anyone care to explain what is so REVOLUTIONARY about this game? i played it for 4 hours and i didnt make "click " for me like it did back then when i played DAoC,lineage 2 and WoW.
is it just ppl hyping it ?
someone explain pls.
- The most basic thing that makes this game revolutionary is it's design philosophy. This is the first game (since I can remember) that put's a more heavy focus on community, over solo-progression. To elaborate, I can't think of any other MMOs, in which you aren't in direct competition with the players around you. You're always either fighting for mobs, resources, loot; and when another player shows up, you're chances of getting what you want are threatened. GW2 doesn't do this. Period.
... I can't think of any MMOs in which you aren't pushed towards 'endgame' and the entire rest of the game is irrelevant.
Those are the basics, and there are more specifics, but that's basically what it boils down to. A game designed around freedom of choice (you aren't locked into any one role, or playstyle), in which skill is the primary factor, and which you are actually encouraged to play w/ those around you. In other games, it's always the one w/ the best gear, the highest lvl, and the best build that wins. Furthermore, nearly every game (especially themeparks) has a 'best way to lvl' that you are basically pushed towards doing. It's either quest grinding, or strucured pvp, or both. This game allows you to do anything from WvW, to exploring, to questing, to crafting. It's very open.
Well, I guess you never played good old DAoC then?
In it's non-PvP setup you were save in your own realm. So, pretty much the worst that could happen are things like people (by choice or by accident) pulling mobs onto you, people (by accident or by choice) stealing your kill, people (by choice or by accident) stealing your loot. All of these are pretty much still possible in GW2. If you want to!
But the question is: why would you in the first place?
With DAoC there pretty much was no reason as you didn't compete with your co-realmers: they were your buddies.
The ones you were competing with (if you chose to do so) were the guys from other realms that you met out on the battlefield.
And those battlefields weren't only open as "endgame", they were a basic option for anybody who was willing to make his or her way there.
Of course, whether that meant you as "soft meat" going up against some "big boys", well, that's a different story... ;-)
But just as you could do RvR at any stage, there was enough PvE for even high end chars to have more than enough fun, and feel like "nothing else to do in this game but to go RvR" as you definitely have in other games. (Which I'd blame the casual gamers for: normal, classic "grind" just took too long, so things changed and the path became less important than the goal...)
Finally, freedom of choice... well... I'd say that is in certain aspects of GW2 just as limited (maybe even more so) than in other games.
Freedom of playstyle... as an example, DAoC offered 3 different versions of basically the same class type, one for each realm.
I'll use the "archer" as an example: Scout, Ranger and Hunter obviously all had an archery skill they could build up.
But each also had other skills they could pick instead: The Scout could focus on being more of a melee fighter by learning the Shield, both a defense and and offense melee skill (not to mention this normal melee weapon skill);
the Ranger could add magic to his fight which boosted both his ranged as well as available melee weapon attacks, though obviously it was his choice which skill he'd like to invest more(-ish) points in;
the Hunter may rather have invested into his pet and his spear than in his archery...
For each of these 3 both melee and ranged were an option.
(Of course, the same isn't true for all classes in DAoC, nor would it be true to say that any of the archers could be considered as "melee strong" as a pure melee class, but frankly from what I've experienced in the BWE (and pretty much just by way of simple logic - chainmail protects slightly better than cloth) not all GW2 classes are equal.)
But with the pool of classes that had grown in DAoC via all the expansions, you had a rather wide range of playstyles open.
Now, there is one more thing I don't agree with - though I won't say that DAoC on that end offered better choices, it just made things simpler as e.g. crafting made you a better craftsman, but didn't level your class up. Nor did simple running around and "discovering" new places level you up. Fighting and questing, that's what made your class more powerful, though of course being a good craftsman meant - potentially - having better gear...
Anyway, the thing I don't agree with is that GW2 doesn't have a "best way to lvl".
The only way to level your weapon skill is by using it. So, if you start running around thru the PvE world but never use your weapon, well, you will level up via the XP you get for the discoveries but your weapon skills will remain just one unlocked skill. Where you fight, that is up to you.
Now, to be honest I can't remember if you actually get points for discovering something in EB, but given the limits of the EB compared to the PvE world, going discovering in PvE remains the smarter choice.
And of course skill points!
While you need to unlock the util. slots of course by levelling up, in order to buy those skills of your choice you need skillpoints.
Which are easy to farm by simply going into the starting zones for each race or looking at the map and exploring your way to the closest skill point quest. And yes, some of these skill point quests don't even require you to show any power but instead rather all you need to do is complete a task that can be done by pretty much everyone.
So, in order to get as many skill points as quick as possible staying PvE is the smarter solution.
Which means: while normal PvP doesn't really require you to do any levelling, it makes much more sense to at least a first focus on PvE rather than EB. At least from my perspective.
Classicstar, if you call basing my opinion on playing the last BWE for pretty much the whole weekend, testing different races and classes, PvEing, PvPing and EBing, and comparing the result to over a decade of playing MMOs, well, yeah, I guess I don't really have a clue...
Lucioon,
you said one important thing: "after WoW".
Neither has GW2 re-invented the wheel (or the light bulb, the pen, the lollypop, the space shuttle and whatever else one may think GW2 has brought as "new" to the genre) nor will it be a good sign for future MMOs to come, if low quality features are something that game designers think they can get away with.
The latter is just what all the "WoW clone hate advocates" for any new game have been raging about, no matter how much that shoe actually fits!
And the prior, well, again: look at older (pre-WoW) games and you'll see how new certain ideas actually are...
OK, bye!
LMAO at this response.. Pretty much conceiting the fact that the guy is right and you have nothing to counter his words and would rather just ignore everything he says. Even when the majority of it has merit. Rather pathetic really.
He's right in a sense that his imaginary game is better than GW2. Well, my imaginary game is better than his and GW2 x 3. He's basically comparing GW2 to a game which does not exist.
I mean, if we compare GW2's story writing to SWTOR's, SWTOR's may be better. If we compare GW2's WvW to DOAC's RvR, DAOC's may be better. If we compare GW2's dynamic events to WAR's PQ's and Rifts invasions, WAR's PQ and Rift's invasions may be better... well, actually not they will not be better.
My point is that GW2 offers all of those things in one package and whether or not they are better or worse is a matter of personal opinion. Having played GW2 and having explored the extent of it's dynamic PvE content, I can safely say that for me, it is the best PvE game currently on the market.
heartless, we are pretty much on the same page. :-)
Okay, let me try and explain (and make it short):
Of course does GW2 gather all these features, the RvR/WvWvW, the dynamic events, the storyline, the broadening of the classes to not just be melee or ranged, the lots and lots of quests, etc.
And I would be happy with that... it's just that a) I'm not too impressed by how AN handles/sets up some (well, a lot) of these features, and b) don't care enough about having to have all of them to ignore the (IMO) flaws I see - you know that feeling: "I want that vintage Porsche. - But it's falling apart! - I don't care, it's a vintage Porsche!", it's just not there for me with GW2.
So, in that sense where you feel it's the best PvE game currently on the market, I see it as a Burger King of MMOs: offers a wide range of things for a low price, but doesn't compare to well when ordering the same (individual) "item" at a good restaurant/coffeeshop/gelatoplace/etc.
Which is not to say that you are wrong, or that I'm right, everybody has their own opinion, and that's the way it should be :-)
Oh, and yes, I'm not comparing GW2 (and all it has to offer) to just one game, never said that, I've always said that (IMO) the features in GW2 have already been done better in other games.
Which as such should be read as "if you want the full load of everything GW2 has to offer, you will have to play a bunch of MMOs. But by doing so, you'd see better versions (IMO) of these features"
Now, I don't think anybody would actually do that... but as people potentially don't want all the features, playing 2 or maybe 3 of these games, heck, why not?
But again, to each their own. :-)
EDIT: Forgot to say one thing - and obviously this is based on my opinion that while AN packs GW2 with features, these features are less than superb: if AN has a huge success with GW2 simply based on the game uniting many features (and only that, as the quality of the features is lacking), I'm afraid that other companies will pick up on that and create more and more "quantity over quality" games... and I assume that is definitely nothing any of us wants?
Look, I understand, you don't like the game because it doesn't fit your "perfect MMO" ideal but you cannot honestly say that other games did GW2's features better. I can tell you for a fact that GW2 does dynamic PvE content much better than any other MMO out there. The dynamic events are much more involved and advanced than any quest, public quest or invasion I have ever played. You would know this as well, had you actually played the GW2 past level 5.
ArenaNet's first game has a very strong PvP component, so if anyone can do PvP right, it's them. WvWvW PvP is fun, it's meaningful and it's a breath of fresh air compared to the usual instanced nonsense we have been fed since WoW's release. DAoC may have done RvR better, I honestly don't know as I never really got into that game, but I think that a lot of people who think so are looking at it through nostalgia glasses.
GW2 is a great game. One of the best, since WoW and GW1. Is it perfect? Far from it but it's fun and entertaining. You may not like it but thousands of people do and while you continue looking for your "perfect MMO", which you probably will never find, I will be enjoying GW2.
heartless, it's a simple matter of priorities, and they are different for each of us - obviously.
While you are focussing on dynamic events, I'd rather focus on WvWvW/RvR.
Now, I played different classes in the BWE, the highest was a lvl 18 Norn Engineer which I took thru a good stretch of the Human territory and even from the Black Citadel - not by way of portal - back into Norn lands.
So yes, I have seen different events... but see, these events are not special, not once per month, week or even just day which would make them unique-ish (and having been part of it a special feeling) but instead was rather a case of "so, here I am again, and the same event is running again, oh well, may as well put my foot in it and get the reward" - because being considered part of the event (and therefore getting the reward) is too easily triggered.
So, to me these "events" GW2 are really not as special as I'd expect (and am used) from events in other games.
And the fact that they are dynamic... well... that works both ways as obviously having too much "manpower" there for a static event makes the whole thing a bit of a "hey, wait, can anybody not kill one of the guys so that I can kill him" circus, while on the other side - as I have noticed in the BWE - the dynamic actually reacts to characters that are close but not there: as I said I actually got rewarded for events where I had walked by the area a couple of minutes before, without actually fighting, but also - for the poisoned water supply event - the poisoners jumped from one or two coming in that could easily be stopped by me and two other guys, to a sudden swarm that kept coming and completely overran us (even though a good min into the swarming a bunch of other gamers showed up).
Anyways, for me - and I'm sure for many other gamers who don't care about some small 5vs5 or 8vs8 PvP maps - the WvWvW/RvR is what I'd rather be interested in.
Now, to put it harsh, as you have never played DAoC (in its golden days) you don't really have a clue how its RvR compares to GW2's WvWvW.
It's easy to say "well, yeah, it's all nostalgia", but it's easier for me to say "get a good bunch of gamers you know, sign up for a DAoC trial, go thru the new user journey, and then get swept into a round of real RvR warfare."
Will you feel that much of a difference to WvWvW? Well, due to the fact that the trial only gives you 14 days, probably not... and that's the point: in DAoC RvR is not about fighting the very same classes as yourself, just from the 2 servers of the bi-week, it's about being proud and standing up for your own realm (that is different than the other 2 realms) and about the feelings that have grown towards the other realms. Which just doesn't happen from now to straightaway.
But GW2 doesn't even offer the chance for that to happen as the other guys are just like yourself (just a different color) and will rotate away after 2 weeks. So, should I really care about the enemy in WvWvW beyond the fact that I'm right now trying to take an objective? Not really... to me that is like fast food, right for the casual gamer who want to a bit of large ascale fighting but nothing deeper than that...
Anyhow, as I've said again and again - and while I completely accept that GW2 seems to offer enough for you - this rather "meh" "RvR", combined with quest that I consider to be just dumb/not worthy of an adventurer (and for most part are just timesinks due to the requirement on how to complete the quest!), the bad presentation of the storyline (and based on my Norn experience) it being rather bland, but especially also one other point (which I hadn't mentioned yet): lack of control over your companions!
Yes, call me spoiled by SWTOR if you like (or even good old SotNW), but the companion AI is a joke! I don't know how many times I got killed just because friggin Eir started to attack the wrong guy straight after being revived.
All of this makes the game, well, "meh", nothing more...
which leads me to something that you don't seem to understand: I'm not looking for my "perfect game", I have games (yes, SWTOR, yes DAoC, yes, RO, yes, SotNW, etc.) that share one of the features GW2 is offering, alas, their version of that feature is - to me - by far more fun than what I felt in those 60 hrs of BWE.
But, again, to each their own, and if you are happy eating fastfood, well, I'm not going to drag you into a 5 star restaurant. *shrug*
Interesting all the mentions to DAoC. I've played the game for years, since it's late Beta (and I have the disks to prove it =P), and from some podcasts and videos i've seen, GW2 is moving in a pretty similar direction. I left it some time after New New Frontiers... 2008 or 2009.
Gorenson mentions the pride of defending your realm (in my case, Hibernia is where i settled in) and, to an extent, he is right. This is probably the thing DAoC has done the best: giving you a long time link to your realm and, thus, to its people. It is significant.
However, GW2 eschews that, it seems, in favor of a more organic and dynamic setting, which is very much in par with everything I've read about its world, so far. It is a valid take, and it probably is the best option for this time and age (business wise).
What remains to be seen, in fact, is how DAoC's often problematic class balance and roles compare to GW2's adaptability and denial of the 'tank-DPS-healer' scheme. It was frankly something that bothered me in DAoC (and other games), because since the main focus of that game was the RvRvR, some classes had a very difficult time, or were very reliant on gear to perform adequately. Let's not even talk about Realm rank requirements.
So, I think that Anet's devs gave DAoC a real good look and tried to redo the experience, but in a more fluid manner. As a person who loved the Realm system, I am more than willing to accept this loss in favor for player cooperation, more flexibility, no gear grinds of any sort. Letting players focus on the world and on the community as a whole is a VERY sound design choice.
I'll be able to comment more after I play in the next BWE.
They aren't carebears. They are cowards. There is a difference.
Some carebears are quite brave.
CARE BEAR STARE!
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Well, I guess you never played good old DAoC then? (i have actually, that was a while ago though)
In it's non-PvP setup you were save in your own realm. So, pretty much the worst that could happen are things like people (by choice or by accident) pulling mobs onto you, people (by accident or by choice) stealing your kill, people (by choice or by accident) stealing your loot. All of these are pretty much still possible in GW2. If you want to!
(That's actually my point. Even in DAoC there was kill stealing & griefing. Especially on Mordred. And no, it's not possible in GW2, because GW2 doesn't have mob tagging or loot ownership. Everyone gets their own drops, and people can't claim mobs like they do in other MMOs.)
But the question is: why would you in the first place?
( don't get me wrong, DAoC had a great community, but it had more to do w/ 'realm pride' than anything else. That was huge in DAoC, but the difference is in GW2 they completely eliminate those obstacles, where as DAoC just strongly suggested 'don't do that'. It's like in UO, people could try and force each other to not PK 'for the good of the whole', but that didn't mean it wasn't possible and that people still didn't do it.)
Finally, freedom of choice... well... I'd say that is in certain aspects of GW2 just as limited (maybe even more so) than in other games.
( you really are going to need to elaborate on this. What MMOs would you say offer more freedom of choice? and why? )
Freedom of playstyle... as an example, DAoC offered 3 different versions of basically the same class type, one for each realm.
I'll use the "archer" as an example: Scout, Ranger and Hunter obviously all had an archery skill they could build up.
( Already you are pigeonholing my use of the word 'playstyle'. That doesn't automatically mean 'combat'. Even in DAoC, if you wanted to lvl, there was only a few viable ways to do it. In GW2, that's not the case. You can lvl by doing whatever 'with the exception of trying to do nothing but personal story', and you can mix / match freely at any point in time. )
For each of these 3 both melee and ranged were an option.
( And here, you are confusing DAoC's class-based system, with GW2's skill based system. In GW2 you also have ranged and melee options for each class, however the customization in GW2 doesn't come as a skill tree. GW2 operates on selecting the right weapons, skills, traits, and sigils for the type of fighting you expect to be doing. While it's true that a 'ranger' in GW2 doesn't split into other different class-types ie. DAoC, that doesn't mean it doesn't have more varying playstyle types. You can be a melee ranger, you can be a standard bow user, you can specialize in traps / conditions, you can specialize in buffing, you can generalize. Point is, you have pleanty of options within each class, and it's up to each player to figure that out & use them. )
Now, there is one more thing I don't agree with - though I won't say that DAoC on that end offered better choices, it just made things simpler as e.g. crafting made you a better craftsman, but didn't level your class up. Nor did simple running around and "discovering" new places level you up. Fighting and questing, that's what made your class more powerful, though of course being a good craftsman meant - potentially - having better gear...
( again here, you're disagreeing w/ me by stating the same point I was making )
Anyway, the thing I don't agree with is that GW2 doesn't have a "best way to lvl".
The only way to level your weapon skill is by using it. So, if you start running around thru the PvE world but never use your weapon, well, you will level up via the XP you get for the discoveries but your weapon skills will remain just one unlocked skill. Where you fight, that is up to you.
( For one. You don't lvl your weapon. Not sure where you got that idea from, but it's not in GW2. You do train your weapon skills, but that's it. Has nothing to do w/ your character lvl, you can unlock all your weapon skills by lvl 5 if you wanted, or you could still be doing it at 80. This doesn't make you less powerful, it only dictates how many different types of builds you can make, and how much versatility you can bring to your character. )
Now, to be honest I can't remember if you actually get points for discovering something in EB, but given the limits of the EB compared to the PvE world, going discovering in PvE remains the smarter choice.
( Again, there are many ways to lvl up. Some may seem faster, depending on what other players are doing. For example the first day of BWE, running around exploring / doing DEs was giving me the most progress. On the 2nd day, once they fixed the lag, WvW seemed to lvl me much faster, as there were a lot more people engaged in it. However, both are viable at all times. )
And of course skill points!
While you need to unlock the util. slots of course by levelling up, in order to buy those skills of your choice you need skillpoints.
Which are easy to farm by simply going into the starting zones for each race or looking at the map and exploring your way to the closest skill point quest. And yes, some of these skill point quests don't even require you to show any power but instead rather all you need to do is complete a task that can be done by pretty much everyone.
So, in order to get as many skill points as quick as possible staying PvE is the smarter solution.
Which means: while normal PvP doesn't really require you to do any levelling, it makes much more sense to at least a first focus on PvE rather than EB. At least from my perspective.
( except, depending on your playstyle, you don't necessarily need to farm skillpoints. If you just want to do structured PvP, you have all the skill points you need, and don't need to farm a damned thing. In PvE, you get skillpoints automatically by lvling up, and there's a limit to how many utility slots you can equip. It takes getting lvl 30 to be able to equip a full set of skills. By that point you have (you guessed it) 30 skill points to work with. Elite skills cost the most (~10-25 points), while the others cost significantly less (~1-11 points). So, unless you are repeatedly buying the wrong skills, you don't really need to 'farm' skill points. They will help you fully flesh out your character, but it's hardly necessary to hunt down every skill point challenge you see, unless you want to. Furthermore, a decent amount of the skills you can buy are cosmetic (racials) and are less powerful than your class' counter-part skills. )
Answered in the quotes. Truncated it, in the hopes of reducing the wall of text a bit.
I have to ask, did you:
a) read my full post ?
and
b) play the game ?
Reading through your full response makes it seem to me like you either watched a lot of videos, or read the wiki, but don't have much (if any) hands-on experience with the game. Or perhaps, were you one of those players who powered through the beta in 1 specific way, and assumed that yours was the 'best' way?
Going forward we're absolutely going to (already are actually) see GW2s influence on MMOs.
Hopefully developers mimic their creative approach rather than just 'borrowing' specific mechanics, but knowing the MMO industry...well, it'll be easier for me to stomach years of GW2 clones than WoW clones at least.
I can't imagine any 2004 model linear task hub grind we see announced now will actually look that appealing to any that have seen what's actually possible in an online game with a bit of effort and re-evaluation. I know I was thrown off when I logged into a recent 'action combat' MMO to find just how out of place that linear task grind seems in 2012. I'm sure some people could happily play WoW clones for years, but personally I'm glad to see some advancement in the industry after such a long stagnation period.
As much as GW2 came out of nowhere to win me over, and as much as I enjoyed it, I still have no way of knowing how long it will last me in the end. Which is why I'm equally as excited about the impact this game is going to have on future MMOs.
If there is anything I really hope other games will copy it is: "doing your own thing". Which was a major point pointed out by Arenanet explaining why they broke from the WoW mold.
Edit
I find it weird that all other GW2 fans do not automatically feel the same about that choice of design.
I keep hearing DAOC, DAOC RVR, I totally understand that DAOC was the first to bring RVR to the MMO world, but what other games after it implemented it back into their games. People need to understand that GW2 is the first game to bring it back to the MMO genre.
How many MMO have we gotten from DAOC to GW2 and how many utilized the Full Scale Battle with Siege Weapons, that succeeded to capture the essence of warfare that actually made people want to play it.
Those that keep comparing GW2 WvWvW with DAOC RVR need to understand that with GW2, and if GW2 succeeded, we will be getting more and more MMO in the future with RVR or WvWvW , not only will others finally realize the investment opportunities in these features , we might just get every MMO developed starting now to include another form of Full Scale Battles.
ISn't that what we gamers want? More DAOC RVR , GW2 WvWvW ?
Those that keep saying how GW2 sucks, okay , its your opinion, you aren't forced to play it or buy the game. But you can't argue that if GW2 succeeded, you might just get a game that you will love with the RVR that you love because of GW2, because they took the initial risk and Put WvWvW siege warfare into their games.
Incase you didn't understand my point, my point is you don't need to like GW2, but do you see that because of GW2 you will get the RVR that you really want in other games if GW2 succeeded. Because Developers copy from one another and if WvWvW is a success, people will copy it into their games with their own blend of twists.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
GW2 is nothing new, but what is does is not to focus on some gimmick and make general gameplay fun.
If it does nothing new, explain why I loathed the sight of any other player I came across in every other game world, but had the exact opposite reaction in this game. Enjoying the company of other players is a very new thing for me. They're obviously doing something that no one else has tried yet.
How are we to explain how you are reacting?
Maybe the toons in other games looked bad on your PC? Maybe your taste has changed?
You'd have to tell us what made you not loathe the company of other gamers in GW2.
For my part, I found that gamers in the BWE were as, well, "fun to play with" as in many other MMOs *shrug*
Or maybe the game is doing something different that no other game has done. Sad how bloody hard that it for some people to admit -- but not unexpected. It's hard to see anything with one's eyes squeezed shut.
From the recent announcement of The Elder Scrolls Online, we can see that most of the features are pretty much copy-pasted from GW2.
So, this has started me wondering. Is GW2, even before release, the touchstone for most other themepark MMOs to follow?
Deja vu.
I swear I saw threads on this same exact topic posted about TOR before that launched.
TOR was going to change the way MMO's were made. TOR was going to be a genre changer. TOR was going to be the standard by which all future MMOs would be judged. TOR was going to destroy WoW once and for all... TOR... TOR... TOR...
TOR released, failed to achieve any of those (and other) declarations and predictions made of it and has all but fallen to the back burner for many people.
Hate to break it to you, but TOR did change the genre. Just not in a way most people care about.
You will notice that now (after TOR) more and more MMOs are promising 'personal stories'. TOR started it, GW2 has it, TERA has a very minimal version of it, TSW is doing it, the only one I can think of that isn't doing it is planetside 2.
It's certainly not a feature that is dealing w/ issues most of us complain about, but it is a feature that is being adopted none-the-less.
Tor changed the genere alright, i guarantee you we won't see a 250 million dollar mmo again where most of that is spent on voice acting. Tor brought up the importance of story, but it also warned games to be conscious of when to use voice acting and when not to. PErsonal stories rocked, but when every quest is voice acted, it shows the limits of voice acting.
heartless, it's a simple matter of priorities, and they are different for each of us - obviously.
While you are focussing on dynamic events, I'd rather focus on WvWvW/RvR.
Now, I played different classes in the BWE, the highest was a lvl 18 Norn Engineer which I took thru a good stretch of the Human territory and even from the Black Citadel - not by way of portal - back into Norn lands.
So yes, I have seen different events... but see, these events are not special, not once per month, week or even just day which would make them unique-ish (and having been part of it a special feeling) but instead was rather a case of "so, here I am again, and the same event is running again, oh well, may as well put my foot in it and get the reward" - because being considered part of the event (and therefore getting the reward) is too easily triggered.
So, to me these "events" GW2 are really not as special as I'd expect (and am used) from events in other games.
And the fact that they are dynamic... well... that works both ways as obviously having too much "manpower" there for a static event makes the whole thing a bit of a "hey, wait, can anybody not kill one of the guys so that I can kill him" circus, while on the other side - as I have noticed in the BWE - the dynamic actually reacts to characters that are close but not there: as I said I actually got rewarded for events where I had walked by the area a couple of minutes before, without actually fighting, but also - for the poisoned water supply event - the poisoners jumped from one or two coming in that could easily be stopped by me and two other guys, to a sudden swarm that kept coming and completely overran us (even though a good min into the swarming a bunch of other gamers showed up).
Anyways, for me - and I'm sure for many other gamers who don't care about some small 5vs5 or 8vs8 PvP maps - the WvWvW/RvR is what I'd rather be interested in.
Now, to put it harsh, as you have never played DAoC (in its golden days) you don't really have a clue how its RvR compares to GW2's WvWvW.
It's easy to say "well, yeah, it's all nostalgia", but it's easier for me to say "get a good bunch of gamers you know, sign up for a DAoC trial, go thru the new user journey, and then get swept into a round of real RvR warfare."
Will you feel that much of a difference to WvWvW? Well, due to the fact that the trial only gives you 14 days, probably not... and that's the point: in DAoC RvR is not about fighting the very same classes as yourself, just from the 2 servers of the bi-week, it's about being proud and standing up for your own realm (that is different than the other 2 realms) and about the feelings that have grown towards the other realms. Which just doesn't happen from now to straightaway.
But GW2 doesn't even offer the chance for that to happen as the other guys are just like yourself (just a different color) and will rotate away after 2 weeks. So, should I really care about the enemy in WvWvW beyond the fact that I'm right now trying to take an objective? Not really... to me that is like fast food, right for the casual gamer who want to a bit of large ascale fighting but nothing deeper than that...
Anyhow, as I've said again and again - and while I completely accept that GW2 seems to offer enough for you - this rather "meh" "RvR", combined with quest that I consider to be just dumb/not worthy of an adventurer (and for most part are just timesinks due to the requirement on how to complete the quest!), the bad presentation of the storyline (and based on my Norn experience) it being rather bland, but especially also one other point (which I hadn't mentioned yet): lack of control over your companions!
Yes, call me spoiled by SWTOR if you like (or even good old SotNW), but the companion AI is a joke! I don't know how many times I got killed just because friggin Eir started to attack the wrong guy straight after being revived.
All of this makes the game, well, "meh", nothing more...
which leads me to something that you don't seem to understand: I'm not looking for my "perfect game", I have games (yes, SWTOR, yes DAoC, yes, RO, yes, SotNW, etc.) that share one of the features GW2 is offering, alas, their version of that feature is - to me - by far more fun than what I felt in those 60 hrs of BWE.
But, again, to each their own, and if you are happy eating fastfood, well, I'm not going to drag you into a 5 star restaurant. *shrug*
Basically, your 5 page article cane be summed up in you having unrealistic expectations. Especially the last part, where you complain that companion AI is not working properly... In beta! Remember how the companions in SWTOR would get stuck on elevators or fall through the floor, right before release and even after SWTOR launched? Anyway!
By your own admission, you haven't really looked at the PvE side of things, so you're probably not aware of the various features that make PvE interesting.
You're absolutely right, however, most of the events are not "special." They are fun and engaging but there is nothing about then that makes you really go "OMG! OMG! OMG!" like a pre-teen girl at a Justin Beiber concert because if every event was "special" none of them would be special. Think about that while I move on to your issues with WvW. Let me just state that there are "special" events but they are not right outside of the city gates, you actually need to go a little farther than the tutorial areas to find them. Moving right along!
As far as your RvR comparison, like I said it's nostalgia. All this talk about realm pride and you completely missed the fact that, GW2's server pride is actually more meaningful, if you think about it. Consider this: if you're on the Yak's Bend server and you guys are consistently winning WvW, the whole GW2 community will know that the Yak's Bend server is one of the best. It holds more meaning than having one faction out of 3 located on one of dozens of servers being the best.
Basically, saying "Yak's Bend" are great in WvW has more meaning to the community than saying the Albion faction on Carnac server are great in RvR. You know why? Because there is only 1 Yak's Bend server but there are dozens of Albion factions located on dozens of servers.
You obviously have fond memories of DAoC and that is why you have issues with GW2's WvW because it's similar yet not the same. WvW doesn't really fit your version of RvR because it doesn't fit with how you remember DAoC's RvR but neither would the real DAoC RvR. It's nostalgia, plain and simple.
Either way, good luck with finding a game you will enjoy.
playing most of the BWE (and yes, that means playing 22 hrs straight, crashnap, going back in) simply because I wanted to get an overall feel for the game.
Now,
to look at some of your replies - and btw thanks for them!
That's actually my point. Even in DAoC there was kill stealing & griefing. Especially on Mordred. And no, it's not possible in GW2, because GW2 doesn't have mob tagging or loot ownership. Everyone gets their own drops, and people can't claim mobs like they do in other MMOs.
well, my experience with mobs was slightly different in GW2, but hey, could have been glitches... *shrug*
The thing is:
don't get me wrong, DAoC had a great community, but it had more to do w/ 'realm pride' than anything else. That was huge in DAoC (thanks for confirming that already!), but the difference is in GW2 they completely eliminate those obstacles, where as DAoC just strongly suggested 'don't do that'. It's like in UO, people could try and force each other to not PK 'for the good of the whole', but that didn't mean it wasn't possible and that people still didn't do it.
Freedom of choice is always a 2 way road as people can choose to be nice, do good things... or to do, well, not so nice things.
I trust myself to be a nice guy (most of the time) and if somebody needs my help I'll do it, no matter if I get an XP reward or loot out of it.
With GW2 I found this to be a bit more "forced": when looking at my mini-map I was actively scanning for dead gamers... at first because i figured "let's be nice and get them back into the game", but that quickly turned to "hey, dead people, good XP to get for reviving them!"
So, it's a simple "carrot in front of you" setup: help your fellow man and you'll be rewarded, don't do it and you lose out.
If you ask me, yes, of course you still have a freedom of choice right there, to say yes or no... but on the other side it's a sad thing to see that positive choices now need to be baited with "reward" flavor. Maybe I'm just too much of a boy scout for that...
Already you are pigeonholing my use of the word 'playstyle'. That doesn't automatically mean 'combat'. Even in DAoC, if you wanted to lvl, there was only a few viable ways to do it. In GW2, that's not the case. You can lvl by doing whatever 'with the exception of trying to do nothing but personal story', and you can mix / match freely at any point in time.
okay, so, what else is there in GW2 (or DAoC) aside from "combat"?
Crafting: will say straightaway that I didn't test that in BWE, simply because it wasn't at the top of my list to check. I rather tested the feel/effectiveness of other classes (as well as looks of other races, the design of other zones, etc.) to see if that made me feel more positive about GW2 than hoping to salvage my feelings for GW2 thru the crafting system: would be sort of sad to say "yes, I will play GW2 because i love the crafting system... even though the rest sucks" I guess.
but from what I'm reading into posts here, in Gw2 crafting will also level you up.
Not really sure if that is good or bad, or anything at all, unless we go back to the carrot concept stated above: craft and your character gets more powerful, don't craft and you lose out...
DAoC kept it simple: crafting was separate from character class levelling so you could easily outcraft your level, but it was your pride in being a crafter that made you work those crafting skills, not a non-crafting related promise of reward.
Exploring: again, we are looking at a reward system: explore the map and you will get XP. Not new in GW2, been taking that to the max since day one of SWTOR. Simply because exploring is natural for me... and I must admit watching some SWTOR streams that I wondered how "stupid" some gamers are to not full explore the map and therefore losing out on easy XP.
But, do I go "dang, why didn't they have that in 'some other game i played'?" Nope, actually not... I would (and will) still go exploring even if there is no (XP) reward and I just do it for the fun of doing it.
And well, that pretty much brings up to the end of options: questing gives you XP even if there's no fighting just running around involved, been like that forever.
As does combat.
Tell me if I missed out on a source of XP in GW2?
just one word though: there is combat and there is "combat".
I'll take a step outside the usual MMO(RPG) cage here: once in a while I like to have simple fun with Battlefield Heroes. Now, most of the time I end up in the upper third point range without having a single kill!
Just by stealthing around the map and capturing outposts. Loads of fun - for me ;-)
A concept that I found sort of missing in MMOs lately, not necessarily due to missing skills but due to map design and in turn lack of usability of that gaming concept.
guess what, when I saw the design for the PvP maps in GW2 I had high hopes that yes, I would be able to play stealth focused here... alas, testing that with a PvP map maxed Thief, checking his skills, I found a suitable stealth option completely missing!
Oh, yeah, 3 sec of stealth with healing... and then waiting for a - I think - 20 sec cooldown to finish... fab! setting up a Shadow refuge thinking "hey, that will make a nice trap"? Not so much when the stealth doesn't last.
so, frankly the one class that should have been utility (Thief) is "reduced" to just being a stealth combatant, not a stealth utilizer...
talk about freedom of choice in using your class... and then think about steath classes in DAoC and their use in RvR! ;-)
Anyways, on to the next:
And here, you are confusing DAoC's class-based system, with GW2's skill based system. In GW2 you also have ranged and melee options for each class, however the customization in GW2 doesn't come as a skill tree. GW2 operates on selecting the right weapons, skills, traits, and sigils for the type of fighting you expect to be doing. While it's true that a 'ranger' in GW2 doesn't split into other different class-types ie. DAoC, that doesn't mean it doesn't have more varying playstyle types. You can be a melee ranger, you can be a standard bow user, you can specialize in traps / conditions, you can specialize in buffing, you can generalize. Point is, you have pleanty of options within each class, and it's up to each player to figure that out & use them.
Right, now I need to ask you if YOU have actually plated GW2 or are just drawing your knowledge from other sources? :-P (just kidding!)
Both, GW2 and DAoC use a class system, both use a skill system. In that sense that each class has a set of skills you can pick from, usually having to buy that skill.
that is what you pretty much find in any MMORPG.
DAoC does so thru 2 options.
Going with the achers as an example:
1. a different "archer" class for each realm - so if you felt like going a bit more magical and you were okay being Hibernian, heck, you'd go Ranger. More melee? And Albion is okay? Go Scout! etc.
2. different skill sets inside your chosen class to pick from when placing your points - yes, your Ranger could be a killer skill archer, or he could up his skill thru magic... which he could also boost his melee attacks, which he may also have focused on rather then skilling with his bow... it's mix and match as you please (and have points, obviously).
Now, you are saying that GW2 actually offers more varying playstyle types. - remember, with the points above I was focusing on the archer classes, i do definitely agree that when comparing certain DAoC Classes with it's GW2 "counterpart" (at least by name), these GW2 class will have more options.
But DAoC has more classes (and races) to choose from, and in turn the number of overall available playstyles increases over what GW2 has to offer. ;-)
So, it's a bit of a question of whether you want to set yourself a wide but overall limited range playstyles by selecting a certain class (DAoC), or select a class and then have it's full range of skills to choose from, and yes, be able to be flexible about it (GW2).
I bet you are saying GW2 wins hands down, no contest.
To which i coun't agree less!
The problem is that the number of skills you can use is severely restricted!
Of course you can unlock all the attacks for each of the weapon combinations, and you can do so by just using them, and yes, you can potentially switch the available attacks on the fly.
But the combat skills are just part of your arsenal! you also have the med and the Util. skills and slots!
which means that while you may buy a lot of skills, you will always be able to just set up a very limited number for quick use, for any other you'd actually have to go into your Hero screen and re-asign the skill to a skill slot.
Which is okay if you can prepare for a certain task - sort of like "do I take the silenced pistol or the machine gun for this mission... well, it is a stealth mission, so..." - but I bet ya anything you want that most gamers in GW2 will set themselves up with a specific set of util. skills and hardly ever move away from it. Same for the med. slot.
So, if you compare the overall readily available range of "skills" in DAoC with what you have in GW2, I think you'll have to agree that DAoC wins.
GW2 turns into a "switch" feast: "now i'm switching to a different weapon, now i'm switching to a different kit, now i'm switching away from that kit, now i'm switching to a different weapon, now i'm switching back to that kit to activate what I had set up there, now I'm dropping that kit again switching to my weapon", switch, switch, switch...
frankly, I fail to see the point (and fun) in that, and yes, while you may say that this is "part of why one has to re-learn skill use in GW2", to me it's a bit like "why?" as it doesn't seem better but rather like ego stroking by AN saying "we did our own thing!"
Maybe it's just old dogs and learning new tricks... but this old dog doesn't care a bit about these (IMO) pointless new tricks, so why should I bother?
For one. You don't lvl your weapon. Not sure where you got that idea from, but it's not in GW2. You do train your weapon skills, but that's it. Has nothing to do w/ your character lvl, you can unlock all your weapon skills by lvl 5 if you wanted, or you could still be doing it at 80. This doesn't make you less powerful, it only dictates how many different types of builds you can make, and how much versatility you can bring to your character.
Ha! Seriously? okay, so we are going to call it "unlock"... which you do by using your weapon... and each unlocked combat skill adds to the available arsenal for your weapon.
which i will call - in simple English - levelling up your weapon.
So, as you said you can have levelled up to the max each single weapon, or you can pretty much keep it to just one weapon and its skills. Your choice. But yes, it does make you less powerful IF you don't max all weapons, because that certain weapon skill that may just be right for this particular moment, and to which you could so easily switch in GW2, well, you don't have it as you failed to level your weapon up, nay, just to make it plain: as you failed to unlock it!
which in turn means, if you want to be able to use your character to the fullest effect possible, you will unlock all weapon skills!
Again, there are many ways to lvl up. Some may seem faster, depending on what other players are doing. For example the first day of BWE, running around exploring / doing DEs was giving me the most progress. On the 2nd day, once they fixed the lag, WvW seemed to lvl me much faster, as there were a lot more people engaged in it. However, both are viable at all times.
Somehow I fail to see in what way that makes GW2 special?
except, depending on your playstyle, you don't necessarily need to farm skillpoints. If you just want to do structured PvP, you have all the skill points you need, and don't need to farm a damned thing. In PvE, you get skillpoints automatically by lvling up, and there's a limit to how many utility slots you can equip. It takes getting lvl 30 to be able to equip a full set of skills. By that point you have (you guessed it) 30 skill points to work with. Elite skills cost the most (~10-25 points), while the others cost significantly less (~1-11 points). So, unless you are repeatedly buying the wrong skills, you don't really need to 'farm' skill points. They will help you fully flesh out your character, but it's hardly necessary to hunt down every skill point challenge you see, unless you want to. Furthermore, a decent amount of the skills you can buy are cosmetic (racials) and are less powerful than your class' counter-part skills.
well... it's true.. and that's where I consider GW2 to fail badly!
Given the limitation of the unlocking of util. slots, there is little point of me buying many skills.
Now, with easy access to many skill point quests (just go to each starting area and you pretty much get a skill point for free, all it takes is some quick portal hopping or even just teleporting if the area is explored) you can easily have that skill you consider to be "the most powerfu"l by level 5 when you unlock your first slot, even if that skill is the most expensive in the list.
With a bit of skill point farming you can even have bought the full set of normal skills you think you'll be using when you have all your util. slots available - by level 5!
yet, of course, what would be the point of doing this if you have only 1 slot available?
so, this is where GW2 actually loses a good part of why PvE should be attractive over EB (or at least equally so) in the slightly longer run:
You farm your points thru a few skill point quests in PvE, once you have learned all the skills you want (or rather consider worth buying for now as obviously you'll still get skill points by levelling in PvP so you can buy more skills later), there really is little point of going back to PvE.
Of course, you may prefer PvE over WvWvW by default and will therefore play it...
but why should someone interested in WvWvW? Or even PvP for that matter?
A reason would be either the quality of the loot or the quality of the quests/events there.
loot, I'll leave that open as what drops we have seen in the BWE will - I'm pretty sure of it - have changed by release.
quests/events... I said it before but i'll say it again: yes, there are lots of either, but a real event should be something special (IMO) and not something that is triggered every 15 min or so... beating your chest and shouting "we just defeated Commissar Szeged!" sort of falls flat when you get a "yeah, done that 6 times already... today" in return.
and many of the quests are really just, well, on a farmboy level, not what a wannabe hero would be interested in...
oh, wait... the storyline... yeah... I guess I must have fallen asleep on that one...
me, personally, I usually like to mix things up, go PvP for fighting not simple game AI, but then also go PvE for the fun of adventuring (thru hunting new monsters, or if available thru fun quests and, again if available, a story).
i know PvPer that would normally never give a flying ferret's floating fart about PvE in MMOs... but actually loved it in SWTOR becauseboth the story and a good chunk of the quest intriqued them, was fun for them!
GW2 just doesn't offer me that fun on the PvE end!
And on the pure PvP end, well, with that type of gaming having actually dropped the RPG part and instead just gone FPS-like player skill (not GW2 or AN's fault, same in other games), cough, yeah, sorry, next please?
So, that leaves only EB... which brings us back to DAoC and it's realm pride/hatred.
Something that will not happen in GW2 or at best for a few and then as that abstract construct of "I'm proud to play on server XYZ".
which actually goes against the trend that you see right now in onlineFPS where they are trying to "infect" you with pride in not just your squad but your faction.
Isn't that weird? How MMORPG actually loses it's RPG side and onlineFPS becomes more RPG-y?
Only idiots thought GW2 would be perfect and the savior and second coming of Christ.
Even with realistic expectations, it's an amazing game and easily the best new MMO since 2004 because it actually is new and feels new unlike "EQ clone + gimmick" which is all we've had since WoW.
I felt it would have been ready to release last month, but than again I didn't get very high level. No idea what state Sylvari/Asura lands are in not to mention the 30-80 game.
I keep hearing DAOC, DAOC RVR, I totally understand that DAOC was the first to bring RVR to the MMO world, but what other games after it implemented it back into their games. People need to understand that GW2 is the first game to bring it back to the MMO genre.
How many MMO have we gotten from DAOC to GW2 and how many utilized the Full Scale Battle with Siege Weapons, that succeeded to capture the essence of warfare that actually made people want to play it.
Those that keep comparing GW2 WvWvW with DAOC RVR need to understand that with GW2, and if GW2 succeeded, we will be getting more and more MMO in the future with RVR or WvWvW , not only will others finally realize the investment opportunities in these features , we might just get every MMO developed starting now to include another form of Full Scale Battles.
ISn't that what we gamers want? More DAOC RVR , GW2 WvWvW ?
Those that keep saying how GW2 sucks, okay , its your opinion, you aren't forced to play it or buy the game. But you can't argue that if GW2 succeeded, you might just get a game that you will love with the RVR that you love because of GW2, because they took the initial risk and Put WvWvW siege warfare into their games.
Incase you didn't understand my point, my point is you don't need to like GW2, but do you see that because of GW2 you will get the RVR that you really want in other games if GW2 succeeded. Because Developers copy from one another and if WvWvW is a success, people will copy it into their games with their own blend of twists.
Lucioon,
you are actually quite wrong!
A non-"small map/small teams" limited style of PvP has been included in many MMOs over the last decade.
What made DAoC unique in regards to that is its 3 factions!
Which is understandable as in a two faction setup and with pretty much unrestricted numbers to enter the battlefield, chances are good that one faction will by far outnumber the other. (Everybody knows how in SWTOR people are crying that there are too many Imps and not enough Reps on Ilum)
With a 3 faction system on the other hand, and people making smart choices, it is possible to tilt the battle by having 2 weaker factions taking on a stronger one together.
It's pretty much the smartest way to do faction warfare.
So, why haven't MMOs been doing just that after DAoC?
The reason is simple: Synergy!
DAoC managed to naturally pit 3 factions against each other and creating what is called "realm pride", as yes, you actually cared about what happened out there in the persistant RvR battleground, whether your realm lost a keep or took a relic.
Other games have tried that (even with more factions, some even player created/based) thru forced fabrication... and failed.
Understandable: we all understand the concept of Good vs Evil, Dark vs Light, Chaos vs Order, Nature vs Machines, etc. but where to pull that 3rd faction from that stands against both of them?
So, instead break out of that "bi-polar" box and make your own factions triangle.
Alas, fabricating factions will in the end only work if it manages to actually make you feel something for your faction.
Aika is a perfect example for this... and how it pretty much fails: you have 5 different nations you can become a citizen of and each nation has ist own background, its own flavor.
But as a) you don't have to join a nation, and b) being part of a nation actually offers little, and c) the nations' "personalities" are pretty much "meh", why bother?
So, just putting 3 (or more) factions onto the battlefield won't make "RvR" or "WvWvW" more fun than a quick PvP session with lots of people and some objectives.
It is caring about your faction and its state that pulls you in!
And here is where AN fails with GW2: what may your "realm pride" be in WvWvW?
"I'm proud to play on server XYZ!"?
Really?
Because there is nothing else: the guys on the other side are the same as you, only a different color.
And apparently every 2 weeks the servers are rotated, so it's not even like today's enemy faction (read: server) will be the same in 2 weeks time.
WvWvW becomes nothing more than what the name suggests, an "Eternal Battleground" where aside from offering fights on a larger scale nothing is really different from simple PvP: go in, fight a bit, go out, 90% of all keeps in enemy hand? Who cares, you had your fun *shrug*
So of course, we will see WvWvW "clones" in future MMOs... the problem is just that these MMOs will target the casual gamer... who just wants to play his <10 hrs each week, really just quick into the action, have a bit of fun, get out again...
Which will mean that these WvWvWs will probably be nothing more than abstract concstructs there to offer a playing field for quick fun...
GW2 is nothing new, but what is does is not to focus on some gimmick and make general gameplay fun.
If it does nothing new, explain why I loathed the sight of any other player I came across in every other game world, but had the exact opposite reaction in this game. Enjoying the company of other players is a very new thing for me. They're obviously doing something that no one else has tried yet.
How are we to explain how you are reacting?
Maybe the toons in other games looked bad on your PC? Maybe your taste has changed?
You'd have to tell us what made you not loathe the company of other gamers in GW2.
For my part, I found that gamers in the BWE were as, well, "fun to play with" as in many other MMOs *shrug*
Or maybe the game is doing something different that no other game has done. Sad how bloody hard that it for some people to admit -- but not unexpected. It's hard to see anything with one's eyes squeezed shut.
Oh Unlight...
it seems like you can't even say what (in your opinion) makes GW2 seem better...
"the game is doing something different that no other game has done"
yeah, it is taking features from other games and uniting them under one umbrella.
It's not like WoW hasn't done the same over the years...
so... it's actually... err... not being a perfect WoW clone where it is different?
Frankly... to be honest i'd rather play a game that follows an established system to the dot but offers real entertainment for me than a game that pretends to be "new" but is about as stale as, well, yesterday's armpit.
I mean I'm more than happy to discuss any point where you feel that GW2 is better... if you tell us these points!
but up until then, yeah, it is definitely hard to see anything with one's eyes squeezed shut... especially if that means that your dreamhouse is really just a dumpster.
GW2 is nothing new, but what is does is not to focus on some gimmick and make general gameplay fun.
If it does nothing new, explain why I loathed the sight of any other player I came across in every other game world, but had the exact opposite reaction in this game. Enjoying the company of other players is a very new thing for me. They're obviously doing something that no one else has tried yet.
How are we to explain how you are reacting?
Maybe the toons in other games looked bad on your PC? Maybe your taste has changed?
You'd have to tell us what made you not loathe the company of other gamers in GW2.
For my part, I found that gamers in the BWE were as, well, "fun to play with" as in many other MMOs *shrug*
Or maybe the game is doing something different that no other game has done. Sad how bloody hard that it for some people to admit -- but not unexpected. It's hard to see anything with one's eyes squeezed shut.
Oh Unlight...
it seems like you can't even say what (in your opinion) makes GW2 seem better...
"the game is doing something different that no other game has done"
yeah, it is taking features from other games and uniting them under one umbrella.
It's not like WoW hasn't done the same over the years...
so... it's actually... err... not being a perfect WoW clone where it is different?
Frankly... to be honest i'd rather play a game that follows an established system to the dot but offers real entertainment for me than a game that pretends to be "new" but is about as stale as, well, yesterday's armpit.
I mean I'm more than happy to discuss any point where you feel that GW2 is better... if you tell us these points!
but up until then, yeah, it is definitely hard to see anything with one's eyes squeezed shut... especially if that means that your dreamhouse is really just a dumpster.
You keep saying that other games have done things better but you have yet to present any valid arguments. Your DAoC argument falls through when you realize that it's nothing more than your fond memories and not the real truth.
DAoC was always plagued by class imbalances caused mainly by the fact that each faction had different classes. We all know that having balanced classes in PvP is vital to the enjoyment of the system.
You keep bringing up how DAoC had "realm pride" but completely disregard GW2's server pride which is even more meaningful. In DAoC, your realm could make a name for itself on it's own server but in GW2 your server can make a name for itself for the whole community. If Yak's Bend server is consistently victorious in WvW, the whole community will know that it's the best. In DAoC, if your realm is consistently victorious in RvR, only your server cares about it and there are dozens of servers so you're pretty much irrelevent.
Your argument simply boils down to the fact that you don't like the game because it doesn't fit your ideal of what an MMO should be. Well, no game fits that ideal. Not even DAoC.
Only idiots thought GW2 would be perfect and the savior and second coming of Christ.
Even with realistic expectations, it's an amazing game and easily the best new MMO since 2004 because it actually is new and feels new unlike "EQ clone + gimmick" which is all we've had since WoW.
I felt it would have been ready to release last month, but than again I didn't get very high level. No idea what state Sylvari/Asura lands are in not to mention the 30-80 game.
Don't forget delusional people (I am not actually sure there even was a first comming of Christ, evidence is inconclusive).
Still, it is a good game and we are starved on good games by now.
GW2 is not really so revolutionary as some people think but it feels like it because all the bad paste and copy games we hve gotten for so long time now.
Only idiots thought GW2 would be perfect and the savior and second coming of Christ.
Even with realistic expectations, it's an amazing game and easily the best new MMO since 2004 because it actually is new and feels new unlike "EQ clone + gimmick" which is all we've had since WoW.
I felt it would have been ready to release last month, but than again I didn't get very high level. No idea what state Sylvari/Asura lands are in not to mention the 30-80 game.
Don't forget delusional people (I am not actually sure there even was a first comming of Christ, evidence is inconclusive).
Still, it is a good game and we are starved on good games by now.
GW2 is not really so revolutionary as some people think but it feels like it is because all the bad paste and copy games we hve gotten for so long time now.
Only idiots thought GW2 would be perfect and the savior and second coming of Christ.
Even with realistic expectations, it's an amazing game and easily the best new MMO since 2004 because it actually is new and feels new unlike "EQ clone + gimmick" which is all we've had since WoW.
I felt it would have been ready to release last month, but than again I didn't get very high level. No idea what state Sylvari/Asura lands are in not to mention the 30-80 game.
Don't forget delusional people (I am not actually sure there even was a first comming of Christ, evidence is inconclusive).
Still, it is a good game and we are starved on good games by now.
GW2 is not really so revolutionary as some people think but it feels like it is because all the bad paste and copy games we hve gotten for so long time now.
I agree completely, with both points
I'm going to disagree with something here in a sense... I think GW2 is as revolutionary as people think. Just remember, a revolution can be started by a single bullet. In and of itself, GW2 is an amazing game. Imagine, however, what this could spawn? No more static worlds with generic questing, a possible death knell to subscriptions, a dagger in the heart of the archaic trinity... it's hard to say right now. We won't know how revolutionary GW2 actually is for a few years when new games yet to be designed spawn and show what model they've chosen to go forwards with.
heartless, it's a simple matter of priorities, and they are different for each of us - obviously.
While you are focussing on dynamic events, I'd rather focus on WvWvW/RvR.
Now, I played different classes in the BWE, the highest was a lvl 18 Norn Engineer which I took thru a good stretch of the Human territory and even from the Black Citadel - not by way of portal - back into Norn lands.
So yes, I have seen different events... but see, these events are not special, not once per month, week or even just day which would make them unique-ish (and having been part of it a special feeling) but instead was rather a case of "so, here I am again, and the same event is running again, oh well, may as well put my foot in it and get the reward" - because being considered part of the event (and therefore getting the reward) is too easily triggered.
So, to me these "events" GW2 are really not as special as I'd expect (and am used) from events in other games.
And the fact that they are dynamic... well... that works both ways as obviously having too much "manpower" there for a static event makes the whole thing a bit of a "hey, wait, can anybody not kill one of the guys so that I can kill him" circus, while on the other side - as I have noticed in the BWE - the dynamic actually reacts to characters that are close but not there: as I said I actually got rewarded for events where I had walked by the area a couple of minutes before, without actually fighting, but also - for the poisoned water supply event - the poisoners jumped from one or two coming in that could easily be stopped by me and two other guys, to a sudden swarm that kept coming and completely overran us (even though a good min into the swarming a bunch of other gamers showed up).
Anyways, for me - and I'm sure for many other gamers who don't care about some small 5vs5 or 8vs8 PvP maps - the WvWvW/RvR is what I'd rather be interested in.
Now, to put it harsh, as you have never played DAoC (in its golden days) you don't really have a clue how its RvR compares to GW2's WvWvW.
It's easy to say "well, yeah, it's all nostalgia", but it's easier for me to say "get a good bunch of gamers you know, sign up for a DAoC trial, go thru the new user journey, and then get swept into a round of real RvR warfare."
Will you feel that much of a difference to WvWvW? Well, due to the fact that the trial only gives you 14 days, probably not... and that's the point: in DAoC RvR is not about fighting the very same classes as yourself, just from the 2 servers of the bi-week, it's about being proud and standing up for your own realm (that is different than the other 2 realms) and about the feelings that have grown towards the other realms. Which just doesn't happen from now to straightaway.
But GW2 doesn't even offer the chance for that to happen as the other guys are just like yourself (just a different color) and will rotate away after 2 weeks. So, should I really care about the enemy in WvWvW beyond the fact that I'm right now trying to take an objective? Not really... to me that is like fast food, right for the casual gamer who want to a bit of large ascale fighting but nothing deeper than that...
Anyhow, as I've said again and again - and while I completely accept that GW2 seems to offer enough for you - this rather "meh" "RvR", combined with quest that I consider to be just dumb/not worthy of an adventurer (and for most part are just timesinks due to the requirement on how to complete the quest!), the bad presentation of the storyline (and based on my Norn experience) it being rather bland, but especially also one other point (which I hadn't mentioned yet): lack of control over your companions!
Yes, call me spoiled by SWTOR if you like (or even good old SotNW), but the companion AI is a joke! I don't know how many times I got killed just because friggin Eir started to attack the wrong guy straight after being revived.
All of this makes the game, well, "meh", nothing more...
which leads me to something that you don't seem to understand: I'm not looking for my "perfect game", I have games (yes, SWTOR, yes DAoC, yes, RO, yes, SotNW, etc.) that share one of the features GW2 is offering, alas, their version of that feature is - to me - by far more fun than what I felt in those 60 hrs of BWE.
But, again, to each their own, and if you are happy eating fastfood, well, I'm not going to drag you into a 5 star restaurant. *shrug*
Basically, your 5 page article cane be summed up in you having unrealistic expectations. Especially the last part, where you complain that companion AI is not working properly... In beta! Remember how the companions in SWTOR would get stuck on elevators or fall through the floor, right before release and even after SWTOR launched? Anyway!
By your own admission, you haven't really looked at the PvE side of things, so you're probably not aware of the various features that make PvE interesting.
You're absolutely right, however, most of the events are not "special." They are fun and engaging but there is nothing about then that makes you really go "OMG! OMG! OMG!" like a pre-teen girl at a Justin Beiber concert because if every event was "special" none of them would be special. Think about that while I move on to your issues with WvW. Let me just state that there are "special" events but they are not right outside of the city gates, you actually need to go a little farther than the tutorial areas to find them. Moving right along!
As far as your RvR comparison, like I said it's nostalgia. All this talk about realm pride and you completely missed the fact that, GW2's server pride is actually more meaningful, if you think about it. Consider this: if you're on the Yak's Bend server and you guys are consistently winning WvW, the whole GW2 community will know that the Yak's Bend server is one of the best. It holds more meaning than having one faction out of 3 located on one of dozens of servers being the best.
Basically, saying "Yak's Bend" are great in WvW has more meaning to the community than saying the Albion faction on Carnac server are great in RvR. You know why? Because there is only 1 Yak's Bend server but there are dozens of Albion factions located on dozens of servers.
You obviously have fond memories of DAoC and that is why you have issues with GW2's WvW because it's similar yet not the same. WvW doesn't really fit your version of RvR because it doesn't fit with how you remember DAoC's RvR but neither would the real DAoC RvR. It's nostalgia, plain and simple.
Either way, good luck with finding a game you will enjoy.
heartless,
" unrealistic expectations"? Really?
Okay, guess what: SWTOR haters were constantly talking about "realistic expectations" and how SWTOR failed them, afterall it was all already there in WoW.
I'll jump on that same train: pretty much everything that GW2 offers has already been done in some game or the other.
Wouldn't it be a realistic expectation that AN should be able to make a game using all of these individual components (in their working to a perfection state) and join them together in one game?
It's not that hard, right?
So, it what way should that be an "unrealistic expectation"?
Unless you are saying that SWTOR, err, sorry GW2 actually tried to break away from the mold? :-P
Now, I don't know where you are getting the idea from that I said that I hadn't "really looked at the PvE side of things"?
Maybe you just got confused by the amount of text?
I said I never really cared about "events".
Which is in most MMOs a very smal percantage of PvE.
But just to easy your pain, yes, out of those 60 hours of BWE, I have probably been in PvE (with different classes and up to different level and locations including a track from the Black Citadel to the Snowlord's Gate via Diessa Plateau and the Breached Wall and to the Wayfarer Hills, while from Divinty's Reach it was pretty much just west to Clayent Falls, east to Beetletun and south to Godlost Swamp - Please note: i actually had to look up the name's places than rather go from memory and speak of places like "where those ghost are and you need to light the torches", "the city where that giant stalk around and lots of dead NPC are ready to be revived", "the homestead where that guy has his cow catapult", "the swamp where you need to help those tortured souls and destroy the portals and kill the big fish in the water to get your skill point", "the cloister where you have to wait for ages for the 'shady customer' to show up and try to steal the keg", "the place where you have to re-take the settlement from the centaurs", "the woods where you need to unite the etins", "inn where you need to wake up that drunk up need to get water all the way back from that road station with those beasts or burden, where you need to capture the young ones with a net" etc.) about 30 hrs. PvP was about 12 hrs in total.
"so you're probably not aware of the various features that make PvE interesting"
And yet you fail to point out any of the features that make PvE interesting and that I'm supposedly not aware of.
Well done citizen... move along, please.
Okay, events and "events"
A few years ago I was playing Sword of the New World. At that time they did an event where the undead Dilos Latem with his horde was marching on thru the lands. You could catch up with them from the starting point all the way to the gates of the city.
This event happened (I think) twice per day over a weekend or a week (limited run!).
It was a huge gathering of players leading into a huge running battle leading to even more players waiting at different points of the track and ending with an epic massacre. And loads of fun drops.
That's an event!
"Waiting for the big spider to show up in the orchard" or "waiting for a horde of centaurs to stampede down a path" every 15 min or so is not an event.
The Moa fights at the end of the BWE in Wayfarer Hills could potentially have been considered an event... but as it went in the chat: "the moa has spawned" - "Yeah, they are spawning everywhere" I'd say that end of BWE event became nothing but a rather boring rinse/repeat as soon as the moa there was dead and the next one had spawned.
So, maybe now you understand that - like pretty much most things in GW2 - "events" are really just fast food for the casual gamer: "dang, I missed out on that event" - "just wait a few minutes and it will start again"
Yes, GW2's normal "events" are not a tit more special than say a Champion monster timed-spawned in SWTOR.
Right, RvR and nostalgia... so you want me to log in now and see if a trip to the battlegrounds makes me go "nah, that was all so much better..."?
Nostalgia - a yearning for the past, often in idealized form... but what if this yearning is actually for something that you have recently experienced? Still "nostalgia"?
When I told him that my favorite BW game was Baldur's Gate, a guy from BW said that this definitely has to be because of "nostalgia".
Odd though that even now, almost 15 years after it's release, Baldur's Gate is by many considered to be the best RPG ever created and very much kept well active thru the BiG World Project...
Yeah, must be that everybody who thinks something that isn't brand new is good, is suffering from "nostalgia".
Now, you are bringing up "server pride" vs "realm pride"
You now actually sound desperate, you know?
But okay, at what point do you think will "server pride" start?
When you have won the first time against those other two servers?
After fighting 4 servers (a month)?
After being matched once against every winning server?
After having completely rotated thru every single server AN has started?
Doesn't really matter, really matter because you'll be proud of some abstract construct (yes, I keep saying that) that really is nothing but a name and a bi-weekly shifting color.
Sorry, maybe you need to understand where the type of game you are playing actually comes from:
MMORPGs that in turn come from good old (Oh nostalgia! Wait... WotC are doing friggin well with the latest version of D&D, so... not nostalgia?) pen&paper roleplaying games!
yes, maybe it was that, maybe we were not just looking at our toons as a bunch of stats and a set of cosmetic choices but as an actual character that we invested time and energy in?
Which meant that we cared out his "world".
Guess what: I still do when I start a new MMO... assuming that there is something I can care about... which with GW2 is really just taking another swim in the laguna of Lion's Arch...
Anyhow... so, going back to "server pride"... let me guess: if your server should happen to not be winning all the time, well, I guess one would have to live with the fact that your server is worth nothing resulting in 0 (zero) "server pride"?
wow... depressing...
Thank goodness that one could say that that one unique faction on that one unique server having successfully thrown back the full force assault of that other unique faction on that unique server actually makes one proud to be part of the winning faction.
I guess for some people, unless everybody in the games community falls on their knees and praises them, things are just not enough...
So heartless, let's go about this this way: You have either no clue why I prefer DAoC's RvR over GW2 WvWvW or you are not willing to accept it and therefore obviously need to brush it off via "nostalgia". (I'll just assume that you are not just trolling)
Doesn't really matter at this point, you will play GW2, I won't, so I'll leave you to your feelings on GW2 just as I have mine for that (and other games).
Dude, I'm sorry. I'm not going to read a 5000 word essay every time you reply to my paragraph. Either find a way to condense your thoughts, or this discussion is over.
Comments
Well, I guess you never played good old DAoC then?
In it's non-PvP setup you were save in your own realm. So, pretty much the worst that could happen are things like people (by choice or by accident) pulling mobs onto you, people (by accident or by choice) stealing your kill, people (by choice or by accident) stealing your loot. All of these are pretty much still possible in GW2. If you want to!
But the question is: why would you in the first place?
With DAoC there pretty much was no reason as you didn't compete with your co-realmers: they were your buddies.
The ones you were competing with (if you chose to do so) were the guys from other realms that you met out on the battlefield.
And those battlefields weren't only open as "endgame", they were a basic option for anybody who was willing to make his or her way there.
Of course, whether that meant you as "soft meat" going up against some "big boys", well, that's a different story... ;-)
But just as you could do RvR at any stage, there was enough PvE for even high end chars to have more than enough fun, and feel like "nothing else to do in this game but to go RvR" as you definitely have in other games. (Which I'd blame the casual gamers for: normal, classic "grind" just took too long, so things changed and the path became less important than the goal...)
Finally, freedom of choice... well... I'd say that is in certain aspects of GW2 just as limited (maybe even more so) than in other games.
Freedom of playstyle... as an example, DAoC offered 3 different versions of basically the same class type, one for each realm.
I'll use the "archer" as an example: Scout, Ranger and Hunter obviously all had an archery skill they could build up.
But each also had other skills they could pick instead: The Scout could focus on being more of a melee fighter by learning the Shield, both a defense and and offense melee skill (not to mention this normal melee weapon skill);
the Ranger could add magic to his fight which boosted both his ranged as well as available melee weapon attacks, though obviously it was his choice which skill he'd like to invest more(-ish) points in;
the Hunter may rather have invested into his pet and his spear than in his archery...
For each of these 3 both melee and ranged were an option.
(Of course, the same isn't true for all classes in DAoC, nor would it be true to say that any of the archers could be considered as "melee strong" as a pure melee class, but frankly from what I've experienced in the BWE (and pretty much just by way of simple logic - chainmail protects slightly better than cloth) not all GW2 classes are equal.)
But with the pool of classes that had grown in DAoC via all the expansions, you had a rather wide range of playstyles open.
Now, there is one more thing I don't agree with - though I won't say that DAoC on that end offered better choices, it just made things simpler as e.g. crafting made you a better craftsman, but didn't level your class up. Nor did simple running around and "discovering" new places level you up. Fighting and questing, that's what made your class more powerful, though of course being a good craftsman meant - potentially - having better gear...
Anyway, the thing I don't agree with is that GW2 doesn't have a "best way to lvl".
The only way to level your weapon skill is by using it. So, if you start running around thru the PvE world but never use your weapon, well, you will level up via the XP you get for the discoveries but your weapon skills will remain just one unlocked skill. Where you fight, that is up to you.
Now, to be honest I can't remember if you actually get points for discovering something in EB, but given the limits of the EB compared to the PvE world, going discovering in PvE remains the smarter choice.
And of course skill points!
While you need to unlock the util. slots of course by levelling up, in order to buy those skills of your choice you need skillpoints.
Which are easy to farm by simply going into the starting zones for each race or looking at the map and exploring your way to the closest skill point quest. And yes, some of these skill point quests don't even require you to show any power but instead rather all you need to do is complete a task that can be done by pretty much everyone.
So, in order to get as many skill points as quick as possible staying PvE is the smarter solution.
Which means: while normal PvP doesn't really require you to do any levelling, it makes much more sense to at least a first focus on PvE rather than EB. At least from my perspective.
heartless, it's a simple matter of priorities, and they are different for each of us - obviously.
While you are focussing on dynamic events, I'd rather focus on WvWvW/RvR.
Now, I played different classes in the BWE, the highest was a lvl 18 Norn Engineer which I took thru a good stretch of the Human territory and even from the Black Citadel - not by way of portal - back into Norn lands.
So yes, I have seen different events... but see, these events are not special, not once per month, week or even just day which would make them unique-ish (and having been part of it a special feeling) but instead was rather a case of "so, here I am again, and the same event is running again, oh well, may as well put my foot in it and get the reward" - because being considered part of the event (and therefore getting the reward) is too easily triggered.
So, to me these "events" GW2 are really not as special as I'd expect (and am used) from events in other games.
And the fact that they are dynamic... well... that works both ways as obviously having too much "manpower" there for a static event makes the whole thing a bit of a "hey, wait, can anybody not kill one of the guys so that I can kill him" circus, while on the other side - as I have noticed in the BWE - the dynamic actually reacts to characters that are close but not there: as I said I actually got rewarded for events where I had walked by the area a couple of minutes before, without actually fighting, but also - for the poisoned water supply event - the poisoners jumped from one or two coming in that could easily be stopped by me and two other guys, to a sudden swarm that kept coming and completely overran us (even though a good min into the swarming a bunch of other gamers showed up).
Anyways, for me - and I'm sure for many other gamers who don't care about some small 5vs5 or 8vs8 PvP maps - the WvWvW/RvR is what I'd rather be interested in.
Now, to put it harsh, as you have never played DAoC (in its golden days) you don't really have a clue how its RvR compares to GW2's WvWvW.
It's easy to say "well, yeah, it's all nostalgia", but it's easier for me to say "get a good bunch of gamers you know, sign up for a DAoC trial, go thru the new user journey, and then get swept into a round of real RvR warfare."
Will you feel that much of a difference to WvWvW? Well, due to the fact that the trial only gives you 14 days, probably not... and that's the point: in DAoC RvR is not about fighting the very same classes as yourself, just from the 2 servers of the bi-week, it's about being proud and standing up for your own realm (that is different than the other 2 realms) and about the feelings that have grown towards the other realms. Which just doesn't happen from now to straightaway.
But GW2 doesn't even offer the chance for that to happen as the other guys are just like yourself (just a different color) and will rotate away after 2 weeks. So, should I really care about the enemy in WvWvW beyond the fact that I'm right now trying to take an objective? Not really... to me that is like fast food, right for the casual gamer who want to a bit of large ascale fighting but nothing deeper than that...
Anyhow, as I've said again and again - and while I completely accept that GW2 seems to offer enough for you - this rather "meh" "RvR", combined with quest that I consider to be just dumb/not worthy of an adventurer (and for most part are just timesinks due to the requirement on how to complete the quest!), the bad presentation of the storyline (and based on my Norn experience) it being rather bland, but especially also one other point (which I hadn't mentioned yet): lack of control over your companions!
Yes, call me spoiled by SWTOR if you like (or even good old SotNW), but the companion AI is a joke! I don't know how many times I got killed just because friggin Eir started to attack the wrong guy straight after being revived.
All of this makes the game, well, "meh", nothing more...
which leads me to something that you don't seem to understand: I'm not looking for my "perfect game", I have games (yes, SWTOR, yes DAoC, yes, RO, yes, SotNW, etc.) that share one of the features GW2 is offering, alas, their version of that feature is - to me - by far more fun than what I felt in those 60 hrs of BWE.
But, again, to each their own, and if you are happy eating fastfood, well, I'm not going to drag you into a 5 star restaurant. *shrug*
Interesting all the mentions to DAoC. I've played the game for years, since it's late Beta (and I have the disks to prove it =P), and from some podcasts and videos i've seen, GW2 is moving in a pretty similar direction. I left it some time after New New Frontiers... 2008 or 2009.
Gorenson mentions the pride of defending your realm (in my case, Hibernia is where i settled in) and, to an extent, he is right. This is probably the thing DAoC has done the best: giving you a long time link to your realm and, thus, to its people. It is significant.
However, GW2 eschews that, it seems, in favor of a more organic and dynamic setting, which is very much in par with everything I've read about its world, so far. It is a valid take, and it probably is the best option for this time and age (business wise).
What remains to be seen, in fact, is how DAoC's often problematic class balance and roles compare to GW2's adaptability and denial of the 'tank-DPS-healer' scheme. It was frankly something that bothered me in DAoC (and other games), because since the main focus of that game was the RvRvR, some classes had a very difficult time, or were very reliant on gear to perform adequately. Let's not even talk about Realm rank requirements.
So, I think that Anet's devs gave DAoC a real good look and tried to redo the experience, but in a more fluid manner. As a person who loved the Realm system, I am more than willing to accept this loss in favor for player cooperation, more flexibility, no gear grinds of any sort. Letting players focus on the world and on the community as a whole is a VERY sound design choice.
I'll be able to comment more after I play in the next BWE.
CARE BEAR STARE!
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Answered in the quotes. Truncated it, in the hopes of reducing the wall of text a bit.
I have to ask, did you:
a) read my full post ?
and
b) play the game ?
Reading through your full response makes it seem to me like you either watched a lot of videos, or read the wiki, but don't have much (if any) hands-on experience with the game. Or perhaps, were you one of those players who powered through the beta in 1 specific way, and assumed that yours was the 'best' way?
Going forward we're absolutely going to (already are actually) see GW2s influence on MMOs.
Hopefully developers mimic their creative approach rather than just 'borrowing' specific mechanics, but knowing the MMO industry...well, it'll be easier for me to stomach years of GW2 clones than WoW clones at least.
I can't imagine any 2004 model linear task hub grind we see announced now will actually look that appealing to any that have seen what's actually possible in an online game with a bit of effort and re-evaluation. I know I was thrown off when I logged into a recent 'action combat' MMO to find just how out of place that linear task grind seems in 2012. I'm sure some people could happily play WoW clones for years, but personally I'm glad to see some advancement in the industry after such a long stagnation period.
As much as GW2 came out of nowhere to win me over, and as much as I enjoyed it, I still have no way of knowing how long it will last me in the end. Which is why I'm equally as excited about the impact this game is going to have on future MMOs.
It's about time.
If there is anything I really hope other games will copy it is: "doing your own thing". Which was a major point pointed out by Arenanet explaining why they broke from the WoW mold.
Edit
I find it weird that all other GW2 fans do not automatically feel the same about that choice of design.
I keep hearing DAOC, DAOC RVR, I totally understand that DAOC was the first to bring RVR to the MMO world, but what other games after it implemented it back into their games. People need to understand that GW2 is the first game to bring it back to the MMO genre.
How many MMO have we gotten from DAOC to GW2 and how many utilized the Full Scale Battle with Siege Weapons, that succeeded to capture the essence of warfare that actually made people want to play it.
Those that keep comparing GW2 WvWvW with DAOC RVR need to understand that with GW2, and if GW2 succeeded, we will be getting more and more MMO in the future with RVR or WvWvW , not only will others finally realize the investment opportunities in these features , we might just get every MMO developed starting now to include another form of Full Scale Battles.
ISn't that what we gamers want? More DAOC RVR , GW2 WvWvW ?
Those that keep saying how GW2 sucks, okay , its your opinion, you aren't forced to play it or buy the game. But you can't argue that if GW2 succeeded, you might just get a game that you will love with the RVR that you love because of GW2, because they took the initial risk and Put WvWvW siege warfare into their games.
Incase you didn't understand my point, my point is you don't need to like GW2, but do you see that because of GW2 you will get the RVR that you really want in other games if GW2 succeeded. Because Developers copy from one another and if WvWvW is a success, people will copy it into their games with their own blend of twists.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Or maybe the game is doing something different that no other game has done. Sad how bloody hard that it for some people to admit -- but not unexpected. It's hard to see anything with one's eyes squeezed shut.
Tor changed the genere alright, i guarantee you we won't see a 250 million dollar mmo again where most of that is spent on voice acting. Tor brought up the importance of story, but it also warned games to be conscious of when to use voice acting and when not to. PErsonal stories rocked, but when every quest is voice acted, it shows the limits of voice acting.
Goreson is quickly proving to be one of the few unbiased posters on this forum. keep it up!
Basically, your 5 page article cane be summed up in you having unrealistic expectations. Especially the last part, where you complain that companion AI is not working properly... In beta! Remember how the companions in SWTOR would get stuck on elevators or fall through the floor, right before release and even after SWTOR launched? Anyway!
By your own admission, you haven't really looked at the PvE side of things, so you're probably not aware of the various features that make PvE interesting.
You're absolutely right, however, most of the events are not "special." They are fun and engaging but there is nothing about then that makes you really go "OMG! OMG! OMG!" like a pre-teen girl at a Justin Beiber concert because if every event was "special" none of them would be special. Think about that while I move on to your issues with WvW. Let me just state that there are "special" events but they are not right outside of the city gates, you actually need to go a little farther than the tutorial areas to find them. Moving right along!
As far as your RvR comparison, like I said it's nostalgia. All this talk about realm pride and you completely missed the fact that, GW2's server pride is actually more meaningful, if you think about it. Consider this: if you're on the Yak's Bend server and you guys are consistently winning WvW, the whole GW2 community will know that the Yak's Bend server is one of the best. It holds more meaning than having one faction out of 3 located on one of dozens of servers being the best.
Basically, saying "Yak's Bend" are great in WvW has more meaning to the community than saying the Albion faction on Carnac server are great in RvR. You know why? Because there is only 1 Yak's Bend server but there are dozens of Albion factions located on dozens of servers.
You obviously have fond memories of DAoC and that is why you have issues with GW2's WvW because it's similar yet not the same. WvW doesn't really fit your version of RvR because it doesn't fit with how you remember DAoC's RvR but neither would the real DAoC RvR. It's nostalgia, plain and simple.
Either way, good luck with finding a game you will enjoy.
No one is unbiased. Ever.
Not even trolls.
Right?
aesperus,
how much experience do I have with GW2?
playing most of the BWE (and yes, that means playing 22 hrs straight, crashnap, going back in) simply because I wanted to get an overall feel for the game.
Now,
to look at some of your replies - and btw thanks for them!
That's actually my point. Even in DAoC there was kill stealing & griefing. Especially on Mordred. And no, it's not possible in GW2, because GW2 doesn't have mob tagging or loot ownership. Everyone gets their own drops, and people can't claim mobs like they do in other MMOs.
well, my experience with mobs was slightly different in GW2, but hey, could have been glitches... *shrug*
The thing is:
don't get me wrong, DAoC had a great community, but it had more to do w/ 'realm pride' than anything else. That was huge in DAoC (thanks for confirming that already!), but the difference is in GW2 they completely eliminate those obstacles, where as DAoC just strongly suggested 'don't do that'. It's like in UO, people could try and force each other to not PK 'for the good of the whole', but that didn't mean it wasn't possible and that people still didn't do it.
Freedom of choice is always a 2 way road as people can choose to be nice, do good things... or to do, well, not so nice things.
I trust myself to be a nice guy (most of the time) and if somebody needs my help I'll do it, no matter if I get an XP reward or loot out of it.
With GW2 I found this to be a bit more "forced": when looking at my mini-map I was actively scanning for dead gamers... at first because i figured "let's be nice and get them back into the game", but that quickly turned to "hey, dead people, good XP to get for reviving them!"
So, it's a simple "carrot in front of you" setup: help your fellow man and you'll be rewarded, don't do it and you lose out.
If you ask me, yes, of course you still have a freedom of choice right there, to say yes or no... but on the other side it's a sad thing to see that positive choices now need to be baited with "reward" flavor. Maybe I'm just too much of a boy scout for that...
Already you are pigeonholing my use of the word 'playstyle'. That doesn't automatically mean 'combat'. Even in DAoC, if you wanted to lvl, there was only a few viable ways to do it. In GW2, that's not the case. You can lvl by doing whatever 'with the exception of trying to do nothing but personal story', and you can mix / match freely at any point in time.
okay, so, what else is there in GW2 (or DAoC) aside from "combat"?
Crafting: will say straightaway that I didn't test that in BWE, simply because it wasn't at the top of my list to check. I rather tested the feel/effectiveness of other classes (as well as looks of other races, the design of other zones, etc.) to see if that made me feel more positive about GW2 than hoping to salvage my feelings for GW2 thru the crafting system: would be sort of sad to say "yes, I will play GW2 because i love the crafting system... even though the rest sucks" I guess.
but from what I'm reading into posts here, in Gw2 crafting will also level you up.
Not really sure if that is good or bad, or anything at all, unless we go back to the carrot concept stated above: craft and your character gets more powerful, don't craft and you lose out...
DAoC kept it simple: crafting was separate from character class levelling so you could easily outcraft your level, but it was your pride in being a crafter that made you work those crafting skills, not a non-crafting related promise of reward.
Exploring: again, we are looking at a reward system: explore the map and you will get XP. Not new in GW2, been taking that to the max since day one of SWTOR. Simply because exploring is natural for me... and I must admit watching some SWTOR streams that I wondered how "stupid" some gamers are to not full explore the map and therefore losing out on easy XP.
But, do I go "dang, why didn't they have that in 'some other game i played'?" Nope, actually not... I would (and will) still go exploring even if there is no (XP) reward and I just do it for the fun of doing it.
And well, that pretty much brings up to the end of options: questing gives you XP even if there's no fighting just running around involved, been like that forever.
As does combat.
Tell me if I missed out on a source of XP in GW2?
just one word though: there is combat and there is "combat".
I'll take a step outside the usual MMO(RPG) cage here: once in a while I like to have simple fun with Battlefield Heroes. Now, most of the time I end up in the upper third point range without having a single kill!
Just by stealthing around the map and capturing outposts. Loads of fun - for me ;-)
A concept that I found sort of missing in MMOs lately, not necessarily due to missing skills but due to map design and in turn lack of usability of that gaming concept.
guess what, when I saw the design for the PvP maps in GW2 I had high hopes that yes, I would be able to play stealth focused here... alas, testing that with a PvP map maxed Thief, checking his skills, I found a suitable stealth option completely missing!
Oh, yeah, 3 sec of stealth with healing... and then waiting for a - I think - 20 sec cooldown to finish... fab! setting up a Shadow refuge thinking "hey, that will make a nice trap"? Not so much when the stealth doesn't last.
so, frankly the one class that should have been utility (Thief) is "reduced" to just being a stealth combatant, not a stealth utilizer...
talk about freedom of choice in using your class... and then think about steath classes in DAoC and their use in RvR! ;-)
Anyways, on to the next:
And here, you are confusing DAoC's class-based system, with GW2's skill based system. In GW2 you also have ranged and melee options for each class, however the customization in GW2 doesn't come as a skill tree. GW2 operates on selecting the right weapons, skills, traits, and sigils for the type of fighting you expect to be doing. While it's true that a 'ranger' in GW2 doesn't split into other different class-types ie. DAoC, that doesn't mean it doesn't have more varying playstyle types. You can be a melee ranger, you can be a standard bow user, you can specialize in traps / conditions, you can specialize in buffing, you can generalize. Point is, you have pleanty of options within each class, and it's up to each player to figure that out & use them.
Right, now I need to ask you if YOU have actually plated GW2 or are just drawing your knowledge from other sources? :-P (just kidding!)
Both, GW2 and DAoC use a class system, both use a skill system. In that sense that each class has a set of skills you can pick from, usually having to buy that skill.
that is what you pretty much find in any MMORPG.
DAoC does so thru 2 options.
Going with the achers as an example:
1. a different "archer" class for each realm - so if you felt like going a bit more magical and you were okay being Hibernian, heck, you'd go Ranger. More melee? And Albion is okay? Go Scout! etc.
2. different skill sets inside your chosen class to pick from when placing your points - yes, your Ranger could be a killer skill archer, or he could up his skill thru magic... which he could also boost his melee attacks, which he may also have focused on rather then skilling with his bow... it's mix and match as you please (and have points, obviously).
Now, you are saying that GW2 actually offers more varying playstyle types. - remember, with the points above I was focusing on the archer classes, i do definitely agree that when comparing certain DAoC Classes with it's GW2 "counterpart" (at least by name), these GW2 class will have more options.
But DAoC has more classes (and races) to choose from, and in turn the number of overall available playstyles increases over what GW2 has to offer. ;-)
So, it's a bit of a question of whether you want to set yourself a wide but overall limited range playstyles by selecting a certain class (DAoC), or select a class and then have it's full range of skills to choose from, and yes, be able to be flexible about it (GW2).
I bet you are saying GW2 wins hands down, no contest.
To which i coun't agree less!
The problem is that the number of skills you can use is severely restricted!
Of course you can unlock all the attacks for each of the weapon combinations, and you can do so by just using them, and yes, you can potentially switch the available attacks on the fly.
But the combat skills are just part of your arsenal! you also have the med and the Util. skills and slots!
which means that while you may buy a lot of skills, you will always be able to just set up a very limited number for quick use, for any other you'd actually have to go into your Hero screen and re-asign the skill to a skill slot.
Which is okay if you can prepare for a certain task - sort of like "do I take the silenced pistol or the machine gun for this mission... well, it is a stealth mission, so..." - but I bet ya anything you want that most gamers in GW2 will set themselves up with a specific set of util. skills and hardly ever move away from it. Same for the med. slot.
So, if you compare the overall readily available range of "skills" in DAoC with what you have in GW2, I think you'll have to agree that DAoC wins.
GW2 turns into a "switch" feast: "now i'm switching to a different weapon, now i'm switching to a different kit, now i'm switching away from that kit, now i'm switching to a different weapon, now i'm switching back to that kit to activate what I had set up there, now I'm dropping that kit again switching to my weapon", switch, switch, switch...
frankly, I fail to see the point (and fun) in that, and yes, while you may say that this is "part of why one has to re-learn skill use in GW2", to me it's a bit like "why?" as it doesn't seem better but rather like ego stroking by AN saying "we did our own thing!"
Maybe it's just old dogs and learning new tricks... but this old dog doesn't care a bit about these (IMO) pointless new tricks, so why should I bother?
For one. You don't lvl your weapon. Not sure where you got that idea from, but it's not in GW2. You do train your weapon skills, but that's it. Has nothing to do w/ your character lvl, you can unlock all your weapon skills by lvl 5 if you wanted, or you could still be doing it at 80. This doesn't make you less powerful, it only dictates how many different types of builds you can make, and how much versatility you can bring to your character.
Ha! Seriously? okay, so we are going to call it "unlock"... which you do by using your weapon... and each unlocked combat skill adds to the available arsenal for your weapon.
which i will call - in simple English - levelling up your weapon.
So, as you said you can have levelled up to the max each single weapon, or you can pretty much keep it to just one weapon and its skills. Your choice. But yes, it does make you less powerful IF you don't max all weapons, because that certain weapon skill that may just be right for this particular moment, and to which you could so easily switch in GW2, well, you don't have it as you failed to level your weapon up, nay, just to make it plain: as you failed to unlock it!
which in turn means, if you want to be able to use your character to the fullest effect possible, you will unlock all weapon skills!
Otherwise GW2's "flexibility" aka. "switchplay" becomes pointless. *shrug*
Again, there are many ways to lvl up. Some may seem faster, depending on what other players are doing. For example the first day of BWE, running around exploring / doing DEs was giving me the most progress. On the 2nd day, once they fixed the lag, WvW seemed to lvl me much faster, as there were a lot more people engaged in it. However, both are viable at all times.
Somehow I fail to see in what way that makes GW2 special?
except, depending on your playstyle, you don't necessarily need to farm skillpoints. If you just want to do structured PvP, you have all the skill points you need, and don't need to farm a damned thing. In PvE, you get skillpoints automatically by lvling up, and there's a limit to how many utility slots you can equip. It takes getting lvl 30 to be able to equip a full set of skills. By that point you have (you guessed it) 30 skill points to work with. Elite skills cost the most (~10-25 points), while the others cost significantly less (~1-11 points). So, unless you are repeatedly buying the wrong skills, you don't really need to 'farm' skill points. They will help you fully flesh out your character, but it's hardly necessary to hunt down every skill point challenge you see, unless you want to. Furthermore, a decent amount of the skills you can buy are cosmetic (racials) and are less powerful than your class' counter-part skills.
well... it's true.. and that's where I consider GW2 to fail badly!
Given the limitation of the unlocking of util. slots, there is little point of me buying many skills.
Now, with easy access to many skill point quests (just go to each starting area and you pretty much get a skill point for free, all it takes is some quick portal hopping or even just teleporting if the area is explored) you can easily have that skill you consider to be "the most powerfu"l by level 5 when you unlock your first slot, even if that skill is the most expensive in the list.
With a bit of skill point farming you can even have bought the full set of normal skills you think you'll be using when you have all your util. slots available - by level 5!
yet, of course, what would be the point of doing this if you have only 1 slot available?
so, this is where GW2 actually loses a good part of why PvE should be attractive over EB (or at least equally so) in the slightly longer run:
You farm your points thru a few skill point quests in PvE, once you have learned all the skills you want (or rather consider worth buying for now as obviously you'll still get skill points by levelling in PvP so you can buy more skills later), there really is little point of going back to PvE.
Of course, you may prefer PvE over WvWvW by default and will therefore play it...
but why should someone interested in WvWvW? Or even PvP for that matter?
A reason would be either the quality of the loot or the quality of the quests/events there.
loot, I'll leave that open as what drops we have seen in the BWE will - I'm pretty sure of it - have changed by release.
quests/events... I said it before but i'll say it again: yes, there are lots of either, but a real event should be something special (IMO) and not something that is triggered every 15 min or so... beating your chest and shouting "we just defeated Commissar Szeged!" sort of falls flat when you get a "yeah, done that 6 times already... today" in return.
and many of the quests are really just, well, on a farmboy level, not what a wannabe hero would be interested in...
oh, wait... the storyline... yeah... I guess I must have fallen asleep on that one...
me, personally, I usually like to mix things up, go PvP for fighting not simple game AI, but then also go PvE for the fun of adventuring (thru hunting new monsters, or if available thru fun quests and, again if available, a story).
i know PvPer that would normally never give a flying ferret's floating fart about PvE in MMOs... but actually loved it in SWTOR becauseboth the story and a good chunk of the quest intriqued them, was fun for them!
GW2 just doesn't offer me that fun on the PvE end!
And on the pure PvP end, well, with that type of gaming having actually dropped the RPG part and instead just gone FPS-like player skill (not GW2 or AN's fault, same in other games), cough, yeah, sorry, next please?
So, that leaves only EB... which brings us back to DAoC and it's realm pride/hatred.
Something that will not happen in GW2 or at best for a few and then as that abstract construct of "I'm proud to play on server XYZ".
which actually goes against the trend that you see right now in onlineFPS where they are trying to "infect" you with pride in not just your squad but your faction.
Isn't that weird? How MMORPG actually loses it's RPG side and onlineFPS becomes more RPG-y?
Only idiots thought GW2 would be perfect and the savior and second coming of Christ.
Even with realistic expectations, it's an amazing game and easily the best new MMO since 2004 because it actually is new and feels new unlike "EQ clone + gimmick" which is all we've had since WoW.
I felt it would have been ready to release last month, but than again I didn't get very high level. No idea what state Sylvari/Asura lands are in not to mention the 30-80 game.
This is an awful lot of time and effort for something that is sounds like you didn't enjoy.
Despite its perceived deficiencies, was there anything that you would consider a saving grace?
Was any of it actually fun even though it didn't meet your particular standards?
Do you intend to play upon release?
"Loading screens" are not "instances".
Your personal efforts to troll any game will not, in fact, impact the success or failure of said game.
Lucioon,
you are actually quite wrong!
A non-"small map/small teams" limited style of PvP has been included in many MMOs over the last decade.
What made DAoC unique in regards to that is its 3 factions!
Which is understandable as in a two faction setup and with pretty much unrestricted numbers to enter the battlefield, chances are good that one faction will by far outnumber the other. (Everybody knows how in SWTOR people are crying that there are too many Imps and not enough Reps on Ilum)
With a 3 faction system on the other hand, and people making smart choices, it is possible to tilt the battle by having 2 weaker factions taking on a stronger one together.
It's pretty much the smartest way to do faction warfare.
So, why haven't MMOs been doing just that after DAoC?
The reason is simple: Synergy!
DAoC managed to naturally pit 3 factions against each other and creating what is called "realm pride", as yes, you actually cared about what happened out there in the persistant RvR battleground, whether your realm lost a keep or took a relic.
Other games have tried that (even with more factions, some even player created/based) thru forced fabrication... and failed.
Understandable: we all understand the concept of Good vs Evil, Dark vs Light, Chaos vs Order, Nature vs Machines, etc. but where to pull that 3rd faction from that stands against both of them?
So, instead break out of that "bi-polar" box and make your own factions triangle.
Alas, fabricating factions will in the end only work if it manages to actually make you feel something for your faction.
Aika is a perfect example for this... and how it pretty much fails: you have 5 different nations you can become a citizen of and each nation has ist own background, its own flavor.
But as a) you don't have to join a nation, and b) being part of a nation actually offers little, and c) the nations' "personalities" are pretty much "meh", why bother?
So, just putting 3 (or more) factions onto the battlefield won't make "RvR" or "WvWvW" more fun than a quick PvP session with lots of people and some objectives.
It is caring about your faction and its state that pulls you in!
And here is where AN fails with GW2: what may your "realm pride" be in WvWvW?
"I'm proud to play on server XYZ!"?
Really?
Because there is nothing else: the guys on the other side are the same as you, only a different color.
And apparently every 2 weeks the servers are rotated, so it's not even like today's enemy faction (read: server) will be the same in 2 weeks time.
WvWvW becomes nothing more than what the name suggests, an "Eternal Battleground" where aside from offering fights on a larger scale nothing is really different from simple PvP: go in, fight a bit, go out, 90% of all keeps in enemy hand? Who cares, you had your fun *shrug*
So of course, we will see WvWvW "clones" in future MMOs... the problem is just that these MMOs will target the casual gamer... who just wants to play his <10 hrs each week, really just quick into the action, have a bit of fun, get out again...
Which will mean that these WvWvWs will probably be nothing more than abstract concstructs there to offer a playing field for quick fun...
Oh Unlight...
it seems like you can't even say what (in your opinion) makes GW2 seem better...
"the game is doing something different that no other game has done"
yeah, it is taking features from other games and uniting them under one umbrella.
It's not like WoW hasn't done the same over the years...
so... it's actually... err... not being a perfect WoW clone where it is different?
Frankly... to be honest i'd rather play a game that follows an established system to the dot but offers real entertainment for me than a game that pretends to be "new" but is about as stale as, well, yesterday's armpit.
I mean I'm more than happy to discuss any point where you feel that GW2 is better... if you tell us these points!
but up until then, yeah, it is definitely hard to see anything with one's eyes squeezed shut... especially if that means that your dreamhouse is really just a dumpster.
You keep saying that other games have done things better but you have yet to present any valid arguments. Your DAoC argument falls through when you realize that it's nothing more than your fond memories and not the real truth.
DAoC was always plagued by class imbalances caused mainly by the fact that each faction had different classes. We all know that having balanced classes in PvP is vital to the enjoyment of the system.
You keep bringing up how DAoC had "realm pride" but completely disregard GW2's server pride which is even more meaningful. In DAoC, your realm could make a name for itself on it's own server but in GW2 your server can make a name for itself for the whole community. If Yak's Bend server is consistently victorious in WvW, the whole community will know that it's the best. In DAoC, if your realm is consistently victorious in RvR, only your server cares about it and there are dozens of servers so you're pretty much irrelevent.
Your argument simply boils down to the fact that you don't like the game because it doesn't fit your ideal of what an MMO should be. Well, no game fits that ideal. Not even DAoC.
Don't forget delusional people (I am not actually sure there even was a first comming of Christ, evidence is inconclusive).
Still, it is a good game and we are starved on good games by now.
GW2 is not really so revolutionary as some people think but it feels like it because all the bad paste and copy games we hve gotten for so long time now.
I agree completely, with both points
I'm going to disagree with something here in a sense... I think GW2 is as revolutionary as people think. Just remember, a revolution can be started by a single bullet. In and of itself, GW2 is an amazing game. Imagine, however, what this could spawn? No more static worlds with generic questing, a possible death knell to subscriptions, a dagger in the heart of the archaic trinity... it's hard to say right now. We won't know how revolutionary GW2 actually is for a few years when new games yet to be designed spawn and show what model they've chosen to go forwards with.
Oderint, dum metuant.
heartless,
" unrealistic expectations"? Really?
Okay, guess what: SWTOR haters were constantly talking about "realistic expectations" and how SWTOR failed them, afterall it was all already there in WoW.
I'll jump on that same train: pretty much everything that GW2 offers has already been done in some game or the other.
Wouldn't it be a realistic expectation that AN should be able to make a game using all of these individual components (in their working to a perfection state) and join them together in one game?
It's not that hard, right?
So, it what way should that be an "unrealistic expectation"?
Unless you are saying that SWTOR, err, sorry GW2 actually tried to break away from the mold? :-P
Now, I don't know where you are getting the idea from that I said that I hadn't "really looked at the PvE side of things"?
Maybe you just got confused by the amount of text?
I said I never really cared about "events".
Which is in most MMOs a very smal percantage of PvE.
But just to easy your pain, yes, out of those 60 hours of BWE, I have probably been in PvE (with different classes and up to different level and locations including a track from the Black Citadel to the Snowlord's Gate via Diessa Plateau and the Breached Wall and to the Wayfarer Hills, while from Divinty's Reach it was pretty much just west to Clayent Falls, east to Beetletun and south to Godlost Swamp - Please note: i actually had to look up the name's places than rather go from memory and speak of places like "where those ghost are and you need to light the torches", "the city where that giant stalk around and lots of dead NPC are ready to be revived", "the homestead where that guy has his cow catapult", "the swamp where you need to help those tortured souls and destroy the portals and kill the big fish in the water to get your skill point", "the cloister where you have to wait for ages for the 'shady customer' to show up and try to steal the keg", "the place where you have to re-take the settlement from the centaurs", "the woods where you need to unite the etins", "inn where you need to wake up that drunk up need to get water all the way back from that road station with those beasts or burden, where you need to capture the young ones with a net" etc.) about 30 hrs. PvP was about 12 hrs in total.
"so you're probably not aware of the various features that make PvE interesting"
And yet you fail to point out any of the features that make PvE interesting and that I'm supposedly not aware of.
Well done citizen... move along, please.
Okay, events and "events"
A few years ago I was playing Sword of the New World. At that time they did an event where the undead Dilos Latem with his horde was marching on thru the lands. You could catch up with them from the starting point all the way to the gates of the city.
This event happened (I think) twice per day over a weekend or a week (limited run!).
It was a huge gathering of players leading into a huge running battle leading to even more players waiting at different points of the track and ending with an epic massacre. And loads of fun drops.
That's an event!
"Waiting for the big spider to show up in the orchard" or "waiting for a horde of centaurs to stampede down a path" every 15 min or so is not an event.
The Moa fights at the end of the BWE in Wayfarer Hills could potentially have been considered an event... but as it went in the chat: "the moa has spawned" - "Yeah, they are spawning everywhere" I'd say that end of BWE event became nothing but a rather boring rinse/repeat as soon as the moa there was dead and the next one had spawned.
So, maybe now you understand that - like pretty much most things in GW2 - "events" are really just fast food for the casual gamer: "dang, I missed out on that event" - "just wait a few minutes and it will start again"
Yes, GW2's normal "events" are not a tit more special than say a Champion monster timed-spawned in SWTOR.
Right, RvR and nostalgia... so you want me to log in now and see if a trip to the battlegrounds makes me go "nah, that was all so much better..."?
Nostalgia - a yearning for the past, often in idealized form... but what if this yearning is actually for something that you have recently experienced? Still "nostalgia"?
When I told him that my favorite BW game was Baldur's Gate, a guy from BW said that this definitely has to be because of "nostalgia".
Odd though that even now, almost 15 years after it's release, Baldur's Gate is by many considered to be the best RPG ever created and very much kept well active thru the BiG World Project...
Yeah, must be that everybody who thinks something that isn't brand new is good, is suffering from "nostalgia".
Now, you are bringing up "server pride" vs "realm pride"
You now actually sound desperate, you know?
But okay, at what point do you think will "server pride" start?
When you have won the first time against those other two servers?
After fighting 4 servers (a month)?
After being matched once against every winning server?
After having completely rotated thru every single server AN has started?
Doesn't really matter, really matter because you'll be proud of some abstract construct (yes, I keep saying that) that really is nothing but a name and a bi-weekly shifting color.
Sorry, maybe you need to understand where the type of game you are playing actually comes from:
MMORPGs that in turn come from good old (Oh nostalgia! Wait... WotC are doing friggin well with the latest version of D&D, so... not nostalgia?) pen&paper roleplaying games!
yes, maybe it was that, maybe we were not just looking at our toons as a bunch of stats and a set of cosmetic choices but as an actual character that we invested time and energy in?
Which meant that we cared out his "world".
Guess what: I still do when I start a new MMO... assuming that there is something I can care about... which with GW2 is really just taking another swim in the laguna of Lion's Arch...
Anyhow... so, going back to "server pride"... let me guess: if your server should happen to not be winning all the time, well, I guess one would have to live with the fact that your server is worth nothing resulting in 0 (zero) "server pride"?
wow... depressing...
Thank goodness that one could say that that one unique faction on that one unique server having successfully thrown back the full force assault of that other unique faction on that unique server actually makes one proud to be part of the winning faction.
I guess for some people, unless everybody in the games community falls on their knees and praises them, things are just not enough...
So heartless, let's go about this this way: You have either no clue why I prefer DAoC's RvR over GW2 WvWvW or you are not willing to accept it and therefore obviously need to brush it off via "nostalgia". (I'll just assume that you are not just trolling)
Doesn't really matter at this point, you will play GW2, I won't, so I'll leave you to your feelings on GW2 just as I have mine for that (and other games).
lol. what huge testaments here, i doubt anyone are read them. xD
Dude, I'm sorry. I'm not going to read a 5000 word essay every time you reply to my paragraph. Either find a way to condense your thoughts, or this discussion is over.