Guild Wars 2

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Crise.9401:

Gerby.6219:

Too much to ask for one red post in this thread?

They probably don’t want to risk making things even worse. I mean trying to circle around the fact that they have no real response to give regarding this subject hardly helps anyone.

Acknowledgement would be a low-risk step in the right direction.

I believe that they’re currently working on how to word that. I’ll keep my eyes open. Would be very disappointing though if they tried to ignore this until it goes away quietly.

I hope you are right there, at least they have told their CS team to basically tell people that there was no announcement of any kind related to SAB in that “unofficial” interview. Which while accurate, doesn’t really change anything but the fact that the agents have been told how to respond to these inquiries specifically tells that on some level they are acknowledging the issue in that interview at least.

The future of SAB remains as unclear as ever though. Personally the recent stuff just reminded me about the fact that it has been too long. About a month or two ago, I remember looking at my bank seeing my SAB stuff and thinking it’s been almost a year soon and then I remember thinking to myself that maybe they are holding it off for the anniversary or something like that.

At that point I was still optimistic and unaware of the planned mid-season break in the LS but after these interviews all of that is pretty much gone and replaced with nothing more than bitter disappointment.

Poledra Val.1490:

the interview never stated there removing SAB completely there just putting it on the back burner for the moment to focus on other things (Living Story etc).

Fyrebrand: How much more removed can it be, before it’s “completely” removed? It’s not in the game. No one can play it. Even the SAB levels that were already finished, were deactivated. It does not take any development “focus” away from Living Story, to just let us access already finished content.

In response to Fyrebrand’s above post,

I do agree SAB with its current content should be activated once in a while to give people the opportunity to play it and of course clearly it wont take any focus away from Anet developing other areas there focusing on.

What I mean by the above statement you quoted me on is this, bottom line is development costs money and by the looks of it Anet probably noticed the metrics for SAB World 2 were down a great deal.

This is mainly due to the fact there was huge bugs which even stopped players from progressing especially in World 2 Zone 2 (spawn/death during tribulation mode) amongst others. That put a lot of players off SAB, hence why the numbers dwindled in my opinion.

Likely the single biggest reason for the low metrics, was because W2 was released at the same time as Ascended weapons and legendary weapon updates. So most people were focusing on those.

SAB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

rhael.6317:

Just gonna say it.

S. A. B. Fractal.

/duck
#serious

… I would play the crap out of that fractal… xDD

Kysin.6349:

Likely the single biggest reason for the low metrics, was because W2 was released at the same time as Ascended weapons and legendary weapon updates. So most people were focusing on those.

That is also quite true. I had forgotten they released all of that at the same time.

SAB is something i used to convince three of my friends to buy guild wars 2.

Kysin.6349:

Likely the single biggest reason for the low metrics, was because W2 was released at the same time as Ascended weapons and legendary weapon updates. So most people were focusing on those.

Doubtful.
Ascended and Legendaries aren’t going anywhere. Personally, I made it to level-3 of world-2 and discovered I needed a new item to progress, which required a Wallet to purchase. After the sadism that was level-2, I decided to wait for the release of world-3.
My friend repeated the frog boss fight until being able to claim the 8-bit greatsword. They played Super Adventure Box harder than me, they loved it. Spirit was completely broken after Pain Cliffs, I could only convince them to accompany me to level-3 because they knew about the new item neither of us had.

World 1 was this lighthearted throwback / tribute game. It was relatively fast and easy content that was a fun change of pace. I thought it was well done.

World 2 was a mess. The levels were very long and punishing; while world 1 levels were straightforward to complete in 10 minutes or so, world 2-3 could easily take hours. It also featured the hardest jumping puzzles in the game as roadblocks, sparse checkpoints between instant death traps, and so forth.

I get why that appeals to some gamers, but that’s not up to the standards of a modern game, and it changed SAB from this fun diversion to a very niche piece of content.

I have many feelings towards SAB; extreme love, wonderful memories, intense frustration and many moments of annoyance. After reading the guildmag interview (http://www.guildmag.com/guild-wars-2-interview-part-1-general-game-living-world/), I was very disappointed.

First, I hope Anet invests in more PR because most of this interview provided a poor view of GW2 and Anet.

Second, I am in agreement with most SAB fans that if there is no future planned for SAB, World 1 and World 2 should become permanent content and we should accept that the bugs will not be fixed and there may or may not be any future content added.

Ensign.2189:

World 1 was this lighthearted throwback / tribute game. It was relatively fast and easy content that was a fun change of pace. I thought it was well done.

World 2 was a mess. The levels were very long and punishing; while world 1 levels were straightforward to complete in 10 minutes or so, world 2-3 could easily take hours. It also featured the hardest jumping puzzles in the game as roadblocks, sparse checkpoints between instant death traps, and so forth.

I get why that appeals to some gamers, but that’s not up to the standards of a modern game, and it changed SAB from this fun diversion to a very niche piece of content.

So what’s your point? You think that niche content that already exists should be denied to those who enjoy it simply because you do not?

I don’t understand all the hubbub about SAB. Yes I miss it too, but at best it should be a mini-game within GW2 as opposed to being at all tied into the LS. To be seeing it as some integral part of the game seems disingenuous to what GW2 actually is. If anything, it was a fun April Fools update.

Stramatus.5219:

I don’t understand all the hubbub about SAB. Yes I miss it too, but at best it should be a mini-game within GW2 as opposed to being at all tied into the LS. To be seeing it as some integral part of the game seems disingenuous to what GW2 actually is. If anything, it was a fun April Fools update.

So what is Guild Wars 2, actually?

Its not about Guild Wars, since the name is based off of an in game event that entirely took place even before the 1st game’s timeline.

Its not exactly about Elder Dragons. While people were complaining that season 1 wasn’t about the elder dragons, they were entirely right. It only became about Elder Dragons at the very end of the season based on a year of negative player feedback. Half of the Personal Story has nothing to do with the Elder Dragons, and neither does a vast majority of the events you do in the game world.

GW2 seems to be more about Tyria as a whole than a single story thread. This is truer than the Elder Dragon argument because we can go participate in a lot of things that have nothing to do with the Elder Dragons in any way. Since that’s the case, Super Adventure Box is just as integral to Guild Wars 2 as the Elder Dragons are, regardless of whether you believe it was only supposed to be an april fools joke or not.

Devs should really consider making SAB permament. If there isn’t world 3 comming in foreseeable future, why not bring back world 1&2. Although it can reduce hype on SAB it’s still better than not having SAB at all.
I’ve enjoyed world 1 and surprisingly world 2 even more but that’s just me. I know there are some people that haven’t. But I know that there are some people that don’t know if they like SAB just because they didn’t have opportunity to experience this beloved mini(sic!) game.
In my opinion SAB should return periodically in the gaps between seasons or during breaks like this mid season break. Like it was stated beforehand World 2 was released in inconvenient time.

mtpelion.4562:

Ensign.2189:

World 1 was this lighthearted throwback / tribute game. It was relatively fast and easy content that was a fun change of pace. I thought it was well done.

World 2 was a mess. The levels were very long and punishing; while world 1 levels were straightforward to complete in 10 minutes or so, world 2-3 could easily take hours. It also featured the hardest jumping puzzles in the game as roadblocks, sparse checkpoints between instant death traps, and so forth.

I get why that appeals to some gamers, but that’s not up to the standards of a modern game, and it changed SAB from this fun diversion to a very niche piece of content.

So what’s your point? You think that niche content that already exists should be denied to those who enjoy it simply because you do not?

I believe his point was explaining why the numbers weren’t very high for world-2.

Stramatus.5219:

… it was a fun April Fools update.

I was actually kittened when it first came out.
“Oh boy, what’re we gonna get into next, gimme some clues to investigate toward a skull to cleave open…. 8-Bit virtual game? You sons’a—”

But I played it, it was pretty neat and puzzle-y, I like puzzles (so much so, that I’ll normally attempt to find an intricate solution to a basic, almost non-puzzle, puzzle). So I looked forward to rescuing the princess, but even more interested in the anomaly mystery. Even though world-2 level-2 attempted to crush my spirit under it’s keen-edged heel, I came away with only a broken limb (solving the gong puzzle was a good feeling, but wasn’t well-rewarded).

Fyrebrand.4859:

BlueZone.4236:

“Nothing’s off the table”.

“Nothing’s off the table” is evasive PR fluff that does not mean anything. SAB has been removed from the game for a long time now. ANet has indicated it is not in active development, nor do they have plans to work on it in the foreseeable future. Is this what on the table looks like? If ANet is not willing to do it, SAB’s not going to program itself.

It is evasive PR fluff, but it does say something. As you ask, ‘is this what on the table looks like?’, and this is exactly why people understandably got up in arms about it.

Ensign.2189:

World 2 was a mess. The levels were very long and punishing; while world 1 levels were straightforward to complete in 10 minutes or so, world 2-3 could easily take hours

If you had the flute both zones 2 and 3 get significantly easier (an extra shortcut opens up in zone 2 and the annoying mouths cease to be an issue in zone 3). The only things I would outright criticize them on was that they could have spaced the content better perhaps have four zones instead of three, so individual zones are more manageable in size. Also, if you can’t realize a mechanic well don’t use it. I’m talking about the dart traps of course, they were instant death only because they could only make them work that way with the tools they had. This was explained in decent detail back when SAB was around last time.

It’s such a pity that by wanting to give the players more they ended up making some bad decisions and the overall experience suffered as a result.

Smoothy.1085:

So they close every SAB post except for this one but still don’t talk to us? :S

i dont think people deserve to have their anger validated by an immediate response, especially when if you really think about it it is incredibly unreasonable anger.

of course sab is coming back, the question is when not if

Imo its good time to get SAB when we have break with LS ><

SAB should be active during the long living story downtime periods, it really is the perfect time for it.

Ensign.2189:

World 2 was a mess. The levels were very long and punishing; while world 1 levels were straightforward to complete in 10 minutes or so, world 2-3 could easily take hours. It also featured the hardest jumping puzzles in the game as roadblocks, sparse checkpoints between instant death traps, and so forth.

Git gud. The thing is that almost everyone who only wants to farm or lack on skills are complaining about this cause of laggs or for just being a bad world. I can understand why there isn’t any challenging content anymore outside SAB. I played it over 50 hours long and found some minor buggs, that’s all. The people who were frustated went to the forum and complained for points which weren’t even the problems(wow what a surprise).

World 1 for me was okay. World 2 was amazing it was long sure but the design, music and ideas were really really good. Zone 3 was in my opinion a masterpiece. I guess it’s cause i like to play jumping games which are challenging.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I, too, have been mostly satisfied with the direction of the game. Do what you feel is best, ArenaNet. I don’t think ‘rioting’ is the way to accomplish anything. Even if it is virtual.

I would hope we, as a society, can move beyond such mob mentality and less than civil behavior. A peaceful protest would have been much more appropriate.

I am uncertain how a videogame without could be anything but a peaceful protest.
Also rioting isnt about being uncivilized, it almost always happens when society is not answering peoples desires through “civilized” channels. Essentially, most of the time, civil disobedience is a result of a failure of the govenment to give people any other viable and believable outlet for change.

anyhow, this case is suffeciently bloodless and harmless, so why even talk about civilized, what could be more civilized than protesting in a small contained video game.

Omg Im Target.3095:

Ensign.2189:

World 2 was a mess. The levels were very long and punishing; while world 1 levels were straightforward to complete in 10 minutes or so, world 2-3 could easily take hours. It also featured the hardest jumping puzzles in the game as roadblocks, sparse checkpoints between instant death traps, and so forth.

Git gud. The thing is that almost everyone who only wants to farm or lack on skills are complaining about this cause of laggs or for just being a bad world. I can understand why there isn’t any challenging content anymore outside SAB. I played it over 50 hours long and found some minor buggs, that’s all. The people who were frustated went to the forum and complained for points which weren’t even the problems(wow what a surprise).

World 1 for me was okay. World 2 was amazing it was long sure but the design, music and ideas were really really good. Zone 3 was in my opinion a masterpiece. I guess it’s cause i like to play jumping games which are challenging.

Jumping parts of W2 were really annoying, but that fine.
My whole reason for not liking World 2 was due to the length of each zone. If each of those zones were split into two (thus 6 zones) it would have been much better.
Some of us players don’t have hours to spend on one zone, or don’t have stable enough internet (even for those of us with it, theres always the chance for it to go out), and being kicked out of the zone halfway through (or even at the end) and having to do the WHOLE thing over again really angered us.

I am not a fan of SAB, so I don’t care. But I understand that many people want it. The answer in the interview was not very clever since it has nothing to do with the story. They just could implement it for good. It’s a gimmick, a game in a game.

About the Infinite Continue Coin: well I assume you used it copiously during the time SAB was accessible. So there is no right to ask for a refund.

ProtoGunner.4953:

I am not a fan of SAB, so I don’t care. But I understand that many people want it. The answer in the interview was not very clever since it has nothing to do with the story. They just could implement it for good. It’s a gimmick, a game in a game.

About the Infinite Continue Coin: well I assume you used it copiously during the time SAB was accessible. So there is no right to ask for a refund.

To put the refund request in context, it’s like you bought 10 bank slots, then ArenaNet said, we’ve changed the limit to 9, so you are no longer able to use that 10th bank slot you already purchased. No refunds though, since you got plenty of use out of the bank slot while 10 were allowed.

Woodenpotatoes, always the voice of reason.

Thiagugu.9682:

Woodenpotatoes, always the voice of reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMGEGK7Sr4g

not really, he has decided that they will definately do sab, even though thats not what the interview says, he basically just says this what he believes for no reason

phys.7689:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I, too, have been mostly satisfied with the direction of the game. Do what you feel is best, ArenaNet. I don’t think ‘rioting’ is the way to accomplish anything. Even if it is virtual.

I would hope we, as a society, can move beyond such mob mentality and less than civil behavior. A peaceful protest would have been much more appropriate.

I am uncertain how a videogame without could be anything but a peaceful protest.
Also rioting isnt about being uncivilized, it almost always happens when society is not answering peoples desires through “civilized” channels. Essentially, most of the time, civil disobedience is a result of a failure of the govenment to give people any other viable and believable outlet for change.

anyhow, this case is suffeciently bloodless and harmless, so why even talk about civilized, what could be more civilized than protesting in a small contained video game.

<— This.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 – that’s a rather condescending comment. No one is breaking into buildings and smashing servers. People are voicing their issues (which they have every right to do). Some of them are being more creative than others.

And as a general reminder to the thread:
Whatever your opinion is on this issue, do not talk down to others because their opinion differs from yours. We are each human. I am a person with emotions, intelligence, skills, opinions, and desires. What I view as an issue may not be an issue to you, but that does not invalidate my opinion or yours. We are both free to express our opinions so long as we can do so without dehumanizing one another.

ArenaNet,

As a huge SAB fan, what disgusts me the most about what you have done is that fans have been asking about SAB for almost a year, but we have had zero responses from devs to give us any kind of update. Even a simple “we’re not sure yet” would have sufficed. However, the fact that you freely tell a magazine that interviews you without any sort of hesitation, that is just betraying your fans.

I could understand if you were announcing some huge new thing to a magazine to generate hype. However, holding out on bad news and telling it to them instead of telling us directly a lot earlier instead of letting us sit around having hope, that’s just not cool.

I agree with a lot of what other people are saying here. If you think it may never come back, you should refund us the money we spent on the infinite continue coin. If you don’t plan to do that, at least bring back the old worlds that were out so that we can make use of the item we paid real money to obtain.

Also, I like all the modes of this game. Living World, Fractals, WvW, Structured, Dungeons, etc. SAB was my favorite mode by a long shot. Please at least re-enable the old SAB.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

elinos.7493:

Not that I want them to, but I’d be fine with that. I bought the coin, I’d buy the admission. That’s content worth paying for.

So would I, and several friends of mine. If they put a Golden Continue Coin (or whatever) in the gem shop that granted permanent access to the existing levels, I’d buy it.

I would love to see a “Gift of the SAB” which, when used, places a smaller version of the SAB in the player’s home instance, (putting more content in home at the same time), accessible at any time (and of course make moto vendor active permanently).

I hate the fact that little turds have to affect other players by attacking the servers. Don’t be a spoiled brat just because you didn’t get what you wanted. Grow up. This only makes all the players and the staff look down on you, and even if you DO get what you want, these attacks will most likely be figured out, and you will get banned. You are ruining my personal experience because I cannot do what I had planned today on the game with a friend. This is the most selfish protest I have ever seen.

You are also breaking the law by affecting the servers.

I heard they started 3 PvP Tournaments/year with 50.000 $ each. They could employ a high payed developper for the sab instead

Xenorak.2154:

I hate the fact that little turds have to affect other players by attacking the servers. Don’t be a spoiled brat just because you didn’t get what you wanted. Grow up. This only makes all the players and the staff look down on you, and even if you DO get what you want, these attacks will most likely be figured out, and you will get banned. You are ruining my personal experience because I cannot do what I had planned today on the game with a friend. This is the most selfish protest I have ever seen.

So you are blaming the DDoS on a SAB fan based off of what? The person/people who have been DDoSing have also been doing it to other game servers this week as well. Even if it was a SAB fan, you cant really believe that it reflects on everyone?

sigh…

Just adding my voice here, SAB was really sweet and I want it back

i didnt do SAB last time, thought it would be back later, oh wells

Kysin.6349:

So you are blaming the DDoS on a SAB fan based off of what? The person/people who have been DDoSing have also been doing it to other game servers this week as well. Even if it was a SAB fan, you cant really believe that it reflects on everyone?

sigh…

It seems kind of obvious that those posts were mistakenly merged into this thread by a moderator, or misposted by the authors. There were a lot of anti-DDOS threads that’re gone now.

ANet is turning into Capcom. The players tell you what kind of content and features they want and you tell them “No, you’re going to get [x] and you’re going to like it.” Btw, ANet, have you seen how Capcom is doing lately, they’re pretty much finished.

rhael.6317:

Kysin.6349:

So you are blaming the DDoS on a SAB fan based off of what? The person/people who have been DDoSing have also been doing it to other game servers this week as well. Even if it was a SAB fan, you cant really believe that it reflects on everyone?

sigh…

It seems kind of obvious that those posts were mistakenly merged into this thread by a moderator, or misposted by the authors. There were a lot of anti-DDOS threads that’re gone now.

Well he/she specifically talks about the SAB protest/rally in his post, so I don’t think so. Maybe though, I hope so actually lol.

Adding my voice in support of permanent SAB, on the simple basis that it’s a fun break from normal gameplay.

Oh, I just noticed this. xD I think it was the wrong forum. However, I was told from some people that it was a certian SAB protester doing it so xD But, it was the wrong thread xD Sorry for the misclarification

I mean, I enjoyed SAB too, but, why do we need to protest ya know? I am sure this game has even better things in store for us.

Please give us SAB back anet <3

I dont’ know why they don’t just add SAB as a permanent part of the game, and put dedicated team for it.

I dont’ personally like SAB, but I think there is enough dedicated follower. It should get some attention.

Is the vendor still around? I’ve been gone for a long time and would like to spend my remaining baubles.

I’m confused now. So SAB was not added because it doesn’t fit within the current living story narrative. However, WvW tournament does? Huh?

Drysdale.3826:

Is the vendor still around? I’ve been gone for a long time and would like to spend my remaining baubles.

No the vendor is no longer active. Also, they can’t really re-activate him after this either without making SAB available that is. Because if they did that it would only be viewed as a confirmation of SAB not coming back for a very long time or at all by certain portion of the user base.

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m confused now. So SAB was not added because it doesn’t fit within the current living story narrative. However, WvW tournament does? Huh?

Yeah, the interview was just really really bad. They tried to give some sort of reasoning for it not coming back in the near future but because this was not something they were prepared for they only ended up causing the thing to blow up in their face. It did not help that most of the other answers were void of any real information to begin with.

phys.7689:

Thiagugu.9682:

Woodenpotatoes, always the voice of reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMGEGK7Sr4g

not really, he has decided that they will definately do sab, even though thats not what the interview says, he basically just says this what he believes for no reason

I too think drawing that conclusion is mistaken, however, he does have one point worth noting. The unclear future of SAB is not really the only problem it is a symptom of a much bigger issue that has been going on ever since the vague promises of the precursor crafting/scavenger hunt. The recent interview exemplified this overall issue by asking many of the questions ANet either doesn’t want to or don’t have answers to. Thus bringing things to a boiling point on more fronts than one.

Maybe no one cares…..but if you DO care, come to Rata Sum, and let’s protest!

i dont understand why it must be part of the ls if it doesnt fit release new update with the feature packs. i know one dev made the original why cant it be his project to do update that get released in feature packs. maybe in the few weeks before they feature pack they can release last season version. this is they same question i have when they update the world why does an update to shatterer have to be part of ls cant they just release his update(mechanics) as part of the feature pack