Level cap - GW2

Wasn't that obvious? Hey, aren't you ex-lawyer?

Also, good player does not mean just "Can play X character well". Our proverbial 10 year olds might be awesome at their character. That does not mean they will provide you with good gameplay environment, main issue of "high level cap will get us right of vermin" argument. Guild Drama, Tears and everything.

At least I define good players also as generally polite, able to solve differences with coplayers on level, not making outrageous demands on others, not starting or perpetuating drama, willing to help out even if all it gives them is a bit of karma, being able to play in team and to take hit for team... No, I do not consider myself to be good player :-)

Umm, yes I do. I don't play WoW, now, do I. I did quit, because I didn't find it fun, remember?

Now take all of what you put in that list and included in-depth character development, and boom.

We're not talking about seeing "biggar damg" or a "satisfying" high number but rather complex character growth, evolution, and abilities. Skill trees in WoW, Feats and Skills in DnD, you name it. It's one of the most intricate and vital things in an RPG, and while GW did indeed do very well with it I would've much rather preferred to have my character built with a bit more complexity.

Yeah basically add more depth. Depth is something Guild Wars lacks, mostly because it was made to be a PvP game.

Regarding the skill trees of WoW, is the fun

... getting +1 point per level to finally get to the projected level 80 build
... or being level 80 and adjusting points as wanted, having gained all extra abilities?

WoW expansions added 10 levels plus new abilities and new/revamped skill trees. Major breakpoints usually being the max level for faster mounts, flying mounts and so on.


Factions and Nightfall added new skills without adding more attribute points or upping player level.

Adding a few really good skills can mean much more to your char without any need for upping player level at all and a special new skill every 5 levels. It would also prevent making the old level x-y world rather uninteresting for you.


On a related note, I hope that the Norn or other GW2 races will not have a char progression that would work like that:

Level 10: Raven Form
Level 20: Wolf Form
Level 30: Improved Raven Form
Level 40: Improved Wolf Form
Level 50: Bear Form
Level 60: Dire Raven Form
Level 70: Dire Wolf Form
Level 80: Dire Bear Form
...
Level 200: Baby Blizzard... sorry, ANet Bear Form
...
Level 300: Big ANet Bear Form


Of course not only power would increase, but every 10 levels the forms would also get 1 extra ability.

Now why not give players most abilities right from the start? This would make things perhaps more difficult to learn, but people nowadays race for max level and see levelling as some kind of evil anyways.

Adding new abilities also would not require older abilities to gain a new "rank" and more power either. Which is actually not that interesting, pure power gain without gaining anything new.


I agree that they can add more complexity and more feats, skills, skilltrees and more customization options to GW2. To hand out certain skills or abilities over time does not really demand a level system. Reaching a certain NPC somewhere or doing a quest in this or that expansion could also work to unlock/acquire a certain skill/ability.

we can only hope guys we can only hope

either no level cap or a high one.

leveling is what keeps people playing these games. they reach max level and then complain about there being no end game or that they reached max level too quickly. why not keep them leveling? pointless rewards like reaching a new level or obtaining new gear is the real reason most people play.

I am for 1000 for a cap. that way you know who is killing stuff when you have them in your group. No stinking hero's If I play the game for 5 years I want to be able to pawn everything. As it is you can go to areas that have baddies 67% higher in lvl than you like you lvl 20 and hard mode snow wurm lvl 30. I would like to just mash it in for its drops but it takes so long... dang it.. it's in the ground again....

Way to speak for yourself. I have played 4100hrs in 3 years and only have one title character that has 15 titles. I hope to get r4 KoaBD before GW2. Now, I obviously have not been grinding levels all this time, in fact I hate levelling and try and get the 1-20 over with as fast as possible. I haven't been grinding titles either, I only have 15 (of those only 4 our reputation titles). I played end game a little, did FoW, UW, DoA but it was not was not what kept me playing. I simply log on, farm a little, work on a title for a while, do a little low-end PvP, etc. There are many other players like me who don't play for the levelling. Even though our characters do not have massive levels does not mean there is no character development. I have all elementalist skills on my ele, have collected armour and weapons. All these things provide development. For those who enjoy grind (I can't even begin to understand how they could) they have Lux/Kurz, EotN rep titles, NF rep titles which all require epic grinding.


I certainly don't complain about the lack of end-game content. In fact the only thing I do complain about once in a while is the addition of required grind through NF and EotN. Oh, I do complain about skill imbalanced from time to time

Edit: I might as well add this.

Somebody said that a high level cap =| grind. That statement is completely and utterly wrong. A high level cap is meaningless if it can be achieved in less than.. well a long time. People would still complain if the level cap was 100 and it would be reached in less than 24 hours. The only reason people enjoy high level or unlimited level caps is because they want to flash their e-peen in people's faces and show that they accomplished something someone else cannot/ does not have the time for. In GW people grind for gold and titles to compensate for a low level cap. How many people played HA just so they could /rank people? How many people buy black obby, chaos gloves and a ninja mask just to show "hey look I have more gold than you"?. I have a friend who is obsessed with grinding Kurz/Lux just so he can show them off. In the case of levels, people want to be able to say "hey look, I am a higher level than you so I must be better than you", its so sad to see people trying to gain respect from total strangers in a game by showing off how much time they have spent. This also explains why people wouldn't hesitate to use an exploit/bot/hack to gain an advantage.

/rant over

I don't really get why people are crying so much about the level cap. For example in Nightfall or Factions, the level cap could've been 50 and there wouldn't have been any grinding anyway if you just played the storyline. Atm you just did like 2 or 3 out of 14/20 missions and you're already maxed. I don't really care about the number, whether it's 20 or 200 as long as you get the max level just by playing the main story further. For no level cap, no way. Even if you didn't get any benefit from gaining more levels, it would just lead to "glfp 350+ lvl!".

If there REALLY must be a higher leveling system in GW2 (I am opposed), I want to go with:

Get to level 20, and all your attributes/powers stop leveling - you are as powerful as you're gonna get/as powerful as anyone else. Any levels gained from there on in is purely aesthetic to show a) how much XP you've accumulated b) how long you've been playing (much like a title) c) only gives you access to higher leet LOOKING stuff (nice skin weapons/armour, but which still have the same stats as everyone else).

You've confusing people that play love and GW PvE and people that are after another generic mmo without the monthly fees. The thing that makes (made anyway, pve skills have ruined things) the guildwars franchise unique was the fact that PvE had a level playing field too. Everyone has easy access to the same skills and the same equipment, so when someone is able to complete a a task faster than you, you know they're better - no other mmo out there can do that.

GW is an online game and its appeal comes from interacting with other players. Having huge level limits that take months to reach with endless gear grind removes from that because it trivialises any interactions and makes the game as dull an lifeless as all the other mmos.

I am going to make a claim and probably get flamed for it, but I stand behind it. I am guessing that the average buyer of this game fits the description you just described. The two biggest selling points of this game when it came out were "no monthly fees" and "skill>time", and we can see over time that no monthly fees won out. Anet was trying to attract more competitive players, but they attracted the generic mmo croud that was thrilled at the idea of no monthly fees.

I agree with you...but I STRONGLY suspect Anet does not anymore. They are going to cater to that generic mmo croud I stated earlier, who want more in depth character development and higher level caps.

There won't be a level cap, they stated that after a certain level that levels would stop meaning anything and be more of a way to show how much you've played.

They will give pvp chars probably the max level cap (as to effectiveness wise) but for pve they stated it'd be most likely an unlimited level cap, where after a certain point levels wouldn't matter and the "grind for levels" would be purely for people who want to do it.

I can live with this, But I have searched a few interviews... I havent heard anything official about a cap though...

To show how long ppl have played? That lame. lol Its call /age... haha, I know you mean in a different way though...

Exactly, but, we have a small community of players in GW that don't like this sort of play and they don't want to see GW turn into those others, but, they best get ready for it's coming, Anet developers have already given some insight to it as GWEN is an example of GW2 and then the persistant world, of course there's going to be gnawing and gnashing of teeth as others will attempt to kill steal others spawns and I've been there done that in EQ and I know what's going to take place. Every other mmorpg has been successful by having grinding levels and phat loots to go after vs looks and low level 20 of GW. It is a nice toy game, but, it hardly is hardcore in the skin it was when prophecies came out. Gradually Anet has seen fit to change GW into the other types of mmorpgs except for levels and phat loots and I foresee that coming in GW2 to bring over the mobs from WOW. They would be stupid not to try to get that community playing their game. All they have to do is make a no monthly fee WOWlike game and they will be rolling in cash. Just like every other developer out there they will have to leave the community they have now and go more for the mainstream community and that majority that plays the old school way. They have more population which equates to more money in Anet and NCsofts pockets. They already made the Guild Wars that this small minority of people want now it it time for change and the game that the rest of the players want.

As if those are the only two reasons, and as if only regarding the skill trees.

It's about your character as a whole, his journey in entirety, that's always fun for me. As much as I love raiding Naxx, I just as much love trailing through the early continents.

Quite a few things wrong with this post, and since it's been written as a mutated together string of thoughts I'll reply to it as such:

Regarding GWEN and GW2: There's quite a lot in it there that'll give an indication of what'll be in GW2, that's true, but not of any of the things you've listed. There were quests that had to be completed solo that would take you out of the gameworld into your own little private instance. I'd expect to see this in GWEN because not only is it immersive but it also puts a complete halt on the problem of spawn camping (something ANet is fully aware of that's harmful to the game).

"Every other mmorpg has been successful by having grinding levels and phat loots to go after" - there haven't been very many "successful" MMO's. Off the top of my head I can only bring to mind U:O, EQ and WoW. While some are only unpopular because they cater to a certain niche group, the rest have fallen flat on their face attempting to formulate WoW's success. I wonder why. I also find it interesting that despite GW having none of these, "phat lewtz and hih levz", it was one of the most successful online RPGs to date.

"They would be stupid not to try to get that community playing their game" - the ones that have tried that have fallen flat on their face quite miserably. A large speedbump that will always be a turn-off for "WoWers" is the same thing that's really set GW apart from the crowd: no monthly fee. No monthly fee = no frequent content = no proper endgame.

(Not to mention that Mr. Strain wrote an incredibly well-done article on how to (or how not to) do MMO's, and attempting to compete with WoW was definitely a big no-no).

Character development isn't a "generic MMO" thing, it's a "traditional RPG" thing.

How is that different from trailing thought world of Tyria till you reach endgame?

Is it?

As early Computer RPGs authors were unable to really present convincing story beyond "go, kill evil dragon", they laid emphasis on things that computers can do easily - rules and maths behind real characters. Somehow, it stuck. What a shame.

Really traditional RPGs (you know, not the computer ones) are about other things than getting XP. Actual character development.

Caught me not being specific enough, it seems.

I found the journey to be fun, but was a bit disappointed in how much I was able to get away with. I had played through all of Proph and Factions including numerous runs in their elite areas with Battle Rage + Mend/Vig Spirit on my bar.

Granted there was a lot to learn and configure in GW1, but most of it was rather meaningless. I'm only hoping for something with a bit more merit and requiring a lot more thought in GW2.

Apparently DnD 2-3.5 ed, Morrowind, KotOR, BG 1-2, Oblivion...are all "bad" RPGs. Roger that.

I can't help but feel like you're painting me to look like one of those "MMO LOVAR" shithats, btw.

LEVELS ARE NOT EQUAL TO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Levels are only a mathematical construct to (heavily) influence the outcome of a dice roll combat system. The winner of a confrontation is in part determined by the numbers behind the character. To me as a gamer that is not very satisfying. I'd like to play a game, I do not like observing a series of numbers. Am I a pencil pushing number cruncher? Did I buy Statistica Pro: Character Sheet Manager 2009? What is to gain from +2 levels? Enemies of level +4? Even if you trick yourself into believing that you are getting better by leveling up, the game behind the numbers does not change, you are still the same "must click enemy" drone. Last time I checked people complained when Ursan simplified GW to the point of exploiting a plain numerical advantage over the enemies.

GW has way more possibilities for character development and character depth than any of the other MMOs. It forces me to get better as a player in order to complete all areas. It did not take the easy way of simply raising my level slowly until I am overpowered no matter where I am. If GW2 lives up to tht legacy, it will find ways to challenge the player without outsourcing large parts of an achievement in combat to numbers. A game can be rewarding when you finally learn how to master something, pull it off and win. It's not rewarding when you finally beat it just because you now happen to have the "Cricket Bat of One Hit Kills".

Apart from that, GW needs content, content, content. New missions, new story, new areas, new monsters, new quests. That's playing depths and I doubt anybody would NOT buy new content. Why ruin that open world expandability by pressing content into some combat dice roll numbers, level requirements? Hardly any MMO is really open world, most of them are linear leveling tunnels, deviate too much and the +6 mob will bite you back to the regular track.

Yes, but only means that there was lack of difficulty progression to make game interesting, not lack of character progression.

You had tools that you never needed to use. Which of course made you feel that your character stopped progressing because there was no need to equip anything different.

Apparently GURPS, BaK, etc are "wrong kind" of RPGs too ;p

Never claimed that.

Now, lets order those you subjected based on precieved quality (as by me):

BG1-2
KotoR
Morrowind
Obvilion

And now lets examine then a bit:

BG1-2 wins because, well, game world is fleshed out, coherent, it has history, your character has history.
KotoR is worse off a bit. Strong background, but there is more emphasis on combat, but game is strong because it has decent story thou (and has pink energy swords).
Morrowing is, well, Offline MMO. Story is out there, somewhere. Feel free to ignore it while maxing out alchemy skill.
Obvilion is Morrowing stripped from character getting powerful, and it really shows shallowness of rest of content. Zero combat tactics, Ignorable storyline. Poor NPC characters, They kept grind to add icing on cake. Also, no pink energy swords.

BG1-2 & KotoR Would play just fine "with level cap of one". Character progresses by progressing in story.
Morrowind & Co would be trash. Character just ... progresses.

Dungeons and Dragons don't need it either, they need decent GM with good adventure in head because who is willing to ignore rules that don't fit it otherwise, well, have you ever watched bad movie?

But, lets examine DnD, say, feats.

What is more interesting:

1) Character gets some XP points, gets level and chooses feat.

2) Characters goes somewhere, seeks tainer and gets feat.

1) Is kinda abstract. No reall Roleplaying involved, but lots of tables involved.
2) Is playing game.

Character grows in both examples, but in one, character grew in vacuum, in other character gained a bit of history.

Wrong again, I didn't list them all, but, let me add some more. AO, AC, DAOC, Lineage I and Lineage II, EQII and more recently AOC and now Warhammer. All boast the type of engines that have high leveling and phatz loot. You obviously know nothing about what success means in the industry. Let me give you the names of the ones that weren't successes, but, not because they had high levels or phatz loots, but, because the entire engine wasn't successful. Shadowbane (pure pvp proves open pvp isn't a successful design in rpg gaming), Star Wars Galaxies (they totally changed from being able to play all things with one charcter to only one thing per character at a time). NCsofts own Auto Assault and more recently Tabula Rasi (both cut off from the mmorpg gaming world because of bad design decisions or lack of interest, but, not because they have high levels and phat loots). As I said before Guild Wars success is not in its design, but, the fact it has no monthly fee. If they had added a monthly fee to it it would have failed and failed miserably because it has little content, no high level rewards or goals and no phat loots. The 3 main things in an rpg the majority of people play and want to play. WOW has already proven this and this has been stated time and time again. The majority and normal people want long term goals when they play these games. The developers of GW obviously realized this is the best working design to keep players, and thus grind and titles were added to GWs and of course those that are lazy or want everything easy and simple have complained ever since.

That's because a storyline isn't the best way to keep players if it isn't extremely replayable and has a lot of depth to it. By that I mean, if you want to keep players with just the storyline, you're most likely going to have to make it a storyline where you have to play for 1 year just to get through it. Because I know a lot of the people who play Guild Wars get bored with the story after 5 or 6 play throughs. Even if you don't, you can make 20 characters and still beat all the campaigns in under a year, just because the game is easy.

To add life to the game, Anet added grind in the form of titles. A smart move because a lot of people like grind and don't see to know it. They kept it in the form of armor, which is a simple grind now n days but a grind nonetheless. The reason a lot of the generic MMO franchises are successful is because they have you do a lot of work to reach a certain point, and then more after that to get something better. A lot of people find that to be fun work too, well at least most of it.

Also like Master Knightfall is saying, very few people would be playing this game if it had a $15 fee. Because it's stagnant now. The only reason I still play it, is because I can log on anytime. Most of the days in the past have been just to log on and talk to people and not actually play. I do think a good number of people also play because of the low grind for characters, but they also play because it's free. I doubt it's one without the other in their cases.

I also want to mention that a game with a high level cap, well that leveling is the game. In Guild Wars the game starts for the most part at level 20. In a high level game like Wo W or LOTRO the majority of the game is the leveling, then you have things you can do at the level cap. Raids and PvP and stuff like that. So if GW 2 had a raised level cap that actually counted (which it won't) where leveling up made you more powerful, I would expect Anet to make the object of gameplay, that leveling up.

Anet has stated that there will most likely be no level cap, but be a cap on power. When it comes to power in PvE, I think a lot of people want to be better than others in a sense. It's the nature of competitiveness. It happens in GW even, where things are equal in the form of character power. You see it in titles and armor and weapons. But people who can't play as much get upset because they're not on equal ground with the rest of the folks. Then things get less challenging. If Anet want's to cater to those people, I just hope they do it well and not like they did to GW.

GW Story is not really great, Agreed. Even greatest story works best in single player (Or in MMO that you are supposed to put down after you beat it and then wait for next chapter).

Well, for me it is pointless roadblock behind which is some content.

Example of it done well: Skillhunter Title. Character basically really needs 1 elite skill to function. Zero grind. But getting more, much more has its "prestige" reward, but it is not necessary from anything in game.

Lineage 1 & 2 both have very large gatherings, but only very largely in Korea. It's sees little success anywhere else.

DAoC and EQ2 - in addition to EVE, City of Heroes and LOTR:O (no idea how you forgot those) - have indeed been successful in a sense, but not anywhere near what WoW has achieved. While they do have a few of them "phat lewtz" they all tailor to something much more specific.

WAR has seen a pretty cool reception, but is having a shitload of problems (keep crashes, other latency and performance issues, overall class design issues). They'll really have to get on that if it wants to see a bit more acceptance, but overall it's done pretty decently.

AoC has pretty much fallen on the same path of Vanguard and of many others, i.e. failure. It's barely hanging in there. It's only term of success was when it first came out.

That would have to be under the assumption that they wouldn't do anything with the money earned from their monthly fee. Since that's bonesnapping retarded we'd be seeing a whole lot more content than we already have.

As is, because GW doesn't cater to that crowd - and because it's near impossible to do so without a monthly fee - PvE builds around being more towards a more traditional RPG sense, not in an MMO sense. There's still progression and high-end loot to gain. It just doesn't last as long as WoW.

Bryant maybe you haven't been watching or reading, but, GW's is more popular in Korea than any other country. Also more recently the merging and shutdown of the 'western' offices of their group. GW's is not the American game of choice I know everyone hates to hear this but WOW is. It now looks as though Warhammer might give it a run for it's money once they iron out all the initial kinks that practically every new mmorpg has upon release. Last I read actually American comes in last as far as sales of GW's goes. So, actually the developers of GW should really be listening more to their Korean base community than America and truth be known they probably did as they added grind to the game and Asians love grind and pvp.

This doesn't PROVE anything, but I think the ladder pretty much shoots that entire paragraph in the foot.

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/ladder/default.php

^This^ would be nice.

Also allow players to NAME their "class," and you've brought my second-most-favorite part of The Elder Scrolls to GW: class building.

Though that'd probably piss off some purists who like the MMORPG idea of each player fulfilling a specific role in the party, and would require a different armor setup from GW1.

I think 50 would be a nice level cap, as long as the game story lasted so long you didn't HAVE to grind much to hit level 50 AND had elite content for after level 50.

Darkfall FTW!!!

20. The game has gone too far into Grind Wars as it is now. Screwing with the levels will only make it worse.

You do know this isnt "the game" which you are referring to "Guild Wars." We are talking about a game that coming out in the future, Guild Wars 2. lol

Anyways. Who says high lvls means grinding? A 100 cap could take 1 week of normal gameplay to get...We dont know do we? lol

Yeah. Lol.

@Zwei: I think we're on the same page here. We both know that it's not the level that matters but more what's built into your character. Like I said earlier the level could be as much as 9000 and as little as 1. The only purpose it serves right now is to show to yourself and others how far you've progressed into the game world.

It's just when someone mentions "no levels", I tend to associate with everything being unlocked at that start with the only "progression" being your skill as a player. If that's what happened at the start of Proph I would've lost interest quite quickly.

This is a good idea, I've seen it done in Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy 2(j) and a few other RPGs and it provides a much deeper, realistic approach to character building, but if you're trying to avoid grind, this would be the worst way. In the few games I've played with this type of gameplay, I've found myself doing more grind than I ever have in ANY MMO I've played. In GW2 there needs to be a balance of features that caters to both Old GW players and any new players Anet is trying to attract. Keep in mind that Anet and NCsoft are businesses looking to make money and find the best way to make the GW franchise more profitable- the best way for them to do this is to retain some features that cater to the fanbase, but they'll have to add many features that are similar to other MMOs to do this (including a higher level cap and better rewards for those willing to get there). They NEED to cater somewhat to players of other MMOs in order to make more money on the game and they will NEED this extra money in order to give us new content to keep us happy.

Whoever said EVE was unsuccessful is full of it - it's not the same genre of MMO as ANY other MMO and thus cannot be equated with them.

Every post you make is more ridiculous. You are so wrong here its not even funny. People need to stop comparing Guild Wars to WoW. It is never going to be WoW EVER. So it has to be something UNIQUE, not a place for all the people who want to play WoW but don't want to pay monthly fees.

Even if you were right about this whole Korean nonsense...you said it yourself we should listen to the Koreans and should have kept GW1 a PvP game and make GW2 a PvP game (since ya know...PvP games are king over there).

I think most people that refer to "no levels" mean that a freshly created character has equal power to one that has been around for years. The older character may utilise a wider variety of options howver none of those options increase their overall strength - like the difference between a toon that has just reached drocks with 1-2 elites and max armour/runes/weapons compared with a toon with uax (pve skills excluded) and a multitude of different insignia sets/weapon swaps.


The darklands server that I play on (the oceanic server with the highest pop) has gone from being full/full in the first week to being low/med during peak times. The popluation of that game is dwindling fast and not because of kinks, but simply because the gameplay isn't very good.

Nope it sure doesn't because pvp ladders only represent 10% of any community of these mmo's. That too has been done in polls. I'm talking about the entire 'sales' figures of Guild wars not pvp ladder players. The PVE portion of the game is what makes the most sales not pvp. What it does prove is that a major portion of the korean pvp crowd has left Guild Wars for other games as that used to be much higher a couple of years ago and Korea dominated the tournaments when they did participate more often.

Hmmm doesn't look like the population is leaving to me as the rank grows up from 15 to 13 just yesterday.

Not anymore rediculous than your posts. But, at any rate you seem to like to chop statements and quotes in half. You left out the portion that also says Koreans like "grind" as well. Yessir I'm all for grind and pvp in GW2 never said differently.

Show me how my posts are ridiculous. Also I don't know where you got the data that GW sold more in Korea than anywhere else?? As far as I know the sales of GW in Korea have always been dwindling.

And the second part of your post is just sad. First of all, GW started as a PvP game not a grind game. You enjoy grind? Hmm...thats wonderful...I'm pretty sure you aren't going to get anyone else stupid enough to agree with you about that (even if they do enjoy it).

as long as there will be some benefit to having higher lvl, ppl will go for that instead. imagine if pve was filled groups that required an incredibly high lvl before joining. no cap = bad

high levels dont seperate ppl by skill. thats the most retarded thing ive heard on this thread. seriously, go tell ppl that rank (a level indicator of sorts) is an indicator of skill. all a high level does is show how much time someone has spent at the game. it is in no way indicative of a person's natural adaptive ability, which is more important to a gamer's skill.

several things. first off, periods were invented for a reason. 2nd, u really cant figure out why ppl are asking gw2 to be gw1 again? really? do u know the definition of the word sequel? for ur reference

se⋅quel
1. a literary work, movie, etc., that is complete in itself but follows the style and narration of the previous work.

that means gw2 continues the story AND gameplay of gw1, albeit wit refinements. if u want something different from wut gw1 is, go play a new game. it is like b/c u want halo 2 to be different, u would want bungie to completely change halo 3 into a third person action game.

i dont know about u, but i find atking other players funner than c space barring enemies to death for weeks to lvl. gw1 was designed from the ground up to be a pvp game. if u like grind, go back to EQ or play RO.

no, but there are people who are naturally more talented than others, which is why they can complete their degrees in half the time as other people. not everyone is equal in ability and intelligence. perhaps ur the one who is promoting socialism in games. by ur logic, if a retard takes 6 years earning their bachelor, it means they are better at their major than someone who has spent 4 years because of more time spent?

i dont think so b/c we arent paying in the meantime to keep gw2's server up. hence the more time we spend grinding, the more burden we put on their servers. the more burden we put on their servers without paying in the meantime, the less profit anet makes.

Yep, that graph looks perfectly healthy
.
It would look even better if you could go back further than a month when so you can see that the poplation has halved every month since release. The game is only 3 months old and its last weekend population was lower than the midweek population of everyone's favorite three-and-a-half-year-old-supposedly-dead-mmo:
src.
Guildwars is currently the 3rd most popular mmo on the market (after WOW and Silkroad ) despite not not having pay-to-play level content or support and being largely abandoned by it developers. The next most popular no-monthly fee mmo is maplestory has less than half the number of players. This demonstrates that there is something present in the in the core no-grind, skill>time philosophy of GW that seperates it from other games on the market - an attribute that must be preserved if its sequal is to mimic it's success.

Hmm maybe yes. I think Anet's model is always promise us that the next game/expansion will fix the brokeness of their previous game/expansion so we keep stupidly buying hoping they are right this time. I think Guild Wars 2 will add higher level caps per expansion for incentive to buy as well.