Originally posted by rutaq

 

Ok...   I like a good debate , heck maybe I'll learn something...

Lets start with nothing "Hard" about the old school games premiss:

   Just the simple fact that it did require a time investment to reach the game goals is one thing of many that was "Hard".

  The player interdependence through grouping was "Hard" to manage.

  The Guild politics trying to coordinate RAIDs was very "Hard".

  The direct penalty to your character's progression made it "Hard" to recover from mistakes so you would be challenged to try "Hard"er and not make as many.

I don't care about a game that allows ME to be "THE BEST"

I know my gaming limitations and  don't have some inflated self image or ego.  I am not striving to be  "THE BEST",  just  "THE BEST" that  I can be.   "THE BEST" can be a bit subjective but in games it is generally the top of a scale that we judge ourselves against.   The scale is most often a measure of our ability to cope with the challenges set before us.

Why is it bad for a game to challenge me or any other player for that matter ?    There are many variations on the definition for "GAME" but do you argue that this one is incorrect ?  

 GAME,  A form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

I do want Competitive PvE....

  Enjoying competition in game whether it be PvE, PvP, Checkers, Monopoly, Poker, heck even Tic-Tac-Toe is actually quite normal and is one of the most fundamental elements throughout gaming history, but liking competition doesn't make me antisocial or self centered.

Being an "old School gamer"...  I LOVE to play with other people,  I LOVE grouping with other people,  I LOVE helping other people. I LOVE being part of a hard working Team,  I LOVE challenging things to overcome, However.. I DON'T LOVE when the game is designed to devalue any of the previous items to make itself "EASIER".

This is a saner debate than I first thought. Your last paragraph baffles me. GW2 is the most inclusive MMO I have ever played. If you love playing with others you should love GW2. I think you're missing the forest because of the tress. It has dawned on me that you might have a misconception as to the design objective of GW2. 

The entire game is built around a central competitive concept but it's not individualized, it is entirely team based. Your server is fighting 2 other servers. Everyone around you in PvE is ON YOUR TEAM! The reason for the mechanics is to encourage team commitment, not foster some form of nanny state. The "enemy" is over ---> there on the other side of the mists. You can still get glory on an individual level but the game is a team game. Its about your server winning. Everything in the game supports this concept. 

The competition is there is spades, it's just not about you.. its about your team.

Originally posted by rutaq

Originally posted by Volkon

No, I'm pretty sure of it. My whole set of "MMO perceptions" is changing. I don't play them like I used to anymore. Look at downlevelling... sure, I'll check levels to make sure the mobs aren't too high for me, but low? I don't even notice anymore when I'm downlevelled to be honest. It no longer really crosses my mind that I should be one-shotting this mob that's n levels below me.

I've completely forgotten to look for guys with the "!" over their heads. (The only reason I'm thinking of it now is because I'm thinking of what I no longer think of.)

I know I no longer race towards mining nodes anymore knowing they'll be there until I get there no matter who's around, and on that note I no longer avoid people I'm not "partied" with... the whole "tagging" of mobs is pretty well forgotten.

 

There's other stuff as well I'm sure I'll think of later, but I was wondering how other folks perceptions of MMOs is (or isn't) changing now that they've a week or so of GW2 under their belts? (If you don't play at all... you wouldn't understand. Hush.)

 

For me everything you called out is a dumbing down of MMOs and removing any amount of challenge they had left.

 

GW2 has built the perfect MMO DayCare center.

1)  You downlevel to a point right above the scale of the Monsters so the combat is the same old guaranteed success  if you press a couple keys...  No  " Oh Crap" moments,  No  " Damn what am I going to do now",  just a simple auto target, auto attack, auto "win"  :(

2)  The game is pandering in the sheer amount of reminders , flashy icons, glowing arrows and UI hand holding.  Gone are the lame  ?  icons and instead they are replaced with pop ups, obnoxious noise reminders and a handful of new geometric shapes that somehow equate to Exploration when you are lead around by the nose following your super majic DPS radar ??? 

3)  Gathering is so trivialized that the node is a vending machine that gives out a snacks to every adventure that stops.  No scarcity, No hoarding, No discovery of the secret ore nodes that you quickly snatch up to hide them from others, no work or challenge at all ,  just cookies for everyone !!!

4)  Getting credit for doing the work is gone, instead you have some weird welfare system, where if you happen to be standing next to someone killing a monster and even sneeze on them you get credit.   No need to try just  wait a minute longer and you can zerg through anything and even win if you die !

 

Basically GW2 is the next evolution in Adventure's DayCare.   Streamlined "Easy" auto game play,  no noticeable penalty for losing, no challenge, no risk just lots of reward, " Everyone is special and the same",  "You are all the bestest Heroes ever"   :)

 

As an adult I am embarrassed to play such a trival, vapid, childish MMO.   

[mod edit]

Please there was nothing "Hard" about the old school games you so lovingly worship except finding the enough time in the day for the insane time requirements they had.  There is nothing "challenging" about repeating the same content over and over agian to create the illusion of accomplishment because all of the rational human beings would never subject themselves to the torture and senselessness of the grind they require. It's a Beavis and Butthead competition to see who can hold thier hands in the fry cooker the longest. Congradulations you win, you get the Magic Purple Sword of literal Life Stealing and guess what you won't get those 500 hours back. I hope you enjoyed yourself.  It's vapid pointless competition of who can endure the mindnumbing repitition of a task only fit for a 50 lines of code bot, the longest.

You want a game that allows you to be the best? The Best at what? Wasting time in a video game. You want to stroke your epeen in front of an audience. Well too bad. To be the top 1% you need the other 99%. And guess what, no one wants to play that type of game anymore. They never did actually. McQuaid got the formula wrong and the genre has suffered for years because of it. That style of play somehow attracted some the most anti-social people in world and gave them others just like themselves to play "along side" with. Most people play video games for fun not to fullfill some empty desire for imaginary domination or to feed thier own instatiable ego. 

You want Competitive PvE, so you can buy into the illusion that you actually accomplished something and you think the genre is in dire straights with all this "pandering to low". Allow me to rebut. You sir are the issue. You have always been the issue. This genre would have normallized years ago if it hadn't been for you die hard old-schoolers using you're copious amounts of free time to fill message board forums with the most self serveing anti-social me first me bestest game design drivel. It took a developer like arenanet to finally understand that you and you're kind serve only yourselves and never the community. You don't want to "play" with others you only want other to watch you play.

Originally posted by Praetalus

Originally posted by DMKano

Probably just hitting GW2 burnout - but not feeling any aspect of GW2 lately - even WvW is feeling uninspiring to me. I am stting at 75 and no will to even get to 80. Crafting is boring and sort of a deja vu from countless other MMOs I've played. PvE I feel I am just completely fed up with - can't stand to do another DE.

I think I need a break - maybe I'll load up Vanguard - had a max toon there years ago and a mid 30s shammy that was fun.

 

 

This cracks me up. I have a brother in law who bought the house next door to me. He has money saved up from his time in the military, so now, he sits in his basement and plays games all day. He will get a new game and play the EVER-LOVING shit outta it for a week or two straight  and then say he's bored. 

The fact is... people that have THAT much time to play video games will usually never be happy. They are locust. I mean, I'll admit I'm on the really low end of play time due to job/family. I've been playing since the 25th and I have a character at 11, another at 8 and a few around 5. I'm still having an absolute blast.

You have a 75 and I'll wager a handful of other higher level characters..... of course you're bored. You've been playing what, 4.. 5 hours a day since release? You gotta pace yourself my friend. No developer could ever make a game to keep someone with your amount of playtime happy. 

Exactly right. The shocking thing is you were off by half. More like 10-11 hours a day since release. He posted his /age in another thread. Let me preface that a lot of people took vaction last week and given that labor day just passed they probably had a lot more time that usual. Playing that much isn't necessarily a problem (it most certianly can be though), complaining that you're bored afterword is completely disingenous though. Of course you bored, you packed nearly a months worth of play time into a week. You likely have very few people to play with (here is another hint... other poeple give this genre its legs).

You wanna know how WoW corrected this problem? They put lockout timers on thier raid instances to keep the over-consumers from playing it too much in one go. Let me put it another way. They hard coded play time caps. They forcablly didn't let you play all of thier content at once. 

So really one solution to this "Problem" would have been to release 1-10 levels day one and every month up the cap by 10 levels to enforce play time caps on the overconsumers. GW2 would have 8 long months of spectacular monthly content drops. 

Originally posted by Wolvards

Originally posted by Mardukk

Originally posted by Meridion

The heck, guys.

You know what really astounds me? - How can you invest 120 hours of gameplay in 10 days. You know what kind of average you get out of there, right?

It's 12 hours per day!! Even in my glory days in college with practically unlimited time and no responsibilities I hardly ever broke the 8 hour barrier.

Now I work 50 hours a week, so yea. 4% and 9 hours played. 

M

 

I can't figure it out either. How do you earn a living playing a game 10 hrs a day? I need all of your jobs. I have a stable of lvl 10 - 15 approx 30 hrs played...I think 10% complete.

This is the point i'm trying to make in another thread. It's not that these level 80 players are playing it wrong to get bored, they're playing to much!

You are exactly right and it is one of the problems with the genre. People that sit so far outside the norm as to have play times that are 4 and 5 times the average player are the loudest, the angryest and most passionate. Developers absolutly can not cater to them. There are simply not enough resources int the world to feed thier insatiable appetites for content. To bring the disscussion back to GW2, it is rediculous to play a game for 100+ hours finishing less than 50% of Map PvE content not including dungeouns or crafting (map exploration has nothing to do with these two) and then complain about lack of content or being bored at 80. That's not even including PvP (err does map completion include the 4 WvW maps??).

To say your bored with a game after playing a game 10 hours a day for 12 days straight is preposterous. If the game was boring you would have quit after 20 or even 40 hours. If we need to play a game for 1000 hours before we decide if a game is worth playing there is either something very wrong with genre or something very right. :)

Originally posted by MMOwanderer

Originally posted by coretex666

Are people complaining about lack of vertical character progression / development? Yes. (the type of people who appreciate it in MMOs)

Are people complaining about lack of GRIND? No.

 

I think this may be it. I actually don't remember anyone saying the game lacked "grinding".

What these particular people are complaining about, without really even knowing it, is a lack of  PvE competition where time commitment trumps every other aspect of gameplay and the game atrificially inflates power to support it. They loved thier old school MMO's where 2 years of 8 hour a day commitment was supported in game with such a huge power differential that no newb would dare challenge them. Newbs weren't worthy of the latest content they needed to "EARN" it... the old fashioned way... by playing the same content in a video game over and over agian 8 hours a day for years straight.

What they fail to understand is that Arenanet specifically and very intentionally sacrificed  that gameplay for inclusion and elimination of barriers to entry. Arenanet wisely realised that we were never really playing a "Massively" Multiplayer games since most players could never actually play togeather because of these huge power differentials. We were simply playing along side of each other. Yeah you had you 10 closest friends doing content with you but you never needed and in alot of cases couldn't play with the other 10,000 that populated your server.

The type of gameplay wanted by these naysayers is better provided by co-op rpgs. Massively Multiplayer games should be inclusive at all costs or there is no point is being Massive.

Originally posted by DSWBeef
Uhh rift had the smoothest launch ive ever seen. Tsw a close second.

The issues with most launches are simply issues with scale. When you only have to deal with a "few" hundred thousand gamers pounding on your servers its quite different than dealing with a "few" million. Neither of those games launched with anywhere near the popularity of GW2 or D3. 

The appology response from Anet will be something along the lines "We were not prepared" for the number of people that logged in day one. The've built enough positive hype that they will servive this just fine. These forums however we become a bastion of haters "feasting on the tears" of fanboys. So grab some popcorn, we can't play GW2 anyway :).

Originally posted by OldManFunk

Originally posted by vesuvias

Holy Crap. This is just a simply light hearted jab at the WoW In-GAME death penalty. Where you wander around looking for your tombstone when you die. It was absolutly not a refrence to real-life deaths from video game addiction. 

Let me break down:

"I played WoW and look at me now" - he's now a ghost wandering around looking for the tombstone you're reading

"if only I had been like you and stuck to playing Guild Wars 2." - if he was playing GW2 he wouldn't be a ghost wandering around looking for his tombstone. He'd/She'd be playing the game.

It most certianly isn't a cold hearted refrence to real deaths....

You've got to admit that the feigned indignation and wild conspiracy theories people have dreamed up are almost as funny as the actual meaning of this harmless and clever easter egg.

Perhaps you highlighting the critical parts everyone should read and me bumping it will correct the misinterpretations and mark a return to rational converse. But given adversarial nature of the thread title and how defensive posters are about thier MMOs, I doubt it but remain optimistic.

Originally posted by Valua

Originally posted by Alot

In the image below you can see a gravestone with some sort of symbols carved into.

http://www.chroniclesoftyria.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/I-played-WoW-and-look-at-me-now.If-only-I-had-been-like-you-and-stuck-to-playing-GW2.1.jpg

These symbols come from the New Krytan alphabet and when translated you get:

 

"I played WoW and look at me now,
if only I had been like you and stuck to playing Guild Wars 2."

 

Credits go to Jalinar for translating.
Credits go to ANet for making this happen.
Credits go to Alot for creating such a sensationalist thread.
Credits go to littleXuro for ninja'ing me by 14 minutes.
Credits go to (input name of easily enraged GW2 hater) for making this thread live (and die).

It's funny on one level, and very insensitive on another level.

You have to remember people HAVE actually died playing WoW, including children and babies, so making jokes about it doesn't really appeal to me. 

Death's due to MMO addiction (Most are due to WoW.) http://www.rpgownage.com/2011/03/697/

 ...

I'll still get Guild Wars 2, but the above is just my opinion.

 

Holy Crap. This is just a simply light hearted jab at the WoW In-GAME death penalty. Where you wander around looking for your tombstone when you die. It was absolutly not a refrence to real-life deaths from video game addiction. 

Let me break down:

"I played WoW and look at me now" - he's now a ghost wandering around looking for the tombstone your reading

"if only I had been like you and stuck to playing Guild Wars 2." - if he was playing GW2 he wouldn't be a ghost wandering around looking for his tombstone. He'd/She'd be playing the game.

It most certianly isn't a cold hearted refrence to real deaths....

Originally posted by Crazy_Stick

Originally posted by Alot

In the image below you can see a gravestone with some sort of symbols carved into.

http://www.chroniclesoftyria.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/I-played-WoW-and-look-at-me-now.If-only-I-had-been-like-you-and-stuck-to-playing-GW2.1.jpg

These symbols come from the New Krytan alphabet and when translated you get:

 

"I played WoW and look at me now,
if only I had been like you and stuck to playing Guild Wars 2."

 

Credits go to Jalinar for translating.
Credits go to ANet for making this happen.
Credits go to Alot for creating such a sensationalist thread.
Credits go to littleXuro for ninja'ing me by 14 minutes.
Credits go to (input name of easily enraged GW2 hater) for making this thread live (and die).

 

Well, to learn that only the dead play WOW is a great relief to me. First trade chat, barrens chat, and that cyber bar on Moonguard all make sense now. Second, it looks like only about 10 million people went to hell and they are mostly Asian so my chances of landing in a good spot after the coffin are actually pretty good now.

I mentioned this in a similar thread on guru. The joke is not saying that only the Dead play WOW.

It's a refrence to WoW's death penalty and a contrast to GW2's lack of one. If you'd play WoW and die you are stuck as a ghost wandering around until you find your TOMBSTONE. If you play GW2 and die you can port back to waypoint and you don't have to go find your tombstone. That's the joke. It's a jab at the WoW's death penalty and saying that it is inferior to GW2's in terms of actually playing the fun parts of the game.

Originally posted by keenber

I dont know if GW2 will be any good or not but the guys that are saying GW2 will be good for the future are totally wrong.

GW2 is gonna make the mmo experance a convenince one and that for one is not what any mmo should be and deffiently not what a sandbox should be. MMos are about your avatar and the alternate life you can create and maintain with your online friends . Some say they dont like raids or dungeions or farming gear to make your avatar better but if you dont have these as a goal in theampark mmo { which GW2 is ) then what have you got but endless nights of repetivie PvP/PVE with no goal. As for a sandbox mmo they dont need raid/dungeion and gear farming because there is so much else going on in game.

I for one think that if GW2 is sucssesful as WoW was then we are gonna see a change in the way mmos are made and not for the better.

What does convenince have to do with sandbox features? Why is there this myth that casual time commitment and sandbox play are mutually exclusive? I sometimes wonder if a "sandbox" is really what is wanted by the "sandbox" lovers. I wonder if what is really most important is something that keeps them busy for 8-16 hours a day, through insane grinds and epeen acheivements and not something that keeps them busy by providing enough lego bricks for them to be creative. I never thought of mindcraft as particularly casual unfriendly or grindy.

The article mentions SWTOR and then a common weakness of "Themeparks" not being able to keep up with content demands of a ravonous playerbase. SWTOR had plenty of content, I seriously doubt most people that quit consumed all of it. Thier problem wasn't a lack of content. It was designing a world that is better visited than lived in. There is nothing wrong with this and it is absolutly fun if players approach it this way. The sub fee doesn't fit with this type of game which is why f2p is a good choice for them.

If a sandbox means designing a world that is to be "lived in" I am not sure that will ever be anything more than niche. It's a time requirement issue. The pool of gamers that have 80 hours a week to throw at a game is much much smaller than the pool of gamers that have 20 or 10.

If sandbox means making an impact on the world Mindcraft style then yes, absolutly yes this is the next iteration of the genre. If it means fresh bleeding edge always different algorythmicly generated content that we can do once and never agian, then yes of course yes.

If it means FFA Full loot PvP, then no. If it means time commitments that likes of which olympic training doesn't even require, then of course no. If it means frustration so prevasive that you need to repeat the same activity 1000 times to be successful even once, then no. If it means a world so open ended that the only things to do is to grind mobs and emote going to bathroom, then hell no.

FTA:

Subscription revenue alone totaled $1.2 billion both in 2008 and 2009, and an additional $1.36 billion in 2010. Corresponding costs (the overhead cost of maintaining WoW’s virtual world) totaled a mere $404 million in the first two years mentioned, and $241 million in 2010. This means that WoW subscriptions have generated gross margins over 80% consistently.

This alone is why the sub model must now die. For every 5 dollars that gamers give them they pocket 4 and spend 1 on supporting the game. They have exploited this far too much. They could have been charging half what they were for subs and still have been making a killing. I am not anit-captialist but what has suffered here is customer value. What is our money really purchasing. They should have/could have doubled their staff and produced that much more inovative content to stay out ahead. They choose to take profits instead. This has opened the door for competition to produce a better product for cheaper.  It is inevitable that this was eventually going to catch up to them.

Originally posted by blognorg

Originally posted by vesuvias

You cannot logically say not using using an existing DF tool will gimp you and 4 sentences later say that dungeons are nearly as important to GW2 as they are to other themeparks. It either gimps you because they are important or they aren't important and it doesn't gimp you to not do them.

Dungeons are core part of Arenanets content but not because you "need" them for gear that you would be gimped without. There are 8 of them. By comparison there are 4 sPvP maps and there are 4 WvW maps. There is as much Dungeon specific content as there is all of the PvP content. Arenanet built these to be played by everyone. These are not niche peices of content.

The reason DF tools pull all of the players into the fold when avialable is because most players don't consider putting togeather a group fun or even that challenging (in terms of thought provoking difficulty). When you've been spamming chat for 15-20 mins you could care less who pops up next you just want a body so you can actually start actually PLAYING this content. Trinity or no, gear based or not, it doesn't matter the logistics of getting 5 players together to play the exact dungeon you are looking to do at the exact time you are looking to do it are problematic. But its a problem that solves itself the more players you throw at it.

How long will the poor guy who works till 1 am have to spam chat to put together a group to do the level 40 dungeon? And if he only has an hour or two to play? He can't afford a to go LFG and wander around Lion's Arch for a half hour on the off chance he might get lucky. That guy simply doesn't get to play dungeons unless he has a DF tool. But out of the 1.5 million players playing the game there is a pool of players that would probably be willing to do the level 40 dungeon at 1am. But what percentage of that pool is on his server? What percentage of those just happen to be running through lion's arch at the time he spams for more group members? A DF tool maximizes his ability to find someone to play with. He unlike you doesn't care who, he justs wants anyone like him that wants to run the same content when he wants to run it. You would deny him the ability to play with others just so you can keep your guild members and friends from doing dungeons with others and always being avialable to you?

I used to play Ragnarok Online, so I'm all too familiar with having to find a group against the odds. However, getting to where you needed to go was half of the adventure. LFG would totally strip that out. I've also gotten to know a lot of people that way. For one, those first few sentences of interaction is a lot more important that people seem to give credit for. It acts as an ice breaker and gives you a first impression of someone. Occasionally, a red flag will pop up in that short span of time that may change your mind on grouping with them (it's happened to me before). Also,  you learn to cherish the people on your friends list and actually get to know the people you play with. I tried out WoW for a few months after Cataclysm came out and I didn't get to know a single person. I never once started a conversaion with someone in an LFG, nor did anyone even try talking to me. Overall, it was a really hollow experience. 

 

I tihnk there is more to consider when faced with implementing an LFG than just Joe, the night worker. It can completely change the game for everyone. That being said, in the case of GW2, I don't think it would really destroy it in the way it would Ragnarok. For one, the DEs already make it so you don't really need to get to know people. From my experience in the betas, I just zerged with people for a while, then we went our own ways without so much as a 'hi' or 'bye'. It's basically a persistent LFG.

This arguement is like argueing agiast using modern relationship finding tools in a modern society. No match.com, no eharmony.. grumble grumble... people can only form lasting relationships the old fashioned way. You can't build meaningful relationships unless you hit the bars, church or grocery store isles. It's like you found the love of your life in the frozen food section of your grocery store and can't imagine a real relationship building in any other way. If people keep forming relationships with eharmony and match, who will go to bars, who will attend church. The sky will fall, magnetic pools will shift, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!!!?!?!

Now I get your secondary argument which is really about dependancy. It's this idea that the game should foster a "need" for other individuals to complete content. And by making it too easy to form groups and get to content you harm this concept of interdependancy. If there is too large a pool of players willing to join my group then I don't "need" to foster a relationship with you. I don't need your help with anything since I can get anyone else at anytime to fill whatever I needed you for. Getting rid of this doesn't get rid of real relationships just the artifical illusionary ones. What you might be missing is that this false sense of interdependancy fostered by these "golden age" games was built on a foundation of artifical incentive in the first place. They were never real. The real relationships you may have formed came out of real interaction between you and another person and that certianly didn't happen during the LFG conversation.

Man, I feel like I am talking to my kids about why love at first sight doesn't truely exist... :)

Originally posted by Zhylaw

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

Mmhh this poll doesn't make much sense. If there's such a tool, people will automatically use it since everybody else will and therefore it will become the only way to find a group (for a dungeon). Even those who voted "NO" will end being forced to use it too.

A more interesting poll would have been "do you want a dungeon finder in GW2?". But this... is kinda pointless.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it sure as hell beats not able to find a group or having to wait 30+ min to form one. When SWTOR first released, you had to stand in the fleet station and spam for a group. For the first few dungeons, it wasn't too hard to find one. It'd take you anywhere from 5-15min on average. But mid to late game dungeons took at least 30-60 min if you even found one. That's because everyone was out leveling, instead of wasting their time spamming LFG in the fleet.

TSW has a better LFG channel, since it spans all zones, but you'd still be LFG for anywhere from 5min to forever. Needless to say, if there was a Dungeon Finder, it'd be a lot easier to get in groups and get the party started. The 10-20 min travel times required in most games to get to the dungeon, added to the possibly 30min it took to find a group, and you then only have those without a life able to group up for dungeons. The rest of us only get at most a few hours a day to play. Who wants to spend 1/3 of their time allottment LFG and Traveling to the dungeon? You then have a 1 hour dungeon, and that's if there aren't any wipes, which always will happen when a game is new and people don't know their classes or dungeon fights yet.

Compount all of this when the game gets older and the population becomes top heavy. Any newcomers or people rolling alts will have an even tougher time finding groups.

 

         Putting aside the fact that if there is one you have to use it or gimp yourself for a moment....

    As I tried to explain GW2 is NOTHING like SWTOR, WOW or Rift when it comes to grouping.

1. When adventuring in the world your pretty much auto grouped with everyone around you for all intents and purposes.

2. There is NO raiding

3. There is no trinity system or arguebly if there is one its so light touch any random group can get stuff done provided the players themselves know what their doing.

4. Dungeons aren't nearly as important or integeral to GW2 as they are in other theme parks. Between that + multi guild membership + no trinity system finding people to do dungeons with will be a joke.

So in closing.....due to gw2's unique design a group finder is pointless and would furthermore actually DAMAGE the core game design.

You cannot logically say not using using an existing DF tool will gimp you and 4 sentences later say that dungeons are nearly as important to GW2 as they are to other themeparks. It either gimps you because they are important or they aren't important and it doesn't gimp you to not do them.

Dungeons are core part of Arenanets content but not because you "need" them for gear that you would be gimped without. There are 8 of them. By comparison there are 4 sPvP maps and there are 4 WvW maps. There is as much Dungeon specific content as there is all of the PvP content. Arenanet built these to be played by everyone. These are not niche peices of content.

The reason DF tools pull all of the players into the fold when avialable is because most players don't consider putting togeather a group fun or even that challenging (in terms of thought provoking difficulty). When you've been spamming chat for 15-20 mins you could care less who pops up next you just want a body so you can actually start actually PLAYING this content. Trinity or no, gear based or not, it doesn't matter the logistics of getting 5 players together to play the exact dungeon you are looking to do at the exact time you are looking to do it are problematic. But its a problem that solves itself the more players you throw at it.

How long will the poor guy who works till 1 am have to spam chat to put together a group to do the level 40 dungeon? And if he only has an hour or two to play? He can't afford a to go LFG and wander around Lion's Arch for a half hour on the off chance he might get lucky. That guy simply doesn't get to play dungeons unless he has a DF tool. But out of the 1.5 million players playing the game there is a pool of players that would probably be willing to do the level 40 dungeon at 1am. But what percentage of that pool is on his server? What percentage of those just happen to be running through lion's arch at the time he spams for more group members? A DF tool maximizes his ability to find someone to play with. He unlike you doesn't care who, he justs wants anyone like him that wants to run the same content when he wants to run it. You would deny him the ability to play with others just so you can keep your guild members and friends from doing dungeons with others and always being avialable to you?

Originally posted by Painlezz

Those who voted no, are 100% free to find groups w/o it.  

Those who voted yet are not 100% free to find groups w/o it because they don't have endless hours to sit on a video game day after day spamming general and global chat channels in hopes of getting a group together.  WoW has been doing very well with a group finder and even a RAID finder tool.  Plenty of top guilds never use these things, or they use them for solo play between raid nights when they want a fast group...

Feel like this is a troll attempt, considering LFG tools have already proven to be very valuable and only an extremely limited group of players are against them (mainly the lot who troll these forums). 

Rift, WoW, SWTOR, EQ2... Every major MMO player just about has a LFG tool or added one shortly after release if i'm not mistaken.  They're an important tool in the modern MMO market.

Great post.

For all of the clamoring about the "social" aspects this will break the "no DF tool" proponents simply do not care, have little repect or empathy for and have zero understanding of casually playing a MMO. They would be all too happy to completely lock out the casual crowd from dungeouns all togeather. They have no intention of grouping with these "bads", you will never be skilled enough to join thier group. This issue is simply MMO elitism masked under the guise of community building. They aren't interested in the community because they are all to happy to simply eliminate the casual segment from thier dungeoun games. They believe Arenanet made these dungeons for them and only people like them.

You can say "but I don't have time to spam chat and sit in town waiting for a group to form" all day long until you're blue in the face. But don't expect the community building retorict they are trying to push to change thier response to from anything but an unempathic "maybe dungeons aren't for you then". Nothing kills a community faster than elitism born in the womb of exlusion.

This is a hangout for a lot of hard core/non-casual players. The poll results will likely be scewed in their favor as I think they overlly represented on this site (as opposed to a percentage of actual game population).

DF tools I think have gotten a bad rap from this crowd and become the whipping boy for bad social behavior. Bad Social behavior is mostly a product of the amonimity and this medium of communication (non-face to face). The reason games "seem" better previous to DF tools is that it's easier to find fully invested players with great amounts of freetime. By sheer time and investment these players are better and more willing to fully embrace the social aspects of the game. Why is it easier to find them? Because they are the only ones left in the pool of players willing to put up with the time requirements for putting togeather a group for a dungeoun. 

Is short non-causals get a better game by eliminating casuals. Now I understand this is the dream for some. But its unrealistic and it isn't Arenanets intention to eliminate casuals from dungeoun content. Without a DF tool finding a group becomes just another barrier to entry for the casual audience. It's in the same category as ridiculous the long leveling times, harsh death penalties and massivily scaled raid drops.

Maybe your right and trinity spots were the reason groups took to much time to put togeather in previous game. I doubt it. WoW, Rift and SWTOR didn't just add DF tools because a small vocal minority screamed for it. They added it because they data-mined and found dungeouns were under utilised for a siginifigant portion of thier player base.

I somewhat agree with the poster above that its inevitable. Arenanet will data-mine just like everyone else and if enough players aren't doing dungeouns they will add a DF tool. Honestly wouldn't you prefer that to something like decreasing dungeoun difficulty or making them soloable (or some other casual only change)?

Great suggestions here, so I figured I would give back.

If you love turn-based games:

Civ 4 (yes the old one, mods were better with this version) + BTS + Rise Of Mankind: A New Dawn (Mod)

Giant Map with ~20 civs

A game of this can literally take a whole month to complete, which should take you near up to release. Now Civ games if not played on the easier difficulties have this problem I like to call "Dead Man Clicking". Meaning the game is lost but the AI is so inept at finishing you off that it could be a week in real time before you realize there is no way to catch up. So don't be afriad to use the built in cheat tools (modifies terrian, cities, units, etc), to avoid some frustration, no one has that much free time to start  over.

Everyone should experience the sheer geeky joy seeing your Assault Mech take out a unit of swordsman.

Since Zhaitans undead ships are blocking the way to Cantha, and defeating Zhaitan is the story for the initial release I would think Cantha makes a good choice for the first expansion. Kralkatorrik (another elder dragon) blocks the way to Elona but we aren't messing with him in this initial story (maybe). But defeating Zhaitan would also make him and Elona more accessable.

Could go either way but it they go with Elona they will need a backstory as to why we still can't reach Cantha. Cantha on the other hand is eastern themed and maybe too close to Mists in terms of content for GW2 to do first out (they really want to differenciate themselves from WoW).

As for what's in the expansion I would love to see:

- 1-2 new races with full starting areas (I would love 2, one humanoid and one a little bit more fantasy)

-enough new content to level from 1-80 in the new area alone (Cantha or Elona or ...)

-1 new profession

-new PvP maps

-a new tradskill

-A change to the mist's maps (they should change the terrian on these just a little every expansion, to keep things fresh)

-perhaps a level cap raise from 80-90 centering around content that leads up to defeating the next elder dragon

Originally posted by terrant

Actually, in some systems, gnomes and goblins ARE the same. or from the same roots at least. Ditto for Gnomes and Dwarves, or Goblins and Dwarves. Heck, Tolkien's Orcs are actually Elves.

 

My point was the poster I was replying to said something about Dwarves being too steretyppical for Anet. He's right. if they do Dwarves, they'll put a unique spin on them. Just like they made Elves a bunch of youngling plant people, or mushed gnomes and goblins and made them look like someone shaved Gizmo from Gremlins and put him in a Steampunk convention. They like to take something existing and do something interesting with it. I'd look forward to seeing what they did with Dwarves, if they did.

You mean like turn them to living stone :).