Objective Opinion of Gw2 - share your thoughts/challenge mine

[Fencers]

I called it before GW2 even came out, the free to play thing was a BAD idea that was going to kill the game and hurt the MMO genre and possibly gaming industry as a whole.

Many statements in your post are factually incorrect or subjective opinion.

Please take the time to revise or participate in discussion according to the thread premise in a thoughtful and intelligent manner.

[evofa]

The OP's points however are largely nonsensical or unworthy of consideration. Discussion on balance in a game in active live development is of no macro value. Not to mention the OP's vague points and comparisons to imaginary concepts not expressed in Guild Wars 2

- sPvP has incredibly slow development, and therefore poor infrastructure and little competitive scene
- game was marketed and continues to advertise itself as having a strong pvp basis; this is not my imagination this is fact.
- lots of poor dev. turns (like skyhammer, constant conquest maps) in spite of helpful guidance from a once eager pvp community
- there are no more competitive teams, they all left. (also not my imagination)

- PvE content is painfully slow to an experienced gamer
- in a year and a half of development there has been a handful of dungeon
- no new zones/skills/cosmetic armor sets (a few have trickled through)
- living story trickle-through content is not significant enough to be considered real PvE content; (i suppose you can say this is relative/ depends on your perception of content, i appeal to your better judgment)

- WvW is largely as zergfest, small group objectives are discouraged and not significant, there has been little conceptual or practical attempts to fix this (and there have been a lot of suggestions of how to do this)

- the business model is a significant part of why the three facets of the game mentioned above are so stagnant; if is wonderful if you derive pleasure and enjoyment from the game (as i did, and still do once in a blue moon), but that shouldn't prevent you from criticizing it.


i'ld rather you address the points; i realize they weren't expressed well, but i so think you can get the gist, if you aren't hellbound on derailing the thread on the "objective opinion" part (yes a poor figure of speech, i'll give you that). "unworthy of consideration" please counter my points then

[Lane]

World of Warcraft is one of the cheapest hobbies that actually requires money out there.

Exactly. Sometimes $15/mo. is all someone can spare for an "entertainment budget" and if you're a gamer then MMOs are one of your best options. It doesn't by any means suggest that you have no financial worries.

Hell, even the computer comment was presumptuous. My computer was a gift from a friend after mine of many years became irreparable and I couldn't afford another. I'm simply saying you shouldn't assume anything about anyone's finances.

Subscription fees really do seem like a silly reason to not play something.

I don't personally know anyone who can afford more than one game subscription a month. When I see games like Wildstar and ESO announce they'll be using a subscription model it means that with 100% certainty there will only be one I'll be playing. My bf has his eye on Wildstar and if he likes it then he will be canceling his WoW subscription.

I get that there are obviously a lot of 'well off' gamers out there, but there are a lot of poor ones too.

[evofa]

I don't personally know anyone who can afford more than one game subscription a month. When I see games like Wildstar and ESO announce they'll be using a subscription model it means that with 100% certainty there will only be one I'll be playing. My bf has his eye on Wildstar and if he likes it then he will be canceling his WoW subscription.

I get that there are obviously a lot of 'well off' gamers out there, but there are a lot of poor ones too.

you sort of proved my point, most people who can afford gaming computers can afford a subscription. you are an exception in that you were donated one. i know all about being poor, coming from immigrant parents who came with essentially nothing a decade ago, my first computer was a laughable handmedown from my dad's work that could barely run might and magic, and later W3, but i work hard in my day to day life so that i don't have to live like that, and if i couldn't afford more than 15 bucks a month on entertainment, i probably wouldn't be thinking about entertainment in the first place, i would have other priorities.

[Luxeley]

There is something missing in GW2, I can't quite put my finger on it. And, although each of your points contributes to the "what's missing" factor, I still don't think the nail has been smacked dead on it head yet. There is a reason why GW2 is the greatest game no one plays, if someone can tell me, it would be much appreciated.

1) I almost feel like arena net put a hell of a lot of work into the game, released it and then simply let it sail off into the sunset. I want to be more seasoned and comfortable with the game before I venture into any kind of PVP, but I just don't find myself playing it a lot. I think you're right though, Arena Net failed to deliver on the game's esports potential and did nothing to steer in that direction.

2) Arena Net believes the living story of one's character and alts is the next xpac and they are greatly mistaken and incorrect about this. I am shocked, they haven't at least provided more cosmetic armor for a small transaction fee.

3) A lot of people applaud the "no sub fee" business model, but the fact no one ever points out is that without a sub fee there is little or no commitment to the game. Therefore, gameplay sort of resembles all the populous of a desert.

[evofa]

Yes, but that's you making a choice between products just based on what you would prefer to play. (I wouldn't play two MMOs at one even if they were both free)

That's perfectly reasonable, what I was referring to were the, "GW2 is free and WoW has a sub, so I'll play GW2 based solely on that" comments that I've seen over time. That seems silly to me.



My big gripe with "living story" is that it seems like there's precious little "living" or "story" involved, and instead just a repetition of "click on 100 pumpkins/pinatas/flowers/etc" to get an achievement every couple weeks. [/FONT]

yea that's expressing it way better than i could. if the "living story" had new exciting bosses in new zones, or new instances (not fullblow dungeons) that progressed the story (which i thought was pretty convoluted and mediocre), then we could talk.

[namelessone]

It's not even about sub fee, it's more about MMOs demanding a lot of time investment. An adult with a full time job will hardly be able to invest into more than one. I can afford to "dabble" in MMO only if it's free. If it's sub based, I feel the pressure to invest time into it, to justify paying for sub. But my time is extremely limited. So if I sub for two MMOs, I'll only be able to invest into one, so I'll cancel the other eventually.

[Huehuecoyotl]

I called it before GW2 even came out, the free to play thing was a BAD idea that was going to kill the game and hurt the MMO genre and possibly gaming industry as a whole.

Now I was partly correct here. F2P is bad for MMOs, it may work in other gaming genres however, like league of legends and such. That being said an MMO takes a lot more man hours, requires a much larger development team, and costs a lot of money on an on going basis to keep running. Now a year and a half after GW2 has launched we hear stats like 1-2% of the player base are big spenders in the gem store while most of the players don't spend a single penny on the game after initial purchase. This quite simply put, does not pay the MMO bills. So what does that mean? It means that the cuts come to the development team. Less and less programmers and designers working on content, fixes, and vision for the future. That's why GW2 is stagnant, the gem sales have to go towards hardware maintenance costs and does not leave enough to maintain a large development team.

I also said that F2P was an unhealthy mind set to have MMO gamers believing in. Yet arenanet pushed ahead and are now struggling, their Q3 investors report shows arenanet is now making less then Aion. Arenanets major success in GW2 came from the overhype that they sold everyone on, which will never happen again as they have a lot of very angry players being duped on what the product was actually like. I will never purchase anything from arenanet again. However now we have all these kids spewing F2P mantras like it's some revolution of the future, when in reality it was a gimmick that failed and future MMOs are returning to the subscription model which actually works long term and produces proper amount and quality of content.

People should never have been ok with the idea of "F2P" where 95% of the playerbase gets to play for absolutely free, while the remaining 5% pays everyones bill. The F2P players are essentially going out to dinner and leaving someone else with the check every time they sign up to one of these games, and not giving it a second thought. Its an unhealthy mentality, we should all pay for what we use, and we should not take advantage of other people (either because they are gulliable, stupid, rich, or any number of other reasons).

If we all pay our own way, we all get better longer lasting games at a very affordable price, and no one gets left holding the bill for others.

GW2... never again.

what a gigantic pile of nonsense. there is one thing that has REALLY hurt the MMO genre in recent years, and its the thing that has popularised it; WoW. because it has been SO successful that it has redirected other MMO developers into trying to produce tweaked clones of it, rather than anything genuinely ground-breaking. and when someone does produce something a bit different, we get certain people on forums like this saying things like "well, it doesnt have a seamless world, so clearly it isnt as good as WoW". not mentioning any names, of course.

as for "paying our own way", clearly GW2 can pay its own way while just charging for the box and then having purely optional micro-transactions. which is a good thing, because the money it is taking from the MMO players that choose to purchase it is largely going back into MMO game development. as opposed to Blizzard, where 85% of the money that the players are paying over is going to profit; i.e. it isnt going back into MMO development.

with the money that WoW generates, we could have 10 different games, each with ~500k playerbases, that would all be wildly profitable. each could provide a little corner of gameplay suited to the people that populate it. instead we have one behemoth that provides watered down gameplay, with questionable business ethics that see them charging players extra to fix faults in the game.

So, maybe look a little closer to home before you start putting all the faults of the world at the F2P doorstep. which of course GW2 isnt. so what was your actual point again?

- - - Updated - - -

3) A lot of people applaud the "no sub fee" business model, but the fact no one ever points out is that without a sub fee there is little or no commitment to the game. Therefore, gameplay sort of resembles all the populous of a desert.

GW2 gives us content every 2 weeks. WoW, with a subscription, gives you new content every 2 or 3 months. what was the point you were trying to make?

[evofa]

GW2 gives us content every 2 weeks. WoW, with a subscription, gives you new content every 2 or 3 months. what was the point you were trying to make?

now you're the one talking nonsense. you can't possibly compare living story content to what WoW has pumped out. that's ludicrous. WoW has a subscription because it offers an incredibly amount of content compared to GW2, and i say that as someone who has absolutely no interest in WoW, i find the combat boring and the graphics outdated. you are making a lot of assumptions about what WoW can and can't do with their profit, and yet you act like Anet isn't a business. i assure you the same pressures Blizzard has to make profits are felt by Anet. if WoW had the content progression GW2 does, it would have failed a long long time ago.

imagine having essentially new dailies and a 2 5 man dungeons over a year and a half for WoW. can you imagine the uproar?

i think this is exactly the type of thing that i meant by people who are deluded. if you think living story content is up to par with what WoW does every few months, then you clearly can't think straight.

[namelessone]

GW2 gives us content every 2 weeks. WoW, with a subscription, gives you new content every 2 or 3 months. what was the point you were trying to make?

Not all content is created equal.
WoW could pump out "content" every two weeks like GW2 does, in the form of several new dailies. Instead the produce entire new areas and raids every couple of months.

[Valeron]

Not all content is created equal.
WoW could pump out "content" every two weeks like GW2 does, in the form of several new dailies. Instead the produce entire new areas and raids every couple of months.

You are having a laugh, deluded, or both.

[lawow74]

as for "paying our own way", clearly GW2 can pay its own way while just charging for the box and then having purely optional micro-transactions. which is a good thing, because the money it is taking from the MMO players that choose to purchase it is largely going back into MMO game development. as opposed to Blizzard, where 85% of the money that the players are paying over is going to profit; i.e. it isnt going back into MMO development.

GW2 gives us content every 2 weeks. WoW, with a subscription, gives you new content every 2 or 3 months. what was the point you were trying to make?

Have to play devil's advocate here and question how much new content has really been added. Southsun Cove, a few mini-dungeon type things, a couple or three actual dungeon paths, the recent Fractals update, some mini-games, and the rest mostly temporary events and fixes/quality of life changes. And then the skins and things for sale. And the Living Story, which so far has largely been 'An Alliance Forms in the Bad Guys->Fight them->Find out it was Scarlet->Redo from start'.

Not to say it can't be fun to play, I've mostly enjoyed the LS story stuff, though recent ones not for very long because of too much Scarlet and too much hoop-jumping to enjoy it, at least IMO. But things like new areas with new event chains, bosses, hearts and such a'la the rest of the game world have yet to appear. Now, they get around to their second year anniversary and nothing like that has appeared, or at least been announced, people will start to wonder when it's coming.

[namelessone]

You are having a laugh, deluded, or both.

And YOU are dodging the topic with personal attacks. In the lifetime of ONE expansion, WoW churns out more content than GW2 did since release. During lifetime of MoP, WoW released 2 full raids, a number of new scenarios, two new outdoor areas, complete with questing content. Two world events, complete with questing content. Two new gameplay modes (Heroic scenarios, FLEX Raids).

Let's see what GW2 released in the same time.

[Valeron]

I don't deny wow produces sizable content but I'm contesting your notion that it produces it every 2 months. Also, if I don't play wow is it even a point?

[namelessone]

I don't deny wow produces sizable content but I'm contesting your notion that it produces it every 2 months. Also, if I don't play wow is it even a point?

I never said "two months". MoP came out Sep 25th, 2012. It's been out for a bit over a year and had ... let's see ... 4 content patches. That puts it at one content patch every 3 months. Sure, not every patch contains a full raid, but on the other hands, raids are not consumed that quickly.

[Gadgette]

I called it before GW2 even came out, the free to play thing was a BAD idea that was going to kill the game and hurt the MMO genre and possibly gaming industry as a whole.

If we all pay our own way, we all get better longer lasting games at a very affordable price, and no one gets left holding the bill for others.

GW2... never again.

First off stop saying F2P, GW2 is B2P. Second there are so many made up 'facts' in your post it's startling. GW2 has had natural decline in box sales, every game does and that does not mean financial ruin. Anet earnings will spike back up with next quarter earnings with the holiday sales going, and it will take another jump when it gets released in China and then in Korea. Their sales last quarter were at 22.8 million, so no, ANet is not struggling in any shape or form.

Subscription fees do not always result in a quality game, just as much as free to play does not equal in a horrible game, people really need to learn that. I should also mention that subscription fee does not always result in profit over and above a free to play model with micro-transactions.
I got into a discussion not too long ago with a youtuber about this very thing. His outlook was 'I won't play a game that is free because it means it's crap, and a sub fee means it's going to be good' This sort of stance on things is just as ridiculous as playing a game solely because it's free. People really need to just look at a game for what it is, does it fit you and your play style, and is it worth your time and/or money?

Really when one stands back and looks at the issues that each current AAA title has, they are all suffer from the same problems for the most part, and it has absolutely nothing to do with a sub fee or lack thereof. Blame the developers for the problems not the business model.

now you're the one talking nonsense.

i think this is exactly the type of thing that i meant by people who are deluded. if you think living story content is up to par with what WoW does every few months, then you clearly can't think straight.

You are also talking nonsense, and I would have to say after that post you are aiming this to be a WoW vs GW2 discussion and nothing more.
If someone likes the Living Story and feels they get as much playtime every two weeks vs WoW and their 4-6 month content updates, who are you to say they are delusional?

How many actual new dungeons, not raids or the 3 man filler scenarios, have we gotten since the release of MoP over a year ago? Zero. How many new zones? 3 small islands, one serves no purpose aside from a grind for bones, another of which is mainly a zerg fest with free epics, and another with all the same copy and paste kill/gather quests as any other area of MoP.
If you count those filler scenarios and raids I guess that's a lot of content, but considering how fast this stuff can be done it isn't super substantial in the end considering this content is coming every 4-6 months released. And most of this content has been gated giving a smoke screen of it being more when in fact it isn't, it just drags it out.

[Fencers]

- sPvP has incredibly slow development, and therefore poor infrastructure and little competitive scene
- game was marketed and continues to advertise itself as having a strong pvp basis; this is not my imagination this is fact.
- lots of poor dev. turns (like skyhammer, constant conquest maps) in spite of helpful guidance from a once eager pvp community
- there are no more competitive teams, they all left. (also not my imagination)

Slow development in comparison to what or whom? What is the measure or control you are using to make this declarative statement?
Proof? Also what relevance is this to gameplay?
What makes things such as skyhammer or conquest maps poor? Is there is an permanent error in operation or contradiction in design?
Proof? Also what relevance is this to gameplay?

- PvE content is painfully slow to an experienced gamer
- in a year and a half of development there has been a handful of dungeon
- no new zones/skills/cosmetic armor sets (a few have trickled through)
- living story trickle-through content is not significant enough to be considered real PvE content; (i suppose you can say this is relative/ depends on your perception of content, i appeal to your better judgment)

Slow development in comparison to what or whom? What is the measure or control you are using to make this declarative statement?
What outliners define an "experienced gamer"?
What objective measures of control and sample are you using to make a comparative analysis of playing speed and habit of an "experience gamer"?
What relevance is the number of dungeons introduced to the game to the gameplay, design or operation of Guild Wars 2? Is this a comparison of volume or quality? What outline of quality in design or operation are you using to define an objectively true measure of quality relative to player or designer enjoyment/intent?
What relevance is the number of zone introduced to the game to the gameplay, design or operation of Guild Wars 2? Is this a comparison of volume or quality? What outline of quality in design or operation are you using to define an objectively true measure of quality relative to player or designer enjoyment/intent?
What qualifiers are you using to measure the significance of PVE content via the living story in GW2? In comparison to what or whom? And what control are you using to define this by contrast or elimination?

- WvW is largely as zergfest, small group objectives are discouraged and not significant, there has been little conceptual or practical attempts to fix this (and there have been a lot of suggestions of how to do this)

Is this incongruous to the design of WvW?

This is would be a statement made of ignorance of game design or logical reasoning. it could not be true otherwise and no example is possible. Asymmetry in gameplay is unbalanced implicitly.

- the business model is a significant part of why the three facets of the game mentioned above are so stagnant; if is wonderful if you derive pleasure and enjoyment from the game (as i did, and still do once in a blue moon), but that shouldn't prevent you from criticizing it.

What evidence do you have of business model adversely effecting gameplay or operation of the game directly or indirectly?

Can this be measured, metered or counted in some way?

What privy to the finances of Guild Wars 2 do we need to make this assessment?

i'ld rather you address the points; i realize they weren't expressed well, but i so think you can get the gist, if you aren't hellbound on derailing the thread on the "objective opinion" part (yes a poor figure of speech, i'll give you that). "unworthy of consideration" please counter my points then

However, that is no objective analysis without evidence, proof, or at the least a measurable and quantifiable set of parameters that we can establish objectively. Such that we can be reasonably sure our analysis is most probable if not a truth outstanding.

The problem is not that you picked a poor set of phrasing. We could overlook this easily without being bogged down in the nature of the premise itself. The trouble is that we can't have a critical discussion of merit or academic consideration without knowing what we are comparing against and why.

You are describing what YOU BELIEVE to be shortcomings- which is fine. More than fine in fact.

I can't address your points. Becasue you are essentially telling the internet what you like on your pizza. And further positing that pepperoni is superior to sausage because, "pepperoni satisfies experienced pizza eaters" while sausage is too unbalance.

Again, that is fine. But what parameters are we, or I, am suppose to go by here to measure what YOU think is a good pizza topping or aspect of game design?

Saying something is slow or "boring" isn't much to go on for conversation. Yet alone critique.

Why is X "too slow"?

Why do you feel Y is poor design?

What measures are we using that can be applied consistently for X, Y and Z?

Et cetera.

You didn't apply a critique. Just a rant.

I can't help you with that.

[Valeron]

I never said "two months"....
Instead the produce entire new areas and raids every couple of months.

couple is two

[Huehuecoyotl]

now you're the one talking nonsense. you can't possibly compare living story content to what WoW has pumped out. that's ludicrous. WoW has a subscription because it offers an incredibly amount of content compared to GW2, and i say that as someone who has absolutely no interest in WoW, i find the combat boring and the graphics outdated. you are making a lot of assumptions about what WoW can and can't do with their profit, and yet you act like Anet isn't a business. i assure you the same pressures Blizzard has to make profits are felt by Anet. if WoW had the content progression GW2 does, it would have failed a long long time ago.

imagine having essentially new dailies and a 2 5 man dungeons over a year and a half for WoW. can you imagine the uproar?

i think this is exactly the type of thing that i meant by people who are deluded. if you think living story content is up to par with what WoW does every few months, then you clearly can't think straight.

at least this post makes it clear what the point of this thread was. and how laughable describing it as an "objective opinion" is.

are you directly comparing what GW2 does for free every 2 weeks with what WoW does every 3 months for $45? In 3 months GW2 has 7 or 8 living world updates. the laughable thing isnt how much content GW2 produces in this time (compared to the cost) its how little WoW does (compared to its cost).

hell, if my company was getting $250m income every three months, and all i put out was a patch with some dailies and a raid tier if you were lucky, i would personally be ashamed. that is enough income to produce one or two brand new AAA MMOs from scratch.

but keep telling yourself that GW2 is what is wrong in the world of MMOs.

[Valeron]

if you don't play a game, does it matter to you what it does?