The majority of the community sucks (or does it?)

You have no idea how ridiculous your argument is. For starters, you didn't even start until EoTN which essentially disqualifies you from this entire thread. You don't know what the game was like, you don't know how it changed, and you can't know why or how the majority of the community sucks in comparison.

But even assuming you did know what you were talking about, you are basically telling people to not talk about CLEAR problems with the game. Just because you and some other people don't see or refuse to acknowledge those problems doesn't mean the problems aren't there.

If that's the case, you failed, and the game failed, go play something else, because those of us who used to love playing the game have no interest in the grumblings of a bunch of little kids outside looking in who have no business discussing topics with their wiser elders.

I could make a large list of games that have lasted over 5 years with thriving communities. Your statement is void.

I want the real game that used to exist, not the fantasy game that exists now. Do you have proof that this would somehow suck for the majority of players? I could make a poll to "prove" you wrong, but nobody believes polls on here.

Well you are an oldbie (I think) so I think you should be able to see some of what I am talking about. Don't you agree that the game has gotten easier over time? Even through hard mode and elite areas, the game has gotten easier. That says a lot to me. The_jos again made a brilliant post...the actions of others affect the game because the game isn't played in each players individual vacuum.

That actually raises another point...this game used to be a team game. Now it is a solo game where people can suck all they want with no accountability whatsoever. One of the best ways to get better at something is by simply playing with other players who are better than you, and nowadays this game is nothing more than a solo RPG where people can abuse all the broken crap they want that just happens to be online. It is stupid really, but I'm probably in the minority on that opinion. Just another reason I thought of on why the majority of the community sucks.

I've only been playing since the first week in January but I thought I'd share my experience as to why a lot of players aren't very good at the game. I'm by no means "Pro", and am still learning new things everyday, but there's a few things I've noticed that contribute to the problem.

As a long time EQ2 (3.5y) and WoW (1y) player, I swear a lot of people treat the game like it's WoW. WoW is 90% gear, 10% skill. Everyone wants runs and power levels to hit 20 and buy 60 armor, bypassing quests, missions, everything that makes you learn your class and which skills suit which situation. There seems to be a huge rush to hit 20, like that makes you a good player all of a sudden.

From what I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong), knowing your skills has a lot more to do with being a good player then what gear your wearing. I'm still wearing 51 armor, with buffs put on all the wrong slots (thought it was all global, my hands and feet are stacked lol) and no health runes. That's mostly because I want elite armor and I'm too cheap to buy standard 60 gear

I run people for money (5 more plat to elite armor!), but sometimes I wonder if this is one the main reasons people aren't as good as they could be.

I don't know how many times I've grouped with players in Drok's that are just horrible. They don't know what their doing and it makes me wonder how they got there (probably paid someone). I think one of the only reasons I'm doing pretty well for my tenure is lack of knowledge and determination. Until last night when a friend and I killed Glint (first try wooo!), we didn't know how to get to Drok's, so we kept trying until we fought our way from Beacon's Perch to Camp Rankor. It took two tries, but we got it our second time. Sure we died left right and center, from the loop at Dreadnaught's Drift on we were both at 60% Death Penalty, but I think it made us both better players for accomplishing it. Being caster's running wasn't really an option so we cleared everything necessary to make our way down. In doing this were learning how to play as a team and look out for one another. We both play roles, she does burst damage I do DPS, we both AoE and use our tank's and my pets to clump enemies together. So far it's working really well for us.

Another thing is builds. Why does everyone want the exact same build? I understand from a math perspective certain combination's yield optimal output or sustainability, but I don't believe there's one magic build that's going to work for everyone. I don't know how many times I've had players ask me to print my skill bar, only to tell me I'm a noob and doing everything wrong, then doing a mission with them and have them die 10 times and me once or twice or not at all.

One thing that's really helped me is the community, which I can already say is far more helpful then any other game I've played. The friends I play with, people on this board, and a bunch I've met in game have taught me just about everything I know. It was kind of funny, it actually struck me as odd (from past experiences in other games) how much people are willing to help if you ask politely. Sure I've run into a few elitist's, but for the most part other players won't hesitate to give you tips, tricks, and guidance.

So hats off to you, and thanks for everything

Now here is a newb who knows what he is talking about. You are definately right. My problem personally is that Anet has implemented so many more timesinks into the game that give people things to do other than get better. Gear is one of those things, but there are many others.

This is the reason why when people say GW is the next WoW, there will be many people who say they are stupid just because of how it sounds, but many others who say they are correct.

Yes, I've been on GW for more than 3 years, and yes, the game seems easier to me now.

I remember, back in the days, when I considered Thunderhead Keep as an incredibly hard mission... One year after that, I could complete it with bonus and only henchmen. Now, I h/h it in hard mode with bonus without any difficulty.

We've just gotten better at the game : we know what skills to use, what monsters we'll have to face, how AI works, and what to do to have more chances to be successful in an area.

Knowing all that, a group of players can clear any area, and the game can no longer be "difficult". It can take time to adapt to a new elite zone, but with time, players will figure out how it works and find the best way to complete it.


I read the_jos's post, and I can't agree on the analogy he made : we are NOT playing together, unless the guys you are talking about are in your group.

As long as you can find players that share your point of view, group with them, form a guild, I believe that's what GW was made for.


GW pve became a solo game for me when I realized it was not even possible to get a pug composed of 8 people with decent builds in less than 30 minutes. Now I just stick to my alliance or to my friend list.

It may be an endless system : experienced people getting tired of unsuccessful pugs > less experienced players pugging > less successful pugs, and so on.

I've heard this argument before and I don't buy it for several reasons. The biggest reason is because this game has had a major power creep. Anet has essentially given us more tools to beat things effectively. By PvE skills, consumables, a series of buffs, and just flat out better skills (particularly with Nightfall), the game got plain easier. The moment Nightfall came out, Prophecies and Factions were pieces of cake for almost anybody. The moment EoTN came out, the entire Guild Wars game was easy for almost anybody.

In my personal experience, THK used to be the barrier that seperated decent PvE teams from bad PvE teams. Nowadays anybody can heroway it, but that doesn't make the players better. In fact, I'd argue it makes them worse because the overall challenge they are facing has gone down and that may make them think they are better than they actually are. The game today just has a completely different feeling to me.

Sure we are...we are all playing the same game. Using his example, we are all playing Risk. If some people are playing by the rules of the game, but then some others come along and play it in a different way, should the people who were playing it right be forced to play it the different way? Should the people playing it the different way get the same rewards as the people playing it the right way?

That comment made my day You do realize there's still an enormous community for both Doom1 and Quake 1-3? Those games have been out for over 15 years and a lot of people still play and mod them to death.

That's why I said that I could complete it using only henchmen, to put myself in the same conditions as I was when I started GW, in order to talk about the "I just got better at the game" effect.

Btw, I hardly use pve skills, and never use consumables (too expensive ), I just adapt my builds, which is much more efficient. I tend to consider they are just a way to speed things up, or to help you do alone things you'd have to pug (vanquishing).

I consider heroes really made the game easier, but only for people skilled enough to make them better than henchmen (builds, equipment, flags...). People using goofy builds for themselves somehow find even worse builds for their heroes, considering they're unable to set them on the right mode (defensive...) and flag them correctly out of aoe, that's still epic fail.

Missions in Nightfall are considerably harder than in Prophecies, because just like players, the game design team got more experienced : henchmen have (nearly) decent builds, enemy groups have more synergy... You will certainly feel a bit disappointed when you go back to Prophecies with your heroes, but that's just normal evolution.
I agree that there has been a "power creep" in GW, that makes older campaigns easier, but newer campaigns are still a challenge for new players, enough to give potential good players a decent start.

Even if they had no way to succeed in some areas, I believe bad players would stay bad. They'd spend their time QQing on Guru instead of trying to figure out why they fail.

What's inside a game doesn't make the community good or bad, the community makes itself good or bad.



Sure we're all playing Risk, but we're not sitting at the same table. Of course you can look what others are doing a few tables away, but does it matter, as long as all the people you are playing with agree with your rules ?

There's a difference between playing the same game at the same time, and playing together (= being in the same group).
For example, I heard most elite area cookie cutter builds revolved around cry of pain. I have hardly ever used this skill, and that doesn't prevent me from having fun in pve, even in the same area as cryway groups.

About rewards, GW has nothing significant in pve... A shiny armor ? A nice set of weapons ? As long as you can get nearly whatever you want by playing the way you like, and you are experienced enough to know how, why do you care about others ?

Of course, your achievements are worth more in terms of game knowledge and "skill", but you're the only one who has to know it. You know what you are worth, and what you can do, let others think whatever they want. If some random GWAMM-black-fow-chaos-gloves-ninja-mask-echo-mending-wammo is taunting you be cause he thinks he's much better than you, just leave him for what he is : an idiot.

If you were forced to play the way you don't want to in order to get things, there would be a problem, but it's not the case.



Yes, these skills help idiots, just like they help good players to be faster.

Their existence does not promote idiocy, it was already included in the community.

Let me make a somewhat nicer responce to this subject than my last.

I know GW isn't easy for everyone.
I recently started playing more active on my mule account and certain things that are easy even in HM are somewhat hard now. No heroes, no elite skills, not all efficient skills unlocked or available yet, no max armor available (proph character in desert).

But hey, it's how I started out 3 years ago.
And I can tell that the learning curve isn't as steep as it used to be, specially when a player has several chapters available.

And while it might not seem that we play together, but we are influencing each other.
The moment you ask for an easier game you are influencing my gameplay, which is based on the somewhat harder gameplay. Except the HM button I don't have an option to set GW to 'Nightmare' level, so each moment the game is made easier my level of play isn't as challenging as it used to be. Meaning I have to change things (like take other skills, don't spend all attributes or take less party members) to keep it a challenge.
For as much PvE is a challenge, that is....

Now this is PvE, where everything stays the same. Spawning points and all that, it's always the same.
You know what, some (I think GW) developer explained that once. He said that the environment was constantly changing people would have a very hard time to learn and beat something.
It's one of the main reasons random spawns are not introduced in many games.

Now look at what's happening.
People face the same foes over and over and over again and still can't beat them.
Same spawning points, same classes, same skills. And all documented on wiki.
And the same AI, which does stupid stuff all the time.

Now if you don't adapt, you will fail over and over again.
You don't want to know how many times people have tried to beat areas like Deep, Urgoz's, DoA, UW, FoW and ToPK. Not because they were bad, but because they faced new challenges every time. Challenges they didn't prepare for.

New players don't have to do all this hard work anymore. They can prepare a lot, by reading wiki or asking questions in the game.
Sure, they need to learn spawning points and the patrols, but that's about it.
The rest is just preparing and knowing the build you use.

Now I find it kinda annoying (and that doesn't happen that much) that a developer stated that they implemented fixed spawns so people can learn and people still ask for easier ways to finish things.
Hello, you get a fixed environment so you can learn how to counter it!!!!!!!

I wonder how some people would play Super Mario or game like that.
Would they also call for nerfs of the fire-flowers and buffs for Mario?
Because it's hard to beat level 2? No, they play over and over again to beat it.
If you can't bring up that kind of dedication for a game, maybe it's the wrong game for you and you should stop playing it? Or play only level 1, the level you did master.

I don't see how you're disagreeing with me, except on my criticisms of your education analogy. Given that public schooling is completely OT, I'd be happy to discuss that with you elsewhere. This paragraph is worth addressing here, however, because it highlights exactly why I think your analogy is worthless:

There are a number of reasons why teachers don't get to retain/fail people (say, the law), but the basic idea is that education matters; kicking kids out of school has very real consequences. In contrast, GW doesn't matter - at all. Nobody cares how many people can't complete the game without consumables. Having GWAMM doesn't make you a better person. Add to this the fact that Anet can wish everyone's problems away by making the game easier at any time, and there's really no point to the whole teaching exercise. Most people play the game to have fun - whatever "fun" means to them - and as long as that's true, there's nothing to fix.

Here is Exhibit A for why this whole teaching fantasy will never produce results:
See also the article cited by Gigashadow:
As I've said before (in this thread, in fact), the way to making a commercially successful game is to trick the player into thinking they've done something hard/remarkable when it is in fact easy/boring.

The masses want to believe they are beautiful and unique snowflakes. Rather than disabusing them of this notion, you nurture it while taking their money.

I still remember the weekend when Monks went on strike at THK to protest against mending whammos leeroying and ruining the mission. <lol>

It was hilarious.

That said, it did not help ANET promote GW. Someone suggested players are the bane of good game design. And he/she is quite right. Hence, you have PvE skills, Consumables and what not to make it easy and idiotproof.

I liked GW before and I still like it now regardless of the changes. It was and still is a good game to play compared to many others that popped after its release. And, most importantly, for 50 bucks it gave me the bang for the buck.

Very well said.

OT: People don't suck as much as guru thinks , or you have too high standards.

This isn't actually true, I've played with plenty of horrible WoW players who have amazing gear, and they completely fail at both pve and pvp. There are a very large number of people with great gear who still can't succeed at that game. There are also a large number of people who when they fail, rationalize that it was only because of gear (because they don't have the absolute best), when it's actually because they aren't very good and could have played better. Then there are people who can get very high arena ratings on their rerolls while wearing awful gear. Definitely not 90% gear, that's for sure. I also played EQ2, Warhammer Online, and various other MMOs, and didn't find them to be any more skillful. Guild Wars PvP stands out far in front of all other games in that regard.

What concerns me about GW2, is if they make everything so easy that there is no challenge, which is exactly what happened in WoW's latest expansion (all the raids in that game are PUG'd now, that's how easy it is). Are Guild Wars' designers of the same mindset? The fact that Ursan Blessing stayed as it was for so long makes me deeply concerned for the direction they may take GW2. I know James Phinney said "We want to encourage skillful play", but I have my doubts.

Are all MMO designers going to come to the same decision that you might as well make the game really easy and make everything trivially obtainable for everyone, because the hard-cores are more trouble than they are worth (they complain the most and consume your content too fast anyway)? Are we going to see GW2 monsters not moving out of firestorms (remember the ruckus when that change was implemented in 2005?) Is there a point at which everything becomes so easy to acquire that even Joe casual doesn't like the game any more? (perhaps because, that cool item/title he is so proud of, is also worn by 90% of the population now).

He's missing the most important metric of all: why we play a game. Do people play for community or do they play for content? Some decisions to boost community might have an adverse effect on content enjoyability, while some decisions to boost content enjoyability will have a harmful impact on community.

I would personally lean towards leisure activity markets being dominated by decisions based on boosting community (people are social animals), but the MMO market continues to make content based decisions. The game makes people feel better about themselves, but do those people keep their attitudes and egos in check when they defeat perceived impossible odds without the help of the community?

I would say they don't based on observation. The more an individual is able to do on his own; the more he shuns people, the more he forgets how to interact with people, the more he eventually starts to treat people like something else. In the case of this discussion, some bad players are the ones who forget what they need to do to be part of the team. And since they can retreat to the world of individual greatness, they care about community less and less.

How is me wanting the game to not be so simple anymore selfish than someone wanting it to be easier?

I'm not saying to cater to one group exclusively. I've just yet to see a reason why we needed to have the hardest variations of the areas as easy as the normal ones. I'd partially sympathize with toning down the normal mode variants, but not toning down the hardest portions at the same time. That's why I gave the DoA normal mode change a huge thumbs up.

If you want to better please both sides, you make the normal mode a bit more accessible and keep the harder mode difficult. The only people still complaining the largest will be those who aren't good enough yet want the best loots (who are fortunately a whiny minority).

That's the problem: Good players don't need these shortcuts, and the bad players will come to rely on them. Why learn to better buff/heal/protect your team cooperatively when you can just get two warriors with SY! to take care of it all?

When I'm playing Doom, I don't IDDQD myself because I know I'm good. I don't need it because I'm good!

In my opinion it's the game at fault more than the player base.

Guild Wars rewards the path of least resistance more than player skill, pure and simple.

The popularity of certain builds like perma-SF Sins (pre-nerf), touch rangers, BOA Sins (pre-nerf), skills like Ursan (pre-nerf) , items like consets, and builds like Sabway, Discordway, etc, etc, etc are all symptoms of a game design that rewards repetition, grind at speed, and ease of use above all else.I don't see it as the players fault that reward and status in this game revolves around grind and repetition of content to get some text under your name.

As a result the majority don't care about skillful or challenging play.

They want either an "I win" button or maximum efficiency in repeating content and it's game design that has dictated that.

You can teach a player about "skill" all you want, chances are as soon as they find out about the easiest option available to them they will throw that out the window.

As far as I'm concerned the player base is only to blame in so far as dictating and passively allowing such options and mentalities to slowly become the norm, with other variations or original ideas usually being laughed at, insulted, or refused for being less efficient or un-"uber".

The same mindset is prevalent in PvP where many great builds get laughed at as they are not the popular norm.

Guild Wars is about winning, not fun, skill or challenge and it's a core philosophy which feeds on itself.

Other MMO's have a better design in this regard, as did GW pre-factions, in conjunction with majority opinion against such options, or at the least the freedom to completely ignore such mindsets and play with others who want to challenge themselves.

I would also add non-subscription has a lot to do with it imho.Most subscription games I play have vastly superior communities in every regard.

GW can be a bit of a tard magnet as far as that goes.

In a game where the main topic of conversation in public chat is often "Yo mama" insults and prepubescent arguments concerning how much someone pwns over some noob my expectations have never been overly high.

It's partially the community, partially ANet's attitude in pandering to them.

ANet's business model, from the start, was to produce a game and then milk it for all it was worth. Rather than produce a solid game and continue to support it without drastic changes, then move to produce something new that could be sold, they constantly made new content releases which twisted the game like a tree in a gale. Since they were doing this, a lot of the changes ended up just being crowd-pleasers that they felt would squeeze a bit more profit from the franchise.

As a result of this, a large part of the playerbase developed entitlement issues - partially because they were dumb, but far, far more because ANet actually paid attention. You can't compare this to WoW - tell any WoW player about the effects of PvE skills, then mention that the developers and players support these as they allow casuals to complete the elite zones, and they will laugh. Largely, the wrong kind of player mentality developed - rather than developing skills and tactics, skill abuse was encouraged.

I'm not sure whether the Guild Wars community would have degraded into the same shape had the game not massively sold out. Players should shift to fit the game, not the other way around, assuming the game itself is designed in a proper manner. I don't think Guild Wars was far off from the start.

You have to also take into account that the majority of -ORPG only- players are generally less skilled in terms of hand-eye cordination then those of other game genre's. Heck, based on some of the arguments I've seen about skill balance, it seems a lot of people don't even know what "player skill" is.

Go play counterstrike and ask them what they think of MMO's. Observe the lulz.

This is also valid. Guild Wars was somewhat of a niche game, intending to be skill based in a market where the customers are largely attracted to pretty lights and large numbers. I think Guild Wars was not the right game for a lot of players, but ANet tried to meet them halfway anyways. Meanwhile, the players who were legitimately competitive dwindled away.

i agree
for some ppl, its a lose-lose situation

the broken skills r not fun for some to use, because...well they're broken
however, gimping urself on purpose is generally not fun for most ppl either

so wuts someone who feels this way sposed to do?
use broken skills and not have fun?
or gimp urself on purpose and not have fun?
hmmmm...tough decision


qft lol
then again...aks a street fighter player wut they think of fps's...observe even moar lulz

From a company's perspective, the only thing that matters (and the only thing that should matter, if they're rational and competent) is improving the bottom line. If making the game easier results in higher profit, you make the game easier, period. It's easy to play armchair developer and discuss "pandering to the wrong crowd" or whatnot, but the job of a game company isn't to develop the best game, it's to develop the most profitable one. In an ideal world these two goals would be identical; the perverse reality is that, at some level, the two become mutually exclusive.

You know who the real "wrong crowd" is? The group with less money.

If players don't get what they want often enough, they quit. We can talk about designing games to reward skill until we're blue in the face, but you have to realize that most people don't give a shit, will never give a shit, and ultimately don't understand why they even should give a shit in the first place. You can't sell games of skill to people who approach games with all of the intellectual engagement of a cow turd. Most players don't shift to fit games - they buy games that fit them.

I'll say it again: an eternal problem of game design is that the majority of your consumers are slack-jawed morons. If you're out to design good games, you'll have to do so despite the idiot masses - find some way of tricking them into buying your game, whether it be staggered difficulty levels, pointlessly pretty graphics, braindead "achievement" trophies, or whatever other kind of idiot-coddling gimmick you can think of. They won't appreciate (and may often resent) complex mechanics and any sort of actual gameplay depth, so using that as a sales hook is naive.

As an almost four-year veteran of GW, I can say that you hit this dead-on as far as I can tell.

In the beginning, I actually cared about the characters and the storylines as everything was kind of interesting and new. Years later, I barely even care why I'm doing quests or missions on some of my newest characters. To me, they are just obstacles in the way of me getting to another title.

I think that the big problem is that, with just a few quest exceptions, the game is identical in format for every character. For the most part, the game doesn't even care about your gender or your profession. Heck, there's hardly any "role-playing" for a so-called RPG. They hand you a quest or mission and you have to do it. When go through a chapter with four different characters and it's played out in the exact same way, you end up not caring anymore. When I get a quest, I just look at the highlighted text and say, "Oh you want me to kill a boss? Okay." Then I run out and do it and don't even read the justification as it's so meaningless anyway.

Also, the game seems to put a huge emphasis on ultra-rares... The game knows which items are sought after and then it makes them rare enough to the point where even if you did the mission 50 times, you may never get the drop you wanted. As a result, this pushes people into the direction that ANet seems to like: The ultra-farmer mentality where people demand that you bring the most twinked builds to clear the dungeon or elite mission to get to the end-reward chest as fast as possible... Because chances are, they are going to have to do the scenario all over again. If you don't have that build, then you may as well just get your own private group. Because if it takes an extra five minutes to run with your build, then that's five minutes wasted.

tru...sad....but tru .___.

actually, one slight change tho
theres developers, and theres publishers
generally its the publishers that go for the $$$$
it can go both ways tho i spose

i often hear stories where devs have to change things based on wut their publishers want

but i do think that there r devs that really want to make the best game that they can

and then of course there r independent games and free games
but thats a whole other story

The problem is that the mechanics of the game aren't explicit in the game. How much energy per second does an energy pipe means, the attack speed of weapons, how armor works, how much armor do mobs get per level, and so on.

I know maths isn't fun, but cmon, do we need to find out using wild blow 5000 times?

Second, imagine you just went to your local store and bought the ultimate collection. You get dropped in prophecies, what skills do you see henchies using? Do you see healing/protection hybrid monks?

And what if you are dropped in elona? WoW heroes with half a skill bar and no runes/insignias! Would it be so hard for the designers to give the few first heroes 2/3 complete builds with a description?

People complain loads that PvE-only skills and consumables kill the skill of players, but the fact is when they get those skills they already have been tainted by crappy henchman builds.

More, the game is littered with mobs that aren't balanced either - how many frontline-midline-backline mobs are in the game?

The there is this stupid HM - people again complain about gimmicks like cryway and other tank and spank that promote no interaction, but how the hell are you supposed to interact with mobs that simply cast/recharge their skills so fast that makes disruption pointless (and interrupts almost impossible)?

Yes, loads of people are bad at this game, loads of them aren't, but this is complex game and the game tutoring is very very bad and the manual, TT, stating that elementalists are the king of damage and such...

Secondly, of course PvP players are best at PvE. GWs favor military type of teams opposed to individual fighters.

But being a soldier isn't something for everyone...

I think the whole thing is that people did improve. Some people did. Some people didn't. Newbies can't really tell because they have no inkling of what it was like to play the game before such-and-such came out.

Those who did improve don't like playing with people who keep refusing to improve, hence disinterest in PUGs. The newbies don't get the pressure to improve that the old players did, and therefore improve at a slower speed - if they improve.

Power creep? Yes. But also because people do improve, and nobody likes being bogged down. Hence, quite possibly, the lack of a desire to "teach", because the rift between good and bad players became increasingly wider, particularly after the addition of PvE skills.

The /help and /wiki commands need to be highlighted, underlined, and in glowing neon lights for any new player until he turns off tooltips.

Does WoW explain all of the "under the hood" mechanics? I'm specifically thinking of threat, which iirc players use an add-on to monitor, is that ever explained in the tutorial areas?

if people were good at this game aoe spiteful spirit and other such meanics wouldn't work. i see it all the time in ab fire eles with no snare who bring Meteor Shower like do they really think i am going to just sit there in ms?

I think this guy put it best:

You win the prize sir.

The problem is the game rules change for everybody if enough people are playing Risk the wrong way. If I want to play Risk as it was meant to be played, but the people around me are playing the game wrong, the entire game rules change so the wrong rules are the new right rules. This is the problem a lot of oldbies have with the game today.

That is true, but notice how many of the best selling games of all time are also the most challenging games of all time...

The best games don't appeal to one crowd. They appeal to as many as possible.

It's an easy given that most players are casual and don't really get the hang of games too well. But if you cater *solely* to them you'll still lose.

Catering to the casuals and also those who are experienced is where you'll strike the gold.

Wait, wait. You mean, if I cater to everyone at the same time I'll make the most money? Wow, I wish I'd thought of that. I'll bet every other game developer on the face of the planet also wish they'd thought of that. Actually, maybe they did - but realized that it's a lot easier to just wave your hands and wish your game catered to everyone, rather than actually sitting down and figuring out how to do it.

GW actually caters to more people than you're giving Anet credit for; most casual PvE players won't be found in HA or GvG, and the "hardcore PvEers" are just deluding themselves if they've never stepped foot in serious PvP. Everyone knows that PvP is the real GW endgame, which is why PvE has been thrown to the wolves.

Consider Starcraft - was the single player campaign difficult at all? Is most of the competition on B.net any good? Would you say that Starcraft caters to "everyone"? How about Diablo?

Really? The best selling PC game franchise of all time is The Sims, and by a wide margin (6 million more than #2, WoW). The best selling console games are dominated by Wii titles, Pokemon, Nintendogs, Mario, and GTA.

See:
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ng_video_games
http://www.gunslot.com/blog/top-twen...games-all-time

I'm sorry, but when Wii Sports is selling 40+ million units and games like Street Fighter and Starcraft can't even break 10 million, the game isn't the problem - it's the players.

My original analogy was based on the concept of people learning about something without awareness that it matters. Whether the clichéd statement of 'education matters' is true or not in real life does nothing to the structure of the argument. More importantly, you appear to be changing the definition of words every time you continue the argument (retain/fail is not kicking out). I don't know who or what you are arguing with at this point...

Off the top of my head, what matters is: survival, relationships (with self and others), application of knowledge, and commitment to learning. I see educated people who don’t have priorities straight all the time; in those cases education didn’t matter. ‘Education matters’ comes from the perspective where a person does not have greater priorities. Relative opinions like these have the same weight as other relative opinions; but they have a lower value than an objective one. 'Education matters' is your opinion, one based on your own priority system; you probably need to flex your degree to get what you need. I listed four things that matter more than education.

I have to completely disagree with you that GW doesn’t matter at all. It matters because any interaction is a learning experience in itself. People learn things from environments or other people. There is no fully shared view of what matters; everyone forms their own relative view. The titles and loot might matter to someone (sounds like they really matter to the person who needs the overpowered stuff), but even if they shouldn’t, how people interact certainly does. A game can involve relationships, application of knowledge, and commitment to learning. Blanket statements about how a game doesn’t matter to you don’t apply. What you do is as much a reflection of who you are as it is a determinant of who you will be. What that means is that if you are a bad player who never improves, you will carry your ethic and your behavior further into a life of failure.

Also, interaction can play a profound role in how you relate with others. After a terrible game experience, maybe you stereotype people for it. A positive game experience you can build upon when developing relationships in real life (people have in game friendships), or you might learn a good way to cope with a stressful situation. Not all lessons learned in the game will apply to specific game scenarios, but will likely relate to real life scenarios because there are real people involved. Problems with bad players are also problems with people. Solutions to those types of problems matter. That was the whole point of my analogy, but you haven't been able to make that connection to how I was referencing real life teaching and in-game teaching.

The commitment made to learning a game matters, because it is also a commitment you make to bettering yourself, which happens to also better the world around you. A person self-improves with every tiny little fact they learn. I've gained at least a few strategic insights from the game in places where I was challenged to learn. Although I have to admit, most things came from players, so I want smart players who play the same game as me. Those that give up on getting better by learning (and you can learn from anything), are outdated and they hold everyone else back because of it. You learn more valuable information playing a team game, even about yourself; than you learn watching people play pretend on TV or doing other forms of recreation.

It’s ironic that your reference to education encompasses a bigger picture, yet your view of the game doesn’t. I haven’t seen evidence to support someone giving up on making the playing experience of both yourself and the people around you better. Work for the betterment of players all you want, but don’t exhaust anyone doing it.

The only bulletproof item on your list of things that matter is the first one. The rest of it gets rolled into "quality of life", which means something different to everyone. Some people don't give a damn about relationships. Other people don't care about learning or application of knowledge as long as they can pay their bills and take a vacation once in a while. On the other hand, many people got to where they were because of their eduction - specifically, a piece of paper describing their credentials. When we're talking about things that really matter, I tend to stick to things that directly affect your ability to live - money, for instance.

You spend a lot of time and space arguing essentially that GW matters because it's a form of self-improvement. Unfortunately, most people don't see it that way; instead, GW to them is just a diversion to piss away a few hours before getting on with real life. If that weren't the case, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. For the record, I've always been in the self-improvement camp myself - but I'm able to recognize that most people don't happen to share my viewpoint. And I'm further able to recognize that the market responds to how things are - not how they should be. If we were all into games as self-improvement, casual gaming wouldn't even exist.

It should be immediately obvious that people pick and choose what they want to be good at; you could easily say that any activity you do matters simply because it is a potential learning experience, but this is shockingly ignorant of reality. People don't give a shit about GW because being good at GW has relatively little real-world benefit compared to, say, being good at your job. One gets you some insight into game mechanics and some nebulous possibility of becoming a better person; the other results in job security, pay raises, career advancement, etc.

Frankly, I don't see that we're going to get anywhere in this discussion if we disagree on something as fundamental as whether GW actually matters.

wii sports cheats because it gets sold wit the actual system -___-'
then again, the previous record holder, super mario bros, also came wit the system

and street fighter is an arcade game really...
how can u measure the sales of an arcade game?
not to mention it has many "revisions" and "ports" under different systems which get counted separately
sims and its 20+ expansion packs....gw and its 3+1 games/expansion...starcraft and its expansions...etc, all get counted together

starcraft sales r pretty dam decent if u aks me
tho i think a lot may have to do wit the international tournament scene and net-cafe scene

counter-strike sales r pretty ridiculous considering a good chunk of cs players have the "free mod" version or have the "steam" version (which if im reading correctly, didnt get accounted for in that wiki)

Meh...the Wii Sports number isn't accurate because it is a bundled game. You are also largely underestimating 10 million...thats a HUGE number by most standards. Also Street Fighter sold way more than 10 million that considering each console it was released on as well as the stupid amounts it made from arcade sales and various ports. There are plenty of other competitive games throughout the list (Halo, CS, Madden, DoA, GT, SC, SF2, MK, SSB, 007 etc etc).

I think Bryant Again put it best though...the best games fit both crowds. I do think that competitive games MUST fit both crowds to survive though while casual games do not. The rise of the Wii as cash cow "casual" system is somewhat proof of that. On the other hand, competitive games must be pick up and play for the casual gamer.

It does stem down to the fact of what originally was placed before us compared to what is available now.

When we (the people who started from the beginning of Guild Wars) stepped into the game, we were presented with, arguably, a well balanced and structured approach to starting out in the game. Quests were designed to be simple and get you involved in the game (but not push you away from it). As you slowly progressed through the game, the quest and foe level adjusted accordingly. Because you were faced with a minimal amount of skills as you progressed, no such things as tomes, heroes, skill templates and bonus items existed so you had to play the game in the way that the designers originally intended.

Granted you could still be run for max armour as soon as you were out of pre-searing but when it cost in the region of 10-15k to get to Droknar's, it was a decision a player made very carefully. And also could bring an amount of pride that they were able to afford the run.

Completing the game with henchmen was a challenge - if anyone remember's what it was like to attempt Thunderhead Keep with these limited skills and AI, then you know what I mean. Completing the game gave you a distinct feeling of satisfaction. But it had taught you enough of the basics to be able to hold yourself in PvE. Even still, walking into FoW with an Elementalist and "Flare" was frowned upon - quotes of "noob" were invariably thrown into chat. But at least you could say you understood the game based upon the learning curve you had undertaken through Prophecies.

Then we were given Factions. And imo, this is when the wheels started to come off in GW. Gone was the learning curve - levelling could be done in a matter of hours. 2-3k experience per quest was, and is, a joke. To be level 20 coming off the island if the Prophecies levelling mentality was used, is a joke. Plus once off the island, the foe levels took a sharp increase that the new player was not ready for in all honesty. The amount of whining from peeps in Vizunah Square early on as it was "too hard" was silly. They then strolled into The Deep and Urgoz and, well, QQ'd.

Then we had Nightfall and the beginning of the end in terms of playability to get the new player properly geared throygh the game. Plus bonus pack (weps, allies etc), tomes (elite tomes are good yes but man, so lazy).

But the killer for me was heroes. Now yes, we all love em (though the AI wants me to throw the PC out of the window at times) but it meant, with a small amount of work, a new player could breeze through the game really without trying. The learning curve being non-existant too once a player took his invicible wammo in DoA and got creamed.... plus, titles killed it too - people (inc. myself) became too focussed on these (little else to keep intested I suppose) and this focus invariably limited the amount of knowledge being passed down from seasoned Guildwarian to the Padawan learner.

As it's been said many times in this thread - the game is no longer what it was orginally designed to be. For those coming in late, laziness will always win. When Prophecies came out, if you wanted to get through the game, you couldn't really be lazy at all.

Just my thoughts...

You know I just have to post again to raise a very valid thought. I noticed that almost everybody in this thread who admits that they are title hunters also notes that titles were probably bad for the game in terms of direction and player skill. Just a thought.

Allow me to respecify: It's very difficult to make a game that caters to multiple interests, but you can make a game that is able to cater to multiple ranges of player skill. In this case, wouldn't that mean it's a problem of game if developer's aren't able to cater to different difficulty groups?

I notice you keep going back to Homeworld 2. Was there any way to change the settings, or was it stuck at that difficulty?

And where do you get me not giving ANet much credit, or was that more broad of a statement? I've only been a bit ticked about GW for lowering the skill threshold in PvE, but it's still one of the best games I've ever laid my hands on.

@Above: I've only hunted enough titles to get to KoaBD. Now I just go armor huntin', the thing I've done since Proph.

1. Yes alot of GW players are that bad.
2. The only decent resource would be wiki (not PvX) only because it gives you info about the game the foes the basics. Guru is not a good resource(bunch of assholes here.) PvX wont help because they will just slap on the build and never really try and understand what the skills can truly do.
3. Depends on the "good player" there are some that are great teachers but then there are others who may be good at the game(atleast think they are) but suck at teaching because if the person doesnt play exactly how they do then they suck.

Summary. Most players in GW are bad.
-New players, well theyre new.
-Ok players, not as bad as new but still not that good.
-good players, some are ok some just think they are good.
-great players, may play well but most of the time are elitist pricks(can name a few from here that fit that catagory but wont.) so are still bad.

The only ones that arent bad players are ones that know what they are doing and can be patient wit new players and truly help them out.

The last time I checked, Starcraft was still on sale. The fact that Starcraft has been on the market for so many years should be an advantage, frankly - that is, if people actually bought games based on skill, balance, and challenge.

The point of my "discours" (whatever the hell that means) is that the market isn't drawn to challenging games. There are people in this thread who continue to assert that lack of challenge is the developer's fault, and that "plenty" of the most financially successful games are also the most challenging. Both assertions are completely without merit (well, unless you think that Wii Sports, The Sims, and Nintendogs are really hard games).

And while I'd love to give you more opportunities to stroke yourself for being able to name famous players from the WCGs, your allegations about how much more skill is involved in tournament-level RTS is irrelevant. If anything, it helps my point because despite the level of skill involved, Starcraft still can't hold a candle to the best-selling games of all time, and it still doesn't engage nearly the number of players that casual games do.

What do you lose when you also, in addition to catering to the casuals, cater to those who like a challenging game?

Lose resources that could've been used further to please those who can't tell a good game from a bad? Wow, god forbid.

The equivalent here is "discourse", which is quite rarely used. Or also: "speech", "talk", and more simply "long-ish post".

(woaw, this thread has gone very off-topic )