First of all, elimination of roles such as tanks and healers, downleveling, no bimodal endgame. (If you want to argue that these were inspired by City of Heroes -- or, in the case of the lack of a bimodal endgame, UO --, I won't disagree. See below.)
Second, when I'm talking about innovation, I don't mean any single part of it. It's difficult to find a single isolated aspect of any game that hasn't somehow been done before (there are only so many ways in which you can dress up the process of killing pixels on a screen). And just adding a single new idea does not innovation make. Conversely, being different just for the sake of being different does not innovation make; it has to fit into the overall design.
The thing is, while GW2 has borrowed, its borrowing has been pretty diverse and forged into a coherent vision, which -- as a whole -- is what is innovative, because no other game has put them together in the same way. There's a fairly big delta between GW2 and any other MMO on the market that I can think of.
Just as, simply because there may be only thirty-six fundamentally different plots, that doesn't mean that storytelling can't innovate. Frankenstein and My Fair Lady aren't the same story, claims to the contrary aside, even if they can be reduced to the same plot at some level.
Well GW1 has a solid fan base and sold many copies, so it was always going to get attention.
From my beta experience they are doing many things right, I'm interested to see how long it will hold my attention for, can't wait to see the lvl 25+ zones, the world is done very well.
I hope every new MMO does well, more options and competition is a great thing.
Honestly I don't care what the GW2 hype is... SW:ToR's hype was 10x more that of what GW2's hype currently is, and look where that ended up.
Nothing against Guild Wars 2, but I honestly don't believe it's going to surpass 2 million. If it did, it won't last long... all depends on how good the end-game is.
EDIT: Though I will admit this is the BEST time for GW2 to come out. Right now WoW fans are bored to tears waiting for new content (as evidence of the 1.1 million subs lost to Diablo III last quarter) and the way it sounds, Diablo 3 fans are very disheartened by that game too.
And, honestly, I don't think the Theramore event will bring people back. hell, half the WoW audience for the world event is being told "Grab a mop and bucket and clean up what the other half did. Doesn't that sound like more fun than exploring a whole new world?"
Couldn't have picked a better time to release it. ^_^
Last edited by mvaliz; 2012-08-19 at 03:04 PM.
I think there is a certain amount of hype that will come with any MMORPG game. But added to that is the what makes GW2 different then other games, it is almost an exact check list of "what I hate about today's MMORPGs and how to fix it" for a certain group of people. Namely the MMORPG fans.
Stuff like "I think PvP should be skill based". Problem solved... "I hate the gear tread mill" ok there is none. "I feel like I have to play because of the subscription"... how about no subscription... the list goes on and on and on. The hype was there but it is more enthusiastic because those people understood that this game is the MMORPG they have been waiting for.
How do I know they're a Dragon? Do Dragons appear different on the screen? Where do I see how I fared against the other players when people that don't fight anything get rewarded for running around capping nodes? I found the point system a little weird as well, I always fell into the upper tier of points but I never really understood why. Kills and caps? Is there something you scroll over at the end so you can check Damage, dodges, objectives, healing, damage taken?
---------- Post added 2012-08-19 at 03:04 PM ----------
You got that right! Its the only reason I can see why people play LoL
It comes at a time when WoW is really boring so the Wow community hypes the only game coming out? Simple enough. It will fail though.
I've never understood why success or failure is ever an issue. I don't know why people even care at all, then again I don't see how anyone can still play WoW, it would be like still playing Counterstrike to me. Everyone says SWToR was a huge failure but I still log in every morning and have more fun PvPing there than any other game ever. So do a couple hundred others that are on at 4 am PST. If 500,000 people are still having a blast how can something be a failure unless they lost money?
This is EXACTLY what happened with me. A WoW friend played GW1 before WoW. He showed me some gw2 videos...long story short I'm now 30/50 HoM and ready for GW2.
I think people really needed to stick with GW1. I struggled for a while I didn't like it. Once I got heroes, meta builds for them and me I essentially sat back and really enjoyed the game and lore.
a boat load of targeted media and a whole legion of haters who are fresh with disappointment that SW:toR ended up failing to kill WoW.
Hasn't it been boring for 3-4 years now? That's probably why every MMO in the last 4 years has been Hyped. SWToR had the IP to lend additional Hype as well as being so many years beyond the last time WoW was fun
---------- Post added 2012-08-19 at 03:17 PM ----------
Because they're broke and have old laptops? I do like cookies!
Last edited by Eggoman; 2012-08-19 at 03:19 PM.
Report goons like that, that kind of name pretty clearly violates nameing policy and once a name has been banned once chances are it can not appear agian.
Back on topic I think its the fact that they set out to change several aspects of MMO's that the comunity as a whole as accepted as "Just the way things are done" since WoW became king of the genre. By and large Anet have succeeded in what they set out to do. Players have goten to try the game, liked it, and spread the word and the excitement has just ballooned.
Who is John Galt?
Timing, boredom with the current slate of games.
I played GW1, found it dull, more of a group-AI solo online game, than an MMO. I thought the world beautifully done, didn't like that we were stuck with humans glued to the ground, invisible walls, instanced zones.
However after 7 years of on-again, off-again top end raiding I just got tired of WoW. I'd tried AoC (*loved* the setting, truly, but the game was hilariously bugged and quality of the zones fell off badly after tortage), LotRO (again, very pretty; fun to play, but I found the free to play straitjacket too tight; if GW2 wasn't coming out, I'd probably be playing this); TSW (loved the beta, the new setting, the new 'take' on level-less play, absolutely entrancing voicework, but scaling was very bad, instances gimmicky and too easy once you found the 'trick', if it stayed F2P I'd have considered dumping some money in its online store too). WAR was (now) uninhabited, as well as cheesy red vs blue. So really I was casting about for something new, and GW2 feels like "it". Honestly, I've been MMO-free for nearly a year, I'm almost wondering if I will still be interested in committing hours/week to play a computer game...the BWEs make me think I probably will. GW2 seems well done, the price is absolutely right, and it's at the right time.
-Styopa