Guild Wars 2

We will give you more details once we get closer to the event, but wanted to give you an early heads up so you can plan accordingly.

While I think these types of events are insanely awesome, and I would never discourage ANet from doing them, I have to say that for those of us who actually have responsibilities and such, these limited events suck!

I’m glad that the content will be available past these events, but I wish there was some way of structuring these (or at least spacing them out) so those of us who can’t dedicate an entire weekend to Guild Wars 2, still have a chance to catch some of the coolness.

I agree, having a one time event chain that is a few hours of content at Sunday Noon Pacific Time really screws over the Oceanics who have to work.

This means that I will never access or get to play this part of the game.

Having these big one time events in the middle of the weekend (Saturday evening Pacific time) would mean that more people rather than just Europeans and Americans can play.

Start showing some love to the land down under that has supported you for so long.

…Why did they have to do it in the middle of a Friday afternoon?

Twoflower.7031:

…Why did they have to do it in the middle of a Friday afternoon?

and for oceanic’s having the final event chain on a Monday morning!

I’m gonna have to agree with the time ah day thing. Assumin’ the events last no more’n 2 hours, if they started em at 7pm most people would be home from work an’ some of the overseas crowd might be able ta work it in.

But I Totally Support the idea of ah one time only super event – even if I don’ make it every day, I’ll still appreciate it.

..if the first “one time event” we had for Halloween is any indication, you’ll miss out on a five minute cutscene. This could be different, but still..

The permanent content (zone, dungeon, etc.) will be there for you to enjoy when you get back,

I have to agree, if Anet are going to run every one of these 1 time events at the same time on a Sunday (noon pacific time, 8pm gmt, the end of the weekend), it means i will miss every single one of them. Surely having them more in the middle of a weekend, at some point on the Saturdays will mean more people will be on and able to attend them.

Never missed a single finale in GW1 as they occured several times thoughout the final day, but looks like i will have to miss every single one in GW2

While I fully support the idea of one time world events, the timing of this one does seem a bit off. Noon on a Friday? Across most time-zones in the US thats still slap in the middle of most people’s work/school day.

I guess this is for the Europeans since the Halloween event was during our prime time? It seems like it might be during their peak times.

Perhaps this will be the trend for world events? One for the US, then Europe, then US?

I will agree with this. I wish these “one-time events” were “one day events” where the finale or any such event was replayed throughout the day so that players who miss said events will have another chance to play it later that day.

I’ll miss both Saturday and Sunday’s events due to work. I would love to be there but it’s impossible at those times.

Just read the heads up article in announcements. So Friday night, then Saturday and you might as well say ALL day Sunday.

I have to agree with the op on this. Yes it is great. Wish it wasn’t so soon after Halloween.

Then you have to realize they will be doing something next month for the holidays. Too much too quick.

I am glad I was one of the folks that didn’t rush to level 80 and whine they had nothing to do.
Highest level character is 62.

My concern is will there be enough content for lower level folks?

To be fair, like Nether said, I doubt these will be like missing actual events. Nothing happened in GW1 like a statue blowing up once, so there was nothing to miss. The actual content in these special events in GW1 and GW2 has played out almost the same so far, such as Mad King being in LA every couple of hours and playing a game/playing tricks.

I’ll be missing Friday’s kick-off, but I’m not going to be overly bothered if it’s a cutscene that shows something I can later watch on YouTube. If it were an actual event I could only participate in once at 8pm GMT, however, then yeah, I might get annoyed.

Krosslite.1950:

Just read the heads up article in announcements. So Friday night, then Saturday and you might as well say ALL day Sunday.

I have to agree with the op on this. Yes it is great. Wish it wasn’t so soon after Halloween.

Then you have to realize they will be doing something next month for the holidays. Too much too quick.

I am glad I was one of the folks that didn’t rush to level 80 and whine they had nothing to do.
Highest level character is 62.

My concern is will there be enough content for lower level folks?

They’ve stated that you’ll be upscaled to 80 for the important stuff over the weekend, so you don’t have to worry about being level 80 to experience it.

Josh Foreman.8250:

We run one-time events at the time where we have the highest concurrency.

hmmm thanks for the input, but this sentence doesn’t make any sense.

but still thanks for the added input

JayMack.8295:

If it were an actual event I could only participate in once at 8pm GMT, however, then yeah, I might get annoyed.

8pm is much better for students and nine-to-fivers than between 12pm-3pm. Every single person I know in the country that plays would need to play hookie to participate. If that’s really one of the highest concurrency slots, then you guys across the pond must really be kicking it hard in game on Friday nights.

I will most definitely be missing it. But Ill be able to get on for the entirety of Sunday’s and I was there for Mad King reveal. So 2-3 ain’t bad.

Suggestion – just like the fake mad king in LA, how about a character in a nearby place that you can talk to and replay the cinematic? That way everyone can see it happen, even if they are late to the party. The surprise would be gone, but at least you could view it in game rather than on youtube.
The scenes are pretty awesome, and this would be a way to not get angry if the time is inconvenient. Even though there wern’t one time events in GW1, there were ways to re-experience important stuff.

That’s a great idea.

But I’m more concerned by the Sunday multi-hour event. We’ll see how it gets handled but that is probably one of the worst Sundays for me as it’s also the launch day for the Wii U, and I was planning on spending the day playing the new shiny with friends. Now I’ll probably end up sitting in a corner playing this game instead of playing with them.

Also, I’d be really surprised that 12PM noon PST is really the highest concurrent time on Fridays.

I understand all the stuff happening on the Friday and Saturday can be considered optimum times, but I am struggling to see how a “one time event” to occur noon PST (20:00 GMT) on the Sunday at the end of the weekend is considered optimum.
If this is going to be the standard time for the “one time events” then I am hoping its just going to be a cut-scene and nothing more important that i will permanently miss out on every single event.

Snix says: " I am struggling to see how a “one time event” to occur noon PST (20:00 GMT) on the Sunday at the end of the weekend is considered optimum."

Anet says: “We run one-time events at the time where we have the highest concurrency.”

Concurrency means highest number of players. Sure, it sucks that you can’t participate, but I live on the west coast and my time zone is PST and if I wasn’t taking the day off I would miss the Friday part. Just like I missed the Mad King bursting through the LA statue.

There is never going to be a time that is convenient for everyone, and concurrency is the best way to satisfy the most players who can log in.

Krosslite.1950:

hmmm thanks for the input, but this sentence doesn’t make any sense.

but still thanks for the added input

How does it not make sense? He said that they schedule 1 time events for the times when the most players are on. Basically – they look to see when their users are the most active — ie when most of them are on and they schedule events for that time. It’s a direct response to the OP who was asking for them to be ‘spaced out’ differently. Ie scheduled at different times.

It doesn’t make sense to schedule things at other times when (globally) the largest amount of players is on at noon pst over any given weekend.

I love that they schedule these 1 time events. Does it suck that I can’t be on for all of them? Sure, but I’m so happy that they’re happening and that GW2 seems like a living dynamic world because of them.

More “one-time-event” stuff? I’ll address this one in 3 layers.
1. Having an event run only once is asinine. Why in your right mind would you want to alienate part of your playerbase this way? Especially the part that is likely going to be at work earning a living? Guess where most of your sales come from? No, it’s their parents.
2. Even if by “one-time-event” you mean “all-day-event” why not just say so? All you are causing is confusion and delay.
3. Even if by event you mean “cutscene of the Mad King” wouldn’t it be helpful to explain this a little?
Based on the announcement I’m not excited, I’m irritated and upset that you think this is a good way to connect with the fans you care about so much. It’s just like the Halloween weapon skins. Roll of the dice exclusivity is mildly more enjoyable for the few lucky people that get them and cripplingly disheartening to the overwhelmingly larger number of players that miss out, especially if they grind and grind and spend and spend to ultimately get nothing.

I’ve been overall very happy with ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2, and this isn’t a “I’ll quit if you don’t do what I want” post, but given how great you guys are in many other areas, it’s downright baffling that you can get something like this so fundamentally wrong. Over and over again.

Krosslite.1950:

Josh Foreman.8250:

We run one-time events at the time where we have the highest concurrency.

hmmm thanks for the input, but this sentence doesn’t make any sense.

but still thanks for the added input

He’s basically saying, “The one-time events are planned to run when the most people are online so that the most people can take advantage of it.”

Unfortunately the nature of having a short time event is that not everyone will be able to participate due to other things in life.

The problem is that if you want to make the world seem realistic and like it’s actually alive, a “world changing event” can’t be over a month, or even a week. It kind of hurts the realistic factor when it goes on for so long, so they picked the best time for people to be able to participate. It sucks but that’s what they’re driving for and as a result not everyone will be able to experience it.

AcidicVision.5498:

JayMack.8295:

If it were an actual event I could only participate in once at 8pm GMT, however, then yeah, I might get annoyed.

8pm is much better for students and nine-to-fivers than between 12pm-3pm. Every single person I know in the country that plays would need to play hookie to participate. If that’s really one of the highest concurrency slots, then you guys across the pond must really be kicking it hard in game on Friday nights.

I will most definitely be missing it. But Ill be able to get on for the entirety of Sunday’s and I was there for Mad King reveal. So 2-3 ain’t bad.

That point wasn’t meant to be quite that personal. What I was trying to get across was that missing a one-time event that involves actual content (such as a dragon flying into LA that we have to fend off) wherever you are situated in the world is going to be annoying if you miss it. Like the user above me said, so long as they keep these one-time events confined to cut-scenes we can see later on YouTube or to an NPC’s fine.

I had to miss all 3 of the BWE finale events because they fell on a time where I had to go to work, so I get that it’s annoying, and I don’t want them to do actual events players participate in once and once-only at one particular time because I think that’s unfair even though I do live in a place where it is advantageous for me at 8pm. However, events that involve cutscenes that show cool things I’m fine with if I miss them so long as there’s a way for me to watch it later!

I understand there will never be a convenient time for everyone, and like i said, if its just a cut-scene being missed out on then thats ok.
My point is some of us will miss every one-time event if the timing of all future one-time events will be the same time on a Sunday.

I like the idea of these one time events making the world to feel realistic, but mix it up with the timings a bit, don’t have every single one-time event exactly the same time on the same day of the week. Other than ensuring some people will be able to at least catch a couple of these, doesn’t it add more to the realism if these one-time events weren’t the exact same time and day all the time.

I am sure Anet knows when their servers have the highest population, but I am struggling to see that a Sunday lunch-time (evening Europe) is higher than say Saturdays throughout the day or evening

I have plenty of responsibilities and will attend the events.

If I can’t, too bad. I rather have it as an one-time event than something repeated the entire day.

Snix Spoonman.3871:

My point is some of us will miss every one-time event if the timing of all future one-time events will be the same time on a Sunday.

I thought it was a weekend long event…or is there another special section of said event on Sunday? I don’t remember reading that but I could have missed it.

I was expecting a one-time event for this content update and was mentally prepared to miss it. But I have to admit that I was expecting something similar to how the Halloween event was handled (one-time event was a cut-scene, the activity tied to it was available for a couple days). I was completely crestfallen when I saw today’s announcement and noticed that the one-time event would be an “event chain” that would be only available for “multiple hours.”

Of all the Sundays afternoons, that happens to be THE one that I’m out of town and will be completely tied up all afternoon. I fly out that morning and return the following morning. Sucks to be me! Now, I totally understand that ArenaNet cannot cater to everyone and it totally sucks that my family obligation happens to coincide with this one-time event chain. And I completely understand that there is no way everyone will be able to catch it, no matter what ArenaNet does.

But I wholeheartedly feel that event activities should not be limited to only one day or just several hours. Cut-scenes…no problem! Everyone can catch the cut-scenes they missed on YouTube. But activities like event chains should be offered over multiple days to maximize the number of players that can experience the content. ‘Cause even though Sunday afternoons is the timeframe with the highest concurrency, that’s still a significant portion of the playerbase that will miss out on this content.

In my honest opinion, the Halloween event was handled FAR better…

Josh Foreman.8250:

We run one-time events at the time where we have the highest concurrency.

And what part of the player base online in this time? I dont think its more than 50%. So the other half of the players have to miss this events.

No more one-time events please.
Repeat them through all day.

No, don’t repeat stuff. The point is that Tyria changes/evolves. This is not character-based content… meaning your player created it all. It’s world based meaning attend or don’t attend.

I think GW2 would be significantly less cool if they backed off on world changing stuff and made it infinitely repeatable.

While the middle of the day Sunday might be the highest concurrency, this is only under typical circumstances. Fans of the game will be motivated to get on at different times to be a part of these events, but only if they are able. My point is, not to aim for when most people are already on, but for times when most people can get on.

That said, looking forward to this event! Sadly will have to miss the kickoff on Friday, but that’s at least more fortunate than some other fans get.

How long will the One time event on Sunday run for? I work until 5pm EST on Sundays, Does this mean I’ll miss it?

For a game with a design goal of being co-operative and inclusive, it seems to have been forgotten by the live events team.

Please don’t turn Guild Wars 2 into a game where anyone not from the US or EU is a second class citizen. This isn’t a timezone issue, it’s a design issue.

Josh Foreman.8250:

We run one-time events at the time where we have the highest concurrency.

Maybe you should think about doing them differently so ALL players get a chance to enjoy them.

u can do whatever event you want but dont put a reward into it. ppl will get really angry……

To be honest this is kind of bad, a one time event.
You have a large overseas support in oceania and 2000GMT is 7am Saturday/Sunday/Monday for us.
The majority of Oceanic players will miss out on this event, and especially the finale as it is a work day.

IMHO the event should be run multiple times but users may only get any rewards from it once. It’s not new that oceanic players miss out again, but it still feels pretty bad every time we get passed over for something like this. (other phrases come to mind but i’m trying to be nice here)

I’m not sure why they don’t have different EU and US start times for these events. Using the excuse that players will upload the video to YouTube is not a very good excuse.

That’s like saying that if they release The Hobbit at different times throughout the world, someone might read about it on the internet. If players don’t want content spoiled, they shouldn’t be looking for it on the internet.

The three things that ANet could do to make this easier on all players are:

1. Space events out so they don’t require such a large time commitment all at once. I think most people can plan for these things, but not many can dedicate entire weekends to playing a video game.

2. Be more transparent about all the events coming up. Put a calendar online, and in the game showing upcoming events and times. Even if it just says, “World event!” with a time, that would be enough for people to look months down the line and book time off, or whatever.

An extra step would be sweet iCal/Outlook integration so we could manage them like any other task and ANet could change, or adjust them as needed.

3. Be a bit more transparent about WHAT it is that is going on. We all like surprises and such, but not everyone will be super happy to dedicate the time, only to find out it’s a cutscene.

Anecdote: Last week my girlfriend and I were on the road traveling to California. We knew there was an event at 12 PDT, so we planned our travel day around it. We rushed to a McDonalds (free WiFi), and sat there frustrated as it took over 30 minutes to update the client. We eventually got in, only to find out it had been a cutscene.

Again, these events are super awesome and I applaud ANet for putting in such amazing effort (the Halloween theme was quite cool), but they need to be a little more flexible for all their players.

I’m of two minds about this. I’ll make a disclaimer that I live in east coast Australia, so I’ll be getting up at 6.30am for these events if I can – I’m not sure if that makes me crazy, but probably.

1) I actually love the idea of one-time events. I love the sense of immersion that comes with a singular event that actually has consequences that change the course of the story or the environment of the game. Having played a lot of persistent-world Neverwinter Nights years ago where these kinds of singular events would be run by GMs, you get used to missing out on some and savouring the experience when you do get to participate in these key game-world moments.

What I really hope is that they have multiple outcomes planned so that as a collective our actions actually shape the game, rather than just being railroaded into the same outcome no matter what occurs.

2) Simultaneously, it is a bit unfortunate if they continue to always schedule one-time events at the same time based on the largest playerbase concurrency, as this means the same section of the playerbase (mostly Asia/Oceania, but also other Euro/American players who work over weekends) has little chance to experience it. Although a minority, it’s still disappointing if the same minority always feel that they get the short shrift.

It would be nice if there was a way to perhaps do alternating schedules for events, or perhaps look at the concurrency of the EU servers vs. the US servers and schedule one-time events differently for each set of servers. In an ideal world there’d also be a set of Asia/Oceania servers that would have a different schedule again, but I imagine the size of our market is considerably smaller and not worth the investment unfortunately.

As an Oceanic player, I’m really starting to dislike the whole timing of these one off live events.

I love the game to bits and even took the first week off work to play, but this just beginning to feel like a slap to the face of anyone not in the US. You keep touting that the game is an all inclusive global experience… but when this happens, you’re leaving a big part of the population out in the cold.

In Australia, a lot of us east coasters at 6am on a Monday morning are trying to wrangle kids for school as well as get to work on time. The west coasters are still asleep or are pulling an all-nighter and going to work dangerously sleep deprived.

Please consider putting in a few hours leeway on these events and shift them to Sunday evening (US time). Giving your home country priority just because they all idly log on at lunchtime on Sundays, giving you disproportunate ‘concurrency’ stats, is shameful.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

2. Be more transparent about all the events coming up. Put a calendar online, and in the game showing upcoming events and times. Even if it just says, “World event!” with a time, that would be enough for people to look months down the line and book time off, or whatever.

There’s one serious issue with this…

You think people are complaining now…but wait until they put up some event in 3+ months on it, then for some reason it needs to be delayed. The massive amount of crying and complaining will be far beyond what’s going on right now, especially if people took off work for it.

I was excited when I first heard that they actually posted a schedule ahead of time, as I was one that missed out on the Halloween Dungeon and consequently the title.

However, it seems this is a case of one step forward, two steps back. While they are going in the right direction by giving us a full schedule so we can prepare, there are those in every time zone that are going to miss things here and there’s nothing we can do about it, so it defeats the purpose of giving us the schedule. Those of us in NA will miss the kickoff and the Oceanics will miss the ending.

They either need to a)not have special one time only events, because if players like myself continually miss cool, limited time stuff, we are going to be continually disappointed. That is not how you want to treat your loyal fans. Or b), have these events at different times for each general region – NA, EU, and Oceania.

Either way, I think a few more steps need to be taken to ensure players are truly being cared for here because that’s what’s most important. If I had to choose between new events every month and ensuring every player feels like they are being treated fairly and have equal access to all the cool content, I would choose the latter. New events every month are not necessary if they can’t be implemented properly.

It’s Ok If I fail one event or so, its like all the game must change for some people who can’t come, many other MMO’s make one-time events since they can’t really make it happen more than once. The fact they said before the times for inform people who can come, if there is an party or event in our city and we can’t come, the city wont change the event because some can’t come, it will just try to make it happen when most people can go.

So do this way works with everything else.

WoW has been using instancing since Wrath.
Possible solution right there.
TSW also uses instancing for some quests where you are automatically grouped into an instance with other people for basic quests too.
Also, GW2 uses this kind of instancing for every starting area.

Yeah instancing was my other suggestion. Not such a big deal if the event isn’t content so much as as cutscenes or very short events. But for a multi-hour quest chain, it would make sense to make it a temporary mmo-instance that each character can only participate in once, and have it available for limited period … 72-hours or similar.

They could also use phasing to show event outcomes to characters that have completed the instance to aid immersion. Permanent story / landscape changes could then come into effect after the limited period ends.

I’m fine with missing some cinematic one-time events, or non relevant ones. But I’m excited I get to attend the event chain finale. I’ll probably just be catching the end, however.

MAD KING Event 1 Time Event!!!!!!!!

Pacific Players Panic, What Will Happen? I’ll Quit if I Cannot Be a Part of the One Time Event!

Event comes, its a brief cinematic. Feel like you missed anything? Probably not.

Queue November One Time Event:

OH NO ILL MISS THE ONE TIME EVENT!!

Its probably another brief cinematic, signalling to players that they can now enter the new instance. You wont miss anything, im sure the cinematic can be viewed on utube again only minutes after it happens live.

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

MAD KING Event 1 Time Event!!!!!!!!

Pacific Players Panic, What Will Happen? I’ll Quit if I Cannot Be a Part of the One Time Event!

Event comes, its a brief cinematic. Feel like you missed anything? Probably not.

Queue November One Time Event:

OH NO ILL MISS THE ONE TIME EVENT!!

Its probably another brief cinematic, signalling to players that they can now enter the new instance. You wont miss anything, im sure the cinematic can be viewed on utube again only minutes after it happens live.

Ummm…

Martin Kerstein.3071

The event will culminate in a big Finale on Sunday November 18, make sure you will not miss it. This will be a onetime only event chain that will run multiple hours, and it will kick off at noon PST (20:00 GMT). Again, this will only run once, so make sure you will be there!

Emphasis mine.

If this one-time event goes down exactly as described, this is going to be an event chain. Not just a cinematic. And I find that problematic.

Just want to say thank you ANet for bringing back one-time events to MMOs! They’ve been missing for far too long. Please keep it up, and don’t let the vocal minority make you stop doing it.

Manoa.5897:

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

MAD KING Event 1 Time Event!!!!!!!!

Pacific Players Panic, What Will Happen? I’ll Quit if I Cannot Be a Part of the One Time Event!

Event comes, its a brief cinematic. Feel like you missed anything? Probably not.

Queue November One Time Event:

OH NO ILL MISS THE ONE TIME EVENT!!

Its probably another brief cinematic, signalling to players that they can now enter the new instance. You wont miss anything, im sure the cinematic can be viewed on utube again only minutes after it happens live.

Ummm…

Martin Kerstein.3071

The event will culminate in a big Finale on Sunday November 18, make sure you will not miss it. This will be a onetime only event chain that will run multiple hours, and it will kick off at noon PST (20:00 GMT). Again, this will only run once, so make sure you will be there!

Emphasis mine.

If this one-time event goes down exactly as described, this is going to be an event chain. Not just a cinematic. And I find that problematic.

One that all of the Oceanic players are going to miss. I don’t know why they can’t just extend it until the next day so they can experience it when they get home from work on Monday. As for the starting event, yes I would like to be there to see it. I see no reason why they can’t replay it in an instanced zone like they do when we create a new character. As soon as we log in, we play through that event and then go about our day. Would be awesome.

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

MAD KING Event 1 Time Event!!!!!!!!

Pacific Players Panic, What Will Happen? I’ll Quit if I Cannot Be a Part of the One Time Event!

Event comes, its a brief cinematic. Feel like you missed anything? Probably not.

Queue November One Time Event:

OH NO ILL MISS THE ONE TIME EVENT!!

Its probably another brief cinematic, signalling to players that they can now enter the new instance. You wont miss anything, im sure the cinematic can be viewed on utube again only minutes after it happens live.

Once again some player who either doesn’t care about these things or is always on for them and usually doesn’t miss out makes a post on how we’re all over-reacting.

Sorry, but there are ways to cater for everyone to get in on the fun times. When you’re a part of the minority and genuinely enjoy these events, its really frustrating missing out on them. So yes, I’ll probably be awake at 6:30 am for this each day, but what happens to all those players who love this game and promoted all of their friends to buy it and enjoy it that miss out?

I’ll say again, there are ways to include everyone. Probably too late for this event specifically but AANET, please look into it for future events.

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

Queue November One Time Event:

OH NO ILL MISS THE ONE TIME EVENT!!

Its probably another brief cinematic, signalling to players that they can now enter the new instance. You wont miss anything, im sure the cinematic can be viewed on utube again only minutes after it happens live.

It’s a one off event chain – not a single cinematic like the Mad King snafu. You should look around some more.

Martin Kerstein.3071

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Lost-Shores-Heads-Up

The event will culminate in a big Finale on Sunday November 18, make sure you will not miss it. This will be a onetime only event chain that will run multiple hours, and it will kick off at noon PST (20:00 GMT). Again, this will only run once, so make sure you will be there!

Multiple hours just means that it will take place over the span of a few hours, not repeat endlessly. If you miss one of the events, that’s it.

@ Thellena & Pelantaris

Now the way both of you said it it makes sense. His wording basically repeated itself.

EDIT: dang frick a fracken cellphone putting in words I didn’t type