Guild Wars 2

I don’t like the living story updates so far. Too little content and too much grind for my liking. Expansions are nice because the type of stuff that is usually released with them.

ozma.3498:

PolarisNova.3867:

aspirine.6852:

No expansion will make it a dead game within half a year or less. No amount of living story can give you the effect what a new expansion does.

Can I have your crystal ball please?

Why, because as far as I can tell, instead of getting content all in one big blob (expansion), it’s evolving and coming to us in stages. Is that so difficult to envision? o.o

Well, I think the issue is that the content on offer isn’t actually comparable to what you’d get in a true MMORPG expansion. Even if you took 2 years worth of the kind of content we’ve been getting and offered it all at once, it still wouldn’t be on the same level as a WoW expansion.

For example, in WoW’s latest expansion you got:
- 16 new raid bosses at launch, with 3 difficulty levels.
- 9 new 5-man dungeons with 3 difficulty levels.
- 7 new scenarios (like a normal mode dungeon, but for 1-3 people).
- About 1400 new quests in an entirely new continent.
- About 900 new achievements.
- 2 new PvP maps, 1 new arena map.
- The usual mass of armor skins, weapon skins, mounts etc.
- Pet battle system.
- A new class.
- A new playable race.
- Increased level cap.

Then you have the content patches throughout the expansion’s life cycle on top of that.

As much as I’m impressed (and surprised) by the frequency of updates in GW2, to say it’s the equivalent of an expansion being spread out over time is just plain inaccurate.

Unrelated question.
What did Blizzard release during the 6 months you were charged a subscription fee before releasing the expansion that you had to pay for? Also 2 pvp maps and 1 arena sure looks impressive :p

Tachenon.5270:

TheDaiBish.9735:

> Land on Cantha which is currently under attack / locked down by the Ministry of Purity.

At first glance I saw ‘the Ministry of Poultry’.

Mmmmmm…..Canthan Fried Tengu….

mrstealth.6701:

Hell Avenger.7021:

Let’s put it bluntly. The living story is only holding people’s interest for NOW. People are waiting, and once they cannot wait anymore. They will move on to the next thing.

I’m tired of waiting, and I’ve had more than enough living story. It just feels like we’re bouncing from one random, completely unrelated story to the next. None of it matters, and none of it has anything to do with the rest of the game’s world or story. Random steampunk flying pirates show up out of nowhere to crash an already somewhat silly celebration…I feel like I should be watching this from the back row of a theater while a man and his two robot friends heckle the screen.

mrstealth your words in this comment and your previous ones, encompass my own feelings about the current state of the game.
The Living Story Project is not delivering a story as well scripted or acted out as what we were given from lvl 1-80. We do not hear our characters talk, we do not get to make choices as them, and we do not see their personalities which we chose influence their decisions. Not to mention the story they are involved themselves has no impact on them or the world.
1. Dredge and Charr unite to fight the world and spawn mute refugees out of thin air. They are defeated after one of their facilities is blown up…never to be heard of again. (dungeon removed)
2. Mute refugees are moved to previously abandoned island and tricked into a binding contract. They rebel and we punch them in the face. (dungeon removed)
3. Speaking of punching, lets Bash some Dragons! You remember the dragons right? Lets celebrate how they aren’t a threat anymore (since we wont see an expansion anytime soon lol)
4. Sky Pirates attack festival! Turns out not only are they able to steal airships from the army that conquered Orr and slayed a Dragon but they can also create a fortress within LA itself without anyone noticing! Good thing they aren’t very smart when it comes to putting a lock on their front door! (Dungeon soon to be removed)

Fairymore.8609:

mrstealth.6701:

Hell Avenger.7021:

Let’s put it bluntly. The living story is only holding people’s interest for NOW. People are waiting, and once they cannot wait anymore. They will move on to the next thing.

I’m tired of waiting, and I’ve had more than enough living story. It just feels like we’re bouncing from one random, completely unrelated story to the next. None of it matters, and none of it has anything to do with the rest of the game’s world or story. Random steampunk flying pirates show up out of nowhere to crash an already somewhat silly celebration…I feel like I should be watching this from the back row of a theater while a man and his two robot friends heckle the screen.

mrstealth your words in this comment and your previous ones, encompass my own feelings about the current state of the game.
The Living Story Project is not delivering a story as well scripted or acted out as what we were given from lvl 1-80. We do not hear our characters talk, we do not get to make choices as them, and we do not see their personalities which we chose influence their decisions. Not to mention the story they are involved themselves has no impact on them or the world.
1. Dredge and Charr unite to fight the world and spawn mute refugees out of thin air. They are defeated after one of their facilities is blown up…never to be heard of again. (dungeon removed)
2. Mute refugees are moved to previously abandoned island and tricked into a binding contract. They rebel and we punch them in the face. (dungeon removed)
3. Speaking of punching, lets Bash some Dragons! You remember the dragons right? Lets celebrate how they aren’t a threat anymore (since we wont see an expansion anytime soon lol)
4. Sky Pirates attack festival! Turns out not only are they able to steal airships from the army that conquered Orr and slayed a Dragon but they can also create a fortress within LA itself without anyone noticing! Good thing they aren’t very smart when it comes to putting a lock on their front door! (Dungeon soon to be removed)

1. There have been huge hints by Colin that the higher quality dungeons from the living story will come back as (somewhat shortened) fractals.

2. The main thing was not the terrible boss instance fight (Canach and Null), the finale which they added (and kept) was the meta-event chain ending with the karka queen. Though it was implemented in such a way that it is incredibly rare for anyone to go back there anyway.

3. If they don’t plan on having expansions they can use the living story to fight the elder dragons. As the article says (and I doubt half the people here have read it) the living story teams make up just a part of the development team as a whole. Many teams are working on bigger thing that will take a while to develop, but can be synergized with the living story. An example of this would be having 2 living story groups work on a new zone in the Far Shiverpeaks, which we would slowly unlock more of as we push further in. At the very end they use one of their other teams who have been working on GW2’s take on raids to add in a huge Jormag instance as a finale.

4. See #1

GoldenTruth.2853:

1. There have been huge hints by Colin that the higher quality dungeons from the living story will come back as (somewhat shortened) fractals.

2. The main thing was not the terrible boss instance fight (Canach and Null), the finale which they added (and kept) was the meta-event chain ending with the karka queen. Though it was implemented in such a way that it is incredibly rare for anyone to go back there anyway.

3. If they don’t plan on having expansions they can use the living story to fight the elder dragons. As the article says (and I doubt half the people here have read it) the living story teams make up just a part of the development team as a whole. Many teams are working on bigger thing that will take a while to develop, but can be synergized with the living story. An example of this would be having 2 living story groups work on a new zone in the Far Shiverpeaks, which we would slowly unlock more of as we push further in. At the very end they use one of their other teams who have been working on GW2’s take on raids to add in a huge Jormag instance as a finale.

4. See #1

Real, permanent, content is still better than spending time developing a dungeon that is available for a few weeks, then might, just maybe, sometime in the not so near future be worked on even more and stuffed into a Fractal. I would still never see it even if it did come back as a Fractal, because I have no interest in doing the the same dungeons over and over at slightly high difficulty each pass. No do I want to have to do that on the same character (alt-a-holic here) every time. Fractals are aimed at a certain segment of the community, and a lot of us are not part of the group.

The second trip to Southsun was certainly better than the first, but that’s said and done, and the island is once again deserted. The only sliver of hope it had is ruined by the silly mechanic required to get the boss to have a chance at spawning. SoS started off seeming ok, but then we all got our achievements (the available ones, which was the majority) and Southsun turned to an event/mob farm for a few weeks before the big finale and return to a deserted wasteland.

In my opinion, the best living story we’ve had so far was Flame & Frost, and I still didn’t think very much of that. It did, at least, add some open world events, a small bit of open world story (for those that wanted to bother going back each week for a new sentence from a refugee), a pair of story instances that took more than 5 minutes to complete, and a great dungeon as the finale. It should have been added over a much shorter time span, but this was their first experiment into the living stories for GW2. Sadly, the futher attempts at living stories have been a huge step down from F&F’s lackluster content.

The Dragon Bash was essentially the same as Secret of Southsun, but spread out over the world. Replacing the event farming with holograms, and instead of searching for items in Southsun, we’re sent off scanning NPCs in various zones. Even being directed right to them instead of having to make any effort to find them. Add in a few trivial instances, and completely remove any sort of finale, in favor of having it roll right into the next completely ridiculous, and out of place, adventure with Sky Pirates a mere 2 weeks later.

I’ve not touched this Sky Pirate content, nor do I plan to. I just want this step of the “story” to be over, but I don’t have much faith that the next will be any better. Maybe they can turn this around by actually adding some game story/lore-relevant living world content. Right now, it just feels like they are throwing completely random story ideas at us, and hoping one of them catches on. However, I’m afraid to see them try and handle one of the remaining elder dragons with this type of content. At least until they can show us something worthwhile out of a living story.

Galen Grey.4709:

At end of the day every action you can take in any game is repetitive and boring. The new really hard raid just released? its only great while its new and fresh. Once you learn the mechanics and get a good team it too will become the equivalent of pressing F (only it will be 1 – 10 or whatever keybinds you have) Every content has an expiry date and the way its being handled by having it stay around 1 month or so helps a lot with that imho.

Yes, although I have to say that the overall experience of anticipating a new batch of PvE content, then going into it and racing other guilds for kills, then progressing through hard modes, then at the end farming the achievements and mounts is an entirely more exciting and enjoyable experience than the mundane content that makes up most (not all) of these monthly updates.

The other enemy of new and fresh is the difficulty level. If new content is trivial it will become repetitive much faster then if its difficult. At least I am very happy here that if the last 2 dungeons we got are any indication of future content the difficulty level is increasing a bit and this should keep content interesting for 2 weeks no problem dont you think?

To me, this is the most pressing issue of them all – and that’s why I describe it as not being meaningful content. Usually at the end-game you would get content that challenges you more than what came before. Living Story content isn’t challenging. It’s more of a monthly to-do list of achievements and stuff to farm.

What do you mean with nothing new at PvE end-game is being added? Just last month we had the Aetherblade Retreat dungeon, the Not So Secret jp and the achievements. why is that not end-game pve content in your opinion?

It’s because the dungeons are story mode, when we already have a bunch of explorable mode dungeons and Fractals. It’s not really “end” game, since it’s easier than what is currently available.

Galen Grey.4709:

MoP had a ton of content sure no doubt. Provided none of that content was in development before the release of that previous campaign you’d still be comparing 10 months of gw2 releases with 24 months it took blizzard to complete MoP. Thats 2.4x more time MoP had. If we multiple what we got so far by 2.4x thats also A LOT of content wouldn’t you say?

Well, you have to consider that WoW also gets content patches. While much less frequent than GW2 patches, generally when they add stuff it is the “meaty” content people keep referring to rather than fluff. Sure, there’s fluff too, but it’s not the main attraction. You typically get a new raid, new daily quest zones, and sometimes two or three new dungeons – plus all the fluff.

mrstealth.6701:

Real, permanent, content is still better than spending time developing a dungeon that is available for a few weeks, then might, just maybe, sometime in the not so near future be worked on even more and stuffed into a Fractal. I would still never see it even if it did come back as a Fractal, because I have no interest in doing the the same dungeons over and over at slightly high difficulty each pass. No do I want to have to do that on the same character (alt-a-holic here) every time. Fractals are aimed at a certain segment of the community, and a lot of us are not part of the group.

The second trip to Southsun was certainly better than the first, but that’s said and done, and the island is once again deserted. The only sliver of hope it had is ruined by the silly mechanic required to get the boss to have a chance at spawning. SoS started off seeming ok, but then we all got our achievements (the available ones, which was the majority) and Southsun turned to an event/mob farm for a few weeks before the big finale and return to a deserted wasteland.

In my opinion, the best living story we’ve had so far was Flame & Frost, and I still didn’t think very much of that. It did, at least, add some open world events, a small bit of open world story (for those that wanted to bother going back each week for a new sentence from a refugee), a pair of story instances that took more than 5 minutes to complete, and a great dungeon as the finale. It should have been added over a much shorter time span, but this was their first experiment into the living stories for GW2. Sadly, the futher attempts at living stories have been a huge step down from F&F’s lackluster content.

The Dragon Bash was essentially the same as Secret of Southsun, but spread out over the world. Replacing the event farming with holograms, and instead of searching for items in Southsun, we’re sent off scanning NPCs in various zones. Even being directed right to them instead of having to make any effort to find them. Add in a few trivial instances, and completely remove any sort of finale, in favor of having it roll right into the next completely ridiculous, and out of place, adventure with Sky Pirates a mere 2 weeks later.

I’ve not touched this Sky Pirate content, nor do I plan to. I just want this step of the “story” to be over, but I don’t have much faith that the next will be any better. Maybe they can turn this around by actually adding some game story/lore-relevant living world content. Right now, it just feels like they are throwing completely random story ideas at us, and hoping one of them catches on. However, I’m afraid to see them try and handle one of the remaining elder dragons with this type of content. At least until they can show us something worthwhile out of a living story.

One of the major problems with simply keeping every single living story dungeon is that as they are stacked up they would be played less and less. If the rewards aren’t good enough, often dungeons are largely ignored (hence why a dungeon like CM is so rarely run). One could say people could aim for things like the Molten Jetpack to give incentives, but I still think that to few people would run them a couple months after they are made. However, if they are added to fractals they always remain relevant because the instances are chosen at random. Even if only a portion of players do fractals, that portion would still be more than the community of dungeon runners divided by all the new living story dungeons they create (and Colin also hinted at a rewards revamp for FotM so it’s more viable for money making). Colin also said that they plan on making more permanent content (including changes to permanent dungeons) and DEs.

While Karka Queen spawning has nothing to do with RNG, I agree that it was implemented in such a way that when the living story shifted no one would come back.

I thought that F&F was the worst out of all the living stories, and the content has slowly gotten better and better (though Southsun was better and worse than F&F in different aspects).

I mean I’m not sure you can really say that Sky Pirates was bad and at the same time say you haven’t touched it. Story-wise it wasn’t that great, but you do start to see tie ins to a larger plot (Scarlet).

Wolfheart.1938:

Unrelated question.
What did Blizzard release during the 6 months you were charged a subscription fee before releasing the expansion that you had to pay for? Also 2 pvp maps and 1 arena sure looks impressive :p

Tell me about it. At the end of Wrath of the Lich King, there was something like 9 months without any new content. Blizzard’s terrible pace of releasing patches is one of the main reasons I don’t play WoW any more.

However, the reason I wrote the list of MoP content is to illustrate what an expansion’s worth of content actually looks like. Regardless of how slow Blizzard is at making new content, one of their expansions is much, much, much bigger than what we’ve had and what we’ll get if the current content design trend continues.

GoldenTruth.2853:

One of the major problems with simply keeping every single living story dungeon is that as they are stacked up they would be played less and less. If the rewards aren’t good enough, often dungeons are largely ignored (hence why a dungeon like CM is so rarely run). One could say people could aim for things like the Molten Jetpack to give incentives, but I still think that to few people would run them a couple months after they are made. However, if they are added to fractals they always remain relevant because the instances are chosen at random. Even if only a portion of players do fractals, that portion would still be more than the community of dungeon runners divided by all the new living story dungeons they create (and Colin also hinted at a rewards revamp for FotM so it’s more viable for money making). Colin also said that they plan on making more permanent content (including changes to permanent dungeons) and DEs.

While Karka Queen spawning has nothing to do with RNG, I agree that it was implemented in such a way that when the living story shifted no one would come back.

I thought that F&F was the worst out of all the living stories, and the content has slowly gotten better and better (though Southsun was better and worse than F&F in different aspects).

I mean I’m not sure you can really say that Sky Pirates was bad and at the same time say you haven’t touched it. Story-wise it wasn’t that great, but you do start to see tie ins to a larger plot (Scarlet).

I don’t see any harm in leaving the dungeons in the game, and still adding an altered version as a Fractal sometime in the future. There is no need to take it away. Even if not many people do it, its existence doesn’t cause any problems.

I’m not sure what you mean about the Karka Queen, but capturing the camps required for her to spawn doesn’t guarantee that she will spawn. I’m not really sure what the conditions are, or if that only happens if the queen had been killed too recently. But I do know that completing the prerequisite events does not guarantee a queen spawn.

And I never called the Sky Pirate content bad, I’ve not seen enough to make a judgement on the playable content itself, aside from the pointless random Aetherblade ambushes at holograms and a very short trip into the dungeon. Those experiences did not leave a favorable impression, but my statements here were only based on the sheer ridiculousness of the Aetherblades.

Karka Queen spawns when all 4 camps are captured. Once she is killed there is a 1 hour cooldown before she can spawn again where the meta-achievement will say “The Karka Queen is in Hiding”

Other points will just be a back and forth that aren’t very relevant to the main topic so I’ll just say that there are positives and negatives to having both the dungeon and a fractal, and in my opinion adding it to strictly fractals would be better (though if they added armor sets to be bought with tokens keeping them strictly as dungeons would be best).

Edit: You’re also not really giving Aetherblade stuff a chance, saying that since the premise is ridiculous you don’t want to do the content. Even though the dungeon is (arguably) very good as well as the jumping puzzle.

Fairymore.8609:

mrstealth.6701:

Hell Avenger.7021:

Let’s put it bluntly. The living story is only holding people’s interest for NOW. People are waiting, and once they cannot wait anymore. They will move on to the next thing.

I’m tired of waiting, and I’ve had more than enough living story. It just feels like we’re bouncing from one random, completely unrelated story to the next. None of it matters, and none of it has anything to do with the rest of the game’s world or story. Random steampunk flying pirates show up out of nowhere to crash an already somewhat silly celebration…I feel like I should be watching this from the back row of a theater while a man and his two robot friends heckle the screen.

mrstealth your words in this comment and your previous ones, encompass my own feelings about the current state of the game.
The Living Story Project is not delivering a story as well scripted or acted out as what we were given from lvl 1-80. We do not hear our characters talk, we do not get to make choices as them, and we do not see their personalities which we chose influence their decisions. Not to mention the story they are involved themselves has no impact on them or the world.
1. Dredge and Charr unite to fight the world and spawn mute refugees out of thin air. They are defeated after one of their facilities is blown up…never to be heard of again. (dungeon removed)
2. Mute refugees are moved to previously abandoned island and tricked into a binding contract. They rebel and we punch them in the face. (dungeon removed)
3. Speaking of punching, lets Bash some Dragons! You remember the dragons right? Lets celebrate how they aren’t a threat anymore (since we wont see an expansion anytime soon lol)
4. Sky Pirates attack festival! Turns out not only are they able to steal airships from the army that conquered Orr and slayed a Dragon but they can also create a fortress within LA itself without anyone noticing! Good thing they aren’t very smart when it comes to putting a lock on their front door! (Dungeon soon to be removed)

+1

GoldenTruth.2853:

You’re also not really giving Aetherblade stuff a chance, saying that since the premise is ridiculous you don’t want to do the content. Even though the dungeon is (arguably) very good as well as the jumping puzzle.

I don’t speak for anyone else, but I thought both the dungeon and the jumping puzzle were well made. The Sky Pirate slayer achievements, on the other hand, felt like exactly the kind of content you’d expect from a development team rushing to get content out the door. They required minimal effort to complete and felt like nothing short of filler to me. With the efforts Anet went through to craft such a rich and full world, the “light 150 effigies” and “kill 250 sky pirates” isn’t up to the level of quality I know the developers are capable of.

Ah, the karka queen’s spawn isn’t as bad as it originally was then. Didn’t have many chances to do that event, and ended up avoiding it because the area around the camps was a lagfest.

As for the Sky Pirates, no, I’m not giving it a chance. The bit of the dungeon I did see left me with no desire to return, along with the progress-blocking bugs that plague it, some of which were said (in this thread) to still be there. The puzzle I will (likely, if I keep playing) eventually get around to doing, as it is apparently not temporary. I’m also not in favor of this new content (I don’t even want to call most this stuff content, the only aspects of Sky Pirates that qualify are the dungeon and JP) release schedule, and see no reason to condone its continuing by doing the “content” that doesn’t appeal to me to begin with.

darkace.8925:

GoldenTruth.2853:

You’re also not really giving Aetherblade stuff a chance, saying that since the premise is ridiculous you don’t want to do the content. Even though the dungeon is (arguably) very good as well as the jumping puzzle.

I don’t speak for anyone else, but I thought both the dungeon and the jumping puzzle were well made. The Sky Pirate slayer achievements, on the other hand, felt like exactly the kind of content you’d expect from a development team rushing to get content out the door. They required minimal effort to complete and felt like nothing short of filler to me. With the efforts Anet went through to craft such a rich and full world, the “light 150 effigies” and “kill 250 sky pirates” isn’t up to the level of quality I know the developers are capable of.

If you’ve done the jp and the dungeon then I would say you did do the content and can state what you want about the Sky Pirates patch (I don’t consider grindy achievements content, but I do consider things that aren’t directly achievements like the decoration of Lion’s Arch content). So yeah, if you do or don’t like it (whether it be content, design, etc.) and gave it a chance that’s fine by me.

Edit: I’m apparently talking to one person who I thought was another so I edited the message a little.

Galen Grey.4709:

I have a feeling that the monthly content release makes it hard for people to judge how much content is being pushed out. Its not even been a whole year yet and we already got the following stuff since release:

- 139 New Achievements
- 62 New Dynamic Events
- 9 New Jumping Puzzles
- 3 new mini dungeons (Forsaken Halls, Vexa’s Lab,Canach’s Lair)
- 2 new story-line instances (Braham and Rox)
- The Diving Goggles Activity
- Costume Brawl
- 3 farming Activity (Halloween (haunted Doors), Wintersday and Dragon Bash)
- 5 PvP Mini Game (Lunatic Inquisition,Reaper’s Rumble, Snowball mayhem, Crab toss, Dragon Ball)
- 4 mini games (Bell choir, super adventure box,Toypocalypse,Moa Racing )
- 510 new recipes (Halloween, Lost Shores, Wintersday)
- 15 new minis
- 98 new skins
- 20 new tonics
- 2 new world event (Skritt Thief and Modus Sceleris)
- 4 event specific dungeon (Ascent to Madness, Tixx’s Infinirarium, Molten Core, Aetherblade Retreat)
- Fractal of the mists (9 new mini dungeons)
- 2 new PvP map (Temple of the Silent Storm, Spirit Watch)
- New Gear Tier
- 2 new maps (Mad King Labyrinth, Southsun Cove)
- 9 new game features (crafting materials accessible through bank,PvP paid Tournaments, guesting, guild missions, trading post preview, selectable daily achievement, Custom arena, spectaor mode, WvW progression)
- 4 new currency ( Pristine Fractal Relics,Laurels, guild merits, guild commendations)
- 3 scavenger hunt (the mad king, Karka scavenger hunt, Marriner Plaque )
- 42 new guild missions
- 1 new meta event (Legendary Karka Queen)

I am sure I forgot to count stuff here but even so there might not have been many new maps or new classes but If all of this was released all at once wouldn’t it be an expansion worth of stuff? Personally I love they’re not lumping stuff up for an expansion. Its nice getting large amounts of content. Someone mentioned a specific expansion of another game (am not a player of that game) but as far as I can tell that expansion took 2 years to develop and in between there were only a few raids released) I personally feel a game keeps me a lot more engaged by providing new stuff every couple of weeks for me to do then a massive amount of content in 2 years time with some repeatable content every few months while we wait. As we can see above we got a ton of stuff. Now I understand the content is not engaging for everyone that’s a bummer no doubt but even so at least its just a couple of weeks / a month before you get new stuff that might be interesting to you, if a whole expansion isn’t your kind of content the time you’d need to wait is measured in years and what do you do in the interm?

I would also urge patience, we’re still in the first year, a lot of time was devoted to bug fixing and improvement which we got a mountain of with ever release and isnt even counted above. As the core gets more robust more resources can be devoted to new content. We already know the 4 living story teams are just a subset working on the game and there is more long term stuff planed. There was already mentioned in an ingame chat with a developer about a possible gw2 style implementation of raiding being already in the works.. I would bet thats definitely one such long term project !

I got nothing against Expansions but if they keep this up I think they’re quite right in that there might not be the need for one. The 4 teams working on the living story can have 2 months leadtime working on content if each team release a piece every 2 weeks. And the long term team can work on expensive features like new zones, classes, features such as housing or whatever which isnt doable in 2 week timeframes and release those once they’re done in 3 or 6 months. I can see this working beautifully personally!

Some of the stuff you listed was always in the game and just had achievements attached to them.

Some of the stuff you listed has since been removed from the game.

Some of the stuff you listed was ease of use features or things that were always supposed to be part of the game, it just took them months upon months to add.

People have enough companies trying to blow smoke, it doesn’t help when the fans do it too.

GoldenTruth.2853:

If you’ve done the jp and the dungeon then I would say you did do the content and can state what you want about the Sky Pirates patch (I don’t consider grindy achievements content, but I do consider things that aren’t directly achievements like the decoration of Lion’s Arch content).

I like what you said, if you have done the jumping puzzle and the dungeon its reasonable to say you have experienced the content. Everything else really does not stand on its own. I feel the “mystery” of who killed Mr. Who Cares no name was delivered poorly. The best part about it was the cut scene and its thematic style. But the investigations, the murder itself, and the weak escort quest (taking the wounded from point A to point B in a straight line with spawning mobs) very disappointing.

So I told you what I dont like. Let me tell you what I would like from a Living Story chapter:
A new open world area complete with its own place on the map, vistas, points of interest, dynamic events, and hearts. Dynamic events and hearts help to explain an overarching plot unique to the area. Also included is a continuation of the personal story. Not the dragon slaying personal story but rather what we experienced in the first 30 levels of any character. A story that revolves exclusively around your character. To be clearer: on my Asuran I chose to have the Infinity ball as my great invention so my story revolved around me and my invention. Perhaps we can have several options to choose from that are specific to our race or profession that will influence what kind of adventures and discoveries we will make. Include a conclusion to the story and toss some achievements in there. A world boss and/or dungeon would be appreciated.
Or
Do everything I have mentioned above but inside an already existing area. Replace the old hearts and dynamic events with new ones and change the landscape while adding new vistas and points of interest.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.

It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.

We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

“And it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.” But maybe some of us don’t want it in another way simply because if it’s not done as an expansion it means you need to focus on the gem-store and a focus on the gem-store is bad for the game.

Like the gold-driven system, temporary available items, making sure farming mats is not possible and so on.

“some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road. …. We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time”

So thats very bad as it means that there will not be any expansion soon and the way to make money will be the gem-store focus.

“Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible”
And you do not do that with the gem-store focus I was telling about but no expansion means gem-store focus. It;s the one or the other. You guys are not working for nothing aren’t you?

You seem to forget that a substantiate number of your customers when for this game because it was B2P. And those that where interested in GW2 for that reason also had reasons not to go for a subscription based game and for a F2P game… Where the most likely reason not to go for a F2P game would be the cash-shop focus. And that does not just mean B2W it also means all those thinks we have lately see in GW2. The gem-store has les and les become an optional thing and more and more really a part of the game but even worse, game mechanics are designed around it trying to get people to buy from it but those same mechanics are bad for the game.

Just come with good expansion, make some money on that and then you can leave the focus on the gem-store and stop building game mechanics around that but build game-mechanics around having a good game. Then again if there are no plant at this moment it might already be to late.

Devata.6589:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.

It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.

We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

“And it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.” But maybe some of us don’t want it in another way simply because if it’s not done as an expansion it means you need to focus on the gem-store and a focus on the gem-store is bad for the game.

Like the gold-driven system, temporary available items, making sure farming mats is not possible and so on.

“some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road. …. We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time”

So thats very bad as it means that there will not be any expansion soon and the way to make money will be the gem-store focus.

“Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible”
And you do not do that with the gem-store focus I was telling about but no expansion means gem-store focus. It;s the one or the other. You guys are not working for nothing aren’t you?

You seem to forget that a substantiate number of your customers when for this game because it was B2P. And those that where interested in GW2 for that reason also had reasons not to go for a subscription based game and for a F2P game… Where the most likely reason not to go for a F2P game would be the cash-shop focus. And that does not just mean B2W it also means all those thinks we have lately see in GW2. The gem-store has les and les become an optional thing and more and more really a part of the game but even worse, game mechanics are designed around it trying to get people to buy from it but those same mechanics are bad for the game.

Just come with good expansion, make some money on that and then you can leave the focus on the gem-store and stop building game mechanics around that but build game-mechanics around having a good game. Then again if there are no plant at this moment it might already be to late.

The gemstore is entirely cosmetic, you don’t have to buy anything, no one does. Some people do, that’s great. While I may not like that some skins are rng dependent, it seems people do as you see enough people buying them, even though a lot also post in threads to complain about them. In a way, that kind of means they are focusing on the game, as people wouldn’t make purchases on a game they’re completely unhappy with, so it is in Arena Nets best interest to focus on the game with cosmetic cash shop incentives.

A Massive Headache.1879:

Devata.6589:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.

It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.

We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

“And it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.” But maybe some of us don’t want it in another way simply because if it’s not done as an expansion it means you need to focus on the gem-store and a focus on the gem-store is bad for the game.

Like the gold-driven system, temporary available items, making sure farming mats is not possible and so on.

“some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road. …. We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time”

So thats very bad as it means that there will not be any expansion soon and the way to make money will be the gem-store focus.

“Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible”
And you do not do that with the gem-store focus I was telling about but no expansion means gem-store focus. It;s the one or the other. You guys are not working for nothing aren’t you?

You seem to forget that a substantiate number of your customers when for this game because it was B2P. And those that where interested in GW2 for that reason also had reasons not to go for a subscription based game and for a F2P game… Where the most likely reason not to go for a F2P game would be the cash-shop focus. And that does not just mean B2W it also means all those thinks we have lately see in GW2. The gem-store has les and les become an optional thing and more and more really a part of the game but even worse, game mechanics are designed around it trying to get people to buy from it but those same mechanics are bad for the game.

Just come with good expansion, make some money on that and then you can leave the focus on the gem-store and stop building game mechanics around that but build game-mechanics around having a good game. Then again if there are no plant at this moment it might already be to late.

The gemstore is entirely cosmetic, you don’t have to buy anything, no one does. Some people do, that’s great. While I may not like that some skins are rng dependent, it seems people do as you see enough people buying them, even though a lot also post in threads to complain about them. In a way, that kind of means they are focusing on the game, as people wouldn’t make purchases on a game they’re completely unhappy with, so it is in Arena Nets best interest to focus on the game with cosmetic cash shop incentives.

I am pretty sure I already said it was not B2W (so cosmetic) but that that is not the whole problem. A focus on the gemstore in this case also meant temporary stuff (nothing more then a marketing technique) and stuff like the gold-driven mechanics. Many of the complains you see on this forum can be indirectly linked to there focus on the gem-store and there would be no need for that focus (on this level) if they would focus on expansions in stead. That was the whole point.

Devata.6589:

A Massive Headache.1879:

Devata.6589:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.

It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.

We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

“And it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.” But maybe some of us don’t want it in another way simply because if it’s not done as an expansion it means you need to focus on the gem-store and a focus on the gem-store is bad for the game.

Like the gold-driven system, temporary available items, making sure farming mats is not possible and so on.

“some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road. …. We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time”

So thats very bad as it means that there will not be any expansion soon and the way to make money will be the gem-store focus.

“Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible”
And you do not do that with the gem-store focus I was telling about but no expansion means gem-store focus. It;s the one or the other. You guys are not working for nothing aren’t you?

You seem to forget that a substantiate number of your customers when for this game because it was B2P. And those that where interested in GW2 for that reason also had reasons not to go for a subscription based game and for a F2P game… Where the most likely reason not to go for a F2P game would be the cash-shop focus. And that does not just mean B2W it also means all those thinks we have lately see in GW2. The gem-store has les and les become an optional thing and more and more really a part of the game but even worse, game mechanics are designed around it trying to get people to buy from it but those same mechanics are bad for the game.

Just come with good expansion, make some money on that and then you can leave the focus on the gem-store and stop building game mechanics around that but build game-mechanics around having a good game. Then again if there are no plant at this moment it might already be to late.

The gemstore is entirely cosmetic, you don’t have to buy anything, no one does. Some people do, that’s great. While I may not like that some skins are rng dependent, it seems people do as you see enough people buying them, even though a lot also post in threads to complain about them. In a way, that kind of means they are focusing on the game, as people wouldn’t make purchases on a game they’re completely unhappy with, so it is in Arena Nets best interest to focus on the game with cosmetic cash shop incentives.

I am pretty sure I already said it was not B2W (so cosmetic) but that that is not the whole problem. A focus on the gemstore in this case also meant temporary stuff (nothing more then a marketing technique) and stuff like the gold-driven mechanics. Many of the complains you see on this forum can be indirectly linked to there focus on the gem-store and there would be no need for that focus (on this level) if they would focus on expansions in stead. That was the whole point.

That like saying gaming is money focus though its a “truthism.” Even in P2P games the game makers would have items you could buy with real life money to “enhance” your game by looks or others. So i am not sure if you have a point at all your in the end simply saying Anet is putting out this game for money and yes they are and should be that how our system works and should work.

Most of the players in my guild play about 1-4 hours about 5 days a week. After some months, we had seen most of it and most only met on guild days to play together. Many of us stuck to the game in hope for the anticipated expansion, as it is usual for a game like this.

The living story (read all of mrstealth.6701, he is right in every aspect) offers 1 day of new content every two weeks. This might be good enough for gamers, who play the game anyway, it does not get anyone back to the game.

This is the big difference to an expansion. Quite some of our guild used to stick to the game in hopes for an expansion sometime in the future. An expansion offers some months of content and fun for the whole guild. The people come back together to enjoy it. The living story – suspecting it would get better – only offers some hours of difference – then business as usual. It just not worth doing it and it is most definately not worth coming back in numbers for it.

What I dont lke about Living Story is the high level of missing out. Either missing out on story, or items, or just enjoyment in general. An expansion is always there to do at your leisure. I like the idea something new is coming every month or so, but I hate that it means content is also going every month.

Grileenor.1497:

Most of the players in my guild play about 1-4 hours about 5 days a week. After some months, we had seen most of it and most only met on guild days to play together. Many of us stuck to the game in hope for the anticipated expansion, as it is usual for a game like this.

The living story (read all of mrstealth.6701, he is right in every aspect) offers 1 day of new content every two weeks. This might be good enough for gamers, who play the game anyway, it does not get anyone back to the game.

This is the big difference to an expansion. Quite some of our guild used to stick to the game in hopes for an expansion sometime in the future. An expansion offers some months of content and fun for the whole guild. The people come back together to enjoy it. The living story – suspecting it would get better – only offers some hours of difference – then business as usual. It just not worth doing it and it is most definately not worth coming back in numbers for it.

This leads to the same problem you have now, more or less, and was a problem they wanted to fix from the first GW, people would beat the game fast and then be left wanting more while others haven’t caught up. If they go the expansion route, you have some months of new content and then you’re back to waiting. Living story, where 2 weeks of content doesn’t seem like a bad way to go at all

I think the idea of doing frequent, smaller content updates instead of large expansion packs is a nice idea. However, these updates should almost exlcusively add permanent content and activities, and keep the temporary stuff to an absolute minimum.

Mephane.8496:

I think the idea of doing frequent, smaller content updates instead of large expansion packs is a nice idea. However, these updates should almost exlcusively add permanent content and activities, and keep the temporary stuff to an absolute minimum.

If we had control of that I feel we all would want that.
We do not have control.
Anet has stated it WILL add permanent content. When it happens we will just have to wait and see, but it is clear permanent content WILL be added in the next patch.
Will the next patch after that do the same?
We will see in two weeks when the announce it.

My only qualm/concern with this comes from the Elder Dragons. How will they be handled to create a large enough impact. My issue with this is:

- If the Living Story is the intended road that will be leading up to the next dragon, then it will have to be done very well. The Living Story could be a more than capable device to drive an intriguing narrative, however, what the Living Story has offered thus far falls short of the magnitude of what an Elder Dragon story should present.

- There should be months of build up. The personal story was used as a set up towards the fight with Zhaitan, and for the most part it did an adequate job. I think ANet can do better and they’ve learned a lot between now and then. If done right, they can up the ante and introduce the next Elder in an explosive way, displaying it’s power across the world and actually show it as a threat to every player.

- The impact should still be present long after. Let’s say there’s numerous Living Story event’s that shape the path to Primordus and after months of Living Story a (permanent) dungeon is introduced so players can down him. After all of this happened a player returns to the game after a hiatus, and all he sees in the wake of the dragon is a new dungeon. What that would basically mean is that the after effects of such a destructive force was basically negligible. No, there should be two (or so) zones added to display the dragon’s dominion, and parts around Tyria should be changed forever. That way new/returning players would look at it and go “What the hell happened here”, while those who were there can go “Ah, I remember that, that was epic”.

mrstealth.6701:

Galen Grey.4709:

But like I said in my previous post because content releases happen so frequently if there is nothing for me 1 month its not a problem. With an expansion I’d still need to wait 1 – 2 years for new content anyway.

For many of us that 1 year wait is coming up in 2 months. A lot of people hit their “what do I do now?” point months ago…I’ve hit mine recently. snip….

what now really changes month to month.. Of course it depends on how much one plays and what they enjoy doing but the nice thing about this biweekly updates is even if you finish everything there is to play in gw2 (and there is a lot!) every 2 weeks you got either new stuff to enjoy or in some cases a reason to revisit old content. It mostly depends on how you play really. Like lets take the effigies. They can either be the most boring achievement in the history of achievements if all you do is teleport to the closest way point, press f and move to the next. 30 minutes of pure money skin where you end up a few gold poorer and 5 achievement points. Or you can use them as an incentive to enjoy the open world a little bit, walk from one to the next, no teleporting and allowing yourself to be distracted by dynamic events along the way in which case you’ll enjoy a couple of days of gameplay be richer by a few gold and get the 5 achievement points without getting bored.

I think you misunderstood. We are not told this is all we get. We are told this is the release mechanism they’re currently adopting. The living world content that we got so far is being produced by 4 teams. We are told those 4 teams are focused on short term content (each team should release their stuff every 2 weeks so every team works on their stuff for 2 months) Those are however a fraction of the overall gw2 team. Other teams are working on longer term stuff that take longer then 2 weeks to develop. We dont know what those are yet. We got a hint from a developer talking in game that one such thing might be gw2 answer to raiding. It could also be other stuff like new maps, new races, new weapons etc… They can develop an entire zone and populate it with evens in a 2 month time frame so such an endevour would not be part of the living world team but they’ll still tie it in there. For example the next living story might deal with an invasion of undead on settlements in fields of ruin. These undead would look different then the risen though, not deep sea like undead but rather deserty. For the first month it would be events fighting against these assaults, fortifying, helping people etc.. but then the long term content by teams other then the living story would have completed their task. its time to take the fight to the enemy, the crystal desert is open. We’d get say a 3 – 5 new zones and then the story evolves as we take the fight to Palawa Joko in his bone palace for example.

The thing I loved about Gw1 compared to other MMOs is that it didnt have you play the same content over and over until the next piece of content is released. there was always stuff to do, achievement, a particular armor set, whatever. Gw2 takes that to the next imho Even though Gw1 had you do lots of stuff you’d still do it in a few different zones. There was really no point in playing most open world zones more then twice and now and again if you wanted to do a Zaishen Vanquish. The zones just werent rewarding enough. Well not even the Zaishen Vanquish really. Gw2 fixed that or well lets say they made it much better. There is still a ton of achievements to do, 415 of them so far counting also the temporary content some like crabtacular require quite a bit of persistence to earn.

gw1 didnt have wvw how can you state that gw1 achievements where account bound in a category that doesnt exist? gw2 has some achievements that are account wide too! in the end why does it even matter? play what you enjoy. Your original issue was there is not enough to do in gw2, you stated you’re happy with long term stuff like some achievements in gw1 that required a huge effort. Why is it now a problem to build achievements on multiple characters in WvW if you enjoy doing that?

mrstealth.6701:

Hell Avenger.7021:

Let’s put it bluntly. The living story is only holding people’s interest for NOW. People are waiting, and once they cannot wait anymore. They will move on to the next thing.

I’m tired of waiting, and I’ve had more than enough living story. It just feels like we’re bouncing from one random, completely unrelated story to the next. None of it matters, and none of it has anything to do with the rest of the game’s world or story. Random steampunk flying pirates show up out of nowhere to crash an already somewhat silly celebration…I feel like I should be watching this from the back row of a theater while a man and his two robot friends heckle the screen.

I can’t seem to avoid repeatedly referencing GW1…but someone at Anet needs to take a look at GW1’s living content (even though it wasn’t called that at the time, it’s essentially the same thing). The War in Kryta was a story told the right way, and it had more playable content than what we’re getting now in GW2. And it was based entirely on established game story/lore that had existed since the beginning.

The thing is, players shouldnt be waiting, players should be playing and enjoying the game. I honestly cannot understand why people are like if its not a major release then its like it doesnt exist at all. You seem to like action packed content, fair enough, there wasnt a ton of that true but there were action packed released as well. FotM, mini-dungeons, the 2 living story dungeons, the flame and frost storyline instances, The labyrinth, some of the released dynamic events, AC revamp etc..

You mentioned War in Kryta, I hope you realise how long they’ve been working on that. Cant Say for War on Kryta specifically but between War on kryta and hearts of the north as well as Winds of Change, 7 months and 8 months passed respectively. War in kryta was good no doubt about that but it had no where near as much content as we got in Gw2 so far… besides if one of those other teams outside the living story were working on something of that scope it would be releasing right about now or in the next few months (I would imagine they needed a few months to recover from release before they started working on long term stuff) so lets be objective here and not expect too much.

Also why is completely unrelated stories a problem?
how was nightfall related to prophecies or how was factions related to nightfall? How was war on kryta related to nightfall for that matter? it included the same players but the story was totally different.

Fairymore.8609:

mrstealth.6701:

Hell Avenger.7021:

Let’s put it bluntly. The living story is only holding people’s interest for NOW. People are waiting, and once they cannot wait anymore. They will move on to the next thing.

I’m tired of waiting, and I’ve had more than enough living story. It just feels like we’re bouncing from one random, completely unrelated story to the next. None of it matters, and none of it has anything to do with the rest of the game’s world or story. Random steampunk flying pirates show up out of nowhere to crash an already somewhat silly celebration…I feel like I should be watching this from the back row of a theater while a man and his two robot friends heckle the screen.

mrstealth your words in this comment and your previous ones, encompass my own feelings about the current state of the game.
The Living Story Project is not delivering a story as well scripted or acted out as what we were given from lvl 1-80. We do not hear our characters talk, we do not get to make choices as them, and we do not see their personalities which we chose influence their decisions. Not to mention the story they are involved themselves has no impact on them or the world.
1. Dredge and Charr unite to fight the world and spawn mute refugees out of thin air. They are defeated after one of their facilities is blown up…never to be heard of again. (dungeon removed)
2. Mute refugees are moved to previously abandoned island and tricked into a binding contract. They rebel and we punch them in the face. (dungeon removed)
3. Speaking of punching, lets Bash some Dragons! You remember the dragons right? Lets celebrate how they aren’t a threat anymore (since we wont see an expansion anytime soon lol)
4. Sky Pirates attack festival! Turns out not only are they able to steal airships from the army that conquered Orr and slayed a Dragon but they can also create a fortress within LA itself without anyone noticing! Good thing they aren’t very smart when it comes to putting a lock on their front door! (Dungeon soon to be removed)

This is a very fair comment. I do however ask you one simple thing. Do you think a long story arch where you get to make choices that matters, that has multiple actors all voice acted and with enough story to move forward a story like the personal story is something you do in 2 week time frames? What you’re asking for is undoubtly long term stuff. Lets please make a distinction between short term content, the living story and long term content, stuff that is as of now still under wraps because its still being worked upon.

you just contradicted yourself. first you said the story has no impact on the players, characters or the world and then you go on and describe how each story effected the next.

1. Dredge and charr unit and drive refugees out of their homes
2. now the dredge and charr are defeated but refugees are still homeless so what effect does this have on the world? They need a new place to stay
3. Consortium is a nice profit venture that sees nothing but profit. If one reads some of the reports scattered around southsun they’d find out they’re falling behind schedule so what better solution then to get a new work force by offering housing to these refugees in return? of course like all marketing people they kinda oversell the thing
4. the refugees have been tricked thus they’re not very happy about it.. that leads to stuff happening
5. the lines between law and whats right are blurred. Law compels us to move against the refugees but you know thats not right hence why the ending was as it was.

One thing affecting the other.

“they can also create a fortress within LA itself without anyone noticing! "
This might sound preposterous but then again, where are major crime organizations situation in real life? out in the middle of no where or right there in the heart of the cities?

ozma.3498:

Galen Grey.4709:

MoP had a ton of content sure no doubt. Provided none of that content was in development before the release of that previous campaign you’d still be comparing 10 months of gw2 releases with 24 months it took blizzard to complete MoP. Thats 2.4x more time MoP had. If we multiple what we got so far by 2.4x thats also A LOT of content wouldn’t you say?

Well, you have to consider that WoW also gets content patches. While much less frequent than GW2 patches, generally when they add stuff it is the “meaty” content people keep referring to rather than fluff. Sure, there’s fluff too, but it’s not the main attraction. You typically get a new raid, new daily quest zones, and sometimes two or three new dungeons – plus all the fluff.

I dont play WoW so I am not replying out of experiance. Please correct me If I am wrong. MoP expansion hit on august 28 though it didnt go live until a month later. Prior to that the previous content release was 8 months previously on november 29 and from what I can see what was added was a new zone Darkmoon island (cant say for sure but seems to me smaller then southsun cove) 3x 5 man instances and a raid

the instances seem to take 30 mins to complete while the raid about 2hrs from some research i did.

So far we’ve gotten a lot more content than that I would say. in the same 8 month period.

Now it all depends what large updates if any will bring us. Personally I would rather have new stuff to do each month than a little content to repeat over and over again for months before a big payoff especially if we’ll still get a few large payoffs too every x months.

killcannon.2576:

Some of the stuff you listed was always in the game and just had achievements attached to them.

Some of the stuff you listed has since been removed from the game.

Some of the stuff you listed was ease of use features or things that were always supposed to be part of the game, it just took them months upon months to add.

People have enough companies trying to blow smoke, it doesn’t help when the fans do it too.

Not really, none of the stuff I listed was in the game at launch, I made sure of that. Feel free to point out what it was that I listed that was there at launch will be happy to double check for you.

Sure, lots of stuff I mentioned has been removed from the game but so what? does that mean it never existed? does it mean it was never playable?

The only thing that I listed that was supposed to be there at launch was guesting. 1 item out of about 950. Perhaps you’re right and it shouldnt be there since it was promised at launch, then again I didnt list other stuff like AC revamp, new models for various mobs, the decorations and reskin of LA with each event etc.., I think it balances that one thing out.

What smoke exactly? did any of the content I listed not really exist?

Galen Grey.4709:

killcannon.2576:

Some of the stuff you listed was always in the game and just had achievements attached to them.

Some of the stuff you listed has since been removed from the game.

Some of the stuff you listed was ease of use features or things that were always supposed to be part of the game, it just took them months upon months to add.

People have enough companies trying to blow smoke, it doesn’t help when the fans do it too.

Not really, none of the stuff I listed was in the game at launch, I made sure of that. Feel free to point out what it was that I listed that was there at launch will be happy to double check for you.

Sure, lots of stuff I mentioned has been removed from the game but so what? does that mean it never existed? does it mean it was never playable?

The only thing that I listed that was supposed to be there at launch was guesting. 1 item out of about 950. Perhaps you’re right and it shouldnt be there since it was promised at launch, then again I didnt list other stuff like AC revamp, new models for various mobs, the decorations and reskin of LA with each event etc.., I think it balances that one thing out.

What smoke exactly? did any of the content I listed not really exist?

I take back the things that were in at launch, I misread and didn’t see you specify only three of the mini dungeons.

All the supposed “new game features” were talked about before launch.

And if you were not here for the temp content or were on sabbatical for whatever reason, the content did not and does not exist.

Removing content from the game may be “So what” to you, but not to many others, I assure you. If it’s gone then it may as well have never even existed.

Tyria is much the same as when I started, I can see little to no evidence of any “Living World” that the devs have spoken so much about over the last 8 months. Go through your list again and only keep what is still in Tyria. Tell us how it’s changed.

Tell us where the last 8 months have gone, because GW2 is going to need all the help it can get in the coming months.

Smoke is here and gone, much like Anets content. Ephemeral and fleeting. And all because they can’t make content that makes people want to log in on it’s own strengths. They have to use the temporary gimmick.

So how they gonna make money without doing classical buy2play expansions?

rhodoc.2381:

So how they gonna make money without doing classical buy2play expansions?

rng boxes.

Galen Grey.4709:

Like lets take the effigies. They can either be the most boring achievement in the history of achievements if all you do is teleport to the closest way point, press f and move to the next.

Or you can use them as an incentive to enjoy the open world a little bit

I don’t need any more incentive to do this. The open world is there every day, I can do these things any time I want, and we already have incentives like dailies/monthlies to do just that. Adding in some tedious achievement to press F 150 times not content, it is not an incentive to do anything, nor is it fun.

We are told this is the release mechanism they’re currently adopting. The living world content that we got so far is being produced by 4 teams. We are told those 4 teams are focused on short term content (each team should release their stuff every 2 weeks so every team works on their stuff for 2 months) Those are however a fraction of the overall gw2 team. Other teams are working on longer term stuff that take longer then 2 weeks to develop. We dont know what those are yet.

You’re right, we don’t know what is coming in the future, aside from the promise of more updates like the last few we’ve seen. It took them months to fully release F&F, and the amount of actual content involved was tiny. F&F’s multi-month release was also claimed to be an “expansion worth of new content”. That statement was an outright lie, and does not give any credibility to their claims that something bigger is coming.

They can develop an entire zone and populate it with evens in a 2 month time frame so such an endevour would not be part of the living world team but they’ll still tie it in there.

I assume you are referring to Southsun Cove, as that’s the only area to fit the description. That zone is hardly one I would call developed or populated at it’s release. Even today, there are just a handful more events and a world event/boss with that no one bothers with because of the ridiculous mechanics involved in getting it to spawn. Southsun is a beautiful zone, but it is also a failed experiment. No one goes there outside of the two special events that were centered around it.

there was always stuff to do, achievement, a particular armor set, whatever. Gw2 takes that to the next imho Even though Gw1 had you do lots of stuff you’d still do it in a few different zones. There was really no point in playing most open world zones more then twice and now and again if you wanted to do a Zaishen Vanquish. The zones just werent rewarding enough.

My opinion is pretty much the exact opposite, where GW2 is involved. It’s a huge step backwards from GW1 in so many ways. GW2’s open world is probably the most unrewarding I’ve seen in an MMO. Even when leveling up my first character, when greens were the best gear I could expect to have, getting a usable piece of equipment from the open world was a pipe dream. The only advantage GW2 as in this area at all is the fact that level 80 gear can drop from level 1 mobs, making it possible to be rewarded by any zone in the game. Unfortunately getting rewarded with something useful just doesn’t happen very often at all.

gw1 didnt have wvw how can you state that gw1 achievements where account bound in a category that doesnt exist? gw2 has some achievements that are account wide too!

Factions’ reputation-based titles, the Kurzick/Luxon ranks. Three of the primary (and before some major updates, the only) ways to earn these were Alliance Battles, Fort Aspenwood, and Jade Quarry. They lack its massive scale, but wvw is a spiritual successor to these 3 gametypes/arenas, taking aspects off all three and putting them into a huge open-world battlefield. I consider them very much comparable.

you stated you’re happy with long term stuff like some achievements in gw1 that required a huge effort. Why is it now a problem to build achievements on multiple characters in WvW if you enjoy doing that?

Those allegiance ranks, along with most other long-term titles like Wisdom (which was changed from character to account) were account based because having them character bound was detrimental to any player that enjoys more than a singe profession. WvW ranks are the same way. If I earn 500 ranks on a character and use to unlock some (500 isn’t enough anywhere near enough to get them all) of the abilities, that is all gone if I swap to play a different character/profession. And everything I do on that alt character is just slowing down the progress of the other. Such longterm goals are simply not viable for more then one character for the majority of players. This does nothing but enforce a single-character playstyle and add even more “alt hate” to this game.

@Mr Stealth

Except that most of the allegiance ranks in Guild Wars 1, the ones that increased actual skills, were character bound…Sunspear, lightbringer, norn, deldrimor, ebon vangard, asura…all character bound.

If you leveled up your skill on one character, you had to do it on every other character as well.

darkace.8925:

rhodoc.2381:

So how they gonna make money without doing classical buy2play expansions?

rng boxes.

Who in their right mind would buy those dragon coffers from the gemstore when you can easily get hundreds of the droppable version for free? Unless the chance to get a ticket from them is 50% (or at least 30%), they simply are not worth bothering with. And if items are made exclusive to gemstore boxes, the player backlash is brutal…and rightfully so.

mrstealth.6701:

darkace.8925:

rhodoc.2381:

So how they gonna make money without doing classical buy2play expansions?

rng boxes.

Who in their right mind would buy those dragon coffers from the gemstore when you can easily get hundreds of the droppable version for free? Unless the chance to get a ticket from them is 50% (or at least 30%), they simply are not worth bothering with. And if items are made exclusive to gemstore boxes, the player backlash is brutal…and rightfully so.

People bought them. How many people we’ll never know, but I know people personally who did.

Vayne.8563:

@Mr Stealth

Except that most of the allegiance ranks in Guild Wars 1, the ones that increased actual skills, were character bound…Sunspear, lightbringer, norn, deldrimor, ebon vangard, asura…all character bound.

If you leveled up your skill on one character, you had to do it on every other character as well.

Those ranks/titles are barely comparible to the Luxon/Kurzick ranks, or any other account-bound title. Maxing those were trivial in comparison, it could be done in a weekend, especially with the frequent double-reputation events. Completing just one of the two faction allegiance ranks was an endeavor that took months, if not years.

That being said, there was still a large number of players (myself included) that did ask for a very long time for those titles to be made account-based as well.

If arenanet sticks to this ‘’no expansion’’ bussiness model I think they will hurt themselves financially in the long run. Expansions aren’t just explosions of content (which we all love and enjoy) expansions are also awesome marketing material. If gw2 got an expansion that would be promoted on gaming sites and the game would bassically be saying ‘’Hey we’re still here and better than ever, come join in on the fun’’ and old players (who gave up on the game) would come back and get re introduced to it and maybe start loving it yet again.

I would love to see an expansion come out because i am crying to get those new zones and permanent dungeons in the game, a new race would be awesome aswell and btw; I have a bunch of friends that told me :‘’ No use playing now, I’ll come back when they shoot out an expansion’’. And they are not the only ones with this mentality.

Teulius.8752:

If arenanet sticks to this ‘’no expansion’’ bussiness model I think they will hurt themselves financially in the long run. Expansions aren’t just explosions of content (which we all love and enjoy) expansions are also awesome marketing material. If gw2 got an expansion that would be promoted on gaming sites and the game would bassically be saying ‘’Hey we’re still here and better than ever, come join in on the fun’’ and old players (who gave up on the game) would come back and get re introduced to it and maybe start loving it yet again.

I would love to see an expansion come out because i am crying to get those new zones and permanent dungeons in the game, a new race would be awesome aswell and btw; I have a bunch of friends that told me :‘’ No use playing now, I’ll come back when they shoot out an expansion’’. And they are not the only ones with this mentality.

That’s a very good point. I remember being intrigued by Guild Wars every time I saw the box on the shelves in Best Buy. Every time I noticed an expansion box for the game I stopped to check it out. I never picked it up, but I might have.

mrstealth.6701:

Vayne.8563:

@Mr Stealth

Except that most of the allegiance ranks in Guild Wars 1, the ones that increased actual skills, were character bound…Sunspear, lightbringer, norn, deldrimor, ebon vangard, asura…all character bound.

If you leveled up your skill on one character, you had to do it on every other character as well.

Those ranks/titles are barely comparible to the Luxon/Kurzick ranks, or any other account-bound title. Maxing those were trivial in comparison, it could be done in a weekend, especially with the frequent double-reputation events. Completing just one of the two faction allegiance ranks was an endeavor that took months, if not years.

That being said, there was still a large number of players (myself included) that did ask for a very long time for those titles to be made account-based as well.

You could do it in a weekend if you grinded. And I’m not sure how late in the piece those double point weekends were brought into play. I’m pretty sure when NF game out they didn’t exist. They were added later, after many people already grinded lightbringer points.

The point is, they already set a precedent for this type of grind in Guild Wars 1…and you’re right, some of those other titles were changed quite late in the piece. I’m sure hundreds of thousands of people did the wisdom grind before it was account bound.

These things exist to give people stuff to do when games are new and have less content. More content gets added and then achievements and grind for stuff gets easier.

It’s like this in every new game….for a reason. New games have to slow down progress, or no one would have anything to do.

Galen Grey.4709:

Also why is completely unrelated stories a problem?
how was nightfall related to prophecies or how was factions related to nightfall? How was war on kryta related to nightfall for that matter? it included the same players but the story was totally different.

Unrelated stories themselves aren’t a problem, but I do see an issue when such a supposed story driven-game has only unrelated stories tacked on. Even Flame & Frost doesn’t make much sense lore-wise, but at least it did involve factions/races we are familiar with. The later stories involve powerful factions like the Consortium and Aetherblades that seem to poof into existence, or an entire island that somehow went unnoticed despite being right under our noses.

The comparison to GW1 isn’t really a valid one. First off, Prophecies and Nightfall were very much linked lore-wise. Factions was rather disconnected, but even that disconnect is consistent with the lore that existed before Factions was released. The Canthan Empire was a separationist/xenophobic state. Factions and Nightfall were also both released as stand-alone games that you could link to your existing game account for the purpose of playing that content with your old characters, or play through the older content with your new Factions/Nightfall characters. Making their stories tightly woven into Prophecies’ storyline would have destroyed those games’ ability to stand on their own.

As for the War in Kryta, it wasn’t supposed to be related to Nightfall or Factions. It was a continuation of the Prophecies story. It was the backlash of our characters’ actions and a battle to regain control between 2 factions that had existed, and were well known, for years. It was a living story that made sense, and was deeply rooted in the game’s lore/history.

Like the War in Kryta, the “living story” in GW2 exists completely within the established areas of the game, with the exception of Southsun (though SS is on the same continent, and adjacent to “known” areas). The difference is that one of the stories are related to the game’s story/lore, and in my opinion, the way they are linked into each other is very tacked-on/cheap. Why not work on existing stories instead of these things? Bring back something from GW1 lore (Seers/Mursaat/White Mantle) Maybe something that involves my character. All of the loose ends left over from the level 1-30 stories. I care more about the existing story/lore than an attempt to retcon in some secret charr/dredge alliance who’s goal seemed to be terrorizing the refugees from a town that magically appeared out of nowhere.

To me, it feels like the living story content is just random, incomplete storyboards being thrown at the game in the hopes that one of them will be popular enough to build into something worthwhile.

Vayne.8563:

You could do it in a weekend if you grinded. And I’m not sure how late in the piece those double point weekends were brought into play. I’m pretty sure when NF game out they didn’t exist. They were added later, after many people already grinded lightbringer points.

The point is, they already set a precedent for this type of grind in Guild Wars 1…and you’re right, some of those other titles were changed quite late in the piece. I’m sure hundreds of thousands of people did the wisdom grind before it was account bound.

These things exist to give people stuff to do when games are new and have less content. More content gets added and then achievements and grind for stuff gets easier.

It’s like this in every new game….for a reason. New games have to slow down progress, or no one would have anything to do.

Again, the scale of the Factions’ allegiance ranks and the Eye of the North racial reputation ranks are not even comparable. Even a casual player could finish all of those ranks in a matter of weeks, maybe a few months. A single faction allegiance title would take months for even the most hardcore player.

I could max every one of those racial/pve titles on all 10 GW1 professions in a fraction of the amount of gameplay hours it took me to get my Kurzick title done.

The scale of the allegiance ranks is comparable to that of the WXP ranks in wvw. Yet for whatever reason, that has been left as character-based. Take the lesson learned so many years ago in GW1 and apply it to GW2. Make them account-based.

killcannon.2576:

I take back the things that were in at launch, I misread and didn’t see you specify only three of the mini dungeons.

All the supposed “new game features” were talked about before launch.

And if you were not here for the temp content or were on sabbatical for whatever reason, the content did not and does not exist.

Removing content from the game may be “So what” to you, but not to many others, I assure you. If it’s gone then it may as well have never even existed.

Tyria is much the same as when I started, I can see little to no evidence of any “Living World” that the devs have spoken so much about over the last 8 months. Go through your list again and only keep what is still in Tyria. Tell us how it’s changed.

Tell us where the last 8 months have gone, because GW2 is going to need all the help it can get in the coming months.

Smoke is here and gone, much like Anets content. Ephemeral and fleeting. And all because they can’t make content that makes people want to log in on it’s own strengths. They have to use the temporary gimmick.

I am not going to contradict you, but honestly the only new feature I heard talk about before launch was the guesting. The crafting materials accessible from the game was requested by players afaik, they never even talked about it before one day poof it was made available. Guild missions and WvW progression were also stuff added based on player feedback afaik. For the rest I dont know but honestly never heard talk about them before launch and I followed the game extremely closely.

If you were not there, you’d miss it true but if you were not playing you didnt need new content to play either. I mean if I start playing today would it make sense to complain no content was released the past 9 months? like wise if I missed 1 month out of those 9 months, is it a problem i got 8 months worth of content in the 8 months I played? The most important thing imho is that when you’re playing you have fresh content to play.

Thing is ironically I would bet the reason why content is temporary is preciesly to give us the change you’re asking for. One of the biggest complaint they got for the manifesto is that they promised change. Specifically “if you save a village it remains saved” Now in my view what they meant is the change would happen as you play not eternally. I mean in other MMOs there would be no visual change or just an instantaneous change. For a save the village quest there would generally be no change at all. you go kill stuff that respawn nearly instantly and nothing else will change except the npc who gave you the quest will not give it any more. In other times like with an escort quest, you can see stuff change but as soon as you finish the quest it instantly resets as it was before with again 0 change. The village staying saved they refer to in the manifesto I am pretty sure was temporal. In the sense that you save the village and you experience it saved but for a time period. This is key because otherwise you’d either have to phase every dynamic events and with 1500 events that have 2 possible outcomes that would mean there would an unbelievable big number of phases more then players playing the game meaning that you could expect never to meet another player ever! (not doable) either that you do 4500 million dynamic events so that there is 1500 events for every player who bought the game. Both are completely impossible. However players felt that since the change was not permanent it was not a change at all. Temporary content is the solution to that problem. by making say the molten facility temporary you cant say that no change really occurred. The flame legion and the dredge made an alliance, build a secret base we went that and destroyed it. Because of our effort it is no longer there, we removed it off Tyria completely. If they had left it there people would go back to the dynamic event arguments that they effort have 0 effect because despite winning against the alliance their hq is still there.

Actually there is quite a few fallout off the living story. Tokk’s mill in LA still has Grawl refugees who didnt move to Southern cove. The norn and the charr refugess are gone because you guessed it they can be found on southern cove. Talking of southern cove, the refugees build a few outposts while there and these are still there. Going back to lost shores the light house that was destroyed in the karka attack is still broken.

Galen Grey.4709:

killcannon.2576:

I take back the things that were in at launch, I misread and didn’t see you specify only three of the mini dungeons.

All the supposed “new game features” were talked about before launch.

And if you were not here for the temp content or were on sabbatical for whatever reason, the content did not and does not exist.

Removing content from the game may be “So what” to you, but not to many others, I assure you. If it’s gone then it may as well have never even existed.

Tyria is much the same as when I started, I can see little to no evidence of any “Living World” that the devs have spoken so much about over the last 8 months. Go through your list again and only keep what is still in Tyria. Tell us how it’s changed.

Tell us where the last 8 months have gone, because GW2 is going to need all the help it can get in the coming months.

Smoke is here and gone, much like Anets content. Ephemeral and fleeting. And all because they can’t make content that makes people want to log in on it’s own strengths. They have to use the temporary gimmick.

I am not going to contradict you, but honestly the only new feature I heard talk about before launch was the guesting. The crafting materials accessible from the game was requested by players afaik, they never even talked about it before one day poof it was made available. Guild missions and WvW progression were also stuff added based on player feedback afaik. For the rest I dont know but honestly never heard talk about them before launch and I followed the game extremely closely.

If you were not there, you’d miss it true but if you were not playing you didnt need new content to play either. I mean if I start playing today would it make sense to complain no content was released the past 9 months? like wise if I missed 1 month out of those 9 months, is it a problem i got 8 months worth of content in the 8 months I played? The most important thing imho is that when you’re playing you have fresh content to play.

Thing is ironically I would bet the reason why content is temporary is preciesly to give us the change you’re asking for. One of the biggest complaint they got for the manifesto is that they promised change. Specifically “if you save a village it remains saved” Now in my view what they meant is the change would happen as you play not eternally. I mean in other MMOs there would be no visual change or just an instantaneous change. For a save the village quest there would generally be no change at all. you go kill stuff that respawn nearly instantly and nothing else will change except the npc who gave you the quest will not give it any more. In other times like with an escort quest, you can see stuff change but as soon as you finish the quest it instantly resets as it was before with again 0 change. The village staying saved they refer to in the manifesto I am pretty sure was temporal. In the sense that you save the village and you experience it saved but for a time period. This is key because otherwise you’d either have to phase every dynamic events and with 1500 events that have 2 possible outcomes that would mean there would an unbelievable big number of phases more then players playing the game meaning that you could expect never to meet another player ever! (not doable) either that you do 4500 million dynamic events so that there is 1500 events for every player who bought the game. Both are completely impossible. However players felt that since the change was not permanent it was not a change at all. Temporary content is the solution to that problem. by making say the molten facility temporary you cant say that no change really occurred. The flame legion and the dredge made an alliance, build a secret base we went that and destroyed it. Because of our effort it is no longer there, we removed it off Tyria completely. If they had left it there people would go back to the dynamic event arguments that they effort have 0 effect because despite winning against the alliance their hq is still there.

Actually there is quite a few fallout off the living story. Tokk’s mill in LA still has Grawl refugees who didnt move to Southern cove. The norn and the charr refugess are gone because you guessed it they can be found on southern cove. Talking of southern cove, the refugees build a few outposts while there and these are still there. Going back to lost shores the light house that was destroyed in the karka attack is still broken.

So I asked you to list what has changed…and you listed:
1.Couple of Grawl npcs in LA
2.The refugees who were not there before the living story are no longer there…shocking!!!
3. A broken Lighthouse
4. Southshore is still a dead zone…which they were supposed to fix but didn’t do too hot a job at.

Three things that have zip to do with gameplay, and another failed attempt to make SouthSun worthwhile. Thanks.

Just my 2 cents:
I like the concept of Living Story, it keeps the world fresh and with the feeling of it’s alive.
But I don’t think it would be a good idea to release everything they can with those mini-expansions.

Personally, I’d prefer to pay 40-50 bucks to buy an expansion with a new continent, new main story, new mechanics, new professions/races and new PvP modes related to the new continent than having it for free but bit by bit.

How cool would be buying the Elona (which should include Crystal Desert too) expansion and fighting Kralkatorrik and Palawa Joko as main antagonists of the story?

TL;DR: Keep the Living Story going on, but don’t make it the main focus of development, so you can bring us expansions which probably will make almost everyone happy and you will earn more money.

mrstealth.6701:

Vayne.8563:

You could do it in a weekend if you grinded. And I’m not sure how late in the piece those double point weekends were brought into play. I’m pretty sure when NF game out they didn’t exist. They were added later, after many people already grinded lightbringer points.

The point is, they already set a precedent for this type of grind in Guild Wars 1…and you’re right, some of those other titles were changed quite late in the piece. I’m sure hundreds of thousands of people did the wisdom grind before it was account bound.

These things exist to give people stuff to do when games are new and have less content. More content gets added and then achievements and grind for stuff gets easier.

It’s like this in every new game….for a reason. New games have to slow down progress, or no one would have anything to do.

Again, the scale of the Factions’ allegiance ranks and the Eye of the North racial reputation ranks are not even comparable. Even a casual player could finish all of those ranks in a matter of weeks, maybe a few months. A single faction allegiance title would take months for even the most hardcore player.

I could max every one of those racial/pve titles on all 10 GW1 professions in a fraction of the amount of gameplay hours it took me to get my Kurzick title done.

The scale of the allegiance ranks is comparable to that of the WXP ranks in wvw. Yet for whatever reason, that has been left as character-based. Take the lesson learned so many years ago in GW1 and apply it to GW2. Make them account-based.

But doesn’t nearly give you the same type of advantage. Apples to apples. You had to grind Luxon/Kurzick ranks if you wanted to say, have an imbagon paragon. That became required.

The WvW stuff that you get isn’t on the same level. It’s passive stuff, not active skills. So you get it by playing. You don’t have to grind it because everything you do in WvW gets you that experience. Everything.

Not like Luxon and Kurzick stuff, where you had to do specific things (admittedly there was a range of them), to get that stuff.

Basically if you just play WvW (which is what WvW players do) you’ll go up in rank. That’s it. You just play. You don’t have to do anything differently. You don’t have to grind. You don’t have to farm. You just play…and eventually those levels will take care of themselves.

The only one making it a grind is you, through lack of patience. I mean the only people who really care about WvW rank are people who WvW most. And those people get them by playing the game.

Before those ranks were introduced, most people who WvW’ed play WvW a lot anyway. Just do the same thing and you’ll go up.