Guild Wars 2

Ever have I wanted ANet to make improvements to the core aspects of the game.
- When I say “Core aspects” I refer to the things that was made a huge deal out of being different in their game such as:
- Combat, Dynamic Events and the Personal Storyline.

I want to take this up for discussion, but focusing on the Dynamic Events.

- Today I saw a post which asked: “Which Dynamic Events do people farm?”
Meaning that what ANet said about GW2 being the MMO with the most repeatability is officially annulled. People don’t do your living world with the current state of Dynamic Events.
- Sure, it is said by ANet that the Living World is their goal to make it a Living World, but does that mean that Dynamic Events in other areas won’t get improved or expanded?

Think about it.
- GW2 is an Open World MMO but focuses only on smaller parts of its world every two weeks to make it come to life. Dynamic Events were supposed to add this feeling to the world and the Living World was supposed to make some temporary massive events (like the Lost Shores) every once in a while – which meant that people would populate the Open World and participate in the events, which would seem more special since they were not ever occurring (The Lost Shores felt more like quality work, although it was hard and people complained. The rewards were well worth it. Two precursors + many more exotic items. Top that!).
- Dynamic Events are there instead of the “Quests” and along with the Task system, they have to compete with that, but I see little improvement or expansion of the Dynamic Event system. No new Dynamic Events and no timers for the World Bosses, because we wouldn’t want the world to be dynamic, now, would we?
- Those timers and that predictability leads to “GRIND” people! And not the good kind of grind, no, the bad kind. The kind that have players mindlessly tuned in to defeat the boss.
- The first time I met the Shatterer it was a unique and fun experience. Now it had become a grind and zergfest (to be fair, ANet intends to make big changes to the World Bosses and their mechanics).

- Living World is currently overrated.
Now, I’m not against updates and new features every two weeks, but this Living Story (and it is the story that bothers me) doesn’t provide the same unique experience I got from GW1, WoW, SWToR, FFXI, etc.
- The story is often told via the guildwars2.com and not through the game itself.
The only time when the Living Story really immersed and integrated me was during The Lost Shores (in which it felt awesome to participate) and the Razing with Rox’s and Braham’s story. Sure, they were short, but I felt compelled to try out Retribution afterwards and actually looked forward to it.
- Something like that, I think, would suit the “Story” aspect of the Living Story… along with story arcs that are actually compelling and interesting, thank you.

on some part of your post i agree although some dinamic events have been improved to be at least more rewarding, although the new fast patching content it is kinda stressful, i mean, i’m really happy that we have everyday tons to do, but it is stressfull to do it as soon as possible before they remove it.
they started with sign post to build for more than a month and now we have all of this for 2 weeks… and the dailies for the achievement points, tons of race to run numerous crystal to collect baskets to open, ticket to rng and so on…
i wish we could have a break from all of this for a while, just enjoy the game for what it is and have more delayed temporary content

Some of your points I agree on, others I don’t. I do agree that we need more story ‘in the game’ for the Living Story. Marjorie’s back story for example, which was told via the main site, should have been in the game. Would have made one heck of a cut scene, or perhaps implemented as an information scavenger hunt/quest (to learn about this woman you are now suddenly working with).

Yes, having the cutscenes and such in there does make the story better, more immersive imo. Hopefully we will see more of this moving forward. We had another small one at the beginning of Bazaar as well, and I take it as a good sign that more and more of such may be added as we see more development in the stories, which we should see. Colin has stated that the first 6 months has basically been a grand beta test/data collection period. So we’ll see where they go with it. Then again, the stories in GW1 (while overall good) wheren’t amazing either in and of themselves, it was their presentation and the adventure that made them an enjoyably repeatable thing.

As for dynamic events…yes, some (possibly many) of the simpler ones do seem shallow. Possibly they repeat to much to be truly savored, I don’t know. If they weren’t as frequent people would probably gripe about not having anything to farm for XP. Some of the later webs don’t feel as shallow, they could still use some work, but they aren’t as bad. So maybe part of the issue is lack of content to work with for the smaller chains. Anet has added DEs in since launch, it is possible that we could eventually see some low level and/or cross zone webbed DE’s which could add some story depth to the world. I think something along these lines would be interesting and potentially challenging.

The game has a lot of potential, and I have lots of patience. So I’m content to watch, wait, and possibly send Colin hate mail is he lets me down with his grand promises. On the other hand, when they make me happy, I gladly shuffle some money into gems. =)

Dynamic Events

I reckon DE’s are one of the best types of content for creating an immersive world…if used right. Having mobs actually attack, and having to hold them off alongside NPC’s is, IMO, much more immersive than a guy saying these guys are causing trouble when, well, they aren’t. Same with escort quests and big baddies.

As is though, I can see three main issues, from a gameplay, immersion and community perspective, with DE’s currently:

• Immersion – Having the same event repeat every 5 minutes is immersion breaking. It’s almost like the mobs are made on a factory line, kinda like the Putty Patrol from Power Rangers. However, this is needed, since DE’s are the main source of XP. As well as this, the attackers from the events never seem to ‘learn’ from their failures. They keep trying the same approach over and over.

• Gameplay – Not necessarily exclusive from the ‘immersion’ point, especially regarding ‘grinding’. Having the same events over and over, in exactly the same format, increases the feeling of it being a script and increases the feeling of ‘grind’. If, all of a sudden the mechanics of the event changed (so, say, the centaurs stopped just charging in, but set up siege on a mountain to reign down hell on the village), it would break the feeling of monotony (providing it was implemented in a way that the AI was ‘learning’, and not simply cycling through the events).

• Community – DE’s currently don’t need people to work together (with the exception of Meta-events when there’s only, like, 10 of you), thus they devolve into zerging, tag-as-many-mobs-as-you-can content, as opposed to an organised force that will destroy your team if you aren’t organised.

Personally, I wouldn’t say events have “failed” as much as “need improving”. To write it off as a failure before they’ve reached what they could be would be quite sad.

IMO, DE’s should replace certain types of quest (kill x of y, defend z, for example), ‘fused’ with certain quests (escort), but not replace quests for ‘personal gain’ (go to Mount Intimidating, collect special glowy rocks and metals, bring them back and I’ll craft you an awesome weapon)

As for that post about farming events, timers on events ect, unfortunately, you could create the most amazing, immersive and engaging world, but if the player is just after the shinies, they will look for the simplest way to get them. Personally, I think releasing an API to allow people to track when certain events are up is counter-intuitive to what the first intention of DE’s; to create a living, breathing world.

Living Story

The concept of a player-driven unfolding of a story is, IMO, is probably the most immersive way of delivering permanent content, as opposed to just patching it in.

However, that’s exactly what it needs to be; player-driven.

Certainly, patch in key events, like people getting killed all of a sudden, leave the unfolding of the story to the players, not a strict schedule. Leave the players find these threats, work out where the threats are hiding, unraveling their intentions ect.

In terms of story-telling in games, living the story through ‘doing’ the content is, IMO, more immersive and engaging than simply reading / watching it.

Another thing in terms of storytelling in general, I think trying to make the individual player on their own feel like The One is useless and clashes that your character is the only hero alongside everyone else character, who are also The One. What they need to work on is making the player feel like a hero alongside other players.

I was gonna write some other stuff, but for the life of me I can’t remember what.

Amadan.9451:

i wish we could have a break from all of this for a while, just enjoy the game for what it is and have more delayed temporary content

These are words of wisdom, my friend.

- Basically, what got me to creating this post, was that I saw the thread “What DE’s do you guys farm?” which led me to the conclusion that GW2 has become that grind that it aimed not to be, because people don’t do it for the fun of it but for rewards, and sure, all DE’s should be rewarding to the level and scale that it is on.

- As for the reference to you that I made, I’ve been saying it myself and I agree 100%
I don’t mind getting updates and new features every two weeks but the Living Story needs more work. As it is right now, I’m bound to leave for some other games at some point and only check in to see if the game has moved anywhere.
- I don’t hope that it will turn out like that, but it looks that way currently, I’m afraid. :/

TheDaiBish, thanks for the response.
- Personally, no, I don’t think the DE’s have failed, hence the question mark on the title of this thread. It was more to provoke or put the issue of DE’s not being improved even though they are core PvE design in GW2.

Dynamic Events are great to tell the happenings right “now”, instead of the quest that says (like you give an example of) “These guys are bad” and they aren’t really.
- However, quests does it better when telling the story… well, the Personal Story should provide there, but alas, it does not (I found it so goofy in style… It’s nothing compared to GW1’s story)

- Anyhow, thanks for the response, it was a great read and certainly some good points there.

Sinifair.1026:

TheDaiBish, thanks for the response.
- Personally, no, I don’t think the DE’s have failed, hence the question mark on the title of this thread. It was more to provoke or put the issue of DE’s not being improved even though they are core PvE design in GW2.
Dynamic Events are great to tell the happenings right “now”, instead of the quest that says (like you give an example of) “These guys are bad” and they aren’t really.

Ah, apologies. Looking back, I really can’t see how I missed that question mark.

I think another of the key issues with DE’s is in the playerbase and the ‘I want to play alone / why should I have to work with others’ mentality, whereas the majority of DE’s are inherently group-based content. Trying to adapt group content (which has the core concept of ‘working together’) to solo-players results in the zerging of content.

Note: I’m not knocking the play-style. I’m just pointing out how tailoring group content to solo players just makes it shallow.

Sinifair.1026:

- However, quests does it better when telling the story… well, the Personal Story should provide there, but alas, it does not (I found it so goofy in style… It’s nothing compared to GW1’s story)

That’s more down to the actual writing, and not the deliverance (although that is flawed in some ways, mainly pacing and how detached it is from the world in terms of the choices you make).

I think that we may need some “solo-content” in PvE that the quests provided in other MMO’s.
- I think that it is a shame that people have become accommodated to playing solo when the getting together of random people are some of my most memorable and enjoyable experiences from WoW and Guild Wars. GW2 is a game that is by far more enjoyable when played with other people, guildies or friends and such.

- I think that ANet wanted GW2 to get players into that mentality and I can really respect that, but we need something that is more solo-friendly, perhaps.

(To add to the “solo mentality” of people, there are those who have craved that ANet made dungeons solo-able. That is not the point of an MMO! And it ticks me off that such players are suggesting things that might degenerate the MMO genre, or GW2)