Guild Wars 2

I’ve been into WoW for 6 years and I had various come and goes on that game.
I was picking it up, getting bored, leaving it, and then after a few months picking it up again for another small period.One time I was actually absent long enough for someone to cast me a scroll of resurrection (invite back an old player that was absent for more that 6 months).

During that time I realized that my comebacks where more enjoyable when they where adding minor little stuff, like a new or slightly improved animation for some of my character’s skills, or a change/addition on some icons on the pointer, or a cosmetic change on the interface of the LFG tool, or some improvment on the interface to make it more user friendly.
Normally like all gamers, I ask in each patch for more obvious content like areas, dungeons, items, ect… but it was when I was encountering little details like these that was causing me to stay longer.

Guild Wars 2 might have a masterful formula for game mechanics and stuff, but when it comes to minor details like these it’s very swallow and has a lot of room for improvements.
Here are some examples:

• The characters don’t strafe when looking around with right click is pressed.
• Using/crafting items has no animations.
• There still a lot of key /emotes missing.
• Siting on a chair when typing /sit near a chair.
• Certain emotes could have been automatically implemented with certain key words on chat. (“talking animation” when you /say, “laughing” when you “lol”, “nooding” when you say yes or no, ect..)

The above for example, make the characters look to other players more real, while currently they look like they are standing still to much.
For more examples.

• Arena net could put some tool for quick item use, to make using the items you got from karma vendors less tedious.
• Could hide mystic forge recipe hints around the world (in books, or chat NPCs) and have them saved along with the already discovered ones in a MF recipe page.
• Crafting items could automatically craft the smaller materials if the items are available.
• Have more detailed trait icons.

These suggestions are given as an example for “detail content” to make my point. Please don’t throw the post in the suggestion category without reading.

These small details aren’t the obvious new content that people expect, but it’s content like this that would imminently draw the attention of a hibernating player who just came back.
Imagine coming back to GW2 after 5-6 months, and then see the players behave much more alive than they used to, the interface is looking different (even if it’s purely cosmetic), and minor changes on the interface that make certain things less tedious and/or self explanatory. That player is now convinced that a lot of improvements have been done on the game. It will feel as if he is playing a new game.

New dungeons n stuff will not always convince returners to stay. They might decide to never see that content, or in the worst case scenario this content might alienate them.

So, long story short:
New areas and dungeons make existing players stay!
Minor but immediate details make “come backers” stay!

What is your opinion?

Im not sure what game have you been playing….

GW2 has PLENTY of small fine details that are not IN YOUR FACE. You just have to look around, and it is very rewarding when you find them.

The whole emoting automatically was in Aion, and it was beyond annoying.

Strafe on Right click: Right click has a different function. Left click will make them strafe. Right click is to look around while moving without changing direction.

Crafting emotes: I could’t care less about the emotes while crafting. Im actually happy that those are not there as it would make LA very laggy

Sitting on chairs: why?….

That’s the point of my argument!
Minor details such as these appear to have no point on the existing player, but to a returning one they count a LOT as a first impression of where has come since he left.

Hidden details are good, but that’s their problem! They are hidden!
Lets say that a player who had stopped playing for months decides to boot the game again and since that time there are 30+ new jumping puzzles hidden in the world… He’ll play again for 30 minutes or 2 hours and then leave for the same reasons he left in the first place, saying that there is nothing new to the game since then. He might ask his guild what’s new since then, and they’ll point him to end-level exclusive content.
A returning player won’t stay long before remembering the reasons he stopped in the first place, so in that time it’s important for him to see that there are new things.

My suggestions above where given as an example of details that could be added, so there is no point in criticize them. They are taken mostly from WoW (and they worked perfectly there) and there reason I’ve chosen to mention those is because the characters DO look kind of stiff when out of combat…

This topic is made to talk about the subconscious effect a seemingly minor detail could add to the game, and not to decide whether characters should be able to sit on chairs…

My original topic tittle was “The Devil is in the detail and how that effect subconsciously the returning players”, but sadly these forum don’t support more thakittencharacter in the tittle.