Guild Wars 2

Magill wrote: »

Well.. more like your agreeing with me now :P

Touché

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Dinged 80 last night. I have most of the dungeons left to do though, seeing as how I made most of my level 40-80 XP in WvW and crafting. We'll have to see how the "endgame" stacks up after this.

Or I could go play Torchlight 2 for a few days.

You using the word ding reminded me of this: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1466#comic

Just some advice for everyone.

• Forget about levels, Imagine while playing that they do not exist.
• Levelling is not important.
• Gearing is not important.

You should be:

• Having fun exploring the world
• Having fun playing the dynamic events
• Having fun with the personal story
• Having fun with all the puzzles
• Having fun with WvW
• Having fun with sPvP
• Having fun not needing to worry about gear balance.
• Having fun collecting item skins
• Having fun(Not collecting items) in the instances

If you are not doing or can not see yourself doing the above then Gw2 is not for you.

It is not about:

• Racing to 80
• Getting the best gear possible
• Panda's
• Structured PvE(Holy Trinity)
• Playing non-stop, It is not a subscription based game!

Please do not complain because Gw2 is not a WoW clone, You are destroying the genre and preventing innovation if all you ever want is WoW and if anything is not WoW then you must flame and rage on the internet. Just because it has decided to ditch the norm and remove "end game" does not make it a bad game and does not mean they will ever add an end game and if they do, Thanks for destroying Gw2!

This is not directed at anyone, Just seems that all the complaints I see on the internet are people raging that Gw2 is not WoW:/

Completionist wrote: »

Please do not complain because Gw2 is not a WoW clone, You are destroying the genre and preventing innovation if all you ever want is WoW and if anything is not WoW then you must flame and rage on the internet. Just because it has decided to ditch the norm and remove "end game" does not make it a bad game and does not mean they will ever add an end game and if they do, Thanks for destroying Gw2!

This is not directed at anyone, Just seems that all the complaints I see on the internet are people raging that Gw2 is not WoW:/

You've some good points but in fairness overall a bit nieve.

You know there is a very simple reason why people hold WoW in such high regard, while it didn't invent the genre, it refined it, and it provided, patch after patch, new innovative features that have become THE STANDARD in MMO's.

If you cut the crap from people who want to be contraversial for the sake of it, WoW is a nearly perfect game, and by far the best and most complete MMO, for reasons I shouldnt have to go into.

WoW's actual biggest fault, recognised by most players, the staff themselves and critics, is how they handled PvP, and that implementing it into the game, entirely put the thing off balance for almost three expansions, making it impossible to balance perfectly. When infact PvP simply should have been provided through a seperate client (Ref: One of the head designers mentioned this at Blizzcon during MOP release, when asked if they could go back and change something, it was this)

The problem with most developers is they come into the genre and the first thing they mark down is " Be different to WoW". Innovation isnt dieing, its not being attempted. WoW has put the stamp on pretty much EVERY MUST HAVE feature for an MMO game.

Star Wars had one of the biggest budgets in gaming and was an audacious attempt at toppling WoW of the top, and for a number of reasons it failed. And so many more.

WoW is 8 years old, there is 8 YEARS of data and analysis for companies and developers to review, to see the benchmark before going into making their game. To ommit standard features " because WoW has it" is simply ensuring your game doesnt survive for long.

The first 30 days are critical in any MMO, its simply put when the player decides to continue or to not. And for most MMO players, they come from experience, they come from another mmo. So levelling, is actually, not fun. I know with all the guys I play MMO's with ( about 20?) one guy likes levelling....one...

For the rest its the montonous task of getting used to the mechanics, the character, the rotations and other classes, to get ready for endgame.

While you might think WoW is destroying MMO's, or its fans destroying your GW2 love, its actually the opposite.

While developers continue to want to be different then simply put they are not going to get the numbers required to be anyway succesfull.

GW2 is fine and grand, if you enjoy PVP. But I'd have liked for maybe it to be a bit more obvious, as someone who never touched GW before, I'd come in with an expectation of an actual MMO.

In short, this game has no need for levelling, if all endgame is is PVP, which has no rewards. Just give everyone the gear, as they currently do with scaling, and let them at it....

The levelling is just fluff, sets false expectations, and is completely un neccasary

To get anal about it

Completionist wrote: »

• Forget about levels, Imagine while playing that they do not exist.
  Nieve, its an MMO, its all about levelling, and getting that next "ding"
• Levelling is not important.
  Yes it is, if not, then the game has dozens of hours of fluff to extend its life more then it is, if not important, give people max level at start ( or no levels at all)
• Gearing is not important.
  As above. They give you a pvp set scaled when you enter pvp at any level, why not do it from the start and be comfortable being what is is. MMO's are about dinging and gearing

You should be:

• Having fun exploring the world
  Its gorgous alright, but the games progression should take you there, this isnt Assassins creed getting flags
• Having fun playing the dynamic events
  They are fun, after a while a bit smothering, but fun
• Having fun with the personal story
  MEh, its an MMO, not an RPG, lost interest after a few cutscenes, predictable as ****
• Having fun with all the puzzles
  Its an MMO, not Broken Sword....
• Having fun with WvW
  Random dice throw, no balance, no tactics, a zerg rush, nice for the scale, the first few times, then its boring
• Having fun with sPvP
  Imablanced to ****, absolutely down to your class, not your ability.
• Having fun not needing to worry about gear balance.
  Defies the point of levelling and gearing. Why not have no levels, you get a starter set and then earn more through winning?
• Having fun collecting item skins
  Have fun with their micro transactions....aviator shades in a fantasy universe
• Having fun(Not collecting items) in the instances
  They work horribly, they are not balanced at all, there is no tactics bar dps, not even tanking required, they just dont work at all

If you are not doing or can not see yourself doing the above then Gw2 is not for you.

It is not about:

• Racing to 80
  Unless your new to MMO's, levelling is always a pain and monotonous. Levelling in this game is pointless and just adds lifespan to it, which wouldnt be there otherwise
• Getting the best gear possible
  Then its not an MMO, then there is no pressure to get better, to progress your character, and challenge yourself against more challenging peaks
• Panda's
  There are some pretty **** races in GW2.....
• Structured PvE(Holy Trinity)
  Why reinvent the wheel, the GW2, everyone do everything, doesnt work at all fluidly, and is a mess
• Playing non-stop, It is not a subscription based game!
  It helps wanting to play the game every evening, its a sign you have a good game on your hands. The amount of people saying " sure i can put it down for months and come back, cause its free" its a flux, and really means its not enjoyable, or there is nothing to do, but i dont feel pressured in playing cause im not paying per month

As much as "WoW love" might annoy you, the quiet boring and old "WoW bashing" annoys me too.

I'll very happily applaud a new game and call it WoW's equal, if it ever happens....which it probably wont,

The only thing that will probably equal or better WoW is Titan, and thats cause Blizzard are making it

I followed GW2 from the start and remember them contemplating not having a level cap in this game at all. At the time I thought it was crazy but now its starting to make more sense!

Some people have rushed through the game to level 80 and missed all the complexity of the zones. I have completed (100%) in 5 zones so far and am loving it. Mix in with that completing 2 dungeons, and the personal story up to the zones I have completed and there is no lack of content.(Btw I have this since the head-start)

I am constantly involved in something or have a set task all the time I play. The 2 dungeons I have completed definitely gave that rush of adrenaline ya get from playing instances.

If there was some sort of Super dungeon at level 80 for like 20 players or something, that might help people get over the fact that there is no endgame per say. Knowing Arenanet's track record for listening to its customers I wouldn't be surprised to see it in future expansions.

TheDoc wrote: »

In short, this game has no need for levelling, if all endgame is is PVP, which has no rewards. Just give everyone the gear, as they currently do with scaling, and let them at it....

The levelling is just fluff, sets false expectations, and is completely un neccasary

I think you're still not getting PVE dynamic events in GW2. Check out that video I linked in my previous post. I can remember my noob days when I first played WoW. I didn't know anything about the game. I didn't know what raids were or anything. I read all the quest and tried to figure out what I needed to do. It was so much fun and exploring the world was magical. The firsts day WoW were the best. I can remember as a warrior running around Ironforge, staff in hand, looking in amazement at this underground city. It's not about leveling or end game for me anymore. I just want that exploring magic back. Gw2 does this for me.

TheDoc wrote: »

I've done plenty of the PvE events on my levelling, if not all of them, with randomers and parties.

And it was mostly, stand in position, and just spam aoe, or spam aoe heals.

Wasnt exactly ground breaking to be fair...

I'm not talking about the mechanics of the fight. I'm talk about the dynamic event chain stories.
Doc it took you two days to hit max lv. In doing so you missed out on 90% of what the game has to offer. That's not the way this game is suppose to be played. It would suck for people who played it that way. You were also leveling with loads of people in the zones so all the dynamic events would have been in the success stage most of the time. So you missed the start of them in the failed stage and didn't get to see how they play out. Thats why my first few days were spent exploring Lions arch and Divinity's Reach. I wanted to avoid that pack. You need to play GW2 kinda like you would play Skyrim. But,you might not like playing those type of games though. There is nothing wrong with that:)

TheDoc wrote: »

To get anal about it



As much as "WoW love" might annoy you, the quiet boring and old "WoW bashing" annoys me too.

I'll very happily applaud a new game and call it WoW's equal, if it ever happens....which it probably wont,

The only thing that will probably equal or better WoW is Titan, and thats cause Blizzard are making it

GW2 is as much as an MMO as WoW is. As are Eve, Darkfall and the way Ultima was. For the most part none of them have much in common with WoW's take on the genre or vice versa but they are all MMO's and none more so than the others.

WoW was a great game. Vanilla was new and fun with a fantastic end game with constant content updates. It was very casual and it attracted a massive playerbase due to the nature of the game and the hype at the time. But WoW has not been a great game for a number of years now. Four expansions and it hasn't changed very much at all. Raise the level cap, introduce a new area and release more content; rinse and repeat. They also never got any part of the PvP right.

WoW is the daddy for dungeon raiding PvE no doubt but it's success killed the genre (bit of a paradox) as nearly every MMO since has tried to copy it which was never going to work. It has alot of problems and it hasn't done anything innovative in years but it was and will always be King of endgame raiding. Games trying to emulate this were always going to fail. It's much like gaming as a whole. We are stuck in a rut of recycled ideas and no imagination as devs won't take chances with games and will try emulate the biggest success stories.

It's resulted in the MMO genre going incredibly stale for years now and understandably it has made people believe the MMO is the WoW model and anything else isn't a "real MMO" and that is by far the most Naive part of it.

Personally I got bored of WoW right after TBC but stuck with it like most others. It was a terrible expansion which brought nothing new of worth and actually managed to mess up the work that had done up to that point regarding balance and gear progression. Something they haven't got right since!

I applaud GW2 for its take on things. It may not be perfect but it's a damn fine game and done what it set out to do very well. Criticising it because it lacks "PvE endgame" is a result of this belief that the WoW model is the MMO model and anything else is doing it wrong.

Big Knox wrote: »

GW2 is as much as an MMO as WoW is. As are Eve, Darkfall and the way Ultima was. For the most part none of them have much in common with WoW's take on the genre or vice versa but they are all MMO's and none more so than the others.

I didnt say it wasn't an MMO, only when querying the listed statements.

WoW was a great game. Vanilla was new and fun with a fantastic end game with constant content updates. It was very casual and it attracted a massive playerbase due to the nature of the game and the hype at the time. But WoW has not been a great game for a number of years now. Four expansions and it hasn't changed very much at all. Raise the level cap, introduce a new area and release more content; rinse and repeat. They also never got any part of the PvP right.

Seriously debatable that probably need a bit more in terms of why its no longer a success. Your definition for an expansion, is that, an expansion...what is Guild wars going to do different? Expansions bring what you say above and a couple of new features. It doesnt mean its ****, its building on a succesfull platform.

Agreed about PVP, its **** and I hate it.

WoW is the daddy for dungeon raiding PvE no doubt but it's success killed the genre (bit of a paradox) as nearly every MMO since has tried to copy it which was never going to work.

WoW isnt to blame for people wanting to carbon copy their success and is a poor excuse for poor game developers and publishers.

It has alot of problems and it hasn't done anything innovative in years but it was and will always be King of endgame raiding.

Disagree, has brought in alot of innovation. The likes of LookingForRaid, Dungeon Finder and Cross Realm interaction and grouping completely redefines the scope and definition of " im on X server" , and provides a new standard for casual players.

WoW also pretty much set the standard for MS reactions from player input, yet to be matched imo by any other MMO.

Games trying to emulate this were always going to fail.

Problem is developers are not identifying the correct aspects of what makes wow succesfull, and its succesfull features.

Personally I got bored of WoW right after TBC but stuck with it like most others. It was a terrible expansion which brought nothing new of worth and actually managed to mess up the work that had done up to that point regarding balance and gear progression. Something they haven't got right since!

Not sure on this one, bit of a selective memory, TBC was pretty much bring the class over the player, a trend that changed in Wotlk, and chagned in CAta and now is firmly based of bringing the player not the class.

I applaud GW2 for its take on things. It may not be perfect but it's a damn fine game and done what it set out to do very well. Criticising it because it lacks "PvE endgame" is a result of this belief that the WoW model is the MMO model and anything else is doing it wrong.

I've stated numerous times on the thread the positives on Gw2 and that its lovely and all that good jazz. But as I said previously, its a game that alot of us didnt follow / care about, picked it up, found no PvE and said " lol, ok no more of that"

Which is a perfectly reasonable destination to arrive at. I've plenty of issues with the games main focus, being PvP, but I realise I just dont like pvp in mmos, never have, never will, so just dropped there.

But as I always say, endgame makes or breaks an MMO. And GW2 while having some good aspects is, as usual, for every MMO, and their flawed designers, lacking endgame content.

Running the same PvP segements over and over, with little or no reward, is simply going to burn people out I'm afraid. And at the end of the day I'm not looking to change peoples minds, im just giving my thoughts on the game. But its no suprise that GW2 went from the highest viewed streaming game for two weeks to at present barely breaking 100 concurrent viewers. Of course people went to WoW again, but then this drop happened before WoWs release : /

GW2 imo is aimed at a casual gamer. The hardcore players who like to rush to max level and get the best gear so they can wtf pwn everything in sight are not going to like it. As someone who waved goodbye to hardcore gaming a few years ago I find GW2 a joy. I dont feel like I'm missing out and going to be at a disadvantage and left behind because I take my time leveling. I can jump on for a few hours and enjoy the content without worrying about my level.

I like PvP so having it as an endgame sounds great. It is difficult to balance PvP though in terms of reward. If you give the most active and best players extra abilities or superior gear then they will soon become unbeatable by any kind of casual players or casual grps. They only way to counteract this will be through zerging. See DAoC as an example. If however you manage to keep abilities and gear static then you will likely encourage people to play in optimised grps to win rather than zerg because they will have a fighting chance. However PvP without reward or goals can become tedious...

They need to figure out a way for people to feel a sense of achievement through PvP without unbalancing it. That is not an easy task ... maybe they can provide access to abilities that provide extra utility but only at the expense of current abilities. They could provide PvP slot skills that you achieve through PvP points gained by killing enemy players etc. These slot skills could be no more powerful than current skills but just provide some extra choice in play style. Titles or Armour skins are the other options of which they have kind of implemented. PvP will settle down and move away from zerg to structured and organised pvp in time when guilds become established and more players reach max level. Early days PvP is always going to be zerg but i think they have taken the correct path to ensure that it doesnt remain a zerg.

Kiith wrote: »

TheDoc only bought it so he could point out how wrong Dcully and me are again :P

HAHAHAAH

In fairness I bought it under the incorrect information, I wasn't aware it was fully PVP, or I would have avoided as I dislike that part of MMO's ( but kinda appreciate the people that like it). I simply was mislead abit by the trailers and gameplay demos I was seeing, it looked really PvE focused


I'm not a fanboi, of course Ive played WoW since closed Alpha, that's nearly 9 years, with no breaks, so yes, while its a game I adore and have put so much time and effort into, I'm not blind to some of its faults that arise during various stages of an expansion or raiding content.

Also I havnt called the game crap, I've been fine with it, I enjoyed the levelling, bored at endgame, put aside, dont confuse me with the other guy here whose calling it crap etc.

I only got specific in pointing out some flaws, as much as you hate the "Wowfanboism" I dislike how WoW is labelled with the downfall of the genre as if its Blizzards fault, and how WoW is nowadays nonchalantly cased aside as " meh" when its still #1

And in no point did I base the two games together on every point, however there are some literally BASIC fundamentals required in 2012 for a successful MMO.

Now Guild Wars is obviously going to slide a bit sideways to the comparison because its PvP focused, BUT, at the same time, its the age old saying, endgame content makes or breaks an MMO.

Completionist wrote: »

Ehm? Yes I can.

I can say "Here is a game, Now either have fun playing or don't." Just because you did not enjoy the game does not make it flawed, Or crap. It is obvious that the game is not for you.

I had fun playing Gw2, I got over 200 hours out of it which is something very few games manage. Yea, I am finished with it for now but so what? It isn't subscription based and I never expected to play it for much longer.



The way you worded that makes it sound as if you are somehow being forced to play. if you don't enjoy the things I listed then you obviously should not be playing:P



WoW is held is such high regard because it is WoW. It is the perfect example of an MMO. AN tried to be different while making Gw2 and attempted things WoW has not because there is already a WoW.

Would you rather if it was exactly like WoW endgame wise? Why? You already have WoW.

If you want end game raiding and gear treadmills, You play WoW. If you want exploration and pvp you have GW2. Why must a game have to beat WoW? People need to stop picking sides and bashing the opponents(As they see) as the games are completely different.

From your posts I can see that Gw2 was obviously not for you. You were looking for a WoW and played Gw2 with the expectation that it would be similar. As I said above, If you did not find the things I listed to be fun then obviously Gw2 is not for you.

I dont get this" not for you" or people making out I'm bashing that game,

I've played just about every major MMO release SINCE WoW, including some not so mainstream ones.

MMO's are my favourite genre, its not the "games werent for me" its that they were **** or had NO endgame content to keep me entertained.

If I'm too be blunt, I'd call GuildWars **** and not recommend it to friends.

Why? Because the game is solely based on PvP.

But I dont call the game ****, and I havnt. I appreciate there is some really good stuff in there, and some really good ideas. But even for the most hardcore PvPer, there isnt alot here to keep you playing for lets say, 6 months, which is ****ing nothing in terms of an MMO.

Im not going into the indepth issues with Guild Wars endgame (which is only pvp) but its extremely flawed on many levels, and even for some ahrdcore pvp players, I dont see what can keep you playing past a month at endgame, I really don't.

As you said yourself, if I wanted WoW, I'd play WoW...and I do, and always will. But im always looking for the next good MMO aswell and you name it, I've played it and most likely, will have a list of bad things to say about it.

No one is looking for a WoW clone, we are looking for a good MMO.

It just so happens, some of the absolute basic principles of a modern MMO, contains alot of BASIC stuff, that is in WoW.


Example of the cuff ?

Swtor are NOW at a point where they have plentiful content that you wont blitz through in a night, and they only last patch brought in dungeon finder, raid finder and a system to help level alts faster.

At a time when their numbers are below a million, because everyone ****ed off when they say **** all endgame, and no way to automatically get into dungeons except for barking in trade..which is stupid nowadays