Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Xzen
I found it almost impossible to solo. Every time I tried to do a quest there were a bunch of people there helping me and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't play solo if I wanted to.

I think you missed the point.

1. Solo means you are not creating a group and playing the game. It does NOT mean you are in an area alone.

2. You did your quest and moved on as you liked not having to wait for anyone to stick with you.

3. You completed your tasks even with a bunch of people around doing the same things as you and your play was not really inturrupted at all.

Now the flip side.

1. in other games where the content you are doing is hard you MUST form a group.

2. if you were soloing and other players were on the same quest but would not group, you had to share the spawns vastly increasing the amount of time it would take to complete your quest as you had to wait for spawns.

3. While grouped you were FORCED to wait your group members to move with you. Almost every aspect of the old group aspects were time consuming.

No, as I read it, you are missing the point.

Sigh, so much focus on removing the "time-consuming" parts of MMO's... who knew how much people really hated them.

I sort of like forming groups for harder content, part of that whole social aspect thing I guess.  As for sharing spawns, why are we doing that, if designed properly, I should be able to smack them flat if they're irritating me. 

Finally, waiting for group memebers to move...the horror, I chased someone around for over 15 minutes to help them do a few quests that were of no benefit to me.... guess I just waste time in these fool games.

Originally posted by MMOarQQ

OP just makes it sound like nothing you accomplish in this game really matters.

Nothing you accomplish in any game really matters.

Originally posted by Meleagar

Yes, this game is revolutionary...

Lol. A-Net may have refined this concept, but the game is in no way revolutionary. It has the potential to become the next Warcraft, in a good way, by taking established mechanics from other MMOs and improving them, then implementing them in a way that makes sense.

I think guild wars 2 did a good job with "solo grouping" meaning you are not in a group but you are still working together. During the beta weekend, I never group up once with anybody except for structure PvP, but I still worked a lot with other players. One of the most amazing thing was that during events  players were rezing each other, they will attack each other mobs (which i a good thing in guild wars 2). I remember switching to water attunement on my elementalist to  provide buffs for everyone in the area, it was just so nice.

But guild wars 2 is not a 100% soloable game meaning you cant do every open world things by yourself, certerain DE require you to be in a group to stand a ghost of a chance.

I like guild wars 2 but guild wars 2 is not revolutionary because it usually in the eye of the beholder. and you cannot tell if something is revolutionary until a few years after the fact. Finally, using words like "revolutionary" ends up doing my harm than good in the long run because you create unrealistic expectations. 

Originally posted by RebelScum99

More hyperbole.  You left out the part about GW2 being able to cure cancer and bring about world peace.  

 

Yes, it will be like this until the next beta weekend when the damage limitation team take over from the hyperbole squad.

Originally posted by Meleagar

No, casual doesn't mean "easy", and solo doesn't mean "never plays with others", and that is something that  Anet has, shockingly, really understood and taken to heart.

Without saying a word to other players, I was involved in one group or raid-quality event after another.  I could log in, and log out, and go AFK as I wished, and play as good or as bad as I was able, with no grief or guilt, without putting anyone else at risk or ruining anyone else's game.  I could figure out what combination of skills and weapons I personally liked to use, and use that to my heart's content, and nobody could disinvite me or prevent me from participating.

Yes, I do enjoy talking to others, and I do enjoy playing as best I can; I just don't like being excluded from top end content and rewards because some 14 yr old e-Napolean doesn't think I'm professional enough.  I also don't like putting other people at risk because I don't play the most efficient, min-max character possible.

The game mechanics itself told me what my contribution level was, and I didn't have to beg someone else, or play to their liking, to get my rewards. Nobody could grief me, ninja-loot, steal my kill, or jump in and ruin content. If I was halfway through a quest and felt like doing something else, I could wander off and not get textually assaulted for it. I could jump in and help other players, and they could do the same for me, freely. If I like an area, I can just stay there to my heart's content. The game doesn't tell me to "get out" of an by reducing my rewards to zero.

Yes, this game is revolutionary, but that won't be fully recognized by many until a few months down the road as casual players and soloers start draining away from games unfriendly to their playstyle and filling up GW2 servers, and as people who have either never played or have left the genre realize GW2 is exactly what they've been looking/waiting for.

This is brilliant, genre-altering game design. It's not readily apparent; because the true differences are deep in the structural bones, not in the superficial activities, which are much like other games. When people realize there really is no reason to rush through the game because the same thing is available from the very beginning, and when people realize they can play this game any way they want and not suffer from lack of inclusion in content, that's when the enormity of what Anet has created here will become apparent.

 

So what happens in a year or so when there are 2-3 expansions and you are the only one trying to level up in a area?  All those group dynamic quests that you are suppose to level off of are going to go from fun and interesting to repeatative and fustrating pretty fast when you are trying to do them alone.

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Xzen
I found it almost impossible to solo. Every time I tried to do a quest there were a bunch of people there helping me and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't play solo if I wanted to.

I think you missed the point.

1. Solo means you are not creating a group and playing the game. It does NOT mean you are in an area alone.

2. You did your quest and moved on as you liked not having to wait for anyone to stick with you.

3. You completed your tasks even with a bunch of people around doing the same things as you and your play was not really inturrupted at all.

Now the flip side.

1. in other games where the content you are doing is hard you MUST form a group.

2. if you were soloing and other players were on the same quest but would not group, you had to share the spawns vastly increasing the amount of time it would take to complete your quest as you had to wait for spawns.

3. While grouped you were FORCED to wait your group members to move with you. Almost every aspect of the old group aspects were time consuming.

There's so many mainstream MMOG conventions - both mechanical and social - that have been obliterated by the structural mechanics of GW2 that I think most people are still mistakenly interpreting it through the old MMOG paradigm.  In the old paradigm, there were many unintended consequences of grouping, raiding, and rigorous class structure that resulted in player to player hostility, distrust and elitism that, over time, that kind of community and interaction has been accepted as the norm.

IMO, it still hasn't filtered down yet that GW2 has provided the framework for a much more inclusive, positive, friendly and trusting community by simply setting up a system where nobody can be purposefully excluded from top quality content and rewards.

Originally posted by udon

Originally posted by Meleagar

 

 

So what happens in a year or so when there are 2-3 expansions and you are the only one trying to level up in a area?  All those group dynamic quests that you are suppose to level off of are going to go from fun and interesting to repeatative and fustrating pretty fast when you are trying to do them alone.

This happens IN EVERY MMO. Bitching that it will happen in GW2 seems pointless to me.

Go play WoW and tell me how full the lowbie zones are, at least GW2 scales to the number of players unlike SWTOR where the heroic 4 mans are all but ignored by everyone not on the Fatman server.

Originally posted by Meleagar

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Xzen
I found it almost impossible to solo. Every time I tried to do a quest there were a bunch of people there helping me and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't play solo if I wanted to.

I think you missed the point.

1. Solo means you are not creating a group and playing the game. It does NOT mean you are in an area alone.

2. You did your quest and moved on as you liked not having to wait for anyone to stick with you.

3. You completed your tasks even with a bunch of people around doing the same things as you and your play was not really inturrupted at all.

Now the flip side.

1. in other games where the content you are doing is hard you MUST form a group.

2. if you were soloing and other players were on the same quest but would not group, you had to share the spawns vastly increasing the amount of time it would take to complete your quest as you had to wait for spawns.

3. While grouped you were FORCED to wait your group members to move with you. Almost every aspect of the old group aspects were time consuming.

There's so many mainstream MMOG conventions - both mechanical and social - that have been obliterated by the structural mechanics of GW2 that I think most people are still mistakenly interpreting it through the old MMOG paradigm.  In the old paradigm, there were many unintended consequences of grouping, raiding, and rigorous class structure that resulted in player to player hostility, distrust and elitism that, over time, that kind of community and interaction has been accepted as the norm.

IMO, it still hasn't filtered down yet that GW2 has provided the framework for a much more inclusive, positive, friendly and trusting community by simply setting up a system where nobody can be purposefully excluded from top quality content and rewards.

 

Honestly I like the fact that I can play with other people without having to ask them if they will go on a date with me(Want to party?).

I sometimes felt bad helping other players get their kills and tagging mobs etc. but than I realized I could do NOTHING in PvE that would hurt another player in any way, and I instantly began to completely LOVE the changes Anet made with GW2.

Randomly running into a large group escorting  a couple of NPC's with wave after wave of Centaur.

Didn't have to ask to be invited, wasn't "hurting" anyone and was able to significantly impact and help the group through crowd control, damage, and healing.

Beautiful.

Players actually talked, we rezzed each other and people said "thanks" and even naturally found a rythem in skill/profession combos to help smooth things along (like Ele dropping a fire wall and ranged sticking behind it etc.)

Best part of the game, hands down.

Originally posted by silvermember

I think guild wars 2 did a good job with "solo grouping" meaning you are not in a group but you are still working together. During the beta weekend, I never group up once with anybody except for structure PvP, but I still worked a lot with other players. One of the most amazing thing was that during events  players were rezing each other, they will attack each other mobs (which i a good thing in guild wars 2). I remember switching to water attunement on my elementalist to  provide buffs for everyone in the area, it was just so nice.

But guild wars 2 is not a 100% soloable game meaning you cant do every open world things by yourself, certerain DE require you to be in a group to stand a ghost of a chance.

 

I like guild wars 2 but guild wars 2 is not revolutionary because it usually in the eye of the beholder. and you cannot tell if something is revolutionary until a few years after the fact. Finally, using words like "revolutionary" ends up doing my harm than good in the long run because you create unrealistic expectations. 

agreed. I won't bother highlighting your pretty green text but I agree with this in particular. Using words like revolutionary or that shift thing someone mentioned sometime back is a bit of an exageration imho but hey I have played a lot of games. Including GW1 which I solo'd. I am not sure at this point if I could do the same in GW2, not sure I'd want to either btw but it's beta and things could change. True there are some problems with scaling that need to be sorted out so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully the devs take on board some (not all) of the suggestions and come up with a really polished product at release.

then again

i never rode the hype train that swtor got.my guess is,gw2 is going to end up in the same boat

Originally posted by BadSpock

I sometimes felt bad helping other players get their kills and tagging mobs etc. but than I realized I could do NOTHING in PvE that would hurt another player in any way, and I instantly began to completely LOVE the changes Anet made with GW2.

Randomly running into a large group escorting  a couple of NPC's with wave after wave of Centaur.

Didn't have to ask to be invited, wasn't "hurting" anyone and was able to significantly impact and help the group through crowd control, damage, and healing.

Beautiful.

Players actually talked, we rezzed each other and people said "thanks" and even naturally found a rythem in skill/profession combos to help smooth things along (like Ele dropping a fire wall and ranged sticking behind it etc.)

Best part of the game, hands down.

 

There could be some rework on "Hearts", as it is possible to grief some players while they're trying to complete them.

Also mesmer are the Grief masters, pulling large packs of enemies onto escort bulls, considering a no mesmer pollicy on grouping.

"So what happens in a year or so when there are 2-3 expansions and you are the only one trying to level up in a area?  All those group dynamic quests that you are suppose to level off of are going to go from fun and interesting to repeatative and fustrating pretty fast when you are trying to do them alone."

Again, I think you're missing the beauty of the game design and how it will impact how the game is played on a fundamental level.  Why should the beginning areas be empty, when you can do them at level 80 (though powered-down to keep it challenging) and get level 80 rewards? Why should any location in the game be any more populated than any other, when the whole game is the end-game? Where is everyone racing off towards, if - as you imply - they are abandoning beginning zones?

People abandoned beginning zones in other games for a reason; largely because of the overall, linear structure of origin to endgame. In other MMOGs,  the linear structure of the game encourages (read: requires) efficiency above all else, in how one played and in time investment and how they built their character, where they go, what they fight, etc. I rarely started or played alts simply because I didn't have enough time to invest in another character, but the flatness of the GW2 structure encourages me to explore all the alts I want. I can create an alt an experience end-game, raid-like content within 10-20 minutes.

That's really what I think a lot of people aren't getting here. Levels, in GW2, really only means "bigger numbers" and "cool aesthetics"; it doesn't mean you can engage in kinds of content that lower-leveled characters cannot..  Low levels can experience all of the same kinds of content, albeit with lower numbers. Big, dramatically cool boss mobs with scores of players? I can get that at level 1.  High-end PvP? Level 1.   It's not a carrot at the end of an 80-level race. It's not in some far off, hard to reach zone only level 80's can survive in.

Heck, why shouldn't I hang around the first zones and help out others or try a new race/class/story? There's no reason not to. I'm not compelled by exclusionary game structure to feel like I'm wasting my time if I participate in beginning-zone events, or creating an alt and spending time on it with others who are doing the same thing.

Originally posted by Chrome1980
Words like revolutionary and innovative are so casualy thrown around on these forums.

sad part is,i bet they'll be the first people to leave gw2 also.part of the reason why so many people left star wars the old republic is they came to the game and thought it was going to be some groundbreaking mmo and it didnt end up being one

but whatever,truth be told.if the pvp wasnt garbage in sw tor i probably wouldnt even care about guild wars 2

I'm a hardcore solo fiend and this game absolutely rewrites the rules for what "solo-friendly" means in an MMO.  If it's not just the outright dynamic scaling that occurs, but it's the way that it becomes so easy to hook up with others, complete strangers, and work together immediately and seamlessly.

True, I exchanged maybe a couple dozen words with people I came across, but there wasn't really much need for more.  Everyone knew what we were doing and we just did it.  Afterwards, we would often just sort of head out in the same direction for a while and do some more stuff, before eventually melting away again, off on our separate journeys.  Some may feel that's cold, but not me.  To me, it's perfect.  I get to interact with other intelligent players to accomplish tasks and I don't need to subject myself to a group's social dynamic.  All the benefits of playing in a group without any loss of freedom.  I can't ask for more.

Even when I hit the Shaman's Rookery, which required a little coordination to make sure all three of us who arrived there, were able to get to the end together, we were able to accomplish it without a word.  The only time we spoke was when we got to the end:

"Empty?!"

"chests are bugged"

"fffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu......."

"beta"

"beta"

":p"

So would I call it revolutionary?  Yes, I would, because the game has managed to do something that no other game has yet achieved -- it made me happy to see other players.  In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that I would seek them out, which is something I would never do in another game.

Originally posted by BadSpock

I sometimes felt bad helping other players get their kills and tagging mobs etc. but than I realized I could do NOTHING in PvE that would hurt another player in any way, and I instantly began to completely LOVE the changes Anet made with GW2.

Randomly running into a large group escorting  a couple of NPC's with wave after wave of Centaur.

Didn't have to ask to be invited, wasn't "hurting" anyone and was able to significantly impact and help the group through crowd control, damage, and healing.

Beautiful.

Players actually talked, we rezzed each other and people said "thanks" and even naturally found a rythem in skill/profession combos to help smooth things along (like Ele dropping a fire wall and ranged sticking behind it etc.)

Best part of the game, hands down.

 

What bad spock says, ahhh it is a thing of beauty...

For many the traditional mmo mindset that this industry has molded us too over the years is hard to shake, we whine for change and then when it happens we bemoan that it is not identical to what we have been playing and whining about since 1999...

On the otherhand GW2 does not seem so different from other mmo games right off the bat but this is by design to bring in the hordes of brainwashed clone love zombies and begin the slow process of slowly reprogramming them instead of doing it all at once..

The game gets increasingly more skill oriented as you move along but many at level 3 will whine "it is like every other mmo" instead of venturing out and leveling up to see and experience the game, or could it be they have no treadmill quest instructions and are lost?

Whats even more funny is not only do these clone drones not get how the game works yet but this bunch also fails to mention that there is never a monthly fee for this ummm same stuff content..

As for going solo i wouldnt do it past level 10 unless you know how use you class and understand the mechanics of the game as it will frustrate some, but raid group and bigger whole group soloing is absolutely awesome and by the way you can group with 4 others to do your own thing or just to play as a group in the public open fields, lots of freedom of choice in this gem of a game..

It is different but not everyone will see that or even like it when they do see it is different..

To me personally this may be the best mmo game ever made with tons of potential..