Neverwinter Nights - Capitalist Utopia

[Harovan]

Shrug. That means either you were more lucky, have more patience or just other standards than me. Good thing there are excellent other games out there to help me to come over my "loss".

EDIT: And to be entirely clear: I am not trashing Guild Wars as game. It is big time its money's worth (I'm aware, that we're not talking about much money, however). It has a good PvE content, a good PvP concept and I like the way how not equipment, but largely skills and strategy decide your success. You can do so much more with a smart choice of skill points and spells/abilities than with a fancy robe or sword. But how many you may turn it, it remains a multiplayer game and the way it is constructed, on the really tough missions one foul apple is enough to ruin the fun of seven good players and nullify their effort for several hours.

I was on the look for a decent guild for more than a month. I joined two and turned down countless other invitations. One guild I joined had good goals but poor players, the only entertainment of which consisted in dancing naked in places like Droknars Forge. The other guild had really good and mature players, but no common events or business. It felt like a bunch of individualists, connected by a common chat channel ("We're all nice people and friends, right?"). I found one other guild with good and focused players, which I would love to have joined and who seemed to like me too (we've been in the Underworld for several hours without a single wipe). But I was out of luck, it was an Italian guild and they wouldn't take me only for my lack of Italian language - their guild communication was entirely in that language.

[DrSpike]

That's interesting - I thought your main gripe was the 'casual' focus for PvE, with no ueber items etc, as you've argued before. I actually have some sympathy with that, but think that what is lost in that aspect is gained in others, and there is room for GW and other more serious games.

One side effect though is that it is harder to find good groups of players. When it takes a while to reach max level and you have to put some effort in most players are at least decent. In GW this isn't the case and it does make it frustrating at times. It is far from impossible though, and if you are patient and knowledgeable about all classes you can even assemble a PUG that can take on the hardest missions and quests.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DrSpike
That's interesting - I thought your main gripe was the 'casual' focus for PvE, with no ueber items etc, as you've argued before.

That's still the case, but only for true MMORPGs, which GW however is not (and not meant to be).

EDIT: To explain this a bit further (without having any doubt in your own imagination), the GW storyline is too short and too shallow for a real MMOG like WOW, EQ or many others. It feels more like a tutorial how to play your character, and that's probably how it is meant to be. You can easily hit the level cap halfway through and have little difficulty to beat the whole game (all missions and quests) in about a month. Or even 2 weeks if you are a junkie like me , remember I was through very quick. After 4 weeks I had all skills and spells (including elites) for my 2 main classes and made all quests for my particular subclasses.

Under these circumstances it's hard to compare it with a real MMOG. After you're through you either quit, or begin to do experiment with skill points and spell sets. That can be great fun for the dedicated player. With little effort I could turn my elementalist from a destructor (fire and to a lesser extent air) into a buffer (earth) or a debuffer (water) or even a caster focused on mesmering, just with more mana (sadly lacking the fast casting, though). I could toy around with several spell lines and strategies; as fire elememtalist I was either a suicide bomber, focusing on point blank casting, or a distance nuker. It was great fun while it lasted. But it didn't last long - without a decent guild the boredom factor grows devastating after a while.

[DrSpike]

Tbh I doubt I'll have that much enthusiasm for doing a lot of PvE, but worth seeing what the new co-op and competitive missions are like.

GW PvP is awesome though - you might want to check that out.

[Harovan]

I did, what concerns arena fights, and it was nice for a while, even though the randomness with which the groups are put together is a big fun killer early on. You need to work your way through a lot of trash until the gods smile and get you into a group, where everybody knows what he is doing. For the more advanced arenas I lacked a halfway decent PvP guild, and I am not even talking about the HoH, just fighting up and down the ladder.

[DrSpike]

Well yes, you need to put some effort in learning your class, and getting your rank up, so you can join a good guild, for HoH and GvG. You wouldn't want it to be easy would you? That's what you are always telling us.

[Harovan]

I guess I just lacked the patience. Of all the time I played Guild Wars (and as you know, I am a very intensive player - I play in one month the amount of hours the average plays in three or more) I provided 90% of my time with halfwits and 10% with decent people. A careful analysis made me clear, that I am wasting my spare time. The consequence was obvious.

With other words: If the effort needed to reach my goal is halfway fun (like it is in most MMOGs), I am gladly ready to take it. If it is rather looking like a wastage of time (like in this case), I'll find other ways for entertainment.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I guess I just lacked the patience.

Sounds that way.

High level PvP in GW is amazing. With your playtime you can get rank3 in no time, and join a halfway decent guild, then get rank6 a few weeks later. Then you can join a good guild, and play GvG.

[Harovan]

Nah, not going to waste my time with people called "* T E H   W A R I O R *" or "Ass****r" anymore. Not even Guild Wars is worth this pain. Perhaps in my next life.

[DrSpike]

So you have played with my characters!

Well in any game there are people like that to avoid. I'm sure they were around on your EQ2 PvP server too.

[Harovan]

Sure. The idiotism vs sanity ratio was differently, though. Believe me, it feels, whether it's 80%-20% or 20%-80% (without the claim, that these numbers are exact). I have no problem to avoid bad people. But I have a problem, if I have to desparately look for good people.

[DrSpike]

Maybe the German servers are worse in this regard.

[Harovan]

I was mainly playing on the English. They were full of all other Europeans, anyway. Except for French, of course.

[DrSpike]

Yeah I knew that - just couldn't resist the implication.

[duke o' york]

Folderol has now updated to 1.67.
So we can now play with flashy new things.