Guild Wars 2

When it comes to design, GW2, had me sold from the start. It is a beautiful looking MMO, and when I’m not being swarmed by the blanket of creatures that seem to attack me at every turn, I find myself very much enjoying the environment.

However, the lack of weather is really taking away from that experience for me. Scripted weather breaks my immersion almost instantly. Combine that with the carbon copy placement of animals, and the whole world feels designed. It doesn’t feel natural, or alive.

Imagine for a moment getting caught in a snow storm, where everyone in your party is forced to move slowly to avoid falling off cliffs, the shapes of wolves pass by you as you struggle to find the next waypoint. Imagine the sounds of thunder building in the distance as the sky darkens. The patter of raindrops start to fill your ears and before long you find yourself in the middle of a storm. Your ranged weapons aren’t as effective, so you must resort to close combat.

For me, it’s these little things that turn a cool game, into an amazing game. Seasons changing, realistic weather, and a day / night cycle that actually feels real, would be a great addition to this game.

Speaking of the day/night cycle, for me GW2 is one of the worst I’ve ever seen in a game. I often can’t tell if it’s day, or night unless the game boots me to overflow with a different time of day. There are no long shadowed sunsets, no red glow of the sunrise.

Night means nothing to the world. He creatures don’t sleep, the bunnies don’t hide from the nasty creatures or ghosts that only roam at night. Is game needs to take a chance, and make night, actually like night.

Imagine how amazing it would look to stand on the top of a mountain, watching oer players, torch in hand, navigating the terrain. Imagine how insanely awesome it would be to come upon a cave troll sleeping, your torchlight bouncing off his face as his eyes open.

Imagine the feeling you would get knowing that the deer that we’re casually grazing are now gone, and the lumbering steps of some unknown creature echo in the dark. Your party, torches in hand cautiously walk towards the sound. A bunny scurries from the light and gets blasted by your trigger happy quest mate.

If GW2 truly wanted to change the MMO experience, they don’t have to do much in my opinion. Use what is available. Take the chance and allow players to experience a whole range of emotions as they navigate the environment. You don’t have to plaster the world with creatures to make it seem alive.

Love the post, felt very roleplay..ie…

However what you are after is something a little out of reach. If you haven’t allready i recommend The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, it pretty much covers everything you are looking for in graphics and weather, the only downside is its not an MMO….yet.

I don’t see it being out of reach? Darkness is easy to implement, Foggy areas where I had a hard-ish time seeing are there already too

It would mostly be a programming thingy, the effects I’ve seen around already imo.

@Day/Night: yeah I dislike how its so bright at night and how the world is not affected by night at all :/ Again would mostly be a programming thingy, assigning a different AI and such

i’d love to see seasons too

And I don’t even roleplay I just like being in a world that feels like it is an actual world

Yeah I agree. I wish they could ad some filters on the night time so grass wouldn’t be green, but bluish.

I didn’t get far in the game but it saddens me that the weather is scripted. Random rain, snow and sandstorms would be great, like in other mmo-s

I found the lack of change from day to night pretty disappointing. When the cycle happens, it feels like someone just flipped a light switch: one minute it’s nighttime, the next it’s noon. For a game that has so many references to dawn and twilight, it’s odd that we don’t actually appear to have dawn or twilight except in designated areas…which is too bad, because places like Dawnside Quay are beautiful. I’d really like to see the cycle extended to show a more gradual change between times of day. Final Fantasy XI has a short day/night cycle, too, but different times of day are actually noticeable (not just dawn/day/sunset/night, but also early morning, late afternoon, ect.).

mechasauce.1309:

Love the post, felt very roleplay..ie…

However what you are after is something a little out of reach. If you haven’t allready i recommend The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, it pretty much covers everything you are looking for in graphics and weather, the only downside is its not an MMO….yet.

I’ve actually put in a lot of hours on Skyrim, and am very much hoping thier MMo is stunning.

I think GW2 could easily implement everything I’ve suggested. The game already has the ability to do all the weather and lighting effects (fog, darkness, rain, etc), they just have to be willing to take the chance and implement it.

As for the day / night cycle, well…this is where I think they missed the boat. To me, the world already feels cluttered. Too many events, too many creatures, too much everything. Having certain creatures and quests only happen at night would not only help space out the world a bit, but open a huge realm of story possibilities.

For example, you show up in the middle of the afternoon and the area is quiet. Deer are roaming around, and an NPC is tinkering away at a device of some kind. You talk to her and she explains that she will be heading out at dusk to collect skin samples from a cave troll that has been seen in the area.

As the sun gets low in the sky, I check my map and see that the heart is now available. I head over to the area and see her starting to gather supplies.

A few moments later I light my torch, and along with a few others we head towards a cave, our shadows stretched out in front of us. The sun dips behind the horizon and things go quiet. The birds are no longer singing, the crickets only dare make the odd sound. Your torch flickers off the dark walls of the cave as you all weave and wind.

Your friend startles a group of bats and you make quick work of them. Suddenly, the sound of snoring echos through the cavern. The NPC cautions you to be quiet as she collects the sample. You all stand watching as the light flickers off the face off the troll. Suddenly, the NPC drops the tool and the troll awakens with fury.

You all pull your weapons and the cave illiminates with magic, and light. The shadows of more trolls bounce off the walls and you realize you’re being surrounded. You all fight the darkness and the creatures. Your friend goes down and his torch falls. You struggle to revive him in the dark, the roars echo around you as the trolls swing wildly at the light.

Will you make it out alive?

Or… You could enter a well lit cave, with 8 people, kill a bunch of respawning trolls, get your mail confirmation, and run to the next heart.

My dramatic stories may sound like pipe dreams, but GW2 has the ability to pull this off with its current engine. There is nothing stopping them from implementing these, other than a hesitation to trust that players will enjoy slowing down and feeling emotion.

Good points OP, completely agree.

you guys are bumming me out because god knows when ill get the chance to play an mmo like that. My guess is at least 5 years away

I personally would love to see all this and more. And in case any developers/designers are reading this, this game gave me hands down the most satisfying experience I’ve ever had in any game world due to the weather.

I was running around in one of the mid/high level zones near the ocean (can’t remember which at the moment) and just as I happened to climb to the top of the highest peak in the area, a thunderstorm started.

I was looking for a “personal vista”, meaning not one that you get for map completion, just an awesome viewpoint to see the game world. Man did I get it. The raid drops fallling, clouds rolling around, background noises muted as the rain hissed… while in the distance the mountains and the ocean…

It gave me chills, and that’s saying an aweful lot for a fake world.

But most of the rest of this game is just static and predictable. Need to get to an ore node? Hey! Look! An aggro mob! Surprise… not. Mobs stacked at exactly the right “you can probably kill them one at a time to make it down this canyon without aggroing the next one” range usually. Fifty wolves, bears, eagle griffons, etc. all in one place, standing around, basically just being “living” speedbumps.

There’s sooooo much potential for greatness in this game and the world itself is beautiful.

OP, the fact that your suggestions haven’t been implemented points (imo) to one thing: most people would kitten about the inconvenience of it all.

“It’s dark, I can’t see.”
“It’s raining, why am I moving slower?”
“Where are all the deer? I need to farm them and they aren’t out at night.”

etc.

Shameful, but given the things they did SO right with the visual side of this world, that’s the only thing I can think of that would keep them from going even further.