Guild Wars 2

I will make it short. People are confused about where the game is going. Many of them have been citing the Manifesto, but as we were told, the Manifesto is mostly gone (well, play the game and you will see it, if you want to).

I do not say the new way is for the better or worse, in fact, I have no idea what the vision for Guild Wars 2 right now is supposed to be. Others feel like this too, so I guess a fair amount of your playerbase wants an answer why things are happening they way they do. Are some things just collateral damage or part or a bigger plan?

Sure we are asked to give constructive feedback, but how? Refering to the old manifesto, we are outdated and wrong and it will sound like a rant. If we just give feedback on single topics, we might miss the context and even though the ideas might be good, they will fail in the grand scheme.

Most of the things that have been setup as a roadmap have been implemented, but what is the aim for the future, what is down the road in a year or two. You must have a plan, some roadmap that you can at least share the direction we are heading to.

Share some information, knowledge will at least end the wild speculations and if you can, setup a new Manifesto, so the players can refer to that.

Thank you.

I think people are so focused on detail, they sometimes miss the point. The manifesto was about a living breathing world. A world where things happened based on what you did in a more organic way that happens in other MMOs.

You don’t talk to a guy and get a quest and go do something, you see something happening and react to it. That’s really what the manifesto was trying to say. The world is alive.

The problem, I think, is that throwing a bunch of dynamic events in the game doesn’t really give you the bang for the buck. Anet put 30 events in the game back in November and you never hear anyone talk about them. So the idea of making the world living with events was revisited and Anet came up with the living world.

They want to move the world forward. They want the world to change.

Now some people think this means drastic change every week…but that’s not how worlds change. If you visit an area and you come back a few months later, maybe a shop has changed. Maybe a person who lived in a house doesn’t live there anymore, maybe a house has been painted.

Anet is trying to use the living story to change the world. They built up houses on Southsun. The instance for Cragstead has changed several times. Little changes keep happening…but people are expecting like giant crazy changes.

I believe the sum total of all changes over time will evolve the world and I believe that’s what Anet has been trying to do. Little nips and tucks to change the world and make it feel more alive.

I think when Chris Whiteside talked about giving constructive feedback he didn’t mean knowing what Anet want to do and what ideas they are going to like. It’s more about how you write it.

A post saying (random example here) “I don’t think it’s a good idea to release level 80 dungeon paths as part of the Living Story because although it’s permanent many people will feel pressured to do it, and get all the achievements ASAP, and new players will feel like they’re missing out on part of the story. It would be better to keep the two separate.”

Will go over a lot better than one saying “Kitten you Anet! This kitten is so kitten kitten! I have to give up on the LS forever cuz I can’t do this!! WTF you don’t care about new players! You don’t care about fans! You are trying to force us to play all the time so you can cheat us out of money! OMG Kitten!”

Basically if you want to give feedback on something imagine you’re at work or school and writing a report (but a short one, not a full essay). Make it clear what content you’re discussing – whether it’s a general observation or about one specific thing, lay out exactly what the problem is and why you think it’s a problem and try to give suggestions for what you would do to solve it. And do it without swearing or resorting to accusations about the developers personalities or motivation.

And also bear in mind that it’s the ideas which are presented civilly, make sense, and fit with what Anet want to do with the game that are likely to get used. Not the ones that get the most replies, or the most ‘enthusiastic’ replies, or are posted 5,000 times across every section of the forum.

Vayne.8563:

(…) Anet put 30 events in the game back in November and you never hear anyone talk about them. (…)

30 events scattered all over the place that

a) most people never get to see
b) new people don’t know are new

Add a visible event chain with a nice story and people might just talk about it. The only thing I’ve stumbled upon on different maps is the skritt-burglar. Which is literally the same event every time I encountered it.

Rouven.7409:

Vayne.8563:

(…) Anet put 30 events in the game back in November and you never hear anyone talk about them. (…)

30 events scattered all over the place that

a) most people never get to see
b) new people don’t know are new

Add a visible event chain with a nice story and people might just talk about it. The only thing I’ve stumbled upon on different maps is the skritt-burglar. Which is literally the same event every time I encountered it.

Again, the amount of events that would have to be designed to significantly change the world would be prohibitive and it won’t make a lick of difference, unless those events have different rewards.

We see it all the time…too many people play for rewards. Only two of the events received any real attention, both because they had achievements associated with them (the skritt burgler and the event that triggered the portal to the Hidden Garden jumping puzzle).

Beyond that, events are far too generic. If you create a chain, and people do the chain a day later it’s old news.

What’s the real benefit to the game world if it’s just another event chain. There are already 1500 of those.

Case in point – I didn’t even know the Hidden Garden portals were new, I assumed it had always been like that.

It is more interesting doing it that way than just going to the puzzle, especially when you have no idea that’s going to happen (as in my case). But until just now I had no idea that was new content added after launch.

It’s great that they do things like that because it does make the game better, but if that was all they did a lot of players (particularly those who don’t always read patch notes) would get the impression that hardly anything was being updated or added.

Danikat.8537:

Case in point – I didn’t even know the Hidden Garden portals were new, I assumed it had always been like that.

It is more interesting doing it that way than just going to the puzzle, especially when you have no idea that’s going to happen (as in my case). But until just now I had no idea that was new content added after launch.

It’s great that they do things like that because it does make the game better, but if that was all they did a lot of players (particularly those who don’t always read patch notes) would get the impression that hardly anything was being updated or added.

There were several things added, they got a bit of play…but people want “big”. They want dungeon paths and tequatl and scarlet invasions. And they want rewards.

I’m really not sure that Anet was prepared for the fact that other MMOs have so trained the public to be reward centric, that they had no real chance to do half the stuff they set out to do.

It’s a shame, too, because I’d rather have seen the game originally intended.

Vayne.8563:

I think people are so focused on detail, they sometimes miss the point. The manifesto was about a living breathing world. A world where things happened based on what you did in a more organic way that happens in other MMOs.

You don’t talk to a guy and get a quest and go do something, you see something happening and react to it. That’s really what the manifesto was trying to say. The world is alive.

The problem, I think, is that throwing a bunch of dynamic events in the game doesn’t really give you the bang for the buck. Anet put 30 events in the game back in November and you never hear anyone talk about them. So the idea of making the world living with events was revisited and Anet came up with the living world.

They want to move the world forward. They want the world to change.

Now some people think this means drastic change every week…but that’s not how worlds change. If you visit an area and you come back a few months later, maybe a shop has changed. Maybe a person who lived in a house doesn’t live there anymore, maybe a house has been painted.

Anet is trying to use the living story to change the world. They built up houses on Southsun. The instance for Cragstead has changed several times. Little changes keep happening…but people are expecting like giant crazy changes.

I believe the sum total of all changes over time will evolve the world and I believe that’s what Anet has been trying to do. Little nips and tucks to change the world and make it feel more alive.

see the problem when they released that stuff in november i had maybe 10% of the world done so if i encountered them i didnt know if they were new or old actually i didnt realize the skritt burgler hadnt been in at release and the hidden gardens never came across that one or might have just dont know where it is(have to look it up). if they are going to put in new stuff at least let us know instead of stealth it in and hope people notice. there are still part of the world if they put new stuf in and i encounter it i might figured i missed it the first few times in cause im still finding new stuff i never found the first time.

anets bigest problem is communication something they said at the ama with chris the first time was they were going to do more of it but it seems to me to be less. i do love that they are passionate about the game and they ad new stuff. i think they could ad a bit of quality to the ls but its not bad just could have done a bit more on each chapter. they rushed us through it and made it so herky jerky. if they would have done more chapters filling out the molten alliance letting us explore why they were there more of an investigation finding more clues along the way as we try to bring them down then more chapters building up southsun and making more story behind it. thruthfully what they did in a year could have taken three or more to get us this far. i think they had good ideas behind it but rushed us through it instead of giving the time on the actual stuff. they could have had two chapter just researching the molten alliance there leaders and bases a couple where we hit a half dozen of their bases and maybe a chapter where we did damage to their head base to get info on who was behind them giving us earlier clues of scarlet which would have been better to build her up then se3veral chapters looking in to what groups she was related to instead of one asura sort of explaining what she was part of then having to go to a website to get her backstory. they slowly could have given her info out over several chapters while we were investigating. i personally would have loved 6 months of mystery hunting with a few thing mixed in besides

I see where you are coming from, but to me that sounds … defeated. There is no spirit left. What is the benefit of any story? A sense of adventure. From early text adventures where the story was the main part to what we have today, the story makes it unique and adds a layer to hide the mechanics.

Why did they bother taking away the famous “kill 10 rats”? It’s still there, but hidden a tad nicer behind a bar that moves without you being able to count. Trying to tell you a story.

It’s what the living story tries to do, but it’s not persistent. I could not level a character now and rescue refugees anymore. Which is a good thing as well but let’s not go too deep.

Taking the rose tinted glasses off, reward structure. Sooner or later one might want to “progress” in a different way. The main (personal) story line might be done, but I don’t feel like I look like a hero. The tug-o-war begins, got to keep you playing, so can’t “reward” you too much, just enough to keep you going – right?

What are some of the best moments for myself – stumbling over a “hidden” cave. What’s in it? I think this is one of the reason why people like the idea of an expansion, new maps, places to explore. Not just, here is a map, because the queen said so, kill everything in it. Not just, here is where the flying guys live, find 10 things.

Evidently the problem would be in this huge world – I will not stumble over a new hidden cave. Because if you tell me it’s there it’s not hidden anymore, if you tell me there are 10 new caves, find them all I will check a guide to get this chore done with.

Would it be a surprise or a nuisance if your favourite event chain all over sudden took a different turn? Maybe even branched out? One event turns into two, stay and defend the forward position or go with the team to flank the enemy.

Do I choose my own story when exploring? Sometimes. Let me make a choice.

Here would be my dream world – mix things up. Keep on doing the living story like it is, add some little things like that, don’t just rely on metrics. They couldn’t rely on metrics making maps initially, they made them to be fun.

Hey, I did not know the skritt burglar was new, it was fun – I mean what the heck, where does he think he is going? Can’t cc him, oh noes! He dropped something, dang, gotta wait … etc.

Another thought, simply don’t hold my hand too much. Festivals, that’s fine, if they are a couple of months in-between. Being told every two weeks what to do (exaggerating a bit) get’s old a bit.

I am repeating myself here, but for what it’s worth there is where housing and even fishing comes in as well. I can tune out, do some stuff on my own pace. Not race against others all the time. Jumping puzzles can be like that, granted, but it’s not quite the same.

That got longer than I wanted to.

ricky markham.8173:

Vayne.8563:

I think people are so focused on detail, they sometimes miss the point. The manifesto was about a living breathing world. A world where things happened based on what you did in a more organic way that happens in other MMOs.

You don’t talk to a guy and get a quest and go do something, you see something happening and react to it. That’s really what the manifesto was trying to say. The world is alive.

The problem, I think, is that throwing a bunch of dynamic events in the game doesn’t really give you the bang for the buck. Anet put 30 events in the game back in November and you never hear anyone talk about them. So the idea of making the world living with events was revisited and Anet came up with the living world.

They want to move the world forward. They want the world to change.

Now some people think this means drastic change every week…but that’s not how worlds change. If you visit an area and you come back a few months later, maybe a shop has changed. Maybe a person who lived in a house doesn’t live there anymore, maybe a house has been painted.

Anet is trying to use the living story to change the world. They built up houses on Southsun. The instance for Cragstead has changed several times. Little changes keep happening…but people are expecting like giant crazy changes.

I believe the sum total of all changes over time will evolve the world and I believe that’s what Anet has been trying to do. Little nips and tucks to change the world and make it feel more alive.

see the problem when they released that stuff in november i had maybe 10% of the world done so if i encountered them i didnt know if they were new or old actually i didnt realize the skritt burgler hadnt been in at release and the hidden gardens never came across that one or might have just dont know where it is(have to look it up). if they are going to put in new stuff at least let us know instead of stealth it in and hope people notice. there are still part of the world if they put new stuf in and i encounter it i might figured i missed it the first few times in cause im still finding new stuff i never found the first time.

anets bigest problem is communication something they said at the ama with chris the first time was they were going to do more of it but it seems to me to be less. i do love that they are passionate about the game and they ad new stuff. i think they could ad a bit of quality to the ls but its not bad just could have done a bit more on each chapter. they rushed us through it and made it so herky jerky. if they would have done more chapters filling out the molten alliance letting us explore why they were there more of an investigation finding more clues along the way as we try to bring them down then more chapters building up southsun and making more story behind it. thruthfully what they did in a year could have taken three or more to get us this far. i think they had good ideas behind it but rushed us through it instead of giving the time on the actual stuff. they could have had two chapter just researching the molten alliance there leaders and bases a couple where we hit a half dozen of their bases and maybe a chapter where we did damage to their head base to get info on who was behind them giving us earlier clues of scarlet which would have been better to build her up then se3veral chapters looking in to what groups she was related to instead of one asura sort of explaining what she was part of then having to go to a website to get her backstory. they slowly could have given her info out over several chapters while we were investigating. i personally would have loved 6 months of mystery hunting with a few thing mixed in besides

Patchnotes for the win. They did say these things were released, and I really can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t read patch notes. If nothing else for skill changes and bug fixes.

The skritt burglar has four achievements attached to it, which is why many people did find out about it, but the whole idea of saying okay, here are 30 new events….how long do you think it will take people to experience them all and be done with it and just want more new dynamic events.

The work to produce a dynamic event isn’t going to be worth it for the number of people who’ll do it once or twice and never think about it again.

From Release Notes October 22, 2012

There is a skritt burglar on the loose in Tyria! Adventurers that encounter this thieving rodent are encouraged to confiscate whatever loot they can shake out of her.

Added over 30 events across the game.

The Durmand Priory is currently investigating an ancient dwarven door recently unearthed in Dredgehaunt Cliffs. Meanwhile, strange reports of a caravan of shark tanks crossing the fields of Fireheart Rise are presumed to be a hoax.

Jumping puzzles and open-world minidungeons have updated reward tables.
Added 3 new jumping puzzles.
Added more diving goggles throughout Tyria.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Update-Notes-October-22-2012/first#post521593

So, maybe we will get some things like this in this year’s Halloween update! =)

dont always read the patch notes most of the time i skim for what interests me the most. and add 30 events across the game im still not sure which were old or new. when i redo an area a lot of time i miss stuff the first second or third times so on the fourth time i might notice something but still not sure if i just missed it or if it could be new. that area under lions arch bloodtide coast i used to sort of level my guardian there a lot used to do a lot of dailies so i know the area pretty good by now compared to other areas but three days ago i went there and found something id never come across and im sure it was there for a long time just missed it. that how this game is to me. in guild wars 1 i was still discovering stuff 6 years in. so just saying 30 new events in an update i probably wont be giving a lot of feedback if i dont know whats new or not. now if i new something specific was new like holiday stuff youll see feedback from me

But most of this stuff is just poor implementation. If you think people read the patch notes, you are overestimating the passion of most players. Most don’t even know that the forums exist.

But the point of this topic is not what has been implemented how and if it worked or not, it is about the long term planning, the concept of the game. Like I said earlier, ANet must have a business plan, an outline that will last at least for one year in what direction the development goes.
While it is wise to not share the whole thing, it is not a sign of trust or faith, to hide it all. The last two things left to be implemented from the former preview are ascended armor, that will come sooner than later, and the first real horizontal progression in regards of new skills and traits. But what is beyond that?

What is the actual Manifesto, the guideline which is forming Guild Wars 2 as we see it today and will see it in the future?

Vayne.8563:

You don’t talk to a guy and get a quest and go do something, you see something happening and react to it. That’s really what the manifesto was trying to say. The world is alive.

No, you check a website for when the timed event starts (or just login around reset) and then follow a farm train around. …It’s actually worse than taking a laundry list of quests because there’s no variety in it at all. Atleast quests have a variety of outcomes & ways to do them besides Zerk-while-Zerging. (they also tend to have a story behind them)

Vayne.8563:

We see it all the time…too many people play for rewards. Only two of the events received any real attention, both because they had achievements associated with them (the skritt burgler and the event that triggered the portal to the Hidden Garden jumping puzzle).

Which creates, unfortunately, a terrible feedback cycle.

For at least the first six months of this game I had not interest in rewards at all, because they came to me pretty much no matter what I was doing. I leveled, I got enough gold to keep my gear up to date.

Then choices started being made to make the reward chasers have a longer chase. Unfortunately I, and others like me, started feeling more and more like we had to join the chase, or give up on ever getting rewards at all.

So the number of reward chasers in game increased. Which just makes it look like we need even more chases added to the game, and longer ones.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

But the point of this topic is not what has been implemented how and if it worked or not, it is about the long term planning, the concept of the game. Like I said earlier, ANet must have a business plan, an outline that will last at least for one year in what direction the development goes.
While it is wise to not share the whole thing, it is not a sign of trust or faith, to hide it all. The last two things left to be implemented from the former preview are ascended armor, that will come sooner than later, and the first real horizontal progression in regards of new skills and traits. But what is beyond that?

What is the actual Manifesto, the guideline which is forming Guild Wars 2 as we see it today and will see it in the future?

Yes. It’s important to not the difference between the Manifesto and the road map you are talking about.

The Manifesto was a set of ideals, goals, a vision for what the game should be. It had statements like “The game should feel like” and “This is what we think is fun” and “This is what we don’t like in games that we’re going to avoid”.

Contrast that with the roadmap, which includes statments like the rest of the year “We are going to implement this system” and “we are working on this content”.

If the Manifesto is dead and gone, the roadmap did not fill the void. It is important to communicate specifics about what you are working on, but it is equally, if not more important to communicate who you want to be.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

From Release Notes October 22, 2012

There is a skritt burglar on the loose in Tyria! Adventurers that encounter this thieving rodent are encouraged to confiscate whatever loot they can shake out of her.

Added over 30 events across the game.

The Durmand Priory is currently investigating an ancient dwarven door recently unearthed in Dredgehaunt Cliffs. Meanwhile, strange reports of a caravan of shark tanks crossing the fields of Fireheart Rise are presumed to be a hoax.

Jumping puzzles and open-world minidungeons have updated reward tables.
Added 3 new jumping puzzles.
Added more diving goggles throughout Tyria.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Update-Notes-October-22-2012/first#post521593

So, maybe we will get some things like this in this year’s Halloween update! =)

The funny thing is, I didn’t even know about the mini-dungeons until I levelled my third or fourth character probably 2 months after they were implemented in the October patch. When I did stumble upon them I thought they were brilliant and I really wish there were more of them. They are the hidden gems of GW2, more interesting than JPs and dungeons combined.

So it would be a good idea for GW2 DEV’s to connect the events to a quest chain maybe, at least you would not miss the stuff then (maybe a bit like the Books in LotRO).
Of course you can replay them, but at least you would realize there is new content…

ilr.9675:

Vayne.8563:

You don’t talk to a guy and get a quest and go do something, you see something happening and react to it. That’s really what the manifesto was trying to say. The world is alive.

No, you check a website for when the timed event starts (or just login around reset) and then follow a farm train around. …It’s actually worse than taking a laundry list of quests because there’s no variety in it at all. Atleast quests have a variety of outcomes & ways to do them besides Zerk-while-Zerging. (they also tend to have a story behind them)

Because there’s nothing in this game but zone wide events and dragon timers.

1500 events in the game, and you choose to comment on 30 of them. No wonder you’re dissatisfied with the game.

Gibson.4036:

Vayne.8563:

We see it all the time…too many people play for rewards. Only two of the events received any real attention, both because they had achievements associated with them (the skritt burgler and the event that triggered the portal to the Hidden Garden jumping puzzle).

Which creates, unfortunately, a terrible feedback cycle.

For at least the first six months of this game I had not interest in rewards at all, because they came to me pretty much no matter what I was doing. I leveled, I got enough gold to keep my gear up to date.

Then choices started being made to make the reward chasers have a longer chase. Unfortunately I, and others like me, started feeling more and more like we had to join the chase, or give up on ever getting rewards at all.

So the number of reward chasers in game increased. Which just makes it look like we need even more chases added to the game, and longer ones.

The problem is, people like you (and I suspect you’re sort of like me), are in the minority. There aren’t enough of us to fill the world. We’d need a much more modest game for our type.

So Anet needs to balance things for others as well. That’s the problem, of course. One person’s paradise is another’s hell.

Collateral? xD Best use of the word possible. :P Good job @OP

Sirendor.1394:

Collateral? xD Best use of the word possible. :P Good job @OP

Thanks. ^^ Wasn’t quite sure if people would get the whole dimension though…