[Column] Guild Wars 2: Is This the Game We Were Promised?

SBFord

I remember the day a when a friend showed me the original Guild Wars.  From that point on, I was hooked!  Cut to a few years later, and I’m still playing with my friends, and the second game is announced.  Obviously, since I was a fan of the original, news for a sequel was pretty exciting.  But once ArenaNet started to talk about what they were doing with Guild Wars 2, it sounded like they were making the perfect game.  

Read more of David North's Guild Wars 2: Is This the Game We Were Promised?

The first time we saw gameplay footage for Guild Wars 2, it made us believe that anything was possible for an MMO.

Crusades

Nope but this is pc gaming and there are no rules, if you don't like it, tough luck, go find something else

SamuraiXIV

The syncing of your level per zone is what killed it for me, cause no matter how strong and high level you be in every zone you go you're weak and low level again so it beats the purpose of leveling for me.

Keller

GW2 misses community content. You do not need a guild, only a few people on your friendlist and you are good to go.

 

Guildmissions? Just pay attention and you can join any guild for 2 hours, get your tokens and you can leave again. Next week they will even whisper you if you want to join again.

 

WvWvW? Join a zerg and you will rack in your points.

 

Big World Events? Lion Arch will be spammed if they need more hands. Otherwise watch the timer mods and see where the commander tag is on the map.

 

Huge World Events? Okay, these actually require some coordination. Tequatl Hunting Guild is a multi-server endeavour. Not a true guild. You join TS at set times, you will hear what server the party will be and 30 minutes later you will be getting your loot.

 

Small World Events? The dynamic quest hubs? 10 minutes later the hub is under attack again. Whatever you have done (solo) is undone and starts over and over and over.

 

Dungeons & Fractals? Only a few people on your friendlist required.

timeraider

Looking at it from an online stance, meh. Looking at it as if its an singleplayer/co-op ... 100% worth it.

dasX82

No and i dont know how they can keep this game for almost 2 years without a single real expansion.

sludgebeard

Wait that's where this article went? Normally when you have to pose the question "is this the game we wanted?" it normally ends with some sort of conjecture on why the game didn't come through with it's promises.

Instead this article is just posing a question without any sort of argument or internal disagreement and going "yes GW2 is nearly perfect."

Honestly with the amount of people who didn't enjoy GW2 and it's relative "soft bang" it made on release I can't believe the writer here wouldn't have put in some opposing viewpoints to back up his own opinion.

Foomerang

They promised 30+ mini games throughout all of the main cities, instanced housing to be a major part of the game, dynamic events were permanent (towns stay saved).

Something about swinging a sword over and over heh

Piscore

Gw2 in China is very popular check this

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2a1fdg/second_census_of_chinese_servers_from_july_3rd/

 

sludgebeard

Damn it foomarang, everytime I see you post I want to listen to Bungle haha

Professor_Retro

Originally posted by SamuraiXIV
The syncing of your level per zone is what killed it for me, cause no matter how strong and high level you be in every zone you go you're weak and low level again so it beats the purpose of leveling for me.

Leveling opens the doors to more content; once you're level 80, there's no bait-and-switch "Endgame" like other MMOs, it just means you can keep doing what you've been doing, without any restrictions on where you can go or what you can do.

 

The down-leveling means that you can go back and do the old content roughly how it was intended to be done; instead of walking into a village, pressing two buttons and nuking all the bandits from orbit, you have to fight them off just like you're a level 20 or 30 character. It keeps the content meaningful, rather than something you just steamroll because it's in your way. It also means going back to help friends or guild mates doesn't devolve into the "Did you get a hit in?" game where they just follow behind a max-level player pinging everything once.

 

Besides; gear downlevels too, but the amount of gear and the stat distribution doesn't change, so a fully geared level 80 character, even downleveled, is still much more powerful than a character of the appropriate level. They're just not so powerful that they kill things by looking at them (which is frankly kind of boring after a while).

 

Baitness

It does a lot of things right, but they skimped big time on writers, and the people in charge seem to be incapable.  Absolutely worth it on any sale price, but otherwise pass on this one.  The initial offering was pretty darn good, but past that the developers have no clue what they are doing.

 

Their lore is them throwing what they think are good ideas into a blender and chucking the pureed results on a canvas.  If you are kind you would say it has a lot of different ingredients - if you were honest you would say it looks like vomit.

 

Their living story is just what is included in other games major patches - minus a ton of the content, balance and bug fixes, and quality.  Make random things spawn in random places in large numbers, say the villain did it, call it a day!

 

Their esports push was awful, and their pvp/wvw as  a whole is run into the ground by them being clueless about their own game.  All I can hope is that at some point developers stop trying to force their goddamn esports down our throats - I get it, you want easy money with minimal to no effort on your part, but a game cannot get there without a solid core balance, good design, and competent developers.

 

At this point I think this game is far beyond saving, which is sad.  It did a lot of things very well but then rather address the flaws it had it continued to add to them.  I am disappointed, I really would have liked a stronger game to support sub-free MMORPGs, but this is not it.

askdaboss

Overall, it is a great game, and most of its promises were kept - in one way or another.

 

The problem is that everyone had a different idea of how these promises would be implemented specifically (obviously)... What is less obvious for people is that the way they envisioned things might not exactly be the way the developer envisioned things. Sprinkle some technical limitations on top of that, and you get a lot of dreamers that end up being disappointed.

 

These individuals with endless lists of items for their perfect MMO should be have moved on to where the grass is seemingly greener by now.

They will just keep flocking from game to game forever until their life ends.

Foomerang

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Originally posted by sludgebeard
Damn it foomarang, everytime I see you post I want to listen to Bungle haha

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Yessssss!

Shana77

Originally posted by SamuraiXIV
The syncing of your level per zone is what killed it for me, cause no matter how strong and high level you be in every zone you go you're weak and low level again so it beats the purpose of leveling for me.

I find it strange that you think that because to me the syncing of levelling is perhaps it's most powerful feature. What fun is it to be in a low level area where you can kill mobs by merely looking at them? The truth is you probably won't ever return to that area since there is nothing at reward and one hitting mobs like they are flies for no rewards is not something anyone finds entertaining. 

With Guild Wars 2's system, you can always return to the beginner area, to explore parts you didn't explore, or to help out a friend who just started the game, or find challenges you left behind on your first playthrough. 

But aside from those advantages, the biggest advantage really is that the level syncing allows you to carve your own path. In Wildstar for example you quickly start to outlevel areas when you are a completionist or when you do some pvp in between, and because you suddenly get so little experience from quests and mobs your forced to say bye bye to the area you are levelling in and move on to a higher level area. That to me kills a lot of the fun of questing. In Guild Wars 2 however, I can decide when to say bye bye myself. I can move onto another area, but if I like it here and want to explore more, I can stay around and carve my own path without being punished for it. 

That to me gives me much more freedom to enjoy my exploring and adventure, and that to me makes GW2 the best levelling experience in any game. 

asfaraslarry

Originally posted by SamuraiXIV
The syncing of your level per zone is what killed it for me, cause no matter how strong and high level you be in every zone you go you're weak and low level again so it beats the purpose of leveling for me.

This is one of the features I love about the game, and wish other games had it.  One off hand I can think of is Marvel Heroes, especially with their hard set range of 5 level content (other than story) options, it makes it hard to play with friends, especially if new friends start a year in, and you'd like to play your favorite characters with them, but can't (unless you prestige, then you lock that character 'down' until you can get back up again, which isn't the same as how it happens dynamically in GW2).  I love it.  I love that I can do stuff in Queensdale and it's still fun.  And frankly, my 80s in Exotic gear feel completely powerful in those zones compared to how they were when they were coming up on level.

caetftl

How can you say they delivered on most of the things discussed in the manifesto with a straight face?  They most certainly did not...

 

I have yet to see MMORPG.com write a valid review of gw2, it's always spinning it with the most blatantly obvious rose-tinted goggles. 

 

How are you going to give that title to your article, and then not really criticize or truly analyze whether it actually did or not, and just basically turn it into another advertisement for the game, does mmorpg have a quota they have to fill for anet or something? 

Foomerang

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Originally posted by asfaraslarry
Originally posted by SamuraiXIV The syncing of your level per zone is what killed it for me, cause no matter how strong and high level you be in every zone you go you're weak and low level again so it beats the purpose of leveling for me.

This is one of the features I love about the game, and wish other games had it.  One off hand I can think of is Marvel Heroes, especially with their hard set range of 5 level content (other than story) options, it makes it hard to play with friends, especially if new friends start a year in, and you'd like to play your favorite characters with them, but can't (unless you prestige, then you lock that character 'down' until you can get back up again, which isn't the same as how it happens dynamically in GW2).  I love it.  I love that I can do stuff in Queensdale and it's still fun.  And frankly, my 80s in Exotic gear feel completely powerful in those zones compared to how they were when they were coming up on level.

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I like how rift and ffxiv do it because its an option that you can choose to do or not do on the fly.

Ludwik

PvE and sPvP lived up to expectations. I think this modes were done well and continue to be developed well.

WvW is a bit of a letdown and seems to have been abandoned these days.

Sovrath

Originally posted by sludgebeard
Wait that's where this article went? Normally when you have to pose the question "is this the game we wanted?" it normally ends with some sort of conjecture on why the game didn't come through with it's promises.

Instead this article is just posing a question without any sort of argument or internal disagreement and going "yes GW2 is nearly perfect."

 

That's how I read it as well.

 

Chrisbox

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by sludgebeard
Wait that's where this article went? Normally when you have to pose the question "is this the game we wanted?" it normally ends with some sort of conjecture on why the game didn't come through with it's promises.

Instead this article is just posing a question without any sort of argument or internal disagreement and going "yes GW2 is nearly perfect."

 

That's how I read it as well.

 

^ MMORPG why you do dis

Lobotomist

GW2 is very very very far away from what was being promised.

Not only that "wish" features were scarcely implemented. But also "planned" features were simply omited. Like player and guild housing that changed according to your progress in the world.

What we got is a MMO lite.

A very very good one. Probably best around. But lite never the less

Dreamo84

Originally posted by Foomerang

They promised 30+ mini games throughout all of the main cities, instanced housing to be a major part of the game, dynamic events were permanent (towns stay saved).

Something about swinging a sword over and over heh

Towns do stay saved, until they get attacked again. It wouldn't be very "dynamic" if nothing changed after you completed it. That would be a static change event.

Alalala

I recently got back into GW2, got a character to 80, and then quit because of the gear grind at that point.

 

Is this article talking about the same GW2 I was playing??

Foomerang

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Originally posted by Dreamo84
Originally posted by Foomerang They promised 30+ mini games throughout all of the main cities, instanced housing to be a major part of the game, dynamic events were permanent (towns stay saved). Something about swinging a sword over and over heh

Towns do stay saved, until they get attacked again. It wouldn't be very "dynamic" if nothing changed after you completed it. That would be a static change event.

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Haha I guess we see what we want to see.

Aeonblades

Originally posted by SamuraiXIV
The syncing of your level per zone is what killed it for me, cause no matter how strong and high level you be in every zone you go you're weak and low level again so it beats the purpose of leveling for me.

Couple this with no gear progression, lack of end game activities, ignoring WvW for 1.5 years even if was the only real end game they had at the time, abandoning the manifesto, still trying to push the LS as actual content updates and you arrive at where I am with GW2:

 

So optimistic still for the future, yet so disappointed in the now.