Hello,

for those who dont know of its existence, heres the link of an useful tool to get your party match-up for dungeons and other events.

While we w8 for ANet to get something like this in game, this will have to do.

http://www.gw2lfg.com/

Cheers.

It has begun...

The fanboys say its all cool nothing is going on.

The drama queens start the shedding of the tears and the opera recitals.

I just love this game. Been a long time supporter. PLaying it and hope to continue to play, but something is stirring at a far alright.

It has begun.

This, if it goes on as rumoured, will be the undertaking and final journey of that hero, that bold and brave figure, always willing to go where no game has gone before, that hero "Manifesto" will soon meet his nemesis, "Mr. Old Formulae" and his terrible minions "mr. gear treadmill" and "mrs. dungeon gaping"...will he survive?

I cant believe that the same team that brought us the quality and assurance of GW Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and EotN will sucumbe to the pressure of the moaning squad of this terrible generation of players, where eveything seems to be about geting the next tier of gear, the next cute little colorful pair of bits and bytes, to devour everything that is vertical in the game and forget about the pure joy of gaming.

im going to quickly translate a simple chat i add with a game friend recently, skipping some boring stuff:

Me: "I heard about this Ascended Gear thingy coming(...) dont understand. 3 months of life and already adding content"

Him: "Great. Theres nothing to do already. Need new stuff. New gear, new dungeon(...)"

Me: "Nothing to do? You finsihed the game already?"

Him: "The story yes"

Me: "well ok and all the maps?(...) done all meta events? theres some cool stuff out there"

Him: "Meta what?...yeah ive done the dragon and stuff."

Me: So you havent played all the maps, you havent done almost any meta events (they r around 50 i think)..so what have you done?"

Him: "Yeah lol WvW and stuff (...) got my gear in TA cant be bothered to do others. Its the same thing(...)"

Me: "Those dungeons are part of the games lore. they r fun to do. and some skins r great to have also"

Him: "Nah seen everything theres to see. Games lore what? lol dont care about that.(...) gonna do new dungeons and stuff. cool loot they say(...) ppl dont bother to go do old dungeons now(...)know a site with list of the new dungeon loot?(...)hey been here all day im at lvl 6 in the fotm dungeon :)(...)im bored gonna log. playing a bit in ---- now (...)

Me: "sigh"

So this guy knows nothing of the games lore. He barely does any WvW or SPvP. He grinded the same dungeon over and over until he got his set and doesnt want to do the others because its "the same". He barely has the patience to stop at a given spot an admire the artwork, he doesnt listen to the games soundtrack. He rushes the game pace, devours 20% of the content and says "theres nothing to do". So he now devours the FotMs dungeons, grinding it away, moaning about the drops, ignorant to everything that this game has to offer, and its in the hands of people like this that i have to bow to in order to get a populated game???

I even commented that i was worried about this kind of progression creating ghost areas and dungeons, as it happens in every game with vertical progression, and the reply had words like "gear score", "LFG Queue system" yeah so players can sit their behinds all day in Lions Arch and Queue for every content in the game....what is going on??

So, the hero "manifesto" has its hands full. And it is not looking good.

Lets remind all of the "manifestos" powers and abilities. He does not have adamantium claws but he has:

“GW2 takes everything you love about GW1” – M. O’Brien

“We just don’t want players to grind in GW2” – C. Johanson

“The most important thing in any game should be the player” – R. Soesbee

“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
- Mike Obrien, President of Anet

“We don’t need to make gear treadmills”
Colin Johanson on how ArenaNet measures success.

Can it be enough to destroy the ignorance of foul creatures and deeds?

In a time where the future of the MMORPG genre is being tested, discussed, by every single community, players and professionals, websites and magazines alike, one has to think that there are forces working hard to bring this genre to brighter days other than big label companies.

Maybe its our responsability, as end service customers, to provide the correct line of feedback about finished products in order to correctly balance and polish a given game, but the original quality of the product, its design and production quality rests fully on the label working the tittle.

Now, its my opinion that, despite the efforts being made by the major game developers in trying to innovate the genre or polishing the traditional aspects of it to the maximum potencial, the majority of those efforts fall short in accomplishment. I know its not easy, and that gamers are not an easy crowd to please, but the facts are clear and this genre is currently under fire.

But, once in a while, we see something being done correctly, something that makes us smile and have good hopes for this genre and, well, lately i found my smiles being fired towards some indie developments i am currently following.

Yes you can say that the majority of indie development projects are towards other market segments, many of them even for core games, custom engines, etc, but theres also room for our beloved mmo genre. I recently played "Path of Exile" and was very happy with the outcome, following closely "The Repopulation" wich im happy to say had a very nice run in its Kickstarter fund campaign, and very surprised with this simple DayZ mod and itching it can find a way to see life as a finsihed mmo product. And im sure there are others.

My question is: can the indie developers bring this genre to new heights when it comes to innovation and game design/mechanics? Whats your toughts on this subject?

Thank you.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Clerigo

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Dead?

The market is huge and may still be expanding. Going into a direction you do not like != dead.

In fact, i think it is becoming MORE ALIVE, solving all the old problems (like camping & finding groups with instances & LFD/LFR), while giving a large part of the games to the players for FREE.

It is getting BETTER.

Did you really put some time into that response or you did it by heart in the heat of the hour?

I honestly cant say i agree 100% with the OP, but i sure can say you are 100% wrong. How can the last years of mmorpg life make it better in any model or conception? Do you really believe in what you are saying?

If i close my eyes to GW2, a tittle that many gamers are following and expecting to bring some freash air to a genre in a decline path, what other new mmorpg launches you can name that actually brought some solid concept? rift? swtor? what...2..3..4 names? Name them plz...after you name them, open the mmorpg list in this site....start counting them, start reading community feedback....and ask yourself....

"what the heck am i talking about??"

Sorry Clerigo but he's right.

Let's take your examples, rift, swtor, etc.

More people play those games NOW after the initial excitement has worn off than any of the early games. didn't EQ have 200 or 250k? did ultima have more? How much? I can't imagine it was hundreds of thousands more. What you seem to be asserting is that the small group of people who started in the mmo genre were right and the many more who are now playing and enjoying these games are wrong.

This is not to say that your opinion of today's games is "wrong" because you like what you like. But the mmo genre has grown and it seems that the majority of people playing are into today's games.

you might rebut with "they never stay in them for more than a few months if that". And I would say "that's because today's mmo gamers are probably not looking for anything with a greater commitment.

You can't take the template of the early adopters and apply that to everyone who has become a current mmo player.

Truth of the matter is that most of these games gather way more people at launch than they rightfully should have. Some of these people are looking for something different from WoW and then start crying because the games are not WoW; some of them are just looking for something to play for a small bit and then they can hop onto the next game that comes out.

When you cut away the players who really would never be interested in some of these games you do find that they still have players.

Rift has players. SWToR has players. AoC has players. Star Trek online has playres. And who do I listen to? The jaded and unhappy mmo gamres who decry the current set of games; where everything is shit, or the guy at work who isn't an mmo gamer but he tried Star Trek online and then says to me "I don't know why some people dont' like this game, it's really fun".

Do I listen to post after post of angry, angry forum goers or the father who plays SWToR with his daughter and I see them going on about how much they enjoy it and how much fun they are having?

Have you ever heard the expression "water finds its own level"? Many of these games had/have issues, true, but they still have an audience playing them. They still have fans.

Heck, I remember one woman at work who, to my surprise, was in a WoW raiding guild and she was applauding the changes that were being made to WoW because it meant that she would have more time to play. Essentially she liked the more casual aspect that was being added.

The mmo genre is growing and like any media, it has gathered greater fans but fans who are not as hardcore or who do not have the desire to play games that are "virtual worlds". Heck, even another guy at work, who I would say is a "gamer" told me last month that he preferred his games to be more like games and less like "worlds".

And the current mmos' are just up his alley.

Sovrath, i understand that, but im talking growth in terms of quality, not quantity.

Yes the mmorpg genre market is not a niche anymore. It is not big, but not small also. You can have dismall comparisons between every market segment, both in consoles and pc, for every known genre, but we can all agree that it, the mmorpg, has grown over the years.

But we all know why it has grown. Lets face it, games like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Lineage 2, EQ 2, EVE, etc helped this genre to achieve new heights.

Im not saying that Ultima Online was not great. Yes it was. In late 90s it was the best this genre had to offer. It served as launch pad for all the rpg onlines to be, as its success boosted the development of games in the genre. The late 90s also brings both Everquest and Lineage as solid games, with great acceptance and favorable feedback.  So when Dark Age of Camelot hits the stands, bringing some radical concepts on PvP environment, everyone knows that a new market segment is born there.

So what happens next?

Early new millinnium brought us a large increase in genre numbers boosted by the phenome of World of Warcraft, and the highly selling Everquest 2 and Lineage 2, with Guild wars presenting itself as a core rpg online game gaining its followers also.

Now when you compare them to its predecessors, no one can blame the late 90s platforms to be worse than the new millennium games, its just evolution as its best, for it has grown in the quality of the final product also.

So, you got a clearly evolution on both quantity and quality of the available platforms, with the direct ranslation in player base numbers. And here i agree with with the word "growth"...

...but...

Following this golden era, everyone was expecting the next jump of the genre. Where can we go next? What can we bring? New graphic engine? New sound stages? New mechanics and game designs?

See, this genre brought some recent big names, backing a big punch in both lore and concept, that failed and failed big.

Where is Warhammer Age of Reckoning?

Where is Age of Conan?

Where is Lord of the Rings Online?

Where is AION?

Where is Star Trek online?

Where is Final Fantasy?

...Where is Star Wars TOR going?...

You can call this evolution, as its the word used to describe the path walked by the genre, but you cant say it is "growth" in particular in quality terms. Its clearly the oppposite.

What failed here? What went wrong? Design misconceptions? Production values, or maybe production rush outs? Mistreated player base?

All of them are open for debate, but what remains is: what should had been the next step in this genre growth, in terms of evolution, brought only its demise.

Now we are currently watching a new effort in this genre. Developers trying hard to bring something new to the genre and indie devs launching new concepts, like The Repopulation. Games like TERA, The Secret World, love it or hate it, trying to innovate, and upcoming Guild Wars 2 and ArcheAge promising a change for better.

I dare to ask: if this new step fails, what will happen to this genre? Can it hold on? Can the indie developers bring new concepts? Can big labels change their politics towards this industry?

Untill then, the genre is not dead, it is plugged to the life support system.

Another laughable content of a thread.

Dont know whats worst: the ridiculous rant of the OPs post or the effort people are puting in proving him wrong.

Can we have a lock on this please?

Originally posted by Starpower

Just like with any product, it is YOUR responsibility to do proper research before you invest your money in it.

 

Sadly that's not how it is with games. People will buy a game a whole year before the game is released. Now who is really to blame here?

There are people out there that will pay good money just to get into closed betas. Gamers are impulsive and impatient. They will gladly pay money before they even know about any feature in a game, simply because a certain company made it, or because they love the IP. I realize I'm making some broad generalizations here but lets face it. Gamers are not known to wait for trials, open betas or even waiting 3 - 5 months after a game is released to make sure a game has been fixed to a playable state/all features added. It's true you can't rely on third hand accounts if you will like something, but a little common sense is in order.

So, in order to clarify your view on the subject, can you please describe your game list to us and the date you bought them?

I do find it funny, so, tell me, do you research for the car you buy? Yes? Where? Magazines? Or you go find every component history in the car, see where it got manufactured to see how reliable it is? You do the same with everything you buy? TVs? Food? Cloth? Cats and dogs and kitchen knives?

So, and im not saying i completely disagree with everything you wrote, you are also stating we cant trust gaming sites and their previews or early made reviews? Because lets face it, most reviews come 2 to 5 weeks after game launches and most trials come way later than that, and if we have to wait for them its like saying we cant trust on what gaming sites have to say?

So, if a gaming sites says, ahh let me see, Diablo 3 is a great game and "ill be going there for months and years" and we buy it and clearly state the game is broken full of exploits and bugs, can we count that as proper research made and we can push that responsability to that magazine/site?

Clearly, for me, it is the LABEL responsability to deliver a quality product and its YOUR responsability to demand a refund and boicott that label if the game is low quality, so they can feel the weight of their actions.

To clarify things for you:

http://www.consumersinternational.org/who-we-are/consumer-rights

The part where i agree with you:

The right to consumer education - To acquire knowledge and skills needed to make informed, confident choices about goods and services, while being aware of basic consumer rights and responsibilities and how to act on them

The part wich you and others fail to see:

The right to be informed - To be given the facts needed to make an informed choice, and to be protected against dishonest or misleading advertising and labelling.

Hype is just a measure of balance between what you know by personal experience and what the seller is doing to try sell the product to you.

I will give you some expert insight on it with a simple example:

Guild Wars 1 was my first likable mmo experience and i still play it because i like so many things in that game, the environment, sound score, events, etc etc and the way Arenanet managed it all these years. So when GW2 was announced and i start to see all these videos by the staff, their manifestos, their clear commitment and honesty in making this work...im positively hyped for GW2.

WoW was my best online gaming experience ever. I had so much fun i can compare it to eating some pizza, drink beer and hang out with the guys (yes i was addicted), and Blizzard had already made the incredible warcraft series and the unforgettable Diablo, so when TBC expansion launched i was so overly hyped and excited i couldnt pee, and you know things with the hype factor are not good when you start to see Mr. T and JCVD playing WoW also, so everything that Blizzard did with WoW after Vanilla brought my hype factor from 200% to about 90%, then i see i was only allowed to play WoW because Chuck Norris says so, and then i get to see Pandas and Pokemon will rule the earth...so hype is down to 50%....

...so when Diablo 3 was ready to geting released i already had little faith in this game, but the 50% hype feel was still there, you know being Blizzard and stuff, but then the RMAH bang...25% hype. And then no offline play bang...15% hype...see how that works?

...so i decided not to buy the game and that Blizzard was doomed to failure in morality and success in revenue. But my friends were still living in hype land and Naxxramas raids, so they bursted into flames and bought me the game. So i played Diablo for 240 hours with my hyped friends bang....hype is down to -50%

...so next time Blizzard launches something my hype level is down the drain, and no chuck norris add suited in full combat gear will make me buy any game of them ever again.

This thread is simply laughable as it has gone from a great video post from the OP to some rambling nonsense by some WoWish fanbois.

GW2 does not have the holy trinity or any other trinity out there, except for the fact that it is extremely fun to play and free of some of the crap that was glueing this genre to the floor.

Yes i like the holy trinity, always will, i like to heal people...what can i do? But i also know the genre is stale and needs some change so i welcome ArenaNets ideas. I can tell you now that GW2 has no form of holy trinity whatsoever as you dont require anyone to have a static job to do and by the simple fact that you dont require to keep a given tank alive so the rest of the people can remain alive also. It is not that hard to think about.

Sad to see you go as "Chronicles of One Telaran" are one of the major diversity forces in this site, being the other "One Jump Home". Websites like this one needs columns like the one you wrote because thats what makes them unique.

If one thinks that things like "5 whatever things" and "countdown to blah blah blah" or "the list of endless things ppl dont care about" amuses veteran players, that person is deadly wrong.

Everyone knows by now that reviews are not to be trusted, interviews are interesting to read but in the end we only care if the game is good or not, community threads are ok but i really dont care about an opinion of a 14 year old WoW player and what he has to say about GW2, and in the end i get some fun out of some great columns in this site, some wicked ones like "Devils advocate" makes me laugh like a little girl, some nice random posts we see once in a while, some decent and mature users, some nice gaming industry pieces by  the staff at mmorpg.com...

...well what im trying to say is you will be missed and mmorpg.com just lost 15% of its glimmer.

Good luck for the future.

Originally posted by Xstatic912

Originally posted by joocheese

 

Holy Trinity:

Probably one of the most controversial aspects of GW2. By not having set roles, GW2 allows players to play the way they want to. It is true that players will somewhat fill the roles themselves, as a tank, healer and dps, but the key element is that you are not bound to a role, and in essence, no one is a full tank, a full healer and/or a full dps. In GW2 everyone has to carry their own weight in regards to tanking the mobs, healing themselves and their friends, and dps'ing the enemy; playing as a team has never been more important and necessary in a mmmo than in GW2.

 

  See i don't mind the "No holy trinity" thing, But Guild Wars 2 "Zerg Everything" (With Reguard to Dynamic Events) is no better... They basically choose the path of least resistance and frustration..

 

So in a "Holy Trinity" no one has to carry there own weight? Pfft

 

Do you have to carry your weight in the "holy trinity"? Nope. Basically, if you dont know it already and im sure you do, the three muskteers trinity is as follows: tank holds atention of the enemy, commonly known as aggro, but requires heal in order to stay alive so the dps players can put the mob down, so healers try their best keeping tank alive while also managing health for the dpsers because Lord forgive if theres some encounter where theres no AoE or some mechanic to dish out dmg for all the party..and thats it...thats just...OLD.  So if tank dies, the rest of the raid dies. Hows that carrying your own weight??

 

Combat:

Combat in GW2 will take some getting used to. No holy trinity, dodging, weapon bound abilities, self-healing, the downed state and weapon swapping are just some of the elements which I think make GW2 combat unique, fun and exciting yet somewhat frustrating for those still trying to figure things out.  

 

Combat is ok, but the mechanics still puzzle me a bit...  How is that that i can starfe a mob is is chanrging an attack and totally is behind him and he still hits me, there positional thiny seems a bit out of sync.

 

I didnt understood a word of what your are trying to say here...ok.

 

Level Scaling:

One of the best aspects of GW2! I always mourned the fact that I wasn't able to go back to old content in other games, or in the case that I could, it wasn't challenging at all. Thanks to level scaling, players in GW2 will be able to revisit all old content (including dungeons); both content they have already completed  and/or content they either missed or just skipped. This great mechanic not only allows players to revisit old content but it also allows high lvl players to run with lower lvl players; just another example of how GW2 devs have a created a game which truly encourages people to work and play together!

 

Awesome, feature... But i still stand by the OLD rpg way of me getting more powerful than a mob i out-leveled eons ago...

 

How about giving me the choice where i can scale back my level if i desire... Its not hard to implement..

 

 

You are talking about the fact that you killed the lich king and for the next expansion you gonna get killed by a glowing porcus while you level up? Check.

 

 

WVW:

Probably one of the most anticipated aspects of GW2. Though incorrectly titled World PVP (it is technically server vs server battleground pvp), WVW brings back an old mmo feature originally brought to us by DAOC. Not only are there epic zerg battles between large forces struggling to take or defend towers, keeps and castles, there are also smaller fights over supply camps, dolyacks, sentries, npc camps, jumping puzzles and even dungeons! Also, don't forget about the siege weapons. One of the best aspects of WVW is that you can join as soon as you "graduate" from your starting area and you can lvl up to 80 by just doing WVW!

 

This feels like Wintergrasp in WoW, sorry...  It shouldn't be instanced, there should be zone in the world that are outright contested area (maybe i want to much)..

 

Errr...ok...so how the players from different servers would get to that area?? And feels like wintergrasp in what measure? Like you could fit wintergrasp 50 times in the gw2 map and it as the complexity of a can of beans. You sure you know what you are talking about?

 

Labeling this game or any other similar tittle as a single player rpg with multi-player elements is a false statement.

SW:TOR may suffer from other issues that brought players to abandon the game, but in its form is a pure mmorpg, where the players are given the choice to join other players to take part in the content play. Just like any other true mmorpg game out there.

Now, this is a solid game, but in all its purpose, it came out in the era of the "mmorpg genre is dead" player syndrome. And that, for me, is what is making players go nuts all the time. I understand that because i have suffered from the same syndrome but managed to beat it by admiting that i cant expect to beat the experience i had when for the 1st time a solid mmorpg made an impact on my gaming life, because what i felt in that time was all new to me and i cant hope to feel it again untill some label press something radical thing along the way, 

I too want to experience that "new" feeling again, like i had when i played Guild Wars for the 1st time, and when someone told me "hey come check this WoW game" and i was like blessed with eternal chocolate cream cascade and fluffy strawberries, but the real issue here is that this genre is trying hard to reinvent itself and following some new formulas but has still yet to succeed in captivating players again. Other labels see this happening so they chose to follow the traditional way and put all known elements of the mmorpg concept in the best was they can, but things are hard to manage in this genre.

We clearly have many lines of thinking glued to this genre, that need to be erased and melted into one clear view on the subject, and thats how you beat this syndrome.

If a label manages to introduce to the genre a game that has quality, it is functional on both PvE and PvP elements, has all the elements in game design that translates into an rpg experience, has content to be made on both single and multi player base and has enough end game content that can make you feel happy for the money you spent, but you come bashing it down anyway, then you have the syndrome and you need to find the cure.

To the OP:

lets put it this way. do you like FPS? I do. Loved Bad Company 2 and im loving B3. You can play it thousands of times, even the same scenarios, and have fun. I just miss one thing you know. I wish it had more skills. I would like a:

- CC ability, maybe some curse where i could prevent the enemy trigger finger to paralyse, so he wont be able to fire....unless he could change shooting stance...oh dear;

- Debuff ability. Now i could use some of those, in particular for snipers. They can fire at some long long range. I want a debuff on them where i could shorten their firing range for 50%...ofc the skill needs to have 2km range.

- Weapon skills. Now i dont know why they dont have multiple atack choices for my M16. Sure there is the grenade launcher, but that is so basic. Here are some ideas to add to my rifle: a throwing net (to pin down the guys), flamethrower (to fire up things), lazer beam (to cut steel and armored stuff), rocket launcher (to blow up things), Sidewinder portable launcher (to shoot me some birds), fireball and snowball launcher (to fight them evil wizards), stealth detector, animal detector, human detector with gps and a arrow to point where the guy is, portable warp (so i can insta close distance), portable wormhole generator (so if im losing i can kill everyone in the map and start a new map).

This is ofc only for my main gun. I want also for my sidearm...

Explosive darts (with a multi throw option so i can hit 10 guys at same time), hummm how many keys do i have 1..2..4..5 nah still very basic...dont want to play a game with only basic stuff so people can acuse me of having fun...ok...sidearm....a glue firing ball (so i can lower targets run speed by 50%), soundwave projector (so i can silence people and also vehicle engine),...

- Also i think an ability tree is required. Maybe with 4,5 maybe 6 different branches where one could maximize and specialize in a given utility. Like, there could be a branch where i could put some points where it could maximize dmg on my rocket launcher by 1/2/3%, and increase my critical sniper dmg, but only when buff of the stealth bomber is on, by 2/4/6% of my total dexterity with my can openener when using 2h TNT sticks....

- Also, a huge robot boss or battleship should spawn for the winning team where new upgrades can drop, and there shoud be 3 types of them (blue, green, gold) so you can say whos the boss in that group.

The issue here, Odin, is that complexity does not equal fun. In the same way that basic does not equal fun also. All that matters is in what way a given system is implemented. Arenanet approach to combat system is aimed at making combat quick and fluid, and i dont see how that can be a bad thing. I also like tons of skills and spells, but ive been having those for 8 years now, and i want to change pace. So, for me, it is a welcome change to the genre,

You could had said that maybe you liked Gw1 system better, or that you have fun when your toon is full of stuff to press, whatever, instead you chose to completely ignore the fact that:

- Some people just like it fluid and uncomplicated.

And, for me, Gw2 combat system may not be perfect, but its great great fun, and makes combat not stationary.

Originally posted by Myria

OP announces release date for an expac in what is, by orders of magnitude, the bigges MMO ever.

That followed by ten pages mostly filled with people who for some odd reason feel the need to tell everyone that they're "not buyin' no Kung Fu Panda!!!111!!!" -- because, umm, they think anyone cares? Or what? "Oh crap, poster XYZ isn't buying Mists, I must rethink whether I want it or not!"?

It's stunning to constantly be reminded of how far removed the denizens of this site are from the MMO mainstream, and how desperate they are for someone to notice. MMO hipsters, waiting for The Perfect Game that will never come.

At least it's all occasionally amusing.. In a pathetic train wreck sort of way. I'm expecting much amusement from GW2's inevitable fall from grace. So very far to fall, the crater should be epic. Don't let me down MMO hipsters, your reputation for vitriol and venom is on the line here.

So, and in conclusion?...no?

If you are playing single player games why you come here in the 1st place?...oh, you are playing mmorpg!..ok...but you expect to be playing alone or with people?

People, gamers, consumers, have a right to express their opinion about a given subject of their interest, and these forums are an apropriate place to do so. If you dont aprove the content of the forum, why read it in the 1st place? So you can fire some posts of yours ranting about stuff and take the moment to add that gw2 will fall big?

Whatever man. Carry on.

Following the debocle with the broken Diablo 3, here comes Blizzard greeting the player fan base with one more show of greediness.

Launching yet another expansion, on a monthly fee subscription based model, not only they do not lower the price of the expansion (when other companies do it for free), they dont give it away or at least with a small discount for long time paying customers, and they dont even offer a discount for those that bought the Diablo 3 mascarade and, still king of the hill in greedy terms, new gamers wanting to try the game need to buy not only the base game but all the expansions...

How can a company that brought us so many good things in the past, Diablo, Stracraft, Warcraft, WoW, be reduced to nothing more than a money making machine, with powerful marketing campaigns for weaker games...and the awe of it is that people continue to buy and play this weaker material and saying it is good.

The world will never change, when even in gaming we see unscrupulous companies feeding the pockets of the rich with the money of the ignorant and weaker minded.

Oh well, have fun those who are paying for it.

You should buy Nightfall for 2 big reaons:

1st: Nightfall has the "heroes" feature, wich are non-playable but controlable characters that can assist you in your progression, wich, sad to say, taking 2 or 3 things that people usually do in a party, 95% of the game you will be doing it alone, and even henchies being helpful, heroes are so much better. So you should buy it and start the campaign in Nightfall.

2nd: the biggest player marketplace is the main city of the Nightfall campaign, in the US server, where sometimes you can find literally hundreds of players trading stuff. If you dont have it you will be severely limitated in your tradings.

Hope i helped. Gw1 is a solid game with great lore and breathtaking scenarios and music. You going to love it.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Dead?

The market is huge and may still be expanding. Going into a direction you do not like != dead.

In fact, i think it is becoming MORE ALIVE, solving all the old problems (like camping & finding groups with instances & LFD/LFR), while giving a large part of the games to the players for FREE.

It is getting BETTER.

Did you really put some time into that response or you did it by heart in the heat of the hour?

I honestly cant say i agree 100% with the OP, but i sure can say you are 100% wrong. How can the last years of mmorpg life make it better in any model or conception? Do you really believe in what you are saying?

If i close my eyes to GW2, a tittle that many gamers are following and expecting to bring some freash air to a genre in a decline path, what other new mmorpg launches you can name that actually brought some solid concept? rift? swtor? what...2..3..4 names? Name them plz...after you name them, open the mmorpg list in this site....start counting them, start reading community feedback....and ask yourself....

"what the heck am i talking about??"

Originally posted by stragen001

I found a warrior with a rifle to be pretty awesome. You can cripple targets with 1 shot, make them vulberable with another and do massive damage with the burst ability. The rifle butt ability also enables you to knock back an opponent when they get to close. 

Instead of doing that though, I combined Rifle with Axe+Axe and was able to use the rifle to take their damage down significantly at range, and then maul them with my dual axes when they got too close. It was great :) Alternatively, you can use the rifle for tougher mobs to kite them and keep doing damage without letting them get into melee range :)

Taking utility skills that allow you root your opponent too makes sure they cant get away or dodge when you are trying to hit them with your burst skill

I basically do as posted above and my choice will be between the warrior or the mesmer.

Still too soon to say. I had bad moments in all the BWE, good moments, great ones, sad ones..etc.

Just stoped by to tell OP the following: how can you, or anyone, continue to throw WoW for modern mmorpgs comparisons? I loved the game, i played it, it is still my best online gaming experience ever, but the game is old, dated in all aspects, with a broken and systematic dumbing down of every mechanic and design related thing in the game.

It is not fair for WoW, not fair for GW2, not fair for players on both sides of the fence, and certainly is not fair for new gamers, as if they read this they can actually think that WoW is the best choice for a starter mmorpg experience.

Just my 2 cents.

Still your impressions are decent in perspective. Nice post.

http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/diablo-iii/1225520p1.html

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4941028405?page=3

So, news related, i played this game for 1 month and now to find that all the effort in constant grind to find a way to gear myself in a decent way to advance in this game was a joke, because it seems that the only exploits in this game are not only AH and small farm oriented...no no no, you can also have tons of fun selling gear in the RMAH to people that are oblivious to this exploit. Thank God i never did spent a cent on that RMAH.

So this exploit allowed you (or according to some users in battlenet forums, it still allows) to become invencible with a Wizard, thus allowing you to break game balance by reaching end game content and end game farming and doing it all over gain and again and again.

Now there are some naibve people out there that are trying to suggest this is not game breaking....well, when the lions need to be fed, some lambs jump right into their mouths.

I wonder, if Blizzard bans the users that were using this exploit, are they to repay money other users spent in RMAH buying those items brought into the game by a non-legal game practice?

I wonder, will Blizzard repay in some form all the legit players trying to play a game that is broken?

I wonder, will MMORPG.com re-review this game NOW and give it the apropriate score for a broken game, or will the staff continue to allow game customers to continue being cheated by the score this website gave to the game?

Yes...ofc...