Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by doodphace

Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard

Originally posted by doodphace 

The main purpose of RPGs is to improve your character, make him/her stronger over time. Most Themepark MMOs do this with gear. If ANet can come up with a meaningfull non gear related endgame improvement system, power to them, but until there is some type of character progressions at endgame, its endgame is little more than "Unreal Tournament".

Wrong. That's what games like EQ or WoW have made people believe, but it's wrong.

The main purpose of a RPG is and has always been, since Dungeon and Dragons and Chainmail before, to roleplay a character, explore new places and live adventures with it. It's the EQ/WoW clones which made those games into hamster wheels where the primary purpose is to grind gears.

RPG means "Role Playing Game", and not "Raid Plenty for Gear".

Who said anything about raids? AoC has an alternate endgame progressions system completely independent of gear...you need to calm down and stop bringing up WoW and raids everytime someone says anything that's not praising GW2.

A HUGE part of D&D is character progressions, that's one of the MAIN activates in RPGs and what keeps people playing, this isnt debatable.

It has to be character progression because you wont start shooting fireballs or turning undead.

But on a PC game the progression can be based on the player skill progression not on stats.

It still amazes me how stuck people are on linear progression. We have so many games (RPGs even) that offer progression in alternate ways, that are awesome. And yet most of us still can't get over that gear carrot. Hell, some of the funnest parts of games like Zelda, Guild Wars, Metroid, etc. was getting a variety of different skills to unlock different areas or make bosses easier. I'm actually glad that we are starting to see more MMORPGs try and do the same.

It does require more thought, rather then having the game just tell you 'this is better, enjoy it', but it also leads to a much more fulfilling character. Eve is another good example of this, where you start off only being mediocre in one area, and then grow to become efficient in multiple.

I know I'm probably in the minority on this, but I find linear progression to be a very shallow cop-out when it comes to progression.

Originally posted by Doogiehowser

Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard

Originally posted by Normandy7
You see WoW has an excuse why people have left the old leveling zones, it is an old game. The same with other games but GW2 has no excuse why this happened. GW2 is still very new and yes op the living world in GW2 is pretty much barren for the simple fact that people have already left for good. You will only get a handful of people at best in the lower level areas.

Wrong. I have leveled a new character in GW2 recently, and the starter areas are actually packed at peak hours and still alive with players at off hours. Gandara (EU) server.  And in the higher level areas, each time I announced a group event on map chat, more than enough people showed up to beat the event.

Of course you can't see that when you don't even play the game but just post assumptions about what you believe happens on forums...

I can't say the same about WoW's starter zones or Pandaria zones. The starter zones are empty (except a few kiddies duelling in goldshire with twinks or with high level char against level 5 ones), same for the Pandaria ones, and that was last November, not even 2 months after the release of the expansion.

In every MMO when someone brings up issue of population dwindling on their server someone like you always pops his head out of the bush and says 'but my server is doing great', well good for you but that means nothing because GW2 has a lot more other servers which are not doing so well.

So what i did? i got my 1,800 gems and transferred to Tarnished Coast. Sooner or later ANET will have to suck it up and merge servers. Till then? ignorance is bliss.

Yes, if you're playing on a T3 server or below, populations won't be as heavy.

However T2-T1 (that's 6 servers american + 6 europian) are consistantly populated. I play on Sanctum of Ral and there's always stuff going on. Zones always have people in them, and map chat is always being used by random people I don't know.

I know there are a few servers with lower populations, though, but to imply that it's all of them is a bit of an exaggeration. Furthermore, people need to keep in mind that different servers have different demographics. I.E. Ral does get somewhat slower during oceanic times (though we've made an effort to bring more oceanics over), other servers are the opposite (and this is regardless of if you're playing US or EU).

Another thing to consider is this game has a pretty fluid population. People are leaving / quiting / taking a break, but they also have new people trying the game out all the time. I wouldn't have believed it, but I'm still running into newer players almost daily.

Eventually, yes, the game will die and they may have to merge, but it's too soon to tell, tbh. A lot of it will depend on how long they take to introduce some sort of expansion, and step up some of the content they've laid the groundwork for. The game still gets lagfest-packed with each event they introduce (monthly). The day - day may not be as packed as it used to be, but it's fairly unrealistic to expect that nowadays. People just have too many games to play, and no one plays just one.

Originally posted by Prepared

Originally posted by CalmOceans

If I wanted action combat I would play a console game with a controller where I could mash buttons.

Tab targeting allows for tactics like crowd control and splitting techniques that simply aren't possible during action zergfests.

100% agree with this statement.  I enjoy tab targeting in my MMORPG.  Any MMORPG without tab targeting, I don't consider playing it.  

The best MMORPG would give the option for players to use either of these options.  Just as a player can change graphics settings, a player should be able to select whether or not to use tab targeting or a targeting reticle.  If that were in an MMORPG, how many players would go for tab targeting?

The notion that TAB targetting somehow requires more tactics is not only blatantly false, but nothing more than an excuse.

Realistically the targetting method has absolutely nothing to do w/ how tactical a game is. For example some of the most tactical games are neither tab target or action combat (they're click & drag). Furthermore, you can look at certain classes in various action games that require you to constantly switch targets and be smart about skill uses (for example, Control Wizard in NWO).

People that tend to view action combat as a 'zerg fest' seem to both have trouble with the concept of what a zerg actualy means, as well as issues understanding how action combat actually works. It does seem a lot more chaotic at first, but as with any mechanic, once you actually understand it, you can bring order to the chaos. After all, even in the most dumbed down TAB target games (i.e. WoW) they can be chaotic as hell if you don't understand how threat works, or how to handle adds properly.

Originally posted by sidel

Originally posted by fantasyfreak112
There are many. They're just all made by terrible/has-been developers that don't play test their own games and think a return ping of 500ms is the status quo.

Mortal Online and Dark Fall doesn't count. We all know those are stupid. Who the fuck wants to run around in a fantasy MMORPG in first person mode? wth?

And this is why you guys dont have any games.

Even when you do get a sandbox it 'doesn't count' because you don't like it.

Sandboxes are out there, they exist, but in order for a game to be a sandbox it generally has to sacrifice in other areas. I.E. latency, graphics, even certain types of content. There's also certain mechanics that generally don't work well with sandbox-type games. Sandboxes, by their nature, are essentially blank slates. You can't have an epic blank slate, it needs to be built on.

If what you people truly want is a sandbox game, then you'll need to stop being so picky about every little thing. Hell minecraft looks like crap, but that doesn't stop it from being a good game. If you legitimately care about playing a sandbox mechanic, then play one and stop bitching that the ones that exist aren't catered specifically to you.

Yes, it sucks that the majority of gamers aren't as passionate as you guys about sandboxes, but that's the downside of being a niche market. There are pleanty of games / mechanics I'd love to see either make a comeback or be adopted into an MMO, but I'm not going to complain every time a designer makes a game without them.

And this thread is a perfect example of the downsides of LFG ques.

People often complain about how bad grouping is in MMOs, or how hard it is to find decent players. The simple truth is, that the only sure way to make a group group (in any game) is to actively create one yourself and only invite people you play well with. Your group, your responsibility, your ability to kick any asshats or people that seem questionable.

When you leave it up to the video game to do that for you, you will be rolling the dice every time. It's a crap shoot, and odds are you aren't going to get a group that's very good.

As the saying goes: If you want something done right, do it yourself.

The phrase 'you can't have your cake & eat it too' comes to mind.

Is it a mistake to remove certain content from the game? Possibly. However, you can't have a world that has meaningful change, without giving up something in return. Anet has always said they were planning to have both permanent & temporary changes being added to the world. So far they have stayed true to that ideal. Fractals are still in, but the living story is temporary.

I think it's a good thing for them to make content people seem to be really enjoying, but making it available for a limited time. It is a good method of keeping people coming back. If there is a mistake they are making, though, it's that currently they only have these temporary changes to look forward to. They've been asked about an expansion and they don't sound like they've even started on one.

Basically, I think Anet will need to put in larger, more significant improvements / additions to the game in addition to these temporary ones. I don't know if they have the resources to do this, though. However, the pumping out content on a monthly basis is a very good start, and not something every studio is capable of. If they could also surprise us with larger, more meaningful change every 3-4months, that would go a long way towards keeping people hooked.

- Honestly, even in GW1 did they have a lot of really cool, temporary content. The fact that people enjoyed it enough to want it to stay is actually a good thing. Taking them out adds incentive to login and participate, as well as builds good memories of the content before burnout is allowed to sink in.

Originally posted by asmkm22

Originally posted by KingofHartz
I just didn't want to rule out the possibility of the next xbox, the partnership between sony and blizz has clearly already been established.

I don't think Sony could afford an exclusive partnership with Blizzard, at this point.

What would be the point of having an exclusive partnership w/ Blizzard? Blizzard doesn't make enough games. It would be an expensive proposition to lock down around ~2 titles that'll be mostly played on the PC anyway.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by ShakyMo
It failed in comparison to diablo 2. Of course it shifted a lot of boxes on the opening week, that's because the 2 previous games in the series were so good, its got nothing to do with the quality of diablo 3.

Blizzard would be expecting many more players to still be playing it today, it hasn't retained players anything like d2 did.

If diablo 4 launched tomorrow "from the team that brought you diablo 3!, with new improved rmah", how many copies would it sell? A lot frikin less.

D3 has exceeded D2 by every metric including retention. It still does. D2 just wasn't that big a game for blizzard. The RMAH may have been less than stellar but the game itself is a solid success and becoming more successful all the time. It may hit fifteen million of the PC version sold well before the end of this year.  Add in the console version and two expansions and it may rival Starcraft 2 some day.

lol...

You may want to stop & consider how different the market is today from when D2 came out. D2 WAS a big game for Blizzard. However the market has grown quite a lot since then. There are a lot more people playing games now, especially on PC. If D2 wasn't a big game for Blizzard, it wouldn't have had an expansion, and we certaintly wouldn't have had D3 (which, btw, was one of the most anticipated games when it came out).

- As for Blizzcon, I'm somewhat curious. Most signs point to this year's Blizzcon being terrible. The only thing Blizzard can really show to get people pumped would be Titan. They're kinda running out of stuff to be pumped out in all honesty. Unless you are one of those that are super stoked about their latest CCG clone.

Originally posted by Homitu

Originally posted by Silentstorm
I literally said in the beginning of the vid. This isn't a raid it's a normal dungeon with NPC help galore lol. It maybe a glimpse of whats to come.

The only reason one would feel the need to specify that the instance is not a raid is if some had called it a raid in the first place.  Hence the confusion over your title.  You put "Molten Facility Raid" in quotes, implying that it had already been called that (by someone else); and then your "Or is it?" suggests that you wish to refute that claim.  Where did you hear that it was a raid (presumably in the MMO sense, not the traditional synonym for "assault" or "attack" sense) to begin with, that you felt the need to clarify that it was not?

You're both right.

Keep inmind that this is the internet. Most people don't bother to read things properly, and jump to conclusions based solely on a few words out of an entire paragraph.

As such it's often very important to phrase things carefully, so that even if people read it wrong, it still presents the correct impression.

Originally posted by AIMonster
Control Wizards to me at later levels feel more necessary than Guardian Fighters and Devoted Clerics.  You can get away with not having a tank and spamming potions for heals, but you need something to manage the ridiculous number of adds summoned during boss encounters once you do Mad Dragon Lair and beyond.  Though bosses can't be CC, the adds bosses summon are way more dangerous than the bosses themselves.

This ^

It's the adds where you want the CC, and control wizards become insanely good at locking down adds at later lvls. Without that CC, you get swarmed, and no matter how good the tank is he won't be able to tank a dozen+ mobs all beating on him at once. Furthermore, there's almost always adds that peel off / go for the cleric or other members of the team. CWs dmg may not be as good as a rogues, but it's not far off and the added CC  I find is invaluable.

Originally posted by silvermember

Originally posted by Homitu
Wait, who ever called it a raid in the first place?

I think the game does, but I think the confusion the OP is having is, because like a lot of MMO players the OP doesn't actually know the true meaning of the word "raid" but instead automatically associates it with content designed for a group of 10+. 

Then again MMORPG players were never known for their brilliance.

Nowhere is this dungeon ever called a raid.

You also might want to consider that the word 'raid' has many different meanings based on 'context'. I don't know what it is about these forums, but so often does context get completely over looked.

For example 'a raid on Molten Facility' means something completely different from 'Molten Facility is a raid dungeon'.

That's why it's often a good thing to often read through something entirely, more than once, to make sure you understand what's being told / discussed. Otherwise you're just making assumptions.

Originally posted by Nightgroper
This thread, filled to the brim with bait.

This ^

Typically 'my game is better than yours, therefor my game is a real game & yours isn't' bullsh@#.

Originally posted by Vorch

See a thief go into stealth:

Wait 2 seconds. Greatsword 5 (pulls from 600 range...regardless of stealth)>4>2.

DON'T see thief that attacks with backstab from stealth:

Stun Breaker + Renewing Focus (3 sec invulnerability). In those 3 secs, pop F1, F2, F3. At the end of renewing focus, they will recharge.

Then Greatsword 5>4>2.

If you don't use GS in PvP, try Hammer #5. Thieves can't get in. Or just lemme know what wep set you use.

Only engineers should REALLY have trouble with thieves as they have low armor AND lack of CC. Necromancers actually are very good with flushing out thieves from stealth (one of the few things they are good for in sPvP XD)

Uhm... engineers are one of the hardest classes to kill in the game, and have THE MOST amount of CC of any class. Immobilize spam, knockbacks, knockdowns, pulls, stuns.

Engineers shouldn't have trouble against thiefs at all really, especially given the amount of conditions / AoE engineers can get.

Originally posted by MikeJezZ

Am I the only one who finds this game incredibly unbalanced in PvP?

Unless you're a warrior, the classes are a lot closer in power to one another than most people want to admit. Who wins comes mostly down to build, player skill, and timing / environmental awareness.

This is one of the few games where pretty much every class gets cried about somewhat evenly. Thieves & Mesmers do get it more than the rest, though, but a lot of that comes down to people not really understanding how those classes work (and as such extrapolating their weaknesses).

Originally posted by doodphace

Originally posted by danwest58

Just watch on Nov 5th and 6th at Blizzcon.  

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/blizzards-project-titan-rumors-facts/

Put together the little that is known of Titan like the facts that they will have a dual life plus that housing will be in games with vendors.  

Then take the fact that EQ2 and WOW are both themepark and designed the same way in 2004 its not hard to image or figure out that Blizzard and SOE are going to be releasing the same type of MMO as they did before in 2004.  Just think about it.  They know that Themepark will not work.  

Lol, im sorry, but that is wishfull thinking at its finest....literally nothing released or rumared thus far implies it will be a sandbox, or even close to one.

BTW, the only "housing" they even mentioned is "guild" housing, which also does not indicate sandbox in the least.....Rift has player housing, and is by no means a related to a sandbox.

This ^

Blizzard's legacy has been built off of their ability to copy other games, and polish the crap out of them. Thanks to WoW, they've essentially killed most of their pool to steal from. I don't think we're really going to see much original from WoW on the MMO front (which is what the genre needs). Heck, look at their last major announcement. People got all stoked for a new IP, and what they got was a Magic: The Gathering knock off centered around WoW.

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Hmm of couse the other side of the argument is maybe they did listen to players.

Players have been screaming about making games free.

They have been screaming about making things easier, more casual, quicker to get into, quick to get groups.

TSW delivered that in spades.

IMO the lesson really is.  Don't listen to what your players tell you haha.

This ^.

It's easy to point to flaws in a game that has been released, and say 'If these stupid devs would've just listened to us (meaning me) they would be in a much better position". However, what that perspective ignores is the fact that there are now millions of 'me's, all with differing opinions. Many people here would agree that a game like CoD is a lazy, uninspired, piece of crap game. So then why does it still sell record numbers?

I know it's not a popular view, but at a certain point we as gamers need to turn that criticism on ourselves and ask 'what are we doing to contribute to this climate'? How many of us have supported crappy games? How many continue to support crappy games? (defiance anyone?). Even more important, what's the last game you didn't like, but were okay with others liking it? This seems like an issue mostly limited to MMOs. How come in this genre we can't accept that people like different things? That not every new MMO has to cater specifically to your each & every needs (and can't).

Heck one of the most praised games on this site (SWG) was ruined, BECAUSE they listened to their players. This doesn't mean they listened to all their players, but rather they listened to the wrong ones. And that's a mistake you don't often get to make twice. Many devs are trying to give us what we want. However that needs to be juggled with what others want, what works with the game, and what's actually achievable.

As they say, hind-sight is always 20/20.

Originally posted by fat_taddler

Originally posted by cybertrucker
This is open beta. The only fail is the OP. this is when they stress the servers, and find bugs to fix. 

If anyone can start playing the game today without worrying about character wipes, it's a "launch".  

We really need to stop sticking up for companies who release unfinished products then hide behind terms like "soft launch" or "open beta".

I'm sorry, but some issues just need a live test audience to figure out. What you're talking about is essentially that games based around living, breathing social dynamics should be flawless before they even get a chance to interact with said people on a large scale.

That's jut not realistic, and impossible. How quickly we forget that even games like WoW had massive issues at launch. ANY form of public mass-service is going to have issues when it's first exposed. Videogame or not. The more complex a thing is, the more issues you can expect to see. It's a nature of the beast.

Originally posted by denshing

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Ztekan

This game seems great , looks kinda great, but its so hard to understand what to do , where to go.

 

So how do i/we learn this game, i have noone to talk to and get help, no one to bounce of my thought or knowlage or take it from someone els.

 

This game well ..... how do you play it ?

Talk to people in your school. Schools are like guilds on to themselves. You can also learn by playing  or check out some of the well written guides.

Unfortunately there's a lvl req to being able to use that chat channel. It is very helpful, but you can't use it until you're inner skill is ~lvl 10+ I believe.

One of the biggest problems this game has, is that at every turn they've setup roadblocks that prevent players from accessing / learning about certain parts of the game, it's definitely frustrtating.

I believe this is a new requirement because a lot of gold farmers were spamming school chat right out selecting their school. Now they just stand around the schools teleport area and spam the local chat. I am glad to see that snailgames is adressing this to some extent, however so far it has not made them any less annoying.

Honestly, this game is PLAGUED by gold farmers. It's absolutely destroying this game's economy, and the chat spam is attrocious. Limiting school chat hasn't really slowed them down much tbh.
While it is less common in school chat, you still see it. They also have taken to sending you msgs directly (using their player-search system of chatting), in addition to spamming the other chat channels.

Probably THE MOST annoying thing atm is entire guilds filled with nothing but bots. There's entire zones atm that have armies of bots camping all the useful gathering nodes.

- It is a F2P game, so I definitely expected this to some extent, but it's getting exponentially out of hand, and stuff that should essentially be dirt cheap is being traded for ridiculously high prices the average player has no hope of paying.

Originally posted by Ztekan

This game seems great , looks kinda great, but its so hard to understand what to do , where to go.

 

So how do i/we learn this game, i have noone to talk to and get help, no one to bounce of my thought or knowlage or take it from someone els.

 

This game well ..... how do you play it ?

Honestly, the best thing to do is a combination of joining a healthy, popular, and helpful guild. Going out of your way to be friendly & make new friends. Ask questions, and google what you can't figure out in game. It takes a while to really understand the game, and a week in I'm still learning things about the game. I'm also still unsure if I actually like it or not, it's a lot to digest.

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Ztekan

This game seems great , looks kinda great, but its so hard to understand what to do , where to go.

 

So how do i/we learn this game, i have noone to talk to and get help, no one to bounce of my thought or knowlage or take it from someone els.

 

This game well ..... how do you play it ?

Talk to people in your school. Schools are like guilds on to themselves. You can also learn by playing  or check out some of the well written guides.

Unfortunately there's a lvl req to being able to use that chat channel. It is very helpful, but you can't use it until you're inner skill is ~lvl 10+ I believe.

One of the biggest problems this game has, is that at every turn they've setup roadblocks that prevent players from accessing / learning about certain parts of the game, it's definitely frustrtating.