Guild Wars 2

Well I won’t be doing this one time event. It’s bugged, my daughters getting married this weekend, and pretty much tired of Glitch Wars 2 in general. My play time windows are small to ain’t gunna happen. I wanted to do events, but alas I’ll miss out on Lost Shores event final anyway, due to watching the unworthy kitten marry my daughter at the same time sundays Event kicks off

MatthewMedina.5419:

We know that this is a topic that’s going to be heavily discussed, and we definitely want as much of your feedback as possible, both positive and negative (so long as it remains constructive and within the guidelines of the rules of conduct). However I would just like to point out that this:

“…fact that it’s the highest concurrence time…”

is contradictory to this:

“why not choose a time where there’s a higher chance for people to choose to attend?”

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

Offering events like this at multiple times for different time zones is certainly worth considering, but given our team’s goals and the timeline we had to operate in (we fielded our team immediately after shipping the Live game), it just wasn’t feasible for us to consider such an option for this particular event.

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

Forgive me for doubting you, but it seems REALLY odd that highest concurrence happens when the North American residents are at work/school and Asia-pacific residents are in bed. Honestly, since Anet is PST it sounds more like it is a case of ’let’s hold the event at noon OUR TIME for OUR convenience….then we don’t have to come in at odd hours and if anything goes south we can fix it and still go home at 5pm’. Side Note: AND if that is the case, you sure didn’t use the time in office well, since EVERY QUEST NPC in the first investigate chain is dead and not respawning on my server (and I hear most all of them) as of 10:43pm Eastern.

Please, sir….tell me where all these 12pm PST peak players are from, if not the US and Asia-Pacific? Europe somehow outnumbers the rest of the planet in GW2 players? Most GW2 players are dropouts and unemployed north americans and Asian insomniacs?

I don’t know, I feel for your plight but it just doesn’t seem like a big deal at all really. I caught it today, we killed some new mobs for 30 minutes then talked to some NPC’s then bugs prevented much more progress than that. It was nothing “mind blowing”. I’ll likely miss tomorrow’s, and probably Sunday’s. I could reschedule around it and play hookie if I REALLY wanted to see it but meh. In the grand scheme of things (my life that is, not my choice in leisure activity), it ranks pretty low on the priority scale of my weekend.

I guess I’m wondering what the people unable to attend these one-time events want? To have them just eliminated from here on out? If we can’t all attend none of us should? Maybe a server or three dedicated exclusively to Oceanic players? Maybe instances set up for a short time after the initial server wide event so those that missed it can enter the instance to experience it? One time events that last a minimum of 24 hours each to give everyone a fair shot to at least show up even if they can’t be there for when it kicks off?

As they stated though, they selected the time when, statistically, the most players would be on line. Geography and time zones weren’t a part of that criteria and to put it simply – couldn’t be, because as it so happens the target audience of MOST players, by definition, included a majority of players in the North American time zones.

Like I said though, this would be the time and place for suggestions for criteria and implementation for future one time events that would be more inclusive of the Oceanic community.

P.S You didn’t miss much today anyway. We killed some new mobs for about 30 minutes, spoke to a few NPC’s in LA and beyond that there wasn’t much else as bugged story NPCs pretty much halted any further progression than that. Minus the 30 minutes of insanely lagged out mob killing, all the content will be there when you can log in.

Mayam.8976:

I guess I’m wondering what the people unable to attend these one-time events want? To have them just eliminated from here on out? If we can’t all attend none of us should?

That, and the resources that would have been used to create them instead be put towards something that will benefit everybody. For example, bug fixes.

Munrock.3092:

The team no doubt put a lot of time and heart into these one-time events, and masses of players will miss the experience due to commitments big and small. How is that fair on them? They paid just as much as everyone else to play the game.

I missed the Mad King wrecking the statue in LA. I missed the hole in the ground being closed up again afterwards. Did I enjoy the rest of the event? No. I saw cute baby quaggans dressed as ghosts and made my character puke on candy corn and got a book to wear on my back, but that was all side dressing to a main event that I had to watch on Youtube.

It seems silly to me that watching an ingame event on youtube is actually the best solution when Anet just need to make an event a 24 hour thing. Or put a dude in the zone that can play a cinematic for like a week or something. Just some really basic stuff to make people in a different timezone feel like they are still part of the world.

Seems like my toon is always turning up after the really epic event happens, but dont worry he’ll help you all clean up the mess. What a hero

I’m lucky enough to be in a timezone where the best mean time is convenient, but there really should be an alternate event time that captures the bulk of the players in timezones not amenable to the mean best time.

MatthewMedina.5419:

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend.

I would think with the lag issues and obvious server overload in Lions Arch during this event it would actually benefit everyone to have more event times in order to not only allow people of all time zones to participate, but also to lessen the strain on the realm servers during the events. With less people attending each event it would make them more enjoyable all round in my opinion.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active…

We understand this, but it isn’t the dungeons or zones we are talking about, its the ONE OFF event that is happening. As a long time player of Guild Wars, with every expansion available, and an achievement nut, I for one want to experience every aspect/event/attack throughout the game. Having this one off event at (my) 6am every day is totally unreasonable in my opinion.
Guild Wars is an International Community and I think we all have a right to enjoy this content without having to log in at ridiculous times. Replay it each day 12 hours later, or stagger each daily event to occur at different times, or something.

I am happy to hear that the team will consider making changes for future events and seasonal affairs, this would please all of us outside of the USA greatly I am sure.

Also, besides the horrendous event time, I am really enjoying the other aspects of the event so far.

I’m gonna do a good action tomorrow. I’m gonna do something which will both benefits me, the other players, and Anet.

I’m not gonna participate in that one time event on Sunday.

Why ? Hmmm, many reasons :

- The lag. The fuppying (contraction of a bad word and puppy. I find it better than kitten) LAG. "Yeah guys ! Let’s do an event in the middle of Lion’s Arch, with so many people (even in overflow) that you don’t even see anything ! No NPC, no players, no mobs ! But…. let’s make it so the mobs can kill you ! Awesome !

- The event in itself. Another boring killing task when you don’t even know what you’re doing here and what’s going on. For like thirty minutes of mashing your keys in hope your skill finally launches. Yeah ! Thank you Anet \o/ That’s so unlike any other MMO I’ve played !

- Who needs such events ? I mean, why would we want events, or investigation so stupid that they send you a mail telling you step by step what to do ? Any rewards ? No of course not, the rewards are just there to make you spend your money in useless things. So, who cares ?

Anyway, on Sunday, just know that there will be one free spot that I leave to anyone who has the courage to do that boring, uninteresting, stuff. Yeah, stuff. That’s the name it deserve.

Not sure if this is even possible but perhaps the solution lies in “Special Event Servers”. Before new content is released, give all players a chance to pick a new temporary sever best suited to their time.

For example, aim for three set times to suit the biggest player groups and then provide a selection of servers for each of those groups. Oceanic, European…and so on. All groups would have a few servers each to accommodate the player base of that demographic.

It would not be perfect, as one group would get content early and the others would have to wait, but at least everyone would have the chance to experience it in a setting the “one time events” are designed for.

After the event, you can go back to your home server and do as you please. WvWvW would be a problem but hey…I’m no expert, just throwing the idea out there!

So looking at all the drama, with the event seams like Anet should have listened to us about making the event into an Instance to stop all the drama.

We have been told to deal with not getting the main event on Sunday/ Monday and enjoy the other content throughout the weekend, but none seams to be enjoying standing around bugged npc’s to advance the story line.

So lets get it all in a nut shell.

No main event (deal with it)

Enjoy the other content ( can’t all bugged)

No rewards cause we can’t make the events

Select few getting rewards creating another bunch of elitism players favoured by Anet.

So can we get a soulotion ?

Take the week or 2 weeks to fix all the bugs.

Make events an instance playable only once per account to eliminate the lag

And finally give every players account ,only once, the rewards to the event’s and 2 of the new chests for the drama.

Oh and please consider an Oceanic Server Please please , so we can take some of the load out of the other servers, we seamed to not have as much drama in Guild Wars events due to the spread over the servers.

cheers Phabby

I endured the lag-fest (even from Oceania) and the rewards were OK but I still cannot see anything one-time about what was played. Nothing changed in Lions Arch, the island is there, the mobs are there, the settlements are there, nothing has changed at all…..the only one-time thing was the ancient crab (and his hangers on). What is so one-time about this? More a policy issue than a “technical” one it looks like.

Phases 1 and 2 were bugged to heck, phase 3 started at a time when I was busy and ended before I logged in this evening.

Here’s my feedback: I’d have been happier with the new content if it had just appeared without this weekend’s events.

Pretty much all the events were bugged for me until they weren’t available anymore. The final event happened around 6:30am my local time and I had stuff to do in the morning, so I cant really give feedback since I didn’t exactly get to do any of it.

New zone was pretty though.

Black Moon.8540:

i know area net has to think about the bigger groups and all. But what about people with work and school, is there anyway we could be in it :C i dont wanna miss a boss

No fret! The new content is going to be permanent with us, plus there is a large reddit rumor going around that ANet is planning on a scavenging event to farm precursors again!

Always look on the bright side of life!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo

MatthewMedina.5419:

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

That being said, as a working adult I hate your decision. Between the day 1 fiasco of nothing working, and not being able to partake in day 3. I personally consider the event a failure from my personal standpoint.

Why make one time events?
Why not have it reoccur every 3 hours and have you only able to loot once?
edit: 1 loot per account.

Mighty Assasin.3816:

Why make one time events?
Why not have it reoccur every 3 hours and have you only able to loot once?
edit: 1 loot per account.

Because WoW doesn’t do that and anything that it doesn’t do is automatically good.

I don’t mind that I didn’t get to play this event.

However, I do care that everyone who played got a 1-2% chance at getting precursor and I did not.

That is really poor. Even if Arenanet add some scavenging event for precursors, it still means I missed out on the 1-2% lottery that all the US and European customers got to take part in.

This event should respawn every hour for 24 hours – it should have had a Special Event achievement attached to it. Anyone who has already earned the achievement gets 0% chance of a precursor (i.e., no double dipping). Anyone who didn’t have the achievement gets 1-2% chance as per normal.

This way everyone in the world gets a chance to play the event and have a one in a hundred chance at winning a weapon worth 250 gold (the achievement would block people from farming the event for precursors).

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

I don’t mind that I didn’t get to play this event.

However, I do care that everyone who played got a 1-2% chance at getting precursor and I did not.

That is really poor. Even if Arenanet add some scavenging event for precursors, it still means I missed out on the 1-2% lottery that all the US and European customers got to take part in.

This event should respawn every hour for 24 hours – it should have had a Special Event achievement attached to it. Anyone who has already earned the achievement gets 0% chance of a precursor (i.e., no double dipping). Anyone who didn’t have the achievement gets 1-2% chance as per normal.

This way everyone in the world gets a chance to play the event and have a one in a hundred chance at winning a weapon worth 250 gold (the achievement would block people from farming the event for precursors).

I couldn’t agree more.

I dislike this one time event decision too. It has made me feel frustrated that I don’t get to take part as Iam from Australia. I missed out on the last boss fight and a chance to get some nice loot. I feel like Anet doesn’t care about anyone who isn’t American.

I’d buy gems every month as a way of supporting what I thought was a great company and game. But I feel what’s the point when Anet doesn’t care about some of it’s customers.

Iam not going to spend anymore money on this game if Iam missing out on content, I will not buy anymore gems or invest in furture expansions until they get rid of one time events.
I can’t get anyone I know interested in playing as they said what’s the point in buying a game to miss out on stuff.

I think most of the stuff I’m bringing up has been said already, but I’d like to make mention of it just the same.

Firstly, I think it’s awesome that you’re continuing the high standard from Guild Wars 1 in providing new content at a decent rate (Sorrow’s Furnace probably being the equivalent of this). Secondly, staggering it over overflow (albeit a major “Guide Dang It” moment for most of the people who missed it, or are going for extra rewards) was a good move, but not a whole fix.

Clearly, it would be too much stress on the game to have the event go on every hour in every server, especially if players were not locked out after just one go (of course, if they were locked out, that would prompt its own slew of protests). That said, though, while the idea of a one-time event is exciting—in fact, it was awesome for the Beta Weekend Event finales—it probably causes more immediate game and community stress than spreading it out over a day or two.

The Beta Weekend finales, the Mad King’s entrance, etc. were (at least in my opinion) examples of one-time events done well, because the experience just that: an experience. Participating players get the thrill of being there, while those who miss out can either watch it on Youtube (without the same immersiveness), or at worst, they haven’t really missed out on any benefits.

The finale for this event, on the other hand, is a different story simply because it offers loot. Exclusive loot, at that—the box and accessory—and a chance for the infamous legendary precursors. Understandably, whatever portion of the player base works Sundays, or lives in an inconvenient time zone, will be upset that they’re missing out on (essentially) several dozen gold in drops, even if they can still watch the (laggy) proceedings on Youtube.

Ironically, an even larger portion missed the action because of the sheer volume of players fighting, getting disconnected, or crashing; wasn’t that expected and prepared for, considering its nature as an open-world “one-time event” with loot incentives?

I’ve heard about compensating those who attended but were disconnected, and I just read about the possibility of a scavenger hunt for some of the loot, which makes me (and hopefully most of us) much less upset, if true; still, much of the concerns (and the associated whining, and the harsh debate, and everything else that accompanies negative feedback) could have been avoided if the Ancient Karka event was spread out over a longer time span. If it wasn’t feasible at the time, that particular event could have been delayed until things settled down.

Summary: Yeah, it’s good that people feel special if they can join a one-time event and get awesome gear for free, and it certainly helps the “epicness” factor (as long as it’s not too laggy to be playable), but having it spread over a couple days rather than a couple hours gives current players the same power boost across more regions and work commitments, while not making any difference to (reasonable) exclusivists a year down the road. And if the resource commitment for repeats would have been too hard to meet given the circumstances, the time-limited event could have been saved for a better time.

(Personally, I would have been content for a previously innocuous zone to suddenly be desecrated by a rampaging Ancient Karka a couple months down the road.)

One time events, imo, should be just that… but not a one time global event. You should be able to do the event anytime you want… and then it disappears so you can’t do it again during the event weekend.

It’s neat having a global event, i get that, but if there are rewards and only people who schedule RL to run concurrently with arena net’s schedule gets these rewards and experiences… that’s kind of cheating me out of an experience that’s unique to this game.

I can get to my PC within the weekend… but right at a specific time and not ever again?

Kind of lame, imo.

MatthewMedina.5419:

We know that this is a topic that’s going to be heavily discussed, and we definitely want as much of your feedback as possible, both positive and negative (so long as it remains constructive and within the guidelines of the rules of conduct).

So now that the event is over, I am sure ArenaNet has the numbers. What percentage of players actually experienced the final one-time event, specifically the Ancient Karka battle?

So is Anet actually going to give us oceanic players a reasonable answer to their discriminating against our time zone and the fact they have given out items that we could not of ascertained due to their policy ? now you have done what you said you would never do create an in balance within the game between players .

very very upset with anet and their one time event crap

Stupid design. The computer doesn’t mind running the event several times so everyone can participate and get rewarded (once!), lag gets spread out and bugs aren’t such an annoyance. As opposed to the “purity” of it being a one off event that tells large sections of your player base it’s not for them.

Run the event 4 times over a day and the issue largely vanishes and nothing of value is lost.

My Gawd! I’d like to formally and sincerely apologize to the Aussies and Oceanic players among us as well as those who had to work and fulfil other obligations. I honestly had no clue they were gonna put multiple exotics, rares, a guaranteed 20 slot bag and exotic accessory and above all, the chance for Legendary precursors no less, at the culmination of this weekend’s event. Seriously, that’s pretty huge to exclude so many players from for the sole reason that their schedule just simply won’t allow it. I truly believed that, #1; like the Mad King event, there wouldn’t be literally just one single solitary shot at the climax event, and #2: that they would tack on items that could at the very least produce a very noticeable chunk of change (at least for those who can’t / won’t sling their disposable income at purchasing their gems) and at the most huge upgrades and a VERY LARGE step toward crafting a legendary. The games that are subscription based with the classic raiding end game structure and as a matter of course, the high-end loot gaining mechanic that is part and parcel there of, don’t (and likely would never) offer any event (“one time” or otherwise) that would just fling the doors wide open to allow such a quick advance in loot upgrades. MOST importantly though, only for the few who’s schedules would allow it.

This event is, to me at least now, plain mind boggling in it’s concept alone, to say nothing of it’s implementation. I mean… WOW! Legendary precursors that generally go for 100’s of gold? Even a 20 slot bag – they’re genrally what, 10g at least? Then add a few rares and exotics and a high end amulet to garnish this “amazing dish of WTF”. I’m truly baffled.

If it’s any consolation though, you did miss a dose of frustration the likes of which I never dreamed could occur in a video game! I had a power surge just before it kicked off, then crashed 3 times throughout the day trying to get this thing done. In the end I lucked out literally by the skin of my teeth. Roughly HALF of the others in attendance who also crashed with like 5% to go weren’t so lucky though. Even if the concept of this farce could be explained, it’s implementation was a God kittened Greek tragedy!

You probably can’t tell from my above comments but I like this gaming company more than any others pumping MMO’s out at present and I DO still have faith in them to make this work and be the casual gamer’s salvation. This abomination though… I just… um… yeah, WOW! Hopefully, an olive branch will be offered though and lesson learned. Then back on track for developing this grind-lite game with fun and challenging dungeons, a great crafting system that’s just ripe for all kinds of cool additions and stuff, and a PvP / WvW game that’s, at the very least, on the “rightest” track to true balance, competition, and outright fun than any prior (including ’ol man WoW – EASILY too).

Again my apologies, I spoke before I truly knew what I was speaking about. Here’s hoping that ALL of us, despite geography, schedules, etc. can just move on and move past, well… whatever this was, and enjoy this game for years to come.

Hi Arenanet, I know you say you read these posts, even if you rarely respond.

I realise that (A) you couldnt make everone happy, and (B) lifes not fair.

Im from South Africa, which means my event ran into the early hours of the morning on a work night. I was not able to complete it and still make work today, which gives me the money to buy your games.

Im worried reading this thread, about the fact that im way off american time? does this mean that like i missed out on the apparently awesome chest from last night, i will continue to miss out on content becuase there arent enough players in my country?

But in terms of moving forward now, please oh please try to not make the event happen at one time in future, i realise that this creates a logistical headache. maybe disable server swaps during that day but announce beforehand, what time things are happening on each server and therefore we are able to pick one that suits us.
Show some love for your supporters in far-flung lands

I’m just going to stop playing tbh… I mean, 6am where I live and I had an exam at 9am… there was no possible way I could make the event, I don’t mind missing an event but when it gives out loot that tbh shouldn’t be in the chest, well whatever, obviously they don’t care about us down under and so i’m going elsewhere :\

MatthewMedina.5419:

Offering events like this at multiple times for different time zones is certainly worth considering, but given our team’s goals and the timeline we had to operate in (we fielded our team immediately after shipping the Live game), it just wasn’t feasible for us to consider such an option for this particular event.

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

Considering the fact that when players complete certain events and can only open the chest once a day for that event, take Temple of Grenth for example, why can’t you make this Lost Shore event repeatable within the day so players can actually attend it and loot the chest? Those who actually participated in the event earlier will not be able to loot the chest but still be able to participate in the event.

While having 1-time event is cool, but having it while offering players such a good loot at the end of the event is not cool at all. What’s worse is putting an item that is worth at least 100g on the tradepost in it as a RNG.
Since this is not even a repeatable event, you’re sowing discord and jealousy amongst the players.

I can say this and I’m pretty sure it applies to many other players. We’re fine with missing out one-time event. We can always youtube it and see the cutscene or event sequence. However, having such RNG on a non-repeatable one time event is just horrible. Those who did the same event and did not get a precursor and those who could not attend the event are just going to feel sour, disappointed and demotivated.
It’s fine if it’s just something that is not of such a big value like a 20 slotted bag and an exotic earring. It’s not that expensive and everyone needs it. But giving out precursors? Not everyone needs it and even then, it’s economy breaking.

They did tell us that we wouldn’t want to miss this event. We were warned.. but then they said the same thing about the Halloween one time event and that turned out to be not worth losing the better part of a nights sleep.

How ever are we supposed to tell when Anet’s being serious?

Seriously? a One time event, that American and probably some parts of Europe can attend? What about the rest of the world? Your Oceanic and Asian customers? What are we to you Anet? Are we of a lower importance than others?

Hearing that there were interesting and rare loots drops, certainly did not help at all. So we are either forced to skip school/work, or sleep just so that we can attend your one time event, or miss out on the potential loot that will separate us from the rest of those who could attend?

Is this the kind of behaviour you should be encouraging? Children skipping school, adults skipping work, to attend your events, so as to not be left out?