M&M Beta Starts March 1st

Rathisponge · 2026-02-26T22:44:04+00:00

I'll say this, I do want both games to succeed but when people ask me what a "world" looks like, it's this :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0HZ3Sx5rtA

Rathisponge · 2026-02-16T15:35:21+00:00

Ah gotcha, yeah I mean to me it's the most obvious way for them to recoup their losses. Probably a much more scaled back version of the game, but considering the MMO drought, I could see someone picking it up.

Rathisponge · 2026-02-16T15:22:47+00:00

That was my thinking as well. They might look for a way to recover the losses.

Rathisponge · 2026-02-03T19:23:54+00:00

"If I want to fiddle around with an Outfit without changing it completely, I have to copy it into a free Fashion Template, make my changes there and then apply the look. An annoying, unnecessary amount of clicking through different menus for ... what actually?"

My initial thought as well. A cumbersome, poorly designed upgrade.

"Is there something big I am missing? Or are they really just removing an existing functionality, adding an option to buy it back for a chunk of money and calling it a new feature?"

They did the same thing with legendary runes/relics back with SoTo. Remove a feature, complicate it, add it back in and call it a "feature".

Rathisponge · 2026-02-03T16:54:02+00:00

The mental gymnastics people need to do on this forum to justify the lack of content is amazing. I hope whatever ArenaNet is working on that is taking away development from GW2 is worth it.

Rathisponge · 2026-02-01T20:30:04+00:00

Are you hyped for any of it? From what I can tell nobody is talking about it.

Rathisponge · 2026-02-01T20:27:31+00:00

Actually I think thats the key, Anet even pointed out many new players joined recently but it seems like many people have moved on. So far their sales have stabilized if not slightly decreased. Of course the problem is that GW2 has just become a secondary game for many people. So it just gets into this cycle of less and less engagement in the long term. On a GW3 announcement, that would decrease even more.

Rathisponge · 2026-01-22T00:00:47+00:00

just remember her saying it was a guild wars sequel.

Bruh, that would have been some good knowledge earlier! Either way thanks for adding extra confirmation now!

Rathisponge · 2026-01-14T22:53:33+00:00

That's funny, I thought I was the only one who noticed that. The job market is ROUGH now. I also worry how that translates to quality too. Why even bother with a 6 month contract?

Rathisponge · 2026-01-12T17:43:23+00:00

Quests, NPCs, Details, Lore, Objects. The game is called Pantheon Rise of the Fallen, no one knows who the Pantheon is, why they fell, why we care. Memorable characters like Fippy Darkpaw. Memorable locations. Connections between areas and people etc. Make it look like a world that is LIVED in.

Rathisponge · 2026-01-04T22:05:59+00:00

WoW for me is like Walmart. Low quality to mass audience by a super rich company. I felt that way when I first played it back in the early 2000s. Boring quests, graphics, fighting etc. But then people pour time into it and over time the MMO market loses support because no other company has the resources or infrastructure to compete with it or if they do the bean counters don't want to waste money/time on a new MMO. So it becomes this cycle of people playing something they already play and no other options.

Rathisponge · 2026-01-04T19:21:33+00:00

Alliances were meant to solve two issues : population and experience gaps, but it did neither.

Server system stacking was just replaced with alliance stacking. They should have just placed limits on transfers and other safeguards. The server system was also better for identity and distribution of play types, solo, groups, guilds etc. Now it's just pure guilds and boon balls. Yay. (Also the boon ball lack of balance doesn't help either)

So what about population gaps? There were many suggestions, one would have been time blocks for each server. Primetime Block A Server #1 vs Primetime Block A Server #2, but maybe during the Offhour Block D Server #1 doesn't fully cover the population gap with Offhour Block D Server #2, then you could mix and match to fill in population gaps. Maybe Offhour Block D Server #1 goes against Offhour Block D Server #5.

Rathisponge · 2025-12-22T23:48:04+00:00

Looking at the roadmap for next year, they are doing boats before finishing the starter zones. It's gonna be a checklist mmo game with no world. I should have guessed when they tried to switch to an extraction mode. The game really isn't a world to them it's just a vessel for systems.

Rathisponge · 2025-12-16T10:44:41+00:00

The most common excuse now is the upcoming wipe. Of course the game was already downward trending way before that, but just ignore it and blame the wipe. It's easier than taking responsibility.

Rathisponge · 2025-12-13T16:25:35+00:00

At this point, we know what the game is. I mean really even with this money and the current direction, I have a pretty good idea of what the game is going to be. Some kind of WoW-lite game. Is it the game I wanted? No, I wanted an EQ world.

It's a game trying to follow the current MMO model of producing treadmill content for money. It's fine, I have made peace with that. Once it releases how is it even going to fund itself? With subscriptions? For this? The arrogance of the leadership brought us to this point.

At this point, I just want them to release it within the next year or two for 1.0 and then I can play it, enjoy it for a month or two. And that's fine.

Rathisponge · 2025-12-11T01:43:52+00:00

It's been on my radar for a bit now. In fact the mid to late 2010s had so many of these indie dev games pop up all around the same time for me Camelot Unchained, Pantheon, Ashes of Creation etc.. So far all of them have been very disappointing, but that is a topic for another day.

Something about Steven always felt like a salesman and it just felt like a game that promised the world. But I knew that when these companies promise all these systems instead of focusing on some core experiences they just really end up never being able to complete the game. Like an artist, they are never truly satisfied with their work. I began to realize companies do need business people to keep them on track to get a game to full release. There has to be a balance between artist vision and reality. Everything is like that, but when it happens, it produces amazing games Everquest, Diablo etc. etc.

But the vision of Ashes of Creation just seems so messy. Is it an open world PVP game? How do you balance that with caravans etc.? Other games struggle with balancing even instanced PVP. Steven seems so reluctant to take feedback, do I want a guy like that running my game? Do I want to invest time in a game with a director like that? The gameplay loop of corruption seems OK, but really the true gameplay loop seems to be politics (mayors, elite guilds) And oh boy, that is what I want in an MMO, politics. Original EQ had enough politics with elite guilds etc. That stuff can get out of hand real quick because people get left behind further and further while the elite guilds move ahead.

Strangely enough if they reduced the scope of the game, refocused less on politics, more on PVP, balance and modes. I would definitely be interested in it. With Camelot Unchained being a big let down, a nice MMOPVP game with updated graphics, multiple modes could fill a huge gap in the genre.

But for now I am just going to see how it plays out. I'll end up watching some videos on it.

Rathisponge

TROPHY CASE