Guild Wars 2

First off: I’m a subeditor off the german Wartower-Community. Lately we did a poll relating to the Living-Story-Content. As if you probably all know, a large part of the community isn’t very pleased.

Lebendige Geschichte oder klassische Addons?

Interessiert mich nicht (1.6%)

Anderer Vorschlag (1.9%)

14-tägige Updates wie bisher (3.7%)

Nicht so häufige Updates der lebendigen Geschichte (12.0%)

14-tägige Updates mit mehr bleibendem Inhalt (28.6%)

Nur klassische Addons mit bleibendem Inhalt (52.2%)

Stimmen: 2525

Result condensed: 52,2 % of 2.525 players like to have the classic Addons with more lasting content. Only 3,7 % like the way it is. I have to admit, that I’m part of the 52,2 %. I’d like more lasting content and do not like this two week circle.

In contrast: The Flame and Frost-Content was great, and also our Community felt like this. The period you released the new content felt very comfortable. The players were not forced to complete the content so quickly (even if some players did so …). I’d like to see, and a majority as well, the future content coming with more breaks between them, and especially with noticably less Achievments you can earn.

This forum part is Suggestions. I suggest, that you either go finally for a real good sound expansion like most of the genre did for years, because it is the right thing to do. Guilds come back together, people get back to the game for more than 2 days a month and the overall mood of the community will rise as well. If you are still opposed to an expansion full of more Tyria, or you have to make Colin happy with telling him, “Living Story is a great idea, Colin!” than please convince him, to take more time for it. Build greater chunks of content. No more daily grind and two weekly skin lottery. Give your writers time to get meaningful stories written. The release shows they can, if you let them.

Stop the “hey we can do it every 14 days” content, which feels the same over and over again for the bigger part of the last year now. Please!

Word!

By the way: I would like to bring a suggestion for new content my self. While my work as subeditor I noticed, that players really enjoy the start of the personal story, so do I. Many of them wish to whitness the personal problematics of their culture (Humans fighting against Centaurs and Bandits; Asura confronting the Inquest …). Also play with the “old” NPC’s you met, like your warband (my good old pal Maverick, or my College-Friends). I guess, it would be a very nice content, and therefor the maps would’nt be so cramped, because each race plays his own content. Important: Breaks between the individual storylines, no 14-day-terms, no grinding achievments.
Suggestion for rewards: Armor-Skins of the races enemy (Flame-Legion, Inquest, Bandits …). It would be a good opportunity to bring more spefic armors for all raced in the game, for example the Flame-Legion-Straps (footwear) we are asking in this and this thread for.

Bump. No proposals?

You have to see it from Anet’s side of view not just the players. Anet wants to make money (nothing wrong with that, it’s a part of business), GW2 is not offered with a subscription fee therefore it’s difficult to accomplish. The profit comes from the Black Lion Market and the purchase of the game itself. With so many games around in the last years it takes a lot of effort and good marketing that attracts a wide range of customers and keeps them in the game as well.

If we look at your proposal/poll we see that some people do not like the 2 week method of updates (lets not discuss why), while others do enjoy having content that switches every 2 weeks. It is difficult to please every player and in some cases that might not be possible. Anet has to make the decision of going with the so called “veterans/old school” players/community, or focusing on newer players or the so called “casual” player in the long run.

You have to keep in mind that not everybody has the same opinion when it comes to your proposal. I for one do enjoy the change of content and achievements. Some of the Achievements are unique and shouldn’t be repeated. A lot of people log in once every two weeks just to get those achievements, weapon skins or different armor etc. before going back to other games. Anet would be missing out on those called “spontaneous” log ins that happen every 2 weeks, and most people would get bored very quickly since GW2 has no so called end game content like other games.

I think what needs to happen is that they offer double content. As we have it right now for Halloween. Keep one content based on the story line and keep it permanent, that would give a variety of players the possibility to finish or re play content based on their schedule and enjoyment. The other content update every 2 weeks, this would give the veterans and newer players the possibility to only play that content and being excited when new content is released. But again, this is more work and at the end you can not please everybody.

However I think you can not go by one proposal/poll and have to look at the full context of the game and it’s community. But this is just my opinion and I would hate seeing it changed, since waiting 2 weeks for new content is already long and should be released much faster, same with the monthlies.

I don’t like the 2 weeks change of stuff either, this is partially to
why I stopped playing, though keeping an eye on how GW2 progress,
in hope ANet changes something that will make me come back,
or even better …make me feel welcome back.

Though my biggest concern is the thing with one-shot content,
where you are forced to do it, or lose out on it forever.
This is in my opinion as bad as a MMO’s with a shop that more
or less forces people to spent money to play and experience
their game to the fullest.

About the briefly touched issue of a game getting support,
in slurpey.6014s post:
From my experience I feel much more happy about buying
something in a shop if I know I will stay in the game, and I like it,
because I know I will spent ages in the game, hopefully, and will
not feel I ‘loose’ my money.
I have encountered many others who feel the same way, but still
game companies that create MMOs, this far, seem to go for the
big fast burnout pile of money (as I call it), rather than focusing
on …in this case GW2: (one very visible IRL example) putting a
little efford into listening to the player base from GW1, which
made it possible for them to have the success to want to create GW2,
instead they focus on masses they hadn’t reached out to, and keeping
them happy.
As is now, there is NO guild wars in Guild Wars 2, they should have
named it differently, something like ‘Heroes of Tyria’.

slurpey.6014:

You have to see it from Anet’s side of view not just the players. Anet wants to make money (nothing wrong with that, it’s a part of business), GW2 is not offered with a subscription fee therefore it’s difficult to accomplish. The profit comes from the Black Lion Market and the purchase of the game itself. With so many games around in the last years it takes a lot of effort and good marketing that attracts a wide range of customers and keeps them in the game as well.

I agree with you: There is nothing wrong with making money with the shop. But the coin has two sides: ArenaNet and the players. Good content makes playing the game more enjoyable and vice versa. => If players are happy, they will play the game constantly, they will spend more money in the game, the community grows. Like the developers said: They made the game for the players. But this isn’t, what the topic is about.

If we look at your proposal/poll we see that some people do not like the 2 week method of updates (lets not discuss why), while others do enjoy having content that switches every 2 weeks. It is difficult to please every player and in some cases that might not be possible. Anet has to make the decision of going with the so called “veterans/old school” players/community, or focusing on newer players or the so called “casual” player in the long run.

You have to keep in mind that not everybody has the same opinion when it comes to your proposal. I for one do enjoy the change of content and achievements. Some of the Achievements are unique and shouldn’t be repeated. A lot of people log in once every two weeks just to get those achievements, weapon skins or different armor etc. before going back to other games. Anet would be missing out on those called “spontaneous” log ins that happen every 2 weeks, and most people would get bored very quickly since GW2 has no so called end game content like other games.

The poll is a clear indicator: What does the community think about the content-policy. Platon said something like: “I don’t know the way to success, but a sure way to failure: Want to make everyone happy.” We need both: fleeting content and steady content. Off course: You can’t please everyone, this is impossible, but you can make compromises.
Especially the Veterans – like you said – are very displeased about the content and things like ascended items. The things they loved are missing and are lost forever it seems.
All I can say for sure is, that the players attitude to the content like Flame and Frost was significantly better then todays content.

I just read, that players are very displeased with the zerging-mechanic in the open world. But this isn’t ArenaNets fault in particular. The players are just doing it, and no one is forcing them. Splitting the living story in five separate culture-parts would counteract this problem a little, bringing storylines in instances with scaling difficulty in addition (right now the players are complaining, because of the less teamplay and challenge. Most of them prefer small teams and disprize events like Tequatl).

Not much to add here.

Every new living story for me is like “meh more recycled temporary stuff”, what’s worse with this is that they introduce new cool weapons just to tell you “hey you have till x date to get those” which makes some people desperate and in a hurry to get them.

I’m currently working on finalizing my ascended weapon set for 1 character. Now these new weapons cost around 60-100g EACH from what I saw which is a big amount.

Does ANet expect me to grow desperate and shell out real money for this? Nope, not giving a cent.

Does ANet expect me to grind my mind off 13hrs a day to get so much money for a skin? When I see these things happen I care less and less about the game.

If an expansion were to be released I may consider buying it cause It will have permanent content, Living stories don’t cut it for me.

Running around with 15 fps in zerg groups grinding mind numbing champions is hardly any fun. I’ve been playing the game since beta and for over a year now I’ve done the very same things.

We need more permanent content, I repeat: We need more PERMANENT content.

Personally I don’t mind the temp content, and really like the idea of the Living Story, I just wish we had more time for it. I would honestly prefer to have 3 weeks to 1 month for each living story update. Releasing a new one every 2 weeks is pretty intense for those who try to get every achievement. Some people have families, jobs, and school to go to and spend time with. I remember I went on vacation during the Cutthroat Politics for a week and half, and I missed out on a couple achievements for the Trails. I would’ve enjoyed it more if I didn’t feel so rushed after getting back from vacation to get those achievements done. Keeping up with the living story and dailies is like having a part-time job that you can’t take a break from. Extending the new content to every 3 or 4 weeks instead would take some of the pressure/rush off of doing all the new content. Plus Anet can either take that extra time to polish up the content every update or just expand on it more.