What ever happened to the MMO Manifesto?

[Brother.1504]

The early days of gw2 were very experimental imo. Anyone remember what a mess season one was knows what I mean. The 2018 game feels much more deliberate and confident with content updates. Yes miss steps still happen(mount gate) but I’m enjoying the current cadence. I feel the manifesto is more a metaphor to try and make the best game Anet can.

[Ephemiel.5694]

All i care about the Manifesto that was not added was that giant underwater Leviathan at the end.

 

If there IS some underwater content in the future, that thing better appear.

[Torolan.5816]

The downfall of the players manifesto is simple: people and funds.

 

Of course you can write a world that moves, breathes and forces you to fight just to cling on. Genres like that are quite popular at this time with titles like fortnite, but all prove to be ultimately shallow as you hav to start over from scratch. Eve Online would be the perfect game if it was not so easy to gank and the replacement of equipment that is not a brutix with gank weaponry wasn´t so expensive. Crowfall could be just such a game, but I fear that it will have to compromise like Anet was also forced too because of limited funds. Blizzard could pull something like this off, but why should they with the strong titles they already have.

 

I agree with the OP that the manifesto was what mainly brought me to GW2 and despite me playing it passionately for about 3 years, it ultimately failed me with the introduction of raids and the stopping of altering maps that are frozen in time, turning more and more into a common MMO with nonsensical stuff. It is indeed one of the better ones, both financial and systemical, but it is not the breath of fresh air that I had hoped for anymore.

 

From the perspective of story, Anet backed themselves into a corner big time. It is nonsensical to visit the dungeons ever again and a pure design desicion to put rewards in it you can only get there, once Destinies Edge has finished their business you will leave the dungeon behind, like you also do in RPGs. New races are heavy to introduce because of the structure of the personal story, which is railroaded from head to toe after the first few chapters.

 

So all in all, I would say it was an honest effort with a miserable continuation. When you are only looking at atmosphere and breathing world, Eve online beats GW2 miles over miles despite it being populated by mainly gankers with questionable morale.

 

[Jumpin Lumpix.6108]

The mmo manifesto took a backseat to the gemstore.

[Zaklex.6308]

Re: Branching Story

You do realize that the branching story aspect only applied the the Personal Story and was never meant to go beyond that don't you? As for mob density, it really depends on where you live...I mean if you want to compare PoF to sub-Saharan Africa, then you certainly would see those animals out and about, at least that's what I keep hearing from friends that have gone on safari's there...all kidding aside, the vast majority if players would complain if they ran through a map and had nothing to do except at camps, caves, etc., etc., etc., which is why maps are populated with enemies to kill.

 

 

> @"Chasind.3128" said:

> I don't even know what's going on in the story mainly because I absolutely HATE how the commander acts to braham/ etc. It's boring, the characers are boring. Why even have custom options to pick from if they only matter in vanilla? In WoW, you're addressed as what you are. In GW2, you're the same person with the same background, whether you're a Blood Legion Charr or an Asura of the College of Dynamics. It's mainly why I maybe pop in once a week just to raid with my guild and I just ignore anything with lore in GW2 because it doesn't matter.

> But, Guild Wars 2 is not played for the story, it's utter garbage. It's played for everything other than the story.

 

I don't know about you, but I could care less what a person background is or where they are from, what ever title they're holding at the moment is how I see and treat them, since I'm the Commander in GW2 that is how I expect to be addressed and treated by everyone, regardless of which race I am or my origin background, that is exactly how the story was written and how it continues to be written, you were in a specific element of your races organization at the beginning and got shuffled off to something bigger...why would you even refer to your past?

 

 

[Ephemiel.5694]

> @"Chasind.3128" said:

> I don't even know what's going on in the story mainly because I absolutely HATE how the commander acts to braham/ etc. It's boring, the characers are boring. Why even have custom options to pick from if they only matter in vanilla? In WoW, you're addressed as what you are. In GW2, you're the same person with the same background, whether you're a Blood Legion Charr or an Asura of the College of Dynamics. It's mainly why I maybe pop in once a week just to raid with my guild and I just ignore anything with lore in GW2 because it doesn't matter.

> But, Guild Wars 2 is not played for the story, it's utter garbage. It's played for everything other than the story.

 

> @"Chasind.3128" said:

> I don't even know what's going on in the story mainly because I absolutely HATE how the commander acts to braham/ etc. It's boring, the characers are boring. Why even have custom options to pick from if they only matter in vanilla? In WoW, you're addressed as what you are. In GW2, you're the same person with the same background, whether you're a Blood Legion Charr or an Asura of the College of Dynamics. It's mainly why I maybe pop in once a week just to raid with my guild and I just ignore anything with lore in GW2 because it doesn't matter.

> But, Guild Wars 2 is not played for the story, it's utter garbage. It's played for everything other than the story.

 

In WoW, they literally only call you by your class through most of the game.

[battledrone.8315]

> @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > > It's a real shame about the #2 with how hearts came to be. I wonder how much different the game would be if those players from other MMO's just.. disregarded what they're used to and had been open to a new way of playing an MMO.

> > >

> > > I really wish spawn density was toned down in open areas though. mobs shouldn't just be out there standing aimlessly just to fill space. That's something I REALLY liked about Breath of the Wild, the landscape wasn't just crawling with enemies, they were more realistically populated, with enemies hanging around camps or places where they made sense except at night. Some people called it empty and didn't like it, But that's the kind of open world I'd been looking for, too bad it's a single player game. Less is more sometimes, and that applies to combat frequency too.

> >

> > ummm.. they actually tried it before launch, and it didnt work at all

> > when it doesnt work in the test run, why would you put it on live servers?

>

> It didn't work because the test players they used came from WoW and were well, there's not a nice way to put it and I'll get warned and the thread deleted so you can imagine what I might say about their intelligence and lets leave it at that. I saw test videos and people complained about not knowing what to do and thought they just had to grind to 80 killing mobs which was the absolute last thing the designers wanted. But if the players had been more intelligent, and maybe just dropped what they knew of normal MMO design and looked from the intended perspective. I think we'd have a better game. Hearts are boring, and packing the world with enemies every 5 feet kills the enjoyment of the combat system really fast.

 

you have the nerve to call other players stupid? THEY ALREADY TRIED IT, AND IT DIDNT WORK!!!!

if they had made a mmo only for intelligent people, they would look at max 10% of the current playerbase, and most of the content wouldnt exist, BECAUSE THERE WOULDNT BE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY FOR IT

i agree with the last part, that is the major reason for HoTs failure

if they really had skipped the hearts, how do you suggest the players should had levelled their toons instead?

if you only want smart people around you, youre definately in the wrong place, i suggest chess or libraries

 

 

 

[Healix.5819]

> @"battledrone.8315" said:

> if they really had skipped the hearts, how do you suggest the players should had levelled their toons instead?

 

You're meant to explore the area and do events. Hearts are only there to attract people to areas surrounded by events, in hopes that they would stick around long enough to be pulled into them. Originally, events weren't even marked, which is why the earlier areas have a lot more NPCs begging for help, but they found that testers simply ignored them. The problem is, people have been conditioned to follow the arrow, which is how nearly every game plays out now, whereas ArenaNet has always been into exploration. So hearts were added for those expecting quests, and years later, the content guide became the arrow to follow.

 

A simple solution they could have used is getting people to see events as quests. They could have had a basic list of events in the area for example, in an attempt to get people to see it as a quest log, with a reward for completing the event the first time. Even simpler, a meter that fills as you complete events in the map, essentially acting as a map-wide heart or reputation system, granting a one time reward at set intervals.

[Gehenna.3625]

To be honest, the Manifesto was really a sham from the start. The game on release already didn't follow the Manifesto and it ticked me off royally at the time. I think it said something about your character being the hero and as we all know by now that wasn't true since you basically are a sidekick to Trahearne in the original story.

 

And well they did have a novel approach to the quests by organizing them differently but it's just the format the changed but it still requires the same things to be done: kill x amount of mobs, escort this person, click that many clickables on the map, collect x amount of that.

 

So I already had it early on that the leveling process became pretty tedious to me because every zone, though looking different, basically had all of the same types of activities, just repackaged.

 

But in all honesty, that was then and it was already clear that the Manifesto wasn't really a fair representation of what GW2 was. I do think the time already came some time ago to let go of this Manifesto. The game is there, it's been going through different directions over the years (which is normal for MMOs really) and so it is what it is today.

 

The real question is not what happened with what they said in the Manifesto, we already know that answer for a long time now, but whether or not you like the game as it is. There's just no way that they're going to say "oh yeah, we said that, let's change the whole game fundamentally to fit the Manifesto". That ship basically sailed when the game was brought out and realistically that ship had sailed already before the Manifesto was made and published.

 

Just decide whether the game works for you as is or not and leave that Manifesto where it is....in the past. At this point it's just crying over spilt milk and this game will never be what they promised in that Manifesto. Maybe game makers should stop overpromising...it'll make everybody's lives easier, especially their own.

[Gomes.5643]

I have to say that I see most of the things quite similiar. But we have to remember that at the beginning of GW2 the manifesto was (more or less) the foundation of GW2 and the things it brought with it (Dynamic Events, Personal Story etc) were quite the revolution at that time. Unfortunately this ideas were never thought to finish and we are now stuck with the same progress as the start of GW2. Sure the quality and presentation of the events improved a lot, but we still have the same flaws like repetition (events happening at the same place with exactly the same enemies to kill ...), lack of consequence (remember the examples where they told us that bosses would actually do something when not killed - like destroying villages? Now they just disappear when ignored by the raid) and player interactivity (like the example where you can find a cursed gemstone somewhere and when you bring it to the wrong place it summons a demon etc). So long story short, at the beginning the dynamic event system (and also the personal story) where quite the leap forward compared to the other MMOs out there. Unfortunately from there on, it didnt come closer to fullfill the vision this manifesto shows ......

 

 

 

 

 

[battledrone.8315]

> @"Healix.5819" said:

> > @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > if they really had skipped the hearts, how do you suggest the players should had levelled their toons instead?

>

> You're meant to explore the area and do events. Hearts are only there to attract people to areas surrounded by events, in hopes that they would stick around long enough to be pulled into them. Originally, events weren't even marked, which is why the earlier areas have a lot more NPCs begging for help, but they found that testers simply ignored them. The problem is, people have been conditioned to follow the arrow, which is how nearly every game plays out now, whereas ArenaNet has always been into exploration. So hearts were added for those expecting quests, and years later, the content guide became the arrow to follow.

>

> A simple solution they could have used is getting people to see events as quests. They could have had a basic list of events in the area for example, in an attempt to get people to see it as a quest log, with a reward for completing the event the first time. Even simpler, a meter that fills as you complete events in the map, essentially acting as a map-wide heart or reputation system, granting a one time reward at set intervals.

 

the big problem with that is, that EVENTS and QUESTS arent the same thing at all

QUESTS i can usually do alone, and at my own pace..i want the freedom to quit, when i want to

EVENTS dont have that user friendliness

[Devildoc.6721]

> @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > > @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > > > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > > > It's a real shame about the #2 with how hearts came to be. I wonder how much different the game would be if those players from other MMO's just.. disregarded what they're used to and had been open to a new way of playing an MMO.

> > > >

> > > > I really wish spawn density was toned down in open areas though. mobs shouldn't just be out there standing aimlessly just to fill space. That's something I REALLY liked about Breath of the Wild, the landscape wasn't just crawling with enemies, they were more realistically populated, with enemies hanging around camps or places where they made sense except at night. Some people called it empty and didn't like it, But that's the kind of open world I'd been looking for, too bad it's a single player game. Less is more sometimes, and that applies to combat frequency too.

> > >

> > > ummm.. they actually tried it before launch, and it didnt work at all

> > > when it doesnt work in the test run, why would you put it on live servers?

> >

> > It didn't work because the test players they used came from WoW and were well, there's not a nice way to put it and I'll get warned and the thread deleted so you can imagine what I might say about their intelligence and lets leave it at that. I saw test videos and people complained about not knowing what to do and thought they just had to grind to 80 killing mobs which was the absolute last thing the designers wanted. But if the players had been more intelligent, and maybe just dropped what they knew of normal MMO design and looked from the intended perspective. I think we'd have a better game. Hearts are boring, and packing the world with enemies every 5 feet kills the enjoyment of the combat system really fast.

>

> you have the nerve to call other players stupid? THEY ALREADY TRIED IT, AND IT DIDNT WORK!!!!

> if they had made a mmo only for intelligent people, they would look at max 10% of the current playerbase, and most of the content wouldnt exist, BECAUSE THERE WOULDNT BE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY FOR IT

> i agree with the last part, that is the major reason for HoTs failure

> if they really had skipped the hearts, how do you suggest the players should had levelled their toons instead?

> if you only want smart people around you, youre definately in the wrong place, i suggest chess or libraries

>

>

>

 

The same way you leveled masteries in HoT. explore, do events, map completion, HoT's story quests. Hearts give crappy xp anyway. Events have always given more.

[Gomes.5643]

> @"battledrone.8315" said:

> the big problem with that is, that EVENTS and QUESTS arent the same thing at all

> QUESTS i can usually do alone, and at my own pace..i want the freedom to quit, when i want to

> EVENTS dont have that user friendliness

 

Thats also a point. For years I had the standpoint that every quest can (and should) be replaced by events, I meanwhile agree that big epic journeys are better represented as quests for the sole reason that you can "save" your progress. While a event will continue if you log out.

 

But I still think that hearts are not really a replacement for that, also no standard side-quests like "kill 25 centaurs and bring me their horns etc". For these kind of side quests I still think that events are wastly superior than normal quests.

 

But for epic Journeys which will lead you to multiple maps I think the mastery system in combination with "quests" might be something really cool. Just imagine that instead of farming some mastery points and random events to get and level up your glider it requires you to complete a great quest chain at each step. So for the first level in the Gliding Mastery you have to climb to the highest airship in the jungle to actually find that thing before using it. When unlocking the next level you have to bring it to idk lets say a Itzel specialist to improve it, and so on. Same could be done with Elite Specializations.

 

Having a specific Quest Chain for each of that task would be much cooler then farming random "Hero and Mastery points" that have nothing to do with the goal of your journey.....

[Pimpology.6234]

>"ColinJohanson" said: But in every MMO, including GW2.. violent creatures that want to kill you every 5 feet, just waiting for you to button mash them into the grave. Yawn.

You know it would be cool if they developed a new map with fewer mobs and you gained xp in another fashion (node farming/3rd new profession, searching for treasure/archeology-lore, seacave exploration- add content to all old maps, etc ) this could be a new game mode entirely. Interesting idea right there.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Pimpology.6234" said:

> >"ColinJohanson" said: But in every MMO, including GW2.. violent creatures that want to kill you every 5 feet, just waiting for you to button mash them into the grave. Yawn.

> You know it would be cool if they developed a new map with fewer mobs and you gained xp in another fashion (node farming/3rd new profession, searching for treasure/archeology-lore, seacave exploration- add content to all old maps, etc ) this could be a new game mode entirely. Interesting idea right there.

 

You can already do that on the core maps.

[Hypatia.3160]

On the first characters I leveled to 80 I landed in Orr around level 72. Did stumble upon a couple of event and was happy there wasn't any more hearts to do and the events seem to be popping fairly regularly. The bloom fell off that rose pretty quickly. The next day I logged in there was barely anybody there and certainly not enough folks to do the events. So I left Orr and spent two hours on lower level zone map completion until I was 80.

 

GW2's event driven design is awesome and I'm a huge fan of the HoT metas. But I recognize that events have a significant weakness. They need a critical mass of players to function. The other characters I levelled were done primarily through map completion (including hearts) unless one of the dailies involved Core Tyria events. Unfortunately that creates the opposite problem: Too many players often made the events trivial.

 

As lame as most of them are Task Hearts have a legitimate function. They offer progression for times when map population is light or you just don't want to deal with any more people that day.

[Biff.5312]

Re: the proliferation of trash mobs, I would like a game with fewer encounters, but more difficult ones, and more unique ones. However, that's not how MMOs are or ever will be.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Goettel.4389" said:

> AI is tough on the CPU, and its well known that the GW2 graphics engine leans hard on the CPU too. So I doubt AI could be improved in the current engine, considering how many people already complain about performance.

Actually, from what we heard during late betas, the mobs originally _used_ better ai (like, for example, kiting, not standing in aoes, trying to burst wounded players, etc). And those mobs absolutely _slaughtered_ players. They had to neuter it in order for the game not to scare away most of new players within minutes of joining.

 

It's not engine limitation (gw1 ai was better, for example). It's limitation by design.

[Gomes.5643]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Goettel.4389" said:

> > AI is tough on the CPU, and its well known that the GW2 graphics engine leans hard on the CPU too. So I doubt AI could be improved in the current engine, considering how many people already complain about performance.

> Actually, from what we heard during late betas, the mobs originally _used_ better ai (like, for example, kiting, not standing in aoes, trying to burst wounded players, etc). And those mobs absolutely _slaughtered_ players. They had to neuter it in order for the game not to scare away most of new players within minutes of joining.

>

> It's not engine limitation (gw1 ai was better, for example). It's limitation by design.

 

I always here that but I simply dont believe it. Why would you make your enemies completly dumb if you could just reduce their damage output? Foes which you have to immobilize in AoE storms to burn down are much more interesting as a challance than damage sponges that oneshot you because of their rediculus high stats...

[Chasind.3128]

> @"Ephemiel.5694" said:

> > @"Chasind.3128" said:

> > I don't even know what's going on in the story mainly because I absolutely HATE how the commander acts to braham/ etc. It's boring, the characers are boring. Why even have custom options to pick from if they only matter in vanilla? In WoW, you're addressed as what you are. In GW2, you're the same person with the same background, whether you're a Blood Legion Charr or an Asura of the College of Dynamics. It's mainly why I maybe pop in once a week just to raid with my guild and I just ignore anything with lore in GW2 because it doesn't matter.

> > But, Guild Wars 2 is not played for the story, it's utter garbage. It's played for everything other than the story.

>

> > @"Chasind.3128" said:

> > I don't even know what's going on in the story mainly because I absolutely HATE how the commander acts to braham/ etc. It's boring, the characers are boring. Why even have custom options to pick from if they only matter in vanilla? In WoW, you're addressed as what you are. In GW2, you're the same person with the same background, whether you're a Blood Legion Charr or an Asura of the College of Dynamics. It's mainly why I maybe pop in once a week just to raid with my guild and I just ignore anything with lore in GW2 because it doesn't matter.

> > But, Guild Wars 2 is not played for the story, it's utter garbage. It's played for everything other than the story.

>

> In WoW, they literally only call you by your class through most of the game.

 

And that's okay, you're called commander in most of Gw2

[Chasind.3128]

> @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> Re: Branching Story

> You do realize that the branching story aspect only applied the the Personal Story and was never meant to go beyond that don't you? As for mob density, it really depends on where you live...I mean if you want to compare PoF to sub-Saharan Africa, then you certainly would see those animals out and about, at least that's what I keep hearing from friends that have gone on safari's there...all kidding aside, the vast majority if players would complain if they ran through a map and had nothing to do except at camps, caves, etc., etc., etc., which is why maps are populated with enemies to kill.

>

>

> > @"Chasind.3128" said:

> > I don't even know what's going on in the story mainly because I absolutely HATE how the commander acts to braham/ etc. It's boring, the characers are boring. Why even have custom options to pick from if they only matter in vanilla? In WoW, you're addressed as what you are. In GW2, you're the same person with the same background, whether you're a Blood Legion Charr or an Asura of the College of Dynamics. It's mainly why I maybe pop in once a week just to raid with my guild and I just ignore anything with lore in GW2 because it doesn't matter.

> > But, Guild Wars 2 is not played for the story, it's utter garbage. It's played for everything other than the story.

>

> I don't know about you, but I could care less what a person background is or where they are from, what ever title they're holding at the moment is how I see and treat them, since I'm the Commander in GW2 that is how I expect to be addressed and treated by everyone, regardless of which race I am or my origin background, that is exactly how the story was written and how it continues to be written, you were in a specific element of your races organization at the beginning and got shuffled off to something bigger...why would you even refer to your past?

>

>

 

It's not about referring to the past of the character, you missed my point

[Elva.6372]

> @"Hypatia.3160" said:

> ... But I recognize that events have a significant weakness. They need a critical mass of players to function. The other characters I levelled were done primarily through map completion (including hearts) unless one of the dailies involved Core Tyria events. Unfortunately that creates the opposite problem: Too many players often made the events trivial.

 

It's not consistent but ANet has been implementing event scaling here and there - I have noticed this more and more so that has led me to think this is an ongoing thing ANet is working on so that map populations of whatever size can be supported and viable.

 

[Zaklex.6308]

> @"Chasind.3128" said:

> > @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > Re: Branching Story

> > You do realize that the branching story aspect only applied the the Personal Story and was never meant to go beyond that don't you? As for mob density, it really depends on where you live...I mean if you want to compare PoF to sub-Saharan Africa, then you certainly would see those animals out and about, at least that's what I keep hearing from friends that have gone on safari's there...all kidding aside, the vast majority if players would complain if they ran through a map and had nothing to do except at camps, caves, etc., etc., etc., which is why maps are populated with enemies to kill.

> >

> >

> > > @"Chasind.3128" said:

> > > I don't even know what's going on in the story mainly because I absolutely HATE how the commander acts to braham/ etc. It's boring, the characers are boring. Why even have custom options to pick from if they only matter in vanilla? In WoW, you're addressed as what you are. In GW2, you're the same person with the same background, whether you're a Blood Legion Charr or an Asura of the College of Dynamics. It's mainly why I maybe pop in once a week just to raid with my guild and I just ignore anything with lore in GW2 because it doesn't matter.

> > > But, Guild Wars 2 is not played for the story, it's utter garbage. It's played for everything other than the story.

> >

> > I don't know about you, but I could care less what a person background is or where they are from, what ever title they're holding at the moment is how I see and treat them, since I'm the Commander in GW2 that is how I expect to be addressed and treated by everyone, regardless of which race I am or my origin background, that is exactly how the story was written and how it continues to be written, you were in a specific element of your races organization at the beginning and got shuffled off to something bigger...why would you even refer to your past?

> >

> >

>

> It's not about referring to the past of the character, you missed my point

 

Your point was? Because that's pretty much what you stated, and I'll quote you here: " In WoW, you're addressed as what you are. In GW2, you're the same person with the same background, whether you're a Blood Legion Charr or an Asura of the College of Dynamics. It's mainly why I maybe pop in once a week just to raid with my guild and I just ignore anything with lore in GW2 because it doesn't matter. " Now tell me that doesn't sound like someone complaining about always being called Commander and not by some other name or have their background mentioned...unless you enjoy living in the past of course.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Gomes.5643" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > @"Goettel.4389" said:

> > > AI is tough on the CPU, and its well known that the GW2 graphics engine leans hard on the CPU too. So I doubt AI could be improved in the current engine, considering how many people already complain about performance.

> > Actually, from what we heard during late betas, the mobs originally _used_ better ai (like, for example, kiting, not standing in aoes, trying to burst wounded players, etc). And those mobs absolutely _slaughtered_ players. They had to neuter it in order for the game not to scare away most of new players within minutes of joining.

> >

> > It's not engine limitation (gw1 ai was better, for example). It's limitation by design.

>

> I always here that but I simply dont believe it. Why would you make your enemies completly dumb if you could just reduce their damage output? Foes which you have to immobilize in AoE storms to burn down are much more interesting as a challance than damage sponges that oneshot you because of their rediculus high stats...

You may not believe it, but it's stil the fact that gw1 AI was more advanced. Thus, the only explanation for the current state of mob AI is what was given then - the mobs were made dumber on purpose.

 

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"Hypatia.3160" said:

> GW2's event driven design is awesome and I'm a huge fan of the HoT metas. But I recognize that events have a significant weakness. They need a critical mass of players to function.

 

While this does tend to be the case for Core and HoT, I think they smoothed out the edges of scaling events properly around the Lake Doric patch. I find the content since around that time has not required that critical mass of players for the dynamic events to be absolutely great. PoF event chains are a really good example of this. They scale from solo to about 30 players rather elegantly.