Guild Wars 2

I just step into southsun cove and someone puts up an item preview for one of the new items. As usual I check it out, and I like it! It’s a little item that looks like a flower on your back. What bothered me was the flavor text ON the item. It completely spoils why the creatures on Southsun are getting so aggressive and who’s doing it. I hadn’t even done any of the events yet and now some of the mystery is gone.

My mind is boggled. I know its the reward for the end of an achievement now, so it makes some sense, but people share codes like that in chat all the time. Something like “Levvi’s gift for helping her out” would’ve worked just fine and not be a spoiler. It’s not a big thing, but its a little spoiler that I had no idea I was walking into on something as simple as a back item.

I got spoiled by people talking about Zhaitan early on in the game. It’s a risk when interacting with players who may be further along than you.

I noticed the spoiler as well and am a little disappointed.

Unlike the OP, I noticed the flavor text when I was looking at the new achievements – I hovered over the reward chest at the end of one of the achievements and read the reward item’s stats and flavor text. So yes, you can see the spoiler even without interacting with other players

Vahkris.6847:

I got spoiled by people talking about Zhaitan early on in the game. It’s a risk when interacting with players who may be further along than you.

There’s a difference between players spoiling it and the company doing it. ANet could easily change the text to something else that reflected the item that wasn’t a spoiler.

Tip for whoever writes the flavor text for these items: Please don’t put a story spoiler right on the item so that looking at it the first time it gets linked in guild chat it ruins the mystery for everyone who hasn’t finished the story achievement yet. =P

This is in regards to the Fervid Censer.

It’s not just this item, there are spoilers everywhere on the achievements.

The main atagonist:
Canach

His minion
"Canach's Golem, Subdirector NULL"

part of the mystery of the Island
"wildlife aggravating toxins"

and possibly the final boss encounter
"Crazed Karka Queen"

edit:
And to my knowledge nothing of this is in the game until the next phase on the 28th.

Awesome. Someone wasn’t thinking straight over there, for sure.

You don’t market a ‘mystery’ and then spoil it right off the bat, sheesh.

Agreed. Too much is spoiled.

I made a post about this earlier, and I’m in total agreement.
I don’t know why they couldn’t use a different text, or put in question marks for spoiler achievements, especially since some aren’t even available to complete yet.

I noticed this as well and im pretty dissapointed about it. Even the npc’s around Southsun are wondering what is causing the wildlife to be aggressive (implying that no one knows yet).
i honestly dont appreciate the items/achievements spoiling the story for us on the first day.

I got disappointed as well. Getting the whole thing spoiled before my eyes in an instant, it put me in a bad mood.

I cheered myself up with some Crab Tossing, it worked to some degree but this still bugs me, because the story, the lore, is everything to me.

All of the achievements at the moment (the ones under the crab toss achievements) are spoiling the story. Thanks anet.

You can’t actually get the item yet, can you? The patch notes said you wouldn’t be able to get it until the next release because certain achievements required for the major story achievement which gives the item aren’t attainable until then.

If that’s the case, then I can’t really fault Anet for players digging into the game code and looking at stuff they aren’t supposed to see yet, then posting it via item codes. If you aren’t supposed to get the item until the end of the storyline (when the flavor text wouldn’t be a spoiler any more) then thats the fault of the people looking through the game code and posting it everywhere, not the developers.

The achievements are a problem if they spoil things as has been stated in this post, though. Because those ARE viewable under normal circumstances.

You can get both of the backpacks, it took 1-2 hours to get them and a lot of players have them already.

Really? Pah. Thats the last time I trust the patch notes instead of just getting in the game and checking.

If thats the case, then I agree, they REALLY need to avoid spoilers in areas that you can easily see like item descriptions and achievements. Leave the description blank and fill it in after the event or something if you want to have a spoiler in the item description, but don’t just put it in there for all to see right from the get-go. Thats rather terrible to spoil the entire plot based on an item description. I guess now I’ll have to try and avoid looking at the description once I get the item…

One thing has really kitten me off about the new living story.

WHY would you release achievements that we cannot earn yet?

What you have done is ruined the southsun story for me. firstly I spent an hour looking for ways to complete the associated achievements before someone in map chat asked about it and someone replied ‘its not in the game yet’. And worse than that, I now know some of the future bosses and pieces of content that are coming up.
So thanks for that anet, and i hold my tongue, even when saying that I would’ve thought an intelligent bunch of designers wouldn’t overlook something as simple as this.

I was rather surprised too when I mouse-overed the little chest icon and it basically told me EXACTLY what was going on in Southsun right there and then, before I even had time to talk to any NPCs and figure out the plot for myself.

Agreed, not much of a “secret” when that much is given away without even setting foot on the beach. Very disappointing.

Invictus.1503:

Agreed, not much of a “secret” when that much is given away without even setting foot on the beach. Very disappointing.

Admittedly the only thing that disappointed me enough to make a separate thread about it.

The worst thing is i can see alot of players not giving a kitten. Thats no excuse for it arenanet and the players that have noticed do tend to agree with me (so far chatting to my guild and in game friends).

back to halloween and karka events we had question marks on content not yet released. why not now?

It would be nice if in the future, the achievements didn’t give the entire story away before you even start it.

I think they should lock the achievements that we can’t do, like what they did with the holiday monthlies.

The flower backpack essentially tells you the entire plot in its item description without any spoiler warning.

Why Anet? Why?

PopeUrban.2578:

The flower backpack essentially tells you the entire plot in its item description without any spoiler warning.

Why Anet? Why?

The entire plot? It just tells you what happened already, which you can sort of derive most of yourself. It doesn’t tell you the why. What were his motivations, did he really discover Southsun by chance? What is his overall plan? And what the hell is Sclerite, it looks nothing like the Karka.

Plenty to still be revealed IMO, even with the minor spoiling that did happen.

Zyphent.2967:

PopeUrban.2578:

The flower backpack essentially tells you the entire plot in its item description without any spoiler warning.

Why Anet? Why?

The entire plot? It just tells you what happened already, which you can sort of derive most of yourself. It doesn’t tell you the why. What were his motivations, did he really discover Southsun by chance? What is his overall plan? And what the hell is Sclerite, it looks nothing like the Karka.

Plenty to still be revealed IMO, even with the minor spoiling that did happen.

actually, as far as we knew, canach and noll just took flora samples, we didn’t know they also planted insanity flowers.

also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerite
it’s the material that crab and lobster shells are made of (sclera are also the whites of your eyes, hence the eyeball theme)

now why the heck a karka shell has tentacles I have no clue ;P

Calcifire.1864:

Zyphent.2967:

PopeUrban.2578:

The flower backpack essentially tells you the entire plot in its item description without any spoiler warning.

Why Anet? Why?

The entire plot? It just tells you what happened already, which you can sort of derive most of yourself. It doesn’t tell you the why. What were his motivations, did he really discover Southsun by chance? What is his overall plan? And what the hell is Sclerite, it looks nothing like the Karka.

Plenty to still be revealed IMO, even with the minor spoiling that did happen.

actually, as far as we knew, canach and noll just took flora samples, we didn’t know they also planted insanity flowers.

also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerite
it’s the material that crab and lobster shells are made of (sclera are also the whites of your eyes, hence the eyeball theme)

now why the heck a karka shell has tentacles I have no clue ;P

It seemed reminiscent of wind riders to me, or Jade maw. Does this mean mursaat?

Mursaat is an interesting comparison there – mursaat backs have more tendrils and the tendrils are more feathery, but there is a distinct similarity.

Probably just coincidence, but I guess we’ll see…

On the OP… it’s a very valid criticism. The fluff text for the flower should probably have avoided Canach’s name (possibly “This was used to…” rather than “Canach used this…” – and while it was good to know that there were other achievements to be made available later, it was rather spoilerish when the achievements told us up-front that we’d be going after Canach in a dungeon, that he’d have a golem subdirector, that a karka queen will be going on a rampage at some stage, and that at some stage there will be contracts being loaded onto a ship (…anyone else thinking that their character might prefer to accidentally drop a torch or a fireball on those contracts?). It would probably have been better to have such achievements left as “To be revealed” at least until the referenced content was activated – letting players know that more achievements will be coming, but not spoiling the story in the process.

Chopps.5047:

Calcifire.1864:

Zyphent.2967:

PopeUrban.2578:

The flower backpack essentially tells you the entire plot in its item description without any spoiler warning.

Why Anet? Why?

The entire plot? It just tells you what happened already, which you can sort of derive most of yourself. It doesn’t tell you the why. What were his motivations, did he really discover Southsun by chance? What is his overall plan? And what the hell is Sclerite, it looks nothing like the Karka.

Plenty to still be revealed IMO, even with the minor spoiling that did happen.

actually, as far as we knew, canach and noll just took flora samples, we didn’t know they also planted insanity flowers.

also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerite
it’s the material that crab and lobster shells are made of (sclera are also the whites of your eyes, hence the eyeball theme)

now why the heck a karka shell has tentacles I have no clue ;P

It seemed reminiscent of wind riders to me, or Jade maw. Does this mean mursaat?

Interesting!
But the eyes and tentacles still aren’t really like the Karka.

Zyphent.2967:

Chopps.5047:

Calcifire.1864:

Zyphent.2967:

PopeUrban.2578:

The flower backpack essentially tells you the entire plot in its item description without any spoiler warning.

Why Anet? Why?

The entire plot? It just tells you what happened already, which you can sort of derive most of yourself. It doesn’t tell you the why. What were his motivations, did he really discover Southsun by chance? What is his overall plan? And what the hell is Sclerite, it looks nothing like the Karka.

Plenty to still be revealed IMO, even with the minor spoiling that did happen.

actually, as far as we knew, canach and noll just took flora samples, we didn’t know they also planted insanity flowers.

also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerite
it’s the material that crab and lobster shells are made of (sclera are also the whites of your eyes, hence the eyeball theme)

now why the heck a karka shell has tentacles I have no clue ;P

It seemed reminiscent of wind riders to me, or Jade maw. Does this mean mursaat?

Interesting!
But the eyes and tentacles still aren’t really like the Karka.

this is something a guildie mentioned as a joke about the tentacles, but it’s technically possible and kinda gross:

so far, all the adult karka we’ve seen have been female, they are all capable of laying eggs after all, and the jokes from november likening them to “a va**na dentata with legs”.

if that’s true, we haven’t seen the male ones yet… and if they are similar to the female ones then those back pieces are going to quickly become the grossest things on tyria

Calcifire.1864:

Zyphent.2967:

Chopps.5047:

Calcifire.1864:

Zyphent.2967:

PopeUrban.2578:

The flower backpack essentially tells you the entire plot in its item description without any spoiler warning.

Why Anet? Why?

The entire plot? It just tells you what happened already, which you can sort of derive most of yourself. It doesn’t tell you the why. What were his motivations, did he really discover Southsun by chance? What is his overall plan? And what the hell is Sclerite, it looks nothing like the Karka.

Plenty to still be revealed IMO, even with the minor spoiling that did happen.

actually, as far as we knew, canach and noll just took flora samples, we didn’t know they also planted insanity flowers.

also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerite
it’s the material that crab and lobster shells are made of (sclera are also the whites of your eyes, hence the eyeball theme)

now why the heck a karka shell has tentacles I have no clue ;P

It seemed reminiscent of wind riders to me, or Jade maw. Does this mean mursaat?

Interesting!
But the eyes and tentacles still aren’t really like the Karka.

this is something a guildie mentioned as a joke about the tentacles, but it’s technically possible and kinda gross:

so far, all the adult karka we’ve seen have been female, they are all capable of laying eggs after all, and the jokes from november likening them to “a va**na dentata with legs”.

if that’s true, we haven’t seen the male ones yet… and if they are similar to the female ones then those back pieces are going to quickly become the grossest things on tyria

Are you in Strikeforce too?

It DOES kinda spoil what happened in the last Southsun event, that brought Southsun into existance. As a lore fan I WISH I had been able to do it.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy dumped 2 feet of water into my house and I didn’t get access to my PC until after November had ended (And my laptop was 7 years old and failing).

At least I’m gathering together bits and pieces now.

Chopps.5047:

Calcifire.1864:

Zyphent.2967:

Chopps.5047:

Calcifire.1864:

Zyphent.2967:

PopeUrban.2578:

The flower backpack essentially tells you the entire plot in its item description without any spoiler warning.

Why Anet? Why?

The entire plot? It just tells you what happened already, which you can sort of derive most of yourself. It doesn’t tell you the why. What were his motivations, did he really discover Southsun by chance? What is his overall plan? And what the hell is Sclerite, it looks nothing like the Karka.

Plenty to still be revealed IMO, even with the minor spoiling that did happen.

actually, as far as we knew, canach and noll just took flora samples, we didn’t know they also planted insanity flowers.

also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerite
it’s the material that crab and lobster shells are made of (sclera are also the whites of your eyes, hence the eyeball theme)

now why the heck a karka shell has tentacles I have no clue ;P

It seemed reminiscent of wind riders to me, or Jade maw. Does this mean mursaat?

Interesting!
But the eyes and tentacles still aren’t really like the Karka.

this is something a guildie mentioned as a joke about the tentacles, but it’s technically possible and kinda gross:

so far, all the adult karka we’ve seen have been female, they are all capable of laying eggs after all, and the jokes from november likening them to “a va**na dentata with legs”.

if that’s true, we haven’t seen the male ones yet… and if they are similar to the female ones then those back pieces are going to quickly become the grossest things on tyria

Are you in Strikeforce too?

nope, VILE :P

Chessrook.8643:

It DOES kinda spoil what happened in the last Southsun event, that brought Southsun into existance. As a lore fan I WISH I had been able to do it.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy dumped 2 feet of water into my house and I didn’t get access to my PC until after November had ended (And my laptop was 7 years old and failing).

At least I’m gathering together bits and pieces now.

actually, there is NOTHING referenced that is connected to what happened last time, other than canach and noll existing.

the backstory is that the consortium discovered southsun, sent noll, owain and canach to SSC to observe and make sure it was safe, told them to only observe and not interfere, however canach found a loophole that said they couldn’t obtain animal or mineral samples, but nothing was mentioned about plants. he got some flora samples, kitten off the karka by doing that, him and noll abandoned owain and ran back to LA, where they were followed by the karka hoping to get their favorite leaves back or whatever.

none of this is mentioned ANYWHERE in the current update, you may be tempted to think it was the insanity flowers that made the karka attack last time, but that, and the fact that it was intentionally caused by canach is just as new to us as it is to you.

Edited the title to hopefully bring more player attention to this.

Amadan.9451:

back to halloween and karka events we had question marks on content not yet released. why not now?

Because people didn’t like it. Because people kittened, whined, and moaned about not knowing. ‘Why put it there if we can’t know’ bullcrap. So now they give us all the information to appease those whine-kittens, and now a whole new group it kittening.

They really just can’t win. Give ’em a break.

OP, the problem is that when they make it a “mystery”, threads like this show up except more like “WHY NOT TELL US! blah blah blah blah”. I would like mystery too, but the only people that post are the ones who are annoyed or angry. If some people posted “The mystery in the living story is awesome” or something like that maybe it would have changed the outcome. As it is now everyone is fine until something is changed then they post. -_-

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Amadan.9451:

back to halloween and karka events we had question marks on content not yet released. why not now?

Because people didn’t like it. Because people kittened, whined, and moaned about not knowing. ‘Why put it there if we can’t know’ bullcrap. So now they give us all the information to appease those whine-kittens, and now a whole new group it kittening.

They really just can’t win. Give ’em a break.

there’s a difference between “you captured canach!” and “you defeated the mad king!”

for one, the mad king was always going to show up, the holiday is about him, the twist was that we had to keep him sealed, nobody actually expected him to break free like he did. canach, our characters actually have no idea he’s even involved, except because of the achievs, when we meet canach again, we’d have been all “holy s***, he escaped! how? wait, he was behind this all along? oh that m*****kitten he’s going down” but now it “oh hey, the boss fight’s opened up, LFG canach”

people would have reacted the same if the halloween achievement was “defeat the mad king to stop him breaking through the statue”

they could have had the best of both worlds, they could have had the achiev not as “you beat canach before he poisoned the island” but as “you stopped the mastermind behind the plot to poison the island”, we’d know the general point of the achiev (“beat the boss”), but not the specifics (“it was canach”)

Calcifire.1864:

so far, all the adult karka we’ve seen have been female, they are all capable of laying eggs after all, and the jokes from november likening them to “a va**na dentata with legs”.

if that’s true, we haven’t seen the male ones yet… and if they are similar to the female ones then those back pieces are going to quickly become the grossest things on tyria

False. There are two types of adult Veteran Karka. Those that lay eggs, and those that roll. The rollers don’t lay eggs, and I always referred to them as males. As a hive species the most powerful specimens (ancient and Champion) have always been female, which makes a certain amount of sense, and there’s no denying that these tend to have some of the “male” abilities tacked on, but there are definately adults that don’t, and likely can’t lay eggs.

Calcifire.1864:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Amadan.9451:

back to halloween and karka events we had question marks on content not yet released. why not now?

Because people didn’t like it. Because people kittened, whined, and moaned about not knowing. ‘Why put it there if we can’t know’ bullcrap. So now they give us all the information to appease those whine-kittens, and now a whole new group it kittening.

They really just can’t win. Give ’em a break.

there’s a difference between “you captured canach!” and “you defeated the mad king!”

for one, the mad king was always going to show up, the holiday is about him, the twist was that we had to keep him sealed, nobody actually expected him to break free like he did. canach, our characters actually have no idea he’s even involved, except because of the achievs, when we meet canach again, we’d have been all “holy s***, he escaped! how? wait, he was behind this all along? oh that m*****kitten he’s going down” but now it “oh hey, the boss fight’s opened up, LFG canach”

people would have reacted the same if the halloween achievement was “defeat the mad king to stop him breaking through the statue”

they could have had the best of both worlds, they could have had the achiev not as “you beat canach before he poisoned the island” but as “you stopped the mastermind behind the plot to poison the island”, we’d know the general point of the achiev (“beat the boss”), but not the specifics (“it was canach”)

Oh yes, there’s a difference, but like I said, they can’t win. No matter HOW they implemented it, people would have kittened.

As for knowing it all because you read through all the achievements, I actually hadn’t bothered with that yet. All the info I had thus far was just from going and wandering around the island. Talking to people, doing things. I didn’t know Canach was involved until the Lionguard chick had a convo with a settler NPC and I just happened to be there to hear it (I was running through at the time). Figured I’d just roam around and see what popped for completion, just enjoying the fun, before really delving into it.

Some people are like me, and approach it that way. Some people look at the list of achievements and prioritize them first, instead of just ‘experiencing’ the content. Other people go straight for the guide (do step 1, do step 2, etc) like mindless robots (personal opinion there) and then kitten that they don’t have anything left to do. None of it is wrong, but each method leaves you with a different flavor afterwards.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Calcifire.1864:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Amadan.9451:

back to halloween and karka events we had question marks on content not yet released. why not now?

Because people didn’t like it. Because people kittened, whined, and moaned about not knowing. ‘Why put it there if we can’t know’ bullcrap. So now they give us all the information to appease those whine-kittens, and now a whole new group it kittening.

They really just can’t win. Give ’em a break.

there’s a difference between “you captured canach!” and “you defeated the mad king!”

for one, the mad king was always going to show up, the holiday is about him, the twist was that we had to keep him sealed, nobody actually expected him to break free like he did. canach, our characters actually have no idea he’s even involved, except because of the achievs, when we meet canach again, we’d have been all “holy s***, he escaped! how? wait, he was behind this all along? oh that m*****kitten he’s going down” but now it “oh hey, the boss fight’s opened up, LFG canach”

people would have reacted the same if the halloween achievement was “defeat the mad king to stop him breaking through the statue”

they could have had the best of both worlds, they could have had the achiev not as “you beat canach before he poisoned the island” but as “you stopped the mastermind behind the plot to poison the island”, we’d know the general point of the achiev (“beat the boss”), but not the specifics (“it was canach”)

Oh yes, there’s a difference, but like I said, they can’t win. No matter HOW they implemented it, people would have kittened.

As for knowing it all because you read through all the achievements, I actually hadn’t bothered with that yet. All the info I had thus far was just from going and wandering around the island. Talking to people, doing things. I didn’t know Canach was involved until the Lionguard chick had a convo with a settler NPC and I just happened to be there to hear it (I was running through at the time). Figured I’d just roam around and see what popped for completion, just enjoying the fun, before really delving into it.

Some people are like me, and approach it that way. Some people look at the list of achievements and prioritize them first, instead of just ‘experiencing’ the content. Other people go straight for the guide (do step 1, do step 2, etc) like mindless robots (personal opinion there) and then kitten that they don’t have anything left to do. None of it is wrong, but each method leaves you with a different flavor afterwards.

the problem is, it’s not even the achievs that are the problem, the back item you get from the scanning pretty much screams “OH BY THE WAY CANACH IS INVOLVED AND HE’S THE CAUSE OF ALL THIS” when there is literally no way for us to have figured that out by this point, since it’s the only mention of canach at that point.

even if you were to assume “oh, so we figured that out from the scanning” there’s the people screaming in map chat about “HAY GUISE WHER CANAK AND QUEEN HURR DURR” it makes staying spoiler free nigh impossible.

Calcifire.1864:

the problem is, it’s not even the achievs that are the problem, the back item you get from the scanning pretty much screams “OH BY THE WAY CANACH IS INVOLVED AND HE’S THE CAUSE OF ALL THIS” when there is literally no way for us to have figured that out by this point, since it’s the only mention of canach at that point.

even if you were to assume “oh, so we figured that out from the scanning” there’s the people screaming in map chat about “HAY GUISE WHER CANAK AND QUEEN HURR DURR” it makes staying spoiler free nigh impossible.

You realize you’d have that crap in map chat anyway right?

You also realize that instead of threads saying ’why’d you give it away’ you’d have ‘oh its so and so’ instead. Sure, purely speculation (though I’m sure some woudl get it right) and then that would be spread around in map chat.

In addition to that you’d still get the threads complaining that they didn’t tell us – ‘we dont know what to expect, how can we prepare’.

So….what would you like them to do? Get kittened at by group A or group B? Maybe shut down map chat in the new area temporarily so no one can ‘ruin it’ for someone else?

So what that the story points out that Canach is involved. How did he escape? How precisely is he involved? What’s the grand plan? Will we only ‘catch’ him at the end, or does ‘catching’ entail killing the poor kitten? Maybe he’s involved but not the ultimate mastermind. Maybe he’s just a pawn being used by some greater threat, which in turn becomes the actual end boss for the arc. Did you achievement and scanning text tell you the answers to all that? I hardly feel its ruined when there is so much not answered at this point.

Completely agree with OP. Who cares about mapchat stuff anyway. The only way most of the players knew for sure was by looking at the achievements. They could have done some investigating on the island with NPC’s but they would have only gotten hints. Anet needs to work just a lil bit on the way they deliver the stories to us. Sometimes it feels as if were on the devs side with how much we know.

If it’s any consolation, as far as movies are concerned it’s been proven that, contrary to people’s repeated complaints, they subconsciously get more enjoyment from them with spoilers given before-hand. Perhaps the same can be applied here? The idea is to enjoy the story as a whole, since you’re less worried about what the ending might be. Basically, what LanfearShadowflame.3189 said.

Edit: And Auesis after me. =)

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/spoiler-alert-stories-are-not-spoiled-byspoilers

Add .html to that. Censoring destroyed it for some reason.

Agree wish story wasn’t ruined, half the fun is guessing what is gonna happen and the joy of always awaiting new discoveries

The thing is I’m pretty sure they could easily make both groups happy.

What people complained about with Halloween was not knowing where to go or what type of content was offered. They could tell us that without giving away the plot.

IMO they did a really good job with Wintersday, we knew to go to each major city on specific dates and we knew there would be a dungeon (or at least an instance for 5 players) when we got there. If I remember right we also knew the finale was called Toypocalypse but we didn’t know what the storyline was or exactly what would happen. I’m pretty sure a lot of people expected Tixx to turn evil and try to kill us all.

this isn’t a movie though, it’s a game, we’re actively supposed to be trying to figure out who was behind it and what was happening, and the mystery is the whole POINT, remember when SSC first came out and we were trying to figure out what caused the karka to attack? would it have been as much fun if we’d known it was just a sylvari picking flowers that the karka took offense to?

and F&F, remember how some people were looking for clues during the preludefor hints as to what was happening? would people have still done that if they knew it was the flame legion and the dredge?

games are different to movies, a movie just takes you along for the ride, no matter what you know or want, it’s never going to go off track, in a game, your knowledge will affect your actions

for example, in skyrim when entering markarth for the first time, a lady got murdered. when I replayed a few months later, I positioned myself so that the lady couldn’t get stabbed, and it changed the outcome, first time I was motivated to find more out about the forsworn because “why did they kill that person?” second time I did it because I knew it would lead to loot.

there’s knowing the right way to do something, and there’s experiencing it the first time, don’t people constantly mourn the loss of the times when they entered a dungeon and nobody knew what to do? I saw it all the time in WoW and I see it here as well.

spoilers may not matter in movies, but when you’re involved it’s a different story

The principle is the same though. You’ve seen what appears to be the ending so far, not what’s happened in between. The Skyrim example is what happens when you already know the progression of the story itself, and has little to do with the ending itself. This is what happens when you read a book twice, not when you flip to the last page from the get-go. The same is true for a dungeon you run multiple times, not if you kill the final boss and then go back to the beginning of the dungeon.

Look at it like this, everybody knew that we’d have to kill Zhaitan in the last dungeon, it’s obvious from the beginning, but that doesn’t mean the whole personal story was ruined. How is this any different?

I dont understand why some people were complaining at halloween about the lack of spoilers. As someone previously said, mad king was always going to show up, the fact that some people wanted to know how and why should be a good representation that the current narrative is intriguing enough for curiosity. Never have I seen people begging for more spoilers to be a negative and therefore shouldn’t be addressed by the company. I agree you cannot win with people, however I doubt anyone was ever going to be truly annoyed by a lack of spoilers directly from Anet. We are talking about story spoilers here right???

Simple solution to a simple problem. ONLY put achievements in the game if they can be earned. That way no one gets confused or annoyed.

It’s actually not true that you have no way of finding out Canach was involved/was spreading toxins yet outside the backpiece.

So I don’t think trying to hide his identity around the achievements and backpiece would have mattered because we could already find out he was involved (and it feels kind of obvious anyway, I can’t think of anyone else who would make half as much sense).

The future achievements they probably could have released later with the proper content like Flame and Frost, I’ll grant. But really, they’re still nothing more than vague suggestions and there’s a lot of room for how the rest of the story will flesh out. Like maybe Lord Faren will be our tag-along dungeon NPC to help take him down, that would be a surprise.

Calcifire.1864:

this isn’t a movie though, it’s a game, we’re actively supposed to be trying to figure out who was behind it and what was happening, and the mystery is the whole POINT, remember when SSC first came out and we were trying to figure out what caused the karka to attack? would it have been as much fun if we’d known it was just a sylvari picking flowers that the karka took offense to?

and F&F, remember how some people were looking for clues during the preludefor hints as to what was happening? would people have still done that if they knew it was the flame legion and the dredge?

games are different to movies, a movie just takes you along for the ride, no matter what you know or want, it’s never going to go off track, in a game, your knowledge will affect your actions

for example, in skyrim when entering markarth for the first time, a lady got murdered. when I replayed a few months later, I positioned myself so that the lady couldn’t get stabbed, and it changed the outcome, first time I was motivated to find more out about the forsworn because “why did they kill that person?” second time I did it because I knew it would lead to loot.

there’s knowing the right way to do something, and there’s experiencing it the first time, don’t people constantly mourn the loss of the times when they entered a dungeon and nobody knew what to do? I saw it all the time in WoW and I see it here as well.

spoilers may not matter in movies, but when you’re involved it’s a different story

And this. Completely agree with you. A game is about exploring in one way or another. Exploration has to travel a progressive path (ie the whole reason we have character progression, the reason why we dont get to jump to endgame upon char creation).

When exploring or interacting with a game narrative, you need mystery and intrigue to give enough reason to keep exploring and interacting to the next step of narrative.

When the dungeon Cananchs lair comes online (or fingers crossed meta chain), im going to faceroll my way through the content without any sense of connection with it and my virtual contribution to its supposed plot point.