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Is GW2 the summation of all that is wrong with mmo's?
LittleBoot
Member Posts: 326
Amateurish story, horrible rectangular areas; short term distraction rather than long term immersion; trivial quests; pathetic puzzles; jack of all, master of none classes; fast travel that is so ubiquitous as to render any sense of a world redundant. And then compound it all by rolling out amateurish living stories rather than fixes, dlc's, patches or expansions (which they could charge for).
Is GW2 the summation of all that went wrong with mmo's since 2004?
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Comments
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
haha no hyperbole used. In fact not even close, it might have been slightly emotive if we are going to use kindergarten terms. But hyperbolic it certainly was not.
Awwwww,
Now you've gone and done it!
You just had to go and swat the bee's nest with a broomstick!
You two lovebirds are hilarious.
Guildwars came out 8 years ago and was a pretty popular game. It was designed to be casual friendly. Guess what? GW2 was designed to be like Guild Wars only new and improved. And it seems pretty popular.
So eight years later you are blaming a game that is a copy of that game, as being the sumation of EVERYTHING that is wrong with MMO's.
Hypebole is right!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Sure GW2 isn't perfect. As I've said before, I think ANET went too far in trying to not be like WoW and tried to re invent too many wheels. But I still like the game.
However, The OP said "since 2004" That is where I will argue. It's entirely subjective, but I happened to enjoy the Genre from 2004. In fact 2004-2008 were this genre's best years IMO. WoW was then and still is one of the best MMO currently on the market. Sure it's slid downhill since then in many ways, but in others, it's gotten better.
So what exactly is it that summates what was wrong in 2004?
Ahem 9 years ago. And we are not talking about Gw 1 unless in the context of how poorly its sequel compares.
I agree regarding WOW, but the foundation which made wow popular/successful was built in 2004. It then went on to grow from 2004 - 2010 (in 2010 it opened up a whole new market in china). It is reasonable to say that wow vanilla and TBC were the height of its success, and the mechanics that made those successful are a million miles away from the so called wow clones or what wow has become.
GW2 is the worst sort of wow clone, in that it learnt no lessons and instead tried so hard to be different in the most pathetically skin-deep manner it just turned out shit.
Pretty much on the point there.
The story mode is bad and probably the most criticized aspect of GW2
The zones are almost all rectangular in shape
The Living Story events added since launch are short term in focus as they are temporary
The jump puzzles may be alright for an MMO but compared to a platforming game they are bad
The classes do have a "jack of all trades" feel because they were meant to be that way so they could eliminate the "holy trinity"
The teleporting fast travel does devalue the game world because you just pop from one area to next with little thought as to where it is or why its there
So, if the conspiracy is telling the truth then theory confirmed.
Well said, Sir
So maybe it could have been better in certain ways. But it is hardly the epitome of a bad MMO. It is just the epitome of an MMO that YOU happen to hate with a passion.
Time to find a new hobby I think.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Pff, "since 2004".
The trend started back when mmo's first began. The experience was just new and exciting back then so it was less noticeable. Escapism and immersion might be what attracts players in the first place, but community is why they stay.
GW2 is the ultimate casual game. You can essentially AFK to 80 geared, not that that's really the goal as you can pretty much do anything you want pre-80. You're never actually forced into a challenge if you don't want to be, either in PVE or PVP. You can choose to be just one more face in the blob/zerg.
It wasn't like that in, say, Everquest. But you know what? My fondest memories of EQ are grouping for camps or grouping to explore dungeons or grouping to sack a city. It wasn't the game itself (or, god forbid, solo'ing and waiting 10min. for my mana pool to regenerate), but shooting the shit with other players. I would much rather, sometimes at least, zerg than go it alone, even if my contribution isn't as felt. Some people enjoy that, and so in those terms, GW2 -for them- is a resounding success (and it makes a great filler).
You aren't forced to play it, however, and I think the "summation of all that is wrong with mmo's" is a tad bit melodramatic. It's not like it was the "WoW-killer" or anything that creates much of an impact for future mmo development. If you want to blame anyone, blame WoW for having made turning the leveling experience into a facebook-esque minigame a successful endeavor that others want to copy.
Its pretty much hobbyist vs non-discriminating consumer. Unfortunately us hobbyists are in the minority. The world is becoming more and more non-discriminating when it comes to games, or pretty much any product that 'looks' like it might provide a quick fix of enjoyment.
We're I rich like Richard Branson I'd create a game that had the depth, lore, secrets, puzzles, persistence, reward for extensive effort (if you played EQ 1 remember the earlier Epic Quest Weapons), poop socking requirement and so on that a real electronic game based hobby needs.
But of course I'm not, and any sane person with a lot of money and who develops games can look at the complexity and associated cost of the above vs creating another Elder Fantasy Guild of Aion War Craft combination with cartoon graphics, insta respawn level to max in a week item shop and its a non-brainer:
Create a relatively easy to code and finance game for 10 million+ casuals who'll buy in game items or create a complex game hard to find backers for for discriminating players who'd rather take a year to build an uber megaguild and poopsock for a non-purchasable Orb of ExtremeRPGHobbyst than join a random queue of other randoms and buy the same orb for 5 bucks in real life cash.
What's a poopsock??
It is funny, obviously funders model their revenue/ return on wow because you would have to be some sort of idiot not to. This course has had very mixed results over recent years (there are many arguments over the success of SWTOR but imo it clearly did not live up to expectations). I think the time has come whereby a savvyy investor (with a lot of freedom) may just recognise that a smaller investment in a more specialised mmo might just pay off.
I clicked on the thread expecting to read a unique perspective from the OP...
and pretty much received the "what I like is right, what you like is wrong" rant...
Amateurisch story, matter of opinion, I guess SWTOR is in the same leugue then. You're perfectly capable of not playing it if you think it's that bad.
The rectangular areas are there, the borders look pretty artificial, but that doesn't make the game horrible.
Short term distraction, that's great, I can only playing a few hours a day anyway. I don't need a replacement for my real life and I pitty those who do.
Jack of all trades, suits me better than spending an hour or more looking for tank, looking for healer. It may be detrimental to the online "social contact", but for a quick in and out it can't be beat.
I guess you could prefer to run around the world for hours on end, and you can if you like that, but it's hardly fun, nor does it make an MMO good.
Pathetic puzzles, well in this YouTube era, show me something more challenging that'll appeal to the masses, if that's what you're looking for. You probably can't make an elitist game and have it appeal to enough people to make it worth the effort.
The Living Stories, I don't like those much, rather poor quality throw-away content. Sometimes ok, sometimes, not so great. The concept of Living Stories should take a backseat to class balance and a real expansion.
GW2 is, to me, certainly not the summation of all that went wrong with MMO's. For me it's still the best game out there. If you want something else out of MMO's then look for a game that provides that instead of blaming GW2 for not serving to YOUR needs.
I think GW2 does a number of things right. I'm over the rectangular maps. While I prefer WoW's world setup, GW2 also has a big, detailed world with visual diversity that requires substantial effort to explore fully. That means more to me than how the maps are bounded. GW2 also has a robust system for the customization of your gear's appearance with lots of dyes and visual diversity to mostly tasteful armor designs. It's actually unusual to run into players in GW2 with a virtually identical gear appearance. I think many players value that individuality. I've also quite enjoyed ArenaNet's holiday events and the overall cooperative nature of play.
The living story, the living story as an excuse to release buggy and/or unbalanced content, the story elements in general, the failure to make most dynamic events more than just "twenty-minutelies" that don't require a '!' and turn in, the generally poorly-realized, stationary metabosses, an effort-reward mechanism that is way out of whack, sometimes rewarding you for doing almost nothing and other times relying on the gambler's trap to keep you playing even though the reward no longer makes up for the investment (thinking of the difficult jumping puzzles, the legendary grind, the limited-time-only living story achievements and rewards, etc.) ... these things ended turning me off he game in the end.
I am glad you enjoy it.
GW2 is likely the best MMO ever made - though I do think future MMOS will surprass it this year.
#1. Best graphics. Run GW2 on a good monitor with all the options turned up - its visually stunning. It's like a very nice oil painting. Not only that the but the character customization is great.
#2. Great world. The zones might be rectangular but they are visually diverse and interesting. There are little 'secret' paths you can find while exploring. You can just wander around and check out all kinds of stuff. Its not as bleak as Skyrim but the cities are bigger and more grand. WoW isn't bad but GW2 has them beat. It has great music too. It doesn't feel EQ bit but its sweet.
#3. Best leveling/questing experience. I really liked early WoW. They did a nice job with the questing. its still better then most MMOs. But IMHO GW2 has got them beat there too. Once you figure out its all about exploring you can just go from zone to zone - do some events - grab some waypoints - and fight some champions if you want a challenge. It's totally up to you - no artificial quest 'path' to follow. Its relaxing and chilled if you like or quite hard if you prefer. There are so many cool caves to check out and reas to go. Its really excellent. The best leveling experience of MMOs - bar none.
#4. REALLY nice combat. Yeah yeah at first you think oh man just hit any old buttons and kill mobs. But once you start filling out your talent build and studying what your weapons do you discover proper positioning and intelligent use of the skills can make your character peform much much better.
#5. Low negative experience. Its true GW2 can be played mostly solo Its true that its extremely casual you don't even need to worry about being a specific class. But its all about eliminating negative experience - even if it costs them some positive ones. Simply put no one gives the casuals alot of 'shit' in GW2. And that's because no one cares. Go grab that node - no one cares it still exists for you. Die fighting that world boss - no one cares - thats on you. Tag that mob - that's fine I can still gain expereince and even loot it. Smart. Go back to playing a 'regular' MMO and suddenly you get all kinds of negative experiences. People bitching that the healer/dps/tanks sucks. People bitching that CRZ guys stole their nodes. etc etc.
I feel kind bad for the people who hate GW2. They didn't give it a fair shake. ITs a bit like a book or movie. Every once in a while someone will skim through a book or watch a movie and then think 'eh' sucked.' But then a whole bunch of other people will rave and ooh and awww about it. Those same people will often re-read the book and discover that they were wrong. Maybe it was Hemingway's Farwell to Arms or maybe it was the movie True Romance.
Yeah GW2 is different. They don't particularly care that it doesn't last any sane person years and years. They know you will only show up for the living story or play not at all. They don't care very much about gear treadmills. They know that without a Holy Trinity they lose some depth.
But on balance if you look at all the good they have done its damn impressive. I played FFXIV right after it and OMG I couldn't get over how awful and clunky that game is. I was shocked. GW2 is at its hard the logical outgrowth of most of the changes World of Warcraft has been making. Its not really a WoW clone so much as the future of WoW with some extra anti-elitism thrown in.
THe good news is I think Wildstar and TESO (both of whom have bigger budgets so I gather) will surpass GW2. So even if you hate it - I Think you will want to check out those.
Also the personal story is not this horrible thing. Its easily better then FFXIV main quest line. And its easily skipped if you don't want to do it.