@ op
I agree pretty much everything - except price. I know it seemed expensive at the time but from the advertising blurb and the obvious quality improvements witnessed in various trailers, GW2 did seem like a massive step forward so the pricing was probably justifiable in that respect. I'm of the belief that if you are going to get a triple A experience out of a triple A game then what you paid for it shouldn't be an issue. After all, if GW2 would have been the outstanding experience that PopCap implied it was going to be then I don't honestly believe anyone on these forums would be talking about what they paid for it - irrespective of other issues. No, price is kind of biased towards personal experience.
The one aspect of particular importance mentioned was that of community input.
What the community wants and what the developers seem to think we want are two entirely different things nowadays. How a franchise evolves is entirely at the discretion of the developers and although we think we have power to make influential decisions we don't - we're just the people who buy the product, have a little moan that it's not very good and buy the next release (albeit in slightly smaller numbers) hoping that it is better than the previous incarnation. That's how the industry works.
Or is it?
Codemasters spent years completely disregarding the community over development of their Grid and Dirt franchise - instead attempting to making a niche product more appealing to a casual audience. A decision that subsequently resulted in five consecutive years of negative profit. Of course, it's just pure coincidence that community feedback during development of Dirt Rally resulted in the company making it's first profit in several years, isn't it ?
CM insisted that the decline was for other reasons...Well make up your own mind on that one.
Core design (remember them?) spent an eternity living off Tomb Raider - spending half their existence making crappy games and the other half using revenue from those crappy games to fund an ever declining. ever more expensive Tomb Raider franchise to the point that people just stopped buying everything Core related full stop.
Instances that affected a franchise in the only way a community can realistically voice their opinions - by simply not buying the product. If PopCap are happy with the way they perceive community concerns / feedback and possible implications of just 'doing their own thing' then so be it, at the end of the day I am quite comfortable with that. As developers you are quite within your rights to move forward in any way you care to choose (you're the one's making the big investments - not us) and likewise, as a paying customer I can analyse my experience of any game and plan any future entertainment related purchases accordingly - it's not a big deal.
I have three things to say/agree on.
1. The Maps are waaaaay bigger and more opened I noticed causing it hard to push up (depending on what map) Im not sure what made them change the layouts from GW1, I wish they would of kept them the same way, dont get me wrong, the Maps are awesome, but they're just too opened.
2. Yes, very very VERY chaotic now, so many flashy things going on, sometimes I have no idea what's going on, or even see what's going on for that matter, and some times, I cant even see where Im getting shot at at times. The game is very flashy and chaotic now.
3. Legendarys are their way of to try to keep you on the game to keep playing and coming back. I think its a little wrong for someone who spent alot of time, maxed over half of the characters out and hasnt even gotten a legendary, or a character, but someone who has been on the game for two weeks already have 5.
I love the game, but my issues with it is, characters need to be nerfed/bufffed/fixed faster, the maps (I kinda got over them now), the chaoticness.
PS. I have noticed alot more people online are using Eletrobrainz and AC Perry, why? Because they see they are OP right now and are taking advantage of it. Yes this is after they released the patch notes to us. Honestly, they should of just gave us the patch notes after they released the DLC to us.
I have almost 200 hours logged into this game and I still don't have a legendary and I've spend well over 15 million coins. But as the name implies, they are Legendary which in any game, means incredibly rare, as they should be. Otherwise, why keep raking in coins if you get them all in a quick and timely fashion? You should go play WoW during the first 5 years and see how many people had a legendary item. So I have no problem with this. Though what I don't like is 5 versions of the same bloody cosmetic item, 3 for tattoos. I think having a Gem subclass was too much, and pretty disappointing for the last tier of cosmetic. I would have loved a fiery / energy / neon type of the last tier personally. (Not counting Infinity items as I hate that mode and far too time consuming to bother with)
As for the chaotic game play, I'm 50/50 on this one. There is a lot of strategy to be found in the game for using your classes to the best of their ability and countering enemy classes, and at times one area can just become one exploding kill zone. But that's because the game lots coordination / organizing between the teams. Their is no ranked play or people joining in as groups like you find in Hero Shooters so naturally there is no really team structure, just all for themselves or swarm as a hoard, now if they moved the game towards that the game itself would become no longer be accessible to your average / casual player as pickup / random groups against a formed group of players will get steam rolled in minutes if not seconds.
And it's near impossible to make a game balanced all around the board without resorting to everyone starting off in the same boat with the same gun. Someone will always find something and make an oversight in the game OP, or those special players that think outside the box and turn something believed useless into a game changing or breaking power.
This whole "I bought the game and therefore i am entitled to have all characters unlocked" doesn't make any sense. The Legendaries are not a necessity. They are not required to achieve anything or add anything. They don't make you a good player. They are just a bonus. Just think about it as something that will be unlocked over time.
The pricing is also something that is reasonable. We just have to look at other games and how they release additional maps, characters, clothing, weapons; with the price tag attached. 60 or even 70 i spent on GW2 are maybe too much if you only want to spent 10 hours with it. But for the amount of playtime so many have, it's completely worth it. The only problem i see there is the shady Preorder Bonus that can also be received by buying the Deluxe Edition. But again, every publisher does that.
The whole package that is GW2 offers enough to deserve a recommendation. The only major issues it had was the first broken Content Update that managed to crash the game across all platforms after installation and forced many players, myself included, to wait for a fix. Accompanied by a bug that forced so many players to play the intro over and over. Which just shows that Popcaps major issue is QA. And the huge balance issues inside the game just demonstrate that once more.
In the end it isn't the cosmetics, Legendaries or the crashes that made me stop playing, but the sheer lack of balance. Running statistics and throwing in your own opinions as developer isn't enough when you have a competitive multiplayer game were humans show their lowest traits to succeed in a low risk high reward fashion.
Not to forget that teamplay isn't rewarded enough, despite being a team based game. And all of that could have been avoided if the developers would have tested it properly.
And that is what worries me. As the GW franchise seems to become more and more casual friendly. With lots of colorful chaos, disregarding strategy altogether. Easy to access but no way to master it.
@Screion wrote:This whole "I bought the game and therefore i am entitled to have all characters unlocked" doesn't make any sense. The Legendaries are not a necessity. They are not required to achieve anything or add anything. They don't make you a good player. They are just a bonus. Just think about it as something that will be unlocked over time.
What you and other people don't see to understand is that you can literally not unlock any legendary item if you're not lucky enough. Plus they are going to add more and more drops with each big update. Nothing about being entitled but don't lack characters behind rng. Nobody has ever liked it and the fact you people keep acting as if it's ok is just nasty. Grow a pair.
The lack of balance made most of the people stop playing to be honest.
This upcoming patch may address some but I'm not sure why buffing the Mech helps balance anything, just looking at all these patch notes and when the game was released really does make you wonder why developers release a game that is so broken to begin with. Players have moved on now, and at least for me there is still very little incentive to come back. Real gamers like balanced games.
