Originally posted by fiontar

No one is going to spend ten hours farming gold to save themselves a $10 purchase in the cash shop! I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would think their time is only worth $1/hour!

 No one is going to spend 40 hours farming gold to aquire $10 worth of Cash Shop goods. 

In Eve Online entire coorporations (guilds) are making ISKs (gold) to exchange in PLEX with which they can buy gametime. Players can buy PLEX directly from CCP (the devs) and yet there are still a million of PLEX and ISK selling websites.

You also forget that a lot of players live in countries that can not purchase online because Credit Card companies, banks and even Paypal will not accept payments from those countries.

You also forget that people like to see a mmo as a game. Why put extra money in an item if you can get that item yourself in that game yourself? Some people enjoy the feeling that is known as accomplishment. With your philosphy Goldsellers would have been filthy rich and there would not have been enough chinese farmers to meet the total demand.

STory was exiciting, till I saw every Trooper run around with the same companions and it turned out I wasn't the only commander of Havoc Squad. To make things even worse my girl even kissed a million other troopers! Yeah the story was pretty good in killing the roleplay element.

maybe Anet can setup different server types. They do not have to make pvp or pve servers, so they can give us Cashshop Servers and Cashshop Free Servers?

Originally posted by SEANMCAD

This is the cost of a cell phone bill without a data plan.

for a few dollars a month I can help a family in Africa. I guess I will have to play an inferior mmorpg, because I will not spend the money that's left after paying the necessary bills on myself. But even when I can afford both, I won't do it. So my answer is no, in my opinion no game is worth that amount of money! (nor a phonebill for that matter)

Disgruntled employee who got laid off. Nothing new here. 

Originally posted by Requiamer

 

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Originally posted by Khealler
MMOs are for most players also about social interaction.
Time Spend vs Reward is a weird motivation to play a mmo. For example in World of Warcraft I levelled a Holy Priest from 1 to 60, with only a holy spec. It took me about 40 seconds to kill a single mob versus a rogue friend who could sometimes oneshot  the same mob or only spend 6 seconds to kill it. Blizzard ripped me off.  
Another weird motivation is that gear > skill. You really want to be the best because your gear is better? I prefer to be better because I have better skills, better understanding of the mechanics and better teamwork.
Getting back to rewards (items). I cannot count the hours I have spend in Molten Core to help a friend getting a specific drop. Either it was to get that one drop for Thunderfury or just farming mobs for fiery cores to increase reputation, so he could get recipes to craft fire resistance gear. I was not there for myself, nor the other 38 players. We did it to help eachother out. Getting rewarded by gear that dropped was just a bonus.
I'm not in GW2 beta, so I can not tell for sure, but it's hard to imagine that you can only farm nodes as endgame.

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No its not weird, it come from the old rpg where you had to simulate the fact that your character will become better at whatever he do when getting experience. Its just that this simulation isn't very realistically ported in those game, because they follow very simplistic rules. Also the fact player skill become a factor is something that only computer game can afford, in old school rpg and pen& paper, there is no "player skill". So ye this blending between the old school rpg and modern computer game rpg is about this too.

PS: And this also where come from the tab targeting vs fps combat systems debate.

I'm not going to discuss pen and paper versus mmos.

OP was talking about endgame. He was worried about not having a gearwise advantage over someone who didn't spend as much time as him. If it's about statistics you also could play a turnbased game or a real time strategy game. Let the computer calculate the outcome of the battle. We could even start playing text-based mud games again. Or will gamemasters run around ingame and flipping ingame coins when 2 players with the exact same gear duel eachother? Realtime MMOs will be pretty dull when no playerskill is required.

PS : Who's talking about tab-targetting?

Main Account or this didn't happen!

MMOs are for most players also about social interaction.

Time Spend vs Reward is a weird motivation to play a mmo. For example in World of Warcraft I levelled a Holy Priest from 1 to 60, with only a holy spec. It took me about 40 seconds to kill a single mob versus a rogue friend who could sometimes oneshot  the same mob or only spend 6 seconds to kill it. Blizzard ripped me off.  

Another weird motivation is that gear > skill. You really want to be the best because your gear is better? I prefer to be better because I have better skills, better understanding of the mechanics and better teamwork.

Getting back to rewards (items). I cannot count the hours I have spend in Molten Core to help a friend getting a specific drop. Either it was to get that one drop for Thunderfury or just farming mobs for fiery cores to increase reputation, so he could get recipes to craft fire resistance gear. I was not there for myself, nor the other 38 players. We did it to help eachother out. Getting rewarded by gear that dropped was just a bonus.

I'm not in GW2 beta, so I can not tell for sure, but it's hard to imagine that you can only farm nodes as endgame.

Originally posted by Dream_Chaser

@Khealler

If I may, without you flipping a shit, I think that what you're missing is that thee revolutionary part is whom it's targeting.

Look at things like dynamic events, instanced nodes, and a policy to remove inter-player competition, look at how it's trying to attract casual players, look at how they're making the game social. It's a triple-A MMO in that it's an MMO for people who play singleplayer and cooperative games but despise MMOs because of what they're known for.

In that, it is revolutionary. It's a game about camaraderie and cooperation. It is, perhaps, the first game that's embodied that in a long, long time.  Yes - I know about Ultima Online, I was there. I miss it. This is a lot like Ultima Online in a lot of ways, in that it encourages player cooperation. For me, it feels like coming home after a long, long sabbatical away.

That, right there, is enough for it to be revolutionary.

I'm not hating Guild Wars 2. In fact I admire the fact they are trying to make a game that will please a lot of people. I'm only a bit tired of people telling me that GW2 is so innovative.

I agree on  "It's a triple-A MMO in that it's an MMO for people who play singleplayer and cooperative games but despise MMOs because of what they're known for.".

It's a game about camaraderie and cooperation. Aren't all mmorpgs about teamwork, making friends and social interaction? Many games have pve-servers. How many times have you heard about the high amount of ninjalooters there? Guildleaders running off with the guildbank? You really believe that every player you meet in GW 2 is going to be your friend? I really fail to see why Guild Wars will offer us more camaraderie and cooperation. Does it have mechanics like almost every game on facebook? You need someone to water your fields and only then you get a reward?

Revolutionary? That's a mighty big word. They do take a different approach. They do offer some features that has not been seen in many other mmorpg. Still I don't really see something really innovative. I do have something innovative that could help players being nicer to others. But wait I believe Blizzard already tried to do that; attach reallife names to accounts and make them visible to everyone. Maybe then the bashing of others will diminish and people will behave a little better in some occasions. Don't you agree?

Anyway you do realise that removing PvP is an illusion? Instead of having no factions on your server, your server has become a faction within the mechanics of W vs W vs W.

Originally posted by Isasis

It has a day/night cycle.

 

A nice change of pace from the constant day/night in other games and MMOs, or the day/night not being dynamic and only happening at certain parts of the story.

 

This is revolutionary because a lot of games are starting to get rid of the day/night, because it is much too hard to code. However, Arenanet sees the power of the day/night and even has certain events happen depending on the time of day.

Arenanet has proven that even the hardest thing to code in a game (MMO or singleplayer) is day/night and they've done it.

 

Nice job Arenanet. :D

Please go install Lord of the Rings Online and  create a hobbit. There's a quest in the Shire that wants you to investigate a certain incident that only occurs at night. Trolls wander the roads at night in certain areas. During the day, you will not see them.

Mortal Online requires the use of torches during nighttime.

Arenanet did nothing new there!

Originally posted by Dekarx12

Hey guys, with GW2 around the corner and looking at all the new innovative things It's bringing to the table... I'm seeing people worrying about things like no mounts and no trinity no instant raids/endgame things along that line, which are game breakers for some..  so this game will fail blah blah blah... I for one am excited for change... cause I'm tired of the same old... so

two Questions

Why is it so hard for people to try something new and change things up a bit? is it addiction? or dedication cause of the time invested into a toon?

and why would people think because it not molded around the same formula like successes like wow,  games that try something new would fail?

thoughts?

Guildwars is not that innovative as many have claimed. They only did their homework, made some strong decisions and that's it.

No trinity : Darkfall already has that. Most people prefer selfheals over the few area of effect heals and the manually aimed  direct heals.

Downed State : Darkfall has a sober version of this, but I remember some first person shooters already worked with the concept.

Dodging : Tera has it, DCUO has it and many other rpgs and your avarage beat um up game.

No Mounts : why would they have the instant travel system and mounts?

No instance raids : Ultima Online, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Dark Age of Camelot.

Dynamic Content : Rift is a good example of dynamic events 

No the only innovation thing they did is like I said before, they did their homework and did some research in what would generate a big enough playerbase. (which is the smart thing to do, as you don't want to play a game that can pay for its servers)

Vanguard : Saga of Heroes

It's from the makers of EQ. It will go ftp this summer. Euro server is really empty, but NA server has some life. People left the game, because after release it got little love from SOE. It has an excellent crafting system (mini-game). You can get your own ship and house. There's a Diplomacy career path. It is another mini-game based on cards.

Anyway 15 classes, 18 races and three huge continents. Enough to explore!

You can play the starter zone for free. And I'm pretty sure a lot of players will return to see what FTP has brought.

I still know some other games with friendly fire and manually aim for archery and all magic spells. I must admit AoC combat is good, but like mentioned before, there are games which offer even better combat. Darkfall and Mortal Online, for example. Mortal Online even managed to remove bunny hopping, but for some this made the combat too slow-paced.

What I do remember from AoC , was the bunnyhopping and the rubber-banding of players. I believe they fixed ther ubber-banding, so I won't use it to bash the game ;)

I do not agree with the OP.

What Guildwars is doing is removing the ability to kill your own server. It's a gamemechanic. Disable PvP and people will get along. Yeah right.

A player who doesn't kill me because he/she does not choose to kill me, I rather see more of them! Some game mechanics could "push" the decision in not killing you. Gamemechanics like Alliances. I could be member of Alliance X. Kill enough of us and we will burn down your guildhall, guildcity or playerhouse. I'm not a big fan of "murderer-points", but those can help too. Kill many and you will be flagged as murderer and you will not be able to enter certain npc-towns. Basicly increase the risk versus reward (or thrill).

Anyway give players one skill with which they can damage others and they will try to kill you. You can't change the nature of most gamers.

My biggest worry is lag.

Recently I bought Guildwars(1) and started playing it. Why? I was bored and wanted to see why everyone played the first episode. At first I really liked the decisions the devs had made and the instanced zones didn't bother me. At low levels nothing could really kill me, but later on the lag and rubberbanding mobs made the game a bit less fun.

I did a pingtest and traced the hops. It wasn't my connection. Their customerservices even aknowledged this to me. They advised to pick different times to play. Primetime was stretching their servers. Funny, but as I play on the Europe-English server and during 2am-10am and 1pm and 4pm GMT, I never was close to Euro primetime. I checked twice primetime and my latency was fine and the server didn't seem too busy. Like 10+ players in the 3 hubs. I also tried during US primetime and their servers are really busy.

So I am worried about lag. I do not know if the coding of GW(1) gave troubles or their servers, but 50% of my gametime I encountered lag and rubberbanding mobs. That's no fun if you really have to dodge all the time.

Community

even in WoW there was a community. People hanging out in Ironforge, rallying outside Tarren Mill, gathering for receiving a buff from returning Onyxia's Head, etc. Horde putting cheap materials on Booty Bay AH, so Alliance could unlock AQ aswell. Other games had great communities too. Nowadays I feel lonely in all recent launched mmos.

Originally posted by mbrodie

Originally posted by Khealler

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Khealler

By looking at Rift, players were not limited to roles. With changing their role/class, pressing the macro to change gear (clever players have both in 1 macro), the players could become a healer, tank or dps. Still a lot of people chose not to change on the fly. Healers usually ran with 3 different healing specs and one solo build. DPS usually had an extra CC and an interrupt build. People will stick to their prefered playstyle.

The removing of the holy trinity is an illusion. Maybe some players will change their spec on the fly, but I forsee most will stick to their prefered role. Support is the new healing. If one player can maximize the dps of the others, why be a pure dps-er? Groups and raids will still pick players who will bring the most to the team. Okay maybe in the beginning you can fill in the specific spot a pickup is looking for. But like in all games your performance will determine your reputation  and that will have an effect on a second invitation.

Still the features of Guild Wars 2 sounds very nice on paper. I have to see it to believe it. They claim it will change group dynamics, I am still waiting on proof. 

I don't know why there is such resistance to the belief that the holy trinity is not an absolute necessity for an MMORPG.

Rift was still a holy trinity game because, even though you could switch roles, you had to do this OUT of combat.  Within any instance of combat, you were absolutely relegated to your chosen trinity role.  If you were a "healer" there was no way you could just switch to "tank" if a MOB got to close.

Also...I've said this tons of times, but the trinity system is BY DESIGN.  It doesn't "just happen" as a natural phenomenon.  It depends on a few key gameplay elements being present in a game for it to even exist.  For example:

1.  One guy has to be able to HOLD AGGRO and soak a significant amount of damage before dying.  If it's not possible to hold and maintain aggro (GW2)...the trinity system falls apart.

2.  One guy needs to be able to consistently heal damage FASTER than the "tank" is receiving it.  If this is not possible, the tank will not survive and the trinity system falls apart.

If neither of these conditions exist...then no holy trinity.  The no holy trinity thing is not an "illusion."  Maybe you will see people taking on specialized roles, but this is NOT the same as the holy trinity.  The holy trinity implies a very specific combat dynamic that needs a very specific game design to work.

So your saying every fight is basicly doing damage, trying to not get hurt (by dodging or using defensive skills) and cast selfheal? I am saying that most of the fights will evolve in one or two players soaking damage/kiting while the rest is doing damage. I do not see that being different from Rift, SWTOR or WoW, with the exception of no healing. To me that's the same as tank and spank without healers. Guild Wars 2 has replaced the healers with support, a role which most old Holy Trinity games also have.

And yes I have seen people in Rift changing from Healer to DPS to Tank in several runs. It's not that I want to be right, but a lot of people are hyping the "No-Trinity", but forget that players want to do things the easy way. When they are bored (or mastered fights) they start to make things harder for themselves by adding challenges. (I remember the 5 man Onyxia kills pre-TBC) On paper every profession will be as good as any other profession to perform a certain role. Tell me why we are having this discussion with all the interviews, all the videos and all beta-reviews? Those should have convinced the non-believers like myself. Guess what, I have not seen anything that did point in the direction of the absence of "preferred" roles. To say it very blunt : I did not see a full group of rangers only taking on the first dungeon.

you're really missing the point... in rift you can not swap roles DURING combat.. that is the difference, guild wars 2, your skills are determined by the weapon your holding and your weapon and be changed at any time during combat.. i raided in rift a lot and i never saw anyone switching from healer to tank mid combat in a boss fight because the original tank died... didnt happen, not possible... stop ignoring the fact to push your own invalid argument... 

 

Edit - go watch one of the videos of ascalon dungeons press beta.. famous quote

 

one of the journos "i'm a guardian i'll tank" 20 seconds later.. DEAD... 

But only 3 skills will change with swapping weapons right? Plus you can only have a limited amount of those. In most cases it's only 2. (engineer can only change his toolbelt) In addition to that players will still have to choose before every run which skills to equip on his hotbar (except from those first 3 weaponskills). During fights he will only be able to use 2 different weapons, which means he can only perform 2 or maybe 3 roles.

But why are we discussing this?  The real proof will come when the game is 2 months old. I rather suggest we abandon this thread and discuss why Guild Wars 2 does not have friendly fire.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Khealler

By looking at Rift, players were not limited to roles. With changing their role/class, pressing the macro to change gear (clever players have both in 1 macro), the players could become a healer, tank or dps. Still a lot of people chose not to change on the fly. Healers usually ran with 3 different healing specs and one solo build. DPS usually had an extra CC and an interrupt build. People will stick to their prefered playstyle.

The removing of the holy trinity is an illusion. Maybe some players will change their spec on the fly, but I forsee most will stick to their prefered role. Support is the new healing. If one player can maximize the dps of the others, why be a pure dps-er? Groups and raids will still pick players who will bring the most to the team. Okay maybe in the beginning you can fill in the specific spot a pickup is looking for. But like in all games your performance will determine your reputation  and that will have an effect on a second invitation.

Still the features of Guild Wars 2 sounds very nice on paper. I have to see it to believe it. They claim it will change group dynamics, I am still waiting on proof. 

I don't know why there is such resistance to the belief that the holy trinity is not an absolute necessity for an MMORPG.

Rift was still a holy trinity game because, even though you could switch roles, you had to do this OUT of combat.  Within any instance of combat, you were absolutely relegated to your chosen trinity role.  If you were a "healer" there was no way you could just switch to "tank" if a MOB got to close.

Also...I've said this tons of times, but the trinity system is BY DESIGN.  It doesn't "just happen" as a natural phenomenon.  It depends on a few key gameplay elements being present in a game for it to even exist.  For example:

1.  One guy has to be able to HOLD AGGRO and soak a significant amount of damage before dying.  If it's not possible to hold and maintain aggro (GW2)...the trinity system falls apart.

2.  One guy needs to be able to consistently heal damage FASTER than the "tank" is receiving it.  If this is not possible, the tank will not survive and the trinity system falls apart.

If neither of these conditions exist...then no holy trinity.  The no holy trinity thing is not an "illusion."  Maybe you will see people taking on specialized roles, but this is NOT the same as the holy trinity.  The holy trinity implies a very specific combat dynamic that needs a very specific game design to work.

So your saying every fight is basicly doing damage, trying to not get hurt (by dodging or using defensive skills) and cast selfheal? I am saying that most of the fights will evolve in one or two players soaking damage/kiting while the rest is doing damage. I do not see that being different from Rift, SWTOR or WoW, with the exception of no healing. To me that's the same as tank and spank without healers. Guild Wars 2 has replaced the healers with support, a role which most old Holy Trinity games also have.

And yes I have seen people in Rift changing from Healer to DPS to Tank in several runs. It's not that I want to be right, but a lot of people are hyping the "No-Trinity", but forget that players want to do things the easy way. When they are bored (or mastered fights) they start to make things harder for themselves by adding challenges. (I remember the 5 man Onyxia kills pre-TBC) On paper every profession will be as good as any other profession to perform a certain role. Tell me why we are having this discussion with all the interviews, all the videos and all beta-reviews? Those should have convinced the non-believers like myself. Guess what, I have not seen anything that did point in the direction of the absence of "preferred" roles. To say it very blunt : I did not see a full group of rangers only taking on the first dungeon.

By looking at Rift, players were not limited to roles. With changing their role/class, pressing the macro to change gear (clever players have both in 1 macro), the players could become a healer, tank or dps. Still a lot of people chose not to change on the fly. Healers usually ran with 3 different healing specs and one solo build. DPS usually had an extra CC and an interrupt build. People will stick to their prefered playstyle.

The removing of the holy trinity is an illusion. Maybe some players will change their spec on the fly, but I forsee most will stick to their prefered role. Support is the new healing. If one player can maximize the dps of the others, why be a pure dps-er? Groups and raids will still pick players who will bring the most to the team. Okay maybe in the beginning you can fill in the specific spot a pickup is looking for. But like in all games your performance will determine your reputation  and that will have an effect on a second invitation.

Still the features of Guild Wars 2 sounds very nice on paper. I have to see it to believe it. They claim it will change group dynamics, I am still waiting on proof. 

Originally posted by username509

Originally posted by Khealler

I know a lot of players who have played DF or are still playing it. Quitting group is larger than subscriped group. Still I haven't heard any of them mention one of your suggestions to come back or as improvement to the game.

What I did hear:

• Skillcap
• Localized banking
• No teleportation
• Improved crafting
• Viable archer and melee builds
• Better security, certain hacks have been active ingame from launch
• Limit ARAC clans
• Social skills

I haven't anyone ever mention WoW in any of the discussions to counter a point of improvement.

You forgot reduce the skill and stat grind.

true that