Sharvis

@Irem

"One of the things I'm less than thrilled with about GW2 is the fact that ArenaNet has affirmed their love of RPers whenever asked, but when it comes to providing tools and support for the playstyle, they usually default to talking up the personal story. Which, you know, is great, except for the whole single-player aspect..."

Even if it were party-based like in SWTOR I'd still dislike it. It's nice to have preset stories that tell an interesting tale, but I feel as if it's immersion breaking. I don't like being told what my character does and says exactly, I'd rather leave it open to interpretation. I'm fine with directed content but not when it's narrowed down to providing a personality without the ability to opt out. I'd imagine your character responses are bland as possible, but I'm sure they will still convey something different from what I'd imagine.

I'm not liking this turn towards a heavy-character driven story. It didn't grab me in SWTOR, and I'm worried it won't in GW2 either. I'd be fine if they only told the story of the NPC's in the world as they can be much more interesting to learn about.

A developer that's willing to take a step back and let the players have more control over a design mechanic? How nice. The game does sound promising. I look forward to gameplay videos and screenshots in the future. I like the art design for that humanoid.

Well, this served as a harsh reminder of the impending doom of April Fool's Day. You got me Wargaming, you got me.

I find it hard at times to understand the exact point a soapbox is trying to make at times.

From what I've come to understand, you're essentially arguing against counterintuitive game mechanics, not necessarily complex ones. You want a game's design to be refined to the core essence while keeping both the player's options and the decisions that are made from those options intact. As long as the game presents its systems in an intuitive manner, you're fine with that game having complexity.
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The perfect example that comes to mind is what Blizzard is doing to World of Warcraft's talent system. They're removing the mathematical cruft from the talents; all of the percent-based talents that are not interesting. There are substantially fewer talents to pick and choose from but each choice is made more interesting. (This is just the intent behind the change, not necessarily how it'll actually work out.)

In this example there is less to figure out numbers wise, but in the trade-off, the game is giving the players more thought-provoking options for them to customize their character.
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As for how I feel about all of this, well, from a design and marketing standpoint, I couldn't disagree with you. It's just good game design really.

But I do recognize that many people get great joy from doing complex calculations in order to optimize their gameplay. To them, it's part of the entertaining value of the game, and it can be very rewarding to work through it all. I'm just not sure if good game design always removes that element from the player. If it does, that to me feels like you're ostracizing those players, which seems unfortunate to say the least.

You know a game is influential if you start seeing copies of it being made in a grab for money.


It is interesting to note that many gamers will bash a poorly made copy claiming that the developers are scum for being so lazy and not innovative. Yet if it's a well-made copy, that argument may be dropped and instead the game will be praised.

A bit off-topic, I know, but the thought crossed my mind while reading the comparisons in the article.

Again I look to the development of bigger and better sandparks. You get the leveling that so many players enjoy while also providing world-building features to mix things up. I also have to agree with the sentiment of focusing on cooperative play, such as what Glitch does and what Guild Wars 2 is aiming to do.

Developers just need to expand on the world of their MMO's while refining the standard features to more modern, user-friendly designs.

@avaloner

Yeah, it's sad that these individuals bring down the image of the rest of the community. There are a lot of great people in the Guild Wars community who are going to make playing the game great. But until the game launches we're left with dealing with many players who have an idealized vision of the game. They're going to let everyone else know about this ideal, whether others like it or not. Try not to give them much attention. Once the game is out there with solid facts to argue about you won't have to go up against a fairy tale argument.

@(Unverified)

I support future installments of the live Q&A. It was very informative seeing a hodge podge of questions being answered that may not be brought up in an article.

For those that missed the live Q&A, there should be a recording of it on Massively's Twitch page under the videos tab. If there is another in store, don't be afraid to ask questions, even if you know they could be answered with some research. Elisabeth was very friendly and helpful when answering the questions we viewers had.

Curses! I thought of spider-pig the moment I read the title too.

Although spiders creep me out, and I strongly dislike them, I gave them the vote. They're very interesting creatures to face, largely in part to that factor of creepiness. Plus, you often see spiders webbing up their victims, and I've seen much larger prey than pigs inside those cocoons. That and I've seen some pretty humongous spiders in games, WoW in particular.

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions and including the video. I look forward to the livestream later.

Oh and thank you especially for including a bug, in video format no less. It gave me a big dorky laugh. Fortunately I didn't get any of my dinner on the monitor at the time. I'd hate to imagine if I were in the midst of drinking instead. :P