GWEN...new title GRIND!

You know, you are right. Not like you can carry anything over to GW2 anyway.

Ashame GW 1 didn't go out with a bang, but went out with a wimper.

Will have to decide for myself what to do with the next 18 months of my time.

Sherman, set the wayback machine to a few pages ago.

Your two points here are, well, flawed.

Your first statement has, to me, an implication that the "achievement requirements" are flat across each "passing release".

That is not the case. You are really facing a backlash to an actual, measurable, steady increase in the "achievement requirements". And, since you entitlement grinders have to have a reason for your maniacal expenditures of time, game-affecting skills that are insanely overpowered at the top ranks are tied directly into that grind.

In the original Prophecies, you could explore the continent for....no benefit but a keen title.

In Factions that has been patched to the new mentality, you could grind kurz/lux for...close to perma +100 armor party wide?

Yeah. That is not a flat line there on "achievement requirements".

And this whole analogy that students have to "pass tests", and the "A" students get through easy and the "C" students have to work harder? Um, what you really mean to say is that "A" students are simply willing to work and work and work at a meaningless game that does not solve world hunger, cancer, or any of the worlds actual real problems, and the "C" students are not willing to put in that work because they almost certainly have better uses for their time.

Yeah, doesn't sound so flattering now. Wouldn't it be nice if the game had compelling content that did not feel like grind/work.

Just to set you straight - I have no intention of grinding anything out in this game. The world will continue to turn in its stately fashion (and the milk will still be in the fridge, heh) and you entitlement grinder monkeys can have your entitlement grind with intangible rewards that will go up in a poof of smoke in just a few short years. I have better things to do with my time. It saddens me that the game has chosen to turn its back on its root premise of skill > time so thoroughly and quickly, but in the end none of it is real.

Just keep that in mind in the emphatic defense openly stated by Lady Lozza and implied by you, where "grinders need rewards or there is no carrot". The rewards are intangible, and (I cannot state this too many times) will go up in a poof of smoke in just a few years.

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

Sure, there are other games that have a lot more grinding than Guild Wars. That's why I don't play those other games.

The issue here isn't armor. It wouldn't particularly bother me if all the GWEN armors required max rank in a title track, even a purely grinding one like Sweet Tooth. That might be stupid, but it wouldn't unbalance anything.

The pve-only skills that increase in effectiveness with rank do unbalance things, though. Trying to argue that the aren't that big of an advantage concedes that they are an advantage, and that's precisely the problem.

Do you get more powerful as you level up to 20? Sure, but you never have to do anything in particular more than once to reach level 20. Do every quest and mission along the way exactly once and a Prophecies character hits level 20 in southern Kryta, a Factions character very early in Kaineng, and a Nightfall character toward the end of Istan.

And sure, a Nightfall character needs some Sunspear rank to complete the campaign. But if you do all the quests along the way, you'll get the relevant Sunspear ranks far before you need them. The Sunspear rank requirement is a fine way to try to keep players from skipping content to get to the harder stuff at lower levels and begging someone to run them through. You know, like level 13s do with Vizunah Square in Factions.

The problem is not having to do something once to get stronger. The problem is not even having the option to grind instead of doing the content. The problem is having to do exactly the same thing many times (per character) in order to get stronger.

One problem is that even if you don't absolutely need something in order to beat the game, if most people have it, then the game will be play-balanced around the assumption that you have it, too. You don't absolutely need max armor to complete any campaign, but the content toward the end of the campaigns was designed under the assumption that you would have it.

If a game has a couple months worth of content, I want to play through it in a couple months. I don't want to spend a year playing it and not even get access to all the content because so much mandatory grinding was intersperced that I've only seen 3/4 of the content.

I don't see any reason why ArenaNet should want to prevent people from playing through the content they like and then quitting. They get their same $40 whether someone spends a year grinding or not. Indeed, I'd be more likely to buy the next game if I liked the previous one--and if it was mostly grinding, I won't.

The solution might come with the introduction of hard mode to GWEN. Compare the Lightbringer points from easy and hard modes in Nightfall. If hard mode gives rank faster by a big enough margin to make killing every single mob just once be enough to max the effectiveness of all pve-only skills, the problem would be solved.

Killing a mob once is content. Killing it many times per character is grinding.

Make all pve titles account based ffs for the thousandth time. Working for the titles with one char is grind enough. Titles should reflect the player's achievements, not a single char's.

It occurs to me that I could save time composing replies by copying and pasting something I wrote for a different game with only minor edits:

Suppose that the only way to get the max rank of the pve-only skills were to press the "q" key once per second for eight hours straight. You can't macro it, and if you take a break for two seconds, you fail and have to start over. Would you do it? Surely you know as well as I do that some players would. Furthermore, if ArenaNet later created alternate methods to get the same rank, there would be an outcry from the people who already had it of how this was unfair, and the other people who wanted the higher rank should have to "earn" their rank by severely damaging their wrists.

And yet, at risk of Diablo not understanding this example, I should hope that it isn't necessary to explain why this is spectacularly bad game design.

And really, the concept of "earning" skills is quite a preposterous one. You "earn" things by doing something you don't want to do, in order to get something you want. If you aren't fortunate enough to have a job you love, then your job may still be worth doing in order to get enough money to buy an online game--and not starve. For things that need to be done, such exchanges to make doing work worthwhile are quite useful.

But this is an online game, played for entertainment. If there are people starving in the world, it's not because you took too long to max some title tracks. Computer games are supposed to be fun. The content along the way, and in particular, the means by which ranks are obtained, ought to be fun in itself. To make yourself miserable in order to get titles in a game that you fundamentally hate cannot be "worth it" in any sane sense.

Could not agree more.

You cant compare pressing the Q putting over and over again, to earning reputation points in GWEN.

Understand this....

...you earn reputation points by playing the game, through quests and dungeons and mini games and bounties.

Trying to compare that to the grind of pressin Q over and over again, is simply moronic. How would pressing Q have any baring on the storyline? surprise, surpise it doesnt!!

It is NOT grind if you earn something by simply playing through the game! You can reach rank 4 on the Norn, Drawf, Asura and the Vanguard very easily by just doing quests and by taking bounties as you explore new areas.

As for earning the extra 10k points to reach rank 5..... its unbelievable that anyone is complaining about that! Its sheer lazeyness and arrogance.

It would take a meer 3-5 runs in a heavily filled area to earn enough points to reach rank 5. That is NOTHING compared to earning SS and LB points, or earning faction points.

Virtually EVERYTHING you do in GWEN gives you points towards your reputations. What astounds me even more is that we have dungeons that give quite high reputation points as rewards, which you can replay over and over again.

If you dont like re-playing dungeons or quests, then why are you playing an MMO/RPG that is primarily based around quest, missions and dungeons?

I honstly cannot believe that people believe reaching rank 5 is grind considering you can reach rank 4 from just playing the storyline, and you ONLY need 10,000 more points to reach 5 and that is a tiny, tiny amount!

Its easier to make reputation points then it is faction points.
Its easier to make reputation points then it is SS or LB points.

These are the easiest titles to increase in the entire game, and people are complaining about them just because you need them for armor.

Have you seen the armor? your not missing anything, and there are dozens of other sets?

Do you REALLY need to unlock this armor now? this second? Can you not just play the gfame, get all the points and do a tiny amount of bounty farming and be patient?

Is it the end of the world if you have to wait a bit longer to get all this stuff?

Hate to tell you this, but w is also PvP based.

Faction is about an hour or less of AB to continue the story line. Is this the same as the massive amount of time needed to endlessly kill the same monster again and again? You can get final armor after you do it. So, you see the difference?



Actually it is. This was not what was advertised. Simple answer though, give refunds to those who are not happy. The ones that are, can keep the game.

Now I can see why they changed the EULA about charge backs. They were afraid to many would do it on this expansion.

You dont NEED the GWEN armor to continue playing, you dont NEED reptuation points to continue playing GWEN. But you DO NEED SS and faction points to continue those compaigns.

Nothing is forcing you to earn those reputation points in GWEN, its purely choice! In factions you heave to earn certain amounts to continue. In NF you NEED SS points and a certain rank to continue.

But earning reputation points is still ALOT easier due to quests, dungeons, mini games and bounties, then it is to earn faction and SS/LB points. You get one or two repeatable quests in factions and the rest you are maent to get from pvp.

I personally have pvp stuff. All points in GWEN are earned through pve activities and very easy one at that. Its NOT hard to reach rank 5, you get to rank 4 very easily.

Lets assume im right and you can reach rank 4 on all races very easily in QWEN using quests and dungeons and using bounties as you move around areas to explore.

That leaves 10k points to reach rank 5.

How is that any different to needing 10k luxon and kuzack faction to continue in factions? aside from it not being compuslary in GWEN. Yet no one complains about needing to earn 10k faction to continue to factions do they?

Anet has been alot nicer with GWEN then they were with factions and NF and havent forced you to earn anything.

Can we at least agree that some will not be happy about it, and a refund should be offered to those not happy? Would still satisfy the rest.

For me, GWEN is a big disapointment. I don't even play it even though it is unlocked. There is no reason to play it in my view. It is not fun to play in my view.

I was told I was getting product A, but instead, got a much lower quality product B. I just want what I paid for, period. If I can't have that, I want my money back. Seems fair to me.

Yes, it it is also the reason why I am very sad and have not purchased GWEN. Maybe I will break down and buy it later when the price drops, but I have no interest in rushing out to drop $40 on this and end up grinding out skill advancements on my 4 characters. There is still a lot to occupy me in the other campaigns anyways.

No one complains about earning that 10k faction because you can do it with each of the 750-1000 point faction quests offered. The Chasing the Norn Bear quest, a lot longer and more involved than the average Luxon/Kurzick quest? 250 faction. Yes, it's repeatable. Definition of grind, to me and, judging from the forums, to most others, is time-consuming, usually uninteresting work. Doesn't sound like "fun". It's supposed to be a game.

Honestly, other than the ranger and mesmer Norn armor, there are other better armors in the other three games. For a fem warrior I'd much rather have base Kurzick or Sunspear than the crazy Dwarven armor with the dragon mits. If there's anything good about EotN, it's given me more appreciation for the time and thought that went into the other games. I'll be sure to cry about those a lot less! Hell, I'm even looking at Factions with new eyes.

Oh, and Sunspear skills don't give much more benefit above R8-9, which my ranger got just by doing the storyline. Which is how it should be.

So let me understand this...

because you consider certain quests and dungeons to be boring, despite the fact they give you reputation points, that means they equate to grind?

The definition of grind is as simply as just whether you find something boring!!!

I find farming ectos and farming gold and standing around in outposts trying to sell stuff and trade to be boring and tedious, so should we completely remove the need for ectos and shards in FOW armor?

Your definition of grind is completely biased, because what you consider to be boring, someone else doesnt.

Grind is when you are forced, or expected to do something that cannot be achieved via simply playing the storyline via quests, missions, dungeons or bounties while exploring or moving through those areas.

I admit the last 10k points after rank 4 is grind, because you can only get that mostly from doing bounties or repeating quests or dungeons.

But it IS NOT grind to reach rank 4 because that can be done (more or less) by just doing quests and dungeons and bounties while exploring new areas, on the first run.

Just because you find an aspect of the game, which is part of the storyline to be boring... DOES NOT make it grind!

If your definition of grind was true, then I could say FOW was grind and we should change how re aquire that. I could say elite zones are grind and they should be made easier. I could say that farming is grind and we should be given 1k everday by Anet and not have to work for it.

All things I dont enjoy about the same, which by your definition is grind from my perspective!

Yet i expect lots would disgree because alot of people like elite zones, and alot of people think the way we get FOW armor is correct.

Grind is when you are expected to do something outside of the story, or the means provided to earn points. As I said bounties are grind, but you only have to use bounties to earn points or repeat dungeons for that last 10k.

earning 10k points is nothing at all, and would take very few runs of an instance to farm them.

I dont like farming or grinding either, but in 2 days i got to rank 7 norn. Now if it can take me 2 days to get 56k, how long is it going to take to 10k?

Not long at all!!!!

But ofcourse the majority of people who post in this thread are going to agree with you, because its bound to be the anti-grind majority who do.

But you cant say re-doing quests and dungeons is grind just because you personally dont like them. That is a biased opinion.

As for this idea of getting refund on a computer game... get a grip!

Would you return a FPS game and expect your money back?
Would you return a RTS game if you didnt like it and expect you money back?

I bet alot of you people buy FPS games, play them once and never touch them again. I expect those cost you upwards of £30+, but you just let them gather dust on your shelf. Why should GWs be any different and why should Anet bend over backwards to give you a refund just because you dont like a game?

They let you have a 2 day preview event FFS!

If you did the preview even and still bought it, then sorry! No way! That is just sheer arogance!

Which is why I said "the opinion of others inn the forums".

Oh wait, guess what? they want those "others" to play their game and enjoy it, so they will be interested in getting GW2 when it comes out.

Don't misquote me. I never said anything about not liking doing the dungeon. I wasn't talking about that as grind. Zoning in, killing everything, zoning out, zoning in, killing everything....etc. Grind. Doing every dungeon once and turning your book in for 7500-10k, getting maybe 5-7k for doing all the primaries and filling out that book? Don't mind a bit. Having to do every dungeon 5-6 times on one character, and the story thread? Grind. Yes, it is my opinion. Thing is, they do so many other things(nerfing/buffing skills, pve skills, etc.) based on our opinions, and there are, I would say, as many people critiquing this as GFTE para groups and incoming before that got nerfed. Maybe they will weigh the opinions and do something, maybe not. I was responding to what you said about the 10k for luxon with an opinion of why they probably don't complain about it. I also gave my OPINION, and from what I read, the OPINIONS of others, as to what we define as grind. I can say it's grind if it fits, based on the facts, what is commonly accepted as grind. YOU don't have to be a tosser and tell me I stated things above that I never even mentioned (dungeon quests? nope) to buff your critique.

Oh, by the way, all opinions are biased. They can also be intelligent and based on facts in the game.

"So let me understand this....." If you can't read worth a toss, you obviously will understand.....dick.

To me, the difference between having a skill at rank 3 or rank 8 is about he same as having an uber rare sword with a 15% unconditional.

Yes, it's unfair. Yes, the person with the 15% uncond. has a advantage.

But, in the end, it's not a significant advantage that will by itself allow you to complete a mission or quest.

I have a feeling we'll be seeing this mechanic in GW2. There will be an advantage to those characters who are level 100 vs level 60. The question remains: how significant the advantage?

As long as it doesn't keep me from enjoying or playing the game, is it really that big a deal?

I don't go for the titles because I find the whole scheme stupid. I play games to relax and have fun, not to be a part of a virtual rat-race.

One certainly doesn't need grind to play the game. I just dislike the pandering to the grinders. These are the people who suck the vitality out of every MMORPG. If Anet continues to give in to their demands for more "rewards," they will do the same to Guildwars.

But how does that hurt you?

Again, as long as you can have fun, without worrying the person next to you has 10 maxed titles and max ranked skills, what do you care?

Anet has to cater to all people, the casual player and the hardcore.

It's a balancing act, and I'm not sure if they have it right yet, but IMO, it's not a bad business decision.

I will say one good thing about the grind. It does have a little more fun or flare added to it. Its not like SS, LB or Faction points. I can actually go through the game and gain a good amount of points without having to stay in one isolated area. They give bonuses and such. I am not saying grinding is good, i grind alot for fun, not for titles though.

It does get annoying repetative if you have to go out and kill the same things over and over and over again to grind that title up but as I want the ranger armour I have to do it. I'll complain all the way as I am rather annoyed at the way that ANet has gone about the R5 requirment as that seems a harsh on us more casual players who don't actually play for hours and hours online.

Welcome to MMO's. So basically your saying the hours on end i spend playing the game is worth the same as yours. Heck no. Yes the casual players and hardcore players should have some sort of median. Also i beat the game and have almost R5. Just do that and pow, instant armor. MMO's are not and will not be designed for in and out casual players. They are a constant, huge world, designed to be mastered, not given to. Just because it takes you 5 days instead of 3 days to get something doesnt validate your arguement.

I bought the game from anet directly. As for getting any substandard product, I would expect to be able to return it. This is substandard.

Agreed 100%. In order to earn reputation points, you press C and then space over and over again for hours. This clearly takes more skill as two buttons is harder to manage than one.

Oh man, I will be laughing at that one for hours! ROFLMAO

You say that as if it's a bad thing. I see it as more challenges.

Sounds the same. Doesn't matter what they're going after, it's the fact that the "C" students keeps coming back for more, yet don't want to put in the effort. They have the option to try the mini-games, explore dungeons, and do anything else they want to do... yet they insist on coming back to the title, yet sit by and whine about how hard it is to reach the top, when there really is no incentive to do so.

If better use of your time is to do something else besides playing guild wars... what's with all the big fuss with trying to get them to lower the ranks?

It's compelling enough for me.

If titles don't interest you ... what do you have to worry about?

This Skill > Time argument is null, because first of all it's not PvP, the guy with a rank 8 can't challenge a rank 4 to some kind of competition while still be able to use those PvE skills. Someone with rank 4 can still easily defeat a rank 8 even if he someone brings Ear Bite....

On the PvE field, we're teammates, not challengers. IF someone brings a powerful skill, it's to help out the team.

No one lives forever, buddy. After we die, all of our efforts too will eventually disappear in time. It's the time between birth and death that matters to us. I didn't get the title to impress others, I got it to show myself how far I got. Much like a journal... it wouldn't mean anything if I inflate it with false "Legendary" stories of my life... instead I want it to keep track of whatever it is that I've done, how much I've accomplished, how much I've earned... so that it reflects the truth, and that I can remember and be proud.

I don't care if I'm a rank 4 in game or in life, if that's my place, then that's who I am.

If I was worried about getting the bestest best top title out there... the problem is me.

ya'll need to quit bitching. Many more people are glad to pay $40 to even see Gwen again. We all thought she died when we saw her ghost in the UW. Many people do enjoy the story line, and are very happy with this expansion. Personally, I love Tyria and the original Prophecies more than either of the other two.

I actually agree completely. Except instead of disliking the grinders, I don't care for it. Titles are afterall, just some text under your name. Who wants to do all that work for a couple of text? But there are people who do, and if they want to it's their choice. The end result? Some PvE skills that only monsters will really know how powerful it is... No one's gonna use Ear Bite on me.

I, can go back to doing what I like, clearing dungeons and brass knuckling little people.

No, these people are not hardcore. Grinders are extreme softcore. They should go play some virtual pet game, since they treat this like one anyway. "Oh, little kitty, I want you to grow up big and strong!" Grinding is the most unmasculine behavior in the gaming world. In prehistoric times, these guys would be the second half of a hunter-gatherer society. Their whole day they would spend bringing berries back to the cave. And they dreamt not taking down mammoths, but finding safe locations to dig up turnips. No, no, no, these are not hardcore players at all. They are wimps, who like leveling up because they fear losing.

And they pay good money to play guild wars. I wouldn't worry about these "wimps" and their e-pen.

If one day, these "wimps" can use Ear Bite on me, then I have some problems with Anet.

in that case im a wimp to :P like in every game even heroes of might and magic 1st a strong army then overrush the enemy , sound logical doesnt it ?

And dont look down on wimps or i bite ur ear off hehe :P

The man curing cancer for a Nobel Prize is not nearly half has noble as the man curing cancer for the sake of curing cancer.

And that's what title grinders are, slaving out there in the field because they want recognition they feel the world owe them. They pay good money to play the game, so let them be.

The only questions we have to ask ourselves is, "Are we comprimising our integrity for the sake of recognition?" Because when we're doing something we don't want, for something we don't need, we're really just worried about our ego instead of just doing what we love.

Hmmm... let's see... GW:EN introduced a relatively small expansion to the game environment, a few skills, and some reskinned monsters from other games (or in some cases they didn't even bother to reskin them).

Other than that, you also get:

- The ability to spend obscene amounts of time grinding rep to get flashy game graphics for your avatar so you can prove how little life you have outside the internet

- The ability to spend obscene amounts of time grinding gold or items so you can fill the ultimately pointless HOM with knick knacks

- A wallet that's lighter to the tune of $40

GW:EN is made of fail and rotten tomatoes. I appreciate the effort, but at $40 they could've done a heck of a lot better than just tacking onto the six year old concept of "titles" and made the HOM worthwhile. It's alright, but it's not $40 with of alright.

I'm all for serious complaints, but come on! A "few" skills? There are 50 PvE skills alone, much less regular skills. One of the biggest complaints in the past was useless skills, I'd argue that at least half of the PvE skills aren't "useless."

Yes, some reskinned monsters, but also a lot of new ones. (and enhanced graphics to boot).

Optional.

Optional.

What do people expect? They know what the gameplay is going to be like. The graphics and voice acting are top notch.

So what are the complaints? It's too short? That's kind of like the old lady at the diner: "This food tastes terrible, and the portions are too small."

But all the "Optional" stuff is where most of the content is! most of the dungeons are "Optional".


I think they expect 4/5 of the content they got from prophecies since they spent 4/5 the money...

I see everyone's point about griding it out to get a title but your not just getting a title as in just a name under your char. The higher your title the more effective norn,asura,dwarf and VG skills become. It can be a great bonus for you if you have a high enough title. Also the PvE skills they have added can be quite a bit better then some of the other 3 campaigns counter parts, making a warrior that uses tactics to a warrior that only uses strength but still have some defense. This may not be the best example but hopefully you get what I mean.

I've also heard ( and not to start up the rumor mill here but) the more titles you have and the more things you have done in EoTN the more things you get in GW2 not sure if this is true and or what things you will get but this would be nice.

I have found the expansion to be great. I'm on the last quest and still have dungeons, mini games (to get my other heros) and smaller quest. I really didn't buy EoTN to breeze through it but I'm sure there are many that love getting runs and getting power lvl'd me other the other hand love being hooked on guild wars crack. Grinding it out sometimes isn't so bad just as long as you accept it.

The things I would change are.
Add more quests for title points
Add dungeon scrolls (transporting you and your party there)
Add some Elites that can be used in PvP
Add passages to snake dance,travelers vale,tangle root and possibly more. Merging Prophecies and EoTN better.

I wouldn't calculate it as something directly proportional to the scale of the map. Something could be half as big but twice as fun. Otherwise they could've just created a 500 square mile desert valley. I know that's not what you're implying...

There's tons of mini-games in EotN, there weren't any in Prophecies. There were many many dungeons, Prophecies had... Glint's cave. Hall of Monuments, Prophecies doesn't have that. Environments were denser and more intricate. Deeper storyline than Prophecies. Consumables, PvE skills, etc...

EotN has may have a smaller map, but they have more content than Prophecies.

Whether you like these content or not however, is what's going to decide for yourself whether it's worth the money or not. You can't answer that for someone else. Anet can add 50 pounds of stinking turd to EotN if they want, but you can't say it has less content.

How does doing the same quest or clearing the same area for the 17th time in a row have any bearing on the storyline? It doesn't, or at least not any more than pressing the "q" key a zillion times.

Precisely because the first three campaigns didn't require replaying quests, missions, or anything else more than once on a single character. Just because there are some other games out there that are completely idiotic doesn't mean that Guild Wars should join them.

Okay then, replace my example of pressing "q" for eight hours by ten minutes. That's a much tinier amount than it takes to max a GWEN title, don't you think? But is it not still terminally stupid game design?

Short memory, haven't we? For a partial increase, it's easier to get points toward explorer. To max a title, you don't have to repeat anything for protector.

In Factions and Nightfall, you do not have to repeat any quest at any time ever to get enough faction to move on. In fact, you can skip some of the quests and still get enough faction to move on. Indeed, in Nightfall you can skip most of the quests and still get enough faction to move on. If doing every single quest in GWEN exactly once were enough to max the effectiveness of pve-only skills, I wouldn't be here arguing about it.

Factions does have Kurzick/Luxon skills which are a horrendous grind to max, and pve-only skills are idiotic there, too. But the Kurzick/Luxon skills aren't that nice, so they don't really unbalance everything. At high rank, some of the GWEN pve-only skills are far stronger than anything comparable without the rank.

Now you're making me quote myself. Please read it this time.

This isn't about armor. Let the people who want to dedicate their lives to a game have something shiny to show for it, so long as it doesn't unbalance anything. This is about pve-only skills.

If that were true, we wouldn't be sitting here arguing. For that matter, if the effectiveness of pve-only skills were capped at rank 4 or so, this wouldn't be an issue.

Paying for that part of the game wasn't optional. What's your point? Optional or not, it's not enjoyable for me, and I used my money, not yours, to buy it. Your opinion on the matter has nothing to do with my opinion of the game, so just saying "it's optional" doesn't change anything.

Mmm, no. I don't remember any press releases coming out saying that a vast amount of the game would revolve around killing everything in the zone to get your rank up with the Norn. I remember them promising an expansion of the story behind Ascalon's residents. I remember them promising dungeons. I remember them promising new areas to explore.

- The sum duration of the quests and missions is too short for a $40 game
- Too much of the game centers on grinding titles up (title grind is one thing when it's something like Drunkard and it's just for your own personal enjoyment, but now the game mechanics are directly tied to how much time you spend mindlessly clearing instances again and again)
- The expanded explorable area and dungeons is not $40 worth of material
- Frankly, the new heroes are nothing special

In effect, it's a $40 expansion, which is 80% of the cost of a full game, that only expands the actual content of GW by about 25%.

Finally, to your point about the PvE-only skills. They're directly tied to title grind. I'm complaining about title-grind. To wit, it should not require any sort of impressive faculties to combine the two points and come to the conclusion that my titles status is low and, therefore, the effectiveness of my new PvE-only skills is, in fact, sitting quite firmly at "useless".

Guild Wars is fun because it's not just a fire and forget grindfest. I didn't get stupid quests from NPCs telling me to kill 34 Morlocks or bring them 17 Dandelion Seeds. Until now.

Now it's "go kill stuff until your title is Rank X or I won't even talk to you".

F that. I quit WoW and LOTRO and came back to Guild Wars within months for a reason.

Sooooo... if I quit playing the game and just grind in instances for a few weeks... I can play the game better?

No thanks. The whole gripe here is that we don't find repetition for the point of repetition fun and we're not happy to see ANET caving in to the MMO standard and implementing it.

Yea, some of us have higher standards. I'm sorry I can't just shut my brain off and pretend I'm a macro and still have fun. Like I said: I quit WoW and LOTRO for a reason: they were boring and pointless.

Don't encourage ANET to go that same route. I don't want to be playing Guildcraft2 in a few years.

Nothing is forcing you to do this, this is nothing like the sunspear points, the only incentive is yourself, telling yourself you "need this".

Technically, the whole game is optional. But you knew that most of the content was Dungeons, it was one of the main selling points: 18 multi-level dungeons!


I expected the game to be the size of Factions, since that's what I read in a review. Honestly, I haven't finished it yet (been spending too much time getting that damn Black Moa Chick!), so can anyone confirm GWEN is about the same size as Factions?

QFT. The only way to say it better would have been to emphasize the hours and hours and hours needed to grind to get that skill to max efficiency (8 seconds.)