The same can be said about any other game. WoW has 9 million accounts but how many of those accounts are actually playing? I know quite a few people who purchased that 12 month thing to get Diablo III and the mount.
The fact is that GW1 was entertaining enough to sell 7 million copies and sell that many, ArenaNet has to be doing something right.
Boxes =/= equal active accounts.
If it was a bad game, it would not have sold 7 million copies. It doesn't matter how many active accounts there are. To sell that many copies indicates that the game is good enough to continue selling strong after existing for 7 years.
No problem with that statment. They number of people who played the game at one point in time is probably closer to 1.5 million than 7 though.
Doubt it but whatever. It doesn't matter. Even 1.5 million is still a pretty good number of people who enjoy GW1's mostly cosmetic approach.
Imho the best singular aspect to PVE that Anet made for GW2 is downscaling your level. So effectively no content becomes irrelevant. Also Orr sound's to be very difficult and fun. Also the legendary weapon chasing will be fun, although i can't see my charr ranger with the unicorn bow that fart's rainbow's out of it's arse. Then you have both WvWvW and SPVP. For a 60$ price tag GW2 really does have alot to offer.
And no I personally don't believe GW2 is the best thing since sliced bread. But it does present thing's in a way that appeal's to me.
A lot of people will also stick to GW2 just so they don't need to admit they were wrong.
I.E the case Star Wars: The Old Republic.
And TSW.
Nah 1 month in 14 days /played ability wheel at 50% and haven't did any of the stories or investigations. The best part 10/20 man raids Aug. 31st. Might get Aux. weapons too. So much to do in TSW atm.
14 days /played and wheel only at 50%? And you haven't done any story and investigations? I had 37% at 4 days /played.
Maybe someone who has not played TSW will believe you about how much content there really is. For some who has played it, your comment is laughable. I "beat" the game after about 5 days played. What was left was running the same 2 instances, grind zergy PvP or rerun the same quests in Transilvania to get more SP/AP, which I wasn't going to do.
Wow stat progression after the first month or so of an expansion = grind raids to earn dkp to ' buy' an item that gives you an extra 1% of performance output. A brilliant and exciting gaming mechanic? Do wow players still love repeating those instances 5 months in? Nope they are sick of it, they are bored to death of them. A brilliant gaming experience?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
I will say one thing about the down-scaling thing and people that feel like that adds so much to end-game. City of Heroes has had that for ages and it never really encouraged people to go back and redo things. Once you've done it once, it really loses its appeal.
People will redo something if they need to or if they will get something out of it - In City of Heroes people redid one downscaled lower level dungeon only because it was one of the best ways to get a respec for your character.
I will accept you apology when you give it. I will not respond to anything else about TSW. This is about GW2.
Apology for what? You're obviously exaggerating. First where does it say days played on that link?
Here is my character a few days before I stopped playing. This is at about 4 days /played. You know the command in the game? For some reason the Chronicle didn't update itself to my most current character level but whatever. You're trying to tell me that at 14 days /played, you only have 50% when I had 37% at 4 days /played?
Either you're doing something wrong, I'm doing something right or you go AFK for hours on end. Or maybe you're just exaggerating. Unless all you do is PvP, then I can sort of see how what you claim is possible.
whats the point of playing if you feel your character isnt getting stronger?
Usually the point of "getting stronger" is to get the gear necessary to do harder content. In other words, until your tanks have the mitigation, your healers have enough spell power or whatever, and your DPS hits hard enough, you are prevented from doing harder dungeons or raids etc.
What if that gate was removed an "progression" became tied to how well you played, be it in PvE or in PvP? Or how well you worked with your guild, or you team, or other players while doing content?
That's the general idea. Some people won't like it, but there it is.
"Loading screens" are not "instances". Your personal efforts to troll any game will not, in fact, impact the success or failure of said game.
I will accept you apology when you give it. I will not respond to anything else about TSW. This is about GW2.
Apology for what? You're obviously exaggerating. First where does it say days played on that link?
Here is my character a few days before I stopped playing. This is at about 4 days /played. You know the command in the game? For some reason the Chronicle didn't update itself to my most current character level but whatever. You're trying to tell me that at 14 days /played, you only have 50% when I had 37% at 4 days /played?
Either you're doing something wrong, I'm doing something right or you go AFK for hours on end. Or maybe you're just exaggerating. Unless all you do is PvP, then I can sort of see how what you claim is possible.
He linked a picture that showed he has played 17 days 21 hours. Which means that he has played the game ~12 hours per day since release.
Obviously he is the exception to the rule. It looks like he has done a ton of PvPing according to his Chronicle. If he had been focusing on PvE for 12 hours/day since launch I'm sure he's be through all the content a long time ago. That is a ridiculously high average for an entire month.
Originally posted by Derpybird Originally posted by trillgodwhats the point of playing if you feel your character isnt getting stronger?
Usually the point of "getting stronger" is to get the gear necessary to do harder content. In other words, until your tanks have the mitigation, your healers have enough spell power or whatever, and your DPS hits hard enough, you are prevented from doing harder dungeons or raids etc.
What if that gate was removed an "progression" became tied to how well you played, be it in PvE or in PvP? Or how well you worked with your guild, or you team, or other players while doing content?
That's the general idea. Some people won't like it, but there it is.
Is there any statistical gear progression at all? If so, why? Why wouldn't all gear, from level one to eighty just adjust stats to your level? Then it would all be up to your skill and ability.
I will accept you apology when you give it. I will not respond to anything else about TSW. This is about GW2.
Apology for what? You're obviously exaggerating. First where does it say days played on that link?
Here is my character a few days before I stopped playing. This is at about 4 days /played. You know the command in the game? For some reason the Chronicle didn't update itself to my most current character level but whatever. You're trying to tell me that at 14 days /played, you only have 50% when I had 37% at 4 days /played?
Either you're doing something wrong, I'm doing something right or you go AFK for hours on end. Or maybe you're just exaggerating. Unless all you do is PvP, then I can sort of see how what you claim is possible.
He linked a picture that showed he has played 17 days 21 hours. Which means that he has played the game ~12 hours per day since release.
Obviously he is the exception to the rule. It looks like he has done a ton of PvPing according to his Chronicle. If he had been focusing on PvE for 12 hours/day since launch I'm sure he's be through all the content a long time ago. That is a ridiculously high average for an entire month.
That's pretty crazy. I guess if all you do is PvP, I can see how that is possible, since it's really not a very optimal way to get AP/SP apparently. Still, it doesn't mean that the game has a lot of content. It just shows that he deliberately ignored most of it.
Originally posted by trillgodwhats the point of playing if you feel your character isnt getting stronger?
Usually the point of "getting stronger" is to get the gear necessary to do harder content. In other words, until your tanks have the mitigation, your healers have enough spell power or whatever, and your DPS hits hard enough, you are prevented from doing harder dungeons or raids etc.
What if that gate was removed an "progression" became tied to how well you played, be it in PvE or in PvP? Or how well you worked with your guild, or you team, or other players while doing content?
That's the general idea. Some people won't like it, but there it is.
Is there any statistical gear progression at all? If so, why? Why wouldn't all gear, from level one to eighty just adjust stats to your level? Then it would all be up to your skill and ability.
if this thread is any indication people need some sort of progression to validate they are getting stronger. Personally just new skills would be fine for me and all gear just be cosmetic. But the way GW2 does it in a sense you cater to both types of people. It also allows you to scale the zones to add a sense of zone progression as well as you level.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Getting a stat advantage until it becomes obsolete next tier is not strength it's a crutch. Real strength comes from the satisfaction of playing better and beating equally geared opponents.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Originally posted by trillgodwhats the point of playing if you feel your character isnt getting stronger?
Usually the point of "getting stronger" is to get the gear necessary to do harder content. In other words, until your tanks have the mitigation, your healers have enough spell power or whatever, and your DPS hits hard enough, you are prevented from doing harder dungeons or raids etc.
What if that gate was removed an "progression" became tied to how well you played, be it in PvE or in PvP? Or how well you worked with your guild, or you team, or other players while doing content?
That's the general idea. Some people won't like it, but there it is.
Is there any statistical gear progression at all? If so, why? Why wouldn't all gear, from level one to eighty just adjust stats to your level? Then it would all be up to your skill and ability.
There is gear progression.
However, gear with best stats can be gained through crafting, dungeons, DE bosses and maybe pvp (not sure about last).
It's not like when you hit 80 you insta get best gear and that's it. You still have to find that best piece.
Only difference is that unlike most other MMORPG best gear is not in raids only and it should be easier to get for all.
For me endgame starts if you run out of progression and you run out of content. Now the phase of repeating existing content starts which is called endgame. In endgame you:
- do instances over and over again. The difference with GW2 is, they focus here on group instances
- do open world encounters over and over again. The difference with GW2 is, that they have DEs here and due to player-scaling you can go back to lower zones. But the time will come, you have played all branches and then you will do it over and over again.
- do non-combat activities, which is mainly crafting. So you will craft stuff (mainly high-level) over and over again.
- do endless progression. The endless progression in GW2 is cosmetic progression. You will hunt for new shiny stuff over and over again.
- do pvp-battles over and over again. Even the WvW content is limited.
You will repeat this endgame until they launch an expansion with new content and perhaps a bit of further vertikal/horizontal progression, too. You will play it and then you are again in endgame.
On a high abstraction level, i dont see a big difference between GW2 and any other themepark here. There are no repeatable raid instances and no stats progression. This is replaced by group-content and a cosmetic item treatmill. The DEs could make the endgame different to a certain extent, if ArenaNet can change and extend them very fast between expansions. Something which seems far more difficult with classic questbased storycontent. However, a game-provider will never produce content fast enough for hardcore-gamers. These gamers will reach their endgame, even with expandable DEs.
The question is the same like in every theme-park: Will this repeatable content be interesting enough to keep players until next expansion and how fast they can produce expansions and content patches in order to keep these endgame-phases rather short for the majority. Arenanet expects, that players who love raid instances and endless stats progression are a minority. So you guys better dont buy GW2, if this is your one and only interest.
However it does not matter in the B2P model. Buy the game, enjoy it as long as you can and stop playing until the new expansion; rinse and repeat. This is of course not a solution for players not playing a game, but looking for a virtual world to live in for years. They might become problems if their personal rate of content consumption is way higher than content production by Arenanet and if they are not interested to repeat content as described above.
This problem is a bit different in sandboxes, because player-driven content is endless by nature. And open mainly horizontal and lateral skillprogression can be de facto endless, too. But that does not mean they would not have an endgame. Its just different and it can become boring in a different way.
This discussion is just going in circles. Imho, UsulD posted the above quoted (intelligent) reply, and the thread should have been locked after that.
Originally posted by trillgodwhats the point of playing if you feel your character isnt getting stronger?
Usually the point of "getting stronger" is to get the gear necessary to do harder content. In other words, until your tanks have the mitigation, your healers have enough spell power or whatever, and your DPS hits hard enough, you are prevented from doing harder dungeons or raids etc.
What if that gate was removed an "progression" became tied to how well you played, be it in PvE or in PvP? Or how well you worked with your guild, or you team, or other players while doing content?
That's the general idea. Some people won't like it, but there it is.
Is there any statistical gear progression at all? If so, why? Why wouldn't all gear, from level one to eighty just adjust stats to your level? Then it would all be up to your skill and ability.
It was a design decision to have vertical progression plateauing in a horizontal progression model. I played GW1 for about a year when I took a break from WoW and remember hitting level 20 really fast, but kept playing because it was interesting content.
I'm not pretending that this system works for everyone. It won't. I was a progression raider, I get the whole allure of more powerful gear and bigger numbers flashing on the screen. However, I can easily see raiders buying this game and playing it on their non-raiding nights for a different kind of experience.
People buying this game should know what it is and what it isn't.
"Loading screens" are not "instances". Your personal efforts to troll any game will not, in fact, impact the success or failure of said game.
Traveling to the lands I Didn't go to and do stuff there.
The Combat System itself is a huge draw
Better looking gear (It's only cool to fight if you're fighting with swag mate)
Exploring the maps and try to do map completes
Choreographing my own GW2 musical about ninjas who steal turnips from baby charr who are sick with the Nornish plague. (I may need help with this one..)
Swag... So it's only cool if secretely we are gay?
For me endgame starts if you run out of progression and you run out of content. Now the phase of repeating existing content starts which is called endgame. In endgame you:
- do instances over and over again. The difference with GW2 is, they focus here on group instances
- do open world encounters over and over again. The difference with GW2 is, that they have DEs here and due to player-scaling you can go back to lower zones. But the time will come, you have played all branches and then you will do it over and over again.
- do non-combat activities, which is mainly crafting. So you will craft stuff (mainly high-level) over and over again.
- do endless progression. The endless progression in GW2 is cosmetic progression. You will hunt for new shiny stuff over and over again.
- do pvp-battles over and over again. Even the WvW content is limited.
You will repeat this endgame until they launch an expansion with new content and perhaps a bit of further vertikal/horizontal progression, too. You will play it and then you are again in endgame.
On a high abstraction level, i dont see a big difference between GW2 and any other themepark here. There are no repeatable raid instances and no stats progression. This is replaced by group-content and a cosmetic item treatmill. The DEs could make the endgame different to a certain extent, if ArenaNet can change and extend them very fast between expansions. Something which seems far more difficult with classic questbased storycontent. However, a game-provider will never produce content fast enough for hardcore-gamers. These gamers will reach their endgame, even with expandable DEs.
The question is the same like in every theme-park: Will this repeatable content be interesting enough to keep players until next expansion and how fast they can produce expansions and content patches in order to keep these endgame-phases rather short for the majority. Arenanet expects, that players who love raid instances and endless stats progression are a minority. So you guys better dont buy GW2, if this is your one and only interest.
However it does not matter in the B2P model. Buy the game, enjoy it as long as you can and stop playing until the new expansion; rinse and repeat. This is of course not a solution for players not playing a game, but looking for a virtual world to live in for years. They might become problems if their personal rate of content consumption is way higher than content production by Arenanet and if they are not interested to repeat content as described above.
This problem is a bit different in sandboxes, because player-driven content is endless by nature. And open mainly horizontal and lateral skillprogression can be de facto endless, too. But that does not mean they would not have an endgame. Its just different and it can become boring in a different way.
This discussion is just going in circles. Imho, UsulD posted the above quoted (intelligent) reply, and the thread should have been locked after that.
As long as there are people who want GW2 to become a WoW clone, and then when they get bored of it, claim that it's a WoW clone and thus it's shit, and then leave, this merry go round is never going to end.
Originally posted by Derpybird Originally posted by pierthOriginally posted by DerpybirdOriginally posted by trillgodwhats the point of playing if you feel your character isnt getting stronger?
Usually the point of "getting stronger" is to get the gear necessary to do harder content. In other words, until your tanks have the mitigation, your healers have enough spell power or whatever, and your DPS hits hard enough, you are prevented from doing harder dungeons or raids etc.What if that gate was removed an "progression" became tied to how well you played, be it in PvE or in PvP? Or how well you worked with your guild, or you team, or other players while doing content?That's the general idea. Some people won't like it, but there it is.Is there any statistical gear progression at all? If so, why? Why wouldn't all gear, from level one to eighty just adjust stats to your level? Then it would all be up to your skill and ability.It was a design decision to have vertical progression plateauing in a horizontal progression model. I played GW1 for about a year when I took a break from WoW and remember hitting level 20 really fast, but kept playing because it was interesting content.
I'm not pretending that this system works for everyone. It won't. I was a progression raider, I get the whole allure of more powerful gear and bigger numbers flashing on the screen. However, I can easily see raiders buying this game and playing it on their non-raiding nights for a different kind of experience.
People buying this game should know what it is and what it isn't.
I personally don't have a problem with Anet focusing on horizontal progression at endgame, in fact from some of my first posts on this site that was something I thought would be necessary to keep content relevant. I just don't understand why all of these games seem to have a bait and switch type effect at "endgame."
Of course WoW's is much more pronounced and rigid compared to GW2 but if they don't want there to be such a disappointing game change at the level cap, then don't throw the goodies into the leveling game if you can't provide them for the endgame. Problem solved.
Originally posted by trillgodwhats the point of playing if you feel your character isnt getting stronger?
Usually the point of "getting stronger" is to get the gear necessary to do harder content. In other words, until your tanks have the mitigation, your healers have enough spell power or whatever, and your DPS hits hard enough, you are prevented from doing harder dungeons or raids etc.What if that gate was removed an "progression" became tied to how well you played, be it in PvE or in PvP? Or how well you worked with your guild, or you team, or other players while doing content?That's the general idea. Some people won't like it, but there it is.
Is there any statistical gear progression at all? If so, why? Why wouldn't all gear, from level one to eighty just adjust stats to your level? Then it would all be up to your skill and ability.
It was a design decision to have vertical progression plateauing in a horizontal progression model. I played GW1 for about a year when I took a break from WoW and remember hitting level 20 really fast, but kept playing because it was interesting content.
I'm not pretending that this system works for everyone. It won't. I was a progression raider, I get the whole allure of more powerful gear and bigger numbers flashing on the screen. However, I can easily see raiders buying this game and playing it on their non-raiding nights for a different kind of experience.
People buying this game should know what it is and what it isn't.
I personally don't have a problem with Anet focusing on horizontal progression at endgame, in fact from some of my first posts on this site that was something I thought would be necessary to keep content relevant. I just don't understand why all of these games seem to have a bait and switch type effect at "endgame."
Of course WoW's is much more pronounced and rigid compared to GW2 but if they don't want there to be such a disappointing game change at the level cap, then don't throw the goodies into the leveling game if you can't provide them for the endgame. Problem solved.
But they're not... New weapon skins and new aromor skins are the only horizontal paths, you could call it a path at that. And doesn't that cosmetic armor/weapon path exist in every mmo?
Comments
Doubt it but whatever. It doesn't matter. Even 1.5 million is still a pretty good number of people who enjoy GW1's mostly cosmetic approach.
The whole game is endgame!!!!!!
Imho the best singular aspect to PVE that Anet made for GW2 is downscaling your level. So effectively no content becomes irrelevant. Also Orr sound's to be very difficult and fun. Also the legendary weapon chasing will be fun, although i can't see my charr ranger with the unicorn bow that fart's rainbow's out of it's arse. Then you have both WvWvW and SPVP. For a 60$ price tag GW2 really does have alot to offer.
And no I personally don't believe GW2 is the best thing since sliced bread. But it does present thing's in a way that appeal's to me.
http://chronicle.thesecretworld.com/character/Chopsticks
I will accept you apology when you give it. I will not respond to anything else about TSW. This is about GW2.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
whats the point of playing if you feel your character isnt getting stronger?
I will say one thing about the down-scaling thing and people that feel like that adds so much to end-game. City of Heroes has had that for ages and it never really encouraged people to go back and redo things. Once you've done it once, it really loses its appeal.
People will redo something if they need to or if they will get something out of it - In City of Heroes people redid one downscaled lower level dungeon only because it was one of the best ways to get a respec for your character.
What's the point of getting stronger if in the end it will be obsolete by the next patch?
QFT, big fan of the youtube stuff btw. Great Crafting Guides.
Whats the point of playing any game that doesn't have character progression?
Uh...
I think you have mistaken me for someone else.
Apology for what? You're obviously exaggerating. First where does it say days played on that link?
Here is my character a few days before I stopped playing. This is at about 4 days /played. You know the command in the game? For some reason the Chronicle didn't update itself to my most current character level but whatever. You're trying to tell me that at 14 days /played, you only have 50% when I had 37% at 4 days /played?
Either you're doing something wrong, I'm doing something right or you go AFK for hours on end. Or maybe you're just exaggerating. Unless all you do is PvP, then I can sort of see how what you claim is possible.
Usually the point of "getting stronger" is to get the gear necessary to do harder content. In other words, until your tanks have the mitigation, your healers have enough spell power or whatever, and your DPS hits hard enough, you are prevented from doing harder dungeons or raids etc.
What if that gate was removed an "progression" became tied to how well you played, be it in PvE or in PvP? Or how well you worked with your guild, or you team, or other players while doing content?
That's the general idea. Some people won't like it, but there it is.
"Loading screens" are not "instances".
Your personal efforts to troll any game will not, in fact, impact the success or failure of said game.
He linked a picture that showed he has played 17 days 21 hours. Which means that he has played the game ~12 hours per day since release.
Here is the pic: http://s14.postimage.org/outsghvcv/Chopsticks_picture023.png
Obviously he is the exception to the rule. It looks like he has done a ton of PvPing according to his Chronicle. If he had been focusing on PvE for 12 hours/day since launch I'm sure he's be through all the content a long time ago. That is a ridiculously high average for an entire month.
What if that gate was removed an "progression" became tied to how well you played, be it in PvE or in PvP? Or how well you worked with your guild, or you team, or other players while doing content?
That's the general idea. Some people won't like it, but there it is.
Is there any statistical gear progression at all? If so, why? Why wouldn't all gear, from level one to eighty just adjust stats to your level? Then it would all be up to your skill and ability.
That's pretty crazy. I guess if all you do is PvP, I can see how that is possible, since it's really not a very optimal way to get AP/SP apparently. Still, it doesn't mean that the game has a lot of content. It just shows that he deliberately ignored most of it.
if this thread is any indication people need some sort of progression to validate they are getting stronger. Personally just new skills would be fine for me and all gear just be cosmetic. But the way GW2 does it in a sense you cater to both types of people. It also allows you to scale the zones to add a sense of zone progression as well as you level.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
There is gear progression.
However, gear with best stats can be gained through crafting, dungeons, DE bosses and maybe pvp (not sure about last).
It's not like when you hit 80 you insta get best gear and that's it. You still have to find that best piece.
Only difference is that unlike most other MMORPG best gear is not in raids only and it should be easier to get for all.
This discussion is just going in circles. Imho, UsulD posted the above quoted (intelligent) reply, and the thread should have been locked after that.
It was a design decision to have vertical progression plateauing in a horizontal progression model. I played GW1 for about a year when I took a break from WoW and remember hitting level 20 really fast, but kept playing because it was interesting content.
I'm not pretending that this system works for everyone. It won't. I was a progression raider, I get the whole allure of more powerful gear and bigger numbers flashing on the screen. However, I can easily see raiders buying this game and playing it on their non-raiding nights for a different kind of experience.
People buying this game should know what it is and what it isn't.
"Loading screens" are not "instances".
Your personal efforts to troll any game will not, in fact, impact the success or failure of said game.
Swag... So it's only cool if secretely we are gay?
As long as there are people who want GW2 to become a WoW clone, and then when they get bored of it, claim that it's a WoW clone and thus it's shit, and then leave, this merry go round is never going to end.
Is there any statistical gear progression at all? If so, why? Why wouldn't all gear, from level one to eighty just adjust stats to your level? Then it would all be up to your skill and ability.
It was a design decision to have vertical progression plateauing in a horizontal progression model. I played GW1 for about a year when I took a break from WoW and remember hitting level 20 really fast, but kept playing because it was interesting content.
I'm not pretending that this system works for everyone. It won't. I was a progression raider, I get the whole allure of more powerful gear and bigger numbers flashing on the screen. However, I can easily see raiders buying this game and playing it on their non-raiding nights for a different kind of experience.
People buying this game should know what it is and what it isn't.
I personally don't have a problem with Anet focusing on horizontal progression at endgame, in fact from some of my first posts on this site that was something I thought would be necessary to keep content relevant. I just don't understand why all of these games seem to have a bait and switch type effect at "endgame."
Of course WoW's is much more pronounced and rigid compared to GW2 but if they don't want there to be such a disappointing game change at the level cap, then don't throw the goodies into the leveling game if you can't provide them for the endgame. Problem solved.
But they're not... New weapon skins and new aromor skins are the only horizontal paths, you could call it a path at that. And doesn't that cosmetic armor/weapon path exist in every mmo?