Nice Try Steam...Nice Try...

In Guild Wars 2...You Buy Leadership... but Grind For Armor...

Yes.

Though it appears to be nothing more than a nice blue icon on the map....

....Anyone with 100 gold can become a "Commander".

 A Commander which is supposed to lead their world to victory but usually just lead their group to jumping puzzles.

100 gold is not that easy to come by unless you have been working the trade market or saving every gold you earned. Yet still, I can't help but wonder about the failed logic behind allowing something which SHOULD have come from experience to be bought.

If anyone can buy Commander...how the hell am I supposed to know who actually knows what they are doing if I am new?

Instead of pratically GIVING leadership titles away, there really should have been some type of requirement set in place. To be a commander, you should have to prove yourself or...SOMETHING.

Not just be another one of Guild Wars 2 MANY "money sinks".

But to top this off... you have the end armor in WvW which cost over 1000 "Badges of Honor" for the whole set.

You get the BoHs off bags from killing players or NPCS in WvW.

Most times there is no BoHs in the bags....so hmmm...

Which makes more sense...?

Letting any random player who could have just went into WvW his first day and bought the Commander book...?

...Or buying the book with 1000s badges that at least show you are some what a veteran in WvW?

But don't worry...this is just one of the many backwards and illogical features in Guild Wars 2.

I'll get to the trade market soon enough...

Guild Wars 2: Die. Die. Repair. Die. Die.

 I am not going to sugar coat anything for raging fanboys...by saying "I enjoy GW2" and "I like the game" to ease you into it. If you don't like to hear negative things about your "favorite game" then please...MOVE ALONG!

Anyways!

So...

 There is dying in MMOS... and then there is Guild Wars 2. 

I've played many (not all, obviously, but it's my genre) MMOs and really I have never been killed as much as I have been in this GW2. I know what you are thinking..."Hmm...perhaps you aren't using your skills properly?"...because really, I had hoped it was just a skill issue. But it's not...it's the way the game was set up. Some call it a challenge, I call it a terrible design of death mechanics.

For a game that prided itself on being able to play how I want...it sure is obvious that it does not work. Especially if you aren't a class wearing heavy armor. I can't help but feel Arena.net (Arenanet? Anet? Whatever!) designed the game like this purposely.

And by "purposely" I mean purposely so you are forced to waste your money...well...look...The cashshop...uhhh....uh...

I think this picture speaks for itself.

Dying and repairing in Guild Wars 2 is like...it's own little mini game. 

So much of a mini game... there is actual achievements for not dying. 

This wouldn't be so bad if the many of the mobs weren't LITERALLY hitting you twice and either killing you or nearly killing you (most apply to classes that wear lighter than heavy (I think))...echo...

Take for example the dungeons. I mean...there is literally very little...scratch that...  no strategy whatever in dungeons. It's basically a bunch of high HP slash High DPS mobs that randomly focus fire on someone.I mean...it's a mess...Your "evade/dodge" skill rarely is useful. Soon as you use it, you get hit by some other random AOE attacks...

Let's not even get started on the super high aggro mobs outside  dungeons...

Just Thinking: Michael O'Brien and Guild Wars 2 Team.

Now that the MMO world has become a world of "Get Rich Quick" schemes, seldomly do you have developers or team members that really seem to care. And by "care" I mean, actually take time to address player problems and issues in a timely manner.

But not in the case of the Guild Wars 2 team. You don't need to question if they feel their fans are important. They show it constantly by their sheer number of responses, blog additions and time they take out for interviews.  And not just when it's something negative printed about them or their game.

Sure, the FaceBook thing was kind of...strange, but I understand the reasoning for that. They want more fans. Who doesn't? Compared to *Other Game I Will Not Name!* Guild Wars 2 has more information about videos about it by a very long shot.

All together though, the Guild Wars 2 team seems more like a family rather than a team. And I kind of admire that. I feel that is how your work place SHOULD feel. I know all MMOs are about "wars" but tou don't get the best efforts out of people running your business like actual an warzone.

And I should know.

I worked at retail stores.

SWTOR Subscriptions Down 25%...

...but of course there is a reason.

And according to the diehard fans, it's either never Biowares' fault or it doesn't mean there is anything wrong. Everything is perfect in the land(s) of SWTOR...even if your server has 1 person on it.

Funny. I know.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=447469

Today's earning call provided facts that allowed us to finally understand that the dead servers we were playing on weren't just part of our "hater" imagination.

So now, the defense comes up.

On the forum, you have people who once said "SWTOR would surpass 2 million subscribers " saying , "I told you haters this game wasn't dying!"

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ea-sales-beat-targets-star-wars-takes-hit-2012-05-07?siteid=yhoof2 

Yes, it makes perfect sense!

Because losing a quater of your playerbase means the game is still growing!

Sometimes, I really believe it's the fanboys that helped destroy SWTOR.

Sadly, it's probably the "haters" like me, that are big MMO fans, who saw this coming long ago. Instead of listening to us, Bioware tried to do the bidding of the people who have no idea what makes a good MMO.

Tera Online Head Start

Hello everyone, as stated on the launch schedule Tera Online will start tomorrow on Saturday the 28th at 8:00 am pacific time. When tomorrow does come I plan to fill up my character slots and level the characters using rested experience, its easy to level them that way and they get leveled at the same time. How do you guys level characters in mmos? If you do not plan on playing Tera and are looking for a good game to keep you occupied until Diablo 3 or Guild Wars 2 I would recommend trying Tera Online. Launch Schedule

Just Thinking : Turn-Based Combat Does Not Belong In Any Star Wars MMO

Now, I am by no means a "Star Wars geek" or knowledgable about much of the lore besides the first three movies, KOTOR and Jedi Knight series but...

I've been thinking after watching the Star Wars movies (the first originals) on how a perfect Star Wars MMO would be. You know? The type of gameplay, mechanics and features it would have.

I felt the best way to achieve a good Star Wars MMO is to follow the period AFTER the originals. Either right after the end of Return of the Jedi or around the time period of the Jedi Knight : Academy game series.

Even though I have been playing MMOs for years, it took me a while to understand what people meant by "turn-based" combat. And now that I understand what "turn-based" combat means, I can see why turn-based combat doesn't feel right in some games.

I want to jump right into it though. I think alot of the issues with MMOs is the "turn-based combat" in them. It seems very out of place, especially Star Wars MMO.

I think that combat in a Star Wars MMO should not be similiar to other MMOs. It should not have the type of combat where you hit someone with a lightsaber and it doesn't inflict tons of damage. It should be more about BLOCKING / DEFENSE.

Therefore, I think the animations and gameplay should be based around defending yourself.  Where you block until one of you gets lucky enough get a hit on the other.

And as much as I would like FPS style combat, that is usually the first type of combat to become exploited with aimbots and other hacks so...an auto-target system will suffice.

 I also think that crowd control skills have gone too far MMOs and if you play SWTOR you will see what I am talking about.