What do u mean not innovative. I tell u gw 2 invented computer gaming everything they do is done for the first time how dare u say it wasnt
Gw 2 created the heavens and the earth i tell u. Its the only mmo thats really an mmo. Its changing how rpgs are made from the ground floor up using nothing i mean nothing thats ever been done before.
Turn based combat gone, Rng gone, number mashing gone, We dont ahve any of that in gw 2 , they are reinventing combat, questing everythign i tell u everything
There is nothing Innovative on that list, pretty much everything was done before. I still dont know why people really believe that gw2 is ¨the perfect game¨, the revolution for the genre¨, if you think like that, im sorry but ur disappointment will be bad. It will be a good game, and improved version of gw1 for sure, but thats all, is a b2p game for a reason.
Nice contradiction there .
Not everything on that list has been done before, so yes there are some innovations on that list.
Does that really make the game as a WHOLE innovative? I don't personally think so no; same as ToR, some innovations but not innovative as a whole.
Neither of them are going to be bad games, in fact I'd bet they both do well.
And as for the B2P crack; cute attempt at humor, sadly it seems that is not your strong suit.
There is nothing Innovative on that list, pretty much everything was done before. I still dont know why people really believe that gw2 is ¨the perfect game¨, the revolution for the genre¨, if you think like that, im sorry but ur disappointment will be bad. It will be a good game, and improved version of gw1 for sure, but thats all, is a b2p game for a reason.
There are things that GW2 is doing that haven't been done before, such as chaining in dynamic events. AFAIK, there's no public quest system that has ever done anything like that. It's a pretty significant difference.
Maybe a lot of it has been done before. Perhaps there's another game out there that is 100% friendly to helping other people by having loot and experience for anyone that kills a monster whether or not the people involved are partied or not. Perhaps there are MMORPGs out there that focus on having fun and involving gameplay without a gear grind or worrying that a player coming near you is going to kill you or ruin your fun. There are certainly ones with better PvP than what we see in WoW. There are some with 3 faction PvP. Now I believe if we just grab those qualities and look for a game that has all of them, then you'd come up with nothing. Now look at a whole bunch of other features and some of the truly innovative features and that makes GW2 even more unique.
So some of the features are new and innovative. Many others aren't, but the combination is a distillation of good ideas from the current and past market. That makes the overall product unique and promising. It's easy to say "well, feature A has been done and so has B", but when no one has done A+B, then that's something worth talking about and is arguably innovative in its own right (but certainly unique). So at the very least GW2 is a very unique game with a number of innovations of various kinds.
I am amused that you think somehow having a monthly fee means something. Does WoW have more content than other games? No. The monthly fee means NOTHING and isn't needed to run the servers. Maybe it was a decade or more ago, but not now. It certainly encourages lazy development where you try to make treadmills and use cheap psychological tricks to keep people playing (and paying). There's nothing wrong with a B2P model where you buy content updates and in a lot of ways it is a superior system.
Edit: And on what planet can you look at GW2 and say it is an "improved version of GW1". It's different in so many respects that it is best to consider them completely different games.
I think it might be easier to make a case for innovative GW2 things if you simply look at game design philosophy. It'd make the list a lot shorter, but a lot less arguable, and in some ways, more impressive.
1. B2P is a valid method of making money with an MMORPG - Delivering an AAA MMORPG with a B2P pricing structure.
2. Remove the fight over resources - Everybody has their own loot drop from monsters, no rolling. Resource nodes can be harvested by multiple people, no worries about somebody taking it from you. All people who participate in a fight or event can be rewarded, without taking rewards from others. Characters are automatically deleveled in lower areas to keep them from trivializing and overwhelming all the content.
3. Play with who you want, when you want, how you want - With two minor exceptions (Dungeons appear to require minimum levels, and I'm fairly sure you can't join in WvWvW on an opposing server...), you can team up with your friends. Between automatically sidekicking down, sidekicking up, max level in structured PvP, non faction-split races and teleport points between all the racial cities, you can just hop on, join a friend, and do whatever. There are even commensurate rewards for higher level characters hanging out with lower level ones. I can't think of another MMORPG that does this so THOROUGHLY.
4. Mass PvP is better when it's bigger - Most MMORPGs split mass PvP into little chunks (Witness how carried away Warhammer got with this.) GW2 is not just cramming it all into one massive 4 map area, but rather than having a server divided, each area is x3 servers. That means there can be three times as many combatants as there would be if they limited it to a single server.
5. Have a relatively low power ceiling, then go for horizontal expansion - GW1 did this... but GW1 isn't an MMORPG. (In fact, any other innovation that can be described as '... but GW1 did it', well... GW1 isn't an MMORPG, so yeah. Radios weren't new when somebody decided to stick them in cars, but that's still an innovation in cars, and really changed them quite a lot.)
There's some other things that are innovations, but hey... time to go to work.
... but these are definite design shifts in what it is to be an MMORPG.
There is nothing Innovative on that list, pretty much everything was done before. I still dont know why people really believe that gw2 is ¨the perfect game¨, the revolution for the genre¨, if you think like that, im sorry but ur disappointment will be bad. It will be a good game, and improved version of gw1 for sure, but thats all, is a b2p game for a reason.
I guess the innovation is that someone actually put it ALL IN ONE GAME.
I think the folks at ArenaNet are very talented and GW2 is bringing a ton of unique features and a lot of innovation. As a lifelong gamer, I really respect and admire what they are doing with their game and with the genre. The game itself isnt really my taste so I'll most likely end up passing.
Just remember, innovation is not a right or wrong choice. I see people staking their claim on these forums and using innovation as their ammunition. I think that kind of misses the point especially when we are talking about a non-necessity like video games. Innovation, style, personal preference, visuals, pace, setting; all those factors and more come into play when choosing a game that you like. There is no right or wrong choice. Theres no such thing as a superior personal preference.
Respect other people's tastes and it will go a long way to healthy game discussion
/soapbox
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
This little excample shows that most things you name where done before by other games...
So you were able to find similar elements in other games for 10 out of the 24 items you listed. That's not even half, and several of those are done completely different in the game you listed than how they are done in GW2.
I think you pretty much just proved our point. You can't say "most" things when you were only able to find less than half of them.
And as Malevil mentioned...innovation doesn't mean invention. It doesn't have to be a completely unique idea. It just has to be done differently / better.
EDIT: Oh...and six out of the 10 you mentioned are all Chronicles of Spellborn. Where the developers heavily over-promised, under-delivered, and totally flopped. I don't think a game can really lay claim to a particular feature if they can't even keep their lights on...doing something, and doing it well enough to actually work, are two very different things.
My point is, not everything in GW2 is new and fresh, GW2 is the perfect match between new and innovative things and things that have been proven to work in other games.
Because despite the fact that Spellborn was flawed and flopped as a total package, the combat itselves just worked great.
No criticisme meant towards GW2, .... because both you and me know it will be the first game of the next generation of MMO's. But only half the things listed are MMO firsts and credits for implementing those things first go to other companies. But as a whole GW2 will feel fresh and innovative.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Innovation is a major word thrown around on MMO sites. People need to know what it means and use it the right way. That word will get me going everytime if used wrong. True Innovations in MMO's from a players point is very few and far between. Theres very few innovations to be had. Most innovotions come from better technology, not actuall game mechanics.
I didn't fail to add the 2nd definition. I don't need to add the 2nd definition.
For instance, if we look up the word "funny" in the dictionary we see several definitions.
providing fun; causing amusement or laughter; amusing; comical:
attempting to amuse; facetious:
warranting suspicion; deceitful; underhanded:
Informal . insolent; impertinent:
curious; strange; peculiar; odd:
I can correctly describe something as funny if it has even only one of these attributes. It does not have to have all of them.
Again, we're quibbling here. I was making a list which compares GW2 to the established themepark MMO standard (I might as well have just said "WoW'). If something is different than that, it counts for this list.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
This little excample shows that most things you name where done before by other games...
So you were able to find similar elements in other games for 10 out of the 24 items you listed. That's not even half, and several of those are done completely different in the game you listed than how they are done in GW2.
I think you pretty much just proved our point. You can't say "most" things when you were only able to find less than half of them.
And as Malevil mentioned...innovation doesn't mean invention. It doesn't have to be a completely unique idea. It just has to be done differently / better.
EDIT: Oh...and six out of the 10 you mentioned are all Chronicles of Spellborn. Where the developers heavily over-promised, under-delivered, and totally flopped. I don't think a game can really lay claim to a particular feature if they can't even keep their lights on...doing something, and doing it well enough to actually work, are two very different things.
My point is, not everything in GW2 is new and fresh, GW2 is the perfect match between new and innovative things and things that have been proven to work in other games.
Because despite the fact that Spellborn was flawed and flopped as a total package, the combat itselves just worked great.
No criticisme meant towards GW2, .... because both you and me know it will be the first game of the next generation of MMO's. But only half the things listed are MMO firsts and credits for implementing those things first go to other companies. But as a whole GW2 will feel fresh and innovative.
That's pretty much the same argument people use when they compare DEs to rifts or PQs. Just because it's similar doesn't mean its the same thing.
The definition of innovation, as has been posted in this thread, is to improve upon what is already there. If ArenaNet are doing something similar to what was already in an older game then they are innovating.
Again, we're quibbling here. I was making a list which compares GW2 to the established themepark MMO standard (I might as well have just said "WoW'). If something is different than that, it counts for this list.
This is where the issue of "deception" comes into play. Many are coming here and comparing parts of this list to any MMORPG they happen to know. What this means is that you will have people contesting the validity of your thread's title insistently.
It's not "no strict holy trinity" but "no holy trinity." Without healing throughput, aggro mechanics, and the like, you just can't have a Holy Trinity. There's nothing that indicates Holy Trinity mechanics are supported at all.
I agree, but it's kind of hard to describe in bullet points, and there's no standard definition of holy trinity. I revised it a little but am not happy with it. If anybody has a great way to sum it all up, by all means. Otherwise I might keep working at it.
No, actually. Even though there is no aggro mechanic, and no targetted heals, there are still 3 roles in combat, Control, Support, and Damage. Control being similar to CC, Support being similar to buffing, booning, and mitigating damage, and Damage being similar to DPS.
Like I said in my last post, there's no standard definition of Holy Trinity.
Personally, I believe there's nothing magical about a Trinity in gameplay. If this was an FPS where we all just had shotguns, it would be a Unity. If there were Riot Shield classes and Shotgun classes, it would be a Tank/DPS Binary.
In a game like WoW, there's a Trinity of Tank, Healer, and DPS. In my own personal definition, it's a Holy Trinity because those classes do those roles and those roles only. If you're a DPS every single decision from talents, gems, glyphs, enchants, gear, skill rotation are all about maximizing your DPS. You might be able to switch roles outside of combat, but in combat, you've got one role. Hybrids don't exist.
It doesn't have to be that way though. For instance, in Everquest, an Enchanter was just about a mandatory member of a group yet could go entire nights NEVER tank, NEVER heal, and NEVER damage ANYTHING. They just had insane crowd control and buffs.
In GW2, skills (and the weapons that grant them) can be lumped into categories of damage, control or support, but that doesn't mean players can be. You could try to stack yourself with control skills, but you still can't be a dedicated tank due to the limitations of dodging and self heal.
There's also no clear cut division of labor. In WoW, controlling the mob is the responsibility of the tank. In GW2, anyone could use a control skill, it doesn't have to be the person being attacked. In WoW, a healer doesn't DPS, it's a waste of time. In GW2, everyone is responsible for dealing damage in between using whatever skills are needed to keep people alive.
I originally said "No Strict Holy Trinity", but I stand by the decision to say "No Holy Trinity" because even if there is a new Trinity, it's not the same as in a traditional MMO.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
It's not "no strict holy trinity" but "no holy trinity." Without healing throughput, aggro mechanics, and the like, you just can't have a Holy Trinity. There's nothing that indicates Holy Trinity mechanics are supported at all.
I agree, but it's kind of hard to describe in bullet points, and there's no standard definition of holy trinity. I revised it a little but am not happy with it. If anybody has a great way to sum it all up, by all means. Otherwise I might keep working at it.
No, actually. Even though there is no aggro mechanic, and no targetted heals, there are still 3 roles in combat, Control, Support, and Damage. Control being similar to CC, Support being similar to buffing, booning, and mitigating damage, and Damage being similar to DPS.
Like I said in my last post, there's no standard definition of Holy Trinity.
Personally, I believe there's nothing magical about a Trinity in gameplay. If this was an FPS where we all just had shotguns, it would be a Unity. If there were Riot Shield classes and Shotgun classes, it would be a Tank/DPS Binary.
In a game like WoW, there's a Trinity of Tank, Healer, and DPS. In my own personal definition, it's a Holy Trinity because those classes do those roles and those roles only. If you're a DPS every single decision from talents, gems, glyphs, enchants, gear, skill rotation are all about maximizing your DPS. You might be able to switch roles outside of combat, but in combat, you've got one role. Hybrids don't exist.
It doesn't have to be that way though. For instance, in Everquest, an Enchanter was just about a mandatory member of a group yet could go entire nights NEVER tank, NEVER heal, and NEVER damage ANYTHING. They just had insane crowd control and buffs.
In GW2, skills (and the weapons that grant them) can be lumped into categories of damage, control or support, but that doesn't mean players can be. You could try to stack yourself with control skills, but you still can't be a dedicated tank due to the limitations of dodging and self heal.
There's also no clear cut division of labor. In WoW, controlling the mob is the responsibility of the tank. In GW2, anyone could use a control skill, it doesn't have to be the person being attacked. In WoW, a healer doesn't DPS, it's a waste of time. In GW2, everyone is responsible for dealing damage in between using whatever skills are needed to keep people alive.
I originally said "No Strict Holy Trinity", but I stand by the decision to say "No Holy Trinity" because even if there is a new Trinity, it's not the same as in a traditional MMO.
Re Stealthbr:
The "Holy Trinity" certainly refers to the Tank-Healer-DPS mechanic. That's absolutely true and there's no ambiguity there. If there are 3 roles, but it isn't Tank, Healer, an DPS, then it isn't the Holy Trinity. Period. I've discussed this issue to DEATH in the past, read articles on it, etc, etc. I've never encountered anyone ever until you that tried to claim "if there's three roles of ANY KIND, then it's the Holy Trinity."
If that's how you define it, then it is a worthless definition, since it in no way signifies anything useful about gameplay. Lost Vikings is now a "Holy Trinity" game. That's crazy.
Cali:
I have to reluctantly agree that there is a certain amount of ambiguity in the term "Holy Trinity". While it always means Tank-Healer-DPS roles, there are some that choose to understand it as any sort of division into those 3 roles at all. That is, if there's a healer role, however small and light the specialization, and the same with the other HT roles, then it's a Holy Trinity game. It's a bit uncommon to have people argue this, but I've seen it before. Imho, this is also a horrible way to look at it, because it absolutely fails to describe how combat is different between such games and games that really have the extreme specialization that you see in WoW, Rift, EQ2, SWTOR, AoC, etc (note that EQ didn't really have a Holy Trinity, since it had more esthan just 3 roles as you noted). Seems best to me to keep Holy Trinity to define what it is about those games that seperates them from others.
There are some things about GW2 that makes it different from that Holy Trinity gameplay everything that has been said and their stated design goals.
There's no Tank role in any form at all. You don't have someone running in and holding aggro. There's no taunt, no high-threat abilities, nothing to hold aggro with. From what we've seen there's also not the extreme levels of toughness specialization that has to be combined with this to make a tank. If everyone is somewhat close in toughness, then anyone can take damage well -- there's no tank and with aggro mechanics as they are, everyone will be doing that. Taking damage still exists of course, but a tank is more than that and doesn't exist in GW2.
Secondly, there's not the extreme form of specialization that you see in other games. Can someone do a bit of group healing in GW2? Sure, but from everything we've seen they still do quite a bit of damage. Not only that they MUST do quite a bit of damage, since without doing damage they can't do any significant healing to others (e.g. Water Elementalist stuff). Further, we've seen it said and shown that while this is helpful, people still have to use their own healing abilities, abilities that remain viable ALWAYS. That means everyone has significant healing and further each person is the most significant healer for themselves.
Of course, the stats they are going for with classes back this up, as do preliminary traits. Overall, looking at combat through a Holy Trinity lens is counterproductive. It's like looking at D&D combat as a Holy Trinity game. That's just not what is going on and trying to view things that way will lead to bad decision making. D&D as I said in another thread, is actually kind of similar in some general ways to GW2. There's less extreme specialization as a rule, it lacks dedicated healing (there's potions and healers just don't have the necessary throughput), and people therefore have to use their flexibility to accomplish things in combat. It also has strong elements of positioning, crowd control, and so forth. All this means is that in combat you are doing multiple things and really have to adapt to the situation, applying abilities as necessary for what is going on, and everyone does significant damage (though some more than others, granted).
So while there is SOME ambiguity in the Holy Trinity term to some people, I think the most useful measure is "does combat play like WoW/EQ2/etc?" The answer is a resounding "NO". If we the term is kept broad, then it loses that very meaningful distinction.
Awesome list and to the naysayers and doubters who either think it isnt innovative or refuse to believe a game can have all those features then I will point out that every one of those features is already in their press demo games and none of them had been put in ONE single MMO to date.
So in all seriousness GW2 will be the mother of all innovation and no delusions or hyperbole can change that fact. Get ready for the massive media blitz and advertising to come to a gaming website near you, and 6 months after release when we see their marketing share exponentially increase then maybe you doubters may figure it out and jump on the bandwagon.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
The way I am reading things is that damage prevention, through buffs, CC, and just killing fast, rather then the emphasis being on tank/ heals is the key to their system.
Maybe I have it wrong, but thats how I have been seeing it.
Also damage prevention from dodging and positioning.
The coolest aspect to me is really that players can "play the battlefield"...using other people's spells and position to their advantage. Creating combos and being able to take advantage of heals/buffs that weren't cast directly on you means that players will be interacting and being self-sufficient at the same time. Groovy.
Originally posted by Lord.Bachus My point is, not everything in GW2 is new and fresh, GW2 is the perfect match between new and innovative things and things that have been proven to work in other games.
Because despite the fact that Spellborn was flawed and flopped as a total package, the combat itselves just worked great.
No criticisme meant towards GW2, .... because both you and me know it will be the first game of the next generation of MMO's. But only half the things listed are MMO firsts and credits for implementing those things first go to other companies. But as a whole GW2 will feel fresh and innovative.
The list wasn't intended to be "things that ArenaNet invented that have never been done in the genre before". As I said early in the thread, sometimes innovations can come from already existing ideas. How you alter those ideas, and combine them, can be innovative. Peanut butter was invented, jelly was invented, bread was invented...but then someone thought to put those three in combination, and the PB&J sandwich was born, which I would call an innovation. You could break down the person who thought of the sandwich by saying "Well, someone else invented peanut butter, someone else invented jelly", but that sort of misses the point.
SO...it's more about taking the whole list in combination. The brand new ideas, the re-thought and retooled older ideas, plus the inclusion of all the elements that make a game true MMORPG...all come together in a combination very different from anything we've seen before in a first-rate high-production-values MMORPG.
If nothing else, the list shows just how many non-standard-MMO features GW2 is combining into a single cohesive game. They are very willing to take outside the box elements from all over the genre (even the early genre) and flesh them out in order to support their design philosophy.
Maybe the thread should have been called "List of features which, when taken all together, make GW2 an innovative game." *shrug*
This is not innovative; its actually a big downer! games need to go the other way to make them fun again risk vs reward has been screwed up for years now. if you have nothing to risk when you enter the dungeon in search of uber loot then whats the point?
The thing about Guild Wars 2 that makes me want to play it sis that is innovating enough to not feel as another "wow like game with new features". Like Warhammer Online and (i'm sorry) SWTOR.
The Holy Trinity was done away in City of Villains when the Thermal Corruptor could not heal or the Brute tank. When the game released no one class combination could heal directly well enough to keep people from dying nor could the brute take the punishment from a boss or even a group of mobs. Groups would use debuffs to soften the enemies send in pets for the alpha strike and use shields and other methods including distracting the enemies by splitting them up and and also creating groups within groups to handle those and using controlled CC. We had to play smartly. Doing away with the holy trinity is truly not an innovation because City of Villains already did it years ago. It is a pity that being a superhero game many people were not as exposed to it like a fantasy game would have for a lot of folk not to realise how innovative the game was.
About the limited skill bar Everquest had a limited spell bar where you could only memorize 8 spells. I thought that did lend a lot of strategy to the spellcasters in Everquest. Of course not the same thing but the idea of limiting things in a fight has been done before although I realise that it went further in Guildwars 1.
I think GW2 is going to be a great game am looking forward to it but I do wish this idea that the game is the first to do away with the holy trinity is so widely accepted when it is untrue.
They actually happen instead of just being told about them
Failable and not necessarily repeatable on failure
Allow for victory and failure conditions not easily accomplished with quests
Run in cycles so they're repeatable
Encourage community by letting everyone participate
Instantly scale up or down with number of players participating
Reward everyone involved based on their amount of participation
Chain together to keep people working together longer
Affect the world in terms of what merchants sell and which waypoints are available
Don't always run so you'll see different things when revisiting a zone
Constantly adding new events to enhance replayability
Boss fights which scale with number of players up to 100
Open World:
Entirely PVE
No factions
Designed to be as griefless as possible
No race/class restrictions
Phased gathering nodes, everyone gets a shot
Everyone can gather everything so no waiting on others/making people wait
No set path through zones
Automentoring keeps entire world's content rewarding and challenging
Manual sidekicking to a higher level friend
City to city ports so you can play with friends immediately.
Teleportation to any waypoint you've unlocked
Hidden events to reward explorers
Day/night cycle which can affect your weapons' procs as well as trigger DEs at certain times
Dynamic weather can trigger DEs (when snow falls) or be changed by DEs (NPC causes snow)
Tasks to fill hearts in the open world, for completionists and NPC goodwill
Boss fights at the end of all the tutorials put you right into the action
PVP:
3 Faction World PVP against two other servers in large 4-zone maps
No fixed limit to number of participants (though eventually technology would limit it)
W/L record is kept
After 2 weeks, your server is matched up against new, equal strength servers
Winning server gets PVE buff of some kind
Castles and keeps to hold, dynamic events to fight over, trade routes
Destructable environments
Players can level up entirely in World PVP
Enemy players drop loot as if they were PVE enemies
Hot joinable Structured PVP
Structured PVP with custom rulesets
Players in structured PVP are max level with all skills and gear so it's a level playing field
PVP balanced separately from PVE
Those are probably my top 3, and contribute most for this game being a mmorpg. The complete opposite, for example, of why SW:TOR is a single-player confining rpg which lacks these mmorpg features.
Guild Wars 2 can't come out soon enough. Thanks for the list....well-done.
The Holy Trinity was done away in City of Villains when the Thermal Corruptor could not heal or the Brute tank. When the game released no one class combination could heal directly well enough to keep people from dying nor could the brute take the punishment from a boss or even a group of mobs. Groups would use debuffs to soften the enemies send in pets for the alpha strike and use shields and other methods including distracting the enemies by splitting them up and and also creating groups within groups to handle those and using controlled CC. We had to play smartly. Doing away with the holy trinity is truly not an innovation because City of Villains already did it years ago. It is a pity that being a superhero game many people were not as exposed to it like a fantasy game would have for a lot of folk not to realise how innovative the game was.
About the limited skill bar Everquest had a limited spell bar where you could only memorize 8 spells. I thought that did lend a lot of strategy to the spellcasters in Everquest. Of course not the same thing but the idea of limiting things in a fight has been done before although I realise that it went further in Guildwars 1.
I think GW2 is going to be a great game am looking forward to it but I do wish this idea that the game is the first to do away with the holy trinity is so widely accepted when it is untrue.
Not saying I know this for a fact, but it sounds more like bad design or mayby the enemies power vs players abilities were unbalanced more than they did away with the holy trinity. I know when I tried the game I saw that the classes still had defined roles. Maybe I am wrong about that, but that's how I thought of the class system. Just because a tank couldn't take the damage and a healer couldn't heal enough to keep up the group does not mean that each character can play how they wanted, they still had designated roles.
I can gaurantee you that GW2 won't have the same problem because they designed the game from the get-go to not have a class be pigeonholed into a role. There is a difference. I am not saying GW2 is the first to do this, but it definately is going the other direction from the standard systems that we usually get in our MMORPG's.
The thing about Guild Wars 2 that makes me want to play it sis that is innovating enough to not feel as another "wow like game with new features". Like Warhammer Online and (i'm sorry) SWTOR.
Dont apologise for your own opinions, nobody else is. I've ordered SWtoR and agree with you, but in the same breath I enjoyed playing.
Not saying I know this for a fact, but it sounds more like bad design or mayby the enemies power vs players abilities were unbalanced more than they did away with the holy trinity. I know when I tried the game I saw that the classes still had defined roles. Maybe I am wrong about that, but that's how I thought of the class system. Just because a tank couldn't take the damage and a healer couldn't heal enough to keep up the group does not mean that each character can play how they wanted, they still had designated roles.
I can gaurantee you that GW2 won't have the same problem because they designed the game from the get-go to not have a class be pigeonholed into a role. There is a difference. I am not saying GW2 is the first to do this, but it definately is going the other direction from the standard systems that we usually get in our MMORPG's.
I betaed City of Villains it was part of the design because they wanted us to play using the shields ,debuffs and controls. The heals are not perceived to be weak they were deliberately so. Over the years it changed and now the game is nowhere like it was when it launched. I also believe people were unaccustomed to it and would constantly ask for certain builds that could play a role like a pseudotank or healer and this further eroded it. However the game actually launched with no clear tank or healer or a holy trinity.
I also think Villians was also unpopular compared to Heroes because of this and the inability of players to adapt to this style. No one really actually came out and said it was a model to do away with the holy trinity but the thermal corruptor had like two heals and they were very bad and it would only work if they took the shields then the healing was sufficient. The cold corruptor a class I played had other types of shields with no heals that again kept people alive but you had to sacrifice your powers to protect others since the shields could not be cast on yourself. If you augmented them with the proper slotting together with debuffs and pets we could do any mission well. It was all about thought and planning and even how to place the crowd control correctly . Also you have to take into account that you are not facing one enemy or even 5 it is a lot of mobs like 20-30 anyone who has played in an 8 person group in City will tell you that. It is total chaos at times with pets and players and mobs and seriously fun. I honestly believe it was one of the more innovative games because you meet really good players who manage the chaos and you learn to adapt quickly something the traditional holy trinity never had.
It was such a great game but because missions got old fast the game just never took off like it should have. Also I think over time as they added powers it diluted the basic idea of no holy trinity. Villains were always more damaging but lacked healing and proper tanks. I played a brute to 50 an energy brute so I can vouch for this I could not tank myself out of a paper bag. Some builds could manage a beter fit but without shielding/debuffs tanking was impossible. Pets had to be used too but as the game advanced things got trivialized but in the first few months it was simply a wonderful game so different from any other MMO then.
Just ask the older players of City they will vouch for what I am saying.
Comments
What do u mean not innovative. I tell u gw 2 invented computer gaming everything they do is done for the first time how dare u say it wasnt
Gw 2 created the heavens and the earth i tell u. Its the only mmo thats really an mmo. Its changing how rpgs are made from the ground floor up using nothing i mean nothing thats ever been done before.
Turn based combat gone, Rng gone, number mashing gone, We dont ahve any of that in gw 2 , they are reinventing combat, questing everythign i tell u everything
Nice contradiction there
.
Not everything on that list has been done before, so yes there are some innovations on that list.
Does that really make the game as a WHOLE innovative? I don't personally think so no; same as ToR, some innovations but not innovative as a whole.
Neither of them are going to be bad games, in fact I'd bet they both do well.
And as for the B2P crack; cute attempt at humor, sadly it seems that is not your strong suit.
There are things that GW2 is doing that haven't been done before, such as chaining in dynamic events. AFAIK, there's no public quest system that has ever done anything like that. It's a pretty significant difference.
Maybe a lot of it has been done before. Perhaps there's another game out there that is 100% friendly to helping other people by having loot and experience for anyone that kills a monster whether or not the people involved are partied or not. Perhaps there are MMORPGs out there that focus on having fun and involving gameplay without a gear grind or worrying that a player coming near you is going to kill you or ruin your fun. There are certainly ones with better PvP than what we see in WoW. There are some with 3 faction PvP. Now I believe if we just grab those qualities and look for a game that has all of them, then you'd come up with nothing. Now look at a whole bunch of other features and some of the truly innovative features and that makes GW2 even more unique.
So some of the features are new and innovative. Many others aren't, but the combination is a distillation of good ideas from the current and past market. That makes the overall product unique and promising. It's easy to say "well, feature A has been done and so has B", but when no one has done A+B, then that's something worth talking about and is arguably innovative in its own right (but certainly unique). So at the very least GW2 is a very unique game with a number of innovations of various kinds.
I am amused that you think somehow having a monthly fee means something. Does WoW have more content than other games? No. The monthly fee means NOTHING and isn't needed to run the servers. Maybe it was a decade or more ago, but not now. It certainly encourages lazy development where you try to make treadmills and use cheap psychological tricks to keep people playing (and paying). There's nothing wrong with a B2P model where you buy content updates and in a lot of ways it is a superior system.
Edit: And on what planet can you look at GW2 and say it is an "improved version of GW1". It's different in so many respects that it is best to consider them completely different games.
I think it might be easier to make a case for innovative GW2 things if you simply look at game design philosophy. It'd make the list a lot shorter, but a lot less arguable, and in some ways, more impressive.
1. B2P is a valid method of making money with an MMORPG - Delivering an AAA MMORPG with a B2P pricing structure.
2. Remove the fight over resources - Everybody has their own loot drop from monsters, no rolling. Resource nodes can be harvested by multiple people, no worries about somebody taking it from you. All people who participate in a fight or event can be rewarded, without taking rewards from others. Characters are automatically deleveled in lower areas to keep them from trivializing and overwhelming all the content.
3. Play with who you want, when you want, how you want - With two minor exceptions (Dungeons appear to require minimum levels, and I'm fairly sure you can't join in WvWvW on an opposing server...), you can team up with your friends. Between automatically sidekicking down, sidekicking up, max level in structured PvP, non faction-split races and teleport points between all the racial cities, you can just hop on, join a friend, and do whatever. There are even commensurate rewards for higher level characters hanging out with lower level ones. I can't think of another MMORPG that does this so THOROUGHLY.
4. Mass PvP is better when it's bigger - Most MMORPGs split mass PvP into little chunks (Witness how carried away Warhammer got with this.) GW2 is not just cramming it all into one massive 4 map area, but rather than having a server divided, each area is x3 servers. That means there can be three times as many combatants as there would be if they limited it to a single server.
5. Have a relatively low power ceiling, then go for horizontal expansion - GW1 did this... but GW1 isn't an MMORPG. (In fact, any other innovation that can be described as '... but GW1 did it', well... GW1 isn't an MMORPG, so yeah. Radios weren't new when somebody decided to stick them in cars, but that's still an innovation in cars, and really changed them quite a lot.)
There's some other things that are innovations, but hey... time to go to work.
... but these are definite design shifts in what it is to be an MMORPG.
I guess the innovation is that someone actually put it ALL IN ONE GAME.
This is not a game.
I think the folks at ArenaNet are very talented and GW2 is bringing a ton of unique features and a lot of innovation. As a lifelong gamer, I really respect and admire what they are doing with their game and with the genre. The game itself isnt really my taste so I'll most likely end up passing.
Just remember, innovation is not a right or wrong choice. I see people staking their claim on these forums and using innovation as their ammunition. I think that kind of misses the point especially when we are talking about a non-necessity like video games. Innovation, style, personal preference, visuals, pace, setting; all those factors and more come into play when choosing a game that you like. There is no right or wrong choice. Theres no such thing as a superior personal preference.
Respect other people's tastes and it will go a long way to healthy game discussion
/soapbox
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
You missed the best Innovation of all:
FOCUS ON COMMUNITY BUILDING,
NOT ELITISM!
"The problem with quotes from the Internet is that it's almost impossible to validate their authenticity." - Abraham Lincoln
My point is, not everything in GW2 is new and fresh, GW2 is the perfect match between new and innovative things and things that have been proven to work in other games.
Because despite the fact that Spellborn was flawed and flopped as a total package, the combat itselves just worked great.
No criticisme meant towards GW2, .... because both you and me know it will be the first game of the next generation of MMO's. But only half the things listed are MMO firsts and credits for implementing those things first go to other companies. But as a whole GW2 will feel fresh and innovative.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I didn't fail to add the 2nd definition. I don't need to add the 2nd definition.
For instance, if we look up the word "funny" in the dictionary we see several definitions.
providing fun; causing amusement or laughter; amusing; comical:
attempting to amuse; facetious:
warranting suspicion; deceitful; underhanded:
Informal . insolent; impertinent:
curious; strange; peculiar; odd:
I can correctly describe something as funny if it has even only one of these attributes. It does not have to have all of them.
Again, we're quibbling here. I was making a list which compares GW2 to the established themepark MMO standard (I might as well have just said "WoW'). If something is different than that, it counts for this list.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
That's pretty much the same argument people use when they compare DEs to rifts or PQs. Just because it's similar doesn't mean its the same thing.
The definition of innovation, as has been posted in this thread, is to improve upon what is already there. If ArenaNet are doing something similar to what was already in an older game then they are innovating.
This is where the issue of "deception" comes into play. Many are coming here and comparing parts of this list to any MMORPG they happen to know. What this means is that you will have people contesting the validity of your thread's title insistently.
Like I said in my last post, there's no standard definition of Holy Trinity.
Personally, I believe there's nothing magical about a Trinity in gameplay. If this was an FPS where we all just had shotguns, it would be a Unity. If there were Riot Shield classes and Shotgun classes, it would be a Tank/DPS Binary.
In a game like WoW, there's a Trinity of Tank, Healer, and DPS. In my own personal definition, it's a Holy Trinity because those classes do those roles and those roles only. If you're a DPS every single decision from talents, gems, glyphs, enchants, gear, skill rotation are all about maximizing your DPS. You might be able to switch roles outside of combat, but in combat, you've got one role. Hybrids don't exist.
It doesn't have to be that way though. For instance, in Everquest, an Enchanter was just about a mandatory member of a group yet could go entire nights NEVER tank, NEVER heal, and NEVER damage ANYTHING. They just had insane crowd control and buffs.
In GW2, skills (and the weapons that grant them) can be lumped into categories of damage, control or support, but that doesn't mean players can be. You could try to stack yourself with control skills, but you still can't be a dedicated tank due to the limitations of dodging and self heal.
There's also no clear cut division of labor. In WoW, controlling the mob is the responsibility of the tank. In GW2, anyone could use a control skill, it doesn't have to be the person being attacked. In WoW, a healer doesn't DPS, it's a waste of time. In GW2, everyone is responsible for dealing damage in between using whatever skills are needed to keep people alive.
I originally said "No Strict Holy Trinity", but I stand by the decision to say "No Holy Trinity" because even if there is a new Trinity, it's not the same as in a traditional MMO.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Cali ignore them trolls and nay sayers, you got the backing of most of the community. Its a very good list and very informative.
good list, good points, its mainly a rehash of what any die-hard GW2 fan knows. but you sir have been around and the list is well done.
Re Stealthbr:
The "Holy Trinity" certainly refers to the Tank-Healer-DPS mechanic. That's absolutely true and there's no ambiguity there. If there are 3 roles, but it isn't Tank, Healer, an DPS, then it isn't the Holy Trinity. Period. I've discussed this issue to DEATH in the past, read articles on it, etc, etc. I've never encountered anyone ever until you that tried to claim "if there's three roles of ANY KIND, then it's the Holy Trinity."
If that's how you define it, then it is a worthless definition, since it in no way signifies anything useful about gameplay. Lost Vikings is now a "Holy Trinity" game. That's crazy.
Cali:
I have to reluctantly agree that there is a certain amount of ambiguity in the term "Holy Trinity". While it always means Tank-Healer-DPS roles, there are some that choose to understand it as any sort of division into those 3 roles at all. That is, if there's a healer role, however small and light the specialization, and the same with the other HT roles, then it's a Holy Trinity game. It's a bit uncommon to have people argue this, but I've seen it before. Imho, this is also a horrible way to look at it, because it absolutely fails to describe how combat is different between such games and games that really have the extreme specialization that you see in WoW, Rift, EQ2, SWTOR, AoC, etc (note that EQ didn't really have a Holy Trinity, since it had more esthan just 3 roles as you noted). Seems best to me to keep Holy Trinity to define what it is about those games that seperates them from others.
There are some things about GW2 that makes it different from that Holy Trinity gameplay everything that has been said and their stated design goals.
There's no Tank role in any form at all. You don't have someone running in and holding aggro. There's no taunt, no high-threat abilities, nothing to hold aggro with. From what we've seen there's also not the extreme levels of toughness specialization that has to be combined with this to make a tank. If everyone is somewhat close in toughness, then anyone can take damage well -- there's no tank and with aggro mechanics as they are, everyone will be doing that. Taking damage still exists of course, but a tank is more than that and doesn't exist in GW2.
Secondly, there's not the extreme form of specialization that you see in other games. Can someone do a bit of group healing in GW2? Sure, but from everything we've seen they still do quite a bit of damage. Not only that they MUST do quite a bit of damage, since without doing damage they can't do any significant healing to others (e.g. Water Elementalist stuff). Further, we've seen it said and shown that while this is helpful, people still have to use their own healing abilities, abilities that remain viable ALWAYS. That means everyone has significant healing and further each person is the most significant healer for themselves.
Of course, the stats they are going for with classes back this up, as do preliminary traits. Overall, looking at combat through a Holy Trinity lens is counterproductive. It's like looking at D&D combat as a Holy Trinity game. That's just not what is going on and trying to view things that way will lead to bad decision making. D&D as I said in another thread, is actually kind of similar in some general ways to GW2. There's less extreme specialization as a rule, it lacks dedicated healing (there's potions and healers just don't have the necessary throughput), and people therefore have to use their flexibility to accomplish things in combat. It also has strong elements of positioning, crowd control, and so forth. All this means is that in combat you are doing multiple things and really have to adapt to the situation, applying abilities as necessary for what is going on, and everyone does significant damage (though some more than others, granted).
So while there is SOME ambiguity in the Holy Trinity term to some people, I think the most useful measure is "does combat play like WoW/EQ2/etc?" The answer is a resounding "NO". If we the term is kept broad, then it loses that very meaningful distinction.
Awesome list and to the naysayers and doubters who either think it isnt innovative or refuse to believe a game can have all those features then I will point out that every one of those features is already in their press demo games and none of them had been put in ONE single MMO to date.
So in all seriousness GW2 will be the mother of all innovation and no delusions or hyperbole can change that fact. Get ready for the massive media blitz and advertising to come to a gaming website near you, and 6 months after release when we see their marketing share exponentially increase then maybe you doubters may figure it out and jump on the bandwagon.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Indeed
The list wasn't intended to be "things that ArenaNet invented that have never been done in the genre before". As I said early in the thread, sometimes innovations can come from already existing ideas. How you alter those ideas, and combine them, can be innovative. Peanut butter was invented, jelly was invented, bread was invented...but then someone thought to put those three in combination, and the PB&J sandwich was born, which I would call an innovation. You could break down the person who thought of the sandwich by saying "Well, someone else invented peanut butter, someone else invented jelly", but that sort of misses the point.
SO...it's more about taking the whole list in combination. The brand new ideas, the re-thought and retooled older ideas, plus the inclusion of all the elements that make a game true MMORPG...all come together in a combination very different from anything we've seen before in a first-rate high-production-values MMORPG.
If nothing else, the list shows just how many non-standard-MMO features GW2 is combining into a single cohesive game. They are very willing to take outside the box elements from all over the genre (even the early genre) and flesh them out in order to support their design philosophy.
Maybe the thread should have been called "List of features which, when taken all together, make GW2 an innovative game." *shrug*
The thing about Guild Wars 2 that makes me want to play it sis that is innovating enough to not feel as another "wow like game with new features". Like Warhammer Online and (i'm sorry) SWTOR.
The Holy Trinity was done away in City of Villains when the Thermal Corruptor could not heal or the Brute tank. When the game released no one class combination could heal directly well enough to keep people from dying nor could the brute take the punishment from a boss or even a group of mobs. Groups would use debuffs to soften the enemies send in pets for the alpha strike and use shields and other methods including distracting the enemies by splitting them up and and also creating groups within groups to handle those and using controlled CC. We had to play smartly. Doing away with the holy trinity is truly not an innovation because City of Villains already did it years ago. It is a pity that being a superhero game many people were not as exposed to it like a fantasy game would have for a lot of folk not to realise how innovative the game was.
About the limited skill bar Everquest had a limited spell bar where you could only memorize 8 spells. I thought that did lend a lot of strategy to the spellcasters in Everquest. Of course not the same thing but the idea of limiting things in a fight has been done before although I realise that it went further in Guildwars 1.
I think GW2 is going to be a great game am looking forward to it but I do wish this idea that the game is the first to do away with the holy trinity is so widely accepted when it is untrue.
Those are probably my top 3, and contribute most for this game being a mmorpg. The complete opposite, for example, of why SW:TOR is a single-player confining rpg which lacks these mmorpg features.
Guild Wars 2 can't come out soon enough. Thanks for the list....well-done.
Not saying I know this for a fact, but it sounds more like bad design or mayby the enemies power vs players abilities were unbalanced more than they did away with the holy trinity. I know when I tried the game I saw that the classes still had defined roles. Maybe I am wrong about that, but that's how I thought of the class system. Just because a tank couldn't take the damage and a healer couldn't heal enough to keep up the group does not mean that each character can play how they wanted, they still had designated roles.
I can gaurantee you that GW2 won't have the same problem because they designed the game from the get-go to not have a class be pigeonholed into a role. There is a difference. I am not saying GW2 is the first to do this, but it definately is going the other direction from the standard systems that we usually get in our MMORPG's.
RIP Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan and Paul Gray.
Dont apologise for your own opinions, nobody else is. I've ordered SWtoR and agree with you, but in the same breath I enjoyed playing.
I betaed City of Villains it was part of the design because they wanted us to play using the shields ,debuffs and controls. The heals are not perceived to be weak they were deliberately so. Over the years it changed and now the game is nowhere like it was when it launched. I also believe people were unaccustomed to it and would constantly ask for certain builds that could play a role like a pseudotank or healer and this further eroded it. However the game actually launched with no clear tank or healer or a holy trinity.
I also think Villians was also unpopular compared to Heroes because of this and the inability of players to adapt to this style. No one really actually came out and said it was a model to do away with the holy trinity but the thermal corruptor had like two heals and they were very bad and it would only work if they took the shields then the healing was sufficient. The cold corruptor a class I played had other types of shields with no heals that again kept people alive but you had to sacrifice your powers to protect others since the shields could not be cast on yourself. If you augmented them with the proper slotting together with debuffs and pets we could do any mission well. It was all about thought and planning and even how to place the crowd control correctly . Also you have to take into account that you are not facing one enemy or even 5 it is a lot of mobs like 20-30 anyone who has played in an 8 person group in City will tell you that. It is total chaos at times with pets and players and mobs and seriously fun. I honestly believe it was one of the more innovative games because you meet really good players who manage the chaos and you learn to adapt quickly something the traditional holy trinity never had.
It was such a great game but because missions got old fast the game just never took off like it should have. Also I think over time as they added powers it diluted the basic idea of no holy trinity. Villains were always more damaging but lacked healing and proper tanks. I played a brute to 50 an energy brute so I can vouch for this I could not tank myself out of a paper bag. Some builds could manage a beter fit but without shielding/debuffs tanking was impossible. Pets had to be used too but as the game advanced things got trivialized but in the first few months it was simply a wonderful game so different from any other MMO then.
Just ask the older players of City they will vouch for what I am saying.