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ArenaNet's MMO Design Manifesto
An anonymous reader writes "ArenaNet studio head Mike O'Brien has posted his vision for a new type of MMORPG, which they used in developing Guild Wars 2. Quoting: 'MMOs are social games. So why do they sometimes seem to work so hard to punish you for playing with other players? If I'm out hunting and another player walks by, shouldn't I welcome his help, rather than worrying that he's going to steal my kills or consume all the mobs I wanted to kill? ... [In Guild Wars 2], when someone kills a monster, not just that player's party but everyone who was seriously involved in the fight gets 100% of the XP and loot for the kill. When an event is happening in the world – when the bandits are terrorizing a village – everyone in the area has the same motivation, and when the event ends, everyone gets rewarded.'"
I disagree. It does not have twitchy PvP, which relies more on reflexes and latency than skills or gear for wins. But I dare say the arena tournament realms are not carebear by any measure. And feel free to come play on Cho'Gall as an Alliance toon. When you have more horde in SW or IF than Alliance, when a /who will at times show fewer than 8 Alliance toons on the realm, and a WG win is a rare, rare thing, we'll see you QQing all the way back home. Of course I am biased, as I find the idea of PvE grindfests to be abhorrent and boring. When they implemented XP on BGs, I level every toon that way now, except for gear runs through instances and grinding for rep. Why play against a pre-programmed mob, when I can match up against a real person? I an only say AC I am replying to is a n00b scrub that can't get an arena rating over 1500 or win a BG.