Zephire.8049

> @"Rukia.4802" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > @"Rukia.4802" said:

> > > Or just let people trade in game. Crazy concept, I know.

> >

> > Anet has already stated why player to player trading wasn’t made available in this game.

>

> I'm curious, was it to kill scamming? Because that clearly did not work :)

It reduces the _chance_ of being scammed, yes. It also equalizes the prices by centralizing transactions, is more accessible for everyone, and removes gold from the economy thus reducing inflation.

It's also far easier to say "Don't send items to a stranger" than "Make sure you double check everything, make sure you're happy with the trade, pay attention to make sure they don't alter the trade just before you accept" when the latter is the only way to buy, sell, and trade with other players. The lack of player-player trading also completely removes a method of duplicating items that crops up in games across all genres, forcing rollbacks or crashing the in-game economy in the process.

An MMO is never going to bring the chances of being scammed down to zero because people are people, there are always going to be those who will fall for it and those who will find a way to get around barriers so they can scam others and Anet knew that that. All they did was make is less likely to happen and, if you are scammed once, you can avoid it in the future.

> @"Skotlex.7580" said:

> > @"Zephire.8049" said:

> > Meanwhile a level 80 in full berserker gear can easily one-shot mobs from range, repeatedly. It was a problem before mounts existed, mounts just make it more obvious who's aware of others and who's thinking only of themselves.

>

> I would hazard a guess and state ANet's design for GW2 was that players shouldn't be able to grief each another. Wasn't the idea of the game that we should all be glad to see other players? This feeling is pretty much non existant for lower level maps when it's their turn at the daily. It becomes a frantic race to attempt to earn credit before the event is over (eg: once upon a time before mounts, my mesmer would use a staff as its ranged weapon. I had several daily events end around me without being able to get credit back then).

>

> When the game tells players that the polite thing to do is to just press 1 and tag a few mobs, then I'd say that the whole point of scaling (both of players down to the area's level and of events up to the number of players) has failed miserably.

Scaling in general does need to be adjusted to account for the powercreep that started in HoT, and I'd say that starter maps could have their event scaling increased as well (maybe even tied to when those maps are the daily so more vet and elite mobs get spawned over regular ones), but it's still inconsiderate players who are the primary problem since it's not hard to adjust what you do when others are around. Starter maps just have less wiggle room for everyone else if someone is playing selfishly.

If people just auto-attacking slows down how quickly mobs are killed by a noticeable amount, even with scaling issues I'd say the main problem is the person who comes in on a power reaper and used shroud #4 because if that one person wasn't there, a lot more people could have gotten credit.

> @"Melech.4308" said:

> > @"Zephire.8049" said:

> > The problem isn't mounts, it's geared level 80s who are inconsiderate of others. Depending on which area in the starter map you are, mounts don't even one-shot mobs because the damage was nerfed already.

> >

> > Meanwhile a level 80 in full berserker gear can easily one-shot mobs from range, repeatedly. It was a problem before mounts existed, mounts just make it more obvious who's aware of others and who's thinking only of themselves.

>

> I don't think it's inconsiderate level 80s at fault; I think it's the way they are scaled based on the zone.

>

> A level 80 isn't going to say "Oh, a level 5 person, I'd better give him a chance to kill those mobs while I hang back and watch him/her". Level 80s also want to kill mobs :smile:

It's definitely people being inconsiderate. It's not hard to notice that you one-shot mobs and there's someone (or multiple people) running around in not even full armour who take multiple swings to kill enemies. You also don't need to continuously kill mobs to get gold credit in an event. Tag what you need to and then chill out and watch the newbies. Especially on starter maps where there is no map rewards loot and at 80 there are far better places to go to farm XP or karma.

I do a lot of map completion. I also have a ton of 80s in exotic and/or ascended 'zerker gear. I don't commit mass-murder of mobs if other people are around, and if there are I'll make sure to let them get a couple hits in so they get credit. Same if there's an event going on. The only time I might jump the gun is for some of the PITA hearts that are made infinitely easier when a certain event is going. Yet I constantly run into other 80s who range mobs down without thinking about others—this includes them killing mobs that are only spawned when someone interacts with an object that locks you in place so the person who spawned the mob doesn't even get credit for it.

And it's not just me that hangs back and lets newbies get credit, either. Just personally I know people on my friendslist and in my primary guild also like to "babysit" newbies over treating them like competition, and I know there are plenty of others out there who do the same.

Scaling could be adjusted a bit due to the powercreep that started in HoT, but if people were more mindful of others it wouldn't be much of an issue.

The problem isn't mounts, it's geared level 80s who are inconsiderate of others. Depending on which area in the starter map you are, mounts don't even one-shot mobs because the damage was nerfed already.

Meanwhile a level 80 in full berserker gear can easily one-shot mobs from range, repeatedly. It was a problem before mounts existed, mounts just make it more obvious who's aware of others and who's thinking only of themselves.

Not going to happen and Anet has said they aren't going to do that. It's completely unfair to the person who chose the name first, especially since it's impossible to know if they're never going to come back to the game or on hiatus due to real life circumstances. Sure you may be attached to a name as concept, but that doesn't mean people aren't attached to the same name on their existing character.

Also, think of other names to try. Add titles. Do two or more names. Look at the massive fantasy name generator site (that actually has a GW2 section!). If you want a meme name or the name of a character from a different piece of media, you're probably out of luck. If you go original names—especially with the aforementioned addition of a title or multiple names—it's far easier to find a name that isn't taken. I have 35 characters currently (spanning since launch to the latest being created in December) and only three ever weren't taken. One was a meme name, one was a pun, and the third was plant-based and everything was taken for some reason, so I just made her last name "Plantsbane" out of frustration and she's been Plantsbane ever since, and honestly she's more memorable because of it.

Be original. You can also rush through character creation to try names you want. If you find one that's free, you can delete the character and remake them properly as your account reserves the name of a character for 24 hours after deletion.

The only things you list that make sense are a new expansion (doesn't need to be Cantha) and new elite specs. Everything else would be a resource sink and cost more to make and implement than it would bring in.

Playable tengu or other race:

* would require new voice actors, new models, new animations, new starting area, and all existing armour would need to be modified to fit them. That is *a lot* and there's no way to monetize it without pissing people off, so likely a net loss.

Demonetizing build templates:

* ignoring the fact that the number of people who quit (and didn't come back in 1-4 weeks) because they couldn't have unlimited templates probably didn't even cause a blip in Arenanet's fincances, they can't demonetize them without spitting in the face of everyone who bought more. They don't hand out free gems so there would be a massive influx of people contacting support demanding a refund. It's similar reasoning to why the original mount contract does not and likely will not have a mount select license.

Overhauling dungeons:

* dungeons are old, extremely buggy code and would need to be rebuilt from the ground up, and how are they going to monetize it to recoup the upfront cost of it when they could have worked on other content that would bring in money and new people? I would like to see dungeons be relevant again but it's been over 7 years and they were barely touched the first couple years and that's it. Fractals exist to replace dungeons.

LWS1:

* They've said that's one of the things they're going to use Visions of the Past for. LWS1 was coded in such a way it's impossible to bring back in its original form, so they're going to bring back parts of it.

Story speed:

* So you want to bring back players and make people play together, but you want Arenanet to stop updating story content entirely until they have X amount and release it at once? Small updates are vastly preferable to no updates with a single content update once or twice a year. People still play together, both on the new maps and old ones. There's also several years worth of content for new players to do.

Guild update:

* Sure, but like dungeons I doubt it will happen and it won't bring money in. New content gets people playing. Someone isn't going to start playing a brand new game because they changed guild missions.

Gem store:

* They have been putting new skins into the game that you can get by playing. The general pace is 1-3 brand new gem store skin a week. Shadow in the Ice introduced 34+ new skins, minis, and emotes, as well as three new guild decorations. And this is where subjectivity comes in because I find the "free" skins nicer than the "premium" ones that have come out. Plus there's the gold-gem conversion so everyone has access to gem store skins. (Also how can you demand that Arenanet change things up to bring in more money then demand they cut their primary income in the same post?)

The only thing that will bring in a huge influx of money/players at this point is an expansion. Everything else needs to be assessed on how much it will cost to do (time, money, people) and how much benefit (retaining players, gaining players, bringing in money, making future development easier) it will bring in. Much of what you listed is high cost with little benefit to Arenanet and at the end of the day Arenanet is a company (beholden to yet a different company) that doesn't have the resources to throw at everything players want changed. Especially now that so many people who have been with the company for years—some even since GW1—have left, meaning the number of people familiar with the code and its various iterations is dwindling.

A lot of long-standing games and programs become limited in what can be done with them not because of money but because after a certain point, no one knows the original code anymore and any change can result in a seemingly unrelated area being broken. And the Guild Wars engine is rather infamous at this point for being old and not being written to account for future changes to the game or available tech.

Definitely no. Team chat in WvW is horrible and whenever I have a look I have to report and block half the people in it, and in general it moves too fast to respond. And that's just 1-3 servers with less than a thousand people. A global PvE chat would be magnitudes worse. All you have to do is look at LA or Mistlock or Silverwastes chat to know exactly what people would do if they could spam everyone playing.

I'd prefer it if you could "watch" LFG channels and get a ping with the LFG title whenever someone lists their group. Far easier to contain and monitor that than a global chat.

I'd say overall the technical difficulty is fine, however the tools needed to play them are lacking.

Strikes are the first thing that come to mind. They aren't hard, per se, but finding a group of people to do the harder ones is difficult and time consuming if you don't have enough friends/ a guild that does them. Even easy fights get harder if you have people regularly failing mechanics and few people are doing substantial damage and even fewer can heal or spread boons.

Raids suffer from this as well, as there's no easy way to find a group built into the game. (LFG is terrible and still time consuming, assuming you don't get kicked randomly or fall victim to a squad merge troll).

There's also the issue of escalating visual noise and lack of attack telegraphs which make content needlessly frustrating under the guise of challenge.

All that said, though, GW2 is pretty good with open world difficulty and players are able to change up how hard or easy content is by changing their class, spec, or gear. It would just be nice if there was some more help available for players to learn mechanics and whatnot without just throwing them to the metaphorical wolves and hoping they don't get so frustrated they quit.

If they made it with a single-player (preferably offline) option with heroes as a default, maybe.

But I don't see much of a point in a complete remake when the company has other issues/focuses at this point in time with neither enough people nor money to go around. They'd pretty much need to redo animations, textures, and models (and probably the engine), and they've been open about how much a nightmare it was to balance the hundreds of skills that every class had access to (with the exception of the class-restricted ones) so I'd expect the skills to be changed and/or culled.

GW1 was a good game, but it was a product of its time and nostalgia only goes so far. It would be better served with a small dedicated team that slowly improved on things rather than an entire remake from the ground up, which would be a huge undertaking to bring everything up to modern standards.

> @"Raknar.4735" said:

> > @"Konrad Curze.5130" said:

> > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > Who are these content creators that stopped?

> >

> > Jawgeous and Hizen for starters. Dulfy a while ago

>

> Hizen streamed GW2 9 days ago, Dulfy appears to have stopped creating content for not only GW2, but also all other MMOs on her site. I doubt it has anything to do with GW2.

>

> Also WP branched out in the past, like his Grimrock or Tomb Raider stuff, so it's nothing new. He's just saying he wants to grow his channel by reaching a bigger audience, which is reasonable for a youtuber.

Dulfy stopped because she got a job that required her full attention/her job got busy (not sure which). So less the game is dying/content creators are leaving a dying game, more putting IRL priorities ahead of video game content and documentation in her case.

And honestly I'm fine with that and I wish more content creators would move on if they're tired of a game or being a content creator doesn't cover all their expenses so they need to cut back on video games so they can focus on things like rent and food. That's not to say content creators don't benefit their video game(s), but I'd rather people be happy than burn out. Also GW2 has been out for over 7 years now and that's a long time for anyone to be focused on a game full time.

This happens every time one of these contests happens. It's not discrimination or otherwise targeting specific people, it's because there are 195 countries in the world and each one has different laws regarding contests, sweepstakes, and lotteries and how each are defined. Laws also vary within each country (which is why even when Canada is included, or it's a Canada-only contest, Quebec is excluded as that province has different laws).

Considering the Swedish law that excludes Sweden from Friend/Ships is one that bans games of chance, there's not much Arenanet can do except to exclude Sweden so people don't waste time entering and Arenanet doesn't risk getting fined for breaking the law.

> @"Cronos.6532" said:

> Customer Support was also able to restore the Restored weapons (heh) for me in just three hours after I made a ticket. So if you can't wait for the fix and want the weapons right now, that should also work!

>

> Thanks GM Fiction; you're the best.

Mine were also restored very quickly and also by GM Fiction. Definitely impressed at the speed and friendliness; I was expecting to wait a day or two given that it's a patch day.

I'm glad that Anet is looking into a way for players to obtain salvaged Restored weapons without GMs doing it manually, but I'm still surprised that it was pushed out as it is currently.

I sent in a ticket for mine to be restored as well. I would have fine having the Illuminated weapons require the Restored one for crafting _if_ it was released at the same time and it was clear that that was the case. However, A Whisper in the Dark released November 19th and they didn't say anything about having to hold onto upwards of 16 weapons for months to craft the next tier. Especially when the previous tier only required the skin and Astral and Heroic weapons only required the skin and related achievement.

What should have happened is that to buy the Illuminated recipes you simply had to have completed Master of the Ancestral Forge. Put that as a requirement and remove the need for the actual Restored weapon in your inventory.

Here's hoping they change it—or at least return salvaged weapons—because I am not grinding out a whole new set of Restored weapons because someone thought it would be a "nice" surprise.

In addition to all the extra work it would take for the writers to create 9 different stories, it's unrealistic to expect artists and animators to make 9 different cinematics and missions, and having to cast/pay for 9 different episodes worth of voice actors for what amounts to a single episode release. Especially since Anet has been upfront in some of their dev videos about how they have to plan the story around VAs being available, so if they know they can't bring in someone that means that character has to be cut.

Now imagine if several VAs aren't available and not one, not two, but three or more full episodes had to be rewritten with different characters partway into the allotted production time and how that would affect not just the quality of the story but could start a domino effect on things not even directly story-related.

The writing is actually the easiest part of it. The time, resources, and cost of everything increases by 9 fold by doing profession paths. (And then people will complain if elites don't get their own unique story part in addition to the people who currently complain that their race/background not being mentioned)

The Commander-style design works well for an MMO without costs and time shooting through the roof. The separate racial stories and background stories were unfeasible to keep up with without having a giant pile of money to throw at problems and people—there's a reason (several actually) that they merged all characters onto the same story by level 60 and they're not going to suddenly reverse course on that at this point. Continuing getting unique bits of dialogue is probably all we're going to get since it doesn't change the story and it's something a VA can say in the booth while recording all their other stuff.

> @"Dante.1763" said:

> > @"SoulGuardian.6203" said:

> > I don't think the op meant that the race passives would be directly connected to the class they pick, but rather something to do with the race in itself.

> >

> > For instance.

> > Norn = Toughness

> > Charr = Power

> > Human = Quickness

> > Sylvari = Regeneration

> > Asura = Alacrity

> >

> > I may be wrong.

>

> So...only charrs would be able to play power builds in PVE, got it. Norn would barely be taken because toughness is bad for nearly everything. In fact, your entire meta would for the most part be. Asura, Human, Charr.

>

> its a terrible idea IMO.

And there's no way to change your race, so you would have to pick your race based on what you want to do in PvE/WvW/PvP while creating said character. Or delete a character just so you can remake it as a different race. Pick the "wrong" race because you want to play what you like and you're FUBAR because the encounters and skills will have to take into account racial bonus stats otherwise it will be too easy/too OP.

Such a design is the antithesis of "play what you want" which is why it was _never_ even considered for GW2. The devs have stated that the racial abilities are there for flavour only, and whenever a racial has somehow been competitive, it gets adjusted so there's an equal playing field.

> @"yoni.7015" said:

> There is no need to change it. People don’t spend a lot of time in the character selection screen and the background doesn’t really matter.

You may not spend a lot of time on it, but some people do. I have over 30 characters and there are people with more than double that, so while I don't sit there and admire the character selection screen, I see it. A lot. Plus it's way easier to hop to that screen to "pause" the game and take care of something else rather than close the game down to reopen it not long after as long as your computer can handle that. You're also ignoring the fact that that screen is the first thing new players see when they boot up the game. It can be extremely off-putting to start playing a new game because you've seen/heard things about it, the launcher looks cool, but then the first thing you see is old/outdated content and no context for what it is or why it's there.

As for the topic at hand, I agree. The current screen does not match the aesthetic of the new launcher or that of the Icebrood Saga. Even if they changed what we currently have from reds and purples to whites and blues, it would fit better. Though the whole screen could use an overhaul and QoL features.

As a charr main, no. Their current pose is much more natural and is a refreshing change from other games where "large cat warrior" translates to "human body, cat head, fur, and tail". Nevermind all the developmental time and resources that would be needed to create the new player model, animations, and rigging but also change how every piece of armour and effect in the game would look on the new charr even if it was optional. If they're not going back to redo old backpacks to be dyable, why would they go back and do something that's several times the amount of work that would benefit the fewest amount of players? (I seem to recall Anet saying charr were the least-played race)

Also I want to point out that in your images as "proof" quadrupedal animals can stand upright, 3/4 are sitting, not standing. The only animals that can comfortably walk on two legs are humans and birds. Kangaroos do as well, though they hop, and while other apes and monkeys can walk on two legs, only for short amounts of time and they prefer walking on all four unless there's a need to walk on just two. In a more stylized game you could get away with a super bulky character standing straight on (thinner) digitigrade legs, but GW1 and GW2 have always had a stylized realism style, not purely stylized like some other MMOs have.

I'm fine with how Anet does things. From the start (of GW2, not 1) they chose to use in-game footage and assets to show off how the game really looks instead of doing a high quality trailer where the models are far lower quality (and sometimes with a completely different art direction) because at the time both MMOs and video games in general would often use custom trailers with outside programs instead of in-game footage.

Maybe it's not as flashy but there's no dramatic difference between a trailer and the actual game. What you see is what you get. And judging by the Bound By Blood trailer, they've added new bones, animations, and textures for new characters which means cinematics will look better going forward.

No. As stated, not all teams—let alone devs—have the same skills or knowledge. A dev who works primarily on scripting Living World content may or may not know how to change the UI just like a dev familiar with the backend of mechanics may or may not know how the inventory system works. A team that works on PvP probably doesn't know how raids are made. There may be some crossover and basic knowledge but odds are it's very specific and/or surface level rather than the extensive knowledge and experience needed.

If there are devs working on smaller QoL improvements who have the knowledge and skillset to help out, it may not be a bad idea to move them over, but not many devs even know the UI intimately enough to be able to help. If you have to spend 20 hours teaching and helping someone learn a new system, that's 20 hours that an experienced person didn't work on it. Heck, you'd likely still have to go over their work to make sure there's not simple mistakes. If you teach someone, you generally have them shadow you and give them basic tasks for them to familiarize themselves with the process and work them up to a point where they're independent. You don't throw a complex system that could possibly lead to player items being deleted completely and en masse and expect them to figure it out right away because outside a massive crisis where there's no other options, teaching people during a rough period instead of just dealing with it ASAP is a poor choice.

And that's assuming it's an issue involving the game engine instead of the servers. How many devs know the architecture and structure of the servers well enough to work on them and it not require a massive rollback or potentially even brick the whole thing? You may as well ask a professional water painter to carve something from marble while expecting the same quality because technically both painters and sculptors are called artists, right?

Also the issues, while annoying, are blown out of proportion and the entire playerbase shouldn't be punished with delayed content because there's crashes. I'd rather deal with lag and crashes—even the occasion 5 minute rollback—for a week or two than have the next LW episode delayed a month or more. It wouldn't be the first time and it won't be the last and people survive it each time.

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > @"Zephire.8049" said:

> > You cannot do one-time major events in a game about story. Or at least one where you have the original starting story for new players/characters that then jumps into the current story after you finish it.

> >

> > Arenanet tried that with the Southsun events and LW1 and they have not gone over well. They were a pain in the rear for people at the time (I wouldn't know because despite playing since closed beta, I was busy during that period of time so never got to play it) and completely messed up the flow of the story since you cannot replay them. LW2 may make sense if you played LW1, but if you haven't then you suddenly have characters you're expected to know and care about and references to a character and event that you never saw.

> >

> > To do that for every event and story would be a monumentally bad decision for an MMO. You weren't there to kill Joko so now you can never play the first half of LW4. You didn't kill Kralk when he crashed so you have zero context for the branded or any plot to do with them. You were busy with work so couldn't be there where Aurene hatched so the first time you see her she's as big as you and apparently you're her champion but this is the first time you've ever seen her. And how to you work with expansions? Does all HoT content poof once PoF comes out? Are all previous LW episodes deleted the moment a new episode is released? And what about achievements and rewards tied to certain places? And how about how the devs feel about their hard work being deleted? Some devs don't have issues with their work being ephemeral, sure, but not everyone is fine putting dozens of hours into something that will last a short amount of time and will only be able to be experienced from Youtube after a week or a month.

> >

> > A game with no consistent story, such as Fortnite, can do one-time events. Team Fortress 2, which is a far more apt comparison, did do one-time _story_ events but left the maps up so people could play on them forever. An MMO cannot do that because you've forgotten the second half of the acronym everyone drops to keep it short: RPG. A roleplaying game where the story is fragmented and impossible to replay if you weren't playing between two set dates is not fun. Could an MMO be set up to always be evolving and removing content as other content is added? Yes, but it would need to be built from the ground up to do so. GW2 is not and LW1 is infamous among both players and devs as a bad design choice for not being replayable.

>

> Ya that makes sense to me when you explain it that way.

>

> But still i believe this is what GW2 wanted to be in the beginning, before Fortnite came along and "showed em all how it's done."

>

> Never-the-less, i feel that gw2 should still come up with something to hype up the game...it seems to just be lacking in that department. I think it's plausible to think that they could still hype up their game in forums outside of the games dedicated media channels and reddit. The little 5 cent ads that appear on website footers just isn't cutting it.

It may be hard for GW2 to do at this point in its life. As it is Fortnite had to straight up shut down its servers and social media for over 24 hours this time to get media attention and build hype (and I don't know how or if they can top that honestly).

But for an MMO event you'd want to come up with something that

* Does not affect the story.

* Is not talked about afterward by NPCs outside of maybe a comment here or there.

* Is accessible to new players.

* A large time frame so people can play it even if they live in a different timezone or are busy. This also reduces the load on servers.

Getting people who don't play GW2 to start for an event would also be harder. You'd pretty much need to do a tie-in or something so big and different non-players will care enough to sign up and download 45+GB.

To appeal to current players is easier, and during beta they actually did do some one-time events for fun (Hunger Games-style battle royale; random legendary creatures such as a giant legendary bunny; a branded event where you tried to survive and if you got branded you'd go around trying to brand other players). Though that was in 2012 and I doubt the code for those still works.

> @"Ultramex.1506" said:

> > @"Dashingsteel.3410" said:

> > The special events are what made season 1 the greatest in my opinion. I wish Anet hadn't listened to the complaints of newer players and instead kept rolling out special events for subsequent seasons.

>

> Easy for you to say that when you get to experience it while some of us don't, the only way to see how those events play out are by watching youtube videos, I was confused as to why Lion's Arch looked different during PS instance.

I left before LW1 came out and came back mid-HoT and was so, so, _so_ confused by everything. I had no idea who anyone was, LA was totally different, there were so many items that I had no idea what they were there for or how to get them (and were impossible to get outside of LW1). It was not fun and I very nearly left again because there was no way to catch up on the story without watching a Youtube video, which still does not let you connect to Taimi, Braham, Rox, Kas, or Jory on the same way meeting and playing with them does. And to this day I find little things here and there where, upon looking into it, I learn I can't do or get because it was part of LW1 and Anet decided to leave it in there.

Not to mention the Kessex Hill loading screen is a random grey blob if you didn't play LW1, and the toxic events are a nightmare when leveling and break the flow of zones.

You cannot do one-time major events in a game about story. Or at least one where you have the original starting story for new players/characters that then jumps into the current story after you finish it.

Arenanet tried that with the Southsun events and LW1 and they have not gone over well. They were a pain in the rear for people at the time (I wouldn't know because despite playing since closed beta, I was busy during that period of time so never got to play it) and completely messed up the flow of the story since you cannot replay them. LW2 may make sense if you played LW1, but if you haven't then you suddenly have characters you're expected to know and care about and references to a character and event that you never saw.

To do that for every event and story would be a monumentally bad decision for an MMO. You weren't there to kill Joko so now you can never play the first half of LW4. You didn't kill Kralk when he crashed so you have zero context for the branded or any plot to do with them. You were busy with work so couldn't be there where Aurene hatched so the first time you see her she's as big as you and apparently you're her champion but this is the first time you've ever seen her. And how to you work with expansions? Does all HoT content poof once PoF comes out? Are all previous LW episodes deleted the moment a new episode is released? And what about achievements and rewards tied to certain places? And how about how the devs feel about their hard work being deleted? Some devs don't have issues with their work being ephemeral, sure, but not everyone is fine putting dozens of hours into something that will last a short amount of time and will only be able to be experienced from Youtube after a week or a month.

A game with no consistent story, such as Fortnite, can do one-time events. Team Fortress 2, which is a far more apt comparison, did do one-time _story_ events but left the maps up so people could play on them forever. An MMO cannot do that because you've forgotten the second half of the acronym everyone drops to keep it short: RPG. A roleplaying game where the story is fragmented and impossible to replay if you weren't playing between two set dates is not fun. Could an MMO be set up to always be evolving and removing content as other content is added? Yes, but it would need to be built from the ground up to do so. GW2 is not and LW1 is infamous among both players and devs as a bad design choice for not being replayable.

Hard no.

Even if it's optional, it still creates two tiers of players: those who can pay for it monthly and those who can't. To entice people to pay monthly, they would need to offer certain conveniences or high discounts which means they would have to intentionally deny such things to people who not only don't buy gems with money but those who spend money but perhaps not monthly.

GW2 was designed so everyone was pretty much equal and the game was accessible regardless of your monthly income. Yes people who can afford to buy gems with money can buy more cosmetics or convenience items (or even gold!) than those who can't, but it's still possible to buy those items with gold. Adding a sub goes against that design because suddenly only those able or willing to pay monthly get certain things. That's what the deluxe and ultimate editions of HoT and PoF were for, and even then you can upgrade to the deluxe version of both using gems.

The supply drops look to be Anet's version of a sub, and they're designed pretty well. They could maybe tweaked a bit but everything in it is accessible to everyone eventually and you can buy it using gems.

At this point, if an MMO requires a subscription, I'm out. I've played subscription MMOs enough to have no interest feeling forced to play it or deal with being hamstrung because the game is designed to deny major QoL features unless someone pays money (or worse, pays money monthly). Been playing GW2 since closed beta and if they added a sub, optional or otherwise, I'd be out. I will tolerate ads to buy things/sub to mobile games. I will not tolerate them in a B2P game (the base of GW2 is F2P, but you still need to buy the expansions) from a AAA publisher.

Why do I have 30 level 80 characters? Because that's my play style.

I'd rather have characters that have a specific handful of builds (assuming I'm using them for some purpose instead of just fun) instead of cramming everything onto one character. I also enjoy Fashion Wars but hate changing good looks, as well as coming up with characters and backstories. I enjoy GW2's world and story, but I don't do the story on every single one (usually up to Claw Island just for the keys but not many beyond that). And I find map completion meditative so the larger a pool I have of characters to do that, the better.

Plus it's cheaper to buy a character slot and use them for storage than it is to buy an extra bank tab, not to mention how easy it makes farming certain nodes.

I'd rather have the option to play every profession and elite—and be ready the moment more elites are released—than stick to just my main. You ask what's the point in having multiple 80s, I ask what's the point in having just one in an MMO. Different people enjoy different things.

> @"Ayakaru.6583" said:

> I am **not fine** with the model presented. It sounds like money grabbing for a key feature. I get they need compensation, but not this excessive.

> I am however **fine** with a new integrated model that i can _actually_ use.

> No matter how much greater and better ArcDPS was, i couldn't use it because the game kept crashing.

> I prefer a single slice of regular cake over an entire pie that's making my stomach hurt.

This is what it really comes down to.

The monetization aspect remains to be seen and we likely won't know the specifics until it's released. However, build and gear templates being in-game makes them accessible to far more people. Arc didn't work for everyone and required constant updates and not everyone is comfortable with the manual install. And good luck reporting a bug as a layperson.

There's a reason why plug-and-play software, hardware, and accessories are so popular even when it's possible to buy better versions for the same price (or cheaper!). It's far more convenient and not everyone wants to go to multiple places or fiddle around with things when what they want/need is easily provided and takes no work to learn or set up. That's pretty much Apple's entire shtick!

GW2 is Arenanet's playground. Sure the slide they've built may not be as impressive as the one they're replacing, but they actually built it into the foundation and with their name tied to it, they have to keep it safe and respond quickly if anyone gets hurt because they have far more liability than a person who required you to sign a waiver before using the previous slide.

I generally don't find maps are dead outside of off-peak times, but since Arenanet should have access to the metrics of each map, I wouldn't be opposed to them having a karma/XP/MF buff that they rotate through the least visited maps. Not enough to be game breaking but enough to entice people who don't have a set destination to go to that map over one that has a steady population even when there's no bonus events.

I think another option would to have something along the line of a weekly event where instead of world bosses or champion rewarding extra loot, completing event chains rewards the extra loot. The chains that are fully completed the least—usually coinciding with less popular maps—reward the most bonus loot.