Guild Wars 2

Itzena_sl said:

That's all they have left. They hate WoW (because it's successful and casual-orientated) and so they keep building up each new MMO launch as The Next Big Thing, one after the other. Because if there isn't a Next Big Thing, a WoW-killer then that means that maybe WoW earned its success after all. It's not a massive fluke that is going to collapse as soon as there's an alternative, it's actually that most peopleenjoy playing WoW. And if that's the case, then, well...all the game theory bollocks they keep posting about how games need no instancing, more competition, a tougher grind, less fun?

It's all wrong. And that wouldbreaktheir world-view.

So they keep piling on to thenextMMO being the one to show everyone that no, really, WoWsucksand if you'll just come play this new one over here....

Sad, really.

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And I dont understand why people are always asking for a "WoW killer" when they are not. I dont care if a game has 10m+ subs or 200k+ subs, I just want an MMO that keeps my interest for more than a month. Every new MMO released is fun for less than a month and its back to square one again. EQ1, FF11, Lotro, and WoW all lasted quite a bit longer than a few months and 3 of those 4 lasted over a year for me. Is it too much to ask that new MMOs stop going in reverse and actually get better?

GW2 does nothing of the sort. People here have a hard on for the pvp, yet even WoWs pvp is much better done and thats saying something. Half the time you cant even see the other players and your relegated to just spamming your AE skill in a general direction. You want dungeon loot? Run the damn thing 130+ times to get enough tokens to buy a set. Its mind numbing and boring. Want to level and alt in GW2 now? Majority of all the zones are almost empty already and thats saying something since the way the game delevels you for current content.

I am glad I played GW2 when it came out, when the zones were bustling with activity, but its a shame that so early in its life cycle its already becoming a ghost town and thats because you are left with nothing fun to do when hitting level cap....which comes pretty quick.

Tide27_sl said:

And I dont understand why people are always asking for a "WoW killer" when they are not. I dont care if a game has 10m+ subs or 200k+ subs, I just want an MMO that keeps my interest for more than a month. Every new MMO released is fun for less than a month and its back to square one again. EQ1, FF11, Lotro, and WoW all lasted quite a bit longer than a few months and 3 of those 4 lasted over a year for me. Is it too much to ask that new MMOs stop going in reverse and actually get better?

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Pretty much this. It's not about looking for a "WoW-killer" per se. It's trying to find a game that is as engaging and interesting as WoW was for a long period of time. Even as an extremely casual gamer nowadays, I still can't find an MMO that holds my attention past a month or two. I just want something that is engrossing again. Recent MMOs have felt way too "single-playerish". In that you play through them once, maybe twice, and then put them away in a box in your closet.

I managed to contact someone from customer support on reddit of all places, apparently when the whole buying gear for like 10 karma was going on.. I had left an item in my bank on accident when we were all supposed to sell them. That's seriously the reason, one item from months ago that's worth nothing. Great, super.

earthfell_sl said:

Comparing GW2 to LoL is a bit ridiculous. I'll just ignore that since I think you are only using it as a bridging argument for something else.

You do have a point, however, about the need for ANet to focus on important issues of the game. Like, for instance, fixing the fucked up necro class. I don't care how many dungeons they add, I will not play them if minion AI and UI continue to look like something out of 2002. Why can't my minions heal out of combat? Why do they suck? Don't offer minion master option if it is not viable, it pisses people off. What is the point of me getting better gear if the class I want to play has serious problem that as of today remain unfixed? Why on earth would you spend all this time creating this huge world and then make an end game where all you do is sit in LA to fight in an instance? You have an entire game world... use it?

More world bosses, less instances. Polish the classes more and fix all the broken traits. What's worse is that the holiday skins they are releasing are just awful (although the Halloween skins were good, the way you had to get them was shit). I kinda get the feeling that Anet is trying to do too much at once. But the game is still good. My problems with it are mostly because of the class I want to play being poorly fleshed out, and that the cosmetic options in the gem store are seriously underwhelming.

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Yeah, I was speaking about LoL in more of a business/developer model. Essentially they have someone coming into the meetings, conveying someone's vision, and prioritizing issues a,b, & c. They seem to have it together. That is all I meant. I kind of felt this way when Scott was over at EQII. It felt like they were addressing important items to the game and not worried about all the ancillary pieces that were really irrelevant to the core of the game.

When I speak of core components, I mean anything that is directly related to the primary purpose of the game. Example, Warhammer & GW2 are pvp centric games. Thus, there should be attention to balancing, combat, pvp mechanics and gameplay. Instead of release dungeons and pve content that it is just further extensions of something to draw you away from the real problems. Why I give props to Rift right now. They needed end game, they needed raids and good dungeons. Honestly, their PvP was a lot to be desired but I really wasn't playing for that though, the idea of Rifts drawing each faction to itself is a great idea but, this expansions appeared to be a direct response to their biggest issues.

Also, the dethroning WoW thing needs to go and never really had a place. Just as WoW didn't dethrone EQ, it was just the next step. EQ was done, it was out dated, and someone need to come along and give us something new and upgraded. The same needs to happen now. No one needs to dethrone anything but provide the MMO community with the next thing. I look at MMO's like our office does Copier machines. We absolutely use them until they fall apart and no one wants to change or upgrade because they know how to work it, double sided pages, staples, all the bells and whistles but sometimes you have to face the facts, it takes more to keep it up and running than its worth. You might as well bite the bullet, prepare to learn something new and get something that will serve its purpose.

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/gui...#disqus_thread.


Their talking about the 1st expansion well under way most likely, which is no surprise to any of us.

AlekseiFL_sl said:

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/gui...#disqus_thread.


Their talking about the 1st expansion well under way most likely, which is no surprise to any of us.

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I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't aiming for an expansion a year or year and half, simply because it's going to be their main revenue stream, because they apparently hate their gem store.

I don't watch GuildCast, but one of the most recent episodes has been floating around various sites so I gave it a look and found it actually interesting and worth the watch. Basically, they talk about GW2, some of their impressions to date (no personal achievements, little Risk v. Reward, the lack of social interaction and the why/how they believe it's hurting the game) and impressions over various features/Anets manifesto/features that they never implemented, then answer some random questions and give their own ideas on how to address some of the problems GW2 has that they believe will bring people back to the game.

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game...r-not-to-raid/


00:00 - 16:00 : They talk about the upcoming fractal changes.
16:00 - 44:00 : They start talking about the lack of social interaction.
44:00 - End : Questions and Answers and throwing out random ideas to make the game more interesting.

Zaphid_sl said:

I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't aiming for an expansion a year or year and half, simply because it's going to be their main revenue stream, because they apparently hate their gem store.

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Having played a few F2P games, I was surprised at how little was in the GW2 gem store and how rough the mechanics around it are. As one example, they could make town clothes the default while in town and then stock the store full of clothes. My random speculation is that they make a steady amount from people turning gems into gold and feel less sleezy about that then charging real cash for a hat? I dunno.

Psi Guardian_sl said:

Having played a few F2P games, I was surprised at how little was in the GW2 gem store and how rough the mechanics around it are. As one example, they could make town clothes the default while in town and then stock the store full of clothes. My random speculation is that they make a steady amount from people turning gems into gold and feel less sleezy about that then charging real cash for a hat? I dunno.

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Actually I'd feel better if I was buying hats than turning gems into gold, because right now you can practically buy legendaries for $$$. There's no excuse, they delivered some great looking costumes in GW1

Just make wearing town clothes give you (perma-)swiftness and they'll be alot more popular.

yeah, the gem store seems to be underwhelming.
I want to be able to spend some cash in it, to have some cool costumes, pets, whatever..

You don't have a RNG in LoL when buying skins for a champ. And you can actually see the skins for the champ.
I'm not really sure what they were thinking with towncloths in gw2.

Its strange to see they kindof went the opposite way on the gem store. instead of nickel and dime, they way under implemented it.

I do think holiday stuff is a bit of trick to get you to buy more bank space.
But even then... collections not taking up bank space..

this winter was much improved. Mini's, and those wooden skins.
One set of toy skins from playing in game.
and another set of weapon skins on the Gem store.
Yeah, I did grab that GS skin for my mesmer.

For the people that didn't like the dungeons, have you tried the fractals?

They didn't just screw up the gem store, they took an absolutely horrible approach to the blacklion chests that almost turns GW2 into a casino. I have huge problems when the only way to get something is to roll the dice (backed up by your real life dollars). Also, the fact that cash shop armor (not the town clothes) can only be used one time is totally fucked up. A person equipped them at low level when the game came out, and was unable to transmute the appearance to his higher level gear. Bad bad bad.

One thing I really like about dota2 is that almost everything is available to buy directly from the store except some super rare couriers. Not only that, but every single item is tradeable and you never have to mess around with the randomness of the chests if you don't want to, because there is always some 15 year old kid from Indonesia with five of them and no real life job looking to trade you for keys. And if you are smart about it, you can buy keys on the "black market" for even cheaper than they sell them in the cash shop.

To date I have not seen one good mmo cash shop, but I am assigning it to the fact that mmo economies are much more complex and the fact that games like dota2 can focus a lot of energy on their cash shop rather than the constant updates and maintenance an mmo requires.

And I really don't like those christmas skins. No candy canes?! No christmas tree great sword? Honestly I don't expect much from year 1, but year 2 better have some good shit! They just need to put me in charge of their cash shop because I would run that shit like Tiffany's man. FYI I'm one of the people that gets made fun of in guild chat for spending hours in character creation. But then I end up with a badass like this

while someone like Tuco randoms everything and gets stuck with a fugly aborted fetus of an elementalist.

I was not aware you can't transmute them. are you sure of that?


The blacklion isn't to bad. yeah its a rng. however, you CAN get keys in game. Pretty frequently via map complete. at level 10, 31, and 50 personal story completion as well. very rare random drop, and small chance on daily.

Why couldn't they have just stolen Rift's way of handling town clothing with wardrobe slots. No transmorg bullshit, no town clothes bullshit, let me put on the item I want to show in the wardrobe slot and wear it anywhere.

Caliane_sl said:

For the people that didn't like the dungeons, have you tried the fractals?

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earthfell_sl said:

They didn't just screw up the gem store, they took an absolutely horrible approach to the blacklion chests that almost turns GW2 into a casino. I have huge problems when the only way to get something is to roll the dice (backed up by your real life dollars).

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Thing is, I think they make a lot off the gamble boxes. There were people posting on the official forums talking about buying $50-100 of the Christmas ones to try to get the Quaggan minipet. So long as they have a portion of the playerbase willing to pay that kind of money, it more than covers the ones that aren't.

Never tried it. Is GW2 F2P or? What's it like game wise -wow'ish or?

Cantatus_sl said:

Thing is, I think they make a lot off the gamble boxes. There were people posting on the official forums talking about buying $50-100 of the Christmas ones to try to get the Quaggan minipet. So long as they have a portion of the playerbase willing to pay that kind of money, it more than covers the ones that aren't.

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That's the whole deal with shops. People really underestimate just how many people will buy from shops just for the novelty of it. To some people, dropping $20 or even $50 is minuscule at most. Especially when they can justify it by not having a monthly subscription. I don't mind shops as long as it doesn't impact the game and it's cool. I thought EQII did it really well. I loved getting appearance armor or house items. Sure, when double station cash would come out, my dad would always get a me a card or two just as a gift idea. Same with LoL. Dad dropped me $10.00 just because he knew it was something I liked and it served as a virtual stocking stuffer. If someone as casual as me and my family pay into it, I can't image just how much some others invest into shops.

I would like to see GW2 spruce it up a bit but I doubt they feel they have any need to as I am sure they are making plenty of money from it. (or at least all they care to make at minimal effort)

Muligan_sl said:

That's the whole deal with shops. People really underestimate just how many people will buy from shops just for the novelty of it. To some people, dropping $20 or even $50 is minuscule at most.

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I read a developer (think it was for Champions Online) say that F2P games usually are floated on the players that just buy whatever is put in the cash shop, which usually makes up much less than 5% of the playerbase. Considering GW2's cash shop, I'm guessing that's the crowd they're targeting as well, though I wish they would put some more impulse buy types of things in the store every so often. I'm sure they'd have no problems selling new emotes or hairstyles. I'm just not going to buy them when you have a 0.005% chance of actually getting what you want.

(One of my biggest complaints about GW2 is how reliant the developers are on the RNG.)

Izo_sl said:

Never tried it. Is GW2 F2P or? What's it like game wise -wow'ish or?

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It's like GW1. You buy the box and then you can play forever as there's no subscription fee. Game-wise, I wouldn't say it plays like WoW. The quests are approached much differently (no running back and forth between NPCs, quests are just activated when you enter certain areas) and combat is somewhat more responsive and active. Though, GW2 also has no raids and they try to minimize the raid treadmill as much as possible, so I'd say it takes a more laid back approach to MMOs.