Guild Wars 2

I know that back with the first couple of content releases, e.g. Halloween, a lot of players complained that there wasn’t enough information accessible about the releases before they happened. As a result of this we saw a lot more information put on the content release pages for subsequent releases and this is great. The content release pages are a brilliant way to deliver enough information to pique interest without spoiling everything.

For the life of me I can’t figure out why we’ve suddenly gotten to a point where the entire contents of the releases is being shown prior to the actual release. By doing these developer livestreams and giving access to sites like Dulfy who then put out extensive guides BEFORE the content is available you’re actually taking a lot of fun out of it. People should be excited to get in game and explore what the new content has to offer and they should feel like all of it is brand new to them. As things stand the releases feel stale because instead of people trying to figure things out and actually exploring you end up with a chatbox full of “There’s a guide on Dulfy”, “Go look on Dulfy” etc.

Tl;dr Can you please stop completely spoiling any aspect of surprise for the content releases.

Before someone starts saying “just don’t look watch/read the stuff”, that doesn’t address the actual problem here. New content should be new. Arenanet shouldn’t be encouraging a gameplay mentality where players are basically expected to read how to play the content before playing it – encourage players to figure things out and help each other out. You’re killing the gameplay and community environment as it stands.

I agree. Basically every new release is essentially people checking dulfy and finishing their achievements in 3 hours or so just to get the meta reward.

It’s not about a living, breathing game, it’s about how players can maximize their time to get the most out of it and get the best rewards with the least amount of time and effort.

This for good gameplay, do previews not make. And I couldn’t agree with your chat comment. Any time a question is asked “dulfy. Check dulfy.”

There’s no surprise or mystery or anything. It’s all explained and laid out before the event even goes live. Which, as I said earlier, turns it into “Ok, time to follow Dulfy to get the achievements in a few hours and sit on my rump for the next 30 days.”

It’s okay this living content crap can be completed in an hour with your eyes closed and serves no real purpose to the greater good or progressing/enriching the gameplay of GW2 anyways.

You have to understand that a lot of folks playing MMOs today are use to console games. They have become accustom to racing to the end to see the end of the story. That is not how MMOs were ever meant to be played.
So to keep people playing they have to keep them informed on what is coming so they will not leave.
I too would rather take it as it comes and not know ahead of time but that will not keep the player base in the game.
The more you tell people the more they will be willing to stick around. It is sad but true

It will happen no matter what, preview or no preview, some just consume content like there is no tomorrow, the logical question is, why follow the crazy trends?
I mean whats the rush?
It can be done, you dont have to look for info on the new stuff, you say you dont want people saying “Dont read up on it” but really who is forcing you to check the previews?

I get your point Op, but kids these days just want things now, novelty junkies could not care less about anything, OCD crowds just want to get things done as quickly as possible, people feel there is just not enough time to smell the flowers, on the other hand, there are those that could not care about achievements, and take time to figure things out.

People dont want to take the time, they want things handed out to them, they want to be told what to do, the only reasonable thing to do, is to dance to your own beat of the drum, whats the rush?
Anet is catering to the masses, people ask for that, that is what people get.

bad if they do, evil if they dont…

Don’t use Dulfy then -_-

No one is forcing you to check the previews or live streams. This is no different then MMO champion in World of Warcraft, leaking tons of information before it was official.

The biggest part of this patch is the achievement upgrade, living story is really just a bonus. There’s also a potential Necromancer nerf as well, so something to look forward to.

The problem is, ProphetOmega, the way things are set up, if you don’t look up a guide you risk missing out on your literal window of opportunity to get the rewards / achievements of any given release.

Because everything is temporary and nothing stays, coupled with the fact that nobody is certain what will return (if anything) and when it will (if ever), everyone has incentive to get through it as fast as possible to not miss out on anything.

mrauls.6519:

Don’t use Dulfy then -_-

Chase.8415:

No one is forcing you to check the previews or live streams. This is no different then MMO champion in World of Warcraft, leaking tons of information before it was official.

Oh good. Glad you two saw the point of his thread. I bet you two are the same people who defend RNG boxes with the “you don’t need to buy them” garbage.

Dear two people above MKalafut please learn to read…
It isn’t just about how the previews make ME feel it’s about how they change the game environment and player attitude.

There’s a difference between letting people know what the new content will be – which the release pages do a great job of – and completely ruining every single aspect of it, which is what the ‘previews’ do.

I’m getting sick of how much GW2 seems to be catering to all the imbeciles who think that a good game is a game that instantly rewards them for doing absolutely nothing at all. Start letting players experience the game first hand, maybe then we’ll start seeing a positive community emerge.

(He posts angrily after having just been killed multiple times by some invisible mesmer in Obsidian Sanctum whilst innocently jump jump jumping along. -rages-)

“bad if they do, evil if they don’t…”

@ProphetOmega very well said.

I think it’s very good to have content previews, for the reason stated above, to keep people informed and wanting to come back, but I also agree with others who say that the content we are shown is too much before the event even goes live.

There is a fine line between not enough information and too much information, and it is not easy to find that nice middle ground, but I think if we continue to voice our opinion about it, Anet can find that middle ground

mrauls.6519:

Don’t use Dulfy then -_-

What he/she said, don’t like it don’t look. I personally like going to Dulfys or Guru for a preview, some weeks between school, work, and family I want to be able to go to Dulfys and speed through content for the rewards. Some weeks that are more relaxed I don’t bother and I play out the content at my own pace.

Players that don’t want that kind of information should group w/other players (guild) to take on that content. I rather not be told how to approach content by control of information, but rather at my choice.

Previews (not full walk thru) is good. I have nothing against Dulfy, but sometimes, you can liven up the guild chat and increase camaraderie if guild/players find things together for themselves. Sure, players can always use Dulfy as an option, but hey, I wanna make guide for my guild too and say that “I did it first and contribute to my guild, and to the community”.

Giving some site an exclusive first hand experience, for me is unfair for the masses. But hey, if it gives Anet the chance to retain the playerbase, then it’s cool. But I do hope that either Anet do PTR for all, or just outright deny others exclusive first hand access. Give everyone equal opportunity, encourage a lively discussion, explore new content, rather than just “Google dulfy <insert keyword here>”.

i am not complaining.

i have somewhat limited time to casually play guild wars 2.

well, since the achievements are a limited time thing so i strive to complete all of them before the event is over.

i refer to dulfy ’s guild wars 2 guides to complete those achievements more efficiently and will have more time for myself.

i do not complain about not enough content etc.

I think I need to elaborate. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with guides existing for people who want to go through the content quickly.
What I have a problem with is that before the content has been released Dulfy has a full, completely detailed guide. That isn’t something that should exist before players have access to the content.

There is a marked difference between detailing some new content to websites like Massively or Polygon, and completely giving them every single detail of the new content. A preview should be just that, a preview, not a complete walkthrough (which is what we’re getting at the moment).

As Deimos points out above, the guides can be really helpful. But there is no reason for them to exist before we have access to the content. You can’t make use of the guide if you can’t enact the instructions, so waiting until the content was actually released before having such detailed instructions makes more sense..

Well, for all previous events I wasnt looking at any previews and I was trying to get everyting done without the guides. It was all fine because I had a month do to so. Now I have less than half of that time and even more achievements.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

But there is no reason for them to exist before we have access to the content. You can’t make use of the guide if you can’t enact the instructions, so waiting until the content was actually released before having such detailed instructions makes more sense..

hmmm well i can think up one reason at least ahah. that being:
1. know what to do and plan ahead perhaps?

though i can’t enact the instructions, i can read them up first in advance, and when the content is out, i can “blaze” through them “quickly” to “fill up the achievements bar” ASAP then get on with other things. :p

same mindset when i ask for patch notes to be released earlier so i can read them before the patch is live.

hmmm i think there is not much harm with reading things in advance.

^— We have a different opinion, and that’s ok

I was wondering about this yesterday when I stumbled onto Dulfy’s guide for this upcoming patch.

Dulfy is a undoubted resource for this game and I think there are very few people who have not used Dulfy at some point or another. No offense to Dulfy at all, because she does a lot of work for the community.

I think there is no harm in a guide for people who want to do things quickly but I do have to question the entire guide being up before the actual content. (she did have a link with least spoilers though)

May be put it up the day the actual patch goes live?

I personally think they could have done the walk-through today rather than yesterday. I think due to schedule conflicts and such they need to contact outside press and have them run it fairly early and hope they don’t spill everything before it is live. And they absolutely need to have outside press spreading the release since that is a huge bit of publicity. Also since a lot of the people they invite are covering multiple games you get overflow to an audience you would not normally have access to.

I wish that they would withold information. by that i mean a lot.
They try it, however the recent events showed a lot beforehand.

then we got the leaked infos ingame. like the archievements etc.

i like suprises. cant they at least wait till the patch releases?

cant they show off content, without holding back suprises?

okay, we dont know what the story for the new event will be in two weeks from now. what will be the next “desaster” (loose term, i know) we have to fight through, but right now we know “everything” that we “have to do” for the next two weeks.

It blocks the exploration and naivity for these areas unfortunatly.

Combine that with the “presure” the temporary content is creating it all leaves a negative taste.

I used to avoid spoilers and explore new content on my own schedule.

However, I don’t want to risk missing out on stuff, so I don’t do that anymore.

I hate being in a rush to complete content.

But after what happened with the Crab Toss achievements, the broken hologram nodes etc., I can’t trust the software enough to go through content a bit at a time.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

By doing these developer livestreams and giving access to sites like Dulfy who then put out extensive guides BEFORE the content is available you’re actually taking a lot of fun out of it.

Then don’t look at it. I don’t get people like you… If you don’t want previews, why do you watch them?

I like content previews. Thus I look at them. Sometimes, such as is the case of certain books or movies, I wish to avoid any and all spoilers… So I don’t look at them. I avoid places where I could see them. This seems logical.

Nobody is forcing you to see the previews, so what the kitten is the problem? If you don’t want previews but still look at them, the problem lies with you. There are words for people like that. They’re not very nice or positive words.

If other people like them, let them have it. Personally knowing what’s in the patch makes me a lot more interested in it.

Kryptonite.9376:

It’s okay this living content crap can be completed in an hour with your eyes closed and serves no real purpose to the greater good or progressing/enriching the gameplay of GW2 anyways.

….especially (as in: lacking) the lore & personal storyline…
How do you spoil something that HAS NO PLOT to begin with?

Agreed, with the OP. It makes no sense that there are guides for new content is there even before the content. Stupid move.

Mkalafut.1273:

The problem is, ProphetOmega, the way things are set up, if you don’t look up a guide you risk missing out on your literal window of opportunity to get the rewards / achievements of any given release.

Attack then the way things are set up, that force you to use those guides. Do not attack previews themselves.
Unless of course you think that people should lose those opportunities due to not being informed enough.

As someone who hates using Dulfy and the likes, simply don’t go there

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Before someone starts saying “just don’t look watch/read the stuff”, that doesn’t address the actual problem here. New content should be new. Arenanet shouldn’t be encouraging a gameplay mentality where players are basically expected to read how to play the content before playing it – encourage players to figure things out and help each other out. You’re killing the gameplay and community environment as it stands.

Your only real argument is that the presence of these previews has the potential to ruin the novelty of any new content. The problem is, that’s very weak, and the overall impact it has on the community/gamers is hardly evident. Unless every person you see tells you (or rather forces you) to visit the dulfy/guides online before being accepted into a party for a new dungeon, this is not good enough to warrant a change.

You need to take your argument and look at the whole issue in light of the variety of players playing gw2. You have some people who like to explore, while you have some people who want to rush things asap, and people in between. The point of the previews is to entice players to play more, and by seeing what they can potentially see, they might be more inclined to log back in. The previews aren’t harming you or the people from the first group if they choose not to look at it. If people spoil them in-game, well that’s a different matter altogether.

The fact that this thread is still going confuses me greatly. This is what a court of law would call an “open and shut” case.

Picture person A. Person A does not like alcohol. They think alcohol is wrong, amoral, and bad for you.

Person A is not forced to consume alcohol in any way, shape, or form.

Despite all of this, person A walk routinely into bars and gets drunk. When inquired about it, person A responds “WELL, BUT PEOPLE SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO DO IT!”.

What do you think of person A? What do you call person A in the above example?

That’s the OP, and people who share that point of view. They don’t like something, but they willfully and without any necessity do it over and over again. That’s Peter Griffin. That’s Homer Simpson. Those are the characters we point and laugh as ridiculous. Think about that for a second.

I’m surprised they do allow the press to put up the content beforehand. But that is partly the point I suppose. They get to try it and write and article or a video about it and it may attract old players back or new players. Some people don’t check in on the games website but may visit game journalism sites so it might pop up.

In Dulfy’s case I guess it just comes down to that she is a big contributer to the GW2 community in terms of helpful databases and guides. In some cases even better then the wiki. Having the content ready at patch launch helps people that just want to get into the fray quickly. That and maybe it helps posting it a bit before and people can read and learn beforehand and her site gets less hammered on patch launch. :P

Posting early might be spoilers, but I am kind of glad that they allow her to do it. I don’t initially look at the guides. I look at the achievements just to get an idea of what to look out for (I do that on any game that has achievements) and maybe look at new items or skins. Doesn’t make me feel any less excited about the content or detract from my exploring. But that is just me personally. I totally understand the OPs point though.

I’ve played a lot of games though that when quests came out or events people were very clueless or close to clueless. Vague information everywhere, etc. People would spend hours till someone wrote a guide for it. Maybe in that sense, ANet saw how bad people struggle when an event is thrown at them and say “here, enjoy!” and expect them to explore and figure out things themselves. Sadly that type of thing is dying slowly. At least in this case, you can kind of avoid it if needed.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I know that back with the first couple of content releases, e.g. Halloween, a lot of players complained that there wasn’t enough information accessible about the releases before they happened. As a result of this we saw a lot more information put on the content release pages for subsequent releases and this is great. The content release pages are a brilliant way to deliver enough information to pique interest without spoiling everything.

For the life of me I can’t figure out why we’ve suddenly gotten to a point where the entire contents of the releases is being shown prior to the actual release. By doing these developer livestreams and giving access to sites like Dulfy who then put out extensive guides BEFORE the content is available you’re actually taking a lot of fun out of it. People should be excited to get in game and explore what the new content has to offer and they should feel like all of it is brand new to them. As things stand the releases feel stale because instead of people trying to figure things out and actually exploring you end up with a chatbox full of “There’s a guide on Dulfy”, “Go look on Dulfy” etc.

Tl;dr Can you please stop completely spoiling any aspect of surprise for the content releases.

Before someone starts saying “just don’t look watch/read the stuff”, that doesn’t address the actual problem here. New content should be new. Arenanet shouldn’t be encouraging a gameplay mentality where players are basically expected to read how to play the content before playing it – encourage players to figure things out and help each other out. You’re killing the gameplay and community environment as it stands.

Are you upset because the content is exposed BEFORE release? Or the fact that the content is exposed entirely on these sites? Would it be okay for sites to post all of the content on the day of release?
Personally I like that they put all of the data out there. I can see what I want to do and where it is located and what I need to accomplish it. If the data wasn’t out there, I’d miss out on a whole heck of a lot of content.

Chase.8415:

No one is forcing you to check the previews or live streams. This is no different then MMO champion in World of Warcraft, leaking tons of information before it was official.

The biggest part of this patch is the achievement upgrade, living story is really just a bonus. There’s also a potential Necromancer nerf as well, so something to look forward to.

I think his point is, if he has questions in game, maybe about something small.. instead of the community working together and/or being helpful towards one another with new content, he is instead instructed to leave game and read. Therefore he Is being forced to go read.

It just takes this game even further from cooperative play (with friends or strangers) and once again encourages solo play.

Efaicia.3672:

I think his point is, if he has questions in game, maybe about something small.. instead of the community working together and/or being helpful towards one another with new content, he is instead instructed to leave game and read. Therefore he Is being forced to go read.

No… They can figure it out on their own. If they’re asking for help they’re getting spoilers, whether someone tells them or directs them to a place that tells them. It’s the same kitten.

If they don’t want spoilers then they need to figure things out by themselves.

Good topic and I agree. I think Ive asked in map chat or here in the forums once, how does someone like Dulfy have access to this information before everyone else? How and why is her name represented in an NPC in a fractal? What makes her so special? Because she is a big fan of the game and hosts a huge fan site? Does she work for Arenanet? Doubt it.

Anyways, to the topic: I couldn’t agree more. “Just check Dulfy”. You can complete most of, if not all, of the achievements in one or two days and then be bored to tears again.

You know, as I think about it more and more…the living story, while a unique and innovative idea, is just failing. Who cares about this story? Seriously? Its not content. Its crap.

We get with living story:
-A few sentences of story every few weeks
-mini games
-RNG boxes
-skins in RNG boxes and gem store
-gem store additions
-maybe a dungeon here and there, temporary though ofcourse
-crappy worthless loot that has no impact on the game, AT ALL
-minis
-Feels like more currency is added

Instead of:
-Dungeons
-New zones
-MORE dynamic events and areas to play as a max level player
-TRUE guild content, instead of that lame crap guild missions
-New skills(we have been playing with the same skills since August, BTW…only a few skills at a time on our bar makes for boring gameplay eventually).
-Revamped dungeons we were promised…god this cant come soon enough but I dont think anyone is working on it
-New classes/races
-Additions to personal story

These are things people want. They have substance and value. Not a kittening mini pet with some mini games and a few sentences to some story that has 0 impact or correlation to what has gone on for the first 80 levels of the game.

Man, just thinking about this game is getting me more disappointed by the minute. Had such potential, such hype and even to this day when I see folks like Colin talking about the game with such excitement during beta, and even on these forums…I get excited again! And then I think about the living story, the crap fluffy content we are getting.

Terrible..

Did someone put a gun to your head and make you go to Dulfy and check out all her articles on it? No. Then what’s the problem? If you don’t want to know, don’t go there.

You’re like the people who freak out if they glimpse 4 seconds of a trailer for a film they want to see. Oh no the movie is now ruined for me!

If not Dulfy then within the day of the patch there will be 10 guides up and a half a dozen YouTube videos showing all the new content. So the secret to getting the secret toy surprise for the event is safe for at most a day.

This is why I only play guild wars 2 maybe a small handful of hours(less than 10 probably) per month now. I spend my gaming time(20-30 hours per week) in games like Neverwinter and now Firefall(addicted).

If GW2 gave us more substantial content besides this fluff, Id be more content with spending my time and money in GW2.

We need more content, not this fluff.

Behellagh.1468:

Did someone put a gun to your head and make you go to Dulfy and check out all her articles on it? No. Then what’s the problem? If you don’t want to know, don’t go there.

You’re like the people who freak out if they glimpse 4 seconds of a trailer for a film they want to see. Oh no the movie is now ruined for me!

If not Dulfy then within the day of the patch there will be 10 guides up and a half a dozen YouTube videos showing all the new content. So the secret to getting the secret toy surprise for the event is safe for at most a day.

Ah yes, here it is. The proverbial “play as you want” talk.

Noone is forcing you to go there..
Noone is forcing you to grind…
Noone is forcing you to do this or that…
Its free
Play as you want.

This is the typical response to any gripe people have with the game and development direction. Typical..

Spare us. We’ve heard it all too many times. Find something new to contest our opinions with.

GW2’s content feels more like a facebook app than an MMO that was in development for 5 years. Seriously, any person with coding experience can code a facebook app with as much story content and fluff appeal.

Seriously people learn how to read. I’ve said multiple times that the issue isn’t that the content/guides are there. I’m quite capable of not looking at it and I don’t look at it.
The problem is that it is available BEFORE the content is released which has a detrimental effect on the community as a whole and stops encouraging people to actually EXPERIENCE the content.

All I’m asking is that they limit the amount press sites are allowed to reveal beforehand and that sites like Dulfy don’t post their guides until the content has actually been released. Once the content is in game then sure people should be able to go and read guides and play it however they like – but it shouldn’t be a common expectation in game (and an expectaiton of the devs if you look at how they’re treating this stuff) that every single person in the game has already read guides.

ProxyDamage your analogy is ridiculous because It misses the point of what I’m saying. I’m not saying ‘I don’t want to see guides so they shouldn’t be there’. I’m saying the guides shouldn’t be there until players actually have the ability to experience the content. If people want to use guides then that is 100% ok with me – but the impact that this has on the playerbase as a whole is really saddening. You can have a different opinion but you don’t have to be so rude about it. Express your opinion but don’t call someone else stupid because you disagree with theirs.

If you have only a little information about a coming update, your imagination can run wild and you’ll enjoy the anticipation of what cool stuff might be coming. Surprises are fun! Unfortunately, if everything is readily available beforehand, the surprise is completely ruined. Not looking at the “preview” just gives you a false sense of anticipation, especially when everyone else is looking.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Seriously people learn how to read. I’ve said multiple times that the issue isn’t that the content/guides are there. I’m quite capable of not looking at it and I don’t look at it.
The problem is that it is available BEFORE the content is released which has a detrimental effect on the community as a whole and stops encouraging people to actually EXPERIENCE the content.

All I’m asking is that they limit the amount press sites are allowed to reveal beforehand and that sites like Dulfy don’t post their guides until the content has actually been released. Once the content is in game then sure people should be able to go and read guides and play it however they like – but it shouldn’t be a common expectation in game (and an expectaiton of the devs if you look at how they’re treating this stuff) that every single person in the game has already read guides.

ProxyDamage your analogy is ridiculous because It misses the point of what I’m saying. I’m not saying ‘I don’t want to see guides so they shouldn’t be there’. I’m saying the guides shouldn’t be there until players actually have the ability to experience the content. If people want to use guides then that is 100% ok with me – but the impact that this has on the playerbase as a whole is really saddening. You can have a different opinion but you don’t have to be so rude about it. Express your opinion but don’t call someone else stupid because you disagree with theirs.

A chance to think before it is spoon fed to you? is that what I am detecting here? Oh, God, I never thought I would see the day. Praise to all that is holy that there is a desire to think in a game once again.

Efaicia.3672:

A chance to think before it is spoon fed to you? is that what I am detecting here? Oh, God, I never thought I would see the day. Praise to all that is holy that there is a desire to think in a game once again.

Can’t tell if mocking
But yes, that is exactly what I want. The Lore forums went into a lot of speculation over the new update and even when people are wrong it can reveal some interesting things – if all the information is laid out plain in front of people then nobody gets to do any thinking.