Guild Wars 2

I never understood why people play mmorpgs only to lock themselves away in a dungeon with a handful of people — and often the same people over and over again — reducing the whole gameworld to a lobby for a dungeon crawler and a catwalk to show off the shinies.

That can easily be done in any coop game or singleplayer game that offers coop mode.

The occasional dungeon here and there can be nice — once every few weeks — but too much of it narrows the view, imo. Add to that the often involved drama and elitism of frequent dungeon runs — ‘frequent’ as in ‘the main focus’ — that indicate that people clearly don’t enjoy the game itself but follow simple reward mechanisms (skinner box) and you can find me turning away bored and disgusted.

Open world is the strength and key feature of any mmo — or at least it should be, unfortunately the vast majority of mmos is the exact opposite — that’s why I have enjoyed EVE Online for several years now and I immediately lose interest whenever I hear the term of ‘end game dungeons’ when an upcoming mmo is advertised.

I don’t find it to be fun anymore, which isn’t a bad thing by itself, since not all things have to be ‘fun’ to keep me entertained. The thing is that the game doesn’t entertain me anymore.

I played LotRo for 4 years and there were times where I had to take a break. Those breaks were usually 2 or 3 weeks long, after which I gladly returned to the game. The last break I took finally led me to the conclusion that I didn’t want to play the game anymore. Even the thought of logging in bored me.

GW2 managed to accomplish within 3 months what LotRo took 4 years. Im bored at the thought of logging into GW2.

The features look nice on paper but are poorly implemented. It almost seems the devs were afraid of their own courage and bailed half the way through.

Getting rid of the holy trinity …. and replace it with the boring unity (dps),
no quests …. ok, a little bit of quests (story, hearts),
dynamic events …. but not so dynamic that they would actually change anything,
no vertical progression …. uhm well, maybe a little bit of vertical progression, duh.

There doesn’t seem to be direction the game is going. And in all honesty, I prefer a game that is made with a clear concept in mind and that follows that concept to the end, instead of something that leaves the impression of being half-baked.

Is the game too short? Yes and no.

You can reach level 80 quite easily and within a relatively short time. Then it’s up to the individual player what goal to aim for.

I have two level 80 characters and a third one on it’s way (500hrs played). None of my level 80s has a single piece of exotic gear, so my goal is to slowly deck them out with exotics. Will it take me a long time? You can bet.

To me it seems the game is made around that idea. Get to level cap easily and then slowly go after BiS – that’s why exotics, legendaries and ascended come with such high requirements in material and time.

A problem often arises when are players ‘spoiled’ by other MMOs where you often can obtain BiS with a couple of dungeon runs, and by the time you’re done the next dungeon is released … and so on. So they beeline to BiS and expect the next dungeon and gear-update to be released asap.

[quote=874162;JMadFour.9730:
but if I go to the other cities, there won’t be anything for me to do there, since I can’t do their questlines? or am I missing something?
[/quote]

Yes, you’re missing something.

There are no quests in the traditional sense. You don’t walk up to an npc, take some quests, do whatever is asked, go back and collect your reward, then move on to the next npc and so on.

There’s only one quest, and that is the personal storyline.

GW2 has dynamic events that occur as you explore the maps, and it has ‘heart quests’ (symbolized by a heart on the map). Those heart quests resemble the traditional quests, though you don’t have to talk to the npc. You’re notified what there is to do as soon as you are in the vicinity of that NPS.

JMadFour.9730:

so I can still play quest/storylines from the other races right?

or at least have some interaction with the other major cities, if I so choose?

You can’t play storylines from other races, because a storyline is your character’s personal story which pretty much starts at character creation. What you can do is join someone in an instance of his personal storyline (storyline missions are instanced).

You can go to all cities as soon as your character has left the intro sequence — which only takes a couple of minutes.

Lifelike.5862:

Ruby Red.4019:

1) 0
2) 0
3) 0
4) 0
5) 0

This is a FTP game paid expansions are the way to go imo not cobbled together gamebreaking “free” content. (I say 0 because they shouldn’t be used to bring in more exclusion and elitism)

The sad thing is, this game is already full of exclusion and elitism towards players who enjoy vertical progression, and it’s posts like yours which prove it.

elitists go both ways.

The sad thing is, people who enjoy vertical progression have dozens if not hundreds of grames to choose from. Instead they are trying everything to ruin what little is left for players who do not enjoy vertical ‘progression’.

Every action has it’s appropriate reaction.

1) 0
2) 0
3) 0
4) 0
5) 0

You’re right. ‘Every other game’ – but there are a few exceptions to this. GW1 and EVE Online for example. And people have been playing those for years.

ANet has a treack record of sticking to their word – no vertucal progression; GW1 works this way. Now they seem to pull off or prepare a 180, that’s why people are angry.

If I wanted vertical progression and power creep I would play any of those ‘every other games’.

I play at a very slow pace and I often take breaks standing there and sorting my inventory, going over my skills, looking at the landscape – you name it. Being in a group (or running a dungeon) I can’t do all that, it forces a pace and playstyle upon me that is not mine. Simple as that.

I’d love to do group content but I simply can’t stand the hectic and ‘go go go’ mentality.
To me a game is not a party like it seems to be for many other players (I don’t like parties), it’s a leisurely stroll where I can be distracted by a thousand things.

In other words: I’m not group compatible.

I have seen this all before.

A change in the game’s direction / the company’s philosophy – how marginal it may look at first glance ‘oh, it’s just one little thing / one item / one tier, nothing major’ – and the people with experience and foresight who see the potential risks are called whiners. Funny thing, most of the time the socalled whiners turned out to be perfectly right and their concerns spot on in hindsight.

And the less a company says about the topic, the more it’s clear that the change was not an unfortunate misconception or mistake.

Power creep is here and it’s here to stay.
Vertical ‘progression’ is here and it’s here to stay.

Unfortunately many other companies play that game much better because their games were designed that way in the first place. Because of that ANet will not only continue to alienate their loyal fanbase, but they will also fail to attract the new audiance they want to address.