Guild Wars 2

So anyone that has even glanced at the forum headlines recently can tell there is large portion of the forum population that is upset about the Living Story and want Anet to drop it for making more permanent content in large expansions as the traditional MMO’s do. There has been many emotional statements so here I hope to have a serious conversation about the two and whether one is actually “better” than the other. I don’t think that one is better than the other as they both serve the same function, to fulfill the player’s need for novelty.

Players of MMO’s, due to their massive time commitment to the game, have strong needs for novelty; the need for something new for the sake of being new. This can be seen if we look at the rising and falling of WoW subscriptions around times of expansions. I don’t like comparing GW2 and WoW as I think they are different style games but most people seem to be pointing to it to defend expansions so I will do the same. In it’s later years king of MMO’s, WoW, always seems to gain a large number of subscriber’s when a new expansion is released (1) and then loses them again a few months afterwards (2). This is novelty. The players have grown tired of all the end game content so they leave the game and wait for the next batch of permanent content. Then once it’s released, they population swells again, plays all the new content and grows tired of it again and leaves their account in dormancy until the next one in a couple years.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? End game content is boring. There isn’t anything to do. Give us more permanent content. Anet could follow this model but its obvious that it would follow the same trend of intermittent swells of large population while most of the time dormant. Some suggestions so far have been make more dungeons, make more explorable areas, add these game play modes. And they could do that, but wouldn’t you grow tired of it the same way you tire of what you already have? There are already eight dungeons, how many do you play for fun and not to grind gold or empyreal fragments? How long until you grow bored of any new explorable areas that you’ve completed just like the zones that already exist but don’t contain champ farms or large chest events?

Okay so enough of that onto temporary living story content. The idea behind this model is to have shorter development cycles and nearly constant release of smaller, yet temporary, content that provides something new for people to do besides the end game grind. In other words, satisfy the desire for novelty. The major fault behind this is that the content does not provide much change to the game and may not satisfy the need for novelty as well as large patches do. And since the LS is temporary players who are new or are coming back from a break may miss out on some great stuff. Another complaint about the LS is the quality of it in terms of writing and bugginess. This I leave up for debate as I know all MMO’s suffer from writing and bugs and so I won’t comment. And I urge caution to anyone who would like to bring this up to please keep it respectful and analytical.

Personally I think Anet has a great set up going as they are doing a sort of combination of the two. Yes they have been pumping out LS lately but something that people seem to be forgetting is that they ARE releasing permanent content soon. Rumors of new zones, weapons, etc. So be patient at the very least.

So now that I’ve said all that, what do you guys think?
Topic Discussion Points:
-The idea of a need for novelty
-What best satisfies this need
-What could Anet due to improve their model without completely trashing it
-Critique in general of my idea

1) http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/10/04/world-of-warcraft-population-swells-over-10-million-mists-of-pa/
2) http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/05/09/world-of-warcraft-lost-1-3m-subscribers-in-the-last-three-months/

Edit:

TL;DR: Large permanent expansions and LS temporary content are the same, as they both satisfy the player’s need for novelty and one is not definitivly better than the other.

Edit 2:
Major Points Thus Far:
-Can be temporary but still needs to have more of a lasting impact
-New players can’t enjoy previous temporary content
-Moves too fast for player’s to enjoy on their own time

I think what there needs to be is more emphasis on the aftermath of living story content. It’s not that the content needs to be permanent, but the impact of it needs to be. For much of the early “first season”, you’d have this week of content, and then it would end and everything would be back to normal like nothing ever happened.

That got a little better, at least superficially (the Queen’s Jubilee is still “there” but inaccessible, the ruins of the Tower of Nightmares still lingers… but it really didn’t change much of the events that happen there). The Marionette event already feels like it never happened, and the jury is still out on just how “sticky” the Battle for Lion’s Arch will wind up being.

That honestly is probably my biggest beef with the Living Story (outside of its subjective story writing quality). The events really don’t have any lasting impact. A lot of dynamic events continued on like nothing was going on (like with Tower of Nightmares, kitten if the centaurs didn’t seem the LEAST bit concerned that it literally popped up on top of them).

If you want your living story to change the world… it needs to actually… change the world, and by and large Season 1 didn’t do that. We’ll see if that improves come Season 2.

It at least looks like it will start to provide new zones and new areas, which is more like a traditional expansion, and I hope so for the game’s sake. I understand Arena.net’s desire to get players to fill their world… but that’s NEVER how MMO players have been, and they aren’t going to do it. They’re going to crowd whatever they consider “endgame” and always will… and no, they’ll never buy into the whole world being endgame.

With an expansion-based world I’m not typically telling my friends “Nah, don’t bother. You missed it all and you can’t do any of the stuff they introduced over the last year – it’s all come and gone.”

I’ve stepped out of an MMO for months or even years before and later returned to regular play (and spending), but I’ve never dealt with one that comes close to GW2 for telling you “and don’t come back.”

Why not take this subject through a different point of view? Normally in every MMO the supposedly end game is gear farm, in basically every game (even in single player rpg’s), and that’s what its still missing in GW2. Why release new dungeon if the the point of it is going to be same as the one that are implemented right no (every dungeon gives you the same gear). Its a little creepy when you do Arah, that is supposedly the hardest dungeon in the game you have the very same reward you have while doing ascalon. This doesn’t any make sense, not even in a sandbox game. I know they just diden’t wanted to implement a gear treadmill, and i don’t blame them. But for those players who are not driven to the story (basically the majority of players aren’t) they feel they don’t have nothing else to do. I’m not saying to implement a gear treadmill like WoW, EQ, has (which is a ideia I aprove), but why not make more content like fractals. At least there you had some sense of progression (pve wise ofc). Make raid fractals, so guilds could do these kind of content together. This are some of many ideas that anet could implement in the game. Maybe they are already developing something like this but only time can tell.

There is a fundamental difference in experiencing permanent content between LW and an expansion pack. Let us assume a package of new zones, skills, dungeons, Personal Story, classes, new features like PvP maps/modes, new progression systems etc.

With an expansion pack everything is delivered at once. You will experience nothing before everything is ready to launch. Even if almost all content is ready to be released months ago (like features or most of the zones and dungeons) you still have to wait for the last bit finished. If everything is ready you will be served an overwhelming amount of permanent content.

With LW the same content would be delivered in slices embedded in a story. Smaller parts like the upcoming feature build will be delivered as soon as they are ready. There is a steady flow of permanent content.

The biggest difference would be: When the LW finishes the release of the content the expansion pack would just start to deliver. Both systems provide a different feeling in experiencing of content.

Extensions tend to feature more meaningful content like new dungeons/raid rather than living story open world zerglings.

I’m going to be pro LS here. Sure LS needs to improve to offer expansion like content (for example zones), but it has one plus – it keeps the people coming back fro a few days every few weeks, as opposed to keeping people for a month once a year. I got a WoW horse from playing Hearthstone, so I bought one more month of subscription time to pick it up again. It being between expansions – it’s extremely empty. So empty it’s depressing. The feeling is similar if you tune in near the end of a living story. However you can tell yourself then “oh in a week (or a few days) there’s going to be players again! For now maybe I should run a dungeon or do something that requires less people”. While if you log in to an expansion based game the feeling is more like “oh, it’s empty… I only have half a year worth of wait to go”. Not to mention the amount of money to spend yearly on expansions.

Nikaido.3457:

Extensions tend to feature more meaningful content like new dungeons/raid rather than living story open world zerglings.

But my point is, is this content still meaningful after a month? I don’t think so. I think it would only still be done if it is an efficient way to grind rewards.

Short response: Is there a difference? Of course there is.

If you are only measuring one axis, the "novelty"aspect of the LS, then you could argue ANet is doing a good job providing that and that potentially there is actually no difference.

If you are measuring customer experience, which is appropriate and necessary for understanding success in the entertainment arena, then you understand that the major concept of LS is in direct conflict with the classic definition of “expansion” in an MMO. LS, according to ANet, is a temporary point in time that allows you “bragging rights” about “being there when such and such happened.” An expansion in an MMO, provides permanent content which is not removed. (Exception for WoW’s one-time foray which caused massive attrition.)

The “customer experience” for those players who feel compelled to rush through content before it is summarily removed is akin to “catch-the-bus”. It leaves some wanting to “catch-their-breath”. Because the content will be removed, it forces those players (many with real life time constraints), to alter their playing time to fit the developer’s schedule or permanently miss out. This is a psychological ploy that has been effectively used for centuries in sales. That kind of inflexible pressure does not create a positive “customer experience” for many players in a medium often used for relaxation. LS does not allow busy players to partake or enjoy their entertainment at their leisure when it is both possible and convenient for them. Making new content a “demand” tends to create an experience that is in exact opposition to “entertainment”.

In addition, new players, returning players, players that for whatever real life circumstances could not make the developer-demanded-schedule, have a chance to access previous permanent content in an expansion. Those are customers for whom the “previous” content would be a novel experience.

LS, by removing that content, denies those customers that novelty.

No, LS and a classic MMO expansion are not the same.

The bottom line is this.

Someone who left right before the living story and comes back now will notice what in terms of any difference in this game?

One maybe two world encounters?
One dungeon?

Said player will then promptly log on and never come back again.

This game as of today is almost identical to how it was released a year ago.

It’s amazing more people do not see the problem with that. For me as I have said this game now just passes time until a few titles I am waiting on come out and I never look back.

I think the fundamental issue is that the LS only provides temporary content for the major part.

Many of the things I see personally, are descent amounts of content. I would like to think that if you mashed the LS all together, and shoved it into a single patch, it would equate to expansion level content, however because most of it temporary any way, it makes no real difference.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

I think the fundamental issue is that the LS only provides temporary content for the major part.

Many of the things I see personally, are descent amounts of content. I would like to think that if you mashed the LS all together, and shoved it into a single patch, it would equate to expansion level content, however because most of it temporary any way, it makes no real difference.

The major difference is what I stated in my above prior post.

This game as of logging in today is almost identical to the game that was released a year ago.

Regardless of the reason – that is a VERY large problem.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

I think the fundamental issue is that the LS only provides temporary content for the major part.

Many of the things I see personally, are descent amounts of content. I would like to think that if you mashed the LS all together, and shoved it into a single patch, it would equate to expansion level content, however because most of it temporary any way, it makes no real difference.

Well said. But an expansion pack would have had the same issue 2013. You only would have had a package of mainly temporary content. At least there would have been an expansion to buy.

Despite all the fundamental differences the big common ground of both concepts is the requirement of a certain amount of permanent components to make a sustainable impact to the game. If this amount is not given both concepts will fail.

Azreell.1568:

The bottom line is this.

Someone who left right before the living story and comes back now will notice what in terms of any difference in this game?

One maybe two world encounters?
One dungeon?

Said player will then promptly log on and never come back again.

This game as of today is almost identical to how it was released a year ago.

It’s amazing more people do not see the problem with that. For me as I have said this game now just passes time until a few titles I am waiting on come out and I never look back.

I think this is a valid concern and a problem that ruins your experience personally but I think you might have said something that gives it away. “It’s amazing more people do not see this as a problem.” I think what you stated is too large of an assumption to make over the entire population. This hasn’t been my experience in leaving and coming back after half a year and if it was a problem for the majority of others than maybe they would see this as a problem. If anything it was the fact that it was very similar to the game that I left and that I didn’t have to play catch up that made me come back, but stay away from WoW. But as I said about you, these are just are own experiences and I don’t have any evidence to show one way or another that this is broadly felt by other players.

chemiclord.3978:

I think what there needs to be is more emphasis on the aftermath of living story content. It’s not that the content needs to be permanent, but the impact of it needs to be. For much of the early “first season”, you’d have this week of content, and then it would end and everything would be back to normal like nothing ever happened.

That got a little better, at least superficially (the Queen’s Jubilee is still “there” but inaccessible, the ruins of the Tower of Nightmares still lingers… but it really didn’t change much of the events that happen there). The Marionette event already feels like it never happened, and the jury is still out on just how “sticky” the Battle for Lion’s Arch will wind up being.

That honestly is probably my biggest beef with the Living Story (outside of its subjective story writing quality). The events really don’t have any lasting impact. A lot of dynamic events continued on like nothing was going on (like with Tower of Nightmares, kitten if the centaurs didn’t seem the LEAST bit concerned that it literally popped up on top of them).

If you want your living story to change the world… it needs to actually… change the world, and by and large Season 1 didn’t do that. We’ll see if that improves come Season 2.

It at least looks like it will start to provide new zones and new areas, which is more like a traditional expansion, and I hope so for the game’s sake. I understand Arena.net’s desire to get players to fill their world… but that’s NEVER how MMO players have been, and they aren’t going to do it. They’re going to crowd whatever they consider “endgame” and always will… and no, they’ll never buy into the whole world being endgame.

I would have to agree with you on your point about lasting impact. A living story can be temporary and still have a lasting impact on the world without major changes. And I hope this something that Anet changes for S2.

As far as more permanent content goes I know a good number of people I’ve talked to are dying to see places like The Crystal Desert and Ring of fire areas opened up which I think could be achieved very easily with the Living Story model, and I do believe it is what ANET has in mind. There is also a want for both Cantha and Elona to be opened up as well but the problem with Living Story is that this would have to be a huge undertaking and a lot to shovel down players’ throat with that model. I think if ANET plans to bring back either of the continents it would have to be in an actual expansion model with possibly new professions and higher level cap. That being said though I think given ANET’s past with GW1 we might not see a new level cap but possibly just new race and or starting areas and stories with a new world.

I think the problem a lot of people encounter with this model of living story vs full-fledge xpacs is they both have so many pros and cons, and each cater to a different crowd, it gives very little middle ground. I believe for GW2 to stay relevant and successful though, they would need to release places like Crystal Desert in Living Stories (see southsun) and later on down the road, the old but new continents of Cantha and Elona in a full-fledge expansion model. Keep in mind though, that doesn’t have to include a new story really since that could be accomplished with Living Story.

I envisioned Cantha being released in an expansion type model and the Living Story to take place along with it as an introduction to what happened in the past 300 years in Cantha since GW1 to 2 then slowly moving players through a new adventure and story. Fractals could also be included depicting the past 300 or so years since GW1 /shrug.

Either way you look at it though you’re getting new content. Right now it may not be “a lot” but ANET seems to take more pride in trying to make their players happy than other companies do.

That’s kinda my thinking too, Clex… opening up new regions within a continent can be something that can (and I think will) be done with the Living Story model.

Entire continents (be they Cantha, Elona, or elsewhere)… that’d be a pretty large update, especially since everyone in the world doesn’t exactly have the most powerful Internet access. A traditional expansion model might be the best way to go about that.

The big thing people miss is that expansions aren’t just expansions to explorable content and new dungeons, they are expansions to game mechanics as well. New pvp modes, new skills, new minigames, new ways to earn rewards or new types of rewards. Often games will introduce new classes or new races to play that can change the faction vs faction dynamic or make the world feel more alive. I remember playing EvE when they released the planetary survey expansion. While not the most well recieved expansion, it was still a massive, new way to play the game that was unlike anything they had already and gave a purpose to things that were in the game mostly for flavor. Planets had no use, you just warped to them and they made it look like you were in space. Suddenly, they all had types and certain types yielded different kinds of resources and you competed with other players for those resources. A whole new way to play the game opened up and people had a new set of toys to play with and learn.

We really haven’t gotten much of any of that. As someone pointed out, we are playing the same fundamental game we bought back in 2012. We have no new spvp zones. WvW has never broken free from zerg/coverage to win. We have only gotten 1 new skill per class. We are still going zerk or going home for pve. And finally, we have only had 1 new pve map (zephyr was more of a town). We have gotten new dungeons and paths but they still suffer from the same issues that have plagued dungeons and pve since the start.

We’ve gotten a lot of fluff, temp content and many folks have certainly paid more than enough gems to simulate purchasing an expansion, but the LS just isn’t one. Not when the game and world it’s in is no bigger or complex than it was at the start.

Azreell.1568:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

I think the fundamental issue is that the LS only provides temporary content for the major part.

Many of the things I see personally, are descent amounts of content. I would like to think that if you mashed the LS all together, and shoved it into a single patch, it would equate to expansion level content, however because most of it temporary any way, it makes no real difference.

The major difference is what I stated in my above prior post.

This game as of logging in today is almost identical to the game that was released a year ago.

Regardless of the reason – that is a VERY large problem.

I would say that’s part of the difference. Sort of the other side of the coin in regards to what I’ve mentioned. On the one hand, the content is temporary, but also their effects are equally temporary.

Belenwyn.8674:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

I think the fundamental issue is that the LS only provides temporary content for the major part.

Many of the things I see personally, are descent amounts of content. I would like to think that if you mashed the LS all together, and shoved it into a single patch, it would equate to expansion level content, however because most of it temporary any way, it makes no real difference.

Well said. But an expansion pack would have had the same issue 2013. You only would have had a package of mainly temporary content. At least there would have been an expansion to buy.

Despite all the fundamental differences the big common ground of both concepts is the requirement of a certain amount of permanent components to make a sustainable impact to the game. If this amount is not given both concepts will fail.

Pretty much. The world lives and breathes, and I agree that each patch should be a breath of fresh air.

But Anet should remember that Scarlet and many of the other things that happened to the world, are scars and stitches. And those scars should not be so quick to heal.

I didn’t play nightfall or eotn until like a year after each one had been released…

Then again, the gw1 story was so much better.

I don’t feel like I missed anything with LS. But as others have said, I don’t think the game has gained anything either.

LS is a great addition to the MMO genre unlike what the hard-core players are stating. If you follow the story and have the right mentality to enjoy it, you will. Today, Tyria have got a new history and the players are part of it now.

On the other hand, the LS model could be improved as it is not a replacment for an expansion in it’s current state. I don’t believe they want to have it as a replacement though and they stated that the whole model of the new LS is gonna be different. Also, there are two projects that more than half of the Anet team have been working on since a very long time and it maybe time soon to see what is gonna come.

I await an expansion sometime soon and a new LS2, stepping up the bar of releasing a living story. If they use their resources properly, there is a huge ptoentional for something huge to come.

If I would await something, it is new zones for Tyria with the LS2 while a new continent for an expansion. Keeping up the balance so people won’t leave one of the continents and leave the other, something happening in almost every other MMO. Anet have had over a year now to experiment with things and while the game have got alot of changes since release, content have been limited to Living story that was in the first place experimental.

Anet have a huge chance now and I am possitive that something great will happen.

Problem with LS is new players, if Anet can attract new players now, have missed it all!

Releasing the game in China they are thinking of separate servers for them starting from the beginning meaning they will be 2 years behind the rest of us.

I do think expansions would be better and if they used a similar phasing feature that WoW was using, where an area changes depending on how far you are in the story. But this of course means more servers to separate people who are at different points of the story.

When the EU and NA version of “ArcheAge” is out, ANet will regret not concentrating on the quality of their LS or an expansion. And to be more serious, this game is almost 2 years old and it hasn’t released any substantial permanent content within their ‘living story concept". New players are likely to skip the game ’cos they won’t be able to put their hands on the past LS content ( what 3 of my friends said when I asked them whether they would like to start playing GW2 ).

The sole reason why the last 15 people in my guild, which in the first 6 months of the game counted approx. 120 active players, still play this game is because we have become real life friends. This game is what introduced us to ourselves.

I really feel strong about Guild Wars 1 as it was the game of my early childhood. It is still one of the best selling PC games ever with over 8 mln copies sold – and remember, at the time its rival was the best selling PC game/MMO ever – World of Warcraft.

This post is not meant to be inflammatory, its purpose is to give you my opinion on the topic. And the topic is: why I believe ANet’s lost its opportunity with a terribly EXECUTED model of quite an original “living story”.

I am sorry to say this, I really am, as a fan of my beloved GW I hoped for something of the same quality, and what I got is disappointing.

Best regards

In my opinion, it’s LS + Expansion. Expansion or so every 3 years and LS going on each year, but with a small break during spring/summer.

Here’s my thoughts.

Living story is neither living nor was it a lot of story. Season one more generated investment with an intangible carrot on a stick called “temporary” people love limited time things. People also love new things. So let’s look at what ls provided next to an expansion.

Living story

It provided temporary events and event chains. It provided a lot of achievements of which most were limited time to aquire. It provided dungeons of which half were temporary. It gave us back skins some of which were limited in quantity. It Ave us a few gem shop armors and other money spenders. It gave us inconsistent content on multiple levels. And it crippled development on the other 90% of the game.

Expansions

Provide a full campaign and developed story that is not temporary and is consistently repayable. It adds new content via maps, armor, crafting stuff, dungeons, events, secrets, etc.. All of which are not temporary and can be revisited at leisure or by new players. It adds new achievements which can be earned at any time.

The the expansion seems much friendlier.

Ls failed for me because it wasn’t living. Ultimately the world is not changed beyond 2 maps, the rest of the world continues onward and has not evolved. Even tho we have moved past the death of zhaitan the world does not reflect this. The world replays on a loop just like a fractal. If a net what’s a living world then return your focus to making the world evolve. I’m eventually the century would get tired of losing and try something new some day or maybe the farmers would move or make a new Fort.. Idk..

Scarlets happened and the world feels like it was abused in far more ways than one and its not a good thing to me.. And if season 2 is similar in design then April better turn this game on its head or I may just take a break until we get an expansion..

Expansions are like professionals baking a cake.
Living world/story are like professionals building a cake from crumbs, and hundreds of chefs and customers screaming at on how to build said cake.

But this game is dying because people want pizza! What were we talking about, again?

Corpus Christi.2057:

The sole reason why the last 15 people in my guild, which in the first 6 months of the game counted approx. 120 active players, still play this game is because we have become real life friends. This game is what introduced us to ourselves.

This. This is the only reason why we are still on the game.

LS is really a good idea but it should have been more impacting, for example:
While searching for the leylines, Scarlet could have taken us a bit into Maguuma Jungle, opening a new zone every two months or so. Now we were teased with a HUGE change due to LS, and what’s the impact on Tyria? There’s none, except LA being detroyed and empty. Does any NPC talks about the dragon? There’s just one sentence “did anybody hear that roar?” and that’s all.

Now, we really need an expansion, else it would mean the game has been the same for nearly 2 years. LS is good, but if it brings nothing but disappointment, I would pass.

Azreell.1568:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

I think the fundamental issue is that the LS only provides temporary content for the major part.

Many of the things I see personally, are descent amounts of content. I would like to think that if you mashed the LS all together, and shoved it into a single patch, it would equate to expansion level content, however because most of it temporary any way, it makes no real difference.

The major difference is what I stated in my above prior post.

This game as of logging in today is almost identical to the game that was released a year ago.

Regardless of the reason – that is a VERY large problem.

The game is not the same as it was at release, there has been permanent content added to the game. At least it’s not like when other games release an expansion and everyone forgets that the game exist and only play the expansion content, how is that any better? And it is a VERY large problem with expansions.

So something that has been pointed out a couple times is that the game is nearing two years old and it is claimed that the came still hasn’t changed in any major fashion. So if we still want these large expansions to provide such changes how long is too long and what would be an appropriate time table? The average release of a WoW expansion is every two years. The average GW1 was every year which I assume to mean they were slightly smaller in comparison or were in development since the beginning but I never played it so I will have to defer to another about that. What would you guys like to see? Huge expansions every two years? Smaller but still major changes every year? Or if you are satisfied by LS and take major changes as they come that’s an acceptable answer as well.

maddoctor.2738:

Azreell.1568:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

I think the fundamental issue is that the LS only provides temporary content for the major part.

Many of the things I see personally, are descent amounts of content. I would like to think that if you mashed the LS all together, and shoved it into a single patch, it would equate to expansion level content, however because most of it temporary any way, it makes no real difference.

The major difference is what I stated in my above prior post.

This game as of logging in today is almost identical to the game that was released a year ago.

Regardless of the reason – that is a VERY large problem.

The game is not the same as it was at release, there has been permanent content added to the game. At least it’s not like when other games release an expansion and everyone forgets that the game exist and only play the expansion content, how is that any better? And it is a VERY large problem with expansions.

Agreed. Unlike expansions where players solely play the new content because they’re tired of the old content, ANet encourages you to play the “living world” (ie. flavor of the month map) and forget the rest of the game due to the time constraints on the new content.
And repeating a small amount of content stales out that content faster than repeating a large amount of content.

Substance E.4852:

The big thing people miss is that expansions aren’t just expansions to explorable content and new dungeons, they are expansions to game mechanics as well. New pvp modes, new skills, new minigames, new ways to earn rewards or new types of rewards. Often games will introduce new classes or new races to play that can change the faction vs faction dynamic or make the world feel more alive. I remember playing EvE when they released the planetary survey expansion. While not the most well recieved expansion, it was still a massive, new way to play the game that was unlike anything they had already and gave a purpose to things that were in the game mostly for flavor. Planets had no use, you just warped to them and they made it look like you were in space. Suddenly, they all had types and certain types yielded different kinds of resources and you competed with other players for those resources. A whole new way to play the game opened up and people had a new set of toys to play with and learn.

We really haven’t gotten much of any of that. As someone pointed out, we are playing the same fundamental game we bought back in 2012. We have no new spvp zones. WvW has never broken free from zerg/coverage to win. We have only gotten 1 new skill per class. We are still going zerk or going home for pve. And finally, we have only had 1 new pve map (zephyr was more of a town). We have gotten new dungeons and paths but they still suffer from the same issues that have plagued dungeons and pve since the start.

We’ve gotten a lot of fluff, temp content and many folks have certainly paid more than enough gems to simulate purchasing an expansion, but the LS just isn’t one. Not when the game and world it’s in is no bigger or complex than it was at the start.

Since their most recent update just hit it’s going to be changing a bit of stuff… whether or not it fixes all the “problems” people have with a game, its going to be a pretty big update. New traits across all trait lines and all classes as well as how they are allocated. Along with what seems to be some world changes and changes to leveling and such.

Now from this exact date its hard to know what exactly they are bringing to the table and how the community will react to it, but one thing is certain…. its progress.

People fail to realize that creating content and or balancing current content and classes, is far from easy in an MMO. Making a new area alone probably takes 100+ hours on testing alone, fixing bugs tweaking hearts and enemies. Balancing classes more than likely takes at least hundreds of hours with multiple people. Fixing bugs is one thing, but revamping a class… and you have to take into account how many employees they have available to test/develop each facet of the game.

After 10 years almost of playing mmo’s you learn to ignore just about every bullkitten crybaby remark/request on current game status by people who think anything they do in the game is the most important focus the dev’s should have… but at some point you can only facepalm so much… a lot of things people say are broken just aren’t and because a certain type of playing works well with others, well obviously the game is broken and stupid….

Try being more constructive with a game’s criticism and voice your opinions in a constructive manner. Dev’s respond a lot better to someone who is level headed and sound minded with their thoughts than someone who’s full of themselves and opinionated to the point where its disrespectful.

Keep in mind, there is no kittening sub…. and kitten this kitten that, why is it kitten? so weird.

Swish.2463:

Here’s my thoughts.

Living story is neither living nor was it a lot of story. Season one more generated investment with an intangible carrot on a stick called “temporary” people love limited time things. People also love new things. So let’s look at what ls provided next to an expansion.

Living story

It provided temporary events and event chains. It provided a lot of achievements of which most were limited time to aquire. It provided dungeons of which half were temporary. It gave us back skins some of which were limited in quantity. It Ave us a few gem shop armors and other money spenders. It gave us inconsistent content on multiple levels. And it crippled development on the other 90% of the game.

Expansions

Provide a full campaign and developed story that is not temporary and is consistently repayable. It adds new content via maps, armor, crafting stuff, dungeons, events, secrets, etc.. All of which are not temporary and can be revisited at leisure or by new players. It adds new achievements which can be earned at any time.

The the expansion seems much friendlier.

Ls failed for me because it wasn’t living. Ultimately the world is not changed beyond 2 maps, the rest of the world continues onward and has not evolved. Even tho we have moved past the death of zhaitan the world does not reflect this. The world replays on a loop just like a fractal. If a net what’s a living world then return your focus to making the world evolve. I’m eventually the century would get tired of losing and try something new some day or maybe the farmers would move or make a new Fort.. Idk..

Scarlets happened and the world feels like it was abused in far more ways than one and its not a good thing to me.. And if season 2 is similar in design then April better turn this game on its head or I may just take a break until we get an expansion..

I implore you to find another mmo, free to play or not, that has had as much added content as guild wars 2 has had and it be free and accessible to everyone at once. Whether or not the story took you through countless hours of dialogue and or instanced content, there was still story and it effected the game world to an extent most mmo’s can only deliver in full-fledged expansions or through micro transactions. Some of it seemed pretty small in scale and sure, once it was over…. it was over… but ANET has always had that model, look at gw1, a lot of the content, like holidays for instance, was for a limited time and none of it was game breaking to the point if you missed it then well you should just quit because everyone else had the opportunity that you didn’t. The model works, and while yes it sucks to miss something that you think you would have enjoyed playing, this model is going to bring so much more.

You get what you put into guild wars 2 and its a game that doesn’t have to be a grind if you don’t want it to be. If it’s going to be accessible to all types of players then it has to meet on a middle ground, and while a lot of people hate casuals because they have to be catered to, well so do hard core players. This is going to be one of those age-old conflicts where both sides just refuse to give in….

Clex Mix.7624:

Substance E.4852:

The big thing people miss is that expansions aren’t just expansions to explorable content and new dungeons, they are expansions to game mechanics as well. New pvp modes, new skills, new minigames, new ways to earn rewards or new types of rewards. Often games will introduce new classes or new races to play that can change the faction vs faction dynamic or make the world feel more alive. I remember playing EvE when they released the planetary survey expansion. While not the most well recieved expansion, it was still a massive, new way to play the game that was unlike anything they had already and gave a purpose to things that were in the game mostly for flavor. Planets had no use, you just warped to them and they made it look like you were in space. Suddenly, they all had types and certain types yielded different kinds of resources and you competed with other players for those resources. A whole new way to play the game opened up and people had a new set of toys to play with and learn.

We really haven’t gotten much of any of that. As someone pointed out, we are playing the same fundamental game we bought back in 2012. We have no new spvp zones. WvW has never broken free from zerg/coverage to win. We have only gotten 1 new skill per class. We are still going zerk or going home for pve. And finally, we have only had 1 new pve map (zephyr was more of a town). We have gotten new dungeons and paths but they still suffer from the same issues that have plagued dungeons and pve since the start.

We’ve gotten a lot of fluff, temp content and many folks have certainly paid more than enough gems to simulate purchasing an expansion, but the LS just isn’t one. Not when the game and world it’s in is no bigger or complex than it was at the start.

Since their most recent update just hit it’s going to be changing a bit of stuff… whether or not it fixes all the “problems” people have with a game, its going to be a pretty big update. New traits across all trait lines and all classes as well as how they are allocated. Along with what seems to be some world changes and changes to leveling and such.

Now from this exact date its hard to know what exactly they are bringing to the table and how the community will react to it, but one thing is certain…. its progress.

People fail to realize that creating content and or balancing current content and classes, is far from easy in an MMO. Making a new area alone probably takes 100+ hours on testing alone, fixing bugs tweaking hearts and enemies. Balancing classes more than likely takes at least hundreds of hours with multiple people. Fixing bugs is one thing, but revamping a class… and you have to take into account how many employees they have available to test/develop each facet of the game.

After 10 years almost of playing mmo’s you learn to ignore just about every bullkitten crybaby remark/request on current game status by people who think anything they do in the game is the most important focus the dev’s should have… but at some point you can only facepalm so much… a lot of things people say are broken just aren’t and because a certain type of playing works well with others, well obviously the game is broken and stupid….

Try being more constructive with a game’s criticism and voice your opinions in a constructive manner. Dev’s respond a lot better to someone who is level headed and sound minded with their thoughts than someone who’s full of themselves and opinionated to the point where its disrespectful.

Keep in mind, there is no kittening sub…. and kitten this kitten that, why is it kitten? so weird.

You have some seriously thin skin if you think that I was being “disrespectful” or “unreasonable” with what i posted. I posted the truth, and it’s not just me who wants the game to grow, not stagnate, in complexity.

I’ve also been playing MMO’s for 10+ years and the only thing worse than the crybabies are fanboi apologists who think people don’t have aright to voice negative opinions as paying customers and that the staff can do no wrong.

Substance E.4852:

Clex Mix.7624:

Substance E.4852:

The big thing people miss is that expansions aren’t just expansions to explorable content and new dungeons, they are expansions to game mechanics as well. New pvp modes, new skills, new minigames, new ways to earn rewards or new types of rewards. Often games will introduce new classes or new races to play that can change the faction vs faction dynamic or make the world feel more alive. I remember playing EvE when they released the planetary survey expansion. While not the most well recieved expansion, it was still a massive, new way to play the game that was unlike anything they had already and gave a purpose to things that were in the game mostly for flavor. Planets had no use, you just warped to them and they made it look like you were in space. Suddenly, they all had types and certain types yielded different kinds of resources and you competed with other players for those resources. A whole new way to play the game opened up and people had a new set of toys to play with and learn.

We really haven’t gotten much of any of that. As someone pointed out, we are playing the same fundamental game we bought back in 2012. We have no new spvp zones. WvW has never broken free from zerg/coverage to win. We have only gotten 1 new skill per class. We are still going zerk or going home for pve. And finally, we have only had 1 new pve map (zephyr was more of a town). We have gotten new dungeons and paths but they still suffer from the same issues that have plagued dungeons and pve since the start.

We’ve gotten a lot of fluff, temp content and many folks have certainly paid more than enough gems to simulate purchasing an expansion, but the LS just isn’t one. Not when the game and world it’s in is no bigger or complex than it was at the start.

Since their most recent update just hit it’s going to be changing a bit of stuff… whether or not it fixes all the “problems” people have with a game, its going to be a pretty big update. New traits across all trait lines and all classes as well as how they are allocated. Along with what seems to be some world changes and changes to leveling and such.

Now from this exact date its hard to know what exactly they are bringing to the table and how the community will react to it, but one thing is certain…. its progress.

People fail to realize that creating content and or balancing current content and classes, is far from easy in an MMO. Making a new area alone probably takes 100+ hours on testing alone, fixing bugs tweaking hearts and enemies. Balancing classes more than likely takes at least hundreds of hours with multiple people. Fixing bugs is one thing, but revamping a class… and you have to take into account how many employees they have available to test/develop each facet of the game.

After 10 years almost of playing mmo’s you learn to ignore just about every bullkitten crybaby remark/request on current game status by people who think anything they do in the game is the most important focus the dev’s should have… but at some point you can only facepalm so much… a lot of things people say are broken just aren’t and because a certain type of playing works well with others, well obviously the game is broken and stupid….

Try being more constructive with a game’s criticism and voice your opinions in a constructive manner. Dev’s respond a lot better to someone who is level headed and sound minded with their thoughts than someone who’s full of themselves and opinionated to the point where its disrespectful.

Keep in mind, there is no kittening sub…. and kitten this kitten that, why is it kitten? so weird.

You have some seriously thin skin if you think that I was being “disrespectful” or “unreasonable” with what i posted. I posted the truth, and it’s not just me who wants the game to grow, not stagnate, in complexity.

I’ve also been playing MMO’s for 10+ years and the only thing worse than the crybabies are fanboi apologists who think people don’t have aright to voice negative opinions as paying customers and that the staff can do no wrong.

only the top part was pointed towards you

rest of it was to general public.

Forgive me if you took that personal, haven’t had my coffee yet

You know what would happen if this content we have gotten so far was in an expansion it would of been eaten up like a Scale on the shore of a dragon spawn and that’s the truth. Then a week or two after its released people whine and grip there’s not enough content to do and start forum bombing till they turn blue in the fingers from typing and then go off on a tangent about how there going to quit the game and leave cause there is no more content. At least with the living story even though some parts where not as good as others it added alot of content to do till they figured it out which seemed to come in spurts.

I do think with this last 2 parts they got something right and that was a personal connection to the game with what happened to Lions Arch even though many don’t feel the same way. One thing they could do to improve on it is add more of a story dialog to move the LS along other then make us figure out some weird puzzle or look online to figure it out. That’s where they are learning is from doing this. This is something no other company has tried to do is offer a game that grows and changes without releasing a expansion and then putting in the changes we know what happened to the world the ones who where here for it. We know Scarlet attacked and destroyed LA to tap into the magic Lay lines so she could ether feed the dragon or something else. But the point is we as players saw this others did not see it where not here in game trying to save the people and trying to stop her from what she did but we did end her and stopped her from doing more damage. Now we have to wait and see where they will go with it.

I myself think that by doing the living story they learned more on how to present the stories there trying to tell and make them more living like the ones that did leave a mark on the world and keep adding more like that. The one thing I do know is that I was there for all the events and I did complete most some I just did what I felt like and moved onto other things cause those parts did not tell a story of what was going on but just added more of the same. But I will wait and see what they have to come and will most likely play it and see where this goes.

Clex Mix.7624:

Substance E.4852:

Clex Mix.7624:

Substance E.4852:

The big thing people miss is that expansions aren’t just expansions to explorable content and new dungeons, they are expansions to game mechanics as well. New pvp modes, new skills, new minigames, new ways to earn rewards or new types of rewards. Often games will introduce new classes or new races to play that can change the faction vs faction dynamic or make the world feel more alive. I remember playing EvE when they released the planetary survey expansion. While not the most well recieved expansion, it was still a massive, new way to play the game that was unlike anything they had already and gave a purpose to things that were in the game mostly for flavor. Planets had no use, you just warped to them and they made it look like you were in space. Suddenly, they all had types and certain types yielded different kinds of resources and you competed with other players for those resources. A whole new way to play the game opened up and people had a new set of toys to play with and learn.

We really haven’t gotten much of any of that. As someone pointed out, we are playing the same fundamental game we bought back in 2012. We have no new spvp zones. WvW has never broken free from zerg/coverage to win. We have only gotten 1 new skill per class. We are still going zerk or going home for pve. And finally, we have only had 1 new pve map (zephyr was more of a town). We have gotten new dungeons and paths but they still suffer from the same issues that have plagued dungeons and pve since the start.

We’ve gotten a lot of fluff, temp content and many folks have certainly paid more than enough gems to simulate purchasing an expansion, but the LS just isn’t one. Not when the game and world it’s in is no bigger or complex than it was at the start.

Since their most recent update just hit it’s going to be changing a bit of stuff… whether or not it fixes all the “problems” people have with a game, its going to be a pretty big update. New traits across all trait lines and all classes as well as how they are allocated. Along with what seems to be some world changes and changes to leveling and such.

Now from this exact date its hard to know what exactly they are bringing to the table and how the community will react to it, but one thing is certain…. its progress.

People fail to realize that creating content and or balancing current content and classes, is far from easy in an MMO. Making a new area alone probably takes 100+ hours on testing alone, fixing bugs tweaking hearts and enemies. Balancing classes more than likely takes at least hundreds of hours with multiple people. Fixing bugs is one thing, but revamping a class… and you have to take into account how many employees they have available to test/develop each facet of the game.

After 10 years almost of playing mmo’s you learn to ignore just about every bullkitten crybaby remark/request on current game status by people who think anything they do in the game is the most important focus the dev’s should have… but at some point you can only facepalm so much… a lot of things people say are broken just aren’t and because a certain type of playing works well with others, well obviously the game is broken and stupid….

Try being more constructive with a game’s criticism and voice your opinions in a constructive manner. Dev’s respond a lot better to someone who is level headed and sound minded with their thoughts than someone who’s full of themselves and opinionated to the point where its disrespectful.

Keep in mind, there is no kittening sub…. and kitten this kitten that, why is it kitten? so weird.

You have some seriously thin skin if you think that I was being “disrespectful” or “unreasonable” with what i posted. I posted the truth, and it’s not just me who wants the game to grow, not stagnate, in complexity.

I’ve also been playing MMO’s for 10+ years and the only thing worse than the crybabies are fanboi apologists who think people don’t have aright to voice negative opinions as paying customers and that the staff can do no wrong.

only the top part was pointed towards you

rest of it was to general public.

Forgive me if you took that personal, haven’t had my coffee yet

Fair enough.
Then I too apologize for the “fanboi” section.

An expansion is just an entire LS season in 1 patch.

emikochan.8504:

An expansion is just an entire LS season in 1 patch.

That you can play at your own pace…