Curse

GekigangarIII · Sep 04, 2007, 03:14 PM // 15:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by blue.rellik

Dislike grind? Grind is how things are achieved (resonably) in real life

If you want a house, you obviously will have to work to get one and pay it off. You don't just go and get a one and not worry about paying it. Same with any other luxary in real life, you need to work to get them

But of course most people don't care. They don't want to put in the hours to get something. They'll much prefer to sit all day whining at everything ANet does like 'OH NOES! SEED OF LIFE IS NERFED F*** U ANET!!!!!! NOW IT IZ THE SUXOR!!!!! I H8 U BUT I'LL STILL PLAY ALL THE GAMES YOU MAKE EVEN THOUGH I HATE EVERYTHING U DO!!!!!!!!'

Great argument here... It certainly explains why the game industry is dominated by Mortgage simulators and venture capital adventures... /eyeroll.

Most of us have much better things to do with our time than grind for anything. ANet (or any deb/publisher) is lucky to have someone playing their game, they are really pushing it trying to create a vocation out of something that is supposed to be entertainment. A game should never be work, even if you're going for the best of the best item... it should always be entertainment first. The path to riches in a game should always be the fruit of *entertainment* not virtual punchclocking.

dragonofinfinity · Sep 04, 2007, 03:50 PM // 15:50

prophercies is fun but is slow to level (it has been for my prophercies chars)
factions is fun but has a very steap learing curve (especialy if, like me, it was the first one you got)
nightfall has been good for farming and having heros but just doesnt agree with me when srarting a new char.
havent got EoTN yet.

i prefer factions, but there is a reason i have a perma pre!
yay for prophercies!

Slickriptide · Sep 04, 2007, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by King Symeon

The 'skill > time played' statement that people so often bring up was ditched once the reality of a rapidly growing PvE population hit ANet. People came to Guild Wars from all over because it had no subscription fees, which set it apart from other MMORPGs. Some came because of the balanced PvP gameplay and skill > time motto, but the vast majority couldn't have cared less about those things. The PvE was all that they were after. These people gave ANet money; ANet had to cater for them. ANet needed to give players more stuff to do, but they couldn't cause any imbalance. The solution was, partly, optional grind. In addition, they made wealth harder to acquire, and created more money sinks (having to buy every skill, for example).

King Symeon pretty much has the right of it here. You're basically looking at an evolution of the game and its audience.

Guild Wars was originally conceived as a PvP game that happened to have a PvE backstory. The PvE play existed primarily as a way to give players a way to earn their skills and differentiate themselves from others in the process (given that my collection of skills would probably differ from yours). The original vision was complicit in the terminology the devs used. When media people called it a MMORPG, the Anet devs corrected them by calling it a MMOCRPG - a MMO Competitive RPG. The whole point of the low level cap and the relatively shallow effectiveness curve between the levels was to put the emphasis on the skills and the strategic and tactical abilities of the teams in PvP.

As it happened, most people who bought the game treated it like a standard MMORPG and, in fact, were mostly uninterested in more than casual PvP. After a year, I imagine it became rather clear to Anet that their bread and butter gaming audience was, contrary to their design and expectation, the PvE crowd.

The follow-on expansions have been their ways to address the problem of a changing audience while simultaneously holding onto their PvP audience. Guild Wars, after all, is supposed to refer to the wars between the current player guilds, not to the historic guild wars of Acalon's past. Factions attempted to make everyone happy. There was new PvE content for everyone, but the level curve was adjusted so that the PvP crowd wouldn't have to spend an inordinate amount of time on a PvE game that they really didn't care about. Given the number of complaints about Factions being too fast, they adjusted the curve in Nightfall to a happy medium, or so they hoped.

The PvP game is still very active, of course; but I'll wager that there are a lot more players who think of themselves as PvE players than those that consider themselves to be PvP players. Anet has to take that into account when they design new content. The "grind" for titles and armor and such, basically vanity content, and even the changes in the Divine Favor are intended for the PvE audience. A player who cares only about PvP won't give a hang about those things because they're meaningless within the context of his gameplay.

Given that GW:EN has even more PvE-oriented content and, from what I can see, very little in the way of new PvP-oriented content, it simply says that the PvE game has become the more important aspect of Guild Wars. This fact appears to be reflected in the design of Guild Wars 2, in that the info about it seems to indicate that GW2 is going to be less like a MMO-flavored CCG/Combat game and more like a traditional persistent-world MMORPG.

That's essentially why Prophecies is the best chapter. It's the only chapter that adheres to the original vision. Whether future chapters ought to return to that vision is moot, given the changed player environment and the continuing rumors that GW will be replaced by GW2. Personally, I think it's a mistake for Anet to decide to halt GW development entirely, but they know their resources better than an armchair game designer does. In any case, I haven't seen anyone quote an Anet developer as saying that GW will get no more development after GW:EN. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

So, yeah, three cheers for Prophecies! It's still my favorite chapter and I still feel sad at the finish of Prince Rurik's storyline despite having lived through it multiple times. If Anet ever does produce another chapter of Guild Wars, maybe they'll try a return to basics if they can feel confident that Prophecies-style gameplay will sell boxes rather than drive away the people who want things fast and convenient.

Trav The Ripper · Sep 05, 2007, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by King Symeon

Factions was good.

how true factions was so underated.

Dirty Savage · Sep 05, 2007, 02:12 AM // 02:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clone

Well, I just finished off the last mission in GW:EN. I'm still working my way thought dungeons, with only about a third done there. However, I was a bit disappointed after finishing the story mode to see that there were still a number of armorers who wouldn't give me the time of day.

I remember back in the days of Prophecies when that was actually true. So, rather than go on a rant questioning why I should continue to grind to get the NPCs to like me after finishing off the main story, I'd instead like to just give a short bit of praise to the one that got it right. Prophecies boldly went out with a new paradigm of skill over time spent in MMOs against a field of competitors that made grinding the standard. So, I raise a glass to the first in the Guild Wars line. Hopefully someone will pick up this idea and run with it again in the future.

Agreed. I remember being absolutely mesmerized by Pre-Searing and just being blown away by everything. Ah, the memories . . .

Vnewbie · Sep 05, 2007, 04:46 AM // 04:46

If anything, I believe that the one thing that ruined co-op play was heroes, because now you could make an awesome NPC to your specs. Sure they might not be quite as good as a player, but they still do the job better than that spamming nub. Before Nightfall, I would PUG all my missions, and it was fun. Enter Nightfall. Suddenly I am forced to do nothing but set up my H/H party and pray. Why? There was nobody to play with anymore. Thankfully, then finally decided to limit H/H in PvP battles to 4, otherwise it would be henchway all day!

The "unnecessary but necessary" grind is also annoying, and is a product of the titles. YES you can go without massively grinding 25 hours a day, but if you do grind that 25 hours a day you get a huge bonus. So 3-5 months later, those crazy lifeless grinders dominate the servers.

Factions was the line at which the originality of GW was drawn. To be perfectly honest, in my opinion, Nightfall ruined GW and turned it into yet another grindfest MMO.

P.S.

I still play it for the PvP. And the story. Something about the story gives me the warm fuzzies.

Age · Sep 05, 2007, 05:07 AM // 05:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by cellardweller

Back in prophesies days, nothing was out of reach to anyone - perfect weapons, fissure armour, everything. A hardcore player could get them by grinding and a casual player could get them by playing smart.

Yeah those were the good ole Days when you actually got more ecto and shards back then.That is when farming was good as well as running.I do know of some player who will disagree that Prophecies has no grind to it sure there was if you wanted to PvP.They had to play the game and get to unlock things anyway the PvP was better back then as well.

You didn't need to get them grinding just being good at farming.

Esan · Sep 05, 2007, 05:19 AM // 05:19

I think the biggest reason why Prophecies was brilliant is that they didn't have a fickle, petulant, and often witless player base to placate. The more they try to go where the wind blows on the forums, the worse their game becomes. The best feature of GW:EN---the dungeons---are not the result of pandering to any player demands. The worst features of GW:EN---the armors, the PvE skills, the reputation treadmills, the hall of monuments---are all the result of trying to please and occupy existing players.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: ArenaNet needs to learn when not to listen to the players. The players are very good at finding problems with skills and mechanics, but they will kill your game if you give them any kind of control.

Monk Solaris · Sep 07, 2007, 07:59 AM // 07:59

Yeah I agree.

Prophecies was the best and you know why? It was slower, slower paced more relaxed.

With factions/nightfall grind became more a issue then titles made the game far too quick. The slowness of the original was gone. The relaxed enviroment from the original ignored for a new grind title now type of game.

If the original formular of Prophecies could be found again by Anet and made into gw2 or even updated to Gwen it be the game we all remember.

haggus71 · Sep 07, 2007, 09:05 AM // 09:05

well, the good thing is they stated that pvp and pve will be on separate servers. No more hearing about how the nerfbat from pvp ruined the mesmer(I-can't-get-picked-in-pve-because-SS-is-better) for pve.

EPO Bot · Sep 07, 2007, 09:54 AM // 09:54

The original concept of everyone eventually going pure pvp may have been good on paper, but Heroes ascent is so elitist/demanding the overpowered buld of the moment, that it's impossible for less hardocer players to even get into it.

I really like the world pvp idea: Persistend Aspenwoods in wich npc's take over when there are not enough players.

bhavv · Sep 08, 2007, 01:28 AM // 01:28

The game is designed to reward player skill and teamwork, not time spent playing, so you won’t need to spend hundreds of hours levelling up your character to compete.

And why is everyone complaining about armor? Do you need armor to compete? You can play just as fine in droks armor as in the GW:EN armor. Grinding title to get armor isnt a problem at all, you dont need the armor to complete the game.

Grinding for titles is optional. Buying a certain type of armor is optional. You can compete fine without grinding and without the armor.

Loviatar · Sep 08, 2007, 02:42 AM // 02:42

[QUOTE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slickriptide

King Symeon pretty much has the right of it here. You're basically looking at an evolution of the game and its audience.

Guild Wars was originally conceived as a PvP game that happened to have a PvE backstory.

JEFF STRAIN calls the bullshit flag on that

Quote:

Evil Avatar News: Guild Wars seems to be a pretty hardcore PvP type game. How does Factions supplement the core game in terms of additional appeal? Has there been an effort made to entice people who didn't like Guild Wars? Have there been any creative strides toward doing unique PvE situations?

JS: Well, I think Guild Wars has excellent PvP, especially in the online role-playing genre, in fact it’s the only game with well-designed well-balanced PvP; but that doesn’t mean the game is a hardcore PvPer's game. Guild Wars started life as a role-playing game, and we continue to support that very strongly.

The Herbalizer · Sep 08, 2007, 03:22 AM // 03:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by GekigangarIII

Great argument here... It certainly explains why the game industry is dominated by Mortgage simulators and venture capital adventures... /eyeroll.

Most of us have much better things to do with our time than grind for anything. ANet (or any deb/publisher) is lucky to have someone playing their game, they are really pushing it trying to create a vocation out of something that is supposed to be entertainment. A game should never be work, even if you're going for the best of the best item... it should always be entertainment first. The path to riches in a game should always be the fruit of *entertainment* not virtual punchclocking.

TBH me making like a gazzillion ectos was really fun. IMO it was the most fun I had in GW.