Is GW2 the summation of all that is wrong with mmo's?

LittleBoot

Originally posted by GuyClinch

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.

 

Again I am glad you enjoy it.  

They care very much whether people play the living story, which is why they are moving away from it and towards larger patches/ expansion.  (This is how wages, bills and dividends are paid).   

I dislike much of what you listed above but different strokes for different folks- pointless rehashing my initial post in response.  

d_20

GW2 is what it is. That means, for me, it's the best b2p filler mmo on the market. I'm playing it now and having fun. I've certainly got my box price worth out of it. I don't have any mmorpg to play right now. Of course, there are a lot, but none that would be a long term game for me. So GW2 fits the bill till "The Next Great Game" comes out this year, whatever that is.

 

I also duck into SWTOR from time to time, but it's in a similar category for me. I jump in for some quick pvp now and then. But it doesn't have action combat, so I still tend to spend more time in GW2. Rift could be a similar type of thing for pvp. Sometimes binge on Defiance or PS2.

 

Basically, I'm looking for a game to be a long-term game (I hope it's ESO). Till then, I'm glad GW2 is around. It's not the love of my life, but it's nice to have FWOS.

immodium

Like Warhammers public quest, I think dynamic events are a step in the right direction and can be improved upon immensley.

Also liked the down leveling mechanic and IMO should be in all MMO's. Also liked how best gear was craftable.

 

It was a very average MMO IMO.

blacksun23

I enjoyed GW2 a lot, but I wholeheartedly agree about the lackluster patches and the separated zones with loading screens to other areas as well as the uninteresting story(never finished it, voice acting was sub par apart from Rytlock, Zojja and Eir, I guess the whole Destiny's Edge was done right). Disagree with the combat tho, even with the limited skill options and unchangeable weapon skills coupled with only 5 active class skills, was pretty darn fun. Classes being able to go for nearly any role would be a plus too imo, cause that way no one rants and cries about we need XX or too many XX. Thats me I guess

Seelinnikoi

Originally posted by Comaf

With your post you will get the folks that enjoy this sort of game and feel offended because it's like making fun of a fat guy eating at McDonald's. He knows it's just wrong but he loves to fulfill his food cravings at the most basic level.  Hey - it's their choice. 

You might want to see this documentary and learn a thing or two.

GuyClinch

Originally posted by LittleBoot

Originally posted by GuyClinch

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.

 

Again I am glad you enjoy it.  

They care very much whether people play the living story, which is why they are moving away from it and towards larger patches/ expansion.  (This is how wages, bills and dividends are paid).   

I dislike much of what you listed above but different strokes for different folks- pointless rehashing my initial [post in response.  

I gather that you are a WoW player. So was I. I played ALOT of WoW. I been playing WoW since Vanilla - not to brag or anything I was mostly casual. I didn't raid Naxx but I remember wiping alot on BRD - that kind of thing.

Its hard for WoW players to wrap their head around GW2. initially I was disappointed and barely played it but eventually my g/f kept playing it and I started to get into it again. I discovered I had really understimated it. The thing about GW2 is that its really a modern MMO. Its not designed to be this all encompassing life changing MMO. Its an MMO for guys who don't really love MMOs. Whereas WoW was the game for people who have alot of time to spend on an MMO.

LittleBoot

Originally posted by GuyClinch

Originally posted by LittleBoot

Originally posted by GuyClinch

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.

 

Again I am glad you enjoy it.  

They care very much whether people play the living story, which is why they are moving away from it and towards larger patches/ expansion.  (This is how wages, bills and dividends are paid).   

I dislike much of what you listed above but different strokes for different folks- pointless rehashing my initial [post in response.  

I gather that you are a WoW player. So was I. I played ALOT of WoW. I been playing WoW since Vanilla - not to brag or anything I was mostly casual. I didn't raid Naxx but I remember wiping alot on BRD - that kind of thing.

Its hard for WoW players to wrap their head around GW2. initially I was disappointed and barely played it but eventually my g/f kept playing it and I started to get into it again. I discovered I had really understimated it. The thing about GW2 is that its really a modern MMO. Its not designed to be this all encompassing life changing MMO. Its an MMO for guys who don't really love MMOs. Whereas WoW was the game for people who have alot of time to spend on an MMO.

Not since 2007 but many mmo's since.  

Muke

Originally posted by GeezerGamer

 

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. 

Get ready for a shocker: there are people out there that think WoW is a crappy game and do not like it one bit, and applaud developers not trying to copy the WoW template.

rastapastor

For over 8 years im observing strange thing...the more game is hated the better it is . Ppl just like to complain, thats our nature

zwei2

Originally posted by rastapastor
For over 8 years im observing strange thing...the more game is hated the better it is . Ppl just like to complain, thats our nature

Rather, the more the game is hated, the more popular it is. Simply because more people know about the game. Not necessary better though.

 

In a better wording, GW2 innovates ways to be a different MMO, but not necessary a better MMO. That is why GW2 is still popular as it appeals to a bigger gaming audience.

Doogiehowser

Originally posted by LittleBoot

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?  

No matter how much you or i dislike the game fact is that a lot of people are still playing it and ANET is making profit and going forward with development. If it was really as bad as you say then it would have crashed and burned a long time ago.

I too didn't last long in GW2 but that doesn't mean GW2 is summation of all that is wrong with MMOS. You are exaggerating .

Doogiehowser

[mod edit]

DamonVile

I think it had just about everything I'm not looking for in an mmo.

Fast travel made the world seem instanced. 

Non trinity classes made everything feel like a zerg.

The weapon leveling thing sounded really cool but once actually playing I thought " oh that's it ? I thought that would take longer "

The story was meh. I never really cared about what was going on. Nothing about it made me want to see what came next. It was just another quest.

The hearts system I found wasn't group friendly. Because my kills didn't count for group members we would often enter an area and just split up and kill what we needed. It ended up being more of a race to see who could finish first rather than a group experience at all.

The popularity of the game shows there are people who want very different things than I do, but for me it was one of the worst mmos I played last year.

azzamasin

Originally posted by Skeeter50
The worst "mmo" I ever played.

Funny seeing it is one of my best MMO's ever played.  Only negative for me was the lack of dungeon finder before I lost interest and found another game.

eldaris

---

Originally posted by LittleBoot
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?  

---

1.Amateurish story - true,personal story was quite bad at least the asura one. It started well then went downhill after the death of a certain character. I tried sylvari but gave up fast, too cliché. Most mmos have awful story, I find even wow lore to be bad, unoriginal and a rehash of the "noble savage" ideas. Maybe The secret world or SWTOR have better stories but those games have a lot more problems than GW2 in my opinion.

2.Rectangular areas - yes,zone design is bad and even worse are the loading screens. Problem is that only recent mmo which I played and didn't have loading screens was TERA so sadly GW2 is nothing new here. I still remember warhammer world which had one of the worst designed maps,AOC where you could see great vistas in the distance but you could not get close to them,etc.For good mmo worlds you have to go back to older ones. At least GW2 developers tried to make a complete world,colorful(unlike warhammer and the dark grey world - because serious mmorpgs don't need color), big enough and with a different starting area for every race unlike Rift.

3.Trivial quests - I would have preferred a classic quest system with some dynamic events but this aside, trivial in what way ? Not very interesting written - I can agree with that. But if you are a fan of mob grinding complaining about quests as an alternative - no,thanks. Mob grinding as a main xp source is mostly gone and thankfully (even if some "old school gamers" still have dreams otherwise) will never return in an AAA mmo.

4.Puzzles - at least GW2 has something different compared to other mmos and only kill,kill,kill mindset.

5.Classes - not a fan of lack of trinity too but I quite enjoy my engineer and just started a necromancer which looks fun enough too. At least in GW2 is still possible to die while questing compared to other mmos which nerfed the leveling experience a little too much so players are pushed to max level to be bored by usual raid grind.

6.Fast travel - no argument here, I dislike fast travel unless it takes plays in the game world by gryphon (wow,eq2),horse (lotr) etc and it is not instant.

7.Living story - again, story is not good. But it's not really different than the way Rift added content which was so praised on forums. By content they meant a different skin invasion and some lore as bad as GW2 (yes,I know they also added some new land and quest but unlike GW2, Rift started with a really small world and even now still have 1 leveling path for each faction)

So no, GW2 is not that bad, I would say is much better than other hyped mmos like SWTOR or Rift. Maybe what upsets so many people is that they can't grind for weeks to get some epic armor and one shot people in pvp and then brag on forums about their "pvp skills" ? Or play the dictator...sorry, guild leader in a raid guild ? Because there are much worse AAA mmorpgs out there than GW2, with smaller world,bad lore, instant travel,limited classes, slow and boring combat.

Kyleran

I have a vision of what makes a good MMORPG, with a set of features and s designs that make it enjoyable for me.

GW2 is almost the antithesis of everything I like, almost a total opposite in most areas.

My tastes are not representative of the greater market, so I can't say what they created is wrong, just not the sort of game for me.

Ikonoclastia

Originally posted by MightyUnclean

 

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??

Lol in MMO lore it's a sock that you use to poop in so while camping a rare world dragon or being engaged in a 10 hour dungeon raid you didn't have to bio break

Gaia_Hunter

How can GW2 be the summation of all that is wrong with mmo's if it is actually quite different from most of them?

Soki123

Playing GW2 made me dumber. After a few months of rehab, I got me smarts back, ah shit, it s there for life now I guess.

g0m0rrah

I wouldn't mind gw2 if they used the classes and skills from guild wars. My favorite part of guild wars was coming up with unique ways to combine skills and they shit all over it in gw2. It seems every developer prefers simplicity over having to take the time to balance the classes.

Apraxis

Originally posted by LittleBoot

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?  

I would still say WoW is the summation of all that is wrong with mmo's, but GW2 may be a close runner up.

Without naming all those even more terrible made and executed clones of those two games.

Zzulu

 All I know is that I really looked forward to the game and then I could barely muster the strength  to level to the cap. For whatever reason I could not develop an attachment to either the world or my character. The lore didn't grab me, the gameplay didn't grab me. I was not immersed and I did not feel like spending time in the game.

 

It just wasn't fun, at all.

FlyByKnight

As much as I despise how ArenaNet bait and switched the entire player base and show continuous examples of oblivious decision making I wouldn't say GW2 represents all that is wrong with MMOs. There are too many things that are good about it to put it in that category.

 

I understand this is the internet and people will make their point by exaggerating at cartoonish levels.

Siug

In my opinion GW2 is a very mediocre MMO and just bad RPG, so I agree with the OP. Leveled 2 characters up to 80 and rolled a few more but just could not get attached to any of them. Cities are well done though compared to most other MMOs.

Novusod

I would say RIFT and SWTOR are better examples of all that is wrong with MMOs. These games basically had a contest to see how many WoW features they could copy. Everything from the solo friendly open world, quest hub hopping, fast travel, instances dungeons, dungeon finders, instanced PvP, raid finders, easy respecs, and then raid more instances at end game. This formula IS what is wrong with MMOs. It is stale and no mmo veterans really want to put up with it any more.

 

The problem is really rooted in open world design. At some point developers of all big budget MMOs decided that dangerous open worlds were passe and replaced them with candyland style playgrounds with zero danger. All the danger was locked up in instances. Where are the rampaging giants and cyclopses? Where are the mobs that would chase for miles if you got agro? Where is the danger and the exploration? Lineage II had the best open world in this respect. It was huge, completely seamless, had hard mobs mixed in with solo ones. Or what about enemies that would retreat and call for reinforcements? Never see that in a modern MMO but Lineage 2 had all this in 2003. Then there was the PvP on top of that. Or better yet look at SWG and see how they did open world. There were player made cities and camps, non instanced housing, and dynamically created world that changed over time.

 

Open world's like in SWTOR actually make their game worse. It has gotten to the point I would rather play a good dungeon crawler that is more group focused than solo in an open world with no dangers and no exploration.