1. PVE is not significantly better  (or worse)  than other MMORPGs .

I leveled characters to max level in WOW, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Aion,  Lord of the Rings and Star Wars the Old Republic, each were fun each had their  pluses and minuses

   If  Guild Wars 2 is superior to the above games, it is  only slightly so.  Nothing on the PVE side is earth shattering or a significant improvement for the genre.

2. Guild Wars 2 will rise or fall on its W v W v W  an this is the problem. 

No one so far has succeeded at this and  nothing I saw this weekend  was sufficiently unique/creative/ innovative  to indicate they have resolved the problems that have plagued every other MMORPG's attempts in the past. 

    Zerg tactics dominating, class imbalance, melee ranged imbalance,  faction population imbalance, server lag, exploits,  server population fluctuations depending on players time zones, player farming rewards and not helping their faction, etc.

     I am sure there will be tweaks, fine tuning, nerfs and other adjustments; obviously,  the future will tell if the developers can  find the magic formula.   I would love to be proven wrong but I am skeptical.

   With history as our guide;  there  is no good reason to believe, looking at what they have come up with so far,  that the GW2 developers will be able to solve the riddle, no other MMORPG developers have solved.

I personally believe it will take an order of magnitude greater innovative/ 'thinking outside the box" / radical departure from the norm for any  PvP / W v W  system  to work long term.

I wish the GW2 development team the best of luck, I just don't see any evidence that they are any more up to the task than all the development teams that failed in the past.

_______________________________________

   As a bit of further evidence for the above thesis.  Despite literally hundreds of millions of dollars spent, there has not been a significant improvement of the basic  model  established by Everquest.  

Here's the problem though.  People were still learning how to play WvW.  Once the weeks go by, they will start getting more tactical with less zerging. 

Edit: Forgot to mention that /team wasn't working either, so it was harder to work together, and using /local wasn't ideal, since all 3 factions could use it.

Originally posted by Volkon
So many words, so little facts.

So true. Nothing else to be said.

LOL< another one of these.

This game is meant for people who aren't like you which, and I know this may surprise you, are a lot of people. You love grind, you love wow no matter what version the game is in whether it is rift form or Tor form and that's cool, that's you, you do you. 

But my household played the entire weekend and i was the only one to do wvwvw.  The general synopsis was that we al had a blast, probay the best time in an MMO ever.  The way you adventure is significantlly different.  Heart Quests, Dynamic Quests, quest chains, community adventuring.  Havn't experienced anything like it.  

sorry it couldn't be the next wow clone for you, but i'm sure as the sun will rise that the next one is around the corner, oh look there's tera. 

Originally posted by mmoseller888
the odds are better b/c it has no sub fee so more ppl will play and stick around longer.

You hit the nail on the head. This is a AAA mmorpg on Par with the rest with no sub fee.

You're most certainly entitled to your opinion and to share it, but I believe you are in a tiny, but vocal minority.  Time will tell, I'll give you that, but the 20+ members of my guild that played this weekend are still gushing, with only a few minor gripes -- ones I share, for that matter.  With them, I know there are no ulterior motives when they discuss their experiences.  The opinions expressed on these boards, I have much less confidence in.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that some posters will outright lie to tarnish the game's reputation.  They would be a handful members of the tiny minority I mentioned earlier.

The odds are stacked with the game.  So are the numbers.  Not worried.

Okay.....

So you think all of GW2's hopes rest on the success or failure of WvWvW.  Gotcha.  Opinion noted.  Frankly, I think it's ludicrous to assume that the rest of the game won't appeal to a mass number of people as well,  simply because YOU, apparently, don't like it, but....okay.  Fair enough.  You think "GW2 is fail."  You make me laugh.

Thank you for sharing.

1. problem is with your premise. Games you mention are pretty much PvE games that rely mostly on PvE with PvP as a side dish. As thus, if GW2 PvE is even slightly better than those games its pure win as it doesnt rely on PvE only, you could say it primarily relies on PvP.

2. Its beta, and theres still no launch date. Yah, they need a lot of work to "make everything perfect", and of course i guess everyone here hopes they do their job the best they can.

Are you kidding?  Yeah you're right, there's no reason to believe it's going to be successful except that almost everyone who pre-purchased was happy they did by the end of the weekend and can't wait for release, not to mention GW1 sold over 5 million copies (might have been 6, can't remember now).

Seriously, they're going to do just fine.  Not the 13 million WoW reached, but fine.  You're entitled to your opinion, but despite your attempts to give it some logic via history, it still comes off as speculative nonsense.

Originally posted by QSatu

Originally posted by Volkon
So many words, so little facts.

So true. Nothing else to be said.

yep

Regardless of whether or not those mechanics fail this game will have a strong following just because people have fallen in love with the world and the lore. Very strong IP here, one I've already fallen for. I'll play loyally through any storm with faith arenanet can weather it.

Originally posted by Deolus
/trollthread

Originally posted by mmoseller888
the odds are better b/c it has no sub fee so more ppl will play and stick around longer.

People will also feel the need to shelve it when they need to without feeling obligated to play.  Once the DE's dry up, the world has been explored, and the WvWvW gets tedious (and it will at some point---just a natural reaction to doing the same thing over and over), then people won't feel obligated to stick around because they are paying a monthly fee.  I think you'll see many folks leave the game off and on and return when expansions come out.  Even ArenaNet has said they expect this to happen, and are okay with it.  

Unfortunately, this could be a tough situation because this is the type of game that will only thrive with a healthy population.  So if too many people jump ship while waiting for new content, that could spell trouble.  Shouldn't be an issue in the short-term future because based on what I've read from everyone, there is a ton of content there to keep people interested for a while.  But what happens when  it dries up remains to be seen.  Just don't assume that the payment model alone is going to keep people playing.

Threads are really getting smaller since I started blocking people.  I think I will enjoy this site much more in the future.  I love it when people can be objective and see both the flaws and achievements in a game, but even the outright fanatics are better than the constant Negative Nellys who never have a positive word to say.  Who needs that in their recreational reading material? lol

The odds are stacked for GW2 alright.  And I know some people that will be very pissed if the game has even a modicum of success. C'est la vie.

Originally posted by RebelScum99

Originally posted by mmoseller888
the odds are better b/c it has no sub fee so more ppl will play and stick around longer.

People will also feel the need to shelve it when they need to without feeling obligated to play.  Once the DE's dry up, the world has been explored, and the WvWvW gets tedious (and it will at some point---just a natural reaction to doing the same thing over and over), then people won't feel obligated to stick around because they are paying a monthly fee.  I think you'll see many folks leave the game off and on and return when expansions come out.  Even ArenaNet has said they expect this to happen, and are okay with it.  

Unfortunately, this could be a tough situation because this is the type of game that will only thrive with a healthy population.  So if too many people jump ship while waiting for new content, that could spell trouble.  Shouldn't be an issue in the short-term future because based on what I've read from everyone, there is a ton of content there to keep people interested for a while.  But what happens when  it dries up remains to be seen.  Just don't assume that the payment model alone is going to keep people playing.

I read an article earlier where the devs promised to go through zones regularly, adding and changing events to keep every area popping with new things to do.  How frequently is the question, but you have to admit it's more than WoW ever did for half a decade before changing only lvl 1-60 zones.