I’m sorry to start your Monday morning off with an animated gif, but if it helps it’s one of my all-time favorites. This morning as I looked out over the sea of Guild Wars 2 posts in my Google Reader only one thing came to mind:
To be fair this image is not entirely true — I did read most of the posts because of course I’m interested in seeing what my fellow bloggers have to say — but my lack of interest in the game has left me with something of a sassy “Didn’t play!” attitude, complete with Dancing Vader head waggle.
I’m not entirely sure why this is. For the past few beta weekends I have watched guildie after guildie try the game and almost immediately fall in love with it, not to mention the flow of positivity from my social networks. People praise the unique way skills are tied to weapons, the lush world which is filled out with interesting NPCs, the updated version of a party quest system, and the emphasis on exploration. And for sure, I can’t deny that any of these things exist! I just.. don’t.. seem to care.
I’m sure some of it is my own baggage as much as it is the game itself. Perhaps I’m burned out on expectations or new big name MMOs. Part of my problem is with the advertising — I don’t see anything revolutionary or different in PvE, despite over a year of being told that Arenanet is shaking up the paradigm, man. I can’t play a healer. The game in its entirety feels as friendly to single players as an MMO could possibly be, without any impetus for grouping or even just talking, and that’s the opposite of what I’m looking for in a game. It’s empty to me.. area events are as perfunctory as having my ticket punched at a themepark and all my efforts are undone 5-20 minutes later.
Guild Wars 2 lacks soul, in my opinion. And, while I mean this affectionately, if I’m going to play a soulless MMO with a great development team then it’s going to be RIFT.
That all being said I am destined to buy and play the game at some point because many Cats will be there and they, of course, are the biggest draw of all for me in an MMO. I’m just .. kind of not looking forward to it.
Herding Cats is the blog of Liore, known in the real world as Jessica Cook. She writes mostly about MMOs and RPGs, and believes in 
Ohh…what happened to that WvW enthusiasm? I admit, i’ve not had time for any PvP in GW2 yet – my PC is just not up to it right now. :(
Sorry to hear you didn’t give things another go. where I agree with you is the cooperative aspect; I am very happy with the exploration and leveling aspects, but cooperation needs to get more meaningful. combat too did not really enter a stage for me where it took teamwork and I only ever once performed a combo and didn’t know how/which, lol! I haven’t been in a dungeon yet though, no idea how people can already be at lvl 35+….
I felt a lot like you after the first BWE and all the way up to last weekend, somehow this second time was an uplift for me personally (but then I am easily made happy with soaring eagles and snow on trees!) Out of interest, did you ever try the water elem (with staff)? that could end up being more of the healy type if that’s what you want, especially with added traits later on.
Syl´s last post: [GW2] An altered questing experience
I always think of you and feel bad whenever I post something less than complimentary about GW2. :)
I still think the PvP will be the best part of the game for me, but I’ve been increasingly bummed about the state of the PvE to the point where it’s overshadowing my love of the WvW idea. I think it’s a combination of being extremely suspicious of hype, the rotten treatment of female character models in general, and the solo nature of the PvE content. For some reason it just all combines to totally put me off.
I should stress, though, that it’s just my opinion and I’m sure the game is awesome in its own right for many folks.
I didn’t play either. Well… I did log in for about 20 minutes just in case they give some shiny to players who logged into every beta weekend, but that was it.
I eventually came to enjoy the game during the first beta weekend but I just couldn’t generate any enthusiasm to play this time out. Part of it is beta ennui… I hate knowing my progress is going to be wiped out. And part of it is because I have pre-ordered the game and I don’t want to spend the first 10-20 hours of a new game replaying stuff I did in beta.
But also… frankly I’m sick of hearing about it. That’s not to say I would wish any of my friends to stop blogging about something they’re enjoying, but when ALL my friends suddenly start enjoying and blogging about the same thing, it can have a negative impact on my own appreciation of that thing. Maybe it’s my contrary nature or something.
But the hyperbole around GW2 is just through the roof..I like the game well enough but to hear people talk about it, it’s gonna end world hunger and stop global warming. And even that would be OK except I’m tired of this “OMG this game ROCKS!” vibe during beta and then 3 weeks after a game ships everyone is all “Y’know, I’m just not feeling this game any more.” :) I’m looking at you, SWTOR!
Meh, I think mostly I’m just cranky these days….
pasmith´s last post: Bird on a Rift-y wire
“But also… frankly I’m sick of hearing about it.”
YES. So much yes. For the last year at least I felt like anything new that was even vaguely MMO-shaped was swarmed by people talking about how much better Guild Wars 2 will be. And it’s a fine game, in my opinion, but it doesn’t solve world hunger or even some of the big problems that plague modern MMOs. Maybe I’m just burned out on the hype cycle.
This isn’t the fault of the game, of course, but some of the biggest jerks I’ve encountered in the MMO scene lately have all been raging GW2 fans, of the “this game is for tiny babies but Guild Wars 2 will be too full of MANLY PVP ACTION for the likes of you!” variety. I’m glad people are enjoying it and as you say I don’t want to tell anyone to stop writing about it or whatever, but I am really tired of being yelled at about how totally awesome this game will be.
For me, the excitement was in finding a small corner of the game that I could enjoy in a vast sea of trash (misogyny). I am excited because I think it’s a game my whole social unit will play, and while we had a brief stint of all leveling and enjoying each others’ stories in SWToR, we haven’t had anything we play together since serious WoW raiding.
The ability to log in once a night and do something like TF2 alone would be enough for me. I went in wanting almost nothing, and got a shiny catperson, so that was alright.
But my reaction to GW2 and trying to squeeze myself into its intended audience, has definitely accelerated my impulse to start seriously writing about problematic geek culture in all its wretched yet tantalizing glory.
I will totally admit that part of my… crankiness with the whole situation is amusingly enough that I DON’T think it’s a game that will hold the attention of my online social scene (that being the Cats, natch). I am bummed to see yet another big title come and possibly go without that broad appeal. Or maybe it will. Perhaps I’m just the odd one out.
However, if it gets you writing about problematic geek culture with any regularity I shall consider the whole thing a rather worthy effort for that alone. :)
I don’t know, I understand where you’re coming from. It’s easy to get caught up on the hype train and let the excitement fall after the game is released. But I find it hard to relate to your feelings, because… well, I just have way too much fun on the game.
I’ve been on the realist, almost pessimist side of MMOs for longer than I care to remember, and truth be told, that’s not a fun place to be. The last game I think got me excited was Allods, and that was only based on the promise of an exciting endgame, one that I never got to experience because the journey there was paved with solid boredom.
Guild Wars 2 is the first game that IMO tries to do something outside the mold, and after playing it for two weekends, it delivered on everything I expected them to. That’s not to say I think it’s the second coming of Jesus (I hardly even believe on the first one), but I’m optimistic about it, and so far everything I’ve seen and played has been very positive, even if not close to perfect.
One thing that I really must disagree is that GW2′s PvE is of a mainly solo nature. To me it feels the exact opposite: for the first time *ever* on a MMO I feel like I’m playing with the other players and working together towards the same goals at all times, instead of competing with them. The lack of open-PvE grouping to me shows exactly that: you don’t need to group because you’re always working together. PvE grouping with strangers on previous MMOs was a necessity born out of the inherently competitive nature of the game’s mechanics, not a tool for socializing.
I understand the argument that by not forcing you to talk to others to be able to achieve anything without having fits of rage, you introduce yourself to less people. But I don’t feel that I need to talk with others to feel like we’re cooperating. Having some random stranger resurrect me during a fight to me personally feels much more like cooperation than with games where most people ignore your presence completely, unless you group up so that they don’t steal your quest kill, a truth on every single MMO prior.
Kemwer´s last post: There goes my plan [GW2]
We’ll have to agree to disagree about the cooperative nature of PvE. If no one talks, no one groups.. how is that any different from NPCs? I mean.. resurrecting someone is our standard for social interaction? Ack. I asked a half dozen of my pro-GW2 guildies and to a man they did not ONCE talk to anyone in the game over a beta weekend. Millions of players, and no one says a word. Not my kinda multiplayer.
To be fair I am probably becoming a dinosaur of MMOs, as I’m someone who very much enjoys the social elements of the genre, including meeting people and working together to overcome obstacles. That is almost impossible without communication, and communication between random players is actively discouraged in GW2.
“(…) communication between random players is actively discouraged in GW2.”
That is the part where our points of view clash. I believe that there is a massive difference between the game not requiring players to chat with each other to accomplish things in-game, and actively discouraging these communications, which there is no evidence whatsoever to be the case. I would love to hear if you have an example of a GW2′s feature that makes it better for players to play solo, which is the implication of your sentence.
I’ve also have been playing MMOs for many years and enjoy greatly the social aspects of the genre, but when those are used to compensate for poorly designed mechanics that penalize players for playing together on the same area, that is a bug, not a feature.
I could point out that I did group up with random strangers during these two weekends and added a few people to my friend list thanks to activities we participated together, like trying to beat some jump puzzles together, facing a particularly tough elite mob inside a cave, or just doing a very pleasant run on the available dungeon (despite countless wipes). Maybe it didn’t happen to you, and I’m sorry your experience was not optimal, but to say that it doesn’t exist or that the game promotes playing solo is simply not true. Guild Wars 2 just doesn’t require you to be in groups to enjoy even the most basic aspects of leveling; it lets you play next to other players and collaborating with them without forcing group mechanics down your throat, on the penalty of substantial frustration as you compete to tag mobs.
Well, again, we have to agree to disagree. I think it’s entirely true that GW2 promotes solo play!
* The dynamic events don’t require communication or teamwork or interaction, and at least at the current tuning barely even require participation.
* The standard quests outside of one’s personal story are not difficult enough to require interaction.
* There’s no way to trade directly with other players.
* Lack of chat channels and features. There’s no emotes, /yell, city/zone chat, dueling. The game was designed without chat bubbles, although I believe those were put in this last beta due to player demand.
* Lack of support classes.
* You can’t share quests with party members.
* You can’t find your friends, partymates, or guildies on the PvE or WvW map easily.
* The original overflow system actively split up parties, and I hear the new one is better but still a pain for groups to manage.
Some of that will change before launch I’m sure, but the fact that they went into their main beta period with no chat bubbles, limited chat abilities and channels, and an overflow system that actively split up parties shows to me that the development of this game has made group play and interaction a low priority. When I compare how lively local chat was in any zone while levelling in WoW back in the day, say, and how dead any chat was during my ~15 hour of Guild Wars 2.. well, it was a pretty remarkable difference.
That, to me, indicates a game that promotes solo play. We clearly have different social requirements from our MMOs, and that’s cool. To each their own. But you can’t argue me into enjoying GW2. :)
It’s not my intention to convince you to enjoy the game, you are totally entitled to your opinion on it. I just feel that some of the arguments used are based on misinformation about the game and I would prefer to make it clear, to you or anyone else reading, what those facts are. Sorry for the wall of text that follows.
Like I said earlier, a lack of requirement for grouping is not the same thing as promoting solo play, since all these activities can be done with groups, and they all work better, or at least just as good if you have a group. I know that because I did play most of the time this BWE on a group, and the experience was much better than when I was playing solo. There are no advantages to playing solo, or penalties for playing in groups. Only if such advantages or penalties existed the game could be promoting solo play; GW2 instead is promoting choice. Your claim is completely unreasonable.
Taking your examples:
* No, events don’t require communication because they are not competitive, they are naturally collaborative. Communicating to complete quests on WoW is required because mob tagging can and is used as a tool for harassment. This harassment is impossible on GW2, so you only talk to people you want, not because you’re forced to. You cooperate with people on GW2 the same way you’d help another car driver by letting them go first, you just do it and go your way, maybe give them a nod, but you’re not forced to have a conversation or add them to Facebook in case you see him on the street later.
* You will need to do higher level events before you pass judgment on their difficulty. If you tell me you can solo the Witch under Viathan Lake, on the second human map, then you’re the best player in the world. I tried that with a group of around 20 players and we couldn’t do it… even after discussing a few strategies. There are really hard events to beat on the game, they just are not present on the initial areas, the only ones you’d be able to see in 15 hours of gameplay unless you decide to rush to level cap.
* Yes there are emotes. Not all were present on the last beta (the dance animations in particular were already announced as “in progress” months ago). Talk bubbles didn’t exist before because devs thought the little bubbles next to group unit frames were enough. Well, they were wrong. In any case it is there now, so why is this even on the list?
* Granted, there is no yell or dueling. But there is zone chat, it’s called Map channel (/m). Except for yell, the game has most of the chat features you can find on any MMO.
* Lack of support classes is a moot point. The game has different combat mechanics; this complaint makes as much sense as asking for a melee class on Call of Duty. All classes can do support, but it requires a different mindset from that of WoW.
* Same thing for sharing quests. There aren’t any quests, what would you want to share? If you want to cooperatively play your personal quest, you can. If two players choose the same background on character creation, they can even share the result. Works beautifully and doesn’t require you to do anything.
* You can’t find friends and guildies on the map of any MMO (there was a plugin to do that on WoW years ago, I don’t know if it still exists. Ofc this wouldn’t count, since it’s not part of the game itself). Party members do show up on both the full screen map and the minimap as light blue dots and are very easy to find, as expected.
* The overflow system had a bug that prevented it from keeping parties together, a bug that could be circumvented during BWE1 by following a very specific procedure which shows this was unintended. This bug was solved for BWE2 and I didn’t have that problem at all. File this one under “this is a beta, things will be wonky”.
Finally, you compared how chat was lively when you leveled on WoW against how dead it was during this BWE. Well, first of all, maybe it was your server: my server had constant chat at all times on every single map I happened to be in, including the new 25-35 level area which was mostly empty compared to others, and I played for around 12 hours each day of this weekend, so I can’t argue on your experience except to say that it isn’t the case to every player.
Even if that is the case on your server, you can’t compare a beta to a live game and expect both to be just as polished, it’s simply unrealistic and unfair. Some features are not present because they are still in development, others will be broken because this is a real beta for debugging the game. You seem to be treating it like a demo, expecting a final and flawless product and comparing it to released games with years of shelf-life that don’t even share the same feature set. Guild Wars 2 is not WoW, it’s not supposed to be WoW, so it doesn’t make sense to expect it to work like WoW does.
As I mentioned on M.V. Hamster’s blog, maybe it’s a case of having too high or just unrealistic expectations, instead of real problems with the product. So no, I’m not trying to make you like GW2. You either do or you don’t, and that is your prerogative. But maybe you should evaluate if you don’t like it because the game is not up to your personal quality standards, or if in reality it’s because you’re just expecting it to be a game it was never supposed to be. That would explain why all the buzz about it sounds like noise to you.
In any case, don’t feel bad about disliking the game. Sometimes it just doesn’t click with us, and that’s fine. I know people that love Tera Online like they want to have babies with it, while it looks like a piece of junk with a nice 3D engine to me. I’m not giving you a hard time because I think you’re wrong about not being excited about it. I have no problems with your opinions, even those I disagree with, just with these facts you mentioned, because… well, they are not factual.
Lord have mercy. Enough! Seriously, man. I get it! You disagree with me. To be honest I think you’re being kind of a jerk about it at this point with what I perceive to be the whole “I’m a bastion of logic about this subjective topic and you’re just wrong” thing, but whatever.
You have your experiences and conclusions, and I have mine. The world is a wacky, diverse place full of wacky, diverse conclusions.
I apologize, it was not my intention to sound like a jerk. I suppose I did try too hard to express my point of view.
I’ll refrain from posting again. I’m sorry that I upset you.
Kemwer´s last post: There goes my plan [GW2]
I totally understand what you mean and frankly I am glad that I’m not alone in having my reservations about GW2. I cannot get myself to play in beta weekends. Possibly things will change by release. I really want to love this game.
Mighty Viking Hamster´s last post: Guild Wars 2: Is It Getting Beta?
High five, not-really-enjoying-GW2-right-now buddy!
I have never been on the other side of the tide of popular opinion like this before. It’s weird. Plenty of folks in my guild say they haven’t felt this way about a game since WoW came out, so I’m not sure why I’m immune. I feel bad writing about it, to be honest. I don’t want to harsh anyone’s mellow! I just don’t get what all the fuss is about.
Coming late to the party here. While I am probably going to play GW2 just for a little bit because non-subscription is just that attractive to me, I am also sick and tired of the hype. This is one of the reasons that all my Guild Wars 2 posts are trying to be outside of the hype zone. In fact, I plucked their silly design manifesto apart which makes GW2 sound like an amazing, revolutionary design. Which it is not. It just does things a bit differently.
I am despairing that there will never be a game that grips me the way WoW did, but just like SWTOR, GW2 is lacking an important element for me. The gameplay is not compelling.
Kadomi´s last post: [GW2] Crafting in Tyria