Guild Wars 2

The mad king cares not for sandy, he has his own schedule to keep.
I hope everyone is ok but seriously the event should not be changed to cater to a small percentage of the player base.
I have been told and felt this in effect for a decade of gaming sorry its your turn

Most of my long-distance friends and family live in the areas affected by Sandy, and even for the people I don’t know, I have a great deal of sympathy for those affected.

But all of the work that goes into these events takes a lot of time, and time is money for developers. It’s not that easy to just say, “Hey, why don’t you just make it so doing any part of the Halloween event gets you the achievement?”, or “You should extend the event until we all have power again for the long-term.”

The latter specifically makes me wonder, what if they did extend the event for, say, three days, or a week, but your city didn’t have your power restored by that time? You can’t give a definite answer on when everyone would have power again, and you can’t expect ANet to keep Halloween events going well into November. They can’t reasonably accommodate everyone, I really feel that it’s asking too much.

It probably sounds harsh, but would it be so bad to just let it go? Stuff happens in life, and maybe you can’t do this particular event right now. Heck, almost every year tornadoes sweep through the mid/southern U.S., and I’ve never heard of people asking for events to be extended because of them.

I don’t want the achievement to be altered, because it takes away the actual feeling of achievement. I didn’t do everything the achievement called for, therefore I shouldn’t get it. And if I couldn’t do everything the achievement called for, then I definitely shouldn’t get it. That’s how achievements should work, in my opinion. An achievement isn’t that important that you have to accuse the developers of whatever you can to force them into changing their policies for you (“you” referring to no one in particular).

I understand why people are frustrated, but ANet gave their answer already, and they’re already pushing on with the development of new content. Maybe you can do it again next year, but for now, look on the bright side, we’re going to have even more new stuff to do in a couple weeks.

This thread is going a bit off course, I think. Hurricane Sandy is indeed a terrible storm and all my east coast friends have me worried sick for them, but Anet had a schedule planned out long before that. It isn’t about catering to so-and-so, or not catering to so-and-so. Any finale you guys miss will probably be uploaded onto youtube a thousand times over.

BUT. That is not the point. The point is that (a) there are people who have their lives affected by Hurricane Sandy. (b) ANet has a schedule they planned out so © Extending the Halloween event is impossible.

Any further discussion talking about whether or not this affects you (trust me, it affects everyone – the NY Stock Exchange is pretty kitten important, as are the UN HQ, and the Elections, etc etc) is irrelevant. Anet has explained quite well what they have scheduled so look forward! No regrets! Find things on youtube!

@Agree with Kinglette

As a Asian player, my whole MMO life, I have been told by MMO companies that they will not change their schedule no matter what is happening in my part of the world.

So although my heart go out to all those affected by Sandy. I have been trained to go na… not that important if I cannot make it to an event.

Anet should help in other ways, like adding 1 more achievement to allow people affect to get 5/5 achievements achievement and emailing the in-games items out.

People need to realize, adding elements to the game isn’t as simple as bringing up a list of achievements and just typing something in and uploading it to the game, however small stuff like that has to go through a brief QA process, and there is always the potential of it causing serious issues with other elements of the game, nothing is ever as cut and dry as people think especially with Real time code programing, and everytime they have to upload a new build it costs them money. I for one reeeeally don’t want to go back to broken achievements/events if at all possible.

There is no reason to extend an in game event because of Sandy, there was a storm (in France) three days ago and I can’t play during an entire day, I never ask for an extend. It’s the game…
I think you must spend time to fix your building whereas cry for play a game.

Just one facing what is considered a “historic” tropical storm. As called such by the news/weather channel.

Every second day, there is a catastrophy somewhere. Most have FAR more loss of life than Sandy (which is a horrible storm, absolutely true!) and affect the population FAR, FAR more. It’s not even comparable. In some of these disasters, more people died in the first SECOND than during the entire Sandy. Just some perspective. And that’s just disasters. What about wars?

So, if you want this event to be extended for americans, then surely you must agree that if a disaster or any other catastrophic event strikes a different region of the world that has a large population of GW players, an event should also be extended, right?

You do, right?

Keep in mind that disaster is not defined by “is on american Television”.

If you say yes, then most events will be delayed by disasters – especially if you consider where sizeable chunks of the player population lives..
If you say no, then you’re a gargantuan hypocrite.

Choice is yours. If you’re still for yes, then more power to you, you’re actually doing your country credit by being a decent person who doesn’t just say “Me me me me me”.

Me, I’m not affected by Sandy, but I could support extending the event despite that. My only trouble is that I am 90% sure that most american players would not do the same when the disaster is somewhere else. How do I know? Because every single time this comes up, American players slam such requests, usually claiming “entitlement” and all the arguments you’re facing here. They get used for a reason, most people that make them have seen them before.

How about an alternative way to earn the Mad King title? My power was out during Phase 3 and the Mad King’s Ascent instance is already gone. Can we remove this requirement from the title? Or change it to something still active?

I understand why they didn’t extend it for Sandy. Oh well, it is what it is.

I think they need to remove the “Act” function of this event and other events and make all holiday content accessible from the beginning of the event to the end. Making some things only available for one day, or a few days, is kinda lame.

Branwin.4609:

I understand why they didn’t extend it for Sandy. Oh well, it is what it is.

I think they need to remove the “Act” function of this event and other events and make all holiday content accessible from the beginning of the event to the end. Making some things only available for one day, or a few days, is kinda lame.

The events being dynamic and flowing with acts is what makes the game different from other titles. If you take that away, you take away some of the games personality.

Branwin.4609:

I understand why they didn’t extend it for Sandy. Oh well, it is what it is.

I think they need to remove the “Act” function of this event and other events and make all holiday content accessible from the beginning of the event to the end. Making some things only available for one day, or a few days, is kinda lame.

I love having certain events of the game available for a limited time. It really adds to the lore, and it makes the whole experience more realistic (considering it’s a fantasy game, this of course has it’s limitations but they took advantage of it).

It also helped me keep track of what was going on and what I needed to do. I found it to be quite organized. Besides, the only event that was limited was entering the dungeon. If you didn’t have time to complete it, then all you need to do is enter and leave and you would have received that part of the achievement. Otherwise, everything has been available since the start of that act. That has given you several days to complete them.

And how would you have the Mad King roam Lion’s Arch while at the same time we’re trying to kill him in the dungeon?

That’s a great point. I could understand that if I walked away from the Halloween event feeling it did anything for the games personality, which I do not. I also feel like “dynamic” is a word that is used a bit loosely. Opinion is subject to vary, though.

I think we should be able to take our time and enjoy the event and what the game has to offer rather than rushing around making sure we didn’t miss out. Or worse, feeling like we missed out because of real life events. Ah well.There is always next year!

lookitsandrea.8531:

Branwin.4609:

I understand why they didn’t extend it for Sandy. Oh well, it is what it is.

I think they need to remove the “Act” function of this event and other events and make all holiday content accessible from the beginning of the event to the end. Making some things only available for one day, or a few days, is kinda lame.

I love having certain events of the game available for a limited time. It really adds to the lore, and it makes the whole experience more realistic (considering it’s a fantasy game, this of course has it’s limitations but they took advantage of it).

It also helped me keep track of what was going on and what I needed to do. I found it to be quite organized. Besides, the only event that was limited was entering the dungeon. If you didn’t have time to complete it, then all you need to do is enter and leave and you would have received that part of the achievement. Otherwise, everything has been available since the start of that act. That has given you several days to complete them.

And how would you have the Mad King roam Lion’s Arch while at the same time we’re trying to kill him in the dungeon?

If you’re talking about realism in a game, you’re silly.

But you have a good point. After doing some exploration I realize it makes total sense lorewise that act 4 is only one day (He can only come to our world on the day of Halloween, after all) but my suggestion was not in regards to lore or how much sense it would make where the Mad King is at any given time. It was just an idea or suggestion for next year. I can’t imagine how hard it is to make something functional as a game and as a part of a fantasy lore/history bit.

I have been out of power for 3 days so far. As of this posting, there are around 4 million people without power. I am currently at my public library with my dinky laptop trying to do whatever I can with my modelling software. It is pretty bad. This is a very fancy library and its internet is top notch. Even with that said, there are only 250 slots for wifi connections. It took me an hour and a half to connect. There are people shaving in the bathroom and eating pizza on the floor. This is what hurricanes do. Even if all you lose is power, everyone loses a sense of what it means to be in a society. Its one of those things we take for granted.

Anywho, I’m not here to boast about how stupid hurricanes are and how we should wage war on them. What I am saying is that from the first day it was expected that my state at least, Connectcut (which happens to be one of the least-hardest hit places) will be out of power from 7-10 days. Now, unfortunately, this ruins the halloween event for me. Me and thousands of other players.

I’ve been very good with this event so far. All I’m missing is Act 4. All I ask is for Arenanet to extend Act 4’s expiration to a later date. Surely the Mad King cannot be stopped by a simple hurricane!

Hello all, and a special hello to you folks under the harsh conditions of this terrible storm that the US has. ArenaNet has decided not to extend the Halloween 4th act, or the Halloween events; even with this hurricane wrecking havoc on our coasts. However I have to say that I agree with this choice. In the end, no matter how bad a real world situation is for a certain area of the world, it should not affect anything in game. No storm in Britain should delay Wintersday, no tsunami in Hawaii should stop Mad King’s Day. They need to keep to their schedule so that it is fair, otherwise Anet would be playing favorites, which is never good for a developer. I believe that the choice to keep the event the way it is was a mature one that is fair, it sucks, but I think that there are more pressing matters to attend to. If you missed this event because of the hurricane, maybe you could find a way to help out in the community so that the damage is lessened. Try to 100% the map of the real world, finish up hearts by cleaning up derbies and rebuilding houses, try donating some money to help out the ones in need, I’m sure that you’ll get a great bit of mail in the end.

Thanks for reading this post, best of luck.

Branwin.4609:

lookitsandrea.8531:

Branwin.4609:

I understand why they didn’t extend it for Sandy. Oh well, it is what it is.

I think they need to remove the “Act” function of this event and other events and make all holiday content accessible from the beginning of the event to the end. Making some things only available for one day, or a few days, is kinda lame.

I love having certain events of the game available for a limited time. It really adds to the lore, and it makes the whole experience more realistic (considering it’s a fantasy game, this of course has it’s limitations but they took advantage of it).

It also helped me keep track of what was going on and what I needed to do. I found it to be quite organized. Besides, the only event that was limited was entering the dungeon. If you didn’t have time to complete it, then all you need to do is enter and leave and you would have received that part of the achievement. Otherwise, everything has been available since the start of that act. That has given you several days to complete them.

And how would you have the Mad King roam Lion’s Arch while at the same time we’re trying to kill him in the dungeon?

If you’re talking about realism in a game, you’re silly.

But you have a good point. After doing some exploration I realize it makes total sense lorewise that act 4 is only one day (He can only come to our world on the day of Halloween, after all) but my suggestion was not in regards to lore or how much sense it would make where the Mad King is at any given time. It was just an idea or suggestion for next year. I can’t imagine how hard it is to make something functional as a game and as a part of a fantasy lore/history bit.

Lorewise! That’s the word I was looking for instead of realism, which is definitely a silly word to use for a game haha. But I also write fantasy fiction, so I tend to be a little biased in that way. :P

I would still like this time limit to be implemented for the next event. However, I do think a schedule should be given to us on the exact dates of the event. We received starting dates, but the end date for the dungeon was never “officially” released except within 24 hours of the actual end time. I think it’s something they should consider.

I agree. I suggested in a few other threads that an in-game calendar would be great, highlighting special events ahead of time would be great and we wouldn’t have to hunt around the internet to figure out what to do. Not to mention, you could do personal events with guildies and friends in-game. If not that, something similar. It’s one of the few things I miss from WoW. The GW2 website is great but it could be a lot more functional in my opinion.

I also think the patch interface (or log-in screen you get upon start-up) should feature what exactly is being patched/fixed, so we don’t have to go on the website to see what changed. I know not everyone uses the forums or website so it would be a great feature in the future.

“Try to 100% the map of the real world”

That’s funny. You’re funny. You’re my least-hated person on these forums now.

At the end of the day, this is a game, and you shouldn’t revolve your life around it. Stuff happens that you can’t prevent, and you’re going to miss things, but this is a game. It should not be changed because somewhere there’s a storm knocking out power. Nothing would ever happen if they did that.

I think one of the biggest problems is that those of us who were hit by the hurricane and had not done the “Ascent to Madness” dungeon prior to Act 4 cannot achieve “It’s a Mad King’s World” and so cannot achieve “Emissary of the Mad King.”

However, some achievements, such as pumpkin carving and the clock tower do not count towards that title. Instead of having people lamenting over a missed event, could we not simply have those achievements counted towards the title? They are both still attainable, and it could even be implemented in a later patch if players already have those achievements.

Honestly, I think a lot of people would stop complaining about this if the Mad King title counted ALL off the event achievements in the 5 required, I for one have all but attend the party, I’d like recognition for doing my damnedest to get what I could in before I lost power. Although I would have liked to take part in the event more than get an achievement.
As a side note, people bringing up the Real World consequences of hurricanes and children dying in Africa etc. Yes those are trageties, yes those things suck… we but they are currently irrelevant to this thead. I’m not being heartless, I’m trying to keep this thread on track.

After reading that ArenaNet can’t delay this event, that’s fine, and it really sucks. I’m in lower Manhattan, in the grid currently without power. I can’t touch any video game right now. In real life, I work in IT for a major company whose servers and infrastructure was massively affected by power loss, and on top of that, our collocation center also lost power. I’ve been working around the clock since this hurricane hit and I have to work through this because it’s my actual real life job. Even if you can’t extend this event, if you could grant anyone affected by this disaster any alternate way of reaping the benefits and titles or anything else, that’d be ultra amazing. I’ve been playing Guild Wars so hard since GW1 beta and the fact that this hurricane hit us this hard is out of my control, and it sucks, even moreso for the OCD completionist in me.

If you, ArenaNet, can lay any other option on the table, that’d be great. If not, then I guess this post, like many others, was for naught.

I’m in ANet’s time zone, so I’m not affected, but I know a bunch of people who have no power, and aren’t able to play any of Act 4 (and had limited access to Act 3), and they are sad Mad King subjects.

I know the event was scheduled to end tomorrow afternoon, but I think it would be an awesome gesture to extend the festivities out to Saturday (at least), to give the people who’ve been smacked upside the head by Sandy a chance to enjoy their King’s mayhem.

I think even if it was a limited run on the weekend, just some of the basic stuff, would be really nice to do.

Quit starting these topics, they have already said they will not be extending the Halloween events and thus moving on to their next big content patch.

It will be nice if they do that. BUT! If another country or part of another country get natural disasters or some country is in war and their power supply is cut off. Anet should extend holiday events or offers on Gem Store?
OP. Be fair to the rest of the world too.

I’d be surprised if power was up by Saturday in a lot of the places hit by the hurricane.

IMO, the best option would be to simply use the in-game mail to send players some kind of consumable that, when used, triggers the ’attend the party’ achievement (that’s the only achievement the hurricane prevented people from attempting, correct?) and possibly a witches hat.

Some people with whine about giving hand outs to players who didn’t ’earn’ it, but attending the party and obtaining the hat aren’t really things that require any degree of skill; so givging those items to players who were unable to log in and get it for themselves would be a very nice gesture from Anet.

Haltus Kain.4578:

I’d be surprised if power was up by Saturday in a lot of the places hit by the hurricane.

IMO, the best option would be to simply use the in-game mail to send players some kind of consumable that, when used, triggers the ‘attend the party’ achievement (that’s the only achievement the hurricane prevented people from attempting, correct?) and possibly a witches hat.

Some people with whine about giving hand outs to players who didn’t ‘earn’ it, but attending the party and obtaining the hat aren’t really things that require any degree of skill; so givging those items to players who were unable to log in and get it for themselves would be a very nice gesture from Anet.

And how would Anet verify who was truly without power and who just didn’t bother and wants a handout?

aliquis.9180:

Haltus Kain.4578:

I’d be surprised if power was up by Saturday in a lot of the places hit by the hurricane.

IMO, the best option would be to simply use the in-game mail to send players some kind of consumable that, when used, triggers the ‘attend the party’ achievement (that’s the only achievement the hurricane prevented people from attempting, correct?) and possibly a witches hat.

Some people with whine about giving hand outs to players who didn’t ‘earn’ it, but attending the party and obtaining the hat aren’t really things that require any degree of skill; so givging those items to players who were unable to log in and get it for themselves would be a very nice gesture from Anet.

And how would Anet verify who was truly without power and who just didn’t bother and wants a handout?

Why would they bother? Send it to everyone.

LordYz.8941:

It will be nice if they do that. BUT! If another country or part of another country get natural disasters or some country is in war and their power supply is cut off. Anet should extend holiday events or offers on Gem Store?
OP. Be fair to the rest of the world too.

This to put it simple.

GW2 is a world wide game , tons of countries and players are having problems outside their control right now and other tons will have in the future.

Should every time any country got a problem extend an event? There is quite the number of countries out there , halloween might last a year.

Honestly , i dont have nothing against those people affected and i hope they end up alright in rl. But , at the same they are not more special because they get more media cover? Did see what that same natural disaster did on other countries?

Why people are asking to stop for the east coast while other people might have lost it also and will take even longer to get the light back? Water? Food?

Really people , open your eyes , the world is wider than what the TV shows , and the east coast was not the only affected zone BY FAR , if Anet begins to stop for every place affected , we will lose the next 5 events locked in halloween.

I understand you all got good intentions and want to help , but you must look at the whole picture , not just a very tiny bit of it.

I know it sucks. I got hit hard in Ohio.

But, look at the bright side, in a couple of weeks there is Thanksgiving content, and a few weeks after that Christmas content!

would this not be enough to show i did enough to get the title?

Ksisis.5821:

would this not be enough to show i did enough to get the title?

I’m pretty sure you can still get the achievement if you go to Lion’s Arch.

thats the thing, i cant, i missed MK dungeon. wasnt there that time, but i did everything else. kinda not fair to not get the title, its not like i did nothing for it. it would be unfair if i did nothing n come here saying i want the title, right? heres a proof, n im sure many people who did what i did, would feel the same.

Instead of helping around your neighbourhood. You guys come and complain about a game event.

A gesture to the victims of Sandy (not a time extension request)

Mentioned this in another thread, but figured I’d give it its own thread, since it probably won’t be seen otherwise.

The dissatisfaction of not being able get an in-game title/achievement/hat due to Sandy’s reign of destruction is admittedly extremely petty compared to everything else caused by the hurricane; but in light of the hell that many of the US’s east-coasters have endured recently, I think administering a bit of joy to those people is a worth-while cause, regardless of how small.

It’s already been stated that the Halloween event will not be pushed back, as doing so would conflict with other plans... and even if it wasn’t a conflict, we have no way of knowing when many of the victims will have power again, so there’s a good chance they’d miss the event anyway unless it was pushed back for like a month, which would be ridiculous.

Anywho, a very simple solution would be to just use the in-game mail to send players a Witch’ kitten(( /sigh @ filter. Witch’s [space] Hat )) and a consumable that, when used, would trigger the "attend the party" achievement.

The consumable could be something quick and simple, similar to a Letter of Commendation in which you just use it and receive its yield, with no special animations; or it could be something like a "Mini Party" which, when used, will unlock the achievement and spawn a tiny Mad King Thorn who will start barking Mad King Says orders at your character for a short while, then dissappear (the achievement never actually specifies which party to attend; and with the mini version of Mad King Says, the hat would be somewhat justified).

This mail would be sent to ALL players. Trying to figure out who was denied access to the game by the hurricane and who wasn’t would be pointless - we’re talking about what is probably the easiest achievement in the game, and a piece of town clothes that doesn’t do anything... I’m sure some folks will be against providing a hand out to people who didn’t "earn" it, but earning it consists of of standing in Lion’s Arch and typing /salute, so I can’t see any harm coming out of this (and if there is any harm from doing so, it would be utterly outweighed by the good it would provide).

I think this would earn Anet a lot of respect from the community as a whole, and especially from the victims of the hurricane; but most importantly, it would bring a bit of happiness to a lot of people who’s lives are in a pretty dark place right now.

Happy Halloween, all!

-Hal

I completely support this. I just recently got power back and hopped on to “attend the party” and as lame as it sounds it made my freakin’ day to be able to do something so trivial as typing in emotes for Mad King Thorn. I understand it would probably take time that they’d rather spend elsewhere but it’d be one hell of a gesture that would probably make a lot of people even just a bit happier and honestly I see also doing good for their public appearance. Yes an action like this would piss off a vocal few who think “it’s not an achievement if you did’t achieve it!” due to not being there or “Worry about your family and RL stuff not a game” but those guys are easy enough to ignore when you see how many other people Anet’d make happy with such a simple gesture.(not saying it’d be a quick and simple thing to implement as they’d have to code a new “achievement item” and then the mailing script/code) I support this idea.

thread merged... /sigh. There were no other threads about sending the achievement and hat via mail. Oh well, hopefully it gets seen here.

Hang in there, east-coasters!

I don’t know what’s so great about the title that makes everyone jump like it’s a legendary at this point… I’m walking around with “God Walking Among Mere Mortals”… and no one notices.

well not everyone cares, but some do, id be proud to say to another player that i got a title from the halloween event, or like u, to say u got the title from gw1, not everyone cares of course, but some do, hence the creation of this thread.

I would love to see them extend it a week also, we were without power for several days but have it back now. But we still do not have internet and unfortunatley none of my friends do either. Some even are still without power. I know its just a deed but I worked hard to complete all the other parts of the halloween event including the clock tower. Literally all I need is to show up at the party I assume to finish everything. We have internet at my work place but none of our machines can run a game they are all very basic but work for what we need them for. I thought I was going to be smart and bring my computer from home to work but I did not think about the fact that all of our monitors at work are old and none of them have the right connection for my computer from home. Just leave the part up for another week by then everyone should be able to have attended.

everyone is complaining about the party, can i just ask is it still possible to do the MK dungeon? because without the dungeon u still wont be able to get the title.

Anet, please extend the Halloween events so many people who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy can have an equal shot at actually finishing some of these events. I’ve only been able to get back online literally about an hour ago!

There’s already a topic about this. Anet has already said they won’t be doing that.

And many posters/players have said it would actually be more unfair to “extend” this event due to this “north east american” tragedy, unless Anet was prepared to extend /every/ event for ANY tragedy world wide that might prevent players from having access to the game.

There are weather issues, war issues, and lots of issues different countries deal with that prevent some of the people there from being online at various times in the year… unless Anet is prepared to make extensions for /every/ world wide issue.. it is unfair to treat “north east america” as super special.

And i say this as someone living in a place that was affected by Sandy.

—
Full thread is here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/halloween/Hurricane-Sandy-Interrupts-our-Halloween-Event-Merged/first

Dev response in that thread is here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/halloween/Hurricane-Sandy-Interrupts-our-Halloween-Event-Merged/page/3#post581419

I also call BS on that – it isn’t anything about being fair or ‘special’ its about players, members of the communities who actually want to finish events/achievements/content.

I personally got back online about an hour ago, I managed to see a glimmer of the rest of the events before anet took it back down, I don’t know whether to rage about that, ragequit and actually go do something about all the damage instead or just complain about how anet fails the players yet again.

so happy I had a whole 2 hours to play with this event. Thanks a ton Anet. Oh wait, no. I was in the middle of actually doing something but you know having the first to finish the event means taking the event down 5 hours early.

alright so then you are going to be just fine with, when every single event is delayed, extended, or cancelled because players that /aren’t you/ have been effected by something?

Your being somantic, this is about countless numbers of legitimate players who want to actually have somewhat of a shot at finishing these events. Its not about fairness, because that is a weak excuse. If your on a US server, and the US suffers a tragic event then the US servers should at least have an extension so players could equally part-take in festivities, the same could be said for Korean or EU servers for example – there is no bias – no ‘favoring’ countries.

From what I read earlier after getting back online, actually sickened me really to think a company would essentially snub alot of loyal fans, many of which in some dark hours might want just a little bit of fun?

Think of the children that had real halloween cancelled. YEAH. That didn’t last two weeks.