Curse

Martin Firestorm · Apr 22, 2009, 09:49 PM // 21:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Right, for the very few guilds who managed to get a spot in the tournament and place well enough, at a time when the game was its most competitive.

I'm talking about the PvP community as a whole here.

Even though only a few received the cash, I always felt the cash incentive created more general interest and drew in more players. The automated tournaments were a step back imo.

JR · Apr 22, 2009, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Firestorm

Even though only a few received the cash, I always felt the cash incentive created more general interest and drew in more players. The automated tournaments were a step back imo.

I can see that point. The high profile tournaments did a lot to cement Guild Wars as a competitive game early on, if nothing else did.

I would love to see a similar idea for GW2. Maybe large annual tournaments held at one of the big conventions, with a decent cash prize. It would generate a lot of hype, potentially pulling in a lot of competitive gamers who are attracted to the idea.

I have no idea how feasible that is though.

Lonesamurai · Apr 22, 2009, 09:58 PM // 21:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

I can see that point. The high profile tournaments did a lot to cement Guild Wars as a competitive game early on, if nothing else did.

I would love to see a similar idea for GW2. Maybe large annual tournaments held at one of the big conventions, with a decent cash prize. It would generate a lot of hype, potentially pulling in a lot of competitive gamers who are attracted to the idea.

I have no idea how feasible that is though.

Or get the yearly tournies back up and running

Yichi · Apr 22, 2009, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Firestorm

The automated tournaments were a step back imo.

Had they implemented them correctly, and not lost 1/3 of their playerbase in the wait time for them, they would have had the opposite effect. They could have led to bigger and much more profitable (player perspective wise) outcome than the bs we actually got.

[DE] · Apr 22, 2009, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dakka Dakka

I smell PvP elitisim, or sarcasm..... or me

But seriously while the majority of the PvE crowd aren't too bright don't just disregard them as ignorant. I know a few great PvE'rs that are VERY smart when it comes to balance issues.

Not me though as I for most of my GW experience used a cruddy Hammer/endurance build that sat there and did absolutely nothing in PvP.

Eh, still giving the PvE community to much credit. Ensign and a few other dR members walked right into DoA, played with SMS, and dominated the area back before PvE-Only skills and all that shit. However, SMS could never walk into GvG and expect to do even close to half as well as dR.

The knowledge players gain in PvP is useful in all areas of Guild Wars. Unfortunately, the knowledge gained in PvE (especially after the release of NF/EoTN) teaches players nothing but gimmicks and shit play. People may say the PvE crowd isn't ignorant, but I'd beg them to take a second look.

Lonesamurai · Apr 22, 2009, 11:16 PM // 23:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by [DE]

Eh, still giving the PvE community to much credit. Ensign and a few other dR members walked right into DoA, played with SMS, and dominated the area back before PvE-Only skills and all that shit. However, SMS could never walk into GvG and expect to do even close to half as well as dR.

The knowledge players gain in PvP is useful in all areas of Guild Wars. Unfortunately, the knowledge gained in PvE (especially after the release of NF/EoTN) teaches players nothing but gimmicks and shit play. People may say the PvE crowd isn't ignorant, but I'd beg them to take a second look.

your 100% right, but the problem is the arrogant nature that the PvP community as a whole has, especially to the pvE community that they see as beneath them, rather than seeing them as another part of the community and offering help

hell, how much better would the game community as a whole be if the PvP community actually took time in PvE areas to Pug and help PvE'ers whilst not PvP'ing? or hell, even shared build knowledge more

and I'mnot flaming the PvP community, I have a lot of people I consider friendsnow in that community, but especially around the first World Championship the divide was so massive all the communities had left was bile and hatred for each other... PvE considered PvP a burden for skill changes that affected them and PvP'ers considered PvE to be a killing blow to the game

Snow Bunny · Apr 22, 2009, 11:31 PM // 23:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lonesamurai

your 100% right, but the problem is the arrogant nature that the PvP community as a whole has, especially to the pvE community that they see as beneath them, rather than seeing them as another part of the community and offering help

Mainly because the PvE community never wants anything nerfed. The PvE community as a whole is literally quite content to blow up the most difficult areas in the game with characters that are invincible. Of course a community of people who play the game for the challenge are going to look down on them. PvPers are better skill-wise, so thus they're arrogant. PvE'ers who can clear FoW in 20 seconds are going to be arrogant towards PvE'ers who still use Searing Flames for their heroes.

Quote:

hell, how much better would the game community as a whole be if the PvP community actually took time in PvE areas to Pug and help PvE'ers whilst not PvP'ing? or hell, even shared build knowledge more

PvPers do pug. They're often horrified at their terrible builds that the PvE'ers (who claim to have equal skill) come up with. For quite some time now, the PvE meta has come directly from the PvP, all up until Shadow Form's ridiculous buffs. Look at most build archetypes and you can see where PvP's influence has been there - Splinter Weapon, WoH hybrids, Imbagons, sabway...PvPers came up with the backgrounds for all of this.

The notoriously thin skin PvE'ers have when it comes to criticism is one of the reasons PvPers don't care for them.

Lonesamurai · Apr 22, 2009, 11:46 PM // 23:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

Mainly because the PvE community never wants anything nerfed. The PvE community as a whole is literally quite content to blow up the most difficult areas in the game with characters that are invincible. Of course a community of people who play the game for the challenge are going to look down on them. PvPers are better skill-wise, so thus they're arrogant. PvE'ers who can clear FoW in 20 seconds are going to be arrogant towards PvE'ers who still use Searing Flames for their heroes.

PvPers do pug. They're often horrified at their terrible builds that the PvE'ers (who claim to have equal skill) come up with. For quite some time now, the PvE meta has come directly from the PvP, all up until Shadow Form's ridiculous buffs. Look at most build archetypes and you can see where PvP's influence has been there - Splinter Weapon, WoH hybrids, Imbagons, sabway...PvPers came up with the backgrounds for all of this.

The notoriously thin skin PvE'ers have when it comes to criticism is one of the reasons PvPers don't care for them.

Unfortunately also all very true

but the biggest thing PvP'ers need with PvE'ers in general is patience, as very soon the arrogant PvE'ers will be weeded out and the others will look upto the PvP'ers for help and guidance

hell, my guild used to run in guild gvg to show build strategy and placing to new PvE'ers... its amazing how quickly they started heading over to the battle isles after we had too

Winterclaw · Apr 23, 2009, 12:00 AM // 00:00

I'd rather rits be kept in GW and necros removed. I'd also like to see some spirits that move with the rit instead of all of them being fixed in location.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Balance Mobs
This has been better since Nightfall, but still not perfect. Mobs should generally have a better mix of classes. A couple of Monks, Warriors, maybe a Mesmer and an Ele or two... It would remove the stupidity of getting teamspiked by a group of 8 level 25 Elementalist monsters, and would give PvE players who hope to move into PvP some better preparation. It would also make gimmick builds in PvE less powerful, requiring people to think more about approach and roles.
Solution: Mix up classes more in mobs. Stop people steamrolling through advanced areas with simple gimmick builds. Put more emphasis on skill and playing as a team in PvE.

I agree with this to a degree. Humans and intelligent mobs should be mixed at times (sometimes a group of a single class would be acceptable like ranger spike or el spike). However dumber monsters shouldn't be given different classes if they are grouped. If you run across a pack of wolves, they shouldn't be running balanced.

Jensy · Apr 23, 2009, 12:44 AM // 00:44

I wish that so many people who play PvE weren't of the whiny/no nerfs EVAR/never willing to learn type, as they make those of us who aren't look bad :P

Also, yeah, anyone running a Sabway/WoHProt/etc build (or hero) has to both thank the PvP players who came up with the builds, and facepalm at themselves for not thinking outside of their own 8-skill boxes and looking instead at the 64 skills they're charging into battle with. It's even criminally easy to make a good team build that doesn't have gimmicks, because you already know wtf you're going to be fighting in any area.

Balanced mobs would be wonderful. It seems like a game of chase your tail.... make the mobs hard to beat, give PvE imbalanced PvE skills to beat them, make the mobs even harder, give the PvE players consumables, etc. and where does it eventually stop? With permasins and cryway/jesusbeam/wtfever? Meh.

FoxBat · Apr 23, 2009, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

For quite some time now, the PvE meta has come directly from the PvP

This really only began around nightfall with SF ele heroes, then HM really brought it to the fore. Before then people were happy to play triple meteor shower, echo SS, tank warriors, etc. I've tried thinking about the reasons and there's just too many and it's too complex, but the main factor is that the bar for success is not set that high. You don't need the absolute best build for an area until you start caring about clear times- and that's when the real PvE innovations called "farming" happen, and those builds can and often do look completely different from anything in PvP. But until you set an additional challenge like that before yourself, you can "get by" with any meta PvP build just because it's at least half-decent.

sindex · Apr 23, 2009, 01:20 AM // 01:20

I think JR does have a point about most of GW's flaws. I would like to add to that a bit more.

The Misdirection.

I think the entire game itself was a massive misdirection by a certain type of modern game development process. It still succeeds where others have failed though (like having order to chaos). Basically GW (from the very beginning) faced what we call an “identity crisis,” and made itself twisted in a way, where we both loved the game and hated it equally. I think the whole problem actually is apart of only half-fixing mistakes (like you have stated). We all should know by now that the original intentions for GW was to make it a PvP based game, and the PvE side was kind of thrown together at the last minute.

From that very first step in making the game, they made a huge mistake. If you are going to work on something, then you never want to use a type of half-bake method for your work. In which everyone can see the initial flaws from the very foundation of the game. Everyone knew at that point that the plot behind GW was necessarily weak minded, in which some portion of the game felt as if it getting anti-climatic. People just stopped caring and the only character that stuck with them since the very beginning was Gwen (location: pre-searing). As we know that storyline line went flat, with the tragedy that became EotN plotline.

Core Professions are also broken.

Going into the sheer mechanics of the game itself; I will take it even further and say that even the core classes were poorly thought out. Maybe everyone thinks they were fine, because they were nostalgic to any fantasy RPG that is out there. However I feel that some of them were completely overlooked during their time.

Let’s look at the Monk as an example of this, in which his/her system of healing or protecting fellow teammates from harm would seem fine on paper. However what is truly the reward into helping other people as a monk? The answer is almost completely nothing, since you don’t get any points in keeping you team alive. Yes, you have the satisfaction of doing so, but it generally feels less rewarding. The other problem is that usually if the team fails the first primary fault of that particular failure is put upon the monk first. So this mechanic was supposed to address via the Smiting attribute line, but never was fully fleshed out into working attribute. Most people will say that the Smiting skills are a joke outside of PvE.

Useless Skills.

This brings me to one of the other major problem with the game, in which some skills are totally and absolutely ignored once they are made. Even when they were developed about 1/5 of the overall skill base of each campaign, would sometimes be used on a practical basis. Yes, they tried to address this by buffing some while nerfing others, but even that in itself played out poorly. Don’t get me started on the sheer amount of duplicate skills that are out there now, since the supposed “buffing of useless elite skills.”

Poor Communication.

Every problem can be addressed to this type of misdirection of the game. I see this problem growing at a dramatic rate; thanks to poor communication skills on both sides of the deployment team, the community, and the press. Unfortunately I think GW 2 will suffer because of this problem. If they were suppose to learn anything from the work from before hand, then it certainly did not show in their last effort: EotN.

Even now they are continuing this bad practice of poor communication. They have left everyone in the dark, when it comes to the processes of working on their next project(s) (given it in being GW 1 or GW 2 related). They only talk about certain efforts when it suet their needs. This has started when they worked of the first campaign for GW, and into present terms; in which can start to see a pattern. They only talk about their work at the very beginning of their development process (pre-production) and at the end (post production). There seems to be no middle into what they are actually doing with that work. It’s like they are gambling every time a game goes out the door. I don’t know why they do this, but it’s hurting them more then it’s helping.

Dakka Dakka · Apr 23, 2009, 02:28 AM // 02:28

Quote:

The notoriously thin skin PvE'ers have when it comes to criticism is one of the reasons PvPers don't care for them.

That may be true but a reason why PvE'ers may seem to have a thin skin and unwilling to learn is by the quality of the criticism of the critic.

Many times a PvP'ers version of a critique is nothing more than, "Dude your build sux why are you here?" This puts the person on the defensive and angrily tries to defend the faulty build.

A good critic always calmly tries to see what the person is trying to do and suggest alternatives. Sadly you just don't see that type of quality in most PvP areas.

FoxBat · Apr 23, 2009, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by sindex

crazy stuff

It's been a long time since someone who bothered to write a wall of text with good formatting and grammar, and yet be completely wrong about everything. I'm disappointed actually.

- Yes PvE was not as much of a focus at the beginming as it later turned out to be. But the prophecies campaign is pretty freaking big compared to the PvP maps- it wasn't a mere tutorial the way an RTS campaign is. Even though the "endgame" was supposed to be largely PvP, the whole idea really existing in a middle zone- in Strain's words "after you've spent all this time conquering monsters and building up your character, what's better than going an owning your friends with those cool gear?" Factions was a better attempt at getting the two integrated - but ultimately didn't succeed for various reasons.

IMO this has mostly to do with the incredible integrity of GW's PvP system- even if it took some ridiculous grind to get there, there really was a level tier where you stopped and were equal to everyone else- something you don't find much in most MMOs. No-one in WoW gets away with just playing PvP all the time for example. This is also compounded by the original introductory PvP method (RA) being complete garbage.

- It's interesting to think what could have been done better about the 5 core (the necro is recognizably broken in PvP as the mesmer was in PvE) - unfortunately your example is ridiculous and doesn't begin to address anything. GW awards everyone on the team equally for kills, so monks get just as many points as anything else. Some people like that style of play, some don't, but enough do because you can find plenty healers around.

- Communication could be better but it's laughable as a large-scale issue. Most customers don't visit forums and fansites or care what the devs/PR have to say about anything. It's just not on the same level as any of these other considerations.

aapo · Apr 23, 2009, 02:45 AM // 02:45

The project has been bit of a cluster**** since the Factions expansion.

1. Think what you want to accomplish. It's not possible to make competitive PvP game and MMO game at the same time. Think how to spend your budget effectively. We have ten aspects (e.g. level system, equipment system) which are there just because adventure game is supposed to have them, but none of them are anything to tell others about.

2. Rigidness. Before we get to talk about what particular skill mechanics cause imbalance, we should address the system which makes effective balancing impossible. When every character except Warriors, Rangers and Paragons have same energy pool, same energy regain rate and skills which "cost" just the same, we have already taken away one good factor for balancing. Another glaring lack is percentage-based skill use. Let me show what I'm talking about:

Shadow Shroud:
For x...y seconds, target cannot cast spells.

It's either conditionally the most overpowered skill ever, or if you nerf duration, the most useless thing ever. So why not...

Shadow Shroud:
For 5 seconds, x...y% of target's spells will fail.

Point is not what the numbers are, point is that this is a great method to balance skills which have really powerful effect when applied. In GW1, the only handicaps are duration, power, energy cost, casting time and recharge. Things which generally place most of the skills to "crap" category when another skill does same trick for cheaper. Why there can't be factors like proximity to target, duration of targeting, not moving/attacking, slower movement, casting bonuses...? Again let's look at Shadow Shroud.

Shadow Shroud:
Applies hex to target enemy and causes -x energy degeneration to caster. Whenever you stand next to target, he/she cannot cast spells. Hex can last maximum of 30 seconds.

A way to counter by moving away from enemy, which depends on player's attentiveness. Stuff that makes games interesting and varied.

UnChosen · Apr 23, 2009, 03:00 AM // 03:00

PvP and PvE skills should be completely different to begin with because they have completely different play style...The whole game is labeled as an RPG but in reality only PvE is and PvP is mostly RTS with a RPG like cover.

Improvavel · Apr 23, 2009, 03:09 AM // 03:09

Of course the most efficient way of playing PvE was never PvP style - was farming style.

That is why there is a rift between the communities.

PvP players want PvE players, some that have 0 interest on moving to PvP, to play PvE in a PvP style and despise them for not doing so. But, PvE, for long has been about making money, hasn't it? And that revolves around farming.

And I don't see farming builds coming out of GvG, although I've seen VwK farm builds used on GvG.

So here we have - people that play PvP (any type of game) are generally interested on the challenge of defeating other human beings. People that play RPGs are generally interested in stuff like history, seeing their characters stats improve and collect stuff, then some people that play MMO like to be there doing something while chatting with people or mess about.

So people that are interested in PvP only, or mostly, laughing at people that couldn't care less about what they think of them is quite laughable too.

Especially because the most efficient way to achieve the goal of PvE, which is (for some) acquire stuff or chat/mess about (for others) isn't achieved with PvP tactics.

Yes, PvP require skills and abilities PvE doesn't and a player slow to learn them will have a hard time and be under pressure to learn them fast or lose.

But people that don't play it, don't need it. And if they don't play it why should they learn it?

So I agree with JR, that makes perfect sense to separate the game, because the community is diverse in their objectives, while sharing some or most of the same mechanics, allowing players that enjoy THE different aspects SIMULTANEOUSLY to do so.

Anet strategy to make a game that unified PvE and PvP, and mingled them, IMO, failed.

But a PvP starcraft player laughing at someone because he/she only plays the campaigns where he/she has all those special units and faces retarded AI is silly. Actually its more like a PvP starcraft player laughing at a PvP GW player cause he knows shit about starcraft PvP.

And so is PvP GW players laughing at PvE players because they play PvE and don't care about PvP. Laugh at those that think they are something special for beating AI, but by the same token, loads of PvP players that think they are all the shit are pretty crappy too.

Sometimes I think the side of the community that only cares about PvP is deep inside jealous of the attention and the goodies the PvE side of the game get and just wish the PvE side of the game disappeared (and fortunately for the players that only want to PvP, they don't have to play PvE these days as opposed to the earlier days) so they could get all the goodies instead of having to share them (someone will say GW was a "PvP" game - of course that by magic it hit stores with a PvE side).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About GvG balance.

The game is balanced between player/guilds. They all have access to the same skills and builds options.

What is imbalanced is the relation between skills and builds available or tactics.

Believing that in a game where you have so many choices as GWs there will be loads of different tactics and you can pretty much pick any skill to put in your team pool of skills and have a chance to win, is pure utopia.

A monk has for example 35 elites to choose from his primary profession only. Sorry, but unless they all do the same, a few of them will be stronger than the others and in relation to the total pool of skills played.

PnH is one of the skills everyone talks about. Yes it is ubber powerful killing all hexes and conditions. Yet, if someone could hex the entire opposing team (lets say compass range energy degeneration) with a 5e casting cost hex with 5 seconds recharge and pretty hard to interrupt, this version of Pnh would be shit to stop it and would drop of the pool of playable skills. Or maybe make PnH 2 seconds casting time and it will be cannon fodder for d-shot and it will disappear from the game.

GWs skills are like a pool of genes - some are better suited for the present conditions than others, even if the others are quite good too or just plain crap.

The way the game is designed the best it can be achieved is a revamp of the meta every so few other months with buffs and nerfs.

When people ask for balance in GvG what they really mean is that they want the match to be played in a certain different way.

Games like starcraft are balanced in a different way - you need to make every race have a fair chance of beating the others in the maps available (you never heard about ZvZ, PvP or TvT being imbalanced though since they were the mirrors). But if you go look at a replay from the last WCG and then go see a replay of the WCG a year before and a replay of the WCG 2 years before, the matchups play exactly the same.

Yichi · Apr 23, 2009, 04:32 AM // 04:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by UnChosen

PvP and PvE skills should be completely different to begin with because they have completely different play style...

In a game that was built around the end game being PvP combat, this is actually wrong, but with ANET's decision to flop 180 degrees after implementation of the game, it flopped even more as it allowed the gap to widen between PvE players and PVP players, and with the limited exposure or training towards PvP in this game, its either a "I want to PvP" or not decision, thus in lies the biggest problem.

Probably the biggest problem within the game is that there is no direction or encouragement in the natural state of the game, nor has there been, to actually draw and attract new players. The only reason that many recent additions to the PvP scene or the "Casual" PvP scene is that with nothing else left to do in PvE, they figure why not. There is no real and true interaction towards PvP in a PvE environment, with even just limited exposure to different types of Tombs format styles (Now called Heroes Ascent), some of which have been completely changed in the rules and functions since conception. In a game that the end game was the original design to have players migrate into the PvP aspect of the game, ANET has done a very piss poor job of drawing and attracting new players towards this community and their game fails to do so as well. Now instead of migrating into the PvP community, players have the option to "Grind" as within other mmo's, one aspect of guildwars that gave it it's originality to begin with.

You will always have 3 distinct types of players in this game. The Hardcore PvP players that practice and train to advance themselves and will actually devote the time to study and advance their play. Guilds like [rawr], [iQ], [Te], [QQ], [PnH], [EvIL], [WM], etc... all did this and have done it very effectively. Then you have the "Casual" Crowd that either has stopped playing competitively, or is good but doesn't have the time to dedicate to take their game to the next level so is satisfied with where they are currently at. And then you will have the No, I only want the fantasy storylines and nothing to do with killing other players, only the story and quests matter, the traditional RPG Player.

Sadly, while at one time the game had the power to, Guild Wars no longer can sway the opinion of either the Hardcore players nor the Traditional players, and the Casual players are the ones that are forcing new life into the system by being the only ones to advance. The Hardcore have almost all left, the Traditional expand as most RPG games will, and the casual becomes an innocent bystander, but a casualty of the game none the less.

aapo · Apr 23, 2009, 07:32 AM // 07:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yichi

In a game that the end game was the original design to have players migrate into the PvP aspect of the game, ANET has done a very piss poor job of drawing and attracting new players towards this community and their game fails to do so as well.

- I have to agree with this, but later you state that RPG players and competitive players are whole different audiences. That is also true, so the migration plan was a failure to begin with. Same problems with grouping in PvE aspect plague PvP aspect as well. Instead of quitting grouping altogether, players in PvP have been practicing discrimination, which can understandably alienate new players. Leavers and ragequitters were common in RA before dishonorable update.

I can understand experienced players' reasons for this discrimination. It's just that there's deep-rooted problems with the whole grouping aspect if you're forced to do so. Just have a look at what difference new players make in any server in FPS games. Simple plugin will fix team balance in a jiffy and no one will feel like they're in losing team.

sindex · Apr 23, 2009, 09:03 AM // 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

Your stuff.

Likewise I feel you miss the point completely and you are trying to compensate for the games lack of proper content.

If one feature is solely focused upon then something is sure to suffer in GW.

Sure the PvP side of the content was pretty well sound to a point. However if you look at the whole PvE section, it’s basically chaotic in Prophecies. It really had no point; other then to get that “better gear,” as you clearly had stated before hand. The reward system was still terrible back then, compared to some of the recent content. Which makes you wonder how hard was it to really implement that into the game in the first place.

To the point of Prophecies being the better campaign is a matter of opinion to some. However I do see the flaws that came with that campaign. My first question is: If people did love the PvE side so much then why did they get these so called “runs” from place to place?” By doing so they would be cutting the campaign itself down to a measly 45%? I have posed this question to many different GW players including some old and some new. A good majority of them tell me that it’s boring in itself, and they just want the endgame content.

Prophecies is really not that big of a campaign compared to some of the single player RPG’s that have been on the market even before hand. Most of the campaign itself is copy and paste content from other fantasy games and novels of that genre; I have seen in recent years. The plot to me was poorly executed and it did not get any better until maybe Nightfall came along. Even the quests themselves left more to be desired. Remember the whole bit about, “We won’t make a whole bunch of fetch quests in EotN like we did in the previous campaigns.” Unfortunately that did not turn out exactly that way, for a good portion of EotN quests.

My point was basically if your going to make a full fledged game then don’t leave out the other 50% to the drawing board. If you want to take your time in making a better game then so be it. Guild Wars felt a little rushed when it came to the overall focus of that particular campaign, while other half suffered because of it.

Prophecies was better in focusing on PvP aspect then the PvE feature. Factions tried to combine the two and failed. Nightfall buffed the PvE aspect of the game, while the PvP was in the back seat. EotN tired desperately to fill in a gap of nostalgic Prophecies moments and failed miserably (PvP side was completely absent).

Why the Monk?

I would have probably agreed with you (2 years ago), about saying that I gave a ridiculous example by using that particular profession. However after taking the monk profession for a “spin,” as my first character; I have to still disagree with you at this point. I originally loved my monk, when I used him for the first year and a half. However the profession itself became highly repetitive like most of the professions.

I started to notice why the monk was on such high demand, and that was because of his/her high dependency level. If you were any other profession you would have a lower chance of being used on a team. In which I never cared for the fact that the profession itself became such a crutch to the core mechanics of the game itself. The monk also became the primary target in crippling the team as a whole. You might as well stick a red bull’s-eye on you and ask for your last rights.

It became even less rewarding when I started to really become better at using the profession. Why is it that only less then 15% of the healing reasonability is on the rest of the team while the monk takes the other 85%? No one profession should ever have that high of a dependence level, then to the other classes that come by it. All the professions should be almost completely equal to each other; so it does not feel like work, but instead feels genuinely entertaining.

The smiting attribute line was a perfect example, in which the profession was never fully drawn out. The only way this particular attribute comes in handy is when you’re farming in PvE. The profession that was supposed to fill in this gap was the Dervish; instead of actually trying to fix most the skills in a way where they would be useful to the Monk. Do you really think that the profession is so perfect that there is no need to fix anything for it? There is always room for improvement.

Poor communication does hurt the business.

I brought up the point of poor communication because it’s been argument that has been beaten to death in this very community. Yes, maybe it’s become a tad bit better with some things in GW 1. Nevertheless there are only a couple of people (plus those who interpret) giving out detailed information about this work at the moment, which includes Linsey and Regina.

However who is really acknowledgeable about the work that is being done on GW 2, besides the information that was first given to us back in July 2007? Have there been any really new hints of information to let on about what is going on with that development process, other then “yes, we are working on it” cliché? This has been repeated with the other GW campaigns/expansion that has come before it. In which I come to almost accept this type of stance on it until the game actually arrives whenever it does.

Your point about that the game really does not matter to the masses is a poor argument. If A-net really wants to pull in more business they have to start looking towards engaging some better press. I am not talking about just reviews, but instead useful information that could tease at the things yet to come. More Q&A sessions with the development team and more resources being pulled to at least acknowledge the game itself, just before it hit’s the retail shelves.

Many different people outside the hardcore regions of the community still ask me all sorts of questions concerning Guild Wars. They ask me things like: Is there any new information of another campaign coming out for GW? How is GW 2 coming along now? Anything new that’s worth coming back to GW 1? These types of questions which I used to get quite frequently in which they have started to die down recently, because I would have to give out some rather disappointing answers.

However at the same time I would have to ward off the “doom/gloom people” who have told me that Guild Wars 2 is vaporware (or is cancelled) and Guild Wars 1 is dead. I tell them that the Guild Wars 1 is still functional and that Guild Wars 2 is still being worked on. I tell them that A-net does not do a whole bunch of press, because they might not like the hype train (a poor answer, since I don’t know).

My arguments are actually repeats from past problems that never were fully addresses. Furthermore some of these problems have been brought up in Guru before (don’t have the time to look up the threads), and have drawn much debate. I have even asked other people who do play or used to play GW about some of these critiques, and most of them agree with me on one level or another. It’s interesting to see how many hardcore GW fans have moved on away from the game, and become so bitter over the last couple of years to a point where they just don’t care anymore.