Guild Wars 2: Pre-Release Discussion

[Kaylia]

I've never said it would. I've actually criticized quite a few things about this game, but I've done so in a manner that actually makes sense. Your stance doesn't even make sense. Multiple sports have been around for literally 3+ thousand years. People still enjoy watching and participating them. You seem to be the one that's looking for the next MMO Jesus. Everyone else is just excited about a new game that is probably going to be more enjoyable then the previous MMO they played for however long they feel like playing.

How am I supposed to believe that your argument made sense when you pull this analogy right after?

Competition was and will always be one of the biggest hook. Generating this kind of rivality in PvE however is far from easy, and because of that, the situation is hardly comparable.

Secondly, sports generally involve "skills" and training, which is something casual mmo don't require very often (if at all). The few games that do manage to reach the "sport" status aren't mmo for a reason.

And shit, do you really want to compare mmo PvE to sport? Do you seriously believe the psychological side of the thing is remotely similar?

We get the fact that you don't like people getting overhyped, but why exactly do you care so much?

How exactly do I quantify how much I care? I just happened to open this thread and noticed a few retarded post praising the game for the wrong reason, and felt like arguing. I doubt anyone is mashing their keyboard out of rage.

I already expressed my opinion on the topic. All I want is a reasonable debate as to why these new mechanics are going to make the game more fun on a long run (ie: not lose their novelty after a few weeks), but everyone is so convinced that Guild Wars offer a solution to the long term grinding it's apparently impossible.

[Alderaan]

Man... I was just playing Rift since it's free until level 20... And I found a dynamic event... It just made me want GW2 even more. That was awesome.

GW2 will be that times a hundred.

[Arelian]

How exactly do I quantify how much I care? I already expressed my opinion on the topic, all I want is a reasonable debates as to why these new mechanics are going to make the game more fun on a long run (ie: not lose their novelty after a few weeks).

You quantify how much you care by how often, and how quickly, you're posting. If you didn't care all that much, you'd have let the topic drop pages ago. Nobody here can give you the reasonable debate you so crave because we haven't had a chance to sit down with it. We can say how we believe it'll make the game more fun for various reasons, and people have, but you crave more. There's simply nothing else until some people outside of the press have had a chance to play the game for a decent length of time.

[Rhyis.]

How am I supposed to believe that your argument made sense when you pull this analogy right after?

Competition was and will always be one of the biggest hook. Generating this kind of rivality in PvE however is far from easy, and because of that, the situation is hardly comparable.

Secondly, sports generally involve "skills" and training, which is something casual mmo don't require very often (if at all). The few games that do manage to reach the "sport" status aren't mmo for a reason.

And shit, do you really want to compare mmo PvE to sport? Do you seriously believe the psychological side of the thing is remotely similar?



How exactly do I quantify how much I care? I just happened to open this thread and noticed a few retarded post praising the game for the wrong reason, and felt like arguing. I doubt anyone is mashing their keyboard out of rage.

I already expressed my opinion on the topic. All I want is a reasonable debate as to why these new mechanics are going to make the game more fun on a long run (ie: not lose their novelty after a few weeks), but everyone is so convinced that Guild Wars offer a solution to the long term grinding it's apparently impossible.

Your argument is that repetition/performing the same action over is boring and not fun. I'm providing you evidence to the contrary. That's the point I'm making. People who play MMOs for PvE want to do the same things over and over. They like RPG style combat, and that's why they play the games to begin with. To experience RPG style combat. MMORPGs are the median in which they can do that.

What you're arguing is that, somehow, a new game should provide a PvE experience in completely different ways every single time you enter combat... You're asking for the impossible. Which is why people in here think you're retarded. You don't have any idea what you really want. You're arguing for the sake of making an argument.

You want an analogy you can relate to? I can provide you with one. You're argument is the equivalent of telling people they shouldn't be hyped up about a new television show that's coming out soon. People have watched the trailer for the show, and it's good. They like it. You're however telling people that they should not be hyped about this television show because it's a medical drama, and medical dramas are not new. They have been done before, so you're lumping all shows of that same genre within the same shade. These types of shows have been done for multiple years so a new one cannot provide anybody with anything they haven't already seen. People cannot possibly enjoy this new show for this reason.

You have determined all this despite having never watched this new television series, because it's not even out yet. That's the argument you are currently making. It's completely ridiculous.

[Kaylia]

You quantify how much you care by how often, and how quickly, you're posting. If you didn't care all that much, you'd have let the topic drop pages ago. Nobody here can give you the reasonable debate you so crave because we haven't had a chance to sit down with it. We can say how we believe it'll make the game more fun for various reasons, and people have, but you crave more. There's simply nothing else until some people outside of the press have had a chance to play the game for a decent length of time.

If debating like this mean I cared, that would mean I actually cared when the thread topic was "would you drown in a pool filled with skittles when to be honest, it was probably the least of my worry.

No, I don't care a whole lot. I do enjoy these arguments even if most don't. I wouldn't even mind taking them to PM if anybody was actually serious about discussing about MMO success and failure in general, because it's a topic I find very interesting.


Also, I don't disagree with you when you say it will be easier to debate this once we get our hands on the game, but we have seen a lot of gameplay already, and we can make reasonable assumption. It's not like Guildwars is reinventing the action rpg genre.

Your argument is that repetition/performing the same action over is boring and not fun. I'm providing you evidence to the contrary. That's the point I'm making. People who play MMOs for PvE want to do the same things over and over. They like RPG style combat, and that's why they play the games to begin with. To experience RPG style combat. MMORPGs are the median in which they can do that.

If analogy are allowed, why are you comparing it to sport when you could be comparing it to a sweatshop? The situation is far more complex than "people want to do the same things over and over", and it's very easy to reach a wrong conclusion if we limit ourselves to vague analogy

What make people addicted to these games in my opinion is not the content itself, but the "numbers" that are constantly going up. When there is no more progress that is possible, it's generally abandoned after a few seconds, even if they can continue to repeat the same thing over and over.

However, people say there is no endgame grind and that the game "being fun" is going to be enough to keep people online? This goes against everything I have observed before where the "fun" for most people meant the "progress".

[Hioki]

How exactly do I quantify how much I care?

but why exactly do you care so much?

why exactly do you

why

That wasn't the question... Why do you care? Stop avoiding the question. If you can't answer this stop bothering others with an irrelevant issue.

If you don't care, why is this conversation even happening and how is it relevant in a game information thread?

[mactabilis]

I don't see it as trolling to point out, "Hey, these are devs, they are selling a product and we've nothing else to go on (till now), so it's just way too much hype. Let's stick with unbiased game play." This is why I tend to pay little attention until a beta. Plus hell if i know my PC will run it. But no, ultimately it doesn't matter, let them have their fun/delusion/whatever. Better than carrying on being endlessly cynical about a game that does seem a genuine *attempt* at greatness. You don't know how the game will pan out till it's live either. What is the point of that? I find it difficult to fathom a scenario where everyone runs back here in a couple month crying "OMG Kaylia was right, the game sucked, I'm never going to look forward to anything again."

The 1400 events, this is a valid concern, but do you think everyone will have the attention span to figure out the orc ambush on Mesmer 3 week ago is identical to the troll ambush in a diff zone now, on Engineer, after multitude of other events? They are gonna forget, it will seem new to them. Or they'll get over it. There is a limit to possible scenarios BUT it will certainly be far less tedious than gob chain 5 for hours and hours. We put up with that anyway. My only concern, is when they scale say a boss zone as more ppl join will they work together or it goes from "Me and my 2 friends are kicking its ass" to "these n00bs are getting us killed"? Or am i way off on that?

There is going to be some attrition as with any other game; however, with no monthly fee and mostly sidegrade/aesthetic gear many of them will give it another shot at some point. The pressure to plow thru to endgame or else fall behind will not be there, so why give a damn about "long-term viability" or whatever. Any guild that tries to mandate attendance neglects the entire benefit of such a game (play when u want), so I just won't join them, problem solved. GW2 is probly not TOR where u get bored in a month. Beyond that, i don't care. It may even seem like a finished game at release! 200 hours for $60 would be perfectly fine when you compare to cash-in trash like UC3 that gets stellar reviews and costs the same. Any rational person who plays that long, whether it's Taki or any other "fanboy," will forgive ArenaNet at that point. You likely won't hear massive QQ even if they do quit within a year.

We aren't all looking to relive our early mmo days either. Few here are saying that. FF14 came and failed. Some are mature enough to realize back in 04 we were newbs who took a year to reach level cap. Just isn't gonna happen again, in any game. Why the fuck would i want to go thru anything similar for *another* decade anyway? A large portion that will play just want to have *fun* and in a manner that's new to us individually. I've never played a game like it, at least it seems so from the vids I've seen.

[Rhyis.]

However, people say there is no endgame grind and that the game "being fun" is going to be enough to keep people online? This goes against everything I have observed before where the "fun" for most people meant the "progress".

A large number of people played Ultima Online for, quite literally, 15 years. I played it for 8 years myself. That MMO had no progression at all. Absolutely zero. You capped 4-6 skills to max, which took a day or two, then played a game for years on end with no further character progression. No gear, no levels, no nothing.

Just because you haven't experienced these kind of games does not mean people do not enjoy them. It simply means you haven't played one like it yet.

[Lordender]

I have to agree, you don't need endgame grind with raiding progression or typical MMO stuff to keep people playing. I played one of the first Online rpg's that featured guilds/pking/quests, the game still runs today, it was made in 1996 called "The Odyssey Online Classic." This game pre-dated things like runescape, lineage 1.

Odyssey was a simple 2D game where the entire endgame was just joining a guild and pking people, you got 1/3rd of w/e exp they had on them, some of the stuff that was in the players inventory at the time of death, the game was addicting as fuck and to my surprise it was a very simple game. Odyssey has SNES graphics, it was nothing flashy yet no game has ever come close in terms of fun that game provided me, it is the sole reason of why I even got into online RPG's.

The pvp was simple, white text maps = guild pvp, red text maps = everyone could fight, blue maps = friendly, nothing was more epic than pking some idiot you couldn't stand over and over again, that game was so fun once you got the hang of it. One cool thing is the developer currently making a java webpage client since this game was made in straight up visual basic in 96, haha, still a fun game though.

[Dragir]

[[removed]]

[Kaylia]

The 1400 events, this is a valid concern, but do you think everyone will have the attention span to figure out the orc ambush on Mesmer 3 week ago is identical to the troll ambush in a diff zone now, on Engineer, after multitude of other events? They are gonna forget, it will seem new to them. Or they'll get over it. There is a limit to possible scenarios BUT it will certainly be far less tedious than gob chain 5 for hours and hours. We put up with that anyway. My only concern, is when they scale say a boss zone as more ppl join will they work together or it goes from "Me and my 2 friends are kicking its ass" to "these n00bs are getting us killed"? Or am i way off on that?

This is exactly why I brought up balance in my very post. Everyone love "epic fights", but figuring the right difficulty is extremely hard as demonstrated by other mmo. In the end, most events tend to be undertuned for the lowest common denominator, and the "epic feel" is lost quite fast. Yes, the staff is aware of the issue, but that doesn't make it any less easier to accomplish. If epic just means hitting something really big...then yes, but again, it doesn't last forever.


Your "3 weeks" example seem a little extreme. I don't know at which rate these events will be repeated exactly, but there isn't hundred of fun way to make you fight monsters. Not that any of this is relevant, I wasn't complaining about the system itself, but that using the "1400" figures isn't representative of the actual contents.

There is going to be some attrition as with any other game; however, with no monthly fee and mostly sidegrade/aesthetic gear many of them will give it another shot at some point. The pressure to plow thru to endgame or else fall behind will not be there, so why give a damn about "long-term viability" or whatever. Any guild that tries to mandate attendance neglects the entire benefit of such a game (play when u want), so I just won't join them, problem solved. GW2 is probly not TOR where u get bored in a month. Beyond that, i don't care. It may even seem like a finished game at release! 200 hours for $60 would be perfectly fine when you compare to cash-in trash like UC3 that gets stellar reviews and costs the same. Any rational person who plays that long, whether it's Taki or any other "fanboy," will forgive ArenaNet at that point. You likely won't hear massive QQ even if they do quit within a year.

The payment model they are using (or lack off) is going to be interesting to observe for sure. I know many gamers who aren't into mmo plan to play this one because of that, and it could have a relatively significant impact on the playerbase.

I also agree that the lack of monthly fee will reduce the the crying considerably. You have the right to expect a better service when you're billed 15$ a months, and that's part of why people's expectation are much higher for the standard mmo, but again, it wasn't really the point of my comments.

We aren't all looking to relive our early mmo days either. Few here are saying that. FF14 came and failed. Some are mature enough to realize back in 04 we were newbs who took a year to reach level cap. Just isn't gonna happen again, in any game. Why the fuck would i want to go thru anything similar for *another* decade anyway? A large portion that will play just want to have *fun* and in a manner that's new to us individually. I've never played a game like it, at least it seems so from the vids I've seen.

You don't seem like someone who would have unreasonable expectation, but what you say isn't what I hear everywhere else.

If you don't care, why is this conversation even happening and how is it relevant in a game information thread?

Because I'm enjoying the conversation?

If you feel like this conversation is getting out of hand, we could ask for a sub forum, or create a 2nd thread?

And if you don't care yourself, why are you even replying with these pointless flame bait?

[Colenzo]

I for one really liked the whole reporting feature in GW 1. All you had to do is /report and target the person you're wanting to report and a menu popped open with different things you want to report a person for. Usually if the person was actually doing something or saying something they werent supposed to they were gone pretty quickly. Thats what I miss about guild wars. Just getting people banned that are being assholes. Fucking loved that. I wish you could do that in ffxi. Its just so fucking sad when you play a game for free for 2 years and they can get that shit under control and in ffxi they refuse to do anything. -.-

[Kaylia]

A large number of people played Ultima Online for, quite literally, 15 years. I played it for 8 years myself. That MMO had no progression at all. Absolutely zero. You capped 4-6 skills to max, which took a day or two, then played a game for years on end with no further character progression. No gear, no levels, no nothing.

Just because you haven't experienced these kind of games does not mean people do not enjoy them. It simply means you haven't played one like it yet.

Nah, I actually played and loved Ultima Online. This is probably why Archage is one of the game I'm anticipating the most, even if I'm not entirely convinced about it yet (too many promises).

It's not entirely fair to say there is no progression in UO. Most players enjoyed to flaunt their riches, and it kinda became the point of the game. There was also pvp and drama that kept thing interesting, but it would be harder to reproduce in this era were casual reign. Guild Wars 2 however is not a sandbox, making people care these things might be harder this time around. PvP is probably going to work out like I said many time tho.

Also, two days seem pretty damn fast to max your skills in UO, unless you were botting or knowing certain loophole?

[Celeras]

This thread was a lot fucking better yesterday.

[Dragir]

Kinda wish I could nazimod my own thread here.

[Aevis]

"weee, 4 new pages overnight, there must be tons of new...wtf is this shit?"

thanks for the thf pvp vid. finally someome who can play the game.

[bluefan]

"weee, 4 new pages overnight, there must be tons of new...wtf is this shit?"

lol that's what I thought too. Then I was reminded of Navi from the Zelda games....HEY! LISTEN!

[Gokulo]

Loved how crafting speeds up when you're creating more stuff. Finally somebody thought of that. Even if generally crafting is the same old stuff.

[Rhyis.]

lol that's what I thought too. Then I was reminded of Navi from the Zelda games....HEY! LISTEN!

http://th04.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/...y_GENZOMAN.jpg

[Arximiro]

So I had a weird issue. Registered earlier and never got the confirmation e-mail, even in junk. That appears to be a normal issue I've read. Later tonight I did the resend thing and it said that email address is not in our system. Cool, I assumed I typoed and re-registered like they said. Once done it says that e-mail has already be used.

I ended up just using another e-mail and it worked fine asap.

inb4grammar >.>

Edit: Nevermind, it all of a sudden popped. Weird, took like 8-10 hours. Guess I am signed up with 2 e-mails now, hope that doesn't get me in trouble.