Apparently you've never heard of Alternate Advancement from games like EQ/EQ2, and soon to have Rift. Also in FFXI, there is a system of Merits that you can earn once at the cap, and every 10,000XP you earn grants you 1 merit, and you then use those merits to permanantly upgrade your base stats.
Endgame doesn't have to be 'only' about gear progression and raiding...
Have you realized that EQ/EQ2 and FFXI have a very low population today?
RIFT have a raid/gear progression that is one of the main reasons that people are still playing the game .
You all ,realy think that will be playing GW2 7months after the launch ?
I am sure that GW2 will be an amazing game, one of the best ones made so far, and will be a turn over in the MMO's Industry.
But the lack of a proper end game will make it shorter.
There are other ways to make end game, yes there is ,we have seen some ideias in other MMO's but they worked, NO, they can work if well implemented, maybe.
But one thing is for sure, Raiding is the easy one for the devolepers, they spend the same amount of time as a dungeon, but people will be playing that "dungeon" for 1-3 months instead of a few hours.And is totaly opcional, same players love it, some ignore . But to make a game sucessufull Developers should think about all of them.
I would say that raid/gear progression is one of the main reasons people are playing Rift, but it doesn't necessarily follow that it's the main reason people might play some other game. Not Rift bashing, but its world doesn't have a lot of replayability due to its lack of zone path variety and linear questing. GW2 is offering a lot more replayability, through having more leveling paths, events not always running when you go through the first time (or just being able to repeat any of them), as well as the personal story you can play through 3x per race.
As I pointed out in another post, if it takes 100 hours to level to cap, at 5 races x 20 hours per week, that's 6 months. And that is literally the bare minimum where you won't even see nearly all the content. Their lead content designer said he couldn't imagine how many hundreds of hours of content there were in their demo, and the demo was only a small part of the entire game. By the time people run out of things to do there will certainly be expansion content.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I would say that raid/gear progression is one of the main reasons people are playing Rift, but it doesn't necessarily follow that it's the main reason people might play some other game. Not Rift bashing, but its world doesn't have a lot of replayability due to its lack of zone path variety and linear questing. GW2 is offering a lot more replayability, through having more leveling paths, events not always running when you go through the first time (or just being able to repeat any of them), as well as the personal story you can play through 3x per race.
As I pointed out in another post, if it takes 100 hours to level to cap, at 5 races x 20 hours per week, that's 6 months. And that is literally the bare minimum where you won't even see nearly all the content. Their lead content designer said he couldn't imagine how many hundreds of hours of content there were in their demo, and the demo was only a small part of the entire game. By the time people run out of things to do there will certainly be expansion content.
All of that content cali59 mentioned can be done as "endgame" with a single character, since you will be sidekicked down and could actually do everything with just your main. No content ever becomes trivial or outleveled, and you can play with others regardless of their level or where in the world they are.
Also, content and replayability is only one aspect of a game's "staying power". I would argue that content is LESS important to the longevity of a game than other things, like community and the mechanics of the game...How fun is it to play, moment to moment, and how attached do you feel to your character, the world, and the community?
Just as one example of how game mechanics trump content - Does the combat feel stale and repetitive five minutes into the game? If so, all the content in the world isn't going to keep players playing...because it very quickly becomes a grind when you aren't enjoying the basic game play.
GW2 is fostering community in many ways, providing a new and more interesting combat style, and providing a ton of ways for players to become attached to the world and their characters. In short, even if they had less content than other games, GW2 would have more longevity for the reasons I listed above. That isn't the case though...along with providing the game play elements, they are also providing an immense amount of content that you never outlevel. In short, having no endgame raiding will have almost no impact at all on the game's longevity and the size of their player base over the long term.
Not Rift bashing, but its world doesn't have a lot of replayability due to its lack of zone path variety and linear questing. GW2 is offering a lot more replayability, through having more leveling paths, events not always running when you go through the first time (or just being able to repeat any of them), as well as the personal story you can play through 3x per race.
As I pointed out in another post, if it takes 100 hours to level to cap, at 5 races x 20 hours per week, that's 6 months. And that is literally the bare minimum where you won't even see nearly all the content.
Everything i wrote as facts, what GW2 offer at the moment is an ideia. Like we have read in lots of other mmo's, that we thought that will work and will be amazing. Have the promisses that developers of others mmo's told us worked and lived up to they goals.... NO. in same cases wasnt major falws, in others... the games failed totaly.
IF you have been waiting for RIFT and reading about it before lauching they promisses was very impreesive and to be honest they worked. The Dinamic events are amazing, but after some months they werent the main reason to keep people playing. Developers been able to deliver more and more content is impressive, but we have to keep in mind that is a monthly fee game.
" I would say that raid/gear progression is one of the main reasons people are playing Rift, but it doesn't necessarily follow that it's the main reason people might play some other game." I dont think raid/gear will ever be the main reason for someone to play a game, but until proven otherwise, this will be what will keep people playing after people played thru all content.
Can we assume that people will want to try all the races and the leveling paths, we can. But people will?. We have to wait and see. Will end game PVP will work? well for some will, for the majority? We will have to wait and see.
The question is, we want a game for 500.000 players and for a very especific group of people or we will want more people to be able to play with? It will be free so we will have lots of people that after some time will only log for 30 minutes check Ah, look around and leaving, at best some will even play 30 minutes of PVP.
Do i think that GW2 will fail, NO, not at all. IF they keep the free monthly fee just like GW that will be a huge sucess. I realy hope that GW2 will be a great sucess .
Like most people we are a bit tyred of the old formulas and we need something quite new, but as any player that been around for some years and was waiting for a new MMO, read about how amazing the next MMO will be, how impressive we was with the ideias of the new MMO, but when we get the hands on the new MMO, after 2-3 months ...we just quit, and starting to hope that the other next MMO will be at least good.
PS: Sorry for my english and a few mistakes, but english isnt my main language. (or even second).
The main reason I heard of people quitting Rifts was the raid thing, while it keeps some players playing longer it makes others quit.
It is great that there are many games for raiders but it is not so great that the selection are limited for anyone who doesn't like it.
That is true. In Rift, if they made "progression", and here i mean gear progression also, thru rifts, real dynamic events and open world encounters, the game would not be so empty except the main cities. Unfortunately, the open world "rewards" are so bad that they are totally ignored. People rarely group for the zone events. Everyone's in an instance, being it warfronts, T1's, T2's or raids.
I like Rift, I like the combinations the soul system provides but the lobby gaming thing was a game breaker for me. My guildies just log in for raids now, as they have no reason to play for anything else. I do not want to be forced into an activity which i did for a few years in WoW, and then i realised i dont like it anymore. I sub once every 3 months to see what's changed, that's it. Sure, there are still a lot of raiders out there, but the number of people who need a change is greater and greater it seems.
This is where Guild Wars 2's subcription system (or lack thereof) really shines. They don't need to keep us for as long as possible by keeping the majority of the game at max level. With the Buy-to-Play system, they can spread the experience evenly through all levels so that we're playing this game for it's RPG aspect, not its MMO aspect.
what is this "endgame" people talk about ..arnt mmorpgs sopose to be about a never ending story / quest
Who told you that? MMOs are supposed to level cap you, and then send you on frustrating weekly raids where you're not guaranteed to really improve anything about your character, their story, or your own skill, solely for the purpose of maybe getting + 10 pauldrons that make you look totally badass in town. Duh. Endame is about FLASH and instanced content that includes bosses with 30 mil HP, so you better get with it.
This post has been brought to you by Eir_S is a sarcastic bitch who's tired of people whining about endgame.
MMOs were to supposed to be social platforms built around the idea of experiencing a fantastical life full of adventure, monsters, loot, magic, and quests.
Over the years it has become a social platform built around the idea that you must do raids over and over to be accepted by the other users.
Also, if no one's mentioned it yet, pertaining to the topic at hand - no, GW2's "staying power" will only have to do with what people perceive as "endgame" content, and that's only if those players weened on "endgame" ala WoW refuse to open their eyes. There will be dynamic endgame content in GW2 in the actual persistent world of GW2 - endgame in this case meaning: Not confined to an instance or a set number of players, but instead battles that are scaled due to how many players are involved. There will be plenty to do at level cap, people just can't look past tradition it seems..
Originally posted by Eir_S Originally posted by odinsrath what is this "endgame" people talk about ..arnt mmorpgs sopose to be about a never ending story / quest
Who told you that? MMOs are supposed to level cap you, and then send you on frustrating weekly raids where you're not guaranteed to really improve anything about your character, their story, or your own skill, solely for the purpose of maybe getting + 10 pauldrons that make you look totally badass in town. Duh. Endame is about FLASH and instanced content that includes bosses with 30 mil HP, so you better get with it. This post has been brought to you by Eir_S is a sarcastic bitch who's tired of people whining about endgame.
What do people have against raiding? Where you left out of some raid in your previous game..was it discovered you were in fact a keyboard turner..
The anomosity against End Game Content is amazing.
Just because you may not like raiding it doesnt mean others feel the same way. I for one love end game raiding and believe there will be some type of structured end game raiding in GW2.. In fact.. I know there is currently.. A little birdy told me.. Amazing what people talk about at the hotel bar @ the Crown Plaza..
So all you that are looking to GW2 as a social experiment that has no competitive raiding... hate to disappoint you but if its a deal breaker for you, then I would start looking...
Just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I drive a Honda.
So all you that are looking to GW2 as a social experiment that has no competitive raiding... hate to disappoint you but if its a deal breaker for you, then I would start looking...
Well if it has competitive PvE raiding, the gear shouldn't have better stats than the standard gear for that level. So those who want to raid can raid for the looks, those who don't can ignore it and not be at a disadvantage in W v W v W PvP.
Waiting for Guild Wars 2, and maybe SWTOR until that time...
what is this "endgame" people talk about ..arnt mmorpgs sopose to be about a never ending story / quest
Who told you that? MMOs are supposed to level cap you, and then send you on frustrating weekly raids where you're not guaranteed to really improve anything about your character, their story, or your own skill, solely for the purpose of maybe getting + 10 pauldrons that make you look totally badass in town. Duh. Endame is about FLASH and instanced content that includes bosses with 30 mil HP, so you better get with it.
This post has been brought to you by Eir_S is a sarcastic bitch who's tired of people whining about endgame.
What do people have against raiding? Where you left out of some raid in your previous game..was it discovered you were in fact a keyboard turner..
The anomosity against End Game Content is amazing.
Just because you may not like raiding it doesnt mean others feel the same way. I for one love end game raiding and believe there will be some type of structured end game raiding in GW2.. In fact.. I know there is currently.. A little birdy told me..
Amazing what people talk about at the hotel bar @ the Crown Plaza..
So all you that are looking to GW2 as a social experiment that has no competitive raiding... hate to disappoint you but if its a deal breaker for you, then I would start looking...
My personal opinion of raiding aside (the model WoW introduced was flawed), I have said in the past that it's not for everyone and I have personally done enough of it. That's the MAIN reason I'm interested in GW2. Not because of the races, or the professions, or the art, or the combat system, but because it promises something new. It definitely promises that if a "structured raid" system is introduced, everyone will get something.
GW games have never been about stats. If by competitive raiding, you mean "loot rules, rolls, and rage", sorry, not gonna happen. If there are 10 man + dungeons against bosses pivotal to the story, that's fine with me, but that's not what I consider the traditionally frustrating "end game".
I also think your source was either drunk or lying. GW2 end game will never be what you seem to think it will.
Taken from info gathered in an interview with GW2 devs:
It's important to know that unlike most of the MMOs, when you reached the level cap in Guild Wars 2, the game content isn't supposed to change a lot. Those who like doing events would keep exploring the land of Tyria while those who prefer dungeons can challenge the brand new lvl 80 dungeons. There is a special repetition mode with new and different tasks that will enable players to experience new elements in those dungeons they had once visited.
You don't need to visit instances repeatedly to get good equipments. Instead, you can get better equipments from large dynamic events or world PvP. The only difference is the appearance, though. As for crafted equipment, if you think some certain equipment looks better, you can even transfer the attributes of one item to another item as long as they are the same type.
None of that spells out "raiding" to me as I have personally been through it. I even pointed out that some people (in this case, you) have a very specific definition of end game in mind already, and GW2 does not represent that definition. It looks like you'll be the one looking elsewhere. Try TOR, I hear they're going to love throwing static raid bosses at you for gear-based bragging rights.
Banking on, or promoting "End Game" as a key point for longevity in a game is, to me, a Red Herring. It's not really a truism.
Note that I say this being someone who's loved to Raid. I come from the Molten Core / Blackwing Lair era of WoW, and Raiding was cool stuff. But in the end "End Game" can never be all things for the construct of what a game is for players or you stand the risk of a big backfire.
I play Rift at the moment. I like the game, it's got some neat stuff in it. However, something that struck me early on, and continued to be reinforced as I levelled my first character to 50 is: It's too easy to level to the cap so you can jump onto the "you are 50 now . . . start grinding "end game" and the Prestige Ranks in PvP".
Why is that bad?
It's bad because it basically wastelands the first 49 levels of the game. There's no sense of PERSISTENCE in the community really. Entire swaths of CONTENT is jumped past including Story Arc quests, Instances, Factions and the rep with them needed for items available from them, Planar and Rare Planar goods vendor items also jumped past more often than not.
In short, in my opinion based on my own game play on two different servers in Rift, the idea "end game" at the cap equalling the real reason to play an MMO has hurt Rift, more than many either realize or are willing to admit. Because the VAST majority of the rest of the game is BLOWN past through sheer XP gains (meaning levelling wasn't gated by at least signature Content challenges) Rift establishes a feeling of transience, not persistance, for players (IMO). You get to "end game" and it's just a dumb gerbil-wheel routine with little feeling of personal persistance in your backtrail, because it was all such a fast belch-down of XP and pop-shotting levels. No real sense of place, of accomplishment, and very little Instancing action or availability of players in "lower level" Instances as you either level a new character as a new player, or an alt.
End Game can be very nice stuff, provided it sits atop a solid foundation. Does "end game" itself make a good "foundation"?
Just because you may not like raiding it doesnt mean others feel the same way. I for one love end game raiding and believe there will be some type of structured end game raiding in GW2.. In fact.. I know there is currently.. A little birdy told me..
Amazing what people talk about at the hotel bar @ the Crown Plaza..
So all you that are looking to GW2 as a social experiment that has no competitive raiding... hate to disappoint you but if its a deal breaker for you, then I would start looking...
If you consider doing five man dungeons for cosmetic gear raiding then yes GW2 will have raiding. If you are looking for vertical gear progression raids then GW2 does not have raiding. And guess what the last part is what most people view as traditional raiding and GW2 will not have that hence all the comments about no raiding.
And as Loke666 said earlier games do not need raiding to survive in fact there are MMOs without raiding that have been around for years.
Its not really the lack of endgame as it is the time it take to reach endgame , They need to stop thinking lvl 50 is endgame & making it so quick to get there , Look at the best MMO in history Asherons Call with level cap of 126 & now 275 with Throne of Destiny the journey to level cap needs to be the main focus of a MMO which sadly it isnt anymore..
Its not really the lack of endgame as it is the time it take to reach endgame , They need to stop thinking lvl 50 is endgame & making it so quick to get there , Look at the best MMO in history Asherons Call with level cap of 126 & now 275 with Throne of Destiny the journey to level cap needs to be the main focus of a MMO which sadly it isnt anymore...
I feel the same as you. But not about GW2. Because if it's one thing ArenaNet definitely wanted was a game without levels. But let's be realistic, a lot of people that buy MMOs care about the number next to your character name. Levels in this game will matter, but not as much as other games. ArenaNet tried to make them as irrelevant as possible.
I want all of you nay sayers to remember this thread when they announce raiding. Please. I want to be able to post the " I told you so"...
If all GW2 was going to have was repetitive 5man dungeons and pvp.. then its doomed.
In a couple months time everyone will have every possible piece of gear out of dungeons.. its a proven fact that players will bash their heads into a wall to get something they want.. so I can see players chain running instances to get it..
Once they get it.. then what.. Rift had dynamic events and they got boring as shit after the first 20 or so of them. PvP is fun and all to an extent.
Mark my words.. in the very.. very.. near future Anet will release the info on Raiding and all of those who are arguing now.. will find a way to spin it where you arent wrong..
No MMO in todays market can afford to leave out any of the player demographics..and believe it or not.. there are a lot of players like myself who live to raid..
I look forward to serving you some Crow and bet your ass.. it will be cold..
Thank You
Just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I drive a Honda.
I'm surprised at the few people that can't understand that there can be new game mechanics. If these vocal few were in charge we would all be playing pong 5000 because they wouldn't be able to think of anything new.
I'm surprised at the few people that can understand that there can be new game mechanics. If these vocal few were in charge we would all be playing pong 5000 because they wouldn't be able to think of anything new.
I'm with you there. Seems like a lot of people are saying they're tired of WoW and then they complain when a new game isn't WoW.
<childish, provocative and highly speculative banner about your favorite game goes here>
How is raiding like WoW.. I never mentioned WoW.. WoW didnt invent Raiding..
GW2 has inovative gameplay and completely different combat systems. Raiding is nothing more than PvE world events. How is that so different from PvP world events. You need a core group of players for both. The core group must work as a team to prevail.
As I said MMOtoGO.. give it a short time and you will hear all about the Raiding Side of GW2=)
Thanks for your input though.
Just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I drive a Honda.
Originally posted by Cromica Originally posted by MMOtoGO No raiders want to step forward and admit that GW2 needs raiding? I know you're out there! LOL...oh, it's 10:15 AM EST, you're still in bed.
I raided 3 nights a week for most of the last 5years and I can't wait for it to be over
If you dislike it so much, why are you still doing it.. I mean if I didnt like something.. I could find something else to do in 5 yrs time..
Just because I'm a gamer doesn't mean I drive a Honda.
Comments
I would say that raid/gear progression is one of the main reasons people are playing Rift, but it doesn't necessarily follow that it's the main reason people might play some other game. Not Rift bashing, but its world doesn't have a lot of replayability due to its lack of zone path variety and linear questing. GW2 is offering a lot more replayability, through having more leveling paths, events not always running when you go through the first time (or just being able to repeat any of them), as well as the personal story you can play through 3x per race.
As I pointed out in another post, if it takes 100 hours to level to cap, at 5 races x 20 hours per week, that's 6 months. And that is literally the bare minimum where you won't even see nearly all the content. Their lead content designer said he couldn't imagine how many hundreds of hours of content there were in their demo, and the demo was only a small part of the entire game. By the time people run out of things to do there will certainly be expansion content.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
All of that content cali59 mentioned can be done as "endgame" with a single character, since you will be sidekicked down and could actually do everything with just your main. No content ever becomes trivial or outleveled, and you can play with others regardless of their level or where in the world they are.
Also, content and replayability is only one aspect of a game's "staying power". I would argue that content is LESS important to the longevity of a game than other things, like community and the mechanics of the game...How fun is it to play, moment to moment, and how attached do you feel to your character, the world, and the community?
Just as one example of how game mechanics trump content - Does the combat feel stale and repetitive five minutes into the game? If so, all the content in the world isn't going to keep players playing...because it very quickly becomes a grind when you aren't enjoying the basic game play.
GW2 is fostering community in many ways, providing a new and more interesting combat style, and providing a ton of ways for players to become attached to the world and their characters. In short, even if they had less content than other games, GW2 would have more longevity for the reasons I listed above. That isn't the case though...along with providing the game play elements, they are also providing an immense amount of content that you never outlevel. In short, having no endgame raiding will have almost no impact at all on the game's longevity and the size of their player base over the long term.
That is true. In Rift, if they made "progression", and here i mean gear progression also, thru rifts, real dynamic events and open world encounters, the game would not be so empty except the main cities. Unfortunately, the open world "rewards" are so bad that they are totally ignored. People rarely group for the zone events. Everyone's in an instance, being it warfronts, T1's, T2's or raids.
I like Rift, I like the combinations the soul system provides but the lobby gaming thing was a game breaker for me. My guildies just log in for raids now, as they have no reason to play for anything else. I do not want to be forced into an activity which i did for a few years in WoW, and then i realised i dont like it anymore. I sub once every 3 months to see what's changed, that's it. Sure, there are still a lot of raiders out there, but the number of people who need a change is greater and greater it seems.
This is where Guild Wars 2's subcription system (or lack thereof) really shines. They don't need to keep us for as long as possible by keeping the majority of the game at max level. With the Buy-to-Play system, they can spread the experience evenly through all levels so that we're playing this game for it's RPG aspect, not its MMO aspect.
what is this "endgame" people talk about ..arnt mmorpgs sopose to be about a never ending story / quest
Who told you that? MMOs are supposed to level cap you, and then send you on frustrating weekly raids where you're not guaranteed to really improve anything about your character, their story, or your own skill, solely for the purpose of maybe getting + 10 pauldrons that make you look totally badass in town. Duh. Endame is about FLASH and instanced content that includes bosses with 30 mil HP, so you better get with it.
This post has been brought to you by Eir_S is a sarcastic bitch who's tired of people whining about endgame.
MMOs were to supposed to be social platforms built around the idea of experiencing a fantastical life full of adventure, monsters, loot, magic, and quests.
Over the years it has become a social platform built around the idea that you must do raids over and over to be accepted by the other users.
Also, if no one's mentioned it yet, pertaining to the topic at hand - no, GW2's "staying power" will only have to do with what people perceive as "endgame" content, and that's only if those players weened on "endgame" ala WoW refuse to open their eyes. There will be dynamic endgame content in GW2 in the actual persistent world of GW2 - endgame in this case meaning: Not confined to an instance or a set number of players, but instead battles that are scaled due to how many players are involved. There will be plenty to do at level cap, people just can't look past tradition it seems..
This post has been brought to you by Eir_S is a sarcastic bitch who's tired of people whining about endgame.
What do people have against raiding? Where you left out of some raid in your previous game..was it discovered you were in fact a keyboard turner..
The anomosity against End Game Content is amazing.
Just because you may not like raiding it doesnt mean others feel the same way. I for one love end game raiding and believe there will be some type of structured end game raiding in GW2.. In fact.. I know there is currently.. A little birdy told me..
Amazing what people talk about at the hotel bar @ the Crown Plaza..
So all you that are looking to GW2 as a social experiment that has no competitive raiding... hate to disappoint you but if its a deal breaker for you, then I would start looking...
Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
Battle Station
Well if it has competitive PvE raiding, the gear shouldn't have better stats than the standard gear for that level. So those who want to raid can raid for the looks, those who don't can ignore it and not be at a disadvantage in W v W v W PvP.
Waiting for Guild Wars 2, and maybe SWTOR until that time...
My personal opinion of raiding aside (the model WoW introduced was flawed), I have said in the past that it's not for everyone and I have personally done enough of it. That's the MAIN reason I'm interested in GW2. Not because of the races, or the professions, or the art, or the combat system, but because it promises something new. It definitely promises that if a "structured raid" system is introduced, everyone will get something.
GW games have never been about stats. If by competitive raiding, you mean "loot rules, rolls, and rage", sorry, not gonna happen. If there are 10 man + dungeons against bosses pivotal to the story, that's fine with me, but that's not what I consider the traditionally frustrating "end game".
I also think your source was either drunk or lying. GW2 end game will never be what you seem to think it will.
Taken from info gathered in an interview with GW2 devs:
It's important to know that unlike most of the MMOs, when you reached the level cap in Guild Wars 2, the game content isn't supposed to change a lot. Those who like doing events would keep exploring the land of Tyria while those who prefer dungeons can challenge the brand new lvl 80 dungeons. There is a special repetition mode with new and different tasks that will enable players to experience new elements in those dungeons they had once visited.
You don't need to visit instances repeatedly to get good equipments. Instead, you can get better equipments from large dynamic events or world PvP. The only difference is the appearance, though. As for crafted equipment, if you think some certain equipment looks better, you can even transfer the attributes of one item to another item as long as they are the same type.
None of that spells out "raiding" to me as I have personally been through it. I even pointed out that some people (in this case, you) have a very specific definition of end game in mind already, and GW2 does not represent that definition. It looks like you'll be the one looking elsewhere. Try TOR, I hear they're going to love throwing static raid bosses at you for gear-based bragging rights.
Banking on, or promoting "End Game" as a key point for longevity in a game is, to me, a Red Herring. It's not really a truism.
Note that I say this being someone who's loved to Raid. I come from the Molten Core / Blackwing Lair era of WoW, and Raiding was cool stuff. But in the end "End Game" can never be all things for the construct of what a game is for players or you stand the risk of a big backfire.
I play Rift at the moment. I like the game, it's got some neat stuff in it. However, something that struck me early on, and continued to be reinforced as I levelled my first character to 50 is: It's too easy to level to the cap so you can jump onto the "you are 50 now . . . start grinding "end game" and the Prestige Ranks in PvP".
Why is that bad?
It's bad because it basically wastelands the first 49 levels of the game. There's no sense of PERSISTENCE in the community really. Entire swaths of CONTENT is jumped past including Story Arc quests, Instances, Factions and the rep with them needed for items available from them, Planar and Rare Planar goods vendor items also jumped past more often than not.
In short, in my opinion based on my own game play on two different servers in Rift, the idea "end game" at the cap equalling the real reason to play an MMO has hurt Rift, more than many either realize or are willing to admit. Because the VAST majority of the rest of the game is BLOWN past through sheer XP gains (meaning levelling wasn't gated by at least signature Content challenges) Rift establishes a feeling of transience, not persistance, for players (IMO). You get to "end game" and it's just a dumb gerbil-wheel routine with little feeling of personal persistance in your backtrail, because it was all such a fast belch-down of XP and pop-shotting levels. No real sense of place, of accomplishment, and very little Instancing action or availability of players in "lower level" Instances as you either level a new character as a new player, or an alt.
End Game can be very nice stuff, provided it sits atop a solid foundation. Does "end game" itself make a good "foundation"?
No.
Wherever you go, there you are.
If you consider doing five man dungeons for cosmetic gear raiding then yes GW2 will have raiding. If you are looking for vertical gear progression raids then GW2 does not have raiding. And guess what the last part is what most people view as traditional raiding and GW2 will not have that hence all the comments about no raiding.
And as Loke666 said earlier games do not need raiding to survive in fact there are MMOs without raiding that have been around for years.
The end game is the game itself. I don't know why people can't understand this.
Its not really the lack of endgame as it is the time it take to reach endgame , They need to stop thinking lvl 50 is endgame & making it so quick to get there , Look at the best MMO in history Asherons Call with level cap of 126 & now 275 with Throne of Destiny the journey to level cap needs to be the main focus of a MMO which sadly it isnt anymore..
I feel the same as you. But not about GW2. Because if it's one thing ArenaNet definitely wanted was a game without levels. But let's be realistic, a lot of people that buy MMOs care about the number next to your character name. Levels in this game will matter, but not as much as other games. ArenaNet tried to make them as irrelevant as possible.
I want all of you nay sayers to remember this thread when they announce raiding. Please. I want to be able to post the " I told you so"...
If all GW2 was going to have was repetitive 5man dungeons and pvp.. then its doomed.
In a couple months time everyone will have every possible piece of gear out of dungeons.. its a proven fact that players will bash their heads into a wall to get something they want.. so I can see players chain running instances to get it..
Once they get it.. then what.. Rift had dynamic events and they got boring as shit after the first 20 or so of them. PvP is fun and all to an extent.
Mark my words.. in the very.. very.. near future Anet will release the info on Raiding and all of those who are arguing now.. will find a way to spin it where you arent wrong..
No MMO in todays market can afford to leave out any of the player demographics..and believe it or not.. there are a lot of players like myself who live to raid..
I look forward to serving you some Crow and bet your ass.. it will be cold..
Thank You
Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
Battle Station
Let's avoid personal attacks and baiting. Thanks.
I'm surprised at the few people that can't understand that there can be new game mechanics. If these vocal few were in charge we would all be playing pong 5000 because they wouldn't be able to think of anything new.
My theme song.
I'm with you there. Seems like a lot of people are saying they're tired of WoW and then they complain when a new game isn't WoW.
<childish, provocative and highly speculative banner about your favorite game goes here>
I raided 3 nights a week for most of the last 5years and I can't wait for it to be over
How is raiding like WoW..
I never mentioned WoW..
WoW didnt invent Raiding..
GW2 has inovative gameplay and completely different combat systems.
Raiding is nothing more than PvE world events.
How is that so different from PvP world events.
You need a core group of players for both. The core group must work as a team to prevail.
As I said MMOtoGO.. give it a short time and you will hear all about the Raiding Side of GW2=)
Thanks for your input though.
Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
Battle Station
If you dislike it so much, why are you still doing it.. I mean if I didnt like something.. I could find something else to do in 5 yrs time..
Lets see your Battle Stations /r/battlestations
Battle Station