Guild Wars 2 is too different to be successful?

[zalmatra]

guild wars 2 to me seems to be smashing together the best parts of a diablo style game(basicly every class dps's and has a self heal of some kind) world events..dynamic server events and quests. and ditches the talent tree point system that currently wow is doing with mop which is really the best thing atm the talent tree had its run...it just needs to die

[Deleted]

The whole reason Totalbiscuit "creamed his panties" over Space Marine was because it was a hack and slash experience. He loved the feeling that he could tear through everything.

And that he's a fan of Warhammer and the feeling of the game actually made you feel like a bad ass space marine tearing through orks and I agree with him about the bolters they did feel good to shoot.

[Captain Cucumber]

All the different features are what attracted me to the game. That being said I can't help but to feel slightly worried about how their business model will work to maintain server maintenance, GM salaries etc. in the long run. Hopefully their in-game cash shop will be popular enough to give them a nice income. Personally I'm going to support them by buying from it, even if I'm not interested in the items for sale (wich I doubt wil be the case).

[4KhazModan]

I disagree. I think people will play it BECAUSE its different. And not just another hotkey-based mmo

[Plagous]

[...] That being said I can't help but to feel slightly worried about how their business model will work to maintain server maintenance, GM salaries etc. in the long run. [...]

Guild Wars is nearing seven years old now (will be end of April 2012). While not as often as they used to due to a small live team (5-6 people I think), they are still doing bi-monthly skill mix ups and adding new content once in a while. They just added the second phase of Winds of Change not too long ago. And for maintenance, the servers last I knew have gone down for maintenance twice over those nearly 7 years. That's pretty damn amazing considering WoW usually has weekly maintenance for several hours.

For the cash shop, while no one except for ArenaNet has any real numbers on it, I imagine they have made quite a bit of money selling the pvp skill unlock packs, character slots, character renames, appearance change tokens, etc.. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[Deleted]

It's not too different for me. If you want to waste your time grinding (Unless you actually do think it's fun which I know some people do) it may not be for you. There are lots of us however who will welcome Gw2's refreshing touch on the dull genre (opinion) with open arms

[Deleted]

I'm not fussed new game means QQer's go away for a month and give me a better time in WOW. :P But GW2 is doing large change and it is a risk but oh well keeps competition going don't it.

[Valeron]

It's only too different if all you play are classic style mmos. If you have played other games then it won't be that different at all.

[Thes]

You have to remember original GW and expansions (yes they're stand-alone) were successful.

Not WoW kind of success full but they sold plenty.

[Deleted]

Aimed at the OT point about how WoW became popular, it actually became popular not just because it was polished, but probably more importantly because it was based in the Warcraft Universe, an already very established franchise. It became the biggest MMO, and that brought more people too it, which brought more ect ect. At this point in the market just being a popular franchise doesn't get you so far (namely SWTOR - it will be big, but nowhere near WoW) because theres not the whole host of gamers out there with no other choice. WoW was the first MMO to have any real background, without being a massive grind fest that put off the masses.

[ro9ue]

What I say will probably be completely biased because I think I've pretty much become a GW2 fanboy. However, I've been playing MMOs since EQ Kunark which was released in 2000. I can tell you that I tried to play other MMOs at the time that were pretty much the same game, and I kept going back to EQ. Why? Because of the original investment. I don't think people WANT the same thing. Otherwise, why leave the game you already have days or even years into?

Around 2003 when EQ was getting pretty stale for me, I started playing WC3 and that eventually pushed me to WoW. The game was somewhat the same, but on so many levels very different. One of which was the UI, probably the greatest thing. Everything was so easy to find and understand. If you go back to EQ1, you just can't now because all the things WoW does right you take for granted.

As WoW was becoming stale for me around 2009, I started up some other MMOs. Warhammer and Rift to name a few, but they just didn't have enough NEW stuff for me to stick around. They were both great games, but ultimately, if I wanted to play WoW, I'd play WoW, a game where I have maybe a full year worth of played time between my characters.

GW2, at least at this point, looks like the next step. It seems different enough where I wouldn't be like, well I'll just go back to WoW. There's so much right with this game. You can just freely explore and get involved in a quest line and lore, the character development is unmatched in the genre, and the way the game plays just feels so fluid. When you swing your sword, you don't just hit the one target, you can hit other nearby enemies.

Removing the 'skinner box' is a HUGE risk. Primarily MMOs have been reliant on having people focus on getting better loot, and then the RNG of drops kept you coming back. What I hope happens here is how I feel when I play Gears of War 3 online. I play because the game is fucking fun. I don't play Gears 3 because I want to unlock a medal, I play because the gameplay is fun. WoW I hate to say it, but I play because I want a piece of gear. And I'm not entirely sure why. I don't play because the rotation is fun, or running the same 2 troll dungeons over and over is fun, but I play for gear. It's at the point where the skinner box isn't really even addictive anymore, I'm just sick of it. What I do enjoy doing in WoW is questing, but if I just do that... I don't advance my character at all. If they really do make MoP the questers expansion where you get Valor for questing, there's a good chance I'll be playing that as well.

GW2 - I'm not sure if it will sink or swim but I wholeheartedly wish Arenanet the best of luck and keep innovating. Unfortunately, I'm super pumped about it, but I don't even think I can play if they don't put out a Mac version :/

[Captain Cucumber]

Guild Wars is nearing seven years old now (will be end of April 2012). While not as often as they used to due to a small live team (5-6 people I think), they are still doing bi-monthly skill mix ups and adding new content once in a while. They just added the second phase of Winds of Change not too long ago. And for maintenance, the servers last I knew have gone down for maintenance twice over those nearly 7 years. That's pretty damn amazing considering WoW usually has weekly maintenance for several hours.

Yes I've heard about this before, and I'm not doubting this worked well for Gw1 but then again that is a heavily instanced game. I'm no techie and I may be completley off on this, but to me it would seem to me that Gw2's persistent world would require better hardware to handle it especially as the number of players keep growing, not to mention the wvwvw pvp. In another thread (may have been on gw2guru) someone also mentioned they were playing Gw1 consistently with 300-400 ms. With the new dynamic combat system this seems a bit high to me, especially if you plan to excel at pvp. Hopefully you are right though, it just sounds a bit too good to be true is what I'm saying

My main concern is just to be able to play the game relatively smoothly. The possible lack of continuous updates doesn't bother me that much. Even MMO's with sub fees don't really put in new content that often, and when they do it's usually just a continuation of the everlasting loot threadmill.

[Plagous]

In another thread (may have been on gw2guru) someone also mentioned they were playing Gw1 consistently with 300-400 ms.

I usually had around 100ms, sure there were spikes (hardware isn't perfect), but most of the time it was pretty stable. Latency is mostly dependent on how far away from the server you are and how far the information has to travel (networks don't work in straight lines). Most of ArenaNet's North American servers are in Texas I think.