Guild Wars 2

Giving a preview for new content and the upcoming patch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axLVJfzCe74

Right now it’s streaming, video will be posted later

-more massive world changing events (but of course we know this and it’s said all the time

Well that was massively underwhelming…nothing really specific about stuff coming up, just a video preview of the dungeon

Vol.5241:

Well that was massively underwhelming…nothing really specific about stuff coming up, just a video preview of the dungeon

Yea I was essentially going to say the same thing.

Good questions were posed but the answers were ambiguous. All in all, we’ll just have to wait.

Thanks for posting Vol

With the amount of stuff that isn’t “Off the table” I wonder what the table looks like. Must be a massive amount of stuff.

Most of it was about stuff we already know, mixed up with a ton of PR bull.

And of course, every interesting question got dodged.

.-.

Was kinda bland. Not much info, either, really.

I’m still waiting for “an overview of what ‘s next for the game in the upcoming months”.
The livestream may have been called “new contents”, but sure they didn’t say much about those.

I can sort of understand why they’re being ambiguous about things, although some transparency would have been welcomed.

TheDaiBish.9735:

I can sort of understand why they’re being ambiguous about things, although some transparency would have been welcomed.

If they start a Q&A they should be able to actually answer the questions. Don’t start a Q&A if you are going to be “ambiguous”.

All the hard questions were dodged, and nothing of any real significance was said. Aside from the preview, or whatever it was, the dude on the mic was just talking without saying anything.

No point in listening if someone is gonna do that (whether or not they’re being ordered to).

“Balance issues” about guild halls made my day.

Any more detail for folks trapped in the office and whose company’s system security protocols prevent watching a bit of youtube?

mojowalker.3798:

Any more detail for folks trapped in the office and whose company’s system security protocols prevent watching a bit of youtube?

You didn’t miss much. It was really fifteen minutes of “Nothing’s off the table” tbh.

mojowalker.3798:

Any more detail for folks trapped in the office and whose company’s system security protocols prevent watching a bit of youtube?

Besides a small preview video about the new path in TA, nothing interesting believe me. They just talked a lot about things we already know, and every interesting question was dodged.

Ah, so like watching grass grow. Thanks!

Vol.5241:

Giving a preview for new content and the upcoming patch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axLVJfzCe74

Right now it’s streaming, video will be posted later

-more massive world changing events (but of course we know this and it’s said all the time

Thanks for the video share. Although others in this thread are complaining “underwhelming” and “I want more content preview(s)” (entitlement much?), I actually enjoy all the videos from A.Net showing off their game in a public setting. And, this also gives a bit more details on the insight to their Living World process and the game’s design strategy.

Siphaed.9235:

(entitlement much?)

Oh you are one of those people? Seriously do people even know what entitled means these days? Lately everyone who even dares to voice their opinions and criticize the game gets immediately accused of feeling entitled, seriously…. It’s so kitten infuriating. It’s used so often that I actually find it offensive.

This thread gives the perfect example, someone finds anet’s exposition “Underwhelming” and is immediately accused of feeling entitled. Seriously stop this nonsense already.

It’s called CRITICISM.

Siphaed.9235:

And, this also gives a bit more details on the insight to their Living World process and the game’s design strategy.

It showed us absolutely nothing… N-O-T-H-I-N-G (a pronoun denoting the absence of anything) that we didn’t know yet. (except for the short preview)

Vol.5241:

-more massive world changing events (but of course we know this and it’s said all the time

Wasn’t that what they said the Queen’s Jubilee (or the second patch to it) was supposed to do? And we saw how much that ‘changed’ the world…

skullmount.1758:

Vol.5241:

-more massive world changing events (but of course we know this and it’s said all the time

Wasn’t that what they said the Queen’s Jubilee (or the second patch to it) was supposed to do? And we saw how much that ‘changed’ the world…

What do you mean? The Seraph Honor Guard are still out there waiting to escort their Emissaries (they will have to wait for quite some time)

That’s a big change in the world!

the few videos showed were kinda nice, not much else to see or hear other than “nothing is off the table”

Ok…so Ive watched up until he demos the new dungeon, and woah-buddy..here we go.

Not quoted verbadim, but you get the idea***

-“Living story is intricate”. — How? Its barely been told. I know next to nothing about the backgrounds of the characters. We get a one-two sentence explanation at the top of our screen. The little mail that we get explains more about the story than anything else. I still have no clue who scarlet is, why she is the way she is, why she wanted to disrupt the jubilee, why shes hanging out in twilight arbor, where she came from…???

-“New Experiences” — I laughed, because with each LS theres new achievements. True, new experiences, but should have also said new achievements because its really a checklist.

-“After the game released, we dedicated all resources that went into building the game into living story” — No kidding. Thats why dungeons hardly received any love all year. An AC revamp, twilight assault, and changes to dungeon rewards. Thats it. We can really tell where you dumped your resources and began neglecting other parts of the game.

-“We only wanted to open one zone” — especially when 9/10 people will agree that they would like more new zones. Are you guys REALLY listening? Or is that another company line.

-“We wanted to focus on current world to have it evolve” — It looks the same. Period. Opened up a few nooks and crannies, ocassioanl invasion. Pretty much the same Tyria.

-“Most other MMOs have major releases every 6 months. We have had 18 major releases” — Depends on your definition of major release. Updating a world boss mechanics and adding time-gated crafting/gear grind does not compare to a new zone, new story, new dungeon, new raid, new dallies, new content system(i.e. solo instances). Adding a weak LS where you have to go click on signs and fine mementos in the snow doesn’t compare to what I described above. Sorry, you don’t win the “we put out more and better content than anyone” award. You might put out more content, but its fluffy.

-“During these invasions creatures run around causing havoc” — They didnt run. They stood still. Statikittenil 50 players came along and stole their lunch money.

Edit: New company line: “We are always looking at that”…but it never happens

what did you guys expect with this conference. To be honest It was perfect because I had taken couple of friend who don’t have gw2 yet. They provided us small tidbit of whats to come but also provided details of what they have done.

Its was pretty amazing to notice how many releases they have done.

shimmerless.4560:

Mustafa.7684:

what did you guys expect with this conference. To be honest It was perfect because I had taken couple of friend who don’t have gw2 yet. They provided us small tidbit of whats to come but also provided details of what they have done.

Its was pretty amazing to notice how many releases they have done.

Hi ArenaNet

Hello!

I disagree with his point that Living Story is “Intricate”. I posted in the Living World Forum about why.

I laughed so hard when he stated “we are telling a comprehensive and intricate storyline with the living world content.” You mean how it feels like everything gets developed (down to the sound) and then the writers are consulted to tack on story at the last minute. Yeah it’s so wonderful to see the pacing so incredibly off, and how the pendulum is swinging back and forth on the state of the story. Like this last update:

Developer: Hey, we are getting to the very end of shipping the Tequatl update and we are wondering if you can just add bit of story to it. Just to show the community we are pushing connective and cohesive story for the past year or so.

Writer: I guess we can throw Rox in there about trying to impress Rytlock, since she is still trying get into his warband (it’s something we already established). Also we will throw in a Vigil NPC who just came there from Southsun to deal with this powerful reemergence of Tequatl.

Developer: Wait does that not mess with what we stated that the whole Southsun event happened after Zhaitan death?

Writer: Are you saying we have continuity errors in our story? Don’t make me laugh. We will just explain latter……..

Developer: You won’t explain anything though, and still end with it being overly ambiguous?

Writer: Of course!

The funniest thing there is the line about 18 major releases.

Honestly, I’d rather do dailies and world bosses and dungeons for a few months (or even take a break) and get larger content updates like new zones sooner. Open the world for us instead of the living story.

Tequatl would had been a better update alongside a living story that actually connected the lore.

This really does confirm speculation that designing content and then adding lore to it, really is happening, verusus righting the story and adding the content to it after. It’s backwards and effecting the integrity of the living world in my honest opinion.

I had to stop watching when he said multiple times that they want the players to experience something “new” every time they log in. I’m torn between thinking that they want us to only log in every 2 weeks, and the thought that this is a stupid expectation. It’s been stated about 100 times that most people(on the forums at least) would rather have a huge update(see expansion) and work through it at their own pace then “content” copied and pasted every 2 weeks in different zones.

Hi Arenanet,
I couldn’t make it to Eurogamer this year but I watched the Guild Wars 2 talk which was uploaded onto youtube and I have a few things to say:

First of all I was heartened and inspired by the general attitude of Arenanet, with the wanting to listen to players and wanting to create something that always grows and changes. Also feeling listened to as a player is enough motivation for me to stick with the game and continue to support Guild Wars 2 myself and with my guild.

However I have a couple of points:

- The living story is a really good idea and it’s well carried out. I can definitely see the improvements from the onetime karka event last year. However my overall feeling about the living story is that it all kind of comes out of nowhere, it all feels a bit random and meaningless. I feel like every time something new is introduced I will not have heard anything about it before, the characters will be new and then they vanish after 2 weeks. You mentioned specifically wanting to build on what is already in the game rather than adding new stuff yet the majority of added content does not seem to support that idea.
There is so much existing lore and so many vibrant characters it would be nicer to expand on some of those instead. For example there are already 5 established ‘anti- race factions’ within the game (e.g. The nightmare court, the Inquest, sons of Svanir…) The living story could be used to bring more depth to these factions, it could be used to expand on the story behind them as well as to reiterate them as a very real threat. At the moment they are like some minor criminals you fight at level 5 nothing more.
There’s also all the positive factions, (e.g. The Priory, The Liongard, Order of Whispers….) All of them have a wealth of history, lore and characters that the living story could expand upon.

- The living story could be used to tell stories behind the legendary weapons. Again the weapons themselves seem to have no meaning, no lore and no real place within the game. It would be so awesome to hear something like the flame legion are trying to acquire the Incinerator, and whilst trying to stop them you learn the history of the weapon i.e. who it was made for, who made it, why it was made, and why it was hidden. Such a weapon in the hands of the flame legion could prove disastrous which is why the living story asks for players to stop this from happening. You could essentially use the same archetypes of map invasions, temporary dungeon… new weapon skins etc. But the content would expand on things already within the game rather than just adding new characters and bosses.

- Regarding the Tequatl update: I like the idea of basically setting a server a challenge that will take weeks to overcome rather than hours. I enjoy the whole experience of fighting Tequatl in general. However I greatly dislike the problems of organizing 50 or so people. And I dislike the way this doesn’t fit into an everyday schedule. If I had more spare time than I knew what to do with it would be fine, or if I was still at school where I knew there would be a half term holiday where spending an entire day on GW2 trying to achieve this would be possible. However there is frustration that in the time I set aside for GW2:

a) The Tequatl event might not even happen at all.
b) I will have to spend 4 hours queuing just to get into the actual non overflow server (which I have to spend in Sparkfly Fen, I can’t go and do other stuff while I wait)
c) If I finally get in, about half the people there will be afk while they are holding a space for themselves and wont participate in the event at all.
d) The event just fails, and after all that bother I get nothing.
It’s not that I am not willing to try. It’s that the hassle currently outweighs the reward, especially with a busy lifestyle.

- A small point about Zhaitan.
I read the before launch stuff about how the team had spent a ridiculous amount of time modelling, texturing and animating Zhaitan so precisely and extensively because he is the main boss. I feel genuinely sad that all this work is locked away in one story dungeon and you only get a 10 second cut scene to appreciate this work in. I suppose this goes back to my other points about ‘why create all this supercool stuff that seems to have no meaning?”

Thanks for reading. If you need a summary of what I’ve written, it’s basically. “The content you’re creating is good but it totally lacks meaning, which kind of makes it less fun.”

Mike Z and many others at ANET could easily have a career in politics, they r that good at dodging questions!

The one thing i got from this presentation:

ANET has no direction for GW2. They r just making filler content to keep people playing while everything else stays on the table.

That was one long and boring video. So much for “new content preview”… Oh well.

CLOCK TOWER COMING BACK

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Siphaed.9235:

(entitlement much?)

Oh you are one of those people? Seriously do people even know what entitled means these days? Lately everyone who even dares to voice their opinions and criticize the game gets immediately accused of feeling entitled, seriously…. It’s so kitten infuriating. It’s used so often that I actually find it offensive.

This thread gives the perfect example, someone finds anet’s exposition “Underwhelming” and is immediately accused of feeling entitled. Seriously stop this nonsense already.

It’s called CRITICISM.

Siphaed.9235:

And, this also gives a bit more details on the insight to their Living World process and the game’s design strategy.

It showed us absolutely nothing… N-O-T-H-I-N-G (a pronoun denoting the absence of anything) that we didn’t know yet. (except for the short preview)

I wouldn’t have used the word entitled. I would use the word naive.

This wasn’t a presentation to Guild Wars 2 fans who haunt forums. It was a presentation to people who have might have never bought the game and who might want to at a convention.

Companies have target audiences for their messages. This forum was NOT the target audience of this presentation. Of course it was underwhelming. It wasn’t meant to give YOU information, it was meant to give information to people who knew nothing or next to nothing about the game.

So entitled is probably the wrong word. It doesn’t mean, however, that people that are complaining that a presentation to the general public doesn’t contain stuff for them are in the right.

I unfortunately couldn’t be at the expo, and I would have probably gone into this talk, but ultimately every Q+A answer was pretty much followed by “It’s something that we’re talking about” and about this enormous metaphorical table that every suggestion seems to hinge upon.

It’s a shame that when you finally get to ask them legitimate questions about your experience/friends experiences/guildies experiences in game, you’re met with such ambiguity. Maybe after the strange Q+A answer of “No Charr armours are made because no-one plays Charr”, they’ve just decided to play it super safe under the radar for any future interviews and Q+A’s.

I wonder what kind of monster table they use at ArenaNet, poor thing must feel abused by now.

Vayne.8563:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Siphaed.9235:

(entitlement much?)

Oh you are one of those people? Seriously do people even know what entitled means these days? Lately everyone who even dares to voice their opinions and criticize the game gets immediately accused of feeling entitled, seriously…. It’s so kitten infuriating. It’s used so often that I actually find it offensive.

This thread gives the perfect example, someone finds anet’s exposition “Underwhelming” and is immediately accused of feeling entitled. Seriously stop this nonsense already.

It’s called CRITICISM.

Siphaed.9235:

And, this also gives a bit more details on the insight to their Living World process and the game’s design strategy.

It showed us absolutely nothing… N-O-T-H-I-N-G (a pronoun denoting the absence of anything) that we didn’t know yet. (except for the short preview)

I wouldn’t have used the word entitled. I would use the word naive.

This wasn’t a presentation to Guild Wars 2 fans who haunt forums. It was a presentation to people who have might have never bought the game and who might want to at a convention.

Companies have target audiences for their messages. This forum was NOT the target audience of this presentation. Of course it was underwhelming. It wasn’t meant to give YOU information, it was meant to give information to people who knew nothing or next to nothing about the game.

So entitled is probably the wrong word. It doesn’t mean, however, that people that are complaining that a presentation to the general public doesn’t contain stuff for them are in the right.

That I can agree with. My main gripe with the presention was how they dodged almost every question.

Looks like yet another dungeon necro gets screwed over on. Good thing I been working on the 3 op classes so at least I won’t completely miss out on it. As for the rest of the interview though, I really don’t see what everyone is QQing about. They aren’t going to give you crystal clear answers about everything. Some of those questions too had nothing to do with living story so why should they answer them? Whether or not you agree with how they handled the questions, the fact they put this much effort to at least talk to the community and interact with us about upcoming changes and their overall plans (which they did cover btw, most people prob just glassed over that fact) this is a good thing.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Vayne.8563:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Siphaed.9235:

(entitlement much?)

Oh you are one of those people? Seriously do people even know what entitled means these days? Lately everyone who even dares to voice their opinions and criticize the game gets immediately accused of feeling entitled, seriously…. It’s so kitten infuriating. It’s used so often that I actually find it offensive.

This thread gives the perfect example, someone finds anet’s exposition “Underwhelming” and is immediately accused of feeling entitled. Seriously stop this nonsense already.

It’s called CRITICISM.

Siphaed.9235:

And, this also gives a bit more details on the insight to their Living World process and the game’s design strategy.

It showed us absolutely nothing… N-O-T-H-I-N-G (a pronoun denoting the absence of anything) that we didn’t know yet. (except for the short preview)

I wouldn’t have used the word entitled. I would use the word naive.

This wasn’t a presentation to Guild Wars 2 fans who haunt forums. It was a presentation to people who have might have never bought the game and who might want to at a convention.

Companies have target audiences for their messages. This forum was NOT the target audience of this presentation. Of course it was underwhelming. It wasn’t meant to give YOU information, it was meant to give information to people who knew nothing or next to nothing about the game.

So entitled is probably the wrong word. It doesn’t mean, however, that people that are complaining that a presentation to the general public doesn’t contain stuff for them are in the right.

That I can agree with. My main gripe with the presention was how they dodged almost every question.

They can’t answer questions on matters they haven’t decided on yet. They’re talking about stuff.

I have the same problem with my kids. Where are we going on vacation. Well, we haven’t decided. I can’t give you an answer…but nothing is off the table.

What else should I say? Disneyworld? I just don’t know.

I don’t think Anet has definite long term plans (which is part of their problem) and they certainly don’t want to talk about stuff early in case it changes. Have you ever seen how this community treats a change?