Guild Wars 2

AFRDZAK.4710:

I really enjoyed it.

The Scavenger Hunt was bugged for me, so I never got going with that.

Phase 2: I was in SoS before the “invasion” of LA. But once in SoS, the event chain was very fun; and watching the island get built was pretty sweet.

Phase 3 was epic. Laggy, hectic, long…but epic and a lot of fun.

I basically agree with this.

But…the lag is a real issue and MUST me addressed in any future events.

This game already is getting a following because of its innovation compared to older more established MMO’s . Anet need to make sure that that innovation is not tarnished with half baked content and developments.

Many players have come over from other MMOs purely to avoid the arrogance of the devs and their treatment of their player base. Already I have seen ANet starting to develop the same arrogance with the players…especially with class bugs and totally ignoring player concerns (well it seems that way). This game is NOT polished enough yet for the devs to fall into that attitude. Communication, TRUTHFUL, warts and all, goes a long way.

Gibson.4036:

It’s the problem of pure democracy. Majority rules. It’s the reason any good democracy has safeguards to protect minorities. You can’t simply go with the 51%, because 49% get screwed.

It bears repeating that the point of highest average concurrency in a given week does not necessarily equal the point in the week when most people could make time to enjoy a special event. The greatest amount of people are typically online noon Pacific Time on Sunday. That doesn’t mean those same people couldn’t make another time when even more players would also be able to enjoy them.

ANet has decided that it is more important for a large number of players to get to enjoy a couple hour event instead of a larger number of players being able to enjoy a 24 hour event. Unfortunate, but there will likely never be resolution between the players who can make it on noon Pacific Time on Sundays and love the idea of an extremely limited event and the players who feel like they are getting only a portion of the game they paid for.

Except for it is not any where near 51% that are playing during prime time, it is only about 20-30%. The majority are actually being left out

I did read your post and I am completely capable of understanding how some people will feel the basic design of the “One-Time-Event” like this is unfair. Their opinion is still valid.

That said, there are certainly ways to increase the availability of the event to the rest of the world. My personal preference would be to offer these events for 24-48 hours in a queue system… when enough people have queued up, it creates an instance that they are saved to like dungeons so they can re-enter if disconnected.

Honestly, this one kinda sucked, there wasn’t much of anything to do, a scavenger hunt that was really short with no real reward and then this final event which took our overflow about 3 hours to complete with lag and disconnects. Anet you should’ve left out the precursors from the final chest.

Complaining in a thread about people complaining about complainers…

1 time events are fine, only if handled correctly. And Anet pretty much did everything wrong about this 1 time event.

- Lag was expected, and yet we were crammed in a small corner at the very same time. Even EVE struggles to keep 1000 vs 1000 matches smooth on a single shard(world). What makes Anet think they can pull it off without lag.

- Event times just ignored a whole continent, and many others as well. (I’d like to see stats from Anet backing up their claim on “the time was chosen so the majority of the players could attend”. Honestly, what were the stats?)

- Issues with the overflow server. I was in middle of the event, got booted, logged back on, just to find myself in the middle of the Karka cove surrounded by Karkas. Basically, I was on a different overflow, and the event hasn’t even kicked off on that server yet. I think you should be logged back into the same overflow server so you can at least pick off where you DCed.

- Epic loot at the very end. Shouldn’t belong in an event. Only commemorations. This would have saved a lot of the gripe going on the forums right now. No one wants to feel cheated in a game, especially by the company.

- Short window to attend the event. Why did it even have to be this short and played only once? Why can’t we have the event run for at least 24hrs to give everyone a fairer chance?

People play for fun, or I should say, people will stop playing if it isn’t fun anymore. GW1 was fun, and I put in a lot of hours. Events were handled nicely in GW1. Honestly, I don’t recall hearing the community cry out this loud about events in GW1. I think the 24hrs repeating event gave everyone a fair chance. And if you were away for an extended period, it sucked not being able to attend the event, but at least you didn’t feel too bad.

Aye I enjoyed the event, my guild was slumping a bit , even the guild master stopped logging in .

Bcuz of the event , everyone logged on and i had a blast running around with them.

It felt like a 25-man raiding in WoW but without the stress.

For what it’s worth, here’s my feedback:

Friday: Logged in, did the first few steps of the scavenger quest and had fun; then hit the bugged NPCs and decided to logoff a little frustrated with yet more bugged content.

Saturday: Logged in at 2:50 PM; had to wait around 30 minutes then the event kicked off. Had fun fighting the Karkas, then the teleporter to Southsun took forever to pop up, once it did I joined the fun. Unfortunately my sound bugged out (This happens from time to time, all sound goes off, an alarm starts blarring and I have to restart the game to fix it). I relogged and got into an Overflow that hadn’t yet started the event so I did it all again from scratch and had a lot of fun in the process. I also tried the jumping puzzle and a few of the dynamic events in the new area, I had fun overall.

Sunday: Came home from my parents’ rushing to participate; logged in and jumped in the fight against the Ancient Karka. It was epic, lots of great team work, then right after the rockslide BAM! My game crashed and I was forced to relog. I logged into an Overflow that had already defeated the Karka, I kept porting out and into Southsun and no luck; the worst part was seeing everyone linking on map chat all these beautiful exotics I had put in 2-3 hours of work towards. I almost rage quit at that point, but I decided to finish the scavenger quest instead. Very disappointed with the reward…

After all was said and done I logged off, overall I was much more frustrated with the whole event than I had fun. I am very disappointed with the new area (I don’t care for the sea theme, which is why I hate Orr), I was frankly tired of fighting the karka even before the final event started, I do enjoy fighting the new reef drakes though.

I was also extremely disappointed that the events aroung the island are the exact same ones even after the final event; I look forward to The Fractals turning me around on this update, otherwise I think it’s the end of Guild Wars 2 for me for a while. I mean I still love the games and the mechanics but I have no sense of progression anymore and I feel I have nothing to work towards.

drifter.8453:

To the OP, did you pay for my account? Well did you? I don’t think so. Just because you done dungeons and stuff, does that mean we ALL have to play the way you do?

I, meaning ME, paid MY 60$ not yours for MY game. I want MY 60$ worth, I don’t know about you.

This about sums up the mentality of the people kittening and moaning. They want the game a certain way and because it’s not that way all hell will break lose letting everyone know how they think it should be.

I appreciate the constructive criticisms from the few people who actually did read my OP and understand the point of it. The one-time event should be looked at as an optional and extra way to play in the game. Similar to JP and mini-games. Anet is adding as much variety as they possibly can to this game and that’s why I hope one-time events will be something implemented more often (after the bugs/quality issues are fixed).

I do not see the point in taking something away from a game that is purely OPTIONAL. If you don’t want to do this, similar to mini-games, map completions, vistas, jumping puzzles, etc., then you don’t have to. But it’s something extra that people can get together as a community and do to take away from the quest grind.

After reading a few of the above posts. I do not understand why not getting loot at the end of an event will make people stop complaining. Just look at the MK jumping puzzle. I was disappointed with the loot, but had fun and was OK with that. The loot was bad because Anet apparently knew people would complain if the end-loot was good…guess what? People STILL complained.

/signed

The folks who managed to play the event wouldn’t have “suffered” if the event was repeated multiple times over a span of days. If they say otherwise, then they are arguing for the sake of arguing… it in no way changes their play experience (other than making it better by spreading the player load out and reducing lag/culling).

ANet would have far fewer complaints for this event if the loot was not “best in game”. Think about it — no other activity in the game (NONE) gave the same quality of loot as this one-time event. Not dungeon chests, not map completion rewards, not personal story rewards. The reward here was two exotics, two rares, and a chest that contained another exotic and a 20-slot bag.

I read players stating that the loot is not “must have”… and they are right. But the fact is it was the best loot offered in the game to date. That’s a great way to make dedicated players (and big fans) mad — schedule something they can’t attend and then give best-in-class rewards for it.

Now that the finale frustration has passed…i would like to give my feedback again…because my initial feedback may have not been entirely accurate cause i was peeved.

Thanks for the lost shores event anet! i enjoyed the new dungeon,karka invasion and trailblazing dynamic events greatly!

However i dont feel this was as well planned as the halloween event.
-The commendations rewards werent that great. The rewards dont have to be rare or unique items but give us rewards that are worth it. Rather then gathering tools which can more easily be bought at merchants i would have rather seen crafting
mats,accessaries,weapon skins or consumables.
-I wasnt happy with the poor drop rate on southsun. I wasnt like getting any loot at all from enemies,usually enemies will drop something after killing a few.
-Last and most frusrating of all, the map had reset to the start of phase 2 state because phase 2 and 3 were happening simulatenously. I shouldnt have had to die five times getting to the finale because waypoints arent even on the map and the bridge is out.

I’m sorry but the next time someone uses the “it was free so stop complaining” argument, I’m gonna scream. I don’t know about you but my time, especially in 2-3h chucks, is definitely NOT free. For me, taking the time to play through an event, when I have no idea what to expect, is an investment and I expected a return. Running through this event with its constant problems felt more like a chore than fun and in the end my reward was frustration (I couldn’t finish it once after several attempts). People should always be critical about the quality of their gaming experience, whether it is “free” or not.

Back on topic, I agree with the OP. Signed.

I liked the event design etc and ANet need kudos for that.

Yeah I have had a bit of a whinge about the lag and some of the content was just a bit “undercooked” in terms of bugs. The horrendous lag ruined it for many (I almost quit in PH3) and ANet need to address that.

ANet also have to be commended for their rapid response to many of the bugs at the time…not easy with a bazillion users hammering away. I hope they have learned lots of lessons from this for the next time…especially that HONEST communication with the players goes a long way.

I have to say, the choice to make some events one shot is a rather poor one, if you want to keep your customer base happy.

In fact, I think the choice to make a weekend-long event poor as well. Between people in different time zones, and people with different work schedules, etc, it seems to me that making a week long event with repeating events to be the far superior choice.

After all, it worked for the halloween event. Why make it so much harder for this one?

Let me give you an example. I’m a divorced father of 3, and I had my kids that weekend. My kids come first, so I spent most of my time with them, and only played a little. So, I missed out on the majority of the event.

I was willing to make that sacrifice for the more important things in life, but I’m sure I’m not unique – I read one guy is the manager of a restaurant who has to manage his place on weekends.

A week long event gives people a chance to participate who might have bad weekend schedules. Furthermore, having reiterative events would allow everyone to participate. For example, the Mad King showing up on a repeating schedule in Lion’s Arch allowed everyone a chance to get him.

Alternatively, making it an instanced event, like the Battle for Lion’s Arch personal story.

I know that the short bit of time I was able to play, during the investigation segment, the npcs I needed to talk to were bugged and I was unable to progress; all that was left to me was going to Southsun Cove, kill random things and do a few of the repeating events and jumping puzzles, but between bad timing and bugs, I was basically left out of the event completely. The Real Life issue is my bad, but the bugs weren’t, and with some more expansive decisions ala Halloween, I think you’d have a lot more happy customers here.

But this became a serious buggy lagfest that also left a lot of people unable to participate at all, and maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems like this is getting a LOT more complaints than anything else done to date with this game.

The implementation of events of this type need to be given some serious rethinking.

(as a side note off topic here, I want to agree with someone on the mad king’s clocktower: it was nearly impossible to do not because it was hard, but because I could never see my body, especially as an Asura, with everyone else there; with the new jumping puzzles, at least now it will depopulate some and it will be easier to do. But events with time limits before they are gone altogether and then body blocking issues added in need some serious rethinking, guys)

zzled.9125:

Matt Witter.6982:

We feel that everyone should have the ability to contribute no matter what time of the day it is. How we’ve came to this conclusion is that no player’s time is more valuable than another. Everyone has different off peak hours for whatever reason. Players should not be punished or unable to experience and view the same content as everyone else because they play at a different time. They too are paying customers.

The above quote was taken from the WvW forums regarding “Night Capping” by Matt Witter (Game Designer, ANet). Please apply the same logic to World Events, especially if you’re giving out drops like legendary precursors. Please stop the “one-time” events tied to a specific time of day. There are lots of suggestions on this forum about how to get around it. Implement phasing on a character/account basis, let it run repeatedly for a week or a month, etc. The rest of us might not be playing during peak concurrency hours, but we’re paying customers too.

Thank you.

Whoa whoa whoa.

This thread is getting out of hand! We are all friends here, fellas.

My experience? I got drunk friday, got drunk saturday, and missed every event due to being hung over.

Read everyone’s woes and joys, some got wicked drops and some got DC’d and pissed.

Was I mad when I found out I missed out on a precursor possibility and a guaranteed 20 slot bag? A little.

Do I wish I wouldn’t of gotten drunk and played the event instead? Nope.

Did the game somehow get worse because I didn’t make the event? Nope.

Couldn’t care less either way. It’s a game. A game I play when I want and how I want. If I want to spend every waking hour trying to get the best loot, I could.
If I want to get drunk and get female attention instead, I will.

It’s a game. That’s it. And yes, it’s a game with bugs and glitches and issues, but girls/guys/RL situations I live have the same issues.

Nothing is perfect. A game is a game.

I’m just happy I can jump on when I can, play how I want, and make friends like you wonderful, wonderful people.

<3

Hey gw2 team,
Great job on the coming out with the content thus far. I enjoyed the weekend event, despite the consistent dying in the last event. Just wanted to give some feedback now the weekend is over: I didn’t enjoy this event as much as the halloween one. I’ve been told you guys do make an emphasis on halloween in the past, but the lag at the start on friday was really bad, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, and you guys did really well in coming up with a response to that for phase 2 (from what I’ve heard since I had to miss it). As for phase 3, it really was an epic fight. Took my realm 2.5hrs to down it, but my major complaint about that was the aoe acid in the tower caused so much death, it was amusing, but the walk backs wasn’t the last thing I would probably nit pick about is the amount of kills it took to ’defeat the karka reinforcements parts, however the second time you had to do this went quicker with the mortar support.

That’s all I have for this event. Hope you can use this for improving future content and looking forward to the next release.

I loved both Halloween and Cursed Shore events! Keep them coming Anet, I really enjoyed them! Thank you!

coffeeisyum.5297:

I do not see the point in taking something away from a game that is purely OPTIONAL. If you don’t want to do this, similar to mini-games, map completions, vistas, jumping puzzles, etc., then you don’t have to. But it’s something extra that people can get together as a community and do to take away from the quest grind.

The difference being that mini-games, jumping puzzles, vistas, etc. are all permanent fixtures within the game that people from all time zones have equal opportunity to enjoy. One time events are the opposite of those. So although it may be optional, that option isn’t fairly accessible for all time zones. Why anyone would advocate to keep an aspect of any game that limits participation from others simply boggles my mind.

I’m a paying customer too. I love the idea of one-time events, and even though I only got to participate in part of this weekend’s event, I still loved it. I would love the idea of special one-time events even if I couldn’t participate, because at least others got to participate and I can read about it later. I guess I’m just not a whiny, selfish person.

yeah it would had been nice when I did phase 3 that I did it on my server instead and not in an overflow. It would had maybe increased my chances of a precursor. But it is what it is.

I agree with the original poster 100%, I had to log out 1.5 hours into the final event because I had to go to work. This game should not be tailored towards the people who ether have no life or just happen to be lucky enough to be able to make it to the event.

Thank you for the update Mark from the AneT team. Feel silly I did not notice this thread earlier.

I like the new content that was added, especially the new Fractals dungeon. I think that dungeon was implemented very well. My only concern is newcomers to that dungeon in the future. I’m worried anyone who tries it way into the future will have problems finding people who want to do the lower levels. Overall the new dungeon was good; however, the whole event weekend was plagued with many problems. The event on Friday was way too laggy and practically unplayable. Nothing really happened on the second day. A ship popped up all of a sudden without any indication of what was going on or where to go. Luckily, we were able to figure out that after almost an hour of nothing we had to go to Southsun Cove to invade the Karka. The final day was horrible. It was a huge mess. It was lag filled, but fortunately not as bad as Friday. The whole event felt like a chore and not very epic at all. When you finally got to the part where you drive the Ancient Karka back some of the events were a fresh change to the usual (chopping tree down and using the geysers), but the one where you defeat the reinforcements was brutally dull and long. The worse part of the whole thing was because of connection issues and lag a lot of us couldn’t get the rewards. That was a biggest disappoint of the whole weekend, and one that hopefully gets remedied soon.

ANet…don’t listen to the haters. Please keep up the good work. I intimately know what it takes to pull off something like this, and think you guys should be commended for even trying it. I had an absolute blast, and please pass on to your art & design teams that my guild and I were blown away by the new island…truly amazing stuff.

(FYI…no one in our guild got precursers…I’m thinking the numbers of ppl who received them are extremely exaggerated and overblown)

Just a comment on the issue of one time events, from someone in the Oceanic region.
Not being able to participate – because of work/school/real life commitments – and missing out on exotic+ level items as a result, is more than a little unfair.

While I was lucky enough to get into an overflow with the event still running (thanks Reddit), I know loads of my Aussie guildmates who missed out on easy to get exotic items. Having event participation or chest loot available on a character/account basis and leaving the event running for a week would be much fairer.

ANet, you need to rethink your approach on this, as you risk alienating your Asian and Oceanic players.

Krim Dal.5416:

ANet…don’t listen to the haters. Please keep up the good work. I intimately know what it takes to pull off something like this, and think you guys should be commended for even trying it. I had an absolute blast, and please pass on to your art & design teams that my guild and I were blown away by the new island…truly amazing stuff.

(FYI…no one in our guild got precursers…I’m thinking the numbers of ppl who received them are extremely exaggerated and overblown)

Krim, there are a number of people with legitimate issues who are not being haters. I LOVE GW2, but I think the design of this was flawed. For one, too many people were excluded because of the design, when GW2 has always said they wanted to make sure their game never exludes anyone because of time, issues, etc.

Several people have already quoted the game designers saying precisely that… then they come out with an event design that excluded quite a few people anyway.

So I think we can have issues with this design choice without being haters.

I did the event on Sunday, but did not get my chest reward because I died on the way down the long ramp at the end of the event. Noone was there that could resurrect me because of the torrent of little karka bugs coming down the ramp. Anyone trying to res me would have died, so I had to go to the map and go to a teleport point and run back to see about getting my chest reward. When I got there, there was no chest. I heard that when you map teleported after death it put you in a different overflow instance, therefore, the chest of course would not be there. My characters name was Merla Skylar. I don’t know if this is true, but thought I would pass it on. I understand that you are checking accounts to see about giving people rewards that should have gotten them. Thanks.

Hello GW2 Staff! …………………. It was EPIC! Simply EPIC! Masterpiece! Thank u very much!^^ Too bad i did not every step of the campaign… EPIC. Cya!

eisberg.2379:

critickitten.1498:

Except that in this case, having them happen one time is the ONLY way they make sense.

Unless you have a good in-world explanation for how a lighthouse can be destroyed, re-built, and destroyed again twelve times in a day? Or how about the massive amounts of destruction that were necessary to drive the ancient karka back into his lair?

Face it, sometimes having something happen ONCE is the only way it’s going to make sense. You can rationalize it as being all about the players and maybe that’s fair to say, but you can’t possibly rationalize it from any sort of in-the-world sense. And that’s precisely why they’re doing one-time events in the first place: to make changes to the world that people can witness and say “I was there”.

You’re not always going to be present when one-time events happen in real life, I don’t know why you’d insist on always being able to show up for one-time events in a fantasy world either. What, because it’s fantasy doesn’t mean it has to be realistic? One of the few things going for this game still is its realistic and life-like world.

It’s also one of the only promises in their Manifesto that I’ve seen them sticking to: a world that changes based on the players, and STAYS changed rather than the big bad boss respawning every hour. I wouldn’t ask them to change this because I’d be asking them to do precisely what every other MMO does, and they’re already getting too similar to other MMOs for my tastes.

Soo, you would be ok if they decide to make events happen at 3 am in the morning then? right?

Sure.

Oh, sorry, was I supposed to say “oh no, they must run events when I’m available” so as to better suit your childish narrative?

Look, I’m normally at work, or if I’m lucky I’m heading home, at 3 PM Eastern, which is when the events were hosted. I was fortunate enough to be available for the events this time only because scheduling just so happened to work out this weekend. It’s likely I won’t be that lucky next time, or the time after that. But even if I’d missed them, I still wouldn’t be as childish and selfish as to demand that ANet run an event in such a way as to fit MY time schedule.

What bothers me the most about this is that everyone has been complaining about how Ascended items go against the game’s Manifesto (which is true, but that’s another story). And yet, they want one-time events to go away forever….even though one-time events are ALSO in that same Manifesto.

The Manifesto clearly states that the devs wanted to create a living, breathing world that changes based on massive events, and that they wanted to avoid the common MMO mentality of respawning world bosses. And yet, so many people who are raging against Ascended gear for “breaking the Manifesto” are also in this thread complaining about how one-time events should NEVER EVER EVER be done (and in many cases it’s because they themselves missed out on those events).

So it’s not okay for ANet to violate the Manifesto on the topic of gear and grinding, but you’re perfectly happy to throw out the Manifesto the instant it doesn’t suit your desired narrative when it comes to running world events? Basically, the Manifesto is only to be wielded as evidence when it personally suits you, and otherwise it’s a meaningless video that should be completely ignored?

Get a grip on reality, please. I agree that ANet must be held to task and kept to that Manifesto, but I also believe that if they’re to be taken to task for it, they should be held to ALL of its statements, and that means one-time events should stay as a matter of principle. Otherwise, we’re always going to be playing in a world where, as the Manifesto puts it:

“Everyone around you is doing the same thing you’re doing, the boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later….it doesn’t feel like I’m there.”

I, for one, prefer a world that changes and evolves, whether I’m there or not. If you don’t, hey, that’s fine. I hear it’s easier and cheaper than ever to play WoW these days, maybe you should look into that.

“One time event”.

An invasion by a truly awful ‘alien’ life form bent on eradicating all non-karka.

This presumably sentient culture sent shock troops in for a one time event to overtake Lion’s Arch (and, I hear, Morgan’s Spiral and somewhere else). ONE batch, albeit big bad batch, of shock troops. ONCE. Not waves of them over a sustained time.

The next day, we “retook” Lion’s Arch – except that we didn’t really. Lion’s Arch had not changed except the lighthouse had lost its top. What we did was take the battle to this new island that seems to be home to this nasty foe. And again, we did this ONCE. Not a sustained fight because apparently the ones we had not killed the day before had retreated and since this invasion force was rather limited, there were only just so many.

The final day, we determined to destroy the Ancient Karka whom I can only guess is the matriarch and head honcho. So, now we have ONE wave of hostile forces, ONE leader and a bunch of tribble-like headcrabs who hatched nearly simultaneously to being laid and attached themselves to whatever human/asura/charr/sylvari/norn anatomy they could reach. And even funnier, they died very easily and very quickly (i.e. did not survive long enough to grow up to become battle karka). The Ancient was treated to an eventual horrid fiery death – but there are still hostiles on this new island.

So. We have an invasion that wasn’t really, a city that was ‘taken’ that really wasn’t, and a hostile species that was ‘taught a lesson’ which really wasn’t. I’m guessing there isn’t a lot of either military or historical expertise on the Anet staff.

I’m still waiting for the story. Levvi hinted that the Consortium had thought there might be something bad coming but why these creatures? Where’d they come from, why did they try to invade? How do they fit into the overall scheme of things?

At least with the Mad King there was a story line. This had precious little story and made no military sense whatsoever.

Oh, and just where did all the donations go? Anyone being held accountable?

critickitten.1498:

Sure.

Oh, sorry, was I supposed to say “oh no, they must run events when I’m available” so as to better suit your childish narrative?

Look, I’m normally at work, or if I’m lucky I’m heading home, at 3 PM Eastern, which is when the events were hosted. I was fortunate enough to be available for the events this time only because scheduling just so happened to work out this weekend. It’s likely I won’t be that lucky next time, or the time after that. But even if I’d missed them, I still wouldn’t be as childish and selfish as to demand that ANet run an event in such a way as to fit MY time schedule.

What bothers me the most about this is that everyone has been complaining about how Ascended items go against the game’s Manifesto (which is true, but that’s another story). And yet, they want one-time events to go away forever….even though one-time events are ALSO in that same Manifesto.

The Manifesto clearly states that the devs wanted to create a living, breathing world that changes based on massive events, and that they wanted to avoid the common MMO mentality of respawning world bosses. And yet, so many people who are raging against Ascended gear for “breaking the Manifesto” are also in this thread complaining about how one-time events should NEVER EVER EVER be done (and in many cases it’s because they themselves missed out on those events).

So it’s not okay for ANet to violate the Manifesto on the topic of gear and grinding, but you’re perfectly happy to throw out the Manifesto the instant it doesn’t suit your desired narrative when it comes to running world events? Basically, the Manifesto is only to be wielded as evidence when it personally suits you, and otherwise it’s a meaningless video that should be completely ignored?

Get a grip on reality, please. I agree that ANet must be held to task and kept to that Manifesto, but I also believe that if they’re to be taken to task for it, they should be held to ALL of its statements, and that means one-time events should stay as a matter of principle. Otherwise, we’re always going to be playing in a world where, as the Manifesto puts it:

“Everyone around you is doing the same thing you’re doing, the boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later….it doesn’t feel like I’m there.”

I, for one, prefer a world that changes and evolves, whether I’m there or not. If you don’t, hey, that’s fine. I hear it’s easier and cheaper than ever to play WoW these days, maybe you should look into that.

1- I never complained about the ascendant gear
2- I lost interest in WoW 6 years ago, just decided not to play it anymore for no particular reason
3- The Shatterer seems to be a world that boss that keeps coming around….. Making the Lost Shores event repeat several times over a week period would in no way break the manifesto
4- Arenanet can only lose if they keep on making these types of events only playable by the minority of the player base, yes the minority only play during the prime times. The Majority would eventually get annoyed, play less or not at all, and not spend any more money on the Gem Shop, or spend less money then they would.
Right now I have plans on spending $10 every month, whether I need the Gems or not, to show support for this game, but if I keep getting screwed on these events because Arenanet feel that the game time for the prime time players is more important then the majority of their player base who are also paid/paying customers, I will stop my $10 a month, and buy Gems when I actually need them, and I don’t care about boosts or cosmetic stuff, so my options are very limited on what I would buy. How many other people out there are like me?

Now let me ask you this, how many people would have actually complained if Lost Shores from the get go was announced as a week long event, with an epic event that happened several times a day? Very very little, if any, chances are nobody would even bat an eye to that announcement, doubt anyone would even say “wah, it should only be 1 time event that happens in the Prime time” and certainly no one would want to quit the game over it, or spend less money over it.

So there are all kinds of negatives for Arenanet to do these one time events for the minority of players, but virtually nothing to lose by making the events happen so that the majority can participate in them.

Just adding in some of the things I observed.
First off, credits to ANet for adding so much new content (Fractals, new PVE & PVP maps, jumping puzzles, etc.) in such a short period of time since release. One can easily see the amount of effort and heart that was put into creating these new content. So, Thank You! and I think most players will agree when I say “We appreciate it (even though it might not seem so from just reading the forums) and keep up the good work”

However, the design and handling of some events are another story. There have been 2 major events released so far: Mad King and Lost Shores. The following is a comparison, IMHO.
Mad King events were inclusive:
- Scavenger hunts could be done in any act and by any level (if you’re not afraid to run around naked, sneak around mobs, and risk dying multiple times or you can simply run with a level 80 ‘protector’ friend).
- Events were repeated enough that most everyone got to participate no matter the timezone. Players that were affected by the Sandy storm even got a consolation item after the event. Definitely +1 for that gesture alone.

Mad King events were well handled:
- Use of instances significantly reduced lag-fest incidents.
- Open-world events were simple enough not to overload the server or the player’s cpu or connection, even with the massive zerg of players following the Mad King train.

Lost Shores events were mostly exclusive:
- Scavenger hunts only lasted one day. I don’t see a good reason to stop players from participating after phase 1. It might make for good story sense but never at the cost of being inclusive in an MMO.
- The one-time events of each phase. I don’t think I need to say more about why this is not a good idea for an MMO with an international playerbase.

Lost Shores events were poorly handled:
- Massive open-world events are an exciting and ambitious concept. But while the servers might have no problem handling the load, the average player’s cpu and connection can barely keep up resulting in lag-fest and invisible mobs. An unplayable event is no event, no matter how exciting and ambitious.

I can understand the reasoning to make Lost Shores a massive open-world event and more so with free trials. What better way to showcase an instant mind-blowing experience to the trial players. It’s all good. Just need to remember to take into consideration all the players who were and are still with GW2 since the beginning, not just potential new players.

Anyway, this is not a “gimme what i want or i quit” kind of thing. Just my observation and humble opinion, and hopefully some constructive criticism. I love GW2 and only wish to see it become better with every day.

And the “one time only event” wasn’t actually one time only, was it. It started here ~2pm. At just after 10pm when I was logging off the computer after talking to guildmates, the event was still going on because players were taking advantage of an exploit – loading in on alts to keep overflow servers opening up to trigger more event. Heck, there is a lengthy thread here in forum on the topic that just kept going and going.

Would have been different if only those who had DCed were doing it, but it wasn’t. The “one time event” ended up being exploited to “three time” or more for those who loaded in alts. And while I have no problem with people playing alts, in this instance, it mocks those who attended the real one time event.

One time only event does not work. Not story-wise, not logistically.

Ok Dev’s, I would like to start by saying that overall this by far is the most fun I have had in an MMO and is the best game, out of all the currently available MMO’s out there. With that said I will give you a breakdown of the Good, The Bad, and some constructive Feedback for things I think you could do to make this go better in the future.
-The Good
I am very impressed with the rate of which you are continually providing new content to the players and I think that if you can maintain this momentum you have the potential for a winning MMO that everyone will want to play. These events are fun considering:
1. The Karka Invasion of Lions Arch : This was an epic concept which was similar to WoW’s Cataclysm, except better because you actually got to participate in the battle instead of just watching a cinematic of a Dragon blowing up the city.
2. The Scavenger Events: While the items received this time were not quite as rewarding as it was to receive the Memoires – “Burning Book Back of Halloween”, these scavenger events are still a really fun thing to do and have interesting lore to discover. It really is nice to go around and explore the world and find new things going on and things to see that weren’t there before, I really hope you continue with these, Good Job!
3. The New Map: This was awesome too! I think the people who are complaining that this is too small of a map need to realize that if ArenaNet is able to continue to provide a new area to explore, of this size every month, in new updates then that will be quite impressive. Over time this will add up to a continually building world that is changing all the time, which is very exciting. This can help keep the player base interested and also help to promote new players to want to try out this game. Also Devs, you don’t have to feel pressured to add a new map every month but could also drastically alter the terrain and landscape of one of the current areas. For instance, maybe an army of Centaurs takes over Gendarran Fields and decimates the zone (changing the events, hearts, and Points of Interests for that region) and heroes have to come take it back! I also have to say it was a great idea to have the new area open to New Players by scaling them to level 80. This is the opposite way of thinking that many other MMO’s handle new content that could distinguish you from the rest of the crowd!
4. Fractals (New Dungeons) : I haven’t done any yet so I won’t comment too much, but overall I think it’s great that new Dungeons are available and if you can also keep a good pace with a new Dungeon or Two every month you will quickly find that your MMO population will stick around and even grow as new players become interested.
5. The Final Event – Ancient Karka : What a great event this was and well worth attending! I managed to capture some great screen shots of the action. The confrontation with the giant Karka was truly epic and exciting! The Karka even managed to wipe the group I was with a few times since we didn’t have a Waypoint that was nearby! The rewards were also well worth the amount of time we had to invest in this event and I think that you should be applauded for a job well done with this one!

Continued….
-The Bad
1. The Karka Invasion of Lions Arch: Having participated in the first event I will say that the lag was atrocious! It also was really unfortunate to have this happen when the free trial period was being offered and you’re presenting the game to new players. I also think that the free trial may have contributed to the problem of the increased lag. It seemed like someone there didn’t plan on whether the system could handle so many players concentrated in a single area, or account for the increase in population because of the free trial subscription players. That is a tough thing to predict so it’s understandable that it happened and I think it’s something that can be fixed in the future.
2. Subdirector Noll – While I did hear there were bugs with other npcs too, Noll was pretty much what caused me to stop and have to wait till phase two on the scavenger hunt. This was not fun at all and very frustrating. It also seemed like he may have bugged out too because of so many players concentrated in a single area? I have seen this problem before and never seen any other MMO handle this type of problem correctly. I personally, have always expected when something like this happens where you have an NPC on a quest chain fail, which would stop progress for the whole community, then the DEV’s should have a backup plan where the npc is removed and players are allowed to progress with the quest to the next part. For example in this case, you could have implanted the “emergency backup plan” patch and scuttled Subdirector Noll and then just sent all players an in-game mail with the item they need to progress on the quest chain and apologizing for the delay, maybe the letter would say
“We of the Consortium apologize but Subdirector Noll has taken ill and wont be available to assist you but please take this item so you can continue with your quest!,
-Good Luck Adventureres!
3. The Final Event – Ok I have already posted a little on this before and will admit that I have some bias, being that I did get to attend the event. I know there are a lot of people complaining because precursors dropped for a select few and those are really just people QQ’ing because they didn’t get one. I personally did not get a precursor and I am not upset at all. There was nothing wrong with the rewards offered here; nothing was given that cant already be obtained in the world as it is. While the ring and 20 slot bags were very nice rewards they are still not a unique thing since other players can just go buy a 20 slot bag or an exotic 80 ring off the TP if they want to. The reward was perfect for such a big event that made it feel very epic so GOOD JOB! The issues that I do feel were negative for the player experience was the lag and the limited amount of time of the event. The lag actually was not too bad for me but for some players with a poor connection getting DC’d in a 3 hour event and missing loot can be frustrating. It was also understandable for a portion of the base to feel left out when the event is only held for a small 3 hour window and may have to miss due to IRL issues.

eisberg.2379:

1- I never complained about the ascendant gear

Then something is very wrong with you.

2- I lost interest in WoW 6 years ago, just decided not to play it anymore for no particular reason

Always time to catch back up.

3- The Shatterer seems to be a world that boss that keeps coming around….. Making the Lost Shores event repeat several times over a week period would in no way break the manifesto

The Shatterer has an excuse: he keeps getting reformed by his boss. Whereas I doubt the Ancient Karka has mastered the ancient art of resurrecting himself.

4- Arenanet can only lose if they keep on making these types of events only playable by the minority of the player base, yes the minority only play during the prime times. The Majority would eventually get annoyed, play less or not at all, and not spend any more money on the Gem Shop, or spend less money then they would.
Right now I have plans on spending $10 every month, whether I need the Gems or not, to show support for this game, but if I keep getting screwed on these events because Arenanet feel that the game time for the prime time players is more important then the majority of their player base who are also paid/paying customers, I will stop my $10 a month, and buy Gems when I actually need them, and I don’t care about boosts or cosmetic stuff, so my options are very limited on what I would buy. How many other people out there are like me?

They picked the time based on the number of concurrent players.

Unless you’re attempting to suggest that 90% of the playerbase is scattered amongst the other 20-some hours of the day, it’s rather difficult to comprehend how anyone can honestly believe that only “the minority” is able to play these events if, in fact, they are picking the time of day in which the highest number of people are playing the game.

That’s not to say your statement can’t possibly be true. It’s very likely that it is. But people need to stop acting like throwing around the word “minority” is meaningful. It’s very unlikely that, if indeed only a minority played in this event, that it was 10% of players or less. More than likely it was 30%-40% of active players, which is a pretty darn good figure when you consider that there is no possible way for the devs to pick one single time that benefits everyone.

Now let me ask you this, how many people would have actually complained if Lost Shores from the get go was announced as a week long event, with an epic event that happened several times a day? Very very little, if any, chances are nobody would even bat an eye to that announcement, doubt anyone would even say “wah, it should only be 1 time event that happens in the Prime time” and certainly no one would want to quit the game over it, or spend less money over it.

There would be plenty. People have been complaining about this game since the betas, and usually for some of the dumbest reasons, to boot. This, for example, is a pretty dumb reason to complain about the game and it’s an extremely dumb reason to quit. Quitting over Ascended gear or Agony? Okay. Quitting because you couldn’t attend one big world event, on a Sunday of all days? I’m inclined to say “fine, go, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out”, because that’s really the sort of customer who isn’t going to be happy no matter how much you cater to them.

ANet can’t provide both. They can provide a world that changes with meaningful one-time events (though they really need to work on making the events actually mean something, because I don’t think one building being destroyed qualifies), or they can provide the same experience as every other MMO with hourly events. And if they’re going to do the latter, then how is that any less of a betrayal of the Manifesto’s promises for meaningful and world-changing events?

Oh, right, I forgot the Manifesto only applies if it benefits those who are complaining about broken promises.

So there are all kinds of negatives for Arenanet to do these one time events for the minority of players, but virtually nothing to lose by making the events happen so that the majority can participate in them.

Stop saying “minority” as if it means something. As pointed out above, while it’s likely that only a minority was able to play, it’s very VERY unlikely that the minority was of a statistically significant gap. More than likely, given how many people are complaining not about missing the event due to the time, but rather complaining about DC problems or the event itself, it’s very likely that there were plenty of people playing during these times.

You are literally asking for them to throw out one of their initial design promises purely because you’ve decided that the time doesn’t suit your personal tastes. And that’s fine, just stop pretending that you’re not doing that. Because you are.

And Finally My Last Post
Feedback – Suggestions for Improvement
Subdirector Noll is a minor issue and I have already stated how to fix a situation like that so I won’t mention him. The lag is a big issue and I think I may have a suggestion for how to handle such an epic event like this next time. I like the way that we have overflow servers and I think that is a good start for controlling a huge event like this but maybe what we need is a local overflow similar to the way the personal story is handled. When I go to a location and load into the personal story I am loaded into an instanced zone for me only, but what if we extended this idea to Big Events. So when the Karka invaded lions arch in phase one and my character went to defend Lion’s Arch I would go over to the location of the event and click a portal to zone into a local instance with not just me but several other players from my server or even other servers who showed up. This way you could control the number of players that were allowed to participate in the event as well as handle a situation where a player DC’s since the player could come back and zone right into the area he was instanced too. This also has the nice effect of being a pseudo LFG system in that it automatically throws players together to accomplish an event. Since players would probably be coming and going for whatever IRL reasons happen to draw them away from the event you would need to balance the event to handle the loss of people. You could do this two ways: First, by letting new players zone into the area if they choose to “Enter an event already in progress” and Second by making sure the event was similar to the Ancient Karka (of phase 3) in that losing people in your group didn’t mean you couldn’t complete the instance it just meant you would take longer to finish. Thus a group of 40 players could finish in an hour, however if another instance of the event only managed to get a group of 20 players they could finish in maybe 2-3 hours. I suppose you can accomplish this by making sure that the smaller groups aren’t decimated by the boss’s skills and the boss just becomes a big MOB with high HP that has to be taken down.
I would also suggest next time to make the BIG FINAL event (as in phase 3 of Lost Shores) available for a weekend or at the very least 24 hours. This will give people ample time to participate and avoids the problem of players feeling like they got left out if they miss it. Three hours just seems like too small of a window of opportunity for such an important event. I understand that for uniqueness you wanted it to be a one time only thing. I think you could possibly maintain that feeling by allowing players the opportunity to receive the big reward chest at the end only once.

I don’t understand why Arena would

• Piss off a large portion of it’s player base 3 times: Once because you had people working on a one-time event instead of fixing bugs, again because the event was when many people couldn’t do it, and a third time when the event itself was laggy and people got kicked out and couldn’t log back in
• Unbalance the economy by handing out gift precursors to those who managed to be at the final event and win the RNG
• Have massive events that showcase culling and terrible performance when a lot of players get on the screen — seriously, we need an option to turn off friendly spell effects
• Spend a ton of developer time, including presumably a lot of overtime this weekend, on a terrible event

Whoever made these decisions should be re-assigned to a new job. If they made those decisions because team leads promised the events would run smoothly, then those people need to also be reassigned.

P1: was buggy and could not get anything done.

P2: Had a blast running around with masses of players killing stuff. Mobs had unique tells that were fun to learn and even with masses of players was a challenge.

P3: This is where I got really ticked. From USA servers to EU the event was held CST. That ticked me off. My wife and i didn’t get to go and after hearing about the rewards its a real slap in the face. If this is how ANet plans on rolling out events my wife and I will be looking for a new MMO.

In short P2 was fun but over all it felt like a let down and I feel left out. Like my 250 bucks I have spent on their game means nothing to them. What will change my mind? ANet response to the overwhelming number of upset fans. Something has to be done by ANet IMO. 2-3 precursor handed out, really? (((Walks away upset)))

My largest complaint with this event, and the finale was that it was so heavily RNG related on the reward. Completing a epic one time event should not have rewards left to chance. In my opinion it would have been better to give players 1-2 tokens that they could exchange for uniquely skinned Exotic weapons. This removes a few of the issues prevalent with the RNG chest:
1.Players don’t receive anything actually unique to the event that is able to be shown of visually. There is no way to really show a player you finished the event besides linking a accessory.
2.With it being RNG there is a chance you won’t get anything you can actually use, which is a shame that in a finale one-time event you don’t get anything actually useful for your character, it’s a shame.
3,Making it set items, that are possibly account-bound, prevents the event from influencing the economy or prices of items obtained by chance in other dungeons.

critickitten.1498:

They picked the time based on the number of concurrent players.

Unless you’re attempting to suggest that 90% of the playerbase is scattered amongst the other 20-some hours of the day, it’s rather difficult to comprehend how anyone can honestly believe that only “the minority” is able to play these events if, in fact, they are picking the time of day in which the highest number of people are playing the game.

That’s not to say your statement can’t possibly be true. It’s very likely that it is. But people need to stop acting like throwing around the word “minority” is meaningful. It’s very unlikely that, if indeed only a minority played in this event, that it was 10% of players or less. More than likely it was 30%-40% of active players, which is a pretty darn good figure when you consider that there is no possible way for the devs to pick one single time that benefits everyone.

Now let me ask you this, how many people would have actually complained if Lost Shores from the get go was announced as a week long event, with an epic event that happened several times a day? Very very little, if any, chances are nobody would even bat an eye to that announcement, doubt anyone would even say “wah, it should only be 1 time event that happens in the Prime time” and certainly no one would want to quit the game over it, or spend less money over it.

There would be plenty. People have been complaining about this game since the betas, and usually for some of the dumbest reasons, to boot. This, for example, is a pretty dumb reason to complain about the game and it’s an extremely dumb reason to quit. Quitting over Ascended gear or Agony? Okay. Quitting because you couldn’t attend one big world event, on a Sunday of all days? I’m inclined to say “fine, go, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out”, because that’s really the sort of customer who isn’t going to be happy no matter how much you cater to them.

ANet can’t provide both. They can provide a world that changes with meaningful one-time events (though they really need to work on making the events actually mean something, because I don’t think one building being destroyed qualifies), or they can provide the same experience as every other MMO with hourly events. And if they’re going to do the latter, then how is that any less of a betrayal of the Manifesto’s promises for meaningful and world-changing events?

Oh, right, I forgot the Manifesto only applies if it benefits those who are complaining about broken promises.

So there are all kinds of negatives for Arenanet to do these one time events for the minority of players, but virtually nothing to lose by making the events happen so that the majority can participate in them.

Stop saying “minority” as if it means something. As pointed out above, while it’s likely that only a minority was able to play, it’s very VERY unlikely that the minority was of a statistically significant gap. More than likely, given how many people are complaining not about missing the event due to the time, but rather complaining about DC problems or the event itself, it’s very likely that there were plenty of people playing during these times.

You are literally asking for them to throw out one of their initial design promises purely because you’ve decided that the time doesn’t suit your personal tastes. And that’s fine, just stop pretending that you’re not doing that. Because you are.

Not having 1 time event is not any where near throwing out one of their manifesto promises. And the Shatterer isn’t the only one, there are plenty of other “bosses” that respawn that have no lore reason to respawn, but they do any ways.

And yes it is a minority. In any other MMO, it has always been anywhere from 20-30% that play during the same 4 hour period, the other 70-80% are playing during the other 20 hours. This is the reason why having a 1 time event is a bad idea in an MMO, especially if they plan to do this every time. It will turn anyone who doesn’t play during the prime time into second class citizens, even though they pay the same amount of money.

Arenanet is literally saying that the Prime Time people are more important then their paying customers who can’t play during the prime time, and this will have a trickle effect, in the long run, like less content being made for the game because of potential loss of revenue. It is already bad enough that the non prime time people have a hard enough time finding group, so do they really need to be punished with less content from these events just because Arenanet feels they are not important enough?

So yes, I actually do feel that 1 time events is bad for the health of the game, and I love this game.

I am a content oriented person, gear do not matter to me all that much. Which is why I have not complained about the ascended gear.

lotharic.9513:

I don’t understand why Arena would

• Piss off a large portion of it’s player base 3 times: Once because you had people working on a one-time event instead of fixing bugs, again because the event was when many people couldn’t do it, and a third time when the event itself was laggy and people got kicked out and couldn’t log back in

People who work on bugs are going to have a different skill set then the people who work on making new content. You don’t have graphic artists, writers, level designers, modelers, sitting around doing nothing while the programmers are fixing the bugs. No, instead have them make new content.

critickitten.1498:

You are literally asking for them to throw out one of their initial design promises purely because you’ve decided that the time doesn’t suit your personal tastes. And that’s fine, just stop pretending that you’re not doing that. Because you are.

Sorry, but was “one of their initial design promises” supposed to be excluding players from Oceania and Asia? The time that people in this part of the world have to live by is not a matter of “personal taste”, neither is it being born in this region.

We cannot change where we reside, but game developers can change what time they schedule events, and for how long they should run.

Stop pretending that it’s fine to ignore whole continents that you don’t belong to, because that is what you are saying.

If all one-time events are going to be run at 12pm PST, that just means we are not going to get to experience the same content. Where is it in their Manifesto that states that a player must be from a certain timezone to fully enjoy the game?

Are Australians and Asians really less worthy heroes? (and kiwis too!)

eisberg.2379:

lotharic.9513:

I don’t understand why Arena would

• Piss off a large portion of it’s player base 3 times: Once because you had people working on a one-time event instead of fixing bugs, again because the event was when many people couldn’t do it, and a third time when the event itself was laggy and people got kicked out and couldn’t log back in

People who work on bugs are going to have a different skill set then the people who work on making new content. You don’t have graphic artists, writers, level designers, modelers, sitting around doing nothing while the programmers are fixing the bugs. No, instead have them make new content.

What about the people who worked on the new mechanics? Could they not work on class mechanics? What about people who worked on new dynamic events? Could they not fix some of the bugged events? What about the people who worked on the new landscape? Could they not fix some of the broken landscape?

lotharic.9513:

What about the people who worked on the new mechanics? Could they not work on class mechanics? What about people who worked on new dynamic events? Could they not fix some of the bugged events? What about the people who worked on the new landscape? Could they not fix some of the broken landscape?

That’s that whole coder vs designer thing again. The people who designed the mechanics, events, landscapes, aren’t necessarily the ones who actually coded it and put it in game, so it’s pretty unlikely they would be able to do much in the way of bug fixing.

This event would have been better off just adding Fractals and nothing else. The actual “event” was one of the worst I’ve seen in over 12 years of playing MMOs. Either lower the overflow population or just make these event’s instanced for a group of you and your friends. We don’t need 50 people in a zerg pile ruining the game. It’s not impressive.

I was all for the new traditional MMO map design and going away from the GW1 method of all combat zones being instanced… But this event made me miss GW1 method. Worst thing I’ve ever seen in GW2 to date.

And I’m not complaining about graphics from this event. I maintained 30-40 FPS with everything on max. But the server lag was unbearable. Eventually I just went AFK and let everyone else clear the zone and just participated in the finale to get the chest.

Please learn from your mistakes Arena Net. Being in denial and saying this was a decent event is just going to make you fail again on the next one. Clearly your game can’t handle mass amounts of people in close proximity (Which has been proven since launch in WvW) so make the events on a smaller scale.

lotharic.9513:

eisberg.2379:

lotharic.9513:

I don’t understand why Arena would

• Piss off a large portion of it’s player base 3 times: Once because you had people working on a one-time event instead of fixing bugs, again because the event was when many people couldn’t do it, and a third time when the event itself was laggy and people got kicked out and couldn’t log back in

People who work on bugs are going to have a different skill set then the people who work on making new content. You don’t have graphic artists, writers, level designers, modelers, sitting around doing nothing while the programmers are fixing the bugs. No, instead have them make new content.

What about the people who worked on the new mechanics? Could they not work on class mechanics? What about people who worked on new dynamic events? Could they not fix some of the bugged events? What about the people who worked on the new landscape? Could they not fix some of the broken landscape?

The point is, with games like this there are teams that do different things. I’m sure they have teams that work on bugs. Throwing more people at the problem is not always the solution, generally it is very inefficient and just costs the company more money which takes money away from making new content. With my Job, sure we can get a task done faster if we had more then 1 person working on it, but it would not get done 3x times faster, just 2x faster because of the nature of the task. But we can get 3x the work done on different tasks if we all do different tasks.

This has been true for MMOs since the beginning, and there is a reason for it. What you want is not healthy for the game over all. It is the bigger picture that you are missing.

eisberg.2379:

lotharic.9513:

eisberg.2379:

lotharic.9513:

I don’t understand why Arena would

• Piss off a large portion of it’s player base 3 times: Once because you had people working on a one-time event instead of fixing bugs, again because the event was when many people couldn’t do it, and a third time when the event itself was laggy and people got kicked out and couldn’t log back in

People who work on bugs are going to have a different skill set then the people who work on making new content. You don’t have graphic artists, writers, level designers, modelers, sitting around doing nothing while the programmers are fixing the bugs. No, instead have them make new content.

What about the people who worked on the new mechanics? Could they not work on class mechanics? What about people who worked on new dynamic events? Could they not fix some of the bugged events? What about the people who worked on the new landscape? Could they not fix some of the broken landscape?

The point is, with games like this there are teams that do different things. I’m sure they have teams that work on bugs. Throwing more people at the problem is not always the solution, generally it is very inefficient and just costs the company more money which takes money away from making new content. With my Job, sure we can get a task done faster if we had more then 1 person working on it, but it would not get done 3x times faster, just 2x faster because of the nature of the task. But we can get 3x the work done on different tasks if we all do different tasks.

This has been true for MMOs since the beginning, and there is a reason for it. What you want is not healthy for the game over all. It is the bigger picture that you are missing.

I have a ton of professional experience with large, diverse, teams, and this excuse is BS. People are fungible. Sure, you can’t take an artist and have them optimize netcode, but the examples I gave are valid. Arena made a concious decision to prioritize new content over fixing existing content.

eisberg.2379:

Not having 1 time event is not any where near throwing out one of their manifesto promises. And the Shatterer isn’t the only one, there are plenty of other “bosses” that respawn that have no lore reason to respawn, but they do any ways.

Point one out. No, really. Find me one world boss in the game that matches the exact same profile as the Ancient Karka. Please, by all means, make my day with this. I’ll wait.

And yes it is a minority. In any other MMO, it has always been anywhere from 20-30% that play during the same 4 hour period, the other 70-80% are playing during the other 20 hours. This is the reason why having a 1 time event is a bad idea in an MMO, especially if they plan to do this every time. It will turn anyone who doesn’t play during the prime time into second class citizens, even though they pay the same amount of money.

If we’re to trust their released numbers from the betas, concurrency figures account for ~40% of their playerbase.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/28/guild-wars-2-hits-400k-concurrent-users-before-launch/

Assuming that the figure has dropped off (which it likely has), that’s still a very large portion of the playerbase online at the same time. Enough that entire servers crashed during the finale event from being overloaded.

Again, please stop throwing around that “minority” word as if it’s only 10% or less, when all data to the contrary indicates it clearly isn’t.

Arenanet is literally saying that the Prime Time people are more important then their paying customers who can’t play during the prime time, and this will have a trickle effect, in the long run, like less content being made for the game because of potential loss of revenue. It is already bad enough that the non prime time people have a hard enough time finding group, so do they really need to be punished with less content from these events just because Arenanet feels they are not important enough?

So yes, I actually do feel that 1 time events is bad for the health of the game, and I love this game.

I can guarantee you that there will be less content being made eventually whether players drop off or not, because quite frankly this event’s many massive bugs prove that ANet cannot maintain this monthly pace of patching in giant amounts of new content.

Also, how are non-prime-time people being punished by ANet? They’re not being punished. You’re mistaking punishment with reward, they are not interchangeable terms. Prime time folks are being rewarded for dedicating several hours of their time to an event that required them having to manipulate their schedules to be there. Non-prime-time players are not being punished just because they CAN’T be there.

I’ve had teachers who gave the entire class a piece of candy on specific days that most students loved to skip on, or who would give extra credit to the kids who show up. Are the kids who skipped being “punished” in any way? No, not at all, they just missed out on what amounts to free goodies.

When a band schedules a concert for a particular date and time, are people unable to make that concert being “punished” for their inability to rearrange their schedule? Nope. It might suck to miss out, but that sort of thing happens in the real world. And I doubt the band has to worry about people never buying their albums again just because some folks missed that one concert, either. Because, strangely enough, people in the real world seem a bit more grounded in reality than some of the people in here. >_>

Rewarding one group of people is NOT the same thing as punishing everyone who wasn’t part of that group. Everyone was given an opportunity, and everyone who showed up was rewarded for having to schedule themselves so that they were able to attend (except the folks who got DCed, who do deserve fair compensation for missing out). If you didn’t make it, yes I agree that it sucks, but it happens. Please be mature about it and move on, or at least be constructive in disagreeing with the company’s policy. Too many here are just whining and it’s rather disgusting in all honesty.

critickitten.1498:

eisberg.2379:

Not having 1 time event is not any where near throwing out one of their manifesto promises. And the Shatterer isn’t the only one, there are plenty of other “bosses” that respawn that have no lore reason to respawn, but they do any ways.

Point one out. No, really. Find me one world boss in the game that matches the exact same profile as the Ancient Karka. Please, by all means, make my day with this. I’ll wait.

And yes it is a minority. In any other MMO, it has always been anywhere from 20-30% that play during the same 4 hour period, the other 70-80% are playing during the other 20 hours. This is the reason why having a 1 time event is a bad idea in an MMO, especially if they plan to do this every time. It will turn anyone who doesn’t play during the prime time into second class citizens, even though they pay the same amount of money.

If we’re to trust their released numbers from the betas, concurrency figures account for ~40% of their playerbase.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/28/guild-wars-2-hits-400k-concurrent-users-before-launch/

Assuming that the figure has dropped off (which it likely has), that’s still a very large portion of the playerbase online at the same time. Enough that entire servers crashed during the finale event from being overloaded.

Again, please stop throwing around that “minority” word as if it’s only 10% or less, when all data to the contrary indicates it clearly isn’t.

Arenanet is literally saying that the Prime Time people are more important then their paying customers who can’t play during the prime time, and this will have a trickle effect, in the long run, like less content being made for the game because of potential loss of revenue. It is already bad enough that the non prime time people have a hard enough time finding group, so do they really need to be punished with less content from these events just because Arenanet feels they are not important enough?

So yes, I actually do feel that 1 time events is bad for the health of the game, and I love this game.

I can guarantee you that there will be less content being made eventually whether players drop off or not, because quite frankly this event’s many massive bugs prove that ANet cannot maintain this monthly pace of patching in giant amounts of new content.

Also, how are non-prime-time people being punished by ANet? They’re not being punished. You’re mistaking punishment with reward, they are not interchangeable terms. Prime time folks are being rewarded for dedicating several hours of their time to an event that required them having to manipulate their schedules to be there. Non-prime-time players are not being punished just because they CAN’T be there.

I’ve had teachers who gave the entire class a piece of candy on specific days that most students loved to skip on, or who would give extra credit to the kids who show up. Are the kids who skipped being “punished” in any way? No, not at all, they just missed out on what amounts to free goodies.

When a band schedules a concert for a particular date and time, are people unable to make that concert being “punished” for their inability to rearrange their schedule? Nope. It might suck to miss out, but that sort of thing happens in the real world. And I doubt the band has to worry about people never buying their albums again just because some folks missed that one concert, either. Because, strangely enough, people in the real world seem a bit more grounded in reality than some of the people in here. >_>

Rewarding one group of people is NOT the same thing as punishing everyone who wasn’t part of that group. Everyone was given an opportunity, and everyone who showed up was rewarded for having to schedule themselves so that they were able to attend (except the folks who got DCed, who do deserve fair compensation for missing out). If you didn’t make it, yes I agree that it sucks, but it happens. Please be mature about it and move on, or at least be constructive in disagreeing with the company’s policy. Too many here are just whining and it’s rather disgusting in all honesty.

The one who isn’t be constructive here is you. You are actually advocating leaving out the majority of players from one of the important features of this game. And there is no real good reason to leave out the majority in an MMO. Also, you need to stop saying that saying minority means 10%, that is not even the definition of minority. And yes, 30% is minority, and yes 70% is still a very huge number to be left out for no real good reason.