beadnbutter32

Sounds more and more less like a scavenger hunt and more like a grind checklist:


* Win crab toss x times  
* Win keg toss x times  
* Win the bell thing x times
* Have all 5 characters with world completion  
* Be a close personal friend of one of the developers
* Win x tickets in random boxes purchased with gems
* Collect all the mini-pets
* Throw lots and lots of stuff in the Mystic Roulette Wheel
* Collect x number of Z that is a rare drop only from Giants

You get the idea.

Heaven forbid they create some content that only the most elite skilled legendary player can overcome just once and make it a reward for that!

NCSoft is also signing the checks for the many Digi-Schill astro-turf forum stuffing boiler rooms that are poisoning the well of public discourse regarding their product.  Schilling been with us since the middle-ages, it's just that technology makes it trival to pull off now.

There was an article a while back produced by Activision regarding 'Battlefield Herors' which shows just how jaded and contemptuous companies are towards their players in general and player forums in particular.  It basically said their in-game data told them that they should totally ignore forums and player input.  Read it and become cynical about the game industry.  They basically said companies should make as much pay to win crap they want in the cash shop and to ignore player protests in the forums.  It was a couple of years ago, and I can no longer find the link.

The inner circle who 'are' Guru and produce those horrendously fawning and myopic state of the game 'infomercials' have a long way to go before they become anything more than hopeless industry wanna-bees.

Let's start with the title, State of the Game, not State of PVP, as if pvp is the soul and heart of the game, not.  PVP has been and will always be a niche activity.  Yet Guru, plays up PVP balance as the only balance worth talking about.

But to get back to talking about this video which is highly critical of NCsoft.  The fanboys will try and whitewash the Anet NCsoft relationship all they want, but NCsoft calls the shots, and puts more resources into gambling mysterbox nonsense than anything else.

If you have played any asian based cash shop MMO, you know the drill.  The games, including GW2, are designed from the ground up for the asian audience who love gambling in their games.  The asians think they are morally superior and want to censor things like gore and sex, but think gambling is mothers milk pure.

This is not going to change, instead, they expect americans and europeans to change and accept over time gambling by children.

Dontain's fan optimism blinds him to this and he still has hope GW2 will change.  It won't change, it will simply offer more of the same, casual content designed to lure players in so they will eventually get hooked on the gambling aspect.

I think it is very curious that Anet has been hoarding in game class population data, could it be that it reinforces the meta that the general player base has arrived at with the three new meta trinity classes far outnumbering the others, and if filtered by dungeon completion may show an even higher proportion.

Anet is so far been very defensive on this topic and either avoids it like the plague or tries to pretend it does not exist, and continues to spew homilies about how 'every class is viable'.

I have one of each of the new trinity, and a ranger, and a thief.  I also ran an ele to 80 and an engi to around 40 or so.  Your kidding yourself if you think the classes other than the new trinity are even close to having the same level of value in a team.  Because the classes are 'balanced' around pvp, all the classes outside of the new meta trinity have had their group contributions severely nerfed.

Some people like the challenge of playing underdogs, fine go roll your engi, necro, ranger, ele for PVE if you don't mind running a 'second class' class.

If I am forming a 'fun' dungeon run, and I have one slot left, and two players show up wanting that last slot, I don't flip a coin, I take the one that brought one of the new trinity class.

If your a pvp player, its like ice cream, but not so much for pvp noobs.

I used to think spectating would be a good way to learn about pvp, and maybe a way to get into it eventually but...

If your not a pvp regular, you have no idea at all what is going on, your not going to watch more than once or twice.

The plethora of classes and weapons does not help noobs to understand the action.

Tiny asura characters make it even harder to tell what class it is and what it is doing.

I can't see this being of much use educationally for non-pvpers unless there is some-one really really good doing announcing, kind of like John Madden with telestrator and everything.  Unfortunately the few heavily advertised tournaments I have watched have all been announced by players who think they are in a competition to use as many esoteric, obscure or hip pvp slang as possible and they assume every one watching is a pvp aficionado.

Not knowing what is going on makes it very boring to watch and about 2 minutes is all I can stand before leaving.

Games like Starcraft can be fun to watch for non-players because the basic game play is understandable and quickly grasped, so that game gets huge viewer numbers from not just hard-core players.

GW2 pvp is way to complex due to so many classes, weapons and skills.  Add to that eye candy particle effects that overshadow most of the action and tends to distract the viewer from the real action.