708 replies to this topic

[Rubi]

Arkham Creed said:

My god when the skill question popped up I wanted to strangle Rubi.

Oof, now we're at physical violence over GW2 information?  Wow.  /starts changing personal information.  ;)

I've spent more than a little time making excuses for certain aspects of the GW2 community to Gary, laughing when he gets kinda freaked out by it and saying "They're just really passionate, they're not so bad."  It's a bit different when that aspect you've been making excuses for starts tarring and feathering you for not living up to expectations, to the point of raging about doing physical harm.

Contrary to popular expectation, I do not have the wiki memorized in its entirety, ready to cough up stats and facts in a live setting just in case the show takes a turn in a direction I haven't studied ahead of time.  I understand that that's disappointing.

A lot of people here are taking great joy in going on about getting a "real" fan instead of this hack.  Rest assured that we've been in contact with some community members for quite a while now and are setting up a rotation.  Hope that helps.

I'm in the process of writing several shows to have on standby for slow news weeks.  One of those shows covers why you can't force GW2 to fit the same-old, same-old MMO box of raids, endgame, and themepark-style quest lines.  Again, hope that helps.

So, I'm very sorry we angered you guys to such an extreme.

[Arkham Creed]

Rubi said:

Oof, now we're at physical violence over GW2 information?  Wow.  /starts changing personal information.  ;)

I've spent more than a little time making excuses for certain aspects of the GW2 community to Gary, laughing when he gets kinda freaked out by it and saying "They're just really passionate, they're not so bad."  It's a bit different when that aspect you've been making excuses for starts tarring and feathering you for not living up to expectations, to the point of raging about doing physical harm.

Contrary to popular expectation, I do not have the wiki memorized in its entirety, ready to cough up stats and facts in a live setting just in case the show takes a turn in a direction I haven't studied ahead of time.  I understand that that's disappointing.

A lot of people here are taking great joy in going on about getting a "real" fan instead of this hack.  Rest assured that we've been in contact with some community members for quite a while now and are setting up a rotation.  Hope that helps.

I'm in the process of writing several shows to have on standby for slow news weeks.  One of those shows covers why you can't force GW2 to fit the same-old, same-old MMO box of raids, endgame, and themepark-style quest lines.  Again, hope that helps.

So, I'm very sorry we angered you guys to such an extreme.

I was exaggerating a bit with that statement so don’t worry too much about it. And I doubt anyone realistically expects you to know every little detail, however as I said in a later post that regardless of your intent you have become something of an ambassador for GW2 to the uninitiated, and with that comes the expectation of knowing at least the basics, at least in their current iteration considering how many times some things have changed.

That said I find the skill system to be one of those features that may as well be wearing a bright pink t-shirt that reads “not like everyone else” so a minimal understanding of it, especially from a former GW1 player, seems almost a prerequisite if you plan to discuss the game in any form of media. That said I apologize for the outburst. I tend to get a little worked up over such things because of how much I am called on to defend the game outside of guru. No excuse; but a contributing factor.

[Makovorn]

In fairness, Rubi and Shawn are at the core just fans like the rest of us. We're actually the ones putting them on a very high pedestal, which I don't think is entirely fair. That said, they do represent Massively who publishes articles on MMO's and Rubi is their resident expert on Guild Wars. Perhaps the viewers expect more from someone who has lot of demo playtime (as Trise pointed out), who's been conducting lots of interviews, writing lots of articles, visited the ArenaNet HQ ... BUT! ...

... I don't think it can be stressed more, that it is a lot easier to do a write-up, than it is to appear in a live chat (with video) knowing that you're being recorded and knowing that we, the very passionate Guild Wars 2 fan base, will analyze and scrutinize each and every bit of information.

Nobody is turning on anyone here. We love Rubi. We love and respect her work to the highest possible level. She (and the crew at Massively) have set a very high standard, which is unfortunately coupled with very high (sometimes inhuman) expectations from the fan base. Shawn and Rubi knows this and they know how to deal with it.

You know, I actually blame a lot of the hostility going on here sometimes, on what seems to be a horrible imbalance of information and non-information. The Guildcast touched on it - the extreme starvation of information from ArenaNet for long periods and then .. BOOM ... floods of information ... and then complete black-outs again, like we're having now. It's in the dry periods people seem to be way more on edge.

Perhaps when ArenaNet get into actually marketing the game (whatever the hell that means ... gosh I don't know anymore), maybe we'll get something in the lines of a "Guild Wars 2 Thursday" or something, like they suggested in the Guildcast. I think it's a wonderful idea for ArenaNet to bring out a worthwhile, weekly publication on Guild Wars 2.

EDIT: Sorry this came in after:

Rubi said:

-snip- So, I'm very sorry we angered you guys to such an extreme.

Rubi, there is nothing to apologize for. It's a very passionate fan base, as you know and I think any kind of annoyance comes out of a sense of care more than anger. We could never, never be angry at you ... not in the way you might think. I don't know you, but I do believe you're strong enough not to be discouraged by, what seems to be, somewhat hostile feedback. It's so easy to lash out at someone you love, it's crazy. Just know that your work is very, very much appreciated and that I sincerely hope you'll continue your work with the same passion and vigor in GW2, just like it is with Guild Wars 1.

I know this sounds fan-boyishly creepy, but I guess sometimes it just needs to be said. :)

Edited by Makovorn, 07 January 2012 - 10:18 PM.

[Chalky]

Please can this be the last time we have a pile on like this due to someone failing to instantly recall all facts about the game during a podcast or video conversation.

It's completely unreasonable to berate Rubi for this - it's not like this is a blog post or article where you've got the time to research facts.  People have asked me things about Guild Wars 2 in real life and I've just completely blanked on the most obvious features because that's just what happens sometimes.

It's not OK for a minority of people to let their zealotry alienate people who are doing an excellent job just because they expect them to have flawless, superhuman knowledge of the game.  No matter how frustrated you are that people make mistakes and misunderstand things, that's life.  People are going to get things wrong from time to time.

[Vahkris]

/facepalm

You know, they've openly stated on the videos about problems like this.  Rubi even mentioned that they have to correct the level cap of all things because they'll be chastised for it if they don't.  For all the talk about being an ambassador and being a face of the game to a new audience and getting the info right, this underlying message that shows very clearly in the videos that the community is almost vengeful when info about the game is not explained completely is far more damaging than the one issue I actually saw with the video (them just not saying "everything" about each topic or not being sure about information, which is completely understandable for a live video).

[Ranko]

Rubi said:

Oof, now we're at physical violence over GW2 information?  Wow.  /starts changing personal information.  ;)


So, I'm very sorry we angered you guys to such an extreme.

You've got nothing to apologize for, just like people have nothing to get mad about. Like I've been saying, it's just a simple mistake that can be corrected through a few pleasant comments, stating what was wrong, without threats of violence.

I found the show quite entertaining, as I very much enjoyed the discussion.

[Fernling306]

I think the show is very misleading to people that don't know much about GW2, which is my main concern. I think they should have GW2guru fanboys go on to the show and answer the questions. ;)
I don't even know everything there is to know about GW2 and even I was throwing my hands in the air with some of the responses you they gave.

[Greibach]

All I can really say here is that I'm pretty disappointed with how this thread has turned. I've said it before, and I will say it again; people need to chill out. We all love this game, and most of us here on these forums have devoted a vast amount of time to learning every single little tidbit about it. I understand twinging a bit when someone says something that isn't quite right, it's only natural for those of us that are so obviously passionate about it. The fact is though that Rubi, Shawn, Gary and others are all just humans. They have lives, jobs, families, etc. People make mistakes. It doesn't even matter, especially for what we're talking about here.

Honestly, you have to remember that to those of us die-hard fans, most podcasts, blogs, forums and wikis are not going to give us anything we didn't already know barring an interview here or there. They are largely going to be the most informative to those who don't spend as much time keeping up with news as we do. You have to think about the most important demographic here. Those of us who are watching and thinking "I already knew that", why are we watching? I know why I watch. It's because I simply enjoy listening to/watching/reading people that I respect sharing their views. For those others though, say the other gamebreaker watchers who are not GW2 obsessers, they won't know the difference when a slight mess-up has taken place, and news flash, they won't care and it won't matter.

These people put so much time and effort into being a part of this community and spreading the word out there entirely of their own accord. Just think about that for a minute. They are actively trying to make our community larger and more expansive, goals most of us would agree with. They do so much more than 99.99% of us in the community already. I'm ashamed that some people in our community react the way that they do to this kind of stuff.

[Arch Angel]

Elfen Lied said:

If there's no endgame, then I don't see why I'd wait for this

Quotes like this are exactly why I feel that the title should be changed....


Gain more views for the "Guildcast"? Oh yes!

But at the expense of people assuming THIS.

-.-

Rubi said:

Oof, now we're at physical violence over GW2 information?  Wow.  /starts changing personal information.  ;)

I've spent more than a little time making excuses for certain aspects of the GW2 community to Gary, laughing when he gets kinda freaked out by it and saying "They're just really passionate, they're not so bad."  It's a bit different when that aspect you've been making excuses for starts tarring and feathering you for not living up to expectations, to the point of raging about doing physical harm.

Contrary to popular expectation, I do not have the wiki memorized in its entirety, ready to cough up stats and facts in a live setting just in case the show takes a turn in a direction I haven't studied ahead of time.  I understand that that's disappointing.

A lot of people here are taking great joy in going on about getting a "real" fan instead of this hack.  Rest assured that we've been in contact with some community members for quite a while now and are setting up a rotation.  Hope that helps.

I'm in the process of writing several shows to have on standby for slow news weeks.  One of those shows covers why you can't force GW2 to fit the same-old, same-old MMO box of raids, endgame, and themepark-style quest lines.  Again, hope that helps.

So, I'm very sorry we angered you guys to such an extreme.

You didn't anger anyone, some people are just trying to get information anyway possible... and so they get frustrated rather easily. (At anything)

I'm pretty sure no one here even remotely dislikes you or the program; its just the typical "angsty 'wait for the game to be released' people".

So no need to apologize or worry. And anyone that expects anyone to be able to pull facts and figures out their rear-end is bloody sadistic (at best). So no need to be apologetic, I really doubt any reasonable (sane?) person is actually frustrated/upset.

The only thing I found worrying was the title...

Edited by Arch Angel, 08 January 2012 - 08:43 AM.

[Urzon]

I don't see why people are fearing a lack of "endgame" as they know it. What brand new MMOs ever start out with a full endgame raids and content?
WoW sure didn't. I haven't looked up much of TOR yet, but I doubt they did either.

It is always added in later with patches, and i'm sure GW2 is going to do the same. Will they only add just "endgame" raids later down the line? I very much doubt that. It's a given they will be adding more lv 80 dungeons, but i'm sure they will be adding addiontional events and content for all levels as well.

Heck, they might have to change most of the events in different areas to match the storyline as it evolves. Zhaitan won't be around for forever, and once it is gone; the undead won't be such a threat. That means some area's events might be taken away, but different areas will get more pretaining to the next Big Bad and his/her/its minions.

I wish the whole GW2 team the best of luck on that. Because even if a tiny bit of that is true, that is a HUGE endeavour on their part.

Edited by Urzon, 08 January 2012 - 10:26 AM.

[Chelladox]

Urzon said:

I don't see why people are fearing a lack of "endgame" as they know it. What brand new MMOs ever start out with a full endgame raids and content?
WoW sure didn't. I haven't looked up much of TOR yet, but I doubt they did either.

It is always added in later with patches, and i'm sure GW2 is going to do the same. Will they only add just "endgame" raids later down the line? I very much doubt that. It's a given they will be adding more lv 80 dungeons, but i'm sure they will be adding addiontional events and content for all levels as well.

You make it sound as if GW2 will start out great, then fall back to traditional MMO-like practises to keep players playing and satisfy the people who don't want to adjust to the new, 'next-gen' model of MMO gaming. I don't think anyone here really wants that, and I doubt Arenanet will do that. Sure they'll add lots of content as time passes, they promised that. But no raids. Luckily, no raids.

[Elfen Lied]

Noa said:

More game for us then. Personally I'm seeing mostly WoW and other grinding MMO players say this kind of stuff and if they'd just take a moment to read some of the information instead of reading the info of Pandaren's 'pokemon' line up they'd see GW2 is a great and fantastic game that won't continuously cost them over and over again.

Why the fanboy attitude? Whats wrong with having raids?
The way I see it if you have a product that has 2 options it will satisfy 2 kinds of people. First kind will like one option of the product and other kind will like the other, and there will be an amount of people who will like both options.
BUT that product will make a whole lot of other people dissatisfied because they don't like any of the offered options, but instead would like a third option, in the case of GW2 raids.

So my question is: Wouldn't it be better to put the OPTION or raiding in the game for those who want to raid and enjoy raiding, than simply not put it and try to explain that dynamic events are the same as raids, when they're obviously not.

I for example do not enjoy PVPing as much as I do PVEing, but I don't go around forums saying that world PVP is the same as battlegrounds and that battlegrounds should be removed or if for some reason they were not introduced at the beginning that they should not be introduced, because you can always WORLD PVP.

Raids are not grind, but most people just hate the fact that they lack the skill to defeat an obstacle and when they require month on a single boss they switch to a newer "Candy" and call the former bad.

[Trise]

That's an illusion. WoW needs raids because that's the only content in the game that is fun or interesting. They're what you had to work so hard for so many hours in order to do. In Guild Wars 2, you're not grinding to get to the fun content like raiding, you're having fun throughout. It really is a difficult concept if you've never had it before, and one that isn't easy to explain. As I've said before, Guild Wars 2 has no endgame, only game. World of Warcraft has no game, only endgame.

Play GW2 and you'll understand. Or better yet, join a DnD group, play Minecraft, Terraria, Skyrim, Skyward Sword to a lesser extent, Saint's Row 2... for awhile. When those games finally click (it might take awhile), you'll understand the concept. When you do decide you like those games, you'll wonder how you ever liked raiding. Read this article for a little different illustration.

If you'd like to discuss this further, why not take it to one of the 13-odd threads complaining about "no raids" and not clutter up the topic about Guildcast?

[Elfen Lied]

Trise said:

That's an illusion. WoW needs raids because that's the only content in the game that is fun or interesting. They're what you had to work so hard for so many hours in order to do. In Guild Wars 2, you're not grinding to get to the fun content like raiding, you're having fun throughout. It really is a difficult concept if you've never had it before, and one that isn't easy to explain. As I've said before, Guild Wars 2 has no endgame, only game. World of Warcraft has no game, only endgame.

Play GW2 and you'll understand. Or better yet, join a DnD group, play Minecraft, Terraria, Skyrim, Skyward Sword to a lesser extent, Saint's Row 2... for awhile. When those games finally click (it might take awhile), you'll understand the concept. When you do decide you like those games, you'll wonder how you ever liked raiding. Read this article for a little different illustration.

If you'd like to discuss this further, why not take it to one of the 13-odd threads complaining about "no raids" and not clutter up the topic about Guildcast?

To start off I hate RPGs. I can't spend an hour playing RPGs without getting bored to death. On the other side I love MMORPGs. SWTOR for example was nice, but I hated the fact I had to go through all those boring conversations every time I wanted to rerun a dungeon, and most of the time I was just clicking 1 for an answer regardless of question. So you might put me into a separate category and if I had to play all those games to understand GW2 I'd rather end up playing SWTOR and randomly clicking through convos than wait for GW2 cause according to your explanation of it I'll definitely hate it.

Now I am positive there are many more people like me. So should those people just be ignored because they have a valid criticism and concerns. I am not asking for raids to be exclusive endgame, I just want them to be there as an option for us who don't like other things and get bored quickly by other things.

People say there are dungeons you can do them there are different modes of those dungeons etc. There are dungeons in WoW too, and they become trivials after a few runs, it will be the same with GW2 dungeons, plus I'm guessing they'll be short and I'd like something to occupy me for some time.

WoW had gameplay at the launch just like GW2 is supposedly going to have. Crafting was new and interesting, hell people would spend hours fishing or gathering herbs, when archeology came up all people were doing was archeology, you could do PVP on tons of different BG's. Alterac Valey was the most EPIC thing ever for me. Clashes in the middle of it and rush and adrenaline. In time tho WoW became boring, not so much because the devs decided to numb everything, but because people were playing it for 6 years, and everything gets boring after that much time. The design itself was a sore to the eyes, cause it's been 6 freaking years looking at the same cartoonish thing.

Back to dynamic events. I like them. They're barely a new thing to the MMO genre, but they look awesome in GW2. The problem with them is that anyone can join and ****up your experience. Here's an example:
Your guild decides to kill a boss. After 2 minutes of fighting him another guild or group of people comes at the site, and runs around doing nothing useful, but increasing the difficulty of the encounter nevertheless since it scales with the number of people fighting. You end up being wiped since there are 50 people around, and only 25 of them were your guildies and actually fighting the boss, while the rest were jumping around hitting the boss occasionally and doing nothing.

I want them to make raids, but make the gear you get in raids not be the best in game but scale with crafting gear. The difference would be that in order to craft that gear you'd need to spend lots of time, money, materials in other words it would be shit hard to do. Raids would be also hard to do, but with combined effort you'r eventually do it, just like you'd craft an item with some effort and and time and money.

[Trise]

But why? what was so fun about it? It's the same thing as any other RPG game: enter dungeon, solve puzzle, find treasure, kill boss...  so what's so special about raiding?

If you had read the article, you might understand better.

Also:
http://www.guildwars...-in-t25508.html

Edited by Trise, 08 January 2012 - 04:49 PM.

[Elfen Lied]

Trise said:

But why? what was so fun about it? It's the same thing as any other RPG game: enter dungeon, solve puzzle, find treasure, kill boss...  so what's so special about raiding?

If you had read the article, you might understand better.

Also:
http://www.guildwars...-in-t25508.html

I get to spend a night with 20+ people who are my friends, cause over time we have become friends more than game-mates. The thrill of an achievement completed with your friends. In a way a raid is our little world where we enjoy content without anyone interfering

[Trise]

Elfen Lied said:

I get to spend a night with 20+ people who are my friends, cause over time we have become friends more than game-mates. The thrill of an achievement completed with your friends. In a way a raid is our little world where we enjoy content without anyone interfering

Exactly. It's your friends, not the raids, that you loved.

[Melo]

Elfen Lied said:

I am not asking for raids to be exclusive endgame, I just want them to be there as an option for us who don't like other things and get bored quickly by other things.

Just registered in order to show my support of your view. I can't think of any reason why not to include raids.

I get the whole "the game is the endgame" point, but nonetheless I don't understand how the addition of raids would harm this (truly fantastic) goal.

[Ranko]

Melo said:

Just registered in order to show my support of your view. I can't think of any reason why not to include raids.

I get the whole "the game is the endgame" point, but nonetheless I don't understand how the addition of raids would harm this (truly fantastic) goal.

I can think of a reason, they don't fit the game style. Guild Wars 2 will do just fine without raids, there is no need for them to change the game in order to satisfy the small audience of people that enjoy killing the same things over and over and over and over....

[Elfen Lied]

Trise said:

Exactly. It's your friends, not the raids, that you loved.

Quite true, but I did PVP with my friends as well. I did enjoy it, since we sucked and our deaths and adventures were always fun, but I generally don't like pvp.

But I LOVE PVE, raids especially or some sort of progression dungeons that are a bit lenghtly with puzzles included possibly for larger amount of people. Doing that with my friends makes me a happy panda. Again I repeat I want this OPTION, I don't wont in included instead of dynamic events or PVP I just want it there, so I can choose what I want to do :)

[Melo]

Ranko said:

I can think of a reason, they don't fit the game style.

Could you explain that in more detail?

I honestly don't see the negative impact of raids regarding the style of the game.

[Elfen Lied]

Ranko said:

I can think of a reason, they don't fit the game style. Guild Wars 2 will do just fine without raids, there is no need for them to change the game in order to satisfy the small audience of people that enjoy killing the same things over and over and over and over....

I am sorry but that's barely a "small audience" and here's why.
WoW playerbase is around 10 million ATM. GW1 playerbase is considerably smaller. Now I am positive based on some talks within my guild and server in WoW that a huge amount of people will switch to GW2 when it's released. Having in mind that WoW has 10 mil players, if 30% of them decides to switch to GW2 that's still an entire GW1 playerbase if not more. Lets assume that 50% of those ppl love raids, that's around 1.5 mil players.

If my calculations are right, that's not such a small audience.

Now I'm sure you'll say: "But there's 10 mil account in WOW, they don't all play the game."
That's true, but they did play it once and quit because they expected GW2 sooner than 2012, or quit for any other reason, they are still WoW players who did enjoy raids once.

So your argument about "small audience" is shaky to say the least.

[Shoros]

Ranko said:

Guild Wars 2 will do just fine without raids, there is no need for them to change the game in order to satisfy the small audience of people that enjoy killing the same things over and over and over and over....

While I really dislike raids, I think you are mix up two things: the need to grind new gear and raids as an option to do PvE (just like 5-man dungeons are an option or dynamic events). In WoW, raids really was the same as grinding for new gear by doing the same idiotic instances again and again.
Raiding isn't about doing the same things over and over again. It's exactly the same thing as having 5-man dungeons, just with more people.


Again: I HATE raids, but saying raiding = grinding for gear / doing the same things over and over again is wrong. Or then it is true, but then 5-man dungeons and dynamic events is also doing the same things over and over again (well - it is, if you choose to do them over and over again ;) ). The main difference in GW2 is though, that you don't HAVE to do it (as opposed to WoW).

[Chelladox]

Just wanted to jump in for this bit:

Elfen Lied said:

Back to dynamic events. I like them. They're barely a new thing to the MMO genre, but they look awesome in GW2. The problem with them is that anyone can join and ****up your experience. Here's an example:
Your guild decides to kill a boss. After 2 minutes of fighting him another guild or group of people comes at the site, and runs around doing nothing useful, but increasing the difficulty of the encounter nevertheless since it scales with the number of people fighting. You end up being wiped since there are 50 people around, and only 25 of them were your guildies and actually fighting the boss, while the rest were jumping around hitting the boss occasionally and doing nothing.

This is incorrect. Arenanet have already stated in interviews and such that the system will recognize if people are actually participating, not just there. If those guilds run around being rather unhelpful, the event isn't going to suddenly become too hard for the people who -are- participating.

I'm also against the 'endgame' idea, but I don't feel like throwing myself into that discussion right now (nor do I have the time as I write this).

Edited by Chelladox, 08 January 2012 - 05:42 PM.
typo

[rmd]

Yes please i hate the concept of endgame i just want to play a game whenever i log in i dont want to do pointless things which wont matter later on.

[Urzon]

Chelladox said:

You make it sound as if GW2 will start out great, then fall back to traditional MMO-like practises to keep players playing and satisfy the people who don't want to adjust to the new, 'next-gen' model of MMO gaming. I don't think anyone here really wants that, and I doubt Arenanet will do that. Sure they'll add lots of content as time passes, they promised that. But no raids. Luckily, no raids.

I didn't mean to imply that GW2 was going to add raids in the future. I was saying that no MMOs release all their content when they first launch the game. They space it over patches.

While WoW and EQ left a bad taste in my mouth for raiding, I can understand why people might want a raid in the game. Not so much the constant gear-grinding, but for the feeling of accomplishment you get from killing the long fought last boss.

Since the GW2 gear system is going to kill any need for gear grinding, I don't see why Arenanet just can't make the dungeons of the Elder Dragons and the like into 5man+. So the people that want to fight them as 5mans can, and the people that want to raid it; the bosses can scale up in power like the event bosses.

Have your cake and eat it too, if you will.

[Tree fiddy]

People keep saying that there are no raids in GW2. There are raids, havent anyone seen the big dragon fights? There's just no traditional endgame raiding, but you raid big world bosses all the time while playing the game...

[Scarsdale Punk]

If you characterize a raid strictly as a large group of people acting with one goal in mind, then yes, there are raids.  But I don't think most people would describe a raid as such.

[Urzon]

Tree fiddy said:

People keep saying that there are no raids in GW2. There are raids, havent anyone seen the big dragon fights? There's just no traditional endgame raiding, but you raid big world bosses all the time while playing the game...

Which is very true, but if Tequatl the Sunless is anything to go by; there is alot of things to do just to summon him to fight. Mostly pushing back all the undead forces in the area to the coast. Not sure how long that would take, but given the time of day and players on the server; it could take awhile.

On low population servers, players/guilds might not have the time to clear an entire area of undead.

On high population servers, it might turn out that some group already killed the boss, and you will have to wait until the event resets (at an unknown time) to do your run.

Hard to plan around something, when a healthy dose of luck it needed to even get to the fight.

Edited by Urzon, 08 January 2012 - 07:52 PM.

[Scarsdale Punk]

Server populations will likely fluctuate with our ability to move between servers.  I doubt people will think much of switching if they're having trouble doing events they want.