I think there'd be a lot more talking if grouping was actually rewarded in any way. I like the seamless working together thing, but the side effect is nasty.
There's no way to do that without more or less forcing grouping, which in general is not a good thing to many people (including me).
Optional scaling and sidekicking is a MUCH better system for that sort of thing.
Optional scaling doesnt work. Level 50s absolutely ruined Rifts and invasions for low levels.
Indeed. Optional scaling would be horrific as higher level players could ruin DEs in lower level zones. Heck, merely killing enemies would make some hearts annoying (one-shot kills means no shared credit).
I think there'd be a lot more talking if grouping was actually rewarded in any way. I like the seamless working together thing, but the side effect is nasty.
There's no way to do that without more or less forcing grouping, which in general is not a good thing to many people (including me).
There's a difference between forcing grouping and rewarding grouping.
Grouping is harder, thus is SHOULD be more rewarding.
I think the number 1 thing GW2 and Anet have managed to achieve above any other MMO, is to make it so that the fans are hit by some kind of collective amnesia, that makes them love and praise the game, and are willing to forgive it for the very same issues that other games have received so much hate for.
I think there'd be a lot more talking if grouping was actually rewarded in any way. I like the seamless working together thing, but the side effect is nasty.
There's no way to do that without more or less forcing grouping, which in general is not a good thing to many people (including me).
There's a difference between forcing grouping and rewarding grouping.
Grouping is harder, thus is SHOULD be more rewarding.
Then show me a way to do that which is meaningful and won't result in people waiting to have fun.
Grouping can and does happen however. If you really want to group just follow someone around for a time and propose it. Not hard and others in this thread have done it. Or find a guild and do stuff with them.
There is one thing that works against grouping in the game though. That's hearts. Since once you've done them doing more things in the are isn't rewarded unless it is an event, it is a bit harsh if you group up with someone who just finished. Well, that and some of the current issues like overflow. Not sure if they resolved the party stuff failing now and then -- seemed to be working fine the other day.
In general though, grouping doesn't need to be rewared, just not punished. People will play together because it is more fun to do so.
I think the number 1 thing GW2 and Anet have managed to achieve above any other MMO, is to make it so that the fans are hit by some kind of collective amnesia, that makes them love and praise the game, and are willing to forgive it for the very same issues that other games have received so much hate for.
I will gladly step up and claim ownership to being pretty harsh to other MMO's for many things.
GW2 issues. Trader has been up and down, Overflow is a major pain in the arse when trying to group, Lots of phishing scams and account hack attempts, and WvW queues can take forever. I did not experience the lag some complained about or the login issues so I can not comment on those. Nor did I experience any issues with being invited into a guild.
Trader - I have been pretty harsh on an MMO or two for not having an auction house. GW2 had one at launch and it was an inconvienence that it was down but a minor one because they worked on it and brought it back up intermittently durring prime time. Issues seem to be resolved. There is a difference between having no Auction House system and a badly implemented alternative vs. having one that is suffering from minor fixable issues.
Overflow - While this has been annoying again it isn't game breaking. I have been able to play, the game has been running great and I've been having a blast. When I can party with specific friends and such it's been great. I have not complained about this with any other game because I haven't played another that had this issue. Though I have been fairly harsh with games that had log in queues instead that kept you from playing for hours sometimes.
WvWvW - Again this was mildly annoying but once I got in it was a great deal of fun. This has been an issue with many MMO's especially at launch. Extremely long Queues to get into PvP. I give GW2 slack while I have been pretty harsh with other MMO's because the PvE actually keeps me engaged and entertained while I wait.
Phishing Scams and Account hack attempts - I give GW2 slack just as I give others slack. This is an issue that every popular MMO suffers from and not an easy issue to fix. Anet did a decent hot fix for the issue but we will have to wait and see what the long term fix is. I like authenticators but hate them at the same time lol.
Overall Anet did a good job and produced a quality product that was well worth the price tag. The game has an enormous amount of content for a newly released MMO. The game is well done and suffers from only minor fixable issues. It specifically addresses many complaints me and others like me have had with most other MMO's. So the minor issues don't bother me much, not only are they simply minor annoyances but they are things I am certain Anet can fix.
I think there'd be a lot more talking if grouping was actually rewarded in any way. I like the seamless working together thing, but the side effect is nasty.
There's no way to do that without more or less forcing grouping, which in general is not a good thing to many people (including me).
There's a difference between forcing grouping and rewarding grouping.
Grouping is harder, thus is SHOULD be more rewarding.
Then show me a way to do that which is meaningful and won't result in people waiting to have fun.
The same way every other MMORPG with a good social atmosphere has done... give better rewards for grouping.
It is harder to group than solo. Things that are harder should yield a better reward.
I think there'd be a lot more talking if grouping was actually rewarded in any way. I like the seamless working together thing, but the side effect is nasty.
There's no way to do that without more or less forcing grouping, which in general is not a good thing to many people (including me).
There's a difference between forcing grouping and rewarding grouping.
Grouping is harder, thus is SHOULD be more rewarding.
Then show me a way to do that which is meaningful and won't result in people waiting to have fun.
The same way every other MMORPG with a good social atmosphere has done... give better rewards for grouping.
It is harder to group than solo. Things that are harder should yield a better reward.
Actually the best social MMO's tended not to give extra rewards for grouping lol... UO was an extremely social MMO, the community and the developers were constantly involved in discussions and such. Guilds would hold events for the entire server. We'd get together as an entire community to do things and yes even the developers would jump in.
Do you have a better example? An MMO that rewarded grouping that had a good social atmosphere?
I think the number 1 thing GW2 and Anet have managed to achieve above any other MMO, is to make it so that the fans are hit by some kind of collective amnesia, that makes them love and praise the game, and are willing to forgive it for the very same issues that other games have received so much hate for.
I love the game myself, but come on people!
It actually works both ways if you haven't noticed. There's also A LOT of people that hate GW2 for very same issues that other MMOs have, yet at the same time they act like those other MMOs don't have those issues...
Lol, enough with the DAOC stuff. It doesn t even compare. All it is is a bunch of people trying to out dps the other. Trinity, and class definitions is what gives DAOC it s flare. WvW is pointless and boring.
Re subbed DAOC to see if I was wrong, and IMO, not even fair to compare the 2 , DAOC is far superior in this area.
I thought those were the weak points of DaoC.
The trinity is clearly a PvE system. While Meridian 59 who invented it today is mostly known for PvP it was not always like that and PvP was added as an afterthought.
So I dont agree. It can of course be done better but trinity PvP never is really good. That is also the reason why most FPS players prefer PvP while most MMO players prefer PvE.
Sorry but the mechanics of Rifts invasions are FAR better - the rifts do not appear in fixed locations and the invasions can take over entire zones.
In GW2 dynamic events are a misnomer - they should be called SE's - scripted/static events - always happen in the same places have no impact on the world (some have minimal impact).
So from this point forth I am calling them SEs
In Rift there are periods when you can relax - lulls between rifts and invasions - this feels more natural. GW2 is non stop same scripted events that happen around the clock repeatedly - its way too forced and annoying.
Also Rifts invasions can encompass entire zones - needing multiple groups of players working in different areas of the zone simultaneously. GW2 scripted events happen in small concentrated areas
Anet should be ashamed for such blatant lying - there is nothing dynamic about running a triggerd script!!
+1
I haven't played 1 second of GW2, but i have seen my friend play it. Even he agreed that the invasions in Rift were multitudes better than GW2 Dynamic Events. We've come to the conclusion all DE's are is questing without NPCs.
I think the number 1 thing GW2 and Anet have managed to achieve above any other MMO, is to make it so that the fans are hit by some kind of collective amnesia, that makes them love and praise the game, and are willing to forgive it for the very same issues that other games have received so much hate for.
Give it a couple of months and everyone will act like they normally do.
I will gladly step up and claim ownership to being pretty harsh to other MMO's for many things.
Here I though you had learned something after the Darkfall debacle.
What exactly do I have amnesia about?
This is where I realised you didn't, and not to mention nice disappearing act.
I think the number 1 thing GW2 and Anet have managed to achieve above any other MMO, is to make it so that the fans are hit by some kind of collective amnesia, that makes them love and praise the game, and are willing to forgive it for the very same issues that other games have received so much hate for.
Give it a couple of months and everyone will act like they normally do.
I will gladly step up and claim ownership to being pretty harsh to other MMO's for many things.
Here I though you had learned something after the Darkfall debacle.
What exactly do I have amnesia about?
This is where I realised you didn't, and not to mention nice disappearing act.
Care to elaborate on what I criticized DFO on and am cutting GW2 slack on?
Ohh drrr... I think I remember you now lol. Your the MO fan that kept trying to bash DFO saying MO was better lol. How'd MO turn out for you?
Sorry but the mechanics of Rifts invasions are FAR better - the rifts do not appear in fixed locations and the invasions can take over entire zones.
In GW2 dynamic events are a misnomer - they should be called SE's - scripted/static events - always happen in the same places have no impact on the world (some have minimal impact).
So from this point forth I am calling them SEs
In Rift there are periods when you can relax - lulls between rifts and invasions - this feels more natural. GW2 is non stop same scripted events that happen around the clock repeatedly - its way too forced and annoying.
Also Rifts invasions can encompass entire zones - needing multiple groups of players working in different areas of the zone simultaneously. GW2 scripted events happen in small concentrated areas
Anet should be ashamed for such blatant lying - there is nothing dynamic about running a triggerd script!!
Have you ever actually lost an event yet and seen what happens next? I have once (was freaking 4 AM and the server had less people on it). The difficulty of what came next scaled way up and we died over and over again attempting to beat it. I think part of the reason the events feel static right now is that there are so many players that we can't lose. I'm kind of looking forward to grinding an alt, just to see if the differences in difficulty show up routinely after losses and if an area can actually be impacted permanently. Right now, so many of us are playing the game that I don't think we're seeing the whole event system in action.
To the OP, The one and only reason i stopped playing is the down-levling. Down leveling sucks big time. For me i am not the best player out there and i do love a challenge but when i spent 3 hours for a level 8 quest at level 8 and was not able to complete it , it thought hey i will get to level 9 and that will help me complete the quest... boy was i pissed when i was down graded to level 8 and still could not handle the quest.
I am not saying anything bad about the game just saying i suck enough and get to frustrated when i do not even have a chance unless it was some kind of bug but anyway pissed me off enought to quit.
I do hope this games sticks around for the people that really love it because it does look like a nice game, just not for me. I guess i have to be honest and say world of warcraft is more my type of game. But hey each their own.
Good Luck GW2
Wait.. GW2 levels you down sometimes? Isn't that one of the main reasons why people chose WOW over EQ1? I was really considering GW2, but not anymore. Downleveling is a major deal breaker for me.
To help you stay even further away from the game you scaled down all the time it's not a choice lol.
Scaling just doesn't belong in RPGs, at all.
Maybe not SRPG's(Skyrim) but scaling works fine in MMORPG's(GW2 lol)
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
I think there'd be a lot more talking if grouping was actually rewarded in any way. I like the seamless working together thing, but the side effect is nasty.
There's no way to do that without more or less forcing grouping, which in general is not a good thing to many people (including me).
There's a difference between forcing grouping and rewarding grouping.
Grouping is harder, thus is SHOULD be more rewarding.
Then show me a way to do that which is meaningful and won't result in people waiting to have fun.
The same way every other MMORPG with a good social atmosphere has done... give better rewards for grouping.
It is harder to group than solo. Things that are harder should yield a better reward.
Short of a WoW-like LFG system which ruins the good social atmosphere, I don't know of another MMO that seriously rewards grouping that doesn't also require you to spend a lot of time waiting for a group (or schedule it in advance).
Certainly in GW2 grouping would not be significantly harder than soloing, though there are a couple of things at the moment that might discourage it.
Sorry but the mechanics of Rifts invasions are FAR better - the rifts do not appear in fixed locations and the invasions can take over entire zones.
In GW2 dynamic events are a misnomer - they should be called SE's - scripted/static events - always happen in the same places have no impact on the world (some have minimal impact).
So from this point forth I am calling them SEs
In Rift there are periods when you can relax - lulls between rifts and invasions - this feels more natural. GW2 is non stop same scripted events that happen around the clock repeatedly - its way too forced and annoying.
Also Rifts invasions can encompass entire zones - needing multiple groups of players working in different areas of the zone simultaneously. GW2 scripted events happen in small concentrated areas
Anet should be ashamed for such blatant lying - there is nothing dynamic about running a triggerd script!!
+1
I haven't played 1 second of GW2, but i have seen my friend play it. Even he agreed that the invasions in Rift were multitudes better than GW2 Dynamic Events. We've come to the conclusion all DE's are is questing without NPCs.
I dont know about Rift events cause I never really played it for more than a couple of hours, but the comment about scripted events is spot on, they happen exactly in the same place around the clock, sure there are some fail conditions where you loose some outpost but no one cares about it to begin with, the outposts that can be taken back by mobs are not the area critical ones, they usually have a couple of vendors and are just artificially created just for the event.
One example to support your theory are the dragons, people already know that dragon events spawn roughly every 3h so come that time people start going into the zone where the dragon is and spamming "When is the dragon event starting?" and sure enough it does start at around every 3h. Nothing wrong with these events they are still fun, but they are exactly the same every time, with the exact same objectives and conditions at the exact same place and time.
It happens in other WoW clones... GW2 is supposed to be more social than your run of the mill instance solo quest grinding shallow clone. But, other than getting everyone into the same area... it seems I rarely get to interact with anyone.
But thank god there are noninstanced dungeons in the game.
The social aspect is a great deal better in my experience. I was soloing in an area and someone started following me and helping me. We did this for about an hour and then I said "This is kind of fun, want to go do another area?" they seemed to like the idea and we went and chatted for a couple of more hours. This is simply one example of many. I'm part of a guild and that helps in the social aspect, I've met numerous random people that I now talk to, plus I have a lot of rl friends that play now as well. The only issue I have is the overflow system irritates me when I'm specifically trying to party with someone.
The game mechanics simply allow for a friendlier atmosphere. You aren't restricted from who you can spend time with in game by barriers like class and level or race. You don't even need to be in party to hang out and do stuff together and recieve rewards and credit. Someone sees you in trouble they are free to jump in without fear of getting accused of Kill stealing and etc.
They give you the tools to be social, it's up to your social skills at that point. This isn't like other games where people are forced to play with you if they don't want to. You have to work for that social interaction. You can't just play a healer or tank and expect the invites to roll in.
That's pretty much how I feel too. If I want to be social, I haven't felt any barrier in doing so, and the game mechanics in general lend itself to people being a lot nicer to each other since there is no longer reason for complaint about stealing mobs or otherwise being disrespectful or griefing others, at least in my experience so far. If any of you have played Journey for the PS3, you'll recognize that some of the best group play doesn't need much discussion, if any at all. It's nice to have another game with GW2 where the goals and mechanics of fighting with others benefits everyone involved naturally. There really is no need for discussion aside from just trying to be social.
Also, if the people just don't want to talk, than the game shouldn't try to force people to be more social. It's entertainment, and not everyone finds socializing entertaining. If you're saying things in a group of people and they don't respond, than nobody wants to respond or talk to you. It's as simple as that. No need to analyze why. It's not bad game mechanics. It's just the way it is for some people. They have the same tools you do to talk if they wanted, so they apparently don't want to. Leave em alone, and don't blame someone or something else for it.
I think Anet went as far as it needed to promote a more sociable atmosphere with less methods for a player to upset others either intentionally or unintentionally. I'm happy being in a group of players all focused on one goal regardless if anyone is chatting or not. Chances are if I'm not chatting it's because I'm focused on the goal and helping everyone with my buffs/heals/CC abilities as an elementalist or engineer. If I start chatting away, players might die because I felt like asking how their day is going, we might fail to kill a champion mob due to lack of contribution, or maybe I'm distracting someone else who should be focused on the same thing as the rest of the group. I'm not saying GW2 is hard so everyone needs to be quiet and focus. I'm just saying it's a method of playing and people might be a little busy doing something else at the moment.
So that's basically why I say I love the mechanics exactly how they are. I think it was really smart to remove the elements that other players would abuse against each other, but otherwise leave your ability to play how you want intact.
I think they can still improve guild management and matching people with a good guild. I haven't seen an easy way to vet guilds for exactly what you want. I felt EQ2 did this incredibly well where you can pull up a list of the guilds on your server using an array of filter options regarding the guild's focus, description, officers to contact, etc. I think that would be an awesome addition to GW2, if it's not already there somewhere that I haven't found. As with any MMO, that ends up being most of the social interaction in MMOs anyway by finding the right group of people to hang out with and plan events together.
Sorry but the mechanics of Rifts invasions are FAR better - the rifts do not appear in fixed locations and the invasions can take over entire zones.
In GW2 dynamic events are a misnomer - they should be called SE's - scripted/static events - always happen in the same places have no impact on the world (some have minimal impact).
So from this point forth I am calling them SEs
In Rift there are periods when you can relax - lulls between rifts and invasions - this feels more natural. GW2 is non stop same scripted events that happen around the clock repeatedly - its way too forced and annoying.
Also Rifts invasions can encompass entire zones - needing multiple groups of players working in different areas of the zone simultaneously. GW2 scripted events happen in small concentrated areas
Anet should be ashamed for such blatant lying - there is nothing dynamic about running a triggerd script!!
+1
I haven't played 1 second of GW2, but i have seen my friend play it. Even he agreed that the invasions in Rift were multitudes better than GW2 Dynamic Events. We've come to the conclusion all DE's are is questing without NPCs.
I dont know about Rift events cause I never really played it for more than a couple of hours, but the comment about scripted events is spot on, they happen exactly in the same place around the clock, sure there are some fail conditions where you loose some outpost but no one cares about it to begin with, the outposts that can be taken back by mobs are not the area critical ones, they usually have a couple of vendors and are just artificially created just for the event.
One example to support your theory are the dragons, people already know that dragon events spawn roughly every 3h so come that time people start going into the zone where the dragon is and spamming "When is the dragon event starting?" and sure enough it does start at around every 3h. Nothing wrong with these events they are still fun, but they are exactly the same every time, with the exact same objectives and conditions at the exact same place and time.
Honestly, I prefer GW2 events a LOT more over Rifts. I'm not sure what it is exactly. It might be as simple as finding everything else about Rift boring, and everything else about GW2 more fun, but I don't see any inherit benefit to true dynamic events instead of scripted events. I'll agree they shouldn't be called DEs, but I like how it's designed regardless of false advertising. I have fun every time so far mainly because the group makeup is always different, and I can swap skills in or out to be more or less helpful depending on that variable. Rift didn't feel like that to me even with 3 'souls' worth of different skills per character. Every rift felt nearly the same as the last, just like all the invasions. Maybe all that is just personal preference rather than one being 'FAR better' over another.
A lot of the OP's post is subjective, which is fine, but #5 is sort of a ridiculous claim. GW2 has cutting-edge graphics, and they run great when stacked up against other cutting-edge graphics. WoW's graphics are dated, but they will run on a toaster. DCUO's performance is absolutely amazing, and I won't even mention DAOC or CoH.
As far as DE's, you only really notice their repetitveness when you're in an area witha lot of DE's, for a long time. I spent 2 hours near the Inquest lab in Metrica, and it really is jarring to see the same group escorting the same golem 15 times, or the same plant failure spawning the same Fire Elemental.
Sorry but the mechanics of Rifts invasions are FAR better - the rifts do not appear in fixed locations and the invasions can take over entire zones.
In GW2 dynamic events are a misnomer - they should be called SE's - scripted/static events - always happen in the same places have no impact on the world (some have minimal impact).
So from this point forth I am calling them SEs
In Rift there are periods when you can relax - lulls between rifts and invasions - this feels more natural. GW2 is non stop same scripted events that happen around the clock repeatedly - its way too forced and annoying.
Also Rifts invasions can encompass entire zones - needing multiple groups of players working in different areas of the zone simultaneously. GW2 scripted events happen in small concentrated areas
Anet should be ashamed for such blatant lying - there is nothing dynamic about running a triggerd script!!
+1
I haven't played 1 second of GW2, but i have seen my friend play it. Even he agreed that the invasions in Rift were multitudes better than GW2 Dynamic Events. We've come to the conclusion all DE's are is questing without NPCs.
I dont know about Rift events cause I never really played it for more than a couple of hours, but the comment about scripted events is spot on, they happen exactly in the same place around the clock, sure there are some fail conditions where you loose some outpost but no one cares about it to begin with, the outposts that can be taken back by mobs are not the area critical ones, they usually have a couple of vendors and are just artificially created just for the event.
One example to support your theory are the dragons, people already know that dragon events spawn roughly every 3h so come that time people start going into the zone where the dragon is and spamming "When is the dragon event starting?" and sure enough it does start at around every 3h. Nothing wrong with these events they are still fun, but they are exactly the same every time, with the exact same objectives and conditions at the exact same place and time.
Honestly, I prefer GW2 events a LOT more over Rifts. I'm not sure what it is exactly. It might be as simple as finding everything else about Rift boring, and everything else about GW2 more fun, but I don't see any inherit benefit to true dynamic events instead of scripted events. I'll agree they shouldn't be called DEs, but I like how it's designed regardless of false advertising. I have fun every time so far mainly because the group makeup is always different, and I can swap skills in or out to be more or less helpful depending on that variable. Rift didn't feel like that to me even with 3 'souls' worth of different skills per character. Every rift felt nearly the same as the last, just like all the invasions. Maybe all that is just personal preference rather than one being 'FAR better' over another.
I sort of agree with you, not with the Rift bit cause i havent played enough of that game to have any relevant opinion, but the events in GW2 are fun, after you get passed the mindless lower level ones, there is nothing wrong with them not being truly dynamic, but I wouldnt say they are better than truly dynamic events, mainly because we never really truly had dynamic events, I wouldnt even consider Rifts events dynamic they are area wide but they are not dynamic they serve the same purpose every time and they play almost exactly the same every time.
What Rift introduces that GW2 should introduce and I am sure they will in the future is fuzzy logic, which is a small deviation that leads to the same end, so much like Rifts spawning everyehwere and randomly on a zone, you can have a dragon attack different parts of an area, its not dynamic still you still kill the dragon just in a different part of the area, but it adds some variation. Even having different preparation events would add a bit of variation that creates an illusion of changing world, but its fine as it is, I am sure this kind of logic will be in future events they introduce.
True dynamic events triggered by actual world changes are the way to go in my opinion, but we are still far away from that, and I can't see any game actually pulling this off anytime soon.
2. Exploration and down-leveling - And no. I DO know that this game is not free roam columbus style like Dark and Light or Star Wars Galaxies. It even has zoning. But it REWARDs people for exploring, not with crap, but with actual progression related stuff. And downleveling guarantees that no matter how epic you think you are, a level 5 drake CAN kill you. Love it.
That's the thing that I hate most about the game, to be honest. It totally kills any sense of character progression and getting better equipment. You never feel powerful, you never feel like all that time you spent playing and leveling made a difference.
When four level 10 mosquitos can kill your level 60 character, there's a problem.
Tank: re performance Gw2 seems more cpu bound, tsw seems more gpu bound. I think it depends on the balance of the system, although both games are pretty good performance wise compared to say swtor which is graphically inferior to both but slowed my machine like hell with more than 10 players on screen.
Comments
There's no way to do that without more or less forcing grouping, which in general is not a good thing to many people (including me).
Indeed. Optional scaling would be horrific as higher level players could ruin DEs in lower level zones. Heck, merely killing enemies would make some hearts annoying (one-shot kills means no shared credit).
I suppose that is true.
There's a difference between forcing grouping and rewarding grouping.
Grouping is harder, thus is SHOULD be more rewarding.
I think the number 1 thing GW2 and Anet have managed to achieve above any other MMO, is to make it so that the fans are hit by some kind of collective amnesia, that makes them love and praise the game, and are willing to forgive it for the very same issues that other games have received so much hate for.
I love the game myself, but come on people!
what i love is that people actually DO COOPERATE in WvWvW!
i haven't seen anything like "noobs ffs" etc...no blaming at all..players really try to work on winning strategy etc..well done!!!
Then show me a way to do that which is meaningful and won't result in people waiting to have fun.
Grouping can and does happen however. If you really want to group just follow someone around for a time and propose it. Not hard and others in this thread have done it. Or find a guild and do stuff with them.
There is one thing that works against grouping in the game though. That's hearts. Since once you've done them doing more things in the are isn't rewarded unless it is an event, it is a bit harsh if you group up with someone who just finished. Well, that and some of the current issues like overflow. Not sure if they resolved the party stuff failing now and then -- seemed to be working fine the other day.
In general though, grouping doesn't need to be rewared, just not punished. People will play together because it is more fun to do so.
I will gladly step up and claim ownership to being pretty harsh to other MMO's for many things.
GW2 issues. Trader has been up and down, Overflow is a major pain in the arse when trying to group, Lots of phishing scams and account hack attempts, and WvW queues can take forever. I did not experience the lag some complained about or the login issues so I can not comment on those. Nor did I experience any issues with being invited into a guild.
Trader - I have been pretty harsh on an MMO or two for not having an auction house. GW2 had one at launch and it was an inconvienence that it was down but a minor one because they worked on it and brought it back up intermittently durring prime time. Issues seem to be resolved. There is a difference between having no Auction House system and a badly implemented alternative vs. having one that is suffering from minor fixable issues.
Overflow - While this has been annoying again it isn't game breaking. I have been able to play, the game has been running great and I've been having a blast. When I can party with specific friends and such it's been great. I have not complained about this with any other game because I haven't played another that had this issue. Though I have been fairly harsh with games that had log in queues instead that kept you from playing for hours sometimes.
WvWvW - Again this was mildly annoying but once I got in it was a great deal of fun. This has been an issue with many MMO's especially at launch. Extremely long Queues to get into PvP. I give GW2 slack while I have been pretty harsh with other MMO's because the PvE actually keeps me engaged and entertained while I wait.
Phishing Scams and Account hack attempts - I give GW2 slack just as I give others slack. This is an issue that every popular MMO suffers from and not an easy issue to fix. Anet did a decent hot fix for the issue but we will have to wait and see what the long term fix is. I like authenticators but hate them at the same time lol.
Overall Anet did a good job and produced a quality product that was well worth the price tag. The game has an enormous amount of content for a newly released MMO. The game is well done and suffers from only minor fixable issues. It specifically addresses many complaints me and others like me have had with most other MMO's. So the minor issues don't bother me much, not only are they simply minor annoyances but they are things I am certain Anet can fix.
What exactly do I have amnesia about?
The same way every other MMORPG with a good social atmosphere has done... give better rewards for grouping.
It is harder to group than solo. Things that are harder should yield a better reward.
Actually the best social MMO's tended not to give extra rewards for grouping lol... UO was an extremely social MMO, the community and the developers were constantly involved in discussions and such. Guilds would hold events for the entire server. We'd get together as an entire community to do things and yes even the developers would jump in.
Do you have a better example? An MMO that rewarded grouping that had a good social atmosphere?
It actually works both ways if you haven't noticed. There's also A LOT of people that hate GW2 for very same issues that other MMOs have, yet at the same time they act like those other MMOs don't have those issues...
I thought those were the weak points of DaoC.
The trinity is clearly a PvE system. While Meridian 59 who invented it today is mostly known for PvP it was not always like that and PvP was added as an afterthought.
So I dont agree. It can of course be done better but trinity PvP never is really good. That is also the reason why most FPS players prefer PvP while most MMO players prefer PvE.
+1
I haven't played 1 second of GW2, but i have seen my friend play it. Even he agreed that the invasions in Rift were multitudes better than GW2 Dynamic Events. We've come to the conclusion all DE's are is questing without NPCs.
Care to elaborate on what I criticized DFO on and am cutting GW2 slack on?
Ohh drrr... I think I remember you now lol. Your the MO fan that kept trying to bash DFO saying MO was better lol. How'd MO turn out for you?
Have you ever actually lost an event yet and seen what happens next? I have once (was freaking 4 AM and the server had less people on it). The difficulty of what came next scaled way up and we died over and over again attempting to beat it. I think part of the reason the events feel static right now is that there are so many players that we can't lose. I'm kind of looking forward to grinding an alt, just to see if the differences in difficulty show up routinely after losses and if an area can actually be impacted permanently. Right now, so many of us are playing the game that I don't think we're seeing the whole event system in action.
Maybe not SRPG's(Skyrim) but scaling works fine in MMORPG's(GW2 lol)
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Short of a WoW-like LFG system which ruins the good social atmosphere, I don't know of another MMO that seriously rewards grouping that doesn't also require you to spend a lot of time waiting for a group (or schedule it in advance).
Certainly in GW2 grouping would not be significantly harder than soloing, though there are a couple of things at the moment that might discourage it.
I dont know about Rift events cause I never really played it for more than a couple of hours, but the comment about scripted events is spot on, they happen exactly in the same place around the clock, sure there are some fail conditions where you loose some outpost but no one cares about it to begin with, the outposts that can be taken back by mobs are not the area critical ones, they usually have a couple of vendors and are just artificially created just for the event.
One example to support your theory are the dragons, people already know that dragon events spawn roughly every 3h so come that time people start going into the zone where the dragon is and spamming "When is the dragon event starting?" and sure enough it does start at around every 3h. Nothing wrong with these events they are still fun, but they are exactly the same every time, with the exact same objectives and conditions at the exact same place and time.
That's pretty much how I feel too. If I want to be social, I haven't felt any barrier in doing so, and the game mechanics in general lend itself to people being a lot nicer to each other since there is no longer reason for complaint about stealing mobs or otherwise being disrespectful or griefing others, at least in my experience so far. If any of you have played Journey for the PS3, you'll recognize that some of the best group play doesn't need much discussion, if any at all. It's nice to have another game with GW2 where the goals and mechanics of fighting with others benefits everyone involved naturally. There really is no need for discussion aside from just trying to be social.
Also, if the people just don't want to talk, than the game shouldn't try to force people to be more social. It's entertainment, and not everyone finds socializing entertaining. If you're saying things in a group of people and they don't respond, than nobody wants to respond or talk to you. It's as simple as that. No need to analyze why. It's not bad game mechanics. It's just the way it is for some people. They have the same tools you do to talk if they wanted, so they apparently don't want to. Leave em alone, and don't blame someone or something else for it.
I think Anet went as far as it needed to promote a more sociable atmosphere with less methods for a player to upset others either intentionally or unintentionally. I'm happy being in a group of players all focused on one goal regardless if anyone is chatting or not. Chances are if I'm not chatting it's because I'm focused on the goal and helping everyone with my buffs/heals/CC abilities as an elementalist or engineer. If I start chatting away, players might die because I felt like asking how their day is going, we might fail to kill a champion mob due to lack of contribution, or maybe I'm distracting someone else who should be focused on the same thing as the rest of the group. I'm not saying GW2 is hard so everyone needs to be quiet and focus. I'm just saying it's a method of playing and people might be a little busy doing something else at the moment.
So that's basically why I say I love the mechanics exactly how they are. I think it was really smart to remove the elements that other players would abuse against each other, but otherwise leave your ability to play how you want intact.
I think they can still improve guild management and matching people with a good guild. I haven't seen an easy way to vet guilds for exactly what you want. I felt EQ2 did this incredibly well where you can pull up a list of the guilds on your server using an array of filter options regarding the guild's focus, description, officers to contact, etc. I think that would be an awesome addition to GW2, if it's not already there somewhere that I haven't found. As with any MMO, that ends up being most of the social interaction in MMOs anyway by finding the right group of people to hang out with and plan events together.
Honestly, I prefer GW2 events a LOT more over Rifts. I'm not sure what it is exactly. It might be as simple as finding everything else about Rift boring, and everything else about GW2 more fun, but I don't see any inherit benefit to true dynamic events instead of scripted events. I'll agree they shouldn't be called DEs, but I like how it's designed regardless of false advertising. I have fun every time so far mainly because the group makeup is always different, and I can swap skills in or out to be more or less helpful depending on that variable. Rift didn't feel like that to me even with 3 'souls' worth of different skills per character. Every rift felt nearly the same as the last, just like all the invasions. Maybe all that is just personal preference rather than one being 'FAR better' over another.
A lot of the OP's post is subjective, which is fine, but #5 is sort of a ridiculous claim. GW2 has cutting-edge graphics, and they run great when stacked up against other cutting-edge graphics. WoW's graphics are dated, but they will run on a toaster. DCUO's performance is absolutely amazing, and I won't even mention DAOC or CoH.
As far as DE's, you only really notice their repetitveness when you're in an area witha lot of DE's, for a long time. I spent 2 hours near the Inquest lab in Metrica, and it really is jarring to see the same group escorting the same golem 15 times, or the same plant failure spawning the same Fire Elemental.
Speaking of the Fire Elemental... /grovel.
I sort of agree with you, not with the Rift bit cause i havent played enough of that game to have any relevant opinion, but the events in GW2 are fun, after you get passed the mindless lower level ones, there is nothing wrong with them not being truly dynamic, but I wouldnt say they are better than truly dynamic events, mainly because we never really truly had dynamic events, I wouldnt even consider Rifts events dynamic they are area wide but they are not dynamic they serve the same purpose every time and they play almost exactly the same every time.
What Rift introduces that GW2 should introduce and I am sure they will in the future is fuzzy logic, which is a small deviation that leads to the same end, so much like Rifts spawning everyehwere and randomly on a zone, you can have a dragon attack different parts of an area, its not dynamic still you still kill the dragon just in a different part of the area, but it adds some variation. Even having different preparation events would add a bit of variation that creates an illusion of changing world, but its fine as it is, I am sure this kind of logic will be in future events they introduce.
True dynamic events triggered by actual world changes are the way to go in my opinion, but we are still far away from that, and I can't see any game actually pulling this off anytime soon.
That's the thing that I hate most about the game, to be honest. It totally kills any sense of character progression and getting better equipment. You never feel powerful, you never feel like all that time you spent playing and leveling made a difference.
When four level 10 mosquitos can kill your level 60 character, there's a problem.
Gw2 seems more cpu bound, tsw seems more gpu bound. I think it depends on the balance of the system, although both games are pretty good performance wise compared to say swtor which is graphically inferior to both but slowed my machine like hell with more than 10 players on screen.