One thing i like about MMOs is that they aren't platform games.
Me too, actually.
Lucky for us that this is all purely optional content, isn't it?
Arena-net will make sure the rewards not important. I mean they would never leave the GW2 equivalent of a Bone Dragon Staff in some old box in a ruin; would they?
I hate platforming but unless I do it I'll never know what I missed.
But to have artificial game mechanics like some of the crap you had to do in SWTOR (like waiting forever for something to come by to jump on to take you to the datacron) isn't fun and in my opinion isn't really exploring in a way consistent with the game world. I hope GW2 doesn't make the same mistake...
My wife and I waited for 30 minutes for that balloon to show up. During that time, a few other people showed up for the same thing. We dueled, compared gear, talked shit, /danced. Got on the baloon, talked about pvp, class balance, my wife fell off, we pulled her back up. Told jokes, laughed. Got to the Jawa vehicle tank lookin thing. Got our datacrons. By then there were 9 of us. We decided to take on the world boss. Got a few more people to join. After that a few of us went and got the rest of the datacrons on the planet. The one on mos ila was rough. But when I got there, I could pull up the ones that couldnt make it onto the roof. By the end of the day, I added three more people to my friends list and I still group up with them from time to time.
Some people may see a worthless time sink. Others see potential for emergent gameplay.
The same arhuments is used for camping and grinding and forced grouping and basically anything which makes you sit and do nothis for x hours. Sorry but getting to know people in game isn;t that hard as long as you use chat. forcing people to sit and do nothing to force socialising is dumb idea.
Rarely if ever are gimicks like this successful, for two reasons:
1) They are almost always clunky versions of what might be fun in a game that focused on it. Examples: bowling in GTA4, horseshoes in Red Dead, datacrons in SWTOR, climbing the wood lattice in Rift for that pick, etc
2) They are immersion breaking. Sure, mini-games in Mario Party or something are fine, but in an RPG if these mechanics don't feel immersive then they simply are like "Oh, there is a jumping puzzle for no reason that I need to do to get some bonus"
But that is just my opinion of course. I wish an MMO would take itself seriously regarding lore and gameplay mechanics. Seems these mini-games are becoming more popular (Rift, SWTOR, and now GW2).
If dungeons full of monster is fine so should dungeons with traps and physical challenges.
If you really think about it only a madman would build any kind of dungeon.
I'm all for traps and physical challenges that make sense. In fact, traps and puzzles in my mind are amazingly underused in MMOs. But thoughtful traps and puzzles they need to be, in such a way that you actually feel like they belong there. If GW2 can do this in an immersive way I'm all for it. I'm just going by my experiences in other games that have implemented mini-games: all of them were failed attempts in my mind for the above two reasons...
No matter how amazing a puzzle is, it will be boring the 4th time you do it. If GW2 proves me wrong, I will take off my hat.
Rarely if ever are gimicks like this successful, for two reasons:
1) They are almost always clunky versions of what might be fun in a game that focused on it. Examples: bowling in GTA4, horseshoes in Red Dead, datacrons in SWTOR, climbing the wood lattice in Rift for that pick, etc
2) They are immersion breaking. Sure, mini-games in Mario Party or something are fine, but in an RPG if these mechanics don't feel immersive then they simply are like "Oh, there is a jumping puzzle for no reason that I need to do to get some bonus"
But that is just my opinion of course. I wish an MMO would take itself seriously regarding lore and gameplay mechanics. Seems these mini-games are becoming more popular (Rift, SWTOR, and now GW2).
If dungeons full of monster is fine so should dungeons with traps and physical challenges.
If you really think about it only a madman would build any kind of dungeon.
I'm all for traps and physical challenges that make sense. In fact, traps and puzzles in my mind are amazingly underused in MMOs. But thoughtful traps and puzzles they need to be, in such a way that you actually feel like they belong there. If GW2 can do this in an immersive way I'm all for it. I'm just going by my experiences in other games that have implemented mini-games: all of them were failed attempts in my mind for the above two reasons...
No matter how amazing a puzzle is, it will be boring the 4th time you do it. If GW2 proves me wrong, I will take off my hat.
Perhaps, but think these are more of a distraction then anything. It's a nice optional way to diversify the experience. I imagine that they would get kind of old if you made an effort do them all in a short period of time, but there are enough other things to do in this game to keep them spaced out.
Rarely if ever are gimicks like this successful, for two reasons:
1) They are almost always clunky versions of what might be fun in a game that focused on it. Examples: bowling in GTA4, horseshoes in Red Dead, datacrons in SWTOR, climbing the wood lattice in Rift for that pick, etc
2) They are immersion breaking. Sure, mini-games in Mario Party or something are fine, but in an RPG if these mechanics don't feel immersive then they simply are like "Oh, there is a jumping puzzle for no reason that I need to do to get some bonus"
But that is just my opinion of course. I wish an MMO would take itself seriously regarding lore and gameplay mechanics. Seems these mini-games are becoming more popular (Rift, SWTOR, and now GW2).
If dungeons full of monster is fine so should dungeons with traps and physical challenges.
If you really think about it only a madman would build any kind of dungeon.
I'm all for traps and physical challenges that make sense. In fact, traps and puzzles in my mind are amazingly underused in MMOs. But thoughtful traps and puzzles they need to be, in such a way that you actually feel like they belong there. If GW2 can do this in an immersive way I'm all for it. I'm just going by my experiences in other games that have implemented mini-games: all of them were failed attempts in my mind for the above two reasons...
No matter how amazing a puzzle is, it will be boring the 4th time you do it. If GW2 proves me wrong, I will take off my hat.
Perhaps, but think these are more of a distraction then anything. It's a nice optional way to diversify the experience. I imagine that they would get kind of old if you made an effort do them all in a short period of time, but there are enough other things to do in this game to keep them spaced out.
Yes it all depends on how often they use this feature. Should be used sparsely like salt, if you ask me.
And no the safety dance in WoW was not fun! (that's for someone that said it was). Ok maybe i hated it because i sucked at it.
Rarely if ever are gimicks like this successful, for two reasons:
1) They are almost always clunky versions of what might be fun in a game that focused on it. Examples: bowling in GTA4, horseshoes in Red Dead, datacrons in SWTOR, climbing the wood lattice in Rift for that pick, etc
2) They are immersion breaking. Sure, mini-games in Mario Party or something are fine, but in an RPG if these mechanics don't feel immersive then they simply are like "Oh, there is a jumping puzzle for no reason that I need to do to get some bonus"
But that is just my opinion of course. I wish an MMO would take itself seriously regarding lore and gameplay mechanics. Seems these mini-games are becoming more popular (Rift, SWTOR, and now GW2).
If dungeons full of monster is fine so should dungeons with traps and physical challenges.
If you really think about it only a madman would build any kind of dungeon.
I'm all for traps and physical challenges that make sense. In fact, traps and puzzles in my mind are amazingly underused in MMOs. But thoughtful traps and puzzles they need to be, in such a way that you actually feel like they belong there. If GW2 can do this in an immersive way I'm all for it. I'm just going by my experiences in other games that have implemented mini-games: all of them were failed attempts in my mind for the above two reasons...
No matter how amazing a puzzle is, it will be boring the 4th time you do it. If GW2 proves me wrong, I will take off my hat.
Perhaps, but think these are more of a distraction then anything. It's a nice optional way to diversify the experience. I imagine that they would get kind of old if you made an effort do them all in a short period of time, but there are enough other things to do in this game to keep them spaced out.
Yes it all depends on how often they use this feature. Should be used sparsely like salt, if you ask me.
And no the safety dance in WoW was not fun! (that's for someone that said it was). Ok maybe i hated it because i sucked at it.
I never did the safety dance thing. I do appreciate random disctractions, though. Like the Plants vs Zombies thing WoW had after Cataclysm. I liked that it was easy, and not meant to be some difficult time sink. Hopefully the ones in GW2 won't get out of hand.
Comments
Arena-net will make sure the rewards not important. I mean they would never leave the GW2 equivalent of a Bone Dragon Staff in some old box in a ruin; would they?
I hate platforming but unless I do it I'll never know what I missed.
The same arhuments is used for camping and grinding and forced grouping and basically anything which makes you sit and do nothis for x hours. Sorry but getting to know people in game isn;t that hard as long as you use chat. forcing people to sit and do nothing to force socialising is dumb idea.
oh god.. the boss that ended our T3 raiding experience
but only because we had just moved and out internet was so bad we couldn't make one dance move 
No matter how amazing a puzzle is, it will be boring the 4th time you do it. If GW2 proves me wrong, I will take off my hat.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Perhaps, but think these are more of a distraction then anything. It's a nice optional way to diversify the experience. I imagine that they would get kind of old if you made an effort do them all in a short period of time, but there are enough other things to do in this game to keep them spaced out.
Yes it all depends on how often they use this feature. Should be used sparsely like salt, if you ask me.
And no the safety dance in WoW was not fun! (that's for someone that said it was). Ok maybe i hated it because i sucked at it.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
I never did the safety dance thing. I do appreciate random disctractions, though. Like the Plants vs Zombies thing WoW had after Cataclysm. I liked that it was easy, and not meant to be some difficult time sink. Hopefully the ones in GW2 won't get out of hand.