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Guild Wars 2 was a shot in the dark. It needs to shoot again.
Aeander
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,836
These 5 words (a shot in the dark) describe Guild Wars 2 better than most. "Good game," "bad game," and most other labels just don't suffice. They don't encompass the aspects that Guild Wars 2 sought to get right, which ones it actually did, where it has succeeded, where it has failed, or why.
Guild Wars 2 had nothing to steal from.
Unlike roughly 90% of the MMO market, Guild Wars 2 did not merely throw new wallpaper onto World of Warcraft. It's an entirely new creature - one that attempts to apply the principles that make Single Player RPG's overall superior to MMOs, while adding the social, large-scale aspect that makes the MMO genre worth playing.
Nothing of this sort had been seriously attempted before. Granted, there were failed attempts at Dynamic Events (Warhammer Online), but nothing on the scale of Guild Wars 2's concepts. And it wasnt just one core concept that they intended to innovate. The list includes (but isn't limited to):
Dynamic Events over traditional questing.
Coordinated 5 man dungeons over 40 man raids.
Removal of a HARD trinity - by giving all professions the ability to play all roles at the same time or in different builds, the hard trinity was exchanged for a soft one. This in particular is something that hadn't been done before (and certainly not to any significant degree) and this is where most criticism of the game is aimed.
Individual loot and resource nodes, instead of mob tagging / mob stealing mechanics.
Waypoints.
Removal or reduction of REQUIRED grind (but not optional grind).
Downed state.
And more.
All of this is quite significant, but what's your point.
What do you typically see from a new title in the MMO genre. New classes? They'll generally be extremely similar to ones that already exist, if not shamelessly identical. New art? Well, that's generally expected of any game. New lore? MMO lore is rarely emphasized and even more rarely interesting. One or two small, almost meaningless changes? Oh, yeah, those wings in Aion really change a lot, don't they. Well, not really. It's basically a mount (albeit a bit more fun) with ridiculous restrictions. The gameplay is still the same. The vast majority of the game is something you've probably already experienced dozens of times.
When you compare that to the wild attempts at innovation that Guild Wars 2 represented, it's clear which is more significant to the genre. Aion, Rift, and WildStar may be strong titles, but they don't stand out. They represent stagnation - a refusal to move forward because of the possibility of a misstep. It doesn't matter that something amazing, or even "perfect" could be waiting on the other side; the grass here is green, so why not enjoy it? Guild Wars 2, on the other hand, represents a bold attempt to move forward. There may be traps and pitfalls along the path, but the treasure at the end is worth it.
There are really only a handful of games in this genre.
There's World of Warcraft. There's a million free to play World of Warcraft clones that are all basically the same game (and thus ARE the same game). There's Eve online. And then there's Guild Wars 2. Am I leaving some noteworthy, semi-unique (or even unique) titles out? Probably, but you get my point. Most of the games in this genre aren't just derivative - they're outright redundant and unnecessary. Guild Wars 2 is an actual, unique game, rather than a poor re-skin of something that already exists in a better form.
You won't find this kind of redundancy in other genres. As much as shooters tend to be criticized for this, there are major, if subtle differences between each and every one. Halo is not Call of Duty which is not Battlefield which is not Unreal Tournament which is not Team Fortress 2 which is not Tribes and so on and so forth.
At their core, all WoW clones ARE just inferior versions of WoW.
If it's not broken, you're not innovating.
Innovation, while crucial for anything to move forward and progress, is rarely successful on its first attempt. Guild Wars 2's launch was merely the first attempt. In less than 2 weeks, it will hit its one year anniversary and progress into its second year. THIS is the time in which its potential must be realized and it must take major steps to fix its major issues to set the stage (or destroy the stage) for other games of its kind.
So what exactly is broken?
As is the case with any game (especially any vanilla MMO) a LOT. But these are the largest core issues:
Dungeon mechanics - overemphasis on dps.
Stale PvP - focus on Conquest style PvP was a bad idea from the start.
Overemphasis on zerging in WvW / Not enough incentive for split strategies or small group roaming.
Not enough skills, traits, and weapons to customize your character with.
Rewards issues - Dynamic Events aren't rewarding enough, and the effort vs. reward ratios for the different dungeons (and even paths within dungeons) just aren't anywhere near comparable.
Notice that I didn't list "lack of a trinity" as a core issue.
That's because it isn't one. It's a legitimate design choice that has potential pros and potential cons. Furthermore, it is NOT the cause of Guild Wars 2's gameplay problems.
So what is? Dungeon design. The Defiant/Unshakable buff on bosses needs to be reworked or completely removed for the control portion of the Damage/Support/Control soft trinity to work at all. There need to be more fights that involve steady enemy damage, as the current system of low sustained damage, with high burst damage only encourages glass cannon dps builds that use dodging, blocking, etc. to render tank and support gear pointless. Additionally, boss mechanics may need reworking to provide a wider variety of challenging content that demands more involved build changing and player adaptation.
Basically, the issue has never been that the game "lacks" a trinity. It's that the content fails to complement the system the game does have in place.
This is an entirely repairable issue - one that would NOT involve a complete restructuring of roles or a return to the trinity to fix.
The reason PvP has been dying is because Conquest is dull.
Can you name many good esport conquest games? I sure can't. In fact, I can't think of a single one.
League of Legends Dominion? It was initially popular, but now it basically only thrives because of the huge total community of the game. It's still an unpopular mode (by comparison) to Twisted Treeline or Summoner's Rift. Infinite Crisis ripped off of the Dominion map and the first demand of the community was a better map.
The Star Wars: Battlefronts series is arguably the best example of Conquest gameplay, but it's still not an esport, much less a huge one. It was fun. In fact, it was a lot of fun, but that's because it has a lot more depth than mere point capture. It was a real strategy game with a massive feel and fun gunplay.
Anything else? Not that I can think of. Conquest is rarely the main game mode for a reason. Why? Because it's repetitive and shallow when compared to most other PvP formats (with the only real exception being Deathmatch.) It actively encourages drawn out games, turtling/bunkering, and outright avoiding combat.
Arenanet can add on as many gimmicks as they want. Battle of Khylo may have a strategic trebuchet and Legacy of the Foefire may have a Guild Lord, but it's still the same basic Conquest map, just with different bells and whistles to play with.
What can Arenanet do to both stand out as a unique title and become a more impressive game?
Addition of Guild vs. Guild PvP or League of Legends/DotA style PvP. Shift in focus from Conquest to this mode.
Reworking of dungeon mechanics to better suit their soft trinity.
Reworking of rewards to encourage players to branch out, rather than concentrate in and farm certain areas.
Addition of more weapons, skills, and traits to all professions. Let no niche be unfilled and no aesthetic be unobtainable!
Addition of features that encourage smaller and more strategic WvW play. These could include additional goals, WvW rank skills that buff players when they are outnumbered, and other changes.
An extension on the personal story that happens after 80 and allows you to take huge turns (ie: continuing with the Pact or going off on your own).
Increased incentives for grouping and socialization. These could be as simple as higher rewards, more group-based achievements, and/or the inclusion of a team-oriented zone or two (Orr was intended to be this, but didn't go far enough with it and just wasn't fun in general).
What has Guild Wars 2 done that was just fundamentally.... right?
Individual loot and resource nodes. No more mob camping. No more mob tagging. No more cursing out every time another player enters the area you're farming.
The basis for adaptable team gameplay. While it certainly doesn't work perfectly, the foundation is there. Rather than mindlessly spamming a dps rotation on an enemy while two other players do the other 2/3rd of your job for you (aggro and healing), the soft-trinity ("no trinity"), if perfected, would greatly increase the amount of thought and judgment required to fit into a team.
Smaller dungeon groups. In a five man team, the impact of your actions is much higher and there is a much higher coordination requirement between each member - in theory. If Guild Wars 2 manages to fix their dungeon mechanics, it will be a much stronger system than the typical "you are an unimportant cog in a 40 man army" that has plagued the genre.
Downscaling. While being able to go back and one shot everything in a low level zone certainly has its merits, the downscaling system allows all content to be viable content. While Guild Wars 2 may only have 8 dungeons, that's 8 dungeons that are viable at max level - which is actually quite a bit more than most MMOs offer. Every location. Every zone. Every experience is viable at max level. And that's just..... amazing.
The cash shop. It is the perfect example of a non-invasive cash shop - the kind that should appear in more f2p and b2p games because it's just that good. No power selling. Cosmetics and convenience only. A number of fun little items. Everything obtainable with conversions from ingame currency. It just doesn't get any better.
Basically, Guild Wars 2 should be applauded, not frowned upon, for its innovations.
It's a breath of fresh air, even if the scent of it may not be to your particular liking. It has its market (as does the traditional MMO), and it still has a lot of potential, if Anet is able and willing to realize it. Most importantly, it's the first fundamentally NEW game the genre has seen in far too long.
It's easy to copy and paste. It's difficult to actually create something different and nearly impossible to make this difference work out immediately. Guild Wars 2 has a lot of issues (just like any other game), but it also makes a lot of legitimate and even great fundamental design decisions that have the potential to progress the genre more than any game has since WoW. And as the months pass, I predict that it will fix more and more of its core issues and we'll see something beautiful be produced as a result. And that's a good thing - because I for one was tired of playing bad re-textures of the same exact game for all these years.
Comments
I don't think so. To me, the innovation should be found in the activities (the actual gameplay!) you do during the game:
WvW, as you clearly stated, is a zerg fest. Take something far more organized, like AV in WoW, that has some semblance of strategy to it and A LOT more depth.
The individual nodes etc. don't enhance the gameplay as much as they serve convenience.
One thing you didn't mention is how shallow the actual combat aspect of the game is: the entire resource management found in WoW has essentially been dumbed down to one bar (dodge) for most professions and this means that to compensate they either make PvE nothing but a dance fest, or an AFK fest.
They might have succeeded at removing a trinity for some, but in the other sense they have failed in making it anymore engaging.
GW2, at the end of the day, has VERY, VERY little depth, both in gear choice (berserkers for PvE, perhaps PVT/Rabit WvW/SPvP) and actual active gameplay compared to other titles and this is not a good thing and should not be praised.
I love the jumping puzzles, but at the end of the day they are simply fluff.....
GW2 is just one giant marshmallow; delicious to eat, but not due to the complexity of the taste, but the ease with which you can enjoy it.
Innovations for convenience just don't cut it in my book, sorry. I don't think WoW is the best game in the world for having a dungeon finder either... which is ironically the one thing this game sorely lacks.
I main an Ele. Elementalist combat is anything but shallow. It's a dance of skill chains, judgment calls (I can swap to water and heal my teammates, but I'll lose access to my fire AoEs for a while), long cooldowns as a resource, and overall deep gameplay. I've never had that experience in another MMO, and I doubt that I ever will. The Elementalist is the ideal representation of Guild Wars 2's principles and the standard that all classes should strive to meet.
Also, all mmo gameplay is shallow and always has been. There is no depth in the trinity - it's a combat system formed out of habit that attempts to add order and structure where order and structure DON'T belong.
I didn't read it all but the SPvP part i agree that conquest is boring for an mmorpg, atleast on this scale. If they wanted conquest they should have done it like BF3 large scale conquest but that is pretty much already in the game in the form of WvWvW. I don't really know why they went with conquest in SPvP, has it ever worked in any other game in such small scale? not really.
If they did a moba-style map, SPvP would have been successful. SPvP = structured pvp, sorry but i don't see how it's structured, it's just a mess. What you want in SPvP is instant and meaningful action, in a moba you get that kind of action.
^this.
trinity is an excuse for laziness. i cant tell you how many healers i have known to simply surf the net, chat, hangout while healing a raid ... and successfully i might add.
you want old school? find me a tank in Dungeons and Dragons (pre video game rules, aka 4.0). or a main healer that does nothing but spam tank heals, or spam any kind of heals. why? because the "AI" was a person. why doesn't the trinity work well in pvp? for the same reason. at some point intelligent conflict occurs and you can't simply do the tank dance. or the overall raid dance.
all GW2 did was have only slightly improved AI coupled with taking the training wheels off. of course you don't like it. its not completely predictable. your fellow teammates may or may not play their varied roles well. they can't load up Healbot (funny name for an addon that purportedly is for 'thinking' 'strategic' trinity gameplay). and of course you don't like "dancing" around, at least this kind of dancing because it requires that you pay attention.
you don't like the game b/c all you want is what you had before and you keep trying to hammer the square block into the round hole.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
It is quite shallow, because you're immensely restricted on many times you can attune to a different element over the course of a match, not to mention that as the tradeoff Elementalists lose the ability to switch weapons during combat.
Long cooldowns aren't a resource to manage, but a situational response that every game since the dawn of RPGs has had.
Compared to playing something with both resource management and forms (mapped to attunements), like a balance druid in WoW, it's quite trivial.
There are no macros in GW2, because there is simply no need macro due to how trivial combat rotations are.
Not to mention the lack of CC per character, making individual ability less of a factor in PvP play than Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Even in SPvP it devolves to your composition vs. theirs for the most part, because individual ability almost doesn't matter.
I'm sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong.
Listen in on some of the higher-tiered voice coms. If you honestly think WvW doesn't involve strategy, you're either playing on the amateur tiers (in which case u might be right), or you aren't looking very hard. There's actually quite a bit of strategy that goes into WvW. From base trades, to supply traps, juggling efficient counters to various types of siege (and siege placements). 3 of your keeps are being assaulted simultaneously. One's being trebbed from garrison, one has a golem rush, and one is merely being zerged. Who should go where; which keep can you stall for time, etc. are all somewhat common occurances in WvW that demand smart, on the fly decision making if you wanna stay on top of the game.
I'm not sure how you think AV from WoW is even remotely a standard when it comes to large-scale, siege-based PvP. It was fun, but it was simple. Much like the rest of WoW.
It's kind of ironic, how you describe GW2 as this 'shallow treat', yet use WoW as an example of a deep gameplay experience, considering WoW is designed from the ground-up to be a 'shallow treat'. Easy to understand, accessible, and engaging. I've only played 1 MMO in recent years that had comparable choice compared to GW2, when it came to combat. And that would be Rift. Most games (WoW including), give the illusion of choice, but don't actually deliver.
In GW2, I see many people trying to simplify the classes down to THE most basic playstyle & gear choice; only to turn around and criticize the game for being too limited. And yet, I have multiple different setups for EVERY character. From PvE builds, to WvW, to sPvP. And they ALL are viable. Furthermore, the meta is constantly changing, forcing people to re-evaluate certain builds in favor of others.
There's really only 1 class atm that's somewhat limited compared to the others, and that would be thief. Mostly because that class is a balancing nightmare.
If you believe that GW2 doesn't have depth in gear choice then you really haven't played the game. I could try to explain it to you but you really just have to see it for yourself in order to understand where I'm coming from.
I make builds in this game and that's pretty much all I do most of the time and if there's anyone who knows about how much gear choice matters, it's people like me.
This is not a game.
I agree with OP.
There is indeed a lot of things that GW2 can improve and while WvW do sounds fun on paper, making a huge PvP area like that with plenty of keeps that only a larger group of players can take (practically at least) can only lead to zergs.
You can still sneak around killing dolyaks and players who go around for world completion (not to mention others doing the same thing) but it still is too little.
Adding guild Vs guild PvP is really a no brainer for the sequel of a game that became famous for just that.
Also they really need to rethink the WvW combat.
And I still don't see why you need it for the legendary weapon that really is more PvE focused otherwise (but then I might just be annoyed since my side always play red and I still miss 2 castles and 1 keep in the borderlands for my 100%).
Other than that, they need to increase the difficulty of the open world bosses. I never seen a dragon that actually won after a years playing and that kinda takes out the fun of those fights.
Dungeons also needs work, it is particularly annoying that you can earn more money killing champions in queensdale then actually doing dungeons which is a lot harder. Up the drop rate of exotic stuff in dungeons and add more items with cool skins that only drops there to make them more worth my while.
There is plenty of things that can and should be fixed, of course. Then again, MMOs do grow with time even if some of them grow in directions I don't like.
This is not a game.
Interesting conversation here so far. IMO the issues with GW2 are the disconnected experience. When the game initially launched people talked, worked together, etc... After 4 months of non stop play I realized everyone just did their own thing next to each other. The removal of the relics from WvW due to exploiting made WvW just zerg ping pong with little in the way of goal other than the score. I and my mates enjoyed the combat and character builds, but just felt so alone in what appeared to be a well populated game. I have joined numerous guilds, just to watch them shrink and I end up 1 of 2 only members online.
The increasingly amount of instance content in a game with amazing overworld activities baffled me as well (in the first 4-6 months). I despise running instanced content over and over. 4 years in WoW broke me of that. When they added fractals it was if the life was sucked out of the game. Everyone just parked in Lions Arch and ran fractals. To me, open world gameplay was the largest feature of the game, and the increasing amount of instanced content just killed that. Bear in mind the only thing I really do is log in and check out some of the event content, but the lonely instance play gets dull. I really do like the world, the lore, the idea of open world content, and open world pvp conquest with purpose. The simple fact, for me and my mates, is the game is lonely and boring.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
The reason people don't use macros is that you need to time certain attacks and they are usually the ones that are most useful. Sure, you can make a macro that spawn every attack as son as it gets ready but it will never get near what an acceptable player can dish out. In many other games you use skill rotations anyways.
But yeah, some moron probably uses it...
And yeah, anyone saying individual damage and CC isn't enough is just wrong. My thief usually dies because a warrior bullsrush me and then kills me in a second with a 2 hands sword. Too much CC makes PvP really annoying anyways.
Nice post Aeander... there's one extra game I'd add to your small list of original or different games: Fallen Earth.
OK, so it's gone F2P and more recent changes have damaged things, and it's old, and the mobs respawn way too fast but...
In short, a really original game, way ahead of its time. Shame the studio went bankrupt.
Yet none of those things matter, because WvW is designed so that it's an aggregate over time. There is no win/lose condition that you, or your guild, over your finite playtime can affect. By virtue of that alone, it defeats the need to develop strategies, also due to the fact that you are awarded mostly by how many enemies you tag with AoE, not by your ranking at a point in time.
You can "strategically" place a few trebuchets, but in most cases this won't matter, since the discrepancy between your numbers and theirs decides the outcome.
AV was much more strategic, because each individual could turn the tide of battle, especially when it came to rogues/druids capping individual points. The time restriction put into place later also made strategy much more important. You were also guaranteed equal numbers and rewarded much more for winning than losing, implying the necessary incentive to actually win was there.
When strategy is optional and does not yield any reward, you have the state of GW2 WvW, which is follow the blue dot on your map for badges. Most servers are like this and you can't blame them for it.
GW2 combat is much more shallow, because it omits rotations entirely, especially in PvE. It is a simplification of WoW combat (although it is substantially more complex than GW1 to say the least) for most professions, especially the druid. Map dodge to any of the myriad escape/teleport mechanisms in WoW and you will only have injections from the GW2 skill set into WoW and not the other way around.
PvE in GW2 is Berserker gear with the direct damage maximizing trait spec. The community is not to blame.The scripted one-shot dance encounters are. I can fight Giganticus, one of the hardest bosses in the gam, without getting hit once, while putting myself in harms way and making use of other stats, like toughness/vit, is nothing but an unnecessary exercise. Not to mention that conditions overwriting each other and caps, along with the condition-immune objects you are often forced to kill, mean that you really don't have a choice for a PvE optimal set outside of Berserker with a maximum direct damage spec.
SPvP is where the only trait diversity is at, but they insist on keeping it separate from the actual end-game "progression" in the game.... so.. that's life.
No trials. No tricks. No traps. No EU-RP server. NO THANKS!
...10% Benevolence, 90% Arrogance in my case!
This is not a game.
Berserker is PvE optimal. Sure you can complete content with sub-par gear with respect to DPS and complete content at a leisurely rate, but that is merely skinning the cat with a butter knife compared to a chainsaw.
None of the PvE encounters are particularly challenging, which is why any gear can work. There are no enrage timers. It isn't like WoW where you need a gear level to succeed.
A lot of people would deem it selfish to use vitality/toughness gear sans condition damage (or even condition damage in some instances), since the major constraint on the dungeons isn't skill, but the amount of time you can spare in a day.
That having been said, there are no real gear choices for the max/min people in PvE.
As for rotations, it gave a lot of classes something to do while waiting for the boss to die or performing the necessary footwork. Some classses required you to look for certain procs, others had rotations that would change with the number of crits in an interval. It was definitely more than the exploit-a-location-and-go-afk-after-pressing-1 that constitutes a few explorable bosses.
I definitely would not target the "lack" of rotations as the source of shallowness in Guild Wars 2 combat. In fact, it's one of the few real saving graces of the combat system. Rotations aren't deep. They aren't interesting. They aren't even fun.
No, Guild Wars 2's combat problems, in addition to the aforementioned dungeon design problems, stem from uninteresting trait and skill interactions.
Ironically, one of the better examples of flexible, interesting skill customization is Diablo 3 (the game that got just about everything else wrong). You could completely change the functionality of a skill by customizing it in a certain way, creating a system that was both simple and deep.
One of the failings of the trait and skill system is that the best traits are typically the most generic. Reduced cooldowns. Increased damage. Etc. But if you could actively customize each skill to act differently with a new system, you'd have something very deep come out of it all. For example, that Chain Lightning auto-attack on the Ele Staff might be dull, but what if it could be customized to bounce to allies, granting them fury, deal AoE damage around each struck foe, or ramp up in damage with each bounce - these are simple, but potentially playstyle-defining changes.
I think part of the problem is that people have been essentially doing the same thing in every mmo except with these tweaks and twists each iteration and they don't even realize they are sick of it all. Its like getting tired of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So instead of not eating them, you just change brands of peanut butter, maybe chunky this time. Maybe grape jelly instead of strawberry, or whole wheat instead of white bread. And after a while you are still sick of it, so you keep tweaking the ingredients never stopping to think maybe the whole thing is just not appealing anymore.
The personal story is probably the worst part of all of ANET's Innovations. But it's not really an innovation. It's really just the ugly side of one of ANET's better innovations. DE's are one of the best PVE mechanics GW2 offers. However, the heavy use of DEs has a down side. They really cannot be used to convey the lore that well. Although there are some dynamic events that do tell a story, (Malchor's Leap) being one, but it's a self contained story. Since they cannot be specifically chained in an order, DEs are just not an overall effective way to advance lore in a cohesive way. They cannot really advance your character into critical points in the game's development Getting specific quested gear items at specific times in a character's advancement. The personal story was their answer. To give players the option to do solo activiteis while at the same time advacne the game's Lore and even at a very personal level. Sounds great in theory, but execution left something to be desired.
To address the OP, I think there are 2 things ANET did wrong with this game.
1. It was far too ambitious. They tried to do far too many things at once. To step back and look at what they actually accomplished, they did an amazing job. But in the end, I feel they needed more time and they just didn't have it.
2. I personally felt GW2 is as influenced by WoW as any other. While everyone else was busy trying to replicate WoW, GW2 was trying to hard to not be WoW. Instead of making their own game and paving their own way, They intentionally chose or made a road that hadn't been traveled. Sounds great in theory, but, I think it's a direct contributor to my 1st opinion. It's clear there was an element of ex-WoW players they were targeting with Anti-WoW mechanics. Sure it works. But in some cases, I didn't feel like the trade off was actually better, just different. They re invented some wheels, but do they actually roll better? They could have taken some things that are known to work, refine them, hone them, make them work better then incorporate them.
They should have kept GW1 missions or at least the way missions cinematics and dialogues played.
Even then the first few personal stories, dealing with your character background and the land surroundings, are fine.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
This right here is what soured me on GW2 from the beginning. It seemed they were more focused on making a "Not WoW" than making a game that could stand on its own. Everything they put in was a "Not WoW" feature all the way down to the payment model. Then they proceeded to smear WoW style features in order to promote their "Not WoW" features.
And of course the game is fun for tons of people and is doing well for itself. It just put me off from the start. Tried one beta and never looked back.
I had similar feelings in that GW2's biggest strengths are also its biggest weaknesses. They tried to twist every feature of traditional MMO's into its own Arenanet style or as you put it "not WoW" and thats just too much to accomplish and tune correctly. So because they tried to change too much at once they really didn't succeed in making any of it stellar other than the world of Tyria itself and that seems to be the biggest complaint from players who have left the game. It was one of two of those Arenanet features that put players off either combat lacked meaning, events really are not dynamic just quests without quest givers, lack of meaningful lore etc etc... Players came for a new innovative game and walked away feeling none of those features accomplished much in changing up the MMO scene.
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