Guild Wars 2

darkace.8925:

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Has anyone else experienced this with their friends? Opinions? Is LS really a reason not to return?

My brother stopped playing solely because of the Living Story. He enjoys the game, but he works a crazy schedule. Between his job and his familial obligations, he had very limited time to play. When he did play (one day a week), he felt torn between trying to “keep up” with the Living Story or progressing his character. That pull in two directions caused him to sour on the game, and thus he quit. The shame of it is he’s the one who turned me onto the game in the first place.

I think he quit become of work then it happens to all gamer at one point in there life.

Galen Grey.4709:

Thats the price of having a dynamic evolving story. everything comes with a price…

In other MMOs content remains but it feels gimmicky..

NPC: Please go kill the bandits that are preventing the supply caravans from getting to town before everyone starves…

You go kill a bunch of bandits which all respawn a few seconds after you kill them.
you go back.

NPC: thanks for saving the town, we owe you our lives here is 10 gold

you take his money while trying to remember his name so something is left when he starves next week since the bandits are still blockading the trade route like before with the same numbers

That stuff is still in Guild Wars 2. The bandits who are attacking the supply caravans are still around, and it’s an event, so it happens every 30 minutes.

Galen Grey.4709:

In Gw2 the living story was perfect in terms of story progression. Molten alliance invaded norn and charr lands… we fought them, beat them back… Now Invasions have been permanently stopped. Cragstead was invaded, we managed to beat the molten alliance from there but the town was left in ruins. Refugees went to Southsun where they built a few outposts and infrastructure. That didnt work out then they moved to cragstead and now they’re rebuilding it. How can you keep all of that in the game?

How do you keep all that in the game? Phasing.

In the latest expansions for both World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online, you help build up towns and fortresses. When you first arrive, you’re met with a run-down town or just an empty patch of land. As you help the people there, the walls come up, the damage is fixed, guards arrive to defend the town, and new shops open for business.

Every player gets to see the story. No one arrives to find the town already built and the epic final quest where you defeat the dragon menacing the town removed entirely from the game.

The technology already exists to tailor the game world to each player’s place in the story. The living story isn’t revolutionary nor does it advance the genre. It’s quite the opposite – an antiquated brute-force approach to storytelling that advances the story for everyone regardless of whether they’re around to experience it or not.

Treadstone.2564:

[SNIP] The technology already exists to tailor the game world to each player’s place in the story. The living story isn’t revolutionary nor does it advance the genre. It’s quite the opposite – an antiquated brute-force approach to storytelling that advances the story for everyone regardless of whether they’re around to experience it or not.

+1. Nailed it.

minbariguy.7504:

ANet continues to ignore the significant number of people on the forums who are unhappy with the pace of Living Story

THAT is first and foremost a good idea. Not that there aren’t necessarily a significant total number of people that feel that way, or that people who feel that way shouldn’t be listened to, but the forums… well, there’s a non-negligible amount of selection bias on any topic you’ll see here.

And yes, it’s true: we don’t have to do Living Story content. Duh. But our only option is to do it or miss it. And for me, that’s not an option, its a sleazy sales push.

“One time offer!”

“Act now!”

“Limited time only!”

While the enticement theory you’re referencing is definitely in effect, it’s pretty misleading to call it a sales pitch. They already have your money, right? I’m sure they’d love it if you spent lots more in the gem store, but the enticement is for you to keep playing, whether or not you spend any money.

Since ANet refuses to address these concerns, I refuse to log in and be counted as a metric they can use to claim Living Story is working. I have moved on to another game that has a more relaxed pace that is actually enjoyable.

Excellent- that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work. If enough people feel the way you do about this, obviously it will effect change- because its intended goals will have failed. If not, you have no incentive or reason to log in and experience something you don’t enjoy.

And yes, I still post feedback here. I paid the same amount everyone else did at launch (and more than some newer players) so I have every intention of continuing to provide my feedback.

Ah now here you lose me a little bit. Continuing to… for how long? Are you gonna keep leaving feedback for the rest of the game’s lifespan even if you never log in again?

MrRuin.9740:

Vol.5241:

The summer metrics and concurrent playerbase show it’s working.

Not really. Numbers are just numbers. They don’t show how many people are truly enjoying it, how many are doing it because they are addicted or fanatic AP collectors, or how many don’t like it but are fanboys doing it anyway cause there’s nothing else to do.

You may be right, but you may be wrong. Numbers don’t tell anywhere near the whole story and you can’t claim it as fact.

Numbers are neutral and unbiased. I’d take that over the subjective, biased and minority opinions from the forums.

Karizee.8076:

There’s actually more people playing now than at launch. Sorry your guild failed.

If you think that, I got a couple of bridges I want to sell you. That is actually impossible, and just isn’t true. SPvP is dead. WvW is slowly dying.

At least 10 servers didn’t have the population to do the Taco fight. My server rallied people and couldn’t get 50 people together during Primetime.

Population has definitely dropped in GW2, but no one knows how much. I am pushing for server mergers on low population servers or do what ESO will do an do mega servers. Or the game will suffer badly.

In terms of patches, the 2 week mini-games are terrible. Players would much rather have 1-2 month waits for patches and meaningful patches. Give us an awesome dungeon after a 2 month update. Don’t give us a mini-game after 2 weeks, that just doesn’t feel like an MMO to me.

Give us something like the Fractals, that will have longevity. Not SAB which was fun the first time around, then the shiny wore off.

Karizee.8076:

There’s actually more people playing now than at launch. Sorry your guild failed.

your proof?

Hawkian.6580:

Ah now here you lose me a little bit. Continuing to… for how long? Are you gonna keep leaving feedback for the rest of the game’s lifespan even if you never log in again?

For how long? Until I decide I don’t want to do so anymore.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

None of my friends has any interest in returning once they find out they missed so much content that they will most likely never see again. Telling them there is new content every 2 weeks makes no difference it seems.

Exactly, once they find out they missed so much, they are more likely not to come back. But if they find out there are awesome updates that they can partake in they will be more likely to come back. It is just common sense.

i belong to 8 enormous guilds; well! 5 at the moment, since 3 of them recently left due to other reasons including this one.

Each of them had 130-220 active members.

“Not a heartbreakers” since gw2 meta decieved many including making unfulfilled false promises and unsupported claimes; which i’m too disspointed to even talk about.

Anyways,

I believe no one leaves gw2 without a factual valid reason and no! it’s not cause they were “stupid”.

These were passionate hardcore devoted players, many whom were better players than many of you criticis, including myself.

In other word,

they deserve Respect including others who recently or in the process of leaving “their unfaithful partner”

Things that do return or will make a return as seasonal events:
Queens Jubilee
Bazaar of the Four winds
Boss Weeks
Dragon bash
Halloween
Wintersday

As Fractal Content:
Flame and Frost Dungeon
Atherblade Dungeon
Tixx’s Imaginarium?
Mad Kings Realm?

If Anet was more transparent about this, we’d not lose so many people. (I lost so many fellow RPers due to this)

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

First, I am not leaving. I play every day and do most of the LS content.

I am in 3 guilds, 2 of which are dead. I have had friends in my 2 dead guilds start asking me about what is going on in GW2 because they heard about all the new content and where thinking about coming back. So I tell them about all the great updates we have had, but then I have to tell them, “sorry, it was temporary so you missed out”.
It’s a real downer. None of my friends has any interest in returning once they find out they missed so much content that they will most likely never see again. Telling them there is new content every 2 weeks makes no difference it seems.

Has anyone else experienced this with their friends? Opinions? Is LS really a reason not to return?

Yep I have. My friends all tell me they are all only doing dailies and gathering greens and blues for MF%.

Most of my friends tho don’t see a positive future for this game because they’ve gotten WAY off track. I’ve personally gone into another title but stay just enough to see just what they are doing next before I completely write off this company as yet another mistake in the road to find an mmo home.

People in my guild pretty much have a hard time getting enough people online to do guild events the guild master left the game originally because of the serious issues with the necro class and the guild almost disbanded. I’m not really sure where it’s going but it’s really not getting better imo.

Karizee.8076:

There’s actually more people playing now than at launch. Sorry your guild failed.

is there a source for this

I am not convinced all of these upset players would be any happier if they had 8 months of content to catch up while still having new content added bi-weekly.

The most likely scenario is that they would have a tantrum about being overwhelmed and lost in mixed story lines and half completed achievements. Few people would be jumping at the prospect of them out with various “old” living story content because then they would be at risk of falling behind or repeating something boring and outdated.

You can believe your friends and wandering guild members are truly dedicated and loyal players that are so disappointed in missing out on some wings and weapons skins. I have my doubts.

Personally I am one of those people that just doesn’t care about completing every single thing and has no desire to chase a shiny new weapon skin like I am some sort of mindless skrit. If there is something I like, I go for it, if not I don’t bother.

milo.6942:

is there a source for this

Yes, its name starts with ‘a’.

MrRuin.9740:

Vayne.8563:

People stop playing…how many people? I’m pretty sure Anet has numbers (in fact I know they have, I talked to a dev in game recently and unless he was lying, they have numbers).

Concurrency is up. More players are returning. Some people will leave, but name an MMO that never loses anyone.

Without knowing the numbers, we can’t know what kind of problem this really is.

You can’t question someone elses claim to playerbase going down because of lack of anyone outside the devs knowing and then claim fact that its going up and people are returning while lacking the same information.

MMO’s always have a turnaround rate of players. Neither of you know whether its up or down, or what the reasons for either case are, so neither can claim either case.

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

The thing is, I met a dev casually in game and talked to him for a long time. And he was talking about things that maybe Anet wouldn’t have wanted him to, so I don’t get the idea he was just giving me a company line, and he told me that they’re really stoked about how well the concurrency is doing. But he also said enough negative stuff about stuff he’s specifically working on to make me feel he wasn’t just handing me a line.

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

First, I am not leaving. I play every day and do most of the LS content.

I am in 3 guilds, 2 of which are dead. I have had friends in my 2 dead guilds start asking me about what is going on in GW2 because they heard about all the new content and where thinking about coming back. So I tell them about all the great updates we have had, but then I have to tell them, “sorry, it was temporary so you missed out”.
It’s a real downer. None of my friends has any interest in returning once they find out they missed so much content that they will most likely never see again. Telling them there is new content every 2 weeks makes no difference it seems.

Has anyone else experienced this with their friends? Opinions? Is LS really a reason not to return?

What LS? You mean SAB?

GW2 had a great run of one year, Molten facility, Airship, Fracts, Queen’s Gauntlet (as laggy as it was) – nothing else seems to be coming close to the above mentioned IMO.

Even if future content was of the same quality, I doubt it would convince the people who left to return. Good thing I enjoyed the best the game had to offer.

haviz.1340:

milo.6942:

is there a source for this

Yes, its name starts with ‘a’.

Dude, no one slams their own product. And they aren’t panicking by making a U turn so take them at their word that concurrency is on the rise.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

Peetee.9406:

Generally the conversation goes like this:

Friend: “What have they added since I left in May?”
Me: “Well, nothing that you can do.”
Friend: “What do you mean?”
Me: “Well, they added this, this, and this but they took it out of the game 2 weeks later. It’s part of their living story.”
Friend: “Seriously?”
Me: “Yeah”
Friend: “That’s the stupidest kitten thing I’ve ever heard!”
Me: “Yeah, I know.”

I wish I could upvote this to infinity.

Vayne.8563:

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

Oh that means nothing then, off course it should go up during patches. But going up in terms of what? Last month? Last Week?

I remember when a SWTOR dev said publically that the subscribers haven’t dropped, and then in the quarterly call EA admitted the subscribers dropped.

I just don’t think any MMO can grow in this market. It is too competitive. Not even WoW. It is peak during launch and downhill from there.

It seems to me that too many traditional MMO players are looking at this with a half empty attitude: sure someone may “miss out” on past story arcs, but that just means that anyone that comes back can look forward to new story arcs all the time.

It’s called a living story for a reason; not because it’s supposed to be some static instance all the time, but something that changes over time.

I went to a party the other day, it was pretty crazy… oh whats that? You missed it? Oh, I’m sorry you couldn’t get the day off. There’s another one next week.

You can’t make it to every party, every convention, every event every time everywhere. It’s called life; it moves forward with or without you.

Also, about the items that you can get from the different LS events; there are limited time items in pretty much any MMO out there that are tied to special events. OMG you’re missing out by playing this game now! I think that all games should just hand everything out to each player regardless of whether they play or not; just sign up for an account and here’s your stuff you fat kitten lazy kittens.

Although I wouldn’t mind them making some of these event items available to trade; considering they aren’t bothering to add them to the achievement rewards panel, I think it would be fine since there wouldn’t be any “new” copies of the item being made and entering into the system.

Hawkian.6580:

While it truly sucks that you had guilds fall, and that your friends were perturbed enough by missing out on stuff to… decide to miss out on more stuff, this thread is a textbook exercise in the many issues which arise from using anecdotal evidence to form a conclusion (namely the equation in your thread title).

To illustrate this a bit- I haven’t read the responses all yet, but I bet you’ll get some that say their guilds are still very healthy or that they have more people playing now. I could offer you the “evidence” that my guild has actually had its highest concurrency within the last two months… but this would be just as anecdotal as what you described in the first post. It doesn’t accurately represent or explain anything beyond our own experiences.

The important thing to keep in mind is that ArenaNet didn’t just arbitrarily decide to start a consistent two-week content release cycle by picking the idea out of a hat. They studied the wealth of actual player activity data that we will never have access to and made this call based on what people are really doing, not the apparent conclusions one might draw from even 100 anecdotal experiences. It does appear to be working for them.

+1
This topic is full of anecdotal evidence.

If Anet, the only one with access to facts, decided to release concent every 2 weeks it’s because they studied their playerbase.

Remember The plural of Anecdote is not ‘Data’

Isn’t a changing world what the MMO community has constantly asked to see? If the events of the LS stayed in the game and were always there, wouldn’t people be complaining that the game is stagnant?

Now the rate of the LS may need adjusting and I could see how it would be nice if there was some way for people to see ‘re-runs’ or something of the past cinematic scenes or missions to catch up on the lore.

Perhaps these re-runs could offer different rewards so people would still have an incentive to do them while people who were able to do storylines during their ‘first run’ as it were could show off they were there with that

It also seems more like the story itself gets monthly, rather than bi-weekly updates. Scarlet’s story really hasn’t advanced this whole month with the Teq upgrade.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

Isn’t a changing world what the MMO community has constantly asked to see? If the events of the LS stayed in the game and were always there, wouldn’t people be complaining that the game is stagnant?

Now the rate of the LS may need adjusting and I could see how it would be nice if there was some way for people to see ‘re-runs’ or something of the past cinematic scenes or missions to catch up on the lore.

Perhaps these re-runs could offer different rewards so people would still have an incentive to do them while people who were able to do storylines during their ‘first run’ as it were could show off they were there with that

It also seems more like the story itself gets monthly, rather than bi-weekly updates. Scarlet’s story really hasn’t advanced this whole month with the Teq upgrade.

Every story doesn’t have to advance every month. I don’t get this whole thing. It’s like a soap opera. Different storylines will be active at different times. We’re back to Scarlet in 3 days time. It took time to find her hideout. Frankly taking time off from a story and continuing it later is actually more interesting than a linear story told in order….at least to me.

And the LS IS changing the world. The Not So Secret Jumping Puzle, The karka queen, the moa races, the Scarlet invasions are all permanent additions, the new Teq battle… in a few days time there’s a permanent new dungeon path.

People want a thousand things all at the same time. What developer can afford to do that?

The changes are supposed to be gradual, so that when you look back after a couple of years the world will be different…which is after all, how worlds actually change…even in real life mostly.

I’m having a hard time imagining some executive manager justifying Living Story approach to content developers.

“Hey, we have a huge world we want to fill with a huge number of players with lots and lots of things to do! Let’s make more content for it! More maps! More gear! More enemies! More mini-games! More events!”

“Yeah! And then take them all out two weeks later!”

“W… Wait, what?”

GUILD WARS 2: THE LIVING WORLD™
Come See What You’ve Been Missing! *

Welcome to Tyria! Guild Wars 2 brings a rich, vibrant world of adventure and fantasy to life. Stunning, award-winning artwork, cutting-edge FPS-style combat, personalized storylines and innovative cooperative gameplay mechanics combine with a dynamic, living world to offer a compelling, immersive, ever-changing experience that will keep you coming back for more, over and over, again and again. And now, for a limited time, you can play the fastest-selling MMO in human history, absolutely FREE!

.

* NOTE: New players cannot actually see what they’ve been missing, because it’s gone now, removed from the game. Please be advised that most of the new content added since launch is no longer available. But don’t worry, there will be new content that will be available for brief periods before it is also removed. Say, have you ever looked into Zen Buddhism? Guild Wars 2 is like the embodiment of impermanence, an explicit embrace of the transience of all existence. While we cannot guarantee all players will achieve satori or any other form of enlightenment, we do offer a gameplay experience, or lack of gameplay experience, which no other online game can offer, or not offer. So what are you waiting for? Download Guild Wars 2 today, forget about the past and celebrate the ephemeral, nihilistic insignificance of our shallow, transient being in a way never before possible outside a monastery!

How could prospective players not see the obvious value proposition?

Majic.4801:

GUILD WARS 2: THE LIVING WORLD™
Come See What You’ve Been Missing! *

Welcome to Tyria! Guild Wars 2 brings a rich, vibrant world of adventure and fantasy to life. Stunning, award-winning artwork, cutting-edge FPS-style combat, personalized storylines and innovative cooperative gameplay mechanics combine with a dynamic, living world to offer a compelling, immersive, ever-changing experience that will keep you coming back for more, over and over, again and again. And now, for a limited time, you can play the fastest-selling MMO in human history, absolutely FREE!

.

* NOTE: New players cannot actually see what they’ve been missing, because it’s gone now, removed from the game. Please be advised that most of the new content added since launch is no longer available. But don’t worry, there will be new content that will be available for brief periods before it is also removed. Say, have you ever looked into Zen Buddhism? Guild Wars 2 is like the embodiment of impermanence, an explicit embrace of the transience of all existence. While we cannot guarantee all players will achieve satori or any other form of enlightenment, we do offer a gameplay experience, or lack of gameplay experience, which no other online game can offer, or not offer. So what are you waiting for? Download Guild Wars 2 today, forget about the past and celebrate the ephemeral, nihilistic insignificance of our shallow, transient being in a way never before possible outside a monastery!

How could prospective players not see the obvious value proposition?

I don’t know. One would think new players will have the same content we had when we were new, which was plenty. I don’t see new players having the time to keep up with the living story and level their character.

Maybe new characters are not the people that have the biggest problem.

Does anyone read my posts? I hope so. I usually find the stuff to calm most of your fears.

Majic.4801:

cutting-edge FPS-style combat

First of all that’s not even what the main site says about it’s combat; this is nowhere near an actual “fps-styled” action combat system.

Secondly, even the way they state it on their website is sort of misleading. If they had an official option for a combat mode in their options or something, then it might actually be at a point where it could be considered “action-oriented,” but until then it’s nothing close to as fast paced nor as tactical.

I know you are being sarcastic here, but it really irritates me when people seem to think of GW2 as an action combat game. Also, you don’t have auto-targeting in action combat games; you have to figure out the most optimal angles, distancing, timing, etc. for yourself.

In comparison to an action combat game GW2’s combat is actually pretty slow and a lot closer to GW1 or other more traditional MMO combat systems with the exception that they removed a lot of the pointless rooting (and even removed it from some areas where they should have kept it…) and added a dodge.

Sollith.3502:

Majic.4801:

cutting-edge FPS-style combat

First of all that’s not even what the main site says about it’s combat; this is nowhere near an actual “fps-styled” action combat system.

Secondly, even the way they state it on their website is sort of misleading. If they had an official option for a combat mode in their options or something, then it might actually be at a point where it could be considered “action-oriented,” but until then it’s nothing close to as fast paced nor as tactical.

I know you are being sarcastic here, but it really irritates me when people seem to think of GW2 as an action combat game. Also, you don’t have auto-targeting in action combat games; you have to figure out the most optimal angles, distancing, timing, etc. for yourself.

In comparison to an action combat game GW2’s combat is actually pretty slow and a lot closer to GW1 or other more traditional MMO combat systems with the exception that they removed a lot of the pointless rooting (and even removed it from some areas where they should have kept it…) and added a dodge.

It’s all relative, isn’kitten It’s not an action combat game compared to COD, but it is an action combat game compared to WoW and Guild Wars 1.

When you look at MMOs, most of them have static combat. Skills that you can’t generally cast while moving. In most MMOs you need to target your foe, but most skills in Guild Wars 2 don’t require targeting. You can hit if you hit.

There’s even a third party program that allows you to have a crosshair in the center of your screen and play it more like skyrim.

Treadstone.2564:

That stuff is still in Guild Wars 2. The bandits who are attacking the supply caravans are still around, and it’s an event, so it happens every 30 minutes.

To a degree yes… Gw2 doesnt do it perfectly either. For obvious reasons its not feasible to create 1500 events for every single player so that every event only happen once. Gw2 “cheats” in that they get around that problem by making events cycle. The bandits attack the caravan, you repel them and they’re gone. later on a new caravan will pass in the same area and the bandits will again try to take it over. In a way this makes sense.. it happens in real life too, plenty of places get robbed more then once. Just cause you stop a group of robbers id doesnt mean a new group will not try again later. from a different point of view it does because no one is really that persistent. Its important to note that in many cases this problem is more conceptual then factual. Unless you’re farming (in which case you dont care about immersion anyway) its highly unlikely to experiance the same bandits attacking the same caravan more then a handful of times. In anycase while undeniably its not perfect its way better then the alternative which basically is nothing changes except for the npc saying it did.

Treadstone.2564:

How do you keep all that in the game? Phasing.

In the latest expansions for both World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online, you help build up towns and fortresses. When you first arrive, you’re met with a run-down town or just an empty patch of land. As you help the people there, the walls come up, the damage is fixed, guards arrive to defend the town, and new shops open for business. snip… antiquated brute-force approach to storytelling that advances the story for everyone regardless of whether they’re around to experience it or not.

Phasing wouldnt work in Gw2 for many reasons.

1. if every dynamic event can only be played once you’d destory the whole idea that at max level you’re still free to play anywhere in the world.

2. there are 1500 events, most of which branch to multiple outcomes based on success or failure. can imagine how many phases that would create? lets go with the first 2 chains in queensdale, the aquadaut and close by there is the bandits trying to steal Mepi’s moas. So the aquadaut has 6 possible phases, you stop the assualt and thus the aquadaut is fine. You fail to stop the assault and you fail to defend the repairs thus all pipes are blown up. You fail to stop the assault but successfully defend the fixing of the pipe. You fail assault, you succeed in fixing but fail to stop the bandits poising the water. You fail the assualt, succeed in fixing, fail to stop the poising buy create the antidote. you fail the assualt, succeed in defending repairs and you manage to stop the posioning.

4 events there have already created 6 phases. now lets add mepi to the mix.. that chain has 4 possible phases. You stop the bandits in the initial assault. You fail to stop the assault but manage to stop them taking the moas away. you fail to stop the assault, you fail to stop them taking the moas but successfully rescue them back. you fail the assault, fail to stop them and fail the rescue.

Now consider that these 2 chains which are nothing more then 6 different events taken together create a whooping 24 possible different phases!

If we take just 10 chains with 4 different phases each thats already 1m possible phases!
and keep in mind we’re taking 10 chains with only 3 dynamic events in them IE we’re still at 30 events out of 1500! simply speaking if you had to phase every outcome of every dynamic event you’d turn gw2 in a single player game because by the 11th chain there will be more phases then players who have bought the game. Its just unfeasible.

Games that use phasing can do that just because its very limited to only a few states that all have the same inevitable outcome. For example building the town… thats fine because it just has 2 states either built or not and more then that its fine cause it has one outcome IE all players who are currently in the town not build phase will all inevitably end up in the town is built phase. So you’re segregating the players at the start but because there is no choice in the outcome you will eventually join them again thus not harming the game by splitting the players. Dynamic events dont have a guarantee outcome though they can have multiple and they’re numerous. Doing phasing in Gw2 would mean you’re quite likely end up in a situation where a lot of players would undergo a unique path resulting in no players or at least very few players living in their same phase and you can never join them again.

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

You should know better, really. None of that is enough evidence that the player base and concurrent player numbers are any bigger. Until we have factual numbers, your statement is just speculation, just like lower numbers being speculation. A chat with someone who from a PR standpoint could very well be biased does not mean anything really.

Draco.2806:

I’m having a hard time imagining some executive manager justifying Living Story approach to content developers.

“Hey, we have a huge world we want to fill with a huge number of players with lots and lots of things to do! Let’s make more content for it! More maps! More gear! More enemies! More mini-games! More events!”

“Yeah! And then take them all out two weeks later!”

“W… Wait, what?”

How would it be a living world if all you do is add stuff?

Living world as the name implies means a world thats living, ie that it evolves and reacts to whats happening in it.

Molten alliance invade.. players try to stop them… they succeed hence molten alliance cannot invade anymore but because of those invasions we got refuges who lost their homes cause the invasions burned them to the ground. Those refuges got tricked into going help build southsun cove as a result new settlements spring up their but they hate it there so they move out and go rebuild one of the burned down settlements of the original invasion cragstead.

imagine how all of that would look like if you removed none of it. the refugees are in 3 different places at the same time, in major cities where they dont want to be, in southsun where they want to be even less and in cragstead where they actually want to be… so why arent all of them there yet? We keep trying to stop the molten allaince but alas never manage to succeed which would be funny right now because why would scarlet escalate the war if the invasions are working? why are the refugees rebuilding southsun if they dont want to be there and have been freed from their contracts? why are the refugees in the major cities if a major settlement has been rebuilt?

and thats just the continuity issues with just 1 part of the living story.

Galen Grey.4709:

snip

Granted it’s probably been a while since you played WoW or whatever, but the way they implemented phasing means exactly the opposite of what you are saying it does. The whole environment progresses to where you are. Operation Shieldwall is a good example of this. Once you stormed the beaches and cleared out the hostiles, you were able to set up shop. So yea, the area does evolve with progression unlike what youa re saying.

I’ve leveled four characters in GW2 and my experiences in the zones are not any different than the first time. Same events, same everything really… Same champions spawning every 2 minutes after you kill them, same centaurs attacking the same forts. It’s not bad, it’s certainly a different take, but at the end of the day it’s the same stuff.

dcypher.2590:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

You should know better, really. None of that is enough evidence that the player base and concurrent player numbers are any bigger. Until we have factual numbers, your statement is just speculation, just like lower numbers being speculation. A chat with someone who from a PR standpoint could very well be biased does not mean anything really.

At the end you’re right its all impressions and impressions can be deceiving like for example I think if you ask people which part of gw2 has lost the most amount of players? I think you’ll get an unanimous reply there which would be sPvP I image. Correct me if i am wrong. So imagine my surprise at this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/My-concerns/first

specifically the following statements by colin:

“People tend to play in different places in Gw2, hot join, solo and team queue and custom arenas combined account for a much larger population than GvG/Team/Random/HA arena ever had most of the time. This doesn’t include WvW, which population wise blows the roof off on top of this.”

As for the number of players playing:

" the population of WvW who plays any given week regularly is larger than the entire population of all of Gw1 the game any given week for a large chunk of the games lifespan. Just want to put things in perspective, Gw1 was amazing, but there is a reason we made Gw2."

I really wonder how many of the players who consider Gw2 as “death” really feel that Gw1 was always death considering that it seems WvW alone has a bigger player base the entire of Gw1 !

Galen Grey.4709:

dcypher.2590:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

You should know better, really. None of that is enough evidence that the player base and concurrent player numbers are any bigger. Until we have factual numbers, your statement is just speculation, just like lower numbers being speculation. A chat with someone who from a PR standpoint could very well be biased does not mean anything really.

At the end you’re right its all impressions and impressions can be deceiving like for example I think if you ask people which part of gw2 has lost the most amount of players? I think you’ll get an unanimous reply there which would be sPvP I image. Correct me if i am wrong. So imagine my surprise at this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/My-concerns/first

specifically the following statements by colin:

“People tend to play in different places in Gw2, hot join, solo and team queue and custom arenas combined account for a much larger population than GvG/Team/Random/HA arena ever had most of the time. This doesn’t include WvW, which population wise blows the roof off on top of this.”

As for the number of players playing:

" the population of WvW who plays any given week regularly is larger than the entire population of all of Gw1 the game any given week for a large chunk of the games lifespan. Just want to put things in perspective, Gw1 was amazing, but there is a reason we made Gw2."

I really wonder how many of the players who consider Gw2 as “death” really feel that Gw1 was always death considering that it seems WvW alone has a bigger player base the entire of Gw1 !

Either way, I don’t know what that means since I never played Gw1. For all I know they had 100 people playing that game so of course WvW would be bigger. My point of posting wasn’t to say either claim was more valid than the other, just pointing out it is ridiculous to argue about something there is no proof for. On one hand people really can’t leave this game..since they own it, on the other they certainly can stop playing. The only thing that could tell us which happens more often are numbers.

dcypher.2590:

Galen Grey.4709:

snip

Granted it’s probably been a while since you played WoW or whatever, but the way they implemented phasing means exactly the opposite of what you are saying it does. The whole environment progresses to where you are. Operation Shieldwall is a good example of this. Once you stormed the beaches and cleared out the hostiles, you were able to set up shop. So yea, the area does evolve with progression unlike what youa re saying.

I’ve leveled four characters in GW2 and my experiences in the zones are not any different than the first time. Same events, same everything really… Same champions spawning every 2 minutes after you kill them, same centaurs attacking the same forts. It’s not bad, it’s certainly a different take, but at the end of the day it’s the same stuff.

Yes, last I played there wasn’t even phasing yet so its quite possibly I got it wrong all of it is based on research rather then personal experience…

That being said I think you misunderstood what I said or maybe I explained it wrong.
I didnt say an area cannot evolve in a phase. I said phases are a problem when you have multiple outcomes that build on each other. Phase is nothing more then an instance it can have anything and everything can be done with it there is no limitation there. The problem is every change will need its own instance if you want to keep it persistently.

dcypher.2590:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

You should know better, really. None of that is enough evidence that the player base and concurrent player numbers are any bigger. Until we have factual numbers, your statement is just speculation, just like lower numbers being speculation. A chat with someone who from a PR standpoint could very well be biased does not mean anything really.

Except that everything else he was saying wasn’t PR bullkitten, and that makes a difference. This guy wasn’t spinning stuff. He’s not in PR. This guy was talking down more stuff than up and when I mentioned the living story coming too often, he told me about the response they were getting to it.

So you can believe what you want, but I was the one who spoke to him and if he was doing some PR job on me he did a lousy job of it. I didn’t come away from talking to that guy thinking this was an amazing game or company.

dcypher.2590:

Galen Grey.4709:

dcypher.2590:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

You should know better, really. None of that is enough evidence that the player base and concurrent player numbers are any bigger. Until we have factual numbers, your statement is just speculation, just like lower numbers being speculation. A chat with someone who from a PR standpoint could very well be biased does not mean anything really.

At the end you’re right its all impressions and impressions can be deceiving like for example I think if you ask people which part of gw2 has lost the most amount of players? I think you’ll get an unanimous reply there which would be sPvP I image. Correct me if i am wrong. So imagine my surprise at this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/My-concerns/first

specifically the following statements by colin:

“People tend to play in different places in Gw2, hot join, solo and team queue and custom arenas combined account for a much larger population than GvG/Team/Random/HA arena ever had most of the time. This doesn’t include WvW, which population wise blows the roof off on top of this.”

As for the number of players playing:

" the population of WvW who plays any given week regularly is larger than the entire population of all of Gw1 the game any given week for a large chunk of the games lifespan. Just want to put things in perspective, Gw1 was amazing, but there is a reason we made Gw2."

I really wonder how many of the players who consider Gw2 as “death” really feel that Gw1 was always death considering that it seems WvW alone has a bigger player base the entire of Gw1 !

Either way, I don’t know what that means since I never played Gw1. For all I know they had 100 people playing that game so of course WvW would be bigger. My point of posting wasn’t to say either claim was more valid than the other, just pointing out it is ridiculous to argue about something there is no proof for. On one hand people really can’t leave this game..since they own it, on the other they certainly can stop playing. The only thing that could tell us which happens more often are numbers.

But there is proof, developer statements !

if they’d have an issue with player numbers they wouldnt say they’re satisified, the game is triving and player counts or on the rise, at worst they’d just not say anything.

Besides I am not sure why this is even an issue, just play the game now with culling gone I dont know why this is still being argued at all just going around a bit will make you realise there is no player count issue in the game, there’s seas of players all around. I played a ton of different MMOs and short of EvE online I have yet to see this amount of players together in different areas of the game!

Galen Grey.4709:

How would it be a living world if all you do is add stuff?

…That’s generally what “living” means. Life grows. If you remove stuff it’s more of a “Dying World”, really.

Galen Grey.4709:

Living world as the name implies means a world thats living, ie that it evolves and reacts to whats happening in it.

Well, in that case ANet have done a pretty crap job with it, haven’t they? Most of the “Living World” updates concern something that comes out of nowhere, affects a tiny specks of land or gameplay and then goes away never to be seen again.

It’s not “Living” and it’s definitely nothing to do with the “World”. It’s not a story. It’s not something that actually affects the game. It’s just random temporary content.

It would actually be perfectly fine if “Living World” meant some sort of a huge change to the entire game (let’s say, now it rains fire on all maps because Flame Legion got their claws on some ancient magic) that is then supplanted by yet another change. But it’s not what’s happening, is it?

It’s a swindle.

Galen Grey.4709:

…there’s seas of players all around…

All around the two-three popular farming spots, sure.

But the world is barren.

Galen Grey.4709:

dcypher.2590:

Galen Grey.4709:

dcypher.2590:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

You should know better, really. None of that is enough evidence that the player base and concurrent player numbers are any bigger. Until we have factual numbers, your statement is just speculation, just like lower numbers being speculation. A chat with someone who from a PR standpoint could very well be biased does not mean anything really.

At the end you’re right its all impressions and impressions can be deceiving like for example I think if you ask people which part of gw2 has lost the most amount of players? I think you’ll get an unanimous reply there which would be sPvP I image. Correct me if i am wrong. So imagine my surprise at this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/My-concerns/first

specifically the following statements by colin:

“People tend to play in different places in Gw2, hot join, solo and team queue and custom arenas combined account for a much larger population than GvG/Team/Random/HA arena ever had most of the time. This doesn’t include WvW, which population wise blows the roof off on top of this.”

As for the number of players playing:

" the population of WvW who plays any given week regularly is larger than the entire population of all of Gw1 the game any given week for a large chunk of the games lifespan. Just want to put things in perspective, Gw1 was amazing, but there is a reason we made Gw2."

I really wonder how many of the players who consider Gw2 as “death” really feel that Gw1 was always death considering that it seems WvW alone has a bigger player base the entire of Gw1 !

Either way, I don’t know what that means since I never played Gw1. For all I know they had 100 people playing that game so of course WvW would be bigger. My point of posting wasn’t to say either claim was more valid than the other, just pointing out it is ridiculous to argue about something there is no proof for. On one hand people really can’t leave this game..since they own it, on the other they certainly can stop playing. The only thing that could tell us which happens more often are numbers.

But there is proof, developer statements !

if they’d have an issue with player numbers they wouldnt say they’re satisified, the game is triving and player counts or on the rise, at worst they’d just not say anything.

Besides I am not sure why this is even an issue, just play the game now with culling gone I dont know why this is still being argued at all just going around a bit will make you realise there is no player count issue in the game, there’s seas of players all around. I played a ton of different MMOs and short of EvE online I have yet to see this amount of players together in different areas of the game!

Sorry, but that isn’t proof. According to your logic they outright lied about the manifesto then..which in turns makes any statements from them too unreliable to hold as proof in any case.

Vayne.8563:

dcypher.2590:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

You should know better, really. None of that is enough evidence that the player base and concurrent player numbers are any bigger. Until we have factual numbers, your statement is just speculation, just like lower numbers being speculation. A chat with someone who from a PR standpoint could very well be biased does not mean anything really.

Except that everything else he was saying wasn’t PR bullkitten, and that makes a difference. This guy wasn’t spinning stuff. He’s not in PR. This guy was talking down more stuff than up and when I mentioned the living story coming too often, he told me about the response they were getting to it.

So you can believe what you want, but I was the one who spoke to him and if he was doing some PR job on me he did a lousy job of it. I didn’t come away from talking to that guy thinking this was an amazing game or company.

Well, I could tell you that I spoke with Obama yesterday and he told me that aliens colonized mars. Trying to use that as proof to support an argument would be rather dumb, though.

The day they will finish living story achievement hunt will be happy day for all of us.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Has anyone else experienced this with their friends?

My entire guild is dead. 20% of my friend list still remains.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Is LS really a reason not to return?

Nope. Temp content is nothing to get excited about especially when the game remains unpolished.

My guild was 2 people. Myself, a long time fan of ANET, and my friend who was even a bigger fan.

For both of us, Living Story became the end of GW2. We have both stopped, totally. For me, it was also the spectre of the player base turning into a stampeding herd of sheep from one champ to another.

Only two accounts, but both long term, serious players and both very much fans of ANET.. up to this point.

And don’t start, Vayne. I KNOW why we quit, I don’t CARE what you think, and never will. Living story drove us from the game, and nothing you spin will change that.

My friend is done. Absolutely done. I still check in to see if reason has prevailed. I see it hasn’t, and I see the same old rhetoric from the same old people defending anything and everything with the same pretentious word games and implied “inner knowledge”.

A noble goes to a somewhat foreign people and raises an army with which to fight the existing monarchy. This army drives toward the noble’s home country and makes great inroads until the reigning monarch calls the troops home from afar to fight back. The noble and the gathered foreign army is beaten back until one final battle in which the noble loses and is forced into exile in yet another land.

Once exiled, the noble is never heard from again, and the story falls into history and lore, along with the artifacts of the war, although some are still seen for sale here and there.

No, this is not Scarlet and her Aetherblade minions, although we do not have enough of a back story about her to know for sure what drives her. The uprising I mentioned above is actually the real world Jacobite rising of 1745.

Now, keep in mind, that we will never see the Jacobite battles again, nor will they “cycle” next year. We can’t get “new” things from them, only resell the items we have.

This is the same mechanic in the living story. It is something that happens, and is gone. It may or may not ever come back. It falls into “history and lore.”

There is nothing wrong with this in general and I feel no need to cry about not being able to go back and run the Aetherblade story again, or get the shineys from it. My friends hear about the LS and they’re intrigued. Once inside the game, they complain at the pace, but in general, they like the idea of “limited time” offerings so that they can say they have something unique to remember it by.

The LS is not “the reason people are leaving.” People are leaving because that’s the way MMOs cycle. There is an initial rush to buy/play/max the game, and then there’s a decrease after the “tirekickers” leave. After a while, people complain about the changes, and threaten to /ragequit and swear that the game is dying, ad nauseum. The truth is that as more people leave, more buy the game, and the population changes.

I, for one, am having a blast with everything going on. It would be ok with me if they slow down the LS a bit, but I would hate to think that if I don’t get something this year, it’s ok, because it would be back next year. Yes, I missed out on some things, but so what? I will get something else later that you may not get.

For the record, 50% of my friend list left in the first 3 months. The rest are still playing, and I have added more than I lost in those first months…so, no, I am not having the same issues you all are having.

TL;DR:
I’m still having fun, and my friends, for the most part, are still here with me. I don’t think the LS is “the reason” people are leaving. I think those who ARE leaving are the ones that have burned themselves out because they have to have literally everything the game offers, and they’re kittened that they can’t have the chance to get it if they missed it.

Ashabhi.1365:

TL;DR:
I’m still having fun, and my friends, for the most part, are still here with me. I don’t think the LS is “the reason” people are leaving. I think those who ARE leaving are the ones that have burned themselves out because they have to have literally everything the game offers, and they’re kittened that they can’t have the chance to get it if they missed it.

It’s why I left. It is why my friend left. It is not a guess. I only speak for 2, but it is solid fact that you cannot dispute with assumption. And I don’t try to speak for an entire demographic. Neither should you.

dcypher.2590:

Vayne.8563:

dcypher.2590:

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you want to call the devs liars, you can. The devs have said straight out concurrency is on the rise. I believe them from my own observations.

Some people are coming back, some people are new from the free weekend, and of course, some people have left. No different than any other MMO.

They said it was a rise after the post launch slump. So the player base could have gone down 60% post launch and from there on in it stabilized. We won’t know exactly what the number is.

No. they said it recently and the dev I spoke to said it’s been a consistent rise, particularly on patch days. People are playing.

I’m not talking about an old quote. I’m talking about a conversation I had with a dev (wearing his Anet tag) just a few days ago. The same dev said the dragons in Arah story mode look dorky. lol

You should know better, really. None of that is enough evidence that the player base and concurrent player numbers are any bigger. Until we have factual numbers, your statement is just speculation, just like lower numbers being speculation. A chat with someone who from a PR standpoint could very well be biased does not mean anything really.

Except that everything else he was saying wasn’t PR bullkitten, and that makes a difference. This guy wasn’t spinning stuff. He’s not in PR. This guy was talking down more stuff than up and when I mentioned the living story coming too often, he told me about the response they were getting to it.

So you can believe what you want, but I was the one who spoke to him and if he was doing some PR job on me he did a lousy job of it. I didn’t come away from talking to that guy thinking this was an amazing game or company.

Well, I could tell you that I spoke with Obama yesterday and he told me that aliens colonized mars. Trying to use that as proof to support an argument would be rather dumb, though.

I don’t care if you believe me. The conversation happened. It’s not relevant to me whether you believe me or not. The fact that my own observations back up what he said is another matter.

Anyone with eyes can see people logging in and playing on patch day. Multiple overflows all over the place. Even if people only play for a week, and stop again for a week, there’s still high concurrency for that week.

Or did you think overflows spawned all by themselves for no reason?