Glad I've stopped following this game after they released their death and non pure healer approach, the picture becomes clearer with every update. Game is going to be an incredible easy walk in the park.
but ok not every game needs to be for everyone. GW 2 will be another MMO light.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Glad I've stopped following this game after they released their death and non pure healer approach, the picture becomes clearer with every update. Game is going to be an incredible easy walk in the park. but ok not every game needs to be for everyone. GW 2 will be another MMO light.
Right, because death penalties = a hard game, and having dedicated healers is the only way to make a game complex./difficult (even though logically it's the exact opposite.... good dedicated healer & tank = everything in the game is a walk in the park).
I love how people equate either of those things with everything in the game suddenly becomes easy, every enemy and boss can be soloed with ease godmode-like, you dont even need to think, just sit there doing 1 thing with no challenge whatsoever. Ever played single player game without harsh death penalties? Usually it's just resetting to last save point or something. Does that instantly make the game easy? Hell most single player games have much more challenging gameplay, more challenging boss fights, etc than any MMORPG, and they do it WITHOUT harsh death penalties. Do you have a dedicated healer in every single player game keeping you alive? Oh, whats that? You normally have to keep yourself alive through self heals, potions/bandages/whatever... omg all those games are soooooo easy mode, i can beat them all with both eyes closed and 1 hand on the controller.
Glad I've stopped following this game after they released their death and non pure healer approach, the picture becomes clearer with every update. Game is going to be an incredible easy walk in the park. but ok not every game needs to be for everyone. GW 2 will be another MMO light.
Right, because death penalties = a hard game, and having dedicated healers is the only way to make a game complex./difficult (even though logically it's the exact opposite.... good dedicated healer & tank = everything in the game is a walk in the park).
I love how people equate either of those things with everything in the game suddenly becomes easy, every enemy and boss can be soloed with ease godmode-like, you dont even need to think, just sit there doing 1 thing with no challenge whatsoever. Ever played single player game without harsh death penalties? Usually it's just resetting to last save point or something. Does that instantly make the game easy? Hell most single player games have much more challenging gameplay, more challenging boss fights, etc than any MMORPG, and they do it WITHOUT harsh death penalties. Do you have a dedicated healer in every single player game keeping you alive? Oh, whats that? You normally have to keep yourself alive through self heals, potions/bandages/whatever... omg all those games are soooooo easy mode, i can beat them all with both eyes closed and 1 hand on the controller.
Singleplayer game != MMO so don't mix them up.
No death penalty + no pure healer + no real leveling curve + no grind = is clear picture for ME, others might differ but at this point its obvious that GW 2 won't be a game for ME:
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Hey lets make so easy, a caveman can do it. God forbid someone has to work hard to achieve something worth while. They can go ahead and pander to children , lasy arses, and gamers without patience. But I will stick with MMO's that give you the feeling of actual achievement for your dedication.
"Work" should never be associated with a game. The purpose of a game is to have fun. To be lazy. To play. To relax.
I go to work and get paid. I don't want to have to work more when I get home. Especially when I don't get paid for it.
Glad I've stopped following this game after they released their death and non pure healer approach, the picture becomes clearer with every update. Game is going to be an incredible easy walk in the park. but ok not every game needs to be for everyone. GW 2 will be another MMO light.
If you think GW2 will be nothnig more than a MMO light, then you clearly haven't played GW a lot, let alone its expansions as Eye of the North.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The more I read and see about this game the more excited I get. I honestly haven't felt this excited about any game in a very long time. Part of me keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop though. I am waiting with excitment and caution.
Hey lets make so easy, a caveman can do it. God forbid someone has to work hard to achieve something worth while. They can go ahead and pander to children , lasy arses, and gamers without patience. But I will stick with MMO's that give you the feeling of actual achievement for your dedication.
This troll just confirmed that he never played thru GW1's challenge-content ...considering that it had some quests that most people NEVER completed b/c they were simply too hard for all but the experts. ...and not hard as in taking forever to finish, no they'd take only a matter of minutes to actually complete, but only if you had uncanny reflexes and an Epic understanding of all the game's mechanics. ...apparently GW2 has content in it's Alpha that lives up to this already. Personally I don't think that level of challenge is healthy even if it is a better measure of player competance than grinding is...
After reading this article i was pulled in two directions..I dislike the idea of not having to earn things etc that comes with levels and such. On the other hand I have always been of the mind content is the more important thing in an MMO and "grind" is merely the symptom of boring or non-existent content. Levels do not equal grind... lack of fun content = grind. So after browsing the two links in the article and reading what ANet was saying about level progression versus content I am begining to think that they believe this idea too and that is where they come up with the flat level curve. They seem to be approaching the game from the viewpoint of Fun content first with levels merely being the offshoot of doing that content as opposed to acquiring levels as the content.
So I keep getting pulled in two directions as to whether this game will be good in my opinion or not and after digging into what ANet actually says in their own words I keep coming away with the thought that this will be worth buying. Only time will tell though...however....its hard to believe that paying a single price with no sub fees that I would be unable to get my moneys worth out of the game. For those who dont think this model wont work...one thing you will notice is the price for GW1 never really went down untill much later and they sold 6 Million copies with expansions etc. With that kind of model you are looking at a potential of $300 million dollar return on a $50M to $100M investment with expansions adding even more later down the road and with no sub fees you probably wont see large population drops either...healthy gamer population can do more to keep a game alive and new players buying than anything else...so long as the game is worth playing in the first place.
This crap is coming from people who often never RP or even understand the spirit of PnP D&D to begin with. It's not about playing with the masses, it's more about knowing that the world is populated with colorful characters. I think GW2 is looking to bring back this magic.
Your reasoning is why I avoid most MMOs. Very few people, I come across, have a clue about the RPG part. Grinding their life away on a game is acceptable to them. Very sad. I hope GW2 does bring back the magic.
I hardly see how leveling and gearing up in with zero curve is good thing. Few MMOs have a good difficulty curve anyway, I quit WoW because the only hard part was leveling professions, which wasn't even that hard at all and then there's the other end of the spectrum, games like earlier Lineage 2 where the level cap took years to get to unless you botted night and day. I just got a Guild Wars trial and honestly if the cap is twenty I don't see how I could play the full version for more than a week and a half and don't say, "After you hit cap you PvP", because I hate PvP. Point is, even if the level cap is doubled I still wouldn't pay more than $20 for GW2.
Try Beating every single skill-quest in EotN if you like solo challenges. Or if you want a real challenge that trumps years of leveling Titles, beat Mallyux on hardmode without Leeching off a fully organized or semi-organized guild/PuG Team then get back to us on how easy it was...
Originally posted by DerWotan
Singleplayer game != MMO so don't mix them up. No death penalty + no pure healer + no real leveling curve + no grind = is clear picture for ME, others might differ but at this point its obvious that GW 2 won't be a game for ME:
And you feel it necessary to tell everyone this because??? ... No actually I don't believe you. It looks more like you simply got caught badmouthing something you don't understand and you can't be bothered to learn any of the reasoning for these changes. But you don't want to look like a willful ignoramous so you just up and changed the intended audience of your original post to only yourself and anyone else who thinks like you. But it doesn't change that you expected to get away with crapping all over something that's very popular with more articulate people than youself; on the basis that it's lacking some-now very unpopular things.
...go on, keep backtracking like that last guy did, it's very amusing.
The more I see coming from GW2, the more I want to know and the more interested I am in it. As my sister said, it's moving quickly to the top of her list, and it's on the way up mine too. Most games I am skeptical about all the claims, but I am starting to believe they can deliver what they say.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
When people have to grind, atleast a little bit, they grow an attatchment to their characters. Just throwing them to max level and easily attainable max gear will be a disaster.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
When people have to grind, atleast a little bit, they grow an attatchment to their characters. Just throwing them to max level and easily attainable max gear will be a disaster.
Where do you get that it's easy or anything is just being thrown at the player? A finite amount of time does not equate to easy. Grinding does not build more of an attachment, it becomes tedious and boring.
Think about it this way, if every level takes 2-3 hours per level, and there are 80 levels, you're looking at 160-240 hours of gameplay from 1-80. Hell, it's 80 hours of gameplay if it's one hour per level. This does not include any content after level cap as well.
Also, gear acquisition as an endgame mechanic is how many mmorpgs deliver "content". To me, that's not content delivery, it's blatant carrot-on-a-stick to ensure subs. GW2 doesn't have a subscription cost, so ArenaNet doesn't have to work hard to keep you paying, but what they don't want is to make the game fun to keep you playing (and wanting to purchase expansions). I really do hope that gear is somewhat easy to obtain, because then it reduces the importance of gear and ArenaNet will have to provide content in a different way.
ArenaNet seems to really want to make changes, and those changes are going to make people feel uncomfortable. However, if they can deliver a solid game with a good amount of polish, we could be facing another major evolution of the genre. After years of being burned by other developers people are going to be very skeptical, and I personally hope ArenaNet can deliver.
This game will probably be fun for casuals, but it really is designed to be easy mode progression. At least if you want the more old school challenging approach there is potential in sony's EQ next hardcore server.
Sounds like there are more people than I thought that enjoy grinds in games.
I equate it to banging my head against the wall a bunch of times. I'm not sure how people can enjoy it but to each their own.
I can remember grinding in EQ in the higher levels, no quests around to gain XP so it came to hunting mobs.
Funny thing though, it didn't feel as a grind or boring, because you were in a group doing it, and groups were more communicative and relaxed back then than current WoW dungeon runs. Also, the fights could get very hectic and challenging, this combined with the added danger of losing a few hours of XP when you died prevented you from going through your fights on autopilot.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Hey lets make so easy, a caveman can do it. God forbid someone has to work hard to achieve something worth while. They can go ahead and pander to children , lasy arses, and gamers without patience. But I will stick with MMO's that give you the feeling of actual achievement for your dedication.
I don't equate an arbitrary increase of time with achievement. Making it require 200 quests or 500 mobs to get one level when it used to take 20 quests or 100 mobs doesn't add to the experience, it just makes a level take longer for reasons that don't benefit the player any. Instead, they only serve to keep the player playing longer so they can get more money out of you.
Completing 200 quests vs. 20 quests isn't a measure of difficulty, it's a measure of patience and tolerance. Killing 20 bears to turn in a quest isn't any different from killing 20 Angry Bears 30 levels later. The gameplay often remains the same, the time to level is simply increased.
When your content creation isn't forcibly designed around giving players enough filler to make it through the next level (due to lengthy TTL) you are more free to create interesting and memorable content throughout the progression. When your XP curve dictates it should take X (large) amount of quests to get through a level you aren't going to have time or resources to put together interesting quests to meet that quota, instead you end up with a lot of derivative basic stuff, or even worse, repeatable quests.
I suppose if you prefer running from quest hub to quest hub and clicking a bunch of question/exclamation marks to fill your journal with stuff you don't really care about but are only doing to get the next ding, that is your prerogative.
Me? I find ArenaNet's approach here refreshing, and I hope they can follow through on what they've been saying.
In any case, while we disagree, I appreciate your opinion, thanks for reading the article!
O.M.G.
Well said!!! This is one reason why Single Player RPGS are so successful. The other reasons have to do with an actual story being told and that you are an active participant with evidence of your actions having an effect on the game world being another part of the success formula; see Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fable, etc. While Blizzard does have a strong hold on the market with a rather successful formula of treadmill + slot machine this may come under attack from both Guild Wars 2 and The Old Republic. I think with these two games we will have an opportunity to show our non-gamer, wow playing friends why we got into gaming in the first place.
Of course both of these games could very well fall flat on their face but we will have to see. I know I am looking forward to both. Hopefully this idea takes hold. 38 studios has one of the better fantasy writers alive today with Salvatore, funcom with their 2, THQ's WH40k, and other AAA titles coming in the next couple years..... maybe they may take some of these ideas and incorporate them?
From the sentiment and focus of the developers on this game, I can safely say that I can see myself spending a lot of money on "stuff" from this game. So far, I have the novel, the calendar, and two copies of the art book. I respect these people that much! Blizzard, on the other hand, has always had a haughty ambivalence towards their players, unless they happen to be in one of the elite guilds. I've never felt that they care about me. I don't get that feeling with ArenaNet.
When people have to grind, atleast a little bit, they grow an attatchment to their characters. Just throwing them to max level and easily attainable max gear will be a disaster.
Where do you get that it's easy or anything is just being thrown at the player? A finite amount of time does not equate to easy. Grinding does not build more of an attachment, it becomes tedious and boring.
Think about it this way, if every level takes 2-3 hours per level, and there are 80 levels, you're looking at 160-240 hours of gameplay from 1-80. Hell, it's 80 hours of gameplay if it's one hour per level. This does not include any content after level cap as well.
Also, gear acquisition as an endgame mechanic is how many mmorpgs deliver "content". To me, that's not content delivery, it's blatant carrot-on-a-stick to ensure subs. GW2 doesn't have a subscription cost, so ArenaNet doesn't have to work hard to keep you paying, but what they don't want is to make the game fun to keep you playing (and wanting to purchase expansions). I really do hope that gear is somewhat easy to obtain, because then it reduces the importance of gear and ArenaNet will have to provide content in a different way.
ArenaNet seems to really want to make changes, and those changes are going to make people feel uncomfortable. However, if they can deliver a solid game with a good amount of polish, we could be facing another major evolution of the genre. After years of being burned by other developers people are going to be very skeptical, and I personally hope ArenaNet can deliver.
If you played GW1 you would know that any level can wear any gear and all that remains after that is if you have enough money to purchase the gear as well as buying runes to raise your armour stats. And once you hit a certain pace, you will almost always have money to improve your gear. The thing you should remember is gear in general is aesthetic (at least in GW1) with only a minor buff to some damage types, it is how you fit your runes that make your gear what it is.
Comments
but ok not every game needs to be for everyone. GW 2 will be another MMO light.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Right, because death penalties = a hard game, and having dedicated healers is the only way to make a game complex./difficult (even though logically it's the exact opposite.... good dedicated healer & tank = everything in the game is a walk in the park).
I love how people equate either of those things with everything in the game suddenly becomes easy, every enemy and boss can be soloed with ease godmode-like, you dont even need to think, just sit there doing 1 thing with no challenge whatsoever. Ever played single player game without harsh death penalties? Usually it's just resetting to last save point or something. Does that instantly make the game easy? Hell most single player games have much more challenging gameplay, more challenging boss fights, etc than any MMORPG, and they do it WITHOUT harsh death penalties. Do you have a dedicated healer in every single player game keeping you alive? Oh, whats that? You normally have to keep yourself alive through self heals, potions/bandages/whatever... omg all those games are soooooo easy mode, i can beat them all with both eyes closed and 1 hand on the controller.
Right, because death penalties = a hard game, and having dedicated healers is the only way to make a game complex./difficult (even though logically it's the exact opposite.... good dedicated healer & tank = everything in the game is a walk in the park).
I love how people equate either of those things with everything in the game suddenly becomes easy, every enemy and boss can be soloed with ease godmode-like, you dont even need to think, just sit there doing 1 thing with no challenge whatsoever. Ever played single player game without harsh death penalties? Usually it's just resetting to last save point or something. Does that instantly make the game easy? Hell most single player games have much more challenging gameplay, more challenging boss fights, etc than any MMORPG, and they do it WITHOUT harsh death penalties. Do you have a dedicated healer in every single player game keeping you alive? Oh, whats that? You normally have to keep yourself alive through self heals, potions/bandages/whatever... omg all those games are soooooo easy mode, i can beat them all with both eyes closed and 1 hand on the controller.
Singleplayer game != MMO so don't mix them up.No death penalty + no pure healer + no real leveling curve + no grind = is clear picture for ME, others might differ but at this point its obvious that GW 2 won't be a game for ME:
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
now we only need someone to combine this ideas with a TRUE persistent mmo world
my single player games have a persistent world too, now we get a "coop" game as it seems.
gfx and ideas are really brilliant, i hate those instances tho :<
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
If you think GW2 will be nothnig more than a MMO light, then you clearly haven't played GW a lot, let alone its expansions as Eye of the North.
GW2 IS a true persistent world.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The more I read and see about this game the more excited I get. I honestly haven't felt this excited about any game in a very long time. Part of me keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop though. I am waiting with excitment and caution.
Cant wait till this game is rdy :-)
This troll just confirmed that he never played thru GW1's challenge-content ...considering that it had some quests that most people NEVER completed b/c they were simply too hard for all but the experts. ...and not hard as in taking forever to finish, no they'd take only a matter of minutes to actually complete, but only if you had uncanny reflexes and an Epic understanding of all the game's mechanics. ...apparently GW2 has content in it's Alpha that lives up to this already. Personally I don't think that level of challenge is healthy even if it is a better measure of player competance than grinding is...
After reading this article i was pulled in two directions..I dislike the idea of not having to earn things etc that comes with levels and such. On the other hand I have always been of the mind content is the more important thing in an MMO and "grind" is merely the symptom of boring or non-existent content. Levels do not equal grind... lack of fun content = grind. So after browsing the two links in the article and reading what ANet was saying about level progression versus content I am begining to think that they believe this idea too and that is where they come up with the flat level curve. They seem to be approaching the game from the viewpoint of Fun content first with levels merely being the offshoot of doing that content as opposed to acquiring levels as the content.
So I keep getting pulled in two directions as to whether this game will be good in my opinion or not and after digging into what ANet actually says in their own words I keep coming away with the thought that this will be worth buying. Only time will tell though...however....its hard to believe that paying a single price with no sub fees that I would be unable to get my moneys worth out of the game. For those who dont think this model wont work...one thing you will notice is the price for GW1 never really went down untill much later and they sold 6 Million copies with expansions etc. With that kind of model you are looking at a potential of $300 million dollar return on a $50M to $100M investment with expansions adding even more later down the road and with no sub fees you probably wont see large population drops either...healthy gamer population can do more to keep a game alive and new players buying than anything else...so long as the game is worth playing in the first place.
*trying to hold back shreiking fangirl 'squeeeeeeeee' sounds*
......trying
........trying
..........tryi o m g SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I cannot WAIT! But...I will gladly wait, because I want it to be polished and finished and goooooood.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Why is it that the video won't play? It says I require flash 9 and I have flash 10...
Your reasoning is why I avoid most MMOs. Very few people, I come across, have a clue about the RPG part. Grinding their life away on a game is acceptable to them. Very sad. I hope GW2 does bring back the magic.
Try our link.
Try Beating every single skill-quest in EotN if you like solo challenges. Or if you want a real challenge that trumps years of leveling Titles, beat Mallyux on hardmode without Leeching off a fully organized or semi-organized guild/PuG Team then get back to us on how easy it was...
And you feel it necessary to tell everyone this because??? ... No actually I don't believe you. It looks more like you simply got caught badmouthing something you don't understand and you can't be bothered to learn any of the reasoning for these changes. But you don't want to look like a willful ignoramous so you just up and changed the intended audience of your original post to only yourself and anyone else who thinks like you. But it doesn't change that you expected to get away with crapping all over something that's very popular with more articulate people than youself; on the basis that it's lacking some-now very unpopular things.
...go on, keep backtracking like that last guy did, it's very amusing.
The more I see coming from GW2, the more I want to know and the more interested I am in it. As my sister said, it's moving quickly to the top of her list, and it's on the way up mine too. Most games I am skeptical about all the claims, but I am starting to believe they can deliver what they say.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
At least if you want the more old school challenging approach there is potential in sony's EQ next hardcore server.
When people have to grind, atleast a little bit, they grow an attatchment to their characters. Just throwing them to max level and easily attainable max gear will be a disaster.
Removing the grind is not the same as removing the challenge.
Even more, it seems they strive to make your leveling experience a constant challenge and entertainment.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Where do you get that it's easy or anything is just being thrown at the player? A finite amount of time does not equate to easy. Grinding does not build more of an attachment, it becomes tedious and boring.
Think about it this way, if every level takes 2-3 hours per level, and there are 80 levels, you're looking at 160-240 hours of gameplay from 1-80. Hell, it's 80 hours of gameplay if it's one hour per level. This does not include any content after level cap as well.
Also, gear acquisition as an endgame mechanic is how many mmorpgs deliver "content". To me, that's not content delivery, it's blatant carrot-on-a-stick to ensure subs. GW2 doesn't have a subscription cost, so ArenaNet doesn't have to work hard to keep you paying, but what they don't want is to make the game fun to keep you playing (and wanting to purchase expansions). I really do hope that gear is somewhat easy to obtain, because then it reduces the importance of gear and ArenaNet will have to provide content in a different way.
ArenaNet seems to really want to make changes, and those changes are going to make people feel uncomfortable. However, if they can deliver a solid game with a good amount of polish, we could be facing another major evolution of the genre. After years of being burned by other developers people are going to be very skeptical, and I personally hope ArenaNet can deliver.
Sounds like there are more people than I thought that enjoy grinds in games.
I equate it to banging my head against the wall a bunch of times. I'm not sure how people can enjoy it but to each their own.
I can remember grinding in EQ in the higher levels, no quests around to gain XP so it came to hunting mobs.
Funny thing though, it didn't feel as a grind or boring, because you were in a group doing it, and groups were more communicative and relaxed back then than current WoW dungeon runs. Also, the fights could get very hectic and challenging, this combined with the added danger of losing a few hours of XP when you died prevented you from going through your fights on autopilot.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
O.M.G.
Well said!!! This is one reason why Single Player RPGS are so successful. The other reasons have to do with an actual story being told and that you are an active participant with evidence of your actions having an effect on the game world being another part of the success formula; see Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fable, etc. While Blizzard does have a strong hold on the market with a rather successful formula of treadmill + slot machine this may come under attack from both Guild Wars 2 and The Old Republic. I think with these two games we will have an opportunity to show our non-gamer, wow playing friends why we got into gaming in the first place.
Of course both of these games could very well fall flat on their face but we will have to see. I know I am looking forward to both. Hopefully this idea takes hold. 38 studios has one of the better fantasy writers alive today with Salvatore, funcom with their 2, THQ's WH40k, and other AAA titles coming in the next couple years..... maybe they may take some of these ideas and incorporate them?
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
From the sentiment and focus of the developers on this game, I can safely say that I can see myself spending a lot of money on "stuff" from this game. So far, I have the novel, the calendar, and two copies of the art book. I respect these people that much! Blizzard, on the other hand, has always had a haughty ambivalence towards their players, unless they happen to be in one of the elite guilds. I've never felt that they care about me. I don't get that feeling with ArenaNet.
If you played GW1 you would know that any level can wear any gear and all that remains after that is if you have enough money to purchase the gear as well as buying runes to raise your armour stats. And once you hit a certain pace, you will almost always have money to improve your gear. The thing you should remember is gear in general is aesthetic (at least in GW1) with only a minor buff to some damage types, it is how you fit your runes that make your gear what it is.
This is not a game.