Guild Wars 2

[Draegan]

I'm mixed with that.  I really really hate the badge system in WOW. 

On one hand it makes the game fun in spurts.  You can get certain gear over time.  However it kills the content of the game.  You find the one way to do the best badge/hour and leave it at that.  I'd much rather get loot rewards for doing certain things (whether that's hard or easy).

In the short turn it's a good system but in the long turn it destroys the content.  However we're looking at this in a vacuum, there might be other rewards etc.

[Malakili]

I'm mixed with that.  I really really hate the badge system in WOW. 

On one hand it makes the game fun in spurts.  You can get certain gear over time.  However it kills the content of the game.  You find the one way to do the best badge/hour and leave it at that.  I'd much rather get loot rewards for doing certain things (whether that's hard or easy).

In the short turn it's a good system but in the long turn it destroys the content.  However we're looking at this in a vacuum, there might be other rewards etc.

I dunno, people run randoms obsessively so you get a fairly even spread of all the dungeons.  It played out the way you say in TBC and early Lich King. But not anymore. 

[Modern Angel]

I'd say the LFD system just made it worse. It removed all sense of geography, scale and persistence from that aspect of the game. Combine with the fact that they're just rock stupid easy to run now and the dungeons went from "NEAT CONTENT" to "oh god this is awful" pretty quickly for just about everyone I know. Not that they aren't still doing it while complaining because they're hopeless addicts or anything.

[Malakili]

I'd say the LFD system just made it worse. It removed all sense of geography, scale and persistence from that aspect of the game. Combine with the fact that they're just rock stupid easy to run now and the dungeons went from "NEAT CONTENT" to "oh god this is awful" pretty quickly for just about everyone I know. Not that they aren't still doing it while complaining because they're hopeless addicts or anything.

Geography scale and persistence went out the window in WoW years ago, its purely an item collection game now.   You have to either embrace that or play something else.  The biggest competition WoW is going to have is, for this reason, actually Diablo 3, not another MMO.

[Modern Angel]

Not to the extent that it did after LFD and the wholesale changes to badges. At the least you had to go to the dungeons overland, thereby letting you know where they are in the larger world, and put together a group in realtime, obnoxious as that could sometimes be. Now you go to a dungeon with no story, no location and no challenge with people whose names you don't know, won't remember and wouldn't care to even if you did know or remember them. I'm actually not playing WoW and haven't for several months now and it's directly because of this.

[Numtini]

I trace my migration from WoW to Eve to the LFD system. Even earlier WoW or EQ2 had some sense of world, but after the LFD system, I just felt disconnected from the game and lost interest. Might not be logical, but it is the case.

[Modern Angel]

Yeah. MMOs aren't really good GAMES. They won't offer the twitch satisfaction of a FPS or action game. Won't offer the tactical depth of a good wargame. They offer persistance, scale and large social interactions. And, frankly, a skinner box which is part of the appeal for most people if it's disguised well. So if you remove the persistence of your interactions and gear collection, if there's no sense of scale in the backdrop and connectivity, if the social interactions are anonymous people in spurts of four others at a time and if the elephant in the room reward system is bland badges you grind for then why am I playing it?

[Malakili]

then why am I playing it?

The same reason people joined "Hell Cowz 14 ogogogogogo"  Like I said, WoW is just an item collection game, and as they've gone on they realized thats a big part of its appeal.  People don't want to be social with strangers, at best they want to be social with their friends and their guild, and the less interaction necessary with everyone else the better.  The easier you can work on collecting items (gear, mounts, pets, recipes, whatever) the better.  As much as I like to be an armchair dev and talk about persistence, virtual worlds, deep economic systems, etc, 90% of the time its actually insanely more convenient for me to log on, shoot the shit in /g and queue up for a random dungeon.

Now, that isn't going to sustain me forever by any stretch.  I've been bouncing around between MMOs for years at this point, and WoW is just another stop.   I just think for the kind of game WoW is the LFD system is perfectly appropriate.  However, if you don't like the kind of game WoW has become in the first place (and many times I really, really don't, but it strikes my fancy for a few months a year generally), well, then the LFD is a symptom, not a cause, in my opinion.

[Sheepherder]

That may not be true given the prevalence of Intel's POS "GPUs" like the GMA950 which don't do hardware T&L (and their software T&L is broken to boot). That isn't true for "gamer" PCs, though.

The last time I tried an Intel chipset (it may even have been a 950 generation) it managed 18 FPS in Nagrand.  You can safely ignore that market, they can't even play WoW anymore.

[Fordel]

No, there are buckets of people who happily play with 20 fps like that.

[UnSub]

On one hand it makes the game fun in spurts.  You can get certain gear over time.  However it kills the content of the game.  You find the one way to do the best badge/hour and leave it at that.  I'd much rather get loot rewards for doing certain things (whether that's hard or easy).

Ultimately a well designed variable ratio reward system is more engaging than a well designed fixed ratio / continuous ratio reward system. We may not like ultra-rare loot, but we'll keep playing if the next mob killed might just drop the Hat of Kingliness. However, if it is 5000 mobs guaranteed to the Hat, a lot of people will look at it and go, "Why bother?".

[Modern Angel]

Well, sure. But if it's roughly the same amount of time, theoretically, which do you want to do? Grind 30 raid nights for badges which are then turned into gear or grind 30 raid nights for a piece of gear? Removing value judgments about how I spend my time or design considerations and having played since original beta until four months ago I can tell you which was more exciting for me.

[Malakili]

On one hand it makes the game fun in spurts.  You can get certain gear over time.  However it kills the content of the game.  You find the one way to do the best badge/hour and leave it at that.  I'd much rather get loot rewards for doing certain things (whether that's hard or easy).

Ultimately a well designed variable ratio reward system is more engaging than a well designed fixed ratio / continuous ratio reward system. We may not like ultra-rare loot, but we'll keep playing if the next mob killed might just drop the Hat of Kingliness. However, if it is 5000 mobs guaranteed to the Hat, a lot of people will look at it and go, "Why bother?".

I'm actually the exact opposite at this point.  I'd much rather be able to sit down and plan out what I need to do instead of just being resigned to pure luck.   I'd be more likely to say "Ok, 5000, I'll spend a bit of time per day on it, and I'll have it in X days" than "oh, time to go farm Ogres, maybe i'll get my hat this time."  I might do the latter for like 2 days, but I'll quickly lose interest when it doesn't drop quickly.  My mindset with random drops like that is generally that it feels like I am wasting my time.

Imagine going to work and every time you complete a task, you have a chance of getting paid your whole month's salary, OR you can keep your current monthly wage.  Sure, if you are super lucky, you might get 2 months salary one month, and then nothing for 2 months after that if you are unlucky.  I'd much rather take the guaranteed money than the chance at winning big or getting screwed.

 Then again maybe the fact that I am using a work analogy to talk about MMO loot is the bigger problem.  

[Sheepherder]

I'd much rather be able to sit down and plan out what I need to do instead of just being resigned to pure luck.

Wowhead link to the item in question, for those not in the know about the unbearable darkness of old world Blizzard itemization.

[Fordel]

Man, don't even start with Vanilla itemization, this thread will hit page 500 and we won't even have scratched the surface!

[Ollie]

A whopping 2% drop rate. The fact that people even bothered is a grim testament to the mind-numbing power of the Skinner box.

Then again maybe the fact that I am using a work analogy to talk about MMO loot is the bigger problem.  

From a developer's perspective, the challenge is giving radically different player demographics time-appropriate things to achieve, so that the effort spent still yields a sense of meaningful progression. Unless, of course, you're designing a game so hard-core that the potential customer needs to poop in a sock just to get a shot at obtaining the box.

As we get older and accumulate more and more social responsibility, we're far less likely to spend what little energy we have left achieving things in a videogame. The walls of the operant conditioning chamber recede and fade, until the MMOG pellet dispenser is just one button among many that we race to press every day. We'd like to keep hammering it, but only if the rewards are tangible enough in the short time we have available to enjoy them. It seems like GW2 is gearing up to make sure that everybody gets a little something for their efforts, even the middle-aged demographic that doesn't have the time to make the random number generator their bitch.

[UnSub]

Imagine going to work and every time you complete a task, you have a chance of getting paid your whole month's salary, OR you can keep your current monthly wage.  Sure, if you are super lucky, you might get 2 months salary one month, and then nothing for 2 months after that if you are unlucky.  I'd much rather take the guaranteed money than the chance at winning big or getting screwed.

The gambling industry says, "Hello!".

There's a balance, of course, but we're wired to focus on that slight chance we'll will what we want over the near inevitability that we won't.

[Sheepherder]

A whopping 2% drop rate. The fact that people even bothered is a grim testament to the mind-numbing power of the Skinner box.

It was actually 0.2% at one point.

[Stabs]

As a former owner of that staff I loved its rather unique look, unique property and rarity. It was also a conversation starter.

I had it on a priest and it was rather nice to be able to buff Stamina, Spirit and Intellect.

I do think we've headed further down the path of everyone's special so no one is since.

[Malakili]

Imagine going to work and every time you complete a task, you have a chance of getting paid your whole month's salary, OR you can keep your current monthly wage.  Sure, if you are super lucky, you might get 2 months salary one month, and then nothing for 2 months after that if you are unlucky.  I'd much rather take the guaranteed money than the chance at winning big or getting screwed.

The gambling industry says, "Hello!".

There's a balance, of course, but we're wired to focus on that slight chance we'll will what we want over the near inevitability that we won't.

I'm well aware of the biology, I also just (like probably a lot of people here, but apparently not a lot of people in general) have taken college level math classes.

[Stormwaltz]

New article: Personal Story Overview.

TL;DR - Like the Shepard background choices in Mass Effect 1 character creation. The options you choose determine how NPCs talk to you and unlock semi-customized "epic" quests.

You know, in all these years I never had even the slightest interest in GW1, but I like where they want to go in GW2.

[Zzulo]

New screenshots  








so good

[Mosesandstick]

Raiding?

[Mrbloodworth]

Stunning!

[Draegan]

Raiding?

It's probably a big event.  But there probably will be raiding.

[Lantyssa]

When given the lackluster info for SWTOR and other games which should interest me, it makes it very hard not to get over-excited about every GW2 release to date.

[Hawkbit]

Why do I feel as if I'll be upgrading my 8800gtx/q6600/4gig for this game?

[Morfiend]

Sorry if this has been covered, but do we know if they are going to use the same control scheme for this? That was the main thing I disliked about the first one.

[Lantyssa]

We know very little about controls other than there will be jumping.  Jumping.

[Draegan]

There will be jumping, and I'd assume that everything will be controlled like any other modern game.  WASD + mouse and not click to move.

[Lantyssa]

Other than jumping I can't think of how it's different than any other MMO though.

[NiX]

Other than jumping I can't think of how it's different than any other MMO though.

Forced click to move. Most Western MMOs give you the option.

Why do I feel as if I'll be upgrading my 8800gtx/q6600/4gig for this game?

The first one didn't require a beefy system, I doubt they'd go all out and make it so you need a high end card.

[Lantyssa]

Uh, you can use WASD.  And turn off click-to-move.  Like I've played for years now.

[NiX]

Could have changed since launch, but I remember the control scheme being very annoying.

[Modern Angel]

I've been messing with GW since their early original beta. Click to move was never forced. The only thing that was ever weird was the lack of jumping and being unable to go down slopes.