GuildCast 49: ArenaNet Unveils The Lost Shores in Guild Wars 2

Written by: Scott Hawkes (@jarimor) | November 15, 2012 11:44 am

65 Comments

Calm down, it’s all going to be OK…

There’s even more to talk about than usual this week as details of The Lost Shores hit and sent ripples of rage through the message boards.

Ascended gear is the big point of contention. Is this the beginning of a gear grind? Is ArenaNet really dipping its toe in the water of vertical progression? We talk it through and ask is gear progression really so bad?

The new dungeons Fractals of the Mists sounds fascinating. This time challenged dungeon progresses in difficulty the more you complete it. Is this a never ending experience?

The Temple of the Silent Storm brings Kodan into PvP, on an iceberg! It’s the setting we hoped for in a previous episode. We talk about what information has been gleaned so far.

The event kicks off on Friday, November 16. Just what can we expect? And is having the one time element of the event on Sunday enough to answer the whiners? Most likely, no.

With viewer questions there’s a lot for our crew to chew over.

GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively, along with Scott Hawkes of ZAM for this week’s GuildCast!

GuildCast 49: ArenaNet Unveils The Lost Shores in Guild Wars 2

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25 comments

http://www.facebook.com/lee.joel1 Lee Joel

I think gamebreaker should champion the poor guys (like me) who are having their gaming experiance ruined by Anets bot department who ban people for literally nothing. Forums are full of this. And to make it worse Im going to miss the “once in a lifetime” event because of some muppets at Anet not being upto the job.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/W76UOX2IDTRMMYTPASSJDLXLRM Bob
  
  Where you following a group of bots one day? I mistakenly reported someone who was doing that until I saw that he actually was in a guild. Oops.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1339406775 Matthew Riddle

of course progression system get players to play for a longer period of time. That’s obvious logic. You make the race trace twice as long and it will take the cars twice as long to complete it.

the question is, do the players enjoy the progression system more than a system that has less progression? after this week’s very vocal outcry of GW2 players, I would argue no.

Monty said in this week’s episode that if you can make it quicker to level to max level, the customer will likely spend more time in-game. Make the mountain too large and players will quit playing all together.

I am speaking from experience because that is exactly what I did when I hit 50 in SWTOR and saw that I had to grind through three sets of improved gear just to experience most of the end-game content.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/W76UOX2IDTRMMYTPASSJDLXLRM Bob
  
  That’s the thing, there is still no barrier to entry for any of the fractals as yet (and likely wouldn’t be). The Ascended armor is only for going further into the hard modes of the same dungeons you’ll be running in normal gear anyways.
http://www.facebook.com/ronnie.hatter Ronnie Hatter

it just gives us something more to strive for
http://twitter.com/QSatu QSatu

There is 1 problem with progression based on looks. It is finite. You get the armour and weapon which looks good and there is no more progression for you ever. They could release prettier armours but it is just a matter of opinion. This imo is the reason why they increased stats on Ascended gear. tiered gear gives you infinite progression.
- Joseph Winn
  
  It’s not anymore finite than popular fashion. We aren’t all wearing coattails and full gowns are we?
Desirée Monsma

did Scott lose a tooth? it looks really strange
MikeTsa

Thank you guildcast for addressing mine and a lot of the guildwars community’s concerns without sugar coating it. Especially Scott and Richie, you were spot on in my opinion.

Gary you say numbers never lie and numbers do suggest that most people want vertical proggression, I totally agree. Problem is this mmorpg promised to be something new and different. If I wanted to follow the numbers I’d still be playing WoW.

Thus said let’s just wait and see hoping gw2 stays unique and not turn to just like any other WoW clone/wannabe out there.
http://www.facebook.com/obrienweb Chris O’Brien

I am really not a fan of the artificial barrier of having to get the new gear to progress further in the new dungeon. I want the fight to get harder, and not lose because we can’t remove agony.

Also, with the new and future Ascended gear, I really hope they upgrade the gear from the current dungeons so they are still viable. It would really be a shame to make all the current dungeons worthless if the gear stats are lower then future dungeon stats.

Lastly, there already is a middle ground between legendary and exotic weapons. There are a lot of awesome weapons that can be created in the mystic forge that have some high ingredient requirements and look awesome. I think though for those to be viable for people to grind for they need to address the lodestone situation. If there is a good way for people to get lodestones at a decent rate the mystic forge weapons would be a better option.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1339406775 Matthew Riddle
  
  LF 3 more AR200+
Logun 24×7

This is a huge misstep for this game. Arena Net are very bright people in that they sold
this game on the “WHY” and allot of people bought into it. What I mean by that
is, they sold people on the fact it was time to approach MMO’s in a different
way because the old way was doing it wrong and they had a better way. If you’re
going to do that then you better damm well stay on point and make sure
everything you do supports that.

If you get 3 months in and then decide this is a harder road to hoe then you thought and
change direction your early adopters will divorce you forever and will not be
happy until their pissing on your grave.

They sold us on removing the barriers that stood in the way of players grouping, they removed issues that created drama between player.. kill stealing, node jacking. They
removed squabbles over gear by rewarding players with chests instead of drops.
They provided a path to top end gear regardless of how you wanted to play the
game, crafting, karma, events, or dungeons. AND they told us the grind was optional … if
you wanted the exclusive ultra rare shoot rainbows out your butt stuff it was
there for you to work towards but it would be no more powerful than the top end
gear in the game….no power creep.

The marketing pitch was play your game the endgame is the entire game.

So I’ll ask this, who is this little taste of gear stat progression going to make happy? If
there really trying to pander to the typical WoW endgame player this is going
to look trivial.

If there just trying to put in some soft core gear grind how does this mesh with the
rest of the game. Do you really want to get your player base fixated on gear
when you really need a critical mass of players spread out throughout the game
to make dynamic events viable?

I just see more people parking there alts in favor of running a single toon and spending their
time in an instanced dungeon instead of out and about in the open world where
they really need them to make the rest of the game viable. The spontaneous
multiplayer experience is this games strength but they seem to think they need
to be WoW and their going off message.

I think they have lost their minds! Dungeons are fine as a side bar in this game but it’s
the open world they need to work on and promote as the endgame because that’s
what sets them apart.
http://www.facebook.com/Joey.Morrone Joey Morrone

Keep gear progression out of my Guild Wars! I quit RIFT initially because I got bored of needing to grind for PvP gear in order to be on the same playing field. I loved the game and the PvP, but that grind was enough for me to quit.

I like how GW and GW2 doesn’t have this time consuming gear progression since I do not have time. I prefer time spent on mastering your profession rather than time spent getting gear.
TheHolgar

Well if A-net do so agony only works and is needed in dungeons everything whould be fine whouldnt it? Couse then it wount hurt wvw and eveything else, couse only thouse who do dungeons whould care about agony.
mcfoyle

do the agony resist upgrades have any stats on them?
- Logun 24×7
  
  Ascended gear from the example they gave looks like a full
  set could be between 7 to 10% greater than Exotics.
  
  The actual infusion insert as I understand it, they will
  just have the mitigation stat
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kyle-Eggers/100000868131517 Kyle Eggers

Gear progression and/or raiding is why I left Rift I don’t have time to raid 3 to 4 nights a week for 3 for 4 hours a night. I think this is a bad and idea and not need the servers are all at high or full levels. Create events and content for PVE and other keep the gear how based on looks not stats.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  The servers seem to be listed as full or high all the time. Doesn’t seem to mean anything.
theunwarshed

Gary, this game wasn’t supposed to have been made for WoW players. That was the whole point of the “Manifesto” and the promises ANet made to players that specifically came to this game for horizontal progression. You guys really disappoint me on how easily you’re letting ANet off the hook for what is a total reversal on a fundamental game design/philosophy. I can’t remember you giving SWTOR or any other game this much of a pass. I expected you guys to have hit this issue hard, oh well.

think about it guys, they didn’t just add one tier of gear creep, they added two with the inflation of legendary gear stats within 3-friggin’ months of launch!! I rem Ed Park and you guys hitting SWTOR hard for their pvp gear power creep and this is even worse because it’s even sooner and totally against what was essentially a contract between the players/devs in their “Manifesto”.

We should all be familiar with the pitfalls of adding power creep to an mmo, it’s been said enough times and on this very site. Are you all so willing to gloss over it in a game that promised it wouldn’t make those same mistakes?

They aren’t doing this for “content whores” anyway. I noticed you guys didn’t address how there’s also a mystic forge/cash shop element to acquiring this “Ascended” gear. That means there is definitely going to be a gold sink, and more importantly, a cash shop purchase for stones or gems or whatever. That’s the #1 reason for this. This is the classical “bait and switch” that has most savvy players in an uproar. If these changes were about progression, then there are plenty of interesting alternatives they could’ve explored with horizontal progression-new skills acquired via discoverable questing/dungeon running, new/alternative skill animations, etc., etc, rather than go the vertical/typical route.

Elixabeth-I totally dispute your assertion that most/or many of the forum poster ragers are repeat posters. I suggest you go back and count how many first time forum posters actually felt compelled to go onto the official forums, despite normally avoiding them, in order to voice their displeasure of this change in game direction. While there are several repeat posters, I don’t think it’s valid to call them the vocal minority in this case. I believe most of the people who are in favor of vertical progression have actually left the game and the vocal majority are actually the people who are offended by this change.
- MikeTsa
  
  While I do agree with most of what you’ve said, you can’t blame the guildcast crew for not bringing pitchforks and bashing anet and the game. Unlike swtor we haven’t seen the change in game or the results of this change in the longrun. All we can really do is state our concerns and wait to see if anets decisions will be worth bashing or not in the near future.
  
  Wanted to say that I was also one of the many people that have never posted in the official forums and felt the need to say something when the news first hit. Was actually reading them while Chris Whiteside gave his post and a lot of the people were just baffled, tried to make sence of it, others felt reassured and happy, I just felt disappointed and haven’t bothered posting anything on that thread nor visiting it since.
  - theunwarshed
    
    this is a news site not a fan site. they should hit hard any developer that so blatantly and dismissively does a 180-degree turn on a fundamental pillar of their game design-especially one that deemed it necessary to flaunt a “manifesto” like they were going to be the second coming of mmo game design. kind of like how the news media hit Romney hard with his double talk and flip flopping on issues.
    
    if AN needs to change their game design in order to meet its financial obligations/needs then they should be transparent about it with the players. perhaps there is an alternate way the community can help support the game and keep it true to its original design goals. however, since they choose to be vague and secretive (not giving any prior advance notice of these changes) their actions look duplicitous. at the least, give the players the chance/choice to respond (knowing what the alternatives are) prior to changing the game.
Chris Martin

Ok soldiers! To all the whiners, Lion’s Arch needs warriors, not little girlie’s winging about gear progression. We don’t need the rest of the mmo community saying we are not tough enough to handle some little dungeon that require a few extra stats and an umbrella!
The same people is see winging about grind are the very same FEW people I see farming Karma. If that is not “working” for something, what is? Is tickling Quaggan babies too much for you? You won’t be worrying too much about those extra stats when you have 5 zombies kicking you in the vegetables and you’re on the ground reaching for your mommy!

-Vin Shnitzel
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  Watch it with the “little girlies” talk, buster.
  - Jay
    
    Relax.. You’re all woman, so you can join us in the fight anytime.
Rich E.

this is NOT a treadmill.. this is taking a leisurely-stroll-walking-the-dog gear progression. this is such melodrama. seriously. the Explorable Modes are extremely easy. even with Fine grade armor (blues). i’m pretty critical of GW2 but this is NOT a problem in my eyes or my guild’s. actually they’re thrilled to have something to actually do now.. cuz we are super bored of doing the same easy dungeons, the same zerg easy dragons, the same zerg dynamic events. if Anet can actually put out items that keep tickling our cosmetic fantasy bones, then awesome. people were gonna want to get this gear anyways, and if youre so damn casual that youre still level 30 then fine, have fun playing the tons of other content. gear treadmill is taking 1 month to grind out 2 pieces of armor, gear treadmill is having item-level requirements for every single dungeon. thats boring. thats grindy. GW2 is cake. SOO people need to stfu and enjoy their FREE CAKE.

and skill based? rofl k. go search youtube for “10 minute Citadel of Flame”. my 14 yr old brother just uploaded a video of him and his friends doing CoF explorable in 10 freaking minutes. and i can tell you he is wearing 1 exotic.. im looking at his gear right now actually. and his friends have even worse gear. and he kinda sucks at the game lol. and there are tons of other videos like his.

skill based really is random button mashing, dont stand in the red circle. mmmk thats people’s idea of skill? seriously, im shocked to say this but i find Warcraft to demand alot more skill and strategy than GW2. and im such a diehard Warcraft hater that im ashamed to be praising them but true is true.
- Logun 24×7
  
  Actually I think it’s there plan to bring in a new form of
  condition with each new dungeon which will require a new set of Infusions, each
  new dungeon will have its own mitigation armor to grind for.
  
  Call me and let me know how that’s working out a few months
  from now.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    was wondering if Anet was doing that Does that mean you will need a different set of gear for each dungeons or farm enough mats to switch your infusion?
  - http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey “Crimzen”
    
    There hasn’t been any confirmation on that or any even vaguely legitimate rumors, so that is just speculation on anyone’s part at this point.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      It was in response to Elisabeth’s speculation at the end of Guildcast.
Supercoven

Lost Shores has completely resurrected my PVE guilds.

Since release I’ve joined 4 PVE guilds, 1 WvW guild. the WvW guild thrives. But each PVE guild, once active, quickly became inactive ghosttowns. seriously, like 1 person online each night over the past two months. Shortly after Lost Shores was announced, every PVE guild blossomed to life and now i actually have a tough choice which guild I want to represent!

im a pretty casual player and I love this. I welcome new content with something cool to work towards and Im really excited to see what the new gear looks like. Gear is really easy to get in this game and it doesnt really make much difference in victory so I dont understand all the outcry. Listening to my guilds voicechat’s tells me people are really excited.
Joseph Winn

At this point, the most disheartening part of this is that ArenaNet hasn’t come out and plainly said there will be no more stat increased beyond this and that Infusions won’t be a continual stat increase. There’s just been a lot of PR doublespeak and vague, shifty answers that are inciting more fear and anger.
http://twitter.com/GaryDMarshall Gary Marshall

Gear progression and a gear treadmill are two very different things.

Gear progression is simply a ladder of gear levels that gets better the harder it is to obtain or the more work needed to acquire. There IS gear progression currently in the game as others have pointed out. Rare gear is easier to obtain than exotic gear but has lower level stats giving meaning to the reward from obtaining exotic gear over rare gear.

A gear treadmill locks out entire content updates without acquiring the top level gear the game had to offer before the content was released. Take traditional MMOs like Rift, and WoW’s raiding system for example. Without gear from the current raid content, it is, sometimes, impossible to see the next set of content because you are missing gear from the current raid.

With the information ArenaNet has given with Ascended Gear it is too early to assume its required to have in order to experience content past The Lost Shores. With everything ArenaNet has done to allow ALL content to be experienced by EVERY player, I find it hard to believe they would create content locked out to anyone because they do not have the proper gear needed to do the content. Yes Fractals of the Mist does get harder and having the ascended gear will allow you to progress further through its difficulty levels with it, but it is not required to experience the content.
- Tenthletter1979
  
  This guy gets it. This is not a big deal at all.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    No, just make WvW more imbalanced.
    - Tenthletter1979
      
      If you want WvW balance then they should only let 80s do WvW. Then you might have an argument.
      
      The boosting system causes more imbalance between sides due to individual stats than Ascended gear ever will.
      - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
        
        If you really want to address the gear/build inbalanced in WvW Arenanet could use the sPvP build mechanic in WvW as well.
        
        But, I don’t want that. I like the idea of playing WvW and purchasing gear for my toons.
        
        The point I am making is if two level 80s meet in WvW, it uses to be only a skill fight, who can play their profession better.
        
        Arenanet is now slowly introducing a gear component to the fight.
- Revanhavoc
  
  I’m thoroughly unconvinced by your Pollyanna-like opinion. This should be considered as the testing of a system that would intrinsically tie content to gear progression in a way no one expected prior to launch.
  
  Use whatever terminology you prefer, but it is tremendously naive not to acknowledge that ArenaNet is dipping their toe in a pool their foot was not in before.
MMO_NewSkool

Have not played Gw2 in a month. friend tells me about some new uproar. i check it out….

and this is the boogeyman thats scaring everyone?!??! bahahhah these poor fools.

“oooh ahhhh omg omfg!! if i take a break and i come back im gonna be soooo left behind!! its gonna take me 2 days to get a full set of ascended!!! damn ur gear grind arenanet u promised me no butthurt and now im butthurt ooooooh ahhhhh”
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  You pretty much summed it up. Seems half the GW2 community is ridiculing the other half.
http://www.facebook.com/mjtlsnelling Matthew Snelling

This is silly. There is so much speculation. People (including the hosts of this show) are talking about this matter as if there will definitely be more stuff slotted into the gear ladder after this point – beyond ascended items. The Ascended title is already a theme from guild wars. There aren’t any more themes to be inserted to expand the ladder if one really thinks about it.

It is quite probable that this new tier will be the only new introduction, and it is also quite possible that it’s only purpose is to give the hardcore players a raid-like thing to do in the game in the way of these scalable epic dungeons.
So for those who want to do this, great for them! I’m a casual player, so will probably not bother to get this. The stat bump also doesn’t necessarily mean that people will ‘have’ to get it. This gear is very inflexible, as you can not shape it and customise it for your characters build. It is likely that players will leave this tier alone unless they want to do the raid-like play that these super hard dungeons emulate. Also, it strikes true regarding the small bumps that legendaries get. The stat bump won’t be enough to truly make a difference to gameplay. All of the conjecture around ‘needing’ these extra stats relies upon the idea that they will become more and more powerful in the future. There is no mention of this happening – merely that there will be a single bump in the stats of legendary weapons to keep them equal with best the new best tier ascended weaponry that is likely to come.
Where does this leave us? Very close to where we started.
1. The best items are still equal in power and meaningfully hard to aquire.
2. There is a new type of dungeon to form an endgame for raider-types.
3. We have ONE new tier of gear. ONE. No more talk of introducing more. ONE more badass set that should be slightly stronger – but pays in being unflexible. This set also fits perfectly as the top tier in guild wars law.
4. We have stuff for those raiders to chase – in the form of the infusions.

There, now everyone can be happy – even wow fans who get bored of the game.
- Logun 24×7
  
  Well that’s
  an optimistic point of view you have but after giving the stat hungry player
  base this bone do you think it ends hear…..Really.
  
  And I don’t
  think you’re going to be able to just ignore this tier level of gear they are
  going to have to bump up the power of the mobs in their endgame open world zones
  so they don’t become trivial, remember item power increases are usually introduced
  with level increases, this one was not, so that means they will need to beef up
  their existing content. I think it’s naive to think “I’m doing ok in my Exotics
  so I’m not going to need this gear”
  
  The new
  items are out on the GWDB now and it appears Infusion will also have a stat as
  well as the Agony Resistance so it’s more them “a little” increase.
  
  Adelbern’s Royal Signet Ring
  (Infused)
  
  +51 Power
  
  +72 Toughness
  
  +4% Critcal Damage
  
  Ring
  
  Required Level: 80
  
  Infusion
  
  +32 Toughness
  
  +18 Power
  
  +4% Critical Damage
  
  +5 Agony Resistances
http://www.facebook.com/shane.cominotto Shane Cominotto

What gap between Exotic and Legendary ? its only cosmetic….
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  A recent Arenanet post, discusses progression in GW2. Ascended gear will have a slight increase in stats over Exotic gear. Current Legendary weapons will be bumped up to Ascended stat levels. (I’m assuming when Ascended weapons are released.)
- Jay
  
  The “gap” is basically the difference in difficulty of acquiring exotic gear compared to legendary gear. As you probably know, exotic gear is pretty easy to get, while legendary gear is only for the truly determined.
  
  Ascended gear will provide something to strive for before the monumental task of farming up a legendary.
lovemmogames

It boils down to this they need to make money! If the players that spend the most money want this it will happen! If u don’t want to play the game because of this no more then don’t!
http://www.facebook.com/tanz.panzer Tanz Panzer

I really wonder what shall happen with legendaries when the Level Cap is raised. Shall their stats also creep in power to the new item level cap stats? In WoW your gear becomes obsolete with each expansion.

That’s where I fear the real danger of gear grind is. Ascended items are a small step for ArenaNet, but a giant leap towards much worse gear grind.
http://www.facebook.com/marco.antelope Marco Antelope

I played quite a bit when the game first launched, have two 80′s that are in all Exotics..blah blah. To be honest, not one of my group of friends that plays every game together is still playing GW2. We were all really hyped for the game, love what ANet has done with it, but then it just got boring We all one by one stopped logging in.

The one time events for me just havent been enticing enough to bring me back either. For example the one that launched today…zero interest for some reason. Im playing Rift, which for me is just more fun right now. I keep telling myself that I’ll get back to Gw2, but we’ll see. History says that I probably wont..and if I do it will be 6-12 months down the road. I left Rift for 18m before coming back to it just last week in preperation for Storm Legion.

As far as the gear, of course it’s ANet testing the waters for vertical progression. Im not the only one who left out of lack of something to work towards. Like it or not, people need that carrot.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Caliolo/100003765889295 Robert Caliolo

The issue here on Asended is that people spend Karma on what they percieve is the best gear in the game for them.
If AN adds a new level of gear then that Karma that was spent has all been for naught because now the Asended might be better then the Karma gear the player saved up to buy to get even with other players.
BUT if the Asended gear is strictly for specific dungeon “Raids” then I have no issue with the gear tiers.
I still think the runes and traits should be the way for progression.
Zumime

Did Scott get punched in the mouth by the Toothfairy?
http://www.facebook.com/diogo.ortigoso Diogo Miguel

I completely disagree with the girl, and frankly I’m offended by that kind of attitude.

“Don’t freak out”

“Wait and see”

How often do you see these companies roll back major changes? Never. If we don’t complain now, then our worst fears will simply come to fruition.

Not even going to touch on how she repeatedly dismisses the forum community as a vocal minority and other such nonsense.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1653322492 Kevin J. Redmond
  
  The forum community IS a vocal minority. They are always a vocal minority, and they will always be a vocal minority. ”The girl” is right, but I hardly think she dismisses them in entirety; she just dismisses the ridiculous ones that start fear-mongering with nothing but pure speculation. They said they wanted to fill a gap, not that they wanted to start a constant vertical progression. The devs even specifically said they had no plans to put out a new tier every six months like some other games.
  
  Don’t freak out. Wait and see.
  - integerx
    
    This is going beyond the forums. It has been a topic of conversation throughout my guild and I am sure others, and this conversation has come up repeatedly in Lion’s Arch. Many people are currently very unhappy. WvW guilds are outright quitting because it is already a pain enough to get exotics if all you want to do is WvW, let alone this new gear. People who do WvW don’t want the treadmill because it is not a feature that makes PVP any better.
http://twitter.com/Nathiest Nathiest

More Gear is always a good thing!!!
Fomorian82

Okay so here is my solution to the gear grind without causing gearflation. So you have your best gear and you have the second best gear, every time new content is introduced the gear from the previous content gets downgraded to second best. Wait before you freak out and hear me out.

So, if we are on the 5th tier of content release the 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st tier will all have equal stats at second best.

This way we prevent gearflation. Because the best gear will always have the same stats. That being said, gear that is downgraded is never worse the second best. So if at any time you had the best gear possible, at the worst no matter how many content patches later you return to the game you will have the second best gear in the game. All previous top rated gear will get downgraded to second best and have equal stats to each other.
- Jay
  
  That’s a pretty good idea… People will still complain about having to maintain top gear though. Me personally I have no problem with it.
Razor4884

Read the Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy: DON’T PANIC!

This isn’t the start of a gear treadmill, I can assure you. This is just A-net fixing a progression gap.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Josef-Buckley/1288342323 Josef Buckley

I didn’t hear anyone mention that there will be other ways to acquire the Ascended gear. AN came out and said ascended gear will be available in other areas of the game as well.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=684860058 Min Hsin Waitforit Shiek

in gw2 it doesnt matter if there is a big gear progression anyways….. seing as pvp is seperate and there is no open world pvp…. people whoo want to wvw are anywyas fans of gear progression…. so are the dungeon farmers….. so ppl who dont like gear progression dont need to hop on the tread mill and can still ahve tons of fun in the game withhout being at a disadvantage anywas…. that is IF anet adds the treadmill…
- http://profile.yahoo.com/7FIVVEBR2EGDXD7UQ5JH537G6E Aaron
  
  So wait, there is no more WvW that uses pve gear? I could have sworn that WvW was a huge draw and that gear grind would probably be detrimental to WvW. Maybe Anet took it out of the game?
http://www.facebook.com/jade.macleod.31 Jade Macleod

After seeings Elizabeth’s article on massively Today and her totally neglecting the thread on the GW2 forums. One must ask is she really objective or just deeming not to criticize Anet due to the fact she might get omitted from peaks at new content or an interview from one of the devs
http://www.facebook.com/kmpackard Kevin Packard

The problem is that people automatically think of vertical progression when they think of progression in an MMO, when it’s really a dated and inferior paradigm. Horizontal progression is both more engaging to players and a superior design philosophy for growth of immersion.

The problem with GW2′s end game was NOT “no stat upgrades”, it was “not enough diversity”. Skins, skills, classes, races, dungeons with unique (not more powerful) drops, thematic loot tables, etc. all do a better job of engaging players than “moar stats”.
http://twitter.com/Ortanith Glenn Hyatt

Liz’s right eye (her right our left) looks like someone hit it x.x
http://profile.yahoo.com/7FIVVEBR2EGDXD7UQ5JH537G6E Aaron

Also people: cognitive dissonance is a bitch.
http://twitter.com/Vanagorn Vanagorn

Hello all of Guildcast, After watching some of the material involving ElderScrolls Online, the game it self has a basic set-up like GW2 example exploration is more evolving than questing from quest giver. Now ElderScrolls Online will be having more of a “Raid” type of set-up with a gear progression system. Questing: Do you believe that GW2 may be heading into a gradual gear progression seeing that ElderScrolls Online is coming in 2013 which has Raids and a more evolved gear progression than GW2?
DoctorOverlord

Always good to see a lively discussion. I am mostly concerned how any gear grind might affect WvW which I enjoy very much because I can contribute even with a lower-level character without the best gear. GW2′s WvW was everything WAR’s RvR promised and didn’t deliver, it would be a shame if it turned into a dependence on gear to be effective.

I very much like how it was pointed out that everyone on the outside is working off incomplete data. No one can’t say a game is failing just based on personal experience. A pity many people can’t remember that.

But then I suppose people making outrageous statements based on personal opinion rather than fact is just a human habit, the Internet just makes it more noticeable.

Richie brought up a point about how the special events I hadn’t considered might be a method ArenaNet uses to bring people back. Perhaps the Lost Shores event and the ascended gear and all of it is a actually test for ArenaNet to see how people respond to the game. Perhaps we’ll see more of these testing the waters with content patched in the future.

Also just to join in /Darth Vader ‘Nooooooooooooo’

GuildCast 49: ArenaNet Unveils The Lost Shores in Guild Wars 2

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

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