Guild Wars 2

So let me make sure I’m understanding this correctly…
(obviously: correct me if I’ve misunderstood)

The Lost Shores kicks off on Nov 16 (a Friday) with a one-time-only-miss-it-and-you-are-out-of-luck event…

… and that’s launching at 9pm CET (UK time) which is 12pm PST / 3pm EST
… meaning that the event will be occurring when the vast majority of gainfully employed North Americans will still be at work!?

Is that correct???

Forgive me, but which part of that isn’t a kick in the pants (whether accidental or otherwise) to your entire North American user base?

A split rollout plan that launches on the 25 NA servers at 6pm PST / 9pm EST (6 hours after the EU server launch) would allow the NA users to enjoy the content. I don’t think anyone in NA (especially paying customers with jobs) will care that the EU servers got access to the content a few hours earlier.

I understand that a single deployment time is logistically simpler, but… last I checked, there are 52 servers which are identified by as being either specifically North American or specifically European servers.

I think it’s a reasonable expectation that deployments take place on each continent at times the users can be reasonably expected to be home.

It might take more work and forethought to do a split rollout, but I really believe you’re taking a risk here of alienating your NA user base by taking the easy road.

Something to seriously think about between now and Friday.

I agree with you that it’s pretty stupid and there were complaints in the Lost Shore Heads Up thread they posted a week ago.

They did similar things with the Halloween event with certain groups missing out on various parts of the event and there was a lot of complaints there as well. I personally missed out on the entire dungeon because it was only open for 2 days out of the 10 days the event was open, and I happened to not be home for those 2 days but I was home the entire rest of the event.

Event planning and logistics is one thing ArenaNet sorely needs to work on and until they do I’m just trying to pretend this game doesn’t have events so I don’t get disappointed at all the fun stuff I keep missing.

As they said in another post, “We run one-time events at the time where we have the highest concurrency.”

Lets face it, MMO’s are mostly played by college kids ditching class and housewives.

Do remember that other countries play on these servers as well.

Frankly, i’m more worried with ending event that will start where i live close to midnight and supposedly will last several hours. On Sunday/Monday night. Because Saturday/Sunday night apparently wasn’t a good choice.

In Australia, we will be able to do the Friday (our Saturday) and Saturday (our sunday) stuff. But the big finale is … Sunday YAY for us (Monday 6am), same with the Halloween event and all of the beta events. So unless I take holidays for an event (unless I was a game addicted freak without a job and live on the doll) I have to youtube them.

Event start: Saturday sometime. Event end Saturday the next week, 2 one time events where most people can still got to them
OR
1 time events are in fact, 2 time events where people who did the first one (from start to finish) cant re-participate.

Hmmm, maybe it is just like with the halloween one time event (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI6tOLmWwsI).. you didn’t miss much and I nearly regret to get up that early (living in NZ). ^^
It was nice, but nothing you can’t live without..

Someone is always going to be left out, what Anet is trying to do is make the one-time events available to as many people as possible. This time I’m going to be missing out, but that’s ok. I know it’s just a game and the best time for me may be the worst time for someone else.

Besides, if Halloween was any indication, the one-time event is likely a cutscene of some kind followed by a DE, and that DE (or something similar) will probably run a few times for the rest of the day.

To the OP: You’re mistaken. The big, one-time only finale is taking place on your Sunday, at 12 noon PDT. Sure, you’ll miss out on the kick-off, but that’s not what the “one-time event” is referring to.

Now, us poor folk from the Asian/Oceanic region WILL miss out on the special finale, because it falls either at a ridiculously early hour on a MONDAY morning, or when people have already started heading out to go to school/work. So even as you breathe a sigh of relief, hang on to your sense of outrage and lend us Asia/Oceanic players a hand by calling on ANet to bring back repeatable (or instanced) finales so that everybody has a chance to participate.

@Norb: My expectation is that the finale on Sunday/Monday will be a boss fight against the Ancient Karka. I’m HOPING that the boss fight itself will be repeatable maybe once every 2 – 3 hours, with the one-time only event being a cutscene similar to what we had for Halloween.

What really concerns me is the “special reward” ANet has said players will receive for taking part in the finale. Again, my expectation is that it’s probably going to be a hat of some kind, similar to the hat we got for attending the Mad King party, and that if you miss the finale, you can get the hat by talking to an NPC. However, it’s all just speculation, and things could go either way.

EDIT: I just read Stephanie’s sticky post at the top of the forum, and I need to adjust what I wrote. It seems that there IS another one-time event happening during the kick-off, but this one more than likely will simply be a cinematic of the karka making their first appearance (and invasion) of Lion’s Arch. All other information seems to suggest that repelling the karka will be an ongoing event that lasts for the duration of the weekend.

TGSlasher.1458:

In Australia, we will be able to do the Friday (our Saturday) and Saturday (our sunday) stuff. But the big finale is … Sunday YAY for us (Monday 6am), same with the Halloween event and all of the beta events. So unless I take holidays for an event (unless I was a game addicted freak without a job and live on the doll) I have to youtube them.

Event start: Saturday sometime. Event end Saturday the next week, 2 one time events where most people can still got to them
OR
1 time events are in fact, 2 time events where people who did the first one (from start to finish) cant re-participate.

Actually I believe it’s 7am now instead of 6am since the US lost daylight savings, but your point still stands.

tertle.4621:

Actually I believe it’s 7am now instead of 6am since the US lost daylight savings, but your point still stands.

It’s still 6am for me, since my state does not use Daylight Savings. (Hurrah!) I happen to fall into a razor-thin spot where I can still make the event by waking up earlier, and then going to work afterwards (depending on how long the event lasts), but players from our western state, New Zealand or Asia won’t be so lucky.

xEcliptics.7284:

Do remember that other countries play on these servers as well.

That’s exactly the point. ArenaNet does events that are only at good times for European players when they also have a lot of North American and Oceanic/Asian players. They don’t think about us. How hard is it to kick off these one time events at times that are good for all three regions – so three different kick off times depending on the server.

In my opinion, if you’re going to do events, do it right or don’t do it at all. Right now they keep putting out cool events that large portions of their playerbase aren’t getting to experience. It’s not good to continually disappoint your customers when you could be doing something about it.

Leiloni.7951:

xEcliptics.7284:

Do remember that other countries play on these servers as well.

That’s exactly the point. ArenaNet does events that are only at good times for European players when they also have a lot of North American and Oceanic/Asian players. They don’t think about us. How hard is it to kick off these one time events at times that are good for all three regions – so three different kick off times depending on the server.

In my opinion, if you’re going to do events, do it right or don’t do it at all. Right now they keep putting out cool events that large portions of their playerbase aren’t getting to experience. It’s not good to continually disappoint your customers when you could be doing something about it.

I don’t mind how it works out for me (Australia) as I can make most one-time events and still go to work.

I can understand your frustration, but I believe the event is going on for a good portion of the day not to mention the other events going on over the weekend.

If only another MMO hadn’t invented some kind of phasing technology which would allow people to be in the same location but on a different time line, that phases players through events so they can show progression in the world without limiting it to only those who were conveniently able to be there from the start…

Too bad such a thing doesn’t exist.

Too bad for Asia and Oceanic. I am so gonna miss the finale. It is 4 am Monday morning for puppy sake.

One-time events are a bad idea to start with, it doesn’t help when they cause such a server load that all the issues we faced with things like guilds and the login server in general come back.

The last one made the game more or less unplayable for two or so hours and this time we’ve got trial players on top of those numbers.

Zaxares.5419:

What really concerns me is the “special reward” ANet has said players will receive for taking part in the finale. Again, my expectation is that it’s probably going to be a hat of some kind, similar to the hat we got for attending the Mad King party, and that if you miss the finale, you can get the hat by talking to an NPC. However, it’s all just speculation, and things could go either way.

^THIS, I guess seems to be biggest part most people are overlooking. I would like some clarification on whether this “special reward” is in fact a one off chance or will there be an NPC? Seems quite tough on many players in the Oceanic time zone like myself. Missing out on a cinematic I can deal with but missing out on an item (whether it’s any good or not!) is a little different no?

Surley it wouldnt be hard to make the event an Instance, that ppl could enter once only and enjoy the event and get the rewards that go with it. Now we will have another elite class of players that have gained rewards form an event that 1/3-1/2 of the players can never get unless they pay for them.So heres hoping any reward is a scrap of cloth and not something super uber rair(ohh wait it will be cause we won’t get to play)

Don’t worry, it’ll probably be as insignificant as the halloween event was and be just as bugged for a lot of people. You’ll be able to find it on youtube when you get off work.

Leiloni.7951:

xEcliptics.7284:

Do remember that other countries play on these servers as well.

That’s exactly the point. ArenaNet does events that are only at good times for European players when they also have a lot of North American and Oceanic/Asian players. They don’t think about us. How hard is it to kick off these one time events at times that are good for all three regions – so three different kick off times depending on the server.

Oh, you think the end of the evening on Sunday while the event will most likely run into Monday is a good time?

I really hope they’ll do something like they did with Halloween. A cut-scene (one time only) at the start, then an event that will last for some time, but is repeated every so often, for 24 hours. Sure, you might miss the cut-scene, but you do get to do the one-time-only event. (unless you’re busy that day, but that’s something ANet cannot take into account, but with a 24-hour window, everybody can play on his or her optimum playing time)

Let me remind everyone the last “one time event” was the Mad King blowing up the Lion Statue at Lions Arch. Mine was glitched I did not see the mad king.

You definitely arent going to miss anything important.

I’m not sure that the kick-off is actually an event. I think that it is just the start time for when things get going… The activities it brings run until Saturday at noon Pacific time. The 1-time event is the finale on Sunday. I could be wrong though.

I’m fortunate because it starts at 4pm my time, and my work usually shuts down by 3pm on Fridays. Just enough time to get home and play

i still don’t get how they’re doing the final event on a Sunday noon PST.
EST is fine, as it’s 3pm on a Sunday. For most of Europe it’s gonna late night, which is not bad either. For Asia and Oceanic, it’s gonna be 3, 4am, if not 6, 7am when a lot of people will be heading into work.

if the finale was done say, Saturday late-ish night PST, it’d still be late night for EST, Europe would be early morning, same for Asia and Oceanic. seems more viable in my eyes. sure it may not be the highest concurrence time “usually” but if you announce this event well in advance, at least the greatest number of people can choose to make this event. by simply defaulting to existing highest population time and effectively closing off a group of people is not the wisest decision.

same with having an event at noon and 3pm on a Friday. i understand you want the events to be timely and last the same amount of time or start at the same time, but if a huge base of your players aren’t able to play until 6, 7pm then what’s the point of having it early?

perhaps i just have a misconception of the player base – like someone mentioned.. college kids. oh well. either way, excited for this to kick-off! hope ANet continues to explore more options in regards to timing and special events for the future : ))) we really just all want to be part of them.

Running events from Thursday-Saturday North American time would at least help the Oceanic folk see the finale. I feel for you guys, as you are always the minority that gets looked over by time zones in these games.

I have a feeling there would be an uproar over that though(ie: “I miss 2 days of the event because of work!!!”). It’s a lose-lose situation, I guess.

I’m actually a little confused why Anet feels they need to have so many 1-time events at all. A single 1-time event on a weekend day would make sense, but I think this thing is going to have like 3 1-time events. Just seems silly. They already have WvW (a perpetual battle), so why not a perpetual siege over the course of the day (or hours), rather than once?

for those thinking this is a good event for european players. WRONG! it will start 20:00 earlyest in UK wich means for each instance of the timezone it takes place later and later. So for those with an actual life outside of gaming it can get very late (for me on sunday night sitting waiting till 22:00 and play for a couple of hours knowing i need to wake up at 0500 in the morning is just not going to cut it. basicly said: THIS IS AN AMERICAN EVENT.

I was so excited that the event kicks off with a battle to save Lion’s Arch… how epic is that?! But then I found out it starts at 2 pm my time. D’oh… I’m crossing my fingers that the mission can be played again once I get home that night.

heh, don’t worry guys, the event is so far unplayable due to lag.