The problem is not the gemgate. The gemgate was only one of the things that players tend to bring up in order to explain their concerns (which are completely valid).
I've been playing GW2 since beta, I did practicaly everything in it because I really liked the game and it's design. It was something fresh. Now 2 years since release I can't say the same thing about it anymore. The game is stagnant. And everytime players speak about it on the forum there are a few "white knights" that will shut them down. ANET seriously doesn't care about a constant playerbase. They are focusing on bringing new players to the game, just so they can milk them as they milked the vet comunity.
Anet is just a company, trying to create a big profit. I understand their point of view. Although I don't understand what are they planning to do in order to keep players playing this game. After all, even the new players will eventually leave once they realize that anet doesn't care about them.
I love the game, even after all the changes, but for me their greatest crime is the removal of content - and not even living world content. They butchered the main storyline and removed whole tracts of quests and story (greatest fears storyline for example completely removed) - now it makes no sense and the ending up to Zhaitan is completely nonsensical.
They were a really nice an open company, until the community broke their backs with the vileness that is the internet and gaming community. Every choice they made, no matter what it was, was wrong and there were a 100 reasons why. No one was happy about anything, and it was pure toxic. They seem defensive and in hiding? Because they are. They hiding from the community because they're scared of any decision they make reaping the backlash of the haters, and they know they can't trust that information, but also don't know that it's wrong, so they're defensive.
That Gem thing was a bad call, and it really shouldn't have taken that much effort to realize it was a bad choice. And that is also the problem. They don't have any structure in place to work with the community so that they can actually make the changes they want/need, and have those changes actually be vetted by the same people they're making them for. They are primarily just throwing changes at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Are you joking lol? This has nothing to do with the community. The community has to be loud and vile now because ANet doesn't listen to their players any other way! They wouldn't have listened to the community if a couple sites hadn't picked up the story to begin with!
ANet has completely changed. I know because I saw how they were with GW1 and now I see how they are with GW2. They've vastly changed to what appears to be a greedy stance now where they try to milk players as much as possible. Living story rewards revolve around RNG and the cash shop lockboxes.
They don't add any meaningful updates, like ever (compared to GW1 which is absolutely huge in world and quests).
I'm sorry, but ANet went from an awesome company with GW1 to a greed mongering corporate company with GW2. The blindness of some surprises me. The difference between the two games should be evidence enough, or so I'd think.
Solo player spotted. Maybe you should consider another genre.
Seriously, I won't go into specifics why but Gw1 and Gw2 are COMPLETELY different. The only thing in common is the lore and that's not 100% accurate. Gw1 was more solo friendly, while Gw2 is more open world, more group oriented game. You should realize that the stuff they produced in Gw1 in terms of content will NEVER work in Gw2 and that is a fact. Gw1 was relying heavily on phasing based on story progression - that shit simply can't fly in Gw2, you feel me?
Now, go back to your single player game or whatever it is you play and makes you happy. I don't even see why are you questioning ANet's openness when I'm 200% sure that you don't even play the game and even less care about its update. You and some people like you are just here to spread hate and troll people who actually like this game. Cut it out.
Manifesto this manifesto that whaa whaa whaa. Shit happens, face it. Microsoft releases an update and suddenly most of the PCs around the world get BSOD, its not the end of the world. They dropped the ball on the manifesto for some part, but you can't deny the achievements they made with Gw2 and the end result of what Gw2 is. The game is perfect. If you don't agree with that, maybe its not your cup of tea, go spread your hate elsewhere. Because ANet is one of the most hard-working dev teams in this business and if i was working there, I'd be seriously offended by your attitude because they are human and they are busting their asses day in and day out and you complain about pixels as if it is the end of the world.
Avid MMORPG gamer here as evdienced from my many posts on MMORPG.COM (like the logic that you use on a site that caters to MMORPGs... Kinda hard to take "single player" being thrown at someone when they are posting on a site dedicated to MMORPGs even a bit seriously lol). Anyways, you seem to be quite the blind fanboy. "The game is perfect." I mean really? That is blind worship. GW2 hasn't had any meaningful content added in how long? If you honestly don't see how living story revolves around the cash shop updates and lock-boxes you are blind.
I've played both GW1 and GW2, and while GW1 was an instanced game it still wasn't a "single player" game, so no clue what nonsense you are spouting. Group content in GW1 was some of the best content I've ever played. Also you realize that technically GW2 is made up of sections of "instanced" zones? How else do you think you are suddenly put in a queue in a separate instance when the main instance is overflowed with players? Maybe you should know a bit more about the game you play before spouting nonsense.
Anyone who played GW1 and then GW2 can see a difference in content updates. It has nothing to do with hate. It's just that freaking obvious. ANet changed. And not for the better.
Yes, self-proclaimed MMORPG gamer. And am I truly blind? Living world season 1 was okay for the ACTIVE PLAYER BASE. Season two is the answer to the pleading of more permanent content. I know its been 4 weeks without update (or 5, i dont really count them) but it takes WoW an year to release content, so that's that.
I don't know how you came up with "living story revolves around the cash shop updates and lock-boxes". I've spent exactly 0 gold and 0$ trying to obtain living world stuff. They are not necessary and certainly not game breaking or whatever you can come up with to hate against bunch of SKINS. Maybe we play Gw2 for different reasons I wouldn't know.
Gw2 is made up of sections of instanced zone that it is true however you are never solo and you are never bound to your party and certainly you don't change the surroundings as you would in Gw1. Maybe you like the idea of phasing. I don't. Because phasing games tend to be more solo oriented, another great example is TESO. Im sure it has ton of group content, the main game is solo though. Just like Gw1
Also for your last paragraph, at its worst, Gw2 is more successful than Gw1 has ever been - #DealWithIt. What that means is that more people prefer Gw2 compared to Gw1 whether you like it or not. As I said, maybe Gw2 is not your cup of tea.
Living story isn't meaningful content. Maybe it would be if the writing was better, but it's not. It all forms to the same sort of thing. It's repetitive, and there isn't really an incentive for doing it (as you said, it's all skins and fashion crap for rewards). Their endgame is essentially the worst endgame I've ever seen in an MMORPG. Also, no clue what you're talking about saying that GW2 is more successful than GW1. GW1 Came out in 2005, and people are still playing it 9 years later. It was hugely popular when it first released and has quite the following. I'd call that a pretty damn successful game.
It's not just the content that is a problem in GW2 though, it's class balance also. The devs honestly don't seem to know how to balance them from what I've seen, which is pretty damn sad (the necromancer comes to mind when I talk about class balance. Leveling that all the way to 80 and then realizing how freaking messed up of a class it was really didn't make me happy at all).
With all that said, let's just see if people are still playing GW2 9 years later... If they don't change how they do content and fix some of the issues that plague the game, I can guarantee you GW2 isn't going to last as long as GW1.
I don't understand the constant whining about the NPE by a small vocal group of "experienced players". Not one of you ever liked to guide new players through the game, the way (99% of) you were guided when you first started playing. ANet decides to address its enormous new-player-retention/guidance problem with the NPE, but that only makes you flip out more!?
Do you really care that much about the now much shorter first 20 levels of your 10th alt being slightly more annoying? An experience that's entirely optional since you have dozens of instant-level-20-scrolls I might add...
Meanwhile the actual positive in-game effects of the NPE have been blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes to see for weeks now. Sadly the remarks of many other observant GW2 players have flown over your head so I'll resort to pointing out the glaringly obvious:
New players no longer ask a dozen questions every minute. Most only need a little guidance on advanced concepts like crafting now.
New players more easily find the content that keeps them interested - thus retention is much higher. A good example are a few beta/early-launch players I reintroduced who couldn't find a reason to keep playing before. Post-NPE just a few hours in they were hooked.
More evidence of new player retention is in simply looking at the turnover rate of new recruits in your guild. How many of those new players stick with the game to and past level 80 now versus pre-NPE? In my experience it was maybe 30% pre-NPE and has thus far been 100% post-NPE.
Further evidence of new player retention can be seen in PUGs. It's fairly safe to say that most accounts with around 1000 achievement points (or lower) are new players. The number of these in PUGs pre-NPE was maybe 1 every 3-5 PUGs. Now it's something like 1-3 every PUG (see world bosses, Halloween, edge of the mists, etc).
Likewise places with large gatherings of players see a lot more 'new characters', easily spotted by their crappy armor/weapon skins. See Edge of the Mists, world bosses, zone events, Halloween, etc. These aren't guaranteed to be new players, obviously, but NPE has actually demotivated most existing players from creating alts so it's likely most of these characters are in fact from new players.
Activity in pretty much every portion of the game has increased noticeably post-NPE. This is particularly evident in WvW activity. It was already ramping up slightly during fall season, but now we actually have every zone full most of the time. Pre-NPE we only really had EB full at prime time. Mind you, this is on FSP - ranked last in Gold in EU so there's zero motivation for people to switch to that server.
Plus the stuff that's actually positive for everyone concerned which the whiners consistently gloss over: leveling rewards, better personal story pacing, new non-80 items, much less unwieldy trait selection, etc.
So it's pretty obvious the NPE is doing its job marvelously. All it takes to come to that conclusion are some basic observational skills and maybe a few conversations with some people who do guide new players on a regular basis like guildleaders (me) or recruiters. No ANet statistics required.
Proclaiming that the NPE only serves "idiot newcomers" is foolish. The problem GW2 faces is that it looks a lot like other MMOs/RPGs on the surface, but isn't designed to be played in the same way at all. And that is the reason why NPE was needed: to make the subtle differences more obvious by introducing them at a more gradual pace. This in turn makes the difference between newcomers leaving permanently because it's no fun playing in the way they're accustomed to or enjoying the game immensely on its own terms. It's not a matter of competence but of enjoyment.
It's also extremely disingenuous to insinuate that ANet only ever makes Guild Wars 2 easier and simpler. The reality is that Guild Wars 2 as it is today is a great deal more complex than it was at launch, even with NPE and various other ease-of-use changes, like sPvP. Here are just a few changes that introduced a great deal of complexity to the game: fractals, ascended item (crafting), guild missions & rewards, collections, dailies & monthlies, WvW ranks & skills, etc.
Statistics with decimal numbers aren't any more believable. It's just as easy to fake 21.3% as it is to fake 20%. Furthermore they're certainly still going to be rounded, i.e.: 14.8213% is going to be 14.8%. Thus making that particular request pointless.
Moreover statistics will do nothing to help the current situation. None of the NPE whiners would really care if they were shown irrefutable proof that NPE has been good for the game, for example. What ANet needs to do instead is to simply announce what they're working on. The real underlying reason for why the community is up in arms is because ANet has cut down on the patch team and no one knows what the rest of the company is up to. The moment they announce that little nugget of information will likely be the moment most of this endless whining ceases.
The only valid point I see here is the commentary on the gem change. That was clearly a greedy shortsighted move that should never have happened - especially not as a sneaky last-minute change. And the previous system was nearly as intuitive as the new one so any argumentation for "ease-of-use" falls flat on its face.
Originally posted by Bladestrom 'ArenaNet quickly vowed to partially reverse the change, but the misstep still served to further drive a wedge between the company and its veteran community'
This sums up the problem, Anet listen, they react and invest - and then they get silly comments like 'driving a wedge...'. This is the language of the self entitled 'veteran'. Not someone who genuinely wants to collaborate.
Sorry, but if Arenanet didn't see this coming, then they are more incompetant than I originally thought. How many times does Arenanet need to pull the wool over players' eyes, sit back and watch the rage storm, and then impliment the fix that they knew wuold be coming all along.
Seriously, thikn about it. Do you think that a developer that has built and maintained a game in the most difficult and complex (and demanding) genre such as an MMO, did not have the foresight to see that what they were doing was wrong? They didnt think to themselves in some meeting(regarding gemgate), "Hmm, well lets give them a simple option to type in the exact amount that they want too, in addition to this change" . Really? You believe that they had no clue we would react this way and wanted this custom amount feature?
And with ascended gear...when I hear Chris Whiteside and Colin saying "Ohhhh, so you want additional ways of acquiring ascended gear other than just crafting? Great stuff guys! Great job contributing in the CDI"....Really? Do you really think that a skilled developer like Arenanet didn't think about that one? No. They tested the waters with us then, and with gemgate and if they could get away with it with their skin in tact, they would have left the sytem(s) alone without appeasing us. But we rage, and they change. And then they can claim that they listen to the community because they implimented the change.
And again with fractals/ascended gear when they were first introduced. Chris Whiteside even said they expected the enormous outrage during the AMA. They knew we would be upset that theres a new gear tier. They knew it, they admitted to it in the AMA. AND, in response to my own question on the AMA, Chris Whiteside said that Ascended gear was always planned, but didnt make it in for launch. Ok, then why didn't you give us a substantial heads up? Say...BEFORE LAUNCH? "Hey playerbase, here are the tiers of gear...white, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink". If they gave us a heads up, there would have been ZERO issues because we would have known from DAY ONE that ascended/pink gear was the BiS stuff, therefor no reason to rage.
No...Arenanet is calling everyone for a fool, sadly. They know what will happen when they make changes but they sit by and watch us rage and if the topic goes to a certain point, then they'll make the change necessary.
Originally posted by Spankster77 I played GW2 recently and if gemgate is the only thing pissing off the veteran community then the veteran GW2 community is pretty lenient.
Nah, every few months theres some enormous controversial issue or hiccup.
I have been in and out of the game for the last 1+ year, but I'll try to list them in order:
Fractals: Initially this created a playergate. Eventually there won't be anyone your fractal level to run with. It took a player(me) and thousands of other players 5 seconds to see this problem in the future. The developer did not see this until we pointed it out to them. They fixed.
Ascended gear: Apparently, according to Whiteside, it was meant to be in the game at launch...but no where ever did we get a mention of it. Why? Thus, players see it as a new tier when they said there wouldn't be VP.
Precursors: Some people cornered the market early...promises of precursor scav hunt and/or crafting..for 1.5 years now. Nothing.
Laurels: A small issue but people were vocal when they felt compelled to do "dallies" to get their laurels. The original idea of "play how you want" almost floated out of the window with this. If I wanted to stick in one zone all night and play, and if by doing so I cannot complete my 5 dallies, then I would need to do something else in order to complete those 5 dallies. I don't want to be encouraged to do anything. Let me play the way I want to play.
Living Story: People clamored for expansions, not the breadcrumb content that we get now. 2 week cadence was/is too much for a lot of ppl, etc etc.
Ascended crafting: Oh the grind...
Megaservers: destroyed a sense of community, created issues for large guild groups doing guild missions, etc.
Living story isn't meaningful content. Maybe it would be if the writing was better, but it's not. It all forms to the same sort of thing. It's repetitive, and there isn't really an incentive for doing it (as you said, it's all skins and fashion crap for rewards). Their endgame is essentially the worst endgame I've ever seen in an MMORPG. Also, no clue what you're talking about saying that GW2 is more successful than GW1. GW1 Came out in 2005, and people are still playing it 9 years later. It was hugely popular when it first released and has quite the following. I'd call that a pretty damn successful game.
It's not just the content that is a problem in GW2 though, it's class balance also. The devs honestly don't seem to know how to balance them from what I've seen, which is pretty damn sad (the necromancer comes to mind when I talk about class balance. Leveling that all the way to 80 and then realizing how freaking messed up of a class it was really didn't make me happy at all).
With all that said, let's just see if people are still playing GW2 9 years later... If they don't change how they do content and fix some of the issues that plague the game, I can guarantee you GW2 isn't going to last as long as GW1.
Living story was and is meaningful content, whether you like it or not. It expands the story, it expands the lands it changes landscapes and it is all nicely tied within a story, a chapter of a book (which you can read later on). Also the list of 9 year old MMOs, ESPECIALLY MMOs is very long. Your point is meaningless and yes I'm fairly certain Gw2 will survive the test of time. It has active and stable community. People playing Gw1 atm are a bunch of stubborn people with old PCs unable to run anything else beside Gw1. It makes no sense to play Gw1 atm unless you want to remember some lore pieces.
I don't know what's wrong with class balance. I mean .. do you even play this game anymore? Why are you talking about things you know nothing about <o>. Necromancers have decent builds, every single class has decent builds and everybody can beat anybody with some smart play and not just random button mashing 1,2,3,....0,repeat. Gw2 combat may allow you to have only 10 active skills but its a lot more than that. You pick your 10 skills based on encounter and then you dont blow the cooldowns as soon as they're ready. Maybe that's why you feel bad about your necro? Or ... maybe the necro is simply not for you, have you ever tried another class? You know this game has 8 of those. And none of them quite like the other.
Would be a long wait for sure. I'll be happy to let you know that I had fun every second in those 9 years, given I'm alive in that time
Originally posted by Spankster77 I played GW2 recently and if gemgate is the only thing pissing off the veteran community then the veteran GW2 community is pretty lenient.
Nah, every few months theres some enormous controversial issue or hiccup.
I have been in and out of the game for the last 1+ year, but I'll try to list them in order:
Fractals: Initially this created a playergate. Eventually there won't be anyone your fractal level to run with. It took a player(me) and thousands of other players 5 seconds to see this problem in the future. The developer did not see this until we pointed it out to them. They fixed.
Oh boy, did you miss that old-school term we used to refer to as "constant-party"? I'm pretty sure the original idea was to play with a group of friends at all times, not just pug it for the sake of pugging. Didn't turn out that, people complained, they changed it, move on.
Ascended gear: Apparently, according to Whiteside, it was meant to be in the game at launch...but no where ever did we get a mention of it. Why? Thus, players see it as a new tier when they said there wouldn't be VP.
Well given the fact that I was level 80 in the headstart and had full exotics until the end of the first week (maybe second, not sure exactly) I'm fairly certain that a new tier was needed that was harder to get even by casual players. Because yeah, i was basically done with the game a month before I got the dungeon master title. And I wasn't the exception. Many people were like me.
Precursors: Some people cornered the market early...promises of precursor scav hunt and/or crafting..for 1.5 years now. Nothing.
I actually like the exclusivity of a legendary weapon atm. The day they introduce scavenger hunt and every guy with 15 spare minutes get a precursor will be the time I change the skin of my legendaries and start trolling the new legendary owners. And ANet realizes that.
Laurels: A small issue but people were vocal when they felt compelled to do "dallies" to get their laurels. The original idea of "play how you want" almost floated out of the window with this. If I wanted to stick in one zone all night and play, and if by doing so I cannot complete my 5 dallies, then I would need to do something else in order to complete those 5 dallies. I don't want to be encouraged to do anything. Let me play the way I want to play.
And again you are missing the point. Nobody is forcing you to play for laurels. Everything you can get for laurels you can obtain through other means. Except the cat tonic. The cat tonic is exclusive to that i think . Also its easier to finish 5 dailies if you change your zones rather than sticking in one zone. So I'm not sure what you are trying to say there.
Living Story: People clamored for expansions, not the breadcrumb content that we get now. 2 week cadence was/is too much for a lot of ppl, etc etc.
So is it breadcrumbs or is it too much. I'm confused
Ascended crafting: Oh the grind...
I'm glad you bring this for the second time in the same point. It must really bug you that somebody has 5% more stats than you do even though its skill based game eh?
Megaservers: destroyed a sense of community, created issues for large guild groups doing guild missions, etc.
Megaservers are constantly being optimized so you are around with your guildmates at all times. If you want community -> WvW.
Gemgate: self explainatory
Reverted
So let me get this straight. The OP is an article about the lack of transparency and community input.
And then this guy drops a list of things that were taken into account after community backlash
Originally posted by Spankster77 I played GW2 recently and if gemgate is the only thing pissing off the veteran community then the veteran GW2 community is pretty lenient.
Nah, every few months theres some enormous controversial issue or hiccup.
I have been in and out of the game for the last 1+ year, but I'll try to list them in order:
Fractals: Initially this created a playergate. Eventually there won't be anyone your fractal level to run with. It took a player(me) and thousands of other players 5 seconds to see this problem in the future. The developer did not see this until we pointed it out to them. They fixed.
Oh boy, did you miss that old-school term we used to refer to as "constant-party"? I'm pretty sure the original idea was to play with a group of friends at all times, not just pug it for the sake of pugging. Didn't turn out that, people complained, they changed it, move on.
Ascended gear: Apparently, according to Whiteside, it was meant to be in the game at launch...but no where ever did we get a mention of it. Why? Thus, players see it as a new tier when they said there wouldn't be VP.
Well given the fact that I was level 80 in the headstart and had full exotics until the end of the first week (maybe second, not sure exactly) I'm fairly certain that a new tier was needed that was harder to get even by casual players. Because yeah, i was basically done with the game a month before I got the dungeon master title. And I wasn't the exception. Many people were like me.
Precursors: Some people cornered the market early...promises of precursor scav hunt and/or crafting..for 1.5 years now. Nothing.
I actually like the exclusivity of a legendary weapon atm. The day they introduce scavenger hunt and every guy with 15 spare minutes get a precursor will be the time I change the skin of my legendaries and start trolling the new legendary owners. And ANet realizes that.
Laurels: A small issue but people were vocal when they felt compelled to do "dallies" to get their laurels. The original idea of "play how you want" almost floated out of the window with this. If I wanted to stick in one zone all night and play, and if by doing so I cannot complete my 5 dallies, then I would need to do something else in order to complete those 5 dallies. I don't want to be encouraged to do anything. Let me play the way I want to play.
And again you are missing the point. Nobody is forcing you to play for laurels. Everything you can get for laurels you can obtain through other means. Except the cat tonic. The cat tonic is exclusive to that i think . Also its easier to finish 5 dailies if you change your zones rather than sticking in one zone. So I'm not sure what you are trying to say there.
Living Story: People clamored for expansions, not the breadcrumb content that we get now. 2 week cadence was/is too much for a lot of ppl, etc etc.
So is it breadcrumbs or is it too much. I'm confused
Ascended crafting: Oh the grind...
I'm glad you bring this for the second time in the same point. It must really bug you that somebody has 5% more stats than you do even though its skill based game eh?
Megaservers: destroyed a sense of community, created issues for large guild groups doing guild missions, etc.
Megaservers are constantly being optimized so you are around with your guildmates at all times. If you want community -> WvW.
Gemgate: self explainatory
Reverted
So let me get this straight. The OP is an article about the lack of transparency and community input.
And then this guy drops a list of things that were taken into account after community backlash
...what?
Hi,
Overall, most of my arguments here can be simplified by "tell us what you are planning, ask for our feedback prior to implementation, give us a PTR to test for you". Thats transparency. Knowing what will cause problems, releasing it anyways, and then fixing it based on our feedback is not necessarily transparent. Its reactive. Not pro active
On the points...
#1-you have no idea what their original intent was and assuming you know otherwise is just silly. They pandered to a few 'hardcores' to get more progression style content in the game. But that wasn't even my point. My point is how they introduced fractals. Allowing player levels set the accessibility of content is horrible. If they allowed this to stay, they are essentially saying that anyone that comes into the fractal scene a year later will have less and less, or possibily no one to run fractals with. They listened to our feedback, but again, thats not the point either. The transparancy might have come into play if they solicited our feedback..or wait...had a PTR where we can test this stuff for them and provide feedback. Thats transparency.
#2- Pretty sure you missed the point of the game if you got to 80 in two weeks with full exotics. The selling point that they tried to hammer home was that the entire game is your oyster and endgame. If you burnt through it in a few days and spent the next few days farming out exotics...and then you sit atop of the mountain as king with nothing to do or no one to play with, you only have yourself to blame. Many people were like you? Maybe a portion yes, but more than that were still enjoying the leveling process.
#3- Whether or not you personally enjoy being exclusive with your legendary is irrelevent as is that point. The point I was making is that this is something that the playerbase has been clamoring for since the first month or two. Wheres the action-re action here?
#4- The actual content of the LS was/is breadcrumbs. Sprinkling in 15 achievements to grind out for some meta achievement and a skin...ehh...The content is/was temporary(in LS1 it was more temporary than perma). The cadence of two weeks was too quick for some people because not everyone logs in every day, some people are on business trips mid-through the week, etc etc. There was a lot of "I don't have enough time to complete all of the grindy achievements for the meta..." But, the actual content and story was breadcrummy. You got a few sentences of a story per two weeks.
#5- Yes megaservers may be improving. But at first it was horrid and was met with disdain. You couldn't form a guild mission, it was pathetic. Something that a PTR might have been able to assist with, or again..transparency, tell us what youre working on and ask for our feedback.
Living story isn't meaningful content. Maybe it would be if the writing was better, but it's not. It all forms to the same sort of thing. It's repetitive, and there isn't really an incentive for doing it (as you said, it's all skins and fashion crap for rewards). Their endgame is essentially the worst endgame I've ever seen in an MMORPG. Also, no clue what you're talking about saying that GW2 is more successful than GW1. GW1 Came out in 2005, and people are still playing it 9 years later. It was hugely popular when it first released and has quite the following. I'd call that a pretty damn successful game.
It's not just the content that is a problem in GW2 though, it's class balance also. The devs honestly don't seem to know how to balance them from what I've seen, which is pretty damn sad (the necromancer comes to mind when I talk about class balance. Leveling that all the way to 80 and then realizing how freaking messed up of a class it was really didn't make me happy at all).
With all that said, let's just see if people are still playing GW2 9 years later... If they don't change how they do content and fix some of the issues that plague the game, I can guarantee you GW2 isn't going to last as long as GW1.
Living story was and is meaningful content, whether you like it or not. It expands the story, it expands the lands it changes landscapes and it is all nicely tied within a story, a chapter of a book (which you can read later on). Also the list of 9 year old MMOs, ESPECIALLY MMOs is very long. Your point is meaningless and yes I'm fairly certain Gw2 will survive the test of time. It has active and stable community. People playing Gw1 atm are a bunch of stubborn people with old PCs unable to run anything else beside Gw1. It makes no sense to play Gw1 atm unless you want to remember some lore pieces.
I don't know what's wrong with class balance. I mean .. do you even play this game anymore? Why are you talking about things you know nothing about <o>. Necromancers have decent builds, every single class has decent builds and everybody can beat anybody with some smart play and not just random button mashing 1,2,3,....0,repeat. Gw2 combat may allow you to have only 10 active skills but its a lot more than that. You pick your 10 skills based on encounter and then you dont blow the cooldowns as soon as they're ready. Maybe that's why you feel bad about your necro? Or ... maybe the necro is simply not for you, have you ever tried another class? You know this game has 8 of those. And none of them quite like the other.
Would be a long wait for sure. I'll be happy to let you know that I had fun every second in those 9 years, given I'm alive in that time
No, people playing GW1 now either still enjoy the game or dislike GW2. I've actually gone back to GW1 because it's a much better game than GW2. It's obvious you're a fanboy (a rude, entitled one at that) and nothing that I say is going to change that it seems.. Also if Necromancers have decent builds then why is it that no one wants them in groups for dungeons? Must be their builds are just too awesome to handle, right?
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The problem is not the gemgate. The gemgate was only one of the things that players tend to bring up in order to explain their concerns (which are completely valid).
I've been playing GW2 since beta, I did practicaly everything in it because I really liked the game and it's design. It was something fresh. Now 2 years since release I can't say the same thing about it anymore. The game is stagnant. And everytime players speak about it on the forum there are a few "white knights" that will shut them down. ANET seriously doesn't care about a constant playerbase. They are focusing on bringing new players to the game, just so they can milk them as they milked the vet comunity.
Anet is just a company, trying to create a big profit. I understand their point of view. Although I don't understand what are they planning to do in order to keep players playing this game. After all, even the new players will eventually leave once they realize that anet doesn't care about them.
Living story isn't meaningful content. Maybe it would be if the writing was better, but it's not. It all forms to the same sort of thing. It's repetitive, and there isn't really an incentive for doing it (as you said, it's all skins and fashion crap for rewards). Their endgame is essentially the worst endgame I've ever seen in an MMORPG. Also, no clue what you're talking about saying that GW2 is more successful than GW1. GW1 Came out in 2005, and people are still playing it 9 years later. It was hugely popular when it first released and has quite the following. I'd call that a pretty damn successful game.
It's not just the content that is a problem in GW2 though, it's class balance also. The devs honestly don't seem to know how to balance them from what I've seen, which is pretty damn sad (the necromancer comes to mind when I talk about class balance. Leveling that all the way to 80 and then realizing how freaking messed up of a class it was really didn't make me happy at all).
With all that said, let's just see if people are still playing GW2 9 years later... If they don't change how they do content and fix some of the issues that plague the game, I can guarantee you GW2 isn't going to last as long as GW1.
Smile
I don't understand the constant whining about the NPE by a small vocal group of "experienced players". Not one of you ever liked to guide new players through the game, the way (99% of) you were guided when you first started playing. ANet decides to address its enormous new-player-retention/guidance problem with the NPE, but that only makes you flip out more!?
Do you really care that much about the now much shorter first 20 levels of your 10th alt being slightly more annoying? An experience that's entirely optional since you have dozens of instant-level-20-scrolls I might add...
Meanwhile the actual positive in-game effects of the NPE have been blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes to see for weeks now. Sadly the remarks of many other observant GW2 players have flown over your head so I'll resort to pointing out the glaringly obvious:
The only valid point I see here is the commentary on the gem change. That was clearly a greedy shortsighted move that should never have happened - especially not as a sneaky last-minute change. And the previous system was nearly as intuitive as the new one so any argumentation for "ease-of-use" falls flat on its face.
Great article and I agree on many points.
I wish Arenanet high-ups would read this and see themselves in it.
Sorry, but if Arenanet didn't see this coming, then they are more incompetant than I originally thought. How many times does Arenanet need to pull the wool over players' eyes, sit back and watch the rage storm, and then impliment the fix that they knew wuold be coming all along.
Seriously, thikn about it. Do you think that a developer that has built and maintained a game in the most difficult and complex (and demanding) genre such as an MMO, did not have the foresight to see that what they were doing was wrong? They didnt think to themselves in some meeting(regarding gemgate), "Hmm, well lets give them a simple option to type in the exact amount that they want too, in addition to this change" . Really? You believe that they had no clue we would react this way and wanted this custom amount feature?
And with ascended gear...when I hear Chris Whiteside and Colin saying "Ohhhh, so you want additional ways of acquiring ascended gear other than just crafting? Great stuff guys! Great job contributing in the CDI"....Really? Do you really think that a skilled developer like Arenanet didn't think about that one? No. They tested the waters with us then, and with gemgate and if they could get away with it with their skin in tact, they would have left the sytem(s) alone without appeasing us. But we rage, and they change. And then they can claim that they listen to the community because they implimented the change.
And again with fractals/ascended gear when they were first introduced. Chris Whiteside even said they expected the enormous outrage during the AMA. They knew we would be upset that theres a new gear tier. They knew it, they admitted to it in the AMA. AND, in response to my own question on the AMA, Chris Whiteside said that Ascended gear was always planned, but didnt make it in for launch. Ok, then why didn't you give us a substantial heads up? Say...BEFORE LAUNCH? "Hey playerbase, here are the tiers of gear...white, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink". If they gave us a heads up, there would have been ZERO issues because we would have known from DAY ONE that ascended/pink gear was the BiS stuff, therefor no reason to rage.
No...Arenanet is calling everyone for a fool, sadly. They know what will happen when they make changes but they sit by and watch us rage and if the topic goes to a certain point, then they'll make the change necessary.
I dont trust arenanet. At all.
Nah, every few months theres some enormous controversial issue or hiccup.
I have been in and out of the game for the last 1+ year, but I'll try to list them in order:
Fractals: Initially this created a playergate. Eventually there won't be anyone your fractal level to run with. It took a player(me) and thousands of other players 5 seconds to see this problem in the future. The developer did not see this until we pointed it out to them. They fixed.
Ascended gear: Apparently, according to Whiteside, it was meant to be in the game at launch...but no where ever did we get a mention of it. Why? Thus, players see it as a new tier when they said there wouldn't be VP.
Precursors: Some people cornered the market early...promises of precursor scav hunt and/or crafting..for 1.5 years now. Nothing.
Laurels: A small issue but people were vocal when they felt compelled to do "dallies" to get their laurels. The original idea of "play how you want" almost floated out of the window with this. If I wanted to stick in one zone all night and play, and if by doing so I cannot complete my 5 dallies, then I would need to do something else in order to complete those 5 dallies. I don't want to be encouraged to do anything. Let me play the way I want to play.
Living Story: People clamored for expansions, not the breadcrumb content that we get now. 2 week cadence was/is too much for a lot of ppl, etc etc.
Ascended crafting: Oh the grind...
Megaservers: destroyed a sense of community, created issues for large guild groups doing guild missions, etc.
Gemgate: self explainatory
Living story was and is meaningful content, whether you like it or not. It expands the story, it expands the lands it changes landscapes and it is all nicely tied within a story, a chapter of a book (which you can read later on). Also the list of 9 year old MMOs, ESPECIALLY MMOs is very long. Your point is meaningless and yes I'm fairly certain Gw2 will survive the test of time. It has active and stable community. People playing Gw1 atm are a bunch of stubborn people with old PCs unable to run anything else beside Gw1. It makes no sense to play Gw1 atm unless you want to remember some lore pieces.
I don't know what's wrong with class balance. I mean .. do you even play this game anymore? Why are you talking about things you know nothing about <o>. Necromancers have decent builds, every single class has decent builds and everybody can beat anybody with some smart play and not just random button mashing 1,2,3,....0,repeat. Gw2 combat may allow you to have only 10 active skills but its a lot more than that. You pick your 10 skills based on encounter and then you dont blow the cooldowns as soon as they're ready. Maybe that's why you feel bad about your necro? Or ... maybe the necro is simply not for you, have you ever tried another class? You know this game has 8 of those. And none of them quite like the other.
Would be a long wait for sure. I'll be happy to let you know that I had fun every second in those 9 years, given I'm alive in that time
So let me get this straight. The OP is an article about the lack of transparency and community input.
And then this guy drops a list of things that were taken into account after community backlash
...what?
Hi,
Overall, most of my arguments here can be simplified by "tell us what you are planning, ask for our feedback prior to implementation, give us a PTR to test for you". Thats transparency. Knowing what will cause problems, releasing it anyways, and then fixing it based on our feedback is not necessarily transparent. Its reactive. Not pro active
On the points...
#1-you have no idea what their original intent was and assuming you know otherwise is just silly. They pandered to a few 'hardcores' to get more progression style content in the game. But that wasn't even my point. My point is how they introduced fractals. Allowing player levels set the accessibility of content is horrible. If they allowed this to stay, they are essentially saying that anyone that comes into the fractal scene a year later will have less and less, or possibily no one to run fractals with. They listened to our feedback, but again, thats not the point either. The transparancy might have come into play if they solicited our feedback..or wait...had a PTR where we can test this stuff for them and provide feedback. Thats transparency.
#2- Pretty sure you missed the point of the game if you got to 80 in two weeks with full exotics. The selling point that they tried to hammer home was that the entire game is your oyster and endgame. If you burnt through it in a few days and spent the next few days farming out exotics...and then you sit atop of the mountain as king with nothing to do or no one to play with, you only have yourself to blame. Many people were like you? Maybe a portion yes, but more than that were still enjoying the leveling process.
#3- Whether or not you personally enjoy being exclusive with your legendary is irrelevent as is that point. The point I was making is that this is something that the playerbase has been clamoring for since the first month or two. Wheres the action-re action here?
#4- The actual content of the LS was/is breadcrumbs. Sprinkling in 15 achievements to grind out for some meta achievement and a skin...ehh...The content is/was temporary(in LS1 it was more temporary than perma). The cadence of two weeks was too quick for some people because not everyone logs in every day, some people are on business trips mid-through the week, etc etc. There was a lot of "I don't have enough time to complete all of the grindy achievements for the meta..." But, the actual content and story was breadcrummy. You got a few sentences of a story per two weeks.
#5- Yes megaservers may be improving. But at first it was horrid and was met with disdain. You couldn't form a guild mission, it was pathetic. Something that a PTR might have been able to assist with, or again..transparency, tell us what youre working on and ask for our feedback.
No, people playing GW1 now either still enjoy the game or dislike GW2. I've actually gone back to GW1 because it's a much better game than GW2. It's obvious you're a fanboy (a rude, entitled one at that) and nothing that I say is going to change that it seems.. Also if Necromancers have decent builds then why is it that no one wants them in groups for dungeons? Must be their builds are just too awesome to handle, right?
Smile