Curse

Test Me · Apr 27, 2010, 06:49 AM // 06:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazilla

When are we gonna start getting NEW info on GW2? I am sick of these interviews that are old information, or nothing at all.

Indeed, this interview was pretty much a waste of time and had nothing new, just the realization that ANet's design director loves grind... or I can't explain his thoughts on GW grindtastic titles.

Consider GW's lifetime: 5 years for game content playable in 150h or so? The rest is just grind. I think we can safely assume that no other MMO managed to get grind to this level, they all had to release some new content to keep players entertained. But not ANet. They could call it quits 3 years ago and give us numbers to push up for over 3 years.

And if the design director lists that those titles keeping players busy for 3 years with almost no content addition at all (except more grind: the weekly grind for nick's items, the zcoins grind for new storage, etc)... is one of the best things in GW, then I'm really worried about GW2 being full of grind from the start.

I was willing to grind some for the big promise GW2, but if that isn't back to the original GW values (no grind) then I'm not interested.

Cantos · Apr 27, 2010, 08:37 AM // 08:37

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Looking back at the game now with several years of experience behind you, what is one thing that you would change?

Just one, huh? I'd make sure we had a fully-staffed live team from the start. We've gotten better about it over the years, but in the beginning, we couldn't respond to player needs as quickly as we should have because we were always scrambling to get the next campaign ready. This would need to include either public test servers or something like the Test Krewe we have today.

This is such a weird response. At the start, the "live team" gave us grenth's footprint and weekly updates. There was also an Alpha Test running from prior to launch to Nightfall.

But now that we get updates every other month, they've really nailed that live team issue have they? It's great they've finally listening to the community with a private group of players who test updates which is totally unprecedented?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ariovist Lynxkind

He himself actually said that it was a softball interview. Kinda surprised the interviewer didn't ask harder questions after that comment

It's always a bit hard to read sarcasm, but think he was being sarcastic when he said that, because that was the most interesting question in the interview.

Arkantos · Apr 27, 2010, 08:43 AM // 08:43

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Hard Mode – One of the interesting parts of having a game that rewarded player skill

I lol'd.

On topic, very softball article with nothing of importance, really. Nice to see his views on the game over the past few years, though.

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Since when has adding heroes been a good thing? They have been removed from pvp for completly overshadowing humans with certain aspects of the game. They also led to the collapse of any recgonizable population within districts, since people don't need other people nowadays when heroes can do everything for them. I had no problems when henchmen were added, because they still made the group functional if you were missing profs. on a team, but their terrible ai and skillbar punished you for not having a full team of humans. Heroes watered the concept of group work down.

They were removed from PvP because, well, its player vs player. AI are meant to fill in when a person or two are missing, not the other way around. And no, they didn't really lead to less human parties. I mean, yeah, they did, but the main reason of human parties becoming less popular wasn't completely because of them. The main reasons would be 1) Lots of GW players are terrible, and 2) As the game aged, it was much harder to find a party.

Overall, adding heroes was a very positive thing.

Ariovist Lynxkind · Apr 27, 2010, 08:45 AM // 08:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cantos

This is such a weird response. At the start, the "live team" gave us grenth's footprint and weekly updates. There was also an Alpha Test running from prior to launch to Nightfall.

But now that we get updates every other month, they've really nailed that live team issue have they? It's great they've finally listening to the community with a private group of players who test updates which is totally unprecedented?

It's always a bit hard to read sarcasm, but think he was being sarcastic when he said that, because that was the most interesting question in the interview.

I think they are meaning the live team as it is, not the whole crew working on something (as what would have happened with Grenth's Footprint/Sorrow's Furnace). The way I read it is that he is talking about a Live Team separate from the developers dedicated to the game as is, not those who are also working on new content/campaigns.

As for the sarcasm, he could have been, but the whole interview did kinda seem softball (no real pushing for anything)

Bryant Again · Apr 27, 2010, 08:50 AM // 08:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Drunkard

Since when has adding heroes been a good thing? They have been removed from pvp for completly overshadowing humans with certain aspects of the game. They also led to the collapse of any recgonizable population within districts, since people don't need other people nowadays when heroes can do everything for them. I had no problems when henchmen were added, because they still made the group functional if you were missing profs. on a team, but their terrible ai and skillbar punished you for not having a full team of humans. Heroes watered the concept of group work down.

There isn't so much a problem with Heroes as much as there is a problem with Guild Wars.

Way back in the day (more like two years ago), I was playing Expert in L4D1 with bots. It's real hard to get used to but possible, and the fact that they can never deliver friendly fire is a HUGE bonus. On the times I wanted to try something different I booted up a campaign on Expert and saw how far I could get (and it was usually pretty darn far! Beat two campaigns this way!)

But even still I tried to play with other people as much as possible. It wasn't for efficiency or anything, but because it was fun. Beating a campaign with 3 computers is nowhere near as satisfying as plowing through with three people, nor does rolling with CPU's bring out any "woo-hoo"s or "hell yeah"s. Even failing with people was a lot more enjoyable than with a computer.

So why, in Guild Wars, am I avoiding playing with others like it were the plague?

I feel that there are a variety of reasons:

1. One difficulty: For years there was only one difficulty setting to accommodate for several types of player skill. I really feel this to be a problem in numerous MMO's and I contribute it largely to the fact that many are open-world. I hope ANet is able to get over this hurdle with GW2, otherwise we're gonna be stuck at Thundeternal Grove forever.

2. Choices: With more variety comes more bad builds. There will always be more inefficient builds as opposed to solid ones. However, I personally feel that there's way way way too much bad as opposed to the good. ANet has acknowledged that there were way too many skills in GW1, so hopefully they keep it really, really toned down for GW2.

3. "LF ONE MORE MONK": Creating a well-balanced PUG was a pain in the ass. "LFM" meant having to sit in an outpost, doing nothing, and waiting for the final slots to fill up. Being hasty with lines like "maybe we'll be fine with one monk" and other scary thoughts often times lead down to death.

I was hoping GW's Party Search would've helped things a bit. I was hoping it would allow me to LFG even if I was out adventuring or farming it up. Instead it just meant I didn't have to spam the same message every few moments.

4. Failure: Losing happens in every game, but not every game hasn't painful. The reason I've personally been so discouraged in PUGs is when you get a good party going, you get enough monks, and you get an overall party balance set up - and you die at the last boss of the mission.
That. Is. Devastating. I fully believe one of the biggest PUG killers to be the fact that the missions in 3/4th of the campaigns result in a restart if everyone dies. That's nearly akin to having to start over an entire campaign in L4D if the survivors are all killed or incapacitated!
In GW:EN things were better, with res shrines acting as checkpoints. But things are still the same in the other campaigns.

5. Protect the NPC: Okay this just sucks. Never do this again for a mission, ANet. Having to heal one more person is an easy-concept, I know, but not easy for quite a few out there. Fortunately - like what they did with the above in the "failure" section - ANet took note of how annoying this was as well, and made NPC=RESTART very very rare in GW:EN.

Cookies to anyone who actually reads this wall of text.

(Datura) · Apr 28, 2010, 07:05 AM // 07:05

wow, stop acting like a bunch of douche bags.

No wonder the devs go to gwg2.

Have your opinions, disagree with everything in the article. I don't like some of the grind either

but the tone of this thread is lame.

Rampage · Apr 28, 2010, 07:31 AM // 07:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by (Datura)

wow, stop acting like a bunch of douche bags.

No wonder the devs go to gwg2.

Have your opinions, disagree with everything in the article. I don't like some of the grind either

but the tone of this thread is lame.

1) Devs go to gw2g because, well, GW1 is old news, and GW2 is still in super hype. Of course they'd rather talk to their future GW2 cash cows (I mean community) rather than their old GW1 community.

2) You do realize that the community from gw2g is mainly from here, and it's going to be the exact same eventually, right?

Jade Zephyr · Apr 28, 2010, 02:55 PM // 14:55

Agreeing with The Drunknard..

JR · Apr 28, 2010, 04:32 PM // 16:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rampage

2) You do realize that the community from gw2g is mainly from here, and it's going to be the exact same eventually, right?

I doubt it. Both ArenNet and their fansites have learned some hard lessons in handling a community over the past five years. Those lessons aren't going to be wasted.

(Datura) · Apr 28, 2010, 04:33 PM // 16:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rampage

1) Devs go to gw2g because, well, GW1 is old news, and GW2 is still in super hype. Of course they'd rather talk to their future GW2 cash cows (I mean community) rather than their old GW1 community.

2) You do realize that the community from gw2g is mainly from here, and it's going to be the exact same eventually, right?

1) You have a good point there.

2) Yes, I realize that but the way people behave over there is completely different. It's a non-hostile experience.

2b) as to things eventually being "the same" at gwg2 in the future.....