Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to agree: this update is awesome. You can’t have a world-wide invasion every two weeks, but this one sure is fun. It’s definitely all that the devs promised, in my opinion. It feels like mini-karka events every hour!

It really plays to one of the biggest strengths of GW2: random, ungrouped partying with strangers to accomplish a large goal. I’ve managed to join overflow maps that have succeeded a couple times now and it’s a really cool feeling. They also give you heavy incentive to stay to the end, even if you’re losing, which is also nice. Honestly this is probably one of the best planned events they’ve done since Halloween.

Like many have said, it also shows off GW2’s biggest weakness: zergs. But at the same time, these are easily the least buggy/slow zergs I’ve been in, and you can tell that they have really been working to make their code better. All those particle effect reductions and character model replacement experiments have really paid off: this is WORLDS better than the karka event. And it still requires huge, map-wide coordination and a little more effort than just running around in order to get the best reward. There’s even a mechanic in place to tempt everyone, and/or allow for really good players to up their rewards: stick around and kill the extra champs that spawn after a portal event finishes, or go? One gets you more loot now, but it might lose you the map! Very much in the spirit of how GW2 works.

Some people like jumping puzzles, and some people like farming. There are tons of playstyle preferences, just like there are tons of players. But huge, open-world, co-op events with good rewards seem like one of the best parts of GW2 to me. And so I’m really enjoying this update!

Eli Stormstrike.8637:

Could be the worst patch to date on the technical side of things.
Culling removed in combination with an LS patch where the whole server bunches up in one area of one map, with overflows in overflows where events don’t happen and people are stuck.

All-in-all, good idea, poorly executed, terrible design, lag.

I got a very outdated PC, but even I barely lagg.

i like it, good patch, way better than that utter filth that was Liadri, Liadri was so stupid, i did it, but so dumb and stupid….

Shpongle.6025:

i like it, good patch, way better than that utter filth that was Liadri, Liadri was so stupid, i did it, but so dumb and stupid….

Don’t play coy. We all know your heart secretly burns for Liadri. We’ve seen the love shrine to her you’ve built in your closet.

Shpongle.6025:

i like it, good patch, way better than that utter filth that was Liadri, Liadri was so stupid, i did it, but so dumb and stupid….

“Doesn’t like certain content. Goes to every topic to rant about it, even if it’s offtopic.”

I think LA can be called LA. Everything else needs more clarification. Say “DR” and I’ll not connect it to Divinity’s Reach because I rarely ever go there.

Humans…. think the whole world revolves around them. #smh

;)

Sucellus.3749:

Lucky you I was waiting in overflow, and when I finally could travel to the homeworld the event was over.

Overflows are the problem with this idea. I would suggest they go and have a long, hard think about alternatives.

DeWolfe.2174:

I think LA can be called LA. Everything else needs more clarification. Say “DR” and I’ll not connect it to Divinity’s Reach because I rarely ever go there.

Humans…. think the whole world revolves around them. #smh

;)

I agree, when one of the NPC’s used DR as an abbreviation in the dialogue I was thinking… what in the blue hells is DR? and it only hit me towards the end what it was referring to.

It’s good to see that these cultural cities are used in the Living Story, haven’t visited Divinity in a while so it was good to see it again, and populated too.

It’s a shame thinking about it, cause the artists have spent a great deal of time building these cities and most of them aren’t even used, though as common practice players do tend to stick to the city that has the most connectivity to the game world, in this case LA.

Though back on topic with this stage of the LS, it’s great to see the numbers in the maps, especially in LA, feels more like a city now with the culling off, before it felt like a small outpost if you know what I mean.
The invasion event has been the most fun I’ve had with the LS since F&F’s final dungeon.

I was initially a little miffed at the wait times for the invasions, until I started “waiting” for them.
“30 minutes to go? Guess I’ll work on my sPVP daily.”
“Ah shoot, finished my daily but just missed the time frame. Well, more sPVP!”
-Gets into next event-
“Whelp, looks like a few minutes before they announce the next zone. I guess I’ll go level one of my alts for a bit, I think he’s behind on his PS.”
“Whoops, missed that queue as well. MORE PS WHILE I WAIT! : D”

I always find something to occupy my time, but I guess it’s because I genuinely enjoy most of this game. I’m even starting to enjoy WvW (a little bit). And I’ve hated WvW from day one!

This has been a fun event so far! I really enjoyed the Jubilee and Clockwork Chaos is proving to be enjoyable as well.

I very much like the new method of cutscenes and there was some great writing with Scarlet as well as the side-scenes with Rox and Braham (and Hobo-tron and Marcello).
It’s also nice to see characters acting in clever ways. Jennah using her illusions (okay it was Anise’s idea) and Scarlet’s ruthless tactics.

And most importantly the story is being presented in a clear and engaging way, rather than having story elements spread over a zone or different cut-scenes trusting to blind luck that players happen to stumble across all the critical plot points. I also hope we’ll no longer be seeing things like Braham and Ottilia’s interactions that were hidden away in a remote corner of a zone that characters little reason to visit save for the meta-event.
It really feels like ArenaNet has figured out they are telling the story in a MMO, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with it.

Rozbuska.5263:

I must agree Invasion are great. There is simply something what makes that mindless champ farming actualy fun. I dont know what is it:-)

Feels like the Queen’s Pavilion but in the open world lol It is entertaining to run through these familiar (or perhaps unfamiliar) zones and see all the chaos.

I really like how they are bringing characters back to other areas of the world. It’s fun to see all the people hanging around DR, I’d like to see the same happen for Hoelbruk and the Black Citadel sometime!

Clarification: You need to get to the overflow within 10 minutes of the invasion starting or you will need to wait about 45 minutes for the next one to begin.

This is a VERY important point. Something like this should be clarified in the patch notes. In bold.

I would have wanted to voice my opinion, but it’s hard to play the update when the game crashes every 10 minutes.

Kudos to Anet. Now that they first wave of people has passed it’s a lot of fun doing the PvE stuff. I even fought with just 2 to 5 people till reinforcements arrived. lol Felt pretty epic.

it was a pain getting to some of the locations in time (entirely my fault, had forgotten i hadn’t gotten 100% map completion with the rebooted ranger) but once i managed to hit an invasion spot, it was crazy fun… and just plain crazy really.

explosions left and right, confused risen wondering why the player characters just mow them down on their way to the next pin, sad twisted clockworks getting impaled all over the place… and a ticking clock (my try managed to get Scarlet with less than 2 minutes to go, gf’s run about two hours later got her within the last 10 seconds)

well done, though a larger time window would be quite nice

To people who don’t like mindless zergs, DON’T DO EM! Grab some guildies and go to the events without zergs if you truely don’t care about champ farming. There are more than enough!

Sorry, but this is not good content! More zergfests! More loot spam! moar lags! Half the time I get stuck in overflows, which then don’t even have the event which I came to that zone for. And when I do complete one of the invasions, it doesn’t register for the storyline achievements.

Yes, they have outdone themselves, by failing once more. I’d really rather have less living world content, if it was good for a change.

This was definitely the event to roll out the removal of PvE culling. Without all the players the game would definitely seem boring at these events.

Scott McGough.6897:

Man In Zero G.8312:

Murderous Clown.9723:

Man In Zero G.8312:

I’ve loved it so far – the only complaint I have is NPCs referring to Divinity’s Reach as “DR” in dialogue…. that’s extremely immersion breaking, to be honest. Otherwise fantastic event!

Why? We use initials like that in real life e.g. LA and KL. I don’t see why Tyrians wouldn’t do the same.

Mostly because it’s all of the sudden. Never in the history of the game until now has an NPC referred to Lion’s Arch as LA, for example, (though players do) – or BC, or RS – it’s the same with Divinity’s Reach; never before now has it happened in game (or in the fiction as far as I’ve read). And it wasn’t just Scarlet, I’m pretty sure I heard Rox and/or our new asura sidekick do it too.
It just felt like poor editing on the scripts before they got to the voice actors is all. (i.e. it was meant to be Divinity’s Reach, but was shorthanded while writing, and never got changed in editing – pure conjecture, but that’s what it feels like.)

There actually is a precedent here: Lord Faren referred to Divinity’s Reach as “ol’ DR” several times while he was on Southsun Cove.

And as everyone knows, he’s a trend-setter.

Who?
I’m sorry. I must have missed that part of the story, whilst in Southsun. I remember people standing around, crabs and something about getting a back piece but this “Faren” guy doesn’t ring a bell.

I have a low-end machine and the only time I experience slowdown now is killing Scarlet, and that’s because literally the entire map’s population is in one tiny area. (Thanks for upping her HP, btw – now everyone actually can get credit!) I recall when the karka invaded Lion’s Arch and that was a <1 fps stuttering mess. Akittens worst, this event is still playable for me. SO MUCH BETTER.

I will agree with others that calling Divinity’s Reach “DR” was quite jarring, and didn’t seem appropriate at all. People don’t call it “DR” because it’s a nickname; they call it that because they hate typing. While there are maybe a handful of actual cities in this world that are called by their initials – like Los Angeles or Atlanta – the vast majority of city names are nicknames, not initials. Calling Rata Sum “The Cube” or something like that would make much more sense. Calling it “RS” just inhibits communication and looks… dumb.

Actually, I’ll go further: it looks like you don’t know why you’re calling it that. Since shortening Divinity’s Reach to “DR” comes from typing and not speaking, it’s very unnatural to see it used in speech. It’s like you don’t know why people call it that, but you think that’s cool and it’s just the “way something is done,” so you mimic it out of the correct context. It reminds me of seeing little kids hold their fingers to their ears when they’re singing pop songs. They have no idea why they’re doing it: it’s just “what is done” and they think it’s cool and they mimic it out of context. The reason they hold their fingers to their ears is because many modern pop singers perform in concert with ear monitors, and so they have to cover their ears so they can hear themselves and stay on tune (when they’re not lip-syncing, anyway). It has nothing to do with how they are emoting or how to sing correctly. But kids don’t understand why they’re doing it – they just mimic the behavior.

BobbyStein.2315:

I understand why it might sound jarring to some, but we’re experimenting with dialog to make it sound a little more natural.

This achieves the opposite.

I have really enjoyed this event. I wouldn’t say that I love every aspect of it, but overall I think Anet outdid themselves on this one. Loads of fun, things to do, rewards, etc.

Those with lower end machines I feel bad for you, but I think Anet did the right thing here. Sorry.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

DoctorOverlord.8620:

This is a VERY important point. Something like this should be clarified in the patch notes. In bold.

Actual release note:
All overflow maps created within 10 minutes of the start of the invasion will host a concurrent version of that hour’s event.

Except that the player has no way of telling when an overflow was created. They join within the 10 minute time limit, get into an overflow and…..nothing…..“return to your home world”, etc.

So, what do you have to say about that?

Elbegast.6970:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

DoctorOverlord.8620:

This is a VERY important point. Something like this should be clarified in the patch notes. In bold.

Actual release note:
All overflow maps created within 10 minutes of the start of the invasion will host a concurrent version of that hour’s event.

Except that the player has no way of telling when an overflow was created. They join within the 10 minute time limit, get into an overflow and…..nothing…..“return to your home world”, etc.

So, what do you have to say about that?

Logic:

-joins overflow
-observes there is no metaevent
-concludes that this overflow was created past the 10 minute cutoff

What I love about this event is that failure is a possibility.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

What I love about this event is that failure is a possibility.

You must have a different definition of ‘failure’ than my own.

Do the zones stay populated with pirates and steam mechs after the event fails?
Do enemy reinforcements arrive with materials to build a forward base of operations if the event fails?
Do players go unrewarded if the event fails?

Vol.5241:

Elbegast.6970:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

DoctorOverlord.8620:

This is a VERY important point. Something like this should be clarified in the patch notes. In bold.

Actual release note:
All overflow maps created within 10 minutes of the start of the invasion will host a concurrent version of that hour’s event.

Except that the player has no way of telling when an overflow was created. They join within the 10 minute time limit, get into an overflow and…..nothing…..“return to your home world”, etc.

So, what do you have to say about that?

Logic:

-joins overflow
-observes there is no metaevent
-concludes that this overflow was created past the 10 minute cutoff

I think what he’s talking about is when the player enters the overflow in the first 10 minutes and there’s no event. It’s possible because the overflow could have already existed at the top of the hour. This is especially possibly on maps with popular mega’s that occurred toward the end of an hour. This, however, would seem a relatively minor problem with an otherwise great event overflow implementation.

In my opinion, players who do not attempt to go to an event as soon it pops on the top of the hour do not have a right to complain when they later go and don’t get in one. This would actually seem like a feature to prevent those who think it’s their right to farm event completions without putting in any of the effort for the event.

Inspired.6730:

In my opinion, players who do not attempt to go to an event as soon it pops on the top of the hour do not have a right to complain when they later go and don’t get in one. This would actually seem like a feature to prevent those who think it’s their right to farm event completions without putting in any of the effort for the event.

I won’t argue against that. This design, however, really should have been introduced with a mechanic that would allow people to easily rejoin their overflow in case of disconnect, and such disconnects should not cause the event to not be counted for achievements (as it’s currently the case).

This blasted event is boring me to death! Boss farming is ok for an hour or so, but good loot or not (usually not for me, I’ve yet to find anything decent in this event) I do not want to be doing zergs ALL THE FRIKKING TIME! Zerg farming is all this event is good for, I can’t do anything more interesting cos everyone’s been so starved of good gold farming over the past year that it’s next to impossible to find a decent dungeon party.