Guild Wars 2

Wintersday; a time of year when all the heroes and children of Tyria gather around and celebrate, a time when snowballs are tossed, gifts are given, and super powered snowmen golems are built to battle the scaly green minions of the god of death in order to save the spring…….oh wait…scratch that last part.

Like many I was looking forward to Wintersday, not the least because of the disaster that was The Lost Shores. I felt that this would be Arena Net’s chance to redeem themselves with a fun event that was actually playable, to recapture some of the excitement of the Halloween event, but with lessons learned from its own mistakes. And while to an extent that is what we got, in the end I couldn’t help but feel that this wintersday was, frankly, lazy.

I won’t retread the argument for having all of the major cities decorated here, although I was disappointed to see this wasn’t the case. However on that subject I do have a brief digression; something to say to those arguments of immersion breaking wintersday décor. Firstly to those people making those claims I would like to say “give me a freaking break.” The simple fact is that the five major cities of Tryia decorating for wintersday is not immersion breaking. At all. It just isn’t and anyone that says it is, is either a fool or lying for the sake of the bandwagon.

As I sit here at my desk, typing away on my computer I can lean one foot to the right and look out my window. And when I do I can see ten houses covered in blinking lights, with artificial snowmen and reindeer in the yards, and even one place with an enormous, larger than life Santa smiling and waving its animatronic hand merrily to traffic. Just one block down the road toward city hall, the local library, and a number of small businesses I can see large plastic candy canes and snowmen, Christmas trees and reindeer affixed to street lights and traffic signs, all courtesy of the city of College Park. A few miles down the road toward the state capital of Atlanta I can see a huge tree covered in lights sitting atop the horizon and all manner of festive images in windows.

A major city decorating in observance of a local or national holiday is actually more immersive than not. It shows that the place is alive and subject to customs and traditions beyond just standing around and waiting to sell players salvage kits and repair their armor. And anyone that finds such décor immersion breaking apparently isn’t much immersed in real life.

Now that we have this out of the way, there are two real problems I have with this year’s wintersday events. The first being what I call the “lore gap” and the second is the anti-climax of the final event. As to the latter, I just felt that it was lazy to give us such a small, uninteresting, mini-game for the final moment, especially given how much build up there was to it. Perhaps I am judging too harshly, but that is the result of that build up. We spend five days traveling the world in preparation, fighting skritt who drop little hints about their motives, and slowly coming to realize both the inherent danger of Tixx’s toy making incompetence (does he ever build anything that doesn’t malfunction and try to kill people?) and Toxx’s secret agenda. And then in the final moment, when all this was to come to a climax….we get a simple mini-game little different from what we’ve been grinding over the last few days, and yes after day two repeating the same handful of objectives within Tixx’s airship for mini-pet parts was a grind, with the notable difference of it being more frustrating because you suddenly couldn’t use your own skills.

I guess in the end this little event, that is in no way worthy of its own name, could have been a fun little diversion. But it is the kind of fun little diversion that you opt into throughout the week while waiting for the event’s climax, not the climax itself. I guess that is my biggest issue with it; it just felt like another mini-game, not the big ending to wintersday we were all expecting, accustomed to with GW1, or lead to believe it would be by the nearly week long buildup. As I discussed it with my fiancée last night we were coming up with so much more Arena Net could have done instead of, or alongside this event to make wintersday more memorable and exciting, and yet these were opportunities wasted or missed, leaving us both disappointed and her rather disheartened as this is her favorite time of year.

Now as for the lore gap, while I was expecting a difference between the way wintersday was and what it is now, I never the less found this event to be rather jarring. And while I won’t join in that minority calling for a return to the old ways, it is good for GW2 to have its own wintersday identity, I will say that I felt like I was owed an explanation (yes I know how that sounds; entitlement and blah, blah, blah. If you think an emotion needs a logical justification you must be a robot). I just felt that us GW1 fans should have been given some sort of explanation as to how wintersday devolved into what it is, while at the same time growing to be celebrated by all five dominate cultures, either in a cut scene, quest text, or a scavenger hunt reminiscent of our search for the history of Oswald Thorn.

In the end I just feel like this event leave too many unanswered questions, and had too little impact on players. The end was one of the most anti-climactic things Arena Net has ever done, and the buildup was wasted to the point of being insulting if you stop to think about it. But in the spirit of constructive criticism I would like to invite anyone still reading this (what a trooper you are) to offer your own ideas and suggestions. I hope that this topic gets seen by Arena Net and inspires them to make next year’s wintersday the kind of joyous and fun event we all remember so fondly from the original Guild Wars. To that end, I’ll throw out a few ideas of my own.

The history of Wintersday lore scavenger hunt: travel around the world and chat with key NPCs about their local winterday traditions and memories, learning how the day came about, how it was adopted by the races of Tryia, and even about some cultural differences in how it is observed. Diversity is a good thing after all.

The Ghosts of Wintersday past, present, and future world events: Time traveling spirits contact the world to remind it of the true spirit of wintersday.

The cult of Grenth attack Lion’s Arch: The followers of the long absent god of death and cold return, seeking to take advantage of Dwayna’s absence to finally halt the return of spring and create eternal winter for their lord. (Hey you don’t need a god to be an active part of daily life to have zealous cults acting in its name. See; real life.)

Toy versus Toy: An alternative single map WvW game type wherein the populations of five servers are match against each other, rather than just three, with each server taking on the form and skills of a different wintersday toy. (Princess server against Charr Solider server ect, ect.)

Tixx’s workshop temporary sPvP map: Earn glory to unlock new winterday themed weapon and armor skins for sPvP.

Adopt a quaggon for wintersday: Escort a cute baby quaggon through a series of obstacles to earn prizes including your own cute baby quaggon who will live in your home instance and follow you around when you are there.

Attack of the toys: A simultaneous attack on each of the major cities by that city’s custom toy (Such as Divinity’s Reach besieged by princesses) that must be repelled every few hours while aiding in the local citizens as they build defenses, struggle to hold onto the spirit of wintersday, and ultimately bring an end to Toy-mageddon.

Ultimately, I think this type of post (wide category with a lot of examples on these forums) gives too much power to feelings of disappointment and unmet expectations, to the detriment of ability to enjoy what I have…

However, I’m really posting to complement OP on posting a thoughtful and insightful set of points which, while they carry little emotional weight for me, I do have intellectual agreement with.

Sorry about the excessive bold, but what’s important should stand out. Thanks.

Good lord, it’s a game. Arkham if you have time to write all over that over a holiday event in an mmo, maybe you have too much time on your hands.

That said, Wintersday was very much fun for me, there are things I’d have preferred to see done differently…Toypocalypse was not what I thought it was going to be, and I suspect the people that complained wholeheartedly over the live events of Lost Shore are largely to blame for that.

Anyway I disagree with OP….I don’t think Wintersday either the decoration or the activities it contains, was lazily done. I actually think that’s somewhat insulting to the developers personally.

While you’ve typed this mini essay, I’ve been enjoying Wintersday far more then any holiday event in any other game.

“(Hey you don’t need a god to be an active part of daily life to have zealous cults acting in its name. See; real life.)’

My favorite line in a brilliant post. I do happen to enjoy WintersDay and I expect future ones to provide new experiences. I think ANet should ponder your suggestions with a raised eyebrow and a conspiratorial “Hmmm”.

PolarisNova.3867:

Good lord, it’s a game. Arkham if you have time to write all over that over a holiday event in an mmo, maybe you have too much time on your hands.

Sleep is for other people.

I was just telling my husband yesterday that they should have done some sort of lore scavenger hunt. Your other suggestions are really neat ideas. I would love to play the adopt a quaggon mini-game (or is it an event?).

The entire Tixx dungeon was way too casualized. The jump puzzle was okay, a bit too easy for me, but for the average person it was perfect. Hats off giving the warrior the best skill in the snowball fight (sarcasm), it didn’t seem really balanced or skill-based, seemed like a game of paper-rock-scissors. The bell band was good when the occasional lag spike wasn’t ruining the timing, but the stakes weren’t high, so it’s all good. Finally, toypocalypse was sub-par when you realize the only real way of winning is to build as much catapults and snowmen as possible. Ballistas do jack for damage and walls hurt your team far more then helping. Overall not worth the reward of random presents. Speaking of presents, when you open up seven thousand plus presents and you don’t receive any special items, you have to really wonder how you’re actually calculating the drops for them. Overall score: Meh/10.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Toy versus Toy: An alternative single map WvW game type wherein the populations of five servers are match against each other, rather than just three, with each server taking on the form and skills of a different wintersday toy. (Princess server against Charr Solider server ect, ect.)

It will be a slaughter fest for whichever server get princess. They be scary dolls.

I agree pretty much with what the OP said and he has some pretty interesting suggestions. I thought the visit every town meta event was a great concept and each day’s dungeon was fun. I do agree however that it got repetative and that the final was a bit lacking.

Making a game as complex as this is a ton of work and I’m sure the devs have had a whirlwind year just getting this game out the door, but I wonder if their idea machine is a bit burned out and they all might need some vaca to recharge the think tanks a bit.

I tend to agree.. less enthusiastically perhaps.

For now, the Halloween event has set the standard for which I will judge all events until one tops it. So if Halloween was an A+, I would give Wintersday a B-. The weapon skins are very Christmas-y indeed.. but, that doesn’t keep them from being nothing I would ever want to equip. Why not some Icy weapons… I think that could of fit the bill as well as working for the seasonal event. I was so ready to shell over some money.

I thought the jumping puzzle was a home run. I completed the Halloween jumping puzzle so yes I will definitely say this was far easier, but I feel like a hellish challenge fits the Halloween atmosphere better. And this little sweet JP was more fitting for Christmas.

The mini-games were pretty cool actually. Guitar-hero-esque game was a challenge since I have rebound many of my hotkeys but I still got all the achievements. The little pvp game was very good I thought. And the big event, well the ending was pretty bad.. One of the few that I think I just won’t bother getting the achievement because it just wasn’t any fun at all really, for me.

I skipped the Karka event entirely, so I’m bitter about missing out on the 20 slot bag. But otherwise I think I made a good decision there lol.

I dunno what else to say. I’m satisfied with everything so far. What’s amazing to me is when you look at a company like Blizz for comparison, that is charging you monthly for their game and they never change the seasonal events. Same thing every year for 8 years.. really??!? Seems so lazy considering how much they make from that game.

Lord Yoshi.6738:

The entire Tixx dungeon was way too casualized.

Though, I believe that Anet had to casualize the dungeon since that is where they were handing out the mini-ingtredients. I am personally not much of a dungeon person (outside of holiday events, I haven’t done one yet), so I was glad it was something accessible to most players. Furthermore, I noticed that there were a lot of players who did get downed multiple times during the instances, so I believe there would be significantly more outcry about the dungeons being broken or OP if they hadn’t made them the way they did.

Personally, overall I am happy with wintersday, at least in comparison to the karka event. I feel that Anet is actually trying to get back to events worth playing. Sure there have been bugs, and we certainly haven’t received all the answers we wanted, but it is at least playable. They lengthened the event chain and allow for replay to not lock out players who work, etc. And they seem to be fixing things that are broken in a reasonable timeframe (at least in comparison to the length of the event).

Now, as far as suggestions to making wintersdays of the future better:
1. Make the dungeon chains more imaginative and different from one day to the next. By the second day I was personally hoping that we wouldn’t just have to kill toys and toxx each day of the event, but that is what wound up happening. I would have liked greater variety.

2. Scavenger hunts – those are always fun (especially if they work).

3. Better balancing of enemies based on player level. Personally, I didn’t have a problem with this until I got into the 50+ level areas (I’m personally level 80). There just seemed to be a lot of people complaining about being slaughtered out of the gate by the toys in the gifts. Now, I (a mesmer) was able to deal with a present’s worth of toys on my own by dodging and staying at a good distance (clones help out there) and as such didn’t have much trouble until (as previously stated) 50+ zones, but at that point I too found myself unable to deal with an entire toy regiment without the aid of one other player (who knew what they were doing). I don’t believe this to be a major issue, but just believe that the balancing could have been better.

4. The return of the human gods? True, it isn’t a likely event, but wintersday is a magical time so anything is possible right?

5. (Now, I personally haven’t had a chance to play yesterday or today so far, so this may already be in progress) The toys marching around the cities could attack the citizens of said cities and turn into a large PvE area we don’t normally get. Furthermore (based off the idea that Tixx is making toys out of skritt/ other living things), if a player is killed enough times they could respawn as a toy and then it could be a P+EvP event circa BW2 finale. I personally loved the finale for BW2, so it makes sense that something along those lines could be done once again.

6. The infinirarium crash site. Either create a new zone, or (more likely and easier to fit into the world and idea of a changing place) choose a zone to have the infinirarium crash in and have broken parts strewn across the landscape (along with enraged toys, gifts, etc.) You could then have the Asura come in and begin a systematic cleanup of the zone, culminating in a modified landscape (from the impact crater, etc.).

7. More snow – If Tixx is going to force his krewe to add snow to LA/ other places, the least he could do is make sure that it is truly snowing, not just in some areas. I remember loving GW1 and the reskin that happened to the major cities for wintersday. Everywhere was white and fluffy – it was great.

8. More weapon skins – Perhaps bring back the candy cane weapons (more than just the hammer).

9. Backstory – What has been going over the last 200 years? Why has Tixx (just?) started getting into the wintersday spirit? How did the other races get into the swing of wintersday (afterall, humanity is dying slowly but surely; fading into unimportance)?

10. More open-world events. I mean instead of just having the gift boxes and the dungeons, have dynamic events and chains that can happen around the world. Perhaps have them start or event in the major towns. Possibly have them uncover an ancient dwayna/ grenth statue somewhere (could have cultists at it, as suggested above) (after all, there was a time, 200 years ago, when statues to the gods were all over the world. While the landscapes have changed, power has shifted, and darkness has risen, the likelyhood that all the statues to the gods would be completely burried/ destroyed is fairly minimal I would think. After all, there are stone statues in our world burried at sea for hundreds of years yet still intact and recognizable. You could even have the Priory dig it up if that works better into the story. There are a lot of possibilities here.).

Sorry about the length of this post

I disagree. Wintersday was a lot of fun and well done. Op has a bad case of entitlement and the fact is that there’s a f2p game that doesn’t need to add monthly events and content but still pay a team to design it anyways. Your argument was made well, but you still come off as feeling you deserved the wintersday you would want. Of the millions of players only 500-1000 if that posted discontent like yourself. Most are thankful for the holiday content.

General Belisarius.2548:

I disagree. Wintersday was a lot of fun and well done. Op has a bad case of entitlement and the fact is that there’s a f2p game that doesn’t need to add monthly events and content but still pay a team to design it anyways. Your argument was made well, but you still come off as feeling you deserved the wintersday you would want. Of the millions of players only 500-1000 if that posted discontent like yourself. Most are thankful for the holiday content.

Heh, congratulations on being the first to say I have a case of entitlement. That said I actually didn’t demand anything in my post, I just offered suggestions on how to make the next event better. That isn’t called entitlement; it is called constructive criticism and is a very positive thing. I never said I wasn’t thankful for the event, just that I felt there was a lot of missed opportunities and wasted potential, and a few unanswered questions and go nowhere plot threads.

Personally I always laugh at these arguments of entitlement. As if expecting more than the bare minimum from a company that consistently promises to deliver more is somehow unreasonable. I hate to dust off this old chestnut, but I think you’re just too accustomed to getting next to nothing for your monthly Warcraft subscription. Arena Net is a better company, and they consistently provide better service, at least that has been my experience with them over the last several years. Being held to a higher standard is the justifiable result of that. Yes they may be doing a heck of a lot more than any other MMO developer out there right now, but it is still a low point in their own history.

The post is too long for me to read it all, but this is another event I dislike. Whats with all the forced grouping in ALL of their events? There is basically nothing else to do if you don’t group with others.

I hate to say it because I still quite enjoy the game. But in my opinion the thing that is lacking from some of the guild wars world and its holidays is a large measure of coolness.

The world looks nice, the game play works, but there isn’t a whole lot in the game that makes me go wow or laugh to myself. I’m not saying these moments don’t exist, but they don’t define the experience. Halloween had some coolish things in, the clock tower, The Mad King and his dungeon, the Pve killing arena and the pvp instances were all quite fun and fairly cool. The karka event was marred by connection issues and an underwhelming addition to the world (though pritty in its own right), but it wasn’t a bad idea. But the Wintersday event so far seems a little uninspired outside the decorations in LA. Though I did enjoy the Toypocalyps, probably due to the fact I got it done on the second go (Yaks and all..), and don’t intend on doing it again unless the mood takes me.

TlDr. The event’s nice, but it’s not cool enough.