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My final conclusion about Guild Wars 2 MMORPG "Changes"
dzoni87
Member Posts: 541
Before i start, I want to clarify one thing: I am not MMORPG player anymore, on the opposite i lost my faith in them.
After i stopped to actively play WoW since some time before Cataclysm release, and after i tried a couple of "newly released" MMORPGs, i got distracted by this genre as a whole. Thing that got me turned off is that PvP and PvE started to count toward better gear stats, which in turn changed community completely. I can remember (eventhough many may not agree with me) that, even in early themepark days, all these games was more about cooperation and about challenging experiences. Now it seems that it is all about a level cap/gear racing.
After i read a couple of topics on this forum how those "changes" in Guild Wars 2 are pointless, how it is nothing new, how they went steps backward comparing to other MMO Behemoths, how will people get bored quickly, I came to conclusion that the only thing that matters to me is that they fixed a couple of things that i hated about MMORPGs and its all that matters to me.
They made gear progression more flat. Actually, this made me to think that i will start to enjoy instanced dungeons more, the way i did enjoyed them. By encountering bosses, challenges and other stuff, not by farming gear stats and Gear Score. As long as Dungeons are challenging and rest of the players dont rush trough the dungoeon conten i will be fine.
They made it so that PvP require skill, rather than gear and stats. Well this is most important to me. Anyone who played WoW back in the days of TBC can remember Druid Restokin with maxed-out resilience ratings (via gear), and similar Shaman builds later on. It all came to the point where you was steamrolled in BGs/Arenas untill you get more stats and green text boxes, then you were impossible to be beaten in the end. By having access to all of the gear in structured PvP, I think that I am satisfied so far.
They seems to put back RPG in MMORPG. Well, I still may be wrong on this, but as far as from what i saw of the personal story, i liked it so far. I will know more about this aspect as i start to play the game. After I add the Dungeon and DE encounters to this, I think that i may be able to enjoy my character in virtual world at last. In the end, I didnt disliked even static ! ? quests, on the contrary, I was in minority of idiots who actually readed Quests Boxes :P So, even if the DE turns out to be only Quests/Public Quests 2.0, i will be ok with that.
In the end of day, Guild Wars 2 will be another MMORPG, another Virtual World with rest of players that make it. Do they make innovative/revolutionary changes? Maybe, maybe not, but the fact is that they are fixing, or at least try to fix a couple of things that i despise of in modern-day MMORPGs. If this turned out to be true, i may return to genre afterall (well not the whole genre in general, but i will roll another MMORPG for longer time.
So in the end, I will feel free to put myself in "If you hate MMOs, you'll really want to check GW2" crowd.
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2
Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
Comments
Good post. I'm sick of the same things you are with the MMO genre. It looks like GW 2 is going a different direction than the other recent MMOs and is the game we've been waiting for. It should be fun.
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
I was already prepared to have a favourable opinion of the game, based only on my fondness for GW1. However, what hooked me and hooked me solidly were the things they wanted to fix about MMOs in general. They were things that had either bothered me for a while or that I outright loathed. Doing away with end-game raiding was a big one. The dull as hell quest-based level grind was another. But the biggest thing that drew my attention and landed me in the boat was a comment someone from ArenaNet made about understanding why solo players choose MMOs instead of SP games and catering the experience to them (us) too.
The fact that they acknowledged that there are people like myself that want to play the game was one thing. That they had tailored a game that allowed me to be involved with others without me being forced to give up my freedom and autonomy continuously, was music to my ears. All other games had either simplifed their games to make soloing easier, or they ignored us and made their games impossble to play with out having to hold hands with a bunch of strangers. GW2 seemed to strike the balance in between. This is what totally sold me on the game.
Later I learned more about that game that solidified my support, but those are the things that first drew me in and told me that this was the game I had been waiting for.
I wanted to add to, that I used to play MMORPGs for the same reason I enjoyed the single player RPGs and PnP RPGs. Many of people here call this "the journey". Only difference that put MMORPG from the single player ones is that you could bring friends and meet other people on the same journey. Nowadays, whenever i started MMORPG or returned to one that i played, everyone goes about "when will you made to destination" or "are you there yet, are you there yet, are you there yet?".
If GW2 put back the "journey" I will not care about how "revolutionary" or "innovative" will it be.
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2
Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
Exactly. Well except I am new to the genre and I've always liked the idea of the MMO (a world full of players you can meet along your journey), yet so many MMORPGs I've tried have focused on destination (level cap). When really the journey should be so compelling that you wouldn't want it to end. GW2 seems to embrace that latter, which is why ArenaNet chose to forgo the general shift in gameplay mechanics that usually occurs when a player hits level cap (progression raiding & tiered gear), but instead have more of the same. More Balanced PvP, more challenging dungeons, more dynamic events, more World v World.
So I don't care about buzzwords like "Innovative" & "Revolutionary" being thrown around, when in the end all that matters is whether it is enjoyable.
/chuckles.
Teleports are far more immersive I guess, what will you say when mounts are introduced then.
Teleports didnt break my immersion in skyrim, and taking it from how the game actually plays, mounts wouldnt be bad in WvW, but in PvE they would most likelly break the game
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
While i can understand their reason not to implement mounts and why can mounts be bad, no one said that they may not include them in some future time after launch.
On the other hand, i find the fly mounts to be bad for exploration-based RPGs and/or MMOs. For instance, Outland grew old quickly the moment i got my fly mount.
I learned my lesson that i never ever buy flying mount again if its not necessary (Tempest Keep, im looking at you >.>).
EDIT: i entered the word 'necessary' to sound less harsh
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2
Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
Thanks?
1000 gems? Wtf?
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Mounts would break immersion but teleports won't. Weirdest things you can read only on GW2 forums.
Although i am fine either way.
Usually, I like mounts and want to catch em all. But I don't think they will fit in GW2 and so am happy they are going with teleportation.
They probably don't want to add mounts because of WvW. Having a mount would be a serious advantage, and if mounts were so easily obtainable that everyone had them, then what's the point in mounts anyway?
I agree with the OP, GW2 looks like a step in the right direction for the evoluion of MMO's. For a few years evolution of MMO's stopped when cloning began, now a new child is born with supoerpowers to lead the charge into the future!
XD
Jeff Grubb have actually said that they have been "looking into mounts2 but that they wont be in from launch.
To me that sounds that they plan to give mounts a similar revamp as they have to underwater combat with a higher focus on combat and less on moving you from place A to B.
So yeah, people who hate mounts in all forms might get a nasty surprise for the first or second expansion.
Personally am I glad if they do them right, badly made mounts like Wows old non combat mounts sucks and I rather not have them at all. Either you do something good or not at all.
Flying mounts is something I hope they never add though, they completely m,esses up the game. I could live with a guild owned airship though as long as it is really slow. That would actually be cool.
I never said mounths would break immersion, they wouldn't.
But the way the game is setup, it just doesn't fit mounts, at least in the first 2 zones, you'd have to play it to understand tbh
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
Definitely agree on the flying mounts, they remove you from the worlds interactions, unless of course eagles and other players can attack you etc.
Yeah. This happened to me. In LOTRO it was not difficult to get the high-end gear/jewelry for raiding. And the treadmill didn't really exist as you went Annuminas or Helgorad if you were looking for 'set' armor. If you went a piecemiel build, you got pretty much every thing for that in the Book 2/early Book 3 quests.
Then they changed it... And I gear ground and gear ground and gear ground... And could not get the drops. Making it worse for me was I was a flex-player. Normally I was the over-controlling Guaradian main tank... But if someone didn't show up, I could run a Captain or LM (DPS or Heals) or a Champion (SH or DH) or a Mini or a Hunter... Gearing up those six, plus three in the pipeline (LM, Warden, Burg) just crushed me...
I wouldn't have minded the old way... Because you made very steady progress, usually a piece every day to every-other-day depending on skirmishes... But having to raid every week for the the chance of a token... With six characters... And three more on the way... Just burnt out on the grind for gear. Upgrade. Upgrade. Upgrade. That's all i was doing. Log on and grind gear. Log off. Next day, do the same thing... Two months of barely making progress in gear grinding and I walked away.
Yeah. A lot of people have a hard time understanding this concept. I like to solo. I like to socialize. But I don't want games to be so solo friendly and easy that the community dies an early death because there's never a reason to group. I ran my first SWTOR character up to 50 and the only reason I grouped was because there'd be a number of us waiting for a field-boss to respawn and we all needed the credit. I think I had 15, maybe 20 social points on my main. Even less with my alts... Just never needed to group...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Since this thread is about mounts now, I hope they do add them. But there is no speed bonus associated with them.
You know, that got me thinking. Before MMORPG's got big, they were mostly played by people that did play PnP RPGs. There is no "end game" there, you just get buddies together and had fun. Perhaps the problem with these people that view games as a race is that they never had anyone around to play D n D with.
Every mmo tells the potential customers what they wanna hear.
The pvp isn't player skill-based as much as they would like you to think. GW2 is just the new WoW of its time, in that it tries not to mess up as many of the same things as other current mmos do... but it does nothing great either.