ArenaNet has made something special!

[Merendel]

I would like more competition too, but in todays standards i dont expect the game to last long. Why? No subscription fee hence updates/patches are not going to be top quality.

Another reason would simply be that i find the animations and pvp very clunky. They arnt smooth at all.

And to top it off, 1 month after release will be the release of MoP.

1. At this point the concept of a sub fee = better quality or more quanity of updates/patches is a myth. The amount of content generated through patches in WoW for example is quite small compaired to the amount added through expansions yet you will easily pay 6 times as much over the corse of an expansion cycle for the Patch content as you did for the expansion content. The quality isnt any better than the expansion its just more expensive. Plenty of games produce top quality content purely through box sales of the main game, expansions or sequals, some are even MMO's.

2 thats your opinion and your welcome too it. I dont agree but there's no meaningful way to debate eachothers perceptions so not much point arguing about it.

3 I stand by my flipant coment in the post you quoted. Yep MOP is going to come out a month after GW2. Yep folks are going to run off and play that instead. And yet as we've seen every expansion and patch in WoW history there is a very clear sin-wave in avrage player activity level. Patch or expansion hits and everybody swarms the servers and plays it like crazy. A month or two down the line the hardecore players finish all content and start loging on less and less when it is not a raid night. Another couple months down the line and the casuals reach that point. By the time you reach the point where theres a couple months to go till the next patch peak activity is around half of what it was right after the patch or expansion. So yes there will be plenty that leave for MoP. I expect many of them will be back in 2-3 months while they wait for the next patch.

[Dezeria]

I posted this in another thread but I'll say it again. First, no I'm not a GW fanboy. I didn't like GW1 much, and I've played WoW since launch day 2004.

However, after playing countless hours through each GW2 BWE, it's hard to enjoy another mmo.

I logged onto my WoW MoP beta and ran around exploring the new zones, but they felt really pointless and lonely now. There weren't any big events going on I could join like in GW2, and it just didn't feel as alive. It was just static mobs waiting for you to get a quest to kill them, and solo players running around questing alone.

I still play WoW and I'm not aiming to bash it. I'm just trying to emphasize what ArenaNet has done with GW2 that really does make it special.

The game is so well designed to give players that feeling of community, and being part of a real world full of people who work together. Instead of following a linear quest chain alone, I'm running off exploring and getting swept away in random events going on around me, full of other people working together, and it's awesome.

[rezoacken]

1. I would like more competition too, but in todays standards i dont expect the game to last long. Why? No subscription fee hence updates/patches are not going to be top quality.

2. Another reason would simply be that i find the animations and pvp very clunky. They arnt smooth at all.

3. And to top it off, 1 month after release will be the release of MoP.

1. Come on, WoW patches are pretty small and are not worth the 90$ you pay in between. At least not in my opinion. Only time Blizzard works is for expansions... which you have tio pay on top of your regular subscription.
And ANet has to deliver if it wants to sell anything (expansions), your argument makes no sense from a business perspective. What makes no sense to me is why people still pay 15$ a month for one raid every 6 months. A company is supposed to release good products to get money, no matter their business model; Anet is no exception, Blizzard is.

2. Opinion.

3. You do realize GW1 was released and updated (patches+expansion) when WoW was at its golden age ? The game did fairly well at a time where WoW was all new. GW2 comes at a time where a LOT of people are pissed by wow and its clones, at a time where Blizzard just dropped the ball with D3; there is far more potential for GW2 than there was for GW1. Unless you are one of those that think something is successful only if it reaches the 10million subs ? Not saying game will kill wow or something... just that I don't think the release of MoP will change anything.

[Vice80]

Quite dufferent for me. I made a norn and I was pretty bored at first. Got hooked up only after playing quite few hours. Norn starting locations pretty bad, but game grows on you later on. Was playing human in latest couple stress tests and gotta say humans' starting locations and town is much better. But norns much better themselves overall so I'm sticking with them anyway.

[CrusaderNerò87]

Well, it is an opinion. The game was addicting, but looking back on it now, it's pretty subpar. Everything felt like a chore, especially from WOTLK onwards.

I would say wow is less of a chore now than it was before. Back in the day you had to play for hours everyday to be on par with people. These days you dont need that, and im glad for that!

[mag07]

So after playing the 1 hour stress test today I must say...I am completely blown away by this game.

That. Wasn't in the beta, pre-purchased it yesterday cos I will admit, despite being a WoW fanatic for many years until about mid Cata, I did give in to the GW2 hype - and boy does this game seem to be exactly what some of us need to break away from WoW for good and cancel that last account we're still holding onto lol - it's new, beautiful, it's not a WoW clone, it seems to have a nice community, something Blizz managed to destroy over the years, starting with allowing name changes for twat anonymity ending with LFG/LFR; it feels like an actual MMO.

From the little game play - combat feels smooth, engaging and simply FUN. Despite my fears of awkward camera in comparison to WOW it turned out to be just fine, not a smooth but just as quick, and even quicker if you play with the slider Simply loved the first experience.

Tried to squeeze a peak of every starting zone and different race/prof combos - Asuras rock, but frankly so do Norns, and Sylvari, it will be a tough one to choose, cos at that very moment I want to play them all. It's so refreshing, the game isn't even out there, and it managed to achieve what Rift/SWTOR didn't for me, engage me from the first minute.

I got to a point in my WOW life when I simply thought I'm not enjoying it anymore cos I'm getting old, well, that is not the case Can't wait till 25th

[Tackhisis]

1. Come on, WoW patches are pretty small and are not worth the 90$ you pay in between.

They cost exactly what they need forproviding a quality content. What is more important, this paltry sum allows you to feel yourself as a white man, experience the game at its fullest, without limitations, to enjoy voice acting and not subtitles, to have localization instead of English, to use living customer support instead of NCSoft engrish mail bots.

Infracted for trolling. -- Fencers

[mag07]

Quality content is disputable, granted, once upon a time things where different Customer support - some poor ol dudes in a country far away that are not even allowed to use their own names, instead are forced to introduce themselves in a way that is familiar to you, the customer - Uncle Google on corporate customer support practices - that is assuming you actually get a human reply, not a series of automated responses completely irrelevant to the issue lol, and last - localization - check GW1 and how easy it is to switch between game/interface languages, including ones Blizz does not even consider worthy

[Pickynerd]

They cost exactly what they need forproviding a quality content. What is more important, this paltry sum allows you to feel yourself as a white man, experience the game at its fullest, without limitations, to enjoy voice acting and not subtitles, to have localization instead of English, to use living customer support instead of NCSoft engrish mail bots.

Please define quality, and content please. You mean content like ZA, ZG, and heroic versions of old dungeons? Quality like 3 day tickets, or 45-50 minute CS calls?

NCsoft is far from perfect, but ffs they are not charging for everything, and anything.

[Vsml]

The game is awesome. I have a feeling it will take some getting used to simply because of how different it is from WoW, But I'm really looking foward to it's release.

I second this.

[Northy]

A big fault I see in the game is there will likely be a massive learning curve for those who are true noobs to the genre. I've played MMORPGs for a long time and even I was like...wtf is going on here. Granted, it didn't take me long to figure out, but for many the transition may be a killer and may push them away.

[Deleted]

I would say wow is less of a chore now than it was before. Back in the day you had to play for hours everyday to be on par with people. These days you dont need that, and im glad for that!

Well, you're still required to do a certain amount of things per day/week to keep up, namely daily quests for gold, raid nights, and RF and/or DF for your weekly points. Up until the point (pun intended) you have everything those can buy, and you stop doing that as well, and only play for the daily quests and the raid nights. And if you're into PvP, there's the weekly cap you need to reach in order not to fall behind.

Some people enjoy that, others don't. I enjoyed it for a time, and I could probably still enjoy it, but it's not worth the cost for me anymore. I know many peeps who find it worth their money, and I don't hate them for it. But even they agree WoW is a chore.

[Primernova]

Not played any betas, but this game is a first day purchase for me.

Have been enjoying TSW lately too. So glad some MMOs are willing to break the mold finally.

[Deleted]

Gotta just hope GW2 community wont end up like WoW community: pvp players vs pve players vs casuals vs elitists vs pros vs hardcores and so on, the community is just a train wreck these days

[Deleted]

A big fault I see in the game is there will likely be a massive learning curve for those who are true noobs to the genre. I've played MMORPGs for a long time and even I was like...wtf is going on here. Granted, it didn't take me long to figure out, but for many the transition may be a killer and may push them away.

I actually think the learning curve is tougher for players used to basic stand-n-move MMO combat than it is for players new to the genre. It's more like an action game, which many non-MMO players are used to already. It's pretty clear from fighting a few mobs that you are supposed to attempt to stop their attacks hitting you and not just nuke them. Just running around looking for stuff is a lot more intuitive for players who aren't used to the shopping list style of questing too.

[jvbastel]

I actually think the learning curve is tougher for players used to basic stand-n-move MMO combat than it is for players new to the genre. It's more like an action game, which many non-MMO players are used to already. It's pretty clear from fighting a few mobs that you are supposed to attempt to stop their attacks hitting you and not just nuke them. Just running around looking for stuff is a lot more intuitive for players who aren't used to the shopping list style of questing too.

This, I've hear various reports about how players new to the genre actually found it easier to adapt than veterans.

[terrahero]

They cost exactly what they need forproviding a quality content. What is more important, this paltry sum allows you to feel yourself as a white man, experience the game at its fullest, without limitations, to enjoy voice acting and not subtitles, to have localization instead of English, to use living customer support instead of NCSoft engrish mail bots.

What a joke. You pay 180$ a year, server costs are pennies so thats still pretty much 180$ a year. For this you get two content patches, are you getting 3.5x an expansion worth of content each and every year? Are you serious? Rehashed old content refurbished as 2 5man dungeons. Or one raid with 7 bosses and a bunch of daily grinds. That content was worth at most 15$, not 90$.

And customer support? What i need to praise Blizzard for helping their customers with their problems? Hell, even PAY them? Which i already do, they charge by the minute for every phone call.

Stop deluding yourself into believing that monthly sub is going to good use, its not. Its sheer money grabbing simply because people still pay it, or are even deluded enough into thinking its needed! Enjoy the game for what it is, if you dont mind Blizzard grabbing into your wallet without giving you anything for it is worth to play the game, goodluck to you. But dont try to justify it or spin it into being anything other then pure and utter exploitation.

[Sylvanie]

They cost exactly what they need forproviding a quality content. What is more important, this paltry sum allows you to feel yourself as a white man, experience the game at its fullest, without limitations, to enjoy voice acting and not subtitles, to have localization instead of English, to use living customer support instead of NCSoft engrish mail bots.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Blizzard made $1.36 billions in revenue in 2010 from WoW and had $241 millions in operating costs for WoW. That's a five-fold return on investment (colloquially also known as a license to print money). In short, about 20% of the money that we pay Blizzard goes towards running and improving the game.

MMOs are less expensive to operate than many people think and frequency of new content is largely determined by usual software development constraints. One of the usual problems with software development is that hiring more people does not necessarily make the process faster. In fact, Brooks' s law famously says that adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. To push out more content, you generally don't need to make as much money as WoW, you need an efficient content delivery pipeline.

For example, Rift can produce content faster with less revenue than WoW because they have a more streamlined development process. ArenaNet said that they could have pushed out the GW1 expansions at six month intervals, but that they didn't because the majority of the playerbase (aside from the hardcore crowd) wasn't consuming the content that fast. In fact, Blizzard is probably one of the worst performers in the industry when it comes to producing new content.

I should also note that I am a bit baffled by what you perceive as the strengths of WoW. Its voice acting is fine, but hardly a strength (limited to very few cut scenes and in combat voice overs, and WoW players tend to hate many of those cut scenes); other games, including GW2, have more extensive voice acting. Similarly, quality and timeliness of Blizzard customer support is not what I'd call a positive for WoW. Localization is the one thing where Blizzard is indeed superior to practically all other MMOs, but very likely also makes it harder for them to deliver content updates and timely patches.

[Sargerus]

the game is vey well made, but it has nothing revolutionary like some people keep saying, it only took aspects of previous MMOs and enhanced them

[Merendel]

the game is vey well made, but it has nothing revolutionary like some people keeps saying, it only took aspects of previous MMOs and enhanced them

WoW says hi. Blizz did little more than take aspects of previous MMO's and enhance them while geting rid of some of the parts folks found obnoxious. The questing from 1 to max while solo was somewhat newish but that was basically just their hook kind of like DE's are for GW2. I've seen plenty of folks claim wow revolutionized MMO's.