The GW2 Quickstart Guide
So you bought Guild Wars 2 and downloaded it. Now what?
The following is a collection of tips and tweaks that will hopefully make your beginning experience that much smoother in Guild Wars 2. For the purposes of this guide, I am going to assume you already made it through character creation.
Improving the Framerate
Even if you have a super-computer, chances are good that you may only have 40 fps or less if you start out with everything at max settings. Two quick changes in the graphics settings gained me +15-20 fps, and will hopefully work likewise for you:
And you won’t feel a thing.
In text form:
- Reflections: All –> Terrain & Sky (+10 fps)
- Shadows: Ultra –> High (+5 fps)
I am not sure what possesses MMO companies to add graphical features that require computers from the future in order to run properly, but once you tune those two options down a step, you should gain around 15 fps with zero apparent loss of graphical fidelity. Every computer is different, of course, so your own gains may be more or less. Screwing around with some of the other settings resulted in the following for me:
- Shadows: High –> Medium (+5 fps) –> Low (+10 fps)
- Shaders: High –> Medium (+10 fps)
- Textures: High –> Medium (+10 fps)
Again, those numbers may not be accurate for your machine, or even my own machine for that matter – it could be I was simply in the wrong area for a legitimate test. Regardless, I did notice a reduction in game fidelity (i.e. graphics took a hit) when I started bumping that second set of numbers down, so if you like your shiny games to be shiny, stick with the slight Reflections/Shadows tweak.
If you find additional tweaks on your own, feel free to leave it in the comments below.
Improving the Controls
On the default option screen, the two biggest things are turning on Autoloot and increasing the Camera Rotation speed:
You WILL Dodge to your death many a time.
Turning off “Double-Tap to Evade” is a good idea when you start doing any of the jumping puzzles, and it may be a good idea to turn it off permanently anyway. I have not quite worked out what button to comfortably assign Dodge to though, as it has to be one in which you can reliably hit while navigating around with WASD. Right now, I have it assigned to V but may move it to C later (or see if my side mouse buttons will do the job).
Speaking of WASD, take the time now to disable keyboard-turning, you noob:
MMO companies should really disable this shit by default.
I also recommend moving “Interact” from F –> E, but that is just me. The idea behind it is that with Autoloot turned on, what you can do is run through that pile of bodies created by a nearby Dynamic Event and just spam the E key to pick up all the loot.
Improving Quality of Life
At this point, I am going assume you made it through your race’s tutorial, e.g. level 1-2.
One of the first things I recommend is to save up 72 copper and purchase the three basic types of gathering tools:
Start this early, and you’ll thank me later.
If you spot a vendor immediately upon zoning in from the tutorial, you will likely only have ~50 copper or so. Go ahead and purchase the Copper Logging Axe and one of the other two; the herbs are going to be more common, but the ore nodes are going to be more immediately useful for crafting. Otherwise, you can wait until after you finish your first Renown quest “hub” or so to get enough cash to buy them at the same time.
Once the gathering tools are in your inventory, double-click them to “equip” them and you will be ready to go. Each node you tap gives you the equivalent of ~3 or so mob kills and contributes to your Daily Quest achievement score (which itself nets extra XP and rewards).
Incidentally, you might have noticed the Salvage Kits in the vendor window above, or may have received such a kit from completing story quests. Salvage Kits basically “disenchant” old gear into crafting material. I do not recommend buying some right at the beginning of the game like with the gathering tools, especially since you will get several packs of them free from story quests.
If you find yourself lacking in funds, check your mailbox. Each Renown Heart you complete will get you a follow-up letter in your mailbox, which will contain some cash too:
This early copper will be HUGELY useful in the early game.
Between gathering and Dynamic Events, chances are that your bags are going to get full in no time. The good news is that there is an app a button for that:
Hands down the best feature in GW2.
Open your Inventory (I), click the cog, select Deposit All Collectibles. Bam! All your crafting materials (etc) automatically get whisked away to the Collectibles tab of your bank. Want to use those items for Crafting? Any Crafting table will give you access to your Bank and Collectibles tabs, which lets you drop the needed item into your normal bag to use it for crafting purposes. Your bank and Collectibles tabs are Account-wide. There is literally no reason to not use that button, but you can deposit individual items by right-clicking and selecting Deposit from the menu if you wish.
If you find yourself not getting a healthy selection of weapons from drops, check out a weapon vendor. While such vendors can be found sparingly out in the world, it is likely the easiest to seek one out in your race’s capital city. The entrance to every race’s capital city is usually a portal right behind where you spawned from the tutorial. The main entrance is only meaningful for your first trip there, as every time after that you can simply teleport to a Waypoint inside from anywhere.
The weapon vendor will be a marked as a (tiny) icon with a sword:
Harder to find in some capitals than others.
The significance of these vendors is that you can buy every weapon type from them. While the weapons themselves are of low-quality, and expensive for low-level characters anyway, the point is that it is entirely possible to never run across, say, a pair of pistols on your Thief or a Longbow for your Ranger. Not only can you miss the opportunity to level up those weapon skills until you manage to get a random drop, but some classes are worlds more fun with certain weapons – you have not played a Guardian until you played a Guardian with a Broadsword, or an Elementalist with dual-daggers. So if you find yourself creeping up on 2 whole silver pieces and have not unlocked the majority of your weapon skills, I suggest making a shopping trip in town.
By the way, if you happen across an NPC (or object) in town with a golden boot above their head, talk to him/her/it. You will receive a ~5 minute speed boost to make your shopping/exploring trip that much easier.
Improving Globe Trotting
The last Quickstart tip I have is to help you move about the world. Did you roll a Norn and want to quest with your Sylvari friend? Or maybe you just want to check out the Charr area? It is easier than it looks.
- Press H, to bring up the Hero menu.
- Click on the PvP tab, along the bottom left.
- Click “Enter the Mists.”
- If this is your first time here, go ahead and do these tutorial Hearts.
- This next area is the “lobby” for PvP. Feel free to check out your level 80 abilities.
- Otherwise, run into the gate your should be facing. It should say “Lion’s Arch” when near.
- In this next area, press M for your map. It should look like this:
…almost there…
- Run North across the bridge, the hook around to the West.
- One portal for each starting zone.
- Pro tip: you can tell which starting zone a gate belongs to by the race of its guards.
- Go through one of them, grab the nearby Waypoint, then find your friend.
The good news is that there is a Waypoint right at the cluster of portals, meaning you won’t have to the do the PvP portaling trick again. On the other hand, traveling to a Waypoint clear across the world is fairly pricey for a low-level toon (something like 50+ copper for a level 8) so you may want to save those pennies by taking the “long way.”
As you might surmise, each capital will have a portal that leads straight to that Lion’s Arch cluster of portals. If you know your way around your own capital good enough to figure out where it is, feel free to cut out the PvP zone detour. The benefit of the above outlined path is that it is easier to tell someone to click a button and head North than it likely is shepherding them around the utterly massive capitals.
_____
And that, my friends, is that. Crafting is a bit beyond the scope of a Quickstart Guide, and I am not entirely sure how useful a Renown Heart/Dynamic Event rundown would be in comparison to just running around doing it. In any case, hopefully this post was useful in some way, either to yourself or as something to point a friend towards.
Now if you will excuse me, I’m still trying to figure out which character will be my main.
Collective Individualists, or Individual Collectivists
I usually do not participate in theme weeks, but Stubborn’s recent Individualist vs Collectivist post struck a chord. A discordant one.
But first, as always, we have to define the terms of the debate. Throughout Stubborn’s post, for example, he seems to be using “grouping” as interchangeable with Collectivism. While grouping is certainly something Collectivists do, that is like calling me a Landscape Artist when I mow the lawn. The intention matters.
But rather than get too philosophical about it, I have an easy quiz you can take to determine whether you are a Collectivist, or at least have Collectivist tendencies. Have you ever felt:
- Shame, or
- Guilt, or
- A sense of obligation
…to do or refrain from doing some action in an MMO? If you answered “yes,” congratulations comrade, you are a Collectivist!
I knew the precise moment my WoW days became numbered: six weeks after having killed the Lich King in ICC. There I was, logging on at 9pm sharp, trying to drum up support for yet another ICC run that I did not want participate in, let alone tank and raid lead. So why did I do it? Because I knew that 4-5 of my guild mates wanted to do it, that if I did not personally pull the group together the raid would not form, and that each raid which failed to form would drive said guild mates further and further away (into other guilds, or simply away period). Collectivism is about putting the needs of the Collective ahead of your own. You sacrifice your own enjoyment for the benefit of the whole, because the guild/group/corp/etc is intrinsically linked to your own enjoyment.
Contrast the above with Stubborn’s assertion that Diablo 3 ranks highly on the (arbitrary) Collectivist scale:
D3 gets the most collectivist score because it has no add-ons, heavily emphasizes grouping at harder difficulties, and has individual loot. I’d give it a 5, but I have hopes for more collectivist MMOs to come around, and besides, it stinks.
Do you care about the other people you group with in Diablo 3 beyond their potential function as loot efficiency creators? Do you feel guilt for leaving such a group, or a sense of obligation to stay, or shame when you “fail” them? Probably not.
But… maybe you do. In which case, this debate becomes even more abstract as we are awkwardly forced into quantifying how much a game may or may not encourage Collectivist tendencies in players. Is the game anti-Collectivist, or are the players simply pro-Individualists (read: rational entertainment consumers)?
Here is how I see it: Collectivism is something you bring into the game from the outside.
A game can force you to group with other people in order to play, but whether you identify with that group is 100% up to you. Everyone readily agrees that WoW’s random LFD groups are five individuals looking for loot, but Trade Chat groups were not the opposite by default. Did I have a higher tolerance for failure back in TBC? Yes… because if I did not carry that terrible player through heroic Shadow Labs, it meant I was playing zero dungeons tonight. Walking that player through detailed text explanations of each boss encounter was necessary like wearing a shield and pressing Consecration was necessary – in both cases I was simply pressing buttons, not connecting to another human being.
Perhaps I should just quote Samus, who needs nominated for Best Metaphor of the Year:
Any social element is IN SPITE OF the design of these games. You are sitting in a room with all the chairs facing the wall, praising the room for the great conversation you still managed to have.
Having said all that, I can still agree with Syl vis-a-vis being glad that MMOs like Guild Wars 2 are moving towards “bonus instead of malus” incentives for grouping. If I wanted to be social (the most important step!), many MMOs would make being social difficult; simple things like penalizing group XP, throwing quest barriers up, and placing people in awkward Mineral Rights scenarios (“You take the Copper node.” “No, you!”). These days, I would also include general looting rights, even in raiding. While loot system is traditionally the backbone of a raiding guild’s identity – Loot Council vs DKP vs Main spec > Off spec rolls, etc – it can also be divisive. I might like playing with Bob, but if he is in a guild with Loot Council… well, we can no longer be friends raid together.
Ironically, in a certain light, relaxing these grouping barriers actually seems to make games more Individualistic. And it does. Everyone says LFD is the most Individualistic, community-destroying feature ever… and then praise GW2’s auto-grouping, auto-scaling, individual looting, no-words-necessary Dynamic Events in the same breath¹. And the multiple guilds thing, which is great, but sort of undermines the whole guild loyalty/identity thing though, right? Maybe, maybe not.
I feel like this is one of those rare situations in which the otherwise terrible relationship cliche of “set the bird free, and if it comes back, it was meant to be” is applicable. After all, even a sociopath can fake relationships long enough to get the loot, so to speak. A Collectivist cares about the Collective, and will return even if they are not penalized for leaving. A closet Individualist on the other hand… well, they need the handcuffs in spite of themselves.
Of course, the thoroughly legitimate fear is that there ain’t that many Collectivists after all. And I am inclined to agree. So it is simply up to you to decide whether or not the chance of fake becoming real via going through the motions is worth all the cognitive dissonance and hand-waving.
I say open up that cage and let’s see what happens.
¹ LFD might be worse for basically never grouping the same people together again, but simply seeing the same few dudes in Events multiple times is not all that more social by itself. It is the difference between paying for gas at the pump and paying the cashier inside.
The Secret World’s Other Shoe, and Jay Wilson’s Apology for D3
A little over a week ago, I pointed out that Funcom’s The Secret World was not selling all that well; Funcom’s own public press release highlighted a (presumably optimistic) scenario in which they sell half a million boxes and have ~120k subscribers after a year.
As reported by Kotaku, that other shoe has dropped: 50% of Funcom’s staff has been laid off.
Some of these initiatives are part of normal procedure following the launch of a major project, such as adjustments to the customer service staffing based on the number of customers in the game as well as adjustments to the production team as the project goes into a post-launch phase following years of intense development. Many of those affected on the customer service team are on temporary contracts which is common for a live service such as ‘The Secret World’ where customer service demand shifts based on the game’s population levels.
Even the “good news” part of that – the developers/designers were less affected than “temp” customer service reps – comes across as bad news to my ears. After all, if the MMO was doing better, then one would presumably want to retain a robust CustServ department.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I wonder whether or not we should start using layoffs as a metric of MMO success. Obviously subscription numbers have been used as the de facto measurement for years, and I imagine it correlates with layoffs pretty strongly already, but I think most of us recognize the dissonance between claiming “Game X failed” while it still remains profitable. I mean, for god’s sake, Warhammer Online is still kicking it with a subscription¹. EA is not keeping that thing alive out of the goodness of its heart. In fact, arguably, keeping Warhammer alive is unnecessarily cruel.
Or… perhaps we would all be better off not bothering with arbitrary success or failure designations entirely.
…nah, this is the internet. There can only be one!
Speaking of immortals losing their heads…
You will be forgiven if you have not been following the “Example #38417 of How Social Media Will Ruin Your Day” Diablo 3 news story, staring Jay “And Double It” Wilson.
The short version is that one of the developers of the original Diablo (David Brevik) made some comments about Diablo 3 in an interview, and essentially said he would have made different decisions. More or less. The current developers of Diablo 3 did not like that too much, and Jay Wilson thought it was a good idea to respond on Facebook by saying, and I quote, “Fuck that loser.” You can read the Kotaku write-up if you like, as it includes snippets of the interview in question and a screencap of the Facebook post itself.
Looking at the other comments, I’d say Eric Bachour’s “You’d think that guy wasn’t responsible for Hellgate: London. Lol.” was the more epic burn.
In any case, Jay “Fuck that loser and Double It” Wilson has an official pseudo-apology up on the Diablo 3 boards. I do not expect you to actually click on that link, because most of it is PR bullshit (redundantly redundant much?). Well… alright, if you skip the first four paragraphs, things get more interesting. Or you can simply read this handy list of bullet-point quotes:
- “We believe it’s a great game. But Diablo III has flaws. It is not perfect. Sales mean nothing if the game doesn’t live on in all of our hearts, and standing by our games is what Blizzard does.”
- “If you don’t have that great feeling of a good drop being right around the corner — and the burst of excitement when it finally arrives — then we haven’t done our jobs right.”
- “Out of our concern to make sure that Diablo III would have longevity, we were overly cautious about how we handled item drops and affixes. If 1.0.4 hasn’t fixed that, you can be sure we’ll continue to address it.”
- “Part of the problem, however, is not just item drops, but the variety of things to do within the game. “
- “As it stands, Diablo III simply does not provide the tools to allow players to scale the game challenge to something appropriate for them.”
- “Later in the development of Diablo II, the ‘players 8’ command — which let people set monster difficulty — was added to address this issue, and we’re considering something similar for the next major Diablo III patch to allow players to make up their own minds about how hard or how easy is right for them.”
- “The Auction House can short circuit the natural pace of item drops, making the game feel less rewarding for some players. This is a problem we recognize. At this point we’re not sure of the exact way to fix it, but we’re discussing it constantly, and we believe it’s a problem we can overcome.”
I have a spoiler alert for you Jay: that last bullet point ain’t going to happen. Not only is that cat out of the bag, it has been skinned in more than one way across all nine of its lives.
I played a few hours of D3 since the patch, and I have noticed three things:
- “Normal monster health increased by 10%” = +5 terribly boring seconds per mob.
- I can tank Act 3 Inferno elites in the same gear/skills I was 2-shot in pre-patch.
- Gold prices have gone from $2.50/million down to $1.06/million.
That last one is a real shame, as I was hoping to cash out my ~5 million gold and (combined with the few bucks from earlier sales) maybe purchase a month of WoW ahead of MoP. Then again, that would be kind of silly to do given the Scroll of Resurrection’s free server transfer bonus, and GW2’s imminent release notwithstanding. Oh well.
Kind of wonder if that dude who paid $200 for my friend’s 2H sword is still playing the game. I do not know which possibility would be more sad for him/her.
¹ Warhammer says it is F2P on the website, but as far as I can tell it operates more as an unlimited duration free trial than true F2P. For example, you cannot go to the capital cities, cannot engage in any economic transaction with another player, and are limited to “Tier 1 scenarios,” whatever the hell that means (it’s been years since the one month I played).
Game Changer
I regret using such a punchy title for Diablo 3’s 1.0.4 patch, but good god have you seen this?
Introducing the Paragon System
The new Paragon system coming in patch 1.0.4 is designed to address Magic Find gear-swapping while providing players who’ve reached level 60 with an extended progression system.
Here’s how it works:
- After you hit level 60, any further experience you earn from killing monsters will begin to count toward Paragon levels
- There are 100 Paragon levels
- Every Paragon level will reward you with:
- Core stats such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality in amounts similar to what you’d gain from a normal level
- 3% Magic Find and 3% Gold Find
In addition, a distinctive increasingly-impressive border will surround your character portrait in the in-game party frame to denote your Paragon progression, with a new frame earned after every ten levels. Your Paragon level will also be visible to other players wherever your normal level is shown.
[…]
The time to reach the upper Paragon levels approximates the long-term time investment required to get a level 99 character in Diablo II.
Now, the above is in addition to all the AH changes – the biggest of which is the ability to sort by Bid Price and Ending Time (eBay snipe city incoming) – and all the class and difficulty changes I talked about last time. For sheer scope, I recommend checking out the full patch notes as well.
Oh, and it will probably be Live by the time you read this, not the 28th like I thought.
Sitting in my chair, jaw slightly ajar, I could not help but start wondering if there comes a point at which even positive changes become too conspicuous. This patch feels like I just started haggling with a used car salesman and he immediately gave me the keys and said “Here, just take it and go.” Eyebrows and suspicious are raised in equal measure. These are not features Blizzard had planned to roll out at the start, like PvP; damn near everything is a concession based on (negative) feedback that apparently came to a great surprise to Jay “And Double It!” Wilson and crew. Should they be praised for listening to feedback or damned for releasing a game in such apparent need of repair?
Also… what does Blizzard know that we do not? Did they perhaps intend for Diablo 3 to hold everyone over until MoP’s launch, but the negative 2 million subs and the (assumed) precipitous drop in D3 player activity got them spooked? Why else roll out this magnitude of changes? I have no idea. All I do know is that this version of D3 I might be playing tonight is going to almost be a completely different game than the one I started playing four months ago.
And since I haven’t even reviewed Diablo 3 yet… I’m not sure which game to write about now.
Comparison Shopping
During my daily Dealzon (PC) browsing ritual, I came across this rather unfortunate side-by-side apples vs oranges comparison:
1 apple vs 36 oranges, most likely.
I already own GW2 and have no compunction about skipping TSW, both MMOs are going after very different sorts of players, etc etc, yes I know. But… just look at that picture for a second.
Dunno about you, but it gave me pause to consider the relative value of money and how in the world the average person chooses which product to buy when they see two things on a (virtual) shelf. Has $2.12 ever bought a bigger difference?
Just idle thoughts. Carry on.
The City of Steam Alpha Preview for the Rest of Us
If your own blogroll is remotely similar to mine, you have probably heard quite enough about that City of Steam game. The alpha test was wrapping up this past weekend so the devs started handing out codes to just anyone… which would explain how I got one. The beta test will not start for another ~3 months give or take, and there isn’t even a target release date, so the question undoubtedly on your mind – as was on mine every time I read about the game elsewhere – is simple: why should I care about City of Steam?
Well, do you have a few minutes? If so, watch this:
Feel free to expand that into 1080p full-screen, which is the resolution I played at.
In case you were not aware, City of Steam is a browser-based F2P indie MMO. And the above was from its alpha state.
With the exception of Glitch and Kingdom of Loathing, I tend to stay away from browser-based games for… well, no particular reason. I suppose I never thought of them being “for me,” where that is defined by nebulous double-standards like a willingness to pay for a discrete product as long as I don’t have to use a cash shop or spam my friends. Then there is the soft-spot in my cold, black heart for games with character progression deep enough to optimize the fun out it, as one might squeeze whey from cheese. Except, in this disgusting analogy, I eat the whey.
What were we talking about again? Ah, City of Steam.
I have read some descriptions comparing it to Diablo, but the gameplay is more akin to, well, a typical MMO. All the dungeons are instanced, there are some dungeons within dungeons (Dunception!), you can form traditional MMO parties of up to 5-people, guilds exist, the hub areas act as lobbies of sorts, there are daily and story quests, extensive crafting/modding system that alter actual weapon/armor appearance on your avatar, and… let’s stop here. It’s alpha.
While I had an indie MMO developer’s attention though, I just had to ask some (perhaps impertinent) questions:
Me: This is kind of a Bigger question, but… why browser based instead of stand-alone game? Was it easier to go with browser, or more accessible?
Me: I know I can’t be the first one amazed with the graphics. They are very, very well done and came at a complete surprise. Which is kind of why I ask.
Gabriel V. Laforge: It made it more accessible; we wanted to go on the idea that it’s a lightweight game that almost anyone can just jump on and play
GL: hence the short loading times and no massive client downloads
GL: Unity 3D and loads of our own in-house tools really helped optimize that, without sacrificing all that much in terms of graphics or content
Me: Have the more high-profile MMO news – like 38 Studios collapse, SWTOR going F2P, Funcom stock crashes – affected how you build or design the game? Has it complicated the seeking of outside investors (assuming you need any)?
GL: Yes and no…. the game started out as being something we just really wanted to do. Our lead designer, David Lindsay, wrote a series of Roleplaying books, (The New Epoch), upon which the game is based
GL: as for competitors, well, those are large downloads to play, so we don’t necessarily consider ourselves in the same league
GL: we have nowhere near the team or budget they do ;)
GL: as for investment, we have had funding from an investor who helped us get this far, so we’re set on that end
GL: from here, we still have to decide whether we’ll publish independently, or sign on with a publisher (we’ll only go with one who can share the same vision of making this game with integrity…. we REALLY don’t want to go with a pay-to-win model or any crap like that)
Me: A lot of us in the blog world are speculating on whether the MMO genre in general is contracting. Some have suggested that its widespread popularity was just a “fad.” Is that something you worry about as an indie developer? Or are you simply happy to be able to do a job you love? :P
GL: personally, I’m just happy making games
GL: as a company, we’re trying to present something different, and if it works, all the better
GL: if not, we gave it our best
GL: so far though, we’ve been having very positive feedback and reviews, so we’re optimistic
Me: Are there multiple instances of the hub world? If so, how many people can there generally be?
GL: Instances are private for now, for solo and groups of up to 5
GL: we plan to have publick instances for a lot more players later on (we were limited by the endgine before, but now we can make it)
Me: I mean The Refuge [ed: the first main area].
Me: I see a bunch of people running around, but I imagine there is some kind of cap, right?
GL: We havent’ reached (broken) it yet, and have gone up to 600 PCU so far
Me: haha
Me: I’m pretty sure that’s more than I’ve seen in WoW ;)
GL: Really…? Lucky us! :D
Me: I noticed the Mount slot… this is a vague question, but how big of a world will CoS be at launch?
GL: Pretty darn big; Nexus, the City of Steam, it a massive metropolis
GL: there will be enough places to explore to keep people very busy ;)
GL: right now, Alpha has about 150 difference levels
GL: at launch, we plan to have more like something in the upper hundreds, maybe a thousand or so, with more added with future updates
GL: might not be open world, but it will have plenty of flavour
Me: have you settled on a max level yet?
GL: 30 for Alpha, 40 for Beta, and from there, beyond :) (once higher level content is added)
Me: For my audience (such as it is), I have to ask: will there be a Looking-For-Group feature to facilitate grouping for the 5-player content?
GL: We plan to, given engine limitations on whether we can pull it off, but yes, is planned :)
Assuming you are still with me at this point, you might be wondering why I am devoting all this space to a browser-based indie MMO in its alpha state. The answer is quite simple: this may be the future of the genre.
Perhaps not City of Steam specifically, but here is an indie developer doing its best to craft an MMO on a shoestring budget in a world of AAA companies getting 38 Studio’d. And what is impressing me here is that the “nightmare scenarios” we tell ourselves in the blog world might not actually be that bleak. I no longer feel that it has to be $50+ million budgets or bust. Whether it is City of Steam or another indie offering, I am now convinced the possibility exists.
That Panda Trailer
Why must you make it so difficult?
From a technical perspective, the Mists of Pandaria trailer was good. I even laughed when the human handed the orc the spear. But like Rohan, I was left confused as to its purpose. The Pandaren are not a third faction, and all the Pandaren that would be joining the Alliance or Horde are obviously not fighting for “harmony.” I am already sold on the idea of the expansion and the lack of a unifying, spotlight villain. But this trailer… does not excite me in any way.
Just take a few minutes and watch the original WoW trailer again:
I have not watched that in 3+ years and I still got chills from it. Same with the TBC trailer, especially with the WotLK cinematic, and… well, it is still kinda cool how the Cataclysm trailer presented the whole “welding plates on a dragon” thing, even though I cared not for Deathwing himself.
I dunno. As mentioned before, I have nothing against pandas, Pet Combat systems, or anything that comes across as overtly “childish.” I mean, c’mon: gnomes.
But I am also acutely aware that MoP is going to be fighting an image battle for its entire duration, regardless of the merits of the actual game itself. And more to the point, people playing MoP are going to be the ones fighting that image battle alone, if this cinematic trailer is any indication. This expansion is going to be filled with bloody, Horde vs Alliance massacres and betrayals, and Blizzard reinforces the stereotypes at the tips of everyone’s tongues the moment they hear the words “panda” and “monk.”
This is either going to be a long two years, or a short one.
If Guild Wars 2 Succeeds, It Will Be In Spite Of…
With there being just ten days until the prepaid preordered preliminary prelaunch, I figure now is about as good a time as any for a damp GW2 blanket. Not really cynicism for cynicism’s sake, but because there is a bit too much irrational exuberance in the comment sections of otherwise reasonable skepticism. When people start suggesting an MMORPG without a endgame will be fine because MOBA or Counter-Strike, it is time to grab the hose.
And lest anyone forget, the following predictions are based on my experience in all three of the beta weekend events – feel free to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and/or Part 4 for a recap, or just read everything in the GW2 Category for the full experience. I already paid my $60, I am going to be there on the 25th (assuming the servers are up), so it is not as though I want GW2 to fail. I just personally believe that if GW2 succeeds, it will be in spite of…
1. Dynamic Events
Seriously, folks, “Dynamic” Events (hereafter Events) are one of the most over-hyped, under-performing features since WoW voice chat. If anyone in-game talks about Events a month after launch, it will solely be in the context of “Where do I level now?” and “Where are all the Events?” and “I’ve been waiting for X Event to spawn for six minutes now!” and “Lame, the Waypoint I wanted to use is contested.” Events are not Guild Wars 2’s killer app. Events are fun the first time, promote spontaneous grouping in the immediate area, and technically have branching paths, I guess.
Events also scale horribly with a lot of people (melee in particular get hammered by dozens of instantly spawned +2 level mobs), are boring the 2nd/3rd/nth time around, interfere with normal questing/exploring in the area (yay, 20 kobolds just spawned in this cave again), are not easy to find or fun to wait around for, and become just plain tedious when completed alone. Regardless of how successful or not GW2 does sales-wise, it will not take but a few weeks for the playerbase to diffuse across the leveling/zone spectrum, making the outdoor-raid-esque feel of beta Events turn into the Warhammer’s “Forever Alone” Public Quest ghost towns.
You do not even have to have played the beta to understand any of this. Just explain out loud, to yourself, how and why Events are going to be fun for you. Do you sound convincing? For bonus points, elaborate how you figure Events are supposed replace traditional quests as the bulk of GW2’s PvE system.
2. WvWvWvWvWpppfffft
I understand that there will probably be some sort of dedicated segment of the playerbase that thinks WvW is the best thing since Isle of Conquest. And they will be correct, it is an improvement on Isle of Conquest in almost every way!
Other things better than Isle of Conquest include: stepping on a nail, papercuts on your knuckles, Miley Cyrus’ haircut.
I can honestly say that I do not see the appeal of PvWall. It was fun using a cannon to shoot down a constant stream of anonymous damage against massed chumps, but I would be hard pressed to recall a time when being said chump in a rain of frames-per-second-crushing pain was at all what I wanted to do.
And did you see the screenshot I posted way back in the first beta weekend? Here, let me bring it to your attention again:
Yo dawg, I heard you like “world” in your world pvp, so…
If you zone in with 8-10 friends, or even a small group, I can maybe see it being a nice diversion to go kill a bunch of NPC guards at one of the random outposts and otherwise inflicting maximum annoyance. But knocking on a wall and then killing a Keep Lord and then losing said keep a few hours later after you turn in for the night when the West coast PvP guild logs on? And god help you if you want to do WvW below level 80 – you get leveled up to 80, but neither your gear nor your skills are leveled likewise. I imagine we will all get pretty adept at playing Angry Birds one-handed as we navigate the 2.25 minute graveyard run for the millionth time.
Did all this work in DAoC? I dunno, I’ll take your word for it. Then again, a lot of shit worked ten years ago. Like subscription-based games, amirite?
3. Flat Endgame
I only today ran across these two Youtube videos that answered one of my fundamental questions of what happens at endgame, and it was surprisingly succinct: you continue gaining Skill Points for each “level” you gain past 80. Moreover, you can spend said Skill Points in a variety of ways (you likely will have purchased all the character Skills long before this point) including transmuting mats and… more cosmetic gear. I do not find cosmetic rewards in of themselves particularly compelling, but at least you gain something for sidekicking with your friend’s alt or whatever. Not that you always need a reason beyond their company, but let’s face it, it is better for everyone involved that it is incentivized at least in some small way.
That said, I have a big problem with the argument that the vast majority of WoW players do not see an endgame, and thus GW2’s lack of one is no big deal. Yes, raiding is only experienced by ~20% of the playerbase (although LFR undoubtedly changed all that). However, an order of magnitude more players run dungeons as an endgame activity, satisfying the urge of character progression via Justice/Valor Point purchases. Nevermind farming Honor in random BGs. Ostensively both activities exist in GW2 as well – although there are what, 3 BGs (all Conquest) and 8 dungeons? – but running, say, dungeons over again is going to be the equivalent of WoW’s upcoming Challenge Modes. Does anyone thing this is going to be a long-term retention solution?
By the way, I find the “everyone just rolls alts” rationale amusing considering it cedes the progression point. Gaining levels and better gear is fun, and that is exactly why designers try and transplant that same feeling into the endgame via incremental gear upgrades.
In any case, those are my Guild Wars 2 predictions ten days before the headstart launch. Like I mentioned before, and hopefully you have understood by the title of the post, I am not necessarily predicting GW2’s failure or poor retention or whatever else. It could very well be that the game is a smashing success, breaks the 7th Seal, and ushers us into a dawning Age of eternal bliss. If it does so, it will be in spite of Dynamic Events, WvW, and its endgame, not because of them.
I could be wrong; it has happened before. We’ll just have to see in the next 1/3/6/12 months.
The ACTUAL Secret World Review Score
Tobold picked up the story about how Funcom stocks tanked after The Secret World failed to hit arbitrary Metacritic scores. While the post is centered on the legitimacy of review scores to begin with and/or the aggregation thereof, the more salient point was acknowledge but left unexamined.
Let us not bury the actual lede here (emphasis added):
Case in point: The Secret World. It got a “low” metacritic score of 72, causing Funcom’s shares to tank, and the company to announce layoffs. But the metacritic score was just an average of some people absolutely loving the game, and others not being impressed with the unusual setting, progression system, or pure technical performance. The relevant number for a subscription MMORPG is obviously the number of subscribers and the time it manages to hold onto them, not the review score.
So… what are The Secret World subscription numbers? My guess: not good.
Companies are always pretty eager to belt off “250k/500k/1 million subs!” press releases, and as of the time of writing, Funcom has… well, not said much of anything. The launch day press release awkwardly mentions:
“[…] as of now several of the game’s dimensions – which can hold tens of thousands of gamers playing at the same time – have started filling up due to the ever-increasing number of players coming into the game.”
I cannot help but note that “several tens of thousands” is not, say, 100,000. I am not even sure if I can fault Funcom for their hesitant confusion here, as it mentions that over 1.5 million people signed up for the TSW beta. I am no MMO economist, but I imagine a less-than 7% sale rate from people willing to sign up for a beta for your game is a mite unusual.
Then again, isn’t that near the approximate rate of people who buy stuff in F2P games?
But let us dig deeper. According to VGChartz.com, TSW has sold… 0.05m copies. Um, wow. I only recently started using VGChartz though, so maybe they are not all that reliable. How often is it actually updated, anyway?
Oh. That often, eh?
I dunno, those look legitimate to me. “Nearly 50,000 players worldwide!” is not exactly the sort of MMO (or any game, for that matter) press release that would garner positive attention.
[Edit] As pointed out in the comments, VGChartz almost assuredly only counts physical box sales. The page for Diablo 3, for instance, indicates only 2.6 million sales whereas Blizzard has said 10 million. While good to know for future reference, it is not entirely germane to the point at hand, e.g. Funcom hasn’t belted off a 250k or even 100k subscriber press release. [/Edit]
But at this point, I am almost more interested in what Funcom themselves expected. You can read the press release everyone is quoting for the wrong reasons (e.g. “Metacritic is the devil”) here. Or, you know, let me do all the fun stuff for you (emphasis added):
Funcom has on several occasions presented two financial scenarios for the first 12 months following launch of the game; please refer to page 17 in the 1Q 2012 presentation *). Funcom does not consider it likely that either of them will be met.
To improve sales going forward, Funcom is currently enhancing distribution by launching the game on the Steam platform as well as focusing on key areas for improvement of the game and on-going activities on content updates, sales initiatives and communication. The effect of all these initiatives together with other factors impacting sales are difficult to predict, but based on the available early data, one scenario is that sales for the first 12 months following launch will be less than half of what was presented in the “Conan-like” scenario. It should be noted that the sales amount in the “Conan-like” scenario is significantly higher than for the game “Age of Conan”, due to the assumption of better retention implemented in the scenario. Also it should be noted that the company has significantly lower operational cost for The Secret World than what was the case for Age of Conan. As less initial sales than expected is considered an indicator of impairment, the company is currently evaluating the need for recognizing an impairment loss for the game in the profit and loss statement.
Oh how very meta of them! In order to solve this riddle, I have to navigate to a 3rd party website, download a PDF, and then open their 1Q 2012 presentation to page 17.
And the answer is…
01000010 01100101 01110100 01110111 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 00110010 00111000 00110000 01101011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 00110100 00111001 00110000 01101011
*cough* Sorry.
I’m assuming posting this screenshot is not illegal.
In other words, Funcom anticipated The Secret World getting between 280k and 490k subscribers. That means the “one scenario” mentioned in the press release refers to 140k subscribers… after 12 months. Technically they are referring to sales, but at this point moving even 525,000 boxes seems a tad aggressive; it is “only” a ten-fold increase in sales since launch.
None of this is to suggest that The Secret World is a bad game – lord knows my blogroll is filled with positive posts from across the spectrum. Personally, I never had much interest in the game primarily because the most lauded feature, Investigative quests, represents what I consider to be bad game design elsewhere: the necessity to look up outside information. Morse Code headlights? Fuck that, I’m an American. If your quest items don’t have a giant, deep-fried corndog floating over them, I’ll Alt-Tab my way into a whole different game entirely. Adventure games like Myst have their place (uninstalled in my Steam library), but I am typically more interested in performance-based games than puzzle ones. The former tend to last longer and feature more granularity in its progression.
But, hey, 50,000 people can’t be wrong.
P.S. One of the more surprising things I stumbled across in the Q1 Report was the fact that Age of Conan is apparently still profitable and will continue to be into the foreseeable future. At least, that is what I assume “cash flow positive” translates into. The bad news is that Funcom themselves appear to be hemorrhaging money, even before taking into account TSW lead-up to release.
In An Age 
One Year
Aug 25
Posted by Azuriel
A year ago today, I made my introductory In An Age post.
And it was all downhill from there.
The archives technically go back to December 2010, as I had imported my Player Vs Auction House posts over here when I moved from Blogspot to WordPress and broadened my scope. Looking back, the beginnings of that transition happened when I wrote OT: Firelands, Difficulty, and Cataclysmic Malaise back in March 2011, which remains one of my favorite posts… especially when I established the conjecture as fact nearly a year later.
That is somewhat of a joke.
Incidentally, up until my Guild Wars 2 prediction post last week, the Established Fact one back in January was the most-viewed page on the site. Posting the GW2 predictions and the TSW subscription numbers (#3 highest) in the same week did fun things to my graph:
Numbers removed to protect the innocent, e.g. my ego.
Not that I write for the pageviews or anything.
To be honest, this website is pretty much my sole outlet to talk about dubious patch notes, tone-deaf dev chats, post funny pictures, and wax philosophical about gaming in general. So if you were wondering whether I had some special Plans for next year and beyond, it is basically going to be exactly what you’ve got thus far.
I enjoy what I do here, and hopefully you do as well. But even if you don’t, well, stick around anyway and maybe you’ll learn something. Or possibly the other way around.
___________
By the way, the Guild Wars 2 headstart went live as I was typing this. My original intention was to jump on the Jade Quarry server because other bloggers seemed to be going there, but it was Full after approximately two minutes of being online. Four hours later, it appears to be merely High, but I wanted to go ahead and jump into the game. So if you want to watch me gleefully man the cannons in WvW, feel free to join me on the Northern Shiverpeaks server.
I picked that server because it was the next largest in terms of guilds that wasn’t Full, or an “unofficial RP server.” According to this page, it may end up being the #6 server in terms of players. I will have more to say about all this later, but suffice it to say, I did not want a repeat of my low-pop Recommended server ghost town WoW experience. We’ll see what happens.
Posted in Commentary, Guild Wars 2
6 Comments
Tags: Anniversary, Guild Wars 2, Jade Quarry, Northern Shiverpeaks, Server, Year One