@Prez: the 'ferry' between Kamadan and Consulate Docks is basically using an exploit that allows you to skip 15-20hours of gameplay

Really? I honestly had no idea it was an exploit. My bud didn't tell me about that part; he just said he would take me there 'to save a bit of time', and that 'everybody does it.' At least someone recognizes that I wasn't making it up, but I am ashamed to admit that I actually used an exploit.

@Prez: the 'ferry' between Kamadan and Consulate Docks is basically using an exploit that allows you to skip 15-20hours of gameplay

@Creston: the later campaigns added skill boosting pve-titles prolonging the character development beyond lvl20

This comment was edited on Feb 18, 2009, 09:54.

Creston, judging by your posts you haven't played GW in what, 2 years? Pretty much every single thing you complain about has been changed.

I haven't played since about... 3 months after it came out. I took 3 characters to level 20, singlehandedly took at least two dozen groups of complete idiots through the game's toughest levels. (The word RETREAT does not enter into many people's vocabulary apparently, so 6 vs 35 monsters seems doable to them. Or the "Warrior" whom I warned beforehand, DO NOT CHARGE INTO THE POISON SWAMP TO ENGAGE THE MOB, LET IT COME TO YOU, and who would then, ofcourse, charge into the poison swamp, die in 4 seconds, then spam our chat channel with "Rez Plz." every 2 seconds so that we couldn't have any kind of tactical discussion anymore.)

All the things I complained about were the major problems back then, and at the time, Arenanet seemed to have 0 inclination of fixing them. I'm glad they've finally decided to listen to their actual customers. Perhaps GW2 will be worth playing.

but I do NOT want a leveling system in which your character becomes indefinitely more and more powerful. This would ruin GW as we know it.

It doesn't have to be indefinite. I'd be fine with a level 60 cap. But that way I can at least play a character for 50 or so hours before maxing it. I hated playing a character for 10 hours and oh, shit, I'm level 20. Well, I'm done playing this one.

Creston

I like the mechanics of GW. The idea is that I can buy the game for a friend and play with him right away without having to wait two months until he is high level and has all the gear.

If I designed a MMORPG the armor and weapons with best stats would be available in the first town and you could buy it if you had the money, same with the skills. There would be no leveling and you could change the primary and secondary profession, skills and gear of your character at any point. Some people don't like that but I personally don't get much enjoyment out of button mashing just to get some better virtual gear.

My kind of fun is messing around with the game mechanics: trying different professions, skill points, skill combination, gear and heroes and go out and do a couple of missions with friends and see what happens. The game puts also more emphasis in player skills vs. character skills (how you use your skills, combine with other characters, mob control, etc): I like it.

Creston, judging by your posts you haven't played GW in what, 2 years? Pretty much every single thing you complain about has been changed. Runners aren't being nerfed anymore. Heroes and the party window make partying very easy. And yes, ArenaNet finally caved and even disassociated PvP from PvE. They went even beyond that and RESTORED some of the nerfed skills for PvE (this was huge for me as my single biggest frustration with the game was having my favorite PvE builds nerfed for the sake of PvP balance). The expansions have decent storylines and are fun to play through. The only thing they have not changed (and I am glad of it) is that the lvl cap is still 20. I have said it before and will say it again: I am not opposed to removing a lvl cap and having a char lvl that reflects XP gained (and therefore the age and experience of your character) but I do NOT want a leveling system in which your character becomes indefinitely more and more powerful. This would ruin GW as we know it.

Another thing; I am in no way shape or form an 'uber' player. I generally would get berated every time I would group with others because my character's build was terrible; i.e. it was not the "optimum" build for that class. Or my secondary profession was a useless choice for my primary profession. Or I didn't have the right skills. Or I didn't use them at precisely the right time in precisely the right succession. Etc, etc, etc.

I understand that others want to get the maximum benefit out of each character in their group, but after the seemingly hundredth time being derided as a "noob' because I broke one of the myriad rules that people are apparently bound to playing by, I got tired of it. Is this a game, or is it an excel spread sheet with a graphical front end? If there is only one right way to do anything, how is it a role-playing game at all? The occasional friendly person who actually exhibited a little patience from time to time would take me aside and try to bone me up (heh heh - "bone me"...), but either they weren't very good mentors or I am a little dense, because I never could really get a grasp on everything I was supposed to do the correct way.

Anyway, I haven't played in over a year out of frustration and boredom (where is the choice and consequence that RPG's are all about?).

This comment was edited on Feb 17, 2009, 17:59.

I dont get your point, why is it not for you???

Because I don't fancy questing for dozens of hours on end for bling?

Because any noob can swoop in and instantly buy the best armor -this I find hard to believe, it takes a while to build up that much money..maybe he was hacking. Either way I doubt the validity of this story.

So unless if by "first bought" you mean "after I had played it for a couple of weeks", your statement is blatantly false.

I wouldn't know the first thing about hacking a game, so you can count that one out. Furthermore, I did not say Night Fall was my first campaign. Admittedly I didn't make this clear, so the fault is mine. I had accrued enough gold through playing Factions to buy the armor. My previous statement meant the first few minutes into the new campaign. It really didn't take that long at all to get the money in Factions (I understand this was in response to complaints that it was too hard to get money in Prophecies). Honestly, why would I post a story that was just made up? I know, this is the internet, but that ain't me. I can assure you what I wrote was perfectly true; I just erroneously left a bit of info out.

Anyway I must not have made my point clear, as it was completely lost in the technical nitpicks. I grew up playing RPG's that rewarded you and enticed you along the way. When I can buy a new campaign and can buy the best armor in the game minutes into it (I called it an island, as I remember water, but honestly, I don't know because I stopped playing and gave the account to my son immediately after this), where is the reward? Where is the enticement to keep going? Apparently these things are there for others in other forms, but the things that fascinate me in RPG's were simply not there for me - hence the statement that this game was not for me.

This comment was edited on Feb 17, 2009, 17:49.

Everything you've mentioned thus far is not something I've seen in the several years I've been playing the game

Again, I quit because of these issues back when the game was still fairly new, so it's possible they finally fixed some of those issues. At the time, however, they were annoying the fuck out of a ton of players with them.

For the guy to be making claims about "we're going to be making the best online RPG ever" is a bit exaggerated based on the type of shit that Guild Wars players used to deal with.

IF they have improved those matters in the meantime, fine. Hopefully they'll remember those lessons for GW2.

Creston

That's interesting because I've encountered none of that, as I said in my original post at your comments.

Runners still run, and do it very successfully. I farm loot all the time as do many, many other people.

As for dispelling enchantments, it's a balancing issue that I am cool with. I play in a small guild, all family. Two of my guild members run nothing BUT enchantment classes with a variety of different builds. In fact, one of them ran a Mesmer and nothing but heroes and henchies from the start of Prophecies, through Factions, Nightfall and then the end of Eye of the North to prove that it could be done with that class and be done solo. I have a Me/R that owns at Dom. Strip one enchantment? Boo-hoo, I'll cast another and by the time I've finished fast casting, I'm healed back to full.

The one thing I love about Guild Wars is that there IS no "uber" build that can't be countered, whether via humans or NPC enemies. That means that you just can't wade right in there and slaughter all without thought. You have to plan out how you are going to mob control on a map.

PvE and PvP areas are completely separated so I don't see where you're getting that a level 10 with max spec armor is going to wander in to a level 20 PvP match. You do PvP and you START as a level 20, you just have to make your build. That character does not go to a PvE area ever and vice versa.

Everything you've mentioned thus far is not something I've seen in the several years I've been playing the game, at least not the extent that you're claiming. If you don't play because it doesn't fit your play style, more power to you. However, I wouldn't make these claims when they're not true to the extent you're claiming.

1) Now, if you mean that you can't run a bot program, then I have zero sympathy for you in that case.

I'm not talking about a bot, I'm talking about them actively changing areas, altering spawns and increasing enchantment hate for the specific purpose of countering builds that are good at farming loot (and pretty much nothing else). Then they came out with all these bullshit excuses that they "had no problem with people farming loot", while at the same time practically ruining whole areas just to stop one particular loot farming combo. Lying to your customer base is always a great way to keep them playing your game.

If people like to farm loot, LET THEM FUCKING FARM LOOT! Who the fuck cares? I personally didn't care to make one build in such a specific way that all it could do was the equivalent of "running Pindle", but one entire area got so raped specifically to counter one fucking loot build that it also completely destroyed the mission that you had to do there. That mission had been a ton of fun up until their Nazi Anti-Loot bullshit swept through.

2) Where does this occur? The only place I can think of is in Prophecies where you have to go a match against other players but that's part of the pre-Searing Nolani Academy storyline.

I was more talking about PvE being gimped for the sake of the whining PvP horde. Neither side wanted to really worry about the other side, but everytime the PvP players didn't like something, it got changed in their favor and the PvE crowd got fucked out of just about everything. Perhaps they've finally changed that, I don't know.

3) Worthless in what way?

All I remember is the old party bullshit where you had to check the chat channel for someone shouting "NEED ROGUE!!" and you had to walk over to him and click, so from your description this probably got changed at some point. Cool. People were only clamoring for a party matchmaking screen for three months, it's nice that they finally did something after that...

4 However, I'd rather see a level cap than a stratospherically high level that is only attainable by grinding. I enjoy Guild Wars because it's the very antithesis of grinding.

Why does a high level cap automatically mean grinding? If there is no level cap, then your character can keep growing through normal play. if the end content is level 60 or so, and your character can go 70, 80, 90, so what? A level 20 cap is retarded in a game where character construction and building is a large part of its core.

5 Can you elaborate on this more?

This might have changed in the expansions. When the first shortcut runners appeared on the scene, the large large large majority of players thought it was freaking awesome. My best 30 minutes in Guild Wars came when a runner took me and a party of other level 9 fodder through a level 20 area. We were on our own, he ofcourse ran straight through. But I managed to keep alive for 3 or 4 areas, dodging all kinds of shit that would kill me in a single blow. It was awesome.
Arenasoft's first response to the shortcut running was to alter all the maps so that the runner's resting spots were now suddenly seeded with monsters, then to inflict massive enchantment hate (upkeep enchantments were absolutely required for running) across the entire area. The runners adapted, and Arenasoft tried to make other other changes to by all means prevent anyone from shortcut running.

Why? Because a few dozen people somehow felt that THEIR enjoyment of the game was being affected because others were shortcut running. And why was that? Well, because of the possibility that a character that had ran a shortcut might go into a PvP arena at level 10 while wearing level 20 armor.
See also point 2.

6 The Mesmer, Dervish, Ritualist and Paragon classes, let me show you them.

Kindly also show me the 75% of all monsters that have a "dispel enchantment while doing (Mana cost of spell) damage to player". AT WILL ability.
It got so bad with their fucking bullshit enchantment hate that everyone simply stopped playing enchanting builds.

That was right at the point where I quit. They may have changed some of these things, but I've never been interested enough to find out if their philosophy had changed.

With GW2, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, since they had talked about at least massively upping the cap.

Creston

This comment was edited on Feb 17, 2009, 14:21.

I just wanted to address Creston's points:

1. Loot farmers.

- I farm greens all the time, almost daily. I've got more Rotwing Recurve Bows than I can shake a stick at, for instance. The Brood Mother Daggers are also another example of greens that you can easily farm. Gold weapons you can pick up out of chests. Gold drops in spades as does regular materials. Rare materials aren't overly difficult to come across, but are more effort intensive to get. Dye drops are far more rare but, Hell, go to the dye trader, it's cheaper than your time (save blacks).

Now, if you mean that you can't run a bot program, then I have zero sympathy for you in that case.

2. FORCED PVP-PVE interactions.

- Where does this occur? The only place I can think of is in Prophecies where you have to go a match against other players but that's part of the pre-Searing Nolani Academy storyline. You're there to learn how to be a better X profession, it says so in the very first missing you pick up!

There are places in Factions where you do fight either Kurzick or Luxon but that's solely by choice. You do not have to participate in faction matches to complete storyline quests.

3. Worthless party building mechanics.

- Worthless in what way? Finding a party isn't hard, you hit P, which brings up the Party window, and you either look at who's seeking a group or you can create your own party request including advertising what you're looking to create a party for (Farming, Quest, etc).

4. Stupid level 20 cap.

- This, admittedly, does bother me as well. I've hit 20 at least 100 times with one character alone. However, I'd rather see a level cap than a stratospherically high level that is only attainable by grinding. I enjoy Guild Wars because it's the very antithesis of grinding.

5. Hate against shortcut runners.

- Can you elaborate on this more? The game has runners all the time. Hell, I've had people run me from Ascalon all the way to Drok's just so I could then get another run to the Grotto for Templar armor.

6. Enchantment hate.

- The Mesmer, Dervish, Ritualist and Paragon classes, let me show you them.

I remember when I first bought Nightfall. A friend of mine offered to 'ferry' me over to the island where you could buy the best armor in the game.

I'm an avid GW player and I call bullshit. In NF you START on the island and then head to the mainland. You can get your high spec gear through the Consulate Docks, sure, but that's not an island.

Further, you'll need 5K to get it plus all the the material requirements. One of which is at least 20 pieces (usually more) of rare material.


So unless if by "first bought" you mean "after I had played it for a couple of weeks", your statement is blatantly false.

I remember later on running across a bunch of people with armor that was way cooler -looking. I said to my friend, "I thought I had the best armor in the game!" Turns out I did. These people had just spent hundreds of hours questing to get armor with the exact same specs, only cooler-looking. It became instantly apparent that this was NOT the game for me...

I dunno, I thought that was cool myself. It meant the more dedicated people had something to work towards and show off without disadvantaging the newer players. Brilliant.

That happened for me about three days into playing GW1. I mean, what shallow and boring gameplay it was. Maybe I didn't get far enough to the 'fun parts'? I hope so.

I actually found all three of the campaigns to be incredibly fun and didn't find there to be too much grind, whereas I found WOW and LOTRO boring even during the trial. Obviously there's plenty of room for improvement but I really enjoyed it and am eagerly awaiting the sequel.

They sure as hell need to do something to keep the interest of the GW1 players, there are a lot of people who are running out of things to do in the game (myself included) and with no new content on the horizon and GW2 miles away there are a lot of potential customers who are going to drift away before it comes out.

Well, Guild Wars was never about longevity - it's basically a co-op games like L4D, where it's a singleplayer experience in which you can replace team-mates with other players. It's not like WOW where you're paying monthly for it and expect it to keep you interested.

NEway, it's interesting to see that I was right about it not having a release date (as I posted in the previous topic). Therefore it's not actually delayed, much like Diablo III won't be delayed if it is announced that it will have a 2011 release date.

Because any noob can swoop in and instantly buy the best armor -this I find hard to believe, it takes a while to build up that much money..maybe he was hacking. Either way I doubt the validity of this story.

> These people had just spent hundreds of hours questing to get armor with the exact same specs, only cooler-looking. It became instantly apparent that this was NOT the game for me...

I dont get your point, why is it not for you???

No, GW was never about l00t, armor or weapons, but skills and the player skill to use it.

That's why it's a CORPG (Competitive Online RPG) and not a standard MMORPG.

I remember when I first bought Nightfall. A friend of mine offered to 'ferry' me over to the island where you could buy the best armor in the game. I had enough money, so I bought it. "Strange", I thought, "that you can get the best armor in the game 5 minutes in."

I remember later on running across a bunch of people with armor that was way cooler -looking. I said to my friend, "I thought I had the best armor in the game!" Turns out I did. These people had just spent hundreds of hours questing to get armor with the exact same specs, only cooler-looking. It became instantly apparent that this was NOT the game for me...

to achieve our goal of making Guild Wars 2 the best online role-playing game ever created.

You might want to tone down the expectations a little there, chief. The first Guild Wars was fun, but it was a damn far cry from being anywhere near the best online RPG, so to assume that your sequel is going to jump to the top is rather presumptuous at best.

How about you keep the good points of Guild Wars, (graphics, areas, character building, pvp elements, missions/objectives, possible shortcuts to get you into high end levels), remove the shitty elements (Your utterly worthless as fuck loot system, Your stupid crusade against loot farmers, FORCED PVP-PVE interactions, worthless party building mechanics, stupid level 20 cap, hate against shortcut runners and finally Enchantment-Hate) and replace them with things that are CUSTOMER FRIENDLY, and you probably have a chance to make a really, really, REALLY good rpg.

And as for staying tuned, there is nothing to stay tuned to. I can only listen to white noise for so long.

Creston

This comment was edited on Feb 17, 2009, 11:30.

They sure as hell need to do something to keep the interest of the GW1 players, there are a lot of people who are running out of things to do in the game (myself included) and with no new content on the horizon and GW2 miles away there are a lot of potential customers who are going to drift away before it comes out.

That happened for me about three days into playing GW1. I mean, what shallow and boring gameplay it was. Maybe I didn't get far enough to the 'fun parts'? I hope so.

So how is NCsofts financial situation?