Holy crap, content!

Grinding is what destroyed the game and PvE skills and titles are just the carrot to justify the grind.

Every skill I listed has had a significant buff that proved broken... except aegis which was instead due to the Glyph buff. They just chose to leave them broken in PvE.

Whoa. There really ought to be more than few centaurs and plants down there!

Your definition of 'content' astonishes me, zwei2stein.

i think they should close up a few of the mission doors in proph to stop people from skipping such a beautiful game my guess maybe have Sanctum mission gate closed until all the characters in the party have done the primary quest leading to it since just paying for a run is a sad waste

The really bad thing about this game is all the areas are static. You know what is where everytime you go into the majority of the areas. There's no adventure left after the initial exploration. Too many mmo's and mmorpgs do this as well and it just becomes a dull and boring redundant play through each and every time. Even Diablo 2 had different level creatures come at you in each successive play through and NWN's did as well as you played through the game a 2nd and 3rd time the monsters and mobs got beefed up in stats an abilities. But, noooooooooooo not this silly game. It's like romper room now as a 5 year old can beat this game.

Wow you want some cheese to go with that wine?

There isn't really any grind in the game unless you actually are trying to grind, Pve skills were their answer to making the game easier for newer or "lesser" players. I've been playing since the game came out and I still don't think what I'm doing is grinding, I'm still having fun making new builds and even going back and doing older areas I don't see often, hell even Vaqs are actually good content imo, people can call them a grind all they want, but their just being cry babies or are one of the people that have turned the word grind in to playing the game for more than 2.4 mins


Yea and Pve skills are still where it all started. Rather than players needing to get better in "harder" areas now they just add or buff a skill for Pve. I've got nothing against new players or just all around bad players, I have fun helping them, but If theres any reason for threads like this, PvE skills, Heros and the Pve meta atm is a large part of the blame. They've destroyed the games longevity with easy mode buttons.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of new content at all. Sure there are a few new dialogues and some new baddies, but they neither "wrap" up the game nor provide any replayability (aside from Dhuum's items and mini). I'm still waiting for the part where we are actually supposed to do something, but I will be patient since Anet will probably link the anniversary with the new "content."

I really missed where you'd have to go out of your way to get a skill, which had to be obtained through a quest. The feeling that you've got a new skill that you worked for motivated me to go out and explore everywhere. In Factions and NF the game handed you the skills, and in EoTN you fought in the same cramped areas with mobs that dish out heavy dps.

Same here and having to explore for your "Perfect Gear" was the cats meow also, but, then Nightfall came and changed all that and made it so easy to get anything and everything of quality. Nightfall is what ruined GW not Factions. At least in Factions you had to also adventure for your PERFECT GEAR, but, noooooooooooo not after Nightfall and then commodities came in EOTN and futher ruined the game.

I remember when Superior Vigor was such an excitement to find, now you can get them a dime a dozen. Same with Superior Absorptsion and +30hp and 20/20 sundering mods. You can BUY all that on the market now for a pittance of what they used to be worth. Remember when players were just glad to have ANY Firey Dragon Sword and would pay top dollar for one? Gone are those days. GW is just a waste of time grind for titles game now as the majority of loot is worthless to go hunting for anymore.

I hope the White Mantle vs Shining Blade conflict picks up some steam.

Right now we find things like the Shining Blade camp and peacekeeper squads in certain areas. The story part is reserved to the forum, wiki and facebook.

As they liked to use the term "viral marketing", I will use it, too. And hope that the virus will soon mature and give people something to participate in. Something more visible where people can actually do something.

The 5th bday celebration week is about to begin, and I hope I set my expectations not too high: But I expect something totally awesome!

I agree with the first part. When they added the possibilities of getting every previously learned skills from every skill trainer it was one of the worse gw-gaming days i ever had, Before that, people had to "at least get ran" to the different skill locations, but no, they had to make so the every "one" could give a high end skill just after passing through the searing...

On the second part i completelly disagree. A sup vigor is still between 20 to 25 plats in the vendor, that's pretty much still for the game being so old. In fact, they are more expensive than what they were a couple of years ago. On the other hand superior absorb (i remember paying 100 plat in the vendor) now are worthless, i can only wonder why people don't use them anymore apparently. But for the rest, specially weapones and such, if you look at them from the right point of view, whene a character can hold a top of 100k, i still see plenty of items being sold around the 20k, that's 1/5 of what the character can have, not bad. And i really wont miss the days when dumb people asked 100k +craploads of ectos for every worthless item in game, specially in a game where you can have exactly the same benefits from a collector's item which only require you to hunt a very few items. I think that not having an "everything costs more than every character can hold economy" is "bad" is good, and it's like it should always be.

Oh... DRY TOP!!! that is one of my favorite maps to fool around, i used to hunt vegetal fibers there, and for the one who i can tell never been there, no, there are no only centaur and thorns there, there are carapaces too Anyways, that map is good as it is, don't ruin it by adding some meaningless boss in middle just like happened in the desert.

I guess that adding some spice to the game is still possible, as long as it wont affect the playability specially in the normal mode (let hard mode for title hunter junkies and ruin it as much as you like, it sucks anyways) I am very surprised when im hanging around in the pre.ascalon and i still see lots and lots of newcomers to the game, and they are real nwbies (just need to ask them two or three well made questions and you know thay are new, not old players playing the newbie) and if the game is twisted int he ways that many people suggest then they wont be able to enjoy playing and going through the normal learning courve of the game.

Prophecies was the best PvE campaign, hands down. It was actually interesting exploring stuff not because you had to, but because you could. Everything after pretty much became a boring treadmill; pretty much just like WoW except you didn't really get to have much fun.... unless you're idea of fun is grinding titles to have a subset of text below your name.

(Factions was terrible)

No Factions WAS GREAT as it stopped a lot of the running through the content by requiring keys or certain things had to be done before you could move through the next gate. I loved Factions for that and the end game items after killing floozie were pretty great also.
Factions had/has those weapons that aren't maxed and you can't pull out everything from the with an expert salvage kit like NF and EOTN. Items were worth a good price until NF came along then nobody wanted much of anything except "inscription" items and wanted them for nothing most of the time. They introduced neat GREEN items and then RUINED them with NF and inscriptions as well.

Anet ruined the entire game with inscriptions plain and simple nothing else had such a massive effect on the entire game as they do.

ROFL
twelve characters.

ROFL
twelve characters back at cha Lser

I sometimes feel like I'm playing a whole different game than some people here.

Guild Wars is not about items. The inscription system didn't even come close to ruining the game.

Pretty much, which is why i find the quote below to be so absurdly stupid. that, and people complaining about things needing nerfs based on the skill's effects on pointless pixelated markets.

You're lack of intelligence is the only thing that is absurdly stupid. Too many agree with me that inscriptions ruined GW. )

Del may have an opinion different from yours, and be painfully blunt about it, that does not make him a troll.

As for inscriptions ruining Guild Wars, hardly... the addition of inscriptions ruined the market for perfect weapons but improved the game by living up to the very principles upon which Guild Wars was based... anti grind and skill over time spent.

The only thing ruined was the market for rare-perfect weapons, and I shed no tears for that aspect of the economy.

There's no advantage at the start, except... wait, have they actually told you what rewards we get for titles in GW? Or are you just talking out of your ass? I'd like to know.

Guild Wars requires grind to be competitive? I hate to break it to you, but only you give a flying RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO about your titles and epeen... go grind it somewhere else. You don't need to grind to gain perfect equipment, gameplay isn't about the gear you spent countless hours grinding for...

Well, lets see how INSIGHTFUL you are... what are the 'advantages' you gain in GW2 for all your grind?

Huh?

You don't have a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing clue?

I am not at all surprised.

They have not announced the specific rewards yet. However, they have told us, long ago, that the rewards, whatever they turn out to be, will give NO gameplay advantages. They will be purely cosmetic. So ranting about needing to grind GW1 for GW2 advantage is simply spouting nonsense.

Most of it is true, well actually everything. Its just that some titles wil give you some advantage in surten area's. But really need them.. No
And that I'll guess wont be differnt in GW 2.

O yea, to stay on topic..They "Anet" are so busy with mantle and dismantle
and of course GW 2 that they probably won't ad new zones. I really hope they
do.. but that is.....

It has been said that no one will have a player advantage over sombody who has not purchased gw1 I will not post the link .have a look at Mike o Brians statement.that will clear it up for you. It will give you something to look for and read it not skim over it

Yes. It's you.

I'd like to second this. The closer PvE equipment building is to PvP, the better, and I'm glad we have inscriptions. I only wish they would be retroactively added to all weapons from Prophecies and Factions.

Wrong.
The inscription system was the single worst thing that has ever happened to GW PvE. It has completely ruioned the FUN and thrill of getting a cool rare weapon, and turned all drops into perfect but worthless, perfect here perfect there, hundreds of boring worthless perfects go straight to the merch.

Such a horrible thoughtless implementation and completely unneeded. With such extremelly low dependance of a players success on equipment in GW (you can use 'trash' lacking a couple points or % here and there and not see any difference) While some improvements to the old drop system would have been nice back then (increasing the overall usefullness of an average drop but without making everything insta perfect and fully replicable) they went waaay too far and completely ruined the entire thing instead of improving.

Easier =/= better.

They also didn't ruin the market for perfect weapons anywhere as much as they ruined the market for all the nonperfect ones. Before a much greater variety of worthwhile drops existed. And the best ones were true treasures.

Collecting virtual treasures is one great aspect of a persistent online rpg, and I and many other collectors out there would agree that when something is easliy copiable by anyone it's not a treasure but trash.

Thankfully we still got Factions and to a lesser extent Prophecies where we can still find some really nice 'virtual treasures'. Hoping that whatever future content comes to Tyria will not ruin it but if anything improves and expands on what originally was fun about hunting for and collecting rarities.

And ended the frustration of trying to get your character set up properly. If you like "getting cool rare weapons," I have an idea.

Have to say, Inscription also ruined the market for green items too..........(along with them being super overfarmed)

If that's the single worst thing to ever to happen to GW PvE, then GW PvE must be in pretty great shape.

That's the thing right there. Player success in GW does have an extremely low dependence on equipment, by design. However, player success in GW has no dependence on the ability to find, buy, or sell rare weapons. So it's even less important to ensure players have the ability to do so, when the inscription system eliminates equipment disparities from the equation entirely.

While I don't doubt that some players get enjoyment out of collecting and discovering rare items, that's not a primary gameplay concern. It's the same as a player saying that the elimination of the attribute refund point system was the worst thing to happen to the game, because as a hardcore role-player, their role-playing was impacted by the idea that character progression was less unique and easier to change.

Gameplay changes come before ancillary items that only smaller subsets of the gaming population enjoy.

Got any proof of that smaller subset of the gaming population? I didn't think so. My proof is the more and more who agree that making things less and less valueable ruined the game as a whole. Regardless of this silliness that skill>time was all the game was about. People bought this game because of PVE content not PVP and that's been proven time and time again. They also bought it because it has no monthly fee not because it WAS touted as skill>time.

The two elements that drive a successful game like this are "no monthly fees" and "something worth playing it for". I would think your subset of population who cares about skill>time is very small. Most intelligent people want something for their time, a reward that is valueable not some "oh I'm skilled woohoo bs". lmao at these handful of ron's on this board.

So the fun in this game is all about the "little treasures"... I see...

I tought Diablo III wasn't out yet, looks like it was released 5 years ago and I didn't even notice.

Where!? *looks left and right furiously*



Oh, ohhhhh, it was a joke. Well played, Anet....well played.

Huh, you are holding the rare sword you got after running the same chest 100's of times in higher esteem than the ability to, say, build a fully functioning teambuild from scratch?

Well, of course I do: I don't care about the ability to find, buy, or sell rare items. So, with no other data, we can safely say that the subset of players who care about such things is at least one player less than the set of all players.

That was easy.


1. I think you are conflating the definitions of "proof" and "assumption". I'll let you research that one further.

2. I did not compare the values of two different subsets. I compared the effects a change has on "all players" (such as general gameplay concerns), versus "some players" (such as role-players, collectors of shiny objects, etc).

3. Your concept of a reward may be different from other players' (now we are talking about different subsets of players, by the way). While you may value a pixel based reward more than a skill/gameplay related reward, I really struggle to see how that makes you more intelligent than the player with the opposing viewpoint. To each his own, i guess.

I would like to point out that while you're saying actually well... goes against what you're saying. As much that I have to agree getting the nice items, your Fiery Dragon Swords, your whatever vanity item has gone down to nothing in value, if you're going to be farming for these weapon mods, these cute little eyecatching toys for running around in, it's really no different to "wasting your time grinding titles".

Of course, I disagree with things such as Superior Vigor being hard to get, I personally think that having gear that is "maxed out", "perfect in stats" and such at an easily accessable level is good - but as far as that goes? If people don't like it, then I think to go that extra mile should have this little grind involved, because there is literally nothing to it but looking pretty.

Finally, if something as small as inscriptions, weapon or armour mods "ruined" the game for you, then please tell me, what about the game itself? I'm pretty sure that there's far, far more things in the game to be involved in, and that the game was bought for more than that. When I was playing WoW, I wasn't playing it because I got my Leggings of the Fang and whatnot, I was playing it because the interaction offered in Dungeons was fun, it may be "searching team... found team... mash buttons", but the fact I had that sense of teamwork in my head while walking around and mashing those buttons made the game for me. Not only that, but each dungeon gave a feel of "Oh, so that's how you do it!", giving me that sense of accomplishment at the completion of one of the dungeons. The weapons and armour earned from these were a second thought - now, moving the topic onto Guild Wars, the missions in the game gave me a similar feel, yeah, I have had that "Oh God these guys are idiots" thing, but overall I'm valuing (sp?) the social aspect of it strongly, enjoying the way the instances are played out. I guess you can say I'm putting a lot more into the social aspect of the games, but the point is there is so much more in the game than an item. I'm sure nobody got any game for but one reason, and really, this is all just my personal reasoning.

In response to the topic itself, I've yet to experience the changes. Really, after the absense I've taken away from the game (And, well... yeah, the fact my account is all gah at the minute and on the road to being reclaimed), I expect some more to mess around with, and by the sounds of the recent hype and such, it's not really anything to be dissapointed about. I guess I have to say: "Can't wait until my account is back and this -image is finished".

Never tougth I'd her this from Tyla.Yeah they added some fun content. If you don't take the game too seriously, it's fun. Btw might I ask what you played in wow?

Oi! Bringing up pointless inscription discussions summon me! Don't do it too much, I'm old, so I'm trying to save energy for the new content and writing walls of text tires me.
Now I have to do it, it says so in my contract... Shame on you...!
(Skip to the end - where I go back on topic - if you don't care about this, XD)
Eh. They design a game so it isn't like the rest, and yet some come and pretend it to be like the rest too.
I though the 100K limit in golf for trades was enough of a hint.
GW was designed to spend less time 'waiting for The Drop' and more time 'using what you have'.
You don't like that? Well, the rest of the games are like that, just go to them.
But let us keep GW as the indomitable village of proper game design it is.

In this game it does't really matter if something makes the game easier or harder. But MORE OR LESS FUN. Not "More or less fun for you", but "More or less fun for those that play the game the way it was designed to". There are many things people use for things they were not designed to. Just don't expect support from the developers when you do so.
Want to farm? Or run? Well, no one will chase you around unless you make too much cash in too little time, but if you want a special features to do that... that's naïve. "We are not getting a real trade system, and you want a running interface? XD"

Just look at Furnace of Sorrow.
Most GW players would agree that is one of the best places in GW.
Is it hard? I never found it hard. You could do it with the old henchmen before Hard Mode.
I did it just fine in Hard Mode with heroes.

Then look at the anguish.
Most people find it more frustrating than fun. Yes, everyone can set 'the build', but the monsters there are just on steroids, so most players have to set themselves on steroids if they want a 90% safe travel around there.
It's not precisely the most enjoyed place in GW for most players.
I find Urgoz or Deep more fun, there are strong monsters too, but they are not on steroids like anguish ones. And still they are all 'elite' areas.


Do inscriptios make the game easier? The game itself, no. But they make easier to customize your weapons so you can set faster the equipment you want.
They make it easier to use what you find. That won't make monsters die faster neither would give NPC you have to protect more health.
It will just make you spend less time finding a drop that fits your cool new armor and it's also maxed in stats.
And that makes the game more fun, because you waste less time setting stuff, and more time DOING stuff.
Getting gear in GW is setting! Setting appearance, setting type of damage, setting additional properties...
Just settings! Done in an RPG-ish way, but still settings.

Hey, If you just one a huge settings panel and no real game at all, suit yoursellf. I'd rather watch shiny sparkles on screen and generously bossomed women than a bunch of numbers. I'd enjoy more text-based hack and slash games than the best panel of settings you can imagine.

Again, if you don't like more playing that setting, GW may not be your thing, and you should try other games. For example, Granado Espada has good graphics, low requirements, lots of grind, and great trading system I only wish GW had. If you have already paid for GW so they can keep developing. then it's fine and you can leave.
Just don't forget to buy GW2 too. Since it will have even more separated PvP and PvE, they may bring that seek-gear thing you inscription-haters want.
I won't mind if they do it right as part of of the design, as long as gear gets automatically balanced when you enter 'pure' PvP.

But for GW, as it is now.... a sword is 15-22 max, and you won't find a better one, just one with a skin you may like more. You won't find a yellow named one with 20 properties, or a gold one with tons of unique properties like in Diablo II. Items had just two skins at most in Diablo II (normal and unique), for gods' sake! In GW a sword may have... how much? Over 70? 100?
A sword is fixed base+variable modifiers, and that's it. With limited combinations, you find them all rather soon. You shouldn't be surprised by that. In GW, which is rare is the base, not the variable properties.
So why did they made drops like that in Prophecies and Factions?
Because Prophecies had VERY FEW skins, so even when they didn't designed the game to spend all the time looking for the drop, the rarity was too low even for GW. You were getting the same bow all the time!
So they made a little sacrifice and faked rarity by making one of the variable properties fixed to the item, because by the time Prophecies was released it was easier than adding +50 more skins.
Factions had more skins, but the system carried to it, since it was already made.
But after they managed to make the new system, in the new areas (and anything new since then, like reward chests), there are so many different drops that this forced rarity is no longer needed.
That means that for GW standards, inscriptions are fine in places with many different drops.
To add them to Prophecies, more different drops would make sense.
Wouldn't you want to have more and even new skins in Prophecies and Factions, or even weapons for the new professions, instead long swords and krytan axes all the time? Even if with that you'll have to get inscriptions too?
Or you'll rather stick to a limited set of 10..15 skins each for 6 weapons, without being able to customize offhands and wands and getting silly drops like the very same raven staff again again with properties like "req12 Soul Reaping r -> +1 Divine Favor? And NEVER getting anything at all for your Assassin, Ritualist, Dervish or Paragon? No, don't answer that... *Sigh* I know I will not convince you. I just inform you.
Ok, done, back on topic.
I always bitched about how empty Kryta felt, and how it seemed as if everything was pushed towards the end in Prophecies. No. Not just for Prophecies. But also for expansions.
Factions come, Prophecies doesn't get anything for factions profesions.
Nightfall comes, they get things for old profesions including those exclusive to Factions... but Factions or Nigtfall get nothing for new profesions.
Playing as an elementalist from Prophecies to Nightfall feels better than playing a Dervish from Nightfall to Prophecies.
We can't change that now. Adding more skills would be a balance hell. And new items to drop in old areas would just take too much time and resources.
Now that the game is so old, we can't just make 8-member parties from Lion's Arch, neither increase levels so they start being level 20 around kryta and keep increasing towards level 28 in Southern shiverpeaks and level 30 in the Fire Isles. But that won't change that I think is should have been that way.
So it was always nice when they added things to do in those empty places.
A fishermans trades fish here, a new area can be entered there... but those were still very puntual changes. And many places in Prophecies areas were just visited for maping.
Now we have people walking around there, looking for Peacekeepers and special encounters with dialogs and little pieces of the story.
Isn't that great?

Any new addition there, any, would be greatly welcomed by me..
And anywhere else for that matter.

my lack of intelligence? you didn't even use you're properly, pot, meet kettle.

having an opinion =/= being a troll.
so tell us what this game is all about oh enlightened one. oh wait, your view seems completely backwards, you should probably stop telling people they're wrong when you don't seem to understand what you're talking about.

he's pretty much talking out of his ass, optional grind for optional shinies in gw2 requires no grind to function in guildwars. so his entire point was moot.