Guild Wars 2

Spoilers ahead, dont read if you havent already seen the trailer.

I mentioned this a while back and things seemed to go in the right direction but its gradually gotten worse to the point that I feel a post is needed. I hope this is at least passed on to the team in charge of making the trailers for the up-and-coming content because I think this is a huge sticking point for the game going forward.

So I understand you wish to advertise the new content in the Living Story and this is fine as it attracts old players back and hypes the current players up. This I have no problem with. What I do have a huge problem with is the trailer essentially showing whats going to happen in the next patch, namely Scarlets minions attacking and burning down Lions Arch. I know exactly what the next installment of the living story entails and ive not even logged in.

So here’s an idea of how I would change that trailer- keep the LA part at the start but replace the Aetherblade pirate ships with the sound of one then fade out. Fade back in to screams and to the odd bit of burning rubble, fade out to the title. This tells the watcher roughly whats going to happen but doesnt throw images of a burning Lions Arch at us.

For so long ive wished that GW2 would keep secrets, surprise me for once but nothing has happened and im playing less and less because the game is currently so predictable. Sure I can ‘ignore’ these trailers because maybe im in the minority in not wanting to know whats coming up. The point im making is that you can still make trailers but without showing us exactly whats coming up. How many people are going to see that and say ‘not interested’ and wont log in? Be more cryptic and maybe a lot of those will at least want to try the content (and view the gem store) before saying it doesnt interest them.

tl:dr Im tired of spoilers in GW2 trailers, please try something new like NOT telling us what exactly is going to happen.

Thereon.3495:

So here’s an idea of how I would change that trailer- keep the LA part at the start but replace the Aetherblade pirate ships with the sound of one then fade out. Fade back in to screams and to the odd bit of burning rubble, fade out to the title. This tells the watcher roughly whats going to happen but doesnt throw images of a burning Lions Arch at us.

I honestly don’t see how that would change anything. If you make the simplest connection you would again conclude that Lion’s Arch is going to get destroyed.

Starscream.6498:

Thereon.3495:

So here’s an idea of how I would change that trailer- keep the LA part at the start but replace the Aetherblade pirate ships with the sound of one then fade out. Fade back in to screams and to the odd bit of burning rubble, fade out to the title. This tells the watcher roughly whats going to happen but doesnt throw images of a burning Lions Arch at us.

I honestly don’t see how that would change anything. If you make the simplest connection you would again conclude that Lion’s Arch is going to get destroyed.

Was an idea off the top of my head. I do understand that spoilers are inevitable as anyone with a brain will figure it out from a promotional trailer but its the detail of spoiler that is starting to annoy me. I dont think its needed to sell a product and I actually think that its detrimental to the game to show too much imagery. Leave people guessing as much as possible and youll have more logging in checking it out.

Honestly why care. Would you not be just as surprised today if they announced the new playable zone will be the magumma waste as you would 2 weeks from now. How does your level of surprise and happiness change with time?

If you’ve been playing the living story in game you’ll already know that Lion’s Arch is going to be attacked. It was hinted at in the patch before last and basically confirmed in this last one.

• There is people who click their way through all the living story content without processing any of the information – no clue, no motivation to draw their own conclusions.
• There is people who are busy doing other things in game and would actually totally miss that the living story is going on.
• There is people who obsess over every word, discuss on the Lore sub forums, create videos discussing this, or obsess over content on reddit.
• There is people who would like to be surprised, and there is people who would like to know in advance what’s coming up. Neither of them are wrong, they just like different things.

ANet has to find a balance between not giving too much away and not drawing people in. It is impossible to please everyone. I think the semi-vague video trailers are an acceptable compromise, and easy to ignore if you choose to.

Personally, I think it would have been better to do a (sort of) reversal of what we saw in the trailer. We should see the Molten and Toxic Alliances, backed by the Aetherblades, marching towards some unseen target. Try real hard not to let camera angles show the location of the event.

Then….

Show a brief aerial view of Lion’s Arch. I’m thinking from the southwest corner, pointed towards the northeast, to get a view of the city and the docks.

Fade to black fairly quickly so people don’t get too long to see the city.

There, we get to see everyone involved, and get a very vague idea of what’s going to happen.

To speak more specifically about the video, I am disappointed by the in-game footage of LA on fire. That… kind of explains everything that we’re going to be doing, when you add in the title of the event. Lion’s Arch is going to fall, and we’re probably going to have to help evacuate civilians, or defend against the various Alliances in an effort to give the LA folks time to run.

I fully expect the story in this next update to blow my mind, knock my socks off, and leave me going “Whoa……!”

the commercials are pretty bad.. the only thing i would have changed from this one was the ‘nothing lasts forever’ line.. was completely ‘obviously’ redundant
and what spoilers exactly, we Never know what’s going on in this game.. we know Exactly what the Next patch is and that’s it.. not what the patch after that is going to be.. for all we know lion’s arch will be attacked next tuesday and on the 4th of march a leprechaun is going to ascend from the underworld and start pistol whipping the remaining free peoples of tyria.. yeah, Anet Loves Spoilers!     said no one

You do know LA is a pretty huge city?

I saw one boat-bridge arch thing burning. I didn’t see anything to truly indicate the ENTIRE CITY was destroyed. Infact, some people ingame figure a section will be attacked/destroyed, and the other will remain mostly intact (to preserve certain functions like bank/TP, crafting, fractal access, etc.)

edit: apparently those services are going to Vigil keep.

As said in my previous posts had you taken the time to read them, im not so much annoyed by the spoiler of the story because we knew LA would be attacked from the previous living story release. My issue is showing exactly what LA looks like post-attack, not letting us experience the jaw-dropping carnage for the first time IN GAME. Its not the trailer ive got an issue with, its the content of the trailer. Put simply it shows more than it NEEDS to show and its all but ruined the experience for a fair few of us.

Sure I didnt need to watch the trailer but I didnt know it would show the amount that it did. Past trailers have done the same. I know whats happened, I know what map is involved, ive seen the carnage and the mobs and the build up. All from a trailer. What if the makers of movies suddenyl decided to place all the key story scenes into their trailers revealing exactly whats going on. Why watch the movie?

This trailer may as well have been an aerial shot of LA with a bullet-point list of whats going to happen and where, involving what. Maybe im in the minority in wanting some suspense but in my opinion its one of the main things holding GW2 back and one of the main reasons why my attention is being swayed towards other MMOs. Theyre new so I dont know whats around the corner.

i don’t think you saw the same trailer everyone else did >_>
are the racing moas ok!? did the aetherblades pillage the crafting market?
you don’t even know :0

But it didn’t show the entire city, I saw what looked like the front/north passageway into LA (from the fields side), what MIGHT be the farm fields in LA, and the shore where the memorial is.

That’s three, small and tiny glimpses compared to the size of the city. We don’t know what it all looks like.

Thereon.3495:

Spoilers ahead, dont read if you havent already seen the trailer.

I mentioned this a while back and things seemed to go in the right direction but its gradually gotten worse to the point that I feel a post is needed. I hope this is at least passed on to the team in charge of making the trailers for the up-and-coming content because I think this is a huge sticking point for the game going forward.

So I understand you wish to advertise the new content in the Living Story and this is fine as it attracts old players back and hypes the current players up. This I have no problem with. What I do have a huge problem with is the trailer essentially showing whats going to happen in the next patch, namely Scarlets minions attacking and burning down Lions Arch. I know exactly what the next installment of the living story entails and ive not even logged in.

So here’s an idea of how I would change that trailer- keep the LA part at the start but replace the Aetherblade pirate ships with the sound of one then fade out. Fade back in to screams and to the odd bit of burning rubble, fade out to the title. This tells the watcher roughly whats going to happen but doesnt throw images of a burning Lions Arch at us.

For so long ive wished that GW2 would keep secrets, surprise me for once but nothing has happened and im playing less and less because the game is currently so predictable. Sure I can ‘ignore’ these trailers because maybe im in the minority in not wanting to know whats coming up. The point im making is that you can still make trailers but without showing us exactly whats coming up. How many people are going to see that and say ‘not interested’ and wont log in? Be more cryptic and maybe a lot of those will at least want to try the content (and view the gem store) before saying it doesnt interest them.

tl:dr Im tired of spoilers in GW2 trailers, please try something new like NOT telling us what exactly is going to happen.

You do know that everyone know what would happend right(LA being attacked), if you complete this patch story they tell you alot of times that LA is the target, so id think that is a spoiler.

Starscream.6498:

Thereon.3495:

So here’s an idea of how I would change that trailer- keep the LA part at the start but replace the Aetherblade pirate ships with the sound of one then fade out. Fade back in to screams and to the odd bit of burning rubble, fade out to the title. This tells the watcher roughly whats going to happen but doesnt throw images of a burning Lions Arch at us.

I honestly don’t see how that would change anything. If you make the simplest connection you would again conclude that Lion’s Arch is going to get destroyed.

Not necessarily. Attacked, yes, but if you’ve completed the investigation from the current release, that wouldn’t surprise you. However, you wouldn’t know for sure it was Lion’s Arch and not ArenaNet throwing a red herring, nor would you know the extent of the damage (there’s a big difference between being attacked, and being set ablaze to the level we see in the trailer).

While I understand the OP’s point of view, I don’t think that the trailer gives away any major spoilers. We already knew that LA was going to be attacked based on the previous LS; this trailer is no different from a movie trailer showing some exciting action scenes.

draxynnic.3719:

Starscream.6498:

Thereon.3495:

So here’s an idea of how I would change that trailer- keep the LA part at the start but replace the Aetherblade pirate ships with the sound of one then fade out. Fade back in to screams and to the odd bit of burning rubble, fade out to the title. This tells the watcher roughly whats going to happen but doesnt throw images of a burning Lions Arch at us.

I honestly don’t see how that would change anything. If you make the simplest connection you would again conclude that Lion’s Arch is going to get destroyed.

Not necessarily. Attacked, yes, but if you’ve completed the investigation from the current release, that wouldn’t surprise you. However, you wouldn’t know for sure it was Lion’s Arch and not ArenaNet throwing a red herring, nor would you know the extent of the damage (there’s a big difference between being attacked, and being set ablaze to the level we see in the trailer).

What level? I saw one field, and a few buildings in an arch/below it on fire. Otherwise I saw NOTHING that tells me the entire city is burnt to the ground and in ruins.

Mind you there could be anything beside a “simple” siege event.
In the previous update there were the dialog in LA about the main characters and the secret lair. Even if it’s not that monumental it gave us many good hints about the future, highlighted events in the past and generated massive amount of theory crafting.
So don’t get your hopes too high, but prepare to be surprised.

They had to weigh options I’m sure. Either confirm what we all suspected since the first update this year, or leave it as a surprise and receive some legitimate complaints about not preparing us for a move and ruining projects like Project Eavesdrop and the wiki. I personally could have done without the reveal, but I understand why people who work on the wiki and Project Eavesdrop appreciate the heads up.

Thereon.3495:

Sure I didnt need to watch the trailer but I didnt know it would show the amount that it did. Past trailers have done the same. I know whats happened, I know what map is involved, ive seen the carnage and the mobs and the build up. All from a trailer. What if the makers of movies suddenyl decided to place all the key story scenes into their trailers revealing exactly whats going on. Why watch the movie?

Honestly, I think movie trailers do this all the time. How many trailers have shown us images of the destruction of New York city or somesuch? The important part here I think is that it didn’t show us to what degree Lion’s Arch was going to be damaged and it didn’t show us how or why. There’s still a lot of room for speculation here and I’m betting they have some surprises up their sleeves yet.

There was no spoiler in the trailer. Even the npcs figured out in last update l.a. was going to be attacked.

You also need to remember that scarlet is NOT attacking LA because she wants it destroyed and cause havoc across Tyria, but because of what she found under LA, the entire destruction of LA is just the pre event of what is to come

To an extent I see what the OP is implying, I guess what my only real take is that its expected.

GW2 is staying a mainstream game and attempts to appeal to mainstream players. To do that it has to (to an extent) try to cater to everyone.

If they had an event that was wrapped up in a bunch of secrets you would get something akin to the following:

- Lore experts complaining it came out of nowhere, how it didn’t build up and accordingly is game breaking.
- PvP players would complain that they expected something for PvP but didn’t get it and that shows PvP is the most neglected part of the game.
- WvW players would complain that they expected something for WvW but didn’t get it and that shows WvW is the most neglected part of the game.
- Then a bunch of intricate PvE posts like “I was expecting it to be something like this but it wasn’t, they wasted my time etc etc.”

By making a story interesting but ultimately predictable (to an extent) you keep the masses happy.

They will have a few surprises but we all now know at least the context of what is about to happen next. That is safest for ANet.

well written

SoPP.7034:

To an extent I see what the OP is implying, I guess what my only real take is that its expected.

GW2 is staying a mainstream game and attempts to appeal to mainstream players. To do that it has to (to an extent) try to cater to everyone.

If they had an event that was wrapped up in a bunch of secrets you would get something akin to the following:

- Lore experts complaining it came out of nowhere, how it didn’t build up and accordingly is game breaking.
- PvP players would complain that they expected something for PvP but didn’t get it and that shows PvP is the most neglected part of the game.
- WvW players would complain that they expected something for WvW but didn’t get it and that shows WvW is the most neglected part of the game.
- Then a bunch of intricate PvE posts like “I was expecting it to be something like this but it wasn’t, they wasted my time etc etc.”

By making a story interesting but ultimately predictable (to an extent) you keep the masses happy.

They will have a few surprises but we all now know at least the context of what is about to happen next. That is safest for ANet.

We’re all entitled to our opinions and this is mine so im really not trying to win people over here. All I am saying is that you could make a trailer that showed less and still satisfied all.

An example of a trailer done well- the Karka invasion of LA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2ddErJ2c5I

The trailer shows the (then) new map of Southsun, some of the mobs there and then a monster rising from the deep (Karka Queen) and plonking itself in LA before a fade out. This shows exactly whats in store but doesnt give away too much. It got people logging in because they didnt see the destruction it caused (which wasnt much in the end but it could have been) and wanted to see how this beast impacted LA. We didnt know if it was going to destroy buildings, players or even eat the mystic forge! The trailer was a reveal but not a spoiler.

The same could have been applied to the latest trailer- have the Aetherblade pirates roll in, fade out and then back in to shots of the attacking enemies (with some dramatic music) and then out again to the title.

Im not surprised that LA is going to be attacked, im annoyed that ive seen a lot of the devastation without even seeing it in game.

Thereon.3495:

Starscream.6498:

Thereon.3495:

So here’s an idea of how I would change that trailer- keep the LA part at the start but replace the Aetherblade pirate ships with the sound of one then fade out. Fade back in to screams and to the odd bit of burning rubble, fade out to the title. This tells the watcher roughly whats going to happen but doesnt throw images of a burning Lions Arch at us.

I honestly don’t see how that would change anything. If you make the simplest connection you would again conclude that Lion’s Arch is going to get destroyed.

Was an idea off the top of my head. I do understand that spoilers are inevitable as anyone with a brain will figure it out from a promotional trailer but its the detail of spoiler that is starting to annoy me. I dont think its needed to sell a product and I actually think that its detrimental to the game to show too much imagery. Leave people guessing as much as possible and youll have more logging in checking it out.

Was it your first ever watched trailer?!

A Hint: DON’T watch trailers!

HiddenNick.7206:

Was it your first ever watched trailer?! A Hint: DON’T watch trailers!

Trailers that show the rough outline of whats coming up are great at bringing attention to new content because they get people guessing as to what they will see/experience in the next part of the living story and therefore more will log in because no one is sure whats happened. Trailers that show many detailed images of what the player will experience are just spoilers. As I say, im not against trailers but I am against spoilers.

We’ve already got people on the forums combing through every little bit of detail from the trailer and posting detailed summaries of whats happened and what we will experience. This is a week before the patch hits. Telling me to avoid looking at trailers is baffling as id have to avoid looking at the forums and any related Youtube videos. Had the trailer been more cryptic id have been enjoying reading/listening to the theories being bandied about, wondering whats going to happen next.

I know roughly whats going to occur, who is involved and what happens to large parts of LA. Whats left? Oh, the achievements. Goody. Im feeling rather flat about the penultimate Scarlet living story release instead of being excited and that isnt right, surely?

Well there is an Aetherblade base just inside GF on the north of LA, so maybe shes gonna take over LA and make it a true pirates paradise? argggghhh!

So wait, it really sounds like what you’re explicitly asking for is Anet to make the trailers JUST vague enough so that no one will speculate and potentially ruin the story for you. My suggestion is to avoid the forums about the new content until that content is out. If the trailers spoil too much for you don’t watch them. If the forums spoil to much for you don’t read them. If you like having arms, keep them out of the wood chipper.

Just wait ’til you see the next trailer showing Zomorros being marched away in chains while the Mystic Forge burns in the background. No more Mystic Forge!

Oops… did I just say that?

I haven’t really paid attention to the living story and I already knew a while ago that she was planning on attacking Lion’s Arch. How did anyone not know this was coming?

Xeno Mezphy.3145:

So wait, it really sounds like what you’re explicitly asking for is Anet to make the trailers JUST vague enough so that no one will speculate and potentially ruin the story for you. My suggestion is to avoid the forums about the new content until that content is out. If the trailers spoil too much for you don’t watch them. If the forums spoil to much for you don’t read them. If you like having arms, keep them out of the wood chipper.

Speculation is great and is something id hate to see lost. Showing significant patch content in trailers is my issue. As for using the word ‘me’ this thread is based on my opinion of the trailer and I try not to assume that there are many others feeling the same way that I do. What I do know is that a few friends feel the same way, and the trailer could be made more vague which could lead to an increase in people logging in and could lead to a small increase in gem sales as a result.

The simple answer a lot of people use is ‘just dont watch it then’ but this doesnt apply because ive given valid reasons why trailers are generally good, valid reasons why changing them would work in the games favour and just the plain old fact that I shouldnt have to avoid content when alternatives can exist.

In order to actually enjoy the game in the best way that I can, spoiler free, it seems I have to pretty much cut myself off from the social aspect outside of the game itself. The trailer combined with social media (Facebook in particular) and the forums have completely spoiled the surprise of what should be a great patch so in order to preserve one of the few enjoyable parts of the game I need to cut myself off until such a time that things change.

Its a shame as there are some interesting things posted to Facebook and the forums are great way to spend a few minutes (hours) reading but hey, I guess im in the minority in wanting to experience content in game rather than a week before launch in a video and in screenshots. How long before people stop logging in because theyre shown too much and decide the content ‘isnt for them’ instead of experiencing it first hand?

In order to actually enjoy the game in the best way that I can, spoiler free, it seems I have to pretty much cut myself off from the social aspect outside of the game itself. The trailer combined with social media (Facebook in particular) and the forums have completely spoiled the surprise of what should be a great patch so in order to preserve one of the few enjoyable parts of the game I need to cut myself off until such a time that things change.

Its a shame as there are some interesting things posted to Facebook and the forums are great way to spend a few minutes (hours) reading but hey, I guess im in the minority in wanting to experience content in game rather than a week before launch in a video and in screenshots. How long before people stop logging in because theyre shown too much and decide the content ‘isnt for them’ instead of experiencing it first hand?