No, you don't. I gave WoW exactly one day to prove me it was a good game. I fully expected to not play it longer than that, having been disappointed by EQ1 before.Originally Posted by Fey
From the planned 1-2 hours, I played for 6 hours straight and at 2 am realised I haven't been looking at the time at all. That's how an MMO proves itself. Yes, with all the bugs. Nobody cared. GW2 hasn't done that for me. Not even remotely. Neither did any other MMO that came out recently.
Where as Guild Wars 2 has proved itself to lots of people. No game will be for everyone, that much is certain. But no game has to be for everyone. However a big budget game has to tick certain boxes, particularly at launch. Guild Wars 2 hasn't ticked all of them, though it's ticked many of them for me personally.
Honestly, had I not had the ability to turn off map markers, this game would have been a lot less enjoyable for me. I want to find stuff, and figure out where it is, not just follow a dotted line. There's already enough of that in the game. In fact, that's the weakest part of the game to me. There's not enough thought involved. But it's still fun, more fun for me than any other MMO.
This game could so with some longer quest type content, along the lines that are being offered during the events. Maybe the new legendaries they come out with will have something like this. The game also needs more PvP maps (not for me but for PvPers) and things like an observer mode. Guesting would be awfully nice too. And it needs goals for players who consume content quickly that aren't just long term grinds like legendaries.
This game seems to work by offering different people different ways to play it. I know people who just about never leave WvW. Other people just wander around the world and just play around. What Anet has been pretty good about is putting in a lot of things to do. What it's bad about is having enough of each thing to do. That stuff should come with time,but people aren't patient.
For a lot of people, they didn't love the game from day one. They came in, tried it, didn't like it and went on their ways. For some people they went in, saw there were problems but there was something about the game that kept them playing. That's certainly true for me. The fall off for my guild was about 25%, pretty much around what I'd have expected. Most of the people who started in my guild are still playing the game, even if they're not active in my guild.
There's still a lot of issues with the game, and those issues need to be fixed, but it's early days yet for a new MMO. Of course, those who don't like the direction will be annoyed (rightly so if it contradicts what was said earlier) and some new people will come on.
But I think this game needs as much competitive advantage as it can get, mostly because if it fails, no one is going to risk anything after this. We'll end up with another seven years of MMOs I have little or no interest in playing.
I've always loved the idea of an MMO and this is the first that actually took away the stuff than annoyed me in other MMOs. Kill stealing and loot stealing and mob tagging, and slow crafting and gear grind, or pay to win, these are all things that just make other games suck for me.
Of all MMOs, this one, problems and all,is about the only one I can enjoy these days. And if it does indeed become a game where I'm forced to grind gear, well, that's going to suck for me. That will mean a lot of people in this thread are right and I'm wrong. I don't see it, but it could happen.
In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the game and continue to get more value out of it.
Well, Vayne, there's another side to this that you seem to ignore right now. If, with every patch that is released, and with every step they take closer to making this a game that is about gear grinding and endgame, those who disagree with that kind of content and are worried about the direction this game is heading in, just play the waiting game, while those that are happy with it let ArenaNet know, then ArenaNet will only have positive feedback to go by. Based on that, it's not hard to estimate what direction the development would head into.
So it's high time that as many people as possible let ArenaNet know that they are concerned with the direction that the game is heading into, that ArenaNet are going the wrong way, and that it's time to turn around and 'do the right thing'. With such a massive signal, we still have a chance that this game doesn't deteriorate any further, and that it makes a turn for the better. So yes, I too hope that the game will never come to the point where you don't enjoy it anymore. But if so, then don't forget to thank all the people who pulled the brakes and made ArenaNet see the light, because without them, it may well become a completely different game altogether.
It's like putting up signs on the highway to tell a driver that they're entering in the wrong direction. You don't tell that driver "No way out. You're dead. Game over!", you tell that driver "Wrong direction. Go back!". Without such warning signs, the driver may well discover it much too late, when he finds himself on a high speed collision course with a bunch of cars driving in the opposite direction.
It's not too late right now. But those who are concerned about the direction the game is heading into, do need to break their silence and let ArenaNet know.
You mean no one has said anything, and I've missed it? Anet doesn't see this outcry?
The question still remains is this something that really was missing from the game and needed to be added, and should have been in from day one, or is this something that speaks to a future trend. I'm still not convinced Anet isn't just putting this in because they see it as necessary.
And these forums have helped convince me there's too big a population of people that need "some" kind of stat on their gear. I hate that's it's true but it doesn't make it less true.
The problem is people are smelling almonds and screaming "cyanide". I'm not drawing that conclusion...but I am watching.
What Anet should apologize for is saying that exotics and lengendary gears will have the same stats. They should also apologize for the dye change.
But I really think that they needed the mid term goal and I really think they needed some sort of thing to get the "other" MMOers to go for it. I don't really see a way around that, unfortunately. As such, I don't really see this as the wrong move for the game.
There are always two realities. The ideal and what you can get away with. I think Anet couldn't have gotten away with making just cosmetic upgrades, and still remained viable, even though I personally wouldn't have minded. There are just too many people coming from too many other games that will never see it that way.
Obsidian armor in GW1 wasn't viable as a long-term goal because it didn't have better stats?
I agree people need some long-term goals and more reasons to return to content and keep playing (I'd like them too; the game (still) is seriously lacking in that area), but ArenaNet haven't even tried anything else. If they had tried different approaches, none of those worked and the population kept on dropping, then I could probably understand the change of direction. But as it is, the very first thing they try, is exactly the thing they said they'd never do.
MMO user base stability is a fragile thing. This game has already taken enough chances with how it's built and what's available. Some of them are small steps, some of them are larger leaps. We're two months in, the numbers were already dropping and there's only so much you can innovate in a game and so many chances you can take before you run out of empty cylinders in the revolver and reach the fatal bullet.
Sometimes taking a step backwards to then be able to move forward is the right move in the long run.
Time will show us if you and the rest of the population who are mad about some silly numbers on a new gear type are right about how it's developing, and if all of you leaving will hurt the game enough to either kill it or force them to change it.
Or if it'll ignore that you all left and continue forward.
As far as I'm concerned, that's a lose-lose-lose in my eyes.
The difference between Guild Wars 1 and 2 is the size of the overhead it takes to run the game, and the speed of the content updates. Seriously, how can anyone compare the genre 7 years ago and now with a straight face.
We've had seven years of WoW dominance, and WoW clones, during which time, more and more and more people became used to something else. You do realize Guild Wars 1 is considered niche by most people, right? There's a reason for that. It was niche.
So the question is, can they really make a AAA MMO tooday with only cosmetic rewards. Honestly I don't think so.
- - - Updated - - -
This is pretty much my take on it too. I think Guild Wars 2 has stretched the genre as much as it reasonably could. Pushing it further isn't necessarily going to make the game stronger.
GW1 was niche because it's not what the players wanted. WoW was successful, because it was what players wanted. It didn't happen, because anyone "got used" to something. Zebras and horses, mate... zebras and horses.
To go a bit more constructive, yes, they can make AAA MMOs with only cosmetic changes. But not if they **** around doing it like ANet did. The PvE content is a joke and I'm not seeing any development in there. I honestly believe there is no one at ANet who knows what "boss mechanic" means or how to tune difficulty properly.
I can't talk about PvP too much, but there's enough complains there. The summary for GW2 is probably more or less "Nice ideas, poor execution". So yes, it is possible. But you have to know what you're doing. And nobody except Blizzard seems to have understood the market.
Nope, exploring ain't making an MMO a success, don't even get started on that Vayne. It's the action. Be it PvP or PvE.
Last edited by Lagger; 11-19-2012 at 05:21 AM.
... and it was the kind of audience ArenaNet were originally aiming at with Guild Wars 2. They wanted to give a home to the casual players who didn't like the bulk of the big mainstream MMO's, the players who enjoyed single player RPG's, the players who loved GW1. I feel that there's a really large pool of those players out there, many of which probably haven't even tried GW2 yet because they're too uncertain about if it's really good enough and about where it's headed.
If ArenaNet have now decided that they prefer to focus on the mainstream MMO audience instead and provide the kind of content that they are used to and want, then that's a big change in direction. With such a change in direction, they probably not only won't be able to draw in the remaining 'doubters' from the original pool, but they will also lose a significant share of their current playerbase. Worse, it will seriously affect the willingness of those people to even try another MMO after this one. It could indeed mean that the game will be more successful and that the overall number of players will grow... it will just be a completely different game (and definitely not the game for me).
Last edited by Centaur; 11-19-2012 at 05:36 AM.
Not the focus, a compromise. The world hasn't gone away. It's still beautiful and amazing and explorable to me. It's fine. And btw, games tend to sell more in the first three months than the rest of their lifetime. That's the rule, of course, not the exception.
Anet has a bunch of players it needs to keep, even if it needs to get new people, I don't see people coming from RPGs being bothered by the new stuff, because they may never get to it. They'll look at the world and explore and do the story and enjoy other aspects like I do. The other people will help fund my entertainment.
You seem to think most RPG people really pay attention to what's going on in MMOs, but I'm not thinking that's the case. They wrote them off long ago. Some will come over..but enough. Not so sure about that. They should have, but they didn't.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote