Jumping The Shark

First off, relating the changes of Guild Wars to that of a biological environment(?) is intensely illogical - mainly in the sense that Guild Wars is a product. If they make the "atmosphere" rather unenjoyable, do you think people will play and buy this game?

And yes it does matter. If ANet wants more purchases for GW2 they'll have to leave a good taste in the players' memory. An average customer is unlikely to purchase a sequel to a game they didn't like.

They could, but I'm sure they'd like to know why ANet turned a game they enjoyed into a game they hated.

Might as well, since we're going there now: I have a multitude of problems with UB, as seen here.

That said, everyone's game is affected in numerous ways. What may not affect you may very well affect someone else and vice versa. A good example of this is bots: They don't have any affect on my gameplay, so why are they getting banned?

And I see you reading this, Turtle!!! Give my your Steam!1!

Bots don't affect me in a way that I think about it. If you don't sell to other people and you don't care what the Joneses have then bots don't do anything to the game as a whole. I've never cared about bots or duping or any of that. I get everything I get myself, I don't go buying it as I think that just takes away from the fun of the adventure and the game. Since everything in GW is about vanity in the first place and not power I don't see what the big deal is with bots. What do you need money for anyway? If you play the game like it should be play all you need is one set of maxed out gear (the 1500gp armor and a couple of maxed out weapons and offhands) and that's all you need to go get other things you might like to have. At least when I do get something that LOOKS different I know that I got it myself and I didn't buy it from someone else or buy gold online to buy it. That's just stupid to me that some people are soo silly about a game and their rank in the game or standing that they will stoop to the stupidity of buying gold online so they can buy an item in the game. lol That has to be the most stupid ignorant dumb imbicile person in the whole world and someone with a real inferiority complex in the real world. Probably fat and ugly too. lol

Dude, the game had (skill)elitism when I started playing it, that was July 2005.

Grind is something players wanted, the GWG archives can very likely enlighten you there with the endless threads of "I've finished XYZ, what else is there to do!" from the past years.

As for 'jumping the shark', every game at some point will 'jump the shark', the nice thing about GW is that you can leave it for months, wont cost you a dime and then go back to playing it and perhaps enjoy it again *shrug*

Despite the fact Guild Wars is just a game, we do have a community of players here, and certainly, there is an environment as many players are playing the game. This environment can be both external and internal. Internal-wise, I would say it's more or less the aspect of the lore, how in-game enviornment can be changed as we travel between towns or based on storyline. External-wise, it goes from PvP balances to additional releases of campaigns, and how these features and changes influence our players is what I call as an external environment. In that sense, I find it logical to relate many features and changes of this atmosphere to the biological atmosphere we have in real life. Perhaps it can contribute to the discussion as well. Although I do understand how you do not share the same perspective of this relevance, it is certainly offending to be insulted that my theory is illogical simply because you do not share the same opinion.

In this perspective, I would like to point out just because you would find a certain atmosphere to be unpleasant, other people may have a different opinion. In saying this, I do not know what evolution or what cosmic-authority has planned to do with which species are going to extinct next, but I am certain about one thing: Anet wishes to please the majority of the population. I guess either of us are able to agree with each other's definition of what a majority is, but, nonetheless, as the sales of Guild Wars have reached 5 millions, are you sure that Anet is not pleasing the majority of the population?

That question was not directed to Anet, but to the players who are upset about the changes here and there. We should also zoom-out our perspective. In saying this, I would like to point out, within one human's lifespan, this human will go through being giving birth to, growing up and eventually becoming old, experiencing sickness and in the end, dying. In this case, this human will spend some of his lifespan being miserable about a video game, and even spending time ranting about the changes he can't adjust to. It is a lot worse if nothing will be changed to satisfy his needs. In that sense, in the end when this human is going to die, did it really matter to experience this misery?

Again, other people have different opinions to what they enjoy and what they hate. Knowing this, not everyone would agree with the statement, Anet has turned a game people enjoyed into a game people hate. Relevantly, I would like to point out, this question contains an enthymeme, which certain premisses have not been stated explicitly. In short, if Anet had responded to this question, they would've admit to the fact that they made a game people enjoyed into a game people hate; that would be a bad choice to make. Consequently, Anet will not make any responses to these questions, and it will be rather pointless to keep demanding this. Also, I would like to point out, most gaming companies would avoid direct conflicts or confrontations that may damage their image to the public; if you still insist on doing so, good luck.

Also, I have noticed from your other posts that you have moved onto World of Warcraft. I am still uncertain whether you would still play Guild Wars at all. This is no more than a speculation nevertheless, but here is question I would like to ask.
Will you really come back and spend more time on Guild Wars if the changes you demanded have been implemented?
Of course, by asking this, I'm not demanding to know a truthful answer from you, but instead, I would like to point out that by moving toward to World of Warcraft, it basically shows that you are taking a step forward. And so, coming back here shows that you are unable to let go of Guild Wars, although I noticed you are in favor of World of Warcraft. Even though Guild Wars may not be what it used to be at this point, it is still possible to contribute efforts into making the old days possible, but seeing how you have detached from Guild Wars to that extent, it seems that there are more than these changes that have affected your gameplay of Guild Wars, perhaps the game became boring for you?
With all these said, I do not expect answers from the questions I asked as I do not have any uses of them.

Well, I think GW jumped the shark ( what a silly expression) when e-peens where added to the game. Thats the whole problem. And the grinding titles too.

over time game exp. deteriates a bit, you may need to take a break fro mit for a while or w/e

i think that after nf when they said they'd work on GW2 then there was a fframe of 2 years were no major new content would arrive.

and there may be other topics about this already.

so really GW is as good to me as always, i just take breaks nwo and again

From wikipedia, since I'm too lazy to type it myself. Describes the origin of the phrase "jumped the shark".


And yeah, GW jumped the shark ages ago, about the time the first green weapons were added, give or take.

While I'm not happy about the direction in which GW is evolving, GW has never jumped the shark.

I'm increasingly thinking that Lost may have, though.

Oh, and there's never been a time when elitism wasn't rampant in GW. There was a time when people in general and ANet in particular didn't equate PvE = farming, though.

Except with one glaring difference that changes the comparison completely: In a habitat you have no choice but to adapt if you want to thrive. With a game, you have many choices - the most pivotal of them is not playing.

You don't need to point anything out. It's the glaring, obvious example of "opinion." Again, for the uptenth time, do not take everything I say to the utmost point and comment on the message I am sending.

5 million purchases only shows success in selling the game, not so much as how happy the gamers are. It's not safe to come to too many conclusions based on that figure. Also note that not too long ago did ANet allow free trials for the entire GW series on the homepage of Filefront, and could contribute largely to sales.

I'd comment more but you seem to be redirecting my point elsewhere. I'll note that in the following comment.

No shit. But my point was more to inquire why ANet had decided to go down such a path, nearly contradicting their original game design (now THAT is bad.)

I've been playing WoW before GW, and I still play both games regularly.

Going sneaky now, eh Turtle ; )?

It is all a matter of a player's preference, and dedication. My view is that GW is a game that is supposed to be played casually. And when i get bored, i would either stop playing it, or switch to another game for an hour or so, then come back later.

Personally, i think that skills such as PVE ones have deteriorated the game quicker than it should have. As people were speaking about UB for example, it seemed to influence a lot of players - for good and bad. Those that want it don't want the power of it to be nerfed, and those that dont want it don't want to be group with people that do it.

Solution? Make UB only available in the Eotn campaign. That way you won't affect anyone complaining in DoA, and you're free to roam the northern part of tyria without being hassled

I disagree, with the pve has changed for the better statement, i think it has been dumbed down with the introduction, of pve skills, and other such bad ideas, personally i preferred GW in its pre Factions state.

Nah. GW was better before Nightfall for both pve and pvp. PvE was more challenging and fun, PvP was... well, same. I remember playing as a monk in top500 guild... Fun times. No heroes in pvp, no ursans/grind in pve. Pretty much the best time in GW.

Oh, and don't talk about Fury plx. Thanks to it I stopped hoping for a super-balanced pvp, where skill > time/money. It was fun in beta, as the graphics were going to be equal to requirements (so either game would be prettier or it would require less GHz/RAM), skills were going to be balanced... But after it came and they said ,,pay or be worse in pvp'', requirements were unchanged and gameplay neither, I knew it was going to be a bad game. And hey, I wasn't wrong.

You make too many threads

+1

PvE has been made easy and profitable and anet is constantly catering to the farmers. For those who feel that GW is a trade simulator like EVE, not a cRPG, that's improvement.

Honestly, I don't think it has jumped. I think people get addicted, play too much, finally get sick of their own lack of self-control and look for something in the game to blame.

Those players who got tired of GW in a normal, healthy way just stopped playing and moved on. No game is entertaining forever. If you compulsively post and play even as you continue to hate the game, it's really your problem - not Guild Wars.

If you don't overdo it or are still new to the game, GW is great fun.

They don't affect my gaming experience in the slightest. So for all I care - they could stay.
But they are against the EULA - so they are being banned.


Two different things.



While I have absolutely NO issue with why you feel that certain skills should be altered or removed for that matter - the problem at hand is that it's your opinion on what is best for the game.
And while we the players can have an opinion at the matter at hand - it doesn't matter much. And this is just made worse because of the specific of PvE - the fact that each party gets their own instance. Now we could have something to discuss of IF the game would actually be balanced with the overpowered skills in mind - so that NOT using them would result in failing. And from what I understand - this isn't the case.
And as sad as this is - your whole opinion on this matter is completely negated by Person B coming here and saying he likes Ursan (Ursan being the poster child for every insanity in GW PvE!). No explanation - no nothing! Just him stating he likes it. And that's one FOR Ursan and one AGAINST Ursan.
That's the issue - because we are dealing with opinions of people whose opinions really don't matter.

That's what I was asking for - because I can NOT think of a reason why all the (what I consider INSANELY bad) ideas ARE bad for PvE - other then stating that I FEEL (or think) that they are wrong. And because of that I can NOT justify saying that MY opinion matters more then the opinion of the person that is for the (idiotic) ideas!

We already have a "GW isn't fun for me" thread. In fact, we have about 63 of them.

/begs mods to please close

I don't know if people don't realize that when something has stopped being fun, to stop it? It's a game, it's not something vital like a job or breathing is.

"OMFG QQ I DUN HAVE ANYTHING LEF TO DO!!!11!oneone!11"...

Drop the keyboard, controller or whatever, and do something else.

Anyways, to reply to the question...

GW hasn't died on me yet. Still have plenty stuff to do. And when I won't, I'll stop playing.

Globally, I think a buncha stuff keeps killing it slowly. Some deal with it, some don't. Some QQ, some move along...

But then that begs the question: Why, after so long a time, does ANet now decide to add such a manuever to the game that decreases effort in a relatively drastic and speedy fashion - and still make balances to other portions of PvE to provide "fairness"?

To be a bit more on point: Opinions hold little water, that is correct. However, we attempt to do our best at having them do so by providing the best and plausible evidence we can. It's also less a matter of "I like Ursan" (I could like using bots but as stated it's against the EULA) and more "I believe Ursan is overally good for the game" - the latter which requires reasoning.

This is correct.

Most mature PvErs realise that A) Skill balances barely effect them B) That PvP needs more attention balance wise.

Immature PvErs (the vast majority) will make a huge crybaby fest the second A-net touch their farming builds or button mash = win PvE builds.

It's not worth A-nets time to listen to the PvE majority in something that hardly concerns them.

Guild Wars is fun for me, it isnt for others. I play a lot, they don't play at all.

As for this entire thread, I am impressed by your use of a pop-culture reference, but it is still pointless. Make less threads, kthxbai.

The same reason why the ban bots - to not lose revenue?
What the overpowered skills enable is for the newer players to jump in and play at a level that enables them to finish the game without needing to play it for months before getting good enough - which would be needed because of the insanity that is the current PvE (I've been playing since ... July 05? And I was TRASHED to bits when I first entered RoT! And I REALLY doubt I was worse after some 2 years of playing then a complete beginner would be!). So the players get to the point where they can complete the game and possibly buy previous chapters.
That's the point imo.
And because we have instances - they can get away with it!

If this is mediocre rubbish then I wish 95% of the games I've played over the past two-plus decades were more mediocre and more rubbish

I think most people are just too dense to move on after they've effectively seen and done it all. Their own refusal to admit they've gotten all they're going to get out of the game leads them to delude themselves into thinking that the game would still be great if not for X. It's not X, it's not even Y, you've just gotten all the entertainment that there is within the core game mechanics for you. At the point you're complaining about how bad a game you've put hundreds or thousands of hours into is/has become, you've lost perspective.

The bonuses from the titles are absolutely no different than levelling effects in other games. Ironically, even though I find the system fairly brilliant since they allow you to target what you want to improve, it misses the mark with two of the major camps of players out there. One camp can't figure out that these title related skills and bonuses are post 20 levelling and bash GW for it's "stupid" low level cap. The other camp wants the "glory days" where there really was a L20 cap and it was just your skill, only they can't realise that 3+ years after the game launched it would be as dead as three out of four of my grandparents. Without the power creep of the expansions and modifications to the core game rules the average player would have little incentive to play for more than a couple of months and the only people still around would be the PvP'ers and the same couple of thousand hard core players who thought GW peaked with pre-Factions Prophecies.

If you want to sell expansions, you've got to give players a reason to want to spend money. In the "perfectly balanced" game universe so many vocal board denizens imagine, there would have been no incentive to continually buy new expansions nor keep playing. If people think the player base and economy is bad now, imagine playing in a game world where the average player only invested a month or two into each edition because there was nothing to keep them interested.

I see no evidence that the series jumped the shark. That it's been a work in progress where the game developers continually played around with different game mechanics is obvious, and some work better than others, but the key point is that they work.

GW has not "jumped the shark", players have.

I've been reading these forums for nearly three years.

• people pay for runs to skip content
• people pay to have others run missions for them
• people constantly ask for changes that make the game easier
• people want easier ways to get elite armor
• people want easier ways to get max weapons

There is a lot to do and enjoy in the game, but a lot of people don't want to actually bother playing the game. They are in a hurry to get to the end and have all that uber stuff.

Dunno ... i was helping this newbie who go gw around xmass about month ago - giving out advice how to improve his builds, showing him some efficient stuff in action on istan.

Two weeks after i helped him with that he asked me to check if some loot he got is worth selling to players. Among purple shit and some r13 golds were two tomes. Yep, he somehow managed to complete game and tackle some hardmode.

Point is, newbie today can suceed where veterans fail. That was beauty of inital GW philosophy. You can be veteran, but still be ... i dont want to say sucky ... ineficient and struggling.

Hell, newbies today are in paradise even without Consumables and titles: Perfect gear for dime, wiki for dealing with hard situations, eficient builds they can pick up and play without figuring them out.

Why punish exploiters?

There's no "insanity" or "overpowered monsters" in PvE. Sure they may hit hard, but they're also dumb as shit ("Ingore the Minion Master! Go straight for the minions!!") Of course this conflicts with Mesmers, forcing them to work a little harder than everyone else to be effective in PvE.

And I too got trumped when I first went into the RoT, but after a bit of training and learning the kill order of the mobs I was able to roll through areas in one go. Practice and knowledge gets you the win, as it should be. And sure, you can call me selfish at this point: I want everyone to experience the game I experienced, a great and challenging game known as Guild Wars, and it %([email protected] kicked ass.

Although Factions is a MASSIVE FAILURE, I'd say Nightfall is around the time things went downhill.

Aside from heroes killing PuGs, this is when ANet made the idea of GW2 and GW:EN, and gave Utopia the axe.

But this didn't change a bit.
The person in their own instance can still run around without the bear. But the bear is there for the days when they can't.
Nothing changed for the people that don't want it to change.
The big question here is - if the people would keep failing - do you think they would try better to improve until they'd pass? Since we are talking about a form of entertainment here - so the option that they would just quit is a very viable one.
The bear gives them a third option.

(I do wonder how the guy would do without your advice. I am seriously not going on record saying that there is no way that the dude could be a better player then me (the strangest shit happens! ) - but hearing stuff like "Hey protection is good!" or "Fire eles aren't ALWAYS the bomb!" - was like "Dude ...!1!1!! )

What you are describing sounds strangely like the bear.
The bear is just ONE step (or a leap) further.

A.Net punishes exploiters (eg. bots) because they make money (or profit) of their (A.Net's) property.

A.Net disagrees.
You were overruled.
(Better yet - we were overruled ...)

Edit:
Like I said above - one still can. One just has a third option now.

(And the reason why I use insane and overpowered is because skills are balanced on PvP. So if we run into a lvl 30 foe that has half-casting time, double damage - that is overpowered by default.)

Hence moi, and these threads! It's an online game, nothing is definate. We can only hope for the best - or worse.

Also I was referring to the exploiters who duped items or did the Mallyx outpost glitch...They might be the same, though.

Ya, gw isn't the same as it used to be. The old days were nice.

That's not even what jumping the shark means. Jumping the shark is what you do when your show/game/book has long since reached its peak and has long since begun to fall - you jump the shark by doing something stupid/ridiculous to try to catch the attention of the viewers/players/readers again. It's nearly always lame, and it pretty much never works.

GW probably hit its peak quality-wise with Nightfall and started sliding after that, especially once everyone found out there weren't going to be any real campaigns after that. GWEN might be a jump the shark moment (given some of the cheesiness and blatant advertising for GW2) but I don't think I'd say so, since their goal was to sell GWEN not keep people interested in GW in general. Anet doesn't seem to care about player retention at all anymore.

PvE jumped the shark when titles were no longer just for show, and the guy who spent his entire life grinding had an edge over the casual player.

PvP jumped the shark when Factions was released. And Nightfall made it worse.

There will allways be people who will move the "peak point" closer and closer to start.

Like, if I say this game went downhill since EotN and it's PvE skills, there will be a guy who said it's downhill since NF and it's powercreep that ruined PvP, then some other guy will say, no, it's downhill since Factions when all good guilds left....

There are probably people out there that think this game is going downhill since it's very beta.
Conclusion: PvP is ruined, PvE is a joke, but if you still enjoy the game, then knock yourself out.
Kktnxbai

GW reached its peak when the first concept sketch was scribbled out on a tablecloth in some dingy bar.

Wasn't it on the back of one of Mike O'Brien's losing lottery tickets?

QFT.

PvE has gotten easier, which most players desire, while PvP has gotten the same, to an extent. It takes less skill to be a top players these days than when it did a year or two ago, but that's me.

If you think GW has "jumped the shark", dont play anymore simple as that.

Actually factions made pvp better, but I agree in the idea Nightfall created an unbalanced game.

PvE has done nothing but go up, yes I know title grinding in Eotn and Nightfall is a pain in the ass, but if you look beyond that, Eotn has given a new level to PvE.

[QUOTE=CHannum]If this is mediocre rubbish then I wish 95% of the games I've played over the past two-plus decades were more mediocre and more rubbish

I think most people are just too dense to move on after they've effectively seen and done it all. Their own refusal to admit they've gotten all they're going to get out of the game leads them to delude themselves into thinking that the game would still be great if not for X. It's not X, it's not even Y, you've just gotten all the entertainment that there is within the core game mechanics for you. At the point you're complaining about how bad a game you've put hundreds or thousands of hours into is/has become, you've lost perspective.

The bonuses from the titles are absolutely no different than levelling effects in other games. Ironically, even though I find the system fairly brilliant since they allow you to target what you want to improve, it misses the mark with two of the major camps of players out there. One camp can't figure out that these title related skills and bonuses are post 20 levelling and bash GW for it's "stupid" low level cap. The other camp wants the "glory days" where there really was a L20 cap and it was just your skill, only they can't realise that 3+ years after the game launched it would be as dead as three out of four of my grandparents. Without the power creep of the expansions and modifications to the core game rules the average player would have little incentive to play for more than a couple of months and the only people still around would be the PvP'ers and the same couple of thousand hard core players who thought GW peaked with pre-Factions Prophecies.

If you want to sell expansions, you've got to give players a reason to want to spend money. In the "perfectly balanced" game universe so many vocal board denizens imagine, there would have been no incentive to continually buy new expansions nor keep playing. If people think the player base and economy is bad now, imagine playing in a game world where the average player only invested a month or two into each edition because there was nothing to keep them interested.

I see no evidence that the series jumped the shark. That it's been a work in progress where the game developers continually played around with different game mechanics is obvious, and some work better than others, but the key point is that they work.[/QUOTE

Quoted for Truth

Definitely with Factions. Prophecies wasn't perfect, but it established a game with RPG length depth at least. Factions tossed everything out the window and asked you to pay full price for a game you could beat and never touch again in a weekend or so.

Although if you want to look at PVP then Prophecies itself sank the series with the hilarious "unlocking" system. It turned competition into fruity build copying wars, out of convenience.

Not really.

Guild Wars has "jumped the shark" like 30 times.

OMG loot scaling, GW is dead
OMG 6 man HA, GW is dead.
OMG inscriptions, GW is dead.
OMG HM is the same as NM just with higher level, GW is dead.
OMG NF/Factions/GW:EN sucks, GW is dead.
OMG green items, GW is dead.
OMG title grind, GW is dead.
OMG armor reskins, GW is dead.
OMG elite missions that require ferry, GW is dead.
OMG nobody is hanging around obscure outposts like Magnumn Shade, GW is dead.

etc etc etc
People like to bitch about jumping the shark and when it occurs. Now, I think GW might be on its downward slide just because it is old and newer more shinner games are coming out. However, I don't think anything specific that GW did is causing that.