Good read but there's a bigger issue here everyone is ignoring including the writer of this article. People can't easily get the exotics anymore just by working their way around the open world like they were able to in the beginning. You can't simply go out farm some mats and then return to town and make something anymore. They stealth nerfed or broke something in the open world to the point where it appears that's all they want us to do is run a single dungeon or pay RL money on gems convert it to gold and then spend the gold on the already broken TP (their version of the AH) to buy the mats or buy the already made armors outright.
The first month was fine, they shouldn't have changed a thing. I dunno who took over the management over there but they need to be fired for incompetence
I agree with Suzie. For me, this was the main reason why I lost interest in GW2. I should have realized it in beta when I didnt feel the urge to login when I was level 11. I brushed it off as I didnt want to see all the content before lauch. Post launch I got to level 26 and couldnt figure out the point for me to go on.
Thats when I realized I'm the type of gamer who LIKES progression. I play RPGs to grow my character from a lowly level one to mighty max level. Not being able to feel that took some of the bite out for me.
I give ANet props for making a quality MMO (it is beautiful), but everything they tried to do different were all the things I missed.
In GW2 the bosses are defeated and then a chest appears, they are not protecting the chest, the thing materializes like a gift from the gods when the event ends, and I wish it was one so it could make some sense but it isn't, also the content of the chests is not as good as an elite skill that you obtain from the corpse of a defeated boss.
Why have more gear as a reward when you already get that from everything else in the game?
Even if I decide, not to care about that, every victory is shared with the community, it wasn't your strategy, it was merely your contribution what made a difference, you couldn't have tried anything smart by yourself because more passing byers would rush to find this new event and they would end it for you, the challenge would suddenly become a matter of superior numbers (yes I know that the events are supposed to change as more people arrive but I don't think that they were able to create a perfect balance for everyone), in the original instanced GW, you could get a team and depend on each other for specific things, so everyone would feel indispensable, this got to the point where you would need to control a bunch of npcs or collaborate with some players and their npcs to be able to succeed but at least you felt you had some real influence (Idc about the state of the world if I am not the one responsible for it, and if I am helping in a "dynamic event" its not because I really want to make a difference, because I care, it is because I get karma points [we are being forced to help]). Maybe if there were way less players or way more events things could be different, I haven't tried the game for a while and I don't know if that is already the case or if that will ever be the case. Maybe I would have liked more a karma system that wasn't about points, if I couldn't choose how to spend it, if I could know about it's existance and feel a difference but never quantifying it and saving it for later, that would have been interesting and mystifying, you know if they also had created negative karma, but they wanted all of us to be heroes, that is just great... everyone can be perfectly good and happy to see new players that want to help you... except some of us hate it.
Originally posted by shingoukieh I know this might be irrelevant but what about MOUNTS? Mounts usually are in every mmorpg...they could even make u have new skills while mounted...I mean I'm sure a lot of people would want to get one
as fair as this is to ask.it a backwards progression for an mmo- map hit point of interest and go- enjoy the zones on foot. a better intake-i had mounts in wow cataclism and missed alot of the changes they spent time on that expansion made the game boring and dull.
by foor you get to join in the random events GW2 has to offer per zone-and they are fun!-besides so many people would be exploting those jumping puzzles...on mounts.
Originally posted by shingoukieh I know this might be irrelevant but what about MOUNTS? Mounts usually are in every mmorpg...they could even make u have new skills while mounted...I mean I'm sure a lot of people would want to get one
as fair as this is to ask.it a backwards progression for an mmo like GW2- fast travel to point of interest=n play!- enjoy the zones on foot. a better intake-i had mounts in wow cataclism and missed alot of the changes they spent time on that expansion made the game boring and dull.
by foot you get to join in the random events GW2 has to offer per zone-and they are fun!-besides so many people would be exploting those jumping puzzles...on mounts.
This is what bugs me about GW2. I love the mechanics, but when I PVP and come out with slightly different gear that does *nothing* every 10 ranks, it leaves me wondering why I even play. Horizontal advancement is refreshing, considering how most game ms have vertical advancement only, but the real thing deva need to do is marry the two. A good blend of horizontal and vertical advancdment is essential to push the genre ahead.
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GW2 is a PvP focused game, to an extreme level when compared to similar titles. There really isn't much point to hitting 80 other than to PvP without scaling, because while scaling is pretty good in GW2, being level80 provides some advantages for PvP. Look at "end-game" content in GW2 - a series of easymode dungeons with pretty much identical gear, no raids except for open world event bosses(The Ice Dragon comes to mind, not sure if there are more that's the only one I've done). But PvP? Multiple ranked gear sets. Multiple small AND large scale arenas. GW2 is a PvP MMO wrapped in a shiny PvE package to pull in players who then leave because the only thing to do at 80 is PvP.
"It’s an amazing game, and gives you that feeling that your character is constantly progressing as you play, until you hit level 80."
Funny, I don't feel the difference from being lvl 30 to being lvl 80 during PvE gameplay. It is all the same. You only have to buy new gear from time to time until you reach your exotics, but playing the game feels all the same. The feeling of "progressing" is just a point set to the traits and more often the not you don't even feel the difference.
"There it was, this game had strategy! It played like an MMO, a player activated skills to fight off enemies, but this game offered hundreds of skills for you to use. The possibilities seemed endless. "
"To unlock the elite skills you first had to kill the boss that used it, proving you were worthy of such power. Once you unlocked more skills you could try new things. If something didn’t work out, or you found another profession combination that worked better, you could switch points and skills around. Your character, and you as a player, were constantly evolving and getting stronger. Your gear was the same, stat wise, as the next guy’s. But it was how you played and used the gear that set you apart. "
You took every word out of my mouth. Thank you!.
I have said it before and I'll say it again. I played GW1 since released up until GW2 launched and what you said above was the sole reason why I kept playing GW1. I just wish they had kept some of that in GW2! Don't get me wrong... I love GW2 but would I still be playing it after maxing out all my characters and finish everything in the maps 3-5 years from now? I do not know. All I know is the skill system kept me glued to GW1.
I have to agree, Anet needs to release more skills, preferably ones you get by capping as in GW1. I hope they decide to go that way with the first expansion.
The basic game of GW2 is fun and you can see that they put a lot of work into the game but it feels like builds and combos make little difference compared to in the original game. I remember making special builds to beat certain really hard challenges so specific they only worked for that. It was pretty fun to figure out all that stuff.
Dual classing I dont miss though, but add 15 more regular skills and 30 elite skills you need to cap for each class and the game will be a lot more fun after you reached levelcap.
Then again, GW1 needed Factions and Nightfall to really become fun long term so hopefully will GW2 becomes a lot more fun long term with more content as well. Smaller free updates just aint enough for that.
I don't understand why you guys are comparing GW to GW2, honestly I loved GW but I just didn't and don't see it as an mmorpg, for me it's just a different genre and so I don't really think that they should be compared but well I guess that's just me.
Originally posted by QSatu I really hope they will add a lot of new ultility skills. And I would love some better elite skills which maybe aren't that powerfull but like in 1st GW they would define my character build. I miss this part of character building from 1st game.
This, exactly.
GW2 is build with supreme scalability in mind. PVP scales, WVW scales. There's no reason progression of skills couldn't be never-ending, as long as ArenaNet could add in tons of skills.
I'd take multi-classing in PvE and WvW. Leave it disabled for the eSports. Would love to do the multi-classing we saw in GW1, balance nightmare that it was. But that's what the controlled part of sPVP is for.
THS
Moar skills for mah warriorrr aaaargh,
Pretties char i´ve ever had in any mmo, worst skill set
now: GW2 (11 80s). Dark Souls 2. future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord. "Bro, do your even fractal?" Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
at level 80 i cant have enough of too may 'Fractals' which i think they have done an amazing job.
tha said the rewards seem a bit low- with what uve said would of been nice to earn a 'special' skill for completeing all the Fractals-or even unlocking a special small quest line with unique rewards.
iam still waiting for specific order quests which we can buy from the shop? at level 80.
that said I always look forward to Special events throughout the game-they never seem to get old becouse there are always different players attending them- and thats fun!
i have 4 alts still leveling and with them iam reflecting what they could of improved on.
extending the game Lore and accessing special level 80+ skills comes to mind.
I guess like some others here my main focus on what makes an MMO, or any game really, fun isn't how "bad assed" my character becomes. Sure its nice at some point to go back and kick some baddies that humilated you in the teeth and watch them crawl like the worms they are. But if the journey to get there isn't fun. If the view from the highest peak once you reach it isn't fun. Then all of that progression, for me at least, is entierly meaningless.
These developers need to learn that what players look for most in a game, especially a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, is a REASON TO KEEP PLAYING. If a game cannot provide that, then all the time, effort, and possibly money spent on the journey is pretty much pointless.
For the last few years all players have been given to do, is linier, canned, and quickly stale, repetitve content. These games play like the a shoping trip at the department store of the damned. First they shunt you up the escalator of leveling, "Fifth floor more bling bling items, skill tree unlocks, more padded cells to run pointless little circles in." And then once you reach the swinging party at the penthouse you find that if you don't like, or quickly tire of whats on the buffet, or being served at the open bar, you are pretty much out of luck. You can either choose to go elsewhere or lurk in a dark corner with the other wallflowers until a new content patch or expansion comes along.
I personally feel Guild Wars 2 didn't perform any better with these issues than any other recent game. Running from one stagnant oasis to the other of world events in the end isn't any different than being relay raced between a bunch of dinks with gold question marks over their heads. And in their quest to remove many of the grindy annoyances that plague other MMOs they also took away the few meaningful, if stale, mile markers that make the player feel like their journey has meaning. And to make matters worse it seems all they can think of to keep players interested now is to add back in some of the same bad progression treadmills that THIS game was supposed to alleviate.
So in short the reason GW2 and many others MMORPGs didn't keep me interested in continuing them is not because my charaters didn't feel powerful enough, but because the game world creators didn't make me feel like my characters had any place in it, except as just one more stupid hamster, in one more stupid wheel.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.
I guess like some others here my main focus on what makes an MMO, or any game really, fun isn't how "bad assed" my character becomes. Sure its nice at some point to go back and kick some baddies that humilated you in the teeth and watch them crawl like the worms they are. But if the journey to get there isn't fun. If the view from the highest peak once you reach it isn't fun. Then all of that progression, for me at least, is entierly meaningless.
These developers need to learn that what players look for most in a game, especially a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, is a REASON TO KEEP PLAYING. If a game cannot provide that, then all the time, effort, and possibly money spent on the journey is pretty much pointless.
For the last few years all players have been given to do, is linier, canned, and quickly stale, repetitve content. These games play like the a shoping trip at the department store of the damned. First they shunt you up the escalator of leveling, "Fifth floor more bling bling items, skill tree unlocks, more padded cells to run pointless little circles in." And then once you reach the swinging party at the penthouse you find that if you don't like, or quickly tire of whats on the buffet, or being served at the open bar, you are pretty much out of luck. You can either choose to go elsewhere or lurk in a dark corner with the other wallflowers until a new content patch or expansion comes along.
I personally feel Guild Wars 2 didn't perform any better with these issues than any other recent game. Running from one stagnant oasis to the other of world events in the end isn't any different than being relay raced between a bunch of dinks with gold question marks over their heads. And in their quest to remove many of the grindy annoyances that plague other MMOs they also took away the few meaningful, if stale, mile markers that make the player feel like their journey has meaning. And to make matters worse it seems all they can think of to keep players interested now is to add back in some of the same bad progression treadmills that THIS game was supposed to alleviate.
So in short the reason GW2 and many others MMORPGs didn't keep me interested in continuing them is not because my charaters didn't feel powerful enough, but because the game world creators didn't make me feel like my characters had any place in it, except as just one more stupid hamster, in one more stupid wheel.
apparently your hamster never got the 'SUPER CAGE Critter!
I guess like some others here my main focus on what makes an MMO, or any game really, fun isn't how "bad assed" my character becomes. Sure its nice at some point to go back and kick some baddies that humilated you in the teeth and watch them crawl like the worms they are. But if the journey to get there isn't fun. If the view from the highest peak once you reach it isn't fun. Then all of that progression, for me at least, is entierly meaningless.
These developers need to learn that what players look for most in a game, especially a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, is a REASON TO KEEP PLAYING. If a game cannot provide that, then all the time, effort, and possibly money spent on the journey is pretty much pointless.
For the last few years all players have been given to do, is linier, canned, and quickly stale, repetitve content. These games play like the a shoping trip at the department store of the damned. First they shunt you up the escalator of leveling, "Fifth floor more bling bling items, skill tree unlocks, more padded cells to run pointless little circles in." And then once you reach the swinging party at the penthouse you find that if you don't like, or quickly tire of whats on the buffet, or being served at the open bar, you are pretty much out of luck. You can either choose to go elsewhere or lurk in a dark corner with the other wallflowers until a new content patch or expansion comes along.
I personally feel Guild Wars 2 didn't perform any better with these issues than any other recent game. Running from one stagnant oasis to the other of world events in the end isn't any different than being relay raced between a bunch of dinks with gold question marks over their heads. And in their quest to remove many of the grindy annoyances that plague other MMOs they also took away the few meaningful, if stale, mile markers that make the player feel like their journey has meaning. And to make matters worse it seems all they can think of to keep players interested now is to add back in some of the same bad progression treadmills that THIS game was supposed to alleviate.
So in short the reason GW2 and many others MMORPGs didn't keep me interested in continuing them is not because my charaters didn't feel powerful enough, but because the game world creators didn't make me feel like my characters had any place in it, except as just one more stupid hamster, in one more stupid wheel.
The point with GW2 is, you are not a super-hero but a regular person doing heroic things. That is the information people are missing or forgetting. It is not as in Rift, where you are reborn and are SUPPOSED to be an OP here. What you want is to go in and one hit evertyhing and move on and that to me IS BORING.
All games HAVE some type of treadmill, they can't avoid it. Even everyone's special glorious Sandbox games will have treadmills (either for crafting, etc). THe thing is, how the treadmill is done and how it affects the game.
It's not what the game can do for you, it's what you can do for the game!
The thing I dislike most about games is their social aspects. The older games managed this well, and now their communities are mostly dead, unfortunately. The newer games are all about personal gain; they are not so much about making friends, aside from the occasional dungeon group/things you have to do to progress.
Maybe it's just my taste in gaming that has changed. It's exceedingly difficult to fnd good online friends who just want to explore and chat and aren't so concerned with completing/killing/winning. Don't get me wrong, I do set goals in games... they just aren't rushed. I do want to enjoy every aspect, or at least try. I suppose I've just gone from an extreme power gamer/completionist to a casual adventurer over the past 12 years or so.
a little more specific / on topic
I did enjoy the skill system in GW1, but I also enjoyed the way it worked in GW2. In my opinion, they are both great concepts and could work well if merged into one idea. The genre has certainly changed, and expectations are rising (as they should). I agree that in some areas, GW2 made less progress or even declined compared to GW1. There are a lot of aspects I certainly do appreciate more out of games now since GW2.
I could care less about gear progression at this point as well, I definitely want more zones to explore. I want actual lore that is improved on a monthly basis via quests or some sort of in game event. I want developers who actually play their own game and can tell what is wrong or what needs improvement.
Originally posted by adrikthorsen GW2 is a PvP focused game, to an extreme level when compared to similar titles. There really isn't much point to hitting 80 other than to PvP without scaling, because while scaling is pretty good in GW2, being level80 provides some advantages for PvP. Look at "end-game" content in GW2 - a series of easymode dungeons with pretty much identical gear, no raids except for open world event bosses(The Ice Dragon comes to mind, not sure if there are more that's the only one I've done). But PvP? Multiple ranked gear sets. Multiple small AND large scale arenas. GW2 is a PvP MMO wrapped in a shiny PvE package to pull in players who then leave because the only thing to do at 80 is PvP.
That's funny. I'm a mostly (85% or more) PvE player.
I always laugh when people assert that GW1 and 2 are PvP - centric games. Anet focuses equally well on BOTH aspects.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Dont worry I KNOW we will see more utility skills and more weapon classes for people who want that old massive skill variety. I think it is still a wee bit too early to be goi.g at the game like this. As a b2p game. I feel as if gw2 is one heck of a package with nice updates monthly so far. Also Anet is somewhat hyping and teasing this months and next months update as an, and i quote, "expansions worth of content". So cheers my fellow GW2 fans! May 2013 be one hell of a year for us all!
Monster Hunter since '04! Currently playing: MHW & MHGU
To me this just comes down to what you want in your game.
For some people its the power grind and gear treadmill (and theres nothing wrong with that, if thats what you like thats all there is to it.). For others, like myself, I play a game for the game not so much for my character (if that makes sense). I play to see the world, to hear and experience stories, to explore and learn about the lore and such. Gear and getting stronger is nice, but to me after a while it starts to get ridiculous (WoW's gigantic weapons/helms/shoulderpads and damage numbers so high they have to be abreviated to multiple hundreds of "K" damage comes to mind).
All in all, GW2 Is the perfect style for me and many others, If it's not for you thats fine just move on to what IS for you.
You mean this game isnt perfect and there is actual criticism going on here about GW2? Did I like fall into the twilight zone or something where I drifted into an alternate universe where GW2 didn't cast a spell on everyone and where bloggers actually have issues with the game? this is unreal....
Gw2 is a great game, but it does miss that feeling of progression, but as mentioned above the answer is for Anet to dip into their reserves and introduce progression through gaining more skills/traits. Also, make the skills pve only if it has any risk of affecting pvp. It's very doable, for e.g where a trait gives 1.5% of one thing and 1.5% of another, it would be easy to have another trait that split the benefits into 3*1% etc etc. elites can be the same but maybe with new graphical effects. Job done, progression just like gw1.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
I think they could use the environment weapons for learning new skills . such as an ele picking up a boulder and making it into a meteor can teach you part of how to do a meteor shower . or something to that affect
Comments
Good read but there's a bigger issue here everyone is ignoring including the writer of this article. People can't easily get the exotics anymore just by working their way around the open world like they were able to in the beginning. You can't simply go out farm some mats and then return to town and make something anymore. They stealth nerfed or broke something in the open world to the point where it appears that's all they want us to do is run a single dungeon or pay RL money on gems convert it to gold and then spend the gold on the already broken TP (their version of the AH) to buy the mats or buy the already made armors outright.
The first month was fine, they shouldn't have changed a thing. I dunno who took over the management over there but they need to be fired for incompetence
I agree with Suzie. For me, this was the main reason why I lost interest in GW2. I should have realized it in beta when I didnt feel the urge to login when I was level 11. I brushed it off as I didnt want to see all the content before lauch. Post launch I got to level 26 and couldnt figure out the point for me to go on.
Thats when I realized I'm the type of gamer who LIKES progression. I play RPGs to grow my character from a lowly level one to mighty max level. Not being able to feel that took some of the bite out for me.
I give ANet props for making a quality MMO (it is beautiful), but everything they tried to do different were all the things I missed.
really? what class are you?
In GW2 the bosses are defeated and then a chest appears, they are not protecting the chest, the thing materializes like a gift from the gods when the event ends, and I wish it was one so it could make some sense but it isn't, also the content of the chests is not as good as an elite skill that you obtain from the corpse of a defeated boss.
Why have more gear as a reward when you already get that from everything else in the game?
Even if I decide, not to care about that, every victory is shared with the community, it wasn't your strategy, it was merely your contribution what made a difference, you couldn't have tried anything smart by yourself because more passing byers would rush to find this new event and they would end it for you, the challenge would suddenly become a matter of superior numbers (yes I know that the events are supposed to change as more people arrive but I don't think that they were able to create a perfect balance for everyone), in the original instanced GW, you could get a team and depend on each other for specific things, so everyone would feel indispensable, this got to the point where you would need to control a bunch of npcs or collaborate with some players and their npcs to be able to succeed but at least you felt you had some real influence (Idc about the state of the world if I am not the one responsible for it, and if I am helping in a "dynamic event" its not because I really want to make a difference, because I care, it is because I get karma points [we are being forced to help]). Maybe if there were way less players or way more events things could be different, I haven't tried the game for a while and I don't know if that is already the case or if that will ever be the case. Maybe I would have liked more a karma system that wasn't about points, if I couldn't choose how to spend it, if I could know about it's existance and feel a difference but never quantifying it and saving it for later, that would have been interesting and mystifying, you know if they also had created negative karma, but they wanted all of us to be heroes, that is just great... everyone can be perfectly good and happy to see new players that want to help you... except some of us hate it.
as fair as this is to ask.it a backwards progression for an mmo- map hit point of interest and go- enjoy the zones on foot. a better intake-i had mounts in wow cataclism and missed alot of the changes they spent time on that expansion made the game boring and dull.
by foor you get to join in the random events GW2 has to offer per zone-and they are fun!-besides so many people would be exploting those jumping puzzles...on mounts.
<.<
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Playing: Secret World: Legends
Waiting for: Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
"It’s an amazing game, and gives you that feeling that your character is constantly progressing as you play, until you hit level 80."
Funny, I don't feel the difference from being lvl 30 to being lvl 80 during PvE gameplay. It is all the same. You only have to buy new gear from time to time until you reach your exotics, but playing the game feels all the same. The feeling of "progressing" is just a point set to the traits and more often the not you don't even feel the difference.
"There it was, this game had strategy! It played like an MMO, a player activated skills to fight off enemies, but this game offered hundreds of skills for you to use. The possibilities seemed endless. "
"To unlock the elite skills you first had to kill the boss that used it, proving you were worthy of such power. Once you unlocked more skills you could try new things. If something didn’t work out, or you found another profession combination that worked better, you could switch points and skills around. Your character, and you as a player, were constantly evolving and getting stronger. Your gear was the same, stat wise, as the next guy’s. But it was how you played and used the gear that set you apart. "
You took every word out of my mouth. Thank you!.
I have said it before and I'll say it again. I played GW1 since released up until GW2 launched and what you said above was the sole reason why I kept playing GW1. I just wish they had kept some of that in GW2! Don't get me wrong... I love GW2 but would I still be playing it after maxing out all my characters and finish everything in the maps 3-5 years from now? I do not know. All I know is the skill system kept me glued to GW1.
I have to agree, Anet needs to release more skills, preferably ones you get by capping as in GW1. I hope they decide to go that way with the first expansion.
The basic game of GW2 is fun and you can see that they put a lot of work into the game but it feels like builds and combos make little difference compared to in the original game. I remember making special builds to beat certain really hard challenges so specific they only worked for that. It was pretty fun to figure out all that stuff.
Dual classing I dont miss though, but add 15 more regular skills and 30 elite skills you need to cap for each class and the game will be a lot more fun after you reached levelcap.
Then again, GW1 needed Factions and Nightfall to really become fun long term so hopefully will GW2 becomes a lot more fun long term with more content as well. Smaller free updates just aint enough for that.
THS
Moar skills for mah warriorrr aaaargh,
Pretties char i´ve ever had in any mmo, worst skill set
now: GW2 (11 80s).
Dark Souls 2.
future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
"Bro, do your even fractal?"
Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
After lvl 18 I never looked back.. Soo boring
I guess like some others here my main focus on what makes an MMO, or any game really, fun isn't how "bad assed" my character becomes. Sure its nice at some point to go back and kick some baddies that humilated you in the teeth and watch them crawl like the worms they are. But if the journey to get there isn't fun. If the view from the highest peak once you reach it isn't fun. Then all of that progression, for me at least, is entierly meaningless.
These developers need to learn that what players look for most in a game, especially a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, is a REASON TO KEEP PLAYING. If a game cannot provide that, then all the time, effort, and possibly money spent on the journey is pretty much pointless.
For the last few years all players have been given to do, is linier, canned, and quickly stale, repetitve content. These games play like the a shoping trip at the department store of the damned. First they shunt you up the escalator of leveling, "Fifth floor more bling bling items, skill tree unlocks, more padded cells to run pointless little circles in." And then once you reach the swinging party at the penthouse you find that if you don't like, or quickly tire of whats on the buffet, or being served at the open bar, you are pretty much out of luck. You can either choose to go elsewhere or lurk in a dark corner with the other wallflowers until a new content patch or expansion comes along.
I personally feel Guild Wars 2 didn't perform any better with these issues than any other recent game. Running from one stagnant oasis to the other of world events in the end isn't any different than being relay raced between a bunch of dinks with gold question marks over their heads. And in their quest to remove many of the grindy annoyances that plague other MMOs they also took away the few meaningful, if stale, mile markers that make the player feel like their journey has meaning. And to make matters worse it seems all they can think of to keep players interested now is to add back in some of the same bad progression treadmills that THIS game was supposed to alleviate.
So in short the reason GW2 and many others MMORPGs didn't keep me interested in continuing them is not because my charaters didn't feel powerful enough, but because the game world creators didn't make me feel like my characters had any place in it, except as just one more stupid hamster, in one more stupid wheel.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.
apparently your hamster never got the 'SUPER CAGE Critter!
http://www.kidstoychest.com/images/sp5-crittertrail-kitlg.jpg
<.<
The point with GW2 is, you are not a super-hero but a regular person doing heroic things. That is the information people are missing or forgetting. It is not as in Rift, where you are reborn and are SUPPOSED to be an OP here. What you want is to go in and one hit evertyhing and move on and that to me IS BORING.
All games HAVE some type of treadmill, they can't avoid it. Even everyone's special glorious Sandbox games will have treadmills (either for crafting, etc). THe thing is, how the treadmill is done and how it affects the game.
It's not what the game can do for you, it's what you can do for the game!
The thing I dislike most about games is their social aspects. The older games managed this well, and now their communities are mostly dead, unfortunately. The newer games are all about personal gain; they are not so much about making friends, aside from the occasional dungeon group/things you have to do to progress.
Maybe it's just my taste in gaming that has changed. It's exceedingly difficult to fnd good online friends who just want to explore and chat and aren't so concerned with completing/killing/winning. Don't get me wrong, I do set goals in games... they just aren't rushed. I do want to enjoy every aspect, or at least try. I suppose I've just gone from an extreme power gamer/completionist to a casual adventurer over the past 12 years or so.
a little more specific / on topic
I did enjoy the skill system in GW1, but I also enjoyed the way it worked in GW2. In my opinion, they are both great concepts and could work well if merged into one idea. The genre has certainly changed, and expectations are rising (as they should). I agree that in some areas, GW2 made less progress or even declined compared to GW1. There are a lot of aspects I certainly do appreciate more out of games now since GW2.
I could care less about gear progression at this point as well, I definitely want more zones to explore. I want actual lore that is improved on a monthly basis via quests or some sort of in game event. I want developers who actually play their own game and can tell what is wrong or what needs improvement.
Give us back quality AND quantity over here!
That's funny. I'm a mostly (85% or more) PvE player.
I always laugh when people assert that GW1 and 2 are PvP - centric games. Anet focuses equally well on BOTH aspects.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
Monster Hunter since '04!
Currently playing: MHW & MHGU
To me this just comes down to what you want in your game.
For some people its the power grind and gear treadmill (and theres nothing wrong with that, if thats what you like thats all there is to it.). For others, like myself, I play a game for the game not so much for my character (if that makes sense). I play to see the world, to hear and experience stories, to explore and learn about the lore and such. Gear and getting stronger is nice, but to me after a while it starts to get ridiculous (WoW's gigantic weapons/helms/shoulderpads and damage numbers so high they have to be abreviated to multiple hundreds of "K" damage comes to mind).
All in all, GW2 Is the perfect style for me and many others, If it's not for you thats fine just move on to what IS for you.
HEAVEN OR HELL
Duel 1
Lets ROCK!
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D