81 replies to this topic

[Mastruq]

Feathermoore, on 19 December 2012 - 06:29 PM, said:

Social interaction being the entire point of an MMO.

That's the problem though. Social interaction was the entire point of an MMO from their creation until about 2002-2005 or so. The Era of late Everquest and early WoW switched the players from just playing the game to have fun killing stuff with friends/guildies and getting some loot on the side to playing the game to get loot and have some fun on the side.

It's a subtle switch but it has grown way out of proportion and now we are left with MMO that cut the social parts in favor of ever more efficient ways to increase the player stats. Solo if possible, in groups or raids if you must but make it snappy and dont have people waste my time or come between me and my loot!

GW2 tried to avoid that direction, but now a few months into release it seems they are slowly caving in to player demand (fractals for on demand gear progression treadmill).

[Desild]

Mastruq, on 20 December 2012 - 10:23 AM, said:

That's the problem though. Social interaction was the entire point of an MMO from their creation until about 2002-2005 or so. The Era of late Everquest and early WoW switched the players from just playing the game to have fun killing stuff with friends/guildies and getting some loot on the side to playing the game to get loot and have some fun on the side.

*snip*

GW2 tried to avoid that direction, but now a few months into release it seems they are slowly caving in to player demand (fractals for on demand gear progression treadmill).

Like I said, MMOs are an enforced caste system. Based on merit.

Labels and common misnomers of what ninche a player fits is the closest people get to understand how the castes work. There's the casuals, the raiders, the pvpers, the rpers. And that's just the stereotypes. Then we account each guild, each server, each class, the forums you visit, the forums you don't visit, the fact you are vocal or complacent.

Now, the natural enjoyment you have with the game depends on how well you fit in the caste system. Having piers to share your success with makes it worthwhile. Most tales of MMO enjoyment are dotted with comments such as "having fun with the guildies/spouse/friends" or "I am part of a successful group".

But alas, this is still a social interaction, and is still a source of enjoyment. My fault for not being able to enjoy the game is either my failure of fitting into a caste, not being able to earn enough merit to earn me a spot in the caste I want, or external factors.

[Lucas Ashrock]

kendro1200, on 20 December 2012 - 05:16 AM, said:

WoW, EQ, and EVE were all filled with "this game is crap, change this or I'm quitting" posts very early (EVE less so, as it has a very narrow playerbase)  They are all up and kicking.  Vocal minorities crying the end of the world on forums claiming to be a vocal majority is way past the instance of "boy who cried wolf" it's more of a given.  Just because people post that the game is crappy on the main forums means absolutely nothing towards the actual quality of the game.
As for SWTOR though, only a handful of people who didn't even bother to actual look up anything that was showed from the beta thought that game was going to go anywhere.  That game was close to half a years development away from a release build when it was released.  Using that game to add credibility to doomsayer posts is like believing Israel's claims that every country in the world wants to see it dead just because the Iranians are cranky at the moment.

Erm..
No doubt, gw2 is beautiful, i deeply love it, but until the company realize where priority should be, not releasing bugged junk, giving the customer something else than gambling and scam, i doubt this game will have even half of the actual population after the slow massleaving going on, next months. No doubt, maybe in future gw2 will be a superb piece of mmo. How many years who left has to keep his account name and password stored?
I truly wish jan feb update will be a true reborn, because if it's the same junk overbugged/ full of exploits and more scams, well..

Edited by Lucas Ashrock, 20 December 2012 - 01:31 PM.

[raspberry jam]

kendro1200, on 20 December 2012 - 05:16 AM, said:

WoW, EQ, and EVE were all filled with "this game is crap, change this or I'm quitting" posts very early (EVE less so, as it has a very narrow playerbase)  They are all up and kicking.

SW:ToR and WAR and AoC were all filled with "this game is crap, change this or I'm quitting" posts very early too.

[Menehune]

Kymeric, on 19 December 2012 - 06:39 PM, said:

Post #34

Nothing substantial to add and somewhat off topic, just that I'm continually amazed, even though by now I shouldn't be, at how many people instantly jump to the conclusion that anything they don't agree with was done with evil intentions on the part of the developer.

[Zero_Soulreaver]

XPhiler, on 20 December 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

I think you're reading too much into this... You're behaving like people want to force you to play the game their way but these kind of posts dont have the malice you're assuming they have. This isnt a stop playing your way and start playing my way.

This is more a I understand the issue you're having but I avoided that by playing like this. Why not give it a try and see if it works for you too ?

Like you correctly say, it will definitely not work for everyone. Not everyone enjoy the same things. That being said, is there any harm in trying?

No I'm not, I'm just reacting to silly comments from people who still believe having no grind or progression automatically= fun.  Some people enjoy having goals and enjoy some sort of grind.  I don't know why everyone assumes that if you just play with no goals you know how to play the game for fun.  Not everyone enjoys that.

Also people don't get that GW2 "as intended" is not grindless or goal-free.  The game was always goal oriented and grind oriented to an extent.  You can believe your manifestos and all that other crap all you want, but I still believe it was just to promote and not their true "intent".

[Vysander]

Kymeric, on 19 December 2012 - 08:38 PM, said:

Since I don't know your experience, I'm curious.  Did you play FFXIV at launch?  Secret World? Rift?  Ever played Soul of the Ultimate Nation?

Finally, someone else that knows the pain that is webzen. (or ijji, though webzen was worse)

Its hard to quantify how bad the Devs were for that company.

But everytime i see people bitching about A-net and how bad their devs are, or how cash shop driven this game is getting, or how glitchy/unbalanced classes and content are, I just smile and move along, because there's no way to be mad at the efforts of these Developers after being in an environment like that.

That being said, there are issues with GW2, but its a damn fun game. People seem to be so pissed off because they didn't get the "perfect" game they were promised. That may well be a valid complaint, A-net was not able to keep up with all the promises they made at release. However, this game is still far and above the best MMO I have played.

[Millimidget]

Craywulf, on 18 December 2012 - 07:01 PM, said:

I think you just exemplified what is missing from today's gamers, which is letting the game take you where it leads, instead trying to control the progression. Play the game as ArenaNet intended is far more enjoyable. It's a fun game when your not focused on trying to be efficient and highly effective in every conceivable way.

It would be nice if rewards and enjoyable activities intersected at any point.

Mastruq, on 20 December 2012 - 10:23 AM, said:

GW2 tried to avoid that direction, but now a few months into release it seems they are slowly caving in to player demand (fractals for on demand gear progression treadmill).

I think it's more so their own intent to shift the focus of the game to gear treadmill "progression" than it is any sizable amount of player demand.

Edited by Millimidget, 20 December 2012 - 03:53 PM.

[Millimidget]

kendro1200, on 20 December 2012 - 05:16 AM, said:

Using that game to add credibility to doomsayer posts is like believing Israel's claims that every country in the world wants to see it dead just because the Iranians are cranky at the moment.

Way to be so flippant about the loss of life. I'm sure you'll be equally smug after Iran uses the nuke on Israel.

I went into TOR and GW2 with basically the same mindset and roughly the same amount of knowledge of the game beforehand, which is to say with an open mind and little knowledge. GW2 was far and away the more impressive game while leveling; far more effort was put into designing the worlds, and it shows. But now that I'm long past largely well executed leveling content, it's obvious that this game is roughly as underdeveloped as TOR, with only slightly more promise for the future (and for all I know, there's already been enough employee turnover at Anet that even that slight promise is long gone).

[XPhiler]

Zero_Soulreaver, on 20 December 2012 - 02:46 PM, said:

No I'm not, I'm just reacting to silly comments from people who still believe having no grind or progression automatically= fun.  Some people enjoy having goals and enjoy some sort of grind.  I don't know why everyone assumes that if you just play with no goals you know how to play the game for fun.  Not everyone enjoys that.

Also people don't get that GW2 "as intended" is not grindless or goal-free.  The game was always goal oriented and grind oriented to an extent.  You can believe your manifestos and all that other crap all you want, but I still believe it was just to promote and not their true "intent".

Just to be fair I never read anyone suggesting to play the game without any goals what so ever, Its always been more on the lines of dont make the game be only about the goal (unless thats what you enjoy of course). To me personally like you say correctly the game is about playing the way you enjoy. To me, the game has always been about giving you the freedom to achieve your goal in a variety of ways.

If a person likes grinding / farming thats fine.. thats perfect, they should farm and grind, anyone telling them they're playing wrong is wrong themselves.

Posts such as the on by OP are definitely not targeted at those people.

These suggestions are targeted at people who hate grinding, who hate farming, they dont enjoy doing it but instead feel compeled to do it because for them its just doesnt make sense to play the game for over 1 year just to get one single weapon skin. They might feel that a week is too long to get an exotic set. etc... Again distinction here, We're not talking about people who feel a week to get an exotic set is too long so they farm/grind but enjoy/have no problem at all doing that. We're talking of people who hate every second of the grinding / farming they feel they're forced to do.

Posts like the OP's are simply trying to point out the game can be more then grinding / farming. Example lets take Corrupted Staff (something I am actually crafting) I have been working on it for 2 months give or take. Some of the corrupted lodestones I actually farmed because I felt like doing it. The rest I got the money for. (well still thinking if it makes sense to use money on it or if I should just keep it for the crossing another staff I want to craft. Thinking about getting all the necessary lodestones through farming which will require another 2 months all things being equal). Anyhow back on subject, in 2 months I farmed 12 corrupted lodestones. I can only take small doses of farming thats why in 2 months I only farmed 12 stones. I estimate I had a drop rate close to 1 lodestone for every hour of farming so 30 hours of farming should suffice to get the full amount required. A dedicated farmer can probably do that inside a week easily but I just cant, I would have hated it if I had to spend all that time farming. Like this I enjoyed every second I played, sure took me far more then a week, It took me 2 months. In brief what posts like OP are trying to say is dont drop the goal, my goal was always get the corrupted staff.

The advice here is you dont have to spend all your time 24/7 farming "corrupted lodestones" if you dont enjoy doing that. This game is very forgiving, a rare armor set is all you need to enjoy all of the game. The rest is just nice things to have. It doesnt matter if it takes you 1 day or 6 months to reach your goal so there is no need to make the game about the goal. Play what you enjoy and use the reward from whatever you play to reach your goal.

Thats all people are saying. In the end posts like this in my opinion are trying to help. This is not about the manifesto or propoganda or anything like that its trying to help people enjoy the game.

Millimidget, on 20 December 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

It would be nice if rewards and enjoyable activities intersected at any point.

I believe they do. (well currently there is one exception, ascended gear have not yet been implemented 100% so you cant aquire them playing any content though thats just a temporarily situation)

What activities do you enjoy doing? and what rewards do you seek that you cant get using those activities?

[Lucas Ashrock]

Short OT: i hope you know Corrupted Staff is without any form of effect, just a black staff with some red on top as you can see on preview. Just saying, considering you're working from long on something could end up to be a big disappointment, and maybe crafting something else a bit better was a smarter idea.
Put yourself on a grinding goal equals enjoy the game? Opinable, but well, to everyone his fun

Edited by Lucas Ashrock, 20 December 2012 - 04:40 PM.

[Millimidget]

XPhiler, on 20 December 2012 - 04:33 PM, said:

What activities do you enjoy doing? and what rewards do you seek that you cant get using those activities?

Amongst other things, I enjoy running dungeons, which have so far been the most rewarding content I've come across, but that's not really saying much; in the 100+ hours I've sunk into running dungeons, the handful of sets I've collected as a result are hardly reward enough. Approaching 600 hours played and no sight of a precursor.

I'm not demanding rewards immediately, but I've damn well put in the time and have next to nothing to show for it, aside from 150g+ worth of legendary mats, or about 1/10th (or less) of what I need.

Unrewarding. And worse, because I see so many who obviously used cash shop or RMT. Ironically even less rewarding than that laughable mess of a reward system they used for WAR public quests.

[Kanyon]

I just like playing the game..  I log in, talk to guildies, wander off and find somethings to kill and new places to go, do an odd dungeon run, do some pvp..

Not everything has to be a second life or moaning about "gear"

Edited by Kanyon, 20 December 2012 - 06:22 PM.

[XPhiler]

Millimidget, on 20 December 2012 - 05:44 PM, said:

Amongst other things, I enjoy running dungeons, which have so far been the most rewarding content I've come across, but that's not really saying much; in the 100+ hours I've sunk into running dungeons, the handful of sets I've collected as a result are hardly reward enough. Approaching 600 hours played and no sight of a precursor.

I'm not demanding rewards immediately, but I've damn well put in the time and have next to nothing to show for it, aside from 150g+ worth of legendary mats, or about 1/10th (or less) of what I need.

Unrewarding. And worse, because I see so many who obviously used cash shop or RMT. Ironically even less rewarding than that laughable mess of a reward system they used for WAR public quests.

Thing this will always be the case with a game that doesnt have a vertical treadmill. You can never get gear you need because you  get what you need relatively quicktly and there just isnt anything better. Therefore what is left is  other money or items you need for skins.

Legendaries are very long term goals, 600 hours is essentially still early. Its true some people got them realtively quickly but for the regular player they're supposed to be the reward for year+ worth of effort.

I understand for most people waiting more then a year to reach a goal is not fun but in that case perhaps gunning for a legendary might not be the best choice. There are also named exotics that are quite nice but require months of work rather then years. That might be a good way in the middle.

150g should be enough to craft most named exotics. In fact 150g for 600 hours is actually quite alot! I am at 490 hours more or less and only got 45-50g more or less.

Thing is something that at times can be easy to miss, gold is only a represetative value of wealth. 1g in itself is meaningless without some frame of reference and that reference is generally time. Money is at its core a bartering system. You spend 1hr "working" doing dungeons and you want to barter that for some reward say buying materials needed for your legendary. Ideally 1hr doing dungeons should buy you 1hr worth of farming materials. This changes based on supply and demand due to economic reasons though for the most cases I think it still holds true. So for dungeons to be truely unrewarding, the money you make per 1hr of dungeoneering has to be less then say farming or doing dynamic events. If thats not the case, if there is no big disparity between different activities the issue is not that dungeons are unrewarding, the issue is it takes a lot of effort to build a legendary.

What I am trying to say is If you had to up all rewards by say 10 times. It wouldnt take 10 times less time to build a legendary, legendaries would simply cost 10x more to make. That because if say by playing 1 hour of dynamic events I would suddeny start making 10g If I then had to do 1 hour of farming that gave me say 1 corrupted lodestone I would not sell that corrupted lodestone for 1g because I would be essentially wasting my time if I did that. I would need to start charging at least 10g for it. So that I would get for 1 hour of farming the same amount of money I would get doing other things.

Anyhow I am probably elaborating too much. Summerizing its not that playing dungeon doesnt reward you enough, its just that legendaries take a lot of work to make.

[pswendel]

Lucas Ashrock, on 20 December 2012 - 12:42 AM, said:

Uhm well, every subbed mmo with honest behaviour and devs interested to hear and accomplish their goal and community's interests. Loads are. No, i will not fall in your game shooting a name receiving some laugh/agree/disagree or chitchat about it shrinking the thread, try again

still didn't see a name.

[Trei]

Millimidget, on 20 December 2012 - 05:44 PM, said:

Amongst other things, I enjoy running dungeons, ...

the handful of sets I've collected as a result are hardly reward enough....

Unrewarding....

Pardon my ignorance, but I an having a bit of trouble understanding this.

You enjoy running dungeons because...?
If it is unrewarding for you, why do you enjoy it?

Enjoyment is itself a reward, is it not?

"I love going to Disneyland! But I'll go only if you buy me that RC toy car"

That's not something my son would ever say to me lol.

[Plutonsvea]

I am glad that somebody on this forum is open to discuss how much they enjoy Guild Wars 2. Rather than a majority of topic creators who decide to bag the features in the game that they don't slightly fancy.
Enjoy the game, it is amazing.

[\Nuking]

Yui San, on 20 December 2012 - 12:44 AM, said:

Better... Luxon title, kurzick title (yes I know they made them a lot easier over the years), alc title, sweet title, party title etc. Forgot about these exciting activities? ^^

Oh how i miss grind just for the sake of grind and not because it makes my stats better. I'm not even being sarcastic

[Millimidget]

Trei, on 25 December 2012 - 06:55 AM, said:

You enjoy running dungeons because...?

I didn't say I enjoy running these dungeons; I said I enjoy running dungeons. I've enjoyed running dungeons in other games. I've also enjoyed boxed PvP in other games. Neither manages to deliver very well in this game, whether its the corridor design and the uninspired reward system in dungeons, or the abysmal class balance and extremely shallow content in sPvP.

Trei, on 25 December 2012 - 06:55 AM, said:

Enjoyment is itself a reward, is it not?

Cute. Next you'll tell me to stop playing if I don't like the game. In a few months, you'll be wondering where everyone went, why the game is going totally F2P, why content updates will be coming less frequently and why the cash shop is being rammed down your throat harder than ever.

Edited by Millimidget, 25 December 2012 - 07:13 PM.

[Gilles VI]

Millimidget, on 25 December 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

Cute. Next you'll tell me to stop playing if I don't like the game. In a few months, you'll be wondering where everyone went, why the game is going totally F2P, why content updates will be coming less frequently and why the cash shop is being rammed down your throat harder than ever.

GW1 never went F2P in 7.5 years, I see no reason it would be different now, especially because GW2 had a much bigger launch (in player numbers) than GW1.

[Lucas Ashrock]

Agree, company philosophy, no reason to change it. At worst they prefer to shutdown.

[Khezial_Tahr]

I've been mainly playing a "wandering style" since early release. I'm a fairly casual gamer, playing in bursts when I can. Overall, the game is fun. But as someone above said, "a bit underdeveloped" in areas. It's a beautiful and very "alive" game. But some areas and things are under-explained or designed for more players than are in zones. Making things frustrating.

I'd have to say, that I would have preferred them doing a more open beta, or possibly taking more time to finish all the things that seemed to have gotten rushed at the end. Maybe a smaller world would have kept people in some zones longer or more? There is so much done right and well, that other things just seem odd. Dungeons range from downright annoying to loads of fun.

I just don' get some of the gem shop hate here. It's not forced, or necessary. In fact, I bought gems for more storage, and have no idea what I'm going to do with the rest of my gems.