Guild Wars 2: Lion's Arch is being rebuilt!

Hexprone

Hexprone

Thou hast lost an eighth!
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I haven't logged into this game for months, but it's a testament to how much I enjoyed Guild Wars 2 at release — and bought into its world of Tyria — that I find myself ridiculously excited to learn its capitol city of Lion's Arch is now being rebuilt after its destruction more than a year ago at the hands of the wicked sylvari Scarlet Briar.

ArenaNet's Gaile Gray writes:
The plan of the city leaders is not to attempt to fully restore the landmark as it once was, but rather to implement an enhanced design that will more realistically serve the Tyria of today. In light of the lessons learned from the attack by Scarlet Briar and her massive airship drill, the Breachmaker, the city will be a more fortified city, with a design intended to protect citizen and visitor alike.

And yet, the city will retain its distinctive beauty.
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fbbb3LA1-590x386.jpg
 
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Neat. LA was probably the most awe-inspiring city in any game, MMO or otherwise. Its shear scale just made you stop and stare. Really wish this game had some sort of endgame =/
 
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I had to go check it out. Here's a screen I took of the ruins with the new scaffolding in the background.

gw004.jpg
 
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The cities were pretty much the best thing about the game, imo. Majestic.
 
It's just getting rebuilt to be destroyed again. First the Karka invasion destroy a bunch of things in the city and it was rebuilt, then, right when all the repairs were done, Scarlet invaded and totally destroyed the whole place.

Saying that, I can't way for the airfield and airships. I love the fish-airship.
 
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I've been playing again for the past couple weeks… and I'm on the cusp of just being bored by the game (again). There's just something so incredibly shallow about it that irks me.

The entire game revolves around your power curve, around leveling your character, with little in the way of a so-called "living, breathing world." From the solo-centric classes and the mindset that comes with them, to the "Meta" builds that are pushed by dungeon group members to speed through content, a game world with depth this is not.

With other games, you get wrapped up in the lore to some degree, but with GW2 I keep finding myself bored by simplistic encounter after simplistic encounter. The "Personal story", meant to tell the tale of the game on a general level, is cliche` beyond measure and only accounts for <1% of your playtime regardless.

Perhaps I'm just getting too old for these types of games - the kind whose frenetic, instant-gratification design has slowly evolved from LoL, MOBA, WOW, and surely other contemporary acronyms.
 
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I'm surprised you even tried playing again, knowing what I know about your preferences.

It's like you're on a mission to disappoint yourself, going from one modern MMO to the other.
 
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Yeah, I know about the changes. There's a helluva lot of them coming… should wreak havoc with my current engineer. I wish they put 1% of the work involved in this overhaul into overhauling the GW1 paragon class… and I'd still be playing that instead.
 
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Those changes won't change that the entire game is almost directly counter to games like EverQuest that Drithius have openly said is his kind of MMO.

I've played many, many MMOs - and I struggle to imagine a more casual and superficial example than Guild Wars 2.
 
Drithius said:
I've been playing again for the past couple weeks… and I'm on the cusp of just being bored by the game (again). There's just something so incredibly shallow about it that irks me.

The entire game revolves around your power curve, around leveling your character, with little in the way of a so-called "living, breathing world." From the solo-centric classes and the mindset that comes with them, to the "Meta" builds that are pushed by dungeon group members to speed through content, a game world with depth this is not.

With other games, you get wrapped up in the lore to some degree, but with GW2 I keep finding myself bored by simplistic encounter after simplistic encounter. The "Personal story", meant to tell the tale of the game on a general level, is cliche` beyond measure and only accounts for <1% of your playtime regardless.

Perhaps I'm just getting too old for these types of games - the kind whose frenetic, instant-gratification design has slowly evolved from LoL, MOBA, WOW, and surely other contemporary acronyms.
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I was so pumped up for GW2 as a MMO but it all fizzed away quite quickly. The problem with GW2 and most modern MMO are really designed for the solo player who likes to see other players in their game world but don't really want to interact with them in any meaningful way. Me on the other hand want the full "social" experience when I am playing MMO and my "solo" needs are fulfilled by single player games. This is why I find the most modern MMO "shallow" since they are not designed with any social glues which binds players unlike the older MMOs.

Anyway it seems people like me are the minority these days and most people are interested in the full social aspects of MMO any more.
 
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lostforever said:
I was so pumped up for GW2 as a MMO but it all fizzed away quite quickly. The problem with GW2 and most modern MMO are really designed for the solo player who likes to see other players in their game world but don't really want to interact with them in any meaningful way. Me on the other hand want the full "social" experience when I am playing MMO and my "solo" needs are fulfilled by single player games. This is why I find the most modern MMO "shallow" since they are not designed with any social glues which binds players unlike the older MMOs.

Anyway it seems people like me are the minority these days and most people are interested in the full social aspects of MMO any more.
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I don't know why you want the games themselves to force the social aspect. GW2, like all modern MMOs, is best experienced with friends - and they're all easy to make friends in.

Join a guild - or simply play the game with friends.

The fact that you don't actually NEED friends to enjoy the game doesn't mean the game doesn't want you to play with friends.

I hear a lot of people make this complaint about modern MMOs, and the funny part is that they don't seem to want to make the effort to group up and have meaningful social interaction.

That said, while I don't like GW2 at all, all the dungeons need you to have other players along for the ride. Not sure how that's "designed" for solo play.
 
DArtagnan said:
EverQuest was anything but a sandbox, though.

But good luck with that :)
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I never played the original EverQuest but I did play lot of EverQuest 2 and EQ2 was lot more "sandbox" than many modern MMOs. There were lot of "emergent social" game play in the early days of EQ2. Content was hard and time consuming and you can't really solo any activity in the game and there were lot of competition for content too (contested mob, crafting resources etc) this meant people were going out of their way to form social bonds. There were lot of player politics, friendships, in fighting, betrayal etc. This isn't EVE level stuff but top raid guilds fought fiercely over contested raid mobs to the extent that these fight fell over into real life too!
 
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lostforever said:
I never played the original EverQuest but I did play lot of EverQuest 2 and EQ2 was lot more "sandbox" than many modern MMOs. There were lot of "emergent social" game play in the early days of EQ2. Content was hard and time consuming and you can't really solo any activity in the game and there were lot of competition for content too (contested mob, crafting resources etc) this meant people were going out of their way to form social bonds. There were lot of player politics, friendships, in fighting, betrayal etc. This isn't EVE level stuff but top raid guilds fought fiercely over contested raid mobs to the extent that these fight fell over into real life too!
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EQ2 was a pure themepark with very light sandbox elements, like instanced housing.

I like it, though, even if the engine was and is absolutely absymally bad.

Hard content and "emergent" social gameplay has nothing to do with a sandbox.

The reason it's called a sandbox is that the world is just like a box full of sand - where you can create and change things in a freeform way.

The reason the other kind is called a themepark, is that the world is mostly static with a lot of "content" that's designed as a "ride" that you can repeat until you're tired of it. This includes a lot of dungeons, quests and raids.

EQ2 is just like WoW with more grinding, really.
 
DArtagnan said:
EQ2 was a pure themepark with very light sandbox elements, like instanced housing.

I like it, though, even if the engine was and is absolutely absymally bad.

Hard content and "emergent" social gameplay has nothing to do with a sandbox.

The reason it's called a sandbox is that the world is just like box full of sand - where you can create and change things in a freeform way.

The reason the other kind if called a themepark, is that the world is mostly static with a lot of "content" that's designed as a "ride" and then you're done with it.

EQ2 is just like WoW, really.
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What is sandbox then? I thought one of the key aspect of sandbox is emergent game play? I haven't really played any hard core sandbox games such as EVE but I was under the impression emergent game play is one the key elements.
 
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lostforever said:
What is sandbox then? I thought one of the key aspect of sandbox is emergent game play? I haven't really played any hard core sandbox games such as EVE but I was under the impression emergent game play is one the key elements.
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I explained above.

A sandbox is like a box full of sand.

Emergent gameplay can happen in any MMO, because there are people in it. Going on a quest with another player is emergent gameplay. Competing in PvP with other players is emergent gameplay. Trading with other players is emergent gameplay.

Essentially, emergent gameplay is interaction that's not scripted.
 
DArtagnan said:
I don't know why you want the games themselves to force the social aspect. GW2, like all modern MMOs, is best experienced with friends - and they're all easy to make friends in.

Join a guild - or simply play the game with friends.

The fact that you don't actually NEED friends to enjoy the game doesn't mean the game doesn't want you to play with friends.

I hear a lot of people make this complaint about modern MMOs, and the funny part is that they don't seem to want to make the effort to group up and have meaningful social interaction.

That said, while I don't like GW2 at all, all the dungeons need you to have other players along for the ride. Not sure how that's "designed" for solo play.
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Need and optional is bit like why Dark Souls doesn't have difficulty levels :)

This is not about making "friends" and forming guilds. That is not the issue for me. When a game doesn't force social interaction then noting will bind people together and there is no consequence for breaking those social bonds. The consequence is what keep the "social" aspect fun.
 
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lostforever said:
Need and optional is bit like why Dark Souls doesn't have difficulty levels :)
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What?

This is not about making "friends" and forming guilds. That is not the issue for me. When a game doesn't force social interaction then noting will bind people together and there is no consequence for breaking those social bounds. The consequence is what keep the "social" aspect fun.
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I don't follow.

First of all, GW2 forces social interaction if you want to do any of the dungeons.

People who have fun together will enjoy being together. It's that simple. If you enjoy questing alone - you'll enjoy questing with a friend if you're into social interaction. It's that simple.

But I agree that if you force people together, you force people to have the potential fun of being social together.

The thing I don't understand is that the people who long for social interaction need to be forced into having it.

That tells us something about the people in question, I find :)

What I'm saying is that you actually WANT social interaction, but you don't want to bother forming bonds with people and you need the game to enforce the need.

That's YOU being the issue, not modern MMO design.
 
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