Objective Opinion of Gw2 - share your thoughts/challenge mine

[evofa]

I posted this in another gw2 thread, but i wanted to have more people criticize/challenge my thoughts. i have a broad back and welcome criticism, it's the only way to refine your arguments/thoughts. i realize this isn't organized too well, but i think i hit a lot of the key notes as to why i think gw2 let me, and many people down. i also realize a lot of people love/enjoy the game and i don't wish to take anything away from that.

i feel like there is a small very active minority of players, especially on the gw2 forums who are seriously deluded. now, i've played quite a bit of gw2, and i appreciate it for what it is, but it certainly isn't "brimming" with fresh ideas.

1. the sPvP angle: at the start of the game, there was this huge hype from Anet about how the game was going to become esports, and have a strong pvp basis, ect. this was a complete and utter failure. the competitive scene collapsed, and the development is painfully slow. i think the combat is pretty good, and balance isn't even the core of the problem, rather they don't seem to have the resources to produce proper pvp structure (matchmaking, map types ect) or produce content (new skills, better variety ect). as far as i'm concerned, as a consumer, i think their product advertisement was misleading, since they knew how small their spvp team is, and how slow their content would come out, and they can't possible be stupid enough to think it would be enough for esports.

2. pve content/new zones/ new skills / new cosmetic armor. this is also severely lacking. i don't consider the 2 new dungeons over nearly 2 years enough content. it's just so painfully dry. i don't consider living story new content, i mean seriously, after 2 years you would think there were major changes, not this sad trickling of afterthought content. i'm a grad student and have barely 45-1h of gaming on a good day, and i've was out of new content a year ago. if you think what they have now is new content, you are delusional. which is totally okay, whatever makes you happy, but to compare the "living story" to a real expansion or pumping out solid tangible content is nonsense.

3. the whole no-subscription thing. i hate this part the most, and it's probably at the core of why the game is so stagnant. who wouldn't want to pay 15/month to have a vibrant game with constant content, rather than shitty trickling of "content" and gem shop exclusive cosmetics? thats why wildstar and ESO are going back to the subscription model, because, guess what, you can't sustain a developing mmo with gem shot purchases, and have an spvp team that's larger than 3 people. can you believe that? i saw that in a post in the spvp forum a few months ago. there's a handful of people, working on a major facet of the game. an mmo can't be functional with that sort of manpower. it's not possible.

the thing is, the game has/had a lot of potential. right now, it is an utter failure to a gamer who doesn't want an updated runescape / upgraded facebook, because thatt's what the game is right now. the spvp is in ruins, new pve content is scarce, wvw is a mindless zergfest (i honestly feel a little sad for people who spend hours running in groups of 40+ spamming 1-2-3), the gem shop has exclusive cosmetics, ect. you can totally enjoy the game, and i see that there are many many people who do, but don't delude yourself into thinking the game is something it isn't. oh, and one more thing, the writing is absolutely horrendous. i mean it is nauseatingly bad, it's probably the worst plot lines / writing, i've ever seen in a video game. there is no irony, no relating to the character, no witticism, nothing.




-evo

[Rifter]

I'm not sure the word 'objective' means what you think it does.

[Twoseventy]

I played GW2 heavily for about 6 months. I have no motivation to return. My main is decked out, and has been for over a year now, even without returning to the game. I need new levels/upgraded gear/something to progress in.

[lawow74]

I'd say it's just a straight-up opinion. One I can understand the OP having, and I've seen many others complain about sPvP, and personally agree that comparing the Living Story updates to an expansion is ludicrous, and a comparison I don't think many around here have tried to make. As far as the no-sub angle, I can understand that argument too, but right now I still have plenty to do and the lack of a sub fee means I don't feel rushed into doing it. I keep up with the Living Story and Dailies/Monthlies, and progress through the rest at a rate I'm comfy with. If I get tired of playing, I can just walk away and come back later and not feel like I'm wasting my money.

[evofa]

I'd say it's just a straight-up opinion. One I can understand the OP having, and I've seen many others complain about sPvP, and personally agree that comparing the Living Story updates to an expansion is ludicrous, and a comparison I don't think many around here have tried to make. As far as the no-sub angle, I can understand that argument too, but right now I still have plenty to do and the lack of a sub fee means I don't feel rushed into doing it. I keep up with the Living Story and Dailies/Monthlies, and progress through the rest at a rate I'm comfy with. If I get tired of playing, I can just walk away and come back later and not feel like I'm wasting my money.

i'm glad you're enjoying it. i've always felt time is more precious than money when it comes to gaming, hell i paid 11 bucks for a shawarma lunch today, and i wouldn't beat myself up over it too much. (not that i'm loaded, because i'm not, but chances are if you have a viable gaming computer you can afford 15/bucks a month without too much worry)

[lawow74]

i'm glad you're enjoying it. i've always felt time is more precious than money when it comes to gaming, hell i paid 11 bucks for a shawarma lunch today, and i wouldn't beat myself up over it too much. (not that i'm loaded, because i'm not, but chances are if you have a viable gaming computer you can afford 15/bucks a month without too much worry)

I did, but WoW is just not worth that price anymore. I don't like the way their endgame is structured, I am tired of the gear treadmill, and I really don't feel trying to get more gear even matters at this point because it all gets invalidated by the next xpac, which I can't say I'm interested in based on the preview info so far. So staying subbed to it is pointless to me. And no other sub games catch my eye, but GW 2 is a quality game I have fun with and it's free of sub costs, to boot. Long as I still feel like there's things I wanna do in it, I'll keep playing. Was the same with GW 1, was the same with EQ 2, was the same with EVE, and the same with WoW.

[Valeron]

Objective opinion?

Doesn't seem objective at all, it reads very subjective.

[dragnipur]

1st it's not even near the 2 year mark.GW2 is 1 year and 4 months old.What are those 2 years you are talking about??It hasn't been so long out
2nd you are right about the PvP it needs much more attention from the developers than it currently gets.
3rd Guild Wars series were always with B2P model and i'm quite happy about it.With such model i can afford to play 3 MMOs at the same time(Tera,GW2,WoW).Each game gives me different things that i like.

[nevermore]

"objective opinion" is a bit of an oxymoron in itself, isn't it?

while I fully agree with this part:

i feel like there is a small very active minority of players, especially on the gw2 forums who are seriously deluded

the rest just seem like unfiltered rambling

[Fencers]

"objective opinion" is a bit of an oxymoron in itself, isn't it?

Not necessarily. The phrasing of "objective opinion" could be used in a sense to describe or request an unbiased opinion or unaffected opinion. As in asking a person with no strong feelings toward dogs what they think is the superior dog breed of water hounds.

It is very possible for such a person to not care one way or the other about dogs, breeds or purpose yet come to a conclusion based on reasoning and understanding undisturbed by bias or whatever.

It's just that the term "objective opinion" is a bit of a low usage. So it seems like an oxymoron in a grammatical sense. But can be allowed in informal usage as a mixed phrase or expression of the above.

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 in objective and quantifiable practice.

Which ironically makes the OP and premise of the thread, subjective opinion. This is of marginal value, objectively.

[Lane]

(not that i'm loaded, because i'm not, but chances are if you have a viable gaming computer you can afford 15/bucks a month without too much worry)

This is an incorrect assumption to make.

[Boogums]

This is an incorrect assumption to make.

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

[Thessik-Irontail]

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.

[Fencers]

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

It may be relatively cheap compared to other hobbies. Though that would not mean one can necessarily afford a recurring cost to participate.

[Svifnymr]

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

Depends on if you count the hours of work as fun or detracting from it.

[Thelxi]

This is the last time I fall for pretty ncsoft graphics. Launch a great game and then leave it hanging till the milk dries up. Maybe Blizzard spoiled me too much, but whatever garage developing Anet are doing just won't cut it here in the west. It didn't cut it with L2 or Aion, and it doesn't cut it with GW2. Beautiful game but you can't expect to keep hardcore gamers interested with a sloppy and sluggish game.

[Svifnymr]

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.

So, after a year and a few months, can you demonstrate how it was a bad idea and killed the game, genre and industry? (ignoring the GW1 existence entirely)

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 if it were a subscription based game, most of those non-spenders would have quit and you'd be getting nothing. Unless you adopt the "charge for everything" model, of course, you'd be losing out on that extra money the 1-2% give.

Moreso though, being B2P or F2P means that you have a larger player population. Even if they are not actively spending money, their presence contributes to the environment that your actual spenders need.

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.

Considering the amount of sub-mmo's that have failed, what makes you think these others won't just convert or die after 6 months or a year? They recoup more money up front, but that is not a long-term plan.

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.

No one is playing GW2 for absolutely free.

[rhandric]

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.

1) GW2 isn't F2P, it's B2P (or, make a video during a contest and play, but, semantics )
2) GW2 follows in the footsteps of GW1 (imagine that, GW2 is a successor to another game!), which was also B2P.

But keep up the work of pushing GW2 into your fantasy "F2P because I want to disparage it" realm. Completely objective

[Fencers]

This is the last time I fall for pretty ncsoft graphics. Launch a great game and then leave it hanging till the milk dries up. Maybe Blizzard spoiled me too much, but whatever garage developing Anet are doing just won't cut it here in the west. It didn't cut it with L2 or Aion, and it doesn't cut it with GW2. Beautiful game but you can't expect to keep hardcore gamers interested with a sloppy and sluggish game.

Arenanet have only developed the Guild Wars games.

Arenanet is a Western developer based in Bellevue, Washington United States of America. Founded by Mike O'Brien, Jeff Strain and Patrick Wyatt.

Whom collectively participated in the development of the following North American based games and services in development and publication; Battle.net, Warcraft 2, Diablo, Starcraft, Lost Vikings, Rock & Roll Racing and World of Warcraft.

Only 1 founder of Arenanet worked on Aion; Patrick Wyatt as producer and R&D. Wyatt left Arenanet prior to Guild Wars 2. And went on to work on Aion, Tera and Diablo 3.

NCsoft does not develop any of the Guild Wars games, of which there are 5. NCsoft is a publisher of which Arenanet is a North American subsidiary and partner operating independently as a development studio.

[Svifnymr]

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

It's one thing to not like a game period, or to see F2P as a "icing on the cake" for a game you already like...but it seems like a lot of people use the subscription vs. F2P as their sole reason for picking one game or another and that doesn't make a lot of sense to me I guess.

People can point out that you're not paying for content, you're paying for access to the servers, but that's not how plenty of folks see it. I'm paying a sub fee to play in the world and that includes new things to do. When the content is slow to release and then is focused poorly (i.e., new raid tier! oh, not in a raid? screw you, you don't count), then the value is not there.

After seeing the content rate for most MMO's, I don't think me paying a monthly fee is fair. It is a hurdle that the MMO publisher should be ready to address, but they can't/ won't because that would mean actually sticking to a formula/ schedule. To put it another way, imagine if you only subbed when new content came out (which plenty do), you can't work at your own pace, you can't replay material, you put in your time and then move on to something else for it to be a value. You have to decide if it's worth being subbed at any given space of time.

I used to pay for WoW 6 months at a time, I don't want have to pay attention to when I subscribe or not be able to access the game on an off-content-month just because I didn't want to pay for nothing new. Paying for a game, and then paying to be able to PLAY that game, just gets old after a while when the only "benefit" is being able to access what you already have.