The Things We Forget About GuildWars

This is a bit of reflection from a long term (but not "consant" player).

GuildWars

• Beautiful Graphics & Music
• On-Demand Downloading
• Free Monthy Play
• Skill Vs Grind (On MANY Levels)
• Constant Change

GuildWars featured beautifully graphics and top quality music when it came out. In addition the enhancements to the game engine (going from Direct X 8 -> 9) the enhancements to add 3d sound via EAX and DSound. All this was AFTER the game launched.

On-Demanding Downloading isn't so much a "feature" anymore, but when GW came out, it was a big thing. Every MMO had to be download and updated completed. This lead to new install and updates taking hours, and semi-frequent complete server downtimes. Most games do this now, however GW was one of the first.

Free Monthly Pay - The original design of Guild Wars is free play with a new campaign coming out every 6 months (staggered so in truth each campaign had 1 year of development. From Interviews the Dev's made it clear it was there job to make a compelling game that you want to buy.

They decided to go with a different model but still making GuildWars 2 free to play. There also an increase the amount of in-game store items in GW1, but feel they haven't crossed the line on the skill vs grind (see that section for more).

Skill vs Grind. Guildwars focus on skill, not time or "gear". That not to say there not grind, but in perspective, to mmo's, there isn't any. It's easy to get to lvl 20, acquire skills, get great "plain" looking equipment. You can, however, grind for great looking stuff, with same combat value. Instant map warping, etc.

Constant Change - If you play guild wars for any amount of time, the fact is it will change. Especially Skills. If you played from the start... DRASTIC system changes / evolution. Some Examples

• Unable to lower attributes without speding points you "earned" with XP.
• There were no runes to cusomize armor, the armor and type determined the special properites
• Chests to open ..... without keys
• There wasn't "allaince battles" until after Factions.
• There were no "end game / reward" zone after you beat the oringal campaign.
• Mini-pets didn't exist, it started as a "were sorry Faction Collector's Edition was delayed" here's a free gift.
• "Titles" didn't originally exist at all.

as some highlights.

The biggest this is to have fun, if you don't find the game fun, find another guild, or expand you social groups. You can also take a break, I've taken a 6 month break even.

Even when I get bored, the amount of time I put in to GuildWars far out weighs any "cost" I've ever played.

Guild Wars was great until Factions, where it became apparent that ArenaNet was making things up as time goes by.

This had already been established.

Something wrong with a long time player that likes playing guildwars off and on?
I do realize guru tends to be a bit on the negative side of things

Sooo......... where is the change now?

Removal of Team Arena, Hero Battles (replaced with Codex Battles), Adding Nicholas the trader, for example.

Codex is a failure for 50% of the PVP community and 100% of the PVE community. I'll give you the Nicholas and Z-quest updates but these updates are now being injected into a dead game, along with the nerfs to SF and 600

I've always felt GW maintains three types of play styles (not orginal design but outcome).PvE, Casual PvP, and Competitive PvP.

Guru is positive when they feel the game is positive. Sure people will always bitch, but you should notice that people around here have been upset for a while and there are just as many reasons for that as your "good" list:

1. The XTH has been down for almost 8 months with no word.
2. The skill balance is 2 months late on the "new" schedule.
3. Ectos are skyrocketing because of Dhuum's addition and the nervousness over the SF/600 nerfs.
4. The PvP meta has been stagnant for around 5 months, if not longer.
5. Most of the new "content" added since April has come at a price - namely a monetary price. Many players don't like that Anet has moved from a free-to-play/expansion based model to a micro-transaction model.
6. The amount of lag in-game has been horrendous for months. Almost every time I play now I hear players complain of this and many GvG matches (including mATs) and HA matches have been won or lost based on who DC'd first.
7. Account thefts and account security has become a real concern. People no longer trust Anet to protect their account, and many are refusing to buy from the in-game store for fear of being accidentally banned.
8. Server issues have now been finally admitted to, which is something many players would have loved to hear a long time ago.
9. SWay, FC Bloodspike, and other terrible shitter builds have been in the meta for months and Anet has still yet to do anything about it.
10. There has not been a skill functionality change for 5 months, only nerfs and balances

And those are just the things I could think of off the top of my head.

I love GW and you're right on a lot of points, but the reason so many people around here are upset is because they love(d) this game and have seen its demise at the hands of its creators.

Thank you for bringing up counter points.

The PvP seem like valid concerns, my style of play falls in to pve, and casual pvp.

I haven't seen much in the way of server lag, at least in the methods of what I play, outside of the three winterfest towns. I won't say it's not happing in pvp however.

The growing ingame store has come close to the skill vs grind, however I don't think they crossed the line yet. This is something i'm looking at closely for in GW2, and if they do cross will evaluate and see if GW2 is something I'm willing to play.

They always messed around with FOW/UW farming, I don't think this has changed. The price of ecto can swing widely with speculation.

I like the added security change they done with the challenge, I know it's not perfect, but should help a bit.

The purpose of that post wasn't to list problems that counter your points. The purpose was to point out that if a Guru member is angry or "negative", they probably have a good reason.

Many of us love this game and are unhappy about the direction the game has taken. And the latest community relations model of "Just don't say anything" isn't helping.

or take video games WAY too seriously.

I always thought it was a good base for a game.

I think things were so experimental though, that it has not always been a smooth ride for players. The MMO aspects were the most experimental and the hardest for Anet to manage by far. I think it's interesting, that if they had went into single-player RPGs like Bioware or Bethesda they'd get a million times more appreciation than they do.

So I wish them luck with solving the difficulties of MMO's. In many ways they might always be in the middle of player backlash, because it's super complicated to make a game that's playable for years. Ironically the GW series works much better if you just look at it as a campaign you play and put aside, which is what they've said before they expected people to do, although I don't know why. You put the MMO hooks in people are going to expect something out of the game, a long life, a lot of content... a USE for the MMO part in other words. Hopefully GW2 gets that from day 1... otherwise they should just make single-player games.

trouble is, a lot of people here don't consider your opinions valid unless you play competitive PvP. I for one think that's a load of bull, but I guess my opinions aren't valid either :P

At any rate, the player base is stupid for expecting the same ammount of stuff to be cranked out while the team is heavily working on a second game.

Anet is also failing in their priorities with GW. They are cranking things that many view as unnecessary, while ignoring things that need to be adressed (see karate's list)

Or that could be the problem

The team that works on GW "supposedly" doesn't share resources with the team that works on GW2. I've even been told by Linsey that that is a poor excuse.

I'm just saying if you have a group of.. 5 people cutting down one tree, you can't expect them to cut down the same tree in the same time with 2 people working on it.

I mean, I'm under the impression that the same people that have been working on GW are now working on GW2. Therefor I can assume that less people are working on GW1 now that GW2 is being developed (which is a he'll of a lot more than one metaphorical tree)

The GWLT is made up of 8 people (source). iirc, there used to only be 3 on the Live Team and separate team for skill balancing and CR.

I honestly don't see much wrong with the game but to each thier own:
PvP, I don't really care (FYI just because you PvP does not mean you are better or that PvP is better, I know most people are not that way but there are plenty of them out there.)
High End Farming? I have no plans to buy more super expensive skins so I don't really care. FoWSC is fun enough and a decent source of income but I will not complain when it is nerfed. Nor am I complaining that It is to easy to farm.
Lag? I don't get any here, and when I do it's not that bad.
XTH? You can't have free money, boohoo.
Skill Balance? Don't PvP doesn't effect me.
Micro Transactions? If people want costumes and at the same time help support ANet and make my experience better I say let them.
Account Security, while I have not been hacked I do agree ANet could handle this better.

So while there may be issues with the game for some people I feel it is still plenty of fun, and thanks OP for bringing up all the wonderful things about the game.

So if it doesn't concern you, then it doesn't matter? Well, I'm sure the gaming community will be very happy to hear this.

Your numbers 2,4,9 and 10 are the same thing.

Depends on how you read them . I'm relatively sure that Anet has done skill balance before w/o addressing major PvP issues. But of course....I could be wrong.

Keeping a 4 and a half year old game alive when they don't have too.
3 guild wars games for $50?!

They don't have to add content to GW1 and focus on GW2. An bad company would just say, "Op, done. Time for next game."

Minor lag in GW1, comparing this to other online games. GW has the least lag I have seen.

You can QQ all you want, Anet is awesome!

See here is the big problem
according to who?
Anet is not going to have the same "priorities" as many of the users of their product {many of these same users won't have the same "priorities" as each other either} so who should be making decisions about the making and running of the game?
A - the people who made it and make games for a living.
B - the random people who pump out 10,000 random ideas everyday without a clue about how to make or run a successful video game.
{sorry but "so and so sounded smart on the forums" doesn't qualify them in my book}

I'll go with A personally and if they really do such a bad job running the game I will move on to something that suits what I would like to see in a game better as I understand that I am not qualified to make videos games no matter how many ideas I have about what may or may not improve one.

If you really think Anet does such a horrible job you should walk away from their products and never look back, after seeing how most if not all other companies manage/mismanage the games that they have I'll give these guys a shot before any of the other clowns out there and if they are doing such a bad job as someone might think from reading the constant QQs on the forums how is it that they are still up and running 5 years laters when so many "bigger/better" titles and companies have bit the dust since the launch of GWs?

Happy New Year and always remember video games aren't life, when the former start seeming too important perhaps it's time to get back to the latter!

Peace

No I am saying that it does not effect EVERYONE, while you want those things fixed does not mean they are the most pressing matters. There are plenty of Casual PvE'ers just casually playing and maybe working on titles that don't care about your list. Your points might be important, but don't say ANet is dropping the ball because they wont fix your problems.

You must have misunderstood me. I was intentionally using looser descriptors to try and just include myself and a vaguely sized group of others (because we know from the threads here and on GWW that they exist).

I'm not saying that my list has priority. Hell, I wasn't even claiming it as my list. I was just trying to think of things that I've heard people complain about recently in-game, on here, or on GWW. And for the most part, it's a valid list of concerns.

Sorry then for accusing you, my apologies.

The biggest thing that people forget about GW is the fact that anet does not owe us a damn thing.

The esteemed poster above me made a whole long list 1-10 of qq's, but he forgets ANET doesn’t owe us a XTH, nor a word about XTH. He forgets they don’t owe us a skill balance. They don’t owe us a skill-function change. They did owe us security measures, but they fixed the problem that came from their end. We got what we paid for. They don’t owe us a holiday snow, a new hat, a new pet, or new quests.

what I hate is that while they made this great game that everyone loves so much, (this is a fansite after all - haters don’t bother to show up, no matter how negative the posts get.) the devs seem to have reached a point that they just don’t care anymore.

I always have and always will enjoy GW. I see a lot of miserable fools on here always whining endlessly about this and that completely forgetting about how great a game GW is down at the core. All i can say is i'm so glad i'm not that jaded and ungrateful.

I love teh guildwarz.

I don't remember claiming that Anet owed us anything. I remember suggesting that it is a list of player concerns, but that's all.

Please, all anet has to do is say it (they're already acting like it) and I'll finally have a solid basis on which to put down GW and NEVER buy another product from Anet again. Probably never from NCSoft again for that matter.

As mentioned earlier, there has not been a skill update in quite awhile. That person said 2 months, I believe its 3. This when they said they wanted to do them every 2 months and Regina or someone said they wouldn't get it out the door till January (4 months).

The level of productivity is pathetic right now. I don't blame people like Linsey or Regina specifically, but upper Anet management who think that they can hand former GW1 players the short end of the stick but that we'll still come back like lemmings for GW2. Wrong. Anet made a good game, but how they've handled the game's direction, oversight, and CR is terrible.

EDIT:
In short, they're already acting like they don't owe us a damn thing considering the microtransactions, sloppy/late updates. This has already turned people away from GW1 and probably GW2. They keep acting like it, and people who aren't fanbois will find a company that DOES act like it owes its fans a damn thing.

True, but it's not the nicest thing to do to get this stuff up and running with flaws while they knew they would sell extra accounts, only to close down XTH after a while. Just doesn't seem fair imo, but they can and owe us nothing, that's right. But there's such a thing as customer relations etc.

On topic, yes I agree with the OP, GW was revolutionising and so much fun. I also agree with Karate Jesus although some points in his list are overlapping.

And, as I've already said, I agree that the game is amazing. Otherwise I would just play my PS3 and forget about GW. And some of my points on the skill balance and meta are overlapping, but I put them like that because in the past those issues have been handled separately.

For example, you can have a skill balance w/o doing a skill "update" (changing the functionality of a skill). And you can do a skill balance without addressing the terrible meta, which has happened many times. And etc.

There are times that ANet has dropped the ball, and there are times that the player community has cried a river a bit too much.

ANet has done many great things with GW, and I cannot really say that it's turned out all that badly. Sure, there are things that I wish would be changed, things that should have been changed years ago, but since they haven't been, there's no use bawling about it. Instead, I try to keep my discussions regarding my complaints civil and I try to enjoy GW for what it is in the here and now.

Other than that, it is what it is - deal with it or GTFO. Simple.

I don't remember Guru ever being positive. At least not since I've been here. The only difference between 2 years ago and today is that there were a lot more people bitching 2 years ago.
*The first 2 points are due to their dwindling staff. I saw this coming a year ago when they changed to monthly updates, which is why I left for about 9 months. Now they are at quarterly which will hopefully stay until GW2 comes out.

*Ectos have always varied in price a lot depending on what people thought they saw coming. Hell a year ago when Ursan was being nerfed everyone was saying how armbraces would skyrocket because no one would be able to farm them anymore.

*I don't know pvp so ill stay out of this one.

*I don't know when updates came or anything as I wasn't playing, but I came back to some new things so you can't complain too much. Hell you paid at most $200 for like 4 or 5 years of gaming... You can't complain too much. They are adding things that don't affect the game so let it be. Once they start selling tradeable things in there I would start complaining. People were complaining about the BMP as well... who cares, a couple new skins that you can't get, big woop.

*Anet has already said what causes these account thefts, and it has nothing to do with them. Hackers have lists of emails/accounts/passwords from other games, they decided to try them on Guild Wars to see if people were dumb enough to keep them the same, some people were. End of story.

*The only server issues I have had are high pings in a Kamadan district or 2, and maybe one EotN district. otherwise, lag free here.

*Again, I don't know pvp, but if they fix these builds there will just be new ones for you to complain about...

*again, it's a dying game that hasn't had much revenue coming in for the past year+, what do you expect? They try to get some more by the in game store and you complain... They can't make everyone happy with no money.

I'll agree with that, but I'll also say that it was inevitable with their business model. There is a reason why WoW is so popular and has as many updates as it does... and it all has to do with money. If you can't pay a dev team for your game you aren't going to have any development lol.

1. If you paid attention to what was said about the xunlai house you would realise there is a huge coding issue and someone has been working on it. Would u like them to say oh were close to getting it working but there are still a crap load of problems with it? Or do you just want your free zkeys each month?
2. I can not argue there but with the skills that they said would be balanced the amount of chaos it could bring to the game might well be worth the wait while the test krewe checks it out.
3. Why does it matter that ectos are going up? I remember when they were 14-15k each and it would be nice if they get there again.
4. The pvp meta is what the player makes it. It has been stagnant since factions. Back when it was just proph people actually used there heads and made builds. Now its everyone runs the same build. Be creative and make a build to rip meta to shreds.
5. The new content being the costumes. they do not add anything to your game meaning that it is not going to make you better or worse tehn one person if you have them or don't. Therefore doesnt matter. Storage panes are the same way.
6. The lag issue is a problem but as stated by someone else. It is much worse on other mmo's
7. Account thefts and secruity are not anets fault. I believe that someone hacked the ncsoft site for those. As well as people using there ingame acc names and passwords on guru and wikis. Anet had nothing to do with those being the child company to ncsoft. Get ur facts straight. Oh btw the in game security question is anet trying to semi fix ncsofts issue.
8. They do not have to explain the server issues if they do not want to. Maybe you would like them to shut the servers down every 4 days for 6-12 hours like Wow used to for maintence?
9. Sway and fcbspam do not hold halls except during noob hour and even then they only win once. IF you can't beat them then your playing really bad.
10. This contridicts itself. There has not been a skill change for 5 months only nerfs and balances. That would be changing skill funcuality.

There's the core of it.

We paid for a role-playing game. Do we expect Oblivion or KotOR to hold our interest forever? No, because once you've finished the content, you might run through it once more, but after a while you stop playing. Oblivion was my favorite game for about a year and a half. Finally, I burned through all the content and was done. I play it perhaps once every few months or so, when I'm bored with my MMOs. Do we blame the company for that? No, we understand that role-playing games have a finite lifespan, and that companies can't just add expansions forever or the content is guaranteed to deteriorate. It's the gaming life cycle. Game is born, people enjoy the game, people finish the game, people grow bored of the game, a new game is produced that catches their interest. It's not the companies' fault.

The problem lies in marketing Guild Wars as an MMO. Sure, they can BS all they want about it being a "competetive online role-playing game", but people expected an MMO. Trouble is, MMOs AREN'T expected to have a lifespan. They're expected to go on indefinitely until some newer, better game comes along (and even then hover on for years with a small but devoted playerbase - see EverQuest). But while the multiplayer activity can extend a game's lifespan, no game can last forever unless it's constantly being updated and injected with new life by means of fresh content and reworking of existing mechanics. It's how things work.

But you can't do that on a traditional singleplayer payment option. Eventually, it gets expensive for the company, and they can't afford to do that and stay in business, because unless they're producing major expansions that we pay for, those updates are probably free. Company is losing money, so it cuts costs, scales back. Now the playerbase starts to lose interest; people quit. The rest get needy, start complaining about the lack of stuff. Company struggles to keep them entertained for a few more years while they produce a new game. Eventually, the juggling act is bound to fail. ANet realized they were screwed.

But because we think of GW as an MMO, we expect it to go on forever, and it CAN'T, because it's not really an MMO at all but merely a single-player game with multiplayer capability (and I think we've noticed this more and more as ANet has made it easier for people to live without other people). So we keep denying that the game is simply coming to the end of its lifespan.

Ultimately, it comes down to the payment model. It was a lovely attempt, and I applaud ANet for making the effort. But it can't work, not as an MMO proper, because it can't support the constant change an MMO requires. So unless we learn to accept the fact that any game on this model is going to die after a time, I see this same argument sparking up again the minute GW2 starts to wind down.

It's why I stopped beating myself up over slowly switching from GW to WoW over this past year. I had a great two years with Guild Wars. I still enjoy spending time with my friends there and playing when the festivals come around. But that game's life is ending, and that's just the natural course of things. I'll be happy to play Guild Wars 2 for a few years or so. But in the meantime, I have to face the truth that MMOs as we know them can only be maintained on a subscription or microtransaction system.

*tilts head* Isn't points 9 and 10 the same as points 4 and 2 (respectively)? Isn't point 5 false (Menagerie, zquests, codex, nicholas, dhuum vs pet unlock pack, costumes... something I missed?). I am unaffected by 6 (except this last week), so not everyone is affected by bad lags for "months."

Sounds like a some of the QQ is just fluff to me then. ^^

However, said Live Team, is relatively small compared to an average game developer team. What is it, 2 designers (Linsey and Rober), a programmer (Joe), and the QA? No artists, no model designers, limited programming abilities (due to there being just one).

Yeah, they're really going to crank out "good" updates and "perfect" skill balances (by good I mean Sorrow's Furnace sized, by perfect I mean addressing all the skill balancing issues seen currently, such as the PvP meta and farming). Now, of course, there is the Test Krewe to help out, but that's basically expanding the QA, so it doesn't help with where it is needed for the stuff people are "demanding."

My source (TK), shows a few different people, but still, only 3 people do the needed work to get things done faster, everyone else is just there to check for bugs and give comments on how to change skills: I.e., the QA.

Hm, last time I saw, exploiting something was a bannable offense. Not that it matters to me since I don't do that junk anyways.

/sigh. For the last time, that list is a representation of what I've heard other complaining about. It is not a personal list of mine. As a matter of fact, several of those issues I am completely unbothered by.

Damn, people.

I respond to posts one at a time, and usually don't remove responses when it was covered. But I never did say it was a personal list of yours. I was simply stating that your list can, in fact, be condensed. The more points, the more it sounds like you're trying to degrade the Live Team, especially with unnecessary points which is practically the same, though more specific, than previous points.

Lets face it, ArenaNet built an outstanding game for it time in Guild Wars. Like anything man made it has it’s flaws, but Guild Wars has a lot less of them than most games do. We all have things we want to see “fixed,” but how often do these things make the game unplayable? Very rarely. The fact that they are even maintaining the game should be considered a feather in their cap.
Everyone knows that there is a skill update coming; everyone seems to be spending a lot of time trying to figure out what exactly that update is. As I see it, ArenaNet is trying to figure out how to fix the skills without actually breaking them or drastically changing their base functionality. If ArenaNet did not care they would have a simpler task ahead of them, they would simply bring out the nerf bat.

Thats true. it is rare. but when it does happen, (and yes there is one right now)
and doesn't get fixed, it shows a certain attitude toward the game. My comment wasn't actually a qq about 'fix Zos Shivros nao', but an observation that at one time, there was NO way that would have been allowed to last overnight. Now, as I said, they wont bother to make what is a simple spawnpoint fix, nor bother to ask a certain crap-fest phail fansite whose name I never mentioned (but KJ did - but its ok real players dont use that site anyway, its for the phail-folk) to take down the directions it has posted on how to screw over legitimate players.
Since they wont bother with these simple actions, I say it is ANET who has forgotten some of the great things about thier game.
it wasnt all that off-topic.