Darkademic's Blog

Something which has been debated and discussed extensively within the Guild Wars 2 community is the issue of the so-called "endgame". Anyone who has played an MMO will more than likely be familiar with the term, which basically means content which exists for players who have reached the level cap.

In this article I will discuss the nature of the endgame in existing MMOs, the approximately equivalent features present in Guild Wars 2, and the concerns that have been raised about the radically different approach Guild Wars 2 is taking. I will not be covering PvP features here (I intend to do so separately at some point in the future).

In most MMOs (World of Warcraft being the most obvious example), reaching the level cap is accompanied by a significant shift in both the content available and the rewards offered. Prior to the level cap, quests and 5-man dungeons are the most common PvE activities, rewarding the player with enough XP for a reasonably fast rate of levelling, enough currency for any necessary expenses, and gear appropriate to their current level. Upon reaching the level cap, these activities become obsolete almost immediately: XP is no longer an issue, the currency rewards become either insufficient or unnecessary, and the gear rewards no longer have statistical superiority.

This is where raiding comes in. Raiding is the focus of the PvE endgame in most contemporary MMOs, and it involves challenging, instanced content designed for groups of more than five players, usually in the form of scripted boss fights and requiring a significant amount of preparation and teamwork to be beaten. The in-game rewards come in the form of better gear (replacing XP), and to a lesser extent currency, crafting materials and achievements.

As I see it, the most crucial difference between raids and all of the preceding content is not the increased difficulty of the content, or the increased number of players required, or the replacement of levels with gear as the primary gauge of progression; it is the introduction of repetition.

Levelling is like going up a hill. The slope is gentle at first, and then gradually it gets steeper, each step requiring more effort than the last. Still, there's plenty of interesting scenery as you ascend. Raiding is the equivalent of reaching the top of the hill and being put onto a treadmill. Whereas you never need to repeat content while levelling, raiding requires you to repeat the same content many times in order to squeeze out all of the possible rewards from it. Then, in the case of World of Warcraft, when you've finally acquired all the rewards from a particular treadmill, your only option is to get back on the same treadmill with the speed cranked up (heroic mode)—at least until the next tier of treadmills is released.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, I don't believe raiding is necessarily bad; it can be a lot of fun and often features challenging and entertaining encounters. It is, however, repetitive and far from ideal.

I also don't believe that the existence of raiding is the product of an evil conspiracy to trick people into paying the subscription fee every month. While having a subscription fee does mean that there is an additional incentive for developers to keep players playing for as long as possible, a game's longevity is desirable even without said subscription fee, so the root cause must be found elsewhere.

I would argue that the raiding model (in its widely used "treadmill + carrot-on-a-stick" form) is primarily and inescapably the result of two key factors. Firstly, developers are unable to produce new, high-quality content fast enough to keep up with the speed at which players complete it. Secondly, characters are constantly increasing in power, which sooner or later renders all but the latest content obsolete. Simply put, new content isn't released fast enough, and existing content rapidly becomes trivial and rewardless.

This trend culminates at endgame where you are restricted—relative to the game as a whole—to a very small amount of content in the form of raids. To counteract the above issues, raiding features three main devices which artificially extend the lifespan of this limited amount of content: Repetition, low drop rates, and increasing difficulty. Repetition provides an endless reel of content to play through, drop rates dictate roughly how many times the content needs to be repeated in order to be "completed", and increasing difficulty serves to further slow down progression (often leading to a point for many players where they can no longer progress at all due to a lack of time, skill, knowledge or experience).

So, while the raid model used by World of Warcraft (amongst others) for its endgame generally does a good job of keeping players entertained—or at least occupied—long enough to keep playing until new content is released, it has severe drawbacks which cannot be remedied due to core decisions that were made early in the game's development.

ArenaNet describe Guild Wars 2 as not having an "endgame" as such (or as being "entirely endgame"; effectively the same thing). The game has also been built with an anti-grind philosophy in mind from the very beginning—like the original Guild Wars—which ArenaNet hopes will eliminate many of the issues present within existing MMOs, including those described above. Notably, in relation to the above discussion, Guild Wars 2 does not feature raids.

When it comes to the concerns surrounding Guild Wars 2's endgame, or lack thereof, there are a few that have been widely raised, and they can be broken down into two broad categories; concerns about the lifespan of the content, and concerns about the nature of the content.

In terms of the former category, players are worried that the perceived void left by a lack of raids will not be adequately filled, causing players to be entertained for a shorter amount of time than they would have been if raids were present. Whether this particular concern is valid or not ultimately depends on what motivates you to play.

Most MMOs make use of the following infinite loop, which could be considered the "engine" of the endgame: Gear increases your character's power which allows you to defeat statistically superior enemies which drop gear which increases your character's power which allows you to defeat statistically superior enemies… and so on. It is reasonable to assume that for most players, one part of the loop serves the motivating aspect, whereas the other serves as the means to it.

This infinite loop does not exist in Guild Wars 2, and if the motivating aspect for you is the constant increase in your character's power then you will be disappointed. I would however ask you to question why it's important; after all, the increase in power doesn't significantly impact your experience as newly added encounters are designed to be a match for you, no matter how large the numbers on your character sheet might be. In fact, if character power is kept constant, it makes it easier for developers to create content with a finely-tuned level of difficulty.

On the other hand, if it's the facing of the encounters which serves as the motivator for you, then you likely have nothing to be worried about. In Guild Wars 2, new content expands rather than extends the game. Thanks to the side-kicking system, content never becomes obsolete; when you reach the level cap your options are not limited to content specifically made for the endgame, you can still play any of the dynamic events or attempt any of the dungeons you may have initially missed. Furthermore, dynamic events provide constant variation across the entire game world. A zone might be completely different the next time you visit it due to different events being active, events being at different stages, or events having a different number of players participating in them.

Now, while your character may not endlessly increase in power, that isn't to say that the content offers no in-game rewards whatsoever once you reach the level cap.

Firstly, there are rewards which expand your abilities. These include weapons, which determine five of the skills you have access to at any given moment, traits, which alter your skills or attributes in some way (these are being reworked as a write this, so we don't know exactly how they will be acquired), and slot skills (including elite skills), which fill your remaining five skill slots (acquired by earning skill points, at least at the time of writing). All of these things combined provide a significant amount of depth in terms of character builds which is great news for those who enjoy theorycrafting and experimentation.

Secondly, there are rewards which provide ways of customising the appearance of your character. For example, each dungeon has its own unique armour set, and there also exist rare dyes which can be used to change the colour of specific parts of your armour. It's not unreasonable to assume that Guild Wars 2 will also feature other kinds of collectibles and treasure to give people more of a reason to explore the world and/or trade with other players; the original Guild Wars had mini-pets for example.

Thirdly, there are rewards which provide a sense of achievement through explicitly tracking your progress and recording your character's history. Achievements, titles and statistics are now a common feature of MMOs, and these are all present in Guild Wars 2.

As well as the content described above and its rewards, there is also the crafting system, the two-way auction house, and mini-games. There isn't a great deal of information on these features, but suffice it to say they will provide compelling additions to the core gameplay.

Now, in terms of the concerns about the nature of the content, players are unsure whether Guild Wars 2 will cater to certain types of players, in particular to hardcore raiders due to an apparent lack of anything that has similar characteristics to raids (i.e. challenging, instanced encounters designed for premade groups of more than five players).

The answer to this is quite straightforward, and requires these players to define what specific qualities they need in the game in order for them to enjoy it. Dynamic events and explorable mode dungeons will both fulfil certain combinations of the qualities offered by raids, but not all of them.

For example, if raiding appeals to you because of the large number of players involved, or because of the "epic" feel of fighting massive bosses, then dynamic events are exactly what you want. Conversely, if raiding appeals to you because of the challenge—the difficulty of the encounters and the requirements of preparation and teamwork—then explorable mode dungeons will provide you with these things.

If however you absolutely must have all of these characteristics within a single type of content, then Guild Wars 2 most likely will not be for you, at least in this respect.

Hopefully this article has helped to ease some of the concerns people have about the endgame in Guild Wars 2. When ArenaNet says "the entire game is endgame", they are more than justified in doing so, and hopefully I've demonstrated why. It is a complicated subject, and a lot of it comes down to our own perceptions and how we are motivated.

Whereas other MMOs use the "treadmill/carrot" raid model, which requires repetition of content and continuously increases your character's power, thus rendering content obsolete as you out-level or out-gear it, Guild Wars 2 takes a completely different approach. There are still plenty of challenges, plenty of things to explore, plenty of rewards, and plenty of other things to do, but the game does not revolve around endlessly increasing numbers to give the illusion of progression.

In Guild Wars 2 you actually get to eat the carrot.

You often see debates between those who favour racism/ethno-nationalism/religious nationalism, and those who favour multiculturalism/tolerance, as if these represent two ends of a spectrum.

It's the short-sighted, backwards desire to preserve (i.e. enforce) racial, ideological or cultural hegemony within a given geographical area, versus the naive, careless and dangerous desire to tolerate any and all cultures.

The value of a specific group, versus the value of all groups indiscriminitely.

However, these two positions are two sides of the same coin. One type of collectivism vs all kinds of collectivism. The former is a misallocation of value - seeing value in something which possesses none. The latter is a rejection of value altogether - promoting diversity for diversity's sake.

Individualism is the true alternative to these two doctrines. The appreciation of value in individuals, as individuals.

I've been debating on TheStudentRoom.co.uk these past few weeks, and I just posted what I regard as one of my most succinct yet crushing arguments against racism/ethno-nationalism.

After a long back-and-forth speaking in terms of abstractions; the concept of race, definitions of pride, whether race is a scientifically valid category etc. I decided to finally boil everything down to a real-world choice. I asked him to state whether he'd prefer a violent, leftist, moron of a white person who opposes all of his beliefs, or a well-mannered, friendly black person who is sympathetic to his beliefs. He hasn't responded yet at the time of writing this, but it's possible he'll resort to the ridiculous "genes are valuable in and of themselves" argument - suggesting that genes are valuable by virtue of their existence, and not because of any actual observable effects that they have. That's the only thing he can do other than admitting defeat, as I see it.

My post went as follows:

I'll elaborate on my reason for asking.

If you favour a violent, leftist moron who opposes your most deeply-held beliefs over a friendly, well-mannered black person (who let's say is at least sympathetic to your beliefs), due to the fact that the former is white, then it shows that your capacity to judge people rationally is crippled beyond belief, that you would sacrifice potentially rewarding relationships for the sake of genes in and of themselves, and that your interactions with people are informed by imagined or anticipated behaviour (i.e. this is how a black person "should" behave) ahead of actual, observed behaviour. Following this logic, if the weather report said it was going to be cold and rain heavily, but upon looking outside it was warm and dry, you'd still go out in your coat with your umbrella up.

If you favour the black person, the practical side of all of your previous arguments is wiped out, because it shows that you regard character traits specific to any individual as taking priority over racial generalisations. It shows that you acknowledge that even though someone might be more genetically distant, they may actually be more similar in their behaviour and values, and more importantly that they may be better people.

This is what I meant by translating your ideas into a practical context. Your whole reason for favouring people who are more genetically similar is (or at least should be, to make any sense whatsoever) that it leads to tangible benefits - e.g. cultural similarity, less conflict etc. - but if it can be demonstrated that you would gain more from interacting with a SINGLE non-white person versus ANY specific white person (which it absolutely can), then it shows you've identified the wrong cause of the tangible benefits mentioned above. It shows that something other than race is responsible for culture, behaviour, intelligence, creativity and whether you're able to get along with someone.

I can only hope you eventually realise what the true cause of these things is.

I've decided to write in detail my reasons for being excited about Guild Wars 2, because I think it looks absolutely amazing and I want to express my thoughts on it. Maybe this will help to stir up even more enthusiasm for what I hope will be an incredibly successful game. I should also mention that my guild is starting recruitment early, so head over and apply if you're interested.

I played the original Guild Wars since its release in 2005, consistently for maybe a year, and then on-and-off since then. I'm currently trying SWTOR, and recently stopped playing World of Warcraft after spending a lot of time in it. I've also played Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Rift and Allods Online, so I'd say I have a decent amount of experience with MMOs.

Since World of Wacraft was released, many MMOs have come along and struggled (a.k.a failed) to live up to its standards. For example, Warhammer Online seemed incredibly promising but turned out to be unpolished, clunky, and generally lacking in many areas. This has led to players becoming increasingly sceptical about new MMOs coming out, and rightly so, however Guild Wars 2 has been generating a lot of interest in spite of this, perhaps due to the large quantity of impressive gameplay footage and information that has been released.

There are a lot of things that really make Guild Wars 2 stand out in my view, and here I will explain each of them roughly in order of importance.

• Dynamic Events
• Engaging & Highly Polished Combat
• Scaling Content & Sidekicking
• WvWvW and Hot-Joinable PvP
• No Tank/Healer/DPS Distinction
• Highly Customisable Character Appearance
• No Levelling Curve
• De-facto Partying
• Two-way Action House
• No Monthly Fee

Dynamic Events

This is perhaps the most obvious way in which Guild Wars 2 is different from every MMO that has preceded it and—as ArenaNet have made very clear—is one of the major selling points of the game.

Quests have always been a staple of the genre and have overwhelmingly adhered to the following pattern: You speak to an NPC who tells you to 'kill X amount of Y' or 'collect X amount of Z', you go and do it, then you return to the NPC for a reward. Guild Wars 2 does away with this system entirely and replaces it with dynamic events.

Dynamic events are pretty much what they sound like; events which happen all over the world at different times, and which branch out into new events when certain conditions are (or are not) met. Anybody can participate in an event, and will be rewarded in proportion to their level of contribution.

A similar system was implemented by Warhammer Online in the form of public quests, however they felt more like an optional feature that could be done alongside normal quests which remained the primary way to level. They were also generally quite short, and isolated (that is, they didn't have any lasting effects once completed and they simply reset). Conversely, dynamic events in Guild Wars 2 branch out and trigger other events to create a dynamic event chain, and are much longer in terms of both the events themselves, and the effects of completing (or failing to complete) the events.

Perhaps the most problematic issue with public quests in WAR however, was that people outlevelled them and left them empty, which initially prevented lower level players from being able to participate in them at all (as there was a prohibitive minimum number of players required), and later left them feeling private rather than public once they reduced (or in many cases removed) the minimum player requirement. Guild Wars 2 solves this problem with scaling content (discussed later).

All in all, I'm extremely glad to see quests replaced by something more dynamic and free-flowing. Questing gets extremely boring and repetitve, and rarely (if ever) encourages group play due to many of the quests involving collecting items - making it take twice as long with two players, three times as long with three players, and so on.

Engaging & Highly Polished Combat

This is a deal-breaker for me (the lack of which was the primary reason for my disappointment with Warhammer Online). As well as the actual combat mechanics, the responsiveness and technical sophistication of the combat, and the quality and fluidity of the animations, are very important to me.

From what we've seen, combat will incorporate player-controlled dodging and blocking, will make extensive use of positioning and movement, and will not feature an auto-attack. These factors will make combat much more engaging and tactical than in any previous MMOs, but without requiring the precise twitch reactions of FPS games (which many would argue don't belong in this type of game anyway).

Another important consideration is the addition of skills which can be used in conjunction with those used by other players; for example the elementalist can lay down a wall of fire which can be shot through by ranged classes to add fire damage to the projectiles. Although it probably won't be a decisive factor in combat, it's certainly a welcome addition which will make combat more cooperative, varied and ultimately, fun.

Various other mechanics, such as in-combat weapon switching, being able to use most abilities while moving, and the sheer amount of variety that exists when taking into account how your skill bar is populated based on the weapons your using, are sure to make the combat a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Unfortunately I haven't played a demo of the game myself, but feedback from people who have suggests that the combat looks and feels amazing, with smooth animation transitions and a perfect amount of delay between using skills. We'll only know for sure when it's released, but based on what we've seen so far, the combat system appears to be excellent.

Scaling Content & Sidekicking

A major gripe that I've had with other MMOs is that so much time and effort goes into developing zones, dungeons and the encounters that populate them, only for them become obsolete and unused when you either (A) out-level the content—at which point there's little to no reason to return to lower level areas since there's no challenge or reward for doing so—or (B) when new content is released—for example in WoW, you might not have completed a particular raid tier, but as soon as the next tier is released, you're ushered to forget about the bosses you didn't manage to beat and skip to the new tier by being given the previous tier's gear/rewards in some other (usually far easier) way.

In Guild Wars 2, firstly the content scales in accordance with the number of players participating, and secondly players are sidekicked down to a suitable level if they enter zones for which they are too high level. There's also the option to be side-kicked up by a higher level friend so you can play with them at their level.

As well as ensuring that content never becomes obsolete as a result of the game's design (although you can still obviously play part of the game thoroughly enough to become bored of it), it means that friends and guildmates can always play together, anywhere, without having to level up a new character. This continues to be a major issue in other MMOs, for example in WoW I had to have 3 alt characters at one point just so I could play with my friends who were all at different levels. Of course, some people enjoy making alts, it's just great to not be forced into doing so.

Allowing people to play together so easily and flexibly is a really fantastic step forward for an MMO, and in general will facilitate and encourage playing as a group - which is really what MMOs are supposed to be about.

WvWvW & Hot-Joinable PvP

As someone who generally prefers PvP over PvE thanks to its offer of greater challenge and replayability, I'm very interested in the PvP systems in GW2.

WvWvW PvP sounds very promising. It is essentially Guild Wars 2's solution to the problems posed by the 2-faction model used by most other MMOs, which can easily (and often does) result in significant imbalance due to a lack of control over how many people join each faction on a given server.

In Guild Wars 2, three whole servers will be matched up against each other according to their rating and population. The three servers will fight in a huge warzone called "The Mists", where dozens or even hundreds of players will fight for control of resources or strategic locations. It sounds like a lot of fun, my only worry being that it will be laggy when too many players are in one small area. This was another problem Warhammer Online had; keep sieges often had the framerate of a powerpoint presentation.

Basically it's what Wintergrasp and Tol Barad should have been in WoW. Whereas in WoW the battles are over in a few minutes, and the rewards gained from controlling the zones are limited and insignificant to most players, the battles in GW2 will last two weeks before different combinations of realms are pitted against each other, and offer rewards comparable to those offered by PvE content. Beyond all that, it just sounds like a LOT of fun, what with the mention of battling over fortresses and supply lines etc.

The second type of PvP found in Guild Wars 2 involves the more familiar, smaller scale battles, akin to battlegrounds in World of Wacraft. This type of PvP exists in both a hot-joinable form, where you can join games in progress as if you were joining a TF2 or CounterStrike server, and also a competitive form, where pre-made teams battle each other to increase their ranking or progress in tournaments.

Overall, it sounds like PvP in Guild Wars 2 will be a lot of fun, and perhaps only lacks true world PvP where you can just attack players that are wandering around or participating in dynamic events. Many perceive this a good thing though, as it prevents ganking whilst the feel (and true purpose) of open world PvP can still be found in WvWvW.

No Tank/Healer/DPS Distinction

There's already a very good video detailing why the absence of the so-called 'holy trinity' is a good thing. In short it will get rid of the dependence on having particular classes in a group, and also allow much more creativity and versatility in terms of both group composition and gameplay. It also gives you much more freedom with regards to choosing your class, as you can fulfil any of the roles (damage, control or support) with any of the classes.

Highly Customisable Character Appearance

Although not fundamentally affecting how the game plays, something which irritated me in other MMOs was the inability to really control the appearance of your character and equipment, where you are forced to wear particular pieces of armour or use particular weapons due to statistical superiority, regardless of (usually in spite of) what the items look like.

Guild Wars 2 allows you to apply the appearance of any weapon or piece of armour that you possess, to any other of the same type. This allows you to have the best of both worlds. World of Wacraft recently implemented this feature after years of people asking for it, likely in anticipation of competition from Guild Wars 2.

In addition to the above is the dye system—which has even greater depth than the original Guild Wars dye system—allowing you to choose from an enormous range of colours and apply them to different areas of each piece of gear you have.

The huge amount of customisation options means that each character will be able to look unique and reflect the aesthetic tastes of the player. As someone who finds great value in being able to set yourself apart from the crowd (and as someone who is obsessed with the colour purple), Guild Wars 2 looks like it'll cater to me perfectly.

No Levelling Curve

There's no reason why higher levels should take longer to gain than lower levels; it makes progression seem to grind to a halt which sucks a lot of the fun out of an MMO, which at its core is a genre about progressing your character. In Guild Wars 2, every level from 1 to 80 should take roughly the same amount of time to gain.

It's unclear exactly how important levelling is to the game—in the original levels were nigh-on meaningless as you reached maximum level very quickly—but it's quite obvious that levelling is less important in Guild Wars 2 relative to most other MMOs. The game will likely place more of an emphasis on developing your character in other ways—through finding new weapons and skills, unlocking traits, obtaining rare armour sets, and completing achievements.

De-facto Partying

In Guild Wars 2, everyone is effectively in one giant party, although we'll probably have to make a "real" party to enter instances as a group.

The most significant benefit of de-facto partying is the elimination of kill-stealing, which relates to my point about rewarding rather than punishing playing with other people. In other MMOs, when someone else 'tags' a mob by attacking it first, nobody else gets credit for the kill without being in the same party. This is especially annoying in relation to quest mobs, as occasionally you'll come across a quest mob that is being killed by someone else, or which has recently been killed, forcing you to wait around until it respawns. Mob tagging makes it preferable to avoid other players, which goes completely against the cooperative foundations of the genre.

Being rewarded based on your contribution rather than on whether you made the initial hit will encourage people to assist each other and cooperate in dynamic events.

Two-way Action House

Whilst a relatively minor feature, the Guild Wars 2 auction house not only allows you to browse for items and purchase them from other players, but also to post up requests for items. This way you don't have to wait around at the auction house for someone to post an item that you want, you can just post a request and leave it there for a seller to find.

No Monthly Fee

The benefits of no monthly fee are obvious, some however are concerned that it means the game will suffer in some way due to the lack of a constant stream of revenue for ArenaNet. Whilst there's no way to know for sure until the game is actually out, if the original Guild Wars is anything to go by, we have nothing to worry about. Guild Wars was regularly updated without requiring a subscription fee, and its expansion model demonstrably provided enough income for ArenaNet to continue updating, supporting and expanding upon the game.

Conclusion

Guild Wars 2 has been getting a lot of interest. Whilst the same could be said about Warhammer Online in the months leading up to its release, the hype surrounding Warhammer Online was rarely backed up by in-game footage or developer insight/demonstration. ArenaNet have done an excellent job of providing their reasoning for various elements of the game, and explaining their overall strategy and intentions for Guild Wars 2. Thus far, they appear to be doing an outstanding job and I can't wait to play it.

Well, finally something has annoyed me enough to warrant a blog entry. Students in the UK have been protesting this week due to the government's new policy on tuition fees, which allows universities to charge up to £9,000 per year; roughly three times the previous cap of ~£3,000.

Obviously this is a big increase, but the claims of the protesters that it somehow violates some kind of "right to cheap higher education" are completely wrong. Why should the tax-payer keep shelling out so that anyone and everyone can go to university cheaply? THERE IS NO RIGHT TO EDUCATION, much less to cheap education. The government is broke, it can't afford it, get over it.

Ideally, the government should step back from education altogether and allow schools and universities to charge whatever they want, thus exposing the education system to market supply and demand which would bring prices in line with the actual value of the services being offered.

Also, university is not the be-all and end-all of education, and there are plenty of professions where academic qualifications are nigh-on irrelevant, where work-experience and demonstrated ability are much more valuable. Moreover, a lot of university courses are a joke where students spend maybe 3 hours a week in lectures and the rest of the time sleeping or going out getting drunk. University is used more for socialising than it is for educating.

The violence of the protesters is absolutely disgusting, and people who behave in such a way certainly don't deserve MY money to pay for their education.

I've been playing StarCraft II since it was released and it is really amazing. I got into the 1v1 gold league after my placement matches and I've since been promoted to platinum. So far I've had a roughly equal number of wins and losses, so the system seems to work pretty well. I've also got into platinum for 3v3, diamond for 4v4, and silver for 2v2.

I've beaten the campaign on brutal and earned all of the campaign achievements. Although quite a lot of people say they're disappointed with the campaign, I really enjoyed it. All of the missions were well designed and reasonably challenging, and none of them were just "build a base and kill the enemy" - they all included some kind of mechanic to keep you on your toes.

Below is a screenshot of my profile as it stands.



It's early days yet, and I'm sure the game will evolve just like SC1 did, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable RTS and I'd highly recommend it.