Red_Eye_Dreams

I'm guild leader and have been guild leader in either GW game for probably 95% of the time I've been playing(100% for GW2), so I never got kicked.
But one guy did get kicked from my guild for not knowing who Pink Floyd was. It's strange, but fair.

(It wasn't a "serious" kick, and he was back in the guild by the next day or so)

Kumori Tensei, on 04 February 2013 - 05:38 PM, said:

I long had faith in ANet from GW1 as well ... I remember at 6 months in in Prophecies, I think it's when we got the Sorrow's Furnace "patch", which introduced greens.

It was quite a lot of fun, I remember I had a warrior, ele, monk and mesmer and I spent a lot of time helping guildies and other people level alts (Crystal Desert, Fire Islands and THK were particularly thankful places to help and I loved the cutscenes! As did the people that you helped getting through on their 10th try), grouping up to get elites in all kinds of deserted places. Getting that new skill to try out your new build, doing some Random Arenas .. I remember the joy of making a mesmer anti-touch ranger (I hated them!) cripple-degen illusion build and defeating dozens of them .. or was that in factions?

Teaming up (when we had favour of the Gods, PvP actually meant something and good HoH guilds were really famous) for challenging places as FoW and UW where "headless chicken rush in" tactics got you out in no time. And meeting some really nice and good players (I met people in my current guild in GW1) .. it all kept me playing all the way to Factions!

Alas, GW2 doesn't provide that level of coorperation, challenge and entertainment.

This really. Content and social interaction in itself is the best reward, which in our commodity-driven mindsets may be somewhat alien but no less true. I challenge anyone who played Guild Wars 1 to list their best memories of the game. Popular recollections might be winning the Hall of Heroes, finishing UW with your guild in record time, or finally building your runner character and experiencing the thrill of running past a ton of ice wurms for the first time.

These took front and center over obtaining gear. At some point, however, even these social achievements lose their veneer and gear grind becomes the order of the day. It works out in much the same way in GW2. The thrill of obtaining vistas, capturing a WVW keep, or finishing a story dungeon happens ONCE per. This may seem obvious, as anyone who grinds the dragon fights can attest. These are long, drawn-out, repetitive events that feel more like mowing the lawn than playing a fun game. But how else should it play out in a scenario that pits hundreds of players against a single target?

I can propose a few ideas off the top of my head that could change things up a bit.

PVE

Open-world zones remain empty after you level your character through them, with the exception of end-level areas like the Cursed Shore and Southsun Cove. Even then, replaying these areas is simply done to grind for materials or the chance for rare drops. Outside of a guild setting, there is no excitement or feeling of group accomplishment. It's a very hollow feeling.

Solve this by expanding the dynamic, persistent event chains of each zone. Give each zone a cohesive story-driven event chain that spans the entire zone. Zone-wide notifications alert players to urgent quests that must be completed to advance the event chain. Rather than creating the events as token, optional, make sure there are concrete consequences for failing the zone's event chain.

I'll use Gendarran Fields as an example.

- - -

Zone Event - Prevent the Gendarran Pirates from Obtaining the Vizier's Staff

The Pirate crews have united to attack the Undead stronghold and obtain the Vizier's Staff. With this, they can control the Undead host and lay waste to the farms of Gendarran Fields. Band together and prevent their assault!

Benefits of Success:

- Increased appearance of gathering nodes
- 30% increased drop and gathering rate
- Players gain 15% to vitality

Consequences of Failure:

- Large bands of undead with large aggro range rove the countryside
- 30% reduced drop and gathering rate
- Players suffer from 15% reduced vitality

Event Chain One (North Sector) - Build Trebuchets on the Provern Shore and Sink Paz Gorga's Pirate Fleet

Main Quest - Man the trebuchets and sink the fleet (after Minor Quest completion)
Minor Quest (req'd) - Clear the Provern Shore of Basilisks and their Den Mother
Minor Quest (req'd) - Find and eliminate the Pirate assassin Vexx before he kills Priory Engineer Taluth
Minor Quest (req'd) - Use Peacemaker Malthus' weather modification device to produce favourable conditions for the upcoming battle
Minor Quest (bonus) - Rescue Peachy Pie the Quaggan soprano from the clutches of Skank the Pirate

Event Chain Two (East Sector) - ETC

Event Chain Three (South Sector) - ETC

Event Chain Four (West Sector) - ETC

- - -

You get my drift.

These four event chains would have to be completed within a few hours of each other, or else players would face the consequences until a "take-back" event chain occurred. This allows sufficient time for players to just go in and farm if they want without participating in the event. At the same time, the consequences make it unfavourable to simply go and farm, but not impossible (except maybe for bots who would suffer from the randomized mob movement patterns upon event failure).

If the time window for completion and the difficulty scaled with the current zone player population, could this be a positive step for dynamic event development? If bosses encountered during the Main and Minor Quests dropped unique loot that scaled to a player's level (not necessarily skins but stats), it would be an added incentive for players.

Needless to say, the quest and story execution would need to be above par. Nobody wants a boring zone-wide event chain that ultimately becomes a gathering quest. That's BS. These events must somehow strive to be on par with dungeons, while realizing that dungeons are top-tier (difficulty, drops) content that can't and shouldn't be experienced in any old zone.

As it stands, many open-world zones remain empty except for the obligatory story instances. These can remain unaffected by the persistent event chains so as not to handicap new players.

The game infrastructure for a development like this already exists. Heart quests and event chains are already scattered among every zone. They only need refinement and the injection of social and material incentives.

Thoughts?

Soki, on 13 December 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

Mybad, I thought we played games for fun..

Red_Eye_Dreams, on 27 November 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

I hear you.

This is one of the things that's made me wonder if most (if not all) of the tax supporters are incredibly well off or spoiled younglings who've never lived hand-to-mouth. A game is played to get away from real life, if it does things like stacking obnoxious taxes on top of almost everything you do, then it's doing something wrong. That's not fun, and thus doesn't belong in a game.

raspberry jam, on 26 November 2012 - 03:42 PM, said:

What's so different about it? How often do you help strangers in real life? What more than a "Thank you" do you get out of that?
Tbh I don't know what you expect people to do when you rez them. Should they start conversation? Act as your private guardian (which arguably could be a bad idea)? Send you money?

You get experience and gratitude. Surely that counts for something?

Zero_Soulreaver, on 26 November 2012 - 03:23 PM, said:

Well you dont have to help everyone of course. If they have a real bad attitude they bring this on themselves.
Even Mother Teresa wouldn't rez Jason Seven for example.

RivenTheValorous, on 23 October 2012 - 08:21 PM, said:

Yup. Stop being such blind fanboys and praising every little thing ArenaNet does. I've been playing the original Guild Wars ever since the first invitational beta and I'm extremely disappointed with how they're handling the Halloween vanity skins.

These aren't supposed to be legendary skins, they're Halloween skins. They should be easily obtainable and given upon the completion of certain quests. All they're doing right now is working those gem store muscles on the unsuspecting customer.

Well, the thing is, you can't enjoy the other events with this elephant in the room. Most people consider an event as strong as its weakest link, and the official forum says a different story... But back on topic, I wonder why the just added more items to the pool instead of exchanging the current items for halloween ones. It just makes it harder to get the item you want...

Red_Eye_Dreams, on 23 October 2012 - 08:13 PM, said:

100% agreed. People are so ready to just take what they are given instead of seeing how hard ANet is screwing so many people with this event. I've stated my opinion in a previous post, but since this is for research, I'm going to go start my own thread.

I played a lot of GW1. I loved pre-searing Ascalon and spent a lot of time there. I just don't think I can ever forgive the Charr, especially since they seem to still be violent brutes that are chomping at the bit to kill all non-Charr. I also have a general disdain towards any Mary-Sue.

So..when i hit the 500 hour mark and im bored of this game can i also get a refund??
Can i apply this to every product i buy from now on?

jirayasan, on 15 September 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

Have to admit I agree. It's always the users fault for buying a game if they didnt first read reviews, watch plenty of videos, and read up on the game before buying it.

You bought it, its yours, should deal with it.

Refunds should be exclusively for damaged goods or a severe breach in the product as advertised.
This does not include hype.

The game promises to be an MMORPG and it is that.  They promised no subscription and regular updates.

As of the time of the OP's refund, the only game option that wasn't fully delivered upon was the TP.



That being said, big kudos to ANet for allowing this.  I know I wouldn't be so understanding in their shoes, as the "quality of experience" is never promised by any kind of entertainment medium.

Minion, on 11 September 2012 - 07:53 AM, said:

People still play GW1 after 7 years. Just sayin'

The playerbase of GW and GW2 are not people who need a carrot to keep playing.
Also, in two years GW2 probably sold another 2 expansions and have a ton more of content.
Sure the game might not keep you stuck your computer 24/7 but Anet actually said they don't want to enslave us into GW2 but give us quality content once we finish the one we have.

They're just repeating what they've done in the last 7 years, all your worries are based on a subscription-based MMO logic that just doesn't apply to GW2.

Nope. In two years, people will forget this even existed. There will always be something new to talk about. When the next expansion comes out, people will be saying that GW2 is a godsend and the expansion ruined it. Same with the following expansion. "GW2 and its first expansion were godsends! They should have left it there!"

People complain about nothing. And honestly, if this is the biggest complaint you have in your life, I'll trade lives with you right now. If your biggest complaint is "My fully functional game isn't what I thought it was", then please swap me.