For all of you that "need" more progression you can PM me everytime you kill 150 mobs and I will send you a shiny new title. 

Originally posted by Stayonboard

 

Isn't it fair to say that 90% + of the people who have bought GW2 KNOWS there's no tier gear grind?

 

If yes, then wouldn't you also think it's fair to say these people know there won't be some magical tier system when they reach level cap?

 

If someone bought GW2, leveled all the way to 80 and then said WTF where is my raiding gear? I think they have a problem with simple research.

 

BTW - people in GW1 has been doing what you say "won't work" for many, many years and there's still people playing it and enjoying themselves. In short, you're speaking arbitrarily for the masses when it's going to be very few people with this problem. Furthermore, those people with that "problem" I'm sure will hit level cap, decide it isn't for them and move along to the next raid tiered themepark MMO that's released.... no big loss, this game certainly won't be for everyone and the people who WANT a tiered gear system can get one from the other hundred or so games that offer it.

 

There's a difference between knowing ,and finally experiance it yourself, once you hit the max level and been there for sometime.

I myself have pre-purchase this game because of the DE and getting rid of the trinity ( thank you Anet! )

To experience how its going to work in mmo.

Gw1 players and gw 2 players will know when they bought this game, but the thing is, how long can it last , to captivate the crowd and thus making WvWvW healthy?

This game still needs a certain amount of populations, more so than other games to make WvW works.

I dont know how many players is still playing gw1 prior to the announcements of gw2, but if its something to screm about, even at 1mil, they would have said it. I only know that,iirc,  they have sold 6.5 mil boxes in total.

And understand this, gw 1 is not an mmo, there's no need of a huge/healthy population on server for it to works.

Just my view

Originally posted by Wizardry

I will tell you what i think happened to this game.It was taking too long to get finished,they decided to scrap a lot of ideas,no mounts,no guild halls,no housing,remove the stat idea just go with the gear we have made.In essence  just get this game out for sale on what we have so far,this way we can always save stuff to sell in xpacs.

 It's been known for literally years that there woul dbe no mounts, guild halls, or player housing in the game at launch.  That's not something they 'removed', they already said huild halls and housing would be coming later, and that mounts are a maybe.

Also, I have no idea what you're talking about, removing the stat idea.  There's a LOT of stats in GW2.  Power, precision, vitality, toughness, boon duration, condition damage, condition duration, critical damage, healing power, and one class-specific stat for each stat.

There's even dialogue based stats of charm, nobility and fierceness.

They used to have even more, but they streamlined it by making all the various sorts of 'causes more damage' stats into one.  That's actually just a solid design decision when you're trying to make a hybrid-heavy game where all combinations of weapons are equally viable.

The itemization on items is incredibly diverse, and at times, frankly pretty hilarious.  I think my favorite enhancement I've seen is the Rune of the Flock.  Depending upon how many pieces of it you have on your armor, it does this:

1. +25 healing
2. 5% chance to summon a bird on your attack when hit. (cooldown: 10s)
3. +50 healing
4. Attack bird causes blindness for 5s.
5. +90 healing
6. When you use a healing skill you and nearby allies are healed a small amount. (cooldown: 10s)

Healing, with random chance of birds.  This isn't the sort of stats and itemization you get because they were busy cutting things.  There's a ridiculously wide range of stat effects and methods of customizing items in the game.

There's quite a few runes, and they're not even the only method of enhancing armor.  You can put in various items found through crafting, drops, karma or node collecting into armor slots, some of them unique to a single seller,  You can even take normal items like gems found through mining, and use a jeweler to enhance them with settings so they give better stat bonuses.

Seriously, it's a really nice flexible stat system with a ton of extremely customizable itemization.  ... and now you know. :)

Taugrim does good videos, and this is one of them. Though you have to remember that he's a PVP player first and foremost. 

So if your preferences align with his, he's a really solid caster to listen to. On the other hand, I don't think this one will really ease progression nuts' concerns. Some people just like the sense of progression tiered gear and raids bring. 

Though, admittedly, players hang around for different reasons. I can keep a sub up for the setting alone... 

Originally posted by arctarus

Fun can only get you so far.

 

So far you guys/girls have fun because its a new game. But once when you reach max level for a time, and there's no carrot on a stick to drive you forward, you will become bored of the game.

 

Since gw2 is about DE, i dont understand why they dont implement the tier with stats like , yes WoW.

There's no class system, eveyone can join in DE, no need exact numbers of tanks or healers or dps, they could just implement tier gear in gw2.

Making the game longer , ye a grind too, and yet all players is able to see the contents and get rewarded.

 

Stats gear is there for a reason, and with gw2 i personally think its such a waste not to have it, instead of just cool looking gear without it.

 

And i say again, it wont last long in " end-game"

 

 

It's called 'habituation.'   All games have it.   Including your raid grind-fest games.   WoW lost over a million people in 2011 and almost 2 million in the past two years.

And SWTOR...   Yeah, they tried to adopt WoW grind mechanics...    They lost 900K of their first 2.3 million customers in 70 days...    Seems that grinding gear all day long isn't quite the be-all, end-all of MMO gaming...

When LOTRO went F2P the subs boosted to over 600K.   With the ROI expansion they brought back the gear grind they'd abandoned and most (but not all) of the people I played with, including myself, quit.   After months and months of running dailies and grinding gear the game felt more like it was meaningless, dead-end, no-reward job and the people just got sick of it...   And the subs dropped down to 200K a year later and the game has lost most of the F2P population gains.  

So, color my skeptical your gear grind is all that meaningful or prevents habituation.  

Originally posted by MosesZD

It's called 'habituation.'   All games have it.   Including your raid grind-fest games.   WoW lost over a million people in 2011 and almost 2 million in the past two years.

 Yeah, I never understood this argument.  Or the whole idea that older games actually had more longevity.  People quit older games, and people quit newer games faster.  There's so many MMORPG choices, that nobody has to stick with a game they're bored with.  ... and people are so used to them, that people are starting MMORPGs and already feeling like they've played it forever (SWTOR could have kept people a lot longer on average if it had been... say.... everybody's first MMORPG ever.)

There's more choices, and people have already been playing MMORPGs for years and years.  That's like a recipe for people to be much more likely to hop games relatively quickly.

It's like TV.  People are more likely to swap channels when they have about 500 choices, instead of 5.

Originally posted by William12

except wvwvw isn't fun.  The first few hours was new and interesting, but after that it became a simple zerg fest and if you died it took 5m to get back into the fight.    The combat is the only aspect that makes it interesting otherwise its just like every other pvp game.

Which is pretty much like every other MMO combat strategy.   I know people like to pretend they have strategies, and each and every PvPer seems to think of himself as a hybrid of Clausewitz and Miyamoto Musashi, but they really aren't. and they really don't beyond some very loose 'concentrate on one dude, kill the healers first' kind of strategy.    And mostly, they just zerg and try to spike everyone down.

Now, if there was perma-death, like Day Z, we might see some strategies besides running out there and trying to spike everyone into oblivion, regardless of the consequences.   But then the PvPers would whine about that.

Originally posted by Xiaoki

But what is "fun"?

Can you quantify "fun"?

Can you see, taste or hear "fun"?

What is "fun" to you? What is "fun" to me?

People throw that word around here so much its pretty much lost all meaning. People think they can say "because its fun" when describing GW2 that that alone will absolve them of any further explanations. As if anyone that disagrees hates "fun".

You've missed the point.   The basic charge is that without the gear treadmill of WoW, there is no point to, or is lacking, 'the end game.'   The counter-response is that the point of the game is 'to have fun'  and that there are many ways to accomplish this within the game.

It is further pointed out that there are raids.   There is gear grinding (cosmetic).   That there is both WvW and structured PvP.   That, because of the level nomalization, you can actually play every area in the game 'at level' and have a great time doing it.  For example, if you started as a Norn and hit level 80, you can always go back to the Asura starting zone for this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKNzICBUzOs&list=FLinH0R1gEeK8m_2Y5kPK2uA&index=1&feature=plpp_video

That looks completely amazing.   I missed it.  I had to log off right after I finished the heart quest and final DE in area.   But I may have missed it anyway that area was a royal pain in the butt with the incredible monster spawn rate and I was very tired because it was late.  

But now that I know about it...   Yeah, I'll be back...  

Originally posted by chelan

gahd forbid the point should be ... dare i speak its name? ... fun.

Indeed :) and better looking gear to help people further customize/express themselves.

Whats the point of playing chess?

MMo´s have turned way to much in the way we rise our kids, for everything they do good they get a present. We have grown attached to that attitude. When i was a little lad over 40 years ago, i was glad with a few nice words from my father about how well i performed at school. We need to go back to the basics. Was it fun?

Well to be fair, some people find the treadmill gear fun. This just isn't that type of game.

Great example of a rune meowhead, not seen that one, brilliant!

Let's not forget that by end game you are going to be needing a diverse set of gear so you can switch stats to suit the encounter, this is what horizontal progression should be about, building flexibility in to your character. If you spec for just one of GW2s trinity you won't be getting the most out of your class. There are stats to chase it's just they won't make you all round more powerful just better in a given situation.

Beyond that they just look so damn nice :)

Farming cosmetic gear is fun?

Didnt realize you were all signed up to play barbies playhouse online.

Heres what i know, zero gear progression only works in games with heavy story. Guild wars 2 does not have heavy story, it barely has any story.

You cant have no story and no progression and expect people to play for longer then a weekend.

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

Farming cosmetic gear is fun?

 

Didnt realize you were all signed up to play barbies playhouse online.

 I hope that, that +50 strength gauntlet has really helped you in real life.  Oh wait....it hasn't?  That's right, it only exists within the game.

Everything in a game is an illusion.  Once you realize this, grinding for cosmetic gear doesn't seem any different than grinding for stat gear.  At least with the cosmetic gear grind I get to choose what I want to grind for, and I'm not forced into a vertical progression.

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

Farming cosmetic gear is fun?

 

Didnt realize you were all signed up to play barbies playhouse online.

 

Heres what i know, zero gear progression only works in games with heavy story. Guild wars 2 does not have heavy story, it barely has any story.

 

You cant have no story and no progression and expect people to play for longer then a weekend.

 Yeah because no one plays Minecraft right :/?

Originally posted by Creslin321

 Yeah because no one plays Minecraft right :/?

 .... I would have thought a better example would be nearly any FPS or puzzle game or.... well, all the variety of games throughout human experience that have proven incredibly addicting that don't actually involve stat progression.

Minecraft can be argued to have a progression, in that you can build increasingly elaborate structures with increasingly elaborate ingredients... as opposed to say Tetris, where it'd be hard to argue for any form of progression whatsoever, but where people can sink literally hundreds, even thousands of hours into it.

Also, I think some people are underselling just how much non-cosmetic things there are to do in GW2.

From some pretty intensive playing, between me and 4 friends, I only ever got ONE of a specific crafting ingredient that's for armorsmithing 25 (Basically really low level stuff), that allowed me to make a certain rune.

There's some pretty crazy rare drops in the game that'd let you craft certain very specific types of itemization.  NOt BETTER stats, but the horizontal stuff, nobody is sure just how deep it goes chasing the perfectly tuned equipment for a build yet.  A lot longer than the original 100 hours just to hit max level, from the looks of it.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

Farming cosmetic gear is fun?

 

Didnt realize you were all signed up to play barbies playhouse online.

 

Heres what i know, zero gear progression only works in games with heavy story. Guild wars 2 does not have heavy story, it barely has any story.

 

You cant have no story and no progression and expect people to play for longer then a weekend.

 Yeah because no one plays Minecraft right :/?

Is minecraft an MMO? Or is minecraft a closet Sandbox that people play so they can build the enterprise and show it off on youtube.

Last i checked, minecraft wasnt about getting 10000 simultanous players at once to fight each other.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

Farming cosmetic gear is fun?

 

Didnt realize you were all signed up to play barbies playhouse online.

 I hope that, that +50 strength gauntlet has really helped you in real life.  Oh wait....it hasn't?  That's right, it only exists within the game.

Everything in a game is an illusion.  Once you realize this, grinding for cosmetic gear doesn't seem any different than grinding for stat gear.  At least with the cosmetic gear grind I get to choose what I want to grind for, and I'm not forced into a vertical progression.

I dont play games because im trying to stay as close to real life as possible, im slaying dragons for christsakes.

Gear is an illusion, that sense of accomplishment isnt however, and when i cleared that hard raid boss that took my guild 3 weeks to figure out, we didnt do it just so we could find a pink dress that only drops off that boss. We did it for that bad ass flaming sword with the dragons head for a hilt and the tail for a handle, you know, the one you saw while dancing naked on the mailbox in town and made you think deep down inside that it could never be you.

And we moved on from raids because we had all the gear we needed to try a harder teir.

I just dont see the substance of having no story, no progression and being able to instantly create a max level character to pvp with.

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

Farming cosmetic gear is fun?

 

Didnt realize you were all signed up to play barbies playhouse online.

 I hope that, that +50 strength gauntlet has really helped you in real life.  Oh wait....it hasn't?  That's right, it only exists within the game.

Everything in a game is an illusion.  Once you realize this, grinding for cosmetic gear doesn't seem any different than grinding for stat gear.  At least with the cosmetic gear grind I get to choose what I want to grind for, and I'm not forced into a vertical progression.

I dont play games because im trying to stay as close to real life as possible, im slaying dragons for christsakes.

 

Gear is an illusion, that sense of accomplishment isnt however, and when i cleared that hard raid boss that took my guild 3 weeks to figure out, we didnt do it just so we could find a pink dress that only drops off that boss. We did it for that bad ass flaming sword with the dragons head for a hilt and the tail for a handle, you know, the one you saw while dancing naked on the mailbox in town and made you think deep down inside that it could never be you.

 

And we moved on from raids because we had all the gear we needed to try a harder teir.

 

I just dont see the substance of having no story, no progression and being able to instantly create a max level character to pvp with.

I'm thrilled for you that you found the game you want to play and love.

It's a bit sad that you can't see why I or others love GW2 and its fresh and different design, but trust me we'll be having just as much or more fun in GW2 as you and your friends have in your game of choice - and with all of us having fun that's all that really matters, eh?

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

Farming cosmetic gear is fun?

 

Didnt realize you were all signed up to play barbies playhouse online.

 

Heres what i know, zero gear progression only works in games with heavy story. Guild wars 2 does not have heavy story, it barely has any story.

 

You cant have no story and no progression and expect people to play for longer then a weekend.

so, where is the actual fun in farming better gear to get into the next lvl to farm more gear, which will be too low on the next update again to farm for new gear again and again and again?

basically thats the prime expample of a sisyphus work. not really fun, ask poor old sisyphus :)

FUN is definied by everyone himself i guess, but hell.... you tell us what is fun, we tell you, fair deal i guess :P

imo it's much more fun to play games just for THAT particular reason, to play it. you do not need rewards that show how cool you are, and then give you stats to prove this coolness. if you are cool, you just are. ask the cool guys, they know :)

to shorten it: maybe not the worst that you wont play it longer than a WE.

ps: you are the one talking about barbies here, not us, think about it ^^