After what they did to Tabula Rasa, NO I will not give them any money for a new game ever again. I might resub to CoX every once in a while, at least till DC online comes out and i can get my Hero on with a Fing station pass.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. Samuel Adams
It doesn't take that big of differences to make it wholly inappropriate to graft the new stuff onto an already existing game. If the only thing they wanted to do differently from GW1 was to raise the level cap every now and then, that would be completely gamebreaking for a game that was designed from the very start around the assumption that the level cap would never be raised.
Honestly, I think a fair bit of what is going to go into the game hasn't yet been decided.
As for the heavy instancing, that's not so much a flaw of the game, as merely a feature that some players like and some don't. I, for one, like being able to clear an area without someone else coming in to steal kills, mobs respawning on top of me, and some of the other nuisances common to many other games.
Anything that a game does to be different from the norm will be something that a lot of players don't like; that's how the norms got that way in the first place. That doesn't necessarily mean that a game shouldn't do it. Don't do anything different and you end up with just another mediocre WoW-clone. The world hardly needs more of those.
I still play Guild Wars sometimes, and it's still fun. The only problem I ever had with Guild Wars was that everything was instanced. It really hurts the game when you're like me, a roleplayer. I still had memorable times in the cities though. Hopefully the rumors of it being more of a persistant world are true. If not make it so the 'instances' are like AoC, where other people can join. I don't like the feeling I'm all alone in an MMO (only reason I quit DAoC ). That's the point of MMOs imho, to interact with others, instances are the total opposite of that. Guildwars was more of a Single Player RPG than an MMO to me.
The game will be on multiple servers or "worlds," but players will not be bound to a world and may therefore change worlds as they would districts, except that they encompass the entire game, instead of just an outpost.
There will be changes to instancing system used. Persistent areas, similar to those traditionally used in other online multiplayer games, will be introduced to Guild Wars which may allow players to meet and interact while exploring.
Instances will still be used for missions and dungeons.
An "Event System" will be used to notify players of big events in the world, the return of a dragon, for instance.
As for the vaporware comment, that's ridiculous. Arenanet has a track record of released games, unlike other dev companies.
When guildwars arrived, I was impressed by the quality content of the title, be it PVE, PVP, it's sharp graphics , its skill system and its dual classing, the game was overall very well polished and complete in a way that few titles are (out of the top of my head, WoW and LOTRO).
My major issue and that of many was the lack of a persistant world environment. The heavy instancing was ruining a sense of immersion that persistant online worlds had.
So the idea of a persistant world guild wars is very interesting in my opinion. Had guildwars 1 been a persistant online game, it could have easily competed with WoW in overall quality and polish in my opinion.
So I for one, definatly do look forward to guild wars 2.
I'm hoping they'll make GW2 more like a traditional MMO with more emphasis on PVE.
To me its a good thing they haven't released alot of info on it. Features are going to change or get pushed back anyway and they're not setting themselves up for a deadline they can't sufficiently meet.
Guild wars was never a Free to play game. It uses a payment method where in you pay for content (instead of a subscription or microtransactions). There's an initial cash layout like a single player game then as you progress in the game you pay additional for more content packs. I think Guild Wars 2 would be similar.
Guild Wars was one of the most flawlessly executed games I've ever played. You might not consider it an MMO (and maybe it isn't, in a technical sense), and you might not like it, but for what they wanted to do, they did a marvelous job.
The community spoke up that they didn't like everything about the game (the most popular complaint, and my biggest one, is the heavy instancing), and ArenaNet decided to start over and learn from their mistakes. My thinking is that it will contain heavier instancing than some games, but much less than in GW the first.
I am thinking it will be something similar to EQII, where each zone is instanced, and these outdoor instanced zones will have a similar district system to the towns in GW. By which I mean that each zone will have a limit on the number of people that can be in it a time. With this system they can maintain the one "server" concept so that anyone can play with anyone, and they can keep a henchman system, as well as towns separate from the world zones. With that they could keep the skill system (perhaps their greatest achievement) intact.
With this system, you would get the best of both worlds; you could interact with others at random (one of my favorite things in an MMO) while out adventuring in the world, and eliminate a great deal of spawn camping problems and the like.
You might not like what it is, but I am confident that Anet will develop a game that is fantastic, for what it is trying to achieve.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Comments
After what they did to Tabula Rasa, NO I will not give them any money for a new game ever again. I might resub to CoX every once in a while, at least till DC online comes out and i can get my Hero on with a Fing station pass.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams
It doesn't take that big of differences to make it wholly inappropriate to graft the new stuff onto an already existing game. If the only thing they wanted to do differently from GW1 was to raise the level cap every now and then, that would be completely gamebreaking for a game that was designed from the very start around the assumption that the level cap would never be raised.
Honestly, I think a fair bit of what is going to go into the game hasn't yet been decided.
As for the heavy instancing, that's not so much a flaw of the game, as merely a feature that some players like and some don't. I, for one, like being able to clear an area without someone else coming in to steal kills, mobs respawning on top of me, and some of the other nuisances common to many other games.
Anything that a game does to be different from the norm will be something that a lot of players don't like; that's how the norms got that way in the first place. That doesn't necessarily mean that a game shouldn't do it. Don't do anything different and you end up with just another mediocre WoW-clone. The world hardly needs more of those.
I still play Guild Wars sometimes, and it's still fun. The only problem I ever had with Guild Wars was that everything was instanced. It really hurts the game when you're like me, a roleplayer. I still had memorable times in the cities though. Hopefully the rumors of it being more of a persistant world are true. If not make it so the 'instances' are like AoC, where other people can join. I don't like the feeling I'm all alone in an MMO (only reason I quit DAoC
). That's the point of MMOs imho, to interact with others, instances are the total opposite of that. Guildwars was more of a Single Player RPG than an MMO to me.
With close to 5 million people playing GW1...I expect GW2 to be a very strong game.
however, I disagree with the OP. Although AoC drowned. WAR is still doing well
MMORPG Characters immortalized!
LLyncu: Star Wars Galaxies (Chimaera)
Xiode: Age of Conan (Mannanan)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_wars_2#Persistence
Persistence
The game will be on multiple servers or "worlds," but players will not be bound to a world and may therefore change worlds as they would districts, except that they encompass the entire game, instead of just an outpost.
There will be changes to instancing system used. Persistent areas, similar to those traditionally used in other online multiplayer games, will be introduced to Guild Wars which may allow players to meet and interact while exploring.
Instances will still be used for missions and dungeons.
An "Event System" will be used to notify players of big events in the world, the return of a dragon, for instance.
As for the vaporware comment, that's ridiculous. Arenanet has a track record of released games, unlike other dev companies.
When guildwars arrived, I was impressed by the quality content of the title, be it PVE, PVP, it's sharp graphics , its skill system and its dual classing, the game was overall very well polished and complete in a way that few titles are (out of the top of my head, WoW and LOTRO).
My major issue and that of many was the lack of a persistant world environment. The heavy instancing was ruining a sense of immersion that persistant online worlds had.
So the idea of a persistant world guild wars is very interesting in my opinion. Had guildwars 1 been a persistant online game, it could have easily competed with WoW in overall quality and polish in my opinion.
So I for one, definatly do look forward to guild wars 2.
They just have Guild Wars. ^_^
(,,,)=^__^=(,,,)
I'm hoping they'll make GW2 more like a traditional MMO with more emphasis on PVE.
To me its a good thing they haven't released alot of info on it. Features are going to change or get pushed back anyway and they're not setting themselves up for a deadline they can't sufficiently meet.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
I enoyed GW and looking forward to GW2
but GW2 isnt worth talking about until they release more info
(unless you are already a GW fan
)
EQ2 fan sites
Guild wars was never a Free to play game. It uses a payment method where in you pay for content (instead of a subscription or microtransactions). There's an initial cash layout like a single player game then as you progress in the game you pay additional for more content packs. I think Guild Wars 2 would be similar.
Guild Wars was one of the most flawlessly executed games I've ever played. You might not consider it an MMO (and maybe it isn't, in a technical sense), and you might not like it, but for what they wanted to do, they did a marvelous job.
The community spoke up that they didn't like everything about the game (the most popular complaint, and my biggest one, is the heavy instancing), and ArenaNet decided to start over and learn from their mistakes. My thinking is that it will contain heavier instancing than some games, but much less than in GW the first.
I am thinking it will be something similar to EQII, where each zone is instanced, and these outdoor instanced zones will have a similar district system to the towns in GW. By which I mean that each zone will have a limit on the number of people that can be in it a time. With this system they can maintain the one "server" concept so that anyone can play with anyone, and they can keep a henchman system, as well as towns separate from the world zones. With that they could keep the skill system (perhaps their greatest achievement) intact.
With this system, you would get the best of both worlds; you could interact with others at random (one of my favorite things in an MMO) while out adventuring in the world, and eliminate a great deal of spawn camping problems and the like.
You might not like what it is, but I am confident that Anet will develop a game that is fantastic, for what it is trying to achieve.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?