Kousei Doragon

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GW2 - Missing the Point, a response to GuildCast 22: ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 Brings The Massively Part of MMO

One point the first point about cross server characters I think was missed was that if people were allowed to make unique characters per server then it could possibly deter people from buying character slots to check out different classes, so from a business stand point it may make more sense to limit how many characters you can make period.

The point about role players seems like a fair one though I do have to state that RPers also shouldn’t expect a similar vacuum space to RP in like in other MMO’s since dynamism is one of the key aspects of Guild Wars 2, which would require unexpected and random player interaction.

On the second point that Jesse Cox brought up about being fed up of the kill ten rats form of quests as well as being led I have some disagreements with Jesse which I’ll elaborate on below.

Before people start complaining the hype/marketing told them something else, they do need to remember that the marketing from the game was literally the developer interviews etc which Jesse himself goes on to say was spot on in its description of the game.

Misinformed?

ArenaNets marketing was literally going around forums, websites on their own website and real world events to explain the game mechanics rather then some overblown flashy CG trailers that are far removed from the reality of the game.

I’m also left to wonder where people conjured up this completely bespoke immersing single but massively multi player custom but shareable experience came from, which the game is in fact to quite a notable degree.

Some people being let down because the moment to moment experience wasn’t custom made in a beta stress test doesn’t make too much sense if that’s being blamed on the facts about the game along with assumptions about the overall game experience being drawn from such a short play time when as Scott says clearly the game has more to it then meets the eye, especially given its scale.

One of the most interesting points about these sort of points being raised is that it usually comes from people who, and often self admittedly did not bother to find out about the game -  which is fair to some degree but not when you blame your dissatisfaction on expectations about the game which really wern’t bolstered by the dev team.

The player experience

Then there is the point about the experience itself revolving around killing etc and finding the same sort of objectives, which Scott Hawkes addresses somewhat but what I think needs to be made clear is that the game has a heavy emphasis on exploration. If you want to see cool and unique things, you need to go out and find them. As for the type of content, I think considering that even single player rpg’s having to strongly emphasize on combat for the majority of the game experience speaks for itself, but Guild Wars 2 does indeed have more cerebral content but with it being a non linear rpg it seems some people expect this sort of content to be spoon fed but not with other forms.

What also of note here is the opposite as if everyone’s hand was held and led to the cool things, those moments would become less private and unique and would also likely lead to the game being labeled as “linear” - yet people will (which even I did momentarily in my first level or two before adjusting) stick to only the obviously highlighted areas, which you really don’t need to.

These are things I think people need to keep in mind in their Guild Wars 2 experience (though perhaps some more helpful pop ups could be used to ease players in) to really get the most out of it, given how with only slight effort you can get so much more out of the game that has by popular consensus blown the big budget MMO experience out of the water and then some - and all within a nifty buy to play package.

This is a great addition to the video. I completely agree with the notion that players are bringing in bolstered expectations based solely on conjecture from places other than official sources.

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Gamebreaker’s take on the ArenaNet Microtransaction Blog

In my previous post regarding the blog post, Inyeri asked - “I’ve seen on other blogs that with gems you could get “time-saving convenience items” do you know what this means? Like, are we going to be able to just level our characters with these items or something? “

I felt this question was worth making a post on as this topic is part of the bigger question of what is an advantage and what is not. In the video Scott Hawkes hits the nail on the head and swiftly sums up the problem and solution to the issue of defining and finding a balance between advantage and convenience as well as where the GW2 CS stands in regards to this.

Scott said “..taking a barrier out….There’s a difference between doing something a little faster and making things possible…as long as you’re not able to do something you could not (otherwise) do ingame” as well as “..i dont see in the system were you’re going to be at a (comparitive) disadvantage…”.

What this means is that as long as non cash shop players have the same chance to experience the same game play (mechanics and balance) and content (all PvX content) as those who are paying there isn’t a clear conflict of the cash shop items role in the game. You are going to experience all the same PvE and PvP content and paying players as far as we know, will not be able to get an advantage over you in PvP.

Also, If we look at the other point of view, if we do start looking for cut off points for the role of cash and advantage then we mite as well scrap pre-orders as it gives the players a massive opportunity to speed ahead in levelling - and that goes for any genre of gaming.

Thankfully, for now we have little to be worried about, hope that clears things up for anyone still unsure about the GW2 Cash Shop - though of course, it remains to be seen how events will unfold.

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My thoughts exactly