There is opinion and their is fact. 11.1 million Sheeple still play WoW...possibly 1mil play Rift based on this model....2million may sign up for SWToR and it has raiding. [you do not need to insult 11.1 million people, I am pretty sure many of them are smarter than you in some aspect of life]
These are real numbers. Just because you do not like it does not make it untrue. GW2 saying they will not do it "because" other games is doing it is silly. I have yet to see ArenaNET come out and say why they are not doing pve instance raiding content.
I have a theory that removing the trinity makes it impossible to actually do [it can be done]. I have a feeling that removing a tank and a direct healer makes a actual challenging boss fight possible without it being a huge zerg. Let ArenaNET prove me wrong or find me some Q and A as to why they are not doing it.
Without pve instance raiding GW2 is releasing incomplete in my view. No game without it has done good in this market. I just have not seen it. People associate some type of raiding with end game and this is just how it works.
You can do a boss fight if you are creative enough. Of course it depends on the game mechanism. If you have such a script that the boss will 1 shot anything short of a fully buffed tank, and that it has enough hp and attacks fast enough to one shot a full raid, then you have the inevitable results.
In EQ, during some time, we have a patch in which wizards have a spell that will inflict a fixed damage, no matter what boss it is. No boss has resistance to it, in a sense. We killed big bosses by having enough wizards to inflict a total damage exceeding its hp. Of course we need to try and error first and trying it with 20 wizards and see how much % of the total hp bar we dent, then we do the maths to see how many wizards in total.
We also have been doing kiting, ping-pong aggro and so on, depending on boss and game and rule set. Trinity makes it easy but not always necessary.
You're entitled to your opinion, but....that's all it is is your opinion. Now I'm going to give you mine. I HATE raiding. I am so fucking sick of raiding that I sincerely would not care if it NEVER appeared in another MMO for as long as I live. Now.....that is just one opinion, however, I'm pretty confident that I'm not the only one that feels that way. It's time for something different than raiding. ANYTHING different from raiding. Seriously.
There is opinion and their is fact. 11.1 million Sheeple still play WoW...possibly 1mil play Rift based on this model....2million may sign up for SWToR and it has raiding.
These are real numbers. Just because you do not like it does not make it untrue. GW2 saying they will not do it "because" other games is doing it is silly. I have yet to see ArenaNET come out and say why they are not doing pve instance raiding content.
I have a theory that removing the trinity makes it impossible to actually do. I have a feeling that removing a tank and a direct healer makes a actual challenging boss fight possible without it being a huge zerg. Let ArenaNET prove me wrong or find me some Q and A as to why they are not doing it.
Without pve instance raiding GW2 is releasing incomplete in my view. No game without it has done good in this market. I just have not seen it. People associate some type of raiding with end game and this is just how it works.
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame. Their "endgame" so to speak, will come in the form of expansions down the road. Until that point, players can either do the instances with their mains, continue with their personal story and dynamic content, pvp with their mains, or re-roll alts and go through another story line. The dynamic, ever-changing levelling process will keep that content fresh. ArenaNet isn't concerned if people get bored at endgame, and guess what? Neither are the players who will be playing. B2P allows you to leave GW2 as you want and play another game if you are bored. The fact you aren't paying a subscription makes it stress-free for the player and ArenaNet. Take a break and go play another game since you aren't paying for GW2 beyond the box. As long as ArenaNet pumps out expansions that are full of new, impressive content....and truth be told, they have a very impressive track record in this regard, they'll get their box sales and players will continue to come back.
As for your assertion that the game is being released incomplete because it doesn't have raiding...you are dead wrong. Your mindset is part of the problem with many gamers these days. Believe it or not, there are MMO gamers who don't care to raid. Period. Not everyone who plays MMOs care to be put in the gerbil wheel and forced to continuously chase gear. The people that play Guild Wars 2 aren't looking to raid. That's why they're playing the game. So for you to say the game is being released incomplete totally misses the point of why people are attracted to this game in the first place.
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame. Their "endgame" so to speak, will come in the form of expansions down the road. Until that point, players can either do the instances with their mains, continue with their personal story and dynamic content, pvp with their mains, or re-roll alts and go through another story line. The dynamic, ever-changing levelling process will keep that content fresh. ArenaNet isn't concerned if people get bored at endgame, and guess what? Neither are the players who will be playing. B2P allows you to leave GW2 as you want and play another game if you are bored. The fact you aren't paying a subscription makes it stress-free for the player and ArenaNet. Take a break and go play another game since you aren't paying for GW2 beyond the box. As long as ArenaNet pumps out expansions that are full of new, impressive content....and truth be told, they have a very impressive track record in this regard, they'll get their box sales and players will continue to come back.
As for your assertion that the game is being released incomplete because it doesn't hae raiding...you are dead wrong. Your mindset is part of the problem with many gamers these days. Believe it or not, there are MMO gamers who don't care to raid. Period. Not everyone who plays MMOs cares to be put in the gerbil wheel, force do continuously chase gear. The people that play Guild Wars 2 aren't looking to raid. That's why they're playing the game. So for you to say the game is being release incomplete totally misses the point of why people are attracted to this game in the first place.
Telling me that because of the payment model they can not compete is a pretty horrible way to make me want to even play this game. Hearing Soon(tm) from a company financed by NCSoon does not exactly inspire confidence in your audience.
I consider it incomplete and I am not alone. We are not doubting GW2 because of the payment model and fans of the game need to get that through their heads. There is no legitimate reason to get rid of 20+ man instance raiding content. I see nothing that prevents GW2 from being taken seriously as a pve raiding game and a pvp raiding game.
Rift is actually doing pretty damn well actually. It turns out if you release a game and the devs do not go on a 12 month hiatus that you can have 60 healthy servers and content updates every month.
So tell me this. I take my 60man guild over to Guild Wars 2 and this raiding schedule we have automatically goes out the door because THERE IS NO RAIDING outside of this WvWvW stuff. What does my guild do in Guild Wars?
Hey guys I know there are 20 of us online...so I guess break into groups of 4 and go run some instances? Do you seriously see this working in reality? What is the point in even having a guild if there are no guild activities? What is the point of even having pve servers with no real pve?
Some instances seriously? My guild would destroy these instance in less then a month. Then what do we do? How do we challenge ourselves? Some more 5mans? You are seriously under estimating pve guild ability to just destroy content. You do not need some casual guild to come to Guild Wars. You need like a Paragon or Vodka. Where is the pve for them?
Some open world stuff that can be zerged down? This is where the doubt about GW2 is coming from. Not on the pvp side, but on the pve side.
The raiding option is repeating a content till you have new content. It is a curse if you play too much.
The "non raiding" option is to do different, not necessarily gear progressive, content and move on. It sounds like they intend the game to open up new, but not gear-stat aspect, options of "progression", Just move on to the next content.
None option is perfect, but honestly, after repeating myself enough times in WoW, I am staying away for that kind of raid for now. For now.
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame.
No community at endgame would mean disaster, it's an MMO, if everyone reaches endgame and quits who's going to be around to buy expansions? An MMO without players is no MMO at all.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
Originally posted by Biggus99 One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame. Their "endgame" so to speak, will come in the form of expansions down the road. Until that point, players can either do the instances with their mains, continue with their personal story and dynamic content, pvp with their mains, or re-roll alts and go through another story line. The dynamic, ever-changing levelling process will keep that content fresh. ArenaNet isn't concerned if people get bored at endgame, and guess what? Neither are the players who will be playing. B2P allows you to leave GW2 as you want and play another game if you are bored. The fact you aren't paying a subscription makes it stress-free for the player and ArenaNet. Take a break and go play another game since you aren't paying for GW2 beyond the box. As long as ArenaNet pumps out expansions that are full of new, impressive content....and truth be told, they have a very impressive track record in this regard, they'll get their box sales and players will continue to come back. As for your assertion that the game is being released incomplete because it doesn't have raiding...you are dead wrong. Your mindset is part of the problem with many gamers these days. Believe it or not, there are MMO gamers who don't care to raid. Period. Not everyone who plays MMOs care to be put in the gerbil wheel and forced to continuously chase gear. The people that play Guild Wars 2 aren't looking to raid. That's why they're playing the game. So for you to say the game is being released incomplete totally misses the point of why people are attracted to this game in the first place.
There's a flipside to that so I'll play devil's advocate for a minute. Anet could get away with people taking long breaks from GW1 because it was a lobby game with henchman anyway. You didnt feel the hit as severely when people left the game. But in an open persistant mmo like what they are doing with GW2, if people leave for extended periods of time, you will feel it. The world will feel less populated. Less populated means less socializing, less, events, less crafting and trading, less pvp participation, etc. It trickles down. Thats why when you pay 15 bucks a month to play an mmo, you log on and try to at least find something fun to do to make it worth your time. And the result is everyone else seeing people playing the game around them. Which in turn gives the game a more alive feel. If Anet is willing to let people come and go as they please without incentive to stick around, the game might end up feeling dead a lot of times.
Rift is actually doing pretty damn well actually. It turns out if you release a game and the devs do not go on a 12 month hiatus that you can have 60 healthy servers and content updates every month.
So tell me this. I take my 60man guild over to Guild Wars 2 and this raiding schedule we have automatically goes out the door because THERE IS NO RAIDING outside of this WvWvW stuff. What does my guild do in Guild Wars?
Hey guys I know there are 20 of us online...so I guess break into groups of 4 and go run some instances? Do you seriously see this working in reality? What is the point in even having a guild if there are no guild activities? What is the point of even having pve servers with no real pve?
Some instances seriously? My guild would destroy these instance in less then a month. Then what do we do? How do we challenge ourselves? Some more 5mans? You are seriously under estimating pve guild ability to just destroy content. You do not need some casual guild to come to Guild Wars. You need like a Paragon or Vodka. Where is the pve for them?
Some open world stuff that can be zerged down? This is where the doubt about GW2 is coming from. Not on the pvp side, but on the pve side.
I consider it incomplete and I am not alone. We are not doubting GW2 because of the payment model and fans of the game need to get that through their heads. There is no legitimate reason to get rid of 20+ man instance raiding content. I see nothing that prevents GW2 from being taken seriously as a pve raiding game and a pvp raiding game.
Not for me, 20man raid is too much a burden these days. Just finding 20 idle person to meet regularly every week and run the same thing every week is too much chore. The need to have backup players, the need to lay off excess if everyone logs on, the need to rotate, maintain roster, pre-sign up, plan for how many of what class to bring. Too much hassle for a game.
Maybe I am too old, maybe I take games to casually. I have enough of my share of military-run raiding.
5man raids are good. Respec and multi-role is even better, so I do not need to maintain a tank alt, a healer alt, a dps alt.
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame.
No community at endgame would mean disaster, it's an MMO, if everyone reaches endgame and quits who's going to be around to buy expansions? An MMO without players is no MMO at all.
Very true. Though raiding is not the only way to build a community, nor is that enough on its own.
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame.
No community at endgame would mean disaster, it's an MMO, if everyone reaches endgame and quits who's going to be around to buy expansions? An MMO without players is no MMO at all.
Very true. Though raiding is not the only way to build a community, nor is that enough on its own.
Ah but I said nothing of raiding :P. I don't think I've ever raided before to be honest.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
As long as GW2 has something for my friends and I to do at end game that is fun I will quit WoW, killing the same bosses over and over for months on end is extreamly boring.
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame. Their "endgame" so to speak, will come in the form of expansions down the road. Until that point, players can either do the instances with their mains, continue with their personal story and dynamic content, pvp with their mains, or re-roll alts and go through another story line. The dynamic, ever-changing levelling process will keep that content fresh. ArenaNet isn't concerned if people get bored at endgame, and guess what? Neither are the players who will be playing. B2P allows you to leave GW2 as you want and play another game if you are bored. The fact you aren't paying a subscription makes it stress-free for the player and ArenaNet. Take a break and go play another game since you aren't paying for GW2 beyond the box. As long as ArenaNet pumps out expansions that are full of new, impressive content....and truth be told, they have a very impressive track record in this regard, they'll get their box sales and players will continue to come back.
As for your assertion that the game is being released incomplete because it doesn't hae raiding...you are dead wrong. Your mindset is part of the problem with many gamers these days. Believe it or not, there are MMO gamers who don't care to raid. Period. Not everyone who plays MMOs cares to be put in the gerbil wheel, force do continuously chase gear. The people that play Guild Wars 2 aren't looking to raid. That's why they're playing the game. So for you to say the game is being release incomplete totally misses the point of why people are attracted to this game in the first place.
Telling me that because of the payment model they can not compete is a pretty horrible way to make me want to even play this game. Hearing Soon(tm) from a company financed by NCSoon does not exactly inspire confidence in your audience.
I consider it incomplete and I am not alone. We are not doubting GW2 because of the payment model and fans of the game need to get that through their heads. There is no legitimate reason to get rid of 20+ man instance raiding content. I see nothing that prevents GW2 from being taken seriously as a pve raiding game and a pvp raiding game.
Because to be a "PvE raiding game" like the others would require setting up a treadmill for gear. And that's completely against Arena Net's design philosophies. There's a maximum values for armors and weapons, meaning at some point beyond 80, the only difference between one piece of gear and the next will be completely aesthetic.
Also, to fix your desperate need for end-game, it's expected that the Guild Wars 2's achievement system will function somewhat similar to the title system in Guild Wars 1, and leadership boards in PvP and Minigames may offer something akin to this.
Of course, this is pure speculation based on what was in the first game, but this was a very effective form of end-game progression where players would find their hunger for rewards based on time and effort (grind, but completely optional) satiated, without forcing others to do the same content just to stay competetive.
Rift is actually doing pretty damn well actually. It turns out if you release a game and the devs do not go on a 12 month hiatus that you can have 60 healthy servers and content updates every month.
So tell me this. I take my 60man guild over to Guild Wars 2 and this raiding schedule we have automatically goes out the door because THERE IS NO RAIDING outside of this WvWvW stuff. What does my guild do in Guild Wars?
Hey guys I know there are 20 of us online...so I guess break into groups of 4 and go run some instances? Do you seriously see this working in reality? What is the point in even having a guild if there are no guild activities? What is the point of even having pve servers with no real pve?
Some instances seriously? My guild would destroy these instance in less then a month. Then what do we do? How do we challenge ourselves? Some more 5mans? You are seriously under estimating pve guild ability to just destroy content. You do not need some casual guild to come to Guild Wars. You need like a Paragon or Vodka. Where is the pve for them?
Some open world stuff that can be zerged down? This is where the doubt about GW2 is coming from. Not on the pvp side, but on the pve side.
The raiding option is repeating a content till you have new content. It is a curse if you play too much.
The "non raiding" option is to do different, not necessarily gear progressive, content and move on. It sounds like they intend the game to open up new, but not gear-stat aspect, options of "progression", Just move on to the next content.
None option is perfect, but honestly, after repeating myself enough times in WoW, I am staying away for that kind of raid for now. For now.
I want to confront something about your view of Raiding being nothing but a Grind and the only grind.
Well Raiding is similar to Dungeons,, but on a larger scale. Why are you ok with Dungeons being played over and over for some sort of reward,,, but not ok with Raid Dungeons doing the same thing but with larger scaled multiplayer gameplay?
the above poster also said it. "treadmill".
well how are Raid Dungeons, treadmill, and not the smaller scaled dungeons?
Rift is actually doing pretty damn well actually. It turns out if you release a game and the devs do not go on a 12 month hiatus that you can have 60 healthy servers and content updates every month.
So tell me this. I take my 60man guild over to Guild Wars 2 and this raiding schedule we have automatically goes out the door because THERE IS NO RAIDING outside of this WvWvW stuff. What does my guild do in Guild Wars?
Hey guys I know there are 20 of us online...so I guess break into groups of 4 and go run some instances? Do you seriously see this working in reality? What is the point in even having a guild if there are no guild activities? What is the point of even having pve servers with no real pve?
Some instances seriously? My guild would destroy these instance in less then a month. Then what do we do? How do we challenge ourselves? Some more 5mans? You are seriously under estimating pve guild ability to just destroy content. You do not need some casual guild to come to Guild Wars. You need like a Paragon or Vodka. Where is the pve for them?
Some open world stuff that can be zerged down? This is where the doubt about GW2 is coming from. Not on the pvp side, but on the pve side.
Your guild does whatever it wants to in GW2. It is no longer forced to get on the treadmill. GW2 is saying you no longer need to do this in order to get the best gear. Stop thinking about raiding like it's some mandatory thing and start thinking instead about what you find fun to do, and actually having absolutely no mandatory attendance on anything in the game.
Sure, you might destroy all this content in no time at all, but why? What is it giving you? Nothing. There is no longer any incentive to do it outside of your finding it fun.
Why does GW2 need to fill raids with all kinds of trash so it can draw out the experience making you invest 12-16 hours a week? Is that even healthy? And if you like that sort of thing, can't you get it from another game? Does GW2 have to be everything to everybody?
If your guild is online, you can take any 5 random people, regardless of class and do a dungeon. You can take any 10 people, regardless of class, and go roam around doing dynamic events. Regular DEs scale up to 10 people, bosses scale up to 100. You can even do higher level events if you want to challenge yourself even more. People can also make whatever challenges they want. Do dungeons as a speed run. Do it with only certain classes or weapons. Try them with only 4 people. It's not RNG combat, if you're good enough, you might be able to pull it off.
The emphasis of the game is on replayability. The game automatically scales you down when you do a DE or dungeon. At max level, the entire game's open world and dungeons are available to you at an appropriate level. New events are added or you might see ones you didn't see before. If it's 100 hours to cap and you can level any of the 5 races up and see different stuff, that's 500 hours not including PVP or all the other stuff. Play GW2 as a side game for 20 hours a week and you're good for 6 months. Should be plenty of expansion content by then.
Seriously, stop looking at it like it's raiding or nothing. Nobody is making you raid. Do whatever you want.
"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
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame.
No community at endgame would mean disaster, it's an MMO, if everyone reaches endgame and quits who's going to be around to buy expansions? An MMO without players is no MMO at all.
Once again...people aren't playing GW2 for the raiding. No raiding doesn't mean there isn't going to be a community at endgame because those people aren't playing the game for that reason anyway. Like I stated above, there is pvp, dynamic events, instances, and personal story. There will also be plenty of reason to roll alts since ArenaNet is setting the game up to be a completely different experience every time through. If their dynamic events are what they claim they will be, and if their world is large enough and diverse enough, people will stick around.
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame.
No community at endgame would mean disaster, it's an MMO, if everyone reaches endgame and quits who's going to be around to buy expansions? An MMO without players is no MMO at all.
Once again...people aren't playing GW2 for the raiding. No raiding doesn't mean there isn't going to be a community at endgame because those people aren't playing the game for that reason anyway. Like I stated above, there is pvp, dynamic events, instances, and personal story. There will also be plenty of reason to roll alts since ArenaNet is setting the game up to be a completely different experience every time through. If their dynamic events are what they claim they will be, and if their world is large enough and diverse enough, people will stick around.
What does raiding have to do with what I said? I was basically saying Anet does not have the luxury you seemed to be awarding them. The whole point of this game is to show they can run a fully featured B2P MMO. If they fail to hold a large number of players due to content limitation and the speed at which they address it, that experiment has failed.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame.
No community at endgame would mean disaster, it's an MMO, if everyone reaches endgame and quits who's going to be around to buy expansions? An MMO without players is no MMO at all.
Once again...people aren't playing GW2 for the raiding. No raiding doesn't mean there isn't going to be a community at endgame because those people aren't playing the game for that reason anyway. Like I stated above, there is pvp, dynamic events, instances, and personal story. There will also be plenty of reason to roll alts since ArenaNet is setting the game up to be a completely different experience every time through. If their dynamic events are what they claim they will be, and if their world is large enough and diverse enough, people will stick around.
What does raiding have to do with what I said? I was basically saying Anet does not have the luxury you seemed to be awarding them. The whole point of this game is to show they can run a fully featured B2P MMO. If they fail to hold a large number of players due to content limitation and the speed at which they address it, that experiment has failed.
GW1 is very profitable through expansion packs, which many gamers buy.
GW2, oh well, we know when it comes to that stage.
What does raiding have to do with what I said? I was basically saying Anet does not have the luxury you seemed to be awarding them. The whole point of this game is to show they can run a fully featured B2P MMO. If they fail to hold a large number of players due to content limitation and the speed at which they address it, that experiment has failed.
GW1 is very profitable through expansion packs, which many gamers buy.
GW2, oh well, we know when it comes to that stage.
Key distinction.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
What does raiding have to do with what I said? I was basically saying Anet does not have the luxury you seemed to be awarding them. The whole point of this game is to show they can run a fully featured B2P MMO. If they fail to hold a large number of players due to content limitation and the speed at which they address it, that experiment has failed.
GW1 is very profitable through expansion packs, which many gamers buy.
GW2, oh well, we know when it comes to that stage.
Key distinction.
Developers are paid for by the content they develop, no matter what the business model. In a P2P game you get mandatory periodic content updates for $15 and still have to pay for an expansion every year or two. In GW1's system, there were expansions every 6 months to a year. These purchases were completely voluntary and even if you bought everything, it would be about half what you're paying for a sub.
A B2P game will sell vastly more boxes than an equivalent P2P. A B2P game doesn't need there to be a $15 transaction every month or even need everybody to buy everything in order to still turn a profit.
"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
Really depends on the player. I only play one game at a time, for example. Doesn't matter how much I pay for it.
In a way, the B2P model allows players to come and go more freely, so they aren't competing - even if you play something else, you can always go back on a whim. With a subscription fee, players are more likely to quit and move on for good, I think. Or again, maybe that's just me.
So in some ways, its like the P2P game is competing with every other P2P game and B2P games - while the B2P game isn't really facing the same competition in return. They don't have to worry about it, because people won't look at them with the same sense of exclusivity they see a subscription game with.
Just another reason B2P can be more profitable than it might seem. If they have a well thought out cash shop, that's just bonus. If it's well thought out enough though, a huge bonus.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
You're entitled to your opinion, but....that's all it is is your opinion. Now I'm going to give you mine. I HATE raiding. I am so fucking sick of raiding that I sincerely would not care if it NEVER appeared in another MMO for as long as I live. Now.....that is just one opinion, however, I'm pretty confident that I'm not the only one that feels that way. It's time for something different than raiding. ANYTHING different from raiding. Seriously.
There is opinion and their is fact. 11.1 million Sheeple still play WoW...possibly 1mil play Rift based on this model....2million may sign up for SWToR and it has raiding.
These are real numbers. Just because you do not like it does not make it untrue. GW2 saying they will not do it "because" other games is doing it is silly. I have yet to see ArenaNET come out and say why they are not doing pve instance raiding content.
I have a theory that removing the trinity makes it impossible to actually do. I have a feeling that removing a tank and a direct healer makes a actual challenging boss fight possible without it being a huge zerg. Let ArenaNET prove me wrong or find me some Q and A as to why they are not doing it.
Without pve instance raiding GW2 is releasing incomplete in my view. No game without it has done good in this market. I just have not seen it. People associate some type of raiding with end game and this is just how it works.
To my experiences though, 50% of those 11 mil players are whining and asking "Why is there only raiding for endgame?" - The same people have 9 alts besides their main character. If endgame is entertaining and "enough" why the heck would most players have a handful of alts? It's not the best model to have something as endgame that keeps you occupied 4 hours 3-4 days a week after you get max level, then you just hop onto the alt wagon or quit playing. Damn it, devs need to learn to create more and varying endgame PVE content than just the stupid raiding, though having no endgame content at all is the worst.
I dont understand how people think a B2P MMO like GW2 isnt in direct competition with P2P MMO like WoW, Rift, War, etc.
yes the payment models may be different, but what developers want, is population, not just Sub numbers as many people may assume. The higher the population, the less players feel alone, or in a empty world.
Also keep in mind, even though consumers can get GW2 and another MMO like SWTOR, that doesnt mean players can play both at the same time. which again, means the developers are fighting over player's time and interest.
For instances; had Allod been better and more quality, less P2W/IM it may been a great competitor with games like WoW and Rift. Why play Rift and WoW when you can play a quality free MMO that does the same thing pretty much?
again,,, Direct Competition.
If you disagree, prove me wrong.
Well, it is partly true. GW2 will compete with the rest for the players time but it is far more likely that a GW2 player will either use GW2 as game they play once in a while on the side then someone having another P2P game.
I know a lot of people that play Wow for raiding and play GW2 for it's competetive PvP, I am sure that group will be even larger with GW2. Some people just love raiding for the best gear in the game but many of them also dislike what gear do to PvP balance.
On the other hand for general gamers that just want a good MMO to play GW2 will compete for the players time and money just like any P2P or F2P game would.
So it wont compete for people that just want a alt game to play once in a while or a skill based PvP game.
Rift is actually doing pretty damn well actually. It turns out if you release a game and the devs do not go on a 12 month hiatus that you can have 60 healthy servers and content updates every month.
So tell me this. I take my 60man guild over to Guild Wars 2 and this raiding schedule we have automatically goes out the door because THERE IS NO RAIDING outside of this WvWvW stuff. What does my guild do in Guild Wars?
Hey guys I know there are 20 of us online...so I guess break into groups of 4 and go run some instances? Do you seriously see this working in reality? What is the point in even having a guild if there are no guild activities? What is the point of even having pve servers with no real pve?
Some instances seriously? My guild would destroy these instance in less then a month. Then what do we do? How do we challenge ourselves? Some more 5mans? You are seriously under estimating pve guild ability to just destroy content. You do not need some casual guild to come to Guild Wars. You need like a Paragon or Vodka. Where is the pve for them?
Some open world stuff that can be zerged down? This is where the doubt about GW2 is coming from. Not on the pvp side, but on the pve side.
I'm pretty sure that there will be few ppl in your 60 man guild that will be glad for game that doesn't force them to live on shedule for end game PvE. Yes GW2 will not be for dedicated raiders like you and thats perfectly fine, but there is a lot of ppl who are glad to not be forced into raiding to end game PvE. You don't need guilds like Paragon or Vodka. Why do you think I need them ?
60 man PvE raiding guilds will be nonsense in gw2. Big deal, so guilds like you will split to smaller groups of player who actualy like to play together and are not just forced to be together becouse they need to do some content.
Your argument about destroing end game 5 mans in less than month is pointless - good raiding guilds do the same with end game raiding content too (unless there are some artificial blocks to do it )
i honestly think that the main reason why anyone would buy GW2 is strictly for the PVP, or in this case, the WvWvW PVP... the PVE is just something to do between battles, if at all.. as has already been pointed out, there are quite a few games out already that handle PVE better anyway, the huge advantage that GW2 has, is that there is no monthly sub, which means you can play X game however much you like, and then hop onto GW2 for a few rounds of PVP... players can pretty much afford to 'cherry pick' which type of content they want these days, GW2 just makes this easier by being B2P.. which is why i don't see GW2 as being a 'competitor' in the MMO market, its almost like an add-on for whatever game your into, PVP in WoW for instance is fairly rubbish, so playing WoW for the PVE and slipping over onto GW2 for the PVP fix is definitely a valid option, i could realistically see the same kind of thing happening for SW;TOR... rather than people not understanding why a B2P MMO like GW2 isnt in direct competition, i would ask, why would GW2 not be considered an asset that 'completes' the WoW - SW;TOR experience..
Comments
You can do a boss fight if you are creative enough. Of course it depends on the game mechanism. If you have such a script that the boss will 1 shot anything short of a fully buffed tank, and that it has enough hp and attacks fast enough to one shot a full raid, then you have the inevitable results.
In EQ, during some time, we have a patch in which wizards have a spell that will inflict a fixed damage, no matter what boss it is. No boss has resistance to it, in a sense. We killed big bosses by having enough wizards to inflict a total damage exceeding its hp. Of course we need to try and error first and trying it with 20 wizards and see how much % of the total hp bar we dent, then we do the maths to see how many wizards in total.
We also have been doing kiting, ping-pong aggro and so on, depending on boss and game and rule set. Trinity makes it easy but not always necessary.
One concept you don't seem to understand regarding GW2: They can get away without end-game raiding because of their payment model. B2P means they don't have compete with other subscription games and keep their community past the endgame. Their "endgame" so to speak, will come in the form of expansions down the road. Until that point, players can either do the instances with their mains, continue with their personal story and dynamic content, pvp with their mains, or re-roll alts and go through another story line. The dynamic, ever-changing levelling process will keep that content fresh. ArenaNet isn't concerned if people get bored at endgame, and guess what? Neither are the players who will be playing. B2P allows you to leave GW2 as you want and play another game if you are bored. The fact you aren't paying a subscription makes it stress-free for the player and ArenaNet. Take a break and go play another game since you aren't paying for GW2 beyond the box. As long as ArenaNet pumps out expansions that are full of new, impressive content....and truth be told, they have a very impressive track record in this regard, they'll get their box sales and players will continue to come back.
As for your assertion that the game is being released incomplete because it doesn't have raiding...you are dead wrong. Your mindset is part of the problem with many gamers these days. Believe it or not, there are MMO gamers who don't care to raid. Period. Not everyone who plays MMOs care to be put in the gerbil wheel and forced to continuously chase gear. The people that play Guild Wars 2 aren't looking to raid. That's why they're playing the game. So for you to say the game is being released incomplete totally misses the point of why people are attracted to this game in the first place.
Telling me that because of the payment model they can not compete is a pretty horrible way to make me want to even play this game. Hearing Soon(tm) from a company financed by NCSoon does not exactly inspire confidence in your audience.
I consider it incomplete and I am not alone. We are not doubting GW2 because of the payment model and fans of the game need to get that through their heads. There is no legitimate reason to get rid of 20+ man instance raiding content. I see nothing that prevents GW2 from being taken seriously as a pve raiding game and a pvp raiding game.
The raiding option is repeating a content till you have new content. It is a curse if you play too much.
The "non raiding" option is to do different, not necessarily gear progressive, content and move on. It sounds like they intend the game to open up new, but not gear-stat aspect, options of "progression", Just move on to the next content.
None option is perfect, but honestly, after repeating myself enough times in WoW, I am staying away for that kind of raid for now. For now.
No community at endgame would mean disaster, it's an MMO, if everyone reaches endgame and quits who's going to be around to buy expansions? An MMO without players is no MMO at all.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
wow you make a strong good point.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Not for me, 20man raid is too much a burden these days. Just finding 20 idle person to meet regularly every week and run the same thing every week is too much chore. The need to have backup players, the need to lay off excess if everyone logs on, the need to rotate, maintain roster, pre-sign up, plan for how many of what class to bring. Too much hassle for a game.
Maybe I am too old, maybe I take games to casually. I have enough of my share of military-run raiding.
5man raids are good. Respec and multi-role is even better, so I do not need to maintain a tank alt, a healer alt, a dps alt.
Very true. Though raiding is not the only way to build a community, nor is that enough on its own.
Ah but I said nothing of raiding :P. I don't think I've ever raided before to be honest.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
As long as GW2 has something for my friends and I to do at end game that is fun I will quit WoW, killing the same bosses over and over for months on end is extreamly boring.
Because to be a "PvE raiding game" like the others would require setting up a treadmill for gear. And that's completely against Arena Net's design philosophies. There's a maximum values for armors and weapons, meaning at some point beyond 80, the only difference between one piece of gear and the next will be completely aesthetic.
Also, to fix your desperate need for end-game, it's expected that the Guild Wars 2's achievement system will function somewhat similar to the title system in Guild Wars 1, and leadership boards in PvP and Minigames may offer something akin to this.
Of course, this is pure speculation based on what was in the first game, but this was a very effective form of end-game progression where players would find their hunger for rewards based on time and effort (grind, but completely optional) satiated, without forcing others to do the same content just to stay competetive.
I want to confront something about your view of Raiding being nothing but a Grind and the only grind.
Well Raiding is similar to Dungeons,, but on a larger scale. Why are you ok with Dungeons being played over and over for some sort of reward,,, but not ok with Raid Dungeons doing the same thing but with larger scaled multiplayer gameplay?
the above poster also said it. "treadmill".
well how are Raid Dungeons, treadmill, and not the smaller scaled dungeons?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Your guild does whatever it wants to in GW2. It is no longer forced to get on the treadmill. GW2 is saying you no longer need to do this in order to get the best gear. Stop thinking about raiding like it's some mandatory thing and start thinking instead about what you find fun to do, and actually having absolutely no mandatory attendance on anything in the game.
Sure, you might destroy all this content in no time at all, but why? What is it giving you? Nothing. There is no longer any incentive to do it outside of your finding it fun.
Why does GW2 need to fill raids with all kinds of trash so it can draw out the experience making you invest 12-16 hours a week? Is that even healthy? And if you like that sort of thing, can't you get it from another game? Does GW2 have to be everything to everybody?
If your guild is online, you can take any 5 random people, regardless of class and do a dungeon. You can take any 10 people, regardless of class, and go roam around doing dynamic events. Regular DEs scale up to 10 people, bosses scale up to 100. You can even do higher level events if you want to challenge yourself even more. People can also make whatever challenges they want. Do dungeons as a speed run. Do it with only certain classes or weapons. Try them with only 4 people. It's not RNG combat, if you're good enough, you might be able to pull it off.
The emphasis of the game is on replayability. The game automatically scales you down when you do a DE or dungeon. At max level, the entire game's open world and dungeons are available to you at an appropriate level. New events are added or you might see ones you didn't see before. If it's 100 hours to cap and you can level any of the 5 races up and see different stuff, that's 500 hours not including PVP or all the other stuff. Play GW2 as a side game for 20 hours a week and you're good for 6 months. Should be plenty of expansion content by then.
Seriously, stop looking at it like it's raiding or nothing. Nobody is making you raid. Do whatever you want.
"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
Once again...people aren't playing GW2 for the raiding. No raiding doesn't mean there isn't going to be a community at endgame because those people aren't playing the game for that reason anyway. Like I stated above, there is pvp, dynamic events, instances, and personal story. There will also be plenty of reason to roll alts since ArenaNet is setting the game up to be a completely different experience every time through. If their dynamic events are what they claim they will be, and if their world is large enough and diverse enough, people will stick around.
What does raiding have to do with what I said? I was basically saying Anet does not have the luxury you seemed to be awarding them. The whole point of this game is to show they can run a fully featured B2P MMO. If they fail to hold a large number of players due to content limitation and the speed at which they address it, that experiment has failed.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
GW1 is very profitable through expansion packs, which many gamers buy.
GW2, oh well, we know when it comes to that stage.
Key distinction.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
If we follow OP's logic, then all games are in competition with each other.
This is true in some form but it doesn't accurately represent the entire truth.
Buying DA:O didn't influence me buying Mass Effect.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Developers are paid for by the content they develop, no matter what the business model. In a P2P game you get mandatory periodic content updates for $15 and still have to pay for an expansion every year or two. In GW1's system, there were expansions every 6 months to a year. These purchases were completely voluntary and even if you bought everything, it would be about half what you're paying for a sub.
A B2P game will sell vastly more boxes than an equivalent P2P. A B2P game doesn't need there to be a $15 transaction every month or even need everybody to buy everything in order to still turn a profit.
"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
Really depends on the player. I only play one game at a time, for example. Doesn't matter how much I pay for it.
In a way, the B2P model allows players to come and go more freely, so they aren't competing - even if you play something else, you can always go back on a whim. With a subscription fee, players are more likely to quit and move on for good, I think. Or again, maybe that's just me.
So in some ways, its like the P2P game is competing with every other P2P game and B2P games - while the B2P game isn't really facing the same competition in return. They don't have to worry about it, because people won't look at them with the same sense of exclusivity they see a subscription game with.
Just another reason B2P can be more profitable than it might seem. If they have a well thought out cash shop, that's just bonus. If it's well thought out enough though, a huge bonus.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
To my experiences though, 50% of those 11 mil players are whining and asking "Why is there only raiding for endgame?" - The same people have 9 alts besides their main character. If endgame is entertaining and "enough" why the heck would most players have a handful of alts? It's not the best model to have something as endgame that keeps you occupied 4 hours 3-4 days a week after you get max level, then you just hop onto the alt wagon or quit playing. Damn it, devs need to learn to create more and varying endgame PVE content than just the stupid raiding, though having no endgame content at all is the worst.
Well, it is partly true. GW2 will compete with the rest for the players time but it is far more likely that a GW2 player will either use GW2 as game they play once in a while on the side then someone having another P2P game.
I know a lot of people that play Wow for raiding and play GW2 for it's competetive PvP, I am sure that group will be even larger with GW2. Some people just love raiding for the best gear in the game but many of them also dislike what gear do to PvP balance.
On the other hand for general gamers that just want a good MMO to play GW2 will compete for the players time and money just like any P2P or F2P game would.
So it wont compete for people that just want a alt game to play once in a while or a skill based PvP game.
I'm pretty sure that there will be few ppl in your 60 man guild that will be glad for game that doesn't force them to live on shedule for end game PvE. Yes GW2 will not be for dedicated raiders like you and thats perfectly fine, but there is a lot of ppl who are glad to not be forced into raiding to end game PvE. You don't need guilds like Paragon or Vodka. Why do you think I need them ?
60 man PvE raiding guilds will be nonsense in gw2. Big deal, so guilds like you will split to smaller groups of player who actualy like to play together and are not just forced to be together becouse they need to do some content.
Your argument about destroing end game 5 mans in less than month is pointless - good raiding guilds do the same with end game raiding content too (unless there are some artificial blocks to do it )
i honestly think that the main reason why anyone would buy GW2 is strictly for the PVP, or in this case, the WvWvW PVP... the PVE is just something to do between battles, if at all.. as has already been pointed out, there are quite a few games out already that handle PVE better anyway, the huge advantage that GW2 has, is that there is no monthly sub, which means you can play X game however much you like, and then hop onto GW2 for a few rounds of PVP... players can pretty much afford to 'cherry pick' which type of content they want these days, GW2 just makes this easier by being B2P.. which is why i don't see GW2 as being a 'competitor' in the MMO market, its almost like an add-on for whatever game your into, PVP in WoW for instance is fairly rubbish, so playing WoW for the PVE and slipping over onto GW2 for the PVP fix is definitely a valid option, i could realistically see the same kind of thing happening for SW;TOR... rather than people not understanding why a B2P MMO like GW2 isnt in direct competition, i would ask, why would GW2 not be considered an asset that 'completes' the WoW - SW;TOR experience..