Soooo.. GW2 is coming and you do nothing to keep the PvP-Players here?

[JediJayTrain]

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/726499/star-wars-the-old-republic-will-be-free-to-play-this-fall/

 

Thoughts?

[kyube]

If it weren't the case that GW2 ALREADY has a "pay to win" system planned, you may have an argument. Look, if something similar were introduced to TOR, I'd start saying the same things. The fact is that, from what we know now, TOR won't have such a system and GW2 will.

 

Let me explain something about the "dark feeling." The reason I think that the GW2 system has one is not simply because I think there's an integrity issue present in the system as its set up now. Rather, it's because of the attitude which I see coming from the developers on it. The GW2 developers have said that they don't intend WvW to be balanced, but rather they want it to simply be a giant, epic battle where people can have fun. Now to them, it seems that spending US Dollars or Euros for buffs to your performance in WvW contributes to this fun and is ok because, ultimately, WvW doesn't really matter anyways and is "just for fun."

 

The problem here is that it seems to reveal an attitude or an approach to the game whereby anything is ok as long as it lets people have more fun. This leads to things like the Cow Finisher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d73PL_7x5M&feature=plcp , which I frankly think makes a joke of PvP whether it be structured or not, but, its OK because its "just for fun." Also remember that even in their discussion of the supposedly very serious, competitive PvP, they have said that they designed the entire system to be more fun.

 

Now, I must sound like a crazy person here, as if I were saying, "They're designing a game to be fun? The fiends!" That's not my point. Of course the game should be fun, even the most "serious" and competitive part of it. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be driven by, ultimately, a design philosophy beyond what is "fun." StarCraft 2, for example, is a game and it's intended to be fun, but I absolutely assure you that when it was under design, being fun was not the way they would have described or thought about their ultimate or core goal. The result is a game which is very fun, but the competition in which is also able to be taken very seriously. My concern is really just that a core design philosophy such as the developers have voiced, coupled with some of their early choices, indicate that it would not be a stretch for them to head down the path at some point of opening the "serious" side of the game to thinks which really start to hurt its competitive integrity.

 

What it comes down to, I think what feels to me like a strong leaning towards giving the players whatever they want - which again, can be to a degree a good thing, of course. At the same time, its important that game companies have a strong and firm restraint where this is concerned. The StarCraft 2 developers are, again, a good example. They will give the community what they like to a degree, but they know when to hold back for the overall good and/or integrity of the game. Now some may think that the TOR developers have gone TOO far in this regard, but in any case what they haven't done is demonstrate an attitude such that I'd expect them to go opening the game up to different shenanigans because there is some desire for it.

 

These are the developers that got rid of the party bomb despite its popularity as a "fun item" amongst some people, because they thought it was better for the game. The same goes for the gigantic speeders, and a variety of other choices they have made. They've shown restraint. Again, maybe they should have been more open to the community at times, and that's a valid criticism but it's really a different issue. The ArenaNet people, to me, have just shown through various choices that I am not sure if I can trust them to keep things on the up and up if they feel like they can introduce more "fun" or whatnot at various points.

 

Also, please understand: I'm not just looking for things to criticize. The truth is that I am excited about the game and look forward to giving it a spin. However, I am also not blinded by some vision of it as some great game to end all games, and one which will clearly be better than TOR, or any of the other kinds of things going around, and I'm not going to sit around and let people talk about it as such when I see flaws worth talking about as well.

 

The point that i was trying to make is that EA is notorious for implementing a bad p2p model. I belief the changes they made to battlefield heroes actually made it to various news sites. That game once started as a good p2p game but when the revenue was under par EA quickly changed to a very player unfriendly cash shop. Arena net hasn't made such an error yet so it gets the benefit of the doubt from me. I havent played any WvsW since its indeed something fun and I didnt really want to spoil it. Honestly there's no problem with being skepticall about gw2 but there are certainly reasons to be skepticall about EA's plans with swtor as well.

 

The fun part. I have all the behind the scenes / making of dvd's of the blizzard games in recent years except the Starcraft one so I'm not entirely sure about this. However in every dvd the blizzard design process is that they take an existing game model, inovate it, keep the fun part and cut away the boring parts. Usually works but with diablo it failed miserably. Starcraft was probably developed with this in mind as well, easy to play hard to master. Ofcourse as balanced as humanly possible at launch. Why i'am saying that fun was at least a design goals is because the sheer amount of systems that got streamlined / changed / added or even deleted from the original broodwar expac. They didnt have to since the broodwar pro players where used to them and thus it wouldn't be very hard for those players to keep using those broodwar systems. Yet blizzard did change them. Fun never became so important that it affected the balance of the game and you seem to be afraid that that might the case for gw2. That ofcourse remains to be seen, however i've been in beta since march and even played some builds before that. I can honestly say that I've never seen a developer being so protective about balance in one specific part of the game as arenanet and spvp. They won't get it right but they'll never buff necro's just because they arent fun to play.

 

Furthermore, i think you're reading a bit to much into this article http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success . It's just that they dont want any tedious mechanics in the game, be it daily quests or class mechanics which are a pain in the ***. This quote pretty much says it all:

 

Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to? It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun!

 

This ofcourse doesnt meant they didnt make some strange choices in the name of "fun". They would've removed the downed state from every pvp activity. No matter how much Sun Tsu - like strategy it adds, it's just not fun and not balanced. And ofcourse only conquest in the name of fun. I dont know who those alpha testers are but they are some boring individuals.

[Skolops]

The point that i was trying to make is that EA is notorious for implementing a bad p2p model. I belief the changes they made to battlefield heroes actually made it to various news sites. That game once started as a good p2p game but when the revenue was under par EA quickly changed to a very player unfriendly cash shop. Arena net hasn't made such an error yet so it gets the benefit of the doubt from me. I havent played any WvsW since its indeed something fun and I didnt really want to spoil it. Honestly there's no problem with being skepticall about gw2 but there are certainly reasons to be skepticall about EA's plans with swtor as well.

 

The fun part. I have all the behind the scenes / making of dvd's of the blizzard games in recent years except the Starcraft one so I'm not entirely sure about this. However in every dvd the blizzard design process is that they take an existing game model, inovate it, keep the fun part and cut away the boring parts. Usually works but with diablo it failed miserably. Starcraft was probably developed with this in mind as well, easy to play hard to master. Ofcourse as balanced as humanly possible at launch. Why i'am saying that fun was at least a design goals is because the sheer amount of systems that got streamlined / changed / added or even deleted from the original broodwar expac. They didnt have to since the broodwar pro players where used to them and thus it wouldn't be very hard for those players to keep using those broodwar systems. Yet blizzard did change them. Fun never became so important that it affected the balance of the game and you seem to be afraid that that might the case for gw2. That ofcourse remains to be seen, however i've been in beta since march and even played some builds before that. I can honestly say that I've never seen a developer being so protective about balance in one specific part of the game as arenanet and spvp. They won't get it right but they'll never buff necro's just because they arent fun to play.

 

Furthermore, i think you're reading a bit to much into this article http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success . It's just that they dont want any tedious mechanics in the game, be it daily quests or class mechanics which are a pain in the ***. This quote pretty much says it all:

 

 

 

This ofcourse doesnt meant they didnt make some strange choices in the name of "fun". They would've removed the downed state from every pvp activity. No matter how much Sun Tsu - like strategy it adds, it's just not fun and not balanced. And ofcourse only conquest in the name of fun. I dont know who those alpha testers are but they are some boring individuals.

 

Don't misunderstand - I never meant to say that it would be bad if they measured by fun at all or that Blizzard or anyone else doesn't consider fun to be a key part of a game. I thought I made it pretty clear that I think they do. My point is that I am quite certain Blizzard doesn't make fun so much of a priority that they allow it to influence SC2 or any other game in ways that they shouldn't.

 

Also, what are you saying about the downed state? I'm a bit confused. Who is the "they" who would have removed it? I personally think its one of the dumbest things about GW2's PvP, and I sincerely hope it is removed entirely from not only PvP but the game as a whole.

[majikx]

skolops

I think you might be assuming to much about the cash shop.

 

1st off the buffs are probably going to be pretty cheap and available that there will not be any need to use real money to buy gold to buy influence to buy buffs.

 

2nd i belive the buffs are bought with influence, which is gained by doing things with/for the guild (such as PvP).

influence can be bought with in game currency. from what i understand, in game currency can be traded for real money at the AH. in reality this is already in most mmo games. people go to gold sites buy their gold and then buy what they want in game.

 

so it is really no different than some one buying SWTOR creds from a web site then buying stims off the AH. yes i agree that would be a waist of money considering how easy it is to get stims, however the buffs in GW2 will probably be along the same line of availability. we will just have to see.

 

on a side note, if it is pay to win that worries you i would say SWTOR is already closer to heading that direction. depending on the limit amount it puts on the free players. they already stated that free guys will be limited to number of WZs they can play. so if this limit is to low the free players will never be able to acquire the same gear as the guys that pay.

 

honestly i don't think we will see a play to win in this game or GW2. i think they just know that people will pay real money for vanity items. I mean look at how many pets and mounts Blizzard sold for real money.

Edited August 1, 2012 by majikx

[Skolops]

skolops

I think you might be assuming to much about the cash shop.

 

1st off the buffs are probably going to be pretty cheap and available that there will not be any need to use real money to buy gold to buy influence to buy buffs.

 

2nd i belive the buffs are bought with influence, which is gained by doing things with/for the guild (such as PvP).

influence can be bought in game with currency. from what i understand, in game currency can be traded for real money at the AH. in reality this is already in most mmo games. people go to gold sites buy their gold and then buy what they want in game.

 

so it is really no different than some one buying SWTOR creds from a web site then buying stims off the AH. yes i agree that would be a waist of money considering how easy it is to get stims, however the buffs in GW2 will probably be along the same line of availability. we will just have to see.

 

on a side note, if it is pay to win that worries you i would say SWTOR is already closer to heading that direction. depending on the limit amount it puts on the free players. they already stated that free guys will be limited to number of WZs they can play. so if this limit is to low the free players will never be able to acquire the same gear as the guys that pay.

 

honestly i don't think we will see a play to win in this game or GW2. i think they just know that people will pay real money for vanity items. I mean look at how many pets and mounts Blizzard sold for real money.

 

Look, I don' think by any means that the buffs you can buy will be tremendously drastic or earth shattering. It's more the fact that it's possible at all the bothers me. Someone earlier in this thread posted a link to a website where the entire influence/gem/cash money system was explained in greater detail and defended. Here is the link: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/27994-buying-influence-evil/

 

One of the people commenting on it had this to say:

 

"I'm glad we all want to have faith in Anet. However, if I ever find myself fighting against someone who has a buff they paid real US dollars for, I see that as a failure of the system. I'm glad you all feel it doesn't lessen your game experience, but it lessens mine."

 

That's basically how I feel. I really don't care if I can get it myself, either by some difficult in game means or some easy in game means. It's really the fact that it's even possible in a way sanctioned by ArenaNet (as opposed to things like unofficial or officially discouraged or illegal gold shops for other games) that bothers me a great deal and in my opinion really takes away from the integrity of the game.

[majikx]

Look, I don' think by any means that the buffs you can buy will be tremendously drastic or earth shattering. It's more the fact that it's possible at all the bothers me. Someone earlier in this thread posted a link to a website where the entire influence/gem/cash money system was explained in greater detail and defended. Here is the link: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/27994-buying-influence-evil/

 

One of the people commenting on it had this to say:

 

"I'm glad we all want to have faith in Anet. However, if I ever find myself fighting against someone who has a buff they paid real US dollars for, I see that as a failure of the system. I'm glad you all feel it doesn't lessen your game experience, but it lessens mine."

 

That's basically how I feel. I really don't care if I can get it myself, either by some difficult in game means or some easy in game means. It's really the fact that it's even possible in a way sanctioned by ArenaNet (as opposed to things like unofficial or officially discouraged or illegal gold shops for other games) that bothers me a great deal and in my opinion really takes away from the integrity of the game.

 

 

the point is that all this is made possible from being able to buy gold with real money. this is true in just about any mmo. sanctioned or not it is going to happen. so if someone buying gold to get items faster than others is considered pay to win, then really just about all mmos fall under this category.

 

from a companies point of view allowing in game transactions is a smart move.

1. its going to happen one way or another.

2. if they take a small cut of said transactions its a little more cash in their pocket. (which hopefully goes back into development)

3. keeps people from going to gold sites and getting hacked, this in return means less resources that they would have to put into customer service to inspect and restore all the hacked accounts. again hopefully the money saved by this would go back into development.

 

imo a true P2W would be a game that offers something like gear that can only be bought with real cash. for example lets say Bio decided to put out a new set of PvP gear, but can only be bought from the cash shop. Now that would be P2W.

Edited August 1, 2012 by majikx

[Morrolan]

If it weren't the case that GW2 ALREADY has a "pay to win" system planned, you may have an argument. Look, if something similar were introduced to TOR, I'd start saying the same things. The fact is that, from what we know now, TOR won't have such a system and GW2 will.

No it won't because influence can be gained from a variety of sources not just gems, and in any case for it to have a noticeable effect someone would have to spend a ridiculous amount on buying gems like many many thousands of dollars for something that is temporary, it won't happen.

 

Also, please understand: I'm not just looking for things to criticize. The truth is that I am excited about the game and look forward to giving it a spin.

Yeah well thats not how you're coming across as many will attest.

[Skolops]

No it won't because influence can be gained from a variety of sources not just gems, and in any case for it to have a noticeable effect someone would have to spend a ridiculous amount on buying gems like many many thousands of dollars for something that is temporary, it won't happen.

 

I'll repeat myself for the 1000th time:

 

I don't care if it costs a million dollars a minute for a half percent buff to your weakest ability and it can only be used once before it goes on a 3 month cooldown and I can get the SAME boost with no cooldown to ALL my abilities by completing a 5 minute level 3 quest. The fact that the buff was bought with money is contrary to the integrity of the game.

 

Yeah well thats not how you're coming across as many will attest.

 

What you're essentially saying seems to be that unless I have only positive things to say about the game, I must be out to kill, criticize, and hate on it.

[Morrolan]

I don't care if it costs a million dollars a minute for a half percent buff to your weakest ability and it can only be used once before it goes on a 3 month cooldown and I can get the SAME boost with no cooldown to ALL my abilities by completing a 5 minute level 3 quest. The fact that the buff was bought with money is contrary to the integrity of the game.

That to me is being almost wilfully silly given the unbalanced nature of WvW anyway. Plus its still not p2w, therefore there's nothing unethical about it.

[Skolops]

That to me is being almost wilfully silly given the unbalanced nature of WvW anyway. Plus its still not p2w, therefore there's nothing unethical about it.

 

I didn't say it's unethical. It's simply not in keeping with the proper integrity that any kind of competition should have - perfectly balanced or not.

 

It would be as if some baseball players were using tiny, tiny, minute amounts of steroids, so insignificant that they hardly matter in game. It would still violate the integrity of the sport.

 

The US election is this year. If Mitt Romney fakes 10,000,000 votes, that's bad and against the integrity of the election. If caught, he would be prosecuted. If he faked, however, only one vote, it is just as bad, just as much harmful to the integrity of the election, and he would be prosecuted the same.

 

Have you ever worked in a retail store? If you steal $3000 from the store safe, you'll be fired and arrested. If you slip a nickel from the cash register into your pocket, you'll also be fired and arrested.

 

That's the thing about integrity. It's not a matter of big or large. You either have it or you don't.

Edited August 1, 2012 by Skolops

[fungihoujo]

The problem is that when making a new level 80 toon takes 5 minutes, they would have to produce balance patches on a continuum to keep up with the FOTM rolling. There will still be teams made up of all or mostly FOTM, but instead of flavor of the month, it will be flavor of the minute.

 

As for the connection to the character, I will likely enjoy leveling the character, that much is true. The problem is that once you enter the Mists "lobby" area, whatever your character was is replaced by this faceless shell of a character, with gear etc. that is ultimately entirely disconnected from the time you've put into that character, whether it be 5 minutes or 500 hours. On top of that, you don't even get to appreciate your look, as its replaced by ugly cartoonish red and blue shading.

 

Nope- again, you aren't listening. You get garbage looks to start- you then work towards, through hundreds of hours of pvp, better looking outfits. Your connection is in exactly what you just said wasn't there- the looks, what you've accomplished. Frankly, when you play a sport, do you feel more accomplished by the fact that you have 500 dollar shoes that make it a little easier to jump and move in basketball, or do you feel accomplished when you play a good game? If you feel more accomplished by the stuff- hey, fair enough, that's not something I'll judge, and it's very typical of a capitalistic world. Some people though feel more accomplished by playing a good game, by having their name known as a good player- those that feel accomplished by their stat bonuses and the time sinks they've overcame still have SWTOR; and I'm not arguing those players will stay here- it's everyone else who's not going to stick with this gear system.

 

Also- they only have to produce patches until they get relatively good balance in pvp- which is not nearly as impossible as you make it out to be. Perfect balance? Unlikely- but balanced enough that all classes are pretty close is possible and does happen, and can happen.

 

It hasn't happened in this game because BW doesn't test, or listen, or use anything but metrics to make changes and defend their changes.

 

Frankly- why shouldn't everyone have equal access to all the tools of the game? Why should someone pour hundreds of hours into a character, only for that character to be made utterly useless with a single mind numbingly stupid patch that ruins the game? That thinking that if you pick a class, your fun is entirely at the whims of the devs is what led 25% of the playerbase to leave in a month after 1.2 came out.

[fungihoujo]

For as generally eloquent and insightful as I tend to find fungihoujo, I'm hearing a lot of Chicken Little.

 

You know what, fair enough, maybe I am just overplaying the coming of GW2. Sure, maybe I did predict correctly that with the huge nerfs of 1.2, merc, DPS op and sorc pops would plummet, and with them so would players (25% of the playerbase lost in a month following). And maybe I predicted that with how powerful marauders were made, they were going to almost entirely make up DPS in RWZ, but that was clearly huge hyperbole (there are more marauders in high ranked RWZ than DPS spec of EVERY other class other than PTs COMBINED).

 

But yeah, I'm probably blowing things out of proportion right now when I say...

 

The sky is falling

 

I could say that I think the game is going to go free to play, but let's face it- the marauders are right, there's nothing wrong here, just a perfectly well balanced game that isn't having any problems.

 

In before people who were saying free to play is trash and GW2 is going to fail because of it start defending SWTOR f2p.

 

See, the thing about the chicken little tale is that he was wrong.

Edited August 1, 2012 by fungihoujo

[Volcanicstrad]

Look, I don' think by any means that the buffs you can buy will be tremendously drastic or earth shattering. It's more the fact that it's possible at all the bothers me. Someone earlier in this thread posted a link to a website where the entire influence/gem/cash money system was explained in greater detail and defended. Here is the link: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/27994-buying-influence-evil/

 

One of the people commenting on it had this to say:

 

"I'm glad we all want to have faith in Anet. However, if I ever find myself fighting against someone who has a buff they paid real US dollars for, I see that as a failure of the system. I'm glad you all feel it doesn't lessen your game experience, but it lessens mine."

 

That's basically how I feel. I really don't care if I can get it myself, either by some difficult in game means or some easy in game means. It's really the fact that it's even possible in a way sanctioned by ArenaNet (as opposed to things like unofficial or officially discouraged or illegal gold shops for other games) that bothers me a great deal and in my opinion really takes away from the integrity of the game.

 

Ok so just to get this straight. You are very bothered that someone can spend even a pitiful amount of money to get a pitiful buff that it lowers the integrity of the game. You are adamant about this and have stated multiple times that even the possibility upsets you. BUT....you ARE ok with people spending time (like money, some have it some don't) to get gear that drastically effects you in game play. In competitive pvp that is. One would think in this fairness argument you would be all for gear scaling and evenness in GW2.

[mangarrage]

Ok so just to get this straight. You are very bothered that someone can spend even a pitiful amount of money to get a pitiful buff that it lowers the integrity of the game. You are adamant about this and have stated multiple times that even the possibility upsets you. BUT....you ARE ok with people spending time (like money, some have it some don't) to get gear that drastically effects you in game play. In competitive pvp that is. One would think in this fairness argument you would be all for gear scaling and evenness in GW2.

 

There really isnt a reason to try and debate with that person

SWTOR will have stims exp boost hp boost main attribute boosts in their cash shop and using that persons logic make it ptw and it will be alot more prominent, accessable and more widely used in swtor then gw2

[WraitheDarkbane]

The idea that being able to buy these things with real life money destroys the integrity of them game is a logical fallacy. It's been stated that it's not unethical but destroys the integrity of the system and that is contradictory because the definition of integrity is adherence to ethical and moral standards.

 

But to go on, the assumption that the person who bought it with money didn't "work" for it is wrong. They did work for it, it's called a job and that's what you do at them, work. Most of the time this work is a hell of a lot less fun than grinding on a video game you like to play. Believe it or not there are all ranges of ages that play this game and most of them above the age of 25 have bills, responsibilties and possibly children. This means they have to have a job and can't be like my 20 year old former guild mate who sat at home and PvPed for 14 hours a day to min-max his WH gear to have 1200+ power. Some people don't have this kind of time, some do. Paying for it with money made from the time spent working and thus not playing actually evens the playing field more than leaving it, as in most cases of competive online games in the past, slanted towards the people with the most time to play.

 

In my opinion, the whining about the fact people can have the same advantage by paying rl money for it is just the whining of a child complaining about supposed inequities based on only seeing things from their narrow perspective.

Edited August 1, 2012 by WraitheDarkbane

[coerCez]

I didn't say it's unethical. It's simply not in keeping with the proper integrity that any kind of competition should have - perfectly balanced or not.

 

It would be as if some baseball players were using tiny, tiny, minute amounts of steroids, so insignificant that they hardly matter in game. It would still violate the integrity of the sport.

 

The US election is this year. If Mitt Romney fakes 10,000,000 votes, that's bad and against the integrity of the election. If caught, he would be prosecuted. If he faked, however, only one vote, it is just as bad, just as much harmful to the integrity of the election, and he would be prosecuted the same.

 

Have you ever worked in a retail store? If you steal $3000 from the store safe, you'll be fired and arrested. If you slip a nickel from the cash register into your pocket, you'll also be fired and arrested.

 

That's the thing about integrity. It's not a matter of big or large. You either have it or you don't.

 

I love how you are against any kind of unfair advantage gained through using "money" but yet, I hear no complaints from people like you when this same argument can be made for people who have more "time" then "money".

 

So let me get it straight. It is ok for someone to play the game 12 hours a day and have augmented WH gear which then they compete against someone who can only play for 2 hours a day in Battlemaster gear. Yet, what you are saying is that, it is not ok for the guy who can only play for 2 hours to use "money" instead of "time" to acquire augmented WH gear?

 

I love the P2W or F2P or whatever you want to call it. Finally, the whole genre is switching from angry teenagers/ jobless adults having an "unfair" advantage over people with jobs, families, kids, etc. due to having an over abundance of time. To me, this all seems like "QQ we can't have an unfair advantage over other people now because they can acquire the same gear as us and not have to play 12 hours a day"... to which I say QQ moar!

[WraitheDarkbane]

I didn't say it's unethical. It's simply not in keeping with the proper integrity that any kind of competition should have - perfectly balanced or not.

 

It would be as if some baseball players were using tiny, tiny, minute amounts of steroids, so insignificant that they hardly matter in game. It would still violate the integrity of the sport.

 

The US election is this year. If Mitt Romney fakes 10,000,000 votes, that's bad and against the integrity of the election. If caught, he would be prosecuted. If he faked, however, only one vote, it is just as bad, just as much harmful to the integrity of the election, and he would be prosecuted the same.

 

Have you ever worked in a retail store? If you steal $3000 from the store safe, you'll be fired and arrested. If you slip a nickel from the cash register into your pocket, you'll also be fired and arrested.

 

That's the thing about integrity. It's not a matter of big or large. You either have it or you don't.

 

These analogies have nothing to do with the subject at hand. These are examples of violating rules, fraud and out and out theft. None of these apply to GW2's or any other games paying to get the same stuff that any other player can get get via IG methods. Why? Because that is the system the developrs put in place ergo it doesn't violate the integrity of the system because it's part of the system. If they weren't and people found some way to pay people to hack the servers to give these rewards to people then that would be a violation of the integrity of the system.

Edited August 1, 2012 by WraitheDarkbane

[islander]

So, is GW2 going to be another iteration of stun wars?

[Jadescythe]

Everyone does realize that this argument is over trivial buffs that only affect the 100v100 zergfest that is WvWvW right? sPVP will still put everyone on the same level, which was the objective of Anet in the first place. Whether you like this or not, there will be no p2w option in the competitive PVP realm which is the main reason I have heard people saying they will move to GW2.

 

And are we really against rewarding people for playing the game? Your ability to make money at a job has no bearing on you being able to compete in games. My boss doesn't give me a raise for playing SWTOR. Terrible argument.

[Skolops]

Ok so just to get this straight. You are very bothered that someone can spend even a pitiful amount of money to get a pitiful buff that it lowers the integrity of the game. You are adamant about this and have stated multiple times that even the possibility upsets you. BUT....you ARE ok with people spending time (like money, some have it some don't) to get gear that drastically effects you in game play. In competitive pvp that is. One would think in this fairness argument you would be all for gear scaling and evenness in GW2.

 

Anyone can spend his time - even if, say, a lawyer may need a month to spend the same amount of time earning gear that a college student can in a few days or a week. It will take longer for him, but the lawyer has access to exactly the same things as the college student.

 

On the other hand, the lawyer will have access to money to spend that that college student never will - at least not in any kind of timeframe that is remotely relevant. This is a big difference.

 

The other big difference is simply one of principle: achieving greater success in competition by investing time is something which is looked upon as good and virtuous, whereas achieving greater success in competition by spending money is looked upon as unethical and bad.

[Skolops]

And are we really against rewarding people for playing the game? Your ability to make money at a job has no bearing on you being able to compete in games. My boss doesn't give me a raise for playing SWTOR. Terrible argument.

 

This is exactly the point. My ability to make money at my job should have ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING whatsoever on my ability to succeed in the game. They should be as separate as any two things can be. In opening a path for the two to go hand in hand, ArenaNet has made a game that is lacking in integrity.

 

Now, one poster has tried to argue that it is not lacking in integrity because, by its very definition, the developers permitting this practice means it is not in violation of any integrity. I would simply say that the integrity that is violated is one that goes deeper than adherence to the mere rules of this particular game. Rather, it violates the rules of competition in general that have been respected in our culture for years upon years upon years.

 

It's the general, universally understood and unwritten "rules" that hover over the Olympics, the World Cup, Major League Baseball, and any other competitive kind of game which this violates.

 

My issue here is that, for as long as anyone can remember everyone in the world has said, "It is unethical to buy an advantage in a competitive game or sport," and ArenaNet has come along and said, "No, it's ok."

[coerCez]

Anyone can spend his time - even if, say, a lawyer may need a month to spend the same amount of time earning gear that a college student can in a few days or a week. It will take longer for him, but the lawyer has access to exactly the same things as the college student.

 

On the other hand, the lawyer will have access to money to spend that that college student never will - at least not in any kind of timeframe that is remotely relevant. This is a big difference.

 

The other big difference is simply one of principle: achieving greater success in competition by investing time is something which is looked upon as good and virtuous, whereas achieving greater success in competition by spending money is looked upon as unethical and bad.

 

Wow can you be more biased?

 

You say a lawyer can spend his time acquiring the same gear as college student only at a much slower pace.

 

To which I say,

 

A college student can purchase the same gear as a lawyer only at a much slower pace.

 

How do you not see that not having enough resources rather it is time or money is exactly the same is beyond me...

[Skolops]

There really isnt a reason to try and debate with that person

SWTOR will have stims exp boost hp boost main attribute boosts in their cash shop and using that persons logic make it ptw and it will be alot more prominent, accessable and more widely used in swtor then gw2

 

Do you have proof of this? Moreover, it's really not the same thing. SWtOR already has these things, and they're all fine insofar as they effect PvE. However, BW has been trying to limit how much they can effect PvP, as with the adrenal nerf, for example.

 

Ultimately, though, these items have always been accessible with in-game cash, and unless the cash shop allows the exchange of money for credits, I see no validity to your claim. So far, the cash shop has been said to contain vanity and convenience items, not anything that could impact PvP.

[Icebergy]

when was that taken at the end of 2010 in alpha tests? lol the game looks nothing like that now lol

 

It was last weekend's beta.

[Necrosov]

So, is GW2 going to be another iteration of stun wars?

 

Most ( if not all ) CC effects in Guild Wars 2 last for a very short amount of time ( like 2 secs ). Also, there are multiple skills that have CC breakers and are on short cooldown. You can use the dodge ability to evade them too. Combat much more of an action/reaction game than a CC lockdown fest.