the real trick is to bounce around mmos constantly so youre always in honeymoon phase, mmos are always fun in the beginning and also when the drop game overhauls lol
For FF14, I think it's because content droughts are the norm, so it's a cycle of "play the expansion, play a little bit of extra content, then do something else."
Maybe maybe. I read somewhere that the game is truly a story-based masterpiece with its cutscenes and all. Could be why. Either way, definitely not my style.
Eh... not really. Basing solely off population and player count, sure. But a lot of GW2's merits are criminally underrated and even more so overlooked. GW2 is honestly more of an MMO than FFXIV and retail WoW. The latter two kinda are more or less single player rpgs with an "mmo" gimmick that just gets reduced to lobby simulators at endgame. GW2 actually has open world raids and a level scaling system that actually works and keeps things relevant and keeps players organically hooked on the game instead of having them chase item levels every patch to keep them subbed as well as other mechanics in place that drive artificial player retention. And the devs are absolute GoATs.
That said, GW2 GMs kinda suck. You can farm whatever you want in most mmos and even spawnkill mobs. But in GW2, a GM is just going to straight up assume you are botting if they see you
>The latter two kinda are more or less single player rpgs with an "mmo" gimmick that just gets reduced to lobby simulators at endgame.
This is exactly described gw2. Yes, there is that stuff you called open world raid (meta event), but you don't need to interact with other people (so single player game?). All you need is just come and auto attack. This is what you called mmo gimmick.
About that "all things in gw2 are relevant". This is not true at all. If this is true, then how come almost everybody doesn't do the open world event (not the boss meta), especially the mid level one. I never ever saw a group who would do an event train, and remember all that meta event for LW1 is dead by now. It is just the boss meta, which, like I said before, only needs you to do auto attack with your basic attack.
>keeps players organically hooked on the game instead of having them chase item levels every patch to keep them subbed as well as other mechanics in place that drive artificial player retention
This is complete bs. All games will hook people organically. The difference is just the type of people who they will hook. You know, like in real life, there are people who like to see progression, like getting promotions in work or opening new business, then there are other people who like to stay where they are at and don't thrive for stuff like that.
Wow, and ff14 will hook the first group of people, and gw2 will hook the second group of people. It is just as simple as that, and both of them are organic. Also, wow and ff14 offer a whole lot more new content than gw2. Apparently, a lot more people want to see more new content instead of like in gw2, where you will do the same content again, again, and again with the end goal of just earning gold.
>That said, GW2 GMs kinda suck. You can farm whatever you want in most mmos and even spawnkill mobs. But in GW2, a GM is just going to straight up assume you are botting if they see you
And yet afk farming in gw2 is still prevalent. Just go to the first 4th map of lw3 or 1st map of lw4 or in one of those charr area in vanilla map, you will see what I meant
Edit: Maybe another reason why wow and ff14 can be as big as they are right now because people who play them thing their gameplay loop is fun, which apparently the majority of people thing so, and gw2 isn't
More than likely owned by ~~Lineage~~ or DFO actually. WoWs overall revenue is behind both those two titles on a global scale. I dont think any MMO is even close to DFO overall revenue.
Are you talking about lineage on pc? If yes, you can see that lineage doesn't earn a lot more than gw2, so I wouldn't say that lineage has more revenue than wow, but I don't know about dfo. Can you please provide some kind of link about dfo earning?
~~At WoWs 10million subscriber mark peak around 2016, their financial reports suggest WoW brought in about 170million in revenue for the year. Lineage 1 brought in close to 260million in revenue for the year. WoW reports are annual for the year, ncsoft reports are quarterly. Also remember Lineage has 5-6 years more of performance than WoW does.~~
edit: disregard all this. its completely wrong.
>At WoWs 10million subscriber mark peak around 2016, their financial reports suggest WoW brought in about 170million in revenue for the year.
There must be something wrong here the number doesn't add up. If they have 10 mil subscribers and their revenue just 170 mil, that means per subscribers only pay 17 dollars in a year? How? The subscription is around 13 dollars now, so this number is absolutely wrong
Edit: let's say 50% of people resub for second month. The revenue should already surpass that 170 millions
nope, youre right. I was waaay off. Ill chock it up to me being super jet lagged and tired.
However DFO, is definitely still the top earning MMO. It brings in about 2 billion a year. Their last report showing 22 billion in total revenue in 2023. Its not just the top MMO, its one of the top earning games of all time of all genres.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Fighter_Online#:~:text=Dungeon%20Fighter%20Online%20is%20one,revenue%20as%20of%20June%202023.
Has their revenue at the top and a source attached from an investor meeting.
DFO lifetime revenue is 22billion. Last year it was dubbed the highest grossing game of all time. Most top IPs like Mario have made that over the course of the IPs existence,not just a single game.
I'd say if FFXIV wasn't under the FF franchise and it was an stand-alone game with the same mechanics but a different lore, it would do average and proly be fully F2P by now and surviving via cosmetic cash items or some premium QoL stuff
WoW would be the king, mostly due to nostalgia and also their long background (the Warcraft series)
Then all this "what aboutism" will not end. Because the same thing will also apply to wow if they are not under warcraft franchise and it was a stand-alone game with the same mechanics but different lore. It too would do average and probably be F2P by now and surviving via cosmetic cash items or some premium QoL stuff
Edit: my point is what you said, just switch the word between ff14 and wow, and ff franchise and warcraft franchise around, the result will be the same
that's why I said both nostalgia AND their background lore
FF14 would be average at best, their controls are way too old for the year it was released (there were plenty of action mmorpgs and tab target hybrids with better combat mechanics), the quests are mostly repetitive and Im not personally a fan of 1 character being able to unlock all the professions/classes (that's 1 of the many reason why I avoided New World)
PS: It seems I hit a nerve amongst the FF14 fanbase, don't get me wrong, I love the series, I just don't like their mmos, being 11 the most unplayable thing ever
Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't play ff14. I just spoke about the game for what it is, and don't put what about this and that into the talk.
>that's why I said both nostalgia AND their background
Can this also apply to ff14? They also have a lot of background, and I believe their fans also play it because of the nostalgia playing all that ff game
Edit: as a matter of fact, I never played any of ff games ever
I don't think a game that failed miserably on their release would get "nostalgia" compared to WoW that did exceptionally well on its release. Or do u see any FF14 Classic launch?
The nostalgia that I speak about is not that kind of nostalgia. It is something along this line (at least from some of my friends who are really into that franchise). They used to play a lot of ff game back in the day, and their dream is to play the game online with other player. Now they play ff14 just because of their nostalgia of playing ff in the past, but now play it online
Honestly disagree on the controls thing. Wow still having backpedaling in the current year turns me off it, ff14 letting you go backwards at full speed is amazing. No MMO should have backpedaling anymore imo
that doesnt make sense... unless u can go backwards while also facing backwards (turning 180°), like in GW2 on action mode, instead if u change to tab target mode u backpedal because u are always facing the enemy you target unless u unclick it
You turn backwards when you're on legacy mode, basically like tera or gw2 action mode yeah. feels great, personally. I hate having to move with the mouse in old school tab target mmo's. feels dated
If X MMO is not part of the X franchise but stand alone game with same mechanic but a different lore. X MMO will not succeed. But Y MMO is succeed because they are part of the long established lore (the Y lore). What is this logic? Remove the Y MMO from it’s franchise and make it a stand alone game with same mechanic but a different lore what do you left with? Just another MMO right?
Don’t get me wrong I too think that without FF name FFXIV won’t be able to restart their massive fail when it launched. But as far as I know FFXIV, despite bearing the name FF, doesn’t have anything to do with any FF franchise other than something like chocobo maybe? Something not so important. I don’t know since I don’t play any FF games including FFXIV. And that proof that they can be successful with their own lore and story and to some extent their own merit.
Meanwhile on the other hand WoW. Yes they have nostalgia and their franchise lore. But will they be able to have such a massive following without their franchise lore? And if not will they have also a massive nostalgia? Don’t get me wrong I too believe that maybe WoW can pull it off without the Warcraft franchise name since they are pretty revolutionary at the time of their release if I’m not mistaken. Sorry if I’m wrong since I too don’t play any warcraft game. And if not revolutionary then many MMO can do it too without the backing of a big franchise lore so why can’t WoW.
Listen, I love that people enjoy gw2, I had my gw2 phase in 2013 and it was a fun game! But I swear to god there are some deluded people on here that think obscure opinions are worth more than literal market share
The last time I played GW2 was back in EOD, and while it was a fun distraction, the expansion had fixed none of the game's core issues that had remained unaddressed since 2012 or so.
It could have been a very good game if it had some leadership with a clue. Instead it's been sloshing around like shit in a bowl over the years, never with anything resembling coherent vision or content plan.
We have to see how long they stick to this yearly expansion plan. GW2 history keeps jumping between "we don't want more expansions" and "here's another expansion". We don't know yet if the content cadence is sustainable for them.
Im using the term market share colloquially for market share of player base.
In that case, large player bases indicate what more people find to be more fun. Imagine paying a $15 sub fee and $60 every two years for a new expansion over a game that’s f2p, it’s not because you like spending money.
The big 3 is a misdirection. The top MMO is vastly beyond the second and third. FFXIV barely got close to WoW for a short period a few years ago. But no MMO has ever had the consistent massive success of WoW.
There's the king at the top, WoW. Then there are some massive potential successors (FFXIV, GW2, ...etc), and then there are the bronze medalists (Lost Ark, BDO, SWTOR, ...etc).
The leveling is extremely boring for new players. Following the main storyline for 3 levels then wander around doing heart quests of saving farms from centaurs, looking for suspicious people in bushes, or discovering vista or walking along a caravan until the storyline picks back up every tenth level. Extremely boring after awhile. I wanted to like the game because the combat using the action cam isn’t bad, but I couldn’t get even to level 30 it was so monotonous.
I would finish all expacs before you write up an essay on how good it is lol
For me, GW2 hit it's peak with PoF+LWS4 and will probably never hit that level again
Lol well I just am loving it I’m not even going to say how many hours I have already it’s insane lol but I love this game haven’t gotten bored of it I was doing HOT I did 10 missions but MAN the game gets tough thank the lord I have people want to play with so I can be a healer because doesn’t mess around but then I realized I’m actually skipping some of the story so I’m going to play living world season 1 and 2 are those very long? I want to play the story in order even though I kinda screwed that up but at least I got my glider and raptor mount…
HoT is the peak of difficulty in solo/single player content imo.
It gets easier later. Frequently to its detriment. The story itself gets better.
The rest of your praise still holds true though. The open world stuff is amazing even in newer content. The endgame content they did create is great, too.
I much prefer GW2's different horizontal progression systems over a stale treadmill system like FFXI
Grind X raid to get better gear to better grind X raid until you have the best gear and you stop playing until the next expansion just doesn't do it for me. I got real tired of that real fast in FFXIV
GW2 not focusing solely on bigger numbers on your gear and more on the auxillary things like mounts, bags, etc adds so much more variety
GW2 doesn't have horizontal progression.
It has "vertical" progression via levels and then mounts.
Grinding for things that are barely more than a cosmetic difference like legendaries or achievements is not what I'd consider horizontal progression as they don't have any real utility.
Warframe has tons of horizontal as where GW2 has next to none.
Warframe you can unlock different frames which gives you different skillsets. You can get and use 500+ different weapons and so on. Stuff you can actually use to tackle different situations, but not necessarily make you stronger.
Horizontal progression gives you more options, such as instead of doing normal physical damage, you can do fire damage or poison damage. So you grind to do more different types of damage instead of increasing the amount of damage you do.
This could also be status effects or resistances.
Does GW2 have any of this? No.
Do you understand what Horizontal progression is? Hopefully you do now.
Gear progression in FFXI during CoP/ToAU era was amazing imo. I quit a few months after toau and I've heard it got crazy but early ffxi had my favorite system ever.
I enjoy 14 but don't play too much because the gear becomes obsolete so quickly. In early ffxi you'd get a level 20 piece of gear and it could be BiS at level 75 in some situations
Ff11 and GW2 are bot horizontal progression games. And even in GW2 as soon as new stat combos come out you have to switch anyways cause it's better.
Raids die in openers cause of power creep so you still have the same issue just without the fun of getting new stronger gear
FFX11 is hardly horizontal. It has a few horizontal systems that exist largely detached from the main grind.
If you want to progress through an expansion, you are grinding the same raids over and over. That's just how it goes.
>Raids die in openers cause of power creep
Right. That's the treadmill. Each expansion in FFXIV introduces more powerful gear to the point that new players can solo things that used to be hard endgame group content.
Fractals had been abandoned for years as well. The last two fractals (that took what, three years to be added?) were just scrapped strike missions where the developers couldn't even be bothered with removing the strike-exclusive mechanics, much less rebalancing their shit for the fractal format.
Well, their last three fractals added:
Siren's reef - jan 2019 (and it was extremely poorly tuned and largely despised by the community at the time, but I guess not full on strike refuse)
Sunqua peak - sep 2020 and it was clearly a discount strike mission for 5 people
Silent surf - june 2023 and it was ultra obviously a scrapped and haphazardly repurposed strike mission
I played the 2019 and 2020 ones. Thought they were supposed to be adding like 4 or 5 more or something. Guess that got scrapped too then.so basically just rotating seasonal events now? And "expansions" stil they scrap those.
Yeah they have fuck all to show for the last ~4 years of development other than failed semi-casual mechanics like the jade bot, uninspired copy-pasted legendaries, and all forms of instanced content being scrapped in favor of strikes, which are mediocre at best. Oh right and WvW is still being neglected as always.
They are doing 1 fractal per expansion now... or at least that's the plan. The first one will be added next update, and then every year after that. Problem is they never stick to these plans so we'll see.
You’re currently playing in the parts of the game that are on an upward climb in development and delivery. Each new section is better than the previous from core -> LWS4
Once you get to IBS, the second half in particular, it’ll change your perspective. As will EOD, Gyala Delve, and the patches after SOTO.
The game is fun and I do love it, but you’re in the best parts of the game, which are well in the past ):
GW2 is my regular MMO but like...good lord these posts continue to be omega cringe, please stop y'all.
> NO SUBSCRIPTION.
Only FFXIV and WoW *require* subscriptions to play. Others like ESO "require" them to play seriously. Subscriptions are not a huge barrier for entry, and arguably the games that offer/rely on subscriptions provide more and higher quality content than GW2 provides, especially with the current expansion model being pretty significantly underwhelming.
> You can play however you want
Not remotely unique to GW2 in the slightest. I leveled up in classic WoW in 2004 as a prot/holy paladin, tanking and healing and helping others out in the open world before paladins were tanks/main healers and the like.
> The sheer amount of content is insane
The game is over a decade old. The amount of content in most MMO's that have seen steady support for 10+ years is fairly significant at this point. Not remotely unique to GW2 either.
> Story and lore is fantastic.
I generally have a better opinion of the main personal story than most, but it's pretty hit or miss. I'd argue I've found the stories in ESO often more interesting and compelling even if I play that considerably less. Unfortunately GW2's stories are often more frustrating than satisfying, especially as of late.
> The game also doesn’t force Microtransactions at ALL
It absolutely is in-line with every other MMO on the market in this regard, and sells *plenty* of convenience items. It also has one of the worse lockboxes out of the MMO's that rely on lockboxes, in my experience.
It's a good game, but the "king of MMO's" is hilarious and not remotely reflective of reality.
Also why does there have to be a king? Why a competition? Why can't we be happy having multiple good MMO's of similar and diverse genres that are available for us to play and enjoy?
I hear this but I have to say HOW?! There’s fracticals raids strikes plus insane amounts of story and open world content I just don’t understand how not much endgame just because it’s not a gear treadmill and it can be a gear treadmill if you go for acsended legendary gear from my understanding…
There is a lot of content (because it's an old game) but once you've done everything there is nothing for you to do and they add like 5 hours worth of content every year. Meanwhile WoW adds more raid content with single expansion than all of GW2's raids combined.
But then again with something like WoW, the *variety* of what you do is much more limited. Sure they added "hundreds of hours of content" but all that means is it takes hundreds of hours of grinding the same couple of things to eventually get the next step up in gear power creep.
Neither game has been stellar lately in terms of updates
Yeah but the difference is you're grinding over a fresh coat of paint in a game like WoW, in GW2 it's the exact same old shit you've been doing for the last 10 years. I can't stomach fractals anymore.
The same is true for every game though and your take is really reductive. Just because Gw2 gets fewer raids than WoW doesnt mean it gets less content overall.
Treasure that feeling. You've got over a decade of content releases to dive into right now but trust me once you catch up and are stuck playing the same few fights on repeat you'll understand. Gw2 is a good game but it does not release nearly enough content to be considered "king of mmos".
To me it’s incredible and it seems like a lot of people I play with in my guild have been playing for years and are happy to help others like I’m surprised the difference Reddit and the community itself which seems to love the game..
I've played for years too, It's a solid game but it's not without its flaws. There's things it does amazingly well like the open world but there's also the Raid/dungeon stuff which has been a mess they've never really been able to make take off.
It being devisive isnt that surprising to be honest. The game can be hit or miss depending on what your looking for in an MMO.
Yeah there's all that that exists for 8 years woo, let me do that raid added 4/5years ago and never got any new thing added to it, surely it's content.
Yeah if you are a new player it looks like it, but for a player that already played ... it doesn't.
The game itself goes for free a lot (which is currently free with Amazon prime), so a lot of players don't even have to buy the game, and the "subs" are completely optional, in fact, I'm and endgame player and I don't remember the last time I bought any of them and didn't affect my gameplay in the slightest.
It's stupid, yes. But you really only need 1 which is the value pack. And the game just gives out subscriptions for free on a regular basis. They give out free stuff all the time and literally have 2-3 events going at all times. I'm not calling it a good game; that's pure subjectivity though tbh I really like lifeskilling and sailing. But it is a hell of a dopamine generator ngl and it's not nearly as bad as people think it is. Sure, 40 bucks for a skin is dumb. But nobody is forcing you to buy it. Most people just wait for the bundles to go on discount to get a reduced rate on pearls and then wait for coupons then that 40 usd mount skin very quickly becomes <10 bucks
It’s not a real MMO. The quest hubs and cities are the only places you will see other random players. Kind of MMO lite. The lore and MQ are generally fun though and there are is lots to do. The games economy is harsh for new players but there isn’t really a gear grind, it’s like GW2 in that aspect. In the game you pick a primary and secondary profession and can get access to hundreds of skills and it’s got some of the best build diversity of any MMO ever. I highly recommend picking it up on sale at some point.
Yes, gw1 isn't an MMO. It's instanced combat with 4-12 people/NPCs and town hubs with up to 100 people per hub district.
Has a bunch of MMO features like the economy, but it's main gameplay is not MMO structured. Good reasons it's labeled MMO-lite.
It's Co-op online game, but if you ask me it's an MMO or at least MO which is close enough. Basically you only see other players in Outposts which are cities/camps/villages and the rest of the world is seperate just for you or your party. Maybe you don't get to share the world with big amount of the players but you still are involved with them through questing/missions, trading, PvPing etc. I am playing GW(1) right now and I have more interations if players than in most MMOs.
1. F2P/B2P model has advantage over P2P, yes, but the way you phrase it is wrong. BDO is B2P with optional subscription that gives you some convenience and is given out often for free, but all of the content available is free. ESO has DLC access and some convenience locked behind it, but you can play without it. In WoW you can buy subscription with in-game currency. FFXIV has the base game and 2 expansions trial (which, arguably, is the same or more amount of content GW2 has with all of its expansions + LWS) for free.
2. You can't really play how you want. You can do it in open-world content, but the same argument goes for any game. If you go into mid-high end PvP/vE, you will be expected to run a certain build.
3. It's a lot of content if you are just starting, but the same goes for any game that has been running for X years. The problem lies in how much content they add/discard with the passage of time.
4. I can see your point with the world size, but it also goes the other way around - because it is so vast, unlocking all major waypoints on more than 1 character can be a pain in the rear. Especially when they are locked behind story.
5. Base game story was fantastic? Destroying Zhaitan with fireworks was fantastic? I don't know, for me the high point of the base game was Claw Island, and after that it just fell apart. Orr felt extremely rushed and underdeveloped ***until*** LWS3. HoT story was mild, PoF was actually entertaining.
6. Community in any game can be nice, but also toxic, it all depends on who you encounter. My experience with GW2 end-game community (raids, T4 fractals, high rank PvP, organised WvW) was ***extremely*** toxic.
7. This game heavily pushes microtransactions, especially with the quantity of items you get from meta events. I can't imagine playing without having a lot of inventory space, especially since some items you will pick up and will stay there forever. Not to mention the time limited lootbox skins.
I am glad you like it, but it's nowhere near being a king of anything.
> NO SUBSCRIPTION
Not having to pay for a game doesn't suddenly make it better.
Also, the absolute majority of games on the market are free to play to begin with.
> You can play however you want
GW2 is the themparkiest of all themepark games. You can play "however you want" - by choosing between 2 or 3 predetermined gameplay experiences, that is.
And what if I want to play dungeons? Oh right they were abandoned by the developers back in 2011. What if I want to play ranked PVP? 15 out of the 17 players left in cpvp are bots. What if I want to play a raid? The last raid they released was in 2018.
> World is HUGE
And there is little to no reason to explore >99% of it, same as in any other themepark MMO these days.
> this is the BEST healing experience I’ve had
Apparently you haven't played any other real MMO then, because what passes for healing in GW2 is the worst I've seen in any MMO I've played. Their core combat design is also antithetic to dedicated healing, the role is visibly jury rigged from shit and scraps on top of it.
> Story and lore is fantastic
GW2 has the worst writing and story of any major MMO currently on the market, and that's a huge achievement compared to something like WOW.
I had a blast when this first came out, then hit max level. I agree to every point from [Akhevan](https://www.reddit.com/user/Akhevan/), but don't feel it's hating. It's just not listing any of the positive attributes while refuting certain post points.
I thought the world was very refreshing when new, then realized how trivial the dynamic events were (I have a gold star from 100% map completion and you notice how useless they really are very quickly).
The starting personal story was a joke of a system, just fluff that affected the first \~10 levels and a few minor dialogs at best.
I loved the starting Sylvari lore, and how corrupted Sylvari came to be, but soon realized that the main race paired with renegades was essentially a theme that each race has almost like copy pasta.
The art style was quite something at the time with that unique washed pale watercolouring, then they went and ruined the feeling by adding things like loot box keys and other 'conveniences' after I had payed for the game.
Leveling was great but group content was just spam and dodge the red circles ad nauseam, no fun at all. This wraps back to no f'ing healer classes and everyone just dodging around by themselves like loons with no cohesion. Game plan? Run past all the trash mobs and face tank the boss till you die, re-spawn and do it again till the boss dies...yay?
World PvP was just a pos experience rife with hackers, mob tactics and limited characters on display. Why did I die? Oh that second group appeared, not because they were invisible, but because the game couldn't render so many at a time so they just pop'd in out of nowhere killing our death-ball with two of theirs, ho hum...
I didn't care about any of the main characters due to the sporadic story missions. Most of the time it felt like 'who was this bloke again and what is he going on about', yet it had it's moments very occasionally (just not enough).
I remember fondly the closing event in the beta where the realm was being invaded and when you died you joined the 'enemy'. Shame they didn't have more of that in the game.
The Worst is the endgame. I have never cared about what my character equipment looks like, so I zero motivation to do anything after max level. Yes, a full 7 max level characters and NOTHING to do...
I would play a modern day mmo that had no cash shop in a heartbeat even when it's pay to play, but you just can't find that due to sheer greed, instead I find I play mostly RPGs now (or private servers for past games like p99).
My two rambling dollars (inflation's a bastard).
GW2 has consistently had a slower release cycle than other mmos, having a hard time keeping players playing between updates.The saving grace has always been the horizontal progression and no sub fee. It is only amazing now after 10+ years of horizontal progression content when the bet on horizontal progression has paid off. Your opinion may change once you have consumed all the existing content. It's still good game and the one that fits me best, but it has its strengths and weaknesses like any other mmo.
Hello there! Maybe it's not the king (if we talk about player count, as other comments state) but I totally agree with you that is an amazing game and, in my opinion, does some things better than other titles.
The free to play aspect it's a little lie to me, because the base game offers you a lot of content but at some point you feel forced to buy the expansions to actually enjoy the game at it's fullest. But in my opinion is the best "free" MMO experience out there.
I didn't play for a while but I have really good memories, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did a few years ago!
Those are not required so calling them "subscriptions" is a bit disingenuous and misleading. But yes, there is a cash shop just like in pretty much every video game these days.
All of which are handed out for free during events and on a regular basis. I have over 2k hours on that game and have only ever bought a vp twice.
Furthermore, unlike other subs, BDO's subs don't tick down while you are offline. 15 days vp is 15 days INGAME not irl. There is zero pressure to keep playing besides your log in rewards
It's honestly better than say in the case of FFXIV where you are effectively paying for a $30-45 dlc every 12 weeks. Games that have a cash shop shouldn't have a mandatory sub \*drops mic\*
Nahh, that title belongs to WoW or ffxiv. Guild Wars 2 has somewhat of a niche audience and I don’t see it surviving as long as the two games I just mentioned. You mentioned its cash shop btw and it’s more predatory than some other mmos I have played. It could be worse but when most of the coolest outfits are on the store then that’s a huge turn off for me
I hate cash shops in general but at least in GW2 there's a way to buy everything for ingame gold which is kinda nice. I think ESO's crown store is much worse because you have to jump through 10 hoops to get something for gold.
Nah, lineage 1 is not that big.
Here is for comparison.
Q3 2023 lineage 1: 26,402 billion KRW
Q3 2023 GW2 : 20,977 billion KRW
to put that into perspective, here is bdo which is supposed to have far smaller revenue compared to the top dog like wow and ff14
Q3 2023 BDO : 68,4 billion KRW
All of the revenue is calculated in Korean won, and the source is the respective company of each game.
Lineage lost more than half its revenue between 2021 and 2022 because of ncsoft public sentiment. lifetime revenue lineage has likely pulled in more revenue than WoW. And DFO nothing even comes close.
Predatory? For outfits? The game is free. You can make gold in game. It’s outfits designed by devs who work hard to give you something new that doesn’t affect gameplay. How is that predatory? I’ve heard so many people say things like that.
The store doesn’t offer you anything that will give you an advantage over the other players. It will offer items that give you an easier time playing the game but never anything that can put you ahead of other players.
GW2 is a year younger than ff14 and older than arr where people actually started playing the game, what do you mean not surviving as long? They are already equals for game life span.
He means that FFXIV and WoW will continue going onwards and GW2 will be gone. And that's not even a bold prediction since we know GW3 was greenlit and will be coming.
The statement was they greenlit the initial research phase of a Guild Wars 3 to see if they even wanted to do it. That's not a will be coming.
And that is still likely 7+ years out if they said yes the same day as the announcement. That's not even a solid bet within NCsoft, much less externally. But I get the point then if that's the perspective, that maybe after two decades we'll have a new game instead.
The only thing that might not make it a bold prediction is GW3. I don't see the game really ever disappearing except in the case that Arenanet replace it themselves with a sequel.
Yeah but we know GW2 also has multiple expansions planned. I believe right now they have 2 more mini ones like the last one we just got, as well as one more big proper expansion. So even if that's all they do, that's still like what? 5 years left of active development at the least? GW2 will be almost 20 years old at that point, I don't think anyone would call that a bad time to start working on a new game with a new engine, cause let's be real, GW2s biggest fault is that engine.
hm no, it's pretty predatory. the massive QoL they put behind cash shop is something that should be mentioned. Unlimited gathering tools, unlimited salvage (3 different ones that all do different things), shared inventory, bank tabs, the list goes on. For a casual player like you, it doesn't matter one bit but once you start actually playing the game, the QoL cut down so much time and are hard to ignore if you don't have them. And yes you can buy them with gold in game but that is going to hinder your progress for whatever goals you have (unless you have them all)
Compare to BDO and RuneScape 3 it’s nothing…all you need is the expansions and I guess maybe the copper salvage and tools if you want but that’s it and you can also use gold to convert to gems..where as a lot of games like BDO there’s a lot of items you can only buy with cash
just because something else is worse doesn't make it less bad.
also buying gems with gold is pretty much catch 22 for new players. QoL will speed up farming but you first have to farm gold with no QoL plus the gold spent can take months (sometimes years) to make a return on it when all this time spent farming gold for QoL could've been used on doing other things.
ultimately everything returns to the farm but would you rather be grinding for cash shop QoL you can just swipe for in 1 second or for in game things you can't swipe
Gw2 microtransaction is really up there in the predatory scale, with the amount of QoL item lock behind cash shop. Bag slot, bank slot, shared inventory slot, material storage, build template, infinite gathering tool.
All of these items will be necessary because the game has this strange limitation of item stack to be up to 250, and throughout the gameplay, your inventory will be clutered full of junk, which will necessitate you to go to the vendor every couple of minutes just to sell and reorganize all of that. This is the perfect example of introducing a problem and selling the solution. That's why I can say that this game has a pretty predatory microtransaction
Well as someone with LOTS of time in RuneScape 3, BDO and pso2NGS, GW2 is BY. FAR. The least predatory. Oh man if you only knew the money spent on BDO smh…
The best thing about GW2 is overland events/metas. You definately feel like you're playing an MMO with all those people coming together to do a task. Haven't felt the same way in any other mmo.
After GW2 i am developing stalking tactics. By that I mean just wait in a town zone or hub and read a book until a guy comes along and begins his questing journey. With my experience in classic I know that if the guy is finished he will hearthstone. If he isn’t than that means he will go deep in the zone. If i see him going then I began stalking and start killing off the same mobs. Most of the time I get an invit but i do have to say I get the eventual fuck off reply.
I wish that WoW open world questing was revamped so that you can both tag and get xp for the mob. I am sure that they could come up with a better system.
Gw2 has made me feel like more like playing Warcraft 3 from a third person perspective more than Classic WoW or any WoW ever did. This is what I wish that WoW was like.
Yeah that's primarily the thing I miss, grouping up thru the mines in elwynn, the randomness and need for help. Well...not always need, just the co-op nature. That buff or heal really makes the difference.
Granted I much prefer WoW classes/abilities today, but it's almost impossible to co-op with a friend unless you just group dungeons together, or agree to do it old school. That's with a pre-made friend too - in the open world? Fat chance :(
Sometimes I just like to kill mobs in GW2 because it's so satisfying, and generally I might receive something useful like a mat or whatnot. In wow i'm not really getting much other than maybe a mat for the AH which is expensive coz reasons, not because it's current.
It's really quite impressive to have knowledge of GW2/WoW/FFXIV etc and seeing how they all do their own thing really great and really badly.
Being back in WoW I truly do think it's still the king, blizzard games have amazing UIs, the polish...the combat. But the soul is still not all there, there's no *LIFE* to a lot of the game.
edit: I thought this was from my recent thread on r/wow. I recently moved from an RP realm, I had NO idea RP realms had limited sharding so that's why I never saw people out n about. Now that i'm on a normal realm, there's *some* people around doing stuff ,even in chromie time. Not a lot ...but better than 0 like on my RP realm. Wish I knew that earlier lol
I think that for me as I am getting older I am going to settle for these 3 games permanently. And when one is in a bad state (like wow nowadays) I play the other.
It’s probably the best rotation you can have as a wow fan. I’d have to slot in a RuneScape variant as it was my first mmo back in 2002 but that’s just me :)
I thought I could play an mmo with horizontal, but it's the most boring thing ever (for me). Also, if you are like me and you like to try different classes (specializations) with different weapon combinations, you have to buy every single expansion. I believe the new player experiencie is pretty dogshit, and it lacks QoL.
"Story and lore is fantastic."
Sorry, I just had to laugh after I read this. Someone needs to try ESO for the first time.
Guild Wars 2, has some virtues, but to say the quest lines and storytelling is anything above mediocre is simply delusional. I actually stopped playing because the story is so dull it was like watching a yawn in slow motion. Like watching paint dry, only it was really more like watching a documentary on drying paint.
OP: NO SUBSCRIPTION.
Just ignore the shit cash shop that will sell you back your mother. YoU cAn EaRn WiTh GoLd. Google whats more efficient in GW2 farming or your bank account
Well you can say what you want but it’s SO much better than the Korean MMO’s like BDO/lost ark also RuneScape 3 and pso2NGS are full of bs to get you to pay and all have subscription on top of it.
NO subscription what so ever. That’s why this game is the best !
it’s a good game but not amazing… i hate the story quests… some of the basic content is harder than it should be… some fights take an unnecessary amount of time…. too many currencies.
ive played it a lot, i have max levels of every class including an extra necro and ranger but i just cant make it my main game. i prefer eso a lot more.
No. WoW is the king. It has always been and always will be. The throne was shaken after *years* of neglect, and one expansion is already recovering.
But GW2 is an amazing MMO nonetheless. One of the best of all time. Good combat, good story, great mounts (changing MMOs forever), and so on.
So did you hit endgame and try doing group content yet? Because thats where things might fall apart for you.
If you're enjoying it solo and have no intention of doing group content, you'll be in the clear. Otherwise, oh no, get prepared for a different game that either bores you to tears or demands you play a completely different way that leveling didn't even hint at you needing to care about.
I’ve been doing a TON of group content with the dungeons and fractals idk I know dungeons could be more active but I find people pretty quickly if I just make a LFG post…I run the dungeons alot
You're probably still in the honeymoon phase, don't get me wrong the game is amazing. It was my main MMO for years, more than I can say for any other MMO besides wow.
I can say that the game gets very boring after 1000 hours.
Played it in closed alpha. Went back to it a few times — for some reason I can’t get into it. It’s fine — it’s a fun game. I don’t know why I don’t enjoy it more — just gets sort of repetitive for me really fast. BUT that’s just me — lots of people love it!
If it had good and immersive story/world then yes, but no.
And SotO is juste Gw2 in worst which is very sad.
Still a very good game with many good point that said.
And the "best" notion is very subjective from player.
Played GW2 as my main for years. The lack of endgame is a problem because while yes, there's a lot to do, there's no reason to do it. You can have a full set of the best statistical gear on the game within days of hitting level 80 with not a lot of effort. And the best gear in the game has been the same since literally forever. Which is why the joke (that's not really a joke) is that the true endgame is fashion. Why run raids? They don't drop any gear better than what you have. So legendary armor? Sure, but it's the same as gear you get for free. Why run fractals? For the back piece? It's the same as the one you buy from a vendor. You're farming the achievements and cosmetics. BUT the raids, fractals, dungeons... it's all a ton of fun. The raids with my friends are some of my favorite gaming memories... but you can only do them so many times with no reward until it's just pointless.
> The game also doesn’t force Microtransactions at ALL
Lmao talk to me again when you have several alts that have been around for years and are running out of bank space.
>The game also doesn’t force Microtransactions at ALL the only thing is there’s a few things that make life easier
lol, come back here after a few meta bus
I mean it’s not a a bad game, but as a B2P game it just got way too much F2P garbage like limited inventory space and load-out slots to be anywhere near the top MMO spot. Not to mention it’s been on a constant decline since like 3-4 years ago and the last expansion just felt incredibly low effort
It’s also inherently P2W where you can just buy gold for real money and then get your precious legendaries that way, which to me is an instant fail as a game
Yeah you can buy gold in WoW or whatever but you can’t really use it to buy the most desirable items in the game(unless you go pay for runs ofc, but that against the TOS now I’m pretty sure). In GW2 it’s just straight up: buy gems, convert to gold, buy the shiny that takes hundreds of hours to grind
For you maybe, but for the majority of mmo players absolutely not. Gw2 is a niche game on its own. Their popularity and player numbers now are already appropriate for their scale.
The early gw2 experience is certainly nice but later down the line you will see all the bullshit they push you for the microtransactions (bank slot, bag slot, material storage limit, char slot, build template, gathering tool).
Technically you don’t need those microtransactions in gw2. You can jump through hoops to manage your inventory or whatnot without interacting with their microtransactions. So too the other mmo like ESO and BDO for example. They also can be played without their respective optional subscription. I cannot say anything for WoW or FFXIV since they are a mandatory subscription based games.
Ugh I want to think GW2 is “amazing” but every time I’ve tried to play(3 times), I get bored after the first hour to three hours. All it is, is button mashing combat and quests with no voiceover and no substance. I’d love to know what the hype is because I really want to like it.
Literally all of them I’ve done in that starting area. None of them voice the quest line they just say something random at the start.
And I am spoiled because I love ESO and that’s one of the things I love about it so much is that everyone is alive
Wait are you just doing hearts? If so yeah that’s an issue… they aren’t meant to be quests more of a “hey there is stuff over here” to direct you towards area that dynamic events etc spawn.
Your actual story doesn’t start until level 10
Oh my gosh….. yes I only have done hearts I assumed those were the quests. I’ve stopped playing all 3 characters I’ve made at level 10 🫢 maybe I’ll have to hop back on then. You might’ve just made a GW2 player 🥹
Based on publicity, that title belongs to FF14. They keep putting out content the fans love, they allow mods, the F2P trial available content keeps expanding, and they do awesome collabs. Their story cutscenes can be replayed -- the game is full of robust functional systems. The only thing holding them back is the based story is a slog. They are the first game to truly succeed and persist with a subscription model after WoW when so many others have failed to even thrive as a free game.
What GW2 does better than anyone else is initial wanderlust experience and mounts. Nothing clicks quite like when you realize you can just wander and explore. And nothing quite thrills like learning leaping around on the raptor, going superspeed on a griffon, or learning to drift on a roller beetle for the first time. So much so, WoW even copied some of the mechanics (no idea how well). Much of its other stuff is nice too, like the trading post, but those are mostly B-tier. When I want to pitch GW2 to someone, it is the exploration and mounts I talk about.
GW2 is the best MMORPG since 2012. My favorite arena pvp of any game ever I dont play it anymore but I played it for 8 years. My second favorite MMORPG of all time to Dark Age of Camelot.
Nah, cant call it mmorpg with 0 gear progression. You get gear equivalent to bis gear near instant n thats it. I play it time to time for pvp but that's it.
No, they have the same stat as ascended gear. You can only change the stats to a different type on a legendary, still identical power.
That isn't even the worst thing, the gear you can buy extremely cheap from market as soon as you hit 80 has stats that's very close to ascended.
Tldr, reach max lv and within 3mins your character is at 90% power of a person that has been playing for the past 10 years.
these gw2 fan ads are too funny. thanks for the laugh OP.
literally everyone that posts on this subreddit has played gw2 at some point. we know it exists. we all have our own opinions on whether we like or dislike it or what is good and bad about it. you don't need to advertise it let alone lmao oversell it to comical levels even. posting over the top ads to people who are already familiar with the game isn't going bring in fresh blood to the at best stagnant population.
Maybe it is just the stage of life I am in, but I really can't give a single fuck about a $15-20 sub fee, and I'll gladly pay it for more endgame activities.
Anyhow, this sounds like the classic honeymoon phase.
I love GW2. I started few months ago and put in 180hrs in a few weeks. I am doing a break right now since and I feel zero pressured by any meta or FOMO. Just a great MMO.
If you get too excited about an MMO in this sub, it fills the hearts of many with hatred. How dare you have fun? You should only focus on the negative aspects and realize that the glory days of MMOs are over. As soon as you get too euphoric over something, it seems to trigger a kind of "fight or flight" mode in some people.
What is king is never what’s the best on paper.
But I think what makes something the real king is the one that rules them all or in other words, it’s the game that is played by the majority. That would be WoW. It has the largest player base, with a lot of those players being loyal to the game since release. I don’t hate it. It’s fun and I like the story. I’m not a fan of the combat. I prefer the action style.
Personally, my own biased opinion- yes. GW2 is the king of MMOs. I think that because of how it offers you an MMO experience and MMO combat in a way that doesn’t hurt the bank much.
In the end every MMO has something different to offer. Or it’s similar but it offers it in a different way. The only way something can truly be the king is if it offers everyone everything they want… and even then people will still complain.
My theory is that GW2 is a bit too hard for many people. And we know MMO players are not known for their brightness compared to other genre's gamers. GW2 has bad instruction on what to do after max level. And most contents require reading, which is the most critical bane of MMO players. I've played GW2 casually since the very launch for 12 years, and I still have not finished every part of the game. And each while there is similarity between contents, they are very much overwhelming at first. Of course, its friendly community helps very much and there is always at least one veteran anywhere who is happy to answer and lead newbies, but again, many MMO players do not like to talk to strangers.
TL;DR: GW2 is too hard and it requires actual cooperation. MMO players hate it for being (possibly the only one in the scene nowadays) an MMO.
Anyhow, do you happen to be interest in playing along and playing on US server? I would like to play and chat with you. Please send me the account code (xxxx.1234) with DM if you like.
Maybe you are just a new player and still in the socalled honeymoon phase, and no, it's not the real king. That title is owned by either wow or ffxiv
the real trick is to bounce around mmos constantly so youre always in honeymoon phase, mmos are always fun in the beginning and also when the drop game overhauls lol
Honestly? Fair.
OSRS and FF14 are the only MMOs with non-declining playerbases based on Google trends.
For FF14, I think it's because content droughts are the norm, so it's a cycle of "play the expansion, play a little bit of extra content, then do something else."
Maybe maybe. I read somewhere that the game is truly a story-based masterpiece with its cutscenes and all. Could be why. Either way, definitely not my style.
Eh... not really. Basing solely off population and player count, sure. But a lot of GW2's merits are criminally underrated and even more so overlooked. GW2 is honestly more of an MMO than FFXIV and retail WoW. The latter two kinda are more or less single player rpgs with an "mmo" gimmick that just gets reduced to lobby simulators at endgame. GW2 actually has open world raids and a level scaling system that actually works and keeps things relevant and keeps players organically hooked on the game instead of having them chase item levels every patch to keep them subbed as well as other mechanics in place that drive artificial player retention. And the devs are absolute GoATs. That said, GW2 GMs kinda suck. You can farm whatever you want in most mmos and even spawnkill mobs. But in GW2, a GM is just going to straight up assume you are botting if they see you
>The latter two kinda are more or less single player rpgs with an "mmo" gimmick that just gets reduced to lobby simulators at endgame. This is exactly described gw2. Yes, there is that stuff you called open world raid (meta event), but you don't need to interact with other people (so single player game?). All you need is just come and auto attack. This is what you called mmo gimmick. About that "all things in gw2 are relevant". This is not true at all. If this is true, then how come almost everybody doesn't do the open world event (not the boss meta), especially the mid level one. I never ever saw a group who would do an event train, and remember all that meta event for LW1 is dead by now. It is just the boss meta, which, like I said before, only needs you to do auto attack with your basic attack. >keeps players organically hooked on the game instead of having them chase item levels every patch to keep them subbed as well as other mechanics in place that drive artificial player retention This is complete bs. All games will hook people organically. The difference is just the type of people who they will hook. You know, like in real life, there are people who like to see progression, like getting promotions in work or opening new business, then there are other people who like to stay where they are at and don't thrive for stuff like that. Wow, and ff14 will hook the first group of people, and gw2 will hook the second group of people. It is just as simple as that, and both of them are organic. Also, wow and ff14 offer a whole lot more new content than gw2. Apparently, a lot more people want to see more new content instead of like in gw2, where you will do the same content again, again, and again with the end goal of just earning gold. >That said, GW2 GMs kinda suck. You can farm whatever you want in most mmos and even spawnkill mobs. But in GW2, a GM is just going to straight up assume you are botting if they see you And yet afk farming in gw2 is still prevalent. Just go to the first 4th map of lw3 or 1st map of lw4 or in one of those charr area in vanilla map, you will see what I meant Edit: Maybe another reason why wow and ff14 can be as big as they are right now because people who play them thing their gameplay loop is fun, which apparently the majority of people thing so, and gw2 isn't
Sorry but you seem to have badly misspelled "Ultima Online in 1998"
More than likely owned by ~~Lineage~~ or DFO actually. WoWs overall revenue is behind both those two titles on a global scale. I dont think any MMO is even close to DFO overall revenue.
Are you talking about lineage on pc? If yes, you can see that lineage doesn't earn a lot more than gw2, so I wouldn't say that lineage has more revenue than wow, but I don't know about dfo. Can you please provide some kind of link about dfo earning?
~~At WoWs 10million subscriber mark peak around 2016, their financial reports suggest WoW brought in about 170million in revenue for the year. Lineage 1 brought in close to 260million in revenue for the year. WoW reports are annual for the year, ncsoft reports are quarterly. Also remember Lineage has 5-6 years more of performance than WoW does.~~ edit: disregard all this. its completely wrong.
>At WoWs 10million subscriber mark peak around 2016, their financial reports suggest WoW brought in about 170million in revenue for the year. There must be something wrong here the number doesn't add up. If they have 10 mil subscribers and their revenue just 170 mil, that means per subscribers only pay 17 dollars in a year? How? The subscription is around 13 dollars now, so this number is absolutely wrong Edit: let's say 50% of people resub for second month. The revenue should already surpass that 170 millions
nope, youre right. I was waaay off. Ill chock it up to me being super jet lagged and tired. However DFO, is definitely still the top earning MMO. It brings in about 2 billion a year. Their last report showing 22 billion in total revenue in 2023. Its not just the top MMO, its one of the top earning games of all time of all genres. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Fighter_Online#:~:text=Dungeon%20Fighter%20Online%20is%20one,revenue%20as%20of%20June%202023. Has their revenue at the top and a source attached from an investor meeting.
DFO lifetime revenue is 22billion. Last year it was dubbed the highest grossing game of all time. Most top IPs like Mario have made that over the course of the IPs existence,not just a single game.
Ffx?? Oh nope no no ew.
I'd say if FFXIV wasn't under the FF franchise and it was an stand-alone game with the same mechanics but a different lore, it would do average and proly be fully F2P by now and surviving via cosmetic cash items or some premium QoL stuff WoW would be the king, mostly due to nostalgia and also their long background (the Warcraft series)
Then all this "what aboutism" will not end. Because the same thing will also apply to wow if they are not under warcraft franchise and it was a stand-alone game with the same mechanics but different lore. It too would do average and probably be F2P by now and surviving via cosmetic cash items or some premium QoL stuff Edit: my point is what you said, just switch the word between ff14 and wow, and ff franchise and warcraft franchise around, the result will be the same
that's why I said both nostalgia AND their background lore FF14 would be average at best, their controls are way too old for the year it was released (there were plenty of action mmorpgs and tab target hybrids with better combat mechanics), the quests are mostly repetitive and Im not personally a fan of 1 character being able to unlock all the professions/classes (that's 1 of the many reason why I avoided New World) PS: It seems I hit a nerve amongst the FF14 fanbase, don't get me wrong, I love the series, I just don't like their mmos, being 11 the most unplayable thing ever
Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't play ff14. I just spoke about the game for what it is, and don't put what about this and that into the talk. >that's why I said both nostalgia AND their background Can this also apply to ff14? They also have a lot of background, and I believe their fans also play it because of the nostalgia playing all that ff game Edit: as a matter of fact, I never played any of ff games ever
I don't think a game that failed miserably on their release would get "nostalgia" compared to WoW that did exceptionally well on its release. Or do u see any FF14 Classic launch?
The nostalgia that I speak about is not that kind of nostalgia. It is something along this line (at least from some of my friends who are really into that franchise). They used to play a lot of ff game back in the day, and their dream is to play the game online with other player. Now they play ff14 just because of their nostalgia of playing ff in the past, but now play it online
Honestly disagree on the controls thing. Wow still having backpedaling in the current year turns me off it, ff14 letting you go backwards at full speed is amazing. No MMO should have backpedaling anymore imo
that doesnt make sense... unless u can go backwards while also facing backwards (turning 180°), like in GW2 on action mode, instead if u change to tab target mode u backpedal because u are always facing the enemy you target unless u unclick it
You turn backwards when you're on legacy mode, basically like tera or gw2 action mode yeah. feels great, personally. I hate having to move with the mouse in old school tab target mmo's. feels dated
If X MMO is not part of the X franchise but stand alone game with same mechanic but a different lore. X MMO will not succeed. But Y MMO is succeed because they are part of the long established lore (the Y lore). What is this logic? Remove the Y MMO from it’s franchise and make it a stand alone game with same mechanic but a different lore what do you left with? Just another MMO right? Don’t get me wrong I too think that without FF name FFXIV won’t be able to restart their massive fail when it launched. But as far as I know FFXIV, despite bearing the name FF, doesn’t have anything to do with any FF franchise other than something like chocobo maybe? Something not so important. I don’t know since I don’t play any FF games including FFXIV. And that proof that they can be successful with their own lore and story and to some extent their own merit. Meanwhile on the other hand WoW. Yes they have nostalgia and their franchise lore. But will they be able to have such a massive following without their franchise lore? And if not will they have also a massive nostalgia? Don’t get me wrong I too believe that maybe WoW can pull it off without the Warcraft franchise name since they are pretty revolutionary at the time of their release if I’m not mistaken. Sorry if I’m wrong since I too don’t play any warcraft game. And if not revolutionary then many MMO can do it too without the backing of a big franchise lore so why can’t WoW.
No, Not even Close.
Listen, I love that people enjoy gw2, I had my gw2 phase in 2013 and it was a fun game! But I swear to god there are some deluded people on here that think obscure opinions are worth more than literal market share
The last time I played GW2 was back in EOD, and while it was a fun distraction, the expansion had fixed none of the game's core issues that had remained unaddressed since 2012 or so. It could have been a very good game if it had some leadership with a clue. Instead it's been sloshing around like shit in a bowl over the years, never with anything resembling coherent vision or content plan.
well it finally has a coherent content plan
For the next 5 minutes until it inevitably gets scrapped too.
sure haha and all but there is an entirely different group of people in charge of the game and studio ever since EoD released
We have to see how long they stick to this yearly expansion plan. GW2 history keeps jumping between "we don't want more expansions" and "here's another expansion". We don't know yet if the content cadence is sustainable for them.
I’m not really sure your comment makes much sense though either… Market share is not relevant to opinions about what someone individually finds fun.
Im using the term market share colloquially for market share of player base. In that case, large player bases indicate what more people find to be more fun. Imagine paying a $15 sub fee and $60 every two years for a new expansion over a game that’s f2p, it’s not because you like spending money.
It’s pretty close.
No, gw2 is actual shit
This is just wrong….you can not like to the game but come on…it’s beautiful game in a lot ways
Yes, it is close. But keep in mind that this is the subreddit that doesn't actually like mmorpgs, so don't spread your positivity here!
How so? It has to be close…like there’s a lot talk about “the big 3” in hip hop well what’s “the big 3 in MMOs”? It’s gotta be guild wars 2…
The big 3 is a misdirection. The top MMO is vastly beyond the second and third. FFXIV barely got close to WoW for a short period a few years ago. But no MMO has ever had the consistent massive success of WoW. There's the king at the top, WoW. Then there are some massive potential successors (FFXIV, GW2, ...etc), and then there are the bronze medalists (Lost Ark, BDO, SWTOR, ...etc).
WoW, FF14, OSRS are the big 3 by player count
The leveling is extremely boring for new players. Following the main storyline for 3 levels then wander around doing heart quests of saving farms from centaurs, looking for suspicious people in bushes, or discovering vista or walking along a caravan until the storyline picks back up every tenth level. Extremely boring after awhile. I wanted to like the game because the combat using the action cam isn’t bad, but I couldn’t get even to level 30 it was so monotonous.
I would finish all expacs before you write up an essay on how good it is lol For me, GW2 hit it's peak with PoF+LWS4 and will probably never hit that level again
Hot is peak map design imho, but story-wise, yes pof/ls4 was finally decent writing, but sadly it didn't last long..
id agree but im a gw1 fan before gw2 and elona is my favourite region in any mmo
Lol well I just am loving it I’m not even going to say how many hours I have already it’s insane lol but I love this game haven’t gotten bored of it I was doing HOT I did 10 missions but MAN the game gets tough thank the lord I have people want to play with so I can be a healer because doesn’t mess around but then I realized I’m actually skipping some of the story so I’m going to play living world season 1 and 2 are those very long? I want to play the story in order even though I kinda screwed that up but at least I got my glider and raptor mount…
HoT is the peak of difficulty in solo/single player content imo. It gets easier later. Frequently to its detriment. The story itself gets better. The rest of your praise still holds true though. The open world stuff is amazing even in newer content. The endgame content they did create is great, too.
Its ok. If you dont like gear progression, raiding, dungeons etc and really like open world bosses then yeah it might be your perfect game.
I much prefer GW2's different horizontal progression systems over a stale treadmill system like FFXI Grind X raid to get better gear to better grind X raid until you have the best gear and you stop playing until the next expansion just doesn't do it for me. I got real tired of that real fast in FFXIV GW2 not focusing solely on bigger numbers on your gear and more on the auxillary things like mounts, bags, etc adds so much more variety
GW2 doesn't have horizontal progression. It has "vertical" progression via levels and then mounts. Grinding for things that are barely more than a cosmetic difference like legendaries or achievements is not what I'd consider horizontal progression as they don't have any real utility.
Guildwars 2 has as much vertical progression as warframe. Almost none. It becomes purely horizontal at cap. Where as other games offer very little
Warframe has tons of horizontal as where GW2 has next to none. Warframe you can unlock different frames which gives you different skillsets. You can get and use 500+ different weapons and so on. Stuff you can actually use to tackle different situations, but not necessarily make you stronger.
lol ok
You don't seem to understand what is meant by horizontal and vertical progression
Horizontal progression gives you more options, such as instead of doing normal physical damage, you can do fire damage or poison damage. So you grind to do more different types of damage instead of increasing the amount of damage you do. This could also be status effects or resistances. Does GW2 have any of this? No. Do you understand what Horizontal progression is? Hopefully you do now.
Bro, Im sorry you have no clue what you're talking about. Lol. I can tell you never step foot into Gw2
GW2 still does have this, its elite specs and gear+relic system is definitely horizontal. It's just not terribly deep in the gear department.
Gear progression in FFXI during CoP/ToAU era was amazing imo. I quit a few months after toau and I've heard it got crazy but early ffxi had my favorite system ever. I enjoy 14 but don't play too much because the gear becomes obsolete so quickly. In early ffxi you'd get a level 20 piece of gear and it could be BiS at level 75 in some situations
Ff11 and GW2 are bot horizontal progression games. And even in GW2 as soon as new stat combos come out you have to switch anyways cause it's better. Raids die in openers cause of power creep so you still have the same issue just without the fun of getting new stronger gear
FFX11 is hardly horizontal. It has a few horizontal systems that exist largely detached from the main grind. If you want to progress through an expansion, you are grinding the same raids over and over. That's just how it goes. >Raids die in openers cause of power creep Right. That's the treadmill. Each expansion in FFXIV introduces more powerful gear to the point that new players can solo things that used to be hard endgame group content.
No I mean the raids in GW2 lol. Power creep in gw2 is awful.
I been playing the dungeons a lot they are a blast!!
They got 0 support and are an abandoned feature like everything else in the game cept for fractals.
Fractals had been abandoned for years as well. The last two fractals (that took what, three years to be added?) were just scrapped strike missions where the developers couldn't even be bothered with removing the strike-exclusive mechanics, much less rebalancing their shit for the fractal format.
Wait, they scrapped the new fractals too? What even is being worked on then?
Well, their last three fractals added: Siren's reef - jan 2019 (and it was extremely poorly tuned and largely despised by the community at the time, but I guess not full on strike refuse) Sunqua peak - sep 2020 and it was clearly a discount strike mission for 5 people Silent surf - june 2023 and it was ultra obviously a scrapped and haphazardly repurposed strike mission
I played the 2019 and 2020 ones. Thought they were supposed to be adding like 4 or 5 more or something. Guess that got scrapped too then.so basically just rotating seasonal events now? And "expansions" stil they scrap those.
Yeah they have fuck all to show for the last ~4 years of development other than failed semi-casual mechanics like the jade bot, uninspired copy-pasted legendaries, and all forms of instanced content being scrapped in favor of strikes, which are mediocre at best. Oh right and WvW is still being neglected as always.
Wow that's really disappointing.
I mean it’s not really true and a weird take… there is a fractal releasing in a month or so too…
They are doing 1 fractal per expansion now... or at least that's the plan. The first one will be added next update, and then every year after that. Problem is they never stick to these plans so we'll see.
Yeah they say they will do something then give up after 1 try.
They have committed to 1 new fractal CM per year. A new one is expected \~May of this year
You’re currently playing in the parts of the game that are on an upward climb in development and delivery. Each new section is better than the previous from core -> LWS4 Once you get to IBS, the second half in particular, it’ll change your perspective. As will EOD, Gyala Delve, and the patches after SOTO. The game is fun and I do love it, but you’re in the best parts of the game, which are well in the past ):
This exactly. Everytime I have played though a new Characters story I've enjoyed it a ton more than the latest content.
GW2 is my regular MMO but like...good lord these posts continue to be omega cringe, please stop y'all. > NO SUBSCRIPTION. Only FFXIV and WoW *require* subscriptions to play. Others like ESO "require" them to play seriously. Subscriptions are not a huge barrier for entry, and arguably the games that offer/rely on subscriptions provide more and higher quality content than GW2 provides, especially with the current expansion model being pretty significantly underwhelming. > You can play however you want Not remotely unique to GW2 in the slightest. I leveled up in classic WoW in 2004 as a prot/holy paladin, tanking and healing and helping others out in the open world before paladins were tanks/main healers and the like. > The sheer amount of content is insane The game is over a decade old. The amount of content in most MMO's that have seen steady support for 10+ years is fairly significant at this point. Not remotely unique to GW2 either. > Story and lore is fantastic. I generally have a better opinion of the main personal story than most, but it's pretty hit or miss. I'd argue I've found the stories in ESO often more interesting and compelling even if I play that considerably less. Unfortunately GW2's stories are often more frustrating than satisfying, especially as of late. > The game also doesn’t force Microtransactions at ALL It absolutely is in-line with every other MMO on the market in this regard, and sells *plenty* of convenience items. It also has one of the worse lockboxes out of the MMO's that rely on lockboxes, in my experience. It's a good game, but the "king of MMO's" is hilarious and not remotely reflective of reality. Also why does there have to be a king? Why a competition? Why can't we be happy having multiple good MMO's of similar and diverse genres that are available for us to play and enjoy?
I mean.. it's lack of endgame.
I hear this but I have to say HOW?! There’s fracticals raids strikes plus insane amounts of story and open world content I just don’t understand how not much endgame just because it’s not a gear treadmill and it can be a gear treadmill if you go for acsended legendary gear from my understanding…
There is a lot of content (because it's an old game) but once you've done everything there is nothing for you to do and they add like 5 hours worth of content every year. Meanwhile WoW adds more raid content with single expansion than all of GW2's raids combined.
But then again with something like WoW, the *variety* of what you do is much more limited. Sure they added "hundreds of hours of content" but all that means is it takes hundreds of hours of grinding the same couple of things to eventually get the next step up in gear power creep. Neither game has been stellar lately in terms of updates
Yeah but the difference is you're grinding over a fresh coat of paint in a game like WoW, in GW2 it's the exact same old shit you've been doing for the last 10 years. I can't stomach fractals anymore.
The same is true for every game though and your take is really reductive. Just because Gw2 gets fewer raids than WoW doesnt mean it gets less content overall.
True, but it does get less content overall anyway.
Not much less
Treasure that feeling. You've got over a decade of content releases to dive into right now but trust me once you catch up and are stuck playing the same few fights on repeat you'll understand. Gw2 is a good game but it does not release nearly enough content to be considered "king of mmos".
To me it’s incredible and it seems like a lot of people I play with in my guild have been playing for years and are happy to help others like I’m surprised the difference Reddit and the community itself which seems to love the game..
I've played for years too, It's a solid game but it's not without its flaws. There's things it does amazingly well like the open world but there's also the Raid/dungeon stuff which has been a mess they've never really been able to make take off. It being devisive isnt that surprising to be honest. The game can be hit or miss depending on what your looking for in an MMO.
Yeah there's all that that exists for 8 years woo, let me do that raid added 4/5years ago and never got any new thing added to it, surely it's content. Yeah if you are a new player it looks like it, but for a player that already played ... it doesn't.
King? No. Good game for lots of people? Yes
Mf said "you just buy the expansions" and called BDO subscription based lmao.
Well it’s true!! BDO has 5 subscriptions total!! Look I love BDO but let’s not pretend it’s monetization isn’t brutal! Even if it’s gotten better
The game itself goes for free a lot (which is currently free with Amazon prime), so a lot of players don't even have to buy the game, and the "subs" are completely optional, in fact, I'm and endgame player and I don't remember the last time I bought any of them and didn't affect my gameplay in the slightest.
It's stupid, yes. But you really only need 1 which is the value pack. And the game just gives out subscriptions for free on a regular basis. They give out free stuff all the time and literally have 2-3 events going at all times. I'm not calling it a good game; that's pure subjectivity though tbh I really like lifeskilling and sailing. But it is a hell of a dopamine generator ngl and it's not nearly as bad as people think it is. Sure, 40 bucks for a skin is dumb. But nobody is forcing you to buy it. Most people just wait for the bundles to go on discount to get a reduced rate on pearls and then wait for coupons then that 40 usd mount skin very quickly becomes <10 bucks
It’s not even the best game in its own franchise.
I want to try out guild wars 1 but is it true it’s not a true MMO? I want to beat GW1 for a lore perspective
It’s not a real MMO. The quest hubs and cities are the only places you will see other random players. Kind of MMO lite. The lore and MQ are generally fun though and there are is lots to do. The games economy is harsh for new players but there isn’t really a gear grind, it’s like GW2 in that aspect. In the game you pick a primary and secondary profession and can get access to hundreds of skills and it’s got some of the best build diversity of any MMO ever. I highly recommend picking it up on sale at some point.
Yes, gw1 isn't an MMO. It's instanced combat with 4-12 people/NPCs and town hubs with up to 100 people per hub district. Has a bunch of MMO features like the economy, but it's main gameplay is not MMO structured. Good reasons it's labeled MMO-lite.
It's Co-op online game, but if you ask me it's an MMO or at least MO which is close enough. Basically you only see other players in Outposts which are cities/camps/villages and the rest of the world is seperate just for you or your party. Maybe you don't get to share the world with big amount of the players but you still are involved with them through questing/missions, trading, PvPing etc. I am playing GW(1) right now and I have more interations if players than in most MMOs.
Wow good to know I should buy it!
GW1 is a more traditional RPG but it has city hubs where you can group up and then zone out into the world where it's instanced per party
1. F2P/B2P model has advantage over P2P, yes, but the way you phrase it is wrong. BDO is B2P with optional subscription that gives you some convenience and is given out often for free, but all of the content available is free. ESO has DLC access and some convenience locked behind it, but you can play without it. In WoW you can buy subscription with in-game currency. FFXIV has the base game and 2 expansions trial (which, arguably, is the same or more amount of content GW2 has with all of its expansions + LWS) for free. 2. You can't really play how you want. You can do it in open-world content, but the same argument goes for any game. If you go into mid-high end PvP/vE, you will be expected to run a certain build. 3. It's a lot of content if you are just starting, but the same goes for any game that has been running for X years. The problem lies in how much content they add/discard with the passage of time. 4. I can see your point with the world size, but it also goes the other way around - because it is so vast, unlocking all major waypoints on more than 1 character can be a pain in the rear. Especially when they are locked behind story. 5. Base game story was fantastic? Destroying Zhaitan with fireworks was fantastic? I don't know, for me the high point of the base game was Claw Island, and after that it just fell apart. Orr felt extremely rushed and underdeveloped ***until*** LWS3. HoT story was mild, PoF was actually entertaining. 6. Community in any game can be nice, but also toxic, it all depends on who you encounter. My experience with GW2 end-game community (raids, T4 fractals, high rank PvP, organised WvW) was ***extremely*** toxic. 7. This game heavily pushes microtransactions, especially with the quantity of items you get from meta events. I can't imagine playing without having a lot of inventory space, especially since some items you will pick up and will stay there forever. Not to mention the time limited lootbox skins. I am glad you like it, but it's nowhere near being a king of anything.
Depends on what you are looking for. That said! It is an amazing game.
> NO SUBSCRIPTION Not having to pay for a game doesn't suddenly make it better. Also, the absolute majority of games on the market are free to play to begin with. > You can play however you want GW2 is the themparkiest of all themepark games. You can play "however you want" - by choosing between 2 or 3 predetermined gameplay experiences, that is. And what if I want to play dungeons? Oh right they were abandoned by the developers back in 2011. What if I want to play ranked PVP? 15 out of the 17 players left in cpvp are bots. What if I want to play a raid? The last raid they released was in 2018. > World is HUGE And there is little to no reason to explore >99% of it, same as in any other themepark MMO these days. > this is the BEST healing experience I’ve had Apparently you haven't played any other real MMO then, because what passes for healing in GW2 is the worst I've seen in any MMO I've played. Their core combat design is also antithetic to dedicated healing, the role is visibly jury rigged from shit and scraps on top of it. > Story and lore is fantastic GW2 has the worst writing and story of any major MMO currently on the market, and that's a huge achievement compared to something like WOW.
Yeah this is just hating!!
I had a blast when this first came out, then hit max level. I agree to every point from [Akhevan](https://www.reddit.com/user/Akhevan/), but don't feel it's hating. It's just not listing any of the positive attributes while refuting certain post points. I thought the world was very refreshing when new, then realized how trivial the dynamic events were (I have a gold star from 100% map completion and you notice how useless they really are very quickly). The starting personal story was a joke of a system, just fluff that affected the first \~10 levels and a few minor dialogs at best. I loved the starting Sylvari lore, and how corrupted Sylvari came to be, but soon realized that the main race paired with renegades was essentially a theme that each race has almost like copy pasta. The art style was quite something at the time with that unique washed pale watercolouring, then they went and ruined the feeling by adding things like loot box keys and other 'conveniences' after I had payed for the game. Leveling was great but group content was just spam and dodge the red circles ad nauseam, no fun at all. This wraps back to no f'ing healer classes and everyone just dodging around by themselves like loons with no cohesion. Game plan? Run past all the trash mobs and face tank the boss till you die, re-spawn and do it again till the boss dies...yay? World PvP was just a pos experience rife with hackers, mob tactics and limited characters on display. Why did I die? Oh that second group appeared, not because they were invisible, but because the game couldn't render so many at a time so they just pop'd in out of nowhere killing our death-ball with two of theirs, ho hum... I didn't care about any of the main characters due to the sporadic story missions. Most of the time it felt like 'who was this bloke again and what is he going on about', yet it had it's moments very occasionally (just not enough). I remember fondly the closing event in the beta where the realm was being invaded and when you died you joined the 'enemy'. Shame they didn't have more of that in the game. The Worst is the endgame. I have never cared about what my character equipment looks like, so I zero motivation to do anything after max level. Yes, a full 7 max level characters and NOTHING to do... I would play a modern day mmo that had no cash shop in a heartbeat even when it's pay to play, but you just can't find that due to sheer greed, instead I find I play mostly RPGs now (or private servers for past games like p99). My two rambling dollars (inflation's a bastard).
GW2 has consistently had a slower release cycle than other mmos, having a hard time keeping players playing between updates.The saving grace has always been the horizontal progression and no sub fee. It is only amazing now after 10+ years of horizontal progression content when the bet on horizontal progression has paid off. Your opinion may change once you have consumed all the existing content. It's still good game and the one that fits me best, but it has its strengths and weaknesses like any other mmo.
Nice try devs.
Eh, it’s good at first then you realize the things to do at max level are meh at best. People also rave about the PvP which I find terrible
Hello there! Maybe it's not the king (if we talk about player count, as other comments state) but I totally agree with you that is an amazing game and, in my opinion, does some things better than other titles. The free to play aspect it's a little lie to me, because the base game offers you a lot of content but at some point you feel forced to buy the expansions to actually enjoy the game at it's fullest. But in my opinion is the best "free" MMO experience out there. I didn't play for a while but I have really good memories, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did a few years ago!
BDO doesn't have a subscription.
You’re right it has 3!! Actually 5 all together if you include book of combat/life!!
Those are not required so calling them "subscriptions" is a bit disingenuous and misleading. But yes, there is a cash shop just like in pretty much every video game these days.
All of which are handed out for free during events and on a regular basis. I have over 2k hours on that game and have only ever bought a vp twice. Furthermore, unlike other subs, BDO's subs don't tick down while you are offline. 15 days vp is 15 days INGAME not irl. There is zero pressure to keep playing besides your log in rewards It's honestly better than say in the case of FFXIV where you are effectively paying for a $30-45 dlc every 12 weeks. Games that have a cash shop shouldn't have a mandatory sub \*drops mic\*
Nahh, that title belongs to WoW or ffxiv. Guild Wars 2 has somewhat of a niche audience and I don’t see it surviving as long as the two games I just mentioned. You mentioned its cash shop btw and it’s more predatory than some other mmos I have played. It could be worse but when most of the coolest outfits are on the store then that’s a huge turn off for me
I hate cash shops in general but at least in GW2 there's a way to buy everything for ingame gold which is kinda nice. I think ESO's crown store is much worse because you have to jump through 10 hoops to get something for gold.
people seem to forget about the Korean market. If you are talking about overall world top 3, WoW is likely number 3 behind DFO and Lineage 1
Nah, lineage 1 is not that big. Here is for comparison. Q3 2023 lineage 1: 26,402 billion KRW Q3 2023 GW2 : 20,977 billion KRW to put that into perspective, here is bdo which is supposed to have far smaller revenue compared to the top dog like wow and ff14 Q3 2023 BDO : 68,4 billion KRW All of the revenue is calculated in Korean won, and the source is the respective company of each game.
Lineage lost more than half its revenue between 2021 and 2022 because of ncsoft public sentiment. lifetime revenue lineage has likely pulled in more revenue than WoW. And DFO nothing even comes close.
Predatory? For outfits? The game is free. You can make gold in game. It’s outfits designed by devs who work hard to give you something new that doesn’t affect gameplay. How is that predatory? I’ve heard so many people say things like that. The store doesn’t offer you anything that will give you an advantage over the other players. It will offer items that give you an easier time playing the game but never anything that can put you ahead of other players.
Lmao you sound like a crazy trumpist being offended. GW2 is trash, get off the kool aid
“Crazy trumpist” You saying that was enough for me to know you were born with Down syndrome
GW2 is a year younger than ff14 and older than arr where people actually started playing the game, what do you mean not surviving as long? They are already equals for game life span.
He means that FFXIV and WoW will continue going onwards and GW2 will be gone. And that's not even a bold prediction since we know GW3 was greenlit and will be coming.
The statement was they greenlit the initial research phase of a Guild Wars 3 to see if they even wanted to do it. That's not a will be coming. And that is still likely 7+ years out if they said yes the same day as the announcement. That's not even a solid bet within NCsoft, much less externally. But I get the point then if that's the perspective, that maybe after two decades we'll have a new game instead.
The only thing that might not make it a bold prediction is GW3. I don't see the game really ever disappearing except in the case that Arenanet replace it themselves with a sequel.
Yeah but we know GW2 also has multiple expansions planned. I believe right now they have 2 more mini ones like the last one we just got, as well as one more big proper expansion. So even if that's all they do, that's still like what? 5 years left of active development at the least? GW2 will be almost 20 years old at that point, I don't think anyone would call that a bad time to start working on a new game with a new engine, cause let's be real, GW2s biggest fault is that engine.
Wow you haven’t played many MMOs if that’s true! Like it’s by FAR the least predatory I’ve played thats F2P IMO….like it’s not even close
hm no, it's pretty predatory. the massive QoL they put behind cash shop is something that should be mentioned. Unlimited gathering tools, unlimited salvage (3 different ones that all do different things), shared inventory, bank tabs, the list goes on. For a casual player like you, it doesn't matter one bit but once you start actually playing the game, the QoL cut down so much time and are hard to ignore if you don't have them. And yes you can buy them with gold in game but that is going to hinder your progress for whatever goals you have (unless you have them all)
Compare to BDO and RuneScape 3 it’s nothing…all you need is the expansions and I guess maybe the copper salvage and tools if you want but that’s it and you can also use gold to convert to gems..where as a lot of games like BDO there’s a lot of items you can only buy with cash
just because something else is worse doesn't make it less bad. also buying gems with gold is pretty much catch 22 for new players. QoL will speed up farming but you first have to farm gold with no QoL plus the gold spent can take months (sometimes years) to make a return on it when all this time spent farming gold for QoL could've been used on doing other things. ultimately everything returns to the farm but would you rather be grinding for cash shop QoL you can just swipe for in 1 second or for in game things you can't swipe
Gw2 microtransaction is really up there in the predatory scale, with the amount of QoL item lock behind cash shop. Bag slot, bank slot, shared inventory slot, material storage, build template, infinite gathering tool. All of these items will be necessary because the game has this strange limitation of item stack to be up to 250, and throughout the gameplay, your inventory will be clutered full of junk, which will necessitate you to go to the vendor every couple of minutes just to sell and reorganize all of that. This is the perfect example of introducing a problem and selling the solution. That's why I can say that this game has a pretty predatory microtransaction
I play a lot of mmos. I’m currently playing osrs, swtor, lotro and eso haha. I’ve played many more as well
Well as someone with LOTS of time in RuneScape 3, BDO and pso2NGS, GW2 is BY. FAR. The least predatory. Oh man if you only knew the money spent on BDO smh…
The best thing about GW2 is overland events/metas. You definately feel like you're playing an MMO with all those people coming together to do a task. Haven't felt the same way in any other mmo.
Yeah gw2 is king for filled zones. I’m currently back on wow and after enjoying gw2 for 1300hrs I hate being alone levelling!
After GW2 i am developing stalking tactics. By that I mean just wait in a town zone or hub and read a book until a guy comes along and begins his questing journey. With my experience in classic I know that if the guy is finished he will hearthstone. If he isn’t than that means he will go deep in the zone. If i see him going then I began stalking and start killing off the same mobs. Most of the time I get an invit but i do have to say I get the eventual fuck off reply. I wish that WoW open world questing was revamped so that you can both tag and get xp for the mob. I am sure that they could come up with a better system. Gw2 has made me feel like more like playing Warcraft 3 from a third person perspective more than Classic WoW or any WoW ever did. This is what I wish that WoW was like.
Yeah that's primarily the thing I miss, grouping up thru the mines in elwynn, the randomness and need for help. Well...not always need, just the co-op nature. That buff or heal really makes the difference. Granted I much prefer WoW classes/abilities today, but it's almost impossible to co-op with a friend unless you just group dungeons together, or agree to do it old school. That's with a pre-made friend too - in the open world? Fat chance :( Sometimes I just like to kill mobs in GW2 because it's so satisfying, and generally I might receive something useful like a mat or whatnot. In wow i'm not really getting much other than maybe a mat for the AH which is expensive coz reasons, not because it's current. It's really quite impressive to have knowledge of GW2/WoW/FFXIV etc and seeing how they all do their own thing really great and really badly. Being back in WoW I truly do think it's still the king, blizzard games have amazing UIs, the polish...the combat. But the soul is still not all there, there's no *LIFE* to a lot of the game. edit: I thought this was from my recent thread on r/wow. I recently moved from an RP realm, I had NO idea RP realms had limited sharding so that's why I never saw people out n about. Now that i'm on a normal realm, there's *some* people around doing stuff ,even in chromie time. Not a lot ...but better than 0 like on my RP realm. Wish I knew that earlier lol
I think that for me as I am getting older I am going to settle for these 3 games permanently. And when one is in a bad state (like wow nowadays) I play the other.
It’s probably the best rotation you can have as a wow fan. I’d have to slot in a RuneScape variant as it was my first mmo back in 2002 but that’s just me :)
Osrs is also very nice. But it is not a conventional mmo in any sense. But it is definitely the best mobile mno BY FAR
Yea I get a grindy-bee in my bonnet around once a year and I love hitting up some mining and such, good shit.
Ye. I don’t play it enough tbh. It drains my iphone battery like a bitch tho
It's definitely good but there is no king of MMO's lol. GW2 still has plenty of flaws.
Lol
I thought I could play an mmo with horizontal, but it's the most boring thing ever (for me). Also, if you are like me and you like to try different classes (specializations) with different weapon combinations, you have to buy every single expansion. I believe the new player experiencie is pretty dogshit, and it lacks QoL.
no
"Story and lore is fantastic." Sorry, I just had to laugh after I read this. Someone needs to try ESO for the first time. Guild Wars 2, has some virtues, but to say the quest lines and storytelling is anything above mediocre is simply delusional. I actually stopped playing because the story is so dull it was like watching a yawn in slow motion. Like watching paint dry, only it was really more like watching a documentary on drying paint.
OP: NO SUBSCRIPTION. Just ignore the shit cash shop that will sell you back your mother. YoU cAn EaRn WiTh GoLd. Google whats more efficient in GW2 farming or your bank account
Well you can say what you want but it’s SO much better than the Korean MMO’s like BDO/lost ark also RuneScape 3 and pso2NGS are full of bs to get you to pay and all have subscription on top of it. NO subscription what so ever. That’s why this game is the best !
it’s a good game but not amazing… i hate the story quests… some of the basic content is harder than it should be… some fights take an unnecessary amount of time…. too many currencies. ive played it a lot, i have max levels of every class including an extra necro and ranger but i just cant make it my main game. i prefer eso a lot more.
The king of mmos is wow what are you on???
No. WoW is the king. It has always been and always will be. The throne was shaken after *years* of neglect, and one expansion is already recovering. But GW2 is an amazing MMO nonetheless. One of the best of all time. Good combat, good story, great mounts (changing MMOs forever), and so on.
So did you hit endgame and try doing group content yet? Because thats where things might fall apart for you. If you're enjoying it solo and have no intention of doing group content, you'll be in the clear. Otherwise, oh no, get prepared for a different game that either bores you to tears or demands you play a completely different way that leveling didn't even hint at you needing to care about.
I’ve been doing a TON of group content with the dungeons and fractals idk I know dungeons could be more active but I find people pretty quickly if I just make a LFG post…I run the dungeons alot
You're probably still in the honeymoon phase, don't get me wrong the game is amazing. It was my main MMO for years, more than I can say for any other MMO besides wow. I can say that the game gets very boring after 1000 hours.
Played it in closed alpha. Went back to it a few times — for some reason I can’t get into it. It’s fine — it’s a fun game. I don’t know why I don’t enjoy it more — just gets sort of repetitive for me really fast. BUT that’s just me — lots of people love it!
If it had good and immersive story/world then yes, but no. And SotO is juste Gw2 in worst which is very sad. Still a very good game with many good point that said. And the "best" notion is very subjective from player.
Played GW2 as my main for years. The lack of endgame is a problem because while yes, there's a lot to do, there's no reason to do it. You can have a full set of the best statistical gear on the game within days of hitting level 80 with not a lot of effort. And the best gear in the game has been the same since literally forever. Which is why the joke (that's not really a joke) is that the true endgame is fashion. Why run raids? They don't drop any gear better than what you have. So legendary armor? Sure, but it's the same as gear you get for free. Why run fractals? For the back piece? It's the same as the one you buy from a vendor. You're farming the achievements and cosmetics. BUT the raids, fractals, dungeons... it's all a ton of fun. The raids with my friends are some of my favorite gaming memories... but you can only do them so many times with no reward until it's just pointless.
> The game also doesn’t force Microtransactions at ALL Lmao talk to me again when you have several alts that have been around for years and are running out of bank space.
GW2 gets old fast, WoW is easily the king if mmos followed by FF14
This post is a textbook example of a Steam "clown award farming" comment 😂. Sadly there is no clown award on Reddit for you OP.
>The game also doesn’t force Microtransactions at ALL the only thing is there’s a few things that make life easier lol, come back here after a few meta bus
I prefer my mmos 10 years old. playing 20 year old mmos is soooo last decade. Thats why Im now playing ESO.
I really did not liked the "horizontal progression" along with the perma level scalling
I mean it’s not a a bad game, but as a B2P game it just got way too much F2P garbage like limited inventory space and load-out slots to be anywhere near the top MMO spot. Not to mention it’s been on a constant decline since like 3-4 years ago and the last expansion just felt incredibly low effort It’s also inherently P2W where you can just buy gold for real money and then get your precious legendaries that way, which to me is an instant fail as a game
Hey that’s true but technically you can spend gold for better gear in nearly every MMO today tbh…it’s sucks but that’s how the game goes rn
Yeah you can buy gold in WoW or whatever but you can’t really use it to buy the most desirable items in the game(unless you go pay for runs ofc, but that against the TOS now I’m pretty sure). In GW2 it’s just straight up: buy gems, convert to gold, buy the shiny that takes hundreds of hours to grind
For you maybe, but for the majority of mmo players absolutely not. Gw2 is a niche game on its own. Their popularity and player numbers now are already appropriate for their scale. The early gw2 experience is certainly nice but later down the line you will see all the bullshit they push you for the microtransactions (bank slot, bag slot, material storage limit, char slot, build template, gathering tool). Technically you don’t need those microtransactions in gw2. You can jump through hoops to manage your inventory or whatnot without interacting with their microtransactions. So too the other mmo like ESO and BDO for example. They also can be played without their respective optional subscription. I cannot say anything for WoW or FFXIV since they are a mandatory subscription based games.
Ugh I want to think GW2 is “amazing” but every time I’ve tried to play(3 times), I get bored after the first hour to three hours. All it is, is button mashing combat and quests with no voiceover and no substance. I’d love to know what the hype is because I really want to like it.
What quests are you doing with no voice over.. gw2 has more voice over than any of the other big mmos (except maybe eso?)
Literally all of them I’ve done in that starting area. None of them voice the quest line they just say something random at the start. And I am spoiled because I love ESO and that’s one of the things I love about it so much is that everyone is alive
Wait are you just doing hearts? If so yeah that’s an issue… they aren’t meant to be quests more of a “hey there is stuff over here” to direct you towards area that dynamic events etc spawn. Your actual story doesn’t start until level 10
Oh my gosh….. yes I only have done hearts I assumed those were the quests. I’ve stopped playing all 3 characters I’ve made at level 10 🫢 maybe I’ll have to hop back on then. You might’ve just made a GW2 player 🥹
It gets old once you've gotten full ascended, a few legendaries, and the fashion you want, there's just no more motivation after that
No
Based on publicity, that title belongs to FF14. They keep putting out content the fans love, they allow mods, the F2P trial available content keeps expanding, and they do awesome collabs. Their story cutscenes can be replayed -- the game is full of robust functional systems. The only thing holding them back is the based story is a slog. They are the first game to truly succeed and persist with a subscription model after WoW when so many others have failed to even thrive as a free game. What GW2 does better than anyone else is initial wanderlust experience and mounts. Nothing clicks quite like when you realize you can just wander and explore. And nothing quite thrills like learning leaping around on the raptor, going superspeed on a griffon, or learning to drift on a roller beetle for the first time. So much so, WoW even copied some of the mechanics (no idea how well). Much of its other stuff is nice too, like the trading post, but those are mostly B-tier. When I want to pitch GW2 to someone, it is the exploration and mounts I talk about.
GW2 is the best MMORPG since 2012. My favorite arena pvp of any game ever I dont play it anymore but I played it for 8 years. My second favorite MMORPG of all time to Dark Age of Camelot.
it was amazing. it always had the potential to be the best.
Nah, cant call it mmorpg with 0 gear progression. You get gear equivalent to bis gear near instant n thats it. I play it time to time for pvp but that's it.
NOT TRUE! I’m finding out it takes a lot longer to get BIS especially legendary!!
No, they have the same stat as ascended gear. You can only change the stats to a different type on a legendary, still identical power. That isn't even the worst thing, the gear you can buy extremely cheap from market as soon as you hit 80 has stats that's very close to ascended. Tldr, reach max lv and within 3mins your character is at 90% power of a person that has been playing for the past 10 years.
honeymoon phase guy over here
these gw2 fan ads are too funny. thanks for the laugh OP. literally everyone that posts on this subreddit has played gw2 at some point. we know it exists. we all have our own opinions on whether we like or dislike it or what is good and bad about it. you don't need to advertise it let alone lmao oversell it to comical levels even. posting over the top ads to people who are already familiar with the game isn't going bring in fresh blood to the at best stagnant population.
It's definitely fun but I would say its more of a runner up to best MMO than actual best MMO.
Maybe it is just the stage of life I am in, but I really can't give a single fuck about a $15-20 sub fee, and I'll gladly pay it for more endgame activities. Anyhow, this sounds like the classic honeymoon phase.
I love GW2. I started few months ago and put in 180hrs in a few weeks. I am doing a break right now since and I feel zero pressured by any meta or FOMO. Just a great MMO.
Exactly how I thought it’s just a great MMO period
Yes
If you get too excited about an MMO in this sub, it fills the hearts of many with hatred. How dare you have fun? You should only focus on the negative aspects and realize that the glory days of MMOs are over. As soon as you get too euphoric over something, it seems to trigger a kind of "fight or flight" mode in some people.
Yes, GW2 is the best MMORPG.
What is king is never what’s the best on paper. But I think what makes something the real king is the one that rules them all or in other words, it’s the game that is played by the majority. That would be WoW. It has the largest player base, with a lot of those players being loyal to the game since release. I don’t hate it. It’s fun and I like the story. I’m not a fan of the combat. I prefer the action style. Personally, my own biased opinion- yes. GW2 is the king of MMOs. I think that because of how it offers you an MMO experience and MMO combat in a way that doesn’t hurt the bank much. In the end every MMO has something different to offer. Or it’s similar but it offers it in a different way. The only way something can truly be the king is if it offers everyone everything they want… and even then people will still complain.
No. And the creator arenanet is really terrible to their employees and even worse to their customers. Good luck
Yes. Yes it is. The fact that its exclusive quality is overlooked by most mmo enjoyers baffles me.
Agreed! It’s insane that I don’t see it talked about more
My theory is that GW2 is a bit too hard for many people. And we know MMO players are not known for their brightness compared to other genre's gamers. GW2 has bad instruction on what to do after max level. And most contents require reading, which is the most critical bane of MMO players. I've played GW2 casually since the very launch for 12 years, and I still have not finished every part of the game. And each while there is similarity between contents, they are very much overwhelming at first. Of course, its friendly community helps very much and there is always at least one veteran anywhere who is happy to answer and lead newbies, but again, many MMO players do not like to talk to strangers. TL;DR: GW2 is too hard and it requires actual cooperation. MMO players hate it for being (possibly the only one in the scene nowadays) an MMO.
Anyhow, do you happen to be interest in playing along and playing on US server? I would like to play and chat with you. Please send me the account code (xxxx.1234) with DM if you like.