The people who really enjoy the game are playing the game.
The people who don't log onto MMORPG to vent.
I am eating pizza.
I don't know what that means.
mmorpgs are like food. Some games = McDonald's (i.e., World of Warcraft), whereas some are equivalent to a fine dim sum platter at a 4 star Chinese restaurant, i.e., Dark Age of Camelot.
Then there's today's games. That hot dog at 7-11 does the trick, and lots of folks buy it. Some folks even defend the heck out of the product, and many just say, "oh god, that's crap."
GW2 is a nice looking game, but that's all it is. (I will play it Im sure so Im not bashing it, Im just pointing out the obvious). But its the same races and classes in their so called unique world vs world, etc pattern of pvp. There's those same BGs we all know of. On top of that, because companies are so into the Asian market, the games are looking more and more like korean cash shop titles. So we come free to play, and have a cash shop and anime' looking toons.
It's the nature of the beast these days. Gone are the days where developers tried to create a complex in depth mmorpg where you actually felt special, heroic, and unique. Gone is the attempt to build a great community. Gone is the fantasy mmorpg.
they ingested it,got a great initial buzz,then realized it didnt live up to their expectations.
much like ToR,AoC,Aion,Warhammer and so on and so forth.
My point is, some people still develop this illusion of grandeur in their own minds that the game just isnt going to live up to
And the people who attempted to keep those people's expectations more grounded were referred to as "trolls" and "haters", and told to go away.
Go figure.
You have based a false point on top of a false point on top of a false point.
The only people Is see 'crashing' are the ones that were, at the most, on the fence if they would like it or not. As soon as they encountered the smallest niggle they tipped over into 'omgz, this sux!!1!'.
This game, intitial technical issues aside, has surpassed my expectations so far.
Anyone who knows what this game is, and anyone who pre-purchased SHOULD know, has no grounds for complaint. It is doing exactly what it said on the tin. If they DIDN'T know what it was before they purchased then they hardly fit into the picture you all are trying to paint above.
ANet have delivered exactly what they said they would and, to my mind, more. The game is, so far, a triumph.
The fact that the bulk of people that love it are actually playing it.
Trolls that just love to feast on negativity and friction, who aren't probably even in the beta.
In other words, the same 'ole.
To be fair though, there are a lot of postive threads about the game as well, it's just that they get buried fast by the obvious... 'dubious' posters on low post count/ rarely active accounts and whatnot.
ANet made an early 'mistake' of not having their infrastructure operating flawlessly at the start of their first mass beta (go figure...) and the jackals surged in, as they have been salivating at doing since the announcement of it.
The funny part is Vesavius is first to discredit anyone who pulls those excuses on other launches, irony is strong in this one.
Am I? link some of these posts please? Otherwise it's just you making stuff up to discredit another's PoV.
*edit: actually, don't even bother. I am flattered you think you know me, I have no idea who you are, but this thread isn't about me or any other single forum user so lets not make it. If you want to talk to me on a personal level feel free to PM me. If others want to search my post history to see if your speaking the truth or not they are ofc welcome*
I simply call things as I see them, and in this case I see it as I say here. You might not like that, but... /shrug
Thanks for the bump of the post though. All helps to reinforce the point.
I was actually thinking how few surprises we've seen so far.
Some posters are just prone to extremism and hyperbole, drama llamas, and so far they're voting pretty much as expected.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
well obviously level 5 DE wont be very in depth and complicated but when you get to higher levels the DE turn into chains were one event effects the next.
Why not? They said that endgame starts at level 1. So I would expect the first levels to have at least most of what the later levels have, including branching/chaining events.
Indeed they did.
And this is why I cringe and sometimes facepalm when I see hyperbole of the calibre that ANet and BioWare were putting out leading up to their games' launches. When it turns out to be nothing as amazing or unique as they make it sound, their words come back to bite them in the ass.
And yet, you still see fans of the game claim that there is no hype because it is all word of mouth. As though the devs haven't been making any claims of anything all this time.
well obviously level 5 DE wont be very in depth and complicated but when you get to higher levels the DE turn into chains were one event effects the next.
Why not? They said that endgame starts at level 1. So I would expect the first levels to have at least most of what the later levels have, including branching/chaining events.
Indeed they did.
And this is why I cringe and sometimes facepalm when I see hyperbole of the calibre that ANet and BioWare were putting out leading up to their games' launches. When it turns out to be nothing as amazing or unique as they make it sound, their words come back to bite them in the ass.
And yet, you still see fans of the game claim that there is no hype because it is all word of mouth. As though the devs haven't been making any claims of anything all this time.
IMO most of the hype comes from fans. All dev have to do is make a video and post it..rest is done by fans. I hardly blame companies for over hyping. hyping maybe but certainly not over hype.
Well, first are the obvious reasons. Performance is BAD. I'm running a Phenom X6 1090T with an Nvidia 580 GTX graphics card, and last night, I was lucky to ever hit over 25 FPS. Most of the time I was in between 10-15. My framerate goes into single digits in Lion's Arch. I understand the game is CPU bound at the moment, but performance is all over the map. People with 4.0GHz i7s are having framerate issues. The closest thing I can relate this too is how awful the performance was when Vanguard launched. Aside from performance, the lag was terrible. You would experience frustrating delays between activating an ability and actually seeing your character perform it. This combined with the frantic pace of combat made fighting mobs seem incredibly haphazard. They've clearly got a lot of optimization to do in between now and release, whenever that may be.
Secondly, I do not understand the chat system. There's a "local" chat, but it doesn't broadcast your message throughout an entire zone like a general chat channel in WoW or Rift. It seems to function much more like a /shout command from EverQuest. As a result, the game feels almost as quiet as Final Fantasy XIV. You see plenty of players running around, but few, if any, are chatting about anything. I don't blame the active combat. TERA's combat is arguably more active, yet the chat channels in that game are filled with players.
The dynamic events aren't any more dynamic than PQs in Warhammer or Rifts/Invasions in Rift. I stopped the centaurs from overrunning this farmer's field about 3 times, and I escorted this same caravan to this same town about 5 times. I picked grapes in a burning field at least twice. To accomodate for the large amount of players who participate in the DE's, you're not placed into a group, so the DE's appear to be mostly zergfest where everyone spams their attacks at the respective enemies with little thought or coordination. I'm rather glad we don't have to coordinate boss mechanics with 100 people, but It's ironic that a game that encourages social interaction seemingly does such a poor job of doing so what with the zergfest DEs and the poor chat system. In addition to this, you have your personal story. You can do the quests one after another, but the recommended level goes up by around two each time, so in between DEs and personal story missions, you have these little heart-shaped icons on your map which you travel to. Once there, you perform some series of tasks for the NPC, which unlocks the ability to purchase items from that person with Karma points. They are not repeatable, and the those around you do not contribute to the completion of the quest like a DE. Again, this is a poor job of encouraging social interaction. For the heart quests, I am competing for spawns and clickables. Even so, they are thus far very boring. They're giant kill/collect quests rolled into one with a progress bar replacing a kill count to give the illusion that you're doing something new and unique. They seem to take absolutely forever in comparison to a quick couple of kill x of y quests from WoW and the mobs that count towards the quest are only those within the specified range of the quest itself. If you move too far out, sometimes because the quest mobs you need are actually placed farther out than the quest itself, you drop the quest. Of course, your progress is saved the moment you step back into the quest range; however, it's just annoying how you fail to get credit for killing some bird because you accidently took too many steps backward.
Speaking of the personal story, I wasn't impressed. As I said, the personal story consists mainly of you running around completing quests in a totally instanced environment; however, all cutscenes consist of two NPCs standing around in front of a painted background. The voice acting is amateurish, and it was difficult for me to get into the story.
I am mainly a PvE player, so I won't comment on PvP, but aside from dungeon content which I haven't gotten to you, that appears to be Guild Wars 2's PvE in a nutshell and I wasn't impressed. I'd rather have quest progression than have to repeat Warhammer PQs over and over until I'm a high enough level to continue my personal story missions. Exploration isn't even as much of a possibility as people will lead you to believe. Anet got rid of upscaling, and as a result, you can't go very far away otherwise you'll start to run into mobs that are higher level than you, and the game seems pretty picky about forcing you stick to content that's lower than your level, the same level as you, or one level higher. Killing mobs two levels higher is doable, but it's frustrating and takes far too long. What does this mean for you? This means that after completing your heart quests, you're going tob e repeating the same DEs over and over again until you've reached a high enough level to explore the next area.
As it stands now, GW2's PvE feels a lot like I thought it would. The DEs don't have a lot of depth to them, and honestly, overland PvE feels somewhat like a minigame in comparison to PvP, which I feel is, and always has been Anet's main concern. It's a good thing they are not charging a monthly fee for this because the PvE isn't worth the monthly fee. I said from day one that you would not get an MMORPG of the same breadth and depth as WoW, LotRO, or even SW:TOR, and based on what I've seen from GW2's PvE thus far, I haven't exactly seen anything to make me rethink that statement.
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As a side note, did anyone play a ranger and find their pet incredibly underpowered? I had to revive him nearly every other fight or so.
My performance wasn't bad once I got going, it took maybe 15 minutes at most for the lag to stop. Combat is a lot of fun once you get past level 6ish, not to say it wasn't fun at low levels(I guess it depends on class, i'm currently playing as an Elementalist)I dunno which DE's you were doing, but I rarely ever repeated one, I only did if I really liked it. There are so many DE's in just the "starting area" you don't really even have to do your storyline. I agree with you on the Storyline though, it's fairly boring so far and the voice acting is not as good as I would've liked....but it's better than a lot of games out there. @ the side note, not really, although I haven't rolled a ranger yet, a friend of mine did and her pet didn't die that often.
English term theme park". In the video game industry, the theme parks" means an interventionist style of gameplay, which leads the player from point A to point B, in a process designed by the team developing the game.
As part of a MMORPG gameplay style theme park" is found in the construction of quests, raids or dungeons for players linearly imagined."
A themepark is linear, handheld, A-to-B oriented gameplay. Like a themepark in real life. GW2 is not a themepark. That doesn't mean it's a sandbox (as for some people something not being A automatically means it being B ....), but for sure it's not a themepark, or you didn't play it for more than 2 levels.
Thats a terrible definition. Theme park means everything in the world is there to be touched but not changed. You go, you ride the rides, you play the games, and buy candy... but come tomorrow when you log back in everything is the same.
+
Originally posted by grimfall
The original poster was correct. You don't know what a themepark is, and whoever wrote that definition doesn't know what a themepark is either. A themepark means that you have pre-determined "rides" to go on.
Disney World is a themepark. The theme is "Disney" and you go there to basically watch shows and go on rides. You do the Space Mountain ride, then the Pirates of the Caribean ride, the It's a Small World ride etc etc. It doesn't have anything at all to do with what order you do them in. GW2 has the SvSvS ride, the matched based PVP ride, the peronsal story line ride, the public PVE events ride... it's a themepark. It may present the order of those rides to you in a different way, but it is 100% a themepark. Any game that lets you instantly transition at will from one thing (doing PVE) to another (PVP battlefields or SvSvS battles) is intentionally setting itself up as a themepark, beacuse that's what you do when you go to Disney World. You finish one ride, then hop on another or run back to the start of the line for the ride you just did. Sound familiar?
That's when I see those counter-argumentation that I can't believe that some negative reviewers have really played the game.
Unless you want a game to have a 100% autonomous, buildable, destructable, metachanging world (and in this case, good luck waiting for year 2025), then GW2 is NOT a themepark, even with how you describe it.
Example 1 : yesterday night, I was going back to a fort where I have taken a quest, in order to repair. But when I arrived, the fort was destroyed, every guard was dead, and it was full of Svanir (viking like attackers). I had to kill them all and rez all the NPCs myself to repair. So Rhorn842, this example itself nullifies your argument.
Example 2 : Except for the personal story (which itself even have 2 internal branches, http://www.arena.net/blog/the-evolution-of-narrative-in-personal-story), I can litterally go wherever I want, in any region I want, to do the activity I want. In each zone, you're given a presentation of the area when you find the "long view" NPC, and he/she narrates the region problems and forces that are fighting each other. This gives in general a minimum of 5 conflict zones to interact with per area. On top of that, there are secret places to discover, "surprise" events like an Elite NPC starting to conquer an area, escorts, invasions, or interactions between enemy NPCs. When you arrive in a zone, you just have the choice to do all of that, in the order you want. And you don't, you still can say "fuck it, I'll go lurking in WvWvW" (which I discovered yesterday is not just 1 giant map, it's FOUR giant maps, each having its buildings to conquer and resources to manage). So Grimfall, this example nullifies your argument too. It's not a question of order, it's a question of hand holding. In GW2 you're not handheld.
Example 3 : Each time you finish a Dynamic Event, you're asked to note from 1 to 5 three to four aspects of the event. One of them is litterally : "How much did this event change the environment for you ?".
So now, excuse me, but I'm going to actually see how much GW2 is not a themepark by trying to see if this village is still invaded. If it is, maybe I'll try to trigger that event where I had to slay a Grawl tribe, or wander in the WvWvW, maybe I'll go back to starting area see if I missed something, or maybe I'll continue my personal story.
p.s : once again, not being B (themepark) doesn't necessarly mean you have to be A (sandbox). Stop the polarization, please.
p.s 2 : lol, I just logged in, and found something in the zone I wasn't even expecting : a giant ice Dragon fighting against 30 players, next to the village I was talking about.
p.s 3 : I think I found how to label GW2 : a Playground. You go where you want, to do what you want with who you want, there will always be something to do.
***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****
So now, excuse me, but I'm going to actually see how much GW2 is not a themepark by trying to see if this village is still invaded. If it is, maybe I'll try to trigger that event where I had to slay a Grawl tribe, or wander in the WvWvW, maybe I'll go back to starting area see if I missed something, or maybe I'll continue my personal story.
Basically to extend the analogy, you think that Disney World is a themepark, but Six Flags over St Louis is not ,because Six Flags over St Louis has The Batman roller coaster, therefore it's not a themepark. GW2 has some new rides, or new takes on rides, but they're still rides. You waxed poetic about the "mutable" public events, but you never pointed out (or maybe don't realize?) that you cold come back tomorrow to the public event area, and it could be basically the same thing as it was the day before.
They may be really cool rides, with interesting takes, but they're still rides.
"Basically, this nullifies your argument." You went back and used that same incorrect definition of themepark, and then attributed it to me. Even something I pointed out that GW2 has which is what makes it a themepark, you pointed to as an example of it not being a themepark... not sure how to make it more clear to you. When you arrive in a Disney Land, you just have the choice to do all of that, in the order you want. And you don't, you still can say "fuck it, I'll go lurking in the video arcade" Wall of text up as much as you like, but you're fanboying and not reading and internalizing what you read.
But I will agree with you. If you use the incorrect definition of 'theme park", it's not a themepark... of course, neither was World of Warcrat then. Unless you think "themepark" solely means a game with level based NPC content.
English term theme park". In the video game industry, the theme parks" means an interventionist style of gameplay, which leads the player from point A to point B, in a process designed by the team developing the game.
As part of a MMORPG gameplay style theme park" is found in the construction of quests, raids or dungeons for players linearly imagined."
A themepark is linear, handheld, A-to-B oriented gameplay. Like a themepark in real life. GW2 is not a themepark. That doesn't mean it's a sandbox (as for some people something not being A automatically means it being B ....), but for sure it's not a themepark, or you didn't play it for more than 2 levels.
Thats a terrible definition. Theme park means everything in the world is there to be touched but not changed. You go, you ride the rides, you play the games, and buy candy... but come tomorrow when you log back in everything is the same. Sandbox implies that everything is meant to be building blocks for the player to work with. I haven't played enough to definitevly put it in either category, and honestly most games don't fit neatly in either. Without a doubt the skills/character aspect of this game are as theme park as it gets. You pick this class and get these skills- no gear or different abilities available. Boring.
This is my biggest issue with the game, lack of customization. As previous posters have mentioned there is no PVP gear or way to differentiate other than gameplay. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I'm just saying it's not an MMORPG. This game plays alot like a action/shooter game to me. You get 4-5 abilities that you can use and dodge, and thats it. Lack of diverse skills, lack of fight altering abilities, lack of dynamic fighting.
Don't get me wrong, the game was enjoyable to pick up and play, I can just see it becoming very stale after about 1-2 weeks of pushing the same 3 buttons over and over. If I wanted to play a game like thisI would probably just get my hands on a FPS.
What are you talking about? You get skills 5 to 0 as well, once you level up and unlock them. And no customization? Have you even LOOKED at the traits, or all the different skills you can unlock? How about the fact that no two players look remotely the same with the differences in dyes and character customization?
they ingested it,got a great initial buzz,then realized it didnt live up to their expectations.
much like ToR,AoC,Aion,Warhammer and so on and so forth.
May I say that GW2 is very different from the TOR / AOC fiasco, as it delivers all it promised on paper. It didn't promise to change the world, but everything that you could find on the Wiki, for example, or in the manifesto, it's there.
That's why I don't understand the "hype dellusion" argument I see all around. Everything was clear from the start, we had videos, build calculators, dev blogs, and even a Wiki with all the class skills, all the features.
Thats true..
My point is, some people still develop this illusion of grandeur in their own minds that the game just isnt going to live up to
And the people who attempted to keep those people's expectations more grounded were referred to as "trolls" and "haters", and told to go away.
Go figure.
You've been basically telling us that there's nothing to be excited about, don't get too worked up, calm down, it's not going to be that great, etc etc. None of which should concern you or be ANY of your business. Especially now that we've got to play it and it HAS lived up to the expectations for most people... and yet you continue.
As one who didn't get in beta I am very surprised so much skeptical and negative opinions are here. I mean, I know no MMO is perfect, but for a first weekend the roses and daisies time surely was brief! Kinda surprised and I still try to sort out which opinion is more reliable. I am quite surprised tbh.
If you have a negative view or let down feeling, I would like to hear some substantial reasons. <.< >.> <.< (No trolling please, real opinions.^^)
you were no different with TOR so not sure why you are surprised.
lolwat guys? the beta was by far the most engaging MMO experience I've had in years, even though it had its own fair share of problems. people complaining about DEs not happening fast enough and "having to wait for that last sliver of XP" is just... well I don't know, false? I thoroughly enjoyed running around exploring Queensdale and even though I wasn't even searching for events, they just popped up. I think arenanet pulled the map design off really well and the game really rewards exploration (discovering new waypoints can yield like 250 xp, etc) and most importantly, I had a ton of fun while playing.
of course, the beta did have a lot of bugs and server downtime etc. but gameplay-wise, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. keeping in mind that I was mostly testing PvE, the gameplay elements really struck me as "enjoyable" and I didn't think about the game "not being innovative". honestly, I don't think GW2 is as innovative as arenanet claimed it to be, but it still seems really, really solid. however for me, the most important thing was that I had fun starting from level 1. even though I did not enjoy the "heart quests" or whatever much, world DE's really won me over (like the Shadow Behemoth, holy shit that was awesome)
--- soooo in essence, I dunno why so many people are complaining. aside from the standard beta issues like servers being down and performance not being top-notch, the game is a winner. seriously.
.... p.s 3 : I think I found how to label GW2 : a Playground. You go where you want, to do what you want with who you want, there will always be something to do.
k-damage, please, let it rest. Doesn't really matter whether you think it's a playground or a not-themepark or whatever definition you come up with.
Many (most?) people on this forum seem to think about the game as a well-made themepark with action combat and competitive PvP. I reckon they're right.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
As one who didn't get in beta I am very surprised so much skeptical and negative opinions are here. I mean, I know no MMO is perfect, but for a first weekend the roses and daisies time surely was brief! Kinda surprised and I still try to sort out which opinion is more reliable. I am quite surprised tbh.
If you have a negative view or let down feeling, I would like to hear some substantial reasons. <.< >.> <.< (No trolling please, real opinions.^^)
the beta went flawlessly for most. but theyre too busy playing, so youre not hearing their comments. youre getting all your info from a bunch of digruntled ppl who either had perfomance issues, couldnt log in, or just werent following the game and had a fantasy in their minds before playing.
i followed the game closely for 2 years (?), was hyped, didnt care about getting let down, and wasnt. in fact, the game turned out beyond expectations. i just couldnt log out yesterday...stayed up all night =( ANet delivered EXACTLY what they promised. stuff thats missing: Asura, Sylvari and optimizations. GG.
.... p.s 3 : I think I found how to label GW2 : a Playground. You go where you want, to do what you want with who you want, there will always be something to do.
k-damage, please, let it rest. Doesn't really matter whether you think it's a playground or a not-themepark or whatever definition you come up with.
Many (most?) people on this forum seem to think about the game as a well-made themepark with action combat and competitive PvP. I reckon they're right.
people on these forums are not right quite often. how do we classify GW2? to me, GW2 will always be a PVE sandbox, pvp themepark. DE's and free-form exploration content make GW2 a PVE sandbox.
I've been really excited for this game and was super excited about the beta weekend, but when I finally got to play, I couldn't even bring myself to stay on longer than an hour. I'm pretty damn dissappointed.
I quit SWTOR after a month, but I played every second I could during both my beta weekends, and then got a character to 50 within a week after getting my early access. SWTOR lost me as well... I'm just saying...
Now it may be a lot better when it's released and all these server and lag and poor performance issues are fixed. At it's core though, it is still not innovative.
The problem with this whole system is just that a lot of times you're just standing around like, "Oh, gee, I sure wish something would hurry up and happen so I can get this last bit of XP so I can level up!"
This speaks volumes.
You do realize that there are currently 3 starting zones, 5 at release, all of which have enough XP to push you several levels past the cap they have set. You can game 1/2 - full level simply exploring ONE major city... there are currently 3 + Lions arch. You gain XP in WvW which you can participate in at lv1.
If you are having trouble getting XP... You are the issue not the game. The problem is people complain about nothing changing in this industry and as soon as they encounter some they complain like someone ran over their dog.
Sorry, but all the complaints you had either are a normal part of a beta or had to do with your play style. The game is not WOW and it takes a bit of trial and error to figure out how to get the biggest bang for your time. Sorry you couldn't figure it out, feel free to move on to another game more your style.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
people on these forums are not right quite often. how do we classify GW2? to me, GW2 will always be a PVE sandbox, pvp themepark. DE's and free-form exploration content make GW2 a PVE sandbox.
*sighs*
Thus GW2 is a sandbox now. Ok, I reckon Einstein was right after all.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Hell this game its so good already that i got no time to do nothing else so with me was 1000 of people playing and enjoying the game , no time for chit chat , but now i can tell you this game its something and i believe i haven't see more than 5% of this game in 2 days
I honestly can't remember the last time I logged into the game right when I woke up, played what felt like a few pvp matches, and realized it was already time for bed lol. Can't wait for release!
Comments
mmorpgs are like food. Some games = McDonald's (i.e., World of Warcraft), whereas some are equivalent to a fine dim sum platter at a 4 star Chinese restaurant, i.e., Dark Age of Camelot.
Then there's today's games. That hot dog at 7-11 does the trick, and lots of folks buy it. Some folks even defend the heck out of the product, and many just say, "oh god, that's crap."
GW2 is a nice looking game, but that's all it is. (I will play it Im sure so Im not bashing it, Im just pointing out the obvious). But its the same races and classes in their so called unique world vs world, etc pattern of pvp. There's those same BGs we all know of. On top of that, because companies are so into the Asian market, the games are looking more and more like korean cash shop titles. So we come free to play, and have a cash shop and anime' looking toons.
It's the nature of the beast these days. Gone are the days where developers tried to create a complex in depth mmorpg where you actually felt special, heroic, and unique. Gone is the attempt to build a great community. Gone is the fantasy mmorpg.
You have based a false point on top of a false point on top of a false point.
The only people Is see 'crashing' are the ones that were, at the most, on the fence if they would like it or not. As soon as they encountered the smallest niggle they tipped over into 'omgz, this sux!!1!'.
This game, intitial technical issues aside, has surpassed my expectations so far.
Anyone who knows what this game is, and anyone who pre-purchased SHOULD know, has no grounds for complaint. It is doing exactly what it said on the tin. If they DIDN'T know what it was before they purchased then they hardly fit into the picture you all are trying to paint above.
ANet have delivered exactly what they said they would and, to my mind, more. The game is, so far, a triumph.
Am I? link some of these posts please? Otherwise it's just you making stuff up to discredit another's PoV.
*edit: actually, don't even bother. I am flattered you think you know me, I have no idea who you are, but this thread isn't about me or any other single forum user so lets not make it. If you want to talk to me on a personal level feel free to PM me. If others want to search my post history to see if your speaking the truth or not they are ofc welcome*
I simply call things as I see them, and in this case I see it as I say here. You might not like that, but... /shrug
Thanks for the bump of the post though. All helps to reinforce the point.
I was actually thinking how few surprises we've seen so far.
Some posters are just prone to extremism and hyperbole, drama llamas, and so far they're voting pretty much as expected.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
And yet, you still see fans of the game claim that there is no hype because it is all word of mouth. As though the devs haven't been making any claims of anything all this time.
nuff said
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
IMO most of the hype comes from fans. All dev have to do is make a video and post it..rest is done by fans. I hardly blame companies for over hyping. hyping maybe but certainly not over hype.
But some people just make a too easy target.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
My performance wasn't bad once I got going, it took maybe 15 minutes at most for the lag to stop. Combat is a lot of fun once you get past level 6ish, not to say it wasn't fun at low levels(I guess it depends on class, i'm currently playing as an Elementalist)I dunno which DE's you were doing, but I rarely ever repeated one, I only did if I really liked it. There are so many DE's in just the "starting area" you don't really even have to do your storyline. I agree with you on the Storyline though, it's fairly boring so far and the voice acting is not as good as I would've liked....but it's better than a lot of games out there. @ the side note, not really, although I haven't rolled a ranger yet, a friend of mine did and her pet didn't die that often.
+
That's when I see those counter-argumentation that I can't believe that some negative reviewers have really played the game.Unless you want a game to have a 100% autonomous, buildable, destructable, metachanging world (and in this case, good luck waiting for year 2025), then GW2 is NOT a themepark, even with how you describe it.
Example 1 : yesterday night, I was going back to a fort where I have taken a quest, in order to repair. But when I arrived, the fort was destroyed, every guard was dead, and it was full of Svanir (viking like attackers). I had to kill them all and rez all the NPCs myself to repair. So Rhorn842, this example itself nullifies your argument.
Example 2 : Except for the personal story (which itself even have 2 internal branches, http://www.arena.net/blog/the-evolution-of-narrative-in-personal-story), I can litterally go wherever I want, in any region I want, to do the activity I want. In each zone, you're given a presentation of the area when you find the "long view" NPC, and he/she narrates the region problems and forces that are fighting each other. This gives in general a minimum of 5 conflict zones to interact with per area. On top of that, there are secret places to discover, "surprise" events like an Elite NPC starting to conquer an area, escorts, invasions, or interactions between enemy NPCs. When you arrive in a zone, you just have the choice to do all of that, in the order you want. And you don't, you still can say "fuck it, I'll go lurking in WvWvW" (which I discovered yesterday is not just 1 giant map, it's FOUR giant maps, each having its buildings to conquer and resources to manage). So Grimfall, this example nullifies your argument too. It's not a question of order, it's a question of hand holding. In GW2 you're not handheld.
Example 3 : Each time you finish a Dynamic Event, you're asked to note from 1 to 5 three to four aspects of the event. One of them is litterally : "How much did this event change the environment for you ?".
So now, excuse me, but I'm going to actually see how much GW2 is not a themepark by trying to see if this village is still invaded. If it is, maybe I'll try to trigger that event where I had to slay a Grawl tribe, or wander in the WvWvW, maybe I'll go back to starting area see if I missed something, or maybe I'll continue my personal story.
p.s : once again, not being B (themepark) doesn't necessarly mean you have to be A (sandbox). Stop the polarization, please.
p.s 2 : lol, I just logged in, and found something in the zone I wasn't even expecting : a giant ice Dragon fighting against 30 players, next to the village I was talking about.
p.s 3 : I think I found how to label GW2 : a Playground. You go where you want, to do what you want with who you want, there will always be something to do.
***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****
Basically to extend the analogy, you think that Disney World is a themepark, but Six Flags over St Louis is not ,because Six Flags over St Louis has The Batman roller coaster, therefore it's not a themepark. GW2 has some new rides, or new takes on rides, but they're still rides. You waxed poetic about the "mutable" public events, but you never pointed out (or maybe don't realize?) that you cold come back tomorrow to the public event area, and it could be basically the same thing as it was the day before.
They may be really cool rides, with interesting takes, but they're still rides.
"Basically, this nullifies your argument." You went back and used that same incorrect definition of themepark, and then attributed it to me. Even something I pointed out that GW2 has which is what makes it a themepark, you pointed to as an example of it not being a themepark... not sure how to make it more clear to you. When you arrive in a Disney Land, you just have the choice to do all of that, in the order you want. And you don't, you still can say "fuck it, I'll go lurking in the video arcade" Wall of text up as much as you like, but you're fanboying and not reading and internalizing what you read.
But I will agree with you. If you use the incorrect definition of 'theme park", it's not a themepark... of course, neither was World of Warcrat then. Unless you think "themepark" solely means a game with level based NPC content.
What are you talking about? You get skills 5 to 0 as well, once you level up and unlock them. And no customization? Have you even LOOKED at the traits, or all the different skills you can unlock? How about the fact that no two players look remotely the same with the differences in dyes and character customization?
You've been basically telling us that there's nothing to be excited about, don't get too worked up, calm down, it's not going to be that great, etc etc. None of which should concern you or be ANY of your business. Especially now that we've got to play it and it HAS lived up to the expectations for most people... and yet you continue.
So then we tell you to go away.
Go figure.
you were no different with TOR so not sure why you are surprised.
There Is Always Hope!
lolwat guys? the beta was by far the most engaging MMO experience I've had in years, even though it had its own fair share of problems. people complaining about DEs not happening fast enough and "having to wait for that last sliver of XP" is just... well I don't know, false? I thoroughly enjoyed running around exploring Queensdale and even though I wasn't even searching for events, they just popped up. I think arenanet pulled the map design off really well and the game really rewards exploration (discovering new waypoints can yield like 250 xp, etc) and most importantly, I had a ton of fun while playing.
of course, the beta did have a lot of bugs and server downtime etc. but gameplay-wise, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. keeping in mind that I was mostly testing PvE, the gameplay elements really struck me as "enjoyable" and I didn't think about the game "not being innovative". honestly, I don't think GW2 is as innovative as arenanet claimed it to be, but it still seems really, really solid. however for me, the most important thing was that I had fun starting from level 1. even though I did not enjoy the "heart quests" or whatever much, world DE's really won me over (like the Shadow Behemoth, holy shit that was awesome)
--- soooo in essence, I dunno why so many people are complaining. aside from the standard beta issues like servers being down and performance not being top-notch, the game is a winner. seriously.
Login issues and performance issues asside, most people are really enjoying the beta - I know I am having a blast.
They will need to address the game performance problems though - and they said they are - or it will destroy the game come release.
But I am confident that they will solve the issues in time for release.
Great game - so much to do everywhere - cant wait.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
k-damage, please, let it rest. Doesn't really matter whether you think it's a playground or a not-themepark or whatever definition you come up with.
Many (most?) people on this forum seem to think about the game as a well-made themepark with action combat and competitive PvP. I reckon they're right.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
the beta went flawlessly for most. but theyre too busy playing, so youre not hearing their comments. youre getting all your info from a bunch of digruntled ppl who either had perfomance issues, couldnt log in, or just werent following the game and had a fantasy in their minds before playing.
i followed the game closely for 2 years (?), was hyped, didnt care about getting let down, and wasnt. in fact, the game turned out beyond expectations. i just couldnt log out yesterday...stayed up all night =( ANet delivered EXACTLY what they promised. stuff thats missing: Asura, Sylvari and optimizations. GG.
people on these forums are not right quite often. how do we classify GW2? to me, GW2 will always be a PVE sandbox, pvp themepark. DE's and free-form exploration content make GW2 a PVE sandbox.
I've been really excited for this game and was super excited about the beta weekend, but when I finally got to play, I couldn't even bring myself to stay on longer than an hour. I'm pretty damn dissappointed.
I quit SWTOR after a month, but I played every second I could during both my beta weekends, and then got a character to 50 within a week after getting my early access. SWTOR lost me as well... I'm just saying...
Now it may be a lot better when it's released and all these server and lag and poor performance issues are fixed. At it's core though, it is still not innovative.
This speaks volumes.
You do realize that there are currently 3 starting zones, 5 at release, all of which have enough XP to push you several levels past the cap they have set. You can game 1/2 - full level simply exploring ONE major city... there are currently 3 + Lions arch. You gain XP in WvW which you can participate in at lv1.
If you are having trouble getting XP... You are the issue not the game. The problem is people complain about nothing changing in this industry and as soon as they encounter some they complain like someone ran over their dog.
Sorry, but all the complaints you had either are a normal part of a beta or had to do with your play style. The game is not WOW and it takes a bit of trial and error to figure out how to get the biggest bang for your time. Sorry you couldn't figure it out, feel free to move on to another game more your style.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
*sighs*
Thus GW2 is a sandbox now. Ok, I reckon Einstein was right after all.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
I feel that they shouldn't have allowed open beta with such a bad performance on so many PCs.
Game looks great on highest settings. Many are forced to play on lowest, and lowest setting really looks poor.
NEW IDEAS that can refresh the STALE state of MMORPGs
Hell this game its so good already that i got no time to do nothing else so with me was 1000 of people playing and enjoying the game , no time for chit chat , but now i can tell you this game its something and i believe i haven't see more than 5% of this game in 2 days