Guild Wars 2

A long time ago in a game that to me still is a brilliant design just outdated, Asheron’s Call, there was a very cool concept used many times which drove their storyline and created absolute chaos and joy whenever it happened. In a nutshell it was a dev controlled villain named Bael’zharon that would raid towns and areas of the open world and fight off the hordes of heroes that ran to defend the area. It was an amazing part of the game that since human controlled was unpredictable as well as an amazing challenge and his appearance caused a glut of excitement with hordes of people rushing off to join the battle. Usually at the conclusion of these epic battles, there were prizes doled out to the participants in one form or another that remained somewhat unique (not game breaking) Some of the best moments in AC’s history revolve around these encounters and to this day stands out in my memory as the single best moments for me in online gaming.

Now that I’ve given a little history lesson I was curious to know if this is something that is feasible to be added to GW2 in a more permanent way, as a method to breath real time excitement into the world of Tyria? I know this is far more difficult to do especially when comparing the size of this community vs. the size of all online communities back then, but I think at the end of the day the unscripted mega events like this would certainly gain some keen interest of many who have not yet experienced this kind of content and add a very cool feature to an already great game. I think it would also help to add some personal connection to the story lines which of late could really be used to regain the “give a kitten” factor from many in the player base.
To me nothing would be better than some unpredicted attack on the people of Tyria by a dev controlled villain run amuck making use of the waypoints and other components in the world to evade elude and terrorize. Can you just imagine the buzz this would create if it became a permanent part of how story lines unfolded in GW2?

Vlad Morbius.1759:

A long time ago in a game that to me still is a brilliant design just outdated, Asheron’s Call, there was a very cool concept used many times which drove their storyline and created absolute chaos and joy whenever it happened. In a nutshell it was a dev controlled villain named Bael’zharon that would raid towns and areas of the open world and fight off the hordes of heroes that ran to defend the area. It was an amazing part of the game that since human controlled was unpredictable as well as an amazing challenge and his appearance caused a glut of excitement with hordes of people rushing off to join the battle.

…..

Can you just imagine the buzz this would create if it became a permanent part of how story lines unfolded in GW2?

Interesting… Sounds like Asherons Call copied Everquest. During the few months of release of Everquest these were going on by GM controlled bosses. This is a very old concept that I would expect would be in other games. What would make it even more interesting and free up GMs would be a design of the game where a player could take on the role of a boss. Maybe as a reward for having reached a certain achievement status a queue is entered at the players choice where a specific boss is started as a world event. The player controls the boss within a specific area and other players gather to take him down. That would be very cool for both sides.

If the player becomes disconnected, the AI (Artificial Intelligence) for the boss takes over for the duration of the battle.

A rather major problem with this would however be the rather high amount of servers.
Since this can only happen at one server at a time and most likely take quite some time to complete it would likely take weeks for all servers to see it, and that is if they do it on a daily basis.
It would most likely also require hiring more people, since it would be a waste to put a developer or an art designer on a job like that. That wouldn’t be much of a problem with a subscription based game, GW2 however is not, so they don’t have that constant amount of money coming in.

lordkrall.7241:

A rather major problem with this would however be the rather high amount of servers.
Since this can only happen at one server at a time and most likely take quite some time to complete it would likely take weeks for all servers to see it, and that is if they do it on a daily basis.
It would most likely also require hiring more people, since it would be a waste to put a developer or an art designer on a job like that. That wouldn’t be much of a problem with a subscription based game, GW2 however is not, so they don’t have that constant amount of money coming in.

Who says it has to happen at one server at a time? Designers make the game how they see fit based on feedback from sources. I don’t see why it would have to be done one server at a time. Do the events now happen one server at a time? Is there anything in the game that happens one server at a time?

This is also why a player controlling the boss instead of an employee of the company would make it more fun for both sides and reduce the time of having an employee run the boss. Design the game so that a player could take it on. It’s probably something that can’t be added any time soon, but maybe as an option in an expansion some day…

Wirldwide.8046:

Who says it has to happen at one server at a time? Designers make the game how they see fit based on feedback from sources. I don’t see why it would have to be done one server at a time. Do the events now happen one server at a time? Is there anything in the game that happens one server at a time?

Because if it are to happen at more than one server at a time they will need one employee for each server, since they need to control them. You can’t control something on several servers at once, since all servers are unique and the amount of players/their tactics and so on will differ.

As for events happening at one server at a time that is actually already happening. All servers have independent “timers” for the big meta events and such.

lordkrall.7241:

Wirldwide.8046:

Who says it has to happen at one server at a time? Designers make the game how they see fit based on feedback from sources. I don’t see why it would have to be done one server at a time. Do the events now happen one server at a time? Is there anything in the game that happens one server at a time?

Because if it are to happen at more than one server at a time they will need one employee for each server, since they need to control them. You can’t control something on several servers at once, since all servers are unique and the amount of players/their tactics and so on will differ.

As for events happening at one server at a time that is actually already happening. All servers have independent “timers” for the big meta events and such.

Exactly, so it wouldn’t make sense to have this one server at a time since there isn’t anything happening now in the game that is one server at a time. The idea would be to have a system where players could control the boss, not an employee.

Wirldwide.8046:

Exactly, so it wouldn’t make sense to have this one server at a time since there isn’t anything happening now in the game that is one server at a time. The idea would be to have a system where players could control the boss, not an employee.

That was however not what the original poster talked about, and that was the post I answered. The original poster have only ever talked about a employee controlled character that runs around. And that is what I am basing my answers on. Nothing else.

As i said in the first post it is an issue with the server volume today but the event might only last 15 minutes at a time but it would be 15 minutes of total chaos and excitement which i think would be a major boon to the game. There are many MMO’s today, this one was marketed as being different and it makes sense to invest in something that will set it apart from the others. I think this could possibly generate far more pay off then the cost involved.