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Tales of Tyria #7: Why GW2 Will Fail
Bridger
Member Posts: 77
Tales of Tyria 7: Why GW2 Will Fail
Not much news this week so we start our own controversies! A few links from the web backed up by a Bridger Rant introduce us to this week's show. We spend the majority of it taking the devil's advocate position and debating the various criticisms that have been thrown at the game.
Episode 7
04:00 - News: Various Links
11:20 - Bridger Rant: You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means
15:00 - Roundtable: Why GW2 Will Fail
59:15 - What We're Playing: FUS RO DAH!
We will continue hosting live streaming sessions when we record Tales of Tyria every Sunday @ 8pm EDT. If you watch the show live you can join the chatroom and provide live feedback!
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Weekly Question: What feature is mising from GW2 that needs to be there at launch? Leave your answers in the comments below.
Send us your questions and comments to feedback@talesoftyria.com
Comments
Guess when a bigger audience is wanted bad enough its easier to turn to controversial flame bait instead of real topics. A better discussion would be why MMOs fail in the west instead of picking one to specifically bait the audience.
I hope gw 2 does great but if it doesnt there will be 1 major reason the hype. Players expect this game to reinvent the mmo wheel and give them the most unique innovative mmo of all time.
Sorry its hard to live up to that kinda of hype it can be a great great game with lots of new and innovative stuff and not live up to some peoples expectations.
Of course when u decide to innovate on alot of diffrent planes u can end up realeasing a product that doesnt quite play smoothly or work right.
The hype though may be the reason this game fails even if it ends up being a very good game with innovative and new concepts just because it doesnt reinvent everything mmos do.
Good show!
Hey some people are content to go through life watching the world pass them by, eating the same shit every day, living a crappy existence.....those people are the ones who do what ever someone tells them to do like Play WoW Clones.
There are others who strive to get ahead, better themselves, are not satisfied with the status quo, live life to its fullest and want something better from their leisure activity.....those people demand their game be different, better and push the boundarys. These people are waiting for GW2.
I am fine with people wanting subpar gaming experiences, and im sure they are entertained moreso then I would be from a shallow gaming experience but thank god I am not blinded by mediocrity and the status quo. GW2 or TSW are the saviors this genre is so desperatly in need of.
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+1
Nice video!
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Love your show. Well done!
This is great that I can observe very objective, elaborate discussions about the plausible downcomings of Guild Wars 2. With this and the other link about the 10 potential flaws. So many people blindly praise it that I've been playing my own devil's advocate on a lot of things for the past 6 months. 1 part to reduce my own rabid hype and 1 part to see if I can offer Arena Net some valuable feedback prerelease.
Good video, love the show.
good show, good points. thank you.
So I am watching this (my first time watching the show), and I noticed they all bought a few of misconceptions regarding roles and the holy trinity (HT). This always annoys me.
Myth 1. If you have specialization, then you have HT roles.
False. Take ancient warfare where, in simplified terms, you have infantry (various types), archers, and cavalry. Each has their role, and some counter each other (depending on the relative technology levels, of course, it can get rather complicated). Here you even can say you have three roles/specialization, but there's no Holy Trinity. There are no healers, there is no tank, and there's no DPS. Indeed, real life warfare often shows how ridiculous the HT is, because no one sane wants to stand still and get hit -- to use such a tactic is an act of desperation, not standard procedure.
So GW2 could have specializations, without having HT roles. In fact, I suspect it WILL have specializations, but we aren't going to be seeing Tank/Healer/DPS specializing...well, there will be flavors of DPS, but that's always been the most realistic of the trinity roles. I wouldn't expect DPS in GW2 to be the glass cannons that we see in HT games, however. The third-party healing and aggro control doesn't exist to make that viable.
Myth 2. If you have the capability of being tougher, healing better, etc, then you will have HT roles be viable.
False. We can see this in other games where HT doesn't exist. Take P&P D&D (not 4th edition to avoid silly arguments). You don't have someone there to just take damage, another just to deal damage, and a third just to heal. (AFAIK, this applies to all D&D computer games as well). A Fighter trying to get everyone to attack him is insane and will die. First, unlike in an MMO like WoW, he's not 10 times tougher than everyone else, so he'll take too much damage. Second, the Cleric can't spam heals to keep him up (healing is important in D&D, but it isn't at the extreme level of an MMO). Instead decisions are made on a much more tactical level. Maneuvering to avoid being surrounded by too many guys, trying to keep some enemies away from weaker members (or highly injured members that need healing), moving in to do damage when possible, etc.
Also, the Fighter is tough in part because he NEEDS to be, since he's a front-line warrior. He can leverage that to an extent interpose himself between some bad guys, but he can't stop everyone -- unless you have a nice narrow hallway, in which case he can survive since all the bad guys can't attack him. This isn't the same as tanking. It's much, much more limited. Also, unlike tanking, the Fighter deals a ton of damage and he's a credible threat in his own right (we'll ignore the scaling problem D&D has a higher levels). Of key importance in all this, is positioning, movement, etc.
This might sound familiar. GW2 has an emphasize on movement and positioning (with regards to area buffs). Like D&D there doesn't seem to be enough dedicated healing power for someone to just spam heals on people all through combat (though unlike D&D everyone gets their own healing ability). Similarly, like D&D there are no aggro control abilities that tanking absolutely requires, and I suspect that you simply wouldn't be able to make someone tough enough to tank, even if you had the aggro control and healing. In other words, HT needs more than just being tougher and healing better. You need aggro control, an extreme level of toughness, certain mob behaviors, and an extreme level of targeted healing for it to exist. This level of extreme specialization is pretty rare in games, and while many MMOs happen to have it, there are many more games that do not. GW2 looks like it will not.
Myth 3. The Holy Trinity is wonderful game design.
False. It was original kludge because collision detection wasn't possible and they couldn't think of anything better. What it does do is make people overspecialize to such an extent that without some sort of combat gimmick, they'd just sit there mashing a the same sequence of buttons over and over and over again. This isn't an arbitrary measure either. Take a battle against a dragon in most any action RPG. You'll be dodging breath attacks, claws, spells, and possibly wings and tail attacks as well. It's all very natural stuff, and doing that is fun and involved. In a HT game? Tank stands still so the dragon doesn't face the group, healers stand still and spam heals, and the DPS attack from the sides. BOOORING by default instead of things having movement and being interesting. So a game like WoW adds arbitrary mechanics/gimmicks that are non-intuitive to artificially make combat interesting, and indeed it must do this because the default is so solidly stale. Maybe that means you have to jump because a little icon's text tells you to do so or maybe that means walls of flame will appear out of nowhere with an arbitrary hole for you to run into to avoid it. They are surely creative about the gimmicks, but I'd never say the combat system is great when they have to work so hard to make it remotely interesting.
Frankly, a better combat system would be dynamic and engaging by default. This is of course what GW2 is setting out to do, so that's a big plus in my book.
I suspect that if you go into a dungeon expecting to HT it in GW2, then you'll probably end up doing something quite different indeed.
Anyhow, that whole section really annoyed me. Hopefully what I typed out is free of massive errors. I really should get some sleep now.
So, the people who want to play gw2 is just ¨elite¨ and ¨Pro¨, they are better than me, thats right?. LoL, Thats why Gw2 will be an huge dissapointment. is a CASUAL MMO, an E-sport game they dont have nothing new or innovative, Dynamic events?, rift have that for almost a year already, and still it works like the warhammer pq system even in gw2, also the WvWvW is like Daoc or War RvR lakes. is innovative because it doesnt have an endgame?, sure you have Arena E-sports PvP and the WvWvW, but you dont even need to lv up a char to do that, is like gw1. ¨Gw2 will give you freedom to do what you want¨ LoL, thats just an excuse when your game doesnt have enough conten bc is B2P, even worse when you can buy from a shop all the things that you need. It gonna be fun so see ¨Elite¨ people like you playing a Casual MMO, trying to justify why gw2 is not the ¨revolution¨ that everyone was talking for years.
wow you completely missed the point. he never said he was a "pro." he just said he was not a mindless sheep that would keep on paying to play the same game for 10 yrs, unlike other people. GW2 will be a different experience from the mmorpgs out now, there is not question about it. just because it wont be a game that suits your tastes doesnt mean it wont revolutionize the genre.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
WRT Hikaru,
Dynamic events that link together into a web of events IS quite new and not at all like what Rift has. Also it has as much of an endgame as GW1, which DID have an end-game. It just isn't a "stat gear treadmill" endgame. While 3 faction PvP isn't new, I believe chains of events on MP maps in a MMO is pretty new. Let's not pretend they aren't doing a lot of innovative stuff here, because they clearly are.
Also, I am not sure where you are getting the idea that "you can buy from a shop all the things that you need." GW1 didn't work that way and they have no plans on changing that aspect. Well, GW1 did work that way a little bit for PvP, but they aren't doing that in GW2. There's no buying of power or the like.
Secondly, look at all the major MMOs. They get money from cash shops. They charge you the price for 4 new games every year that they collect all the profit on (so that's like 6-8 box sales in profits for them a year). You don't get even one full game of content a year. Look at all the games out there that sell millions upon millions and have free servers and have free customer support (which is as responsive as what you have in MMOs). Yeah, the monthly fee is completely unjustified in terms of what you get out of it. As the GW2 designers have said, it just encourages Devs to be lazy, since they don't have to design new content to be worth buying. Frankly, I'd much rather have a B2P, buy new content, than pay an exhorbinant monthly fee.
Now, WRT Gessekai,
Acting like anyone who wants to play a different game than you is stupid sheep or the like is a ridiculously wrong point of view. It's also the worst kind of elitism. I might not care for Holy Trinity games, but some people do like the WoW model it seems. Whatever, to each their own. Let's not start acting like GW2 players are some sort of glorious master race.
Good show, i liked the "debate" style of episodes 7 & 8.
Hype train -> Reality
MMM, to give some constructive criticism, I think the show could stand to have a good bit more prep work done. Having everyone look at links and know generally what will be discussed beforehand would help it flow a bit better.
That's my opinion from what I saw of 7 and 8 anyhow.
good show and the debate video its the best one
Well said.
Whether the guy missed the point or not, the above post is just ridiculous. What about those of us who haven't really played Tp MMO's at all, and have mainly experienced sandbox MMO's? Are we mindless sheep because we might want to try something different like say SWTOR? Status quo or not each to their own, there's no reason to try and put others down because they may like something the poster does not. Calling people mindless sheep because of what they enjoy or look forward to is completely ignorant.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Not that i like calling GW2 a WOW clone but if i use the same criteria that is used to label other MMOS WOW clone, i am sure i can use it on GW2. It has many themepark elements and is staying true to classic MMO style. Yes it is adding its own twist to lot of features just like TSW and how SWTOR did.
Also i find it very offending that you would use a MMO as a standard to show how to live a non crappy existence. Why would you even look down upon such people is beyond me. is this what GW2 community is all about? not to mention the guy giving you +1? i used to gasp when i witnessed this elitisim in WOW and i really don't want the same to happen to GW2.
Whatever happened to making a point without generalising and insulting others? what makes you think your life is so much better than those who are living a crappy existence? let me guess because you are goign to play GW2?
/facepalm
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6.
US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian.
Subs will be so low there is no need for more
Snoocky-How many servers?
The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
Good show!
Hey some people are content to go through life watching the world pass them by, eating the same shit every day, living a crappy existence.....those people are the ones who do what ever someone tells them to do like Play WoW Clones.
There are others who strive to get ahead, better themselves, are not satisfied with the status quo, live life to its fullest and want something better from their leisure activity.....those people demand their game be different, better and push the boundarys. These people are waiting for GW2.
I am fine with people wanting subpar gaming experiences, and im sure they are entertained moreso then I would be from a shallow gaming experience but thank god I am not blinded by mediocrity and the status quo. GW2 or TSW are the saviors this genre is so desperatly in need of.
Kindly refrain from posting such asininity, ever again.
This pretty much summarizes where I am with GW2. I've never looked forward to any game more than GW2. But even stronger than my personal hype for the game is my abhorrance of blind, rabid fanboism. I thus find myself playing devil's advocate on these boards frequently, trying to be as critical as possible.
Eh, that's not remotely fair. There's no Holy Trinity, no gear grind at max levels, no raiding, the questing system is totally different, etc, etc. There are tons of similarities between SWTOR and WoW that don't exist between GW2 and WoW.
Just saying.
Not that calling people that don't want to play GW2 or do like WoW "mindless sheep" is a remotely reasonable thing to do.
And it also has instant / fast traveling, simplistic crafting system, instanced PVE/ PVP, minimal death penalty.... so yeah if you can say that SWTOR is a WOW clone even though it has lots of different things going for it like V.O, companion system, crew skills etc then why can't i use same logic for GW2? even though it has dynamic events, no holy trinity etc? so it is fair to ignore what SWTOR has new and focus only on what is similar to WOW? if yes why it is wrong to do the same for GW2? is it ok to call GW2 a lesser clone of WOW?
Like i said i hate using the word WOW clone but i do mind double standards often used here.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6.
US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian.
Subs will be so low there is no need for more
Snoocky-How many servers?
The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.
I think this is why people hold the game in high regard.Theyre daring to be significantly different and it's got me hooked even when I see the potential flaws.
I mean, really? You're going off the fast travel, crafting, the fact instances exist (even though the types of instancing is different), and the death penalty? That's not even 10% of the gameplay. Heck, some of that isn't gameplay at all (instances aren't gameplay, they're a place where gameplay happens) and isn't even related to WHY you are doing the gameplay (e.g. instances aren't why you do gameplay either). That's at best a handful of weak relation.
So yeah, I find that absurd.
SWTOR on the other hand has an extremely similar combat system to WoW, and since if you exclude chatting. Combat is structured around similar goals as well (gear grind). So yeah, that's a huge amount in common when you have a ton of gameplay that's the same and done for the same reason.
I'm not saying TOR is a WoW clone, mind you. It's a bit like WoW+ with reskinning. The plus is the story, improved crafting, and space combat (I suppose you could say there are some negatives as well, but let's not get into that, it's minor stuff). Outside of the plus, the game IS a WoW clone. GW2 has a lot more different from WoW, and you are being disingenuous if you pretend otherwise. The whole structure of the game is different.
It is not a double standard to say GW2 is much more of a departure from MMOs like WoW than TOR is. Heck, even the developers of both games agree. TOR devs have talked about how WoW made standards that need to be followed, GW2 devs talk about how this isn't the case at all.
Why not? are we suppossed to follow some specific rules and mention only specific features to label MMO a WOW clone? since when? and who decides what features makes a MMO wow clone and what features do not? if there was some rule book written for it i would agree but in the end it boils down to personal preference. that is why i brought up this point. Who is right and who is wrong? no one really.
For some instanced battleground, minimal death penality are staple features of themepark / WOW clone for others it is questing and for some other it can be all of these combined together. I never expected you to agree with me because i know personal bias has lot to do with calling an X game a WOW clone.
How many servers SWTOR will launch with on release?
ShredderSE - Umm how many do they need? Maybe 6.
US, EU, Asian, France, German and Russian.
Subs will be so low there is no need for more
Snoocky-How many servers?
The first 3 months a lot...after that 2 i guess, one for PVE and 1 for PVP...
Thorbrand - SWTOR doesn't have longevity at all. Might be one of the shortest lived MMOs.