Players. GW. And WoW...

QFT. I wish I could say that I'm surprised by the stupidity of people, but I'd be lying. The truth is, I expect people to be stupid, because they mostly are. I love finding someone who exceeds my expectations simply because people that do are so rare.

Did it ever occur to you that many of those subscribers came over to WoW from Star Craft, Warcraft, and Diablo?

I am 100% positive that WoW would not have 10million subscribers if the three games I mentioned earlier weren't such great successes. Don't get me wrong, WoW is popular, but if it weren't for those three games then there wouldn't be 10 million subscribers for WoW.

Also, I doubt GW2 will have tons of grind. I say this because grind is a tactic used in P2P games to keep people playing longer, so that the companies of those games can get more money. I don't see why GW2 would have tons of grind if GW2 is subscription free.

Also grind is only in GW to satisfy players need to do something. GW, as stated in earlier interviews was a game that was meant to be picked up and played for a few months then not played for a few months. Because of this, there was no need to put tons of content in the game.

But what ended up happening was people would play for 4-10 hours a day, 7 days a week. And eventually they ended up doing everything there was to do in the game probably 4 times over. Because of this Anet was in a bind. Players wanted more content, but the way the GW business model is, it would be pretty impossible to put that extra content in without going over their alloted 6 months per campaign. And the only way to remedy their situation was a quick fix, grind.

So they introduced grind into Nightfall. And even more into GW:EN because it was such a short expansion and wasn't exactly as long as Nightfall or Prophecies. And before someone quotes me and says "Factions has grind in it". While I guess you are right, but that wasn't grind to keep players busy, it was grind to try and get players interested in PvP. Because Anet didn't succeed with getting players to play the PvE and then play PvP in proph. So they tried to get more players to play PvP with factions, thats why they made Competitive missions and Alliance Battles and the feud with the Kurzicks and the Luxons such a big part of the game. If Anet wanted that 10k req of faction to be grind, then you wouldn't be able to get 10k faction and then save it and use it for every character to get past the point where you need it. Instead they would make you loose it when you did the Befriending the Kurzicks/Luxons quest.

So in conclusion, Anet didn't add grind because they wanted to. They put it in to keep players occupied in a game that was/is only meant to be played for about 3 months then not played for a few months.

The whole pickup and drop play cycle idea was flawed from the start, and, IMO, is where the problems started for GW. People just do not behave like that in online games. Is anyone here in a guild that would tolerate 3 months offline without kicking? Friends/own guilds don't count.

Vanguard, DnD On-line, Archlord, just to name a few. I'd name LotR:Online and a few others, but they're not "failures," just a fraction of WoW's (and probably GW's) playerbase.

Except in GW you don't have to be by a certain gear threshold, or be exalted with X faction, or have to perform any number of "grind" related activities. With GW, it's skill up and go.

...And? You make this sound like people who have been playing and enjoying the game are wasting their time.

Wrong.

That's not a trail I'd like to try to blaze unless I was very sure I'd be able to successfully blaze it. Especially since even if you did manage to succeed, chances are pretty good Blizzard will whip out WoW2 and kick you back into the gutter again. Differentiation is an important part of competition - the key to establishing yourself into a market is to get the people who are dissatisfied with the existing offerings.

When you get down to it, that's where GW started, although it did so on two platforms: The grind-free style of play (we're talking about the start here) and the subscription-free business model.

Looking at it from a business perspective, is eliminating one of those differentiations really a good move? In the English-speaking world at least, Guild Wars is WoW's biggest competitor. Does anyone here know whether that comes from the subscription-free model or the relatively grindless style of most of the game? If the latter portion of differentiation is removed entirely, is ANet going to gain more customers than it loses?

I suspect not. Brand loyalty only outweighs that stabbed-in-the-back feeling so far, while the people who are happily playing grindy games like WoW will probably just continue to feed their addiction of choice.

Lineage 2 is actually more successful.

I knew it was more successful in Korea (bigger than WoW, in fact), which is why I added the 'English-speaking' criteria, but I didn't think it was so strong in America/Europe/Australia. I could be wrong, though.

Work in a video game can be interesting if it's designed well enough to keep interest. I don't consider video game design that mimics assembly line work to be very entertaining.
People work on an assembly line for a paycheque, but games shouldn't use repetitive tasks and expect everyone to enjoy them just for a reward.
All I hope is that Anet can be aware of whether something is actually interesting to do even if no reward were given for it.

Ahhh yes.... Fresh meat.

1. Games are made to be fun, which means the success of a game should be dictated by how many people play it actively. Better gameplay, story, replayability, and/or graphics determines how popular the game will be.
Yes, the sales for GW is amazing for a non-subscription game competing against WOW, but no, it is NOT winning. WOW has more active players than most third-world countries.
Why do so many people play WOW? You can argue how much it sucks, but the player base just keeps growing. If it sucks so much, then why isn't anyone quitting? If GW is so much better, why aren't WOW players flooding into GW?

2. Nobody gives a damn about what you play, and the world won't stop if you shut up. Okay, look, you play whatever the hell you want and everyone else do the same. Nobody cares. No one talks about GW on WOW forums because they don't give a shit about you. If you feel the need to bash about WOW to calm you insecurity then you have already admitted WOW > GW. WOW players don't need to bash GW to feel superior, that's because they know they are superior. But then, who cares? These are games and people have tastes and preferences. Stick to your own, and stop trying to convert people. Nobody cares.

3. Why do you feel the need to confirm with other people about how awesome your game is? If you think it is the best thing ever, then to you, it is. Why does it matter if someone else does or doesn't? If it's such a precious thing to you, you wouldn't share it to people you don't like eh? If you can't survive playing GW without knowing it's better by having other people agreeing with you, then you are lying to yourself and need to buy WOW now.

4. Stop bitching about grind. You grind in every game because without it, you have no goal, and there is no point in playing a game if there is no goal. You grind in every single god damn game. You don't realize it in some because you are enjoying it. You need to grind for EVERYTHING. Asking for no grind is like asking for no work. It isn't happening. Walking around Cantha for 3k quests is a grind. I am so lazy I don't even want to do that, then what? Not level? Going to tell me level is also optional?

5.Graphics. Okay:
Tetris sucked? Mario sucked? Starcraft sucked? Goldeneye sucked? Perfect Dark sucked? SSB sucked?
Reason why the Wii outsold all the other consoles despite it's weak graphic (and other technological disadvantages) is because it has innovative and fun gameplays.

6. What you play have no bearing on others' lives, and what other people play is not your damn business. Nobody cares. Chances are, the only one that cares about your opinion is YOURSELF. So give yourself some respect and keep that opinion to yourself if no one responds in kind.

And whoever the hell talked about GW having more contents needs to do his/her research. WOW has A SHITLOAD MORE contents. Whether those are good or bad contents is up to your opinion. I personally find most GW contents useless and not fun repetitively. That's my opinion, you don't have to care.

QFT.

I play both games. And as you can see I'm ready to defend BOTH games whenever someone attacks them without a good reason. I just don't have to do it over at WoW forum because nobody cares to bash GW there (what's the point?). But for some reasons people here seem to find every single chance to pathetically attack OTHER GAMES (not just WoW).

How sad?

Wrong. I think you are confused with progression and grind.

Ok now I'm lazy and I didn't ready any of this but is this another WoW vs. GW thread ?

Just play the games you like and don't give a shit what others think, i do that, i play WoW and GW, GW got better PvP and Graphics, but WoW has something GW doesn't.

Awesome danish people

Advertising, pure and simple.

Do I grind in chess? No. Is chess a game? Yes, it's a board game, and it's more popular than any other mmo.

Pretty much. More specifically it is a "WoW converts want GW to be more like WoW, only free, while native GW players don't" thread.

Reminds me of all the Playstation 3 vs Wii discussions at neogaf.

Whats the point?

Actually, I've seen quite a few Guild Wars threads on the WoW forums... they say things like "GW is a stupid WoW ripoff" or "GW sucks, you're always alone and the game is empty..." or "GW is for nerds lol" or "GW was boring, I quit..."

Their forums probably have more GW threads than we have WoW threads here. I've seen 2 WoW vs GW threads on this forum, but in the month I browsed the WoW forum I saw at least 7.

It's a lost cause trying to teach people that WoW and GW can't be compared...

Oo! Oo! I know this one!

Because human beings have an irrational need, held over from more primitive times when absolute cooperation within a hunter-gatherer group was vital to survival, to seek approval from their peers as a means of confirming the legitimacy of their own life decisions?

If we don't all play the same game, we'll never be able to work together to catch that gazelle and we'll all starve to death...

Since when has something being futile or irrational ever kept people from arguing about it?

On the net?