
c. The idea is not to act right away, give it a little time, use it to map out who the buyers and sellers are, hit them all at once.
2. But gold buyers are also ANET customers.
Not really, ANET offers means to do what they want, its like bringing outside food/drinks to a movie theater, if you don’t want to play by their rules then you shouldn’t have agreed to them. Ultimately ANET already got all the money they were going to get out of “those” players with the box price, since “those” players have chosen to not buy things through ANET.
3. Collateral Damage.
This shouldn’t be as bad as you think, someone suggested gold buyers would start sending gold to random players to get them banned…why? The amount of time and effort to do so would be wasteful to them to try and generate any sort of outcry. As for the innocent who was sent gold from a total stranger….simple DO NOT TAKE IT! or SEND IT BACK! My wife actually accidentally sent some food to a random player rather then a guildmate…the response was “Ha ha thanks for the stuff” the loss of those players I do not think will hurt the game.
Ultimately Gold Sellers are ruining the game, they are reducing revenue to ANET. ANET can keep the game FtP by selling stuff to players, gold sellers are diverting that revenue to themselves and away from stuff like staffing/server maintence/content development. The arguement of ANET is asking for too much money isn’t really valid because they are supposed to be the only legitmate game in town..to put it simply buying gold is like buying a DVD player stolen from a store.
/rant
If your worried about positioning why not just use Devourer Venom?
You get more hits off with it, its a even shorter CD, can get it way sooner, lasts longer.
The only rationale I can see for a interest in Basilisk Venom is because you’ve already used up all your utility slots for your build, but I am curious why not devourer venom?
Nuff said, its really silly to have to collect a bazillion colors for a horde of toons.
Okay a few things to clear up.
I suggested it as per shadowstep. So if there are no defenders on the walls or mobs on high places or heck high places just out of range…the skill doesn’t allow you to get anywhere that a enemy isn’t already. So you can’t really use it to circumnavigate a keeps defenses, because a defender which you would need to get up onto the wall, should try to kill you after doing such.
I also never said Daggerstorm was weak, quite the opposite infact by refering to it as “Desirable”
Also when refering to Elites as stronger skills, do you believe that Basilisk Venom Qualifies?
You know, the other day I was looking at my skills and couldn’t elp but feel disappointed by our elites. In the case of a human only 2 of the elite skills feel at all desirable (Thieves Guild/Dagger Storm) Basilisk Poison has occasionally peeked by interest but for the most part not a thing.
I was thinking what if we had a Elite version of Shadow Step that would allow us to travel the vertical aswell as the horizontal. Since its Shadow step we’d need a target so that would prevent exploits such as using it to get places your not supposed to be.
This would give a nice boon to the thief class such as allowing us to get onto Ramparts in keep sieges where defenders stack up on them and blast the hell out of us (without us having to resort to SB) since we do not have all the time/anytime stealth it wouldn’t be a issue like in some games where a thief would sneak in and then stealth and move around killing defenders.
Just a thought of something that might be enticing.
Ummm…
First, I don’t think “Farming lots” is really a reflection of mastery.
Second, Given the lack of request for Crafted items and that due to the stats some legendaries are purely for the skin. I think its a good thing for the game in the long run.
I don’t think that months down the road legendaries are going to be super unique, as time progresses, so will the amount of legendary skins you see. I actually see the ability to sell legendaries as a step forward, since crafters still have to be able to make the components themselves it just means that the player with that “Nice sword” is not necessarily a master craftsman. Thus you aren’t forcing crafting onto players who want legendaries.
Well,
I agree with many sentiments here, just to add my own 2 cents in…
1-There will be collateral damage, stolen accounts will get banned and people will have to get them back, the idea of people being outright banned for botting is pretty optimistic.
2- I cannot help but feel that this is really tricky given I imagine Anet does not have a huge staff given operating costs for GW 2 must be pretty slim with the lack of a sub and the rate at which the devs are working on stuff, coupled with the turn around time on CS work such as account retrieval.
3- I’d love to see my reporting a bot actually have an impact, at this point I’ve been reporting the same bot 2 times a day for over a week now daily while farming my own materials, nothing has come of it.
Finding bots really isn’t all that hard, simply saying “Hey want to work together?” tends to weed out bots from actual players for a very simple reason that teamwork speeds up your own farming by increasing the speed at which things die and making sure you can run a reliable circuit rather then each of you killing half the mobs, you can work together and kill ALL the mobs in the same time. Bots tend not to even respond to a “Hey” or “Hello”
I think the report a bot should give a simple pop up After the second or third report, a “Click the randomly located obvious button on the screen” after you do so you cannot be bothered for another hour. This allows for a player to gather some help to remove a bot, while at the same time means that a bot needs to be monitored.
Just my two cents.