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Skeptical questions about GW2
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
If one reads the design manifestos and watches the videos, one would think of GW2 as the Holy Grail and the coming of the Savior. Now while I am still very excited about GW2, so to get to known about the GW world and background I started to play GW1. Which rose some questions or skepticism about some things.
a) By and large IMVPO GW1 is no MMO at all, but merely a single player action game like Diablo with an Online Lobby. Sorry if that offends GW1 players, but that's how I feel about it. So for me, GW2 is ANets first MMO. (I won't discuss this, I simply state it.) Now the thing is: GW1 has only one sphere of gaming: killing stuff. And where just recently I wrote how Rift was an all time low with having just combat and nothing else... it sort of is making me raise my eyebrows and re-watching the GW2 videos. So my question is: how can we expect GW2 to be a MMO with more than just combat? I am just asking. I mean, I know GW2 won't be a sandbox, but I still expect of a MMO spheres of gaming which are not "kill kill kill". Like the LOTRO music system, like the fishing, like the many things you could do in blasts of the past? Because so far I have not seen any video or sceenshot or overview on GW2 that showed me anything else but combat, and that would be a serious dent IMVPO.
b) Ok, I must say this here clearly: BOY DO I HATE THE GW1 reward/loot system. My two main chars are not level 16 (of 20), which is a considerable part of the main content, and I am still in the same looking armour. Now you see, in GW1, you can't buy armour, there are NO auction houses (heck not even mail boxes!), and you CAN'T just buy armor from a NPC. You have to get materials too. Which is SO expensive, that after 16 levels of questing I had only just enough money for ONE armour piece, the chest piece, and then all my 4 plat were spent, because I had to buy all the materials too. I PROFOUNDLY hate the loot/reward system of GW. What I expect of a gaming sessing, MMO or not, is that I sometimes get some new shiny. Some new shoulder pads, some new cool helmet or whatever. And here... nada. You never loot gear you can wear, only gear you and dissect into materials and then add to some crafting stuff. It's just cumbersome, complicated and you are stuck with the same looking pieces all the time. I just hate that. I want those small cool reward feelings of getting some new shiny here and there, some stuff to motivate me to keep me going. And in this the entire system of GW1 just SUCKED. Sorry.
EDIT: I think it is so counter productive for fun. I mean, what is essentially all gaming about? Smashing chests and barrels to see whats inside. Maybe there is some cool stuff in there. Thats a very simple but basic motivator in a game, and taking that away is IMVPO a very ridiculous idea. Just getting money and mats or "tokens" to get stuff just isn't the same than waiting with glee for some luck to get a rare drop or what. It just is not replacement for this excitement what maybe will drop with some luck.
c) No mounts. GOD I was at times SO TIRED of walking, I mean, I know in GW1 you can teleport to the hubs, but some zones are so big, you walk them all back and fro, and its just sooooo tiresome. Now I read GW2 was not supposed to have mounts, even though it is an open world, and I must admit that KINDA blew me. I mean, ok I admit I am lazy. I want to get to places fast and not with uber slow walk mode all the time. Sue me. But having no mounts in open world of GW2 just sounds... lame.
There. Maybe some folks how followed GW2 more than I did can comment on this or clarify. Keep in mind this is MY opinion. Take it or leave it.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
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Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
Well for point A they do have lots of mini games. I'm sure they will have the synchronized dance feature like in GW. I'm not sure about fishing and stuff like that (personally I absolutely hate fishing in games). There is a crafting system in GW2 so you can work on that. Anyway it looks to have more stuff than just straight combat.
For point B, interesting that you hated that in GW when I absolutely loved it. Your preference is the Diablo type loot system and I agree it can be exciting for those random drops. However, I do enjoy getting exactly what I want when I want a particular piece of armor. So while you have this as a minus, I have it as a plus. To answer your question, it will be much closer to a GW loot system than a Diablo system.
As for mounts, all I have to say is that this has been covered in other threads ad nauseum.
I find it very strange that you could not gather enough materials over 16 levels to get a full set of armor. Generally I already have enough mats just from gathering that I switch out of my starter armor at around level 4 or 5...
Nothing here is really of a skeptical nature, except for the thing about how is GW2 going to be more than just about combat.
So...GW2 will actually have crafting, resource mining, and an auction house that you complained about GW1 not having. There are multiplayer and single player minigames in the major towns. The world is built to explore, not just to hold enemies to fight. This game is going to be an exporers dream game (in my opinion).
as for the thing about no mounts, and your problem with the large zones in GW1, I think they have worked to make the waypoints spaced out just enough, but not too much. Remember, you will have to use these waypoints to get back to a fight you were just in if you die without anyone else around.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Concerning b) loot, GW2's system will have virtually nothing to do with GW1's.
First of all, GW2 will feature a full in game economy including an auction house, and it sounds like one of the more innovative AHs around. Not only will you be able to browse to purchase items that have already been posted, but you will be able to place your own bids for items that aren't even currently available. When someone goes to the AH to sell said item, they can check to see if anyone is currently seeking it. If they find a bid for a price they are willing to sell the item for, they can just sell it instantly. The AH is a 2-way street in GW2, making transactions quicker and easier than ever before.
Concerning new gear, every dungeon will offer a complete set of new armor for each class, in addition to weapons and off pieces like rings. It seems almost as if the typical end-game tier progression begins at level 30 in GW2 with the first dungeon. Moreover, this gear is highly customizable, both statistically and visually. If you like a particular shoulder piece you recieved during a level 18 dynamic event, and you think it looks fantastic with a set you got in a level 40 dungeon, you can transfer that skin that dungeon set's shoulder piece. If the colors don't match perfectly, you can dye and shade 3 different parts of the shoulder piece to make it work.
I wasn't a fan of GW1's loot system either, but GW2's will be a world apart. As long as each set looks awesome in it's own right, I think you'll see more unique looking characters in GW2 than almost any MMO to date.
It's partially my fault. I did not know about the system being a Noob, so I sold all my loot and never "undid" the loot for materials. GW doesn't really say "we have no armour loot drops at all so gather materials" anywhere, and I expected GW to have armour drops like... well every OTHER MMO.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I understand a lot of your worries.
I played it for a few months somewhere back in 2004 but came to the same overall conclusions (bar the itemization issue which has changed a lot in the mean time I suppose); pretty much a lobby game with a lack of many aspects which make a mmorpg feel like an immersive and 'realistic' experience:
No mounts, no open world, no open world pvp, lack of gameplay variation, pretty bland companions, etc. What I did like were the skill system and the graphics back then.
For comparison: I always thought of WOW as ten times more the mmorpg experience GW ever was (I started playing WOW on a pvp server after I tried GW and I was really grasped by the freedom, openness and vastness of the game compared to what I had experienced in GW). Compared to GW WOW felt like a huge sandbox game actually, seeing how much more freedom and choice it offered.
Anyway, I was very hopeful when they announced GW2 would have an open, perpetual world and the first preview vids really made my jaw drop.
The gorgeous graphics of Anet in an open world concept? Sounded pretty yummy to me. Sadly it became clear though, that in certain aspects they still aren't going all the way in building a "credible", open and relatively free fantasy world as they opted for many ways to control player behavior:
"Though shallt not pvp in the open world but only in dedicated area's"
"Thou shallt not fight amongst eachother in duels"
"Thou shallt peacefully share thine harvesting nodes and events and fear no competition"
"Thou shallt have no reason whatsoever to be in conflict with thine fellow serverling despite racial differences and possible violent histories"
"Thou shallt murder the members of thine own race when they are stemming from other dimensions"
"Thou shallt travel vast distances in the blink of an eye by the use of many, many teleports rather than ride foul creatures".
I'm not saying they should have made it a sandbox game with ffa pvp though, that just isn't GW. I am saying that I would have liked a little bit more freedom and realism which would only add to the overall experience of playing an open world game. Also the lore in regards to the lack of racial conflict and WvWvW might have been more credible.
Still, dynamic events, gameplay and competition aspects of WvWvW, the races, animations, sound, graphics and the minigames all are very promissing and they might as well take away my objections.
Won't know for sure until I play it though.
My brand new bloggity blog.
hmm I wondered about your change of sides in some point of the past but now its clear =P
I agree and believe that the human - charr treat was very forced, considering they butchered eachother in the past, it would not be a simple thing to forget, like some still remember the one hundred years war in competitions between france and england, and we are not talking about modern day politics here that could explain such sudden change of heart
Afaik you can..
Actually this was very cool, I lost the count of how many hours I lost in WoW searching for nodes, sometimes to lose it to someone in the last second
... I will wait for your response hehe
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
running hub to hub fun? I dont think so.
running around on foot everywhere. fun? not to me...after watching the vid i was already tired of the running..
same old fantasy setting fun? not to me
mobs that practicly fall over in front of you fun? not for me
i watched the game play vid posted above..i struggled to see the inovative part or am i missing something?
the game just looks like age of conan. if not worse.
game hasnt interested me but tonight i thought id check it out....and im not impressed at all....
really guys what are you hyping over?
i mean im sure itl be a good game gw1 was....but inovative?...the best game eva? no not even a chance
it really does look just like AoC compare vids...think AoC has better graphics tho by the looks..(i think having a world like AoC is a plus tho)
this aint no troll ether i just havent been able to find anythingthat really makes me wana play this other than the fact there is nothing else decent at the moment to play.
maybe the story and quests will save it? idk but i hope so cause im soo bored at the moment...
The easiest noob armor you can get is traded with collectors: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Collector_armor
Mobs don't drop player-usable armor, but they do drop weapons and the best you can get from them are gold weapons (some, like the celestial weapons http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Celestial_weapons or the zodiac weapons http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gallery_of_Zodiac_weapons are rarer than others) and green weapons (dropped by bosses, like Urkal's Kamas http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Urkal%27s_Kamas which I recently got accidentally while trying to tame the Black Moa)
Personally I found that GW characters run so fast that a mount would be ridiculous. The problem the maps is that they often are too maze-like and it takes forever to get from point A to point B. If you want to move faster get some increased movement speed skill.
As to GW2, it's not a mere remake so you can't extrapolate too much from the first game.
Not to mention the inability to swim and jump, and invisible walls thrown all over the place.
a) Not sure what it is you're asking for here. You want them to create a video just of crafting and running around? I understand to you that might prove exciting, but to most people that would be incredibly boring. I suppose they'd expect people would look at the scenery in the videos as the avatars are fighting and form their own opinions of exploration based on that. It's an open-world, which you already know, and if you watch combat videos you can see people gaining exp from finding new areas. But an RPG is just that, combat. If you're looking for like, an MMO Harvest Moon, then you're looking in the wrong place. And yes, we've already established GW1 is not an MMO.
b) Level 16 of 20 is hardly a considerable portion of the main content in GW1. In Prophecies, it takes you much longer to level, in the other expansions (you still have to play through them) you get to 20 before you're even out of the beginner areas. As for armor, there are more armor styles in GW than there are in many MMOs with much higher level caps. Check the wiki if you want to see them and also see how to attain them. And nothing about any of it, except for 2 specific armors (Obsidian and Vabbian), is very expensive. Everything else is EASILY attainable. You're complaining about 4 platinum, are you kidding? By the time you finish a campaign you will easily have 30 platinum or more, 2-3 times that if you do it again on hard mode, and that's only if you aren't lucky enough to get green drops and rare skins that you can sell (which frequently you do). Those greens by the way, are the 'something shiny' you wanted to drop from mobs, and they in addition to gold and blue gear drop from monsters plenty. Armor has to be crafted, weapons and off-hands are all over the place. Lack of auction house however, I will give you. I give GW that elbow room because it's a very old game and adding something like that at this point when the sequel is well on its way doesn't seem worthwhile.
c) I'm okay with the idea of mounts, because I like collecting things, but when you can teleport everywhere just like GW1, exactly why do you feel this is a necessity? Because you don't want to walk 10 feet to go from one event to the next? Like...really? This is so ridiculous it's not even worth commenting on beyond that.
The problem with your post is its not merely an opinion, it's one that has no factual basis behind it. From A and B I can tell you don't actual play GW, and if you do you've only experienced the first hour or so. That you feel everything must be handed to you instantly leaves me no pity for you. By all means, feel free to avoid GW2.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Yeah, that's exactly what I meant.
Yeah, that was what I was saying: "thou shallt murder"
I understand. Yet I always enjoyed competing for for nodes, chests and rare mobs too but I admit I never harvested in a mmorpg without the option to bash the other guy's skull in (if it happened to be a member of an opposing faction though). Sometimes you get bested, sometimes you best the other guy: fun times, fights as well as social interaction might ensue. In a game that doesn't shy away from player conflict you can easily single out the diamonds from the turds.
p.s. we are currently over 85% Bob Marley resurrection level with the colors in this thread and going strong. Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, people.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Thanks! The lists will come in handy. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
a) GW2 is still mostly about combat, story and some exploration. It's a dynamic themepark, but it's still a themepark.
b) I never had problems with getting new armor in GW1 - but GW2 will be very different anyway. No need to worry.
c) No mounts? Awesome! Mounts are just a waste of money that could be used for better features. I don't know why so many players want mounts in a game.
Hype train -> Reality
A:because there is more to a game than combat.. "RPG is just that combat" wait what? ROLE PLAYING GAME...where does it says COMBAT ROLE PLAYING game in there?
i for one would like to see something other than badly animated combat pretty please...
as for the teleporting...gawd thats such a bad move for the game..make for no community feel your not gonna randomly meet people in your travels there all gonna be teleporting everywhere...FFXIV has exactly that problem...
add mounts delete teleporting if you want the game to feel like a real world.
this is just gonna be a bunch of solo players who teleport to nearist hub do quest teleport back...it just doesnt work well in mmorpg..trust me go try ffXIV and see how the teleporting works there cause its EXACTLY the same system..you run and you teleport between hubs..
big empty world with afew people in quest areas and at citys...
id be very worried about this teleport system if i was a GW2 fan boi i tell yah cuase thats a game breaker.
(ignore teleport stuff if you like the whole finalfantasy dont talk to anyone play like a single player game style)
massive major game flaw imho.
Excellent. Let's do this one again, with proper grammar and spelling.
Because a Charr or Norn riding a mount would totally make the world feel realistic...
If you're looking for a "real world", you have one already. It's called real life. Because ya see, in a fantasy game, developers are creating their own fantasy. So in their own world, if they want to teleport everywhere, then they can. That's how fantasy games work(or at least SHOULD work). They should NOT put in something just because a few people don't want to walk 10-20 feet down the damn road. Understand something, not many games have their own actual good lore and mechanics. Not many MMOs have their own identity without looking like other games. GW2 doesn't look like any other game out there(stop fooling yourself, one aspect does not make an ENTIRE game look like another). So when a game like this comes along, you have to pounce on it. ArenaNet is inviting us into THEIR fantasy. If you want something in the game that isn't there, than just get a job as a game developer and copy the game(that's what everyone has been doing with WoW) while putting the aspect or two that you want in it.
Also, I just want to point out that you only teleport to cities or villages. Everything in between you'd have to run to. So to say that you won't run into anyone is a laughable statement.
wait a simple duel button is on th wishlist you guys were just done telling us how its an combat focused game yet you cant duel another player?
"you still have to explore a bit".....................a bit? its supposed to be the best exploration mmorpg eva....
this whole game is just hype stacked on hype with a few little game play vids thrown in
trully guys someone come share with us what makes gw2 worth the hype? whats innovative? whats outstanding!
what is gonna make this game stand out above all else?
...Strikes against you.
Bad spelling / grammar
Played FFXIV (I'm being intentionally antagonistic about this because you tried to compare DEs with FFXIV questing)
Insinuates that GW1 players are blind idiots to like fast travel teleportation...Its in GW2 because GW1 players (me included) practically demanded it be in the game early on in developement. I doubt they would have done things differently, even if that hadn't been the case, because it was actually a major draw for GW1 players that we could go where we wanted without waiting around on slow moving mounts.
Doesn't attempt to understand the game he is talking about. The big cities, of which there are only 6, one for each race and Lions Arch, are intended to be social hubs, not quest hubs. There are no quest hubs in GW2, unless you count small towns that have many DEs in them to do, and I don't.
...Positive points.
Acknowledges that there are problems with other, more traditionally MMOs.
States clearly that he doesn't like GW2 and will not play it because of the teleportation.
I think, in all honesty, that saying FFXIV sucked because of teleportation is a sign of not understanding the complexities of game design vs. the complete crap with a FF label...
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
If the features that GW2 brings to the table aren't features you, personally are looking forward to, who can possibly tell you what makes the game stand out? If the features GW2 is presenting are, to YOU, the opposite of what is fun for YOU in a game, you will not see the appeal to those who differ from you.
I can guarantee you that for me, these are the features that make GW2 appealing over all others. It's not that ANet has decided a batch of features for the sake of being different, but that they have decided to make a game that minimizes the possibility for people to grief one another, and maximizes the possibility for people to have fun with little time investment, at every moment. This definition of "fun" varies from person to person, but ANet's definition of fun and MY definition of fun (and those who are looking most forward to GW2) are similar.
So, in short: dynamic events, the ability to participate in the open world without having to consult your quest log compared to someone else to see if you're on the same stage, not having to compete for nodes and quest mobs, not having to run half an hour accross the world to meet a friend, not having to AFK on a flight path to get to a dungeon, not having to risk being killed in the open world by another player while questing/harvesting/afk-ing, not having to LFHealer or LFTank before starting any content, not having to form a group to have fun (but being able to do so effortlessly), not having to put a dungeon on farm mode to equip oneself in armor that is 1% better than anything else in the game, having skills and weapons that make sense underwater, where guns and fireballs wouldn't work......
These are things that make GW2 different and stand out. These are the things that fans are looking forward to. If these factors sound like a nightmare to you, keep in mind GW2 isn't for everyone. It's for those who feel the above are good things.
I do want to clarify though, that there isn't endless gear progression in GW2, but rather a progression plateau post-80.
This is so hopelessly innaccurate that I needed to stop reading. And were it anything approaching true, it's inconseqential. GW2 has almost nothing to do with the original outside of the lore, so attempting to draw insights about one based on the other is futile.
There is tons of material out there that explains how GW2 will work, from ANet blogs to third-party reviews of actual game demos. YouTube is chock full of vids showing the game, with and without developer commentary. Maybe start there?
First, I want to say that I think we have really different things that we like and dislike about mmorpg's so what makes you skeptical about GW2 is very different from what makes me skeptical.
Part of what makes me skeptical is that there is just nothing interesting about any of the gameplay videos I've seen. At least to me. It looks kind of slow, kind of silly, not exciting. Again - this is my opinion and some will disagree, but when I see some dumb video showing simple physics in Archeage, I get much more jazzed than I have watching any of the action and combat videos I've seen coming out of GW2.
My biggest concern involves, directly but even more indirectly, the thing that has actually hyped so many about this game - the lack of a dedicated healer.
Now I like the trinity just fine, but almost all of us who have been playing mmorpgs for a long time would love to see a break from the trinity. But it needs to be a break that not only works, but that people like. And they have to like it a lot because most people don't really like change when it comes right down to it. So the trinity has been tried and tested over and over again and has proven to be the most successful model in terms of winning the general player population. Any game that breaks from it is taking a risk and we simply don't know how it will work out.
But GW2 is not just breaking from the trinity, they are targeting a particular portion of it - the healer. This adds risk onto risk because there are a lot of people like me who play a healer in every game I play. Period. Now I like to play other classes, too, and if I really liked a game that had no healing I would play it, but I like healing the best. And there are people out there who exclusively heal in their games which means that GW2 has already eliminated a segment (no idea the size - 5% maybe?) of the gaming population from even having interest in their game. But the oddity to me is that they still have a trinity. "You could say instead of DPS/heal/tank, we have our own trinity of damage, support, and control..." Now this is downplayed with the claim that the combat is diverse, but if you need any particular role to succeed then everything they are trying to get away from just creeps right back in. Now they emphasize control and support for certain, which makes me wonder if just comes down to that. Ever play CoH with a team containing 4 or more good controllers? That's the I Win Button for the ages and makes the game rather silly. Hopefully GW2 isn't taking that path, either.
But what concerns me much more than the lack of healing is the attitude behind it. It's as if to say, "The mmorpg industry is really lame right now and we have all the answers as to just what it should be." It's the same attitude I see coming out of Bioware with SW:TOR and is a major reason I am skeptical of that as well. As soon as you look at the mmo landscape, which is as prosperous as ever, and say, "They are all doing it wrong and we're going to show them the way," you lose your objectivity while developing your game. What if the GW2 "no healer model" has become a complete disaster behind the scenes during development? Too bad for ANet. This is what they've hung their hat on and there is no going back. The following are the quotes that give me the strong impression that the folks on the GW2 team are far too big for their breeches when it comes to their breaking of the trinity.
"We're... providing appealing ways for [players] to effortlessly work together to create a more inspired moment-to-moment experience. That is why Guild Wars 2 does not have a dedicated healing class."
"Support players... want to stand in the line of fire and block attacks. They want to surround their allies with a swirling dome of air that keeps enemy projectiles from passing through it. It's not about clicking on a health bar and watching it go up, it's about being there for your friends when they need you."
"Ultimately, DPS/heal/tank just didn't cut it in our book... er, game. Our players demand more..."
"Not only is the trinity very formulaic, but it leaves out a lot of gameplay elements that make many other games so much fun. Instead, we break these trinity categories down into a cooler, more versatile system."
"Don't belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive." (Just a note on this quote - everybody except this guy knows that the best healers are, in fact, proactive.)
So my biggest concern is not the breakage of the trinity, which would be a moderate concern anyway, but the attitude behind it. If the folks at GW2 were saying, "Hey, folks, the lore, setting, power types, and combat style of our game really don't work with a healing class but we have to tell you that we have found it to actually be much more fun and here's why," I'd be all for trying it and would be excited to see if they succeed. But they are saying, "it's broke and we're fixing it." And part of the problem with that is that in the above statements they are directly criticizing my play style as a healer. By saying, "It's not about clicking on a health bar," they're basically saying, "Joarnaj, you are playing all wrong. Let us show you the right way." The whole tone of the thing really bothers me and - again - makes me wonder if they have any remaining objectivity when it comes to their game.
All quotes come from here: http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
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