Curse

Fitz Rinley · May 20, 2007, 02:46 AM // 02:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plague

I'll reiterate this.

If you don't want the Hall to reward "grind," then what would you suggest?

That you get a reward for beating the game? For having a pet? For waking up in the morning?

Accomplishments in a video game will always be linked to either grind, or total dumb luck. Like the Hall rewarding people that have had a rare Stygian Reaver drop in pre-searing Ascalon. Well, whooptie-doo. You haven't "earned" jack. You've just been a tool. Let's erect a statue of you in the Hall of Freakin' Monuments because you got to level 20!

You know there are a few really unique rewards given in the real world. One I can think of is the Congressional Medal of Honor. Check and see how many of those who received them were still alive to get the honor. Of the rest, check and see how many were too scared to do anything but what they did, too busy to notice, or thinking - "Gee if I grind away rescuing fellow socldiers today I might get the CMH..." And yes, that is not a video game, but the recognition system in GW is based on enforced hours of tedious monotonous play or routine tedious monotonous practice for no life enriching result.

You cannot walk into a dental office and apply for a technical assistants positions because you made Champion. You cannot get into the Bar Association of your state or territory based on the number of griffons you killed on your last run. You cannot buy diapers based on the number of missions you pwned in Factions five years down the road. No one is going to care nor are your grades or life earning potential going to be increased by the excessive hours you spent in the arenas earning hero points or doing Guild vs. Guild when it is time for you to go get a job.

What is ANet's seeming best response to this - "You have been playing for 2 hours. Please take a break." Yet, at the same time, the entire game is structured to encourage grind and so far seems to be still structured to encourage grind. End result, people believe grind is the function of having fun.

I pity the modern world where people feel WORKING to have fun is the nature of having fun.

As I mentioned above, I no longer have anything to put in the HoM. I destroyed all of my characters. I gave my Kuunavang to a friend to hold in case I ever came back. She is a sweet elderly lady, and disabled, I am certain she would return it if she was still on line. She is not. My disatisfaction with Factions, with the fiasco of its production, with the misinformation about how it would work, with the changes between preview and full release, with the destruction of the Minion Master, with the control of access to content areas by people in PvP over and against PvE, with the Faction system which is prejudicial against free thinking individuals, the utterly slow response to months and months and months of issues with storage and botting, etc. greatly soured my position on what should be an excellent experience.

But then I am one of those casual gamers who is not supposed to be able to enjoy the game more than 20% of the time you elite players do.

Pandora's box · May 20, 2007, 12:22 PM // 12:22

Earning titles, in ANY game, is always based on doing the same repetitive things over and over. I admit, doing so does not make someone a better player. Thus, most titles could be earned by completing a few quests as well, if its only about using skills. But many players like it this way, and everyone is free to join it or leave it. So I would not be bothered about that.

Another thing is doing repetitive things to become more powerful. Either by earning gold to buy better gear/skills, or by increasing in level. In a good balanced game grinding should not be necessary. Certainly not if its for gold or items. When players grind for that, it means the game is too 'scroogy'; droprates are too low.

I have no clue how this will be in GW:EN or in G2. Probably for GW:EN nothing much will change, since its related to existing GW1 chapters. I hope this will be differend in GW2. After having played for some months one may expect to retrieve high level content without grinding. That is what I call 'balance'.

Takeko Nakano · May 20, 2007, 12:39 PM // 12:39

Guys, hold up one second.

Remember that new titles will be available in GW:EN. From the sound of them they will be quite different to what we've been doing so far. So hopefully it will be less of a grind and more "fun".

Though in regards to the explorer titles, I feel they're more of a "grind" than anything else because they're so difficult to get!!!

Amon Warrior · May 20, 2007, 06:40 PM // 18:40

You could try to go for the titles included in GW:EN.

Anyway, there will be plenty of time to set a course of action between GW:EN and GW2.

Koudelka · May 20, 2007, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Did you really think Areanet would actually do something nice to anyone, especially after the release of Grindfall? Grinding is their new mantra ¬¬ One only has to look at sunspear point grind, or almost every title, and they are all based on grinding.

Anyway my point is that no one can be sure about the HoM, as areanet has been very self-contradicting. Firstly I heard that weapons COULD be transfered (this was on guildwars.com) and then I read they could NOT (guildwars wiki) so perhaps they will allow transfer of other things, I know money and characters are no 100 % and I do agree somewhat.

My playing style is not so dissimmilar to yours: I have no interest in the grindfest that Areanet and co. enjoy imposing on you (2500 sunspear point grind well done on totally ruining grindfall) and I enjoy making many characters. Of course I won't be able to do that after they introduce their beloved grind to levelling also... *sigh*

clawofcrimson · May 20, 2007, 07:43 PM // 19:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by w00t!

For example, special weapons your earned in Guild Wars 1 may be in a display case in your Hall of Monuments, and your Guild Wars 2 character will be able to take them out and use them."
=======================
.

There will most likely be a monument in Gwen that allows you to earn a weapon ... to use in GW2

you dont earn chaos axes...they drop.

warren_kn · May 20, 2007, 10:32 PM // 22:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koudelka

Did you really think Areanet would actually do something nice to anyone, especially after the release of Grindfall? Grinding is their new mantra ¬¬ One only has to look at sunspear point grind, or almost every title, and they are all based on grinding.

Anyway my point is that no one can be sure about the HoM, as areanet has been very self-contradicting. Firstly I heard that weapons COULD be transfered (this was on guildwars.com) and then I read they could NOT (guildwars wiki) so perhaps they will allow transfer of other things, I know money and characters are no 100 % and I do agree somewhat.

My playing style is not so dissimmilar to yours: I have no interest in the grindfest that Areanet and co. enjoy imposing on you (2500 sunspear point grind well done on totally ruining grindfall) and I enjoy making many characters. Of course I won't be able to do that after they introduce their beloved grind to levelling also... *sigh*

Sigh, ok to start ARENAnet do lots of nice things for their players, it's just that a lot of those players don't think they're nice. Sure the weekend events we don't excite everybody but at least they're something. The holiday events have all (imo) been good.

Grinding - compared to other games, the amount of grinding you needed to get the required amount of Sunspear points is NOTHING. On my first character i got them by doing all the quests and generally getting from A to B. Regarding other titles, well tell me how we should go about getting them then. Open 10 chests, voila you've got the treasure hunter title. Win a ouple of ABs, your Champion of whoever. Apart from Sunspear, none of the titles are necessary, even the ones that affect gameplay like Lightbringer. I really don't see what the problem is with titles, don't like grinding for them, don't do them then.

Regarding HoM, no point in speculating about something that is a long way away. It doesn't matter what you seen on what website, official or not, as it may change anyway.

If you don't like grinding, then this is the game for you. As I already said, the 2,500 Sunspear points you need to advance is NOTHING. It takes no effort whatsoever to get them. That mechanic didn't ruin Nightfall. Finally in GW2 you will still be able to make lots of characters, you just won't get them all to the same level as someone who concentrates on one character., but then again what did you expect?

Skyy High · May 21, 2007, 12:04 AM // 00:04

I'm going to ask the question again, since Fitz - though quoting the question in his post - did not answer it:
If you don't like the idea that "grind" would not be commemorated in the HoM, "grind" in this case being apparently doing anything other than just beating the game and aimlessly questing for the rest of the time, what would you like to be commemorated that is actually special?

Fitz Rinley · May 21, 2007, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by warren_kn

Sigh, ok to start ARENAnet do lots of nice things for their players, it's just that a lot of those players don't think they're nice. Sure the weekend events we don't excite everybody but at least they're something. The holiday events have all (imo) been good.

And totally flawless, one can participate in holiday events without losing titles one is working on correct? Deaths from the Mad King will not destroy your Survivor Title correct?

Quote:

Grinding - compared to other games, the amount of grinding you needed to get the required amount of Sunspear points is NOTHING.

I'm not playing other games and there is probably a reason for that. As it is I have one warrior, Ritter Hunder, who would be appropriate for the Encourageable Ale Hound Title - to get it he must grind for approximately 16,670 Hunter's Ales - or 3,334,000 g,

. Of course there is no grind whatsoever in such a case - none, right. But if one wishes to be totally normal like ANet seems to want, then they will buy their gold on E-Bay at about $12/100k and the title is only about $408.00 for all you rich people out there.

Quote:

I really don't see what the problem is with titles, don't like grinding for them, don't do them then.

Because unlike most computer gamers who are simply looking for some kind of complex Pong with pretty pictures I actually consider a bit of role play. And yes, I am quite aware GW is not an RP game, just an MMOG.

Quote:

Regarding HoM, no point in speculating about something that is a long way away. It doesn't matter what you seen on what website, official or not, as it may change anyway.

On this I completely agree. Whatever happens will happen. We couldn't even count on Factions to be what we experienced through the preview weekend or were promised by ANet representatives. GW and ANet don't know and won't know what they are going to do until after they have done it and then they will change it. (

, Yeah, I'm still upset over Factions and ANet has gotten no more money out of me since then.)

Quote:

If you don't like grinding, then this is the game for you. As I already said, the 2,500 Sunspear points you need to advance is NOTHING. It takes no effort whatsoever to get them. That mechanic didn't ruin Nightfall.

I will have to take your word for it as the more I hear about Nightfall the less I think it is worth investing in. So far, it sounds like a mash of monster munchkins, overly complex opsys, enforced grind, and little relief from the "you will be assimilated" mentality of Factions.

Quote:

Finally in GW2 you will still be able to make lots of characters, you just won't get them all to the same level as someone who concentrates on one character.

This is a curious statement to make after "no point in speculating about something that is a long way away." Are you saying we will have a limited pool of experience points? Or a limited pool of levels to distribute among our characters? Those are novel concepts...

Quote:

, but then again what did you expect?

What I expect is a game that is playable in a reasonable amount of time to epic levels of play. That means that a casual player, putting in a few hours a week (3-5) and a dedicated player, putting in several hours a week (9-12), could obtain their goals fully in two or three classes in 3 to 6 months. It means that excessive players would not be rewarded with excessively stimulated economies and statistics that destroy opportunity for casual and normal human players. It means game content is not withheld from people because they have real lives to live, children to feed, and bills to pay, or homework that takes priority over video addiction.

Edited time frame of achievement.

Operations · May 21, 2007, 12:12 AM // 00:12

I would guess yes.

HawkofStorms · May 21, 2007, 01:57 AM // 01:57

You'r entire post is full of logical sygoimies. Please read my critism to learn how to better structure a proper arguement. You'll probablly just flame me later and ignore everything I say, but its worth a shot...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

And totally flawless, one can participate in holiday events without losing titles one is working on correct? Deaths from the Mad King will not destroy your Survivor Title correct?

Correct. If you have maxed the survivor title, you can then die as many times as you want without losing the title.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitz rinley

I'm not playing other games and there is probably a reason for that. As it is I have one warrior, Ritter Hunder, who would be appropriate for the Encourageable Ale Hound Title - to get it he must grind for approximately 16,670 Hunter's Ales - or 3,334,000 g,

. Of course there is no grind whatsoever in such a case - none, right. But if one wishes to be totally normal like ANet seems to want, then they will buy their gold on E-Bay at about $12/100k and the title is only about $408.00 for all you rich people out there.

Wow, a completely optional title that offers no benefit to the player at all requires time and grinding. Oh, and don't assume all players who have money e-bayed. Name calling does not strengthen an arguement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitz rinley

Because unlike most computer gamers who are simply looking for some kind of complex Pong with pretty pictures I actually consider a bit of role play. And yes, I am quite aware GW is not an RP game, just an MMOG.

As I've explained in other threads, its pretty difficult to RP in GW. Since GW actually has a plot (ie all people who play NF are Sunspears who fight against Abbadon) its difficult to roleplay as something else without completely ignoring the plot. If you don't like a structured game with a storyline, there is nothing a.net can do to fix that. It's a personal preference. A.net can't please everyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitz rinley

On this I completely agree. Whatever happens will happen. We couldn't even count on Factions to be what we experienced through the preview weekend or were promised by ANet representatives. GW and ANet don't know and won't know what they are going to do until after they have done it and then they will change it. (

, Yeah, I'm still upset over Factions and ANet has gotten no more money out of me since then.)

I will have to take your word for it as the more I hear about Nightfall the less I think it is worth investing in. So far, it sounds like a mash of monster munchkins, overly complex opsys, enforced grind, and little relief from the "you will be assimilated" mentality of Factions.

Please do not complain about a game you haven't even played. Rellying on the opinions of others (especially on a forum) is a bad way to form valid opinions since your conclusions will be made on baised 2nd hand assumptions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitz rinley

This is a curious statement to make after "no point in speculating about something that is a long way away." Are you saying we will have a limited pool of experience points? Or a limited pool of levels to distribute among our characters? Those are novel concepts...

While it is to early to speculate about specific game mechanics, it isn't to early to speculate about broad archtypes of any online game (ie, GW2 will be a fantasy setting online game with multiple people playing and interacting together). Your statement of a "limited pool of levels" was never mentioned. That was not his arguement. You are just setting up a "straw man" arguement to attribute to your opponent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitz rinley

What I expect is a game that is playable in a reasonable amount of time to epic levels of play. That means that a casual player, putting in a few hours a week (3-5) and a dedicated player, putting in several hours a week (9-12), could obtain their goals fully in two or three classes in 3 to 6 months. It means that excessive players would not be rewarded with excessively stimulated economies and statistics that destroy opportunity for casual and normal human players. It means game content is not withheld from people because they have real lives to live, children to feed, and bills to pay, or homework that takes priority over video addiction.

Edited time frame of achievement.

What content are you mad about not getting? The ability to display a title? I believe that a "reward" is not the same thing as "content."

Buster · May 21, 2007, 08:06 AM // 08:06

I would sure like to know what benefits people are going to get in GW2 from getting all these titles. I will not get a single title until I know what I am getting. I hope it is something decent for everyone who likes titles.

King Kong · May 21, 2007, 09:21 AM // 09:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buster

I would sure like to know what benefits people are going to get in GW2 from getting all these titles. I will not get a single title until I know what I am getting. I hope it is something decent for everyone who likes titles.

Most likely be a hat or a mini pet!

"WOW you wasted 2000 hours of your life for this mini pet, which only 1million other players have got!"

Guildmaster Cain · May 21, 2007, 09:41 AM // 09:41

well boohoo.

If you have nothing to show off, you cant show off in the HoM. If you really care about showing stuff off, you really need to work for them.
If it worked the way you want, and people that didnt work hard on stuff, and they all get free titles. In that case, those free titles wouldnt be any 'show-off', since everyone has them.

Quit naggin on grinding people, it is hypocritical to do.

Neway, Protector of Tyria is really easy to get. You can do almost any mission including their bonus in one try. Only takes like 10 hours and cant be called grinding, since it is actually playing the game and enjoying it. Not doing exactly the same thing for xxxxxx hours, like Sunspear, Lightbringer, Gamer, Hero Battles and more.

Fitz Rinley · May 21, 2007, 02:36 PM // 14:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

You'r entire post is full of logical syllogisms. Please read my criticism to learn how to better structure a proper argument. You'll probably just flame me later and ignore everything I say, but its worth a shot...

Not everything identified as pseudo-reasoning is in fact without observed or reasonable existence; there are in fact slippery slopes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

And totally flawless, one can participate in holiday events without losing titles one is working on correct? Deaths from the Mad King will not destroy your Survivor Title Correct?

Correct. If you have maxed the survivor title, you can then die as many times as you want without losing the title.

Um, I think you will find the conjugation in reference is in the present progressive not past tense. Hence, I have indicated GW made no accommodation to allow people working on the title to be able to participate but instead requires them to sit in the corner while every one else plays. While sitting on the sidelines is something adults may do when necessary (or in the good old days of Monday Night Quarterbacking when Cheerleaders still showed up on TV) it is not generally the type of thing one expects in a game where people are invited to play – regardless of age; and certainly not kids. “Here, come play this game, but you can’t play the fun stuff if you want to be a Survivor…” It’s almost as rational as having explorable areas that count against you and then making those explorable areas unaccessible (unless you are a monk or necro before the spells were changed).

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Wow, a completely optional title that offers no benefit to the player at all requires time and grinding.

If it is completely optional and offers no benefit then there is no reason to require excessive time and grind. There is no reason that said title should cost 16,670 Hunter’s Ale, 3,334 k, or $408.00. At the rate I see gold that comes to about 835 hours of game play, provided I spend gold on nothing else. For what should be a casual rate of play according to GW that would be about 9 months - and again assumes one buys no armor, no weapons, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Oh, and don't assume all players who have money e-bayed. Name calling does not strengthen an arguement.

All players who have money do not e-bay for gold. They either e-bay for gold or they are part of a few elite, and probably very young players, who sell to those who do. I have heard in many conversations that because people work for a living, and getting anything done in this game is too hard, they buy gold so they can enjoy playing. I refuse to buy gold, and since I can’t afford to buy what I want, and will never find what I want, and will never be able to afford the posh titles designed for the rich kids who steal mommy and daddy’s credit - I do without.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

As I've explained in other threads, its pretty difficult to RP in GW. Since GW actually has a plot (ie all people who play NF are Sunspears who fight against Abbadon) its difficult to roleplay as something else without completely ignoring the plot. If you don't like a structured game with a storyline, there is nothing a.net can do to fix that. It's a personal preference. A.net can't please everyone.

I have been role playing for over 30 years and this is just pure hog wash. There is a striking difference between plot, theme, and characterization. A plot is a sequence of events which lead froma begin point to an end point in one pattern or another. Depending on the story being told the plot may be parallel, linear, divergent, etc. Themes give an overall feel or mood to a story setting and guide decisions in act, action, purpose, person, and thus word choice. The character is role played within the plot and theme. A trapper traps, a marksman works as support artillery and draws enemy into ambush, a beast master works their companion with precision and skill.
Where ANet failed the Role Play experience was in refusing to make characterization and expression equivalent. Because of horrid inequalities in CT an Aeromancer is useless compared to a pyromancer. One cannot play an Ascalonian Mage and be of any value. The RP experience was destroyed not by the lack of opportunity, but by the lack of consistency between powers created in the System. There should have existed an equivalent to Flare for each element that costs the same and had the same CT , even if there was a slight difference in damage to make other benefits work out equal – but work out equal. There should have been defensive spells in each element and attribute area of each class, etc. to enhance the RP potential.

Granting the characters the ability to work and express personal themes, have more control over their appearance (and not making decent looking armors as distastefully distant or worse than the cost of a title), RP would come down to player interaction as they perform the quest. In character comments become the RP. We can have a discussion over the loss of a beloved nobel, or the irritating rash we get just after being rezzed, or the next festival. We might even express the theme of a character, such as Ice or Fire, or Hatchet Man, etc. if ANet actually made supporting such themes viable enough to play the game successfully; they generally do not forcing one to be flexible and to divest oneself of individuality in all guises.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Please do not complain about a game you haven't even played. Relying on the opinions of others (especially on a forum) is a bad way to form valid opinions since your conclusions will be made on biased 2nd hand assumptions.

Dually noted. However, I also have my previous experience and the responses of the head of GW and Gaile to go by. I suppose I should completely discount those three sources as well. I play chess and mahjhong, I do not play parcheesi. I play NN1&2 and GW, I do not play WoW, EQ, DDO, etc. It took GW months to get near the top of my lists, on both counts. In general I doubt they will ever care enough to get back on my better side, but I will never subscribe to Spinoza’s philosophy of “Love it or Leave it,” I still advocate “Love it and fix it.”

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Your statement of a "limited pool of levels" was never mentioned. That was not his arguement. You are just setting up a "straw man" arguement to attribute to your opponent.

Um:

Quote:

Originally Posted by warren_kn

Finally in GW2 you will still be able to make lots of characters, you just won't get them all to the same level as someone who concentrates on one character., but then again what did you expect?

That may not have been his intended argument. It was however his resulting inference. He made a direct correlation between the number of characters one had to the number of levels one could achieve. In GW:P I had characters on 2 accounts go all the way to 20th level. I found the Assassin and Rit classes too useless to bother playing, and so stayed with the core classes. (Assassins were always dead because of being forced to fight close in and Rits were always dead because none of their skills CTs happened in the same calendar year.)

Quote:

What content are you mad about not getting? The ability to display a title? I believe that a "reward" is not the same thing as "content.

No, game content controlled by Faction and Hall of Heroes. Primary reasons I quit playing the game. And if you do manage to get permission from Favor of the Gods to go into someplace like UW then you get slaughtered in the ante-chamber by Aatxes set to obliterate 55 monk bots and overseas sweatshop teams of elite players farming to sell on e-bay.

Fitz Rinley · May 21, 2007, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guildmaster Cain

well boohoo.

If you have nothing to show off, you cant show off in the HoM. If you really care about showing stuff off, you really need to work for them.
If it worked the way you want, and people that didnt work hard on stuff, and they all get free titles. In that case, those free titles wouldnt be any 'show-off', since everyone has them.

Quit naggin on grinding people, it is hypocritical to do.

Neway, Protector of Tyria is really easy to get. You can do almost any mission including their bonus in one try. Only takes like 10 hours and cant be called grinding, since it is actually playing the game and enjoying it. Not doing exactly the same thing for xxxxxx hours, like Sunspear, Lightbringer, Gamer, Hero Battles and more.

Contrary to popular belief the primary reason one plays a fantasy game is so one can have a fantasy. That is to say, that since we cannot be heroes/heroines, kings, princes, death defying mages, super assassins, paragons of virtue, etc. in the real world we seek to do so in the escapism of our fantasy life. There is no point in playing a fantasy game if you are going to make us work for our fantasy as hard as getting a job in the real world.

Edit: I will continue to use the title: Encourageable Ale Hound which would fit the RP aspect of a chararcter I have made - Ritter Hunder.
To acquire said Ale I need $408.00 to ebay for gold, 835 hours grinding just for gold to by Hunter's Ale, or I could repeatedly make the same Canthan newbie 618 times for enough Monastery Credits and Gold to buy the Ale that way. Then of course I have to administer it over 10,000 minutes of stages 3-5 level drunkeness, or up to maybe 278 hours (11 1/2 days solid days with no bathroom breaks for me) of being drunk. At our GW 3 hours a day gaming, just the title should take 1,113 days (just over 3 years) to complete, provided we do nothing else and our starting weapon and armor hold up.

Skyy High · May 22, 2007, 04:57 AM // 04:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

Not everything identified as pseudo-reasoning is in fact without observed or reasonable existence; there are in fact slippery slopes.

Um, I think you will find the conjugation in reference is in the present progressive not past tense. Hence, I have indicated GW made no accommodation to allow people working on the title to be able to participate but instead requires them to sit in the corner while every one else plays. While sitting on the sidelines is something adults may do when necessary (or in the good old days of Monday Night Quarterbacking when Cheerleaders still showed up on TV) it is not generally the type of thing one expects in a game where people are invited to play – regardless of age; and certainly not kids. “Here, come play this game, but you can’t play the fun stuff if you want to be a Survivor…” It’s almost as rational as having explorable areas that count against you and then making those explorable areas unaccessible (unless you are a monk or necro before the spells were changed).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guildwiki

Thus, the following are known exceptions in which your character "dies" but does not count against the title:
...
Getting killed by Mad King Thorn on 31 October 2006 or 2005 Halloween event.

Less complaining, more knowing what you're talking about please.

Quote:

If it is completely optional and offers no benefit then there is no reason to require excessive time and grind. There is no reason that said title should cost 16,670 Hunter’s Ale, 3,334 k, or $408.00.

Except that the time spent is the POINT of titles. They are not RP goals, they are gold sinks and time wasters to provide goals for those who have done everything else in the game. Take away the expensive, hard to get titles, and you take away the sole goal left to many veteran players. All RPGs have grind; GW's is just optional for those who choose to pursue it.

Quote:

At the rate I see gold that comes to about 835 hours of game play, provided I spend gold on nothing else. For what should be a casual rate of play according to GW that would be about 9 months - and again assumes one buys no armor, no weapons, etc.

No one ever said they were for casual players; if you divide players into "casual" and "non-casual", you necessarily must have goals in the game that casual players cannot attain, else there will be nothing for the noncasual players to do. You may think it's not fair that you can't do or have EVERYTHING in the game, but at the same time it's not fair to take away the entire reason that a large portion of the population plays the game.

Quote:

All players who have money do not e-bay for gold. They either e-bay for gold or they are part of a few elite, and probably very young players, who sell to those who do.

Wrong. Don't speculate on inflammatory things that pretty much declare it impossible to make money in the game except by ebaying gold.

Quote:

I have heard in many conversations that because people work for a living, and getting anything done in this game is too hard, they buy gold so they can enjoy playing. I refuse to buy gold, and since I can’t afford to buy what I want, and will never find what I want, and will never be able to afford the posh titles designed for the rich kids who steal mommy and daddy’s credit - I do without.

You sound like the kind of person who would complain about elite gear in WoW because it took hours to get. Guess what, that's the genre, just be glad that GW didn't include rare stat weapons that you had to grind to get. If the WORST problem you have with the game is that someone else is spending millions of gold to get a line of text under his name, and you can't do it too, seems like you need to get your priorities straight.

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I have been role playing for over 30 years and this is just pure hog wash. There is a striking difference between plot, theme, and characterization. A plot is a sequence of events which lead froma begin point to an end point in one pattern or another. Depending on the story being told the plot may be parallel, linear, divergent, etc. Themes give an overall feel or mood to a story setting and guide decisions in act, action, purpose, person, and thus word choice. The character is role played within the plot and theme. A trapper traps, a marksman works as support artillery and draws enemy into ambush, a beast master works their companion with precision and skill.
Where ANet failed the Role Play experience was in refusing to make characterization and expression equivalent. Because of horrid inequalities in CT an Aeromancer is useless compared to a pyromancer. One cannot play an Ascalonian Mage and be of any value. The RP experience was destroyed not by the lack of opportunity, but by the lack of consistency between powers created in the System. There should have existed an equivalent to Flare for each element that costs the same and had the same CT , even if there was a slight difference in damage to make other benefits work out equal – but work out equal. There should have been defensive spells in each element and attribute area of each class, etc. to enhance the RP potential.

Sorry, but balancing a game for its RP value? Not. Happening. If you want to RP, go ahead; honestly air isn't as crappy an att as you make it out to be. The only reason it's not used is because it only generally hits one target at once, but it does way more single target damage than fire. Hey wait, might this be the "equality" you were talking about ANet trying to acheive...nah, couldn't be.
BTW, people don't use fire because of flare. No idea what you expect to happen if all atts got a flare-type spell (which, generally, they do; ice javelin is awesome).

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Granting the characters the ability to work and express personal themes, have more control over their appearance (and not making decent looking armors as distastefully distant or worse than the cost of a title), RP would come down to player interaction as they perform the quest. In character comments become the RP. We can have a discussion over the loss of a beloved nobel, or the irritating rash we get just after being rezzed, or the next festival. We might even express the theme of a character, such as Ice or Fire, or Hatchet Man, etc. if ANet actually made supporting such themes viable enough to play the game successfully; they generally do not forcing one to be flexible and to divest oneself of individuality in all guises.

You're looking at the wrong game mate. Seriously. I can tell you want a deep roleplaying experience, like the old tabletop RPGs and such; this is not it. This is a game that's trying to be balanced for both pvp and pve, and sorry but roleplaying considerations fall through the cracks, because you are an INCREDIBLY small minority right now. Maybe you're not a minority in the grand scheme of rpgs, I wouldn't know, but you're definitely a minority in GW, because...well, I would imagine all the other RPers actually tried GW out before they bought it, and realized it's not terribly deep as far as character customization goes. Hell, the story is linear in all 3 campaigns we have so far; there is no opportunity for real roleplaying anywhere in the game, unless you're just ignoring the storyline and pretty much all the npc dialogues. Apparently this is changing in GW2, and partially in GW:EN; good, I wouldn't mind having more ways to play. But I'm at least grounded in reality enough to realize that balancing skills on RPers is not how GW works, or ever will work.

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Um:
That may not have been his intended argument. It was however his resulting inference. He made a direct correlation between the number of characters one had to the number of levels one could achieve. In GW:P I had characters on 2 accounts go all the way to 20th level. I found the Assassin and Rit classes too useless to bother playing, and so stayed with the core classes. (Assassins were always dead because of being forced to fight close in and Rits were always dead because none of their skills CTs happened in the same calendar year.)

I do belive the original idea of his post was more along the lines of "You'll be able to get to a very high level in GW2, and you could spend nearly forever pushing one or two characters' levels up (even though it will have a negligible effect on your atts, if what we hear is to be believed), so either you can work on all of your characters equally and have a lot of midlevel guys, or you can just focus on 1 or 2 and have a couple low-to-mid level guys and 1 or 2 really high leveled ones." I don't think he intended it to be read as, "You only have so many att points / levels per account," more as, "You only have so much time to spend."

Also, I wasn't aware assassins self-destructed by getting near enemies. Well, I guess factions gave you a bad impression of that, what with the afflicted and all. They really do have decent survival (especially with Nightfall skills).

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No, game content controlled by Faction and Hall of Heroes. Primary reasons I quit playing the game.

Wait, game content that was just rectified by adding scrolls? Rejoice!

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And if you do manage to get permission from Favor of the Gods to go into someplace like UW then you get slaughtered in the ante-chamber by Aatxes set to obliterate 55 monk bots and overseas sweatshop teams of elite players farming to sell on e-bay.

Er, sorry the Prophecies elite area is decently hard. I wasn't aware Prot Spirit was a "elite sweatshop player" exclusive skill, or that "Aggro Control" was an elite skill cappable only if you paid ANet $100 every Sunday. And bots don't go to UW anymore; dying nightmares randomly spawning make that just not too profitable.

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Contrary to popular belief the primary reason one plays a fantasy game is so one can have a fantasy. That is to say, that since we cannot be heroes/heroines, kings, princes, death defying mages, super assassins, paragons of virtue, etc. in the real world we seek to do so in the escapism of our fantasy life.

I wasn't aware there was a global poll on "Why do you play fantasy games?", nor that you have the results from said poll. Self bias much? Seems to me that there are more and better reasons to choose to play GW over other RPG fantasies other than escapism.

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There is no point in playing a fantasy game if you are going to make us work for our fantasy as hard as getting a job in the real world.

Believe it or not, what you consider work other people consider challenges, goals, acheivements. You want a chill game, this is as chill as you can make it, but you can't remove or devalue the stuff that other people like to do just because you want it, but don't want or can't follow their gameplay.

w00t! · May 22, 2007, 10:55 PM // 22:55

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

If it is completely optional and offers no benefit then there is no reason to require excessive time and grind.

First, well met from another 30 year RPG'er. Chainmail anyone?

Second, your statement above doesn't make sense.

Here's the basics of Guild Wars:
1) Guild Wars in no way requires Grind
2) Gulid Wars has certain titles that do require Grind, but they are optional and, with a recent exception (Lockpicks), do no provide any material benefit.

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

There is no reason that said title should cost 16,670 Hunter’s Ale, 3,334 k, or $408.00.

Why not? It's a wonderful Gold Sink for those who like grind.

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

All players who have money do not e-bay for gold. They either e-bay for gold or they are part of a few elite, and probably very young players, who sell to those who do.

Totally disagree there. GW is my one hobby. My RL job I'm a manager at a Fortune 100 company. You might call my son young (he also plays GW and is in High School), but not many would accuse me of that anymore.

I play a few hours late at night as stress relief. I farm, but only social farming with online friends (Tombs or Sorrow's Furnace anyone?). I have neat items, and lots of money over the 2 years I've played GW, but nothing I have is any better (other than in appearance) that what a person could get with, say, a few Putrid Cysts. Never have, and never will, buy eBay Gold.

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

I have heard in many conversations that because people work for a living, and getting anything done in this game is too hard, they buy gold so they can enjoy playing. I refuse to buy gold, and since I can’t afford to buy what I want, and will never find what I want, and will never be able to afford the posh titles designed for the rich kids who steal mommy and daddy’s credit - I do without.

Send me a private message here, I'll meet you in-game and can help you out gratis. My grind = your gain. I'd also suggest you join a Guild that helps each other out.

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

I have been role playing for over 30 years and this is just pure hog wash. (snip)
Where ANet failed the Role Play experience was....
(snip)

I've yet to find an online game that has true role-play, in either the paper and dice, or the LARP fashion. Can't blame Anet for for the complete lack of role-playing that occurs online (yeah, there are a few MUDs out there, but don't get me started...)

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

(snip)
We can have a discussion over the loss of a beloved nobel, or the irritating rash we get just after being rezzed, or the next festival.

NONE of this requires Anet, though I do with they would reserve a district SOMEWHERE for RPG'ers. The Grotto comes closest, but meh.

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

Primary reasons I quit playing the game. And if you do manage to get permission from Favor of the Gods to go into someplace like UW then you get slaughtered in the ante-chamber by Aatxes set to obliterate 55 monk bots and overseas sweatshop teams of elite players farming to sell on e-bay.

Hmm, bad PUGs methinks.

If you don't have your copy of Chainmail laying around, perhaps we could play Bunnies and Burrows, Champions, Top Secret, The Morrow Project, Runequest, or Call of Cthulu.

Fitz Rinley · May 22, 2007, 11:50 PM // 23:50

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

Less complaining, more knowing what you're talking about please.

If your name is Gary Gygaxx, we may have something to discuss here.

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

If it is completely optional and offers no benefit then there is no reason to require excessive time and grind. There is no reason that said title should cost 16,670 Hunter’s Ale, 3,334 k, or $408.00.

Except that the time spent is the POINT of titles. They are not RP goals, they are gold sinks and time wasters to provide goals for those who have done everything else in the game. Take away the expensive, hard to get titles, and you take away the sole goal left to many veteran players. All RPGs have grind; GW's is just optional for those who choose to pursue it.

As has been mentioned GW is not an RP game. Hence it is an MMOG and not an MMORPG. When at the tender level of 4th my muskateer was granted a Queen's Jewel and named Queen's Champion it was a Role Play title. It did not involve grind and it did not require my 10 year old buttocks to spend $408 dollars ebaying for gold, or 3 years at 3 hours a day doing nothing else in game to achieve. If the only thing left for Veteran players to think about once they have finished the game is themselves and the mental jerking for titles they hold meaningless, except as something to waste time while avoiding homework, waxing the car, or doing the dishes, then I can tell you exactly why I have never wanted to be in any guild with said self-centered self-important myopic beings anyway.

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

At the rate I see gold that comes to about 835 hours of game play, provided I spend gold on nothing else. For what should be a casual rate of play according to GW that would be about 9 months - and again assumes one buys no armor, no weapons, etc.

No one ever said they were for casual players; if you divide players into "casual" and "non-casual", you necessarily must have goals in the game that casual players cannot attain, else there will be nothing for the noncasual players to do. You may think it's not fair that you can't do or have EVERYTHING in the game, but at the same time it's not fair to take away the entire reason that a large portion of the population plays the game.

A part of what you are missing is that to best this one needs to be not only a professional player, but must of necessity be a professional farmer, use bots, and develop skills as an e-bay agent. This is no longer playing a game. This is working to have fun. It is excessive. People who have to pound on the key board that often that hard to do repetitive monotonous farming for hour after hour of meaningless acquisition of gold in order to equal a bot should be in outpatient treatment or a 12 step-program. They are no longer playing a game, they are addicts. Further, they inflate the economy and force GW/ANet to constantly raise the bar against what should be normal and casual play. We are not just discussing regular elite and casual game play, we are discussing addicted elite versus regular elite and casual play.

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

All players who have money do not e-bay for gold. They either e-bay for gold or they are part of a few elite, and probably very young players, who sell to those who do.

Wrong. Don't speculate on inflammatory things that pretty much declare it impossible to make money in the game except by ebaying gold.

I worked this game for months with very powerful characters all the way to LDD and NEVER saw the kind of money people were throwing around. I twice got upto 100k over a years worth of playing and was thus able to put 15k armor on two of my characters. I was never able to achieve the appearance, and therefore present the role I wanted to play with a couple of my characters from Sept, 05 through Aug 06. I saw runes, like Superior Absorption go for as high as 95k, and selling (as well as scamming). I knew and talked to regular players on a regular basis who stated they could not afford the time to get gold, either because they had homework to do or mouths to feed, so they purchased it. I do not speculate. I know. People do not admit something that is a violation of game etiquette and potentially EULA just for the fun of it. But the fault in this lies in catering to elite addicts rather than maintaining a game for balanced play.

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

I have heard in many conversations that because people work for a living, and getting anything done in this game is too hard, they buy gold so they can enjoy playing. I refuse to buy gold, and since I can’t afford to buy what I want, and will never find what I want, and will never be able to afford the posh titles designed for the rich kids who steal mommy and daddy’s credit - I do without.

You sound like the kind of person who would complain about elite gear in WoW because it took hours to get. Guess what, that's the genre, just be glad that GW didn't include rare stat weapons that you had to grind to get. If the WORST problem you have with the game is that someone else is spending millions of gold to get a line of text under his name, and you can't do it too, seems like you need to get your priorities straight.

That could very well be. My personality profile states I do not tolerate the injustice of unfair or unequal treatment of persons based upon prejudicial action or systemic bias. That value is not only one which I hold personally, but religiously, and is up-held as the fundamental legal principle of my Nation. But as far as I can tell GW has indeed created said conditions. There are weapons and armor one can only get by kissing upto and being part of mega-corporations of faction factories, and if you do not kow-tow to them, demolish your personal expression and join one of their guilds, etc. you are SOL.

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

BTW, people don't use fire because of flare. No idea what you expect to happen if all atts got a flare-type spell (which, generally, they do; ice javelin is awesome).

I generally play mages in almost every game I do play, computer or PnP. I played every core class, and am familiar with doing both the Aero-Earth mix, as well as both and Ice and Fire mages. (I used Ice in the Fire Islands.) But a rank 15 Aeromancer simply is ineffective compared to a Pyromancer, because it does not have area effect. There is no reason why there could not have been single target spells with penetration and area effect spells without in all four elements. But this is not just about Elementalists, it is across the board. What about Dark Fingers, where green-black lightening delivers dark damage for Necros, etc. I am not saying that there should not be some things that are specific to certain attributes or classes, but rather that a greater constancy should have occured across core effects with variant graphics but familiar stats. This would have made theme characters easier while establishing more flexible builds - as skills would be avail in more than one attributive form.

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

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Originally Posted by Fitz Rinley

Granting the characters the ability to work and express personal themes, have more control over their appearance (and not making decent looking armors as distastefully distant or worse than the cost of a title), RP would come down to player interaction as they perform the quest. In character comments become the RP. We can have a discussion over the loss of a beloved nobel, or the irritating rash we get just after being rezzed, or the next festival. We might even express the theme of a character, such as Ice or Fire, or Hatchet Man, etc. if ANet actually made supporting such themes viable enough to play the game successfully; they generally do not forcing one to be flexible and to divest oneself of individuality in all guises.

You're looking at the wrong game mate. Seriously. I can tell you want a deep roleplaying experience, like the old tabletop RPGs and such; this is not it. This is a game that's trying to be balanced for both pvp and pve, and sorry but roleplaying considerations fall through the cracks, because you are an INCREDIBLY small minority right now. Maybe you're not a minority in the grand scheme of rpgs, I wouldn't know, but you're definitely a minority in GW, because...well, I would imagine all the other RPers actually tried GW out before they bought it, and realized it's not terribly deep as far as character customization goes. Hell, the story is linear in all 3 campaigns we have so far; there is no opportunity for real roleplaying anywhere in the game, unless you're just ignoring the storyline and pretty much all the npc dialogues. Apparently this is changing in GW2, and partially in GW:EN; good, I wouldn't mind having more ways to play. But I'm at least grounded in reality enough to realize that balancing skills on RPers is not how GW works, or ever will work.

Show me one place where I said anything about a conversation with an NPC. My entire description dealt with in party in group expression and communication. However, attempting to RP a character theme - which could still be possible (and is more possible in Cantha than in Prophecies), is very difficult to do without the appropriate props. It is sort of like attempting to RP A Christmas Carol in bathing suits. (Which does make Scrooge's Knee knocking much more amusing!)

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

I do belive the original idea of his post was more along the lines of "You'll be able to get to a very high level in GW2, and you could spend nearly forever pushing one or two characters' levels up (even though it will have a negligible effect on your atts, if what we hear is to be believed), so either you can work on all of your characters equally and have a lot of midlevel guys, or you can just focus on 1 or 2 and have a couple low-to-mid level guys and 1 or 2 really high leveled ones." I don't think he intended it to be read as, "You only have so many att points / levels per account," more as, "You only have so much time to spend."

Why won't we have enough time? Is GW going to crash our game every three hours when we don't take a break, and refuse to let us access our account for 21 hours? The professinoal players, who only take time out to post in the forums and listen to Rush, am I'm sure going to spend their regular 14 to 20 hours a day playing in order to amass those 50,000,000,000,000 k bank accounts they never e-bay for (or sell).

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

Er, sorry the Prophecies elite area is decently hard. I wasn't aware Prot Spirit was a "elite sweatshop player" exclusive skill, or that "Aggro Control" was an elite skill cappable only if you paid ANet $100 every Sunday. And bots don't go to UW anymore; dying nightmares randomly spawning make that just not too profitable.

I wasn't aware Protective Spirit was an Elementalist, Mesmer, Necro, Ranger, or Warrior skill. I have seen a few 55 Necros and 55 Monks in action; not very many 55 Warriors.

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

I wasn't aware there was a global poll on "Why do you play fantasy games?", nor that you have the results from said poll. Self bias much? Seems to me that there are more and better reasons to choose to play GW over other RPG fantasies other than escapism.

The fallacy here is in GW over other RPG Fantasies. Per Venn Diagram you have already included them as subsets of the same genre, Fantasies, in which GW is set aside only from the subset of others. The very nature of playing fantasy is departure from reality, by definition. If you wish to determine this is an escape rather than an exploration I would suggest the bias is yours. The more amuzing part of our departure is that inability to relinquish order which demands that our fantasy not only be said departure, but in departing must be more orderly and more comprehensible than our reality.

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Originally Posted by Skyy High

Believe it or not, what you consider work other people consider challenges, goals, acheivements. You want a chill game, this is as chill as you can make it, but you can't remove or devalue the stuff that other people like to do just because you want it, but don't want or can't follow their gameplay.

I spent more than enough time in game to acquire anything I wanted, frankly. I went on idiot farming runs because I had to in order to get what little I got, not because I wanted to. That isn't playing the game, that is Elite Addict BS.

But let's look at some Titles:
01. Survivor: Cowards title for mapping out faster than dying while abandoning the group. Most easily lost due to lag or game programming to steal opportunity if one makes the mistake of celebrating festivals.
02. Drunkard: Max title will take about 3 years to accomplish - The OpSys of the computer will be obsolete before one gets close to obtaining the title.
03. Treasure Hunter: Wiki estimates about 6,000,000 gold just to open enough chests to get the title. Frankly I don't see a reason to bother with chests as the contents were NEVER worth it. I found 1 Superior Vigor, a gold earth staff, and a gold sword in over 2,100 hours of game play that were worth keeping. All three found outside the War Camp.
04. Wisdom: It either happens or it doesn't. Seems like the only one so far that will just happen with enough game play.
05. Sweet Tooth: Only need about 10,000 Mandragor Roots to get this one. How many years farming is that?
06. Defender of Ascalon: Possibly the only repetitive grind that also allows doing the laundry and mowig the yard.
07. Protector: Never could get Dunes of Despair Bonus. Nor did anyone I knew, though I heard some did it.
08. Guardian: Hard Mode did not exist. And this should be the answer for your Elite Addict Prima Donnas who want a harder game, not making the economy and game rewards unavailable to the rest of us who also paid to play.
09. Cartographer: Excellent idea, specially for a ranger, then of course there are no ranger skills for getting to those liitle nooks and crannies - but then I understand they nerfed teh spells that could too.
10. Skill Hunter: Uh-huh. At about 1 k a cap sig that is 291,000g and how many hours?
11. Vanquisher: Doesn't sound like anything I will ever worry about. But at least it is not based upon cost and would actually aid in getting the Exploration Title.

Eldin · May 23, 2007, 12:01 AM // 00:01

I hope the Cartographer title is included, as it's the title I focus most on.