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Can't sell the game to new players!


Kite.2510

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I love the game! I'm playing it since launch!But I have a hard time convincing anyone to join, and lets face it, the game has some major flaws. First and foremost is the mistreatment of new players, and I can't exactly lie to them! It's not exactly that they are doing nothing for them. It's just that they completely ignore those who are coming it blind in terms of franchise knowledge and for every positive the game had, it's followed by a big "but".

  • The game doesn't have subscription, but there are some mandatory purchases one has to make!
  • The vanila game is free, but it sucks compared to the rest (leaving a bad first impression).
  • The story is very good, but not the initial one! It's very poorly told with your character having wooden dialogue and having you meet your new best friend in each act.
  • Your goal is to fight the world ending elder dragons! But the climaxes on both the vanila story and expansions are unfinished (Zaitan fight is in beta state & HoT is obviously missing a few chapters near the end).
  • You can buy both existing expansions at the price of one, But you'll have to pay a crap ton of additional money for the living world content where most story is told.
  • The game's leveling system keeps old content relevant, but once you learn a mastery, you cannot experience the game without it again!
  • All of the game's attributes mater for all classes, but if you are not playing with offensive attributes you are playing it wrong!
  • The game has Dungeons! but, they are pretty much a joke in terms of balancing, and the devs have abandoned them for newer stuff.
  • The game has guild missions! but they haven't been updated in many years!
  • You can follow all the story up to the current patch (after paying) but the season 1 story is lost for good.
  • Good news! They are adding back season 1 in repayable form... But, they are adding it back at a late story season 5 area as mini dungeons!...
  • Each expansion offers new gear with new start combinations, but they are much harder to make and have no significant advantage compare to the one you are getting easily in the vanila game.

Lots of small and big problems are being left here and there that no one is going back to fix them.The recent patch was a disappointment, as for once we though that the missing season was going to be added back, but it looks like Arena is trying to please the wrong audience!Why would you lock Season 1 on mid season 5 content?It doesn't make any sense!...

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You either like the style (core philosophy) or you don't like it. What I mean: The idea of having no gear treadmill and stuff like that. Open World events and stuff. (I really like it. I even like the repeatable renown hearts in LS3 atm where I play trying to catch up to the latest stuff. They give me additional XP for levelling masteries.)

Not hard to reach level 80 - makes it easy for beginners. (I had a hard time ages ago when I played WoW and it felt like it was impossible/slow to solo level a char and make money and I stopped before a single char got max level.)

Those problems you describe exist. But I guess any game has it's problems. Players should decide if they would like such a game (without gear treadmill) - then giving it a chance. If they like gear treadmill they should play other games.

The story is a problem. I just answered in the other thread about players having to buy the seasons. I agree on HoT story: Felt rushed near the end. Pretty undrewhelming. Season 3 at the beginning already feels much better than HoT to me. I also like the unique maps so far. Considering the S2 maps are for free and S2 doesn't add much more then achievements + the story itself ... I can't understand why it is that much more expensive to get it than S3 when it should be cheaper than S3.

Imo the best option would have been to add the stories previous to an expansion to the following expansion for free instead of combining HoT and PoF. (Giving S2 for free to HoT buyesr. Giving S3 for free to PoF buyers.) Would have been a better strategy than selling HoT+PoF with missing parts of the story that the player still has to buy later.


What I personally like (and I'd use when trying to sell ... and only trying to sell to people that might like it) is the PvP conquest (yeah a lot of people hate it, I like certain maps and side mechanics), some jumping puzzles (yeah it is bad that every new playrer goes for mounts making core map vistas easy where 1 or 2 might have been interesting to get to in the "old" way) and the community. (Nice to see people heling each other in jumping puzzles and stuff.)

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I'm going to try and address all of these points, so I apologize in advance for grammatical/spelling/general coherence errors.

The game doesn't have subscription, but there are some mandatory purchases one has to make!That's partly true. You don't have to buy anything, really, you can just grind...but let's face it, time isn't something a lot of us have so I do understand this point to an extent.

The vanila game is free, but it sucks compared to the rest (leaving a bad first impression).

I didn't think it was that bad, to be honest. That's my opinion, though. They say mileage may vary and that is certainly true with the full extent of the game, expansions and all.

The story is very good, but not the initial one! It's very poorly told with your character having wooden dialogue and having you meet your new best friend in each act.

How is meeting your new friends bad, exactly? And this is an MMORPG, you shouldn't expect Atlus quality storytelling. It seems as though a lot of people's expectations storyline-wise is a bit too high.

Your goal is to fight the world ending elder dragons! But the climaxes on both the vanila story and expansions are unfinished (Zaitan fight is in beta state & HoT is obviously missing a few chapters near the end).

But that battle is by no means in beta; it's been out for some time, now. I do agree that Victory or Death can be buggy as hell, though. Also, don't get me started on the Hearts and Minds scenario, soloing Mordremoth is not fun when everyone glitches out.

You can buy both existing expansions at the price of one, But you'll have to pay a kitten ton of additional money for the living world content where most story is told.That's a fair point, but I'm going to disagree and I'll tell you why: An expansion, yes, an expansion, not just an extension, is around $50, Monthy subs are around $17.50 a month, or $210 a year. Considering for better or worse that expansions come out every few years and once you pay for the expansion, you get the subsequent stories that follow for free, that price becomes incredibly negligible in terms of returns and playability.

The game's leveling system keeps old content relevant, but once you learn a mastery, you cannot experience the game without it again!

That actually does suck, now that you mention it. I can't contest this point.

All of the game's attributes mater for all classes, but if you are not playing with offensive attributes you are playing it wrong!

Very subjective and a bit biased. Sorry, not everyone plays meta and they do just fine.The game has Dungeons! but, they are pretty much a joke in terms of balancing, and the devs have abandoned them for newer stuff.

Agreed, and I really don't understand that; dungeons have so much untapped potential that it's really sad.

The game has guild missions! but they haven't been updated in many years!

Can't deny that, either.You can follow all the story up to the current patch (after paying) but the season 1 story is lost for good.

Let's be honest, that was just a bad design flaw. I think they were still experimenting; not an excuse, of course, but it is what it is.Good news! They are adding back season 1 in repayable form... But, they are adding it back at a late story season 5 area as mini dungeons!...

Each expansion offers new gear with new start combinations, but they are much harder to make and have no significant advantage compare to the one you are getting easily in the vanila game.

I see those kinds of things long term goals, to be honest.

Lots of small and big problems are being left here and there that no one is going back to fix them.

Agreed, the patches have bugs and the bugs have patches and then we have more bugs because the patch broke something else. It's like that in ALL MMORPGs, not just Guild Wars 2.The recent patch was a disappointment, as for once we though that the missing season was going to be added back, but it looks like Arena is trying to please the wrong audience!That is your opinion, nothing more, nothing less. I enjoyed it, personally, but that's my opinion and it has equal weight.

Why would you lock Season 1 on mid season 5 content?

Technically they didn't, they're excerpts from season 1, not the entire season itself.

My opinions are opinions, not facts.

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That "kitten ton" of money for the past Living World seasons is a collective $35, outside discounts.$65 for the full spectrum of content the game has on offer. I payed about double that amount for the main releases since 2012 and even missed one or two episodes when they came out. I bought them converting gold to gems.

Season 1 is not back. Four instances from it are. They are there where they are because they wouldn't make sense for new players as these missions have no apparent cohesive story when played in a row. If and when, and that's a big IF, the full season is reworked to be playable again, and only then should ANet put it back into the right place in the Story Journal.

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@"Kite.2510" said:I love the game! I'm playing it since launch!But I have a hard time convincing anyone to join, and lets face it, the game has some major flaws. First and foremost is the mistreatment of new players, and I can't exactly lie to them! It's not exactly that they are doing nothing for them. It's just that they completely ignore those who are coming it blind in terms of franchise knowledge and for every positive the game had, it's followed by a big "but".

  • The game doesn't have subscription, but there are some mandatory purchases one has to make!

which ones exactly?

  • The vanila game is free, but it sucks compared to the rest (leaving a bad first impression).

it is good enough that many new players I mentored in the past bought HoT/PoF or HoT&PoF

  • The story is very good, but not the initial one! It's very poorly told with your character having wooden dialogue and having you meet your new best friend in each act.

it is a starter story to set you up. A lot of things need to be done in short time. Of course some stuff is rushed.

  • Your goal is to fight the world ending elder dragons! But the climaxes on both the vanila story and expansions are unfinished (Zaitan fight is in beta state & HoT is obviously missing a few chapters near the end).
  • You can buy both existing expansions at the price of one, But you'll have to pay a kitten ton of additional money for the living world content where most story is told.

which is a CHOICE. You are not forced to do story. Or do content where you need the mastery. Your choice.Also ANET needs to make money (shocking, I know). So make people pay for old content they want to experience is IMHO a good decision.

  • The game's leveling system keeps old content relevant, but once you learn a mastery, you cannot experience the game without it again!

And why would you want to experience the game without autoloot, 5th downed skill or gliding?

  • All of the game's attributes mater for all classes, but if you are not playing with offensive attributes you are playing it wrong!

Really? Tell that all the heal firebrands, cleanse scrappers and support tempests out there. You can make a stupid build and still enjoy open world.Which is why so many people in instanced content struggle. Open world is so forgiving, you don't have to care. Just play as you want.

  • The game has Dungeons! but, they are pretty much a joke in terms of balancing, and the devs have abandoned them for newer stuff.

They are not a joke, if you play them at the levels they unlock.

  • The game has guild missions! but they haven't been updated in many years!

And many guilds don't even do missions, because they are busy with fractals, raids, metas, wvw.

  • You can follow all the story up to the current patch (after paying) but the season 1 story is lost for good.

a sore point.

  • Good news! They are adding back season 1 in repayable form... But, they are adding it back at a late story season 5 area as mini dungeons!...

how else?

  • Each expansion offers new gear with new start combinations, but they are much harder to make and have no significant advantage compare to the one you are getting easily in the vanila game.

really? I had a hard time making my first full viper and minstrel set. Diviner gear was a joke in comparism. And of course you can always get yourself wvw/pvp armor and select any stat you want.

Lots of small and big problems are being left here and there that no one is going back to fix them.

like buggy events? Yes.

The recent patch was a disappointment, as for once we though that the missing season was going to be added back, but it looks like Arena is trying to please the wrong audience!

what is 'mission season'.

Why would you lock Season 1 on mid season 5 content?

to give people who are at that stage of the game something amusing to do while waiting for the next episode?

It doesn't make any sense!...

sure does.

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You can just tell them the game and its mechanics get better with the expansions and living world. That's pretty much what I did, butmany of my friends stopped playing because they simply don't have the time for an MMO and thus lack the investment to get into it nowadays.

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Hi there, I think it's just how you frame your selling points, because to me, reading these, it feels like you're warning me not to give it a try. It's true that there are flaws surrounding the game, but you should try to give a more neutral tone in giving information if you try to be balanced, but end with positive notes and give something that they might be looking forward to in the future. Not sure if you've had your friends tried playing, but basically you want to make people curious about what the game is to offer and try not to deter them with smaller details. Though you have your opinions formed about the game already, make sure it's not affecting your friends' opinion aka let them dip their toes first and form their own.

If I am allowed to make some suggestions, here's how I'd frame some of the game selling points:

  • There is no subscription fee, you just need to buy the game once, or until the next expansion. There are some story content updates that you have to buy if you want to play them, but you can use in-game gold to unlock them. But the best thing is, these updates are free if you log in when they are released.
  • The vanilla version is free with some restrictions. It's pretty ok in terms of story and gives you a taste of the game, but the expansion is definitely giving a lot more stuff to play with and some cool features (mention gliding or mounts).
  • The story started pretty meh imo, but I think the quality is improving each patch. There are missing story parts, so at one point it will feel jumpy, but they are trying to reimplement it in some way and there is a community-made recap video if you're interested. What I like personally about the story is that they are voice acted, including your character.
  • The level system is horizontal. Most of the progressions are cosmetics, convenience, and the mastery system that lets you learn some abilities like gliding and mounting. Not every mastery is that exciting, but some like mounts are really fun and they are really different from other games.
  • There is no hard holy trinity in this game since it all depends on what you make your characters, and you're likely to have your first build as damage dealer. But roles like dps, supports & sometimes tanks exist in the context of group content in the end-game. But generally, when playing solo and open world, it's possible to experiment with different builds.
  • Since the progression is horizontal, with new updates, they also have introduced more attribute combinations. Some not really being used much, but some have definitely added new builds and playstyles.
  • There are dungeons when you level up, and similar thing called Fractal of the Mists when you're max level. Fractals are similar to dungeons but shorter and gradually gets more intense. And recently they added this thing called strike mission, which is a brief instanced mission where it's basically just a boss fight if you'd like to improve mechanical skills and get some rewards.

Anyway, good luck!

Edit: typos

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At first I thought you were wanting to sell your account for cash to another person and get out of GW2. I though: "That's damn brave of him to post it for everyone to see."

When I started GW1, the game sold itself to me. In fact I still go back to my old characters and play once a month. The hardcore gamers were always working toward GWAMM, Obsidian Armor for all their characters, and fighting their way through the Domain of Torment. The limits of endgame material focused people toward prestige armor/weapons, working in your Guild/Alliance to gain ground in Cantha, or running that perfect MTSC.

GW2 has none of those. Play within a Guild is optional (you can belong to six at once), there are no Alliances between Guilds to achieve advantage, and (as an outsider) Raids/Fractals seem to be build around the perfect combination of armor/weapons with a specific rotation of skills or you're SooL.

I wouldn't say in order to like GW2 you should start play in GW1, but it may be an option.

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@"Kite.2510" said:I love the game! I'm playing it since launch!But I have a hard time convincing anyone to join, and lets face it, the game has some major flaws. First and foremost is the mistreatment of new players, and I can't exactly lie to them! It's not exactly that they are doing nothing for them. It's just that they completely ignore those who are coming it blind in terms of franchise knowledge and for every positive the game had, it's followed by a big "but".

  • The vanila game is free, but it sucks compared to the rest (leaving a bad first impression).
  • The story is very good, but not the initial one! It's very poorly told with your character having wooden dialogue and having you meet your new best friend in each act.
  • You can buy both existing expansions at the price of one, But you'll have to pay a kitten ton of additional money for the living world content where most story is told.
  • The game's leveling system keeps old content relevant, but once you learn a mastery, you cannot experience the game without it again!

Yes i kinda agree with that . The original Story is ''too'' peaceful and it would be better if new players started on PoF (rather than the hostile doom and gloom enviroment of HoT)Or re-arrange the story , were you lost your memory from a headwound and you started on Core .Every 10 lvls (the concept of lvling is really bothering all players > when they see the xp bar slowly filling up..ugh....) there is your personal story , and every 5 lvl a fragment of your memory comes back , redoing the first half of a random HoT or PoF instance ...with the current diffuclty + Hoodie + UI haze like a mist . (and put the HoT or PoF symbol in a corner (or in the hoodie) , each time he is doing the specific istance)If you die , you cannot redo it and you will retry it ''live'' when you buy the expanion .Other npcs such as Bram wear hoodie too , because you havent met him yet and some distorted voices when you die slowly (SNAKE SNAKE!!!)

Or chance to unlock a HoT or PoF Story , while you play on Core or chance when you fully explore a map or play for 100 hours while having core

(lets not forget the Legendaries drop or something to get attached/love their account that changes visual when they buy the expanion (edit: Just like the Legendary Amror) , or flaxuates (each timet hey login) (edit2: use a different Costume?))

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For what it's worth I found out today a bunch of my friends from work tried a load of MMOs now we're all banned from leaving home and GW2 is the one they all decided to stick with, some on free accounts, some paid. The big selling points for them seem to be the ability to try it for free, the lack of a subscription and a general consensus that other than maybe a bank tab all purchases are optional, quick levelling and minimal grind and the dynamic events.

They're all quite new, and I've suddenly found myself as one of two people walking them through the game, but they seem to be really enjoying it so far.

I don't know if any of the stuff listed in this topic is going to become an issue when they're more experienced, but for now it hasn't come up.

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I don't think those points matter much to a new player, especially if they're playing with you/not alone. Just the fact that it's not subscription is enough for initial interest. As for the extra purchases, all I ever bought was one (1) character slot for a chonky charr. Let the player decide if they want to buy the Living World content, but it's by no means mandatory or necessary. It does have one of the best stories in the genre, yes, but the competion isn't fierce. The full voice acting is very nice and I like hearing the different interpretations of the same lines, cause it gives each commander a different feel (male asura sounds kinder, while female asura is maybe more arrogant for example).

New players don't care about the problems older players might face. They'll experience everything for the very first time and the game is very exciting the first time you run through it. It just becomes more and more dull with each new character you make.

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I've tried to get my friends to play Guild Wars2, Three of them played it for a few sessions: two were from World of Warcraft, and one was from Rift.The WoW players balked at the lack of tutorials, and ran around the starting zone confused by the lack of quest trees, and how killing random roaming creatures wasn't granting them experience. Even when I explained heart quests, they were still confused by the lack of direction and ultimately felt like there was "nothing to do". ( Can you imagine?) My Rift playing friend was weirded out by the npcs running up to them to ask for help (lol!) and though they were more used to exploring and learning on their own, they felt like there was nothing to achieve, since RIft has lists and lists of achievements that are easy to see. At the time, Guild Wars 2 did not have a robust achievement list like it does now and daily achievements just weren't satisfying enough not to mention - there's no tutorial that ever indicates them.My partner introduced his friend to the game - a staunch WoW player who stayed for a couple of years but eventually quit finding that they never really felt any kind of progression like they did in WOW. And it's true - Guild wars 2's model is about cosmetics rather than gear. At no point do you ever really feel particularly powerful or particularly accomplished due to this.~*~There absolutely is a problem introducing people to this game but it has more to do with how it is so different from anything else out there right now and the lack of support and guidance for newbies.

The core game is still very populated and has world bosses. For a taste of what Guild Wars2 has to offer in general I think it's very generous. The expansions and living world content have exceptionally fair prices. I don't really agree with the things you've pointed out. But I can't argue with the fact that it is difficult to get new people to enjoy the game or stay.

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@"Kite.2510" said:

  • The game doesn't have subscription, but there are some mandatory purchases one has to make!

Like in every MMO.

  • The vanila game is free, but it sucks compared to the rest (leaving a bad first impression).

The personal story (up to Claw Island, at least, quality-wise), with its branched options, is the most compelling because it feels like a real RPG where the player has a choice in how to proceed.

  • The story is very good, but not the initial one! It's very poorly told with your character having wooden dialogue and having you meet your new best friend in each act.

"Wooden dialogue"? The characters emote more in those dialogue sequences than in any of the current content, especially in regard of facial emotions.

  • Your goal is to fight the world ending elder dragons! But the climaxes on both the vanila story and expansions are unfinished (Zaitan fight is in beta state & HoT is obviously missing a few chapters near the end).

HoT is missing a few chapters? How so?

  • You can buy both existing expansions at the price of one, But you'll have to pay a kitten ton of additional money for the living world content where most story is told.

And those who have started playing earlier and got LW for free had to pay for each expansion - so, everyone gets something for free and we are all even, no? Besides, you can buy LW for Gems and don't have to pay real money if you don't want to.

  • The game's leveling system keeps old content relevant, but once you learn a mastery, you cannot experience the game without it again!

There are tons of Masteries that only work in certain maps and are generally useless. Just sayin'.

  • All of the game's attributes mater for all classes, but if you are not playing with offensive attributes you are playing it wrong!

I take it you've never played support characters in WvW or raids?

  • You can follow all the story up to the current patch (after paying) but the season 1 story is lost for good.

As you have stated correctly, we are currently being provided with Season 1 content and I believe the rest will follow eventually. There is hope now at least. But I agree that it's a shame it was never transformed into a replayable full season.

  • Each expansion offers new gear with new start combinations, but they are much harder to make and have no significant advantage compare to the one you are getting easily in the vanila game.

This is absolutely not true. Not all builds use Berserker's (or Marauders), especially outside of open world PvE.

Lots of small and big problems are being left here and there that no one is going back to fix them.

This is true, unfortunately. Bugs re-occur with new patches, and they don't seem to have the capacity to take care of them all.

Why would you lock Season 1 on mid season 5 content?

Because of The Eye of the North's scrying pool being the tool used to catapult you back in time to relive history? Yes, it's a cheap way to avoid redoing the whole thing, and it's a pity - but at least it is something. They don't have the resources to go back and work on all the non-instanced Season 1 story contents, I guess, so they decided to stick to the instanced one alone. I really do hope they will add all of the missions eventually, not just the few we got with this patch.

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Its a mistake to post such a thing i think.

Most of the people on these forums are die hard fan types.

What you listed are some of the same reasons i could not make any of my regular gaming buddies stick around.

You will have ZERO impact on this crowd though, they want nothing improved.

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Even though I've had the game for years, I think I'd still be considered a "new player" because I've barely touched it. Haven't even finished the vanilla storyline.

So let me give you my singular thoughts on what you said re: new players coming in.

@"Kite.2510" said:I love the game! I'm playing it since launch!But I have a hard time convincing anyone to join, and lets face it, the game has some major flaws. First and foremost is the mistreatment of new players, and I can't exactly lie to them! It's not exactly that they are doing nothing for them. It's just that they completely ignore those who are coming it blind in terms of franchise knowledge and for every positive the game had, it's followed by a big "but".

  • The game doesn't have subscription, but there are some mandatory purchases one has to make!

I don't really know any "mandatory" purchases anyone has to make. There are certainly optional ones. I don't consider the living story chapters to be "mandatory". For a completionist view, yes. But they aren't "mandatory".

  • The vanila game is free, but it sucks compared to the rest (leaving a bad first impression).

I actually enjoy the vanilla part. There are other reasons I don't play.

  • The story is very good, but not the initial one! It's very poorly told with your character having wooden dialogue and having you meet your new best friend in each act.

I don't have a frame of reference, since I've not gotten past the vanilla storyline. But I've enjoyed it.

  • You can buy both existing expansions at the price of one, But you'll have to pay a kitten ton of additional money for the living world content where most story is told.

Again, skippable unless you need to know the whole story.

  • The game's leveling system keeps old content relevant, but once you learn a mastery, you cannot experience the game without it again!

Can't you roll a new toon? Or do masteries carry over?

  • All of the game's attributes mater for all classes, but if you are not playing with offensive attributes you are playing it wrong!

Cookie-cutter builds exist in every game, sadly.

  • The game has Dungeons! but, they are pretty much a joke in terms of balancing, and the devs have abandoned them for newer stuff.

Yeah, bad them for getting rid of dungeons.

  • The game has guild missions! but they haven't been updated in many years!

I hate guilds. So don't care. But I know where you are coming from. Most people love guilds.

  • You can follow all the story up to the current patch (after paying) but the season 1 story is lost for good.

A lot of games have stories you don't get if you miss the time window.

  • Good news! They are adding back season 1 in repayable form... But, they are adding it back at a late story season 5 area as mini dungeons!...

Good on them.

  • Each expansion offers new gear with new start combinations, but they are much harder to make and have no significant advantage compare to the one you are getting easily in the vanila game.

That is the problem when you have horizontal levelling.

So yeah, GW2 is good storywise. There are just other reasons why GW2 isn't attractive to new players.

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@Jojo.6140 said:

  • The vanila game is free,
    but
    it sucks compared to the rest (leaving a bad first impression).

Ok so apparently we played a game that sucked for the first 3 years of its existence.

The vanilla game was fine when it launched, and its still fine now.

Most new players don't even want to play the base game. They see a veteran player riding on a skyscale and they start asking where to get a mount. They want to play Path of Fire instead.

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@Jojo.6140 said:

  • The vanila game is free,
    but
    it sucks compared to the rest (leaving a bad first impression).

Ok so apparently we played a game that sucked for the first 3 years of its existence.

The vanilla game was fine when it launched, and its still fine now.

Not quite equivalent and OP phrased it in a bad and misleading way. It is almost like it was written by a troll.

The f2p game also has additional restrictions.

@Skiravor.1257 said:Its a mistake to post such a thing i think.

Most of the people on these forums are die hard fan types.

What you listed are some of the same reasons i could not make any of my regular gaming buddies stick around.

You will have ZERO impact on this crowd though, they want nothing improved.

Actually there are plenty of things about the game I could complain about but I also know plenty of things that are good about the game. If someone tried to convince other people to play the game by telling them only the bad things? Well that is their problem. Some people are just bad at persuading people.

There is also the issue of matching game to player. Not every game is for everyone. GW2 is a bad game for a person who needs the game to lie to them about their progress. There is not treadmill to periodically inflate stats to make it look like there is improvement. The only way to improve is to actually get better. There is no point in trying to convince those types of people to play GW2. They are just going to have a bad time.

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Do new players really have to buy all the LS episodes?The season 1 story is honestly a joke unfortunately, it is just a couple instances of capturing circles and killing some mobs with little dialogue and no reference points. If I was a new player I'd be like.. what? So it makes sense they didn't put that aimed at new players now that I have been through them, it was quite sad to see how little effort went into that, why even bother really.

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Your post is a strange one op. GW2 has kept your interest for 8 years, so that's 8 years of content that's been good enough that you have got 100s - 1000,s.of hours game play, thrn you go on to list your gripes. So to sell it to new players, tell them about the good stuff that kept you in the game? I'm guessing your thread is really about your personal gripe list.

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I'm playing since 2013 and I tried to get people into Guild Wars 2 too a lot of times, but each time people didn't want to because of reasons like "I prefer classic quest system" or "The game doesn't have gear farm, I want to farm gear to feel overpowered".In the end it's not the game itself, but the audience to which the game appeals. A lot of people want to play games where you grind for gear. I was like that too for a long time, but I eventually got burned out from farming gear just to have it until next patch comes and then farm all over again because my gear became irrelevant (TERA, WOW, Runes of Magic were like that, played the games for a few years each).

This game is for people that want to enjoy exploration, open world events, don't wanna constantly farm for gear, want a game with a good story (I know this one is debatable). But some people want games where they constantly grow in level and constantly have to get new gear. It appeals to the human nature of always improving and/or being better at something than those around you.

All in all, Guild Wars 2 is a good game, but it is not made to appeal to absolutely every MMO player out there. And I know, it's sad because a lot of times people don't wanna join because of that.

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It's all just perspective, isn't it. Let's take your comments one at a time.

The game doesn't have subscription, but there are some mandatory purchases one has to make!

Like every game on the planet. If people want a free game that lasts forever with no purchases, they're living in a dream world. This entire game costs about 4 months of any sub based game. It's well worth it from my point of view.

The vanila game is free, but it sucks compared to the rest (leaving a bad first impression).

I don't think the vanilla game sucked at all. I think the story was weaker but the way the zones are structured are still a ton of fun for me.

The story is very good, but not the initial one! It's very poorly told with your character having wooden dialogue and having you meet your new best friend in each act.

The story is okay. It's fine for what it is. If you want to sell later stories, let people go look at some videos. You can tell people it's changed from the original system, to make it better. It's what I do.

Your goal is to fight the world ending elder dragons! But the climaxes on both the vanila story and expansions are unfinished (Zaitan fight is in beta state & HoT is obviously missing a few chapters near the end).

The HoT story is fine. While there is the occasional bug in the last story it's just that, the occasional bug. Source? Ive completed it over 30 times on 30 different characters and helped countless others complete it.

You can buy both existing expansions at the price of one, But you'll have to pay a kitten ton of additional money for the living world content where most story is told.

You have to pay barely any money at all, not a kitten ton? Tell me how do you expect developers to get paid or feed their family. Anyone who expectes a completely free game for everything is dreaming. It's more reasonble than any other MMO Iv'e ever played.

The game's leveling system keeps old content relevant, but once you learn a mastery, you cannot experience the game without it again!

What? Sure you can. You can choose not to mount or glide. Most masteries aren't even effective in old zones.

All of the game's attributes mater for all classes, but if you are not playing with offensive attributes you are playing it wrong!

Not true. If you're raiding there are healers and support people. If you're WvWing there are healers and support people. Even T4 fractal can benefit from healers. As a person who runs a casual guild, virutally no one in the guild uses meta builds, but somehow we get by.

The game has Dungeons! but, they are pretty much a joke in terms of balancing, and the devs have abandoned them for newer stuff.

Like every game there's older and newer content. Fractals are the new dungeons. I prefer Fractals to dungeons anyway.

The game has guild missions! but they haven't been updated in many years!

Yep, you're right.

You can follow all the story up to the current patch (after paying) but the season 1 story is lost for good.

True story.

Good news! They are adding back season 1 in repayable form... But, they are adding it back at a late story season 5 area as mini dungeons!...

They're not adding it in as a way for new players to experience it for the first time. They're adding it in as a form of nostalgia. It's not ideal but it's like you're listing the same stuff twice.

Each expansion offers new gear with new start combinations, but they are much harder to make and have no significant advantage compare to the one you are getting easily in the vanila game.

Well if they're much harder to make and have no significant advantage what's the problem. It saves you from having to regear doesn't it. Though it's not true they have no significant advantage. At times harriers has been used for healing in end game content. Commanders has been used for WvW, and so has celestial. Only in open world PvE and easy content do they have no advantage. If you want to run a condi build for example. both vipers and grieving gear have advantages over core gear anyway.

This just seems like a list of complaints that have mostly easy answers. But then you ignore the strengths of the game and who doesn't want to sell a game based on it's strengths.

I played WoW and if a guy told me these ogres were going to tear down his house, and I did nothing, and no one else did, those ogres would never tear down his house. He gives me a quest to say kill 10 ogres. I kill them, there are still 30 left and he gives me a mace I don't need. That's how the quest hub system works in most MMOs. Here the game is more organic. I see the Ogres, I hear the guy, I kill ogres until I break the morale and they flee. Sure they'll come back eventually but that's not the point. The point is my actions persistently (though not permanently) change the world. That's a selling point.

This game has no gear grind. Do you know what grinds my gears? In every other game, I gear up, run dungeons, run raids, over and over again, get the top gear only to have newly dropped gear in the next expansion be better than that stuff I worked so hard for. If I wanted gear grind I'd become a watch maker.

You know this game doesn't really have down time. There's no queues except for sometime WvW. Archeage came out with a new expansion and people had to wait 8 hours to get in in some cases. This game never had that even at launch. It simply creates new maps as they're need, which means you usually have people to play with. Not dead mid level zones like many games have.

Down-leveling is a selling point. It means the whole world is your oyster. If people think sitting in a city in the last zone of a game waiting for their queue to pop is fun, I suppose they have a different definition of fun than I do.

Active combat with no global cooldown.

Action camera mode.

Some really great jumping puzzles, including events like SAB which are very popular.

Absolutely the best mount system of any game I've ever played bar none.

It's easy to pick out flaws from a game. But I could spend the rest of the day listing the stuff this game does right. Do you know how many posts there are from people who went tried other games and they come back because the combat or the quality of life features are so good here? I've lost count myself.

If you can't sell this game, in my opinion, you're not really trying. I sell it all the time.

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