Guild Wars 2

Something I liked about the original Guild Wars was how busy the game was on a schedule no matter how busy ArenaNet was.

- Major festivals/special events were events like Wintersday, Halloween, Canthan New Year, etc.
- Minor festivals/special events were events like Lucky Treats Week, Sweet Treats Week, Pirate Week, etc.
- We also had monthly PvP fluxes, weekend bonuses, Nicholas the Traveler’s daily pre-Searing Ascalon and weekly post-Searing Tyria scavenges. Wintersday even came back in July during the Wintersday in July special event.

Well as Guild Wars 2’s timeline went on, we seem to have lost a few festivals/special events that could be keeping people happy during the long content droughts and waiting periods between LS episodes.

- In August the Queen Jennah’s Coronation Day (The Queen’s Jubilee/The Queen’s Gauntlet) festival was introduced and we haven’t seen it back for a long time.
- In June the Dragon Bash festival was introduced and we haven’t seen it back for a long time, too.
- The Festival of the Four Winds was both part of the first living story season and a festival that has made its way back several times before Dry Top was released. Surely it could find more sources of trade goods without the Zephyr Sanctum?

My point is that as time went on, actual replayable content was removed from the game when it needs all it can muster to keep people from falling to the negative morale that a content drought brings. Bringing back special events/festivals serves as a nice padding to keep people entertained while the game is being developed for long periods of time. Just imagine how negative people would’ve gotten if the Super Adventure Box didn’t come back this year to make it like the 3rd year in a row.

Bring these special events back, please.

Unfortunely Anet has mostly put effort into sPvP tournaments and their monetary rewards instead of continous PvE and WvW events. And sPvPers still wont stop kittening about how sPvP sucks.

I think the one we are missing most is The Gauntlet. We have Lunar New Year, SAB, Halloween and Wintersday. Which is a healthy number, but they are unevenly spread through the year. Adding Queens Gauntlet in the summer would balance things out and add in an excellent festival.

LS1 was stated to set festivals up so they could repeat annually. Im guessing there is a technical issue in repeating them that has arisen alongside the change in direction, but I hope we see Gauntlet return.

Randulf.7614:

I think the one we are missing most is The Gauntlet. We have Lunar New Year, SAB, Halloween and Wintersday. Which is a healthy number, but they are unevenly spread through the year. Adding Queens Gauntlet in the summer would balance things out and add in an excellent festival.

Summer is the worst, if it wasn’t for SAB all of the steam build-up from Legendary weapon development being halted would’ve kept on riling everyone up. I agree with you though, the Queen’s Gauntlet was fun and is the special event I miss the most. They need one or two special events happening during the Summer, the waits are too long and not everyone is patient enough to stick around in something they may have lost faith in.

I still feel like they could add Dragon Bash back somewhere else other than in Lion’s Arch. They did that the first time then blew Lion’s Arch up! Total waste of resources.

Jovel.5706:

Randulf.7614:

I think the one we are missing most is The Gauntlet. We have Lunar New Year, SAB, Halloween and Wintersday. Which is a healthy number, but they are unevenly spread through the year. Adding Queens Gauntlet in the summer would balance things out and add in an excellent festival.

Summer is the worst, if it wasn’t for SAB all of the steam build-up from Legendary weapon development being halted would’ve kept on riling everyone up. I agree with you though, the Queen’s Gauntlet was fun and is the special event I miss the most. They need one or two special events happening during the Summer, the waits are too long and not everyone is patient enough to stick around in something they may have lost faith in.

I still feel like they could add Dragon Bash back somewhere else other than in Lion’s Arch. They did that the first time then blew Lion’s Arch up! Total waste of resources.

Part of DB was merged with lunar. They could add other elements to that festival as well, but I don’t think DB is strong enough as a festival in its own right anymore.

4-5 festivals should be the maximum they aim for to avoid the overkill they put out in that first year. It just depends on the spacing

Definitely agree. I love the GW2 festivals.

I always wanted a small Wintersday in July kind of thing.. Just have Tixx fly in for a week wearing a Hawaiian print shirt or something.

Oh man, I miss dragon bash. The first time that festival happened was the first time I actually felt a festival perfectly fit into a game both thematically and literally. Was so awesome.

Dawdler.8521:

Unfortunely Anet has mostly put effort into sPvP tournaments and their monetary rewards instead of continous PvE and WvW events. And sPvPers still wont stop kittening about how sPvP sucks.

No, they put a lot of the advertising budget into sPvP tournaments. The vast majority of money spent is on salaries and those go mostly to people devoted to PvE, including Living Story.

ANet says the tournaments have been the most effective advertising dollars they’ve spent — you can choose to believe them or not. However, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to what they spend on PvE.

For the OP, two points:

• GW2 has some recurring festivals: Halloween, Wintersday, Lunar New Year. April Fool’s. Other festivals have repeated, but it’s been more ad hoc.
• GW1 didn’t have all the festivals that you mentioned during the first three years.
  • The first year had H’ween & Wintersday only.
  • The second year added an anniversary celebration and the dragon festival.
  • The third year added Canthan New Year & April Fool’s. It also added “Treat weekends” — not really a “festival”, just special drops.
  • The fourth year added Wintersday in July (a scaled down version of Wintersday) and Talk Like a Pirate Day (a ‘treat’ weekend)

In other words, in terms of major festivals that include activities and quests, the two games have been similar. Instead of minor festivals, GW2 has had the Living World, which includes all sorts of special drops as well as quests.

Sure, I’d like to see more recurring content. All the same, I like seeing new content more.