So what happened to Guild Wars 2? This SOTA seems very ominous...

[Ashen.2907]

When critics, by and large, began grading games based on their political and social biases rather than on the games....and when a direct correlation could be drawn between a game's score and the critic organization's advertising revenue from the game's producer or access media relationships....critics lost their relevance.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

2 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

When critics, by and large, began grading games based on their political and social biases rather than on the games....and when a direct correlation could be drawn between a game's score and the critic organization's advertising revenue from the game's producer or access media relationships....critics lost their relevance.

Review scores have always been full of bias towards devs paying for good ones (and point based systems aren't good imo anyway) so I don't agree this is some new problem. 

[Ashen.2907]

44 minutes ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

Review scores have always been full of bias towards devs paying for good ones (and point based systems aren't good imo anyway) so I don't agree this is some new problem. 

That aspect may not be new but rating games/gameplay based on social or political bias is a much more recent phenomenon.

[Poormany.4507]

2 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

That aspect may not be new but rating games/gameplay based on social or political bias is a much more recent phenomenon.

Not so much as the rating method has changed, but game companies just include so much more blatant social/political content and meta commentary nowadays so that the ratings/reviews will naturally tend to focus more on those.

Lines like "Beat up the bigot" or "Hi, I'm Yao, your friendly agender engineer" did not exist in 2012. There was still plenty of socially progressive content, but it was much more naturally done back then (LGBTQ+ side characters, Kas and Jory's relationship, Gorrik's neurodiversity, etc.). Now it just feels like Anet (and other game dev companies) are saying "Look how progressive we are!!!" whenever they include such unrealistically written/forced lines that nobody irl would actually say.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Poormany.4507

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

enjoy the game or not and stop waiting for other people to tell you if you like it or not.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

On 10/20/2023 at 12:09 PM, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

An expansion always had a full story at launch. SotO does not. 

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing but I can understand why people are not liking it. 

 

there's alot of things to complain about in this game, but i think this one isn't it. i don't know why players keep saying the end of dragons and secrets of the obscure stories are short when they're nearly twice as long as both heart of thorns and path of fire, which were very clearly rushed as well.

 

someone who thinks those expansions had anywhere near complete stories is likely looking back on them with very rose-tinted glasses.

Edited October 22, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Vilin.8056]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ncsoft.lineagem19&hl=en_IN

Linage M rated 2.3 stars on player reviews yet it remains NCsoft's biggest and most profitable game today.

Bear in mind that, you're talking about a target audience that skip most story dialogues, auto-play most of their game time, and mostly willing to pay to win. For many casual MMO dwellers, they don't necessarily need a good game, elements of online dependancy and progression bait takes a larger part than relative quality of content.

Therefore the ratings of any mini expansions don't matter, because it will sell as long as the community depend on its features to stay relevant.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Vilin.8056

[FalanuLachance.4576]

5 hours ago, Poormany.4507 said:

Not so much as the rating method has changed, but game companies just include so much more blatant social/political content and meta commentary nowadays so that the ratings/reviews will naturally tend to focus more on those.

Lines like "Beat up the bigot" or "Hi, I'm Yao, your friendly agender engineer" did not exist in 2012. There was still plenty of socially progressive content, but it was much more naturally done back then (LGBTQ+ side characters, Kas and Jory's relationship, Gorrik's neurodiversity, etc.). Now it just feels like Anet (and other game dev companies) are saying "Look how progressive we are!!!" whenever they include such unrealistically written/forced lines that nobody irl would actually say.

Unfortunately, it will take much more time for them to realize that they are dividing groups instead of make them come together and enjoy. I'm not in the least interested in a person's (or npc) sexual orientation other than that I know, female characters are more beautiful (for me).

I'd never join a Guild advertising sexual orientation in a PEG game.

[Gazrul.3086]

I enjoy SotO. Wizard's Vault is great, story is great, weapons master is great, events are varied and numerous, lots of collections and things to work towards. The only thing I dislike is the ridiculous amount of ectoplasms needed for just about everything, but other than that I'm having fun. I look forward to the upcoming patch. 🙂

[Taclism.2406]

8 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

And here I thought it was collections, open world and achievements.

thats like 90% of the game content, how did you last until now lol

[Tukaram.8256]

I rarely pay much attention to critics, and honestly have not looked for reviews because I have been too busy playing and having fun.  SotO is more fun than I have had in-game in a long time.  I loved the beginning of EoD, and I loved Grothmar Valley.  SotO went above and beyond them - and it is not fully released yet. If this is the future of the game, I am thrilled. 😎

[Morvran.8265]

1 hour ago, Chronardis.4028 said:

story is great

What's great about it? Honest question, I see this being thrown around a lot now but isn't it a bit early to tell? Nothing really happened so far, except 1 guy died after he was introduced and then at the end the most obvious twist happened with the betrayal.

Besides the whole wizard thing is an obvious retcon they shoehorned in to make this expansion happen.

[Balsa.3951]

i wonder too gw2 get ignored by most streamers if not paid by anet.

was is SOTO good or bad? till to early to judge but amazing probably not .

 

maybe its time for a new aera of mmos i still curious what ai can do

[Bladestrom.6425]

23 minutes ago, Balsa.3951 said:

i wonder too gw2 get ignored by most streamers if not paid by anet.

was is SOTO good or bad? till to early to judge but amazing probably not .

 

maybe its time for a new aera of mmos i still curious what ai can do

If you get 20 hours plus out of its content then its good, anything above that is a bonus.

[Gazrul.3086]

49 minutes ago, Morvran.8265 said:

What's great about it?

A fair question. To me, the premise of the expansion alone is intriguing, and the intro was well done. The characters are interesting for the most part, and I look forward to seeing what'll happen next. I also like the story around the Wizard's Court. 

[Astralporing.1957]

On 10/20/2023 at 3:52 PM, Shuzuru.3651 said:

Well, it's seem to mean no one cares about Metacritic there as there is like 36 reviews.

Well, the only thing worse than bad reviews is no reviews.

[Funky.4861]

On 10/20/2023 at 4:07 PM, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

SoTO is sold separately of the core game and adds extra content, which.. is what expansions are.. so, no false advertising.

I would argue that the only extra content in Soto is voice acting and a few character models. It has the most recycled, reskinned content in the game and that's just lazy.

[Doam.8305]

You review a product as it is not how its going to be in the future. Thus SOTO would review very poorly as no one would take the following three content patches into consideration.  As it should be as single player games deserve this type of critique as they rely more heavily on patches and post game dlc to get things running. 

Take that and the known issue of GW2 white knights pushing back hard against critique and you have a zero win situation for reviewers. The last gw2 SOTO review I saw was THELAZYPEON who does review everything MMO. Yet when he does gw2 the top comment is people whinning about his low mastery count and other complaints since he didnt give it a best game ever review.  Seen countless reviews from the guy from countless MMOs. Yet GW2 inspires other people to dedicate entire youtube videos to attacking this one vid for this one MMO which they actually did too. Its why some streamers dont stream gw2 and why others dont review it.

[Doam.8305]

45 minutes ago, Funky.4861 said:

I would argue that the only extra content in Soto is voice acting and a few character models. It has the most recycled, reskinned content in the game and that's just lazy.

I don't know of its reskinned if its worse. They broke runes up for to a downgraded system with less variety as they removed some of the rune abilities.

 

They added rifts which unlike bounties have multiple pauses to use your blue beam, boss loading in, and then sealing. Plus they spawn in random locations. Bounties were summoned to a specific area that fit the type of bounty aesthetically.

Then all the reused assets are harder to traverse since they are floating islands at varying heights.

Edit: Is it really recycled and reskinned if they made it all worse than what we had before.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Doam.8305

[Burnfall.9573]

2 hours ago, Doam.8305 said:

You review a product as it is not how its going to be in the future. Thus SOTO would review very poorly as no one would take the following three content patches into consideration.  As it should be as single player games deserve this type of critique as they rely more heavily on patches and post game dlc to get things running. 

Take that and the known issue of GW2 white knights pushing back hard against critique and you have a zero win situation for reviewers. The last gw2 SOTO review I saw was THELAZYPEON who does review everything MMO. Yet when he does gw2 the top comment is people whinning about his low mastery count and other complaints since he didnt give it a best game ever review.  Seen countless reviews from the guy from countless MMOs. Yet GW2 inspires other people to dedicate entire youtube videos to attacking this one vid for this one MMO which they actually did too. Its why some streamers dont stream gw2 and why others dont review it.

 

correct

Anet paid partner streamers were the ones who went on full attack against THELAZYPEON revew. Comt to find out that, supposedly, it was Anet who iniated the whole thing in the first thing to quielty discounted THELAZYPEON from spreading any Truth to the state of matter of Guild Wars 2.

THELAZYPEON is a popular streamer, so in other words; any streamer who is popular with a large platform who says anything negative about Guild Wars 2, gets Anet attention first.

Obviously, it is Anet paid popular streatmers who comes to the rescue and then sends the message to Anet

The streamer video of The Narrative Of A Game Is Gold Per Hour including few others, went on to defend THELAZYPEON. The few other streamers has called out Anet paid streamers as Hypocrites and Fake streamers for accepting bribe, kickback to spread half-truths, only Positivety to keep the game reputition 'look good' for the game social marketing status

By the way, this is nothing new; the other reason why the game remain in its Toxic state for 11 years, is to impress them....The Elitist 

Guild Wars 2 had so many potential and is a such a beautiful game but corruption prevents it from being a healthy competitive game.  

"Corrupt practices destroy communities"

Elitism is in control of the game and it is here to stay forever. Trust me, it won't get better, itll only get worse before eveyone who had enough, leave, quit.

"You Can Not Have A Healthy Relationship With People Who Are Wearing A Mask"

Edited October 22, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Ashen.2907]

12 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

there's alot of things to complain about in this game, but i think this one isn't it. i don't know why players keep saying the end of dragons and secrets of the obscure stories are short when they're nearly twice as long as both heart of thorns and path of fire, which were very clearly rushed as well.

 

someone who thinks those expansions had anywhere near complete stories is likely looking back on them with very rose-tinted glasses.

How do you know that SotO's story is nearly twice as long as HoT and PoF? Honest question, not trying to argue one way or the other but SoTo's story is not even fully released yet.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

2 hours ago, Funky.4861 said:

I would argue that the only extra content in Soto is voice acting and a few character models. It has the most recycled, reskinned content in the game and that's just lazy.

When you forget that prior expansions have been recycling content as well with a good chunk of LWS3 being straight up recycling Prophecies and PoF recycling parts of Nightfall into GW2 just so you can hate on Soto for doing exactly that.

[Cuks.8241]

3 hours ago, Burnfall.9573 said:

Anet paid partner streamers were the ones who went on full attack against THELAZYPEON revew. Comt to find out that, supposedly, it was Anet who iniated the whole thing in the first thing to quielty discounted THELAZYPEON from spreading any Truth to the state of matter of Guild Wars 2.

THELAZYPEON is a popular streamer, so in other words; any streamer who is popular with a large platform who says anything negative about Guild Wars 2, gets Anet attention first.

I like Lazy Peon, he has such calm videos on youtube and not overly negative in general. He actually regarded gw2 as the best mmo in the past (maybe still). But the funny thing is he highly regards spvp and fun combat. The parts that Anet completely ignores for years now. 

[Burnfall.9573]

14 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I like Lazy Peon, he has such calm videos on youtube and not overly negative in general. He actually regarded gw2 as the best mmo in the past (maybe still). But the funny thing is he highly regards spvp and fun combat. The parts that Anet completely ignores for years now. 

 

I like him too, I enjoy watching his videos and I completely agree with you.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[BlueJin.4127]

23 hours ago, Funky.4861 said:

I would argue that the only extra content in Soto is voice acting and a few character models. It has the most recycled, reskinned content in the game and that's just lazy.

I think the bigger problem is that it's not just art assets Anet is recycling, it's gameplay design, too. If you look at rifts, Skywatch meta, and Amnytas meta, the overall design is all too similar. All of them have the exact same "adds spawn randomly all over the place until the bar fills up" phase. Aside from Nourys, all of them share the same enemies. You also see the same "interact to close rifts" and "pick up essences" portions. By comparison, HoT and PoF metas were all uniquely designed (I don't have EoD).

It's like GW2 team is no longer given a good budget so they have to recycle, copy and paste, and try to drag things out as long as possible with as little effort as possible. If this is the future of GW2, I think SotO will be my last. I've been doing HoT metas for years and they're still fun. On the other hand, I'm already burned out on SotO because the SotO metas and rifts all feel the same. It's like DRM's all over again.

Edited October 23, 2023 by BlueJin.4127