Playing Dress-up Dolls

Disclaimer: I am *not* being critical or bitching. I'm simply *confused*.

Okay, okay, this is something of a rant. I need to get this off my chest.

I approach GW as if it were a role-playing game, fighting my way heroically through a story.

However, I'm getting the distinct idea that I've got the wrong idea.

It seems that an awful lot of people play Guild Wars as if it were about dress-up dolls.

Does Conan refuse to fight the evil sorceror because he doesn't have a Doorknob's Axe of Cleaving?

Was Aragorn any less of a hero when he wasn't weilding Anduril?

Does Ash need a name-brand chain-saw to slice up Zombies?

Maybe I'm playing the wrong game?

Seriously, I'm completely mystified by the Guild Wars economy. People are willing to pay 100p + ectos for a Urgoz bow, when they can get EXACTLY THE SAME STATS on a cheaper collector bow + upgrades. Why in Melandru's name would someone grind for the cash -- or pay real world money for eBay gold -- just because of the skin?

Am I the only person who thinks it's annoying when people, in mission, start pinging their weapons to brag?

Like FoW armor and 15k, unique weapons really don't tell you about a player's skill. I have a Rotwing Bow -- I got it myself on a real Rotscale run, because I actually like the bow. Still, it says nothing about how good I am as a player, since I might just have bought it for 18k in Kaineng.

No, I'm not jealous; I have several few green items at this point, but then again I play quite often. I just don't use the greens much. My main weapon is a not-quite-perfect-but-oh-so-close Sundering Celestial Longbow of Fortitude that dropped when I was helping one of my daughters through Nahpui. I also carry several other bows, including two purples with perfect damage. I pick the tools because of their stats and how they fit my skills, not on how unique the skin is.

And just how unique is any green items anyway? The market seems quite flooded. I can log into the game any time and see Urgoz's bows for sale in Lion's Arch, Kaineng, and Droknar.

So why do people think greens are so damned special? Why won't anyone buy a perfect or near-perfect purple item? Isn't it the stats on the weapon that matter over the color of it's name?;

Bah... okay, grumping over. Back to chest farming for more great crap no one will buy...

Lol, nice rant. Those people that worry about stuff rather than killing the bad guys are morons. The whole idea is to save the world, not save the world with a Hermes Handbag. You are totally right. Spending uber hours gathering stuff is stupid and a waste of time.

One question though, why chest farm...?

Well, if you have enough money there's really not much else to do with it then buy FOW or 15k armour or expensive weapons. Sure, collector weapons are good enough,but if you want a more unique skin and have the money, why not?
And some people just need something to boast with.

Yea, I agree with this and I don't care about the skins or how cool my armor looks. Maybe if I don't need anything and am sitting on a large amount of cash in future, I may get 15k or some rare-skinned weapons and such but that's only if I don't NEED anything else in terms of stats.

Ok I will tell you why.


People love this game. Even though this game has problems and alot of issues, fans are trying to get as much out of it as they can.


The game does not contain any uber weapons... it does not have any massively impressive weapons of mass destruction. the game has a very tiny roof for max damage. everything is very controlled and very much the same.


When there is so little, difference there.. when it is so easy to get a max stats weapon with no time invested, people try to make up ways and goals to keep themselfs playing.

Collecting a cool skin is one of these things. doing bonus across all missions is another. getting all titles is another. All of these above are useless feats. but people are trying to make the best of what they have.

Why are you questioning this? I care about the look of my character. I honestly try to put as much of myself as I can into my avatar. I love my character. I feel it's me represented through cyber space. having this mentality has made the game much more fun for me personally.



In other games like world of warcraft, the supreme weapons and armor that will take thousands of hour to obtain does not only look cool, but their massively overpowered stats will also make you the champion and winner.

Skin is all that make the difference here. Because stats are not allowed to...

If you look at all the other major RPG games EVER. Everquest, SWG, WoW, Diablo... everything. All of these games had items as their focus.

GW is one of the few where items is not that important.

So can't you see...? A petty stupid skin is all that is left for people here to strive for. People are eating the last bones because of their love for the game. Do you really need to question this? DO YOU?


*Farts*

What the hell are you on about? This game is all about STYLE. It's not about killing stuff. It's about killing stuff AND LOOKING GOOD DOING IT.

And if you think this game isn't about Dress up dolls, what other use is there for Mesmers? Huh?

Make Male mesmer. With black Moustache and a latino tan.
Find guild with pure Black Cape.
Craft Virtuoso's armour. Dye it black. Get a katana.

DONE! ZORRO!

The endgame PvE content is all about making money, buying cool skinned weapons and armor, or (as of factions) spending loads of cash on acquiring titles. Questing does get boring eventually, and as the game has been out for 16 months now, there are plenty of people who would be bored silly if they didn't have alternate goals to strive for.

Darn it, but you have a good point!

I wonder what monsters think when some hot chick in a nighty comes up and gives them a murderous headache?

Frankly, I think the sluttier outfits should give your character a bonus/penalty. We could have new conditions:

"Run in Stocking" -- Affects mesmers galavanting about in the wilderness in clothes better-suited to a bordello. Mesmer is disabled for 10 secodns while she checks her fishnets for runs.

"Trip on Tongue" -- Affects monsters who are drolling over the sexy mesmer checking her stockings.

I also want to know who the sicko is who designed the Kurzick female ranger armor. Lace and fishnet stockings on a female Aragorn?

Even worse image: Lace and fishnet stockings *on* Aragorn.

Peoples like rare items especially those that are perfect gold or green items. You can't stop peoples from spending money for it. I mean what are you going to do with account full of gold? Buy armor? Buy weapons? But usually peoples who have the mentally that rare items is better than actual skills are fun to play against! I mean come on, does it warm your heart watching some wammo in fow armor who doesn't know what aggro is?

Well said. You can get good armor early on in Factions so no need to buy armors for a lot of the game play as in Proph's.

I had so much cash at end game, I was able to buy Imperial armor. Broke now but wtf, I can just focus on farming and helping guildies out until the new one comes along.

My Ele use ONLY collector item + upgrade, she is just competible as those with green item. I do have some gold weapon on my pther chars simply because I got in as loot in battle and find good upgrade on it,

to me, green items = sales item = more income in my bank

When I play GW, i'm not watching a movie - I AM THE HERO. And as such, I deserve to have the best equipment I can afford to get.

And think about this... Aragorn would be DEAD if he didn't have Anduril to flash around and impress all the undead. =)

You're joking right?



Livingston

The phrase 'If You Look Good, You Feel Good' comes to mind...

Once you have killed all the bad guys what else is there to do ?

PvP

Well.... if you have money, why not?

If you dont, youve got a point there..

Why do people buy name brand clothes when Wal-Mart clothes are made of the same material and even in the same factories sometimes?

It isn't Guild Wars...Its normal human behavior.

Its a status symbol, territorialism, human greed... all these things. Why do people drive around ferrari's when a 5k car from bobs auto can do just the same? Why mod you engine with 1500hp when the speed limit in your state caps at 65? People in life need things to make them feel unique and wanted by the world. The want attention. People want others to look at their character and go "oooh look at the pretty armor! Bob the whammo is a somebody, not some ordinary bob from droknars forge."

Think about it? How would the games atmosphere feel to you if every single person in the game wore droknars plate with the same stats and all swung around the same longsword? You couldn't tell me that you wouldn't be bored, or that your selfish human desires wont send you searching for something that would make you "special."

This isn't a problem with the game, its a permanent psychological flaw that all human beings suffer from. Its a flaw that governs our lives and drives us to do stupid things that we don't need in order to survive.

Guildwars understands greed and man's innate desire for something that makes them unique. Logically those cyan colored collectors weapons are the best choice. Cheap, strong, easy to get, and they get the job done with no hassle. But because we are greedy creatures, those arent good enough. You see that guy next to you with that shiny glowing 15^50 zodiac sword and you want it... you desire it. Saying no is lying to yourself. The game economy reflects real human behavior because all its characters are human, just like you and me. As humans, we want better stuff that the standard crap.

Because of this fact, and greed once again, people with these one of kind items know everyone else wants them. They know that people want to be special so they profit and sell for as high as they can so that they can accumulate more mass in order to become even more special than the people they are selling to. You only sell, chest run, and farm because you want better stuff... and you want better stuff because you want to be better than anyone else. Sound like real life?

Yes im human too and I'm not going to lie. My warrior wears all black 15k glads armor and wields a golden 15^50 spatha. I buy all the greens I can, Tanzits Defender, Victo's Axe, anything... I even carry around the presearing crystalline sword with me and flash it around to get a reaction from people and I get a kick out of it. I do like my characters very much, and I do everything I can to improve them, including questing for incredibly pricey sets of equipment just because they look cool. It's a game, so I can be greedy... this game plays on your greed. You keeping coming back because you want better stuff.

Come on? Who farms for fun? I mean killing hydras for 2 straight hours isnt much fun on its own, but tack that shiny gold fellblade at the end and somehow its worth it. Guildwars owns us... it laughs at us everytime we bite the hook.

Thats why I like this game. I own my own hall, all my own NPCs, three characters with 15k armor, 3 cubic zircon crystallines, just about every green for their primary classes and I still want them to be better. Once I started running out of stuff to get, I started getting bored... and now nightfall is on the horizon and we would all be lying to ourself if we didnt say were weren't interested in all the new greens and shiny weapon models there will be.

Everyone has an invisionment in our minds of our perfect character that we wil l never reach. But we get as close and we can. We want strong powerful characters that look good and slaughter things. Higher equipment and cooler looking stuff gets us there. Why else would people pay that insane amount of cash for FoW armor?

I can understand making your character look all snazzy for battle, as long as you aren't to proud to fight in the good old 1.5k armor aswell.

What makes me mad is all those ebayers who get a droks run on their first char, never do the Krytan missions, buy expensive armor with the gold they obtianed illegaly, and sit around in Fishermans Haven, Marhans Grotto, Or Random Arena district 1 and just... flirt...

(If this was posted twice, well browser problems)

1.) Not everyone that has money ebayed, deal with it. 2.) When you get enough money, there is nothing BUT rare skins and expensive armor to spend it on. Also, especially for PvPers, perfect items are the only way to go since every bit of damage matters, and if you are going to buy a collectors weapon and put perfect mods (which cost a lot now and days) on it, you might as well get a rare skin.

I dunno I'd rather have a cool looking skin on a useable weapon then an ugly one with the same stats. people have different tastes, without the variety the game would get old alot faster then it does. Some peoples goal is to amass a stockpile of greens, some like changing armor every day, every 10 days or w/e, others just want to kill stuff, some want to show off how uber 7eet they are or think they are...not much different then everday life in that area.

to the OP, there is very little replay value in this game so after a certain time 'dress up dolls' or buying fancy equipment is all there is to do (not all of us like pvp), there is nothing to spend gold on apart from skills, armour and weapons. and unless people stray from the cookie cutter builds then skills dont really take up too much of your savings. if there were a few more things to save up for then im sure people wouldnt be too quick to hand over such ridiculous amounts.

I call GW "Barbie Online," but I don't have a problem with that aspect of the game. I happen to think my warrior on my first account (two sets of 15k armor, several greens, a few golds & purples, plus a collector's item or two) happens to look at lot better than my warrior on my second account (mixed Drok's 1.5k armor, a few golds & purples & collectors items), even though they're about equally effective in a fight.

I do see a problem with the mentality imported from other games where the items are of critical importance. I've met several people new to GW who came from WoW who were all under the impression that they absolutely had to (1) get run places, (2) get power-levelled to 20, and (3) buy "the best" items. Why? Paraphrase: "To learn the game and be useful to the guild and decent in PUG's so people don't think I'm a n00b." Yes, I've honestly chatted with multiple people who said they needed to skip the game content and beg, borrow, or steal items in order to learn how to play! Only one of them admitted to being an eBayer - surprise, surprise, 2 days as a player and he's a lvl 20 W/Mo at Drok's, had already spent several hundred plat on weapons of varying quality, had no clue what collectors or what crafters had to offer, had very very few skills and no elites, didn't know how to make a build at all, didn't even know what the max weapon stats were, just kept insisting he "had to have the best of everything."

GW offering a variety of skins for armor, weapons, etc. is just eye-candy. People who mistake eye-candy for superiority are the problem, not the eye-candy itself.

Sir you just hit the nail on the head!

I agree,and i treat the game the way you do,people brag with there 15k luxon armor and what not,while im wearing my kaineng armor with the exact same stats,i figure you can spend that money on alot better things.

So,someone who dous this,tell me:Why the f*ck would i pay such an absurd amount of money simply for a new look?In terms of stats im fine,and screw the looks i like the way my kaineng armor looks anyway!

It dousnt make sense realy,it dousnt make sense that arenanet made those prices but whats more absurd is that people are actually taking this kind of stuff without any comment at all...


Summing this up i think i underestimated the intelligence of the average Guild Wars player.

Lordhelmos pretty much described everything that was on my mind, I believe he's completely right.

That would give guys like us the advantage of spending the money on more practical items.

One very disappointing thing is how you would be judged,i wouldnt be surprised if i would be considred weak for not having that uber expensive armor,can anyone agree on that?

The only way to come close to that is to put your male pants into storage, then log in with any female char and look at that storage account.. suddenly, you have fishnets with your guys name on them

I like playing dress up dolls. Any mesmer will tell you that their invent isn't large enough to hold a) their entire wardrobe and b) their weapons.

On average, all my characters have 4 armors, partly stats, mostly looks.

Uhhh... If people have the money i don't see why they cant do what they choose with it...I'm sensing jealousy...0.o

There are just too many threads going on about this..and it's usually the new players makin them.


When people have money(since they've been playing for a while), they spend their money for expensive stuff. I mean think of it, thats what happens when they have a lot. I don't see why people get pissed off at others if they buy expensive gear with their hard earned cash. Do they not have the right to spend their own money? Also, there are people that care about stats only, and people that care about stats and looks. As for those bragging people, just ignore them.




And really, how do you know if they're an E-bayer? It's very likely that its their 2nd character or so?


To the thread starter: Once you've played this game for a while, and obtained lots of money, you'll see. You might be the one spending money on nice skinned weapons..or not..

best post out of the lot..simple and to the point and also completely true

Actually, that thought came in my mind too. And friends from my school called the elementalist and mesmer barbie dolls. Not a very "manly" game to play

Pixelated Barbie dolls hmm maybe.

it's a game people want to enjoy..... they enjoy it by having cool weapons they like.... simple enough dont you think?
get what you want, if your tight on cash buy high req stuff, thats what i do for my pve turned pvp war
req 12 15^50 oni blades go for a lot less xD i mean..... a lot

I keep enough money around to buy what I need to get one character through each installment of the game, nothing more. For me, farming like a madman to get pretty stuff is just a waste of time. Some people actually like that grind. More power to them.

Well u pay such an absurd amount of money because that way u can personalize your character the way u like. If you like kaineng or drok armor that's just fine... but wearing 15k stuff also gives some kinda status to the player.

ANyway those prices u talk about rlly should be there to make a difference between players. It creates goals u might wanna achieve in the game.

Another thing about the armor looks and stuff, then it has no use putting dyes in the game etc etc etc

I kinda like the deversity of the armors and looks
Only thing that i would rlly rlly like is an armor storage since i keep buying new armors all the time just for the looks and diff builds offcourse.

"I approach GW as if it were a role-playing game"

That was your first mistake. It's an action game with a fantasy theme to it. If you wanted a roleplaying game you'd be better off with a single player game (for example the Elder Scrolls series) or possibly something like the NWN roleplaying dedicated servers.

People pay and farm/trade/whatever for nicer looking (to them) things in the game because (here's a shocker) it makes them happy and improves the game for them. What's wrong with that? Nothing...

:P, being 23 I am unaffected by that sort of comment...

Is really not about how much one is willing to spend for some rare skin item that does the same exact thing as collectors. It is because they have more money than they know what to do with it. I mean, the storage is capped at 1Mil, your characters can hold 100K each. After that, you have to start buying weird things to keep it from now maxxed out. People buy weapons/mats/armors and the likes.

I can't imagine a game where there are NO players that actually care about getting uber items or looking different than everyone else.

I am pretty sure that you will start complaining if everyone looks the same and uses the same type exact weapon (Stats/Skin). Then you will also start asking/complaining to ANET and tell them to start throwing/creating new and unique weapons/armors.