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  1. #301
    Recommended watching/reading:


    Briefly, activities can have both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards are things such as immersion or the joy at overcoming a challenge; extrinsic rewards are things such as loot, XP, and status.

    Games do not necessarily need extrinsic rewards to be fun. Tetris proved to be very addictive in its day, with little or no extrinsic rewards.

    The excessive reliance on extrinsic rewards is relatively unique to progression-based MMOs (inherited from D&D). This can have deleterious effects in that players start to pursue activities that they do not actually enjoy anymore (see also: grind, burn-out), and gets to the point where even enjoyable activities become less fun because of extrinsic rewards. Few players in WoW have been doing dungeons for fun the past months; they are solely driven by VP, JP, or trying to see a piece of gear drop, as they kill Archbishop Benedictus for the 30th time while watching TV and complaining in guild chat about the morons that the dungeon finder put them in a group with.

    That does not mean that extrinsic rewards are evil; but depending entirely on it for player satisfaction is a dangerous path to tread. (It is also very expensive in terms of development, since you constantly need to put out new content as old content becomes obsolete.)

    What you need for a game that people keep playing without extrinsic rewards is to, first and foremost, provide content that not only is fun the first time it is played, but can be played again and still remains fun the second and third and fourth time. You then don't have to depend on extrinsic rewards to provide a carrot.

    Now, not everyone will enjoy GW2, and that is perfectly fine. If you try to appeal to everyone, you will please nobody. ArenaNet is a business, they don't need to appeal to 100% of MMO players; 10% would already be several millions of players. It's better for them to entertain 1 player well than to entertain 10 players poorly.

    That said, GW2 has a few features that help:

    • Variety of content. Because you don't actually outlevel content, you're not just stuck with the level 80 game. That means that content does not become stale as fast and don't have to string players along with extrinsic rewards. ArenaNet will still have to push out new content, but they don't have to be as aggressive about it as Rift (note also that even Rift introduced mentoring recently).
    • A strong focus on immersion (to the point of discouraging players from watching the UI as much as possible). Rich lore and beautiful visuals are intrinsically rewarding for a great many people. You don't have to be a hardcore roleplayer to lose yourself in a world -- ask any person who lost track of time reading a book.
    • An active combat system. Games that engage the human mind's pattern-matching abilities tend to be more fun than those that don't. Note that it does not have to "hard" to achieve that (as ill-defined a term as "hard" is). It just needs to engage the human mind's proclivity for pattern-matching and puzzle-solving (again, see Tetris; not a complicated game by any means, but people still kept playing it).

    GW2 will definitely lose players who will miss a progression-based endgame. But it will also retain a number of players who hate the grind aspect of progression. By focusing on the latter type, it avoids competing with Blizzard and Trion on their home turf, and instead creates a home for players to whom the progression game does not appeal.

  2. #302
    Quote Originally Posted by vicious796 View Post
    What do you mean "not on par"? That a stat increase of +30 is somehow superior to a stat increase of +3? The fights are designed with the best possible gear in mind... the difference in the number is absolutely meaningless. Hitting a boss for 3 when he only has 100 health is exactly the same as hitting a boss for 3k when he has 100k health.
    Anet will tell you and many GW2 players will tell you taht the thing they like about the game is that there is no "gear treadmill". Gear upgrades are not needed and are very minimal i.e no tier sets etc. You cannot deny this.

  3. #303
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sylvanie View Post
    they are solely driven by VP, JP, or trying to see a piece of gear drop, as they kill Archbishop Benedictus for the 30th time while watching TV and complaining in guild chat about the morons that the dungeon finder put them in a group with.
    Hrm. I did exactly that on my Disc Priest alt.

    Ironically, I wasn't doing it for the stats, but because I wanted a matching set to make him look like something of a White Mage.

    So it's worth noting that cosmetic rewards are just as extrinsic as stat-based progression. So while I don't think it's good to focus too much on the extrinsic rewards in general, those who can't quite let them go... will find it here, in GW2. It's just a different kind.
    Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-08-28 at 05:47 PM.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

  4. #304
    Quote Originally Posted by Plzbegentle View Post
    Dont bother Vicious:P
    This thread is going , circles and circles :P
    No it's not, please do not post if you are not expressing a view on the OP.

  5. #305
    Quote Originally Posted by Morrowind View Post
    Anet will tell you and many GW2 players will tell you taht the thing they like about the game is that there is no "gear treadmill". Gear upgrades are not needed and are very minimal i.e no tier sets etc. You cannot deny this.
    I never tried to - I specified that you can get your superiority fix with tweaks and harder to obtain gear. You responded with "I can already do that". I then asked you to clarify that you simply don't want to put in the effort that a new game requires. You then said the stat increases were "not on par" despite the fact that we already established that superiority can still be achieved through...

    oh, nevermind. I fell into the troll trap.

  6. #306
    Excellent points, let me attempt to refute them.

    1.) See another post in the forum about the difficulty of explorable mode dungeons in GW2. Most of the playerbase will not be able to defeat them and they are designed to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a random PUG. This still permits rare items. The difference is that the difficulty in GW2 is based around the content - not the number of players. Part of what makes 25 man raiding very hard is getting a consistent group together that is capable. In GW2, the theory is to make the content harder but reduce the number of players necessary.

    2.) MMORPGs are definitely RPGs but RPGs are not MMORPGs, if you catch my meaning. In Zelda, you improved to beat the game. There was a set endpoint and you had to get there. In an MMORPG, there is no real end. You play to increase yourself while "living" in a digital world. As such, when we (as humans) try to improve ourselves we use the "norm" or "base" as a means of comparison. When multiple people get together to do something, it's only natural to feel a desire to do it better than others. Hence, the superiority "complex" that traditional MMOs use increased stats to feed.
    Yes, those explorable instances I am looking forward to. I appreciate challenging content, and I'm very excited to see that in action without the holy trinity. Each class seems to have quite a bit of utility so I suspect that it's possible in the absence of threat control. Although, given RNG the content could be frustrating if it's overtuned since you will have some limitation in controlling it and coming with a repeatable plan. [Edit, this is a fine line - since it could be part of the fun, or very frustrating. It really depends on implementation. Getting rid of the repeatable plan could be good, but not if it means you wipe to the RNG Gods every time something doesn't go your way.]

    In 25 man raiding, part of the content surely is the formation of the group - but a lot of difficulty comes into coordinated execution, which inherently becomes easier with fewer people. WoW has recently stepped away from high coordinated execution encounters in favor of high numbers games. Those are less fun to me, and I really hope these explorable instances have more to offer than an overtuned numbers game. In my opinion, WoW has maintained it's edge in raiding content by providing more engaging content than numbers games.

    Insofar as point 2, the part of your statement that holds true is that MMORPGs are RPGs, which reinforces my point that MMORPGs inherit the aspect of RPGs of progressing through the game with successive stat gains. But I think you're point is that the MMO aspect brings a social comparative not present in RPGs which has an ugly side, elitism. I think this vanity PvE concept is a good experiment for a launch game, where there is a ton of things to do other than gear up and end-game. Down the road, I still hold the expectation that successive expansions will need to increase gear stats or level cap, or both to maintain interest.
    Last edited by Firestyle; 2012-08-28 at 05:54 PM.

  7. #307
    Quote Originally Posted by Morrowind View Post
    Firstly, I would just like to say that this isn't meant to offend or cause any kind of bad feeling. I just want to put something out there and see what you guys think.

    I was really hyped for GW2, I mean really. The promise of dynamic events, the eradication of the "Holy Trinity" and the 8x3 Explorable mode dungeons seemed almost too good to be true. I devoured article after article and waited for this great game to be released with hopes of it being the next big thing.

    However, a couple days back, I realised that perhaps this game could be missing something.

    The problem was I bought into the hype that was being stirred up by many people. They compared GW2 to other popular mmos and claimed that this would now be the top dog and keep them entertained for years to come, expansion after expansion. They made fun of the supposed "gear treadmill" that other games use and ridiculed the "carrot on a stick" approach to mmos.

    All that got me thinking though: what is it that I enjoyed in an mmo? I liked adventuring with friends, getting more powerful and clearing content. I loved that feeling of gaining a new weapon that obliterated the stats of my old one and the thrill of pushing my damage to the absolute maximum.

    Then I thought about GW2. What you do from the very first DE is essentially the end game content. I would still be clearing content with explorable dungeons but after putting in all the effort where would my powerful weapon be? How would my character become more powerful and my dps soar? (essentially the dps role is different in GW2).

    I realised I wasn't interested in purely cosmetic loot, for me, armour appearences are merely a bonus to the awesome stats that come with them.

    The "gear treadmill"/"carrot on a stick" are incentives to play. People say they provide an illusion of fun and progress; however, in this case, it is not an illusion if you feel and see said effects ( I see my damage soar and I feel the fun). I knew that once I clear through the explorable modes I'd be done with the game totally and utterly. Going back to do old DE's (even if I am scaled) doesn't provide me with any progress.

    Getting the "carrot" throughout the whole game will get tiresome quite quickly. Sadly I realised GW2 won't have the PvE experience I was hoping for.

    My final point is this though: us mmos fans created this problem (well, a few of us). We compared GW2 to a game that was totally different and warped the expectations we should have had.

    Back in '06 I didn't look at TES 4 and compare it to an mmo, neither did I do that for FF13 when it came out.

    I saw people that loved raiding talking about GW2 and saying "End game is gonna be so awesome, downing bosses in explorable mode will keep us busy for months! Can't wait to see the armour sets" It's sad because these people will waste their money and be left with a bad taste in their mouths after geting the real GW2 (the GW2 we should have been thinking about instead of trying to make it something it's not).

    GW2 will be fun to play for a month and then I'll leave and come back maybe a bit later on. However, it will not quench the the thirst of those looking for an experience that is already out there. We have a game that gives us that fix.

    What GW2 will do is provide a fun experience that will last as long as any console game out there. I should have looked at it from that perspective instead of trying to make it into something it's not and hasn't tried to be...

    So your saying GW2 isn't wow? That's new and interesting .... Personally I love the game so far. And if you had played the game at all you would know the stats on equipment do go up when you progress. It doesn't become looks over stats until you already have the highest level weapons in the game.

  8. #308
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Morrowind View Post
    No it's not, please do not post if you are not expressing a view on the OP.
    I dont see anything else , exept this
    Quote Originally Posted by Plzbegentle View Post
    So u dont have a problem with the <<new>> dungeons in wow , that drop exlusive cosmetic gear ?
    Quote Originally Posted by Morrowind View Post
    No because the game has that and raids.
    Play the game
    LvL up to 80
    w8 for 15 days , in order for us to get to 80 instead of bicthing in the second day ( u start moaning in the first)
    And then we have the proper disscuse

    Edit: i got really bored of this conversation ...
    Last edited by mmocd9c65c8d53; 2012-08-28 at 05:51 PM.

  9. #309
    Quote Originally Posted by vicious796 View Post
    I never tried to - I specified that you can get your superiority fix with tweaks and harder to obtain gear. You responded with "I can already do that". I then asked you to clarify that you simply don't want to put in the effort that a new game requires. You then said the stat increases were "not on par" despite the fact that we already established that superiority can still be achieved through...

    oh, nevermind. I fell into the troll trap.
    Superiority in GW2 is not gained through gear.

    Please do not call me a "troll" or suggest that I am "trolling"; no matter how many disputes I have had with posters on this thread never have I been called that and I find it offensive and is quite crude on your part.

  10. #310
    Quote Originally Posted by DrakeWurrum View Post
    So it's worth noting that cosmetic rewards are just as extrinsic as stat-based progression. So while I don't think it's good to focus too much on the extrinsic rewards in general, those who can't quite let them go... will find it here, in GW2. It's just a different kind.
    Oh, absolutely. There's nothing wrong with extrinsic rewards per se, only with an over-reliance on them.

  11. #311
    Quote Originally Posted by Tonyctattoo View Post
    So your saying GW2 isn't wow? That's new and interesting .... Personally I love the game so far. And if you had played the game at all you would know the stats on equipment do go up when you progress. It doesn't become looks over stats until you already have the highest level weapons in the game.
    No I am not. That goes without saying.

    ---------- Post added 2012-08-28 at 06:54 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Plzbegentle View Post
    I dont see anything else , exept this



    Play the game
    LvL up to 80
    w8 for 15 days , in order for us to get to 80 instead of bicthing in the second day ( u start moaning in the first)
    And then we have the proper disscuse

    Edit: i got really bored of this conversation ...
    Then please do not post again if that is the case you are only wasting your own time.

  12. #312
    The Lightbringer WarpedAcorn's Avatar
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    As someone who just read the last 8 or so pages of this thread, I can confidently say that no one is listening to anyone else and everyone is twisting everyone else's words.

    Bottom line, there is room in the market for more than 1 game. Its not a GW2 vs. WoW situation so I'm not sure why everyone is acting like it is. I play SWTOR, LoL, Torchlight, and now GW2. I prefer spending most of my time in SWTOR, but I also enjoy things in GW2. People are looking for different experiences, and that's ok. GW2 is not the Jesus of online games, come to take everyone to the promised land.

  13. #313
    This will be my final post (I have to get ready for mop 5.0.4 pre-patch tomorrow):

    Everything anyone wants to know is in my OP. You are free to read everything that comes after but make sure you read the whole thing to gain the best understanding.

    I am truly shocked at the lenghts many go to when defending a game that has nothing really to do with them personally (in comparison to say, a girlfriend.)

    In any case to quote Iago: "Demand me nothing. What you know, you know.
    From this time forth I never will speak word."
    Last edited by Morrowind; 2012-08-28 at 06:05 PM.

  14. #314
    What GW2 will do is provide a fun experience that will last as long as any console game out there. I should have looked at it from that perspective instead of trying to make it into something it's not and hasn't tried to be...
    Going back to revisit the OP, I generally have to agree. My conclusion on this is that some sort of stat progression is going to be mandatory. It may not be now, but the second that next expansion hits, I see few coming back to drop $60 into vanity armor.

    Nonetheless, it doesn't devalue what they have made - which is a really awesome game that I thoroughly enjoy for what it is.

  15. #315
    Since starting play in Guild Wars 2, I am really enjoying it.

    I like that you basically go from heart to heart doing them and events. I love exploring, coming to a new vista and trying to get up to top.

    But yeah, I can see it getting boring after you've done it a bunch of times, as well, if not many people around may not be able to do the events. But this is kind of like all games? You play them for xx hours and then move on. When xpacs come out you can get them and play. As for a month of play only, I doubt that, I know i'll want to level all the profs, and try out all the crafting. My only worry at this time is that MoP is coming out and that since I have irl friends there, I won't have as much time for GW2, but i'll find time i guess.

  16. #316
    Quote Originally Posted by Morrowind View Post
    Superiority in GW2 is not gained through gear.

    Please do not call me a "troll" or suggest that I am "trolling"; no matter how many disputes I have had with posters on this thread never have I been called that and I find it offensive and is quite crude on your part.
    Yes it is, we established that and you agreed to it a few pages back. The "best" players will have the "best" gear by accomplishing the hardest dungeons or PvP events. You stated the stat increase was "not on par" - not that you still don't get better stats. This is why you're called a troll - you have no countered any productive points against you.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morrowind View Post
    This will be my final post (I have to get ready for mop 5.0.4 pre-patch tomorrow):
    And the truth shall set you free.

  17. #317
    Why do people think WoW has so much endgame when currently they only have ONE raid zone which is Dragon Soul? And a few patches into MoP there will still be only ONE raid zone. If you wanna use games with lots to do at endgame WoW is a horrible example. Use Rift or Everquest. Both have alternate advancement forms of making your characters better at max level, which WoW does not. Rift has Planar Attunement and you grind AA points in EQ. Both also have far more raids available. Rift has 7 currently that people still run every week for gear that are for people of all gear/skill levels. I dont know off my head how many Everquest has but when I last played 2 years ago the guild I joined was working through content that was 2-3 years old so we could progress eventually into harder stuff. 3 years of content vs a single WoW raid....which one has more endgame? Also 5 mans dont count because eventually they are just there for weekly point caps not for loot. Hell most people just BG for honor gear or buy BoEs just so they can skip 5 mans because of the reputation they have earned as being full of bads and just go straight into raiding. Full honor gear is more than enough to get geared up for running LFR and a few weeks of LFR is more than enough to get you into normal modes.

    TLDR: Even if Guild Wars 2 only has 1 raid it is still just as many raids as WoW has.
    Last edited by Lilly32; 2012-08-28 at 06:30 PM.

  18. #318
    Dreadlord yuca247's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Speedlance View Post
    Why can't people just hold their opinion to their self? I don't care if you don't like the game tbh. All you accomplish with this is negative publicity for new players.
    I like GW2 and I believe if you play it, like normal people would for 2-3 hours per day you will use a long time to get to lvl 80 and do everything. You forget about patches, which may or may not introduce better gear, dungeons, areas etc etc.
    If you want to leave, fine, but do it silently, because many of us will play it for a long time.
    So anytime someone has a negative opinion about a game they should just shut up? What do you want to hear nothing about positives about the game? This is the mentality from the gw2 fanboys that I can't stand. It's as if your insulting them personally if you have anything negative to say about the game.

  19. #319
    Quote Originally Posted by Firestyle View Post
    Going back to revisit the OP, I generally have to agree. My conclusion on this is that some sort of stat progression is going to be mandatory. It may not be now, but the second that next expansion hits, I see few coming back to drop $60 into vanity armor.

    Nonetheless, it doesn't devalue what they have made - which is a really awesome game that I thoroughly enjoy for what it is.
    $60 on vanity armor (ie, pay for the new expansion just for the vanity armor)? If I'm reading you correctly, I have to just laugh...I'll buy the expansion, for the content. The "vanity armor" is just a bonus, above and beyond that, and allows goals to be set. It's the exact same model that worked for years in GW1, so such skepticism is unwarranted. Buying a box for "vanity armor" would be the same as buying an expansion of WoW ...wait, who am I kidding, people like the OP only buy expansions for power, not for content.

    And OP: I've said it before, as have others, and I'll say it again, even though you say you're not going to post again (because somehow I doubt the veracity of that): GW2 doesn't have raids, it's been known since day 1 not to have raids, but that doesn't mean there's nothing in the game for people who like raids.
    Last edited by rhandric; 2012-08-28 at 06:34 PM.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ryngo Blackratchet View Post
    Yeah, Rhandric is right, as usual.

  20. #320
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sylvanie View Post
    Oh, absolutely. There's nothing wrong with extrinsic rewards per se, only with an over-reliance on them.
    Perhaps that's what's happening with this thread?

    A lot of the people with similar complaints seem to be asking where the extrinsic reward is, and are overly concerned that a certain type of extrinsic reward isn't in the game, or else simply don't see the value in what extrinsic rewards GW2 does offer.
    Nothing wrong with preferring a certain kind, of course, but it's kind of odd some of the extreme statements people make in regards to this.
    Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-08-28 at 06:31 PM.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

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