Would Guild Wars 2 classic work?

[Teratus.2859]

@mindcircus.1506 said:I'm going to keep my responses brief and then nope out of this thread as I have largely made my feedback on this issue clear.

@"Teratus.2859" said:At least you agree that it is a problem, that's more than some do.The people who disagree that this is a problem are not wrong. They are satisfied customers and you are not.

Implying a bit there.If I were not a satisfied customer I wouldn't continue to support the game.I'm pretty satisfied with the game overall, there are just some areas that I want improved.. a very normal thing for any fan of something to want.

Anyway how much you invest into the game should never be a major factor in "who" the developers pay more attention too.. as much as I want them to go and back and fix LW1 I would never want my financial contributions to this game to give my requests more importance over others.Any company that ignores where the bulk of it's customers spend money is doomed or lucky.

That's not what I said at all.By that logic if I go and dump a few million into the game and demand more minipets then Anet should drop a bunch of stuff and just make new minipets.That's exactly the kind of thing i'm saying they shouldn't! do.

There's a big difference between taking note of what most players want in the game and only paying attention to those who are happy to throw money at you.

You really can't lol.. well ok technically you can but that would just make you wrong here.It's not my opinion you're trying to disagree with here, it's Anet's development model.Your misuse of the term "development model" aside...Anet's system has always been to make the story largely skippable,A player can very easily buy this game, do the tutorial instance and level to the cap in open world. They can ignore the entire Personal Story, skip season 2 and never touch a story instance and still max out core tyria masteries and make Legendary items. Then can then do the first Episode of HoT, get gliding to unlock the masteries and then never touch another story instance. They can skip all of season 3 story content and with 6 teleport to friends get all the rewards other than a few cosmetics that can be picked up in competitive. They can then do the first episode of PoF and unlock mounts then again, completely ignore any and all story instance... the list goes on.A player can reach and particpate in the top tier endgame content having never seen more than the tutorial and the first story instance of HoT.It's very clear when looking at Season 4 and Icebrood that other issues than the story take precedence over the type of content created Both arcs culminate into a large open world meta gold farm. This is not because the story itself demanded it, but instead because it's what the majority of players wanted to keep happy and engaged with the title.Contrast that with a game like FF14 (which is indeed a Story Focused MMO) where any and all progress is gated behind the MSQ and it's actually pretty plain to see.Saying "my point stands", calling your opinions "irrefutable" and presenting what is clearly a personal perception as fact does not change reality.

The story in this game is largely optional. In a Story focused MMO like FF14 or Star Wars:The Old Republic it is not.

None of that what so ever disproves my point.The story being "skippable" only shows that Gw2 is giving you the option to skip it, giving you more freedom than some other games do.

It does not change the fact that every single new location we go to is dictated by the direction of the story, every new release is promoted around the story.The story defines everything about this game regardless of whether you skip it or not, and yes that does include the content you play even on the open world.The factions, the locations what's going on in those events it's all related to the story.That is the reality here.. Gw2 is a story focused MMO.

If it wasn't this way then there would be nothing stopping Anet from adding random new maps unrelated to anything that would be designed exclusively for farming.This doesn't happen and will never happen without the Story dictating a reason to go to those locations and those locations existing to further the story.Everything is secondary to the story.

None of those games are Gw2.

And if i'm not mistaken all of those games also share another major flaw that I have long criticized in the MMO genre and attributed as a death sentence for most of them.They were all originally designed with a mandatory subscription fee and were forced to drop it in a desperate effort to save themselves.

As i've said many many times.. the market simply cannot sustain hundreds of games that keep demanding you constantly pay them to play them.. this model is essentially the name of the crab zodiac sign to MMO's.. and I will stand by that statement until the day I die.. with a graveyard of dead or dying MMO's serving as proof of it.

Part of the reason the Guildwars franchise has not only survived but has also been very successful in this market is because it rejected that awful, anti-consumer model.It's playing by a whole different rulebook and a lot of people like it.World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14 and ESO are all more successful games than this one. All of these games maintain a subscription fee and charge for regular boxed expansions. Ultima Online and Everquest still see regular updates that are, to this day funded by subscriptions. The MMO graveyard has far more titles in their F2P section than otherwise. The sub fee has little to do with it. If people see value in a sub, if they are having fun, they will pay it.

F2P section.. yes aka a massive list of games that almost all started off with mandatory subfees and failed!! on that model.Even ESO failed!! on a mandatory subscription model and had to make them optional.. a smart decision i'll give them that because it spared the game from becoming another failed F2P game.

Everquest and UO I think are F2P with optional subs.. not 100% on that, of the two I only played EQ briefly and that I recall was free2play.WoW and FF14 are the only two you've mentioned that have genuinely succeeded on this model, or more specifically are still going on this model.But despite what you may think, they're not proof of your point they are proof of mine.The market is not big enough.. there isn't enough money to be made for hundreds of games to use this model.Optional Subfees are the far better model to go with as I said with ESO.. Mandatory is the worst and when every game goes with this model you end up with a very very small number of successful MMO's standing on a graveyard of dead or dying MMOs which never got a chance which is exactly what happened.

Calling that payment model "anti-consumer" after the way Arenanet monetized build templates?Cash grab visual progression that has eroded this game's aesthetic and is available only in the gem store?Mount Skins in gatcha boxes?Home instance gold farms like the Black Lion Hunters Board?Gemstore dye boxes that consistently award 5 common dyes worth 4s each?

Cosmetic and QOL improvements, there is nothing wrong with having a small price attached to that when you get all the essential stuff for free, even new content.Certainly a hell of a lot better than Pay to Win nonsense that in a big problem in some other games.Nothing in GW2's cash shop is something you "need"

Just for fun too a Gw2 premium mount skin (which I do consider a bit on the pricy side myself) is still cheaper than a generic mount on WoW's cash shop.. Wow of course being a game you have to buy and pay a mandatory sub to play as well.If you want to play who's the greedier company there WoW wins in a landslide lol

I have to think a sub fee would have been much better than all that

This argument has been had countless times on the forum, if Gw2 had a subfee they would have lost a massive portion of their original base from Gw1 and likely attracted a lot less than they did with Gw2.Chances are it's more likely Gw2 would be a dead game or a P2W disaster had it launched with a mandatory sub, like countless other MMO's have ended up trying to use that model.I'm not alone in this opinion either, i've been in many of these discussions over many years, even back in Gw1 and a good number of people admit they never would have played this game/franchise had it a mandatory subfee.. this is a very common opinion held by a lot of people.

Painting a sub fee as "anti consumer" then applauding when a company lures players interested in visual progression into RNG loot boxes is laughable at best."Mandatory" sub fee's, and yes "Mandatory" subfees are anti consumer..Nothing more than an exploitative way for a company to get you to pay for a product without actually selling you anything.. and by extent monopolising a market to a point where most competitors have no hope in hell of competing in it.. further denying the consumer alternative options of products to choose from.

I don't care for the lootbox concept in general but I will say Gw2 certainly doesn't abuse it as maliciously as countless other companies do, I would argue Anet is a lot more fair in this regard than most companies that use them.. maybe even the fairest.. specially when you factor in that you can "Farm" the keys to open them and never!! have to pay for their contents.Oh and "lootboxes" show up in MMO's that also have optional or mandatory subfees so there is very little to give Anet kitten for on this issue.

I will agree though it could be better.. allowing some items to be tradeable would certainly be something i'd support, but it's definitely not as bad as some people claim it is.. there are far far worse companies out there severely abusing this practice to make a lot of money.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@"Teratus.2859" said:

At least you agree that it is a problem, that's more than some do.

I know you've said a lot more, and in more detail, but I'd like to dwell on the "problem" part a bit. I, too, agree the loss of LWS1 leaves a jarring narrative hole. In fact, I still think ANet was plain stupid not to see the future effect of placing so much story into what they intentionally designed as temporary content. To top it off, they thought that having some NPC give us a terrible recap of it would somehow be enough. Whoever made that call, in my opinion, needs to seriously reconsider their talent for making and executing such decisions.

There are two solutions to this narrative hole. The first and most obvious one is to just bring S1 back to a playable state. We've already seen what that looks like, and it's awful.

The second solution would involve improving the recap instead of attempting to resurrect the content itself. Based on what's already out there, I'm thinking this is the best way to go about it. To keep the recap system a bit more interactive, players could perhaps be given a choice to either get a voiced cutscene with skippable chapters, or go on a geographical journey to various sites around the map where S1 stuff happened. Interacting with an object there (or performing some other minor quest) could give a cutscene or wall of text explaining what was going on in S1.

[Ashantara.8731]

A remake of GW1 would work. A remake of a game that is still in development for new content seems redundant. ;)

[Sobx.1758]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"Ashen.2907" said:No, that is opinion. People play the game without interacting with the story. Personally I have lost any sense of what the story even is at this point. It has no place in driving the game for me. For some I, assume, the story is part of what drives the game. For others it is irrelevant.

No it isn't.As I said to mindcircus, Anet's main focus on GW2 IS!! the story.. that makes GW2 a story driven MMO.Doesn't matter whether you or anyone else care's about the story or not, that fact still stands.

Nah, I agree with Ashen here, story almost might as well not be there for me and it wouldn't change the way I play the game. It seems there's a pretty low emphasis on story as a main replayable content.One way or another, where's the source of that claim (preferably a relatively recent, but lets start with any)? The way I see gw2, it really seems like nothing more than your opinion.

Also you've said: "there's no way anyone can play this game and disagree with that.", subsequently people playing this game disagreed with it aaaand you've reverted to claiming "it doesn't matter what anyone thinks". I treat the story as a content guide/tutorial and that's pretty much it. Almost as if it really isn't a fact, but just your opinion that will also vary based on who you ask.

It's also interesting how you go back and forth on whether or not anet has "the last word" in the matter depending on whether or not they confirm your opinion:-anet says the game is story driven, so the story is THE main content of the game (doubt) and lw1 is important and as such it should be re-implemented!-anet removing lw1 from the game was/is wrong, lw1 is still part of the game's content even if anet decided it's not.tl;dr: what anet says and does matters as long as they say and do what I want them to.

[Teratus.2859]

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:

At least you agree that it is a problem, that's more than some do.

I know you've said a lot more, and in more detail, but I'd like to dwell on the "problem" part a bit. I, too, agree the loss of LWS1 leaves a jarring narrative hole. In fact, I still think ANet was plain stupid not to see the future effect of placing so much story into what they

intentionally

designed as temporary content. To top it off, they thought that having some NPC give us a terrible recap of it would somehow be enough. Whoever made that call, in my opinion, needs to seriously reconsider their talent for making and executing such decisions.

There are two solutions to this narrative hole. The first and most obvious one is to just bring S1 back to a playable state. We've already seen what that looks like, and it's awful.

The second solution would involve improving the recap instead of attempting to resurrect the content itself. Based on what's already out there, I'm thinking this is the best way to go about it. To keep the recap system a bit more interactive, players could perhaps be given a choice to either get a voiced cutscene with skippable chapters, or go on a geographical journey to various sites around the map where S1 stuff happened. Interacting with an object there (or performing some other minor quest) could give a cutscene or wall of text explaining what was going on in S1.

That would be a solution I suppose.. though I'll always have to favour it being brought back in some playable state rather than recap videos.Not just for my own preference but to the benefit of many who never got to experience it back in the day as well, this game has grown a lot since then.

You're right about it just coming back as it was though as are those arguing against me in this thread, and I do agree with this particular point.Season 1 had some good moments but it was definitely the weakest of the seasons for a multitude of reasons and it is compared to the newer content of today, extremely dated and of much poor quality.

So if it is to come back which I will always want it to because of that "jarring narrative role" as you put it.I want to the Devs to take advantage of the need to rework a lot of this content and not just bring back Season 1 but bring back a significantly better version of it which everyone can enjoy.

[Teratus.2859]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"Ashen.2907" said:No, that is opinion. People play the game without interacting with the story. Personally I have lost any sense of what the story even is at this point. It has no place in driving the game for me. For some I, assume, the story is part of what drives the game. For others it is irrelevant.

No it isn't.As I said to mindcircus, Anet's main focus on GW2 IS!! the story.. that makes GW2 a story driven MMO.Doesn't matter whether you or anyone else care's about the story or not, that fact still stands.

Nah, I agree with Ashen here, story almost might as well not be there for me and it wouldn't change the way I play the game. It seems there's a pretty low emphasis on story as a main replayable content.One way or another, where's the source of that claim (preferably a relatively recent, but lets start with

any

)? The way I see gw2, it really seems like nothing more than your opinion.

That's fine we can agree to disagree.

Although I will point our that "main replayable content" was never a factor in this discussion.My argument for Gw2 being a story driven MMO has always been that the Story dictates the direction of this game and everything else being secondary to that.

There's so many examples I can give.. such as why is there map made of God realms and an Elder Dragon.It wasn't "players want more farming spots" that caused that map to exist, It was the story.And the kinds of enemies there, the kind of loot they drop, the rewards to earn it's all defined by factors that connect back to the story that took us there.

But i'm just repeating myself again now lolLets just agree to disagree then yes :)

[Sobx.1758]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"Ashen.2907" said:No, that is opinion. People play the game without interacting with the story. Personally I have lost any sense of what the story even is at this point. It has no place in driving the game for me. For some I, assume, the story is part of what drives the game. For others it is irrelevant.

No it isn't.As I said to mindcircus, Anet's main focus on GW2 IS!! the story.. that makes GW2 a story driven MMO.Doesn't matter whether you or anyone else care's about the story or not, that fact still stands.

Nah, I agree with Ashen here, story almost might as well not be there for me and it wouldn't change the way I play the game. It seems there's a pretty low emphasis on story as a main replayable content.One way or another, where's the source of that claim (preferably a relatively recent, but lets start with

any

)? The way I see gw2, it really seems like nothing more than your opinion.

Although I will point our that "main replayable content" was never a factor in this discussion.My argument for Gw2 being a story driven MMO has always been that the Story dictates the direction of this game and everything else being secondary to that.

Yes, you didn't specifically spell that out, but it seems to me that the most replayable content is "the focus of the game" more than the other parts of it, which is why I've mentioned replayability. I'm not saying it's some kind of definitive measure of content's importance, but... what is the alternative?

There's so many examples I can give.. such as why is there map made of God realms and an Elder Dragon.It wasn't "players want more farming spots" that caused that map to exist, It was the story.And the kinds of enemies there, the kind of loot they drop, the rewards to earn it's all defined by factors that connect back to the story that took us there.

You seem to confuse the existance of lore with it being "a main point/goal/content of the game". Games like League of Legends wanted to justify the existance of the map, champions or even "summoners" (as in players themselves) through lore. The map "wasn't just there", it "was there because the lore said so". Despite that, I doubt anyone would want to argue that LoL is a story driven game with story taking main focus of it all. Lore is just lore. It's supposed to be interesting and take the player into the world, which doesn't somehow make it a main content of the game.

"The name of the map, kinds of enemies and loot" is an obvious part of ANY mmorpg and their world building. It has nothing to do with "story being main content".And as you said this: "Anet's main focus on GW2 IS!! the story.. that makes GW2 a story driven MMO.", I don't exactly find those "many examples" (which, really, are nothing more than just basic lore present in any mmorpg -and not only in that genre of games) satisfying in the slightest if we're speaking about "Anet's main focus..!" and "it's a fact, not an opinion" claims.

That's fine we can agree to disagree.

(...)But i'm just repeating myself again now lolLets just agree to disagree then yes :)

Yes. At which point it's not a fact, but a matter of opinion and personal preference in which each player judges/grades the game's content :p

[Teratus.2859]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"Ashen.2907" said:No, that is opinion. People play the game without interacting with the story. Personally I have lost any sense of what the story even is at this point. It has no place in driving the game for me. For some I, assume, the story is part of what drives the game. For others it is irrelevant.

No it isn't.As I said to mindcircus, Anet's main focus on GW2 IS!! the story.. that makes GW2 a story driven MMO.Doesn't matter whether you or anyone else care's about the story or not, that fact still stands.

Nah, I agree with Ashen here, story almost might as well not be there for me and it wouldn't change the way I play the game. It seems there's a pretty low emphasis on story as a main replayable content.One way or another, where's the source of that claim (preferably a relatively recent, but lets start with

any

)? The way I see gw2, it really seems like nothing more than your opinion.

Although I will point our that "main replayable content" was never a factor in this discussion.My argument for Gw2 being a story driven MMO has always been that the Story dictates the direction of this game and everything else being secondary to that.

Yes, you didn't specifically spell that out, but it seems to me that the most replayable content is "the focus of the game" more than the other parts of it, which is why I've mentioned replayability. I'm not saying it's some kind of definitive measure of content's importance, but... what is the alternative?

I would disagree with thatI would say that replayable content is simply something that the devs add to keep people playing the new content after they've done the story.. the goal of that being to avoid people getting bored between releases.This I would not say is the main focus of the game, it's simply a secondary addition to it to bloat out the content.. a grind more or less.

If it came down to giving up one of them.. the story or the repeatable content.. it wouldn't be the story that gets canned, it'll be the repeatable content.We can even see this in game as well, there have been living world releases that do not add new maps and farms etc, this has been especially prevalent in these later chapters of Ice Brood saga, in fact one of the biggest complaints about the DRM's is the inability to skip over all the story dialogue that plays every time you play them.

There's so many examples I can give.. such as why is there map made of God realms and an Elder Dragon.It wasn't "players want more farming spots" that caused that map to exist, It was the story.And the kinds of enemies there, the kind of loot they drop, the rewards to earn it's all defined by factors that connect back to the story that took us there.

You seem to confuse the existance of lore with it being "a main point/goal/content of the game". Games like League of Legends wanted to justify the existance of the map, champions or even "summoners" (as in players themselves) through lore. The map "wasn't just there", it "was there because the lore said so". Despite that, I doubt anyone would want to argue that LoL is a story driven game with story taking main focus of it all. Lore is just lore. It's supposed to be interesting and take the player into the world, which doesn't somehow make it a main content of the game.

Well LoL would still be the same game even if it had no lore at all.. an yeah I do agree nobody would call that game story driven XDGw2 wouldn't be the same without it's story though, it's too integral to this world.But there are examples of what Gw2 would be like if it didn't have story.. just play WvW maps as if they were PvE maps XD

"The name of the map, kinds of enemies and loot" is an obvious part of ANY mmorpg and their world building. It has nothing to do with "story being main content".

It's more about the existence of the map in general being a by product of the story, same as any other map that's been introduced to the game in living world or expansion.

That's fine we can agree to disagree.

(...)But i'm just repeating myself again now lolLets just agree to disagree then yes :)

Yes. At which point it's not a fact, but a matter of opinion and personal preference in which each player judges/grades the game's content :p

Haha nice try, i'll give you that lolI won't take back my statement that I believe it to be a fact, I do stand by that based on everything i've said to back that :P

But if you believe it's an opinion not a fact then you can call it an opinion lol we'll just agree to disagree on that too ^^

[voltaicbore.8012]

@"Sobx.1758" said:

You seem to confuse the existance of lore with it being "a main point/goal/content of the game". Games like League of Legends wanted to justify the existance of the map, champions or even "summoners" (as in players themselves) through lore. The map "wasn't just there", it "was there because the lore said so". Despite that, I doubt anyone would want to argue that LoL is a story driven game with story taking main focus of it all. Lore is just lore. It's supposed to be interesting and take the player into the world, which doesn't somehow make it a main content of the game.

As true as this is, I think any reasonable player has to acknowledge that lore is more important to developing GW2 than it is for a game like LoL. Just because something isn't "main content" doesn't mean that it isn't an important element of the game.

I agree that story currently drives absolutely nothing of my repeatable gameplay that moment, and hasn't for years. That said, I stuck around GW2 as long as I have (and returned to it, even in the face of competitors with superior attention to systems, gameplay, and management) because ANet cares enough about lore to make the game world feel quite richly connected with it (if you care to look for such things). As much as I dislike the direction the story's taken throughout much of the Saga, I'm still invested in seeing where it's going at least to the extent of wanting to know if EoD will bring a new narrative direction that I like better.

So to bring back the original topic of the thread - for me, a Classic GW2 would do nothing. A truly classic version would shed vast amounts of gameplay improvements and every single espec in favor of... maybe getting S1 back (which we've seen is a questionable proposition at best). A classic+ version that retains the important improvements would just be... the core game we still have access to right now? Not seeing the value here.

[Sobx.1758]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"Ashen.2907" said:No, that is opinion. People play the game without interacting with the story. Personally I have lost any sense of what the story even is at this point. It has no place in driving the game for me. For some I, assume, the story is part of what drives the game. For others it is irrelevant.

No it isn't.As I said to mindcircus, Anet's main focus on GW2 IS!! the story.. that makes GW2 a story driven MMO.Doesn't matter whether you or anyone else care's about the story or not, that fact still stands.

Nah, I agree with Ashen here, story almost might as well not be there for me and it wouldn't change the way I play the game. It seems there's a pretty low emphasis on story as a main replayable content.One way or another, where's the source of that claim (preferably a relatively recent, but lets start with

any

)? The way I see gw2, it really seems like nothing more than your opinion.

Although I will point our that "main replayable content" was never a factor in this discussion.My argument for Gw2 being a story driven MMO has always been that the Story dictates the direction of this game and everything else being secondary to that.

Yes, you didn't specifically spell that out, but it seems to me that the most replayable content is "the focus of the game" more than the other parts of it, which is why I've mentioned replayability. I'm not saying it's some kind of definitive measure of content's importance, but... what is the alternative?

I would disagree with thatI would say that replayable content is simply something that the devs add to keep people playing the new content after they've done the story.. the goal of that being to avoid people getting bored between releases.This I would not say is the main focus of the game, it's simply a secondary addition to it to bloat out the content.. a grind more or less.

Great. That is your opinion though and not as you've tried to previously paint it "an undeniable fact that no player can disagree with" (not a direct quote, but pretty sure close enough). If that's the case, then they might as well go for an episodic single player game instead. How I see it though is story as a frame for the actual content. I'd also say that this game offers MUCH more than the story or the pure grind itself. Soo... nah.

If it came down to giving up one of them.. the story or the repeatable content.. it wouldn't be the story that gets canned, it'll be the repeatable content.

I don't know what this absolutely hypothetical situation is supposed to be, but it has nothing to do with the reality of the game or "anet saying story is main content of the game" -still waiting for the source btw. :p

We can even see this in game as well, there have been living world releases that do not add new maps and farms etc, this has been especially prevalent in these later chapters of Ice Brood saga, in fact one of the biggest complaints about the DRM's is the inability to skip over all the story dialogue that plays every time you play them.

We can see that NOT being the case in a huge amount of other content, so I guess that automatically proves you wrong?And by "last episodes", you obviously mean... just DRM specifically, eh? Well, if that's what "story driven content" is, then I'm sure glad it's just not what GW2 actually is for the most part. And seeing as we can pinpoint that as a source of a big amount of complaints... you know... Apparently many players disagree with your claim about story being the best/biggest/main part of the game. Which, agian, makes it YOUR opinion and not a universal truth "other players in the game can't dispute" (or w/e).

There's so many examples I can give.. such as why is there map made of God realms and an Elder Dragon.It wasn't "players want more farming spots" that caused that map to exist, It was the story.And the kinds of enemies there, the kind of loot they drop, the rewards to earn it's all defined by factors that connect back to the story that took us there.

You seem to confuse the existance of lore with it being "a main point/goal/content of the game". Games like League of Legends wanted to justify the existance of the map, champions or even "summoners" (as in players themselves) through lore. The map "wasn't just there", it "was there because the lore said so". Despite that, I doubt anyone would want to argue that LoL is a story driven game with story taking main focus of it all. Lore is just lore. It's supposed to be interesting and take the player into the world, which doesn't somehow make it a main content of the game.

Well LoL would still be the same game even if it had no lore at all.. an yeah I do agree nobody would call that game story driven XD

Yup. At yet it has exactly the things you treat as a "proof of story being the main focus of the game". That's... that's literally my point about how irrelevant those "examples" were.

But there are examples of what Gw2 would be like if it didn't have story.. just play WvW maps as if they were PvE maps XD

Why would I "play them as they were pve maps", when they were designed as a pvp maps? Not only that, but wvw has the same elements you've listed before...

"The name of the map, kinds of enemies and loot" is an obvious part of ANY mmorpg and their world building. It has nothing to do with "story being main content".

It's more about the existence of the map in general being a by product of the story, same as any other map that's been introduced to the game in living world or expansion.

As we've established (right?), it's just typical lore, present not only in pretty much every other mmorpg, but also games without a specific story. This has nothing to do with anything you've said before. Unless by the "story being main part of the game" you've meant... "lore exists", lol :D

That's fine we can agree to disagree.

(...)But i'm just repeating myself again now lolLets just agree to disagree then yes :)

Yes. At which point it's not a fact, but a matter of opinion and personal preference in which each player judges/grades the game's content :p

Haha nice try, i'll give you that lolI won't take back my statement that I believe it to be a fact, I do stand by that based on everything i've said to back that :P

^^Ok, still waiting for the sources then, because for now all you have is your opinion? And to be clear, I have no problem with you holding that opinion, you can grade the importance of game's elements however you want. But then don't pretend it's not a matter of opinion :p

But if you believe it's an opinion not a fact then you can call it an opinion lol we'll just agree to disagree on that too ^^

Ok :D

[Sobx.1758]

@voltaicbore.8012 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:

You seem to confuse the existance of lore with it being "a main point/goal/content of the game". Games like League of Legends wanted to justify the existance of the map, champions or even "summoners" (as in players themselves) through lore. The map "wasn't just there", it "was there because the lore said so". Despite that, I doubt anyone would want to argue that LoL is a story driven game with story taking main focus of it all. Lore is just lore. It's supposed to be interesting and take the player into the world, which doesn't somehow make it a main content of the game.

As true as this is, I think any reasonable player has to acknowledge that lore

is

more important to developing GW2 than it is for a game like LoL. Just because something isn't "main content" doesn't mean that it isn't an important element of the game.

I never said it's not an important element of the game. I never claimed the importance of story is the same in gw2 and lol (huh). That wasn't the point at all.

The point is that he claims "it is the most important and it's a fact and not the matter of opinion" (which just reading this thread can be seen to actually be a matter of opinion depending who you ask). The LoL example was just to show that just the mere existance of lore (even moreso when he's talking about such basic world building elements as "what is this map" or "what is this mob") doesn't suddenly make it the most important thing in the game. As I said, for me it's just a frame for the actual content of the game.

[Urud.4925]

If the only reason why the OP asked for a classic GW2 is LW1 (although, as many said, it wouldn't be included), then it seems easier to try to remake the story (one day) than maintan a whole server with different patches/builds, splitting the playerbase.If it's for the feeling "I preferred before the mounts/gliders/elite specs etc", then you should have a similar experience with a f2p account (that I like to play, from time to time). I'd support a very heavy nerf of the mounts (both in damage and speed) in the core maps, especially the ones <lv80. The others came with the expansions/LW, so there's no reason to change anything. Just don't play there (and with a f2p account you can't).

GW2 is one of the few MMOs (for me) that improves with the years, adding new content and important QoL. I liked when we all walked on foot: we were slower, people waited to be resurrected, while now it's everything fast, and even dying during a tough fight is not a problem, since you can teleport and come back quickly (before you had to pay more attention not to die). But I wouldn't lose all the improvements we got.I don't know if there are guilds that recruit only players with f2p accounts. Wouldn't be that enough?

[Teratus.2859]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"Ashen.2907" said:No, that is opinion. People play the game without interacting with the story. Personally I have lost any sense of what the story even is at this point. It has no place in driving the game for me. For some I, assume, the story is part of what drives the game. For others it is irrelevant.

No it isn't.As I said to mindcircus, Anet's main focus on GW2 IS!! the story.. that makes GW2 a story driven MMO.Doesn't matter whether you or anyone else care's about the story or not, that fact still stands.

Nah, I agree with Ashen here, story almost might as well not be there for me and it wouldn't change the way I play the game. It seems there's a pretty low emphasis on story as a main replayable content.One way or another, where's the source of that claim (preferably a relatively recent, but lets start with

any

)? The way I see gw2, it really seems like nothing more than your opinion.

Although I will point our that "main replayable content" was never a factor in this discussion.My argument for Gw2 being a story driven MMO has always been that the Story dictates the direction of this game and everything else being secondary to that.

Yes, you didn't specifically spell that out, but it seems to me that the most replayable content is "the focus of the game" more than the other parts of it, which is why I've mentioned replayability. I'm not saying it's some kind of definitive measure of content's importance, but... what is the alternative?

I would disagree with thatI would say that replayable content is simply something that the devs add to keep people playing the new content after they've done the story.. the goal of that being to avoid people getting bored between releases.This I would not say is the main focus of the game, it's simply a secondary addition to it to bloat out the content.. a grind more or less.

Great. That is your opinion though and not as you've tried to previously paint it "an undeniable fact that no player can disagree with" (not a direct quote, but pretty sure close enough). If that's the case, then they might as well go for an episodic single player game instead. How I see it though is story as a frame for the actual content. I'd also say that this game offers MUCH more than the story or the pure grind itself. Soo... nah.

Any story focused game can offer more than just the story, that doesn't mean the story isn't the main focus.Basically every single player RPG is like that as well.. and Gw2 is a lot more like a episodic single player game than it is a MMO in a lot of ways.Gw2 is extremely solo friendly compared to the majority of MMO's.. a trait that few MMO's before it embraced.The direction of the game, the main focus of the developers is certainly story first, everything else second.There's times as well the Developers themselves have said thing's along the lines of "the story we want to tell"

The only thing that matters for something to be defined as a story driven game is that the story is the main focus of the game's development.Gw2 absolutely qualifies on that, which is why I call it a fact.How we individually enjoy the game is not a valid counter argument for that.. WvW players could claim that their preferred content is the main focus of the game and have just as much validity in that argument as your claims that the replayable content is the main focus.Obviously they would be wrong as evident by the lack of support the mode has gotten, but that lack of support is the only difference between those two statements.

If it came down to giving up one of them.. the story or the repeatable content.. it wouldn't be the story that gets canned, it'll be the repeatable content.We can even see this in game as well, there have been living world releases that do not add new maps and farms etc, this has been especially prevalent in these later chapters of Ice Brood saga, in fact one of the biggest complaints about the DRM's is the inability to skip over all the story dialogue that plays every time you play them.

We can see that NOT being the case in a huge amount of other content, so I guess that automatically proves you wrong?And by "last episodes", you obviously mean... just DRM specifically, eh? Well, if that's what "story driven content" is, then I'm sure glad it's just not what GW2 actually is for the most part. And seeing as we can pinpoint that as a source of a big amount of complaints... you know... Apparently many players disagree with your claim about story being the best/biggest/main part of the game. Which, agian, makes it YOUR opinion and not a universal truth "other players in the game can't dispute" (or w/e).

What PvE content would that be?I challenge you to name one PvE map that exists in this game with no story relevance, that exists purely to please players like you who prefer that sort of thing and nothing else.. :P

DRM's I was referring to yea but there are other examples in older living world content which didn't introduce new farms, new maps etc.And what open world stuff they did introduce was defined by the events of the storyline.. take Drizzlewood as another newer example, a great farm map etc and yet all the open world content you would enjoy about that map is part of the storyline, and entirely skippable as well.. just like most of the instanced story content is.

There's so many examples I can give.. such as why is there map made of God realms and an Elder Dragon.It wasn't "players want more farming spots" that caused that map to exist, It was the story.And the kinds of enemies there, the kind of loot they drop, the rewards to earn it's all defined by factors that connect back to the story that took us there.

You seem to confuse the existance of lore with it being "a main point/goal/content of the game". Games like League of Legends wanted to justify the existance of the map, champions or even "summoners" (as in players themselves) through lore. The map "wasn't just there", it "was there because the lore said so". Despite that, I doubt anyone would want to argue that LoL is a story driven game with story taking main focus of it all. Lore is just lore. It's supposed to be interesting and take the player into the world, which doesn't somehow make it a main content of the game.

Well LoL would still be the same game even if it had no lore at all.. an yeah I do agree nobody would call that game story driven XD

Yup. At yet it has exactly the things you treat as a "proof of story being the main focus of the game". That's... that's literally my point about how irrelevant those "examples" were.

Nah, LoL was not created around a storyline.Gw2 was, Gw2 is a game built to tell you a story, that's the difference.That's what makes Gw2 a story driven MMO. :PThey already had Gw2's main story concept in mind before they even started developing this game.. in fact Gw2 only exists because this story was impossible to tell in the original Guildwars, which was originally going to have another full campaign (with more planned after that) but it got scrapped in favour of an expansion that was designed to start off the story for Gw2.. We can literally even see 2 Elder Dragons in Gw1.3 if you want to count Drakkar which was originally supposed to be Jormag.

But there are examples of what Gw2 would be like if it didn't have story.. just play WvW maps as if they were PvE maps XD

Why would I "play them as they were pve maps", when they were designed as a pvp maps? Not only that, but wvw has the same elements you've listed before...

They have mobs, explorable locations, loot drops and back in the day they even had events.. kinda still do in a very limited capacity, still champ spawns about.The only thing they don't have is story relevance, that's what makes them a good example for a map that would be designed around your preferred playstyle.. if you took out the hostile players naturally ^^There is nothing like that introduced in the PvE game.. every single map has some story relevance and every map introduced after the original game only exists because the story took us there, even the dungeon, raid and fractal content has story in them, some are even directly tied into the main campaign.

"The name of the map, kinds of enemies and loot" is an obvious part of ANY mmorpg and their world building. It has nothing to do with "story being main content".

It's more about the existence of the map in general being a by product of the story, same as any other map that's been introduced to the game in living world or expansion.

As we've established (right?), it's just typical lore, present not only in pretty much every other mmorpg, but also games without a specific story. This has nothing to do with anything you've said before. Unless by the "story being main part of the game" you've meant... "lore exists", lol :D

It does if that lore is a major part of that game and is actively used to define the direction of the game which it does in Gw2.As you said nobody is going to claim LoL is a story driven game, it's blatantly obvious it isn't.But it's blatantly obvious that Gw2 is a story driven game as well :DRPG's in general put great significance on storytelling, they wouldn't really be RPG's if they didn't.

That's fine we can agree to disagree.

(...)But i'm just repeating myself again now lolLets just agree to disagree then yes :)

Yes. At which point it's not a fact, but a matter of opinion and personal preference in which each player judges/grades the game's content :p

Haha nice try, i'll give you that lolI won't take back my statement that I believe it to be a fact, I do stand by that based on everything i've said to back that :P

^^Ok, still waiting for the sources then, because for now all you have is your opinion? And to be clear, I have no problem with you holding that opinion, you can grade the importance of game's elements however you want. But then don't pretend it's not a matter of opinion :p

I've provided many of my points :P or are you expecting like links and stuff and dev statements etc?.. that would take up a lot of my time to go finding certain things and there are some RL matters going on atm that are affecting my ability to post (renovations going on so electric and internet isn't stable) As I said in above post I lost one of my long replies to I think it was Mindcircus due to my power going out.. so im trying not to repeat that.

As long as this all remains friendly though I have no problem with any of you guys either ^^I'll argue the teeth off a tiger :p but that doesn't mean I hate Tigers XD